We just opened our 65th North American training center

A successful franchise system expands much the same way a military operation advances—on the shoulders of its supply lines. At Great Clips, we recently opened two training centers, one in Toronto (# 64) and another in Boston (# 65). In both cases, our objective was not to saturate the market with owners first, so we could afford to install the training center. No, instead we built the training center after just a few salons were open in each market (and in Boston, after just one salon was open). This local support and training affords our owners the best opportunity to succeed in the market. Too often franchisors, in their haste to open units, will forego logistics and infrastructure for short-term revenues. They’ll open stores randomly rather than strategically, sacrificing economies of scale, marketing leverage, and accessibility to training and support resources.

Our 65 state-of-the-art training centers support our approximately 30,000 stylists in nearly 2,800 salons across 140 markets. In all our centers, an on-site salon operations specialist instructs stylists in the latest techniques and customer-service protocols, as well guiding managers in their day-to-day salon operations. The centers are also available for owner meetings, vendor presentations, and regional conferences.

We have several more training center openings planned this year including a high-profile facility we’ve earmarked for Washington, D.C. Our nation’s capital is another underserved market where demand for our value-priced, no appointment necessary service is monumental.

Great Clips is growing; growing prudently for our system and the right way for our franchise owners.

The July/August issue of Franchise Entrepreneur has us covered

Franchise Entrepreneur magazine, Canada’s premiere franchise publication, features Great Clips salon owner, John Kellett, on the cover and offers more coverage about our newest True North franchisee on page 27 [click here].

It makes sense that FE picked John to grace their banner position: He’s a hugely successful computer software executive, and the type of savvy businessman and entrepreneur that franchisors are clamoring to attract.

Like many of our franchise owners, John was drawn to Great Clips because we gave him the opportunity to keep his day job, own an equity business, manage it from a home office, and implement a 3-5 year transition strategy from software VIP to business owner/CEO. John recently opened his first salon in Toronto and plans to open two more in the next three months.

Of our 2700 North American salons, we have 60 in Canada. Canada is wide-open territory for us, but we don’t feel like pioneers. We now have 68 training centers throughout the U.S. and Canada, including our new 1,350-square foot training facility that we recently opened outside of Toronto in Vaughan, Ontario. We also have experienced personnel in the field, and dedicated professionals at our home office committed to the success of our franchise owners.

Franchise Entrepreneur, we salute your cover choice for the July/August edition.

Why are you looking? Do you love hair – or do you love business?

Prospective franchisees look at franchise opportunities for a variety of reasons: recent job loss, pending job loss, bored with retirement, helping a relative, etc. But most prospective franchisees will quickly start to make a list of things they want to see in a franchise concept – and things they don’t want to see. During a conference call last week, one of our East coast franchisees – who owns two Great Clips salons – shared his criteria for a franchise concept.

1) He didn’t want a food franchise.

2) He wanted a product or service that couldn’t be outsourced.

3) He wanted something recession-proof, or at least highly recession-resistant.

The cat’s already out of the bag – he’s a relatively new Great Clips franchisee so you know he met his criteria by joining our franchise system. What are you looking for? If you haven’t yet made a list of your criteria, it may be wise to take some time to think about it and write it down. Many of our franchisees will usually share criteria similar to the ones listed here. Very few of them say they “love hair”!

If you’d like to listen to the full recorded conference call, featuring this franchisee taking questions from prospective franchisees like yourselves, simply [CLICK HERE] to access our online Confidential Application.