The Smart Franchisee Podcast recently sat down with Dogtopia of Northville owner Shelly Mills to discuss her path from home-based business owner to successful franchisee.

Mills chatted with host Jessica Dhillon on how she and husband transitioned from an online business to a dog daycare, the vetting process for finding the right franchise, her strategies for recruiting the best employees, and more.

The couple evaluated franchises for two years before making a decision. The ability to get in contact with current owners helped Shelly and her husband decide to move forward with Dogtopia. “You do your due diligence. Speaking to the other owners was a huge deciding factor for what would be a good route for us to go. We wanted to have somewhere that we would have passion for – and obviously dogs are amazing – so we just wanted to make sure that it would be a good franchise to go with.”

Mills and her husband were further convinced that Dogtopia was the right fit when they got to see the brand up close and tour a location during Dogtopia’s Discovery Day.

“On Discovery Day we got to meet all of [team at] the Support Office. Knowing that we were going to have support from finding a location to construction to opening our store to ongoing support to marketing – there’s a lot of things that you don’t think goes into owning your own business. If I didn’t have that support at my fingertips, there’s a lot of things that I would have crashed and burned on.”

To learn more about Mills’ journey, listen here.

Interested in applying for a Dogtopia franchise? Get started here.

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