In 2004, Wade Brannon was teaching his son’s T-ball workforce when one other participant’s mom requested, “You are the ham man, proper?”
Nicely, he was the ham man: He based Heavenly Ham, constructed it as much as $150 million in income with greater than 200 franchises in 33 states, after which bought it to Honey Baked Ham. However by 2004, his position was Mr. Mother, caring for his 5-year-old boy and youthful twin women whereas his spouse labored as an actual property legal professional close to their Atlanta dwelling.
Parenting was rewarding however laborious; his son had what he believes have been sensory points (widespread amongst younger youngsters), which made some duties tough. “I took him to my barber store, and he screamed the entire time,” Brannon recollects. “Each of us would depart sweaty with hair caught throughout us.”
The T-ball mother, whose identify was Nanette Adair, occurred to have an answer for that: She’d opened a youngsters salon known as Pigtails & Crewcuts, and Brannon had simply taken his son there. “He simply cherished it,” Brannon says. “He was watching motion pictures, enjoying with the practice tables, interacting with different youngsters.” So when Adair stated she had some questions on franchising for Brannon, he was very intrigued.
After a number of conferences, in late 2004, Brannon purchased Pigtails & Crewcuts from Adair. The corporate now has greater than 80 franchise places and goals to succeed in the 100-unit mark by the tip of this yr. Right here, he talks about learn how to construct an area enterprise right into a thriving franchise.
How a lot of the Pigtails & Crewcuts mannequin was in place whenever you purchased it?
It was a single salon right here in Atlanta, had a federally registered trademark, and had a glance and a really feel. I acquired a few of my outdated ham of us again collectively, and we spent the subsequent year-and-change placing the methods in place.
Hair and ham are completely different industries. What made you assume it might work?
There have been two main issues I checked out. I requested if there was a necessity — which I believed there was, given my son’s response as soon as he skilled it. After which I requested: Can it’s replicated? Can it’s copied and executed correctly by the typical particular person with enterprise sense?
How did you go about replicating the service?
We needed to get a design package deal that could possibly be recreated in all places. We needed to write operations manuals. We needed to write franchise agreements and franchise disclosure paperwork. I talked to lots of people within the hair trade. I did not understand how massive the hair trade was till I began taking a look at this. Goodness gracious, it is a $65 billion trade. However no person had taken the kids’s section of it and turned it right into a nationwide model.
What sorts of franchisees do finest together with your model?
We have now had a variety of girls with 2-year-olds. They’ve a baby and so they really feel like they’re able to get again into the office, and so they strategy us. We even have a variety of husband-and-wife groups. We’re not focusing on hairstylists. We’re focusing on businesspeople with folks abilities. You have to need to work with a workforce, be part of your neighborhood, take pleasure in folks — youngsters and oldsters.
What recommendation do you’ve for would-be franchisors?
You have to be versatile. Markets change. Circumstances change. All the things modifications. We went by a recession and came upon our enterprise was recession-proof. We went by a pandemic that utterly shut us down for whole durations of time. You have simply acquired to have a product or a service that may survive the troublesome instances which might be unanticipated. You must be prepared to alter.
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