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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nAn Employee From Day One<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n During the five years she spent working for another hair salon in her early 20s, Julie says she \u201clearned so much really, because coming right out of beauty school there’s just so much you don’t know. They really taught me how to be good at what I do: cutting hair, managing stores.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But one day, during a manager\u2019s meeting, one of the company\u2019s leaders told the team that they were all replaceable \u2013 and not to forget that. \u201cI was 23 years old, and I thought to myself, \u2018Do I want to work for somebody like this?\u2019\u201d remembers Julie. \u201cLook at how this affects everybody in the organization. I don’t know that I want to be affiliated with this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luckily, one of her colleagues had seen an ad in the local newspaper advertising a new concept called Sport Clips. She called, got an interview, and was about to be hired on the spot \u2013 until she started discussing her salary demands. Salaries at the newly formed company were lower than its competitors, but the hiring manager called Gordon Logan, founder and chairman, and said, \u201cI really want to hire this girl, but she needs more money. And she\u2019s worth it.\u201d Logan agreed immediately, \u201cand that\u2019s where it all started. In June of 1993, I opened the first Sport Clips store in Austin, Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the time, Sport Clips was an independent salon, so Julie began attending conventions in preparation for the company\u2019s expansion into franchising. \u201cIt just grew from there. Once we started franchising, all of a sudden, I went from being a manager to a technical coach, then an area coach, then a regional coach.\u201d In that role, Julie traveled across the country opening new locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBefore I knew it, I was on this career path that no one dictated or said, \u2018here’s what’s gonna happen.\u2019 It just happened over the years.\u201d And then one day, the COO told Julie it was time to start focusing, in a systematic way, on the company\u2019s recruiting and technical efforts. \u201cHe realized that, moving forward, we needed to have solid systems in place to support the company\u2019s huge growth and sustainability\u201d \u2013 and that all started with talent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Embodying the Sport Clips Brand<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As Sport Clips expanded, it was hyper-vigilant about maintaining a consistent, compassionate brand not just in its Texas headquarters, but across every single franchise location. \u201cThe one thing our founder wanted to avoid was losing our brand identity.\u201d He had seen other companies sacrifice their standards to grow, but Gordon, \u201cworked so hard on creating a solid foundation: our core structure, our values, and our operating standards. He knew that, over time, our key differentiator would be our training program and the fact that we held everyone at the organization accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat operating standard model is something we don’t falter from,\u201d Julie explains. \u201cOur operating standards are still what they were when we started, so that’s been a real difference maker for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And, as always, Julie continued visiting stores to instill the company ethos and make sure everyone was maintaining the high standards Sport Clips prided itself on from the beginning. \u201cWe call them success checks \u2013 where we look at how well the stylists are doing according to our operating standards, how well they’re executing in the stores, and how those stores are performing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Recruiting Talent for the Long Term<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Recruiting was another key piece of the puzzle. \u201cWe’ve always surrounded ourselves with really brilliant people,\u201d says Julie. \u201cFranchise businesses all experience ups and downs. But if you lose sight of the people, and what is needed to move you forward, you’ll really struggle.\u201d For many years, Julie operated as a team of one. \u201cWe didn\u2019t really have a big recruiting budget until a few years ago, but now our franchisees pay into a combined talent budget so that we\u2019re able to do so much more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sport Clips now has a sourcing team that doesn\u2019t just post jobs and identify candidates, but also focuses on brand awareness and messaging at every touchpoint. \u201cWe’re the face of Sport Clips that people get to recognize through our Artistic Team, which is a selected group of platform stylists. And our Ambassador Teams visit beauty schools to lead presentations and bridge that gap between education, certification, and a career.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Julie\u2019s mandate also includes coaching, which (like everything else at Sport Clips) has massively expanded over the last decade. \u201cWe now have just under 100 coaches out in the field providing education and training to make sure that stores are staying up to speed, and that team members are trained and confident when they get on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where other organizations are cutting back \u2013 especially in the wake of COVID \u2013 Sport Clips is adding. \u201cWe are committed to the success and the excellence in our stores,\u201d states Julie. \u201cThere was such uncertainty [during COVID], but we adapted and did so well while the rest of the industry was quiet. We were hosting digital classes, working with our suppliers.\u201d Those lessons in a virtual environment were valuable, but as stylists began coming back to stores, Sport Clips held to its core system: a belief in the value of in-person training. \u201cWe really worked hard to bring back that component and be committed to ramping our training back up,\u201d Julie explains. \u201cWhereas we’ve seen that our competitors are doing just the opposite. They’re gonna stay virtual. And they’ve cut a lot of costs going that route, but we’ve been committed from the beginning because we know training is what got us where we are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That training program is a key value proposition the company offers to stylists. \u201cIt affords people the opportunity to grow a lot more than they were even while finishing school,\u201d Julie says. \u201cAs we look at the growth and trajectory of the company, Sport Clips is still very alive and vital. Our career paths are expanding, and we’re still opening stores and will continue to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The opportunities are endless. \u201cWe need people: we need stylists, we need ambassadors, and we need managers. That growth opportunity is still there where a lot of people are cutting back. And I think that’s a real differentiator for us right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of the day, the company doesn\u2019t just care about profits; it cares about leading the industry and developing the next generation of leaders. \u201cI think if you were to ask anybody in this organization why they are here, and why they continue to be here, it\u2019s for the people. I am here because I feel like this is my family. You know, it all started with the man who started the dream. And that was Mr. Gordon Logan, who I look at as a second father figure to me. I gave him all my trust, and he created something that I’m so proud to be a part of. And I never take that for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Julie Vargas, vice president of career opportunity & talent engagement at Sport Clips Haircuts, grew up in a \u201clittle bitty\u201d town in West Texas, and didn\u2019t begin thinking about a career in the beauty industry until her high school launched a cosmetology program. \u201cGoing into my senior year, that could be one of my electives … Read full-story <\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":29284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[2764],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29258"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29258"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29402,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29258\/revisions\/29402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comparably.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.comparably.com\/00000000\/b\/2023\/03\/Screen-Shot-2023-03-15-at-5.51.20-PM-1024x159.png\")
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