Channel Mastery - Ep. 149: Nancy Guinn, Owner of Dog Krazy
Dog Krazy
nancy guinn, dog krazy
“...It's more of a personal experience. We really consider our customers to be family. Even the ones that do shop online, they still come to our stores. Granted they don't buy in bulk like they used to when they would come in for food, but they still come in for toys and treats and things. They have to see and feel and touch. And I'm still doing events, which is still bringing them to the stores. So that way they're still coming in and wanting to participate in the events that we're doing.”
- Nancy Guinn
episode preview
Hello my friends and welcome to episode 149 of the Channel Mastery podcast.
It’s the beginning of November 2020 as I’m recording this - we have a big day happening this week. It’s a lot, isn’t it? This election?
What I have planned for you today is a light respite from the rhetoric you may be being bombarded with on EVERY CHANNEL known to man and woman kind - right now.
So…. Let’s drop in!
Channel Mastery exists to level the playing field for specialty brands as the competition continues to climb around reaching, engaging and converting today’s consumer. Winning their attention, let alone keeping it? It’s a continual street fight…
My guest today is the absolute epitome of specialty and I am delighted to present this interview to you because it literally screams to us that we need to pay attention to the details, be as human as we can, and live to serve the people in our brand and retail specialty communities.
Nancy Guinn is the founder and President of Dog Krazy, a retail pet product store that is so much more than that.
Nancy takes the time to get to know and tailor service to her shoppers and her community. She knows what she’s great at and what her business excels at, and she keeps building more surprise and delight of the specialty variety into the channels that her people follow her and Dog Krazy on.
So, Dog Krazy was founded in 2006, but you know what’s amazing? Her expansion hit a fever pitch in 2020 - yes, the COVID 2020… They now have seven total locations and a very robust, regionalized social media presence and following. The channels all feed each other, and give Nancy and her team the opportunity to present their forms of customer care in so many ways throughout their target shoppers’ journey.
This is an entertaining episode, and Nancy is very very energetic. Take note of three things you can either resurrect in your specialty business, or that you can start to try through the rest of 2020 and into 2021. I hope you enjoy this special episode of the Channel Mastery podcast - consider this cross-training for your specialty business!
guest profiles
nancy guinn
Nancy Guinn is founder and President of Dog Krazy Inc. The first location was established in August 2006 when Nancy realized she wanted to spend every moment of her life with her bulldog, Pignet. Piglet was the inspiration for Dog Krazy and since her passing, Dog Krazy has expanded to seven locations throughout Virginia.
topics covered
Specialty Business, Human Connection, Pet Industry, Expansion During COVID, Consumer Behavior Shifts during COVID
select quotes
“...It's more of a personal experience. We really consider our customers to be family. Even the ones that do shop online, they still come to our stores. Granted they don't buy in bulk that they used to when they would come in for food, but they still come in for toys and treats and things. They have to see and feel and touch. And I'm still doing events, which is still bringing them to the stores. So that way they're still coming in and wanting to participate in the events that we're doing.”
“So I'm actually immunocompromised. So I couldn't be in my stores for the first couple of months. My husband would not allow it. I have a heart and lung condition and he was like, we can't have you there. If something happens to me, then, you know, there's not much they can do to save me. ...Another reason we rented the warehouse was because I could be there and I could be safe and I could still interact with my customers. So every order that came in, I would actually personalize it. So I would have a handwritten note. I always sent a little gift with it, whether it was a bag of treats or a sticker or something fun, I would all decorate the box with the dog's name on it. So I made sure they knew that I was still there, even though they weren't seeing me in the store.”
“...And then when COVID hit, people were freaking out, of course. So I was like, I have to calm people down. So then I started doing live videos. So they saw me, they saw my reactions to everything, what we were doing. I was trying to make people calm cause at one point people were buying in bulk and just buying a ton of food. And I didn't want to run out of food for all of my customers. I wanted to make sure everybody was able to feed their pets.”
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