Franchisee Spotlight: Jerry and Debbie L'Heureux, owners of Hand & Stone in Glen Mills

Each week Hand & Stone will highlight a franchisee. This week Jerry and Debbie L'Heureux are our spotlight franchisees.

Franchisee Since: December 2009
Franchisee Location/s: Glen Mills, PA

How Jerry and Debbie Got Started With Hand & Stone…

Jerry, a 25-year veteran of the call center industry, had worked his entire life and thought it was time to retire. After spending four years in retirement, Jerry found himself extremely bored, as well as frustrated with the economy. Much of Jerry’s prior experience was working with Fortune 500 companies, helping their subsidiaries grow from million dollar companies to multi-million dollar companies. Jerry did some consulting outside of work and one of his colleagues had sold advertisements to the local Hand & Stone regional developer.

After a short conversation about the Hand & Stone concept and business model, Jerry realized that he could help the economy by opening a business that would supply jobs within the community, which was something he was very passionate about. Jerry began researching the franchise opportunity, met with many store managers and soon thereafter met with the Hand & Stone team to start the process of becoming a Hand & Stone franchisee. Jerry decided to partner with Patrick Purcell, a friend from his previous career and his wife Maggie.

What Intrigued Jerry and Debbie about Hand & Stone…

Jerry knew his experience in the call center industry would not go far when entering into Hand & Stone, but realized that was what the support of the franchise system was for. He was intrigued that he could become a successful business owner in an industry he did not know much about because of the knowledge and coaching of the corporate team.

Something Interesting About Jerry and Debbie’s Story…

Within the shopping center where Hand & Stone is located, Jerry has formed a retail association, where members from other businesses come together to collaborate. One of the things Jerry developed was a monthly calendar which is distributed to customers within each store, which lists all of the promotions and specials each store has for the month.

The retail association that Jerry developed hosted a father’s day car show, supporting the Brandywine Lion’s Club, which was held in the shopping center community. Each business sponsored a decade of cars from 100 year old cars to brand new cars. Hand & Stone raffled off massages and other services during the event, which proved to be a huge success with over 350 cars.