095- Jessica Abernathy with NAPPS
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Summary:
Jessica Abernathy, President of NAPPS, comes on the show to share about their 2020 conference and her encouragement and excitement for the future of the industry. Jessica also describes the importance of taking time right now to dig into your business and where opportunities are opening up.
Topics on this episode:
What to expect from the conference
Getting prepared
Thinking outside the box
Covid-19 opportunities
The biggest concern?
Becoming a NAPPS member
Main take away? Now really is the BEST time to look at your business and remake it into something you’ve always wanted. There are still a lot of opportunities on the road ahead.
About our guest:
Jessica Abernathy began her career at United Airlines and worked her way into corporate headquarters, where she ran one of the training departments, managing over 3,000 employees. Abernathy handled all the required year training, created new training classes, wrote FAA manuals and coordinated all the managers meetings and training sessions. The last 2 years of her airline career Abernathy was the customer service manager, in charge of scheduling for approximately 350 employees, in addition to running the day to day operations, complaints department and more. Altogether, she spent 10 years as an employee at United Airlines.
Following her airline career, Abernathy ventured into the beauty industry, owning her business for 12 years and loving every minute of it. Still, after the events of 9/11 Abernathy realized that she needed another form of income and was inspired by a client who requested Abernathy to watch her kitten. Thus, Professional Pet Sitter, Inc. began. In addition to Professional Pet Sitter, Inc., Abernathy is also the owner of Chicagoland Cat Sitters.
Abernathy enjoys serving on the Executive Committee, not only for the contributions that she can make to the organization, but for the contributions that her experience can offer.
Links:
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, business, conference, naps, industry, learning, dog, pet sitters, members, good, talking, clients, months, offer, thinking, listen, business owners, week, covid, cat
SPEAKERS
Collin, Jessica Abernathy
Jessica Abernathy
I think the future of this industry is going to be stronger because the leaders of it and I'm, and I'm not talking about myself, I'm talking about the people that have stepped up and been like, I know I can help you with this or, you know, you've seen the new Facebook groups that have popped up going, I can help you with this. I'm an accountant and just getting all these people in it or whatever it is. I think we're going to be a stronger, more solid industry in the future.
I'm Colin, and I'm Megan, and this is pet sitter confessional,
and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter.
Collin
Hello and welcome back to another Friday episode. Today is the last of our series talking about 2020 conferences and we are so happy and excited to have Jessica Abernathy, the current president of naps, the National Association of Professional pet sitters on she discusses how the virtual conference was a kind of an easy thing for them because they had already switched to that platform very early on. she discusses the importance of taking this time to be investing in ourselves and be connected to others. And then we do spend some time talking about the state of the industry and how she is excited for the future and the things to come and all of the opportunities and potential that are out there right now. Let's get started.
Jessica Abernathy
Hi, my name is Jessica Abernathy. I am the current president of naps, which is the National Association of Professional pet sitters. I live outside of Chicago, Illinois, and I own two pet sitting companies. I own a company called Chicagoland cat sitters. It's just for cats, and I own a dog walking at all, all day I do everything but I own another company called professional pet sitters Inc. So I've been in the industry for about 14 years. And, and I've been the president for the last three. This is my third year. So that's where I'm at right now.
Collin
Wow, you have a lot on your plate. Tell us about about naps.
Jessica Abernathy
Well, naps is the only non for profit professional petsitting associating dedicated to raising and abiding industry standards. We support our members with education, certification and the resources to operate a successful business. Our organization is run by our members for our members, we are all volunteers, so volunteered to be the president. So and I got lucky enough to have COVID during my term, so you know, so But yes, we all volunteered, I volunteered, I threw my name in the hat to join the board. And I rose up in the ranks and was, you know, asked to be president, vice president or President Elect is what we call it. I had to be interviewed by a A bunch of people, non board members and members at large they had to interview me and say whether or not I was worthy enough to hold the seat. I did do and I got elected. They must, I must have did okay in that interview. So, so where we stand with that, but it's, like I said, it's, you know, members, it's a member run. So, you know, all our committees are volunteers, all the board is volunteers, all our conferences that we run are volunteered, everything's volunteer, we all we've just pitched in and do everything that our, you know, together.
Collin
Yeah, that must be a really cool place to work and an amazing team to be around and involved into.
Jessica Abernathy
Yeah, it is. I have I have an amazing board right now. I mean, hands down. I can't say enough wonderful things about my board right now just for the one factor of, of our current climate, which you know, there's been a topic of conversation since February. It just, they have stepped up. Everybody's pitched in. Everybody's just They're for each other. And it's just a great, great group of people. And honestly, in the last four months, and I know we're going to talk about this a little later, but in the last four months with what our current status is, in this cobit world that we're learning, I have gotten to know so many new members, because some of the stuff and I'll cover it a little bit with you, but some of the stuff that we did for the COVID and the beginning to help our members out, I have my my little network that I have, I have a pretty big network because I seem to know I seem to know a lot of pet sitters. It just grew and grew and grew over the over the last four months, and I've gotten some great bonds and great friends and it's been nice. So I mean, there's a positive that comes out of that lemonade lemon that we got served recently.
Collin
Sure. We also want to have you on because you guys have a conference that's coming up in September I think and
Jessica Abernathy
number one, yes through the 23rd.
Collin
Okay, and so tell us A little bit about the conference and what pet sitters can expect from it.
Jessica Abernathy
It's a great lineup what we do, we are doing our conference virtual it is a Sunday through Wednesday. And what we do is we do it in the evening via zoom, which I'm pretty sure at this point, everybody has done zoom, you know, in the last couple months, you know, I think before cobit nobody really did a lot of zooming. But everybody knows how to zoom I think now. So we're doing it via zoom. So it's great because it is live. For the people that want to be there live can be and they can ask questions. We also are recording it so that those that can't make it if they're, you know, their businesses back up and they're working and stuff, they can listen to it later. And if you purchase the conference, you have the conference for life, it's yours for life, so you can listen to it anytime you want. and go from there.
Collin
Ya know that that makes it really powerful because I know one of the many sticking points many problems that pet sitters Especially solo pet sitters had for attending a conference was the inability to go or get away from their busy schedule. So having something that's recorded in the evenings makes it really accessible to a lot more people.
Jessica Abernathy
Yeah, it does. And it makes it so that they can actually join the community within the chat boxes. And you get to sit there and talk to each other and say hi, and you can ask your questions, and somebody usually reads the questions to the speakers and make sure everybody's question gets answered. Sometimes they can jump on the call and ask the questions live, so they can listen to it via their phone, which a lot of people have learned how to call into a zoom call, which is nice so you can listen to it and then turn around and watch it later. You know, and see the slide presentations and stuff like that. So it's really it's a really great way to get everybody together. We listen to our membership and our membership asked for a virtual conference versus a brick and mortar because it like you just said it's really hard for some of our sitters to get a way from their business in order to attend a conference and this way they can attend it and they get to know make friends and bond and stuff like that. So each night we'll have two speakers. Sunday we have like Dr. Pippa and Kate McClellan. We have like each night we have two speakers. You have a host each night. They do the introductions, we have a little break in between. I kick it off. I was kicked off the first night because I'm the president. And then I usually am on I'm on it all the time. But I'm usually kick off the last night to just thank everybody for being there and all that fun stuff.
Collin
Yes. So how is it been setting up the conference in during a time of COVID? What you know, how is it changed in response to it or maybe some obstacles that you guys had to overcome?
Jessica Abernathy
We actually didn't have any obstacles, because we originally planned to have it virtual. So we were ahead of the game. Yeah. Hey, we didn't have to cancel a plane. brick and mortar and change it to a virtual we already had the virtual plans. So I think we were ahead of the game. As for getting our speakers, we reached out to them. We reached out to them early in the year and they had already agreed to it. We reached out back out to them and make sure that they were okay with it. They're totally great with helping us out. Just a sidebar, one of the things I did, and the board helps me with Well, I should say I did let me just put it this way. So one thing that the board did, I did I hosted a lot of it is during COVID we did a six week conference. I'm not kidding when I say six weeks, six weeks, Monday through Thursday, every night we had a guest speaker on talking about I had lawyers on talking about the PP loans before they you know were dispersed and stuff like that. We had attorneys Come on. HR attorneys are not HR attorneys but um businesses. trainees come on to talk to people and figuring out how they could lay off versus furlough versus how to you know, get rid of it. So a lot of those people that donated their time to talk to our people also are coming back and donating some time for our conference also built up a really good relationship with with a lot of people. I mean, six weeks is a long time, and we we sixers a long time. So it was really a great way for us to utilize the people that we knew were coming to the conference, people that, you know, we knew that later on what great person to follow up and have conversations with us on and especially on these weird times that we're living in because we don't know I mean, right now we not none of us know what's going to happen tomorrow. You know, I mean, we joked about that when we were kids that you know, you never know if you're going to get hit by a bus the next day. Well, it those weird times are here. They would be happy we did get hit by a bus at this point.
Collin
Yeah, it definitely is a very interesting world to live in. And as a pet sitter, and as a business owner, knowing that these kind of resources out there, and these kind of behind the scenes discussions and support groups are going on should be really encouraging to know that we're not alone, right? We're not the only ones having these questions or having these kind of problems.
Jessica Abernathy
It's very true. I mean, it was one of the one of the reasons that I felt compelled to try to keep getting speakers for all the information that we could get to our members because in the beginning of you know, March and April, we were just all scared and nobody knew really what was going to happen. When it started when COVID started if you think about it, I mean, I lived in a state that closed down. I closed down pretty early. We started. March 16, was the first order and our stay at Holmes came home at March 23. That I will never forget those dates as long as I live at this point. I mean, they're better than anniversaries and birthdays to me. When we got those dates, and you know, we were told we were only going to be shut down for two weeks. It was just scary because it's like, I've been running my business for 14 years. And all of a sudden I went from, you know, having all my staff working. I'm busy hustling bustling. I mean, I'm leaving the house in the morning coming home sometime before dinner, maybe after dinner, you know, and all of a sudden, I've got a two week vacation and I can't go anywhere. I was just like, Yeah, I was just like, I don't know what to do with myself. It was just very odd. And then as I kept extending, it was like, Okay, I gotta change the life around. So it's just, I think I knew what people were afraid of, because I had so I have I mean, no, I had the same fears everybody else had. I was just like, I'm not working for two weeks. What's this all about? Hence, did I not know that I wasn't gonna be working for the next four months, but, you know, it was just we had to get out to our members everything we could to help them make the right decisions. As their states were either shutting down or stay at home orders were coming in, or how to navigate all these bills that kept coming out or temporary laws. I don't know what you want to call it, like all these mandates that were coming out. And in the beginning, you know, with that, you know, we can get you this loan and the EDL. We can do this and it might be a grant, it might be alone, and just all that. It was so overwhelming. The attorneys that would come on and talk to us they were getting like, briefs that were like six 700 pages, and they would have to like, transcribe it and then come and tell us and I'm sitting there thinking, I'm just reading whatever Facebook tells me I could not read that 600 page transcript to figure out is it okay to Take this up, though. And and so and I felt bad for all the accountants that had to do you know, like, navigate like, we got to take this how much money should we take? How much is going to be forgiven? And so we really worked hard to get as many people out there to help all of our members make the best decisions possible for themselves and their businesses. I mean, that was the best we could do to help them out. Right?
Collin
Well, yeah, just getting that information out in a focused direct manner to the people who actually need it instead of reading from you know, your your uncle, cousin, Sam's Second Brother, Facebook post that said, to take the loans like, well, I don't know. But getting some people in there who actually read through it and have, you know, go to the professionals go to the experts, bringing them getting them front and center, to the people who need it and going yeah, let's talk about this because it is confusing and and we're all learning this in real time. And yet, these are some big decisions that we as business owners are going to have to sort through.
Jessica Abernathy
Right, and if there's it's scary, I mean, they were big, scary decisions and how do you do it? Right? So you don't get penalised at the end. How do you not? It was because it's still scary. I mean, I think we're still kind of living through it, trying to figure it all out. And, you know, and I hearing rumors that there's going to be a second PPP wave. So that'll be fun to learn what
Collin
those rules are going to be. And
Jessica Abernathy
so we'll probably have a couple more guest speakers. Once that comes around. I'm not gonna, you know, tell you what to do from via Facebook. So trouble? Sure, yeah, no, it's just, you know, what we, we really, as a group really tried to be there for our members. And we got a ton of great feedback from our members saying they really appreciate it. And by the way, we still we actually recorded every one of them. And we have them in our library so they anybody can go back and re listen to them if they want to. Some of them you know, like the PPV ones. They're, they're not so relative, but we also had some marketing people on there. Talking about how to market with you're new in this new world that we're trying to navigate in the beginning and you know what to do with social media. Wow, while you're home and things like that. So there's some really good conversations out there that can be listened to still
Collin
no, that's great and and just as many resources as possible, like that's just part of it is trying to get access to those kinds of things. And so thinking about the the conference, you know, it's it's virtual, which may be new or different to some people because we're used to brick and mortar style. How would you suggest people and members and people who are interested in attending, how would you suggest they get prepared to attend a virtual style conference?
Jessica Abernathy
I find a quiet space in your house so that nobody can bug you. You know me because, you know, most people have done a zoom call, so it's always annoying when you're turning around going, Bob, stop talking. I can't hear her. So you want to find a nice quiet space for yourself. I usually tell people to bring a notebook, a bowl of popcorn, your favorite beverage. bridge and sit down and just take notes and enjoy yourself and you know, you can watch it or you can listen to it either way, watching it, you get to see the slides of the presentation to have a slide or you get to watch them on the screen and get to see what cute little outfit they're wearing from the waist up as what I always tell everybody. So, you know, it's it's one of those things that I just think it's the biggest thing is just find a quiet space so you can concentrate, you can really listen and you can really learn and, you know, sit back and have, you know, some popcorn and watch the alarm.
Collin
Right? Yeah. And and being being relaxed, and just taking it in. Because part of that too is is they are being recorded, right? You're not going to miss out on it. You're not going to miss out on something. Because if you missed what that one person said, because you did have to turn in and deal with an issue. No reason to panic, because you can always go back and rewatch it again and again and again.
Jessica Abernathy
Right, right. And if you got something out of it and you were like I really Want to listen to that? Again, you can't, you know, it's like, that's the beauty of it. When you join our conferences, you get the conference for life. You can listen to it every day for the next two years, if you want to do it. So you know, it's really good. But I always recommend that you just get a nice, quiet safe, not safe. I'm so used to saying that word now, tonight, by its pot in your house, with you know, and relax, like, sit down and just be ready to enjoy yourself. And I always tell people have a notebook because there's always that one thing somebody says that you want to jot down right away, and you just want to be like, Oh, that's a great idea. You know, because you're like, I don't want to wait till tomorrow morning when I get the recording sent to me. Give me I want to look at it tonight. So I always say just bring a notebook that we can jot something down. You never know. Somebody might hand out their phone number. I did that during the cobit. So my phone number got around really quick. So I mean, somebody might say, you know, this is how to get ahold of them. So you can just write down stuff that you want for them, but the big Biggest thing is just relax and enjoy it
Collin
right and take that time to know like I can enjoy this I am learning this is beneficial to me and this is this is something that I it's an investment not just in me personally but in my business and that this is this is good and this is work that might not feel like work because you aren't listening but you're learning and things that you can put into practice, you know, down the road or or immediately depending on what your what you want to do.
Jessica Abernathy
Right and every everybody should always be learning in our industry. I mean, you can never know enough ever and things change. You just got to constantly learn. I mean, all you're doing is investing in yourself and your business and you've got to continue always to invest in both of those. That's how you grow and become the business that you want. And that's how you stay fresh and on top of the industry.
Collin
Absolutely. And I like that of like never stop learning because there's all new things, and maybe it's not going to apply to you, right? The second because that's not the stage that you're in. But you'll be thankful you learned about it five years from now, whenever you are in that stage, you go, Oh, yeah, I learned this back at that conference. And now I can, you know, I'm already ahead of the game.
Jessica Abernathy
Yeah. And like some of the, you know, we've had like cat events that are specialized just in cats. And so like talking to them, it's been interesting to, to learn, like some of the little weird tricks and tips and quirks that they have. And you're just like, Oh, I just thought that was a cat. And they're like, Oh, no, it's you know, because of this and you're like, Oh, all right. I, you know, I'm like, Okay, well, I don't know why I assumed I was an expert in cats, but apparently I'm not. So apparently. I need to keep learning about cats. Yeah. So yeah. So it's just like the little things and in marketing and social media. I mean, I know we everybody's on social media. I know we talk about social media until it's like purple in the face. But that these changes on a daily basis, so honestly, any social media platform class comes out, I'm like, glued to it because I'm like, I know, Facebook's probably changed their algorithm 18 times in the last two days. So how do I get my posts to show up? Right? You know, I, you can you, you can always learn something, you know, this old dog can learn a new trick, every conference. So that's how I look at it. There
you go. That's a good perspective.
Collin
So, a reminder of the conference, when is it and how can people get registered?
Jessica Abernathy
their conference is September 20th, through the 23rd. So it's a Sunday through Wednesday, we actually threw on a Sunday cuz like Sunday night, we thought it would be easier for people to like, get ready for the week and kind of get excited for the week. So we did a Sunday night and you can get the conference at pet sitters.org and you just click on the event button and then the conference will show up and you can just sign up right there and register
Collin
cool, easy peasy. And I'll have links to that and some other stuff that we talked about in the show notes so people can find it there too. Awesome. So you've got this virtual conference, and you've done the six week conference during COVID, educating people, how else has naps adapted to the new needs of your members?
Jessica Abernathy
So we did, we did do the we did the conference, like I said, the six week conference to help members make decisions, make the right decisions for them in their business, you know, I mean, we, we can't make a decision for them, only they can, but we gave them all the tools and resources that we could find out. They make the right decisions for themselves. We've partnered up with, that's fine, and we added a COVID 19 course. And that COVID-19 course is a living breathing course. It's constantly being updated with all the beautiful changes that we are constantly going through in this beautiful time on the world. We're in right now. So that's constantly being up dealt with, which is good. It's better than just running out to the CDC list and being like, Okay, so what are the rules today? You know, so this is a course to help you out on what to do and stuff like that. We've offered, like I said, a ton of webinars, you know, we're working on I think we have one next week, another for our members. And that's another social media one on how to let people know what's going on right now with you and how to market yourself in this new time and new age and stuff like that. So we've been really trying to help any way we can. We have a private Facebook group for our members. So they'll ask every once in a while for something and you know, we try to get it for them, and we try to help them find it. So, you know, a lot of people have spent this time and, you know, we've encouraged them. It's like, you know, this is honestly, everybody in America at some point in the last, I'm going to say five years has said I just need to weeks off to get my crap done. Okay, everybody said that. And honestly, Mother Nature listened and she gave it to us. So I have been encouraging people, this is the time to get stuff done in your business. So if you need a new form for your, your company, then go do it. There's, I mean, you're never going to get two weeks off, or you're like we did this recently. So then spending the time investing back in yourself, you know, you know, update all your policies update all your I mean, we have all those resources that we give you. We have all any almost. We have a library of 70 different business forums, we have an employee. We have a, we have a virtual library, we have a ton of resources for like business plans. We have ton of resources for you guys to do us. So we just really encouraged a lot of people during this time to check it out and apply it to where they needed in their businesses.
Collin
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's We've always been, we've always been so too busy to work on our business because we're so busy working in our business on the day to day grind. And so really viewing this time to sit back and go, Okay, yeah, I did have that one form with that one misspelling that I never got around to fixing, because who has time to do that? So I can whole hog change that and while I'm at it, do these other things, and just really spend that time making the businesses the way we wanted them to be. But we haven't had that time before.
Jessica Abernathy
Right. It's been gifted to us The time has been truly gifted to us, so we might as well take advantage of it right now.
Collin
Yeah, it really has been one of those, like, who I wanted time off, maybe not this much time off, but Okay, this, what can I do with this now?
Jessica Abernathy
I wasn't I was never looking for this much time off. You know, I was looking for just a weekend but hey, you know, I got way more than a weekend.
Collin
Yeah. So as you look across the rest of the pet care industry during COVID, what are some of the biggest trends term impacts that you and naps are seen.
Jessica Abernathy
Well, I mean, I mean, obviously, nobody planned on being on a four month vacation. You know, a lot of a lot of us never planned on. It really does depend on where you are in the United States, because some states my state was very strict in our meet and locked us down. Illinois was pretty much locked down, we're pretty much still locked out. So it's depending on where you are, where things happened in your business, but it the biggest hit, I'm gonna have to say is, you know, just the loss of so much business a lot. Everybody lost so much business and now that people are the states are opening up and you know, we're not getting, we're not getting a lot of the midday walking back because so many people are still home. But a lot of people are starting to go in my area. I'm learning that everybody's going camping. A lot of people that are starting to travel, it's not anywhere near what it used to be. But you got to start marketing into a way of seeing just dealing with the changes. Our industry is changing right now. And I do not have a crystal ball. I'm going to be totally honest with you. I don't have a crystal ball. I have a really cute magic eight ball that I can shake. Yeah. And it sometimes tells me what I want to hear. But I really, I think we're going to be in this through this is my prediction. And my just my opinion, I think we're going to be in this through the winter. And I think I think we're going to see what we what our new normal is going to be in by next summer and we as an industry are going to have to look at how to keep our businesses afloat and what how to market differently because we've all I mean a lot of US market to get midday clients. That's what we want midday dog walking and we want vacation clients I know that there's a lot of people that just do vacation clients and stuff like that, but we're really going to have to market in a different way. And make sure that when we're marketing and might have to offer different services, like some companies that I know of are starting to offer poop scooping pickups, you know, because now everybody's home and the dog goes out in the backyard a lot more than it was and, you know, spends a lot of time out there. And so you can offer poop scooping. I know, there's quite a few people that I know that are like offering to go grocery shopping for, you know, the older people that they take care of. So that way they don't have to go out so you're really going to have to start getting creative and really think outside the box of how to make yourself more open in your services. So like a concierge service, you know, offer to drop off pick up, you know, take the dog to the bed. We're not allowed to go in the bed office. So it's literally we take the vet, dog, they come come pick the dog up from cars here, and we just sit in the car and they call us you know so literally what these people are working from home you know, you could be the person that sits in the drawer in the parking lot and they call the owner and they just bring the dog back to you. So I mean these are things that you got to start thinking outside the box to to start thinking about how can I make it until you know whenever things get back to normal and and it might not I mean, honestly it's a conversation that I think every one of us have had multiple times but the way we were and the way the world was in February I don't think that's ever going to be the normal again for us I think whatever happens in our future is going to be our and I hate using this word but new norm it's so drives me crazy, but there's no other way to say it but but I'm also tired of hearing i think but the new norm or what are normal now. I was going to be is going to be something Different and I think that as business owners, we really need to start thinking outside the box, we really got used to, you know, this is what I do. This is what I do. This is what I do. And now it's that's kind of crippling us. And I think COVID is making us all step out of our comfort zone and find what we really can and can't do.
Collin
Yeah, yeah, you talk about silver linings to this part of that is the time to be working on our business. And the other one is this creativity that we were all forced to go through, right? Like, I've been in business 510 1520 years, this is just how I do business. Not anymore, right? Like, you're not even able to operate in those same ways. So thinking outside the box, and I feel like many times it was well, I've always thought about offering that service, but I didn't have time because I was so busy with my mid day walks right or I thought about this. Well I've got time now and I have the need and And strong desire to continue offering some sort of services and staying connected with my clients. So it forced us into that corner to go. Okay, I have to do this and, and whether those same services stick around or not, that's, that's, you know, free for us to decide as things change. But we've, we've done that, right, we've been able to show that we can we can flex those muscles.
Jessica Abernathy
Exactly. And I think it's also, you know, like some people that only only do midday dog walking, you know, they were like, Okay, I got to figure out how to do petsitting now, I gotta do, I gotta do vacation care, because right now, that's pretty much all there is unless you're essential, you know. And I think it's going to make us stronger as business owners what we're going through because we're going to have the ability to be able to think outside the box for the rest of our careers in our industry. And also it's going to make us really think about when we settle down and Things start to go back to normal. I think it's gonna make us realize that we have to have multiple revenue streams we can't just say that midday dog walking into my revenue stream or vacation cares my revenue minister we're gonna have to have multiple revenue streams in order to you go through the next pandemic which I hope never comes again in my lifetime. So I'm okay with just the one we can wait another hundred years for the next one. But it also will give us the ability to start thinking bigger pictures and not I only do this and I can only offer this service and I only want to offer this service and that's fine if that's what you want to do. I'm not I'm not Pooh poohing anybody trust me I if that's what you want to do, but I think it really made a lot of us like go okay, I can do concierge services. I am cool with this. You know, I I do concierge services in professional pet sitters and I have always offered to be the one that sits at your house and waits for the cable people to show up. I charge a decent price for that. And, you know, beforehand before COVID because nobody was ever home, you know, it was a good service I did well, I was at somebody's house at least once a week waiting for somebody to show up, you know, for and I do it in a three hour blocks. And it's, I mean, so that's a nice little thing to think outside the box that right now doesn't work because everybody's home. But, but you see what I'm saying? You've got to start thinking really outside the box and, you know, maybe broaden your horizons. And if you don't want to, that's fine. You know, and I get it, you know, I mean, there's a lot of people that just want to do this and that that, you know, God bless you, you know,
Collin
right. Yeah. And if that is the case, then figuring out how to market that differently. As you know, you've alluded to of going okay, well, I used to market exclusively to midday people or I used to market exclusively to vacation people if I'm going to still offer the same service. I need to figure out a way to market it so that I get Different people or I can get new clients time cast that net as broad as I can. So there's still some of that aspect of getting outside of the comfort zone flexing our creativity muscle and building our confidence along the way of going Hey, like I, I never thought that'd be possible to do but I had to make that leap. And look what happened. Like this is awesome.
Jessica Abernathy
Yeah. And I, it's fun, because I do talk to a lot of pet sitters, obviously, you know, on a regular basis, and we've, you know, I've talked to quite a few of them and I'm like, you know, just because this is something to think about. I mean, and everybody can use this and I will I will love you if you do okay, but this is something to think about. So right now we we supposedly have school starting up, you know, like, we start school next week, but Indiana started last week and it's been fun but we got school starting Okay, well, nobody's really going to school and most states you know, everybody's doing virtual learning for supposedly the either the first semester of the first month or whatever, but we don't know how long that's gonna last but So now you still got the parents working from home now you got the kids e learning at home and stuff and I'm like, pitch to your clients to come walk their dogs. I mean, they're already stressed out that they're working from home, there are they're beyond stressed out about having to do you learning and out. So tell them to like, Hey, I can take something off your plate, let me come pick fluffy out for you, you know, these are my, my COVID steps. This is what we you know what, whatever your company has put in protocols of what your COVID steps are going to be. You tell them you know that in your email and just say, Look, let me do that for you. I've been telling we've been talking about because a lot of people are going camping, because it's one of the safer things that you can do in social distance and actually see somebody else that doesn't live in your house. You know, um, because nobody thought we're gonna be trapped for four months with the same people. So, um, you know, there's a so a lot of them are going camping but they take the dog with them, but they leave the cat behind and I you know, so make sure like, hey, look, I know you're only going Friday to Sunday, but Make sure that we get ghosty you know, fluffy, you know, she's gonna miss you guys. I mean, you guys have been home with her for the last four months, she's gotten used to it. So she might not do well with the fact that you guys left her for three days. So you know that and I also tell people, a lot of people which is I mean truly this is one of the great things that has happened in this whole mass is so many people adopted animals, which is amazing because when things start opening up and stuff, there's going to be so many more dogs and cats for us to take care of. So that's why it's so important to really keep marketing because they are seven impression impressions that it takes usually for somebody to like remember you. So like if you're on Facebook and they get seven different links like, hey, Nick Chicagoland cat sitters has told me today that you know, it's ginger cat day, you know, so whatever it takes, but a lot of I have clients myself that I haven't seen, but I've had three clients The last two months of puppies so which is great, I'm excited for them because you know, their, their dogs have two of them have passed away and then one is just an addition. But we I have talked to them already. I'm like, okay, I totally understand what we're going through I said but I know what your schedule is like when you go when things get back to somewhat normal. I know what your traveling schedule is. I know what you know what your needs are. I said we need to start being introduced to this dog so that way they are not totally scared of us and I said, I know that's just the thing I said we can meet you at the door you know, and just do a leash handoff you know, so we get a little or you can put the puppy out in the yard and that way we can do a visit and do a yard play I said you know of course we're gonna have to charge you for it because it is time but but it is smart because now that dog has an attachment to your sitter to and they all love the idea. Especially the two were like yard plate. That's amazing. You know, I mean Gladly Can you come over and play with the dog, you know, Monday, Wednesday and Friday at noon, so I can do a conference call. So that way she's got some energy worn out of her. And I'm like, absolutely. So you really have to think outside the box so that we can help our clients at the same time. Make sure we are helping ourselves, you know, for a lack of a horrible way of just putting that but you know what I'm saying help our business.
Collin
Yeah, absolutely. Looking for those opportunities and that the, you know, the new dog new cat adoptions, just that that's going to be such a great opportunity for businesses to get in position to start going, Hey, you know, separation anxiety is a thing. You know, we need to start as you know, as you mentioned, like we need to start doing some things right now. And here's, here's the service. Here are the packages that I have in place to meet your needs and and take that off of your plate and take that worry and concern away from you. So you don't you don't so that's not something we battled down the road.
Jessica Abernathy
I didn't actually think of it myself. When my client called me up, and he's like, I got a dog his dog passed away in February suddenly, and I know them because the last time their dog before Dougan passed away. They had a new one the next day. So I mean, I literally had a puppy The next day, they're just attached to always having a dog. So I figured they would wait, because they didn't want to potty train and you know, in winter and Chicago stinks potty training. So I would wait. And I figured they would get a new puppy eventually. And he called and let me know that the new boy's name is Brody. And he was the one that said, I want to make sure that Brody knows dream before we all have to leave this house and I don't want him to have been xiety either. And I was like, Oh, you just gave me a marketing tool. I was like, that was brilliant. I didn't even come up with it. I had to share that just so you guys know I didn't come up with it on my own.
Collin
Okay, that's great, but it's a great example of listening to the needs of the clients right and and Because if you don't know what services to offer, ask your clients and see what they need, what gaps they need fill, but they need to take it off their plate and start there. Because if one person needs it, guarantee of multiple are going to need it.
Jessica Abernathy
Right? I got three more clients doing it now. And it was like, I was so smart Mike. That was that's the daddy's name Mike. I'm like, Oh, thank you so much for that. You know, I was talking to one of the pet sitters I know down in Texas, and she's offering dog walks for or dog outing, you know, like, we'll take them to the park for you while you do your zoom meeting. Yeah, you know, while you're doing this meeting or a board meeting, so that way you don't have to deal with. Now, I have to say, a lot of people have gotten very used to having background noises because we're all stuck in the houses and stuff. But you know, if it's a real important one, you know, offer that, you know, let me take the dog out during the meeting and that way, they're going to be really tired when you get back in and they're just going to sleep. Right? So it's just you just have to really think outside the box and come up with different ideas and like you said, you really need to listen to your clients because they will help you market yourself and you won't even realize it if you don't, you know, but you really just need to listen to your clients too.
Collin
Right. Absolutely. And so as you're talking to your members, what are some of their biggest issues that they're still facing or biggest concerns that they still have that have yet to be solved or on their way to being resolved?
Jessica Abernathy
I'd probably say the biggest issue is really, we don't know. I mean, there's no there's no certainty. There's no end date to what we're going through right now. So it's really hard. It's like how do I plan to bring people back like, when do I know what to do? I mean, and unfortunately, that takes a crystal ball which we already, you know, learned I don't own that crystal ball. But that's I would say that's the the biggest concern in issue with the members is just we don't No. And it's the hardest thing. We as a country, we just go that night even in our industry, but we as a population, our predictability is like what we want. We want to know what the predictability is. And we have none right now. And that just there's no set schedule, there's no certainty, there's no nothing. And that's really hard for a lot of us to swallow. And it makes it hard as a business owner to be like, should I What should I do next? Because you don't know because you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.
Collin
Yeah, it really does. Especially if you are looking across going, man, I, you know, I've laid off my employees or they're on furlough. When when do I need to bring them back? How do I make sure I pull that at the right time? How do I adjust prices, all the sorts of stuff like these are decisions that any other year would be relatively easy to make or at least predictable because you could look at the track record of the previous few months and project out forward you know, and do all that stuff. But now like all bets are off.
Jessica Abernathy
It's very hard to do. I mean, I jokingly said to a friend of mine, I said, you know, five years ago, I had an idea of where I wanted to be right now. And I guessed really wrong. Yeah, really, really wrong. You know, I'm like, where I want to be in five years from now, I'm not even going there anymore. And it's just, we just don't know, there's just everything's so uncertain. But to everybody's credit, I mean, to the people that I do talk to enough people that I have had, you know, on zoom calls, and, you know, conferences and stuff like that, and everybody's doing really well, trying to ride this wave of uncertainty and really just trying to figure out what the next step is and how to survive, you know, and some people are just enjoying the time off and really regrouping like we've talked about doing and some people are, some people are their businesses are doing really well. And a lot of people I it's kind of interesting for me to see And here is a lot of people that have asked the owner that has, or as a sole prop that have worked really heavily in their business and not on their business with this downtime, and as things are slowly picking back up, they're like, Oh, I don't want to do this anymore. And I mean, like, I don't want to do this as in, I need to hire, I want to I want people I don't, I don't want to go back to where I was, I did not realize how exhausted I was. So I think the lemonade out of this, some of this is that people are seeing how hard they were working and how much they want to change their business. And I think it just, it was it's an eye opener for some people on, you know, the blessings of you know, what, two weeks into four months so far it's been turned into. So I think that is good for a lot of people. Because it's good for people to step back and reevaluate. And I think I there's so many of us that have had to Step back and reevaluate, and that's a good thing. Yeah. I mean, as as a business, that's a good thing. And I think that's what a lot of the naps members are starting to realize is like, Alright, I step back I'm reevaluating I'm this gonna be good now. Come on, let's get it. Let's get it going. I want to get it going. You know, we all want to get going.
Collin
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it does. It's not being afraid to do that assessment is so key. And not because as you said, like it's such a good thing, like only good things can come out of that. Because when you take a second look, third, look, fourth, look, you're you're getting better. You're fine combing through the issues that you had, and really working on all those knots and kinks and figuring out exactly how you want to operate. And I let you know, I'd love hearing that if people who took this time to go, I need to change the position that I have in my company, I actually need to hire more people because turns out like I was either wasn't the right person to be doing that and someone needs to come underneath me and do that or people took that time to reassess just the business top down and figure out out what's gonna work best for them?
Jessica Abernathy
I honestly I think in about a year or two, when whenever life flattens out and figures out what it's going to look like, I think a lot of people are going to look back and be like, you know, it totally sucked what we went through in 2020. But it was probably one of the best things I did for myself because I changed and I'm better, and I'm stronger than I was. And I really, really think we're gonna hear a lot of that. But we have to get out of this so that people can start seeing all the work that they've been putting into things was so worth it. And I think I really do believe in the next year or two people are going to look back and be like, yeah, you know, it's, it's dunk at the time. But, man, Okay, first of all, I probably shouldn't take so many naps, but I got so much done. You know, I mean, I really think that people are going to look back and be like really happy with like the changes that they did decide to make wild We're going through this and in this weird time we live in
Collin
right now and thinking about the industry moving forward, how do you think it will be changed because of COVID?
Jessica Abernathy
I think that we're going to be way more conscientious about sanitation, and saying, you know, and I really do, I think, I think this pandemic is going to make us all hoard, sanitary, our disinfectants. You know, the people that depression did canned goods. I think we're all going to hoard disinfectants. But I think it's going to change our industry because I think we're going to have a broader outlook on services, I think we're going to look at you know, how we take care of people's animals a little differently. So I think that's going to change it. I think that I'm hoping that this will help. Not even just us. I mean, it helps us in the pet industry, but it helps to pet parents. I hope that after so many people volunteered to foster and rescue animals to Get them out of the shelter so that they could, you know, have a place to live while we were doing this. And, you know, no offense after four months of being with you, you know, those animals are all family now. Nobody's giving up anybody in form after four months. But I hope that helps with our industry because it helps us, you know, have more clients, but I hope that helps the, you know, the rescue industry at the same time, because that'll help keep animals out of shelters. Right. So, I really just like I said, I really see that in our industry that are the leaders and the business owners, I think we're just really going to start being able to think a little bit broader outside of our box and not be as you know, like, okay, petsitting is just these items. It's going to be bigger than that and how we help people run you know, teach people or educate people on how to run businesses. It's going to be a bigger deal because a lot of us learned you know, that you know, I sees employees you know, unemployment II us like, you know, a lot of people are changing How they're running their businesses right now because of what we're going through. So I think I think the future of this industry is going to be stronger because the leaders of it, and I'm, and I'm not talking about myself, I'm talking about the people that have stepped up and been like, I know I can help you with this or, you know, you've seen the new Facebook groups that have popped up going, I can help you with this. I'm an accountant and just getting all these people in it or whatever it is. I think we're going to be a stronger, more solid industry in the future.
Collin
Yeah, no, I that that's so awesome to hear. Because so many of us, like maybe the the business financial side that that was just kind of tangential to what we're doing because we just wanted to play with the pets right, like running the business, but isn't what we were actually passionate about. The last four months has been a crash course in running business and operations and strategy and strategies and processes for people who maybe that wasn't their primary focus, and so that is a really Good thing to have really comb through your books really looked at icees employees, insurance, all of those kind of things, as you've mentioned before, like that will only pay off for the good in years to come.
Jessica Abernathy
Yeah, it's gonna totally pay off and it's going to make us a stronger group as a group, you know, and, and, you know, it's just gonna make a stand out and it's just gonna make people stronger and their businesses and it's just gonna help them grow.
Collin
Yeah, absolutely. And and as we think about the industry and people becoming stronger as themselves, naps has a really cool pledge of professional conduct that you guys have that you've written up and that you use a lot. So could you tell us what that is and why it's so needed.
Jessica Abernathy
But we the naps numbers, sign that the conduct upon joining the association. As a board member, we have to sign it. We signed that contract. Every year and renewal of our, you know of our terms, so every beginning of every year, we have to sign that ourselves again, you know. So the pledge is designed to guide members in the conduct of business, which shall represent the highest standards of ethical behaviors and human attention towards animals and people. We just want to, we want to elevate ourselves to being the leaders of the industry, and we want our members to stand proud and say, Look, I'm a naps member. And I am proud of who I am and I do everything by the books leave, you know, and ethical and you mean and everything and I'm just, you know, a good human being. And I, I take this very seriously.
Collin
Yeah, it's really taking that and going, raising the bar and asking everybody when to operate with complete excellence in all things, right, just in, in an industry that sometimes gets thrown shade on it because of bad actors or bad press or those kind of things going, No, we are going to stand above that. And apart from that, because these are the things that we hold, you know, at the core of not just our businesses, but personally how we operate.
Jessica Abernathy
Exactly. So yeah. When you become a member you have Simon.
Collin
Yeah. Which is a good thing, right? Again, that's just it's taking that and holding ourselves to a higher standard, and and letting people know what that is and what wouldn't what you guys stand for.
Jessica Abernathy
Right? Exactly. You know, that thing? You know, what you're getting into?
Is what we expect.
Collin
So speaking about getting into if somebody isn't a member of naps, why should they consider it?
Jessica Abernathy
We're a non for profit. We're the only non for profit there is so our members or our members, run the organization. As I said earlier, I'm a volunteer. I don't get paid for my time at naps at all. None of us do. We do it out of the kindness of our hearts and also wanting to build up our industry we want we want to represent the leaders of the industry we want to set the standards high so that way the industry is taken very seriously. I picked naps because I had a choice between a non for profit and a for profit and I went for the non for profit because I know non for profits are run by their members and stuff like that. And I wanted to give back because I had so many people that helped me out in the beginning when I started my business. I wanted to give back to my my industry. And you know, a couple years later, I look where I'm at. But I mean, it's just that's one of the reasons I picked naps. We we have a great, great resources we have. We have a certification that you guys can use. We have a library of business forums, we have all our magazines on online for you. We have courses that you can take, which are like two Dog bird courses we have chicken cores. So you can get you know certificates in those. We have webinars we have basically I want to say since we started doing webinars we have webinars going back to probably 15 years or more now wow that's yeah don't quote me on that and nobody on this you know, podcast quote me on that one. So don't get in trouble but we have I know good at least 10 years worth of them because I had to help move them over from the old website to the new website. I know we have a ton. So I know there's a lot so what I mean so there's all that you can go back and listen to so we leave that there for you. Like I said, all the magazines which have great articles in them, they're very so you can you literally get all the magazines we don't get all this with in all the membership we have a toolkit that is for a partner, so we're a partner with betch fine, so you can get a discount with them. We have a bunch of partnerships that we work with time to pat is one of Our partners, yes, we have a great end we have a group, a committee members benefits that is always looking for new partnerships for the member. So we're always trying to keep that fresh and updated and working for new partnerships. So we give a lot out to it. And that's all included in your membership. You're not you don't pay for any of that. It's all included. We do. monthly webinars, we do take some couple months off. Usually it's the summer months are usually busy, and we usually take off like December or November and December because we know everybody's busy. But we do do webinars, like I said, and that's free. If you do take our certification course the webinars do count as CPUs so you can learn something and get to us at the same time. So there is a 10 day free trial that you can go to our website which is pet sitters.org. And you there's a 10 day trial. You can try it out for 10 days. If you like it, you can join.
Collin
Wow. Yeah, just the immense amount of free resources there and what you started off there was the ability to give back and be involved in something and help other people is is really what it sounds like is is at the core of what naps is trying to do in their raising standards and to bring people together
Jessica Abernathy
that were big in education. That's one yeah, education and we want I yeah, we'd like to we like to, we like to help people you know, we want to we want to stand out we want to be the you know, we want to make the industry standards above everything. So yeah, it is.
Collin
I have really thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the show today Jessica and sharing your your your outlook for the future and the extreme optimism and bright outlook that you have and and all the hard work that you and naps are doing to help support pet sitters across the country. It really helps the industry as a whole and And I know everybody is the better off for it. So thank you for coming on the show today.
Jessica Abernathy
Oh, my pleasure was my pleasure. I'm so nice of you to ask. Yeah, I try to look at everything as positive as possible. I think if you look at things through, I don't want to say rosy glasses. But if you try to look at the positive and always look at the lemonade that you can make with the lemons that were being thrown at us, I mean, not even handed out if they're getting thrown at us. It will make it makes the situation so much better, you know, and it'll help you maybe get through it a little bit easier. You know, so I always try to be as positive as possible.
Collin
Yeah, no, it's it's much needed in times like these for sure.
Good. Thank you so much for having me.
Collin
Jessica's enthusiasm and optimism are nothing short of infectious, something that we could all use a little bit more of these days. I really appreciate her being open and candid about being able to learn from others and not really having all of the answers but being willing to to go out and find people to bring in resources to bring in information, so that we can all learn and be better for it. I do hope you've been able to listen to each of the last three Friday episodes where we talked with Carmen from ibpsa. We talked with Beth from psi. And then today's with Jessica from naps. Each of these three industry leaders have a very similar message for all of us. There are good times ahead. It is hard right now. But there are still opportunities, there are still things that we can be doing for ourselves and for our business, to put ourselves on a good foot moving forward. Some of that is continuing education, whether that is attending a conference or getting plugged in with a good Facebook group or good local community to just have access to more resources. And I know it doesn't really feel like this. But every single one of the people that we have talked to have said that they have been so impressed. And so encouraged by the hard work that you, you the petsitter have been doing to keep your business running the creativity that you've shown the grit, the determination through this time. People see that at all levels all around you. So know that even in those days where you don't really feel like it, and trust me, Megan and I have had our fair share of those over and over again. But you're still here, you are still dedicated, you still have the that passion to be giving the most excellent service that you possibly can, through thick and thin, good times and bad. You continue to show up. And again, I want you to hear that. People see that people see that work, both at high national international levels, and down in the local communities and business owners in your clients as well. So if somebody hasn't Told you recently. You're doing great, even though it doesn't feel like it. Trust me. People do see that it does not go unrecognized. Megan and I hope you have a wonderful weekend and we'll be back on Monday with another episode. Thank you so much for listening
