Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Zach Dugger. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Zach , thanks for joining us today. Getting that first client is always an exciting milestone. Can you talk to us about how you got your first customer who wasn’t a friend, family, or acquaintance?
I’ve never worked in the health and beauty industry prior to IMAGE Studios. What I learned quickly is that it would require meeting a lot of people and helping them see the vision that the brand has for a Salon Suites location. Given that this is the first IMAGE location in Michigan, I had some ground to climb. I started meeting potential professionals in June 2023. It was not until early September before someone took the leap of faith to trust that what I was showing and sharing would come to fruition. I remember that our final conversations prior to me sending out the reservation form occurred around Labor Day weekend. It was refreshing and exhilarating, though I still had mixed feelings about my decision to become a franchisee. One room filled and 36 to go! Yikes!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
This is going to be a little more info than you need, but want to make sure you have what you need. My business background starts before my journey with IMAGE Studios. My first professional position was as a case manager at a local county Community Mental Health agency, just before my daughter was born in 2007. I had often joked with a friend there about starting a business. Then I saw someone present marketing materials at a meeting, which contained numerous spelling and grammatical errors, yet that wasn’t stopping them from moving forward. Their brochure was in a tri-fold format, but it was really typed out across the full page in a landscape format, so not really set up as a brochure. I realized that I did not have to reach perfection in order to make this desire to start a business become a reality. Just had to find the right idea that I could run with. I tried a variety of multi-level marketing companies over time, but found these to not be a good fit for me. I searched for opportunities to make money filling out surveys or freelancing through writing or translating websites/documents into German, but nothing stuck. I thought about starting a green cleaning business, but did not know how to get started. Then in 2010, I was offered and accepted a position as a Behavioral Psychologist for a company that worked with individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury and Spinal Cord Injury. Way out of my comfort zone at the time, but I jumped in and learned as I went. This expanded my capacity and I eventually started contracting with the former agency I worked for to provide family support and training services for parents and caregivers of individuals with developmental disabilities. This began a true side hustle for me, allowing me to bring in more income for our family and to help more children and more families. I also settled in with increased satisfaction with my role as a therapist and writing behavior plans. These roles aligned with my heart for people. Then in 2013, Medicaid across the state of Michigan required county agencies to provide Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA Therapy) services for children with autism. I asked my friend who started a similar business if she would like to contract with Allegan County, and I could help expand her territory. She said no, but she offered me the gracious gift of guidance and helped me through the process of starting my own ABA Therapy company. After a lot of prayer and conversations with my wife, I took the plunge and Braintrust Behavioral Health officially had our first client in 2013. Over the next 8 years, we grew from 1 employee (me) to around 150 employees across 6-9 counties at any given time. My desire was to serve others and grow sustainably with the need in our surrounding communities and beyond. With the help of a great team, I sought to build a business that was focused on the care and quality of services before the monetary gain. It was exciting and nerve-wracking all in one. Without prayer and peace granted by God, I would not have pushed through many stressful moments. Trust me, I spent a lot of time on my knees. Made some of the best decisions, most difficult decisions, and possibly worst decisions during that time period of my life, but I would not trade it for the learning experience gained. Ultimately, there was a shift needed in order to maintain stability over time, and I chose to sell Braintrust to a national provider that already had an existing footprint in Michigan. They agreed to retain all of the employees and would continue to seek to maintain the high quality services that our clients and families deserved. I had my first slow down in quite some time, which I realize now — I don’t do well with. I completed some renovation projects on a small commercial building we own and listened to a lot of podcasts. This led me to push into exploring investing in real estate and trying to be actively involved in large scale projects, which did not take off as I hoped, and also was not resonating with my heart for service. Through a friend, I met a franchise consultant named Jeff, and he introduced me to IMAGE Studios. While this is a far cry from the behavioral healthcare space, the business model and the brand has aligned with my current goals and my heart for people. IMAGE Studios’ core values include creativity, freedom, and success. We seek to create a high end, luxury salon setting, which allows professionals to bring their creativity and enjoy the freedom and success of running their own business. IMAGE has also created professional business and marketing content and courses available to professionals in this setting. I am able to come alongside of individuals and small groups who are looking to either start their business in a new setting or upscale their location and move to our setting. I can also feed my service side of my life by assisting with painting and small projects in the suites, amongst other things! I get excited and energized by seeing others succeed, and if there is anything I can do to help, I am happy to be a part of the journey. Even if it is simply handing over the key to their new space. And as an additional aside, I have also now been able to open a counseling practice with that original friend from my first career position. You know, the one I used to joke about starting a business with? Yep, same guy!
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
In October 2022, I signed on as franchisee and made my initial investment. In between December ’22 and March ’23, I was looking at spaces and eventually negotiating on a commercial lease for the first Grand Rapids location. This became official in May 2023. I was feeling pretty optimistic and excited through this period. Then in August 2023, construction started, and so did the true costs of the project. I experienced the most intense anxiety I have ever experienced in my life. Heart fluttering, heat going up my arms and into my shoulders, legs trembling, difficulty sleeping, etc. I even experienced my first panic attacks and what weeping and wailing personally looks and feels like. It wasn’t that the costs were unexpected. It was the uncertainty of when/if I would be able to fill the space to a point of capacity that the costs would eventually be outweighed by the income. There are examples of this same brand filling nearly to capacity prior to opening, and IMAGE Studios Grand Rapids opened with one person moving in right away and six more moving in between December and February. Yikes! However, my peace was regained before the end of 2023. Through the grace of God, wisdom and prayers from mentors and friends, and guidance from the Franchisor, I was able to shift my thinking to the present reality and what needed to be done to get from here to there. Anxiety, doubts, and fear can be motivators, but they can also be crippling factors, rendering us incapacitated. I still had my anxious moments, but they became fewer and further between and I was able to continue to push forward and steadily we began to fill. I am happy to say that we now only have 3 remaining suites out of the original 37. If it weren’t for my faith in God to help me push forward with patient persistence, IMAGE Studios Grand Rapids would not be where it is at today.
Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?
There was a time in 2018 when our business finances had become strained. There were several factors involved with this, including unintentional inflated billing that was done over the period of a couple of years. This could have been viewed as fraud from the perspective of some, but the truth was that we were given instructions by out contracted agencies on how to code certain services in a way that the agencies we contracted with later found out was incorrect. Unfortunately it was not their responsibility to repay those funds-only their responsibility to have those funds repaid. At the same time, we had invested in diversifying our services to include consultation with schools, but were finding that this was not increasing at the rate we needed it to. We also had overloaded on our administrative team to an extent that we were in a sinking ship from a financial perspective. We had to make some difficult and quick changes!!! Thankfully, I had previously secured a line of credit that allowed me to bring in funds every two weeks to make payroll and then pay those funds back over the next two weeks. This was an up and down pattern for a little over a year while we made some staffing adjustments and re-prioritized the focus of our services. Everything began to shape up in 2019 and heading into 2020. Of course, then COVID-19 hit…and we all know how well that helped most businesses!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://imagestudios360.com/grand-rapids-mi/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imagestudiosgrandrapids/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/imagestudiosgrandrapids
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachdugger/
Image Credits
Kris Walker
Ethan Engeseth Photography
Next Door Photos Grand Rapids