243: Our 2021 Wins!

Summary:

What were your wins for 2021? On the last Monday of the year, we review what has happened to us this year. We discuss our biggest moment from each month and what we hope to carry forward into 2022. Reflecting on your wins will help keep you motivated as you move forward into the new year.

Topics on this episode:

• Monthly 2021 wins

• Our most monumental month

• Why you should track your wins

Main takeaway: Review your wins so you can remember that you are capable of great things!

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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

hire, year, talk, pet sitter, business owner, business, episode, recognized, people, full time job, running, dog, travel, megan, hope, turned, learn, felt, pricing, month

SPEAKERS

Meghan, Collin

00:17

Hi, I'm Megan Cullen.

Meghan  00:19

And this is Pet Sitter confessional and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Hello, welcome to episode 243. Hello,

Collin  00:32

and happy last Monday of the year. Yeah,

Meghan  00:35

next time we talk to you, it will be 2022. Whew. That's exciting. Yeah, this episode is gonna be a little bit different. And hopefully pretty short and sweet. We know you're busy, we are very busy.

Collin  00:47

But we do want to thank our Patreon supporters for your year long support of us, it's just amazed us and we are so blown away and so thankful for that. So to learn about that, go to pet Serkan festival, comm slash

Meghan  00:59

support. Or if you've enjoyed any of the past 242 episodes, which hopefully you have at least one, we would be so happy. If you leave us a kind review on Apple podcasts or Spotify, they now have the option to review on there as well. So we're going to talk about some stuff that's happened to us this year, it has been kind of a monumental year for us big shifts. Yes. So in January, we were featured in the newspaper. And that was really our first kind of big publicity in our community. Yeah, either

Collin  01:30

actually forgotten about that, that's you brought that up, we were really nervous going into that and kind of blown away that somebody had reached out and wanted to feature us. And it all started because she was following us on social media. And she saw our posts and things that we're putting out there in the community. And she really liked what she saw. So one of my lessons from that is just to continue to be authentic to ourselves, and to put out value anytime we post because people see that. And people do recognize that even though you might not always get that recognition.

Meghan  01:58

And then in February for us people really started to travel, and they got the vaccine stuff was opening up. And we were starting to see the boom, that was going to be 2021.

Collin  02:10

Yeah, it was kind of an incoming avalanche of people, as things start to open back up, we saw really locally, first and those pinging notifications from the phone, I don't know if I still have PTSD from that or not. But it was really kind of an eye opener to us thinking about what this year was going to be

Meghan  02:26

well, and that leads us into March were for spring break. And basically like two weeks in there, we turned away more clients than we actually took on. We were at max capacity for everything during that spring break. It was it was really the first time when people were able to travel. And it gave us just a little bit of taste for what the summer was going to be really

Collin  02:46

and it was so painful and doing those calculations and realizing just how many people we turned away. Yeah. But we had to that was just like for our well being like there was no way we could meet that demand, it was really important that we did that. It's it stinks to look at those numbers. But I think every now that you have those moments, where you say no to more things, and you actually accept on, but in the long run, that's what you have to do if you're going to be in this business for any length of time is recognizing what those boundaries are, and sticking to them even though those dollar signs are staring at you right in the face. Well, and

Meghan  03:16

if you really don't like turning away people, maybe it's time to hire, which is what we did later in the year. But anyway, foreshadow. And then in May, we actually passed our 2020 revenue, which, which was awesome.

Collin  03:28

Yeah, to think that in that short amount of time, but you know, obviously 2020 had a lot of things going on in that. So revenue wasn't as big, but kind of seeing that we hit that milestone,

Meghan  03:38

not even halfway into the year. Yeah, really set it up well, especially for June, which is when we broke 10k For the first time. That was pretty cool.

Collin  03:46

I still remember that month, for sure. But now once you kind of do that, and we hit that for a couple of different reasons, we had a good mixture of our services, all of them were being utilized at that time. And we had raised prices just before that, I think so it really did help kind of all line up to make that month a really good one for us.

Meghan  04:04

And then in July, I think was probably the most monumental month of the year. Do you know why? What happened in July? What

Collin  04:12

happened in July? It's been so long I

Meghan  04:15

quit your full time job.

Collin  04:16

I did quit my full time job. I did. I did. Yeah, that's the biggest thing. For me personally, the biggest thing that came out of 2020 is just taking that step. And that is such a big thing to realize that this petsitting thing that we were running as a business that we were doing, basically, as a second full time job for both of us was now our only thing. And that took it was really scary to take that step and realize now it all depends on us. But then it was really exciting to because it all depends on us now and we could really make it what we want to and I really appreciated now getting to work with you Megan more and more, even though it's caught some arguments and we're butting heads, I think but I think that's been well. It's been really good for both of us to go through that process. to now be a team and be working through everything that's come even since July. And yeah, it's been, I've just, it's really opened my eyes to a lot of things. And I just so appreciate the opportunity and all of our clients to that have given us that opportunity to do that and to give us what we want as a family.

Meghan  05:21

Well, we always say that we play on our strengths and weaknesses, but it has opened up even more ways in which we have strengths and weaknesses. And so it's allowed us to collaborate even more in our business. In September, we put out our first job ad, our

Collin  05:35

oh my gosh, yeah, that was, it was one of those where we knew we wanted to do it, we had overcome all those initial hurdles of like, knowing you want to hire and knowing the mindset change of what that would mean for us in the business, how we manage it. It was now just implementing that.

Meghan  05:52

And I think it was mostly you issue with that

Collin  05:56

it almost broke me. Because everyone says we'll just hire, right. And it's that word, just an expanding that out and realizing

Meghan  06:04

they're actually 11,000.

Collin  06:07

And I didn't know any of them. And we didn't have things prepared. And there was a lot to learn. And that is an episode we are going to do very early on next year is hiring and what that process was like for us because it was very formative. As we became more and more in tune with what our business was. And that was a big shift we had just quit my job. It felt like and now we were going into hiring and I was learning so much. And my mindset really became cemented in that of being a business owner at that point, going through all those forms all that paperwork, making all those phone calls. Dell filling everything out, was like, Oh, I'm actually running a business. It didn't really hit me until I even after I quit my job even after we had gone through all the other stuff. It was like now now I'm a business owner. And that's, that's been a weird shift for me this year.

Meghan  07:01

And then in October, we actually have an interesting funny story. You got recognized somewhere.

Collin  07:08

Oh, oh, is one of the most awkward things was a weekend where we didn't have much going on. Megan was traveling with the kids to my to see my dad. And I had stayed back to take care of a few dogs and some of my friends had come in from town. We went out to a relatively a pretty nice place. And we're sitting out on the patio and I was talking with them. And all of a sudden the waiter comes in and stops and he looks at me and goes, Are you the youth dog guy? And I was like, Yeah, from Funky Bunch. And he was like, Oh my gosh, I follow you guys on Instagram. I love what you're doing. It's so cool. It's really Pleasure to meet you. And he walked off. And I turned and I looked at my friends and their eyes were huge. And they're like, What is

Meghan  07:55

your celebrity,

Collin  07:56

it was so incredibly awkward. But it made me think of all those discussions that we've had about who is in your community. This is a gentleman who doesn't have a dog. I later talked to him about that he doesn't have a dog. He doesn't really travel a whole lot. He just follows our Instagram page because he likes what we're doing. He likes the photos. He likes the information. He likes the stuff that we're putting out there in the world. And he just felt like he wanted to say thank you. And it was again, a reminder to be aware and cognizant of how we operate as a business. We are members of the community, people see what we do

Meghan  08:35

well and not to sound creepy, but you are probably being watched.

Collin  08:39

Well, yeah, inside homes, outside homes going to and from, it's why we always pick up the poop not just because it's a city ordinance. But because it's the right thing to do. And we want to be known as the company who picks up poop. It's why we take in the trash, or we pick up things or we look out for things around people's house, because that's what we want to be known for. So thinking about those values that we have as business owners, implementing them, and then knowing people are gonna see those. And they do get through, they do get communicated to people again, even though you don't always see that or get recognized, like I was Wow.

Meghan  09:14

And then in November, we hired our first couple employees for our remote location.

Collin  09:21

Yeah, so it took us almost a month and a half, almost two months to fully go through that process. So well. And

Meghan  09:27

I think that was fine. I mean, this was our first time hiring, we really didn't know what we were doing necessarily.

Collin  09:36

Now, and we were also launching in a brand new location that's two and a half hours away from us. And so we were having to get that up and running and hire people at the same time. And so the timeline was fine, that it took us a little bit. And that is another episode that we're going to do is the hiring process, what steps we have in place and how we ended up deciding on the people that we wanted to But that was yet another game changer for me going. And I'm sure was for you to Meg and going, Oh, I'm a company with staff now. I'm really excited by this. But I didn't expect to be here. I never saw myself as a business owner, let alone an employer. And that was another mind shift change this year. Yeah, it

Meghan  10:23

was also crazy during our first all staff meeting, that felt incredibly surreal that these people were coming to our office, our conference room to talk for us to talk to them. And we, you and I were leading the meeting. That was insane. I had to come prepared with stuff to talk about for my meeting for our meeting. And it was kind of intimidating, that I was now basically managing these people and providing at least some of their livelihood. Yeah. But it was also empowering of we survived the meeting, we can do this. We can have staff, we can run a remote location. And it's exciting.

Collin  11:08

Yeah, yeah, sitting in that car afterwards. It really didn't, it still didn't feel real. But I is super excited about all the progress that we've

Meghan  11:16

made. And then in December, this month, we hired an employee for our own town, hey, we

Collin  11:21

kind of did it backwards like. But that was born out of from several times throughout the year where we were so slammed here, that we were just running on top of ourselves. And finally I realized, look, we survived hiring people remotely, now will be easier to hire closer to us, and hire and manage them. And so we're really, really excited to get him on board at the beginning of the year, and can't wait to start growing and expanding here locally to Yeah, so

Meghan  11:49

that was pretty much our year. And we can't wait to see what 2022 has in store for us. Because I don't know how it could be better than this year. Last year was pretty awesome. Yeah, we hope it was for you, too. We hope that you've been able to garner some lessons from 2020, bring them into 2021 and make it a powerful 2022 coming up.

Collin  12:11

Yeah. And it's really, really, really important to sit down and review your wins for the year, no matter how big no matter how small to sit down in at least like what we just did. What's one thing that happened that month that I'm really excited about? What's one thing that happened that month that I learned something from that I can take forward and write down what that was not just so that you can start applying it to 2022. But also so you don't forget it. So during the hard times in the year ahead, which will come we know they will. When those hard times come you can look at your list and go Yeah, I did that. Like in 10 years, we will look back to 2021. And go, that was the start of it. That was the year where we finally implemented all this stuff that we had been dreaming and hoping for to get us to this point. It's a pivotal year for us. That's really powerful to remember year after year and point back to that time. And remember that motivation that you had. So if you have not done a yearly review or thought about your wins for the year, it's powerful. And we hope you're able to do that and going into 2020 to be prepared for for even more wins.

Meghan  13:18

We also want to take a moment to talk about Wednesday's episode. It is awesome.

Collin  13:24

Oh, yes, yeah, we are bringing back the roundtable format. So we have Natasha Albanian. We have Doug Keeling and Dan Reitman on to talk about pricing. Pricing is always a big topic. It's something that I see posted on it hundreds of times a day, it seems like am I pricing correctly? What does this price mean? What should I price for this? pricing, pricing Pricing. And I really enjoyed this conversation because we take that, and we really start talking about value, cost price and and what it means as a business owner to break down your costs and what you need to have and kind of pushing back on some of the assumptions that the industry has that are limiting our ability in our businesses to actually run well.

Meghan  14:09

So Collin, and I will talk to you again next year here. But please listen to Wednesday's episode 244 It is going to be awesome. You are not going to want to miss it. Yeah, I know that sounds cheesy and everybody always says that but you know, it's gonna be a good one.

Collin  14:28

It really is. And so we wish you all the best winos is a really busy time of year for you and we hope that you're able to find some time for yourself to relax and if not find time early in January to do so and we will we'll talk to you in the New Year. Bye bye