Business View Magazine | October 2020

194 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2020 grow domestically. That doesn’t mean that we would turn down the right opportunity to expand internationally. I’ve had conversations about expansion into Canada, because it makes a lot of sense for our particular model with their healthcare system and the fact that it covers massage therapies. So, there’s a huge benefit there. But as far as actively targeting an international market, I don’t think we’re quite there yet.” Pechacek: “I echo what Sean said. We’re open to development internationally; however we would love to focus most of our efforts right now, domestically. So many franchisors find themselves in a situation where they have something special in regard to product or service offerings and they sell it right away. In turn, they end up in a scenario where they have ten locations open and 80 sold. They find out quickly that it is easier said than done when it comes to scalable operating. MassageLuXe is uniquely positioned in regard to the amount that we have open and the amount that we have sold based on how long we’ve been around. We now know, and have proven, that we have strong unit-level operations and strong unit-level performance. We are at the point where we’ve proven our scalability and we are ready to open up the floodgates and grow the franchise.” BVM: How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted your business? Rentchler: “It would be shortsighted to say that the pandemic didn’t affect every business on some level, but for the most part, we’ve been pretty pandemic-resistant across the board. The majority of our locations did an amazing job communicating with our membership base - giving them options on how to maintain their status: freezing their memberships, reducing the payment of fees, etc. And the process is in place to effectively and safely to sell services when our clientele enter our spas.” BVM: What would you like a potential franchisee within our spas.” BVM: Anything on the front burner that you are focusing on? Rentchler: “We’re doing a slight refresher of the brand as far as color schemes to make sure we’re staying relevant to new retail and service space trends. But our focus has always been internal – ensuring that we continue to focus on the things that we do well and we’re able to scale them as we continue to grow.” BVM: What does that growth look like? Rentchler: “We set a goal for ourselves to hit 250 units within the next five years. It’s going to come down to making sure we’re focusing on the things that we do well and, as we continue to grow, we’ll put in the support and processes necessary to continue to operate the way we have been. There are markets that we really want to get into outside of the United States, at some point, but our intention remains to