196: Business Introspection
Brought to you by Courtney Cecal from Palmetto Scoopers
Summary
Throughout the year, most of us reflect on our personal life, where we excelled and where we fell short. The same should be true for our pet care businesses.
Whether you’ve been in business for 6 months or 16 years, it’s important to be introspective so you know where to improve. We discuss how being reflective will help you and 10 questions to ask yourself about your business.
Then, Natasha O’Banion answers “How do I stop feeling like I have to be ‘on’ all the time?”
Topics on this episode:
US news on non-compete policies
Why be introspective?
10 questions to ask of your business
Ask a Pet Biz Coach
Main takeaway: Taking time to periodically reflect on your business will allow you to see red flags early and stay true to your goals and values.
Links:
Episode 191: Branding with Kaila
Episode 146: More than Our Logo
Episode 109: Who is Your Ideal Client?
Episode 084: Palmetto Scoopers
Courtney Cecal from Palmetto Scoopers
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, services, clients, questions, people, introspective, pet, website, scoopers, week, marketing, running, reflected, delegate, schedule, episode, offer, threats, day, values
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin, Natasha
Meghan 00:17
Hi, I'm Meghan.
Collin 00:18
I'm Collin. And this is pet sitter confessional,
Meghan 00:21
and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Hello, welcome to Episode 196
Collin 00:32
Hello.
Meghan 00:33
Today we are talking about being introspective in your business. We want to thank our newest sponsor Courtney Segal from Palmetto scoopers. You may remember him from Episode 84, where he talked about his poop scooping business. Well, he is joining us today as our sponsor. And we also want to thank our Patreon sponsors like Laura and Jennifer. Thank you. Thank you guys so much.
Collin 00:54
Thank you for your support. And if you want to learn more about what it means to be a Patreon supporter, and everything that entails go to petsitter confessional comm slash support.
Meghan 01:03
Also, we wanted to remind you guys that we have our episode 200 coming up, it's going to be an ask us anything, episode podcast, how we run our business, favorite color, I don't know whatever you want to know, ask us. And we'll answer it on that episode. There's only a couple weeks left to get your questions in,
Collin 01:20
I wanted to bring a few things up that came out on our weekly email newsletter. And if you didn't know that we have a weekly email newsletter. Each week we recap the episode share relevant articles and stories. And if you go to our website, you'll see a little pop up where you can start receiving those in the US the Biden administration is now cracking down on non compete agreements. These were hard to enforce anyway, but they may be going away entirely if the new executive order works out. Basically, he's asked the FTC, which is the Federal Trade Commission to ban or limit them entirely saying that they're bad for workers. It's part of a broader push to increase competition. several places already have banned them, including California and North Dakota and Oklahoma, however, there is now increased scrutiny for their use at the federal level. So if you use them or have them in place, start talking with your lawyer about them or work with your local business support groups about getting rid of them, or other ways to go about it.
Meghan 02:16
So this episode is going to be about business introspection. So we talk a lot about being introspective of ourselves, and why it's critical to the success of our businesses and avoiding burnout. But what about being introspective of your business? Today, we're going to talk through several questions to ask about your business and how to be as honest and unbiased as possible.
Collin 02:39
And we do this because we're trying to get at four things here. We're trying to get more clarity, we're trying to reduce anxiety. We're trying to be more creative, and we're trying to address red flags. So for our clarity by asking questions, we'll cut through a lot of the mental and emotional clutter and actually start getting straight to issues that we're dealing with, especially if you start asking the same questions over a period of time, each month, each quarter, you can journal out or maybe discuss these questions with others and see how you're changing attitudes, thoughts, or mindsets are actually impacting your business. When it comes to reducing anxiety, many of us stress because of the unknown. So what better way to get rid of the unknown, then by answering some questions, there will be an answer one way or the other, and at least you'll know it then the work of changing or keeping it the same will have to take place.
Meghan 03:32
Another major reason to be introspective in your business is to be creative. Have you ever needed a new business idea and gone straight to Google? Well, you know more than you think you do, when it takes just some quiet time, some quiet space and some focus, you can bring new ideas into your business. And also only you know how you want your business to look, if you are the CEO of your business, you know what you want five years down the road 10 years down the road to look like. So while Facebook and Google can be great places to start, you still have to apply it to your specific pet business. And then also being introspective allows you to see all aspects of your business from your goals and objectives. And it will bring new thoughts and perspectives in as well. And then finally, it'll help you to see any red flags. If we are always too busy to ask the hard questions about our business if we're always doing the walks and the sit. And obviously if we're solo, that's what we have to be doing. But we also have to be taking time away stepping back and looking at our business because if we're too busy, then we're gonna miss the red flags that are warning us to do something else. by catching these red flags early, you'll be able to course correct anything and hopefully avoid major headaches in your business. So those were some of the why we are introspective or should be introspective in our businesses. But what are the questions that we should be asking up out our business to help us get to that point where we want to be, we feel that there are 10 questions that you can use on a regular basis to see how your business is doing. And the first one is, what's your business plan? This is a huge one. And we did not start off with a business plan. And you may have heard of a business plan or you may not have, it doesn't have to be complicated, although it can be it's whatever you make it. But where do you see your business in 10 years? And then how do you want to get there? And these
Collin 05:31
aren't set in stone and should be reviewed on a regular basis? So questions like, what's the long term plan? Do you still want to be working in your business versus on your business? What about growth? How about retirement?
Meghan 05:45
are you saving up enough for retirement?
Collin 05:47
Yeah, what about services that you see that you're going to need to offer? If you have one in place? Are you actually following it? And then are your values reflected in the plan, we talk a lot about why we should have our values in our business, we are personal businesses, we should have our values reflected in everything that we do so that we're consistent. So we have that reputation. So people get to know and recognize our business. Is that are those actually reflected in the business plan that you have laid out?
Meghan 06:15
Well, and then what are the services that you're offering? Do you want to keep offering those in five or 10 years? Or do you want to phase them out and kind of simplify your business, or diversify? You know, COVID really taught us that you shouldn't be putting all of your eggs in one basket. So if you were a midday dog walker, and that was the only thing you did and your sole source of income, you might need to start relying on other maybe product services, or subscription services, or pet photography, or poop scooping, or whatever it is, there are tons of options out there but diversify. Or if you don't like having a bunch of services, maybe you need to simplify, you don't like doing house sitting, okay, well cut that out or raise it exponentially. So no one $150 a night and no one's ever going to book it.
Collin 06:59
That's a good point. I think many of us have services listed on our website that either never get used or rarely get used. And so it's a good thing to think about on a quarterly basis. Do I still need to offer this? Maybe you've expanded or changed services through last year over the last couple years to adapt to different needs of clients? Are those needs still the same? And then where do you think those are going to be in the next five years? Again, bringing in the values here, do the services that you offer? And I think importantly, here, how you offer them? Do those reflect the values that you state in your business? How do you need to change or evolve your services or the products that you offer to your clients, maybe you're offering too much, I think that can be a big thing where you have so much on your plate that it's so diversified, that you feel like you're trying to be all things to all people and you haven't really needed to down or found exactly the lane that you feel like you need to be in to be running on all cylinders, to be as effective to be in line with your values. And to be meeting the needs of your clients as best as you can.
Meghan 08:01
Well, it's okay to do whatever works for you, if you just want to keep offering dog walking, great. If that's your passion in life, awesome. If you want to start offering dog collars and whatever else is products to your clients, great do that too. That's the beauty of this business, you can make it as broad or as narrow as you want it to be.
Collin 08:21
Another question you should be asking yourself is do you have the right skills to meet your goals? And this one is really big if we aren't investing in ourselves, how can we expect to grow and stay relevant. And it's not just the pet care side of things. It's taking classes, it's reading, going to conferences, listening to podcasts on things like business management, the latest in technology, how to advertise accounting, mental health, all of these components that we think of are these little hats that we wear as business owners. They're a skill set, and nobody has all of them nailed from day one. It's growing and expanding, it's changing over time, to meet your services, to meet your values and to be giving the best possible service you have to your client. So asking yourself being very honest about you. And if you have staff, asking yourself, is my skill sets sufficient to be meeting the needs of my business? And of my clients? Are they able to meet the services that I'm offering? Or that I want to offer? So do I have the skill sets to offer trading services, if I want to be going into training or mobile grooming or being better at group walks? Those are things that you can assess to build on and take classes on. And then finally, just ask yourself, when was the last time you invested in my skills? If it was a year ago, if it's two years ago, five years ago, maybe when you first started your business, a lot has changed and it's rapidly evolving in all these aspects of what it means to run a business, staying on top of them taking a class or to going to a conference every now and then are great ways to stay on top of that and assess where our weaknesses are. So we know how to fill those
Meghan 10:00
Well, it's also a great reminder that the fear free people just came out with the fear free pet sitter, there you go, yours that you can take. So sign up for that. And you can add that badge to, to your services and your website.
Collin 10:14
Thanks for that reminder, I'll have that link in the show notes to
Meghan 10:17
something that we've talked about recently is branding. We talked about it episodes 191 and 146. So a great question to ask is, what's my brand? Your brand is how you want to be known, and how that's communicated to those around you. So you can think about is your brand well received in your community? I feel like most of us would say, Yes, we are well respected. In our community. When people see our logo or see us walking in dog down the street, they know who we are, they are pleased with potentially our services or know someone who's used our services,
Collin 10:51
to people understand what you stand for, do they see the value is reflected in your work, when you're out working and walking along the street, or when you're going from home to home, the neighbors are going to see that people in the community are going to start understanding what it means to be part of your company and you are representing yourself? Do they understand that? And do they feel like they can be a part of that? And then part of your brand is? Do you know who you're talking to? You're putting messages out all the time who we think we should be talking to? But who are you actually talking to? Who's actually receiving that and connecting with it? If it's different than you expect? Why is that? What kind of things should you be doing differently, or maybe you're finding a niche in your market that you didn't expect? And this is all part of understanding who your ideal client is. So when we get our brand in line with our values, we get connected immediately with our ideal client, putting thought into on a regular basis, has my ideal client changed from last time I've done this? Who is that person? What new problems do they have in their life? What new stage of life? Are they entering into? That maybe I can adjust my marketing messages and my services to make sure that I'm meeting their needs as best as I can.
Meghan 12:05
And we actually have an entire episode dedicated to finding your ideal client. It's Episode 109. And on messaging, the next question to ask yourself is how am I marketing? This changes constantly? And is different on where you live geographically who your target clients are. But you can think about is it working? Am I reaching the people I want to be reaching in an effective and an efficient manner? Do I need to produce more content on social media? Do I need to make less? How much time am I spending versus the return that I'm getting? Everyone always talks about the ROI, return on investment, whatever advertising or marketing you're doing? Is it the best use of your time and your money, if you have a booth at an event, and you had great participation, maybe that's something you need to keep doing. And you've gathered a lot of email addresses from that. Some people don't think it's worth the time or money. Some people get all of their clients on Facebook, through Facebook, and that's great for them. Others think it's a waste of time and money. So it's all about what works for you and your business. Just make sure that the marketing that you're doing is working.
Collin 13:14
Well. And I'm going to bring this back in again is does my marketing reflect the values that I hold? As a business, we've discussed this about when it comes to and marketing our businesses unhitching ourselves from a lot of the expectations that people place on what it means to run a business in 2021. And that being online constantly and pushing out social media ads, and all that goes into that. If that doesn't jive with you, if that's not what you feel like reflects your values and what you want out of your business. You don't have to do that. And I think you know if there's a point that we hammer home a lot on this podcast, it's that you get to run your business, how you want to run it, as long as it's reflecting your business values, your goals, and is what you want it to be. That's the business that you need to be running.
Meghan 14:00
Let's take a break and tell you about our sponsor today. Palmetto scoopers 2020 showed us the importance of having a diversified business I just talked about this. Right as we take on new clients, there are many opportunities to add services and value packages to our clients. Courtney are an owner of Palmetto scoopers wants to help you be number one with your clients. Number two, hey Courtney is passionate about helping others Excel with a poop scooping service. What tools and training do you need? What do you do with all that poop? There is a link in the show notes for you to check out to learn about getting started and pet waste removal and let Courtney get you started on the right foot.
Collin 14:39
This next question is kind of obvious. But it's a question that I don't think we ask ourselves enough is am I making money? And the key here is not just Are you making money, but as obviously you are obviously but which service is making you money? Or are you losing money with any service that you provide?
Meghan 14:57
Well and not just that but also your software. Are your business expenses, your insurance every month? All of that adds up? So are you continuing to make money? Even with all of that? Do you know where your money is going?
Collin 15:09
Are there specific areas within your service area that are making more money that maybe you could focus on for even more growth? Focus on your expenses. So whether your business expenses, your insurance, your software, that you're that you have every month your gas? Ask yourself, am I spending enough on things like my advertising software or other services that could actually help me again, Megan mentioned that ROI, sometimes we have to spend money to make money. So maybe it means spending an extra $10 a month on software, if that means I can streamline my intake business for my clients.
Meghan 15:45
Or maybe it's time for new shirts, if you ordered white shirts, and they're starting to get dingy and dusty. And maybe speaking from personal experience here, I think it's time to order new shirts.
Collin 15:55
Oops, you know, we were crunched for time and whites what they had available. So you know, but it's fine. Lesson learned. Ask yourself, what should you be saving for think large annual expenses, like conferences to attend website renewal fees, or the big one? taxes?
Meghan 16:12
And then the ever looming question, am I charging enough? We have a whole episode dedicated to knowing your worth. So are you charging enough? Probably not? Unless you are the house setting person who is charging $150 a night, then you're probably charging what you're worth. First? What do you need to live? Obviously, you need to know and do a budget and make sure that you're at least covering your minimal expenses for the month. And I'm sure you are but add up all of your personal expenses for the year. Now, how many walks Do you have to have to meet that? What if you raised everything by $1 or $5?
Collin 16:51
Well, and this is really beneficial. Because if we never take a moment to step back and ask ourselves about our prices, or to take a moment to look at the actual numbers, you may find yourself looking up 510 years down the road. And having never raised your prices at all, or understand exactly where your incomes coming from doing this kind of analysis and being introspective about our prices on a quarterly or at a bare minimum and an annual basis will really help make sure that you stay on top of your expenses and stay on top of the increases that you're going to need to do to stay competitive and to keep earning the living that you need to be earning to run the business that you want to be running.
Meghan 17:34
Yeah, it's all about knowing your numbers. So if you know and you have a budget of let's say your expenses are $30,000 a year, and you want to be saving $10,000 a year. And you want some cushion as well. So you know that you need to be making at least $50,000 a year, well, then you can backtrack, you know exactly what your monthly business expenses are, and your personal expenses. So you can backtrack from there and divide by how many weeks or in the year, how many walks or sets you do each week. If it's a pretty consistent basis, obviously, with the holidays, everything kind of blows up. So it's not as predictable as a Monday through Friday, daily dogwalk. But you know that you will be making this much so you can be living comfortably. Another great question for introspection is are the clients happy? You may think they're happy. But are they send them a survey? pick their brains? What would they like to see more of in your business? What would they like to see less of? Do they think that you provide adequate service? Would they like to see something different? Would they like to see more pictures of their pets? Would they like to see less? It's vulnerable and a little scary to open ourselves up to that kind of feedback, but is really necessary to see if we are doing what our clients would like to see.
Collin 18:54
Yeah, read through your reviews with an honest lens? Do you find any patterns that you can pick up on? And I know you Megan mentioned earlier sending out a questionnaire that is really, really powerful. Pay attention to red flags with responses that you get back so that you can make adjustments as soon as possible. In the questionnaire, see if they feel cared for to they feel like they get what they paid for? Is there value there? Where are they finding you so that you can link this back to those questions and those concerns that you have about marketing and connecting with your desired clients? I think a really important number to look at here that can show you a lot about whether your clients are happy is what is the client retention? And what are the repeat numbers look like for the clients that you have? Are there any pain points in the process of onboarding or payment or communications that they can tell you about? So you can start smoothing those over and bringing on software or help or streamlining those processes entirely.
Meghan 19:50
And again, these are not easy things to ask from your people, but they are necessary.
Collin 19:54
There's something termed SWOT a SWOT analysis that people will do for themselves. But SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. But here remember, we're focusing on our business. So what does your business do really well, those are your strengths. These are the things are going to help set you apart from others.
Meghan 20:16
Do you offer chilled water on dog walks? Do you have previous experience as a vet tech and know how to administer medication really well to a cat? These are things that are going to differentiate you from the next pet care provider down the street,
Collin 20:30
then assess your weaknesses as a business. And
Meghan 20:32
this is hard.
Collin 20:33
Yeah, what can you do better? What about your onboarding process? I know that tends to be a pain point for many people. How about the website that you have out there? Or the way that you're communicating with clients? scheduling payments? Maybe even linking this back also to the skills and doing a skills assessment for your business? Do you and your employees have the skills that you would like to have? Or do you need more training?
Meghan 20:58
Do you have your phone number plastered everywhere, but you hate taking phone calls, and always send them to voicemail? Well send them to your website, instead, don't even put your phone number on the back of your shirt, because a lot of times people can't even write down numbers that fast unless they take a picture of the back of your shirt. Same thing with the car magnet, if you don't like taking phone calls, don't have it on there. Just put their website on there, especially if you can they can just book directly from the website,
Collin 21:24
take an honest look about the opportunities that you have on hand for your business. So what could your business be taking advantage of what kind of partnerships Could you be doing new services, new prices, possibly or different clientele in your area? And I think really taking a hard look at the ability to partner with people in your community is a is an opportunity that a lot of us are not taking more advantage of or weak, we really need to be leaning into that as a way to build community build connections and start being being seen as a member of our community.
Meghan 21:59
Yeah, there are so many rescues shelters, groomers, restaurants, pet friendly hotels, there are so many ways that you can be partnering with people that will lift and raise both of you up and as the pet community as well in your community.
Collin 22:13
The last part of doing a SWOT analysis is looking at the T which is threats. And this can be competition but but not always, this can be changes in the economics of your area, how what are the employment rates, like maybe even a threat could be rising gas prices, if you feel like your service area is really large, a threat to your business is very expensive gasoline, or marketing challenges as marketing changes from more a pen and paper to online. And all of that goes into that with the algorithms that those are threats to the way that we are used to operating. So basically take a look at any way that you are currently operating that is it like a standard operating procedure? What is going out in the world around you, that would be a threat to how you are currently operating? Then once you get to do what you get to do with that is you get to diminish those threats and turn them into opportunities for growth and expansion and for differentiation. And then what are you going to be doing to strengthen your weaknesses and continue to submit your strengths to set yourself apart from others in your area?
Meghan 23:19
Being introspective in your business also means asking, How am I managing? And this is important for whether you have employees or ICS or not nothing at all, you're just so low. We all work with and interact with others at some point. So you can ask what's my style? Are you more of a hands on manager? Or do you like to step back and let others take the reins? Do you delegate? Well, this is extremely important. If you want to grow and scale your business to you just working one hour a week in it, it is possible people do do it. But you have to delegate and let others take the tasks that you don't want to do. But then sometimes that you do want to do Am I team friendly? Do you like working with others?
Collin 24:05
Do I reflect my business well in how I work with others? Do I bring in my core values, my goals, my objectives, my dreams for my business? Do I let that flow through and how I interact with others and how I say hi and how I work with them and how I delegate if my values that I say that are plastered on my website and on my contract and everywhere. If I have those out there but I don't live those out. Yes with my clients but also with my staff that I have on. That's very telling and people are going to see that you are going to struggle dealing with having employees,
Meghan 24:41
okay, so if you don't have staff, you are still managing and delegating to others. If you have a social media person that does all of your social media, you are delegating to them. If you have hired out for your website, you have delegated to them. If you have paid somebody on Fiverr to create a logo for you, you have delegated to them even if you don't have a lot of communication, you have still given to some part of your business over to someone else. And so that can be an extension of you in some way, whether it's small, like a fiber person, or big whether you have 20 staff or not.
Collin 25:15
And then finally, the last question that we always need to be asking ourselves when we are being introspective is, do I need help? We've worked through all of these previous nine questions, and a lot of us struggle with the simple question of asking for help. And that's understandable. It's our business. Sometimes it feels like we need to be the ones that are out there, killing it day after day after day that we have all of the answers that we've got it all together, that we're balancing all these hats all at the same time. That is totally not true. Nobody has all this together. 100% of the time, day after day, and
Meghan 25:51
ever, not even us
Collin 25:52
not even. Yeah, we are the poster children for not having it together. Everybody needs help with something at some time sooner rather than later. So where do you wit and where do I need help? Is it with marketing? Is it in advertising? Is it in understanding my brand? Is it honing in on who my clients are? Is it understanding which training I need?
Meghan 26:14
Do you want to hire but you think you're going to be a terrible manager?
Collin 26:17
Yeah, exactly. So what kind of training Do you need for that? Asking yourself is my time being spent appropriately? In my business, Megan touched on this earlier, there are things that we want to be doing things that we should be doing, or things that we should not be doing. And those can get out of balance and out of whack sometimes. So what do we need to implement in our life? To get those back into balance? Maybe you need to ask yourself, do I need a new or different employees to fill in some gaps. Many times when we think about hiring, we immediately think of somebody to go out there and walk the dogs and to pet the cats. Sometimes the first hire that we need to do is the administrative work to do the booking to the scheduling to keep everything all together. Or it's outsourcing entirely to something whether it's you feel like you should be slogging through and understanding what it means to keep your website up to date, maybe the first thing you do is offload that in delegate and outsource that to a web site manager to host that to keep that up to date. So you don't even have to think about that anymore. You could be focusing on something else. Just asking for help means bringing people into our lives to take stress away, and to bring in positive energy and to help us we bring in help to help us be better to help our business be better as well. And that comes in all forms and sizes, all shapes and colors. That so that we can be doing what we actually want to be doing the through line for all of these questions. And the reason that we're doing this introspect in the first place, is understanding is my business, in line with my values and my goals, and we need help with our business is out of line and off kilter from what we actually want it to be.
Meghan 28:01
So using these questions can really help you, of course, correct and get back in line with where you want to be in where your business can grow. Exactly. We would love to know if you have ever reflected on your business. If you do a yearly before the start of the new year reflection and introspection on your business. Obviously, a lot of us do that with our personal lives. But if you've done one with your business as well, we'd love to know how you did it and what you learned through that process. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram at petsitter confessional
Collin 28:34
this week Natasha answers for the ASPCA pet biz coach segment the question about how do I stop feeling like I have to be on all the time in my business. When running a business, we often feel like we have to be on all the time, we have to be constantly ready to take on a challenge ready to solve problems and then doing things to grow and work on the business. How do we stop having those feelings and be able to refocus on the lives that we have around us?
Natasha 29:05
Yeah, you got to make a schedule. Okay. I do always say that you got to be working on the business and not in the business. But that means something and a schedule. Okay? So I only work on my business two days a week, that is my schedule. I maximize those two days. Any other days, I enjoy my real life that I was designed for, and the purpose of why I'm even an owner, okay, so if you are doing running, running, running running rat, race, rat race, rat race, and you don't know why you're doing it, or on what kind of schedule, it's gonna feel like everywhere, nowhere. But if you're like, no on Mondays and Wednesdays is when I go out and I get business and I meet people and I chit chat. And I actually, if you're a female, that's when I actually do my makeup or if you're a guy that's actually when I get a haircut on Sunday because I know I'm gonna do a Monday and Wednesday type thing. You know that those are the two days that you're on in all the other day. You have permission to be off, because you have the power to schedule it that way.
Collin 30:04
Well, in those days, when you're are scheduled and you are sticking to it, those are so gratifying. And they're so satisfying at the end of the day, because you were able to focus, right? When you're trying to do all this stuff scattered here out, like a, you know, like a crazed person throughout, you know, trying to accomplish it all every single day, you never feel quite satisfied that something got done, when you have it scheduled and you meet those times and you're doing them, you can actually feel that in your soul, right and feel the weight lifted off your shoulders, because you know, that work was done. And now I don't have to worry about it. Until next time.
Natasha 30:38
Yeah, I mean, that's your power day. So if you're working every I mean, I work this I work two weeks ago, on a Monday and a Tuesday. And I was like, Oh, my mind hurts.
Meghan 30:49
Because I was like, Oh,
Natasha 30:51
I worked on a Monday and Tuesday, just because I had this to do list that I actually only said on Tuesdays, I'm going to get this such and such day done. But that's not even my day that I was working. So if you know me, I do Renzo and Ruby on Monday and Wednesday, and then I help other businesses on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So I do it that way, because I run two businesses. But when I'm overlapping, and I have this whole long to do list that I didn't mentally tell myself, I was going to check some things off on that day, they just pile up and pile it when you guys know what it looks like. You know what it feels like when you have a to do list for the to do list and then the to do list after that. But when you're like this is my to do list on Monday, I'm going to do this, this and this. These are the things that I have to get done before the end of the day. You'd be surprised how much you do. And I mean, I've taken on this philosophy for years, even when I was in corporate America, because in the automotive industry, they'll work you to the till you're dry, they will take you seven days a week, 12 hours if you allow them to. And I scaled my schedule back then to three days. And they're like, why are you crushing everyone's numbers and you only work three days like how the heck are you doing this? And I said, I'm doing this because I only work three days. Because I'm refreshed. I'm happy. I have a life. I have things that I'm working on. And when I come see you guys, I give it my all. But if you guys are burning me down seven days a week, 12 hours a day, I have nothing left for you or me. So doesn't this make better sense to just do my power days, three days? And they're like, Well, whatever works, honey? And I said Yeah, me too. That's just my strategy. And it really works because you can't you can't do anything every single day. You can't. There's nothing you can do every single day except grieve okay.
Meghan 32:40
Natasha not only runs her own successful dog walking business, but she has a pet business coach as well. And if you would like her to coach you through your business, you can go to her website, start scale sale, calm and use the code PSC 20 for 15% off her coaching. We thank you so much for joining us today. And if you ever have a topic that you would like us to cover or a specific person you would like us to interview, we are always open to suggestions and have really enjoyed making almost 200 episodes over the past three years. And we can't wait to do more. So we thank you so much for listening and for sharing for continuing to listen to us and our interviewees every week. We really appreciate it.
Collin 33:18
We absolutely do. And we want to thank our sponsor, Palmetto scoopers and our Patreon supporters this week and don't forget to get in those ask us anything questions by Episode 200 if you'd like us to answer them on the show, have a wonderful, awesome week.
Meghan 33:33
Thank you. Bye
