Ripper of an idea takes off
9 Oct 2007

Article PDF ( 2,471KB)

TANYA FARRAR never dreamt of going into business. Working for someone else is much time and in the front of the less stressful, she freely admits. But five years after founding Brazilian Butterfly, the 34-year-old Melburnian and her husband Scott are about to do for body waxing what Boost Juice did for juice.

From a standing start, the company now has 16 franchises dotted around Melbourne, with plans for up to 100 across the eastern seaboard within five years. They also have their own successful line of after-care products with a distribution warehouse in Rowville. The original idea had been for Tanya, who had 15 years as a beauty therapist under her belt, to get a day job as a waxer while Scott looked after their three young children, one of whom has Down syndrome.

While Scott loved the arrangement, Tanya was unhappy, as were her customers, who regularly complained about her employer’s poor service and the lack of alternative places where they could get waxed. “The waxing was done very well, but it was very quick so it was more like a production line for the clients,” Tanya said. “You had 15 minutes per appointment and that’s for cleaning the room, doing the wax, talking to the client – it all had to be done in that time and if the client was running late, well that’s just too bad, they had to make another appointment.”

It was also at the time when waxing, and particularly the Brazilian – when everything goes – was normally associated with ‘alternative’ lifestyles. Tanya had another vision. She wanted to take the seediness out of waxing, to offer customers a venue that was bright, where staff where willing to have a laugh and a place where both sexes felt comfortable. As chance would have it, just as Tanya opened her first waxing salon in 2002 in her old shopping haunt of Bridge Road Richmond, the popular Sex and the City aired its ground-breaking episode in which the characters Carrie and Charlotte both get Brazilians. Waxing was suddenly mainstream. And for all the Farrars it was time to get serious. They had sold their block of land in Sydney to set up their first store and decided to plough the rest of the money into marketing. They bought a Chrysler PT Cruiser and adorned it with the company’s distinctive butterfly logo, and booked radio advertising.

“Our website just went off,” Tanya said. “In the first couple of months we had 20 000 hits a month. At one stage, we almost thought we were waxing the whole of Melbourne.” One customer, Amy Shakespeare, was so impressed she harangued Tanya until she agreed to open a franchise in Knox in January 2004. “A lot of franchisees have been customers,” Tanya said. “We have former high-flying PA’s a couple of accountants and senior public servants. “People reach a stage in their lives where they have a bit of equity in their homes and get sick of working for someone else.”

It cost between $200 000 and $250 000 to set up a franchise, which includes the licensing fee, training and store fit out, and Tanya said there was a log list of potential franchisees. But rapid growth brings risk. A few bad operators can easily muddy the name of the entire company and wipe out years of hard work the franchisers put into building up the brand.

The Farrars turned to franchising specialist DC Strategy, which had helped turn Boost Juice from a handful of stores into a ubiquitous chain. “We are very proud of what we have done, but we realised we needed to get some good help. We asked DC to come in to help tighten our business and our processes to eliminate the risk of bad franchisees slipping through the cracks,” Tanya said.

Rod Young, executive director of DC Strategy said he jumped at the chance because of the Farrars’ enthusiasm for their brand and the potential he could see in the growing market segment. “It is a wonderful business and it’s working in a very attractive sector because health and beauty is the second largest consumer spending sector after food,” Mr Young said. “What they have done is produce a business that is just right for its time and in the front of the wave, not only in terms of money that women are spending on themselves, but also where men are increasingly considered on their appearance. There is no doubt this business will grow to over 100 units and the beautiful thing about it is it doesn’t have to stop at Australia’s boarders.”

With the company’s growth spurt in full swing, it has taken on a new trainer (as well as holding a recognized waxing certificate, all staff must be trained under the company’s higher standard). Under Scott’s guidance, it has also slashed the time it takes to refit stores from five weeks to two. To maintain Tanya’s focus on the customers, she conducts audits and surprise visits on all stores. She has also initiated a secret shopper program in which someone posing as a customer rates the service. “The hardest thing about what I call my fourth child is I want to make sure everybody is going to do it the way I do it,” Tanya said. One of Tanya’s complaints about her industry is the inconsistent quality of products, be it wax or after-care. Her solution was to develop her own line, and in the early days it fell to Scott and the children, working around the kitchen table after school, to put products bottles and label them. “The kids loved it at the time,” Scott said. “It was a real family operation.”

<< Back