072- Colleen Sedgwick the Pet Nanny Coach
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Summary:
The Pet Nanny Coach, Colleen Sedgwick, joins us to talk all about mindset and mindfulness in the face of adversity. We discuss the importance of delegating tasks and hiring the right people to be more present in the day-to-day operations of your business. Colleen also shares some of her most influential books and must reads as a pet business owner.
Topics on this episode:
Colleen’s background in pet sitting
Connection between pet sitting and education
Growing a business without a business background
Why she decided to become a coach and what services she offers
2020 has been really hard
Most influential book
Main take away? It’s ALL about mindfulness and mindset when facing adversity and the future looks great.
About our guest:
Colleen Sedgwick is a Pet Sitting Business Owner, Entrepreneur, Wife and Mom, and she teaches pet business owners how to launch, grow and multiply their businesses 10K or more a month in revenue.
Colleen transformed her once teeny-tiny, itty-bitty pet sitting business into a thriving and lucrative enterprise that services over two thousand clients on The Main Line of Philadelphia.
Through her ultra-informative blog, videos, online courses and group coaching programs, she’s empowered and taught countless other pet sitters how to turn their passion for pets into paychecks.
And when she’s not turning her knowledge of the pet sitting industry into blog posts, programs or courses, you will find her loving on her family, hustling on the tennis or paddle court or watching BRAVO TV!
Colleen says, “I’m living proof that you can create a purpose-filled and lucrative business based on your love for animals and that it’s never too late to follow your heart and live your passion.”
Links:
Colleen’s recommended books:
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, people, pet, clients, hiring, day, coach, sitters, pet sitters, pet sitting business, pet sitter, colleen, dogs, nanny, teach, students, create, delegate, important, thought
SPEAKERS
Collin, Colleen S.
00:17
I'm Collin and I'm Meghan. And this is Pet Sitter Confessional.
00:20
An open and
00:22
honest discussion about life as a pet sitter brought to you by time to pet.
Collin 00:28
Well, hello, everybody and welcome back. I hope your week is going really well. today. We are so excited to have Colleen Sedgwick, the pet nanny coach on to discuss her background in pet care what 2020 has been like for her and how she sees the industry moving forward. This is a jam packed episode. So grab your pin, grab your paper, and let's get started.
Colleen S. 00:55
Hello Collin. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited about this opportunity. So I guess I should start at the beginning of my listening career, which began in 2001. I was teaching special education. I taught seven year olds with down syndrome. And after my first year in the classroom, I felt kind of felt trapped. I couldn't stand being in that enclosed space all day. And I knew that this was not the career path that I wanted to take. I love the children. I love teaching them. It was super rewarding. However, when the day was done, I did not. I felt exhausted, I felt wiped out and I couldn't stand again, being in that classroom all day, like in the wall, and I pretty much had a break down. I drove down to the shore to talk to my parents. I'm out with my dad about what I should do. I just, you know, just graduated from school had my degree in special ed. And my mom said, well, there's anything in the world you can do. What would you choose? And I kind of responded in jest. Well, I like to play with dogs all day, just kind of as a joke and you He said, Well, that's not a bad idea because I just sold a house to a woman that makes over 100,000 a year, walking dogs. And then like the bells and whistles went off in my head. I said, What? six figures walking dogs? I was like, no way. So I thought about it. And I decided to wear my second year of teaching is when I came up with my business plan to open my business The following year, and since then, you know, the first five years I did it by myself, I walked dogs, I stayed at people's houses, I did pet sitting. I work seven days a week, 365 days a year, I was exhausted again. And I came to another decision. Is this something that I want to pursue? Is this a lifestyle that I wanted? I mean, I started the career, my big why was the freedom to be outside of those walls of the classroom and be able to be outside and be with dogs. But I ended up in a situation where I was working around the clock every day of the year and I was unhappy. So at that time, I was going to leave and go into pharmaceutical sales. And then I don't know what changed, but I decided, you know what, I'm not going to stick with this, but I'm going to learn about business. I'm going to learn about how to actually run this operation as a business. And I hired a business coach and I attended seminars, and I read books, and I started hiring pet sitters. And slowly but surely the business quickly quickly multiplied into what I have today, which is a company that employs 40 pet sitters. I have three managers and I work one hour a week in my pet sitting business. And it's super rewarding and I absolutely love it and I'm proud of it. Short of it, the long and short of it.
Collin 03:43
That is, that is quite the journey through that process. And there's there's so much to dive into there. What was it like moving from the classroom to walking dogs? What kind of skills do you think you brought with you whenever you first started that The business?
Colleen S. 04:01
Well, I think the number one thing was being an animal lover, obviously. I mean, I absolutely adore the animals. But I also have, you know, being a special ed teacher, as well as taking care of the children. During my high school, I had that caregiving ability, I have like a warmth about me, that my clients really liked. They knew that I absolutely love their pets and would take wonderful care of them. I also took amazing care of their homes as well, everything was cleaner than the way I found it when they got back. And that's what I brought to the table. Other than that, my personality, my love for animals and my organizational skills, I didn't really have any business skills to start, but that got me going and that got me a client base. So
Collin 04:42
with over 40 sitters that work for you now, what's it like managing that and staying in touch with the managers that you have in the field.
Colleen S. 04:51
So the management of the sitters is really important because you know, you need to make sure that you have a connection with each of these people because these people For the backbone of your business, they're the ones going out representing you. And you want to ensure that they are living up to the standards of your company, and keeping up with the reputation that you've built for yourself. So making sure that you have a strong management team that's keeping in touch with them on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. proper training, making sure they understand what their expectations are, before you know they get out into the field, understanding what their role is with the company and making sure that they understand we're here to give you know, top notch pet care with seller communication. 100% guaranteed is really important and having that management staff to make sure that they are all they understand the big picture of everything and they're keeping up with these sitters on a regular basis. Really important.
Collin 05:47
Yeah, they mentioned they are the backbone a valuable employee is worth so much more to the company than any number of clients that you could bring in the door because that that value add whenever they're working on the team. Whenever They are with it and want to see us succeed. Like you can't can't just can't ask for anything better than that.
Colleen S. 06:06
No, absolutely not.
Collin 06:08
At some point there you said after about five years, you started to feel burned out again and you decide to make that decision to run it like a business. What does what does that mean? And what was that like running a business without a background in business?
Colleen S. 06:21
You had to learn everything. I read this book called The E myth revisited. Be read this one. I have it to me that you need to read it. And it really was the impetus for me to understand that my role as a business owner is not to be the one doing the client work. Your role as a business owner is to create a repeatable, repeatable process that you can delegate to a team to do the client work. And your role as the owner is to continuously grow the business and market the business to bring in more customers. But you really need to create that strong foundation first of having your systems processes in place that are completely replicable as I already said, having your financial systems in place. I mean, I was running everything out of a single bank account for years. I mean, I look back I'm like, Oh my god, I would cringe when tax time came, I'm like, What am I gonna Oh my God, oh, anything, you know, I didn't know anything. I didn't understand, you know, the importance of marketing on a continuous, consistent regular basis that you always had a pipeline of new business coming to your company. And these are all things that I had to learn you have to you don't know what you don't know. Right? And I pretty much just went on that journey. And I sought out mentors and coaches that knew what they were doing about business but back then there were no like pet sitting coaches, quote, unquote. So I kind of had to take what I learned and apply it to the service based pet sitting business but you know, I put the time in I invested in myself and it's paid me back to them.
Collin 07:54
Yeah. So many of us find ourselves in that situation of I love pets. I would do this Basically for free, and oh, you look up five years later and you go, Oh, I guess this is actually a business, I should start taking this seriously. And, and that that's, that just happens time and time again. So I was interested as to what advice or resources you would give to other people who are in that same situation of trying to make that decision of getting serious about it, and and making it an actual business.
Colleen S. 08:25
So the big thing I think, for me, I teach a team building business model. Okay, so I believe that in this industry to create a substantial income you need to delegate the client work to a team of pet sitters, that's like the first big decision you need to make. Not saying you can't be a solo sitter and have your own business, it just is going to look a little different, but you're going to start making more and more money as you build your team. So that's kind of the big decision, see if that's really the path that you want to go If not, you can still lay an amazing foundation. You can Read books, you can go to my blog at any coach comm forward slash blog, I have tons of free videos, I have tons of free resources, but you still should have a foundation laid for your company where everything is repeatable, everything is replicable, and you are blowing the socks off all of your new customers and really going above and beyond to create an amazing customer experience for your client.
Collin 09:26
It's that scalability it's that I think of it in the the 10 x rule of if I had to personally do this 10 more times. Keep that up like okay, let's add another zero, add another hero can go Oh, nope, I'm not making my you know, my, my bespoke knitted sweaters for every one of my clients after I leave because that's I can't do that.
Colleen S. 09:47
That's exactly right. I teach my students you know, I have a lot of students who are still doing all the meet and greets for their company. They may have delegated the pezzini visits. But I say if you bet you're bringing in 10 or 20 new customers a week are you going to be able to keep that up exactly to the point that you just made.
Collin 10:02
Now at some point, you started coaching other pet business owners. Yeah, what did what what did that look like? And why did you decide to get into coaching?
Colleen S. 10:12
Well, I think I just noticed a need in the marketplace. People were coming to me saying, Hey, I heard you have this amazing pet sitting business, can you teach me how to do it? And I thought, well, you know, I'm not a business coach. Like that's not really something that I do. But it got me thinking, and then I started helping people kind of pro bono and I was getting them results pretty much by just teaching them the whole model that I had built and the strategies that I had in place and they were getting these amazing results. And then when that happened, I thought, Okay, I need to make a go of this. And originally, I decided just to be like value add for a year, you know, I just was going to add value and create videos, I was going to write blogs, I was going to create resources for pet sitters who were looking to grow their business, and that's exactly what I did. I didn't sell anything. I didn't make any money. ers I just said I'm here for you. And from there, I built a really wonderful community around me. And then from then from there, I developed different programs and products to, you know, help my students and community even further.
Collin 11:13
So what kind of coaching do you do now?
Colleen S. 11:15
I do business coaching. So we help people who are launching their business. So brand new newbies who have, you know, haven't even started yet. And we have our growers. These are my students who have clients are sorry, they need clients, okay, so they have a few clients. They're having difficulty getting a regular pipeline of new clients to their business. So the goal of them is for them is to get more clients. And then we have our multipliers. These are the senators who have clients are making money but they're working 365 days a year, and they need systems processes and team to scale their business to six figures and beyond.
Collin 11:54
Thinking back to your when you were doing the pet sitting what kind of lessons have you brought Right over into the coaching and the way you you relate that information to pet sitters.
Colleen S. 12:05
Well, I think the the big thing is organization. And if you know any of my students will tell you that I am like the most organized person you'll ever meet. So one of the big things I teach my students is how to organize their business and an online business of having everything completely organized in terms of all of their client files, all of their marketing systems, all of their team building systems, everything is all built out with standard operating procedures. This is something that I kind of, am inherently good at, that I got even better at when I was pet setting and then also teaching them that trying to be warm and caring and always putting your self in the shoes of your clients is the big thing. You have to present yourself and your company as someone that knows and understands and identifies with these pet owners are going through and they have to leave their or loved ones at home alone. And then present yourself as the solutions who can ease their worries and Give them peace of mind when they're traveling.
Collin 13:01
Yeah, being able to connect with them and understand where they're coming from. I feel like that's kind of a fine line to balance because you can go into that side where you, you empathize a little too much and you start letting them drop off really late or cancel way too late or not want to pay your full fee all the time. So how do you balance that with empathizing and yet allowing and still running it like a business,
Colleen S. 13:28
you can still have boundaries and be an empathetic, caring individual and business owner, the easiest. I was not good at this forever. So no judgments, anyone that's letting their customers kind of walk all over them because I was like the number one culprit because the best thing I ever did to deal with that issue was to hire a manager. It's kind of putting some in between me and the customer and that person's job is to uphold my policies and my procedures, and then if anything needed to be escalated, then I I still step into this day. But that was like the best way for me to deal with it because I had a difficult time saying no, I had a difficult time, you know, standing up for myself, but I do try to teach my students that that is very important. If they're not at the, you know, hiring a manager step yet that you can still have boundaries and you can still be a caring and empathetic business owner
Collin 14:19
boundaries is one of the things that I think we all struggle with, because we do want to provide the best care at all times for all cases, and setting some some notes, whether that's policies and procedures that outline that and having people actually sign them and verify that they read them. And then sticking to that, and I love the idea of going okay, if that's hard for you and you're in the position, put a manager in there, that's their only job like that's among other things,
14:47
right? They're just following the rules of the business, right? Don't make the policy they just follow it
Collin 14:52
on on hiring a manager. If someone is in that position, what do they look for in a manager versus a pet sitter, the dog walker of the company,
Colleen S. 15:03
oh my goodness. So, for me, I'm the manager, I look for people that have opposite personality traits as I do. Alright, so I look for somebody that can compliment me, versus be me. Alright, so I've had many monitors over my 20 years in business and the ones who has been with me for eight years now. And we did a personality test and there's four quadrants of the personality test and let's say I'm in all my personality traits are in one and for all of hers are in two and three. And we were like this perfect pairing to work together as we complement each other. That would be the best. I've had managers that are just like me, and it hasn't gone so well. You know, because I need people that have different traits than I had that can bring other benefits to the table versus you know, being like a mini me. Does that make sense?
Collin 15:52
Yeah, no, it really does is because what what that brings to my mind too, is people who are running their businesses with like a best friend or Significant Other and the complimentary ways of thinking and in boundaries that have to be set with their two of what roles each person is playing and having those clearly lined out. So that you're right. You don't have a mini me that sometimes it's hard to get along with yourself and if they externalize even more difficult
16:18
nicely.
Collin 16:21
I am curious how 2020 has been for you? Well,
Colleen S. 16:26
2020 has been tough for me, as you know, but you know, we had COVID Pitt. Well, first let me start I had a cola I went to Jamaica came out with the call I right before COVID hit, I was super sick for three weeks with that. Then COVID has the business needs to get shut down completely, which is difficult to pet nanny business shut down completely. Then my father got sick during COVID was in the hospital. I was unable to visit him and he ended up passing away in the hospital. And then as we know now we have the riots happening Philadelphia Where just where I live is in in shambles right now. So, this has been the absolute most difficult year of my life. But I am doing a lot right now to protect my energy. I'm doing a lot of meditation, I'm doing a lot of journaling. I'm only, you know, listening to the media in the morning and then I cut it off for the day because it's just too much inundation of negativity. And I'm just trying to grieve my father and I know in my heart of hearts, that business is going to come back it's going to come back like gangbusters and I can't wait. I'll be ready when we open up which is going to be shortly but it's been a tough one, but it's a tough one for sure. I am lucky that I have a diversified income with any coach, something that I am really going to think about in 20. The rest of the year is how I can help other pet sitters diversify their incomes with having some type of online component, whether it's affiliate marketing, whether it's you know, selling products online. I'm just kind of brainstorming now about how I can help other pet sitters have diversified income streams because the pet nanny shut down. I mean, I one of the biggest pet sitting companies in the country. I mean, it was like, it was devastating, honestly. But without pet nanny coach, I mean, I don't really know what I would have done. So if I could help other people have something else to fall back on that I would feel good. I feel really good. So that's a goal of mine for sure.
Collin 18:25
We're all looking around going How can we diversify? What how can we make it a little bit more robust moving forward? I know it looks different for everybody. What was it like for you shutting down? What did that process look like for you and emotionally How How was that? I think I was just scared to death when this whole thing first came out as all of us were and I just did not want my sitters in any way, shape or form putting themselves at risk. So it was you know, pretty quickly I shut the I shut things down a lot quicker than even most of my students did it because of that reason. I did. Spend more Want to put anybody at risk not like anyone was anybody. That was just my personal feeling. And I thought it was 15 days to slow the curve, then I thought it was 30 days to slow the curve. And then when it kept going, I was like, What the heck is going on? And I would get, I have days where I would be panicky. And then I have other days where I would be like, Okay, I'm just gonna, there's nothing I can do about this. So like really trying to work on my mindset and putting myself in a positive place when I woke up, but not saying I didn't have my freakout times for sure. And at this point, let go and let God My friend, that's the way I'm looking at it because nothing else I can do. But I think right around the corner from everybody opening up and I'm supersite I think there was that time where we were all grappling with what is in my control, and what's outside of my control. And I think we, I hope I know I don't make it I went through that process and we found that there were actually quite a bit that was still in our control as far as ourselves in our house, and our Family things that we could interact with and still do. And that process builds some a little bit more resiliency and all of us and moving forward, I hope that those stick around. Now amongst all of this, I see people posting a lot about that they are just starting being a pet sitter. And so I was wondering how you would encourage brand new pet sitters in 2020?
Colleen S. 20:22
How would encourage Well, I think that we are on the precipice of a huge boom in the pet sitting industry. I mean, my goodness, people were buying dogs, adopting dogs left and right during this crisis, not that there wasn't already a huge need for pet sitters and for pet lovers in this industry, but I think that it's an amazing opportunity. I truly do. If you love and adore animals, if you want to create a business, you can absolutely do it. I think you need to have the right mindset. I think you need to have a clear vision of what you want to create. So many of us including myself had no clear vision We started I just threw myself into it started walking dogs and before I knew it I had this like kind of like booming business but no idea what to do with it so I think if you are just starting out getting really clear on your what what do you want to create in your business and your life and why do you want to create it being really clear on your what and your why is super important as a new pet sitter. It's a giving yourself a map for the results that you want to create in your life and in your business,
Collin 21:27
making it your own and personal and so that years from now, you can look back and go Yeah, this is this is what I wanted. Not that things can't change or should change and be adaptable, but that taking those few moments before you start walking really do help that that motion forward and keep that momentum moving through. good times and bad. Have you heard about time to pet Claire from acting critter sitters has this to say
21:56
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 22:13
If you are looking for 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. I do want to know your perspective on the impact that you think COVID-19 will have on for the long term for the bacteria. And
Colleen S. 22:40
I think it's going to have to we're going to have to set the businesses up with precautions that are going to make our clients feel safe. I think it's going to go away. I don't think it's going to be something that's going to be around forever and I think things will probably go back to the way they were just like a lot of these pandemics that have hit before. But again, going back to that diversity To find income I think it's really important that service based businesses like pet sitting businesses should really think about ways to reach different income streams for themselves. in case anything like this ever happens again which we know it well right i mean something along the lines of it. Yeah, but then again always making sure that our customers are feeling really cared for and listened to and they feel like the safety precautions are being put in place and they know that you know what you're talking about, they know that you have everything in place to make them feel safe and their animals feel safe, I think is important. People
Collin 23:35
are going to be looking for that these are kind of some of these things are ingrained of Okay, what the expectation for mask wearing and for wiping things down and for wearing gloves or social distancing and how you communicate that to your clients will be huge going forward both both new clients and existing clients to let them know that, you know, these are the precautions I love that of how are you going to make them feel safe. Write to so that they are okay with with using your services.
Colleen S. 24:05
And it goes back to what I've said from day one, you need to be able to give your clients peace of mind we they have a problem. They have to leave their beloved fairy pals at home alone, you are their problem solver You are the solution to that problem. And that solution is giving them peace of mind. So right now everyone's minds are racing about this COVID-19 pandemic, and you're their problem solver and you need to give them peace of mind that you got a cover.
Collin 24:31
You mentioned a book earlier, as far as was really influential to you, but it's curious. What other influential book has been in your life, whether for your business or personally
Colleen S. 24:40
Oh, I got a good one. The big leap by gay Hendricks. Have you heard of this one?
Collin 24:44
I have not I You're giving me such a reading list already. This is
Colleen S. 24:48
I mean, that one is like super. So the myth is more about business. And the big leap is more about internal stuff. So basically it says that we all have an internal thermostat of how much love joy and success that will allow for ourselves. We each have a thermostat and then as soon as we hit the top of that thermostat, then we start self sabotaging ourselves to bring down that thermostat. It's like this is what this kind of battle that goes in inside of all of us and learning how to let abundance into your life and let love and let joy and let success and keep raising that thermometer. It just it was life changing. So I suggest I highly suggest it for everybody. I have a whole video on it as well. If you search my blog about the big league
Collin 25:37
Yeah, that that idea of self sabotage is can come in such a varied ways in there. I know they're different from person to person, but as you've coached professionals, what are some ways that you've seen
Colleen S. 25:50
I see a lot of procrastination, excuse making, you know, like they Oh, I want to I want to build this business. I want to build this business. I built this business. Then they don't show up, and you don't do the work. And you don't go through the curriculum and you don't apply what you learn. And every excuse in the book as to why you're not doing this, all you're doing is sabotaging yourself. All you're doing is sabotaging your dreams. And all you're doing is lying to yourself. So that is like the big one that comes up with most of my students I see is like the procrastination. Then you have other ones like the same students come in and they go through everything. And they're, you know, watching the videos, and they're going through the workbooks and they're applying everything and they're getting results. What is the difference? It's the same framework, it's the same program, but it's all what goes on up here. And getting control of your mind watching your thoughts. Being aware we all procrastinate. Hello, I mean, it's who is we're humans, right? It's going to happen but you need to be able to catch yourself when you're doing it and recognize it. Okay, I'm sabotaging myself right now. And you need to act in spite of that need to act in spite of fear.
Collin 26:57
And that's that's really, really hard. Is to catch yourself in the moment. A lot of times we are and and and that just takes practice for all these things because you start off and you'll be like, Oh, yeah, yesterday I said I was going to do this and I didn't do it. And these are the reasons why I learn from that into practice that that mindfulness, both in your business actions and your your personal interactions, and that that just takes that just takes time.
Colleen S. 27:26
It takes practice to become the watcher of your thoughts. And it's also like, groundbreaking when you start when you tap into that and you start witnessing yourself of what's going on upstairs. Catching yourself Yeah, you're gonna make that's when I really see like breakthroughs happen when people really become mindful
Collin 27:44
of everything that's been going on in 2020. How's mindfulness been for you? And what are some things that you've been doing and working on?
Colleen S. 27:52
Yeah, so again, with my grief and my loss, and just the way this year has gone, I mean, it's I've never felt more connected to spirit than I have. I mean, just really making it part of my daily practice, like every single morning making sure that I do my meditation that I do my journaling that I do a thought download, right? So getting all of these crazy thoughts out of our heads, putting them on paper, and then actually reading what you're thinking and then creating a new thought model saying, Okay, I'm choosing to think about this differently. making this a regular practice in my life as just, if I didn't have this in place already, when all of this happened, I don't know. I don't know how I would have handled all of this so much was thrown at me so quickly. That is, it really has been, you know, life saving, quite honestly. So really working. I highly suggest for anybody I mean, whether you're a business owner or not, is kind of making that connection with, with source and with spirit and with that and making sure that you're clearing your mind and starting your day off from a place of positivity versus a place of reactivity. And just Getting them getting in their emails and answering their phones and having no time to center yourself before you start your day is one of the best pieces of advice I could give.
Collin 29:08
Many people would be familiar with the idea of writing down tasks that you have to do in a given day. And then it because sometimes our minds can get cluttered with things we have to do. So writing them down really helps put that in concrete. But this the slight shift of writing down thoughts and ideas, and writing that down, you need to declutter those as well. And you need to see exactly where your brain is, and then going, why am I thinking about that? What what what is that going to do for the rest of my day? And, and in doing that you said, being consistent with that. And that's a skill that I think will really help us moving forward. As as we business gets picked back up, and we can push off fatigue and burn out a little bit more, because those kinds of things are really going to help us Are mindset.
Colleen S. 30:01
Yeah, I pull a card every single morning. So like, Here's mine today, he says, Craig, it says when I make joy a priority, brilliant ideas will come naturally support will surround me and movements will form. So I pull one of these every day. It's something different every day, but then I leaned it up right next to my computer. And I just looked down at it when I start feeling negative. Any little things like this that you can do to try to keep you on the positive side of things, I think really helps,
Collin 30:31
helps. staying positive. That's not to discount the feelings that you have. That's not to discount the things that are going out. Some sometimes I think people get the wrong idea of when someone says, Oh, you stay positive. We're not ignoring those bad feelings. We are just focusing on something a little different. we're shifting the mindset. we're shifting the framework that we're working in, using those maybe those those bad emotions offset, the sadness, the anger, the frustration to get us to a And as business owners, when we have people relying on us when we have things to manage and things to stay organized, if if we're not okay, personally, things can start coming unraveled, and we can end up, burnt out and wondering, where on earth are we going?
31:19
Yeah, absolutely.
Collin 31:20
As you talk to pet care professionals across the United States, what are some common concerns for their business that they're having? And what kind of advice Are you giving?
Colleen S. 31:30
I think the biggest fear in dealing with most of my students is the fear of hiring, the fear of doing that delegation. Nobody can take care of good enough care of the pets as I can. Nobody is going to hire us my business unless it's me, I have to do everything III Me, me, me. And what I really try to impress upon them is you can build an amazing team of amazing people that are going to take absolutely exceptional care of your clients. And that's it. Truly how you're going to be able to support more pet owners and your community as well as create a bigger income for yourself. And the more money that you bring into your life, the more people you can hire, and the more you can give back to the charitable, the charitable organizations that you want to or your time, it's all like this wonderful reciprocity that happens as you grow. And as you delegate you hire these people and to do into doing something that they absolutely love, and then you have more time and more money to give back to, you know, the pet community. So it's a win win, right? But a lot of people are fearful of it, they feel like it's not going to work out or they hire the wrong person once and then they're scared to do it again, you know, so, you know, I really teach these hiring systems about recruiting the right people and onboarding, the right people and making sure that you have processes in place. By the time these people go out in the field. They are ready to go do an amazing job.
Collin 32:58
The fear can be such a driver factor for a lot of stuff that we do both both personally and for our business. So what would you tell somebody who is really fearful of taking that next step? How would they start overcoming that?
Colleen S. 33:12
I think you need to make sure you have the foundation in place. So you you're not like putting an ad on Craigslist having somebody come over to your house saying, Okay, I think that you'll do a great job. and sending them 20 or clients houses is not the way to hire, right. But if you have a whole system in place where you have an ideal set or profile, you know, the exact type of person that you're looking for, you have a well formulated job ad and job application, you have a system in place where you're setting up trial and error for prospects to kind of jump through so you even know how they're going to be as a pet sitter before you even hire them. Or you might not even get to the step of even interviewing somebody because they missed these trial and error steps. You know, when you have that foundation laid, you're going to have more security and People that you bring on and the people that you send to your clients houses. So, I mean, all of that in place I think is really important before you make the big leap into hiring. So many people make the mistake of just jumping in and hiring the first person that says they want it. That's it. And that's when things go wrong. Trust me. Hello, I've been there done it. Again, no judgment. Yeah. I've learned again, though, I learned these lessons and then applying them to your business.
Collin 34:24
Yeah, that fear coming from what have I make the mistake? What if I do the wrong thing? What if What if it's very focused on on how you're going to react? So this idea of externalizing the process externalizing the ideas then you trust the process because it's over here. And it's not gonna it doesn't reflect on you. It's this process that you've worked with others, you know, business coach or friends to come in and help you develop that and then just you got then you it's not a it's not a personal attack, or it's not a personal thing. It's a process this thing over here,
Colleen S. 34:56
precisely. And here's another thing, you're gonna make mistakes. Mistakes are inevitable in life. I mean, that's another thing like it's not going to your business is not going to run perfect 24 hours a day, seven days a week, things are going to come up pickups are going to happen. And it's how but it's how you walk away from those mistakes and it's what you learn from them and then how you apply what you learn to your business. As the business goes on and develops, it's only going to get better and better and better. So not being fearful of making a mistake either I think is hard for people
Collin 35:28
it really is because we most time have very high standards for ourselves or for the level of care that we're giving or high expectations on how things are going to move forward. But this idea of going okay, I messed up what can I do? What can I put in place Who can I hire Who can I bring on make sure it doesn't happen again and then don't have to worry about it because you went through those proper steps and in a healthy way not in a never gonna hire again that you know, the hiring is awful or never going to do these kind of services again, because those are awful, it's okay, well, let's let's work through this and learn. And if that means asking for help, or if that means taking a step back, like, there are ways to navigate that. Yeah. And in closing here, if there's one thing that you could have told yourself when you first started, what would it have been?
Colleen S. 36:17
When I first started, I would have told myself that you do not have to be the only person that does everything in this business. I was the person that did the pet sitting the door walking the house, sitting, the customer service calls, the emailing the scheduling, the books, the marketing, the hiring, I mean, everything, the team meeting, you know, whatever, I did not have to be the bottleneck in the business. When you remove yourself as the bottleneck, that is when things open up and then the abundance comes in delegating, hiring the right people. It doesn't have to happen overnight, but slowly but surely you are building the systems processes in team to give you the ability to To create a profitable business, that is what I would have told myself.
Collin 37:06
I love it we do we do try and wear so many, so many hats, right? And we and you did stop wearing all the hats, stop it, you know, let someone else take care of that, who and in trusting that that person is going to do a better job than you could because they're more focused. And maybe that's exactly what they went to school for. That's exactly where their skillset lies. It's this trust. Again, we're trusting processes. We're trusting people. And as you said that that allows you to focus on other roles that you want to take on to the business.
37:35
Exactly.
Collin 37:38
Well, Colleen, thank you so much for coming on. I've really enjoyed our conversation today. And I know there's so many more unanswered questions and things that people are going to have running around in their brain. So if people want to connect, reach out and ask more questions from you, how can they do that and follow along with everything that you're doing these days? Okay,
Colleen S. 37:56
we can go to my website at pet nanny coach.com You can join our free Facebook group at pet nanny Coach community.com. That is where we turn our passion for pets into paychecks. It's all about business and supporting each other during the business building process. And I have my YouTube page at nanny coach. And that's it.
Collin 38:22
Wonderful. Yeah. And we'll have links to all those in the show notes for the episode and on our blog post on our website, so people can definitely find you and go check you out there. There's a ton of amazing resources. So
38:34
Ah, thanks, Collin.
Collin 38:35
Thank you again,
38:36
anytime. I'd love to do I'd
Collin 38:38
love to have you back on and, and have some more focused questions and, you know, maybe have some listener questions to to address certain things and just catch up and see how everything's going as things start to open back up and, and what the actual industry looks like and how it shaped and, and how people are reacting to all of this.
38:56
I'm optimistic that I will tell you, I think it's gonna be good. It's gonna be Great.
Collin 39:00
Yeah, I think so too. I, I, you know, you touched on the people hiring or people getting all these dogs and all this stuff. And so like there's this weird thing where the the market has grown kind of behind closed doors. Right? And And once those doors open, even if it's halfway from what they were because more people are working from home, you still have all this. You still have all this new need that was previously not there.
Colleen S. 39:23
Exactly. And then you need to be we need to be there ready for them?
Collin 39:27
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely to fill that. So, Colleen, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Thank you, colleagues enthusiasm and a positive outlook for the future is so contagious. And like we said, being positive or saying staying positive doesn't mean that we have to ignore everything else going on. That's literally impossible these days and it's very unhealthy for us. What it means is looking at what control we do have over our surroundings. Looking at where we can make changes and having to accept the areas that we don't. Both Megan and I are so thankful and appreciative of Colleen coming on in sharing how her 2020 has been so far, many of us can relate and as much as that we are experiencing this emotion fatigue, where there's so much going on. I've talked about it to Megan before of how I don't think we as humans were designed to experience global pandemics and national phenomenons and be able to absorb that and take it in emotionally and still be okay. I really appreciate Colleen describing her mindfulness tactics and things that she is doing to protect her energy and to protect her spirit during these emotional and these tumultuous times. Something that I believe will be very beneficial for not just her but for all of us as we exercise that moving forward to be more resilient and to have a stronger foundation moving forward. As many of us open back Up, those times are not that far off. And once again, Megan I are so excited and so happy to see all of the adorable dogs that you all are posting on Instagram. It really helps brighten our days. We would like to thank our sponsor for this episode, time to pet for making it and all the shows possible. If you'd like to get connected with us, reach out to us on Facebook or Instagram. We're at pet sitter confessional send us an email feedback at pet sitter confessional calm or you can call us I do have this phone number in my phone now. So our number is 636-364-8260. We would love to hear from you and how you were doing
