321: Meeting Pet Parent Needs with Eleanor Oates
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Summary:
What are you willing to do to make your business run exactly how you want? Eleanor Oates, owner of Sitter4Pets, went as far as developing her own software to run her business. Eleanor shares how her corporate background helped her get off the ground in pet care and the importance of time management. After a car accident left her out of work for 7 years, she decided to do something new. She shares how she moved through those dark times and shares have she uses videos to connect with clients.
Main topics
Moving through dark times
Time management
Getting the right clients
Using videos
Developing her own software
Main takeaway: Time management is more than just setting your calendar. It’s about creating mental space and separating from what drains us.
About our guest:
47 years old - Stubborn, driven Yorkshire lass from England !
Worked in corporate for most of my adult life.
Live in Yorkshire with my partner, his 2 boys and dog called Bramble.
Had a terrible Road Traffic Accident in 2002 that changed my life.
After 7 years of constant pain and being off work, I decided to change my future and become a pet and house sitter.
I am passionate about my pet and house sitting business that I have created from scratch.
I am now looking forward to my next big adventure!
I have been pet sitting since 2007. I haven’t always been involved in this type of work though, I come from a corporate background.
I used to work in The Law Courts followed by an Insolvency Practitioner’s firm in Barnsley. That was until I suffered from a road traffic accident that completely changed my life. I was off on long term sick for 7 years due to back and hip issues and during my recuperation of my last operation, my cousin asked me to look after her home and pets. That was the beginning of pet sitting for me.
After spending the first 5 years building a strong foundation in my business, I decided to resign from my corporate career and house sit on a full time basis.
I soaked up as much knowledge as I could on topics such as Pet First Aid, Dog Behaviour, Dog Psychology, Dog Grooming, Cat Behaviour, Senior Pet Care and Pet Nutrition. I attended many courses in person and online and still love learning as much as I can in this pet related industry.
Since 2012 I have been pet and house sitting full time, all year round, moving from one house to the next and 2022 represents the 10th year anniversary of my business.
Links:
The Power of Habit: https://amzn.to/3LLVu4M
Email: oates_eleanor@hotmail.co.uk
Sitter4Pets: https://sitter4pets.co.uk/history/
Give us a call! (636) 364-8260
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
pet, business, clients, people, sitter, questions, dog, house, home, thought, kinds, process, videos, pet sitter, day, sit, cat, create, helps, designs
SPEAKERS
Collin, Eleanor O.
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 and pet perennials. How far are you willing to go to get exactly what you want out of your business? Eleanor Oates, owner of a sitter for pets went as far as to create her very own customer relationship system. Eleanor describes her journey into pet care how she has been able to move through dark times, and what it means to conduct and have a personalized pet care for our clients. Let's get started.
Eleanor O. 00:47
Hello, everybody. Thank you for inviting me. I'm really glad to be here. And yes, I'm Elena from Doncaster, born in Brandley. So that's where my accent comes from. So I will apologize now, if I started going into Branzi accent mode. Yeah, so I've been a pet sitter for about between 10 and 15 years now. I've been doing it full time for that length of time. Yeah.
Collin 01:14
What were you doing before you got into the pet care?
Eleanor O. 01:17
Right, what I was doing before I've come from a corporate background. So from say, My early 20s. And through to mid 30s, I was working in, in county courts in small claims that I went into insolvency, working with bankruptcies and things like that. So completely different life. So I started doing this. Yeah.
Collin 01:46
Well, so how do you think that that kind of background impacts how you run your business? Now, given that you were kind of in the corporate legal ish world? Yeah. So what have you taken from that and apply it to your business
Eleanor O. 02:00
and time management, a lot of it, and the ability to use Excel, and word, those kinds of things. And LPN with the procedures LPN with putting questions together, about, you know, the client's house and a pet, and what the routine is, terms and conditions, those kinds of things, that the business side of things, is what my mockery is out, Mr. Shaw.
Collin 02:34
Yeah, and that's, that's the thing that a lot of us struggle with, because we don't have that backgrounds. Right. One thing about that's neat about the pet care industry is that there's no training program, there's no schooling that you go to, it's all kind of learned experience. And then we kind of look up and find ourselves running a pet care business a lot of times, and now we have to backtrack and learn all this stuff. And you mentioned time management, I think that's so important as business owners, because we do so much. So for you, how do you make sure that your time is yours, and it doesn't get away from you each
Eleanor O. 03:08
day? Good question. And I try and put a in, in my diary, really. So I will try and allocate as difficult is when you've got dogs and cats running around your feet, and they all want a bit of your time. And is to try and schedule a certain time in the morning to answer emails. Or even if you cannot manage it during the day, wait until the evening and set yourself an hour in the evening. It will cut out the TV watching on a night. But it still is still doing it in that day. It doesn't, I always got stuck between nine and five. So I would try and work between nine and five like I usually would, but then on an evening, I would still open up my laptop and still be looking at my phone. So I was not only working nine to five, I was now working nine until like nine at night. So it didn't really it didn't really help but I did try and stick to my guns and say okay, I'm going to answer my emails between 1011 and again, maybe seven till eight at night. And I would try and put reminders in my phone to say go for a walk without the dog or without whatever you're looking after. Just to have some time where you're not aware that there's another dog there that you might meet someone around the corner but they don't like those kind of things. It's a set time for yourself as well as the pets that you're looking after.
Collin 04:45
That's a really good idea because many times we go oh I'm I'm already outside of our walking I love doing this but we kind of forget how much work is going into that walk with that dog how much mental stress and mental heard and like you said, of like, Oh, how's the dog going? Is it too close to this is going over here? How's the harness fitting? Well, how's it looking? Is it getting overheated? All those things that you have going on in your brain are not there when you don't have a dog. And so when we talk about getting stepping time away, it's, it's both that I love that idea of integrating that physical activity as well. But also going do stuff without the mental burden. Because if you, if you're still doing tasks with a mental burden, it's not a break at all. You're not actually getting separation from that. And then scheduling that time to do that. I know for me, I try and schedule time throughout the day. But I always have this nagging thing in the back of my head of like, well, I got an email, I'm going to answer it in a couple hours, but it's there, it's there. It's how do you suffer from that? Or is that just me? No,
Eleanor O. 05:51
I still perform it myself. As soon as I hear ping on my phone, it's like, I've got to see what is it could be important. It could be this, it could be that and then you drive yourself crazy. So you have to do it. And it's actually interesting at the moment, because I'm reading books, I love reading books about mindset. And I'm reading one about how habits and how they're formed. And now you can help change, good habits or bad habits. So that is actually really interesting that we're talking about it actually today with with things like that. But I try if you can, is, even if you try and turn your phone off for an hour, it's it's difficult. Sometimes we just think, Oh, someone's reaching me What is an emergency, I completely understand that. But if you can just find even if it's just 10 minutes, and you find that turn off the 10 Minute agenda on nothing really major has happened and might have missed a Facebook post. But nothing seriously happened, then you'll find that it's okay to just switch off even if it's just 10 minutes, because it does your mind so much God.
Collin 06:54
Yeah, it starts with the 10 minutes, five minutes switching off and going and just relaxing. And you can feel it in your body whenever you go, Oh my What am I love to do in the springtime and summertime is to go turn things off and go just lay in the grass in the sun and just kind of be in neutral territory and just be doing nothing. And everything's kind of pleasant and nice. And you get this very sense of deep relaxation. But if you don't build up to that, it's hard. Like, if you pluck somebody up and go go relax on the beach, it's like you just spend the entire time stressing, and it's awful. And so building like you said, those habits, taking those 10 minutes, okay. And for me, I know, I have to remind myself, this is good for me. This is good for me, this is good for me, when I start to panic, and I start to go What if What if What if now, this time away is good for me. I can just do some self talk there through those through those through that anxiety that you have will help, I think build up a lot to that point where you can go, okay, that's going to be over there. I'll get to it. And I have other things to focus on. I have plenty on my plate to focus on right now. I don't need to be adding in emails or phone calls or social media. Yes, Joe. Yeah. Now 10 to 15 years ago, I think you started to get into pet care. But really what for you was the catalyst that took you into the industry.
Eleanor O. 08:15
Right. And it was completely and utterly by accident. And that was a car accident. I was on my way to work. And I had a car accident. And I was off for seven years on long term sick adaptations and scans and all sorts of things during the couldn't find what was wrong with me. And so I was in my 30s at this point and prime time of my life and I was at I was living at my parents home. And I couldn't barely walk around the house, I was on morphine and was admitted to hospital regularly. And it was a really bad time. Until eventually, I kept paying privately to see consultants because it wasn't happening fast enough, as far as I was concerned. So I wanted to pay privately to pay it to see people and eventually I got to a consultant that felt he understood what was wrong with me. And I had an operation and I had to turn inside of my kit. And they couldn't see on any of the scans because it covered 25% of the area that the MRI scan didn't cover. So it was just my luck that all these MRI scans I've been having. We're not covering was not seeing the area. So eventually we I had a camera into my head, found the problem and fixed it on in Mongo. And I went home and I was on crutches recovering from this operation. And it was out of the blue at that point that my cousin rang me up and said I understand that You might be going a bit stir crazy in in the Amazon time, would you mind if you came to my house and looked after my, my dogs and my cat for two weeks, we're going away. And even to this day, I keep saying, I think my dad had already packed my bags. By the time I am finished on the telephone call, I was quite pleased with the fact that I was actually thrown away. So yes, I packed my bags, and then they dropped my mom and dad dropped me off at the at the fortnight I didn't need to walk the dog, they were on a jet muscles, and they had a big garden. So they said, Look, just open the patio doors and let them out and let them back in again. And that's what I did for a fortnight. And while I was sat there watching their massive television and eating everything out of their house and home and decided that I thought, well, this is kind of cool. I really like this. And my cousin came back and the house was clean, and the dogs and the cats were all happy and contented being at home. And I went back to my dad's. And then slowly I went back to work, which is slow return to work. And then that's when the phone calls up. And again, phone calls at work saying, Ah, you're that cat woman. And yet Oh, you're that dog person. I'm like, I'm I'm at work and the going oh, no, Donna, she's telling everybody that she has got a pet sitter and wonderful is, well, she had gone back to work. She was a veterinary nurse. And she's gone back to work as such, and everybody that she's got a pet sitter. And these people have, she has kindly let them off my number. These complete strangers. I mean, you're asking me to look back. I'm not.
Collin 11:56
Oh, my gosh, that's hilarious. I mean, random phone calls. You weren't even putting yourself out there. But that seems like you went through a pretty, pretty dark time about and really struggled to stay moving forward. What kept you what kept you going and motivated through that process.
Eleanor O. 12:19
Um, I've always, I've always been quite driven. I'm always quite a forecast. Person. Anyway, I like to try. And if I, if I'm in a bad situation, I try and almost flip it upside down in my mind, if possible. If anything goes wrong, it is so easy to mourn about it and complain about it. And if it makes us feel good to have a really good rant it does. And so what I try and do sometimes is Yes, I will rant and complain about things, but then say only use 20% of that energy and do that 80% Or try and nip it in the bud and just switch it and say, let's, I'll spend this energy that I would normally be complaining, and try and find a solution to what is happening right now in my life. So that's what I kind of try and do have a bit of both have a bit of a rant, and oh, this is not happening. And that's not happening. And I'm not happy. But they're sitting right. Let me stop now and look at this problem. And see if I can fix it.
Collin 13:33
It does, it does feel really good to go on and on and rant and like you said rant and moan and Nash teeth and you know, really get angry about it. Because that's a release of energy. And while our body feels like I'm doing something mentally we know nothing's actually changing. And so being able to make that switch and go, Okay, I've had my cry, I've had my rant. Um, now it's time to go do something and do something could be maybe I need to wait more, maybe I need to go find additional experts. Maybe that's I need to, you know, go out and market more or do something else. But using that energy to motivate us through those times. really does help us to keep moving forward so we don't stay stuck. I think we've all seen people who just seemed like they're just stuck in this constant cycle of complaining and it's all terrible and nothing good can happen and going okay, well, what if I think at some point, you have to realistically sit down and go okay, but what have you done? What have I done about the situation? And maybe, you know, until you've exhausted everything, we can always try one thing more? Yeah, I completely agree. You're getting random calls at work from people and you. So I imagine business started to pick up pretty quickly. When did you decide, oh, maybe this petsitting thing is what I actually need to do.
Eleanor O. 14:54
Well, I was going to work and then I would leave work at tea time and go to somebody's house and stay there, walk the dog stay there overnight, get up in the morning and go to work on their house. And I'd probably be there for a week. And then another week, I'd be going to work and going to another house, staying there overnight and driving to work the next morning from that house. So that's what I would be doing. And now I would arrive at work. And there would be a code that you have to enter in order to get into the building. And every time I walked up to that door and entered that God asked started feeling like down as though I want to be doing something else. Today, I don't want to be here don't want to be here. Although I must say that the same employer is the one that kept my job open for those seven years, I'd only been there about a year before I went off sick. And he left me my job open for me for those seven years before I got back. So even though I was walking up to this door, and I went to put this card in, I was thinking I would rather be doing my own business being my own boss, but I really felt that I didn't want to let my employer down by him, you know, having kept my job up, and I felt obliged to stay. So every time I'd, I'd shrug it off, and I'd go into the door, and I'd do a full nine to five, and then I'd leave and I'd go to someone's house to look after the pet. And this went on for about a year or longer. And every day, it got harder and harder to enter that code and into the building. But then I thought, if I don't do this, I will never know whether I can run my own business or not. And never know if I'm capable of doing it unless I have a goal. So I thought I'm going to I'm going to stay here for another year or so. And I'm going to save up as much as I can because I had a house to pay for even though I was never in it. I was paying for the house, and all the rent in the bill and the bills and everything. So I thought I will save up so that I have at least a year's worth maybe maybe a bit less, so that I could hopefully, at least leave if I could. And then I'd have a little bit of a safety net that if I didn't get enough work at the beginning that I would have at least something to pay for my house and my bills. And then I would just work like crazy. That was the plan. And I was there for at least another 18 months until I've saved enough money to do that. And then yes, I had a conversation with my boss and in there, which was very scary thing to do. I can't remember it now. And it was it was hard to sit down and have a full Spiel ready. And what I was going to say to him and why I was leaving, and I'm really sorry that you've left my job open all this time and not finished saying what I wanted to say. And he looked at me and he just went, I knew you'd go. And you get an AMA you could Jimmy, I have been. I've not slept for three nights. And he's like, no, no, I knew I couldn't tell you is like going on your own business. You're like me from 20 years ago. So you know, get yourself off. And I'm like, the relief was.
Collin 18:41
That's that's amazing to have that kind of support. And he knew it was just like, Okay, well, obviously, okay, fine. Like
Eleanor O. 18:54
I was going crazy thinking and thinking about it. And to this day, you know, we still go out for lunch at pairs, of course, but we go out for lunch.
Collin 19:05
Well, it's great that you've kept that that relationship and that friendship and that support, right that from that. And I think that's really critical to when we decide, Okay, it's time for me to launch into the stream that I have this passion to have people around us. And I think sometimes we have to hunt and peck for them. But sometimes they're right in front of our faces. And you know, if you had never had that frank conversation with him and had decided to maybe I'll just, you know, not show up, or I'll you know, try and do this at some other way, you know, you might not have had that relationship still to this day with him. You can say he really respected that. And that meant a lot to him that you were went through that process. And it's you know, and I think when we look for support in for ourselves, to just be honest with people about what we want to do, why it's important to us, and they'll step up or they won't and we keep those people close that are going to support us because we really need that in in business, especially running a pet service and just in the pet service industry. where it's a weird thing to be involved have you heard of time to Pat Dan from NYC pooch has this to say
20:12
I'm Tibet has been a total game changer for us is helped us streamline many aspects of our operation from scheduling and communication to billing and customer management. We actually tested other pet sitting software's in the past, but these other solutions were clunky and riddled with problems. Everything in time to pet has been so well thought out. It's intuitive feature rich, and it's always improving.
Collin 20:33
If you are looking for new pet sitting software every time to pet a try listeners of our show save 50% off your first three months by visiting time to pet.com forward slash confessional. When you when you look at your your clients, and you've started to build clients, how do you know and how do you go about thinking about what they want? And then meeting those
Eleanor O. 20:54
needs? Right? Well, when I first started, I was just, I just basically asked myself one question, what would I look for? If I was having a complete stranger in my house, looking after my pet, basically, and I just thought, Well, they'd like me to have made, you know, insurance. And they'd like me to maybe have like a police check, which shows that I've got any convictions. And maybe qualification and pet first aid would help them feel better in case something happened out of the ordinary or an emergency that I would be qualified to at least help their pet with the first aid before taking to them if that if that was necessary. And it would get me views from other people. So I'd already been helping family and friends for quite some time. So they gave me good reviews and references. So I use that to say, look, this is where I'm coming from. Things like that. Really what what would help and then looking after their home and their pets the same way that they're dead. So I asked lots and lots of questions about what is the pet? When did they get fed? Where's the walk? Show me where the walk is? Is there any streets that I need to avoid? Is there a certain dog that they're going to go crazy about every time to see? Where's your vet practice where, you know, these kinds of things? What do you want me to do in this kind of situation? Or that situation? Or where's your fuse box in your house? Where's the, you know, smoke alarms? Where's the gas meter? Those kinds of things that in case there's a burst water pipe in the house, I know where they want to stop valve isn't those kinds of things?
Collin 22:49
And I know sometimes those questions can feel like they're overburdened some clients, and I know that I've gotten some clients who just you when you go through those questions, they're just like, Oh, I just want you to just take care of this stop. I just want to get your dog and us going, No, no, like, I need these. Like, you don't like i These questions are important to me be able to care for your pet and your home while you're away. I I've had to explain to some people, I know this is a lot of information. But this is going to help me provide the best care possible to you and make sure that you have peace of mind. And we can handle things if they come up. And you know whether you get pushback or not, I think really thinking through all the questions and you rattle off some there, but everyone's gonna have their own kind of unique take on those. I think it's important to sit down and go for me and my business and how I run and operate. What do I need to know? And how am I going to get that information? And maybe I asked him person or maybe I asked him a form that I send to people or maybe you know, texting or however that is like that's that's where we need to sit down and go, Okay, I need information. What is that? First of all, then it be? How am I gonna go about collecting them? That's right. So you're providing care and you've gone from you were using word of mouth, from your one champion that was telling everybody about you. What was what did you start doing next? As far as Okay, I need to ramp this up. And I need to start growing and I need to start getting more clients through the door. How did you go about getting your name out there when you were first starting out?
Eleanor O. 24:18
Right. Well, I had, like I said I had about six months worth of bills and everything paid for. So really what I did was just run around like complete Nutter for six months, which included things like doing door to door leaflet drop in creating business cards. A lot of advertising really I created the website. I did things like I would use say Google for instance and say pet sitters in my area, and certain websites would automatically come up on the first page of Google, for instance. And instead of me trying to reach the top of Google, when I was very new, I would look at these sites, most of these were just genuine business sites, anybody with a business could join them. So I would create a free advert on their sites, rather than try and reach the reach of both them on their muscle research results, if that makes sense. So it was a lot of things on the internet, back then. And like I say, main things about is, is walking around where you know, dog, walkers are going to be or anybody that's got a dog, or any vets are really good. And all those kinds of places that you can go, coffee mornings are really good, because anybody who's got a dog loves to talk about the dog. So if you can get anybody talking about the dogs, you can then give them a business card. So it was a lot of trial and error. And we'll try a lot of things, some would work, some wouldn't. And one of the things would be like I would put an advertisement on the back of my car. So then, while I was driving around, I'm stuck in traffic or whatever people would see my car. And then when I was at the house that was sitting out there would see my car, then. So a lot of people on the street would just turn up to the house that I was set up and asked me for information. So they were coming to me as well. So that was a good thing. So yes, it was just a lot of things of thinking what I could possibly do, what other people might be doing is something similar, looking at other people's websites that offered a similar surface service. And best in mind on on that kind of research.
Collin 26:55
Yeah, that's right. There's so much free things that we can do for our business. When we're first starting out, and even whenever we've been in business for a really long time is we can continue to get access to those. And I love the tip of when you're talking to pet parents, when you meet them out and about. It can be a little intimidating to go. How do I tell them? I'm a pet sitter, right? How do I tell them? I'm a dog walker without just being like, let me walk your dog. Right? Like, try that. That's fine. But yeah, that easy. That shallow entry into that pool is Oh, who is this? Tell me about? How long have you had them? Oh, my gosh, what's their favorite toy? Do you take blocks here? Often what you know, you can ask so many questions about the dog. And as you said that Pet Pet Pet people will talk about pets day in and day out. And then you can easily transition into I start transitioning into more stories that I can tell about my experiences, and then be like, yeah, as a pet sitter, I can do blah, blah, blah. And then here's a card, and just can flow naturally. I think that just takes a little bit of practice. And it does feel awkward at first, but to just start talking to people about their pets, and then progressed the conversation towards where you're hitting a card. Oh, it's so wonderful to meet you and Fifi and oh my goodness, they're just so cute. If you ever need any help, or have any questions, let me know. And then boom, you're done. And you're off back to the races like it just it doesn't have to be this big formal presentation. Yeah, I agree. Now, I was on your website, you have the phrase a couple times personalized pet care. And I did want to know what that means to you and how you implement that with you and your team.
Eleanor O. 28:30
My personalized pet care, it's it's just making sure that the pet parents know that it is specific for their for their requirements, really. So say that that their pet is is only were walked a certain amount of time a day or in a certain area or they're on medications are they have deliveries every other day come into their house, and they've got certain plants that require certain care. I've been to places that got like 100 Cactus, and they needed some care. And yeah, so it's personal to them because it's their home and their pets and each person is so much different to the next. So making it personalized is really like you say it's asking a lot of questions. But those questions make it a personal experience because their answers could be completely different to my next client. And that's what makes it personal. So we like to leave notes at the end of a say we're just leaving a personal note saying we ya know, you've enjoyed your holiday and we know where they've been so we can say well that your weather's been okay and those kinds of things. So is we create a relationship with each claim
Collin 30:00
starts by paying attention during that Meet Greet when you're coming over doing an in home consultation of kind of comparing, okay, what information did they give me beforehand versus what am I seeing with my eyes right now. And that can be as simple as, just as an example, we came into home and they had a gate going from the kept a barrier into their laundry room where they had cat food. And they had they had not said a single word about this gate, the entire time of the of the consults and talking with them. And finally, I was like, so can you tell me about this gate over here? And they're like, oh, yeah, that must be kept up at all times. Otherwise, the dogs will get in there and eat the cat poop and the litter box and the cat food? And it was like, Yeah, that was, that's good information to know. And so, not being afraid to go, Hey, I'm seeing this. Can you tell me more about that? Or hey, you know, I noticed, I've never been asked to care for over 100 Cactus, I that would be quite extensive thing. But you know, if you notice somebody has extensive plants, and they're not saying anything about them going, Hey, I noticed you've got some really nice plants over here by this window, is that something you'd like me to care for while you're gone? Those kind of observing and then offering in a way is what's going to help people go, Oh, man, this person is really paying attention to my needs, and how they can help care for me.
Eleanor O. 31:20
Yeah, exactly it does, you do notice a lot of things that upset me. And even when you're at your house, it, it's things like before we leave, we notice what kind of bread that they may leave us bread and milk. And sometimes they do sometimes they don't. But we can tell which type of milk they like, and which whether they like say brown bread or white bread. So what we will do is then go and replace that with the type of bread that they like. So if they want green top milk, that's what we get them, not what we would drink, but we just leave them one pint, and a loaf of bread, the ones that they are used to getting to when they come home, say the come on Millennial in the hours and they just want maybe a quick cup of tea and a slice of toast before going to bed. That getting that but they're not only getting that they're getting what they're used to getting. And it's those little tiny things that makes a huge difference.
Collin 32:17
Especially if you are consuming them, you're using them replacing them. Now I know some clients may go, you don't have to worry about that. But if that's something you're really passionate about going no, no, like, I want you to come back into your home. The goal of this is for you to return home and be able to just enjoy your space and not have to worry about oh, I've got to go get bread, I've got to go get milk, I've gotta go this stuff. It's like no, like you, we want you to have a better experience than that. Like, if that's your goal, that means we have to replace these things. I also noticed on your website that you have a lot of really good videos that you have explaining your processes showing the care talking about why you do what you do. Why did you decide to use videos, as opposed to some other format of text or just photos?
Eleanor O. 33:04
And personally, I think videos show your personality, they can almost visualize you in their home. And based on your, your energy, the way you speak that our passionate you are about what you do. They kind of say yes, actually, I'd be happy with that person being in my house. And I mean, let's face it, we're sleeping these people's beds, this is a personal thing. It's a professional business. Or it's very personal as well that we're using these people's sofas and beds and showers and kitchens, it's a big thing. So I feel that the mothers have a connection with me and see Oh, yes, I might not be able to understand that lady's bouncy accent but she seems really good with cat and dogs, then it definitely, it definitely helps. So the review ones are really good. They were they were great. I asked her a few of my clients leave me a review. And they did. So that's what those were. And the other ones are really just to show who I am and that I am male. And it's a real person. It's not a massive company. It is me and and yes, it's gone a long way to showing people there's people that have run me and just said I've only chosen you simply because of your videos. I like who you are and now you come across and that is the one reason I've chose a new offer the other are the businesses so they work
Collin 34:44
yeah, they're a great way to get ourselves out there in front of people before they even ring us or they before they do that the console because they're going to meet us eventually right like they've that's going to happen like that process or not. So being To get our ourselves out there so they can kind of they can pre screen us. We're always thinking of ways of how do I get people to know who I am when, without me in front of them. And so we build websites, we do social media, we do posts, but having these videos where people can go and learn from you see who you are, hear your voice, hear your corny jokes, or your personality or whatever is in there. That's going to help them make that decision faster. So that by the time they're calling you, they really know who you are, and everything's already been sold, all you have to do is schedule the console and go from there. But for people who may struggle with that, and go, I'm never like, you want me to do video? What kind of recommendations would you give to people before they sit down in front of a
Eleanor O. 35:45
camera? Yes, and I feel, I feel exactly the same. I must admit, the videos may come across as though I am more than happy in front of the camera. Trust me, it's not true. I am terrified. I must do 300 takes before they actually reach the website. So don't think for one moment that is easy. I completely understand it's not easy. And the my partner helps me or did. A lot of them. I've done myself. But recently, some videos we've done together. And II asked to now we tries to trick me, he will pretend that this is a red light is that when you record in on any kind of device, he knows that I know that when that red.is On, I'm being recorded, and I fluster. And I get my words mixed up, and I panic. So what we'll do is cover that red light. So that I think that I am not being recorded and I am much better than so I will talk naturally. And I may wear a bit more on the National Guard and I say certain things. And then you will just leave your money in and then take time, you know, cutting it down, but it's not more natural that way. And people actually said, You know what we prefer your outtakes. I would keep some of the outfits at the end just thought a bit of fun, just to show people that this does not do any, any way for me. So people would say, oh, you know what, yeah, we know you're like, but we just fast forward to the end, just to kind of watch of outtakes. So there's nothing more funny. But everyone's zone is hard. But please, it's worth doing. So even if you're just asked to take five takes to do one minute video, then please do it. It doesn't not have to be perfect. It doesn't, you just need to have them on your website, or whichever social media that you use. Because people are not really looking for perfect. They're looking to see if you're the person that they want to look after their house and their cats and their dogs. And wherever pets, they've got it. It's that personal connection with you. So is AlphaGo. I know it's hard. I trust me, I really do know how hard it is. But I also know it's well worth doing it. And the more you do, it does get easier.
Collin 38:33
It. And I really appreciate you pointing out the fact that it doesn't have to be perfect. And that that people are actively looking for that they can clients are going to be able to tell, you know, as this is a super mega polished and produced or is this really a genuine person who is talking to me right now. And that's what they want. They want that personal connection. And we can give them that by leaving in some of the mistakes and not editing all those out and not feeling like we have to be 100% perfect all the time and not being afraid. I also like the trick that your partner does of hiding that little recording light kind of forgetting it. Because we do get in our brain and we go we go oh man, is it what we get? That's weird stage fright. When we go I'm being recorded, all of a sudden it becomes this big thing. And we blow it out of proportion and just being able to relax and forget that the cameras there. And so for me a lot of times it's maybe I don't put the camera right in front of my face, but off to the side so that I can kind of forget it's not really directly at me or things like that. It just ultimately just takes practice and getting comfortable. Let's say getting comfortable in front of camera. That's what that process is. We're getting comfortable. We're allowing our personality come out. Not being afraid to say things that we personally say but we're like, oh, maybe I shouldn't or however the phrases or wherever we use like that's okay. That's the personality people are looking
Eleanor O. 39:52
for. Yeah, exactly. They're worth doing for sure.
Collin 39:57
Yeah. And they and they can be fun and you can show us So much information with videos a lot more than you can in a text or in a photo, especially if you're showing processes or you're talking about how you do things or who you are like that's it, it comes across much more natural as well. And people are more likely to watch a short video as opposed to reading paragraph after paragraph after paragraph about you.
Eleanor O. 40:20
Yeah, exactly. My videos get quite a lot of, you know, people looking at them and and seeing who I am and then booking just from seeing the video.
Collin 40:30
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Eleanor O. 42:00
Good question why I like that? Um, yes, well, I have been using, like, say, a normal system for for a long, long time and just using it, you know, I've been everything on paper form and fill in forms in for many years, and they worked perfectly fine. Then the what I call the CIP, the client information part, asking all those questions, it got to about 20 pages long, simply from all the questions that I ask my clients. So I completely understand how difficult it can be for them to answer all this stuff. So I thought, I am losing so much paper by asking people to fill these forms in. So I had it created on as part of my website, it was online form. And we and that worked for many years as well. And then I met my partner just before locked down. And my partner is a software programmer. So during lockdown when he had nothing else to do, and he couldn't leave the house, I demanded, stroked, asked him to create me a system based on our on my best in business. So it helped me with things like sending court and sending invoices. And reminding clients that they had certain questions may be outstanding, or they need to check certain things out to me send them updates. So it would help me it would have things like a task that would say that the pet has been fed or it's been marked, or it's had a medication, or the bins have been taken out and put back those kinds of things. So we could just tick a box and it will say get the bins have been taken out, I'll put back those kinds of things. And it would say, the code update with photos and short videos and messages. But it was a big thing really. And it took him quite a long time because it's from scratch. So I could have used. There's quite a lot of apps out there that do this kind of thing. And it's just that I wanted, I had a perfect opportunity to create one that I wanted solely from my business. So that's what we did. I did the creative kind of side. And Martin did on all the programming computer side of it. So between us, we've built this one system that runs my pet sitting business, it helps me with all the admin stuff, the stuff that you get bogged down with and it frees up quite a lot of my time to then go and pester him even more.
Collin 44:52
Do more software software and having this process really does help streamline us and I know if we're you know solopreneur was one staff more like, it really does help in many aspects of it streamline communication, invoicing, billing updates, it helps us keep track of information. I think that's the biggest part of getting software of where do I store all of my information for my clients, so I never lose it, or I never forget it. Well, it really helps to have a system in place that does that for us. And I'm sure you'd have for you being able to go, how do I work? How can I design this to meet my needs, so that it works for me, it must be really freeing and really great to know. Like, this is exactly how I function and my processes are exactly represented here.
Eleanor O. 45:41
Yes, it was, it was a lot I remember quite clearly have been sprawled out on the lounge, carpeted floor with paper, everywhere, just scribbling down exactly what happens when a client contacts me for the first time. And then every single step that we all do, right through until you actually finish the stitch itself. And you're asking for a review everything and it took a long time. And then you look back and think, wow, I do all this stuff without almost really thinking about it. But then you can look through and say, Well, I don't really need to answer all of these inquiries. I answer them myself anyway. Because let's face it, I'm a control freak. And I cannot let my business goal is my baby. So although I have a system in place, I must say that at the moment, while it's still new, I am almost hanging over its shoulder and going, Oh, do I really want to press this button? Or do I want to do it myself. So I'm kind of in that kind of zone at the moment. But I must admit, when I do let it do its job. And I click one button to send a quart. Rather than sending an email, typing an email, attaching the bot to it, and then send it the email itself. The steps are much less, which saves me time. So then I can look at where my business is going. I've been doing this for 10 years full time. Now, I don't have a house. I've just go from one to the next to the next let's all yet all the time. And I would like to take a step back. Maybe do they have more automation in my own business? To feel? No the vision, something else?
Collin 47:35
I do want to ask you when you were going through that process of lighting out your entire processes, when you were going that other than being extremely painful and arduous? Did you discover that you needed to change things or you could refine and do things differently while you were going through that?
Eleanor O. 47:50
Yeah, it was it was a massive lie. Because if you hold it only in your head in your head, kind of like canes that tries to make it a lot like it's hard to explain. It tries to Group A lot of things into one thing, basically. And until you write it down, you might think oh, well, I only do this part, but then sending the court instance. But when you actually really need to break it down, there might be 10 different things in that one section that your brain has decided just to block into one thing. So when you ask to write it down, no, I need to do this, which follows this, which follows that. That's when you can look back and say, Oh, well, if I move that up to there, or down here, it will save me this step. So when you I almost did it, I'll tell you how I did it. I did it as a flowchart. Basically, you know, like a family tree. I basically did it like that. So at the top, I would say something like inquiry for meaning, am I available? Or am I not available? And then that there'd be two lines there? And if I'm available, but only part of it? Do I offer it to a sitter? And which Situ is it? So there'd be a question, and then there'd be underneath would be announced? And which would lead to another question which will lead to know the answer. But I would love you can imagine the amount of Yes, lots of lots of paper, and lots of boxes and mines and questions and answers. And but then I pretty much physically stood off in the lounge and just looked on my work and thought my icon, I can move that here. I can move out there. And that's that's when we looked at putting it into a software because it it was much better to do it that way than it would have been just to put my whole business on the software and then try and change it.
Collin 49:48
Yeah, really optimizing at that time. And I know that's one of the best reasons to sit down and outline. It's not just okay, I need to outline because I'm going to hire somebody sure that's Oh, Reason to outline everything and work through your processes. But I think even more than that is to sit down and go, are my processes actually functioning? Well? Could they be done better and like, the only way that we can see that is when we write it down, because our heads are terrible at keeping track of minut little details and what happened before and what's gonna happen next and see the entire process were awful. And we get distracted, and we're tired, and we're busy. And there's all sorts going on. So being able to sit there and go look at this, and putting it physically in front of you so that you can actually pick one thing up and go, this goes higher in the flowchart, I'm going to do this. And for us, one of the things that we did was we would wait kind of, we used to wait really long in the process, before we had the client sign the agreement. Now, we've cut out some information for the agreement. So it's not specific to their state. It's just our general practices. And we have them signed that basically at the very beginning, so that they we know they're committed, and that has cut out so many questions and things that have come up through the onboarding process. It's like, but we would never have known that. Have we not sat down and actually gone? Okay, first, they do this, and then we do this. And we start going, Oh, well, if this is up here, well, that saves so much time. Okay. Let's do that. And you're able to, you're able to see that, yeah,
Eleanor O. 51:17
it takes a lot. And I must admit, I was thinking I haven't, I kept saying to myself, I haven't got time, I haven't got time to work through all the procedures in all of my business, I'm too busy. And how's it going? And, but if you've kind of if you can, this is where your time management comes in, is to try and set even if it's an hour a week, to work on this thing. And you'll do it gradually, I kind of like blitzed it in one day, I must admit, I just sat down with plenty supply of Yorkshire tea, and didn't leave the lounge until I'd done it. But it's each to their own. But it is important to get your procedures down because you can you know, in your mind, then I've got all the paper, they're all will go. And they're all still safe tucked away. So I know when
Collin 52:09
I bet that something to see. We voted for the show notes. No kidding. But you kept doing all this to an end, you said you have an interest of stepping back and doing more things. So what's your what's kind of your next step for yourself and you see for your business?
Eleanor O. 52:25
Oh, wow. Um, my next vision would be to try and well, I'd like to offer this computer system to other cities really, that's what I'd like to have a go at maybe just within Miami first to like, say a beta testing group that can try out for them to see if it works, then when 12 all the stitches, save time. And the other thing I would like is, which is a massive, massive goal is to try to have some kind of like a group of sitters that I kind of mentor and help it and they have the same kind of sets in things like you know, like I said about the police check and the insurance and the pet first aid and things like that, if I could have deters that. agree that those kinds of things out and you know, a good thing to have and important, then I could say, well, if we if you join this computer system, I will not only help you with running the business, I can help you with clients that I cannot. I won't be open anymore because with a step back and wanted to work about six months out of 12. Now, I am now reducing my client base. So now I have got to a perfect point in my life where I no longer have advertise. I don't I don't need to I've got my regulars that come to me over and over again. And I'm kind of like stopping it sounds a bit crazy. But I'm wanting to say like, well, I no longer do this because I'm wanting to help other sitters do it the way I did it. So if I get the sitter's and come say, right, if you do it this way in that way like I did, this is kind of where you might end up with hopefully, and the clients that I'm no longer helping I can say, sorry, you can't have me personally anymore. However, you can't have access to the sitter's that I have trained and I've got the same basics that I had when I first started. So I'm not just stopping and I'm not helping and I'm turning work away. I want to be able to say no, I might not help you personally. I'd like to help clients find the center that they're used to and sitters find clients that understand what what's involved and and respond Respect sitters. Yeah, because we always
Collin 55:03
want to know who can we can refer to and who we can trust if we can't take on business. And it sounds like what better way to do that than kind of training up more local sitters around you and kind of your processes and your ways of doing things. And having that group and community close by that you can kind of oversee and help and assist and mentor through that process.
Eleanor O. 55:22
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm wanting to do. Really. It's, you know, like you say about your mind, putting everything into blocks of things, and you're not realizing how much is actually involved in all of that you don't realize how much you learn, and the experiences that you're you that you have, when you spend such a long time. It's not just a job, to me, this is my life. Because I deal with this all the time, my kind of personal life, around my house and pet sitting. So me visiting family and friends and going out is all based on where I'm house sitting where their houses where my family are, Alana can leave the pet bar. So I do fit my life around this job, which I'm sure many, many people do as well. And I'm just, you learn a lot. And I would like to be able to share that rather than just stop and say, Okay, I've done my bit, I could easily just not bother anymore and just keep with my own clients and plod along. And that's not my way and would like to, and almost create a legacy and say that, I'd like to look back and say I've about 200 stitches, maybe even more than a while helping the clients that I no longer help. And every knows what goes well, and clients understand how we work and, and teachers know what clients expect, and now becomes like a big family really,
Collin 56:53
it does, it does. And that way we can help them. And again, it gets back to when you were talking about integrating that personalized pet care and providing that for longer and to more and more people over time, right. That's where you could help help more people. I'm really excited about that. And I really appreciate you joining us today to talk about your journey through pet care, you know, and how we can push through the hard times and tough times that come and go. But also how we can continue to meet the needs of our clients with excellence and focus on that personalized care and then use videos to their to their highest possibility for us. But again, I know there's a lot here, you've got a lot going on. So how can people get in touch with you follow along with your work and start asking you additional questions.
Eleanor O. 57:36
And then welcome to see me on on Facebook, I have got Facebook page, which is sitter for pet on my personal page, which is Eleanor mui. Oh, and there is an inquiry form on my website, which is fitted for pets as well. And if you're just feel bad that it will come through as an inquiry, like you're looking for work for me, but I will understand that it's not that. So don't worry about it would be best if you could possibly just contact me via Facebook. And that's probably they're going to be the best way immediately. And then I will I will just reply on that and be happy to.
Collin 58:19
Okay, wonderful. I'll have links to those in the show notes, and on the website so people can get connected and start asking you questions, or this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us today. You're welcome. You don't know how much you're going to learn until you start digging. By taking a deep dive into our business, we do so many positive things for us. The first one is that we will refine our processes to make sure that they are better for our clients. And secondly, we become better educated about our business, we get to see what the inner workings actually are. Where are the pain points are where we can improve? Is it functioning, how we actually want it to function, and then do something new and different. If you haven't taken a look at all of your processes in a long time. Or maybe you just did it recently, I encourage you to take a second or third or fourth pass with fresh eyes to see your business a new to see it from a perspective of somebody who hasn't developed it. This can be hard, so finds us base find some time to really comb through everything that your business does. This is a process that never ends because as we begin to change one thing, it's going to impact other things down the line. We want to thank our sponsors time to pet and pet perennials for making today's show possible. And we really want to thank you so much for listening for joining us today. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your weekend. We'll be back again soon.
