ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kyla Dufresne is an ambitious, motorcycle-riding, ultra-capable boss babe who is passionately building an exciting brand that has had a positive ripple effect on the lives of women around the world. The Foxy Box brand is leaving a footprint of simple, engaging, and self-empowering principles that allow women to live a life of choice. Kyla’s authentic, kind, yet non-BS approach allows women to celebrate their uniqueness and stand in their true power. Kyla can be reached at kyla@foxybox.ca.

As a high school dropout due to high distractibility, I’ve been a student of life from a young age. I launched my first business in my early 20’s and have been forging my own unique path ever since. Because of my unconventional journey, the lessons I’ve collected as an entrepreneur have all resulted from real, lived experiences, instead of traditional education. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE to sink my teeth into a good book, but when it comes to my professional development, I’ve always wanted to experience things for myself. For better or worse, my approach as a young entrepreneur was: “jump first, ask questions later.” This placed me in situations where I had to solve problems and overcome challenges in real time, leading to some of the most enriching experiences and helpful lessons I’ve collected in my years as a CEO.

Below, I’ve shared some of these hard-won lessons in the hopes that I can encourage more young women like myself, who perhaps don’t have shiny business degrees (or even high school diplomas), to trust their instincts and start their own companies. According to a recent report by the International Franchise Association, female-owned franchise businesses only account for approximately 30 per cent of the market. My dream is to see that number climb every year. So here are some real life lessons from my real life experiences, that I hope will empower you to approach new challenges as opportunities for growth.

Know Your Brand

Five years ago, the Foxy brand made a very unexpected lateral move into one of the wealthier neighborhoods in Victoria. A great space became available at a great price and I was eager to open another shop, so I jumped on the opportunity. Right away I was worried that our fun, fresh brand would be a little too young and cheeky for the prim and proper residents of Oak Bay Avenue, so I decided to flip the script. Instead of specializing in Brazilians, this new Oak Bay salon would offer a full menu of respectable beauty treatments! I decided to class up the name to appeal to our new genteel neighbours, thus was born the Foxy Lady.

The salon amassed a moderate following, but the Foxy Lady never really hit her stride, and after a year–and-a-half of business, I decided to retire the old gal. We achieved decent sales, but we were never able to cultivate the culture and magic that’s so palpable at any Foxy Box shop. I wanted to be adaptable and appeal to a wider demographic, but watering down our brand to fit in robbed us of our uniqueness. Our bold brand is the soul of our company, and without that foxy flavour, we lost our groove.

Closing the doors of my Oak Bay beauty salon was incredibly challenging, but the lessons I learned from that experience have made Foxy Box more successful today in the long run. The wisdom I can share from overcoming our Oak Bay closure is this: know who you are, celebrate your uniqueness, and don’t compromise your vision to suit someone else’s standards! The things that make you stand out are the things that will make you successful.

Align Yourself with the Right People

Out of all the lessons I’ve learned in my career, this one was perhaps the most painful. When I made the decision to franchise my business, I got incredibly excited, I wanted to grow quickly, expand my team, scale my business, and take over the WORLD one Box at a time! I had all the beautiful momentum of a red-lipped rocket ship blasting into outer space! This enthusiasm led me to rush recruitment, which in turn led me to sign on with the wrong business partners. Out of respect for the parties involved, I’ll keep this part brief, suffice to say that the business itself continues to thrive, but our partnership did not.

Our visions weren’t aligned, and we made the difficult decision to part ways professionally. Thankfully, we’ve all found success in our own business ventures, but the divorce was difficult. Here’s the wisdom I gained from this challenging time: know EXACTLY what your ideal franchisee looks like, write it down, draw a picture, create a vision board, whatever you need to do to get a CLEAR image on who your people are. This will help you design a comprehensive recruitment process that leads you to the RIGHT team.

Take Care of Yourself

Take it from me, babes, burnout is real! If you don’t take heed of the warning signs and slow down every once in a while, your body will slow down for you. Every time I forget to take a vacation, my body gives me strep throat, like clockwork; it’s truly uncanny. So, as my last lesson to share, make sure you take excellent care of yourself. Here are some simple tips I’ve learned:

• Find some outlets for your stress – go to a yoga class, wrestle a puppy, take a long walk, etc. Movement is medicine and taking care of yourself physically can provide payoff with your mental health as well.
• Design a routine that works for you and stick to it! When are you most productive? Lean into a rhythm that honours your own flow.
• Allow your loved ones to support you and don’t be too proud to ask for help. Also, find a therapist, a coach, a tea leaf reader, or anyone who you feel comfortable talking to.

These are the lessons I’ve collected on my road to success. At the end of the day, I’m actually very grateful for each of these experiences. Every single bump in the road has taught me something important about my company and myself. Now when I get a chance to connect with my franchisor peers in the industry, I love sharing war stories and finding the laughter in the lessons. I know that any success I enjoy now and in the future is because of the challenges I faced in my past, and I hope more than anything that I can inspire others to turn their wounds into wisdom, and their lessons into laughter.