Inside Woofie’s: Amy Addington on Building a Pet Care Franchise

Amy Addington’s journey from a career in telecom and tech space to co-founding Woofie’s® with her neighbor Leslie Barron is a testament to her passion for pets and her entrepreneurial spirit. In this interview, she shares the motivations behind her bold career shift, her challenges in building a trusted pet care brand, and the strategies that have guided Woofie’s through its successful expansion. With a focus on maintaining brand values, investing wisely, and the importance of training, Amy offers insights into the world of pet care and the broader landscape of business growth and franchising.

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From Employee to Entrepreneur

SBS – What motivated you to leave your regular job and jump into entrepreneurship? 

Amy – I’m glad I had the corporate experience. It gave me a lot of knowledge about different facets of a business. I was in the telecom and tech space but didn’t have that passion and love for what I was doing in that industry. However, I loved animals. They were always near and dear to my heart. I had three dogs when my neighbor Leslie Barron and I started Woofie’s in 2004. That business came from a simple need for pet care in our community. At the time, there weren’t any great options. As a consumer, I knew how important my dogs were to me and how important it was that they were safe while I was gone.

Starting that business was a risk. It’s always a risk when you leave the security of a portfolio. You do your best to get the company launched, and you’re never 100% sure. Especially at that time, we didn’t have anybody guiding us. It’s not like we had a franchisor with a playbook ready.

Also, there’s never a perfect time to start. I’d love to say there was a perfect plan in place, but it was just the right time to leave corporate, and I was excited to start something new. The opportunity was there, and the demand was there, so we put together a business plan and launched the business. 

Overcoming Early Challenges

SBS – What challenges did you encounter when you started, and how have you overcome them?

Amy – I think the biggest challenge was getting the Woofie’s name out there. Back then, it was a completely different landscape. We started before social media and digital marketing — and before PPC and SEO started running it. It was true boots-on-the-ground marketing, getting the name out there, and networking.

The industry was much more immature than it is today. Many people just considered pet care, pet sitting, and dog walking a cute little hobby, not a professional business. We needed to educate the customers about what a professional pet care company does. Why would you trust and pay the price of a pet care company vs. the neighborhood kid or just a friend down the street?

Technology was also less developed when we started. Today, most customers have ring doorbell cameras and ways to open their doors and garage doors electronically. We were old school and had keys to all the clients’ houses, etc.

Still, with the basics — networking, grassroots marketing, and having great customer service — we built the business. 

Evolving Perspectives

SBS – How has your role and perspective as a businesswoman changed from when you started Woofie’s?

Amy – I’m a co-founder and the president of the brand. I run the Woofie’s franchise system. That is my full-time job. More than a full-time, actually.

It was also a labor of love for me to become a franchisee in Delray Beach. I have an incredible general manager, and that’s the only way I could have done it. Obviously, I can’t do the day-to-day operations, but I love being a franchisee. 

I tell our franchise owners that there’s nothing I would ask them to pay that I don’t pay, and there’s nothing that I would ask them to do that I wouldn’t do. I also look at my own franchise as kind of a testing ground. It’s a great way for me to truly experience what our franchisees are going through. I also use it to test new marketing tactics, services, or partnerships before rolling them out to the franchisees. 

Looking back, 20 years ago, I think Leslie and I fell into the same trap that most new owners do. Whenever you’re invested in the business, you do everything and wear multiple hats. We didn’t build our team as quickly as we should have. Over time, I learned that to grow as a business owner, you must bring in good, trusted people and give them that career path and more opportunities to grow within your company.

Maintaining Brand Integrity

SBS – What strategies have been most effective in maintaining the brand’s values while expanding? How much have those strategies changed over the years? 

Amy – It’s definitely changed. Having the parent company of Authority Brands was a huge factor in scaling Woofie’s as a franchisor. No matter how big or small we are, one of the most critical things we can do is bring on really strong franchise owners who share the culture, vision, and values. 

Because we are an emerging brand, collaboration among our franchisees is also important. Awesome business owners from all walks of life come into our franchise system, and I want their voices heard. I want them to have a say, give feedback, and collaborate. I think that’s what makes us strong as a brand overall, and I think that’s what will give us that longevity.

Yes, our business is evolving quite a bit as we get bigger in scale. Still, I never want to lose that personal touch, the connection with the franchise owners, and the commitment to them to continue bringing on other great franchisees. We owe that to our franchise system, and that remains with us as a guiding principle. 

As a business, you must evolve, stay relevant, be on top of everything, and listen to your owners. These owners are in the trenches every day and are part of building and growing the brand. When you become stagnant, you get flat-footed, and your competitors will pass you by.

Investment Decisions

SBS – What key factors do you consider when investing in new things for your brand? 

Amy – Number one, it’s technology. We have a great CRM system, but technology is always evolving, and we’re always looking at ways to automate the customer experience and make it more user-friendly. We’re also looking into ways to help automate more in the back office for our franchise owners, which will help drive down their expenses. Technology is a huge investment as there are so many new platforms on the CRM side. With marketing, there are also so many new amazing technologies, and we’re trying to stay on top in that regard, too, so we’re always interested in investing in that.

I also think it’s important to invest in strategic partnerships. We have several key partnerships — The Farmer’s Dog, the Pet Vet Connection (vet telehealth services), and a new thing we’re launching with Ancestry.com for dog DNA kids. We have a couple more big ones we will announce later this year. I think investing in those key partnerships is important for the growth of Woofie’s. It’s getting Woofie’s brand out there, and we’re aligning ourselves with like-minded companies to arm our franchisees with more value they can present to their clients. It’s a big win-win.

Franchising Insights

SBS – What advice would you give business owners considering franchising as their growth strategy?

Amy – I think franchising is an excellent growth strategy. If Leslie and I 20 years ago had a franchisor who could have given us the playbook, we could have avoided so many things in the early days where we were just scratching our heads trying to figure out what to do. When you partner with a franchisor, you have the operations manual, experiential and anecdotal data, team, support network, and resources you wouldn’t have if you did everything on your own.

Good support is so invaluable because it’s hard to run a business. There’s a reason not everyone is a business owner. There’s a reason why many businesses don’t make it past a certain time frame. It is difficult, but when you partner with a strong franchisor, you’re on a path to success. However, finding the right franchise system is critical. You have to find a good product or service, and you have to find the right team that will support and work with you because you will be in it together when you become part of the franchise system. 

Training and Development

SBS – How important is training and development in your field?

Amy – Training and support are key to the success of a franchise owner. Like everything, our training has evolved over the years as well. When someone signs a franchise agreement, they go through a detailed onboarding for about 30, 45, or sometimes 60 days. They first start 30 days of pre-training. It’s online, with a few sessions a week, leading to the hands-on one-week in-person training at Ashburn at our original location.

To me, the real training is afterward — post-training, when they return to their locations and hire pet sitters, dog walkers, and groomers. They deal with their clients, do consultations, do marketing events, run their payroll for the first time, do their commissions, etc. We stay right by them and have weekly calls as needed. Every Wednesday, we have web chats with our owners. It’s an open session to talk about hot topics or anything new that’s going on. We have regional roundtables, annual conventions, monthly operations, marketing, and town hall meetings. We’re very engaged with the owners, and that support is ongoing. It’s not a one-and-done thing.

Future Growth

SBS – What are some expansion goals for Woofie’s next year, and how do you plan to achieve them?

Amy – We’re expanding our franchise network. Bringing on more incredible owners helps build the brand, which benefits all of our franchise owners. It helps us leverage vendor agreements. There’s just so much more strength in numbers. However, I always say we want to grow responsibly, ensuring we bring on the right franchisees who add value to our system. Our overall goal as a brand is to elevate professionalism and be a key player in the pet space.