Joanna Meiseles is on her way to building a successful 500+ unit kids franchise business.  This is an interview about following your passion by taking action on an idea and moving forward with it and how Joanna Meiseles as of April 2007 has over 50 franchises under the Snipits Franchise umbrella and she is just warming up. 
Women are starting more businesses than men and Joanna is doing a couple of things that are fostering her success.  Joanna does her homework and pays attention to the details.  She also has created her own niche by taking a commodity business like cutting hair and her angle is to cut hair for children ages 1-9 all the while making it ok for the kids, parents and stylists.   She calls it the “triangle for success,” kids, stylists and parents.  She pays close attention to all three and says that to have success all three legs have to be supported.
She loves what she does and loves her 4 kids.  Her oldest son had a “bad” experience with her when he was a 1-1/2 year old and she came home and discussed the experience with her husband and the company was born.  Joanna’s husband coined the name Snipits and she realized that now was the time to take action on her idea and open first franchise business.  First haircut is like a right of passage, she was expecting her son’s first experience to be different that it was.  She found that the hairstylists did not want to have to cut the “baby’s” hair.  The salon was not set up to take care of kids, so she set out to create one.
Joanna did a good amount of research and surveying 3 different types of people before opening her business. She interviewed all three groups that were going to impact her business.  The “Triangle of Success” is like a 3 legged stool has to stand strong.

• Child – she went through her own network
• Mom – she went to Toy’s R Us to interview 100 parents
• Stylists- she mailed surveys to stylists and got feedback from about 20 different stylists and found out what they don’t like working with stylists

She took her time opening the first 5 stores.  She took a 1 day course in franchising and invested in herself to learn the basics of franchising.  She kept the information with her.  Her 5 stores were doing well and the economics were compelling enough to roll it out in a franchise model. 
Joanna advertises her franchise business on Franchise Gator and Franchise Solutions web directories.  She gets a lot of franchise business inquiries when they open a new store.  She has a director of sales to manage the process of a new franchisee business.  She does not make changes to the Snipits franchise business contracts.  It has to be something the franchisee has to want to do, they do not allow legal changes.  It is a simple process.  They are governed by Federal Regulations and require a document called the Universal Franchise Offering Circular or the  UFOC and disclose all of the information in the UFOC.
She sees people falling in love with the brand and the fun and high energy, but she does share that it is a business and requires a lot of details and work and managing expenses.  She says that after the 2-4 weeks the new store is open the honeymoon is over and the real work is at hand.
Being a kids business franchise for 3 years as of April 2007, no Snipits franchise has closed their stores or transferred the stores.  She explains the process how that happens.  Building a successful franchise business will require a couple of years to get it profitable if it is going to be sold.  She talks about replenishing the business with new kids.  The kids are going to Snipits up to about the age of nine years old.  The environment is kid friendly however Joanna did some research with the Stylists and realized that putting kids on pony and fire trucks chairs was not conducive to good business for the stylist or the child. Snipits uses regular smaller size cutting chairs.  They find that it is more conducive to keeping the kids still and keeping the chairs clean.
Snipits does a lot of work with different groups including dance recitals, parties, church groups, karate schools etc.  She reaches out to the community and does a lot of community events.  Joanna says that they have not done a lot of Yellow Page ads and that people are not using the paper books.
Joanna talks about some of the challenges along they way of running her franchise business Snipts and how she over comes them.  Joanna has shared her experience with esteemed entrepreneurial educational leader Babson College with some of her “war stories.”  She had to make an employee change with a long standing key employee who was popular.  She describes it as the most difficult and heart wrenching decision she has made.
Joanna talks about her Snipits franchise business having to handle a special needs child who had autism and the father used to have to put his kid’s head “in a vice.”  But after 3-4 years the same kid came back and now the kid is sitting in the barber’s chair playing video games and getting his hair cut without incidents. 
Joanna loves it when she sees the parents beaming after their kids have a wonderful haircut.  Joanna leaves us with “do your homework and follow your passion,” which has served her very well.