Great Clips, Inc., the world's largest hair salon brand, welcomed its 100th new franchise owner to its hair-care franchise system for 2010.
"This is a great achievement for our company, our franchise team, and our more than 1,200 franchise owners throughout the U.S. and Canada," said Rob Goggins, vice president franchise development for Great Clips. "Even in this recession economy we are attracting more inquiries to our franchise opportunity due in part to our 24- consecutive quarters of sales growth and our 19–consecutive quarters of customer growth."
The January 2011 issue of Entrepreneur magazine ranks Great Clips as the #22 Fastest Growing Franchise among its Franchise 500 and #27 among America's Top Global Franchises. AllBusiness.com, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dun & Bradstreet, continues to rank the Great Clips franchise as the top hair salon business franchise opportunity.
"When investigating hair salon franchises, prospective Great Clips franchise owners can feel confident that based on the All-Star criteria used to rank winners—franchise unit growth rate, financial strength, system size, years in business, years franchising, availability of financing, and Web (brand) visibility—our Great Clips franchise stands head and shoulder above the rest," said Goggins.
Unlike many other franchise systems, 100% of Great Clips salons are franchisee owned. Great Clips staffs over 65 training centers throughout North America, providing training to 27,000 salon stylists. More than 98% of franchise owners renew their agreements.
A typical franchisee invests in Great Clips to transition out of corporate America. The business model allows individuals to keep their day jobs while building their salon businesses at the same time. Successful franchisees usually come from the middle- and upper-level executive ranks of industry. They possess strong management, leadership, communications and people skills. And, they don't cut hair. They are CEOs of their Great Clips—managing people and expanding their businesses.
This year 43% of new Clips Great franchise owners came through referrals from existing franchisees, salon managers, stylists and corporate staff. "When people in our organization are touting the benefits of owning a Great Clips franchise, that's the strongest validation that we are doing all the right things," added Goggins.
Great Clips is world's largest hair salon brand with more than 2,900 salons conveniently located in high-visibility strip malls in almost 140 markets. Great Clips consistently ranks among Entrepreneur magazine's Franchise 500Ò. Entrepreneur also ranks Great Clips as one of its "Fastest Growing Franchises" and one of "America's Top Global Franchises" for 2011. Franchise Times magazine ranked Great Clips 85th in system-wide sales in its annual Top 200 listing of worldwide franchise chains. For more information, go to greatclipsfranchise.com. Great Clips, Inc., 7700 France Avenue S., Suite 425, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55435. Contact Rob Goggins, vice president of franchise development, office (952) 746-6467.
Great Clips, Inc. was established in 1982 in Minneapolis. Great Clips is a walk-in salon brand.