Attracting Multi-Unit Franchisees through Unique Labor Models

Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz – Guest: Tori Johnston, Brand President at Go GLOW

Meg Schmitz:
Hello everyone, and welcome to or welcome back to my podcast. It’s called the Free Agent. My name is Meg Schmitz. The discussion here is all about free agency and taking control over your financial future.

The mission of my show is to share inspiring conversations with real people who took the leap into self employment, business ownership, franchising, and freedom — from corporate refugees and executives tired of the desk job, to entrepreneurs and investors looking to share camaraderie and inspiration through their own business journey.

My podcast aims a spotlight on real people who stepped into the unknown, took control over their destiny, and became their own boss.

Today we’re going to switch it up a little bit. I’ve got the pleasure of having Tori Johnston on. Tori and I go back a few brands ago, and so I want to talk about your trajectory in franchising and then ultimately, why are you with this brand today?

But let’s start with a little history on Tori and your navigation through the world of franchising.

Tori Johnston:
Thank you so much for having me, Meg. It’s so good to see you again.

I really started my franchising journey in the fitness and wellness space. So back in the 2010s when fitness was absolutely booming, I worked for a company that was not a franchise called SoulCycle, the very beloved brand that saw explosive growth in indoor cycling.

I was there during what I call their glory days, as a Director of Marketing, and in charge of new studio openings and partnerships and things like that. My love for fitness was running very deep at that time.

After leaving SoulCycle, I went to another franchise concept called Extend Bar. I was there for a few months and started to realize you know what a franchise looks like, how to support franchise partners, and even working with some master franchisors overseas. That was my first foray into franchising.

But at that same time, as I was just getting into it, I got a call from a recruiter to move from New York to California and join Exponential Fitness as they were really acquiring and growing brands.

So I jumped on that opportunity. I moved to Southern California and stayed at Exponential for about four years, from the launch of their dance brand all the way through their IPO.

That was my you know, I would say master’s in franchising, is what I like to call it. I got to sit across the room from much bigger brands at the time, but also people that have been in the business for four decades. And I loved having kind of competitors under one roof. But we all did things a little bit differently.

As the CMO of that brand, I truly got to grow, develop, and launch several new franchise locations but also the brand as a whole which was really, really exciting. And Exponential is the largest fitness franchisor in the world.

So I truly had access to amazing vendors and relationships and partnerships. But on the inside, I also got to write the playbooks and roll out the operations and the SOPs and all the fun things that really make a franchise run on the back end.

So after leaving Exponential, I went to a company called Myodetox. It was not franchised, but had some joint venture partners in their Canadian locations and that kind of brought me more beyond just fitness into wellness they’re a physical therapy and chiropractic brand.

I spent about 15 months there and decided I wanted to consult for a while. So I spent the greater part of 2024 working on consulting projects and taking a step back myself to think about what I really wanted to do next.

I kept finding my way back to franchising. I consulted for a few other brands, but ultimately was looking to go in-house which brought me to Go Glow.

Meg:
And did they come and find you? Did you find them?

Tori:
So I found Go Glow through Front Street Equity Partners. I had previously known some of the partners over there, Eric and Jeff, from my time at Exponential and had been following their lead as they grew the Front Street portfolio.

When I realized what they were doing, I found out they’re really just strategic partners in our franchise development, which was so exciting. They have decades of franchise experience, they’ve worked with hundreds of brands, and they had decided that Go Glow was the brand that they wanted to put their time and energy into growing and developing.

So once I found out that they were involved, I got a little bit more under the hood about what the actual opportunity was with this brand and where they were within the growth process. I was all in.

Meg:
And it’s an easy for me now. I’ll just say this for the record. I had total head trash about Go Glow at the first conference when Front Street was there and Melanie was there. There was another brand there as well.

I just sat back with my arms crossed. I’m like, I’m never presenting this one. I wouldn’t get a spray tan. It’s disgusting, the products. And I’m lily white anyway, so what would I look like with a tan?

But hearing my other friends who had done it, what’s the disruptor here? Why are you with this brand right now? I know you’ve got very specific reasons.

Tori:
Yeah, that’s a great question. And I think a lot of people can relate to what a bad spray tan feels like or looks like. A lot of people can also relate to the idea that they went to a tanning bed, which we all know is terrible for your skin and your health.

So the desire to be tan has not changed. But the way that people are going about that now is leaning towards spray tanning because, again, you’re not sitting in a UV light or a tanning bed. You’re doing something that’s actually healthy for your skin. It’s a skin treatment, but it gives you that confidence and that glow that people are still looking for.

So again, I didn’t think, oh my gosh, I’m going to wake up every morning thinking about spray tanning. But what has always brought me back to the center of this is it’s entrepreneurship.

This is a franchise where you can become an entrepreneur for the first time, or you can expand into the health and beauty and wellness world that maybe you love as a consumer or that you see the true passion for the employees that work there.

When I was considering joining, it really was that I wanted to find a brand that people loved the customers absolutely rave about. That’s a marketer’s dream. But it also, to me, shows the sustainability of a brand like this through any economic upturn or downturn and any change in the business. If people love the brand, they love the product — we’ve got something to work with.

I fired out a text message to all of my friends and family that live in Minneapolis, where the original locations were, and said, “Have you heard of Go Glow?” And I got resounding responses back. “Oh my God. Go Glow is the best. It’s the only place I would ever go for a spray tan. I went for my wedding. Of course I’ve been to Go Glow.” Just five stars across the board.

At that point, I knew I had the love for the brand and the customer experience that I was excited to market. But then I started to think and look a little bit more into the actual business model itself.

When I realized that you can’t talk about Go Glow without talking about the labor model and what that does for the actual four-wall unit itself and our employees love working at Go Glow. It’s the best part of their day.

They get to work part time, there’s no full-time staff, and they come in after, let’s say, a corporate job or another role that they have in the beauty space. They get to come in and do spray tanning for four or five hours on an evening or a weekend. And they make 60% of their pay from tips.

So they make tips. They love their experience. But they also love what they’re doing. To me, that was another check in the right box.

And then lastly was the idea of pioneering in the space. Because again, spray tanning is not new. There are many bad spray tans out there. But this is something that was being done in a way that I could get behind.

It comes back to our proprietary products that we create and sell, the machinery that we have a patent on, and also just the attention to detail that we take with every client.

It’s not just standing in a booth and spraying a bunch of solution on you and hoping it sticks in the right places. It really is done with love and care. So you don’t get that orange feeling. You don’t get that bad smell.

Everything that we’ve built at Go Glow and that Melanie’s been working on for years is to combat all of those bad spray tans that happen probably every day. And now there’s just a better way to do it.

Meg:
And so as you moved in, you knew the guys. I know the guys at Front Street Partners. What a dynamic trio those three are.

Coming from marketing and then into the role of Brand President, what are some of the shifts in your responsibility and point of view that are really stretching you with this brand?

Tori:
That’s a great question. I’ve been here 100 days officially, and what I find is that I want to spend every hour thinking about marketing, because that is the world that I’ve been brought up in. And it’s also probably what comes most naturally to me. My mind is thinking about the customer experience constantly.

But where it stretched me is to think about how to train and educate our franchise partners about the importance of that customer experience. We all know what it means to be a customer of a business that we love. We’ve hopefully all experienced top, top-notch hospitality.

Now we need to show people how to do this, and those people are our employees, those are our staff, those are our part-time staff, and that’s each other. Our franchise partners are on board for this and we’ve been learning together how to make a five or what we call a six-star experience across the board.

And I think that’s a marketer’s dream: seeing those five-star reviews again. But we need to continue to have that with consistency.

The other piece that’s been challenging and something new and exciting to step into is this is kind of our sophomore year of franchising. We’ve sold some franchise units before I got here we think we sold 60, 65 before I arrived. And those 65, a lot of them are opening this calendar year. Like, it’s go time. We’ve got to execute, we’ve got to get these doors open, and we’re on track to do that.

That process takes a lot of dedication from our team and a lot of touchpoints with our franchise partners. So, I’ve kind of absorbed a lot of those franchisees, but I’ve grown to love them really quickly.

And then as we continue to support the franchisees we have, they oftentimes have two or three additional stores they’re going to open beyond the one they’re focusing on right now. So it really is that path to growth and starting those conversations off and those relationships on the right foot to make sure we’re continuing to support them as they go down to units two, three and beyond.

Meg:
So you’re stepping into Melanie’s vision and kicking her upstairs.

Tori:
I get to. I get to let her work on or she gets to work on product development and truly becoming a voice in the beauty space.

She’s a long-term thinker and she has been crafting this for years. But there’s a lot of people and a lot of education that’s needed on what a good spray tan looks like and what a great skincare experience is.

She loves to work on that stuff and I hope that I can give her more time and resources to do that.

Meg:
So you’ve kicked Melanie upstairs. And talking to her actually quite a bit last week at the conference was great. I just found her a couple of times randomly and she’s so easy to talk to.

It was clear to me the difference between this conference and say, the last one or a year ago, I could feel her holding the stress of building this brand and wearing a lot of hats.

And this conference, she just straight up said, “Meg, I’m so much more relaxed now. I’ve got Tori, who can do some of the things that she doesn’t want to do anymore. She’s done it, and now she’s really focusing on what she can do.”

But the trust in you to handle the franchisees as well as operations, real estate all the things that go into a successful franchisee experience. So talk about some of your learning lessons now.

As you’re stepping into the eyes and ears of the franchisee, what are the points you’re really zeroing into?

Tori:
Yeah, I think it’s nothing new in franchising, but it’s how it works at Go Glow.

So it’s everything from our technology stack, to our vendor relationships, to our processes internally every single checkbox of every single launch plan really working the way that we want it to.

That’s ingraining myself in our current process, but really more so building the future of Go Glow. How are we going to operate when there’s 100 stores open or when there’s 200 stores open and continuing to add as we go?

So I hope I’m laying that foundation right now for being precise, but also scaling and growing at the same time. I’m really excited about that.

Melanie has worn all the hats. She’s done all the things — she’s signed leases, she’s hired people, she’s done spray tanning thousands and thousands of times. But I really want to solidify everything that she’s built in this brand and the integrity and equity that she’s put into it.

Now it’s our chance to get it to more people. How do we get Go Glow to every community in the United States and beyond?

Meg:
So I had a thought there about the growth into hundreds of units. What are some of the challenges that you see?

Because from my point of view, I have a lot more confidence promoting Go Glow to my candidates. It was the interview I did with Melanie last year where I got to ask her all my head-trashy questions.

Tori:
Of course. Of course.

Meg:
That was really the front-row seat to seeing a brand start to emerge. Well, at 100 — how many units have you sold?

Tori:
80.

Meg:
Okay, so when you get to 25, 50 locations open, what are some of the other challenges or opportunities you specifically are dialing in on so that your franchisees avoid some of the pain points that you’ve seen in past brands?

Tori:
Absolutely. I think it comes down to understanding the relationship and kind of the matrix between what a franchisee is responsible for and what the corporate team is responsible for.

We are incredibly hands-on with our franchise partners, especially during their buildout process. They’re either new to business ownership — and they’re definitely new to Go Glow.

So we really spend a lot of time and concentration on those first six to 12 months about how to build and then operate a store.

Beyond that, it really is: how do we continue to support you once your store is open? What’s working with your staff? What’s working with the labor model? Are we having challenges with certain vendors or the process — the way we do things?

And I’ve always found success by bringing franchisees into that conversation through a Franchise Advisory Council. It’s something that we’re going to launch later this year now that we have a few more stores open.

But I really want that council of people that can come to us with opportunities and problem-solve together based on what they’re seeing in their stores everyday. 

I would say 50% of our franchisees are in their stores a few days a week, either checking in on staff or being involved in their business. Rarely are they actually spray tanning clients, but they know what’s going on.

They know the challenges they’re having either with systems, tools, processes or they see areas of opportunity where we really want to dive in and give more support.

So I’m excited to learn from them as we continue to grow. But the sky’s the limit in the types of things that we can tackle together or the top priorities. And I want to make sure that we have the tools and systems for franchisees to actually operate before we keep adding on more complexity.

Meg:
What I really appreciate about Front Street bringing you on Melanie bringing you on to Go Glow is the breadth of experience. But those Exponential Fitness days, those were some, there was a lot of turmoil during some of that.

When you mentioned SoulCycle I had worked with the brother of one of the founders of SoulCycle who wanted to — it isn’t a franchise but he wanted to get into franchising.

Tori:
Sure.

Meg:
And so your background brings reality to an emerging brand. Not every brand does that. They’re still kind of trying to feel their way through, and it’s a little bit of “Somebody give me a flashlight out here, it’s really dark.”

But you bring, I know it’s very valuable but how would you summarize the ups and downs that your past brought to you? Because you had some, there were some pretty significant headwinds.

Tori:
Yeah, you’ve got to live some lives. And I told the team at Front Street, I’ve got another one in me. I am ready to give this a go.

But if I didn’t think I had the capacity, I wouldn’t have taken this on. And that’s kind of what my time consulting brought me to.

Days at SoulCycle were absolutely filled with the love of the brand right just completely immersing yourself in every part of the customer experience, the hospitality, and the customer experience.

But on the flip side of that, the challenges were not having recurring revenue in that business model is very scary. That’s why they never franchised, honestly because there wasn’t a recurring revenue aspect to their brand.

It was every Monday at noon you cross your fingers and you really hope your die-hard people sign up for their bikes. And yes, you could buy packages. And yes, there were some premium tiers of people that could book in advance.

We could anticipate and forecast retail sales and utilization and things like that, but there wasn’t that recurring revenue to really build up to give you the confidence that every single month we’re going to continue to grow this business regardless of what happens with a snowstorm, an instructor leaving, or anything else that’s happening locally.

I saw that focus on the star instructor, which was incredible to see. They’re truly some of the best, if not the best people in the entire business.

But you also see how important that can be to the business overall if that person leaves, or if they decide not to come back after maternity leave, or if they decide to do something different with their life. That can really take a hit to the business.

So I witnessed that through a lot of parts of fitness and even at my times at Exponential you know how important the fitness instructor was. The labor model felt like your biggest risk, but also your biggest reward.

I saw that play out a lot, especially during COVID. I mean, COVID was extremely difficult for the fitness industry. How do we keep our instructors involved? How do we keep them connecting with their clients, which lights them up inside? But how do we also get people what they need, how do we get the customers the fitness routines that they’re really looking for?

And so that challenged me in a lot of ways to be really agile and think on your feet. From where I sat at that point, I had to have the answer to everything but the whole world knew nothing, right?

It was like, you get the calls of, “What are we doing now?” and it’s like, “Today is March 7 and we have a mandate here and a don’t mandate there and masks coming from here and masking there.” You had to have all the answers, but nobody knew what was next.

That was extremely challenging, but also made me really resilient just, how do we show up for the people in this organization that matter most?

Since then, I think the world has stabilized a little bit, but there are still a lot of equally challenging things in the fitness industry.

And I see now wellness you know, fitness used to be just the fitness industry. Then it expanded to wellness. And now I see wellness and lifestyle really even merging into beauty.

So the beauty services category, to me, is really just adjacent to everything on the wellness side.

Meg:
Absolutely. Image is everything. How we portray ourselves externally is a reflection of how we feel internally.

And what I do love about the Go Glow experience is that and everyone I’ve talked to who’s had one and I will get one someday has said, I felt amazing coming out. The products, the richness of the creams, the extenders which, by the way, I have and I use. So I’m a daily user of Go Glow products.

Tori:
I love that.

Meg:
I do too.

You’re getting right to the heart of one of the questions that a candidate I’m working with will ask me point blank: So what does the recurring revenue model look like?

Is this a membership model? How do you predict the recurring nature of it? And I came up with an answer for him, but you tell me.

There’s not only the financial standpoint of recurring revenue but then how has Go Glow impacted the frequency of that recurrence?

Tori:
Yeah, absolutely. So it is a membership model, and the membership model is relatively new.

When we started franchising, we realized that this element was something that we could sink our teeth into from an operations perspective — but it was deeply wanted by our customers.

So we started offering memberships around the same time that we started launching into franchising.

And what we found is, there are two types of clients that want to come and make this part of their regular beauty routine and that’s about 50% of the people.

The other 50% come to us five, six, or seven times a year based on events or happenings. There is a little bit of seasonality, but we like to call it “peak season” for us. We’re about ready to head into that right now which is everything from Valentine’s Day to spring break to prom and graduation. We know that happens every year.

And I would say the appetite for spray tanning now rather than a tanning bed has never been more prominent, especially with young teens when it comes to proms and graduation. So that is an absolute home run for us.

But beyond that, the business doesn’t just flatline the rest of the year. It really does come back to people wanting to put this into their beauty routine.

So we have two types of memberships they can come once a month or twice a month. And with that, they get certain perks and discounts.

That membership is just recurring for their booking to come in for their Go Glow so every two weeks you can come in for your Go Glow, or once a month.

We’ve found that there really is an appetite for that, and we just have to introduce it as part of an overall beauty regimen not just for special events or occasions.

Meg:
I would think that the frequency for people returning for a Go Glow would be more frequent because it’s a much more appealing experience.

But that’s interesting. So you offer it once a month or twice a month. It’s not like me with a haircut. I still go to Great Clips. I’ve got their membership card now. I loaded up with $200 or whatever, 20 haircuts or something like that. So they have my money and it’s incumbent on me to go back.

Tori:
Yes.

Meg:
And I know depending on who cuts my hair, I’m going to go back — back six weeks, I might go back eight weeks.

Can your membership model adapt to that change-up in frequency, or is there a reason why the two weeks or once a month really makes more sense?

Tori:
Yeah, you could do more than two weeks. You can come to Go Glow more than every two weeks. We’ve found that to be kind of the sweet spot right now.

But we have experimented with kind of a paid-in-full package at the end of last year where you could pay in advance and get as many credits as you wanted to use throughout 2025.

And I’m really curious to see how the usage is on that compared to people that are just paying on a monthly basis.

Because there is definitely the set-it-and-forget-it which is what you’re talking about at Great Clips — where you know you’re going to go there no matter what. You’re committed to the brand, you’re committed to your stylist, but your frequency of exactly when you come might change.

So that’s kind of the reason for that paid-in-full package. And we just introduced that in December.

Meg:
Perfect. I need to come and try it.

Tori:
I know, right? Absolutely.

Meg:
I think my closest market is Madison, Wisconsin. And do you know that story of starting at University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Go Glow what calling it Go Glow?

Tori:
I don’t know about University of Wisconsin–Madison, but I can tell you that location did just open at the end of last year.

And I believe they actually had the University of Wisconsin dance team in right before they went to their nationals last week or the week before. So a great partnership building there and I’m sure all of the Badgers are very happy.

Meg:
Yeah. So when I was interviewing Melanie, she was talking about I’m not sure if it was in an interview or just a conversation we were talking about how rich a college campus can be for a franchisee.

And it was Go Glow at the time because it was on the go you could get your glow.

And so I was just talking to this candidate in Chicago and he said, “I think I need to look at big college campuses then that have sororities.”

Tori:
Yes. So we have locations in some major college towns Winston-Salem, we’re opening in Chapel Hill, Oxford, Mississippi, and some in Alabama.

There are definitely these major college towns that are chock-full with sorority girls. I was a sorority girl in college and the amount of events I went to for any given reason throughout my semester was quite a few.

So there’s an appetite there, and it really is part of the culture for that student base.

Meg:
Are there other sweet spots in cities or locations? Or are there areas where you’re really not as eager to go into them based on seasonality or whatever the fill-in-the-blank that might be?

Tori:
Yeah. When I entered the brand, I originally thought that the most urban locations would be super successful which they are.

But I will tell you, I’m pleasantly surprised by the first- and second-ring suburbs. And I think that that is also a sweet spot for, one, better real estate opportunities, great drive-by traffic.

And also, when you’re leaving your Go Glow, you don’t necessarily want to go out to dinner right next door. You want to go home and you want to shower off or you just want to let it process set in for a few minutes.

It’s not something where you want to go directly out and shop the mall. So the suburb shopping centers have been great for us.

And I’m also pleasantly surprised by again, to what we were just talking about how many people make this part of their beauty routine. They get their lashes done, they get their hair highlighted, they do their waxing, they do their aesthetics. And this is just one stop on that beauty regimen.

And that’s very popular in the demographics in these first- and second-ring suburbs. So I’ve been so pleasantly surprised.

One of our top-performing stores is in Rock Hill, Missouri outside of St. Louis. And they opened right before Thanksgiving and have absolutely been crushing it ever since.

And if you would have asked me, “Is Rock Hill, Missouri going to be one of the top Go Glow locations?” I don’t know that I would have put money on it.

But when I met the franchise partners and saw the way they’re ingrained in their community 100% they’re set up for success.

Meg:
And so talk about the products and why they are so good and so different, because that is a disruptor. And Melanie was talking a bit about the formulas, the fragrances.

Talk about the product experience.

Tori:
Yeah, it’s pretty fun. So 26% of our total revenue comes from products. And the reason is, these products actually enhance your experience.

It’s not just a bunch of stuff on a retail wall that you don’t need. Melanie refuses to put up junk and I agree with her. So it is only products that truly enhance your Go Glow.

We have a product line that has white labels that do not have any color or DHA in them. Those are to be used before you come in or after, for hydration. And then there are a few different products that have a black label that actually have the DHA and that is where you can bring it with you to extend the glow.

If you’re using that Extend at home or if you have our mousse and our exfoliating mitts you know, those pieces all go hand in hand to be used at home as well.

So it really is a small SKU line. There are like eight total things that we sell, and they’re all made with a formulation in a lab. We had scientists and chemists involved, and Melanie took years to really develop these formulas to make sure she liked the products herself, but also that the customers love them and that they actually enhance the Go Glow.

She kept it very small intentionally. And then we work with one outside vendor on sunscreen that our franchisees purchase at wholesale.

Meg:
So I just want to tell you the story because it’s about a man.

I was flying with my husband to Seattle and this young man was sitting in the window seat right next to me. He wanted to get up it was a long flight. So I got up at the same time, ended up standing in the galley.

I could tell from the way that he showed himself that he was a well-groomed man. So I said, “I’m in the beauty industry have been for a long time. You look like you might be too.”

He said, “Yeah, yeah. I’m glad that you could tell.” He was very proud of the way he looked.

And so he’s talking about his hair and the products that he used. I said, “You’ve really got beautiful eyelashes and your skin is amazing.”

He said, “I get a spray tan. I’m not going to put my skin at risk. I wouldn’t do that.”

I said, “Spray tans, really? I’m surprised, for a guy, that you would do this.”

He said, “No, I go to this brand, this place called Go Glow.”

Tori:
Oh my gosh, I love that.

Meg:
I was like, “You’re kidding! That is just such a coincidence.” Tell me what you liked about the experience.

And so he went through all the things that we know our customers would experience at a Go Glow.

But for a young man who’s in the beauty industry, the other thing he said is that he’s on the equipment side not on the product side. And he specifically called out the application process and the products as the two main reasons why he wouldn’t go anywhere else.

Tori:
Yeah, and I would agree with that. I absolutely love to hear that especially men. So if any of your listeners are thinking, “Do men actually use this product?” I think you sold us right there.

And the fact that they’ll speak to it or tout their experience is even better.

We find that often from our clients, majority of our clients definitely that way, but the application is different than you’ve probably experienced in other spray tanning, in the spray tanning world or just tanning in general.

You are standing in one of our proprietary machines and we create our own custom solutions that we spray on you. It takes about five minutes total. It’s really, really quick and easy.

The interesting thing is that we have a patent on our machines themselves and the air filtration system. So the air filtration around you is making sure that you don’t ingest these solutions.

What we call the “car wash model,” where you stand in this tube and it sprays you with solution it’s not necessarily good for you to ingest that solution.

That’s why Melanie created this patent on her air filtration system with this machine itself. That piece of it is very different, and I think that’s probably what he’s alluding to in that experience.

And then the actual solution I mean, she spent years sourcing the right ingredients that had the best-in-class ingredient list. So they’re paraben- and sulfate-free, they’re vegan, they’re gluten-free.

And it takes a while to get to that point to make sure you have all those claims and really have clean skincare. We use those in all of our products.

And that’s, again, why we just have a small SKU list. We sell directly to franchise partners, as well as on our website for DTC.

Meg:
And so the young man was also talking about the Take home products. And he said, “I’m on the road a lot. In every city I go to, there isn’t a Go Glow.”

So he was vouching just as I will right now. I don’t get a spray tan. But using the extender, the black tube products, my husband even noticed last summer I was out paddleboarding he’s like, “You got a tan this year?”

I didn’t get a tan. I got a Go Glow.

Tori:
Yes! Yes, I love that.

Meg:
It was really just the pigment in the product, I haven’t gotten a service.

So the products themselves this young man on our way to Seattle was vouching for just how long he could go and still look good. And the pigmentation didn’t make him look orangey or yucky which I would vouch for as well.

The other thing I would vouch for is I’m a franchisee with Image Studios, and we’ve talked about in the studio I’ll take a tattoo artist, I’ll take all sorts of, But spray tan?

When we have our recruiting roundtables and talk about, “Would you bring in a tanning?” The number one answer 100% of the time is “No.”

But at one of the franchise conferences, the CEO and the COO of that brand were listening in on Melanie talking about Go Glow.

Tori:
Yes.

Meg:
Spent some time talking to her, and now that’s one, I won’t say it’s an approved relationship.

Tori:
Yes.

Meg:
but we are now allowed or advised that if we’re going to bring in a spray tan.

Tori:
I can tell you, I can tell you why that happens.

Which is: spray tanning, in the traditional sense, you knoe one-off, can be messy. Because you don’t have this machine. Some people hang up a sheet and spray you against it. Or bring a tent to your house again, no air filtration in a handmade tent.

That piece of it is messy or could be. And Melanie took a very bold take on this by making all of the Go Glow interiors white.

So every store you walk into you see that it’s white. That’s bold, right? We’re putting color on skin. But she did that because she knew that we’re not going to have the problem of the mess that goes along with traditional spray tanning because of these machines and our products.

And so, when you’re thinking about a salon suite, the first thing we do during confirmation day is bring people to see a salon suite. And you’ll see there’s not orange on the walls. This place is white and sparkling clean.

And that’s by design. So I think it’s starting to turn. Some of the salon suite businesses are starting to turn into more interest in that way. And we’ve created some great partnerships.

Because that really is how we launch in different markets as we go into a salon suite first, and then into our brick-and-mortar store.

Meg:
Yeah. And landlords are starting to pay attention to this. This is an application and a product that is not going to ruin the floor, the drywall.

Tori:
Yeah.

Meg:
Which is what standard products have done historically.

So my husband and I also are landlords, and we would never, ever bring in a spray tan concept until Go Glow. So it’s.

Tori:
Until now. I love that. I love that.

Meg:
And such a game changer.

Tori:
Interesting on the real estate side is that there’s not any plumbing that’s needed really for Go Glow. So it’s not necessarily like other beauty where you have nails or wash sinks or anything like that.

There’s no plumbing that’s needed. So it makes the buildout process relatively simple. It’s the same idea of private rooms, you know, five or six private rooms in each space.

But the fact that we don’t have plumbing is, I think, a huge win for landlords, and it makes more space available for us.

The other thing I’m going to mention when you talked about licensing and staff is that all of our staff does not have to be licensed. We don’t touch people. So we don’t need estheticians. We don’t need somebody that has a hair and cosmetic license.

It could be, again, a part-time worker. It could be a student. It could be you or I that becomes a spray tan tech after coming to training.

And that’s also very advantageous for the labor model and the types of people you’re going to attract because they don’t need a license, and you don’t need to hold that either.

Meg:
That, going back to what you’re talking about with some of the Exponential Fitness concepts, SoulCycle, you’ve got your rockstar teacher and everyone wants that one and you’ve got a waiting list forever. And if they leave, then you’re really stuck.

In this labor model, you can have young or old, and it’s part-time. I love that, that there are really no full-time requirements.

That leads me to a question for utilization: if the application takes that little time five minutes or so you’ve got undressing and then redressing. What’s the turnaround in an hour? How many could you potentially do?

Tori:
We book people in 20-minute time slots. You could probably do it in 15.

We do 20 minutes to give ourselves plenty of time to do the consultation. So the second you walk in, you’re greeted by your spray tech. You go through a consultation, understand how you prepped for that day, how you took care of your skin, did you follow the instructions we sent you in your email or your text message.

But also understanding the look that you’re going for, or again if you have a special event or something depending on the color you are now versus the color you want to be and that kind of thing. We want to leave you with a natural Go Glow. That is our sole mission.

So we talk to you a little bit about that. The actual spray tanning itself again lasts about five minutes. And then at the end of that, we meet you out front and show you the product line to really enhance your Go Glow.

So that entire experience is less than 20 minutes. And you can turn the rooms three to four times an hour.

In our busy season, it is absolutely that. And what also was surprising to me is how late in the night people are willing to come.

So our operating hours right now are standard operating hours but people are willing to come to a spray tan at 8:30 or 9:00 PM at night. Because they’re going to go home, they’re going to sleep in it, and wash it off the next morning.

And so we really do maximize the evenings, which is pretty cool.

Meg:
So how quickly does the application dry? You’re talking about somebody getting dressed right away to leave.

Tori:
Yeah, so it dries on you immediately. But we also have two different options.

So one is a rapid rinse that you can rinse off within six hours. And then there’s the regular spray tan that you can rinse off between 12 and 24 hours.

So either one of those depending on what the rest of your day looks like. But the rapid does rinse off faster, and it’s still the same results.

Meg:
Got it. You’re thinking of everything here. I just.

Tori:
I will tell you like, Melanie has thought of everything. And with that, she’s had so many opportunities.

And now that I’m in the business, there are so many opportunities to try to bring other things in. I see a lot of the wellness industry right now just combining or making these multi-use spaces.

She’s been very intentional that this is what we do. We do Go Glow, and we sell products that enhance your Go Glow. And that’s really what it is.

So I also love the simplicity of that not just from a marketing perspective, but from a unit economics perspective.

We’re not trying to do IVs in the back corner. We’re not trying to do lashes in the front. We want the center and the focus to be Go Glow, and that’s what it’s going to continue to be.

Meg:
Perfect. What didn’t we talk about?

I’m trying to think if there’s anything we can’t really talk about unit economics. We did talk about why you’re with this brand right now.

Tori:
Yeah, one thing I do wanna share I did want to share is the typical franchisee because this surprised me as well.

I thought it would be all women who had beauty experience, who loved getting spray tans. And yes, we definitely have those enthusiasts on our franchise partner team.

But it also is people that are corporate refugees that are exploring franchising and want to be in a business where they can hire and train employees, but don’t necessarily have to actually be the owner-operator.

It’s also I would say 50% men. So I don’t think men should be scared by this at all. It is not just a female-exclusive brand or a female-exclusive franchise organization at all.

It is definitely 50/50. We have partners. We have people that are coming into the single less of the larger groups but more of just individuals or couples at this time. And about 50% of those are men.

So I’ve been pretty excited to see that.

Meg:
That anyone getting into a business like this, health, fitness, beauty, wellness will never go away. This should be a financial and a financially advantageous decision to do this.

And that’s what I see. And I will just tell you frankly as a salon suite owner I’ve thought about: do I want to diversify and also be a Go Glow?

Tori:
Come on over Meg. Come on over.

The one other thing is that people have come to us from other franchise organizations like yourself because they see the labor model and that part is really, again, exciting to them.

After they’ve run their own business at a lash studio, at a Drybar, at a sometimes a QSR business they come to us because they’re like, “Wow, you don’t need to have licensed labor. They’re part-time. And 60% of their Take the Leap pay doesn’t even hit our P&L, it goes straight to tips.”

So those three things attract a lot of more sophisticated or even seasoned franchisees. And we have quite a few partners right now from those different brands which is exciting for me to sit in my seat and also learn from them, but know that they’re going to be incredible operators once they’re in the Go Glow family.

Meg:
And to me, this is really the sign of maturity when franchise owners from different systems see the diversification opportunity.

For some of them, there have to be advantages. Why else would you diversify? Otherwise you just stay with the same brand.

But to figure out: where is my pain point with my current brand? And why does this one satisfy? In what ways does it satisfy? What boxes does it check?

So to me, that’s a real sign of maturity when you’re starting to get some of those multi-unit owners from other brands who are coming over.

Tori:
Yeah, absolutely.

Meg:
Super fun. Well, I can’t thank you enough, we’re just back from the conference, so thank you so much for taking the time.

Tori:
Wonderful to see you again.

Meg:
Thank you. And it’s such a great story to be on the front end of Melanie totally, you know, cute, blonde, blue-eyed, Scandinavian girl from Minnesota who started this brand.

And for anyone who hasn’t listened to that podcast go back in the Free Agent history, pull up Melanie Richards. Super insightful.

And this has been equally insightful. I can’t wait to talk to my candidates and have them listen to this particular interview and there will be a lot more coming down the line.

So thank you again for sharing your thoughts and your experience with me today.

Tori:
Oh, thanks so much, Meg. Highlight of my day. Thank you.