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How Franchising Positioned This Entrepreneur To Become Rumble Boxing’s First Franchisee

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Many people associate entrepreneurship with a side hustle or starting a company. However, depending on the brand and industry, franchising can be more lucrative with an already proven business model.

Franchising offers individuals a community to build on and an opportunity to create a sustainable business without starting from scratch. With approximately 775,000 franchise establishments, according to the International Franchise Association, these businesses support nearly 8.2 million direct jobs and $787.7 billion of economic output for the U.S. economy. In addition, this type of entrepreneurship opens the doors for people of all education levels and economic statuses.

“Among franchised owners,” states Michael Layman, senior vice president, government relations & public affairs at the International Franchise Association, “Roughly 260,000 franchise owners own and operate the roughly 800,000 business units that are franchised around the country. IFA members have told us that nearly one-third of franchise business owners say they would not own a business without the franchise model. So that tells you that franchising democratizes business ownership as much as any business format ever created. Franchisees are disproportionately people of color, women and veterans because you don’t have to be a third-generation business executive or have gone to Harvard Business School. But if you’re willing to work hard and basically follow the recipe in a given brand for success, you can achieve greatly for yourself and your family in franchising.”

Susie Grobler, a Pure Barre and Rumble Boxing franchisee in Anchorage, Alaska, is an example of someone trailblazing new paths for women in underrepresented and overlooked markets. Rumble Boxing being her latest venture, she saw a gap in the market for kickboxing and decided to invest in the new business. Its business model requires liquid capital of $100,000 and $500,000 in net worth. So Grobler became Rumble’s first franchisee.

“A lot of people have asked me, ‘Why aren’t you just opening Susie’s Bar?’” she states. “For me, the business support was necessary. I have my personal strengths, and the franchise can fill in those gaps that I don’t have.”

Grobler moved to Alaska after being recruited out of college by BP as a rotating equipment engineer in the oil fields. This position required her to work two weeks on and two weeks off. Although she had great mentors and supervisors, that lifestyle became challenging once she started a family. During her two weeks on one rotation, she thought about if she could continue living like this for the next ten years. Realizing she couldn’t, she researched different options for branching out.

Franchising seemed the best fit for the high-risk, high-reward remote town she lived in. She still worked in the oil fields while mapping out what being a franchisee actually entailed. Pure Barre was attractive because of its low-impact, full-body workout. So Grobler decided to go all in, launching in 2017.

“Expectations really start hitting once you are open,” she explains. “Once you’re open, there are monthly criteria that you have agreed to hit. If you don’t hit them, you have to pay them out of pocket. That’s pretty much standard franchising, but honestly, if you don’t hit those limits, then you’re probably regretting your business decision anyway. You’re not making any money.

So I wasn’t all too worried about hitting those spots. Depending on your city, the first six to nine months are a lot more planning and decision-making and not so much working in the business physically having to be there. So it was a lot of reviewing, building out plans and talking to the contractors and architects, getting all of that situated.”

As the pandemic lifted in 2021, Pure Barre started seeing an increase in business again. That’s when Grobler decided to expand her business portfolio with Rumble Boxing. Xponential Fitness, the parent company of Pure Barre, acquired Rumble Boxing in March 2021. Grobler thought it would be a fun and unique workout space in Anchorage, considering the city didn’t have any kickboxing workouts like it in the city—combining both the benefits of boxing and strength training.

“She came to us from inside our portfolio with Pure Barre,” commented Vince Pacleb, Rumble Boxing’s vice president of sales & operations. “That was one of the things that made the decision very simple. She was prepared to expand her portfolio and be able to take the learnings from Pure Barre to apply that to a new brand and enter into a new market. The other part is that it’s just a great testimony of how our process works; we can take a new brand, enter a new market like Anchorage, and still see a partner see great success by following our system.”

Grobler shares that before pivoting into franchising, there are a few questions to ask the brand:

  • How many studios are you currently operating?
  • How many have closed over the last five years?
  • What royalty percentages are you passing on?

As she continues to transition and expand her portfolio, she focuses on the following essential steps:

  • Focus on the 80/20 rule: don’t get stuck on ensuring you have 100% of your answers before moving on. You’ll figure the rest out if you know 80% of the roadmap.
  • Befriend people who will ask you the tough questions as you build the business. This will save you in the long run.
  • Set boundaries so you don’t burn out.

“We often think that we need to have education in the exact subject that we’re switching our career to,” Grobler concludes. “You don’t have to know every part of it and you shouldn’t undermine or undervalue the knowledge you have gained in a field. For me, engineering sounds so different from being a fitness studio owner and a franchisee, but I learned so much about problem-solving. Even now, knowing that I’m more on the entrepreneurial business side, I still would have gotten an engineering degree because it taught me so many things I can now apply in my business.”

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