EP 458: From Apparel Empire to Facial Bar Franchise: Michele’s Journey Building Face Foundrié®

Welcome back to the Spa Marketing Made Easy podcast. I’m your host, Daniela Woerner, and today’s episode is one that is going to stretch your thinking, spark your creativity, and maybe even shift the way that you see what is possible for your business. Have you ever wondered what it would look like to take everything that you’ve learned from one successful business pivot completely into a new industry and build a franchise model that sells out an entire state in just 30 days. That is exactly what today’s guest Michele did. Michele is the founder of  Face Foundrié, an open air facial bar franchise that launched just months before the world shut down for covid, but before skincare Michele built a $25 million women’s clothing Empire, and in this episode, she shares the story of selling her business, her clothing empire, signing away that retail Business, and signing the lease for her first  Face Foundrié  location, all within five minutes. I mean, talk about trusting your gut. So we dive into the realities of franchising from the legal foundations that you cannot afford to skip to the mindset shifts required to go from a solopreneur to a successful franchisor. Michele also shares why she follows a sisters, not twins, approach to brand consistency, and how her franchisees balance creativity with structure. So whether you’re dreaming of an expansion, considering franchising or just love a behind the scenes, look at what it takes to build a scalable beauty brand. This is a conversation that you do not want to miss. All right, let’s go ahead and play that interview. 

All right, Michele, welcome to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I you know you are the first guest that we have had on in quite a while, because we really, we were focusing on a lot of training episodes and a lot of kind of in depth stuff. And we get a lot of pitches every single every single day, really, but yours really stood out as something that I thought, oh my gosh, this is going to be something, this interview, this story, would be so valuable to our audience. And so I’m so happy to have you here, and so happy to welcome you. 

Well, thanks for having me. I’m very excited to be here and share, hopefully what I’ve learned, and ultimately, hopefully I spark some curiosity or inspiration with your listeners. So let’s start at the beginning, or where whatever the beginning is for you, I know that you have entrepreneurial blood. This is not your first business. You had a clothing store previously,

right? Yep, exactly. So I actually graduated. I was an apparel design and merchandising major, so not in skincare. I’m I’m actually not a certified esthetician by trade, either. But I graduated from college, and myself and my business partner started a women’s clothing chain back in 2010 which was like such a weird, volatile time to start a business, and then, having lived through covid, it felt like very much some PTSD, yeah, we started a clothing business right out of college, and we ended up building it to nine stores. It was not franchised, it was all corporately owned, and hit 25 million in revenue, all debt free. So it was fast learning curve, and I loved everything about it.

So what was the transition there? Did you sell that and you were just ready for something new, or what kind of pivoted that said, like, hey, I need this. I want to make this shift into the esthetics industry.

Great question. So it was 2017 I had my third child, and I was just riddled with hormonal acne and the struggle of trying to find a affordable med spa that had really easy booking or approachable hours, it didn’t exist. And so 2017 I just I sat on this idea forever, of like, why doesn’t something like  Face Foundrié, this open air concept that truly has approachable skincare exist in the world. And at the time, I still had my women’s clothing chain, and it apparel was really all I had ever known. But I could not let go of this feeling for this focus facial bar. So it was December 14, 2018, at 10:30am I signed over the rights for my shares of my clothing store. It’s still in existence. It’s called primp, and at 1035 I signed the lease for what would become our flagship store in the Galleria for Face Foundrié. So it’s five whole minutes. I was scared to death. I’m not. In a lot, like, I knew if I gave myself any more time, I’d probably talk myself out of it, right? But I just couldn’t let go of this feeling and skincare. I I look back, and it’s so easy to look back and see the obvious, like, oh, the aha moments. But I was obsessed with skincare and makeup as a kid, and I just didn’t know that that would really just stick with me and evolve into something special. So two things that just stood out that are actually personal things. My daughter was born in 2017 so we have a child that’s the same age. And my business was started on December 14, although it was 2014 so those are just good omens. When is your daughter’s birthday? May 5. Oh, mine’s may 21 so may babies. May babies.

Yes. Okay, so you’re moving into you sign this lease. You haven’t really been in the esthetics industry to under I mean, you’ve have the entrepreneurial background, but, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of, as I’m sure you’re well aware of now, there’s a lot of industry specific, you know, types of things. So did you go into that location immediately knowing that you wanted to franchise, or were you just trying to take this concept and say, I want to build, I want to solve a problem for my community first?

For sure, that is a great question. So with my clothing chain, I actually did pursue franchising, and I love the idea of the franchising model. I think it’s amazing. It has it attracts this entrepreneur that wants a little bit more of the framework and a blueprint laid out for them and a proven concept. So I love that idea, because I think that ultimately you bring in good people, you can grow way faster. The clothing concept, it was not the model I felt was right for franchising. There were too many nuances, lots of skews. It just didn’t fit. But I knew whatever I did next I wanted to franchise. So to your point, the day we opened, I was documenting everything, all of our processes. I knew that we wanted to franchise. Once we hit that one year mark, we opened, march 1 2019, and I was like, waiting for March 1 2020 because we’d have a year’s worth of data, we could launch our franchising program. Oh, Daniela, it was going to be perfect, right? Great timing. Super fast. Obviously, the world had other plans. But yeah, it was March 2020 the world ended. And then you were right as I was about to launch that franchising program, I think the, like, the entire world shut down. And of course, you know, that’s when I had another baby, in April of 2020, so I was like, okay, great, yeah, I guess I’m on an extended maternity leave. Totally get that. Totally get that. Yeah, so. And I will say to your point, I am not a trained esthetician, and walking in, I almost I knew that was going to be the area of opportunity for me. So I really tried to surround myself with amazing estheticians that I trusted, that I was able to work with. I mean, one I had started working with back in 2017 on my skin, and just kind of evolved from there, because it is an area that I really wanted to perfect, but 90% in my opinion, of business translates. So I was able to bring a lot of the business acumen that I learned through our clothing store and then working for my parent, parents prior, it really did translate. And so I’m, I’m grateful for that, but the estheticians that signed on with us right away, they were instrumental in providing feedback as to what we should do when we launched protocols. All of it. Okay?

So March 2020, you’re, I’m assuming you’re not launching your franchise model with everything that happened. So what was the next step there? What? What did you do? Because we all had to, I mean, that was such a crazy time, but I also believe that it made us so strong and so resourceful. And any time that things you know, there’s been a lot of natural disasters, there’s been a lot of you know, whether it’s uncertainty in an election year or all of these different types of things that happen that are challenges for business owners. I’m like, Look, we made it through covid. We couldn’t even do facials without a mask on the patient. So, like, we figured it out, and like, you can do this, you know, well, and it, it breeds such innovation. Because I’ll never forget, we had to furlough all of our staff members. And I remember talking to this manufacturer in the Twin Cities, and I was like, I want you to create this, like plastic bubble, a dome that goes over their face, and our estheticians could just put their hands in. And thinking about, like, how can you do a facial, kind of under plastic to make sure that someone feels protected? Because even, I mean, I felt so bad for the Board of Cosmetology, you know, they they didn’t know how to navigate this. No one did. And so it was like trying to find feedback, or how we could reopen. Everybody was just kind of like awestruck and wondering, how do we do this? How do we relaunch? But I will say we were really innovative in the process, and we learned a lot. And you really do not at the time, but in hindsight, you realize how resilient you become in figuring out a way. And so for us, it was okay. How do we? How do we use this time to really document everything and put it online, if we can’t ever train in person again, what is this going to look like? We opened March 1, 2019, like I mentioned, and within a month, we knew, and part of the franchising model I knew I wanted multiple corporate locations to show proof of concept in various demographics, so we opened our second site not long after our first and then once covid rolled around, we had just signed a lease for our third site.

So that was really fun to kind of renegotiate and navigate and figure out how and when we could open that but three was really that sweet spot to then say, Okay, we have enough data to go back and launch franchising and launch our FTD with valuable insights and metrics as to how our stores did even through a little bit of a crisis. So when did you actually launch the franchising model?

When was we ended up launching January 2021, and within 30 days, we sold out the state of Minnesota, which is where we are based, all of our all of our franchisees found us very organically. They were actually clients or friends of clients. So it was perfect, because our original group of franchisees, they very much understood our mission, our brand. They aligned with what we wanted to do and how we wanted to execute it. And so there was very little education going in to having to explain what our brand and what our culture represented. And that was a huge blessing, too. And a lot of our growth, I attribute to those early franchisees that were just as gung ho very hungry and motivated to continue to help us spread the word.

So talk to me a little bit about the difference that an entrepreneur would experience whether they decide to become a franchisee. You know, they want to open their own spa versus just going and opening their own spa on their own. What are the diff? What are the primary differences, the benefits, the limitations, like to know, all of it going all in. How would they decide if being a franchisee is right for them, or just starting from scratch?

I think that’s a great question. First of all, we chat with a lot of our franchisees and potential franchisees, and I’m very transparent. I say, Yeah, Daniela, what do you love doing? What do you feel like you are the best at doing? And where do you feel like there are areas of opportunity? Because, to me, that’s meeting a franchisee where they’re at. So if you don’t love you know, real estate, let’s say you really need to lean on us for operations or marketing. We have playbooks for all of those things. So you get to really decide, do I want to where do I want to showcase my skill set versus lean on the system to help me. And there hasn’t been anything we haven’t been able to tackle, you know, accounting, if they need legal ops, like I had mentioned, any sort of educational side of things. I think on the flip side, if someone is very entrepreneurial and they have a lot of ideas and they want to kind of maybe they want a weekly facial where they are switching out the protocols, and they are really wanting to be hands on in their business, and wanting lots of change and lots of control, I think then that is probably the route that would serve them best. And we’ve certainly had those conversations and those transparent kind of outlooks of if that is the route you want to go franchising and that model might not be the best option for you, but if you do want that consistency and leaning on education and best practices, real estate marketing operations like we can help you fill all of those buckets.

What happens with a franchise when someone wants to exit? Are they able to sell the franchise or just similar as. You would sell a business, oh, yeah, business.

And I would argue because, you know, it depends on a brand. I wouldn’t just say, like Face Foundrié specifically, but a franchising model. Let’s say, if the brand is large enough, you’re going to have a much larger buyer pool, okay, as opposed to maybe a one off.

And in terms of, I think the thing I’m always curious about with a franchise is, does the owner have the opportunity to choose the product lines that they want to bring in, or are there set product lines? Does the owner have the choice if they want to create a particular type of marketing promotion, or are they limited to what the franchisee or franchise is saying each month?

Great question. So we have required skews and required product lines that we use in some of our protocols, or we just know that they sell well, retail wise, and then we have optional and so it’s very much on the owner to be able to say, Hey, I live in, let’s say, a southern region. I know I’m going to need more SPF, or I’m going to lean on more of the optional skews, because our clients are providing feedback. There’s a lot of optionality there within kind of the parameters we set. From a marketing standpoint, we are constantly doing customized marketing events. We, I would say, almost daily, our franchisees are working with other businesses, influencers, they’re doing pop ups. So really, in the marketing world, the options are endless. With what you can do. We are just here, kind of on the back end to support, to provide collateral that’s consistent with the brand, making sure that the verbiage fits the brand. Anything we can do then to take that off the franchisee,

wonderful, wonderful. And in terms of starting a franchise for yourself, like, what were the steps that went into that? You know, you knew from the beginning you obviously had a significant amount of business experience. You mentioned briefly that you used to work for your parents, so I’m assuming your parents were entrepreneurs as well. If you grew up with that, that kind of gets into your blood. But, you know, moving into that, that role, that model, what can someone expect, like, what are the the blind spots that they may not be thinking about?

I think it goes back to even the conversation we have with potential franchisees, what, where are your areas of opportunity, right? What are you not just, what are you passionate about, but what are you really, really good at? Because if you’re great at marketing, fantastic own that portion, but if you’re a little bit weaker at, say, accounting or finance or legal, like you need to have a very strong attorney that understands franchising. They should specialize in nothing else but franchising, because it is nuanced. And so that’s probably the one single best piece of advice I can pull out. Is if you are looking to franchise your concept, you have to have a fantastic legal team, and you have to make sure that your numbers are airtight, because the Franchise Disclosure Document is a public document, and you are really opening up your business to the world. You’re showing them what it costs to build it out, and you’re showing potential franchisees exactly how you make money?

Yeah, that’s a accounting and legal. I mean, the first thing that I did, you said you started your business and signed the lease. I started my business and I hired my accountant before $1 came in. Because I am black and white, like, I don’t like any gray area when it comes to the IRS, I am like, such a rule follower. I was like, Okay, let’s get that, that accountant in there.

And what do you think you like your unique skill set like when it comes to be like for someone to be successful at being a franchiser. They’re, you know, they’ve built one business, but it is a completely different model. And it is, you know, different locations can have different personalities. You know, before I started my company, I worked for a company called Bella sante, and there are three location, day spa, med spa in the Boston area. Huge operation, 200 employees, and incredibly systemized, incredibly well run. But every single location, even though they were exactly the same protocol, they had a different vibe, like it’s in a different city. There’s a different vibe of clientele that are coming in. There’s a different vibe of employees that are coming in. They’re still following step by step the protocols, but like your managing style, your leadership style, ensuring everybody is, you know, connected with the core values. It that was just all in the same in the Boston area. So going across the country, that’s, I mean, there’s some major cultural differences,

100% and I think to your point, you know, you can have this beautiful brand and lots of employees, and you have to have it systematically locked in. Your operations has to be lock step, because you want to make sure that you can replicate. And I do think that’s so important, not not even with franchising, because you can have corporate stores. And I felt this with our clothing brand. We had corporate stores across the Midwest, but it has to feel somewhat similar. Now, I do think Face Foundrié is unique in the sense that we view our sites as sisters, not twins, and that’s a little different in the franchising world. You think about McDonald’s or subway or even great clips you go in, you’re going to have to tear it down to the studs and rebuild it to make sure that it is the exact same model. We found that there’s ways to eliminate waste and cut costs if we work with some of the assets that are actually in a space. So I do think the sisters, not twins model for us has actually been really beneficial, but then the challenge becomes making sure that it feels very cohesive, state by state and space by space.

So I don’t know if this is the right way to ask, but like, Starbucks is a franchise, but then you go individually in each Starbucks and they’ll have, like, the local like, here’s the Hawaii cup and here’s the whatever cup, you know. So there’s something that’s kind of picking up on that vibe. Is that what you mean, or you’re like, it’s just not like a cookie cutter, like, every, every real estate space is exactly the same. Like, are you trying to connect with your local community 100%

And we usually do that through, like, business to business partnerships, the assets of the space, like, for example, I’ll use our Milwaukee location. It was actually a former Starbucks, beautiful, exposed brick walls, gorgeous floors, and instead of tearing it out, it felt like such a big waste of money right to put sheetrock over these walls and replace the hardwood, it was, wait a minute, we could save the franchisee a lot of money and also still make it feel like  Face Foundrié. How can we use some of the assets that are available to us and make it really work? And another example that comes up often is like the bathroom layout we’re oftentimes able to kind of repurpose layouts because of our square footage size. It’s not your typical larger Med Spa. It’s right around that 1500 square feet. So there’s some flexibility.

How many treatment rooms do you guys usually have?

So we don’t have rooms, but we there. It’s all Oh, you have the open with the Yes, yep, okay, actually served us really well, because we have, we host face parties a lot, and so it’s a great way for people to come in, if it’s their bachelorette or birthday with their friends, they can rent out the whole space. You can pull back the curtains, and it feels very communal and fun. Which face parties have been a huge, you know, huge hit for us so we don’t have the walls, which is also something that, you know, restricts build out and cost.

Okay, cool, yeah, I remember seeing that when I was going through the website and having that kind of open air concept. So any piece of advice that you want to share as we’re wrapping this up for either franchisees or franchisors, like thinking about something that you’ve learned across your journey?

Oh, let’s see here.

I know it’s a big question. What have you learned?

And I, I would say, like, it’s hard to write some up in just one answer. I don’t want this to come across cheesy, but like, believe in yourself, and I think that confidence goes such a long way, and that’s much easier said than done. But if you are super passionate about an idea, about a business, whatever it is, hold on to that, because most people search their entire lives to be passionate about something and really be moved by something. And for me, I feel very fortunate like skincare. I thought it was apparel, until I discovered skincare and how. Much we help our clients, and our mission is just very felt. And so if you can find something that you are truly moved by, I think that’s so special, so hold on to that and be confident in that decision.

Yeah, that’s beautiful. I love that. All right. So where can our listeners find you? Follow you, connect with you if they want to learn more.

Yeah, absolutely.  Face Foundrié with an IE at the end.com. Or on all of the social channels, it’s spelled that exact same way. Otherwise, my personal Instagram is Michele with 1 L manifest,

Oh, Michele. Manifest, love it, all right. Well, thank you so much for your time. This is such an incredible episode, so inspiring. I love celebrating women who have accomplished big things, and it’s it’s such a pleasure. Thank you so much.

I appreciate you having me. Thank you.