416 ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Teaching Franchises to Fly
When Jim Carpenter opened his first retail
store in 1981, he remembers some potential
customers walking by without even glancing
through his window. Carpenter claims he did-
n’t care. “It’s not like I gambled the farm,” he
says. “I took a one-year lease at $400 a
month... If worst came to worst, I’d close up
shop after the year and go back to working
for someone else. Meanwhile, I would have
fun spending time talking about birds.”
But Carpenter got to have fun and remain
self-employed. Not only was his first store in
Indianapolis successful but now, thanks to
franchising, there are more than 300 Wild
Birds Unlimited stores in 43 states and 4
Canadian provinces.
From the beginning Wild Birds Unlimited
has been a different kind of franchise opera-
tion. The franchise mission statement reads,
“We bring people and nature together and we
do it with excellence.” Carpenter, who has a
master’s degree in ecological plant physiolo-
gy, says his stores are more than a retail
operation: He sees them as a community
resource that provides valuable knowledge
about the hobby of bird feeding. The stores
don’t all look the same, and the locations
were all picked by the franchisees, not target-
ed by the franchisor.
Bird watching and bird feeding aren’t
everyone’s hobbies, so Carpenter isn’t cater-
ing to a broad market. And bird enthusiasts
can purchase seed, feeders, binoculars, and
other supplies at many other stores at lower
prices. What Wild Birds Unlimited offers is a
premium shopping experience with informa-
tion and education for consumers, and cus-
tom products and seed blends. Owners are
encouraged to develop a friendly relationship
with their customers; at least one franchisee
reports that 80 percent of her business
comes from 20 percent of the people who
walk through the door.
Carpenter became interested in franchis-ing because his customers told him what he
was doing “looked like fun,” and his informa-
tion for prospective franchisees still talks
about the “adventure of retail” and the satis-
faction of spending “days with nice people.”
Carpenter says, “I can’t find owners for my
franchises—they have to find me,” and all but
two of his storeowners did exactly that. “It’s
really important that our people both love
what they do and want to be successful,” he
explains. “Our store is more about teaching
than selling.”
Wild Birds Unlimited has the same kind of
relationship with its franchisees that it
encourages them to have with their cus-
tomers. New owners receive extensive train-
ing not only in business fundamentals, but
also in whatever they need to become a bird
authority for their area. Company representa-
tives check in with every store once a week,
and a Franchise Support Center staffed by
40 professionals is available to help owners
during regular business hours. “It’s really
important to take care of the individual
stores,” says Carpenter. “The growth of the
system depends on it.” Franchisees obvious-
ly appreciate his commitment: A survey con-
ducted by Success magazine named Wild
Birds Unlimited first in franchisee satisfaction.
The network of Wild Birds Unlimited stores
now has more than $100 million in annual
sales, yielding the parent company $5.1 mil-
lion in royalties and other revenue. “We have
always taught our store owners that nature
education provides its own rewards,” says
Carpenter. “It’s very satisfying, it adds so
much to customers’ lives, and it comes back
to you in your business.”
SOURCE: Adapted from Victoria D. Williams, “Wild Birds
Still Flying,” Indianapolis Business Journal, July 24, 2006:
3; Geoff Pollack, “For the Birds: Seeds of Invention,” The
College Magazine, Indiana University,Summer 2001.
Retrieved from the Web September 1, 2006.
http://www.indiana.edu/~college/magazine/s2001.inven-
tion.shtmland http://www.wbu.com.STREET STORY 10.4