030 - Professional Pet Sitters Week 2020
Brought to you by Time to Pet. Go to timetopet.com/confessional for 50% off your first 3 months
On this weeks episode, we talk through several key aspects about life as a professional pet sitter, and areas we can all strive to work on. We know you’re hard at work, and you know that, so thank you for continuing to be awesome!
Topics for This episode:
1) Our 7 themes for this week
2) Continuing Improvement and Continuous Improvement
3) Professional
4) Managing Communication
5) Taking Photos
6) Legal Things
7) A THANK YOU to you, the professional pet sitter.
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
pet sitter, pet, client, sitters, people, business, dog, care, day, updates, boarding, professional, post, pictures, set, staying, courses, important, walk, photos
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin
Collin 00:15
I'm Collin
Meghan 00:16
and I'm Meghan. And this is pet sitter confessional, and open and honest discussion about life as a pet
Collin 00:22
sitter, brought to you by time to pet.
Meghan 00:25
Hello, and welcome to another episode this week we are going to talk all about professional pet sitting. So if you guys didn't know, this is professional pet sitters week, this year, it's March first through the seventh. And so we want to take this week and just kind of celebrate us and you and all of the pet sitters that work so hard out there. It really is. It's a very rewarding job but it's tough at the same time. So we just want to give a shout out to everybody listening and all the pet sitters out there. You are seen you are heard and your Hard work does not go unnoticed. I want to briefly mention also last week's episode, where we had Dan's dog walking and pet sitting on. That was an extremely informative episode. And he was able to give us a lot of great information and tips to further our businesses and to help us in gaining new clients and grow our existing businesses.
Collin 01:24
We will start off this episode by talking about our themes for this week. And if you've been following us on Instagram or Facebook, you will have seen several of our posts so far,
Meghan 01:33
and those posts have gotten some incredible engagement. Thank you so much for responding to them and helping other pet sitters, other pet sitters have been reading them and responding and just thank you so much for helping others learn from you.
Collin 01:45
Our first post was all about getting started as a pet sitter, which was love pets, respect people and be ready to work.
Meghan 01:53
So in this career, you need a passion for pets. Even if you got into this as just a business. You need to have A passion and a willingness to care for pets because these are living beings and people are entrusting us with their most precious beings on earth. And so we need to have the same care and compassion for their pets as they do
Collin 02:16
for their pets, and then respect people. I have yet to be paid by Phyto after a walk, they've never pulled out their wallet to pay for my services. So you are having to interact with people I know lots of us joke about we are pet people and we're not people people. But the people are the ones who pay the bills and they are our clients first and foremost,
Meghan 02:38
and also be ready to work. This is a fun job where there's lots of puppy cuddles and kitty kisses. But at the end of the day, we are still picking up poop and cleaning up messes and so it does take a lot of hard work.
Collin 02:51
Our next theme was about why be a pet sitter. We had four reasons you have a flexible schedule. You are getting to be a caregiver all the cute pets. And then it's a satisfying career. So a flexible schedule. I know this will be debatable among some people. But remember, as a business you are as busy or as not busy as you choose to be. When you have those proper boundaries setup, you don't have to be working 1216 hour days every single day, if you don't want to be,
Meghan 03:21
especially if you have a bunch of employees under you who do the work for you and you don't actually do any walks anymore. We know some people just travel the world. And they they rely on their team to do the actual walking and the pet sitting. And then like I mentioned, like I mentioned, you are a caregiver. So you are taking care of living beings. And so it's a precious career that we have chosen to take care of other living things. It is it is a joy to really do that. All the
Collin 03:46
key pets Need I say more. I mean that's one of the reasons most of us get into this. And it helps get us get throughout the day when you realize that you get to interact and be around all these cute, adorable, fluffy critters
Meghan 03:58
and then at the end of it, it is is a satisfying career you're helping people who truly need you need your services, and you're helping dogs and cats and lizards and fish who need you as well. We
Collin 04:08
then posted about various services that someone could provide, such as morning dog walking, drop ins,
Meghan 04:15
a groomer pet taxi, a wedding attendant housesitting, a pet photographer,
Collin 04:19
doggy daycares, a pooper scooper and a flight nanny
Meghan 04:22
and a flying nanny is pretty cool. So I had not heard of this before, but it's someone who will get a dog or a puppy and fly it to where you are. And that would be a pretty a pretty cool job to be able to fly and be with pets at the same time.
Collin 04:34
Today's post is all about essential equipment as a pet sitter.
Meghan 04:38
First and foremost, you need to have a first aid kit not only at your home, if you are doing boarding or a doggy daycare, but also in your car as well. If you're doing drop in checks or walks, dove you're doing boarding You will also need lots of cleaning supplies because messes do happen.
Collin 04:52
If you're doing walks either a good shoulder bag or a fanny pack. They're called runners pouches not fanny packs if you want to be stylish but you can could have one of those to store all of your things so that you aren't holding all the items in your hands. And then a really solid lead, ie, not a retractable one.
Meghan 05:08
If you're doing housesitting or drop ins a durable key ring or a safe place to store all of your keys. Make sure you label them as well so that you know exactly who's who and you don't mix them up.
Collin 05:18
And then if you're doing doggy daycares, having lots of toys and interactive games to challenge and help them learn and be social. The three topics that will finish this week out are tomorrow, we're going to post about customer service. So this when we're talking about customer service, we're really thinking about communication, effective communication, making sure that what you're saying is what's being received by the other person. Another component to this is never saying no without an alternative. And this means either referring them to somebody else, so another another pet sitter in your area, or maybe recommending a different date or time that works best for you. Then here you're really acting out is a resource to the individual helping them in all things pet care,
Meghan 06:05
an important component of being a professional pet sitter is also taking some self care time for yourself as a pet sitter. It is really easy to get burned out, we're just going all the time, even on holiday sometimes. And so taking that time for yourself. And self care is kind of an overused term. It's not always, you know, pour yourself a glass of wine and do a bubble bath. It's whatever works for you. So your self care can look very different from somebody else's self care. It's whatever feeds your soul, and whatever it gets you some separation from the mundane activities that you do every day.
Collin 06:35
If you search on Instagram for self care, you'll see people taking extravagant trips to Bali or all of these remote islands. It doesn't have to look like that self care can just be five to 10 minute breaks where you do nothing but focus on you throughout the day and building those into your schedule.
Meghan 06:51
Our last theme for this week is thanking you the pet sitter for all of your hard work and affirming that this is a hard and some times a thankless job. We have said this over and over again we work long hours, holidays weekends,
Collin 07:06
we put up with so much with people's pets with people that the client doesn't always say thank you. And even though you know you did a good job, sometimes All you want is for them to turn around and recognize that but that doesn't happen all the time. And that can be really hard. And yet you continue to show up day in and day out.
Meghan 07:26
But knowing that you are putting a smile on that dog's face or that cat's face, you're you're taking care of their basic essentials, their food, their water, their exercise, you are providing the best possible service you can for these animals and all the cuddles and the puppy kisses, it makes it worth it. It really does.
Collin 07:47
So if you haven't been told this recently, or by somebody, we want to say thank you, you really are doing great work. So those were our daily themes that we had picked for this professional pet sitter. Week. However, there are a few more topics that we did want to dive into, just to cover because there is a lot that goes into being a professional pet sitter, and one of those first ones that we want to touch on is continuing education. As a professional pet sitter, we are continually striving to educate ourselves, more learning new things, or most of the time, it's reminding ourselves of things that we knew at one point in time. One of the ways that you can do this is by seeking out trainings in your area or attending conferences, we did have an episode about several conferences coming up this year, and there are many more besides that does provide a great opportunity for you to sit down with other pet sitters, have trainings there and then learn from them as to what's working for them and what's not. One of the first trainings that we think every professional pet sitter should have under their belt is CPR and first aid and you can either get this through pet tech or also by Red Cross. It's one of those trainings that will help set you apart from others, but So it'll increase your comfort level. In certain situations, you might also think of attending marketing courses, that might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of training or extra or continued education as a pet sitter, but we run businesses and as a business, you need to market yourself. So there aren't a ton of different marketing courses out there, ranging from small business to large business opportunities. For all the courses that we're mentioning here, there will be links to examples of them in our show notes, which you can find at pet sitter confessional.com, or look in your podcast app that you're listening to right now. Also, as a business, you can seek out customer service courses. And you can even do this through maybe a local college that may offer customer service or interpersonal relationship kind of courses. One of the dreaded ones is that as you start to bring on people under your belt, whether they're administrative or other pet sitters, you become a manager. So if you never wanted to be a manager, maybe you don't know how to be a good one. Then take time to learn and learn from others. As well, something that is constantly changing around us is technology. So staying up to date with the apps for the market, and how customers and clients are expecting to be engaged and reached out to and how they're finding you and your business. I will also say that while not entirely necessary, it can be a way of setting you apart. There are different certifications that you can get through professional societies. So pet sitters international has a way and has a program to be certified as a professional pet sitter. So that's out there. And again, it's not entirely necessary. But if you are looking for ways to add to your resume to set yourself apart or to just be learning more and new things, those avenues are there. Beyond continuing education, we can also think about continuous improvement. Continuous improvement is the idea that it's more than just what you need. Know, it's about how you implement it. It's about what you do every day, and the processes in your business. We've talked about processes and previous episodes. This is just a reminder to always be thinking about what you can do around you small and big, to help make your life easier, whether that save time, save money, whether that's improved communication between you and your clients, or maybe you and your staff, and what tools and resources you need to have in place or seek out
Meghan 11:29
as professional pet sitters. A great way to build community and to support other pet sitters in your area is to get to know them. This Unfortunately, this business, even though it's great, it can be a lonely business, but seeking out resources to help you stay connected will really help you to not feel alone. There is a community out there. We even have a Facebook group called sitter confessionals. And a lot of people have been posting on there and giving their support and feedback to other sisters who have been asking questions about their business and those types of things. So even if those resources are online, even if you connect with other pet sitters only online, at least it's something you can join pet sitter Facebook groups, websites and see if there are meetups in your area. I'm sure a lot of larger cities have local meetups where where pet sitters can get together and share topics and network with each other and share clients. If you are on vacation, you can network with other pet sitters. Also following other sitters on social media, and seeing how they run their businesses. What they do well, what they could do better at and how you can run yours better and more creatively. There are lots of great sitters on Instagram that have large followings. And so seeing kind of what they post and how, how many times a day they post or what their content is can give you a great idea of ways to be more creative. And like Colleen mentioned also taking those marketing courses that will help you to know how to market to your clients, and how to gain more clients along with networking with those pet sitters. You can ask experienced pet sitters questions you have, and also you can get their advice. So I know we've had several people contact us with questions that they have. And so getting to know other sitters and how they run their businesses will help you to run your business better.
Collin 13:34
Have you heard about time to pet Claire from active critter sitters has this to say
13:38
time to pet has honestly revolutionized how we do business. My sitters can work much more independently because they have ongoing access to customer and pet information without relying on me. I save hours upon hours of administrative time on billing, processing payments and generating paychecks.
Collin 13:55
If you are looking for a new pet sitting software for your business, give time to pet a try. As a listener of pet sitter confessional, you'll get 50% off your first three months when you sign up at time to pet.com. Slash confessional. It is professional pet sitters week. So let's talk a little bit about professional ism. What does that mean for us? in this industry, we've already mentioned a few of them. It means seeking out continuing education means building a community. That's the things that professionals do. It also means that you are organized that you are staying organized, you're staying on top of that you have the proper tools in place to help you keep everything in line. And there, it's making sure that you are staying on top of the tasks that you're doing. If you're finding that daily tasks or maybe monthly tasks, because sometimes those can be the hardest to remember, are slipping through the cracks. Maybe that's a sign that it's time to think about. What kind of processes need to be in place and what kind of maybe it's an app, or maybe it's an assistant that needs to come in to help you with that. One component of staying organized is keeping your calendar updated and setting reminders. So you don't forget things, whether that is a digital calendar that you have shared. So if you google calendars, you can share that calendar across everybody that's working for you. If it's just yourself, that's fine, too. But that way, it's synced across all of your devices, as are your reminders. A big component of professionalism is being on time, one of my high school teachers had this thing where he would say, if you're on time, you're late. What that means is you cannot expect to show up right when you're supposed to start doing something and actually be prepared to do it. So showing up a few minutes early so you can be mentally and physically ready to do the tasks that you have to do. One of the things that will do is will show up to a client's house early when we're doing drop ins and we'll spend a few minutes just reviewing The notes that the client left for us so that we remember all the tasks that we're supposed to do when we're taking care of their pad.
Meghan 16:07
Being a professional pet sitter nowadays means taking photos and sending them to your client. So take good quality photos sometimes and in this case, quality over quantity. So you don't need an expensive camera to take pictures. We had a whole pet photography episode on this, and you can just use your smartphone to take pictures. So sometimes less is more. Most clients would rather see two to three good infocus photos rather than 10 photos that are blurry because the dog is moving or plane. If you were doing an overnight stay. We've mentioned this before, don't have the dog in the same place the whole time. So take an outside photo, take one inside one on their bed one while they're eating.
Collin 16:46
I will say Meghan is really good about this. It can be a lot because you are constantly having to change situations or scenarios. But yes, whenever you have a dog with you that's going to be there for a whole month. Providing variety and photos is really important or
Meghan 17:00
If you've had a repeat client for that you've been walking their dog for three years now. And you've been walking the same route, those pictures are probably going to get a little mundane along with the updates. So being a little creative is always helpful. And it keeps the owner informed as to what's going on. And it keeps the dullness of the job from becoming an issue. And some people have different feelings about this. But we are here to watch their pet not take photos of us with them. So I know a lot of sitters take selfies with their clients. We personally don't I believe that the client wants to see their dog having a fun time. And not necessarily you were
Collin 17:34
no one wants to see my ugly face.
Meghan 17:35
Well. I don't know about that. But it is really important to get the dog having a good time and the client doesn't necessarily want to see you in the picture.
Collin 17:47
Don't take it personally, but they're interested in how the dogs doing.
Meghan 17:50
An important part of being a professional pet sitter means you manage the communication between you and the client and you set those expectations with them. So you you ask the client mean greed? How many updates do you want? Do you want a lot? Do you want a little, and then give them your number for typically how often you send updates. So we typically do one within the first hour of drop off and for boarding, or doing daycare, and then three for the first and second day, so sprinkled throughout the day. And then after the second full day of boarding or house sitting, we usually drop down to two pictures or updates per day. And sometimes the clients want more, sometimes they want less, it just depends on the client, and if they're traveling overseas, if they want to pay for those, because a lot of times if you send a picture, it'll cost them extra. And so keeping that in mind as well and knowing that up front, so that you're not charging them when they don't want to be charged, also keeping them updated on how the pet is doing. So if their pet is behaving or getting along with the other dogs, how the pet is eating or drinking, if they're taking their meds just fine or if they're kind of being a pain about it. And any kind of problems that you are having honestly as always policy. So if this is a repeat client, you probably know them pretty well, but the owner will know them the best. And so if there are any kind of problems, make sure you notify the owner right away. And of course, throwing in stories with the update about what their pet did during the day or overnight will also help them put their mind at ease. Some sitters, if they're doing a boarding overnight, they will write a little story about what they thought the dog was dreaming about, and attach a picture of the dog sleeping, or just creative things like that, especially if this is a repeat client that you've been taking care of for years, those kind of updates and those kind of pictures can kind of get a little monotonous. So being creative with those is a good way to keep the client informed and also making sure that you're still having fun too with this job. We like
Collin 19:43
to tell stories about whether the dog saw anything interesting on a walk or how they reacted to meeting a friend or a neighbor on a walk or what favorite toy they're playing with that day.
Meghan 19:55
Also for your sanity, having off hours is crucial. So this goes along with managing the communication and knowing your limits and your boundaries. So for example, you could say to the client, I don't take texts or emails between the hours of 10pm and 6am, except for emergencies. So then the client knows that if they get a phone call at one in the morning from you, they know it's an emergency. And they know that during those hours to leave you alone, because you're sleeping, or just you need some time to yourself as well. And they don't have to constantly check in. If they're if you do have a client that is constantly checking in, and it's not their first day and they're a repeat client. You may need to explain to that client that in order to be the best pet care provider that you can, that you need sleep and time to yourself as well, that you will update them if anything is wrong, but that they don't need to be texting you every hour every couple hours. You could also have several quiet times built into your day so that you can take a break. So if there is doggy play time in the morning and They usually take a nap from 10 to two I know a lot of doggy daycare, kennels are set up this way where they'll have play time in the morning, a nap time in the early afternoon and then play time the rest of the afternoon until the dogs go home. So setting those expectations early for you and the client, and then hold to them, so that they don't expect you to respond within 15 minutes if they text you at 3am. Because you have already told them that you don't accept texts or emails or phone calls between those set hours and sticking to them. It's very important so that the client doesn't take advantage of you.
Collin 21:31
Being a professional pet sitter also means that you have taken care of all of the legal things. First and foremost, this is that you have a solid attorney reviewed contract. Now you can have all you can have the most solid contract in the whole world. But if your client actually hasn't read it, it doesn't do you much good. So asking them about the contract, having questions in there talking to them about the contract after they have after you've given them time to review it and For they've signed, it will help to alleviate any misunderstandings, something that I know we've talked about a lot. And it's a point of discussion where a lot of people ask how you do this is to be insured and bonded. This is important so that you are covered financially and legally in aspects of care and alleged wrongdoing. And all those things.
Meghan 22:23
One of the insurance companies that we mentioned all the time is business insurers of the Carolinas, but they're also a lot more out there.
Collin 22:29
Other legal things include meeting your state and city codes. Unfortunately, these can change quite suddenly if you're not staying up to date on them. So checking in every now and then. And this can limit the kind of services that you may or may not be able to offer. Your city may not allow more than three dogs in your home for any reason. Well, that means that daycares and boarding may not be feasible for you. Additionally, some of the requirements to do boarding can be quite high in some locations. Check into those before you get started. And if you are currently providing services and you haven't checked into those, definitely do that before serious repercussions come your way. And finally, the topic we all dread talking about our taxes. This is very important. Even if you get paid in cash, you need to be tracking your expenses, tracking your income and paying your taxes.
Meghan 23:23
So again, we really want to thank you for joining us today for all about how to be a professional pet sitter. We hope that this has been informative for you and giving you some things to think about. Like I mentioned, we are going to be continuing to post on our social media about these different topics throughout the rest of the week. And we thank you so much for you guys for contributing your feedback to these it's really helping out other pet sitters. It's helping us and thank you for engaging on there, and especially to our the members of our sitter confessionals group on Facebook. And if you want to join that you can, it's a private group, but you just click Join And we will accept you. And thank you so much for your hard work that you put in every day. It really means a lot to your clients, even if they don't tell you it. And especially it means a lot to the Pats. They can't talk. But if they would, I'm sure they would say thank you
Collin 24:14
thinking back through those topics that we just touched on just briefly and kind of lightning speed. There's a lot there. And most people don't realize the amount of thought prep work legal things and creativity that goes into this job. Unfortunately, many of us hear the phrase, anyone can you do your job isn't that hard? But it is and we know that and I know you know that and there will always be somebody out there that's going to be charging less than you do. But think of the quality of work that they provide and never undervalue yourself. Charge what you are worth in charge what you need to be earning to make a living and remind yourself clients that you are a professional, you do have the certifications, you do continue to go back for education you do put all this other work in outside of just the pet care, because you take it that seriously and encourage those in your area who are just starting out. So if there are high school kids wanting to get into this, encourage them to go down the proper channels so that they are doing it right and foster that community and mentorship. So thank you to all those who are killing it with these kind of things every single day. That when you think of professionalism, you pursue excellence in it in all that you do. That's not easy. Just think of professional athletes or Olympic athletes. They make it look effortless, and it's at that moment you know that they're working their absolute hardest, so to is it whenever we pursue excellence and all that we do, clients won't see it from the outside people. around you won't necessarily comment on it. But remember, it's in those moments whenever other people think it looks effortless
Meghan 26:07
and easy. Absolutely. So we thank you again, and we hope that you join us next week.
