204: Our Journey, so far!
Brought to you by Courtney Cecal from Palmetto Scoopers
Summary
This episode is unlike any other we’ve done. We received many questions about our history, so we decided to make an entire episode about it.
We deep dive into our personal history: how we met and our decade in pet care. We also answer questions about what the future looks like for our business and what our ultimate goal is.
Then, Natasha O’Banion answers, "How do you keep your staff organized?"
Topics on this episode:
How we met
How we started pet sitting
What's happening currently
Our plans for the future
Ask a Pet Biz Coach
Main takeaway: We are ALL on our own journeys and we're so thankful to be going through it with you.
Links:
Courtney Cecal from Palmetto Scoopers
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Give us a call! (636) 364-8260
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Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, & TuneIn
Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, pet, started, meghan, clients, grew, running, podcast, schedule, episode, ideas, hiring, people, thought, lubbock, pet sitter, funky, dogs, moved, helping
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin Funkhouser, 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. Hi, welcome to Episode 204. Hello. Thank you to our sponsor, Palmetto scoopers and are awesome producers. If you would like to learn how to become a producer and support us with just the price of a cup of coffee every month, you can go to petsitter confessional comm slash support. So a few weeks ago, we had a q&a episode to celebrate our 200th episode. And we got a lot of questions about us personally. So we thought we'd make a bespoke episode about them. And specifically, the questions were,
Collin Funkhouser 01:03
what did you both do prior to running your own pet care business? And did your previous work experience influence the way you operate? Another question was I have always wanted to know how the love story began. AKA How did he propose? What made y'all the power couple y'all are today? And at what point do you decide to stop working for a company and go into business for yourself? Then there was Do you have your own pet sitting biz? Or do you pets it through rover?
Meghan 01:29
So if you don't want to learn more about us, you can skip this episode. We hope you don't. But so this is our journey so far.
Collin Funkhouser 01:38
We both grew up in Missouri. I grew up near Springfield, Missouri. Megan grew up in St. Louis. Yes, yeah. And we both took care of a lot of pets. Growing up. I had dribbles and hamsters, chickens, horses, tons and tons of dogs growing up. And then even in my undergraduate I started to do some pet sitting mostly for a lot of the professors at the university. One of them was taking care of the hinge back tortoises that he kept in stables in his basement and Ball Pythons as well.
Meghan 02:10
Yeah. And then I think they had some horses as well,
02:12
some ponies that they had to take care of. Yeah, and that were in stables outside.
Meghan 02:17
Yeah. And so I grew up with one doxon. His name was bagel. I named him when I was nine, which is kind of where bagel came from, because it's something a nine year old would think of. And I also did a little bit of pet sitting for some friends from church growing up when I was a teenager. So we both had a little bit of experience before we did this together professionally. But
Collin Funkhouser 02:38
before we were petsitting. Together, the magic all started back at Missouri State University, where we both went to for our undergraduates, we were both in the biology department pursuing biology undergraduate degrees. And I first came in contact with Megan, because Megan was working in a lab for this professor. And she was sorting aquatic invertebrates from detritus samples from around the city of Springfield, she was sitting looking into a dissecting microscope, and sorting and counting all the stuff. And she's getting paid for it. And she did a really good job. I think I volunteered for probably less than an hour.
Meghan 03:17
I remember it being one hour
03:18
came in thought I was all the hot stuff. And then was gone. And I don't think I left a really good impression on mega,
Meghan 03:25
to be honest, I mean, not really volunteered for one hour. And I was in the middle of this really long, intensive project. And so it just kind of felt like you could have given a little bit more, but you know, it's fine. Anyway, from there, we kept running into each other around the campus, like concept. We were both in the biology department. So we ran into each other a lot. And then it really started at the Gulf Coast research lab one summer down in Biloxi, Mississippi. Yeah. So we had both the travel there separately for their biology program. And we really started hanging out there and going on different excursions and overnight marine biology trips.
Collin Funkhouser 04:05
Yeah. And then she would help me study for graduate school because that's where I kind of had my eye going. And we just kept kind of running, coming back into contact with each other. And this kind of culminated in the proposal for me to Megan
Meghan 04:20
Yeah, you had rented a boat in August of 2011. Yes. And you had purchased some scuba gear where we go because we were both certified to go scuba diving. And it didn't quite work out that way.
04:33
No, no, the gear was was broken. I didn't purchase I rented it and they gave me broken rental equipment. So I'm glad we didn't try and dive down because I probably would have died.
Meghan 04:44
We snorkeled Anyway, it was
04:45
it was fine if we start with around the cliffs and stuff on the Bull Shoals lake and it was a lot of fun and then kind of towards the end. I had Megan go pull up the anchor. And well,
Meghan 04:53
when I turned around after having pulled up the anchor, he was on one knee
04:58
and I don't remember exactly what I said. There's probably something really cheesy about more adventures. And I have no idea anyway, you said yes, that's really all.
Meghan 05:08
So anyway, we got married January 7 2012. And four days later we were so we're both from Missouri. We got married in Missouri. And then four days after we got married, we moved right down to Lubbock, Texas for Collins master's degree.
Collin Funkhouser 05:21
Yeah, so we go to I go to Texas Tech for for my masters. And certainly after Megan got accepted to the master's program there as well. So her master's degrees in environmental toxicology, mine is a natural resource management. And at this time, we weren't making a lot of money at all. And we knew that we needed to try and make more income. And so we challenged each other to come up with a side business or something that we could do as graduate students. And
Meghan 05:49
I had found an ad on Craigslist looking for a dog sitter, when Craigslist was a thing. It's not really anymore. Much. But back in 2012, it was and so I just thought, Okay, cool. That's something we could do. We love dogs, and both grew up around dogs, and why not?
06:04
My business was to be an aquarium cleaning and construction business. And I won't tell you which one was more successful. But
Meghan 06:11
I mean, you did get a couple clients like to fine.
Collin Funkhouser 06:19
And we, we never had an official launch of our business business. We just started offering our service. And Megan was really good. And still is really good about plastering our advertisements and messaging everywhere on social media and all the platforms including Craigslist at the time.
Meghan 06:34
Yeah. So I signed up us up for Craigslist, just plastered an ad up there. I don't remember what I said. But yeah, I was we were on Craigslist. And then we're also signed up for rover as well.
Collin Funkhouser 06:46
Yeah. And in the early days, we also did a lot of client referral discounts. So if a client referred us they would get x percentage or X number of dollars off their next service that they used. And that was a great way for us to get into people's inner circles was easier for them to do that, to refer us out to them. And that helped us go pretty quickly.
Meghan 07:06
I mean, I will say that what we know about pet care industry now, versus what we knew when we started off in 2012 is nothing. Yeah, it's light years away. We all we knew is that we loved dogs, and we wanted to walk them. And so over the years, we have known about these trainings and certifications and all these things that make a pet care provider. Awesome. And so it's just a learning process. So no matter no matter where you are on that process today, you will always continue to grow and learn. And hopefully this podcast and the interviews have helped you do that along your journey. And so just know that everybody is on their journey somewhere, right?
Collin Funkhouser 07:48
Yeah, exactly. And then part of our journey was once we were done at Lubbock, we moved to Arlington, Texas, so that I could continue on with it another degree. And we stayed with rover and we started branching out more and more doing private sets, while we were in Arlington. And again, really honed in on word of mouth, doing a lot of social media advertisements, not necessarily advertisements, but posting, we never paid for an advertisement. I think we've only done that like once in the last 10 years, but doing a lot of blast and commenting on posts. And then we had our kids. And so we did take a break through with with petsitting when we had our kids.
Meghan 08:25
Yeah, I mean, we kept two of our very best clients, I think maybe three, but definitely two of our best clients, one, that we just absolutely love their dogs, our dogs had been around kids already. And were just very generous and nice to us. And then the other one was very easy drop in on their two dogs. And so we just we kept our very best clients, because we knew that the time for kids was going to be of huge adjustment, and one that nobody can really prepare for. So we had really pared down our client list and we had given them months notice I don't remember exactly. I think we had told them around the five month mark. Yeah. So we had given them about four months notice of when we were totally going to be ending pet care services for them. And most of them were I think all of them were really understanding danis they were celebrate Tory with us they were excited for this new chapter in our lives. And they all took it really well. And then we made the move to where we currently are in Missouri, very small town. Smallest town I've ever lived in.
09:33
We did it to be closer to family and so that I could take a position to be a biologist with the Department of Conservation here.
Meghan 09:40
So I think important through all of this is we had always had different sources of income. And we still do yeah, we always had the business and something else. Either we were doing the business in conjunction with your job or my job or we just all we've always had varying sources of income and that's okay. If you Do this part time, it's okay, if you do this full time, it's okay. Because 2020 taught us that you really shouldn't have all of your eggs in one basket, you need to diversify your income. And especially if you're interested in many things, and being an entrepreneur in many things, it's great to have multiple businesses.
Collin Funkhouser 10:18
So I was doing my nine to five when we moved here, and Megan was running the pet sitting business. And then I would help out in the early mornings, or late evenings and on the weekends, as I could and worked around my work schedule to help out
Meghan 10:31
Yeah, well, and when we moved here, we did not move here with the intention of really starting our business back up. It was only once we had been here for a few for a few weeks, when I realized that this was something that we could do that our area was really underserved in this area, and needed some pet care providers. And we already had 567 years of experience or seven years experience at that time. Yeah, so we thought why not? Yeah. And so that's kind of when funky bunch, Petcare was born, funky bunch. It's obviously that's a play on our last name Funkhouser, and we had just kind of trying to figure out and toyed with different names, and we knew that we wanted it relatively short, easy to remember. And I didn't want to have both pet sitting and dog walking in there or pet services, pet care just kind of encompassed everything that we had wanted to do in our business. And I also didn't want it based on location, either, because we're going to be potentially moving in the future or signing up remotely or whatever. And so you had come up with funky,
Collin Funkhouser 11:39
funky well, because that's obviously within last name like Funkhouser growing up for the past 30 years, 33 years. At this point, you hear that a lot funky Funkhouser, and so it's kind of always in the back of my mind. And then bunch came from when we would send updates and the owner had multiple dogs, we would say things like the gang is doing well, the crew is well the bunch is doing great. And it kind of brought to mind this imagery of just having everybody all together like a community community as part of something. So things start to flow of like join the bunch today be part of the bunch, the funky bunch, and it gets a little bit of personality to him as well, to let them know that while we do take this very seriously, while we are going to be as confident professionals as possible, he is going to be a little quirky, because because that's part of our personality. So brought some fun to it. So this immediate connection. And it's been Yeah, so it's very interesting to kind of work through that process of developing that name.
Meghan 12:35
Well, and it's memorable to write like, people are kind of thrown off of like, funky bunch Petcare. It's not a usual name that you hear. So hopefully, it's working out well for us.
Collin Funkhouser 12:47
Yeah. And as we've as we've catalogued on the show with developing the logo about killed us, later on whenever we've revamped that, so that's always a fun thing to do, too. Before we continue, I do want to tell you about our sponsor for today's episode 2020 showed us the importance of having a diversified business make it just mentioned, as we take on new clients, there are many opportunities to add services and value packages to our clients. Courtney, owner of Palmetto scooper wants to help you be number one with your clients. Number two, Courtney is passionate about helping others Excel with the poop scooping service. What tools and training do you need? What do you do with all of that poop? There's a link in our show notes for you to check out to learn more about getting started in pet waste removal. And like Courtney gets you started on the right foot today.
Meghan 13:33
So while Colleen was working his nine to five, and I was taking care of the dogs and the kids and having a lot of fun. Oh, and I'm also a bookkeeper as well. All the things? Well, I just Yeah, I do like to do all things. But I enjoy all of it. So it's okay. So while that was going on, we also decided to launch the podcast in August of 2019. So I think in July of 2019, you tell that story. I don't know you had come up with a list of podcasts that you wanted to make or what how did that come about? Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 14:05
I I've been a longtime podcast listener for probably the better of 10 years been listening to various podcasts. And there's always something that's interesting, me and fascinating. But I'm not a creative type. But all of a sudden, I started to catch this bug of what we could possibly do. And I kind of liked the technology. And I was interested in that. And I started to write down topics of possible podcast ideas. And finally I yeah, I did approach Megan with this idea of wanting to do something together so we could be more creative and involved and have fun with it. And the idea of talking about being pet sitters came up because I kind of looked at everything that was going on and was like I think we can have you know, a show about this and we've got some experience so we can just talk about some of our experiences. That's what we originally intended to do with it. And well
Meghan 14:56
hold on. That's not quite what I remember. Oh no. From what I remember you were listening to a podcast talking about I think, how to create a podcast or how to make a podcast, something like that. And you had written in your journal of different ideas that you could do like a science one or petsitting. One. And for the petsitting, one you had outlined like 12, or 13, or 15 topics or episodes. Yeah, that would be possible. And so then you were like, this is what I think could be a podcast. And I had said, Yeah, let's do it. And I think I think you turned white,
Collin Funkhouser 15:31
I actually wasn't pleased. Megan is a Dewar, I'm, I get kind of scared. But I know you latched on to it. And you were really, really excited about it. And I think that's probably because I did have those first several episodes lined out and kind of had a roadmap of what was possible. Because it was achievable to do those. And Originally, it was just going to be us talking. And then out of nowhere, Alex and Beth reached out to us
Meghan 15:57
episode number six is to
Collin Funkhouser 15:58
be interviewed. And that completely changed the game for what we thought this podcast could be. And it really opened our eyes to a whole nother world and all these experiences and stories. And and again, purpose and impact that the show could have.
Meghan 16:11
So then flash forward to March or April of 2020, so almost a year and a half ago, and your work brought you home, as did most everybody's work, he was able to do his nine to five from home here in the office. And that was a game changer.
16:30
Yeah, I was working from home, I was able to help out a lot more in and on the business while working and doing my job.
Meghan 16:39
Yeah, he was able to come down on his lunch break and have lunch with us and the kids. And that was so nice. I know, they really enjoyed that.
Collin Funkhouser 16:47
And it just changed the whole schedule of like how quickly I had to leave in the morning versus rushing home to get back and, and everything. It just changed, I think the whole way we viewed working together and working as a family and around our own schedules. And I think because of that, we started to get pretty serious about our business. It was really the first time in 10 years where we were both able to devote the majority of our attention and focus and energy on the business because I was home, we could bounce ideas off each other a lot more we were in more contact about the operations and what was going on, and a lot more of the details. I think it just starts to highlight this passion that we still had for this business and started thinking about what we could do with it.
Meghan 17:33
Well, and also for the podcast, too. During the pandemic, we started producing two, sometimes three, and I even for for a few weeks, four episodes a week. Those are awesome, though. We really cranked out episodes during that time. Because it was just it was needed. We needed to know people's stories and how what they were going through and how they were going through it and lessons they were learning. And so it This has been so much fun. really get to know as many people as possible in the pet care space, and to really work with you on our own personal pet care business more and more.
Collin Funkhouser 18:08
Right. So it really was a game changer. And then not too long ago, the work called me back in and said okay, it's time to come back to the office and work full time from the office. Yeah, a few months ago. Yeah. And that first day back in the office was so surreal, because I really had this sudden, feeling like I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing anymore. Like I was not in my element. But I had had this taste of a completely different lifestyle and different way of doing and approaching things. And now it was different. And I didn't I didn't I really wasn't what I want it. And obviously I missed being home with family and longed to have more control over my schedule. And really again, thinking about like, started, the gears are turning, what are the possibilities here? What could we actually be doing? What what are things that I could be involved in, in helping with that I wasn't able to do before. So
Meghan 18:59
at the end of July, we made a big transition for our family for our business.
Collin Funkhouser 19:08
It was a big leap. It was a really big, really scary, but yeah, I quit and decided that now was the time to go fully independent, we had already had our independent business up and running that Megan was was managing I was helping out with. And when I was thinking about opportunities, I was able to see how I could slot in and how I could really think okay, if I came along and was able to vote 40 hours, instead of 10 hours a week to this, what could we do with it? How much different could it be? How could I make it easier on Megan so she doesn't have to run everything by herself and went for it. I mean, every angle that I looked at it, it just made sense that now was the time and was the opportunity that we had to go for to make it had been, yes, a few months in the making, but it was really 10 years building up to that and that that decision of all of our actions periences of starting out and beginning knowing absolutely nothing growing rather than running an operating it part time for so many years, and then looking at what we had built up as part time going, actually,
Meghan 20:14
this is full time.
20:17
There's a full time opportunity here, where I hadn't seen that before. And so we went for it.
Meghan 20:23
And we are not looking back. It's only been a month. But it has been First of all, like crazy busy month, because I was insane, everybody's traveling. But it's been awesome to have you home and to really be working with you helping out with the dogs and the kids. And this is just so great. I love it. So that's kind of where we are right now we are both full time in this business, giving it our all I'm still doing bookkeeping on the side as well, which I still really enjoy. So I don't want to give that up. And you know, it's the only with the kids. And we're going to be partially homeschooling them this year. So that's going to be a whole nother thing added on to this, that I'm going to be helping out with more. So to answer the question, does your previous work experience influence the way you operate? Yes, I think so and will continue to do so. We talked a little bit about this in Episode 202, with hiring, which was just last week, but communicating as effectively as possible with our employees, and making sure they know that they will have independence and advancement within our business is really crucial. You know, we are coming from the field of science and experiments. So data and numbers really aren't that intimidating to us, you know, we were not really creative. So that's why this podcast was a stretch. But we both love seeing spreadsheets and really breaking out various numbers. It's so great to know. And being an entrepreneur, the sky is the limit in our business. When working for someone else, if you work a nine to five, you know that there's always a cap on how much you can make, you can never make more than the CEO of the company that you're working for. Right. But as an entrepreneur, the limit is really millions of dollars.
Collin Funkhouser 22:13
Well, so two is the schedule and the flexibility and the balance that you're able to have. And I do think that both of our experiences working for somebody else really plays into how we are looking to hire in the future. And we'll talk about that in just a minute. But and the importance of communication and working in the law, the science field of how important focused and clear communication is to get ideas concepts across effectively is is really important to both of us to be as clear as possible. And that will definitely be something that we bring in forward. And then yeah, the number of side two is really important to us so that we know how things are operating and not afraid to spend hours in a spreadsheet. Yeah, that's
Meghan 22:59
the where do we go from here? What is our goal for our business? Well, we are planning on expanding into new areas around us. So we are kind of situated in the middle of the country in the middle of the United States. And there is a lot of opportunity where we live, like I said, when we first moved here to this very small town, there weren't really other pet care providers. And that's something that we had actually experienced back in Lubbock as well, because we had really grown our client list in Lubbock. Because I mean, I was also back in 2012, when that really wasn't a thing. But we really grew it there. And we've really grown it here where there's not really a lot of other opportunities. So we are ready for a new adventure, and are really excited about trying new things in our business, like setting up our business remotely. So we want to expand it to new areas. And obviously we can't live everywhere. So we want to do it remotely. And that means hiring. And that's something that I know a lot of people are doing right now. And we are going through that process as well. So that's why you may have noticed a shift in the podcast episodes recently, as we are shifting our personal pet business, we are getting more and more curious about the different aspects regarding hiring, and running a successful company that we haven't experienced yet in our 10 years, right,
Collin Funkhouser 24:16
we've managed maybe some people or had hourlies involved with us in the labs and stuff and past experiences. But actually hiring somebody and managing them for our personal business is something that we've never done. So we have been delving into every aspect of that and trying to learn about it as much as possible. Because it is new. And it is something that's a little scary for us because again, zero experience with that at all. And coming at this with these ideas and these goals that we have for our business realizing that this is a key component to that. So we want to do it right. We want to make sure that we are doing right by the people that we hire and doing right by the business and that it's gonna be something that's mutually beneficial to both
Meghan 24:58
and so that's kind of where we want To go with our pet business, we want to be able to work remotely and live remotely from where our businesses and hopefully we're able to do that in the coming year. So we'll find out
Collin Funkhouser 25:15
Well, we'll see how it goes, Yeah, we've got a lot to work through. But we're really excited about where, where we're headed in that. I mean, we've done so much work, even just the last month or two alone working towards that, as far as getting our mindset, right, and getting out, making sure that we fully understand what we're about to do, and then committing ourselves to it. And that's really the biggest part of I think of it of sitting down realizing, okay, we we know, x, y, z, we know XYZ, now, we need to just commit to doing XYZ. And that's been I think that's been the real switch real, the toughest switch to flip for us is committing to just doing it and recognizing, we know everything we possibly can at this point. It's not just about knowledge. It's about action. And that's where we are.
Meghan 25:56
Yeah. And so as far as the podcast, I know I say this all the time. But we want to do as many episodes as we possibly can. We want to interview everybody gain as much knowledge about the pet care space about how to run a business, about how client relations, employee retention, all of these awesome topics, that I can't wait to continue to, for you to continue to interview people. Well, so
Collin Funkhouser 26:21
in on that, if you are listening to this, and seriously, we want to hear from you, I want to interview you, you may be sitting here thinking, I'm nobody, I would want to talk to me, we do we want to talk to you, we want to tell your story and have you tell your story, to listeners and to people around the globe. Because that's the that's the only way that we can all continue to learn and grow is when we are sharing. And so we genuinely, from the bottom of our hearts wants you to reach out to us, and we will schedule an interview seriously.
Meghan 26:53
Yeah, well, and also different topics as well. There are only so many topics that we can think of. But I know you guys have so many more out there that you would like to see whether it's hiring, or how to tell a client know, whatever it is, we would love to research your topic or have bring somebody on about that topic. And speaking of hiring Wednesday's episode is actually with Amber van denzin. She's been on a couple times already. But she's going to be talking about her transition from independent contractors to employees, and what you need to consider if you're thinking of making that switch.
27:27
On this week's Ask a pet bits coach segment with Natasha Albanian, she answers the question, how do you keep your staff organized?
Natasha 27:36
time schedule, time schedule is so great. The thing about being a self employed person or entrepreneur is you have to act like you would act if you were still in any of your old day jobs. You know, what do you do when you clock in? at nine o'clock in the morning? What do you do after this task? What do you do at 10? o'clock? What do you do at 12? o'clock? When do you eat? When do you feed yourself? You know, when do you stop running around when you get to the air conditioning? You have to be on a time schedule. And that way you know what you're doing. The employees know what to do. And they also know what to expect it if you're just winging it and rolling up and it's like, oh, yeah, we'll see us on books as well. Okay. All right, maybe tomorrow at 10. Let's talk about deeper like time windows. That's why time when those are so important. First am shift goes out between 10 and 12. So if you want to do a morning walk, it's going to be 10 and 12. I've had clients that I've coached that you know, so we take some of that seven, then we take some at nine and then we take someone 11 and like Wait, why? Home calls you What do you tell them? Really we just take whatever time they say. And I say well, what if like five o'clock, nine o'clock? What do you do when you can't be everywhere at nine o'clock? They're like, Oh, we just like, try our best. And then you know, just go from there. And I'm like, What the heck? Right? So you got to have time windows to say what's your morning windows 10 to 12? What's your midday OneNote you know, 12 or 11? What's your evening Windows will be there between you know, six and nine. So keeping yourself keep your expectations clear, keeping your system clear. It's going to keep your business clear. No one likes going to work, where they're like, I don't know what these people want out of me. I don't know what I'm really doing. I'm just here. I think I'm doing a good job. I think I'm walking properly. You know, nobody wants that feeling. So putting your expectations very clear, making your system clear. So everyone's always on the same page. And
29:42
if you'd like Natasha to be your personal pet business coach, you can head on over to start scale sale calm. And if you're wanting to work with her as your own private coach, you can use the promo code at PSC 20 for 15% off her coaching services.
Meghan 29:54
We hope you have enjoyed today learning a little bit more about us and we want to learn more about you. So You can connect with us on Facebook or Instagram at pet sitter confessional or just send a carrier pigeon whatever we want to connect with you. We also want to thank our sponsors, Palmetto scoopers and our awesome producers. Again if you would like to learn more about what that means to support the show and be a producer, you can go to petsitter confessional comm slash support. Thank you guys so much for listening and we hope to see you next time. Thank you
