Why These Multi-Unit Sylvan Learning Franchisees Continue Investing in the Brand, Now With 12 Locations

Kent Kolbow boasts a 30-year career with Sylvan Learning , the leading provider of personalized supplemental and enrichment education for students in grades K–12, with more than 710 points of presence worldwide. And in that time, he’s made impressive growth in the state of Indiana, where he began his career with the franchise as a teacher at a Sylvan Learning in Fort Wayne in 1991.

Shortly after joining Sylvan as a teacher, Kolbow moved into the role of director. And then in 1998, Kolbow purchased centers in South Bend and Elkhart, Indiana. In April 2010, Sarah Miller joined Kolbow’s locations as director and after quickly realizing her natural knack for the Sylvan model, Kolbow had a proposition — that they both become co-franchisees and continue to fill in the state. Ever since their business partnership, Kolbow and Miller have grown to 12 locations: 11 in the state of Indiana and one in Florida.

Miller, who previously worked in nonprofits with a focus on serving children at risk, always knew she wanted to serve others in her community and found Sylvan to be a great fit.

Expansion and growth

“In 2014, when we had the opportunity to go from two to four locations, we sat down and discussed how this would be a partnership — we were in this intense phase of growth together,” said Miller. “So that’s when we started to expand into Fort Wayne, and then into Indianapolis, and I moved in as the executive director and franchisee.”

Kolbow says not long after that, the two moved into Schererville, Merrillville and Valparaiso, Indiana in 2016. In 2017, the growth continued with four centers in the Indianapolis region. The newest center was purchased in March 2021 in Florida, where Kolbow currently resides.

With so many locations nestled into Indiana communities, Miller expressed the impact she’s seen over the years, noting that they've continued to foster relationships with children and school representatives throughout the years. Additionally, she noted that they recently had an opportunity to work again with a school that we've worked with a few times in the past and have now doubled the size of that partnership.

“It’s such a rewarding experience to see the value that we're bringing to these schools and who, without Sylvan, would have a harder time helping their students because they're a newer, growing school,” said Miller. “We continue to see the opportunities we have to reach a wide variety of students — from elementary students who are new to the English language all the way up to these high school students about to graduate who need extra support for college applications. There's a tremendous need to help students in Indiana and Florida, and we’ve seen huge growth.”

Success factors

Kolbow mentioned that the locations have done incredibly well because of word of mouth and the continued success of each location’s students.

“Every region that we have bought, within a year, business increases 100%,” said Kolbow. “The main reason for that is we try to overstaff, we have a great system in place and our No. 1 goal is to have success with every student. And once we have success, those parents tell other parents, and that has helped us build our success.”

As for the team’s future growth, Kolbow and Miller plan to continue filling the gaps in Indiana via satellite locations, and they are also planning to survey the potential for expansion in Florida.

“The essential piece to growth for us, and something that we talk a lot about with other multi-center owners, is that you have to scale as a team,” said Miller. “You have to realize that you have to bounce things off of each other and make decisions in a way that you're always running through not just one perspective — but a couple of perspectives. The growth, or the decision at hand, has to be for the benefit of the whole team.”