Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine Issue II, 2013 | Page 34

M U L T I - B R A N D
tries, is a big job, he says. “We thought
with multiple brands, we could maintain
similarities in the process flow and run
similar time frames and efficiencies. And
often, that has been the case. But some
of it is confusing because each franchisor
has its own operating system. We’re running off too many platforms right now.
I wish I had one that I could use to talk
to the others. It’s been a more complex
beast than we’d anticipated,” Fitlow says.
When the partners started with ReBath, Fitlow was selling and Allen was
installing until they could add enough
people to take that on. “I understand the
business aspects of it all, but I’m not sure
I realized all the things you need to be
expert at when you grow a new business
from scratch. It’s a little more of a challenge,” Fitlow says.
Today, Fitlow is president of their three
companies with about 50 employees, and
Allen is vice president/operations. “Our
relationship works well because we both
come in with different strengths—some-

“In 10 years?
I’ll probably
be hiding from
three teenage
daughters.”

thing that is key to any successful partnership,” Fitlow says.
In the three years since Fitlow became
president, he has backed off from dayto-day operations and has even started
working at home three days a week.
That has worked well for a couple of
reasons. For one, he can often get in a
couple of hours skiing before going to
the office. Also, “I’ve learned that I’m
more efficient when I’m not around
anybody, and that they work more efficiently when I’m not around,” he says.
“We finally got an office where I had a
nice window, and I don’t get to enjoy
it very much.”
Today, at 42, Fitlow is a family man
with a wife and three young daughters—
all of whom ski. He jokes about the
challenges that face him in the future.
“I used to say when the teenage years
hit, we’d send them to boarding school.
We’ve recently realized how expensive
that would be, so now I may have to go
to boarding school,” he jokes.

BOTTOM LINE
Annual revenue: $8 million
2013 goals: $12 million
Growth meter: How do you measure your growth? Now we’re
measuring how we grow on the bottom line; it used to be on the top line.
Vision meter: Where do you want to be in 5 years? 10 years?
In five years, I’d like to have a full team of general managers who have a profit
share in the business, and my work week consists of going to reports with
them. In 10 years, I don’t know. I’ll probably be hiding from three teenage
daughters.
How is the economy affecting you, your employees, your customers? It’s made us better. Our customer base has shrunk, so we knew that
if we didn’t get much better at what we’re doing, the business would be more
difficult to come by.
Are you experiencing economic growth or recovery in your
market? Yes.
What did you change or do differently in this economy that you
plan to continue doing? We got lean.
How do you forecast for your business in this economy? It’s
tough. We look at what we should be able to do with the lead flow we have
and try to target off that. Then we try to create additional lead flow without
spending a ton of money doing so.
Is capital getting easier to access? Why/why not? No, not at all.
Our business models are low-asset models, and the only thing banks want to
lend on is assets.

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Multi-Unit Franchisee Is s ue II, 2013

Where do you find capital for expansion? Self-funding.
Have you used private equity, local banks, national banks,
other institutions? Why/why not? Local banks.
What are you doing to take care of your employees? Keeping the
business growing.
How are you handling rising employee costs (payroll, healthcare, etc.)? We make sure that whatever we offer is something we can
continue to offer, whether we get busier or slower. Through this downturn in the
economy, we’ve never taken away a benefit or reduced pay. But we have been
trying to find good vendors who do a good job managing costs.
How do you reward/recognize top-performing employees? I try
to send out company-wide monthly newsletters so all employees in all divisions
know what the company is doing and know about standout performances.
They know that most of what we do is a team effort, with everybody working
toward the same target. We try to have company functions a couple of times
a year where we get together in the new office in Salt Lake City. The building
used to be a pool and spa place, so there’s still an in-ground pool. We had our
first pool party there.
What kind of exit strategy do you have in place? I don’t see
businesses getting sold to the point where somebody can sit back and retire
because 10 to 20 years of effort paid off. That just doesn’t happen out there,
or at least I haven’t seen it. So we’re mainly trying to get the right people in
place to manage the companies into the future. Our outfit is more about continuing to guide and mentor and give them a share when things go well.