Feb 17

Feb 17 153: Weathering Storms with Kim Ottone-Tank

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Summary:

Kim Ottone-Tank, owner of Apronstrings Pet Sitting, has been providing pet care since 1990. After 30 years in business, Kim shares her experiences of weathering the ups and downs of the economy and how 2020 was totally different. Kim also gives her advice for hiring employees, and why switching from independent contractors is something she’s really passionate about. We also discuss working with family and being an early adopter of technology in pet care.

Topics on this episode:

Knowing when to hire
Why employee over IC?
Working with family
Weathering storms in the economy

Main takeaway: Business is a marathon that takes support and focus to run.

About our guest:

Apronstrings was founded in 1990 by Kim Tank, a registered veterinary technician. Kim is a Certified Professional Pet Sitter through Pet Sitters International. In addition, she has become Fear Free Certified, a program developed to reduce fear, stress and anxiety in pets.

She hired her first employee in 1996, after carefully researching hiring practices in the industry. Her staff have always been employees, covered by her bond, liability insurance and worker's compensation policy. All of her staff receive intensive ongoing training and all are either certified in pet first aid, or are currently enrolled in a class.

Founder and CEO, Kim has always known she was destined to work with animals and has devoted her life to working in pet care. After living in Concord for many years, she relocated her family to Pollock Pines, CA, in 2016, to raise goats and (more) chickens. She has 4 cats and a dog as well. Kim splits her time between the Bay Area and El Dorado County to maintain a close connection with her sitters, her clients and their loving pets. When not working, she loves running, kayaking, mentoring other pet sitters and exploring El Dorado Wine Country.

Links:

Apronstrings Pet Sitting

Email Kim: reservations@apronstringsonline.com

Give us a call! (636) 364-8260

Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, & TuneIn

Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com

**A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE**

Provided by otter.ai

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

clients, people, business, employee, sitters, pet, pet sitter, years, work, pet sitters, veterinary hospital, delegate, hire, visits, apron strings, dog, decided, day, job, thought

SPEAKERS

Kim Ottone-Tank, Collin

00:17

Hi, I'm Meghan I'm Collin. And this is Pet Sitter Confessional and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter

Collin 00:26

brought to you by time to pet and pet sitters International. Kim Ottone-Tank owner of apron strings. petsitting has been providing pet care since 1990. After 30 years in business, Kim shares her experience of weathering the ups and downs of the economy and how 2020 was totally different. Kim also gives her advice for hiring employees. And by switching from independent contractors is something she's really passionate about. We also discuss working with family and being an early adopter of technology and pet care. Let's get started.

Kim Ottone-Tank 00:59

Sure, thanks, Colin. I'm really excited to be here. I started apron strings pet sitting in 1990. And my service is in the San Francisco Bay Area, specifically Contra Costa County, which is in the East Bay. I no longer live in the area, I'm actually about two hours away. But for 26 of the last 30 years, I was on site with my business in the Bay Area.

Collin 01:24

So 1990 that was before petsitting was even in the dictionary if I if I know my history, correct?

Kim Ottone-Tank 01:30

That's true. We had just realized that it could actually be a career because to be honest, I was what you would call a hobby sitter for many years before that. As a teenager, I began sitting for friends who had show dogs, and it just started, it sort of started there in the 1970s. And we had no idea then there. I don't even think there were pet sitters in the phone book at that time. But

Collin 01:58

Wow. So so what what was it in 1990? That got you into starting apron strings?

Kim Ottone-Tank 02:06

Well, we decided to make it official because a we realized it could be a career. And we were facing some major changes in our life. It was the year we started our family, our oldest son is now 30 and just had his first child. So it's kind of come full circle. But how what led up to 1990 was I began sitting for friends as a teenager, I was graduating from high school didn't know what I wanted to do. I wasn't really cut out to go to a four year college. And one of my math teachers suggested Well, they have a program at a local community college to become an animal health technician. They have now changed that in California, that term is registered veterinary technician. But that was the licensed technician title at the time. And I thought that sounded good. Because I wasn't ready. I didn't think I was cut out to be a veterinarian. I didn't feel at that time in my life that I could make life and death decisions. And I didn't want that kind of responsibility. So I was looking for a way to work with animals. And I decided to go through the program. And I did graduate took my state board in 1981. And I went to work for a veterinarian. And it was at that time that people came into the office saying Do you have anybody who can take care of pets? And sure, so there I was, I was working. At that time, I just started working full time for the veterinary office. And I was doing pet sitting on the side. And my first client was a Whippet breeder who had 10 dogs. So my jumping into pet sitting for me was sort of trial by fire with dealing with some rather interesting clients. And Previous to that I had set for set for dog show breeders. So the first time I ever sat for anyone that only had one cat, or one dog, I was like this is weird. So I think that's one reason we've never had per pet charges or the I don't get scared of the larger jobs because that's how I started. Yeah. And so I continued working in veterinary hospitals throughout the 1980s. And I picked up a few clients and I was always petsitting. I had two or three clients that kept us so busy that we were able to do projects on the house with the extra money and it was great. And my husband said to me in the late 80s maybe this could be you should just do petsitting and I said You're crazy. There's no way that can be a career. I said I What would I do all day I go early in the morning. I have a couple dogs I take care of later in the evening. I don't see that as a full time career. But as I have been shown many times over the years, I was dead wrong. So in 1988, we decided to move to Contra Costa County, I had been raised in Salinas, which was about 100 miles south of where my current territory, we decided to move. And at that time, my husband really said, No, really seriously, you're going to be switching jobs, you should just start a pet sitting service. And I said, I'm too afraid, I don't know anybody. We didn't know a soul in Contra Costa County when we moved there. And I said, I'm going to take the path of least resistance and work at an animal hospital again. But I couldn't get that idea out of my head. And before, you know, before I knew it, I was finding more clients via the veterinary hospital. And the second hospital where I worked, there was a receptionist there, who was so busy petsitting that she didn't know what to do with all their clients. And she said, Here, you want some clients. And I think the first month that I decided to start doing sitting, I had something like 100 visits. Oh, yeah. Because of her referrals. So I, I sort of fell into that very heavily. But what the real push for going to become a pet sitter full time is that my husband and I did want to start our family. And I did not want to have children only to have them in daycare all day. And so my driving force, my way of my business was to have a job that could be worked around my husband's hours. The idea was never to take the kids with us, although I can't say that hasn't happened, because emergencies come up. And when you're a parent, you can't put the kid in a crate and say, I'll see you in four hours. Oh, I wish you could. No, no, no, don't call CPS on me. I never did it. But the idea was that we would do tag team parenting and I got this idea from someone at a former veterinary hospital, I worked. One of the assistants had very weird hours, she would come in and do early morning medications, she would leave she would come in and clean candles at night. And I was like, Well, why are you doing that? Well, it's because she, she was always home with someone was always home with their kids that way her she would work when her husband was home. And then he would go to work. And then she would be home with the kids. And I thought, wow, they are creative. They're thinking outside of the box. You don't have to have children in daycare if you want to have a family. And so that was where the impetus for becoming a full time pet sitter. That's how it happened. Now, it took me a little while we had our first child in May of 1990. I did go back to work at the veterinary hospital. But all of that while I built up my clients, I I was very busy for a while. And it's may sound like it wasn't fair to my son because I was working full time and doing visits morning and evening. But the end goal was to quit my job. And I did quit my veterinary hospital job in November of 1992. Because we had number two coming. And it's kind of my little joke. I think I still have a key to that veterinary hospital. I just never went back from maternity leave. I think they asked me one time, are you coming back? Are you know, when are you coming back? And I'm like, I don't know. I just never went back. So that was he turns 28 next month, I've hadn't worked for anybody but myself and all those years. So I'm hopelessly spoiled. I don't think I could ever go back and work for anybody else.

Collin 08:43

Ruined forever. That's a good way. And I love that. Why? Because you're able to make it work for you. And I think part of that is, you know, I'm sure at some point, you realize that you would have to hire sound like you were getting really, really busy. So when did you make that step?

Kim Ottone-Tank 09:00

Well, it was, you know what people often ask me, when when do you know it's time to hire? And I say, Well, if you're asking that question, it's time to hire. Because your thoughts are in your head, you're going to need to do some delegating. And honestly, it was about two or three years in maybe you're four, I was beginning to feel the stress of working seven days a week. I mean, I was fairly happy with how my life was going. Because when you have two little kids, as you probably know you don't. You're kind of tied down anyway. So I was pretty happy that I had a job. I was working all the time. And as with kids all the time and it was great. But in the back of my mind, I often wondered is this sustainable long term? I had no idea that here's your 2020 I'd still be doing this. But at the time I didn't see that far ahead. But I still was looking at the future and how can I sustain this lifestyle? Because it was very difficult to go to town. I didn't like telling people no and that is one of the major things Behind hiring for me, because I tell people, you know, when people ask me, How do you manage this type of business and the effect it has on your personal life? And I tell them well, you either, you know, to avoid burnout, you either have to say no, or you have to get help, or you have to quit. Those are your three options. And a lot of people are great at No, I'm not, I'm terrible. I'm still terrible at it. But I recognize that in myself, so I found a way to deal with it. And that's to be able to delegate work to others. So the first little inkling I had that I might hire was I attended a naps conference. That's the national at the time, it was the National Association of pet sitters. Things have changed over the years, but it was in 1994, they had a regional conference in San Francisco, and they had a lawyer speaking about hiring. And one of the things that he mentioned he was I think the discussion was about the differences between ICS and employees. And one of the things that struck me as he said, if you are, and let me preface, I'm in California, so California has some of the strictest laws regarding employees that there are especially now, but at the time, he said, Look, I'm a lawyer, if I work in a law firm, and I'm doing lawyer work, I'm an employee. So He impressed upon me that people who do the core work of the business are employees rather than contractors. And again, I he was representing California. But I think the sentiment was there in many states. So I got it into my head that wow, okay, if I'm going to do this, that's the way I'm going to do it. So in the back of my mind, I thought, you know, I'm going to hire employees eventually. I wish I had done it that year, because the following year, my husband actually took a job out of state for nine months. 1995 was the worst year of my life. I had a pet sitting business that I had to work in every day, and I had a five year old and a two and a half year old. And it was really crazy. Because I remember that summer in particular, there wasn't a single evening where I didn't have an A night visit. Like you would think that some days I would just have some once a day cats and you know, but no, every morning and every evening, the entire time he was gone. Now he would come home at times. And then when he came home, I had the kids to him, I'm out the door. I work all day I do everything I wanted to do. But I finally settled on getting a foreign exchange student to come live with us so that I could go out early evenings. And I mean evenings and early mornings, it was the only solution because daycares just don't don't work for pet sitters. They just, they're not set up for that. And I would have hired that year. But I was in the midst of such turmoil of dealing with this, there was no way I could focus on possibly learning how to hire people, my life was consumed with caring for the kids and getting the work done. So it was really rough here. But in 1996, I kind of got my act together. And I decided I would I really had no idea what I was going to do with this employee, but I knew I needed one. And I thought I will figure this out as I go along. So one of the problems with hiring employees at that time, was that I couldn't find any other pet sitters in California who used employees. I could I knew some people use contractors. So because at the time even before Facebook, there were email lists that I was on, I think there was I was on Yahoo groups, I talked to a lot of pet sitters, but I couldn't find anybody really to mentor me in that regard. So I, I did what I really recommend doing anyway, which is going to the powers that be and get getting your advice from them. So I was very fortunate in California that the ed d, which is Employment Development Department. It's basically one of our agencies that oversees employment. They put on free seminars, and they were excellent. I went to and it was funny because I lived a couple blocks from an IRS office. So that was really convenient. I kind of scary sometimes but so they put on free four hour at the time, it was a four hour seminar, two hours by the end and two hours put on by the IRS and they walked me through everything. First of all, they clearly defined what it would mean the difference between employee and contractor. And secondly, they taught us how to do the actual payroll. Like these are the this is where you're going to send this money. This is where you're gonna send that money and at the time, I was really too cheap to get a payroll service. So I decided that for my own benefit, I would learn to do it myself. I don't do it myself anymore, because it's either don't want to have to do all those tax filings all that money. And when my payroll got larger, I didn't want to make mistakes. Because mistakes when the numbers are bigger or bigger mistakes, so, but when I had payroll that was $100 at a time, I wasn't too worried that that I wouldn't send the $7 to the right place. So, yeah, so. So I did all of that, before I hired my first employee, I got completely set up, I got a worker's comp policy. And I went out looking. And yeah, I found someone and I, and it was a man and I got along with them great. And, but I didn't really know what to do with him. I knew I needed some help. I didn't know how to delegate, how to schedule, we just kind of knew I was new to it. And we just kind of winged it, you know, and I had a little help here or there. But I still was doing most of the work myself.

Collin 15:57

I mean, you talked about didn't know how to delegate, you know, how, what was that process for you of learning to delegate over the years? And did you find that easy?

Kim Ottone-Tank 16:06

It was difficult at first, but I found my way. I like to think I'm bright and a quick learner. But I'll tell you, not when it came to this. And I just had to figure it out myself. In the beginning, I would tend to call him if I had a busy night. And now granted, these are employees, I don't have to call and ask him if he wants to take on a job I can assign. But the work was more sporadic back then. And it wasn't like I said, you're going to work every Tuesday because you know, we didn't have one day a week that was busier, though, over the others. And I wasn't ready to give up a lot of the work. So I did it as on kind of an as needed basis. If we had a busy weekend, I would ask if you could help if we had a busy Tuesday night, I would ask if you could help. And I didn't particularly like having to do it that way. But I didn't see the solution yet. Later on, let's see in 97. Okay, I had two kids, I thought maybe we're gonna stop there. But we didn't. And we kind of had, all of a sudden I was pregnant again. And I knew I was going to need to take a maternity leave. So I hired two more people in 1997, just before she was born. I remember I had a staff meeting one night, and the date next day was my due date. And what do you know, I went into labor right after the staff meeting. So I got them kind of ready to go or you go to other people, but I was still in the mode of calling and asking them if they would take certain jobs. And I just found that tedious. I didn't like it. But it was kind of what I had to do at the time just based on the fact that I didn't stay on maternity leave too long. It was a short, short period of time that I really needed them. And so we just kind of played it all by ear, but and I did have my daughter. And as she started to grow. We did start the idea that we could take on some midday dog walks. Now. Let me back up a little bit. I never really did midday dog walks because I was home with my kids. Yeah. And I would tell people No, I don't offer midday dog walks because I am with my children all day. And I actually had a couple people that said, Oh, we'll bring them along and actually did a couple because it was their idea. I was never comfortable saying Well, is it okay if my kids come because then you're putting someone on the spot. I think if they offer then you know it's genuine. So I did a couple here and there. But I really didn't do very many. I did start to offer the day dog walking. I got a little bit of part time care for my daughter. They had some drop in daycare kind of things. And my son's were in school by then. But it was when I hired my fourth employee that that really took off because she was she had been working as a contractor for another service. And she was very into doing midday dog walks. So we started doing the dog walks then. And then we got into the more set schedule for her. But I owe it to her because she was one who said Kim, you know you're still working all the time. Why don't you have me do all the jobs on Sunday. So you could take a day off and I'm like, wow

19:33

I never thought of that.

Kim Ottone-Tank 19:36

That's how bad I was at delegating. I always had to have my fingers in the pie. I always had to be working. And and and I'll tell you why. I'll tell you a little secret. I've gotten so much better delegate. But I didn't start taking a whole lot of days off until we moved four years ago because when you're two hours away, it's you. You can't do the work. I like to I'd like to think we move so that I I would take days off, because I love my business. I mean, it's not that I couldn't I just love being part of those animals lives. So

Collin 20:07

yeah, I mean, I think that's a that's a balance that we all find ourselves in. We genuinely love the work. We love taking care of the animals. But we also know, we've got to be taking care of ourselves to and we feel guilty sometimes for not taking care of the pets, because we love them so much. And that just continually gets pushed off. We never take a day off. We don't take time for ourselves, because it's coming from that place of I really love doing this.

Kim Ottone-Tank 20:33

Right, right. I mean, I got much better at delegating. Because there were I, I woke up one day and about 2007. Now mind you, in 2001, we had yet another child. A week before my 41st birthday, he was definitely an oopsie. He's now 19. He's six foot five, horrible. So I one day when he was six years old, I realized that my entire life was taking care of kids and running my business. And I wanted to do something for myself. So what better way than to run a marathon? I had used to run when I was in my 20s but not never really very fast. And I we did some local races with my family. Well, I decided that I wanted to run and raise money for the American Stroke Association because my father in law had had a stroke. And and I was 47 years old, I was really thinking I was too old to run. So I was going to walk the marathon or 26.2 miles, but I started training with the group and I got super jealous of the people that were running. So I started to run. And I ran the whole way I did finish that first marathon and had I not had a team of people working for me, there's no way I could have trained for it. Because my whole point is going back to when you're training for a marathon, you have to do at least 120 miler, and it takes over three hours to do that unless you're really fast and really fast. It's a big, huge time commitment. And I had to set aside every Saturday morning where I just couldn't work. I always had my cell phone I'd have to stop and yes, oh no, you're locked out of the house. deal with problems but I wasn't physically there and, and thank goodness for my team. Because I did and they say you never do two marathons you're either one and done or you get hooked on it. Well, unfortunately, I kind of got hooked on it. I I really haven't done I've done 14 it's not that many. But

Collin 22:39

that is 14 more than I have done.

Kim Ottone-Tank 22:45

Well, the cool thing about it was the second marathon I actually qualified for Boston. So then I was like oh no, what am I done? Now? I've got to run a third one. Because I got to go to Boston and again if I hadn't had my team I it would have been so much harder to take off and take those trips to you know to run that that race and and I really think that ahead, I never had a team I probably wouldn't have taken on a hobby like that. It's it's a huge time.

Collin 23:18

Have you heard about time to pet Claire from acting critter sitters has this to say,

23:23

time to pet has honestly revolutionized how we do business. My sitters can work much more independently, because they have ongoing access to customer and pet information without relying on me. I save hours upon hours of administrative time on billing, processing payments and generating paychecks.

Collin 23:40

If you are looking for new petsitting software, give time to pet a try. listeners of our podcast can get 50% off their first three months when you go to typepad.com forward slash confessional. Yeah, it is. And as you said, like the time it wasn't important until you needed that time. And then all of a sudden, it was really important that you had that time and you were able to lean on your staff.

Kim Ottone-Tank 24:07

And it wasn't that I mean, I love I still love petsitting when I go down to the Bay Area I still do visits are just not seven days a week. I absolutely love spending the time with the pets. But I also have that freedom and that joy of knowing that I have a life outside of it. And if I didn't have the life outside of it, I think I would have been burnt out and resentful a long, long time ago. Yeah. So, um, yes, they have and there are so many awesome things about having a team. I think people look at it like okay, I'm going to get some help, and I'm going to pay them and they're going to help me. But there's so much more to that, you know, they bring unique talents, they bring another perspective, sometimes a sitter will notice something maybe that I didn't or they watch out for each other. So and so Oh, I noticed this, you know at this job and I'm like Oh great. Okay, good. Good because you you caught something that we maybe forgot to put in the notes or they check each other. And we, they don't even know each other because especially with this year with COVID, we haven't had any get togethers sadly. But they all watch out for each other. And and it's so much fun to have people to share stories with about the pets. Because nobody knows what only other pet sitters only people who have seen those pets can relate to the stories that you're telling them. So that's one thing I love about it.

Collin 25:36

Yeah, it's it's one thing to talk to your family members about being a pet sitter. And then it's a whole nother thing to talk to somebody else who's caring for the same pet that you are. And, and and share stories and tips for them and all sorts of things. Yeah,

Kim Ottone-Tank 25:49

yeah, it really is fun. The last time we did get together, it was just hilarious. Everyone was like, Oh, you know, fluffy. Oh, yeah. So yeah.

Collin 26:00

So after so how many people do you have on your team? Now? What have you what, you know, you started out with just one and then

Kim Ottone-Tank 26:07

yeah, and it's varied over the years, there have been a lot of ups and downs and changes. With the business right now I just have five, I had expected to have more. But due to COVID. We're very fortunate that I have five people that all want to work part time and I'm crossing my fingers, I have just about the right amount that everybody wants to work right now. Since we started off the year with a bang, it was going to be great. We were at the beginning of March. I'm like this is the best March we're gonna have until I started to cry. I it was so depressing when all the cancellations started coming in. And then I realized I'm in the same boat as the whole rest of the world. So I thought, okay, we just have to move forward and figure this out. It's nothing I did wrong. I don't have to feel guilty about this. I didn't cause this. I have to just deal with it. Yeah, I have a really all new team, because I only have Oh, wow, okay, I've got half people, a couple of my sitters just didn't come back. They just never felt comfortable going into people's homes after that. So so. So I have a couple of new people that I had to find. Because we had just enough dog walks to where I needed help. There was a month where I didn't have any, but we did have four people that kept us walking their dogs, since this whole thing start even though they're home, and I am so grateful to them. But I had one month where I had nobody who could do them. So I drove every day. Now I could have stayed overnight, but I wanted to be home. So I I would drive every day takes you two hours to get there. I would do the Watson that's about you know, and I would spend time with the one cat visit that we had, I would be there maybe three or four hours and then I would drive home again, which sounds crazy. But I thought you know people do things like that for, quote, regular job. I mean, they do in the Bay Area, people have crazy commute. So I thought I'm just one of those poor slobs right now. At least I love what I do. And my car can practically drive itself to the Bay Area.

Collin 28:22

You talked about the importance of having a team right that camaraderie that sharing ideas that connections. What about a solopreneur? You know, somebody who either doesn't have a great team or maybe doesn't want to hire? What kind of advice do you have for them?

Kim Ottone-Tank 28:36

I was thinking about that. And obviously, you know, the first thing that comes to mind is networking with other sitters other local sitters, because even before I ever hired I had other people I knew that could help in an emergency. When I was still employed at the Veterinary Hospital, one of the other technicians there helped me a couple of times when something came up or and I helped her. I also met another pet sitter early in the game, who is still my best friend today. We met in 1993. She was working for her mother at the time. And then later on, she took over her mother's business and we talked nearly every day. So she was a mentor for me. And we still help each other with our businesses occasionally. So networking is really important because you do never know what can happen. But also what I would recommend is coming up with plans for, for example, if you know you want to take a vacation every year and you're going to have to shut down or refer out just be really upfront with your clients. Let them know in advance what's going to happen because you may be like me where I was saying yes all the time, even when I was alone, but you don't want to shock your clients and all of a sudden you're not available. So have some sort of a lot of open communication about when you're available and you're not And also don't be afraid to think out of the box, I will tell you, I'll go back a little bit in history. When we first made the move from Salinas, where I lived before to the Bay Area, all of my family was in Salinas. And I always spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family. So when we moved to the town of Concord, in Contra Costa County, I had a big decision to make, I had a lot of soul searching, because I said to myself, we have children, we're going to have children now. We want to spend the holidays with my family. Holidays is the busiest time for pet sitters, am I really going to be able to open a pet sitting service, and be with my family. And that was a big, big, you know, heavy moment, and we thought about it. And we decided that I would make it work. And I will tell you, when I say thinking outside the box, let's just say for example, Christmas morning, 1990, went something like this, I got up at four o'clock, I was out the door for 35. I had maybe six visits to do or whatever it was, I decided that doing shorter visits on the holidays was how I would deal with it. My clients Never mind it, because they're like, well, it's Christmas, you have kids, of course, we don't want you to sit here staring at the wall for half an hour for my cat that won't come up from under the bed, or even even the dogs, we don't mind if you're there a few minutes less. So I would kind of go lickety split and get the work done, I would go back home, wait, maybe open some presence. If we had, you know, done them all the night before we'd hit the road. And two hours later, we'd be in Salinas. So we usually get there by 11. In the morning or noon, I'd be there till six in the evening, I'd spend the entire day with my family. And we'd get back in town or at home around eight o'clock. And if I had to stay up till midnight getting those visits done, I would get them done. Because I refuse to give up the holiday with my family. But I also refuse to say no to my clients. Now now backing up a little bit to the shorter visits. Honestly, I've never charged extra for holidays. Because of that I thought you can you can spend the time and charge extra or you can charge the same and spend less time either way you're you're charging more permitted in a sense. And my clients, we're not opposed to it. The only people that have ever really said, Oh, that doesn't seem fair. We're other pet sitters. So and I'm like, you know, my clients are the ones that pay my bills, my clients are the ones that I am responsible to. If they're okay with it, then I and I'm okay with it, then I'm not gonna worry about what somebody who has nothing to do with my business things. And I've I've done it that way all along. Because family time is so important. I continued to do it that way. And when I had staff because I staff loved the idea. I don't have any problem getting people to work on holidays, because I don't make them give up their whole day, I will schedule enough people I won't give you know, there's a maximum number I will give them. And now that I've switched from paying per visit to hourly, I pay them time and a half, but they are doing more in a shorter period of time. So I'm not losing any money from that. So it works.

Collin 33:21

Yeah, no, if finding those kind of things that work for your business, and I love what you said, they're like, well, if it works for me and my clients like it to like, why wouldn't I do this? Like, why is that? Why would I'm going to let these people talk from the outside in and try and convince me to do something that's not gonna work for me.

Kim Ottone-Tank 33:38

Right? I feel comfortable with how we've been doing it. And believe me if I didn't, I wouldn't do it. But I'm proud of how our service has run. We do a great job. And it's been working for all of these years.

Collin 33:49

Yes. One of the things that you mentioned even before you hired your first employee, you got worked in workers comp, and you got all these things in line. And we talk a lot about insurance. As a business. Why is worker's comp so important to have if you have employees?

Kim Ottone-Tank 34:04

Well, in most states, it is the law, I think Texas is the only state that doesn't require it. And some states only require it. If you have three or more employees, California requires it with as few as one employee. But that is not the only reason I would have it anyway, even if it weren't the law. And in some areas of the country. There are different laws regarding carrying it on contractors as well. If they don't carry it in some cases, you have to carry it on them. I think it's a great idea though. And I will give you an example of my my little story. It was Thanksgiving 2008 it was kind of a rainy, Misty day I was out working my sister Karen was out working and all of a sudden I get a call from her. She had gone to get the mail out of somebody's box and it was one of these brick mailboxes right on the street and there was a metal grate in front of the mailbox. It was really slippery. She had slipped on it. And she'd broken her ankle in like three different places. Yeah. So I said, I'm coming, I'm coming I I was in the same town in Walnut Creek. And I went, immediately went to her and she couldn't get up. And we called 911. And had the ambulance come and take her to the hospital. And she ended up having surgery. She was out for quite a while because she she was a little bit older than me a little heavyset, she had a hard time taking care of herself with her leg in a cast. So she was in assisted living for a month. And when she got home, she had had to have a wheelchair ramp built on the front of her house. Workers Comp covered all of that, all of it. And I believe the actual billing number in his was close to $200,000 for the whole shebang.

36:02

So,

Kim Ottone-Tank 36:04

you know, I have coverage? That's great. Well, I know, a lot of people say, Well, I use contractors, they're responsible. They know they're responsible for their own injury. But here's what Karen told me and I totally get it. She said, you know, Kim, I have great medical insurance, but the CO pays. And all of that would have killed me if I had been having to pay that. She said, if you had hired me as a contractor and not carried workers comp, I would have sued you. And, and I totally understand, I would have like, I get it, I get it. And the problem is, one of the issues is that you can say, well, the person's a contractor. But if the state of California decides they're not vineyard, they can come back and say, No, we really think there was an employee relationship here. So we're going to have to bill you for a lot of penalties and back taxes. And you're going to be responsible for these injuries. Because you are really an employer, I have a brother in law who works for the, the largest carrier in California, of for workers comp. So he's given me a lot of great advice. And unfortunately, he's had to go to court to testify in cases where people are have their status challenged due to a worker's comp. So it's real, it's real. And I think what I pay has, it's paid off many times over, I can sleep at night knowing that, that it's because in this business, too, I mean, that was her breaking your ankle, how many dog bites are there, unfortunately, we've never had a dog bite claim, but they're incredibly common. One kind of funny thing I'll tell you about that particular day. So she had still had visits to do left. And so we did scramble and spread out their visits among staff, which is another reason for having enough people on your team. But my son was 18 at the time, and I said, guess what, Trevor? You're gonna be a pet sitter today. He's gonna watch me do it my whole life. He knew we talked about it all the time at home. You know, he knew. So he didn't have a driver's license. So we just gave him jobs that he could ride his bike to. And that's how he started his career as a pet sitter. So

Collin 38:27

I know, I know you've you've brought your kids into it. Apparently some some willingly, maybe some less, more or less. So. What's it been like having your kids and your husband and

Kim Ottone-Tank 38:39

you know, it's really funny talking about the husband? I'm surprised we didn't we haven't killed each other working together. But we actually we made it work. Okay. Yeah. But so Trevor was the first one to sort of be inducted in and eventually he got a car and he worked for us for quite a number of years. And he, he was he had to learn some, but he did a very good job for me. He also one day in 2013, asked if his girlfriend could work for me one day a week and I said, Sure, I need somebody on Mondays. So she started working for us, and now they're married. They both work for us. But anyway, and then I have another son who's a couple, the one who's a couple years younger. We had him work for us. He was not stellar. He was not stellar. He just didn't have a knack for the details. So we didn't have him work for us for too long. I mean, not everybody is meant to be a pet sitter. There are definitely skills involved. My daughter, who is now 23 Let's see, I think I pulled her into it when she was 19. She finally had her license. I had this really unusual day in One June where nobody could work. I had an employee who had had a medical procedure. The week before. I was supposed to be back at work but had complications. I had another employee who had a scheduled medical procedure. Trevor and Brooke, my son and daughter in law, were still on their honeymoon. And instead of coming back on the Monday, I mean, they insisted on taking till Tuesday, after three weeks they had been off, I'm like, that's great. Well, you know, that's a problem. When you have two staff members that get married to each other. Then they go, Oh, my gosh. So I'm like, you guys really can't work. So I told my daughter, Rory, you know, I need you to work. And she's like, I got it for you, Mom, I can do this. And I gave her all the instructions. And you know, she also like I said, you talk around the dinner table, you talk about various things. You know, we have cell phones now. So it's like, it's not like she couldn't call me for every little class. And she I think she did nine visits her first day, which is a lot for a first timer. Yeah, a lot. She did great. She did great. And, and so she has worked for me in summers when she's been home from college and during holiday breaks right now she lives in the state of Washington. But you know, everybody, if she takes a vacation and comes to visit, I may put her to work, you know, comes up. She's really great. She's really great. My fourth one has no interest in it. And I'm like, Okay, if you have no interest, I'm not putting you out there. Right now.

Collin 41:31

Just all waiting for that moment when they get the phone call. I need a walker.

Kim Ottone-Tank 41:36

Yeah, but I've really enjoyed working with my kids. I think one of the things about working with family is that you, you do have to be able to put on the employer hat and just, you know, I, I want to say treat them like everybody else. But I but I have the philosophy that people need to be handled differently. There's something about being fair is not necessarily equal in all aspects. I can't hear what the saying is. Everybody needs different handling, people learn different ways. But in general, when you're working with your kids, you have it's business. It's business. And and I one example I thought about that is I also had a niece of mine work for me. She worked for me for a couple of years. And last year, she was decided she wanted to do something else. She absolutely loved walking dogs. But I don't think taking care of the cats was in her heart. She did a good job. But she wasn't called to it. And she decided she wanted to do something else. So when she let me know that she was quitting, she kind of had a bad day, there was some client, I made a comment. And I think she was taking it personally. And she was kind of upset. And we had had such a great relationship all along. And I and I told her, you know, I know you're leaving. I don't I'm really sad that you're leaving. But this doesn't change our relationship at all. So yes, I didn't have her as an employee, we dealt with the employee things as an employee. But when she was gone, I said, I still love you, you're still my niece, we still get along great. It's as if it never happened, you know that she never quit. Because I separate that I don't look at her. I her being an employee is separate from her being my relative. And I think that you have to have a little bit of that, to be able to have people relatives working for

Collin 43:30

Yeah, absolutely. Like I think about, you know, if I were working with my members of my family, like how I would set up those boundaries, what, how do you do that? What kind of advice do you have for people who are thinking about working with family members?

Kim Ottone-Tank 43:44

Well, I think setting them up like any other employee, I mean, in terms of taking them on the training, doing all the paperwork, if you're having employees than they're also an employee. You can't completely separate the fact out that they're family. But you can have the same policies and the way you deal with problems as you do with your other side. I think it's just keeping it consistent. I've learned so much about delegating over the years. I have philosophies on it that I didn't quite understand in the beginning, for example. If and I know I'm kind of scattered, I'm even going all over the place, but it just it's sort of leading me into these thoughts. When I have an employee call and they've made a mistake, say they've locked themselves out of a house. I don't want to hear that I might be out running on the trail somewhere. And now I got to deal with Why would I be doing my own visits? I think the first inclination is to get upset. Oh no, darn, why did you do that? The first thing that comes to mind is like, Oh, I have to deal with this. But I've learned to skip that step. Because that accomplishes Absolutely nothing. But getting the Mad getting mad part. It doesn't do any good. So like, that's my first reaction. A second reaction is okay, now what are we going to do about it? So I've just gone on to Okay, what are we going to do about it? Because I take the emotion out of it because I figured this out because I'm Italian and Portuguese, I've kind of have a guess my husband, I could be a little volatile at times. Okay. Better, very Mediterranean personality. And so it's easy for me to go Oh, no. But I, I've actually learned to take a deep breath and say, let's fix this, we go right to the fixing part. And there always is a solution. And a lot of times my employees are impressed that I know the answer to something right away. And I said, That's because I've done this 16 million times. Another thing about the employees, why don't get mad, I'll tell you why I don't get mad at employees. Because every time they make a mistake, I've probably done it worse. I have I've made every mistake in the book. So if I employee does something, I it's really hard for me to get upset when I've done it too. Yeah. And I think it's that human side of it. So that's my philosophies. And I think we, we get to the problem solving right away. We don't waste a lot of time with getting upset. To stuff that's gonna happen if you can have staff it's gonna happen.

Collin 46:23

Well, yeah. I love hearing that because it reminds me of whenever I'm working with my kids, we don't we don't really don't have staff. But it reminds me a lot when I'm working with my kids and they spill milk. My first reaction is to scream and gnashing of teeth, then you know, all that stuff. But to just go, yeah, that happens sometimes. Where's the where's the rag? Let's get to get the towel. Let's just jump right to that it cuts off so much headaches, so much pain. And then later you have time to decompress and talk about specifics and deal with it then but in the moment, to not go with that first knee jerk reaction. And to just go, let's solve it, and then being honest with yourself and going yeah, you think that was bad? Let me tell you.

Kim Ottone-Tank 47:07

Oh, yeah, definitely. Really, they they make mistakes, but so heavy. And there is only one thing that will get me really upset is if it's an honesty issue. I've had a couple situations over all of this time have employees where there was an honesty issue that I don't have, I don't get mad but I don't have a lot of patience for that's not something we can work through. I'm pretty much done with you. One example is I had a sitter who had told me that the particular dog walking client was no longer going to be able to use this because the dog was getting too old and didn't want to walk anymore. And I had the client called me and told me the same thing. Well, I'm gonna stop using the service because you know, the dog is too old doesn't walk anymore. Then I saw the sitter out walking the dog. Okay, so they went behind my back. I wasn't that she wanted to take approach my sitter. It's that they had both lied to me about it. If she had said look, Hey, you know what? She can't afford us anymore? I can I start walking this dog on the side? Believe it or not, I probably would have said yes. I am not huge on non competes I I allow my sitters to do overnights for our clients that are separate from the business because we don't offer them. I'm probably one of the easiest bosses to work with. But if it's if you're not honest with me, then I have a hard time with that. And that's the only reason I've ever fired anybody. I don't fire people for making mistakes. I probably should have a couple of times. But it's if it's an honesty issue that that is a deal breaker for me.

Collin 48:38

Yeah, I mean, it really it really, because that's just that's such a personal decision made on that person's part to go and deceive somebody else, whether it's you or a client that all of a sudden that trust that you need to have in that person because they're out there representing you. They're taking care of people, they're in people's homes like that trust vanishes. And when those things happen,

Kim Ottone-Tank 48:58

and it was really hard because I immediately had to take over. She was a great dog walker, and she'd been with me for seven years when we confronted her she understood completely. And she said, Yes, I know, I was wrong. I had to take over all of her walks. And it was a pain. It was really hard. But I said to myself, yes, this is difficult right now. But if I don't do this, then I'm not holding true to my standards. And you know, I may be very flexible about a lot of things. But I have that standard. So it was tough, but we got through.

Collin 49:32

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Kim Ottone-Tank 50:52

I don't know actually my son who did work for me for quite a while and his wife as well. They actually moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Now, Brooke, my daughter in law has done some administrative work for me from Wisconsin. And in fact, she's actually working for a pet sitter friend of mine in Milwaukee, I kind of got them together. So I'm thrilled that Brooke is still working as a pet sitter. My son is now working for the VA in Milwaukee. And I'm I think he's called to be in public service. So I'm not sure. But I like to think that somewhere along the line, it could happen. I don't know. I think my children are all discovering their lives right now my daughter in Washington is a paralegal and may want to go to law school. So I'm not sure that it's in the cards. But if they want it to I definitely will. I'll not close the door on it. Let's put it that way. I I don't know when I'm ever going to retire because I figured you could look at me and say I'm semi retired right now because I do visits maybe a couple of days a week. And I manage remotely from here and lovely Pollock pines, California, most of the time. But I think at some point, I'll have a manager run it. I just don't see any reason to ever not have my business. I don't plan to sell it. I realized one day I've never I never got it is I like to call it my fifth child. Well, sometimes my husband's maybe it's the sixth one. But

Collin 52:29

cut that out. Don't worry. But

Kim Ottone-Tank 52:36

I think I'll always have it. So the door will always be open if they want to.

Collin 52:41

Know I love that. That's that's a neat idea. And yeah, I'm sure trying to look ahead and see what the business looks like as you move into, you know, 30 years of an operation. I'm sure the business looks way different now than you even dreamed of back in the 90s. Yes, it

Kim Ottone-Tank 52:58

does. I was thinking about how the business has changed over the last 30 years. When I started. We didn't even have cell phones. I mean, there's I know there's people listening thing. Oh my God, is she gonna go into the nursing home? I mean, and no, I promise. I'm not going to tell any stories about how my first test any jobs. I walked five miles uphill both ways in the snow. It's not like that. But in when I started, I had a friend who, who she had a baby the same year I had Trevor and I was over at her house and her husband kind of had a high powered job and he had a car phone. Like hooked into the car. So I was like, wow. But so we got our first cell phone that was a life changing in early 1993. But I didn't have any staff. The main reason my husband would call me on it was to Okay, so my second son, I nursed All My Children, he wouldn't take a bottle for the first six months of his life. I was tied down to that child every three hours for six months, was really tough. So my husband would put him on the phone when he was screaming and say come home after you finish this stop because this kid is driving me crazy needs to eat. So that was kind of I always think about that when my first cell phone, that's what we use it for. But obviously they became more popular. Everyone had one they've there. They were made for pet sitters, so I don't know what we do without him now. But at the time, that was the only technological advancement we obviously started out with a paper calendar. It was really exciting when I could find the week at a glance where they had full Saturday and Sundays because I was really busy on Saturday and Sunday and all the calendars had little tiny weekends like people didn't work on the weekends or something crazy right now. So I still have all my Original calendars back to 1990. And I sometimes I nostalgically go back and look and see. Yeah, so up. But in 2001, my sister who's really smart, and really good on computers, decided that I should have a database online. And well, it actually I shouldn't even say online. It wasn't web based at the time. But she decided that I should run my business on using a database. And I was kind of resistant. I don't always like change, I was scared. I thought, oh, that just I, that seems like too much work to load all that client information in there. And she's like, No, you really need to do this. So we did, and it was the best thing we ever did, you know. So we have been using that system for all of these years with a couple of big updates. What's really fun about her creating this custom database for me was that I could tell her what I needed. And she also knew, my sister, I had roped into helping me a couple of times to I mean, this talk about a family affair, everybody, if you haven't done a petsitting job, and my family, I don't know if you're really related to me. But she, she knew the ins and outs of the business, she knew exactly what type of information and how it needed to be organized. And she spent like six months working on it almost full time. And, and she got it going for us. The exciting thing is that she created an app for us for our phones last year, because we were, we would run it off the database. And I would email schedules to people. And I would email them instructions, but they didn't have a central place that they could tap into the database. And now we have an app on their phone. That's how they get their schedules. And oh, I resisted that too. I said, I don't know. If you haven't figured out I don't always like change a whole lot. She's like, No, no, you're gonna love it, it's gonna be great. I think you should have an app. And I'm like, Okay, if you want to spend 10,000 hours building an app for me, okay. You know, and she's, I owe her cat care for the rest of my life, because of all the things she's done. But that has been really, really a massive change for us to feel like, we feel like we're keeping up with everybody else. We're a little bit different. We're not complete, our clients don't have interaction with our database that is different. still like to input the data myself, I'm sure someday she'll convince me to change that too. But right now, that is

Collin 57:52

another year. And yeah. Something else that's changed over the past 30 years, you know, there's been a lot of economic changes, a lot of ups and a lot of downs. And you've, you've weathered them. So talk to us about that. Tell us about how you managed to do that.

Kim Ottone-Tank 58:11

You know, we've been through some really trying times, I think the first major thing that happened to us was September 11 2001, my husband had just quit his job six months before, because when we had child number four, I said, I can't juggle this anymore. And he said, Okay, I'll quit my job. And I said, Okay, when we have a whole lot of savings in the bank, you should quit your job. And two weeks later, he quit his job, we did not have a lot of savings in the bank. It could be impulsive sometimes. So when September 11 happened, it was pretty devastating because we were on the verge of a great month, and all of a sudden it fell apart. One of the major differences between that and what happened this year was that it was major that mostly that flights were canceled. So we still had some people traveling, they just weren't flights were grounded for I can't remember 10 days or two weeks or something like that. But the way we weathered through it is that we had been building a very strong client base up to that point. And we were very, very busy. And the way to weather through it. Well, there's two concepts. One is to have a lot of money and savings. I can't say that we had a lot. But it was proof that we needed to have a plan, because you never know what's going to happen. But also having a large enough client base, I really feel that maybe that's another you know, that's another idea surrounded by hiring if you have a large enough client base that you need help when things kind of fall apart. It may be unfortunate if you have to layoff a worker, but chances are there will be enough there's a higher likelihood that there will be enough work leftover for you in the event of some kind of natural disaster. So I think Building a strong client base, maybe even a little bit more than you want to have, is really beneficial if things fall apart. Now, later on, we had 2008, the economy was pretty bad. We, we had had a great couple years, and we took the kids on a 12 day Mediterranean cruise in Europe. For our 25th wedding anniversary, and everything's going great, we came home and it was at the bottom dropped out, take a look like, we're like looking at the months ahead, I'm like, this doesn't look so good. So, again, we just kind of weathered through that, because we had had a strong client base at the time, this last year has been really crazy. Because what happened in March was so different. It wasn't like you couldn't fly anywhere. It wasn't that people didn't have any money, it was that nobody was going anywhere at all, it had nothing to do with your economic status, it had nothing to do with where you were going. It was just flat out. It affected 100% of the population. So that was tough. That was really tough. And we're fortunate that we did have a little bit of backup there and also can take advantage of some of the programs that were offered. And it's just been nothing anybody could have predicted this year, I think

Collin 1:01:28

you mentioned about the change in technology. Over the course of the industry, we have what what else has changed along the way with a client expectations or just industry standards or anything like that?

Kim Ottone-Tank 1:01:41

Yeah, that's a that's a good point. I think with the change in technology expectations from clients, or certainly they've changed as well, I think they're higher indefinitely, as far as the amount of communication that's expected. And until you as you may have learned from talking to me, I'm kind of slow to make changes. So we still have clients that we are caring for who have been on our books for 25 years, I am now I do have a client from the first year, still different bird, but super pets, but and for those clients, they're they're really used to the way we've always done things. We used to have a no news is good news policy, because let's face it back in the 90s, if someone was gone, they left you the number the hotel, they may or may not have had a cell phone. So you only tried to reach them. If it was a real emergency, you're not going to call the hotel, say I need to speak to someone and you know, this client. And just to tell them everything is fine. That's so we have a lot of clients that still operate on the no news is good news things, which is dramatically different from our newer clients. And I've been slower to adapt. I have to remember that Oh, yes, people like pictures, they like updates, because our new clients ask for it and they get it. But our other clients, it would probably think it's strange if I contacted them every day. I know it sounds crazy to senators who are used to all of the communication now. Yeah, but I operated for so many years where that just wasn't a possibility. So now we do a lot more of that. But we've been slow to adapt, because we're creatures of habits. We've been doing this for so long. We actually do love the the pictures, the sending the cute pictures and all of that. But it's very different, a very different level of communication now. And I think there's an expectation of immediate response. And that's tricky for all of us, I think. I'm certainly try very hard Customer service is really important to me. And I like I want my clients to have a complete experience from the beginning to end if they're traveling. So it's a lot of work, but I do try to be very, very responsive to them.

Collin 1:03:54

You know, I like that connection of in the 90s. Yeah, like you, it's hard to even imagine that world anymore of, you'd have to call and get connected with somebody and you know, they'd be on vacation. And I love that just to say everyone's still alive.

Kim Ottone-Tank 1:04:11

Right? center is the one you didn't want to hear from a friend and I always say that if the pet center was calling Oh my God, is my house burning down is my dog alive. You did not want to hear from the pet sitter. So it's it's been a long road making those changes. And again, like I said, we still have a lot of clients who use the old way and they're perfectly happy with it.

1:04:35

Well, and we're not rocking the boat.

Collin 1:04:38

It's a reminder that your ways of operating and expectations for that, you know, there's not going to be the same for each client and that's okay and right to not try and force things on them if they don't want that and and to meet their needs. As you said, meet you have that the huge importance of that customer service interaction. Make sure that that's individualized for each person so that they're getting their needs met the way they want them met.

1:05:05

Right. Right, exactly. But thinking

Collin 1:05:07

about the past 30 years in the industry was wondering if you had a crystal ball hidden somewhere, you could break out and think, or at least were you hope, maybe thinking about the future of the industry, given everything that's been going on and some of the big changes recently? Well,

Kim Ottone-Tank 1:05:29

I like to think of it in a very positive light. I I know that the petsitting industry has a lot of challenges. Now we have app companies that are competing and bringing a different type of service. We have to look at that and decide whether we want to be like them, or we want to be different from them. And if so how are we going to make ourselves different? We have a lot of challenges with that. But I do believe that, in the end, people are looking for a solid company with a history with dedication to the best practices, I think the more we can do to set ourselves apart can only be good, I think. And I am very positive about the industry as a whole. Just because I I'm not sure where that's coming from, just know that I absolutely love my clients. This has been a tough year, but we've had so many clients that have checked in and just said, Are you okay, are you still around? We hope you made it through this. And we have so many great connections with the community in that way that I think that that personal level of care is not forgotten that it's very appreciated. And I think the petsitting industry is definitely here to stay. You know, we may have to make some changes here or there. But we're on solid ground.

Collin 1:06:55

Yeah, no, that's good to remind, to remind ourselves of that personal connection, that that that you are part of a community that you do interact with people, and people, people matter, right, and people are gonna have that connection. And then that really, at the end of the day is what what makes it go around?

Kim Ottone-Tank 1:07:12

Well, you know, and I've listened to you say this several times on your podcast. And this is something I so strongly believe in that it is. We all love the animals, but it is the client that signs the check or gives us the credit card.