This is the second part in a series about opening a Pigtails & Crewcuts salon. Read the first entry, which we featured in May.
Kelly Hailey was nervous the morning of Wednesday, August 15. It was opening day for her family’s Pigtails & Crewcuts salon in Chattanooga, Tennessee. For months, Hailey had worked hard, alongside her parents, Rudy and Sharon Hogan, to assemble the best children’s salon their city had ever seen. Now, it was time to invite the public inside the kid-centric franchise business.
“The first 10 minutes of opening day, from when I unlocked that front door until our first customer came in, I was thinking, “What did I do?” laughs Hailey. “But it worked out. We were busy.”
We’ve been working with the Hailey and Hogan family since late 2011, visualizing this very day. The process went smoothly throughout, from the lease signing to the build out, which only took about three months. During that time, we worked on designing their strategy for the first few months of operations, and spent hours discussing marketing, customer service, retail sales, birthday parties and more. In addition, Hailey and her mom traveled down to Atlanta for a three-day training session.
Three weeks before opening, there was still one major task at hand: Hiring a staff. Hailey visited the area’s cosmetology schools. It took time to find the properly trained staff, but she was able to hire four energetic employees. When the Chattanooga team was ready, we sent T.J. Liles, director of marketing and franchise support, and Theresa Underwood, field operations representative, to guide the Chattanooga salon through pre-opening training and help them with any last-minute needs. There, they worked with the staff to educate them on what it means to be a part of the Pigtails & Crewcuts family. The corporate staff stayed on through the end of the week, helping out with salon tasks and answering questions. They didn’t leave until the Hailey/Hogan crew was comfortable.
Just two weeks after opening, Hailey says she already loves the flexibility and fun atmosphere that Pigtails & Crewcuts has brought into her family’s life. She and her parents are even talking about the possibility of opening another salon.
“We’ve always talked about opening another one,” Hailey said. “If this one does well, we’d love to have another one in Chattanooga or somewhere else. Now that we’ve opened one, we know what were doing.”
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