Meet Alan Sager

Alan Sager is the first “Veteran”  SFA franchisees to be included in the Meet the SFA Interview Series. Alan lives in Austin Texas and runs 57 stores in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi with 59 stores total by June 1.

Here is his story… 

I am Alan Sager.  I started in 1981 in Austin and was an original SFA member. As to the exact year, who remembers things that far back? I have a law degree from Michigan, Ph.d. in Political Science from Northwestern and B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Tufts, all of which together qualify me to be in the hair cutting business.  I am one of the original set of franchisees who worked at EST, an educational corporation,  in San Francisco in the late 70’s and 80’s.  Two former staff members, Gary Grace and Howard Sherman, put the franchise program together for Frank Emmett and Geoffrey Rappaport.

Other things I have done in my life include practicing law for a year, teaching full time at the University of Texas, working on the staff of Chief Justice Warren Burger and working at Est, now known as Landmark Education. I am back lecturing in Government at U.T. and have done so  for the last 24 years. I have  also run for office and been involved in politics at all levels for decades. My wife Susan and I have 4 children.  The third, Rebecca graduated from college and went to cosmetology school.  She works in our shops and part time at the office. Our youngest, Jacob, is completing an incredibly difficult and backbreaking one year MBA in Entrepreneurship. Our second daughter, Jessica, is a business coach and consultant. These 3 live in Austin. Our eldest lives in Maryland and is the one who makes grandsons, 2 going on 3 soon. Finally, while I have attended many Universities and grew up in Chicago as an Illinois fan, I am a Longhorn through and through!!

Tell us about your favorite vacation destination or the last place you visited.

Most of the time, the last place I have visited, if you want to call it that, is New Orleans.  I lead managers meetings there every month. People always ask me about how I like the food and what restaurants I visit. Well the truth is during the past  year I was there for at least 18 nights, Except for one night when I had a contractor from Austin looking at a build out there, and I ate dinners at Whole Foods. For a number of years, our favorite destination was where ever the Weekly Standard Cruise went.

Why did you choose Supercuts or how did Supercuts choose you?

I chose Supercuts on the recommendation of Howard and Gary.  At the time they were consulting with the creators of Supercuts and a car wash franchise. I looked at both. I thought Supercuts was a better opportunity to work with people and  make a difference in the life of staff and guests.

Who or what has had the most impact on your success?

The who has had the most impact on my success is probably not just one person. Werner Erhard  the creator of Est had a tremendous impact since he trained me to work with people in a way that made a difference in their lives. Gary Grace and Don Cox, who was an original franchisee and President of Est, also had an enormous impact  by teaching me about business. Knowing a lot is one thing, actually putting to work what you know is a whole lot different in the real world.

What kinds of things are you doing to take care of your employees?

Aside from offering them the best training in cutting hair available and the followup to it, we have offered health insurance since we started in 1981 and all the other benefits except 401K’s. We tried them along time ago and administering them were overly cumbersome at the time  Despite our size we offer a family atmosphere and our staff knows they can count on what we say and promise.  We have people who have worked for us for 30 years, some  having raised their children and welcomed their grandchildren. We offer $1000 per year scholarships to the children of our staff who go to college as long as they maintain a B average.

What innovative technologies are you using in your stores to increase business and customer engagement?

We have not gone full blast into social media yet.  Some stores have facebook pages. We are watching to see if our Advertising Agency finds better ways to reach our customers.

On the one hand, we think the best way to increase business is delivering quality service and a quality experience to each and every guest.  On the other hand we are about to begin barcoding all of our mail and couponing down to the customer level to be able to do more directed media communications.

What would you like to accomplish with your stores in the next 10 years?

I plan to expand to  over 70 shops in the next 7 years, around 2 shops per year average.

At that point, hopefully, robots will not be cutting hair at home for our customers,violating all Cosmetology Board regulations. Then my children can carry on for another 30-40 years if they wish.

What areas would you like to see the SFA focus on in 2014?

While I don’t think advertising often makes a big difference,  I still think SFA should work on improving our advertising in all available media.  Of course, I always want them to go  back to our Supercuts/Other Cuts ad that I think was the best advertising we have done over the last 33 years. I also want to go back to  our ancient slogan, WE CUT HAIR FOR YOUR EGO NOT OURS, which is more applicable today than in 1981 when I started. Slighly updated for current language,  it speaks directly to milleniums whom we need to get into our stores. Also we need to develop better customer databases to keep up with some of our competitors.

Meet Dave & Carol Hagemeier

Dave and Carol Hagemeier are the first “Rookie”  SFA franchisees to be included in the Meet the SFA Interview Series. Dave & Carol have been married for 28 years and together they are opening stores in the greater Milwaukee area.

Here is their story……

We joined the Regis family as Supercuts franchisees in August 2013, and we were delighted to be accepted into the SFA shortly after. We’ve been seeking sites in the greater Milwaukee market, and we’ve been working with Regis to acquire corporate-owned salons. We’ve acquired three Supercuts and Cost Cutters salons to be transitioned in February and March, and we have four new salons in development. We’ve been happily married for 28 years and we’re very proud of our two grown children. We’re both corporate refugees and delighted to be working together on a business of our own.

Tell us about your favorite vacation destination or the last place you visited.

We got out of the Midwest cold and spent time in Las Vegas together with our children several months ago. We loved the daytime sunshine and the nighttime lights. We had a great time lounging by the pool, pigging out at the buffets, power-shopping, and people-watching.

Why did you choose Supercuts or how did Supercuts choose you?

We reviewed a number of business opportunities against a carefully-considered list of objectives. Supercuts was everything we were looking for, and we fell in love with the creativity, energy, and diversity in this business. We’re very happy with our decision!

Who or what has had the most impact on your success?

We’re just getting started and our first salon is not open yet (11 days and counting as we write this!) But we think we’re well-positioned, thanks to the patient and thoughtful help we’ve received from a large number of Regis employees, SFA members, and Milwaukee-area friends and supporters.

What kinds of things are you doing to take care of your employees?

Attracting and retaining high-quality employees will be the single most important factor in our success. We’ve assembled a strong pay and benefits program, and we’re working very hard to include medical, dental and vision benefits, a 401k retirement savings program, and other incentives. We’re going to be very active in our salons, working closely with our employees to help them to be successful.

What innovative technologies are you using in your stores to increase business and customer engagement?

As we’ve not opened our first salon yet, our focus has been on our back-office. We’ve brought on a full suite of tools from ADP for payroll, employee scheduling, online access to employee documents, and the company 401k plan. We’ve hired folks to help with branding and messaging of our company to potential employees and business partners. We’re putting these foundations in place so that we can focus on our employees and our guests as our salons open.

What would you like to accomplish with your stores in the next 10 years?

We plan to open additional salons, and we love the idea of offering advancement opportunities to our employees as a growing company.

What areas would you like to see the SFA focus on in 2014?

We would love to help the SFA to find a way to increase the collaboration among members. Much more information could be shared and we want to contribute in ways that help to make that happen.

We’re pleased and proud to be Supercuts franchisees, and we’re looking forward to meeting all of the SFA members in the months and years ahead.