If you're considering becoming a FRANCHISEE for FANTASTIC SAMS,
DON'T!!! Especially in the Southwestern Region.
As an owner I can tell you I was lied to repeatedly about several aspects, including sight selection, and how easy it was to find qualified employees. They mislead people about the true failure rate of their salons, and I was also told the less I knew about hair the better just to name a few.
Their owner training was a complete joke. After training by corporate, my local franchisor told me to ignore most of what they said. He said he would answer any questions that would come up after the business was open. The franchisor, who also owned a salon would suggest one thing, when in actuality he was doing something completely different in his salon.
The local franchisor was also to provide local technical training for my stylists. The instructor would alienate my employees, and give them incorrect instruction on how to apply the farouk color. The color they were carrying wouldn't lift properly for a significant number of my customers.
Over the years it became quite obvious to me Fantastic Sams, or the Regional owners haven't a clue as to how to how to run a successful hair salon. Every region across the country makes up their own operating procedures.in the region I'm familiar with, everything is pretty loose. Most owners do their own thing resulting in a lack of constancy. As long as you keep the Fantastic Sams Sign up, and pay them their royalties that's all they care about! They don't even conduct salon inspections! A prospective owner would be better off owning an independent salon and not having to throw away nearly $500.00 a week in royalties.
A few owners have become successful because they had hair experience, and/or had a good location. Fantastic Sams has picked some good locations, and some BAD locations. They claimed to have some demographic requirements, but it all depends on how desperate they are to open new salons. They will tell you any prospective location they pick out is a good location.
All they want to do is sell you a franchise and get you opened as soon as possible so they can collect their royalties. All they care about is making sure you have enough money to pay them!
It costs about 125K to set up and open a new salon in the region I'm familiar with.
One other thing they aren't too forward about is, in most cases you will have to sign a personal guarantee for a multi year location lease. If you need financing for the leasehold improvements, most banks are reluctant to loan money (even in a good economy) for a hair salon business because the equipment depreciates so fast, and salons have such a high failure rate.
If you're a good owner, and follow their so called process, Its not uncommon for a fantastic Sams salon to loose $1000.00 or more per week, for a long time. If the salon drains you financially, and you try and sell it, the franchisor can prevent the sale/transfer from happening. They can and will take your salon, sell or give it to another owner, giving you none of the proceeds, and leave you stuck with the debt from the loan!
With people like that who are supposed to be helping you, who needs enemies?
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