Slow, organic growth has been a decades-long trend for Classy Closets, a home storage solutions concept created in 1983.
The company manufactures and installs custom, built-in home storage solutions for homeowners, offering interior projects for closets, home offices, pantries, garages, libraries, media centers, kitchens and bathrooms. Parent company Classy Companies owns Classy Closets along with its sister brand, Classy Kitchen & Bath.
Classy Closets, which started franchising in the early ‘90s, is looking to expand outside its existing markets.
Tinea Price, who joined the brand in July 2022 as a franchise performance coach, said now is the right time to drive growth.
“We have a lot of success with people that know who we are, have trust in the brand and have heard great things about us from their friends and family,” she said. “We want to leverage that for this year and continue to build on that, continue to engage the community around the brand … and bring in additional franchise owners into the system and areas that we haven’t been in.”
Tinea Price
Classy Closets operates about 22 units out of 10 states; this number consists of corporate locations, franchises, showrooms and authorized dealers. Franchises make up half of the brand’s unit count.
Selective growth is crucial to the brand’s franchising success. Price anticipates opening four units this year, ideally scheduling one per quarter.
“Prior to me coming on board, we grew to new markets organically, led with corporate-owned locations and later converted them to franchises,” she said. “We hadn’t really pushed for accelerated growth through franchising until recently.”
Site selection plays an integral role in Classy Closets’ expansion. The company offers two types of business models: rural and metro.
High-growth, urban territories are ideal for upcoming sites; Price described these markets as areas with populations of two million or more. “We have success in both,” she noted of the models, “but as we expand our focus, we want to get into those metros.”
The investment range to operate a Classy Closets franchise ranges from $99,650 to $311,500 for a metro business and $54,650 to $136,000 for a rural business, according to its 2023 franchise disclosure document.
The brand has grown out of the country’s Southwest and Midwest regions. While growth in those areas is still a priority, the company has its eyes set on the eastern United States.
“The focus still remains getting into parts of the country where we are not and where the demographic just does not know who we are,” Price said.
Price understands this segment may be unfamiliar to some, which could be a deterrent to prospects. The brand overcomes this hurdle through its established, built-in systems guiding franchisees through every step of the process.
The company manufactures its products and develops vendor relationships, so franchisees need not worry about sourcing materials on their own.
“If they’re new to home design, we train them on everything,” Price said. “Everything is also proprietary, so we know our systems well. … It’s pretty much a full suite of services that they’re buying into, and then we train them and develop them on those same systems.”
The ongoing support, paired with Classy Closets’ impact on homeowners, leads Price to have high hopes for the brand’s expansion goals in 2025.
“There’s potential to bring value to the community,” she said. “When you’re in home services bringing value to homeowners, you’re changing their lives through changing the spaces that they live in.”