262: You Should Attend a Conference
Summary:
Have you attended a pet sitting conference? We just went to our first in-person conference, the Texas Pet Sitters Conference. Attending, especially in person, brings a ton of benefits, if you’ve prepared and are ready to take advantage of them. We share our experience and why we think you should go to one too! Plus, Natasha answers, “How do I make my life about more than my business?”
Main topics:
Why should you attend?
Main takeaways
How to make the most of your time
Ask a Pet Biz Coach
Main takeaway: Attend a conference!
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
conference, attend, people, clients, business, pet sitters, person, questions, pet, staff, boarding, sitter, distractions, write, speakers, set, plan, life, hear, talk
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin, Natasha
Meghan 00:10
Hello, I'm Meghan I'm Collin and this is Pet Sitter confessional an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Hello, welcome to episode 262. Hello, thank you to our wonderful Patreon members and special thank you to our newest Patreon member you Yvonne.
Collin 00:30
Yes, thank you Vaughn for joining the Patreon and we're looking forward to getting to know you more
Meghan 00:36
depending on the tier our Patreon members get access to a monthly meetup. We're thinking about starting up a book club, and they also get access to early released episodes. So if you would like to learn more about that you can do so at petsitter confessional.com/support. We survived our trip to the Texas pet sitters conference in New Braunfels, Texas. It was quite a long drive, but very much worth it. It was really a fast paced week that left us wishing that we had more time with everyone there really wasn't enough time. We stayed up late and had wonderful conversations. But we wish there was more time for getting to know everyone and their businesses. It was our first in person petsitter conference that we've been able to attend the past few years, we've done the online conferences, thanks to COVID. And, wow, this, this was exactly what we needed, what we wanted. And we got so much out of physically seeing people and basically transferring Facebook icons to actual people and Instagram handles to people. It was great meeting everybody. And we can't wait to go again soon. So
Collin Funkhouser 01:43
other than it really being our first opportunity to attend an in person conference, why did we decide it was time for us to go to one? Well, several reasons. Actually. The first one was after the last several years of COVID. And not being able to see a whole lot of people, we were really looking to make a lot more connections and really just be with other pet sitters in person. We also wanted to connect and learn and keep pushing our business forward and hear input from others about some of the ideas that we had. Well, and
Meghan 02:11
also you had applied to talk at the conference.
Collin Funkhouser 02:15
That is true, right. And because I wanted to do that, because we've talked about on the podcast that we I believe and we believe that it's important for more people to be applying to speak at conferences to be sharing their stories and such. And so I decided to take a dose of my own medicine and to do that. So I did give get to give a talk about imposter syndrome and identity as a pet business owner, and how we can wrap our brains around overcoming that and bringing the community together around that. And it was a great talk. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. It was very it was very well received. And I'm very appreciative for everybody who was there and who who cheered me on. Getting to this conference wasn't really easy.
Meghan 02:56
Well, physic physically, it was a very long drive.
Collin 02:59
It was it was a total of what 14 or so hours in the car for us and 11 or so that was with our four and our six year old as we after he dropped them off at grandparents. So getting there was was was tough for us. I mean, even before that, though, about four months before the conference, we started letting clients know that we wouldn't be providing overnights or daycares for that week, we started letting them know that all visits would just be 100% our staff and that we had to get that they had to get on our schedule early. Because we would be really limited with the number of people we'd be able to service that week, we also
Meghan 03:33
started preparing our staff to be 100% independent of us without backup, if they had a question, they could still call us. But we wouldn't be there to take over visits or problem solve in person. So we did a lot of training and walkthrough with our clients and setting expectations for visits. And then obviously for staff as well. We also helped our staff have good time management skills. And we really helped to plan out their routes and their visit order and what dogs needed to be seen when and with
Collin 04:04
all that prep work. Naturally the week of the conference, we had a snowstorm. And multiple multiple last minute bookings. And our staff handled it beautifully. They really did amazingly well with everything going on.
Meghan 04:19
But it was really made possible because we could continue to operate at some capacity. While being away, we were still able to make money without physically being
Collin 04:29
there. If you are a solo sitter and want to attend a conference, it can be tricky. So we you have to decide whether you are going to refer your clients out to somebody for that week so that they can continue to get service. Or maybe you have a backup sitter that you can refer them to or maybe you just tell your clients I'm not able to help you at all this week, but I will pick you back up next week.
Meghan 04:50
But no matter which one you choose, make sure you start that process early way in advance so that everyone is on the same page. You know you've officially blocked at that time and your clients know what to expect once we got to the conference, we arrived the day before. And we made a conscious effort to start setting aside the distractions. But that was pretty hard.
Collin 05:10
I have never taken so many new client phone calls, as I did while we were driving through Oklahoma. Yeah, it's it's I don't know, if that's a new marketing tactic, just take a drive through Oklahoma and get a bunch of new business. Well, plus, on top of fielding phone calls, while at the conference, we had alerts and messages to attend to on our phones, whether those were client notifications, or whether those social media pings, things like that, that wouldn't normally distract us, because those are how we run our business. But when we were trying to focus in in the moment listening to someone speak these, these notifications, these normal distractions were really overbearing at times. And so we really did have to mute phone, set them on sleep mode and focus mode, set them aside, face down, and try our best to stay focused on what was happening in front of us.
Meghan 06:01
But that was a good reminder that even though we have kind of removed ourselves a little bit from the business by having our staff do the drop ins and the dog walks, we are not totally removed, because we still are the one fielding the phone calls and doing the Client Onboarding and setting the schedules. And so it was, it was good to know that we still have work to do.
Collin 06:22
But we did set aside specific times basically the breaks in between talks, to work on what we had to do and just try our best to keep up to date with everything. Otherwise, we really would have just sat on our phones the whole time trying to keep the business running.
Meghan 06:37
And frankly, we had spent too much money and wanted too much out of this conference to let that happen.
Collin 06:43
So after we had put away all these distractions, and we're focusing, the conference had a lot going on.
Meghan 06:49
The conference had different sessions from a social media person to a team management person, and then Collins talk as well, among others. But everyone sat in one big room and one speaker came up at a time to present which is actually pretty different than the conferences that we were used to attending back in the science and research world. They had their conferences were huge, like 1000s of people. So they really ran concurrent sessions, and many multiple speakers were talking at the same time in multiple rooms. So you really had to plan ahead and know exactly which ones you wanted to attend. So this was more of a small intimate setting where people could ask questions anytime. And it felt very comfortable.
Collin Funkhouser 07:30
We also had an opportunity to attend several social events. And one of the nights they had something specifically called Dinner packs, where everybody signs up to go to one of three possible dinner look options. That way, you don't have to worry about eating alone or feeling embarrassed to ask where everyone is going to eat. And it brings a lot more people together. Now while all the speakers were awesome, our favorite time was hearing the input and knowledge from those attending. And a good portion of those attending had been in business for coming up on 30
Meghan 08:01
years, which is awesome, because we obviously have not been in business for 30 years. So picking their brains of how they run their business, why they do the things they do. And really also just hearing their personal stories as well was really cool. Yeah,
Collin 08:13
or their input that they had that was on top of or above and beyond what somebody was asking door during an open q&a session, having kind of the room, answer it or give input was really neat to experience.
Meghan 08:25
My favorite was when a woman who's been in business for 25 years, was asking one of the speakers who had been in business for 20 years, a very important question about her business that was so cool that we no matter how many years you've been a pet sitter or in the pets, any business, you can still learn from others.
Collin 08:43
With so much going on, though, it is still hard to make sure you get the most out of these kinds of conferences. So one of the first things that we had to do and I recommend for you to do as well when you attend a conference is to take notes, take a lot of notes, it helps keep you focused helps keep you present, and you capture a lot of ideas and back and forth that aren't really written down in front of you. And it's not just taking notes during the talks. More importantly, here, you're taking notes about the questions that you have while somebody is presenting. That way when the talk is done, you don't have to remember what you wanted to ask. And you can ask it right away or do a follow up email to them.
Meghan 09:19
Well, and especially since there's so many speakers and so many awesome topics and so much information to try to understand that when you can go back weeks later months later and reference your notes. It is very helpful. Some other tips that we have for attending a petsitting conference or really any conference or sit with different people each day so a lot of people will tend to gravitate to the same table or the same chair. But change it up. That's how you get to know different people it will if you're especially if you're the first one there in the morning and you sit in a different spot, it will kind of everybody else entering the room will kind of gravitate to a different area as well. So you can set the pace for people meeting different people and with that put yourself into conversation This can be very hard for introverts like myself. But the point of going to an in person conference is to network with people. That is, is the main reason, obviously, it's to learn about things. But you also want to get connected with others. I know there were two pet sitters who attended there who actually live in the same county of California, but they did not know each other before coming to the conference. And they were able to get connected because they sat at the same table. That is really cool. So ask questions of people that are attending, get to know their business and their story. And then attend dinner with someone, maybe do a startup dinner pack,
Collin 10:38
everybody has to eat while attending the conference. So pull a small group together, let them know what your dinner plans are, and invite somebody new that you maybe don't have connections with so you can continue this networking. And while you're doing that, talk about random stuff. You can ask them questions about their business about their story about their why, but just get to know people on a human level, what are their interests? What are they planning for the future? What are some of their hopes and other things that they do and whether some of their hobbies, that way, you can start developing some deeper connections, and hopefully, building some lasting friendships with people. That was one of the coolest things that I got to experience, while at the conference was sitting at a table with a bunch of business owners who have known each other for over 20 years. And just how comfortable and familiar they are, how quickly they call people up for questions or conversations or reach out for help. And that kind of thing is invaluable to us as business owners and especially as pet sitters.
Meghan 11:32
And then it's also important to share and exchange contact information, or even Instagram handles go and follow each other. So you can keep up with what you guys are doing even after the conference. Like we mentioned earlier, we wish that we had had more time to connect with everybody to hear more speakers. But at some of these conferences, you don't really have a whole lot of time, maybe it's just a couple days or a weekend. So focus on one or two of these goals. And unfortunately, you can't go to every event you can't meet every person or ask every question of everybody, but set up a list of things that you'd like to get out of a conference and prioritize them. So is your main goal going to be meeting other people? Well make sure to get the most out of the networking events that they have. Ask other pet care providers about their businesses and pick their brains on why they do what they do and their business. Or are you going because there's a really cool speaker or topic that you want to hear more about. Make sure you put away all distractions, you take good notes, and you see if this speaker can talk more about the topic after they're done presenting it or maybe at a networking event, see if you can approach them and ask more questions about their presentation. When you are traveling to the conference or are already there. Don't forget that you can use this as content for your social media for blogs, take pictures while you are there and share stories about what you are learning people love that people love to see that you are getting more educated about pet care that you are making friends with other pet sitters. I know a lot of the clients and friends that we talked to didn't even know that, that petsitting conferences exist that place for like minded people, we can go and share and connect, it will really elevate your expert status to your clients and potential clients. You can say, hey, I went to this thing. It was really cool. petsitting is a big deal.
Collin 13:23
And while you're taking your notes, write down ideas for blog topics or those social media posts while you're in the moment. I know there are many pages on my notebook where I wrote down topics that I know that we needed to cover, or we need to bring to light or to reach out to people for extra questions or to bring them on for blog posts or things like that, that we wanted to help share more information with our clients. One of the big ones for us was there was a presentation about Chagas disease. Have you heard of that? Yeah. Because we had not, we had not and there's so much information there that now there's all these blog topics, all these social media post ideas that just came up, while the vet was talking that I had to write down quickly, so that I didn't lose those. And as Megan said, Whenever you present yourself to your clients and to your community, as somebody who's going to these conferences, doing these kinds of events, and then bringing back this information, they love to see that they love to see that you're investing in yourself because then they reap the benefits. They reap the rewards of you continuing to elevate and push yourself to learn new things. While we were at the conference, there was a question that came up about whether you should have staff attend a conference or not. And it kind of breaks down in a couple different things. If you have an IC, you can't require them to go you can suggest it or let them know that that's an opportunity that they can take advantage of. But you can't make them and you really can't pay for it at all. If you have an employee you should definitely consider paying for their way to go to attend a conference like this. Especially if you don't have the time to or you have a staff member who is just really chomping at the bit to get the most out of this and is really looking to excel in Your company, and to make sure you get the most out of it with them. Spend time after the conference debriefing, have them do a write up about what they learned how they want to see it implemented in the company, have them write a new SOP SOP or start developing some more content for your company based on the things that they learned. And if they're really inspired, have them write a blog or do some videos for you so that you can continue to put them and elevate them and push them forward to make sure that they are getting the most out
Meghan 15:26
of it. Yeah, give them a voice in your company. You can even have them write a brief synopsis of the conference and present it at the next team meeting. If you are interested in attending a conference this year, there are several coming up pet sitters International has an online conference in just a few weeks in March. And then they also have an in person one at the end of September, that'll be in Ohio. And then the international boarding and Pet Services Association has one in person coming up in September in Florida.
Collin 15:55
And then there's always next year with the Texas pet sitters Association having their conference in February as well. We hope to see you at an in person conference coming up. Let us know if you have ever attended one in the past or maybe you hope to attend one in the future and how you plan to get the most out of it. Natasha on the Ask effect this code segment this week answers the question How do I make my life more than just my business?
Natasha 16:17
I mean, you guys want to remember we're in business to have a good life, you know, not the other way around. So we decide how the business is going to operate, not how the business is gonna decide how our lives are live. So if you say, You know what, I'm leaving my job, or I'm going into this pet care industry, what should I do first? Well, the first thing you want to do is write down the life you want to live. Do you want to have a family? Do you want to have children? Do you want to travel? Do you want to just sit at the lake all day? Do you want to go fishing full time? What kind of life do you want this business to provide? When you write that stuff out, it's easier than just say no to the projects that don't fill you up. And yes to the ones that do so then you're super clear coat. And you're not like oh my god, my client just asked me something. And I really don't do it. But I feel guilty. And I think I'm going to Whoa, okay, that's changing the best change in the dynamic. Guys, remember, we already wrote this out how we wanted it to be, if we take on this service, then we may not be able to be on the fishing lake for 10 hours, because that's gonna require something different. So stick to your guns on the way you want your business to operate to support your life. For me, it was full time travel. So when I was doing boarding in my house, I was like, I'm so envious of all my clients who are traveling the world, I want to be that person. And then I thought about scalability on my staff and how I felt about them doing in home boarding. And I was like, You know what, I think I can scale this business in a different way to support my true goals. So I shut bording down. And I was like, You know what, this isn't conducive to our ultimate plan of why I left my job, why I actually am in business, I want to travel full time. And I don't want to look back. And I don't want to be worried about what's happening. So I was like, You know what, no boarding, everything else is beautifully scaled. And I'm gonna go travel. So you just got to be honest, by the way, boarding was a significant income. And I hear that all the time. Oh, but there's so much money if you drop that there's so much money. Well guess what money is not the value of your life. Money is just paper. And when we do something with money, we put the value to it. So do not sell your life. That makes sense to your guys on why you're doing this and why it has to make sense. And I'm very passionate about this question because the burnout factor really kills my heart. And if you're running around guys, and we forgot and we forgot this and we're like, listen, the business is taking over our lives. Let's stop completely stop. And let's just reset. If you guys follow me, you know, I reset in all things of my life and it's either going to be working or we have to reevaluate it but something's not happening and we got to figure out what it is. Let's get back to the basics.
Collin 19:01
If you'd like to join the touchez membership group, you can use the code PSC 20 for 15% off we want to thank you so much for taking your most valuable asset that you have your time for listening to us this week. We really appreciate it so so much.
Meghan 19:16
Thank you Joe
