October 11, 2022 • 17 mins
Franchise Friday podcast episode 205 host Melissa Pang speaks with Brandon Neilson of The Dog Stop
Franchise Friday, where you can watch or listen as we explore franchising, entrepreneurship, and small business ownership, speaking with the franchise industry thought leaders and subject matter experts that shape the Future Of Franchising. #FranchiseFriday – For more about our podcast, visit our website: https://futureoffranchising.com/ Produced by Franchise Source Brands International and The Entrepreneur’s Source.
About Brandon Neilson
I have a 20-year career in franchise sales and development and have helped thousands of people become franchise business owners.
I am currently the Director of Franchise Development with The Dog Stop based in Pittsburgh, PA. The Dog Stop opened up its first location in 2009 and currently has 22 locations open and operating with many more to come.
The owners of The Dog Stop® spent several years researching the pet care industry, surveying the needs of local pet owners, and planning an all-inclusive facility after they saw a lack of transparency in the industry. Their goal was to create a fun and safe environment where dogs would love to come and play and pet owners would feel 100% confident in the superior care that their dogs were receiving.
In 2009, the first The Dog Stop® doors opened in Pittsburgh, PA. Since that day, The Dog Stop’s mission has been to deliver a superior experience for the dogs and their whole families by providing a safe environment, offering educational opportunities, anticipating and exceeding the needs of clients and their pet companions, instilling complete peace of mind for those we serve – and to earn their trust every day!
The Dog Stop is America's favorite total dog care facility. With 20+ locations across 10 states devoted to clean and safe fun for your dog, this is where every dog wants to be. The Dog Stop is actively looking for franchise partners throughout the country to continue to expand its brand and service offerings. Dog Care Services include Daycare, Boarding, Grooming, Obedience Training, Self-Wash, In-home services, and an awesome retail store featuring the best pet foods, toys, accessories, and products available. The Dog Stop is currently franchising! We are actively seeking viable franchise candidates.
For more information visit: https://thedogstop.com/franchising/why-choose-dog-stop/
Website http://www.thedogstop.com
More... https://futureoffranchising.com/podcast/podcast-sharing-the-experience-with-brandon-neilson/
Franchise Friday, where you can watch or listen as we explore franchising, entrepreneurship, and small business ownership, speaking with the franchise industry thought leaders and subject matter experts that shape the Future Of Franchising. #FranchiseFriday – For more about our podcast, visit our website: https://futureoffranchising.com/ Produced by Franchise Source Brands International and The Entrepreneur’s Source.
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Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
Hey, I'm here with Brandon Nielsen. Over at the dog
(00:03):
stop. We are chatting today justabout some of the placements
that we had with theentrepreneurs, coaches and
clients and the dog stuff. SoBrandon, before we dive right
in, I want to give a littleintro your background how you
came into franchising. And thenhe got to the Dogstar
franchise developments, one ofthose things, it's, it's not
like you can just come into theindustry, you kind of have to
(00:24):
know somebody, and was the samefor me, my dad's been doing this
for my basically my whole life,I got my start when I was in my
early 20s. With franchisedevelopment. Well, it's been
about 20 years now, since I'vebeen in franchise development
and sales. And it's beenfantastic. My history with the
dog stop, I actually wasinteresting. I had my own
franchise development companyyears ago, at a development
company, the docstoc was one offour different clients that I
(00:47):
was working with at the time,this is like back in 2016 17
timeframe. And I, we were ableto bring in I think I brought in
maybe 10, franchise ownersformed around that timeframe.
And it was a great little run.
And then I had anotheropportunity that fell in my lap
and one of those kinds of toogood to pass up opportunities.
And so I actually left mybusiness and put all those
clients on hold, and basicallysaid, Hey, I'm going to be going
(01:08):
to do this other thing for youknow, two to three years is kind
of what I projected. And sothat's what I did. And then
immediately when I was done withthat other opportunity, which I
knew it was only going to be ayou know, a short two to three
year deal. I immediately calledup Jesse over the duxtop and
said, Hey, I'm done. I want tocome work with you guys again,
and Jesse's, like, that's great,we want you back, we need you
(01:29):
back. But we want to hire youdirectly. We don't want to work
with anybody else, we want youexclusively just with us. And I
was like, Okay, let's, let's setup a deal. So I've been
officially back in that role asdirector of franchise
development with the duxtop,since just over a year now that
I've been back with them. Andit's been a busy, busy year,
trying to get everything set up,we've kind of brought our
franchise development effortskind of to the next level over
(01:49):
the last six months, and inreally doing it the right way.
So it's been it's beenfantastic.
That's really exciting. BecauseI know I believe worked or
talked with the the dog stuffback in kind of the early days
when they were really justgetting started. And then now to
see, okay, like the growth anddevelopment from that point and
to your story. You know, thepast year, I think especially
(02:11):
one of thereasons why I decided to come
back and work with these guys,again, is Jesse and Chris, the
founder, the founders, theowners of the company, they're
some of the most easiest guys towork with. There's symbols laid
back kind of tight, you know,give you the shirt off their
back type guys, right? I mean,that was a big decision for me,
you know, when, when I wasweighing the decision where to
go, that was one of the bigthings, but the thing with the
dog stop, one of the things thatthey did very differently from
(02:33):
the very beginning is they havehad a very slow and methodical
approach to a franchise growthwhere I've seen companies, you
know, and you can imagine, and20 years of doing this business,
I've seen companies, lots ofcompanies that have kind of had
the opposite approach and growand grow way too fast right out
of the gate is a new franchisecompany. And in some cases that
literally destroyed their entirebusiness because they just grew
(02:55):
too fast. They weren't able tosupport their franchisees, Jesse
and Chris did the optic, theopposite approach, and they're
like, listen, we're gonna govery slow, very methodical, and
it has paid off. And then we'renow at 21 locations open and
operating. Now every singlelocation is profitable. And
that's not common in thefranchise world, right? In the
franchise world, you typicallyhave like, you know, every
franchise has a top third,middle third, bottom third, but
(03:15):
most bottom thirds for mostfranchises are really
struggling, right, they'relosing money, or they're
breaking even even our bottomthird are making money. So
that's a testament to doing itthe right way, being patient
doing it the right way. Andthat's and that's really what
they've done. And we're and I itwas only really probably last
year, summer, around this timelast year where we were like,
You know what, we're ready togrow, like, we're ready to step
(03:36):
it up. We have everything inplace, we have an overabundance
of support staff, the amount ofsupport staff we have could
support 100 franchisees but weonly have 17 that we're so we're
waiting for growth. So we'rekind of at that point. Now,
that is great. And I've justloved that you say that of
because I think too in theindustry. It's like, just award
(03:56):
as many franchisees as possible,and then you'll figure it out.
So just on like on a tangent,what would you say to someone
like a brand comes to you? AndI'm sure they have, we're like
Brandon, I would like to add 50franchisees this year, I only
have two right now, like whatwould you save about?
It's a tough deal, because as afranchise development person, a
(04:16):
lot of guys in my position a lotof people in my position, they
see dollar signs, right? Andit's like, well, I would rather
at the end of the day, I'drather be able to sleep well at
night and know that what I'mdoing is actually doing well for
other people, not just for thenew franchisees, but also for
the franchisor because what thefranchisor doesn't understand
and taking something like thaton they're not going to be ready
for it and they're not going tobe prepared for it and they're
(04:38):
going to it's going to end upit's going to come back and bite
him big time. And I've just seenI have friends that do what I do
in the industry and I've seenhorror stories that I just can't
I can't I have to do the rightthing at the end of the day and
then the right thing is to yeswe could probably grow a lot
faster but let's grow at thepace we know we need to in order
to be successful.
Oh great. And I know we alsotalked about like a lot of
abundance and I think those twothey're like if we do Don't do
(05:00):
this now, then we're not gonnabe able to grow like, it's never
gonna happen. So we got to do itnow. And it's like, no, no, if
you're going to do it the rightway, don't worry, like it's
going to happen. And once youhave the groundwork in place,
and you want this to be longterm, well, you don't want to be
in two years looking back andbeing like, oh, no, we have to
like terminate half of oursystem.
Yep. Yeah, that's that's exactlywhat you don't want and that,
(05:22):
unfortunately, in the franchiseworld, that happens quite a bit,
unfortunately. Solove hearing that. So thank you
for sharing that part of it withthe entrepreneurs. I mean, we
had to win two placements. And Ithink the span of like, two
weeks, I'd like to franchisorsand there were multiple location
awards as well. So just wantedto get your thoughts on, first
of all, like, what were the kindof the clients backgrounds and
(05:44):
where were they coming from?
Yeah, Justin,was a business development guy.
He essentially helped thebusinesses kind of get things in
order to help them grow anddevelop their own business
without business support. Thisis development guy and him and
his wife, they are in Orlando,but him and his wife have been
racing racing greyhounds, sogreyhounds that have been used
(06:05):
for racing purposes and theirentire lives since they were
puppies no nothing different andhave been in that life. And
basically, they would take theseGreyhound puppies or Greyhound
dogs after they've been racingfor years, and try to
rehabilitate rehabilitate theminto normal life. That's the
type of people they are they'rejust fantastic people. But he's,
yeah, Orlando, and then they're,they're gonna do amazing. He
(06:25):
bought he, I think he did five,I think he bought a five pack in
Orlando. So he's gonna be he'sgonna own to the Orlando market,
for the most part, to be honestwith you, I don't think I've
ever had a more smooth, easydeal to get done ever. I mean,
there was no issues. It wasliterally like from the first
call, this is what we want todo, we're gonna do it. And it
was just kind of like thatthrough the whole process. The
(06:45):
other guy in New Jersey, thatwas a three pack, I think they
bought three territories in NewJersey, and he's an attorney.
Whenever you're dealing withattorneys, you know, they're
nice, nice people, obviously.
But it was just like the backand forth at the very end with
the agreement. And just thelittle nitpicky, you know,
things that were like does thatat the end of the day doesn't
matter at all. And it's nevergonna matter. But regardless,
(07:08):
real nice, real nice guy. Now,he brought in a partner with him
that he had known for quite awhile, actually. And they did it
together. But overall, I mean,at the end of the day, listen,
it's getting deals done atFranchise development is all
about communication. Always.
And, and I think a lot of peoplein my position, one of the
things that they don't do verywell is the communication
between not just them, you know,me and the client, but me and
(07:29):
the consultant. And quitefrankly, Julian was he was top
notch. As far as communicationgoes, I mean, it was literally
like, I got an email or a callfrom him every single week, back
and forth communication betweenhow Justin's doing, how's he
progressing? Where is he at now?
What's going on? And the samewith Phil, two, they were both
fantastic when it came to thatcommunication. So you have to,
(07:50):
you know, when you're workingconsultant leads like that, you
have to have that, that back andforth constantly. And then both
of them did an amazing job. Andthat obviously helps, right? So
if it's just me that's trying tohandle the entire thing. And I
don't hear from the consultantat all, ever. It's just kind of
like, it's like, all they didwas send me a lead and like,
close it, and let me know whenyou're done. And that and that
was not the case with them. Theywere they were fantastic.
(08:11):
Excellent to hear no, becauselike we talked about all the
time. It's like I talked aboutwith our franchisor members, and
also with our coaches of like,collaboration is essentially the
communication piece of it. Andwithout it, it's like, if you're
actually interested in theclient, and you're actually
invested in like success, thenyou have to do that piece of it.
Otherwise it just like it likeyou said, if it's on the
(08:33):
franchisor side, and you're theone having to do everything,
like on your it's all one sided,like there's no back and forth
or opposite way, you know, wherethe coach is the one like I'm
having these calls, what's goingon? Like, it just just doesn't
work. So it just makes sense.
But to your point, sometimesit's like, I don't have time for
that.
No, no complaints. Honestly, thewhole process with both of both
(08:54):
Phil and Julian was smooththroughout the whole process.
And yeah, it was it was honestlythere was no hiccups. With both
of these it was not your anyhiccup there wasn't any hiccups
like your traditional Oh, we gotto watch out for this. And this
there was nothing like that. Itwas just it was a smooth
process, which is great. Toobad. You can't all be like that,
right?
And then just a few more things.
So what was it so both clientswere like, a bit different. One
(09:16):
had that very, like they wereworking with animals, like they
clearly had that like red threadthat was their values that were
there. But the other one wasattorney. So what resonated for
them about dogs wasn't the samething. Or were there like
different things about it thatspoke
to well, the people that getinvolved in our industry,
whether it's a new franchiseowner, or even the people that
(09:37):
work inside of our locations,like the employees of these
locations, there's one thingthey all have in common and
that's they're passionate aboutdogs. And so for instance, the
guy in New Jersey, the attorneywhile his partner's business
partner, actually trains raiseslabs and trains them for people.
So it's always there's always aconnection. So for the most
part, always connection to dogsin some way, you know, and it
(09:58):
could be as simple as listen IYou know, I, I'm interested in
this franchise because I've haddogs my whole life and I love
dogs and I want to do somethingI can be passionate about.
There's a lot of franchises outthere and a lot of
opportunities. But it's veryrare to have a franchise
opportunity where you can getinvolved in something where you
can be extremely passionateabout what you do every day, but
also make a lot of money. Andthat's this industry, right? So
(10:20):
the financial rewards are hugein our business, as well as the
emotional rewards to people justlove it. I mean, we have
franchise owners, it is a semiabsentee business, which means
that all the locations are runby full time managers. So the
franchisees aren't running theday to day stuff. And we have
some franchise owners thatliterally they'll go in after
work just to spend time with thedogs for an hour, right just to
(10:40):
go and play with the dogsbecause it's like therapy for
them. And so that's thisbusiness. There's not a lot of
businesses like that, right? Imean, there's not at the end of
the day, it's just you can makemoney in a lot of businesses.
But can you be very passionateabout what you do and really
love what you do? Right. That'sthe key.
And to what I think I know, Ithink was an awesome point. And
also where people might think,okay, they both came from very
(11:00):
different backgrounds, likeone's this business consulting,
and then the other one attorney.
So you have these backgrounds,and they probably aren't
thinking like, yeah, they likedogs are already doing these
things was either thinking, howcan I turn this into a business?
Or even like, there's a way forme to turn this into a business.
And even if they had thatthought they probably be like,
asked, like, way too hard, like,no, no, like, do watch and then
(11:20):
to be able to find somethinglike dog stop where it's like,
no, I can, I can do it all.
Like, that's really exciting.
Yeah, and you know, and the factthat this is not an owner,
operator, business is huge forpeople, because it's like, it's
one thing to be passionate aboutdogs. But it's another thing to
be like, Okay, I have to go intomy facility, and I have to spend
from 9am to 8pm there every day.
And that's not this business,right? If you do that, in any
(11:43):
business, you're gonna get burntout. And this, you know, so
nice, because we have somefranchise owners that literally
go in once a week, we have somefranchise owners that step in
once a day just for an hour orso, or 30 minutes just to see
how everything's going. Butthat's, it's kind of the best of
both worlds.
Not a big deal, too. Because Ithink sometimes two people
think, okay, I'll turn my hobbyor my passion into my full time
job. And then it becomes like, Ihate this now, because, you
(12:06):
know, you see what, like fitnessyou see with with anything, all
of a sudden, you're like, what,what am I doing here? I hate
dogs. You know, it's that. And Ithink one of the benefits that
we have with our business in ourindustry is is this industry is
a recession resistant industry.
It one thing I've learned overthe last 20 years and doing
franchise development, peopleare no matter what people are
going to spend money on theirkids, their pets, and their and
their parents. So you get intoany of those types of industries
(12:29):
that are those recession, whatwe call recession resistant
industries. And you know,you're, for the most part,
you're good to go. As long asyou follow the model and do what
you need to do, you're going todo well, but I still am
studying. I've been working withthe docstoc first set in 2017
for a couple of years. And nowagain, and I still cannot get
over how much money people spendon their dogs. Like I have two
dogs myself. And I know how muchmoney we spend. And we don't
(12:50):
even spend as much as somepeople and I'm just like, it's
outrageous.
Like the business is there. Likethere's no there's no shortage
crazy, especially now more thanever. I feel where people have
dogs.
Well, the COVID Puppies gotbrought into people's homes
during 2020. I mean, that's justthat alone, right there is going
to keep us busy for the next 10years. I mean, it's just it's
(13:12):
just crazy.
Yeah, so no worries there. Allright, and then I'll wrap it up
here. What do you value? What isthe dogs don't value in their
franchisees when you're lookingto bring people on? And the
other part is, is there anythingabout the dog stuff that maybe
surprises candidates, as they'relearning about it? Where it's
something they didn't expect?
Yeah, I think, you know, it'skind of the same answer to both
(13:34):
questions for the most part inthe sense that one of the things
with the dog stuff that's verydifferent than a lot of
franchises is we are veryflexible. In other words, what I
mean by that it's not a cookiecutter franchise. So if you take
all 21 of our locations that wehave open and operating, not one
looks exactly the same. Not one,they're all different. And the
reason why is because of the waywe do it, when we look at for
(13:54):
instance, when we look at realestate, we have some competitors
out there that are like goingoh, we got to be in high end
retail space, right? That'swhere we have to be with us.
We're like, No, we can doretail, we can do light
industrial flex commercials, itdoesn't matter where we go,
because this is a destinationlocation. I mean, we have
million dollar locations thatare in light industrial spots.
So it doesn't really matter. Ithink that's one of the things
that surprised people that werevery lenient when it comes to
(14:16):
first of all, where we go as faras the type of real estate needs
to be an A level real estate,but it can be light industrial,
it can be flex, it can becommercial doesn't have to be
retail, and just the flexibilityflexibility that people have. So
we're not so stringent on like,Listen, you have to do it our
way, or that's it. So we're veryopen to new ideas. And all of
our franchisees kind of havetheir own little things that
they do in their own locationsthat are very unique to them or
(14:38):
maybe their area, right so likeyou walk into one of them if
it's in a certain city that willhave a mural up on the wall of
that city's let you know thatlandscape or whatever it might
be. So it's really cool. And Ithink that's one of the things
that is very refreshing forpeople and surprises people a
lot because they especially ifthey've talked to other
franchises that are like no thathas to be done this way or else
and they come in with us andthey're like Oh, so you guys
(14:58):
don't mind if I do this or meadd this and then we're like,
No, not at all, as long as itdoesn't take away from the
brand. We're totally fine withit. So I think that's the
biggest surprise for a lot ofpeople. And quite frankly, I'll
be honest, the reason why somepeople are looking at maybe a
competitor said, No way, I'mgoing over the docstoc. Because
I can do this and this and theywon't allow me to do this over
there. And it's also the factthat you can open up to to four
(15:19):
of ours for the same investmentlevel as one of theirs, and make
this make two to four times moremoney. We're in our industry,
you know, and I won't mentionany of our competitors, but
we're all doing the samerevenues. So in the industry,
but literally our investmentlevel is is a fraction of what
theirs are, it's like a nobrainer, once people realize
that they're like, wait aminute, so I can open up two to
four of yours for the same priceas one of theirs and make the
(15:41):
same amount of money with onelocation. Yeah. So and so it's
kind of a no brainer. And thefact you know that we're the
only true one stop shop in theindustry. Nobody else does what
we do, we're the only one stopshop for customers where we
offer all services under oneroof, where some of our
competitors are morespecialized, they do one thing
very well, where we doeverything very well. So it's so
(16:02):
we've decided to say let's offerall services make it very
convenient for the customer addextra extra revenue services for
our franchisees to takeadvantage of and not just
focusing on this one service ortwo services. So that's another
big deal.
Can you just briefly describeshe said this in the beginning?
Can you briefly describe what itis that the dog stop does?
Absolutely. So we are the onlyfranchise out there that is a
(16:25):
one stop shop for dogs. So we dodog boarding, doggy daycare,
grooming training, retail and inhome services. And and we're the
only ones that do it. You know,dog boarding, dog boarding,
daycare, and grooming thosethree services right there. Our
core services make up typicallygive or take about 90% of our
revenue where retail comes in atabout 10% Give or take but the
(16:45):
fact that we offer all servicesunder one roof for people is
extremely convenient. So youknow you have a customer that
comes in and they drop their dogoff for boarding or daycare
their dog food is sitting on ourshelf or their favorite dog
treat or whatever it might be,why would they go buy it
anywhere else? Right? Why wouldthey get online in bite? They
could pick it up from us rightthere for the same price. And so
it's a huge convenience for thecustomer. And obviously it's
(17:07):
just added revenue for thefranchise owner so yeah, that's
what we do the only one stopshop in the franchise world and
run a lot of fun. We can't Wecan't even keep up. I mean, the
demand outweighs the supply. Sowe're having a lot of fun with
that right now.
That is a good place to be sonot having that. All right,
well, anything else that youwant to mention or close with?
(17:28):
There's more to come. I can lookon my list right now a ti es
leads that I have that I'mworking on. I could see easily
five more that are coming downthe pipe here pretty quick for
new deals to be done with Te soyeah, keep them coming. We'll
keep bringing them in bringingbringing good people in and
yeah, it's exciting. I'm excitedabout the tedious stuff that we
have going on. Thanks, Brandon,you're the best. Thank you
(17:49):
appreciate your time.
Hey, I'm here with Brandon Nielsen. Over at the dog
(00:03):
stop. We are chatting today justabout some of the placements
that we had with theentrepreneurs, coaches and
clients and the dog stuff. SoBrandon, before we dive right
in, I want to give a littleintro your background how you
came into franchising. And thenhe got to the Dogstar
franchise developments, one ofthose things, it's, it's not
like you can just come into theindustry, you kind of have to
(00:24):
know somebody, and was the samefor me, my dad's been doing this
for my basically my whole life,I got my start when I was in my
early 20s. With franchisedevelopment. Well, it's been
about 20 years now, since I'vebeen in franchise development
and sales. And it's beenfantastic. My history with the
dog stop, I actually wasinteresting. I had my own
franchise development companyyears ago, at a development
company, the docstoc was one offour different clients that I
(00:47):
was working with at the time,this is like back in 2016 17
timeframe. And I, we were ableto bring in I think I brought in
maybe 10, franchise ownersformed around that timeframe.
And it was a great little run.
And then I had anotheropportunity that fell in my lap
and one of those kinds of toogood to pass up opportunities.
And so I actually left mybusiness and put all those
clients on hold, and basicallysaid, Hey, I'm going to be going
(01:08):
to do this other thing for youknow, two to three years is kind
of what I projected. And sothat's what I did. And then
immediately when I was done withthat other opportunity, which I
knew it was only going to be ayou know, a short two to three
year deal. I immediately calledup Jesse over the duxtop and
said, Hey, I'm done. I want tocome work with you guys again,
and Jesse's, like, that's great,we want you back, we need you
(01:29):
back. But we want to hire youdirectly. We don't want to work
with anybody else, we want youexclusively just with us. And I
was like, Okay, let's, let's setup a deal. So I've been
officially back in that role asdirector of franchise
development with the duxtop,since just over a year now that
I've been back with them. Andit's been a busy, busy year,
trying to get everything set up,we've kind of brought our
franchise development effortskind of to the next level over
(01:49):
the last six months, and inreally doing it the right way.
So it's been it's beenfantastic.
That's really exciting. BecauseI know I believe worked or
talked with the the dog stuffback in kind of the early days
when they were really justgetting started. And then now to
see, okay, like the growth anddevelopment from that point and
to your story. You know, thepast year, I think especially
(02:11):
one of thereasons why I decided to come
back and work with these guys,again, is Jesse and Chris, the
founder, the founders, theowners of the company, they're
some of the most easiest guys towork with. There's symbols laid
back kind of tight, you know,give you the shirt off their
back type guys, right? I mean,that was a big decision for me,
you know, when, when I wasweighing the decision where to
go, that was one of the bigthings, but the thing with the
dog stop, one of the things thatthey did very differently from
(02:33):
the very beginning is they havehad a very slow and methodical
approach to a franchise growthwhere I've seen companies, you
know, and you can imagine, and20 years of doing this business,
I've seen companies, lots ofcompanies that have kind of had
the opposite approach and growand grow way too fast right out
of the gate is a new franchisecompany. And in some cases that
literally destroyed their entirebusiness because they just grew
(02:55):
too fast. They weren't able tosupport their franchisees, Jesse
and Chris did the optic, theopposite approach, and they're
like, listen, we're gonna govery slow, very methodical, and
it has paid off. And then we'renow at 21 locations open and
operating. Now every singlelocation is profitable. And
that's not common in thefranchise world, right? In the
franchise world, you typicallyhave like, you know, every
franchise has a top third,middle third, bottom third, but
(03:15):
most bottom thirds for mostfranchises are really
struggling, right, they'relosing money, or they're
breaking even even our bottomthird are making money. So
that's a testament to doing itthe right way, being patient
doing it the right way. Andthat's and that's really what
they've done. And we're and I itwas only really probably last
year, summer, around this timelast year where we were like,
You know what, we're ready togrow, like, we're ready to step
(03:36):
it up. We have everything inplace, we have an overabundance
of support staff, the amount ofsupport staff we have could
support 100 franchisees but weonly have 17 that we're so we're
waiting for growth. So we'rekind of at that point. Now,
that is great. And I've justloved that you say that of
because I think too in theindustry. It's like, just award
(03:56):
as many franchisees as possible,and then you'll figure it out.
So just on like on a tangent,what would you say to someone
like a brand comes to you? AndI'm sure they have, we're like
Brandon, I would like to add 50franchisees this year, I only
have two right now, like whatwould you save about?
It's a tough deal, because as afranchise development person, a
(04:16):
lot of guys in my position a lotof people in my position, they
see dollar signs, right? Andit's like, well, I would rather
at the end of the day, I'drather be able to sleep well at
night and know that what I'mdoing is actually doing well for
other people, not just for thenew franchisees, but also for
the franchisor because what thefranchisor doesn't understand
and taking something like thaton they're not going to be ready
for it and they're not going tobe prepared for it and they're
(04:38):
going to it's going to end upit's going to come back and bite
him big time. And I've just seenI have friends that do what I do
in the industry and I've seenhorror stories that I just can't
I can't I have to do the rightthing at the end of the day and
then the right thing is to yeswe could probably grow a lot
faster but let's grow at thepace we know we need to in order
to be successful.
Oh great. And I know we alsotalked about like a lot of
abundance and I think those twothey're like if we do Don't do
(05:00):
this now, then we're not gonnabe able to grow like, it's never
gonna happen. So we got to do itnow. And it's like, no, no, if
you're going to do it the rightway, don't worry, like it's
going to happen. And once youhave the groundwork in place,
and you want this to be longterm, well, you don't want to be
in two years looking back andbeing like, oh, no, we have to
like terminate half of oursystem.
Yep. Yeah, that's that's exactlywhat you don't want and that,
(05:22):
unfortunately, in the franchiseworld, that happens quite a bit,
unfortunately. Solove hearing that. So thank you
for sharing that part of it withthe entrepreneurs. I mean, we
had to win two placements. And Ithink the span of like, two
weeks, I'd like to franchisorsand there were multiple location
awards as well. So just wantedto get your thoughts on, first
of all, like, what were the kindof the clients backgrounds and
(05:44):
where were they coming from?
Yeah, Justin,was a business development guy.
He essentially helped thebusinesses kind of get things in
order to help them grow anddevelop their own business
without business support. Thisis development guy and him and
his wife, they are in Orlando,but him and his wife have been
racing racing greyhounds, sogreyhounds that have been used
(06:05):
for racing purposes and theirentire lives since they were
puppies no nothing different andhave been in that life. And
basically, they would take theseGreyhound puppies or Greyhound
dogs after they've been racingfor years, and try to
rehabilitate rehabilitate theminto normal life. That's the
type of people they are they'rejust fantastic people. But he's,
yeah, Orlando, and then they're,they're gonna do amazing. He
(06:25):
bought he, I think he did five,I think he bought a five pack in
Orlando. So he's gonna be he'sgonna own to the Orlando market,
for the most part, to be honestwith you, I don't think I've
ever had a more smooth, easydeal to get done ever. I mean,
there was no issues. It wasliterally like from the first
call, this is what we want todo, we're gonna do it. And it
was just kind of like thatthrough the whole process. The
(06:45):
other guy in New Jersey, thatwas a three pack, I think they
bought three territories in NewJersey, and he's an attorney.
Whenever you're dealing withattorneys, you know, they're
nice, nice people, obviously.
But it was just like the backand forth at the very end with
the agreement. And just thelittle nitpicky, you know,
things that were like does thatat the end of the day doesn't
matter at all. And it's nevergonna matter. But regardless,
(07:08):
real nice, real nice guy. Now,he brought in a partner with him
that he had known for quite awhile, actually. And they did it
together. But overall, I mean,at the end of the day, listen,
it's getting deals done atFranchise development is all
about communication. Always.
And, and I think a lot of peoplein my position, one of the
things that they don't do verywell is the communication
between not just them, you know,me and the client, but me and
(07:29):
the consultant. And quitefrankly, Julian was he was top
notch. As far as communicationgoes, I mean, it was literally
like, I got an email or a callfrom him every single week, back
and forth communication betweenhow Justin's doing, how's he
progressing? Where is he at now?
What's going on? And the samewith Phil, two, they were both
fantastic when it came to thatcommunication. So you have to,
(07:50):
you know, when you're workingconsultant leads like that, you
have to have that, that back andforth constantly. And then both
of them did an amazing job. Andthat obviously helps, right? So
if it's just me that's trying tohandle the entire thing. And I
don't hear from the consultantat all, ever. It's just kind of
like, it's like, all they didwas send me a lead and like,
close it, and let me know whenyou're done. And that and that
was not the case with them. Theywere they were fantastic.
(08:11):
Excellent to hear no, becauselike we talked about all the
time. It's like I talked aboutwith our franchisor members, and
also with our coaches of like,collaboration is essentially the
communication piece of it. Andwithout it, it's like, if you're
actually interested in theclient, and you're actually
invested in like success, thenyou have to do that piece of it.
Otherwise it just like it likeyou said, if it's on the
(08:33):
franchisor side, and you're theone having to do everything,
like on your it's all one sided,like there's no back and forth
or opposite way, you know, wherethe coach is the one like I'm
having these calls, what's goingon? Like, it just just doesn't
work. So it just makes sense.
But to your point, sometimesit's like, I don't have time for
that.
No, no complaints. Honestly, thewhole process with both of both
(08:54):
Phil and Julian was smooththroughout the whole process.
And yeah, it was it was honestlythere was no hiccups. With both
of these it was not your anyhiccup there wasn't any hiccups
like your traditional Oh, we gotto watch out for this. And this
there was nothing like that. Itwas just it was a smooth
process, which is great. Toobad. You can't all be like that,
right?
And then just a few more things.
So what was it so both clientswere like, a bit different. One
(09:16):
had that very, like they wereworking with animals, like they
clearly had that like red threadthat was their values that were
there. But the other one wasattorney. So what resonated for
them about dogs wasn't the samething. Or were there like
different things about it thatspoke
to well, the people that getinvolved in our industry,
whether it's a new franchiseowner, or even the people that
(09:37):
work inside of our locations,like the employees of these
locations, there's one thingthey all have in common and
that's they're passionate aboutdogs. And so for instance, the
guy in New Jersey, the attorneywhile his partner's business
partner, actually trains raiseslabs and trains them for people.
So it's always there's always aconnection. So for the most
part, always connection to dogsin some way, you know, and it
(09:58):
could be as simple as listen IYou know, I, I'm interested in
this franchise because I've haddogs my whole life and I love
dogs and I want to do somethingI can be passionate about.
There's a lot of franchises outthere and a lot of
opportunities. But it's veryrare to have a franchise
opportunity where you can getinvolved in something where you
can be extremely passionateabout what you do every day, but
also make a lot of money. Andthat's this industry, right? So
(10:20):
the financial rewards are hugein our business, as well as the
emotional rewards to people justlove it. I mean, we have
franchise owners, it is a semiabsentee business, which means
that all the locations are runby full time managers. So the
franchisees aren't running theday to day stuff. And we have
some franchise owners thatliterally they'll go in after
work just to spend time with thedogs for an hour, right just to
(10:40):
go and play with the dogsbecause it's like therapy for
them. And so that's thisbusiness. There's not a lot of
businesses like that, right? Imean, there's not at the end of
the day, it's just you can makemoney in a lot of businesses.
But can you be very passionateabout what you do and really
love what you do? Right. That'sthe key.
And to what I think I know, Ithink was an awesome point. And
also where people might think,okay, they both came from very
(11:00):
different backgrounds, likeone's this business consulting,
and then the other one attorney.
So you have these backgrounds,and they probably aren't
thinking like, yeah, they likedogs are already doing these
things was either thinking, howcan I turn this into a business?
Or even like, there's a way forme to turn this into a business.
And even if they had thatthought they probably be like,
asked, like, way too hard, like,no, no, like, do watch and then
(11:20):
to be able to find somethinglike dog stop where it's like,
no, I can, I can do it all.
Like, that's really exciting.
Yeah, and you know, and the factthat this is not an owner,
operator, business is huge forpeople, because it's like, it's
one thing to be passionate aboutdogs. But it's another thing to
be like, Okay, I have to go intomy facility, and I have to spend
from 9am to 8pm there every day.
And that's not this business,right? If you do that, in any
(11:43):
business, you're gonna get burntout. And this, you know, so
nice, because we have somefranchise owners that literally
go in once a week, we have somefranchise owners that step in
once a day just for an hour orso, or 30 minutes just to see
how everything's going. Butthat's, it's kind of the best of
both worlds.
Not a big deal, too. Because Ithink sometimes two people
think, okay, I'll turn my hobbyor my passion into my full time
job. And then it becomes like, Ihate this now, because, you
(12:06):
know, you see what, like fitnessyou see with with anything, all
of a sudden, you're like, what,what am I doing here? I hate
dogs. You know, it's that. And Ithink one of the benefits that
we have with our business in ourindustry is is this industry is
a recession resistant industry.
It one thing I've learned overthe last 20 years and doing
franchise development, peopleare no matter what people are
going to spend money on theirkids, their pets, and their and
their parents. So you get intoany of those types of industries
(12:29):
that are those recession, whatwe call recession resistant
industries. And you know,you're, for the most part,
you're good to go. As long asyou follow the model and do what
you need to do, you're going todo well, but I still am
studying. I've been working withthe docstoc first set in 2017
for a couple of years. And nowagain, and I still cannot get
over how much money people spendon their dogs. Like I have two
dogs myself. And I know how muchmoney we spend. And we don't
(12:50):
even spend as much as somepeople and I'm just like, it's
outrageous.
Like the business is there. Likethere's no there's no shortage
crazy, especially now more thanever. I feel where people have
dogs.
Well, the COVID Puppies gotbrought into people's homes
during 2020. I mean, that's justthat alone, right there is going
to keep us busy for the next 10years. I mean, it's just it's
(13:12):
just crazy.
Yeah, so no worries there. Allright, and then I'll wrap it up
here. What do you value? What isthe dogs don't value in their
franchisees when you're lookingto bring people on? And the
other part is, is there anythingabout the dog stuff that maybe
surprises candidates, as they'relearning about it? Where it's
something they didn't expect?
Yeah, I think, you know, it'skind of the same answer to both
(13:34):
questions for the most part inthe sense that one of the things
with the dog stuff that's verydifferent than a lot of
franchises is we are veryflexible. In other words, what I
mean by that it's not a cookiecutter franchise. So if you take
all 21 of our locations that wehave open and operating, not one
looks exactly the same. Not one,they're all different. And the
reason why is because of the waywe do it, when we look at for
(13:54):
instance, when we look at realestate, we have some competitors
out there that are like goingoh, we got to be in high end
retail space, right? That'swhere we have to be with us.
We're like, No, we can doretail, we can do light
industrial flex commercials, itdoesn't matter where we go,
because this is a destinationlocation. I mean, we have
million dollar locations thatare in light industrial spots.
So it doesn't really matter. Ithink that's one of the things
that surprised people that werevery lenient when it comes to
(14:16):
first of all, where we go as faras the type of real estate needs
to be an A level real estate,but it can be light industrial,
it can be flex, it can becommercial doesn't have to be
retail, and just the flexibilityflexibility that people have. So
we're not so stringent on like,Listen, you have to do it our
way, or that's it. So we're veryopen to new ideas. And all of
our franchisees kind of havetheir own little things that
they do in their own locationsthat are very unique to them or
(14:38):
maybe their area, right so likeyou walk into one of them if
it's in a certain city that willhave a mural up on the wall of
that city's let you know thatlandscape or whatever it might
be. So it's really cool. And Ithink that's one of the things
that is very refreshing forpeople and surprises people a
lot because they especially ifthey've talked to other
franchises that are like no thathas to be done this way or else
and they come in with us andthey're like Oh, so you guys
(14:58):
don't mind if I do this or meadd this and then we're like,
No, not at all, as long as itdoesn't take away from the
brand. We're totally fine withit. So I think that's the
biggest surprise for a lot ofpeople. And quite frankly, I'll
be honest, the reason why somepeople are looking at maybe a
competitor said, No way, I'mgoing over the docstoc. Because
I can do this and this and theywon't allow me to do this over
there. And it's also the factthat you can open up to to four
(15:19):
of ours for the same investmentlevel as one of theirs, and make
this make two to four times moremoney. We're in our industry,
you know, and I won't mentionany of our competitors, but
we're all doing the samerevenues. So in the industry,
but literally our investmentlevel is is a fraction of what
theirs are, it's like a nobrainer, once people realize
that they're like, wait aminute, so I can open up two to
four of yours for the same priceas one of theirs and make the
(15:41):
same amount of money with onelocation. Yeah. So and so it's
kind of a no brainer. And thefact you know that we're the
only true one stop shop in theindustry. Nobody else does what
we do, we're the only one stopshop for customers where we
offer all services under oneroof, where some of our
competitors are morespecialized, they do one thing
very well, where we doeverything very well. So it's so
(16:02):
we've decided to say let's offerall services make it very
convenient for the customer addextra extra revenue services for
our franchisees to takeadvantage of and not just
focusing on this one service ortwo services. So that's another
big deal.
Can you just briefly describeshe said this in the beginning?
Can you briefly describe what itis that the dog stop does?
Absolutely. So we are the onlyfranchise out there that is a
(16:25):
one stop shop for dogs. So we dodog boarding, doggy daycare,
grooming training, retail and inhome services. And and we're the
only ones that do it. You know,dog boarding, dog boarding,
daycare, and grooming thosethree services right there. Our
core services make up typicallygive or take about 90% of our
revenue where retail comes in atabout 10% Give or take but the
(16:45):
fact that we offer all servicesunder one roof for people is
extremely convenient. So youknow you have a customer that
comes in and they drop their dogoff for boarding or daycare
their dog food is sitting on ourshelf or their favorite dog
treat or whatever it might be,why would they go buy it
anywhere else? Right? Why wouldthey get online in bite? They
could pick it up from us rightthere for the same price. And so
it's a huge convenience for thecustomer. And obviously it's
(17:07):
just added revenue for thefranchise owner so yeah, that's
what we do the only one stopshop in the franchise world and
run a lot of fun. We can't Wecan't even keep up. I mean, the
demand outweighs the supply. Sowe're having a lot of fun with
that right now.
That is a good place to be sonot having that. All right,
well, anything else that youwant to mention or close with?
(17:28):
There's more to come. I can lookon my list right now a ti es
leads that I have that I'mworking on. I could see easily
five more that are coming downthe pipe here pretty quick for
new deals to be done with Te soyeah, keep them coming. We'll
keep bringing them in bringingbringing good people in and
yeah, it's exciting. I'm excitedabout the tedious stuff that we
have going on. Thanks, Brandon,you're the best. Thank you
(17:49):
appreciate your time.
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