She’s
About
a Mover
Linda Fong moves
ahead in her own
special way
BY EDDY GOLDBERG
MU 50 Profile: Linda Fong
With her high energy and positive
attitude, it’s no surprise that
Linda Fong is a successful multi-brand, multiunit franchisee. However, like
many franchisees, she’s not one of those
who made a plan and followed a straight
line to that success. But it’s the detours
and her individualism that have taught
her what she needed.
“I remember getting a review from one of
my bosses, and they indicated ‘Linda is a
valuable asset, but needs to mature a bit
more to...’ I think I was all of 22, and I
didn’t pay attention to the first part of the
sentence because I was so insulted with the
latter part. What do they mean I need to
mature? I know of what he spoke now,” she
says.
Her meandering route, which took place
in and around the San Francisco Bay Area,
included working for PG&E (a large
California utility company) for several years
before joining her husband at his salon,
kenz!, in Alameda. She attended “just about
every East Bay city college, but couldn’t get
solid footing on any one subject, so I took
very subject-specific classes. I still do that to
this day via conferences, seminars, and
workshops. I learned the most from the
school of hard knocks.”
Her most valuable training, education,
and business experience came not when
someone critiqued or reviewed her technical
skills, but her attitude, she says.
“I am also a Vidal Sassoon trained
hairdresser, and I remember the first week
when I was resisting learning new methods,
and the instructor said, ‘If you want to do
things your way, then go save yourself some
money and go home. You didn’t pay us to let
you do things your way.’ Ouch!”
These hard-won lessons are useful today
when Fong, now in the position to do the
criticizing, has to train and manage
employees at her two Fastsigns and one
Plato’s Closet locations. “These are strong
franchisors who have a proven system.” (She
used to own three Liberty Fitness locations,
but sold those.)
