365: Serving Your Community with LeAnna Quartuccio and Brandon Elkins
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How do you serve your community? From offering employment opportunities to serving specific needs, our businesses can be a huge asset to our local communities. LeAnna Quartuccio and Brandon Elkins, owners of Hyde Bark Dog Walking & Pet Care + Hyde Bark Play and Park, join us to discuss why focusing on staying local is so powerful. They work hard to offer appealing benefits to their staff, and walk through how they can make that happen. LeAnna and Brandon made a huge decision to open a doggy daycare to better serve their community. They share their lessons from that process and their training protocol to turn new staff members into professionals.
Main topics:
Underserved communities
Providing staff benefits
Training professional sitters
Starting a daycare
Being a member of the community
Main takeaway: We don’t sell service, what we sell is trust.
About our guests:
Hi! My name is LeAnna. I started Hyde Bark in 2015 after having worked as a dog walker for other companies as well as on my own for over a decade. I always said it was the "best job I ever had".
Prior to starting Hyde Bark, I was a stay-at-home mom. Once my son started school, I decided to get back into dog walking for no other reason than it was something I had always loved doing!
In early 2016 my husband, Brandon, quit his job to help manage Hyde Bark and the two of us have been running the business together ever since!
In 2022 we opened Hyde Park's first doggy daycare - Hyde Bark Play Park! I am so proud to have grown from a single client back in 2015 to today in which our amazing little team cares for over 200 pets each and every day all just in the Hyde Park, Bronzeville and Woodlawn areas.
Links:
https://www.instagram.com/hydebarkchicago/
https://www.hydebarkchicago.com
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, pay, employees, pet, daycare, staff, business, money, chicago, service, clients, hire, dog, walk, neighborhood, doggy daycare, offer, years, scheduling, figuring
SPEAKERS
Collin, Brandon E., LeAnna Q.
Collin 00:01
Welcome to pet sitter confessional an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. were brought to you by our friends at time to pet. How do you serve your community from offering employment opportunities to serving specific needs, our businesses can be a huge asset to our local communities. Today, Liana cuccio And Brandon Elkins owner of Hyde Park, join us to discuss why focusing on staying local is so powerful. They work hard on offering appealing benefits to their staff and walk us through how they can make that happen. They also made a big decision to open a doggy daycare to better serve their community. They share their lessons from that process and some of their training protocols to turn new staff members into professionals. Let's get started. Hi,
LeAnna Q. 00:45
I'm LeAnna. And I am one half of Hyde Park. So we provide various pet care services to the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. It's on the south side. We do all of your regular dog walking cat sitting pet sitting. And we recently opened a doggy daycare. And that is Brandon's baby. The doggy daycare. So, Brandon,
Brandon E. 01:14
my name is Brandon Elkins, one half co owner of high bark, dog walking and pet care and high Barclay Park. been involved with this since the very beginning. And whether you want it to be or not. And yeah, I kind of act as the general manager over the doggy daycare and you know, I'm payroll and we do all that stuff together. And
LeAnna Q. 01:47
it's all the stuff I don't like. Yeah. And she
Brandon E. 01:49
does all the stuff I don't like to do. So it works.
01:53
For those discussions that you had early on about those roles, or do they just kind of fall into play? No, no,
LeAnna Q. 01:59
we don't have a clue what we're doing. We just kind of fumbled through it.
Brandon E. 02:03
There was a lot of a lot of contention, a lot of contention, a lot of a lot of butting our heads and figuring out where we exist in the, you know, framework of running your own business. As I'm, as I'm sure you know, you know, there's I tried to be a jack of all trades, you know, like I tried to be good at everything I do. And there's just certain things that we've realized over the years, like, five customer service that I'm not very good at, because I'm just too. You know, I'm too blunt when I have to deal with people. So Lana deals with the people side, and I deal with the money side, all the technical stuff in the background, like I did all the design for our website, and all the logos and everything. And I've handled to the daycare, so no, it was not it was it was a thing.
02:55
Always a learning process. I'm still to this day, sure, trying to figuring out as as things change, right, if you start off as a dog walking pet sitting now figuring out how those roles change or move around with the adding of the facility with it as
Brandon E. 03:06
well. Yeah. We also, you know, I don't know, I don't necessarily think the word resistant, but but we it was just us for many years, you know, and we were hesitant to hire manager because that that's handing over responsibility to somebody else. And just this year, you know, once we got the daycare up and running, we realized that with the amount of business that we're doing, we needed more hands. We've got a very good general manager, Todd, who handles you know, a lot of the day to day stuff, scheduling and the daycare and supervising that. So that's allowed us to step back and really like cement our roles and what we're doing.
03:53
That added some clarity for that, I'm sure but as you mentioned back in 2015 2016, it was early days, there wasn't a whole lot of clarity, figuring all that out. Why did you decide to start your own business back then? So excellent.
LeAnna Q. 04:13
Yes. You know, they always say you have to be a little crazy to be an entrepreneur. So it was, I mean, it was honestly kind of an accident. I did dog walking all through college for a really great company on the north side called Chicago dog walkers. And that's where I learned how much I loved the job. And I learned how to treat clients how to, you know, actually do the job and how to treat employees. So, when our son started school, it was you know, as a stay at home mom and Brandon was the breadwinner at a office job up in Lincoln Park. It was like Alright, well you know, I need to do something with my time so I'm gonna go walk dogs again. I don't really like doing that. I don't need to do anything and Um, I mean, honestly, there just wasn't anybody hiring in our area, like in our neighborhood. And because we're on the south side, Chicago, so there's, I mean, probably 100 Pet Care businesses that service, the north side, mid side. And so I started just because there was nobody to work for. So I was like, Alright, I guess I'll just do it myself. You know, so did like, a whole summers worth of crash courses in different business classes score is I think there are nationwide retired business people offering business advice for free, you know, different meetings and things anyway. Yeah, so I started just, you know, as a hobby for myself. And within about three months, I ended up hiring a local a friend in the neighborhood to help out you know, just as an independent contractor, and Brandon, he quit his job in January, what less than six months after we started? Yeah,
Brandon E. 06:01
she started officially in October 2015. And by she January, February, the next year, I, you know, like, I took vacation from my desk job over Christmas that year, and did a pet sit and was doing like 18 walks a day and a pet sit over Christmas. So So we went from nothing to like, it was so quick. It was so quick. Wow. It was it was it was it was it was overwhelming. It was a little too
LeAnna Q. 06:31
quick. Well, so
06:33
was that decision for you right into to leave your other job? A, hey, there's an opportunity over here, or hey, there's help over here or hey, I'm after you. After you did that visit? You're like, oh, actually, I really liked this.
Brandon E. 06:47
One, all of the above, I think, you know, it was I was answering emails at work for her while she was out doing walks and stuff. And like, you know, it got to the point where it was like, okay, like, I either need to go do this full time. You know, because there's that much work. There's all the stuff that's involved in running a business, that was fine shouldering for her when we had five clients, but we went from 01 We went from one one to like, 45. And like, 125 Wow. And I was like, if we ever hit 500 clients, I'll eat my hat. Now we have like, 1000 Yeah,
07:33
how was the hat.
Brandon E. 07:37
But you know, I was also it was terrifying, you know, because because it very quickly went from her kind of side gig to like, this is our I swore up and down, there was no way that she would ever make the amount of money that I was making at my desk job doing this. So there's no way when you're crazy, like I'm, I'm going to quit my job, and we're just going to lose everything. And thankfully, that didn't happen. Miracles that didn't happen didn't happen. It it very quickly became evident that if if anybody you know, if it was going to keep going or go anywhere that it was gonna take more than just Lana. And you know, that led to me just kind of jumping over and just getting injured. I've always, you know, I've always loved taking care of animals. But you know, as well as I do as somebody that does it for a living, that there's a difference between liking and take care of animals and like doing it as a profession. Like, yeah, yeah, these were you pull a wadded up piece of aluminum foil out of a golden retrievers throat in the rain that you're like, okay, like, I'm a professional.
08:50
I have to really, really like this to make this a thing, but it is, it is scary. And we all have that experience in our business where we go, okay, this is either going to be a thing, but but I have to at least try this and give this full faith effort to continue to push forward. And you mentioned a lot of that, that early growth in the days how it was just so rapid. What was it like handling that? And how did that change your perspective on it?
Brandon E. 09:19
Well, so are you Are you from around? Where
09:21
are you? And we're in central Missouri.
Brandon E. 09:24
Okay, so I'm not sure how much you know about Chicago and like how the city is arranged. But, you know, the south side, anything south of downtown, historically is black communities, right. And it's very heavily underserviced. It's, it's normally, you know, low income that our neighborhoods not I mean, it's centered around the University of Chicago, where there's a lot of money, you know, there's a lot of money in our neighborhood, but because it's on the South Side
LeAnna Q. 09:55
lacks a lot of services. Yeah, I
Brandon E. 09:58
mean, it's underserved all over the place. You No, there's there's nothing down here. And we moved here just kind of randomly, right? We just ended up getting an apartment in a neighborhood, but we love it. We've been here for 10 years. And when we were when we ended, you know, started this, I don't even think we understood how massive the lack of service was down here. There were
LeAnna Q. 10:23
two other companies that were sort of down here that white she went to work for, and they just didn't pay. Well, you know, they, yeah, that was, that was a big turning point for me is interviewing for another company who is based elsewhere in Chicago, but they, you know, they did some services down here. And, and, and I was going to be helping recruit new clients and doing all these things. And then I got the pay rates, and they were, you know, lower than what I was making back in college. And I thought, you know, what, am I going to do all this for somebody else? And, and I, and that was when I also have my resolve to when we did hire, we were going to pay? Well, we were going to make sure to you know, treat people well.
Brandon E. 11:06
I think it took us by I think it happened before we even knew what the hell was going on. Right? Like if like we literally like okay, we're a dog walking company. And then it was like, yeah, the dog walking company. Here you go. You're all the dog. So yeah, I mean, we really, you know, we didn't I guess we're spoiled because we stepped into this kind of burst, you know, seven years ago. There are other companies down here that are competing with us now. But we didn't have to do hardly any advertising. I mean, like we put an ad in the local newspaper, we handed out flyers. Yeah, but it was all word of mouth, right? Like it was flyers. It's not like we went out and got a billboard or something. We started out with 600 bucks, like, literally literally $600 and I borrowed it from a guy worked with
LeAnna Q. 11:56
us to get all the numbers, and everything and business cards. So
Brandon E. 12:01
I, you know, I it definitely woke us both up to what was possible.
12:08
When, especially when you're serving people? Well, I think that that really changes the perspective of when your business is serving people. Well, that growth comes very naturally both in underserved areas and with people who just recognize the quality of care that you're providing.
Brandon E. 12:23
You know, I always tell people that you know, I always tell our employees that they are probably tired of hearing it out. I mean, the ones that have worked for us a while but what we we don't we don't sell a service we sell trust, right? That's that's what a pet care company sells is trust. You can hire any dingdong from college, it's on holiday vacation and they can come in and you know, take your dog out a couple of times. But if something bad happens to that dog that ding dong doesn't know what's going on. Right? We do. So the We We've always focused on providing that really super high level of care for the animals professional reliable and came our people and treating the people that work for as well so that you know we don't have that constant turnover we don't have that like having to retrain somebody through this training process. And Lana's you know she's been a big driver that you know, throughout the whole thing we were just talking about this the other day like how that's always been one of our main focus is maintain high quality service and treat our people that worker as well.
13:32
That's recognizing that those people that you have working for you to human have a business if you don't have them on staff and just I hear people say Oh, I don't want to hire it cost me money. I don't want to hire it's too expensive. Did you ever struggle with that whenever you were bringing people on?
LeAnna Q. 13:50
Absolutely, I always wanted to do more and pay more and offer more than what we really could. So there are definitely really bad Growing Pains I'd say that when we were until we got to about let's say like 20 employees or so it really was a bit of a financial struggle to provide for people as much as we wanted to like we you know, we were almost living paycheck to paycheck to you know, to try to provide for everybody but now that we're at 3030 employees 30
Brandon E. 14:27
employees 30 Something which is wild to think about
LeAnna Q. 14:33
you know, obviously with with more employees more income, more money to be able to spread around.
14:39
You guys offer quite a few benefits to staff and and I know that that's not very common in the pet care industry, again with people concerned about prices and overheads. How do you make that work?
LeAnna Q. 14:53
I think it's been it's, it's been our reputation for one like building our You know, a reputation the neighborhood? Because we do only service this specific neighborhoods, our whole areas about a three mile radius, it's very small. Wow. Yeah, it's very small. So, you know, it's all word of mouth at this point. But anyway, people will pay, you know a little bit more, because because of the reputation, so we're in we're able in there are clients that that does mean something to that we tell people, you know, we pay a living wage are, you know, above industry standard, we offer these benefits, and that does mean something to some clients. And so there'll be more apt to, you know, choose us,
Brandon E. 15:39
we're upfront about it with the customers, especially, you know, like, we just sent out an email, we're raising prices this year, for the first time in a while, and we sent out an email said, hey, you know, like, we're not doing this. For one, we're bad capitalists, you know, like, if we, if we just screwed our employees just a little bit more, we wouldn't be way more comfortable. You know, what I mean, like that, that money in our pockets and didn't offer PTO? And didn't, you know, like, offer a super good rates on walks to people in health insurance or health insurance and all that, you know, 401k? You're not even it's a simple IRA. But it's, you know,
LeAnna Q. 16:20
I don't know anything about that.
Brandon E. 16:24
It's all stuff that comes out of our pocket. Right. I mean, that's, that comes out of the profit of the company. And we, that's how we balanced it is not being millionaires, you know, we're not
LeAnna Q. 16:38
our goal has always been remains to just provide a good service. Yeah. You know, like, it's never been about the money. Side effects, happy side effect. That's it.
16:49
It does come along with that. Yeah, focusing on those fundamentals and those basics, and really leaning into that. And so it's very interesting how I know a lot of people when they raise prices, they justify it with cost of living is going up. I'm a professional, look at all the things that I provide, I provide I provide and you guys are actually focusing on look, what are the benefits that we give our staff, right, that's in kind of in leaning into that perception? And you said the reputation of a company that takes care of, of people as much as they do pets?
LeAnna Q. 17:21
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the the pets are, for me, they're, they're my number one priority by far. But my second priority is our staff. third priority clients.
17:34
Well, yeah, that hierarchy of going in, and that kind of dictates where these things fall out, and that you know, of going okay, if my second one is staff, that means I need to look into health insurance, how it can help them set up themselves for success by offering investment opportunities and discounts. And, and that again, pulling up back a little bit and going, what's the cost? If I don't do this? What does that mean for my company and the people that I have on staff?
Brandon E. 18:02
Yeah, we have people that have been with us, like Cooper's been with us for six years, and
LeAnna Q. 18:07
we had one policeman
Brandon E. 18:12
worked for us for the whole time. I mean, it's, it's a fundamental thing for us, that you can't run a successful business, on your own shoulders, you know, and the people that think that they can are fooling themselves, like we couldn't do the volume that we do, and make the amount of money that we have, and have the opportunities to take that and expand, you know, especially with the daycare, we couldn't do any of that stuff. It's just the two of us. And I think too many business owners fall into that trap where they say, you know, I did all this, like, Yeah, we did a lot. We've worked every day for the last eight years. But without those other people, it doesn't have
18:53
I didn't want to touch on the health insurance one, because that's a big topic I see discussed a lot is that something you're paying fully for half for offering as an option with the group that you have? how is that implemented?
LeAnna Q. 19:04
It's, it's there a payroll provider gussto. So they make it very easy to you know, turn it on and do the enrollment in everything. So, every year, that's been a long term goal of mine, and every year, we've been able to improve it a little bit more. So like, the first year, we were only able to offer, you know, like 20% or something. So this year, we're up to 50% that we pay for, and it's you know, for all the full time employees, which a good portion of our staff are full time. Not a lot of them have taken it, but they have
Brandon E. 19:39
the you know, that is not mandatory. I mean, we provide it as an option. And then if people want to take it, then we
LeAnna Q. 19:45
we take the the hit on the 50% Yeah, we're on the same health plan as they are. So it's so we all have the same health to play and we don't have anything better.
Brandon E. 19:56
You know, but it's definitely you know, like I said, for Liana that's always been this kind of, we have a we have a push and pull, right? Because I come from a world where I worked in corporate for 10 years. And I'm used to just being ruthless about it like, no, like, save money at all costs, like, I don't know, benefits, none of this. And then I look at it. And I'm thinking like, that's just that's brainwashing. It's just like, from 10 years of being in an environment where if you didn't do that stuff, like you did lose your job, save money. And so we balanced each other out like she she tended to lean towards the lights, give everybody everything and Eileen to give giving, give everybody nothing, and then kind of balance.
20:42
That's part of that mindset of becoming an employer, right of going, okay, these, this is where I'm at, I have to balance out how this is going to work. And yet, it really does change your perspective, the first time a staff member is standing there with an with it with their kid talking about the piano lessons that they're paying for because of the job or what they're doing, because they're employed with you really takes that shift and go, Yeah, this really isn't about me so much anymore. And I'm doing something a lot bigger here.
Brandon E. 21:09
So we set up a GoFundMe for our employees in May, after those COVID lockdown. And I mean, when things
LeAnna Q. 21:18
first started to really get scary, and everybody was, I think it was it was kind of before the actual lockdown happened and things were you know, just people started, I'm sure you remember, people just start canceling left and right. And nobody really knew what was going on. And, and all of our staff started to panic, like, oh my god, I had this past lineup. I had this lined up, and now it's gone. And we've never experienced anything like it before. Okay. But yeah, so our initial, like, our first course of action was how do we take care of our people? What are we going to do? So we we set up a GoFundMe and our clients contributed, I want to say something like, $30,000, it was a lot of money, but it all went to our employees just to keep them afloat,
Brandon E. 22:09
ticket center. We paid our mortgage. Oh, that's right.
LeAnna Q. 22:13
Which was $2,500. But anyway, um, you know, that was our first concern, and we were able to get through that. And, you know, some people, even though we, we urge everybody to file for unemployment, like, get on it. It's still there were some people that didn't get it for months. No income, you know, we didn't have there was no docstoc. So we didn't have any way to pay people. But you know, that allows people are still with us. Yeah. You know, like they stuck around. And once things pick back up, they're still here.
Brandon E. 22:48
Right? Yeah. Like, I kind of brought that up as to your point, like, you do realize at some point that like, you have to take care of these people that work for you, like you, you know, got to make sure that they're getting work
23:03
that well, we we have expectations of commitment towards us, right? We want people to be committed and invested in their work. And if we are doing our job, we're leading by example, and not just committing to them, but investing back into them through all sorts of new new trainings and benefits and things are going to help improve their quality of life, right? Because that's that, that way, we get a much better relationship work relationship there, instead of just a top down everything under the thumbs and control. Right? The benefits that you offered? Are those something that you got feedback from staff that they were wanting? Because I know people may be listening to this going? How do I know what to even even offer? What kind of advice would you give to people in that position?
LeAnna Q. 23:47
We did, we did ask. So one of the things that we do we send out quarterly surveys to all of our employees, like they called very creatively, employee satisfaction survey. Nice. You know, and so in the keychain, the questions will change. Like, last time we were we asked people like, you know, would you prefer to be paid weekly or bi weekly? So we asked different things like that over the years. And so yeah, these benefits were based on on the feedback that we got from from staff of things that like I thought that you know, I like to offer and then like, Hey, would you guys like this laser any point pursuing this? That's led to a lot of the decisions as far as like paid time off? The health insurance? Surprisingly, everybody either didn't care about weekly or bi weekly pay or preferred bi weekly. So that stuck with bi weekly, I kind of thought that was going to be something people are gonna be like, Yeah, I want to be paid weekly. So you never know
Brandon E. 24:46
until you ask. Yeah, you have what you can you know what I mean? Like, like whatever's in your means. You should be passing that on to the people that work for you. It's one
LeAnna Q. 24:56
of the things I think about with the pay time off in particular because we all paid time off to all employees in part time. But you know, we've got some employees that are part time, they only make two or 50 bucks a week or something, you know, they don't make like a ton, as opposed to full time. And but they get, they get paid time off too. And the way I look at it is like, it never it equals to be about a week's worth of paid vacation. So that part time employee making 250 is gonna get about 250. Because that's what they normally work on, it's like, that's not a huge amount of money, you know, that's something I could be spending on a really fancy dinner or boots. You know, share it with the employees, and then they can take time off and not stress about how am I going to pay my bills, and I'm taking time off.
25:48
Because that is the relationship that we have now as the business owners, and we're going, okay, I can have my expensive coffee beverage seven days a week, or I could pay for this other thing for my staff members. Where's that fallout from my priorities. And that's really what it gets down to. And we look at our personal budget, what we need versus what we can provide to our staff. And making sure as that as you said, Brandon, we're able to give what we can and pay what we can for our staff.
Brandon E. 26:15
Right? I think it's irresponsible not to, and but there's still plenty of people out there that are going to do it. Because the bottom line is that, you know, you either want more money in your pocket, or you feel good about giving it to somebody else to help them out. You know, it's it's, you know, it philosophically, it means a lot to us, which is why I think we put a lot of effort into it. Yeah.
26:42
Now, you've hired quite a few staff members over the years. And one thing I did want to ask you on was this process of, of turning a new hire a fresh face into a professional center, because I know that something that you both focus on and what Hyde Park is, is professionalism. But that is not easy. A lot of times to take somebody as a brand new hire maybe has no experience.
LeAnna Q. 27:04
What how do you view that process? Well, it is something I have struggled and built.
Brandon E. 27:13
Yes, I have a training that is so good now, especially in the last year, like I've been really impressed with.
LeAnna Q. 27:21
Yes, one of the very first people I ever hired was one of the worst people I've ever hired my life to this day is still like the worst person. Like in my first like, few, when I just didn't really know what I was doing. But we had, we do have a very extensive hiring process. Our application is very long, it's very in depth. It has people answering questions that are specifically instructions from clients, like, like, read these instructions, and and then explain what you did. And for one, people that will go through the whole application process already, that's, you know, already a good, a good indicator, because it is so long, and then answering these very detail oriented questions and being able to articulate and communicate is the number two thing. And then seeing, you know, their hours availability, what their expectations are, is that it's something else we asked is like, how much are you expecting to make per week? Making sure that all lines up. So we're really picky about who even contact as far as applicants go. So I'd say we contact maybe one out of 10 people. Wow. And then there are a lot of kind of minor tests, I guess I would say, you know, like, like a, which I learned from I wish I could remember the name of the podcast so I could name because you know about hiring. But um, you know, like sending an email and saying, Can you give me a call between this time or this time, you know, like just like making sure like they can they want to and they can do these things we'd still do in person interviews only because I want somebody to be able to show like they're willing to make that extra step to come in person, not just do zoom.
Brandon E. 29:10
Although we have done a couple of zoom in, we have
LeAnna Q. 29:13
really prefer you know, just not not even really, because I want to interview people in person but again, just to see that they're going to make that extra effort. And we don't I don't have any precedent for people have pet care experience at all. I've actually found people that don't have experience can sometimes be better because you can train them the way that you want from the ground
Brandon E. 29:35
up fresh clay fresh. Yeah.
LeAnna Q. 29:40
No, it's the work ethic. That's what that's what you have to find what you cannot train in the people.
Brandon E. 29:45
Yeah, and once once we once they get it you know what, once we get through that, once we get through all that. We try not to like we're not exclusionary in any way but we do have things that we want out of people and once we get somebody hired are, you know, we have three online training courses all depend depending on what you know, to hire for the daycares or dog. So we do train people, which we've set up, you know, like, goes step by step by step from our employee handbook, you know, the answers directly from the employee handbook, or, you know, there's one for pet sitting. Cats, dogs, you know, we have different training roles for different stuff.
LeAnna Q. 30:28
For people that aren't familiar with train Yule, it's basically an app or website where you can make your own training materials, you can add videos, pictures, links, tests, so people do all these tests. And we pay him for it. Yeah. And then every, every module that they complete, they get payment for, also, and we do on the job training is, of course, a big deal, where they'll train with usually two different Walker's to kind of get some different perspectives. And you know, and that's all paid to so it is, it's a big investment.
Brandon E. 31:04
Yeah, you know, we like to front load on on figuring out whether or not somebody's going to work for situation, and so that after we get them through that training period, if I don't hear from them for a month, I'm fine. Yeah, I read their reports. And that's all I need to know. Like, they just do they do the job, the way that we asked them to, they write the reports, they're there on time, and I pay them every two weeks. And that's, but you know, we do a lot of work upfront, to get to
LeAnna Q. 31:34
that point. Seeing how people talk about animals is a big indicator to, you know, like, if you ask them about their pet, or about a pet and like, something that they enjoyed seeing how they like live in. Right, yeah,
31:47
that then that's where that that one on one kind of interaction, you can judge and get a sense for, where's this person coming from? What what is fueling this person to be here? Not and then making a judgment call going? Well, is that is that going to work for us what we're looking for our needs right now. So that we know to move forward? And I know, it's no front loading? A lot of that work may seem scary to people, because you're going look at all that money, you're potentially wasting, look at all that expense. What if they quit on you the next day and go through all this stuff? Did you? Did you struggle with that? Or did you just realize i, this is what we need to do to get our type of staff members in here.
Brandon E. 32:24
I don't think necessarily that we struggled with it at all, because we realize that it's, you know, this is how we have to do things. You know, we we've been we've been in this business for, you know, going on a decade, seven years, right. So we know all the ins and outs. And, you know, if we I feel it's probably more of an indictment or Boston, our process if we get all the way through this, and then somebody quits in two days?
32:53
That's, that's a really good point. Yeah.
LeAnna Q. 32:56
I mean, we've had it happen. We're also very transparent with people too. So when I am, you know, interviewing people starting with the training process, I tell them, like, if at any point, you feel like this isn't the right fit for you just let us know. Like, I don't want to waste your time. You don't waste my time. No hard feelings. And it has happened. It's happened twice, or somebody started training. And they've said, you know, I don't know, for whatever reason, you know, they didn't come on. And so we just, you know, and it seems, you know, to pay them still when they're not coming on, but you just cut your losses and move on. But, I mean, that's only happened a couple of
Brandon E. 33:32
the success, that failure ratio is overwhelmingly in favor of the way we're doing things now. So
33:40
do you think that is because of the extensive process? If people really have to be super committed? Is it the content that you're covering? Or is it how you're how you're marketing the job ad?
LeAnna Q. 33:49
I think it could be I think it's probably all all of the above. Yeah, no, I think so though, I think probably all of the above. You know, I
Brandon E. 34:00
mean, if pretty much anybody in pet care, I feel like they have that sense of when they meet somebody else who's really into taking care of animals. You know, you can
LeAnna Q. 34:12
tell when you can show people that have had experience with animals, you know, you get pictures and like, you know, like, those are people
34:26
that when they break out their phone to show you you're like, Okay, we're on the right track here. I
Brandon E. 34:31
use Slack too. Are you familiar with slack when you
34:35
get a group? Yeah, yeah, we use we use Slack for our for our staff members as well.
Brandon E. 34:40
Yeah, excellent. Yeah. So we use that and we have a channel in our Slack is called cute pics. So throughout the day, people can share pics of the you know, or you know, and but it's it's great because it'll be like nine o'clock at night on a Saturday right? You shouldn't be messing with Slack and somebody will send a picture of their cat to our to our cheer like it's just their cat, look up this silly thing that my cats doing. And then like everybody's hurting people chime in like, nine o'clock at night on a Saturday. And it's like, those are the kinds of people that we like to hire.
LeAnna Q. 35:12
Not that they're like working at all hours, but just that their love of animals transcends any sensibility of
35:20
our channel is called Fe photo. And, and so yeah, especially for our weekend staff. Yeah, like 910 o'clock at night, when they're wrapping up their visits, you just get a huge photo dump. And then everyone's piling in there, you know, going in about their photos. And it's, it's a good way to help connect with them have made them feel connected, but also something that we really struggle with is having camaraderie, and connections and community between staff members. Because to help them feel connected to their people, right, like, Oh, you're crazy, too. Yes. Like, we're all here together, like you have found your people, then finding little ways. You know, it's a Slack channel, right? It's not that big of a deal. But it means a lot to people to know, I can send a photo here. And people will respond. And I can be connected to somebody who's also like me, it really changes as simple it is it can change a lot.
Brandon E. 36:11
Yeah. And that's, you know, that's initially why I set it up is because we had one Walker that, you know, several times, she was like, when do I get to meet the other people we work with? And I was like, Well, you don't
LeAnna Q. 36:22
know. That was also, we had started doing employee meetups right before the pandemic we'd had outside our house.
Brandon E. 36:31
Yeah. It's, you know, it
LeAnna Q. 36:35
can be I think it can be lonely for some people. And that's another thing of what that's what I like that. That's something that I always vet in people when I'm interviewing them is asking them, like, you know, figuring out if they if they thrive alone, or if they need to be part of a team.
Brandon E. 36:52
The Slack has also kind of allowed us to, you know, like I said, like, we're the repository, we know, everything between her and I, I mean, especially her but like, this key doesn't this key doesn't work like like, Okay, what's the key kind of front door key, that's an inside key like, you know, we know that. And we've started using slack. Instead of us hopping in and immediately giving information, what we've done is set up channels for like cat sitters, you know, or dog walkers. And then if somebody has a question, we say, hey, just put it out in the general channel, because you're not the only one that's dealt with this problem before. And I don't have to necessarily be the one to answer it. And so they'll put it out and then another employee, you'll answer the question, and then we're out of that.
37:40
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38:05
looking for new PET scanning software, you have time to put a try, listeners of our show can save 50% off your first three months by visiting time to pet.com/confessional. It kind of brings a little bit of that workplace camaraderie, again, are going you're not going to go to your manager or your your your boss quote unquote, every time you have a question, you're going to lean over to the person next to you and go, Hey, how do I get to use this software? What what do we do with this? What's that process? It builds that, that? I also view it as kind of a repository of knowledge, right? There's so much institutional knowledge in your staff, and pointing referring people back to that really helps them go Oh, wow, like there are helpful people here. And then they can start contributing when they're able to. Yeah,
Brandon E. 38:47
and we've seen more of that, as this is kind of as we've
LeAnna Q. 38:51
been a new, a newer, it's relatively new, really excited about it. You know, it's
Brandon E. 38:55
been a thing that we've set up and just kind of like, because, you know, I don't want to say control freaks or anything, but we've had to control every aspect of the business for seven years. And taking your finger out of that pie sometimes is like, scared. You know, it's like, oh, somebody else is gonna mess it up instead of me, like. So. But yeah, it's been a good it's been a good learning experience. And it's really surprised me, like you said that that institutional knowledge that all of our folks had that, you know, I thought we were the only ones they had
39:31
makes you really proud of, of your team members, when you see him contribute, and you're like, yes, that was the right answer.
Brandon E. 39:38
When I asked him I go to ask one of the managers to take care of something and it's already done and I just say why don't even know why I got out of bed this morning. Go back. Go back to bed.
39:51
Now Now when did the idea for the facility come up? Because this seems like a big shift. You're a dog walking pet sitting company. And then The facility comes on your brain. Why? Why?
Brandon E. 40:04
I mean, you I know the actual the so the the it wasn't sudden, we actually started. I started brainstorming this idea. Five years ago,
LeAnna Q. 40:19
Amy's and a long term goal.
Brandon E. 40:21
So they're not that far from our house. There's a warehouse that has had a for sale sign on the front of it for years. Right. And I got looking at it. And another Chicago geography lesson. The Southside of Chicago does not have any. So you know, like the West Loop used to be the meatpacking district. So there's warehouses all over down, right, plenty of empty space. There's five or six doggy daycares down. And because they walked in, they got a warehouse that was zoned right. And they just took the space and made it into an indoor doggy daycare. Well, we don't have that down here. No warehouses, there's no wide open spaces. There's no commercial areas that aren't, you know, complete knock downs. So I saw this warehouse over here, and I thought, yeah, that's a lot of square footage, like we can put something in there. And I just kind of called the guy. And he's an old real estate investor in the neighborhood. And we just started talking. And he was a very eccentric fellow. And we spent many hours working during Howard hour. But so they, you know, they were on board. This story, I'll try to try to keep it short, you know, relatively the. So we spent a long time coming up with plans, finding money, they were in ready to help us. And then we ran into some zoning change issues. And it just went and went and went and went. And we ended up getting approved for a like million dollar grant or something like that. But the timeline didn't line up, right. So we just had to abandon that whole avenue after years and years of planning. And literally, like a month or two later, after we abandoned it. We found the place we're at now, and it's already zoned correctly. The restaurant next door wanted to give up some of their space. So we just literally walked in and said, This is what we're going to do. And they said, okay, and you know, we went from there. It was very long, stressful and expensive process. I mean, probably on all three fronts. Like exponentially more difficult than we expected.
LeAnna Q. 42:54
We financed it by the skin of our teeth show you
Brandon E. 42:57
I mean, absolutely pulled money out of nowhere, I was ready to dance and you know, like sending letters and getting rejected and just barely got it paid for. And January 10 was one year open now. So
LeAnna Q. 43:14
we had, like we had three I think we had three dogs, the very first day we open one belong to our manager, so
Brandon E. 43:21
glad to see dogs.
LeAnna Q. 43:24
On our one year anniversary, how many did we actually try something like 38 dogs? Oh, wow. Which for the space, it's much smaller than the original space we're looking at. But that's about 50 is our max.
Brandon E. 43:37
We're getting close
43:39
to you know, you mentioned that the other one had to abandon that dream, what kept you pushing forward with that next space? And why did why didn't the dream just die with that building?
LeAnna Q. 43:51
It was kind of, I think it was kind of just like a casual continuation, you know, like, just kind of look in, like, on LoopNet. You know, that gives you notifications when properties meet, meet your parameters that you're looking for just kind of looking there from time to time. And then just finally, you know, one came up that was, you know, about the right size is zoned correctly because the zoning was what kibosh our original location. Like let's try, let's let's go talk to let's see, let's go take a look at it.
Brandon E. 44:22
And we always say that every decision that we've ever made, like, we just do it, you know, like, we saw that property and she was like, I think this will work. I think it will work. Let's do it. And then we did it. I mean, we're both obviously very stubborn people. You have to be tenacious to do this. And I think maybe you know, it was casual for her but for me it was like, listen, oh, that was that was his baby like I'm driving those
LeAnna Q. 44:52
rains and I was like, I can't handle all this with everything else.
44:57
What Yeah, you have so much going on. You've got the The full dog walking pet sitting business now you're adding a completely different service. What was it like learning the ropes for that kind of business model? Okay, next question.
Brandon E. 45:14
break down crying. It was, it was incredibly. You know, I, again, I think we're smart enough to lean on the people that we have. And you know, the people. You know, the first, the first couple of folks that I hired definitely had prior daycare experience that I mean, yeah, but you know, we didn't know what we, I mean, I was just like, we're gonna build this, and we'll figure it out. And literally, every single thing I did for the first three months, I had to, like, backtrack and fix, you know, like, all the cleaning supplies that I ordered were wrong. You know, every all the solutions for poop inside the wrong, you know, it was just like, all these learning experiences, but then you have to also be willing to be like, oh, yeah, okay, I was wrong. Like, we'll figure out what works, you know. So it was literally like, opening a new business that I've never been involved in before. And learning the whole thing from the ground up on our feet, and then taking that codifying it, and passing it on to the employees. So now the processes that are there that they do every day are what I learned by trial and error to set up correctly. So far as cleaning checklists, you know, keeping just daily maintenance stuff on an on schedule. And we had to figure all this out just so dancin
LeAnna Q. 46:45
leaned really hard on hiring people that already had experience in the doggy daycare world. So I don't even know honestly, what is minimum wage in Chicago right now? Is it 15 Now, anyway, so we you know, we we looked at whatever the minimum wage was at the time and what was kind of a standard pay rate for doggy daycares. We bumped it up a little bit. So we start people at the doggy daycare, 17 whereas most places were doing whatever minimum wage was. And so yeah, you know, people that already worked at doggy daycares, because they come work for us and make a little more money and we can learn what the hell
47:22
yeah, Could you could you read over this for me real quick?
Brandon E. 47:26
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, like I this is the thing that I copied somewhere on the internet doesn't make sense. You know, and it was really all in the lash. You know, just in the course of the year I mean, I probably so from from when we open January 10 I was at the daycare open to close seven to seven so I got up at five was there by seven and I was there all day five days a week for three or four months until you know we got everything I was in the laughs I was out front you know handled it all. So I know I know that when I walk in and I see like things are done the way that I want them to be done because I set that at the base because I did it
48:17
so from from finding the building to opening day how long was that process? What was that time span
LeAnna Q. 48:24
way too long.
Brandon E. 48:28
We started construction in
LeAnna Q. 48:31
June I think the process though we started the process back in April rolls trucking started in June and we were
Brandon E. 48:40
April of April of 2021 is when we started signing lease.
LeAnna Q. 48:46
It was It honestly if we had known at the time how long it was going to take and how expensive it was. I don't I don't think we would have done it but no stress. Yeah, it was and I mean it just it costs so much more money than we ever imagined.
Brandon E. 49:03
We we tore the whole inside of the facility out like gutted it out and completely custom redid the inside it's got custom epoxy flooring FRP board on the walls, they can pee wherever it's all very blurred grade we completely redid the H vac ventilation system. Yeah, I mean it's done the way that a pet care facility in Chicago should should be actually we've seen their ventilation standards by you know several fold because we completely redid the whole H vac system but you know it's one of those things that I look back on and I go like that's over with and then there's people like well when are you gonna open and other ones are know about that. But you know it's been it's been very rewarding to to do this and to have people in the neighborhood be like you We needed to so much to have that kind of feedback where people come in. And this is great. This is amazing. We needed this so much. And I'm like, yes. Yes, you did. Because you seriously I mean, if when so when we were doing the, when we were doing the presentation, or the ultimate about the zoning change plan and sat down, and she did a Google Map said show me every doggy daycare in Chicago, right? And if you look at the map, you know, here's Chicago top to bottom. Here's the Northside. Oh, well, I'm just telling them it is right. So audio mediums south south of downtown, one dog daycare, north of downtown up to the north side, something like 111.
LeAnna Q. 50:45
No, was the only remember the exact number, but it was right around 100 like 100 pet care facilities
Brandon E. 50:53
for the rest of the city and one for the south side. And then that's, you know, that's why we put it here. That smart
LeAnna Q. 51:03
or something like that, eventually, I'm sure.
51:07
You both focus on on being family owned, you local, you mentioned you hire trying to hire within that three mile radius for your community. It drives a lot of basically everything that you do for your business, it's really important to you what
LeAnna Q. 51:23
where does that come from? I think it's from you know, we, I've lived in a lot of different neighborhoods in Chicago. And this is the only neighborhood that I've ever lived in, that has felt like a community, like it is very, like the people are very friendly. It just has a different fields very diverse. And I just loved it in a way that I've never loved any other neighborhood I've lived in. So that's, you know, and because, like Brandon's talked about, you know, with, they're really not being a lot of services in our neighborhood. So that that's why I really wanted to keep everything local, you know, only service local, and people and honestly, I mean, having employees that are local, the reliability factors going to improve, because you're not going to have things like snow and traffic and, you know, prevent a pragmatic thought you're in, if you're within a few blocks of what your, you know, your, your route anyway, you're gonna be able to make it even if you have to walk it, yeah. Which a lot of people do, because their, their routes are so close together, everybody's so close. But yeah, it just, we really just love the community and just really wanted to provide, you know, specifically for this under service.
Brandon E. 52:45
There's also, you know, there's, there's the fact that we could get bigger, but it would make the business move in directions that we don't, we decided that we don't want it to, you know, we could we could expand our service range and not be able to give as personal a service or, you know, we don't want it to just feel like a WAG, or rover or something like that, where it's an impersonal thing. That this is our, this is our areas, this is the place that we love, and this is what we love to service. So, you know,
LeAnna Q. 53:26
it's the people that are coming into your home are also, you know, your neighbors. We've, I mean, you know, and it's really good for routes. You know, because we're so in making and making money for the, you know, for the employees to be able to make money because we are commission based, so you know, they're getting paid per service, I don't want somebody to be traveling 1520 minutes, you know, with for a 20 minute walk or
53:55
whatever, doesn't make it worth it to them at that point. And now you can start seeing a lot of the benefits that flow from that not just for for you and the logistics of everything. But that's a pitch that you have to the employee have a benefit of that kind of service area. And it sounds like you you do when you make that kind of decision, you do have to say no to things. How tempting has it been to make that three miles? Three and a half? And then three points.
Brandon E. 54:21
We've actually contracted our boundaries over the years. Yeah, I mean, we first we did go
LeAnna Q. 54:26
a little bit farther because it's just like, oh, somebody wants me like somebody wants us somebody who's going
Brandon E. 54:31
to pay us money even if I have to drive 15 minutes to get to a dog for a 15 minute walk. You know, but we we over the years redirected so that we are just kind of focused right in our area and
LeAnna Q. 54:47
we have I have a pretty good referral list too for people you know that we're not the right fit for to be able to send them to you know, try one of these people they might be able to help
Brandon E. 54:56
Yeah, we send people to a lot of other local was looking at businesses.
55:01
You mentioned the 15 minute walk and that was on actually wanted to touch on because you offer a very wide range of of walks and services. What's it like scheduling all of that?
LeAnna Q. 55:11
I mean, I don't find it that hard. I honestly, when you had mentioned that question, I was like we do. We always have done. You know, initially, I wanted to offer a range of services for nothing other than being more affordable to the communities so that somebody couldn't afford a 30 minute walk like, okay, they could do 15. So that was my initial reasoning. And it is something that staff about, you know, how they feel about the 15 minutes, and you know, because they don't pay that well. But they all like them, because they're, you know, there's some like cats that, you know, they don't come out the whole time, you don't want to sit there for 30 minutes with a cat that is waiting for you to leave or, you know, you have an elderly dog that just wants to pee and get back inside. Or they did work
Brandon E. 56:00
for a 30 minute visit for dogs goes out and tables and comes back in and lays on the couch. You know?
LeAnna Q. 56:06
Yeah, so so they really work. But as far as scheduling, I always a lot. Like, I mean, at this point I've been doing for so long, I can just kind of look and know, you know, like what's going to fit and where
Brandon E. 56:19
I always feel like it's in the in the movies like in Minority Report when I'm going in the other room.
LeAnna Q. 56:32
Once I'm done, I'm so satisfied. I'm like, that's good.
Brandon E. 56:37
Like the Antonio Banderas meme, or is it the computer and he claps and he's done. I'm old. I don't have Okay, nevermind. Somebody will pick
LeAnna Q. 56:52
you up as I, you know, I a lot of 15 minute buffer between all clients, even even the ones that are like, down the block, you know, just because I don't want my staff to be rushed, you know, having to make sure they have efficient, sufficient time to get between everybody. We only take clients that do regular schedules at this point also. So they have to do at least two regular walks a week, and that has been the biggest game changer. You know, we're not trying to fit in all I call them the pop ups, you know, all these like pop up walks, and like, Where the heck am I going to put this. So the vast majority of it, you know, like, once it's kind of set, it just kind of stays.
Brandon E. 57:30
And changing that changing those requirements is a thing that we've learned over time, you know, we obviously we want to provide a service, but if you get to the point where every Monday, you know, you're dealing with 20 or 30 appointments that pop up because people you know, don't think about it doing it earlier than that, or, you know, trying to add on same day, and there was a time in the past when, you know, we had to when when we'd be like yeah, okay, whatever, that's fine. Yeah, we're just trying to pay the bills, you know, and, but once you once you grow to a volume where that becomes prohibitive, what we did was kind of set some scheduling boundaries, that that aren't necessarily you know, it's not prohibitive, you can still get the service but what we need is, is you to get it in on time, so that we can plan things instead of having to scramble keys and run around and deal with all the different stuff. You know, we've this is just something that we've learned over time on how to get set expectations up front, especially new customers, where you say like, please have your scheduling in by Sunday. And that is the rule from the start. You know,
LeAnna Q. 58:37
you have to we require all of our clients to have their schedules in by Sunday evening. And if it is placed after Sunday, there's a $5 surcharge on every appointment. And you know, I always let people get away with it once saw put it on their invoice but compass will they see it? You know, I tell him what the meet and greet but you know, people don't always listen to every single word. Sometimes I just don't hear you. Alright, yeah, there's a two hour window. Um, you know, so yeah, that's that's been a that's been a huge help huge developers, and we can just get everybody's schedules down. There are a lot of people whose schedules really don't change at all day to day they set the same dogs, you know, all the time. But yeah, setting those scheduling boundaries is
59:25
it sets you mentioned client expectations, they're how they perceive their interaction with you. It makes it easier on you less headache as far as scrambling last minute and you know, Brian, you mentioned like, Yeah, we could do this, but like, I don't want to anymore, right? It's not it's not it's not worth it to throw everything off. And then it gives a more predictable schedule for your staff to so you can get that out to them in a quicker fashion. And with without too much back and forth.
LeAnna Q. 59:51
Yeah, we're very transparent with I always try to make people understand why we do things. The way that we do is we ever FAQs on our website, but I also explain it to be even one person like, you know, if they have any sort of questions or pushback about, you know, I explained to them well, you know, most people are full time. So once we have a schedule made, it's made. And then if you need something late, it's whoever has availability if they have availability, you know, so just kind of explaining to people like, there's a reason we do things the way we do. It is for the betterment of everybody,
1:00:23
Liana and Braden, I want to thank you for your time today, I want to thank you for sharing the passion that you have for people and pets and the dedication that you have to your community and making it a better place for everybody. I know that we've a whole lot more that you do. And there's a whole other list of questions that people may have and that they want to reach out to you and follow along with everything that you're doing. So how best can they do that?
Brandon E. 1:00:46
We have an Instagram page that people can follow at Hyde Park Chicago, we have a Facebook page. Yeah. And if for more information, you can visit our website at Hyde Park chicago.com.
LeAnna Q. 1:01:01
You know, I really enjoy, you know, your Facebook group that you guys have and the other pet sitter groups are just so helpful. And I think we all you know, need to help each other and, and I like to go there all the time for help and trying to help other people. So I'm definitely open to always learning helping being helped.
1:01:23
It's that's something that we need a lot more of in businesses to be open to receiving good feedback and to sharing the knowledge that we've built up over time, because it's a, it's just like the community that you're you're living and working in, we can make the pet care industry, a community that's helpful for everybody. So thank you, again, so much for your time today. And for sharing everything, it really means a lot.
LeAnna Q. 1:01:47
Thank you so much.
Collin 1:01:49
When our goal is to provide an excellent service, instead of thinking of selling a dog walk, or instead of selling a pet care service, when we sell trust, and when we sell peace of mind, everything else flows from that we attract the clients that are a good fit for us, we attract the staff that are going to be a good fit for us. And we work everything out from there. But the baseline Well, our starting point is understanding that the service, the quality must be excellent and unrelenting in that pursuit of always providing a good service. And then we do what we can for our clients. We do what we can for our staff to meet their needs to continue to support them in whatever way that looks like so that we have that balance between running our business and making sure their lives are made the better for being a part of our company. We want to thank our sponsor today, time to pet thank you so much for listening. We're so appreciative and we can't tell you how much it means to us. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and we'll be back again soon.
