Welcome And The Community Question

Tom DuFore 0:01

Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I'm your host, Tom Dufour, CEO of Big Sky franchise team. And as we open today, I'm wondering how you build community in franchising. How do you build community with your franchisees and with the local neighborhoods your franchisees serve? Well, our guest today is Bron Lonsby, and he shares with us how Slick City Action Park is building community within his franchise system. Now, Braun is the CEO and co-founder of Slick City Action Park. He's a seasoned entrepreneur, a certified franchise executive, and a visionary in the rapidly growing industry of active family entertainment. Prior to launching the brand in 2021, Braun was the largest franchisee in the Sky Zone system, operating nine locations across five states. He has also held leadership roles with Innovative Heights and Amp Up Action Park, and he started his career in corporate roles with national brands, including Coles and Cracker Barrel. You're gonna love this interview, so let's go ahead and jump right into it.

Bron Launsby 1:13

Thanks for having me. My name is Braun Lonsby, and I am the co-founder and CEO of Slick City Action Park.

Tom DuFore 1:21

Let's just get things started a little bit here about Slick City. Give us an overview. What is the business? What is it you do?

Lessons From Being A Franchisee

Bron Launsby 1:27

We're uh Family Entertainment Center. So our our sizes are between probably 20,000 and 70,000 square feet, but it's indoor active fun for all ages. So we have indoor dry slides. We call it all thrill, no skill, but it's like a water park without having the water, and you fly through the air and very exhilarating. We have uh indoor sports courts, which you can play an elevated game of uh dodgeball, basketball, volleyball, soccer, all those things. We have a toddler area for our youngest guests. We're testing mini golf and and and a host of other things, but very much a family-friendly uh business. 38% of our guests is actually uh 14 and above, which is pretty pretty extraordinary in our environment, and do a good food and beverage business, birthdays and events, et cetera.

Tom DuFore 2:13

Thank you for that overview. So these are larger facilities, right? With lots of people and folks coming through. One of the things is you've started expanding through franchising. I'm curious about how your experience as a multi-unit franchisee helped shape the way you lead and grow your current franchise.

Responsible Franchising In Practice

Bron Launsby 2:33

Yeah. Well, I I started actually in franchising when I was a kid in high school as a dairy queen, worked for a dairy queen franchisee. I had no idea really what a franchise even was at the time. And even through business school, I really didn't know. I was in a corporate retail for a good number of years, and a friend had said, you know what, there's this indoor trampoline park thing that I think is quite interesting. I think you'd be a good business partner. And I was like, I'm not sure what that is, you know. And so, and I really hope there was a lot of I was interested, but I was skeptical for sure. And I went to Discovery Day, learned about that particular brand, and talked to a few franchisees, and really it was a decision as to how many should I buy, how many territories, right? It's an exciting business. It's a it's a new frontier. And so I start going down that path and had good success with that system, scaled to be their largest franchisee. In that process, some of my corporate retail experience came into my DNA, which was keep the experience fresh for the guests. And so that became part of the hallmarks that probably helped me be successful in that environment. And then as I put a dry slide in that trampoline park, uh, one of those trampoline parks from my now partner to test something new, uh, had success. And so I had conversations with the owner of that company and ended up investing in his company with the idea that we would eventually create a what was called Slick City. And so that all happened in 2020, 2021. We opened that first location in 2022. And so some of the things that I've I've taken from that that franchisee experience to to my franchise or experience, you know, was I mean pretty much everything. I mean, it it everything about it, right? You know, it was really the stay relevant as an operator, you know, because a lot of times in the franchise environment, a franchise or opens a location or two and becomes an expert at selling that experience or that that business to somebody else and maybe loses a little bit of a how to do it every single day. And so we've been very relevant in uh opening corporate locations as well as me as a franchisee of my system to stay relevant and know whatever we do impacts a franchisee, opening costs, you know, marketing, you know, et cetera, et cetera. The other thing was uh best of class service, right? You know, I know I needed to create a great team that really understood how to operate the business, but had been worked for a franchise or and major franchisees before in their past. And so I hired my my COO and everybody on that operations team has really came from a franchising environment, which has been really, really good. It was also just creating that best of class, you know, system, uh franchises, you know, business for yourself but not by yourself. And in doing that, you need to have a great system. And one way you can tell a great system is hopefully by the culture, but they're better than average or higher average unit volumes and you know, the the profit potential, because I mean that's that's part of the reason why why most of us are in business. Another thing was collaborative leadership, you know, we need to stand tall together. And so I wanted I wanted to be a franchisee that that collaborated and listened to France that the franchisees, because again, as we know, they operate day to day and they know as much as us. We're we're trying to stay up with them by be staying as operators ourselves. But again, it it's really important to have good relationships with uh your franchisees, and that's been a hallmark to what we've done. And then another thing that we did was economies of scale. And so as a franchisee, I didn't like to pay it more than the mom and pop next to me for certain things. And so we've really kind of created a park in a box. And so when someone a franchisee buys a park from or buys a territory from us, we source and develop from the attractions to the flooring to the furniture, but at at better cost than what they can get in the marketplace, you know, which I think is super important. And the last thing we did was bump down royalties, you know, and so as a franchisee grows with us, after they scale to a certain volume of of their average unit volume, as well as the number of locations, there there is a step downs in that. And so our goal is to, because that was a frustration as me as I became the largest, you know, franchisee. I was paying the the most into the system and I was probably getting the least out of it, right? At some point in time, because I had a marketing team. I had I had you know a support team that kind of supported my growth. And I just wanted to make sure that we were better stewards of that capital for for our franchisees.

Tom DuFore 7:06

You uh mentioned there just being better stewards as a franchise or coming into this. So I'd love for you to talk about this idea of responsible franchising. It's becoming talked about a lot more within franchising. And so, what does that look like to you? And what are you all doing that? You know, it's a nice idea and a nice theory, but what does that look like in practice?

Bron Launsby 7:29

Yeah, great question. I mean, one the one thing for us was we didn't want to start selling franchises until we had at least two units open, different parts of the country for more than a year. One was a retail mall environment and one was industrial flex, right? So we want to have as much variety in in what we were doing, and we wanted to show we wanted to show what the results were, you know, and so in order to do that, you know, we had to operate. We couldn't start franchising until we had some sub a good a good base. You know, the other thing was just you know, full alignment. So we today, approximately a third of our location are corporate locations. Our corporate locations pay into the brand fund, you know, pay the same, you know, costs from from the manufacturer, et cetera. The same thing with affiliates, which are basically owners of the business, like myself, who are franchisees who pay full franchise fees, pull full ad fees, you know, full, you know, you know, everything. So so I mean, we're in it, you know, equally with you know, with our franchisees. And then, you know, again, the the the royalties are are paid off of off of revenue. So it's it's there's not a lot of fees that are paid for without revenue attached to them, you know. So we think that that's uh you know, super important. The other thing is, you know, franchisee governance and and just involvement. And we talked about collaboration before. And so we don't yet today have a franchise advisory council, but I can tell you I talk to our franchisees on a on a on a daily, if not weekly, you know, basis, as does you know, my team. We provide lots of avenues for them to share best practices together, collaborate and all those things is is super important. You know, I think the another thing is just the smart multi-unit strategy. And so a system I was a part of before sold a lot of territories to or sold a lot of territories to one individual or two individuals. And that wasn't probably the best thing for the franchise or, but it also wasn't best for the franchisees because territories were already kind of taken. You know, again, it it's put that said franchisee in a financial problem where they couldn't actually get the next ones open in a timely manner. And so, what we've done since the very beginning, regardless of the experience and and regardless of how much capital they have, we we cap it to no more than three territories. We're gonna sell any individual, you know, coming into it. And again, we have a good mix that are single unit operators and a good mix that are that are three. And every location that has opened up, you know, so far is was already a multi-unit operator that asked for more, or was a single unit operator that's asking for more, you know, and so again, being responsible and and not loading it up too much, not having aggressive timelines to get these things open and all those type of things is super important. Also with our territories, you know, we sell a good size territory, but if franchisee is looked diligently in that territory and there's still space, there's still a territory available adjacent to them or multiple, we'll allow them to move and look in those areas because again, our goal is to get franchise locations open. It's not to sell another territory. So I think the other thing that, you know, we've been we're kind of a unicorn in some ways in that we haven't had to use any franchise brokers or FSOs, you know, at this point in time. It's really been, you know, word of mouth, it's been it's been LinkedIn, it's been digital ads that have really, you know, driven in that. And I think anytime, you know, you you eliminate that, you probably you probably have a little bit better of a clearer path, right? You know, there's there's I mean, you're talking to only people who have are work work for the brand has and all of us have opened locations before, as opposed to, you know, somebody who may be trying to make a sale and it may not always be in the best interest. And a lot of them are great. This they're not trying to talk bad about it at all, but but just in reality, you know, I think having uh not having to rely on independent people to sell, you know, your concept is is also responsible.

Tom DuFore 11:26

One thing you mentioned about capping multi-unit purchases at three, I think that's interesting that you do it that way. Is there any guideline that you use internally for an individual or a group that comes in and purchases three? Are they allowed to purchase more later on, or is that kind of it? Are they capped?

Bron Launsby 11:44

No, they very much are allowed to buy more later on. Number one, the only way we'll sell a three, you know, pack to begin with is obviously a fair amount of capital, you know, working capital, but then also some multi-unit experience, you know, kind of from the get-go. There's there's two franchisees that are multi-units that are that are already actually three that are already open, and each of them have all expressed interest in in purchasing more. Some of them opened their second already and already have purchased additional territories.

Trust And Culture With Franchisees

Tom DuFore 12:16

Being in the family entertainment business and the franchising business, so much of this is built on the inner relationships with other people, relationships with your community, with the people that are there, as well as with your franchisees. How have you found success in building this long-term trust or relational trust with franchisees, with your guests, with the communities that the franchisees are working within?

Bron Launsby 12:42

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of that, you know, starts with, you know, your franchisee selection, right? You know what I mean? I think if that's if that's if you're selecting the right people who are gonna be brand ambassadors, kind of the mayor of the city, you know, and passionate about the brand is it it's gonna take you, you know, was a certain distance. And again, they're gonna have to be pre-qualified, they're gonna, you know, have to have some business experience and all those type of things. But then also, you know, team member, you know, the hiring and onboarding of those and just kind of who you hire is is is how is how we really scale. And so then that that is super important to have uh to have that, you know, in line. And then it it goes back to, you know, our our training process, you know, training our franchisees, training new employees, you know, into the system. And one of the things that we is difficult, can be difficult as you grow, is protecting your your culture and just enhancing your culture. And so that's that's something that a good a good bit of our time is spent on, you know, this is what our core values are and and how are we living up to this? And does this match, you know, kind of with that? And then, you know, ultimately, if if if we do, you know, those things well, if we're if we're if we're ethical business people, if we support our community, if we support our franchisees, if we provide them the tools to be successful, and and they're having you know good results, it's gonna result in them wanting to purchase more territories or you know, be happy and just and just be good stewards in their community.

Tom DuFore 14:12

I really like how you described that. And it made me think about responsible franchising, not just from the franchise or standpoint, but how you're supporting your franchisees try to live out in that way. Would you mind sharing anything that you're doing in that regard?

Bron Launsby 14:26

Yeah, I mean, from a from a franchisee, you know, one of our um, you know, core values, you know, is love our community, you know. And again, there's some national programs that we we stand behind, but it's really instilling in in in each individual location that we're locking arms with other community partners. And so, for example, most of our locations will do fundraisers with schools and and and there's a lot of really good programs out there um with other brands that do it. But but ours is is is really we'll give up to 40% back to said organization that can bring in, you know, just say 50 people on a Tuesday through Thursday, you know, and a lot of times we've those have resulted in, you know, a $10,000 check to a to a school district. You know, it ends up being a situation where they'll, hey, let's let's do a meetup at at Slick City, you know, on Thursday from six to eight, you know, and and again, a lot of times the, you know, we'll put food packages together and we'll create, you know, an environment for the school that is really good for them to collaborate with with their students or or their, you know, whatever they're raising money for. Principal can get involved because it's a it's just a you know, a very who wouldn't want to play doseball with their with their teachers and all that type of stuff. So I mean, it ends up being a really fun environment, but it is that because you know, the school supports it so much because they're getting such a large contribution back to them. And again, I I love Chick-fil-A just like everybody else. But you know, a $10 meal at 10%, you know, sharing is it can be a good number with a lot, a lot of people, but 40% on a larger transaction with something that that kids and adults love to do is is is also a great option too.

Tom DuFore 16:14

And certainly adds to the variety for uh the school or whichever type of organization you're supporting with that cause.

Bron Launsby 16:21

Yeah, definitely. In each one of our grand openings, part of the playbook is you know, partner with a with a local charity, you know, with free passes to uh to an adoption agency or you know, lots of different things, or or cash donations to help those groups as well.

Tom DuFore 16:36

One thing is you've grown relatively quickly here and continued to expand. You know, we see in franchising, and you've been in franchising a while, so have I, and we've seen brands that have grown very quickly, and you see them sometimes unfortunately fizzle out as quickly as they grew. You know, what have you seen that some of these common mistakes along the way that these fast growing brands might make?

Advice For Emerging Franchisors

Bron Launsby 16:59

Yeah, I think one of them is, you know, scale, you know, scale your staff or your people, you know, before you scale units. And, you know, again, for us, we had an advantage of being a manufacturer who was selling equipment even outside our system in the beginning to drive some revenue. We opened a corporate location that was successful right away. And then I started a personal location that I was a franchisee. We call it an affiliate, paying franchisees before we were a franchise. So so we had revenue kind of coming in that helped us kind of build a team before we actually started. And and that is not always, you know, a lot of times that is debt, and that is that is a lot of other ways. And so, so that for sure helped us in that process. Another thing is, you know, is just codify before you multiply, is what I've heard other people say. But it's it's definitely having SOPs in place, training, safety protocols, and all those type of things. Again, stay relevant in your space, become an expert at being an operator. And again, if if we're if if we're, I mean, I think we are we are strong operators before we were strong franchisors, you know, and I think that that's a that that's important part of it. But also we we had to build a safety culture around again, we this is an active entertainment, you know, place, you know, so having you know good, you know, audits reporting, you know, leadership that's specifically over this group was was was very much part of our DNA since day one. And you know, it was just simple things. Like we we had a we had a guest in our first location that we had polished concrete on the floor. And it wasn't a bad thing. It was just happened that was the flooring that was there before, and it actually worked, and it was, it seemed uh it seemed like a good idea not to spend a lot of extra money. Well, you put a slick mat on a slicker surface, right? And there and there there could be a a slip and fall. So said slip and fall happens. And so after that point in time, we put gym floor or rubber floor on all of our all of our locations on a go-floor basis. So we're constantly learning and we're constantly tweaking, you know, the offering. And sometimes it's with our attraction, sometimes it's with our flooring, sometimes it's in our parking lot. But there's a lot of things that we can do. And I'm I'm proud to say that our general liability and excess insurance is significantly less than than a lot of entertainment, you know, centers. And I think, you know, it's it's for a lot of reasons, but one of them is the safety culture that we've created. Another is you got to protect the unit level economics. If things start to slip when profits slip sometimes, right? You know, and so being able to uh hold people accountable to higher level standards, one of those things is you got to make sure that there's financial incentives, you know, for for for that to happen. And so I think that making sure our franchisees are as successful as they can is for sure allowing us to grow quickly without without comp without as much compromising. You know, iron sharpens iron mentality, right? You know, it's it's benchmarking, it's it's KPIs, it's it's understanding that man, that location over there had 67 birthday parties last Saturday. What in the world did they do different, you know, for that, you know, and sharing and sharing that information or a location that we own corporately, we kept the experience fresh by adding a couple of new slides and and and and you know, share the results that that sales, the sales were flat before and they were up, you know, 15% afterwards and and those type of things, right? Whatever, whatever we can do to share best practices and acknowledge best practices are happening in our franchise parks and sharing that information with others just makes us all you know stronger. And the last thing I would just say is a disciplined franchise selection, bringing people like we talked about before, who who have you know some experience, have a lot of passion, who are capitalized well, you know, that that is also going to go a long way in uh in growing rapidly without compromising.

Tom DuFore 20:52

In a similar vein, we work primarily with emerging franchise brands. We help entrepreneurs go through the franchising process to launch and get started. And so a lot of folks that might tune in here are maybe new franchisors or just kind of getting going, emerging brand franchisors. And what advice might you have for someone that's a new franchise or to help them get started with their best foot forward?

Bron Launsby 21:16

Yeah, it's a it's a great question. I mean, some of the things that I would I would recommend, you know, number one is making sure that their business is gonna have success, right? I mean, we all have great ideas and we all think they're all gonna be great. And then unfortunately, they're not all great, right? But I mean, it's just it's pressure checking that. So I think the best thing to do with that is, you know, corporate location, you know, or two to be able to kind of get out there and then just just understand that, you know, there's probably going to be tweaks to that. There was things that we had to tweak after our first unit. And now that we have 30 of them open, we we've continued to tweak along the way. But I think the more polished, you know, your your business model is, I think the better success that that that that you're gonna have. And then I think the another thing is just, you know, hire well. Right. I mean, that's that's I mean, that's uh in the in the beginning, you gotta multiply yourself. I know that's part of part of your DNA, right? And how you grow. And so in order to do that, you know, you have to, you know, whether that's family or whether that's you know, a a true hire, but but you I mean you really need to know what your strengths are in order to uh and to hire somebody that's better than you in a lot of other areas of of the business. And I think that's one thing that's probably difficult for for many of us, right? You know, we we have maybe we we we think that you know our hands need to be on everything. In reality, that that probably really slows down our road a lot of times.

Tom DuFore 22:37

And Bronn, for someone that tunes in and says, Boy, this is interesting or I'd like to learn more, how can someone get in touch with you or learn more a little bit about Slick City?

Rapid-Fire Questions On The Journey

Bron Launsby 22:45

Yeah, I am on uh LinkedIn and it's Braun B-R-O-N, and then last name L-A-U-N-S-B-Y. And that's um about Slick City Action Park. We also have a Slick City franchising webpage, and we also have a just a normal uh guest facing um you know webpage as well, but would love to uh would love to further uh connect with people for sure.

Tom DuFore 23:08

Braun, this is a great time in the show, and we make a transition and we ask every guest the same four questions before they go. And the first question we ask is have you had a miss or two on your journey and something you learned from it?

Bron Launsby 23:19

Yeah, well, there's there's always lots of misses. I think the the the the biggest miss I think I had though is is really just and again, I some I think we have similar backgrounds. Like I I worked for a franchise or a franchisee a long time ago. I went through business school, got my master's, and I still didn't really know anything about this franchising concept, you know, and so I think that was a huge miss, you know, on my side, because I mean, if I knew I could be an entrepreneur within a franchise environment earlier in life, I think I would have, I think I would have been more happy than than than where I am today. But it's it's been a great journey, but that is a a miss, I think, in our education system or in my process getting the year. And and I I do, and I think you're a big fan of franchising as well. So I'm hoping that we can we can collectively uh get the word out on how how how what a great business franchising is.

Tom DuFore 24:10

Well, let's take a look on the other side. Let's look at a make or a highlight or two.

Bron Launsby 24:16

You know, I talked a little bit about what brought me in some success within my previous franchise experience, which is keeping the experience fresh. And I think that that's super, super important no matter what business that you're in, right? You know, it's for me as a retailer 20 years ago, it was how do you come up with new product or a new a new promotion or or new something to kind of make it exciting so somebody would buy more the next time they came in or come more frequently in Family Entertainment, it's no different, but it's an experience at that point in time. And again, that that first step of putting a slide into my my trampoline park led to where I am today. So there's a lot to be said on that, you know, alone. But another thing that I think I overcame, and as did a lot of people, is just the whole COVID COVID situation, you know. And so you had a time period where you're selling experiences and we're closing down experiences. We're not, we shouldn't be experiencing stuff too close to each other and all that type of scenario. And so to operate, you know, 10 family entertainment centers, you know, at that point in time and to have the the the wherewithal and the and the uh support around to kind of uh to keep the head up and still you know be close for a good period of time. But to basically the bounce back was was definitely something I don't want to ever live through again, but it's it's definitely a highlight being on this side of it now.

Tom DuFore 25:36

Well, the name of the show is multiply your success. And so we always like to ask have you used a multiplier to multiply yourself personally, professionally, or organizations you've run?

Bron Launsby 25:46

Yeah, I mean, I that's that's an interesting question. There's many ways I think you can multiply. And, you know, I think that the biggest one for me, though, is just collaboration and building a strong team around me. Because, you know, again, I I we would not be anywhere near where we're at without a host of other people. And most of those people I had previous working relationships with. So we could we could hit the ground running day one. There was trust already built up. We had we had already, you know, and in this environment, as you know, it's kind of like flying an airplane and building it at the same time, right? You know, and so having having a strong four team, you know, with you that you've been in in battle with them and you've and you've you've won some some some battles together, you really just have a good working dynamic and and trust will for sure multiply any singular person's efforts for sure.

Tom DuFore 26:38

And the final question we ask every guest is what does success mean to you?

Bron Launsby 26:42

For for me, you know, today it's it's really about impacting, you know, the future generation, you know, and I have I have six kids and uh a few of them still at home and a few of them that are married, you know, and but I think impacting them and and in that generation is super important to me, you know, and so there's various ways that we can we can do that. But the one of the the core aspects, you know, for me is just just trying to teach the importance of a side hustle, you know, the importance of work ethic, you know, and and uh, you know, a lot of those intangibles, right? I mean, you have more college education than I do, but but we both have good college education, and that that's a building block, it for sure is. And I I can't speak enough to the importance of that, but also it's getting your hands dirty and just and just and just grinding it out sometimes. The combination of both of those, I think, will take a lot of people pretty far.

Tom DuFore 27:35

Very well said. And Bron, as we bring this to a close, is there anything you're hoping to share or get across that you haven't had a chance to yet?

Key Takeaways Win-Win And Next Steps

Bron Launsby 27:42

Yeah, I mean, I think we asked we hit a lot of things, but I mean, the one thing I would just you know mention to anybody is just uh if they are interested in in franchising or or becoming a franchiser I would I would love to have share the knowledge that I have. And and again, I think that I'll probably learn just as much from the conversation with others as as they would learn from me. But in business, I think that that's just super important. You know, it's super important for us to collaborate together, share experiences, and build something great.

Tom DuFore 28:11

Bron, thank you so much for a fantastic interview. And let's go ahead and jump into today's three key takeaways. So, takeaway number one is when we talked about how he builds community. And he said for him, he starts first with looking to bring in the right franchisees and train as franchisees to find the right cultural fit for the staff that they hire. And one of their core values is love our community. I thought that was great. Love our community. It's a great challenge to the franchisees to do that. And a practical tip he said is that they do big fundraisers with their community that provide opportunities for local organizations to raise a large amount of money through a fundraiser. Takeaway number two is when he talked about what causes franchise oars to fail or struggle. And he said what he's found that helps avoid this is if you scale your staff and people at corporate franchise orb before you scale units, having strong operational experience before franchising is helpful. Be disciplined with franchise selection and he caps multi-unit purchases to just three in the beginning. So that's the max that someone's able to buy. And the final thing he said is he shares best practices within his franchise system. So they're sharing and trading knowledge with each other to help one another out. Takeaway number three is when Braun talked about company-owned locations and how all company-owned locations pay the same fees and the same structure that all the franchisees do. And I thought that was just a great little takeaway there. And now it's time for today's win-win. So today's win-win is really about building a community internally and externally with your franchisees and the neighborhoods that your franchisees serve. And I think if you focus on that, as Bron has shown that he's doing, it really creates this upward spiral or this virtuous cycle that is going to help your franchisees be ingrained and become a part of the neighborhoods and the community they serve, which in turn will grow and foster and build a stronger franchisee community. And that will build and foster positive working relationships between the franchise or and the franchisee. And so that's the episode today, folks. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and give us a review. And remember, if you or anyone you know might be ready to franchise their business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at BigSkyFranchise Team.com where you can schedule your free no obligation consultation. Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to having you back next week.