A Great Unique Franchise Concept

Speaker A: Alrighty. Well, welcome to another episode of the Franchise Academy. My name is Tom Scarta and I am excited today to bring you a concept that I thought was absolutely insane when I first heard about it. And then I became an ultra fan of, uh, this concept. It's an amazing, amazing little thing that I call it little only because you only need a small square footage area for this business. But it's something that's really, really needed and something that I do actually every single day now. Um, and I also go to the studio where I live in Florida. I, um, want to talk to you about a concept called Stretch Zone with my friend and colleague, Jordan Levine. So Jordan has. He's forgotten more about franchising than I know. He's been around the block with so many concepts and you're going to hear all sorts of great war stories in this podcast. Um, we're going to talk about everything from ice cream and who knows what all the way to Stretch Zone, which is a concept that I didn't think was going to work. And now they have hundreds of units all over the country growing like mad. So I'm really just very excited. Jordan is a chief operating officer for Stretch Zone. He has worked with Coone Creamery, he's worked with Massage Envy, he's worked with amazing, uh, Lash Studio Solo Salons, which is another one of my favorite concepts. Jordan, welcome to the Franchise Academy.

Speaker B: Tom, thanks for having me. I feel really old right now as you kind of went through all those things of. I feel a little old right now. Uh, but it's all true and it's been a fun ride.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you know, they, they, they. You could probably sue one of those companies for hiring an underage kid to work. You were like 12 when you first started.

Speaker B: I think I was 12. It is funny. So I started my career, um, I was actually in high school. Um, I started in franchising. I didn't even know what franchising was. And that's when I first, uh, started the beginning of a 10 year journey with Coldstone, scooping ice cream in high school. Um, and, uh, at the beginning, I mean, the Cold Stone, nobody had heard of Cold Stone. I mean, that was the early, early days. And so it's been 25 years now in franchising. But, but truly I was a child when I, when I first uncovered what franchising was all about.

Speaker A: So were you one of the people that had a sing for the customers?

Speaker B: Oh, yeah. What's so funny is if you. I'm not a singer, okay. I Don't have a voice like that is just not who I am. Um, but, but in all honesty, it, it was one of the best jobs as, um, an impressionable, um, kid to be able to take me out of my shell, to teach me what it's like. Not only hard work, but how to connect with people, how to entertain people, how to, um, put me in situations that I was not comfortable with. Um, but when I tell you as a high school kid, I made so much money on tips. I mean, people would put that dollar in and I would, I would, I would sing for dollars. And um, it was one of the best high school jobs that truly translated into. I didn't know it at the time, but into an entire career in the franchising space. I went from working in a store to being the first company intern that the company ever had to being an area developer for the state of Massachusetts and bringing Coldstone out east and then coming back years later and coming and working for Coldstone Corporate a ten year span. Um, and I wore every hat that you could. Took cold stone from the glory days. I, uh, I talk about that period of my life as really, that was my mba, unofficial mba. I learned more about business. I also made a lot of mistakes during that period of my life that I wouldn't trade for anything. Um, at the time I might have, you know, said that this. There were a lot of mistakes that I would have wished I didn't do. But looking back, you see a lot more. You see with clarity, you see a lot more, um, perspective and um, boy, I wouldn't have traded anything. The mistakes I made there really made me who I am today.

Speaker A: It's so great to be able to get that experience at such a young age and then, you know, parlay it into a whole career. And that's something that people don't realize about franchising. You could, you know, go to the McDonald's concept and how they bring people up and make them managers of stores and give them a store and, you know, the whole thing. Um, there's so much you could do in franchising more than just own a franchise unit and you could be the COO of a growing company. So how m. How many units do you guys have right now?

Speaker B: We're just south of 400, I think. We opened 386 today or, uh, this week. Um, it's hard to keep track. We have a, um, in our office, we have these big TV screens that show our development trajectory, the stores that are coming open, and we literally gather around the screen to align on certain, um, uh, units that are upcoming. But on the top of the screen it has the amount, the number of stores open. And I literally have to look at it every day because I forget, um, how many stores we have open. And good, uh, problem to have. Um, but we are sitting just about 385, 86 stores. Um, I like to say south of 400 because it makes me feel really good. But until we hit the 400 mark, um, we can't celebrate that quite yet. We have yet to have a, ah, a single store failure. And that is probably the most unique thing I can say about Stretch Zone.

Speaker A: How long since the founding of Stretch Zone? How many years has it been?

Speaker B: Well, it's been a long time. But Stretch Zone is an interesting story, um, that it started not as a franchise. It started just as a brilliant idea of our founder, Jordan Gold. We share a name, um, and he dedicated his life to, um, to helping serve people through Stretch, um, and wonderful idea. And I don't know that he even envisioned how big this thing could be. Nobody knew what franchising was. Nobody even knew that franchising could be a path for a concept. I think that's very, um, common with many founders, uh, that they have this brilliant idea. They open one unit, two units, maybe they open 10 units. And then somewhere along the line somebody says to them, you know, have you ever thought of franchising? And in most cases, I think the answer is probably no, because you have this idea, but you don't really know how you want to scale it. And I think that's what happened with Jordan Gold. And so the, the um, franchising thing happened years years later. And really it's been the last five, six years that the company has just exploded in terms of the franchise growth. Um, and, and, and we continue to open about one a week. Um, and, and it's been phenomenal.

Speaker A: It's great. For those who don't know what it is, could you explain the concept of Stretch Zone?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny. It's funny. I'm just thinking about it in a different way right now because I'm sitting here right now as we speak. I know you can't tell because of my fake background, but I'm sitting in, uh, Kansas City right now. One of our, uh, top, uh, performing franchise, um, owners owns the whole Kansas City market. So we've been spending the day together, um, in Kansas. And so we were just talking to a customer in his store and we were talking about just what stretching is. And, and, and we were just talking this, this customer was saying something about how, uh, listen, if you ask 100 people, 100 people will say, yeah, we, we totally believe in stretching. We all believe that stretching is important. You ask the same hundred people, do you stretch? And the answer is no. Time and time again. So the population of the world all agrees that stretching is good, but people don't stretch on their own. They just don't. People don't wake up in the morning and, and do the stretches that they know they should do. They just don't. And so what stretch zone is, is practitioner assisted stretching. And it is a facility that you walk in, brick and mortar franchise. You walk into a store and, um, and you feel great when you leave. It is all about, I got a stretch a couple of weeks ago. Well, I get stretched more than a couple of weeks ago. There was one in particular where I didn't feel great. I didn't feel great going in. And it's incredible what happens after 30 minutes. You feel lighter, you feel taller, you feel more flexible, you feel. There's a brain piece as well that is a little bit harder to quantify. But, like, you just feel good. You feel this euphoria that, that, um, I can't even explain it, but that's really what stretch zone is. It's practitioner assisted stretching. Um, and anybody can be a customer of stretch zone. It's not for athletes, it's not for elderly. It's for human being is who this is for.

Speaker A: I, I, so I just real quickly, my experience, like, when I first heard the concept, I was like, this is like a stupid thing, right? I was like, this, this doesn't work. And then I, I went to a stretch, uh, zone, and, um, I forget how long the stretch was. 20 minutes, 40 minutes? I don't remember.

Speaker B: Yeah, right.

Speaker A: They vary. But I got off the table and, um, I felt like I drank two cups of coffee. I was like, whoa. Yeah. I was like, full of energy. I was like, what? How did that come from stretching? And I started reading about it. Then I found out there's certain people that have testimonies, um, about healing diseases through stretching only. It's like an amazing thing. And in other parts of the world, like Japan, people do it all the time. You know, these stretch places are on every corner. Um, and so it's really a great modality. So staffing wise and also owner wise. So let's start this from the owner. I want to buy a stretch zone. Do I need to be, um, I don't know, a gym guru? Or something?

Speaker B: Oh gosh, no. Uh, I mean we'd love to have you if you are. Um, but, but the, the beauty of this franchise and frankly a lot of franchises, but I think Stretch on is unique. Ah, is particularly unique is we have franchisees that come from every walk of life. You know, ex school teachers, um, ah, ex Fortune 500 executives that are looking to um, not be in that world anymore. Not um, every walk of life and everything in between. And I, I think that is a, probably a blanket statement for all franchise organizations. You. I've never been in part of a franchise that targets this person, this one type of person. It runs the gamut. But I think Stretch Zone is even more unique because the barriers to entry are a little bit lower in the Stretch Zone brand. Um, and, and the, just the, the economics of the business really allow for um, for a lot of diff, the diversity of people to come in and really live the American dream. I mean it sounds a little cliche, it is a little cliche but, but, but it's true. Um, and that the, the, the value of franchising and business ownership is, is, is accessible. Listen, all franchises have um, there's the uh, expensive to entry level franchise and we sort of sit right in the middle and so we can attract a lot of different folks. Um, so we have every walk of life here at Strep Zone. So no, I mean you don't need to be a gym enthusiast.

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, and so the, I got so many questions around all that. But what, so what makes like when you think about your top 10%, your, your, your um, your top 10% profile of you, of your best owners, what are they doing that's making them the top 10%?

Speaker B: I'm going to use the word engagement, um, or over anything else. So the beauty of Stretch Zone is I don't expect any franchisee to be working their front counter every day. I don't expect it. In fact, I wouldn't want it. I wouldn't want it because there's this concept of working in the business or on the business. And if I see somebody working their front counter I think to myself, what are you doing? You're not really driving traffic. You're not being part of the fabric of your community. That's the type of stuff I'd want a franchisee to do. But a uh, franchisee in our system, frankly in any system should know what's going on in their business. Every business works better when a franchisee is engaged. Engaged can mean a lot of different things. Engagement means there's, there's a whole gamut of things that engagement can mean. But, but I love walking into a location with a franchise owner and they know their team. And I walk into businesses where, and, and it's not even stretched on. It's just brands in general where they, they'll say, yeah, we're a franchise, but we've never seen, we don't know who our franchisee is. Um, to me, that's a problem. It's a problem when, when you're disconnected from the business in that sense. So it's, it's nice to have somebody that is connected, that's engaged, that, that builds culture. So I think some sort of engagement level is really what makes the magic of franchising work. Listen, we're small businesses, we're local owned small businesses. And if you want to be a local owned, um, small business, you've got to be involved in your business in some way, shape or form.

Speaker A: I agree 100% with that. Um, and like, I could tell stories about all that stuff, but you got to, even if you have a giant brand name, call it McDonald's, M. Call it Dunkin Donuts, whatever it might be, you still need to join the chamber of commerce. You still need to let people know what you're doing. You need to, like, I remember my son, when he was young, um, had a, you know, every Friday there's a spelling test, 10 words. If you get all 10 correct, you get a free donut coupon from Dunkin Donuts. And all it was was like a Xerox piece of paper for a free donut. And so my son comes home, you know, oh, he, you know, and there I am spending $8 on iced coffees for my wife and I. So you get his free donut. And so when you think about that from a marketing perspective and like that, the person who owned that franchise for Dunkin had to go like the extra step to meet the teacher, to meet the principal or the PTA and somehow get the okay to give out this coupon for a free donut. Um, and that's what makes in my opinion, one of the big differences between success and, and someone who just sort of flutters by in a franchise.

Speaker B: You got to go being the mayor of your community, being the mayor. And when you walk around, everyone knows you because you put the work in again, I don't want you working the counter of your store, but I think you should know your neighbors. I think you should be doing events, I think you should be shaking hands and kissing babies and and creating a reputation for being a great employer and being a rep. Just having a reputation for giving back to your community, being part of the community. And those are the difference makers. Um, years and years and years ago, I was schooled on this when I knew nothing about business going back to my cold stone days. And we had a store in, uh, rural Massachusetts that was, um, sort of not where you'd think you'd put a store. And, um, and we all know what those stores look like in which communities. It's sort of the wrong side of the tracks or whatever it is. The demographics aren't right. And this store became one of the top stores in the country. You'd walk around the shopping plaza with the franchisee. He knew everybody and everybod loved him. And that's what we mean by being the mayor, is being part of your community. Now, I'll just say one thing about this. You get to a point in franchising where there. There is a day where if you build this empire, so to speak, where you start with one unit, then you do two, and again, American dream, and you build this empire, there is a day where it gets harder and harder to do the things you used to do. And that's okay. That's okay. But you need to have a team in place that can do the things you used to do. Now, if you can do that, that's how this whole thing works. That's the scalability of franchising. And as long as you make sure the things you used to do still happen, it may not be from you, but you have a team in place, then the magic still works, right?

Speaker A: And so it comes down to having a great system and having the acumen to be a business owner and learn it. Like, no one's born a great business owner. You learn it, and in franchising, that's what it is. You'll learn. You know, if I buy a franchise at Stretch Zone, you're going to be partially my mentor of teaching me how to do all these great things that you've learned over the past 25 years, from scooping ice cream to being the COO. Um, that's the great thing about franchising, but. So I want to throw you kind of a softball, if you will. So you. So I want to buy a franchise. I'm tossed up between Cold Stone and Stretch Zone. What's the difference? What's what?

Speaker B: What would you say? Oh, uh, this is. I don't know if that's a softball or a curveball. I'm not sure what that is, uh, you know, I will always have a special place in my heart for all the brands that I work for. And it's Cold Stone and Massage Envy and Sola and Amazing Lash. Incredible companies that I, I am so grateful that I've gotten a chance to be a part of and grow and learn from. Um, and so you're not going to catch me saying something bad about, about Cold Stone. But, but, but I will say this.

Speaker A: Um,

Speaker B: I, I think I laugh when people talk about seasonality in a business. Um, you know, it comes up all the time in every business I've been a part of. Seasonality. Seasonality. Listen, you don't know what seasonality is until you've tried to open up a cold stone in the middle of winter. February 4th, we opened our first Cold stone in Massachusetts and we had, I think like one person that day and it was a family member. And um, and, and, and these are the challenges to running certain franchises. And every, every, every franchise has, every business has its own set of challenges. Every business. And if anybody tells you it's all easy, there's always going to be a challenge of the moment. But part of the challenge of opening a business like that is you're hoping and praying in the middle of the winter that people come in and one blizzard and your business is shut down for the day or the week or whatever it is. And the beauty of a stretch zone is, um, the recurring revenue model. We're a membership based model. And to me membership is magic. Membership. When you can marry folks into your brand because you offer such a compelling and wonderful product at a good value, you have this recurring revenue that just continues to run whether there's a snowstorm or not. And I always joke about it, but it's, I'm kind of serious. And if we had had a membership at Cold Stone, I'm not sure what that would have looked like. I don't know what kind of weight we'd put on the population. But if we could have known that you were going to come back every day, every week, every month, that would have been incredible. It doesn't exist. And that's the beauty of a single, um, um, visit type of relationship versus a long term relationship that the membership model, recurring revenue model provides. And I just think that if I'm choosing a franchise now, of course I'm biased. You can see it here on my shirt. I'm biased, of course. Um, but, but I will say, if I'm choosing a franchise, I love the predictability of a recurring revenue model. Um, and that would be the biggest differentiator, I would say. Listen, there's 20 other differentiators. Food is tricky. You've got waste and you've got theft and you've got portion control and you've got expiring products and you've got, uh, all the things that happen with that. Then you're dealing with 14 year olds and 15 year olds and 16 year olds working in your store. That it's just hard. It just hard. One calls out sick and then, you know, it, everything snowballs from there. Um, it's a hard business. And Stretch Zone is just a lot easier. There's no business that's easier, but it's a lot easier.

Speaker A: So on that note, employees like who works out of Stretch Zone? Who, who, who's the staff?

Speaker B: So you've got practitioners predominantly. So we've got stretch practitioners, again, assisted stretching. So you have people that are actually doing the stretching for you on a table. Um, your practitioners are trained, um, through us. We actually certify our practitioners through Stretch Zone. So it's actually a really different, a big differentiator for us. We actually provide a certification through the National Certification Board for Massage for therapeutic massage and bodywork. And so what that enables us to do, you know, I come from a world massage. Ah, envy at all these other brands. Amazing lash, where you have to, um, you have to sort of find the crop of good quality candidates from a very small pool. Massage therapist or estheticians or cosmetologists or whatever the case may be in our brand. Because we do the certification and it's a nationally recognized certification program, we can attract really anybody. Now it's nice when somebody has a background in some sort of anatomy, physiology, but it's not necessary. I went through stretch training. Tom. You could go through stretch training. Anybody that has the ability to learn from a curriculum and learn from a stretch master practitioner has the ability to learn and get certified in our stretching. So I think that's a huge differentiator. When you talk about limited, um, pools of labor, uh, pools. We don't really have that. And that's a unique, um, point of, uh, distinction. Uh, yeah, that's brilliant.

Speaker A: Um, man, it's that this. Because employees are hard to come by. So what you're doing, I mean, you're training somebody in a really cool modality and you're really offering them a career more than a job at Stretch Zone. And then you could see that person could become the manager, then that person could manage all three of my stores. And then that person could, you know, take over your role someday? You know, I mean that 100%.

Speaker B: Hopefully not tomorrow, but at some point, yes. Um, I know. Really we have an incredible career path. And I think in, in the world that we live in today, a career path is critical. People want to know that not only they have longevity in the role they're in, but that they have the opportunity to grow beyond their role. And so you can start at Stretch Zone as a sales associate. You can start as a stretch practitioner. You can become a lead practitioner, a lead sales. We have all kinds of progression, all the way up to, like you said, regional manager. And you can oversee five or six locations. And then ultimately, boy, we would love to have you move into a master practitioner role where you're helping us open new stores across the country, come down to corporate and work for us. Um, I will say I don't have the figure, but, but, but a lot of our team in our corporate office, um, I'd say probably about half of our corporate team came from within stores. And that is really valuable. The expertise and experience they have within the brand and they have the street cred because they've done it themselves. And, um, yeah, it's pretty cool.

Speaker A: Where's the corporate office?

Speaker B: Uh, Fort Lauderdale.

Speaker A: Oh, not a bad place to hang out.

Speaker B: Yeah. So if this is recruiting call. Come on, come on. We'd love to have you. No, really, truly, um, Fort Lauderdale is a great place to get talent because, um, first of all, you have a lot of franchises based in Fort Lauderdale, but it's a great place to live. So, um, it's actually been a great place for us to recruit from.

Speaker A: Definitely. That, that, that is really a great thing too. Um, so in regard to, um, the business model, um, how do you, how do you maintain the consistency across the brand?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think the, the real secret sauce of Stretch Zone is the fact that we are a protocol based stretch company. So what do I mean by that? So, and, and again, I can't say a single bad thing about even other folks in the stretch space. I think they do a wonderful job. Um, and I'm not going to say anything bad, but what I will say that's a point of differentiation is we are very protocol driven. Meaning I don't hire you, Tom, because of the wonderful creativity that you bring to stretching. I hire you, Tom, because you love what we do and you can execute the model in a very safe and effective way. The reason that people don't get hurt at Stretch Zone is because we follow a protocol and it's the same skinny vanilla latte wherever you go. Now, there's lots of variations to it, so you'll never get bored. There are variations to it, but it starts with the same protocol base. And so it's safe, it's effective and it's consistent. And, and so there are other brands out there that hire folks and say, listen, just go do what you do. Um, that scares me a little bit. And that's what I love about Stretch Zone is you're always going to get a wonderful experience. Whether you're in Fort Lauderdale or where I am in Kansas City or wherever you are and everything in between, you're going to get a great experience. Because we train and we certify, we don't outsource that, that happens through us. And so we know what we're teaching you. And then every year we will do a recertification for every practitioner so we know that a year later you're still doing things the way we taught you.

Speaker A: So. And that's great. And, and I have to say, so, uh, I have to ask you this. If you have to categorize, um, the concept, is it fitness, is it wellness, health? Like, how do you. What is Stretch Zone in Europe?

Speaker B: I would say I, ah, think wellness is a very broad category that includes a lot of different things. But I think it's probably the best way to put us. It's not fitness in the traditional sense. It's not relaxation that I would put. I wouldn't put massage therapy, you know, and it's certainly not beauty. Um, it's not a fluff and buff service. It is really an essential service in so many ways. I, um, think wellness is probably the best category that I put it in. Even though it's just so broad.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think so. And the cool thing also is that wellness has been noted in, you know, the, uh, Entrepreneur magazine and all these different surveys. Like, that's the number one growth category in franchising in 2025 and 2023, 6. Um, so it's a good place to be. People need it. Once, um, you get stretched, uh, by a professional, you'll, you'll always go back. It, it's just a great thing. So I, I love what you guys are doing. You and I love that you have like almost 400 stores already. It's just a great business model. But if there's one myth that you could break, um, regarding either stretch or franchising from your experience, what's, what's something that one, uh, myth you could break here and now.

Speaker B: Yeah. It says, also a loaded question. Uh, I would say, I would say this, I would say franchising in general. Um, the beauty of franchising is you don't have to go it alone. You just don't have to go it alone. And I don't think people really understand franchising. I think people think that there's, there's a spectrum. On one side of the spectrum, people think that they are alone. And the other side, there's this idea that franchise is going to do it for you. Franchising is right in the middle. Franchising is right in the middle. You still get to wear the entrepreneur hat. You still get to own a business and be local in your, in your community, but you've got a friend on your shoulder that's going to sit and whisper in your ear. And I think what I. What, what I think people don't really know that. And I think the story that I want to tell to the world, and it's not a stretch zone story, it's a stretch, it's a franchising story, is, is how what franchising can do for somebody who doesn't have a lot of experience in business and how it can open up doors into not only financial freedom, but also open up doors and relations and friendships and business partnerships and community involvement. And I think that is the one thing if I can have an impression on the world. Franchising has done a lot for me. Me personally, just Jordan Levine, and again, I'm taking my logos off. This is about me. Uh, and franchising has done a lot for me. And I would love to dispel any myth from franchising for other people. So, Tom, send them my way. I want to talk to them. If there's anything that I can do to help somebody's life become better and more enriched because of the magic of franchising, I want to help them. And that's the myth that I want to dispel. So. Sounds a little altruistic. Um, but listen, uh, I owe a lot to franchising. I do. I owe a lot to franchise.

Speaker A: But it's not because, because I'm, I'm right there with you. I mean, I. One day I was a, uh, subway conductor opening and closing doors in the subway. Next day I'm a business owner. Five years later, I semi retire at 41 years old because of franchising. You know, I wouldn't have been able to do it any other way. And, and it's a blessing. But you also have to know what you're getting into. Um, so on that note, if you want to find out more, if you're listening to this podcast, please contact me at the Franchise Academy. Go to franchise academy.com stretch zone. I'll have all their information there. It's, um, a great concept, but I want to make sure you're a good fit for that concept. I'm kind of like, if you think about me as a consultant, I'm like a real estate agent, right? You don't need a real estate agent to sell your house. The reason you hire a real estate agent and pay them is so they make sure they bring the right people that are qualified to buy your house. So that's what I'll do for Stretch Zone as well, is make sure the right people are knocking on your door, and then you guys take it from there. Does that sound like a deal deal to me? Okay. Jordan, I appreciate you coming on. I know you're really busy. Thanks for doing this in the middle of your site visit in Kansas City. That's just awesome for you to do that. Thank you so much. And, um, we'll see you at a franchise conference real soon.