Jackie Bondanza With Hounds Town USA

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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 Jackie Bonds and she is with Hounds Town, USA. Welcome, Jackie.

Jackie Bondanza: [00:00:44] Great. Thanks for having me.

Lee kantor: [00:00:45] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to before we get too far into things, tell us about Hounds Town. How are you serving folks?

Jackie Bondanza: [00:00:52] So Hounds Town USA is a fully interactive doggy day care boarding and grooming facility. And we we started over 20 years ago. So we’ve been at this for a pretty long time. And, you know, we we offer folks just accessible, affordable, down to earth pet care for a very reasonable price. And we’ve been doing that for for two decades now.

Lee kantor: [00:01:16] So what was the genesis of the idea? Was it built to be a franchise or was it something that just started locally and it’s just expanded organically?

Jackie Bondanza: [00:01:25] It started locally and just kind of has expanded organically over the last 20 years. We were founded by Mike Gould, who was one of the founding members of the New York City’s police department way back in the day. And he spent a good 25 years as a K-9 handler for various police departments. So when he retired over 20 years ago, he was young and still needed another career. And this was just sort of a natural extension of his extensive experience. And today what that means is, is everything we do at Hounds Town is about the dog first, which is our major differentiator. And yeah, just slowly over time, we started to expand. Mike never really intended on franchising this, but you know, after the first couple of years saw how well the couple of corporate stores he opened were doing, and just over time we started to franchise.

Lee kantor: [00:02:19] So you mentioned the differentiating by this kind of dog first methodology or philosophy. Can you talk about when he or you started kind of feeling like, hey, this is different and special and we are getting traction and this could probably be replicated.

Jackie Bondanza: [00:02:40] So I first came into the brand about ten years ago and I first learned of POUNDSTONE as a customer. So I used tempo for many years. I love them. They were a lifesaver for me when I lived in Manhattan, and I would drop my two dogs off there and head off to work. So when I moved all the way out to Ronkonkoma on Long Island, which is about an hour and a half from the city, I was that person on the train on the 638 train every morning, and I didn’t want to leave my dogs home. I couldn’t leave them home. So I found Hounds Town. And from the moment I walked in, I realized that there was something really special about the brand. And at the heart of that was the fact that Mike and the staff knew what they were doing with the dogs. And that’s not something I experienced in my other in my other experiences as a customer with other pet care facilities. They came close. But this was just kind of the whole the whole picture for me. And so from there, I just started talking to Mike about franchising, and I think he just didn’t have anybody come along that was interested in taking that ball and running with it. And so we spent the first couple of years, you know, we sold a few, but not that many. We didn’t really get much traction until a couple of years in, and we partnered with the Wright Development Team, and that’s really where it started rolling for us. But it’s been a slow ride and that has served us very well.

Lee kantor: [00:04:04] Now, any advice for those emerging franchisees out there that feel like, hey, maybe we can do it on our own, maybe share some of the the trade offs of doing it on your own versus partnering with a development team like you did.

Jackie Bondanza: [00:04:18] I would say we for the first two or three years, we tried to do it on our own and we sold a few we sold a few to a former customer, a former employee. And that really was the foundation of this, the next phase we needed to get to. We really needed to have three or four really great performing stores before we could get out there and say confidently, Hey, this model works in a lot of different markets. So that approach worked for us, but we needed to shift gears because it wasn’t scalable. So, you know, for us, it worked for us to do it ourselves in the beginning and then find a partner that could help really take it out of the gate and take it to the next level. So it was sort of a hybrid for us.

Lee kantor: [00:05:00] Now, when you do partner with somebody, what what are they doing differently than that you were doing?

Jackie Bondanza: [00:05:10] Marketing. So the company that we partner with Raintree, they specialize in emerging brands and we had looked at and even worked with a few other franchise development companies and the mist for us was that they didn’t understand emerging brands. They were used to working with big, successful franchise systems. There’s such a big difference between what they need and how they need to be marketed versus an emerging brand. And Raintree just understood how to market not only the business model but the the and the industry, but the type of stage that the business was in. And we just started getting a lot of traction about four years ago. They were just the right fit for us. But it took it took trying on a couple of different companies to find that right fit.

Lee kantor: [00:05:58] And then what was the clue that this was going to be the right fit? Was it all of a sudden now the volume of leads or the quality of the leads were just that much better?

Jackie Bondanza: [00:06:09] Yep. The quality of the leads were better. We started closing more deals, the pipeline got stronger. I really think their vetting process is was was fantastic. And we were seeing higher quality candidates that were really the right match for us instead of just kind of like working with the portals and just entertaining any lead that we got. These days, we have a much better understanding of what does a successful town franchisee look like, and we’re able to work backwards from that.

Lee kantor: [00:06:42] And then now, as the brand has kind of evolved. How has your life changed? You know, it’s one thing of having corporate owned and then a handful, and then now you’re on this kind of exciting, you know, journey where it’s really expanding pretty quickly. How has that changed, you know, kind of your day to day now? You’re less of a, you know, a hounds to Hounds Town USA, you know, kind of growing that individual store to now we’re really a training and sales organization correct.

Jackie Bondanza: [00:07:16] You know, and that’s an interesting question because it took me a while to realize that we were actually we’re actually running two businesses. We’re running our corporate stores. We’re running the doggy daycare, grooming, boarding business, hands down. And we’re also running a franchising company. And it was really challenging at times to move both of those along at the same time. Luckily, when I came along, Mike really had established the business model. There really wasn’t that much that needed to be changed or improved upon. But we did have to make some changes to our processes and our systems to make them scalable. So, you know, at times it was challenging to to, to, to wear both hats. Today, in the past 12 months, we’ve hired a team. So we went from Mike and I doing this seven years ago to now we have a team of 15 people and it’s life changing. I mean, it’s it just needed so much to to make sure that we scale properly and we owe that to our franchisees and our employees. So get the brand to a certain place of notoriety, and it’s exciting to see that that’s finally coming to fruition.

Lee kantor: [00:08:23] So now as the CEO of Hound Sound USA, what is kind of your superpower that you’re bringing to the table to help kind of maintain and continue the growth?

Jackie Bondanza: [00:08:33] So I think that speaking personally for myself about my superpower, I think that I come from a journalism background. I knew nothing about franchising when I first started doing this, but I am trained in research. So I went out and I just started making connections. I started asking people questions, I just started looking for information, and I relied on people who knew better than me. And I think that doing that is critical. And if one thinks they know everything, they’re not going to really get get that far in life. And so I just led with that approach. And it has really, I think, put the company in a great place now and again, hired a team of people who they all are, they all are are have a seat at the table because they’ve been successful in scaling, you know, franchise companies and just keeping keeping humility and gratitude. And those two things are, I think, huge for a CEO. Ten years ago, the qualities of a good CEO, I think, were being aggressive and dominant and, you know, sort of willing to crumble people to get somewhere. And I think that’s changed so much over the last decade, which I’m so happy to see. And it certainly served me well and I think served. Poundstone Well.

Lee kantor: [00:09:56] Has there been a setback or a pivot you had to make that you’ve learned from that you can share?

Jackie Bondanza: [00:10:03] Oh, gosh, there have been so many of them. You know, one of my favorite sayings, although it’s a little of a frustrating thing, but you don’t know what you don’t know. And when I brought Rob Flanagan in, who’s our president last year, he he said that. And it’s it’s so true. And so, you know, if we haven’t we hadn’t been through COVID before. Obviously, no one had. So every day was a new challenge, a new adventure. And, you know, same thing for when the housing market crashed for us in 2006. It’s these moments where things change quickly. And as the owners and the leadership team, we have to make sure our franchisees get through that those times successfully. So we’ve had a lot of setbacks, a lot of achievements, a lot of setbacks. We’ve struggled with construction and finding the right construction partners to keep our buildout costs as low as possible. That’s another one of our differentiators. So we just work through it every day and try to wake up the next day and improve upon what we’ve already built.

Lee kantor: [00:11:08] Now, it sounds like at the heart of hands down, you would say this culture and this philosophy of how to work with and care for animals is kind of at the heart of things. How do you kind of create a culture that can permeate into this kind of franchise system where, you know, these people like you, you know, they’re coming into this a lot of times, not with any kind of animal background or, you know, they’re learning to. So how do you kind of make sure from a culture standpoint you’re getting the right folks?

Jackie Bondanza: [00:11:43] Yeah, it’s definitely, I would say, front and center for us. We we hire for culture first on our corporate team. And if people have all the chops and all the skills and all the experience, but they’re not a good cultural fit. And we have a very defined deck on what that looks like. We don’t invite them on the team, and the same goes for our franchisees if we don’t get the vibe from them and vice versa. Honestly, if we feel that someone’s coming in and they’re just looking to make money and they’re not going to put their heart and soul into this, we have turned people down. And in the beginning it’s it’s hard to turn down money. But I always try to think of five years from now as a customer, how would I feel walking into this franchisee store if they seem apathetic at Discovery Day or they’re kind of like focused too heavily on numbers? We will we’ve always been very careful about trying to select the right people from day one. And that goes for our franchisees, our staff, our corporate staff, and even the staff at the store, you know, pet care. It’s such an emotional and personal thing for people. We have to be really conscious about us bringing on the people that represent and understand that the best.

Lee kantor: [00:12:57] So is the ideal franchisee someone who is kind of in the location and serving the customers, or can this be absentee or is it can this be a complimentary brand as part of a portfolio? Like how does that work?

Jackie Bondanza: [00:13:14] So for the most part, our franchisees are either semi active, meaning they’re not working in the business, but they’re there. They might be there a couple of hours a week. They’re overseeing staff. They’re getting some face time in with customers or they’re owner operators, meaning obviously they’re in the business, they’re working on a shift. We don’t really have franchisees that are completely absentee and living in another state or another country and doing this purely for an investment. We see and believe that some of our most successful franchisees, they need to feel like they have to put their heart and soul into the business. To some degree. That doesn’t mean they need to be there every day, but they need to feel a an attachment and an accountability to it, especially because there’s this emotional piece to it for the customers. And trust is such an important factor. So we don’t really entertain people who are who are looking to do this purely for the investment.

Lee kantor: [00:14:12] Now, was that intelligence gleaned from your own kind of gut feeling, or was this something that your partner said, hey, you know, we’ve done a few of these. This is what it looks like as you honed in on that ideal franchisee.

Jackie Bondanza: [00:14:26] I think it was more it’s more a gut feeling. And just looking at the 25 stores we have open now, who are our top performers? And, you know, I would say all of them have their they have a level of commitment to the business that goes above and beyond someone who would be absentee and was just looking to make a certain percentage. So we have to look, we’re very data driven. So I like to look at who are our top five performers and let’s get more of those people in the door. So I think it was a little bit of a combination. You know, we’re a family owned and operated business. So I think it’s. Kind of organically unfolded that way that a lot of people were attracted to us because they want to be involved in that culture.

Lee kantor: [00:15:11] Now, let’s talk a little bit about the philanthropy angle on this. Is this I know that you’ve teamed up with the campaign one at a time, a nonprofit. Was that something corporate did or is that something that the franchisee said, hey, this is a cause that we want to get behind?

Jackie Bondanza: [00:15:30] So that was something that came from me. I am on the board of Campaign One at a Time, which is a children’s cancer charity. It’s sort of like Make-A-Wish, but it’s much more personal. And I’m always passionate about helping other entrepreneurs build their businesses. And so I’ve known the founder for many years. I’ve seen him create this this charity from the ground up, and it’s just grown so much over the years. So what it made sense for us for Hounds Town to become a corporate sponsor. We went ahead and did that a couple of years ago and some people say, well, what’s the connection between dogs and kids there? Really, there really isn’t any. But we’re helping to spread the word. You know, the campaign, one at a time, word here on the East Coast, because it’s a West Coast brand. So one of our one of the campaigns we just did helped raise $10,000 for a girl named Sienna and her family to get a service dog. So Sienna had to have her leg amputated due to cancer a couple of years ago. And all she’s wanted is a service dog. So we were able to partner with Merlin’s kids to raise the money to do that. So there’s a little bit of a connection when there’s obviously a dog component to it.

Lee kantor: [00:16:47] So now what’s next? How do you see the next few years for Jamestown, USA?

Jackie Bondanza: [00:16:54] So we are set to open 25 to 30 more stores this year. So we’ve got a lot of work to do. So we’ll be at about 50, 55 stores open by the end of this year and another 3540 in the pipeline. So our ultimate goal is to be the biggest and the best pet care franchise out there. And we’re we’re pretty well on our way to doing that. So it’s an exciting year. We’ve been at this for a long time now, so it’s kind of our time to just get a bunch of stores open and continue awarding territories to people who who want to do something different with their lives and just to get to that 100 unit and then beyond.

Lee kantor: [00:17:35] So now are you targeting East Coast or is this now kind of the world is your oyster?

Jackie Bondanza: [00:17:41] The world is our oyster. We’ve never we’ve never targeted geographically. It’s we just decided not to do that from the get go because it’s it’s more pricey to do that. So instead, we thought we can spread out geographically and let’s be led by where are their quality franchisees. So it makes it a little more difficult for travel, of course. But we just weighed the pros and cons and decided that that was the way that we were going to go. Naturally, we’ve developed more stores in New York, New Jersey and Florida because we were founded in New York. So there’s some more interest in those particular markets because we’ve got a bunch there already. So I’m anticipating that that will start to happen once we get one or two stores open in all of these different markets.

Lee kantor: [00:18:28] Well, congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what is the website?

Jackie Bondanza: [00:18:37] Sure. So we have Hounds Town franchise dot com is our franchising website and Hounds Town, U.S.A. is our consumer website. You can also see fun videos and photos and cute dog stuff on both websites, but the USA website would be best for that.

Lee kantor: [00:18:54] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Jackie Bondanza: [00:18:58] All right. Thank you.

Lee kantor: [00:18:59] All right. This is Lee Kantor will see next time on franchise marketing radio.