068- Pet care and BLM Pt. 2
Summary:
This episode is Part 2 of our Black Lives Matter conversation. If you haven’t already, go back and listen to Part 1. Natasha sat down with us to discuss some pretty heavy questions and topics. By focusing on what we can do, in our businesses and personally, we can all work to help everyone feel welcome in the pet care industry and in our world.
Topics on this episode:
Diversity concerns in pet care
Ensuring diversity in the workplace
Supporting our employees
Diversity as a solo sitter?
Natasha’s experience as a Black women in America
Addressing BLM as a business
A response to “but this has nothing to do with pet care”
Lessons
Being agents of change
Main takeaway? The best resource…is to start the conversation today!
Links:
Natasha O’Banion (Renzo& Ruby)
Facebook Groups:
Pet Care Professionals for Black Lives
Organizations:
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
The Southern Poverty Law Centre
Apps to find Black Businesses:
Give us a call! (636) 364-8260
Check out our Covid-19 resources
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Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, & TuneIn
Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, business, clients, natasha, community, feel, conversation, policies, care, pet sitter, employees, talked, topics, walker, diversity, culture, listen, work, dog, person
SPEAKERS
Collin, Natasha
00:17
I'm Collin and I'm Meghan. And this is pet sitter confessional,
00:21
an open and
00:22
honest discussion about life as a pet sitter.
Collin 00:29
Well, hello, everybody and welcome back to a special Tuesday episode. Yesterday was our pet care community and Black Lives Matter part one where we had a really good discussion between Natasha Oh Banyan and Kylie Holliman-Rivera. And today we wanted to bring Natasha back on to answer some more questions about what all this means for the pet care community. And a little bit more about her background and some of her experiences. The whole intent behind this is to lift people's voices and For a lot of people to do some listening, and I've talked about it before, but just how that can be some uncomfortable spaces. For many of us. I know myself included, this is a time for a lot of learning and in hearing people out. So Natasha, I really want to thank you so much for coming on today. And in talking about a lot of these topics.
Natasha 01:19
It's my pleasure, Collin, thank you so much.
Collin 01:21
One of the first questions that comes out when with this topic is the issue of diversity. And so I was curious if you think that there if there is a diversity issue in the pet care industry,
Natasha 01:33
Yeah, totally. It's so it's so great right now that we're having these conversations, because they're kind of we're we're peeling back the layers of the onion, if you will. And I mean, for right now, we're looking for lists and things of finding people in the pet care industry or, you know, finding black owned businesses, and it's actually not that easy to get to get the list together is actually pretty difficult. So it just kind of shows you that You know, clicking on a few links, it is pretty difficult to find, you know, your local black pet care business. So know the diversity is unfortunately not there. That obviously stems from just years and years of just like, you know, animal culture, dog culture, you know, maybe some black communities also, just being behind far is a luxury in life. And obviously, dog ownership is part of that luxury. But we're changing that now. So we're really excited for that.
Collin 02:27
And a follow up to that question is, as we look to our businesses, in our workplaces, a lot of people have this question of how can we ensure that there is diversity of all kinds and in our businesses and where we work,
Natasha 02:40
I would say for sure, just what we're talking about. Now, you know, anytime there is a dominant space in any atmosphere, and the invitation is not sent out for everyone to feel included. It's just really opening up those safe spaces. So if your intention is to offer inclusive and diverse work environment When you do go through applicants or when you are looking for different spots to fill in your in your environment, you start to kind of look for who would be best fitted where. And that doesn't always mean race. But if you are wanting to give off that image, you want to keep your eyes open versus saying, Hey, this is a person who I would say, you know, there's a culture add people who we feel more comfortable, quote, unquote, with. It's almost like if you had like an urban and hip hop, let's say, let's just go there. Let's say if you have an urban hip hop group, and you're looking for someone that kind of fit that culture at a fit that image, you know, if you're, if you have an applicant that came in with maybe glasses or with his iPad, and he's kind of given off the computer by it's almost like don't judge that book by its cover because you never know what they have to offer to that environment. So I kind of wanted to throw that in there just as it goes both ways. Which as far as looking at your culture ads,
Collin 03:54
yeah, that's a that's an interesting perspective is that that term culture adds and because what Is it adding it's adding value to your business and to your clients?
Natasha 04:05
I would I just in general, like I worked in the automotive industry for so long, and we had a huge diverse showroom floor. I mean, any customer that came into our showroom, they would see women, they would see males, they would see young, they would see elder they would see all races, and that makes your client feel comfortable. We have a lot of Hispanic clients that come in and say, Hey, they asked specifically, do you all have someone who speaks Spanish that works here? And we were so proud. We were like, yes, we're gonna take care of you. We're going to help you out because we have that. And we didn't see any racism. We didn't see Oh, well, I'm equally qualified to take care of you. Why not? Why can't I take care of you? We didn't see that. We said you know what, you feel comfortable? You want to speak your natural language? Yes, we have that. We're just, we were just happy to be able to have that diversity in our showroom floor that we could take care, everybody. So whoever wanted to use our service who ever wanted to use our business, we had a little bit for everybody,
Collin 05:05
especially whenever you're communicating specific instructions like for pet for pet care and how Fido is supposed to be taken care of, if somebody is more comfortable speaking in a native language, why not provide that for him? Because then you're able to provide better care in the long run.
Natasha 05:22
Exactly. I mean, that's just kind of like, you know, you just want to have it because you never know what client will come across. Even when I think clients look online and look at your about us or they look at your staff, and they kind of just see one image, that means that you're potentially, you know, kind of shutting away other images that may have considered you or your company. So I really work hard to make sure we have both male and female that you know, we go through those cycles too with male and female, like we'll have a lot of male lockers, and they'll have a lot of female walkers. And I'm like, oh, should we have only females here? Where's our guys? Go when I start looking at new applicants I don't necessarily need to not hire a female. But I could hire both. Or I say, you know what, we need to go ahead and make sure we have more males here because there's a lot of dogs that actually do much better with males or females. It's just, it's the same equality all the way around the board.
Collin 06:16
Part of this is also in the workplace providing a supportive or inclusive environment for our employees. How can we do that in and make sure that everybody feels safe and included?
Natasha 06:29
I would say first of all has to be their mission. When you are sitting down and creating your business, you're making your mission statement, you need to really dig deep on what that means to you. So your mission statement is going to be your bones of your company. It's going to be the bones of your policies, it's going to be the bones of what you stand for. So if you sit down with yourself and you write out your mission, your mission is also going to follow in your About Us page and mission is going to follow into your hiring admission is going to follow into your policy. As your service agreement, it's everywhere I see it on a lot of websites. Now I click on they say we're 100% inclusive company, you know, we equally hire, you know, all those thirds you have on top of the header. People need to see that. And when you know what you stand for, you don't fall for anything. So if your mission is to provide a diverse, inclusive work environment for both client, and staff, when something comes on your plate that was maybe racist or maybe discriminatory, you can't it because it's not part of your mission. And that's really the End of discussion for that one. You know, it's like, I don't have to explain why this made someone feel I don't have to explain what part of it was uncomfortable that unfortunately does not fit in our mission, so we can't support it.
Collin 07:45
Yeah, we put so much down in our policies and procedures as far as how to handle keys and late payment policies and bills. It just makes sense to add that into our mission statement into included it so that you don't have to worry about it, communicating it ever again, it's just there writing documents that everybody sees, and everybody has access to,
Natasha 08:09
for sure. And then when you hire and you have it on your handbooks, and you have it in your welcome packet, you know, if and then if someone goes on social media, for instance, or, you know, they're speaking and in a tone that doesn't follow the company's values, that's when you obviously address it. And that's why, you know, a lot of these companies now are when something does happen, you know, publicly socially, the first thing they do is roll out their mission statement. You know, you feel like you kind of get this like generic statement from these companies who fire but the first line I always see is their mission statement. Unfortunately, this person is not following with our mission, and we need to take care of that. And it really can be as you know, it's as simple as that. It doesn't have to be so complicated. If I as a business standpoint, because it's, this is what we are this is what we're not this is what So we don't do and just like you would do for your keys just like you would do for you know what you believe in for taking care of a home or taking care of any animal properly it works to in the same
Collin 09:10
there may be a question that comes out of this. So I know a question that I had was, okay, what if I'm a solo sitter? What is diversity in the workplace and being inclusive mean whenever I run an operate by myself?
Natasha 09:23
And that's a great question. So I know a lot of solo sitters. And the good thing is when you are solo sitter or you are like family owned, you do put a lot of your face so you are the face of the company. And, and I what I see right now a lot of solo sitters are doing is they're pairing with different like coffee shops or appearing with different there's like a dog food truck we have in our community. They're pairing with breweries in our neighborhood, they're pairing with accessory lines. So then you start to make yourself look like you are this big brand because you are now a community ad. So although I'm a solo writer, I can connect you to whoever you need. We have this person, that person. So now what I'm seeing your, your social media, your Instagram, Fred, you're adding these people, you're tagging them in your community, you're tagging them in your events. you're promoting, you know, you're cross promoting. And then it's like, oh, wow, this is a lone ranger, but they're pretty well connected. So, yeah. And that's like, oh, people ask me like, how do they increase their marketing, and I say, increase your community. Because if you can increase your community, they're going to naturally start to refer back to each other. And that's when you see the beauty.
Collin 10:38
Like we just came off of like a build your community Crash Course with COVID-19. The past
Natasha 10:46
keeps coming back to that because it's so simple. Like, I literally built my business just on the bare bones of basic. It didn't have to be fancy. It didn't have to be crazy. It wasn't literally a low to no tech situation. But that genuine background, that ability to touch, feel, connect and understand. That is what people buy into. That's what you can sell, because that's the real deal. And when someone's looking for someone to take care of their family member their baby, that's what I want to know, show me who you really are. So then I can make an educated decision on where I should go.
Collin 11:20
Because it is it is that being genuine being open. And like you said, I love that showing who you are, and that comes across and what kind of posts you have, who you're connecting with and who you are also promoting. So through all of this, we've been giving some really good advice, but I do want to open the conversation up a little bit more and ask and ask you if you have ever felt discriminated against as a black woman in America,
Natasha 11:45
black man in America, I 100% have felt just commanded against. It's very hard to be the minority. And anything you're doing when you are like the solo Ranger, the one last of it is very difficult. That means you always have to fight harder. You have to fight wiser you have to be smarter, you have to be strategic. A lot of things are not always forgiven won't be forgiven for you. You have to be super shitty sharp, you have to bring excellence, you know there for me, that's just who I love to bring excellence anyway, it just keeps me on like the top of my game, I always want like an environment that's like, keep you on the top, keep you on the top, keep you keep you relevant, keep you, you know, as sharp as you can be. But as a black business, it's not an option to not be and when I have clients that call me, you know, they obviously know that I'm a black on business. I mean, sometimes that's a good thing, because it's half the battle. When they see when they see me on my website and for for my marketing, I've changed things sometimes I'll put me on the website sometimes will take me off. And so far as like the race conversation, it's nice to be on the website. Because when people click on my page, they know they're getting a black on business instantly they know they're getting a Female owned business. And at that point, it can kind of filter out people who may or may not want that. But of course, if you asked me if I were going to go toe to toe with maybe a Caucasian business owner or myself, I would always have to bring my full resume of attributes before somebody else would. And that's just how it is.
Collin 13:18
And one of the things you mentioned there was that always having to you mentioned several times always having to be on your game. What is that, like, every single day for you?
Natasha 13:29
Um, I would say it's kind of like you're, you're competitive with yourself. You're always on a microscope a little bit. When my staff does something, or you know, or something may happen. And I bet you the clients kind of come back to me and say, you know, Natasha, I'm not sure or I wonder if it has happened to me in the past. So that's kind of how I came up with different policies to make sure that our training, everybody did everything the exact same way. That's kind of where that came from. We talked about that before in the old podcast. He kind of came from that I wanted to make sure that no one saw the difference between quality and care. You know, people really don't like I get a lot of questions right now from citizen are like, Well, sometimes people request not to have a black sitter. And I said, we'll go deeper and figure out that their quality of work while they're requesting this figure out if they're actually racist, or whatever requesting this, or figure out if it's something else asked for questions. Of course, we're not always going to instantly say, Oh, this person's racist. I never think that that's never The first thing that ever comes to my mind. I love to ask follow up questions to actually see what it is that makes this person different. So I've created so many policies in my business to make sure that we are so much alike male or female, race or non race, that if a client came to me, with something off putting, there's almost not a finger of a doubt that we know which other direction that we should go into. I'll tell you an example. I had a customer who called me she was really upset and she said Nitasha, you know, my lockbox outside of my house, my husband was working from home. And he saw this guy come to the back of my porch and go into lockbox and then come into the house. And I, in my mind, I'm like, okay, that's our process. Like, yeah, okay, he's our employee, you know, in our app, they can actually see the faces and the names of our employees that come in. So I'm not following her just yet. So I said, Okay, tell me more. And she said, Yeah, and he just came in, and then he just start grabbing the leash and the harness and grab the dog, and then I'm still trying to follow I said, Okay, okay. That sounds like what we do Tell me more. And she says, and, you know, he didn't even look like a dog walker. I said, Oh, okay. And I said, Tell me what you know, first, you know, as a black woman, I'm like, Whoa, what does that mean? But I'm not gonna go there with her just yet. I said, Okay, tell me more. And she says, I looked on your website and I saw tamala and I saw And I saw an Andre. So she's only naming our black male walkers. And so I say, okay, she says, so I don't really know who this guy is or what his deal is. And I said, Well, you understand we hire only employees. He is an employee of ours, as you can see in the app, and he's come in to do a job. I said, Is that not what you hired us for? She says, Yeah, but he doesn't look like a walker. And in my mind, I'm like, oh, because he's a black man. Like, we work hard, and he does look like a walker is this. But of course, I don't go there because I am a professional. And I said, Well, did he identify himself? Did he have his company clothes on? She said, I think he may have had like, the hat on or something, but I don't really know. And I said, Okay, well, what would it make you feel more comfortable if all of our walkers always wore our polo shirt? You know, I can understand I just went with her. I said, I understand how maybe if they didn't have our polo shirt on, it could be confusing if someone's at the last Box, I get that. And she saw where we both were going together. And she didn't want to sound like the person I thought she was becoming. So she agreed. She just said, You know what? Yeah, I think that'll make me feel better. But even after that, like she was on eggshells, and I told her, I said, Listen, I don't want you to feel uncomfortable. I don't want you to be on eggshells. This is your home, your environment. I want to make sure that we come to a consensus that we both feel comfortable. And she said, No, I think that'll be fine. And I'll make sure I look at my app next time and see, you know, the face of who's going to come in because I was like, Well, you know, we're full transparency. You can see him on the app. And she says, Oh, I guess I didn't realize, you know, that didn't look at the app. I thought it was going to be one of the other girls. So I said, and I asked her again, I said, Well, is it a male or a female? That doesn't make you feel accomplished? She says, No, you guys could send other males because I've sent another white guy before. And she says no, we've had Ethan and you know, other like other third staff, and I said, Okay, I said, All right, well, let's touch base in a week and just make everything thing is going well. And let's just follow up. And we ended the conversation, but it made me feel very uncomfortable. But at the same time, I wanted to do more research, ask more questions to make sure we're still taking care of our customer. But she's not going against our moral principles.
Collin 18:18
What How do you handle conversations like that with your employees and convey that information to them, so they still feel comfortable serving those kind of clients?
Natasha 18:27
Well, if I don't have to tell them that the client was unsure, then I won't, you know, those are the way we run our businesses that we have the back of the house who is trained and kind of, you know, customer relations, customer response, customer retention, so they have that experience. So I don't necessarily need to bring my walkers into every backstory, you know, that's just one of many but, you know, if I if I were to sit down with them and say, this is another backstory that happened, and this is another backstory, you know, they'd be like, Oh, goodness sakes, and they hear a lot of it anyways, me. They tell me all the time. Oh, I don't know. why you do what you do? I don't know why you do. But we do believe in like a single hat system. So we really, you know, we know how dangerous it could be for a walker to feel stressed or uncomfortable. You know, we understand that I could potentially put a dog's life in jeopardy if they don't if they don't feel at their best. So as much as we can keep our community culture within our staff employee relationship uplifting we will
Collin 19:26
that safety I know you touched on that on on yesterday's episode too, as far as how to keep your your your walkers and your sitters safe, especially during times like right now we're tensions are just so high. So I encourage people to go back and listen to that one for for the discussion that you had with Kylie as far as safety and dog walking right now for
Natasha 19:45
sure. I mean, again, just you know, really for the pet sitters, especially coming in at night, you know, with this racial profiling going on right now. Could you imagine if maybe a black male came to your neighbor's house at night and they really weren't sure. And they called the police. Could you imagine? That could go really sideways really quickly. So just kind of getting your full community on board with just saying, Hey, you know, there's no weird suspicious activity going on in my doorstep, you know, 4429 that's a safe door. Don't Don't call the police on that door. Um, and again, and even just give your clients I mean, give your neighbors your cell phone number. If you do see something suspicious or you feel something is off, call me first. Because then the client can actually diffuse half of it. And again, clients get things that go on to they get, oh, we saw your I had a client who said she, she wanted to refer us to her neighbor. And she said, Oh, I saw your Walker with the dog. I don't know she loved a dog. And we were like, why? Mind you? My client like she loves us and she's like, she's a racist. You know, she just called me instantly and told me this. She warned me She said, Listen, if you see this neighbor, just make sure the walker stays away. It was one of those phone calls but she says she didn't feel comfortable. How hurting neighbor said that she didn't feel that the walker loved the dog when the clients home every single day and she sees the interaction, she sees the dog running through the door, can't wait to get out and lever. But she kind of wanted to give me a flag to say like, you know, watch out for this neighborhood, you know, they could be one of you know, you know, something to watch out for?
Collin 21:19
Gosh, yeah, that's and that that's one on encouraging that kind of openness and communication with your clients, that they feel comfortable to tell you those kind of things and that you let them know ahead of time. Please let us know of anything going on or how we can help you and continue to serve you
Natasha 21:35
definitely. I mean, it's just the open communication. We know that stuff is gonna happen in our stuff, something's going to be out of our control. But as much as you can be ahead, maybe being a blackout business, that I know these things because I have to always be prepared. We don't want to be reactive. We want to be proactive. So anything I can think of or something that could potentially go now. That's how you create Your business, let's cancel all the potentials and let's put a policy in place. Let's not get let's not assume or say, Oh, well, that's never happened before. Well, you don't want it to happen before. You wanted to say, hey, if it were to happen, this is our game plan. This is our rulebook. And this is how we take care of things. You never want to wait until something happens,
Collin 22:18
just being nearly reactive to situations does not put you as a business or personally in a good place.
Natasha 22:24
Yeah, because right now what if you saw one of your employees, you know, saying something that you don't believe in or doing something that you don't like or what your company would stand for, but everybody else in that community know they work for you? Like, how would you handle that situation? What would you do? And if you don't have, you know, your mission on what you stand for, that could put you and your reputation in very risky place,
Collin 22:45
right and in on that a big discussion that's going on right now is how do I address or handle this issue of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States? How do I handle that as a business and with my community and my employees and How do I walk that line between personal beliefs and what I project and put out as a business?
Natasha 23:05
So as a business, you want to create a statement. I know we said before a Melanie, she had already written a statement for everybody. She's a black owned business. She's also a pet sitter. So that was a perfect statement that she wrote because she touched on all basis that our company does not believe in hate, race, anything discriminate, it doesn't matter what is going on whatever the news line is, or whatever are following this statement is going to cover us it's going to cover all those topics. So as a business is what we stand for. This will be don't stand for you make sure that we are united, we are neighbors, and we have everybody's included. That's like your baseline, your personal beliefs. If you want to put those on social media. There you go. Yeah, your ne however you feel you need to that's up to you. Nobody can tell you what to do personally. But as a business, I would say as a rule of thumb, you want to make sure your personal beliefs line that way business beliefs because you're the owner Or some wasn't I had a situation just happened to me that the owner put out this great statement and all saying that they were inclusive, and this was not going to happen in their company and voices were going to be heard. But in their private life, it was a totally different situation. So that was obviously, you know, addressed. And I would say in general, we it's, it's just in general, silence is not helpful. It's great that we're having this conversation, because we're opening up we're opening the tables. There's a lot of pet sitters right now that are opening pet sitters for black lives as just a space that even an immediate pop up group or a full time group, but it's a space that we can have the conversations that people who want to have the conversation. So it's it's a nice group, which is great. Because if you don't want to have the conversation, obviously this is not the subject title line of the group you should probably be in. But this is where you can learn and you can educate and you can understand because these are people who want to see change. They want to see something different. They want their communities to be united. Again, we're prepping what our grandparents and before did for us, we're prepping the future for our future children. That's why this is important.
Collin 25:08
And and to that, unfortunately, I do hear common statement of, but this has nothing to do with my pet care business or pet care in general. So what other than the writers that are in the area? So what kind of response do you have for people who who have that sentiment?
Natasha 25:24
Well, I would say the protesters in the writers are totally different. They're not even to this day, and there's people who peacefully protest. And then there's obviously the bad people who come out and have their own initiative that happens on any platform or any agenda. There's always the bad guys that come out and wanna, you know, pour paint on everything. So those are two different things. But it absolutely has something to do with your business because you are living in a world where there is diverse members. What are you going to do if you have Hispanic client that calls you? What are you going to do if you have, you know, someone of the lbgtq community that calls you? What are you going to do if you have someone in the American community that calls you how How do you service these people? How do you take care of their homes? If you don't know their culture, even cleanliness is something that I actually had to break down on a policy. I say, listen, cleanliness is not always universal, the way that your parents taught you how to clean your house may not be the expectations how other cultures or families want the same. So there is just like a baseline overall, of making sure everyone is on the same page.
Collin 26:25
Right? It's a respecting all people because all people are around us. And, and being a good citizen and loving our neighbor and taking care of them, whether it's through dog walking or waving to somebody on the street that's just part of living in this amazingly diverse society that we have.
Natasha 26:44
And basically, the main thing is like, you can't say that this has nothing to do with your business because your clients are coming from all walks of life. Right? So if you are not saying that you have to say hey, race, race, race, race, race is everything we do in our policy, none of my friends Policies has anything to do with race. But what it does not say is that we're not inclusive. What it does not say is that we deal with people who discriminate. So when clients step on our platform, when they see what we're about, it's crystal clear. And if you're someone who was unsure how to handle these topics, or unsure what to do next, you could potentially be putting yourself in a very vulnerable situation because you could do something or say something that could offend someone without even knowing it. And what would that do to your business? What would that do to your reputation? They're gonna blast you. So why put yourself out to be so vulnerable,
Collin 27:35
taking that time to think, reflect, learn and then and then act at the end is putting those policies into place. And it sounds so basic, but it's still so hard to get through of when we accept that diversity, and as you mentioned, like the policies don't have to say race on everything. It's the diversity across all walks of all areas. And race is a part of that. And when We say that that's okay. And we include that in our diversity statements like that just makes everything better.
Natasha 28:06
And you're letting your clients know that you're not one of the person, you're not one of the companies that's going to turn a cheek. You know, if you see something, you're gonna say something, if you see something, you're gonna do something. It's just like if you saw someone abusing someone in the street, or if you saw someone doing something that you know in your heart is not right. You wouldn't want that to be done to your family member, your friends, your staff, your employees, you're going to do something. So how do you think the client would feel knowing that you are one of those people who wouldn't do anything that would turn a cheek? Do you know what this doesn't pertain to me? So go at it. Nobody would want to support that on any level. So it's just kind of understanding I had a pet sitter asked me she said you know, Natasha, I hiring you know, black women, black males, I'm just a white female. You know, sometimes I think so. My concerns might come off like tone deaf, or I think they might come off insincere, like how do I talk to them? How do you I kind of handled topics or even, you know, reprimanding someone. They said, I don't want them to feel excluded or that I'm attacking them because they're black or, or what have you. And I said, Yeah, that all comes down to like the beginning of your culture. When you first hire, make it clear on what the description of the job is. Make it clear on what's expected. Make it clear on the hours, they're signing up for the days of the week, they're signing up for the weekend, the holidays, make it very clear, because if something did happen, no matter what the race, all you're doing is going back and pointing to where you have a staff member sign to where this doesn't line up to what we agreed on just a contract, right? Essentially, Hey, remember that ad that we talked about? That employee agreement that we talked about? What you're requesting of me right now is not part of that agreement. You kind of just you're referencing back to your Outlook, your main your your game, plan, your handbook your policies, so it's not new. Nobody wants to To be treated like a token, or nobody wants to be treated like something different, right? This whole Black Lives Matter is literally about being treated, the same being treated equal. So if you're going to recommend this person, this is such recommend me the same way. If you're going to call me out, call them out, too. We just want to be equal. And that's just how you manage your team. And those
Collin 30:22
thoughts of oh my goodness, like how do I approach this topic and and as white business owners, not wanting to come across as not wanting to offend or to make it seem like it's a race issue, you know, you you're cutting that whole thing out and going, having consistent policies and procedures in place that are fair and inclusive of everybody gets rid of that problem entirely, as if you're sticking to them and being consistent.
Natasha 30:47
And then you also just tell your staff in particular, like, you know, if, for instance, if someone said, Hey, listen, this, you know, is a predominantly white neighborhood, I don't feel comfortable as an African American male going in You know, at 10 o'clock at night, it may be putting this on people, I don't want to risk my life. You know, those are very valid concerns from an African American pet sitter. And all you need to do is say, you know what I'm hearing you, I'm listening to you, it makes me it makes perfect sense of why you would feel that way. Let's sit down and come up with solutions that I can then take to my client and take to all clients so we can make sure you feel safe, protected, and you can equally do your job as anyone else could do their job. It's just it's taking it's taking nurture on anyone that brings a concern to you. How would you feel if you came to your boss your employer and list out your concerns and they were like, oh, you're just you're being a whiny pants, or the me to movement if someone say hey, I was sexually assaulted in the workplace and you're and you didn't write it up? You didn't address it. You just said oh, you know, it's a male male and I you know, it's a dog eat dog environment. You know, how would you feel if someone just kind of shrugged it off and was like, well, you Know what it is, you know, okay, I just won't put you in a I will just put you in that neighborhood anymore then fine. You gotta take everybody that you deal with at a certain respect. And they have to feel safe because once they do they say, Listen, this company is amazing. They start telling their friends and you know what if I have black I'm a black person and I have other black friends and I say you love you guys. You're probably work for Collins business because they do well by their team. They take care of us they understand as I feel so safe. And you tell them what you're doing. Hey, I heard your concerns. I've talked to the client about this. I'm making sure you know you have your uniform available, making sure you have, you know, bumper stickers on your car, and making sure their house is well lit and making sure the neighbors know so if you see such and such neighbor, you can even say the name like I'm extra. So I'll say listen, neighbor to name calling neighbor three is Megan. You know, so then when they get there, they can say oh hey man, how you doing? Hey, And then we can start to become really friendly with the neighborhood. When you create that culture within your business and how you do things, you see the prophets flourish, because now it's like, oh, yeah, no, they're lovely. They come in, they take care of us. Dogs are happy they speak. It's just very pleasant. And people always remember how you treat them
Collin 33:21
and not discounting those feelings that you mentioned, you know, I may not as a white male, understand the feeling of what it fear of going into a strange neighborhood at night at 10 o'clock. But if somebody came to me into that they were afraid that I may not be able to directly relate to that. But when someone's telling you a feeling that they have, as you mentioned, respecting them as a person enough to legitimize that and say, Okay, I hear you, let's do something about that. Because I don't have to be able, I'm never going to be able to relate to feelings that everybody has in the world, but respecting them at the human level and going I see you here as a person. Let's see. Trying to make this better at and accommodate that as much as I would the next person if they're afraid or something or maybe they don't like walking large dogs, okay, well, we can, I can handle that we can deal with that. Why not do it for this like that's just part of, of helping and being a loving person.
Natasha 34:17
That's really what it comes down to. Like all lives matter is definitely the theory of America all lives matter. But when Black Lives are not created equally or treated equally, that's when you separate and say, listen, we need to talk about black lives right now because they're not treated equal to all lives right now. It's just if your spouse or anyone you're in relationship with brought something to you know, we go through these these facts with our spouses, and they say something and we're like, What are you talking about? That is not even happened. Like you're dreaming. You know, we can laugh at this because we're married. And we have no idea what our spouse is talking about zero, or anyone, a best friend or parent, you know, anyone that brings something to our attention, we may not click on this But because we love or respect that person, it's our job to say Listen, I might not totally get what it is to be you or or see what it is to be you but the fact that you're just bringing this to my attention that's why we need to have a conversation. That's what we need to talk. Yeah, I mean, forget it. For now, I my husband wants to watch football all the time. I may never know. I'm like, Listen, create a new business and he's like, now watch a football okay? I may never get it, you know, something light hearted to the topic. Just because this person that I care about said that this was something important to me. I have to stop, understand and make it make sense for everybody. That is how you are part of a relationship and environment, a situation a society, a community. That's what it's about.
Collin 35:48
And the key word you said there. This this person I care about, brought this concern to me. Do we are we showing through our actions through our policies through our business structure through through our advocacy Are we showing that we are caring about the people around us enough to sit and listen to their fears and concerns?
Natasha 36:06
That's all it is. That's genuinely all it is. And the more we all do it every day, the more we stop being silent and turning and cheek and you know, listening some of the racist comments in the backyard and letting you know, because it goes in all communities, they everybody has like a snarky comment. It's not just you know this or that it's everybody. But we shut it down and we say, listen, that's not going to happen here. That's unacceptable. We don't stand for that. As long as we continue to do that it's going to go away, and then we won't have black lives matter anymore, then we won't have we will have less topics of hate overall, because as a unit, we're all taking care of it
Collin 36:41
thinking through this past week, and maybe some of the reactions that you have seen or heard or been involved in. I was wondering what kind of lessons we can take away maybe from a business or maybe a personal lesson, moving forward.
Natasha 36:57
I think for me, my personal lesson is grace. People are going to come at you for different things all walks allies for all different types of reasons personal and business. No matter what no one gets to take away who you are. Nobody gets to take away that peace, that sanity that love that forgiveness that you have in your heart. So whether you get through to someone or you don't get through to them, always treat them with love. Respect, always be graceful, always take the high road. Because at the end of the day, when we go to bed at night, we know that we did our job, and nobody can take that from you.
Collin 37:33
Gosh, I love that so much. Thinking about the pets and community. How can we as pet sitters across the country, be agents of change, and in help the movement?
Natasha 37:44
Oh, goodness, but what's happening right now there's all these pop up groups that are happening right now and just starting the conversation. starting the conversation means bringing in an invitation. It's like going to a birthday party and everybody's at the birthday party except you. You're like whoa, everyone's talking About this everybody's, you know, enjoying this new event, but I'm not invited. So that's kind of what it is for the dominance of the pet care industry has been predominantly white for years. It's just the way it's been so open in the conversation when when black people see that, hey, this is a group for black pet sitters, or this is a group to talk about your concerns. More people are going to come out the woodwork and say, Whoa, wow, this, this, this community loves me. They care about my thoughts. This is something that I want to invest in as well. But when nobody talks about it, or you know, they don't think that you know, like friends is going into someone's house at night. If someone didn't talk about this, too, may be a black person who've never been in the pet care industry and let them know No, you're safe. It's okay. You'll be fine. We have we have systems in place to protect you. If no one ever talked about it. Of course, they're gonna say no, no, no, I don't I don't want to do that job. It's just a little bit too risky for me and I'd rather live then, you know, live on a pet at that time at night. You know, it's opening those conversations and say no, this is okay. We got you. We've already thought about About this for you. We've talked about as a community, we've talked about it as an industry. And we got it, we created a new standard. Now,
Collin 39:06
when people are thinking of starting that conversation, bringing that invitation and inviting more people to the table, what kind of resources should they be checking out reading, listening to watching,
Natasha 39:17
there's so many resources. We did a lot of the links in our last podcast. But I think even like, I mean, let's just be real. And I'm the realest person, you'll probably ever I mean, people don't even have time to do research for their own business, you know, their own feel members sometimes let alone a new topic. Don't expect anyone to just sit down and like look, look at all these books and movies. I don't expect that people really can do it for themselves. But just having a quick conversation, my messenger has been blowing everyone says, Hey, I just heard about you. I want to get to know you. I want to have a conversation. I'm like, that's so nice. They just went out of their way to just say, Hey, how are you doing? A lot of them. You know, I was was attacked in one of the groups just by wanting to make a pet careless. But I didn't even care about the attack. It was the love that followed by people said, don't worry about that. How you doing? How you feeling? What's your thoughts about all this? And I'm like, Well, thanks. Nobody ever asked me that. That'd be nice. So just keeping the conversation healthy. The groups are great, because obviously Facebook groups is somewhere where we can, you know, you know, let our let our guard down a little bit, talk openly, freely. When the right thought leaders are leading the conversation, it can be very healthy, very safe. We're not being dismissive. You're going to get a lot done that way.
Collin 40:36
Yeah. And I'll include a link to your Facebook group where people can go and join and continue that conversation because, as you mentioned, there are so many resources out there and procrastination is a thing and even though we are well intentioned, we don't get to all of them. And so I love I love that of talk to somebody start, just start and go from there. And as simple as a, are you doing okay? How are you right now? How can I help? Like that's, like that is is is really a wonderful first step.
Natasha 41:11
Yeah, you're gonna get the most raw answer in a real human conversation, just as you as if you would do with any other topic. I try to bring it back to people to let them know because I think a lot is just the unknown. You know, I think when cultures don't blend enough, it's like, oh, well, what do they do? Oh, that's weird. I don't I don't do that. That's kind of strange to me. You know, we started with the weird, the strange, the different titles on things, but it's just not the way you're used to it. But if you were blended more, it'd be the new norm. I love the blend. The blend is amazing, because it helps us just, it really starts to put a lot of tools in your toolbox that you can use because you understand you've seen these things to have an open conversation with someone.
Collin 41:53
Right? Well, yeah, I mean, you could spend the next 14 years doing a doctoral dissertation on the subject matter. And then know everything about it but have never talked to somebody right? That you could learn as much as you want to in the world but never talk to a human being and never connected and I don't think that that would have done any good.
Natasha 42:13
Yeah, it's just like when you go to different cultures and you travel, people want you know, the hotel luxury experience or you want you know, the in the roots experience, I know so many friends who say no, I really want to go into the culture, I really want to eat the food and see the people on see Oh, it's really done. It's a different experience than going to an Americanized hotel and staying on a resort the whole time. It's just a different experience.
Collin 42:36
No, that's I love that analogy, because it's so true. And you definitely know there are certain travelers that prefer one over the other. And that's just the experience that they're trying to get out of it. Well, Natasha, I do want to thank you from the bottom of both Megan's in my heart for coming on today and addressing some of these, these these hard topics and during these high tension times. If people do want to connect and follow up with questions of their own or reach out to you how best they do. That
Natasha 43:00
they can reach me on my business page Instagram, I love Renzo Ruby. That is my Instagram or you can meet me on my website start scale sale, which is my business mentorship, start scale sale calm.
Collin 43:12
Thank you for this conversation today. Natasha,
Natasha 43:14
thank you so much for being a thought leader that really means so much to everybody.
Collin 43:19
start the conversation today. So we can make the pet sitting community and our world a much better place for everybody. Join Natasha's Facebook group dog walker society, and I'll have a link for that in the show notes and on our website too. Until next time,
