Day 1 Profit: Best Franchise to Buy?

This is a transcript from Episode XX of The Franchise Champion Show. Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

Alan Regala: My guests today are a husband and wife team who built their business the safe way. They started with a small investment while still working corporate jobs, navigated a major crisis that would have crushed most owners, and have since grown into multiple brands and locations. We're going to discuss exactly how they made that transition safely and what they learned about building a business that serves your life. Matt and Alissa Higgins, welcome to the Franchise Champion Show.

Matt Higgins: Thanks for having me.

Alissa: Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you guys.

Alan: After our initial call, Matt, I learned a lot. You guys have a really great story to tell, so I'm excited to share it with everyone. You guys mind starting by telling us a bit about your backgrounds?

Alissa: Sure. I'll kick it off. I played college volleyball, D2, and then got into teaching health and phys ed after that. I quickly realized the school setting wasn't quite for me — being there all day was just a lot. So I got into a direct sales company, Avid Care, and did that while I was teaching. It opened my eyes to other ways you can earn a living. From there I got into personal training and built up a client base. When we moved up to Philly and had our first kid, Jaden, I would always work out at a place called Fit4Mom. After a couple of years, the two women who owned it came to me and said I should buy it from them. That's how we got into our first franchise.

Alan: So Fit4Mom was a franchise — and you were a customer first?

Alissa: Yeah, we lived in downtown Philadelphia and they were both moving out of the city with their kids. It was a perfect fit.

Matt: We looked at it, laid everything out — pros and cons — and we just saw so much opportunity there that wasn't being tapped into. So we said, let's do this.

Alan: Okay. Now Matt, let's talk about your background and how your journey connects to that first franchise.

Matt: Sure. My background is in computer information systems. I always wanted to work in business, work in corporate America. When I graduated, I went to work outside of DC for a consulting and accounting firm — PwC — and found my way into healthcare consulting. I really developed a passion for that industry and for impacting people in a positive way.

Everybody has a light bulb moment. Mine happened when I was working at PwC on a major project for the largest healthcare organization in the country. We were doing important work that was impacting veterans, and I was telling my grandfather — a World War II veteran — about it. I expected him to be really excited. His response was, "Hey, that's all well and good, Matt, but when are we going to get the money for my hearing aids?"

Something struck me in that moment. I was doing what I thought was impactful work, but I could tell something was missing. I didn't connect that dot until much later. But I was working a lot of hours, traveling constantly — ten, twelve-hour days, plus an hour-plus commute each way depending on where my clients were. That's when I met Alissa. Her family always ate dinner together around 5:00 or 5:30, and she wanted that to continue. My career at the time just wasn't conducive to that. She started opening my eyes to something outside of corporate America.

Alan: Yeah. I think a lot of people in the corporate world share that sentiment. When you're working close to the end customer, you actually feel and hear the impact directly — and there's something really fulfilling about that. Okay, so how did Fit4Mom lead to the next thing?

Matt: So the market for that first business was moms, and Alissa was the owner and operator. I had my full-time job, but I helped on the back end with payroll, bookkeeping, and expense management. It was a really neat entry point into franchising. I'm a pretty risk-averse person, so when we ran the numbers, the startup was right around $15,000. In my mind, that was relatively low downside for a potentially high upside. Let's roll the dice.

We eventually did sell it and made a really good profit on it, but I think the biggest thing was the knowledge we took away — about franchise ownership, and about working with your spouse.

Alan: What did you learn about working together?

Alissa: We really didn't work side by side in that first one. That came later when we got into what we're doing now. Back then, we just saw the opportunity and ran with it. We'd bought it for one price and sold it for double. The key move was converting the business model. It was running on a punch card and class pack system. We shifted it to a recurring subscription model, and in under two years, membership went from single digits to triple digits. That's what made it attractive to a buyer when the Orange Theory opportunity came up.

Matt: I have to brag on Alissa for a moment — she's an absolute rock star. She took that business and turned it into something that generated real recurring revenue. That equity allowed us to have a solid down payment when we were ready to do something bigger together. But yeah, we took all that knowledge and those proceeds, and we went into Orange Theory.

Alan: How did that transition happen? Did it fall into your lap again, or was this more deliberate?

Alissa: This one was definitely more planning. We had a good friend who had opened an Orange Theory in West Virginia, and he encouraged us to check it out in Philly. We met with the people there, but they wanted us to open in the suburbs and we were not leaving the city. So we passed on that — but we loved the business model. It got us researching other franchises that weren't in Philly yet. We looked at four or five fitness concepts, did discovery calls, ran pro formas on all of them. Nothing quite compared to Orange Theory. We eventually found that there was an opportunity to open in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Alan: And you actually moved there?

Alissa: We drove out one day, five hours, got shown around town by a college student someone knew. Matt had never been there. I'd been there once in high school to check out the university. We drove home and he said, "I could live there." And I said, "Really?" And that was that.

Alan: So when did you open?

Matt: We got awarded the franchise around May or July of 2019, moved August 28th, and our official opening day was January 2nd, 2020.

Alan: January 2020. Oh my gosh. What happened?

Matt: We closed March 16th. I remember sitting in the studio. But before that — we had an awesome start. Orange Theory does pre-sales, so you build your member base before you open. We were adding 25 new members a week for those first ten weeks. We couldn't keep up with demand — all the classes were filled and it was amazing. And then, ten weeks in, we shut our doors.

Alissa: It was definitely scary. We went from this high of being new business owners in a market that nobody really believed in — I mean, that's why the territory was still available, even with 1,500+ locations in the system — to suddenly not knowing what the future held.

Alan: That's a bummer. How did you get through it?

Alissa: One lucky break was that we were in West Virginia. We got to open back up about two and a half months later, on May 29th. Not that it was all easy after that — but at least we could run classes again, way sooner than a lot of other markets.

Matt: When we reopened, we had lost more than 40% of our membership. And a lot more uncertainty followed for months. But when we reopened and heard from people about how happy they were — how happy they were that we were doing everything we could to keep it a safe place — that's when you really saw the impact you can have on people. We'd only been in Morgantown for a short time, but this community just rallied. That tight-knit community is what kept us going.

Alan: That's a testament to the service you were providing and how you'd embedded yourselves in that community. So things got back on track, and eventually you decided to open a second location?

Matt: From pretty early on, our real estate broker had been telling us about a space in Bridgeport, about 45 minutes away. We visited in February of 2020, then that quickly went to the wayside with everything that happened. A couple of years later, we revisited it. We wanted to have an impact on a larger scale, and we loved what we were doing. Running that analysis, even our worst-case scenario looked like it would be profitable.

We went through the buildout — and then, as we were opening, the war in Ukraine broke out and interest rates skyrocketed beyond my worst-case projections. That was challenging. But we opened it, found another incredible community, and we now have two very different studios. The impact we're having in both places is incredible.

Alan: And during all of this, you were still working your corporate job?

Matt: Yes, until fairly recently. Alissa ran the day-to-day — she was our studio manager for the first year and a half of our first location. I was doing all the back-end stuff: payroll, finance, anything the members couldn't see. I was working out of my truck in the parking lot. I actually got a Ford with a fold-down desk in the center console so I could set up my computer and take calls.

There's a quote I heard somewhere that I could never shake: How do kids spell love? T-I-M-E. I knew I wanted to prioritize time with my kids. I also knew that my corporate job was shifting from a profit center role in consulting to a cost center role in marketing — and every round of layoffs, you're on the chopping block.

So we set a goal. We told our kids: when we hit a certain membership level, I'm going to put in my notice. We drew a date on the calendar — September. We were going to hit it and I'd begin transitioning out. The whole way, it felt like we were stealing second base while still keeping our foot on first.

Fast forward to summer. September is coming up. We've got our eye on that date.

And then I got laid off.

Alan: Wow.

Matt: July. So I ended up with severance, two months earlier than I planned, going straight into the summer with my family before transitioning full time into the business. Anybody who thought they were going to have to make that leap on their own terms — this is what can happen when you've built the foundation first.

Alan: What are the odds? If you hadn't planned for it and it had just happened cold — what a different story that would be. But because you'd been building the whole time, it just accelerated what was already coming.

Matt: Exactly. And that's the beauty of business ownership. Yes, there's risk. But the beautiful thing with franchising is that it's a calculated risk. You can do your research, look at the FDD, talk to existing owners, do all the vetting ahead of time. And of course, work with a franchise coach who has real experience. There's a lot you can do to mitigate risk and set yourself up for long-term success.

We got told we were crazy when we moved from Philly to West Virginia. I can't count how many times people thought we had lost it. But we just said, don't worry about it — talk to us in a couple of years.

Alan: And now you're expanding into a new brand entirely. Tell us about that.

Alissa: So we knew we wanted to expand, and we knew we wanted to do something in Morgantown. One thing I haven't mentioned yet is that food has always been a passion of mine. I can remember meals from events throughout my whole life the way other people remember movie quotes. I always thought maybe I'd open a deli or something fun in retirement. And we'd always felt like something was missing at Orange Theory — we could help people with their fitness, but we had no answer for nutrition. Every January during our transformation challenge, we'd watch members struggle with their eating and think, "We want to help, but we don't have a vehicle."

In the same shopping center as our Orange Theory, there was a locally owned smoothie and juice business. We knew the owners, we partnered with them, and we always thought: if they ever sell, we need to be there. Well, they came to us. But it was locally owned, not a franchise, and it ultimately wasn't the right fit.

That search pushed us to start looking at healthy food franchises more seriously. We looked at five or six different concepts. After every discovery call, we'd hang up and both say, "There's no way we can do that." Too complex, too much kitchen equipment, too dependent on a chef being on site.

And then we found Project Lean Nation.

Matt: We noticed right away when we reviewed the FDD — they only had one store listed, which was their corporate-owned location. I'm a risk-averse guy. How do I analyze one store? But the franchise was newer — at the time there were only about 33 locations. We called as many of those franchisees as we could, pored through the FDD, and started building out our analysis. And then we went to discovery day.

Alissa: We'd done all this research and homework ahead of time. We showed up to their headquarters with two pages of questions ready to go. We sat in a conference room with Tim — the founder — and his entire leadership team: operations, technology, finance, marketing, production. We interviewed them for a full day.

And then lunchtime came and they said, "Which meal do you want to try?" And we had to tell them — we'd never actually tasted the food. We'd come all the way up there for discovery day and hadn't even tried the product.

Matt: Thank goodness the food was amazing.

Alissa: It was incredible. And we left that day knowing we had something special on our hands. We did a bit more due diligence, called more franchisees, ran more numbers — and then we said, let's go.

Alan: Okay, so for people who don't know — what is Project Lean Nation?

Matt: At Project Lean Nation, our goal is simple: make healthy easy. We have a retail operation and a subscription model. On the retail side, we have a full protein shake bar — all natural ingredients, minimum 26 grams of protein per shake. We also carry a full supplement line, though we're not supplement peddlers — we make recommendations where they make sense.

But our main product is healthy, prepared, frozen meals and healthy snacks called lean sheets, which are essentially protein balls. You can come in and buy individual meals, or you can subscribe to our meal service. And what sets us apart from something like HelloFresh or Blue Apron is that our meals are frozen and flash-frozen, so they preserve all the nutrients and they won't go bad on you. They last up to a year in the freezer. You pop them in the microwave and they're ready in minutes.

We also have a storefront — you come in and pick up your meals. And for anyone on our subscription service, we offer what we call the PLN+ membership, which includes nutrition coaching. We have a body composition scanner in the store, and most PLN+ members come in every two weeks to track their progress and see how clean eating is actually moving the needle.

Alissa: The difference is really about connection. We're not just dropping meals at your doorstep. Every new customer sits down for a lean consultation when they first come in. We get to understand where they are, what they've tried, what's worked, what hasn't, and what's really driving them to make a change. The people who come in every week and engage with a coach stay way longer and get way better results. It's the same as franchising — you follow the system, you care about the people, and it works.

Alan: Tell me how this model compares to other food franchise concepts.

Matt: We looked at a lot of food concepts, and we were like — this is simple. Orange Theory has 72 different systems running at once. PLN has one. And looking at other food businesses, they all had kitchens, chefs, food waste concerns — if the chef is out, what do we do? We both got off those calls and said, "There's no way." This concept gave us a way to be in food without actually being a restaurant. No kitchen, no food waste, no chef dependency. We get to serve healthy meals to people every day, build real relationships, and watch them transform their health.

Alan: You mentioned pre-sales earlier — walk me through how that worked.

Matt: This was really important to us from the start. We had seen the power of pre-sales with Orange Theory, and we knew we needed to be cash flow positive from month one. That's the beauty of franchising — you can talk to other owners who have already followed the process you're about to follow.

Project Lean Nation calls it the pre-sales phase, and we worked really hard in that ten-week lead-up to opening. We reached out to everyone we could. We partnered with other businesses in the community, got the word out, and offered a founding member discount for anyone who subscribed before we even opened — sight unseen. People signed up because they believed in what we were building and wanted to lock in that rate.

Alissa: And we quickly found that this was something people had been looking for. When you're in the fitness world, the number one question people ask is: "How do I eat right? How do I meal prep?" We finally had an answer for that.

Matt: We opened on October 11th with over 200 subscription members — right up there with the top franchise openings in the entire PLN system. We've been in the top tier of stores from a revenue perspective every month but one. We're doing $70,000 or more in revenue each month.

Alan: That is insane. To start off that quickly and maintain it — that's truly amazing. And I think that's the beauty of a concept like this: you put the work in before you open, you build it all up, and then you hit the ground running.

Matt: And not every franchise does that. I actually reached out to another franchise that was opening nearby to ask about their pre-sales process, and they didn't have one. So you definitely want to evaluate that when you're looking at franchise concepts — being set up to be cash flow positive from day one makes an enormous difference.

Alan: Both of the franchises you've done have qualified on that front. That's really cool. Well, Matt and Alissa, thank you so much for being on the show today. I learned a ton, and I know the audience will too. Congratulations on everything you've built — and congratulations on being franchise champions.

Matt: Thank you so much, Alan. This was great.

Alissa: Thank you.

Alan: A huge thank you to Matt and Alissa for sharing their story. Three big takeaways I want you to remember:

One — they were deliberate. They didn't guess. They picked models that allowed them to start manageable and scale up.

Two — the system works. When crisis hit, having that franchise support structure was the difference between folding and thriving.

Three — they played the long game. They treated this as a vehicle for freedom, not just another job. And that mindset allowed them to eventually replace their incomes.