354: What’s in a Name?
Brought to you by Pet Sitters Associates. Use ‘Confessional’ at checkout
Does it matter what you call your services? The language we use in our businesses is a very powerful tool in both attracting the right clients and repelling the wrong ones. As a business owner, we need to use clear language in everything we do, including what we name our services. We break down some areas of possible confusion, and then suggest ways to overcome those to connect with your clients.
Main topics
What is a drop in service?
Clear communication
Example terms
5 factors to consider
Main takeaway: Naming things is important. It allows for clear communication and understanding of a specific object, concept or idea.
Links:
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, service, potential clients, people, term, pet, pet sitters, dog, language, names, business, overnight, communicate, walk, visit, associates, expectation, sitter, branding, understand
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin
Meghan 00:01
Welcome to pet sitter confessional and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter.
Collin 00:06
Thank you to our sponsor today, pet sitters associates and our Patreon supporters like Beth, Claire, Adriana, Becky, Doug, and Laura. What's in a name, that which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet. William Shakespeare uses that line in his play Romeo and Juliet to convey that the meaning of things is totally irrelevant.
Meghan 00:27
But as a business, though, the names and the terms we use are very important. We recently did a poll on our Facebook group sitter confessionals, and we asked the question, what do you call the service where you go to a client's home for a set period of time to care for their pets, but do not stay overnight? A little wordy, but it's important. And we got a lot of different responses. Not surprisingly, some people said pop in checks or dropins, visits, checks, petsitting and vacation visits, there were actually a wide gamut of answers.
Collin 01:00
Yeah, it was really interesting to see just the variety of responses. And I think that kind of focuses on what each person was trying to get at and tell their clients that that thing was for, or I'm sure several people like, like us for a long time hadn't really thought about what that name was conveying.
Meghan 01:17
But the whole impetus for the question was because we've recently gotten some clients reaching out to us. And we're a little confused as to what exactly we offer. Somebody would call Colin, and they would say, hey, I want petsitting. And then Collinwood, kind of explain a little bit about what we do. And they would say, Oh, you don't stay overnight? Well, they were looking for what we call a house sitter, but they call a pet sitter.
Collin 01:41
Yeah, turns out words are pretty hard. And they would always be pretty upset and kind of frustrated and lost and say like, well, I guess I don't really know where to go with this. And we would sit here going, well, I, I can't help you with that aspect. Here's the services that we can offer and try and talk to them that way. But when they come in with that first expectation, they get really let down when it doesn't get met.
Meghan 02:05
Or another example is we use the term droppin visits, and they start at 30 minutes. But when a potential client heard drop in visits, they thought that we would just come in for five or 10 minutes, let the dog outside real quick and then basically run away. And that is not what we want. Because that is not what we do.
Collin 02:23
Or several times we had clients who would think drop in means they could bring their dog to us for set periods. So even then they were confusing with drop it with something like daycare. And so there was further confusion about what that service was and what it meant for them.
Meghan 02:36
So if you have experience with this and your own business, you know that naming things is very important and allows for clear communication between the business owner and the potential client. And it makes them understand a specific object or a concept or an idea or a service that we are providing. It can also help to organize and categorize information, making it easier to recall and retrieve later.
Collin 03:00
I like this concept when you see people with services that are named where walks have a general theme of naming. And then dropping services have a general theme of naming. So you can kind of see how they all fit together. And you know that they aren't the same thing.
Meghan 03:14
Are you talking about like if they would offer a shorter walk, you would call it like a chihuahua or something and then a longer walk would be like a Great Dane, something along those lines. Yes, we really should care about the language we use. Because the way we use it communicates and has a significant impact on how it's perceived by our customers and our potential customers. The our language influences our brand image, the way people see us the how much trust they have in our business, and then ultimately the success of our business. And
Collin 03:45
this really has to do with the fact that the language that we use has to connect with our clients. If we use the wrong language, you will not connect with either the right client or any clients at all, if we had considered if we had never thought to explain what a drop in was, and everybody just assumed it was something like a five minute visit or a 10 minute visit. And they didn't want that. Well, even without contacting us, they would assume that that service wasn't for them, and they would move on. And then we would be left going, Why isn't anybody contacting us? So having clear, consistent and really appropriate language for for your business, for your kind of business, for your locality for your kind of clients? All of that can help you establish credibility. Megan, you said build trust and communicate our value effectively. What we're talking about here is communicating the value of the service. Because what happens with some service names is that they can be viewed as less valuable, less what that person is looking for. Clients are looking for you to solve a problem and if the language that you use doesn't make it sound like you are taking their problems seriously or you understand how valuable that service actually is. They may choose to To pass over you, because you you don't get it, they don't feel like you understand them. And that's why taking a moment to step back and think about our language, and how we name things and structure that really is a major part of
Meghan 05:13
this. So I wonder if this happens last with dog walks versus like a pet setting or droppin visit, because if you just say dog walk, people generally understand what that is, you know, you might have a 30 minute dog walk or a 60 minute dog walk. But, you know, if you say, a pet sitting visit or a drop in visit, sometimes that language really gets confusing in terms of what you offer versus what the client is expecting. On the other end.
Collin 05:39
Yeah, there's there's less industry standardization about the term dog walk that tends to be pretty self explanatory. I think that's what you're getting out there. As people know, I say dog walk, that's going to be interpreted in a pretty straightforward fashion, about what a dog walk is. Now, that's not to say that you as a company can go, Well, we do dog walks a little different around here. And you can explain about how you add the water, you do the massage, you take them different places you do all that can be extra on top of that. But that immediate meeting of their expectation is much more apparent for something like a dog walk versus pets it how sitting dropins, vacation or night care overnight, all of that tends to get really muddled. And we have to do a lot of teasing out because there is there's there's some issues there. And I think that gets to a little bit about when we're communicating in a very clear and concise manner. The importance of not using technical or jargon heavy terminology, which you might not think something like how sitting pet sitting, dog walking, vacation, Claire care, Joughin all of those can float around and be very confusing right there. And some of them don't even explain exactly what's taking place in there, they're a little bit more abstracted from that. And so you as a business have to do a lot of explaining about dropping visits, here's what I do as a drop in. Or here's why I do it a vacation care that we as an industry have to explain a lot about how we conduct our services, because we know not just within the industry, but from company to company, everybody conducts it a little bit differently. So there is a little bit of tension there with I'm going to use the same term. But somebody in a dog walking or pet care company, the town over or in my same town may use that exact same term and mean something completely different. So it is hard to tease out some meaning there whenever you're trying to keep get communicating with your clients.
Meghan 07:30
And unfortunately, all of that can make it difficult for customers to understand exactly what we do and how we can help them how we can solve their problems, which can lead to confusion and ultimately mistrust
Collin 07:42
which we need to avoid at all costs, right? That's what we're trying to avoid. This is a very trust based business. And if clients don't feel like they fully understand what they're getting into, they're going to come up a little bit on their guard, they're going to come up and assume that maybe something bad is going on that you are trying to lead them astray, because of the language that you're using, or the names that you have your services called. This actually happens because when people get confused, they're actually they actually go into being fearful, they are afraid of the unknown. And we as the business owners have to accommodate for that and think through everything that we're doing. So that that doesn't happen at any stage of our processes.
Meghan 08:21
But that's not to say that you can account for every single scenario that a client would do like if you know if you offer overnight care? Well is is the client going to think is that overnight, my home overnight and their home.
Collin 08:34
Yeah, there is some role, obviously in US explaining these kinds of services. But we have to understand that not every person is going to fully automatically understand exactly what we do. And that if we get pushed back, if we get a little bit more questions about from a particular client, that we can't jump to assumptions, that they're frustrated, they're angry,
Meghan 08:57
and we can't get defensive on our end, either. They just simply may want some clarification,
Collin 09:01
right because of the unknown, or they are confused. And we have to take the time to take a big deep breath and walk them through that.
Meghan 09:10
And if you aren't getting repeat questions from potential clients, maybe take a minute to rename your services or think about why they are asking the questions that they are. Is your language confusing? Is there anything you can do about that?
Collin 09:24
Do an audit full audit of the language that you're using cross your website on social media, what you're saying in your reels, how you're showing all of these things? That's where people start to get confused when they go, Oh, you're saying one thing, but it looks like another and I have different expectations or I have this past experience. And they're trying to match that up and see exactly what's going on. So that's a great idea of doing that full audit, scrape through every page, every post that you've been doing recently and really ask your question. If I had no idea about what I did as a company or as a business, would this make sense? Would my pricing sheet make sense? Would my onboarding make sense? Would my service listings make sense? Would Edward how he described things make sense? If I didn't inherently know how everything worked, and just putting yourself in that client's shoes at that time, will really help you to start going home? Maybe? Maybe it isn't as clear as I thought, maybe I do need to use some different words.
Meghan 10:21
Or maybe have your cousin or your aunt look at it and say, What does this mean to you, and then try to match it up with what you actually do as a company. Something that is not confusing is pet sitters associates, as pet care professionals, your clients trust, you have to care for their furry family members. And that's why pet sitters Associates is here to help. for over 20 years, they've provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance. Because you work in the pet care industry, you can take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections, and complete freedom in running your business. Learn why pet sitters Associates is the perfect fit for you and get a free quote today, at pets@llc.com, you can get a discount when joining by clicking membership, pet sitter confessional and using the discount code confessional when you go to checkout to get $10 off, check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again, at llc.com. People can often decide, you know, they aren't for me without ever speaking to you just by reading the language on your website or Facebook page or Instagram, or Google My Business. You know, this is both extremely powerful, and that it helps potential clients self select and weed themselves out of using your services. But it can also be extremely detrimental if they are self selecting out of our services based on a misunderstanding of what we're saying. Again, if that lady had not come and said, Well, I thought your dropins were five or 10 minutes long. And we would have we said no, they're actually they started 30 minutes, if she would not have come to us. And frankly, most potential clients are probably not going to reach out with a misunderstanding in hopes that you would clarify what you said. So if we had not if she had not reached out, and we have not said that we probably would not have gotten her as a client.
Collin 12:02
So let's walk through a couple of examples and see exactly how this all lines out. So one here that happens right from the very beginning, clients are looking at us and we say you need to book a meet and greet. And they go what, or you need to book a new client onboarding, which sounds a little scary. And that's exactly the point of a meet and greet sounds very familial, very easy, a very simple process, something that will just take a few minutes here and there. A New Client Onboarding does sound something that's much more severe, lengthy, important, intense, and really helps again, these two terms can help set the expectation for what the client is expecting on their end, how are they going to interpret that. So here's so if you want to be available at all times and make it as easy as possible for anybody to use your service. Or if they
Meghan 12:53
can book you at any time and you can you spend however long they want at their house. And you just basically walk them through bit by bit everything at the meet and greet then you would call it a meet and greet Yeah, something
13:05
that sounds real easy. However, if you have a lot of policies to go through, if you want to make sure that this is serious, if you don't want Fly By Night clients, if you want people who are going to understand maybe, you know, good thing for this is maybe you're gonna start charging for this, you're gonna start charging for that first one. So New Client Onboarding, sounds something that might be worth paying for. Again, here's that value, this inherent value that we're trying to communicate to our clients. Now tell me everything that's included with that. If you have a lot of documents to go through, set up a lockbox go through all those things, and you're charging for it. Well, a New Client Onboarding may be a better term for that. However, it just all depends on how you're communicating this.
Meghan 13:43
Another good one is adventure hikes versus extreme exploration. So adventure hikes are your going in the woods going on trails, you know, doing more than a dog walk. But with the extreme exploration, maybe you're climbing mountains, maybe you are skiing down a hill with a dog.
Collin 14:03
It does have that conjure of extreme sports, extreme things really athletic, getting out there doing all these things. Again, if you want those kinds of clients as high intensity Alpine dogs and going out in 14 rivers and bustin through snowbanks extreme may be the thing for you, if you're trying to move people from your neighborhood walk to something there, you're going out on a nearby trail, and you're trying to focus on those kinds of clients who think that would be fun. Adventure hikes is a little bit again, a little bit softer sounding but still sounds kind of adventurous for for especially for people in a more urban setting.
Meghan 14:37
And then a classic one here is overnight care versus house sitting. So overnight care, again, we have to define the terms is it in my house is it in your house, overnight care here can mean just saying overnight, so just doing eight 910 hours overnight, and then maybe come back and come back in in the middle of the day to provide an extra visit. Whereas how sitting can mean by Typically more than an overnight, maybe 24/7 care or 20 hour care something more than just overnight.
Collin 15:06
Again, setting that expectation up for what the clients are expecting to get for you overnight care. That's pretty straightforward. You the sitter are only going to be in my house overnight. How sitting though, is a little bit broader. But you need to really define the terms. If I were to hear how sitting I know, okay, that person is going to be spending a lot more time at my house. And I should have expectations or have their presence on my property more than that. So if you're using the term house sitting and you don't mean that you don't want people to expect you to be there 24/7 I would suggest using a different term. And that's where I wonder why people always contact me and want me to stay 24/7 Is it because I'm using the term housesitting, and they expect that? Well do I need to disambiguate this FAQ page to use a different term and be better at promoting what that actually is, across my my profiles.
Meghan 15:56
So for us, we were using the term drop in visit, we had just a basic standard 30 minute drop in visit. And we have since changed it to a pet sitting visit. So not pet sitting entirely of because a lot of times people think pet sitting of oh, you stay for a long time. It's just a visit. And so we have a 30 minute pet city visit and a 60 minute pet city visit. And this is just for our company and how we wanted to do it. But we really took a minute to think, Oh, we've been getting a lot of inquiries lately, and a lot of questions of what a drop in visit is we're having to clarify a lot over this. And
Collin 16:33
we want it to be more clear, because we felt that the term drop in was kind of an industry specific term. And something that was a little bit more jargony, a little bit more technical. And it didn't exactly communicate to the client, what we did. So So branching that out in saying pet sitting visit, or vacation visit allows us to specify not just what we're doing, but who is it for. And people immediately understand Oh, pet sitting visit, that's they they understand that's in my home and visit versus a full house sitting it's short term. So there is a time window there, that the four expectation of services. And it helps cut down a little bit on that confusion about what this exactly is it isn't for me. But
Meghan 17:13
it's important to remember that it's not just services, it's language for social media and blogs as well. So if you are into blogs and you love writing them, make sure that you're not really using technical terms. And this can really come into play when you're really talking about veterinary things and specific pet care tactics and pet care tips.
Collin 17:33
Always ask yourself is this something that is this a term that I see a lot in my pet sitting dog walking Facebook groups of people talking amongst themselves? If I don't really see that term out in the toilet wild out in the general public, I do not need to use this I should not use this term or should not use this concept when communicating to others.
Meghan 17:51
There are a few key factors to consider when naming the services that you offer. If you are doing this for the first time, or the 100th time. These are things to keep in mind and the first one is clarity. So the name should clearly communicate the function or the benefit of the service. The next one is memorability, the name should be easy to remember and spell. So again, this is if you are doing a little walk, maybe it's a chihuahua walk or if you're doing a big walk, it's a Great Dane walk,
Collin 18:17
I was thinking the same thing if you start to go down to especially those themes are using and breed names. You don't want to label something the Belgian Malinois super extreme Deluxe hyperdoc, nobody's gonna be able to spell that and they're going to not be able to find your service, whatever they're actually looking for it. And then there's relevance, the name that you pick should be relevant to the service. And the target audience that you're trying to reach
Meghan 18:38
distinctiveness is another important aspect that should be unique, not super unique, where people aren't going to remember it or spell it. But it needs to be not be easily confused with other services or businesses, especially if you have a lot of dog walkers or pet sitters in your area. And the last one is branding. So the name should align with your overall brand strategy and messaging. So if you are a super high end premium company, maybe you offer a premium dogwalk or a premium, overnight visit I whatever you decide to do. But if you are high end, make sure you are using high end names.
Collin 19:12
Or if you have a pretty unique name for your business. You tie in different aspects of that into each service title so that people know Oh, that's the walk offered by that company so that you can continue to have that branding there. Or maybe it's your high end or maybe you your kind of the funky, fun loving kind of business. We'll find names for your service that tie that in as well that captures people attention and helps them see what kind of company you actually are. You can
Meghan 19:39
also conduct market research to see what others are calling similar services and see what language your target audience is using to describe the problem you solve or service you provide. It's highly unlikely that even if there is another pet sitter or dog walker down the street or in your same neighborhood that they offer the same services and the exact same way that you do. So they're going to be a little bit different. And so we're not copying anybody here, but we're just seeing what they're using what they're doing.
Collin 20:06
And we're doing market research can be kind of hard because you're trying to get in front of potential clients about your services. So one way to do this just one possible way is to create two different social media posts two different ads that you're going to run in one of them, use your existing name for that service that you wanting to offer. And then in the second one, use the new name or a new variety of names. And then you can see what kind of responses you get, what kind of contacts people get through to you, and what kind of feedback that the results give you. And you can move forward from there.
Meghan 20:37
It's also a good idea to test the name with a sample of your clients. If you have a couple of really good clients that have been with you for a long time, or maybe some that do this type of thing, see if it resonates with them, and see if you can effectively communicate the value of your service to them.
Collin 20:53
So yay, surveys again, it's a topic we keep circling back to across the podcast. And we have several episodes on that as well. Basically send out a survey to a select few clients that says something like, we're testing new names for the services that you already know and love. And then what you do is you give the example names that you want to use and ask for their feedback on them. Ask them for does this communicate more about the service? Does this inform you, but the services be? What are your expectations for a service with this kind of title? When you can even ask, what would you expect to pay for a service that was named like this, but
Meghan 21:29
ultimately, it's your business. So if you don't like any of their responses, you don't have to go with any of them. But
Collin 21:34
there you have to take the in understand, okay, maybe I don't maybe I don't like their responses, I want to stick with the names that I have, you just have to understand that you may have to do more heavy lifting on your branding, on your marketing on your FAQ page on your outreach on your education to help start associating the service, the value that it brings to the name that you're calling it, you are ultimately are the one who has to tie those two together. And the bigger the differential, the harder that work is going to be and the more frustrated you may become, it may pay off at the end if you're really able to make it stick. But understand that there's the name and there's the service and we have to tie them together as the business owners, and we want to make sure that they fit nicely together.
Meghan 22:16
So naming can be hard but it doesn't have to be if you have some naming tricks that you've come up with or figured out ways to easily troubleshoot naming of your services. You can email us at feedback at Pet Sitter confessional.com or on Facebook and Instagram. We are at Pet Sitter confessional.
Collin 22:32
Thank you so much for listening today. And we really want to thank our sponsors, pet sitters associates and our patrons for supporting us if you would like to learn more about what that is and how to do it, head on over to petsitter confessional.com/support.
Meghan 22:45
We appreciate you listening and we will talk with you next time.
