Chris DeJong wants to have 40 Big Blue Swim Schools operating by the end of 2023. It’s an ambitious goal for the founder and CEO, one that would mean more than doubling the number of swim schools open today.
The Chicago-based franchise has 19 locations spread across Illinois, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Texas, Utah and Virginia. It has 220 locations sold to franchisees, and the next step, according to DeJong, is to speed up the openings.
“We plan to accelerate our opening pace as we bring Big Blue to cities across the country,” DeJong told the Franchise Times at last week’s International Franchise Association Convention. “We’re happy with where we see ourselves, the trajectory we’re on and the results with the initial tranche of openings we’ve had.”
Big Blue Swim School, which provides swimming lessons to children ranging in age from 3 months to 6-plus, opened its first location in 2012. It attracted Level 5 Capital Partners as majority owner in 2017. Since then, Big Blue Swim School has announced several development deals, but had a slower pace of openings.
Related: Big Blue Swim School Inks Its Largest Franchise Deal
DeJong acknowledged that even though building a Big Blue Swim School takes four to six months, the opening process as a whole takes a lot of time and money. The total investment to open a unit is between $2.4 million and $3.9 million, with an $80,000 franchise fee.
“We’re certainly a capital expenditure-intensive concept,” DeJong said. “But in our candidates’ minds, a certain level of security exists, because it’s a concept that can’t be outsourced or automated. That capital expenditure factor does eliminate a lot of potential franchisees. But once that pool is in the ground, that place becomes a pillar in the community.”
Chris DeJong, founder and president of Big Blue Swim School.
According to DeJong, the more schools open and become community staples, the more momentum will build for additional locations to go up faster across the country.
“As we continue to build a stronger and stronger story with every new opening, the list of interested parties just gets longer,” DeJong said. “Right now, we have a lot of existing franchisees who’ve expressed interest in buying more territories and expanding, too.”
DeJong said growth will also ramp up now that the COVID-19 pandemic is less of an issue.
“We’re seeing a bounce back effect as we distance ourselves from the pandemic,” DeJong said. “Our original belief was that swim lessons are an essential life skill, and with that comes a certain amount of business security. As parents started to realize they could go out again, swim lessons seemed like something they had a bit of a debt in. It’s not just in the classroom, but in the pool, too.”
DeJong noted Big Blue goes through a rigorous site selection process. “We like to put our locations in the path of least resistance for our customers,” he said. “Mom and dad already have a habit of going to work or certain places. We track that very closely, looking at the real estate analytics with a private equity partner. We look at potential sites and all of the traffic stats. We put all of that into a formula that we think helps us maximize the chances of success for a franchisee.”
The brand’s leadership is also working to regularly improve operations. A week after DeJong attended the IFA event, Big Blue announced it was updating its building designs, adding character illustrations along the pool The brand’s lessons have children swim longer distances every session, and the new design is meant to depict each level the child can attain.
“We have a curriculum committee that I’m on with several other members of our corporate team are on and we incorporate feedback from franchisees,” said DeJong, a former competitive swimmer himself who narrowly missed making Team USA’s Olympic squads in 2004 and 2008. “We’ve never stopped evolving our curriculum and rolling out new updates.”