Franchise Anonymous: Tanning beds & property damage

Happy Sunday, folks. 

As a franchise consultant, I hear pitches from hundreds of different franchise concepts every year. 

I’m taking the most interesting ones, and telling you: 

• What sets them apart

• One potential weakness

• Who the ideal buyer is

My promise: you’ll learn something about franchising every time. 

Today’s mystery franchises: tanning beds and property damage restoration.

The business: Glow-on-demand studio

Most tanning businesses have a 2000s vibe: cheap booths, sticky spray guns, and a vague coconut smell. This one aims higher: a sleek, AI-enabled beauty studio with a cult-like following and a serious margin story.

What they do differently

• Proprietary formula, patented equipment. The average tanning studio uses off-the-shelf spray systems and generic solutions. These folks own both the gear and the glow juice, which gives them tighter control over quality—and a way to keep clients coming back for their exact look.

• No licensed labor. Most beauty services require licensed estheticians or cosmetologists, which can be a bottleneck for hiring. Here, that’s not the case. The process is designed so you can train staff quickly and focus on customer service, not credential wrangling.

• Receptionless model. They’ve baked AI into the scheduling and check-in flow, so you don’t need a front desk person just to say hi. Cuts labor costs and fits the high-end-but-minimalist vibe.

• 🚩Potential weakness: Niche service = education required. If your market doesn’t already understand sunless “skincare” versus spray tans, you may need to do more explaining. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all tan. It’s a premium service at premium pricing, and it won’t sell itself out of the gate.

The takeaway:

If you’ve got a sales or marketing background and a soft spot for the beauty space, this could be a good fit. You don’t need to be a licensed esthetician—but you do need to be good at building a brand locally. The real play here is riding a growing health-forward beauty trend, and planting your flag before someone else does.

Interested? Let's talk glow-on-demand studio.

The business: Property damage restoration

Most restoration businesses are either insurance-company juggernauts or one-man trucks doing mold jobs on the side. This one sits in the middle: a lean franchise model built for scale, not just survival.

What they do differently

• Low overhead, high margin. No storefront. No expensive equipment to sit idle. It’s a dispatch-from-home model with strong unit economics and very few fixed costs. In a category this big, that’s a solid starting position.
  
  

• Sales-forward approach. Most restoration companies are reactive and just waiting for the phone to ring. This model supports franchisees in proactively building out referral networks with property managers, insurance adjusters, realtors, etc. This is why a restoration business like this is only a good idea if you’re ready to lean into B2B lead generation and sales.
  
  

• Broad revenue base. It’s not just water damage. They go after fire, mold, and smoke too, each of which have different models and levels of urgency. That kind of revenue diversity helps smooth out seasonality and regional variability.
  
  

• 🚩Potential weakness: Disaster work means unpredictability. Some months you'll have more leads than you can handle. Others, not so much. If you need a business with predictable customer flow, this might feel like a rollercoaster.

The takeaway:

Ideal for someone with a sales or ops background who isn’t afraid to hustle for relationships. You don’t need a restoration background, but you do need leadership chops and the ability to manage crews under pressure. Scalable, lean, and recession-resistant, it’s a sharp pick if you want to build something serious without a storefront.

Interested? Let’s talk property restoration.

If these aren’t doing it for you, I work with hundreds of other brands. Get in touch and we can find something that scratches the itch.

Thanks for reading!

Connor

Ready for the next step? Here are 3 ways I can help you: