Growing Lean

Building a Holistic Health Empire: Tatum Cruz on Franchising Success and Fostering Community Wellness

• Ethan Halfhide

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Embark on a journey of wellness and business acumen with Tatum Cruz, the innovative CEO behind the burgeoning success of Covery Wellness Bar. In our latest candid conversation, Tatum shares her inspiring leap from the world of marketing to the frontiers of fitness franchising. Immerse yourself in the story of how a holistic approach to recovery and longevity isn't just reshaping individual health but is also building a robust community across 83 sold locations. Discover the secrets behind their thriving membership model and the strategic expansion that's energizing neighborhoods with a focus on comprehensive care.

Tatum Cruz doesn't just lead a franchise; she's nurturing a family – one that extends from her team to every client that walks through the doors. This episode reveals how a customer-centric philosophy and a tailored wellness plan can transform a spa visit into a life-changing experience. Learn from a leader who emphasizes the power of persistence and the depth of learning gleaned from every interaction. For anyone aiming to cultivate success in their ventures while promoting holistic health, Tatum's insights offer a treasure trove of wisdom and practical strategies that can propel you towards your goals.

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Speaker 1:

Hey everyone, welcome back to the growing Dillon podcast, sponsored by Dillon Discovery Group, an award-winning app and software development firm based out of Virginia. This is your host, dylan Burke, also known as Dij, and I'm happy to be here today with Tatum Cruz, ceo at the Covery Wellness Bar. Welcome, tatum.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Dylan. I really appreciate you having me on today.

Speaker 1:

I appreciate your time. So, to get us started, can you tell us a little bit about your history and background and how you ended up the CEO of the Covery Wellness Bar?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. I guess a little bit about myself. I come from a marketing and a business background. When it comes to college and a degree standpoint, I started in the franchising world shortly after that, helping grow and develop multiple orange theory fitnesses and then, post that, I helped develop another fitness concept called Regimen Fitness, which we opened from ground up. I was one of the first employees aside from the ownership team.

Speaker 2:

And after I guess about six or seven years of opening those locations, you know COVID happened and we saw the need for recovery. And so when we saw the need for recovery, kind of put a bunch of masterminds together to figure out what was going to work and given our experience from a franchising aspect, we knew that we wanted to franchise that concept. So as far as franchising as the whole I've been in the industry for over 10 years now helped to grow this brand. I originally started with the Covery as the Vice President of Franchise Development, leading up that team from a sales aspect, and the opportunity arose for the CEO position to be filled. And the type of person I am, I'm always up for a challenge and so when it was put on my plate as an opportunity, I knew it was a yes and I wanted to take that leap and see where I could take the team and the company.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome. I love that, and can you tell us a little bit more about the Covery Wellness file? What exactly is it, who is it for and what do you do there?

Speaker 2:

Yes. So overall I mean it's a full wellness concept focused on recovery, optimization, cellular health, longevity, you name it. And so there's multiple concepts out there that offer one-off pieces of what we have In our particular model. Our goal was to encompass everything under one roof to make it easier for the consumer base, and so we have four different platforms within our business model live, glow, perform and evolve and that encompasses everything from red light therapy, pulse, electromagnetic frequency therapy, iv IM ozone therapy. We have our glow aesthetic platform, which consists of your infrared salt saunas, your hydrophasials, your genaio. We do something called cryo skin, which is for fat-like policies, and we also do magnetic muscle stimulation therapy. So you name it, we have it.

Speaker 2:

Our chief visionary officer is absolutely incredible whenever it comes to continuing to explore the industry and navigate through what's out there, whether that is more from a wellness standpoint or a biohacking standpoint. To make sure that we're constantly evolving in that regard, especially like cold plunge, is huge right now. We also offer cryotherapy and cold plunge, but with the variations of therapies that we offer, we don't really narrow down to one specific target market. We have tons of kids that come in high school level, kids who are focusing on active recovery, injury prevention. We have your standard middle class who's coming in to ensure that they're just staying happy and healthy, as well as more of an older generation who love to come in and focus on therapies that relate around longevity and cellular optimization. So, as a whole, our model is really carved out for every individual, based on their wants and their needs.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that's awesome. Yeah, my next question was going to be who your typical customer was, but you pretty much answered that there. And how does it work? Is it a pay by? Do they pay when they come? Or is it a monthly subscription service? How does that work?

Speaker 2:

We are. We focus on primarily being membership based. However, we love drop-ins, we love walk-ins. We do sell packages as well, based on the therapy that those individuals are choosing. So the way our membership platform is set up is we have a handful of what we consider foundational therapies. Those foundational therapies are core therapies such as cryotherapy, infrared salt sauna, pemf, red light therapy those types of things those fall within our foundational membership. All of what we consider our premium services would be purchased by a one-off session and or a package associated.

Speaker 1:

Okay, awesome, awesome, and can you tell me a little bit about the growth that you've had since launching and, like, how many locations are you in and whereabouts are across America?

Speaker 2:

Of course. Yeah, so we. It's been a wild ride. We, when we first launched our first location as you know we're sure we're trying to figure it all out we threw a lot of spaghetti at the wall to see what was going to stick. But currently, to date, we've been franchising a little well, right at two years now, and we have sold 83 locations. We do not use any third party service such as an FSO or a broker network. We do everything internally and we have 10 locations currently open. Our 11th location will actually open next week. I was on site with them this past week, so very exciting to see the continued development.

Speaker 2:

As far as current, you know where we are located, if you will. From a geography standpoint, all of our locations open are primarily right now in the southeast. So Florida, louisiana, texas, alabama, mississippi. However, we have sold locations across the states Arizona, tennessee, delaware, jersey, philly, washington, montana, idaho, you name it. So we have, we're everywhere, if you will. It's just a matter of following those development timelines and getting those locations open successfully in the timeframe they're supposed to.

Speaker 1:

Okay, awesome, sounds like you're on track, though, and what's the goal with the number of locations for the next two years? Where do you want to be in two years in terms of that?

Speaker 2:

We would like to see our growth double in the next two years. So we're focusing on you know how can we pivot to ensure we're still selling the brand, as we're evolving the brand and opening multiple locations. But yeah, we really want to see our business continue to double, if not have more than that.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that's awesome, awesome. And what have been the biggest challenges for you as CEO within the business and how did you overcome those challenges?

Speaker 2:

No great question. I would say honestly, dylan, the biggest challenge is it being a startup right. So sometimes with a startup, you're building a team from scratch. You have to make sure you know all of the processes and procedures are put into place, especially in our line of work now, because it's not a standard model. There's medical involvement, which comes with a lot of legality, and ensuring that you're navigating through all the states, unique guidelines accordingly, and so the biggest hurdle overall is just putting it all together right.

Speaker 2:

In my position, you know, as I mentioned, I started in the sales role, and so, after seeing a tremendous amount of growth, it was time to really carve out and build the proper infrastructure to support that.

Speaker 2:

And so taking that piece of the puzzle over and having, you know, a handful of people on the team and needing to continue to grow especially in today's world when remote work is what everybody wants to do, and having a franchise concept, getting everyone together regularly to ensure that you still have that face time, to make sure everybody's moving the needle seamlessly together as a united front, can be a bit challenging, but I'll tell you the way that I overcome or overcame that, if you will is just constant communication. You'll hear my team say all the time like we're all about meeting the line. You know we love each other. We're a small group, so it's very much like that family oriented atmosphere, if you will. But we still have to hold each other accountable in order to continue to grow the business where we want it to be, and sometimes that comes with hard conversations, but following that we see success and we have fun with it 100% Awesome.

Speaker 1:

And have there been any specific tools or tactics that have been particularly effective for you and that have helped you grow to where you are today, not only within the business, but for yourself as well?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, honestly, I'm big on continued education, working with mentors continually to involve ourselves in different aspects of the franchising world as a whole, not necessarily honing down to our industry specifically, but one of the other tools I will say that we used, which I found very, very beneficial for the entire organization, was a personality tool called predictive index, because kind of going back to that point where everyone's remote we have to be aligned, it helps you really understand your people and I think that's really that that's the biggest takeaway from a leadership standpoint. That has helped me be a better leader is getting to know my people, understanding their why and making sure that I can. You know that they're constantly ticking and that they're excited and that they feel motivated, so that way everyone is engaged in what the end goal is.

Speaker 1:

Okay, amazing, amazing end. What are the main KPIs that you use to measure the success of your business as a whole, as well as the individual franchises?

Speaker 2:

So obviously, revenue always comes into play. We really focus our accounting team on gathering the P&Ls from our franchisees, ensuring that we're keeping cost of goods where they need to be, providing insight on overhead and payroll, making sure everybody's following kind of a streamlined process whenever it comes to that. Aside from that, obviously, standard membership numbers that we focus on from a growth standpoint, we have certain milestones that we expect our franchisees to hit and if they're not meeting those necessary milestones then our team has to go back out. We work with them. Obviously, their success is our success and so, just being very transparent on the KPIs that we're looking for and the KPIs that are going to attribute to their success, we focus on those as we continue to support them.

Speaker 1:

Okay, awesome. And what are the biggest metrics that you're currently working to improve?

Speaker 2:

Two of our largest ones. Obviously we want to get our cost of entry down and we're continuing to grow from an AUB standpoint. So those are the two biggest things. How do we get our franchisees in with a very nice build that still follows our brand standards but at a smaller price point? And then, once they get in, what measurements are we taking to be proactive to ensure that you know they open maybe with a membership base to start that revenue stream coming in? And then how do we tackle on that from a package aspect to keep our members happy, keep retention where it needs to be and continue to grow that AUB over time?

Speaker 1:

Okay, awesome, awesome. And how much competition do you guys have in the industry and what sets you guys apart?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So that's a great question, you know, especially coming from the sales world. Everybody asks like who your competition is First and foremost. We, our team, likes to look at where our only competition If we're not doing something right, then there's a hurdle that we need to overcome internally.

Speaker 2:

As far as actual competitors that a consumer would perceive, there are only a handful that really follow our path of trying to be everything to everyone to a certain extent. But I think what differentiates us a couple of components there. The first one is going to be the constant evolution of our brand, the fact that we are pivoting very, very quickly to encompass what we are seeing, I guess, is the new hype per se in the industry. So make sure that it's added to our platform, but not just added, it's added strategically and effectively. And we know that there's going to be an ROI on that particular therapy or model and so as we kind of work through that, that's probably the number one thing that differentiates us from an overall perspective the multiple categories with the therapies.

Speaker 2:

But in conjunction with that, I would say, and obviously I think everybody, you know, every company is different in their own unique way, but we really, really try to focus on that family atmosphere inside of a spa. From a customer service standpoint, you know, when someone comes in, we want to also know their why. You know you may walk in and say hey, tatum, I'm here today and I want an IV. Okay, dylan, why do you think you want an IV? Is there something else going on, you know? And so taking a deeper dive into what we really consider that discovery for that client and ensuring that we're properly educating them so when they leave that day with a membership, they know every service that they are coming in to take and every appointment on their calendar for the next six weeks. And so we it's all about accountability for our consumers as well to make sure that we're taking care of our clients and they're actually achieving the results that they walked in to see.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I appreciate that. I think that's super important and I love it, Love to hear it. And before we go, we are coming to the end of the interview now, but what advice would you like to give to other business owners looking to succeed, not only in this industry but in general?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I would say don't, don't quit. I know everybody knows that and everybody says that but put your head down, focus. You're going to come to a lot of challenges and trials and tribulations, but with that comes success, If you just put your head down and keep grinding. I've been through a lot of different experiences in my life and I still am learning something new every single day. But if you take care of your people and when I say that I mean your team and your consumers they will take care of you and, working together as a team and constantly putting your head down to move that needle forward, you can't. No one's going to stop you if you do that.

Speaker 1:

Okay, awesome, I love that. Thank you so much, and thank you, tatum, for your time today. I really enjoyed chatting to you and learning more about the business. What is the best way for people to get in touch with Tatum Cruise if they want to sign up for membership or if they're looking to follow your journey?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, of course, obviously, linkedin is huge, but aside from that, feel free to email me. It's tatum at thecoverycom. Our website is thecoverycom. You can also find my links on there as well, so we would love. If anybody has questions or you want to stop in the spa and pay us a visit, I'd love to give you a service on me, so just let me know.

Speaker 1:

Amazing. Thank you so much, tatum.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thank you, dylan, I really appreciate it.