Executive Q&A: Ben Jones, CEO of Radiance Holdings

1851 Franchise: How did you accidentally fall into franchising? What’s your franchise story?

Ben Jones, CEO of Radiance Holdings: Well, I think it’s like many people fall into franchising. In the Great Recession of 2008-2009, I found myself looking for my next big thing and promising myself that I was going to take control of my career and my destiny. So I found franchising, and I tried to become a Sola franchisee at that point, but my wife, who’s a physician, got a job back here in Denver. I called the founders of Sola Salon Studios and explained that I wanted to come back and be a franchisee in the Colorado area. They invited me to join the home office at that point because they wanted to grow the company with real intention, and so that’s how it started.

1851: If you’re looking at the business as a franchisee, you went deeper on the due diligence than someone stepping into the seat of leader typically would. Did that give you an upper hand?

Jones: I came really close to signing a lease, so I knew a lot about Sola when I joined the home office. I would say it gave me the advantage of just understanding the pain of a franchisee. I did work for the home office for two years before I opened my first location, and then I opened two more. So I was a full-time employee of the franchisor, and I also owned three locations myself.

1851: How long did you hold on to those three locations for?

Jones: Until the end of 2020. I remember lying in bed at night saying, “If I ever get through COVID, I’m going to sell these franchise units,” because my day job was so all-consuming, working for the franchisor. They were great businesses. I still wish I owned them, but I just didn’t have the time in my day to manage what was a great and significant investment for my family, as well as manage on the franchisor side.

1851: Even though you took a job and became a franchisee, you said in 2008-2009 you decided, “I’m going to take control of my career.” Did you still feel like, even though you were taking a job, you had taken control of your career?

Jones: When I joined Sola as a franchisee, that was very much me taking control. I wanted to work for myself. I wanted to make my own decisions, and that was the impetus for that. But when I came on the franchisor side of the business, it was a very small company. There were really only five of us. The franchisees at that point were mostly friends and family, and the systems had not really been put in place to scale it. So we were inventing a lot of those systems.

1851: If you put your franchise candidate hat back on, I would assume you looked at other concepts. What was that process like, and what made you land on Sola?

Jones: I did look at other concepts, but the advantage of Sola was so clear to me. The low employment model — until you have three or four of these locations, you could manage them yourself, which was very appealing to me. Even with six or seven locations, you may have only one employee. Also, there’s no inventory. There’s no food that can spoil. It’s just a relatively simple operational model, so I was immediately attracted to it.

1851: When you entered the system — both as corporate staff and as a franchisee — this was an innovative concept for the time. Were you saying, “This could be huge”?

Jones: We knew that we were solving a problem. The traditional salon was very broken, and we knew that we were helping hairdressers and beauty professionals really take control of their careers. We thought we were renting a room. We didn’t really realize at that point that we were selling a lifestyle of control and freedom for a hairdresser. In about 2013, we really had the “aha” moment that we’re not landlords. It’s more of a membership model where a stylist signs up for a lifestyle like she would maybe a gym. With that lifestyle, she gets to control her own space, what she sells, how much she charges, the hours she works. If she’s a mom, she can get home to take care of the kids. If she’s an educator or has another gig going on, she can do that on the weekends. It allows her that flexibility to really live her best life.

1851: When you’re talking about the people who would take out a suite or salon room, you’re saying the same thing that you were searching for when you were going into your career. How do you get out of this rat race that you’re stuck in and put control back in place? Because life is short, and why not control outcomes and happiness, right?

Jones: One hundred percent. You just hit on what Sola is to me. It is a brand that has at its heart that incredible cause. It’s a very purpose-driven brand. We are providing a vehicle for people to take control over their lives. If you talk to our franchise owners, I’m sure you get the sense they’re in it for that. That feeling of joy that people have when they can control their own professional lives is just so rewarding.

1851: When you were looking at these opportunities, were you thinking in that same mindset of, “How am I going to get to three units,” knowing that volumes and economies of scale would help build your portfolio?

Jones: Yes. Seventy percent of our franchise owners own two or more units. Over time, it will be more like everybody owns three units, and the reason is because there’s just natural economies of scale. If you only need one employee to manage six locations if they’re relatively close together, then you’re just spreading those costs. You also get economies of scale around other things like marketing and facilities maintenance and just things like that. It just naturally works better when you have more than one. That’s why we have relatively few single-unit owners.

1851: The purpose that you serve and the customer that you serve on both the B2B and the B2C side is in every market in America. If I’m buying a franchise now and I’m getting rejected in the high-foot-traffic market that I thought would have made sense, I’m most likely being pushed into a tertiary market that actually makes more sense because the real estate’s going to be cheaper and arguably easier to find. Does it actually present almost a better opportunity for the next franchisee?

Jones: When we started the brand 20 years ago and I joined it a dozen years ago, the concept was poorly known and poorly understood by landlords, banks and vendors. That’s not the case anymore. Landlords seek us out. We’re the concept leader. Banks seek us out. Vendors seek us out. Franchisees who want their personal brand to be with the concept leader seek us out. In that way, I think it’s easier. 

Right now, we have availability in tremendous markets, even urban markets. We have plenty of availability. We don’t have to push people to tertiary markets, so it’s really not as dire as you would think in terms of whether there are great markets available. I will say yes, Sola works in all sorts of markets, and that’s because the nature of the business is that people get their hair done in all sorts of markets. Because of the way the business model works, we’re essentially a spread business. We’re leasing a space, customizing it with a specialty build and then we lease out that space to the hairdresser and the beauty professional. We lease it wholesale, add value to it and then release it in a retail fashion. That spread allows us to really go into any sort of market.

I would encourage people to give us a call because I think you’d be surprised at some of the terrific markets we do have available. We’re still feeling demand, and let me tell you why we’re feeling demand around the country. Our concept obviously depends on the hairdresser. We’re 80% hair in any given Sola location. The number of hairdressers going independent — leaving the salons — is growing every year. It’s just the way people want to work now. Frankly, it’s a modern way of working, but it’s not just hair. It’s other modalities like skin, nails, lashes, brows — you name it. They also are going independent, and they’re able to do this because social media and other digital technologies allow them to get their name out there and get their brand out there. We’re really feeling the expansion of our addressable market — our addressable renter, if you will — and our franchisees feel that demand as well.

1851: The best part of your franchisee story, in my opinion, is not entering and scaling — it’s exiting. When you exited, did you feel a gap as a franchisor? Did you feel proud? Where were you emotionally when you turned over the units?

Jones: I shed a tear, frankly. As a franchise owner, I became close to the hairdressers and renters in my location. I knew them all by their first name. I miss that part of it. That’s one of the joys of being a franchisee — you get close to the business like that. I was proud that I was able to build a business that commanded a nice value, but I was sad at the same time because those customers were like family to me.

1851: Is there anything else you want the buyer to know about Sola before we sign off?

Jones: It’s a purpose-driven brand, and it usually resonates really well with folks who see themselves as working on the business, not in the business. That’s why a lot of our franchise owners are former executives. Maybe they’ve escaped the rat race. Maybe they’re corporate refugees. That’s why our franchisees seem to get along so well. We just had our annual conference, and it was like an old home day where everybody gets back together — lots of hugs and sharing of war stories and sharing of successes. It’s just a very nice culture because of the like-minded, purpose-driven brand we have.

For more information, visit: https://www.solasalonstudios.com/franchising.