Sponsor: Zoho For Franchise Growth

Tom DuFore 0:00

The most successful franchises share one thing in common. They're never satisfied with where the business is today. They're always thinking about the road ahead. That ambition is the fuel that drives growth, and Zoho's business software is the engine that gets you there. With the right technology, your franchise won't just run better. It'll move faster. Candidates will progress through the development pipeline more quickly. New locations will open on schedule. Decisions will get made based on better data and better insights. Zoho gives every size and style of franchise the power to move faster without breaking what works. Whether you're a single location operator building a portfolio, a multi-unit operator scaling across brands, or a regional franchise or growing into a national network, Zoho grows with you every step of the way. Built over 30 years, Zoho's software ecosystem can be configured to match how your franchise actually works. CRM, operations, marketing, HR analytics, and more all designed to work together from the start. The more of your business that runs on Zoho, the more connected it gets. Head to zoho.com slash franchise to learn more about what Zoho has to offer. That's zoho.com slash franchise. And now back to the show. Welcome

Why Dogtopia’s Growth Stands Out

Tom DuFore 1:15

to the Multiply Your Success Podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I'm your host, Tom Dufour, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team. And as we open, I'm wondering what do you think about when you think of a successful franchise system? And what do you think it takes to get there? Well, our guest today is Neil Gill. He's the CEO of Dogtopia, and he shares with us the insights and lessons he's learned over his many decades in franchising. Now, Neil is the CEO and president of Dogtopia Enterprises. He spent more than 35 years in franchising with international brands such as KFC, Pizza Hut, Brinker International, and more than 11 years at Gloria Jeans Coffee as CEO, opening more than a thousand stores across 39 countries. He has experience in taking franchise brands through IPOs and worked in a variety of sectors from online education, weight loss, bakery, and Asian tea. Neil is a love of franchising and the entrepreneurial spirit it enables and everyone involved. This is a little bit of a longer episode than we normally do, but stay with us. It's a great episode. I have a great affection for this brand. I was able to be around Dogtopia when they first launched many years ago. And so it's exciting to kind of come full circle for me in this conversation that I have with my guest, Neil Gill.

Neil Gill 2:39

Appreciate it, Tom. Thank you. And appreciate you having me on the uh on the show today. So looking forward to the conversation. And so I'm Neil Gill, the CEO of Dogtopia. Dogtopia is now the leading dog daycare franchise system in the world. And so really proud to be able to say that. So we're at 276 locations. When I came on board um almost 11 years ago, Tom, like time flies when you're having fun, right? We had just near 30 stores. And so very proud of the team and our franchisees and particularly our in-store team members that have helped us to get here. And of course, we couldn't do this without our dogs and their parents.

Tom DuFore 3:18

Wonderful. Well, that is really amazing growth. And the way that you have also grown, it's not growth for the sake of growth. You have to grow these systems. So just hearing you go from talking about over the 11 years or so, from 30 to now nearly 300, almost 10 times the numbers was very, very impressive growth. It just makes me think, and just to kind of jump into some of the franchise stuff offhand, how do you help make sure as you're launching? Because these are large facilities, you know, it's not like a 800 square foot type of space. I mean, this is a larger facility. So how do you help franchisees and sourcing and growing and keeping up with all of this? It just makes me think about that as an initial starting point.

Training Systems Built To Scale

Neil Gill 4:00

Yeah, it's a great question, Tom. And you know, we've built a really solid team around that from a support office point of view. And so today we have about 60 people in our support office to support our franchisees across the country. And you're right, we're in like 44 different states right now. And we're also up in Canada. So we're in three provinces of Canada as well. And so that that requires a really clever team. And it also requires very efficient systems. And so, like we've spent the last 11 years building a series of systems and a network of systems, tools, and processes that I believe are some of the best in the franchise world today. And I know that's a massive statement, Tom. And so, but let me tell you why I think that. So I had the privilege in back in the 90s of working with Brinker International. And one of the things that, you know, I spent six years with Brinker, and one of the things I walked away with from my Brinker experience was that their training protocols, their training systems, and their tools were the best that I'd ever seen in my life. And I was impressed, right? And so I've spent the rest of my career trying to do a better job than Brinker did. And I think today that we've achieved that. Now, I can't talk to what Brinker's systems look like today. So I'm I'm assuming they've continued to progress on the excellence that they created during my time with them. But that was that for me was the basis, right? And it's like, I want to do a better job than Norman did. And um, you know, because I had the privilege of spending some time with Norman as well during that part of my career. And the culture that he built was just incredible. He still loved going into the Dallas offices. And so, and you know, I think what our team have built today, like we have 650 hours of training on our LMS system. We call it Doctopia Connect. You know, we have a videographer on our team, we have a uh canine behavioralist, we have uh we actually have a committee of canine behavioralists, like fully qualified and certified canine behavioralists that help us ensure that we're at the forefront of dog behavior protocols in our stores. We actually have, you know, we've we've utilized AI in the last 18 months in helping our franchise business partners develop like self-generating store diagnostic tools, you know, which I'm really proud of. And then in the last 18 months, we've rolled out three sets of tools that I think just bring it all together into what I describe as being the chat GPT process of all of our systems. And so one's called the AUV playbook, and it's just it's 12 chapters of actually how to run a store. All right, how to how to drive revenue every single day. And it's 12 simple chapters where I say to our franchisees, like, please, if there's one thing you take away from this session, take the AUV playbook to bed with you and read it. Right? Take it to bed and understand it. Then we've also got a what we call our ramp playbook, because this is a really interesting sector, Tom, where it's not like fast food. And you know, I've got a food background, right? And so it's not like fast food or it's not like casual dining where you kind of open your doors up. And generally people tend to flock in because they want to go and check out the new place. Like this pet industry is a kind of front-end lead gen organization that has to deliver on this kind of really focused back end playroom dog space, right? And so when you open our doors in this business, people aren't flocking in because people aren't driving around with their dog in the car going, oh, wow, there's a new dogtopia. Let's go and try it out, right? Like that doesn't happen. And so, you know, it has to be this very kind of thoughtful process of education of parent, education of local demographics. And so we kind of tie in, you know, as part of the support of our franchisees for new stores. We've taken the best practices from what I think the fitness industry has done an exceptional job with, right? So, you know, with pre-selling, we call them founders' passes. So we give an opportunity, you know, we want about a hundred parents before we start that have, you know, committed to an enrollment program because you know they're really supporting their dog. And so the Ramp playbook kind of walks the entire franchisees through this entire process from the minute they sign a lease up until they're 13 months old. And that's 10 chapters. All right. So if you're a new franchisee, take that one to bed with you. All right. Then once you turn 13 months old, the AUV playbook becomes your best friend. All right. So there's this beautiful progression of tools that the team have created. Like we have, like I think we have one of the best ops teams in the industry. All right. So Christine Eastburn heads up our what we call our franchise business partners. And we've done, like we commit a lot to our franchise business partners around their development, has been like very, very strong business coaches. And so this store diagnostic program that we've created, you know, automated through the use of many tools, right? So um, you know, tools that are actually including what are the local demographics look like, what are household incomes, like what is the density of population around those areas, you know, what do your search results look like, where do you rank in those search results? What do your map rankings look like? You know, so there's this whole combination of kind of front-end lead gen. And then also we've put in place this mystery shop program to help our franchisees understand how they are doing in storing, converting those leads. Right. So, because that conversion proposition is an absolute core lever of success, right? We know, we know the single biggest correlation on AUV growth today is the number of meet and greets a store does a week. And so, like we know our levers extremely well. And so on the back of all of the systems, tools, and processes were created, we also have we use Power BI to give our franchisees the data they need. And we created what we call a series of canary metrics. All right. And I kind of had a bit of fun with that name. And yeah, because you know, what does a canary do in a coal mine? It you know, it it tells you when you've got a problem. And so these canary metrics are identifying almost crisis points, Tom, of when a franchisee needs to take action. And so they're flagged up to the FBP, and so then they'll reach out to the franchisee and say, hey guys, we've got an issue here with um your LC3, you know, League Conversion 3, what's going on? How do we fix them? So we've spent a lot of very thoughtful time, Tom, and to your point, this has been very sustainable growth. This is not growth for the sake of growth, right? It's been very strategic.

Data Levers And Canary Metrics

Neil Gill 10:48

Right. So, you know, we use a geo mapping tool that we've spent seven years building, and it's integrated in with our point of sale system. We also have developed our own point of sales system internally, all built on Salesforce. So, you know, one of the best CRMs in the world, because we recognize that this is, I mean, ultimately, like this is at the front end a lead gen business, but at the back end, it's a business that delivers on love in a playroom. And so, and it's like, how do you bring those two very different worlds together? Because they're two very different worlds. And so we've done a lot of work around how do you pull the strategy out of that front end of the business? Because a franchise or's responsibility is to remove strategy from the actual outlet, from the from the four walls, from the brick and mortar. Franchise Ore's job is to create a tactical business where an average individual can do an average day's work and deliver excellent results. And if you've done that, if you can achieve that as a franchise ore, you've built a great system. And so it is this it's this combination of continually improving the systems because nothing exists, Tom, in this industry. Like that's what kind of shocked me when I started. As I say, almost 11 years ago, I walked into this business thinking, yeah, this will be pretty easy. There's only 30 stores. You know, I'd come out of the back of just developing a coffee brand across the world. And I thought, this is going to be easy. Uh, we'll just go out and buy the best point of sale system out there. We'll go out and buy all the training protocols and so on. Um, you know, after I'd committed and put some money in the business, I was I started to learn it wasn't that easy. And so, you know, in hindsight, maybe I should have taken a little bit more time to look at it all. But you know, it's a sector that kind of pulls you in because it is it's so passionate, right? And so, you know, this is an industry where you've got to stop yourself from getting lost in the passion and you've got to keep the focus around the business because you can get lost, right? And so that's our job, and particularly my job as a CEO, is to make sure that we've got a really strong plan in place, that everyone's aware of that plan, and that we're working towards those goals. And so I could I could talk to you for probably two days on our planning process that I've built, Tom, over the last 20 years of my career. But this is an industry that's in its infancy, and that's partly what excites me about it. We're leading this industry, and I'm really proud of what we're doing, particularly from you know, our latest strategic proposition of this wellness, uh holistic wellness that we started rolling out last year. Because the journey we've been on, you know, when it took over the business, it was fundamentally a boarding business like everybody else is in the sector, you know, where the majority of their revenue comes from overnight stay, right? That's not our business anymore, Tom. Our business now is about 65% of our revenue comes from daycare. So we are a daycare business, right? About 55% of our revenue is now recurring revenue on the enrollment model. So I'm really proud of that. So franchisees can wake up on Monday morning and they've got majority of their income in the bank already. You know, as a franchisee, that gives you some comfort, right? Because you know then you can actually pay your bills. You know, that's been an important part of that journey. And so, you know, the first strategy, you know, when I took the business over was working with our franchisees around, okay, guys, like how do we shift this from being a boarding business to being a daycare business? Because I think this is where the industry's going. How do we then shift from that current demographic, which was an older demographic, to the female millennial because their dog is very much their family? And and then, you know, once we made that shift, it was like, okay, how do we now shift and start emulating the children's daycare proposition and introduce enrollment so we drive greater consistency in the playrooms and much better health benefits for the dog. And so that's been the journey.

Owning The Tech Stack With AI

Neil Gill 14:52

And then last year, the big focus was rolling out our own tech stack because what we found, Tom, was that there isn't a point of sale system in the country that can either keep up with us, as from a pace perspective, you know, because we moved pretty quickly, right? But also that just weren't thinking about the industry the way we think about the industry. And so we got to a place where we just had to invest in our own point of sale, right? And uh our own CRM. You know, we'd already built the learning management system, so we already had all the training protocols in place and we built that ourselves. And so we said, okay, we need to own our own tech stack. And you know, there's there's times in your career, Tom, where you either get very lucky or you're extremely strategic, right? And I don't know uh which one of this it was, but um, I think it was a bit of both. But this rollout at the tech stack just aligned perfectly with just the acceleration of you know the current AI. And so you've been able to actually now tie all of the artificial intelligence into our tech stack, right? So, for example, we're rolling out right now, um, tailor the chatbot so that we can actually take out of the hands of the franchisee that lead management process. So, how do we get how do we help our franchisees get more meet and greets? Because number one correlation to OUV, how do we get more meet and greets booked into our stores? Well, let's use artificial intelligence to help us do that. And we couldn't have done that, Tom, if we had not have rolled out our own point of sale system because we would have been reliant on a third party to say, hey guys, would you be willing to do this with us? All right. And so, you know, but the scripting, I mean, you know, the amount of work it takes to actually set up a chat bot, right? But it's been a heavy lift. We've done it all internally with our own IT team, which I'm really proud of. We have an exceptional IT team. We've just just this week we rolled it out to the first 20 stores after testing it in six of our company stores. So I'm excited to see the results at the end of this week, Tom.

Tom DuFore 16:57

I

From Boarding To Wellness Daycare

Tom DuFore 16:58

appreciate you sharing the progression that you've been going through, this state of just constantly evaluating, looking at, planning, executing, going through these things to improve the system and help your franchisees. And now, as we were talking pre-show, there's this idea of being more holistic for this holistic wellness and health of the pet. So just share a little bit about that and this next phase that you're moving toward.

Neil Gill 17:26

Yeah, it's really interesting, Tom. And it's something that I'm very excited about, and I'm actually really proud of because ultimately, 10 years ago, 10 and a half years ago when I joined the brand, uh, what I saw at the time, and it was it was interesting, what I saw was that no one owned the sector. And Norman Brinker used to always say, Hey, look, if you ever get a chance to actually own a sector, take it, because they don't come very often in your career. And he used to talk a lot about how he actually started the casual dining sector, right, in the restaurant space in the US. And so, and he did, right? And so, and all I could hear, particularly if you know, I went into a uh dog daycare and boarding expo where I got to meet about 600 independents, right? And all I could hear was Norman in my head saying, if you ever get a chance to own a sector, like take it because it doesn't come often. And that's one of the reasons I'm here today, one of the reasons why I'm so committed to the dog topia brand and model, is because what I saw at the time was that ultimately everyone was doing the same thing. It was like, how do we provide boarding to parents that want to go on holidays? What I saw was this need to provide more than that, right? So and and you know, first thing I did was I sat down with a couple of the team members and we started to map out strategically what could that look like. What what does this holistic model look like, right? And we come up with these 13 things, right? And you know, what I know as a CEO is you can't do 13 things well. And so, and what we decided at the time was let's just focus on one and let's start to turn this business into a daycare business, because that's the start of the journey to wellness. Right? Because I recognized at the time that like a dog that's in daycare is a well-socialized dog and it's a well-exercised dog. And so, and parents need, you know, I've had dogs my whole life, parents need like the numbers the single biggest search requirement for pet parents is training. And dog daycare is training. Right? And so, yeah, because I can I coach the certified trainers, and then the dogs learn from each other in the playroom. And a lot of parents don't quite understand that, right? You know, I drive around a fully wrapped big SUV and then I stop to get gas. I have people run up to me and say, Oh, thank goodness I found you. Sure, like what are you looking for? And they're like, My dog needs training. And I'm like, Absolutely, every dog needs training, right? And I said, Why don't you just take it into local dogtopia and we'll look after you? No, no, no, it needs training. I know. Right? Let's drop it into dogtopia, right? Let's work together for about three months and then we can sit down and we can define what that looks like. Right? So that was kind of the first step, Tom, is like this helping our franchisees and our parents understand that daycare is the first step on this wellness journey. Okay, so because daycare is wellness, daycare is exercise, socialization, right, and everything else that comes with that. Now, the beauty we have is that we also do the spa services, right? And so, like any good human, you've got to make sure you bathe and you've got to keep yourself clean. And so, of course, dogs need to do the same thing. You've got to keep your teeth clean, you've got to keep your ears clean, right? You've got to keep your fur unmatted, and you gotta keep your skin healthy, right? And so we do all of that. In fact, um, we've developed a whole range of spa products. And they're all manufactured in the US, which I'm really proud of, but they've they're some of the highest quality shampoos, conditioners, keto shampoos, shampoos for dogs that have folds in their skins and so on. We have a teeth whitener, uh, we have a medicated ear cleaner, and you know, all those are available, and we provide those to our franchisees in our stores, but they're also available on dogtopiashop.com and they're available on Amazon. All right, so and Amazon is, you know, depends on who you talk to, is the second largest search engine in the world, right? So you've got to be on Amazon. And so and so it's been this kind of journey to wellness for the last 10 years. And what one of the things I've learned, Tom, in franchising, is you've got to learn patience. And so your strategy has to be long-term if you're gonna build a sustainable brand. You can't come in and fly by the seat of your pants, right, because you're surrounded by entrepreneurs. So, you know, I joke about the fact that someone has to be the adult in the room, and that has to be the CEO, right? And so and the CEO has got to be the one with the plan. And you're they're the one that's got to bring, and you're part of the responsibility is you gotta you gotta have a team around you that's smarter than you, and you gotta build a plan that everyone's engaged in, and then you've got to figure out how to engage the The actual stakeholders. And you've also got to decide how you when and how you release that plan. Because if you release it all, you know, what's in your own mind at the time, people start to think you're a little crazy because they're not there yet. Right? And so you've got to step that plan out in a way that's very, very digestible. If you don't, you give people indigestion, right? So they do, they get upset stomachs and they start thinking about what is what's this guy going on about? What's this Aussie talking about? I can't even understand his accent, right? And you've got to take that in mind on this journey. And so, yeah, part of this journey to wellness has been this piece of daycare first, enrollment second, because of that consistency. Dogs

Proving Wellness With Activity Data

Neil Gill 22:48

are habitual creatures and they love consistency. They watch everything we do. Okay. And they like to know what days, they know, by the way, what days they go to daycare. They tell their parents in the morning, hey, hey, come on, it's Tuesday, I'm going to daycare. And they know before the parent remembers. And so the consistency piece is important, right? And so then if you look at the six attributes of wellness, like exercise is is a key, right? Because you've got to keep mobility in life. You look at the blue zones around the world, the human blue zones, right, of longevity, you know, where these centennians live around the world, and you listen to their stories, the first thing they tell you is that is you ask the question, how have you lived to be more than a hundred years old? They're normally their first response is I've got this great network of friends and family. Well, that's daycare. Like some parents think, oh yeah, my dog's not a not a dog dog, it's a human dog. A dog needs to be a dog. All right. And daycare allows that, right? So that's that's the the friends and family. All right. The second thing that that people will say in these blue zones is that mobility is really important. Right. Well, that's daycare. I can tell you right now, based on our activity color that we rolled out this year, we now know that the average dog in daycare does eight miles a day. Right? And you know, I wear a a a Fitbit, Tom, and I can tell you I wish I could do eight miles a day. Right? And so, like honestly, I wish I could do eight miles a day, I'd be fitter. And I know that I know I'd live longer. Right? So, yeah, we now know, and we on our website that we have a ticker now sitting underneath the webcams, because our parents watch our webcams for an hour and thirty minutes a day. We call it our third screen, right? So, and I love Howard Schultz's proposition around the third place with Starbucks. Well, at Dogtopia, the third screen is the parents watching their dogs on our webcams. They do it for an hour and 30 minutes at a time. So at the bottom of the webs of the webcams, we have a ticker that shows how many, what were the top 50 dogs and how many miles did they do yesterday? And that normally exceeds 20 miles. And so, like 20 miles, Tom, like seriously? And so you think about mobility as part of being that journey to longevity and wellness, super important. Like, what parent has the time today to walk their dog eight miles, let alone 20 miles? And if you Google how long does it take for a human to walk eight miles, it's about three hours. No one's got three hours to walk their dog after work at night. Right? So, you know, daycare comes in as an important part. Then if you look at the kind of next stage of wellness is like health checks, right? So, you know, we all have to go to the doctor, we all have to go to the dentist and so on. And part of our model is that every single day when you bring your dog into daycare, they go through our eval room where they get a nose-to-tail check. And so our team go through and they check the dog for bruises, they check the dog for like their teeth whiteness, their brightness of their eyes, their cleanliness of their ears. That happens every single day. And so, you know, when they're at daycare. And so that's that kind of check. Now we're not vets, and we don't pretend to be vets, right? Even though I do have a veterinary scientist on my team, you know, that's helped build some of our protocols and content, you know, our our team members in stores are not vets. But what it allows is our team to be able to inform a parent, then, hey, you know, we've noticed that like Scruffy has a limp. You might want to take Scruffy to the vet and see what's going on. Right. So there's that really nice partnership we have with vets across the country. Right. And so, and you know, and part of it, Tom, is you know, what we're working on now is how do we help educate vets around this wellness proposition of daycare has been a key piece. And so obviously, diet then forms like the first, the fourth step in, you know, in a longevity model, right? We've got to eat well and you've got to exercise well. And so, and what's interesting in our world, Tom, is about 80% of our parents bring their own food and they uh you know, and rightly so, they're obsessed about what their dog gets fed because they're very conscious about their wellness. Like we have we have high engagement with our parents. Like I've never been in a brand before that has such engaged consumers. We don't call them consumers, we call them parents. Our NPS score, just say you know, Tom, is 90. 90. Now, the only other brand that I know that has a higher NPS score than us is Tesla. And so, like, we've put a lot of thought around this wellness proposition, Tom, because it's real, like it's genuine. Like, this is not a marketing strategy. Like, this is a genuine proposition that exists every day in our stores. All right, and so and we know, and we know based on two things, based on recent research by Perina, which is a dog food brand in my nest late, and also by our the the organization that actually manufactures our dog collar for us, like the activity collar. So our Fitbit for dogs, which we call Dash, we now know that a dog that does just higher than average steps every day has about an 80% chance of living an extra two years. All right. So our recommendation to parents is one, put your dog in daycare. If you can't put your dog in daycare, please just make sure you're walking your dog every single day. All right. So because dogs don't live long enough, right? Like in our world, everyone wants their dog to live longer. Like I don't know a single parent that wouldn't give I mean, we've done a bunch of research. You know, 73% of dog parents prefer their dogs over their children, by the way. You know that, Tom? 73%. And so if if you prefer your dog over your children, of course you want your dog to live longer. So there's there's some real passion behind this holistic wellness desire. And it's because we believe in the outcomes, right? So like we've got data, we have proof that you know these, if you can, as a parent, if you can focus on these six attributes, your dog will live longer. And we want to be part of that because we know it takes a village to raise a great dog. And so, and then the next phase, Tom, the next phase of the strategy is then how do we start to educate the dog families on that information transferring into their world. Right. And you know, Mayo Clinic are already going down that path. They've done some great videos around the benefits of dogs to families, like babies get less ear infections when there's a dog in a house, children are more empathetic when there's a dog in the house, heart disease drops, people's heart rates drop. And so, yeah, we honestly believe that there's this transition that we can help take place on creating healthier dogs and healthier families. So I'm really excited about that.

Tom DuFore 29:52

Everything

Marketing The Story Without Overload

Tom DuFore 29:53

you've shared is really amazing with all the work you're doing that you have done and the trajectory of where you're going. And one of the things that came to mind, and you mentioned briefly about this, but it makes me think a little bit about the communication aspect of this. You have a big story to tell with a lot of fine detail, and you can go as the 30,000-foot view all the way down to the micro view, and you've got fine detail on all of this. So it makes me think in two areas communicating this. And the first is to prospective franchisees, new potential franchise candidates coming through, and how you kind of help educate them on all of what you're doing. And then the second part of that is how you help the local customer or local parent, dog parents, understand what you're doing because there's a lot there. And so they probably in your mind, like you were saying, the average consumer, customer, is probably thinking, oh, it's just this is just a boarding place, or this is just a doggy daycare kind of a place. It's kind of two questions at one. So let's start with that first part on how you help communicate this to a prospective franchise buyer.

Neil Gill 31:05

Yeah, it's the two really good questions, Tom. And we spend a lot of our life trying to figure that out. And so, and and you do, you have to be careful on when and how, as I mentioned earlier, right? So that you don't give people indigestion as part of it all. Because there is a lot to unpack, and we are doing a lot. You know, as I say, like we're doing more than anyone else in the sector. And we do tend to move pretty quickly, but we we move in a very thoughtful way. And so, and it's the question I ask my team all the time is like, what can we be doing more to educate? And so from a new franchisee perspective, so we have a really great franchise micro side as part of, you know, as a kind of starting point of it all. You know, Alex Semios that heads up our franchise sales side has been with me now for 10 years. And so, and and Alex was a franchisee himself of several franchise brands previously. So he understands what being a franchisee is. He's got a very strong operations background. And so, you know, his understanding of our business is as strong as mine, right? So he does a really nice job in helping new franchisees come in and just pick up the essence of where we are, and then he's learned how to drip feed that into very digestible components, right? Because you can't deliver it all at once, right? Because it's too much. Like it's a lot, right? And we know that. We do some great advertising as well, and so Alex works really closely with our marketing team, and so we have a very good digital agency, but we have a very strong marketing team in-house. So I've got 13 people in my marketing team. And so, and um, Shelley Parnell heads up my marketing team. She's been with me 10 years. All right, so Alex and Shelly, you know, work really closely together on how do you unpack this strategy. All right, how do you unpack it in bite-sized pieces, you know, just like how you eat an elephant, right, Tom? And just help someone come in that doesn't yet quite understand the proposition. And obviously, things like podcasts and you know, things like general advertising, like any way that we can actually help people understand what we're doing and why we're doing it, it all comes together to help, right? And it is this combination of advertising, website, blogs, content. You know, it's just PR. You know, we do we do a lot of PR around um, you know, sharing great stories of franchisees that are in the system and what they're doing. You know, LinkedIn is a great platform for us as well. And so it has many moving pieces to it all. And it's something, Tom, that we're just constantly reviewing. And so, you know, reviewing from a point of view of does the strategy make sense? How do we communicate it? And you know, are new franchisees really understanding what that means? And then I think we run a really solid discovery day process where franchisees come into Phoenix, and we have like all of my business unit heads present at that meeting, and they present the plans and the strategy for the year. And so, and then you know, we have a long Q ⁇ A session, and then we take them up to a store, and they spend a couple of hours in our training location in Scottsdale. And that tends to, that tends to be the aha moment, Tom, is when they actually, you know, they've been through the research themselves. You know, they've they've read about who we are, they've they've actually chat GPT us as well, and so and you know, that's another beast in its own right of like how do you actually manage that, right, as part of it so the right messaging's coming across. And you know, because they've done a lot of their own research. They've probably been to some other brands, Discovery Days as well, and we hope they have, right? We really do. We hope we're not the first because you know we are the best, right? And so I'd rather them go and visit some of the others first and then come to us. But it the aha moment is when they actually get into our Scot style training still. And they're like, ah, okay, this is where it all makes sense. All right, and then Alex and his team do a great job with follow-up and just being able to answer questions because he just knows the business so well. All right, so that's that's the first piece, though. That's how we help franchisees kind of gobble up all this information, right? Because it's a lot, right? Then from a consumer's point of view, I think the app is a really important part. Right. And we're just constantly, you know, we did a full app refresh last year where we put activity as a key part of that on the front page of the app. So um as part of the launch of the activity colour, so dash. We put the ticker on the webcams just to help parents understand that wellness proposition. But there is a lot of education, right? So, you know, we have also educational components on the app now where parents can actually click into blogs and things. And so, but there's a lot of education around the fact that like daycare isn't just somewhere to leave your dog. Daycare is a wellness proposition. And so, and that's just ongoing, Tom. Like it's just constantly, how do we advertise? Well, you know, we've this first quarter of the year, we did more advertising than we've ever done in our history. Because of everything you're talking about, is how do you unpack all of this? And you've got to be able to use, you know, so we, you know, Facebook, Instagram, we use Pinterest for the first time because we wanted to see if that was gonna give us kind of more traction, right? Slightly different demographic, a little bit more dwell time. You know, TikTok is an important part because Gen Z is becoming, you know, we've seen about a 300% growth in our Gen Z parents, right? And so it's it's constantly looking at where's the engagement going on on the different platforms, right? How do we actually ensure the right messaging is right, and how do we make it really localized? And so what our marketing team have done a really nice job with is created just local content for franchisees to be able to tailor to suit their local businesses and their local demographics, and then be able to post that on the different platforms. And so our marketing platform, you know, called Frantify, is actually one of the best I've worked with. And the content we create for our franchisees gives them this, it gives them these wonderful campaigns that are aligned across what we call our GTM, a go-to-market calendar. All right, it's aligned across that. So we have a very strategic marketing calendar that maps out the year, and then the campaigns are all driven around that. And so it's like, how do you take this national campaign and make it very local and allow franchisees to be able to post that? And this year is built all around this wellness, uh, wellness and education. So, like the what we've added as well, because now we own our own tech stack, as I mentioned, is we have automation as part of it, right? So we use a product called Marketing Cloud, and we've created these 13 customer journeys, and so majority of them are all about wellness. So it's about being able to communicate directly with our existing parents around the benefits of daycare and the wellness benefits, and like how does Dash, the activity collar, play an important part of the dog's overall and holistic wellness proposition? And so I think that's been an important part and kind of reflect on your question around how do we help educate our own existing parents. I think that automation within the Salesforce platform has helped a lot because you know we can actually switch that on based on the parent's activity. And so, and then personalization's been important as well on the back end of that, you know, where we can actually start to track new parents as they come in through their IP address and where they dwell in our website so that we don't have to waste their time and we can actually give them the information that they're looking for when they come back in next time. So there's been a lot of thoughtful process built around that education of both existing parents and potential new parents.

Advice For Franchise Builders

Tom DuFore 39:16

You've got a lot of background experience in franchising. So, what advice might you give to someone that's thinking about franchising or or they've recently franchised their business and now they're they're launching and getting things going? What advice might you give to someone in that situation?

Neil Gill 39:31

First of all, be prepared to work hard. Right. And it's and it's interesting, Tom. You know, one of the things I say to our new franchisees, because they're somewhat similar, right? So, and anyone that's about to start a business, I'll give the same advice too. So, number one, make sure you understand the sector and you believe in the sector and you're passionate about the sector. Like you've got to have some passion around what you do, otherwise it's just a job, right? And if you're working a job, then do something different. Do something that you're gonna enjoy because it consumes the majority of your life. If you're gonna start your own business, it's gonna consume the majority of your life. Be prepared for that. And so, and what I say to our franchisees, you know, when they come in for training is that so here's a couple of tips that I've learned in my my career and in being an entrepreneur and owning businesses, right? So, number one, your family has to be heavily involved. And so don't try and do this in isolation of your family. And so, whether they're involved actively in the business or not, they're still involved in your life. And so you've got to sit down with them first and foremost and say, guys, I'm about to do something that's you're probably gonna think it's a bit crazy. Right. But I want to do it because I'm really passionate about it. I want to do it because I think the sector's a really strong sector. I think there's enormous opportunity in here, right? I think we can do something really meaningful, and I think we can make some money out of this. Right? If those things aren't in your vocabulary, then rethink what you're doing. Then you've got to be able to say to your family, so I tell you what, this is how I need your help. I need some patience from you. Because you're probably not gonna see much of me for at least the next two years. Right. So, yeah, and I need your understanding around that. And there's gonna be times where I'm gonna come to you and ask for your help. And so, and there's gonna be times where I'm I'm gonna be pretty unreasonable. All right, because I'm gonna get really stressed. And so I need your understanding as well. All right. And that understanding is sometimes point me up and saying, hey, you're being unreasonable, stop it. Alright? And my wife does that extremely well. Extremely well, Tom. And so like you've got to do all those things together, and then you've got to be well capitalized. Don't try and do this on a shoestring budget. And you've got to have a plan. And that planning process briefly touched on it. I've spent 20 years building what I think is a very robust planning process. I roll it out every year in the business. I've rolled it out across several businesses that I've run. It's never failed me yet. And so, but ultimately a plan's only as good as its people that it that executes on it, right? So you've got to go out and you've got to find the best people you can afford. And you know, I mentioned earlier, Tom, that franchising teaches your patience. When you're first starting out, you can't afford the people that you want. You just can't. And so, you know, I always joke about the fact that you know fran young franchise systems always run on the smell of an Ollie rag. And you've got to be really clever around how you do that. And you've you've got to be really you've got to be very strategic around the selection of your people early in your piece. And so you've got to be thinking 10 years forward and saying, okay, can this will this person still be with me in five years? Will they still be with me in 10 years? And so, and then how do I afford a person that's gonna be able to come on that journey with me? Because not everyone comes on that journey with you. They can't. Right? So some people hit their ceilings, and so um, and you've got to be willing to be able to sit down and say, hey, you know what? It's time that we put that person in a different role. It's time we help that person find something else to do. It might be outside the company, right? And it's it's time to bring different talent into the organization, and you've got to be constantly assessing that. And that's patience, right? Because it would be much easier to start with very high-end talent, but it comes with its pros and cons. It costs you a lot of money, right? And not all high-end talent knows how to start something from scratch. And so, and not all high-end talent like scrappy environments. And I always talk about the fact that like small franchise systems, you've got to be good at running a team in a very scrappy environment. And so, and that's that's a that's a skill set that you develop. And so, I mean, I know there's a lot of commentary in these statements I've just made, but it you know. You've actually got to, you know, as I say, I'll c I'll just come back to the fact that it you've got to be passionate about a sector you know well. You've got to believe that the sector has growth in it. You've got to define your positioning within that sector, which I think we've done extremely well. Right. And then you've you've got to understand what sort of capital am I gonna need to be able to deliver on my plan and what's the human capital that's gonna help me get there? Because you cannot do any of this on your own. And then sit down and talk to your family and make sure they're upboard.

How To Connect With Dogtopia

Tom DuFore 44:31

If someone's tuning in and listening to this, said, Boy, I really love the message at Neil's sharing, or I'd love to learn more about Dogtopia. How can people get in touch or learn a little bit more?

Neil Gill 44:41

Yeah, so a couple of ways. So probably the easiest way is just to email Alex Samyos. And so his email address is Alex S. So that's S for Samyos at dogtopia.com. So um, and you know, as part as research is concerned, just go to our website and have a look at our franchise micros um pages. Uh there's plenty of information on there. Google us, and um, you know, you'll find a lot of information about it. Google me, and um you'll get to see a bunch of different content and you know, because you want to know who the CEO is and what does he stand for. Go into LinkedIn, looked at who our team are, and just have a look at the quality and the talent that we have within the team as part of your research before you come in for a Discovery Day and go and visit some of our stores. All right, really recommend you do that. And that's one of the first questions I ask at Discovery Day is how many stores have you guys been to? All right. So important part of really understanding what we're about.

Hard Lessons And Success Definition

Tom DuFore 45:34

Neil, this is a great time in the show, and we make a transition. We like to ask the same four questions to every guest before they go. And the first question is Have you had a miss or two on your journey and something you learned from it?

Neil Gill 45:44

Yeah, so interesting question, Tom. So a miss or two on the journey. I think, and I and again, I talked to uh franchisees about this in Discovery Day and in I still I still do a couple of sessions in our university sessions with our franchisees. I started in franchising when I was 15 years old, when I was I started with KFC back when it was still called Kentucky fried chicken, right? When fried wasn't a dirty word. And I joke about the fact that probably the biggest mistake I made in my career is that I started my career in one of the what I describe as one of the simplest franchise systems in the world. And as my career has progressed, I keep putting myself into these like very complex franchise systems that just get more and more interesting to run. And I think that's part of my personality. In a perfect world, I would have done it the other way around. But I tell you, the learnings from it all, though, is like what KFC taught me. Like KFC taught me the love of franchising. You know, as a kid, um, you know, when I first started, and this was in Australia, when I first started, there was a corporate model. Yep, I was chosen to go out and help support franchisees under their new store openings in the very early days. And then you know, I I did a lot of their training, and and they're a great system. You know, they continue to be a great system, and they kind of instilled in me that first, first of all, the love of that entrepreneurial spirit meets guardrails, is how I describe it, right? And so it means you've got to have really solid system skills and processes, which KFC have always had. And you've got to simplify the business as much as possible. And KFC have done an amazing job in doing that, right? And so that simplification lives in my mind all the time is how do we simplify? How do we pull a strategy out of the business, like I talked about earlier? And how do we let the stores focus on tactical? So, you know, while I joke about the fact that I wish I had done it the other way around, that that first six years of my career taught me a lot.

Tom DuFore 47:44

Let's look at the other side. Let's look at a make or two, a highlight you'd like to share.

Neil Gill 47:49

Yeah, I think I've been either extraordinarily strategic or lucky. And so if you look at my career, I've kind of landed in sectors at the start of their growth curves. Right? Like fast food in the Australian market in the 70s, right? So, you know, before the likes of KFC came into Australia, everything was independently owned, kind of milk bars, small independent shops, right? And so, and this was kind of the start of this kind of fast food branded, systemized rollout. And so, yeah, so fast food in the 70s. Then I went into casual dining like in the 90s, right? And so, you know, when Brinker was in its heyday, and you know, to Chili's credit, they're they're back in their heyday today. I mean, they've done an incredible job in reinventing that brand. And then from there, I went into the coffee business in in the 2000s, right? As coffee started to explode across the world. And so, and then, you know, after we sold that business, and you know, I thought I was going to retire for a couple of years, I decided to get into the pet business. And so, and look what's happened to the pet industry over the last 10 years. And so, you know, I think of, and as I say, Tom, I still am not sure whether it was luck or whether it was just this strategic insight where I just lay in bed all the time just thinking about like, what is the next sector? And like, what am I passionate about? And what do I want to do next? So I think it was a bit of both.

Tom DuFore 49:19

Amazing. Well, the name of the show is multiply your success. And we're so we ask if you used a multiplier to grow yourself personally, professionally, or any of the organizations you've run? People.

Neil Gill 49:31

My biggest multiplier is just the people you surround yourself with. Because you are, you become the the six closest people around you, right? And so you've got to be constantly looking at do I want to be that person, right? Is that person, you know, do they do they have the right ethics? Do they have the right skill set? Are they intelligent enough? Are they, do they move fast enough? Right. And so you've got to be constantly assessing the team you have around you, and not only the team, right? Your friends play an enormous part in your own development. And so if you're smart enough, you actually learn from the great people that are around you, and you also learn from the very average people that are around you. If you're smart enough, like if you're actually willing to learn from the mistakes. And so my response to that question, Tom, will always be like friends. And I say friends that includes people you work with, just choose your friends really wisely.

Tom DuFore 50:28

Very well said. And the final question we ask every guest is what does success mean to you?

Neil Gill 50:33

Yeah, it's a profound question, Tom. So, what does success mean to me? Probably two things I would say. So, number one, deliver on your promises. Right. So, and that's part of the reason why I'm such a big planner. And like if you your reputation's built on that, and your credibility's built on that. And franchising, or you own in franchising as a CEO, are those two things, reputation and credibility. And so you've you have to be able to deliver on those promises that you're making, all your stakeholders. Right. So that includes your investors, that includes your franchisees, that includes your own family as part of it, all includes your parents, it includes the dogs, it includes the team members in stores, you've got to be able to deliver on those promises. And so, and if you can't, don't make them. Right. So, and then probably the second thing I'd add to that would be understand your purpose and then just work like hell to deliver on it. If you don't have a purpose, stay in bed.

unknown 51:38

Right?

Neil Gill 51:38

It's probably the best place for you. And so, like really understanding what your purpose is. And that's why I'm just so passionate about dogtopia, because this wellness proposition is really important to me personally. And so and we have we have an amazing opportunity, not only impact the wellness of dogs and help them live longer, but also the families that surround them.

Tom DuFore 51:59

Neil, as we bring this to a close, is there anything you're hoping to share or get across that you haven't had a chance to yet?

Neil Gill 52:06

Probably the toughest question you've asked me, Tom. I think I've I've done a lot of talking here. Um, and I appreciate the opportunity. No, I think I mean ultimately, like if you're considering doing something in business, if you're considering joining Dogtopia, if you're considering joining this sector, like think about some of the things I've shared today. Because earning your own business is never easy. If it if it was, everyone would do it. It doesn't matter what you choose to do, just make sure that you know you're passionate about it, make sure you're willing to commit like 200% to it. It's not even a 100% commitment. Like it's a 200% commitment. If you're going to run your own business, it's got to be a 200% commitment. If you're not willing to do that, then just go and get a job. And so, like, that's like honestly, I just I see it too often where people think that they can come in and run a business and go and play tennis all day. It's not the case. If you want a really successful business that means something and gives back to local communities.

Three Takeaways And Next Steps

Tom DuFore 53:08

Neil, thank you so much for a fantastic interview. And let's go ahead and jump into today's three key takeaways. So, takeaway number one is really the rolling theme throughout Neil's interview, where he talked about franchising requires patience. Franchising requires patience. And if you're a client of mine or been around me for any bit of time and talked franchising, it's something that I've talked a lot about. Successful franchising takes patience. Takeaway number two is he said, be prepared to work hard if you're franchising. And I agree, much like the patience, it requires hard work. Takeaway number three comes from his definition of success when he said, deliver on your promises. Deliver on your promises was one of the keys that he talked about. I thought that was fantastic. And now it's time for today's win-win. So today's win-win comes from the line that Neil said a franchisor's job is to create a tactical business where an average individual can do an average day's work and achieve excellent results. And he said, if you can do that as a franchisor, you have built a great system. And boy, I agree with him on that. I find that as a beautiful win-win, where the franchise created this business that an average individual can do an average day's work and achieve excellent results. I thought there's a great definition and meaning behind what a successful franchise looks like and something to aspire to for all of you folks that tune in that are either thinking about franchising or are franchising already and growing, or maybe a supplier or franchise broker in the space. I think that's a great definition, great aspiration to be shooting for. And so that's the episode today, folks. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and give us a review. And remember, if you or anyone you know might be ready to franchise your business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at BigSkyFranchise Team.com where you can schedule your free, no obligation consultation. Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to having you back next week.