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EPISODE 256 • MAY 15, 2023

SNM256: Float Your Way To The Top with Mandy Rowe

SNM256: Float Your Way To The Top with Mandy Rowe
35 min  •  with Mandy Rowe

Or listen on: Apple • Spotify • YouTube

Welcome to the Serve No Master Podcast! This podcast is aimed at helping you find ways to create new revenue streams or make money online without dealing with an underpaid or underappreciated job. Our host is best-selling author, Jonathan Green.

Today's guest is Mandy Rowe is the co-founder of True Rest, a franchise that offers floating pods for sensory deprivation therapy. The idea came from a family friend who suffered from PTSD and found relief through the Navy Seals' flow pods. 

In this episode, Mandy Rowe discusses the importance of knowing your target audience and how she found success through social media platforms such as TikTok. She also talks about the benefits of floating therapy and how it's helped people with PTSD and insomnia. Additionally, Mandy shares her experience working with family members in business and the challenges that come with it.

Notable Quotes

-       "Floating is just kind of sexy. I mean, people are posting pictures about it, they want to tell their friends about it. It's an extremely life altering experience for a lot of people. So that word of mouth is just as useful from an education standpoint as is our social media ads and things that we're running." - [Mandy Rowe]

-        "I love my dad. He's my biggest role model, and frankly, I think he's my best friend. And so I'll work with him probably till the day he dies, because I wouldn't want to work with anybody else." -  [Mandy Rowe]

-      "And I hope that future generations kind of feel that passion and see how hard so many of us have had to work and will work to be that voice and be that avenue for people that don't want just prescription drugs to combat whatever their ailments are." -  [Mandy Rowe]

-     "For someone who's thinking of becoming a franchisee, there is a lot of information. And sometimes the pitch can be really emotional, exciting, and you're caught up in the emotion of an opportunity before you think about the complexity." - [Jonathan Green]

-     "A lot of people have this feeling that their kids will want to take over their business, but almost no one wants to do what their parents did." - [Jonathan Green]

Connect with Mandy Rowe

●  Website: www.TrueREST.com

Connect with Jonathan Green

 

Full transcript

Auto-generated transcript, 7,265 words. Timestamps link to the moment in the episode.

Jonathan Green: Float your way to the top. Special guest Mandy Rowe on today's episode. Today's episode is brought to you by Builderall. They are my favorite all in one solution for your online business everything you need to start your online business, from landing pages to emails to selling your first products, all without breaking the bank. Find out how Builderall can help you grow your online business@servomaster.com forward. Slash Builderall. Announcer: Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated?

If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now, then you've come to the right place. Welcome to Serve No Master podcast, where you'll learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep. Presented live from a tropical island in the South Pacific by bestselling author Jonathan Green. Now here's your host.

Jonathan Green: Now, I'm really excited to spend some time talking to you about building a different type of business that's a lot about something you're passionate about and a physical business. I know you've done a lot to grow it on TikTok, which has been very interesting to see. So maybe you can tell me a little bit about how your journey started, how you got interested in flotation, and how you've kind of turned it into a little bit of an empire. Mandy Rowe: Yeah, absolutely.

So the evolution of floating, it's actually been around for decades, but the entry into my family actually started with my dad, and that's because we're from Coronado, where the Navy Seals train, and we had a family friend who had been deployed and came back with severe PTSD and pretty severe injuries. And when he told us that the amphibious base actually had these flow pods, we had no idea what he was talking about.

And as we started to look around for places to just go try it, just out of curiosity, we couldn't find anywhere. And so it was amazing when we started to look at the business model that there was such an opportunity there, and if the Navy Seals will validate it and they know it's already, helping them with PTSD and insomnia. And in fact, one of the things they said that we haven't tapped into is advanced language learning.

They were using it for such a wide variety of uses, but there was nowhere for the public to access it. So that kind of became the first little piece of motivation for us to start this franchise model. And my dad had a background in franchising, and I joined him shortly after to start True Rest. And I think the missing piece that I've been able to identify on TikTok is just awareness. A lot of people still don't know what we're talking about.

Even though we've got 44 locations and we're in 27 states and we're growing pretty rapidly, awareness is still just a piece that we need to continue to educate people on. And I'm excited to be the one. Jonathan Green: To do that now. Is a flotation tank the same thing as a sensory deprivation tank? Mandy Rowe: So that's what it's most commonly known as. It is essentially the same thing. It's ten inches of water and 1000 pounds of Epsom salts.

So if you're comfortable closing the lid over you, the most pure experience is no sound, no light, no gravity. And in that sensory deprivation experience, you essentially slow your brain waves down to the delta weight state, which is the same brainwave state you'd be in when you were sleeping, except you're not asleep. The cool thing about the True Rest brand, and that we've been able to evolve with technology over time, is the customizable experience.

So if someone thinks, hey, I'm going to be claustrophobic, I'm not ready to go into full sensory deprivation, I'm not comfortable meditating yet, then we've got a lot of options for you to leave the lights on, stream a meditation track, listen to binaural beats, and now we're actually getting into virtual reality programs as well. So, yes, it is sensory deprivation, but we are starting to evolve it into a sensory enhancement modality as well.

Jonathan Green: It seems very similar to me to the tanning salon business model in that you buy the tank or the piece of equipment and then there's not a lot of extra things you need to do right. Other than cleaning the water, replacing the water. The machines last a really long time, right. So it's kind of a static business model. After the initial investment, the overhead goes down quite a bit because the machines do all the work. Mandy Rowe: Yeah, I mean, you're spot on.

So one of the guys on our board is the former CEO of Massage Envy. And so what we did was took that tanning salon and Massage Envy type business model and created True Rest membership. And the business model does allow for very minimal HR, so we usually only have one person at the front desk at any given time. The equipment does take care of itself.

So the nice thing is we're not dealing with 1099 kind of employees and we've got this client base that's not favoriting a certain person or masseuse is a good example. They're coming in to float and once the lights are off, frankly, they don't even know what dimension that they're in. So it's kind of nice that it's easy from an HR and operation standpoint. Jonathan Green: Now, because you're a franchise model, what do you look for in the kind of person that opens a franchise?

Are you looking for someone who it's their first franchise? They have experience running different types of business. Most of your franchisees have a single location or multiple locations. What type of people really thrive running this type of business? Mandy Rowe: Yeah, I mean, since we're in an industry that a lot of people don't know, it's interesting. We're not like a home service franchise where anyone could pick the business model up and just run with it.

You have to at least know what floating is and to know that, you have to do it. I truly believe that. So we do have a few franchisees that come from really large franchise backgrounds. And those people are great. They're multi unit developers with us.

But I think the franchisees that thrive are the ones that were former clients and maybe they were in a corporate position, experienced massive burnout found floating through that process, and became really attached not really to the business model, but to the therapy. And they're able to have that really heart centered conversation with other potential franchisees and to the customer, which I think if you're looking at other business models, they're more familiar to just your common man.

And so those conversations are easier to have in other industries than they are here. So I always appreciate talking to someone who's floated at least more than once before they get into our prospect pipeline. Jonathan Green: One of the challenges of business like yours face is education. Right? You said a lot of people don't know what it is or think of as a different name. And I've seen a lot of industries where they have a high education cost.

It means they have to spend all the money on education and the next company comes in, doesn't have that cost and kind of take over the market. So how do you guys defray that challenge? That high cost education usually comes with the education. How do you overcome that, especially for your franchisees who are in different regions or locations? Mandy Rowe: Yeah, I mean, the education side of it is necessary. It's nice that right now I don't have any competition.

We've had other people get into the float franchise space. They didn't stick around for all too long. There are a couple here and there, but no one's even close to our size. So it's nice that we have that kind of headway over any potential incoming competition. But in the flip side, I do consider like Massage Envy and other services similar, and those are much more familiar to people.

So in our cases, when we start looking at different cities and where we're going to expand, we've been really fortunate that people like Joe Rogan are talking about floating. Floating is just kind of sexy. I mean, people are posting pictures about it, they want to tell their friends about it. It's an extremely life altering experience for a lot of people. So that word of mouth is just as useful from an education standpoint as is our social media ads and things that we're running.

So I think we're lucky to be in a business where people want to talk about it. And some pretty high up celebrities like Joe Rogan or high performers like Steph Curry are talking about floating on ESPN. And for us, that's phenomenal. We'd have to pay anything for that. It's just that the therapy is so profound that they're talking about it for whatever they're doing. And then when someone goes to look it up true.

That's just so far ahead of the game that we're often the first search that shows up when they look for it. Jonathan Green: Now, how do you fight against the thought that it's a fat or a trend? Because every few years everyone in sports gets into something. Like recently it was all about freezing, and then before that it was all about infrared saunas.

And so there's these different trends, and even in locations, and I've even seen locations that are like nap pods where you go and take a nap for 2 hours, right? And these things have a really hot time, but it's a short window. And how do you kind of create that customer who's interested for five or ten years rather than three months and moves on to the next thing they see upon a podcast or on ESPN? Mandy Rowe: Yeah, I mean, you're right.

Infrared sauna cryotherapy, I think is the freezing that you're referring to. And hyperbaric chambers, all of those are I don't say they're all fads, but they're all other similar holistic modalities. And the nice thing about our model was before we started Franchising, our founder, Nick Giniki, had his location for six years before we even started Franchising.

So we knew that when there was only one location in Phoenix, and he was one of 15 float spas in all of North America, he still had a very successful business model that was making good money, that was very simple.

And we did a forensic audit on his business, and if he could do that kind of money and be that efficient with his time, when there was no awareness at all, to us, that was just a huge potential, not just for the business model, but also from terms of awareness. And so when I look at the longevity of our members, or how long their lifetime value might be, right now we're at about a twelve to 13 month time frame for the lifetime value of a member.

Of course, I'd love it to be even longer than that, but at least I know that on average, our members are not here for three months and then going somewhere else. They tend to really love floating and they come back at least for a year. And if I can find ways to extend that, I definitely will. But it's been nice to prove that out not just over five years of Franchising, but six years before that.

So now we're at eleven years of proving that this concept is sustainable when. Jonathan Green: It comes to the types of customers that's your ideal customer, right? Is it the athlete? Is it the soccer mom who is like your ideal customer as far as your marketing, advertising, who's kind of the center of your bullseye? Mandy Rowe: I think a lot of people assume that our clients going to be like hippy dippy trippy, people that are looking into floating, and frankly, that's not it.

Those people will find us, so I don't need to really market to them. But the core of our demographic is typically your 35 to 55 middle to upper income soccer moms and dads. They're the people who are experiencing just burnout in life or with their job. They are extremely stressed. They can't sleep well at night.

And the more I start to talk about stress and anxiety and not sleeping well now, we've covered about 80% to 90% of the entire world at this point, which is a really depressing trend. So we're really trying to open up our business model to attract everyone, because I think everyone could benefit. But really, at its core, it usually tends to be those parents that are experiencing that daily kind of exhaustion that they need to combat.

Jonathan Green: I think that's really interesting because one thing I noticed, that successful businesses can always answer that question, and businesses don't last have a rough answer. Like, everybody is my customer, so it's good know that you have a really good sense of that, because that was who I thought from looking at your TikTok channel, watching a lot of your videos.

Now, I noticed at least recently, your most popular video was really interesting because he was answering the question of what do you do if people float naked and they don't wake up at the end? I thought that was a really good topic, because when you address things that are kind of taboo and everyone wants to ask about right. Like the same thing when everyone asks about their first massage. Are you supposed to take off your underwear? That's the question I asked my first massage.

And so I think it's really telling that that really trended because you're answering something everyone wants to ask, but it's afraid to ask. So I thought that was really interesting when you're creating your content and kind of building it out, because it's very easy for your topic to be boring. Right. In a way, you're just talking about machines. When you float, you're not doing anything right. It's not something you can watch someone do.

It's not interesting to watch someone do because they're not moving in the same way that if someone watched me work, it's just someone sitting in a chair. It's not interesting. Right. So it's very creative that you found a way to make a topic that could be boring very interesting. And a lot of your passion is coming through in your videos. How do you kind of plan that strategy? And how did you decide that that was going to be one of your big marketing pushes?

Mandy Rowe: Yeah, thank you for noticing all that. So the TikTok trend. It really started in Omaha, Nebraska. I run the four corporate owned locations, and I was there at, like, 02:00 A.m.. I was folding laundry. I was getting ready, actually, for our Veterans Day that was coming up the next day and just literally waiting for the dryer to finish its run so that I can fold laundry. I'm like, what am I going to do for 45 minutes at 02:00 A.m.?

I was like, I'm going to download TikTok, see what's on there. And I just posted a couple of videos so my page didn't look empty, and next thing you know, it's got like 6 million views. And to me, all of a sudden the light bulb went on that no one knows what I'm doing, or a lot of at least the next generation of potential clients doesn't know what I'm doing. And so my TikTok audience does tend to be a little bit younger.

But I do think that educating people from even a young age about holistic therapy, addressing those people that are up at 02:00 A.m. Because they can't sleep and maybe they're starting these really bad habits at a young age are coming across my videos. And once that first video did really well, it became really easy to make more because people are just asking questions and they're asking what they genuinely want to know about.

So I could sit here and get into the depths of the Delta brainwave states and those kind of more advanced topics, but that's not what people want to know. It's not what's stopping them from coming to the front door. The big two questions are, am I going to be claustrophobic? And how do you keep the water clean? And then after that, they're asking fun things that are going to make the experience something they want to try, like, can I listen to Taylor Swift while I'm floating?

Can I bring my phone in? And sometimes my answers are honest to the point of, yes, you can customize the experience, you can stream Lizzo, whatever you want inside the flow pot, but no, you cannot bring your phone in because that defeats the entire purpose. And that's what we're here to solve, is getting you off of your phone, giving your body and your brain a chance to recover and to relax. So no.

And I do find that on social media, the more honest you are, even with your tone, not just educational, but saying pretty bluntly, no, and I do not want you to do that. And here's why. People kind of engage with that because they can see that passion and they can tell that I'm not kidding. I'm not messing around. I'm not just answering the question and moving on, and I'm genuinely trying to educate them on their questions.

Jonathan Green: As you're building out your channel, has this become kind of your primary marketing channel? Are you still doing other forms of advertising or is this one kind of taken over the show? Mandy Rowe: I don't think I've tapped into advertising on TikTok as well as we probably could, so we still do a lot of stuff on Meta and on Google Ads, especially for the rest of the franchisees around the country, but from just like click through traffic.

I mean, the TikTok is my TikTok is definitely the most successful in terms of followers starting to push towards 175,000 people. There are no other channels yet for floating that are that large. So I'm excited to keep making those videos and see how high it can go. And maybe one day when I'm folding laundry again at 02:00 A.m., I'll put some money behind it and see what else it can do. But for now, it's just completely organic.

Jonathan Green: If someone is thinking about starting a franchise, most people's first thoughts of franchise is like fast food restaurants. Or maybe they think about 711. They don't realize there's so many other business models that are franchises and that are opportunities for them. If someone's kind of thinking, oh, I want to transition. I've done 20 years in my career. I want to have a business where I'm the boss, but I don't want it to come with all the ideas. Franchising can be great.

That like to execute rather than create. What's your process for someone who's thinking about doing this? What's the right type of person that would be a great franchisee for you? And versus other different types of models, models where maybe they're more interactive or there's different parts. Now, your business model is very static, as in, once they set up the store or the location, they're not constantly changing it. There's not 20 staff in there and constant cleaning like you do with a restaurant.

But what's the right type of person? Or how does someone know they're the right type of fit for this type of business model? Mandy Rowe: Yeah, I mean, you're right. Most people think of McDonald's, they think of the movie The Founder. They even think of massage envy sometimes if they're familiar with franchising even a little bit. And that start of not really knowing much about franchising is where I started. My dad had about 200 locations of a help You Sell Real Estate residential franchise.

And I frankly was not interested in real estate. So when I knew my dad had this mini franchise real estate empire going on, didn't interest me from a legacy standpoint because I just didn't like real estate. And when we started to get into float therapy, all of a sudden, that was something that I was really passionate about and interested in and could dig into 100%. And I think that's really been useful and successful for us in terms of growing to all the locations that we have.

And I feel that same way for my franchisees. I want them to come into the business because they love floating, because they love holistic health, because they care about a different kind of healthcare perspective than just prescriptions. And giving people these benzodiazepines and opioids that people are getting addicted to. And so having that kind of passion to do something not necessarily something different, but something like what we are doing is really important.

And then I do think about that legacy model that my dad started to build. And while I appreciate everything he did from the real estate side, that wasn't necessarily for me, but it might be for my brother. And I think for a lot of my franchisees, they're looking at True Rest as a legacy that they're building for future generations of their family. And that's kind of the nice thing about franchising.

It's such a massive industry as well, that it's not just about True Rest connecting with each other, but my True Rest franchisees connect with the Massage Envy franchisees and the McDonald's franchisees. And we go to these big franchise conferences and we learn a lot about legacy building and we learn a lot about just business in general and being high level entrepreneurs. And I really appreciate that about the franchise industry.

So kind of taking all those people and narrowing it down to those that appreciate this kind of health care and preventative medicine, that's really our bread and butter. Jonathan Green: Now there's a really wide range of franchising opportunities from places that have just have one location and they start franchising or businesses that wait at 20 years to start franchising. For someone who's thinking of becoming a franchisee, there is a lot of information.

And sometimes the pitch can be really emotional, exciting, and you're caught up in the emotion of an opportunity before you think about the complexity. Because a lot of franchises, you have to be there a lot, especially the first couple of years, you have to be there every day. You have to really be the one watching everything, making sure that the pods get cleaned every day, making sure that security is maintained and all those pieces and the experience stays high for every customer.

But a lot of people and then there's some franchises where they haven't really figured out yet, but they start franchising too early. How can someone who's thinking about entering the franchise world kind of make those educated decisions about what's the right type of business model for them? And maybe what are some red flags someone should look out for going, oh no, this isn't the right franchise for me, or they're not ready, or something's wrong with their system.

Mandy Rowe: Yeah, I think the best compliment that we got early on that I realized we really had to really follow through with was a very transparent franchise disclosure document. I mean, that is one of the most boring reads. Anyone getting into franchising is going to see 200 pages of legal jargon and numbers. But I find that anyone who takes the time to learn about True Rest digs into that legal language, looks at the financials, and still goes, this is still something I'm excited about.

To me is a phenomenal prospect and someone who's going to take that same approach of due diligence and carry it through when they own their business. Now, our business is about 50 50 split between people that are there on site as owners and people that aren't. One of my most successful, my top two franchisees, he lives in Ohio and he's a full time Er doctor and his best location is performing in Atlanta, Georgia. So he is states away from one of our top performing locations.

And I think what he did so well was he understood how the business model was going to work. And then he went out and he hired a manager who is there on site every day, like you're talking about. And she really treats the business like it's her own. And they have just run with it and done a phenomenal job. So like our business model you were saying earlier is not super complicated from an operation standpoint.

I do think it is just about finding that right person who is going to be at the front desk and really run with it. And the person who's having to do the investment up front, believes in the model, knows it's going to work, has read through everything and is ready to deploy it. And having that transparent franchise disclosure document that we provide, I'm going to narrow that down for a second.

The item 19 within the franchise disclosure document is where you're going to find all those financials and a lot of other franchises will provide potential pro formas of how much money you could potentially make. We show actuals what my franchisees are actually making for twelve months, not only from a gross revenue standpoint, but we break it down into every line item of their operations so you can actually see their net profits as well.

And having that kind of transparency, I think, makes people trust the business model so they don't have to worry about that side of it. They can go focus on the floating side and educating their market. Jonathan Green: Let's talk about that document a little bit more because I know that in my experience, a lot of people, when they describe their businesses, massage the numbers, whether they're just talking about gross.

And I've seen that where someone's like, oh, we're doing a million dollars a year, but actually they're losing half a million dollars a year, right? They don't look at their ins and outs. When someone's looking at a potential franchise or looking at that document, you mentioned that if they talk about potential earnings, what are some other warning signs that someone can look for and go, oh, wait a minute, there's something not quite right here.

And for me, I know that one of the things I look for is like, oh, they have one location in New York City or one location in Los Angeles if you're anywhere else. Huge difference in amount of demographics, amount of people, right? If you're in Times Square, a million people walk by every day. It's not the same as if you're in Atlanta or Nashville or Memphis or anywhere like that in the south. That's totally different.

So what are some of the other signs besides that that you would look for in a document if you were thinking about joining a different franchise? You go, wait, something's not quite right here. Mandy Rowe: Yeah, I would do your due diligence phone calls to franchisees. I mean, I trust my franchisees. When someone's going to pick up the phone and call the person here in Nashville or in Phoenix and say, give me your top three pros and cons of owning a true Rest franchise.

I want them to be honest about it. And what I don't want them to say is, we don't make any money and so we got to make sure on our end that they are making money so that the cons of what they have to say to someone is, oh, right now hiring is hard because I know hiring is hard for everybody right now. That's not specific to true rest.

So when we can just nail our business model with our franchisees and they can speak to that, then I feel really happy about where our business is at. And I think that any franchise should do the same because your franchisees are your absolute best referral source as well. So I encourage everyone to pick up the phone and call as many of my franchisees as they want until they feel comfortable.

Jonathan Green: Are there some franchises where they'll show you like, videos for other franchisees but you can't call them and ask them questions? They kind of limit that. Does that happen with some franchises? And that would be, I guess, a big red flag then? Mandy Rowe: It could be, yeah.

I think one of the things that I've heard from other franchises that we don't do is more structured phone calls or webinars where maybe you've cherry picked your absolute best franchisees who are making the most money and then telling all of your prospects what this one person has to say is how everyone feels. And that's not necessarily true.

Now, in our system, I've got about 40 franchisees that's a lot of phone calls and not everyone's going to answer your phone call every single time that you call. But we can help you set those calls up. We can introduce you to the right people.

But again, I think kind of going through the back end and saying, I'm going to call the people that I want to talk to without me the franchise, or spoon feeding you the right person, that would be a red flag to me. I think some of the other things in that item 19 that are red flags too, are not having those kind of transparent financials and maybe it's not just the projections, but maybe only showing the gross revenue and not the operational expenses or vice versa.

Maybe they're netting really high numbers, but they're only showing you the gross revenue of their top couple performers. Again, they're kind of cherry picking the best stories. Not showing you the entire picture. Jonathan Green: I think for someone who's a first time franchisee, it can be really hard to know or to notice those things, especially when people are in that emotional state. You see that presentation and you're like, wow, I could be a millionaire. This business runs itself.

I'm there the first day, and then I never come back. And that's how everything is sold. And it's so exciting in that emotional state that it's good to remind people that you have to go to the analytical phase. You have to do due diligence. And certainly whenever I've entered a new business, looking at the numbers is so important, especially because I look at how when people want to do an exit, when they value their company, and you say, well, how'd you come to this valuation?

They go, oh, I just feel like that's what it's worth. Mandy Rowe: Right? Jonathan Green: That's the same type of thing I look out for. It's like, not what you feel like, what it's worth, but let's look at profit in and out over time and do a multiple. But so often, people get emotional, whether they're selling their company and they have an emotional feeling for it, or when they're buying a company or franchise, they get caught up in the emotion. I'm also interested in this.

You brought up working with your father. What's it like being in a family business? And sometimes, at least I know whenever I deal with my father, sometimes the decision making, it doesn't matter how long I've been in the business or how many kids I have or what I've done, right. It's like I've been around longer. Automatically, I know the right answer. What's that kind of conversation like? Mandy Rowe: Yeah, for the first year was super difficult. I'll be super honest.

And it's difficult because I am my father's daughter. I'm the oldest of four kids, and I don't think any of my other three siblings want anything to do with working with either of us.

But when I am in my office for the first year or so and my dad was right next to me on the other side of the wall, I knew that he was so successful that if I just mimicked his tone and his words and said exactly what he said, then great, I could sell this franchise as well. And so in the beginning, that definitely worked.

And we butt heads on strategy all the time, but I was not in the business and not in business in general nearly as long as he has been. I think where our divide started to come, where we respected each other's opinions a lot more, was actually when the founder stepped out of the daily operations and someone had to fill that void of kind of that really passionate, holistic, health person.

And I was thrilled to even have the opportunity to step into those shoes and to do some of this type stuff nick used to do a lot of interviews in the past, and now I'm the one doing them. And so now I can really say. My dad and I worked together for years and found that he really is the franchising expert.

And I know that about him, but when it comes to speaking about floating and sensory deprivation and thinking about what else we could do to enhance our business model, that's where I've really thrived. And so in the beginning, I was trying to just follow directly in his footsteps, and we butt heads on that. And now that I've kind of found my own path within Franchising, within true rest, we collaborate so much better. But I love my dad.

He's my biggest role model, and frankly, I think he's my best friend. And so I'll work with him probably till the day he dies, because I wouldn't want to work with anybody else. And I know not everyone can say that about working with their dad, but I truly feel that way. I hope he doesn't see this, because it'll make him cry. Jonathan Green: And how do you separate?

Like, if you're having a disagreement on a marketing strategy or a new location and then you're at work and then you're out of work, how do you create that barrier so that those at work conflicts don't come into the rest of your family or into your personal time? Mandy Rowe: Yeah, and that first year when I was working with him, I actually lived with my parents too. So breakfast together, going to work together, going home.

And my mom wanted nothing to do with the business side of the dinner table conversation. So we knew that the rest of my family didn't want to sit around and talk about ad buys and franchise developer agreements. So pretty much once we got to the house, business topics were off the table. Now that I don't live at home, those conversations open up a lot more.

And I think the nice thing is, once I moved even out of City, our conversations had to be a lot more intentional. So I know when to call my dad and talk about personal life, and I leave it there. I don't segue into business topics. When I want to call and talk about business, we talk about business. And I don't bring any of my personal life into those conversations. So it's been nice to have that distance because it's brought more intentionality into those conversations.

But at the time when we were doing all of that together, it probably is why we were butting head so much, just because there wasn't really a clear delineation between what was appropriate from nine to five. It was just kind of all built in. And the other thing about our office is there are no walls, so I could hear every conversation he was having. He could hear every conversation I was having. There's a lot of transparency that way, but it was a little bit too much.

So having that distance is nice. Or at least being able to have your own office and shut your door in the future is probably something I would do. Jonathan Green: Yeah, I think that's really good. When I was younger, I lived with people I work with, and at the end of every day, they were like, why don't you want to hang out? I'm like, there's nothing to talk about. Any story I have, you were there. You can't go. Hey, at lunch, the craziest thing happened.

Yeah, I was there. What's happening? The crazing? Yeah, I was there. So I can understand why, especially with family, if you're there all the time, there's nothing to talk about because everything that happened, they already know. So I totally understand where you're coming from there. And this is the part that's really interesting. And you also mentioned that originally your father was hoping to pass on the real estate franchisee business to you.

And I think that's something I love to talk because a lot of people have this feeling that their kids will want to take over their business, but almost no one wants to do what their parents did. And that's something I think about my kids. I would be very surprised if one of them wants to take over the business. Obviously, I'd be thrilled, but I can't imagine one of my kids doing the podcast in a few years. Right, but it would be very cool.

But when you think about passing on to your next generation, how do you imagine that process? And do you think, like, your kids or your brothers and sisters kids would be interested in taking over the business? And kind of what are your thoughts about the future? Mandy Rowe: Yeah, of course. I hope so.

I think, as my dad hoped, everyone will want to take this on, but I'll say a little bit too in the very beginning stages of working with my dad and even just growing up. A really useful tool for us, which I'm not sure if you're familiar with, YPO, the Young President's Organization or WPO, but it's a network of high level executives who own businesses, and you have a little forum of six people who you get really close with, and you talk about everything, life and business.

There's really nothing off the table with very, very secure confidentiality. And I knew that my dad had this forum, and I grew up my whole life with his forum and with his forum's kids. And as I got older, I joined the young next generation of this same network, and I started to learn more about this legacy building and actually how important it was to so many executives. And I never realized that it was something that everyone talked about.

I thought it was just something my dad was building, and my dad wanted me to do it because I was the oldest. I didn't realize it was such a larger strategy behind it. And I think if he had kept that business, my brother probably would have jumped into it. What he would have done if he didn't, no one will ever know.

But when it comes to true rest, I jumped on it because I was super passionate about not the franchise side of it in the beginning, but the health and wellness side of it. And so when I think about the future of healthcare in general, it's kind of depressing when you look at the current stats. But I obviously have a lot of hope and optimism that it's going to get different and that people are going to be more open to health and wellness from a holistic standpoint.

And I hope that future generations kind of feel that passion and see how hard so many of us have had to work and will work to be that voice and be that avenue for people that don't want just prescription drugs to combat whatever their ailments are. And I really hope that any future generation that sees that takes this on. And it doesn't necessarily have to be my kids, I guess, or my nieces and nephews, but someone who is that passionate about it.

I would love to share my knowledge and to make sure that whoever's hands it does end up in cares as much about it as I do. And if that means it's not my children, so be it. I just want them to do whatever makes them happy as I know my dad wanted me to do whatever made me happy. Jonathan Green: I think that's a really good way to look at it.

So if people want to get to know more about you and more about your approach to floating or maybe follow you on TikTok, where can they find you? Mandy Rowe: Yeah, so TikTok is great for questions, for high level awareness, but if anyone has questions, I'm pretty much an open book. And when it comes to the business model, so we are truerestranchising.com.

If you want to get some high level information, there is a tab called Franchise Info where you can fill that out and then you can get our franchise disclosure document if you really want to get into the weeds with me. But if you just have any general questions, even about floating or where we're taking it with virtual reality and some of these other binaural beats and sound programs, I'm happy to have those conversations and you can just email me at mandy@truerest.com. Jonathan Green: Amazing.

Thank you so much for your time. I know people are going to love listening to this episode. Mandy Rowe: Awesome. Thank you so much. Jonathan Green: Jonathan thank you for listening to the servermaster podcast. Get a free copy of my bestseller Fire Your Boss right now on Amazon. Go to servermaster.com, getfire or just search fireyboss on Amazon. Announcer: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Serve No Master podcast. Make sure you subscribe so you never miss another episode.

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