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La Familia
Date Added: 2009-07-14
The Francesco Group has made a name for itself in the business and credits working as a family as a key factor. Charisse Kenion meets the Italian founder of the Stafford-based brand, Francesco Dellicompagni, and the rest of the family.
Creating a renowned brand from scratch can take years of gut-wrenching hard work; add to this the potential stresses of working with your family members and it’s a huge – potentially frustrating – task for anyone to consider.
But when Francesco Dellicompagni – Frank to his friends – first came up with the idea to start his own hairdressing business, almost 44 years ago, none of these issues were a concern; he simply wanted to dohair – good hair. “In the late 60s, when it came to hairdressing, all people wanted was a shampoo and set. They would come in and have a roller set every week; the same hairstyle all the time. We needed less clients in those days as they were always coming in, but the routine bored me to tears,” shares Frank, now 62.
But fast-forward just over 40 years and the Francesco Group is quickly becoming a nationally-known brand. What really makes the firm stand out is the fact that it’s almost entirely family-run, with each family member focused on a specific area of the business. Frank’s brother Peter is his chairman, and between the two brothers they have defined the brand and what it stands for: quality. Now the brand is being led by the next generation of Dellicompagnis. And while the younger members – Ben and Mia (Frank’s children) and Tom and Anya Peter’s children) – are eager to take on the challenge, Peter is the one who reins them in.
“Ben wants another new salon in the next 12 months; if it’s the right thing to do and he has the right team, great, but I don’t believe in pushing,” says 53 year old Peter. “There’s a balance and my job is to do the balancing act – Ben wants more, more and more but I’m the one who says, ‘let’s look over our shoulder’. At the same time he needs to be able to get up and go – it’s time for him.”
As Managing Director, Ben, 33, isn’t shy to shout about the group.“We’re the bloody best you’ll ever come across. What my dad and Peter set out to do back then was to provide the absolute best in hairdressing; Sassoon brought the cut and colourwork and we’ve always aimed to be the very best in technique, quality and service,” says Ben.
And the family’s dedication to the finer details shows; they now have three academies and a 30-salon franchise network – which all started in the back of Frank’s mini-van, but not before he learnt the essential skills of hairdressing.“I left school at 15 and didn’t fancy sitting in offices, didn’t want to work in a factory or on a building site. My dad asked if I fancied being a barber so I did a City and Guilds at a college near Stafford. I did two years and learnt how not to train. I went to Italy and learnt so much more there, it was a lot more practical. It taught me how to train people and influence colleges, which influences students; I’m very proud of that,” says Frank matter-of-factly.
Once brother Peter completed his apprenticeship at Frank’s salon he found he shared his brother’s frustration at the lack of creativity within the hairdressing world >> locally. “There would be banks of clients sitting under the hairdryer, five clients per hour – it wasn’t inspiring but it was a job. People thought that if you were anywhere north of Watford Gap you would never make it as a good hairdresser,” says Peter, who joined ranks with Frank 10 years after the business was launched. “Frank and I wanted to do beautiful work; it wasn’t about making money, we wanted to create a business that was recognised.”
For Frank it was the sheer love of hairdressing that kept him going, although he admits times were tough: “We didn’t have any money but I managed to get a small loan for a little blue mini-van. I was in it seven days a week going to peoples’ houses, to hospitals – there were a lot of hours and I had a lot of financial problems. Without my wife Philippa’s support I wouldn’t have a business today.”
That support led Frank to his first salon, at Bridle Road, which he still runs today. From there he built up five more salons before brother Peter joined. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Today the group provides a model of excellence says Ben: “We are sussing out the best at the ages of 14 to 16, we then progress them into NVQ level 2/3 and they get work-based placements.”
And the training doesn’t end there. Anya, Ben’s cousin and the group’s Director of Hairdressing, takes the students through a 12 week finishing programme to ensure that the brand’s 17 classic cuts are created perfectly. Anya is one member of the family who we can expect to see a lot more of; part of taking the brand forward is to make her the face of the Francesco Group.
After starting out making coffee in her uncle Frank’s salon at the age of nine, Anya began training at the age of 14, but says she was never pushed into the family business. “My dad just let me do my own thing and it wasn’t until I was 18 that we really started to make a plan of what I was doing. I wanted to move around to see how each salon was being run and get into management,” says the mother of one.
Despite the fact that he’s never picked up a pair of scissors, Anya’s brother Tom also plays an integral role in the family business. The owner of a salon shop-fitting firm, Dell PM, Tom, 29, works as the project manager for all shop fittings, building works and maintenance for all Francesco Group salons.
“It happened by accident; I’d just finished doing a mechanical engineering degree and was floating around doing lots of job interviews. My dad (Peter) had bought a new premises which was quite rundown – I thought, yeah I can do that.”
Soon Tom began taking the business more seriously and today he has his own workshops and employees. He says that working with his family has been a healthy experience.“One of the biggest benefits of working with family is that you can say what you think; it’s quite refreshing,” says Tom, who also admits that hairdressing would never suit his personality: “I have my off days!”
For his cousin Ben there’s no going back, in fact, he was just on the verge of settling down in London when he decided to return home to Stafford to train as the Managing Director. “I could be doing a lot of other things but I love what I do. I felt it was important to keep the business in the family. After seeing my dad sweat blood and tears and sacrifice so much, I’m not going to allow anybody or anything to damage this company. We will build from a regional brand to a national brand,” he says firmly.
And the facts are there to back up Ben’s claims; the group recently opened in Cheltenham and plans to go on to Manchester and Birmingham. The group also recently bought another company, Scissors, the Bournemouth-based group, now run by former Managing Director of Wella Professionals, Steve Lowe. Whether one
calls that move shrewd or insane in the current climate, doesn’t seem to matter to Frank.
“We’re in a recession but we’re proving it wrong. If you get your service levels right you will increase your client base and billings, but you’ve got to work harder. In a climate like this, if you’re doing the same things you
were doing two years ago, you will go backwards. Clients want more, so you must deliver more.”
When I ask the family if there have been times when they wish they didn’t work together there’s not even the slightest hint of discontent.
“I’ve never had an issue working with family, at the moment I work directly with Ben and my dad; I’ve always worked well with my dad. My mum franchises one of the salons. We’ve just all been away to Portugal to my dad’s for a working weekend. I’ve got a little one, Orla, and Mia has her son Rocco – they were running around everywhere, and we actually discussed if they might go on to work for the company,” says Anya.
Whether the younger generation of the Dellicompagnis takes over or not is of course, far off in the future, but for now, Anya says they work well together.
“We all talk to each other. Ben will talk to my dad – he talks to his dad but it doesn’t work as well; you can tell they’re father and son. It’s the same with Ben and Mia as brother and sister, they have arguments too, but we all believe in what we’re doing.”
As Art Director Mia, 36 currently divides her time between working on the shop-floor in the Weeping Cross salon with her father Frank and working with Education Director
Michelle Compton.
“Michelle, Anya and I are working on building a profile for the academy – it’s the right time to push Anya and drive the company forward. We do all have a passion – I don’t know if it’s the Italian in us – and I don’t know if it’s cheesy, but passion is what you need,” says Mia, who also says she still loves being behind the stylist’s chair.
“I think it’s important to be on the shop-floor. I was a franchisee but although it’s important to have a franchise operation it’s just as important to have someone on the shop-floor. I love the buzz of the team and the buzz
of the salon.”
Fiercely loyal to the business and his family – “There is no better hairdresser in the country than my sister Mia” – Ben says working as a family has brought them all closer together: “I’ve never been so close to my family as I am now.” He jokes that there is a downside: “Everyone has an opinion – but hey, that’s family.”
