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Before the first quarter of the year is up, <a href="http://franchise.wbu.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=wild-birds-unlimited-celebrates-record-number-of-openings-3942" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow">Wild Birds Unlimited</a> has already had a wildly - pun completely intended - successful 2016.

Chief Development Officer Paul Pickett says Wild Birds Unlimited awarded 15 franchise units in 2015, a 50 percent increase from the prior year and all the hard work is now paying off in seeing these new franchisees open their locations and realize their dream. &ldquo;We had one location open already in February, five this month alone will open, and an anticipated 12+ total locations will open their doors over all of 2016,&rdquo; explained Pickett. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a pivotal point in the growth of our brand and to say we&rsquo;re thrilled would be an understatement.&rdquo;

Pickett said of the five locations opening in March - Houston and San Antonio, TX; Morgantown, WV; Eustis, FL; and Frankfort KY - the franchisees come from a variety of backgrounds and experience levels, yet all share one thing in common: the enthusiasm to hit the ground running in the ownership of their own business and the opportunity to bring people and nature together in their local communities.

Anthony Rodriguez recently opened his Houston location and says after 25 years of working in a lab as an analytical chemist, he&rsquo;s looking forward to realizing a dream of business ownership that he and his wife have discussed since they met one another. &ldquo;This is something we&rsquo;ve always talked about and as a result we&rsquo;ve based our entire lifestyle around being frugal, building up our assets and net worth and making sure we didn&rsquo;t have any debt,&rdquo; explained Rodriguez. &ldquo;My wife&rsquo;s uncle owns several franchise locations of a donut shop here in this area and so we&rsquo;ve always been familiar with franchising and knew when it was time, we&rsquo;d research franchise concepts that could be a fit for us.&rdquo;

Rodriguez knew he was interested in retail as the hours would be more lifestyle friendly than his previous 70-hour work week in the lab. His specialty has always been focused in metal analysis and trace metals in the environmental sphere (think dirt, drinking water, etc.), and he was particularly interested to see if there was anything out there related to environmentally friendly products and sustainability.

With a start up investment of between $125,000 to just under $200,000, which includes a franchisee fee of $25,000, Rodriguez was immediately intrigued when he realized Wild Birds Unlimited was a franchise opportunity because of its mission to bring people and nature together.

&ldquo;I had been a customer in the past and my mother had been a Wild Birds Unlimited customer,&rdquo; said Rodriguez. &ldquo;I always liked the concept. For me working as many hours as I did in the lab, I didn&rsquo;t necessarily have the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors as much as I would have liked, but I was able to create my own little oasis in my backyard and bring nature to me after a long day. When I learned this was a franchise, I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to be able to provide the same thing for other people.&rdquo;

For Rodriguez, the decision was a relatively easy one once he met with the leadership team of Wild Birds Unlimited. &ldquo;I just found that the support from the franchisor was much more in depth and inclusive than other opportunities I had looked at and of course the investment was in line with the range I was comfortable with,&rdquo; said Rodriguez. &ldquo;But I think most importantly, when you&rsquo;re going to invest your life savings into something, it&rsquo;s got to be a product you can truly stand behind. Being able to help people in my community bring wildlife to their own backyard was a perfect way to combine my love for nature with business.&rdquo;

As the relatively new ownership team has taken over operations of Wild Birds Unlimited, Pickett says the benefits of a multi departmental approach have already paid off ten fold for new franchisees. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got someone focused on training, someone on education, someone on marketing and two dedicated business coaches and it&rsquo;s really made a difference for franchisees in their first year and beyond,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re able to provide a very custom level of support dependent upon how much or how little business experience a franchisee has and this in turn also allows us to really focus on candidates who are a great fit for our culture and truly passionate about our product. It has resulted in a really spectacular atmosphere throughout the franchise system as a whole.&rdquo;

Pickett says with the refined systems in place, he has been able to ramp up development efforts and plans to sign 20 new franchise agreements this year in varied markets across the country.

For more information about franchising with Wild Birds Unlimited, <a href="http://wildbirdsunlimited.1851franchise.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=wild-birds-unlimited-celebrates-record-number-of-openings-3942" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">click here</a>.

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Development work carries over from 2015 and culminates in record month for leading nature retail franchise.

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