286: Balancing Time, Scope, & Cost in Your Business
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Summary:
How do you handle when a potential client’s expectations don’t match up with how you run your business? From policies to pricing, there are a million reasons it could not be a good fit. We’ve learned that while customers think hierarchically, business owners have to think wholistically when it comes to balancing the demands and expectations we have on ourselves. On this episode, we discuss the connection between what the client wants and the realities of running a business through the project management triangle.
Main topics:
Client priorities
importance of education
What is the project triangle?
Balancing it out
Ask a Biz Coach
Main takeaway: Client’s view their priorities in a hierarchy. We view our priorities as a connected triangle, where compromising on one, impacts everything else!
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
client, service, business, dogs, triangle, cost, pay, demands, pet sitter, priorities, price, scope, pet sitters, pet, project management, educating, relationship, important, project, complete
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Natasha, Collin
Meghan 00:10
Hello, I'm Meghan. I'm Collin. And this is Pet Sitter confessional and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Hi there, welcome to episode 286. Hello,
Collin Funkhouser 00:22
happy Monday,
Meghan 00:24
or Tuesday,
Collin Funkhouser 00:25
or wherever you're listening to this happy day.
Meghan 00:29
Thank you to pet sitters associates and our wonderful Patreon members, we have a new one this week, Erica, thank you very much for financially supporting the podcast helping it to keep going every week. And we are so thankful and grateful for having you aboard the Patreon train.
Collin Funkhouser 00:48
Yeah, so if you want to learn more about that, and what it all entails, go to petsitter confessional.com/support.
Meghan 00:55
Today, we're gonna be talking about this triangle that colin has come up with,
Collin Funkhouser 01:00
oh, I didn't come up with it. But we're gonna be talking about how it applies to us in business.
Meghan 01:06
We recently came across a post in our local market. So a pet parent was asking for dogs that are to watch their dog that has massive separation anxiety, and basically can't be left alone ever. She has medical needs that she is going to need to go out of town for and would need to be gone every day for five days, Monday through Friday. And we need the pets that are there for an hour. Each day. She was looking for a very reliable person to show up for that she used the word reliable in her post, and somebody that would never miss a visit.
Collin Funkhouser 01:41
And we all know where this is going. Don't wait, what the comments were filled with.
Meghan 01:44
Yes. So I was the first to comment. And she had said, I attached our website and I said she said great, I will have a look at that. And then of course other people trickled in with who they recommended or who they use. And somebody had said my daughter is 18 and very responsible to which the author of the post responded with DM sent. Well, so that was it. You know, after all these years, it still hurts a little bit to know that somebody would not choose us, you know, we know what we're worth, and we know how awesome we are. But she obviously checked out our website and wasn't interested and could be for a million different reasons, but just chose not to go with us. So obviously, she had no interest in really paying for the demand. I don't think that the 18 year old who is just doing this for fun is really going to understand the seriousness of this that you are going to have to be there five days a week on time for the entire hour, not miss a day because this lady is going to her medical appointments and she is going to need you. Now this is not to say that 18 year olds cannot be pet sitters, with you know, insurance and proper pricing and all of the things that we talk about that make a good pet sitter or a good pet sitter, but I think it was the fact that the owner of the dog was saying, Oh, I really need you know, somebody who's great who's trustworthy, reliable, dependable. And then she was also on the other side of the coin willing to go with just a simple recommendation for some random person's daughter versus a company.
Collin Funkhouser 03:19
Well, we see this time and time again, a client has extremely demanding expectations demands on the sitter, they have very stringent things that must be met. Yet no interest in actually paying for what that service is actually worth. What's going on here. We'll see everybody has their priorities when looking for service. And actually, typically they are the same set of priorities. They're just in a different order. They're things like price, expertise, trust, ease of use, those are all very common on a client's list of expectations that they're looking for when they're looking for a pet sitter. Now one client may prioritize a dog walkers expertise over all else, and not be bothered by price. However, another client may be most concerned with the price and not worry about trusting them implicitly or anything like that.
Meghan 04:12
Well, that's probably what we're seeing a lot more of these days, with inflation and gas prices going through the roof. So we're a lot of people are more price sensitive these days. And so we probably are seeing more clients who are approaching a purchasing decision based on which business meets their hierarchy of needs, particularly with price but overall their hierarchy of priorities as well.
Collin 04:35
You may have the best service in the world, which we know you do with Absolutely, absolutely. But if the potential clients number one priority is price. It's not just that that they are a good client for you or they aren't the client for you. They will actually never choose you to begin with. And that's something that we have to begin to accept and I I get so frustrated when somebody calls and their first question is So how much is your service? It leaves very little room actually for education about what we do, I try and ask them more questions about what they're needing it to get some more idea of how we can best serve them. It's frustrating because we know we're worth what we charge because of everything that we provide. But when someone contacts us, and their only concern is price, that hierarchy is prices that number one, and then there's a massive gap to number two. I know we won't convince them because we have high prices. And it's frustrating. But it's why education is so important to people about educating that there's so much more than just price when it comes into picking a dog walker or picking a pet sitter.
Meghan 05:42
Well, and I know a lot of times, we often say, you know, as pet sitters, collectively, we say when somebody is going after the cheapest option, they aren't your client anyway, or they're not your ideal client anyway, because they don't see your worth. And that is true. But as people become more price sensitive, it is something that we're going to need to be aware of that we might have to do a little bit more education, which is why educating through social media, our Facebook Lives, our ads, community events, whatever you do to help raise awareness in your area of not only your company, but petsitting. In general, it really helps the stage and let people know that they need to ask for more than just the price. Because there are other options out there. Well, they
Collin 06:24
don't know what they don't know, they're very especially because as people become more price sensitive, they only ask about price, but they don't ask about your background, your training, your expertise, the value that you bring to your services. Exactly. And that's why educating about that, and what the ability and what the breadth of options are, is what's really beneficial, it may feel like you don't get anything from that. But the more information people have actually, when we talk about people making better decisions, that means we are helping them look at their priorities, and actually rearrange them to better fit the reality with which they're functioning in.
Meghan 07:05
Well, and that's the key because the majority of the population is still used to either not paying for or paying very little for pet care. You know, even after 30 years as an industry, the expectation from the client is that you the pet sitter get the wonderful opportunity to care for a pet,
Collin Funkhouser 07:23
and be in my home with my hot tub
Meghan 07:27
and eat my food, which is great. We all love a good hot tub. We all love to eat client's food when they provide it for us for free. But this is a business where we have to earn money to pay our own bills. So
Collin 07:38
Megan and I, we see the education, the prep work, the licenses, the blood, sweat and tears that you pour into your business and you see all that work that you do as well. But clients may not they don't they don't see the sacrifices that you've had to make to provide the high quality of service that you actually give. And so there's a mismatch of value and expectations that clients are bringing into it. They're going well, why can't you a highly trained, experienced, dedicated Pet Sitter provide me the service for $3 a day. That's what I used to pay the neighborhood kid, they don't see that. So marketing by telling your story is critical. Even in 2022, clients need to know your specialty, background and purpose.
Meghan 08:23
And this is pretty easy to do through social media posts, you can explain that, you know, you pay insurance taxes, staff pay everything that all the overhead that goes into your business, you can explain that to them, you can you can tell them what separates your business apart from everybody else. Something else that separates your business apart is insurance. As pet care professionals, your clients trust you to care for their furry family members, pet sitters Associates is here to help for over 20 years they've provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance. Since you work in the pet care industry. You can take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom in running your business. Learn why pet sitters Associates is the perfect fit for you and get a free quote today. At pets@llc.com. You can get a discount when joining by clicking membership petsitter confessional and using the discount code at confessional at checkout to get $10 off, check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again at pets@llc.com.
Collin Funkhouser 09:22
So yeah, we just had somebody reach out to us today and inquire about our services. And they were asking about boarding which is something that we don't offer in our service areas. And I was explaining what we do offer and promoting the benefits of that and our experience with seeing dogs in their own home. And and you all know the pitch. This lady had never heard of that at all. And I think for a little bit she thought that I was actually joking. And she was really taken aback by it. And she was like, Well, I don't know if that's going to be a good fit. But I've never heard of that. And I need some time to think about that. And so in this instance it really wasn't even the price. It was just As the mere fact that something existed that then blew up her priorities and rearranged her expectations for what pet care could actually look like. So some client may contact you, and they may have price at number one and your expertise at number 10. Until they find out that you specialize in their exact breed, or medical condition, or behavioral concern, or whatever it is that you do, that radically flips their priorities all of a sudden, because now they know what the possibilities actually are to meet their needs. Now, from a business perspective, when a client has exacting demands, we know we can't meet high demands and expectations without actually charging more for that or adding more time for that. And this is where it gets to the basics of project management. And so as Megan led off with the show, we're going to talk a little bit about the project management triangle and love the project management triangle.
Meghan 10:55
Please tell us more.
Collin Funkhouser 10:58
Okay, well, if you insist, basically, the project management triangle is a way to represent the relationship between three things that we are all constrained by again, this is focusing on the constraints in our business and how we operate, we are constrained by time, scope, and cost. So imagine a triangle and out at each point is either time, scope, or cost. Now, really importantly, here, no single variable of this project triangle can be changed without making trade offs with the other two points of the triangle. If one of their variables is changed, the other two must be adjusted in order to keep the triangle connected. Because if and there are imaginary scenario here, if the triangle breaks apart, because we try and do too much with either one of these three things, the quality of our project and service will totally suffer and break down. So basically,
Meghan 11:51
it needs to be an equal lateral triangle and not a right right angled triangle.
Collin Funkhouser 11:56
Depending on your priorities, it can absolutely be that but you can move each one around, but it has to pull others along with it as we raise and move them around. And we'll get into that a little bit, basically. So basically, there are two relationships that play into the project triangle. The first is the relationship between scope and the other two variables of time and cost. Scope is directly proportional to both time and cost, which means it moves in the same direction as those factors when the scope increases, time and money must also increase to tackle a larger project.
Meghan 12:30
So a good example of this is when a client demands that you feed their four pigs, two llamas three pugs, and two guinea pigs three times a day, well, obviously, that's going to increase increase both your time and your cost, because you'll be spending a lot of time there and you will need to be paid as such
Collin Funkhouser 12:47
Exactly. The second type of relationship is the relationship between time and cost. These two are inversely proportional to each other in the traditional business sense, basically, that if costs need to be cut, when we are managing a larger project, then time has to be extended to give us more allotment to do that. Now, if you encounter a sudden time crunch, and you have to do things immediately, you have to budget for shorter timelines, which increases the cost. So you can look at this as something like last minute demands, or exacting demands with your time should cost a client more, there's more sacrifice, and there's more need for you and your time. So time is short, cost goes up because it's more valuable.
Meghan 13:32
And this is why a lot of pet sitters have last minute fees. When somebody books within 24 hours it costs the client cost the client more, but I also know that a lot of pet sitters don't do this. And they say well, I can either take you or I can't.
Collin Funkhouser 13:45
Exactly. And so that's a that's a decision for you to make for your business. But just when we look at managing our projects, managing the services that we offer, there is a relationship that we have to at least acknowledge with time and cost, especially when it comes to demands on us. So let's dive into each one of these a little bit more and explain why it's important to recognize the impact that each one of these have on our business and why as business owners, we need to be really hyper aware of how we are adjusting for each one of these. So the first one is scope. Scope is actually the size of the project or service basically in terms of quality detail or magnitude to your business.
Meghan 14:25
So again, like I was saying the pet said that has 15 animals.
Collin Funkhouser 14:29
Yeah, as the size of the project is the size of the service increases. It naturally requires more time and money to complete and more. This
Meghan 14:37
could also be if you are have a very wide service area.
Collin 14:41
Yeah, we see this all the time, a larger teardown of your car where we have to do a complete transmission tear out is going to take a long time that's a huge project. So it's more time more money for carpet cleaning. If you clean a whole house that costs more money because it takes more time because the scope is big and scope is not existing on itself, right? There are a lot of different components that make up the scope. And this includes complexity of your service, the quantity of what you're trying to do at the end of it, the quality even so high quality, that's something that we bang on about is that we provide high quality services. That's a large scope that includes more time and more money that should be you should be compensated for,
Meghan 15:24
then there's also the level of detail. So if you need to give five different cats a different dose of medicine at every single visit, that is a project with a big scope, or again, we talked about the number and complexity of the demands, for instance, you know, all the animals, we can all agree that the client with the pigs, the llamas, the dogs, chickens, whatever that needs medications will pay more for a visit, because you're going to be there for longer in order to get all of those demands done. But the client may not agree,
Collin Funkhouser 15:55
right. And we've all experienced something called scope creep. Scope Creep is when the product or service actually starts to grow slowly over time. I know for us in our business, this happens when we show up to a meet and greet for the dogs that they requested care for. And suddenly, the client starts talking about the cats that they have in the other room, and oh, the birds that they have downstairs and also some guinea pigs, which quote unquote, won't take any time at all right? Right. Basically, that client is trying to broaden the scope of your visit, without also asking to pay more, they're trying to expand your work without adding to the cost or time necessary to complete that service. And speaking of costs, cost really here is for the purposes of the project management triangle is cost is not limited to literal dollar amounts, you can think of it as resources required. It also is tools, equipment support to complete the project. So for us, it may be gas, I don't know if you know this or not. But gas is all of a sudden extremely costly, everywhere. It may be number of team members to complete a service. For us, we have a client that we're actually currently caring for where they have two dogs, and we need to dedicate two team members to walk them one person cannot do it alone, because one of them is one of the dogs is pretty reactive. And it's actually not safe to have them blocked just by one person. So the cost here is actually invested in the fact that we have two team members going out and walking these dogs at the same time. It could be equipment that you have to buy, so new leashes or new kennels or whatever you're doing. And then when we talked about it not being literal dollar amounts, there are always opportunity costs. When we say yes to something we have said no to something else. Sometimes we don't always know exactly what we're saying no to because it hasn't come across our plate yet. But it's an opportunity cost that we're committing to agreeing that that is something worthwhile saying yes to this thing on my plate right now.
Meghan 17:57
An example of that would be adding employees, it obviously requires additional budget for salaries, because you're going to be paying people where before you weren't. So taking an opportunity to offer services to a wider area requires an additional budget for gas to drive around. The third part of the triangle here is time, when you adjust for time, you have to keep in mind that the amount of time that a project takes or a service takes to complete is as important as the type of time that you are measuring. So if you think about it time conducting the pets, it is not the same as the time it takes to drive to the client's home to actually do the service. And so some of the elements of time here can include the timeline. So the length of the visit that you are doing, some people offer as little as 10 minutes, some people offer 90 minutes, then you also have to think about the hours worked for the client.
Collin 18:49
And this comes into play when we're doing exceptionally long visits. I know this is one of the reasons why we personally do not offer extended stay or extended service discounts. Because the last visit at the end of 11 days is just as important if not more so important as the first one was. So actually total accumulated hours worked for a client or providing a service to a client while they're away, needs to be accounted for when we're looking at the time component here. Well, it's
Meghan 19:17
the same for boarding. People often ask for extended stay discounts. I want to leave my dog with you for two weeks while I go over to Europe or three weeks. Well, your dog is still taking up a spot in my home and the amount of work does not diminish over the course of the two or three weeks, it may actually get more because and I am not able to leave my home for any length of time because you are requiring your dog to be in my care.
Collin Funkhouser 19:40
And then there's the time that we allot for planning and strategy when it comes to providing our services. When Megan and I sit down to look at schedules for the day for our staff or schedules for ourselves and driving routes, all of that is time that is consumed that where we could be doing something else, but it has to be done in order to conduct the services that we're that we're dedicating ourselves All too. And then there's the time to onboard new clients and get them booked and accounting for the fact that when I bring in a new client, there is time that I'm going to sink into this person to get them ready to book, my services in the future.
Meghan 20:13
And basically all of the other administrative work that we do behind the scenes, it's a lot,
Collin Funkhouser 20:18
it's all time that we are required to do we are required to invest in to provide the services that we'd love to do.
Meghan 20:25
The mismatch comes in because clients often view their priorities in a hierarchy, a lot of them think number one price, and number five is experience or insurance or whatever. But as a business, we view priorities as a connected triangle, where compromising one can often impact everything else, which is why many clients don't understand our prices, they don't understand why our services costs so much. But it's all of the back end behind the scenes work that we view as a holistic approach where they may not see it, they view their need as a singular need their own need. And they don't quite understand everything that's wrapped up in a pet sitting business, which is why education is so important. So they can understand a client who has used you for the past two years already knows the value that you bring to them. But a potential client maybe has just liked you on Facebook, and is creeping on you for a while too, in order to see if maybe you would be a good fit. So making sure that you are educating with all of your advertising and marketing and content that you're putting out there is very, very important so that they that potential client can better understand a holistic approach of okay, this is why they cost a lot. But the value that I get in return from being a client is worth it.
Collin Funkhouser 21:52
Because again, the issue comes in because a client approaches us and they have a that fixed hierarchy, my number one, my number two, my number three, as a business, we see everything as interconnected. And we go okay, you want someone who's dedicated, who's reliable, who's trustworthy, who is who's dependable, but
Meghan 22:10
you also want to pay $5 a day. Exactly. That's not something we
Collin Funkhouser 22:13
can offer. Because we look at this triangle. And whether you've whether you know what the project management triangle is or not, you have felt this tension of, they're demanding all of this stuff of me but not willing to pay for it. And in project management and in working in services, price is actually related to the demands that are placed on us as the manager as the business owner, as my demands increase. As to my time is more and more counted for servicing this client. The price goes up commensurately to meet that demand, because there is more expectation to do that. And that's the relationship that many people many clients actually don't see. They think, well, my price, my demand is price, why aren't you meeting my demand? And we say, well, you're not the client for me.
Meghan 23:01
Well, I and also, I don't think Nike has ever lowered their price, because Joe Schmo in Montana wants it to be $5. No, well,
Collin 23:09
because they know all the backend work, the costs, the investment over the last 30 years that it took to get that shoe in that person's hand, millions and millions of dollars in marketing, advertising, product design, development, all of the research that they've put into that to get that shoe in their hands. That's what that shoe all of a sudden becomes worth and the fact that that person needs a shoe, they're they're matching it to them, they have that project management triangle nailed down and they know exactly that relationship. We in our own businesses feel many times that we can flex it, oh, yeah, I don't need to worry about price, and then I'll break everything else. And if it breaks, we become burned out, our businesses fail, we aren't able to provide the services that we want. And we're not here tomorrow. Why? Well, because we weren't actually able to feed and nurture ourselves spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and just financially at the end of the day. That's why this, this triangle is so important to keep in balance and recognize that if I move one, I have to adjust the other ones. We always say you get what you pay for. Why is that? Because we intuitively understand the relationship between price and the quality of services that we're giving at the end of the day. Why is that because it's more demanding on us. And so when a client approaches us with that demand with those high demands where you can't leave, I need you to get these medications. And also I've got ferrets and in the Guana and a turtle and a dinosaur in the backyard. They need you to walk daily. That's gonna cost a lot because you're demanding a lot of me and that just that simple relationship is something we need to help understand ourselves and apply and be consistent to,
Meghan 24:42
so that we can educate potential clients as well. Exactly. If you have found a way to balance your triangle we would love to know you can email us at feedback at Pet Sitter confessional.com. On this week's Ask a business coach segment with Natasha opionion. She's going to answer the question, what does customer experience I mean,
Natasha 25:00
when I think of customer experience, I think of easy, like quick, fast. Instead, what I don't think of is cumbersome, right? That's my word. I'm like, we don't want this to feel cumbersome. I just hired a cleaning service. And I noticed on their website, they had like, over 600 reviews. I was like, How in the world does a cleaning service get 600 reviews. And it's because I literally went on their website, I booked them, I saw all their availability, they literally sent me someone within two days, I paid online, when I paid, they sent me all their policies in an email, like five quick starter policies that they want to make sure that I don't do or prep the house. So I already knew what to do to prep the service for success, because they told me, and then as soon as the service was done, they sent me a review. And it was great. And then I have an account with them. So I can actually see all of the appointments that I have on recurring with them. It was so easy that I was like, wow, I usually do this like once a month. But I think I'm going to do this weekly, like I don't have a car. So I like to like overcompensate, I like kill the car, get the cleaning. I have two kids. So I like to rob Pete and Paul sometimes like that for life experience. But they made it so easy for me that I was like, wow, I want to treat myself to this more often. Like I know exactly what to do. And I see why they have really great reviews. And I mentioned a cleaning service, because it's not often you see great reviews from cleaning services. And I was like, wow, they really do the process, right from start to finish. And that repeats to more clients.
Collin Funkhouser 26:51
Yeah. Well, and you're describing that process you never had sounds like you never had to guess what the next step was, because they told you about that. And part of that customer experiences is that you're in the loop for keeping them updated about what's happening. And we're going to do this and then the next step is this, and then this is what's going to happen. It all just flows, right? It's not cover, somebody definitely flows through that process.
Natasha 27:12
And most importantly, they told me what they needed from me. It wasn't Oh, my clients have a crazy house and the dogs are barking up the door when I come in with a vacuum. And, you know, they were like, listen, what's your dog's weight when we come in? This is our time window. This is where you can see where your service is on the updated list. Like it was very 12345 and checklist standpoint. And I was like, Okay, sounds good. So you said it was nothing left? You know, if you ever had a conversation with someone, they say, Do you have any questions? And they say no, it was pretty clear to me. That's a compliment. Because you handle that so well. There was nothing else for guesswork. And that's how I feel
Collin Funkhouser 27:55
you're anticipating you because again, you already know that this process should look like to you should anticipate those follow up questions and address those along that journey that they come in. And they go through.
Natasha 28:06
Yeah, and we know this from our own experience. We know what frustrates us when our clients do the right thing. And we know what frustrates us when they don't do the right thing so we can pinpoint that ideal person. Well, why are they ideal? What can we do to create more of that we could help them, we could educate them. So that really enhances the overall experience.
Meghan 28:33
If you would like to join Natasha's monthly membership group, you can do so at automated ceo.com and use the code P SC 24 15%. Off. We are very appreciative of you taking your most valuable asset your time in listening to this today. We have so much fun putting these together and are grateful for you listening each week. Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 28:54
we know your time is in high demand. And we appreciate the fact that you give us a little bit of that we let us into our lives. We know we are crazy busy with the summer travel in full swing Memorial Day is right around the corner. And we just can't thank you enough for spending some time with us.
Meghan 29:09
Thank you also to pet sitters associates and our Patreon members. I'll see you next time. Bye
