Their Pool Is a Headache. That’s the Business Model.

British Swim School doesn’t build pools. Its franchisees teach inside hotels, gyms, retirement centers and schools — places where the pool has become an expensive headache — and that’s how new owners get open in sixty to ninety days.

Ashley Gundlach went from marketing analyst to President of the 45-year-old brand. This episode covers what leading 200 franchisees looks like from the inside, why the brand moved from “Survival of the Littlest” to “Every Age, Every Stage,” and what it takes to accept that no decision will ever make everyone happy.

What we get into

• From agency marketing to the president’s chair — and why she didn’t know what she wanted to be until she got there
• The emotional trigger behind every decision, whether it’s a donation or a parent enrolling a child in swim lessons
• Subscription swim lessons, new competitors in old markets, and showing up when families ask AI where to go
• Safe and happy: the crossroads British Swim School tries to own, and the teenagers who haven’t learned to swim yet
• Adults who can’t swim, and why their first session often starts out of the water
• The asset-light model: renting time in pools that facility owners would rather not run themselves
• Moving fast enough for franchisees without rolling something out wrong to 200 of them
• Off the record: the “do not use” file that got used, the client who was lost over it, and learning to be comfortable with discomfort

Resources

• British Swim School

Transcript

“I never knew I would hear that in a professional setting.” — Ashley

From marketing analyst to president

Dane: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Franchise Groove, an official Jakiro production. I’m your host, Dane Jordan. Today I have with me Ashley Gundlach. She got her start at Dominion Enterprises as a marketing specialist, then over to Nexus Direct as vice president, then back into marketing as a director at British Swim School, and now the head honcho — president. Ashley, welcome.

Ashley: Thanks for having me.

Dane: So walk us through this journey of yours. It seems a bit unique — starting in marketing, then perhaps a touch of leadership as vice president, back into marketing, and now president. Was this something you had shot for yourself coming in as a marketing specialist, thinking, “I always wanted to be in a prominent leadership role”? Or did it sort of develop naturally?

Ashley: It’s funny — when you go to college and you say you want to do marketing, there’s this really wide gamut of options. You’ll have one class and it’s about selling, and then you have another one and it’s about analytics. Quite honestly, I left college just trying to figure out, okay, how do I get my foot in the door somewhere with marketing? So I started in a marketing analytics position, and it was a lot of very exciting connecting of Excel and Access databases manually, because that’s how we were doing it back then. All of that would be done in 30 seconds now with an AI tool, of course.

Then I moved over to a marketing agency — Nexus Direct was a marketing agency — and we were doing marketing strategy for all kinds of really great clients, nonprofits and associations. I was fortunate in my time there that I was able to move up as opportunities presented themselves. My last few years there, I was working on a small leadership team, running the ins and outs of the business alongside working with the clients we had. So it was kind of a natural progression.

I moved over to British Swim School because I really wanted to sink my teeth into the inside of an organization, versus advising in a client-to-vendor relationship. And then I was fortunate to have the opportunity to move into my current role after a few years of running the marketing. So to answer your initial question, I didn’t really know what I wanted to be when I grew up until I guess I got there. And then I realized that I really enjoy working with a lot of different people. I love figuring out what makes people tick, how to motivate them, and seeing them grow. So I don’t really care so much about being the boss. I just really enjoy working with people and seeing their journey.

Dane: So did you get a taste of that at Nexus? Because obviously, with a shift from marketing to president, there are a lot more responsibilities involved. Where did you get the sense that this may be something of interest and of passion to you?

Ashley: For sure. I grew into increasing responsibility at the agency, and as I mentioned, my last few years there I was in a leadership capacity. So it was everything from working with my colleagues to put together our annual budget for the agency and then reviewing that monthly to make sure we were in line, to helping our sales teams set goals for themselves and then holding them accountable throughout the year, looking at the hiring strategy, and helping to negotiate contracts with vendors where we felt like we could find a way to grow together. All of that translated really nicely to what I was doing here.

Also, having worked with so many different clients across a wide variety of verticals, I was able to get exposure to how different organizations worked — like I said, the budgeting process, how they set their goals. I’m a believer that by exposing yourself to a lot of different things, you can pick and choose: okay, what are the pieces I want to emulate, what can I build on? Or, okay, I don’t want to do it that way.

What makes people act: donors, members, swim parents

Dane: It piques my curiosity, seeing such a wide variety of different verticals. Did you see through lines — things that worked well across these distinct verticals — as well as things that were unique in how they were deployed? I’m curious if a few come to mind.

Ashley: Sure. I think what we were always trying to do was motivate somebody to act in some way. At the agency, that was getting somebody to donate to a humanitarian cause, or to join a professional organization, or any wide variety of things. As much as you can always be really rational and use reason and facts — and sometimes that works with people — there’s always this emotional attachment to making a decision. It’s understanding: okay, what is the thing that gets this person to pick up their credit card and decide to give online, or join this organization?

That makes the kind of work we do here at British Swim School — where we’re trying to get, in most cases, a parent to enroll their child in swim lessons — an easy emotional trigger, right? That’s a lot easier than “join a human resource association.” So I think the things we had learned about how you motivate somebody, how you put that into writing, how you show that visually, translated to a lot of the work we do here with our consumers, and even working with franchisees as well, because everybody’s coming at this from a different angle.

Dane: Touching on that last point — the responsibilities split between working with the consumers and working with the franchisees — if you were to put a rough ratio on your time?

Ashley: My time personally, I would say 80% is working with our franchisees and helping to enable them to make the impact at the local level. The other 20% is working through our team on how we reach customers at a global brand level. But I think the beauty of franchising is that we’re giving our franchisees a really great playbook and we’re telling them, “Hey, you know your community better than anybody. You know where people are engaging, where families are interacting with the community. So use what you know, use our tools, and help those people find a British Swim School.” So the more we can develop our franchisees’ knowledge of what we’ve learned over 45 years of this business, the more effective we’re going to be.

Dane: That makes a lot of sense. So this is obviously the Franchise Groove. Had you considered working in a franchise before becoming director of marketing? Did you look at other franchises, or did this opportunity just sort of present itself and — to use a pun — you dove in?

Ashley: I definitely had not considered franchising. Where we are in Virginia Beach, where our headquarters is located, it’s not something you’re exposed to a lot, except as a consumer. Everybody’s been to Domino’s or Subway, and everybody knows those are franchises. But I was really just looking for my next chapter. I was geared toward marketing roles. I had a connection through the parent company of British Swim School, and I had come across the job listing in a few different ways all on the same day. So it was fortuitous timing that the position became available when I just happened to be looking.

I always say that the first six months here, where I was simultaneously learning British Swim School and learning about franchising, is probably the most I’ve ever learned in any six-month period of my life. Drinking through a fire hose — but it was exciting. I loved it.

Dane: That’s awesome. I feel like that’s always important. I’ve gone through periods of my life where there’s rapid learning, and I always look back fondly on those because it’s rare. There are so many times where you just have to operate off the knowledge you already have. So being able to learn so quickly and level up so quickly is rare, but it’s cool that you got that. How do you keep on top of learning? What are you learning these days? Are you able to structure that at all, or is it here and there?

Ashley: It’s a combination of structure and organic. I’m one of those people who has a really diligent calendar, and I try to block out time. The benefit of that is it lets you block out time for the things that are important. So I have little windows of time where I’m doing competitive research to see what others in the industry are doing — even if they’re not in the US. There are people doing some cool stuff in other countries. I have time each week where I’m just digging in on different franchise trends. I’ve got search terms around child development, all these different things, where I’m like, okay, I’m going to pull from different sources. I subscribe to a lot of newsletters, I listen to a lot of podcasts. I’m a naturally curious person.

I also set up some of my AI subscriptions to feed me random information about off-the-wall subjects each week, because I don’t ever want to be the person who doesn’t have something new to contribute at a family dinner or something like that. So it’s fun to get good topics and to be able to make connections between different things.

Subscription lessons, new competitors, and AI search

Dane: That’s awesome. I imagine the space has changed in the four years. Obviously, you were at British Swim School through COVID — that was a big turmoil time, and we could touch on that as well. But I’m curious, what have you seen changing, and what has been important for you to learn as you’ve been president and navigating these waters?

Ashley: When I started with the brand in 2019, if you think about perpetual or subscription-based swim programs — where you don’t enroll for six weeks, you enroll on an ongoing basis like you would for karate, for example — there were programs in some parts of the country, but they were a lot less prominent. So in some markets we were educating customers on this just being a different model: you don’t sign up for six weeks. You sign up and you keep going, because that’s how you build your progression, that’s how you build your skill, and that’s how you create safer swimmers with your children. That was definitely something we had to navigate in some markets.

Now what has happened is there are more well-qualified swim schools in general. There are other franchise brands that have come about, and everyone is really aiming for the same goal. We’re all trying to teach kids how to swim, teach them how to be safer. I selfishly think we do it the best — hopefully everybody feels that way about the brand they work for. So in some markets, it’s become more about how we sharpen our pencil in how we talk to customers, and how we make sure they see why British Swim School is the best place for their kids to learn how to swim.

For owners who started without any competition in their market and now see some coming in, it’s been a dual learning process for us and for them. How do we make the biggest impact in these communities? How do we help people find us?

I think the other piece everybody is navigating right now is just the different ways people are searching — the emergence of AI and the use of chatbots, all the different ways people can search. So it’s making sure our brand stays relevant and stays on top of the things that are going to help British Swim School show up when people are asking those types of questions of their AI platforms as well.

Safe and happy — every age, every stage

Dane: Makes a lot of sense. You mentioned that you feel like you’re the best, and that part of your competitive research is seeing what other people are doing. Where do you see British Swim School really providing an edge in that realm — a distinct, unique contribution that you continue to sharpen, to use the sharpen-the-pencil analogy?

Ashley: I think it’s two different places. Part of our mission is to make sure that everybody can be a safe and happy swimmer. And I think it’s the safe and happy — those two things together — where we spend an inordinate amount of time making sure our program is delivering. There are programs that can perhaps teach muscle memory to a young child in a very short amount of time, and in some ways it’s done in a way that might be a little more stressful for the child. We believe really strongly that a kid learns best when they’re having fun. They retain information better. On the flip side, there are programs that might be more fun, but the kids aren’t necessarily gaining all of the skills that are going to translate to an actual potential water accident, which a lot of the time is likely to happen in open water. We believe we sit at the crossroads of those two better than anybody else.

At the end of the day, I always tell our franchisees, I don’t ever want to talk down the competition, because we’re all just trying to make more kids safe. There are plenty of kids to enroll in all of our programs, and I always want to keep that in mind.

The second thing: we went through a brand repositioning last year, and we changed our mantra from “survival of the littlest” — which we’ll still use with our smallest swimmers — to “every age, every stage.” We know that a lot of our competitors aren’t working with older kids, really anybody over 12. There are a lot of adults who don’t know how to swim. There are a lot of teenagers who don’t know how to swim. So we have dedicated programs for both of those age groups.

Think about a kid in middle school or high school who might not know how to swim. Chances are they don’t want to swim alongside somebody my age — that’s not their cup of tea. They also probably don’t want to sit next to a five-year-old singing nursery rhymes and “The Wheels on the Bus.” So giving them a place where they can feel safe, where they can feel comfortable, where they’re not embarrassed that they can’t swim — they just haven’t learned how to swim yet — that’s something we’re really passionate about, and it’s definitely a place where we shine.

Dane: That’s awesome. I remember speaking with one of your franchisees, Nora, and she provided some really cool insight into the unique BSS sauce, which was part of the safety and the fun, right? It was really important for her to be able to speak with the parents — for example, in between sessions — and say, “Hey, this is how Johnny’s doing. Hey, this is how Lisa’s doing. How are you?” and create that community environment. So it becomes fun. When you have the parents involved too, they’re more excited. Their excitement carries to the child. The child’s more excited to learn. And ultimately that makes a self-reinforcing cycle of, “Yay, I’m excited to go to swim lessons.”

Ashley: We’ve really got two customers in those cases. You’ve got the parent and you’ve got the child. And if you can end every swim lesson with the kid laughing and having fun, then that’s what they’re going to remember and be asking about in the next week.

Dane: I think it’s really a lost art these days, with learning in general. When we’re young, we’re taught that learning can be fun and exciting, and there are people around us who help these environments thrive. But as we get older, it’s kind of on you — all right, you’ve got to figure it out on your own. Why can’t we make it fun again? Let’s go figure out a rap song or something to figure out how AI works at a systemic level, right? Or in enterprise corporate HR, do something more interesting and exciting, with gameplay. We’ve lost a lot of that fun part, which I think is incredibly essential.

I’ve been speaking with franchisees at Mathnasium as well, and that’s a key ingredient in what they use to help their students learn — especially with math, where a lot of people build an identity around it. I’m sure you see it too, especially with the adults: “I’m not a good swimmer,” or “I was never good at swimming.” It’s an identity thing that needs to be stripped down. As she says, you just don’t have the skills, right? It has nothing to do with your genetics or how you were born or some bad hand you were dealt. It’s just a skill you can grow and develop.

And when we make it fun, it’s a lot easier to say, “Yeah, look, this is fun, this is exciting, let’s do this,” and they’re a lot more willing to participate. Then it becomes self-reinforcing: “I want to go learn about math. I want to go swim.” That’s so important. You’re not dragging them kicking and screaming — “Come on, you’ve got to swim” — as important as it is to know how to tread water and float, especially on your back as an infant. The more fun it is, the more it’s going to stick, and it becomes self-propelling. And then you have people who take lessons, get so good they decide to stay and become swimmers, and maybe even start a swim business of their own.

Adults who can’t swim: the first session is dry

Ashley: For sure. And on what you were mentioning, the adults — one thing we find is that a lot of adults who can’t swim now had something scary happen when they were younger that perhaps turned them away from the water, or perhaps they didn’t even have access to swimming for whatever reason. So we teach our franchisees and their teams that the intake process with those new students is really, really important. Sometimes the first time they meet us, we won’t even go into the water. We’ll set it up like, “Hey, this is just going to be a group discussion, and we’re going to talk about what our goals are for joining this program and what has held you back from being able to do that before.” Sometimes that softer introduction, where you can think about why you’re doing it and why you haven’t done it in the past, cements somebody’s decision to do it and helps them stick with it.

What we also love is that adults who learn how to swim for the first time are really proud of what they’ve done, and they like to share that with other adults. So it becomes a nice repeating pattern with them in their communities.

Dane: That’s awesome. How do you see the progression of adults? Would you say that first initial sit-down is a bit of a nexus — if they decide to continue swimming from there, they’re successful? And for any of our adult listeners who are interested in swim lessons, what would you say are important things to keep in consideration?

Ashley: To answer your first question, absolutely. I think if we can get somebody to take that first step of considering it and talking with our teams, then typically the next stage — getting into the water and learning the steps — is successful. Most adults are naturally better listeners than kids, and less distractible. So in many cases we’re able to teach the basic level of skills a little bit faster, because we don’t necessarily have to sing the songs to get them excited about being in the pool. We get right down to business.

Dane: Have you guys tried?

Ashley: I’m sure there are locations having a lot of fun with this and singing songs. But no — in a lot of cases, once you get past that initial fear, it’s an easier path. Our instructors are trained really well to help people stretch their comfort level, but only incrementally, within what they’re comfortable with. Over time, that’s where you’re able to do more things.

And we don’t always just have people who have never learned how to swim. Sometimes it’s somebody who’s training for a triathlon, and they know their swimming portion is the weakest, so they want to perfect their strokes. We’ve got a local franchisee here in Virginia Beach — we’re a military town, so there’s a lot of Navy here — and there’s a Navy swim test that people have to pass. I know he’s worked with students who come in wanting to join the Navy but can’t pass the swim test, and his team works with them to get those skills. So it’s situational. We actually had an older woman one year who just wanted to be able to enjoy the swim-up bar on a family vacation. That was her goal. So it’s fun to hear the stories from the adult swimmers, for sure.

Dane: The Navy story is interesting. I imagine there’s a pretty high bar relative to the rest of the lessons. If we’re getting into the nitty-gritty — breaststroke, backstroke, side breathing? Or is it more essential? I’m not familiar.

Ashley: I don’t know all the details of the Navy swimming, and I know it’s different for the different branches of the military. I know there’s a treading-water component and various things. But it’s just exciting for us when we think about what these people go on to accomplish — and this would have been the one thing that held them back.

Dane: That’s super exciting. I’ve seen videos of some of the more treacherous swimming lessons that, I think, the SEALs have to go through, like the underwater one. Not quite that one, yeah.

Ashley: Yeah, I don’t think we’re teaching that one. Not quite at that level.

Dane: But a stepping stone, potentially. That’s awesome. So I want to jump back: you mentioned what’s unique about British Swim School in regard to the customers — the swimmers, of course, the lifeblood of the franchise. But as you mentioned, a large portion of your responsibilities falls on the franchisee experience. So I’m curious — aside from the playbook, or perhaps we can touch on the playbook a bit — what you see as a unique way British Swim School provides for new business owners. A lot of people who want to start a business look to franchising to support them, and a lot of folks are interested in swimming. It’s something that’s very far out, at the very least, from being automated by AI. Perhaps never — probably never. I don’t know if robots in water will do very well.

Ashley: Hopefully not.

Dane: Right. So from a technology perspective and a necessity perspective, it makes a lot of sense. It’s not going anywhere. People are always going to need to know how to swim — especially as the icebergs melt even more. Maybe we’ll swim to work and back as sea levels rise. But I’m wondering if you could touch a little on the essence of British Swim School for a business owner, and what you look to nurture and cherish in a franchisee, whether they’re just getting started or they’re a business owner looking to expand into different verticals, and how you support them through their journey.

Teaching inside other people’s pools

Ashley: Just a little bit of a primer on what we do: we aren’t building standalone facilities. We’re an asset-light model, and our businesses operate inside other locations that already have pools — hotels, gyms, retirement centers, a lot of schools and universities that have pools. For most of those facility owners, their pool has become a headache. It’s something they have to have, but it’s expensive, and in many cases it’s not used often. So we facilitate our franchisees making those relationships so they can operate for certain hours during the week in a certain portion of that pool. What that allows us to do for the community is get closer to where people live and make it really convenient and accessible.

The benefit for potential franchisees is that they get to come into our business at a much lower investment level. It’s much more affordable and attainable for an everyday investor. They get open a lot more quickly, which I think is also attractive — people can get open in 60 to 90 days in most cases.

What’s interesting, thinking about people who’ve considered British Swim School and who’ve become British Swim School owners: most of them don’t come from a swimming background. Most of them had never even considered a swim school. Although we do have a nice, healthy portion of our franchise community who came from being students of British Swim School, and they’re like, “I was driving 50 minutes to get to my lesson because there wasn’t a British Swim School in the town where I live. So my idea was, I’m going to open my own.” And they do that, which is really fun to watch. But most people are looking for a people-based business where they can make an impact in their community, and they know they want to do it at a reasonable investment level. So it’s fun when somebody’s aha light turns on for British Swim School and they’re like, “Okay, I can see why this is a really great model.”

For us, it’s fun to help them take whatever they did in their past, or are still doing — whether they’re really strong in employee communication, or in sales and marketing, or in operational management — and help them fill out the other pieces of the pie to be a great British Swim School owner. That’s a fun puzzle for us with every new person who comes in. Where are they strong? Where do we need to support them the most? And where can we just give them this playbook we talk about and say, “Okay, now you go and run this. As long as you’re staying within our guardrails, great.”

What I love the most is that I sit in on a Meet the Team Day conversation with everybody who’s considering British Swim School, and I hear their reason for doing this. Sometimes it’s a couple whose last kid just went off to college, or somebody who’s retiring from the military and figuring out what their next chapter is going to be. I hear why they want to do this and what they’re hoping to get out of it. Then you get to fast-forward a couple of years and see them meet that goal — find purpose in this next chapter of their life, or whatever the case might be. That’s really fun for us.

And I think when people get to that stage, when they start to really get their feet under them and they see, “Okay, here’s how I run these teams and here’s how I run these pools,” that’s when they start to consider, “Okay, how much more of this can I do? Are there opportunities to expand into neighboring markets, or are there more pools in my territory?” So it’s fun to just be the pathway for people to walk that route on their own, in their own way.

Dane: That’s awesome. I’m sure it’s very nourishing as a president to see people thrive and succeed, because it’s not easy.

Ashley: No, it’s not. Any small business somebody’s running is going to have its good days and its bad days. Our goal is to have a lot more good days than bad days, and when we hit the roadblocks that are inevitably going to be in every business, to get through them as quickly as possible. I think that’s one of the nice things about franchising: our franchisees get to benefit from everybody who came before them and hit that roadblock, and we’ve figured out the fastest way through it — or the fastest way to marketing success in their community, or whatever the case.

Dane: That’s awesome. What does the relationship look like between corporate and specific franchisees in terms of providing that unique support? It sounds like it’s quite tailored to the individual and their idiosyncrasies. How does one provide support at such a specialized fit, if that makes sense?

Ashley: We have a team of franchise business coaches at British Swim School. Every franchisee has an assigned business coach, and that’s really their go-to person. At least monthly, sometimes more frequently, they meet with that person and go over the KPIs related to their business, both looking backward and projecting forward, making sure they’re growing a healthy, sustainable business. I always refer to that person as, in addition to being a coach, your phone-a-friend as well. If something comes up and you don’t know where to go, that’s a great first step.

But one thing I do love about British Swim School is that I’ll tell people, “Hey, if you know you need to go immediately to this person in marketing or this person on our analytics team, you don’t have to go through your coach to get to that person. You can contact that person directly.” So we try to lessen the steps somebody has to take to get there. Of course we have graphic design request tickets and some of the processes you have to have when you get to our size. But I’ll tell franchisees, “Hey, you’re welcome to call me or email me or text me.” I will make time for anybody who needs it.

And we remind our team all the time: this is everybody’s livelihood for our franchisees. This is what they’ve put on the line. We aren’t successful unless they’re successful. So let’s see what we need to do to help them, even if it’s working through a problem on a weekend or in the evening. I think we tend to attract and hire people on our team who just get that.

Moving fast without breaking 200 franchisees

Dane: How much of that process is them gleaning information versus a feedback mechanism? You can ask a coach for help — “Hey, how do I establish a relationship with, let’s say, a 24 Hour Fitness, or a local hotel, or maybe a city recreational park?” — and each of those has its own dance, so to speak, to navigate. How much of it is information gleaning by the franchisees versus feedback given — “Hey, this specific protocol or part of the playbook, I’ve run it, and it hasn’t quite worked well for me”? I’m curious how much of that is a synergistic process where you can audit part of the playbook, or part of the FDD, as a sign that — and I’m just speculating here, I have no idea — maybe something is an old protocol. With AI, for example, I’m sure there’s not a huge playbook on how to use AI in a company, right? We’re all just learning about AI and figuring out how to use it. Where does that new feedback come into play as part of franchisee onboarding, nurturing, and growing?

Ashley: Great question. There are two sides to the coin. On one hand, you have to be nimble. You have to be able to take real-time feedback and real-time changes in technology, or whatever the case might be, and act upon it. I think we’re fortunate that we’ve got great franchisees who are constantly giving us feedback and telling us what they’re seeing on the ground, and that’s met with a great team that says, “Okay, I see the need for us to have an AI policy.” Or a good example: a couple of years ago, we realized that our training videos for instructors were a lot of long videos, and everybody’s used to YouTube Shorts and TikTok videos and Instagram Reels and all these things. So our aquatics team said, “We need to bring this into modern times.” They updated all of the trainings with a lot of shorter snippets, intermixed with questions, those kinds of things. So that’s one side of it: you’ve got to be nimble, and you’ve got to be able to listen to franchisees.

But on the other side, when a decision you’re making affects 200 franchisees, if you’re moving too fast, you might miss something. If you’ve rolled that out to 200 people and you’ve rolled it out wrong or it’s missing things, sometimes that’s worse than if you had waited a little while. So we’re constantly trying to figure out the dance: what do we need to change? Is it something we can change immediately and just roll out because it’s straightforward? Is it something we need to roll out in a couple of test markets, or with some franchisees we know will give us really great real-time feedback? Do we need to get some other third party involved? I’d imagine most franchisors are playing that dance as well. I’d like to think we move quickly when we need to, and we’re smart about pausing along the way and re-evaluating when we need to as well. Not always perfect, but it’s a constant play between those two sides.

Dane: It’s tough, right? Because you want to move as quickly as you can, but not faster than you need to. And where to draw that line can be very challenging.

Ashley: Luckily we’ve got people on our team who want to do both things. I always encourage a little bit of healthy conflict between teams, as long as we can do it professionally, and that tends to work itself out.

Healthy conflict, and “here’s another way”

Dane: This is a bit of an aside, and it brings to mind a totally different domain, but President Lincoln — I think part of his success as a leader is that he had half of his cabinet on one side of an issue and the other half of the cabinet on the other side. It’s very different, but I think what you nailed is really important: how to create a space where there’s not too much homogeneity of thinking. Because groupthink is incredibly toxic. It may feel great in a meeting when everyone’s like, “Yes, we’re all on board. Cool. Good job, guys. High five. We all think the same thing.” But what’s happening is that someone who had that one counterpoint or counter-thought doesn’t bring it up, because they feel like they’re not part of the group, right? There’s a whole social dynamic around that.

Ashley: It doesn’t do anybody any favors.

Dane: So it’s better to face the music and face that tension head-on and navigate: where’s the merit behind this idea? Where’s the trade-off? Constantly navigating that tension allows the good decisions to surface most of the time. Of course, there’s no perfect track record for any of this. But that’s cool — it sounds like that’s something that has naturally come about as part of your cabinet, to continue that metaphor.

Ashley: I think so. You have to create a safe space where somebody can come and say, “I disagree with that,” without fear of retribution. I’ve been in places where that wasn’t the case, and everybody’s just marching to a beat that nobody likes because the alternative doesn’t work. I’ve got some great examples — the leadership team at Buzz does that really, really well, always inviting other opinions and not worrying about what seniority level an opinion is coming from. Everybody has a voice. That’s something the senior team at British Swim School really tries to carry through to every layer of the organization. I love that we don’t always agree on things, and we can do it in a way where we can still be friends and professional colleagues at the end of it. I think it’s really, really important — probably in every aspect of life, right? Kids, everything.

Dane: I guess that’s the magic sauce, right? Managing healthy disagreements. I think that’s the flux that’s necessary in life. You just have to be okay with not everything grooving along, and recognize that it will ultimately lead to better results if you can navigate through that tension. I think navigating tension may be one of the most important rules — not only as an individual, but as an organization — and doing it with little residue. That’s what you mentioned, right? We don’t want people harboring grudges, acquiescing all the time and then silently becoming more detached, because every time they shoot out an idea it gets shot down, and they don’t feel heard or listened to. Then they start to detach, and they’re no longer investing as they once were.

Ashley: Yeah. And I think sometimes — and this goes for franchisees as well — if they come to us with a proposal for something that we can’t do for whatever reason, our team does a good job of saying, “Okay, so what are we actually trying to accomplish here? Let’s see if there’s another way to get to the same goal. Maybe it’s a different path.” So it’s not “you can’t do this,” it’s “okay, but you can do this.” Sometimes that’s a training opportunity with people who might be newer in their career, helping them see: here’s one way you could respond to this inquiry. You could just say, “No, that’s not part of our operating system.” Or you could say, “All right, we’re not able to do it in this way, but here’s how we think we can help you accomplish the same or a very similar goal.” That’s something I think is rewarding, when you see somebody grow that skill as they move up in their career.

Off the Record: the do-not-use file

Dane: Absolutely. I think this is a good time to jump into our recurring segment. It’s called Off the Record. Often we have very polished talking points and very well-rehearsed lines about how we run our day-to-day. But part of this podcast is to cut through some of that posturing and show the other side of humanity — the real, the raw side.

Ashley: Awesome.

Dane: It’s two parts. The first part is to talk about a time when you made a mistake, either personal or as part of an organizational decision. The second is something you’re working on, on a more personal side. I always lead, so I’ll happily start. There are so many — which one to pick from? Let’s see.

On a small team, when you’re dealing with personalities, it can be challenging to navigate: is this a personal vicissitude, or is this an actual protocol? With Heman, my co-founder, in particular, there have been times where I think: is this something I personally want, or is this something I think is good, detached from me? Often it’s not quite clear. Maybe that’s the second part of Off the Record, which I’m answering first. But it’s something I’m definitely more conscientious of, and I know I’ve faltered in the past where it’s sort of a personal thing — I feel personally, emotionally invested in this. And then when it gets shot down, because it’s just the two of us in a conversation, it’s not a personal attack. It’s more of a business decision. Removing myself from that is something I’m definitely getting better at.

Being more aware, I think, is the first part. Because we’re humans, and it’s almost impossible for us not to feel. Of course we’re going to feel things, but the challenge is to notice and acknowledge the feelings that come up in any situation and then just use that as data around the decision, as opposed to getting swept away by the current and river of emotion. It’s not easy, for me at least. There are times where I get pulled down the river a bit before I hop up on the riverbank, and I’m like, “I didn’t realize I just went fifty meters down this river.”

Ashley: I went to that place. Yeah.

Dane: And it’s not until I hop off onto the bank that I’m like, “Wow, okay. That was me just slipping into the river of emotion a bit without even acknowledging it.” So that’s definitely something I’m getting better at and working on, and it’s definitely caused plenty of mistakes in the past — arguments that didn’t need to happen, or were spurred by something like that. There are plenty I could pull from. It usually gets nested into proper architecture decisions.

As the technical co-founder, I am more adept at navigating these waters, but that doesn’t mean an architectural counterpoint or weakness can’t be surfaced by someone without a technical background, right? So it’s navigating that, and saying: yes, someone with little to no technical ability can raise a really reasonable caveat or trade-off that wasn’t considered — and then taking that at full force, without reflexively trying to find the reason why that caveat is irrelevant. That’s something I’ve certainly done before. I’m pretty good at it now, maybe not perfect.

But especially with AI, it’s crazy. To be more specific, he can come in with features prototyped and ready to go, and I’m like, “Wow, this is a non-technical user with a pretty full-fledged feature that I now need to go in and dissect.” That’s a whole new space. So that’s just part of the times as well — how to navigate people who are now very technically empowered, with little to no technical education or background, being able to contribute very meaningful additions to the product. That one’s very recent. So yeah, that’s my Off the Record. Over to you.

Ashley: I would say maybe my Off the Record would be being comfortable with the fact that not every decision we make is going to be popular or well received by everybody. Like I said, we have 200 franchise entities, and most of those are partnerships — some of them are husband and wife. So you’ve got, what, 300-odd people. You’re never going to do something that makes everybody happy, unless you told everybody, “We’re going to give you all money,” or something like that, right? So everything is going to be met with differing opinions, which is great. That’s what makes a franchise system tick. But it’s not always comfortable.

In the role I’m in, sometimes the challenges that arrive on my plate or in my inbox come after they’ve gone through three or four other people. So you get somebody who’s frustrated at something. I remember commenting one evening to my husband that I’d had to deal with a couple of things that were particularly uncomfortable. We balance each other well. And he’s like, “I think you just have to get used to that. That’s just part of your job.” I had gotten after him about something he complained about every night, and I was like, “I think it’s just part of your job. You’ve got to buck up, buddy.”

So that was a big thing: I had to be comfortable with some discomfort, and recognize that there are always going to be a couple of people who are irritated or frustrated or just all-out mad about something. Where I come in is helping us get to the other side of that equation and maintain a relationship, because we have a contract and we’ve got to maintain a relationship. It’s not like a client in my prior world, where we could just fire each other, right? You’ve got to make it work. So I would say that’s a muscle I’m always trying to build: being comfortable with being uncomfortable, and not letting that ebb and flow into my time with my family and impact how I feel about everything in general. That’s a hard one. I’ve gotten a lot better, but it’s still a work in progress.

Dane: Love that. Very human. Very human. I think none of us really want to feel that tension. We want harmony — we all strive for harmony. It’s a very core operating mechanism. And sometimes there’s only so far you can go. Going as far as you can, then acknowledging it and moving forward — that’s really all you can do.

The other part of Off the Record is a time when a mistake was made. Was there a time, specifically around that one, where it didn’t go so well? We obviously don’t have to name names — or we could think of a different problem or mistake that came up. Every mistake comes with its own learning.

Ashley: Man, I can think of one or two back in my agency days — using a client file that was the do-not-use file, and it getting used as the use file, and communicating to a lot of people who weren’t supposed to get communicated to. This was 2010 or something like that. And then the wrath of the client after — it’s like you burned your hand so badly. That was the “always double-check your work” lesson: don’t trust yourself to be the smartest person in the room and to remember everything. That’s something I’ve probably always had to work on — not moving too fast, not sending something before you’ve read it again.

There have probably been a few decisions we’ve made here at British Swim School — whether it was using a particular provider for something — where hindsight’s 20/20 on that one, without going into egregious details. If we all had the rewind button, there are some things we would probably do differently.

But man, I could tell you some of the words that client said back when we made that data error. It was like, I never knew I would hear that in a professional setting. I was young at the time. So that’s probably the one that has stuck in my mind after all this time.

Dane: Probably searing. The analogy you used — burning your hand — sounds like it was quite unpleasant.

Ashley: It was quite an unpleasant one. We lost a client over it. So that was a mistake.

Dane: Well, who knows the benefit of that mistake, right? The diligence and scrupulousness you have now, all of the mistakes you’ve navigated through as a result of that.

Ashley: Sure. Yeah, absolutely.

What’s next, and advice to a younger Ashley

Dane: Looking forward, what are you excited for on the new frontier? Also, thanks for that Off the Record — that was great. What are you excited for at British Swim School in 2026 and 2027 — new waters you’re navigating, as well as perhaps cutting some old fat?

Ashley: Literally new waters — our team is always looking to expand into new pool partnerships, and we’ve got some exciting things probably on the horizon there. But one thing I think is really exciting for us is that, as we’ve gotten larger, we’re no longer this regional swim school operator, and we’ve started to get the attention of — and be able to play ball with — some of the other bigger child service providers in the industry. We’ve just rolled out the first stages of a new partnership, which is something that is really exciting. We are literally swimming in the same pond with those families, so for us to be able to talk the same language and recommend one another, that’s something that’s really, really exciting for us.

We have a few other partnerships I can’t name yet that I think are on the horizon for the next six or so months, which we’re thrilled about. And then I mentioned the young adult program. I think there are some opportunities for us to really meet the needs of that older-kid-but-still-a-kid age group. They’re not going to be the super-competitive swimmers, but they still want to be in the water, they still want to have fun, they still want to improve their skills. So there are some opportunities we’re starting to think about there — how we can be that provider for those families, and be a place where kids who just love to swim can just swim.

Dane: That’s awesome. Well, we’re getting close to time here, and we always finish out the episode with some words of wisdom you would give a young Ashley. If you were to give five- or ten-years-ago Ashley a bit of a pep talk, what would you tell her?

Ashley: I would advise five- or ten-years-ago Ashley to really cultivate the relationships around you, because that’s going to be the most important part of where you go over the next five to ten years. None of us are flying this plane solo, whether it’s professionally or personally. Surround yourself with people who are going to both lift you up and challenge you. I think that’s what I would give the five- or ten-years-ago Ashley, because maybe she didn’t come from a place prior where that was valued in the same way. Seeing that we all work together better than we work individually.

Dane: Love that. Awesome. So transferable to everywhere in life. Well, Ashley, it’s been a real pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing some of your wisdom, your story, and the exciting path that lies ahead for British Swim School. Thanks so much for joining us, Ashley.

Ashley: Thank you. It was fun.

Dane: Bye, guys.