Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Create Wealth Through Franchising. I'm your host, Kim Daly.
Whether you're a CEO, a military vet, a real estate investor, or simply in career transition and ready to take ownership of your future, with each episode, you're going to learn valuable insights and hear inspiring stories from within the franchise industry.
On that note, my guest stories are their own. And as a franchise consultant, I do not make personal brand endorsements or earnings claims, but I do educate, motivate, and inspire dreams.
Now onto the show.
Welcome back to Create Wealth Through Franchising podcast and Kim Daily tv. In my studio today, another daily double we have John Glazier of hello Sugar. John, welcome back to the studio of Kim Daly tv.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Thank you so much. It is an honor and I'm excited to be here. So round two, round two.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Ding, ding, baby. Well, when this man was on before, I said I have to have him back. And we are going to do a coaching episode. So John first came on talking about his transformational journey from actually college student into franchising. And I'm going to have him share his story a little bit for those who may not have heard the first episode, and we will put a link to that first episode in the description below. So, John, let's first have you repeat a little bit of your story. How you got involved with hello Sugar and how many units you've grown in a short amount of time. And then we're going to talk about the real coaching episode. I want to get to today, John, is the idea that you somehow were able to see it in your mind's eye and believe in it before you built it. Where this is coming from is a lot of investors say, well, I'm going to start with one, and then if that goes right, I'm going to add more. But the reality is they know they need more in order to make the kind of money they want to make. And I believe that that mentality hinders people. They lose out on opportunity because by the time they're ready to come back, the locations are sold. Right. And it comes from a different mental state than I think the one that you have. And I really want to dive into the attitude, the beliefs that you have and that you hold in order to have grown so quickly. So let's first start, though, with who you are and how you got involved with hello Sugar.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Yeah, so I'll start in winter of 2019. I was going to school and Brigham, he's the founder franchisor of hello Sugar, he actually was my professor. So super interesting story there. He's only a couple years older than me, so we're pretty close in age. But he was my professor. He was doing adjunct teaching at the university I was going to and he was teaching entrepreneurship. I got an email one day prior to that winter semester saying, you know how to start a hundred thousand dollar business with $1,000. And so obviously intrigued, signed up for the class. I ended up graduating in the entrepreneurship program. But that semester changed everything for me. And I remember him saying in the class, if any of you are in Arizona, then hit me up and we can hang out and it'd be great to see you guys. For the company I was working for prior, which was actually a coaching company, which led to this conversation. They were opening an office in Phoenix that coming summer. And so I ended up going down there that summer, hanging out with him. We became great friends and I ended up moving down to Phoenix and fast forward a couple years. We'd hung out a ton of times, became really good friends and shared the same friend group. And we were having dinner in 2021 in April and he just said, hey, you know, I have this waxing concept that I've been working on here in Phoenix. I have, I think he had nine locations at the time. We have one location starting up in Flagstaff that's been open for three or four months. This is a trajectory that they're on. Would you be interested in franchising being like the first out of state owner to franchise? We have one other guy that wants to do it is my good friend Christian. He actually opened up in Houston. Do you want to join him? And so I was like, yeah, this would be great. So obviously we thought about it first, right? It's not like we just dove in, but I trusted him a lot. He was a great friend, he had a really positive track record. And so my wife and I thought about it, prayed about it, and it just ultimately felt good. So we decided to open up in Meridian, Idaho, which is where I'm now, that's in July of 2021. And we started off in a suite, little 10 by 10 room inside of a Phoenix salon. Suites in Meridian tested it out and then shortly after opening, the owner in Houston opened up, obviously a much bigger market. It's about 10 times the size as Boise. And so I had a little bit of, I don't like to use the term fomo. I realized that I had bigger ambitions than just having a couple in Boise. And so I was really fighting for another market and eventually convinced Brigham to let me go into The Denver market. And so now we have Denver. Opened up our first one there in March of 2022, and then we've since expanded and we have eight in Colorado as of last month, open two new ones and we have two now in Meridian. So we have one in Meridian and then we just opened one in Boise about a month ago too. So, yes, now we're at 10.
[00:05:14] Speaker A: The long and short is the man's on a mission since 2021, and at the time of this recording, it's March of 2025 and he's opened 10 franchises. So that's the story that we want to dive into. This is not the usual path and it's not even the empire building path that I've seen, you know, where people say, oh, I'm going to go ahead and build three over three years. This man's built 10 in four years. So, John, that's why I wanted to have you back on, because there's something extraordinary happening and I want to give you the credit because it's in your mindset. So I know there's probably some belief in Brigham and you saw what was happening. But you have to give yourself the credit for what you saw in your ability to believe in yourself and then to carry that out to help the followers. Help Kim Daly really understand, like when you started, did you have the plan for what you have today? Is it all going according to the plan? Has the plan pivoted and adapted because things took off like start us at the beginning of this massive, you know, growth journey?
[00:06:26] Speaker B: I guess for historical context. I went to the school for entrepreneurship. I love startups. I like very much part of the tech scene before was part of a startup that was going to IPO and then Covid eventually hit. But I love like the growth side of a business is extremely exciting to me. I've never really been in a position or worked for a company that was, quote, unquote, stable, if that exists anymore. But I just love the idea of moving forward and pushing the needle. And so that's just kind of some context.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: That's good context. Not to interrupt you, because not every investor out there is going to resonate with this story. Right? But for those that do, for those aggressive entrepreneurial, like let's go kind of guys out there or females out there, that's why I wanted to have him tell this story. So. Okay, continue.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: Yeah, so we open up our first one in July. I mean, here's one thing. We were going to just open one and then we decided to open two. Learned that opening two at the same time probably wasn't the best idea. So we consolidated. So even that was another growth decision that we just made and just pivoted from. But it's never sat well with me personally to have to work a job my whole life. And so we've tried mobile homes, we've tried developing products, we've tried different online businesses, we've tried all this stuff, all these side hustle type things and none of them have lasted. We had a greeting card company, just very random stuff and none of them had really hit. And this one, it seemed like a proof concept to me. And so I wanted to really just hone in on this and just focus on this. And as soon as we opened our first location ads were great. We were doing really well and working out a lot of kinks. It was a super young system at the time. But as soon as some of those kinks started to get worked out, I knew what my ultimate vision was, and I've known that for a long time, is that I set really aggressive goals. I was 27 at the time and I wanted to essentially be able to retire at 30 if I wanted to. Right. Like just the thought, even if it was 40, whatever it was, I just wanted to be able to push myself beyond what I thought my natural limits were and just have that always at the forefront. And so that's where we decided to open up more because I knew that one or two wasn't going to get me to that point. And I just sensed that this would be an emerging franchise at some point. And so I wanted to in a sense grow as quickly as I could, as sustainably as I could without driving myself too crazy in order to get some good territory that I was really wanting.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: So beginning with the go to market strategy for hello Sugar. So how have you been able to accomplish 10 locations in four years without, you know, multi millions of dollars?
[00:09:08] Speaker B: First, let's attack that, yes, very simply, hello Sugar's business model to date has been through starting a salon suite. So I mentioned earlier a 10 by 10 room inside of a Sola salon, studios or whatever. Build up your business there and then once you've proven out that area from a marketing perspective, you have potentially even good staff at the time and then just have proved out the demand that you move into a storefront at that point. Storefronts are 1200 square feet, 12 to 1300. You could have four service rooms in there and typically it's a 10 year lease, so it's a little bit riskier. Your buildout's more expensive, and then you have a more expensive lease. So we kind of have these incubator locations that you eventually move into storefronts. So that's how we did it. I haven't had any investors on my side. I haven't taken any investment. We used HELOCs. We did have some real estate, but, I mean, we just kind of tried to be as smart as we could with it and just grow sustainably as possible.
[00:09:59] Speaker A: So in how Many of your 10 locations right now are salon suites, and how many are fixed locations?
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Working on converting two or three of them in Colorado to salon suites. So right now the ratio is, like, super heavy on the suite side. It's nine suites to one flagship, but in two or three months, it'll be three or four flagships to six or seven suites.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Okay. I'm just curious about the lending part of this. When you go back to get the loan, are you using SBA lending?
[00:10:28] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: And do they require you to have a track record on the other store in order? Are you getting some kind of a jumbo loan?
[00:10:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So essentially, SBA is for every individual location. We could get an SBA loan. We have self funded all the suites through storefronts. We just do SBAs, and it's tied to that specific location, that physical address. And we didn't apply for an SBA loan after we'd already been open for two years, which is one of their requirements. It's actually harder, I found, to get approved for an SBA loan after you've been open than it is starting out fresh for some reason.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: That's why they're getting the second one. Sometimes going is harder than the first one. By the way, this is my disclaimer. We're not trying to get into the weeds of financing, and you have to go through, you know, your own process. And I will introduce you to the lenders for the businesses that you're looking at. But because I think this is an intricate part of being able to afford to build and scale, you know, nine or 10 stores in a short amount of time, I think it's an important question to cover.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, just to that point, we had a situation when we first moved into our storefront Idaho, where Brigham had a relationship with a banker in Phoenix. He thought it'd be extremely easy to get me approved for an SBA loan. So I actually signed the lease to our flagship here before even contacting the lender. I just didn't know. He reached out and he was like, you've Been in business for a year and a half. Like, I don't think you're going to get approved for any type of lending for the storefront. And I kind of flipped out, signed the lady sales on the hook. We were going to start paying rent in three months from that point. So I reached out to probably 15 to 20 different banks. I looked for local banks. I remember like it was all that was on my mind for about two weeks until I found someone that could get us approved and just give us some hope. And we ended up finding two or three banks that could work with us. But it was just so stressful and I just didn't know what I didn't know. And so that's kind of just one small story that has been essentially my experience the last four years. Just trying to figure things out. But yeah, I mean, it's not like we had this big nest egg saved up and we had enough to get going and we've just kind of tried to figure it out, but it has not come without its financial stress.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: Okay, and so let's really get into that because I think that's what the core of this conversation really is when the candidate says to Kim Daly, well, ultimately I want to own three, but I'm going to start with one. And I'm trying to help them see, like, it's not my job to talk you into anything, it's my job to talk you through it. But committing to the vision of building multiples is very different from committing to a single store. And I understand that in some cases it's absolutely best to go one at a time. But like I said before, sometimes that hinders your ability to come back and get more in a fast moving brand. By the time you come back, the territories around you may be sold to other people. There's no first right of refusal in franchising in 2025. Like that went out in like 1990. So you're not going to be able to say, hey, I'm going to get a first right of refusal. And a franchisor gives you one. I'd say run fast. So sophisticated franchisors understand that yes, we want fewer owners with bigger businesses. So they want you to be that empire building mentality. But they also know that if you can't commit to it now, they're not going to hold the territory for you. Their job, their business is a national brand and it's, you know, consecutive territory sold. So it's not that they're trying to cut you out or be mean. It's business, right. And they don't know if you're actually going to come back and come through. So you somehow have to figure out how to give yourself that confidence when you haven't even opened one store, that three will be okay, or in this case, ten will be okay. So, John, speak to some of that, the mentality that you have and how you, I would say, proactively discipline your mindset to stay on the positive side of that. Hey, Daily Coach fans, if you're loving this episode, please do me a quick favor and leave me a five star rating and a short review. Your feedback fuels my growth and rankings and shows others that this podcast is valuable. Now back to the show.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: First part of the answer is just how and why. Maybe bet on hello Sugar in particular, or just in thinking about any other brand and how I felt where I got the confidence from. I'm extremely confident in myself and my abilities. But you need to tie yourself to some type of vehicle, right? And if that vehicle, if your ultimate goal is financial freedom or retirement or whatever it is, you need to make sure that vehicle is a good vehicle to get into, strap your seatbelt into and just go down the freeway. I really just had Brigham Stores to go off of in Phoenix. A lot of other brands have more of an established FDD and stuff. I would attach myself to those numbers and say, okay, look, you have the top 10%. Hopefully they're transparent with the FDD. If they're not, run away from that brand. That's my opinion. But you know, look at the top 10% of performers, the middle 50, and then the bottom 10%. Even if you just were an average franchise owner, right? Then what do those financials look like and are you comfortable with them? Because if you are, then the odds are you're going to fall in that bucket, right? And so if you feel good with those numbers and you feel confident in yourself and then you meet the franchisor and you feel confident in them and you feel like the way that they evaluate areas and the demographics in those areas is solid, then why wouldn't you, at a minimum, fall into the mean of those financials? Right? So that's just kind of my process and thinking through if I was looking into a new brand, where would some of my confidence be derived from? There's documents out there. They have to be transparent about this. And so at a minimum, look at that. And from there, you know, you could at least make a decision to move forward with multiple units.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: What do you say to the candidate who's like well, they were only proven in Phoenix. How did you have the belief that you could take it to Boise and then to Denver? Because again, there's a lot of limiting beliefs in candidates mindsets about it's only proven in one market. So there's no guarantee that hair grows on people in Denver.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like, are people gonna wax in Denver? Are people gonna wax in Boise? You know, so my answer to that is I looked at the product and I looked at competitors. If it's a brand new service that didn't have any competitors, the first of its kind, I would have been a little bit more apprehensive maybe. Right. But there's a thousand European waxes, it's a public company. All I had to do is search hair removal in my area and just across the country. And I don't know how those individual businesses are doing, but the fact that they've spread out that much must have meant that there was a high demand. And so why couldn't I do that?
[00:17:19] Speaker A: So go one deeper. So then John, if there's all this competition in the market, how do you feel like you can bring something in and compete?
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I actually liked that there was more competition. So if it's a brand that actually differentiates themselves, then it makes you more confident. Right. Because it means that there's demand. So if you could take that from your competitors and you feel confident entering the market, then I actually think it's a very positive thing to have competitors.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: I love this guy. So when you're looking for real estate, do you do the whole McDonald's, Burger King thing? Like go where right across the street from where the competitor is. Are you that bold?
[00:17:54] Speaker B: There are some that are actually that close, yeah. It doesn't necessarily matter. We actually look for shopping complexes that have. We don't want to be neighbors with them because a lot of times there's restrictions that with the landlord, but it wouldn't necessarily hold us up.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: So that's so good. Listen, if you're listening to this, I'm just kind of pointing out where. Look, I've been a franchise consultant for 23 years and so I know kind of the common pitfalls or the things that trip people up when you're outside and you've never owned a business and you're looking in. These are some of the common things like how do you afford to build 10 locations? What about the competition? You mean you took a brand new concept into a brand new market and you weren't worried that people weren't going to want It. So we've covered all of that and it's just awesome. I mean, I saw all of this in my first interview with John, which is why we're here today. Okay. So I really want to get into the mindset of managing your fear when you have all this out. And I'm sure that money's not coming in at the level that it's going out if you have 10 stores, four years. So how do you mentally work with your thoughts every day to keep yourself positive?
[00:19:08] Speaker B: For me, it starts with, am I based as a person? I'm very religious. I want to make sure that things are good at home, that I get a lot of confidence from my family and then am I physically healthy? So those are kind of my daily basis to just kind of make sure I'm bringing my whole self to work and then from there. I do have a business coach and I talk to him every other week and he helps me stay away from like massive pitfalls. But it's not the easiest thing. One thing I've always tried to do is make sure that at a minimum, if we're growing new locations that we're not in the red overall as a business, those locations are negative. Those locations are losing money until you get them to break even. But now that we're more established, I won't grow something if I know that we're going to be negative for the next bit. Now, when I was growing initially, obviously you have four locations or so in six month timeframe, you're going to be negative. Right. So I just needed to make sure that I felt comfortable with the trajectory to get those to break even and profitable points. And was the reward going to outweigh the risk? Right. I wanted more additional territories. We're on a good trajectory and so I felt comfortable saying, okay, three to four months from now, I have this much in savings, I have this much in the bank. We have this much coming in. This is our trajectory to break even. We should be there in three to four months or so. Do I feel like that's actually going to happen? And if that's the case, do I have enough money set aside to continue to grow? And ultimately, once this is profitable, is it going to help carry the negative locations and then it just kind of trickles down the line. So once you get that first profitable location and you just go through that, then it continues to go. But you need to be able to forecast that in your mind and be okay with the negative months. If you're okay with that and you acknowledge it Then it's not as scary. I'm very much a look at the worst case type of guy and then move forward, even though I am extremely optimistic about business, but I have to acknowledge things. Right. And say, okay, if this doesn't work, am I going to have to sell my house? Right. Like, what does this actually look like for me? Once I digest that, it makes it a lot easier to be confident moving forward. So, again, I don't want to make it sound like we were out there making super, super risky moves, but it was a classic story at one point where I was $86,000 in credit card debt, had maxed out a HELOC for two or three months. I was, like, looking for ways to pull out more money other places, and I didn't have anywhere else to go. So we've pulled ourselves out of that. Right. But I have felt that financial pressure, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend that, but there is a difference between that and growing controllably and just acknowledging the risks and being okay with those and just being super excited because you see the potential upside.
[00:21:45] Speaker A: It's a stunning story. I mean, this is exactly why I wanted to have you on. The one thing that we can't overlook is this is an emerging brand. So he's using numbers off of corporate stores in another market. Right. And again, because I've been a consultant for 23 years, I know that that's where people trip. And that is the value of hearing this interview, hearing it from somebody who's done it. Right. And I'm sure that those moments you had, John, where you were in debt and you're, like, looking at your wife, I'm sure there's a little bit of fear in your eyes, but there's more hope, right? Because you were leaning into the system and you knew based on the corporate stores that this could turn around and this could turn around. And the energy that you're putting out is, in fact what you will always get back. And that's the tipping point. That's what I wanted to get to in this interview. The coaching moment for Kim Daly, the mindset coach, is what you focus on in those moments. Whether Your business is 10,000 in debt or 86 in a HELOC in debt, what you focus on is what you attract back because the universe is just a big fat mirror. Oh, John wants to feel fearful. Today we'll give him more reasons to feel fearful. Or John has hope. Today we'll give him more reasons to feel hope. And it's that that starts to spin this thing toward the upward versus the down, because it's in that tipping point moment that your business will make or break. And there's a lot of people out there exploring franchising who believe that the tipping point, they can't put themselves in that spot. And then if they do, it's up to the franchisor. But the franchisor has nothing to do with this. It's all the energy that the owner is bringing. And fear is a very powerful compounding emotion. So I wanted to get him to this moment so I could have this coaching moment with those of you who follow me if you're in my pipeline right now or if you're soon to follow me, because this is how I want to help you to think before you sign a franchise agreement. So you're not holding back. You're not saying, well, I'd love to be John, but I'm not John. John wasn't John until he was John. And sometimes it's a little messy before you can clean it up. That's okay. But what matters more is the attitude and the thoughts that you're bringing to the business in those tipping point moments, because it matters. It's the future of your business.
And I want to go back to you hired a coach. We actually pulled out a short from the first video on John hiring a coach because that just supports Kim Daly and my whole new platform, the Z Suite. But I love that. And I'm wondering when you were growing by four locations in six months and things probably started to spiral pretty quickly, where it could have gone out of control in your thoughts. Is that when you were smart enough to go look to say, I need a coach outside of my franchisor?
[00:24:58] Speaker B: I was fortunate to have enough experience with the company I was working for before. So I had had a life coach up to that point, but I was kind of using him as a business coach, too, and he didn't really have that experience as much. And so Brigham had a guy that he had been working with for a while. He's very familiar with hello, Sugar. And so, yeah, it was in the middle of it. I didn't even know where we were financially at the time, but it was definitely a big risk. He wasn't the cheapest in particular.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: And so more money going out into coaching when you're already bleeding financially.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And so but I kind of knew what a coach could bring. And the thought of a coach specifically for, like, just focused on my business. And there's so much that I don't know. You Know, I would be selling myself short to think that a coach couldn't help me. And so even though it was financially stressful at the time and everything that way, I realized that whatever I spent on him would come back 10x. It might not be in the next month, but it might be in the next month. There have been so many times where I've come into a coaching session so headstrong on one idea, and I end up leaving either that idea being amplified or that idea being completely dissipated and moving forward with a different one. Because, you know, I didn't even realize that was a path. Right. So has saved me a lot of money, has helped our business grow, and I'm so glad I've had them for the last couple years. So even if it seems like the worst time in the world, most often, that's actually the best time. And I'm really glad that I have them.
[00:26:24] Speaker A: And it's an investment in yourself. It's an investment in your sanity. Right. Your mental stability. It's an investment in hope. Right. A coach can really have a different perspective of the game and just help you overall. Hiring a coach outside of the franchisor coaching, is that a standard practice within hello Sugar, or are you the rare exception to the franchisees in that community?
[00:26:48] Speaker B: No, I mean, it's a mix. It depends on people's circumstances. As far as you know, how much support do they have? Is it. They have other business partners, whatever. But overall, it is very widely promoted. We have myself and then also our chief growth officer, Jacob there to help coach some franchisees. But that's specific to hello Sugar. You know, maybe they have other businesses. And I think that that's where a business coach could come in and help look at the holistic picture behind a person and help them grow across multiple facets or just be singularly focused on one business.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: I was going to ask you that because some people may be like, I mean, you're paying a royalty to a franchisor, John. Isn't that what you're getting is ongoing coaching? Like, what do you say to that? Objection.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it's so different with a coach. I mean, yeah, they are specifically tailored to your business and your life. Yes, the franchisor helps with that. But I mean, to have the level of detail that a coach brings into your life and helps you with, like, such granular decisions. A franchisor is not necessarily responsible for that.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: I mean, I want to sit here and talk to you forever, but I know your time is very valuable and I appreciate you offering us this daily double interview today. Anyway, so is there anything else in closing this interview that I've left off or anything else you want to offer in terms of the mindset of building and scaling a 10 unit operation in, you know, less than five years?
[00:28:10] Speaker B: Yeah. In all reality, like there's these cool headlines and that sounds amazing, but like, grow. Challenge yourself to expand beyond your natural normal mindset and your natural abilities that you have, you know, for yourself right now. But, and push the limits, but at the same time, grow sustainably and like, don't always feel like you have to be the one that's like, I made $10 million in two years. And, you know, grow sustainably, make decisions for yourself, but challenge yourself. Franchising opens the door for normal everyday people that have normal jobs to live an extraordinary life and have financial freedom and a clear path to retirement. And that's an incredible vehicle to have access to in America and worldwide. But we have great opportunity here and I think that if we dive into it, then, you know, there's a lot of people that you work with that could be very successful and happy.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: Amazing. Boom. Mic drop from John Glazier. Thank you so much. I think I'm going to summarize what you said. He's saying don't play it safe and don't think small. Thank you so much again for being our special guest here today. You're truly an inspiration for those who are on the sideline who are done with playing it safe and thinking small. If you are ready to get in the game, you know that I want to be your franchise consultant and your daily mindset coach. Please follow the link in the description below and I will reach right out to you and we'll begin having some fun and building your dream of getting to wherever you want to be and financially free. Thank you so much for watching until the end. My name is Kim Daly and I want to be your daily coach.
You can find more content just like this on my YouTube channel at Kimdaly TV. And if you're inspired to take the next step to explore franchises matched to you, please email me right now at Inquire imdaily tv. That's Inquire im Daily tv.
