In 1988 I was working for a group of real estate speculators and I was their
comptroller and it was tough economic times in the late 80s. One of the people
that I worked with owned a shopping center in Albuquerque, New Mexico and it
had a supercuts in it and that was one of the only tenants that paid their rent
on time each and every month. So back then I was trying to decide what I was
going to do with my life. I always wanted to own my own business and I didn't
really know what to do but my father taught me he said you know Chris you
want to be the low-cost producer of a quality service that cannot be usurped
by the internet. My name is Chris Serrano. I live in Tucson, Arizona and we
have 84 supercuts locations. The fact that I do not know how to cut hair
actually never really entered my mind. That wasn't even a consideration when I
bought the business. When I bought the business it was a financial model I knew
that could work and all I needed to know was that I could work with the top line,
pay my expenses, have profitable salons and that model I knew I could make work.
At the beginning I only had a few stores so it was me and one other person we did
everything. Today with 84 stores we have a human resource department that takes
care of our stylist and our managers take care of our entire staff. We have a
group of accountants that make sure that you know the deposits are made to the
bank that each store is analyzed monthly to make sure that the store is
successful and we have an advertising team that works with us. We do everything
in-house in order to make sure that our stores are supported. We feel
cosmetologists are the greatest ambassadors in the whole world. They get
to touch so many lives every single solitary day. Yesterday we did 4,800
clients, guests in our system. We got to touch them, make them look and feel great
about themselves and send them out the door you know happy and positive and
and that's a wonderful it's a wonderful thing to experience for as a business
owner and mostly I wake up every day and just say how grateful I am to work with
the people that I get to work with. Without our stylist we don't really have a
business but we have amazing amazing people and and I attribute all the
success to the people I get to work with. At the beginning when you're
establishing yourself you're working very hard but once you've achieved all
that then in the later years you can go to your office get on your bike ride
20 miles or do whatever you want to do you know you can you can add things to
your day that people that work a nine to five job or work for somebody else they
don't get to add those things. You get to achieve other dreams besides your
business dreams you can achieve personal dreams and incorporate that into your
business life. It's really it's really gratifying to be the owner of your life.
