Running a Successful Business

Written by Sal Salafia, Certified Avian Specialist, Founder of Exotic Pet bird

Running a successful business requires consistent adaption to change. Economy, market shifts, government bureaucracy and consumer trends to name a few. Running a bird store is taking that consistent inconsistency and levels up ten notches; animal welfare, animal education, finding great loving homes and balancing the needs of the business while simultaneously balancing the needs of the animals.

Today, I write this blog to address the gratitude for an amazing team that works here. They work tirelessly to address all of the above. They have my continued request for excellence and I know they don’t need that request because they work very hard for everyone and for all the animals. This year’s unbelievable national win of the Coolest Pet business contest leaves me wondering what’s next?

I had the opportunity to read the judges comments, these are some highlights we enjoyed:

Shelly Armstrong, World Pet Association

“The store exterior is super nice. Nicely laid out inside, well organized and very clean.”

Georganne Bender, KIZER & BENDER SPEAKING!

“The owner’s values are imprinted in this store’s DNA, and customers and the community are responding.”

Alison Schwartz, All Pets Considered 

“In a day and age where you are breeding and selling animals, it is admirable to be an advocate for education and protection of those animals as well — so I applaud all that you are doing to protect and educate

It’s always been my goal to keep this place reaching for the sky, that our beautiful birds fly in! When we started we were trying to create an amazing company but we didn’t have all the resources we have today. We had a staff that I refer to as “our pioneers”. They didn’t have the resources we have today, they didn’t have the financial backing we have built up to support what happens here, but they had the grit. They had the desire and they had the ability to adapt. I’ll always look back at those hard days fondly.

After having the industry judges assess the company as closely as they did at Pets+ it is obvious to me that we needed to reach a level of maturity as a company to earn this award. To be considered the best of the best, we needed to get our footing down, it was always my hope that we would one day be named One of America’s Coolest Pet Businesses by them.

Over the years we’ve implemented strategies, systems, technology and added more care hours to back a growing company. That structure impressed our evaluators and I can understand why. I think my early pioneer staff would have loved to work in this environment. Don’t get me wrong what we had was nice but we leveled up to a scale I just never thought we would have reached. The state of the art facility we work within was all customized for this company. Created not only for Aviculture, but Aviculture in our area. When we decided to get into reptiles we invested big time into infrastructure. There is a difference between the way a company that raises and breeds birds can do things down south verse up north, customization is key. We can’t utilize fresh air like they can down south year round so we new that the first huge investment had to be in a state of the art air filtration system that pulls fresh air in and kicks the old out. Leaving the healthiest of environments for everyone!