190: Un-Marketing Your Business
Brought to you by Pet Sitters Associates
Summary
Where should we invest our time as business owners? Traditional thinking would say to make sure to carve out plenty of time for marketing your services. What if we focused on other things and put relationships first? What would that look like in our business? We break down what the idea of Un-Marketing is and ways to start changing our mindsets towards placing more importance on relationships than ads. From the technology we use, to how we post on social media, there are ways to respect our clients and build their trust without ever running a single ad. Natasha O’Banion answers, “How do I handle a negative review?”
Topics on this episode:
Role in technology
Role in social media
Role in getting feedback and improving
Ask a Pet Biz Coach
Main takeaway: Shift your focus from marketing to investing in building relationships.
Links:
Episode 131: Privacy in Online Marketing
Episode 188: How to Make Social Media Work for You
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
clients, business, marketing, pet, dog, review, relationships, build, post, focus, today, confessional, people, book, social media, process, trust, service, flyers, customer
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin, Natasha
Meghan 00:17
Hi, I'm Megan. I'm Collin. And this is Pet Sitter Confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Hello, welcome to Episode 190. Hello. Talking about and marketing your business today, we want to thank our Patreon members. And we have two new ones this week, not one but two, Claire and our newest supporter, Adriana. Thank you guys so much. We are grateful for each of you and all of our Patreon members, you guys give generously each month to help support and continue this podcast. Thank you. If you would like to be part of this awesome community as well. To support and continue the podcast, you can go to pet sitter confessional comm slash support.
Collin 01:08
And we also want to thank pet sitters associates for sponsoring today's episode,
Meghan 01:12
it's hard to believe that this is Episode 190 just means that we're 10 episodes away from 200. We're gonna do another Ask me anything. So ask us anything. If you have questions for us about our business or the podcast questions you have about your own business, you can start sending those in and we will answer them to the best of our ability on episode 200.
Collin 01:35
Today, we're going to take a little bit different approach to talking about marketing in our businesses. And this comes from several different places. And I think it's mostly because of many frustrations that we hear about or have experienced ourselves with, quote, marketing, and how best to go about it. Now there are a ton of strategies and techniques out there on how to grow, expand and add to your client list. And there's no one that's really better or worse than the other, they're they're just different schools of thought they're just different and how you apply them. But at the end of the day, many of us just want to focus on doing the best job possible and not get caught up in what the advertising in looks like.
Meghan 02:13
It could be because we don't have a lot of time, we are super busy right now with the summer and everybody traveling. Or it could be that we don't really care about it, or we don't have the skills or knowledge to actually do it. So there's another way of thinking about marketing in our businesses. And it's called on marketing.
Collin 02:30
You could also say, Stop marketing your business and start building relationships. And there are a million different outgrowths from what that means when we start implementing it in our businesses.
Meghan 02:42
And I know you just had stopped marketing your business. But we want to rephrase that we want to take a different approach to that concept, right?
Collin 02:50
It No, it's not stopped entirely. It's just maybe stopped the way that we were doing it or thinking about marketing before. It's basically taking the focus off of pushing out ads constantly for other ways that we've all experienced new marketing, like cold calling, or flyers. Like if you only had an hour in your day, would you decide to cold call, make flyers? Would you spend it on social media? Or would you call a client or two to check in on them, which one of those is going to give you the biggest bang for the longest term return on that hour of investment. And I think that we have to be honest with ourselves and say that anything that I can do as a business owner, to build trust, or and further genuine relationships with my clients, is going to be the best thing for them and my business?
Meghan 03:36
Yeah, follow up with them. If you haven't heard from them in a while. We did this with COVID. There were several months where we didn't hear from a lot of our clients. So we checked in and said, Hey, how are you doing? How are you dealing with the pandemic? How are your pups doing or your cats. Another way that we try to focus on building trust and relieving anxieties from new clients is really focusing on high quality photos for the first time and the second time that they're with us. Obviously, photos and updates are a big thing. And we always strive to make sure that they are the best possible. We just really try and go above and beyond on those first few times that they're with us because that's really going to have a big impact on the client and how they perceive us and the time that their pet has with us.
Collin 04:22
And these are the same kind of photos that you'll end up posting on social media, though they're the same reels that you'll record about who you are and talk about your why the process of focusing on relationships keeps us from being inauthentic and instead keeps us true to who we are that refocuses us on what really is at the end of the day, the core of pet care, which is building relationships. It's shifting the focus from the me me me me to adding value to the clients, which obviously has to be balanced out with educating clients about our business,
Meghan 04:54
right if you do a frequently asked question Friday on your social media, that's obviously a way to highlight Your services, or questions that you get from your clients. And we've talked about the 8020 rule before 80% of the time, you're supposed to be giving value to your clients through newsletters and, you know, events that you do and social media and all this stuff and 20% you're supposed to be selling yourself. So telling them why you are the best fit for their pet. And what about you stands out from the other pet care providers in your town?
Collin 05:25
Yes, we are talking about that 80% right now how to build those relationships so that at the end of the day, by the time you decide it's time to market in the traditional sense, you're a no brainer for the customer, it just makes sense for them, you don't have to do any convincing. They've already bought into your business, they see your vision, they understand who you are, and they trust you implicitly from all these other things that you have going on. And as business owners, we get to decide what kind of relationships we build. Many people will want to have the full hands on experience bringing clients in and making them feel pampered other businesses want to focus on last minute bookings, where they never even meet the owner. And that's okay with them. So while we are talking about focusing on relationships, as opposed to marketing in this episode, the important thing here is that you get to decide what you want that relationship to look like. And then how you act and structure everything around that should reinforce that kind of relationship.
Meghan 06:25
And I think there's really a lot that goes into this topic. So we will try and break down a few key elements that we've experienced and seen for ourselves. And the big fruit. One of the big frustrations that people have with marketing is the concern and use of technology in the mode of advertising. So this is the discussion between whether to use a targeted Facebook ad or flyers or newsletters or word of mouth. And we get really caught up in the how of marketing and rarely take a step back to ask why. Why are we using a flyer? Why are we using a targeted Facebook ad? Why are we putting up a booth at an event? If the answer is because it's the latest and greatest thing to do and everybody else is doing it is that what we should be really doing? As a business, we need to make sure we innovate and use the latest technologies, when it will truly benefit our customers give them the best experience possible. So whether that is the marketing method or a new intake process or a new way of sending updates, if you as a business owner, do not believe that it will provide value to your clients, it may be worthwhile to wait a little bit longer before you implement it. And this is especially true if you do not fully understand the tool, or the service or the technology that you are trying to use. Obviously, if you are implementing a new software, you need to try it out first, a lot of them have a 14 or 30 day trial period, you need to be doing that, before you spring on your clients that this is the new way of doing things because there will likely be some pushback, if all of a sudden you go from pen and paper to a fully automated system and you have not explained to them and communicated to them how to do it. Because if you do not understand it, how can you expect your clients to and why would you expect them to, you know how we advertise speaks to our business, our goals and our beliefs. And we talked a little bit about this in Episode 131 with privacy and online marketing. And it's regarding using extensive tracking to gain clients and how we call it and I personally aren't okay with that way of marketing right now.
Collin 08:25
Yeah, we feel that there are many more genuine ways of getting clients that don't rely on freaky tracking or data collection. But we know it's totally different for everybody. Again, this is merely saying that before we get too far down the rabbit hole of the how we're trying to advertise, we need to take that step back and ask why does it fit with our brand of our business? Is it how we want to be perceived by our clients, just as an example. For the podcast, we could very easily add tracking and David data harvesting tools into our podcast to know a lot of very creepy data about our listeners. But we are never going to do that we don't want to do that. And this is this is actually antithetical of how we view you as the listener, we want to respect you and want to treat you as we would want to be treated. And the same thing in our pet sitting businesses. We don't want to have any personal information from our clients other than what they freely give us during the intake process. We would rather use other techniques and modes of advertising as a way to get them once that respect them and their privacy
Meghan 09:27
well. And those usually take longer than a highly targeted Facebook ad but it's the patients there that is really key. And this also gets in line with another aspect of what on marketing is and that's integrity and reputation. Instead of focus more on just growth in sales or revenue or new clients. We should also be focused on what our clients believe of us. Integrity and reputation can be ruined in an instant through a bad ad or a marketing message or a bad review that somebody leaves you.
Collin 09:57
Yeah, it's again, it's just taking one step back and look How do people view our business? Do they think we have integrity? Do they think we have a good reputation, and this is a very holistic approach. It's not just how we care for the pets or even how we talk to our clients. It's how we acquire them in the first place. Everything we do in our business, that's a that's another thought about what and marketing is it's it's that there are no silos, in our business, the marketing, the customer relations, the customer service, the the booking, every single one of these aspects that we run in our business is not separate from the other, they are viewed together and holistically from a client's perspective. So if there are shady things going on over in marketing and client relations, that reflects on everything else about the business as well. And so when we look at our reputation as a business, is it what we want it to be?
Meghan 10:56
Something that does have a good reputation is pet sitters associates, 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. And you do, you could 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 petsitter 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 11:37
as we've mentioned on marketing is the belief that we should take the focus off of our marketing messages, and instead work on building and reinforcing relationships.
Meghan 11:45
So we've talked about what that means questioning the technology and tools that we bring into our business. We've talked about how important it is to respect the client in our messaging and how we reach them. And we just had a good example of that one today.
Collin 11:59
Yeah, yeah. So we use software to book message bill and schedule everything in our business, we feel that it genuinely makes the relationship with the client a lot closer, and we're actually able to meet their needs much easier. So tonight during a meet and greet, the owner was asking how to book because she hadn't read our FAQ. So while explaining it, the lady was like, Oh, so you'll just text the booking confirmation? Wow, that's really cool. And then after So after I book, then I'll have to come back and pay with a check or something, I guess. And I was like, No, no, actually, you'll just enter your credit card info. And everything is handled through the software. To say that she was impressed and thrilled would be an understatement. And we get those kinds of reactions all of the time.
Meghan 12:44
And I still think that's something that many people don't expect. So
Collin 12:47
that right there was an unmarked cutting moment. By making her life easier and not making it overly complicated. We were instantly building trust, and we deepened our relationship with her. Something no amount of ad dollars would have been able to do
Meghan 13:00
by picking and choosing what technology and processes we put into our business. We're not just making our lives easier to run and manage it. But our clients as well, when we are intentional about the selection with the focus on the clients, we're marketing without even knowing it. And that's great. And another aspect of this is what we share on social media. We talked about this last week and our social media episode, Episode 188. But the thinking here is that we only share content, when we have something valuable to say,
Collin 13:30
I do think it might be a little different if you have a team or team members who can help produce content constantly. But most of us are going it alone. So we really are time constrained. Meaning that it's not just about valuing our clients time with what we post is about valuing our time to sharing something, quote, just to share, it means that when you do have valuable content that you want to get out there, it gets drowned out, or your clients and potential customers just begin to ignore your posts. This is a fine line to walk obviously, because many of us want to have a good presence on social media. And a lot of times we don't know exactly what to share, as we talked about back on episode 188. Sharing high value highly relatable content is much better than lots of incidental posts or things that don't really benefit the people following you.
Meghan 14:18
Yeah, so if you don't have anything to post on Wednesday, and you can't think of something to post on Wednesday, don't post on Wednesday, it's totally fine to do that or not do that. Okay, so how is this related to what we're talking about with on marketing?
Collin 14:32
I think it's because it goes against the traditional thinking that if you that you must constantly be sharing and posting just stuff, that the only real way to get noticed or to be seen is to be constantly posting to get your message out there. It's actually taking maybe one or two steps back and start respecting the time of your clients for when they're on social media. And as I mentioned earlier, your own time with the thinking that when you share things, it'll be important, relevant and helpful. To them, it's actually showing your clients that you do respect them, that you are genuinely trying to help them and not just fill their social media with more posts than they could really do anything with.
Meghan 15:11
tangentially related to that is when we post on social media that we are also present. So we don't just post and ghost, if it's worth sharing is worth interacting with. Not only does this benefit you algorithmically to respond to comments and interactions, but it also further builds that relationship with your clients. It lets them know that you are there and they have a connection with you, you also may want to consider getting a lead magnet for your website or for your social media. And this is just something that you provide for free in exchange for their contact information. So this could be something like a guide to the best dog parks in your city or local restaurants that are dog friendly, something that your potential client would want to see or read. And it's legitimately valuable to them. And then you have their email address, or whatever contact information you want the phone number, so you can stay in touch and can send weekly or monthly valuable newsletters to them. really engage with people in your email newsletter, ask them questions, send them a survey on how their experience was with your pet care service, get feedback and actually listen to what they say. Again, this is building relationships. Start with your best clients first, ask them why they keep coming back to you. What do they like about the service that you provide? Ask them the one thing that they would like to see different. It's a little bit nerve wracking to ask that. But you want to know because you're always trying to improve services. And you obviously don't have to implement everything that they say or anything that they say, but genuinely listen to them, because they are your clients and the ones that are paying you. You will draw the right clients to you through listening to them and engaging with them. And it really enables you to build trust and position yourself as their logical choice when they need you. This also means being the expert and loud, allowing them to see you as the expert and Petcare. So use your blog to highlight your expertise, start a podcast, write a book, when customers start to see you as an expert, rather than someone who just wants their money. They trust you. And that creates loyalty.
Collin 17:15
Yeah, I really can't focus on that point enough that we can present ourselves as experts and many of us are thinking, but I'm not right. I didn't go to school for this, I really haven't had that much training, maybe so but you do have experience. And I think really more importantly, here, you have time in your day to look up this specific information. The clients may be not there, they're busy. So we can actually come alongside them, partner with them. And say, you know, I know you don't know how to brush Fidos teeth. But the next time I come over, I'll come over with some helpful tips and guides. And I'll show you how to do that. And by doing this, you're not only being able to assert yourself as an expert in their lives, you are also solving problems, which is what this is all about. When we solve problems, we build trust, we build relationships. And so doing taking that time to do the research, read the books, listen to other podcasts, and then share back that information is all part of that process.
Meghan 18:14
We started off this episode by saying that this topic is really focused on how to market differently and start building relationships. So each of the topics that we have touched on, you'll notice are not concerned about an ad placement or how to write the perfect ad copy. Instead, they are focused on the relationships that you build with a client, you know, how do you respect them? How do you view them? How do you value them, when we take an intentional approach to what we do and what our company does. And when we put people first marketing is actually taking place already. And instead of viewing marketing as a single post or a single flyer or a single advertisement on Facebook, we start viewing it holistically and everything that our company does. The focus is not to be advertising the focus is on excellent customer service, and a fantastic user experience and obviously excellent pet care. And by doing each of those things with excellence, that is the best possible marketing you could ever do. Because successful businesses are built on authentic relationships and does everybody always says people buy from people?
Collin 19:17
We talked about getting reviews and feedback from clients earlier well today Natasha, Albanian on our Ask a pet biz coach segment answers the question on how to handle negative reviews. Anytime you're in business for any length of time, there are going to be some people who aren't as satisfied with your services as they would like to be. And so you may get a negative review either on Google My Business or on Facebook page or on Yelp. What's the best policy for handling one of those?
Natasha 19:46
Oh yeah, so I haven't had a negative review and a while but I do have to and you know us pet sitter dog walkers. We know what our reviews are saying and we got a handle on it right because we're we take it serious very, very serious. I remember when I got my first negative review, I was pregnant with my first daughter, and it crushed me, I was like, Oh my god, I let the customer down. I didn't understand I was in the hospital, you know, I had all these factors going on in my business to where I dropped the ball, whether if it was a good reason or not, I still dropped the ball somewhere. And I mean, it crushed me, I don't think I let go of it forever. I think it was months that I was holding on to that one review. Even though I handled it and talk to the client, or what have you, he still was adamant on us just doing a terrible job. And so sometimes it is what it is. But your first review, I will just wanted to tell you that story, because your first review, it definitely hurts, you know, we do take this business as our baby, and it doesn't feel good to have negative feedback. But at the end of the day, a bad review is a way for you to enhance your business, and to take it as a learning experience. And so I'll just give you my own real life situation. So my client had a walker that came over the dog had a poo accident in the house, and the walker took him outside clean up the entire pool accident, put the dog back in the crate won't actually have dogs have diarrhea, they're gonna keep pilling. But the client has no idea if we cleaned it up, or if the dog kept pulling, when they get home from work. They're like, well, I got a shitty man. Okay. And so they're trying to call me because I was all in my business. And this happened in my first one year of business when I was still the CEO running it day to day. And so they're trying to call me and call me and of course, I'm in the hospital, I'm pregnant, and they're like, we couldn't even get in contact with anybody. This is crazy. This is ludicrous. You know, all the words that we love. And, and I get back out of the hospital, right? And look at me, I'm trying to save my baby. And then I'm dealing with the review at the same time. And I say listen, the dog walker had an accident with the dog, he cleaned it up, but naturally, the dog is gonna keep going potty in the home. And he was like, This is ridiculous. You guys should have called me You should have told me, mind you, we have an app to where we write out our reports. And we wrote in that with that the dog food and and did everything that we used to do in our process. But because of that situation, we had to go deeper. So a lot of us would have been like, okay, we cleaned it out, we wrote it in the report that they had an accident, you saw the report, and that that should be good. Well, that's what we thought the first time. But because there was a disconnect somewhere, we had to go deeper. So now what we do is if there is a pool accident, we take a photo of all the pool before we even start cleaning everything we take a photo, that's your before picture, we clean it all. And then we take an after picture. So now we say listen, Fido had an accident, here's what it looked like before we fully clean it up. This is what it looks like after I'm going to go off into my day. But I wanted you to see before and after. And the Walker has to call a manager. So we can then call the client and say red flag on the report. Make sure you look at it your dog cat, it's a tummy ache. Do you want to come home now? Or do you want to deal with this at six? So then you tell the customer, it's up to you from this point on, right. But you empower them to say Listen, I cleared it all out. We took pictures throughout a report, and we called you so now you can decide what you want to do from this point on. In that way. We just made it a process for everybody. And it has been really it has worked out great since then,
Collin 23:37
yeah, it's looking at each and every single review both both the positive and the negative. And looking back at your business kind of using it as a mirror to go Okay, what's the truth in this? What are the ways that I can actually improve? What are the procedures that I can put in place so that this doesn't happen? Again, it is really easy to take it personally. And I know, you know we've we've received we had one negative review and it was just it was soul crushing, right? It was like I just wanted to just close everything down lock, the doors cancel, you know, no more, we're not doing this anymore, because it was hard. But you know, we had some time to just sit with it, and then go, okay, realistically, this would have been solved by over communicating in the situation. So how can we communicate more effectively, so the client just like kind of things that you did or like, okay, we can over communicate on these whenever these things come up, so that there are no questions so that we do have proof of what took place and we it is documented. And that way, you know, it's never gonna have that again, and then you just kind of chip away at this and you're slowly refining, slowly refining every time that that kind of thing happened.
Natasha 24:41
And let's talk about what happens when you just have the review and how to handle it. So you want to get in a habit of responding to the positive reviews and the negative reviews. So when you get reviews, just at least thank them for reviewing them. I like to mention the dog's name, make it personal, because that's how I talk to my clients. Anyway. And remember that you are responding to reviews for future clients. Okay? So you're not responding from Natasha soul. I am responding for future clients. This is an opportunity to tell future clients how we do business and how they'll be service. So I had a client my second matter of use, I only have two so far, let's keep it that way. But my second bad review was a client that booked our service did all of our forms. And the dog walker came but apparently she interviewed like five different dog walking companies and decided that she didn't hire us. And when she booked us, I don't even know how this happens. But it happens. She says, oh, that I came home and the dog was outside and they stole the dog. The dog was missing, you know, all the good stuff, go on my page. And look at it. Do that. So um, I responded back and I said, Thank you for taking the time to review us. Thank you for going over our process. Yes, our walkers do arrive to the building. We do provide our government ID before getting the keys. We were in fact led by the security officer. When we arrived we sent you a pickup notification via text and email. When we left we did the same. We do apologize for scaring your partner. However, Fido was outside enjoying a great walk with his friends. We do have on file of you booking with us. We do have forms and contracts filled out before starting, but we do apologize if there was a misunderstanding. Absolutely. There has been no charge for this service, and best of luck on your pet care journey. So I am speaking to future clients on our process on how we things people will interpret however they want to interpret but just stick to the facts.
Meghan 26:58
Not only has her own successful pet business, but she is a pet business coach as well. And if you would like her to be your pet business coach, you can go to her website start scale sale, calm and use the code p sc 24 15%. off of her coaching.
Collin 27:12
Coming up on Wednesday, Kayla from docs design joins the show to talk about what it means to have a brand which actually fits in quite nicely with today's topic because Kayla shares how having a brand is so much more than just the colors and the font on our logo. It talks about how a true brand is what is communicated and the connection that is made with our clients. It really is that you get to make the logo mean something by the customer and client experiences and relationships that you build with them. We want to thank our sponsor, pet sitters associates for making today's show possible and our Patreon for supporting us every single month. If you'd like to learn more about what it means to be a Patreon and support the show you can head on over to petsitter confessional comm forward slash support.
Meghan 27:55
And we also want to thank you, the listener, thank you for showing. Thank you for showing up week after week 190 episodes and at least 1000 more. So that's my goal. Anyway, have a great week and we will talk to you soon. Thanks bye
