357: Empowering Empathy with Stephanie Castro
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What does it mean to be empathetic in our business? Showing empathy allows you to connect with nervous clients. It also helps both clients and staff feel like they are understood and are not alone. Stephanie Castro, owner of Stay Home Pet Sitting, joins the show to share why the words we use help clients see the value in our business. She also explains how she’s growing her company culture, and what it means to make hard decisions.
Main topics:
Empathy to staff and clients
Converting from social media
Fearful clients
Importance of core values
Main takeaway: Because of the empathy you have for the clients and their pets, this allows you stick to your core values and make the hard decisions that need to be made.
About our guest:
Hi, my name is Stephanie Castro and I am a huge animal lover that ditched my comfy Investment Banking graphics job in the pursuit of entrepreneurship. My goal is to make pet owners and their fur babies happy and stress-free while being in their own homes.
I am crazy about my four-legged babies, Canelo + Eleanor! When it comes to his well-being, I am a Mama Bear who will make sure they are safe, happy, and healthy. I know I take good care of them, but what happens if I need to work long hours or go out of town? Traditional kenneling is not acceptable for me – caging up my animals and exposing them to other pets’ illnesses will never be a solution for my furry family.
This is when I realized that pet owners need a solid reliable pet sitter that could take their worries away. In June 2014, I decided to dedicate my entire time to my true love – animals.
Links:
https://linktr.ee/castro713?fbclid=PAAabvXI2VxOwbpBtLWGCna3pb06o1Wh3C1mgwdpZY0Lmr5xybp-XVR7tIyvE
Recent podcasts
My email
stephanie@stayhomepetsitting.com
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Pet Lovers Facebook Group:
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stephanie@stayhomepetsitting.com
https://www.stayhomepetsitting.com/home
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
pet, core values, clients, people, dog, sitters, business, empathy, feel, cat, thought, walk, hire, visit, home, decision, care, service, stay, align
SPEAKERS
Stephanie C., Collin
Collin 00:01
Welcome to pet sitter confessional an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter brought to you by time to pet. What does it mean to show empathy to your clients? That's a way of connecting with the nervous ones, when it's a way of helping those to make sure that they feel like they're not alone. And they're fully understood, and can connect with your services and the value that you bring to them. Today, Stephanie Castro owner at stay home, petsitting joins the show to talk about implementing empathy in her business for not just her clients, but her staff as well. She also talks about why she works with special needs pets, and the importance of using the right language when communicating with their owners. Let's get started. Yes, first
Stephanie C. 00:47
off, thank you for having me. Super excited to be here. And so my name is Stephanie. I have a pet sitting business in the central part of Houston. It started in June of 2014. And we do petsitting for all sorts of pets, we come out to you so that the pet stays in their space stress free in their home.
Collin 01:09
So started in June of 2014. What happened around that time that made you decide I need to go into pet
Stephanie C. 01:16
care? Oh, this is a great story. So I say it started with an explosion. So back then I had a dog named Dodger Barry. He was half Great Dane half pit bull. And every time I traveled, I would take him to my parents house. I dropped them off there. He loved going there. He enjoyed it. But this time the whole family was traveling, my sister was graduating from San Diego. And we were all going so I thought no big deal. I'll just board him at the doggy daycare where they clip his nails. And he goes during the day for a couple hours in place. So I dropped him off. And they call me. I fly into San Diego and they call me and they say you need to come pick up dodger. He's not feeling well. He hasn't eaten and he has what you call explosive diarrhea. Oh, it's exactly what it sounds like, you can Google it. I still don't google that. I still had a graduation to attend. So I thought I called my girlfriend and she's like, I'll go grab him. So she went to pick him up because I think something's wrong. We need to take him to the vet. He was a rescue. So he just panicked. Or guy anxiety. probably freaked out that I left him as a kennel them at night, and their own separate kennels. So she sent me pictures. And if I can explain it, it was it was on the wall on the curtains on the side, it was everywhere. So that is when I realized, okay, this would have been so much better for Dodger, if he would have just stayed home. And as somebody not necessarily my mom or my sister because we were all going but somebody would have dropped in to take care of him.
Collin 03:16
Oh, and those kinds of so how does that shaped? How you approach pet care? Now, having gone through that experience when you are talking with pet parents and dealing with them? What does that change? What does that change about how you interact with them?
Stephanie C. 03:33
My empathy kicks in. So this is where I can't tell you how and it doesn't have to be a dog. There's cat owners, there's bird owners where they're just nervous one, they're nervous on having somebody enter their home. And I started this business eight and a half years ago, so there wasn't so much people coming in your house. Right now there's a little bit more of that. So it's just I can put myself in their shoes. And remember what it felt like?
Collin 04:03
Yeah, I just did a meet and greet today with a lady who was very nervous about this idea of having somebody come into her home. She has had her children, she's had grandchildren, she's had neighbors, she had friends of the family come and take care of her dog over the last 10 years. And now it's the first time where she needs somebody who she doesn't know to come in. And she was visibly unsure about what the process would look like, especially when I started to describe our kind of team based approach and multiple people and, and just taking that big step back to being upfront with them. And I said, I understand this is weird letting a stranger into your home. I totally get it. Here are the several things that we do to help you with that. And that that big word empathy is really at the core of that exchange, empathizing with that other person going I know this is weird. I understand. I get it here. Let me walk you through how I'm going to help overcome that fear for you because I understand it is fearful.
Stephanie C. 05:04
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's making them I feel like it's helping them feel that they're not in this alone. Because not only are they needing a sitter for this, because normally they have somebody that takes care of like friends or family, but this time they need somebody. But then on top of that, someone's gonna be coming in their space
Collin 05:24
around their stuff, their things, family heirlooms around their kids bedroom around all their priceless belongings. And we have to recognize that that that is this weird, it's pretty, it's normal to us. Like we don't even think a second thing about it. We just go in and we do our thing. But we have to recognize and put ourselves back into that situation almost every single time we meet a new client, and judge, How comfortable is this person going to be? Because that can set the tone for that entire relationship with that person? Because they could be we could feel that they're being overbearing that they're being too nitpicky that they are, you know, they're over communicating all this stuff, when really what they are, is they're just scared. They're just nervous. And we can we can miss judge a lot of the signals that they're sending us, unless we put ourselves back into that position.
Stephanie C. 06:10
Yeah, yeah. And I usually share with them. At the very, very beginning, I remember thinking before even this, I remember thinking, well, oh, gosh, I need to get the house clean. Somebody's gonna come in here. Oh, my goodness, I need it. Like, what are they? What do I need a high lid on it? What do I need a lock down? I don't have cameras, you know, you start thinking about all this. Yeah. But I just let them know that. And I don't like to push and I always direct them if they want to read our reviews. Or if they'd like to talk to one of our current clients. I mean, they're more than happy to. I think in eight years, I've had one person want to talk to one of my current clients. But outside of that, it's usually the reviews and then just me talking to them.
Collin 06:51
Yeah, well, like you said, not being pushy in that moment, giving them time when you look, I don't need a decision right now. We've got everything we need. I'm ready to move forward. I'm okay with this. But if you need more time, that's perfectly okay. And happy to jump on another phone call? Or reach out what if you need anything else from here, and just giving them that space helps them breathe a little bit, because they don't feel like they're making this rest decision, or this person staring at me from across the table. And now I've got to do something and I'm not comfortable. And you know, nobody wants to enter into a relationship like that, or especially. Yeah, nobody wants to be under pressure. So free you so you, you have a team of senators that work work under you. What's it like dealing with and showing empathy to them as well? Because it's not just you anymore? Right? You've got people who are working in and around you.
Stephanie C. 07:45
Such a great question. So this is the part that I actually enjoy. Yeah, not just the clients, but then you have the staff. So to me, staff is super important. They are almost they're my clients, I want to make sure they're happy. And I always ask them, How can I support you to make your job easier? Whether they need, you know, extra poop bags, or does somebody you know, want to have, for example, we always have to show they don't carry business cards, but we wear our, our logo, our shirts, and in the winter colder months. If you put a jacket on, you're covering it up. And so I always say you need to have something that's showing our logo, because on the ring cameras or the door, you know, the cameras, the clients, I always tell them at the meet and greets, you don't see our logo, our shirts, they're not with us. So I always ask the sitters, you know, do you need a jacket? Do you need a sweatshirt? I like to make sure also to know what's going on in their lives. What are their goals? Everybody does pet sitting for different reasons. Some want to get their pet fix, they can't have pets at home, for whatever reason. Some want to be able to get out of the house, I have some that are semi retired or fully retired. And I want to get out of the house to just hang out with for babies, someone to make extra money for travel for saving for school, just all of the above. And I just like to know what everybody's goal is what everybody's reason for doing this so that I can support them with that. Well, I'm
Collin 09:28
importantly there you did not mention Ron run a pet sitting business or run my business or own my business. They're in this for their own particular reasons, because many times we hire staff, and we can go why are they as passionate about this as I am why aren't they taking this as seriously as I am? Why are they weren't that? Well, let's go back to the root cause here and figure out what's actually motivating them. And that's hard, right? Yeah, I've got to know this person on an individual basis. Now I've got to treat them with different differently than the next is personal because they're here for different reasons, different motivations. But that's where that that work really gets started, right? There's work to hire people, and I've got to work to manage people, and I've got to work to keep them and make it make sure that
Stephanie C. 10:12
they're happy. Yes. So it's funny you say that? Yes. So I actually when they, when they get hired, and they jump on the team, I have a form. It's a Google form that I send out. It's called Who are you? Is what I named it. And so all new hires fill this form out. And it has questions like, what's your favorite snack? Where's your favorite place to go to lunch? What's your shirt size? You know, it's just a ton of questions that I want to know them what are your goals, your dreams for the next, you know, three to six months. And I the responses that I get, I get to no one likes gardening, and she wants to get to a point where she can, you know, make her salad at home from her garden. The other one wants to travel more, the other one reads and is trying to read X amount of books in a whole year. So it helps me not just get to know them. But also whenever they do a great job, or I want to give them something. I know what each one likes, their interests. And it helps me just go straight to that, for example interview right now Christmas, I know exactly what to get each one.
Collin 11:25
How to connect with them or get them connected with others. I we've just gone through onboarding several new staff members, and just having conversations with them going, what do you like to do when you're not walking dogs? Like, you know, obviously, I know you love being here to the old days, just kidding, whatever. But like, what else do you do? And I learned just by having the simple conversations that like four of our staff members are hardcore gamers, and they play online games, and they're on Twitch, and they're doing all this stuff. And I took me a while to like, what do I do with that information? Now what I know this about them? Well, something we can do is we can just, we've got a, we've got a company slack, let's just create a gaming channel. And we'll put all that in there. And anybody who's interested in games can go in there and talk about games, and be a little bit more connected with one another too, because that's something that we've really kind of struggled with is how do we make a nice cohesive company culture and connections with people who never see each other? Or never interact with one another? So what are ways that you have found that have helped people get connected on the job when when we're so spread out?
Stephanie C. 12:30
So we actually do quarterly essay quarterly, sometimes it's every three, four months, but we do quarterly get togethers. And I don't like to call them meetings, because I my first career in investment banking, oh my gosh, I'm like, why do we have this meeting? Can we just put this on an email, you know? So I say we didn't get together in the first hour, we get together and we go through, you know, I have an agenda on, you know, let's talk about this is what's new. This is what's coming up that we're hiring. We're not hiring right now. Just what's happening in the business. The thing is, we hold them at fun places. And then so we've done bingo, where we get together at this place in the first hour, we do that. And then bingo starts at seven and we all play bingo. Like we have one coming up. We're doing our last one of the year, which is kind of a Christmas one. And we're gonna go do it at trivia night. So is this place that we're, you know, like a bar pub, and we're gonna do our first hour where we get together, we talk about the business, and then we do trivia night, huh? Yeah,
Collin 13:30
little things like that, where it's not a whole lot of time. It's not a big ask of everybody. But it's a time to come together, see people face to face commiserate, talk shop and then go have fun. And I think that's really important that we can provide that in a healthy, constructive way of going we can have fun right? That's okay to do. We're all people and I think that's what that boils down to is going these are people I need to treat them like another human being and, and do my best to make sure that there is filled is I can't count on from my end.
Stephanie C. 14:05
Yeah. And that's the that's where empathy comes again, because I put myself in their shoes. So because I put myself in that position. I don't want a boring meeting. Right? I want it to be like an epic game. And so but not only that, it's like I want to be able to get together with others. We talk about the similar clients where I'm like, I've been taken care of Bella. Well, you have to what what's the trick on getting her back in from the backyard when she doesn't want to come in and another sit or maybe just oh, well you grab this special treat, you know, but it's you share stories about clients because you're right we are the clients. The first clients are all ours, but we don't work together. The pet sitters are all going at separate times. Yeah.
Collin 14:46
It's a weird dynamic to know that like oh, wow, like six people are caring for this one dog. I need to find a way that's my job. Now as the as the owner as the manager, how do I facilitate a conversation We're all better in that we are all learning because now when I used to be doing all of those visits, all these other people are so how do we make sure that they stay in the loop that they're sharing their resources that they're sharing their tips and tricks like that, that part of driving that conversation of using themselves and their team members as a resource and pointing them back to them, I think is huge. And is a great way to do that. So that they know, oh, I have questions, I can go to these people. And they'll do likewise to me, I did want to ask you a little bit about the kinds of services that you offer as a business and a little bit how they're structured.
Stephanie C. 15:33
Sure, so I'll start with our popular ones are, we do drop in visits in overnight stays are dropping visits are for cats, dogs, and we call them pocket pets, which I started the business thinking it was just going to be dogs and then had cat owners reached out to me. And now we have pocket pets, which is reptiles, chickens, birds, guinea pigs fish. And I mean, if I'm waiting for our mini horse, I'm going to be so happy when we get a mini
Collin 16:07
the first time we haven't take care of a mini horse, but we have taken care of many pot bellied pigs. And that was just like, everyone was so excited. I was like everyone's doing this one. Come on. It was so
Stephanie C. 16:19
I love it. I love it. I I serve as the I'm in Houston, Texas. So it's and I serve as the the inner loop. It's a central part. It's very much to city. So I don't know how that'll happen. But you never know. I didn't think I'd get chickens and we have couple chicken coops we take care of
Collin 16:35
it. Oh, that's fascinating. I know it's one service that you didn't list. Were dog walks. And I was curious why you you've you've decided to not offer those.
Stephanie C. 16:47
Yeah, so we've decided to focus more on senior pets. We specialize in senior pets. And then the other pets like the pocket pets I mentioned. We also do overnight stays which believe it or not, it doesn't mean just dogs. We have cats that need that interaction, that companionship. And so we also do overnights for cats. So it's a little bit less on the fitness side and more on the companionship. And visit side if that makes sense? Yeah,
Collin 17:19
it does. And so did you. What do you do when you get a request for walks? Or do you get requests for walks? And how do you handle that? Well, I don't offer that. But I can have this how do you have that conversation?
Stephanie C. 17:32
So first, I asked if they're trying to burn off energy is normally a dog, if they really are winning the walk, it's a dog. So I asked her Is your goal to burn off energy? Do you have a Weimer Reiner that's, you know, super active, that needs to burn off energy. Because if that's the case, it's not fair for me to even take that client. So I go ahead and just tell them we're not doing that. But we do dog visits, they're 45 minutes long. And in that time, it includes us taking them out to potty Cuddles, you know, played time. But even the potty, we might go around the block, but we're not trying to burn their energy.
Collin 18:08
I think that's a really key part of that question. When people ask you flipping it back on them and going, Why are you asking for that? Like, what's the purpose? Because now because that's going to give me more information? And it's going to make sure I give a much better answer other than just No, that's not helpful. That's all for anybody. I haven't learned what their needs actually are. And they have learned nothing about how I can actually help them. And so asking just one more question, sometimes two more questions is a great way to spin that background and go, Okay, here's what I can provide. But now that I have full knowledge that we get tons of requests for overnights, and that's not something that we provide. So my question is always well, do you have a medical need or behavioral concern that you have for the dog? And usually it's Well, no, not at all. I just don't want that to be lonely. Okay, well, here's what we can provide, we can set up at this, this this kind of schedule, and it just makes that conversation a lot more helpful and beneficial to people other than just a simple strip, you know, and then moving on.
Stephanie C. 19:05
Yeah, sometimes they have an idea about what they want, but it's not necessarily they haven't thought of any other options, because you're right sometimes. And so it's I feel like it's our job to educate them. Yes. Right. And just educate it and believe it or not, and many times they think they need a dog walker, but they end up hearing about what we offer in our service. And they're like, oh, okay, and yeah, we have a cat aside, they weren't thinking about the cat. So while we're there, your dog is going to be able to go out and potty but guess what the cats included? Yeah. And so we can take care of your cat. Your cat gets fed litter box gets Oh, they love it. Yeah. It
Collin 19:45
could really open their eyes to this possibility because you're right. They don't know what they don't know. They're only equipped with so many terms and so many so many so a little bit of the lingo that they've never had to use before now. Oh, my friend said something about a dog walker. I need a dog walker and spinning that accurate because now it's like, okay, well, I can do a whole lot more than just that I can if you want, but also, when we talk about the cat, the fish, the pocket pets, and we talk about the male, and we talk about all this other stuff that we provide. And usually by the time I finished with that kind of thing, they're going Oh, really? You'll do all that? Wow. Yes, yeah.
Stephanie C. 20:19
We didn't know that service was around.
Collin 20:23
Yeah, it is, it is, it does fall to us at the individual level to assist in that educational process, because they're not going to get it anywhere else. They're not. And that's where, you know, having a clearer idea of what we can, what we can provide and how we can help them that is part of that education process of what we can do. And so since 2014, you have stayed in the inner loop of Houston, I know you, you will go out for additional fees, how have you been finding and attracting the clients that work best for you and your business?
Stephanie C. 20:54
So it's been organic, to be honest, up to this point, I'm about to kick off and do a little bit more marketing here and targeting on specific areas, even within the inner loop. As of right now it's been, we're on the first page of Google. So we get a lot of Google hits. Yelp, we have a lot of Yelp reviews, and then social media. So our Instagram page, our Facebook page, and our Facebook group that we have have been extremely popular.
Collin 21:29
Are you finding it easy to communicate? Who your services are for and the price point that works best for them? Or what kind of push? Do you get any pushback from people who kind of who find you looking for care?
Stephanie C. 21:41
No pushback? If there's any pushback on our price point, then we're just not a good match. Just the way I see it. There's there's plenty of fur babies out there and plenty of qualified pet sitters. I like sorry, but no, I feel like for the most part, it's really just the social media, the algorithm, I think that's going on within the Instagram, at least for sure. Instagram way more lately has been, you know, we post a lot, all our sitters after each visit the they do a story. And our story, also links to Facebook. And so our clients, our current current clients are on there, and then they're able to share. And so we ended up finding a lot of people that are considering or thinking about us, they don't need us right now. But maybe you never know. They follow us. Yes. And then they join our Facebook group or they message they DM on Instagram. And they'll usually say, I've been following you for several months, you know, or we were moving in the area. And then that's how we connect,
Collin 22:48
what do you think converts people from a follow on your Instagram to actually going to book because I know many centers struggle with that aspect. They may go, I've got so many followers, all these people follow my account. But no, I'm not getting as much business from that. So what do you think it is that eventually kind of gets people down to go ahead and book with you for
Stephanie C. 23:09
service. I feel that it's me making it a lot more personable. So I do a lot of call to action on there. So I don't just post but I I call to action, follow share, comment, send me a DM. So it's telling them even if they're thinking about it somehow, you know, you'll see if they like share forward. And I also include links to our Facebook group, if they come on our Facebook group, and that one, for example. You don't have to be a client, anybody anywhere can join. It's a private group, but anyone can join, and they follow us. So they start seeing what I post the other day I posted tips, I tried to put value out there. And I mentioned three tips on leaving your pets that have separation anxiety, for the holidays. And I had so much feedback on that they're like, Oh, I didn't think about that, you know, I'm going to try this. So I just build that, that relationship with the followers. And then as that grows, and as I'm building a relationship with trust, next thing you know, our conversation goes into, can we meet for a meet and greet?
Collin 24:23
is content that engages is what I hear with that it's content that is bringing people into a story or into a purpose where they are now engaged to to like to comment to share to do something, they're engaging with you here. Now all of a sudden you are what your top of mind for them when something comes up when a need arises. And so keeping them engaged and interacting with you is that way to go okay? They might not need me now. They might not need me in four months or six months, but next year, when they have that trip planned. I will be top of mind and that does take posting, you know, engaging good content doesn't always land or or hit perfectly every time. I know I don't personally but you just keep trying. And you just keep people involved and engaged.
Stephanie C. 25:12
Yeah, trust me, it's not perfect. You don't want perfect because then they're gonna say what is not perfect. So how
Collin 25:20
do you walk that line between going, Oh, I'm going to post this because it's whatever versus let me tweak it a little bit. Let me tweak it a little bit more. How do you know when it's time to click Post?
Stephanie C. 25:31
Oh, my goodness. So I do a little bit of everything. Some of it, it's fine. It's like recently, we had a something happened with the water in Houston. And all I know was breaking news for a day you couldn't drink the water. So I'm like, Oh, this is good. Right? So I posted this because if it if the water is not safe for us to drink, that means it's not safe for the pets to drain. Right? So which I'm sure you had to do was turn on a TV, but even I don't watch a lot of TV. So I've found out sort of my sister calling me. So I posted this instantly. And I was like great I had so everybody's liking that they're sharing it. They're like, Oh, my goodness, this is great. So it's just providing value. That wasn't perfect. It was my personal cat that I posted on there. You know, if you I have gone down the rabbit hole of where I'm like, Oh, this isn't good enough. Let me check this, let me check that it just delays.
Collin 26:23
It plays EMIC. And it keeps it from being personal. Like what you just said of, of. That's one way that's one thing that attracts people to you is it's personal. It's you. It's your personality. It's your sitters personality. If we try and sanitize and scrub that out too much. It just become it just blends in with the background. And so keeping it keeping that personal touch allows us to connect with those clients who were really want to be
Stephanie C. 26:47
connected with. Yeah, I think they love it. I think they did you know, but I do different things. I don't know the other day, I also was mentioning products, pet products that that are popular. I get a lot of cat owners that asked me about litter? What litter do I recommend? And so, yeah, I thought let me make a post about this, you know, or a video? Yeah. So I made a video about the cat litter that I use. It was in my house and my cat litter and I showed it I mean, so that wasn't pretty. But it was to me, I think it was given us a lot of great information there is
Collin 27:25
because again, we people start when we start to grow and trust and build that relationship with us. Those questions come naturally, they go, Who else am I going to talk to about this? I don't know, I could ask my vet, but I don't see them as often as I do my my pet sitter at my pet care provider. So I'm naturally going to be more inclined to go to them. And just being upfront and honest about what we have our knowledge, our resources and presenting that to them. And sometimes what I've done is gone. Hey, that's a really great question. I don't know, let me go spend 10 minutes Googling and I'll send you a couple links, right? Sometimes that's all it is. But that is huge, though. Because they don't have that time. They they're looking for us to in a trusted way screen through the myriad of information that's on the on the internet, and then presenting it to them in a more cohesive manner and condensing it down for them. That's invaluable to them.
Stephanie C. 28:14
To me, that's just telling me hey, listen, if this one client is asking for this, I bet you there's more than one that so you know what I ended up doing is creating a page on my website that says items we love.
Collin 28:26
Have you heard of time to pet? Susan, the pet cow has this to say time to
Susan 28:31
pet has helped us grow exponentially. We believe the platform's features make us by far more professional than other companies who use conventional dashboards. They are the software gurus constantly developing and improving the platform based on user feedback. This decision was a good one.
Collin 28:48
If you are looking for new pet saying software, give time to pet a try, listeners of our show can save 50% off your first three months by visiting time spent.com/confessional. I love that that page that you have on your website. It's so straightforward and simple. And now you've built that and you have that so now people can find it organically or when people go hey, do you have recommendations for XYZ? You can go actually, yes. I'm
Stephanie C. 29:14
glad you asked that you send them a link.
Collin 29:19
You mentioned you mentioned a little bit about the pets that you work for they're more senior pets, their middle more special needs pets, you know, both medically and a little bit behaviorally as well. So I know what's really hard with some of those pets is building trust with them because they've been through a lot or they've haven't been through enough. And so how do you build trust with pets who are fearful or those first several
Stephanie C. 29:43
times? Yeah, so this is what I actually tell all my sitters is we go at their pace. So we go at the dogs pace at the cats pace. If the cats hiding we like to at least put our If Zonda, right, we know what to make sure they're here. We know they're there. But we want to make sure they're here. You'll find them under the, you know, cover somewhere. And then we leave them alone. Dogs. I actually had one that was extremely fearful dad called me had a bad experience with the previous company. And with I just heard the anxiety on the phone and he said, he's like, my dogs, a sweet dog. It was golden retriever, big boy. Sweet. It's just that the sitters come in. And he needs to go out if you just need some time, and I was like, okay, so I went to do that one myself. I thought I want to I want to see this. So I went in, he lived in one of these mid rise apartments that you have to go down the hall, down the elevator outside to the dog area to use the restroom. So he said that the previous company that sitter, I guess was terrified of the dog barking, so ended up locking the dog in the closet and not telling the dad like, Oh, my goodness, okay, so when I walked in, I saw what could have been scary. The dog starts barking What am I a stranger danger. Maybe here I'm not a dad. And he starts working. It sounds scary. Okay, so I we do no eye contact. I don't talk to the dog. I always say you see no dog, you hear no dog, you just go in face down. Because it's no threat. That's a fearful animal. Okay, so the dog was like, he went to the back bedroom. I could tell he was barking from back there. I ignored him. I fixed the dinner due to you know, doing my thing. And our dog visits are 45 minutes long. And I noticed he laid down in the back bedroom. And I was like, okay, so I sat down in the kitchen area, we could see each other. Sure. Still. I'm telling you 4040 minutes went by, okay. And I was just like, okay, and I'm just soft boys. Not so much eye contact every now and look at it. But at least there was no barking anymore. There was no growling there was no backing up. And finally I was like, Well, I'm not going to stress this guy out and put a leash on him and take them outside. You know, but I have five more minutes of the visit. And I thought if anything at this point, he doesn't go potty. And on our update. I let dad know he didn't go potty because I did not want to stress him. We at least took we calm down. He was embarking he wasn't fearful. And so I'm grabbing my stuff. I was like, Alright, we're gonna head out. Guess who comes behind me with his toy? I was like Hurley Are you kidding me? Okay, okay, so I took the time, I was like, you want to go outside the tail kind of WAGs at his pain, I put the leash on, we went outside. So obviously, this is part of our core value, where we go the extra mile. So yes, I went over the visit. But at the end of the day, it's about the pets happiness, and his comfort. And so dad, even the people at the leasing office are like yay, clapping or like, I don't know, I don't know how that just says a lot right there that the leasing office sells walking by. So that to me, that right there. Gaining a pet Trust is everything, but it's going at his pace that if I would have had to leave the visit without taking them outside, then that's what we do.
Collin 33:27
And that's that's really what it is it's paying attention. It's being mindful and not forcing them into that situation. Because that that first initial couple handful times you meet that pet, you're going to be cementing in their mind about what this relationship is going to shape up to be. And you could do a lot of damage in those first couple times. Or you could make a lot of progress. And just like in this going, okay, look, hands off, eyes down, ignore, and I'm going to watch his body language and seeing that he laid down, okay, he's relaxing or whatever and going, Okay, well, this, this is how far I've made it this time. And maybe I've got to clean up a peep spot next time I'm in. But we've made it this far. And then trying the next time we're in this house, you know, being able to successfully do that. And always being mindful of how much we're pushing pets into situations that they don't want to be. We may want them to go on that walk. Because that's what the pet parents told us to do. But if the pet is sitting there going ain't no way. Going. Okay, well, today, we didn't get to do that. Today. We did XYZ instead of being okay with that.
Stephanie C. 34:32
Yeah, I always tell our team that it's the first clients, they're, they're our clients, the Furbabies parents just write the check. Yeah. For babies, we want to make them happy, makes sure whatever is for there and that sometimes I gotta tell a parent Hey, I think it's best we do this. I've had a couple dog parents it passed the lease just isn't the right lease for that dog and I've had to suggest To use a gentle lead, which I love to learn, and they have, and it's like, they're like, Oh, this is like changing, my wife can now walk the dog. And so it's just guiding again, educating, showing them, if
Collin 35:12
that helps, that helps when we're dealing with a fearful pets, like you had mentioned about the client that you were talking about. A lot of times, we're dealing with a fearful client, because the client knows about the pet's fearful tendencies and has passed or has had things happen to them. And now all of a sudden, they're bringing that into this. And now we've got to address them. And that brings back this empathy with them where we're going, okay, I get it. Yeah, that's not fun to see this or hear these stories or to get these kinds of photos. So what can we do about this, and we, we ease their peace of mind by providing excellent quality pet care to their patent, and that in turn, helps them and we get this kind of reciprocal thing going?
Stephanie C. 35:50
Yep. Because then mom's happy, okay, we sell happiness, make the PIP happy, makes mom and dad happy and then makes us happy.
Collin 35:59
Now I know. When I'm when I'm talking with fearful pet parents, I know a lot of times I have to be very careful with how I word things, and the kind of language that we use around them, especially in updates. I think that's really key. How do you walk that line between sending informative updates, without freaking out the pet parents when when things don't go quite as well, as you had hoped?
Stephanie C. 36:24
We always I say we try to always be positive. But of course, sometimes you walk in and there's a split up on the ground on the rug. So we always say, you know, we ran into a split up and no worries, easy clean up, let them know when it's been cleaned up. And then my meet and greets, always ask what products do you prefer us to use, if there ends up being accidents, we'd like to know ahead of time. But we let them know, because we do want to keep them in the loop. If it is a tummy issue, or something's coming up we do, even though it's kind of negative, but we still but we just let them know that it's been cleaned up. Something's been broken and say, over the holiday, we have two kitties that are fairly young and must have jumped up and knocked over a frame and it broke. And so again, we want to mention this because you're gonna find out the good in a positive way, I think there was a kiddie party last night there was they were raging, you know, everybody's good. We cleaned up but we left a photo on the kitchen counter for you, you know?
Collin 37:40
Yeah. Yeah, that's, we can tell that story. Make sure it's informative. And I think what's key part of that is when especially when you're dealing with fearful clients who have had bad experiences in the past, not just telling them that something happened, but telling them what you're doing about it, or what you've changed because of that information, how you're adapting, that, I think is really more than just okay, I'm communicating that the problem happened, right? We had explosive diarrhea everywhere. If that's okay, what are you? What else is in that? That's where we start building that trust? Because not only did you tell me, now I can see how helpful you're going to be for me, and and that you are the professional that you claim to be because of the next steps that you're going to take
Stephanie C. 38:21
Tell me. Yep, it's been taken care of, we're just letting you know what happened. And it's been taken care of. Yeah,
Collin 38:27
you mentioned a word earlier about one of your core values. And so I did want to know, what your core values are in your business.
Stephanie C. 38:35
We have four core values they are we do the work, we go above and beyond, we make no excuses. And we keep our word. To be honest, just about, I'd say a year, maybe year and a half ago, I am now living because these are not only my business core values, but they're also my personal core values. But now I am hiring and firing in the business according to these core values. And before they go a little bit more lenient, like okay, but now it's I hire as long as we align with these core values. And I also fire if for some half some reason I missed and I see that your core values and my core values aren't meeting where they should for our service based visit, it's a service based mentality. Yeah. Then I fire. Where do you begin?
Collin 39:32
How do you go about finding out that match? Or the simple questions or those conversations? Do you have a Google form that you've designed for kind of each one of these to get some idea or what's it like deciding okay, this person is or isn't aligned.
Stephanie C. 39:48
So I actually list them on our job description for anytime I'm hiring, I list them. And then at all our meetings, I mentioned them I bring them up and I remind everybody you On the team that, remember, and sometimes it's not necessarily exactly the way it's set up, but always remember, we go the extra mile, which is we go above and beyond. Yeah, we do the work, it's also the same thing we do. And it's not, there's no excuses, you make no excuses. You know, you say, you're gonna be somewhere that you'd be there.
Collin 40:19
And I think that is part of it, reminding it, because, again, this, it flows from us, right? We're the visionaries is our business. We're hiring people into this. And it's our job, not only to be empathetic, and managing and growing and nurturing them, well, it's also in trading and guiding them in the values that we hold. And that takes reminding, it's reminding and showing, and telling, and then showing and telling some more. And then repeating, because every situation that comes up, I'm sure you've got okay, this is learning experience, new thing happened, you are able to sit and go written and reflect how this falls in your for values, how you're going to handle it. But now it's not we have to teach other people about that. And how are they going to view that and remind them about that process? And it can, I'm sure, it can be tedious to go. Okay. It's the same for that didn't change since yesterday. But here we go again. But sometimes, sometimes you have to do that as new things come up.
Stephanie C. 41:11
Yeah. And you know, you really like is that how do I hire with that it's I mentioned it, and I I'm very upfront, especially in the interview process, I'm real upfront and say that we are very much an entrepreneurial mindset group, because you do still end up working solo, I'll train you, but you end up going on your own, there's nobody that's going to be behind you to pick you up, you know, and so and if these four core values are an issue, hey, no hard feelings, if you need to get up and leave right now, I completely respect that. If there's any issue with that, so I give them that, that that shot to see, and most of them kind of like, okay, well, no, no, I love this. And it's you can tell when somebody is they have compassion and their pet lovers and pet driven, you can just tell there's something and I'm very intuitive, so I can pick up in this clip is pretty easily, because he could also tell the ones that are not so much in it for the pets, and they're in it more for the pay, I guess which there's some you know, they're trying to just make ends meet, and that's fine. But in this position, we're going into so many people's homes and lives that I'm extremely particular in that you're it's not just about pay, it's about, it's mostly about the pets,
Collin 42:35
getting back to that motivation. And now now we see this holistic approach here going, Okay, I'm starting with people's motivations, their motivating factors are going to influence their ability to align with the core values of my business. Because one of the core values that I did not see in here was make as much money as possible, regardless of ethics and morals. But that wasn't on here, for a very good reason. But there are people who may try and get a job just to get a job to get money. Not that that's bad, because people need to pay bills, but we have to go take a step back and go, Whoa, there's some other things we have to screen through first, yes, I'm going to pay you but I'm going to pay you in this way. And this is how we're going to be structured. And this is how we're going to act in these scenarios. And for us, you know, we spent some time during our interview process kind of walking through a couple case studies of like, hey, this thing happened. This is how we handled it, just to give them some idea, a little bit of flavor of the business and our expectations for them. And to help set up a little bit that before they get in. But I know sometimes that's hard to communicate to people, the core values that you have here. When did you start implementing those? Were those did you have those since 2014? Is is that kind of developed over time?
Stephanie C. 43:45
I did not have those since 2014. I think I had those subconsciously from my personal self. It's just the way I lead my life. Yeah, but for the business I, in the last year and a half, I came to find out that wait a second. You know, if I was to intentionally use this towards the business, I think we'll go to a different level,
Collin 44:08
it really does show that that tight alignment again, it's our business. And now I'm sure you feel, you tell me like you feel a lot more probably energetic and invigorated with your business knowing everything's here, I don't have to be a different person. Whenever I'm on work mode versus personal mode. I can make it's easier for me to make decisions in this scenario, because I'm true to myself and true to who I am. It's able better able for me to live in this lane as opposed to having to spend all this energy to be something different or think different or all that kind of thing. Because it ends up being who we are right. We don't have to beat faking it or feel like we have to fake it.
Stephanie C. 44:48
Right. I don't have to switch hats and be like, hold on. It's the Stephanie or is this you know, stay home pet sitting business owner, you know? So I actually think it's, like you said it's more Ginny When it's more real, if it's actually Stephanie and I am the owner of stay home petsitting. And my core values are the same for personal and business, and it just aligns,
Collin 45:11
do you feel like that's one way that core values help us focus on our business because we're able to stay true to ourselves?
Stephanie C. 45:17
I think so it actually helped me. And it helped me make a decision at one point to where I had a senator that was coming out of training. And so she was about to go in the field on her own coming out of training. And she made a comment, and I read, it just didn't align with our core value. And I thought, oof, a sec, I felt it in my stomach. It just didn't sit right with me, I was like, okay, it, it didn't sit, right, because it didn't align with my core values, which are the same ones for the business. And so I gave her the opportunity, and it was something that was going against service space, you know, it was less about providing great service to the clients in the pet. And it was more about her compensation. And so I, I had a conversation with her just to understand and before making a decision, but at the end, it's like when that voice in your head in your gut, your head just gets louder, you know what you have to do. And I finally then decided, I said, you know, what, you can't get the reward that you want, if you don't take control. And so and so my, my gut was telling me what to do, I was just trying to fight it. And that's where I had to make the choice that even though she just got out of training, I had to let her go,
Collin 46:47
you're right, when we when we are aligned, we've got those, it is easier to make that easy, those kind of decisions are never easy on us. But we do probably have a lot more clarity around that. And you're able to focus on Oh, it's this issue. It's this thing, because I think we've all been in those scenarios where you've picked up a new client or hire new staff member and something just feels off about it. And it's hard to describe sometimes of going well, I just, I don't know, and to be able to have these core values to go, oh, oh, we do the work. Oh, the reason I'm having trouble with this client or the staff member is because they're not showing up, they're not doing the work, that clarity and that focus onto those particular issues. Help us communicate it now. To them, to either address it, to fire it to manage them to do something with that feeling that we have.
Stephanie C. 47:36
Yeah, exactly. And it's and now, so that's why I say it from the very beginning. It's on the job description, when you apply, and you hear it at every meeting and I talk about it. It's something that we live by, it's something that we go by some words,
Collin 47:51
is that guiding factor in light, if people are sitting there listening to this, and they don't have core values in their business, what are some recommendations or pointers that you would give to them to go about finding them for their business?
Stephanie C. 48:04
I think it's just a matter. Like I didn't know, I think I'm sure I had these all along. I just never put them into words to really figure them out. But everybody has something like somebody might say, like I could easily add, adds, communication is huge. For me. It's huge. And so if if you need your staff to communicate, or if you need, you know, also your staff to communicate to you to each other to the clients thoroughly well in a timely manner, then maybe that's a core value. You know, and it's just a matter of figuring out because I think it's different for everybody, but figuring out what are the must haves? What are the non negotiables that you must have for your business or for yourself.
Collin 48:54
And that's, that's what's really key here, too, I'm glad you said that. Because it's not just if we are hiring staff that we need these core values, if we're solopreneur out there, the core values can are going to be essential for guiding us in those decisions. When we are growing, expanding, taking on new clients changing services, when we are needing to reflect on ourselves, those core values help us in those moments. So it's not just oh, do I need to fire this person or hire this person? It's what decision do I need to make because sometimes, I'm really tired and I don't make the best decisions. But if I've got some core values on a wall over here, that I can point to and reflect on that helps me that helps ground me in those times of turmoil or when I'm when I'm scared or when I'm nervous. It's a reminder of okay, that's what I'm working towards. That's who I am. And I can go from there. That's definitely I want to thank you so much for coming on the show today and talking us through your business, how we can be more empathetic with our staff and clients and really what it means to go that extra mile and help and build trust with fearful staff, clients and pets. But I know that there's a lot more that you do and there's a lot more going Hang on. So how can people get connected with you and follow along with everything that you're doing?
Stephanie C. 50:05
Yeah, so they can find me on Instagram, our my personal Instagram is Steph Ste pH. C 0509. And then the petsitting, Instagram, all of it is stay home pet sitting. That's for Instagram. That's for Facebook. And then we even have a Facebook group that when I was mentioning, which is stay home, pet sitting and house sitting.
Collin 50:33
Definitely. Again, this has been a real pleasure. I want to thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Stephanie C. 50:37
Thank you so much for having me. This was fun.
Collin 50:41
Empathy drives us for a lot of reasons. It drives us to do our services well drives us to set up the services to be meeting the exact needs of our clients, that drives us to seek out more education and training to seek out bettering ourselves time and time again, it drives us to continually meet and do our core values of our business. So that ultimately, what happens is our empathy allows us to make hard decisions, because we are connected with our y in our business, and we never lose sight of them. When we get out of alignment with our y with our empathetic nature, towards our clients towards our pets. It's harder and harder to make those tough decisions because we don't know which way to turn. And that's why taking care of yourself. feeding yourself. Investing in yourself is so important because empathy will run out when we are tired and exhausted and we can't move another step forward. So setting those boundaries allows you to protect that empathetic nature that you have and allows you to continue moving forward. We want to thank today's sponsor time to pet and thank you so much for listening. We can't tell you how much it means to us that you listen that you share that you engage in the community. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your weekend. We'll be back again soon.
