182: Client Experience with Madeline Burgos

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Summary: 

In 2015, Madeline and her husband, Gabriel, couldn't find a trustworthy dog walker for their beloved dog Lola. Seeing an opening, they ditched their backgrounds in computer science and business management to start Happy Bark and Tails. Passionate about customer service, Madeline shares what it means to be trustworthy and how they have adapted to changing needs in services. She discusses her methodology behind communicating their mission with their website and how they make sure they're the right fit for clients. Madeline and Gabriel also use their social media following for more than just promoting their business, and she tells us the impact it can have.

Topics on this episode:

• Guest experience

• Setting boundaries and getting organized

• Packages and pricing

• Using social media

Main takeaway: Set the customer and guest experience so high, they can’t imagine not booking with you.

About our guest:

Madeline grew up on a farm in the Dominican Republic with many different animals, including many herding dogs. Being around dogs for most of life, she developed a deep appreciation for what comes along with being a dog owner. After working for several years in NYC in the hospitality industry she moved to NJ where she met Gabriel. Together they got a dog, whom they named Lola. Lola has been the inspiration behind Happy Bark & Tails. Gabriel is a Computer Science major graduate, you know the geeky guy that programs our software, yeah thats him! Gabriel grew up most of his life in Puerto Rico where he played professional college basketball. There he rescued many street dogs and nursed them to health. Gabriel is a compassionate dog lover. Although he has a degree in Computer Science, he has followed his passion! Which is working with dogs and their families and co-founded Happy Bark & Tails with his wife Madeline.

Links:

Instagram: @happybarkandtails

Email: madeline@happydogstails.com

Website: https://happybarkandtails.com

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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

Provided by otter.ai

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

dog, clients, people, business, pet, service, happy, walking, absolutely, running, pictures, care, pet sitter, operate, months, dog walker, husband, money, building, posting

SPEAKERS

Collin, Madeline

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  00:24

brought to you by time to pet and pet sitters International. In 2015, Madeline and her husband Gabriel were desperately trying to find a pet sitter and dog walker for Lola, their beloved dog, and they were unable to find one. spurred on by this experienced happy bark, Intel's pet care was founded. And they vowed that no owner would experience what they did when they were searching for someone to care and love for their pet. Passionate about customer experience. They ditch their backgrounds in computer science and business management, and go headlong into the pet care industry where they could continue to serve others with excellence. I love their story so much. Let's get started.

Madeline  01:04

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here today. So my name is Madeline, I am the owner. And along with my husband, we are not very happy or I can tell which is a dog walking service. We also do cat sitting. So like a full on pet care. And we're based out of New Jersey, Somerset. And yeah, we've been in business for about five years now.

Collin  01:24

Five years, that's been exciting five years for you, I'm sure. Tell us about how the important role that Lola had on and you're getting started.

Madeline  01:35

Well, no, that was everything. She's the CBO, Chief Marketing Officer of the company. She literally inspired I mean, if it wasn't for her, we wouldn't be in business now. Because me and my husband, he was my fiancee at the time, we decided to get her she's a golden doodle. And we did not have time for a dog at all. We were both working and going to school. So we just had a dog, she was about three or four months and a ball of energy. And we did not think about having the time for her. So then we figured out we needed to get a dog walker because we were not home. And we interview so many people and we ended up hiring no one because we didn't get the good vibe like the good feel for anyone. It was like a bunch of weird people that came into the house. And we're like religious people come from I don't know. So we didn't hire anyone. So I told my husband, I was like, how about if we just dog walking? Like, can we just start maybe like dog walking part time in the mornings and bring her to work with us. And little by little, we started just gathering more ideas and ideas. And at the time, I was going to school for business. And I went to my library and I just printed out like 500 flyers that says dog walker. And the resources were very limited at that time. Because he was going to school as well. We're both college students, and also working at restaurants in the nighttime. So it was a crazy hassle to just have a dog, go to school and start a new business. So yeah, it all started because of Lola, we didn't have any time for her. And that we're doing we're providing a service for the people that don't have any time for their dogs.

Collin  03:20

Yeah, I love that connection. Because you were able to immediately identify that problem and go, Oh, I can fill this. So how do you think that plays into how you approach your customers having been on the receiving end of some not so good service or some weird vibes? How does that influence how you interact with people

Madeline  03:39

that influences absolutely everything. Because even the way we approach our clients, it comes from that place of we're going to do the complete opposite of what these people were doing when they came to see us because we felt so uncomfortable. So we try to make everybody feel really comfortable and welcoming. So I really target those people that don't have the time that are not home that you know need that those dogs that are high energy to go out. They some people have Huskies they live in apartments, and you're like, well, that's not gonna work out so great. The other has to live in apartments, it might get destroyed your dog walker. So yeah, definitely helped out a lot going through that because we know how to approach our people and our clients and they feel great after they meet us. They feel they can trust us. And we have the credibility for that as well.

Collin  04:31

Yeah. Well, that word that you mentioned there is so key trust is that you've got to build this trust so quickly and in all that you do. So what is being trustworthy mean to you as as the business owner?

Madeline  04:45

I think that was the hardest part. It was building that trust from the beginning because nobody knew who we were. Nobody knew who we are as people where we came from. They just knew it was me, my husband, they're like, well, it's just a guy and a girl, dog walker. Like Who are they? So it took us time to build that, for him for people to see that. It's not only just me and him walking dogs, but also just to passionate people that are going to take care of your dog, no matter what happens. Like I always tell my clients, I'm like, a car would hit me first before hits your dog. So believe me, if anything was to happen, I will drums jump in front of a car for your dog, like, it's very, it's a very serious thing, the trust part because you can get bodies like people to walk your dog anywhere. But you can get people that are actually that have that reliability and track record, that they actually aren't honest people and do what they say they're going to do when you're not looking like if you don't have a camera in your house, is your dog walker doing what they're supposed to do. So that's something that we built along the way. So trust for us is everything. And it's just someone that shows that they can be reliable, and they can have that honesty in them.

Collin  05:57

Yeah, that difference? Yeah, love that thing. That difference between having a warm body take care of the dog, and somebody who you can intrinsically trust and know that they're doing everything in their power, and everything in their education and background, to give you the best service possible and take care of your pet, like, from the outside, like, well, there's just two people walking a dog, if you saw two people walking down the street, you wouldn't be able to visually see most of the time unless they just have no idea what they're doing. Right. Like, visually, they may look the exact same, but it's just others this intangible stuff that you've got to try and build in and communicate to your clients in both spoken and unspoken ways to?

Madeline  06:34

Yeah, absolutely. It's all about just building that building that thing with your clients. And it starts from the first client you have it for us personally, it took one client for us to build that because from him, he referred other people to us. And then it just kept snowballing. And we didn't even do any advertising, and then a little bit, you know, like three months, and we had like four clients. And I'm like, How could this happen? This is crazy. But it all started with that one person he just sold everybody has community because he felt he felt good about having his daughter Leila, which she moved to another another part of Jersey, um, having her being taken care of by us. And that made me feel so good. I mean, you feel proud because it was, it was not even about the money. Because it was honestly just the beginning. It was more about the principle of it, because I felt like I had gained that trust from that first person. So that was exciting.

Collin  07:29

Yeah, no, it really does it really. The we talked about influential clients, and sometimes those owners, I mean, they just they can change it in the blink of an eye to go from this. Like, you may have that self doubt of like, Oh, is this even possible? Can I even do this thing? Is this even what I meant to do? And then you have that person come along? It's like, these people, Madeline, her husband are awesome. They need to, you know, it's like, oh, well, I didn't even think about that myself. But yes, thank you.

Madeline  07:57

Yes, that is exactly how it was. We had people calling us and they're like, well, this person recommended us to you. Or you guys free. We have availability, and I'm like, Oh, God, you know, we're kind of booked now. But we'll do our best to accommodate you.

Collin  08:15

It's a really, really great feeling and something to not discount. And I know when those happen it like it just makes your whole week or month sometimes when you hear it when somebody calls you and go, you know, my friend would not stop talking about you guys. And you're like, Oh,

Madeline  08:31

absolutely. That literally makes me blush. When I hear that. I'm like, Yes, we're doing something right.

Collin  08:39

Now, you mentioned back in 2015, both you and your husband were going to school in business. So how do you how do your backgrounds each of your backgrounds play into how you run and operate? Happy barking tails.

Madeline  08:55

It's interesting, because my husband, he is a computer science major. I'm a business major. And he worked well, he was supposed to start working in the field of computers. And he was graduating at that time that we were starting the business. And once he graduated, got his degree, he realized that he did not want to be in a cubicle all the time working with computers. So it just turns out that we had just started a business at the perfect time because the business was starting to grow. So he's like, Whoa, we got something going here. So we're I'm gonna do this full time. And so that works out perfectly when that happened. And then for me, it was honestly like it was meant to happen because I've worked previously in hotels, managed Hotel Management in New York City, and then I also worked in restaurant management, and then both businesses tied up into the customer service like service based business. So that is my passion. My passion is about guests experience about how hard Our services are. Like forming relationships, and how the people feel about our services, what can we do to make it better? And throughout the years, that's what I've been doing. I've been perfecting everything that we do. So when I started the business, the first thing I did was market research. So I wanted to see what everybody was doing wrong. So I would go on Yelp, and I will read all the negative comments. I was that person. Oh, no. Yeah, I would just read the negative things. And what I would do is read over and make it into a positive. So I would say, okay, so they're doing this wrong, we're gonna do it, right. And I think that's when you start making a difference. And when you start making a name for yourself, that's when you when you take something from a negative turning into a positive, and people will start seeing what you do. And they will take notice into them for sure.

Collin  10:48

changes that says, Oh, they do something different, right? Well, what they're doing differently is what everyone else is doing wrong, or maybe not as excellent. And you said that term guest experience, I think that's a really fascinating term to use, bringing that from your past background and applying it to petsitting. So what is guest experience to you?

Madeline  11:11

So our, our slogan that we use is pet care with excellence. So it ties in with hotels, hotels, I used to work for a five star five diamond hotel called Plaza Hotel in New York. And everything was about, it couldn't be good. It had to be great. Excellent had to be above par. So let's say for our boarding service, or boarding service, they mean they'll come to our house, but they don't, the client doesn't have to actually drive to my house, we can actually go pick them up free of charge, pick up the dog at their convenience, and then also drop off the dog before they get home. So whenever they get home, it felt like the dog never left the house. So it's a service that just ties in and makes people feel just makes them feel good makes them feel they come home, the dog is there. And it's like, oh, my goodness, you're home. It's like, I think I have to take the extra steps to go pick you up at a camp or something. They were just at our house relaxing here cage free, just roaming around hanging out with our dogs. And then they go home and the parent gets home. And they're just so happy to see them. So little things like that. It's just going above of what the regular service the people offer are. Yeah.

Collin  12:23

Well, and making that whole, that whole process is seamless. For the pet owner. Yeah, right like that. Just that one aspect of like pickup and drop off the dog. That is that that takes the value, add and make takes it through the roof because the owner doesn't have to do that. That's that's less time in the car. It's less weaving in half traffic, less time of their day. And it's just something that you do Oh, no. When when you ask that service, this is just part of what you get. Right? That's not an add on. It's just what we consider standard service.

Madeline  12:53

Exactly. Absolutely. That's something we always we've always ever since the beginning, we wanted to take every service and pretty much break it down into Okay, how can we improve the service? How can we make dog walking better, let's say what's still walking lacking right now, nowadays. And one thing that we innovated from the beginning of our service five years ago, it was pictures are pictures if I don't know, if you go on our Instagram or Facebook, our pictures are amazing, because we enjoy taking pictures. So people often say you guys are like professionals or photographers. And we're like, yeah, that's what we do on a daily basis. We just take pictures of dogs. And ever since when we started back then all the research that I did, it showed other companies taking pictures, but it was just like, you know, the blurry pictures of the dogs with like a hostage more than like they're happy. It literally I literally had a client telling me that she's like, your pictures are amazing. My last dog walker took a picture of my dog and she looked like she was hostage. Well, that's not gonna happen here the word. So we always we enjoy it. Every year, we would get like the phones, I would take the best pictures because that was a part that still is a part of what we do, which is like stories during the day with awesome pictures of the dogs. And people enjoy that they enjoyed seeing their dogs be featured on the Instagram or in the stories. So yeah, breaking down each service and perfecting it to to make it different than everybody else's. Because I feel like we're all special. I think that every business has a special thing going on. And I've always said the same thing. There's business for everyone, because we all specialize in different things. So we really enjoy like specializing into our clients and you know, doing doing the little things that they enjoy and making their day.

Collin  14:52

Yeah, well I'm looking at those services and going it's not just treating it less like a checkmark next to a box of going check. I take pictures going, Okay, how can I take better pictures? How can I, you know, how can I have a better experience with this? How can they How can I increase the satisfaction of the onboarding experience or the receiving notifications experience? Those those sound kind of like little details like, Oh, I have an onboarding process? Well, you know, have you thought about their experience through that, and then take a deep dive and see how you can make it better?

Madeline  15:24

Exactly. It's been, it's been literally just going, I think, each year by a year, you learn more, because every year as a business and as an entrepreneur, I think that anybody listening to this today, well know that every, maybe every day you learn something new as an entrepreneur, because you Your job is to perfect something is to make it better each day, and to figure out what it is that you have to do to continue on. So that's why and that's one thing that we've done is each year, we just kind of grow and analyze everything that we have to do to make it better.

Collin  15:59

Yeah, yeah. You said that phrase, your job is to perfect it. Your job is to perfect something and make it in that process. As you mentioned, you make it your own right, you bring your special background, your special sauce, whatever that is to it as you want to perfect it for your business for the needs of your clients.

Madeline  16:17

Absolutely, that's something that we take pride on, it's just giving it our little sparkle into the happy biking experience here.

16:26

Love that. Have you heard about time to pet Dan from NYC pooch as this to say time to bed has been a total game changer for us. It's helped us streamline many aspects of our operation from scheduling and communication to billing and customer management. We actually tested other petsitting software's in the past, but these other solutions were clunky and riddled with problems. Everything in tiny pet has been so well thought out. It's intuitive, feature rich,

Collin  16:52

and it's always improving. If you are looking for new pet sitting software for your business, give time to pet a try. As a listener of pet sitter confessional, you'll get 50% off your first three months when you sign up at time to pet.com slash confessional. Now I know your husband comes on and he's working with you and you're working together on this. What roles Do you guys play in the business given the different backgrounds that you come from?

Madeline  17:20

Yeah, so I take I take over the administrative side. I love doing everything branding, logos, all the things that he hates to do, which are like the admin side, he's like, Listen, I take care of operations. That's what I do. And he's good at it. He loves to make sure that everything is getting done, that all the clients are being taken care of. So he's a lot of fun and services. And so do I. But um, we break it down into operations and admin side, but we do still daily operate the business. So I have some dog walks I take care of. And so it is he. But yeah, mostly Our job is him his operations, and I'm doing the admin side.

Collin  18:05

I mean, that's great that you can that you've been able to recognize like that this is a strength for you. At all. I don't want that. Right?

Madeline  18:13

Exactly. It's like they say have been in business, you have to you have to find out the things that you're good at, and really Google things well, and figure out the things that you're not good at and let other people that actually enjoy doing those things. Do them.

Collin  18:29

Yeah, yeah. And it makes it even better whenever that person is your spouse or someone that you're really close with. Because then you're happy to see them succeed and happy doing what they like to do as well like it, it makes it that much more sweeter.

Madeline  18:42

100% It feels like we're both thriving into into what we're creating. So it's awesome, because it's a win win situation.

Collin  18:50

Yeah. How do you separate boundaries between work and life balance with those kind of things? Because I know with Megan and I sometimes it's really hard to take off the pet sitter hat at the dinner table. And we're like, oh, let's figure this out. Let's get this scheduled or, or whatever.

Madeline  19:05

Oh, goodness, yeah, that took us a while to learn. It was it was really rough, because it would be dinner time. And we're still talking about tomorrow's schedule. And we got to a point that we're like, okay, we need to set boundaries. And we need to, whenever we talk about business, we need to go into the office, sit at the desk, and talk about business. But out of the office, we don't talk about business anymore, because if not, it will consume your life. Literally, you will talk a lot every single day of like every single day and every hour.

Collin  19:37

Yeah, well in adding that crazy. And adding that little twist of going we're not just going to create like a time, space. Time to talk about it but a physical space of like when we're in this room. This is the business room, it's the office for a reason. And when when we leave that door, that we're back for normal lives, right but it's just kind of mentally and spatially creates just a little some of those physical boundaries in your life to help set those up and keep those?

Madeline  20:05

Absolutely, it takes a lot of practice, because, as you might know, you know, you might talk about it and you're like, Okay, we're done. We're done with business today. Let's go family time. And then you think about something else. And you're like, Oh, I forgot to mention that. And you're like, I'm not working right now. Because our job as business owner is to keep operating 24. Seven, you're, you're not clocking out. You're literally on the clock all the time. So even if I'm home, I might get a message from a client at 9pm and say, Hey, emergency, I have to run to the hospital, is there any way you can come over and just give him a night walk? Or let's say some dinner time? And it's hard to say no to those things? Because these clients have been with you for so long. And you're like, I owe them that. So it's like you don't clock out. It's more like you take like a breather. As a business owner. We definitely tried to keep the boundaries. For sure.

Collin  20:59

Yeah, it is hard, it is hard, because things are going to happen. And you're good. All the temptations to break them are going to be there. So maybe we'll talk about what some of the the processes that you have in place so that the business can operate while you're not worrying about it. Some things that you have going on in the background?

Madeline  21:18

Absolutely. So yeah, so we have a lot of policies and the way that things work with us. So like let's say we have all of our clients mess up, create the Create your schedule, by the weekend time. So let's say our schedules get built, we have rules. So our rules are our schedules that have been submitted between Saturday and Sunday. So anything after Sunday is not a guarantee, just because everything gets finalized by Sunday night by 7pm. So everyone knows already that in order to get them in the schedule, they got to have that sent in by the weekend. And that helps us a lot. Because before when we didn't do this, we would have people messaging us like maybe, I don't know, maybe like seven hours before the next day saying, Hey, can you do a walk around 8am? And it's like, 11pm now and I'm like, oh, my goodness, how am I gonna make that happen? I already have this appointment going on. So setting up these little little like rules and regulations that people follow makes things so much easier and smoother. And that's something that I wish I knew before when I started. But it's just something that you have to go through. And you have to experience that and then come up with these systems in order for you to operate at a better efficient rate.

Collin  22:31

Yeah, they do. And it sounds right now it's saying that it's like, well, that doesn't sound like that big of a deal. But I'm sure that was kind of this mental struggle to get to that point where you were okay with that process?

Madeline  22:43

Yes, absolutely. It felt like a one time. Because if it's one person, let's say messaging you but once your business grows to a lot more more, let's say more than 20 clients, and people are messaging you at different times. And it's not, it's not in a in a way where is uniform, that is, you know, it's just at a different time, different days, and it catches you off guard. So you're like, Okay, how do I prioritize my schedule? How do I schedule? How do I give everyone the same attention? You can't, because you've, you're not being organized in that sense. And I think that's something that you learn over time. And that's exactly how it happened for us. I think we were in two years of beginning the business, and actually learning these little things. But then after we started getting more organized and putting systems in place, it just made everything a lot more easier, because now we just have systems. So things just kind of fall into the system, and we just follow it and everything gets done.

Collin  23:44

Yeah, it's that competition for your attention as the business owner, you know, as you get these little requests in, it's like, well, it's it can happen pretty fast one right after the other or just odd times, and you're constantly then being pulled away from something to go put out that fire that fire that fire or deal with this. And then as you said, once you get that system, and we're all on the railroad track, the train just runs, right. We know where the tracks going to run, whether I'm at the helm or not like it's going to get there.

Madeline  24:11

Exactly. And one thing that we learned over like the first two years, was to take care of ourselves as well, because the first two years we probably didn't take any time off. And it was just me and my husband at that time working. But we were so busy. And we also have this. We went through this process. When we started the business. We went through a program it's called the Dave Ramsey program, the baby steps. Yeah. And we actually paid off $80,000 in debt within eight months. So we were dog walking, so dog walking money, and serving. My husband was working in a restaurant for about five months of that timeframe of those eight months. So we were don't want being and we were also he was also working the restaurant business. So in eight months, we paid off $80,000. So we were debt free completely after that. So it was insane. So we didn't take any time off, we were so exhausted. And after that year, we started creating calendars. So pretty much our clients get calendars every every six months, we try to plan our lives around it. But they understand that if something needs to be changed within that timeframe, we can change it. But we let them know in advance, like, Hey, we're going to be off this time. So just make sure that you have some kind of coverage. And then usually our employee take some time off as well. So he has the option to work if he wants to. If not, he'll take a vacation, too. So we try to plan our time off. Because in order for you to be there, 100% take care of other people, you have to be able to take care of yourself first. Because if not, you're going to be a zombie. And you don't want to be a zombie. When you are a dog, you want to be 100% they're

Collin  25:58

a little little things fall by the wayside. You might Oh, when you're tired, Oh, did I did I lock the door do not lock the doors, and I get the harness on right? Like when you're groggy, like those, just those just to happen, and then you know, and then then accidents happen and things can go wrong. So it's just that that's thinking it from the business side, and then just the personal side, nobody wants to feel like you no one wants to feel crummy every single day. So So this idea of six months out going is on the calendar, and I am passing it out to clients. So yeah, I you know, I have that time. I have that time now for myself for my family. So I can recharge.

Madeline  26:37

Absolutely. And the best thing is, is that the clients actually expect it, they know already. So I will have people by let's say, July, they're like, hey, do you guys have your your your, your calendar out for the holidays? is whenever you have it available? Can you send it out? And I'm like, yeah, I'm working on it. It'll be out shortly. Yeah, they already know that's coming out. So they know what's awesome, because systems people get used to it. Yeah,

Collin  27:01

yeah, you it's kind of like dogs right there. You're gonna train them for the for the expectations, right? And then when, and then that just becomes a part of how you operate as Yeah, we get a calendar and we move forward. And it just, there's no gnashing of teeth and screaming. It's just, this is what we do. Right. And it's amazing to hear how accepting the clients are of that, because I think in our minds, I know, in my mind, it's like, no, if I tell them, I can't be there on Friday, they're going to like, you know, like, they're going to run into the street with pitchforks, and they're going to find me, and it's just gonna be awful. And they just go Oh, yeah, have a great weekend.

Madeline  27:37

factly that is Oh, my goodness, I was everything I thought about my first year. I'm like, well, they're not gonna they're gonna hate me now. Oh, my goodness, they're gonna fire me. Oh, the business is going to close. My husband's like, you need to relax. We're gonna be fine. We need time off. And there's so accepting as vulnerable.

Collin  27:59

Yeah. What's it? You know, it's pretty much It's expected. It's expected. I think at the general the larger thing of like, Oh, yeah, obviously, you can't be there. 365 days a year. 24. Seven, right, you've got to take some time for yourself. And honestly, after so many years now, it's like, if a client doesn't believe that, if they don't think that I shouldn't. I don't. I don't really want to be working with you. Like that's not okay. Like,

Madeline  28:23

I need someone. percent. You're speaking all kinds of truth right now. Oh, yeah. Exactly.

Collin  28:34

It's just, you know, I want that I want my time valued. And I'm going to value the client's time immensely. But there needs to be it needs to be mutual. And if you don't have that mutual respect, and expectations on each other, it's going to be a one sided relationship and nobody wins.

Madeline  28:49

Yes. That is absolutely true. And you said something really interesting because it's, it's what you said right? Now, this is the both side relationship, it has to be equal exchange. It's, you know, you're providing the service. But there also needs to be respect for what kind of service you're providing. So whether is the client following the rules that you have for certain certain services that you're offering? Hey, if you're boarding is your dog bassick needed? are they following all the checklists that I gave you? And the same thing goes for the dog walker or pet sitter? It's, you know, are you following the client's instructions? Are you doing what they're asking you to do? And that's something that we definitely take really like a good look at every time we have a dog either walking or petting. What are the instructions? We always tell people like, if you feel better write them down, because we want to follow those instructions for you. We want to make sure we're doing the right thing for you.

Collin  29:44

Yeah, yeah, I always tell them, please. overshare I've gotten we've taken a few of those clients where it's like on a post it note, it's like food. Yes. outside. And you're like that doesn't. That's not helpful at all. How much

29:55

food Am I supposed to give you? Yeah. They're like, Oh, you know? Just so that, you know, you're like, No, no, no, I want you to tell me.

30:06

So yeah, I always like those clients who write the manual write the book. It's staple, it's bound. And it's in the, you know, it's in the kitchen like, yes.

Madeline  30:13

Rather that. Yep. Any time because you know, you know what to do you know exactly that you're not going to miss anything that everything is written down for you. And you're going to do a good job, because you're going to follow exactly what they asked you to do.

Collin  30:27

We've mentioned a couple times you do you doing a lot of walks for the dogs, but what other kinds of services do you do all provide?

Madeline  30:35

So we do our big services, our dog walking Cassidy and cats bedding for us is amazingly huge. We also do dog running, some, some people hire us to do running, I'm a runner. So that works out for me. I love it. I love running with dogs. So that's great. We do dog, Ronnie. So we do pet city, we have an option of half a night, pretty much what it means is we'll be there between like 6pm to 10pm, to talk in the dog. And then we'll be there in the morning, time to get them on a walk. And then we have a pet city option, which is a full night. So we'll be there from like 6pm to like 6am the next day. And the client can customize it however they want like added visits and stuff throughout the day. And then we have a boarding option with where they come to our home. And they stay with us here while the parents travel,

Collin  31:27

you know, the the dog running thing. How did that get started? Was that something that you just liked to do with existing clients? Or did someone asked if that was an option.

Madeline  31:36

So it all started actually with my dog Lola. We used to run me and her we still do sometimes. And I enjoyed it a lot. It was great. And she loved it because she had so much energy. So I added onto the service. And I was like, I'm going to try this out to see how it goes. And everything was just like a like a trial just to see how it worked out. So I'm like I enjoy running. Let's add it and see how it goes. And they caught on if people were actually people that have high energy dogs. They were loving that a lot because the dogs will come home they're like done, they're exhausted after 30 minutes. And that worked out pretty good.

Collin  32:14

Yeah, that's awesome. That's really cool. I don't know many people are like, Oh, I don't know if I'm a runner with dogs. So I guess that kind of has to mesh with your personality. Have you enjoy running right because that is gonna be a big part of that.

Madeline  32:27

Yeah, so you have to enjoy now you'll be like tie in with just like middle of the street like with your tongue out with like the dog.

Collin  32:34

I know. I said it was gonna be running were more like a brisk walk. Okay, we're doing a power walking. That'd be me it'd be a pedal power walk with your dog no running. I think you also offer doggy field trips. Did you tell us about those the sound the sound really cool.

Madeline  32:54

All the field trips are amazing. So the field trips are a two hour two hour and a half getaway. So we offer them when the weather is good and not raining or snowing. We do hiking, we go locally to like parks that we can hike around here. There. They don't go off leash on the hiking parks just because just for insurance and liabilities. We also do dog park visits for the dog park visits, it's a little tricky just because as of lately, the parks have been super crowded. And we are very cautious of other dogs at the park. So we do go to the dog park, which prior to go to like an area where it's like, usually around my area, we have a few parks that have different sections. So we'll try to go to like where the section is the most empty. And there are no other dogs. They're only our dogs. So they'll get to play fetch frisbee, and by the time the two hours are up, these dogs are ready to sleep for hours. They're just so exhausted and the parents could not be happier. They're like, Yes, I can get some work done. But the field trips are amazing. They they're really really fun. We take them out we go hiking in the summertime, sometimes we go to the beach as well. So it depends on the season what the season is holding, and we'll go hiking beach or sometimes to the dog park here.

Collin  34:15

Well, that's a little bit of variety to it a little exploration and I'm sure you know for you guys like that sounds like it's also very, very cool because you get to see different things and and do different things than a typical than a typical walk.

Madeline  34:26

Yeah, absolutely. I guess to be it's fun because it changes the scenery. So you pretty much do something out of the norm of your route. So you kind of go to the park or the summer The beach is awesome like this. It's really cool to see the thoughts interacting with the water. It's fine, and it's so funny to see them.

Collin  34:45

So what kind of reception has that received from your clients that that particular service? Yeah,

Madeline  34:52

they love it. The field trips gather a lot of traction. Maybe I want to say like a few months after we launched it in told people we send out a mass email that in the middle of our offering that and we had a few people signed up, and then then they're starting to see like the pictures and everything on Instagram going up. And everybody wanted to join the like, I want my dog to be part of that. It's like school, you know, you want your kids to be part of the cool kids group, though. That's what they want their dogs to be?

Collin  35:23

Well, you know, and that that gets back to the importance of why those quality photos are so important. Because if somebody wasn't sold on the initial email announcement, they're going to be sold when they see those high quality photos of other dogs having fun in different environments. So it kind of all wraps back up together. It's like, yeah, this is why this is a core tenet for us, because it helps sell the service to not just new clients, but to existing clients.

Madeline  35:47

Absolutely, it brings everything out to live, it's like bringing a picture into like, the actual vision, you can see through the picture. You're like, Wow, that looks like fun, because you can actually see the dog having fun.

Collin  36:00

Yeah. And how do you adapt to those kind of changes? Is that something that you are able to sense from your clients pretty early? Or is that more of a, okay, we're gonna react to this and make adjustments on the fly.

Madeline  36:12

Yeah, so ever since we, we saw with the COVID happening, we kind of started drafting a plan right away, just because we knew things were going to change. So I think I think just like being prepared for for, I think in business, you have to be prepared for the worst. As always, it's unfortunate to say, but you do have to prepare for that. But you cannot not be resilient, you have to be you have to be ready to just change everything and adapt right away. So that's something that we literally spoke about it as soon as we started seeing everything change and the regulations being put into place. So we communicated to our clients right away, hey, if you know if you're going to be you know, if you have any updates on your work on your work, if you're going to be working from home, are you going to be needing our services, just so we know ahead of time, and a lot of people responded to us, which was great. So it was kind of like a heads up. So by the time that everything was kind of shut down here, we already knew what to expect. So communicating with the clients really important. A lot of people are intimidated to ask questions, and to just reach out to them. But feel like I think that you have to be able to communicate with everyone that you work with, just because it gives you them much more, you actually know you're not in limbo, you're not wandering to just ask the question. That's what we did. And it works out fine.

Collin  37:41

Yeah, because from a business perspective, you It's so hard to operate with the unknown. And one of the easiest ways to get out of that unknown space is to just start asking questions, especially if your clients, are you going to need me yes or no, yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't matter one way or the other, I just need to know, because I'm trying to make some decisions over here is great, no harm, no foul, I just need to know and then go from there. But just asking is going to move you from that unknown space into a much better position really fast. And it doesn't take anything to send that email or to send that text in your software?

Madeline  38:18

Absolutely, I think that's one of the most important thing is communication with your clients. I think that that's everything you have to be you have to make sure that you have that open communication going back and forth, just because you know, whether it's to x, if you're going to meet me now, because of the pandemic happening, or whether is Hey, is there a we doing a good job? Is there anything that we can improve on? and stuff like that, that's how you know when you're doing a good job in business is by asking questions.

Collin  38:48

Yeah, well in communicating to them to and something you do on your website that I really like is for each service, you have a lot of information there. And it's really cool. And one of the things I love about it is you say you know like this service is perfect for and then you list four or five examples of who that's going to be really good for. Where did that idea come from? And why is that kind of communication about your services, so important.

Madeline  39:15

So I believe that people make a decision in 20 seconds once they go to a website. So I wanted the website to, to look and to speak to somebody without them reading, just kind of looking at the images, even if it's like the little icons around just looking at the dog and kind of engaging with that. And I think that given people exactly like let's say a new pet parent, they're looking on a website for a dog walker, they don't know what to expect at all. You know, there's some people that never had a dog walker, so they don't know how anything works. So I wanted the page to target those people that don't know anything about dog walking that don't know what kind of walks to give their dog What kind of dog do you have? You know, you might have a golden Doodle, you might have a little Yorkie, they both mean different things. So that I wanted, I really, I worked with a web designer, she was awesome. And her name is Erica from birth getting solutions. They were amazing. They we worked with them for maybe like two months, and they brought everything out to life. We I gave them like the general sense of what I wanted to love. And they put that out. And I saw that and I'm like, oh, my goodness, this is perfect. Because everything I envisioned, and I just wanted to be really friendly for those people that don't know anything about dog walking, how this industry works. Because if you go on to, let's say, other dog walkers page, sometimes a lot of clustered information and you people are not going to read through paragraphs of, of this information, just paste it on top of each other, and you can't see anything but the letters and it's crazy. So it's just nuts people need people want to see clean looking information that answers your questions. And that's what we tried to do is like, give them information they're looking for, and not just anything, anything that's on the pages are information that we have been asked a million times. And we wanted to put it out there just so people have the answers, they need more information, they can reach out with us right away.

Collin  41:24

Yeah, it really does, you know, you said people are going to make a decision in 20 seconds or less. And it can be hard to parse through a ton of information. And so having it laid out really simply and in a very clear manner with pictures, because someone goes on to go, Oh, I don't know what service I need. There's a picture here of a train, I take a train, this may be good for me, or, or, or the or, like you know, is when my dog even be a good fit for this oop, there's a border collie, I have a border collie, I can see myself using this service. So they're immediately able to make that connection of going, ah, connection. Yeah, this is gonna work for me. And I can you know, go from there.

Madeline  42:05

Exactly. That is one thing that we wanted to do it was describe the service, and actually let the client potential clients D if they're even a fit for the services that we offer, because our services are not traditional, just not like other dog walker services. For instance, our dog walking services, we do not offer article walk. So our services start at a minimum of three walks per week. So anybody that joins our pack, they have to be needing at least three walks per week, anything below that, unfortunately, would not qualify them to be part of the pack. Just because over the years, we've realized the kind of job the kind of work that we want to have. And what we want to accomplish is to keep building relationships with families, we want to have the families trust and also have the dog feel secure with us and know who their dog walker is. And like that we've built this amazing, amazing client clientele that has supported us so much. And it's been something that we've tried from the, from the meeting, like I want to take two to three years in the business. And that's something that it actually has saved us from many things. Because when we first started, we used to walk dogs randomly, like oh, yeah, once a month, twice a month. And then I had this experience where a dog actually bit me, because it did not remember me. So yeah, it was horrible. So after that time, I put my foot down. And I said enough, if the dog is not part of the at least three times per week walk, we cannot unfortunately take care of because it's a liability. You know, dogs are routine, animals, they love routines, they like to see the same things do the same things every day. And if they don't see you often, unfortunately, it's not going to work out. It's it just it all depends on the dog. And we don't have that kind of time to see if the dog is going to react in a different way when they feel the next time. So we try to take our precautions and this is one way that we have been able to do that. And it's worked out pretty pretty good for us.

Collin  44:22

Yeah, that predictability both for for you. Okay, I know these days I have this dog these days are going to be this and particularly for the dog and the client too. Right? So it's not these one off sporadic things where you're like, wait, which dog was this? Did they get along with this? It's just, it's that predictability. And yeah, and part of that, too, is just business wise. predictability is so key. And I think that plays into this business. Yeah. And it plays into some of the packages that you offer to drivers. Tell us about those packages.

Madeline  44:55

So the packages have been amazing for us. I think that anyone who has been The pet care business, if you don't have a package, if you don't, if you're not offering packages to your clients start thinking about that because they aren't amazing. People love the idea of actually saving money. And you know, a way that we have come to introduce that is by offering these dog marking packages. And our packages are really simple. They are they start at 16 walks per week, meaning if you're walking four times per week, that's perfect for you because you can have 16 bucks for the whole month. And then we also have a 20 pack, which is five days a week. And then we also have another one that's really popular, which is the 40 walks per week, unfortunately, works per month, which is a it brings holy walks, and it covers for twice a day walk. Some people work really long hours. And it's actually a super popular services service where the client uses twice a day every day. Wow. So it's, yeah, it's insane. And it drives a lot of sales. And it also gives us that that certainty that we're going to have this job for X amount of time. And it just keeps people keep referring other people because they love the aspect of saving money. So it's been it's been really cool.

Collin  46:11

Well, it gets back to that guest experience, right? It's one less thing they have to think about one less thing they have to be concerned about, Oh, did I book it? Did I have that? How many do I have left? It's it's just one time, you know, it's one on one interaction for the payment. And then we know everything else is booked. And we're good to go. Right. So it's, again, try and take as much off their plate and simplify that for them.

Madeline  46:30

Absolutely build the smallest thing that a client has to do the literal, they people love that people love one less thing that they have to do that is taken care of for them. They absolutely love that because it's convenience, and you want to give as much the most convenient, you can see your clients as possible, because they're going to love that they already have a busy, hectic life going on. You don't know what they're going through what their job. So they want to come home have their dogs taken care of. And happy. And that's what we're here for.

Collin  47:04

Yeah, to remove that stress. And I think when we talk about you know, what, who am I services for? It's my services are for somebody who needs a little bit less stress in their life, my services are for, or for somebody who needs to think about one less thing. And if, yeah, if we can, if we can believe that to ourselves, and then communicate that to clients. That's such an easy sell at that point. Because look, you don't have to worry about anything, you've got a lot on your plate, I recognize that about a happy dog, that's one less thing you need to worry about.

Madeline  47:31

Exactly. That is exactly it, you know, you can go ahead and work and be at ease that your dog is going to be taken care of taken care of no matter what the weather is, you know, sometimes it could be snowing, it could be raining. But you know, if we have people working in the city here in New York, in Bern, Jersey, now, we have to go There's no other way we have to go take care of that dog, making sure that they're fed or law. And the client knows that we don't even have people checking in on us like, Hey, you guys can still come by, they know we're gonna come by. And that is the best feeling when people don't have to message you and ask you are you going to come to walk my dog? It's they know, they just know already that we're just there for whenever they need us. So they book the walk. They know we're going to be there.

Collin  48:19

Yeah, it again. But that's just like, this is who our business. This is what our business is in you. You don't? Yeah, you mentioned you had when you were doing the calendar that the the your employees could decide to take time off or not and take their own vacations. What is the hiring process look like for you.

Madeline  48:38

So the hiring process is really interesting. So we try to scout people from the university nearby people that actually go to school for animal, animal animal care, and usually they go for, they're trying to go for veterinarians. And usually they want to do like a summer time job. But we try to, we try to get those people that want to work at least for at least six months of the year, at least, maybe six, seven hours a day. If they're willing or interested to somebody that's interested in like the pet care, not just somebody at random, would they're just want to make an extra dollar. Because it's not going to work out. I feel like if you're doing this for the money, this kind of job. It just won't work out because it requires a lot more than just like some people will think it's just dog walking. How hard can it be? You have no idea like, you know, until you're there. Yeah, because, you know, it's not just dog walking, it's actually going out at all kinds of weather. It could be storming outside, and we have to boss right because they have the party, you have to go outside. It's just it's little things like that, that some people will be like, no, that's crazy. Why would I do that? You're like, well, that's the job and that's what it requires you to do. And One thing that we do, like scout people from that are interested in this field, or and also that they do get hired, the training process can be up up to like a month or a month and a half of training, just because we want to make sure that everyone has every routine just down down to the pack and just know every little thing, every little detail. So I'd rather take a longer training process, then do like a shorter training process and miss a whole bunch of things.

Collin  50:28

Well, yeah, cuz you'll have more headache on the back end, you'll have a lot more questions on the back end a lot more again, putting out these fires for you, it's like, nope, we've got a process. And then I know with I know, the confidence that I can trust you to be out in the field and take care of the clients.

Madeline  50:43

Exactly. You have to feel it in your heart that you have the you know, for sure they're ready to go, like letting the kids go to college or something.

Collin  50:55

My mother bird with her fledglings fly away Exactly. When you when you think about, you know that maybe the culture of happy bark entails what makes a good fit, what kind of candidate is going to do best working, were happy bargain deals,

Madeline  51:18

I think the person that comes to mind is a person that is going to go above and beyond that isn't, you have to, they have to be able to go above, above and beyond, because that's who we are, as a company, we are a company that we don't settle for. But what's good, like whatever the standard is, we don't want that we want to go above and beyond that, we want to go to the top five star five diamond, and I bring that from my hotel experience, we have to go to that because that is what our clients expect from us. And that's something that we're really proud to offer. And that's who the person that that is the person that's going to go into a house and walk the dog, they're going to see maybe accident number two on the carpet, you know, on like the far end of the house that's not really visible, but they saw it, and they're going to go take a wipe, clean it off and have it cleaned off. And just make sure that it's clean. And just because they saw they witnessed that they took care of it. So people that are willing to go above and beyond. And that's it, the rest will come in spot and fall into place.

Collin  52:24

Yeah, how do you find that in a candidate? How does what is that something that you can you can sense? Or do you have Have questions? Or is that part of the training process?

Madeline  52:33

I think that it's a mixture of asking questions and actually see in during the training, period, just see and how they interact? Is there something that I noticed that I didn't do anything about it just to see if they're gonna do something about it? If they react to that that's a great sign. That's something that Oh, you actually notice that was it was like a little test? Um, so it's, I think it's a mixture of both. It's a mixture of asking the questions and actually seeing the person in action to see how they're going to react to those things. Because they're going to happen during the actual job, you're going to see things that you're going to have to make judgment calls. And you're going to say, Well, I'm not really here for that, but I will take care of it. So it all comes down to that. And we all been in that position. I'm sure that we have to do the extra little things that we're not there for, but we do out of courtesy.

Collin  53:27

Yeah, well, it's kind of that just that that mantra, I know, you know, Megan, I have it, we want to leave the space better than when we found it. Right. And so so if there are these messes or something, if they got in some toilet paper, it's well, that's we're going to clean that up this that's just what we're gonna do. And so again, that's not on the clients whenever they whenever they get back.

Madeline  53:48

100% and that's one thing that people do appreciate, you know, they appreciate there any any little thing that you can take care of for them. They love that. I can tell you one specific thing that comes to mind when we're talking about this, and is I had it late evening walk. It was maybe like 8pm and I had a long day it was I was really tired. And I'm like, yeah, I'm done. I had fun. I was walking to a French Bulldog. She's like the happiest camper and happier just happy about life period. She's an adult, I love her. So we go back to her house and all of a sudden there's water coming from her bathroom, like from the floor of the bathroom just rolling out and I'm like, Oh Lord, what is that? So I opened the door of the bathroom and there's water overflowing applauding from the toilet. Thank God it was clean water, but I had to call the live in a complex an apartment complex. So I call the client but she never answered. So I just looked up the name for the actual maintenance of the building, and just call them to come and get it fixed. And I remember I had that I got that fixed for her. So when she when she called me back and I told She's not qualified, she was like, freaking out. And I told her, don't worry, it's already taken care of. She was so relieved. And I could just hear her like, just like breathing. She's like, I'm so sorry, I had a hard time at work. And those are the things people have a hard time at work. And they appreciate the little things that we can do for them.

Collin  55:17

I did want to pick your brain on social media, because you have quite a large following us on Instagram. Yeah. So how did you grow that? And what what's that been like?

Madeline  55:32

So it's been really interesting. We've met so many people from there. It's crazy, like, from all over the place. So we've been posting for a while. We've been posting ever since 20, early 2015, late 2014. I want to say it's been every day posting, we haven't stopped posting, I think we barely go a day without posting. But we're always engaging with people. So I think that helps a lot. And clients following us and then telling their family so we will have like a client following us. And then the mother of that client following us. That's crazy. Like, I would have the fat the entire family just following this one dog. But it's great, because they let their family know their friends. So I would have people commenting like, Oh, that's Annie, I love her. That's my like my little cousins on dog. And I'm like, Hi, how are you? But it's like family, phone, family. And then it just keeps going from there. So we just kept posting from from when we started. And it sounds like people have to understand that social media, it's it's very consistency thing. So you have to do it consistently. Just like you guys, you guys have grown your following was just awesome. of your of your of your page, I have noticed. And that's amazing. But this is all because you're being consistent. You know, you're posting all the time you're giving updates. People love to follow journeys, they love to follow whether it's the beginning of a business, the beginning of somebody do an exercise or something, they love to follow journeys, then follow people become something else. So that's something that we've been doing for a while just posting and engaging the people that follow us. We also did a few contests during the holidays. So we did like a Christmas concert one time, and whoever one, they get to sign up invite a friend, and they got like a gift party thing. We did a Halloween contest. So doing little things to engage with the community helped out a lot. And over the years, it's just been growing organically, which is awesome.

Collin  57:42

Yeah, I know that that idea of going okay, like, Oh, I gotta grow my following. I gotta get my following. I gotta, you know, try and get more engagement and to hear you say, okay, consistency. Okay. Oh, that's great that you posted yesterday, did you post today, and we're gonna post tomorrow and the day after that, and the day after that, and just coming back. And having this longer term view of that process instead of how can I get 1000 followers today?

Madeline  58:08

Absolutely. And the thing is, you have to do it when you have to do it when you don't get a light from nobody from the beginning, when we started. It was like, nobody would like our pictures will probably get like one person. And it was like my cousin liking my picture. And that was pretty good. anything from anyone. So little by little, we started seeing strange people that I don't know who they were, but they were liking the pictures. And I'm like, Wow, this is awesome. So we just kept posting, even though we didn't get nobody to like it. It was just for us. Honestly, it was just a journey that we've been for a while now. And I can't go back on any picture on Instagram. And I could tell you exactly what I was doing. What dog was that? What Park I was on, and what state of the business I was on, and what kind of stress I was feeling at that time. Because as a business owner, we are stressed out a lot. Because we are creatures that we want to perfect things and we want to make things better we want to grow, but it's a time so every time I see a picture of a dog that I picture of a dog that I thought it takes me back to where I was at that time.

Collin  59:22

That's great. That's great to hear in that reminder of it's a journey, it's a story. And to approach it like that it's whether it's a story for yourself that you're telling a story of dogs that you're that you're telling for their owners tell that story. So is that something when you when you write the description or use the hashtags is that you're also thinking of the journey in the story when you're writing when you're using those.

Madeline  59:44

Yeah, definitely. That's something that comes into play whenever I'm writing like a cache and well, the captions for our Instagram has always been in the third the third person as as as if the dog is speaking. So ever since we started we wanted to create Like a dialogue of the dog. So what is the thinking? So it's always about tree cover the sun is great weather. But it's always like funny because it's things that you would look at the dog and you're like, wow, they might be thinking though they look hungry, they probably want to treat right now. So everything is about the dog, honestly. Yeah.

Collin  1:00:23

Well as the owner to like, they have a running dialogue of how their dog is talking and how they're thinking, you know, they do whether they admit it or not, they're trying to understand what their dog saying. So to add a little bit of that context, make it a little fun, and tell that story from their side, right? It just builds that connection almost immediately.

Madeline  1:00:40

Absolutely, I've had actually I had someone send me an email from being engaged in my talk with my content from Instagram. And he sent me, he sent me an email of Azzam, he told me how much his our Instagram had inspired him and kept and kept him in Well, in good spirits, because maybe about like a week or two before he emailed me his dog path. So he said that looking at the dog's pictures, he wasn't even our client, I did not know who he was. But it made me feel so good. The fact that he told me that, looking at the pictures that we were taking, made him feel good and made him feel like, like a little light. He said, he felt like a little light inside of his heart. And I read that, and I was like, oh, my goodness, this is the sweetest thing I have seen. And I'm happy that it's making a difference on somebody's hard time. Because, honestly, the hardest thing in this industry, I want to say, and it's just dogs passing, you know, that's something that we don't speak much about as attack care in the pet care industry. But this is that is one of the hardest thing is the fact that we have to deal with this on a consistent basis. You know, you guys have been in business for a long time, I'm sure you've seen that too. And it doesn't get any easier when that happens. So anytime that somebody can see a picture and be happy from that, and keep them inspired, I, I feel like I'm doing something, right.

Collin  1:02:04

It's a reminder to have, we may have one intent for something that we do as a business. But people are going to read into it their own thing, and they're going to take it and they're going to they're going to see what they want to need at that moment into for it. So it's like, the multifaceted ness of just a simple picture. Right? It's like, well, I posted this picture, because I think it's cute. And I know the owner wants to see the dog, but it's also helping somebody right now who's going through a really tough time. Like, I never would have even thought that. And so it's just, it's just, you know, when you're sharing these stories, that's why people connect, because they they're, they're experiencing their own story, their own journey, too. And they're able to come alongside and, and make that connection when they most need it.

Madeline  1:02:47

Absolutely. I feel like, there are so many people looking on social media nowadays, you know, there's millions, probably billions of people just looking at a picture. And then everyone that's looking might be going through something different. So everyone might be looking at it from different perspectives. And it might make somebody's day, you know, just because we don't know what they're going through. And they might see a dog with a smiley face, and it's gonna make them laugh. That's awesome.

Collin  1:03:15

Yeah. Well, and to, you know, you mentioned, when a client's pet passes, like, we need to, we need to be okay to talk about that. We need to be okay to make to make posts about that and be honest about ourselves. Because it is something we're like, Ooh, that we don't have we, we have it happens, right? It happens. And it's awful every single time. And the time. Yeah. And we need to talk about that so that the clients know too, like we have we're experiencing this, I know you're experiencing this, just be honest about that. And know that, that these photos, these blog posts, this content that you're producing, as a business owner are going to help those people and they're going to they're going to help you too.

Madeline  1:03:54

Yeah, 100%. That's something that that the first time that happened when I first had my first dog, my first client dog passed, I was so sad, I was so sad. And ever since that time happened, I started building systems for that, because I wanted to make sure the client knew that we were there for them. So every time something like that happens, we have a system where we can we deliver flowers for the client, we actually text them and see if it's okay, if we can stop by maybe just give them a hug, or just let them know that we're there for them that it's not just a business transaction, they actually matter as people and we've been doing that ever since we like ever since that happened from the beginning. We kind of set up those systems. And we try to do that every time that happens because unfortunately it's gonna happen quite often. Yeah.

Collin  1:04:43

I love that phrase. It matters you know, because because you matter right? It matters because your people right because there are people and they matter and and kind of taking that above and beyond that this simple business transaction and going No, I just died. I know you're hurting right now. I'm hurting and I just wanted you to know some flowers in the hug. And I know that doesn't make it any better that it's not going to it can't change it. But I'm here and and just connecting them at that level to like, it's just, it doesn't take a lot, but it can be so powerful.

Madeline  1:05:13

Absolutely to them. So that person and that and that hard time and mean everything, because nothing you do is going to bring them back when you know, then they know that the support is there. And then you actually care that it's just not just money. It's not It's not about the money. It's about you as a person, it's about the dog that you lost, and I took care of them for X amount of years. I knew every court that your dog had. And it's crazy. It's you know, this dog like it's your own. I know all of my clients, dogs, like they're my babies, every court, everything I know. So, even in those times, we try to be there because it's not just about the happy times. It's also about those sad times where the client is going through a really rough time. So we want to be there for them.

Collin  1:05:59

Yeah, yeah. Because that's what it's that's what it's all about at the end of the day is those connections, clients that that kind of community and which has been really important for for 2020. And for this year is having those kind of connections. So what has this year taught you about being in pet care and running your business?

Madeline  1:06:21

So the first thing that I want to say is that the overwhelming support that we've gotten from our current clients, because even though a lot of them stopped the services, like the actual services, they were 100% insistent that they will pay us at No, they didn't want their money back. Nothing. They just wanted to pay us as we walk in their doors. And to me, I had never experienced that. And that's not the actual money part. But it was more about the principle like, Wow, you really care about me, you really care about the fact that I am a human being, and I have a business, and I'm losing about 70% of my business right now. But you still want to support me. That is amazing. And the support that we got was overwhelming. So I think it just really, really made us see how much our client actually cared about us, which it just just reinforced how much we like the community that we have built around us. It's been it's been worth it. It's been everything that we have done this past five years, it's been 100% worth it because people actually care. They know who we are. We know them like family, honestly. And the next thing is is operating our business on 100%. Debt Free. We don't do loans. We don't do anything that we don't have cash, we don't do. And that's something that we did ever since we got out of debt. About five years ago when we paid off $80,000 we said never again, we will never get into that. And that's exactly how we have run this business. We have grown grown like just everything that we have done to this point has been just on positive cash flow on nothing just pretty much every we have grown at the pace of the business pretty much. Yeah, so everything we've done has been slow, but steady.

Collin  1:08:17

Did you know that may is the fifth annual pet sitter safety month, pet sitters international is the world's largest Educational Association for professional pet sitters and dog walkers. And it created pet sitter safety month to highlight the importance of promoting safe practices for today's professional pet sitters and dog walkers. This month, you can download a free pet sitter safety guide from psi. In this free guide, psi has compiled some of its most popular resources on safety related topics. From precautions to take when arriving for a pet same visit tips for preventing dog bites and cat scratches. As a professional pet care provider, it's important to ensure you're taking precautions to keep yourself safe. And as you view psi his pet sitter safety guide, you may just discover some new procedures you would like to adopt for your business. Visit pets.com slash PSC to download your free copy today. Well, and that concept is so foreign to many of Well, obviously I've got to take out a loan to run and operate my business. What are you talking? Talking about, you know, maybe explain how do you how do you do that? How can you run a business debt free?

Madeline  1:09:28

So the beginning is the hardest part, right? Because the beginning is when you want to invest in the business as much as you can. And you know, you want to do all these things, all these ideas, especially me, I am a person that has 100 ideas per hour. So my husband's like, okay, chill. Take it down a notch. Just one second. Let's take one idea per day, hopefully like at least because I have like, Oh my God, we can do this. We can do that. He's like, okay, No, we can't. We need to relax. So I think it was just about it's about going with your means. I think the principles that we learned from the baby steps from Dave Ramsey helped us out a lot in the fact of actually planning what we're going to do with what we have. And actually, the fact that we do a service based service based business helped out a lot, too, because what we're doing is providing a service, what do we have to invest on? We have to get uniforms, we have to get business cards, we have to do the bare necessities, just just get the bare necessities. So I when people tell me how do I start, I say, you have to start by starting by doing something right now. literally go online. I mean, to give you the perfect example is when we started my website, I had a budget. And it was $150. For my website. That was 150. Nothing more. Yeah. So I asked people around me and I said, Hey, can you recommend someone that would do a website for 150. And they're like, You're crazy. Nobody's gonna do that for that. So I started to look for tools online, there's a website that I swear by, it's called fiverr.com. So there, you can look for anything. You can look for website designers, you can look for logos, and everything is done. Very inexpensive. You I got my first website design for 175 bucks. And it looks beautiful. And it looks simple. It was only two pages. And it worked out perfect. It helped us I think we use that same website for two years and help us grow. We actually probably got like, we went from probably the first the second year making almost close to six figures on a website two pages. Wow. So it was insane. So it just goes to say that you have to be resourceful. You have to be able to do and operate based on what you have. And that's what we did. And we still do that to this day. Like we just bought our house maybe less two years ago or a year ago. And this was all done with dog walking. Well, we that's all we do. We do dog walking full time. And it hasn't changed. It has been the same thing. We just we have grown a lot more now. But the principles that we use being debt free operating the business such as it remains the same.

Collin  1:12:23

Yeah. Well, you start about that that fundamental principle of doing a budget. And I love how Dave Ramsey said, you know, Dave says, a budget is telling your money, where to go, instead of wondering where it went, like in doubt with the problem we had before. Yeah, and we talked about so much on the personal level, but the importance, the immense importance of a business operating budget of like, do you know where your money's going? Or are you waking up at the beginning of the month going? Where did how did what like you, that's not a good place to be. You can't plan you can't make a business operations decisions, you can't move forward until you know where every last cent was going. And then the hard part is sticking to it. Right? going, Oh, yeah, I

1:13:08

only have I only have $100 for this. But it costs 107. That means you, you don't get that right. Unless you can come up with seven more

Madeline  1:13:16

dollars. That is exactly it. You know, if you don't know where your money is going, and your personal finance, that's something that's going to literally drag you to like a clip or something because you just don't know, you don't know anything you're like, well, I don't know what this went. And the same thing with business. But with business is a little complicated, because you not only have the income that you have, you also have to pay taxes. So you also have to make sure that you are getting paid, but you're also saving for your quarterly taxes that we will have to pay. I know in Jersey, we have to pay quarterly taxes not sure if you guys do Yeah, but that's something that you have to be responsible for it. And a lot of people, you know, run these kind of business, like pet care businesses, but they're actually running poppies, because they're not operating as businesses, you know, they're operating on sometimes debt, they're operating on money, but they don't have in the business that, you know, they might see something cool, like a big sign or like, I don't know, oh, well, my business could use us and be like $5,000. And the question is, are you bringing that $5,000 in revenue? Or are you going to borrow that and test that theory later on. And our concept has always been, we have to make sure that the what we're going to invest kind of has already paid off. So the the big thing that the big decision that we had was the website when we did it. So we invested in that website, a lot more than what we did in our original one. But that was already a proven concept. We already had so many clients that performance online. So that's the platform that people see us from, that's where we have to invest the most money in and that's that's the kind of decisions that we need my husband make this Sit down and we say, Okay, what? What's everything looking like? Where do we put our money, but it's going to grow the most in the business? And that's where we go from there.

Collin  1:15:09

Yeah, yeah, viewing that as investments not just as being spent money or down the drain, like, when you come into the approach of like this money has to do more work. Once I spend it, instead of just disappearing, then you start to think of, okay, maybe a little more tactful about where this money goes.

Madeline  1:15:24

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's just knowing like, your, your little business, you know, where where your income comes, where your people when people hear from, or they hear from you from Yelp, Google. And that those are questions that I asked, When people join the dog walking or pet boarding. I asked them in the in the contract that I give them, how do you how did you hear from us. And I keep track of that I keep track of that. And I make a chart and I see percentages, and I see power people hear from me, and depending on that I invest a lot more time, or I might do an ad, an ad on those platforms, because that's what people are seeing. So spend the time there.

Collin  1:16:04

In the time to know your business and know some of this operational stuff is just is so key for for having good, long term success. So what other advice would you have for for pet care providers?

Madeline  1:16:18

I think it's just listening, listening to listening to your market, I think that you know, listen to what people want. It's not just about what you think you might be good, you got to listen, sometimes do the research and see what people are looking for. What is it that the community that you are at is not currently providing what people are looking for. So that might be you know, it might sound silly, but like me, I researched all the negative comments for my area from a dog walking area, art. And I literally wrote everything down in Microsoft, Excel, and I made a spreadsheet because I love spreadsheets.

1:17:01

If I can't put it in Excel, an Excel spreadsheet, I don't need it in my life is what I've decided I'm

Madeline  1:17:06

exactly and needs to be an Excel sheet. If it's not, it's not real. So I lifted the spreadsheet. So I think everything you know, do your research put in there and go through them, and then just go see the negative, turn it into a positive, because at the end of the day, that's how you grow something, you want to be the positive impact in whichever industry you're in. If you want to do pet care, it's off locking does work for everyone, you know, everyone is different, you are different, I am different. We are all here for that specific thing that we do best. And I think that everyone has a little spark that they can bring to the table. And it's about just doing it you know, if you want to do something, go ahead and do it and be smarter about it. And if you want to start a dog walking business or pet care business, don't go getting alone. Don't Don't getting a $10,000 loan to start a business, please your it's not gonna work. You have to prove your concept first. Prove it, prove it prove that it works. Yeah, I think that Be Smart with your money. And just put it to work for you and your business? For sure.

Collin  1:18:15

Yeah, I love that. I love that Madeline, this has been so enjoyable. I've loved hearing about the philosophies behind you how you run your business, how you take that and just notch everything up just a little bit more, and bring the sparkle to everything that you do. Thank you for sharing that with us. And you know, challenging us to do the same in our businesses and for our clients as well. If people want to follow along, see all the adorable dog pictures that you keep posting on Instagram and pick your brain a little bit more? How best can they do that?

Madeline  1:18:46

Absolutely. They can follow me at Instagram and that is happy barking sales at Instagram. And then on Facebook has the same thing. Happy bargains hills, and my email is Madeline a happy dog intel.com. If you have a question, go ahead and shoot for it. I love answering anything people have to ask. So yeah,

Collin  1:19:06

wonderful. And I'll have links to that and more in the show notes of things that we've talked about today. So people can click right there and get in touch. So Madeline once again, it's been a real joy and a real pleasure. Thank you so much.

Madeline  1:19:18

Thank you so much for having me call. It has been a pleasure talking to you.

Collin  1:19:21

I love how at the core of everything that Madeline and her husband Gabriel do is so focused squarely and wholly on the customer experience that in all things for all reasons and all seasons every single day, time and time again, they focus on the experience that their customers get the not just their existing customers but potential clients. What is their experience of viewing the photos that they post? How do they interact with them on social media, what kind of expectations Do they have then experiences do they have other out on the streets when we view our business Is as a very public thing that people do get to see that they get to interact with, it changes how we interact with people, it changes that relationship. And it is a mutual relationship, right? We talked about the importance of having a mutual respectful relationship with clients, and how if you don't have that, if you're not getting that kind of relationship back, if you're not getting that positive relationship back from the client, you don't need that client. And you can use those two little powerful letters in O, to improve your life and improve your business so that you can start focusing on things that you actually want to be doing and have more energy left over to be investing in others and in your business. So how would you describe your customer experience? What is it like for the guests that you care for? Do they have a good onboarding process? What's the messaging? Like? Is it easy to pay? What kind of services do you offer to solve their problems? And do they even know about it? We want to hear from you and how you define your customer service and your customer experience in your business. You can send us an email at feedback at pester confessional comm or we absolutely love phone calls. So 636368260 you really want to thank our sponsors, time to pet and pet sitters international for making today's show possible. And thank you seriously, from the bottom of our hearts. It means a lot it means so much. And we wouldn't be doing this and we couldn't be doing this without you in your support. So we hope you have a wonderful week. We've got a really amazing special episode coming up next week. We can't wait to share it with you. Until then, bye.