311: Flourishing through Customer Service with Jan Brown
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Summary:
How do you push through fear in business? Self-doubt continues to come up, even after almost three decades in business. Jan Brown, owner of Jan’s Pet Sitting, shares how fear and self-doubt never really go away, and how you use them to make you better. Jan strongly believes that the pet care industry is better when more people pursue education, and that professionalism is the key to a flourishing industry. She gives some amazing advice on what it means to serve the long-term clients and why we need to get out of our own way as business owners.
Topics on this episode:
Role of customer service
Pushing through fear
Serving long-term clients
Getting out of your own way
Main take away: It’s our responsibility to help make the industry better every single day.
About our guest:
Jan has spent 23 years in the pet industry providing quality care to the animals in her charge. Jan is a Certified Professional Pet Sitter (CPPS) through Pet Sitters International. She is also Fear Free® certified and is a Pet Tech® Pet First Aid/CPR instructor. Jan is also a member of Pet Sitters International (PSI) and National Association of Professional Pet Sitters (NAPPS). Jan and her business are bonded and insured.
Jan began her career in the corporate world and while she enjoyed her time in the business world, she knew she wanted something more. In 1997, she founded Jan’s Pet Sitting with the goal of providing compassionate, professional pet care services to clients in San Mateo and the surrounding cities. She is passionate about offering the very best care possible and treats each pet as if they were a member of her own family.
When not caring for other people’s pets, Jan spends time with her own furry family, as well as her human family and friends. She has taught classes in disaster preparedness for animals as well as has taught classes on starting a pet sitting business. Jan also has volunteered her time for her city’s CERT (community emergency response team) program and frequently mentors other pet sitters in the industry.
Links:
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
clients, business, cat, people, pet, thought, concerns, phone call, sitters, day, pet sitter, jan, customer service, years, visits, doubt, staff, dog, pet sitters, email
SPEAKERS
Collin, Jan B.
Collin 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 brought to you by time to pet. Sometimes in business, you have to just push through fear because you have to. That's what's required of you as a business owner in that moment doesn't mean we're not scared and we don't want to move forward, it does mean that we have to make hard decisions. After nearly 26 years in business, Jan Brown owner of Jan's petsitting has done just that time after time. Today, she joins us to share about how she does that, what it means to have excellent customer service and why building really
00:48
have a solid business.
Jan B. 00:51
Well, thank you, Collin. And thank you for inviting me, I'm just thrilled to be here. I've had my pet sitting business for 25 years. I started in 1996 1997. I'm also a pet per state CPR instructor. I have previously taught classes and starting a pet sitting business as well as disaster preparedness for pets. I'm fear free certified, I'm CPPs through psi, just recently got my certificate, my basic certificate in human resources management,
Collin 01:29
a lot of stuff that you that you have on your name. Why was it yours? Yeah. Why? Why was it important for you to seek after those
Jan B. 01:38
to become more educated in my field, the pep first day, there was a demand for it. And it's also a way for me to teach my staff and get them trained in it. The CPPs, I wanted to learn as much as I can, and as well as the fear free certified, and the human resources, I have an interest in that and helping other pet sitters. But also because I have employees, that helps me knowing what I can legally say or do or not,
Collin 02:07
which is really important. And you know, I like what you're saying there's a lot of this is this information is out there, how can I be best equipped for that, and I can start applying it and helping my staff, you know, the you're an instructor for pet first aid and CPR, you could go and have them take a class or you yourself could teach your staff, you can outsource a lot of HR or you yourself can implement a lot of that in your business. So I think judging and going where am I interests? Where am I concerns? And how do I see where I fit in that matrix. You didn't start off as a pet sitter in the in the late 90s. I assume you had a before times of what you were doing. So what what came before life as a pet sitter.
Jan B. 02:47
Before that I was working in the corporate world, I was working for a biotech company doing admin. And I was thinking about doing something else looking for another company, different fields, I was even considering going back to school. And the gal who at the time who pit SAP for me, her husband worked for the airlines and he had put in for a transfer yo hurry up and wait one of those types of things. Out of the blue one day I said to her if you're at transfer ever comes up, I might be able be wanting to pick up your business thinking eight 910 months down the road. I come back from a trip 10 days later, she says our transfer came through here's my client list by now she had now do know she had a very small business, okay. She probably only had 30 clients. And she did a lot of overnights for her clients. But her clients were further south than me. And at the time, it was all I could do to get from my home to where I worked. Nevermind do an additional drive time. So I let a lot of those clients go but if you stayed with me,
Collin Funkhouser 03:57
what was that decision? Like? Because I can imagine being just kind of like handed of like, okay, here's a business. I mean, 30 doesn't sound like a lot, but that's still a lot to manage and getting to know them and everything like that. How is it taking on all that responsibility, all of a sudden,
Jan B. 04:12
I'm relatively an organized person. But remember that they all didn't start calling me this was you know, 25 years ago, so they weren't all just calling me. The ones that wanted overnight and were self. I let them go. I didn't do those. I just kept a very small minority
04:30
of them. But people started to hear about me.
Jan B. 04:35
And so then you know, someone at work one day said, Hey, I hear you do pet sitting, I need help, blah, blah, blah. And that's just kind of how it started. After about a year of working in the corporate world. It's kind of doing this I finally decided just take the plunge
04:53
and do it.
Collin 04:55
What was it is a plunge right. You reach that point where you're like okay, I'm either going to do this or I'm not in and so you have that decision. What was it that pushed you over into going? Okay, this is something that I can do full time.
Jan B. 05:12
Part of it was ignorance you looking back now I'm like, Oh, you didn't consider this, this or this, right. But I had gotten to the point I knew in the corporate world, if I went to another company, different people, it would be the same problems, different faces. And I was really considering at the time going back to school part time, and I never did, I thought that the time petsitting would be a way for me to get income while I was going back to school, I never did. And it just happened. After about a year I'd like I can't take this anymore. I'm quitting. I figure that I forget what it was, I think I figured in my head back in the day that I needed to do, I think, a minimum of six jobs a day to be able to pay the basic bills. But, you know, I wasn't really considering things like estimated taxes and all that little fun stuff. You know, it was a start. It was a start.
Collin 06:21
Yeah, I think finding our motivations to start anything is hard. And you know, starting a business going out on your own is a big step. I think a lot of times we forget that. We start things little things every day, right? We start new ad campaigns, we start a new rebrand, we start new ad copy, we start new hires, we start new services. We're starting things constantly. And I think reflecting on those motivations really helps us to put a lot of that into into context and keep us moving forward and continuing to do that. And because we have to start if we're going to, you know, keep keep going. Now, you know, this, you mentioned a couple of times, this is all in the context of this being in the late 90s. And you're in the in the Bay Area in California. So what was the scene for pet sitting back like then?
Jan B. 07:15
It was very different. We didn't have the internet, we didn't have Facebook, we didn't have any of that cell phones were just starting to come into popularity, and you didn't use them because back in the day, I mean, you didn't use them, unless you had to. It was something like 4045 cents per minute to use your cell phone. We kept those to a minimum, our major form of advertising back in the day was the Yellow
07:48
Pages. You know, we didn't have all
Jan B. 07:52
the online stuff or leaving our business cards somewhere. We didn't have things like next door, Craigslist, any of that.
Collin 08:02
When you reflect on how do you think that shaped how you continue to operate today? Because coming up in that kind of almost like, it's kind of It feels very restrictive in today's environments to how only have these outlets or only have these options of getting connected to clients? What kinds of things do you feel like you still like to operate? based off of how you started back then?
Jan B. 08:23
I still believe a lot in the one on one interaction with the clients. Yeah. Yeah, so a lot of things are now done by email or that but it does help to pick up the phone once in a while. I still want them for the most part, for the new clients to meet me because I am the face of the business. So I tried to do the meet and greets. Yeah, I mean, the yellow pages are long gone. You know, I don't put fliers up anymore. I don't really leave. Now I like business cards. I'm very select where I leave on my adult leave a lot.
Collin 09:00
You mentioned one of the things about the cell phones and that level of communication. It was very costly. Back then I remember the when they started to get some more unlimited plans, those commercials that said mama had a baby, it's a boy, I don't know if you remember those, those for national. That's one of the things I don't have room in my brain for a lot. But that's still in there. But what it forced, you know, what you have to do in those situations is you have to decide, is this worth the phone call? Is this worth elevating this to this to this other level of communication? And I think that's kind of something that may be a little lost because we are we have a riches of communications now. It's very cheap. It's very easy to communicate in 1000 different ways. How do you know when it's time to pick up that phone call and to make that
09:51
to the client? Um,
09:55
if a client has a complaint, I'm you know,
Jan B. 09:59
I But I'm not talking so much a little minor thing. But if there's a complaint or there's an issue, I'm picking up the phone, I'm usually picking up the phone, if I see a booking come through from the client in our booking system. And it just doesn't look right to me. Like every so often they'll have a client that will book one visit. And yeah, we get that, you know, client only needs a visit for one day. But I'll usually I know the client, usually, and I'll pick up the phone and say, Is that what you really meant? Are there other visits? Because sometimes clients make a mistake.
10:38
And yeah, I think
Collin 10:41
that shows a lot of, of care and intent on your part that is really received by the client when you take the time to make that phone call. But you know, I think it's kind of progressed. Now we're texting is the preferred form of communication, it's kind of important and more formal to make that phone call it used to be you would, phone calls were the rage. And everybody, if you want to make an impact, you wrote a letter, right to impact somebody.
Jan B. 11:09
Oh, you know, it's funny,
11:11
I knock on wood, have avoided texting with my clients. I'll do email,
Jan B. 11:19
I'll do phone calls, they can contact me through that. Yeah, I was never really cared for texting. I do it more now with my staff. But even at time, I kind of tried to limit it. But we get enough emails and everything. I don't want that to happen to keep on top of texts. And then I'm looking at this number. And I'm like, Who is this? You know, who's texting me about a thing? And, you know, this is Susan. And I've got 10, Susan's? You know, so I tried to avoid that. Yeah. It just never got it started.
Collin 11:52
And again, I think it's understanding what am i What is the purpose of this communication? What's the role of this with customer service of, I don't want to inundate somebody with constant messaging. I want to make sure that when I am communicating, it's intentional. And it's purposeful as well. Yeah. So beyond phone calls, how do you focus on on that customer service aspect? Because I know that's an that's an area where a lot of people get into business, and they operate their business. And I've suddenly realized, Oh, I still have to work with people. I can't just can't just call the cats and have them pay me or whatever. Like. I've had
Jan B. 12:32
a lot of people in years past, other sitters tell me that they got into this business, because they don't get along with people. Well, if you don't get along with people, I don't think you're gonna last too long in this business. Because if you can't sell yourself and your company to the client, you've got to be able, even if the clients calling you with a complaint, and you think the client is just full of it. And you think the clients, you know, way off base, you still have to call and you have to resolve it. Yeah. It's it's all communication. It's, you know, this is a people business. Yeah, we rarely, you know, once we meet the clients, we usually don't see them again, unless they happen to be home when we go there. But that initial thing, yeah, it's, you've got to sell yourself to the client.
13:25
It's one of those
Collin 13:27
unintentional decisions that we make when we go into business of oh, this is now a problem that I am taking on, right, me running my business. This is now on my plate of things to deal with when it comes up. Yes. Like, it's a phrase I've heard before. It's, it's not my fault, but it is my problem. Like you said, the client may have completely baseless claims and be off their rocker. But you still need to deal with it. And I think very importantly, you said that resolve that bring it to an actual conclusion within your power and ability without compromising yourself and your policies. And that can be a hard line to walk sometimes.
14:05
It is, it is,
Jan B. 14:07
you know, I think is pet sitters. I think we want to please everyone, and maybe what I would have done for a client 10 years ago, I'm not as inclined to do it anymore. And I have to remind myself, like, I mean, we all have clients. It's like, oh, I don't want to go there. Either. It's a little too far or the cats that asshole whatever it is. And I have to remind myself that most of the time, it's my sitters going to these jobs, I don't hear them complaining.
14:43
Um, but like,
Jan B. 14:47
earlier this year, I had a client that book and she worked with us before and she wanted the what one visit on one day of the week or garbage day. She wanted us to do it in the evening so that we could bring in her empty garbage cans. And 10 years ago, I probably would have worked around it. But now I'm saying no, we can't if it I mean, it's different if we already plan to be in the area or something. But if it's a once a day, no, we can't. And I in California, now that we stayed the same, I have to pay my sitters for drive time and mileage, I'm not want to send them back out for just one visit for something like that.
Collin 15:29
That's where a lot of this all of a sudden, we start overlaying or different hats of the customer service side is like, meet needs of customer do what they know. And then this kind of operations manager comes in and is like, No, you can't do that you will make no money. It's not the trip.
15:46
Exactly.
Jan B. 15:49
I've had to say no, a couple of times to things like that.
15:54
Yeah, yeah.
Collin 15:55
That the the scheduling of visits is, is tough, because we tend to get the receipt of you know, the client requests, you know, they may say, a seven, a two and a nine. And my first instinct is to always go, Okay, well, that's what the customer asked for. So I'll just, we'll just book it and put it in. But it's taking that second step back and going, but does that fit? Can I make that work? Does it need to be those times? Or did they just throw them on paper? Because a lot of times, they just kind of throw them out there and like whatever. And remember, we have agency to within reason and health of the pet and around their normal schedule to make adjustments to those so that it is more efficient for us? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Especially with these days with prices of gas. And we can't just be going, Oh, I'll make one trip out there. And it's, you know, 40 minutes away. It's like, no, that's not feasible. Well, isn't it it's a reminder that customer service isn't just about giving them what they want. It's about you still have to resolve while maintaining your business and its integrity and without sacrificing everything at the core at the at their feet. Right?
17:01
Absolutely. Absolutely. You know,
Collin 17:05
back in the late 90s, you say you started with a goal of providing compassionate professional pet care services. Tell us about that goal, and why that's important to you? Well,
Jan B. 17:16
if someone's coming in to take care of my cats, I want them to treat my animals as if they're their own. And I want to do the same thing for our clients, animals. I mean, it's plain and simple. I want to have this, I want to know clients want to know that you love their animals just as much as they do. It was always there. I never really thought about it much. But we go in, we take care of those animals, like they're our own, you know, even if they're a little squirrely or whatever. But you have to kind of sometimes look beyond it. I'm, like, I just recently I had a cat that we've taken care of this cat on and off for years. Not that often. But enough, that cat will never come out from under the bed for me. I went over last week. I don't know what changed that cat decided he was coming out of the bed. And I sat on the floor and he was my best friend.
18:23
You know? So you know
Jan B. 18:26
things like that I had another cat needed insulin and cats on insulin they have to eat immediately before you give them the insulin injection. This cat was not going to eat I don't care. We tried true. We tried, you know, fancy beasts, you name it. We tried it. And he's just like, No, no, no. Finally, I figured out when they sat on the couch, and he kind of looked like he wanted up. So I brought him up on my lap. And he's laying there and purring away. And after about five minutes, I just thought huh, and the food dish was next to me on the floor and I just get casually picked it up, put it down in front of him. He's still on my lap, he starts eating. You know, so is a lot of it's just kind of finding the way to work around it. Yeah, that
Collin 19:19
that's where that compassion comes in. You have concern right you are you're sympathetic towards the plight and how somebody's doing or how they're feeling that goes both for human clients like us for free and bend and otherwise, clients. It feeds into how we operate to have going, if I don't come in through this door with compassion for those that I'm caring for. I'm going to act very differently. Right. I'm not going to be concerned if they eat I'm not going to be worried about this other stuff I'm not and you stop meeting their needs
Jan B. 19:53
so much can go wrong. In a job. I always tell my staff what You're one second away from a disaster happening. That could be, you know, something like the cat got locked in the bathroom
20:10
or whatever. But it's, you know, you
Jan B. 20:15
just left that door open a second too long, all sudden, we haven't escaped animal, that type of thing to just always have to be aware and you have to look at what can become a problem.
20:29
What you and I,
Jan B. 20:31
you know, we probably wouldn't do a lot of things in our house, but we walk into client's homes, and I'm seeing these loose frayed cords or whatever. And I'm like, Oh, my goodness, get those out of the way or the plastic bags, you know? Yeah, we had a cat one time, cat got a plastic bag wrapped
20:49
around his neck
Jan B. 20:51
was under the bed. Yeah, consider found them. Yeah, if she hadn't looked under the bed, she'd never would have seen it. You just never know.
Collin 21:01
You don't. And it takes that level of attention. And sometimes you can be in a rush. Sometimes it's hard to teach these things to other people. If you bring on staff who recognize it, it's about paying attention have one thing for us as we sometimes care for people, but it's been increasingly people living in brand new home construction. And one thing about brand new home construction, those backyards are just filled with glass and rebar and all sorts of stuff. Like, what are we looking for? How are we focusing on this? Are we picking that up? Where are we putting it? It's all these little things? That is where does that come from? It's because we care so much. And that's why we have to take time off, we have to share this burden with other people. Because if we don't, no one can sustain that level of concern and sympathy for anybody for indefinitely.
Jan B. 21:52
No. And I mean, when you start doing this for long enough, you know,
21:59
stuffs gonna happen,
Jan B. 22:01
okay, I don't care, you can be the most conscientious Pet Sitter stuff is going to happen. And I've had more than one client kind of look at me, like, I explained why we need two keys. And they're looking at me like, yeah, right. And I've told a few clients, look, I can write the book on problems with keys. We want two keys. And this was why and, you know, but yeah, clients don't always, you know, understand, they don't, they haven't experienced it. Some of the things I've had happen in my, you know, petsitting career.
22:40
I learned from them, I never
Jan B. 22:41
would have thought that that would have been a problem. Or, you know, and then it's like, oh, okay, you know, yeah, it's,
Collin 22:50
for us. When we first started, we did f we would allow every other day cat visits, that was something that we allowed, right. And that's what people do that we encountered a few incidents where the cat was injured on the off day either. It was like one of them was running through the the carpet and like ripped out a toenail and stuff and was limping. It was, it was awful, right, coming into find that. And another one, you know, a cat got stuck behind a door. And it's so when we tell clients, well, we require a minimum of once a day, I had a recent client go by. It's a cat. And I was like, Yeah, I know. That's just what we require. We've had these things happen. And he responded with, well, I've never had that happen to me. And I was like, I know. You've had one cat for five years. I've seen hundreds of them. Funny but that kind of a good kind of taking that moment to step back and breathe and go okay, this person they don't know. It's not their fault. They're speaking. Yeah, so I've got this as an educational opportunity right now I have to take advantage of
Jan B. 24:05
I'm gonna write a book someday.
Collin 24:07
These are gonna be really good. Have you heard of time to pet player from acting critter sitters has this to say
24:15
time to pet has honestly revolutionized how we do business. My sitters can work much more independently because they have ongoing access to customer and pet information without relying on me. I save hours upon hours of administrative time on billing, processing payments and generating paychecks
Collin 24:31
if you're looking for new petsitting software, give time to get a try. Listeners of our show can save 50% off your first three months by visiting time to pet.com/confessional. Jed part of that of the way you have those those experiences and when you when you talk with clients. I know in this industry, we're told a lot that we need to be positioned as an expert and as an authority figure in in your area, and what does that mean to you? When someone when someone says, are you an authority for your clients? Are you are you? Are you viewed as an expert? To them?
Jan B. 25:12
Yes, no, but I don't like to push myself off on my clients that I'm an expert, I will make suggestions. You know, be it for automatic feeders or food or if I think something's going on, I could be 100% positive, this cat is diabetic, and diagnose, but I will never tell that to the client. I will say, you know, this excessive drinking of water or whatever it is, our signs he needs to see the bat. It could be something serious. I will never, you know, say this is what I think. But I suggest No, and you have to be careful on time. Years ago, I had a client that called the her cat needed something some pill, I don't remember what it was. I don't remember what it was for. I want to say it was an upset stomach. I hadn't worked for this client. And several months. She calls me one day and she says was an over the counter medicine. I remember. So it was probably Pepcid or something like that. And she says, what is it I'm supposed to give to the cat again, when he has an upset stomach?
26:27
Is it Alka Seltzer? And I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Jan B. 26:36
That went for years.
Collin 26:38
Oh my gosh. Wow.
Jan B. 26:43
And I'm not even sure if I remembered what the medication was. I just said, it is definitely not Alka Seltzer. Do not give Alka Seltzer call your bet.
Collin 26:52
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. What I hear when you say that Janet is the big step for that is, is speaking up right, and giving and having a voice for that pet and being an advocate for them. When you have concerns? I think, to me, that's, that's one of the best ways if you're looking of how do I how do I get people to see me as not necessarily as authority expert, or no it No at all kind of person. But to view me as someone to go to? Well, I'm going to voice concerns when I have them. And they're respectful, polite way in customer service hat there. But I'm going to be bold enough to speak up whenever I have those concerns. We've just recently had a dog that we were carrying for for what was it 12 days while they were traveling over in Europe. And it was an older dog who had lots of little, you know, those little cysts in those things that develop and older dogs. And we had one where it was like, this one is not looking good. And the owner wasn't concerned at all, but we just kept pushing and saying, Look, your photos, your concerns. And eventually he did say, Okay, I think we do need to go and get that taken care of to the vet. But we could have easily had just said, Okay, well, Nevermind, it's not a big deal. But when you have that concern to say something about it, right?
28:10
Exactly. Because we clients see,
Jan B. 28:14
it's like when you have kids, you see your kids every day, you don't really notice that they're growing and everything, right? It's the same way with animals, their clients see them every day. And they don't know that notice the subtle changes. And we come in, we haven't been there for two months. And I can walk in and I'm like, Oh my God, this cat sloths? Wait, something's going
28:35
on? You know? Yeah.
Collin 28:39
Yeah. And it just takes that time to get to be that advocate for them. And that's, that's part of, I think, one of the responsibilities that I view ourselves as having have the look, the owner is not here to speak up for them. And we have to do that. That's That's it. It's not just oh, are the living conditions some way or whatever, but toys that they have beating regimes that they have, again, we're not coming and saying we know everything we could just hey, in our experience, have you thought of this? And that's all it has to be. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that the inverse of that obviously is is doubting yourself. And so I did want to know Dan, if you've struggled with with doubt as a business owner and as a pet sitter over the years Oh, yeah.
Jan B. 29:22
I'm doubt that am I gonna have enough clients this month to pay the bills? Sometimes it's doubt about do I still want to continue doing this seven days a week modes to seven day a week job? Sometimes I think, you know, maybe it's easier if I do it all myself. It isn't. But those thoughts still go through your mind. I couldn't do this without my staff. I could not without my employees. You know, in the early days, yeah. The first year or two I could but no more So but yeah, I mean, I think we all have doubt. You know, I mean, there's still goes through my head sometimes when my phone rings.
30:10
It's like, Oh,
Jan B. 30:13
what happened now? And we don't get a lot of complaints or anything. But there's still always that nagging thing in the back of my mind
30:21
that something happened. Yeah.
30:24
It's just there. No.
Collin 30:29
I know. For me, whenever they get that phone call, I start doubting, am I going to be good enough for this person? Are they going to choose to go with us? Am I going to be able to meet their needs? You still have those? Like, I think that a lot of that is just inherent in what we do. Because it is service based, right? It's based on my my staff, human performance. That Exactly. And is that going to be enough?
30:54
Exactly. Yeah.
Jan B. 30:56
I think any business owner always has doubts.
Collin 30:58
I think to some extent, it's healthy, because it shows that we are thinking and we're concerned about things in our business. Now. It can be all consuming, it can drive us to the point of inaction at times. But I think having doubts, at least about what we're doing, can drive us to make sure that we're always trying to do better seeking out certifications, talking to the right people going to conferences, really thinking through and hammering out our policies and procedures and kind of letting that fuel the how we mold and shape our business. Well, I
Jan B. 31:30
think COVID was a big one for us. As far as doubt. I mean, when we went into shelter in place, I don't think there was a pet sitter alive, that wasn't scared, and I wasn't sure my business was gonna survive. I mean, it was very scary times, never had anything like this before. I mean, I survived the.com, bust and the crash and 28 911 and all that, but this was totally different. And that's scary. All of a sudden, you know, you've got all these jobs, and the next day you have zero jobs.
32:07
It's very scary,
Collin 32:09
but not letting that fear. stop you. Right? That's, that's where the next step is, is going. Okay? How do I assess the situation? And now what do I do about it? So for you in those situations, Jan, when you are doubting when you dark, scared of the next step. How do you how do you keep pushing forward in that?
32:29
Well, you have to
Jan B. 32:31
fail, or you got to, I know some ciders totally closed their doors and went on to do other things. And that's fine and great. You just have to I was very happy. I was grateful for any client that needed my services. You know, oh, you need me tomorrow. Yeah, I'm there. You know, that type of thing. But you just have to. And it got it started to get better. But you really learned to, you know, cut corners. i The Day After shelter in place, I cancelled just about any monthly subscription thing I had. Cancel, cancel, cancel, you know, you just do that.
33:16
But it got better. It got better. Yeah. One thing I did,
Jan B. 33:22
I was thinking about doing this before COVID hit. I was noticing that the majority of our calls from new clients were for cats, not dogs. And so I was kind of toying with this idea just before COVID hit and then when COVID hit, I said we're not doing dog vacations anymore. We'll do cats. We'll do dog midday dog walks. That's it. So and that has helped because we don't have to go there out there as late at night as we used to. Cars here. I don't know about there. But here. The dogs nine times out of 10 do not have free access to a backyard or anything. Yeah.
34:03
So Yeah.
Collin 34:06
Those those three days really do grind you up. And it really makes scheduling hard. And it makes it very intensive to know I've got I have to schedule somebody for a 6am and 9pm and something in the middle. And to look at how do I take a little bit and we're noticing the same thing to Jan, it's interesting. You mentioned like the new uptick in calls still to this day of cats. It feels like all the cat owners came out of the woodwork and went you know way. We'll do this too. So it's been we've been doing this 10 years. I've never had so many phone calls for cats and all my days. Yeah, it's It's bizarre. I love it because they're great. I can fill gaps in days I can put them next to so I don't have stand alone. And you get a lot of flexibility. And I think that comes with deciding what do I want this business to look like? How do I wake make this work and for you know, being in business for now going on? What 26 years or so. still being able to adapt to those kinds of things, because I think it would have been really easy to just go, nope. This is what we do. This is how my business operates. So how do how do you encourage us to continue to be flexible and adapt to things and not get stuck in our ways?
Jan B. 35:19
It's hard, that's hard, because we all get stuck with our little routines and our little ways. I think a lot of times, just being on some of the Facebook groups, and just reading what other people are doing, can give you ideas, you know, like, it may work for you. It may not, but it's something to consider talking to other people in the industry. You know, that I think that's where networking comes so much in, you know, in hand, because you start talking to others, and then in the industry, they do things a different way than you, hey, something might work there. They may give you an idea, or why don't you try this. But I think that's a lot of it. Your friends that aren't in the industry,
36:07
they don't get it.
Jan B. 36:12
But other pet sitters do, and there's a ton a wealth of knowledge out there, just start reading some of the groups, you know, you don't have to answer every single one. I sure don't. But I will say, Oh, I never thought about that. You know?
Collin 36:30
Yeah, that is that is invaluable to just be in a Facebook group. I know Megan and I, we have, we have our own. But there are so many other wonderful groups out there, where if you just are a fly on the wall and watch those questions roll through, you'll see things you never would have thought of expected. Yeah, it's amazing. And I always like to when I see a question, not jump in and go, Oh, this is right, this is wrong, blah, blah, blah. But to go know how, what would I do in that situation? Because it might not be pertinent to me right now. We see questions in there about livestock sometimes or a lot of aquarium businesses or things like that. It's like I don't I don't do any of that. But it's still fascinating to think about.
Jan B. 37:13
Never thought about it. Yeah. Yeah,
Collin 37:17
it's, it's when we stop thinking about new things where those ruts start getting dug deeper and deeper, when we stop exposing ourselves to new ways of thinking new thoughts, new processes, new people, new ideas, where we, we don't have anything but our old habits. And that's all we have left to sit back on. And that's not going to be enough to keep us pushing
37:40
forward. Ah, now, I
Collin 37:43
know for me, one of the things that I really struggle with and in our business, just in life in general is I tend to get really focused on my needs, my wants, my tastes, my idea of what needs to happen, and forget that I'm serving other people's tastes and other other people. So I know where I went, we went through the our big rebrand. And I was like, Oh, I I love these colors. And it was like, Well, yeah, but what are they? Do the clients connect with them to the clients? So one thing I know, running a business, when it's so personal, is the importance of like, is getting out of your own way, at times and recognizing how do you manage to do that and
Jan B. 38:30
hard, really is hard. I sometimes I just have to remind myself that, you know, I don't have to necessarily go out and do that visit that I got staff that will do it, I try to take a deep breath, and I do not the client has called or emailed me and I'm reading this and I'm making a very, you know, four letter word in the book in everything. I do not call that client art respond when I'm upset. I will sleep on it for you know, the night or something. And usually, or I may call another colleague and say, Can you believe this blah, blah, blah, but that I eventually get to some resolve within myself on it. And then I can respond and
39:23
everything's fine.
Jan B. 39:28
I just I accept it. Yeah, it's yeah, it's hard sometimes
Collin 39:34
it is to take that moment to just pause it and reflect and be okay with it. And I with writing or with responding, you know, I'll write a response not in the email, but in a different app and the Notes app, so I don't actually hit send. That's actually write it out. Look at that, what's going to happen and then it just think and sit on it and reflect and go, yes. Is that actually what's best for me and just talk through some Simple questions to not be always reactive in the moment, but going, why is this in the best interest of my business? What? What role is this playing in the customer service and the perceptions of people that have of me and my company and start thinking a little bit bigger? So when I get when I get really myopic, I do just, you know, Deanna, love that going, I need maybe to talk to other people. And just think a little bit beyond step one, and maybe it's up to three and see, see where this
Jan B. 40:28
I have often found, especially in email, I mean, come on, we're juggling balls, right? We come in, we're checking our email, we want to get through them real quick, because we gotta go on to the next job or whatever. And I will find that sometimes. I miss read the clients email. And I think the clients saying, you know, I want you to do a and I'm thinking, No way, no way. And clients really say in the opposite. Yeah. So I also have to go back and reread the emails, because let's face it, we're all in a rush. We're doing emails, let's get cranked out a few get those off our plate, we're on to the next thing. And
Collin 41:10
that's where sometimes maybe a phone call would be better, right after we've calmed down and collected ourselves. Just Just to clarify, restating that background like you wanted what, you know, a lot of times, I will miss read things when they say like, don't let them out. And or they say, do let them out. And I think it says don't let them out. And I'm like, well, that doesn't make any sense. Why would they lie? And I start going off the handle. And then Megan will be like, What are you talking about? It says, Dude, oh, cool. Cool. That's, that's good. They said that, because that's what needed to happen. But there is that emotional side of the business of we, I am going to react to certain things. And if I'm not aware of what can trigger me, or what can drive me to think certain ways, or how I'm going to respond, if I'm not aware enough of myself, I'm just reacting and flying off the handle constantly. Yes. That's no way to interact with a business or interact with your clients at all. No,
Jan B. 42:11
or even your staff? Oh, yeah. And that's a hard one. Not to be reactive. Yeah.
Collin 42:18
And have that more level keel. It's not to say we can't be passionate or have those emotions, but it's really what am I doing with them? How do I use those, and not just be the person over here? You know, going going and saying, basically, one of the things that I love, Jan, is that, because you've been in business for so long, you have served some of the same clients for a decade or more in some instances. And that's that's not something that Megan and I ourselves have been able to experience, we've moved several times. And so Okay, I did want to know about about that relationship, and what it's like, serving the same clients for that long. Well, you know,
Jan B. 42:59
we get a lot of clients, we were in the Bay Area, it's not cheap here, we get a lot of clients that move away through the years, but we have some that have been with us, and they've been very loyal. We've got some that through the years, they've gotten a little more,
43:20
what's the word I want? Um, I don't want to say picky.
Jan B. 43:26
But maybe within themselves there have their stressors there. And now all of a sudden, they want three visits a day for their cats, when the cats really only need two and truthfully, the cat could have one. And why can't you come three visits a day, that was never an issue when we started working for them, you know, 17 years ago, you but you don't know what's going on in their head either. But at the same time to clients are fickle. They will easily they get upset or something, they'll go elsewhere. It's nice. When we have the ones that have been with us for a long time. Because we know it, they know them when they trust us and everything. But people change.
44:07
People change. You know,
Collin 44:09
that's a really good reminder, is that something you know, I think a lot about, oh, the pets going to age and the pets gonna have different needs over that time spirit of that time period. But I've never really thought about the fact that the human clients, they're going to have changing expectations, they themselves are going to have different outlooks and expectations on you and what they want. And to now I'm not talking to the same person that I was five years ago. Oh, yeah. And now I'm interacting with them differently. And there's a whole new dynamic there. It's a whole
Jan B. 44:41
new dynamic. Yeah. And you know, some of these clients were on second and third generations of their animals,
44:47
you know, and yeah, but they change
Jan B. 44:53
and you don't know what's going on in their head
Collin 44:55
for you when you're dealing with somebody who you're on second third generation pet. They've been with you for years. In years and years, are you ever afraid of saying or doing something that's going to make them leave all of a sudden and stop using you? Because I know that's a fear that people have of, Wow, this is a long term client, they've really helped my business out, they've been very loyal, I need to make sure I do everything I can for that person. How do you find that that balance?
Jan B. 45:22
Um, that's not too hard for me. Because you're gonna get that dream client, perfect client, and they're gonna move away eventually, you know, right, your top paying client, and you know, be the midday dog walker, whatever. But I always tell other sitters.
45:43
Someone else,
Jan B. 45:44
you're gonna get someone in to replace that client, be it a couple of clients, or whatever, yes, if they're one of your top paying clients, that's a chunk of money, if they travel a lot, it does hurt. But there's always gonna be someone else coming in. And so I don't worry too much. I had one client, just recently, longtime client, tell me that now she wants. She's getting someone else. I don't know who it is to stay at her house. Because there was recently a fire here couple three weeks ago. And it keeps kind of close to her house, not super close. But she's paranoid because the back of her house is kind of like a small Canyon. And she's scared that if we're taking care of the cats, we can't get there fast enough to evacuate the cats. And I get that, but we don't offer overnight. So you know,
Collin 46:44
still recognizing going okay, how much am I going to? It all kind of boils down to? Is what this person's asking me? What I want my business to look like, Is that is that? Do I want to go get into overnights just for this one client? Probably? Probably?
47:06
No, it's,
Jan B. 47:09
it's too, it's too much. And as you can understand in California, we have to pay them for their sleep time also. Okay, so it's just a cost wise, it's not? No, it's not feasible,
Collin 47:23
no, going, I may get back to this customer service, business operations, finance, all these things we're having to keep in constant balance. And that's something that I recognize that clients don't think about at all. They're only concerned about the customer service side of things, because they don't have the finance department over here and knocking at their door going, that we can't pay for that or the operations over here going. The routes don't make sense over here, that we we are the ones that are that are just burdened with that to find that balance and how we're going to meet the needs of the client, given all the constraints that are on us. Exactly. And that takes that takes a lot of I think a lot of trial and error. Sometimes it takes doing some market research, knowing your numbers to know where does this line stop for us to meet the client?
Jan B. 48:11
Exactly. I think too, when you first start out petsitting you want to offer everything and everything. We all did it. And then you know, after a couple years, I would do some overnights and after a couple years. I'm like, oh, no, I'm not doing this anymore. And now look, we're not doing dog vacation visits anymore. Yeah, I mean, if someone had told me even 510 years ago, we wouldn't be doing dog vacation visits, I'd say you're nuts. So we pretty much are predominantly cats now 10 years, five years ago, I couldn't have foreseen that.
Collin 48:46
And I know a lot of people have that mindset of oh, I can't do that. Because look at what I'm doing. And I think the fact of the matter is, is you can if that's what you want, and you have clientele for it, you absolutely can make those kinds of decisions.
48:59
Exactly, exactly. Now,
Collin 49:03
with all the changes, and you mentioned 510 years that you've experienced and adapted to, when you look ahead to the next 26 years that you'll be in business and beyond. What What are you What do you see for what's coming down the road or your hope for the pet care industry?
49:21
Um,
Jan B. 49:25
I want to see the industry continue to raise the bar as far as SB and professionals
49:34
I am if we
Jan B. 49:38
keep ourselves as professionals and put us out there, it's going to have a an effect across the country. You know?
49:49
Yeah, just I don't know
Jan B. 49:52
what the industry is going to change, you know, be like in 510 years. I think it's going to continue It's going to continue. But like when I started, I don't know if you have them there. But out here when I started my business, you never heard of pet sitters doing dog adventure hikes, for example. And now there's a lot of people that do those. I couldn't even fathom that when my I started, my business just wasn't on my radar. So who knows? I think you're gonna see, I think it'll continue to evolve. I really do. But it's the professionalism. You know, we are professionals. We're not the kid next door. You know, we're not just doing this on a whim. Yeah, this is our business.
Collin 50:45
Well, I like the personal agency that that that puts on us of it's it's on us individually at the individual level to make it back to do better. And when we all win, we all are doing that. It helps everybody I can't, you know, we do. I feel like we do a ton of client education off of what we do, how we do it, the reason why the purpose for it the benefits, I do phone calls, probably two or three times a day sometimes where all I do have, what do you do? Why? Sure. Do. I hope that there's a day where I don't have to do that. Absolutely. But I know that there will always be somebody new and doesn't know and understand that's fine. But the more that each individual person can to continue to take those certifications, get the training, do the community involvement, and education that helps that helps everybody ensure we are able to get new and different things as as we get those skills to. Exactly. Jan, I have really enjoyed our conversation. I'm so thankful for you taking time out of your day.
Jan B. 51:49
Thank you. It's been fun. Always great to chat with you.
Collin 51:54
Yeah, yes, absolutely. And, but I know that there's a lot more here and people may have more questions and want to pick your brain on stuff, how can they contact you see everything that you've got going on?
Jan B. 52:08
Sure. They can contact me by email at info at Jan's petsitting.com jnsptsitting.com. They can find me through my website, also Jan's petsitting, and they can call me happy to talk to anyone.
Collin 52:32
Okay, well, Jen, I'll have those links in our show notes on our website for people to get clicked connected with you. And I'm very, very thankful for this time together. And I really, really appreciate it.
Jan B. 52:44
Well, thank you. You have a good day, Colin,
Collin 52:47
my biggest takeaway from my conversation with Jan was the importance of being self sufficient. Not that we have to go it alone, or that we are alone in our business, but we need to be equipped with the tools knowledge and understanding of our business and how it operates. And importantly, here, if we have an interest, we have a proclivity to do one thing over another, to invest in that if we want to be involved in education, be certified to teach more things for your business. If you want to be more involved with HR or finances or taxes, go and get those certifications, go and get those education and classes to do those better in your business. You'll be more happy and your business will be better run for it. We want to thank our sponsor today. Time to pat and thank you so much for listening. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and we'll be back again soon.
