Dashboards Don't Coach: Russell Hoff on the What, Why, & How of Moving Franchisees to Action

Hey everybody, welcome to the webinar. So excited to have everybody here. Today I have a very special guest, a dear friend of mine, Russell Hoff, who's the COO of Heights Wellness. And honestly one of my favorite people to talk about performance coaching for a very specific reason. Russell, I'll hand it over to you in a second, but Russell started as a coach, with Heights Wellness years ago and has worked his way up to the regional and ultimately, to the senior leadership level and understands coaching both at the operations and coaching level, and what it takes to talk to a franchisee intimately. So super excited to talk all things performance coaching, what it was like now, where it's going with technology. Russell, I know you have a lot of opinions there, but you know first and foremost being here. Really appreciate you taking the time. Yeah.

Well, thanks for having me on. It's a great tool, so happy to talk about it.

I appreciate it. So maybe let's start with your background. I know I gave the, you know, 30 second intro there. Anything you'd like to layer in on kind of that journey in your career thus far?

You, it summed it up. I mean, 17 years I've been with the company. Actually started working out at locations before I became a coach there, so you know, when the company first started growing, there was an opportunity there, but the opportunity was out in corporate locations. So kind of stepped into it there and worked my way up the ladder to COO now, but greatest experience being able to play every role 'cause just get a great idea of what franchisees are looking at when you're actually there behind the counter, working with customers.

So, great experience. And then moving into the coaching part, which is just the most critical role, frankly for the growth of the business. So love the tool because of that, because man, it just simplifies life for the business consultants.

Well let, we'll get to the tool and we'll get to Harmonyze in a bit. I'm curious, you know, you were coaching well before technology made its way to the forefront and especially the age of AI. What did good coaching look like when you were just getting started? What were those perfect conversations with the franchisees like?

You know, I would say this to start off, anyone that's ever been a coach, it's not as easy as what people think. They think, oh, it's cool you guys get to travel and everything else, right? But you're really having to peel back the layers with the franchisees, which is trust, right? So you've gotta know what you're looking at, you've gotta be able to help them and move 'em forward to, to gain that trust. But, you know, way back when, you'd get in there and start pulling tons of reports from the system, right? You'd get out your, you know, your abacus and be like, 5, 10, 50, and just spend all this time getting to the number.

So you're three or four hours in sometimes, simply pulling reports to be able to look and have the conversation, right? So at the end of the day, you have success, and the way we kinda deem success is did we move them forward, right? Did we take a step forward? So no matter what we found within the reports, did we help them move forward? Whether it's higher revenue, another location, overall conversion, right? So they're all gonna have different levels and ideas of what they want, but we said as long as we move them forward, then we've accomplished something before we left. Hard part is it took about seven, eight plus hours because you're not only doing the consultation, you're doing a walkthrough, you're meeting with team members, and by the end of the day when you're wrapping up, everyone's so exhausted and tired of looking at numbers. You always wonder, was this as effective as what it could have been? It was effective, but was it to the level that it could be? Right, because it just, it was just time consuming at that point.

So that's that trust building, right. It sounds like a lot of it was, and you've told me this before, that the first time you talk to a franchisee, there's that initial alignment phase and sometimes to your point, seven, eight hours maybe alignment is the bulk of it, right? Talking about what is the state of operations from an observation perspective, but also from a data perspective.

So, you know, ideally you come in, you get a line, you move the ball forward. That's what it looks like at its best historically you've seen all kinds of coaching and you've been doing it for a long time where does that break down in a coaching conversation? When does coaching not work?

What are the reasons that that ball might not move forward, or might not move forward as much as you'd like in a conversation?

Well, Gary, I think you kind of hit it on the head with what you said a second ago. It's observation compared to data. And I could observe something, but that's kind of my opinion, right? And if franchisee doesn't agree with it, you've gotta work through that on why something is looking the way that it does.

And at the end of the road, the consultant is normally the one that has, you know, the most expertise in this area. But it's still observation perception compared to data. And that's where the trust comes in, because end of the day, data doesn't lie, it really takes us to where we need to be. But you have to have that to move the conversation forward.

If not, I'm talking an hour about why I think something and I've just wasted time, right. And every minute that goes by, you're gonna lose the person a little bit. Right. So it can't really be opinion based, it's gotta be facts, it's gotta be data. And when they're looking at it and it's simplified, you can't argue that point, right?

Well, how much of a range is there? I think, and this is something I genuinely don't know. You know, you have coaches that have their opinions and their knowledge, we have folks like you that have been doing it for 17 years in one system, right. You have the franchisee, you know, how wide or how narrow is that range of opinion when looking at things like data, and maybe things that aren't captured in data, like observations?

It's a great question. You have to understand people in franchising, you know, big investment for them, and we're thankful for every one of them. Strong personalities, type A personalities, been very successful at what they've done before, right? So it's expected for them to come in with strong opinions.

So majority of people you're gonna deal with are gonna feel a certain way. You have your group that just opens the door, right? And you think with franchising, that's kind of the point of it, but it's usually these people with the stronger personalities that end up being the most successful, 'cause they're super business driven.

But you, when you have something and it's in front of you, that's what they need to see, right? Cause you just can't debate it. If it's there and they're seeing it, but the conversation still has to have the conversation. This doesn't eliminate an FBC by any stretch of the imagination.

So you guys out there that get Harmonyze, don't take out your FBCs 'cause they've got to work within it. It just gives them so much more time to focus on the franchisee. And Gary, you've heard me say this a million times. Everything we've ever done here and looked at, it's how do we give time back to the franchisee to run their business?

And if you take seven or eight hours out of someone's day, that's a full day for them that they could have been doing stuff with their team and everything else, right? So great part about Harmonyze is our sessions now are two to three hours, right? Because it's all there in front of us. So we've really cut back and great part about that is now franchisees or the consultants, they go to a market, they could hit a couple of places, right?

We're not exhausting them in travel and a lot of expenses, right? Because we're wiping through all these guys. So, you know, you hit a market of 10, you've knocked it out in probably four to five days. Compared to what would be travel there, travel back on the weekend, travel back over there. And get exhausted in the process along with these guys talking to each other about, hell, here's what to expect when they come in the door.

Right? So, it just makes it easier for both sides. And you're hopping right into what the important part is, which is really what are their goals and how do we help them get there based on what's in front of us?

I mean that, that's awesome. And I know we talked a lot about, you know, the idea that, know, quicker alignment, right? It's exactly what you just said, seven, eight hours, to two or three. But a lot of that is aligning quicker, right? The idea that that interpretation, which you're talking about.

One FBC likes talking about marketing, the other one, likes talking about sales, and somebody likes talking at different things. That alignment of, alright, here's where we're at, here's the focus. That saves time, but it also means that people are focused on the right thing. So I'm, I'm kind of curious, before where you guys are at now, did you feel that sometimes, you know, FBCs or franchisees would leave conversations not focused on the wrong thing, but not quite finding the great, this is my concrete next step. Right? there's that little bit of a dissonance there.

It's really, it was more of you agreed to a plan and you know that they were just shaking their head like, yep, I'm gonna execute this because I'm eight hours in and I've gotta get outta here.

Right. So I can't say there's too many times over the years where you're totally misaligned with something. There's usually other things, behind the scenes going on with that. The biggest part was it took so long, they didn't totally agree 'cause they couldn't totally see what you were seeing.

But they tell you, yes and you walk out thinking, man are they really going to, right? Then you gotta follow up in two weeks with them and it doesn't happen. And then they're just, you know, they're losing money in the process, or potentially losing money or I should say, not making as much as what they could be.

Right. That's, that's the biggest thing is where could you be? And if you tell me yes, I mean, I can't tell the person like, oh, I don't really think you agree with me here. But again, go back to Harmonyze it just, it maps everything out for us. So you're not really having those conversations anymore.

We're not walking out, or the consultants aren't thinking like, man, did they buy into what I was saying? Because everyone's in agreement, 'cause again, I keep saying back to you, it's in front of them.

So what does that ideal conversation look like now? Those two to three hours when, they go talk to one franchisee. As your consultants, as your coaches tell you, what does that conversation look like today?

Well, the great part about it Gary is, and again, I don't want to go too far into Harmonyze 'cause we'll get there. They have so much in front of them prior. So even though the consultants were looking at numbers prior, they've got up until the day before. Right, they can pull it on the plane right out there

and they've got the information from up until the day before, so they already know what they're talking about. But the cool part is with some of the things that franchisees can see on a weekly basis, they kind of already know where it's at too. So even though we're doing the whole guest experience when we do the walkthrough, which is, you know, that's just part of a brain standard.

You're really hopping into what are the areas, what's the situations, right? So it's a conversation of have their goals changed? Cause everyone's got different ones from 'em just wanting to be a $3 million location to I want five locations to, you know, this is five years for me and then I wanna sell and get out.

So here's where I need to be, you know, to deem it as successful as what I wanted it to be. But you're hopping right into that. So the walkthrough's there and then you know, they've got a pretty good idea, but you're focused in on what is critical. Cause you can't give them 10 things to do, but you may have 10 things in front of you.

But know this lever is the most important one to pull right now. And we're able to execute on it. And I guess we'll talk about it in a little bit, like it's not on the execution, it's the tools that now come with the execution part of it, which is an ongoing learning and growth for the franchisees. So when the consultant's not there, if they're only there once a month or you know, there's some that are, that are quarterly, there's always stuff the franchisees to learn off of moving forward.

So there's not that gap of, "I'll see you next month" and them saying, well, I don't really know what to do because Harmonyze is telling 'em what to do based off of what we wanted it to tell them to do.

Right. It's kind of narrowing that, you know, rather than every 45 days a check in and reviewing a dashboard, which actually I think I'm gonna ask you about next, it's shortening that and getting to, every week there's something in the franchisee's hand that tells them exactly what to do. So that's actually my next question, which is, you know, leading question.

I know the difference between Harmonyze and a dashboard, but very famously, I say it's not a dashboard. But you said this idea of, you know, alignment. Something to look at, something they can look at on the plane. So in your own words, I think it'd be helpful to hear, and I'm curious to hear what you say, the difference between AI coaching platforms, performance coaching platforms like Harmonyze and a dashboard?

Right. Well, you know, what is the difference between those two?

I mean, a dashboard is numbers, right, which we want to have it, I want to have it right 'cause I sometimes wanna look at the whole picture. But on a retreat level or a location level, you're not looking at the big picture there. You're very focused in on what's going on there

and I think a dashboard shows you numbers, great. If someone's killing it, I can look at it and say, man, they're doing phenomenal. But that's really not what my focus is, right? I need to focus on the ones that are having challenges. So I think with Harmonyze, when it comes in, it takes the same KPIs that we're looking at in an overall dashboard and breaks 'em down, right? With how they're doing, versus the previous year, how they're doing week over week, how they're doing against other franchisees which is huge, right? Because they're like, man, I talked to everyone, I'm doing great. And you're like, yeah, well you're in the bottom quarter.

But it's not us having to tell them that, it's already there in front of them. But the coolest part is, and Gary, you can tell me 'cause I know I always get excited and you know, hop ahead every time we're talking, is it then shows them where to go to get the information.

So Harmonyze links into our SharePoint and it analyzes the data that showed them that, and then brings it down for them to click through to say, oh, here's the training. Whether it's clicking into some video we created, or one of our guides or workbooks. So all they have to do is go in there and say, I've got a problem here. Any company that's like us, that's 20 plus years old, we've got a ton of information in SharePoint, right? It takes them to the exact information they need.

So, scheduling is a big thing for our therapist. If you're having problems with that, it could destroy your schedule, destroy your overall numbers. And if there's a problem with it, it recognizes it, the links pop up, they click in there and they're like, here's what you need to do.

Right? So they're not waiting for anyone else. The other part with that is the conversation shifts a little bit with the consultant because there's no, I didn't know what to do. The question now becomes like, well, why didn't you click on the link? We're providing all this information for you.

So it shifts onto, I don't have to talk to them about the why and everything else, because the do is there, if that makes sense. It's a click. So you do know the information, or I should say you chose not to, to use it. So let's talk about that. So that becomes a conversation of leading it and a lot of times it's just people maybe don't want to do it, but we start guiding 'em through them and they're like, man, this is actually pretty easy.

So whether it's their manager or what we call a retreat director. Is he able to get the information from them? But there's no question on are they working on the right things? 'cause they're gonna look at their KPIs, they know what levers they wanna pull, and the information is there for 'em.

And at the end of the day, everyone's got a competitive spirit, right? Even the ones that tell you like, oh, I'm not competitive like that. Everyone wants to be at the top. No one's like, yeah, last place, man, I'm doing great. And when it shows 'em how they're doing and we don't have it for that reason.

It does push some people, it's more for the conversation part on what you may deem as good or great, we may deem as great, could be better. And it's, I'm not just telling you this 'cause I'm your consultant and it's my job to push you forward. The data from everywhere else shows them and us that.

So you've got people that are now using it, clicking into it 'cause they're like, oh, I mean, we can't make it any more simpler unless we went there and worked the locations. Which no franchisor does, right? We may do training out there, but we're not gonna go and say, great, we'll just take over your front desk for you.

No one has the manpower to do that, but we don't need to anymore. All the information's there and a franchisee, or I'm sorry, a consultant could take an entire day and just say, you know what? I'm gonna go through everyone's stuff, right, and clear out their 30, 40 locations, that they have. And know exactly where, everyone is, but also what the solution is for each one of them.

So you could technically bring in someone that is super data-driven, who's a great consultant, right? Which before they'd have to learn where everything is and how do they implement that stuff, which is not the role of a great consultant. That's generally not where they play. Now, you don't have to, all they have to do is get them to click on the link and then get them to execute what's in there. They still have to understand the business, I'm not saying they don't, but they can really focus on being the consultant, which that's the part that drives the business.

I'd like to, you said a few things there that I, I'd like to try to repeat back to you. You said that, you know, there's that foundational data that dashboards have, that AI platforms

have. But it's really just the data that's coming up and then where

new wave of technology is doing is that it does a few things after that.

Right. I think the first thing you said was, "what"? Which is to say this is what every franchisee should be focused on. It doesn't just display data, it synthesizes it in English to say, this is what you focus on. The "why", which is all the things that you talked about of, well, hey, somebody in your market is doing really well in this thing, and even if you're in the top percentile, there's opportunity here, or your peers are doing something else. It answers that "why" of why you should be focused on this. And then the final thing is the "how", which is, here's exactly how you move it. And then the job of the FBC, which is something that technology probably could never do, is the, how do I get you to do this?

You know how to do it. You know what, you know why, you know how, how do I get remove blockers, get that activation energy, and really that human aspect, which, by definition being human technology can never do.

Is that accurate?

Yeah, it's accurate. You know something I did leave out there, the other part of this is for a consultant, sometimes things are what we believe are lately obvious, right? Like there's the problem, right? And then you focus on that problem and you're like, okay, that didn't really get us the results that we were looking for.

The cool part about this is since it diagnoses everything for you, I may say, you know what? That's the problem. But then I start going through, I'm like, well, you know what? That is the problem, but the problem is not because of this, it's because of this. And you wouldn't necessarily know that tearing through all the data, right?

You may, you may come to that conclusion based on experience and everything else, but you better have a well-versed consultant within your business to sometimes get five or six layers down. So what happens is you stay here for a month and you're like, didn't work and then you're like, okay, let's do this and this.

Okay, that didn't work, Let's do this, this, and this. Bingo, we've hit it. It's also taken us three months to figure out exactly what it is. Because even though we have the reports or the dashboard in front of us, that's we used to. Now it's about analyzing it. Right? And then that, that's what it does for us there.

So, got a dashboard. I think I know what it is. There's not a question of, of where it's at. Right. So three, four levels down, they're seeing that part of it. And the shift may be different or would be different coming back up and say, okay, this is the problem. Number six down here where we thought it was number two. How long does it take us to get to six?

Even though we see six is a problem, we may not see everything that's behind six to make the other ones work more efficiently. So it just, again, I always smile because I, I love the tool. I don't go out and do consultations anymore, but my consultants are like, man this is the greatest thing ever.

Right? I mean, 'cause they, they've all been consultants before, so they know what it's like, right? You're like, let me get out the calculator, and then you're like, oh man, did I miss something? Because you're trying to add up so many numbers and it's very hard to peel back all the layers where you're simply focused on how do I get the data to even get there initially? I shouldn't say how to get there, to pull all the data, to look at it, to start analyzing it.

Yeah, it makes that second or third level analysis much quicker and maybe automatic sometimes.

Yep.

I'd like to tee up a conversation where you and I actually did some measurement back in 2025, of the impact of this and some really exciting results.

Yeah.

I was wondering if you could share a little bit about that for those folks that are tuning in.

Yeah. And I'm gonna add really, really exciting and just, put one more really on it for you, Gary. So, you know established locations are growing two and a half, three percent. Right? So somewhere, somewhere in that area, you know, and when we did the pilot type with just a few locations in the FBCs, we saw their revenue within a month or two shoot up to 7% increase year over year.

Which they're not numbers we normally see outside of a location that's either brand new within their first couple of years as their basis building. And the only thing we did was turn on Harmonyze. Because there's not a, I mean, you go through Harmonyze with someone, but it's not like, well, it's weeks and weeks of training, right?

Because it does everything for you. So you saw this big jump right away, which we knew we loved the tool, but tools are only effective if franchisees use 'em. You can have the greatest thing out there, but if it's gonna take them time to learn, they're probably not going to. They've got other things they're focusing on in life.

So again, go back to the beginning of this conversation. For the franchisee, this is what did it, because that's all we did was turn it on. The consultant didn't do anything different except now work within Harmonyze, and work within Harmonyze with the franchisee.

So do you think a 5% jump up from where locations were the average with nothing but turning it on. I mean, it's a win.

I love it. I mean, it's the cleanest A-B test that we've run and it's so validating for us as a team. And I don't know if you've heard any feedback from franchisees, about the tool or how they're interfacing. I know we talked about your FBCs and how it's helped, with kind of the adjustments on the team there and all that, but any anecdotal enjoyment of the tool that would be relevant?

No, which is the greatest thing I could say because when franchisees, when they don't have anything to say about it. Means it's working effectively, efficiently, however, however you wanna call it, right? So, I mean, have people say like, I like Harmonyze, but nothing more than that. Right? Which, I'll take that, because if they're talking to me about it, it's because there's a problem, right?

I mean, these guys busy lives, work hard at their jobs. They're not generally calling just to talk about how they love something. They're calling when it's affecting them. So not having any conversations, the only time I even really talk to my FBCs about it, obviously I go in and look at the numbers, is during monthly meetings and stuff.

I don't have ongoing conversations with them about Harmonyze until, and you've always been great at adding stuff in as we needed it or things that we saw, you know, could be effective for us and asking their opinion on that. Outside of that, once it rolled out, I don't have a lot of conversations about it and I don't know how many vendors I can honestly say that about where, like, I don't really talk to them anymore.

So I think that's the biggest compliment you could get from a franchisee is they're not. It's, I'll always joke around with, you know, we bring in sometimes new executives and everything and they're like, the system's quiet. And I'm like, which is great, quiet is, is where you want it 'cause quiet means the focus is there.

And it's not for lack of usage. I mean, we know that your franchisees are looking at Harmonyze, you know, once, twice a week. And that's on average across the entire network.

Very exciting.

We're in 2026 at the start. There's an exciting year for all technology. I'm curious, what are you most excited for in this next year from an AI and technology perspective for your team specifically?

Yep. And you know what, Gary, I'm gonna back up half a step, right? Because there's things that I start talking about when I talk about franchisee time and everything else. Is, you know, they get notified each week. They get an email to click into it to show 'em all their stuff. So they don't even have to log into it if they choose not to.

It's not a tool that's designed every day to be like, I'm changing everything that I'm doing. Right, we look, we break it down over a week, period 'cause then you can start to see what's working, what's and what isn't working. It notifies them. It also notifies the FBCs on a daily basis if something dramatically changes.

So I left that part out earlier, but that's key because you're like, I don't need you to even go into it if you don't want to, I just need you to click through the email. Right? But anything drastic where an FBC may not be talking to that person for a couple of weeks, something pops up, they can hop on a call real quick and say, hey some something's really off here.

Right on. And with ours, something gets off, it can spiral very quickly. So allows us to get in front of it to help them get in front of it.

I mean, that's always on performance coaching, right? It's that idea that it's always monitoring for the FBC, it's always monitoring for the franchisee, and it's proactively saying things out there. And which leads us to that next question of, as the becomes smarter, more proactive, 2026, incredible year for AI, what are you looking forward to from us, from other partners, kind of in general, in the world of AI in this exciting year?

Well, I think some of the stuff just is what you've just rolled out recently, right? Coming in, which is, you know, the search feature, right? Where they may wanna find something, that's where they're seeing something that maybe we're not seeing right away. Something going on behind the desk. You know, they go in there and search for it and it populates the information for them to click through for the training.

Just based on keywords or the ability to kind of pull numbers in and look at 'em. Right. Which again, it just minimizes time. And that's, that's a great thing because it means they're learning off of what they've seen and then it advancing on their own. So they're gonna say, okay, great, this populated for me.

Now I can go in and do this. And they're not having to go back in and search for it. They're going in, typing it in and it's populating for them. So again, with the AI tools you guys are building that just like continues to make it easier and easier for the franchisee. And the great part is, is with some of these new features that have just come out, we know they're not using 'em to the full extent yet.

Right. I mean, so much excitement about Harmonyze great tool and this new stuff out would just be even better year for us. Because now they can go in and search it. So if they say, well I didn't think that was correct, which we know it would be, they go and find the stuff that they want in it easily.

So I think that's the important part is are we always progressing forward, keeping up with the times. And this is, you know, stuff like this, we've always had these dreams. We just, as we grew as a company and became a hundred plus, we were like, how do we do this? But it's getting the right partner to do it, right?

And I'm not just saying this 'cause you're on the call. It is critical, right? And as a franchisor, we've got an obligation to bring in the right and the best vendors for our franchisees. Because at the end of the day, it's royalties coming in that we are spending dollars on for them. We've gotta make sure we're making the best decisions we can see moving forward, right?

So we working with someone who can see the challenges, because you've come back to us before. It's not only been us going to you and saying like, yeah, Gary, we'd really like to see this. It's you coming back saying like, hey guys, what about this? And we're like, well, heck yeah. So I think growing with a partner like that, but advancing because as soon as other tools roll out in AI right, and they see it, they want it. I think you guys kind of moving forward with this, again, the search feature is the biggest one for me, which seems simple. People hear search feature, it's not right. I mean, it's pretty advanced in what it can dig and, and pull up because it's, it is searching through

I mean, Gary, what is it, I mean literally tens of thousands of pages that we have and all our different 50 guides out there. And it's pulling up the one section saying, Hey, go read section 24.23. Here's where you're at. Where they might never have found it on their own, even though we've taught 'em where it was at, right?

I mean, most people aren't gonna retain that much information, which means they're probably just never gonna go look for it.

I think that's the most exciting part for us is what you guys have put in and just some of the future things that we've talked about.

Well, the goal there is to make sure that in that moment that the franchisee is ready to be coached, when the coach might not be there, but at any moment, even if it's the middle of the night. That they can have a conversation that starts with the data.

Their data and their location, and then gets to the how, which is everything you're talking about. Russell, I can't thank you enough for the time. Always a pleasure talking to you.

Nope. Happy to do it.

Excited to do this again in six months we're in a new place together and, appreciate you and your team's time as always.

Alright, anyone that's out there that does listen to this, at least give Gary a call. I can promise you I would not do this webinar if I didn't think this was one of the greatest tools we have ever had. So, Gary, thanks back to you.

I appreciate that.