Former Gordonnite Creates Wildly Successful Scissors & Scotch

By Heidi Beguin

Former Gordon resident, Tanner Wiles, has always been comfortable doing things no one else has. After all, he was a member of the first graduating class of the combined towns of both Gordon and Rushville, a merge which has turned out to be successful for both towns. 

He also was a member of a three person team who decided to create a solution to a problem for men in most cities - turning getting a haircut into an enjoyable experience. The three did that by creating a company known as Scissors & Scotch, a business boasting over 42 locations and averaging 1500 haircuts per day.  

Wiles graduated from GRHS in 2006, a proud grad of the first combined class. He then went to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and majored in economics finance management. From there he moved to Kansas City, where he worked for a large healthcare company as a software consultant for about four years. 

At one point, Tanner and two buddies began talking about what a chore it is to get your hair cut in the city. The three were living in three different cities - Columbia, MO, Kansas City, and Omaha. “We knew what we didn’t like. Cuts were difficult to book, and as soon as we found a stylist we liked, that stylist would have moved on by the time we were ready to book again. It was like a revolving door of stylists and it wasn’t an enjoyable experience,” Wiles explains. The three decided to do something about it. 

“We started developing this idea for Scissors & Scotch, even though none of us had barber shop training,” says Tanner. One was in insurance sales, one was at a corporate law firm, and Tanner was an econ finance major. “Although we had no experience in the industry, we were lifetime consumers. We knew that most men need to get their hair cut,” and they were fairly sure most men didn’t look forward to it. “Looking around we could see that nobody was providing an enjoyable experience and we saw that as an opportunity,” Wiles says with a smile. 

Once again, Wiles was comfortable doing something no one else was doing. Within twelve months of meeting in the central location of Kansas City, discussing and planning out their vision, the three 25 year olds had opened up their first location of Scissors & Scotch in Omaha. 

“Of the three of us, none of us knew anything about the industry, so we knew we needed somebody that was aligned with our vision but also had the experience and expertise to do the training, had charisma, and knew how to cut hair. We were seeking that individual. We needed that person,” Tanner remembers.  

As they were looking for that person, something interesting happened. Tanner had quit his job in Kansas City and moved to Omaha. He was working on construction of the shop and trying to find staff. He was trying to convince people to come work for three guys who knew nothing about the industry. A fellow Sheridan County friend, Cody Beguin, invited Wiles to lunch in Omaha. As Beguin was leaving his office, his co-workers, who knew he was meeting with a friend from home who was opening a high end barber shop, told him they all go to a lady named Brandi and he needed to tell his friend about her. They had lunch and Cody mentioned Brandi. 

Tanner, not uncomfortable with this situation in the least, wanted to learn more about her, “sort of secret shopping” so he set up a haircut with her, “reverse Undercover Boss, if you will,” Wiles laughs. He was interviewing her without telling her too much. “I was looking for work ethic, knowledge, basically everything that she knew.”

He quickly realized she was the perfect fit for their shop. She was a barber, cosmetologist, and esthetician. She'd been traveling the country for seven years teaching how to cut hair. “It turns out I found the needle in the haystack.” He went in for three more haircuts. He knew this was the person they needed to hire. 

After his final “undercover” haircut, he had one of his partners set up a haircut after his, “so she wouldn’t think I was hitting on her,” Tanner explains. Later, he messaged with both of them about an opportunity they wanted to meet with her about. They went out to discuss the opportunity and Brandi boldly told them it’ll never work. 

After more questioning, she explained that she liked their vision but what “morons we were because we were so far displaced from the industry. She continued that with our oblivion, we would never be successful,” Wiles remembers. They asked her what she would change. “As she’s telling us that no one will work for you guys, she gives an example. She mentions the leather chairs we had picked out which were $400 club lounge chairs. The ones she said we needed were a leather, hydraulic chair with a reclining mechanism designed for cutting hair, for $2800.” They had already created a pretty tight budget and this was a $20,000 increase. “But, we didn’t blink. We said if that’s what needs to happen, we’ll do it.” That evening she agreed to join their venture. 

“She didn’t need us whatsoever, she was already successful in her own right but we got her to buy into us and she’s still with us today,” Wiles says. Brandi became the Director of Grooming and developed the Scissors & Scotch training program. “She’s always owned that side of it. People who go to cosmetology school spend about 3% of their time on men’s hair. But men’s hair is very difficult to cut, to do it right,” Tanner explains. “We needed to build our own training program to teach people to cut men’s hair. Brandi created it and now has 30 to 40 trainers under her that train across the country. She’s probably trained well over 1000 people. This was a crucial key hire for us -our first hire- she was the expert we needed so badly and it all came back to that initial conversation I had with Cody Beguin,” Tanner chuckles. 

The actual Scissors & Scotch experience wasn’t born “until we opened our first location, and had conversations with customers about what they want. We charge a premium for a haircut with a minimum expectation that you should get a good haircut, but it’s the little things in between that really matter.”

Wiles explains, “Purchase a haircut and before or afterward, you get a complimentary beverage - old fashioned, bourbon, scotch, or beer. This was the rough idea of the concept.”

The first Scissors & Scotch location opened in Omaha in March of 2015, with four stylists, averaging 10 appointments per day. We knew it was going to be a hit,” Wiles says, “by summer we couldn’t hire fast enough. We added a couple more stylists and we were profitable within six months. That's a miracle because we didn’t know what we were doing, we were undercapitalized, and we knew 95% of new businesses fail. But we reinvested every single dollar into the company for a year.”

The next shop to open was Des Moines, Iowa in May 2016, and then Denver in October 2016. “We intentionally were going to other cities to start trying to learn what we needed to know in order to franchise our shop,” explains Wiles. The fourth location was Oklahoma City, OK in August 2017. “We were making a ton of tweaks so we decided to franchise in 2018. Other people own the franchised shops and we collect royalties from them.” The first franchise opened in Kansas City. “Today we're up to over 30 franchised locations but we still own 12 other locations of our own.”

Scissors & Scotch now has franchise locations all over including Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Nashville, Atlanta, and the recently opened one in Lincoln. That shop has several ties to Sheridan County as Ian Moreland created the sign for them, and Dezi (Johnson) McEvoy’s husband Tom and Tanner’s cousin, Carson Hinn, did the electrical work there.   

Tanner says, “99% of our haircuts are for men, we only do men’s style haircuts, we don’t do women’s cuts or color. Most people come in for a haircut and drink, and feeling good about yourself when you leave is the best part.” They also have a membership program with a monthly fee of which more than 50,000 members across multiple locations are currently taking part in. 

“Every piece of grooming equipment that goes into our space is all 100% custom made, designed by our barbers, by Brandi and her staff,” Tanner says proudly. “One other side note about Brandi, after working together four years and even with all my micromanaging, making sure every little space was beyond clean and tidy (I might have a bit of my Grandpa Charlie in me), knowing there were times she probably hated me, she became my wife and we now have two little girls together.”

Scissors & Scotch is currently projecting 650,000 haircuts for 2024. 

For a guy who is completely comfortable doing things no one else has ever done, who didn’t bat an eye turning down a 40 hour/week job at Rushville’s Sand Ridge Golf Course in high school, saying he couldn’t possibly work 40 hours each week, to today, being a family man with two young daughters and co-owner of multiple stores that have taken the barber shop world by storm. Tanner, who is obviously enjoying life’s ride says, “What’s that old saying? The days are long, but the years are short.” Wiles happily admits he currently puts in many more hours than just 40 hours/week.