Kristin Kidd: Turning Alignment Into Action

Name: Kristin Kidd
Title: COO
Company: Head to Toe Brands: The Lash Lounge, Frenchies Modern Nail Care, Bishops Cuts/Color, Delta Crown. As a franchisee, 2 School of Rock
Years in franchising: 17
Number of units: 200

Kristin Kidd, COO of Head to Toe Brands, is a versatile, thoughtful, and creative executive with deep experience in scaling emerging franchise systems. Her early background in the creative industries makes her a well-rounded and inspiring leader, driving teams to success through strategic vision and positive, effective coaching. Since joining The Lash Lounge, she has led the brand through the opening of 130-plus locations, navigated the challenges of the pandemic, and helped establish the brand as a leader in the beauty franchise industry. Following The Lash Lounge’s acquisition by Riverside Private Equity, Kristin played a key role in forming Head to Toe Brands from the ground up, building the right team, structuring the platform, and positioning it for long-term growth. Today, Head to Toe Brands encompasses The Lash Lounge (130 locations), Bishops Cuts (40 locations), Frenchies Modern Nail Care (28 locations), and Delta Crown (new!).

As a franchisee, Kristin and her husband own two School of Rock locations, which they opened in 2019 and 2021. Before that, they developed years of hands-on experience by working for a School of Rock franchisee, launching and operating 27 locations across the country. They developed best practices that have since been adopted at the corporate level.

Kristin is a dynamic and impactful speaker, blending her on-stage presence as a musician with her high-energy, engaging approach. She’s an outgoing and direct leader who thrives at inspiring audiences with insights on culture, business growth, and leadership. Outside of work, she enjoys going on walks with her dog, spending time in the gym, and performing with her band.

Personal & Leadership Journey

What inspired you to pursue leadership in franchising/branding? My mom is an educator, and my father is a professional speaker and entrepreneur, so I was born with a love for teaching, coaching, and speaking. My early jobs were coaching and managing. I started working for a School of Rock franchisee in 2009. That’s where I learned my love for operations, opening new stores, growing, managing staff, and building repeatable, scalable systems. In addition to being a franchise owner with my husband, I found a career with The Lash Lounge, which led to Head to Toe Brands. I knew that my skill set was transferable, and my love for operational leadership naturally progressed on the franchisor side.

Can you share a defining moment that shaped your leadership style? ADHD is my challenge and my superpower. I’ve always been hyperaware of how I interact with others. I want to make sure that what I’m saying is what you are hearing. You can have the best ideas in the world, but if you’re not communicating them well or executing on them, they are effectively meaningless. Early on in my role at The Lash Lounge, I learned that working with multiple franchisees means working with the full spectrum of personality traits, learning styles, and communication styles. It was a lightbulb moment that reminded me that my job is to learn to communicate effectively with them. It’s what they expect, and what they deserve.

How has your personal background influenced the way you lead? As a franchisee’s employee first, I understand the importance of having a good owner who cares about the well-being of their staff. Franchisees should support their people. That means coaching them, teaching them, and helping them grow. When you take care of your staff, they take care of your customers. You have to lead by example. I remember what it’s like inside the four walls of the business. And I want every owner to understand how important it is to nurture their staff and create a great culture. This is what sets great businesses apart from good ones.

Who or what has most influenced your philosophy as a leader or changemaker? Meg Roberts, CEO of Head to Toe Brands, was the first female boss/mentor I ever had. Over the past nine years of working together, she has shown me how consistently real she is. She leads with her heart, caring deeply for every one of her franchisees. She knows the importance of making hard decisions necessary for the health or growth of the brand and working hard to make sure everyone sees the “why” behind them. She loves her team, knows how to make things fun, and leads with integrity. I couldn’t ask for a better mentor, friend, or boss.

Driving Change & Innovation

What significant changes or innovations have you led within your brand? I’ve changed POS systems, created and taught educational business training, and reinvented memberships—you name it. My career runs the gamut from technology to education to services.

How did you implement those changes, and what results did they bring? You scope it out. You get everyone on board with the timeline and deliverables. You have regular check-ins. You bring franchisees in early for pilot/beta tests to get buy-in. And you communicate early and often with people in the system.

What role have you had in adopting new technologies, including AI? I wrote our internal ChatGPT rules for our home office team.

How do you identify when it’s time for a brand to evolve? Are things not working, or are we slipping? Can things be better? Can XYZ drive meaningful change? Improve sales? Improve customer experience? Improve staff satisfaction? Then it’s time to change.

Have you led similar change initiatives at other brands? Yes! As I write this, we are actively undergoing a complete POS change for Bishops. It was months of research, setup, data validation, and pilot testing. Zenoti has been an incredible partner with us.

How do you communicate change effectively to franchisees? Over and over and over!

Challenges & Resilience

What obstacles have you encountered while driving change, and how did you overcome them? Angry or disengaged franchises can be your biggest obstacle. Every system has them. We have a saying in School of Rock: 10-80-10 (better known as the bell curve). Ten percent of your students/parents are there for life. They love you, bring you Starbucks, and write great Google reviews. Another 10% hate it. Nothing makes them happy. The kids don’t want to be there, and they take up a lot of your time and mental capacity as you try to do anything and everything you can to make them happy. Then there’s the 80%, kids who come regularly, and their parents are quiet. It’s our goal to move all of those into the top 10%. That’s where our focus and our energy are spent.

From the franchisor side, we know there’s a bell curve as well. We have top performers. They’re the members of our FAC, and they’re the validators. They love us, come to conventions, and serve as brand champions. We also have the angry or disengaged franchises with whom we end up spending much time and mental energy. What about the middle group? What about the quiet majority who never really speak up? How do we engage them? Excite them? Motivate them? Our job in leadership, whether it’s to effect change or simply grow as a system, is to engage our middle group, one by one, and get them into our top.

How do you maintain momentum when new ideas face resistance? It’s usually when they don’t understand the “why.” Why are we doing this when XYZ works fine? Why are we doing this now? Why are you charging me for this? Communication is so important in franchising. We’ve all heard some iteration of the phrase, “Once you’ve said it 10 times, they’ve heard it once.” In franchising, that’s absolutely true. You have to say it 100 times. I’ve recently been loving the idea that you have to tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, tell them you told them, and then remind them, remind them, remind them.

What lessons have you learned from an initiative that didn’t go as planned? We learned to listen. We wanted one of our brands to transition to another POS system. We thought it would work better than the one they were on, and we had it all planned out. While we went through all the due diligence, we started to see it was not the right fit. At the same time, another brand was telling us quite directly that they were not happy with the POS they were on, and things needed to change. We tried everything to convince them, but as these two things converged, we sat down and said, “Why are we pushing this? We need to listen to what we are hearing from the franchisees and stop assuming we know what’s best.” So, we did. Since then, sentiment has shifted from frustration to trust, and technological enhancements have grown leaps and bounds.

How do you balance short-term pressures with long-term vision? One of my work superpowers is that I can zoom in and out easily. I can jump down into the weeds and then back out to the skydiver’s view. It helps me keep priorities in check.

Culture & People

How do you build and motivate high-performing teams? I have a few books that have made a great impact on my leadership style, and I love to share them with my teams and my franchisees. First, I love to recommend the book Soup by Jon Gordon. It’s short, sweet, and all about building a culture. Secondly, I love recommending Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson. This book goes deep into the DiSC personality ideology, how each color sees themselves, sees others, and is seen by others. It’s incredibly insightful when you learn your strengths and weaknesses. I’ve said it before, but I fully believe that what you say doesn’t matter; it’s what they hear. You have to speak and communicate to be heard and understood.

What practices help you connect with employees and franchisees at every level? Knowing my communication style and personality traits and actively working on my shortcomings. I seek to be understood.

How do you build buy-in and bring others along when pushing for change? Franchising and leadership are about influence. The ability to influence for positive change is so important. If people don’t believe in why you are doing something, they won’t want to come along for the ride. You have to build trust first.

How do you mentor or empower the next generation of leaders or changemakers? I believe strongly that knowledge is power. The more you know and learn, the better equipped you are to grow and then lead.

Future & Vision

What excites you most about the future of your brand or the industry? Every brand we have makes people feel more confident, beautiful, or happy about themselves. We are in the business of beauty, and that means something so personal to every person who walks through our doors. People want to treat themselves or enhance their natural beauty, and all of our brands embody this.

How do you stay true to a brand’s core while still adapting for the future? You have to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything. Having a strong mission, vision, and values for your brand defines your North Star. Everything you seek to do now or in the future should align with that North Star.

Where do you see the greatest opportunities for women in franchising? Knowing where to find the resources to open a small business. How do you get a small business loan? What do you need to qualify? What brands fit your goals, experience, and lifestyle? So many people want to become business owners, but they don’t know where to start. I have a passion for helping people take that next step. That was me! When I wanted to open a School of Rock, I had no idea what to do. I believed in the concept so strongly but wasn’t wealthy. I didn’t come from money. Thankfully, my family invested with me, and we got an SBA and learned every step along the way. I want to help young people who love a brand learn how to open their own stores.

If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be? Don’t wait so long to go after your dreams!

What advice would you give to leaders who want to create lasting impact? Work on your own shortcomings, and try to do better for your team every day. When you mess up, own it. Don’t ever stop learning or trying to get better. You are here to serve your franchisees and your team, not the other way around.