135: Paws N Whiskers with Chenelle Conquest
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Summary:
Chenelle Conquest, owner of Paws N Whiskers, shares her journey into pet care and her struggle in hiring and bringing on team members. She talks about the process of growing to trust others in the care of clients and the freedom it has brought her. We discuss the particulars of caring for and working with horses and why it’s so important for her to be involved in local charities.
Topics on this episode:
Caring for Horses
Growing her team
Building trust
Involving her business in charities
Main take away? Trust isn’t given, it’s earned, and it’s on us to put in the hard work.
About our guest:
My name is Chenelle and I am the owner and founder of this amazing company. My love and passion for animals was very apparent from a young age. Going on to study animal studies, vet nursing, and working at a local boarding kennel I really have developed a thorough understanding and empathetic approach to all animals and their needs. I have worked around animals over the last 12 years and had various pets all my life from rats through to horses.
Animal health and welfare is something that really drives me to provide the absolute highest quality of home care for your pets. I cant picture myself doing anything else.
A few fun facts; I also have 2 children who are the little apples of my eye. When I'm not working I love going camping, swimming, seeing my friends, and being outdoors. I have lived in the Southern Highlands since I was 4 years old and don't think I'll ever leave!
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, pet, animals, clients, dog, horses, important, business, services, care, day, girls, big, highlands, vet, cats, trust, holiday, Chanelle, owner
SPEAKERS
Collin, Chenelle
Collin 00:18
Hi, I'm Colin. And I'm Megan. And this is petsitter. confessional
00:22
an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter
Collin 00:25
brought to you by time to pet. One of the really cool things about being in the pet care industry is the fact that we get to be part of a truly global community. And today, we're really excited to bring to you a conversation that we had with Chanel conquest, owner of paws and whiskers pet care services from New South Wales, Australia. Chanel shares how her passion for pets led her into the industry. We also talked about how she had to grow to trust others to care for her clients. And we end with a wonderful discussion about how important it is to be involved in local pet charities. Let's get started.
Chenelle 01:03
Thank you for having me on. I really appreciate that you considered asking someone all the way from Australia to be on your podcast that's really special to me. So I really do appreciate it. So my name is Chanel conquest, I own and run paws and whiskers pet care services in Southern Highlands, Australia. We also run in Wollongong, Hunter Valley, and golden, which is a few regions throughout New South Wales, which is the state that I reside in. And we just offer everything you can imagine for pets, I really have this visualization where I started posing risk is to be an all inclusive service for all animals, I didn't want anyone to be missing out. So we do dog walking, pet sitting, transport, overnight stays, equine care, farm care, you name it, we've got you covered. And yeah, that's pretty much the business in a nutshell. I could go on about that forever, but I want but the reason that I got into it is just because I do want everyone to feel like they don't need to stress about their pets when they go away if they're working. Not everyone has dogs and cats and I feel a lot of pet sitting services are really focused on canines and cats. And a lot people have other pets like guinea pigs, chickens, rabbits, horses, snakes, other reptiles, and we just didn't want those people to feel like they had no option or they had to miss out on things or they had to devote their whole life to their pet because there was no option for assistance. So yeah, that's what we we focus on.
Collin 02:25
It's it's important to remember that there are people out there that need to travel or be gone from work for a long time, or just need other services that you can fill in the gaps and help solve that problem for them, too. That's not just dogs and cats.
Chenelle 02:40
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think if you're new to the pet industry, you do seem to focus a lot more on domestic pets. And if you don't have a lot of background experience with, say, foreign animals, or reptiles or exotic pets, it's just something that you don't think about. But there are a lot of people out there that have those animals, and they do need the help as well.
Collin 03:00
I think you've got a background in vet nursing. So how has that played into your services and the what you provide.
Chenelle 03:07
So I always wanted to be a vet nurse from young age. And the more I got into it, the more I studied it, the more I worked in a veterinary center, I realized it wasn't for me, I don't have the heart for a while it was a really rewarding job, it was an interesting job. And I did enjoy it. I just couldn't, I didn't have the heart for when animals were sick, I didn't have that heart for when animals had to be put down. To be honest, I was quite opinionated when people brought their animals in and were put down for silly reasons, or they didn't want to go ahead with treatment that would have been life saving, etc. And that wasn't expensive, or just lots of little things like I just I personally couldn't do it. But I still wanted a way to be with animals every day and have an impact on their health and happiness and be a part of their lives. But without the sort of negativity that does unfortunately come with working in a Vet Center or being a witness. And like I said, it is a great experience. It is rewarding, but it just wasn't for me. So I've been able to carry my skills I learned through to this job. But as far as the vet nursing background goes, I think you need to be a very special person to have the heart and the mind to be able to separate both to do that job.
Collin 04:23
Yeah, no, absolutely. It is a diff very different kind of interaction that you have with them when it
Chenelle 04:29
is it's very clinical, very clinical and straight to the point and it's not just not the road, I wanted to go down for my own personal ideals and how I wanted to interact with animals myself. Yeah.
Collin 04:44
Now Is that how you got experience in some of the more exotic kind of pets was through that background? Or how did those services come about?
Chenelle 04:51
Oh, that's just a personal experience. Different family members having farms, growing up with horses, things like that. Having friends with And doing things with them on the weekends and staying at their place. And I've just always wanted to be around animals. So I've sort of found myself always drawn to people that have a lot of animals and spending my time with not just cats and dogs, but rodents and their clients and cattle and sheep, and you name it. And I've just, I think had that upbringing. I'm very fortunate that I did have the opportunity to be around animals like that it wasn't something I sought out to gain experience in. It's just the lifestyle that I've been given from a young age and living in the part of Australia where I live. It is quite rural, and I do you have like, easy access to a lot of those types of animals. So it's been Yeah, I guess just part of my life.
Collin 05:41
Many of our listeners might not be as familiar with Southern Highlands. So tell us about what the pet care market is like there. So in
Chenelle 05:48
the Southern Highlands, we're really lucky to have the best of both worlds. There's the CBD, that's really busy. And then there's a lot of rural land around the highlands. So you'd find more domestic pets and people wanting dog walking. Their cats looked after their rodents like bunnies, guinea pigs, mice and things like daftar more in town, and then you head out of town, which is in a far drive at all. Most of the rural areas are about 10 1520 minutes from town. And that's where you start to find the livestock, the horses, the cattle. And so we're able to really pick between the both because we have the both here and everyone is pet Matt here in the highlands, everyone adores their dogs adores their cats. There's so many different Dog Boarding, there's so many different doggy daycares. So it's something that really needs to be facilitated here in the highlands, like people do need pet care, it is a hide amenity. And then when you get more out to the rural areas, there are so many horses, there are a lot of people that are in competition, there are a lot of people that just have lots of horses as pets. And of course, you know, they want to go away, they work long hours. And that's when they need the help because it is a special type of care for horses and livestock. And it's a lot more complex and time consuming. So that's how we sort of are able to do the both farm care and domestic pet care.
Collin 07:09
Yeah, it sounds like it's a really diverse area and the number of services and kind of care that you're able to provide. That sounds really cool,
Chenelle 07:16
ladies. Yeah, I think that's why we wanted to be so like offer so many different services, because we know that there's really a demand for everything here from the overnight stays to the dog walking, we've got people that live in more suburban areas with backyards are quite small, and then all the way through to the horse care where you've got heaps of people that have lots of horses and do different things or go away or as I said, work. So just from every point of view from a pet care provider, we really needed to cover all bases, with overnight stays. Some people go away for business overnight, a lot people, a lot of people commute to the city in Sydney, it's only a two hour drive for me. So they're away overnight. With the pet sitting, a lot of people go on holiday, a lot of people in the highlands you'd find would want to stay here because it's such a beautiful place. But actually we like to get out and go on holiday because this is a tourist destination. So a lot of people actually come here for their holiday, which means a lot of people from the highlands will go, which is where the pet sitting need comes in. Because there are a lot of people that holiday here. Yes. So in the transport, just like we have a lot of older communities here too, that can't really get around, can't get their pets to the vet easily can't get their pitches agreement easily. So we assist them with that.
Collin 08:32
Yeah, just so much going on there. And I did want to touch Yeah. I did want to touch on you mentioned earlier that you know you provide some farm care and care for horses. And that sounds from what I know, that's pretty intensive. So what does that look like? What kind of what does that service look like when you go and provide that?
Chenelle 08:54
Oh, that's a really specialized service. And it's so much more complex like not that looking after cats and dogs isn't but it's just such a more complex care that we provide is because horses have so many different needs. It's so hard when they are sick, it's hard when they're difficult. It really takes an experienced person to handle them. So I mean, from start to finish, we'll sort of go and assess the job. Talk to the owner about the horses, ask what their needs are, what their handling is like what they actually need, do they get rugs do they get stabled and we can do all that for them. And we just like to get an idea of the job beforehand so I can work out who's going to be the best fit to do it. And we can do medications so horses have a few certain sports only they can receive injections. So we'll go over that with owners and what they get fed because horses have so many different types of feed. If you've got a racehorse if you've got a dressage horse, if you've got an event Are they all going to have different types of feed. So it really is a more fine tuned thing when Working with horses, especially trying to keep on top of their health. So many things can go wrong, they're so clumsy. And they're so accident prone. And sometimes it's really, it's hard when horses are unwell, it's it's hard to pick. So you do need, I think if anyone was interested in getting into horse care, you really need to have that background of hands on experience and training because they are a touchy animal, and a lot can go wrong quite quickly with them. So you need a bit of higher insurance when you're working with horses as well, especially if you're going to be floating them and you've got horses in transit. But horse care was something even though it's a lot more work, and it's a lot more difficult. I knew it was something that I absolutely wanted to provide, because having horses myself throughout my young adulthood, I just know that it's so stressful, trying to find someone to help you when you're away, because it is different to a cat and a dog. I mean, a lot of people don't mind, you know, throw my cats and kibble she doesn't care, she might not even come out of her room and it's done. Whereas horses are a lot of it's a lot harder, there's a lot more to know. And it. Yeah, it stressed me leaving them. And I know that once I did leave them with my parents, and they were in an adjustment. And it was known that they just spent it, it was just a bunch of paddocks, and you had to get a K to get into the padlock to get into the actual driveway to go and feed your horse. And my dad didn't realize I'd left the key at home for him. And I was out of service. So he didn't realize that he could have got in and fed them. For me they're on pasture, it wasn't a big deal. But when I went to check on myself, when I got back after three days in summer, they had no water in their bath. And it's just it's huge with horses, because they can drop condition and drop weight so quickly if they don't have access to water. So even just something as simple as not fully near water is a huge deal. So that's when I said you know what, like, this is something I need to do for people because I didn't want anyone to ever have that stress that I had or have that experience that I had. And it was my dad, you know, who knew, he knew that I had horses, and he knew that they require special care, because I would always go on about it. So you do need someone that really understands the animal and understands their needs. And I felt like I was that person. And I wanted to provide that to people in Southern Highlands. And some of my team members that are brought on I particularly go into the detail that makes sure they have that horse experience and background so that I know that I can trust them as well when we have our clients book because we do have a lot of echo and clients here in the house. It is a very big group of people here in the highlands that do have horses, so it was just important to me to cater to them and allow them to feel like they don't have to never go on holiday or no I can't do the overtime and just go home and the whole life is about the horses, which it is but they deserve a break as well. And that's where I wanted to come in for them and help them and reassure them that we can do everything that's needed for the horses.
Collin 12:57
Yeah, it really does take somebody with a high attention to detail and consistency to taking care of some of those specialized animals especially if they're in racing or if they're training or those kind of things to make sure that they're staying on their regimen. And you don't miss those those little signs or you mentioned they get injured pretty easily because we
Chenelle 13:17
really do like what is like a big Labradoodle puppy this so clumsy. It's It's crazy. Look at you look at me think oh, what an elegant, beautiful creature. But no. I mean, even even when they become lame, it can be so hard to tell. And if it's left, sometimes even just a day, it can turn into something so much more serious than if you were to pick off on it right away. So that's why I said, You know, I want to be that person for people that they can go, No, I know, no matter what happens, Chanel's gonna cover it. Like I just did not want people to be on their holiday or at work just not enjoying themselves or not able to focus because all they're thinking about is Oh, is that horse? Okay? has she done this? Has this happened? Like I just didn't want people to be having that train of thought when they're meant to be doing something else?
Collin 14:04
Yeah. Well, and you mentioned to have that that plays into who you bring on your team. So tell us about who you have on on staff.
Chenelle 14:13
Oh my gosh, um, at the moment, it's gonna sound really bad. Like I don't even know at the moment I think I have about six or seven girls on with me. And they all have different, different backgrounds so they will bring something special to the team themselves. I've got girls that have done a whole thoroughbred farm heroine where she dealt with stables she dealt with breeding. She did adjustment she did training she to do writing. I've got girls that have done vet nursing, I've got girls studying vet nursing. I've got girls that have done doggy daycare. So I just really like to have quite a few different people with different skills and experience that they can bring to the business and just be the most beneficial for our clients as possible. Just we wanted everyone to be able to cover all bases or have certain Pay will be able to cover certain groups. And that's their expertise. And yeah, I honestly, I was very nervous to hire people in the beginning because as I said, I, I wanted to be that person for people. And I knew what I would put in from our clients, and how I felt about animals and how I felt about this business and how passionate I was. And I thought, how am I going to find people that are in the same mindset as me that have the same passion that have the same goals that want to provide this sort of service and are going to give it 110%. And it was really hard for me in the beginning, but I put in place a really sort of intense hiring system. It was probably not pleasant for the girls at all. so impressed me that they even made it through that process. But I really touched base on everything I could just to ensure that these girls were going to be the perfect fit for us, from interviews to ringing all the references to making them fill out questionnaires that I would go over and do a score out of having face to face interviews, phone interviews, I would make them write cover letters, write stories, write down different answers to different scenarios, and then I'll trial them. And at the end of that, if I liked you, I kept you around. And a lot of the goals have gone straight from start to finish, there's not really people that have made it past the first initial resume and cover letter stage. Because I think in his industry, you do have to be tough with who you hire, because you're dealing with live animals, you're dealing with people's pride and joy people's pets have. So it's so important and so special to them. I knew I had to hire important and special people. And I say the girls as if I only want girls to work for me, but it's just so happened. I think, in the highlands, it's a more women dominated industry, there's a lot more women working with pets than men, so don't take that the wrong way. But ya know, the girls, they're amazing, they put 110% into everything they do. They are happy to get dirty, they're happy to get hurt, they're happy to put themselves last for the animals. And I couldn't ask for a better bunch of women to be working for me. They're just amazing in the fact that they do care so much about animals and other people's pets as if they were their own. And in a way, I do feel lucky to have found them. Because I know that a lot of people have gone through difficulty hiring or trying to bring other people onto their team, I think it's really important that you don't rush your hiring process. Even if you're feeling overwhelmed with work and you're like I need someone now. I think in this industry, it really pays to slow down and make sure that you are hiring the right person for the right reasons. Because it can turn pretty sour pretty quickly. If you're hiring out of, you know, haste, if you feel like I need someone to help me right away, it's not the way to go about it not in this industry. And I think that's helped with my success of who I've hired that I did take that time to go through a loan a longer process with them and, and make sure that we're going to be a good fit for the business. And my clients as well. Because our clients here in the Southern Highlands, we're pretty personalized. We will talk to our clients like they're our friends, we make them feel like they're our family, we don't ever want our clients to feel like they're just a person or just you know, another number on our system or someone we get money from. We want them to know that we care about them. So yeah, the girls go out of their way to ensure that the clients do feel that way. And I do appreciate that a lot as well, because that's what keeps clients coming back to us, I think is that extra special personal touch that we provide. And the girls are totally on board with that. And they're on board with all my ideals as well. So I told them, everything I've told you about the vet nursing that it wasn't for me why I started this business, what I hope for animals and clients to get out of this business. And the girls all had the same ideals and the same, you know, feelings about it. And they agreed. And so that's why Yeah, I brought them on board because everything about them was just a perfect fit.
Collin 19:13
When I love hearing that, because you started off by talking about how when you went to hire, it was really scary, and you weren't sure what was going to happen. And because you didn't know if you could have somebody that was going to do the care that you did. So you dug into processes. And now on the back end, you're like really excited. You're super thankful for everybody who's on your team. It's quite the transformation to hear to have go from scared to higher and unsure if I get the right fit to now like I could not imagine doing it without this awesome team.
Chenelle 19:45
It all it was Yeah, it was so daunting to me to think Can I trust someone to go to someone's house without me there and do exactly what I would do and put in that effort I would do and i think that's that's a big thing as well. I just had to learn to do Trust and I was a bit of a nutcase. In the beginning, one of my girls went and looked after a bunny and some chickens for me. And she's like, I'm all done, and shade left. And she had sent me pictures, we actually map and track every booking. So she had sent me the mapping. And I was like, Great, thank you. And this is my first week of hiring her. And then after I knew she left, I actually went to the client's house, and I checked everything. I was like, is that clean? Is this water fresh? Has this rabbit got food? How does the chickens nesting box has been cleaned out of the eggs collected? Did they have their food and water topped up? And they all did. And I mean, it only took me doing that Nazi kind of thing a couple of times, I thought, you know what, I need to trust the girls. There's no reason for me not to. They survived the whole interview, they survived the whole hiring process with me. They're sending me photos and maps I need to personally except that I'm not the only person that wants to do this. I don't know why in my mind, I thought I'm the only person that's going to do this. I'm not the girls are amazing. They really are. And a big a big thing of it was, yeah, just finding that in myself to trust them and to step back. And some of my clients now actually asked for certain goals. Like I only want Claire to walk my dog or I only want Amy and they Yes. So it's just come from me, driving around like a wild woman going and checking what they've done to having clients say I really I will have, I'll happily have whoever look after my dog today. But if I can have clear, I would love that. So that to me is Yeah, it's huge. So it was a, as you said, a huge transformation. But it's Yeah, it's something that I've had to work on personally, just having that trust and faith in people. And they do do a really amazing job. So I can't complain.
Collin 21:55
You mentioned part of that was that you went to screening processes and had quite the onboarding ordeal. So how did yeah, how did that happen? Was that that happened overnight? Or was that a slow build to get to the point of all the steps that you had?
Chenelle 22:11
It was a slow build. I first of all, just had one of my really good girlfriends working with me, just because I knew her. I knew I could trust her. I knew that she had the experience. I knew she'd been around animals all her life. And I was like, Well, she's my friend. She's not going to do me wrong. We've been friends for a really long time. So I sort of had her start to help me. And that's when I sort of thought, well, this is worked out. Okay. Maybe I can hire some outside people that I don't know. And the more I thought about it, and I did actually put a job out online, and I got that many resumes and people applying that had no animal experience. I had minimal animal experience. I put one of the questions. Why do you want to do this? And people like I just think it sounds really fun. And I read that little note like, Oh, no. So I needed to really fine tune the kind of people that were applying because I had hundreds of people apply. And it was from what I could say mainly people that felt like this is going to be fun, easy money. And I just thought that's Yeah, that's not the kind of people I have on my team. How do I completely eliminate these people even trying to apply, which sounds horrible, but it was I just didn't have the time to go through all those people that were just after a cute job. This is a serious business. To me. It's important business to me. And I thought how am I going to really whittle out all these people and find the people that are my little golden stars and going to be perfect for the business? So that's what I was like, or I could do a question. If I could do a big page on. Please explain your animal handling experience. Please explain to me your favorite animal? And why? If this was to happen, what would you do? Has this ever happened to you before? How did you handle it? If a client said this? What would you do? And it was just all these different scenarios that I know I've been in that have been difficult for me. So I got them to sort of feel out all that. So I could just sort of assess how I felt they would handle certain situations that arise because not every day is easy in this industry. It can be really difficult and demanding. So that was something that was important. I needed to make sure that the girls were trustworthy. So we do just police checks, you know, just to make sure that everyone can enter someone's home. I don't need to worry about it. We did cover letters so I just apart from my questionnaire, just a big cover letter about why you find health and welfare and happiness of animals to be important to you important to the community. What do you hope to get out of my business I was really interested as to what people personally wanted and that was important to me whether they said that They just wanted to be around animals where they said they needed money or whether they said that it was important to them to be a part of something like this where we have the ideas for our clients and pets to have a big positive impact on their life. Just all little things. That would sounds bad that I would do. So I just wanted to find a little clones of me to be honest. And I thought, How can I do that. So I just put in that lengthy, lengthy process. And on a resume, typically, people will put references, and I find that if you're looking at references, of course, people are going to put down only references that are going to give them, you know, an absolute flying colors review. So I would recommend anyone else hiring and just what I did personally, is I went through everywhere they've worked ever on their resume listed, and I rang everyone and I asked, you know, are they good with communication? Were they on time? Were they trustworthy? D found? Or did you find they put their all into your business for you? Because that's when you're going to find the honest reviews of who you're trying to hire not through so much their references, but through actually going through their job history and previous employers that maybe aren't listed? and asking them for their honest opinion. And if they would hire them back, if they were happy with them, when they had them. Why did they leave? And yeah, it actually took me a long time, just to hire one person because of that process was so long, but obviously, it's been worth it. You know, I mean, I found these amazing women, which is why I say, take your time to hire because if it really does pay off, even if it does take a bit longer, it's a bit more tedious. There's more phone calls to make. There's more you know, things to read and write. But it's, it's it's well worth it, especially when you're dealing with other people's pets, and you need to have those special people and you're not going to find them just by putting an ad out and bringing them one reference and hoping for the best.
Collin 27:02
Well, yeah, I mean that that entire process sounds like it's designed to try and weed out the people who just love animals, versus those ones who are willing to work for animals.
Chenelle 27:14
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with just loving animals at all. I mean, that's amazing. I love people that love animals, that's fine, but loving animal and working with them. And having the patience, the skill set, the experience is two completely different things. And as much as I would love to have people come along and play with the dogs and things, you know, we just unfortunately, cannot you need those people that really stand out. And they're there for the right reasons and can do the hard yards.
Collin 27:42
Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, as you mentioned, like you know what it takes to do that. And so you've developed that system to look for those same things. So they'll be successful, and you'll get good outcomes and the pets will have the best possible care.
Chenelle 27:56
Yeah, correct. Yeah, it was a Yeah, it was a big headache. But honestly, well worth it. I mean, I if I hire again, which I most likely will, I'll definitely do the whole process again. And even though it takes sometimes a couple of weeks to get through, it's Yeah, I just wouldn't do it any other way at all. It's too, too important. Bringing somebody to not only your business and your livelihood, but to other people's lives as well. Your clients that already trust you. You don't want to ruin that so it's important.
Collin 28:31
Have you heard about time to pet Dan from NYC pooch has this to say
28:35
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Collin 28:56
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 type two pet.com slash confessional. Yeah, you mentioned client trust and how important that is and trying to preserve that as you bring on new staff. So how do you focus on keeping and building that trust?
Chenelle 29:23
To be honest, in the beginning, I was still very new to this industry and I was a bit unsure. So what I was dealing with sort of offering my services at a really low price just to start with. So I could get quite a few clients because in you know my heart I knew I'm not in this for the money. I'm in this for the right thing. So I'm quite happy to offer low prices and get quite a few clients and make them happy. And through that I was able to get testimonials reviews, word of mouth and as that helped me to grow that's when I sort of said all right, I do have to price increase before Cuz you know, what we're doing is worth this much. But it was just the fact that I wanted people to know that I wasn't there for the money I was there for their animals. And I think that really shone through. And that's how I was able to get Yes, such good references and people would rave about us to their friends and family and co workers. And the fact that we send pictures, the fact that we map and track all bookings, we send that through so the client can see exactly where we were, they can see the time that was spent, so it'll have their address, it'll have we were there for half an hour, and they can see that themselves and they can go Alright, well, they were there. They've got the pictures of everything's nice and clean, my dog looks happy. You know, I've come home, everything's perfect. And that's that's how I've been building the trust with clients, just keeping them totally reassured all the time. I tell them all the time, I get some really amazing people through, we get some helicopter mums for sure for their dogs and cats and things. And I tell them, you know, if you want to FaceTime me, when I tell you, I'm there, that's fine. We have people that have nanny cams inside, they've told me that you know, I want those on, that's fine. We never say no. And we have no reason to, even though it can be a bit uncomfortable knowing that your clients on video call to you, or watching you. I mean, what does it matter if you're doing the correct thing, that's how clients come to trust you. And then you know that eventually they stopped doing that because they know they don't need to. And it's just really important to me to have clients feel that reassurance because even when you know someone and you trust someone, it's still a hard thing to be leaving your pets with them, it's a hard thing to be leaving your, you know, a little best mate, or a pet you've had for a really long time. Or some of our clients even have, like, you know, PTSD dogs, they're very special to their owners. And we just didn't want them to have any shadow of doubt that their animals were perfectly fine. So we'd Yeah, go to those little extra lengths of letting clients do whatever they want, like video call, or call us and talk us through things on the first time. We do our meet and greets beforehand, as well, which I tell clients, you know, it's obligation free, we'll come and meet you, you can, you know, see how you feel about us in person, see how your pet responds to us. If you feel you know, when you meet someone, you sort of feel whether you're going to get along with that person, whether you trust that person, whether you think that person is a good person at their core. And I always tell clients, you know, just it's important that you get along with me as well, because there's going to be a lot of communication between us. It's important that you do like us as people because we're here in your home, we're here with your pets, and you have to talk to us all the time. So I think all those things combined really helped clients feel relief and trust in us in the business.
Collin 32:53
Yeah, you are being as open and transparent as possible about you as a person how the business is run all the processes, and then you know, recognizing that it is stressful for them. There is some anxiety and you do have to build that trust over time. It's not just a flip, you switch and go Yep, I look professional and sound professional and you hired me. So you must automatically trust me and everything I do. That's not really how it works. You know, it takes
Chenelle 33:20
neither we have like the insurance and some people asked to see our policy and that's fine. You know, anything clients want for themselves to feel reassured we are fine with that. Because we understand that it's a big deal to leave your pet in someone else's care, I have gone away and holiday myself and left my my pets in my girls care. And I still take them in house cow house Ruby, and I know that they're fine, but I you know, I love my animals so much. So of course we understand that clients feel the same way. So we do everything in our power to make them feel like they don't need to worry a bit about their pets, because I think that's a really nice feeling to be going on holiday and not have that guilt of leaving your pet at home or working overtime and not having that you know, or is my daughter, okay? It's been a long day for him at home like we don't want, but then they go out on a walk with someone. We don't want clients to be thinking, oh, God is my dog. Okay, is he behaving? Are they in control of him? He's a big, you know, strong Mastiff? Is he safe? Like we want to go? Not? Everything is fine. That's that's our ultimate goal in this business.
Collin 34:26
Yeah, well, it's interesting you touch on people, the owners are already stressed about making sure their pet is taken care of. And you add on top of that the stress of a new person anxieties of whether everything's okay. So being as transparent and open as possible, really does help put them at ease and allow them to trust you over time and get to the point where they know that you've got taken care of and it takes consistency, it takes open communication and all of those factors go into building that relationship.
Chenelle 34:58
100% and I think that even If things go wrong, which they have for us, and if anyone ever says it hasn't gone wrong for them, they're definitely fibbing. It's so important to be honest about it, if you've left the door open, and the dogs have gotten into something if the cat got out, but you got it back in, like you need to be honest with your client, and you need to explain to them how you handle that situation as well. Because I think that makes the difference between a hobby pet sitter and a professional pet sitter is that if a you know if something happened, how did you handle it, and don't try and brush it under the rug, because you fix the situation, you've got to tell the client what happened, how you just that way, in future, they know, even if something goes wrong, you've got it covered, you know you're doing, they don't need to worry. Because things do go wrong. Animals are unpredictable. And I think that if you tell your clients all the time that nothing ever goes wrong, I think that almost would make them not trust you because I think people aren't as silly as people think in our industry, because they're not pet professionals, but they know their pets, and they know things can go wrong or things can go bad. And I think it's just really important to just be as you say transparent about it. And that's when being a professional helps that you actually know what you're doing in those situations and helps build more trust with your clients through your business because you've been able to be there not just for the good stuff, but for the bad stuff as well. And the clients don't need to worry about it.
Collin 36:33
No, I love hearing that part of being a professional is communicating and good times, but really, more importantly in bad and letting them know step by step in a calm manner. how you handled it, what's you know, what you'll maybe you'll correct in the future or what's going to happen right now. And you know, you
36:49
mentioned sex they have
Collin 36:52
they know most owners are gonna admit that their that their pet is not a perfect Angel 100% of the time, so they kind of do. They kind of expect some bad news to slip in every now and then.
Chenelle 37:04
Exactly like to give an example just last week, one of my girls from Goldman, which is about 45 minutes south of where we are in the highlands, she rang me, and she's like, I've got to tell you something, and I was like, here we go, what's happened. And she walks to prey driven dogs. So she walks a husky and an Akita. And someone didn't have their own like their dog, separate person on the street under control. And it ran straight to the Husky and Akito. And their Husky actually picked that dog up in its mouth and shook it and dropped it. And that dog got taken to the vet that dogs fine. But that's an example of when things can go wrong. And Savannah, my girl that works in Golden, she took the dogs home, she went and checked on the other owner, she got the number she rang, making sure that that dog was okay at the vet. She went back to our client explained the whole situation, who was then honest with us about something that had happened in those dogs past. She went on to research different masks and muzzles and things for the dogs. And now she walks the dogs with a muzzle on. So even though the client was upset, we handled the situation for him. He didn't blame us he knew it was his fault. And the other lady with the other dog, even though that she was like it's my fault, I should have had my daughter how to control our front door wasn't shot like it's not your fault at all. She probably wouldn't have even mentioned to the owner that it had happened. But we we knew that the right thing to do was to still tell him because we don't want the same thing to happen when he walks them. And we hadn't been honest look this happened last week. Imagine if it happened two weeks in a row because he walked them not knowing and it happened again and he found out that we weren't honest so I think it's just really important that even one thing like that's a very real situation that can happen in pet sitting and dog walking dogs do fight dogs can be off leash not everyone has control over their dog not everyone has good recall with a dog. I think it's just important that you know you do you just have to be honest because now we've we've fixed that Scituate situation so to speak, the other dog could have ended up a lot worse. But even that owner now, you know, they know to take more control over their own dog. We've helped our owner, our client with his dogs and it all came from her handling that situation as best she could and being completely honest and transparent with with the client about what had happened.
Collin 39:43
Right on Yeah, and especially thinking down the road to have you know of Okay, this behavior happened with with me and I have a duty I have a responsibility to report that so that it doesn't happen when I'm not there because I could have prevented that if it's gonna you know if it happens again. I need to make sure it doesn't by telling them and and working with them to get it corrected. Like that's such a huge.
Chenelle 40:08
Yeah, that's correct. I mean, Savannah could have very well said, Well, she this lady with the dog isn't isn't angry, she's not blaming us, I could just take the dogs home and not tell the owner that it happened and it would be fine. He wouldn't have to be stressed, he wouldn't have to be upset. He wouldn't potentially be angry at me. But she didn't. She said, No, this is my God, this is my duty of care. It happened while the dogs were with me. I don't want it to happen to him. Because I didn't mentioned it's happened previously. So I'm going to go to him, tell him what's happened. And I'm going to explain to him ways we can work on it ways we can stop it happening again. She offered to even go by the muzzle but he Yeah, he ended up going and doing that. But just the fact that the way the situation could go if she wasn't honest compared to the way it can go now that she was is just two completely different scenarios, which is why do you say, even when it's bad, you need to be honest with your clients. And that's when he also builds more of a trust with us again there because he goes alright, well, this did happen. But the girls have handled it. Well. They helping me so that it doesn't happen again, in the future. These are people that I can trust on going to walk my dog, even if stuff isn't always perfect, or there is a bad day or something bad happens. I still know that paws and whiskers will be able to deal with it. And I do love that the good things can always come from something bad.
Collin 41:36
Absolutely, they can have that client, you know that that process while probably very uncomfortable and not in a situation anybody wants to be in, ended up with him trusting you more in the end and recognizing you as you know, your education and background in kind of authority in that and allow them to see, okay, I these people, this positive whiskers is somebody I can turn to when I need them.
Chenelle 42:01
That's why I say all the time to everyone in life, not even just in the pet industry, but just everyone my children, my husband, even if you think you're going to get in trouble, even if you think it's not going to be good. always tell the truth. Like it's just it's a really important portent thing in life, I think just to always be honest with everyone all the time. Because in the end, it's always you know, they say honesty prevails. And it's very true. I mean, it's helped us get to where we are, with clients and with the business and everything. So even if there is those situations that aren't ideal, it's imperative to build trust with people to be honest at all times. So that's I think the most important thing, when it comes to building trust is you can you can send all the pictures in the world and the GPS tracking, but at the end of the day, you know, you do need to just be 100% real with people,
Collin 42:52
I did want to touch on the fact that you were involved in a lot of charities in your area, and wanted to ask you why you got involved in those and why that is important to
Chenelle 43:02
Yeah, so we do a few different things locally, he and nationally. So for example, for the ASPCA, that's a national one, we've done fundraising for them, they go and rescue either abandoned animals or neglected or abused animals and rehome them look after them, get them the medical care they require. And they can't do that without, you know, the support of the people in Australia and the donations they receive and the volunteers and things. So of course, we would love to be a part of that. Taking animals from a negative environment and putting them into a positive one, something we believe strongly in so we do what we can to help them there. Then we have our local shelter, which I just love, because they are a no kill shelter. So that means that the animals get to stay there until they find a new home, whether it's one day, whether it's 100 days, whether it's a few years, you know, they keep cats and dogs they're until they have found their new home new family. And so of course we love supporting that because we don't feel that animals should be on a time limit to you know, find their new special forever home. So we support them how we can either with money raising or we get donations collected such as food treats, toys, bedding, and we take it to them because they do they do always have to keep rotating things like the bedding. They're always having new people brought in new dogs, new cats, so they need to upkeep with that they do the medical care, the vet care, medications, everything they just cover until the animals go to their new home and obviously that all comes at a cost and they only get such an allowance from our local government. So we don't want them to ever have the pressures of not having enough money not having enough food one month for the animals so we do what we can to support them through that because we do love that they look after the animals for as long as they can, and assist them in finding their new home, they get volunteers in to walk the dogs, they get volunteers in to cuddle the cats and everything. So we just think that they're really beautiful organization. And we do love to help them out. And then there's the guide dogs, Australia, which is the training and raising of guide dogs. And we just do a little bit of fundraising for them once a year through August, it's called, it's where you walk your dog for a certain amount of minutes a day, throughout the entire month of August. And people sort of donate your money for that, for walking your dogs. So we encourage people to join our team when we do that, and posted on your socials and just tell people what you're doing, tell people a little bit about Paul August and get them to donate to you. And we then combine that at the end. And that goes through to the guide dogs Association. And just a few other little local things we do, like they'll have a big dogs day out event, and we will just volunteer for that volunteer at the stalls, volunteer with packing up, I think it's important to me, just because if you're in a position to help someone that can't help themselves, and animals obviously can't help themselves, when there's sort of situations where they're being abused or neglected, it's important to step up and just as a conscious human, and do what you can to, to support people that want to take animals out of those situations and put them into better ones. And animals can't raise their own money, they can't talk for themselves, it's got to be us. You know, I mean, if we don't, if we don't help them who's going to and it actually breaks my heart, just knowing about all the animals that do just get, you know, abused and neglected, or just treated poorly or not even, you know, actually abused just have a really horrible home life where they aren't fed, and they're on a chain, and it just yeah, breaks my heart because I know that animals can't do anything for themselves. So anytime that there's some way that we can do something for them, I always want to do just because I have that soft, soft spot in my heart for animal welfare. And just for me personally, just thinking, what could be going through an animal's mind when they're dealing with that sort of situation? Just Yeah, it deeply hurts me. So I do like to be involved in situations where animals are given a better, brighter future,
Collin 47:31
looking around and going, how can I make this better, and recognizing exactly, it's a personal personal responsibility that you're taking on going, this is something I can do that I need to do. But you know, regardless of you know, there's there's no thought of the business aspect or anything like that. It's just this is something that you're passionate about, that you see needs done, and that you can play a role and you can make a difference here.
Chenelle 47:59
Exactly. I just love that. Like just that feeling of when you say rescue dog, and they go from being timid and shy, and you know, human aggressive to cuddling into their new owner on the couch, and you can just see how happy they are. Like, I love that because animals are just so pure. That's what they deserve, you know, like, just love and affection and to feel safe and feel happy and healthy. Because, you know what, like, animals are just innocent beings that, you know, they don't have that mindset, like a human where they they can do wrong, or they can do right, they just are and I think it's really important that we look after animals because they are that, you know, special, special thing where they just are full of pure love and energy. And they can't, they can't voice that themselves. So it's important for us to voice that for them and make sure that animals are looked after and cared for and safe. And just personally something really special to me. It's as you said nothing to do with the business that's just me as a person and wanting to create better lives and worlds for animals. And yeah, it's just a personal personal thing.
Collin 49:13
Yeah, absolutely. Again, it's that it's that these are things that align with who you are as a person that you can initiate and do in your business and then make a difference and make your help make your community better to
Chenelle 49:23
absolutely i mean I was that kid even just like as soon as I saw a dog I would just take it home like mom's dog was out we need to find its own I you know, I've always just been like, we have to care for animals at all costs. We need to make sure they're all safe and happy and my mom's just like a gorgeous bought him another dog. So it's just it's just always been Yeah, my nature just to look after them because they can't they can't express what they're doing or how they're feeling or that's something that we've got to take control of for them and make sure that they have been unhealthy.
Collin 49:56
I think that's wonderful. And I think that's something that we as, as people In the pet care industry can play a bigger role in and raise the profile of many of the organizations and charities in our local areas to help help support them, because the because of the work that they're doing is so needed.
Chenelle 50:14
Exactly. And if you can't be doing it to the extent that the charities are doing it to see if you can't be out there, rescuing dogs every day yourself fostering dogs every day yourself working at a shelter, I mean, you don't have to go to that extent, if you can just collect a few tins of food or collect a few dollars and donate it. I mean, even that's just it makes a huge impact. If everyone did that I can't even explain to you just the difference that would make to these, these people doing this selfless work. I think people think, you know, I don't have the time to foster a dog or a cat or what can I do and think people think you need to do these big gestures, but absolutely not. I mean, you can even just get tagged along to someone else's, you know, fundraiser, as I said, with poor guests, we just invite people to join our team. And if we had 10 people that only raised $100, I mean, there's you know, $1,000 there just for, you know, walking your dog, it doesn't have to be these grand gestures, it can just be a little, little thing, every so often can make a huge difference once it all all builds up and comes together.
Collin 51:14
Yeah, that's a good reminder of it's not it's not these big grand gestures, it's these little things, these things that you can do every day or every once in a while that that really do make such a big difference. I love hearing that. Yeah,
Chenelle 51:25
if everyone just does the little con thing at least, even just once a day, that's what's gonna make the big impact in the long run.
Collin 51:33
I did want to ask you about how COVID has impacted your business and what it's been like in the southern Hi.
Chenelle 51:40
Oh, gosh, um, it's Yeah, it's been pretty, pretty hectic. It was pretty detrimental there for a while. I mean, in America, I think it was worse first. And I'm on a few petsitting pages that are dominantly, American pet sitters, and they're all saying that all their holiday bookings have been canceled. And this was around probably March, April, and before that, and I was reading and I'm thinking, oh, gosh, the poor things like we're absolutely fine here. And then it happened. I mean, it started to come here it started to creep in. Everyone was closing down holiday parks caravan parks, hotels weren't allowed to have people because people were quarantining there. So slowly, the cancellations just rolled in. I mean, for quite a while holiday bookings were our main main service. So people that would be leaving the house for the weekend, or going away during school holidays, because as I said, the Highlands, if you live here, you don't want to holiday here. So you want to leave when everyone comes down for the weekend. And so we were Yeah, a lot of holiday bookings. But yeah, they just canceled one after the other. And I did sort of go into a bit of a meltdown. And I thought, Oh, goodness, what are we going to do? There's our bread and butter, all our pet care services, sort of, you know, not needed. It's not that people weren't wanting them. It just wasn't needed. And I thought, well, he can't. He can't even mark it for that. Because it's not that people don't want it. They don't like it's just not a need right now. So I thought, all right. How are we going to pick up the pieces here? And that's when people I think, actually, it was a bit of marketing strategy. And it was a bit of I think people being home more with their animals and realizing, oh, my God, I need help with this, like my dog is I didn't realize how next level he was. I didn't realize the energy levels. Why are you barking all day? I didn't know you did that. So that's when we sort of started to market more towards the dog walking the dogs day out. And luckily, with a bit of marketing, with a bit of luck, we were able to get back into the swing of things more so away from pet care and more with the dog exercise, the horse x exercise. So the lunging working horses for people, a lot of people working from home. So like they're on home on holiday. They were still having to work, but they'll just sort of more confronted with their animals, behaviors or quirks will say, and they'll just sort of, oh, maybe I should, you know, reach out and get some assistance with this. So while we did I think we went quiet here from COVID like myself my business for maybe a month. And within that month, yeah, we picked right back up with just different services that were actually more quiet before so services, it sort of tipped the scales out. We went from doing pet care all the time, to quite minimal. And we went from a few dog walks a week to a lot of dog walks a week. And the dog's day out was pretty sporadic. It was not that busy of a service and now we have sometimes to do them twice a week because they're that booked out. So I think COVID while it was stressful, and it did negatively impact us at first, I think it sort of pushed me as a businesswoman to turn around and go, Well, I still want to impact animals lives, I still want to be here for my clients in some way. How can we do that. So it was just a little bit of remarketing and reworking some of our services to suit the way everyone's lives had changed. I mean, there was no need for us to go underground and stop, stop trying to work. It just I think, was a matter of reconditioning and reworking so that we could get through these times and still, you know, have money to live and still be there through our clients and have the best of both of those worlds. But it did get it did really take a toll on your holiday bookings, we're only just starting to sort of get holiday bookings back now, a lot on the weekends, we've got an October long weekend coming up, and we've got quite a few for that. So that feels nice. Like we're going back to normal there. Which is what I said earlier that I probably have to hire because now this we've got such popular because of popular with our dogs day out. Yeah, I'm going to need more help. But um, yeah, COVID that was an interesting time. Just saying the way that we all had to sort of shift what we do day to day and rework it to fit into, you know, the rules and regulations and keeping ourselves safe while still trying to help our clients while still trying to work. It's it's been a, it's been a real journey and a real learning experience. And something that I'll definitely pass on to my children one day through business, and how to handle certain situations that you never expect would arise and different stories I'll share hopefully one day with other pet industry, people that come on board, maybe, you know, years and years down the track when COVID is not forgotten, but just a distant memory. And yeah, I mean, it's just been really, really wild the way we've had to work around it to still do what we love, but stay safe and able to actually provide those services. And it's it's sad to say that a lot of other pet industry professionals have, you know, almost closed their doors because they just can't, can't work around it. And I just I personally couldn't, couldn't do that. I thought no, no, I don't know how I'm going to do it. But we're going to do it, we're going to get through COVID because there never will be a time that I don't want to be involved with animals, or what we do now for people and their pets. So it was just a big navigation around. Yeah, how to keep that going. But while still keeping ourselves and our clients safe as well. And the rest of the community.
Collin 57:48
Yeah, what were those early days, like, as you were trying to, you know, grapple with communicating those changes in the protocols, and, you know, different shifts and services to kind of sounds like there was the simultaneous like, shifting on your part into what services can I offer, and the sudden realization of your existing clients of, Oh, I still need something to do for my pet, because they're a little bit more than I thought they actually actually work.
Chenelle 58:16
Yeah, exactly. I think, yeah, a lot of people just sort of realized what I say all the time. You know, dogs, they do get bored at home, they do do cheeky things, they might dig up the garden, they might bark, they might chase people up the fence line when you're at work or day, you don't see those things. And I think being confronted with it for a lot of people, or just the actual workload of having a pet at home all the time was a big realization. And like, wow, I do I do need to do more with my pet or I need to get more help or my pet needs more help with things they're going through. So yeah, it was just a big, it was like an hourglass almost, it was just like, totally turned around. And we started instead of having it always being full on the pet sitter. And it's gone more to the exercise and health health end, which I love. I mean, I love the pet sitting Absolutely. I love assisting clients with that and dealing with the animals. But I do like my passion is creating like healthy pets in body and mind. So I've really almost loved what COVID has done to my business. I don't know if that sounds bad, but just the fact that now I'm able to focus more on what I really love, which is Yeah, creating positive experiences for people and their pets like I do. I just love that so much. I'm not sure how long it would have taken me to get to this point almost without COVID because I think people also didn't realize themselves exactly what their dog or cat or whatever was going through at home and what they needed until now.
Collin 59:47
It's always weird to say oh, you know, the all the good. You know, there are good things that came out of the pandemic, but but what it forced us to do is to really look at our business at force our clients to really look at what they're needing and And come up with something better, something new. And so it's really cool to hear that you've been able to, in you're pivoting and you're shifting here, it's actually aligned better with what you want, and what you what you would love doing. And, you know, sounds like, is really cool and accelerated that that process of maybe you were always kind of thinking, How do I get there? How do I make this, make this jump this, this did it for you. And now you know, it's like you're really at a really good place to move forward.
Chenelle 1:00:30
Well, like I said, with the, the good boys come from something bad with the being honest with people, just like with this pandemic, it's, I'm not denying how detrimental it's been to the entire world. So many people's lives have been ruined, like I'm not discounting that at all. But for myself personally, and for my business, it's just been a huge awakening, it's pushed us to do things that I didn't think we would be able to do. It's really, as you said, made me review some of our business practices, it's mainly review our marketing, it's made me realize how to reach out to those clients that are my ideal clients that I want to be helping. And it's really almost made the business blossom in the way that I've been hoping for the past four years. So even though COVID has been horrible, and it was really stressful. I mean, having my son home from school, and a lot of my friends lost their job. And that was heartbreaking for me to see them go through such a tough time. Just I do try to make something positive out of it as well, which is that I was able to push my business in the direction that is my true passion and the girls that work for me true passion and help people. I mean, we obviously we're helping people before but I feel like now more than ever, we're really getting in touch with people's wants and needs for their pet. And I do love that. So I mean, I am really thankful. And I don't I don't put it all down just to marketing, or what I've been putting online or trying to sell to clients. I do think there is just it was a bit of sheer luck. I mean, with, like I said with COVID, I'm not sure if I would have been able to realize what I needed to do as quickly as I did, I really pushed me into like a get it done. mode. And I think that's what's Yeah, it helps me get to where I am at the moment from where we were maybe at this point last year.
Collin 1:02:29
Yeah, it really did push a lot of us into new areas. And I think many of us are maybe finding that we like where we landed, or we like how we shifted into that. So hopefully this is something that we keep in mind is you remember as you as you said of something we keep on on our head on our on the top of our brain memories that we bring up years to come so that we remember how we got to where we are and what this time was like and passing that on to kids and other people as well to share that story so that people continue to learn from this experience.
Chenelle 1:03:02
Yeah, 100% I just I think there is a lot to take away in business and in personal life, what's happened with COVID. And I think it's important that once it all, all dies down and everything sort of returns to what's considered normal, I think it's important that we don't forget what we all learn together and what we all went through together and how it's pushed a lot of people to be on act or behave and what they've found to be important and not important. I think, you know, I hope that people do, do you remember that? And it didn't, they didn't just suddenly go back to the rat race. And, you know, forget all these important life lessons that we've taken on in the past couple of months.
Collin 1:03:39
I was curious, what are maybe are some of your favorite pet care related resources or things that you want other pet care providers to know and start using? Oh, that's
Chenelle 1:03:51
a tough one. I honestly love podcasts. I mean, there's a few I listen to I found you guys just by searching pet sitter and pet care into Spotify in the podcast section. There are if you're in Australia, I mean, I guess it's different in other countries. But there's a few TAFE courses that I think are really relevant and helpful. There, you can be doing them online, so you'd have to go to tape to do them. And it's got a lot of good information regarding pet care. I think that that's a really important tool education, not just you know, listening to the podcast, which is great, or talking to other pet sitters, but actually making sure that yourself you are educated and make sure that you know what you're doing with animals how animals act, how animals behave, and why their animal behavior course that I recommend at TAFE as well. If you wanted to do vet nursing that veterinary studies recommend uni but yeah, just for pet sitting as a resource. I think that the online courses is so overlooked people think oh god, I don't want to study you don't want to do this. I'm gonna do that. But being educated is so important. And apart from that, I think getting yourself a good business adviser or doing a business course yourself is really important because apart from being a pet professional and knowing you can know everything about pets, you can know everything there is to know about animals. And if you do, I tip my hat to you access to huge fate. But it's important to know how to actually smoothly run a business and interact with clients and market yourself and set yourself up properly, you know, with your ABN with your bank accounts, with your accounting, everything like that. I think that's really important. So if you can access a good business adviser, preferably one in the pet industry, that's really important, I think to have someone from an outsider's perspective that can help you see things that you may not see that will help you grow or build or start your business. And just learning the legalities of running a business as well just make sure that you're on top of everything. I think that's important. And yeah, I think if you can, if you can spare the time, which I know a lot of us can't, and you can volunteer at either a kennel or a doggy daycare, or Bremer or just something that you really enjoy. I think that's really good to to get some hands on experience that way. Because a lot of people do like that I currently have a volunteer on with me neon, she's trying to get herself into the pet care industry. And I get someone to talk to you during the day. And she gets to do some hands on stuff with the animals. So it's a win win for both of us. So hopefully, you think a lot of people would enjoy taking on volunteers. But I think if you can do some volunteer work as a resource Before starting, it's really important to have that background of hands on experience, because you can be educated but you also need to have that in the field. Knowledge.
1:06:54
Absolutely. And
Collin 1:06:54
you know, you mentioned of it's not just the pet care side, it is the business side, which most of us have really struggled with, because we got into it to care for the pets, and then wound up running a business or now we're trying to figure out taxes and legalities and all that kind of stuff. So having a good haven't been able to be plugged into a good resource of that is absolutely essential. Yeah, I
Chenelle 1:07:15
think a lot of people are just sort of like, How can I be the best pet to their ease, and you know, you need to not forget that there's a there's a very big boring paperwork, as well. I mean, even myself a year in, I was just, I had no idea what I was doing. When I started this. I've never run a business before I'm completely sort of self taught and learned myself along the way, reaching out to different people, different business advisors. I was doing this for years, and I wanted a loan and I had to go through my bank to get one. And my bank account, my bank account, my accountant said, you know, you need to be doing a tax return. And I was like, oh, okay, so I don't just get my money. She said, No, no, you need to be putting your tax away. And I, I How old was I 24. You know, and I was so new to the world of business. And I was like, oh, okay, well, how do I do that? And she said, Well, here in Australia, it's 30%. So every dollar you make put away 33 cents. And I said oh, so here I was with this huge tax debt. All of a sudden, I was like, oh, okay, that's amazing. I wish I had known that, when I started. I mean, it's it's so important that you if you this is what you want to do long term regarding starting a pet care business, do it right from the start, otherwise, you'll end up like me with a few $1,000 tax debt out of nowhere. And suddenly, all these terms coming at you and all these rules you have to follow and you can't just yeah, you can't just love animals, which unfortunately, I was very naive in the beginning and thought I could I've come a long way since then. And I do recommend to anyone else. Yeah, you really get a good accountant to get a good business advisor. Do your tax. And there's a lot there's a lot more to it than just being with the animals. So that that's my big advice because that's something I struggled with huge. It was never the animal side it was the paperwork and the the hard side of it the stuff you have got to know as we're running a business.
Collin 1:09:11
I feel you 100% that is definitely something that is a big learning curve. And I know something that Megan and I struggled with, too. And it is it's if you want to be in it for the long haul, do it right, get it set up and learn those things. So you can be consistent, you can continue to show up. If you love animals enough, you'll love them enough to learn the business side. So you can be here for 2030 years, taking care of them.
Chenelle 1:09:38
100% I think I got to a point where it was that I wanted to learn for myself and I wanted to continue to grow. I said you know what, I love this so much this is in I think I found my career. This isn't just a job. This is my career and I want to do this forever. And even if I'm not doing it, I would love to be in the background running it and still seeing it'll happen and I'm All right, well, I can't just be sending people an email saying, hey, you owe me $20, here's my bank account details like I can't, you can't do it that way, you've absolutely got to start from the get go. running it 100% professionally, in order, as you said, to get longevity out of it, and if you want to see it in a succeed into the future, it's going to be set up correctly. So that's super important.
Collin 1:10:27
Well, Chanel, I have really enjoyed this conversation. And I love hearing your passion and how you take it so seriously, and about your awesome team that you have working around you. And you've grown and learned so much, and are now just providing excellent service to Southern Highlands. So, but I know there's a lot more and people are gonna want to get connected and learn more about your story and follow along with everything that you got going on. So how can they do that? Oh, yeah,
Chenelle 1:10:53
that's totally cool. We're on Instagram and Facebook. So it's just pausing whiskers, pet services, on Facebook. And because of Instagram, I think there was already sort of another name clash that's paws in whiskers, pet care services. Yeah, just the Instagram and the Facebook. I don't really do Twitter or anything like that. Yeah, but the two we post a majority on there anyway. So anything you want to know any questions or anything you want to see? Or if you're like, oh, that you know, the dog's day out? Sounds really fun. I'd love to know more about how she does that you can definitely reach out to me on Facebook or Instagram. And I'll chat to you that way. That's totally fine. If you're in America, though, with the time difference. I may seem like a slow reply. but bear with me. I do. I honestly do love chatting to people. And anytime anyone wants any advice to do with owner offering a service or starting a pet care business or working with animals, I'm always more than happy to talk to anyone. And I'll make time for anyone that wants to have a career in the animal industry.
Collin 1:11:54
Wonderful. Again, this has been a real pleasure Chanel, thank you so much.
1:11:58
Yeah, it's been interesting. Thank you.
Collin 1:12:00
Chanel stated that if we do one kind thing, even just one thing a day that changes everything. And I think as we look to not just our businesses or our personal lives, but to the world around us, how much of a massive impact we could have on our local community and our state in our countries and across the globe, as we look to taking care of the pets one at a time, the best that we possibly can. And as Chanel does, getting involved in those local charities and giving back in whatever way we can and whatever way works best for you. We want to thank our sponsor time to pet for making this week's show possible. Head on over to time to pet.com forward slash confessional and check out that discount. Megan and I want to thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to listen to us and we'd love to get any kind of feedback that you have. You can email us at feedback at pet sitter confessional comm check us out on Facebook and Instagram, pet sitter confessional We look forward to talking with you soon.
