Sport Clips Haircuts Do Your Due Diligence and You WON'T Fall for This!! Georgetown, Texas

This sounded like what I wanted from a retirement perspective:  a niche, a business and not a job, a fool-proof-system.  That's what the people who sell it want you to believe.  They play by the rules when selling it, but they also play fast and loose.

They use a "verification call" to tell their story and answer your questions.  But they discourage you from talking to current and previous Franchisees.  They suggest people for you to call, but they all turn out to be shills.

They make it hard to contact current owners.  The phone numbers you get are for the salons.  The Franchisees spend little time in the salons, and their hairdressers won't give out the owners phone numbers.  Sports Clip has no problem getting you direct phone numbers for their shills.

The topper for me was when I noticed that they weren't including a store in Fla in their earnings statement because it is "remote."  One of the selling points is that the owner can be remote, so why wasn't this one included?  It took some effort but I finally figured out why the store in Jacksonville is excluded:  the corporation has owned and managed it for almost two years, and it is still one of the worst stores in the state.

I was also told that the the stores in the earnings statement were often underperforming stores, but lots of calls uncovered the fact this is simply untrue.  The stores in their UFOC are some of the very best in their entire system.  Find out what stores in places like Georgia, Louisiana, California and Florida are doing.

The other thing to fear is that they tout themselves as "values based."  From what I learned that is a "do as I say, not as I do" thing.

If you should pursue owning one or more of these, first thing to do is call LOTS of current and previous owners.  Ask lots of questions.