With over 25 years of franchise, marketing, and entrepreneurial experience, and the owner of Franchise Perfection, Jim Coen, brings key skills to franchise consulting for those interested in buying a franchise business opportunity.
Jim has been a franchisee, worked for franchisors, ran a multi unit operation for a franchisee, and served as a franchise consultant matching candidates with the right franchise.
At Franchise Perfection there is no perfect franchise, but there is always a perfect match.
For over 20 years Jim worked with Super Coups. Super Coups is a MA based direct mail franchise business to business opportunity.
Prior to Super Coups Jim successfully marketed franchises in the New England area for Uniglobe Travel Northeast a travel franchise, Merry Maids a maid cleaning franchise, & Emack & Bolio an Ice Cream franchise.
Jim was the host of a popular radio show in the Boston Area called "Let's Talk Franchising" that was broadcast on AM 1060 WBIX The Boston Business Station.
Jim currently serves on the Board of Directors of the New England Franchise Association (NEFA) www.nefranchise.org
Knockouts, a full-service salon franchise that would make Floyd the barber blush, is busting into New England.Naomi Kooker reports in the Boston Business Journal that Neko Corp., headed by Bing Yeo of Lexington, bought the rights to franchise the salons that have been dubbed the “Hooters of haircutting,” where a scantily clad “specially chosen staff of female stylists” provides professional grooming services, including haircuts, coloring, waxing, manicures, pedicures and massages for men.
Yeo purchased the rights in June to develop the franchises or sub-franchise the stores in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. He plans to open his first store in Greater Boston by the end of this year or early 2008. He is looking in Allston-Brighton, among other areas, to open the first store, though no lease is signed.
The franchise agreement gives him 15 years to roll out 20 stores; but Yeo, a business consultant, said his goal is to roll out that many in five years, focusing on the eastern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire markets.
Yeo did not disclose the cost of his agreement. Knockouts’ one-time franchise fee is $20,000 per location, with a 6 percent royalty fee thereafter. A 1 percent national advertising fee is also implemented after a store opens.
To date, some Knockouts franchisees have reported brisk business and profit margins exceeding 20 percent.
The concept comes at a time when other salon chains geared toward men are entering Greater Boston. For example, Floyd’s 99 Barbershop opened in Boston earlier this year.
However, none require the stylists’ uniforms that Knockout does.
“I wouldn’t deny the sex appeal,” said Yeo, who lists his wife, Winnie Yeo, as the director of the company on his Web site. “It’s certainly part of the branding.”
Yeo confirmed that the stylists, all women, are professional and certified, yet need to be friendly and attractive. He conceded the short-shorts worn by Knockouts stylists in Texas may not go over well in New England, and he’s deciding on an alternative such as dresses that are worn by stylists in Atlanta. “That outfit works in terms of the girls willing to wear those, and the customers really appreciate them,” he said.
Yeo said the target demographic for customers is men, ages 18 to 55, though women and children are welcome.
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The stores, with a boxing theme, are 1,000 square feet to 1,500 square feet and feature eight to nine haircutting stations surrounded by a boxing ring. Each station has a medium-size flat-screen TV. In other states customers are offered a free beer, but Massachusetts’ stringent liquor laws prohibit that service. Complimentary nonalcoholic beverages will be offered instead.
Most haircuts cost $25 or more and include two washes, consultation and head and shoulder massages; other services cost between $3 for a beard trim to $90 for a massage.
Build-outs, which include the lease and remodeling, cost between $15,000 and $40,000. Total startup costs, including equipment, are between $90,000 and $190,000. Each store employs five to seven people.
Retailing expert and lecturer Rick Segel, based on Cape Cod, called the concept “inevitable” given the growth in the adult entertainment industry and extensions of it, such as establishments like Hooters. “If it’s done right and done professionally and tastefully … they’re a huge success. The old line, sex sells — it really does.”
“We’ve done an excellent job of not crossing the line,” said Tom Friday, CEO of Knockouts Management Company LLC, the chain’s parent company, based in Irving, Texas. He founded the concept when he opened the first store in Addison, Texas, in 2003.
Knockouts has nine locations nationwide with 123 franchises, including Yeo’s, slated to open over the next few years.
Texas-based Sports Clips Inc., another sports-themed haircutting chain geared toward men, is Knockouts’ main competitor. It currently has 447 franchised stores nationwide; it employs men and women stylists and does not require them to wear skimpy outfits.
Cross Posted at: Let’s Talk Franchising
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I think this concept will work. $25 for wash & haircut & massage is a fair price from a (hopefully) attractive lady. Hooters restaurants worked, and I’m sure this will be the same clientele. Many men get their haircut by themselves, so they are more proned to go to a place like this then if they went with their girlfriends. I’d rather take my risk on this concept than SportClips, which charges half as much, and you can probably keep the better girls around because they’ll make more money with the tips.
There’s actually a much higher quality men’s salon chain opening across the country; it’s called Too Hotties Haircuts. Besides the attractive female staff, they have pool tables, video games, HDTV’s, a peanut butter and jelly snack bar. Also, they do tanning, eyebrow and lip waxing and shoe shines. Location are open in Missouri (2), Texas (3), Las Vegas, Columbia SC, and soon in Tampa, Kansas City, Phoenix, Denver. One of the owners told me they’ve sold over 270 franchises in just the last 12 months.The big difference (and I’ve gotten haircuts at both) is the higher professionalism and friendliness at Too Hotties. Cute girls who understand that guys want a little respect, even if the guy is not so hot. Check them out.
wrote on November 6, 2007 @ 1:26 pm:
If you are the franchisor and you are or your are causing false claims about the sales of your franchise, you may be running into disclosure dangers in several states…be careful.
listen all you girls and boys. Men do like girls in short skirts. And men like a good hair cut too. But as is true in night clubs , it is also true in salons. No girls, no boys. At our salon they always know that a fresh batch of ladies will be there every visit. Not taking their money, but across from them in the chairs. Strip clubs do well too. But girls don’t often frequent those places as customers. And I know a regular nightclub, done well , will profit for longer… Girls don’t eat at hooters. And girls spend more on hair.
20% profit margin, $15,000 -$40,000 Build Out. Thats seems a little to good to be True!!!
Too Hotties is sooo much better than this boxing place. I tried them both in Addison, TX.
If you want to drink beer in the morning (no kidding the knockouts gal offered me free beer at 10am) and a sexually charged environment, go to knockouts….
Too Hotties has it all, beautiful ladies, video games, massaging chairs, free food, a great magazine rack, excellent haircuts, even better scalp massages. I bring my wife and my kids with me to Too Hotties, I have 4 kids they have a Sunday promo where my boys (all 4 of them) get their hair cut at a very, very reasonable price. We love the X-Box, Playstation, and Pool Table.
The atmosphere is sexy, but classy as well…… not just a girl in boxing shorts bushing a can of beer.
http://www.barbertips.com Women are making a huge impact in the barber industry. I am a barber and I see the difference when a man walks into a barbershop and sees a female barber. Men prefer females just like women prefer a man shampooing and styling her hair.
I’m 5′8″, 122 lbs, attractive, but I am also fifty years old….I would like to find a different place to work (with 32 years experience) but do you really think I would work at such a trashy place??? I’m not going to go NEAR such a thing as this place. I ask ladies: What sort of employees do they have there?? Do you want your children and husband going there??
Jack Vermeer wrote on April 12, 2008 @ 11:34 am:
‘Sexy’ in a public, supposedly professional place, is NOT classy. The words would be UNprofessional and trashy. I doubt you would find anyone with much experience there, there would wear the ‘uniform’ required.
It’s 2 years since this item was posted…and there is 1 (ONE) of these open in all of the state? What’s slowing this down?
I also am very doubtful that there are this many “hotties” with cosmo or brabers licenses…I’ve been to many of the franchised cutters, and lots of “mom and pops”, and they have the talent to cut hair…but NOT the looks.
I have been getting my hair cut at Too Hotties Haircuts in Addison, TX since it opened.
I have found the haircuts to be quite good, the staff very attentive to everyone. I’m a middle aged guy, with some extra weight, and thinning hair. I appreciate that they treat me the same as anyone else. They have helped me learn how to style my hair by using the correct products, and even got me started on NIOXIN, which is an amazing product, developed by Cancer Doctors to help people keep their hair.
The amazing thing about the internet is that there is so much information available, the terrible thing about the internet is BAD information is so easily spread. When an insecure female stylist gets going about the uniforms being inappropriate (they are not at all by the way) or talking about their husbands being on such a short leash they wouldn’t let their guy go a Too Hotties, or a Hooters, I think it’s really sad.
Don’t believe what you read when it comes to the Addison,TX location, it’s a great place.
Gary Maxwell