198: Should you scale up or down?
Brought to you by Pet Sitters Associates
Summary
As in life, businesses have ebbs and flows. The pandemic showed us what we liked and what we didn’t like about being in the pet care industry.
To take advantage of those, we have to be introspective and ask ourselves if scaling up or down is right for us. Each of us will have our own reasons, and only you know which is right for you and your goals.
We discuss the difference between scaling up or scaling down, when it’s right for you, and ways to implement it in your business. Then, Natasha O’Banion answers, “What is leadership?”
Topics on this episode:
Scaling up…or down
How to scale up
How to scale down
Which is right for you?
Ask a Pet Biz Coach
Main takeaway: Scale up to broaden your reach, scale down to focus your efforts.
Links:
Pet Sitters Associates: use ‘Confessional’ at checkout
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
scaling, business, clients, services, people, sitters, confessional, question, pet, offer, pet sitters, hiring, focused, process, introspective, running, life, listening, goals, person
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin, Natasha
Meghan 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. Hello, welcome to Episode 198. Hello, thank you for joining us today. We've been putting out content for almost three years, lots of episodes, almost 200 of them. So thank you for listening to this one. And also thank you to pet sitters associates and our awesome Patreon members. They support us every month with just a price of a cup of coffee. And we thank you guys so much for helping produce the show. If you would like to learn more about doing that you can go to petsitter confessional comm slash support.
Collin 01:01
This is the last week to submit your ask us anything questions, because next Monday will be our 200th episode with Woot. And we are celebrating by opening up the question inbox. So you can send us a message on Facebook or Instagram at petsitter. confessional. Anything that you want to ask us? Let's do it.
Meghan 01:21
So today's topic is about scaling up or scaling down. This topic flows really well from last week's episode 196, where we talked about business introspection. And so once we have assessed where our business is, we can start to see where we want it to go five years, 10 years, 20 years down the line. The pandemic has really made everyone take a good hard look at their businesses and assess what they liked, what they didn't like, maybe things you wanted to change. Some people liked doing the midday dog walks, some people liked doing houses, others hated working 15 hour days and didn't like that they felt their business was really kind of run by their clients. Whatever reason you had for liking or disliking your business, now is a great time to change it. Why? Well, the best time to start running the business that you want is yesterday. But the second best time is today, today.
Collin 02:22
Plus the industry is still in flux and ripe for innovation and new, better business models. So what is scaling up? It's a lot of different things, it can be offering more services, it could be hiring, like a manager or website designer or social media person, his staff members admin, any of those that will help free up more of your time to working on the business instead of in the business. The point is, you're trying to broaden your reach, whether through services or number of clients reach.
Meghan 02:55
And then the opposite is scaling down. So this could be offering less services. And you could accomplish this by raising your rates. Or it could be niching down maybe specializing on a certain dog breed or a specific service.
Collin 03:10
I think what's really important for this one, though, is that when we typically think of things scaling down or scaling back, it comes with a negative connotation. But we are not implying that at all. This is not a bad term, it is not negative. It is just looking at our business and realizing that we maybe we want to do something differently. And we are trying to do less of something. So we can actually have the business that we want to be running.
Meghan 03:32
It could also mean scaling back on social media, if you find yourself mindlessly scrolling when you're supposed to be posting or actively engaging with people, or you force yourself to make a post today, but you really struggle with coming up with content and keeping up with it. And it's just not worth your mental energy maybe post every other day or twice a week. It could also mean scaling down your communication with clients. This does not mean don't communicate with them. But it means if you update them three times a day about their boarding dog or the house that you're doing, but you really only want to do two times a day, then do two. If you photo dump a ton of photos at the end of the day, I've heard some sitter's do upwards of 50 to 60, which is kind of crazy to me, we don't do that. But if that's what you do, and you don't enjoy it, scale it back. Really think about quality over quantity here. And the point of scaling down is when you want to or you need to focus so the scaling up was when you want to broaden and when the scaling down is when you want to really focus
Collin 04:37
at this point. I know there's a question of asking, okay, well, which one is better? which one should you want versus the other? And really hint here, there's no right answer, which I guess is what we say a lot of about things in life and in business. It's about getting back to what you want and the life that you are actually looking for. Some people don't want to manage anyone Ever, so they'd be looking to scale down. Others want to work in their business as little as possible. So they're going to look to scale up. This is focused versus broadening approach to get what you want and understand exactly how you want your business to operate.
Meghan 05:15
Okay, so then the follow up question is, how do you know if you should scale up a good sign is if you are feeling burned out, I feel like a lot of us are probably feeling like this right now. Because the summer is insane. Everybody is traveling and getting away, right. But it this is important when you are ready to do so then you should scale up, do not force yourself into a situation that you are not ready for. If you are turning away a ton of business, it may be time for you to scale up. But just because you are super busy and turning away clients doesn't mean that you need to scale up if you aren't ready, you need to have the right systems, the right processes in place to be able to handle the load.
Collin 06:01
I think you also need to be in the right mental space to be managing to have all those moving parts going on around you and to get ready to gear up to be actually running and managing a larger operation than just yourself or maybe yourself and one other person in your business. It's a mindset shift to.
Meghan 06:19
And we talk about systems and processes all the time. But what exactly does that mean?
Collin 06:23
Well, it means for hiring, you need to have things like manuals, contracts, you need to have good advertisements for your staff that you can AB test across multiple platforms. And it means setting your business up to run without you having a lot of things automated as far as intake forms, having a lot of digital things in place, having your website up and running and having it work for you. So that it's answering the questions. People aren't having to reach out to you every single time they need something it's found on the website. It's found in an automated booking process with your software. And you are not having to micromanage each one of those things, you can be off doing other things.
Meghan 06:59
Another good way to tell if you're ready to scale up is if you are exceeding your goals. And this doesn't necessarily have to be financial, although that is probably the most apparent that you think of when you talk about exceeding your goals. This could also be the number of clients that you have or the space that you have available. If you board or provide daycare, think of the total number of clients that you have. Now imagine that just 5% of those took a vacation at the same time. I panic. Yeah. Could you handle that? And I think our answer is no,
Collin 07:30
no, we could not. No, they've they've I don't know if they're commiserating with each other, but it seems like they've tried to make 5% leave at the same time. It's been a lot to handle.
Meghan 07:38
Yeah, several weekends have been crazy for us recently, but be introspective about your business. And then importantly, fix any holes in your system. And this is not easy. You have to identify the problem, come up with a solution and then implement it for the holes in your system.
Collin 07:55
And these holes could be anything that you're having to do and a repetitive nature. Or it could be a whole something you never thought of before. Whether it's part of the onboarding process for a client with the unique situation or anything in between. It does take time to be introspective. line out all of your processes, line up all of your goals. And make sure you're not missing anything in those steps so that you can work through this scaling up process.
Meghan 08:19
Next, we're going to talk through how to scale up but first, as pet care professionals, your clients trust you to care for their furry family members at pet sitters associates, they are 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 can take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom in 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 using the discount code confessional at checkout to get $10 off today. Check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again at pets@llc.com.
Collin 09:02
What's the process of scaling up? Well, the first thing is to know your endgame, we have to start with the end in mind, focus on where you want to be not where you are right now. Because where you are right now will not be meeting the needs of your the scale that you're looking at. It will not be equipping you with how you want to move forward. So we need to be thinking again, this five this 10 year plan. Where do you want your business and very importantly, hear your personal life to be because we're always concerned and focused on making sure that these two are in alignment, so that we're operating true to ourselves. And we're getting the things that we want out of life and not feeling like we're sacrificing anything for our business.
Meghan 09:40
also keeping your processes as simple as possible. You just talked about this, but if you are keep getting the same question over and over again, what are your rates? Do you take pitfalls, whatever the questions are, that you get frequently asked, you need to have a streamlined process. For those maybe you have a scripted out text message that you can just copy and paste directly And send it to them. Maybe you have a call center that can answer the questions. If you prefer to have people call you have a streamlined meet and greet process standard forms, questions and contracts you send to every client to weed out clients that aren't a good fit.
Collin 10:15
Then since we're talking about scaling up here, we need to be focused on bringing in good staff, and very importantly, having good collaborations. So this is networking with other sales sitters, shelters, groomers going through a very refined, focused process for bringing on the staff that you want to be operating with, and are going to have the skills and mindset to help you meet those goals. Don't just think about getting tasks done. Think about bringing people to work on your team to be team members that are going to take ownership in your business and are going to actually help you scale this process so that you are not doing it alone.
Meghan 10:51
Well. And unfortunately, nobody is going to care about your business as much as you do. No. But hopefully, you can find team members that are going to align with the values and mission statement that you have for your business and are as passionate about pets as you are.
Collin 11:06
And we do recognize that the staffing issues right now around the country and globe are a major concern for many people who are looking to scale and are looking to bring on more people but are having problems attracting the ones that they actually want. I think this problem is going to abate throughout the year and especially early into next year. So it's going to be this balancing act of working with what we can right now while also having an eye on continuing to have those ads out there. So that we can take advantage of the right people when those come along. It's we never want to be hiring when we're in the most need. That needs to be this continuous cycle of bringing in people going through a review process having their things on file, so that when it's time for us to go ahead, we have all those things lined up and we're not left scrambling.
Meghan 11:49
Also, knowing your ideal client is huge. When trying to scale up, make social media posts and newsletters that speak to them. And then also look at other sitters in your area, or even across the globe, Instagram is great for that. You can just search a hashtag, and a ton of them will pop up. So look at their Facebook pages, look at their Instagram pages. What do they do that you don't implement some of these things that they do that you like, obviously, don't copy their website or copy their social media posts. But if they, for example, if they offer a tuck in service, and you are tired of doing house sitting in client's homes, consider offering that. But don't forget, it's not all about services, though. What about your onboarding process, your payment processing, all of the other touch points that a client has play a major role, you may offer the exact same services as someone else you probably do. But you have a faster or less confusing way of booking, that's a huge edge. Above all, you are the competitive edge and the people that you surround yourself with because like we say all the time, no, but no two businesses are the same.
Collin 12:57
We're also going to need that looking at our marketing processes. Get in front of as many eyeballs as you possibly can. If you want to grow your business, you need to grow your presence as well online and in real person events, to show up at pet events, or even just community events. In general with your business shirt on.
Meghan 13:15
I am so good at this.
Collin 13:17
Megan takes advantage of every little thing possible where she's out there with her shirt, making the
Meghan 13:23
we need to order more shirts,
Collin 13:24
we do actually look into using Google ads, think of boots on the ground type of work that you can implement as well thinking back to those collaborations and those partnerships in your community. Above all, stay focused on your values and how you market and you obtain your clients continued focus on quality work that speaks for itself, and use messaging that connects with the clients that you want. Again, it's this multistage process, identify the clients you want be offering amazing service, and then use messaging use language use techniques on both social media and in person events that are going to connect those two.
Meghan 13:58
Okay, so that was all scaling up. There was a lot there. But what about if you want to scale down? How do you know if you should scale down? Well, when you offer a variety of services, but only one or two are highly profitable. And a couple caveats here, we offer five services, but only two are highly profitable. However, we still are going to keep the others around because that is where we want to scale and grow the business. So we want to kind of flip flop where we are right now. So you also have to look at what services you enjoy doing. Keep the end game in mind if you enjoy the ones that are not as profitable, raise prices on the ones you don't enjoy so that potentially people will start to turn to your other services
Collin 14:45
organ work on those marketing messages to connect to different clientele and different needs then you're speaking to right now with your current messaging.
Meghan 14:52
So once you've figured out if it's time for you to scale down, then how do you go about doing it. If you must scale down, use it as a step towards success, whatever success looks like for you, it's different for everybody.
Collin 15:05
Yeah, unfortunately, again, many of us scaling down as a sign of defeat, we form personal connections with employees with clients, and letting go can really rattle us and make it feel like we have failed personally, because we are not as quote unquote, successful because we're not as busy as we were before. scaling down doesn't mean anything about your success or failure. All scaling down here is readjusting, refocusing, and learning about ourselves and what we want so that we can move forward in a much better manner. Again, nothing is better versus scaling down versus scaling. It's all about our goals about the end game in mind,
Meghan 15:42
think of this process as simplifying or minimalizing, the parts of the business that you don't want anymore, or that aren't in alignment with your goals. So here, client communication and pricing are key. If you're moving from offering 20 different services to four, tell the story of why and what it means moving forward, any kind of change in your business big or small, the client may freak out about if you have, even if you have 200 clients, there's going to be some portion that are not going to be willing to change with you and may leave you no matter what is happening, what you're doing in your business. So give plenty of notice, if possible, of the change, and be ready to give out referrals for the services that you no longer offer. Additionally, if you continue to price the way you did when you offered more services, or had more employees and clients, you'll unfortunately never make the money that you need. Which is why scaling down is usually associated with a price increase and a niche of services that you can specialize in.
Collin 16:47
How do you know which one of these is right for you. Being introspective about this and asking that question? What do you want for your business? Do you want to be a six or seven figure pet business in multiple states or that dominates your city scale up? Do you always want to be a solopreneur and never want to deal with hiring, scale down. Even if your company is growing like crazy, don't assume it'll be that way forever. always err on the side of safety and have the money in hand and customer contracts signed before you make big decisions, such as expanding your team or taking on additional overhead. While it's important to plan for the future. Remember that nothing's definitive until it's actually happens. We saw that all through last year, be prepared to move the needle. But don't take those steps until everything is set in stone, no matter how promising something looks. It doesn't count. Unless it actually happens. pictures or it didn't happen.
Meghan 17:38
Yeah, scaling a business up or down is probably one of the hardest things a business owner will have to do. But all companies will go through it at some point. If you hire carefully, you plan ahead and you don't make any major decisions until everything is signed on the dotted line, you'll likely come out stronger and more successful on the other side, no matter which way you go. So remember, ups and downs are like life, it's just going to happen COVID nobody saw it coming. But it happened and it virtually almost wiped out in the petsitting industry in the dog walking industry. But it's really remembering how to weather those storms. And remembering the lessons that COVID taught us that we didn't want burnout, that we didn't want to work 15 hours a day that we didn't want clients to run our businesses that we didn't want to do the services that we didn't want to do. And now on the other side of it, that we're so busy that things are really ramped up to an 11 right now that we need to remember all of those things, even when we are hiring.
Collin 18:43
But what if neither is right, what if you've listened to this? And you're saying, Well, I don't really want to scale up and I don't feel like scaling down kind of like just where I am right now. Well, truthfully, there is something to be said for keeping the status quo. If you're satisfied with your level of success, however you've defined that in your life, if you're happy with that with the services, with the prices with the clients that you're attracting in your business, congratulations, you're running the business that you want to be running. That's, that's awesome, and we would love to interview you. Right then don't change a thing. We have no idea what the future holds. And there may be more lockdowns, there may be a downturn in the economy, there may be robots walking dogs for us sometime in the future. Sometimes having a wait and see mentality and not rushing through decisions will allow you to make a much more certain decision when the time comes. But it's always a balancing act of being patient and needing to jump and take advantage of opportunities as they come along. That's the power of being introspective. taking breaks throughout the year really focusing on what your core business is and thinking about what you want to look like ahead while taking a broader picture of what the economy doing what the changing of the demographic of your clientele are. It's about understanding when to jump, and when to stay. And it's all up to your risk aversion and what you want in life.
Meghan 20:06
If you have scaled up or scaled down your business through either COVID or in previous years, we would love to know and possibly interview you. If you'd be up for it. You can send us an email at feedback at petsitter confessional comm or Facebook or Instagram at pet sitter confessional, Natasha opionion pet business coach, and that dog walker business owner herself is answering the question today, what is leadership?
Collin 20:33
leadership is very important for how we make decisions and how we bring others around us. So do you have to you How would you define leadership? And then how do we start becoming better leaders?
Natasha 20:46
Yeah, a leader is a teacher, okay. It is a person with the vision that they are teaching others what to do. They're not telling. They're teaching you. I am now showing you what the vision I have outlined the vision for the company for the team as the leader. Now let me show and teach on how we can get this done. When you are showing teaching empowering, people naturally want to follow you because I'm learning so much gear I'm in I'm growing so much. There's it's just never adult day. And I feel invested in this company. There's so much more that I want to give. But when you're kind of telling all day, like we'll do this, we'll do that, do this, do that. And then they do it and they're like, oh, what's next boss? or What else do you got? Boss? I did everything you told me to do. You know, they just kind of feel a little parrot like, and that's no, that's no life for anyone to really live. And people wonder why like the employee relationship tends to only last five years because you can only boss someone around or tell them what to do for so long. But when you empower them and say listen, this is my vision. I'd like to know what you think about it. I'd like to know where you think we can maximize or where you could help us move this along. And when they're like oh wow, you want to include me in this Absa daggone loot Lee, they will take half of that vision and run with it. And now you've opened up your free time you've led them to success and the whole team sees success because it's a group effort.
Meghan 22:23
Natasha is a pet business coach. And if you would like her to coach you through your personal pet business, you can go to start scale sale calm and use the code PSC 20 for 15% off her coaching.
Collin 22:36
Thank you so much to our sponsor for today's episode, pet sitters associates, as well as our Patreon members who contribute every month to make this show possible.
Meghan 22:44
And we want to thank you the listener, we are very appreciative of you listening you have no idea. So we do we just thank you and thank you for sharing. Thank you for leaving a review whatever you do to help support us. Thank you. We appreciate you. We hope you join us next time. Bye
