#218 - Innovative Strategies for Modern Entrepreneurs

Ever wondered how a journey through salsa rhythms and foreign languages could lead to building a thriving business empire? Meet Brigham Dallas, the founder of Hello Sugar, who transformed his globe-trotting adventures into a blueprint for entrepreneurial success. From learning new skills in Barcelona and Colombia to launching the fastest-growing beauty franchise in the US, Brigham's story is a testament to the life-changing power of travel and minimalist goal-setting.

Embark on a fascinating exploration of how a simple idea turned into a franchise phenomenon. Hear how Brigham's strategic approach to business, combined with a frugal lifestyle, paved the way for Hello Sugar's national expansion. Discover the innovative use of AI in creating a receptionless model, cutting costs while offering franchisees newfound freedom and flexibility. This episode serves as a masterclass in using modern business practices to foster rapid growth and success.

But the journey doesn't stop at business acumen. Brigham shares profound insights on achieving happiness and fulfillment, both professionally and personally. Listen as we discuss the importance of celebrating milestones and maintaining a balance between work and personal joy. With lessons on adaptability during the pandemic and empowering remote teams, this episode offers valuable guidance on optimizing work-life harmony while pursuing your passions. Join us for an enriching conversation that promises to inspire and motivate.

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Chapters

• 1:00 Impact of Travel on Personal Growth
• 13:10 Successful Business With Minimal Lifestyle
• 19:03 Franchising Success With AI Technology
• 26:09 Entrepreneurial Journey and Personal Growth
• 34:11 Finding Happiness and Fulfillment in Life
• 38:48 Optimizing Work and Travel Lifestyle

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:00

Hey, what's going on, guys? We've got a special guest here today. We have Brigham Dallas. He's the founder of Hello Sugar. They have 110 locations nationwide that are open. They're the fastest growing beauty franchise in the US right now and predicted to have over 200 locations by next year. Brigham, welcome to the Hashtag Clocked In podcast and the first thought is how has travel impacted your life? And in this podcast, guys, we're going to talk about travel. We're going to talk about bring them open these franchises. We're going to talk about how he's the fastest growing and you'll have to listen to hear the rest of that but bring them. How has travel impacted your life?

Speaker 2: 1:39

Yeah, I think I have a unique story compared to most people.

Speaker 2: 1:42

Um, I dropped out of college when I was in my twenties, um, and I wanted to try, like you ever have this like obsessive thought that just keeps coming to you and you're like it can't leave, like that was like every waking moment. I'd wake up and be like I gotta, I gotta see the world, like I'm just living in the United States, like what is Germany, like what is Thailand, like you know. And so I bought a one-way ticket and I started traveling and for the next six years, I would live six to eight months outside the U? S and I'd come back to the U? S for a little bit and then keep that up. And so I lived out of a suitcase for over the majority of my twenties, um, traveling the world. And, uh, I had some unique experiences from this and I'll tell you a couple of things that like shaped my life from this. Um, number one is you get into a country and you have three months there because your visa is going to expire before you have to leave the country.

Speaker 2: 2:27

And so I I started thinking early on. I said what is one thing I could accomplish here? That if I did this it would have a significant impact on my life. And I almost had a real. I almost like had goals aligned to the location. So, for example, I thought, you know, if I can learn to dance, like that'd be really cool if I could be like a really good dancer.

Speaker 2: 2:49

And so I was talking to one person on my travels and I was like, hey, you're a really good dancer. Like, if you wanted to become as good as you are now, as fast as possible, what would you do? And he goes, I would find the best dancer in the I could and I'd go take lessons from him. And so I googled world champion salsa dancer. And then I moved to barcelona and I started taking lessons in barcelona from like the world champions. And it was like a three-month stint and in those three months like I got so good at dancing compared to other times, like I was dancing with this, like like this uh couple and the guy would play the woman's part, which was like weird, weird at first.

Speaker 2: 3:22

But you're like no change your hand a quarter of degree like this and put this much pressure. It was like these like little, like micro nudges, and I'm like Whoa, that like changes everything you know. And so I would do that for a lot of things. Like, um, I learned Spanish going to Columbia. I asked my friends, like, where's the best place to learn Spanish? Like, if I want like a British accent in English, how do I find that in Spanish? And so they're like go to Columbia. I bought a one-way ticket and I just spent eight hours a day talking to people on the streets, obsessing over this one goal of learning Spanish for three months, and so I started doing this and, you know, over the collection of years, I started gaining like kind of like an Eagle Scout, you know, gaining merit badges and certain like life skills that helped me become better. I learned how to code, I learned how to do video editing, I learned how to do SEO and online marketing, and I just became a much broader, more like holistic person during this time period.

Speaker 1: 4:13

I, I, I think that's incredible. Uh, travel has been one of my favorite things and I think the way you went about it was so good, because we've had several guests come on and they talk about skill acquisition and a lot of like the common day things. That happen are people want to go get a promotion and keep getting promoted and they keep moving through, but they don't realize that they're gaining different skills. If you gain skills, those cannot be taken away from you. So like the skill of becoming a salsa dancer or the skill of becoming a marathon runner or any of these can never be taken from you. So I think that's absolutely incredible. And then to learn from the teachers themselves, because this is applicable to anybody listening right now If you want to gain a new skill, you should go to the professional and ask them how to do it. Like I just got married in November and me and my well now wife, we did dancing classes for six weeks and it was just one hour a week and we got exponentially better.

Speaker 2: 5:19

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:19

And, like I feel comfortable, and it was six hours, but if we tried on our own we wouldn't have even known what to do. So, yeah, by immersing yourself, you learn so much quicker too.

Speaker 2: 5:30

Yeah, yeah, I still have those principles today. You know it goes back to like minimalism. Like you know, if, if you go to the store and you just like buy a shirt, that shirt's kind of nice, but if I told you you can only own three shirts, like you would be really selective and like take a lot of time to figure out the quality and like figuring out exactly what you need, the color that matches, everything else. And I think maybe that's the approach we need to take with goals in our time. It's better to have one pointed goal that for the next couple of months we can work on over having a bunch of things that just kind of happen a little bit by a little bit. Recently I wanted to run a six-minute mile. I had an eight-minute time, I'd get into the sevens, but I really wanted to get a six-minute mile time. So I've been working on my VO2 max, I've been doing four-minute sprints and I finally got to a six-minute mile a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker 1: 6:17

So it's been really, really feels like yeah, it feels like a big accomplishment.

Speaker 2: 6:21

I'm 37. So getting a six minute mile at my age feels like really good.

Speaker 1: 6:26

Absolutely, and you start to realize that there's so much opportunity and what it comes down to is really figuring out what's best for us. You know what I mean. So, whatever that goal is, you can get incremental success, and it doesn't take a long time, like Brigham saying, like you can do a lot of these wherever you are. So why did you go for six to eight months and then you just came back home? How did the money situation work too? Because everyone's probably wondering that.

Speaker 2: 6:58

Yeah, I was poor. This isn't like Instagram life traveling. I, yeah, I was poor, like this isn't, like you know, instagram life traveling Like I had enough money in my bank account for a flight home in an emergency and then I was just scrambling during the time to do that. So I mean, I had some cool experiences.

Speaker 2: 7:18

I was living on an island in Thailand and I got you know there's people came there and they needed like white people to be part of like an act, an extras in this German movie, and so I got picked up as an extra and I was like this is kind of fun, like what else could I do with this? So I joined a modeling agency in Bangkok and it was like for like foreigners to like be in this modeling agency.

Speaker 1: 7:33

Oh, wow.

Speaker 2: 7:33

And they said you're too fat. And so I was like no, I'm going to fix this. I go back to my Island. There's no gyms, I just found a bunch of rocks and for like three hours a day I would just lift rocks in the air and swim and run and like I just got into shape. I ate like no rice and no like fruit and just ate meats and like like really healthy stuff, and I lost like eight pounds and I was like wow, went back to the agency and I was like they're like, okay, let's go and like I started doing that to make money.

Speaker 2: 7:59

um, and then I also when, when I was living on this island, I met somebody that did SEO. It's like optimizing Google, and so I was like hey, like, how do you do this? And then I spent like all like weeks learning this stuff and I ended up opening a online advertising company from doing that and that's how I lived for the next couple of years traveling.

Speaker 1: 8:17

Did you have to even pay this guy? Or did you just sit there and learn from it? Like? The reason I say this is because a lot of people are very intimidated to ask for help. Yeah, and a lot of people don't know the right way of asking for help you know that's the other thing about traveling.

Speaker 2: 8:31

When you're living on an island, there's nothing to do. It's not like you're like, hey, let's go to the beach, like you live on a beach, right, and so, yeah, people are very willing to share information in the travel scene. They're very open to have those dialogues with you, because they don't, they're outside of their regular routine. You know, back home I have sports, I have friends, I have social lives. I've been on an island like every. I'm like what day is it? Because there's no like action that tells you what day it is. Like on Sunday you go to church. On Monday you go to work. Like there's none of that. You can really like put your time into the one thing you want to focus on, which was really cool. And so, no, I didn't have to pay him anything, just ask him a bunch of questions.

Speaker 1: 9:07

That's awesome. Yeah, that's incredible. And you don't realize the opportunity you get with this kind of stuff because there's so many people that are willing to help. Especially, like you said, they remove a lot of the tension and the busyness. When you remove yourself from the thing, there's no friends, there's no input, like you recreate each of your inputs each and every time, which I think is one of the most beneficial things. And, like for me, I ended up traveling for seven weeks this year and we were working while doing it, so it was a little bit different, but you constantly, every place you go, you just say hi, like what's my favorite place? I don't have a favorite place, I don't have anything, and you're constantly in a learning mode, which I think is so beneficial.

Speaker 2: 9:51

I think the life lesson to take out of this and it's not just about traveling, but it's what is that one thing you want to accomplish that would make incremental changes in your business, your life, your social settings, your fitness? What is that one thing that if I focused on for the next X amount of time, and keep it short because you know our?

Speaker 2: 10:07

attention span is not years at a time, like two to three months, is probably a good amount that it would make an incremental change in my life. Um, and so we talked about dancing Spanish. You know, learning different skills for, like business, um, I still do that today. Our business, my business, you know, we've got a lot of employees. Now it's like what is that one thing that will make magnitudes of change that I can accomplish this month? And then we really dissect into those things.

Speaker 1: 10:31

So, instead of staying stuck in the day to day and staying in the rut, you're constantly looking to how to innovate and how to show up better for the people.

Speaker 2: 10:41

Yeah, and so you know we think about this. I have a team right now at this point we think about cadences of meetings. Okay, so once a year we get together, we go to a cabin and we figure out what we're going to do for the year, and then we have quarterly goals that kind of align with the big theme, like this year's theme was retention and keeping clients in the business. And, by the way, hello Sugar is a hair removal company. We do Brazilian waxing, brazilian sugaring and laser hair removal, so 90% of our clients are females. It's the Brazilian area.

Speaker 2: 11:10

If you don't know what that is, it's the bikini. That's 90% of what we do. And so we think about client retention this year and then all of our quarterly goals align with something to do with retention. And then we have a monthly alignment where we think about what we're going to accomplish that month, and then every week we have a weekly sync for 30 minutes we try to keep this really short where we say on track, off track, stuck or accomplished, and then all of us list our goals and we all go down it together so we can start collaborating and that keeps everybody on pace towards the ultimate goals that we want to accomplish for the year.

Speaker 1: 11:41

I love that. And the other major thing that's literally what I do in my coaching business, because you just you want to meet with people, you want to set the big objective, the big North Star, and then you break it down into weekly actionable steps that move you closer to that North Star. So, even if you don't, maybe the goal is to I don't know it can be anything. It could be acquire more clients, it can be run a marathon, it can be anything you want it to be, and you basically just go down the list of like did I work towards this goal? And it's super important because there's so many of us that are wasting our time each and every day, like on so many many things. You might get an email and now you're stuck on that for 30 minutes, but you, you have to be able to push your goals forward because otherwise you're not going to accomplish the things you want to accomplish and you're going to look at the end of the year and go.

Speaker 1: 12:34

I could have done better bingo yeah, yeah, absolutely so how did you even come up with hello sugar? Because it seems like an interesting, interesting, interesting, just business in general but you know I was 26.

Speaker 2: 13:06

I can't articulate this very like well about like at that time about what it was, but I knew as a general sense what I was looking for in a business. And I was talking to a friend of mine and she says, oh man, I had to pay $20,000 in taxes and keep in mind I'm traveling and poor, so I'm not, like you know, I haven't made it in life. So I was like $20,000. Like that's a lot of money to pay in taxes. Like what do you do? She goes oh, I I'm. I'm a waxer, I do Brazilian waxing. And I was like, wait, like hair hairstyling or something Like they don't make that much money, right? She goes, yeah, I made about a hundred K this year and I'm like Holy crap. Like okay, run those numbers by me. And she goes $45 for a Brazilian 15 minutes. Like $180 an hour, you make more than a lawyer does.

Speaker 2: 13:44

Like this is insane, like how much is your product costs? And she goes oh, it's like two $3 a service, like Whoa. Like what about? What about? Like how do you get clients? She goes I just ran a group on and they all came to me. I'm like that's interesting. Like how do you get them to come back? And she goes well, hair grows back every month. So I just scheduled them four weeks out and they keep coming because the hair grows back. I'm like this is the coolest business I've ever heard of. Like it sounds amazing. I want to do it. And so I've.

Speaker 2: 14:09

I brought her down to Phoenix, I flew her down for one day, trained my first esthetician, got it up and running and then from there we're off to the races. And we just built, built, built. Um, I I started with a one room suite. I didn't have a lot of money, so I put in the back of a plastic surgeon's office and, uh, you know that first year I was working reception at the plastic surgeon's office, which was already built out for me. So I spent, like you know, no money on this.

Speaker 2: 14:33

And then, about seven months in, I decided I'm ready for a big location and I put my entire life savings into building this first location I had $30,000 in the bank, $30,000 in like a line of credit. I got a $30,000 loan and I had like maxing out my credit cards was like 40 K on the Amex Right. So between all of that I had like 110, 120. And it was like. It was like really scary for me, um, but I took that one room location and then moved it into a four room flagship anchored on a grocery store, and I remember going there multiple times and thinking this could be the end of me, like I could be done if this doesn't work, like I've lost everything.

Speaker 2: 15:12

And I just took comfort in the fact that, you know, I was scaling slowly. So I knew that if I could at least bring the clients I had over, I could pay my rents and I'm not gonna like be out of money. And that was enough for me to say, okay, this concept works. So when I started the franchise later on, I had the same concept. I was like starting a suite which is a one-room studio, which there's tons of these out there now they're called like salons by JC Phoenix salon suites, these tiny studios, starting this like really tiny one, build your clientele and when you're ready, then spend the money to move it to a flagship. It's a lot less scary that way.

Speaker 1: 15:46

And it's got to be occurring. So I completely agree with this Whenever you're starting a business, try to start as small as possible. Yeah, Because if you start small then you can actually test it and you don't feel that pressure of I need to get 100 clients this month or we're not going to make rent, which can be a lot scary.

Speaker 2: 16:03

Yeah, asymmetric risk right, like if you're, if you're, overheads less than the fear of failing can, can be minimized and the fear of failing can be minimized.

Speaker 1: 16:10

And how is limiting your lifestyle not limiting? But how has your lifestyle allowed you to take bigger risk in the business and not feel so? I have to maintain this.

Speaker 2: 16:22

Well, first off, just a little bit about my personal life. So now, hello Sugar, we have 110 locations in the franchise. So if people are listening, franchises you buy into a franchise, you own the business entirely and we take, we leverage the economies of scale of like, all the, all the tech, all the reception, all the ai, the apps and everything to help your business be way more successful than if you did it yourself. And so I don't own 110 locations, I own 15 in phoenix, like market, and those I, you know, pay the same thing to the franchise to help it succeed, et cetera. Um, but I live a very minimal lifestyle. I mean, we do close to 10 million in revenue.

Speaker 2: 16:58

I make millions, you know, off the business, but I, I, my whole, like expenses, is probably $6,000 a month, like it's it's really negligible, like my apartment's 22, $2,300 a month that I live in a two-bedroom apartment. I'm close to the airport. You know I value time and experiences way more than things. And so I remember, like you know, early on it was the same thing Like I had a. I paid about $2,000 then for an apartment and I downsized. I was like you know what, if I can't make my rent in my new place. I don't want to be stressed Like financially. I get stressed Like if I, if I, have too much going on. So you know, I try to keep my expenses low on that Um, and that that's just allowed me to pivot. You know, like I don't have to go mow the lawn, I don't have to worry about, like you know, fixing things in the house. I can focus on my business and building that instead of spending all this time doing all these other distractions.

Speaker 1: 17:46

Yeah, and I think that's so important because there's so many people that are so quick to go. I want to get the nice car, I want to get the boat, I want to get the house, and what you realize later on is that you have to go to the mechanic three times a month. I need a car, I need a bit like you need so many things to maintain that it's like I can't give more to the business, like I'm already pulled in a hundred different directions and like if you get a nice size house, you become a house manager pretty quick, pretty quickly as a part-time job. Unless you want to get a house manager like it's's a process, it definitely takes a lot of time and I think it's important like especially with this, is how to live that optimal life, cause there's so many of us are looking for it and we always think it's let me get this job or let me get this, or let me get that. So when you were building this, what was the long-term vision that you had? Was it freedom?

Speaker 2: 18:53

Was it? Was it? What was it for you? I had that already. So I already had a company I was doing like digital ads and that had become successful in its own right. Like I was making 150 a year, you know, and for me that was like way more money than I needed.

Speaker 2: 19:03

So you know, I just like building things, I like watching things grow, I like tinkering, I like being part of that. You know know, process of like creating momentum. It's fun for me. And so I didn't have this like vision of like. Like we're building a national company now and that blows my mind that it's been so successful like never in a million years I ever man like imagined that this would become what it has been. I I thought you know one, two locations and I'd be okay. But we just kept growing and grew faster than we could keep up with and, like you know, I opened that flagship. The flagship became profitable and then I opened one more suite. The suite got to a point where I could do more revenue, so then I opened a flagship of the suite and then did another suite. So every year I do one suite, one flagship. I did that for five years and then I started franchising the business because my friends wanted to be part of this.

Speaker 1: 19:49

And yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:50

so initially it was just like hey, my friends like saw a good business and want to be part of it. Like here's a way to do that. I wanted to build this for them. And then the next year the first year we grew like okay. But the next year, like other people saw how much money that my friends were making and they're like let's get involved as well. And we started building like that and that's how I grew so fast.

Speaker 1: 20:10

And how does the economics behind it work for a franchisee Like what is what is even franchising in jet? Like how does that work?

Speaker 2: 20:18

Yeah, so think about this. So here's, here's how this works. You pay a set amount of money to build it, and what's cool about franchising is it's a lot like a publicly traded company, like everything's out in the open, like the profits of all the franchisees you can see the expenses of all the franchisees were held to that standard in these reports. So like it's a very like transparent business model. There's no like gotcha. You know you're in this business. It's like it's really is there.

Speaker 2: 20:43

And the way a franchise should work now hella, sugar or anything else is that you know a franchise like us, we have a hundred locations. You know, if you had one location in your business, you couldn't invest a quarter million into AI technology, build an app out for a hundred thousand dollars, you know, build all the reception tech, have a team that's dedicated just to marketing and communications and have photo shoots and like all the other stuff, right? So those collectively make you a much stronger business. So the calculus that you're making on a franchise company is could the economies of scale of this company outweigh the 6% royalty that you pay to the franchisor to be part of the franchise? And I, you know we can make a very strong economic case? That absolutely.

Speaker 2: 21:25

And now you have a business in a box that you don't have to. You don't, you don't, you don't have to like, think about you. You have something that, like 100 locations have already worked. Now just take that, continue to make a profitable in your location and build it out and you own the business. But you're part of this club, if you will. That is all trying to help you succeed and help everybody else succeed. And so sorry, just to answer your question, the the economics, um, to build a suite, it's about 100K.

Speaker 2: 21:51

To build a flagship it can be 150 to 350K depending on your locations, and all this is in 9 to 19. So you know, you actually look at the documents on this and suites are making, anywhere after a year, 60, 65,000 profit. Flagships are making between 100 to 250,000 profit with, you know, a net margin of around 150 profit, and so you can build a couple of these and replace your job. You're working maybe 10 to 15 hours a week and now you have the liberty to travel and to do all these other things.

Speaker 1: 22:21

Yeah, absolutely, and people don't realize it that one of the biggest things that a lot of us miss that, I found, is you want asset, like you want to build assets, yeah, and then your assets are working for you. So this is all money working for you, yes, but it's also the assets are working for you, and once you're up and running, it flows like it really does flow, to a way where you're like oh wow, I didn't expect this, so are a lot of people working the front desk at these franchises? Well, that goes back to what makes us unique.

Speaker 2: 22:55

If you think about a beauty business, front desk staff is 40% of your employees. They're minimum wage employees. They add nothing to the value of the company. They're not producing revenue for you. They're checking people out, they're booking appointments, et cetera. We eliminated front desk altogether. So they're checking people out, they're booking appointments, et cetera. We eliminated front desk altogether. So then we pass that savings on entirely to the front, to the franchisee. They're not having 40, they have 40% less staff than a normal place does.

Speaker 2: 23:20

We do all the reception online. So if somebody calls in, they text in, they email or whatever. We take care of that off shore and in through AI. So like, a lot of times people don't even know they're speaking to a bot, but it's like an actual bot answering their questions. We do 65 through a bot of all the tickets that come in. It's the highest in the industry in terms of ai and um and so like, yeah, it's just the estheticians that are checking the clients out and when they get in, they check in on an ipad. So it's a completely receptionless model. Oh, wow, yeah so.

Speaker 1: 23:51

So basically, all the person would have to do is find the status, like find the girl who's going to do the work yeah, estheticians esthetician.

Speaker 2: 23:59

I didn't know a lot of times get confused with anestheticians that numb you. But yeah, estheticians, yeah. So a franchisee is finding three estheticians to work in their salon suite when they start and then they're managing their numbers and making sure that the relationship is good. So they're making sure they stay up on sales and that they're taking care of the clients, but they can't be in the room. So most franchisees are working maybe 10 hours a week on the business and the rest is handled through like automations and managers that we help put in place.

Speaker 1: 24:29

Wow, that's pretty interesting.

Speaker 2: 24:31

Yeah, it's a cool concept.

Speaker 1: 24:32

I mean, most people don't think about it this conventional way. And then how have you been so ahead of the game on like AI and realizing these different opportunities? Because I feel like a lot of people are not seeing this as it is.

Speaker 2: 24:46

Yeah, I think we're starting to. Most people are, but I think we're ahead of the curve. When we started the franchise, I spent a year prior to starting the franchise building reception, so I'm intimate in the reception process.

Speaker 2: 24:59

I knew that if we're going to scale to a thousand locations, I had to build something now that could handle a thousand, because it's infinitely more complex to switch afterwards, so I spent a year prior to franchising building that out. Complex to switch afterwards, so I spent a year prior to franchising building that out. So, uh, reception was a really important part of this, this equation. Initially we had macros, which are like texts that come in.

Speaker 2: 25:18

Then we took the text and automated with a bot, but it wasn't like sentient and then we built a large language like learning model in lm and we took that model and trained an ai on it to respond to questions. And once we felt on each of those intents like booking, rescheduling I'm on my period. Once we felt that those were confident enough to answer, then we rolled out each of those individual intents to the public until we got to the point now where we're at 65% automation. Wow.

Speaker 1: 25:47

And you start getting the results back and then, if there's issues, you update and constantly iterating on it.

Speaker 2: 25:53

Yeah, we had the choice between doing an app and running AI. We couldn't do both, we didn't have the money for both, so we chose to do AI first, and that made a world of difference, because then we had a lot more money to be able to do an app. So we have a really good app.

Speaker 1: 26:08

Now, that's awesome. That's incredible. And and what? What prompted the franchise? Because I know you were in um in byu, like what? What prompted that?

Speaker 2: 26:17

yeah, so I was teaching a class called how to start a small business for three thousand dollars or less, because I started mine for three thousand dollars, um, and so I love my calling in life is teaching people how to start businesses, like I love it more than anything else, and so marrying the class with, like my own business sounded really cool, so that's why I started the franchise and then my buddies wanted to do it.

Speaker 2: 26:38

So my buddies are like yeah, like how can I get involved in this? Can we become like partners? I'm like huh, like maybe this is a way to help you with your business but not actually be involved in the same level to your business. You're still managing and owning and taking all the upside from it yeah, and, and what did you see as like the original concept?

Speaker 1: 26:57

like, were the students interested? Was this a thing that a lot of people were?

Speaker 2: 27:02

I felt, yeah, like ethically I didn't feel right talking to my students about it. Yeah, because, yeah, you know so, so I didn't really talk to the students about the franchise. Yeah, Cause, yeah, you know so. So I didn't really talk to the students about the franchise, but I, I I shared tons of case studies during class about hello sugar.

Speaker 1: 27:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:18

But then once they heard that I was doing a franchise cause I'm pretty close to a lot of my students it got out like there's like tons of students from my former classes that now own franchises.

Speaker 1: 27:27

I mean there's entrepreneurs in the department.

Speaker 2: 27:29

So like they were all about like starting stuff like that. So yeah, like it did eventually work out that that's the way it went.

Speaker 1: 27:35

And what prompted you to teach the class Like was this one of your?

Speaker 2: 27:39

learning goals.

Speaker 2: 27:41

No, I, like you know, I was traveling a lot, so I had a kind of a cool lifestyle. You know, like I'm always in a new country, not in a new place, and when I was home people would be like, hey, can I take you to lunch and kind of hear your story? And so I was like, yeah, that sounds great. And eventually I was like getting asked that like all the time I was like you know what? I'm just going to build a class and teach it on the house. So I had people come to my house oh, really, how to start that business? And so it turned out to be this like at home class. And then I went up to BYU and I was.

Speaker 2: 28:14

I was like, hey, how can I get involved? I want to help out. And they're like hey, teach this like lecture, like it's a, it's a one hour lecture class. I taught the class, the students loved it. And then I got asked to like teach my at home class at BYU. So it was a really unique Like I wasn't expecting this at all, but it was like yes no fine.

Speaker 2: 28:31

So I'd fly up to Utah I teach for a day. I lectured seven hours in a day for one day, and then I would ski the next day, and so I did that for three years straight and the fall time I would just like find some cool activity for the next day because I couldn't ski.

Speaker 1: 28:46

But yeah, it was so fun doing that, yeah yeah, and it was like your little reward to yourself is the outdoors and just experiencing yeah, I love utah.

Speaker 2: 28:54

Utah's a blast utah is beautiful.

Speaker 1: 28:57

We ended up doing three weeks there in 2020 while we were traveling, and you just start to realize that there's so much, there's so many different ways of life, like there's so many different ways you can live. There's so many different things you can do yeah. There's so many different things you can do, so for you, is there any regrets you have at this moment? Because I feel like with someone going an unconventional path, it's like is there anything different they would have done?

Speaker 2: 29:20

Like you know I try not to live on like regrets and stuff. In that sense, you know, I think we get. We get into the cycle of like just beating ourselves down with those kinds of things. Um, I definitely have learning experiences from my past that I I want to apply to like the future. Um, I don't know how much I can say on air, but I'll just give kind of like the I had a. Um, I had an, I had a partner we'll call it that who I gave equity to in the initial concept of like hello sugar concept.

Speaker 1: 29:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:51

Um, I don't know how much I can actually say on air no, I got you, I got it, it's all good. But let me just say this broader, and this is something I've learned from this experience we had a clause in there, an ethics clause in the contract that said, if there is any kind of unethical behavior, basically you'll get an appraisal of the business and buy the other person out.

Speaker 2: 30:16

But it was very vague you'll get an appraisal of the business and buy the other person out. But it was very vague, yeah, and so you know. I've learned that that's not the way you should do contracts. I've learned to put a lot of time and effort into figuring out how to build contracts in a way that are like, fair, like if somebody were to do something unethical in the business you don't want to pay them, like their equity shouldn't get.

Speaker 1: 30:36

Yeah, they shouldn't get a bonus for getting in trouble yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:40

And so there's. You know stuff like that or like how do you control majority share in the decision making process to make sure that your business is preserved long term? How do you align incentives? You know how do you align incentives for your employees and for your partners to make sure that they're like thinking like owners and not just like employees in the business itself. And how do you take that back if they're not acting? Because you're placing a bet on that person? You don't want to give up equity to somebody if they're not going to perform the way that they say they are. So making sure that's done over time and not like right away, like. So stuff like that I've learned a lot about over the years and then, for you, was there anything?

Speaker 1: 31:15

because I feel I find it very interesting and obviously you had a different. It was a different time, um, with with the social media going on and the constant comparison. But how do you not? It doesn't seem like you compare yourself to others because you live your own life and I just know a lot of people struggle with the whole comparison thing. So how do you think about that?

Speaker 2: 31:34

yeah, um, that's a great man. That's such a good question. I don't spend a lot of time on social media looking at like other people's stuff, like I 'll post on social media and then I just get off. So I'm not really very active on the social channels, um, with the exception of just like posting to keep connections with people that you know I care about. Uh, in terms of like the comparison thing I was thinking about this the other day you know, like I I play a lot of soccer, I love soccer and I'm like I'll never be that guy in soccer. You know, like that, that like number one player, that like like the messies of like you know some people just have a gift and I, I just remind myself in those situations like what are my gifts?

Speaker 2: 32:13

Like what, what is my messy scenario of what I'm really good at and can be proud about? And those help me think you know what, like we're, no one's going to be good at everything, and if you, if you, comparison is the killer of joy. So if I start comparing myself to other people and like everything, then I I just naturally fall into this like unhappy state, right? So I don't know, at some point you just train your mind to say like that's, that's not where we, you know what you're good at, be proud for the things you're good at and celebrate other people's success in those other categories.

Speaker 1: 32:43

A hundred percent, and I think one of the things that I focus on or that I'm interested in is more of moving to gratitude, like whenever, whenever people get upset or whenever people get angry, or whenever it's like what are you grateful for? And you're like I don't want to answer that and it's like oh no, you have so much to be happy for and you're so like you've created so much, and I find that helps people and that helps myself a lot, because when you can get overwhelmed and you can get bobbed down and you can, there's always issues going on and it's like. Another really interesting one was I was having a coaching call with his potential client and he was basically like yeah, you ever have a bad week. And I'm like not really man, and I'm like what's your definition of a bad day?

Speaker 1: 33:28

He's like I don't have one and I'm like okay, and I realized that you need definitions for these things, so like a definition for a bad day to make it not a bad day, like a definition of a bad day would be someone close to you passes away. Okay, at least you qualify what a bad day is, and then can we qualify what a good day is, and it's like waking up, okay, fantastic. So now we have good days or bad days, not, hey, I feel like I'm in a mood and I realized the definitions help so much for us to be more successful, because I think that really brings us down. So for you, is there anything that you've done that's really helped you mindset wise?

Speaker 2: 34:07

yeah yeah, yeah one, I'm gonna answer that question. But just one thought I had when you're talking about this, andrew carnegie was considered one of the richest men of the 1900s. Um, he was a big influencer in the steel thing, in the steel industry and and the railroads, and like building you know the, the back ends. Um, he said he got asked in an interview. He was someone was like you're the richest man in the world right now. How much, like? How much is enough? How much is enough? How much is enough money for you? And he said, just a little bit more. You're never satisfied and I find that a little bit sad. You know, like how do we become satisfied with what we have? But to answer your question, because I think you're asking more about, like the happiness side of things, of course, I like to think of my life in silos.

Speaker 1: 34:57

Okay.

Speaker 2: 34:58

You know a silo when you think of a farm. A silo is where you put the grain. The grain is stored for a later date, and so I you know, if you think you have, like, what are your silos in life? Like, I have a silo for my relationships, a silo for spirituality, a silo for fitness and a silo for work, and I can, I can use any of those silos to activate happiness, right, Like, if I'm having a bad day at work, I can go have a really good relationship with my wife and increase my happiness. Or I could go score a goal and feel really good about myself to mitigate some of the stress of the work side, because work is a lot of entrepreneurs like work is their silo of happiness. Yes, you know, and work is very based on externalities. Like no one expected covid, but covid could kill that silo for a long time, right, and so we need other places to put our happiness to be able to, to become resilient to those bad experiences and I think that comes down to having different things, that.

Speaker 1: 35:55

But the more diverse we are, the more opportunities we have for happiness too. Yeah, and it's like the more and even it doesn't even have to be like outside, like you could be in work, but you have to measure. The more things you measure, the more happiness you can get.

Speaker 1: 36:09

You know what I mean yeah so because we can be so hard on ourselves sometimes. So if you're like really structured on something and we only look at sales numbers but you don't look at all the new franchises that developed and you're like, oh, I guess that's pretty good, but it didn't beat the sales number, you know what I mean? It kind of goes back and forth and it's starting to realize, like what actually makes us happy and like where can we find this? Because, no matter where we are like, one of the ones I use a lot too is the frame of like look back at yourself 10 years ago and would be, would you be like pumped about where you're at? And a majority of the time people are like, yes, yes, of course. Then why don't we let ourselves be pumped right now?

Speaker 2: 36:44

so true, so true. I you know, I think sometimes we like we get to it and like whatever we get to doesn't feel different. You know, like when we pass a hundred locations, I was like happy for like a minute, yeah, I'm like, I'm like okay, let's keep going. But like I think spending some time to like have a dinner or have some like time to celebrate like those really high, high achievements that we were working for so long at, like no, it takes some time to celebrate. I was talking to an owner that just passed $20,000 in profit a month and I was like, dude, this is like incredible. Like look at what you've accomplished. He's like yeah, like no, like let's celebrate this.

Speaker 1: 37:19

This is really cool A hundred percent and being present with that and not just being like what's next? Because when you constantly go to that what's next, you never give yourself the freedom to be happy and freedom to enjoy and freedom to be like whoa, we really did this. And I find and you have to let yourself do that all along the path, and that's from the guy who did 20,000 a month, that's from the 1,000 a month to the 5,000, to the 10,000 to the 15, like it's all along the journey, because there's so many times where you're gonna have up days or bad days or whatever it is, but you have to realize you're going in the path, that you want to go on and this is an exciting journey I totally agree 100 because there's so much where it's just we.

Speaker 1: 38:04

we just don't give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. We're like we're not good, we're not this, we're not that, and it's like, no, you just had an amazing trip or you just had an amazing like year, you just had an amazing month, or whatever it is. You have to give that grace, or even if it's a bad month, still giving yourself that grace of like, hey, if we look at the bigger picture, I'm doing pretty well. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It happens so often. So for you, how do you look at life nowadays? Do you still travel? Is travel done with? Are you only on Hello Sugar? How do you think about juggling all that?

Speaker 2: 38:39

Yeah, um, traveling is a very big part of my life, so I hope that never goes away. Um, I still travel three to five months a year, uh, on a regular basis. So in 2020,. I got married in 2020 and our goal was to travel all seven continents in 2020. Um, but COVID hit like literally four days after we got married so we got married on saturday the country got shut down, so you can imagine like how crazy that was.

Speaker 2: 39:04

And so as soon as like country started opening, july 15th, the first country to open was tahiti, french polynesia yeah like, all right, we're going and we started our world tour um and we did. Uh, that year we hit four continents in 2020 um and and you know, during this, and it was crazy because we would be the only tourist somewhere in the world.

Speaker 2: 39:24

You know it was like it was so crazy, um, and during this time, like my wife was like not working and so I would be like on calls and like I'd be like, hey, honey, like I know we're like at cool waterfall, I got to go take this call, you know, or like, and it was. It was a little bit hard for her to adjust to that and it was hard for me to see that as well, and so I started something that I haven't stopped doing and it's been one of the best things for my business. Um, I use a Calendly tidy cows, another one but basically where you can go schedule appointments with people and it has the zoom link automatically sent to them. And then what I do is I put a calendly link for mondays and wednesdays and I stack all my meetings on two days a week. So tuesday, thursday and friday are completely open, and when I was traveling, like those two days I'm in a hotel it's a nice hotel.

Speaker 2: 40:12

You know that you got to go do whatever you want to do, but those two days, like I'm working from like the earliest of mornings until as late as possible doing all my meetings.

Speaker 2: 40:20

Um, and in that way, you know, I I think we have like a manager brain and we have like a building brain, like a development brain, you know, and so, like, the manager brain doesn't work at the same like call it alpha waves, as, like the, the development brain development brain needs like long periods uninterrupted to build things, and the manager brain needs to talk to a lot of people, and I think it's a bad idea for for people to combine days where the manager brain and the developer brain has to work. And so that's been a big thing now, even today, and it's allowed me to travel, it's allowed me to have, like, cool experiences and flexibility. My schedule is I have a day where, like, like today, wednesday, from 8am until as late as humanly possible, I'm doing meetings, and tomorrow I have zero meetings planned and I'm going to be able to work on the things that I need to accomplish for the week.

Speaker 1: 41:07

I. I love that because it gets you thinking a little bit differently and you start to realize that, like Alex Ramos he talked about it where he's like yeah, I try to go super uninterrupted and then I'll have meetings, starting at the bottom of the day and build them up. But when you really think about it like, how many meetings are that important? One and then two, what is the point of all these meetings? And you start to realize, hey, if I can just put them in the container of where I own them, then we'll be in a much better place and you don't have to. Then you can really think clearly and allow you to open up that travel schedule, which I really love, and I think the best part is because you put yourself through that it allows you to open up these opportunities.

Speaker 1: 41:49

So I think whenever you put a lot of constraints on yourself, it causes innovation. And most people are so like no, no, I can't do that. No, you cause the constraint and then you open up innovation. So like when we were traveling around for seven weeks, like originally I would use my phone to like bill people and I couldn't bill anyone because the square doesn't work on the phone but like once I went on the computer I auto charged and I would do do it.

Speaker 1: 42:13

You have workarounds, you figure it out and you make stuff work and when you put it there you're not gonna sit there and be like I'm not collecting. You make things work and you allow yourself to have these opportunities to really live that life and I love that. Is there any other tips or tricks that you have that allow you, because I sit here and I'm like it seems like you probably have a pretty optimized life for experiential. Yeah, yeah, like it seems like you probably have a pretty optimized life for like experiential.

Speaker 2: 42:37

Yeah, yeah, I mean like I have an assistant we'll call it that. It's just a girl in the Philippines. You can pay. You can find somebody for like $4 an hour. So don't think this is like some glorified, like you know, personal assistant. This is like really expensive. But she has my entire set of passwords and credit cards associated with travel and she and I just texted her and I'm like, hey, I want to go here and she knows what I want. You know, she knows the car I want, she knows the hotels I want to stay at and she knows my flights and I'll just screenshot the flight I want and she'll she'll book the hotels and everything else. So she handles my entire travel schedule, um, which is really nice.

Speaker 2: 43:13

You know it took a little bit to set that up, but that that's like really made traveling easy. The second thing you know the unintended consequence of traveling that's worth talking about is that when you leave, people stop relying on you to figure out their job, and I don't know why that is. I mean, people are like oh, Brigham's in Japan, Like I don't want to bother him while he's on vacation. Well, I'm not on vacation, Like I'm still working. If I was on vacation five months a year, this company wouldn't work. But people think twice before they reach out about something and somehow your company just starts to learn how to be self-sufficient. And if you start traveling, you're going to find gaps in your company where you're like oh crap, Like this can't work without me. How do I make it work without me so I can go do these x, y and z things that I like to do, like travel, and you start to make your company more automated, which makes the company better 100 I love that and do you adjust?

Speaker 1: 44:10

because I want everyone to realize this like, do you adjust? Like when you say those meetings for monday and wednesday and you're in japan, like obviously japan's time is completely different, are you working throughout japan's night? Are you working through japan's day? Because I you told me this previously and I think, yeah, for everyone to realize yeah, like, look like if I can, I'll schedule the meetings.

Speaker 2: 44:29

You know my night time, their morning time, so I'm not like 3 am because I'm just not going to be functional, but for the most part part I'm working US time because I can't expect my team to like change their lifestyle because I'm in Japan, you know. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 44:45

And I think that's important to realize that there's there are sacrifices on both sides of it. It's not that you get to control everything. Sometimes you have to stay up later, you have to do different things Because everyone wants to be like oh, it's so glamorous, like you just did this and it's like no, the extra four hours I had today, I went on a little adventure instead of sitting at home and watching TV.

Speaker 2: 45:05

Most people aren't cut out to travel.

Speaker 1: 45:07

This is what I've learned.

Speaker 2: 45:08

Most people it's very hard to live in a different bed, in a different lifestyle, a different routine. There's going to be things that are going to go completely wrong and, unless you have like a go with the flow mentality, traveling will stress a lot of people out, and I'm not talking about going on vacation for a week, I'm talking like let's go for a couple months somewhere like that. That's very stressful for people that are getting outside of their comfort zone to try something new like that yeah, so what would you recommend if someone was thinking about or considering it like how would you?

Speaker 2: 45:36

pick an easy country what's an easy country?

Speaker 2: 45:38

uh, thailand's a phenomenally easy country to travel in. Indonesia is pretty easy to travel in um countries that are cheap, that have like great experiences and speak english. So, yeah, like there's, there's some good ones out there, colombia is a fun one to travel in. Um, I would just pick areas that, like you, could live for a while and like like what I would do is like I would pick a place and during the week I would stay there. On the weekends I would take, you know, weekend trips to all the different destinations around that area.

Speaker 1: 46:06

Okay, I like that. No, the reason I'm curious is because, like when I was doing it last earlier this year, we did seven weeks and the strategy was I mean and this was a little aggressive, but it was like Monday through Thursday, stay in the same location, then, like Friday, we would go somewhere Saturday, sunday and then try to get back to somewhere else by like Monday and like have your day set up like try to stay in the same country Cause otherwise you're like you're done for if you're, if you're trying to catch planes and do three places in one week, yeah, it's too much, too much we did that one time during the trip and it was like we were both looking at each other like, oh my god, this is awful like yeah, yeah

Speaker 1: 46:48

it's not always glamorous. It's not always glamorous, but bring them. This has been amazing. Where can people learn about hello fresh and or, if they're or sorry HelloSugar and if they're considering franchising or interested in that process, what does that look like?

Speaker 2: 47:04

Yeah, hellosugar. You can just Google HelloSugar franchise and come to our website, hellosugarsalon. You can see all the information about the economics, if this would be good for your business or your area. The 30-second pitch is if you want something that you can continue doing your current full-time job that has 100 plus locations, it's got a proven strategy of success. It'll automate a lot of this process for you and you don't have to be very beauty minded I mean, we're a tech company that does waxing then check out hello sugar franchise and learn more about us. We'll schedule a meeting and just talk through it. There's zero pressure. It's not a sales call in any way. Um, just learn about it. If it's something that's a good fit, then welcome to the team. You know hello sugar is uh, it's a national brand now, so we got locations everywhere congratulations and all the success.

Speaker 1: 47:50

Thanks, jordan.