Sola Salons Launches 'The Studio' Platform for Franchisee Support

Leading salon suites franchise Sola Salons recently launched a new learning management system, complete with additional learning modules. The Studio by Sola, a callback to the business model, serves as a space where franchisees can go for all things Sola. And with a sleek look, streamlined navigation and new and improved learning courses, it sets the stage for continued growth and franchisee support within the system.

“The business keeps changing, and we need to keep up. So that’s what we’re doing,” said Daryl Hurst, president and chief operating officer. “We want to let franchisees know that Sola understands the importance of providing a strong support model. This is a part of that support model and our commitment to walking with them, hand-in-hand, from signing to leases, sales opportunities, retention — all of that. We’re in it with them.”

“With our prior platform, it wasn’t the best user experience,” said Liz Kline, training and development manager. “It functioned and gave franchisees access, but it wasn’t a dynamic learning experience that helped the user navigate the business and streamline their growth. As we talked about how we would evolve as a brand, we knew a big part of that would be driven by having a good training platform for the franchisees.”

The team was already considering moving away from the prior platform and began to explore new options.

“There was a tremendous amount of creative effort put forth to make it a one-stop shop for our franchisees,” Hurst said. “All communications, all business links, all training documents and quick guides are available in the LMS. Franchisees can also access each other and the corporate team when necessary. Understanding that this was our end goal, and making it the starting point, is what served as our guiding light.”

Other key considerations of the corporate team were mobile responsiveness and the availability of an app. For many franchisees, the business does not take place from behind a computer screen, and the option to access The Studio in the field, where the business actually happens, was key.

As the platform launched, becoming available across the system, the leadership team made sure to stay closely involved with individual owners.

“So far, Liz has been having one-on-ones to help walk franchisees through the platform,” Hurst said. “There are also tutorial videos available. There has been nothing but really great feedback. Everyone seems really happy with it.”

The new launch includes multiple key resources for franchisees.

With this platform, the corporate team has access to franchisees and their teams from day one. A new team member can begin learning immediately rather than waiting to engage with the leadership team in person.

“We have resources, immediately, to get them connected and started,” said Tricia Cremeans, director of learning and development. “There are real SOPs and recommendations that we can deliver right away, then we can take a look at in-person training and use that time more effectively to build on foundational training. That opens a lot of doors.”

There are dedicated experts within multiple channels to support users as needed. Rather than a trained chatbot, these are real Sola team members who work in development, operations and other departments.

“Our franchisees can ask a question at any point, and they can expect a response within 24 hours,” Cremeans said. “There are also forms open to other franchisees who may have insights on the topic. It’s very collaborative.”

Franchisees can assign individual courses or make a customized playlist of courses to assign to team members.

“When franchisees log in, they can see their locations and their team members in their channel,” Cremeans said. “They can add and edit people, move resources into folders, and filter or change the view in a channel.”

Another key benefit is that The Studio supports multiple kinds of learning materials. In addition to watching videos, users can also access PDFs and interactive guides. As they review resources, users can not only see whether they have engaged with a given resource before, but they can also see what type of course or resource it is.

While the new rollout and introduction of new learning models demonstrate remarkable progress in terms of Sola’s support model, the work is not done.

“Right now, we are in version one,” Cremeans said. “The platform will continue to evolve. It has incredible customization, and we can continue to create, improve the experience and offer more resources. One of the key reasons we chose this platform was the scalability and customization options. That’s something we’ve never had. We’re very excited about version one, but stay tuned for future developments.”