Video Transcript: Richard Edie Testimonial

(Description: Wild Birds Unlimited Logo and “Finding the Perfect Business” appears on screen then fades. “Richard Edie – Cypress, TX” with the Wild Birds Unlimited logo appears lower left side of screen.)

[Richard:] I’m Richard Edie and my wife, Robbie and I, opened our Wild Birds Unlimited store in Cypress, Texas – which is just outside Houston, Texas three years ago in 2014. Our first encounter with Wild Birds Unlimited was in Springfield, Missouri, where my mom lives and first time we walked into the store it was just like an, “Oh wow” factor. It was a place that just felt like home.

Having been raised watching and feeding the birds my whole life, it seemed like it was sort of the next natural progression as we started, you know, moving toward retirement. Well, it happened that my wife retired in 2013 and so we were talking about what the next step was going to be for us, and so we reached out to the business development team at Wild Birds Unlimited and they made the process extremely easy for us. We went through the entire process. Made a lot of sense to us.

One of the big decisions that we had to make as a couple was, I was going to continue working and my wife Robbie was going to continue to run the store, so, working through all of the logistics and the details around how that was going to work. You know, we worked all of those issues out prior to signing our deal and I’m really glad that we did, because when we opened our store in November of 2014, we’ve just been off to the races. I think if you’re in a similar situation and you’re trying to decide if you think that makes sense for you, I can tell you that it’s an absolutely workable situation because while it is a lot of work, you can really complement each other while one is in the store, for us, operationally, I’m working outside the store at a corporate job still, but in the evenings, I work on the marketing plans, the websites, the social media, a lot of the things that Robbie couldn’t handle while she’s still trying to do staffing and placing orders and stocking the floor and doing all of those things operationally that actually take a lot of work as well.

So the support that you get from the franchise is fantastic and for me personally, being the third year in the franchise, I actually was able to be a part of the Franchise Advisory Council which, this is my first meeting at and I can tell you that the participation level of the franchisees is second to none. You’ll truly have a voice in the direction of the franchise and that they’re here to make sure that you’re going to be successful. So, if you have any second thoughts about whether or not you think this is the franchise for you, I encourage you to just work with the business development team. Work your way through the process and it’ll be a pretty clear answer for you at the end of that, whether or not it works for you. We’re super glad that we did and we have nothing but optimism for the future.