Liam Crowe and Buddy
Liam Crowe, and his wife, Natalie, moved from New Zealand to the United States in 2000 to launch an Australian-based dog training franchise and unintentionally proved the hypothesis that culture matters.
The couple admits struggling for the first two years, selling only 10 units. But after networking with other franchisors and experts, they “turned the model on its head,” says Liam, and sold 60 to 70 franchises a year for several years! Once again, however, they unintentionally proved that selling franchises is a good thing only if you sell them to the right people!
Happy, Well-Behaved Dogs
With those and other lessons learned, the Crowes have become two of America’s most accomplished franchisors. Their business, Bark Busters, has 250 franchise offices in 40 states, and has trained almost 250,000 dogs. Bark Busters teaches dog owners about canine psyche and how to train dogs using voice control and body language. A franchisee’s ultimate goal: to give customers a “happy, well-behaved dog.”
But as franchisors, the Crowes’ ultimate goal is to develop a thriving and satisfying national network of franchisees. Ten years post launch, they’re well on their way, but getting started was as difficult as . . . well, teaching an old dog new tricks!
Liam was a self-described “conservative banker” for ten years in Australia, and Natalie was a travel consultant. One day she suggested the two of them, and their frisky pup, Buddy, move to New Zealand! Why not? It’s beautiful country and easy living! But Liam said, “What are we going to do there?”
First Stop: New Zealand
Buddy, a cute mixture of cattle dog and Border collie, soon showed them what they’d be doing. Buddy was a barker, and generally out of control. After many unsuccessful attempts at training him, the Crowes asked a veterinarian for help. He suggested Bark Busters, which was started by two expert dog trainers in 1989. After just one session with a dog behavioral therapist, Buddy improved, and the Crowes were impressed. Short story: They bought the master license to New Zealand and within four years established six franchise units, which meant they had sold out the country! They also managed to get their business featured on 60 Minutes New Zealand, and they dominated the country’s dog training business.
Searching for another adventure, with Buddy in tow, the Crowes decided to introduce Bark Busters to America’s canine lovers. “We were brash entrepreneurs who thought we knew everything,” admits Liam, but in the not-so-easily impressed USA, people laughed at the notion of paying to train dogs. Nonetheless, Liam joined the International Franchise Association so that he could “pick the brains” of other franchisors, and based on what he learned he eventually tweaked the Bark Busters business model to make it more salable. He also established relationships with franchise brokers, who now liked what he had to offer, and by 2003 Bark Busters became one of the “big dog” American franchises. By 2007, Bark Busters had sold more than 250 franchises; brokers sold half the units.
And yet, the dog didn’t quite hunt. There’s never been a question about the services provided by Bark Busters franchisees – customers rave about the results – but the business seemed to have more bark than bite. Franchisees weren’t quite hitting their profit potentials, and the Crowes knew something more needed to be analyzed and fixed.
Profiling Franchisees
In 2006, they met Craig Slavin, founder of Franchise Navigator, and they asked him to help them profile the behavioral patterns of their franchisees, and ultimately to customize their sales materials to attract a specific type of franchise candidate. The Crowes had begun profiling their franchisees in 2003 because other franchisors considered it a “best practice.” Also, Liam believed in profiling. “It’s a way to help you avoid making mistakes,” he says.
In time, they discovered they had sold some of their franchises to the wrong people. “When we looked at the profile of their franchisees,” explains Slavin, “many of them were people who loved solving dog behavioral problems, but they were not people who liked selling and marketing Bark Busters’ services.” However, the network’s top performers were just the right mix, solving dog behavioral problems and selling and marketing their services.
A Cultural Issue
After looking at Bark Busters’ original marketing materials, including the Web site, Slavin identified part of the solution. Both the messaging and the color scheme needed tweaked to attract the right people. Liam agreed. “People are drawn by color combinations,” he notes, and he realized that the colors in his company’s logo – developed by Australians – were culturally meaningful to Australians, but not to Americans. “We needed a different color combination to attract the right prospects in the states.”
But wait a moment. Did Crowe and Slavin really believe that colors and words mattered to prospective franchisees? That new words and new colors would attract different, better franchisees?
Without a doubt they did.
Attracting Quality Franchisees
“We’ve been studying the combination of colors and messages for many years,” says Slavin, “and there’s plenty of scientific evidence to support that certain types of people are attracted to different colors and words. Once you know the profile and the values of a top performer in a franchise network, we can select words and messaging that will attract more of those people.“
In Franchise Navigator parlance, Bark Busters needed to attract prospects who scored high in the Influencer and Accomplisher categories. “Influencers are attracted by modern, trendy colors, such as contemporary yellows, greens and reds, and Accomplishers are attracted to high levels of productivity and on the color palette that tends to be blue.” Liam wasn’t looking for a dramatic logo change, but he and Slavin agreed on a new design and color scheme.
Top Dogs Wanted
Slavin also introduced new messaging to again attract the appropriate prospects – people who had the profile to reach the top performance echelon at Bark Busters. “Accomplishers and Influencers strive to be leaders,” he points out, “so I came up with the slogan: Top Dogs Wanted: Be a Leader of the Pack. And that has worked very well.”
Liam agrees. “Craig has been right on the money. The results have been tremendous since we’ve launched our new Web site,” which includes an interactive e-brochure, also created by Slavin. “The prospects we attract now are of a different quality,” continues Liam, “and it’s due to a number of things: our message, our colors, and the (operational) tweaks that we made to our business.”
In fact, many of the operational tweaks are intended to help the poorer performing franchisees improve. “We don’t know if we can make life-changing differences,” says Liam, “but we’re coaching our franchisees to be better business owners, and we’re introducing new services to help them. We’re showing them how to be more assertive and how to be better operators. Those who haven’t set goals, we’re helping them set goals and we’re holding them accountable. It’s working!”
Achieving Sales Efficiency
Sales have slowed, understandably. In 2008 the company sold 20 units; in 2009 only ten. “We’ll sell 15 to 20 in 2010,” according to Liam. In mid-January, the company had already sold two, and Liam was confident he had sold to top-quality candidates. The company’s lead generation is strong and building. “We get about 200 leads a month, but people are still scared (because of the economy) to pull the trigger.” Even so, Liam is pleased by the efficiency of his marketing and sales efforts. “We no longer spend weeks and weeks chasing prospects,” he explains. “We no longer spend thousands of dollars sending out marketing materials. Now, we tell prospects to go through our sales process online, and that works best. Of 200 prospects, we’ll give ten of them our profile, and eight of them will be good fits for our business. The people we are attracting now are very much suited to Bark Busters.” In the long run that will benefit both the franchisees and the franchisor.
After making some cultural adjustments, including color scheme and messaging, and tweaking their business model, including streamlining their online sales process, the Crowes have put both the bark and the bite back into their business!
John P. Hayes, Ph.D. has worked in franchising for 30 years as a franchisor, franchisee, speaker and author. He coaches franchisors and franchisees online and via telephone.