344: 2022 in Review
How has your 2022 been? For many, it’s been the biggest year they’ve had in a long time. For others, it’s been a trying time as they work to rebuild and restructure their business. We reflect on how 2022 has gone and why listening to client feedback is one of the best ways to improve your business. We also give some of our biggest lessons we’re taking into 2023. Share your biggest win with us!
Main topics:
Reviewing feedback
Setting expectations
Biggest lessons
Main takeaway: Don’t let the lessons you’ve learned this year go to waste!
Links:
https://www.petsitterconfessional.com/episodes/239
https://www.petsitterconfessional.com/episodes/243
ProTrainings: For 10% off any of their courses, use CPR-petsitterconfessional
Give us a call! (636) 364-8260
Follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter
Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, & TuneIn
Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
clients, people, year, business, feedback, onboarding process, service, staff, area, question, pet sitter, company, pain points, lockbox, feel, updates, hiring, staff members, key, pet
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin
Meghan 00:10
Hello, I'm Meghan. I'm Collin. And this is Pet Sitter confessional and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Hello, welcome to another episode of pet sitter confessional episode 344. Hello, thank you to our amazing Patreon supporters for making this show possible. They contribute a few dollars every month, we have two different tiers, the $5 tier, which is the Doxon tier, of course, and the $15 tier, which is the Great Dane tear. Thank you very much for all of the Patreon supporters. And if that's something that you feel has the Our show has provided value to you, and you get something out of it each week, you can sign up to be a Patreon as well. And you can do that at petsitter confessional.com/support. Today, we want to talk about our year. And a little bit of looking back looking ahead. How was our year?
Collin 01:03
Yeah, everything in review for this year it was I feel like we say this every year, but it was another big year. For us. It was a year of growth and a lot of lessons that I'm really looking forward to applying and continuing to learn from next year.
Meghan 01:17
Yeah. So when think when you think back over your year of being a pet sitter, in your business, think about all of the feedback that you've gotten this year, whether it's good or bad. Think about both, you know, you may not be able to say, you know, on January 7, I received this feedback. But you know, in general, like if you received a bad review, or if somebody didn't say something super nice about you, usually that kind of sticks in your mind a little bit, and we're very good at remembering the bad stuff. Yes. And also, you know, if you got a great client referral this year, or if you surpassed your revenue goals, whatever it is, the feedback that you've gotten from people from clients from potential clients, or just people out in the community, how are you going to use it to make your company better. So a feedback that we received recently wasn't super great, but it was that the person we were giving walks to one of the walks to be a little bit longer. And we had explained our policies of this is why we do what we do. This is how we time them. This is how we manage them. And they ended up understanding and they they're still pleased with our service, it was just kind of managing that those expectations. And so how are we moving on? And how are we implementing changes into our business? Well, we are going to be now setting up okay, when a new client comes on board, we're going to be having more clear boundaries and more clear expectations on our end for the service that we are providing to the client.
Collin 02:45
Yeah, really outlining expectations. As far as timelines, that's actually something that we really have not done or felt like we have needed to do over the past 10 years. But we have started to get we got this feedback from our client of just asking some questions about what that time was spent doing. And so realizing, okay, we can honestly, we can do a better job communicating how we do a breakdown of our time at each step of the process at both when they are interested in our service, during the onboarding process during the meet and greet, and then possibly even during an update or two about law outlining how that time was spent for them to give them a better idea of what we're doing.
Meghan 03:22
So maybe you have gotten feedback that your software is not as good as good as it needs to be, or you need to be better at reminding clients of their invoices. If that's something that you do, or whatever the case may be, how are you going to use it to make your company better?
Collin 03:38
And I think one of those can be just pain points that you come across time and time again, maybe it is the software that you're using has bugs and issues. Maybe you feel like you're getting the same question from clients all of the time. Take a moment and recognize that go, Okay, that is annoying when I get that feedback. But I need to do something with that. Now I need to try and change my onboarding process. My marketing, I need to change my Facebook banner or my Google My Business postings. I need to do something I have agency and control over this, to make this possibly go away and change for the better.
Meghan 04:14
You know, as long as the feedback is constructive from the person giving it to you and not demeaning or downgrading to your business in any way, you can look at it and go okay, is there something that I need to take away from this? Is there a lesson that I can learn? Is there something that I can do better? And not saying that it's always our fault when things go wrong, or clients are upset because sometimes it's legitimately not our fault and out of our hands, but we can always use that information to do better in the future or to just do something differently? Maybe the asking
04:44
the question, What can I do better is not a bad question to ask. We should always be asking that question. What was my role in the situation? What could I have done better? And you may find Well, my role was I didn't do anything and there was nothing I needed to do and what could I have done better? Nothing, I did everything perfectly from my policies and procedures, you may find that great, you may also find that you can tweak things here and there communicate better or address your staff in a different way, or whatever that's going to look like. But we can we, one thing that we can stop being afraid of, is asking how I can improve. And just acknowledging, I don't know everything, I'm not perfect. And that's okay. And that when these things come up, when these pain points arrive, when this feedback comes in, that is an external validation and acknowledgement of our need to continuously improve,
Meghan 05:36
and learn and educate ourselves. Another question that you can ask yourself, this on your year end review is what do clients need to know about working with us or working with you,
Collin 05:48
your business operates in a very specific particular way, the way you want to the way you think it logically should. And that's perfect, that makes sense to you. But it doesn't make sense to everybody. And so when we are bringing new people into our business, there are things that they need to know about, about your company, you need to in order to be a good client and get the most out of your services. I think typically, a lot of times we think this is my cancellation policy, my extreme weather policy, what is my walking policy? What are my my policies and procedures, but there's also about expectations for communication, and how they let you know about that. There's also things about like a little bit about what we just mentioned, of what's a walk actually look like what should they expect to get when it with my company? Well,
Meghan 06:39
I was thinking about your onboarding process, like clients contact you, they want to book a walk with you, and they don't know what to do. So how are you going to make it easy for them? How are you going to make it clear and concise? Is that a series of emails? Is that a series of text messages? Or is that just we go over everything at the meet and greet? There are a lot of different ways to go about it. And there are a lot of different ways to answer the question of what do clients need to know about working with you?
07:06
Maybe it's locked boxes, and that you use a lock box? Or maybe it's how many keys that they need to know, ask yourself before I can give services to this person? How do they need to be equipped to make sure that I have what I need and that they know what to expect? And then work from there. So that you know everybody's on the same page, and everyone understands what's going on? And then subsequently
Meghan 07:27
to that, when are they educated on that? So again, if you need them to know about your cancellation policy, at what point in the onboarding process, do they need to know that
Collin 07:37
or the lock boxes? When do you need to know that they need a lockbox because I think what we're trying to prevent here, this has been a series of refinements for us just personally in our own business. Over this past year of going, how can I make this as streamlined as possible, and going, I don't like waiting until the meet and greet to find out that they need a lockbox because then I've got to have a lockbox on hand. But I don't want to have a lockbox on hand, if they don't need a lockbox, that's a pretty big waste. So now we need to bump that information away up into the very beginning so that I can be as prepared as possible moving throughout that entire process. And then we also want to try and avoid doing the also ants. That's shorthand for, oh, I also need this. And I also need this. And I also need this as a way of trying to put all that information in one cohesive unit and area for them so that it's easier for you to review and keep track of as well.
Meghan 08:29
Or, for example, when you answer the question, when are they educated on that? If you do if you provide boarding, and the client is texting you constantly asking for updates, or they're calling you for updates, maybe it's a good time to step back and look at your process and go Well, I I know my expectations for reaching out to the client and giving them updates. But maybe I need to move that further up in the process so that the client knows, hey, you will be updated two times a day, or you know, if you're doing walks, you will be updated at the end of every visit. So when you get there and they see you on the ring camera, they're not immediately texting you saying hey, how's How's fluffy doing? Yeah,
09:05
they're coming in those unspoken expectations. And they are a killer on relationships of when you get frustrated or when the client gets frustrated. And you suddenly realize, I never actually told them that that's a huge red flag that we need to we need to step back and address at some point along the process and maybe a few times around the entire thing.
Meghan 09:28
I mean, it can feel daunting, though, because you're never going to be able to answer everything for everybody. But you can make it a little bit easier.
Collin 09:35
Yeah, this is not to say because I think the the immediate answer is when do they need to know it? Well, they need to know everything immediately. But part of the onboarding process, I think that's what we're focusing on because that's just a pain point that Megan and I have been experiencing recently with our clients has just been how do I shape and mold this process? So they go from knowing nothing about my company, to being fully integrated and able to understand how we operate why we opt Right and their role in that as the client, that is a journey and process that you can educate a little bit at a time. And you are the one who has to sit down and mold that and go, what do they need to know next? And before they know that what things should they know and understand,
Meghan 10:13
because it can be overwhelming to the client of not understanding and getting a bunch of papers and information sent their way and then going well, I don't understand what I'm supposed to do next. So trying to make it as clear as possible, which takes time. So give yourself grace, once
Collin 10:28
we've looked at our feedback from the clients over the past year, and we've kind of gotten a good idea of maybe areas that we can improve, or areas that we can continue to focus on. What other things should we take part in a urine review? And the first one is obviously, financials and sales. So how have you been tracking your sales this year? What does that look like? Is that been in an Excel spreadsheet? Has that been on a wave app? Has that been in another type of tracking document? Where are your new clients coming from? And I think another question to ask is, what's the average spend per client that you have? Are you actually making sure that the clients that are using you are using you a lot that they're really wonderful repeat clients? Are they just one off kind of clients? And maybe start asking some questions about why that is, if you do have a lot of one off clients? Why is that what kind of messaging and marketing is you putting out there that is making people think that that's how you want to run your business, maybe you do want to run your business. And you don't want to have a lot of repeats, however you want that shape, looking at your financials can give you some insight into the type of clients that you're actually attracting,
Meghan 11:35
also looking at your expenses. So not everybody enjoys financials, but they are super necessary, especially come tax time. So looking at what service is most profitable? Are you spending too much on buying leashes and not allocating enough to advertising or whatever it is, and then looking at the services individually, so are you enjoying the walking and you love the walking but it's not really super profitable, well maybe increase your prices or increase in some other area where you can,
Collin 12:06
I know this has again been another learning curve from us as we have been deploying more and more staff in the field to serve clients is now looking at truly that boundary, that service radius, that drive time, optimizing that as much as possible, because we know drive time is money, whether we're the ones doing it, or we're paying staff to do it and wanting to make sure that those routes, those visits, those time spent there are as optimized as possible. And that is a very true learning process as you go through that, depending on your service area, the traffic times the time of day, the time of year, all of that goes into influence that in all of that influences the bottom dollar,
Meghan 12:46
I did just do a happy dance yesterday, because we got a client last minute who was directly north was the exact neighbor of one of our existing clients who we walk twice a day. So that was wonderful. Yeah, they don't even know each other. No, but it was very nice to see that when looking back over the year, you also want to look at your human resources and culture. So even if you are a solopreneur, you still have culture in your business. You know, we have learned a lot about this as we started hiring. And it the hiring process is just continuous basically, it never stops. So some questions that we encourage you to ask if you have a team, you know, do you feel connected as a staff member of this company? Do you feel supported? Do you see your role as integral to the mission and values of the company? Whatever those are, you know, how are you investing? As the business owner? How are you investing in your staff members and letting them invest with you as well? Are you seeing them as more than just a dog walker or a pet sitter? Because if you aren't, they aren't either.
Collin 13:54
And that's been my favorite part over the past year is really getting to know each team member individually, and asking them especially at that, like three months, that four months, six month review, okay? You've been in this company a while now? Where do you see yourself? What do you want to do more of? Or maybe what aren't we doing that you would like to take the lead on and start trying and initiative on. And that has led to things like pet photography, increased interest in nail clippings, those kinds of skills and allowing them to invest in us in that way and contributing in more and more ways.
Meghan 14:31
Baking dog cookies was even one of them. She was interested in baking and so we were doing a pet friendly event we were thinking about selling cookies on the side as a part of our business and she was like Wait, I will bake a bunch for the event and you can pass them out and we're like great, let's do it.
Collin 14:47
And realizing that that's a great way for them to feel more and more connected is because when they feel like they are contributing in greater ways and helping and serve. that's those are the kinds of staff members that we want. And like Megan said, even if you are not hiring people, and you are solopreneur. Your culture is how you interact with clients. It's how you interact with your community. It's how you interact with your CPA, your tax account, and all of those people experience and interact with you. And that is your culture and how you bring people in and say hi
Meghan 15:16
to them. And then next, you want to look at your marketing. So how has your messaging changed since the start of the year? Are you happy with it? Do you like it? Has it changed at all? What new needs or pain points do your clients have that you need to solve? Think about sending out a end of year survey to your clients and asking some of these questions on there. You know, we've been focusing on assisted and independent living complexes as a solution for some of our clients pain points. And we'd recently found out that we've been living here for four years. And we just found out that a huge Assisted Living Center hat is pet friendly. And we are now partnering with that.
Collin 15:56
I mean, this is exactly how that came up. We found out about this, that they were pet friendly. I walked in on like a random Wednesday and introduce myself and the front desk attendant said, we just had a staff meeting about needing to find pet care for our residents. And how did you hear about us. And hi, I want to talk to you more about this, I just decided to come in today. And it was amazing. It just kind of everything aligned for that. And so really finding those small opportunities and going and talking to people and finding those relationships to build and nurture. That is marketing. At the end of the day, you are letting people know about who you are, what you do, and importantly, how you can help them.
Meghan 16:41
Okay, so now I'd like to talk a little bit about us personally, I don't know how our year has gone. So we did an episode last year at the end of last year, recapping our year. And it was a huge year. And I believe I went month by month of something exciting and awesome that happened to us. Or actually, there were not so great things too. But something that if it's something interesting that happened every single month, well, this year, I don't really have a month by month I just had this year was kind of been a blur a little bit. But definitely a lot has changed and a lot of high points for us.
17:13
And I do want to note that is that that's one of the most encouraging things that you can have and why these reviews are so important is when you look back at the company that you were running one year ago. And then look at what you're running today. See the growth see the change both in the clients you serve and who you are as a person. Except for 2020. That, well, if everything was different, we grew as people You certainly did more character, that's for sure. Yeah.
Meghan 17:39
Anyway, so this year, we celebrated one year of going full time. Yeah. And we celebrated one year of clients in our new service area, which I guess we can't call it new service area anymore. Other service areas. We held our first event. And then I think one of the big things was around October, we finally implemented lockboxes.
Collin 18:02
Yeah, that was a that was big. It was
Meghan 18:05
a long time coming and definitely necessary for the growth of our company. And we did this because we finally realized that at the rate that we were growing, it was simply not feasible. So we had a client who reached out to us who wanted in our remote service areas, she wanted three times a day, every single day for seven days a week. And we have multiple staff members, we do time blocks for a staff member. So we do a morning, afternoon and evening. And then the weekend, people are virtually the same. But there's difference, the difference between the weekday people and the weekend people. And so there were going to be, you know, up to six or seven people during the week during the seven day period where they were going to be visiting this lady and her dog. And so they wanted to have they wanted us to have a key. And we said this is not really going to work because we're not going to we do have an office but it is, you know, 2025 minutes away from where you live. And so we need to implement a lockbox.
Collin 19:01
Yep, it really was you don't know the pain points and you know, the pain points. And then you find those opportunities of where you can
Meghan 19:06
grow. And it was really the impetus for us. This one client was the empathy that we had already purchased lock boxes, we knew we were going to be doing this we just were sitting collecting dust they were we just really needed a big push and she was the push to really get this done. And so we're full steam ahead of like we are doing this for all of our clients. Now we are returning keys, we are contacting people, lock boxes only, you know, it's that's what we're doing now.
Collin 19:30
It's really I think one of the biggest other than bringing on additional staff, I think just as our company looks from the outside and really important how it operates. The implementation of lockboxes has really been the biggest change this year for us as as far as I can tell, because it really does change how we interact with clients. It's added a whole new list of questionnaires, whole new list of trainings for our staff and has really streamlined I talked about that earlier, but it's really streamlined our ability to see schedule, and to get people last minute and to have peace of mind that no matter who's during the visit, as long as they have the code to the lockbox, they're able to do it, they don't have to run back to the office to find it and lose it. There's everything in between.
Meghan 20:14
I will say, though, that if we were still just you and I and we didn't have staff, we probably would not be switching to lock boxes. But I will say it is so much easier. Even if you are solo truly, instead of just having a giant key ring or a giant binder full of keys or whatever your setup is, it really is great, because the clients love having access to their key as well. They can take down the lockbox when they don't need service. And they have control of their key at all times. They can have the groundskeeper or the lawn care people or the nanny or housekeeper or whoever else. So their family have access to the key or if they get locked out of their house. It's right there.
Collin 20:51
Yeah, so I think that's been a really good change for us. I'm really excited to continue to push that forward. And to get more and more people on board with that. The one thing I'll also add is this sounds like it's been a year of first for first for us. The one thing that happened more earlier in the year was our first time attending the in person conference at the Texas pet sitters conference. And that was such an amazing event. And we made so many connections there. And I know that I encourage everybody to go to conferences at some point to learn and really, just to be connected with others and to meet people face to face was a big game changer. It's a way to get energized and excited about the year ahead.
Meghan 21:28
The only other big thing that I had from this year is that we hired a bunch of people, and had a bunch of people quit. It really seemed that when somebody quit the next week, we were absolutely slammed. So I think we've talked about this on the podcast before, but we had one week, where we had three staff members. And then in that same week, we had zero staff members. And that was a pretty scary thing. And we've come up against some other bumps along the way. But we are here still.
Collin 22:03
So it's definitely the year of lockboxes and year of hiring. Yeah, I
Meghan 22:06
mean, we definitely were able to refine our hiring process even more each time somebody left us, you know, we got the feedback, and we refined it even more. So we really felt the repercussions of people quitting it around September, because you spent two solid months in our other service area, away from us. So
Collin 22:29
I did yeah, that was something that we just had to embrace and take on. And the one of the lessons that I took from that was just how immensely grateful you are for good team members, good hires people who who want to be on and be part of something. Additionally, for us to not take that kind of thing personally, when people quit, because they all have their reasons that they're all legitimate. And that's totally fine. And to just at the end of the day, as hard as it is to roll with it. Not in a jaded way or something where you Oh, well, I expected that or whatever. But to recognize that things happen. And I have to let go of these emotions right now. Because there's nothing else that can be done. So that process of letting go is something that I have been really leaning into, not in a I give up way or in I don't want I don't care way. But in a my agency and control over this situation has reached its end. And now I have responsibilities that must continue forward and things that I can do to keep to keep going. And that is all part of this process.
Meghan 23:34
Well, and through that process. It definitely felt you know, we had tough conversations, we had really tough conversations of like, is this worth it? Do we want to keep going? Do we just want to shut this down and only operate in one area? You know, there were some really hard things that we had to work through together because it felt like you were never going to come home? I mean, truly, it really did. So we didn't want we were not going to be in a place of desperation. We knew that we could not hire from a place of desperation. Where we desperate. Yes, absolutely. But we knew that we had to hire quality people that would stay on with us. And that we're going to be in this for the long haul because that's what we needed. So once we made that decision that you were going to go down there that we were going to continue doing this. And there was basically no end in sight. It solidified the fact that we're in this for the long haul. We are going to do this. We believe in this. We know that this has a future and a longevity. And we just need to get our feet under us a little bit. But we are going to do this. It's those
Collin 24:34
growing pains and that when you experience change, it's like anytime what is the two most terrifying or two most dangerous times of an Air flight airplane? It's takeoff and landing. The cruising is cruising because that's where fewer accidents happen. It's when you are changing direction changing momentum changing location. It's in the change where things get scary things break and you want to give up and it's this it's not a Oh Just believe hard enough, and it'll happen. It's a am I committed to this? What am I? And then what am I actually committed to? Am I going to put in the hard work and and see this through it with the full idea and understanding that maybe I've done everything I can. And I say, Well, you know what it didn't work out. And that's really scary. And I had several of those moments of going on, we are pouring everything that we can into this, everything. And I'm concerned, it's not going to be enough. I'm concerned that at the end of this, we won't have anything. But I have to for my own well being know that we put everything out there and that it was going to and that was it. Again, this whole acceptance of I've done everything I can. And now that's done. And that entire process of hiring, and rehiring and rehiring and me working down there for two months, was a way of embracing that. As this is, this is good. For many reasons.
Meghan 25:57
At the beginning of the year, we did an episode looking at 2022. And the year that it was going to be we talked a little bit about us. And we talked a lot about how we thought 2022 was going to be what questions you should ask for having a good year. And one of the things that we had coined the phrase is, make 2022, the year of 2020. You and that is super cheesy and super corny, but I will ask yourself, did you do that? Did you How was your self care this year? How was your blocking time off? Were you able to do that? Were the goals that you had set for yourself at the beginning of this year? Did they come to fruition? Did they pay off? Or are you at the end of the year thinking oh, I wish I should have done that. I shoulda Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda basically. So ask yourself did you make this year the year have you? How was 2022 for you personally? What have you learned? What lessons are you going to be taking into next year? Have you even looked back on this year at all? Do you want to Is it is it not a fun thing? Well, hopefully it is hopefully you have grown you have changed not only as a person, but as your business as well. I know a lot of people have blown their revenue goals completely out of the water. Parent pet parents are just traveling like crazy and hopefully your business is booming.
Collin 27:16
Let us know you can send an email to feedback at Pitzer confessional.com And we're everywhere on social media at petsitter professional
Meghan 27:23
or if you'd like to leave us a voicemail. We do have a phone number do don't we? It is 636-364-8260 We appreciate you listening to this and we will talk to you next time. Bye bye
