---
title: "A Place to Create Community: How One CEO Wraps His Love of Feeding Birds Into a Gathering Event for His Stores"
url: https://burnaze.com/article/d3f29860-9285-4a32-a559-36c07b1544ef
source: "1851 Franchise"
original_url: https://1851franchise.com/a-place-to-create-community-how-one-ceo-wraps-his-love-of-feeding-birds-into-a-gathering-event-for-his-stores-2703040
category: "Specialty retail"
industry: "Retail"
segment: "Specialty retail"
topics: ["People"]
published: 2017-06-14T16:11:52.000Z
modified: 2026-11-01T03:12:07.315Z
image: https://newimage.1851franchise.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,format=webp,width=1280,height=720/story/featureImage/068fb7a41f20bcfb57a5ad1bdfdd05127368.jpg
---

# A Place to Create Community: How One CEO Wraps His Love of Feeding Birds Into a Gathering Event for His Stores

**TL;DR:** Wild Birds Unlimited CEO Jim Carpenter has created a gathering event for his stores to promote community and bird-feeding enthusiasts through his book tour. Carpenter's book tour aimed to facilitate the company's goal of its locations serving as a place for like-minding bird-feeding enthusiasts to gather in a community.

*originally published in 1851 Franchise on 2017-06-14. [Read the original](https://1851franchise.com/a-place-to-create-community-how-one-ceo-wraps-his-love-of-feeding-birds-into-a-gathering-event-for-his-stores-2703040).*

## Story

The book offers practical tips and solutions to attracting and identifying birds, offering the best foods for the birds readers want to see, and explains how to deter unwanted guests from feeding stations. Carpenter's book tour this Spring aimed to facilitate the company's goal of its locations serving as a place for like-minding bird-feeding enthusiasts to gather in a community.

- He met and chatted with nearly 1,000 Wild Birds Unlimited customers while signing books at 14 of their stores over the last two months.
- Customers shared with him how much they love their local Wild Birds Unlimited store, the staff, the owners, and their high-quality products.
- They appreciated that the food works so well and has no waste, and enjoy the birds so much because of the expert advice they receive at their stores.
- Customers also look forward to every visit to their store so they can share their stories and learn more about the hobby of backyard bird feeding.

Local store owners have found multiple purposes for the book. Joe Perez, owner of the Birmingham, AL WBU store, plans to give a book to each of his associates so they can familiarize themselves with all of the details. He is also amazed at the depth of knowledge.

Heather and Scott Lee, owners of the Evansville, IN WBU location, recently hosted Carpenter for a book signing. They had 75 customers in the store and a steady flow at the signing table. Carpenter was amazing as always, talking and interacting with their customers.

Carpenter will continue his book tour later this summer, but for now, the book continues to serve as a springboard for facilitating local owner and customer communication and feedback.

- Many of their customers are reading the book in detail and putting tabs on different sections for easy reference.
- Customers are bringing in their questions about different aspects of the hobby, which Carpenter feels will result in enabling bird feeding hobbyists to be more thoughtfully intense about their hobby.

The 16 stops on The Joy of Bird Feeding book tour included visits to Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Virginia, Kentucky, Texas, and Illinois. Plans to visit Wild Birds Unlimited stores on both coasts are in the works for later this summer.

## Entities

- 1851 Franchise (publication)
- Retail (sector)
- Wild Birds Unlimited (company)
- community building (topic)
- bird feeding (topic)
- book tour (topic)

---
Originally reported by 1851 Franchise (https://1851franchise.com/a-place-to-create-community-how-one-ceo-wraps-his-love-of-feeding-birds-into-a-gathering-event-for-his-stores-2703040). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/d3f29860-9285-4a32-a559-36c07b1544ef).