266: Rising Costs and Uncertainty
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Summary:
Once again, there is so much going on in the world around us. From Ukraine being invaded to rapidly rising inflation and gas prices, there’s a lot to overwhelm us. As business owners, we’re now navigating through yet another period of the unknown. How do we do that without burning out and stressing out every day? We share some ways to stay adaptable and deal with the rising costs. Natasha O'Banion answers the question, "How do I hire a virtual assistant?"
Main topics:
Uncertainty
Gas prices
Inflation
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Main takeaway: In times of uncertainty, get certain about your mission and start planning.
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
clients, prices, services, business, people, hire, virtual assistant, raise, uncertainty, add, pay, gas, va, figuring, routes, assessment, rates, gas prices, plan, great
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin, Natasha
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.
Meghan 00:20
Hello, welcome to episode 266. Hello, we hope you are doing well. The world is a little crazy right now. And we're going to talk a little bit about that today. But we hope that your business is thriving, and you are surviving.
Collin 00:35
Absolutely. But before we do get into that, we want to thank our amazing patreon supporters like Yvonne Knuth, drool, Janie, and Ashley, who all support us financially every single month. To help make this show what it is,
Meghan 00:48
we have also started releasing some YouTube specific content. Yeah, we are little bitty babies on that. So give us some grace from but if you are on Youtube, feel free to search petsitter confessional and we will be releasing a new video every Friday discussing the podcast episodes that happened that week and expand a little bit about on the discussion from the interview. It's definitely
Collin 01:11
something that's been on our minds for a while we've had the equipment for over a year at this point. But we're finally just starting to dive into it and open up a little bit of our week to see what we can make of that. So subscribe on YouTube and look for that and much more in the coming months.
Meghan 01:27
So if you've watched the news for any length of time, over the past few weeks, there has been a lot going on our hearts are heavy and saddened by all of the atrocities happening in Ukraine right now. And we are really devastated by all of the images and reports coming out of the country. Even in our small town, there's actually a large population of Ukrainians. And so we've seen some of them are especially hit hard, they are not doing well, some of their family members are over there. And so this has all been really coupled with, as I'm sure you've noticed, the continual rise in prices and inflation and gas prices are going up, everything seems to be rising in price. And don't
Collin 02:08
forget the staffing shortages that still plague businesses all across the country. With all of this, it's starting to feel quite a bit overwhelming and kind of unsure exactly what we need to be doing or how to cope and handle with it.
Meghan 02:22
And so we wanted to take today's episode and talk about everything that's going on how we see the industry shaping up, and then addressing concerns about prices and how to navigate this personally and as a business during these times of uncertainty.
Collin Funkhouser 02:37
But as of right now, at least here in the United States traveling and spending do not seem to be too impacted. At least that much. I know the story may be a little bit over a little bit different over in Europe. However, it is something to definitely watch carefully. Especially if this war stretches into the summer months, there could be some major impacts, especially financially to the clients that we're serving. We could potentially see cancellations come in as clients get cold feet about traveling during these uncertain times.
Meghan 03:05
Well, and we definitely all experienced that with COVID A couple years ago, right? Well, that's
Collin 03:08
a good reminder, if you do not have cancellation policies in place, or a way to protect your business, right now is the best time to get those hammered out. I mean, they were good time was yesterday. And even better time is today,
Meghan 03:21
your cancellation policies can be whatever you want them to be, it could be seven days before the trip, or 24 hours before the visit, or something in between. But make sure you have them, they protect you. And if you require a deposit, make sure you have that in there too. Whatever it is, you just need to be protected. People are price sensitive right now. So they may still book you. But it might be a little bit harder of a sell. They may want to know exactly what they're getting for your price. They want to know the value that they're getting, because their dollar is not going as far as it used to go. They might be shopping around for prices and for services. So it's a good reminder, if you don't have your sales pitch kind of hammered out. Do that. Can you communicate your services effectively?
Collin 04:06
I know many people will say, Well, my kind of clients that I want. Don't shop around people who price shoppers who are price sensitive aren't my clientele, they're not my avatar. Well in hard times in uncertain times, and prices have when inflation is going through the roof and everything's more costly. People tend to get more sensitive about exactly what they're paying for. So maybe they weren't like that last year or last month. But that may become part of how people start to shop and start to look at services and start to look at goods and things that they are spending money on. They're going going to want to know what they get in return and see if that value matches what they expect, so that there's no difference in money exchanged for the value that they receive.
Meghan 04:48
Well, and obviously we don't know what's going on in every one of our clients lives. We don't know the heart they may have hardships going on. And so one day even if you've built up this good, great relationship of caring for their pets. For a long time, they may all of a sudden one day just say, I don't need you anymore. And it may have nothing to do with you personally, it may just be that their wallet is a little bit tighter than it used to be. Alright, so
Collin 05:11
maybe you touched on if you don't have a sales pitch, or if you don't know how to communicate effectively, that is something to be working on. Maybe you've never encountered somebody price shopping, maybe you've never encountered people who are a little hesitant to come on board. It's been easy before, it is a good reminder to start practicing those, what separates you from somebody else? How should they know that you are worth what you're charging, and that can be really hard to communicate. And we're not saying that you have to go in in line item, all of your experience all of your reviews, all the training that you have, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What kind of peace of mind can you give the people who are coming to you? That's really what this boils down to? We've talked about this on the show before. And I know Dana Reitman has said this, people won't remember what you did for them, but they'll remember how you made them feel. So how are you making people feel while you're talking to them during the meet and greet during the onboarding process. The client experience starts before they even request a booking or request a service. And they need to be feeling good and pampered and cared for all the way through.
Meghan 06:14
And your social media as well. Or the blogs that you write whenever and whatever you are putting out there. They need to feel valued, they need to feel like you are going to care and take the best care for their pets, and that you're reliable. You're dependable and you're trustworthy. In times
Collin 06:31
of uncertainty, it the best plan is to be communicative with everybody around you, including your clients. So right now start asking what are your plans in three months? What are your plans in six months? What are your plans and a year to get some idea and see if they would go ahead and want to get those things booked. Or maybe they're going to hold off so that you can start to plan. Additionally, when they have these questions, you can communicate the new cancellation policies or new pricings or new services or new bonuses that you can add on to them, to stay in touch with them to help them remember who you are and how you can help them.
Meghan 07:07
We also continue to see and hear stories of struggles with hiring. And we are experiencing a little bit of that ourselves. But this is something that will probably continue for the foreseeable future, especially as people look for more fulfilling and varied positions. We just interviewed someone recently who is taking on their third part time job, because they were looking for a lot of flexibility in their day.
Collin Funkhouser 07:29
So as we are faced with increasingly uncertain times, we should remind ourselves that we should not be hiring out of desperation, that just because somebody is available and present does not mean that we need to hire them. So that may mean that the expansion that we had in mind or the new service area, or the new services that we were thinking about adding those may need to get put on hold for a little while as we continue search for that perfect fit. So don't feel this need of desperation to get somebody on just because you need to get somebody on boarded. If things are looking Rocky, and you're not sure how things are going to go, maybe put a pause on those plans just for now and wait and see and gather more information. Before you move forward with those plans.
Meghan 08:12
I did want to touch back on prices. So as prices continue to rise, and clients are aware and more price sensitive, they will likely look to cut back on what they believe to be luxuries. And sometimes that does mean pet care. And while this doesn't mean that they would not book pet care for their trip, it may mean that they just don't book their trip at all, or it's not for as long as they had intended they wanted to go for a week. But now it's just a weekend, or they price shop and they go with a cheaper option. Do an assessment of your services and your prices, make sure they're aligned with what your clients need, what you want to be providing, and most of all, what you want what is most efficient for your business. So
Collin 08:52
during your assessment, you're going to be looking at things like your prices, like your service area, like if you have staff, your reimbursement rates, maybe consider adding mileage, these kind of approaches to understand holistically, how is my business operating right now? Yeah, you may have just done an year end or quarterly review in December. But the world looks totally different right now. And it's a great time to do this and look and do an assessment full top to bottom of your business to make sure it's shipshape. Make sure that you have clients who you actually are like and working with that you don't have any more outstanding bills, the if you do to start trying your best to collect on those. If there Bill has been there tabs added up over the last couple months, trying to start collecting on that before times get hard and you're unable to get anything out of that particular client. It's all about
Meghan 09:45
adding value though. So if you can do that through additional services, if you can do that through products if you can do that through At Home Training, if you're a dog trainer or you want to add that on anything that you can really do at home or with less travel to clients is a great option. So something like an added hygiene package where you can while you're doing the visit, you can do nail trims and anal glands, teeth brushing your cleaning whatever in their home while you were doing the visit. So that it's something they don't have to stress about at a later time, you get paid more for it. And you're already there during the visit,
Collin 10:24
you're optimizing that time that you're spending traveling, you want to make the most money possible, while doing one or two trips, instead of having to go out four or five times to make that money. If you have one client who's booking you regularly, adding services to that client, you're going to make more profit on that client. And for those trips, because you're already going out that way, this kind of optimizing our routes and optimizing the operations and services that we have to be meeting these needs of our clients.
Meghan 10:52
In times of uncertainty. It's really about relationships. So try to deepen relationships with clients, if there's an extra text message you can send them during the week or a client that has a book to you in a while checking in with them saying, Hey, how are you doing? How are you handling everything that's going on, or even other business owners as well, if you can come together and bounce ideas off of each other of how to make your pet businesses better, or even just other business owners in general, it's a great way to form relationships that can last
Collin 11:24
well or re deepen relationships that you built during the pandemic. If you haven't gotten in touch with people who you were in constant communication with during those dark days, now's a wonderful time to start reaching back out to them, seeing how you can help seeing how you can assist seeing how you can start building these bonds and strengthening the community to weather the storm that may or may not come in. And again, if the storm doesn't come, if things get better, you will be better for doing all of these things, I think it's something that's really important to remember is that when we improve and when we push through and prepare for hard times, that means if when good times come, we are even better prepared than have we not done all that initial preparation to begin with.
Meghan 12:07
It's again all about protecting your business stick to your policies, and don't discount gas prices are a huge topic right now. So if you are solo, you can handle them. By signing up for discounts with stores. I think shell has a savings program. So does Costco and I think Walmart as well download a gas app that tells you where the cheapest gas is. And then tracking your miles. If you aren't doing this, it's very important to get that tax write off this year. You can either claim mileage or gas but not both. So figure out whichever is easier for you. And which gets you the most bang for your buck. If you have staff, and they're talking about gas prices, maybe at your weekly meeting, you can strategize different ways to optimize their routes, you can pay for mileage, or you can get them a gas card. If you are thinking about raising their rates, you may consider paying for mileage instead of raising their rates. Because when you pay for their mileage, you are not taxed on that. But when you pay them more, you are obviously taxed on that.
Collin 13:05
So the big question is, have you raised your prices yet? I mean, everybody is talking about this, everybody, it's on all the Facebook groups all the time. Think about when the last time was that you actually raise them and look forward ahead to the next couple months and year and see when you would like to raise them
Meghan 13:24
again. And for us it was just January 1 When we raised our rates. Yeah. So if you did it recently,
Collin 13:29
you know, there's no such thing as too soon to raise rates. I see that question that gets thrown out there an awful lot. I just raised my rates last month, can I raise them again? Absolutely. If you think you have pricing power, what pricing power means is the ability to raise rates without losing people. If you think you have that, go ahead and raise them, go ahead and get ahead of increases that are coming down the line. Don't feel pressured into or don't feel bad about raising rates. If you quote unquote, just did it, if you need to raise them, then raise them, that's perfectly fine. And with everything, increasing the rate that it is right now, get ahead of the mindset blocks that come in about raising rates, and go ahead and plan out your next few rates rate hikes for over the next year. And what happens if prices go up more than you thought. But if gas goes up another 30% or 40%, or food prices go up or whatever insurance goes up even more price that into your increases that you're going to plan out right now. So that you don't have to have these struggles in these discussions and worries about raising prices. They're already scheduled on there. They're already outlined and you already know when they're going to take place. And to understand some of that, start running your numbers and do it regularly to see exactly what you're bringing in. And when we talk about what numbers it's really profit per service, for starters here so if you do dog walks, if you do drop ins if you do hygiene packages, if you do nail trims, what percent of each of your total overall profit comes from those services, what profit to each of those bring in, and then look at your total business makeup. So out of your total profit, what percentage is dog walking, what percentage are droppings, what percentage is the hygiene packages or whatever. And then you can look at your total overall business profit, because what you're gonna find is that some services are more and less profitable. And right now, the services where you're not having to drive as much, are really the ones that are going to be more profitable. So those hygiene packages, those add on services, those bonus things that you can add to people who are already booking you for the other ones, you take a big cut out of that first service that dog walk, you don't make as much profit on that. But if you can add a service on top of that, that's all profit for you at that point, because you're already there. And the more you can start honing in on exactly what your clients need, the more you'll be able to optimize not just your routes, but the services that you're offering them.
Meghan 15:53
Some pet sitters are talking about a temporary price increase to cover gas or a surcharge, the thing to think about there is, well, if it's a temporary price increase, obviously, you're then going to need to decrease it when gas prices go back down. And eventually they will it may not be for several months, or a year, but they will, I hope, go back down. So it's things to think about of if you say to your clients, this is just temporary. Well, what is temporary, what is that timeline when it you know at $2.50 is are you then going to drop it back down. I know a lot of us are gearing up for spring break or in the midst of spring break. But if you are needing to get new clients in these new times, if you live in a pretty densely populated area, go after apartment buildings, they have a lot of dogs there, you don't have to drive all over creation, to get to get to client's homes. And you can partner with them with dog friendly events, or just putting up flyers and getting your name out there, walk dogs in affluent neighborhoods or send direct mail to those neighborhoods that you know have wealthy clients in them. And then if you are really struggling right now, for your existing clients, it's important to maximize your route, make it more efficient. Maybe that means letting some clients go that are too far out of your area that you want to really be in. We know a sitter that just cut out entire service areas to new clients. She's only servicing now her regulars, she was servicing up to 30 minutes away and just cut out everything except the exact town that she is working in.
Collin 17:31
So don't be afraid to cut back on that service area that can be quite scary. But again, if we're thinking about how we can optimize our routes, and save on gas and make the most money in a densely area, going after those apartment buildings or making one trip and being able to hit 20 clients, keeping that small tight service radius and yeah, yes, may may mean i Unfortunately, client who's 45 minutes away, I'm not able to service you at this time, unless you're willing to pay these fees to get me to your house and cutting back on that service area so that you are actually making more money in a smaller surface area than before.
Meghan 18:05
If you are choosing to go with a surcharge or a temporary price increase, you may just consider doing a price increase permanently. Because if a client is willing to pay a buck or two more per visit for your gas now, they are likely going to be able to do that in the future.
Collin Funkhouser 18:24
Yeah, exactly. Trying to figure out a way to lessen the burden on somebody or in hopes that they're not going to leave you by saying oh, this is only a temporary increase of one or $2. That same person is going to accept that one or $2 whether you say it's temporary or whether it's permanent. And that way you can get ahead of her future price increases right now. And in case things get worse, it's just baked in to everything that you already have.
Meghan 18:48
If you offer boarding or house sitting overnight, you may consider pushing those services more than just the pets it's where you have to go over 234 times a day. Because you only have to if you're doing house and you only have to go over once or twice versus multiple times a day that will save you on gas and other expenses. Because there is definitely a market for those clients who want their pets cared for basically all day those pandemic puppies the people who basically never left their house for the past two years, but boarding can be hard on your home and overnights can be hard on you. So you really have to weigh the pros and cons if you're able to offer those services.
Collin Funkhouser 19:25
Yeah, be Yeah. Be honest with yourself about what you want to offer, maybe overnights are very lucrative, but you just don't like being away from your home and your family are not able to do those. Be honest about that. And that's okay. And be honest about what you can and you cannot control the times of uncertainty. We have to do a true assessment a black and white assessment of things we can control and things that are outside of our control. Right now. We cannot control what is happening overseas over in Ukraine. Unfortunately, we don't have that control. But we do have control over where we drive, and our route and our prices, and how we communicate to clients. By focusing on what we can control, the feelings of overwhelm, start to become not so overwhelming, we get those under control, because we have things that we can do that we can work on. And that is empowering, that allows us to make these better decisions and breathe a sigh of relief, every now and then, even though things may be going crazy elsewhere.
Meghan 20:28
But don't let the fear of what's going on in the world, or the fear of anything else prevent you from pushing forward in your business. Yeah, we have all made it through COVID, we have all survived with our businesses, we are still here, we are still standing. And we will make it through this as well. So if you are terrified of clients leaving you or raising your prices, or charging a gas surcharge on top of your prices, push through it will be okay.
Collin Funkhouser 20:59
And that all starts with making a plan, knowing your numbers, doing that assessment, contacting local businesses, contacting your current clients and knowing what they are thinking so that you can formulate the next year of how you're going to move forward. And being grounded in your mission and being grounded in your why so that when you make these decisions, you know why you did it. So if you get pushed back, or things get hard, you can look back and go, I did that for a reason. It wasn't because I was scared. It wasn't because of fear. It wasn't because of the uncertainty and feeling overwhelmed. It was because I knew the four steps that I had to take, I knew the next step was raising my prices, I knew the next step was decreasing my service radius, because it's all about protecting you and making your business give you what you need in these times and using our business appropriately.
Meghan 21:46
Or maybe you need to buy a Tesla or maybe you buy a motorcycle or are biking or only you serve only clients that you are able to walk to whatever it is, know that we are behind you. And you can do this. We want to know how you are feeling right now with everything going on. Please let us know send us a message call us. Pigeon
Collin 22:07
smoke signals, we're here. We're here. To find us.
Meghan 22:13
We want to make sure that you are doing okay to
Collin 22:15
maybe part of that uncertainty and part of that planning for your businesses you need looking for outside help in your business. And maybe that means hiring a virtual assistant Well, Natasha Verbania will start skills sale answers the question, how do I hire a VA for me,
Natasha 22:29
so I love love virtual assistants. Now guys, this is a total different mindset that I have with paid professional help to my employees. Now my employees, it's fully my responsibility to train them to onboard them to guide them 1,000% on every single thing. Now my outsource helps however, I look for experts in their own right, because I do not want to hire a virtual assistant that I also have to fully coach all the way through. They do have to be a self starter they do you have to have their own process, their own billing, you know, I don't want to coach them. I get that a lot where they're like, Well, what how do you think I should do it? I'm like, I'm not the coach, you run your own business? How do you want to service me that relationship. So when you are hiring outsource work, you just need to let them know, on a time schedule. My biggest hack is putting 8am through every hour to 5pm. And I'm like listen, this is a round about productivity on what I do every single day, eight o'clock to 8/5 teen I check this, you know 830 to 10. I check this so I give them the expected time that is going to take for them to complete each task, I find that really helps. Because if you just leave projects open, they could take like four hours and you're like I typically do within one hour. And these are the tricks that I do to get there. Let me show you. So those are things that you can show but my VA do everything they do my social media content, they will check voicemails, they will respond to DMS to comments they will create websites and templates. I mean, they literally do everything. And I get these really cool ideas in my mind. And I go into Asana, that's the system that they use, not me them. And I'm like, You know what, I want to create a bunch of cool reels this week. Can you guys research ideas and give me a plot on what I should do? And they do it. So when I have virtual assistant, I can just be the mastermind of great ideas. And they are like here, this is the plan or you know, this we've created I'm like, I need a new challenge page. Can you create me a sales page for a challenge and they create it and I'm like looks great, or we sit down and we dissect it. I tell them what's working, what's not working, we fix it. We keep going. That is the beauty of hiring experts. You have to hire paid experts, please don't hire a virtual system that just came out of college and is like this is my first gig. I'm just kind of figuring it out. I had hired those people and they work well for the things that I need. But if you're one of those people who don't Lead well are manageable and you're kind of figuring out and they're figuring it out to loss. brains don't really help. So your VA, please just get referrals, referrals, make sure they really know what they're doing. I mean, otherwise, just gets really frustrating.
Collin 25:13
what it sounds like too, knowing what you want the end product to be as well. And you coming in with some clear guidelines and expectations so that they can either meet those or say, oh, maybe this isn't for me.
Natasha 25:25
Yeah. And and that's the hard part is when people hire like a VA as their very first hire. They're still trying to figure it out. To be clear with that with your virtual assistant, I'm kind of figuring it out. Can I do contracted hours, some virtual assistants will require you to pay, you know, $500 a month, 2000 a month just to use them, or others will charge 1520 $25 Just per hour, and you just peek in when you need them. So ask those pertinent questions. I actually have a VA list on how to hire really great VA all the checks that you should go through and I can provide that. But make sure you know how they work. That's the main thing is making sure it's a good fit between your personalities with virtual assistants I've hired in America and I've hired out sore so I feel like I'm a pretty good expert on the VA life. And they got a they make so much of a difference. Like we'll just all your weaknesses blogs, and in keeping up with comments and stuff. They do all that, you know, I'm hoping you're being a mom. They do all that stuff. It's such a great resource.
Meghan 26:34
If you would like to join Natasha's monthly membership group you can do so at start scale sale calm and use the code P SC 20 for 15% off. If you have any other ideas of how to handle these crazy prices that are going on the inflation, the uncertainty in the world, please let us know. We appreciate you listening to this today. We hope it's been helpful and we will talk to you next time.
Collin 26:58
And we do want to thank our patrons for supporting us and to learn more about that. Go to petsitter confessional comm slash support
