S4 Ep4: How Central Bark Is Taking Its Share of the $100 Billion Pet Industry
How do you take an established pet franchise and move it to the next level? CEO Bob Crawford reveals the secret sauce to how he’s scaling Central Bark.
Central Bark is a daycare facility specializing in science-backed enrichment and socialization for your best friend. This 25-year-old franchise has 35 locations in 12 states and ambitious plans for growth.
The Wolf and Bob discuss why franchise founders need a partner who’s philosophically and professionally aligned to their growth goals, why Bob believes there’s plenty of the pet franchise business to go around, and how he plans to introduce a multi-unit focus with operators.
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Episode Transcription
Bob Crawford:
I think the secret, like for someone like me who is joining a company where the founders are involved in, for the founders, you got to be really careful of finding the person with the right temperament and just the, that’s super important. So for the founders listening to this podcast is as you think about bring on an outside executive, you got to make sure that you have someone who has the capability to deliver a really solid vision, but also has the teamwork mindset and the temperament to work productively. Because in any business that is scaling, there will always be processes that work really well, and there’ll also be things that maybe worked well for the business at a certain level and that are not going to work well for a business at a larger level or a different level.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Welcome to Franchise Empires where aspiring entrepreneurs learn exactly what it takes to become a successful franchise owner from one location to 10 and beyond. I’m the wolf of franchises. Hey everyone, it’s The Wolf. Today in the show we have Bob Crawford. Bob is the CEO of Central Bark, a dog daycare franchise that’s in its 25th year of operations. Bob took over from the founders who are still working in the business, but he gives us insight as what it’s like to be an executive hire and to work with the founders of a concept and now with the goal of helping them scale to become a national pet brand in the dog daycare space, I think you’ll enjoy this.
Narrator:
The Wolf of Franchises is the CEO of Wolf Pack Franchising as well as a creator at Workweek Media. All opinions expressed by the Wolf and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Pack franchising or workweek. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The Wolf Workweek and Wolf Pack franchising may maintain positions in the franchises discussed on this podcast.
The Wolf of Franchises:
I would love to hear more about that. So that’s a good starting spot. It’s just your journey to Central Bark and what led you to this point.
Bob Crawford:
Great. I have a unique, diverse background, and to get here took a number of years. I started off working in junior high and high school. I had my own lawn business and then went to undergrad and business school, and then I worked in the Quaker Oats company, worked for Fortune 100 companies for 16 years. So I worked in the Quaker Oats company and that was how I first got into pet food. I spent four years in the pet space and pet food at that point, and then went to the Coca-Cola company in Atlanta, and that’s when I really was introduced to franchising, right. I spent a lot of my 10 years there in the Q S R segment, working with franchisees, helping them be successful in how they use soft drinks to complete the meal and to make money and soft drinks, delivered a lot of profitability into franchisees.
And then I joined a company that was started by a founder that was my dad. So I started with my left <laugh> joined, my dad worked in a B2B and a B2C business. It was called Brook Furniture Rental. So high service, high-touch business. We doubled the geographic footprint there. We added all kinds of sales, marketing and technology initiatives. We scaled it did three acquisitions and then sold it. I ran it for a while and completed my job there. And after that I was looking for a business to join and I was looking for a service business that had scalable opportunities, that had founder involvement or some private equity involvement and that needed to professionalize and grow. And that’s how I stumbled into pet services and specifically Central Bar. So I joined in the early part of 2022 to help them scale the business, modernize it and accomplish some of the growth objectives that a private equity investor had also assigned on for.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, well that’s a quite a journey going from Coca-Cola and Quaker Roads to pet franchise, but I can see how your work in pet food and then even just working with franchisees probably primed you pretty well. And then of course the venture with your dad also. Yeah. I guess let’s talk about central bark. Do you want to, maybe for folks who aren’t super familiar with the brand, just give an overview of current number of locations out there and what kind of pet franchise specifically it is?
Bob Crawford:
Yeah, so we have, we’re 25 year old pet franchise. We, there’s four primary vertical offerings that we have. Dog daycare is our legacy, but we do overnight boarding, grooming, training, and we have a small retail location in each of our facilities as well. So we operate our franchise. We have 35 locations are franchisees operate locations between 6,000 and 11,000 square feet in 12 states. And we offer something unique in the marketplace. A lot of pet is hot right now just by the growth of dogs and the pet spending in general and the role of the dog <laugh> in the pet parents lives. It’s amazing. And a real big focus of ours is making sure that we’re behavior based, dog behavior based. So we are really focusing what’s the right thing for the dog. And we started off with being socialization was a big idea for us, and dogs are meant to be in packs, they’re meant to be with other dogs.
And so how do we provide a safe environment for that? The dogs can feel fulfilled and they’re safe and they enjoyed their time, and ultimately a satisfied dog is less anxious, more loving, and more able to engage with the pet family and the pet parents. So we found that the core element of our offering was around we have come to call it whole dog care, but it’s around dog socialization, dog safety, and the services that we’re offering are all growing and we’re finding that there’s huge relevant of relevancy right now in the marketplace. And specifically the things that are different for us are we have mandatory rest periods dogs rest for 40% of the day, they sleep for <laugh>, 50%, they rest for maybe 30% and active for 20%. So we have a curriculum that’s based on that. We also have outdoor required outdoor and indoor space. We think dogs are meant to be outside, and those are some of the and small playgroup. So we think that’s the most safe environment for a dog is no more than 15 dogs per playgroup.
The Wolf of Franchises:
No, it’s fascinating. And even just hearing you talk about, I’ve definitely seen it from the franchise lens that just the pet industry’s been exploding. So especially given that you used to work in pet food and it sounds like Central Bark also has that retail aspect to the business. Just from an industrywide perspective, can you maybe just share what you’re seeing, especially right with covid and the pandemic puppies and all that. What kind of list have you seen just on the ground for central bark, but then also just industrywide the data that you’re looking at?
Bob Crawford:
Yeah, industry wide pets are exploding. I started off in pet business 30 years ago and there was 50 million dogs in America, and now there’s 90 million dogs. So everywhere you go now there’s dogs. And I was on some planes recently and there’s more dogs I’ve ever seen in airports. There’s more dogs in hotels, there’s more dogs in restaurants they’re everywhere that you see it in the numbers and then also just in your life, and you’ve seen it, and many of your listeners have as well, the pet’s space overall is 123 billion. And so it’s growing. We see the macro trends in terms of pet ownership. I mentioned 90 million dogs, but pets spending per dog is up. I mean, pets have emerged in into people’s lives. I mean, people are having less kids, more dogs they’re spending more on these dogs. Everything points to continued growth, and it’s one of the reasons why I was so excited about being here is just be because the market is so poised for even more growth as we move forward.
The Wolf of Franchises:
It’s been crazy to see, and even anecdotally, I know a lot of dog daycare centers and even vet clinics and things of that nature it seems like the services haven’t necessarily caught up with the demand that’s out there given the sheer volume of pets. And like you said, also that folks are just maybe more willing to spend on their pets today than they were maybe 10, 20 years ago. So yeah, it just seems like, I’ve just heard from a lot of dog owners that, again, vet clinics, daycares, they try to reach out to certain facilities and there might be a long wait for vets especially, it’s like two to three week minimum before you can get in to see someone unless it’s like a life or death situation. So yeah, I think for business owners that should be music to their ears, given that if you build a location, there’s probably someone, there should be hopefully some demand there. Obviously with dog daycare, a couple other franchises in that space. Do you think for Central Bark is, cause to me it’s a big dog daycare one, and we’ve had a few on the show, but Dogtopia seems to be as far as unit count, the most expansive brand. But I don’t think they’re doing maybe that they’re definitely not doing retail, they’re not doing a few of the things that Central bark’s doing. Is that correct?
Bob Crawford:
Yeah, we have the, there’s room for everybody in this market. I believe that just, so our offering is about, we think about it as, let’s say it’s private school, kindergarten. I mean there’s room for public school, kindergarten and parochial schools, whatever. But I think if you’re looking for your dog to have a more smaller playgroup, I like to talk about this is a place where you can bring your dog that we will know and love your dog. So there’s an intimacy that I think you’ll get with the Central Park experience. I think our franchisees are devoted and dedicated to providing whole dog care. I think there’s just, we go to great lengths to make sure that our offerings are science driven, our behavior based and relevant for the dog health and safety. So I think that’s many different options out there, but ours is really focused on what our calling is around whole dog care.
The Wolf of Franchises:
And I guess from a franchisees perspective, do you guys see this and try to work with franchisees more on a multi-unit front or is it owner operator? What kind of, I guess, yeah, your existing franchisee base, what’s most typical?
Bob Crawford:
So most typical right now is single unit owner operators and we’re morphing into more of a multi-unit focus. So I think as we’re a 25 year old business that we’ve grown about two locations, two to three a year. So today we have 35. And going forward, we believe that multi-unit operators are the going to be the foundation for our future growth. So it’s an initiative that we’re embarking on. We have three of our franchisees are multi-unit today. We think going forward, that’s going to be a lot more and that’s how we’re targeting for future growth.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Maybe even a few years ago, I felt like there was certain franchises that maybe tried to shy away from multi-unit ops, but it seems like more and more that’s the route that people go. And I think it’s, at least from the franchisee side, it’s a good thing. But
Bob Crawford:
I think in our business we’re going to have a balance of individual owner operators and then you we’re going to over time sprinkle in more multi-unit operators. So we will have, I think there’s opportunity, our ecosystem for everybody, but the new focus is going to be on bringing market development multi-unit operators in.
The Wolf of Franchises:
And when you look at scaling this concept, and it sounds like you have some good experience too from your time with, what was that with your father’s business, Brooke Furniture Rental. How do you think about scaling an organization like this? Because I think folks from the outside, maybe as they’re not intimately familiar with how a franchise should scale, and you see every year there’s pretty much a hand, I don’t know, let’s call it five to 10 brands that seem to have rocket ship growth, meaning they’re selling units and certain people think that’s an amazing sign. Other folks get worried, so there’s no way they can support that growth. So yeah. Do you have a method to the madness of number of units per year you try to sell? And what’s healthy growth or how do you keep up with it if you are selling units and Yeah,
Bob Crawford:
When I was at Coca-Cola, I saw this a lot of franchisees growing too fast that they couldn’t sustain the growth. And then also that had big ideas, but maybe what went slower? Oh, listen to a podcast that you had, you talked about, I think it was Chick-fil-A in this case. They went slow in the early stages that enabled them to go faster later. Yeah, I think the most important thing that you have to start with is the core level of operational excellence. Do you have that right? Do you have an operations manual? Do you have operations procedures? Do you have operations guidelines? Can you summarize in very concise ways? How do you execute certain, we call ’em vertical markets or service offerings that you have. So you kind of get really confident in that. And I can tell you right now, we just given my experience in other businesses that we have a really strong foundation in that area.
So then the question is then, hey, how do you have the right targeted messages to the right franchise development efforts? So do you have the right people in the right places to go after and get it? And then once you have that and I feel confident about that, then you just got to make sure that you match your operations to your sales efforts. And you got to have the right partners, you got to have the right suppliers, you got to have the right partnerships. It’s a constant management involvement that, okay, how many more can you do? Can you do five more? Can you do 10 more? When do you need to bring on the next person? And you just got to have that conversation on a fairly routine basis. And if you have those conversations and there will be pinch points in your organization, you just have to anticipate there’s going to be pinch points.
And then you just talk about it openly with your team and to get to that point. And then when you have the pinch points, it’s not like a surprise, I talk about this is, you know, watch football or basketball, they train for the two minute drill or the 32nd drill. You just train for it. You just got to know how to do it and how to expect it and it will happen. And then not a life is not only a 32nd drill, there’s longer game plans involved as well, but you just have to make sure that you’re really top of it and knowing that you have an end in mind at the end of the year, we want to be at this number, let’s work backwards. And then where do we anticipate that? And then once you have that discussion, it will be a natural way for people to provide their input and perspective and ideas.
The Wolf of Franchises:
I like the way you started that too with just the core offering making sure you have that because if you don’t, you’re building on a house of cards. So I definitely think that’s what franchisors and even prospective franchisees if they’re trying to evaluate a franchisor, you know, got to have the concept, the core concept down pat. And that’s the foundation for everything else when it comes to geographics. Do you think strategically about that at all? Or is it more just When I was in franchise development, we had our ideal if we could snap our fingers and perfectly grow like regionally and then state by state. But obviously it doesn’t work like that unless you just reject candidates left and until you get the one from the right area. So any thoughts there and just with what you’ve seen in the last few decades of working around this?
Bob Crawford:
Yeah, it’s a saying that we plan and God laughs and yeah, we have a couple franchisees and what I call places that are difficult to get to and they take a couple flights. And I think you want to have, and I know the stories of why those exist, there’s just someone had the interest, the capital and the excitement about starting a new location. And we say yes to that. And I think we do have a geographic focus. I mean we started off in Wisconsin, we have 15 locations in Wisconsin and the next biggest state is Florida. That’s where we have our business was started by two founders, one in Wisconsin, one in Florida. They merged about 20 years ago to combine their businesses together. And that’s how we got over the last number of years, over 20 years we got to 35 locations. But we do have a geographic focus and I think that’s where you devote your can do some targeted marketing, some targeted pr, and that’s focusing on doing that right now as well.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Gotcha. It’s good. I mean you’d like to see, I think a regional presence somewhere. It shows that it can at least scale regionally. So if I’m starting say maybe in the Northeast versus the Midwest, like Wisconsin it should give some promise of potential that you can build up this brand within estate and hopefully even beyond. But about the founders, so are they still involved in Central Bark or did you take the reins fully and they’re more watched from the sidelines?
Bob Crawford:
Yeah, so the story of Central Bark is really interesting. So Jackie Jordan is one of our founders. She started the business in the late 1990s in the Milwaukee area, and she was looking for a place that she had a full-time job and she was looking for a place that after hours to socialize her dog and realized there was a bunch of other people, like-minded people after work doing the same thing in a park and said, huh, why can’t I start a place to go? And that’s how literally she started. And Chris gaba, our other founder, had a similar experience in the early two thousands in Fort Lauderdale. And then through sort of a chance encounter, they met and combined their businesses and they are still involved in the business. So Jackie heads up our operations effort, Chris heads up our marketing effort. And what they wanted to do in late 2021 was they realized that they had something really special here and they needed a couple things to get to the next level.
They had 30 plus outlets at that time, so that’s when they received an investment from New Spring Capital a private equity firm out of Philadelphia. And so they needed some capital to get to the next level and a new C e o. And that’s where I came in. I had experience in scaling a business, I had franchising experience, I had pet business experience and I had experience working with founders. So Jackie and Chris still love the business, they still want to be involved in it. They also wanted someone from the outside to help them get to the next level. And it’s been a win-win win for everybody at this point and we’re able to accomplish some really incredible goals and we have even bigger plans in front of us to grow further.
The Wolf of Franchises:
That’s incredibly exciting, especially the, I got to imagine it helps obviously to have an injection of capital from pe. So that’s awesome to hear. For you as a leader of this company, given your past experience, especially with running the other franchise with your dad that ended up getting acquired, is there anything you did with that company, maybe some mistakes or just general strategies that maybe you think you could have done better on that you’re use this time around for Central Bark?
Bob Crawford:
I think the secret for someone like me who is joining a company where the founders are involved in for the founders, you got to be really careful of finding the person with the right temperament and just the, that’s super important. So for the founders listening to this podcast is as you think about bringing on an outside executive, you got to make sure that you have someone who has the capability to deliver a really solid vision, but also has the teamwork mindset and the temperament to work productively. Because in any business that is scaling, there will always be processes that work really well and there’ll also be things that maybe worked well for the business at a certain level that are not going to work well for a business at a larger level or a different level. So you just have to have someone who’s comfortable in working with an existing process knowing or an existing business knowing that hey, there’s going to be new ways of doing things in the future.
And you have to prioritize and sequence out these changes that you make because the people that you have today are the ones that carry the culture, they carry the vision and the values and they know how the existing business operates. And you got to be super careful of how to introduce new ideas to get it to the next level without breaking it. And that is an art. I’ve had <laugh> experiences where you introduce too many things too fast and then everything sort of, it doesn’t work. And you just got to be really, really conscious of how you do that. And it’s an art form and you got to have the right temperament and knowledge of, okay, where do you start? Right, because you can start in the wrong place too. And there’s a lot of things that you can notice that should be fixed, but some of ’em don’t really matter. Some of ’em are more foundational and you have to have the smarts to understand where do you start.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Yeah, definitely. I could see it being a delicate balancing act and even just naturally, it totally makes sense, but a lot of founders you read about their businesses are their babies. So even just giving up some level of control to someone who is from the outside, there’s probably an emotional process there. So I definitely hear you on the temperament is probably a really important factor if there’s someone else out there thinking right about bringing on an executive from the outside.
Bob Crawford:
It’s one of the things that I think Jackie and Chris in New Spring were sensitive to and it was one of the things that I was sensitive to as well. I didn’t want to join a company that didn’t really at some level know that they wanted to change or they needed to change as well. So it works both ways because I think if there are founders that are interested in bringing on a new executive, you want to make sure that you give that person the ability to succeed. And the new c e O also has to make sure that they’re true to the values of the business as well to make sure that it continues on its growth. So it’s a definite partnership that you have to approach this with.
The Wolf of Franchises:
So as you look towards the future, right, finally, we’re kind of entering, I think the next chapter. Covid seemed to linger and linger and linger and the impacts and things like that, but it’s 2023, we’re really starting to separate from that era and that weird time period that we were in for however many months. So what’s the vision you think for Central Bar unit wise? How do you hope that these next few years go?
Bob Crawford:
Yeah, so we have 35 today. We want, we in 12 states and we know there’s opportunity everywhere for us. So we are aggressively looking at new locations. We think that the fact that c o is, I mean we’re in a really unique place right now because of the real thing that happened in Covid with the puppy boom, the Covid puppy boom is real and now people are going back to work. I saw recently that more and more companies are requiring their employees to go back to work and for three, four days a week at least. And that’s going to create a real further need for our business, for our service. Absolutely. And not only when people are traveling more and wanting to travel and go on vacations more, but also just it’s going to create more for the core daycare business as well. So there is just incredible opportunities like everywhere, every market has opportunities for us and we’re super excited about this. And there we are going to triple the number of locations, quadruple the number of locations over the next number of years and you’ll see that from us.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Excellent. Well yeah, I’m excited to watch it grow, but something I want to emphasize that you just said is, cause actually one of the companies or franchises I worked with was a pet franchise. And that was something we realized once Covid hit was that unlike say other industries at Home Fitness had a huge boom during Covid pelotons stocks shot up and all that. But the reality is as things started to open up again, Peloton stock went down and people started going back to gyms and those companies that benefited during Covid, it didn’t necessarily last and it hasn’t been lasting, but with pets, once you buy a dog, it’s going to live hopefully a long time, right? 15, 20 years hopefully more. So, yeah, the boom and the tailwinds that pet companies are facing, it doesn’t end with Covid. It’s going to be happening for the next decade plus. And that speaks to also what we talked about earlier with just that the service providers for pet owners, it’s going to take time to catch up. So yeah, I really think there’s a lot of opportunity for solid concepts in the pet space.
Bob Crawford:
Even if you look at millennials or Gen Z, I mean, they are some of the highest pet owning cohorts out there. I mean, you go to college campuses now, I mean, would’ve never seen dogs in dorms and off-campus housing and it’s everywhere now. So it’s just more to, yeah, we could talk forever on the future of the pet category and pet services in general, but it’s super bull on it.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Alright, well hey Bob. So thanks a lot for coming on the show. It was super interesting to hear your story and learn more about Central Bark. If there’s anywhere that listeners can follow along, what do you think the best resources are?
Bob Crawford:
Well, thanks for having me. I would say go to www.centralbarkusa.com and everything will start from there.
The Wolf of Franchises:
All right, well you heard that folks. We’ll include that website in the show notes and you can check out their franchise. So Bob, thanks again and we’ll talk soon.
Bob Crawford:
Thanks so much.
The Wolf of Franchises:
Thanks for listening to Franchise Empires. We’re coming to you soon with actionable insights to take the next step on your franchise journey. So make sure to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen.