165: Live Coaching Call — Tim Vogel on Growing 10X

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Well, so what does coaching look like? Well, when we coach companies, we coach usually the quarterly and the annual planning session and then we'll coach the CEO and or some key executives in between. But we're leading that planning and Strategy off sites 3, 4 more times a year. So that's what it looks like. But what are the interactions look like? What does it come from? What's our thinking in that? So this call today, this podcast episode is a call of a live coaching session with a guy that was connected to me through somebody else that we've done some work with and he's got a better he's got a 10x goal. He wants to do more than 10x the company in the next three years. A rapid growth which is something that I love and he's been working on a lot of parts of it. But we dive in to see what is the next step in his development. So listen in this live coaching call with Tim Vogel as we talk about how to scale his business in the pet industry. So listen in.

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Hello and welcome again to the Scaling Up Business Podcast. I'm your host and scaling coach Bill Gallagher. I'm on the show with me today Tim Vogel from South Florida. This is a live coaching call. We're going to have more of a coaching exploration. So Tim has he's a Member of the EO chapter in South Florida. He came up through the accelerator program. So he got over his first million in sales there and now he's contemplating a more than 10x growth opportunity. They see an opportunity to do something, they haven't done it yet, but we're going to work through that and see where we can contribute, make a difference to Tim on the show. Welcome to the show, Tim.

Thanks for having us so much, Bill.

So our listeners know I've been deeply involved in the accelerator program for years now. I launched one of the programs. I was a director of the programs in the east coast and then a regional director for the and then a regional director for all the growth programs on the west coast. And I've been involved with the global committee for the accelerator program Program worldwide and now work on the content and as a trainer in the program around. And being an actual trainer in the program in addition to a regular coach gives me a perspective on the thing. So I just, I love the program. So the EO accelerator program is a program of the Entrepreneurs Network of EO that helps people get over the first million in sales. And we use the scaling up framework for that for that work. And it's highly effective at improving your odds of getting over that first million in sales. And we have, I don't know the exact number today, but we're approaching 2,000 members, company members, entrepreneurs in that program globally. So we have a lot of people in the program and I'm very proud to work with Vern on all of the content for that program today. So just I love talking to somebody who's come up through that and who's now looking at the next few phase. Right. What's the next growth thing? So how do we go from this? And we're talking about franchise stuff. So before we get into that though. Right. So is this your first entrepreneurial venture?

It is, yeah.

Yeah. So Tim's. He's a dad, got a couple young kids there, lives in South Florida. Is that where you're from originally?

No. So I actually grew up in New Mexico, graduated college, moved to D.C. and then moved to Florida after about a.

Decade in D.C. so you wanted warmth but humidity.

Yes, exactly. I really wanted to get away from a ton of traffic. And so the quality of life here is really fantastic.

Well, New Mexico is a totally different kind of environment from either of those places.

Yeah, it was a huge culture shock moving to the east coast, but really great in my personal growth and just a lot more opportunities on the east coast than there was In New Mexico.

So talk to me about the business. What's the business that you're in? Why did you get into it? What do you love about it? Like that?

Yeah. So, you know, I originally started the business from getting a dog, actually. And, you know, oddly enough, my wife, we had been, you know, kind of newly married, just got her own place, and she said, let's get a dog. And I said, there's no way. I want a dog. I want to go to the bar after work. I want to hang out with friends. I don't want that commitment. She won. We got the dog. I absolutely fell in love. And so when we were thinking about different quality of life after we had our first child, I started looking at industries, and the pet industry was really growing crazy. And so through a whole lot of salesmanship, I convinced my wife. I'm not quite sure how I did it, but I said, let's move to a place where we ideally want to live and let's start this business. And so the idea was born in starting a mobile pet grooming business. So from there, you know, the idea really was I'd start a mobile pet grooming business, and we'd franchise it, and then we'd get a bunch of other pet brands and franchise those. And I pretty quickly learned after starting the business and getting a couple employees, getting a couple vans, building the website, that I wasn't nearly as smart as I thought I was. And there was a whole lot of complications around, really, scalability of this business. And so as I was kind of going through that learning curve and some of those challenges, I found the EO accelerator program, which, I have to say, thank you so much for being a part of it, because it completely changed my life and put me on a path that led towards scalability.

What made you think that you should be an entrepreneur in the first place?

I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I always had the entrepreneurial spirit, but it was really around confidence and courage that kept me from doing it. So first job out of college was a big company. Second business. I worked my way up to being vice president of operations and helping build that company. Third business I was with was really a startup, and I helped launch a new area. And it was only because I had gone through that path that I finally had enough confidence to kind of jump out on my own.

So you developed some business experience before you became an entrepreneur, but was there something in your childhood or some example that you had that made you think that you were interested in or could be an entrepreneur? What do you think is the earliest? Yeah.

So I think the biggest pivot moment for me is when I had my child and I was commuting into the city, about an hour, commute, hour plus each way. And I really started asking the big questions which I hadn't really, really thought about. And it was about quality of life, it was about significance, it was about contribution. And as I started to ask myself those questions, I really knew I wasn't going to be able to achieve those things when someone else was telling me what to do. And so upon really soul searching, we had some real heart to hearts and I think so. I think fatherhood really was the impetus for that. That really finally made me pause and reflect a little bit. And I really kind of came to the conclusion that I wanted to do something that mattered and to do something that I cared about.

So now you start in the business, the dog grooming, mobile dog grooming, you think you're going to grow that thing, but you had some setback, something. Tell me a little bit more about that.

Yeah. So in the industry, there's really no licensing anywhere in the nation for groomers, so anyone can call themselves a groomer. So really finding qualified technicians was a major challenge. And then finding a qualified technician that could drive a van and talk to a customer was really the trifecta. And so, you know, I struggle with that. And I thought, you know, if we franchise this business, everyone's going to struggle with this. So I need to solve that. I need to solve that problem and make it much easier. So we pivoted and we opened up a retail location. We went out and bought a curriculum from, from a grooming school and we put it in place inside. So I went out and hired the people that I knew would be great people and I put them through a rigorous apprenticeship program. You know, 13 courses, everything surrounding dogs, you know, skin types, parasites, behavior, all that stuff. And we started, we started making groomers and we made enough that we could open our second location. And the business was good. So we had the mobile, we had our two retail locations. We were making good profit. But what I found is it still took me kind of a year to make a groomer. And, you know, the demographic I was working with, they'd get married or have a kid or move away. And so I was spending a year making someone and I just couldn't grow it fast enough. So this was really an insight that I had at the strategy day and an accelerator program. They said, you know, the barrier is the way. And one of my big, aha, moments was the barrier is groomers. And I decided to get rid of groomers. And so we opened our third location where we didn't do any haircuts. And part of that aha moment was really kind of some other insights like the.

The pet.

The dog grooming industry is really focused on haircuts, but if you look at the 10 most popular breeds in the U.S. only two of them need a haircut. But all dogs need care. And that was really our big pivot. So we pivoted to really serving the 80% of dogs out there that aren't getting care that need it and not really focusing on the dogs that need the haircuts.

And so what do you do?

So, yeah, so we. We created a signature service. So we renamed the business. We named it Hound. Scent is an acronym. Skin coat, ears, nails and teeth. The five core areas that dogs need care. And we really became a dog wellness business. So really, preventive care. So for $25 a month, a customer could come in with their boxer or their lab or their golden retriever, and we'd wash them, we'd clean theirs, we'd clip their nails, and we brush their teeth. And then we'd give them a report card.

Wait a second. Wait, wait. I have two dogs. Let me understand this. So 25 bucks a month is.

Or multiple visit is a visit.

A visit. Right. And for that I get. You wash them.

Yep.

You clip the nails.

Yep.

Clean the ears.

Yep. And brush the teeth.

Yep. Brush the teeth.

Yep. Okay, so number one reason dogs go to the vet, number one reason in the nation is ear infections. And it's very simple. Clean their ears once a month and you won't have ear infections. 80% of dogs by the age of three have periodontal disease, and you could extend their life two to five years if you cared for their teeth on a regular basis.

So.

But nobody really knows that. So we tested that, and we found out that there's still a segment out there that wanted haircuts. So what we did is we reverse engineered it and said, okay, we'll do a haircut, but we'll only do one haircut. Not the 200 different breed standards there are. And we made it membership based. So it's once a month, $25 for one service or $45 unlimited. So 45 bucks, you can come in every day if you wanted to. And that service was a home run because we found that people who had dogs like the labs, the boxers, want to be great dog parents. There was just not a fast, easy and affordable way for them to do it. And so we started testing different membership models, testing different shampoos, testing all kinds of stuff, and ultimately came up with the right mix. And now we have thousands of customers coming to our centers every single week on their membership.

And so I love the membership. So then they pay and they can come in. They make appointments also to come in.

Yeah. So really our big focus and one of the big reasons I think our service is valuable is number one, we preset all their appointments so they come in. One of our main KPIs is rebooks so that they've already got a set accountability to bring their dog in. So it's already kind of on the calendar. And the second thing is we put all of our centers in grocery store anchored shopping centers so that they can combine their errands. So now I have an appointment on a Thursday, I combine it with my grocery store run, I drop the dog off, I go to the grocery store. In 15 to 20 minutes, my dog is done, I pick him up and I go home.

So. And you do a cut now?

Yeah, so we do, we do basically we have five branded haircuts. It's basically one haircut. You just choose the length. And so that wildly simplified all of the grooming. So we're not stylists and that's not what we're about. But if you want a nice one, length all over, easy peasy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. Okay, so none of the fancy cuts. You're not doing the little poodles with the poofs and the legs and the things.

The final part is we really kind of broke the grooming process into three pieces so that you only pay for what you need. So the basics is the bath, ears, nails, teeth. Then you can add on a blow dry and a brush out, and you can add on a haircut. And you can do that each part based on what your needs are.

And it's 25 or 45amonth for the basic.

And then it's an extra cost for the blow dry and brush out and extra cost for the haircut.

Interesting, interesting. Okay, so how many locations are you in now? So we have four retail locations now in South Florida.

Correct. All in Palm Beach County.

Palm Beach County. And what? So talk to us about the growth goal. Now. This is always, I think the thing that's most important to me when working with a client and it's fundamental to the scaling up framework, is really you want to grow the thing and it's not to just double it or ease it up, but it's the really significant scale up that we're, that we're talking about. So what is your goal and why'd you pick it?

Yeah, so we did. I've done a lot of soul searching on kind of the best way to scale it and why to scale it. So I think the why is kind of the most important and the biggest reason. So really getting clear on our why was a big part of that program as well. And our why is really that we believe dogs represent unconditional love. And if you can remove the barriers between you and your dog so you can connect with them every day, it helps people practice love at home. So in our own small way, we're helping people practice love on a daily basis. And we want to amplify our impact in the world around that. So that's one of the reasons around scaling this is we just want to bring, bring more love into the world and into more people's homes. The way we thought to scale it, we thought franchising is probably the best way to establish ourselves as the brand in that space. Because we're really creating a new space. It's really a blue ocean strategy where we're going after the segment of the dog population that really isn't being served right now. And so I think we're at a risk point. I think there's going to be copycats out there. And so we want to establish ourselves as the dominant player in that space. And so franchising really helps us achieve that in the timeframe we want to achieve that. But there's a second part to it which is finding my love for dogs was one part of it. But I've absolutely fallen in love with entrepreneurialism also. And so I was in the accelerator program, but I also became a coach of the accelerator program. And then I ultimately this last year ran the accelerator program. And I just love working with entrepreneurs and people who, who I love seeing people who can experience the joy of being an entrepreneur as well. So franchising fit that model where I could help somebody become an entrepreneur in a very safe environment that I knew better than anybody and could really guide them through that. So one of the pieces of our franchise system we're putting together is that we will have monthly accelerator like meetings with all the franchise owners to make sure that we're accountable to growth and to the processes, systems of the business.

So what's the goal?

So the goal is 100 franchises at the end of three years. We're halfway through our first year right now. So we want to grow 10 this year, 30 the following year, and 60 the following year.

And how many franchises do you have now?

So we just started the process the beginning of this year. So we have zero close. But we've got a very mature pipeline now and we're very excited. We're close.

Okay, so franchise is. The goal is 100 franchises and you've just begun to sell the franchise program. And I assume you've developed the offering and all of that a bunch now?

Yeah, so we've created partners, so marketing partners, content partners, sales partners. So yeah, we've, we've created the offer. We've. And we've developed the pipeline and all the stages within the pipeline. And so that's all put together.

And what about on the operations side of things? Is your operational model well honed? If I become a franchisee, do I have a clear playbook for every aspect of the business? Are there great reports and business systems? Do you have.

Great, great question.

Scorecards and checklists and things?

Great question. So, yeah, really the, the entire year of 2018 was building that infrastructure and coming up with what we call the brand manual, with all the brand standards. And I always say to my fellow EOers, if you really want to know your business and develop processes, franchise it, because you have to really nail everything down. We even went so far as I watched the movie the Founder, and they had this tennis court scene where the McDonald brothers are on a ladder and they're mapping out what their restaurant looks like and then doing role play. We actually took all of our managers and we did an entire day of that to really get clear on what were the right processes, what was going to be the scent hound way. And then if we had differences, we set about testing each and every one of those time tests, quality tests, and then we ultimately came up with our system around that. So, so yeah, so the, the process is really well baked, documented, and then put into a learning management system. And then KPIs is the other really big thing. So we've got four main KPIs. One of them, which I learned in the accelerator program again is called labor efficiency ratio, which put 15% on our bottom line by just putting that in front of everyone on a daily basis.

So you've got that piece. What do you feel like is your big challenge then? What's the gap for you?

Yeah, so, you know, I'm really, really passionate about developing an amazing product and service. And so I've always been tinkering and building the operations and the processes that Support that. And I think that's really where my strengths are. The area that I'm really, I'm learning a lot about franchising, but the area I'm really moving into is the sales and marketing portion. And there's a learning curve there for me. And so the area that we're really working hard on getting better at is lead generation and then really management of that pipeline through close. And so that sales process and each of those key moments in that sales process we're working on and we don't quite have it worked out yet. And I think that's what I need to get better at in order to get to our goal of 103 years.

Is the lead gen through that process. Okay, so let me just check one other thing. What about the cash side of the business? Are you accumulating profits? Does it pencil out? Well, can you demonstrate both as the franchisor that this will be a good business? And do you have a feel for what you should expect from the shops themselves?

Yeah. So in the franchise world there's a document called the FDD which is a franchise disclosure document. And in that document there's an item 19 which you can either disclose your revenue or not. About 40% of franchises disclose their corporate store revenue and their franchisees revenue. We disclose ours because we are so proud of the margins. We've the first of all the revenue and the profit that we've generated in each of our centers. So we have a very strong model which we're very proud of. And anyone who comes through that process at a certain stage in that process gets the fdd, reviews it, and then is able to kind of have a conversation with me about all the aspects of it. So yeah, we've got a really, I think we have a really powerful model to sell.

Okay, good. Okay, so in the world of lead gen, what are you doing now? What does it look like and what are the gaps that you see?

Yeah, so we created a relationship with a marketing firm that does just franchise sales and franchise companies. And so we're doing mostly social PPC and some broker networks where we get the word out there. And so the first thing is generating kind of the right volume of leads. So what does that look like? And in that lead gen, kind of how do we geo target certain locations and how do we target certain demographics so that we get that lead in? I feel like we've gotten better at that. And it's obviously with the help of a professional group that knows a whole lot more than I do.

And yet it's a gap for you. It's an area that you really want to work on. Yeah.

So I think the sales is more so, but I think the lead gen. Yes, we need to get better at it because one of the things that I've discovered in this process is we're really only getting in touch with about 40 to 45% of those people who fill out a form. It's a two step form that they fill out to say, I'm interested in your franchise, yet we're only getting in touch with less than half of them.

Interesting, interesting. Okay, so that's what's happening right now in the world of sales. You're getting some leads in, but you're not getting in touch with all of them.

Yeah. So, you know, that's where I'm laser like focused. So one of the things we just changed is we were, we would get this lead and we'd make a phone call and you know, I really kind of, I just don't think people answer the phone anymore or want to talk on the phone anymore. And so what we did is we built in an auto text message service that as soon as that lead comes in, a text message comes from our salesperson saying, hey, my name is Teresa, love to talk to you. Here's a link to my calendar. Let us know a good, let me know a good time to chat. And we only put that in a couple weeks ago. So we're watching how that might improve our contact ratio. The other thing that we're working on is, and we haven't done this yet, but really talking to the people in the way that they talk to us. So if it's a fake, if it's a social media like a Facebook lead, I think it would be better if I actually responded to them on Facebook instead of with a text message or something like that. So we're trying to figure out a way to talk with them in the channel that they're talking with us.

Okay, so some thoughts from our world. Right. So first of all, it sounds like you've done a lot of the basics. You know your purpose, you know your values. Right. Have you done your brand promises yet?

Yeah. So our brand promise to our customer is to keep dogs clean and healthy in a clean, safe, loving environment with a knowledgeable team.

Right. I think though that you need a brand promise for the franchise partner.

Yeah.

So what can they count on? You want to think about and work on what they need in that realm. And that's usually something that you'll iterate On, But I think that's probably really useful to spend some time looking at. Right.

Couldn't agree more. Yeah.

Yeah. So honing the brand promise for that, because that's what, as a franchisor, what do I need and want from this? Why do I care? So I want to know what the brand promises to the world, to the consumer, because I want to know what kind of a business I'm going to be running as a franchisee, but I want to know the other side of it. And then, so core customer then also comes into play. Who is the ideal franchisor? Now, you don't have a lot of experience yet with it because you're just selling them now. But who do you think they could be? Who are you? What are the people like in the stores that you run? I think you probably want to develop at least a tentative profile of the. Of the core customer as a franchisor so you know who you're targeting and what the qualities are. Now, in the beginning, a lot of times we will do and think about stuff in fairly generic terms like, oh, they're over this income or this age or this, you know, but those sort of demographic and factual things are often not as relevant as some of the others. So I look for somebody with a 10x or better growth goal first and foremost. If you don't have a big goal, then the work that I do, the time and the money, the expense of my coaching work is not really useful. The second one is coachability. This one's really hard to test, but I am interested in what makes you think you're coachable. And I've got to hear it and I've got to probably test it in my selling process. But coachability is the next thing. If I give you something to do, will you do it? So you could tell if I was interested in pitching you, I'd probably give you some assignments. And then if you came back and you'd actually done those things, I'd be like this guy or gal might be interested to talk to. Right?

Yeah, great point.

The third one is like a sense of humor, and it goes to a personality fit. So for me, the ideal customer is someone who's a little bit playful with their business and in life. And if you're not that, if it's really serious, significant, or then probably I'm not your coach. Somebody else might be, but I'm not the one. And then there are other factors that are sort of supporting your background. Things like, do you have enough leaders? How many total people? What's the current revenue stream. Are you at a stage yet where I can coach you? And although my clients made me average over 60 million in sales and go up and down, I do things in the accelerator world and it's the same scaling up, stuff delivered differently, but I do stuff at that end and I coach up through companies valued over a billion dollars. So I've worked in a very big range with a handful of people to more than thousands of people and they're different and get all of the principles apply. Right. So that I'm using this to illustrate this core customer picture. That's who I'm looking for. And I think you want something like that. What are the qualities of the core customer? If you think of the franchisee as a customer, they're buying a business system from you, right?

Yes, yes.

Yeah. So brand promises, core customer profile, then the sandbox, right? The sandbox is where are you going to play, you know, what's and who are you going to play with? It sounds like it's maybe North America or maybe even the US Just to begin with. Is that accurate?

Well, even smaller than that. So we're just doing the surrounding states around Florida just because the first ones out of the gate, we want to be able to get there quickly and support them completely.

So really good thought into that. Right. And you might define that as like, I want to be able to get there in a two hour, one hour flight or two hour flight. Right. Because if you're flying commercially, you've got all of the delays, the airport and getting in and out and all that kind of stuff to do. Right. And you might want to put particular emphasis on places you could actually drive to. I've noticed in the last few weeks the number of people who've been bumped on flights that you wouldn't think should be bumped.

Yeah, flying's getting tougher.

A lot of folks getting bumped on all kinds of things. So. Okay, good. So sandbox brand promise. And then is there something that you can do to guarantee or to lock in the brand promise to give people something that we call it a catalytic mechanism, something that creates that lock, lets you know you're doing it internally and also lets the customer know.

Yeah. So we had an idea around that. I'd love to throw it out if.

You'Re okay with that, please. Yeah, yeah.

So we just came up with what we call our founders group for the first five. And for the founders group, we're doing this accelerator like, coaching thing, but also we're giving them $10,000 in initial launch and grand open marketing out of our own pocket. Because I think a big concern with a lot of the franchisees is, okay, how am I going to get this thing off the ground? How am I going to build my membership base? And we know how to do that. So we wanted to give a whole lot of confidence that if we're spending our own money, we're going to do it right and get that going for them. So that's one of the thoughts we had around that. And we've launched that program.

Okay, great. So those are some great elements that ought to get you started then the whole sales and marketing pipeline. I hear some good elements in there. I think a big principle is bullets before bombs. Right. Or pebbles before boulders. The idea that you want to test something before you put a lot into it. So if you're working with a marketing partner on that, maybe especially if you're working with a marketing partner, you want to be careful that they do some validation of stuff before you devote a lot of resource to it. I've seen others, especially some clients who had some painful experiences where it sounded good, it all made sense, it had to work. And so they committed like 50 grand to something, 20 grand to another thing, and. And then they're like, holy crap, we just spent $70,000 on stuff and none of it worked.

Yeah, I think your point is spot on because we do most of our own marketing. But three months ago, we got on board with two different marketing companies handling two different centers where we are coordinating our lifetime value with the acquisition cost of generating that lead and then the conversion of that lead. So we've got a pretty good handle now. And that's why we just launched this $10,000, because now we know the dials to turn to generate that amount of leads that will generate the amount of members that we need to make return on that investment.

Yeah. So there are a few folks to study. And in our world, in the scaling up world, there are some great success stories. And one company that I think you might want to study is O2E Brands. We've had Brian Scudamore on a couple times as a guest. And Brian's founder of O2E Brands. And the brand within that group that's probably most visible is 1-800-got-JUNK. And it's different from your business in that it's not as location driven. They have trucks that move around and pick up your junk and get rid of it so they don't have to pick a location. And that's less critical there. But the people, the Marketing and selling the franchises they've got really good at and I think they'd be worth studying. Brian's pretty open about a lot of that stuff. So you can go and read him online.

Yeah. Just to riff on that for a second. So I did buy both of his, well, his book and then double, double from the previous day.

Camera Cameron Herald.

But I'm going to sing EO's praises again. I joined a MyEO group which is CEOs of just franchise groups.

Oh great.

And we did our first. I did my first retreat with them in February, beginning of March and we visited Brian and he was gracious enough to give us a tour and hang out with us for a little bit and really answer all of our questions. So yeah, absolutely right on with that. And my learning was pretty significant there.

So you probably heard the importance of finding good people partners.

Yes, he's big on that and it really sunk in for me. It's a recruitment process, not a sales process. And I should probably correct my language around that.

Good, good learning. All right, good. Well, you actually already learned that. I just helped you remember it.

Yes, exactly. And I've got to get better at.

That and find ways to integrate that. So the, the key thing with so many of these things, I mean it's a complex, it's a nuanced relationship. So I used to run a jewelry brand and we sold through retail partners. We sold a little bit online. Today it's all online or virtually all online, that business. But in the beginning it was started selling through department stores and then specialty stores and eventually TV and so on and catalogs, but that brand. So we had the core customer, the collector we called them and we developed our language around collectors and these were the fans, the people that loved the joy that ultimately bought it. So there was a set of language and promises and experience and things from the collector. There was a profile for the collector and we had a very developed Persona. We went on site to visit them and we picked some super fan type collectors and we videoed their environment and we learned who they were and we developed a Persona around them. The second thing, and there were some changes. So one of the things that we noticed is that there was self purchase and gift purchase, but the person most likely to collect would and to give it was the person who also loved it for themselves. So they're giving something they loved. And then the other group were partners and they were the people that we actually sold to. So the partners were the people that we sold jewelry to on a regular basis. Largely at wholesale. And those partners, the reason that we didn't think of them as customers versus partners, although in fact, that's who we sold to and collected money from in most of the cases, is that they weren't buying the jewelry for themselves. They were buying the jewelry for their business. Why would you buy jewelry for your business? You'd buy it because it's like fuel. So if your business is the engine, the product that you put in that business is the fuel that, you know, that the burns up, if you will. Maybe not the best word, but burning up your merchandise. But that is the idea. This is the thing that chugs through the retail establishment, whether it be TV or otherwise. So we thought of those people as partners. We have to make them win. So we have to think about how it sells well and making their job easier and all of that kind of thing so that we're a favorite brand. And I think developing those two perspectives was really useful. But even then we had to choose well. And I remember one time we were about to do. We were starting a large test, and we spent a lot of time cultivating this thing to do with Macy's. And it was very. There are a lot of things to do with a major retailer around the distribution. In particular something called edi, but all of the distribution kind of handshake. And I had an interaction with the buyer in the middle of it because it was really. It was hard to get done, hard to get things approved and so on. And of course, when it doesn't go well, they charge you back or assess fees that they use to improve their profit margins and cover their costs. And I had this sort of a difficult phone call. And in the middle, well, towards the end of it, I felt odd in the middle of it. And I was looking for some help to work through the roadblocks and resolve this. And I realized, wait, I'm with the wrong person and this is the wrong company. It's not just one person. It's this whole environment. And so I said, you know what? I think that if this is like this, at this stage, we should maybe not be in business together. And that we're probably not a good cultural fit for each other. So this was like a bombshell in the phone conversation, though, because this buyer, this Macy's buyer, is like, probably not ever had somebody say that to them because they're so big, they represent such opportunity. She was shocked and irritated or sounded that way. I don't know how she actually was, but she sounded shocked and irritated. And she's like, well, fine, bye. And that was the end of it. We walked away from this thing that was supposed to be worth millions and millions of dollars. And I was a little like I was activated. Right. Except I felt really good about. I'm like, oh, that was good. That was a little scary to walk away from a big opportunity. But that was the wrong person for us. Right. So that in any business, like picking your business partners, picking your customers, well, is great. You probably heard the story in the accelerator program with Southwest. Somebody complained about the irreverent safety briefings. Did you hear that story?

I heard the food one.

Oh, I know. I don't know that one. So for our listeners, right. Somebody famously wrote in and said, I really don't like on Southwest Airlines the way you make jokes and sing songs of the safety reason safety is very important and these should not be done with such an arrow man. Or something to that effect. And the founder writes back in like four words, clearly, we will miss you.

Yes.

Because their promises are lots of flights, low fares, lots of flights and lots of fun, in that order. And he just knows that that's who they are. Fun irreverence is who they. So she should go to another carrier.

Yeah, Perfect example. Yeah.

Right. So I think that's really relevant to you as you get the sales process done. And you'll know those people that are just as magical where you fit, they belong with you. You belong in each other's worlds. Right? Yeah.

And what's occurring to me around this part too about partners and customers is I think we have exactly the same dynamic, which are, you know, solopreneurs, people are going to operate their own scenthound and ultimately we'll be looking at multi unit franchisors, people that have an operation infrastructure that want to open more of these. And I think looking at it through that exact same lens is who, who are our partners and who are our customers and putting a profile on each of them could be super powerful for us.

The other folks I suggest you talk to are some franchisees of other systems, not to sell them, but to learn from them. And there was a woman who came up really quickly and graduated from the accelerator program in the Utah chapter, where I was leading their program for a couple of years. And she was a great Clips founder. So I would network to that group within the EO and I would talk to her. But for our listeners, I think that the thing that I'm telling you to go do is you're not going to go sell her, but you're going to learn what was it like to be on the other side of that. How did she choose? Great clips. She now has quite a group of them. She's really learned and innovated, but she also will have opinions on what the franchisor does well or doesn't do well and things to look out for. So getting in the mindset of your.

Business partners, 100%, great suggestion. And I will reach out.

All right. And the last thing I heard you say is about responsiveness. I think it's really great that if people communicate to you in one realm, you want to continue to communicate to them in that channel or that domain until you both agree to go somewhere else. Right. So there's nothing worse than tweeting out some company because you're having an issue or something like that. And then they say, call us back on this number. And you call them and they don't answer. Right. Like, okay, I called you there and you what the hell? So now I'm going to blast you over here on Twitter again. I'm not a big Twitter blaster, but using it as an example, staying in that same channel and then being responsive, I think one of the things that I notice especially about all of our online things today is that people will fire off stuff at all times of day and night. Like, I'll go to bed and then I'll wake up in the morning to comments from Australia. Right? Yeah. And so people will chime in at different times in different channels. And learning to communicate has become more complex.

Yes. And in that middle of the night, I think we also get those franchise leads that someone can't sleep. And at 1:30 in the morning, they're like, I don't like my job. Let's check out this franchise. And maybe in the morning things feel different to them. And so trying to figure out how to connect with them when we have them at that moment, that's another challenge for me. And I have to give that some thought.

I think that having immediate and automated responses to things is nice unless they try to pretend to be a real human. So if you automate something, say, and I get a confirmation, it's like a positive handshake. It says, okay, this company got something. So if I do something online that I get an email message back or text or whatever, it says, we got your message, it's going to a rep in your area, you'll be contacted within. So managing expectations. And it could be automated. It could even say, hey, I'm a robot. I'm replying to You. Yeah, that's an interesting point. Or it could. I mean, you don't. I don't know that you necessarily need to be explicit, but that immediate kind of handshake, acknowledgment, follow up, something to think about and so on. And then some options I don't totally love. I get pitched via LinkedIn every hour roughly, so I probably get more than 20 a day from LinkedIn things. And they're always like, hey, great to connect, blah, blah, blah, hey, book some time with me. I'm like, go to hell. I didn't even look for you. Like, I'm not getting on your calendar and giving you 15 minutes of my time. Like you haven't done anything to bridge that gap. Now maybe they work enough numbers that that works out, but I think managing and giving people what they want, when they want it is probably the key. So the first thing is just timely response. So we did a lead gen program for a client company a couple of years ago and the company dropped the ball consistently on timely follow ups. So things might go a day or they might go two weeks, or they might get dropped entirely from follow ups. Or like they spent time and money cultivating a lead, somebody who's interested and then they didn't bother to talk to them. Yeah. So something like that is generally like within the hour to within a few minutes to acknowledge and to begin the response. Right. And certainly not less than the next business day. In your world, you could do something like next business day for the real conversation, but you certainly can't string that out in terms of just the acknowledgment. Like, I need something right away to say, you got this, you'll be in touch. And the companies, it's like, that's like boom, boom, boom. And they're in touch, they're following up. It's thoughtful, it's right on point. It's what I asked for. That's the company. Like, wow, this is a company to do. So that systematizing that the way you did the dog business, I think is what I hear you working on and I would encourage you to keep thinking about that. Exactly. What's that experience like and how do we make sure that that's predictable? That speedy Serve system is developed on the sales marketing side.

Yeah. Something really shot out for me on that. Is this, this response. What spoke to me is this response and letting them know it's automated versus a real person. If it's like in the middle of the night kind of response.

Right.

Because the way we have it right now is. It's like a real person. It's like, hey, thank you so much for contacting us. You know, my name is Teresa. Throw something on my calendar. But that certainly doesn't play if you're one in the morning. You know, Teresa's not texting. And so that could be. I could see that being off putting or not as powerful. So that's a great.

Yeah. But if I do something, getting a text back right away saying, okay, We're in Florida, we work the hours of 9 to 5 or 10 to 4 or whatever it is you do, and we generally respond within an hour in those times. And here's the phone number of the person that you could reach during those times. And I'm, you know, this is an automated response, just like, here's what's going to happen next. Yeah, set and manage. So I get something immediate that's really quick and then the person follows up really timely after that. But everything is kind of, there's acknowledgement, right? And giving them information like, okay, you know, try to figure out the ones that don't go well, what you need to do to be different.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

The other thing that I hear in this is an opportunity. I don't know if you've done it or if it just doesn't come out, but if you could bring branding to everything. So when I think about the great franchise and the great business experience, it's like all parts of it have gotten a little flavor of them. If you look at like Rackspace is one of our other examples, right? They don't have Employee of the Month. They have the Fanatic of the Month and they put the Employee of the Month, the Fanatic of the Month. In Straightjacket, they take their picture, right? They put the sign out in the parking lot, says Fanatic of the Month. So they park there. That kind of thing where even something like that, like everything's branded all over the place, reinforces those core principles and adds real uniqueness and personality to your business. It's not a generic business anymore.

Yeah, there's a lot of fun things we could do, especially with dogs, about wagging and barking and stuff like that.

So yeah, yeah, I can see that. I got an ad for like a co working space in one of my social feeds yesterday. It was probably on Instagram. And so I click through the link because I'm always looking at different meeting spaces. Not because I have a formal office and all that, but I click through the link and I'm like, everything's generic. Here and if I'm looking at your location or whatever, I want to know what it looks like. If you want to know why WeWork is, is a huge business at this point now, there might be questions about their finances and things like that, but it's a massive business that's grown handsomely and charges a real premium. But it's because they make it really cool when you go into a WeWork space. It's an experience, it's a unique branded experience. And so scenthound ought to have a whole range of dog related things that are part of that world. And so there ought to be that branding onto the partnership experiences and the staff in the stores and all of that.

Right? Yeah, yeah. Great insight.

That membership. I feel like I'm part of something. And when you think about that, we recorded recently an episode on aligning your strategy and your culture and when you get the two really well aligned. This is the subject of Denise Leone's book. When you get the two aligned, you've got some real power. So when who you are in the world and who you are internally are well synced up, there's some real synergy there that can happen. Right. So if your whole experience working in the business and the way you operate is synced up with who you present yourself to the world and it's really unique, you built a strong culture around it. I think there's some real power in there.

Yeah, absolutely. And sharing values across that line between back of the house and front of the house and all that stuff.

Yeah. All right, well, we've talked a ton. What are your takeaways?

Yeah. So really there's a whole bunch and so thank you for your time. And some of the big takeaways that I would say is, you know, reach out to people, understand both sides of the equation, people who have been franchisees before and really understanding that getting really clear on what our ideal customer looks like, you know, getting clear on our sandbox, getting clear on our promise to the franchisee. You know, we've got a promise to our customers, but really getting clear on what the franchisee wants and then putting that into a promise. And so I think that's probably something like, you know, we're going to be there for you through the whole process. You know, we've got you that kind of promise around something like that. I love the idea of partners and customers and coming up with two sets of ideal customers and approaching them in ways that are unique to each of those customers. The auto response and just being kind of totally transparent. About how we've set it up so that the customer knows that this is automated or this is really us. And then just what we talked about, I thought was really great around just making it fun and putting our flavor and everything that we're doing and just having a great time with it and just kind of being the brand and everything we do.

That's awesome. Great. So it was a pleasure talking to you today. I look forward to seeing how you grow and I'll be paying attention to you. And please send us a note back to that. If you want to find out more about Tim's business, go to scenthoundfranchise.com and you can read a little bit more about it there. Of course, we're here every week with a new podcast episode on Scaling Up. One of our author gurus, one of the other coaches, a CEO, any range of things that have to do with getting your people strategy and execution right, or the four big areas from Scaling up and also yourself, like how to develop yourself as a leader in the process to grow your business. So you'll find all of those and more over 160 episodes now@scalingcoach.com so on any subject, you might find something that's of interest to you that could help you with something you're dealing with. Big back catalog there. Scalingcoach.com along with all the show notes, the downloads, the links, all of our free tool worksheets, plus a free copy of the Scaling up book. You just pay the shipping and handling and we'll give you a copy for free. Scalingcoach.com thanks again, Tim. Thanks to our listeners. Talk to everybody again next week.

Thanks, Bill. Super valuable. Take care.

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