223: Starting a Pet Care Business
Brought to you by Pet Sitters Associates
Summary
What are the business fundamentals for a pet sitting or dog walking business? Do you know someone who wants to run their own pet care biz but doesn’t know where to start? On this episode, we discuss how to get started. From a plan and getting a business license, to checking out insurance, we walk through what you need to have in place, and share from our own experience. Then, Natasha O’Banion answers, “How do I forgive myself after I make a mistake?”
Topics on this episode:
Having a game plan
Insurance & License
Business Structure
Bank account & Scheduling
Ask a Pet Biz Coach
Main takeaway: Having a game plan when starting out is crucial to your business’ survival.
Links:
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Episode 144: petsitterconfessional.com/episodes/144
Episode 188: petsitterconfessional.com/episodes/188
Episode 154: petsitterconfessional.com/episodes/154
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, clients, pet, llc, pet sitters, important, branding, sole prop, people, dog, check, setting, money, confessional, insurance, license, website, filing, episode, operating
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin Funkhouser, Natasha
Meghan 00:17
Hi, I'm Meghan.
00:18
I'm Collin and this is petsitter. confessional
Meghan 00:20
an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Hello, welcome to Episode 223.
00:31
Hello,
Meghan 00:33
thank you to our pet sitters associate sponsor and our wonderful Patreon members, we thank you so much for donating some of your time and your money to providing feedback and financial resources to keep this podcast going.
Collin Funkhouser 00:47
If you want to learn more about that and everything that that includes go to petsitter confessional comm slash support.
Meghan 00:54
Today we are talking about going from an idea to walking your first dog. And we know the vast majority of you of our listeners are already up and running your businesses we've you've gotten clients, you are laying mean dog walking and pet sitting machines. Yeah. But we also recognize that the pet service industry is growing at a rapid rate, especially last year with COVID a ton of people quit their jobs and realize that they can make money dog walking or pet sitting and started doing it. So more people are thinking about it as a way of life than ever before. And we wanted to do something for those who think they're interested but don't know what to do. Don't know where to start.
Collin Funkhouser 01:34
We also firmly believe that established businesses should review the fundamentals on a yearly basis. We're not going to call anything in this episode basics, because the things we'll cover here are done by absolutely everyone, regardless of their business size. We like calling them fundamentals or foundations of your business, because everyone has them. And they're extremely important. We also do want to encourage existing business owners that if you know someone who's interested in the industry, bring them under your wing. Think back to what it was like when you had first started out, and how much more of a difference it would have been in your life, if someone who had was guiding you and teaching you. And also if you think you run a pretty amazing business, which you do, teach others about it. Teach your methods, your philosophies around how you operate, help shape and mold the next generation of pet sitters. If you need resources on how to do that, or what that looks like, let us know we'd love to partner with you and start equipping businesses to teach and lead others.
Meghan 02:35
And so this episode is about the fundamentals of the business side of setting up a pet setting or dog walking business. Having a game plan when starting out is crucial to your business survival. I don't think we had one when we started Oh No,
Collin Funkhouser 02:50
we didn't. We did a lot of learning on our feet very quickly. But having that plan really does save you a lot of headache and heartache because you're not having to learn on the fly. You're not having to learn business basics and about running a business while you are running a business. Now nobody is perfect when they start and we all learn new things. But having at least some plan that you can look to and mold and shape will really help you make much more informed and better decisions as you learn and grow in your knowledge. And everybody
Meghan 03:22
always says that a lot of businesses small businesses fail. And so why is the very early stage of business the most susceptible to failure? Well, because you need money, and you often lack the time and expertise. So think of all the non revenue generating things that you have to work through as a new business owner, whether it's blogs, website, answering phones, social media, and then think of all the things that you have to learn.
Collin Funkhouser 03:49
I'll also add things like filling out paperwork and filing for taxes and all of the business he things when you look at all of the time that we have to spend there. When we first start, it's a lot because we don't know any of it. Now as we learn and grow from year after year, we get to spend less and less doing those kinds of tasks. So right in the beginning, we're doing all of this time and spending all these of our energy and resources developed to non revenue generating tasks. They're extremely important. But right when we first started, we also need that money coming in. And so when we can tip the balance back in our favor, by educating ourselves on those business things, the forms, we need all that good stuff. We do get off on a really good foot.
Meghan 04:30
According to the Department of Labor here in the United States. 20% of businesses fail in the first year. 50% fail after five years and only 1/3 survive after 10 years. And that's not really shocking because a lot of people like us go into the business not having really any plan at all. So don't make the same mistake we did. Have a plan. Know what clients you want to serve, what area you want to serve your prices. Everything that goes into pet sitting dog walking, kind of figure it out before you start your business.
Collin Funkhouser 05:07
And so this episode is really going to talk about really the business side of running a business, not just doing the services, those are two very different things. So if you have just thought about being a dog walker or a pet sitter, first off, welcome to the best job in the world. This is hands down the most fun accepting and driven industry on the face of planet. Now we may be just a tiny bit biased here. But we know others would agree with us as well. Secondly, recognize that everyone starts somewhere, there tend to be two entries into this industry, either a someone starts pet sitting as a side gig to earn money, finds out, they enjoy it, and think they want to do it full time or do something more with it. Or secondly, it's somebody looking for a new career path after a change in your circumstances, and you think you want to try this out? In either case, you need to ask yourself, What do you want from this? Are you looking for something to bring in more money to pay off debt? And then move on to other things? Or are you looking to make this your thing and go all in? It's not a matter of one is better than the other? It's a matter of setting your expectations and building the appropriate business around that. And so
Meghan 06:17
it's important to ask why you want to do it. If you are interested in becoming a pet sitter or a dog walker, why? What is driving your motivations? It's okay, if fear is on that list, we just need to recognize that we can turn the fear into a positive through motivating and pushing ourselves. And once you have your why written down here are things you need to consider and check into in your area. Every single circumstance is going to be unique. So we won't try to detail everyone out, but make sure that you are seeking guidance on these factors.
Collin Funkhouser 06:52
So you need to ask yourself, do you need a business license? Now we have a friend who lives here in Missouri in a county that no business licenses required for basically anything. Now we needed one, and it costs just a little. We also know people who have a business license and it costs a lot. So call your city and see what they need. For us, I had to go to the city business license office, and also to the county courthouse to show that for some reason, whatever they needed to know that we didn't owe any personal taxes from the previous year, and then go get that license. It's really simple. Since we're a service industry, we don't have to worry about sales tax.
Meghan 07:28
Okay, but what if you want to offer products or different you want to bake dog treats.
Collin Funkhouser 07:33
So there is a difference between a merchant license and a business license. If you're selling goods, you need a merchant license, which goes into tax sales tax filing, and that's a whole other ball of wax. Again, pet sitters usually don't need to do this unless you're going to end up selling bandanas or treats or something like that. I do remember there being some confusion at the license office because they didn't know how to categorize us. Since we didn't have a physical location and we weren't selling anything. They didn't know what we were doing because it took a little bit of time to help them understand what we were going to be doing as a business to our city. And again, this is very important. Our city has filed as a general contractor. Basically, that's the bucket of everything else. When you're filing your business license, there may be some other requirements that you'll have to check into as well. Some people some cities require you to have insurance and proof of insurance as a business before you can operate. Additionally, since we didn't have any employees, the process was also extremely straightforward. Because we didn't have employees, we didn't have to show proof of being bonded or insured for them, though, that is different in other places. Another licensing or permit thing that you should check into is that if you're planning on transporting your dogs and taking them to a park or a trail system, some of those do require you to have a special permit to walk groups of dogs and to notify them when you're going to be out there. So look into that ahead of time so you don't wind up out there getting ticketed or being asked to leave.
Meghan 09:01
And so speaking of insurance, yes, we recommend 100% of businesses get business insurance. Does pet sitters associate sponsor us? Yes, yes, they sponsor this episode too. But you don't have to go with them. Just get business insurance. There is a resource page on our website you can go explore the various vendors, and some new sitters may think that is useless and ridiculous or they just think it's some kind of marketing ploy to get insurance. Sure, it may give some clients peace of mind, but really in at least our experience, very few are any really asked if we are insured.
Collin Funkhouser 09:39
No, no one has come out straight up and asked, Are you insured now when they find out we're insured. They're like, Okay, cool. That's nice, but it's never been a I'm going to hire you based on your answer to this.
Meghan 09:49
Ultimately, though, it protects you and your business. What would happen if you took your first client for a walk and the dog got hit by a bus or bit a stranger likely you're going to say bye bye to your business. Even businesses who've been around for a long time, the low monthly cost of insurance is more than worth it to avoid facing a, you know, hundreds of 1000s of dollars health insurance claim, when setting up your business business structure is very important to know, if you want to be a sole prop or an LLC, and a sole Prop, there is no legal separation between you and your business. So if your business gets sued, they can go after your personal stuff. Not good. A pro to being a sole prop is it's cheaper, and it's a lot easier to get set up, you don't have as much paperwork to do. So if you're just interested in getting started, it really may be a good first step for you. If you know you really want to make a career out of this and want to keep doing this for years and years. And LLC is probably more your style. There's no real tax advantage for being a sole proprietor over an LLC. And as a side note, we are neither a lawyer or a tax specialist. So talk with the Far Far from it. Yeah, so talk with the appropriate people in your life before you decide one over the other. If you would like to form an LLC, it can cost you some money. Some do it all. by themselves, though, you have to watch exactly how you set it up and make sure you cross all your i's and dot all your T's. And by that I mean, cross all your T's and dot all your I's, but
11:29
go ahead and do both just to make sure you're covered.
Meghan 11:34
So we went through LegalZoom to form our LLC. And it did cost a little bit more, but it saved us a ton of time. And we knew that it was done right because we didn't know anything. So
Collin Funkhouser 11:44
it saved us a lot of headache, too. I know that was something that I was stressing out that I was going to miss something or screw something up and we were going to be left in a bad place. Then an LLC is a limited liability corporation. So what this means is we're focused on the liability who's at fault here. So we said the sole proprietorship that's all prop. There's no distinction between you and your business with the LLC there is meaning that they can sue the company, but not but that doesn't trickle over to your personal side. Now there are I'm sure ways around that but it makes it a lot harder. So when you're operating as an LLC, you're operating underneath the business's umbrellas and all the protections that it entails.
Meghan 12:24
Whichever you decide, though, make sure that you file so you can get your Ei n, and that's the ID number for your business,
Collin Funkhouser 12:31
which is important when filing taxes and even doing things like opening your specific business accounts, which we'll talk about here in a moment.
Meghan 12:39
As pet care professionals, your clients trust you to care for their furry family members, pet sitters associates is here to help. For over 20 years they have provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance. If you work in the pet hair industry or want to make your passion for pets into a profession, 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 use the discount code confessional at checkout to get $10 off today, check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again at pets@llc.com. Colin mentioned having a separate bank account and it is important and it's really all for tax time you've got to know what you have spent versus what your business spent. And if you have an LLC, the separate business accounts are required in order for you to show your operating correctly. It keeps your life simpler for tracking expenses and knowing where your money is going. You do need an Ei n number to start a bank business account. So start your paperwork on your sole proprietorship or your LLC early so that you can get all of your business paperwork ready for your bank. The bank that we use is novo for our business, it's an O v Oh, it's 100% online, which was really important for us since we live in a small town and because we didn't really want to pay any bank fees to set up a business account. No thank you. We can do all the same things that you can normally do with a physical location. We can deposit checks, we can mail checks, and we recently found out that we can also get cash from an ATM and they will reimburse us for any ATM fees associated with that, which is pretty cool.
Collin Funkhouser 14:26
One aspect of your business that has more to do with operational we've got our LLC or sole prop setups, we've got the EIA and we've got our bank accounts we're paying for expenses not out of our personal accounts. And we've got our business license so we can be operating in our city. I think something that not enough people devote time to thinking about is how you will take payments and you will schedule. Fortunately for us in these days, there are so many payment processing things like square stripe, or PayPal Venmo to now all will take a fee to process a day. debit or credit card, but that's just part of doing business, it's going to make your life simpler, it's going to make your client's life simpler, so they don't have to be writing cheques or using cash. Although you can still allow those, having more options for payments only makes it easier for clients to use you and adapt and change as they need. In the future, you may upgrade to a specific pet business software, there are some that are even free up to a certain amount of clients. Some options are like time to pet, which again is a sponsor, but you don't have to use them. Just look into them. There's pocket sweet, precise Petcare scouts, we have a resource page on our website for all of this as well that you can go see, whichever one you choose, try them out, give a trial and make sure it's going to work for how you want to work. Do you use your phone for everything? Or do you have a desktop that you want to be more spend more time at. And that's really where you get a lot of your work done. see which one of this offer options is going to help you. Because again, the more all inclusive that you can make this the easier you can make it for you and your clients. Google calendar is great for scheduling, just sign up for a new gmail account with your business name and start scheduling that way. While you're at it. also sign up for a free Google Voice number and hand that out to your clients instead of your personal number. You'll be saving a lot of headache, and you'll be setting some really good boundaries from day one.
Meghan 16:20
With all of those that we just outlined, your business is functionally set up today. You have all of those little pieces to start pretty simple, huh? Well notice we haven't really said anything about training or naming or branding, policies, website, social media, or even marketing. There's a whole other side to this that we haven't even gotten into. But your business is functional, it can run now we
Collin Funkhouser 16:46
have entire episodes on each one of those. But we did want to detail that here briefly. So let's talk about getting a name and your branding. Pick something that is unique to your area to be doing a lot of googling. So just go ahead and get used to that, you'll have to decide whether you want to use your personal name or not in the company. And there are pros and cons for this. If you decide that you really want to grow and expand to different areas, you might not want to use your personal name. Other times, it works just fine. There's really no right or wrong answer here. You get to make what's going to work for you. And I think that's a really important message here for people who are just starting out on their business. And as a reminder for us who have been in the business for a long time, your business gets to be yours. And so you get to make those decisions. Definitely have personality in your branding. Don't be afraid to make it however you want. If you like certain things, if you use certain language, if you have certain background, bring that into your branding and make it a part of your business. You'll fall in love with it more and you'll be able to connect with the clients that you actually want to be connecting with. But
Meghan 17:46
also remember that your branding and your colors and your logo, all of that is not for you specifically anyway, we have a whole episode. That's true, but it's for the clients you want to attract. So keep that in mind as well.
Collin Funkhouser 17:58
So then you'll have to consider things like your color, your logo, and the language you use, like I just mentioned. And then branding, it goes as deep as your customer service and your onboarding process. There's a lot to think about going through there. And it's not really important to have all that laid out right when you start but it is something to have churning in the back of your brain. And to start working towards having some of those things ironed out. It is also
Meghan 18:20
crucial to have a contract. If you have not listened to Episode 154, we outline our contract that we use for our business. And reach out if you need any help with that or any wording we are obviously again, not lawyers, no, then you should seek out a lawyer or help in your area. But there are plenty of free templates to start with. And you can adapt them to your needs.
Collin Funkhouser 18:42
Then there's the website. Yes, get one seriously, we use Squarespace and we'll talk about it too. We're blue in the face, but it's really simple, really straightforward and doesn't cost a ton of money. And it's something that you can change and adapt.
Meghan 18:53
If you aren't super tech savvy Michaela from pet marketing unleashed, develop some templates and website templates specifically for pet sitters and dog walkers. And if you use the code p sc 10, you can get 10% off but they are great, you don't have to think about it. She has done all of the heavy lifting for you. And she shows you step by step how to customize it specifically for your business. Having a
Collin Funkhouser 19:15
website is really important for controlling your brand like we just talked about earlier, having that branding, having that consistent messaging, so that we're not relying on third parties like Facebook and Instagram. Remember when those were written down, that was a lot of fun, wasn't it? We need to have you having some place where people can still contact and reach out to us, even when and having a more holistic approach to the piece of the puzzle as far as being connected with our clients. So that if one goes down or there's an issue with one, people can still find us and get access to the information that they need. Well and
Meghan 19:45
then Google My Business right? The listing is free. It is extremely powerful because you Google things all the time. I google things all the time, everyone Google's things and so you will pop up on Google if you create a Google My Business listing. It's 2021 So a crucial piece is setting up social media for your business. And I talked to all about that in Episode 188. Because I am clueless. Well, I love social media, I love connecting with others, and creating posts and posting them and all of that. So if you are social media challenged, Hello, I'm calling, you may go listen to that episode. We
Collin Funkhouser 20:23
do also think that is important to address what kind of equipment that you're going to want to use the kind of leashes, poop bags, any other essentials like a first aid kit, the kind of shoes you're going to wear, because yes, you will go through a lot of shoes, and it does take some trial and error to figure out which ones are going to work best for you in different scenarios and weather conditions. And so doing spending some time just looking at the equipment, what will you have the clients provide versus what you will you provide and have standardized is part of what it means to be opening this kind of business.
Meghan 20:52
We also do have a gear resource page on our website. Specifically, we asked our community of pet care providers, all of the gear that they use, and it's all listed on there as well. Yep,
Collin Funkhouser 21:03
this is obviously as you can tell a resource rich episode and so please check out the website. Pets are professional comm slash episodes, slash two to three to see all of those links, or check out the links in your show notes of the app that you're listening to, to click right to all of those. And then finally, once we've got all of this stuff in place, we need to be worried about getting our first client. So marketing, and we had Episode 144, which was all about aspects of marketing. You can reach out to your network and your inner circle of people, your family and friends to start doing jobs and providing care for their pets, then have them leave reviews about you on other across the web. Hit out flyers I know that's something that a lot of people do. They go to dog parks, they go to other pet friendly places and place fliers with information about you. Word of mouth ultimately is one of the biggest components of getting an understanding who your clients are and having them share about you to gain and expand your client list. You can encourage that through giving client referral discounts to both parties, or just really asked nicely. And by providing amazing service people will want to do that on their own anyway.
Meghan 22:13
And community events are big. If you want to expand your the people that you wouldn't normally reach often are at community events, whether it's farmers markets or festivals. We just participated in a bark in the park a few weeks ago. And they are all great ways to be seen in the community or just even wearing your branded shirt to a restaurant, which I am guilty of. Basically, every time we go to a restaurant.
Collin Funkhouser 22:41
Obviously there are a lot of things to consider when setting out on your own to start your own pet sitting and dog walking business. But the steps are very simple. They're pretty straightforward. And what we've lined out here can take you from idea of concept to having a fully fledged business and running an operational. We'd love to know how you set up your business what steps you went through if you are already operating as a business and if you're just still thinking about it. What other questions do you have? What more help do you need that would help you get to running your business
Meghan 23:11
someone who has an awesome pet business is Natasha opionion She is a pet business coach and today she's going to answer the question how do I forgive myself for a mistake?
Natasha 23:20
I'll see what my husband tells me Do not internalize that he said this to me for years maybe like two to three years I was ignoring him like whatever you don't get it. Like stop internalizing things that I mean I would go home with it something would happen in the daytime and I'd go to bed with it like I'd be thinking about what could we have done and what could we have changed? And I used to ask myself Hey, when is this going to feel easier? When is this going to feel like so not so attached to my life right Rendon rubies my heart and soul When is it's going to feel different? And really it started with me when I started to change my mindset on how I'm doing things and I swear it's really when I didn't really outline everything. When I didn't outline everything I knew there was a lot of holes and gaps and things that could potentially happen so I was always thinking about liability or what if this happens what if that happened? But guess what? When I make an outline and I write something out this there's no If this happens, this is what we're going to do then I started to sleep better. Things started to feel a lot easier because I said you know what? We all know what to do. They all know what to do. I've already written it out but when you don't really have those things outline you're always thinking about well what if well, what if well, what if Hey, listen, take away that What else? Make it answer to the what if and we'll start forgiving ourselves because we have a process to forgive ourselves. But at the end of the day also like I'll say this to my walkers all right now if something happens with the first dog or they're like oh my god, that dog just had a blowout I when I came there and I've been cleaning it oh my god, it's crazy as a lesson. Take a deep breath, clean up that house. Do a before picture and an after picture so the client has it and then I want you to take a deep breath when you close that door guess what the next dog on the schedule is going to need your full positive energy so close that door on it so the next dog can receive the best you so if you can't forgive yourself for just from your own selfish reasons, forgive you for the animals because the animals can feel what you're going through and you want to be refreshed when you come to them.
Collin Funkhouser 25:30
It really is about finding a motivating factor to do that and I think the gold standard is the internal line of doing it for ourselves but like you mentioned I love how you said like okay that's hard right now let's find an external motivating factor to work through this and we're gonna we're gonna slowly progress because it's this muscle of forgiveness The more I forgive myself for other reasons the more it becomes to forgive myself for any reason.
Natasha 25:51
Yeah, I always see that when I'm having a bad scenario with with my like a first house. I'm like okay, okay, that's over. That's done because my next baby and my next 10 dogs after this, they don't deserve that. That's what I tell myself. I'm like alright, close it up, close it up. Because these guys are going to be expecting you know, the full shabam from Natasha. So I got to close that down. Because these dogs deserve the best that are going to see me for the rest of the day. That has always helped me. I literally will close the door and be like, Whoa, what does happen? Okay, okay, okay, that's done. We handled it. Yes, we handled it and now I'm gonna check into my new baby and we're gonna start all over again. So I like to leave things at the door.
Meghan 26:39
If you would like to work one on one with Natasha and have her help you and your business, you can go to her website start scale sale, calm and use the code p sc. 20. For 15% off we appreciate you taking the time and listening to this today. Hopefully you got something out of it. And if there's ever a topic ideas or people you would like us to interview Feel free to let us know on Facebook or Instagram at pet sitter confessional. We hope you join us next time.
27:04
Thanks bye
