From a $1,500 Van Behind Chick-fil-A to a 30-Location Franchise: The Tip Top K9 Origin Story

I started Tip Top. My lead generation was a $1,500 van with a $1,500 wrap on it. And I would go behind Chick-fil-A, the busiest Chick-fil-A in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and train in public for 2 hours a day from 11 till 1. And that was my lead gen when I started. The reason why we grew on YouTube is, Jeff, is I got really pissed. I lost, I lost a franchise sale to a very highly qualified guy and he chose a YouTube personality over Tip Top. And it just pissed me off, dude. So we had a guy, he's making, you know, $2,000, $3,000 a month at dog training. And he sees the numbers in the Item 19. He sees that we answer the phone, we do all his digital marketing, we do all his products. And he goes, huh, is there— is this— sounds pretty good. He sees the YouTube videos, he comes out, he does a discovery day, he sees our method, and he goes, all right, this is a no-brainer.

Hey everybody, welcome back to The Unemployable Podcast. I'm Jeff Dudan, and I'm here today with the incredible Ryan Wimpy.

Welcome, Ryan. Hey Jeff, thanks for having me on, dude.

Yeah, 100%. So excited about this. Excited to learn about your brand. I spent time with you and Rachel out at your annual conference just a few months ago. And after that, I just, uh, couldn't wait to have you on the Unemployable Podcast. Thanks for being here.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be on.

Yeah. So Ryan, why don't you start? I, I have an opener for you and, and the audience will learn that you are the owner and founder of one of the fastest growing dog training franchises called Tip Top K9. It started when you had a dog, Curly, and, and you— it all started like all great businesses do from a need that you saw in the marketplace that was very personal to you. But my opening question for you is, are there any bad dogs or only, only bad owners?

There's no bad dogs. There's a lot of bad owners. Now there, when I say there's no bad dogs, there's some dogs that are predisposed, just like some humans, uh, to undesirable behaviors, right? So for instance, 99% of the pit bulls we train are amazing dogs. Some of 'em have picked up bad habits, but I have the last 16 years trained a few, um, that we're out of fighting dogs. Well, when you get that type of genetics, it's not a bad dog. It's not the dog's fault. It's still a human's fault somewhere for breeding that. Yeah. But it makes it hard.

Yeah.

But most all, they're all trainable. I, I've trained a 14-year-old dog before.

Hey, well, I mean, we all, you know, I, we're, I'm a big dog person and I know that, look, every dog has a nature.

Yeah.

And so like when you pick your breed, there's certain things that come with it. The breed I picked is a Shepherd and a Great Pyrenees. Loyal, obstinate, like large, you know, a little bit lazy, right?

Yeah.

But like fiercely loyal, always within 3 or 4 feet of me, you know, always kind of in a quartered away protective type stance. But when I get up, even if I make, if even if I shift on the couch, that dog's getting up saying, where are we going?

That's awesome.

Right? And you know, that was what I was looking for. So I picked that. So why don't you tell us a little bit about how Tip Top got started?

Yeah. So Tip Top got started, like you mentioned, I got obsessed with dog training 'cause I had a, not a bad dog, but a dog with a lot of issues that needed some serious help. And I'd become obsessed, really got into dog training, ended up I learned like 3 different methods and nothing actually helped that dog. I ended up, he stayed with my mom because I couldn't afford to live with no roommates, uh, like 18 years ago. So how Tip Top got started, I worked for another dog trainer for 2 years. They moved and I had to open up my own business. Right. And so 2010, I started Tip Top. My lead generation was a $1,500 van with a $1,500 wrap on it. And I would go behind Chick-fil-A. Mm-hmm. The busiest Chick-fil-A in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and train in public for 2 hours a day from 11 till 1. And that was my lead gen when I started with no website. Okay. My business card.

That's it.

Okay. Chick-fil-A people?

Chick-fil-A.

Yeah. Well, our target market for dog training is moms with kids and moms with kids. They go to Chick-fil-A, Jeff, like, be real.

Okay. So, so, so you started training out of a van.

Uh, out of a van, outta home.

Yeah.

So I started training out of a, a van, right? I would take dogs to my house for bootcamp. 2010, Google Ads was very, very primitive then. I started learning on blogs and stuff, but it was like the yellow ads at the top where it said, add, um, you know, 2 lines of text that, and a link. That was it.

Yeah.

That's what Google Ads looked like back then. Um, SEO was still very, very primitive. So yeah, I started learning the online game. It was primitive. Like Google Maps really got a lot bigger, like in 2014. Early lead gen, I did shows and I started training dogs outta my house. Got to where I'd have anywhere 8 to 12 dogs, uh, in my 1,400 square foot house.

Okay. And, and that's your bootcamp offering?

Yeah. Yeah.

That's how I started.

Okay.

So you've, you've got these dogs in the house. And I know in working with your franchise owners that you have evolved into a physical location. Yes. And, but you do allow franchise owners to start working out of the home. But think about the tolerance that whoever you live with have to, has to have to have 12 to 15 dogs living in the house that you're training every day. So, but I mean, look, that's, that's the way you started. So it would make sense. Like you're like, hey, follow my path.

Sure.

Now. Follow my, follow my proven method. Yeah. So at what point,— did you, did you decide to get, I assume you got into a facility? Cause I've been, I've been to your facility.

Yeah.

So how did you evolve from going in your home to the facility? What were the constraints and what were the decision points?

Well, I got married, right? You've met my wife Rachel. At the time we got, like I said, 1,400 square foot house. Having employees there at 7:00 AM and they're done at like 8:00 PM. Okay. And we're a newly married couple. So that puts a strain on our relationship. Now we were, cash flowing hot, but it, it is, it is harder. So we went into a facility and then we grew and, uh, rented out more of a space. Now we have a 30,000 square foot building, so we have a huge facility, but it didn't start that way. To start with, we rented a 3,000 square foot space, right? And then we went to about 8,000 and then now we have a, you know, a very large facility.

Yep. And what goes on there?

Yeah, at our facility. So the upstairs is a call center. We answer for all 30 of our locations. 28 are operational right now. And we book all their appointments. We take all their payments. We handle about 90% of their client issues. Uh, we have a marketing team upstairs. Downstairs is my Tulsa dog training location. So right now we have 42 dogs in the building, right? Um, about 12, I think 12 or 14 of those are boarding and the rest are, um, a board and train. So the client's paid somewhere $2,500 to $7,200. We take their dog for 1, 2, 3, 4 weeks. We fully train it. And then a trainer goes out and does a take-home training with mom and dad. So that's what currently goes on. We'll also, we have 3 different rooms for lessons or sales, um, or for those family trainings after the boot camp.

Do you do any specialty training like police dogs, hunting dogs, things like that?

Zero specialty, only pet obedience.

Okay. Yeah. Got it. Got it.

That's where the most money is and it's the fastest to be able to train people. The service dog training is very niche. Uh, same with the police dog training and both of those require much different insurances. If people do it correctly, there's real, um, there's a lot of cases of trainers getting sued out there and not having proper insuring in those. So those are harder niches.

Yeah.

So spending time with you and Rachel in, in the business, it has a very family business feel. And she works in the business, you work in the business, you, you have children that, that are around the business. What I'm interested to know, did you have anybody in your family that was an entrepreneur before you?

Yeah, so everyone.

Okay.

My grandpa started on my mom's side, he started a, construction supply company. Then my dad and uncle, they ran it for 53 years before they retired. My other aunt and uncle had an arborist business where they sold, uh, they had two different, a arbor business where they went out and worked on people's trees and stuff and a supply business. My other aunt and uncle, they had, um, three franchises of like a Cartridge World, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. So, so going into, going into business for you, wasn't a big deal. You had, you had experience. It was, is something that you had grown up with.

Correct.

How in the world did you come up with the idea to franchise this?

Well, we started actually licensing it. We licensed it for 2 years for a kind of proof of concept. But really the reason why we franchised is because if we, I started out wanting to do corporate locations, but the issue with dog training is you Anyone can hang a shingle. It's an unregulated industry, right?

Okay. Yeah.

So like Jeff Dudan could go out tomorrow and say, I'm a dog trainer. Here's my shingle, here's my website. Let's go.

Not if they saw how my dogs behaved.

Well, yeah. So, um, whenever it's normally a high skill business like that, and so like in my location, for instance, every time I have a top salesperson and they start to sell over $100 grand a month, they tend to go leave and start their own franchise.

Right.

Right. They, I mean, they're, they're getting 5, 6% commission and they, they know how much they sold. Then they go, you think I could just sell that much for me? And that's just, that's human nature. So Rachel and I go, well, we're gonna have to give them some equity if I'm gonna have multiple corporate locations and the barrier to entry for them to train on their own is very, very low. Then they're gonna need some equity. So we said, cool, well why don't we just give 'em all the equity and we'll do franchise route.

Okay. Okay. So basically it was, it, it was in response to business attrition, attrition of your good people. You, you needed to create an opportunity for people that, yes, that realized they were good at this. Yes. So it started kind of with friends and family and employees.

Correct. Yes. So a lot of our locations are, um, clients or employees. Yeah. So over half of 'em are clients and employees.

Yeah.

That's amazing. That's amazing. That's why the, it's probably why the group felt so good. I mean, the room just, the people were happy, people were supportive. I mean, it was a, it was a really good culture and I was really impressed, uh, in the time that we spent there together.

Yeah, we have great people. Um, it's a really good culture and people that it's not just a business, it's like a lifestyle thing. Like they love what they do. They love helping people with their dogs. And so it's not like, uh, oh, I make a widget. You know, it's like they're, they're really excited and passionate about what they do.

Yeah.

So you moved into franchising.

Yep.

It's, it's a double-edged sword franchising with people that are so close to you.

Yeah.

But it's also a huge advantage that they know the business inside and out because they've worked inside of it or they've been a customer to it.

Yeah. So early on, I think I made mistakes knowing these people more. On not making sure if, when they had issues they wanna do or something they wanna try, I think I was more open to everyone's ideas, even if it would, even if I know it's not necessarily the best thing for them to do when we first started.

Yeah.

Now every, all changes are framed in, is this best for the owner? Is this best for the owner making more take-home profit? And if it hurts their feelings, my goal is for them to make more owner take-home. Right? I want them making profit that they go home and feed their families with, and everything we frame around that lens specifically.

Yeah. I mean, you know, there's, um, David McKinnon was a mentor of mine, and one day he shared 3 things. He said, hey Jeff, these are 3 things that, that you'll need to, as a franchisor, that you'll need to pay attention to. Number 1 is constantly find ways for franchisees to make more money. So at the end of the day, our businesses as franchisors is just a combination of all the unit economics that's happening out there. If we have healthy franchisees that are being financially successful, the four-wall economics of their business, uh, the business is, is simple enough for people to execute. They have the ability to gain customers, they have the ability to get growth year over year, and they have the ability for the business to scale profitably. You know, and maintain its profitability as it scales, and you can guide them through that, then like, that is, that is great. But inside of that, like, what else can you put on the wagon for them to sell? How can you reduce their operating costs? Where, what, how can you reduce their supply costs?

Right.

How can you make it easier for them to attract and retain employees? And you know, what are the, what are the, what is the either cultural or baked in, um, benefits to people for, you know, joining the teams that, that you have out there. So that's number one is constantly be finding ways for people to make more money. The other one is, which you do with your call center, and I do wanna unpack marketing and, and your YouTube channel, which is fan—

Mm-hmm.

Which I wanna know how you grew the YouTube channel. But the other one is, um, the affiliation benefits. If I'm a franchisee and I've joined Tip Top K9, So what, like, what's, what's in it for me? Like, what's the, how much of my revenue, how much of, you know, like, why does, why is me being affiliated with your brand? How does it roll through to my economics? How does it roll through to my ease in operating the business? So what's the affiliation benefit? And usually the easiest way to measure affiliation benefit is in revenue.

Yeah.

So through the call center or through the marketing that you do, and, and I saw your marketing presentation. Which was excellent and really, you know, would have— if I were a franchisee, I would have had great confidence in what you were doing to help us drive leads and understand lead flow and then also convert them within the center, which I'm a big believer in. Yeah. And then the third thing is, is stay close to franchise development because as an owner, you want to know who's coming in the door, right? You want to— number one, you want to make sure there are people that are outside the door knocking and saying, You know, I'd maybe I'd like to come in here, but then also like, who's coming in and why are, why, you know, who are we placing into the system? Are they the right fit? Are they like, do they look like our other owners that are successful and committed and all the things? So, you know, as I, I've just some of the greatest things in life are so simple and I've never forgot that. So when I go to a place like yours and, and I recognize that you were doing all the things.

Oh, well, thank you, Sarah. I think, I think one thing that, um, is attracting our people, right? Or one thing that they always say, why would I want to be a part of Tip Top?

Mm-hmm.

Is our average unit volume, like our item 19 numbers. Uh, our average unit's doing over $600,000 a year.

Right?

Be careful. Yeah.

You, you know the rules in franchising. I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you go.

That's our FTD item 19 number. It's higher than that, but it's, it's on the website. And yeah, like I said, I can say the exact number. It's like 612 or whatever, right? Mm-hmm.

AUVs in the item 19.

Got it. It's in the item 19 specifically.

Yes.

Got it.

So, um, that's hot. Our average buy-in's $48,000.

Yeah.

One of our, um, location number 27, he ran his own his own dog training company for 3 years, right? It's hard, man. It's hard. He's gotta answer the phone. He's gotta book all his appointments. He's gotta learn online digital marketing. He's gotta run a website. He's gotta manage a digital ad firm. And he's gonna do all that. And he, he's learning that when? In between his appointments?

Yeah.

Or late at night? When's, when's he gonna do that? Right? And, and with our business, the moneymakers go home with him. So The bootcamps that are $3,000 to $5,000, those are going home with him. So he's gonna study, he's gonna study online digital marketing and the changes and the AI changes. When? You know, so it, it, it's hard. So we had a guy, he's making, you know, $2,000, $3,000 a month, uh, dog training. And he sees the numbers in the item 19. He sees that we answer the phone, we do all his digital marketing, we do all his products. And he goes, Huh? Is there, is this, Sounds pretty good. He sees the YouTube videos, he comes out, he does a discovery day, he sees our method and he goes, all right, this is a no-brainer.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, and he meets the Barketers.

Yeah. He meets the barking team.

Yeah. The barking team.

Yeah.

So he meets the barking team and then, uh, we're good to go.

Can't, can't have enough canine puns in my opinion.

Can't have too many. Yeah. I think there's a, there's something to be said for, you know, a brand. Uh, yeah, the marketing team's huge because most people that are like, wanna do this, they're like kinesthetic, they're like hands-on people and they suck at the admin work. Answering the phone, calling the lead in under 2 minutes or under 60 seconds for the highest answer rate. You're gonna suck at that if you really love dogs.

Yeah.

Fair.

100%.

So let's, let's talk about marketing.

Yeah.

And, um, maybe a year and a half ago you had 5,000 subscribers on your YouTube channel.

Yep.

How, how many do you have right now?

Uh, I think 190, 195, something like that.

190. Okay. And was your Instagram—

Sorry, no, 990 on YouTube.

Yeah, I was gonna say, was that close?

Just under a million.

We're trying to push the envelope, uh, to a million to get, to get that next level.

Yeah. But like, look, 990,000 subscribers on YouTube and they're real subscribers. They're not bought subscribers. They're not, I guarantee, I, I saw it. They're not purchased subscribers. They're people that are interested in hearing from you. About your method in training dogs. And, but, but even so, like, that's not easy to do.

No, it's not easy. Um, yeah, I think January we had 5,000 or 5,500 last January.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

And you have 990,000.

And what happened is the reason why we grew on YouTube is, Jeff, is I got really pissed. I lost, I lost a franchise sale to a very highly qualified guy and he chose a YouTube personality over Tip Top. And it just pissed me off, dude. This guy's managing, he went from sales guy, uh, to sales manager to GM over a car lot. He's making $350, $400 grand a year and he's working 90. I'm like, hey, why, why am I on the phone with you? You, you're making a lot. You're gonna take a pay cut starting at Tip Top, um, right off the gate. Like, why would you want to do that? And he is like, oh, I got a baby on the way. I hate my life. I'm miserable. It's not about the money. Mm-hmm. I need to make over 6 digits and I'm going to be happy. I want to do this. And I'm like, awesome. What else are you looking at? He's like, just you and this other guy, which I won't say his name. And I'm like, well, does that other guy even have a business? And he's like, yeah, he's on YouTube. I've been watching him for years. And I look him up on the call and I'm like, he's got 2 employees. You're making $400 grand a year and you're going to possibly choose a business model by some guy with 2 employees? Like he doesn't even have a building. He doesn't, he doesn't have a real business. He makes videos. And I lost that sale. And this is, I mean, this is a sharp dude. He's not dumb. He's very sharp. And he ended up going with that individual with 2 employees and a YouTube channel. And the videos are good, right? He makes good videos.

Yeah.

And Jeff, I just, I couldn't, I couldn't take it. So I said, hey, marketing team, Full court press on YouTube. We're going to a million subscribers. We're gonna make high content. Um, good content. Let's go. And the stuff we started throwing out on the wall, it hit blank stares to start with. And, but we started building momentum and with dogs, we have a little bit one up on you, Jeff. I can do anything with dogs and then we get 10x the views.

Oh, I, uh, yeah. I mean, uh, a hundred percent. I mean, it's like cheating. Yeah, it is.

Yeah. But what do you, what, so what did you, what did you learn?

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

What did I learn? Um, I learned it's, it's attracting the people that they're coming back. I'm not lead genning as much off of YouTube as what's happening. People don't trust reviews as much anymore. Right? Everyone's getting reviews. They're faking 5-star reviews. So people, when they're in that discovery phase or when they're doing their homework, That's where YouTube was really paying off for us. So like my last 3 franchise sales, uh, or 3 out of the last 4, um, were all YouTube. YouTube was sealing the deal for that. One of them was looking for another franchise, found us on YouTube. Uh, the other one, the guy that was a dog trainer, he watched all the videos. He came in very warm, very warm lead.

Right.

A third one, military dog handler, uh, starting training in 2 weeks. Read my book, watched 20 videos, close real fast. Um, because everything makes sense to 'em. So yeah, YouTube's been a big win for us.

Your book, Dog Training Simplified.

Yeah.

Is it a step-by-step of the classical conditioning that, that you're known for? And I'd love, like, like unpack the, um, unpack the method because it, it's, you know, every franchise should have some competitive advantage.

Absolutely.

Right. And, and, and you have several, you've got the call center, you've got the marketing, you've got the YouTube channel, which is gonna attract not only franchise candidates, but I mean, if you've got a million subscribers, I mean, you can get a huge number of views on a video or generally people just going to say, I've got this crazy dog.

Right.

Like I, I have a crazy dog and I'm going out and I'm gonna figure out what I can do. And then they watch your videos and they're like, yeah, this looks great. And then they realize there's a franchise near them. They can actually do the training, correct?

Correct. Yeah. The YouTube has helped just 'cause people are looking for ways to do it themself and, you know, or they have this potty training issues and they come across the potty training video, um, or the book, or they come across these socialization videos. And so that has driven, driven traffic to like, to our locations without a doubt.

So what's your method?

Uh, so the method, we use a method of classical conditioning. The book Dog Training Simplifies, simplified, basically breaks down, this is what positive reinforcement is, where I lure dogs into behaviors and reward them. This is what negative reinforcement is, or punishment-based training. And that's operant conditioning, which is, uh, there's either a reward or a punishment. There's a cause and effect. You sat, I gave you a biscuit. You didn't sat, there's some negative consequence, right? Classical conditioning, if you remember Pavlov from science class, where he would give dogs food and they salivated, right? Then he gave them food and rang a bell and the dog salivated. He conditioned those two things multiple times in a row. After he did it 50 or 100 times, he phases out the food. He rings the bell and he gets a physical response even though the food's not there. That's what we use. So we use a remote training collar, right? This little muscle stim tap on the shoulder. And what it does is it gets movement and attention from the dog. Well, just like if I tap a human on the shoulder, if I tap and nothing happens, I would tap a little harder and then a human. Yeah. Moves, they turn around. You don't have to teach that. That's just innate. Same with the dog. When I start to tap a dog on the shoulder with this imaginary finger, the dog goes, what is that? And I start to get a little response. So the e-collar's the first thing, and then I shape it with the leash. So I use some physical help to shape the movement, whether it's calm or sit or down. And then I overlay the word, which is like my bell. So I have e-collar, leash. Verbal command. So I layer those three things and I quickly phase out the physical help. It's e-collar and verbal command. And then after a while I phase out the e-collar and the dog's conditioned to verbal commands. And what makes it powerful— so there's a lot of ways, everything can work. Dogs are smart.

That is so simple.

Yeah, but I have to train humans. Right. And so the simpler it is, the easier it is for me to train humans.

Fair enough. Yeah.

All right. And that's it. That's all of the method.

Well, yeah. So there's a little bit more, but that's basically it. Yeah. So it's classical conditioning. And basically what I'm doing is I'm trying to condition a response in the dog. So with, say, treat training, was very popular in the US. If I am the treat trainer and I pay the dog, say, 100 treats an hour, and then you come in, you're kind of a stingy boss, and you pay like $40 an hour, the dog doesn't want to work for you like it worked for me. Right? Or you're a big guy, if you're the tough guy and your wife's soft, the dog goes, I listen to the tough guy, I don't have to listen to the soft person. If everything is based off a conditioned response, where I just hardwire response in the dog, then if it's off this little electronic tap on the shoulder and verbal command, then I take the remote, and I hand it to an 8-year-old kid or a 90-year-old lady, and it transfers. Because what Pavlov found is once I conditioned a response, I can give the bell to someone else, dog still salivates. I can even come in with a bell similar, but with a different tone and the dog still salivates. So having a conditioned response for what we do is once the trainer's able to get a response outta the dog, I can quickly transfer it. And that's what we do at boot camp. I take the dog.

Mm-hmm.

I condition A, B, C, X, Y, Z, and then I go home and I, I show the whole family how to do it.

Okay. So when, and, and when I get a dog back from your training, I've given you my dog, it comes back with the e-collar.

Mm-hmm.

And then you train me.

Correct.

So if I want the, if I want the dog to sit, then I would give it the tap on the shoulder.

Yep.

And tell it to sit.

Correct.

And it would do that. And then when, when does the collar go away?

Yeah, it could be 3 or 4 months, 6 months, 8 months. It depends on the dog. We recommend most dogs wear it for 4 to 6 months. Um, yeah. So like my, my dog I have right now, I've got a, uh, chocolate Lab. He wore it for like 4 or 5 months and then he wears it if we're off leash at the park. My black Lab before him, he was nuts. He wore it for 2 years straight.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. So it can take some time.

Depends on the dog and how long it really takes and kind of what genetic drivers they have. If it's a really, hyper-excited, immature dog, maybe longer. Even if I'm not using it all the time as a backup, because my goal is you can enjoy your dog like off leash and he doesn't run away, he's rabbit-proof, et cetera. Some of 'em need that almost like a digital leash. So instead of leashing up my dog, I, he still goes everywhere. He just, if he needs a backup, then I use the e-collar for that.

Do you take biters?

We do.

Okay.

What's different about the process there?

Not every one of our locations takes aggressive dogs. Um, what's different is normally we have to move a little slower. The biting dogs, uh, just like, say I have an aggressive person. If I put lots of pressure on an aggressive person, they're going to choose aggression as their response to discomfort. And it's the same with a bitey dog. If I put lots of pressure on, uh, they're going to bite. So I have to move a little bit slower. And I have to make sure what I'm doing, that the dog is very clear, but basically it's going to be the same process. I'm going to teach the dog to come. I'm going to teach them to do their stays, walk politely on a leash, et cetera. And I'm going to start to short circuit them going into, um, that state of mind. The only difference really though, is I have to make really clear the dog is crystal clear, has clarity on exactly what's being asked. Um, so I'm not triggering them to be aggressive.

Got it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, my dog's not a biter, but he has bitten. I say that, and I say that just because in the circumstances where he did nip somebody, I mean, it was somebody that was on the property that wasn't supposed to be there.

Yeah.

And they were deep into the property, and, you know, he just took a defensive posture and just gave him a little Give him a little love chew.

Well, dogs, yeah. People are like, oh, my dog would never bite.

And I'm like, well, okay.

Dogs are still dogs. And so if they're, if it's their territory, especially deep into like, you know, land or property or whatnot.

Yeah.

Like I've seen some dogs that will never bite, but otherwise people, you know, we see a lot of dogs that bite where people are like, oh, he's never bitten before. Okay. Well, that's probably a better way to put it.

Well, or if they're cornered and maybe somebody's being aggressive and they're stuck in a corner and you reach in there to grab the collar and it's, they don't, you know, like—

Absolutely.

I mean, I think, I think any dog would bite under those circumstances cuz that's what they've got.

Yeah.

At the end of the day, um, self-preservation is very high on the dog's, um, hierarchy of needs.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, let's talk about training franchisees.

Yeah.

How long did they have the shock collar?

So we, we don't collar up the franchisees.

Okay.

That's good.

Yeah.

Yeah. Basically what the process looks like with us is we do 6 phone calls before they get here. So we do 6 hour and a half calls going over theory and sales. So they understand kind of our sales methodology before they ever come. 'Cause a lot of our, our franchisees have zero sales experience whatsoever. And then once they come to corporate, we actually train for 6 weeks straight, uh, 6 days a week, 10 hours a day. So it's very brutal and long. A lot of people, um, some people don't wanna sign up just because of that, which is fine. But, uh, they leave a lot better, well, a lot more equipped, um, to be able to train, to be able to sell, to be able to grow a team after 6 weeks of being here.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's a, that's a, that's a long training.

It is.

But the more train— the more successful companies are, the more training they tend to do.

Yeah, we started with 4 weeks and then we went to 5.

Yeah.

And then they were like, hey, you'd sell more if we went back to 4. And then I upped it to 6. But we keep winning. So that's, you know, that's kind of what's important.

That is what's important.

Yeah.

So have you identified characteristics or traits that make high performers?

Yes. So a lot of our higher performers are people that are not ultra creative. They're hardworking people, right? They're the average Americans, um, that wake up and work hard.

So like— So commitment.

So commitment.

Yeah. So our, one of our location owners, Adam, I think you met him, uh, huge beard. It makes mine look small. He was an HVAC technician before Tiptop. He was a client too. He was a client, but he was an HVAC technician and he owns 4 locations now. Um, but basically he doesn't do anything crazy. He just follows the system. We say, this is how you sell. He'd never done sales before, right? This is how you train dogs. This is how you do boot camps, lessons, et cetera. And he just does it. And then he repeats it again and then he repeats it again. You know, after he got like his third award, he said, hey, I would like to have a new package. And I said, cool, we'll try it in just your location. If you're gonna win 3 awards, then yeah. And you wanna try one thing new, cool. Um, we'll, we'll, we'll do that. But he's not trying to recreate the wheel. He's trying to make cash.

Right. Right.

That's who the people who are like, come in and they say, hey, I don't want to create all these things. I want a business where I put time in and money comes out. Yeah. That's who normally does good. The really ultra, normally we can weed 'em out early, but the ultra creative types, Um, or the people with too much of a different dog training theory that they still wanna use, those make it hard for us at TikTok.

I would imagine that many of your owners, or if not all of your owners, train when they first start.

Correct. Yeah.

Okay.

And then what is the thought around them getting out of the training, hiring trainers, and scaling their business to either multiple locations or, or a, a bigger, bigger single location? Is that, is, is that a struggle to go from owner-operator to business builder?

Either, well, so there's, the struggle is doing like $45,000 to $65,000 a month going from in-home to a facility. That's the, the hardest part is this like middle ground where people get crushed.

Yeah.

That's the, that's all, cuz everyone's normally starting out home-based and then as soon as they're generating revenue, consistently, then they're starting to move into a facility, right?

Right.

Um, once they hit the facility and their overhead's higher, they have to scale. Um, the hardest part is normally having the owner give up sales. That was my hardest part, you know?

Okay.

Um, because they're like, I had a hard time giving up everything, right? A little control freak. And they're like, well, no one's gonna sell as good as me. And I'm like, yeah, but 3 people can sell a lot more than you. That's right. Um, that's, that's a really hard part we have is having the owner actually give up that sales role and trust someone else with sales so they can then go repeat it a second or third time.

Yeah.

Is there a lifetime value to a customer once they complete initial training? Do they come back for things? Do you have ongoing products that they use?

Good question. Normally the, we're not seeing a repeat customer for another 3 to 7 years.

Okay. Yeah.

So.

Depending on the size, size and the lifespan of the dog.

Correct. So when they get a second dog or, or something happens with their current dog and they get a new one, that's normally like in, in Tulsa, in my location, we keep seeing, um, repeats, but it's not, the lifetime value is, it's not recurring revenue.

Yeah.

So what's the vision?

Vision right now is 100 locations and training 50,000 dogs a year.

Okay.

50,000 dogs a year. How many are you training now?

Right now we're about 5,500 a year.

Okay. Yeah.

So you're looking at 20x.

Yep.

That will be amazing.

Yeah. It's pretty exciting. It's pretty exciting. We have a lot of locations that are growing at a pretty hefty 20%. 35% clip right now. So, um, a lot of younger locations too. So it's, it's definitely doable.

Yeah.

A big part of our audience, uh, we know is in franchising.

Yeah.

Uh, people working at franchisors, franchisees, and sometimes emerging brands.

Uh, Yeah.

Do you feel like you've made it as a franchisor and what advice would you have to share for emerging people that are just thinking about franchising their business?

Well, franchising's hard as crap, right? Franchising is very, very hard. It is hard. Yeah. I, I think— are successful?

Sure.

It depends on what metric. 30 locations, we're still a very small company, right? As far as, as I would consider, like, yes, we are gaining momentum. Um, we have very good numbers. We have, we're the top or the second-ranked dog trainer in most states that we're in. But, you know, 30 locations, it's still somewhat smaller. As far as advice, uh, buckle up. Uh, it's gonna be a lot harder than you think. Um, I will say if we'd have gone corporate and only had like 4 or 5 stores instead of franchising, I don't think I would've grown as much.

personally.

In what, in what ways?

Franchising's totally different and I have to, instead of just recreate the model, we have to, um, do so much scale with tighter margins because we have this royalty number and I have to provide massive value for people and that number doesn't change unless I'm able to grow them and grow their revenue more.

Yeah.

And so the, the mindset shift is not just like, okay, I know how to train dogs. I know how to grow people. I know how to make sales and train salespeople.

People.

I have to grow owners and grow mindsets of people that can do the same and manage the marketing, et cetera. Um, I think running 3 or 4 corporate locations way easier than franchising. Oh, of course. Way easier.

Yeah.

Way easier. So I think it would depend on their goals. Like, you know, for Rachel and I, um, our goals is to grow. Right. And we wanna grow personally. Yeah. Um, and grow professionally. And I think if you really wanna grow, franchising is a great vehicle for growth. Yeah. Um, it's not easy though.

No. And this is one of those brands where, you know, you may not be building this, although pets are very popular, uh, in franchising, all kinds of pet-related. Yeah. Um, pet walking, pet grooming, mobile groom. There's all kinds of, pet-related, uh, franchising out there. And private equity is, is interested in and has shown interest in those brands. I could see you guys running this brand for a long time.

And we probably will, especially because our, like, over half locations are our people.

Right.

Right. They came from us. They're our clients. They're our friends. They're like our people. So there'd have to be a serious changing of the guard., you know, for us to consider that. But yeah, not really interested. And, and the people who are growing just for private equity, like I know one of the dog training competitors in the franchise space we have, they were, they signed up with, an FSO and were just signing everyone and then they weren't able to flip it over to private equity.

Yeah.

They got stuck. So now they're, now they're playing a really messy, ugly cleanup game.

Yeah. I mean, like if you, um, man, I was, what was it today? I was doing a blog or something like that. And, um, there are, if you look over 50 or 60 years of franchising and if you look at the brands that people would want to emulate, where franchisee success and franchisee outcomes have been good. And it's clear that the franchisees are at the center of what the franchisor thinks about. It's at the, they're at the center of the decision-making. All of the decisions are kind of along the lines of how can I make the franchisees more successful? How, how can this help them run the business easier? How can this save them money? And, and then there's this balance between what we as franchisors do, who does what. What the fees are and making adjustments along the way just to make sure that there's this balance where it's, there's a harmonious relationship where everybody's incentivized to grow in the same way.

Right.

And a lot of times what happens, you get, if you get an FSO or just, you know, depending on the, it's really not about an FSO or not at all. It's about the advisory that you get and whether you get people that know what they're doing around you early enough.

Yeah.

To get you into the, into the area of balance with the, with, and you know, now you can find your way into that as an emerging brand if you care deeply about the brand and you know the business well and you, you care and you and Rachel care deeply about your people. You could, we do, you could just feel it on your team with the franchise owners. So, but if you break some of those rules and, and some of those fundamentals, And you know, you can spend years digging out of, uh, you know, of it. And I know there was some things that we talked about, uh, on the way out the door there when I was, when I visited with you that, uh, we probably should have followed up on. Uh, I think there was a few, a few things that we got into a conversation about that I don't think we follow— we followed up on. So maybe we should do a follow-up call.

Well, let's go. I, I think as far as the basics too, um, One, and this is where we actually heard about you on Shannon Wilburn's podcast. She's been advising us for multiple years.

Right.

And I think her grounding has been invaluable for us.

Yes.

Because she has so much experience and depth of knowledge in the franchise world. So with her advising us, coming from, you know, where she's come from, I think that has tremendously helped Rachel and I.

Clearly.

She's clearly, clearly helped you guys get over the target.

Yeah. So that, that's been, we, we've always had advisors, coaches. It's just that the franchise coaches are, cost a lot more than the other ones.

Do they? Well, geez, maybe, maybe, maybe I should get in that business.

I don't know. School of Hard Knocks is also very expensive.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So as you look back on your journey, Are there, are there just 2 or 3 things that you would say to somebody about franchising? It's, you, it's hard. That's number one. Yeah. So, um, it's probably more expensive, uh, than you thought it would be.

It's tremendously more expensive than we thought it would be. Um, it's, it's hard. I think it depends on people's end goal, right? If they have some number that they're willing to hit, if they're like, hey, oh, I want to grow this to sell it to private equity. Okay. I think that sounds nice and it sounds very cool.

Right.

But I think it's also a lot harder, harder to actually do.

Right.

Um, so like, hey, if you're gonna do it, make sure it's because you want to do it and you want to grow it. And that sounds exciting and fulfilling to you. Not just this potshot of I'm gonna grow it and sell it. Uh, cuz if so, you, you better have people in your pocket that have already done that, that are helping guide you through that process.

Yeah.

Because there's not as many people like you've done that, but not as many people have done that.

Yeah.

Yeah. Um, what have you learned about franchisees who struggle and what are the most effective things that you've done to be able to get them back on course?

Hmm.

Sometimes it, they have to almost take a hit.

Um, I, you have to probably be careful with this, with this answer, right? But yeah, in gen— you could speak generally.

Yeah. Generally, like we've had people come back and say, hey, you were right. Hey, you're right. I should have done this with the hiring. You're right. I should have done that with the ads. Fortunately, sometimes people have to take a small hit. And we, my, our goal at corporate or the marketing team is to, is to protect them. They have a franchise. We have a fiduciary duty to protect them, make sure they're doing stuff in their best interest. Like Elizabeth on the marketing team right now. She'd been arguing with someone on there. She wants to cut Meta spend and they've got the lowest, uh, the most conversions at the lowest cost in the entire network. And she's fighting this lady tooth and nail, um, for what's in her best interest.

Right.

Yeah.

We have to do that. And that's hard sometimes, but we have to do that. And then sometimes I think we, we still have to be like, hey, this is what's the best thing. This is what you need to do. At the end of the day, it's totally up to you. You can do whatever you want. And then if things don't work out and their leads crash and cut in half and their income goes in half and they gotta let people go and they're very frustrated, we have to say, yep, that sucks. Uh, let's get back on track.

Right.

And just be there to support 'em without the ego and the attitude.

Yeah. Yeah.

I told you so is not helpful in that situation.

No, not, no, not. We're in contracts with these people. We're in long-term relationships with these people that That stuff is not fly.

Yeah. You guys, uh, you and the marketers, the marketing team, they take a, a lot of ownership over the lead generation and management of the marketing vendors. How has AI impacted your, uh, marketing, uh, in the selection of vendors or maybe creation of content? Like how have, how have you guys, because you're very talented. Marketers? How have you leveraged it? Is there any, any experience that you can share that would be helpful for other people?

Yeah, so the marketing team is very AI-pilled right now, right? And they have scheduled time to just tinker, mess with stuff, play with tools, you know, or I'll give them, you know, assignments of stuff that they just don't know how to do. So right now there's a tool called Magnific. Or there's like Hakesfield and you have videos and you can just take out the backgrounds, put new backgrounds in, et cetera. And so they're on a whole learning course, just literally learning Magnific right now.

Okay.

Um, because meta ads is doing so well for us right now, they just can't get enough new meta ads.

Right.

Right. And with some of the tools that are out there where the humans are staying the same and they can just flip-flop those backgrounds, then potentially I can have, um, my goal is, is I want, okay, cool. I need, uh, one background to look like Texas and I need the next one to look like Tampa and I need the next one to look like Arizona and Michigan. And I need all 4 of those backgrounds, right? It's the same video and I make these little bitty changes and it's the background, it's not the people. So it doesn't actually look that weird on a short on a phone like this.

Okay.

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then they'll use that on social.

Yep. Meta ads.

On meta ads.

Yeah.

But yeah, so they're, they're on, um, you know, ChatGPT, Perplexity, uh, we're all using Manus, making programs on Manus right now. I've been making software on Manus. Um, we've been, yeah, they're the Barkin team specifically. We're now, we're still using the agencies for actually running ads for the locations though.

Yeah. Yeah.

Do you think there's, um, where do you see AI impacting your franchisees in their training? Or do you think they're AI-proof?

I don't know about AI-proof. I wouldn't say anyone's AI-proof right now. When, uh, women are our predominant market, right? Our primary market. When they show a mom, multiple pictures of different things, and they show 'em a picture of their child that they gave birth to and a picture of their dog when their, their, um, head is hooked up to sensors, the exact same part of the brain lights up when the mom sees their kid or their dog. Exact same.

Okay.

So no one wants a robot to necessarily watch their kid or walk their dog. So it's gonna be hard for your wife to call and say, would you please send a robot out to train my dog?

Yeah.

It's touchy-feely, right?

It's— Yeah.

When women are that per— predominant market, uh, primary market, sorry, it's gonna be really hard. It's a service-based. Now, if it's the car, no one cares. If it's the roof, no one cares. If it's the AC unit outside, no one cares.

Right.

Your little 10-pound Yorkie poo, you're gonna trust it to be trained by a robot? Not gonna happen. Now the admin, the ads at some point, all the other stuff. Yeah, probably still, but—

Sure.

Got it. Yeah.

Awesome. Um, well, this has been great, Ryan. I appreciate it. Anything else, uh, that you'd like to get out that I haven't asked you?

No, I think that, uh, I think that about covers it right now, Jeff.

Okay. All right.

Um, you had sent me, uh, the other day a, uh, piece of software that you had built. Did you build that on Manus?

Yeah.

Yes, I did.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did you check it out?

I got logged in and I, I didn't book an appointment or anything like that, but yeah, look, I didn't, how, how deep does that go and what all does it do?

Pretty deep, man. I, I spent, you know, a couple grand in tokens. Basically the last year and a half we've been looking for new software, right? And I tried literally everything off the shelf., you know, 5th, literally like a quarter of my week at 15, 20 hours, um, for a year and a half on software. 'Cause we need different software to, for me to do much with AI, I've gotta, gotta switch. And so I started building out on Manus. I learned about it from Dan Martell, right?

Yeah.

The guy who wrote Buy Back Your Time.

Yeah.

And he's like, hey, for non-technical founders, this is the easiest thing to create prototypes on.

And I said, All right, bet. Let's go.

Okay. So I started making out everything in a wishlist that I would like in a software. And I spent like, you know, 100 hours, 120 hours on it, whatever. And at this point, and I have reports, so I have automated sales reports now. I have automated, um, reports by whether it's, uh, by MetaLeads, Google Ads, local service ads, et cetera, where I can find out my ROAS, et cetera. Um, All the commission reports for the owners. Basically, I'm trying to take off work off the owners. So the goal with the software is one, to make our booking stuff more efficient, and then two, take as much administrative work off of my owners as I can. Because if I can take administrative work off of them and they make more money, they're gonna open up another location. Yeah. And I really wanna get to hard locations with as few owners as possible.

Yeah, that's, that's fair. Um, how many, not to get too technical, but how does something like you build on Manus, how do you handle security on that?

No. So we shop, we've been shopping developers and then we're about to move on with a developer. So I'm using Manus, uh, to get everything out of my head that I need for the business to run.

Yeah.

So I'm using Manus as a very high-level prototype, and then I'm basically making a hand, uh, handoff document that I hand to developers.

And they will build on whatever?

Yeah. So they'll build it in, um, Next.js and Node and they'll build it in actual Yeah. Nerd language, right? But I'm like, instead of being like 2 weeks of discovery or a month of discovery, they're like, wow, no one really actually comes with this much actually done and fleshed out. And I'm like, yeah, I want my reports to look like this. I want invoicing to look like this. Um, right? This is how I want to book initial consults so then I can attach an AI agent and it already has the if-then decision trees already built out.

Yeah.

I did something similar, man, like a long, long time ago. I mean, like 2000, like 1999.

Yeah.

And there was a, there was a technology called Flash and it was basically complete visual, but you could build website navigation.

Yeah.

You know, and, and it, and it, like, it worked, but it didn't have the backend database and all the under, it didn't have the, the engine underneath it. But I built an entire prototype of a web, of a website. Where claims could be distributed between agents and adjusters and homeowners and tying in.

Yeah.

And it was great. It was called LossPro. And like, it, it was, it was so far ahead of its time that it was like not till 10 years later that somebody actually built an entire company, which is a huge third party. Like, this is the way the industry runs now.

Yeah.

So I had built that methodology out in Flash. I took it, I went and got like investors, like maybe $100,000 worth of investors. And then, and this, and then the dot-com bubble burst.

Oh.

And it was just like, and I wasn't a coder, a programmer or whatever, but I was just like, this is, this is what needs to happen. And, and it was great. I mean, the, it, it's, it's very similar to the way that the third-party administrators operate in the insurance claim space right now. And this would've been, yeah, if I would've, if I would've just had a little bit more, maybe if I had a little more business school, a little bit more, a little bit more savvy, I would've been able to, to keep going with that project and get it across the goal line. But no, well, look, you're doing great things, Ryan. Again, I really enjoy the time that I got to spend with you out there in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Never been there.

I love that. Yeah.

Never been there before. Hope to be there again. And Shannon Wilburn is an incredible friend, and I know that she's a great advisor to you guys.

She is.

She is.

All right, Jeff.

Thanks for having me on, sir.

Yeah, well, tell people how to get in touch with you.

Yeah, so basically, I'm not on social media very much. I'm on LinkedIn. If you wanna reach out, I'm on LinkedIn, Ryan Wimpey, W-I-M-P-E-Y, is the best place to get ahold of me.

Okay, that's fantastic. And I've got a curveball and a fastball for you if you wanna play.

Woo, let's go.

All right, here's the curveball. Gun to your head, you have to start a business the next 30, or no,, e-collar that is not a shock collar. It's just a gentle tap of your shoulder, but you got an e-collar. All right. Um, you have to start a, you, you, not the gun, the e-collar. You've gotta start a business in the next 30 days.

Okay.

It can't be something that you're currently doing. Where do you see the opportunity in the marketplace to start a business if you had to?

If I had to, I'd just go back to lawn care. You can get a mower and just hustle your face off and make cash and then be able to reinvest it. It's the easiest way for anyone with hustle. Just as soon as it hits July, if you, if you live in Oklahoma or Texas, man, I, I just get door to door.

Yeah. Residential, residential lawnmowing.

Yes.

Just pick 'em up.

All right. All right.

Um, it's not super exciting. Well, if I had more cash, I'll tell you right now, the septic, septic tank guys, hostage taker business, big barrier to entry with the 100, with the trucks, $100,000 to $200,000 trucks.

Yeah. I've looked at a couple of deals in that space. It's not franchised.

No, it's hostage taker, dude. So I had an issue with my septic tank. It doesn't matter what they quote me. No one can use the bathroom.

That's right.

That's right. I love it. Yeah.

It's deeply, deeply entrenched players in that market space, but there's a lot of small ones. But I mean, typically they're not that small. You know, they're $3, $4, $5 million. And so anyway, yeah, that is—

But they left some terrible websites. Yeah.

No, but that's great. It is a great business. It's a great business. And there's other things you can do with that truck. Yeah. So, all right, last question. Here you go. Fastball straight down the middle. If you had one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life, what would that be?

Probably don't listen to haters. Go with your gut. Listen to your spirit man inside. Do what needs to be done.

Listen to your spirit man. Do what needs to be done. Perfectly said, Ryan.

Thanks. Thanks, Jeff. Appreciate you, sir.

Yep. I'm Jeff Dudan. We've been here with the incredible Ryan Wimpey of Tip Top K9, and you have been on the Unemployable Podcast. Thanks for listening.