Opening a franchise location creates a business. Building several of them requires something different: an organization.
That distinction has long been central to the Sport Clips Haircuts model. Rather than requiring franchisees to spend every day operating a single store, the brand is structured around managers who handle daily operations while franchisees, known as Team Leaders, focus on people, performance and the bigger picture.
Today, that philosophy is visible throughout the nearly 1,800-location system. Sport Clips has around 260 franchisees, with the average Team Leader owning just over six stores. Some of the brand’s largest operators have built portfolios of dozens.
“It’s not just about opening that first store,” said Brent Greenwood, vice president of franchise development. “It’s about being able to scale in a reasonable amount of time and achieve both personal goals and brand expectations.”
The path from one location to multiple stores, however, isn't simply about repeating the first opening. As locations are added, the Team Leader's job has to evolve.
For a new Team Leader, the first Sport Clips store typically requires the most direct involvement. The franchisee is learning the operating model, recruiting the initial team, establishing relationships with managers and stylists, developing local marketing efforts and learning which KPIs matter. The owner may not be cutting hair or running individual shifts, but that doesn't mean the first store runs itself.
That is also why Sport Clips describes its model as manager-led rather than semi-absentee.
“This is not absentee ownership,” Greenwood said. “It does require hands-on ownership, just not within the four walls of the store. You are spending time leading store managers, managing KPIs, recruiting and retention.”
The objective isn't for the Team Leader to become the best store manager in the system. It is to find, develop and empower someone else who can lead the day-to-day operation.
For Mark Mansfield, who became a Sport Clips Team Leader in 1999, finding that person unlocked his next stage.
“Once we found the right manager who was committed and really helped us get to where we needed to be, we signed a lease for a second store probably within six months,” Mansfield said. “We opened that store up and had tremendous success.”
Within three years, Mansfield had fulfilled the original three-store commitment. Today, he and his wife own five locations and serve as Area Developers for a group encompassing 125 stores.
If the first store is about learning the model, the second presents another test: Can the Team Leader replicate it without simply doubling their own workload?
“Our job as Team Leaders is to support the manager and their team, and then help with marketing,” Mansfield said.
According to Greenwood, a business in which every new location requires another full-time commitment from the owner quickly reaches a ceiling. With a manager-led structure, the Team Leader remains accountable for results but increasingly works through other people.
“The ability to replicate is great,” Mansfield said. “It’s a proven model, and you are really putting someone in charge of each location.”
The challenge, then, becomes less about personally solving every operational problem and more about coaching the managers who do. “As you grow, you can also pass off many of those day-to-day responsibilities,” Greenwood said.
Once an owner reaches several locations, the business starts demanding another level of leadership.
“Once somebody has scaled, the day in the life is really just reaching out to the store manager, discussing KPIs, stopping in for an hour or so a week to connect with staff,” Greenwood said. “Maybe fix a television that was broken. You’re not in the day-to-day operations of the business. Recruiting and retention is another piece and is something we are always doing as owners. Always find a place for a great new team member in the infrastructure, whether that is hiring a new stylist or creating new store leadership bench strength.”
Al Rodriguez entered Sport Clips while maintaining his full-time corporate career, which meant he couldn't build a business dependent on his physical presence. “I knew when I made the decision to invest in a franchise that I would end up having to work a day job for two years,” Rodriguez said. “I needed a concept that would allow me to work on it, instead of in it.”
That constraint forced him to delegate from the beginning.
“Having my day job forced me to work on it, not in it,” he said. “I had to work through people, and hiring a good store manager was a critical component of it. After I reached five or six locations, I promoted one of my managers to area manager, who oversaw the stores. And from there, we scaled. After 13 locations, I didn’t need the day job anymore. I had enough income to support my family and get my time back. Now I manage my own calendar.”
For operators with locations spread across multiple markets, visibility becomes especially important. Multi-brand Team Leader Jesse Keyser has grown to more than 30 Sport Clips locations across five states. Rather than visiting every store constantly, he uses operating data to understand what is happening across the business and guide conversations with his leadership team.
“I manage these things remotely,” Keyser said. “There is no need to be there every day because I can see what is going on based on the data. The operation is pretty simple. Inventory is pretty simple. I can see what time they took their first client, what time they took their last client, etc. At the end of the week, I can look at the productivity numbers and track that.”
For Keyser, the value is that the model doesn't become dramatically more complicated every time another store is added. “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,” he said.
That simplicity has allowed Keyser to oversee a portfolio spanning multiple states while relying on managers and performance data rather than his own constant physical presence.
The Team Leader's role changes as the portfolio grows. Instead of trying to personally manage more locations, the owner builds the people and systems that allow each location to operate effectively.
For prospective Sport Clips owners, that means the real question isn't simply whether they can open store No. 1. It's whether they can use that first store to develop the managers, operating discipline and leadership structure necessary for stores two, three and beyond.
One store establishes the business. The next few establish whether the owner can build an organization.
To find out more information on costs to buy this franchise, please visit: https://1851franchise.com/sport-clips.
Sport Clips
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Brent Greenwood, vice president of franchise development for Sport Clips, details how franchisees build multi-unit portfolios using a manager-led model without leaving their day jobs.
Opening a franchise location creates a business. Building several of them requires something different: an organization.
That distinction has long been central to the Sport Clips Haircuts model. Rather than requiring franchisees to spend every day operating a single store, the brand is structured around managers who handle daily operations while franchisees, known as Team Leaders, focus on people, performance and the bigger picture.
Today, that philosophy is visible throughout the nearly 1,800-location system. Sport Clips has around 260 franchisees, with the average Team Leader owning just over six stores. Some of the brand’s largest operators have built portfolios of dozens.
“It’s not just about opening that first store,” said Brent Greenwood, vice president of franchise development. “It’s about being able to scale in a reasonable amount of time and achieve both personal goals and brand expectations.”
The path from one location to multiple stores, however, isn't simply about repeating the first opening. As locations are added, the Team Leader's job has to evolve.
For a new Team Leader, the first Sport Clips store typically requires the most direct involvement. The franchisee is learning the operating model, recruiting the initial team, establishing relationships with managers and stylists, developing local marketing efforts and learning which KPIs matter. The owner may not be cutting hair or running individual shifts, but that doesn't mean the first store runs itself.
That is also why Sport Clips describes its model as manager-led rather than semi-absentee.
“This is not absentee ownership,” Greenwood said. “It does require hands-on ownership, just not within the four walls of the store. You are spending time leading store managers, managing KPIs, recruiting and retention.”
The objective isn't for the Team Leader to become the best store manager in the system. It is to find, develop and empower someone else who can lead the day-to-day operation.
For Mark Mansfield, who became a Sport Clips Team Leader in 1999, finding that person unlocked his next stage.
“Once we found the right manager who was committed and really helped us get to where we needed to be, we signed a lease for a second store probably within six months,” Mansfield said. “We opened that store up and had tremendous success.”
Within three years, Mansfield had fulfilled the original three-store commitment. Today, he and his wife own five locations and serve as Area Developers for a group encompassing 125 stores.
If the first store is about learning the model, the second presents another test: Can the Team Leader replicate it without simply doubling their own workload?
“Our job as Team Leaders is to support the manager and their team, and then help with marketing,” Mansfield said.
According to Greenwood, a business in which every new location requires another full-time commitment from the owner quickly reaches a ceiling. With a manager-led structure, the Team Leader remains accountable for results but increasingly works through other people.
“The ability to replicate is great,” Mansfield said. “It’s a proven model, and you are really putting someone in charge of each location.”
The challenge, then, becomes less about personally solving every operational problem and more about coaching the managers who do. “As you grow, you can also pass off many of those day-to-day responsibilities,” Greenwood said.
Once an owner reaches several locations, the business starts demanding another level of leadership.
“Once somebody has scaled, the day in the life is really just reaching out to the store manager, discussing KPIs, stopping in for an hour or so a week to connect with staff,” Greenwood said. “Maybe fix a television that was broken. You’re not in the day-to-day operations of the business. Recruiting and retention is another piece and is something we are always doing as owners. Always find a place for a great new team member in the infrastructure, whether that is hiring a new stylist or creating new store leadership bench strength.”
Al Rodriguez entered Sport Clips while maintaining his full-time corporate career, which meant he couldn't build a business dependent on his physical presence. “I knew when I made the decision to invest in a franchise that I would end up having to work a day job for two years,” Rodriguez said. “I needed a concept that would allow me to work on it, instead of in it.”
That constraint forced him to delegate from the beginning.
“Having my day job forced me to work on it, not in it,” he said. “I had to work through people, and hiring a good store manager was a critical component of it. After I reached five or six locations, I promoted one of my managers to area manager, who oversaw the stores. And from there, we scaled. After 13 locations, I didn’t need the day job anymore. I had enough income to support my family and get my time back. Now I manage my own calendar.”
For operators with locations spread across multiple markets, visibility becomes especially important. Multi-brand Team Leader Jesse Keyser has grown to more than 30 Sport Clips locations across five states. Rather than visiting every store constantly, he uses operating data to understand what is happening across the business and guide conversations with his leadership team.
“I manage these things remotely,” Keyser said. “There is no need to be there every day because I can see what is going on based on the data. The operation is pretty simple. Inventory is pretty simple. I can see what time they took their first client, what time they took their last client, etc. At the end of the week, I can look at the productivity numbers and track that.”
For Keyser, the value is that the model doesn't become dramatically more complicated every time another store is added. “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,” he said.
That simplicity has allowed Keyser to oversee a portfolio spanning multiple states while relying on managers and performance data rather than his own constant physical presence.
The Team Leader's role changes as the portfolio grows. Instead of trying to personally manage more locations, the owner builds the people and systems that allow each location to operate effectively.
For prospective Sport Clips owners, that means the real question isn't simply whether they can open store No. 1. It's whether they can use that first store to develop the managers, operating discipline and leadership structure necessary for stores two, three and beyond.
One store establishes the business. The next few establish whether the owner can build an organization.
To find out more information on costs to buy this franchise, please visit: https://1851franchise.com/sport-clips.
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