What do you think about when you think of a successful franchise system? What does it take to get there? Our guest today is Neil Gill, CEO of Dogtopia, and he shares his insights and more than three decades of experience.
TODAY’S WIN-WIN:
A franchisor’s job is to create a tactical business where an average individual can do an average day’s work and achieve excellent results.
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilgill1/
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Neil Gill is the CEO and President of Dogtopia Enterprises and a franchise executive with more than 35 years of experience building and scaling global brands. Throughout his career, he has led companies including KFC, Pizza Hut, Brinker International, and Gloria Jean’s Coffees, where he expanded the brand to more than 1,000 locations across 39 countries.
Today, Neil leads Dogtopia’s continued growth by combining innovation, operational excellence, and franchise support. Passionate about entrepreneurship, he helps franchise owners build successful businesses while creating lasting value for the communities they serve.
This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team.
Big Sky Franchise Team is consistently recognized as one of the best franchise consulting firms in the world, helping entrepreneurs franchise their businesses through a proven 3-Step franchise process rooted in ethical principles, hands-on guidance, and customized deliverables.
If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/.
The information provided in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered financial, legal, or professional advice. Always consult with a qualified professional before making any business decisions. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host, Big Sky Franchise Team, or our affiliates. Additionally, this podcast may feature sponsors or advertisers, but any mention of products or services does not constitute an endorsement. Please do your own research before making any purchasing or business decisions.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Tom DuFore: The most successful franchises share one thing in common. They’re never satisfied with where the business is today. They’re always thinking about the road ahead. That ambition is the fuel that drives growth, and Zoho’s business software is the engine that gets you there. With the right technology, your franchise won’t just run better. It’ll move faster. Candidates will progress through the development pipeline more quickly. New locations will open on schedule. Decisions will get made based on better data and better insights. Zoho gives every size and style of franchise the power to move faster without breaking what works.
Whether you’re a single-location operator building a portfolio, a multi-unit operator scaling across brands, or a regional franchise or growing into a national network, Zoho grows with you every step of the way. Built over 30 years, Zoho’s software ecosystem can be configured to match how your franchise actually works. CRM, operations, marketing, HR analytics, and more all designed to work together from the start. The more of your business that runs on Zoho, the more connected it gets. Head to zoho.com/franchise to learn more about what Zoho has to offer. That’s zoho.com/franchise. And now back to the show.
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host Tom Dufour, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team. As we open, I’m wondering, how are you measuring your overall impact as an owner or leader of your company? Is it through profit or lives impacted, maybe time off?
Our guest today is Andy Clark, and he shares with us his whole PIE system on operating a small business. Now, Andy is the best-selling author and business strategist behind The Whole PIE System, a framework that helps small business owners build companies that are more profitable, impactful, and enjoyable to own and operate. The system is often referred to as moneyball thinking for your small business. You’re going to love this interview, so let’s go ahead and jump right into it.
[00:02:10] Andy Clark: Andy Clark. I am the founder and CEO of The Whole PIE System.
[00:02:16] Tom: I’d love to talk about and jump into the PIE system, a little bit of the who, what, where, when, why kind of a thing, but let’s start with the why. What led you to prompt to create this system?
[00:02:29] Andy: I started out my career as a corporate lawyer. I practiced corporate law for a dozen years. I was working with small business owners in a legal capacity for a long time. I’m from Atlantic, Canada. For the listeners that may not know where that is, it’s like north of Maine and east of Quebec. A province called New Brunswick, if anyone’s ever heard of that, but an hour from the Maine border. Our little part of the world, most of the businesses are small businesses. That’s what I got to know when I was practicing law and advising them.
What I learned over about a dozen years was that I was really more interested in the business side than the legal side. I hopped over the fence and I got into business, and for the next 10, 12 years, been owning, running, managing small businesses in a couple of different industries. Why do I share that? I share that to tell you that after about 20 years of law and business, what I discovered is that small business is tough. Running small businesses is tough. I’m not telling anybody that’s listening anything they don’t know. I really got curious about, why is it so tough? Why is it so tough?
There’s a few reasons for it, but one that I landed on in particular was that the same skill set that makes for a great business owner, which is to say you have big ideas, you’re a hard worker, you’re good at building relationships. That’s not often coupled in the same person with the ability to execute and to turn those big ideas into reality. Those two skill sets are often not found in the same person. What I realized was that I’m really good at disciplined execution. I’m really good.
What comes really natural to me is understanding if this is the end goal, I really get– and it’s probably my legal analytical mind. I understand how to break down that big goal into the fundamental milestones, things that need to get done in order to get there. My wife, on the other hand, who’s a business owner, is just the opposite. She’s big-picture thinker, lots of great ideas, great with people, but she gets bored with her big ideas because the execution of them is hard.
All that is to say, Tom, is that, how did I get into this? Is I realized that my four natural skill set was missing in a lot of small businesses. I said, “Why don’t I just be that person for small business owners?” That’s what I did. I started consulting, pairing up with business owners that needed the skill set that I could provide. Then after doing that for a few years, I created The Whole PIE System.
I wanted to systematize what I was doing with small businesses, because I can only be so many places at once. Wouldn’t it be great if I could actually give a system to a business owner that I could help them implement, but then they could carry on after I’m gone, basically put myself out of business kind of thing. That’s what I did with The Whole PIE System. I can talk about why it’s called the PIE System in a bit, but that’s the genesis for me, getting to the point where I really wanted to help small business owners run their businesses more effectively with the skill set that I could add into the mix.
[00:05:43] Tom: I like the structure. I think it’s simple to understand. I’d love for you to share what The Whole PIE System is, talk a little bit about that and what is it?
[00:05:52] Andy: Why is it called The Whole PIE System? Maybe I’ll start there. PIE stands for profit, impact, and enjoyment, P-I-E. I landed on that by accident because I was thinking about, “What is it that business owners really want?” I was a business owner, advising business owners, being a business owner, when you really distill it down into its essential components, in my opinion, business owners want three things. They might use different words for it, they might describe it differently, but at the end of the day, if I asked you, Tom, “What are the big goals in your business, or what are the big challenges that you have in your business?”
Invariably, whatever you were to tell back to me would fall into one of three buckets. It would relate to profit or the money aspect of your business. It would relate to impact, I call it, which is the difference that you want to make with your business, with your products or services, because every business owner, whether they know it or not, they’re trying to make other people’s lives better with their business. There are goals and there are challenges that fall into the impact bucket. Then the third one is one that really gets forgotten a lot. That’s enjoyment. That’s like taking care of the business owner. Are you enjoying this process? Is this business making your life better?
Really, those are the three things that business owners want. Most business owners want more of those three things. If you’re profitable, wouldn’t it be great to have more profit? If you are making a bit of a difference in your customers’ lives or in your community, wouldn’t it be great to make more of a difference? Usually, when you make more of a difference and create more of an impact, what happens? You make more profit and you enjoy your business a whole lot more. The I is really, really important, in between the P and the E. That’s why it’s called the PIE system.
If that’s true, and I haven’t met a business owner yet who has convinced me otherwise, but I’m always up for the challenge if anybody wants to challenge that. If that’s true, why not be super intentional about that? Why not be super intentional about the money side, the impact side, and the enjoyment side at the outset? When you’re making your three-year plans and your one-year plans and your quarterly plans, build them around those three areas of the business. The system behind it, The Whole PIE System, is designed so that if you implement the system, if you do all of the things that are in the system consistently, the inevitable result for your business is more profit, more impact, and enjoyment.
[00:08:31] Tom: Fantastic. That’s a great overview. There are a bunch of business systems out there, that folks that end up listening to this have probably heard of, and a few come to mind, like EOS and Scaling Up, many others I’m familiar with. I think EMyth has their own version of things and lots of others out there that exist. For someone that tunes in and says, “Okay, Andy, I’m already doing,” fill in the blank, “Do I gotta change my whole business?” Or, “I’ve heard of, or I tried this other thing and it didn’t work.”
[00:09:03] Andy: I tell everybody quite frankly, having an operating system like EOS, like whole PIE, Great Game of Business, there are others. Having one is more important than the one you choose. If you are already using a system, Mr. or Mrs. Business Owner, if you’re listening, if it’s working for you, great. If it’s working for you, great. Keep at it. If it’s not working for you and you’re looking for something different, then let’s talk. That’s number one. Number two, what makes The Whole PIE different from some of these other ones? Number one, it’s newer, which in some ways you might say, “I want that tried and proven system like EOS. It’s been around for a long time.” There’s some error to that.
The downside to that is that it was created before the world changed, over the last few years. As we know, we’re in the digital age, and now AI age, there’s never been more data. There’s never been less certainty on what to act on, how to filter and run through all this data. The Whole PIE System really takes that into account. That’s really why impact is the center of this thing. Because when you impact your customers’ lives in a way that really makes their life better, they’re going to stick around with you. The Whole PIE System is really geared heavily towards that, and how do you communicate with those customers in this digital age? That’s a little different than it was 10, 20 years ago when some of these other things were created.
The system has been around for six years. There’s lots of success stories that I can tell you about. It’s not brand spanking new. The book is pretty new, but the system’s been around for a while. Another way that it’s different is that it is designed for the small business; not for the corporation. It’s designed generally for the 500K to 5 million annual revenue business, which has different challenges than when you’re getting up to 5 million and above and 10 million stuff. I do work with companies that are bigger, but most of those ones I started working with, they fell within that gap.
In terms of the investment required, the investment required is less of an obstacle with The Whole PIE System than you’ll find in some of these other systems that have bigger overhead and franchise fees and all that good stuff. Those are a few of the reasons why you might consider The Whole PIE System if you’re a small business owner that’s in that revenue range, and you’re looking to say, “Hey, how can I get my arms around this business? How can I feel a little bit more confident and in control here?”
While at the same time, “How can I remove myself from a lot of the decisions? How can I cease to be the bottleneck in my business? How can I empower my team to take on more responsibility and authority so that I can step back and watch this business grow without needing me 24/7.” Those are some things to think about if you’re listening and you’re want to check out The Whole PIE System. That’s how it’s a little bit different than some of the other ones out there.
[00:12:15] Tom: Very good. I’m curious on the things like the profit, it makes sense; for the P. Even sometimes I think the impact for owners, a lot of times there’s an impact felt even with their own staff, with their customers in their local communities that they serve. The enjoyment word, I think that’s great. Owners and founders that have been running their business for a little while oftentimes lose the joy that they once had in their business. Talk through the enjoyment PIEce a little bit about revitalizing that or maybe measuring it, or what do you do in that PIEce of the PIE?
[00:12:52] Andy: We make it measurable. Enjoyment is something that you might say, “How do you how do you measure that? Either I’m happy or I’m not. How do you measure it?” Actually, you can. If you think about it the right way, you really can measure it. Some simple things that we do is– First of all, it’s a bit of a mindset shift for a business owner to say that enjoyment is just as important as as the money side of the business or the impact side of the business.
The default mindset that I have seen over and over again is happiness, enjoyment, satisfaction, whatever you want to call it in terms of the experience of running your business, that that takes a backseat to everything else. It takes a backseat to everything else. I’ve got to make sure my employees are paid, I got to make sure my suppliers are paid, I got to make sure everybody else is happy, I got to make sure my family’s happy, and you’re the last person.
You get joy only if there’s some joy left over after everyone else gets their joy. That’s what I see in a lot of business owners. You may have seen it also. The first thing is a mindset shift that, “Let’s put this right up in the front seat with profit and impact.” Once you make that mindset shift, then you’re ready to tackle it in a structured way. One of the ways we do it is we say, “What’s frustrating you and your business right now?”
Any business owner that’s listening, there are some things that frustrate them and their business, like ongoing frustrations. Whether that’s someone on their team or whether that’s meetings that are ineffective, or whether that’s just the– Maybe it’s the money side of their business, maybe their AR is way too high and it takes way too long to go. Whatever that is, identify it. If it’s within your control– You could be frustrated about the world economy, or about politics, or about whatever. It’s not within your control, so we’re not going to worry about that.
The things that are within your control, we just make a plan to break them down, small steps. How can we reduce this frustration in your business? Does it mean having a difficult conversation? Doesn’t mean letting somebody go for your business that needs to go. Does it mean creating a process that only lives in your head and that’s really inefficient as a result? Does it mean removing yourself from some of the decision making?
Whatever that is, that’s frustrating you. There are usually simple ways to reduce that frustration. The great thing about that is as soon as you reduce the level of frustration you have in your business, then automatically your level of enjoyment goes up. We do that. We just chip away at it PIEce, by PIEce, by PIEce. What happens is, holy smokes, you get out of the habit of doing things the way you’ve always done them. We make some changes, happiness goes up.
[00:15:34] Tom: Andy, for someone that’s listening in and says, “I’m intrigued. This is interesting.” How can they learn more, get a copy of your book? Where can they go?
[00:15:42] Andy: Getting The Whole PIE, you can find it on Amazon, duh. You can check out more things about The Whole PIE System, obviously at the website, which is thewholepiesystem.com. There’s a cool little assessment you can take. We call it The Whole PIE Health Check. It’s on the website, it’s free. You download it, and it actually allows you to self-assess your business in 25 different areas.
That knowledge alone can be can be really useful to shine a light on some of the areas that you might not have thought about in your business that you might need to shore up in order to increase that profit, impact, and enjoyment. Then I hang out on LinkedIn. You can find me there at Andy Clark LinkedIn. I post a lot about stuff, business, not business, family stuff, all kinds of good stuff. That’s about place where you can you can get to know me a little better.
[00:16:29] Tom: Wonderful. Andy, this is a great time in the show. We make a little transition and we ask every guest the same four questions before they go. The first question we ask is, have you had a miss or two on your journey, and something you learned from it?
[00:16:43] Andy: Oh, have I had a miss or two? Do you ever get anybody on your show that says no? I hope not. Man, miss or two. I guess the one that comes to mind is, you’re not going to believe this, but when I was practicing law, I really got interested, and I still am today, it’s a big part of my life, how do you live life to the fullest, which includes how do you stay fit or how do you stay well emotionally, physically, and all that good stuff. Let’s call it wellness. Really interested in that.
My first foray into entrepreneurship was a business called Wellness Lawyer. I tried to sell wellness to lawyers. I partnered up with some people, and got in front of a whole pile of lawyers and explained that, “If you hire me, I will help you do X, Y, and Z.” That was a great idea. Everybody told me that Lawyers would line up around the block and buy my stuff. After a couple of years, nobody was buying my stuff. That was really– was it a miss? Yes, but was it an opportunity to learn and grow? 100%.
[00:17:45] Tom: I relate to that one. I’ve been there. I totally relate to that, for sure. Let’s talk about a make or a highlight or two.
[00:17:53] Andy: I have to say just that I love– The pivot into consulting and coaching and working with business owners was the best decision of my life. It was actually right around COVID. I left managing a company in the financial services world. It was literally like a month before the world shut down with COVID. My wife’s a doctor of chiropractic, so she ran her own business, chiropractic business with some ancillary services. Within a month, we went from two incomes to zero because her business got shut down.
Talk about, “Oh God, what are we going to do now?” When I look back six years later, so glad I made the jump then. Was it ideal timing? Not really, but in some ways it was because it really allowed me to focus on– It’s actually when I came up with the PIE system, because we just all had a lot of time to do a lot of thinking and things like that. I would call that a highlight or a win for me personally was just turning what could have been a really terrible thing, going from two incomes to zero, to really within that first year, we were able to get back up to that two-income level. That was nice. That was a good win for me.
[00:19:10] Tom: Thank you for sharing that. Let’s talk about a multiplier. Have you used a multiplier to grow yourself personally, professionally, or organizations you’ve run?
[00:19:19] Andy: I think that I’ve gone to so many professional and personal development conferences and retreats and seminars over the years. I think each time you do that, you actually multiply. You multiply in terms of relationships, in terms of new ideas. There’s one in particular that I went in the mountains of Colorado like 20 years ago, and it literally changed the course of my life. That led me to another type of conference retreat, et cetera, that told me it was time to get out of law and into something else. I just think multipliers like that, get out of your day-to-day, get out of your comfort zone and go be exposed to people, new places, new ideas. That’s probably the best multiplier I can think of.
The second best one, I think, in terms of specific strategy for my business, is the reason why I wrote the book, is also a multiplier effect. Because now people have access to the system and can implement the system with an investment of $20. I really wanted to make that available to business owners to get this idea in more business owners’ hands. This was a great part of my distribution model to do that. Obviously, if business owners resonate with the book and the ideas in it and need some help staying accountable and implementing the system, we offer that service as well. We call them training camps.
You come in with a group of other small group of other business owners, you all go through the implementation of The Whole PIE System together, which is really fun, really neat. It also, going back to how we’re different than other models, it also is a way to keep that investment a little bit– actually, quite a bit lower than if you’re going to engage somebody with one of the other systems. We do the one-on-one as well for a higher fee, for sure, but the training camp really offers a way for business owners to get a big bang for their buck, so to speak.
[00:21:19] Tom: The final question we ask every guest is, what does success mean to you?
[00:21:24] Andy: Tom, you can probably guess with the name of my system. I do really, really believe it’s part of my DNA that that in order to be a successful small business owner, you need to have success in all three of these areas. If you’re unsuccessful in all three of these areas, then your small business is not successful, in my opinion. You need to make money, and hopefully, as much money as you can.
I’m all about it because I think that the more profit you make is a direct reflection of the impact and the value that you’re creating. So great. Make as much money as you can, make other people’s lives as much better as you can, and enjoy this little dance we have called life as much as you can. You started a small business to make your life better. If it isn’t making your life better, then something needs to change. If anybody’s in that situation, I love the opportunity to help them out.
[00:22:25] Tom: Wonderful. Andy, as we bring this to a close, is there anything you were hoping to share or get across that you haven’t had a chance to yet?
[00:22:33] Andy: Yes. I think, Tom, that if I’m listening to this, it’s hard to really understand, like, how does the system work? How does this Andy Clark guy and his system, how is it actually going to work. He says it’s going to increase profit, impact, enjoyment. By the way, you can do those things in as little as three months. Lots of success stories; you can go to the website to see those.
One of the ways that I’ve discovered to really try to communicate this so that people can get it rather quickly is I’m a big into sports. I love sports analogies. Really what the system is moneyball thinking for small business. If you’ve seen the movie Moneyball, you don’t understand what it is, Tom, what happened in Moneyball, Moneyball was the Oakland A’s, small market team. Their owner didn’t want to spend a lot of money. They’re trying to compete with the big market New York Yankees, who have an unlimited payroll.
How do they do that? Well, they weren’t going to do it by doing the same old things. What they did, they had to find something different, something new. What they seized on, of course, was that on-base percentage was more important than any of the other stat lines. Then they built their team around people who could get on-base. A lesser known example is Golden State Warriors. They won four championships. How did they win four championships? They figured out something simple in hindsight, but they were the first one to do it. They figured out that a three-point basket is worth 50% more than a two-point basket. Duh.
They were the first to really seize on it and say, “Even if we miss more of those three pointers, the more we take, we’re going to win more games. If we get some really good shooters like Steph Curry and Klay Thompson that can bury those three pointers, the defense has to come out and guard us. Then it becomes easier to lob it in under the basket. Draymond Green, he puts in the layout. That’s how they won four championships until other teams could catch up and figured out how to do that also.
Lots of other sports examples, but the reason why I’m sharing all this is that winning organizations, they figure out what those drivers of success are. Then they build all other people and their systems and they align that around those drivers of success. That’s what The Whole PIE System does. It helps you identify what are those drivers of success. Then it helps you build your people and your systems and your data around those drivers. That’s really in a nutshell how we get to that increased profit, impact, and enjoyment.
[00:25:13] Tom DuFore 25: Andy, thank you so much for a fantastic interview. Let’s go ahead and jump into today’s three key takeaways. Takeaway number one is the definition of his PIE system, The Whole PIE System, which is the three elements. It’s profit, impact, and enjoyment. Profit, impact, and enjoyment. Takeaway number two is when he found that most business owners, when you ask them, what do you want to get out of your business? It’s usually one of these three. I thought that was a great summary. That’s a great reflection question for you. Takeaway number three is another question that he found a lot of business owners run across, which is, how can I cease to be the bottleneck in my own business?
Now it’s time for today’s win-win. I thought the win-win for today is when Andy said that having an operating system is more important than the one you choose. Having an operating system is more important than the one you choose. I repeated that twice because I think that’s just a great little takeaway. While I’m sure Andy would love for you to run his PIE system or Whole PIE System, certainly at the end of the day, having a framework and a system to follow and lead and run your business on is better than just trying to run it blindly.
That’s the episode today, folks. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and give us a review. Remember, if you or anyone you know might be ready to franchise their business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at bigskyfranchiseteam.com where you can schedule your free, no obligation consultation. Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to having you back next week.
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