Behind the Brand®

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Jeff Adamson [00:00:40] Welcome to Behind the Brand presented by Neo. We take an inside look at the leaders behind today's most influential brands. I'm your host, Jeff Adamson. As co-founder of Neo Financial and SkipTheDishes, I'm fascinated by what it takes to build great companies. On this podcast, we'll learn from leaders that are reimagining, transforming, and innovating in the financial and retail industries across Canada. Let's get going!

I‘m excited to introduce Kristen Gale, Founder and CEO of THE TEN SPOT, Canada’s largest and fastest-growing beauty bar company. Kristen's passion for entrepreneurship was evident from an early age, and at 24, she transformed her aspiration into a reality.

In 2006, she saw a gap in the market and decided to create a beauty bar that combined the best of both worlds: the fun and social vibe of low-end spas with the quality and hygiene standards of high-end spas. In just four months, she opened the first TEN SPOT location, which paved the way for the company's growth.

Almost 20 years and numerous awards later, TEN SPOT now has expanded to over 40 locations across Canada and the US and with 20 more opening soon.

It’s great to have you on the podcast, Kristen!

Jeff [00:01:50] Walk us through the journey to starting TEN SPOT. Like how did you get to the point where you were like, “Okay, now I want to, I wanna do my own thing.”

Kristen Gale [00:02:00] It's cuz I actually got fired for the second time. And the first time I had been fired was from an unpaid internship, so…

Jeff [00:02:08] Ouch [laughs].

Kristen [00:02:09] I knew that, you know, it was pretty clear like I wasn’t top-notch employee material. And it was fun because the truth was I had always wanted my own business. I didn't really want to be working for anybody else. I knew that I wanted my own business cuz my dad told me that I wanted my own business.

So growing up, as a kid, he was like, “Listen, do anything that you want in life as long as you make it into a business.” He was an entrepreneur and I think he knew like, this secret to living a life that you love is to be your own boss. Like that's the best way that you can get freedom and creativity and control over your life, and also this unblocked earning potential because it's all based on merit and there's no glass ceiling when you own your own company. So I was kind of just waiting for a great idea to hit.

He had also taught me, listen, like you're not gonna, you know, finish high school, not go to university, and then just like start a company, you have to get an education. You have to actually be an employee for a little while so that you can learn what's a good employee, what's a bad employee, what's a good boss, what's a bad boss, so that you have a little bit more to go on.

It was really that, like I got canned again, you know, again for the second time. And I thought, this is a sign, like it's time to go for my plan A and get serious about thinking, you know, it's time to start a business.

I was 24 at the time, so I was like, now's, you know, I feel like I've done enough in the working world that I can maybe, you know, start a business. Or at least I had the confidence in myself that I could. And I also thought, you know, if it doesn't work out, worst case scenario, I'm where I am right now. I'm jobless and have to go find, you know, another form of employment. So I was like, well, if I'm living my worst case scenario right now, why don't I just go for, you know, go for the, the plan A and start a business.

Jeff [00:03:51] Yeah, I wanna double click on the getting fired part.

Kristen [00:03:53] Double click [laughs]. I've never heard anyone say that. Double click. I wanna double click on this, really expand into it. I love it. I'm stealing that.

Jeff [00:04:03] We work at a tech company here, okay. And so I'm clicking on things all day.

Kristen [00:04:06] No, I love it!

Jeff [00:04:07] When you're at these first early jobs, were you actively looking for things that you're like, “Okay, I'm, I'm at this job because I wanna start my own company and I'm just learning,” like, were you deliberate about here's what makes a good boss, here's what I'm good at, here's what I suck at?

Kristen [00:04:23] No, not in that regard. Um, it was in terms, so I was working as a graphic designer and I had gone into graphic design knowing that, okay, I can get a job as a graphic designer and, and work for a bit in this career, but I also went into the program knowing that I wanted my own business one day, and that I would love to be able to do my own branding and marketing and and logos and all of that kind of stuff.

I just thought it would be a skill that I could use for both things. For the job that I needed right now, and then also my, you know, future aspirations of having a business. And then I actually loved graphic design. So I had started to kind of do some, not freelance stuff, but build the infrastructure of being able to be freelance. So I think I had one gig, but I had the whole like, I had beautiful invoices made. I had a website for my graphic design services. I did all of the, like the business side of the graphic design business without actually like, having any clients.

And there were a few other things that I had done in my early, early days. I had done this, I was really into this dance-fitness art called Nia. It's basically, if you just imagine a bunch of elderly women in a church basement free dancing to like, Sinéad O'Connor songs. This was, this was my jam. And so I went back to like, honestly, don't even try to YouTube it cuz it's just, it's too much. I started a little business about that and I, I was, um, I did my little flyers and my pamphlets and my, you know, I had pitched all of these different gyms and then I taught one class at Diesel Fitness, which was this like really cool gym back in the day. And then I realized like, oh God, I completely hate this. The stress and anxiety of teaching a fitness class was way too much for me, so I stopped with that.

But there was a lot of these, other kind of bits and starts of these businesses that I thought could be cool ideas. And then finally when I got fired, one of my best friends at the time also worked at that company and he was a senior graphic artist at the company, so super creative guy. And we would do, you know, we’d do our little brainstorms together whenever we’d be working on projects. So I was like, “Craig, I’m sure you saw me getting walked out. Um, so I'm in need of a life change. Gonna start my own business. Now is the time. Will you, you know, will you meet up with me? Can we brainstorm what I'm gonna do with the rest of my life?”

So we ended up meeting up for a slice of pie. I was, I guess, super into baked goods at the time. And he had suggested this cafe on this like, hip strip of town called Queen Street West. So for those of your listeners that don't know Queen West, like especially in its heyday, was incredible.

It's like shops, restaurants, cafes, studios. And in, actually, 2014, it was one of Vogue magazine's, like Top 15 Coolest Neighborhoods in the World. It was really special. However, 16 years ago it was not that, it was actually pretty sketchy. But there were these little pearls of promise. So like the Drake Hotel had just opened up, which was this cool, artsy boutique hotel. They had a couple of other cute little restaurants, and then there was this cute cafe.

So I had been down there maybe once or twice, but I hadn't really walked it. So when I arrived I was like, “Dude, this street is awesome. I feel like it's just on the cusp of being super cool!” So I walk in to meet Craig and I'm like, “Dude, I love this area. I want a store on Queen Street.” Like, I wanna come here every day, you know, open my cute little storefront, greet my customers, have some employees, like this is it. And then I was like, “Okay, Craig, like what am I actually gonna put in my adorable little store on Queen Street?”

And so that's when we had, when I kind of remembered back to, I had lived in New York City for a brief little stint and I'd actually lived above a nail salon. So it was, like a super gross one and, but despite that, it was so busy. Like it was, and because I lived above it, it was like morning, noon, you know, afternoon, evening. It was actually so packed. And so I thought, what if I did that? But just totally not disgusting. Like what if I actually, you know, had great, um, you know, guest care and hygiene standards.

And back in the day, in Toronto there was sort of just these like, two very opposite options for esthetic services. So the spa landscape was very different than it is today. So you had these like low-end options, or you had like the really high, expensive day spas that, you know, are like the, like lovely and amazing, they're an experience, but they're kind of like an all day thing that you go to. It's like white robes and whale music. So I thought like, what if I just carved out this little niche between those two categories and create this sort of anti-spa, social-spa atmosphere thing where you could get great guest care, great service execution like you did at the higher-end places. But then take that efficiency and more chill vibe and accessible price points of the lower-end nail bars.

Jeff [00:09:15] Like you're 24 and you said, “Hey, I felt like I had learned enough.” And like I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs or people who want to be entrepreneurs. And we had Andre Charoo on the podcast who was an early employee at Uber, and now he invests in entrepreneurs. And so I'm always curious to know, like, how did you know that you, you had known enough at that time to start a company? Like you had the idea, but then like, there’s all these skills, there's all these skills that you need, right? How did you know? You're like, “I know enough, I've got an idea, I'm gonna go for it.”

Kristen [00:09:44] Yeah, it turns out that I knew nothing. So I was super naive. And in fact, when I was getting fired, I was told that I was gonna be getting two weeks pay in lieu of the notice, and I honestly could not believe what I was hearing.

So at the time, I clearly did not understand labor law because I thought I was getting this sick payout, and in fact, like the guy, I stopped him mid-firing and I was like, “I am so sorry. Just for clarification, I'm not coming to work on Monday. But you're going to continue to pay me for two whole weeks.”

Jeff [00:10:19] [Laughing] Yeah.

Kristen [00:10:20] And he was like, I, his face, I can't even imagine. He must have been like you, and this is why you're getting fired cuz you are the dumbest kid I've ever met. But I just, you, I just couldn't believe that like you're getting free money for not doing anything. And so it turns out like I actually didn't know very much. I just did what I thought was really logical.

So, and after I had this business idea, I was so excited, I raced home. I was like, okay, well I’m gonna need money cuz I have to, you know, make this store. So in order to get money, I need to get money from a bank. So I went on to the RBC website at the time and I was like, how do you get a loan?

It was like, well, you need a business plan. And I was like, okay, guess I need a business plan. How do I write a business plan? Here's the template. Downloaded the template, filled it out, took it to the bank the next day. So I just, everything that I did during that time period, I never really even, to be honest, like I'd never even worried, is this a good idea? Will I have customers? Will they come? Because in my mind, it was so far away, like I didn't have anything. I didn't have any place for them to go. I didn't have any place for customers to not come. I had nothing. So I just had to start with those logical first steps.

So I was like, first I need money. Well, to get money, I need a business plan. Well, now I've, you know, had submitted for the business plan, but I was like, well, I'm gonna need that storefront on Queen Street. So I just, you know, instead of doing what I would do now, which is hire an agent, a commercial real estate agent to, you know, help me find my space, I didn't know that that was a thing. And so I just went up and down Queen Street going into every single store asking people, “Hey, are you leaving, or is your place up for rent? Do you know of any places that are up for rent, you know, on this street anytime soon?”

Jeff [00:12:03] [Laughing] Just aggressively like pursuing them and saying like, “Listen, if you, perhaps, if this place were to burn down…”

Kristen [00:12:09] “If you're ever going out of business, yeah, you, you let me know, okay? Here's my card.” Yeah, and so, and I ended up finding a woman that said like, “I'm not personally leaving or going outta business, but I have my landlord and he has a bunch of buildings that he owns on this street. And I think that the lingerie store is one of his buildings. And I think that they're moving.”

So then that, like I just ran down the street, busted into the lingerie store was like, “Hey, heard you're leaving. Can I rent your space?” The lady was like, a little bit snarky and told me that I had to wait and see if a sign went up in the window. So then I like, ran back to the nice lady and was like, she was a total b-i-t-c-h.

Wouldn't, you know, can I have your landlord's contact information? Turns out that the landlord had just walked by cuz he owned the restaurant next door. So I like bust into the restaurant like, “Hey, I need to talk to the owner. I wanna rent out your space." And so, you know, then I was able to go back in and be like, found him, got to walk around the space and I was like, yeah, this looks perfect.

Meanwhile, zero idea of the amount of square footage that I would need. You know what the building state was like, what kind of, you know, I didn't know anything. I just, in my mind I was like, this looks big enough to have some manicure stations, and a pedicure area and some waxing rooms. So I ended up signing that lease without even getting the financing.

So that was, I thought of this idea on the Sunday night, was when I went for pie with my friend. This was the Wednesday, I had signed this lease with no financing in place. Which again, I would never do that. But being so naive, I just, I figured like, “I don't know, like if, if I don't get the money, then how is he even gonna rent me this space? Like I'm sure it'll all work out.”

Jeff [00:13:43] Yeah, and I feel like that a lot of people don't understand, they think that you need to be this genius or this kind of Elon Musk-esque type person. And I feel like a lot of times though, like sometimes knowing too much prevents you from starting a company because you know of all the reasons why it's not gonna work.

Kristen [00:13:59] 1000%. If I knew even a quarter of what I know now, I never would've started THE TEN SPOT in the beginning. I never would've started franchising. I never would've expanded into the States. Looking at it from that perspective of how many obstacles you had to overcome, it's so intimidating! But when you’re in the moment and you're figuring it out and you're learning and you have this energy and excitement and passion behind you, it actually doesn't feel that daunting.

Jeff [00:14:26] Yeah.

Kristen [00:14:27] As when you're looking back at it and being like, holy sh.., like I can't even believe I did that. I'm impressed with myself. However, if you actually go back to that time, you're enthusiastic, you're, you've got this like inspiration and this passion and this energy that's sort of driving you through these barriers and obstacles and you're, and you're learning along the way, so you're figuring things out, which is, which is also really, you know, it's exciting. Growth is exciting and growing personally is exciting.

Jeff [00:14:52] Yeah, and I think that another interesting thing on that naivety that you have in the beginning is you have to go out and figure out all these things versus when you're an employee, someone else does a lot of those things and you just rely on them to do it.

You don't need to really understand real estate, finance, marketing, legal, but then you're like, you can't pay anyone to do it. You have to just go out and like, okay, I'm doing contracts now. I'm doing real estate now.

Kristen [00:15:15] And I think that it's actually a bit of, you know, that naivety, as you say, is a bit of a superpower because if you don't know the way that something is typically done and you're just left to figure it out, then there's so much more creativity that happens with it.

So, you know, it's, um, like I didn't, I didn't know, you know, when we got the business open and operational, I didn't know that the, that the typical way of doing something in the spa industry is just, you hire some people and whatever manicure they did at their last job or what they were ever taught in school is kind of like the manicure they're gonna do.

And this is why, you know, back in the day, like I would, I would get services from a place and it would be me and my friend, and we're both getting a pedicure only mine's 20 minutes shorter. I didn't get the massage. She got a really long massage. I had like a bunch of cuticles, you know, and that was how it was in the spa industry.

And for me, not really being so naive into the industry that I was getting in, and I was like, well, this doesn't make sense. I wanna go, you know, if it's two girlfriends having pedis together, I wanna make sure that they're having the same service and that the, you know, that they're getting the same step. Like they're both getting the massage at this time. They're both getting the cuticle work at this time, that it's even-steven, and that no one's gonna feel like they're ripped off.

And so, because I didn't know that, that I was just kind of going based off of what I thought was logical. Then that's, you know, we created these protocols for the services so that, that was the same experience no matter who you went to.

I think also for our marketing, way back in the day, like I wasn't a marketer. I could do my own flyers and my, you know, my own graphics and I did all of the newsletters and even the website. Because I didn't know marketing, I didn't understand that there was this like corporate way of speaking to your customers and I was like, well that's not interesting and fun. I'm just gonna speak the way that I speak and I'm gonna, you know, say things or, or put things in specials and promotions that I think are funny that appeal to my internal 14 year old boy sense of humor.

And so, we called our male manicure, ‘The Hand Job’ when we first opened up or like we had ‘The Threesome Special’, so it was “come with three of your gal pals and get pedicures and you each get, you know, polish jobs for free.”

So I just thought like, that's fricking funny. Who wouldn't love that? I love that. Nowadays brands definitely are more authentic, whereas back in the day, it wasn't that way. And so for us to come out being so irreverent and cheeky, we got attention really quickly.

Jeff [00:17:44] So this may not surprise you, but I am not yet a client of THE TEN SPOT, even though I probably should be. Yeah. Like walk us through just like, what, what are you guys doing differently and like, what is THE TEN SPOT?

Kristen [00:17:54] So it's a franchise chain of beauty spas, so we call them beauty bars, where you can get manicure, pedicure, waxing, facial, laser services. So it's kind of like this every sort of monthly maintenance service that every woman wants, we do that all under one roof.

You know, since that first location that I started, I grew a couple more corporate stores and then now we franchise.That's our main thing. So we've got 44 locations currently, there's another three that are opening up this quarter. So by the end of, actually it's sneaking into next quarter. So in April they open and then there's about 22 other franchise agreements that are signed and that they're under development. So that either means that they're on a schedule, like somebody has wanted to open six of them and they've opened up three and then they're gonna do, you know, their 4, 5, 6 in in the next couple of years, or they're newly signed on with us and we're just looking for their spaces.

So that's where we're at right now. And then it's, it's coast to coast. So we are in Canada from Victoria all the way to Prince Edward Island. And then also we've started to expand into the United States. So we've got four locations out [in] the US right now.

Jeff [00:18:57] Wow. You've grown really, really quickly! And I mean, I've been on your website, you have an amazing brand. How did you guys think through like staying corporate versus going franchise? Cause I know that that's oftentimes a kind of an inflection point. Like how did you make that decision?

Kristen [00:19:10] It kind of started because I, especially when I had started my second location, it just felt, and I'm sure that a lot of the other entrepreneurs will relate to this, it's like, it was lonely. A lot of my friends worked in the corporate world, so it was just me as an entrepreneur. So I'm like by myself a lot of the time. I then was, dealing with, with problems that were just not relatable in my peer group. So like, I'm like, how am I making payroll? You know, how am I making my rent this month? So, you know, it was just very different than people that could just unplug and sort of, you know, close their, close their laptops and be done for the end of the day. So I felt a bit lonely in that regard. And then I also had ambitions of having more TEN SPOTS. So I had really wanted 10 TEN SPOTS. Because of course!

You know, I had built out four of them myself. Actually, it was in between numbers two and three that we started to franchise. And by starting to franchise, I mean, you just go to a lawyer and you pay them a bunch of money and they take a template that they already have and they just like plug in your name and your business information.

During that time, I had built up those corporate stores and then I ended up getting married and my then husband knew that I had this ambition of having 10 TEN SPOTS, and he was like, well, why don't you do franchising? He knew a bit more about it because he had some friends in franchising and he realized like, this is a business model in which I could grow the brand to where I wanted it to be, but at the same time, I could then have this community of other like-minded ladies to help them build businesses that they love and grow this brand with me.

Um, and so it was sort of this like nice kind of like, oh shit, I didn't know that was a, like I didn't know anything about the franchising world and I thought it was like McDonald's and, you know, fast food things could franchise. I didn't actually realize that you could franchise any business that is a good business model. And so we built out the two, we started to offer the franchising, which, you know, offering them is very different than actually signing up your first franchise partner and working with them. So in between starting to offer them and signing up our first couple of franchisees, I actually built out two more corporate stores.

In the end, I had five corporate stores and then had this franchising side of the business that really started taking off. At the point in where I decided to sell the bars, I think we had 18 franchise locations and then my corporate stores. And at a certain point it just got a little too busy, especially at the head office level where in franchising you can have a very small head office team because you don't own all of the locations, so you just really need to take care of, you know, the, the head office components, like the marketing and the operations. So our team was really small, but because we were dividing it between the four corporate stores and then the franchising side, it was like, you know, we're having these big strategic decisions, you know, and conversations on exec, like, “Hey, should we expand it to the United States?” And then it was like, okay, turning over to the next agenda item. Bethany's being mean to Karen at the bar again and like, this is her last performance review. So it just, it wasn't really a workable situation anymore.

So what I did is I sold my corporate stores to a group of franchise partners that had already owned, I think it was like they had four locations, they have 11 now. And then the sale of those actually helped us fund the expansion into the United States, which was great.

Jeff [00:22:28] Congrats on going to the US. That's kind of when you've arrived, you know, Canadians are, they're always like, oh, we're big in the US now! A lot of people, when they think about a corporate versus franchise model, you have to give up control.

And there's that, there's that famous scene in the movie about [the] founders of McDonald's where they have their early franchisees and then he like runs out onto the golf course with a cheeseburger and there was like five pickles instead of three pickles in the cheeseburger. And he's just like losing his mind on them because he was basically obsessive about the fact that it has to be the same experience no matter where you go. How did you let go of control?

Kristen [00:23:01] I think for us, consistency is absolutely crucial in a franchise system. It is sort of the marker of the great franchises that have that consistency and have kept that control of their experience for their, for their customers versus the ones that haven't. So I think that in terms of giving up control, we didn't really on the guest experience side. So anything that's guest facing we're super tight on.

Jeff [00:23:23] Like marketing?

Kristen [00:23:24] Oh, marketing for sure. But even just in terms of like, there's no handwritten notes allowed in the bar. Like I go mental with that. I do not wanna see a handwritten note anywhere. There's no back in five minutes on our door. Like that doesn't exist.

And like how free and clear the manicure bars need to be and the front desk is, because in our industry, cleanliness is such a big, big deal. And so for me, when you've got a manicure bar that's cluttered and with stuff, and things are all over the place and collecting dust, it just doesn't convey the clinical cleanliness that we have as a standard in terms of what the bar looks like and the service execution. So, you know, those protocols, we still expect, you know, a TEN SPOT Brazilian is done exactly the same way as one in Prince Edward Island, as one in Calgary, as one in Austin, Texas. Like that protocol needs to be maintained.

Where I think you can give up some control as a franchisor is on the operational side of things that like the back of house stuff. So we have our best practices that we've, you know, these are tried, tested, and true ways of doing your orders, of keeping staff engagement up. So having these check-ins, how you do your inventory, how you look at your P&L when you run those. Like those are things that we have the best practices on.

But it's your business. Like if you wanna order 50 times a month, you're gonna be paying a lot more shipping fees. I can recommend that you should just do the two orders, but I can't force you to do that. Whereas on the actual front of house stuff, that's where we try to stay very tight. And the thing is, I think that it makes sense for our franchise partners too, because this is their life investment, they wanna get something out of this as well. So if there's somebody that's doing something, you know, down the street at another location or you know, like in the same city as them or even somewhere else. Their reputation's on the line as well. You know, we have a very, we have tight policies on that, but it's for protection of the branch for everyone. For head office and me, and also for all of our other locations.

So I think that when they see us being tight on things they can then, they have that assurance that that's across the board that we're gonna maintain that standard for all of our locations so that we keep our brand reputation as good as it is.

Jeff [00:25:26] Mm-hmm. But it's a fine balance between control and freedom. And a lot of people maybe don't, don't understand this, but like a franchise owner is an entrepreneur in their own way, and the entrepreneur personality is a person who's gonna want to have a little bit of freedom to do things the way they want, but at the same time, you have to have that consistency. And this can be kind of the bane for a lot of franchises that they recruit the wrong types of people to run these businesses and then it becomes very difficult to control the brand experience. What have you found to be successful in finding the right people to entrust your brand to?

Kristen [00:26:08] I think that it comes down to really clear expectations out from the get-go, and then really having a strong culture. I would rather repel people. And attract just the people that really, really get it than just be sort of, you know, open to everybody wanting a little piece of us.

So for us, it's just really having those cultural foundational pieces set from the very beginning and talking about them and you know, a big part of even just our discovery process for new franchise partners is we talk about our culture deck.

We talk about this is what we're all about, this is what we're not all about. This is gonna be right for you if you just want this proven model and you just wanna rock and roll with it. If you want to be more entrepreneurial in terms of this side of things, like getting creative with services, getting creative with, you know, what your bar looks like and you know, all of that front of house stuff that I just talked about, then we're just not the right franchise company for you. Because we wanna maintain what's had us successful and keep that momentum up versus having, you know, all of these deferred views. So like, you know, even our playlists are curated. They're like, you have to play the TEN SPOT playlist.

Jeff [00:27:11] Is that on Spotify?

Kristen [00:27:12] It is on Spotify, you can follow along.

Jeff [00:27:13] I'm gonna go check that out.

Kristen [00:27:14] So it's like December at THE TEN SPOT. Yeah, they're, it's fun. It's fun, yeah. We try to make them very big cuz our poor, you know, our TEN SPOTTER staff, like, it's the worst when you have to hear, you know, the same 25 songs over and over again. So it's like hundreds of hours of listening goodness.

It is just picking the right partners and, and of course that can be really tricky early on because when you first start to get your, you know, your system going, you kind of are like, well, we need to prove this model out. And especially in the United States where they don't really care about the success that you've had in Canada, they're like, that's nice to know but it means nothing to us here. So until you have this concept proven out in the States, come talk to us later.

And so it's tricky because you have this desire to just kind of sell to anyone. Just to be like, okay, yes, we're up and running and we've got momentum.But that's really tricky because then you can get locked in with, with partners that are not a great fit.

And I mean it's, the thing is, is with franchising, like people will sell their locations and they'll sell their locations for a variety of reasons. Like life just happens and it changes. So you might have signed on with us and you're, you know, 20 years old and single gal in the city and you've got this, you know, cute little beauty bar that you've opened up and then you get married and you have like three kids and you're like, I'm at a different stage in my life. So you, we've had sales in that way. To your point, you wanna definitely partner with people that understand your brand and your vision and wanna be along there for the ride with you.

Jeff [00:28:37] It's one thing that people maybe don't understand and are often disappointed cuz they may have a lot of success in one city, one province, one state, and then they kind of expect that that's gonna translate over into success somewhere else. I know that when we were growing Skip, we started in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, then we were like, okay, well Regina is gonna be a cakewalk because we, we just, we've done so well in Saskatoon. We get to Regina, no one gives a shit. It's like starting from scratch all over again.

Kristen [00:29:04] Yep. Yep.

Jeff [00:29:05] So I think for a lot of people who are thinking about expanding, you gotta go in knowing that it's not necessarily gonna get any easier when you go to a new market, it may even be like taking steps backwards and having to basically build up that brand awareness.

And even on the franchisee side, I feel like a lot of people don't appreciate how important it is to scare the wrong people away and manage expectations. Because if they're gonna come in thinking that they can just do whatever they want, you're gonna have a nightmare managing this person because they're gonna be constantly hitting up against the control that you put in place of the brand. And a lot of people will just sacrifice that because they want to grow too quick.

Kristen [00:29:40] Yeah, no, I completely agree with absolutely everything that you just said.

Jeff [00:29:45] Where do you want to take the brand over the next five years?

Kristen [00:29:48] I wanna continue to grow in the United States and then fill out the rest of Canada. We've got a couple of pockets still that we've got opportunity there, and then there's really gonna be huge opportunity in the States for us because we, you know, you can grow so massively there.

I would then love to go to the UK cuz I have a bunch of friends in franchising that they're like, UK's amazing! Franchise laws like, it's a little bit easier to get started there. So I wanna get off North America and expand into Europe for sure. And then there's um, there's just so much potential I think to, because we have so many locations and that distribution network is already set to really get serious about having a product line. We have a couple of products but we've never really dedicated real resources to it. It's been, you know, off the side of a couple people's desks as a, as a, as a project-based type of a thing. I would like to certainly in the next couple of years, build out a team to be able to do the product side and then really create some innovative products that relate to the services that we do and the, and the industry that we're in and the market that we're in.

But I see that as an exciting sort of, you know, it's gonna be a whole new business, a whole new world that I am gonna get to grow and, and learn and expand on. And I'm sure, you know, 10 years down the road, I'd be like, I can't even believe that I went into that. And if I even knew what I knew now about this, I never would've done it. But I love being in that, you know, naive phase of things right now.

And then I'd love to continue just sort of building the community that we started to grow with our people. I'm doing like some speaking gigs, which is really fun and exciting. And I've started with this little YouTube channel because I just am obsessed with filming videos and working in Final Cut and like, picking music from Epidemic Sound. And like even watching videos about making videos, I just like get so turned up about it.

Kind of like the Mid-Day Squares guy, and this is why I think I was so inspired by hearing their story was — it is so exciting to see the behind the scenes of what's going on with a person and with building their company. Because I think you see this incr, like, you know, this impressive picture of something at the end of it and you're like, oh my god! You know, like 50 locations, that's incredible! You're like, do you even understand like the, what life is actually really like, and you know, the type of conversations that you have and sort of, you know, those, those scary moments, you know, or the fails that become, you know, something better that can turn into opportunities and wins.

So I think it's fun. And I think that now I've built out this incredible HQ team, and we have some really killer people in all the right places, which is of course, a CEO's job. I mean, it's been a journey growing up from like a one-off business owner into like, quote unquote a CEO.

Jeff [00:32:21] As you grow, Kristin, like culture, kind of becomes more and more important because you can't be everywhere all at once. And kind of once you get to the point where you can't just like stand on your tippy toes and talk to your whole company, that's when culture kind of takes over. And I remember you saying like that was kind of what brings people to your franchise. What was your process for going through and creating your mission, vision and values?

Kristen [00:32:44] Oh, hot damn. We have just stumbled onto my most favorite topic on planet Earth! So it really became apparent as we were growing, we did get to this point where that original vibe and the culture of the first few locations were starting to like, we were seeing those, those gaps, and that's because we didn't have that purpose or the why for why the company existed, and we had no core values as this sort of like guiding light for what the behavior sets that we really wanted to see to get to our, our ambitious goals.

I ended up just reading as much as I possibly could about the topic of, so, you know, it's like you watched the Simon Sinek video and, and you, I ended up reading Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish. So Verne wrote Scaling Up, which is like our business bible, but his first book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, I think goes so much more into how to actually create a purpose and core values set for your company. It's like a really, Scaling Up touches on it for sure and goes into it but this actually had great exercises for how to create those like in a tangible way. I just went hardcore on that.

So it took about a year to really get them perfected, and in fact, when I went into our manual, to be like, let's plug these into the beginning of the manual, I had them already. But versions of them that meant nothing to anybody, that weren't rolled out, they weren't executed on. Like, I, as the leader had forgotten, like, oh, I had created these dumb core values one day, you know, just like wrote out what I thought they were. And then they went in this manual and we never looked at them again. And then when I went back and I did the proper exercise of really going through them, like having every level of the business, brainstorming sessions with all levels of staff, like wordsmithing them, blending them, testing them, creating them as phrases instead of just one word things like, teamwork. You know, like making them into a phrase like “be in it together”.

When I went to go put those back, it was sort of that eye-opening thing of like, you can create them, but unless you get them to be lived, and unless you really launch them in an incredible way. So I actually went to all of our, at that point, I think we had something like 26 locations. So I did a tour where I went to every location on my own. I went and I like did the whole, you know, presentation of them. I gifted the location with like core value branded mugs, you know, and like the posters in the, in the back of the store. And then we had these programs for how we were gonna monitor, measure and, and manage and celebrate our core values. So we have a lot of those sorts of systems in place and they're peppered in absolutely everywhere.

So from our job descriptions, like if you go onto, you know, Indeed to look up a job description, our core values will be listed there. And it's sort of like if you're on board with these amazing, like, we wanna hear from you. If you're not totally good, but like, we wish you well on your way because we're not gonna be a good fit for you. From that to, you know, the different sort of like core value of the month programs and, and the celebration things or even, you know, just the coaching and rating like, you know, during every staff check-in, like how do you feel you've done on these six core values and, you know, having the manager weigh-in to be like, here's how we think you've done on the core values. Either you're underestimating how valuable you've been on this, or this needs some work.

Jeff [00:35:53] Totally.

Kristen [00:35:54] Um, so that's something that we, we're really sort of hardcore and it, the culture piece is so big for us. So THE TEN SPOT’s purpose is to make everyone feel like a 10. So everyone, being everyone. So every gender, race, ethnicity, but then also everyone, meaning it's, these aren't just for our staff. Like, it's not like, “Okay, we're gonna be in this ivory tower and you guys have to abide to these core values and like we can get away with anything.” It's that every level from, you know, our guest coordinators and our, and our TEN SPOTTER staff, our managers, our franchise partners, and all of our HQ people. And even our suppliers, cuz we wanna make sure that our suppliers and our vendors are in alignment with our core values.

And it's about feeling like a 10, not looking like a 10. So of course, you know, THE TEN SPOT, it's 10 is in our brand name, Kris-ten. I was born in October, it's my, you know, favorite month, it's been my lucky number. So it was delightful that we could weave the word ten into this in a way that actually made sense, um, and was something that we actually made our guests feel anyway.

So when we were doing the work of, kind of crafting the cute little slogan tagline, that would become our purpose, we had looked back at a lot of our customer surveys and the research that we had done with our guests before. And the thing that kept coming out of it, it wasn't as succinct as ‘we make them feel like a 10’. But the sentiments were that we made them feel put together and polished and confident. And so that was really sort of, you know, the underpinning for us is like, that is what we do. Like when you make somebody, you know, when you give them like a fresh set of nails and you know, their toes are done and their underarm hair is gone, and, you know, if they don't want their mustache, like they don't have to have it, we can remove it. And it's like they feel, you know, more confident. And, and for us it's, we can contribute to somebody's life in that way. We can help them feel put together and polished. We can make them feel like a 10.

And for me it's then it's one step further than that where it's like, because I want everybody to live their life at a ten. I really feel like it's our duty as little human souls that have ended up here to try and just get everything that you can out of life. To like be your fullest expression of you. To like suck up every single experience that you possibly can and to do awesome things with this gift of being on earth for this like tiny speck of time.

And I think that the only way that you can really live your life at a ten is when you do feel like a ten, when you feel confident. Like no one is getting up, kicking ass and taking names if they lack that confidence, if they feel like an imposter, if they don't think they can do it. And so I really think that that connects so well with our franchise partners and with our staff is because it's not just that you're painting nails like you really are making a difference in somebody's existence and life. You're making them feel confident, put together, polished. Like, you know, we have people that have had, have come to us that we've recommended, uh, a face care product, and it's like cured up their acne that they've struggled with for years and made them feel less than. And it's like you see in a very tangible, real way how you're impacting somebody's life.

And certainly our staff, we're here to make them feel like a 10 and show that their expertise is highly valued. And to this end, we actually have, I think it's close to 40 people with our TEN SPOT logo as a tattoo.

Jeff [00:39:09] [Laughing] Okay. Is this a cult? This is a cult. Is it a cult?

Kristen [00:39:12] It's not, it's not a cult, okay. Certainly not.

Jeff [00:39:15] It's the good kind of cult.

Kristen [00:39:17] A good cult maybe. I don't know. Are there good cults? Um, we don't alienate you from your friends and family, okay. That's, we're not about that. So please have a rich, fulfilling life with your husbands and kids and wives and moms and dads and brothers and sisters.

But certainly we want people to feel a part of something. It was actually, we got it because on my 10th birthday and for THE TEN SPOT’s 10th birthday, our little symbol is an X and a dot. So it's like, uh, like 10 and then a spot, Roman numeral 10. And so I got it as like a joke thing for our 10th birthday.

I was at the shop with some girls and they were like, you should get this tattoo. And I was like, “Shit yeah, I should get this tattoo!” So we like walked two doors down because on Queen Street there's a tattoo parlor like every seven steps. And so I got it. And then a couple weeks later, I had a group of our head office staff go and open the Sault Ste. Marie location.

Jeff [00:40:01] Yeah.

Kristen [00:40:02] And they sent me this picture of four of them with their arms stacked and they had this same tattoo in the same spot on their, on their wrist.

Jeff [00:40:09] Wow.

Kristen [00:40:10] And at first I thought that they were messing with me, and I was like, “Okay, guys, like nice sharpie tattoos. Like, are you mocking me?” Turns out they weren't, and they actually had gotten this tattoo done. We've had actual full groups of staff for their holiday party decide that they all wanna go together and get these, you know, cute little tattoos. It does make me feel like the culture that we're building is actually really meaningful to people. So meaningful that they're willing to, you know, brand it on their skin for life.

Jeff [00:40:35] Like a lot of companies will create these vision, mission, and values, and then it sits in a, in a book somewhere. And like even like the famous story of Enron, integrity was like one of the core values of Enron.

Kristen [00:40:45] Oh my gosh, I know.

Jeff [00:40:46] And then you're actually like holding people accountable to it. Did you have to test them? Did you roll them out and then change them? Or was it just like a “Hey, we've got this, we're gonna roll it out.” And then it's kind of just evolved iteratively to where it is now?

Kristen [00:40:59]They have been the same values that we, I mean, when I did it the second time around, cuz no one actually saw the first, you know, run of values. So when I did it for real, we just took our time. We didn't launch them until we knew that they were really good.

Jeff [00:41:12] What, what year was it?

Kristen [00:41:13] I think it was 2012.

Jeff [00:41:14] Okay. You waited a bit?

Kristen [00:41:15] Yeah, I was halfway. I didn't even realize we needed them.

Jeff [00:41:17] Yeah.

Kristen [00:41:18] Because at that, starting a small business that's growing rapidly, like you're totally in the reactive phase.

Jeff [00:41:23] Totally.

Kristen [00:41:24] And then we finally got to being proactive, you know, where we were like one step ahead of things that were going down. And then it wasn't until six years in where we actually had a bunch of franchise partners and things were rolling smoothly that I was like, now it's time to get strategic. And in order to do that strategic work of, where do we wanna be with, you know, what's our vision in the next, you know, 25 years out? What do we wanna be in five years? Where do we wanna go this year? And, you know, breaking that down a quarter, you need, I, we needed the, the purpose to be there first. And to have the core values. And so we really worked with them for a long time.

So they're, like I said, we don't have one word value. So integrity. I don't even know what that means. I think that those, the one word values are really tricky. Like, what does teamwork mean? Does it mean that like, I should feel like you should be including me in everything? And if I don't feel that, then like, you know, these are hypocritical values. Whereas when you have a value that's a phrase, A) I find that it's stickier so it's easier to remember, you know, when it's actually like even something that rhymes, you know, is, is nice and easy and cuz you want them to be sticky, you, the main thing is that you want them to be remembered and used all the time.

And then also having them be phrases, they're more directive. So kind of a rule of thumb for me was I wanted to be able to put the word you in front of every phrase, value. So like, ‘you own your role’, ‘you make everyone feel like a 10’, ‘you be in it together with us’. Because then it puts the accountability actually on the individual.

Because you are the only person that you can control. I can't control anybody else. I am only in control of me. And so if we made the values be based off of something that you could control and that was never outside of you, then everybody can own them. Then everybody can have that same accountability. So it's like, I don't care what Bethany's doing, you be in it together with us, and then I'll go talk to her and I'll make sure that she's also gonna be in together with you or she's outta here. You know, cuz she's not adhering to the values and she's not living it with us, but like being in it together is a core value of ours.

And so like you just take care of you and the rest sort of, you know, when we're all doing our part, then, then we're actually a team and then, and then it's working. So we wanted them to be phrases and I wanted them to be catchy.

Jeff [00:43:28] Your values too, like they're action-oriented. They're almost more virtues than values. Like they're the action-oriented version of values.

Kristen [00:43:35] They're the behaviors we wanna see.

Jeff [00:43:36] Yeah, absolutely.

Kristen [00:43:37] Because I believe that like that our culture is created through having the core values and then having the behaviors that match those values. And in fact, having a toxic culture is exactly the inverse of that. It is having the values and then doing the opposite or being hypocritical about the, with the, with the behavior sets. Which is the Enron thing. It's like we say that we are integrity and yet we are totally shady about what we do. And then it's so much worse. It's so much worse than not having values at all, because if you say that you're about something and then you react in a totally contrary way, you are a liar. You have like, now there's mistrust.

Jeff [00:44:15] And your team will weaponize it against you as well.

Kristen [00:44:18] We've made tough decisions on it. When I had corporate stores, you know, you have these, these value sets that's like we're in it together. Everybody owns a role. And we actually had a case where we had two women that were estheticians and they were high earners. Like 25% of the revenue each month came from these two gals.

But they were toxic, like just mean girl stuff that you just, it's so juvenile and silly, like making yourself really big as you walk down the hall and kind of like making the other person move out of the way or not helping flip over tubs when that person's you know, done it for you. Or switching the schedule to make sure that you got all the waxing appointments, cuz you can do them really fast and make more money that way. And, you know, you, you coach them and you're like, hey, like you do all of the right things as an employer and at a certain point you're just like, this isn't gonna change.

Like, you can teach skills, but you can't teach a bad person to be a better person. Or at least it's not our job, you know. Go learn these lessons and come back to us later. And so as an owner, and especially when we were growing, so I think that was my third location, you're like, we need this money. Like if we go down 25% in revenue next month, we're like, we're screwed.

However, when you are all about core values and you, and you can't, I didn't also wanna be a hypocrite for my own team. I wanted to be like, these actually matter. And so if we've done the work, we've tried to coach this person, it's just not happening. We made the decision like we've gotta let these two girls go.

And what ended up happening was we were not down the 25% the next month, we were only down 5%. And that's because the relief that it caused by having the bad apples out, it just allowed the other TEN SPOTTERS that we had there to do their better work. Because I mean, as if you can be chatty and jovial with your client when you're sitting next to the person that just said some mean, snarky thing to you in the staff room and now is two-faced and pretending to be nice to you, like it's just, it's not a great situation.

Jeff [00:46:09] And it also shows that you're walking the talk too.

Kristen [00:46:11] Exactly.

Jeff [00:46:12] You've been in this now, for 16 years now, so…

Kristen [00:46:15] Mm-hmm. .

Jeff [00:46:16] What does Kristen of today tell, 24 year old Kristen who's just getting started? What advice would you have for her?

Kristen [00:46:22] I don't know… every mistake I made and every fail, I think made me better. So I really have a, I am a big like no regrets type of a person because even when you, and in fact, I love failure for this thing.

So I have a tracker to, you know, like, did I exercise today? Did I eat well? And when I don't do those things, I write the word ‘fail’ in capital letters because I love seeing like “you failed today!” That sucks. This feels shitty right now. I'm not gonna feel like this tomorrow. I'm going to use this terrible, negative emotion that I have in order to fuel me doing things differently the next time.

One thing is I wish that I knew that franchising was a relationship business. You know, they tell you that franchising is a contractual business. So it's like you have obligations, you signed this contract together saying, you know, you are going to license at the brand and for that you can, you know, blah, blah, blah. And all the parameters of, of your, you know, what you, your obligations that you have towards each other are just in this written agreement.

But in franchising, they still say, they're like, you know, your, it's your brand. You can do whatever you want with it. Well, like, that's not true. It's a dictatorship that runs like a democracy because you're not going to get anywhere, even if you shove something down somebody's throat, like, you know, and here's this promotion that we're gonna do, or we're bringing in this new service. If nobody likes it and everybody's mad at me and everybody hates it and thinks it's a waste of money, they're not gonna sell it. They're not gonna be enthusiastic to their staff about this change or, you know, this new service. Their staff aren’t gonna wanna learn it and do it to the best of their ability. They're not gonna be promoting it to their guests, so it's like it's gonna be a failure.

You know, really one of the things that as anybody getting into franchising and, and to become a franchiser needs to know, like it's of great value to really be in it together and, and to treat it like you're in it together. Be in it together that you're both in together trying to build this brand and, and, um, make it as best as possible. And that takes a lot of feedback.

And I think that for someone that is entrepreneurial, you love pace. Like you know, like most entrepreneurs are like, have the idea, let's run with it. And that can be tricky when you need rounds of feedback, when you have different people that need that digestion time for things in order to get comfortable with new ideas. Whereas I'm a very like, “I love this. Let's do it yesterday.” You know, it can be tricky to get everybody on-boarded to your way of thinking, and it takes a lot more explanation and data and diligence, and those are things that, you know, thankfully I have people on my team that are super good at now because that's not my forte.

My forte is like, let's try it. Let's see if it works, and if it doesn't, it fails and we've learned something. It's very different when you've got 44 locations that are owned by franchise partners. It's not, you know, my money to be playing with. It's everybody's got skin in the game and it's all of our investment.

Jeff [00:49:07] Well, listen, Kristen, we gotta end it here, but I am super grateful for you coming on. I'm also, I feel like my producer is also gonna go and open up a TEN SPOT if he's able.

Kristen [00:49:18] [Laughing] Do it!

Jeff [00:49:19] You just sold everyone on how great your business is.

Kristen [00:49:22] Oh my gosh, amazing. Thank you so, so much. I loved meeting you too. It was so fun. I love talking about all things TEN SPOT and business and core values and culture. It was wonderful. Thank you so much for having me.

Jeff [00:49:33] So where can our listeners learn more about you? Learn more about TEN SPOT? You know, are you active on social media?

Kristen [00:49:38] Yeah, totally. So thetenspot.com, or actually all of our handles for THE TEN SPOT are conveniently @ the T-E-N S-P-O-T. So TikTok, Instagram. And then I'm Kris-ten Spot, so K-R-I-S-1-0-S-P-O-T.

So that's, um, my YouTube channel is krist10spot, and then the IG and the TikToks as well.

Jeff [00:50:01] Awesome.

Jeff [00:50:05] Thank you for tuning into Behind the Brand. If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe and leave a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you’re interested in learning more about Neo Financial, visit us at neofinancial.com.

Behind the Brand is a production of Neo Financial and MediaLab YYC. Hosted by Jeff Adamson. Strategy, research, and production by Keegan Sharp, Alana Tefledzuk, and Kyle Marshall.