Kelley Rosequist With Dog Training Elite

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Kelley Rosequist with Dog Training Elite. Welcome, Kelly.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:00:44] Thank you so much for having me today. Lee, I appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about dog training elite. How are you serving folks?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:00:52] Absolutely. So dog training elite is a mobile dog training concept. We come to our clients homes, work with them in their home, and really include them in that dog training process. We cover everything from basic obedience up to therapy dogs and service dogs as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:10] So what was the kind of genesis of the idea? How did this come about?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:01:15] So we got to have to fast go backwards a little bit here. About 50 years, my father was training, hunting dogs and really those canine athletes that we see in the world, those top tier dogs. And we are noticing more and more families that we are training these dogs for really just wish their pets could be a more active part of their life, too, that they could walk their dog without pulling and they could enjoy a day at the park with their pets. And so that’s really how we began to shift, is understanding that, you know, a lot of people were really struggling with building this relationship with their dogs, having the freedom they wanted to have with their dogs. And so that’s when we really kind of shifted into that pet sector, and we haven’t turned back since.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:59] Now, what do you attribute this kind of evolution of the kind of care of dog and pets in general with the population? Because, like you said, 50 years ago, you were training a dog for a reason, like there was a compelling reason to do this. And now people are doing this because it feels like natural and they’re part of the family. And I want to, you know, kind of enhance the relationship.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:02:24] I would say one of the biggest shifts that we’ve noticed is people are really considering their dog to be a part of their family. It’s no longer, you know, maybe even an extension of their family. It’s an integral part of their families. So that’s a really big part of it. And people are really understanding the importance of investing in their dog’s life. On average, people have these dogs 13 to 15 years, and so you really don’t have to trudge through that. It should be an enjoyable experience, particularly right now though. Lee Post Pandemic. We’re seeing this continue to surge throughout that COVID period. And those lockdowns, people’s dogs really became a part of their life. They were home with their dogs more. They were hiking, camping, doing all of these things with their dogs. And it has become customary now. And so we’re seeing more people just wanting to involve their dogs in every aspect of their life.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:24] Now, is there some kind of tips you can share for dog owners that they can do some of this work on their own as there some low hanging fruit? Maybe you can share some advice if they have a dog that maybe needs some guidance that you can give them some tips.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:03:43] One of the top places that a lot of people it starts to unravel for them is early socialization. You know, during COVID, that was difficult. But, you know, exposing your dog to as many things as possible, as many places, as many people is is really a good way to start the dog on the right foot, right paw, if you will, you know. But so that early exposure, that socialization, exposing them to new things and consistency, that’s where most people fall apart, too. And that’s really what we provide. But people can do that on their own. You know, when you give your dog a command, whether it’s just come to me, sit down, follow through, make sure they do it before you give up and move on.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:28] Now, I had a friend that their dog seemed like it had a lot of anxiety. It was very fearful of a lot of different things. Is there a way to like if you run into a dog like that, is there a way to kind of make them more common, comfortable?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:04:43] There is. So we work with anxiety a lot, especially right now post COVID because so many dogs weren’t socialized well by no fault of the owners. Of course, one of the biggest things a lot of people are natural inclination when a dog is fearful of something is to remove them from that stimuli altogether and to kind of coddle that behavior when realistically having a lot more exposure to that in a positive way, if we can. I.e. your dog’s afraid of men in hats. Get as many men and hats as you can to interact with your dog, give them treats, whatever their reward system looks like. And it’s kind of that exposure therapy, right? We do that with people. The exact same thing works for dogs in those situations.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:27] Now what about how to. When you add like a family member, then you’re transitioning the dog from being maybe the center of attention. And now there’s another kid or there’s another pet. Is there are ways that they can kind of make that go smoothly, that transition?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:05:44] Absolutely. The biggest way is to just transition without making a big deal of it. We tend as people to want to kind of overthink that and spend maybe extra time two months before the babies being born. Right, playing ball five times a day to try to make up for the time the dog is going to lose. But when we do that, all we really do is set an entirely new expectation for the dog that we absolutely can’t maintain. So some structured training prior to that transition will help it. But realistically, just trying to keep life as normal as possible for the dog throughout that process is the best thing we can do.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:22] So now let’s pivot a little bit to the franchise. Who is that ideal franchisee? I mean, they have to like dogs. Is that, though, is that kind of a knockout blow if they’re not like a super dog person?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:06:37] You know, not necessarily. They absolutely have to like dogs and want to be around dogs. That’s important. But we’re actually in the people business. I mean, at the end of the day where people forward dog training company. So our passion, our drive is about improving the lives of people through dogs. And so, you know, our franchisees definitely have to be passionate about people and improving the quality of life for them.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:04] And then so the training of the dog part, is that something that the franchisee can hire someone to be the actual kind of person going into the homes and doing the training?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:07:15] Absolutely. And, you know, our owners are split about 5050 on that. We have some owners that are very active in the training themselves, particularly the service dog training aspect of it. And we have some that completely run their business work on growing and scaling their business and hire those trainers.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:34] So now when you made the transition to be a franchise, how did that go? Can you talk about some of the learning that happened when you were making that transition?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:07:45] Absolutely. So we started the process slow. When we first decided the franchise, we really made that choice because we recognized how fortunate we were to be able to be a family operating this business in a way that was able to impact our communities and improve the lives of people in their dogs. So we wanted to give other families that opportunity, but it was really important to us to make sure that our model was successful and a completely different market. So that’s why we first opened up in Phenix, Arizona, and waited five years before we started franchising. Outside of that, we wanted to make sure that we could pick up this model, drop it in a new city with no name recognition, no roots, because we are quite rooted here in Salt Lake City and succeed. And it turns out Phenix was an even better market. So at that point is when we decided to kind of open up to international expansion, started slow, making sure again that we were able to replicate our model in many different markets. And fast forward to where we are today across the country.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:50] So now when you expanded and you go into new markets and even internationally, do you have to make any kind of drastic changes on what it looks like in these different markets, or is it kind of baked? And it kind of is a just kind of rinse and repeat situation. Now.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:09:09] At this point, it is pretty much baked. We’re able to come in and especially all of our foundational packages, training methods and types of training are doing well in every market. There’s usually the only changes we make is if we’re adding something to a market. If a market is particularly outdoorsy, we’ll focus more on our adventure dog programs if there’s lots of weddings in that area or wedding dog packages. So we really have different enhancements in different markets. But the actual business itself is pretty much similar in all markets.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:46] Is it similar like even like if it’s a rural market versus an urban market.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:09:52] It is given the fact that we’re doing that in-home training. I will say some of our owners who are in some more urban markets are looking at also are starting to also add some small facility concepts to really get those inner city people involved. But the majority of our clientele definitely live in those in the suburbs and rural areas.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:14] So what is kind of the expansion program now? Is it just kind of the world is your oyster and just like, hey, we’ll take on all comers or are you targeting certain countries, certain regions where you’re putting a lot of emphasis?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:10:29] So currently we are just focused on the US. So 50 states, the first goal is to be in all 50 states before we look at any sort of international expansion options. And at this point we’ve focused a lot of growth in the Southeast, although that area is about just pretty close to sold out. So we’re starting to move more westward in our focus.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:55] And then is there any kind of learnings you could share with emerging franchises when it comes to doing the franchise development?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:11:06] Yes, and the biggest thing I would say for us was to hire someone that we trusted. So we.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:14] Delegate. So the first move is delegate because it’s a tricky thing, right? Franchise development.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:11:19] Is.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:20] It’s a different business.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:11:24] Go ahead, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:24] Sorry. It’s a different business than your business, right? The finding of new franchisees is really business 100%.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:11:34] And for us, bringing on the right person was really important. So we did interview lots of franchise development companies and ultimately what led us to make the decision we made was finding a company that understood our culture and how important it was for us to keep that. Finding a franchise development team that was okay if they invested months into a person. And then I said, No, I’m sorry. That’s not they’re not the right culture fit. That was really important that we had someone that understood the whys of why we were bringing on owners and that we weren’t just filling seats.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:09] Right. So that takes good communication and it has to be both sides are kind of managing each other’s expectations.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:12:17] Absolutely. Yeah. Our franchise development team, as far as I’m concerned, are part of our internal team. You know, they’re not a separate entity. They really help grow our business and kind of define the direction of it by who they’re bringing to us.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:33] Now, can you share a story with maybe a franchisee that maybe kind of went into this day? I’m sure they have to be enthused. They all have to be enthusiastic. But maybe this wasn’t when they were deciding which franchise. This wasn’t like, oh, this was a no brainer. Maybe they said, oh, they kind of discovered it. And then you were able to kind of get them going and then, you know, they became successful. Is there a story you can share that is kind of meaningful to you?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:12:59] Absolutely. We actually have one owner in particular that came on with a lot of business experience. They had run and sold multiple businesses very successfully, and when they first came on, they were a little bit, I want to say, apprehensive isn’t the right word, but we’re very service minded as an organization up to and including just giving back to our communities, being very involved in that. And so they they were trying to compare everything really to dollar and cents, which, you know, if that’s all you’re doing is building and selling businesses that absolutely make sense. So they were still struggling with figuring out the whys of our business a little bit. They saw the economics. They knew that it was worth it, but didn’t quite understand how that all went together. Fast forward now. They’re our most successful franchise owner and if you talk to them now, economics wise, they are our top performer. But they talk more now about how important it is that they’re able to give back in their communities and how passionate they are. And it’s really cool to see people who have been really successful business owners and have proven themselves in that world to actually find a passion in the business that they’re running. So I say that’s one of my favorite stories is is talking with that group.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:23] Now, is there any thing you can share about how to help kind of articulate that? Because a lot of people, they’ll give lip service to the why and the values and the mission. But they’re you know, they’re always looking at the bottom line of, look, is this going to make money or not? And and it sounds like in your culture, the why is that’s not a not that’s not negotiable. Right. Like they have to kind of buy into the mission and have the values. That’s no matter how much money they have, you’re looking for the right culture fit over everything.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:14:55] Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:56] So how do you identify the and help? Kind of I don’t want to say persuade, but at least open their mind to, hey, this is important too and don’t neglect this. Or is it something that you just say, you know what, if they don’t get it, then there they are. They’re kind of self-selecting out for this opportunity.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:15:14] So I’ve I’ve found in our business throughout the entire genesis of our business that we firmly believe if you do the right thing, then good things will happen. And so that is why we do we give back to our communities so much. That’s why we care so much about our clients and whom we’re working with. But for when we’re talking to owners about it, really, we want them to see the value. But we do that through sharing stories, by being able to show the impacts we’ve made in our community by them actually getting to meet some of the people that we’ve impacted. That’s a part of our Discovery Day process, then really understanding the impact that they get to have in the world. You know, at the end of the day, if they don’t care about that at all, that is a deal breaker for us. But we know if maybe they just don’t understand it because they haven’t had that before, that they’ll find it. You know, one of the biggest pushback things we get pretty regularly that I find is kind of ironic, you know, as people are, you shouldn’t train dogs to. Money. You should train dogs because you’re passionate about it, especially service, dog training. And you know, our philosophy is why can’t you have both? And so we truly believe the right owners will find both in our in our model.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:36] But you don’t spend a lot of time overly trying to persuade them the light bulb has to go off at some point. There’s nothing you can really I guess there are things you can say to help lead them down the path, but ultimately they have to kind of get there on their own.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:16:52] Absolutely. And we want them to you know, that that’s how true passion is ignited is when you feel it, you see it, you experience it. And that’s that’s definitely something that we want our owners to to find on their own.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:04] So if somebody wants to learn more, where do they go?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:17:08] Dog training elite dot com is our website. There’s a ton of amazing information on there. Also encourage anyone to follow any of our social media channels to see the good that we’re doing in our communities.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:21] Well, Kelly, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:17:26] Thank you, Lee. I really appreciate you having me on today.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:29] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.