226: Independent Contractors with Colleen Sedgwick
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Summary:
Can you use an Independent Contractors (IC) in your business? What are the benefits and what are the potential pitfalls? Colleen Sedgwick, Pet Nanny Coach, had ICs for 17 years and shares how to navigate and use them effectively. Colleen talks about being audited and how to be prepared for it. With many sitters looking for ways to fill in scheduling gaps during the busy holiday season, an IC may be what you're looking for, as long as you use them correctly.
Topics on this episode:
What is an IC?
Being audited
How to hire
Training?
Non-competes?
Main take away? You can legally use independent contractors in your business, just know your terms and the level of control you want before you enter into the relationship.
About our guest:
Colleen Sedgwick is a Pet Sitting Business Owner, Entrepreneur, Wife and Mom, and she teaches pet business owners how to launch, grow and multiply their businesses 10K or more a month in revenue. Colleen transformed her once teeny-tiny, itty-bitty pet sitting business into a thriving and lucrative enterprise that services over two thousand clients on The Main Line of Philadelphia. Through her ultra-informative blog, videos, online courses and group coaching programs, she’s empowered and taught countless other pet sitters how to turn their passion for pets into paychecks. And when she’s not turning her knowledge of the pet sitting industry into blog posts, programs or courses, you will find her loving on her family, hustling on the tennis or paddle court or watching BRAVO TV! Colleen says, “I’m living proof that you can create a purpose-filled and lucrative business based on your love for animals and that it’s never too late to follow your heart and live your passion.”
Links:
Get a Freebie!: petsittingfreebie.com
Talk with Colleen: meetwithcolleen.com
Previous episode: petsitterconfessional.com/episodes/072-colleen-sedgwick-the-pet-nanny-coach
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
independent contractor, business, employees, pet, clients, pet sitters, people, audit, relationship, paying, ics, ic, nanny, independent contractor agreement, colleen, hiring, state, money, business owner, company
SPEAKERS
Collin Funkhouser, Colleen S.
Collin Funkhouser 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. How do you appropriately use an independent contractor? Have you ever thought about using one yourself? In today's episode, Callie and Cedric, the pet nanny, answer some very specific questions about the right ways to use an independent contractor. Many of us are looking for ways to fill temporary schedules and cover more sets during the busy holiday time. Independent contractors may be the way to go for us. However, as always, there are many things to consider. Let's get started. I want to say
Colleen S. 00:56
hi, I'm Colleen Sedgwick. I am the owner of pet nanny coach and I teach pet sitting business owners how to make $10,000 or more a month in their business. And I'm also the owner of pet nanny pet sitters of the main line, which is on the main line of Philadelphia, suburban area of Philadelphia. And I've had my business for 20 years or 20 years in June. So I have been, I've been through it. But I've created this amazing business that gives me a passive revenue stream. Because I leveraged myself through my team, my team of pet sitters from a team of managers. And it just serves me and I have a lot of knowledge that I love to share with other pet sitters who you know, want to create something similar for themselves.
Collin Funkhouser 01:37
Yeah, well, you you've been doing this for for a long time. And I know you've got a lot of insights. And so we were talking about the difference of you know, how using independent contractors appropriately and what that means. So I would love to have you define what the difference is between an employee and an independent contractor.
Colleen S. 01:55
Okay, so independent contractors, in essence, and for simplicity sake, they run their own business. And as a pet sitting business owner, if you are going to use ICS, and use that model, you have to understand that they are your contracting their services, to service your customers, they do not work directly for you. So they own their own business, they're responsible for their own taxes, paying their own taxes. They're responsible for providing their own equipment. And the biggest thing is direction and control. As the business owner, you do not have any direction and control over your independent contractors, you the client has the control over the independent contractor. And that is a main shift that needs to be made with a lot of petsitting businesses that are using ICS. They are treating them as employees because they are telling them what to do. They're defining what it is that you know, they want how they want the job to be done, when in essence, it needs to be the client that is directing the independent contractor and you as the petsitting business owner or the connector, you're the bridge between the IC and the client.
Collin Funkhouser 03:02
Yeah, I think maybe it is confusing because the job gets done. But it's all the backend work. I think the unseen relationship that we don't think about that, where that real difference is, when we're trying to bring people on and hire staff, you know, there seems to be a lot of changes with with ICS kind of state national level. So, from your perspective, how has it been regulation wise? Okay, it changes have you seen and how they've applied to the industry when it comes to using independent contractors.
Colleen S. 03:33
It's, you know, they're just much more stringent. Now, when I started using icees, you know, I use it successfully for 17 years, I now use employees. But when I first started contracting independent contractors to work with pet nanny, not for pet nanny working with pet Annie, there just wasn't it wasn't a big deal. You know, the government wasn't, you know, sniffing businesses out, you know, trying, basically, you know, you're gonna make more money for the government if you use employees, and they got hip to that. And they've, you know, found these small industries like the petsitting industry that was using independent contractors and they're trying to shut it down because they, you know, in essence, want to make the most money that they can from you. So, I'm a big fan of icees. I loved the icy model. Like I said, 17 years of my business, I used it successfully. I just kind of got a little tired of them hunting me down. Yeah, I went through two audits, and they've tried to automate a third time. But you know, by that by that I just said, Alright, Uncle, I'm just gonna switch to employees and that's fine, too. I have more direction and control, but it's a lot more expensive to have employee.
Collin Funkhouser 04:44
Well, so walk us through what an audit looks like you've gone through to almost we're going through a third. What are they looking for? And what do people need to have on hand if they do get audited?
Colleen S. 04:55
Oh, my goodness. Yeah, that was a very scary situation. Like the first one, but I had everything I knew what I was doing in terms of how my business was set up using ICS. So you have to make sure that your ICs are paying their own insurance, you're not paying their insurance. In essence, they need to be giving you their pay, what would you call it their timesheets and their invoices to you, which I did, I was able to utilize through my software, but basically, they were submitting their time work through the software. So I was able to show to the government that I was not that they were invoicing me. Let's think another one. So it was the insurance, it was the way that they were using their own equipment, that they're paying their own taxes that I was not defining when they needed to be at a client's house that the client was the one doing that, that I wasn't providing them with any type of handbook or any type of instructions, detailed instructions on how the job was supposed to be done. And, yeah, the big thing, I'm gonna say, there wasn't any vacation time they could schedule, they were in charge of their own calendars by blocking out when they couldn't work. We call the Do Not schedule systems. So the sitters would go in and block out basically manage their own calendars. And when they were available, we the program would know and we will go ahead and schedule that as well.
Collin Funkhouser 06:19
Yeah, well, it sounds like a lot to keep track of and and some people may read, see that and go, Wow, that sounds like a lot of a lot of headache. So how did you make that work so successfully for 17 years, and managing all of that.
Colleen S. 06:33
Being very, very organized. It's one of my superpowers, I'm gifted with that. A lot of flaws, but that's one of my superpowers. To stay on top of it, you have to make sure that your language is in line with what the government wants. And you have to be very careful with. I know a lot of petsitting business owners are using ICS and having them wear you know, shirts with the company name on it. Absolutely no, no, no car magnets, no handbooks, you just have to be really diligent about you know, how you're communicating with them, and how you're presenting them and how everything is organized on the backend. In terms of you know, and using your software program, they the IRS, the two audits, I had no problem with the invoicing coming through the software program. And that was really helpful and keeping track of a lot of this.
Collin Funkhouser 07:25
When I want to come comes to hiring I know hiring is a big topic right now for a lot of people, and they're really struggling to figure out how to hire good people, if they're interested in hiring an independent contractor. How do I as a business owner set standards then of who I'm hiring, and not be imposing on that individual? Because they're they're an independent contractor, they're running an operating their own business, right? They're gonna have their own policies, how do I hire an independent contractor appropriately with the right ad? And make sure it's communicated? Well,
Colleen S. 07:54
you will you're you're in essence, the customer. Right? So you can you can pick and choose which service you choose to contract to represent your company, right? So just making sure the language like I said, you don't send a job description, you don't have an application on your website, you have a questionnaire be very careful about the questions that you're asking on that questionnaire. Second thing is you do not send them a job description, you send them what I call my working with pet nanny, or basically, I'm telling them about my business, what we do our standards, the services we offer, how you how they would work with your company through an independent contractor status. And then when you have when you interview them, or I wouldn't even say interview when you meet with them to discuss the opportunity. You just, you know, you go over that in detail so that they understand, you know, what the relationship is, what their responsibilities are as being an IC. And that's it, you know, again, you just want to make sure that they that relationship is very clear from day one.
Collin Funkhouser 09:01
Yeah, well, it sounds like, again, getting back to what exactly it is, it's two businesses coming together to agree on a set of operating procedures that they both feel like suits them best. It's not one telling the other how to operate and vice versa. It's going okay, here are my five things. What are your five things? Do we agree on these? Okay, great. And then we can move forward? And if not, right, you can't impose on them. I think that's again, where we get this. This confusion of what exactly that relationship is? Yeah, exactly.
Colleen S. 09:30
You guys have to be on the same page on how the relationships gonna work. What we do did I should say I pet nanny when I was using icees. We have what's called a resource center. And it's basically educational materials that the independent contractors can access on how they can be come even better cutters. And basically what that included was, you know everything about a company that how I liked it to be run. And you know, they would go in and Read the read the resources. And if they were in line with the same values and how they were going to provide service, it was a go. And if not, it's not Sonica fit.
Collin Funkhouser 10:09
Yeah, agree. Again, I'm not viewing that as a training opportunity. But just hey, do you agree to these terms? Yes, no, and then move on.
Colleen S. 10:18
Right? Are we in line together with how we're going to provide pet care to our clients?
Collin Funkhouser 10:24
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10:29
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Collin Funkhouser 10:50
If you are looking for new petsitting software, give time to pet a try, our listeners can save 50% off your first three months by visiting time to pet.com. Forward slash confessional, I have a feeling of people listening to this may feel like this, we're being very pedantic about the kind of words that we're using. It's just all semantics. But as you've experienced these kind of wording, and these really helped define the relationship and to when people come in, and when you do get audited, or how you operate like the the all of these, all of these ways of operating are extremely important.
Colleen S. 11:23
Absolutely. Yeah, I was it was a very stressful situation going through those audits. I mean, they and if I had been, I guess if I lost the audit, I guess that's the way you would put it, I would have owed and large amount of money in back taxes for all the year. I mean, I would use over 40 ICs, I was using over 40 ICS a year. And if they had been defined as an employee classification, I would it would have been a big deal. Yeah, it was very scary, very stressful. But both audits they found that I was using them appropriately. But they just kept coming for me. And I thought, nope, you know, I'm just ready to move on.
Collin Funkhouser 12:00
So, an audit, is that something that is triggered at tax filing? Is that just a random audit that you happen to get picked up in? Or do you feel like those are more targeted these days?
Colleen S. 12:11
I think one thing, one thing that was triggering them onto my business was that people that were independent contractors were then filing for unemployment. So say they were working, let's say they had a full time job. And then they were an Icee, from my company. And then they would file for unemployment, if they lost their job, like their full time job. And that was, you know, getting getting the having the government notice, like what was going on, and they came in, and they said, Alright, let's just make sure these people are really independent contractors. That's a very important point, when you are working with ICS, they cannot file for unemployment, and make sure that I mean, crystal clear. Because that's a huge trigger. Right for
Collin Funkhouser 12:53
You, for You. And for them. Again, I think a lot of that is like educating ourselves on what an IC is, but also educating the IC on what an IC is a little bit about like opera, that they really are running an operating their own business. Yes.
Colleen S. 13:05
And that they do also have the ability to work for other companies as well, not just yours. So that's another perk of having employees, you know, they can, you know, be 100%, a representative of only your company, we're independent contractors, they have their own clients, they can work for different companies, make sure that they understand that as well.
Collin Funkhouser 13:23
When it came to paying them, I know there are different models for paying staff, are you able to play to pay an independent contractor per hour, it doesn't have to be per service,
Colleen S. 13:34
you could do per hour. I always did or visit and you know, I now that I'm using employees in Pennsylvania, you don't have to pay for mileage and drive time. It's a write off on their state and local taxes. So I do buy visit. But in some states where you have to pay for that time, you might want to do an hourly rate versus the per visit. Pay model.
Collin Funkhouser 13:59
Yeah, that gets into a lot of things that you are required to cover. So when it comes to things as a business, what am I required to pay for, for an IC versus an employee as you made that transition? So what are you paying for an employee versus that you weren't paying for? An independent contractor?
Colleen S. 14:17
Okay, well, the biggest things are the employment taxes. So I need to withhold I use gussto for my payroll company, and we withhold their federal state and local income taxes from their paychecks. We withhold their FICA taxes, we withhold their unemployment taxes based on their pay. And we're also responsible for workers compensation. So this really adds up now, if you have an IC your base, you're just paying them the gross amount of your agreed upon percentage. So let's say you're paying them 50% of every assignment at the end of every two weeks, we would do a direct deposit and that would just be the gross number that would be automatically deducted into their accounts. And then they were responsible for filing their taxes through a 1099. And they're responsible for their own car, and their own gas and all of their own supplies, which being a self employed person, that's a write off for them. Right? So they need to keep track of all of this. Wow.
Collin Funkhouser 15:19
Now, if you have independent contractors, do you as a business get in trouble? If your IC isn't doing those things?
Colleen S. 15:28
That's a good question. I'm trying to remember. Like if they don't file. Yeah, I don't I don't recall ever having an issue with that. That is a really good question. I also want to just mention Cullen, that to everyone that's listening. I am not a lawyer, I am not an accountant. And I just want you to all you know, definitely, if you are trying to decide between which business model that you should implement in your business, definitely talk to a lawyer and an accountant in your state. I'm just giving you my you know, my experience with having icees versus employees.
Collin Funkhouser 16:00
Yeah, exactly. I think that's a really, really good point to note is that not just at the federal level, but at the state by state level, there are very key distinctions on what we can and can't do and what we should and shouldn't be doing with our staff members. So while we can get some general direction from talking with other people, it really does behoove us to go and talk with local business groups in our in our attacks in our in our attorney for sure.
Colleen S. 16:24
Yes, exactly. At the beginning, but
Collin Funkhouser 16:31
better late than ever, it's always in your mind, who should be using or in what capacity should independent contractors be used? In petsitting? Is it a model that should that can work for people? Or should we really be focusing more on employees?
Colleen S. 16:51
And this is where people are going to be like, Wow, I mean, in the petsitting industry, people have such strong opinions about this, I don't understand why, you know, if you like, using ice is great. If you like using employees, great, I love the icy model, I would have used ICS forever, if you know the government was not hell bent on me switching their classification. With the last audit, when they tried to automate the third time I had five years Safe Harbor after winning the audit the year before. And my accountant said you, you know, you're not able to audit her again. And they said, Well, she needs to prove we don't have any record that we audited her her last year. So she needs to prove to us that she was audited. I mean, if you've ever heard of something so crazy, so my account had to go to the basement, well, that all of the information and literally deliver it to the IRS office. And I thought you know what, they're just gonna keep coming for me. So anyway, that was my point, I love IDs, you can use them legally, like I did. And you know, probably not have a lot. If you don't have like a ton of people like I do, you're probably not going to, they're not going to be sniffing you out. But you have to be very diligent on how you're using them. Like everything that we went through, if you're willing to do all of that, great if you want more direction and control, if you want them wearing shirts, if you want them wearing car magnets, if you want to have team meetings, if you want to have in depth trainings with them. That's an employee relationship. So it just kind of depends on what kind of relationship you want with the people that are representing your company?
Collin Funkhouser 18:20
Does it matter to your clients? How you communicate who your staff members are? Or did you ever communicate to your clients, this is an independent contractor for me, versus an employee model.
Colleen S. 18:35
Now, that was not told to my clients, I don't believe at any time, when we did switch to employees, we did frame it, as these are the benefits now, you know, we are switching from using independent contractors to employees, and this is why this is so great for you, you know, basically saying we can have more direction and control we can you know, monitor, monitor them much more closely. So on and so forth. So we kind of sold it to our clients when we made the switch that it was a good thing.
Collin Funkhouser 19:04
Did you have any, any existing staff members that were hesitant to become employees when you made that switch?
Colleen S. 19:10
At first? Yes, but we had a team meeting and while you know, I had graphs and I had you know all the explanation of how this was going to go and at the end because they weren't making paying self employment tax. They would actually net more at the end of the year. It may look a little less may look last paycheck to paycheck but by the end when all is said and done. They were actually going to net more income and they were like okay, that's fine. You know, more money better. That's better. Yeah.
Collin Funkhouser 19:38
Now for you though it did it did require absorbing some more costs. So was it was that switch associated with a price increase? Or did you just kind of bite that a little bit and move on?
Colleen S. 19:52
Yes, we definitely did a price increase. I have a whole plan that I teach my students for those that are like switching from ICS to ease but um I had a whole plan where I was able to, from what I implemented, it was not as big of a hit as I had anticipated. You know, I still look at that every month, I look at the payroll reports on my couch. I mean, it's expensive, it's expensive, but you can raise your rates you have, you can negotiate the pay with the employees, there's lots of things that you can do to offset the costs of bringing on or transitioning to employees,
Collin Funkhouser 20:29
and finding out what's gonna work best for you and seeing where those numbers line out. I think, procedurally, you know, we've, we've mentioned that with employees, you can direct them a little more, right, you have more control over their schedule. And I do want to talk about that for just a little bit more, because I feel like that that may be something that people get hung up on is how exactly do I schedule? My independent contractor? I know, you've mentioned you had times where they would list they weren't available. But that sounds like an awful lot. Like I've tried to schedule a meeting with three people before and it took like nine months to find dates that worked for everybody. So how did you ultimately make it work scheduling wise, and make it consistent for your clients?
Colleen S. 21:13
I just utilize the calendar in my software program. So they would just go in and block out whenever they couldn't work. And then you would go in and say, okay, Collin Funkhouser needs three visits a day tomorrow. And I would go and pick the IC. And if it said unavailable, I would move on to the next I say they are unavailable, you go on to the next IC. And in terms of them, meeting with clients and such, that's I really stressed the relationship between the sender and the client. So your you know that your pet nanny will be calling you within 24 hours. And then they would find a convenient time. I didn't really micromanage that process in terms of registration meetings, pre departure meetings, meet and greets all that.
Collin Funkhouser 21:57
Because again, I know you mentioned this earlier. But you again, you were directing that client independent contractor relationship and focusing on there, and and you're just kind of coordinating and matching them together?
Colleen S. 22:09
Correct? Correct. So I always and something else, that I always we have a primary sector. So if you're the independent contractor that was assigned to this client, and that relationship was created, I always would try to schedule that IC first, based on their availability, and then I would move down the down the list, they weren't available.
Collin Funkhouser 22:30
Did you ever have an independent contractor come to you with changing, changing their their policies or their how they wanted the relationship to work for you that you then had to let them go? Because they want to operate in a different way?
Colleen S. 22:45
Yeah, absolutely. And then it's just okay. Well, thank you very much for your service, I will no longer be, you know, signing any jobs here.
Collin Funkhouser 22:53
Hmm. Yeah, cuz it was, it was it was it just as easy as that to fire somebody, or how even term firing an independent contractor is that
Colleen S. 23:01
the same process be firing, you would just be the end of the business relationship. So again, you're you know, that's, I'm not their employer, so I can't fire them, I just will no longer assign any jobs to them contract anyone to that? Yeah. And that's it. And that's just the end of the relationship,
Collin Funkhouser 23:16
do you have an example of something that that they came to you or not really,
Colleen S. 23:20
their availability, right? So basically, you you have an expectation of availability, like I say, to all the people that I meet with employees or independent contractors, like, I don't want to waste your time, you don't want to waste my time, like, you know, this is when the clients are going to need service. You know, if you're available, great, but if it's gonna be, you know, here and there, and you're never available, I don't, I don't want to waste your time. Don't waste my time type of thing. Yeah. If it gets to a point where they're constantly changing, like when they're available, and they're never available to work, I mean, that's, I just call it a day.
Collin Funkhouser 23:54
It's too much headache to bother with at that point, and you can move on to somebody else.
Colleen S. 23:59
Exactly. Exactly. And that's kind of the biggest sticking point I could think of in terms of anything that happened with independent contractors I'm trying to think I mean gosh, 17 years I'm sure I have some great stories but I'm drawing a blank what about
Collin Funkhouser 24:13
what about pricing? Because if they are their own independent business and your your independent business if they decide to raise their rates or have an expectation of higher pay, how do you handle that?
Colleen S. 24:24
I have never had that situation because we had the agreed upon you know percentage and they sign the agreement. And if they were they did want an increase in pay that would be a discussion and if they weren't amazing center that I was willing to do that for then I would consider it and if not, again, that was a call today.
Collin Funkhouser 24:41
Right? Because again, we're looking at from their their position to they're an independent contractor, they could go and find another company to partner with other than your yours to charge higher rates for and see, you know, kind of like placing out bids for the pet care to see who can get the best rate for them.
Colleen S. 24:58
Right, sure. And they have ever Do that.
Collin Funkhouser 25:01
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Colleen S. 26:19
I was hit hard by this I had an independent contractor wants to work for me for years and years who I trusted implicitly and then found out that she was stealing clients behind my back, it ended up being about $5,000 a month in revenue. So it was a it was a really big deal. Wow. And then I went I was going to bring a report. And then I found out that my independent contractor agreement that had a non compete clause in it like would never hold water in court to basically non competes don't work. Because it takes the right of work away from somebody. And Pennsylvania is a right to work state. Okay, so that was a big learning lesson through that experience. So moving forward, basically, whenever I am onboarding a new senator, I would just make it perfectly clear that they would sign a non solicitation clause versus a non compete, okay. And the difference is, if you ever want to start your own pet sitting business on your own, you know, by all means, I wish you the very best of luck, but you cannot do it with pet nanny clients. That would be against your non solicitation clause. If you do, I will take you to court and you will be charged $2,000 For every single client that you solicited from my business. And I had a lawyer I mean, when I tell you the amount of money I spent getting this independent contractor agreement updated after the first experience. And I'm serious, you know, I'm 100% serious. So I let them know, do you understand? Yes, and I haven't actually initial right there on the clause. And then at that point, I let it go, I really don't stress about it. I used to straw, I used to make up the most crazy systems where I would be checking on these people. And I just I just don't stress about that anymore.
Collin Funkhouser 28:01
You brought somebody on to help you. So you didn't have stress. And then to spend your time sitting there stressing about them is kind of a little silly. You need to build your processes, make sure that agreement and that relationship is good. And you've agreed upon the same conditions. And then you do have to step back and go, Okay, I got to trust this. And I know that I'm protected if something does happen.
Colleen S. 28:23
And here's the thing, you're a business owner and you're a human being things are going to happen. Not everything is going to go perfectly. But I always try to look like that experience with the first IC I just told you about, what can I learn from this? To make it better? What system can I create from this to make my business better? If you have that mindset with your business, and you know, pitfalls happen, and roadblocks come up, but you can take something away from everything that happens, you are going to create an amazing business.
Collin Funkhouser 28:51
Yeah, yeah, mindset is so huge regarding everything that we do, whether from the big things to the small things, hiring staff, and then our own relationship that we have with our clients to if we if we're approaching problems or even opportunities with the wrong mindset, right? We're not going to get to where we ultimately want to go. No,
Colleen S. 29:11
no, exactly. I try to keep a positive mindset. I have my full one of these cards every day. Oh, that's today's when I'm tuned into the energy of abundance, I become abundant. I just put it right here on my desk. And I'm trying to stay positive every day.
Collin Funkhouser 29:30
You're just trying to you know talk about the the power of words in our life and the mindset that it gives us the words that we speak when we speak abundance. It's not like we're necessarily magically manifesting anything in our lives, but we look for more abundance. We look for those opportunities. We look for things that we have agency and control over. And that just changes our entire outlook. Yep, exactly. So reflecting on 17 years of working with independent contractors, what some advice that you would Give maybe that we haven't discussed that you would really recommend somebody do or somebody used before they enter into that relationship with an independent contractor.
Colleen S. 30:11
I think meeting with an accountant is really important. understanding exactly what you can and cannot do as a business owner while contracting ICS making sure that you have everything documented making sure that you have an iron clad independent contractor agreement with that non solicitation clause, making sure that you're making everything perfectly clear to the icy as they're being on boarded with your company. So basically, information getting organized and making sure that you understand exactly what you can and can't do,
Collin Funkhouser 30:47
again, because that does is going to pin on states. And that's going to depend on what your how you want to operate your business. I think that to have, what do you want your business to do? And how do you want to be operating it?
Colleen S. 30:58
Exactly. You can create any result that you want in your business? What do you want your business to look like? Clarity equals power? So write it down, if you can, you know, create your dream petsitting business, what exactly does it look like? And then from there, you can decide, you know, what the what relationship you want with the team that you build?
Collin Funkhouser 31:16
I know you are a big reader. And so I did want to ask you, what book that you're reading and what recommendation you'd have for people for more resources.
Colleen S. 31:25
Oh, my goodness, yes, we do a book club with my students every month. And the book that we just actually scrapped this month book because it was terrible. I'm not even gonna say it was called the 5am Club. It was just bad. So we're like, we're gonna get rid of that. So we're actually reading, breaking the habit of being yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza. All about like metaphysics and your brain and you know, creating the reality that you want. I mean, it's some deep stuff, but I love all that stuff. And I loved you're a badass and making money by Jensen chair, I thought that was one of my favorites, I have her I have the audiobook, and she just makes me laugh. But she's hilarious. So listening to it, and then she also has a workbook that goes with it. Filling out the workbook in the morning was something that I really enjoyed. So I highly recommend that book.
Collin Funkhouser 32:12
Awesome. I really appreciate that, you know, it's something that I feel like is a very simple step that we can do in our business is just read and read broadly, and get connected with more ideas, because that's going to help us be again, have more clarity and understanding of what we want, whether we are running with icees or employees and knowing those distinctions. And then just being able to think outside the box in some scenarios to
Colleen S. 32:35
Yes, to more I'm going to say, in my head. Absolutely a staple for businesses, small businesses is the E Myth revisited. So that's talking about how as the business owner, you're not supposed to be the technician in the business and creating systems so that the system runs the business, the person runs the system, huge. And then the book traction. We also did that with my, with my mastermind a couple months ago. I mean, that was like gold for any business. So traction, the E Myth revisited your business and making money are my top three.
Collin Funkhouser 33:09
Perfect. Colleen, I really appreciate you taking time today to break down some Mexican misconceptions about using contractors and how to make it work for us and make sure it's what we want in our business. But I know it's a big, big topic and that you've got a lot of resources and knowledge on it. So how can people get connected, pick your brain and start looking at all that you do?
Colleen S. 33:31
Okay, well, you can go to my website at Pet nanny coach.com. There's tons of free resources there. I also have a bundle created for your listeners today, Collins. So if they go to pet sitting freebie.com, they're going to get three resources. The first is the COVID recovery report how to get your pet sitting business back and multiply it after COVID-19 that we have 35 marketing strategies for petsitting businesses and 37 systems for petsitting businesses. Again, that URL is pet sitting freebie.com. And then also if anyone's ever interested in chatting with me about your business's and coming up with an action plan, you can go to meet with colleen.com
Collin Funkhouser 34:18
perfect and I will have all of those links in the show notes so people can click right to those, get those resources and start learning from all that you have to share again, Colleen, I really appreciate you coming on the show today. Thank you so much.
Colleen S. 34:30
Absolutely anytime, anytime.
Collin Funkhouser 34:33
My biggest takeaway from my conversation with Colleen is the fact that terms and conditions matter. Who knew when we don't understand what kind of control we want to have. And when we don't communicate that effectively to those that we're hiring. We can wind up in trouble. When Coleen outlined all of the things that you can't do with an independent contractor. You really have to make sure that what you are looking for is an independent contractor. For one off jobs, temporary positions or Filling in last minute booking that may really work out well for many of us. The problem is, is that most of us tend to have bigger plans beyond that, or we get stuck using them and it just becomes something about what we do. And we look up and we might get audited after a while, you can still legally use them and we think there are places where they are still totally appropriate. Let us know if you've ever used an independent contractor and what does it look like for you? We want to thank our sponsors timed pet and pet sitters international for making today's show possible and we really want to thank you for listening and for all the work that you're doing out there and getting ready for the busy holiday times and making your business the best that it can be. We'll be back again soon. Yo
