The Franchisee’s Playbook: Real Stories and Strategies for Overcoming Early Business Hurdles
If you’re feeling like you’re pouring your heart (and money) into following every franchise handbook, only to still end up with staff turnover, slow sales, or that gnawing sense of “wait, wasn’t this supposed to be easier?”, then you are not alone! If you’ve tried hiring the “perfect” GM or copying other owners’ marketing tactics, only to watch things fall apart anyway, then you are not alone! If you’re putting in late nights trying to master every system, but still find yourself doubting your leadership or struggling to build a solid team culture, then you are not alone! And if you secretly wonder whether you made a huge mistake because the business isn’t running itself yet like you’d hoped, then you are definitely not alone!
My special guest is Verdine Baker
Verdine Baker has built a strong career in the health and wellness franchise sector, beginning with his early roles at Crunch Fitness, where he contributed to developing franchise systems during the brand’s expansion. He later joined Exponential Fitness and played a pivotal role in launching and scaling Stretch Lab, helping to grow the brand from three locations to nearly 600 nationwide. Verdine’s responsibilities have included building sales and operations systems, opening new studios, and leading as brand president during a significant period of growth. His experience covers both the strategic and hands-on aspects of franchising, giving him a well-rounded understanding of what it takes for new franchisees to navigate challenges and achieve business growth. Verdine is recognized for his ability to implement successful processes and mentor owners as they enter and thrive in the franchise world.
Every good movie deserves a sequel just as good, if not better—let’s run it back and do it even better this time.
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Discover how transitioning from corporate life to franchising can unlock new opportunities and challenges that shape your success.
- Explore the surprising benefits of assisted stretching that can give athletes an edge in performance and recovery.
- Build a winning franchise culture that motivates your team and drives consistent growth from day one.
- Overcome common hurdles as a new franchisee by learning mindset shifts that keep you resilient and focused.
- Master marketing strategies tailored for fitness franchises that attract loyal clients and boost your business fast.
Benefits Of Assisted Stretching
Assisted stretching offers physical and mental advantages by improving mobility, reducing injury risks, and promoting relaxation. It supports people of all fitness levels, from athletes to everyday individuals, helping enhance overall wellness. Understanding these benefits can inspire franchisees to communicate value and connect more deeply with clients.
The resources mentioned in this episode are:
- Visit the Free Agent Podcast to listen to more episodes about franchising, self-employment, and business ownership.
- Connect with me on LinkedIn to follow updates, insights, and behind-the-scenes content about my dual life and business journey.
- Explore Exponential Fitness and its brands, including Stretch Lab, to learn more about franchising opportunities in the health and wellness sector.
- Check out SQL Brands and their new venture, IFLEX Stretch Studios, for information on franchise opportunities and the brand’s relaunch.
- Visit the IFLEX Stretch Studios flagship location at Casa Paloma in Phoenix, Arizona, to experience the new studio design and services firsthand.
- Tune in to the Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz for real stories of self-employment and business ownership. Contact Meg Schmitz to schedule a free, no-obligation call and get insider insights on franchise opportunities. Use the form at the FREE Agent Podcast if you’d like to be considered as a guest on the Show!
Subscribe now to our FREE Franchise Insights to get every new podcast episode delivered to your inbox! Free Subscription. No spam. Not sold to others. Unsubscribe anytime.
Click to Take the Leap into the full interview transcript of the Free Agent Podcast, Episode 7.17, with Meg Schmitz and her guest, Verdine Baker
Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz – Guest: Verdine Baker, CEO of iFlex Stretch Studios
Meg
Hello everyone, and welcome to or welcome back to the Free Agent Podcast. My name is Meg Schmitz. I’m your lovely host and I will introduce my guest in a minute.
The discussion here is all about free agency and taking control over your financial future. The mission of my show is to share inspiring and real conversations with 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 do something a little bit different. This is more of a, I would call it a brand spotlight, but also a human spotlight. Verdinee Baker is with me today and we’ve been able to work together over the last, I don’t know how many years it’s been now from your
Verdine
Seven years.
Meg
Is that, well, you would know from when you, when you started with Exponential Fitness and what has gone on now. But I, I have, I’ll confess here that I have always had a Fran crush on you. And I, I think it’s because when you got started with Exponential Fitness and Stretch Lab, you were not at the, at the top of the pecking order at that time.
And we were working with some interesting franchisees in a couple of different markets who are running into some problems. And I just always appreciated, number one, your willingness to smile and grit your teeth and get through it and deal with some people who are, they were frustrated and they were challenged at that time. So I have long admired your style and your grace and how you work with people. My placements. So thank you for coming on the show today because I hope this will be a very inspiring conversation for people who are listening.
Verdine
Well, thanks for having us or for having me. Meg, it’s been a long time that we’ve, we’ve had a chance to work together and I, I think, I think the crush is also likewise, you’re always the, the, the best dressed and most elegant guest at the franchise convention, which is a nice change, maybe the typical that that goes to some of those conferences. But yeah, it’s been an absolute pleasure. You know, you always greet me with a smile and we always tackle the challenges that we have head on and try to get through it together. So I appreciate that.
Meg
Yeah. Well, so let’s give the listeners a little bit of background on you.
I don’t want to start with where you are today. I’ve got some questions about that. So go back and build a little history of your involvement in franchising and then we’ll take it from there.
Verdine
Yeah, that sounds good. Well, I’ll start a little bit before franchising because it’s relevant to my experiences in franchising, I suppose.
I started my professional career into health and wellness in general with Crunch Fitness. Man, this is almost 20 years ago now. I was just a kid just trying to get a free membership and be able to work out and train and do the things that I love to do when I was a little younger and I had an opportunity to actually do that work at the gym and get a free membership, which I was really happy about. And I really fell in love with the environment. I really enjoyed interacting with like minded individual that had goals and being able to see those goals come to life, you know, really right in front of you was kind of intoxicating for me.
And so I had some opportunities to have some upward mobility within Crunch Fitness. Had some great mentors that really looked after me and helped me kind of sharpen the saw and elevate the skill set that I kind of came into the industry with. And the time that I spent that 10 years developing my operational chops and I was always curious about small business. And at that time Crunch Fitness was looking to franchise their corporate model. And so I was part of a team that was developing a lot of the systems and processes that would be applied to the franchising model.
And it was a great experience.
I turned that experience into getting recruited by Exponential to start Stretch Lab with three locations in Southern California. I was brought on board to build the sales and operation systems for the brand. So I spent the first three years doing that and opening studios. So I would travel all around the country and get studios open and help business owners. And that’s when I really developed the passion for small business and really seeing individual grab the bull by the horn and execute.
And it was so gratifying to see in franchising you get a spectrum of different types of franchisees, right? Different types of experiences, backgrounds. And you know, they have all put themselves in a position to be a franchisee because they’ve been successful doing something else. And now they’re in a position to be a business, business owner, you know, make some decisions for themselves, be their own bosses and to be able to see people make that leap and then take the actions behind it and be able to follow that stencil and then ultimately seeing their success like it really, really kind of bridged the two things that I was really passionate about. Health and wellness and being environment and then small business together.
And I’ve, I’ve, I’ve been in franchising ever since. I’ve loved it ever since. After building all the sales and operations system and growing Stretch Lab, I was fortunate enough to run the brand as the, the, the brand president for the probably the most growth that the brand has had. Those three plus years that I was there, we opened over 300 studios, over 400 studios, getting the count to close to 600 studios. I, I left earlier this year, but it was a great experience.
I got to meet some amazing people really got to grab a brand with three locations and learn a ton of different ways how to do it right and a ton of different ways how not to do it right. Which, which is incredible. And, and we built an incredible team. We had great franchisees that really believed in the model. They believed in, in the opportunity that we had in front of us.
Not just on the model part, but just really impacting people’s lives. And that was a fantastic time of my life. So, yeah, that’s a little bit of my background up until now.
Meg
Yeah. So the, the interesting thing going back in time is that you were with a brand, Crunch, that was just starting to franchise. So you didn’t really come into Exponential. What attracted you to not only Exponential, but, but Stretch Lab. You’re, it was a pioneering brand at that point.
Verdine
Yeah, definitely.
Meg
Like you were coming in with decades of experience doing this. You were really a newbie cutting your teeth on this.
Verdine
Absolutely. And it’s kind of, kind of two things kind of merged together at that time when I was considering it, we had, we were living in our tiny little 800 square foot apartment in San Francisco and, and my wife and I had just had our, our daughter. We have two kids now, she’s eight. And it’s been, you know, an incredible journey. But we’re kind of sitting around going, okay, we’re in San Francisco, we’re having a great time. I loved my experiences at Crunch Fitness, had no intention of leaving.
And I get a call about this opportunity with Exponential and I’m, I’m like, well, like it’s in Southern California. We’ve never lived down there. We don’t have any family, we don’t have any friends. Like, you know, or is this what we really want, to make a move where there’s really nothing and disturbed around our lives right now. And, but you know, I, I said, hey, you know, I’m, I should probably. The smart thing to do is to explore the opportunity and just kind of see what’s, what it is. Right. I was just kind of always been so loyal and focused into what I was doing and it wasn’t broken, I like, don’t fix it kind of thing.
But my wife, I gave her a lot of credit because, you know, she’s a firm believer in understanding your value and be able to express it. And you know, it took me a long time to be able to get to that space where I feel like I have a better understanding of my value. But at that time, that wasn’t really my headspace. So I said, hey, you know what, you’re right. I should probably just explore it and just see what it is.
And we took a trip down to Southern California. There were only three locations of stretch labs that were open in Venice Beach, California, which was the first one. There’s one in Santa Monica and there’s one in Beverly Boulevard and Beverly Hills somewhere. And we went to the Santa Monica location.
Remember, we came to, we drove down, got to our little hotel, checked out Santa Monica like all the tourists do. I remember walking into the studio and like, I had this feeling that was like, wait a second, there’s like, there’s something here that could be really special. And I’m familiar with assisted stretching. I played soccer in college and, and I’ve, we had athletic trainers in high school, college, and so forth. That, so I, I understood what it was and, and, and what it did for me as an athlete, right growing up. So I had that connection to it. But in my mind, coming from, from fitness, it wasn’t something that my brain was kind of switched on to, like, hey, can this be a standalone vertical? Is, is this a sustainable model? Like, how could it work?
Right? And when I walked into the studio in Santa Monica, this idea, this thing just kind of hit me. And what hit me was just looking around the environment first. It was, people were happy, like, really excited to be there, right? And I was like, why are these people.
And I’m like, okay, well, it’s Los Angeles. Like, everybody’s happy. They live in Santa Monica. It’s beautiful all day. Like, that’s great.
But if service couldn’t be that good, right? So I was the first kind of like, okay, it’s like a great environment, right? Like, the way it looked, the way it smelled, like, the people, how they interacted with each other, it was just a really positive, uplifting environment, which was really cool. And then I looked at the people that were on the benches. There was an elder gentleman, probably in his 80s that was getting a stretch.
There was a younger athlete under 10 that was getting a stretch, and then a couple people in between. And I was like, huh, this is really interesting. And I start talking to the person that stretched me, the flexologist that stretched me. I was like, hey, so like, what’s the deal with the eight year old or seven year old, whatever they were. I was like, oh, that’s a dancer.
She does like Irish folk dance. And, you know, this is a way for her to, you know, recover and perform better. And I was like, oh, that’s interesting. Great. All right, so what’s Larry over here, that’s in his 80s, doing at the studio, right?
Oh, yeah. He’s been coming here since we opened. He comes in every week and, you know, loves to get a stretch. And he’s still playing golf at 80 years old. I’m like, oh, man, this is really interesting.
What’s that person? Oh, that’s the executive from Sony or whoever. And they come in and get a stretch, and they make sure they get on get a stretch before they fly around the country, whatever they’re doing. I was like, okay, well, this is really interesting. The experience has to be amazing.
Like, it has to be the best thing you’ve ever experienced before. So I get on the bench, I get a stretch, and that aha moment just hits me like a ton of bricks. Like, there is. Like, there is something really special that is here. There’s an incredible experience that truly, truly kind of going back to my athletic days.
And I’ve been through a ton of injuries. I’ve had six knee surgeries and ACL reconstructions and all kinds of different injuries in my past, and. And kind of went back to all the different hours then that I’ve spent in physical therapy clinics spent with trainers. And a lot of what we did from injury, like, recovery protocol, were kind of stretching, some strengthening, a lot of stretching. And then when I was fit to play, a lot of what I did to prepare to play was a lot of stretching, a lot of mobility, a lot of those things.
Right. So it just hit me right away that this is something that is so special and can help so many different people move better, live healthier lives, do things that they really love, and there’s no one that’s really getting it to the masses. So it was like an instant. Like, I was like a dog on a bone. Like, hey, we have to go pursue this opportunity, because I think there’s something that could be really special about growing something like this.
So, you know, my wife. My wife was graceful enough to say, hey, we’ll say yes, and make a trek. And she works from home, so he made it a lot easier for her for us to make that move from Northern California to Southern California, but we made that leap. And, yeah, here we are.
Meg
The great part of this, I didn’t need to interrupt you at all, is you went through all the. Some of the questions that I have on my sheet here. I asked. You were talking about having a mentor. I think that’s one of the great things about leadership is recognizing that you need someone to show you the way. You started with a brand that was.
While it was familiar to you personally, now you’re experiencing it from the consumer client standpoint. So you already knew the benefits, but we all know in franchising that, that that environment and the training that goes into building culture and the employees that you have that you hire, that so much in addition to the stretching itself goes into what makes a customer sticky and going to return or purchase a membership. So you just hit a whole lot of the things that including the disruptive of stretching. There’s so many people who don’t, because they’re not athletic or have not had back pain or other physical issues, don’t understand the benefits, but you just presented it as I would present it and have to some of my referrals who then became Stretch Lab owners.
You lived through a lot of change before you moved into the brand president role. And it, it’s nice to say that, that we are mutually launching business owners and we, we wish success for all of them and, and that they won’t have challenges, but that’s really where you cut your teeth, was not on the front end of the excitement of bringing them in, but the reality of opening your doors and now you’re doing the thing.
And so without getting into names or people or situations, people like this program, because we talk about the tough stuff. So looking back, what, what are some of the bigger Aha moments that you’re not going to. You’re going down a rabbit hole and it’s not in the best interest of the franchisee or the franchisee was going down a rabbit hole by not following protocol, the marketing. What are some of the lessons you learned there? Because I know they now are translating into where you are now.
Verdine
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I think the, the overall message is that, you know, in franchising, they’re not your employees.
Right. So they don’t. And that’s the biggest difference from my previous. You know, when I. Where I was at Crunch Fitness, I had a team that I hired and they were tasked to do a job.
And there’s certain ways that I could hold them accountable to do that job. And it’s not really the same in franchising. I mean, sure, as a franchisor, you could have your, you know, your, your franchise agreement and wave it all around like it’s the bible, but I don’t believe. And grateful to have had mentors in my franchising history that’s taught me this, that, you know, we want to file that thing to the bottom of the cabinet and have a relationship. Right.
And I think that’s where it all starts, right from the time somebody comes to, to Discovery Day. And you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re trying to gauge whether you have that shared value, you have shared values into the brand or what you trying to create. Because I feel like I need to be invested into that person the same way that they’re invested into the brand. And I need to find every way that I could support that person. But it doesn’t always happen that way.
Right. And I think, I always think about the three themes that we would like to have our franchisees kind of exude, which is having that passion, being able to follow systems and being a leader in their organization. That’s kind of like the base foundation of like the at least in my experience, the type of people that are typically successful in franchising, they’re energized about what they’re doing, they’re able to follow those systems and they can make really good decisions whether they, they come like that or they learn to do those things right through experiences. But you know, every once in a while you have those challenging situations. And you know, one of the things that one of the stories I think about often, because it actually turns out to, you know, the end story is fantastic, but the rabbit hole we were going down wasn’t necessarily positive.
Right. And to your point, there’s a lot of excitement when you become a business owner. Like, you sign your franchise agreement, you’ve done it right. But that’s really where the work begins. Right.
And I had this franchisee, one of our early franchisees in Stretch Lab started out in the real estate process. The timing happened to where there were two locations then I would advise us now and we’ve been through those experiences when people are opening multiple studios at the same time and you know, unless you have the time, resources and so forth, it’s really challenging. But that’s just how it worked out at that time where there were a couple locations that were kind of getting, brewing and going. And so this, this person hired and, and this franchisee is a top level executive at a bank. His wife is also full time employment as a teacher.
They have children. So this is not like, you know, this is their only thing, right. So a lot of the challenges kind of pose through that. So they hire GM number one, hire GM number two. Send them to training.
And right after training, both GMs are no longer GMs for one reason or another. Right. One quit, one didn’t make it right or whatever happened. So now we have two studios that are on the cusp of starting to get ready to get open and we have two full time employed franchisees. Right.
That are going like now what? Right. And I remember thinking in that situation that, you know, it could have gone really bad really quickly without being obviously really passionate about what you do, understanding systems and then be able to make some decisions. And I give this franchisee a lot of credit because as a top level executive that does really well at his job. Right.
You know, call it, he’s the one top percent of performers in the line of work that he does. I was really proud of the way that he, he gathered himself and really, I wouldn’t say humbled himself, but really put his ego to the side of what he thought he knew about the business and said, hey, I’m going to be a student of this and I am going to follow whichever is the system of the process and how we’re going to do this and build it. I’m going to go down that road. So he came out to GM training, learned the systems, carved out the time for him to be able to do his work and then be able to do a little bit of this work and just made it work. And it’s through hard work and discipline and taking that ego to the side and say, hey, I need to learn something entirely new and add it to my, my tool bag and made it work.
Built two of the most successful studios in the portfolio. And I believe he’s on his sixth or seventh studio and has retired himself from his day job. Right. And, and does well enough to where he could do that. So I tell that story because it’s a great ending.
But that could have gone in so many different ways. You know, you get to that inflection point of like, well, you know, it’s hitting the fan. It’s not going like I thought it was going to go because that’s always going to happen in franchising. You’re going to have a stumble in real estate, you may have a stumble in construction and design, you may not have the best presale that you anticipated. You may lose an employee.
It’s being able to have that resilience, that dedication. And if you have the right support system with a franchisor you can navigate through those challenges and come out in a really good position. And I was really proud of him for doing that. It’s, you know, it takes a lot of work for to say, hey, I didn’t get it right and that’s okay. And I need to, you know, put my ego to the side and really learn this stuff and become the best that I could be.
And now he’s a successful business owner. And those are the type of stories that I really love to. You know. It brings back really good memories from my time with Stretchline.
Meg
Good. That was a great example that that example could have been my own example. When I, I got started as a business owner, I was gainfully employed, so was my husband. We had a two year old, built to three locations, got divorced and then built two more. But that those stumbles and falls for anyone listening the advice and I don’t know if you would put same number on it, but I have to remind myself too, as a current business owner who’s continuing to open and acquire more businesses, it’s a 24 month process. It’s just like having kids.
Those first six months are like, holy smokes, never saw that coming. When do I sleep? I don’t know when it’s sleeping, but. But then you get the next six months where now the motor skills are really starting to go and you think you’re hitting your stride, but you still have another learning curve to go through. So to open to it once is like having twins.
It’s overwhelming and something’s gonna go wrong. There’s a wheel that’s gonna fall off somewhere. But just like you can’t quit on your kid, you can’t quit on, you shouldn’t quit on your business. But you’re really getting, getting into something that you need to give yourself a 24 month window and say. This is,
Verdine
You got to work at it too, right. You got to actually do the thing.
Meg
Yeah, well. And for example, I never cut hair. Probably like your guy never was a flexologist.
Maybe he was. But, but to get into the business, to understand the inner workings, there’s that fine balance and you’ve seen it too. People who leave their career or were dismantled from their career and they get into this business, they’re going, it’s okay, I can manage this. I’m going to kind of keep hands off. And then whoosh, they’re like all in all the time and they cannot extricate themselves.
Verdine
Right, Right.
Meg
But they need to.
Verdine
Right, right, right. I see a lot of that too.
And I think part of it is just kind of managing as, as a franchisor. It’s helping, it’s helping business owners understand the skill set they have also, right. And where it can play a positive role into the business and where it could pose to be challenging. Right.
Because I always think about this like our business and the vertical we’re in is people. Right. We are going to hire a team, build the right culture, and they’re going to service people. And I started this whole thing with like, hey, you walk into this environment and you could feel it. The staff loves being there.
The team loves being there. They love the members that they’re interacting with. It’s just a really refreshing environment to be in. The owner has to set that tone. Yeah, right.
They have to set that tone of that culture. And some people don’t have that skill set. And they have to understand how to kind of remove themselves from that environment and empower a leader, team member, general manager, lead therapist that can help bring that piece, that culture into the team. And I always joke, one of my partners at Stretch Lab are our previous CMO, Martin Valkaidis, who’s now the president of Lindora, one of my really good friends. He would always, I would always joke with them that hey, like having, building that energy and that culture doesn’t mean that you have to have like Martin jazz hands because he’s like the most exact, excitable person that you’ve ever met in your life. Right.
I have experiences with franchisees that are, are the most composed, low toned, not very emotional, but they’re great leaders because they’re able to communicate effectively. They’re able to build up the leaders that’s going to do that portion. Right. They’re not the cheerleader. They’re able to build someone that can be that cheerleader.
Right. Set the right expectations and that’s the decision making as a leader. Right. Be a leader in your organization. If you don’t have the skill set to do the thing that’s necessary for your business, you have to be able to put that into somebody else that can do that function.
Right. And some of the most successful people that I’ve had experiences with are, they’re not necessarily the most excitable people around like I am or like Martin is. And that’s not required. Right. You don’t have to be an enthusiastic owner.
You need to be able to make decisions. You need to be able to communicate effectively and you need to be able to have clear expectations and then hold people accountable to those expectations. And you know, those things can be, I can teach someone those things, right. What I can’t teach them is like, hey, can you be a really good person? You don’t have to be jazz hands, but you just need to be a good person.
That’s it. Right. You need to have good intention in how you run your business because the people that are going to work for you are going to work for you for a lot of different reasons. Compensation is just one of them. Right.
They’re going to need to, especially the service providers that do our thing. Right. They are passionate individuals and they love the environment of wellness. And if they don’t love that environment of wellness, it’s going to be really tough for them to stay and stay long term. So the character of the person really means a lot too.
Meg
Yeah. And in a business like, like yours, the vertical that you’re in, as I say to, to candidates who are looking at it, you’re going to hire the industry expert. You don’t need to be the industry expert, but you do need to get your hands around who these people are because the happier your culture is, the more sticky your client base is going to be.
Verdine
100% absolutely.
Meg
You don’t need to know how to do the widget, but you do have to have some people skills.
Well, and to your point, if it, if people skills aren’t your strongest suit, then hire the people who are going to, who are going to fill in around that, that weakness. What I want to shift over to because I think it’s so important for people to understand you came from Exponential Fitness, went through a pretty heady, rocky two years. Most recently I just actually had Anthony Geisler and Bob McQuillan on the other day.
Oh yeah, you had them on last week earlier. Yeah, yeah.
So we were talking a bit about Anthony’s exit from Exponential Fitness and how that whole thing came about. What, what we were talking about, I said, I said to him I really wanted to have him on because there’s head trash out there. Yeah. For sure. About now creating Sequel Brands.
And the fascinating thing to me, Verdine, is how many of you followed Anthony Geisler willingly, enthusiastically to this new endeavor, Sequel Brands, and now you find yourself in the same vertical. So talk about that transition for you. Did you have any head trash around Exponential and should you stay should you go. And now here you are on this side of the Anthony Geisler once again. You’re.
You’re right there with him.
Verdine
Yeah. You know, I think like anybody that, you know, you wake up to the type of news that we all woke up to, you know, 18 months ago or so, there’s, you know, I’m a little removed from the CEO suite on what’s happening, you know, with the board or here or Anthony or whoever. Naturally, initially, you’re shocked and you have different feelings around, like, hey, could this be, or whatever it was.
But, you know, very quickly though, that thought turned into like, none of that has anything to do with our business. Like, our customer doesn’t know who Anthony Geisler is. Right, Right. Our franchisee and how they run their business has nothing to do with that. Right.
And I’m looking at our business every single day. I know there is nothing about our business that is. Has anything to do with that. Right. So very quickly, that.
That kind of thought, like that head trash was like, all right, I have an objective. I have an owner that’s about to open and they need some support. Have an owner that, you know, has an event and they need some support. I have an owner that’s underperforming or struggling, and we need to figure out how we help them. Like, that’s how we operated during that time.
And it was really challenging. Right. Because there are a lot of different things that were happening around Exponential that made it really challenging for our franchisees. And ultimately, for me, I was happy at Stretch Lab because I had a mission. Right.
It was very clear on what that mission was, and that was to support franchisees open, successful businesses and the ones that weren’t as successful as they wanted to be, for us to help them get there and find ways for us to do that. As the change started to kind of settle in and kind of a new wave of leaders. And I think that’s natural. Anytime you have a change of leadership is you’re going to have maybe different philosophies or concepts on how you want to run the business, which is all fine. It just, I’ll put it this way, it made it really difficult for me to affect the business and make decisions that supported franchisees.
He made it really, really difficult for me to do that. And I’m the type of person that if. If I am not going to be able to do that as my mission. Right. That’s my.
My objective. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I built this team, I wasn’t going to be of use to that philosophy or those concepts of how they want to run the business. And I had to get myself out of the way. So, you know, I started looking at some different opportunities.
Going back to the Bay Area has always been, you know, we moved down to Southern California. We thought it was going to be three years. Like, hey, we’ll be. We’ll build this business and, you know, we’ll move back to Northern California and be with our friends and family and that’ll be that. But we’ve really enjoyed it and the journey, you know, we went through Covid and then coming out of COVID and, And doing all those things, the journey has been awesome.
And we’re like, hey, maybe there’s opportunities. We can stay here. But Northern California has always been in the back of my mind. So when I kind of started to look around and say, hey, I feel like I’m kind of handcuffed right now and I can’t make the right decisions that supports my franchisees, my team’s just been incredible at insulating themselves, ourselves from kind of all the noise that was happening around Exponential. Because we knew the objective, right?
Like. Like, it’s like, hey, like, you could have this noise, but somebody that has to pay rent next week, it doesn’t matter, right? Somebody that needs five memberships to break even, doesn’t matter to them, right? So it, it just made it really hard for me to not to look around, right? Yeah.
So again, kind of drawing back to my Crunch Fitness to Exponential transition. I was like, you know what? Like, I should probably just kind of scoot around and look around and see what happens. And yeah, got. I. I reached out to Anthony and said, hey, I’m not looking to make any moves, but if you see any projects that you think could be interesting or my skill set could.
Could fit it, like, you know, just give me a heads up, right? Nothing crazy. And so here we are. There was a brand that was out there and young brand. Kind of a similar story with Stretch Lab, where was doing okay, but just didn’t really have the elements to really make it work.
But, you know, the service itself was really good, right? And. And he said, hey, I actually do have an interesting project. I’m. I’m gonna buy this brand, and I’m only gonna buy it if you come running.
Compelling, right? So, yeah, he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, and here we are, right? And I think, you know, we, we the. And I get asked this questions all the time. A lot less now.
It’s been a few months. But hey, like, why, why, why did you leave? Right. I feel like again, that what I just mentioned is, is one of the reasons, but also feel like there’s an incomplete. Right.
There’s a. We didn’t get to like really do the thing. Right. I feel like we had a lot of really good momentum. We were onto something really special and we really didn’t get a chance to finish the job, in a sense.
And I look at this opportunity as a chance for us to take the seven years of learning that we’ve had on what not to do and maybe what to do and apply to this model and really see through and quite honestly have a lot more upside, personally into doing so.
So, yeah, that’s what brings me to Sequel and relaunching this brand of iFlex Stretch Studios.
Meg
How long has iFlex been in existence and what does the relaunch look like now that Sequel is behind it?
Verdine
Yes, it’s been around for a couple of years.
Sequel acquired the brand in December of last year. There’s four locations that are open, so we’re tiny. Right. So bringing back some memories of like my first day at Stretch Lab with three locations, there’s four of them kind of spread around the country. And what we’ve done is taken a similar approach that we did with Stretch Lab.
It’s starting with the brand itself, right? Looked at the brand, did some consulting with some agencies to look at, hey, what should it look like? What should it feel, feel like? You know, when somebody walks into a studio, what should it really. What’s the experience that we want to get out of this?
So we rebranded. You know, if you walk into an iFlex Stretch Studios last year, compared to, you know, if you go to Casa Paloma, which is our Phoenix, Arizona location, our flagship studio. If you walk into there, you’ll see a wide open space, you’ll see bright, a simplistic design that just makes it feel like an elevated, relaxed environment, but still filled with a lot of energy. So you’ll see the brand’s a little bit different, different color palette. Our benches are.
We have white dynamic benches with different features. Within the bench, we’re working on a few different things that’ll enhance the experience, experience of stretching itself that’s incorporated into the bench. That’s a little bit of a teaser for something that’s going to come out with the product later this year. So just really looked at, okay, how we have a studio, what are the services that’s going to go inside of it and like, what do we want it to be, right? And when we think of iFlex Stretch Studios, it’s not just a stretching studio.
We think of it as a performance and recovery environment. So how do we start enhancing all these different experiences with stretching with other things? How can we incorporate that into the service ecosystem? How can we make this something that differentiates but doesn’t take away from really what we do, the meat of it, right, which is stretching. So all those things started to kind of formulate itself into the brand that you see now.
We started to see a trend in stretching where it’s getting younger, the consumers are getting younger. Every year that I was at Stretch Lab, the average age kept on dropping. So you’ll see a more youthful branding for us, one of the fastest growing consumer profiles in the vertical as your younger athletes under 18. So that tells us something, right? There’s more education about health and wellness specifically related to performance and recovery for improved mobility, flexibility, range of motion, pliability, all those things matter.
And now more than ever, not just younger athletes are specializing. Like, you know, the folks that are between 20 and 40 are specializing, whether they’re cyclists, runners or triathletes, they’re doing those things. But now they’re finding ways for them to improve on their performance and recovery so they can do the thing that they love the most. Right? So from a branding standpoint, you’ll see that it’s more youthful.
It speaks to the everyday consumer and not just the obvious of disposable time and income, which tends to be some of our elder population, which is, it’s obvious, but it’s still a space for everyone. But you know, we want to make sure it’s accessible to everybody.
Meg
Well, and so that’s the beautiful part about the differentiation between your past brand and this one. What I also appreciate about Sequel Brands is that revisiting some of the same modalities, but building in changes that are for the benefit of the franchise owners, profitability or multiple revenue streams versus streamlining, but doing it intelligently again for the benefit of the franchisee. That was so clear when Anthony was on the other day.
Just as you were saying. I appreciate that about the culture of Sequel. This is about the franchisee success and building brands that are dynamic without being shiny, sparkly things. Yeah, doing it right, but making sure that that client customer experience makes them return.
Verdine
A hundred percent. Absolutely. You know, we’ve had those experiences of seven years, right. And it’d be foolish for us not to apply it right, from smaller layout of 800 to a thousand square foot. So we’re able to have some more favorable rent.
Applying some different tools and technology that’ll help us save on some labor. Just creating some more points on EBITDA with our model just based on what we’ve learned. Right. And sometimes when you have a Titanic at Stretch Lab, like, trying to turn, like, okay, we could do it this way a little bit better. It’s just a lot harder.
But doing this now on the ground level and saying, okay, I know this decision, what it looks like at 300 studios, 400 studios, 500 studios, it’s really invaluable to have those experiences, and it’s really helped us kind of reimagine what it could be.
Right. What we can make this model be and how much reach it can have in the communities that we go into. And that’s what’s really exciting for me, is that there’s another chapter in kind of like elevating what we did the first time that could really, you know, really impact people’s lives into the positive and. And how well they’re moving through time and space. So I’m excited about the journey.
Do you want me to continue through Meg’s closing reflections and Verdine’s final comments so you have the transcript fully finished in this format?
You said:
continue
ChatGPT said:
Alright — here’s the closing portion, formatted consistently:
Meg
Well, it’s inspiring for me, having been around as long as I have been as a consultant. It’s 23 years now, and it’s exciting today to see the changes that are being implemented for the benefit of the franchise owner. Me, I am a franchisee. I own a bunch of independent businesses as well. But I really appreciate some of the adaptations that have come into play over the last five years thanks to the pandemic.
Really? Yeah. You’re talking about a modality that you are touching someone’s body and manipulating and really getting close and in someone’s personal space. So for that to be a successful, I guess, relaunch for you, rebooting into this one, I can’t wait to see what you’re gonna do. But we’ll.
We’ll get some. We’ll get some good traction with some referrals coming your way and duplicate what you. What you did last time. Or do it better, do it better.
Verdine
Let’s run it back. Every good movie deserves a sequel just as good, if not better.
Meg
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for go ahead and kind of wrap this thing up. It’s been great to catch up with you. We had a little bit of time in Cincinnati to get reacquainted and share a drink, but that conference always goes so darn fast.
It does, but it was great to see you. And to hear firsthand from our, our leader there, Anthony. I just have to say, Verdine, that the fact that so many of you followed him. Yeah. Speaks volumes over the SEC issue and, and all the allegations that he’s obviously been cleared completely with no fines and, and it was just a lot of noise and, and distraction.
So it’s impressive to me that so many of you followed him from that situation into this one. And the people who are coming on now, franchise development representatives, the other brand presidents who also followed who are now CEOs of their brand. It speaks volumes about the strength of what he’s building and where Sequel is going. So thanks for sharing the story today and taking the time to be with me. I appreciate it.
Verdine
Absolutely. He made it easy. He was open, transparent and, you know, I feel like I didn’t have a front row seat as to what was happening. But, you know, coming into this project, knowing all the background of what’s happened and kind of where we’re at, it certainly gave me the confidence that, you know, he’s the right leader that I wanted to follow and go build something special with people that want to build something special alongside me. So I’m excited for the next chapter.
Meg
And I’m glad that you didn’t know what was going on because as you said earlier, that wasn’t your role. Your role was to focus on your franchise owners, getting them indoctrinated, getting them open, getting problems solved. Your heart and compassion for your people is, is crystal clear. And that’s what I think is going to drive this brand, really is you from the top down and the culture that you’re, you’re building there at iFlex. Nice going.
Verdine
I’m excited. We’re building a great team and yeah, we’re excited to see what’s next. Thank you so much for having me on. This has been a tremendous honor. Always great to, to catch up with you and yeah, looking forward to the next one.
Meg
I’m not sure where it is, but I’m sure we’ll get an announcement soon.
Verdine
Yeah, we will. Thank you very much. And I am going to.
Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz – Guest: Verdine Baker, CEO of iFlex Stretch Studios
Meg
Hello everyone, and welcome to or welcome back to the Free Agent Podcast. My name is Meg Schmitz. I’m your lovely host and I will introduce my guest in a minute.
The discussion here is all about free agency and taking control over your financial future. The mission of my show is to share inspiring and real conversations with 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 do something a little bit different. This is more of a, I would call it a brand spotlight, but also a human spotlight. Verdinee Baker is with me today and we’ve been able to work together over the last, I don’t know how many years it’s been now from your
Verdine
Seven years.
Meg
Is that, well, you would know from when you, when you started with Exponential Fitness and what has gone on now. But I, I have, I’ll confess here that I have always had a Fran crush on you. And I, I think it’s because when you got started with Exponential Fitness and Stretch Lab, you were not at the, at the top of the pecking order at that time.
And we were working with some interesting franchisees in a couple of different markets who are running into some problems. And I just always appreciated, number one, your willingness to smile and grit your teeth and get through it and deal with some people who are, they were frustrated and they were challenged at that time. So I have long admired your style and your grace and how you work with people. My placements. So thank you for coming on the show today because I hope this will be a very inspiring conversation for people who are listening.
Verdine
Well, thanks for having us or for having me. Meg, it’s been a long time that we’ve, we’ve had a chance to work together and I, I think, I think the crush is also likewise, you’re always the, the, the best dressed and most elegant guest at the franchise convention, which is a nice change, maybe the typical that that goes to some of those conferences. But yeah, it’s been an absolute pleasure. You know, you always greet me with a smile and we always tackle the challenges that we have head on and try to get through it together. So I appreciate that.
Meg
Yeah. Well, so let’s give the listeners a little bit of background on you.
I don’t want to start with where you are today. I’ve got some questions about that. So go back and build a little history of your involvement in franchising and then we’ll take it from there.
Verdine
Yeah, that sounds good. Well, I’ll start a little bit before franchising because it’s relevant to my experiences in franchising, I suppose.
I started my professional career into health and wellness in general with Crunch Fitness. Man, this is almost 20 years ago now. I was just a kid just trying to get a free membership and be able to work out and train and do the things that I love to do when I was a little younger and I had an opportunity to actually do that work at the gym and get a free membership, which I was really happy about. And I really fell in love with the environment. I really enjoyed interacting with like minded individual that had goals and being able to see those goals come to life, you know, really right in front of you was kind of intoxicating for me.
And so I had some opportunities to have some upward mobility within Crunch Fitness. Had some great mentors that really looked after me and helped me kind of sharpen the saw and elevate the skill set that I kind of came into the industry with. And the time that I spent that 10 years developing my operational chops and I was always curious about small business. And at that time Crunch Fitness was looking to franchise their corporate model. And so I was part of a team that was developing a lot of the systems and processes that would be applied to the franchising model.
And it was a great experience.
I turned that experience into getting recruited by Exponential to start Stretch Lab with three locations in Southern California. I was brought on board to build the sales and operation systems for the brand. So I spent the first three years doing that and opening studios. So I would travel all around the country and get studios open and help business owners. And that’s when I really developed the passion for small business and really seeing individual grab the bull by the horn and execute.
And it was so gratifying to see in franchising you get a spectrum of different types of franchisees, right? Different types of experiences, backgrounds. And you know, they have all put themselves in a position to be a franchisee because they’ve been successful doing something else. And now they’re in a position to be a business, business owner, you know, make some decisions for themselves, be their own bosses and to be able to see people make that leap and then take the actions behind it and be able to follow that stencil and then ultimately seeing their success like it really, really kind of bridged the two things that I was really passionate about. Health and wellness and being environment and then small business together.
And I’ve, I’ve, I’ve been in franchising ever since. I’ve loved it ever since. After building all the sales and operations system and growing Stretch Lab, I was fortunate enough to run the brand as the, the, the brand president for the probably the most growth that the brand has had. Those three plus years that I was there, we opened over 300 studios, over 400 studios, getting the count to close to 600 studios. I, I left earlier this year, but it was a great experience.
I got to meet some amazing people really got to grab a brand with three locations and learn a ton of different ways how to do it right and a ton of different ways how not to do it right. Which, which is incredible. And, and we built an incredible team. We had great franchisees that really believed in the model. They believed in, in the opportunity that we had in front of us.
Not just on the model part, but just really impacting people’s lives. And that was a fantastic time of my life. So, yeah, that’s a little bit of my background up until now.
Meg
Yeah. So the, the interesting thing going back in time is that you were with a brand, Crunch, that was just starting to franchise. So you didn’t really come into Exponential. What attracted you to not only Exponential, but, but Stretch Lab. You’re, it was a pioneering brand at that point.
Verdine
Yeah, definitely.
Meg
Like you were coming in with decades of experience doing this. You were really a newbie cutting your teeth on this.
Verdine
Absolutely. And it’s kind of, kind of two things kind of merged together at that time when I was considering it, we had, we were living in our tiny little 800 square foot apartment in San Francisco and, and my wife and I had just had our, our daughter. We have two kids now, she’s eight. And it’s been, you know, an incredible journey. But we’re kind of sitting around going, okay, we’re in San Francisco, we’re having a great time. I loved my experiences at Crunch Fitness, had no intention of leaving.
And I get a call about this opportunity with Exponential and I’m, I’m like, well, like it’s in Southern California. We’ve never lived down there. We don’t have any family, we don’t have any friends. Like, you know, or is this what we really want, to make a move where there’s really nothing and disturbed around our lives right now. And, but you know, I, I said, hey, you know, I’m, I should probably. The smart thing to do is to explore the opportunity and just kind of see what’s, what it is. Right. I was just kind of always been so loyal and focused into what I was doing and it wasn’t broken, I like, don’t fix it kind of thing.
But my wife, I gave her a lot of credit because, you know, she’s a firm believer in understanding your value and be able to express it. And you know, it took me a long time to be able to get to that space where I feel like I have a better understanding of my value. But at that time, that wasn’t really my headspace. So I said, hey, you know what, you’re right. I should probably just explore it and just see what it is.
And we took a trip down to Southern California. There were only three locations of stretch labs that were open in Venice Beach, California, which was the first one. There’s one in Santa Monica and there’s one in Beverly Boulevard and Beverly Hills somewhere. And we went to the Santa Monica location.
Remember, we came to, we drove down, got to our little hotel, checked out Santa Monica like all the tourists do. I remember walking into the studio and like, I had this feeling that was like, wait a second, there’s like, there’s something here that could be really special. And I’m familiar with assisted stretching. I played soccer in college and, and I’ve, we had athletic trainers in high school, college, and so forth. That, so I, I understood what it was and, and, and what it did for me as an athlete, right growing up. So I had that connection to it. But in my mind, coming from, from fitness, it wasn’t something that my brain was kind of switched on to, like, hey, can this be a standalone vertical? Is, is this a sustainable model? Like, how could it work?
Right? And when I walked into the studio in Santa Monica, this idea, this thing just kind of hit me. And what hit me was just looking around the environment first. It was, people were happy, like, really excited to be there, right? And I was like, why are these people.
And I’m like, okay, well, it’s Los Angeles. Like, everybody’s happy. They live in Santa Monica. It’s beautiful all day. Like, that’s great.
But if service couldn’t be that good, right? So I was the first kind of like, okay, it’s like a great environment, right? Like, the way it looked, the way it smelled, like, the people, how they interacted with each other, it was just a really positive, uplifting environment, which was really cool. And then I looked at the people that were on the benches. There was an elder gentleman, probably in his 80s that was getting a stretch.
There was a younger athlete under 10 that was getting a stretch, and then a couple people in between. And I was like, huh, this is really interesting. And I start talking to the person that stretched me, the flexologist that stretched me. I was like, hey, so like, what’s the deal with the eight year old or seven year old, whatever they were. I was like, oh, that’s a dancer.
She does like Irish folk dance. And, you know, this is a way for her to, you know, recover and perform better. And I was like, oh, that’s interesting. Great. All right, so what’s Larry over here, that’s in his 80s, doing at the studio, right?
Oh, yeah. He’s been coming here since we opened. He comes in every week and, you know, loves to get a stretch. And he’s still playing golf at 80 years old. I’m like, oh, man, this is really interesting.
What’s that person? Oh, that’s the executive from Sony or whoever. And they come in and get a stretch, and they make sure they get on get a stretch before they fly around the country, whatever they’re doing. I was like, okay, well, this is really interesting. The experience has to be amazing.
Like, it has to be the best thing you’ve ever experienced before. So I get on the bench, I get a stretch, and that aha moment just hits me like a ton of bricks. Like, there is. Like, there is something really special that is here. There’s an incredible experience that truly, truly kind of going back to my athletic days.
And I’ve been through a ton of injuries. I’ve had six knee surgeries and ACL reconstructions and all kinds of different injuries in my past, and. And kind of went back to all the different hours then that I’ve spent in physical therapy clinics spent with trainers. And a lot of what we did from injury, like, recovery protocol, were kind of stretching, some strengthening, a lot of stretching. And then when I was fit to play, a lot of what I did to prepare to play was a lot of stretching, a lot of mobility, a lot of those things.
Right. So it just hit me right away that this is something that is so special and can help so many different people move better, live healthier lives, do things that they really love, and there’s no one that’s really getting it to the masses. So it was like an instant. Like, I was like a dog on a bone. Like, hey, we have to go pursue this opportunity, because I think there’s something that could be really special about growing something like this.
So, you know, my wife. My wife was graceful enough to say, hey, we’ll say yes, and make a trek. And she works from home, so he made it a lot easier for her for us to make that move from Northern California to Southern California, but we made that leap. And, yeah, here we are.
Meg
The great part of this, I didn’t need to interrupt you at all, is you went through all the. Some of the questions that I have on my sheet here. I asked. You were talking about having a mentor. I think that’s one of the great things about leadership is recognizing that you need someone to show you the way. You started with a brand that was.
While it was familiar to you personally, now you’re experiencing it from the consumer client standpoint. So you already knew the benefits, but we all know in franchising that, that that environment and the training that goes into building culture and the employees that you have that you hire, that so much in addition to the stretching itself goes into what makes a customer sticky and going to return or purchase a membership. So you just hit a whole lot of the things that including the disruptive of stretching. There’s so many people who don’t, because they’re not athletic or have not had back pain or other physical issues, don’t understand the benefits, but you just presented it as I would present it and have to some of my referrals who then became Stretch Lab owners.
You lived through a lot of change before you moved into the brand president role. And it, it’s nice to say that, that we are mutually launching business owners and we, we wish success for all of them and, and that they won’t have challenges, but that’s really where you cut your teeth, was not on the front end of the excitement of bringing them in, but the reality of opening your doors and now you’re doing the thing.
And so without getting into names or people or situations, people like this program, because we talk about the tough stuff. So looking back, what, what are some of the bigger Aha moments that you’re not going to. You’re going down a rabbit hole and it’s not in the best interest of the franchisee or the franchisee was going down a rabbit hole by not following protocol, the marketing. What are some of the lessons you learned there? Because I know they now are translating into where you are now.
Verdine
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I think the, the overall message is that, you know, in franchising, they’re not your employees.
Right. So they don’t. And that’s the biggest difference from my previous. You know, when I. Where I was at Crunch Fitness, I had a team that I hired and they were tasked to do a job.
And there’s certain ways that I could hold them accountable to do that job. And it’s not really the same in franchising. I mean, sure, as a franchisor, you could have your, you know, your, your franchise agreement and wave it all around like it’s the bible, but I don’t believe. And grateful to have had mentors in my franchising history that’s taught me this, that, you know, we want to file that thing to the bottom of the cabinet and have a relationship. Right.
And I think that’s where it all starts, right from the time somebody comes to, to Discovery Day. And you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re trying to gauge whether you have that shared value, you have shared values into the brand or what you trying to create. Because I feel like I need to be invested into that person the same way that they’re invested into the brand. And I need to find every way that I could support that person. But it doesn’t always happen that way.
Right. And I think, I always think about the three themes that we would like to have our franchisees kind of exude, which is having that passion, being able to follow systems and being a leader in their organization. That’s kind of like the base foundation of like the at least in my experience, the type of people that are typically successful in franchising, they’re energized about what they’re doing, they’re able to follow those systems and they can make really good decisions whether they, they come like that or they learn to do those things right through experiences. But you know, every once in a while you have those challenging situations. And you know, one of the things that one of the stories I think about often, because it actually turns out to, you know, the end story is fantastic, but the rabbit hole we were going down wasn’t necessarily positive.
Right. And to your point, there’s a lot of excitement when you become a business owner. Like, you sign your franchise agreement, you’ve done it right. But that’s really where the work begins. Right.
And I had this franchisee, one of our early franchisees in Stretch Lab started out in the real estate process. The timing happened to where there were two locations then I would advise us now and we’ve been through those experiences when people are opening multiple studios at the same time and you know, unless you have the time, resources and so forth, it’s really challenging. But that’s just how it worked out at that time where there were a couple locations that were kind of getting, brewing and going. And so this, this person hired and, and this franchisee is a top level executive at a bank. His wife is also full time employment as a teacher.
They have children. So this is not like, you know, this is their only thing, right. So a lot of the challenges kind of pose through that. So they hire GM number one, hire GM number two. Send them to training.
And right after training, both GMs are no longer GMs for one reason or another. Right. One quit, one didn’t make it right or whatever happened. So now we have two studios that are on the cusp of starting to get ready to get open and we have two full time employed franchisees. Right.
That are going like now what? Right. And I remember thinking in that situation that, you know, it could have gone really bad really quickly without being obviously really passionate about what you do, understanding systems and then be able to make some decisions. And I give this franchisee a lot of credit because as a top level executive that does really well at his job. Right.
You know, call it, he’s the one top percent of performers in the line of work that he does. I was really proud of the way that he, he gathered himself and really, I wouldn’t say humbled himself, but really put his ego to the side of what he thought he knew about the business and said, hey, I’m going to be a student of this and I am going to follow whichever is the system of the process and how we’re going to do this and build it. I’m going to go down that road. So he came out to GM training, learned the systems, carved out the time for him to be able to do his work and then be able to do a little bit of this work and just made it work. And it’s through hard work and discipline and taking that ego to the side and say, hey, I need to learn something entirely new and add it to my, my tool bag and made it work.
Built two of the most successful studios in the portfolio. And I believe he’s on his sixth or seventh studio and has retired himself from his day job. Right. And, and does well enough to where he could do that. So I tell that story because it’s a great ending.
But that could have gone in so many different ways. You know, you get to that inflection point of like, well, you know, it’s hitting the fan. It’s not going like I thought it was going to go because that’s always going to happen in franchising. You’re going to have a stumble in real estate, you may have a stumble in construction and design, you may not have the best presale that you anticipated. You may lose an employee.
It’s being able to have that resilience, that dedication. And if you have the right support system with a franchisor you can navigate through those challenges and come out in a really good position. And I was really proud of him for doing that. It’s, you know, it takes a lot of work for to say, hey, I didn’t get it right and that’s okay. And I need to, you know, put my ego to the side and really learn this stuff and become the best that I could be.
And now he’s a successful business owner. And those are the type of stories that I really love to. You know. It brings back really good memories from my time with Stretchline.
Meg
Good. That was a great example that that example could have been my own example. When I, I got started as a business owner, I was gainfully employed, so was my husband. We had a two year old, built to three locations, got divorced and then built two more. But that those stumbles and falls for anyone listening the advice and I don’t know if you would put same number on it, but I have to remind myself too, as a current business owner who’s continuing to open and acquire more businesses, it’s a 24 month process. It’s just like having kids.
Those first six months are like, holy smokes, never saw that coming. When do I sleep? I don’t know when it’s sleeping, but. But then you get the next six months where now the motor skills are really starting to go and you think you’re hitting your stride, but you still have another learning curve to go through. So to open to it once is like having twins.
It’s overwhelming and something’s gonna go wrong. There’s a wheel that’s gonna fall off somewhere. But just like you can’t quit on your kid, you can’t quit on, you shouldn’t quit on your business. But you’re really getting, getting into something that you need to give yourself a 24 month window and say. This is,
Verdine
You got to work at it too, right. You got to actually do the thing.
Meg
Yeah, well. And for example, I never cut hair. Probably like your guy never was a flexologist.
Maybe he was. But, but to get into the business, to understand the inner workings, there’s that fine balance and you’ve seen it too. People who leave their career or were dismantled from their career and they get into this business, they’re going, it’s okay, I can manage this. I’m going to kind of keep hands off. And then whoosh, they’re like all in all the time and they cannot extricate themselves.
Verdine
Right, Right.
Meg
But they need to.
Verdine
Right, right, right. I see a lot of that too.
And I think part of it is just kind of managing as, as a franchisor. It’s helping, it’s helping business owners understand the skill set they have also, right. And where it can play a positive role into the business and where it could pose to be challenging. Right.
Because I always think about this like our business and the vertical we’re in is people. Right. We are going to hire a team, build the right culture, and they’re going to service people. And I started this whole thing with like, hey, you walk into this environment and you could feel it. The staff loves being there.
The team loves being there. They love the members that they’re interacting with. It’s just a really refreshing environment to be in. The owner has to set that tone. Yeah, right.
They have to set that tone of that culture. And some people don’t have that skill set. And they have to understand how to kind of remove themselves from that environment and empower a leader, team member, general manager, lead therapist that can help bring that piece, that culture into the team. And I always joke, one of my partners at Stretch Lab are our previous CMO, Martin Valkaidis, who’s now the president of Lindora, one of my really good friends. He would always, I would always joke with them that hey, like having, building that energy and that culture doesn’t mean that you have to have like Martin jazz hands because he’s like the most exact, excitable person that you’ve ever met in your life. Right.
I have experiences with franchisees that are, are the most composed, low toned, not very emotional, but they’re great leaders because they’re able to communicate effectively. They’re able to build up the leaders that’s going to do that portion. Right. They’re not the cheerleader. They’re able to build someone that can be that cheerleader.
Right. Set the right expectations and that’s the decision making as a leader. Right. Be a leader in your organization. If you don’t have the skill set to do the thing that’s necessary for your business, you have to be able to put that into somebody else that can do that function.
Right. And some of the most successful people that I’ve had experiences with are, they’re not necessarily the most excitable people around like I am or like Martin is. And that’s not required. Right. You don’t have to be an enthusiastic owner.
You need to be able to make decisions. You need to be able to communicate effectively and you need to be able to have clear expectations and then hold people accountable to those expectations. And you know, those things can be, I can teach someone those things, right. What I can’t teach them is like, hey, can you be a really good person? You don’t have to be jazz hands, but you just need to be a good person.
That’s it. Right. You need to have good intention in how you run your business because the people that are going to work for you are going to work for you for a lot of different reasons. Compensation is just one of them. Right.
They’re going to need to, especially the service providers that do our thing. Right. They are passionate individuals and they love the environment of wellness. And if they don’t love that environment of wellness, it’s going to be really tough for them to stay and stay long term. So the character of the person really means a lot too.
Meg
Yeah. And in a business like, like yours, the vertical that you’re in, as I say to, to candidates who are looking at it, you’re going to hire the industry expert. You don’t need to be the industry expert, but you do need to get your hands around who these people are because the happier your culture is, the more sticky your client base is going to be.
Verdine
100% absolutely.
Meg
You don’t need to know how to do the widget, but you do have to have some people skills.
Well, and to your point, if it, if people skills aren’t your strongest suit, then hire the people who are going to, who are going to fill in around that, that weakness. What I want to shift over to because I think it’s so important for people to understand you came from Exponential Fitness, went through a pretty heady, rocky two years. Most recently I just actually had Anthony Geisler and Bob McQuillan on the other day.
Oh yeah, you had them on last week earlier. Yeah, yeah.
So we were talking a bit about Anthony’s exit from Exponential Fitness and how that whole thing came about. What, what we were talking about, I said, I said to him I really wanted to have him on because there’s head trash out there. Yeah. For sure. About now creating Sequel Brands.
And the fascinating thing to me, Verdine, is how many of you followed Anthony Geisler willingly, enthusiastically to this new endeavor, Sequel Brands, and now you find yourself in the same vertical. So talk about that transition for you. Did you have any head trash around Exponential and should you stay should you go. And now here you are on this side of the Anthony Geisler once again. You’re.
You’re right there with him.
Verdine
Yeah. You know, I think like anybody that, you know, you wake up to the type of news that we all woke up to, you know, 18 months ago or so, there’s, you know, I’m a little removed from the CEO suite on what’s happening, you know, with the board or here or Anthony or whoever. Naturally, initially, you’re shocked and you have different feelings around, like, hey, could this be, or whatever it was.
But, you know, very quickly though, that thought turned into like, none of that has anything to do with our business. Like, our customer doesn’t know who Anthony Geisler is. Right, Right. Our franchisee and how they run their business has nothing to do with that. Right.
And I’m looking at our business every single day. I know there is nothing about our business that is. Has anything to do with that. Right. So very quickly, that.
That kind of thought, like that head trash was like, all right, I have an objective. I have an owner that’s about to open and they need some support. Have an owner that, you know, has an event and they need some support. I have an owner that’s underperforming or struggling, and we need to figure out how we help them. Like, that’s how we operated during that time.
And it was really challenging. Right. Because there are a lot of different things that were happening around Exponential that made it really challenging for our franchisees. And ultimately, for me, I was happy at Stretch Lab because I had a mission. Right.
It was very clear on what that mission was, and that was to support franchisees open, successful businesses and the ones that weren’t as successful as they wanted to be, for us to help them get there and find ways for us to do that. As the change started to kind of settle in and kind of a new wave of leaders. And I think that’s natural. Anytime you have a change of leadership is you’re going to have maybe different philosophies or concepts on how you want to run the business, which is all fine. It just, I’ll put it this way, it made it really difficult for me to affect the business and make decisions that supported franchisees.
He made it really, really difficult for me to do that. And I’m the type of person that if. If I am not going to be able to do that as my mission. Right. That’s my.
My objective. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I built this team, I wasn’t going to be of use to that philosophy or those concepts of how they want to run the business. And I had to get myself out of the way. So, you know, I started looking at some different opportunities.
Going back to the Bay Area has always been, you know, we moved down to Southern California. We thought it was going to be three years. Like, hey, we’ll be. We’ll build this business and, you know, we’ll move back to Northern California and be with our friends and family and that’ll be that. But we’ve really enjoyed it and the journey, you know, we went through Covid and then coming out of COVID and, And doing all those things, the journey has been awesome.
And we’re like, hey, maybe there’s opportunities. We can stay here. But Northern California has always been in the back of my mind. So when I kind of started to look around and say, hey, I feel like I’m kind of handcuffed right now and I can’t make the right decisions that supports my franchisees, my team’s just been incredible at insulating themselves, ourselves from kind of all the noise that was happening around Exponential. Because we knew the objective, right?
Like. Like, it’s like, hey, like, you could have this noise, but somebody that has to pay rent next week, it doesn’t matter, right? Somebody that needs five memberships to break even, doesn’t matter to them, right? So it, it just made it really hard for me to not to look around, right? Yeah.
So again, kind of drawing back to my Crunch Fitness to Exponential transition. I was like, you know what? Like, I should probably just kind of scoot around and look around and see what happens. And yeah, got. I. I reached out to Anthony and said, hey, I’m not looking to make any moves, but if you see any projects that you think could be interesting or my skill set could.
Could fit it, like, you know, just give me a heads up, right? Nothing crazy. And so here we are. There was a brand that was out there and young brand. Kind of a similar story with Stretch Lab, where was doing okay, but just didn’t really have the elements to really make it work.
But, you know, the service itself was really good, right? And. And he said, hey, I actually do have an interesting project. I’m. I’m gonna buy this brand, and I’m only gonna buy it if you come running.
Compelling, right? So, yeah, he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, and here we are, right? And I think, you know, we, we the. And I get asked this questions all the time. A lot less now.
It’s been a few months. But hey, like, why, why, why did you leave? Right. I feel like again, that what I just mentioned is, is one of the reasons, but also feel like there’s an incomplete. Right.
There’s a. We didn’t get to like really do the thing. Right. I feel like we had a lot of really good momentum. We were onto something really special and we really didn’t get a chance to finish the job, in a sense.
And I look at this opportunity as a chance for us to take the seven years of learning that we’ve had on what not to do and maybe what to do and apply to this model and really see through and quite honestly have a lot more upside, personally into doing so.
So, yeah, that’s what brings me to Sequel and relaunching this brand of iFlex Stretch Studios.
Meg
How long has iFlex been in existence and what does the relaunch look like now that Sequel is behind it?
Verdine
Yes, it’s been around for a couple of years.
Sequel acquired the brand in December of last year. There’s four locations that are open, so we’re tiny. Right. So bringing back some memories of like my first day at Stretch Lab with three locations, there’s four of them kind of spread around the country. And what we’ve done is taken a similar approach that we did with Stretch Lab.
It’s starting with the brand itself, right? Looked at the brand, did some consulting with some agencies to look at, hey, what should it look like? What should it feel, feel like? You know, when somebody walks into a studio, what should it really. What’s the experience that we want to get out of this?
So we rebranded. You know, if you walk into an iFlex Stretch Studios last year, compared to, you know, if you go to Casa Paloma, which is our Phoenix, Arizona location, our flagship studio. If you walk into there, you’ll see a wide open space, you’ll see bright, a simplistic design that just makes it feel like an elevated, relaxed environment, but still filled with a lot of energy. So you’ll see the brand’s a little bit different, different color palette. Our benches are.
We have white dynamic benches with different features. Within the bench, we’re working on a few different things that’ll enhance the experience, experience of stretching itself that’s incorporated into the bench. That’s a little bit of a teaser for something that’s going to come out with the product later this year. So just really looked at, okay, how we have a studio, what are the services that’s going to go inside of it and like, what do we want it to be, right? And when we think of iFlex Stretch Studios, it’s not just a stretching studio.
We think of it as a performance and recovery environment. So how do we start enhancing all these different experiences with stretching with other things? How can we incorporate that into the service ecosystem? How can we make this something that differentiates but doesn’t take away from really what we do, the meat of it, right, which is stretching. So all those things started to kind of formulate itself into the brand that you see now.
We started to see a trend in stretching where it’s getting younger, the consumers are getting younger. Every year that I was at Stretch Lab, the average age kept on dropping. So you’ll see a more youthful branding for us, one of the fastest growing consumer profiles in the vertical as your younger athletes under 18. So that tells us something, right? There’s more education about health and wellness specifically related to performance and recovery for improved mobility, flexibility, range of motion, pliability, all those things matter.
And now more than ever, not just younger athletes are specializing. Like, you know, the folks that are between 20 and 40 are specializing, whether they’re cyclists, runners or triathletes, they’re doing those things. But now they’re finding ways for them to improve on their performance and recovery so they can do the thing that they love the most. Right? So from a branding standpoint, you’ll see that it’s more youthful.
It speaks to the everyday consumer and not just the obvious of disposable time and income, which tends to be some of our elder population, which is, it’s obvious, but it’s still a space for everyone. But you know, we want to make sure it’s accessible to everybody.
Meg
Well, and so that’s the beautiful part about the differentiation between your past brand and this one. What I also appreciate about Sequel Brands is that revisiting some of the same modalities, but building in changes that are for the benefit of the franchise owners, profitability or multiple revenue streams versus streamlining, but doing it intelligently again for the benefit of the franchisee. That was so clear when Anthony was on the other day.
Just as you were saying. I appreciate that about the culture of Sequel. This is about the franchisee success and building brands that are dynamic without being shiny, sparkly things. Yeah, doing it right, but making sure that that client customer experience makes them return.
Verdine
A hundred percent. Absolutely. You know, we’ve had those experiences of seven years, right. And it’d be foolish for us not to apply it right, from smaller layout of 800 to a thousand square foot. So we’re able to have some more favorable rent.
Applying some different tools and technology that’ll help us save on some labor. Just creating some more points on EBITDA with our model just based on what we’ve learned. Right. And sometimes when you have a Titanic at Stretch Lab, like, trying to turn, like, okay, we could do it this way a little bit better. It’s just a lot harder.
But doing this now on the ground level and saying, okay, I know this decision, what it looks like at 300 studios, 400 studios, 500 studios, it’s really invaluable to have those experiences, and it’s really helped us kind of reimagine what it could be.
Right. What we can make this model be and how much reach it can have in the communities that we go into. And that’s what’s really exciting for me, is that there’s another chapter in kind of like elevating what we did the first time that could really, you know, really impact people’s lives into the positive and. And how well they’re moving through time and space. So I’m excited about the journey.
Do you want me to continue through Meg’s closing reflections and Verdine’s final comments so you have the transcript fully finished in this format?
You said:
continue
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Alright — here’s the closing portion, formatted consistently:
Meg
Well, it’s inspiring for me, having been around as long as I have been as a consultant. It’s 23 years now, and it’s exciting today to see the changes that are being implemented for the benefit of the franchise owner. Me, I am a franchisee. I own a bunch of independent businesses as well. But I really appreciate some of the adaptations that have come into play over the last five years thanks to the pandemic.
Really? Yeah. You’re talking about a modality that you are touching someone’s body and manipulating and really getting close and in someone’s personal space. So for that to be a successful, I guess, relaunch for you, rebooting into this one, I can’t wait to see what you’re gonna do. But we’ll.
We’ll get some. We’ll get some good traction with some referrals coming your way and duplicate what you. What you did last time. Or do it better, do it better.
Verdine
Let’s run it back. Every good movie deserves a sequel just as good, if not better.
Meg
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for go ahead and kind of wrap this thing up. It’s been great to catch up with you. We had a little bit of time in Cincinnati to get reacquainted and share a drink, but that conference always goes so darn fast.
It does, but it was great to see you. And to hear firsthand from our, our leader there, Anthony. I just have to say, Verdine, that the fact that so many of you followed him. Yeah. Speaks volumes over the SEC issue and, and all the allegations that he’s obviously been cleared completely with no fines and, and it was just a lot of noise and, and distraction.
So it’s impressive to me that so many of you followed him from that situation into this one. And the people who are coming on now, franchise development representatives, the other brand presidents who also followed who are now CEOs of their brand. It speaks volumes about the strength of what he’s building and where Sequel is going. So thanks for sharing the story today and taking the time to be with me. I appreciate it.
Verdine
Absolutely. He made it easy. He was open, transparent and, you know, I feel like I didn’t have a front row seat as to what was happening. But, you know, coming into this project, knowing all the background of what’s happened and kind of where we’re at, it certainly gave me the confidence that, you know, he’s the right leader that I wanted to follow and go build something special with people that want to build something special alongside me. So I’m excited for the next chapter.
Meg
And I’m glad that you didn’t know what was going on because as you said earlier, that wasn’t your role. Your role was to focus on your franchise owners, getting them indoctrinated, getting them open, getting problems solved. Your heart and compassion for your people is, is crystal clear. And that’s what I think is going to drive this brand, really is you from the top down and the culture that you’re, you’re building there at iFlex. Nice going.
Verdine
I’m excited. We’re building a great team and yeah, we’re excited to see what’s next. Thank you so much for having me on. This has been a tremendous honor. Always great to, to catch up with you and yeah, looking forward to the next one.
Meg
I’m not sure where it is, but I’m sure we’ll get an announcement soon.
Verdine
Yeah, we will. Thank you very much. And I am going to.
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