152: The "Hustle"
This episode is brought to you by our awesome partners: Start Scale Sail, & Texas Pet Sitters Association
Summary:
What does “hustling” mean to you? We break down several ways it applies to the pet care industry and the misconceptions around what is means to be full time vs part time in this profession. The past year saw many “full time” sitters and walkers go “part time” as demand dropped, but many picked up multiple new services and streams of incomes for their businesses. The industry, and our identities as pet care providers, has changed because of it. Also, Natasha O’Banion answers, “How do I enter a new market?”
Topics on this episode:
Hustling as in busy vs hard work
Full time vs part time
Hustling and pivoting
Changing our identities
Ask a Pet Biz Coach
Main take away? In this profession, we have the flexibility to make our businesses what we want them to be and to work for us.
Links:
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, pet sitter, pet, hustle, work, people, income, part, clients, industry, walks, services, territory, starting, pandemic, care provider, full, adapt, support, added
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin, Natasha
Meghan 00:17
Hi, I'm Meghan.
00:18
I'm Collin. And this is pet sitter confessional,
Meghan 00:21
and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Hello, and welcome to Episode 152.
00:33
Hello,
Meghan 00:33
if this is your first time joining us, hello, welcome. And if you've been listening to us for a while, we appreciate you taking the time and listening to us today. We also want to thank our sponsors, the Texas pet sitters Association, and our wonderful patrons who are supporting us every month with just a few dollars, if you would like to learn more about how you can support us in in our bloviating every week.
Collin 01:03
Sure, but no, seriously, if if this episode if this podcast brings you value, if you enjoy listening to this every week, do please consider going over to pet sitter confessional.com, forward slash support and checking out the Patreon page because it really does go a very long way in helping us continue to do this week after week.
Meghan 01:25
And we appreciate any kind of support, whether it's financial or just sharing the episodes with your pet care friends.
Collin 01:32
And on that we have gotten some really wonderful feedback on the last few episodes from last week and the week before. So as Megan said, that kind of feedback and support and sharing is just absolutely wonderful. We're always blown away by it. So thank you so much.
Meghan 01:47
And we hope you were able to listen to Dominic conscience episode as well. It was 151, where he talked about working with family. And that really struck a chord with us because we are a family, a family, a family and we work together. So today we are talking about hustling in the pet care industry.
Collin 02:04
So when I first heard of this topic, when Megan brought this up, I immediately think of going through the grind of business being really busy. Now what this hustle means and what the hustle mindset can mean that it can both be positive and have negative connotations as well. The negative those toxic aspects, I think we're all really familiar with those. There's where you are constantly hustling, you're constantly busy and on to the next thing. And growing scaling and never giving yourself a break. You always feel like you have to be grinding. Otherwise you're failing. You're never taking time for yourself or never taking time to reassess and recalibrate where you're going and where you're taking your business. Hustle can mean being unceremoniously moved or hurried against our will. And that sounds like business. Sometimes that sounds like life. Sometimes our business feels like sometimes it's moving, whether we like it or not whether we feel like we're in control or not, we're kind of being taken for a ride and our business.
Meghan 03:11
Right, it can feel that way. But ultimately, we run our business, our business doesn't and it shouldn't run us.
Collin 03:19
This gets back to that perpetual topic that we talk a lot about boundaries, you can go back and listen to any number of the shows that we've talked about that will have links to those in the show notes and on our website.
Meghan 03:31
But the one that specifically talks about setting boundaries is 142.
Collin 03:34
So those are all the toxic aspects, feeling like the business is running us that we are being hustled and hurried by our world around us. There's also the good aspect, the good connotations of what the word hustle can mean. It can be you know, when you're trying to make your business the best it can be, you're adapting to changes as they come along. At some point in our businesses, there will be hustle, there will be times where we have to have our nose to the grindstone and we just have to focus to work, work, work as much as we can.
Meghan 04:05
And this comes at various points in our businesses, and various stages in our businesses. Usually we think of it right when we're first starting out, we're only have one or two clients and we're really trying to hustle and get more so we can increase the number of clients that we have. But it also comes when we add a new service or when we move into a new area or even bringing on staff. So the words hustle and pivot really kind of go together. So hustle means the initial stages of an idea and really doing the things necessary to get it off the ground and see it to fruition. So again, you're trying to drum up business, you're trying to get more clients. But hustle doesn't have to be an ongoing process. We definitely have periods of hustling like I just mentioned, but there really is a healthy balance here. You know you can hustle 24 hours a day, seven days a week and completely burn yourself out. Then you have to step away from your business, take some time to breathe. Or there's an option to really hustle maybe four hours a day, and improve your business and be fine. Obviously, the hustle is going to look different for everyone. I feel like we say this every episode, but it's going to look different for everyone. And every single business is a difference and your personality to
Collin 05:20
write, it is important to know that part of the entrepreneurial spirit, part of this small business lifestyle is is hustling. We go from season to season of hustling and cruising, we have to hustle. We keep saying here to drum up business, then you get your business going, and you kind of cruise and work out the kinks. And then you jump up business and you work through these, these cycles of needing to hustle and then working on the business. And that's just because clients leave, they move, they don't need your services anymore. So you've got to get back down to work and you work out the kinks, then you continue to hustle, we do what's necessary for a time being then we work on it, we live with it. As a as a business owner, we're always constantly adapting and hustling in these small stages. But it's not this overwhelming, all consuming, eat, sleep, breathe the hustle. That's where the toxic aspects of this can come in. Now, some people do that. And some people love to do that. And I'm currently recording in the room with one of them. Hello, hi.
Meghan 06:24
I mean, I do love it the constant going after something getting the goal. Like it's it's I know Gary Vee talks a lot about this, it's not necessarily because he wants to buy the Jets one day, and it's not the like, he's gonna be the most sad he talks about he's gonna be the most sad the day he buys the Jets. Because it's the, the chasing after it, it's the journey you go on, that's the most appealing that really makes you get up in the morning and, and go, Okay, I'm still chasing this goal, still chasing this dream. And so that's kind of what it feels like for me of going, going going. Not really resting or stopping, which obviously I need to work on. But I enjoy the hustle, I enjoy the working towards the goal,
Collin 07:10
right, I think that is really important to note here is that some people thrive off of this, while others don't. Others don't. Don't forget that I am definitely one of those people where the hustle, I can do it for a time for a period. And then I need to step back and take a break. The toxic aspect is when we feel like we are forced to hustle or we have to hustle during periods of time where we don't want to. So obviously, as business owners, we need to know and recognize that about ourselves and recognize those warning signs when things start to go too heavy in one direction. Because like for me, the danger would be that I don't hustle enough. And I don't do enough. And so being able to be balanced out by Megan, who is pushing me challenging me bringing things up to work on doing all of that that's really healthy for me to have that in my life. And so I don't just sit back and wait for things to happen.
Meghan 08:03
Well, then hustle can mean something entirely different in the business world, right. And that's the difference between being full time and part time in the industry. So in this industry, especially, it's a big topic. Yeah. And it pre pandemic in 2019. And before being a full time professional pet sitter was the goal. For some of us, I would say for most of us having pet care, as a side hustle was somewhat looked down upon in some circles, and even trying to really define what a full time versus a part time, pet sitter or pet care provider job is difficult here, because you can work part time and earn more than some people do with a full time job.
Collin 08:47
That's the dream isn't.
Meghan 08:49
I mean, if you worked a full time job, and then you did pet care at nighttime, that you weren't seen as legitimate, necessarily, as people who did this full time from nine to five, if you just did it from six to 10. At night, you weren't really taking this seriously necessarily,
Collin 09:07
right. And we 100% do not agree with that.
Meghan 09:10
And maybe you don't either,
Collin 09:12
right, because we know many visitors who do it quote on the side, and they take all of the training, they get all the certifications and they run their businesses, they pay their taxes, it's just not what they would consider as their their main thing. Because you know, just because you have additional sources of income doesn't mean you aren't as professional as somebody else. So for us, we have viewed petsitting as any other full time job. And we have multiple businesses alongside it and actually always have had other projects going on the side ever since we've been married. We've constantly been doing different things.
Meghan 09:50
Yeah, so right now this is look different throughout the years. But right now I am a bookkeeper. I'm a mom to a three and five year old and I was an environmental toxicologist Until last year, along with our pet business, right,
Collin 10:03
I'm a biologist by trade. I've been getting more into podcasting over the last two years and petsitting this entire time as well.
Meghan 10:13
So while we have this, we have done this full time, and it consumes much more than 40 hours a week for us. And I'm sure for most of you as well, yeah. A full time versus a part time job in this industry does not mean full focus versus part time focus,
Collin 10:30
right? Yeah, exactly. Just because something is full time doesn't mean it has your full focus. And just because it is part time, doesn't mean that it only has part of your focus. I've always viewed full time and part time not based on number of hours, because as we mentioned, everyone would love to have a part time job and get paid a full time living full time or part time is, is not how much time is involved or how much income I get from it. I would love to have a part time job where I work 10 hours a week and earn $120,000 a year. And that'd be my side gig, right?
Meghan 11:03
Like, Yeah, that'd be awesome. So there are a lot of misconceptions out there of what they mean and used a lot to the detriment of the part time, people full time is most of the time made out to be a lot better and a lot more desirable than part time. We've always done pet sitting alongside other things, but it's always been full time for us. Again, it's more more than 40 hours a week. But we devote a lot of time to other things as well. And it's always made a very large contribution to the overall income of our family. And to know that our, you know, quote, part time side gig job of petsitting that we take very seriously and put a lot of time and effort into makes up a large portion of the total household income. That's just because of the nature of how we operate, we have adapted the pets that into our lifestyle. And as most of you know, that's what makes the pet care industry and pet sitting. So awesome is you create your hours you create the clients you want to take on it is your business, you can fit it to your schedule, and whatever you want it to make it you can make it that. So we're able to do overnights and boarding and early morning and late evening checks if we want to. But we are also unique. And that there seems to be kind of a cap on petsitting based on our location. So we're in a small town, there aren't a whole lot of dog walks. So again, every business is different.
Collin 12:29
Right now we do mainly boarding and daycares. But if we were going to pour everything we could into this, you know, we would be adding services like really diving into dog walks, that's going to upset our time schedule, not necessarily the focus, not really the monetary aspect, but it's going to upset the time balance of our day. As Megan said, we've adapted petsitting to fit the way we work and to fit our schedule. So we're going to work through adding these services. That's effectively what everyone has done. When we say diversify income, we're adding services, everyone added services or changed the focus of their services in some way this past year especially. So how you define yourself based off of your services gets a lot more tricky. Our time is more divided now based on our services, probably not equally. And that's, that's really fine, you're going to go whichever direction you need to. But we've expanded our experiences, we've expanded our knowledge. And now you may still be a full time pet care provider, but you're a part time dog walker, you're a part time subscription box delivery person and part time boarding attendant, whatever that looks like for the services that you've expanded into. It's divided how your time is spent throughout the day and throughout the week.
Meghan 13:50
The good thing about 2020 was that we became a lot more open and accepting of people who were just part time workers before 2020 because a huge swath of the industry was down business crumbled, essentially overnight, because of last year's bookings. And so what does that mean? Well, those pet care providers were part time because their business was down between 20 to 40%, sometimes 80%, or some people didn't even have any business at all. And so as you know, this isn't a normal nine to five job. So having those terms full time or part time petsitter isn't necessarily appropriate. But the great thing about this job is that you are able to do multiple things you are able to make this business whatever you want it to be and work around your schedule,
Collin 14:36
right. There are people who were considered full time but have always had other sources of income before walkers make leashes or do training or maybe someone works as a virtual assistant or a receptionist somewhere. As we keep saying pet care really does have this extremely flexible schedule and flexible hours that we're able to make it fit you can fit in Any kind of schedule to yours to take care of pets six ways to Sunday, which allows for a diversity of people which can be involved in it from different backgrounds and from different places.
Meghan 15:09
Yeah, a ton of vet techs are also pet sitters. So they are a full time vet tech and a part time pet sitter, and what 2020 did. And what it showed us is that having all of your eggs in one basket may not necessarily be the best plan. Because those that solely did midday dog walks saw their income plummet within 72 hours, and some yet haven't reached their normal levels again.
Collin 15:34
So the pandemic taught us to diversify, you just have to a lot of change that the industry saw last year was that you have to realize the growing acceptance of being a part time business. That's because a lot of full time people became part time last year, full time, businesses were cut down to 30% or less of their capacity overnight and became effectively part time. So because of all of that the big word for 2020 was pivot. And with pivoting came diversifying our incomes. pet sitters and dog walkers pivoted to selling dog treats, signing up for direct sale pet care companies, offering errand services, poop scooping, selling pet portraits, I will say the one thing that I saw, a lot of was the the pet bandanna boom became huge. And people started to print those and sell them in local pet supply stores or sell them directly to their clients
Meghan 16:27
and do a lot of drop shipping. We saw
Collin 16:29
many, many, many pet care providers get another job to supplement income, whether full time or part time, and some have gotten jobs in the healthcare space because it was in such high demand.
Meghan 16:42
Yeah, people offered products, monthly subscription boxes delivered to their clients, some offer dog training, that was huge, the puppy pandemic is real. And if you haven't cashed in on that, you definitely need to because there's a lot of money there.
Collin 16:57
And it will be a continuing growing need. As people's lives get shifted back away from where they were the past several months and try and go back to whatever quote normal is.
Meghan 17:07
And so with these changes, we started to look at our companies and try to redefine them to some extent. So how to change the image of your company from a dog walking to a delivery box service. How does that impact? How are you are viewed?
Collin 17:23
Yeah, part of that is the evolution of what it means to be in the pet care industry and 2021 2020 forced everyone to do something different. I say everyone, obviously not everyone did something different. A vast majority of us tried to do something different. In 2019, many people saw themselves as I'm XYZ dog walker and pet sitter last year, though, made people go Yeah, I'm a dog walker. And I'm and I'm and I'm because they had to diversify. And that may have been a struggle for some because their identity was in this one thing that they did. They were a full time professional dog walker and training with background and knowledge and experience. Now, they don't get to do that full time, because that's not where the business and that's not where the demand is. Now they're filling subscription orders or baking treats or doing online training videos for clients. Or they branched into off into cats and are offering boarding every now and then. Or they're doing something outside of pet care in the pet care industry and something completely different.
Meghan 18:24
Or maybe they were forced to file for unemployment and started looking for other jobs. Obviously, it looked different for everyone. And every business was different and location and everything. But when we are talking about this, we do have to recognize that identities were challenged, and they were really kind of stripped away. And that's a major reason why pivoting was so hard for so many. They were not who they thought they were anymore. And at the end of the day, we're talking about this because we recognize that there's a lot of you doing a lot of stuff in your businesses. And we are doing a lot of stuff in our businesses stuff that we didn't necessarily think we would be doing here and now but because of the pandemic, we are now forced to look at our businesses and adapt them and change them and pivot.
Collin 19:10
Right. It may not feel like your quote full time anymore. And you may feel like that's a big trail of who you are, or what you want to be doing or why you got into this business. But as an industry, I think we can be a lot more inclusive than that. We can still hold everyone to a high standard, whether they're full time or part time again, whatever that means it
Meghan 19:33
looks different for everyone. Exactly, exactly.
Collin 19:34
As an industry, we can look around and recognize the importance of not just having one thing our businesses do that it's okay to sell bandanas, leashes, work at a restaurant and still do walks. There's a lot of strength and having lots of little slices of a pie that add up to a whole when one gets eaten. There's still a lot left for us.
Meghan 19:57
Again, diversity and diversifying your income Income also allows us to change to adapt and respond to new opportunities as they come up, as we spread out our expertise as we get more training, and we're involved in various projects are better able to see how to respond to client's needs and learn new skills along the way. And this is because you are able to see and quickly test what's going to work and what's not going to work. If we only ever focused on one thing at a time, it would be hard to see and adapt to new things as they come along.
Collin 20:31
So if you did start to decide that you wanted to sell bandanas, taking that opportunity to start selling bandanas and move into products, that is going to teach you a lot about supply chain, about ordering about stocking about working with other businesses, b2c and b2b kind of networks. If you had never taken that step, you would never have learned those things would never bring those resources into your toolkit. And then you would never expose yourself to the growth that that may bring to your company, what we originally did out of survival for our companies is going to become a point of strength and a point of scaling in growth if those opportunities come along, but again, if you never put it out there, you are never going to expose yourself to those opportunities and those outcomes and that potential
Meghan 21:20
well. And with the vaccines here, now a lot of sitters are looking around and going, the pet sitting and dog walking are starting to come back slowly. But they're starting to come back and some people are even at 100% or more capacity. And that's awesome. But a lot of centers are going okay, so they're starting to come back. What do I do now? How do I balance this growth of clients are wanting me again, versus the new services that I've added or the ways that I've pivoted?
Collin 21:46
Right? Well, that's an area of scaling that you are starting to realize is now possible. Imagine if you were running as a successful business as it was back in 2019. Plus a successful business selling merchandise, bandanas, subscription boxes, whatever you added this past year, there really is a very real and tangible opportunity here to grow and scale like we never thought possible. Because we have added these services added these new portions to our business, that are giving us a lot of potential and opportunity. So just because the original businesses coming back, don't jump ship on that other stuff.
Meghan 22:23
Unless you want to though, if you added poop scooping, and you really don't want to be doing poop scooping anymore,
Collin 22:28
right, cut it out, right? But if you want to see what that looks like, work on processes and strategic hires to keep those new and expanded portions of your businesses going so that you can scale and grow.
Meghan 22:42
So how would you describe yourself full time pet sitter, part time pet sitter, side hustle, side gig pet care provider? How has that changed over the years that you have been doing this?
Collin 22:53
So let us know. You can send us an email at feedback at pet sitter confessional.com. Or get connected with us on social media, Instagram and Facebook is at petsitter confessional,
Meghan 23:02
Natasha opionion is back for another answer to the question of how do I enter into a new market area. So people
Natasha 23:08
asked me like how do I go from zero to 5000? How do I go from 5000 to 10? How do I go from 10,000 to 50,000? Right? anytime you want to scale and increase your revenue, you have to put systems and automation and process you have to really scale down your slps and make sure your infrastructure is ready for expansion. Because it sounds good. Like oh, I can just go into a new territory. No, no, no, those same holes you have in your current territory are gonna follow you to your new territory, and just a larger capacity and more drama. So definitely make sure your business is operating the exact way you would want it that you had imagined. Right? We're all visionaries. We're the business owners. Make sure it's running Exactly. You want it and then start going outward for the expansion. So now Do I have enough staff? Do I have enough support team? If something were to happen over here? Or am I old territory can I support it is the income supporting it. One thing for me anytime I go to a new territory, it's going to be a solo walk, private walk type situation. And all of us know this, when you're opening up a new business, you're going to have one by one client here client, their client there, you haven't really filled in the gaps in goals yet. So I need to structure my new territory for the next three months as all private blocks, I want to make sure the profits are there to produce private locks. And then six months from there, I can have my pack locks. And then once I had my pack walks, build up that territory, then I can move to the next story and keep duplicating myself. That's really all it is. You have to master the first one. And once you have, you're literally just duplicating it in the next territory, but understanding that your first territory will fun, your second territory if there's any
Meghan 25:03
Natasha not only has a very successful dog walking business, but also a very successful pet business coaching program. And if you would like her to be your personal pet business coach, you can go to her website to start scale sale.com and use the code p sc 24 15%. off her coaching. The Texas pet sitters conference is just a couple days away, it is February 19 through the 21st. And if you haven't already signed up, you can do that at TX pet sitters.com.
Collin 25:29
I'm really excited to get connected and to see everybody on the app and during some of the social our events that they're going to have over the course of the conference. It's really going to be a great way to just get connected with other people socialize, see other people's faces and talk pet care with other pet care professionals.
Meghan 25:47
It is free. So sign up at TX pet sitters calm
Collin 25:51
coming up on Wednesday, I have an interview with Kim Oh Tony tank owner of apron strings petsitting. We talk about her time in the pet care industry since 1996. Some of the early challenges of hiring employees versus independent contractors and also discuss some of the biggest challenges the industry has faced during her time. We hope you join us we know this episode is a little different from the typical ones. And so we would appreciate any kind of feedback that you have on it. We think that this kind of conversation is very healthy to have as an industry about how we view ourselves about personal identity in the pet care space. And that balance between all of the different things that we have going on and the diversity of income that we are bringing into our individual businesses and the impact that that has on how we see ourselves and what the industry looks like moving forward.
Meghan 26:39
We are grateful for you and we hope you join us next time.
