167: Conversation About Prices
Brought to you by Pet Sitters Associates
Summary
Have you recently thought about raising your prices? On this episode, we have a conversation about prices and dive into the pros and cons of telling your clients, how to tell them, and some rules around prices we think everyone should have. Natasha O’Banion answers, “How do I convert social media followers into clients?”
Topics on this episode:
Knowing what to charge?
How do you know when it’s a good time to raise your prices
Should you, and how do you, tell clients?
Ask a Pet Biz Coach with Natasha O’Banion
Main takeaway: Pricing is complicated, but your worth isn’t. Charge what you need to give the care you love giving.
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
clients, prices, people, business, raise, pet, sitters, dog, pet sitter, service, charge, posting, walk, industry, increase, confessional, pay, rates, question, contacted
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. Hi, welcome to Episode 167. Today we are going to talk about prices. So it's going to be a conversation about prices. Thank you to our amazing patrons who support us with just a few dollars every month. And also pet sitters associate
Collin 00:43
today we're talking about prices, and probably more importantly, raising them. Anytime we talk about prices, how to raise them, whether you should be raising them, and then how to communicate that to the clients. A lot of people are very passionate about both sides of this issue. So we're not going to be solving any of that today. But we do hope to be able to present both sides of this so that we all have a better understanding of where the industry is. And what are some things that we can all be doing to help the industry be better.
Meghan 01:14
Yeah, so basically the pros and cons of raising prices and whether or not to tell your clients if you are doing so
Collin 01:21
we see this question come up a lot on Facebook and have been asked about it many times. Plus, many people held off thinking about raising prices last year because of the pandemic and they didn't think it was quite a good time.
Meghan 01:33
Yeah, we weren't really planning on doing an episode about this. But we are currently in our own business trying to figure out the best way to go about this. And we're really getting incredibly busy, which means people are willing to travel again, which is great. But this also means that the demand for our services, and hopefully yours, too, is through the roof right now.
Collin 01:55
We've raised our prices several times in the past and wanted to discuss the best practices for doing so.
Meghan 02:01
Yeah, I had posted a question in our sitter confessional Facebook group about whether pet care providers made an announcement when they chose to raise the rates or not. And an overwhelming majority said that they were we also learned that it is apparently a requirement in the United Kingdom to give one month notice before you raise your prices. And that's not the case here in the US as basically everything about this industry is unregulated. So depending on where you are listening from, there may be different rules and laws around this topic.
Collin 02:34
So when we talk about prices, we all generally start to wonder where do we even start? or know what to charge? Or what's okay for the industry?
Meghan 02:42
Yeah, when somebody is getting into this business into dog walking or pet setting? That's usually the first question they ask is, what do I charge? How much is good enough for a dog walk?
Collin 02:53
It's one of the most common questions out there. And we see people charging a wide range for their services. And just for walks alone, I think we've seen anywhere from $15 for a walk all the way up to $80 or more in some cases.
Meghan 03:06
But there's really so much that goes into what you should charge. Is it just a short walk around the block? Is it an hour and a half long walk or an adventure walk? All of these are going to depend on what services you offer and how much you charge for them.
Collin 03:22
It also depends on where you live and what the market is like in that area.
Meghan 03:25
So where do you go to even look for prices? Well, a lot of times people will say, and we have even given this advice in the past as well of looking at people in your area and what they charge to get an idea of what you should charge. And I think we would still agree with that. But I also want to add that the price that other sitters and other businesses use may be vastly different from yours. If you are a solopreneur, you can look at a big company's prices. But you may not be aware or know exactly how much overhead they have, or if they have a lot of staff to pay, or how much they pay their staff or the companies that you look up may just be after a different sector of the pet parent market. They may be after the millennial dog moms or they may be after old retirees. It really is dependent on the company. And also just because other people in your area maybe charging around the same price doesn't mean that that price is going to work for you. If you have a very specialized service if you only take care of dioxins or if you only take care of Great Danes, but all the other companies in your area are very general and they take care of any dog that comes to them or any size or any issue or medical condition, then those prices are not going to match what you should be charging. And if you have a lot of experience in this field, if you've been doing this for a lot of years or have a lot of training and certifications and dog behavior or dog training, then the prices from other sitters may not be What you want either, so you have to recognize that this industry has a chronic problem of undercharging and undervaluing services. And this is somewhat due to the gig economy that has come up in the past 10 years where there are dog walkers out there who charge $10 for a walk, and it's super on demand. And you can get a walker within five minutes to your house to walk your dog. But it could also be because the neighborhood high school kid down the street charges only $8 for a walk. And that's a better deal or $5. Or maybe it's they even do it for free just as to gain some experience. And I'm not saying any of those things are necessarily bad in and of themselves. Because we all need to start somewhere. And when I was 18, I didn't understand the value of $1. Or what I should be charging to walk a dog either, I had no idea. And even now we've raised our prices several times. But I still don't think that we're charging enough. So we may look at a price increase again soon.
Collin 06:01
I think it's also about client education and raising awareness that being a professional in pet care is an actual thing. There's still a lot of work about to do that about educating them and clients not recognizing that training, insurance experience. All of those things that go into this particular profession. Many clients have a hard time delineating the difference between that high schooler that you mentioned, that walks dogs and a business that does the exact same thing.
Meghan 06:28
Yeah, I agree with that. But my whole point here is to say that simply because other people are charging X amount of dollars, that doesn't mean that that service is worth that much. So a service is worth what you think it's worth, since it's your business. But it's also worth what somebody is willing to pay for it. If you want to charge $50 for a 30 minute walk and somebody is willing to pay you for it. Awesome. Go for it.
Collin 06:56
A very common tactic when a lot of people and us included started out was that you come in, you offer your really low prices to bring in a bunch of clients and start building up your network. However, you have to be careful with this because you start underselling and undervaluing your services right from the get go. Additionally, you do have to eventually actually raise those prices for everyone. So that starts making it worth your time, which is a move that is hard for many of us. It's a balance, though, if you have no clients or no experience, you can charge too high of a price, and nobody actually book you. But obviously you need to be able to make a living. So it can be difficult to find that sweet spot for you. And that price. And one way to do that is just to start understanding how much of your time is worth to you, and how much you need to make. In order to make your ends meet. Just start looking at a basic budget and seeing how much money you need to bring in and how that breaks down for dogwalk. For dropins of those kinds of services,
Meghan 07:59
we get asked by pet owners How much does a pet sitter or dog walker costs. And it's such a hard thing to nail down because it really depends on geographic region, the way each business is set up and how much experience the sitter has. But this industry as a whole and you the pet sitter or dog walker need to recognize that you are worth more. So just like we are about to do again, raise your prices, you are worth it.
Collin 08:25
So speaking of what separates a professional from others, let's talk about our sponsor pet sitters associates.
Meghan 08:32
As pet care professionals, your clients trust you to care for their furry family members, pet sitters associates is here to help for over 20 years they have provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance. If you work in the pet care industry or want to make your passion for pets into a profession. You can take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom and running your business. Learn why pet sitters associates is the perfect fit for you and get a free quote today. At pets@llc.com. You can get a discount when joining by clicking membership pet sitter confessional and use the discount code confessional at checkout to get $10 off today, check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again at pets@llc.com.
Collin 09:12
So anytime we have to make a decision whether personally or in business, we like to break out the pros and cons of doing it versus not doing it. And with raising prices. It's no different. So some of the pros to raising your prices, you'll likely be working less but making more money, which is huge. If you want to scale but don't want to hire How do you you will you raise prices. For us we can only take on so many dogs and hiring is on the horizon. But it's not here yet. So to make the most out of each of our available slots, the prices have to be higher. And that's definitely one way that you can think about this. How many slots how many available spots for dogs do you have in your schedule? And then how valuable is that time to you? If It's impossible or not ready for scaling and adding hires right now, you can't really replicate yourself. But what you can do is you can increase prices so that each spot of a dog, or each spot that you have for dog is more valuable. Therefore, scaling your business,
Meghan 10:19
and we say dogs here, just because we deal a lot in the dog world by right
Collin 10:22
pets or whatever spots you have available for care during your day, How valuable is that to you, when we start viewing the spots that we have available for care for pets, during throughout the day, as a finite as a limited resource, it really does start to enforce the importance of charging appropriately for that time.
Meghan 10:42
Well, and I also wanted to talk about discounts. Because that's another huge thing when talking about pricing, whether done, whether to discount or whether to not discount. And that again, it depends on you, as a business owner, what you want to do, we used to give a huge discount for the second dog with a walk or a drop in or a daycare or boarding basically, all of our services you got, you got a real big discount on a second dog. But we are recognizing with, especially with the boarding and the daycare, as we are getting more and more busy as people are traveling for not only weekends, but weeks at a time or going away for these long trips, you are taking up a spot in our home that somebody will willingly pay full price for. So we have increased significantly that second dog rate because that spot is valuable.
Collin 11:34
And we know sitters who go well, if I'm going into somebody's home, I'm already there. So the cost to get there to care for a second or third pet isn't increased at all. Matter of fact, it's absorbed by that first pet. So maybe my I give a discount for each additional pet it when it's in somebody's home. But again, it's about stress, it's about liability. It's valuing your time and what you're able to do and accomplish in those moments, when you are caring for somebody who has four or five, or we recently got we recently got contacted by somebody who has five cats, that is a very different kind of sit and different kind of drop in than somebody who just has one. And there is value that that we have to take into account for them.
Meghan 12:15
But then there are businesses who just charge one flat fee, no matter how many animals you have. there's pros and cons to this. And there's pros and cons to every decision that you will ever make in your business.
Collin 12:26
That's what we started out doing. We started out with a flat fee, it didn't matter if you had one dog or 19 horses in your backyard, we would just charge you a flat fee for everybody. And we definitely had some people who took advantage of us on that. And that's a that's a pitfall that you can fall to get to where you get people who are going to take advantage of that. And they're not you can get some bad clients that way I feel like
Meghan 12:49
but there's also plenty of businesses that do it just fine and make it work for them. So I've said it before on an episode, but you do you boo.
Collin 12:59
So on that raising prices, there is a thought that you may again, huge air quotes here you may get better clients. But there are wealthy people that can still be a pain too. When we think about our prices, we do have to remember that pricing is one way that we market to our target audience to our target client, our ideal client, your price tells a lot about you and people look at prices and try and understand what value you're bringing versus what you are charging. And people do make decisions based off of how much something is. And when we price accordingly. That messages, what we feel like we're valued to our clients.
Meghan 13:39
I also wanted to say a quick note here about haggling as in, don't do it. Don't let it happen in your business. People will say the craziest things sometimes trying to get you to knock a few dollars off of the price, or to try to get you into their budget, but stick to your prices. They are your prices for a reason. Know your worth, know that you are worth what you are charging and you're probably even worth more than what you're charging. Your time is very valuable. And do not haggle. Do not get into a bidding war about your business, your prices or your prices. And if they don't like it, they can go find someone else. If they are able to go away for a week to Mexico, they are able to afford you and your services. So don't let them try to talk you down on price.
Collin 14:30
This is a huge part of client education for the community and for the people that you are serving of exactly what kind of prices that they should expect to pay for a pet sitter. So it's not a shock for them by the time that they need it open. A lot of people get new pets. They take into account vet bills, they take into account bedding and they take into account food. Very few people take into account getting a pet sitter or a dog walker. And so that is all something that we can all be doing is talking about how important those services are which We all do. But also including that that needs to be budgeted for whenever if somebody gets a new pet.
Meghan 15:06
Well, that's also a good reminder to have your prices posted everywhere, if, if that's what you choose to do for your business, because I know some sitters don't want to put their prices on their website, they just want the owner to contact them, and they'll get a specialty package or whatever. But we like to go with I want the owner to know everything up front before they even contact me. So it kind of weeds out the people who don't want to pay my price. So we have it on our social media, we have it on our website, you know, posted everywhere that you can so that, again, it kind of self selects the people who don't want to pay that price. The other side to raising rates is that you may lose clients. And this can be so hard for us, we are a personal business, we are a service business, but we service the clients. First, we want to serve everyone, and we can't imagine losing any one of our clients that we cherish. We love all the pets. So it's up to you to decide whether it's worth it. And we can say and have heard from everyone, we have talked to that the fear of losing a client is real, but it very rarely happens. And if it does happen, the price increase and the new clients that are coming your way are going to outweigh the loss of
Collin 16:17
the client. Plus, if you do lose clients, you'll usually make up more money because any new client that you get that comes on is now paying a new higher rate.
Meghan 16:27
Another option is you could also stay at the same rate. If you decide you don't want to raise rates right now, just be aware that the cost of doing business doesn't go down. I mean, have you seen gas prices lately? What about repair bills to your car health insurance, you may be able to make it work for a while. But eventually inflation and the cost of living will catch up with you. And I know there's always an ongoing discussion of grandfathering in clients and how long to do that. And if you should do that at all, or just raise it across the board.
Collin 16:57
That is something that I know we struggle with, and we talk a lot about in our business is well, you know, if you raise all of your rates, and that dissuades anybody new from contacting you, you haven't actually done anything for your business, because all of the people that you currently have, as clients aren't paying that new rate. So you're not making any more money, you're not making space for new clients, and you are not scaling your business that way. So I think that you do have to take a very careful look at who you want to grandfather in and who you don't, there are those clients that we just absolutely deeply cherish that you've been through an awful lot, and you just can't bear to raise prices on them. I do think that there are cases to be made for that. But by far and away, I think by the time many of us think about raising our prices, we already have a lot of clients on our books already. And if we don't raise prices on them, we are missing out on so much potential
Meghan 17:55
well, and especially if they haven't contacted you in a couple months or, you know, a year right. Like if it's if it's a daily dog walk client or a daily daycare client, I can understand you wanting to grandfather them in because you have a real connection with them day in and day out. But if it's somebody petsitting client who hasn't contacted you in a couple months, then just go ahead and raise the prices on them.
Collin 18:19
And you may still decide to do a price increase across the board, but smaller increases from those clients who have been with you the longest. So you are, you know, giving them the benefit for having patron do for so long.
Meghan 18:30
And if you do decide to raise rates, then you have to decide if you will notify your clients right. And this was kind of the impetus for the Facebook post I did consider confessionals. But as we mentioned earlier, most sitters do reach out to their clients and let them know an increase is coming, whether that's through the phone, an email, a newsletter, social media, or just whenever they book next, most people do let our clients know.
Collin 18:55
And this is done for many reasons. So there are a lot of pros to this. And the first I mean, it's really just about being kind to our clients, we're valuing them, we hear this over and over again, it's respecting your client, it's letting them make an informed decision and making sure everyone is being open and honest and communicating with them about changes that's really big in this industry.
Meghan 19:14
But there's a big con to it as well. And this is really where the discussion starts. Because we are a service based industry and mostly focus on customer service customer relations, making sure that the customer is first and foremost happy. Obviously the pets are well taken care of. But again, the client, the person is the one paying the bill, not the dog or the cat. And some sitters have a tendency to over communicate with their clients. And I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but I think it has taught a lot of people in this industry, that we should have to justify our prices or have an explanation for everything we do in our businesses. You know, you look at retailers and other service based industries, particularly those that sell products and They don't typically advertise when they are raising their rates. So for instance, you don't go to a mom and pop diner and look at the menu, where it's announced that their hamburger is an extra 50 cents now, or you don't go to a massage parlor and their 60 minute hot stone massage is an extra $5. Now, so normally people don't advertise these things, unless, again, you know, it's required by law as part of a consumer protection thing like over in the UK. But for some reason, in this industry, it's become commonplace to post on social media, when there's a price increase.
Collin 20:34
And that's not to say that if you are contacting your clients and letting them know about the price increase that it's a bad thing, again, you absolutely have to run the business that you want to run, because you know, your clients best, nobody else does. But when we are feeling like we personally have to justify everything we do in our business, every small change that we do, whether it's a change of service changes, service radio, adding things, or changing prices, that is coming, that may be coming from a place of insecurity, and not realizing that people actually value you and would be willing to pay more. And that's obviously this is all not to say that a quick Oh, by the way, as of the beginning of next month, all of our prices are increasing. That's fine, right? Like you can you can decide how you want to communicate this to people. So whether it's quick, by the way this is happening, or you can say something like, you know, hi client, it's been such a pleasure to watch Fido and fluffy for you over the past several months, we want to let you know that we will be raising our rates starting next month, with the new rates walks will increase from X dollars to X dollars. Thank you for letting us serve you fluffy and Fido period. In the story again, not having to go way over into justification. But a quick notice, just allow them to so that they know that there's no surprise on that. It doesn't have to be long drawn out or really offer any explanation as to why, of course, again, you get to choose the wording for it because it's up to you and you already, while you're listening to this you already have in mind particular clients and how they would react, if you told them you're raising prices and how you would need to do that. And that's absolutely literally why this can be so powerful when we take that personal approach to communicating this information. But just taking one big step back here again, thinking about when we let our clients know about this kind of change, when really no other industry does. Again, you feel like you have to justify it and defend how you run your business, which again, is putting you on the backfoot. And then the second part of this is really powerful. When we feel like we're backed into a corner, and we have to tell somebody, sometimes the fear that you're going to get pushback or people say something about it, that fear prevents you from ever raising your prices, which means you go year after year, you look up and it's been 10 years before you've raised prices at all, because we're afraid of what people are going to say. Now generally, when most of these kind of letters go out where you do say that you're going to raise prices, nobody cares, nobody is going to bat an eyelash at it, you know, because
Meghan 23:06
they know the value of your service, right?
Collin 23:08
They know and are probably like, oh, finally, finally they raise their prices it's about, it's about time, they understand that nobody's really going to say anything, these go out and you get no feedback. So know that going into it. Now if you do get feedback, you don't have to serve that client. And that's where this fear of pushback and fear of losing losing somebody comes in. And we are trying to limit that amount of fear in our business and not be operating out of fear, but be operating out of confidence.
Meghan 23:35
Well, there's also I think somebody said at once that if you are getting a bunch of tips, yeah. That people know the value of your service and that you need to raise prices, because if they are willing to tip you and pay on top of what they're already paying, then they are obviously willing to pay more. So how do we handle raising prices? When do you know that it's time?
Collin 23:57
Well, we personally are always assessing whether it's time to raise or not. And as you mentioned there, when you start getting a few extra tips, or people start leaving more money for you, that may be a good sign. But generally it works out to about once a year all of our prices go up. And here's the really key part. It's nothing huge. Usually, it's just one to $3 for most droppings and walks doesn't add up too much. But at first it doesn't sound like a whole lot. So you know, why would you even bother raising you're raising your prices by $1. But if you have a client where you're doing daily walks five days a week, every week, a month, all year, an increase of $1 is an extra $240 per client that adds up really fast over time. And all of a sudden these little changes start having big impacts. Plus doing these small increases means it's never a shock to a client's system. Going from something like $20 to $45 for service is a massive jump for a lot of people. So for services Like boarding daycare and housing, it's usually about a 5% increase every time we do an increase,
Meghan 25:06
and we have let our clients know in person before but we haven't done a big social media post or a newsletter about price increase before. So obviously do what works best for you and your business, but avoid anything that prevents you from operating, how you need to operate to earn a living and be here next year.
Collin 25:24
So how do you set your prices? How have you raised them in the past? Or how do you plan to do those in the future?
Meghan 25:31
Or how do you notify clients? If that's what you choose to do?
Collin 25:34
We'd love to get feedback from you. So you can check us out on Facebook or Instagram at petsitter. confessional. You can also call us we'd love voicemails. Yes, at I don't know
Meghan 25:44
636-364-8260.
Collin 25:47
This week on Ask a pet biz coach Natasha opionion answers the question about how to convert followers on social media to clients.
Natasha 25:55
So it's like an attraction, the law of attraction, you get back what you put out. So if you just follow someone and leave it there, just gonna leave it there. No one's gonna talk to you, you're not gonna get any business, you're not gonna get to know you. But if you follow someone, engage with them, which means like their photos, comment, ask questions, go into the DM, start a conversation with them really try to get to know a person. Now you've created a relationship. So don't think of it as like Instagram or Facebook, you just liking and just you know, what do they say? Like ghosting, you know, like posting ghost is what they call it like don't posting goes, if you are talking to you talk back, you know if you see my page and I'm posting and ghosting is probably my mom or my aunts and I'm like they don't want anything. But if it's not your mama, you're on still posting ghost talk to people, if they had a question, go into the DM and follow up, talk a little further. People are happy to make real relationships with real people if you're genuine about it. So far as your client asked follow up questions for them or I have tons of graphics. I said if someone's like, Oh, Mom, I saw so much going on right now in the pandemic like mom doesn't want to take me out right now. And so this is my face and me being bored at home. That's a lot of my dog accounts that I follow. And I send them our link and I say, hey, Fido, I noticed and I like that page, I comment on it. I love them pictures, I love talking to him. And then I go into the DM and I say hey Fido, here's our website, just in case mom doesn't feel like walking you in the future, you know where to find us. And sure enough model clicks on it and say you don't want to touch it, I actually talked to you on Instagram, I'm not feeling it, let's just go ahead and put my dog on a schedule, it's probably best. But if you don't put it in their minds, people don't know that they need pet care providers, they really don't real sometimes just not even know or know the value or the benefit or the options that they can have. So a lot of my converting, they come and say you know what matter of fact, just put my dog on a schedule. You're right, my dog is bored at home, let's just leash to two days and see how it goes. You know, they don't have to commit to nothing and crazy. But it starts a relationship.
Collin 28:00
It is important. As you mentioned, it's not just posting and putting things out there and hoping people will come and find you. It is about the interaction, it still is about at the end of the day, that relationship that you're building.
Natasha 28:10
And people don't forget that for you to come and talk to me personally and to provide me with a solution. Sometimes it can be considered as unsolicited advice, if you are like overbearing about it. But if you do it in a nice, sweet, funny way and just want to help them. I had a coaching person who I've talked to in the past, but we haven't worked together yet. And I noticed she put something up that she had to close her business for a couple days due to COVID. And unfortunately, it breaks the trust. And I said hey, I don't think you meant to say break the trust that could be like a little trigger to your audience in the future. You know, is that what you meant to say? And she says, Oh my God, thank you for just letting me know that that kind of came across, you know a little differently. And I went ahead and updated it. So you can just genuinely help people if you have something and you know, you don't have to push yourself on them. But give them a tip and they appreciate it.
Meghan 29:06
Not only runs her own dog walking business, but she is a pet business coach as well. And if you would like her to be your personal pet business coach, you can go to start scale sale.com and use the code p sc 20. For 15%. off her coaching this conversation about pricing is obviously not going to be a completely exhaustive approach to everything about pricing, but we hope that it gave you some ideas of ways you can implement some of the things that we talked about.
Collin 29:31
We want to thank our sponsor, pet sitters associates and our wonderful Patreon for making this show possible. If you'd like to know more about what it means to be a Patreon supporter and all that that entails. You can go to pet sitter confessional comm forward slash support.
Meghan 29:46
We hope that this gave you something to chew on today and whether you agree with us or disagree with us. Let us know we would love to know any and all feedback that you have about this topic. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this today and we hope it was helped To you, please join us next time. Thank you. Thank you
