Explore the ever-evolving world of educational enrichment with industry experts Matt Rogers of Code Ninjas and Megan Bowling from Stretch-n-Grow International. This episode is a deep dive into the intricacies of franchise expansion, the state of the industry (in terms of staffing, marketing & enrollment, and business growth), and how regional economies sculpt the landscape of after-school & children's enrichment programs.
Explore the ever-evolving world of educational enrichment with industry experts Matt Rogers of Code Ninjas and Megan Bowling from Stretch-n-Grow International. This episode is a deep dive into the intricacies of franchise expansion, the state of the industry (in terms of staffing, marketing & enrollment, and business growth), and how regional economies sculpt the landscape of after-school & children's enrichment programs.
Thanks for tuning in to All. It's Quacked Up To Be a podcast by LineLeader. I'm your host, Sierra Rossing, the head of marketing at LineLeader by Childcare CRM. In this episode, I'm joined by Matt Rogers, chief marketing officer at CodeNinjas, and Megan Bolling, in charge of franchise development at Stretch Grow International. Both Megan and Matt bring years of business development, marketing and sales experience within the education industry. This discussion focuses primarily on the out-of-school time, after-school care and youth enrichment markets, with an emphasis on franchise systems and international expansion. They share a lot of wisdom and insights, while also revealing some of their tips on what not to do. So be sure to break out your notepad for this one and let's dive in. Thank you both for being here, Really excited to have you on. But first, before we dive into all the insights, trends for enrichment and out-of-school time providers, I wanted to give you both a chance to kind of introduce yourselves, share a little bit about what each of your organizations do and how they serve children and youth. So, Matt, do you want to start?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can start, Matt Rogers. I am the chief marketing officer at Code Ninjas. We are a youth enrichment franchise specializing in coding. We have just under 400 locations across the US, Canada and the UK.
Speaker 1:Amazing. And Megan, can you tell us a little bit about Stretch and Grow? We just see the shirt, of course.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone.
Speaker 1:I'm Megan Bowling, I'm with Stretch and Grow. We are a franchise system as well, specializing in movement-based and virtual programs. So fitness, dance, sports, music, gymnastics at preschools, private schools and rec centers. How have you seen the industry change in the last 12 months in the out-of-school time and enrichment space and maybe specific to the franchise system as well? So what I've noticed is that there are a lot more auctions for schools now to find a race track programs that suit their needs, and what I'm seeing and maybe, matt, you're seeing similar we're seeing a lot of these multi-brand kind of franchise owners purchase smaller brands and bring them under their umbrella, and so that's kind of what I'm seeing in our industry is there's more and more options coming up for school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we're similar. We're primarily brick and mortar, so you know, I think it's one increased competition, both like in the digital space and in the retail space. I think two is post parents had this massive swing of we need our kids to do everything because they just spent 18 months indoors and that's starting to peel back and I think that that's partially driven by the economy. We've also seen that growth is very regionalized and so part of that is economy driven. We're in an election year, all of that, so yeah, I think, but mainly increased competition and then parents being a little bit more selective with you know, we call it like the share of afterschool hours not wanting to kind of burn their kids out, you know, like they might've done 18 months ago coming out of COVID.
Speaker 1:I think, too, it's getting more and more difficult because we're seeing more dual working income homes or single parent homes, so to get their children to after school programs has become a little bit harder as well. Yeah, absolutely. Do you foresee those trends continuing on, continuing on? You mentioned that you know, following the pandemic, that parents were really interested in getting their children into these programs and making sure that they have those opportunities, and now they're becoming more selective. Do you foresee them becoming more and more selective as time goes on, or do you foresee that the pendulum kind of swinging back the other way and then starting to load the children back up after?
Speaker 2:school way and then starting to starting to load the children back up after school.
Speaker 2:I think, ultimately, what we might move a little bit closer to center if we're using the pendulum metaphor, but I don't think we'll ever get back to kind of that post pandemic level, you know, whether that is driven by costs, whether that is driven by parent time, whether that is driven by, you know, just not wanting to burn kids out.
Speaker 2:You know, I think we have a couple of user personas that are, you know, just not wanting to burn kids out. You know, I think we have a couple of user personas that are, you know, very much academically driven. We see that continuing to grow, but, kind of our other persona, they just want their kid to do something that is productive but that the kid also wants to do. We see that parent wanting to give their child more ownership over their time and we're also seeing that happen at kind of a younger age, I think, pre-pandemic, you know, kids started to control their time a little bit more in like middle school but we're starting to see, you know, kind of mid-elementary school even kids being able to say I don't want to do this, I'm not having fun, and the parent kind of saying okay, well, let's find something else which I think is just a post-pandemic behavior change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we see them kind of sampling. We work mostly with preschools, so we partner with the preschools to bring these enrichment programs. So here's options to parents so we might be at a school offering fitness, dance and music and we'll see a parent try each program.
Speaker 2:And it's all within our system.
Speaker 1:So we can see that, and so they're trying to expose their children to more activities to find out what they like at an early age, which is great. That's really interesting. You know you mentioned becoming more competitive, parents getting more selective and maybe even having to appeal to the children sooner and they're becoming more of a you know, a key influencer on on that decision making process. Um, and you both have really great brands. You know I love that, like stretch and grow. You call your students stretching of stars. You've got each of your activities has its own kind of like brand established and, matt, you know code ninjas, obviously you've got the dojo. You know you've got the code sensei, with this like the teacher, the instructor, the ninjas being the students. Do you feel like your brand and I guess we'll start with you, matt do you feel like the brand has played a pivotal role in remaining competitive, both to the parents and maybe also to new franchise growth?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think brand is kind of at an interesting time because, similar to what we talked about, you know, it's not just I want my kid to be specifically for us, like I want them to learn coding, it's you know, I want them to learn a specific language within coding, or I want them to be specifically focused on game development or app development or building websites, so we're much more kind of in the long tail or building websites, so we're much more kind of in the long tail.
Speaker 2:The brand has to stand for something because I think, ultimately, when you try to be, you know everything for everybody or nothing to nobody, but at the same time, you also have to be flexible in how you show up to the personas that you've defined. And Code Ninjas is interesting, and this space is interesting because you know we have a customer and a consumer and so the brand has to mean different things to those people as well. So the brand needs to be a lot more flexible than it has needed to be maybe 10 years ago or 20 years ago, and part of that is driven by the consumer, part of that is driven by competition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's super interesting because we want the experience to be so amazing and so high quality for the children and also we need to speak to the parents. So, finding that balance it takes a lot of energy and effort and we completely rebranded in 2019. And then, of course, you guys know what happened right after that and so it, but it has truly kept us in line. If we've seen extreme growth after that rebranding and kind of realigning our core values and establishing them, which really is important for staffing, is important for branding, is important for the kids too. Yeah, well, I love that.
Speaker 1:It kind of plays into my next question, which was going to be how would you suggest that other enrichment or after-school care providers balance competing priorities and demands within the industry, such as trying to create, maybe, a parent-centric marketing approach versus a child-centric marketing approach, or growth or versus program quality loss, like how, how have you all kind of found the the balance there to ensure the integrity of your brand?
Speaker 1:Um, while you know, making sure that, of course, like company objectives and goals are being met and, megan, we can start with you so for us, it all comes down to delivery, really, and making sure that our staff understands the components of each classroom. What must happen in each and every class. We have certain things that speak to our brand, that happens in the delivery, and then that way the children go back to their parents and tell them how amazing it was, but then also having certain material to support that. So we do handouts and newsletters to keep the parents involved and engaged. So making sure that there's kind of two parts right that you're sharing with the parents what the children are doing, but also ensuring that those classes are so fun and so high quality for the children. Ensuring that those classes are so fun and so high quality for the children.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's. For us it is understanding what you are willing to compromise and what you're not willing to compromise on. It's like we're not willing to compromise on our curriculum. You know we have our standard curriculum that needs to be delivered in the way it needs to be delivered, so a student has the same experience across our nearly 400 locations and they're actually learning what they say that we're going to be learning.
Speaker 2:But then there's other things that we are willing to compromise on, whether that's clubs or birthday parties or our summer camp, and so you know, I think those kind of tangential products, you know we can have a little bit more flexibility and we can use those to kind of drive that additional growth or to help us expand to a new customer or a new consumer and kind of how those come to life. So that's kind of how we think about that growth is. You know, we know we're not going to compromise on our pedagogy, we're not going to compromise our curriculum, we're not going to compromise on how we teach and the importance of learning to code, but we also know that's not for everybody and you know some kids still want to come and find their place and be around people, but not necessarily learn like that rigorous coding.
Speaker 1:Could you you know talking about tangential experiences and offering like innovative programs in the space? Matt, the Prodigy program that you all are running is very interesting and I know you just had a really big event I believe it was last month actually in the DFW area. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do a lot with partnerships, you know I find that they're a great way to kind of elevate our brand. You know it also helps that we have 100,000 kids that will come through our doors that are interested in STEM, because a lot of other companies are kind of struggling to find STEM talent or struggling to recruit and stay relevant to younger and younger kids. So we created the Prodigy program last and it basically, you know it started as our way to kind of introduce our ninjas to kind of the largest technology and gaming companies. Code Ninjas is really rooted in gaming. We use gaming for a lot of our like ways to teach code, and so it kind of started as that. You know, come to Code Ninjas, you know you'll get you know a behind-the-scenes tour of the largest technology and gaming companies.
Speaker 2:Our first partner was with Microsoft, so we had eight winners from our different regions US, canada and the UK. We flew them to Microsoft HQ. They got to spend a whole day there. They got to go and play with the Xbox games that are being developed Talk to the Minecraft team. Meet the MakeCode team, which is the platform that a lot of our coding classes are built on, and so that was super fun.
Speaker 2:The last one, we pivoted the program a little bit to also include, like, the non-traditional routes that learning to code can take you. So this one was with a company called sky elements, which is the largest drone show company in the world. So we selected eight winners, again from the us, uk, canada. Uh, we flew them into dallas. They got to work with the company to like help code the drone show um, and like have a portion of the drone show kind of come to life with their imaginations with like 400 drones flying. So super fun and I think it's you know one. It's allowed us to kind of partner with companies that are, you know, above our weight class for lack of a better term um, but also, uh, give our, you know, the community and the dojo community is something that's super important to us um, and doing things like this allow us to kind of continually build and reinforce that community and really just celebrate our ninjas that are, you know, they're creating these amazing games and we just want to kind of elevate that experience for everybody.
Speaker 1:Amazing. I love that. You know one industry trend that came out of our benchmark report that we released in January and we did a survey of 5,000 child education enrichment, their money and their time with and um, I feel like the carotid program sounds like a you know a great way to um, obviously deliver a really meaningful experience for a child, something that you know they're gonna remember for the rest of their life, but also be able to do it at scale right, because you can't send everyone to washington dc because I never went to dallas. But, um, I love that you know you're giving like that competitive aspect of it and really having them work towards a goal which is, of course, super important in children's development, and then just also being able to craft a really meaningful experience. Have you seen any? You know growth or marketing enrollment trends come out of Stretch and Grow Money, whether it's personalization or our parents wanted to speak with the coaches before they enrolled their children or anything like that. Sure, definitely, and especially because our classes do happen at schools. They don't get to actually see the classes. We do showcases and then we do recitals or a dance program, but until then they really they don't get to see what's happening and so very often they'll want to hear from their coach. We send home emails, we send home progress reports and things like that. We definitely see that what we've really seen is a need in the early childhood education industry to support the schools, and so that's been a huge, huge growth thing for us because we've stepped in to help with teacher breaks and stuff like that. So we have more and more schools partnering with us where they we it's a partnership program where we see everyone in the school, so we don't get any interaction with the parents for those programs. So, again, it's just we have to continuously send hold information so that we can reach the parent.
Speaker 1:I love, um, that you mentioned stepping in for teacher breaks, because of course, we have seen retention continues to be an issue I in all aspects of education, but especially in the, you know, within early childhood development. So that is a really interesting way that a center could and provide a benefit back to their staff About how long are the breaks Like, how long are your classes? You know, if a center was looking to promote that, yeah, they're 30 minutes. So all of our, all of our classes are curriculum based as well. So our coaches are yeah, they're 30 minutes. So all of our classes are curriculum-based as well. So our coaches are certified. They have their background checks, they have their CPR certification, everything that would allow them to kind of be the star of the show, to give the teacher that break, to wipe tables down, go to the bathroom, do lesson plans, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:And so after COVID it was really interesting because we saw a huge expansion in that Schools would say can you come two or three days a week Because they were having a hard time staffing their centers and giving staff those breaks. So it's really been interesting to watch that because kind of pre-COVID our care paid or voluntary programs were larger and now we've seen a shift into this kind of center-wide partnership to support the schools. Interesting, are there any mistakes either of you have seen executives, or even maybe franchise owners, make when it's something they keep up with industry trends or, you know, trying to be kind of like the first one to do something in their space? Um, just anything that you would recommend that they people avoid as they look to grow and scale their business.
Speaker 2:What your personal idea.
Speaker 1:Sure, um, I think for us for us, we've we've had this over the last 30 years it's really important to have KPIs and expectations and invest in professional development for your leaders and make sure that you're continuously pointing to them and leading them in a way that aligns with their core values and your core values. That's a big mistake that we have seen that people kind of come into this sector and just they do it themselves, but then, as they hire people on, they don't put the time into them to make sure that they're going to continuously deliver the quality that they want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think Code Ninjas is interesting from a franchisee perspective because we have a lot of mission-driven owners, which is amazing because it meant we didn't close a lot of locations during COVID, despite kind of having to go remote and everything that happened during that. But that also means that you know there's a lot of weaknesses around things like market and sales right, and at the end of the day we are a sales and marketing organization and that's how we get students in the door. So we've had to do a lot of training on marketing and a lot of training on actually closing the deals with parents. So I think that's one similar to training, but it's higher slow and fire fast. I think toxicity can very quickly turn. We're all small teams can turn a small team, especially because Code ninjas is only seven or eight years old.
Speaker 2:So you know, as you grow your needs changed and it's important to kind of recognize that the needs of the company have changed and if that person's skill set no longer fits that needs, then like it's okay to end you don't?
Speaker 2:There's no point in kind of dragging that out. Um, so I think that that has been something that you know, like we've learned as kind of going through that process and then not tailoring kind of our communications and styles specifically to the customer. Like, everything needs to start with the customer and the consumer and I think a lot of people that you know I've talked to or mentored over the years, you know, just because you have a great idea or just because you have a great product, if you don't know who the customer is and you're not speaking to that customer, talking to them where they want to be spoken to, being part of the conversations that they're a part of, you're going to really struggle to kind of see the growth and then understanding not just kind of who your current set of customers are, but who's your growth customer and how are you building and shaping and changing the message for that customer versus your current set of customers?
Speaker 1:and being really clear on who your ideal customers are and ideal staff members. Yeah d? Um you know a teacher. You have the right people on the bus. Um, yeah, kind of you know.
Speaker 1:All those great metaphors, um, I feel like are something that can be hard, especially for like a, a small business owner or who's in the center every single day, building relationships with those staff you know, day after day, year after year. Um, and I actually love to quote the great Beth Cannon, which is a franchise owner, um a great partner of ours. She uh explained it at a conference recently. I was like I'm regifting people to the universe, like I'm helping them on their best possible path and move forward and you know what's gonna serve them best, while also making sure that you know you're serving your business and your other staff best. Right, because you don't want to do a disservice to to your star? Um, staff members who maybe you're having to pick up extra slack and things like that. Definitely, I'm seeing her tonight. We start training new franchisees today, so I'm going to let her know that you said that she also has another quote Don't burn your great staff members by putting up with the ones that maybe aren't following your company's core values in line, because that will definitely affect your team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the next question I wanted to ask you all about and again it's just you know perfect is to hang down um was are there any dangers that you consider to be associated with rapid business growth specific to this industry?
Speaker 1:I mean mean, staff could be one right there of being so afraid to let bodies go because you have to stay in ratio or you have to make sure that there's someone watching a child in every aspect of your business and there's more and more children coming in that you're just letting them ride it out and waiting to solve that problem later.
Speaker 1:But are there any other issues you've come up, whether you're experienced with your current organizations and other organizations or just seeing, like other operators, what pitfalls are there to rapid business growth? I mean our industry. The safety is so, so important and so making sure that you're not just hiring to put bodies in places, that you are taking the time to find quality people that you know are going to be safe with the children and making sure they get all of their certifications and staying in touch with them, because for us, our coaches are going after those schools, so we don't see them every day. We don't get to see their classes. We don't see them every day, we don't get to see their classes. So making sure you're dropping in, checking in on them, staying in touch with them and that everyone's being safe is the biggest priority for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think staffing is obviously hard. I think from the franchisee perspective, I think when you're prioritizing growth, it's sometimes hard to be really strict with kind of who you want in. You know, like when you, when you see a territory and you see the opportunity to sell that territory, it's making sure that you know you're partnering with the right person. Like we see it very much as a partnership with our franchisee. I think that one and I think the other thing, like from a franchisor perspective, is making sure that you have the systems in place that will allow you to scale. And that usually means kind of over-investing in the beginning because at some point you're going to get to a place where you've outgrown your systems.
Speaker 2:And when you've outgrown your systems it becomes very, very difficult to change. And that change as you grow is even more taxing for the franchisees. You're constantly rolling out. You know new billing and scheduling platforms or new crms or new, you know xyz um, like that can be very taxing to a system, especially one that is experiencing kind of that. You know massive growth um, when you're kind of in that mode, yeah, growing responsibly is super important.
Speaker 1:we back in the day, my dad did not qualify people when he started stretching girl and my mom, and so we ended up with some franchisees that maybe weren't the best fit for our system and that that was hard and that's something that might. Since my sister and I have taken over, we have have been really, really clear about that. We don't want just anyone to be representing Stretch and Grow. We want to find the right people who this is going to make a great impact in their life, but also they understand our mission and all of that. You mentioned that you have a training tonight, which is awesome. I'm sure that's one really big pillar of ensuring consistency and quality across, you know, a franchise organization. When, again, like you said, you can't be there in person every single day with everybody. What does a training process look like for Stretch and Grow, for a new owner or even for the coaches themselves themselves? Sure, so to start out, a new owners come to Florida. We do the five day training. Beth is our lead trainer internationally, so she comes, I'm here, and then some of my cause. I run a franchise here in St Pete, florida as well, so some of my coaches are mom in the training. They have class time. We go pitch schools, we do a lot of classroom training and things like that. Then afterwards it's a series of Zoom calls to set them up. They have an option to fly out one of our periphery reps if needed. But then we do monthly webinars to continue training. We also do so for the coaches.
Speaker 1:The coaches is a lot of hands-on training. We have certifications that they have to get through stretch and row, but it's up to the franchisees to actually do their classroom training and so it's going to be tight and good, depending on someone's experience, but it's usually around three to four weeks of them training following coaches, and then they begin to start taking over classes and kind of trickle off there and that's how you train them. And then it's continuously making sure that they're doing professional development, making sure that you're dropping them out of the classes following the lesson plans. They need to follow the lesson plans every week. We provide them with their lesson plans, with their curricula or with their equipment, with their music, all of the things. So making sure that they're using all of the resources available to them for the coaches and for the franchisees. So that's that's kind of how we do it in structure matt, would you say. It's similar at code ninjas, or what does that onboarding process look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very similar. We have our NFT, new franchisee training. That's why I'm in Atlanta right now. That's a five day program and then we have our franchise business partners which are kind of our operations team and they work with them on you, you know, kind of the continuous training um. So you know then that new science has training, goes through the curriculum, it goes through all of our system and you know, like we talked about earlier, like that's what we're very strict on, um, and then we allow, you know, then we allow more flexibility to kind of those ancillary programs. So if we have owners that are, you know, super passionate about avionics and they want to create, you know, an avionics club, sure we love that Because I think that, like allowing people to, you know, show that passion is where you get kind of the best results. But yeah, it's very, very kind of similar.
Speaker 1:I love that we embrace creativity as well. Stars and Girls was started as just the fitness program and over the last 30 years, we've had amazing franchisees who've been super creative like that and that's how we've been able to grow into different programs. And we're. Being a little bit flexible is super important when we're international. Right, I can agree, because we see different kind of different means in different places. So, yeah, it looks just a little bit different everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's something I didn't think about, but I'm sure, like, of course, different cultures and languages and you know, there's so many different dynamics that play into it when you're operating internationally, um, so it's great that both your systems have found ways to incorporate new, fresh ideas I'm sure that's a bit a big part of type, but it's remain competitive and also innovate, um, and probably build really, really great partnerships with your franchise owners as well.
Speaker 1:Definitely that's awesome, yeah, um, so we one rising trend that we've started to identify and was actually called out in article in Exchange Press in February, which is the top 50 for profit report, because they were kind of like the top trends facing the top 50 operators in early childhood education is that, while finding staff isn't necessarily the huge concern anymore. We've kind of like moved out of that. A lot of the staff that operators are finding is greener and maybe doesn't have quite as much experience. You know overseeing children and you know having uncomfortable conversations with parents and or, you know, just even reporting to someone else in general, you know this might be their first time entering the workforce. Is that something that either of you have experienced or that your franchise owners have experienced at all?
Speaker 2:The interesting thing with coding is, you know, there is an errant stereotype with somebody that wants to do computer programming, and so our biggest issue isn't necessarily, you know, that they're greener or not, but it is that the personality type that wants to engage with parents and wants to, you know, get down at eye level with a child and walk them through the problem that they're having, or go to the whiteboard and draw so that they can visualize it in a different way, is stereotypically a very different personality than the person who, like just, is naturally drawn to coding. So kind of where we've struggled and what we kind of tried to do with the curriculum is make it so that you don't actually have to know how to code and you become much more of like the cheerleader archetype where, like you're really like the kid walks in, you're so excited to see them, you're yelling their name, you're getting them to jump up and down. You know you want the kid to be happier when they're leaving than when they walk in the door. So that's really where we've struggled with SAP.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for us it's's it's finding the right staff members. It has become more difficult with the way that these kind of job boards are operating now and there are so many options. Um, and, like you, we need a certain type of personality. We need people who are going to be comfortable acting like elephants with 24 year olds, you know, in front of teachers and stuff, and so it does take a minute to find the right personality, and we have spent a lot of time and effort on making it so simple, like math, for these coaches that I think that once we find them, then we're good, we're golden.
Speaker 1:But that's the difficult thing. Yeah, has you know? You mentioned um and I don't know how you're managing this, megan, but you mentioned math. That for you all you know, you've kind of built a curriculum that doesn't necessarily require the code sensei to know how to code Um, and they can kind of be like that cheerleader archetype which I love. You know that term um, and I imagine a lot of that is because maybe the child is like using some piece of technology to kind of walk through problems and then, um, they're being coached to, you know progress and move through that at kind of like a pace that you know fits their learning style, I assume. But, megan, I don't know if you all have leaned on technology at all, but in that way, to help, sort of like the coaches maybe get their curriculum or like focus on like, okay, this is my lesson plan for the day. I have it really accessible on my phone or on a tablet or something like that. But do you, you know, are there any new ways you've seen technology play a role in, whether it's the staffing component, out-of-tension, or learning?
Speaker 1:How is making your parents you know, how is technology making an impact on your business? Well, for us, we used to. We used to source different benefits. So, for example, we have our enrollment system, we have our scheduling system, we have our curriculum system. So all of it is on their phone and especially in. Our coaches are typically on the younger side, so we want it to be super easy for them to get all the things they need. We actually are about to launch our own app within our system that will handle all of our curriculum and, eventually, all of the things that the coaches need. But we rely heavily on an enrollment system, and so that's something that's very interesting that I see that some of my competitors don't do. They still do paper enrollments in the schools and I can't. I think nowadays you have to have a virtual system where parents can go in and simply register. And yeah, matt, have you seen any new ways that you know?
Speaker 2:either co-op ninjas as a corporation, or franchise systems have been relying on technology outside of the obvious one, of course teaching I think that the interesting ways that owners are using technology in the areas that they're most passionate about um, whether that, you know, is as simple as you know, rubik's cubes, right like there's now digital Rubik's cubes that they've created clubs around that teach kids how to solve a Rubik's cube, that are super fun. Or the way that they use the TVs in their dojos. So I think, like that, that's where the interesting technology is. For me, it's kind of again in that long tail of customers and giving them kind of what they're interested in versus, like, our sign-on process is all fairly digital at this point. You know, we generally have we call them tech-enabled parents that they themselves are in the industry and I think if we made them sign up on a piece of paper they would not think that we were very cutting edge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know it's interesting to think about the progression of technology. So when Stretch and Grow was started and they would come train, my parents would give them a box of like a Rolodex and then a box of tapes that they would play their music on, and it's very interesting to watch the progression of the music apps and the curriculum apps and all of those things. So it's I mean, you have to stay on top of that to remain competitive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's the other interesting thing with technology, like it allows you to deliver a personalized experience at scale. You know AI is the buzzword of 2023 and 2024. You know AI is the buzzword of 2023 and 2024. And I, you know it's still very much in its infancy, but it is giving even kind of individuals the ability to personalize at scale, which is I don't think we're quite at the disruption level yet, but it's.
Speaker 1:We're borderline on the disruption. Yeah, it's also offering ways to simplify and streamline. Rm systems are huge now, so that's also created kind of a thing, though, because parents and school directors are bombarded with information all day. Lots of it now is AI written, so it's almost you know it's done a lot of great things, but it's also caused some kind of interesting brand recognition problems.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's yeah, when, when every single person can go make whatever version of your logo that they want in you know xai bought and then I have to spend all my time reinforcing brand guidelines. It it's not what I thought I'd be spending a lot of my time doing, but here we are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, brand guidelines yeah, ours are newer too, so back in the day it used to be just use whatever colors you want, and you know there was no, no guidelines for a long time. So I can definitely understand your frustration on brand, yeah, I think. Well, I can say even in a SaaS company, where we're all operating under like one corporate entity, we still have issues with brand guidelines. So I think a universal problem yeah, there's just so much out there now that I really appreciate you both joining me and um.
Speaker 1:I wanted to give you each kind of an opportunity you know to um share if there's anything else you feel like I didn't ask you, or if there's anything that you'd like to promote for code ninjas, mad or mining for stretch and grow, or you know whether there's any franchise opportunities, new territories opening up or programs for for families to come and be a part of. We relashed franchising year and so we are opening up new territories. And if anyone's interested in opening up a territory, or if you're a school director that is looking to outsource physical education classes or maybe give your teachers a break, you can go to our website, which is stretchandgrowcom. We would love to talk with you and all the information is there.
Speaker 2:We are also open. We have a lot of open territories. Right now you can go to our website, which is codementionscom. I think for us, what's been really interesting that we've spent, you know, the first part of this year, and really the second half as well, is how we think about um, like new revenue streams for our owners. Um, you know, we are brick and mortar, but we're only open four hours a day on weekdays and eight hours a day on weekends, so there's a lot of unused hours, um, so how can we whether that's through homeschooling, whether that's through school partnerships, like how can we give our owners opportunities for on brand but additional revenue streams?
Speaker 2:You know summer camps, spring break camps, all of that's fairly standard, but, you know, our big focus is what else can we do to kind of help up our AUPs? Help up, you know cause, I think we're. We're also in the age of retail, where it's starting to get more expensive, and so a lot of our you know cause, I think we're. We're also in the age of retail, where it's it's starting to get more expensive, um, and so a lot of our you know franchisees, um rents are starting to go up more, um, and so profitability is huge for us as we focus on that so that's a big focus for us this year is how can we kind of continue to grow the different revenue streams? Um, yeah, and summer camps are just a couple of weeks away, depending on where you are.
Speaker 1:Thanks again to Matt and Megan for joining me on this episode of all it's quacked up to be. If you're like me, you may be thinking, wow, that was amazing. I need to go back, listen again and jot down all my action items and takeaways for my own business. Not to fear, I've put together a recap on the Line Leader blog, available at bloglineleadercom, and I've got a few nuggets for you to depart with right now.
Speaker 1:First, think about your ideal customer persona. How have they changed in the last 12 to 18 months? Are there new key influencers or decision makers moving to the forefront? The best way to understand this is by getting face-to-face time with your franchise owners and enrollment teams, who are on the front line speaking to inquiring families every day. Next, how are you maintaining your brand integrity? Everything from ensuring all your locations are using the right colors and logos to keeping with the correct brand tone and voice in email follow-ups to parents, to delivering consistent curriculum and safety standards are integral to standardization and scaling successfully. Finally, training and coaching don't end after the franchise owner signs on the dotted line. Invest in professional development for your owners and their staff to ensure longevity for your business, plus all that quality interaction with your franchisees on a regular basis can lead to greater information sharing, which could contribute to innovation and differentiating your business from the competition, like it has for Matt and Megan. No-transcript.