Sparked by a surge in pet adoptions amid the COVID-19 pandemic, West Allis-based Central Bark has ridden the wave of demand for its “whole dog care” services to achieve its third consecutive year of system-wide double-digit revenue growth in 2023. With chief executive officer Bob Crawford at the helm, the company is on track to grow its current footprint of 40 franchise-owned locations across 13 states to 200 units by 2027, including 15 new locations slated to open this year alone. Since joining Central Bark in April 2022, Crawford has invested in Central Bark’s workforce, real estate planning and technology to improve the customer experience and support franchise expansion. In a recent interview with BizTimes Milwaukee associate editor Maredithe Meyer, Crawford discussed the company’s momentum and his vision for future growth.
BizTimes: What’s your background and how did you ultimately find your way to Central Bark?
Crawford: “I've been a CEO here for two years. Before that, a long time ago, I started off my career working in the pet food space, so I have some pet food experience in my background. That's when I got really introduced to the pet food category, in the early 1990s. I worked in Chicago at the Quaker Oats Co. in their (former) pet space and their pet food business. And then I worked for The Coca-Cola Co. in Atlanta for 10 years, and that's really when I worked in franchising. So I spent most of my time in the QSR (quick-service restaurant) segment, working with restaurants and working with franchisees and franchise owners on how to improve the meal experience, how to promote and carry the right beverages, how to increase beverage sales.
"And then I worked in the furniture rental and the home services space. I left Coca-Cola, and I worked with my dad to help him run a business called Brook Furniture Rental (for 14 years). I helped him run it, scale it, modernize it, professionalize it. I did all that and then I was looking for my next opportunity. We found my replacement, and we ended up selling the business and then I was looking for my next opportunity. And that's when I looked at this opportunity (at Central Bark). It combined a lot of things that I knew how to do: professionalize and modernize a business, help a business grow. I love pets. I had some pet experience and a lot of experience with franchising, so it was perfect.”
You joined Central Bark at a pretty pivotal time for the whole pet industry coming out of COVID, right?
“Yeah, the pet space and Central Park is so well positioned for growth. We started in Milwaukee almost 27 years ago. Every year there's between 4 million and 6 million dogs adopted, and in early COVID there were over 12 million dogs adopted, so it tripled. And then a lot of the return to work and hybrid (work) has actually forced people to think about, 'What do I do with my dog and how does my dog not be anxious and how does my dog play with other dogs? And where does my dog go for a safe environment?' And that's where Central Park comes in, that's exactly what we do. We offer dog daycare, overnight boarding, grooming and training services. And we're a place that knows and loves your dog, and we have a safe environment that's good for the emotional, physical, psychological well-being of your dog. What we do helps the dog become a more well-adjusted, well-balanced member of the family.”
How has Central Bark evolved its services over the years, especially during and post COVID?
“We started off as just a dog daycare. And then clients started asking us, ‘Hey, could you groom my dog?’ ‘I'm going out of town, can you have a place where my dog can stay overnight?’ And we've added over the years a number of services and retail products, whether it's food or treats or enrichment like puzzles and other items for dogs. And we've also evolved our current operating model as well. We used to have very large playgroups, and we figured – just in getting to know the dogs – that smaller playgroups are better. They're better for the dog, they're easier to manage, they're safer. So our maximum dog playgroup size is 15 dogs. We feel like between 12 and 15 is the magic number of how many dogs should be in a group, and that keeps the energy level at a reasonable level.”
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Let's talk about the growth of Central Bark’s geographical footprint. The company has recently signed some big multi-unit deals to expand into new territories. How has this growth come about?
“We've had a large amount of interest from people in becoming franchisees in our system. It's really neat. There's a growth of franchising in general in America today. I think there's this incredible awareness of franchising as a proven way to work within a system, to have your own business. There is a real growth in franchising and specifically in the interest of our space with the growth of dog ownership and with the growth of how much (money) people are spending on their dogs.
“We've had a lot of interest in 20 states at least, between 20 and 25 states. We just recently signed agreements in Arizona, Nevada, New York, New Jersey and the Pennsylvania area. We just opened up two stores in Houston. There's a lot of growth and a lot of interest for us, so we're super excited. We have a vision that every dog in America would have a Central Park experience. I think so many dogs would benefit and so many pet parents would benefit from having more Central Park experiences, so that's what really drives us.”
To reach your target of 200 units by 2027, will you focus on expanding into new states or driving growth within the territories you already have?
“So right now we have 40 locations in 13 states. And we have 30 (additional) locations that are sold but not open, so we'll open between 10 and 15 new stores this year. Of the states that we have, there's a number of states that we have just one location right now. We have 16 in Wisconsin and I actually think there's room for growth in Wisconsin. There's certain pockets of even the Milwaukee area, where we have 11 locations.
“We have three stores in Texas right now, and, oh my gosh, there's so much opportunity in Texas. We have five stores in Florida, and there's so much opportunity in Florida. We have one (store) in North Carolina, we have one (store) in Georgia, one in Maryland. I mean, there's so many states that we have opportunities, in addition to the new states.”
With Central Bark’s growing footprint of all franchised stores – owned and operated by a total of 45 franchisees system-wide – what is key to keeping the brand streamlined and maintaining relationships with the franchise base?
“In terms of how we connect with the franchise community, there's three primary ways. One is just internal communications. We celebrate successes. We have new information that we share. We have a really well-developed marketing and sales calendar, so we're always publishing new information. There's a really important internal communication.
"Probably the most important thing is we have a franchise business coaching network. There are individuals on our team that meet with the franchisees. They visit, they meet, they review with the franchisees multiple times a year, so they hop on planes and/or cars and drive out and sit down and meet with them. They also have monthly check-ins with the individual franchisees to check in, see how it's going, they review their business, their numbers, their future plans. It's a really important network of support that we have, so that's really critical. And then, overall, our team is really dedicated and devoted.
"And then once a year we get together as a franchise community. We just had that in Brookfield just two weeks ago, we got together as a franchise community. There were well over a hundred, probably almost 150 people there celebrating our brand and celebrating what we accomplished last year and getting motivated for the upcoming 12 months.”
What’s the more efficient way to approach franchise expansion? Recruiting additional franchisees in new territories or developing your existing franchise base by encouraging owners to open additional locations?
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Central Bark's New Berlin location. Credit: Central Bark[/caption]
“The number one opportunity, or a significant opportunity for us, is existing franchisees that want to own more locations. That's a big deal. We call those ‘growth-ready franchisees.’ There are people like Christy and Allen Stanczak (who own three Central Bark locations, in New Berlin, Franklin and Madison) that were growth-ready franchisees. They took their success in one location and bought another and then bought a third. And so there's a number of franchisees that are growth ready and that are looking for growth opportunities, either to open new locations or to purchase an existing location. That's a big part of our growth and we encourage that and we try to cultivate it. Not everyone always wants to own more than one. Some people are really happy opening one and that's perfectly fine, too. And that's the strength of a franchise business, to have both of those.”
Central Bark has redesigned the new-store opening approach, decreasing time to open by 65%. Tell me more about how you’ve done that and why it matters.
“When a new franchisee joins us, they want to get going really fast. They made a decision to leave corporate America and start a business. That's such a momentous decision. And we have developed a really rigorous process, there's two parts to this. One is just creating a really good plan, and we have a really good system to make sure that we manage it really well. That's really important, a really good system. And then the second part of that is we found new partners, partnerships in the real estate and the architecture design area that we can just really streamline a lot of this, a lot of the time, so once you sign an agreement, then you go quickly into real estate. We have a really good partnership with some real estate specialists, and then when you find real estate, then you quickly want to design your Central Bark (location). Making sure that you have people that know our business and our system just makes it so much faster and it's really really terrific."
What was the opening timeframe before you rolled out this new process, versus now?
“COVID really delayed a lot of openings, there was a lot of supply chain challenges, so it took 18 months to two years sometimes to open up the location. But now, our target is between nine and 12 months. We had one recently that just opened up quicker than that, we had one that opened up in six months.”
How have you invested in corporate infrastructure, like technology and staffing, to support Central Bark’s ongoing franchise growth?
“Technology is a big part of our investment. We have updated our website with some enhanced branding fairly recently. We are always tweaking different parts of our customer experience. And we have made a lot of changes in a lot of different technology improvements, whether it's checking in dogs quicker or it's providing information for our franchisees to make decisions quicker and with more accurate information.
“We have 18 (corporate) employees. We've added six new people just in the past year. So part of the infrastructure investment that I talked about was exactly what we've done. And we intend to continue that for sure as we grow.
Do you have a target or an idea of the workforce you're going to need to support all this growth?
“Obviously the more locations you have, the more marketing and the more franchise business coaches you need. We do a really good job of understanding pinch points. You get growing and then, you know, maybe what was satisfactory before becomes not as optimal, so then you have to invest and change, and so we're really conscious of that, and we talk about it all the time as a managerial team.”
You mentioned the growth opportunities within the Milwaukee area and across Wisconsin. Where exactly is that white space or area for potential growth and how are you approaching it?
“I’ll probably answer that a little differently because what we're really focused on is providing whole dog care, right? We know and love your dog. You go to our location, we will know and love your dog. And I think within our current geographic footprint, there are dogs that need us. There are pet parents that need us. And so, an important part of our growth plan is just making sure that every dog and pet parent within a five-mile radius of our location is aware of us and knows us and will consider us. So of all the biggest opportunities, that's probably the number one largest opportunity because we know that we provide a really meaningful, valuable service. And then, within that, in terms of locations, there's a number of locations throughout the state. I hate to even start talking about it because I'll overlook one, I'm sure. There are a number of locations throughout the state of Wisconsin and even throughout Milwaukee that we think there's opportunity.”
