160: Our Firsts in Pet Care
Brought to you by Pet Sitters Associates
Summary
Each day we experience some sort of ‘first’ in life and in business. We break down some of the most influential firsts we’ve encountered over the past nine years. We also share the lessons we’ve learned from them and how we’ve changed how we operated, from our first client, to our first time saying no. Then, Natasha O’Banion answers, “How do I prioritize what to cut back on?”
Topics on this episode:
Why learn from them?
Some of our firsts
Ask a Pet Biz Coach with Natasha O’Banion
Main takeaway: Anytime we experience a ‘first’ in life or business, we need to be open to learning from it and allowing it to make us better.
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
client, business, dog, owner, cat, house, pet, care, people, home, greet, walked, cut, left, oven, pet sitter, lesson, firsts, check, happened
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.
Collin 00:29
Hello, and welcome to Episode 160.
00:33
Hello,
Collin 00:33
if this is your first time listening, thank you so much for joining us. And if you aren't already, go ahead and in whatever app you're listening to hit the subscribe hit the Follow button so you never miss a new episode as they come out.
Meghan 00:44
We would like to thank our sponsors, pet sitters associates and our awesome Patreon members. If you would like to learn more about how to financially support the show for just a couple bucks a month you can go to pet sitter confessional comm slash support. Today we are going to be talking about pet city and firsts, specifically our pets name first,
Collin 01:03
yeah, both in the business and experiences that we've had along the way.
Meghan 01:07
We wanted to talk about this because they only happen once obviously, they are your first. And so they always have a lot that they can teach us and lessons that we can learn from them. Also, this
Collin 01:17
past week, we saw some new firsts for us. So we want to talk about those. And we'll be talking about some of our first over the last nine years. So please let us know about some of your favorite firsts in your business, or maybe some of your favorite first experiences that you've ever had. One aspect of thinking back to the first that we have, or that we experience is that we always have something to learn from them. So while we walk through some of the offers that we've had, we're also going to talk about the lessons that we've taken from them, and how we apply that to our business and how we run and operate these days.
Meghan 01:50
So the first one is our first first, our first client, her name was Trixie, she was a Dalmatian. And it was a pretty easy drop in check in the middle of the day, we just had to let her out and let her go potty.
Collin 02:03
And one of the lessons from that is that there will always be someone that is going to be willing to take a chance on you whether you have all the experience or not in that we should have confidence in ourselves, each time somebody says yes to us. And we got that client through our very first advertisement. And she
Meghan 02:22
was on Craigslist, if you can believe that all those
Collin 02:24
years ago, and I think it was one that you put together and crafted yourself.
Meghan 02:30
Yeah, it was back in 2012, when Craigslist was still up and running and not super creepy. And so it basically said a little bio about us and that we are willing to come to your home to provide service to your pet, and that the pets are most comfortable in their own home.
Collin 02:50
This really started off a continuing practice for us of learning how to write proper ad copy, specifically what we want to highlight things that we want to change over time and even adding in seasonal highlights and trying to get ahead of people's expectations as far as when and how they're going to be booking.
Meghan 03:09
Well. And I think if I look back at that, at our very first few advertisements, I would cringe. It's like anything that you do at the start, you don't know necessarily exactly what you're doing are exactly what you want it to look like. But just doing something is better than having it perfect. And obviously over the years, we've refined that language as well.
Collin 03:31
And that's just something that you're always going to be improving on always learning about and as your business grows and adapts so to will the language that you use to describe your services and target your specific client.
Meghan 03:42
Unfortunately, we've had this first happen is our first lost dog. We were doing a house it and we're watching a dachshund mom and her puppies. The owner also had five Yorkies a lot. Yes, she was fostering the doxon and the puppies. And so she had five yorkeys as well. They were all adorable, but she took them with her on this trip she was going and left the docks and mom and puppies at home for us to take care of while the dogs and mom thought that she was abandoned because her owner wasn't there her for Yorkie friends weren't there. And so she got out under the fence, she dug a hole under the fence and escaped ran away from her puppies.
Collin 04:25
And it was really shocking whenever you arrive and you're supposed to have a mom taking care of her puppies and you just find the puppies and then a hole underneath the fence.
Meghan 04:33
They did have a dog door going in and outside. So that's how that happened.
Collin 04:36
It was activated by the dog's collar. So it was only going to open and close for dog wearing a specific kind of collar. And she got out and then dug out and underneath that so when we arrived, we had a hole in the fence. And it was very shocking. It was the first time that it happened to us and all of a sudden we're having to think through how to communicate that to the client how to start a search who else to contact For the emergency contact in the area, and then start working through those processes. So it really enforced in really hammered home the idea that you have to have that emergency contact, and being able to communicate clearly to the client. And then I guess another thing that we learned was upfront ask has the dog ever gotten out before? Do they dig underneath the fence? Do they have separation anxiety, because all of those little things can add up to give you a better picture of what kind of dog you're going to be caring for. And more of the story, we
Meghan 05:31
did find that she didn't run too far away. It was just in the next next street over. But that was it was very nerve wracking.
Collin 05:40
Another nerve racking first that we have was whenever I set off the house alarm and got the cops called on me, that's the punchline of that story, the owner left and changed their code to the alarm, which they did not inform us of that change. So I arrived, the alarm starts beeping down, I entered the code that they gave me the first time and it was wrong, it didn't work. And then all of a sudden, the voice starts talking me through the alarm, saying identify yourself, give your super secret code or whatever. Well, I didn't have any of that. I just told them the old one. And they didn't accept that until the cops called. And fortunately, by the time the cops called I had gotten the client on the line was sitting there on the phone with them. So I can hand the phone to the cop as they pulled up, and answered all their questions. And really, the moral of that story was always ask your clients if they have changed their code. And even if they can't remember just to ask them for it each time you go over. So that so just just in case,
Meghan 06:32
another first we had was staying in a really nice house, this house had a saltwater pool in the back, it had different wings to the houses, it was done up in very, very nice on a big piece of land
Collin 06:45
look like a catalog. And when you walk through the house, everything looked like they shot at home goods or a high end luxury catalog for decorations.
Meghan 06:53
Well, and the owner was an interior designer. So yes, but we felt very out of place in this home and, and didn't quite know what to do with all the space, it was just one dog. But she didn't get along with other dogs. So we couldn't board her at our house. And so we had to house it. And it was nice, I just felt a little
Collin 07:12
out of place. And it really hit home. Just the immense amount of trust that people place in us. Anytime we go over to their house. They didn't really know us from Adam, they didn't you know, they knew our background, they had references. And that's all it took. But here we are, we're in charge of their property. And it really just was the first time that it felt really real, that what we were in charge of. And just again, that immense trust that these clients are placing in us and in our hands, not just for the care of their pet, but also for overseeing their home
Meghan 07:43
a very important first that we had, it was saying no, there were two Afghan hounds that we went over for a meet and greet. And at the meet and greet, we found out that one of them had actually bitten someone before. So we were not comfortable with this at all. So as the meet and greet, we said, we appreciate your time. But that is not something that we are willing to risk.
Collin 08:06
And we suggested other senators and other people who could have taken care of them that maybe have been more willing to work with them in that aspect. Our lesson from this was to shore up our meet and greet form that we would get to people beforehand and ask all of those relevant questions before we even walk in the door. So that a we're not wasting our time and be we're not wasting the client's time, they had an interest in getting somebody in to take care of their dogs quickly because they were leaving for town soon. And they had to start that process all over again, because we backed out. Now, we backed out for very good reasons. It would have just expedited the process on everybody's part if we had asked some of those more relevant questions, beginning and so that's what we do. Now. We ask all those questions up front, so that whenever we are actually in the meet and greet, we are just getting to know them, build a rapport with him and start letting the dog get to know us as well.
Meghan 08:58
Unfortunately, when you are in somebody's house looking after their house, you may experience a first of something going wrong in the house like we did. Both of these things happen at the same house, not at the same time. But the first one was the water softener broke. So we walked into the bathroom one day, and there were these little tiny beads at the bottom of the toilet. And I think they were pink or blue.
Collin 09:21
They were pink. Yeah.
Meghan 09:22
And so we were trying to figure out what in the world This was. And we texted the owner a picture and said, Do you have any idea and they said, Oh, it's the water softener. It must be broken.
Collin 09:33
Yeah, so we didn't break it. We walked in and it happened to have ruptured. Before we got there. It was this weird membrane thing inside this canister that they kept in their garage, and it just completely exploded. And so working with the owner, I was on the phone with him and he walked me through how to shut off all the valves and then we had to flush all of the sinks in all of the other water pipes and flush water continuously to get those beads out of there. And again, it was one of the This, I when we are caring for somebody's house, it's in our stead to do that. But we also are partnering with them to work through these problems, and to remain calm, to listen to clear instructions and to communicate exactly what's going on in a level headed manner. So that the owner has some idea of what's going on as well, because we could have called them up, totally freaked out exasperated, going a mile a minute, and not actually been able to solve the problem and made it worse. And so by sending the photo, asking some simple questions, and then following directions, we were able to resolve it very quickly.
Meghan 10:36
And then also a part of the oven had melted. So we were trying to cook something in the oven and we looked over
Collin 10:41
and it was a really bright orange light was shining on the inside of it. It was really bright, almost like a flashlight. And so I opened the oven door, and this huge heat wave smacked over me and I looked down in the bottom heating element was actually melting. As I watched it, it had broken and failed and was melting and going down into the bottom of the oven
Meghan 11:06
and could have very easily caught fire, I guess. Yeah,
Collin 11:08
if we had been outside and not come in for 30 minutes, we immediately got it shut off and got it cooled down and texted the owner. And they had responded with Oh, awesome. We get a new oven, we were wanting to remodel anyway. It was totally not the response that we were expecting to get. But again, it was this owner looking and going, Hey, this was not their fault. They didn't do anything. We told them to use the oven. We told them to cook, we told them to do all of that stuff. We have an old oven. And so that is to be expected it was going to happen anyway, it just so happened to have happened to us. And this again reinforced the trust reinforced that we are supposed to be taking care of their homes and letting them know when things go wrong, because things are going to go wrong at some point. And we could have tried. You know, if we were less honest, we could have hidden that or said it wasn't us or said something else. But just being honest about what happened. And working through them in that moment is really going to go a long way to helping that trust build with you and between you and your client.
Meghan 12:10
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Collin 12:55
Unfortunately, in business, there will be happy first there will be sad firsts and one of the sad firsts for us was our very first client that
Meghan 13:03
Yeah, so he was a huge bullmastiff and he was six years old. And he had a neurological disease. So his spine was narrowing. And he had really trouble walking, the clients had to put rugs down all over the floors for him so he wouldn't slip and fall. And he took I think 29 pills a day
Collin 13:23
every single day.
Meghan 13:24
Yeah. And he got them in little, little salt and little meat patties. They're so cute. And so we knew that this time was going to come eventually. So one night we got a phone call saying that the next day they were going to put him down because his quality of life was diminishing. And so they just made the judgment call. So we went over one night and we said goodbye. And they his last meal was a steak of big old t bone steak.
Collin 13:50
Yeah, it was it was our first time of being in that scenario and, and feeling. I don't know I felt kind of awkward of of, is it okay for me to agree with you in this process. Because I love I love your dog, like my own. I've grown to know him so well and care for him and meticulously make sure that he gets the right amount of medicine every single day at the right times and really sticking to that and doing our best to make his quality of life as best as we could. And being in that time of this is the last time being confronted with that so blatantly. This is the last time you will see him say goodbye and then sharing some of our memories of him with the owners. And then we even put together a photo collage later and brought it over to them and so they could have that in a picture frame and put that on their mantle and it was just a it wasn't it didn't cost a lot. It was just something of you know we have so many pictures of your dog. And here are some of our favorites and we hope that it helps you through this process of remembering him as we will always remember him
Meghan 14:53
first that was really hard for us was moving the business for the first time. Before we started, we started off this business in Lubbock, Texas. And about two, two and a half years later, we had moved the business to a suburb of Dallas, Texas. And that was very hard. We left a huge client list on the table, we left them behind. Obviously, we referred them to other sitters. But we walked away from the business, we did not leave anything in Lubbock, as far as our business.
Collin 15:25
Yeah, which is something that looking back now all these years later, if we had known what we know now, about business operations about managing remotely, we would have done it way differently. And so not that it's necessarily a regret, because we're not supposed to regret things in the past, but it's definitely something huge learning. experience. And, you know, we had a few people that have reached out to us about purchasing the client list about taking over from that. And at the time, we had just said, Look, here's the client list, here it is, and we're gonna refer people out that contact us, and we're not going to try and manage this remotely. And at that time was just because we didn't know anything we didn't know or expect to still be in this business nine years later.
Meghan 16:09
Yeah, I think there's a saying when you know, better you do better. And at the time, we didn't know any better. So now, now we know better,
Collin 16:17
right. And so I think from that, it's just anytime these transitions come up, or these these points in the road, where we can go left or right, taking a few steps back and trying to collect as much information as possible, and really make a really great well informed decision that we have confidence in. And we didn't really do that, then we didn't really do the research, we didn't really look at what it would mean to leave the business behind and have somebody managing remotely or things like that. But taking a moment to breathe, to think about to seek counsel and ask other people reach out to other resources, and have some input on what those kind of decisions so that you can make the best one possible.
Meghan 16:56
And after we had made that move to Dallas, we then started having kids and doing house sets with kids. So our very first house it with kids was actually a couple that had just recently had a baby as well. So it was kind of perfect, the dogs were super sweet, already adjusted to the screaming cries of a newborn. And were so well behaved, we really still adore this client to this day.
Collin 17:22
Yeah, we already had a pre existing relationship with them. And we're open about having bringing our kids over. And we worked with them on that it was a really great experience working with them through that process, slowly building up to that, and then being able to serve them in that way. And it worked out really wonderfully, because again, they had kids, they were working really, really great on training, and working on commands and being gentle around kids and all those same things that we do with our kids as well. And the dogs that we we keep around. So it was a great harmony that we're able to do and just a really joyful experience that we have.
Meghan 17:58
If you are in this business long enough, you are bound to get an angry client in some capacity. And our first angry client about pricing happened. Not too long ago, actually,
Collin 18:09
the client had come over asking questions about daycare, and he had brought his grandma with him. And when he got around to pricing, the grandma was not happy about the pricing and was shocked about what he was thinking about paying us to take care of his dog to the point where she said, I respect what you're doing, I trust what you're doing. But that's just not worth it. It's not like it's a kid or something. I can't believe that you would charge that that's so much money. And she actually went and she sat in the car for the rest of the visit.
Meghan 18:38
Well, and the grandson was mortified at his grandma acting this way. But we just said you know that we understand her position it our prices are our prices, we are not going to discount we're not going to budge. And basically, if you don't like them, that's fine. Yeah, you can go somewhere else.
Collin 18:59
And we told her fully respect your opinion on that. These are our prices and just left it at that we didn't try and go into this long diatribe of explaining because at this point there was no use in doing that but
Meghan 19:11
already made up her mind
Collin 19:11
right and and that was a lesson for us is that there are some people who have already made up their mind of how much your time is worth. And they've already placed $1 sign on that and they're not going to be able to be moved budged or persuaded one way or the other
Meghan 19:27
well and you don't want those clients no recognizing that we are not for everyone. Your business is not for everyone and you don't want that because you don't want every single dog out there. You just don't you may think you do but you don't. a first for us that happened just a few days ago is our first tripod dog. He is very cute and his name is Tripp
Collin 19:47
tr IPP. They just adopted him from the shelter and had to go on a vacation so they needed someone to care for him. And this is the first time we had ever had to care for a dog that had had a leg amputated and they didn't really go into A lot of details as to why of the cause behind it. But I do believe it had to do with some sort of injury from a car. So we were able to sit down and talk with her about that specialized care, what does she do whenever there's a little bit of pain or discomfort, because it's still relatively recent for him, and work through that and talk to her about that and learn along the way and do our background and do our research about what he's able to do what he's capable to do, and watching and monitoring him as he's playing with other dogs as well.
Meghan 20:26
While most dogs are going to do just fine, you may encounter an aggressive dog, and our aggressive dog, our first aggressive dog was a little tiny doxon. Yeah, this dog did not want to go outside for anything, you could not even clip the leash on this dog, it just did not want to go,
Collin 20:46
this dog was not happy at all to be in our care. And unfortunately, this was a last minute thing where we weren't able to do a proper meet and greet for the dog. But we took it anyway, this dog was so bad that we actually had to wear gloves when going near it to put the leash on because otherwise it was going to tear our hands apart. And it just made us realize that we really needed to focus on different techniques, we couldn't force our way onto this dog or force this dog to do anything, we really had to work with it and take a step back and take the process really, really slow. And then it hammered home that point of you must always do a meet and greet when possible. And do not skip that step. Because again, we could have entirely avoided this entire problem or issue that we were dealing with having done a proper meet and greet with the client and getting to know them. And seeing and observing the behavior of this toxin before it was in our care.
Meghan 21:37
We've not only had an aggressive dog, but also an aggressive cat. So our first highly aggressive cat was the client who also had a doxon. And the cat hissed and hid. I think it hit upstairs and the cat would actively chase me when I entered and I had to shut away with a broom. This was not ideal, obviously. But the owner fully knew that the cat was an angry cat that it wasn't going to like anybody else except the owner, and that it might actively attack me when I walked in the door.
Collin 22:09
Yeah, the owner actually said, the cat is not going to like you and the cat may attack you. And we still took it. Because we thought Oh, it's not gonna be that big of a deal. But the cat was more restrained while the owner was there. But as soon as we got in there, this cat just flew at us. And we didn't hit it with the broom or anything. But we just use the broom to keep something between us and the cat. So that didn't latch on to our legs or attack us.
Meghan 22:32
Well, and a few times the cat was actively hiding when we walked in the door. So we just kind of did a proof of life check on the cat. We didn't go near it, we stayed away. But the lesson here was, cats aren't easier than dogs all the time. And to spend time getting to know them. There are going to be extenuating circumstances, sometimes where the owner again, the owner knew this cat was angry wasn't going to like anybody else. And sometimes that's just the way cats are. But sometimes also 30 minutes is not going to be enough for the cat.
Collin 23:04
Right? It really changed how we thought about cat care. What kind of prep can we do before we get there? How can we use pheromones? How can we use initial short visits to get to know the cat better and just spend time there so that the cat gets to grow to recognize us and understand that we're there and we're not a danger. And again, this can take time and some cats are going to have separation anxiety, and that's going to express in different ways. They're going to be afraid and that's going to express in different ways and just realizing that the cat is not taking it out on you that the cat is not just a mean cat or a bad cat that there are environmental reasons why the cat is acting out the way they are. And that as the pet sitter, we need to take time to understand that and get to know the cat and figure out exactly what's going on so we can give the best care possible
Meghan 23:51
earlier we had covered our first really nice house and this had also happened to be our first really long stay as well in the nice house. So the dog's name was mazzy. She was a Chesapeake Bay retriever a beautiful dog, but she did not like getting along with other dogs. So she was not able to be boarded at our house. And so we had to go stay at her house while her owners went to Europe for three weeks she was able to be in her own environment, and she loved it. So we had three whole weeks of every single day opening up the pool for her she was able to swim to her heart's content in her saltwater pool in the Texas summer and she absolutely loved it. And the lesson here was really respecting someone else's house and caring for it like our own. We were college students at the time. And if we were irresponsible, it really would have been easy to have a party at their house with a few friends over. But as a business owner, you have to respect someone else's house and caring for it like your own cleaning it caring for it.
Collin 24:48
It also just taught us about how disruptive those long houses can truly be to your schedule that actually goes into the next first that we have is our first really insane holiday.
Meghan 24:59
Yeah Christmas 2013.
Collin 25:02
It was we were we were doing house sitting. And we were also doing drop ins for all of our clients. And it was to the point where we had to split houses, and rotate on a schedule around the house to meet all of the drop in schedules that we had. So we could cover as much area as possible.
Meghan 25:18
Yeah, I don't remember how many houses we did. But between the two of us, we were busy from sunup to sundown,
Collin 25:25
it was non stop. And in that that lesson was really for us the importance of coordinating and checking our schedule frequently.
Meghan 25:33
Yeah, making sure we didn't miss any checks.
Collin 25:35
Yeah, cuz that was one of our biggest fear still is to this day that we're going to miss or forget something. So we checked in with each other constantly during that time, and relied on each other really to work out the best process and work out that best schedule night. That was the time where we only had one car. And so I was biking everywhere. So I got a lot of exercise that Christmas.
Meghan 25:55
Well, and again, we were in Texas, so it wasn't cold. It wasn't snowy, it was it was a little cold. But it was bikable weather. Yeah, we know this business is a lot of hard work. And you should feel proud in your business. So the first time that we felt proud in our business was when a client actually paid us double what we charge every night for house seven.
Collin 26:16
Yeah, she she saw what we were charging, she looked at the care that she was asking for us to do. And she said, No. Okay, fine, you can charge that. But I'm actually going to pay you this because I could not leave my dog with anybody else's care. And I trust you that much. And I value your time that much, and willing to pay double your rates, so that you can be here taking care of my dog, and not this backup step and went Wow, like this, actually, this service means something to people, this service actually touches people's hearts, and really allows them to live the life that they're wanting to live without having stress, this accomplishes a task for somebody to solve their problem. And they're going to pay what they value for that
Meghan 27:01
well, and that we were doing a great job, right? We were what she was looking for. And that felt really good to know that a client saw the awesome job that we were doing, right. And it wasn't necessarily about the money aspect that we were getting more money, it's just that she showed appreciation.
Collin 27:19
And I'll say, not necessarily the first. But a more recent moment where we felt proud in our business was the first time that we were actually in our local newspaper. And that was very, very surreal to have our picture on that front coverage. And a very well written article about us that we did an interview with the journalist to come over and talk to us about our business, seeing that kind of tangible realness about what our business is and who we were and knowing that that was going to be going out to other people and was going to be representing our values, our goals, and helping people get to know about us. It just helped us see oh, you know, we really are doing something, this is something that is real to us. This is something that we love. And we can share that with other people
Meghan 28:01
along with media coverage, our first client from Instagram happened recently. So we did a meet and greet with her. And she had mentioned that she saw a comment on one of her posts from us. And that felt pretty good there means. So we learned that I mean, it does take time, the social media aspect, Facebook for us is a lot more lucrative. I can post it into all the Facebook groups and get likes and new clients that way. But Instagram has been a little bit more of a struggle for us, but it has paid off a little bit.
Collin 28:38
Yeah, and which goes to show that you never really know what will happen, or what will come from it whenever you put your energy into these different avenues. So it's important to obviously look at the cost benefit ratio every time you're looking about how you're going to advertise and how you're going to market and how you're going to spend your time. But putting a little bit here and there and sprinkling your effort around all these different kinds of social media aspects and marketing aspects will help you see just exactly where the most fruit is going to be where the benefit is going to be. And, again, you never know what's going to come of it. So there will always be a new first in our businesses. Hopefully, you know, tomorrow is a brand new day and there will be first there that we've never experienced before. And sometimes those first come whether we want it or not.
Meghan 29:25
Yeah, sometimes they're good first. Sometimes they're bad first, then there's a ton of first that we have yet to experience and I'm sure you as well. But we would love to know any first that you have in your business, whether you started 10 years ago like we did 30 years ago or just last year,
Collin 29:40
right? So take some time to reflect on your first and the lessons that you've learned. write those down, not just for for you but for sharing your experiences with other people in your business or employees as they come along.
Meghan 29:53
And there's a saying that goes with raising kids but it applies to the pet care industry as well. The days are long. Bye The years are short. So before you know it, you'll look up and five or 10 years have gone by like for us. And so reflect on what was foundational in your business and what has gotten you to where you are today.
Collin 30:12
Our ask a pet biz coach segment this week is all about understanding how to prioritize things to cut back on. Oh, yeah, I
Natasha 30:19
love that. I do this in my personal home all the time. So um, when you're looking at what to cut back, or if you want to, I really don't like to cut back per se, I just say, Okay, I want to I want to have this. That's, for instance, I want to get my dog's groom every month, let's say, I probably agree with him on my own, I probably could cut back and save and just get the Clippers out and do it myself. But I like them to have that experience. And I'm getting so much time back. So you really don't want to think about what can you cut out? But what can you put in to compensate for all the things you really want? I just had a client tell me that I was like, you do not need an office. I told her that is my opinion. I said you don't need office? She said no, no, no, Natasha, I need an office, I need to clock out of my house. I like to have my own personal space. I need to personally detach from work home. And I said, Well, you just listed so many valuable reasons why I agree with you. Yes, you need an office, you just mentioned all these valuable reasons why? And she says I know. But it's about $800 a month it is out of my budget. It technically doesn't bring me any income in. But it provides me so much value. And I said look them on if that office gives an amazing owner, you now have value. But now let's just talk about how to keep it. So you want to go into your business to figure how I can increase income versus your CRM, your software's all the things that we talked about, to then not have to budget a cut back. But if you absolutely have to have to have to have to cut back, then you want to think about things that necessarily don't keep the lights on. Okay. This year and COVID, I have spent the most amount of money in my business. Can you believe that? In a pandemic, where we're losing all of our clients, it's like, I kicked out all the money to the fans, all the money I had, I do it back to the fan. Why? Because Money makes money. So if you have things that you've once felt like you need to put into your business, it was a reason why you felt like you need to put that into your business. All you need to be doing now is not working backwards. But figuring out how I can keep these things that I have once wanted that once provided a great efficient operation a great efficient machine, and figure out how you can keep them. So I don't know, I would say try not to think about cutting back. I mean, think of think of some things you could cut back on. Like if I had five cell phones for my company and I'm like, oh really don't use them all the time, we need to cut back on our internet, our internet bandwidth. You know, those are things that I think you can cut back on like bandwidth or, you know types of cell phone services or some of the apps we're using. But then again, if they provide a streamlined business, you got to go out there and make money don't cut back is figure out how to support your structure.
Collin 33:13
If you'd like to work with Natasha and have her be your personal pet business coach, you can head on over to start scale sale.com and when you're ready to work with her use the code PSC 20 for 15% off her services. We'd like to thank pet sitters associates for making this week show possible.
Meghan 33:27
But most of all, we would like to thank you for listening. We appreciate any and all feedback that you guys have. And we're 160 episodes and we hope to do many, many more. If there are any topics that you would like us to cover or any people specifically that you would like us to interview we would be open to hearing them
Collin 33:45
coming up on episode 161. We have Carmen Chavez to huize talking about her business slinky cats at home, how she leaves and runs a legacy business with her daughter and what it's like a franchising for her
Meghan 33:59
that we hope you join us, Ben, thank you so much.
Collin 34:01
Thank you
