New Spa is a Family Affair
Husband and Wife Team with Daughter to Launch Business
After 30 years in corporate America, you could say that Keith Wagner needed to recharge his batteries. But rather than simply going to a spa for a relaxing massage, Wagner decided to open his own spa to allow others to recharge theirs. Wagner and his wife, Diana, opened Hand & Stone Massage and Facial Spa in the Hill Country Galleria in Bee Cave, a business managed by the couple’s daughter, Brittany.
Hand & Stone is a franchise specializing in several therapeutic massages, as well as facials and waxing. The business opened its doors in October.
“We always loved the concepts behind health and wellness,” said Keith Wagner. “With Hand & Stone, literally, we found a feel good business.”
Keith spent his career spanning 30-plus years in business operations performing planning analysis and sales forecasts for several high-tech companies. Many corporate moves and mergers starting in the Silicon Valley eventually landed the Wagners in Austin with Cirrus Logic. In 2006, Keith was brought aboard Advanced Micro Devices leading cross-functional project management teams.
And as is the case across America, AMD announced a 20 percent reduction in its workforce and offered Keith an early retirement about a year ago. Still too young to consider a permanent life on a golf course, Keith and Diana considered the next phase of their lives and began to deeply consider their lifelong dream of owning their own business.
“We brought different skills to the table that we knew would translate well to operating our own business,” said Diana Wagner, a successful controller for Avnet. “I have a great job, so we were looking for opportunities that we both would like and could have an interest in, and that I could work in my off hours.”
Through his early retirement, Keith was given access to the services of an outplacement firm, where he attended a seminar on business ownership. That’s where Keith met Kyle de Haas, a franchise consulting expert with FranNet of Central Texas, and the man who gave the seminar. FranNet works with budding entrepreneurs to match them with franchise businesses. Through their research, one of the businesses that surfaced to the top was the Hand & Stone franchise.
“We had a good overview of what it took to run a business,” said Keith, in describing his initial interest in the massage franchising concept. “Couple that with the infrastructure, and the sales and marketing support Hand & Stone brought, we knew we could be successful executing against the business plan we had created.”
The Wagners tout Hand & Stone’s strong commitment to its customers as one of its driving forces. “There’s no long-term commitment necessary,” said Diana. “We didn’t want people to feel like they were buying a gym membership.” They do, however, offer memberships that provide discounts on services and products that start at $49.95 per month.
The signature massage of Hand & Stone is the “Hot Stone Massage,” a proprietarily-designed therapy created by the franchise’s founder, John Marco, who found a specific protocol by which heated stones are used in combination with massage strokes. The stones add heat directly to the client’s body allowing deeper penetration into the muscles.
The Wagners are not alone in their business-owning aspirations. According to the International Franchising Association, the governing body for all franchises, nearly 14,000 total franchise outlets were added last year across the country. That numbers marked a two percent increase over 2011 and pumped an additional $37 billion into the nation’s economy.
The business has provided few surprises to the Wagners as they embark on their entrepreneurial careers.
“The most surprising thing was that Diana agreed to it,” Keith joked. “In all seriousness, though, we’ve fallen in love with the business.”
For information on utilizing the Wagners’ Hand & Stone massage services, call 512-263-2227 or visit their website at www.handandstone.com/spa/texas/bee-cave.
For those in the Central Texas area and interested in the services of Kyle de Haas at FranNet, call 512-329-2613 or visit www.frannet.com/kyled. For anyone else interested in exploring business ownership with FranNet, please visit www.frannet.com to find your local FranNet consultant.
About FranNet
FranNet is the world’s most respected leader in matching individuals with franchise opportunities. Based in Louisville, Ky., FranNet has more than 100 consultants across North America and Germany who use a proprietary profiling and consultative process to determine a business model unique to each client’s goals, skill sets and interests, and has matched thousands of entrepreneurs to rewarding small business opportunities. FranNet has been recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing private companies in America for the last four years.