Amy Addington I Co-founders' People Skills Drive Pet Services Company's Success

Amy Addington is the co-founder of Woofie’s Pet Ventures, LLC, a multi-million dollar animal services company.  Starting in 2018, Woofies awarded its first three franchises in Northern Virginia in 2019 and launched its in-house professional grooming school, Woofie’s Accelerated Grooming School (WAGS). Woofie’s has been recognized locally, regionally and nationally for their innovation, customer service and unwavering commitment to the professional care of animals. In January 2022, Woofie’s became part of the Authority Brands platform and is continuing its expansion into more North American markets with locations around the country.

Amy is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and her previous experience includes sales, marketing, and training positions in technology and telecom companies.

Transcript

Jeanne Gray: I'm Jean Gray, founder and publisher of American Entrepreneurship Today, a website that brings news and valuable information to entrepreneurs, innovators, and investors all across America. Our podcast series, Experienced Voices, explores the journeys of very successful people in the entrepreneurial arena who are open to sharing the key elements that led to their great success.

Our guest today on Experienced Voices is Amy Addington. President and co founder of Woofies, a multi-million dollar pet care services company founded in 2004 that began franchising in 2019. 

Amy shares success in finding a co-founder who has been her partner for almost 20 years and how the two of them use their people skills to establish their first network of dog walkers and select their first franchisees. Welcome to Experienced Voices, Amy. 

Amy Addington: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. I'm a dog lover. Tell me about why you started Woofies. That's why I like you. I could tell you were a dog lover when I first met you. Um, I, I love Woofies. It is my baby, along with Leslie, my business partner.

Uh, we started back in 2004, and it was really simple why we started. There was just a clear need for this type of service in our neighborhood, and we felt it as consumers. Looking for that much more personalized service. You have somebody coming into your home and taking care of your pet. And I just felt there needed to be a higher level of professionalism for this type of business.

And I wanted more for my pets and Leslie wanted more for her pets. And that is as simple as against why we started. We just saw that there was a real need. in a community for this type of business. 

Jeanne Gray: Well, now knowing how successful you are, did you do any testing of your, your idea before, you know, jumping into the pool?

Amy Addington: We did not, we, we just started, it's, it's really amazing, I had a six-figure corporate job and Leslie came from 17 years in the healthcare industry. We both have that mutual passion for animals and we just knew there was a need and we jumped in. I of course did a business plan and put together the marketing plan and strategies, and did the competitive analysis of what the competitors out there were doing, but at the end of the day, we took that entrepreneurial leap and jumped in full feet ahead. So, 

Jeanne Gray: well, it's really good to hear that you did do the business, uh, plan. Um, so you, you didn't jump into the pool, totally bear we'll say, absolutely 

Amy Addington: not. But 

Jeanne Gray: the question I would have.

How do you make money? You know, let's talk about like the very beginning is what was the specific service that got you out the door and did it make money? 

Amy Addington: The specific service we started was pet sitting and dog walking. So instead of sending your pets to a kennel, we would. Go into the client's house and do visits at their house for them.

Or when they're at work all day and need a walk for their dog, we would be able to provide that service. So it started very simple pet sitting and dog walking And really it was a lot of sweat equity on our end. It was Leslie and myself. We started the business We were out there day and night seven days a week that first year and just walking dogs, networking, you know, meeting all the clients, bringing on new clients.

And we started building our team. And as I think founders, sometimes it's hard to let go. And in retrospect, we should have hired quicker, you know, adding more pet sitters, more dog walkers. Um, but I'm glad that we did that. I look back at that time and I, we were building something very special to us and we were building it with, like I said earlier, sheer sweat equity.

We really learned the business from start to finish. We didn't have anyone giving us a roadmap. We didn't have anybody that we could look at and kind of mentor us. Uh, we really had to figure a lot of things out ourselves and it really started growing each year after year. And then we kept building the team to support the demand.

Jeanne Gray: So many entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs find the first year or two to be absolutely brutal. Yes. And, you know, everyone quotes statistics about startup failures. Can you share something that went on say in the first six months or nine months, you know, cause you now, I know you had the business plan, but now it's all about execution.

So in the first six or nine months, can you share something where it's a little bit of an aha moment of we need to change this or I didn't see this challenge happening, but you got over it. What did you need to get past in order to start feeling confident to go to the next level? 

Amy Addington: I would say two things.
The first thing happened very early on when we first started. We said that we were going to service three towns and we realized within the first month that logistically, it was not possible. We were driving all over the place. It was adding so much extra time that we didn't have in the day. And we wanted to have that hyper-focused customer service and that really close relationship with our clients.

So we did what sounds contrary to a brand new business trying to start and grow. We shrunk down our territory and we shrunk it down to one town. And we made that our Prime focus and we knew every vet, every business owner in our community. We were at all of the events, clients started referring other clients to us.

And so ironically by scaling our business back and we did that very early on, that is what fueled our growth and made us grow so quickly. Um, I think the other aha moment was. When we finally let go and started hiring more people. You know when you start a business It's very easy to get in that founder mentality of it's my baby, and I still call it You know that to this day But you need to let go and you need to bring trusted people on People who buy into your culture and your, your vision and represent your brand.

And it's hard to let go of that as a founder, but you need to do that. You're never going to grow if you don't let go and bring in really strong team members. So I think those were two of our biggest aha moments in that first year. 

Jeanne Gray: Well, I think a common challenge, again, we're talking about people and not everyone has great people skills.

When they're beginning, but you had some corporate experience. Is there one or two things that you learned in hiring those first trusted employees? Because if you hire one or two who turn out to be the wrong employees, the penalty can be very great. So, snow I'm the new entrepreneur. Tell me what I should be looking for when I'm looking.

Looking to hire my very first few ones and, and handoff responsibility. 

Amy Addington: That is a great question. And it's something that you really have to think about from day one, when you are ready to add members to your team. You know, I look fundamentally, is this person going to be a good. team member. Do they understand what our business is about, what our culture is about, our expectations?

They can learn the skills. Um, whether you're hiring someone to be a pet sitter, a dog walker, a groomer, whether you're hiring someone to be a back office scheduler, those skills can be trained. Um, if it's something that they don't already have, you look for a really solid, loyal, trustworthy people. Again, the type of our business, we're going into people's homes every day and we're caring with their pets, their valued members of their families.

So that level of trust is. critical because not only are they going into the people's homes, but it's not like a brick and mortar salute. You know, it's not like a brick and mortar salon where you see them nine to five, they're right in front of you. And you can see exactly what they're doing every single part of the day.

You have to have a lot of trust in this type of business. I am trusting that my pet sitters are getting up at 7am to go do their morning walk for the dogs on their schedule. I'm trusting that. They're going to be there for the amount of time that they need to be there. Now, fortunately, technology has evolved where we have GPS tracking, and that's great for our clients.

They love the visibility into that. I think it holds everybody accountable, the, the company itself, as well as the sitters, the groomers. Um, so technology obviously helps, but at the end of the day, you have to have that inherent level of trust with the people that you bring on board. 

Jeanne Gray: I would challenge you further to say that, um, I'm, I'm reaching back on my own experience where one of the things that I learned was to get a second or third opinion about a new employee.

And so I, I came up with a rule of thumb of, you know, you interview with me, I like you, but now go down the hall and interview with someone else. So did you put a little bit of a multi step process of, or, you know, check, check, check. I mean, do people who walk dogs provide resumes? 

Amy Addington: They do. They provide resumes.

They go through background checks. Um, the beauty of having a business partner all these years, Leslie and I were always each other's check and balance. Um, I would meet with a candidate, then she would meet with a candidate. And, You know, we actually always had a dog with us during the interview process. I want to see how they react to the dog because if they dismiss the dog or just don't seem interested That's a huge problem for us So not only leslie and myself and as we grew we added a pet sitting coordinator a pet city manager So we always went through several layers, uh, to make sure that it's not just one person's opinion of bringing somebody on board.

And once we go through that, then you do have the background checks, you know, now we look through social media pages. You know, you really need to vet these people. Um, and I think one thing that goes back to what I said earlier, we made our territory really small and we were hyper focused on our local community.

We know. The people who are coming on board or their friends of friends or friends of clients and actually lots of clients have come on board to come work for us. So we very much have that family feel, but you still have to check all those boxes from a business standpoint, such as background checks, et cetera.

Jeanne Gray: Well, another challenge that startups have is, uh, maintaining their, their records, their book, bookkeeping. Now, you said you came from a corporate background and then you smartly went from three towns. You took a step back to go forward. So I imagine time efficiency became paramount. How did you deal with your accounting, getting the right numbers, creating the reports to make the right decisions and take the.

The 

Amy Addington: first year I'll be very candid. We were kind of a hot mess. I mean, we did, we were not set up with a CRM system. Um, we did have QuickBooks. My dad's a CPA. Thank goodness. And he was a huge help. Very happy to have a dad as a CPA. Um, but you know, that first year it was, you know, I feel like back in the dark ages, but we were writing everything down, tracking everything.

And then once we got set up with that CRM system, which in hindsight we should have done immediately. And I would advise anybody to do that from day one. Once we did that, then we were really able to change the trajectory of our business. We were really able to track the number of visits that we're doing.

Average revenue per visits running all those different types of reports that we were just simply weren't able to do in that first year That first year was running and gunning grassroots marketing Just going out and trying to build the with these brand get as many clients take exceptional care of the pets And once we started getting out of that mentality of like, look, this is something real here.

This is growing and it's continuing to grow. And we can really make this into something significant. Then we very quickly realized we have to put those systems in 

Jeanne Gray: place. Well, repeat customers make, make all of those decisions a lot easier, but if you're not penetrating the market, then efficiency doesn't matter because your model's just simply not working.

But, um, so let's delve into a little bit about your, your partner, uh, because, um, you know, partnerships really are difficult to keep in, in, in biz, in businesses. So what made you and Leslie a good partner during the rough times? 

Amy Addington: You know, the rough times is when you really figure out what you guys are made of and how real the partnership is.

And we did go through our ups and downs building a business is challenging Especially when we didn't have a playbook and we were figuring things out as we were going And we were also learning how to work together We're very good friends at the time. We lived right across the street from each other and I can't count how many people said This will never work.

You guys are never gonna work. You're not even gonna be friends. You guys are crazy a for quitting your corporate jobs to go walk dogs. Nobody thought of that as a real job, and they thought it was absolutely insane that two friends and two neighbors right across the street from each other would actually go into business together.

And it was a leap of faith. But there was something that we both had that yeah. Trust in each other, and there were times where my personality came out in one way that she probably didn't like and vice versa. Um, there were times where I knew I had to step in to handle a certain situation because my personality would be better for it.

And then there were times where she had to step in and you learn the rhythm of who is better at handling what type of situation. In general, because of our personalities and our skill sets. Sometimes it even comes down to the day. There might be a situation that normally I would take on and handle, but maybe that day was not the right day for it, but it was for Leslie.

That's how in sync we were with each other and how we still are to this day. You, it's like a marriage. I mean, you really have to work at it. It doesn't just happen overnight. And you can't. Run for the hills just because you have a disagreement because we do have very different personalities but that's a good thing because What I can bring to the table is different from what she brings to the table at the end of the day what we have In common is that mutual Passion for what we're doing and what we're building.

And we really look out for each other. And I think the business would never have worked if we did not have that fundamental, call it Midwest values that we shared, but we both worked so hard and we were very committed to moving this business forward. 

Jeanne Gray: So as the business went through the tough first year, did your skill sets begin to separate that someone was more sales and another person was more operations, or did you know that going in?

Amy Addington: We knew that going in. I mean we're both very customer service focused which is critical for this type of business. So We had that in common and still do and always will to this day. I definitely was more on the business side and the back end handling Logistics and moving that business forward thinking strategy.

She is the heart of that this business I mean she is the one bringing on the team members managing the team You Working really closely with the clients. I mean our first set of pet sitters were all a result of Leslie Her son connor was eight years old when we started the business And she was out at the football fields networking with the moms, with the parents, the teachers out of school, the other parents.

And you know, she's the one who started and built this team of wonderful pet sitters and taking such great care of them where they refer their friends to come work for us or for their friends to be clients. And that's how we built that business. We just, I think worked really hard and try to make those differences in our personalities work really well for us and for our business.

Jeanne Gray: I think the other key question when, um, people are doing a startup and there's different opinions about this as to whether or not, because you may or may not know the full skill set of your partner is to whether or not to make it 50 50. And there's a lot of people who voice the opinion that no one person should be the controlling partner.

Did you settle that matter? Is it, you know, if I asked this question, you'd say, yeah, simply it was 50 50 and it worked. Or did you have concerns and you're, you mentioned, uh, I think you said your father's CPA. What's the advice on, on how to set up the, the ownership that, you know, the, the legal entity of it?

Amy Addington: I know this doesn't work for everybody. For us, there was never a question. We went all in 50 50 and that's how we were going to do it. And that worked. I mean, we're going September 4 will be 19 years since we've had Wolfies and did that first dog walk. How 

Jeanne Gray: long did you know Leslie before jumping into the business together?

Amy Addington: She lived in the neighborhood before me. I had moved in maybe a year before we started, a year or two before Wolfies. 

Jeanne Gray: You both must have people savvy skills to make that work and also to jump in with that little time of knowing each other. But, but then again, if you're passionate about dogs, was, is Leslie passionate about dogs?

Absolutely. Okay. So that was the dogs answer a lot of questions in our lives. Yeah. Um, okay. So let's go a little bit now into the whole aspect of how you grow a business and we already really started going down that road and that you have between yourselves, the ability to size up people. And, and to be able to pass along the responsibility of going into someone's house and would take you a number of years to really build up a, a profitable infrastructure.

How, how did you go about figuring that out? 

Amy Addington: We, we moved pretty quickly. I mean, it's that first year was primarily myself and Leslie and maybe one or two part time dog walkers. And then once we started getting into that second year, third year. We really started building a team because this type of business, there's demand seven days a week, morning till night, uh, you have people that want a midday dog walk, a pet seating visit at eight o'clock at night or an overnight visit.

So we really had to expand our team if we wanted to accommodate the demand that was coming in and obviously Leslie and I can't do it ourselves. And we wanted. To grow the business and scale it. So just bringing on as many of the team members that we could that Met the expectations and understood what we were looking for because again It's your brand you want to be so careful who you bring on board that they're representing you and your brand and everything um, so It just it was In hindsight, I think we actually should have grown quicker and expanded our team quicker.

It's always easy to have hindsight and look back at what you could do differently. But, um, once we started growing, there was kind of no stopping. And then from there, you know, that's kind of how You look at our business, you know, we, we did a pet sitting dog walking for so many years, built up that base of customers and established that brand name in our community and all of these clients that had the trust in us to come into their homes and care for their pets started asking us about mobile grooming.

And that's why we ended up growing a business and adding that whole line of business to accommodate the requests coming in. 

Jeanne Gray: And that was going to be my next question is that. You were adding on additional products and services. So your current customers became your best customers and that really can move a company forward more quickly.

You also mentioned CRMs, which is technology. Let's talk a little bit on the marketing side, because from the time that you started 2004 until today, the world has changed and we have social media, we have so many different tech tools on the marketing side, how did your marketing change?

Did you do it yourselves or in your business plan? Did you already identify that you had had to outsource it? Give a bit of where you started and how the technology changed over the years. 

Amy Addington: We had hired a developer to build our website, um, but we didn't have what we have today with digital marketing, SEO, PPC.

We didn't have any of that. We didn't have a Whoopi's business Facebook page that didn't come until years later. I feel like a dinosaur talking about this. Um, you know, we did the basics at the time. You know, we, Put a really nice website up. We advertised in a local paper and we did a lot of grassroots marketing.

I mean, we were present. We were out in the community getting them to know us, know the brand, know our team members. Um, we were at every local event you could imagine. Every business networking group we could possibly go to. Um, and it was so much of that grassroots marketing in the early days. It was just different.

What was a good advice corporate background. I did a lot of PR. And so that was huge for us. And that was, I think, a big distinguishing factor of our business and getting it out there because within Our first opening date I had sent a pitch to the local latin times mirror publication They came out took all Great pictures two page article announcing woofies this new female owned founded business and that was huge for us and then You know, one night I was working on emails, emailing clients and working on the schedule and I saw on NBC4, Barbara Harrison, uh, the news anchor.

Was doing a um segment called up for the challenge where she'll come out and work in your business for the day I immediately just wrote a quick pitch didn't think a whole lot of it They caught us the next day and next thing we know barbara harrison the news anchor who's very beloved in this area Spend a day being a Wolfie's dog walker and film this segment.

We still have people that bring it up today. Um, so PR was huge for us. That was before social media, before all of that. But having that corporate experience and bringing that to Wolfie's, I think was a big differentiator for us. 

Jeanne Gray: I 

Amy Addington: think 

Jeanne Gray: PR is often underestimated as to where it comes back because it's a very intangible ROI, return on investment.

And then you put this PR out cause it's happened for me and one of my companies and someone contacts you and they have paper clippings, you know, and, and you're like, how did you find me? And they've got a file. And you're like, I don't, I guess that's flattering. And it opened up a lot of business, but it's very similar for you.

So let's move a little bit on cause as we're nearing the, the end of our conversation is How you pivoted, because if you are now in a franchise model, you have had to prove profitability and, and, um, so tell us a little bit about the arc of the company has reached your, your profitability goals, but now you've decided to take on a new way of, of expanding the business.

Amy Addington: Sure. So I actually started looking into franchising as a concept back in 2014. I went to my first conference up in New York to learn more about that. And We realized after a lot of evaluation and research, if we're going to grow this business, we did not want to grow it adding other corporate locations.

We've proven what we've done in our corporate location and we wanted to replicate that in other markets because we were getting requests from outside of our territory, but we wanted business owners. We know how hyper personal This business is, and we wanted someone who had skin in the game. If you're going to run a Woofies business, I want you to own that Woofies business.

That's your baby. Just like it was mine in Ashburn and Leslie's in Ashburn. So for us, it became very clear. The franchise model was a great way to expand. Um, what's interesting, you know, we, in 2019, we started franchising and we brought on our first three franchisees. And I have a barking dog in the background, I'm really sorry, that just 

Jeanne Gray: happens.

2014, you said you started, uh, looking into franchising, and then, was it by 2019 you said that you started to execute on that? 

Amy Addington: We started to execute the franchise plan in 2018. We partnered with a consulting company, we worked really closely with them for about a year to put the strategy in place, um, all of.

everything to learn about franchising that we needed to do, putting our operations manual together, um, refining all of our processes. So we spent a lot of time really preparing to make sure that we were in the right position to have our FDD, our Franchise Disclosure Document. And once we got our FDD approved in Virginia, we were then able to award franchises.

So in 2019 is when we awarded our first three franchisees. So it was a big deal for us. And how many do you have now? Right now we have 20 owners in 36 territories nationwide. So now we have gone from just Virginia to California, Texas, Utah, Michigan. It's exciting. It's New York. It's awesome. Now North Carolina, Kansas, 

Jeanne Gray: Missouri.

So, talking franchising. is for another day because there's a big learning curve. I know I, I said it on a lot of meetings just out of curiosity. So I would just say looking back you have advice to give to someone today, a lot of people are starting their first companies in college. And some are way later.

You came out of a corporate background. I did a very short stint in a large corporation and then jumped, but I always look back on my corporate skills those first two or three years. What would be some of your advice about who or when people should start a business.

Amy Addington: I think it's an interesting question because as we're expanding and bringing on franchise partners, I see a little bit of everything. We have younger, People coming in that maybe have a little bit of corporate experience but want to run their own business and own their own company. Um, I see people that want to leave corporate after a long career And do their second career as a business owner taking care of their own company Um, you see a little bit of everything Um, which I think is fascinating and they there's pros and cons to each I mean, I think at the end of the day You have to want to be in this business and work this business.

Jeanne Gray: It's sort of what you're saying is, um, we all go into it with different levels of experience and, um, and without a doubt, you know, cause this is, you know, I focus on entrepreneurship now through my website. Is it, you know, it's trial by fire. And some go in with little experience and succeed, and some go in with a lot.

I mean, that's sort of like magic or the chemistry of entrepreneurship. No one, no one can predict who succeeds. I mean, I mean, it is true, it's truly amazing that it's the person you think is least likely to succeed ends up owning 500 of something, you know, 30 years later and you sat next to him or her in the high school class and you would never have thought that person had it in them.

So that is so 

Amy Addington: true. I mean, that's what makes the whole mutual discovery process during the time when a person is. Evaluating a franchise opportunity and as a franchisor, you're evaluating them as well. You're getting to know each other. Do I want to go into a 10 year relationship with this person? Are we going to work well together?

Are they going to represent the brand the way it needs to be and put their heart and soul into the business? And you don't always know that. And sometimes it is a little bit of a leap of faith. Um, just like it was starting Woofies in general, just like it was partnering with Leslie. There's, that's Pablo.

There's so many areas when you look at the timeline of your business, where sometimes you do have to take a leap of faith. You have to be smart. You have to be prepared. You have to make calculated decisions, but sometimes you do have to take a bit of a risk. Sometimes it pays off. Hopefully most times it does.

Sometimes it doesn't. And you have to pivot and you move forward. Um, but. Business is a series of calculated risk and I don't know, I, I, I am fascinated by the franchise process. I love to sit across from a candidate who's evaluating Wuffy's. They come to our meet your pack day. That's when they're kind of at that 85, 90 percent ready to go.

We bring them into our Ashburn location. They meet all of our team. They meet Pablo, my dog, our chief culture officer. So we always have a dog present, but it's just, I love to sit across from them and think, you know, can we work together? And can they be that with these owner that we're looking for? And you just have to.

Do your due diligence. That's why you go through such a detailed process on both sides, franchisor, but also at the end of the day, you also have to go a bit with your gut and is this somebody that I think we can work really well together because we're going to give our everything to them and We hope they're going to give everything to us and to Wolfies.

Jeanne Gray: Yeah, I agree with you on the whole aspect. If you have enough experience that your gut starts to make the decision for you. But the gut only comes in with the experience. 

Amy Addington: Right. 

Jeanne Gray: Absolutely. For that, it's just close your eyes and you're, you're guessing. You're guessing. Right. Well, thanks for joining Experienced Voices.

Um. Yes, I used to have a beautiful German Shepherd and I'm, I'm looking for another dog now. So, uh, I know where you are. You will be 

Amy Addington: there whenever you need and when you're ready. Absolutely. I cannot thank you enough for this. I, it's been so great talking with you and I really, say, say, say here 

Jeanne Gray: and thanks for sharing your model because I think people Need to hear other people's take on things when they're making such a big decision.

So, okay. Take care, Amy. And thanks for, for stopping in at experience voices. Thank you so much. You've been listening to the podcast series experience voices hosted by Jean Gray, publisher of American entrepreneurship today, sign up for the series at American entrepreneurship. com forward slash podcasts.