Hand & Stone accelerates franchise growth
Jackie Chamberlin, Director of Real Estate for Hand & Stone Massage, shares how working with Kalibrate streamlines site selection, reduces risk, and helps franchisees grow with greater confidence.
Real estate decisions you can stand behind
When evaluating hundreds of sites in the franchise development pipeline, having the data to support location decisions is critical to a franchisees success.
Hand & Stone needed:
Hand & Stone needed a way to evaluate franchise opportunities and real estate locations at scale—without relying on gut instinct alone.
- A faster, more efficient way to evaluate franchise opportunities and real estate sites with a lean team.
- Data to validate site selection decisions rather than relying solely on experience or instinct.
- A process for identifying optimal trade areas and real estate opportunities before franchisees purchased territories.
- Better visibility into potential cannibalization and revenue impact when opening new locations near existing spas.
- Consistent benchmarks for evaluating markets across rural, suburban, and urban environments.
- A way to assess whether local demographics and customer profiles aligned with the Hand & Stone membership model.
- Insights into massage therapist availability and labor supply when pursuing new markets.
- Tools to reduce franchisee concerns around protected territories and nearby store development.
Kalibrate provided:
With Kalibrate, Hand & Stone can bring together the data and analytics needed to make more informed, real estate decisions at scale.
- Optimization points and trade area analysis to identify the best markets for franchise expansion.
- Market Shift Reports that quantify the potential impact of new locations on existing spas and franchise owners.
- Custom demographic reporting and benchmark analysis tailored to Hand & Stone’s business model.
- Consumer segmentation insights through Mosaic data to evaluate whether a market matches Hand & Stone’s target customer base.
- Labor market intelligence, including massage therapist density and massage therapy school locations, to support staffing strategy.
- Interactive mapping that combines competition, wellness businesses, mobility data, and consumer insights in a single view.
- Faster site evaluation and decision-making through an intuitive platform and mobile access for field work and events.
- Ongoing partnership, training, support, and continuous platform enhancements that help the team work more efficiently
Jackie Chamberlin: Director of Real Estate
How has Kalibrate changed the way you make real estate decisions?
Working with location data has transformed decisions from guesswork into grounded strategy. While experience and intuition still matter, data allows us to make smarter, faster, and more consistent decisions about site selection, market planning, and long-term growth. It reduces complexity and improves efficiency across the entire process.
Why is location intelligence so important to your role?
My primary responsibility is selecting new locations for our franchisees, and location intelligence plays a crucial role in that process. By identifying optimization points and trade areas, we can evaluate markets before a franchisee even purchases a territory. That allows us to move faster, find real estate sooner, and ultimately open locations more quickly.
How has the KLI mobile app changed the way you evaluate sites?
The KLI mobile app has been a game changer for me. Whether I'm walking a site, meeting with brokers, or attending industry events like ICSC, I can access the information I need right from my phone. Instead of waiting until I'm back at my desk, I can review a location, check trade area insights, and make informed decisions in real time.
What would you tell someone considering investing in location intelligence?
Make the investment. Having data that's specific to your business and industry is invaluable. It helps standardize your process, improve consistency, reduce risk, and support better outcomes for franchisees. Beyond the platform itself, what stands out is the partnership. The Kalibrate team listens, continuously improves the product, and feels like an extension of our team rather than a vendor.