Should You Choose a Franchise by Its Values?

 This is a transcript from Episode 58 of The Franchise Champion Show.

Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

Alan Regala: My guest today is the co-founder and CEO of Scenthound. He spent years in the grooming business before he noticed something missing in how people care for their dogs. Today, Scenthound has 175 locations open across the country, and roughly 200 more on the way. Tim Vogel, welcome to the show.

Tim Vogel: Thanks, Alan. Looking forward to the conversation today.

Alan Regala: Well, I'm really glad you joined me. I think your concept is really, really unique. But before we dive into that, I would love to have you take us back to before franchising. What did your life look like before that?

Tim Vogel: So, living in the Washington, D.C. area, now in Florida. It's funny, when I started this entrepreneurial journey, I had just gotten married, we just had a kid, and we'd just gotten a dog. I fell in love with the dog and started geeking out about what it meant to be a good dog parent and the art of raising a puppy and stuff. And at that time, the company I was with was going through a merger. I always wanted to take the entrepreneurial journey, so I started looking at different industries and thinking about different things that I could do. The pet space was really compelling, and that's what really got me. This little puppy got me started on this journey of, man, this would be a cool industry to be in.

Alan Regala: Yeah, it's definitely a cool industry to be in. And I think it's grown quite a bit since you've gotten into it. What year was that, and how did you get started?

Tim Vogel: So it was 2005. One of the things that was really compelling, I looked at the industry and it was a $42 billion industry in the US. So $42 billion annually was spent on people's pets. Last year it was a $158 billion industry. So tremendous growth.

At first I was just looking at pet businesses, and I ultimately decided that mobile was the way to go. When I looked at mobile pet grooming, it was this new concept. There wasn't a lot of it out there. There certainly wasn't a big unified brand out there. Amazon was just starting to become a thing, so at-home services were becoming bigger and bigger. And my big bright idea was, let's create a life by design. So we ended up moving to Florida for a quality of life. I went to grooming school, started the mobile pet grooming business, and it was about six months in that I was like, what have I done? Like, oh my God, this business doesn't work. I moved my family to Florida. All the headaches happened, and I had that moment of truth where I was in that valley of despair, like, oh my God, I just moved my family here and I can't make a go of this.

Alan Regala: Well, tell me what was happening. I mean, it seems like a great idea. You had the right idea, you moved, and I'm sure you put a lot of effort and energy into it. What did you find that wasn't working for you?

Tim Vogel: So I went to grooming school, got a van, built a website, built a brand, and we had a ton of customers that were interested. The customers weren't the problem. It was the technician, finding a groomer. Finding a groomer that was reasonable quality, that could drive a van, that could talk to a customer, that could keep on time with a schedule. Those were all very unique skills to put into one person, and a lot of responsibility to put on one person.

So to grow that business, you could find one, maybe two, but then it was a real challenge to grow from there. That was really where I got stuck, because one or two wasn't going to support my family. So I had to solve that problem. The first thing I did is I went and partnered with the grooming school that I went to, and then found people that had the right skills. I paid for them to go to grooming school four days a week, and one day a week I put them in the vans with us, and I slowly built my employee base that way. But the reality was it was a small lifestyle business. I wasn't really going to grow that way. And so that's really where I had to start reinventing myself.

We then evolved into a retail grooming salon, where I went and found a different grooming school that had a full curriculum. I bought their curriculum, I baked it into our business, and then I hired my own people and put them through the curriculum, where we made our own groomers. We were able to open a couple different grooming shops and continue to feed the mobile business. That's where the moment actually happened from there.

Alan Regala: Okay. Wow, that's really interesting. So you transformed from just mobile into a shop and then multiple shops. It's pretty cool that you bought the curriculum from a grooming school and were able to teach your own people how to groom. So how did it transform into what it is today?

Tim Vogel: So the first one was called Bright Eyed Pets. The second one was called Pet. And then there was a moment for me. I was walking my dog in my neighborhood, and a new neighbor had just moved in, and we got to talking. He asked me what I did, and I said I owned a dog grooming business. He's like, that's great, I would use you guys, but my dog doesn't need grooming. And he had a Labrador retriever, and I could see that his Labrador retriever's knuckles were disfigured because he hadn't clipped the nails frequently enough. And I could smell his dog's ear infection. And I was like, oh my God, this guy loves his dog. He's got the means. He just doesn't know what he doesn't know about being a great dog parent.

And groomers are really for haircuts. That's what people think about for dog groomers. So I went home with this in the back of my head and I said, you know what, I wonder what the top ten breeds in the US are. I looked it up, and only one of the top ten dogs owned in the US needs a haircut. So grooming is really about haircuts, but all dogs need care. And that was my moment. Wait a minute, there's a really huge missing aspect in the market out there. There's vets on one side, which you need for medical care and for vaccinations. There's groomers on the other side, which are really about aesthetics and looks. But there's a massive opening in the middle, which is routine hygiene, that nobody was really thinking about or caring for. And no one provided a fast, easy, affordable way for all those other dog parents to get this service.

So I went to my wife and I was like, I think I've got it. Let's try this new concept. We came up with a name, Scenthound. SCENT is actually an acronym. It stands for skin, coat, ears, nails, and teeth, the five core areas where every dog needs care. Every time you bring your dog in, we do the basic hygiene, but we also capture all their health data, and we give you a report card on how your dog is doing on skin, coat, ears, nails, and teeth, and a bunch of other things, so that I know if I'm being a good dog parent or not. We combine that with a monthly membership so that that health routine, that hygiene routine, matches the needs of the dog. And voilà, we had a business.

Alan Regala: Wow. That is really, really cool. I love how you identified a need based on talking to your neighbor and seeing the dog. And you're absolutely right. If dogs don't need grooming, people don't bring them in to see someone who might be able to provide some of those services. I know some groomers do nails or whatever in addition to grooming, but people aren't going to bring them in anywhere to focus on the overall care, the overall health. That just makes so much sense.

Tim Vogel: Well, I'll give you a statistic which blew my mind when I first heard it. This is from the American Veterinary Association. They say up to 90% of dogs by the age of two already have some form of dental disease. And if you cared for your dog's teeth on a regular basis, you could potentially extend their life three to five years. So three years for big dogs, five years for the small dogs. So think about that. If you're a dog parent, I could have my dog, my family member, with me up to five years more if I just did some basic routine hygiene. If I knew that, I would be doing that, right? And these are the kinds of things that most dog parents don't know. If you just give them a little education and provide that hygiene for them, what an impact it can have on the longevity of their dog.

Alan Regala: Wow. I guess we've got to start picking up that toothbrush for our little one then. My wife's pretty good about brushing his teeth. We have a little long-haired dachshund.

Tim Vogel: Well, I'll tell you, only 2% of the population, on average, brush their dog's teeth. And there are other solutions, but we try to create the easy button for dog parents to be able to maintain those things.

Alan Regala: Okay. So let's say you run into someone who knows nothing about your business or what you do. Give me the 30-second spiel. I know you've told me a lot now, but if you were to sum it up for someone in 30 seconds, what you do and the impact you have on your customers, how would you say it?

Tim Vogel: Well, let me back up just for a second and make a real quick case for this new category. If you're a dog parent, you typically think you need to do three things, and the market educates you on three things. First of all, I need good nutrition. What should I be feeding my dog? And there's a lot of stuff around food. Second, what kind of exercise or enrichment should I be doing to make sure they're healthy physically and emotionally? And then I need to get a vet. I need to do my vaccinations, I need to get my rabies shot, and if anything happens, I need a vet I can go to. That's what it's always traditionally been.

But dogs' roles in our lives have changed significantly. The dog has effectively gone from being in the field, herding sheep and doing all that kind of stuff, to our backyard, where they became family members a little bit, to our houses, where they really became family members, to our pillow. So dogs are in our furniture now. They're truly integrated into our lives, and we think about our dogs fundamentally in a different way. So beyond those three things, there's a big missing fourth essential, which is routine hygiene. That's what we do. We help provide that regular care for your dog so that they can be happy and healthy.

We think about ourselves, we do hygiene every single day. We brush our teeth, we do these kinds of things. Dogs are not self-contained. They're mammals like us, and they need some basic routine care. That's a responsibility of a good dog parent, and we're there to solve that problem. So that was a little more than 30 seconds.

Alan Regala: But that's good. That was some good background, I like it. Okay, so you had this great idea and you started implementing it. How did that go with your customers, and how did you end up deciding to make this a franchise?

Tim Vogel: So we ultimately opened one of these. In the beginning, we actually didn't do haircuts, and there was a lot of learning. We integrated haircuts back in, but not the styling, so that was a big innovation for us. And then we ultimately ended up opening five of these in different locations, with different floor plans, different buildouts. We started tweaking all kinds of things, like the membership packaging, the pricing, the communication, what kind of products we use, the different types of equipment we use. We really spent five years perfecting the model.

And we had two insights while we were going through this process of creating this great model. The first insight is that we were creating a new category. This was something that people didn't really think of before, and it was a new paradigm in people's minds. The second insight was that we were a data company. We were collecting dogs' health data every month, oftentimes every single week. And if you could use this data to better that experience, there's probably a lot of power in that. Big data was just starting to come online, 2015 or so, when we were really thinking about this through to 2020.

So with those two ideas, we thought scaling was the right thing to do. Number one, if we wanted to own this category or become the category king. And number two, we needed a lot of data if we wanted to have meaningful use of that data. So we started looking at different scaling mechanisms, and one of them was franchising.

Quite honestly, franchising probably wasn't my first choice, because it's a complicated relationship, and some of the statistics around franchising were a little concerning. One of the stats I heard right out of the gate was that only 16% of brands that franchise their business ever get over 100 units, and only 5% of brands that franchise ever get over 100 units in under ten years. That was really concerning to me. So I started doing a lot of research. What are the pitfalls of franchising? What are the challenges? Why do brands stall out under 100 units in general? What happens there?

What we found is that most franchise brands that don't make it over 100 ultimately end up having bad validation, meaning their franchisees aren't happy with them. Well, then the question is why. Why does that happen when you get to a certain number of units? Why do your franchisees become unhappy with you? It's about support and infrastructure. It's about how well franchisors are capitalized. Do you build enough infrastructure in enough time to be able to support your franchisees when you get to a certain size?

So we said, all right, if we're going to do this, we need to be at least two years ahead, infrastructure-wise, of where the business currently is. If we have infrastructure at this level and we're two years out based on a forecast, it still works. And that's really been successful for us. We actually got to 100 units in four years.

Alan Regala: Wow. That's impressive.

Tim Vogel: And we're at 170 now. We're just over the five-year mark, so we've gone through those markers. But it's because we spent so much time and energy building the infrastructure. Ultimately, when a franchise candidate gets on a validation call with other franchisees, those franchisees need to say they're supported. They need to say we've got their back and they feel good about what we're providing for them. If we didn't do that, validation ends, and that's where franchise growth starts to stall.

Alan Regala: So unit economics and support are key in a successful franchise business, especially one that's growing rapidly.

Tim Vogel: Absolutely, absolutely.

Alan Regala: You said a lot of really great things, all in one chunk here. A couple things I really appreciate. One is being two years ahead of where you're at now. That's huge. I've definitely seen brands grow incredibly fast, too fast for the support, and they outpace the support. And that's where, like you said, you get a lot of unhappy people, because they're just not as successful without the support. So being so far ahead makes a lot of sense. Unit economics and then the support, you've got those two things. And at the end of the day, it comes down to those validation calls and having happy franchisees. If you've got happy owners, they're going to be telling prospective candidates that they've had a great experience, and that's how you get more owners. So great job on doing your research and figuring it out.

Tim Vogel: Yeah. And it's never perfect. Even while we were trying to be two years ahead, we had blind spots. One big blind spot for us was around the employee journey. I discovered early on that it turns out I'm just natural at that, and so I took it for granted that other people would be natural at it. When we first started franchising, we had all this structure and infrastructure in place, but we didn't have the employee journey mapped out correctly. All of a sudden, I'm finding our franchisees weren't supporting their employees in the right way and promoting them through the career path in the right way. I was like, why the heck aren't they doing it?

And then someone pointed out to me, Tim, you're just naturally good at leading those teams and inspiring them and doing the daily huddles. You go in and you work with the franchisees, and there's a whole lot of learning there, but it's not in our system. So I had to go back and reverse engineer it. Since it was natural to me, I didn't think of it in a process way. It was more intuitive. So we spent six months on just this one thing, which is the employee career path, getting every part of it right and reevaluating. What did I do? How did I do it? What are the mechanics of that? And then we put together a process map, an employee journey, that maps out each and every stage with KPIs and learning tools and videos and all this other kind of stuff that supports the franchisee. But even with the stated two years ahead, there were certain things we just missed on, and we had to learn along the way.

Alan Regala: Yeah, of course. It's hard to get everything right and everything perfect. Sometimes you just have some misses, and you learn from them. But like you did, you figure it out and you make it right, which is how we move forward.

So one thing that's interesting, the franchise I had with ShelfGenie was super niche. We put pull-out shelves into existing cabinets, which a lot of people had no idea you could do. So we were kind of creating a market, right? People didn't know about it, and there had to be a lot of education and a lot of marketing dollars put toward that, which seems very similar to what you do. So how do you build a business around a problem customers don't know they have yet?

Tim Vogel: I think that's a great question. Every time we go to a new market, we try to meet our customers where they're at, and this was a lot of learning. If I've got a dog, the top two things I don't want to do myself are wash my dog and clip my dog's nails. Those are typically the top two things. So when we go to a new market, we educate. Hey, super affordable, we'll wash your dog, we'll do their nails, we'll clean their ears, we'll brush their teeth. Super easy, don't you worry about it.

They bring their dog in and we do those services, but before they get their dog back, we go through their Scent Check with them, and we review skin, coat, ears, nails, teeth. We might tell them a statistic about the teeth or something about the nails, and they go from "I don't want to wash my own dog" to "I want to be a good dog parent." I've actually had customers and friends call me and say, Tim, I just got my Scent Check and it's not all fives. We're an all-fives family. What do I need to do to get all fives on my report card? This is unacceptable. And so all of a sudden it changes that mentality. That paradigm in their mind shifts. But you've got to do it one customer at a time. The way I really think about it is you've got to meet them where they're at, solve a problem they currently have, and then help them understand the problem they didn't even know they had.

Alan Regala: Got it. So I could see that working for the people who need the grooming, because that's how you get them in, right? What about for those who don't need the grooming part?

Tim Vogel: Well, grooming is typically thought of as the haircut. So we actually came out as a dog washing business. That's how people thought of us. I don't go to a groomer to get my dog washed, but a dog washing business, and it's significantly less cost. And we made it one price for all dogs. So whether you've got a Great Pyrenees or a French bulldog, it's just one price, so we could market it en masse. And people are like, oh yeah, I don't want to wash my dog. They'll cut my dog's nails? That's great, let's do that. I don't want to do that. So we positioned ourselves slightly differently. And then we said, wait a minute, routine hygiene is critical to your dog's overall health, and that's what good dog parents do. And I'm sure you're a good dog parent, right?

Alan Regala: If the thought of owning your own business excites you, whether that's in the pet industry or a different one, we should chat. I'm a former franchise owner, 14 years, multi-million dollar exit, and now I help driven individuals find out if franchising is right for them, and if so, what's the right brand. I learn about you first, your goals, your skills, and your investment level, and then I match you with a handful of opportunities from over 600 brands, and I support you all the way through. Ultimately, you get to decide if franchising is the right path forward or not. My service is completely free. I'm only paid by franchisors after you find the right fit and if you move forward. To get started, take the Franchise Readiness Assessment at athletetoowner.com/fit. Now, back to Tim.

So what does that look like for a typical dog parent, as far as frequency of visits? You mentioned monthly, but then you also said weekly in some cases, which I was like, wow, weekly, that sounds like a lot.

Tim Vogel: So we have different membership types. There's basically a monthly membership. Vets recommend you clip your dog's nails every two to four weeks. Vets recommend you clean your dog's ears every two to four weeks. You should be brushing more frequently than that. So monthly is kind of the minimum cadence.

But we talked about going from the field to the backyard to the house to the pillow. A lot of people want their dogs clean. And a lot of people, like here in South Florida, take their dogs to the beach every weekend. So there's an unlimited membership, which is just slightly more affordable than coming twice. So if you're going to come twice, the unlimited is the way to go. If I'm going to the beach every weekend, I get to take my dog to Scenthound on the way home and make sure they're clean, so they're not getting my furniture dirty. So think of communities where dogs are very active in people's lives, the Colorados, the Portlands, the beach communities. Those are places that really have a higher use of the unlimited membership.

Alan Regala: Got it. That makes a lot of sense when you say washing, especially for bigger dogs. Ours is little, and we just put him in a little bathtub, and it's not too bad. But I can imagine for dogs that get dirty frequently and are big, I could see that.

Tim Vogel: Big dogs, and the shedding dogs too, like German Shepherds or Golden Retrievers. We have a de-shedding program also, which reduces shedding significantly. That's also a really big impact. And then with a little dog, sometimes, think of a Chihuahua, you're trying to cut their nails and it's a real challenge. It's better to just have someone else handle it. And the dog is typically way better with someone who's not their dog parent dealing with those kinds of things.

Alan Regala: Got it. All right, let's transition over and talk a little bit about the experience for franchise owners, people who are looking to get into the system. What does a typical week look like for an owner? Are they the ones washing the dogs, or are they managing the people, or doing the marketing? What are they doing?

Tim Vogel: The way our business is set up, we're really designed to be multi-unit. I think if you took all of our franchisees divided by the number of units we have, we have about three and a half units per franchisee. And the reason it's multi-unit is because of our career path. Just like in our very beginnings, where we made groomers, you work people into management. It's effectively a management training program. So when you're done after about a year, you're going to have too many trimmers, too many people wanting to be assistant manager, too many people wanting to be manager. And our most successful franchisees, every single one of their managers or area managers started with them at the entry level. So as soon as you get to that place, a year out, you're like, oh my God, I need a place to promote them. You obviously have a healthy business, so you open up the next one.

So the day in the life of a franchisee, typically for us, is someone who's overseeing the overall operation, highly engaged in their business, but they're not the one at the front counter. They're not the one taking care of the dogs. When you look at our Item 19, all of our financials bake in a paid manager other than the franchisee. That's really how we think about it. Some franchises want you to be the guy or the gal at the front counter. We really know our career path is about building those team players and high-performing teams, and ultimately training an entry-level employee on leadership and management so that they can run their own business.

I'll tell you my most successful story. Her name is Jenna. She started with us when she was 18 years old, as a tech. She worked her way through the career path up to manager, and ultimately to area manager, overseeing all five of our Scenthounds. And now she bought my mobile grooming business from me, so she's now a business owner. That's the career path we put people through, which I think is really compelling. And it actually helps you attract the very best people in the marketplace.

Alan Regala: That's really cool, I love that. You mentioned before having a path for the employees, and I wasn't sure where that ended. But now you build that into the growth for the franchise owner of being multi-unit, and all of a sudden you've got multiple managers and multiple assistant managers and all those other people higher up in the food chain. That's amazing.

Tim Vogel: We've been doing this for just over five years now, and we've got a franchisee opening his 12th location now. So you can see the kind of growth that happens when you run the model correctly and you're really helping these employees on this career path.

Alan Regala: That's fantastic. What does that look like as far as a radius or a population for each territory? When you talk about three and a half units, or four or five units, and you're promoting people, how far apart is that? I'm just curious how many you might have in a given radius.

Tim Vogel: A good correlation is the Supercuts of the world, the haircut places. It's 1,000 to 1,200 square feet of in-line retail. We want it to be in an errand-intensive shopping center. We love grocery store shopping centers, and it's got to be in your biosphere. That's how we think about it. Wherever you run your errands on a daily basis, whatever grocery store. I know I go to the grocery store like three times a week, because we've got kids and we're always busy doing dinner and all that. You want to be in that center. And only a couple of miles away, you can have an entirely new biosphere. So the density is a little bit different for something like this, because this is really an errand.

The way our customers think about it, they drop off their dog, they go do their errands, they go to the grocery store, they go to the coffee shop, they get their dry cleaning, whatever it is, and then they pick their dog up and go home. So it's 30 minutes to an hour. It's a much quicker service than you'd think for grooming, because we're doing these different services. We're not doing a lot of the intricate styling that happens within a grooming shop. So you think about a much tighter radius for all these. Every franchisee has a protected radius, and I think it typically lands around three miles if you're in a suburban area. But you can have a lot of density with our model.

Alan Regala: Okay. And do you need an appointment, or do you just stop by?

Tim Vogel: We try to have 80% booked and then open capacity for people to come in. But we're like the dentist. You don't leave without your next appointment, since it's a monthly membership. So almost everybody's booked. And then it's the new trials or the new potential members coming in that fill up that extra space, or the person who's like, oh my God, I want to get an extra one in, or I missed my last one, and they're trying to fit it in last minute.

Alan Regala: Got it. Okay, so back to the owners. It sounds like it's ideal for them to be able to grow and scale multiple units, which is fantastic. What does that look like from a training perspective, getting up to speed and getting that first store open? Do you have a sense of what that looks like as far as timing goes?

Tim Vogel: We're averaging around a year, maybe 13 months, from signing your franchise agreement to getting that first store open. The biggest part is the real estate. Finding the real estate, getting the lease signed, then going through the buildout and waiting for that permit.

We actually have a Candyland map for the franchisee journey, and we have a specific specialist at each and every stage. We've got a real estate specialist, and we've got national real estate brokers and networks. We have a construction specialist. We have dedicated design people, and we've got a whole design book. We've got a pre-sales person dedicated to pre-sales. We've got people all along the way. For every step, we have a one-page document, a map that shows: I'm here, here are the KPIs, here's the learning and development associated with this, here are my responsibilities as franchisee, and here are the franchisor's responsibilities. And we reference that at each and every stage you're at, so you're hyper-focused on the stage you're in. It's really handholding. And then you've got an opening coach that works through each of those processes, and once you're open, a franchise business coach who works with you through maturity and multiple units.

Alan Regala: Got it. That's great. Sounds very organized, which is great. So who tends to do well as a Scenthound owner? What does the ideal candidate look like for you?

Tim Vogel: That's been a lot of learning for us, and we've really baked this into our recruitment process. If we're looking for some key characteristics, the first thing we really do is expectation setting. A lot of people think of it as a sales process. We really think about it as an alignment process. Here's the reality of your situation. Here's what it's going to be like. Here's what your journey is going to have. You're going to go through a valley of despair, all of these kinds of things that happen in the entrepreneurial journey. That gives us the ability to see that individual's adaptability, how willing and able they are to open their mind to it.

The number one key characteristic we're looking for is coachability. Do they have the ability to be coached? And the layer underneath coachability is self-awareness. Do they have enough self-awareness to know I don't know what I don't know? These guys spent 20 years doing this. Now there's a recipe. I spent my money to skip that 20 years of learning. Am I going to be flexible enough to follow the recipe?

The way we describe it is, we spent a decade-plus building the perfect recipe for a cake. We want you to bake the cake exactly as the recipe says. We want you to taste the cake. Once you've baked the cake and tasted the cake, we want every opinion you've possibly got about it. But not until that moment.

Alan Regala: Yes. Absolutely. It's amazing, it's such a simple concept. Follow the process, follow the system. That's why it's there, that's what you paid for. I haven't heard the cake analogy before, and I think that's fantastic. You've built the recipe, so taste the cake first. I like to say master before you modify. You need to follow it to a T. And there are cases where some things need to be tweaked because of a market or certain things, but you don't know that until you've gone through all the steps and truly mastered what's been provided and understand the why behind the steps.

Tim Vogel: That's right.

Alan Regala: Before you try to do anything different.

Tim Vogel: And the reality is, a lot of our franchisees are really smart, have had really successful careers, and they're really competent people. So you come in here and you want to put your stamp on things. You want to take that entrepreneurial leap. You're like, I want to have an impact here. I want to do better than everybody else has done. I want to outperform everybody else. So that's a real natural tendency. But you don't know what you don't know. And that's where that mental flexibility comes in, that ability to have a little humility, a little self-awareness. I am really smart, I've had a really successful career, and I've never done this before. So let me be taught. Let me be led this time. Let me learn. And then when I'm done with it, let me come back with all my suggestions on how we can improve.

And we've got a lot of great feedback coming through our FAC and through really smart franchisees. But they first have had that experience of, okay, this is why you did it, and here was the result of that. Now let's have a conversation. Is there some level of improvement here? AI and all these other kinds of tools are coming out, so of course the landscape is always changing, and we're open to those suggestions.

Alan Regala: That's great. We got into this a little bit, and I don't know if this is going to be the same answer, but when owners do struggle, what is it that you're seeing in your system that they're struggling with? And then conversely, the top performers, what are they doing that the others aren't doing?

Tim Vogel: One of the things we give coaching on a lot is hire your weaknesses. People go out and hire people who are like them, so now I've got two of the same skill set, three of the same skill set, and that's really problematic. If you're getting into pre-sales and you're not great at pre-sales, don't hire someone like yourself. Hire someone who's really good at pre-sales. They look different than you. And some of these people don't have a lot of experience with the entry-level employee and how to manage that entry-level employee.

So I think one of the mistakes a lot of people make is they hire people like themselves. And I think the people who are really successful are the ones who are able to connect and relate to that entry-level employee, and are actually motivated or inspired by helping them on their own path to becoming the best version of themselves. Building high-performing teams with entry-level employees is so rewarding. When you help a young adult learn that next skill, teach them how to read a P&L, teach them about management, teach them about leadership, that's really cool. But you've got to meet them where they're at and then help bring them along. And I keep coming back to this employee career path. The ones that do that successfully win every time.

Alan Regala: I love that. I fully agree. I've always thought, we're always focused on our clients, on the customer experience, right? But you have to be equally focused on your team's experience as well. More so, even, because they're the face of your business. Being able to care for your team members and pour yourself into them to help them grow as people, both professionally and in their lives, that's how you retain great people. That's how you get the most out of people from a performance standpoint. And that's how you retain them for so long, because they feel like you care about them.

Tim Vogel: Well, the way we really think about it, and the language we use internally, is an amazing franchisee experience creates an amazing employee experience, which creates an amazing dog parent experience. So when we think about it that way, we sat down and mapped out each of those journeys. What does the franchisee journey look like step by step? What does it need to look like? Then we mapped out the employee experience. What does each and every one of those steps look like? Then we mapped out the customer, or the dog parent, experience and each of those moments. What are the KPIs? What is the learning around that? So that we de-risk each and every one of those journeys.

So I can look at my map and say, where am I in that journey? Where's my employee in that journey? Where's my customer in that journey? And my coach can instantly go into a center, look at a KPI, and say, this KPI needs to be improved. It's not at benchmark. Here's the moment of truth that goes along with it. Here are the scripts and the learning and development videos that go with it. Let's work on that. Let's get that one back up and going. And then all of a sudden the whole process flows again, and I can create a healthy business out of it.

Alan Regala: That's awesome. I love it. Where did you develop your grit? Let me back up a second. No business is a straight, linear path to success, right? There are ups and downs, and for a lot of people, you have to have a pretty steep fall before you figure things out and have that awareness to pick yourself back up. So I guess I'm asking two questions. One, if you could pinpoint a specific mistake you made, and you mentioned one, I don't know if you'd count the team member journey, but if there was something big that stands out for you where you made a big mistake and had to learn from it and pick yourself back up. And then, where did you get that ability to pick yourself back up?

Tim Vogel: Well, moving to Florida and starting a mobile grooming business was the first big oh-no moment in my life, where I was just like, what have I done? That was a really pivotal moment. I could go back and get a job, and I was making great money, or I could try to figure this out. And when I had those quiet moments where I was in the valley of despair, in that one moment I asked myself, how would I feel if I actually went back and got a job? Would I feel like I quit on myself? Would I feel like I gave up? Would I feel like a failure? And the answer to me was yes.

I had a lot of ambition, and I wanted to be able to overcome this. So I made the decision to go out and get a business coach. That was first. I sought guidance. I was like, I'm stuck, I don't know what to do next. And the second thing I did is I joined a peer group. I joined EO, which is the Entrepreneurs' Organization, and I was part of a peer group. Hearing what other people were going through, what I was going through, helped supply me with the necessary support to keep going.

And persistence is the number one thing. We're an overnight success that took me 20 years to achieve. That is no joke. It takes a lot. I bumped into a lot of corners and I've had a lot of struggles. But if you've got a great peer group and you've got someone you can go to, like a coach, to help you think things through, to get out of your own head, to see your blind spots, those are really pivotal.

And that's what's so amazing about franchising. You've got the built-in coaches there, and you've got the built-in peer network. We've got our conference coming up in a week and a half, my favorite time of the year. One of our five core values is One Pack. We're all in this together. And you see that culture come together when you get 150 franchisees together and they're all supporting and helping each other. That's the same support network I had. That's the same kind of coaching I had. So we're really helping people take that entrepreneurial journey in a de-risked way, exactly the same way I did it. I had to go find it. Now we've crafted and created that environment for all of our franchisees coming into this community.

Alan Regala: That's awesome, I love it. Last few things here. For candidates out there looking for a business like this, can you tell us some Item 7 information, maybe Item 7 and Item 19, if you're able to?

Tim Vogel: So for our Item 19, we've got a full, robust Item 19, and if you're interested, the FDD should give you all of that information. But I think the business will take care of itself. The proof is in the pudding. The business, the model, it works. We're seeing a lot of growth.

The question you should really be asking yourself is, do I match their value system? Am I excited about their mission in the world? Our North Star is that we enrich the connection between people and their dogs. Our mission is to help you empathetically connect with your dog. Why do we do that? Because it's scientifically proven. If you have a dog in your life, on average you live longer. If you have a dog in your life, on average you have lower blood pressure. There was a really cool study done a couple of years ago at Harvard Medical School that said if you have open-heart surgery and return to a home with a dog, you recover 33% faster than if you return to a home without a dog. So dogs have this powerful, positive impact on our lives. And if I can empathetically connect you to your dog, the consequence is you're also going to take better care of your dog, and your dog is going to live a happier, healthier life. That's the mission. So we're trying to attract people who care about our mission and want to be on this mission with us.

The second thing is our value system. We've got five core values. Dog First: we're always advocating for the health and wellness of the dog. Bring Love: it's a good energy that makes working with dogs easier, because they read our emotions so well. Make a Difference: we want to have a positive impact on the lives of the dogs, the dog parents, our employees, the franchisees, and our communities. One Pack: we're always working together to solve problems. We're all on the same team, trying to achieve the same thing. And Seek Growth: we're a growth mindset company. We're always trying to become a better version of ourselves.

If those values speak to you, if that North Star speaks to you, then I think that's something you should think about. The rest is mechanics. Yes, get on the validation calls. Ask the franchisees how much money they're making. What's the worst thing that's ever happened to you here? What are you upset about? What are you excited about? Those things will come along in the process. But if someone's really evaluating this, I think first getting straight with, is this a mission I'm excited to be on, and are these the kinds of people whose value system aligns with mine? I think that's really the fundamental question people should ask. And then go explore the opportunity and dig into the Item 7, the Item 19, and all that other stuff.

Alan Regala: Got it. That's fair. That's great. I love a company that has values like the ones you mentioned. Those are very, very strong, and the North Star too. I think that's incredibly important, and it really is a great starting point for a lot of people. It's very unusual. People normally don't start there, but they should. It makes so much sense.

Tim Vogel: Totally. And every business is a business for a reason. It's solving a problem for someone and helping someone in a specific kind of way. Is it something that gets you excited? ShelfGenie was solving a problem. It makes my life more convenient. It reduces stress in my life because my clutter is reduced. There are things that each and every one of these businesses does. Which one do you care about? Because when you go through that valley of despair, and every entrepreneur does, do I care enough about what I'm doing to work my way through it? That's the most important thing I think people need to think about.

Alan Regala: That's great. Any last words of advice? I think what you just said makes a lot of sense for people who are looking for a new opportunity, a franchise opportunity, a new direction in their life. Any other last tips for people out there who are exploring franchise ownership?

Tim Vogel: If you're looking to take this entrepreneurial journey, I would say go for it. It's going to be one of the best things you do in your life. It's also going to be one of the hardest things you do in your life. And if I'm going to give you any advice, if you actually get on this train, believe in yourself. At the end of the day, you've got this. There's a leap of faith, no matter which brand you get into, no matter where you go. It requires a leap of faith. And that leap of faith has to be about you, not about the brand. I believe in myself and my ability to do this. If you can believe in that when you make that jump, then you're going to be fine.

Alan Regala: Awesome, I love it. Well, to end this, I've got to bring on my little guy Pickles here and say hi. This is Pickles. We would like to say thank you, Tim, for joining us today and sharing your nuggets of wisdom about Scenthound, and congratulations on being a Franchise Champion.

Tim Vogel: Thank you so much for having me. Great conversation.