Great Clips Franchise Enrolls Franchisees and Salon Managers at Great Clips University

Great Clips, Inc., North America’s largest single-brand hair salon franchise, announced the opening of its Great Clips University (GCU) as an online learning center for franchisees and managers.

“GCU is a virtual campus of courses that Great Clips Franchise owners and managers can access at their convenience in the comfort of their own homes as part of their orientation and on-going training,” said Rob Goggins, vice president franchise development for Great Clips. “All our franchisees and managers have to do is commute to our GreatClips.net site, click on “Learning Center,” open the course catalog, and sort by category.”

The course catalog includes more than 60 classes covering a wide range of topics. There are eight courses specifically on marketing alone: creating a product focus, generating customers, guerrilla marketing, what is a brand, marketing at Great Clips, brand communication, building ad-fund marketing calendars, and re-marketing your purchased salon.

“This is a great innovation for our franchise company, our franchise team, and our more than 1,100 Great Clips franchise owners throughout the U.S. and Canada,” said Goggins. “Even in this recession economy we are attracting more inquiries to our Franchise Opportunity due in part to our 21 consecutive quarters of same-store sales growth.”

In December, AllBusiness.com, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dun & Bradstreet, released its 2010 Franchise AllStar 300 listing and once again ranked the Great Clips franchise opportunity as the top hair salon Business Franchise opportunity.  

“There are so many more opportunities in an online setting that makes GCU a valuable learning resource for our Great Clips franchisees and salon managers,” says Goggins. “Management-level corporate staffers teach the courses and our Great Clips franchisees and managers are giving them high marks.

“Our typical franchisee invests in Great Clips in order to transition out of corporate America. The business model allows individuals to keep their day jobs while building their salon businesses on the side. 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.”

Great Clips University is another reason why Great Clips is North America’s number one hair salon brand franchise.

About Great Clips:
Great Clips is North America’s largest hair-care brand with more than 2,800 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” and one of “America’s Top Global Franchises” for 2009. Franchise Times magazine ranked Great Clips 90th in system-wide sales by in its annual Top 200 listing of worldwide franchise chains.