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 gonna 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.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Welcome back to Create Wealth Through Franchising podcast and Kim Daily tv. I have a new special guest in studio today. Her name is Jessie Brelsford from Maryland. Jessie, welcome to the studio of Kim Daly tv.
[00:00:59] Speaker C: Thanks, Kim. Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: I am excited for you to tell your story of moving from corporate America into a franchise that I think many people may be like, what is that? It's called Taste Buds Kitchen. So, Jesse, before we talk about Taste Buds Kitchen, let's bring the people into your story. Tell us a little bit about what you were doing when you kind of found yourself at a fork in the road and said, I gotta do something different.
[00:01:31] Speaker C: Yes, I love that. Absolutely. So my story goes way back, right? So I'm from Maryland. I'm one of 23 first cousins. I was always the Pied Piper of the group. Always around the kids, always baking in the kitchen, having fun in my mom's garden, selling, literally, the zucchini. She grew to our neighbors for a quarter. But I started, you know, loving the kitchen, loving kids, fast forward. I then got very into business and economics. So I went to Harvard. I majored in economics. I swam Division 1. So I'm a swimmer. And that kind of journey led me to Wall Street. So I moved to New York City. I worked on Wall street, worked for Bear Stearns for seven years and loved it, loved what I did. But I did find, like, that piece of the kids, the kitchen. I was with people that wore suits between the ages of 20 and 40, you know, working 60, 80 hour weeks. And I was missing that creative part of my life. So I started Taste Buds Kitchen as a hobby, teaching kids to bake twice a month. And that was kind of all I could fit into my schedule, sometimes once a month. Never knowing if people would sign up for my class. I posted the class online. It was a free class. Make turkey cookies, make Halloween cupcakes. Those were some of the ones that we started with. And it did great. So it sold out. And people wanted more. They wanted me to do their kids birthday parties, they wanted me to do summer camps. All these fun things that I just didn't have time to do on top of my job. So after doing that for about six months to a year, I said, okay, I can do this. So this was 17 years ago. I started this back in 2007 and 2008. I left my job on Wall street and started Taste Buds Kitchen. So when I left the corporate finance world and started this, I knew we would do all ages. So we're cook with ages 2 to 99 and I knew we would do all kinds of food. So not just sweets, which is where it had started, kids and baking, but sweet and savory. So bringing us to today a Taste Buds Kitchen. We make the kitchen fun and we make it from scratch. So we don't sell food, we don't cater food. It's just an events based business. So you can come in for summer camp for kids, birthday parties for caregiver knee classes. Little two year olds. My husband, I have twin three and a half year olds and they love to go on Saturday mornings and make fun things. And then we have the adults, we do byob adult classes, we do corporate events. It's generally byob. So bring your own beer or wine and have fun cooking. That's kind of the story of me then how TBK was born and then why did we franchise? That happened again based on demand. I'm an opportunist, right? I like to work hard, I like to know what I'm doing and people ask. So when I was in New York City, which is where I started this, still have our flagship location there in Chelsea, people would come to the kitchen, love what we were doing and say, oh my gosh, will you do this where I live? I said, you know, I don't see that for myself. They said, well, could I, can you teach me how to teach cooking classes, camps, corporate events for kids and adults. So I, you know, politely said, I'm not sure if I can. I took down their name and email, added it to a spreadsheet. I had 120 people on that list five years later. So that's when I looked into it, got excited about franchising and kind of what that would mean and being a boutique brand around the country with smart, you know, talented individuals who wanted to be a member of their community, wanted to give back, had a great, you know, professional background, but didn't even know this existed. So that's kind of our journey of how TBK was born, how the franchise was Born. We've been franchising for 10 years. Wow.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Okay, and how many locations do you have open now?
[00:04:53] Speaker C: Today we have 12 open. We've opened about one or two a year. Very slow and steady. Like anything in my life, take it slow and steady. So we open one to two a year through East Coast. We're in San Francisco Bay area. We have New York City, we have Miami, we have Chicago, we have middle of the country. So I kind of wanted to do different markets grow that way, make sure we had the brand ready for franchising, all the systems, figured out the training, the operations. And then we partnered with Fran Devco, just the beginning of this year, and Franchoice and you guys to really grow our effort. So that's been really exciting. So we have 12 open locations and we have 23 total. So we have about 10 in development currently in different stages of site selection or construction, all of which I hope they'll open in 2025. Takes about nine to 12 months to open a TDK.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: Really fun story. Okay, so no food background, other than your love of food, your passion for food. So when you're looking for a good franchisee, knowing what you know now, are you looking for people with food background?
[00:05:54] Speaker C: We are not. I used to say no one had a food background. We do actually currently have two franchisees who went to culinary school. But, no, it's by no means required. And sometimes it's discouraged because we have all the recipes.
[00:06:05] Speaker D: Right.
[00:06:05] Speaker C: We're going to teach you how to do this. What we want are the business skills. Right? Someone that wants to be a member of their community, wants to build a business, wants to build a team. We can teach you the recipes we've got. Right, recipes. They're really fun for the clients. And we can teach you how to do that. No formal culinary training required.
[00:06:22] Speaker B: Those who follow me know I often say it's who, not what. When you invest in a franchise, it's partnering yourself with people. You don't have to have the background. If you do, they will tell you, and she's telling you, you don't have to have a free background. Okay, so I have to point out something that's kind of like glaring me in the face. Okay, Harvard degree, Wall street, quit your job. Did your family and your friends, like, try to reel you back from the edge of that clip or were they, like, pushing you off of it?
[00:06:52] Speaker C: No, they were pulling me back. Slash, what specifically? My colleagues on Wall street, my parents, my whole family has been a big supporter. But I remember having the call with my dad because. More details in the story. When J.P. morgan bought Bear Stearns 2008, Bear Stearns tanked. I was there for all of that. I was on trading floor, fixed income. I asked to be laid off. So I was going to be hired on by JP Morgan. But I saw this as an opportunity to kind of raise my hand and say, you know, I would get severance, I would not be included. And that gave me like the three, maybe six months max cushion I needed. And my dad, having had his job and been at two companies his entire life, was like, are you sure? I was like, yeah, I am. Because why not, right? Why not me? Why not now? If I'm passionate about this, I want to enjoy what I do and that's how I feel. Right. It doesn't feel like work to me. I work very hard, very much of the time, but I love it. So, yes, they did think I was crazy. Some probably still do. But I love it. It's worked out well.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: I think that's amazing because I'm also assuming that you left not just the job and the security of all that, but a really big, nice, cushy income. Yeah. Then had to start from scratch building this. And now you're venturing out as a franchisor and trying to figure out what that means.
[00:08:03] Speaker C: Right.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: How do you help other people leverage their life savings and jump off that cliff every day? Right. And as a franchisor, you have to very carefully manage expectations and like the fear level. Right. That is inherent in all new business owners. After 22 years of being a franchise consultant and sort of standing in the river between franchisees and franchisors, I see that those franchisors who can carefully manage that and create a culture of that is just. It's more inspiring and build that trust. They're the ones that have successful franchises. It's not always because the brand is like the super shiniest, best one out there. It's more of a leadership and a trust thing that I see that leads franchisors to being successful as they grow. I think it's really great that you have your own story of doing exactly what these people coming to you, raising their hand, saying, tell me about Taste Buds Kitchen are trying to do. Because I think it gives you more credibility in like that heart to heart connection.
[00:09:13] Speaker C: Sure, yeah. No, and I think you're so right. Taste Buds Kitchen is amazing. And we, you know, try to box it up to be a business in a box, but no business is that easy. And it's the people it's our franchisees are amazing, amazing individual, hard working individuals. They want to contribute to their community and they want to build teams, you know, small employer, small business owner in your community. And they have great teams. And so much of the client loyalty that we have comes from, that comes from, you know, you're going into a community owned business. Right. You know, it's a local family who's here and the experience we create are amazing. So, yeah, I think it's all about the people always.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: Now, do you have a higher percentage of female owners to male owners or is it about.
[00:09:52] Speaker C: Great question. Yeah. So were 100% female owned currently. I'm sure that won't always be the case, but all of our franchisees have at least one female in the ownership group. We have a good amount of husband, wife teams and interestingly, some of them, the husband's taken the lead, the wife's kept her job. Some of them, the wife's taken the lead, the husband's kept his job. But a lot of husband wives at the helm who open one location aspire to do more, want to get their feet wet. But I always love women in the mix. Smart women are definitely a large part of what we do at tdk. We've got my husband as my partner in the franchise business. So great men in the mix as well.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: I love it. And are a lot of your franchisees also parents? Like, is it a business that appeals to the working mom with kids herself when she thinks about, wow. My goal would be to have a business where I can cater to people like me.
[00:10:42] Speaker C: Absolutely everyone I want to say is a parent. And we have some grandparents. So we have franchisees who have had babies while franchisees. Right. So they have toddlers, we have grandparent franchisees who have had grandchildren who now come to tbk. And we have plenty with those at high school and college. It's a very family business. Your kids can get involved with teaching classes with, you know, when they're 12 and it's their first job in the back helping you with dishes. So I think that's a lot of the appeal is not just enjoying what we do. Culinary entertainment, having fun in the kitchen with your family, with your community, but teaching your kids a work ethic and having a legacy for them, really creating something that your family can be involved in together, build it together. I, I had twin three and a half year olds, a boy and a girl and a six year old. And every franchise agreement I sign, they sign with me. And like, I love that we always have pictures and like, you know, it's docusign now. It used to be old fashioned, you know, sign it. Now we're doing Docusign. But I love that for me, I have a picture wall. When I was pregnant with twins, I signed a franchise agreement. I have a picture of me signing, you know, on my big belly. But yeah, I think that's a great part of life. And for me, life's too short. So I always want to be doing things that I'm passionate about. And that is Taste Buds Kitchen.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: Oh my gosh, that's awesome. I mean, the legacy you leave to your own children there, like Kim Daly has so many episodes on like the real value of what you do when you change your life and the trickle of I'm the same kind of mom. My boys are all interested in entrepreneurship because of it's role modeled at home. It's what they want to do, you know, when they grow up. Okay, so in a Taste Buds Kitchen and for the franchisees that you are trying to attract to you, and we're not looking for culinary people, but are we looking then for business development outside salespeople or is your business more built by a key location in the community and marketing?
[00:12:30] Speaker C: That's a great question. I would say it's an engaged owner is really what I'm looking for. We have varying backgrounds. A lot of people came from corporate America, but we have accountants, we have engineers, we have salespeople that were always on the road, never seeing their kids.
[00:12:46] Speaker D: Right.
[00:12:47] Speaker C: We have a woman that ran a suit kitchen. So a lot of different backgrounds, but they all want to be engaged. They all want to teach what we're teaching.
[00:12:54] Speaker D: Right.
[00:12:54] Speaker C: We're going to train you how to run this business. They want to get in there and they want to manage it. They want to do the best that they can to run this business and they want to build this team. So I think the more business acumen, the better that wants to manage the team, wants to get out about in their community. We have the marketing system. We're going to teach you how to do it. We do paid ads on our end. You'll do community marketing, but someone that wants to get in here and follow it. Because I've been doing this 17 years, right? So we've tested it, we've tried it, we know what works, we know what doesn't work. So those franchisees that are committed to following the system, passionate about their own success, they are the ones that we're looking for.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: That's the funny thing to Jesse, right? Like people want to invest in a franchise, but then they want to challenge what they've paid for. Like, they're not following it or tell you all the reasons that they think their way is better. Right. It just happens. It's normal. I always say, like, you know, those people who are, I think, wake up and want to be business owners have that confidence to drive and have ideas. But then when you say yes to a franchise, you sort of have to, like, check all of that and your ego at the door in order to step forward into the franchise. It doesn't mean that person can never come around, but it works best for you and the franchisor if you come in a little humbled and just do what they tell you to do, at least until you produce a result that gives you the opportunity to say, look, I've proven myself and I have an idea. Would you be willing to hear it?
[00:14:20] Speaker C: It's so right. You know, we're not perfect.
[00:14:22] Speaker D: No one is.
[00:14:22] Speaker C: But we have a system and it works, and we want you to follow it. But like you said, we have committees.
[00:14:27] Speaker D: We want people to give back. Right.
[00:14:28] Speaker C: So once you've been in here and get up and running, we have franchise committees for different projects. We have test groups. So we're really big on getting our franchisees involved, which I love. Lets us know them better, and they're really the boots on the ground. So we want all of that. But you got to follow the system first to have a level playing field of this is where it is. This is how you run the business. And if you have ideas, we're open to them.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: You had mentioned that it takes nine to 12 months from like, signing a franchise agreement to getting open, let's say. So while I have a founder, because, like, very rare that I do on my show. So tell us a little bit about, like, people out there may be listening going, oh, my gosh, why does it take so long? What is involved in that timeframe?
[00:15:08] Speaker C: Yeah, great question. So brick and mortar wise, I think we're quick. So I like that. But if you're gonna go out there and lease a commercial space, it's gonna take you three to five months to find it and sign. Yeah, 100% of those nine to 12 months, three to five, you're finding it and signing the lease.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: 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.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: All right, listeners did you hear what she said? Because so many times franchisees, even people who've gone through my process and they come back and they're like, oh, they're like, aggravated and frustrated and it's taking so long. And I'm like, wait, didn't you just sign your franchise agreement like a month ago? They're like, yes, but, like, everybody has this, you know, theory that they're going to sign a franchise agreement and the next day you're going to sign a lease. Right. And then I get some people who won't even sign their franchise agreement until they find a location. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
[00:16:14] Speaker C: All right, we can help you with that.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: Yeah, you're buying a franchise for support and there will be people there who will support you, but they're not paid to support you until you sign a franchise agreement and committed to their way. So, yeah, if you're out there listening, listen to what she said. Nine to 12 months. Not every franchise has that big of a process. If you don't have brick and mortar, it can be 30 days or 60 days. But during your one to two month exploratory process, you'll work with the developer to understand from signing to opening what that average time frame is. And you must believe it. I must say, I want it to be faster, but I'm okay with this time frame because otherwise you're just setting yourself up for a lot of frustration. Let's say it takes you three, four months just to wait for the right location to become available. Right now you negotiate the lease.
[00:17:08] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. So in the three to five months you found the site, you have a letter of intent, and then you're negotiating the lease. And sometimes if it's a national landlord, that can take a month, Right. Because you respond to them quickly, it could take them 10 days to answer your email. So it's a very frustrating time, but a very normal time, like you said. And what I love about Taste buds kitchen, this nine to 12 months, I think it works out perfectly because most people will keep their job throughout this. Right? So it's a nice thing if you can decide to change your life. You can decide to open a Taste Buds Kitchen, sign your franchise agreement, and all through site selection, you're keeping your job, keeping your income.
[00:17:40] Speaker D: Right?
[00:17:40] Speaker C: They're keeping that stability while getting into the unknown and the kind of entrepreneurial background that you've been looking for. But I think it's a good transition for people during that time. So three to five months, you get your site, then you go into design and permitting. So we're going to design the kitchen for you. We have a nationwide architect will help you find a local contractor, help you level the bids. My husband's my partner in the franchise business. He did architecture and commercial real estate in New York City. I met him after I started tbk, but he's been a great member of the team. He started the franchise business with me. So he's been doing this full time for 10 years. Get the kitchen design file for permits. Permits can take a week or four months.
[00:18:16] Speaker D: Right.
[00:18:16] Speaker C: Every state is very different. So we always want it to be a week, but it's not always a week.
[00:18:21] Speaker D: Right.
[00:18:22] Speaker C: So we leave some cushion for permitting time and then as soon as permits are issued, we start construction. Construction is not long, say 10 to 12 weeks. So right. Two to three months and then open, you know, two to four weeks later. So that whole thing stacks up. I always talk to people now saying, okay, the goal is you're open this time next year. So it's like a nice benchmark to work around.
[00:18:41] Speaker D: Right.
[00:18:42] Speaker C: So it's all of us heading into holiday 2024. Our franchisees of right now are hoping to open by holidays of 2025.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Is this the kind of business that is busier, like at certain times of the day or is it a steady flow throughout the day?
[00:18:57] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a great question. So people want to do entertainment, right? Which is what we are. Culinary entertainment business. Generally nights and weekends are going to be popular. However, our biggest business is camp. So every day school is closed, we're open. So that's about a third of the days.
[00:19:13] Speaker D: Right.
[00:19:13] Speaker C: Depending on where you live and how often schools get out. But you have all summer and then every school break. So usually two weeks around winter and New Year's. You have spring break, you may have winter break, MLK day, election day, all these different holidays, kids are in the kitchen. So from nine until four on those days we have little kids in the morning, older kids in the afternoon. So outside of the camp time, you know, corporate events, generally one after work. But we're seeing more and more of a trend of lunchtime and late afternoon. Right. They don't want to keep you longer than the workday. So doing fun things during the workday, Birthday parties, generally weekends after schools. And then we'll fill in the rest with adult classes. So adults are byob a lot of date nights, girls night out, family friends, where it's like 30 year olds bringing their 60 year old parents coming and cooking together, really just having fun.
[00:20:01] Speaker D: Right.
[00:20:01] Speaker C: So all our classes we're teaching tips and tricks. We're making everything from scratch. You know the menu when you sign up. So we have menus that are gluten free, dairy free by design. We are not free. So none of our recipes include nuts. So great. Kind of conscious and aware of allergies and dietary restrictions. You come in, you'll make your menu start to finish. You'll enjoy what you made. Create memories doing it. So that's a general way to say camps Monday to Friday. Everything else largely nights and weekends. But you will get like field trips that come in during the day. It's the cutest thing to see 30 kindergarteners, you know, march out of a school bus and pull up front of the kitchen. And adult classes, there's obviously a lot of adults that don't work Monday to Friday. So maybe they're nurses. They have varied schedule or stay at home moms or retirement communities. There's definitely ways to do adult classes during the day as well.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Really fun. Just sort of to recap. So we have, we don't need people who are obsessed with the food based business. We need people who are more into people.
[00:20:57] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: And some business development. But also there's a marketing side to this. Yep. And kind of like around the clock hour, are you open seven days a week?
[00:21:07] Speaker C: That's a great question. We recommend five days to start Wednesday to Sunday because there's the primary times. And then likely we'll go into seven days a week. Probably when you hit year one or year two, you know, when you get busy enough and you need that extra space. Most of our mature kitchens who've been open two plus years are open seven days a week. Compared to, let's say restaurant food costs are so much less. Hours are so much better. Our late night class would be 7 to 9. In some markets that's 6 to 8.
[00:21:33] Speaker D: Right.
[00:21:33] Speaker C: So you're not a late night crew. You're closing the kitchen down. What I love about it too, you're shopping based on reservations. So people sign up in advance.
[00:21:41] Speaker D: Right.
[00:21:42] Speaker C: They pay in advance. You know what they're coming for so you know how much you're buying. You don't really have food waste like in a restaurant, you're trying to anticipate.
[00:21:50] Speaker D: Right.
[00:21:50] Speaker C: What are people going to order? And we have this great system that says, okay, I'm doing pasta for 20 people and steakhouse for five. And you're able to literally print out a shopping list that tells you what you need to get. So whether you're doing food delivery or Going to the store yourself at least a very, very effective food cost. So our last year we have a good item 19 but average unit volume was about 700,000 over north of 700,000 and then no I about 30, 31%. So a very can be a very profitable business and a good sales business.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: So you had mentioned Jesse that people will keep their job during the site selection process of you that nine to 12 months. But do they then quit their job? Do you expect them to be full time? Because you said engaged owners.
[00:22:35] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a great question. So we require a general manager that you hire. General manager. Think of the general manager as like a lead instructor. So this person you're going to hire, they're going to be your right hand guy or gal and they're going to be teaching most of your classes. That's going to free you up to run the business. Right, steer the ship. So you are having your monthly marketing call with a marketing agency. You're getting out there and you're doing your community marketing. You're responding to clients when they have a phone call or an email. So you really are running that while they're your right hand person teaching the classes. So most will leave their job because if they see the possibility and it becomes like whoa, this is actually a big business to run, this can very easily replace where I was and that's generally the goal people are looking for. I have people that do other part time businesses, you know, maybe own another business, something else. I currently don't have anyone that's kept there full time but I have someone in like the process interested in it. But I think it can work. You just need to build your bench differently.
[00:23:32] Speaker D: Right.
[00:23:32] Speaker C: You need to have people that can be there if you yourself cannot. That's what I tell always our franchisee, you need to have that availability to pop in if something is needed to be addressed or fixed, you know that only you can do. Yeah.
[00:23:44] Speaker B: And do you have owners who are interested in more than one kitchen?
[00:23:48] Speaker C: Yes, we have four franchisees that are multiple locations which is really exciting. They all have two and someone currently interested in the third. So yeah, that's been really excited just to see them grow. And in the beginning our oldest franchisee is about to renew. She's 10 years old. So we have the whole lifecycle because we did open one to two a year. Over those 10 years we've really been through the different phases and I love that I want many empire builders. So we want to open 200 locations in the next say five years. And I would love to do it with 70 or 75 franchisees, right? I want people that want to build empires for themselves, for their families, people who, you know, whether you want to start with three or start with one and then decide if the territory is available to expand.
[00:24:31] Speaker D: All of those are great for me.
[00:24:32] Speaker C: But I think it's better for us, right? We can train a small group to be really, really good operators of this brand. And it's better for our franchisees because, you know, we call them kitchen owners. They're now building a real serious business for themselves where they have multiple units, area managers to build the team. It's a fun team to build. You're literally hand selecting who you want on your team, who you want on your bench. But time and time again, we're hearing from our franchisees just how fun this is, right? Compare it to working at a Starbucks, right? I'm sure there's a lot of great pros to those businesses, too. But you're with people, you're having fun, or living essentially, right? You're helping them to learn something new and back. And this is so funny, so many people that come to Taste Buds Kitchen don't like to cook. So don't feel like that, but don't feel like, you know, on a date, they get pulled here and they can have a sip of wine and they can stir the onions, but inevitably it's those people that leave and they're like, oh, my gosh, I'm never going to hold a knife the same way, right? Or, oh, I'm always going to crack my egg. This new way that I learned, it's the tips and the tricks that you pick up that make it feel fun. It's like having a real life dinner party for adults and for kids. They're just itching to get started, right? And we poll our parents, like, why are you signing your kids up for Taste Buds Kitchen Camp birthdays? Is to learn something new, right? It's to make new friends, it's to build confidence, be creative. Yes.
[00:25:48] Speaker D: Learn to cook is in there.
[00:25:49] Speaker C: But there are all the other benefits of, like, putting down technology, stepping into the kitchen, doing something fun. What's so cool? Like, I didn't even know this existed, right? And I created it. So all of our initial franchisees were exactly that. They're like, didn't even know this existed, right? They either wanted to open a franchise, they didn't want a restaurant, they didn't want a school or a daycare, and they're like, oh, my gosh, I love doing all of these things or they wanted to do this, they wanted to teach kids or adults to cook. And they're like, this is too much work. I don't want to create this from scratch. So they Google and found us. So that's how a lot of our starting franchisees started out. And we actually have one current franchisee. I love this is came through consultants and his primary objective was not to get into food. That was what he came in saying. I'm not going to do a food brand. Because he had in the back of his mind the restaurant mentality, the hours, the food cost, the turnover. And so when Taste Buds Kitchen, it was kind of shared with them as an option. They were like, I love this. I didn't want to do food, but I love all the things about this. And it really, it's called Taste Buds Kitchen for a reason. We make the kitchen fun. So the focus is on that, right? All the memories that you're creating and the experiences in the kitchen, that's what it's all about.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it's really fun. I mean, and also when people think about like, is it recession? Like you're selling fun, you're selling community. This is totally a kind of business that's recession resistant because parents are always going to pay to keep their kids busy. Right. And adults are always looking for new fun things to like, do we throw in the corporate events too? I mean it's so well rounded and who you can serve that if you're not finding customers, it seems like you're probably not doing the right things because it seems like they would just naturally come and then they'd want to come back. Do you track like your repeat customer retention?
[00:27:35] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a great question. I would say to the two part of that. I started this in the recession. So 2007, 2008 is where I started it.
[00:27:42] Speaker D: Right.
[00:27:42] Speaker C: And every year we grew and grew. We were obviously a lot smaller then. But you're right, we have so many different revenue streams from, you know, the B2B for the corporate team building events to the B2C. Most of our business, birthday parties, summer camps. Right. All those experiences, people, you know, maybe they'll cut back and go less often or maybe only go to their favorites, but hopefully we're their favorites. So yeah, we love retention. I love if people would come once a quarter, that would be really great. But they come in different areas for us and it's a lifecycle business. So we cook with 2 to 99 all ages. So let's say you come with your 2 year old to a class this weekend.
[00:28:16] Speaker D: Right.
[00:28:16] Speaker C: And then your eight year old comes for two weeks of summer camp and then you're bringing your spouse or friend for date night and then you're doing a corporate team building with your office. So it's really like we see people in many different areas of their life, which is so different.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: Right.
[00:28:30] Speaker C: I'm a mom and have business and so a lot of businesses just service one part of your life. But we really like. Oh my gosh, you know. Kim, welcome back. We missed you. We haven't seen you in two months. So you will know your clients by name. They will know you. Of course, not all of them. You'll have plenty of people new each event. And I love that good mix of boils and newbies. And we're always trying to convert the newbies to boils so they'll keep coming back again and again.
[00:28:52] Speaker B: Is there a membership portion to this? If someone was like, I want to be there once a month?
[00:28:57] Speaker C: Great question. We have not yet done memberships. It's all kind of pay as you go, so you just sign up and book. But we do have loyalty programs, it's called TBK errors. If you help to refer people and send friends and you can get discounts. And that's a great way to get involved and be on more of our regular list.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: It's such a good fun story. Let's kind of bring this to a close. So when you think about you in the Wall street job and where you are at in your heart and in your body and in your mind and what you were looking for to where you are today. Right? Even just like starting a business and then franchising it. So what advice do you have for those listeners out there who are just thinking, I have got to do something different than this soul sucking job.
[00:29:43] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean my advice is to do it, whatever that is for you, right? I'm just like, make the next right choice for me. I feel like life is too short. So if you have a passion, a desire, a drive to do something, be informed, research, but then move forward.
[00:29:59] Speaker D: Right?
[00:29:59] Speaker C: Decide what's the best thing for your life and take that next step. Only you have the power to change your life. I'm a big fan of grit and determination and hard work and get you where you want to go. You have a good plan and so just make that choice and move forward. Every day there's something I don't know how to do and I hope that's the case for all of our franchisees. As well. Like, that makes life interesting, right? It's not the same thing every day. Every day there's a new challenge, a new obstacle, but we have great core set of core values. They spell kitchens, but one of them is just consistency, right? And not having, you know, facing things with a positive attitude of success. Right? We're always going into things positive, figuring it out. And for me, that's a very rewarding life. I love to figure it out as I go and, you know, make the business the best that I can make it for all of our franchisees and then for all of our franchisees to make it the best that they can make it for their communities and their families.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: I love that. I love it so much. And what she's basically saying, guys and gals, is, look, it's not all going to be like a piece of cake, right? You got to roll up your sleeves and get a little gritty right there. I did that on purpose. But, you know, it's all going to be worth it, right? And when you're partnered with great people who have 17 years of track record before you, you know, it helps to set you up. It puts you in a good place with people who can guide and mentor and coach and not just you physically, but you emotionally and mentally. And that's a big part of the success equation in a franchise. So if you are inspired to begin your journey, well, you know that I want to be your franchise consultant and your daily coach. So please follow the link in the description right now. Don't wait. Just do it right now, and I will reach out to you right away. Jesse, thank you so much for being my special guest today here on Kim Daily tv.
[00:31:40] Speaker C: Kim, it was great.
[00:31:42] Speaker B: You are a pleasure and an inspiration, and I cannot wait to meet all of you right back here same time next week. Thank you for watching until the end and I'll see you later. Don't forget that my name is Kim Daly, and I want to be your daily coach.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: You can find more content just like this on my YouTube channel at KimDaily TV. And if you're inspired to take the next step to explore franchises matched to you, please email me right now at InquireimDaily TV. That's InquireimDaily TV.
