Sometimes you need to listen to the universe when it is trying to help you. Kyla Dufrense listened and survived.

Dave Young:

Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young.

Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it’s us, but we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients. So here’s one of those.

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Speaker 6:

Told you, Brian.

Brian:

Told me what?

Speaker 6:

This is part two of last week’s episode.

Brian:

Oh yeah, and it was getting good.

Speaker 6:

If you missed it, go back and listen to part one first. Take it away, fellas.

Stephen Semple:

It’s funny how often we see this mistake. It’s even interesting. There’s a famous marketer, Al Rice, and Jack Trout wrote a book called The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding. And one of the things that they talk about in the book is, don’t extend brand. Look, it’s amazing how many times companies try to just go, “Well, let’s just make it this bigger thing and we’ll talk…” And it almost always never works. You’re much better off multiplying the thing that you do well than trying to add around the edges.

Kyla Dufresne:

Yeah, you got to keep it simple. I will tell you, it is very challenging to train one person to be the best at five different services. Really it is.

Stephen Semple:

Absolutely.

Kyla Dufresne:

We know how to train someone to be the best waxer in a five-day program. We can turn someone with the right personality, obviously, but we can turn somebody into a fantastic hair removal expert in five days. To be great at nails and lashes and hair, I mean, God, that takes a really long time. And then you want to go, okay, you have to do all of these things. How do you get one person to be great at all of those things? You’re going to be putting out a mediocre product, maybe, for the convenience of a one-stop shop. Truly, you can’t be the best at all things.

Stephen Semple:

Well, and I’m going to put it to you another way too, because that’s the operational challenge. I’m even going to look at it from the marketing challenge. So, what we want to be, in anytime we’re marketing a business, we want to be thought of first and we want to be like the best, right? But thought of first for what?

Now, if it’s thought of first for being a salon, well, there’s lots of salons, right? Thought of first for waxing, that’s a little bit different, right? And it’s way easier than to lean into that and really be liked about, because even the whole thing, Foxy Box, people like that. Well, now it’s this other name that was a little bit safer and more conservative because we’re in this area. It was also harder to be liked for that.

Kyla Dufresne:

Yeah.

Stephen Semple:

So this whole strategy had of being thought of first for this thing and liked the most for this, you had to deviate from that. And I’m going to say, even if you got the operations going, I don’t think it would’ve been a success.

Kyla Dufresne:

Yeah, for sure.

Stephen Semple:

In fact, I think if you got the operations going, it would’ve been a trap because it would’ve worked okay. I actually think the universe gave you a gift of it burning to the ground, and causing you to go, wait a minute, I should just focus. I think the universe was actually looking out for you there.

Kyla Dufresne:

Oh, for sure. Yeah. It was bringing me back to my roots. And I mean, I learned so many lessons in there. Every experience shapes the leader that we are today. I used to lose so much sleep. I used to cry a lot and now I just don’t. I always say to people, things don’t get easier, we just get better at tackling them.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah, for sure.

Kyla Dufresne:

Your business doesn’t get easier. At the top of one mountain, you’re at the bottom of the next. Literally it’s just a constant like, okay, now what’s my next challenge I have to face? But the great thing about that experience is, I lost a lot of sleep. I got a lot of gray hairs, I cried a lot, and now I’m much stronger on the other side. I learned how to be a great leader. I learned how to lead a team, how to build a team. I got clarity on my business structure.

It wasn’t all a failure. I think Harvard is probably more expensive than 30,000, so that’s my [inaudible 00:05:03] education.

Stephen Semple:

So you had one store, went to two stores, you’re back to the one store. What was the next step in the evolution?

Kyla Dufresne:

My first franchise.

Stephen Semple:

So what made you decide to franchise?

Kyla Dufresne:

I knew I wanted to franchise from day one. I said, “I’m going to start a brand. I’m going to call Fox Box. I’m going to franchise and take over the world.” My fire behind that, I had a boss at the bar that I worked at. He’s probably...

#253: Foxy Box (part 2) – Becoming a Franchise