Background
“I am happily married with two stepsons, who are grown, so we’ve been empty nesters for the past four years or so. I’m originally from St. Louis and attended Avila University. After graduating, I went into their MBA program and majored in finance. I began my corporate career with Hertz Equipment Rental, which is now HERC Rentals, and I remained there for nearly 30 years. My career took me to Cleveland for six of those years, then I got a promotion with the opportunity to move to Michigan. My last position with the company was a regional vice-president position overseeing a number of profit centers. In October of 2016, I went through a transition period and decided to take some time off and ponder what I wanted to do next. It was either find another role in Corporate America or go out on our own. We had considered business ownership before, but at the time it wasn’t very realistic due to my travel schedule.”
On Becoming an Entrepreneur
“We actually have lots of friends who themselves are business owners, one of whom made an introduction for us to Mark Cory with FranNet of Michigan. We participated in the assessment and personality test to determine what type of industries would be the best fit for us. We also have a friend who happens to be a multi-unit franchise owner, and he was very helpful in explaining what we could expect. Like I said, we’d mulled over starting a business, but never really got beyond the ‘what if?’ stage. I had decided returning to Corporate America wasn’t appealing, so it became time for ‘Career 2.0,’ so to speak.”
What Attracted You to the Spavia Business Opportunity?
“Well, there’s a couple of sides to it. First off, both my wife and I are really into living healthy lifestyles. I played college sports, she’s a big runner – fitness is just really important to both of us. I’ve been a triathlete for some time now and to date have completed 23 IRONMAN events over the years. Health and wellness is something we’re really passionate about outside of our work lives. Then, as we dug in more, the Spavia opportunity just made sense. The founders, Marty and Allison, are both still very involved in the business and they’ve built an extremely impressive business model. We also liked that it was still an emerging brand, and I think we ended up being among the first 25 franchisees in the system. From the get-go, my wife Janet and I have been very much involved in the day-to-day operations – from the time we signed the agreement, to our grand opening, and ever since. We opened our doors in Aug. 2018 and are still fully engaged, though we did recently decide to bring a capable manager on board. Ideally, this will allow us to work a little more on the business as opposed to in it, for a change. It should free up a lot of time.”
Tell Us About Your Experience Getting Started
“After our grand opening in Aug. 2018, we were cruising along pretty nicely for the first 18 months, things were going well and then you know what happened next – the pandemic. We basically had to shut down and close our doors for the next three months, which was a very nerve-wracking time for all of us at Spavia. The brand provided excellent leadership during this trying time and really set the tone for us to follow. We called each and every one of our members and asked what they’d like to do – our goal was to be very transparent. Everyone was very understanding of the situation we were in at the time. The strategy worked and I’m proud to say that we retained 86% of the pre-Covid memberships we had secured. That was a real blessing.”
Where Do You Stand Today?
“Thanks to our retention level, we had a head start on things once we were able to open back up and get all of our service lines back up and running. People were coming back, and memberships began to increase again – a real relief. I think one of the biggest things that helped us through that rough patch was how our community rallied behind us. We’ve always gone out of our way to support other local businesses, charitable organizations, and community-based initiatives. It was helpful that we put ourselves out there in the community and our local market. We were there for the community, and they supported us, and we continue to enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship to this day.”
How Did FranNet Support Your Journey?
“I have to say that our experience in working with Mark Cory was super positive. He brings a great perspective because not only is he knowledgeable about the franchising industry in general, but he also himself is a franchise owner and understood what we needed to know as new franchisees. Mark was always very accessible and responsive to every new thought or question we had – even the crazy ones. Mark is calm and has great intuition. Not only did he provide a great framework for making informed decisions, but he also really kept us in between the proverbial guardrails. In the end, Mark saved us an untold amount of time and effort. We have a lot of confidence in Mark and would recommend his services to anyone looking to own a business of their own through franchising.”
How Things are Going
“At this point, we’re now in year six and continue to grow as an organization. Where will we be in 10 years? That’s a little hard to say, but for now we’re right where we want to be. We’re looking forward to bringing our new general manager on board and we’ll see what effect that has on our focus and how we spend our time. Ultimately, it’s safe to say we are in a great place and look forward to continued growth and success.”
For more information, please visit
John Hunnius’ Spavia of
Ann Arbor on the web.
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