Sportclips: Driving Business across the Country

Cars with bright Crayola colors and logo decals prominently displayed line up at the start line. The track curves in a perfectly designed oval and each driver focuses their razor sharp gaze ahead towards the path to victory. As the crowds swell with cheers you can almost smell the burned rubber as the flag goes down and the cars take off. Leaning forward in your seat, someone from behind you asks you about your free follow-up neck trim.

Sport Clips, a Georgetown, Texas-based salon chain, opened its first store in 1993 and now boasts over 300 sites as of the end of 2005. Targeting boys and men, the Sport Clips Salon is designed to have a sports-oriented atmosphere in every way. Each salon has gymnasium-style wood flooring, the cutting floor is shaped like a baseball diamond, lockers at every stylist station, and the front desk looks like an equipment cage. No sports-themed space would be complete without televisions so Sport Clips has strategically placed TV’s between lockers, tuned into stations like ESPN and ESPN2. What man could resist?

Sport Clips is growing faster than any salon chain in the country thanks to the sound business model that makes these salons successful and profitable. Phil Horvath, previous president of the International Chain Salon Association (ICSA), has been quoted in recent business journals as saying, “The industry is growing at a rate of roughly 3 percent a year. Sport Clips is an anomaly in the industry with regards to the numbers of new stores it is opening. Sport Clips has communicated clarity in their message- who they are and what they stand for.” Gordon Logan, the Founder and President of Sport Clips, Inc. has built a team around him that mirrors and multiplies his talents. Creating a corporate culture at the head office that is unique and powerful Gordon continues to be involved in the company in many functions.

Recognizing the potential of targeting the impressive market of haircuts for men and boys, Gordon and his management team developed the Sport Clips concept, including the development of haircutting systems, operating procedures, and marketing programs to capitalize on this market. With over twenty years of franchising experience, Gordon has distilled his knowledge of the hair care industry to simplify and focus the Sport Clips systems down to the consistency in technique used by the stylists. “Typically in the hair salon chain business,” Logan states,“customers complain of a lack of consistency in their haircuts.” To solve this dilemma, Sport Clips has developed its own training system. “The system helps ensure a more consistent haircut, and makes the haircutting process easier, thus encouraging good stylists to stay with Sport Clips,” Logan says. Loyal customers can come back time and again to any of the hundreds of Sport Clips locations and are guaranteed the same great service at each and every one.

You think the Sport Clips reach stops there? Think again. Sport Clips is a place where men go to look good, but they also believe in supporting what makes men feel good. Highly involved in the sports arena, Sport Clips has been sponsors of NASCAR drivers such as Mike Wallace, Joe Nemechek, Scott Pruett, and Paul Tracy. “These are some of the most loyal fans in sports and we like to share this excitement with not only our clients, but within our system. We give pit passes for Team Leaders, Area Developers and the fans who come in to our stores and register to win. It’s a great way to spread the enthusiasm past the race track.”

Sport Clips are not only growing solidly across the map, they also have created information technology benefits specifically to help the franchisees stay on top of their game. At the end of 2005, Sport Clips and Shortcuts teamed up to create a package specifically customized for the Sport Clips community, complete with the advanced reporting structures provided by the new reporting product Intellicube.

The name of the game for Shortcuts is customization for the clients. Their solution needs to fit their business. “Shortcuts met 99% of our needs and was willing, and has the ability, to work with us to make the minor modifications we needed.”

Speaking of customization, Shortcuts is also one of the industry leaders in business reporting. Known for working with clients to customize reports, Shortcuts’ new product, Intellicube, is revving up to do wonders for Sport Clips. “I envision it to be used by our Team Leaders to create custom reports and manipulate data to enable them to better evaluate their performance at all levels.”

Giving Sport Clips the power of knowledge, Intellicube is mining data from their system to give business reports on anything from transactions to client retention history. “Better information can lead to better performance if used effectively. Shortcuts will help us to do that better at both the store level and national level.”

As the fastest growing salon chain in the country, Sport Clips has incredible things in store for the company and the communities they serve. Fine tuning their business practices and implementing procedures and technology to support it, Sport Clips has a solid business model that clearly spells ‘success.’