How to Scale a Sport Clips Franchise to Over 50 Units

In franchising, the leap from owning one location to owning five is challenging. The leap from five to 15 is where many operators hit a ceiling. Beyond that, the business often becomes increasingly dependent on the owner's time, making additional growth increasingly difficult. Sport Clips* Haircuts was built to solve that problem.

In 1993, founder Gordon Logan envisioned a franchise system where owners would never be expected to cut hair themselves. Instead, they would focus on building leaders, developing culture and creating systems capable of supporting dozens of locations.

"Since this business was started over 30 years ago, this was really his vision," said Brent Greenwood, vice president of franchise development. "Our Team Leaders aren't expected to cut hair, so there is a limited amount of time you need to be in the store to support that growth. Knowing that, you can really continue to scale while you grow your portfolio."

Scalable business model

Today, that philosophy has produced operators managing portfolios that would be difficult to replicate in many other service concepts.

The biggest misconception Greenwood hears from prospective Team Leaders is that Sport Clips is a semi-absentee franchise. He disagrees with that characterization. Instead, he describes the model as “manager-led.”

Semi-absentee ownership often suggests minimal involvement. Sport Clips expects the opposite. Team Leaders remain deeply engaged in the business, but their time is invested differently.

"It's not until a Team Leader opens up three stores before they need to start looking at a full-time commitment with the business," Greenwood said. "It's working on the business instead of working in the store."

Rather than providing haircuts, owners develop managers, mentor teams, recruit talent, monitor financial performance and strengthen their presence within their communities.

"If you are spending more than 10 to 15 hours in the store, you are probably driving the team crazy," Greenwood said with a laugh. "A lot of what you do as a Team Leader is leading a store manager. Having that flexibility and schedule to build the right culture in the four walls of the store is very important."

An owner with three stores may spend much of their time coaching store managers and refining operations. At 15 locations, they begin adding regional leadership. At 30 or 40 stores, they are building an executive team that manages the business while they focus on long-term strategy, acquisitions and future development.

"Our model is designed to allow investors to keep their full-time careers as they grow," Greenwood said. "It's about leading managers, building culture and driving performance."

Operational advantages

Conventional wisdom suggests that every additional location adds complexity. Sport Clips has found the opposite.

"The business becomes much easier to operate the more stores you open," Greenwood said. "You can share resources between stores. You can move those resources around when needed. And you're spreading out the risk as well. You aren't relying on one location to dictate success."

That portfolio approach creates operational advantages that simply don't exist for single-unit owners.

“After being in six different franchise systems, Sport Clips stands out because the model is so simple and easy to manage that I can focus on the big picture instead of the day-to-day,” said Jesse Keyser, a Team Leader who has built a Sport Clips portfolio of more than 30 locations spanning five states.

Building dozens of locations requires more than a strong operating model. It requires a franchisor capable of supporting operators as they grow. That is where Sport Clips has spent the past several years investing heavily.

We know field support is key to success and have spent the last few years building out a strong team of coaches nationwide," Greenwood said. "They are doing more in-person training than ever before and highly-trained Stylists lead to improved unit economics."

That one-to-25 support ratio gives Team Leaders significantly more direct operational guidance than many franchise systems that spread field support across far larger territories.

Instead of simply responding when problems arise, coaches regularly visit stores, mentor managers, reinforce operational standards and help Team Leaders maintain consistency as their organizations become larger and more complex.

"We only open as many stores as we can support," Greenwood said. "We want our Team Leaders to do well over the long term."

Support and infrastructure

No multi-unit system succeeds without people. For Sport Clips, that means creating a recruiting and retention process that can consistently produce licensed Stylists while allowing Team Leaders to focus on leadership instead of constantly searching for applicants.

"We have a team of recruiters who are there to support the Team Leaders and help find candidates they can bring in for interviews," Greenwood said.

Before a new Sport Clips opens, the recruiting team works alongside Team Leaders to build a fully staffed salon. "Before we open up a store, we want at least eight Stylists already on the team," Greenwood said. "We've carved it out in terms of the timeline. It takes about one month to get those first people on staff. The Team Leaders simply conduct the interviews and choose the Stylists they want to move forward with."

As portfolios grow, that recruiting infrastructure becomes increasingly valuable. Rather than every store independently searching for talent, Team Leaders gain access to centralized recruiting support while also developing internal career paths that encourage Stylists to become assistant managers, store managers and regional leaders.

“Because this business isn’t usually owner-operated, it’s much easier to scale,” said Adam Moskowitz, a Team Leader who operates 27 locations across Louisiana and Mississippi. “You have to be present for your teams, but you don’t have to go in and cut hair every day.”

For many Team Leaders entering Sport Clips from restaurant, fitness or retail backgrounds, the day-to-day role looks very different than expected. "The day-to-day life of the Sport Clips Team Leader is about mentoring the team and prioritizing culture," Greenwood said. "It's not about cutting hair."

Instead, owners spend their time recruiting, coaching, marketing and strengthening relationships throughout their communities. "Recruiting and retention, marketing, becoming the mayor of their town," Greenwood said. "Finding partnership opportunities with schools and other local businesses. Those are all the roles that the Team Leaders typically take on."

As Sport Clips approaches its next phase of expansion, leadership continues investing behind the scenes to ensure the operating model remains just as effective at 2,500 locations as it is today.

The company has expanded field support, increased training resources and invested heavily in proprietary technology, including its in-house mobile app and approximately 50-person technology team dedicated to improving the customer experience.

Just as importantly, Sport Clips has chosen to remain privately owned rather than pursue private equity ownership. "We're a huge brand without any sort of private equity influence," Greenwood said. "We have no interest in taking PE dollars."

For entrepreneurs evaluating scalable franchise opportunities, Greenwood believes that combination of infrastructure, culture and operational simplicity sets Sport Clips apart.

"You can build the business to a point where you can step away from your current career and focus on the Sport Clips business," Greenwood said. "You can make that transition much more comfortably without feeling like you have to rip the Band-Aid off."

That long-term vision explains why so many Sport Clips Team Leaders don't stop at one location. The system was designed from the beginning to make three stores achievable, 15 stores manageable and portfolios of 30 or more locations a realistic path for the right operator.