380: The Pet Business Owner Toolbox
Brought to you by Pet Sitters Associates. Use ‘Confessional’ at checkout
What tools does it take to build a business? As the business owner, you need to be equipped with the right tools to grow and run a successful business. We break down 10 tools we think every pet business owner should have in their tool box, and why they help you run a better business. Everything from organization and policies, to mindsets and personal development are needed, but you get to decide how they’re implemented for you. The best tools are the ones you know how to use and fit how you work.
Main topics
Business plan basics
Use your insurance resources
Stay organized
Keep Learning
Mindset matter
Main takeaway: You don’t get to always choose which hard decisions are put on your plate. But you do get to decide how you’ll respond. The right tools will help you when that time comes.
Links:
Tire inflator: https://amzn.to/3UY36FW
Business plan basics: https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/plan-your-business/write-your-business-plan
Doug the Dog Guy walks through a Business Plan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31jD1-sAybs
Task & Time Management: https://www.petsitterconfessional.com/episodes/376
Emotional Intelligence with Wayne Hartley: https://www.petsitterconfessional.com/episodes/224
ProTrainings: For 10% off any of their courses, use CPR-petsitterconfessional
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Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, clients, pet, tool, people, pet sitters, work, talked, empathize, toolbox, business owner, episode, problems, goals, questions, stay, decisions, insurance, feel, associates
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin
Meghan 00:01
Hi, I'm Meghan. I'm Collin, and we are the hosts of pet sitter confessional and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Today, we are brought to you by pet sitters associates and our stupendous Patreon members like Mary, Devin, Kevin, Liz, Kylie, Julie and Holly. These people help to support the show by giving a few dollars of their hard earned to pet sitting and dog walking money every month. And we just are so thankful for them.
Collin 00:28
Yeah, if you want to learn more about that or other ways to support the show, go to pet sitter confessional.com/support. So we'd love getting your pet sitting and dog walking tips and listener Savannah wrote in with this one, and she has two tips about things that she keeps in the back of her car. The first one was a toolkit with things like hammers, screwdrivers, pliers, etc. And she's right in case I need to use any of those items to help turn off something in the house or she can't find their tools. So if a fire alarm is chirping, sometimes you need a Phillips head or a hammer or pliers to turn off a faucet or spigot. And she also keeps a portable air compressor for things like tires in case they go flat, or are low in the middle of the day. And you don't have time to go to a gas station or service station to find those. It basically plugs into the cigarette lighter and can measure and inflate your tire to the exact pressure that you set it to. And she was even kind enough to include a link in her submission. So we will have that link to the tire inflator in our show notes. So you can go and click and get right to that.
Meghan 01:30
And we actually had a question last week on what exactly are the shownotes? I hear you guys mentioned links and things resources in your episodes, where do I actually go to find those, and it's going to be based off of the exact podcast player that you listened to. But generally they are when you click on the episode and you scroll down, you'll be able to see more of the description of exactly what the episode is about and the links to that you can click on Yeah,
Collin 01:53
unfortunately, a lot of podcast players are really bad at surfacing or showing the show notes. So if you're an apple podcast or even if you're in Spotify, once you click play on an episode, it's going to show the album art and show that it's progressing and the sounds going forward. If you scroll up, it might not look like you can scroll up if you can scroll up, you may even try swiping left or swiping right to see more information or doing more things with that particular episode. And then as always, you can go to our website petsitter confessional.com/episodes, to see all of our episodes with complete show notes and transcripts right there for you
Meghan 02:27
all 380. So if you don't like listening, you'd rather read you can go to our website and read it there. Speaking of tools, though, as a business owner, you need the right tools to get the job done. And so savannas tip was really timely because today we are going to talk about the pet business owner toolbox. Because this job is multifaceted. We joke that our full time job is just running the business side. And our part time gig is the actual pet care. Because as you know, there is a lot more to this than just puppy cuddles. And kitty cat says there are all of the admin things and all of the other aspects of the pet care, the homecare everything that you don't normally think of when you get into this business. But here we are. So what tools do you need to be successful? Let's open the toolbox and see. The first one is a business plan. We didn't have any plan when we started this almost 12 years ago. And I think that is a lot of pet sitters as well, we don't often make the plan and then go out and search for pet care, it's this kind of falls into our lap, we have a passion for animals. And then we go, oh, this is a business, I have to take out taxes, I need to open a business bank account. So I need to have some sort of plan.
Collin 03:38
Or you just want to be able to project and look towards the future. And really there are a lot of templates out there that you can download. And you can fill out and you can customize to your own. But really we're talking about any plan, any sort of plan or long term thinking is essential to you and your business. A typical business plan actually has five major parts. The first one is a summary. And this is where it just breaks down all the things that are to come this is this summary it summarizes the rest of the document, then you're going to go into your business description and your structure. What do you do? How do you do it? What are things that your business is structured to do? Are you going to have multiple people doing the services? Is it just going to be you what kind of tasks and goals and objectives are going to fall in there? Then you're going to the market research and your competition analysis. So this is writing about how your business fits in your local market. Are there other people doing what you're doing? What are their prices? What do you expect to be able to grow to how what other competition do you have going on there? Then you're going to have a component that's actually about personnel for it. And this may seem a bit silly to do if you're a solopreneur if you're by yourself, but it's essential to go this is me I am doing all of this work, but maybe you want to add people later. And then you're going to get to the financials and this is all of the breakdown that's going to back up everything that you've described in the document, all of the marketing sections, you're gonna talk about projections, your include profit and loss statements, your balance sheet cash, cash flow. And you're going to project that to the next three years, right? So there's a lot that can go into a particular business plan, right? But But basically, what you want to do is you want to write down what your business looks right now. And then you can write down what you want your business to look like, in five years and 10 years, so that you can have something to work towards well, and it
Meghan 05:30
goes along with those goals as well. We always talk about the SMART goals, the achievable ones, the attainable ones, the measurable ones. And this goes hand in hand with that, because when you have a business plan, or when you have goals, you are able to really break down and say, Okay, how can I achieve this? How can I get to this long term, 10 year goal that I want to get to? Well, I need a plan for that.
Collin 05:52
It makes it allows you to make strategic decisions, so that you know, okay, I have something that puts on my plate, I can make a decision. Does it meet my five year does it meet my 10 year goal? Does it get me closer to those or further away, and it can help kind of elucidate some of that. And then also putting it down to the plan. It gets rid of that frustration when you feel like you're not getting anywhere or you're there. It's the not yet, right? You go, Oh my gosh, I'm not there today. But that's okay. Because I know I'm working towards my five year plan, it can help you feel more content and satisfied with your current business as you work and grow and move forward.
Meghan 06:28
Because you know, you're not going to stay there forever, right? A tool that helps protect your business is the insurance and legal resources. So don't just view this as a checklist, you know, your insurance provides you with a lot of resources for your business, whether you realize it or not, it doesn't just elevate your company above others that don't. But it also is a great place to go for questions about your business. And we're not saying this, because pet sitters Associates is a sponsor today. But it really is, you know, not just your insurance policy of exactly, you know, what does it cover? What does it not cover? But asking them the questions of, well, if I implement this, is this going to be covered or not? You know, we just had this thing with lock boxes, and we implemented lock boxes, and we read our policy, but it was a little bit ambiguous on whether it was going to be covered or not. So we called up our insurance. And they said, Yes, like it is part of your company, it's going to be included. Well, specifically,
Collin 07:23
we were worried about whether the lock boxes would negate the last key or damage policy that we had with it, and that it was very ambiguous, and we couldn't tease it out. So we called them up and said, Hey, we are going to be implementing lock boxes. But we still want to be covered if a key gets lost or damaged or things like that, in that event, would we still be covered? And they said Great question. And as if yes, you would be covered. Having lockboxes doesn't change anything. Now, it didn't change anything for our business, but it still allowed us to know and be more clear and sure about how we want it to operate. And that's really what this is, is yes, just having insurance is one thing, but using them, going them for advice for understanding what you're covered for what your coverages are, are going to help you decide and design a business that is actually robust and protected. And you're more confident in that as well.
Meghan 08:14
Well, and then Truthfully, when you go to a meet and greet and your client, this is probably never happened to you, because it's never happened to us. But a client goes, you know, are you insured? Will you Will your insurance cover XYZ if this happens, and you know, not many clients think of that that is true. But some may go, you know, I want to make sure that I'm hiring Well, it's a person that's coming into my home, are you properly protected so that I don't take a hit on my homeowners or whatever it is,
Collin 08:41
well, that's another thing of we say we're insured, but we don't brag about it enough to potential clients or during the meet and greet, talk about your insurance policy. Don't be afraid to get into the nitty gritty of how it would protect their home in case something happened or what exactly would cover for their pet and how that works. And you are only able to do that and communicate that if you fully understand what you have. Now, I will say that the more you understand about your insurance policy, it also means that you will have fewer and fewer excuses. Because saying things like oh, I can't do that because my insurance doesn't let me well, somebody may call you out on that one day. And if you don't know what your insurance policy says, you may be standing there with egg on your face no realizing that you've been saying something for years, but it's actually not true. So read through the policy, but don't just stop there, go to whoever is providing it for you and ask good questions. Explain. This is how I operate my business. This is what I implement. These are my policies. Am I covered for that? Is that okay for me to do? And they will tell you and then you are more confident.
Meghan 09:46
We talked about this next tool. I feel like all the time on every episode, knowing your numbers. It's the tool of financial management from software to a CPA. The financial tools that you could use and should use are immense is You know, we talked about tax time, but it's just it's way more than just simply tax time. Want to know if you can hire or should hire based on your prices and services and percents? Well, a good way to know is knowing your numbers, or how will you know if you can buy that new equipment? It's really taking a deep dive here. Are you growing? Or are you just feeling busier? That's a question that we often ask ourselves of this month seemed a lot busier. But what was our revenue? What were our numbers? Were we actually growing? How many meeting new meet and greets? Did we do that? Or did it just feel busier?
Collin 10:32
There are so many different metrics that you can pull from but it all starts with having and tracking that financial data in some way, whether that's with QuickBooks, whether that's with Wave apps.com, which is free or some other metric, whether you just do it in an Excel spreadsheet, or you have a CPA so you can go to them. And when we talked about comparing metrics, you're just going in asking questions about your business. What did last month look like compared to this month? That's a really common one. That's a really easy one to track. But then what about last month last year and start comparing what did February's numbers look like to this February's? What did June's look like to last June's? Because we know this is a seasonal business. So that gives you a much better view of how your business is actually doing. And then you can start putting some things on top of that and going, hmm, well, I actually did fewer visits, but I made more money. Why was that? What did I raise my prices? Did I have more people with multiple pets? Or did I have a surcharge or however you start to break that down. But the financial management tools allow you to dive into your business and ask really good, pertinent questions so that you can run a really strong business.
Meghan 11:41
Another tool that's going to make you have a really strong business is the scheduling and organization tools in your toolbox. So here, it's not so much that you use software or a calendar, or pen and paper or whatever works for you. The point is that you have a system, it doesn't matter what it is. Truly, I mean, if it works for you, then keep going with it. If it makes your business more efficient, then keep going with it. If you know for sure that you will never ever, ever miss a visit anytime ever, and you do pen and paper, go for it. What happens after somebody contacts you for service? Where does that information go? How do you make sure you don't lose track of their notes, your ability to reliably schedule and remain organized will be one of the most singular superpowers that you can have as a business owner. And one of the best tools as well. You know, you can have the best system in the entire world with the leading software. But if you personally never use it, if there's too much of a roadblock that you don't want to overcome, and you don't want to put the time into making it work, it really is pointless and meaningless. Because if you don't use it, your clients aren't going to use it. And then there's no point in having it at all. Because by being organized and staying on top of your scheduling, you will ultimately bring new clients into your company, you will make those clients happy with quick and easy processes, you will be able to streamline and have a very efficient business. And ultimately you're going to have less burden and less mental burden as well. And that's
Collin 13:07
really the important aspect of this tool. Having some sort of scheduling and organization scheme or process protocol for you is that you will have less mental burden, you will have less nights where you wake up at 3am freaking out because did you remember to schedule the thing? It feels like
Meghan 13:23
I'm being called out right now?
Collin 13:26
Did you remember? Did it get put in? Is it on the schedule? Where are those notes? Did I make those updates that I changed those things. Having a system whether it's electronic or it's pen and paper allows you to get out of your head and make make sure that you are managing the business instead of just running around putting out fires that really is what this is, is organizing your business. And if we're honest here, your personal life as well to make sure that they are emerging and meeting well because the business may be fine, right? But business business doesn't start till 6am tomorrow. So am I organizing my evening tonight to make sure that I'm prepared for 6am visits tomorrow, and vice versa to make sure that that business is running smoothly.
Meghan 14:03
Something that is definitely going to help make your business run smoothly is pet business insurance through pet sitters associates. As pet care professionals your clients trust you have to care for their furry family members and that is why pet sitters Associates is here to help. for over 20 years they have provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance. Because you work in the pet care industry. You can take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom in running your business. Learn why pet sitters Associates is the perfect fit for you and get a free quote at Pet set llc.com. You can get a discount if you want but when joining by clicking membership Pet Sitter confessional and use the discount code confessional when you go to checkout to get $10 off. Check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again at pets@llc.com. The one thing in life that you will never be able to get back is time. So as a pet business owner the one thing that you need to have in your pet business toolkit is time management You know, that process of having good scheduling and good organization, what we just talked about is really being on top of your time management because it's about directing that time it's funneling, that time, I want to spend my energy here or here to the appropriate things in your business and in your personal life as well. And we actually did an episode on different time and task management systems. If you want to go back and listen to that it's episode 376.
Collin 15:23
and time management here. Think of this from multiple aspects of how do I manage my time as my personal level? How do we manage my time in my business, making sure that I'm dedicating enough time to conduct business while also reserving and setting aside time so that I can run the actual business again, that joke that we set, the beginning of my full time job is running the business, my part time job is the pet care, because that's what it feels like most days, but you have to separate that out, you have to dedicate that kind of time. And then you have time for things like time management in the actual visits itself. If you are not managing your time, while you were conducting the visit, doing the walk staying at the home, you are not using your time appropriately, and you're not being the best, most efficient, best representation of yourself and bring you the best care possible. So really taking the time to plan taking the time here, you know, taking the time to plan your time is going to allow you to use it the most efficiently.
Meghan 16:15
And part of that time is dedicating it to personal and professional development, you know who doesn't love learning and growing? Hopefully, that's why you're here listening to the podcast is helping you listening to other pet business owners and their stories and their struggles and how they overcame them. But ultimately, as a business owner, you must continue to hone your craft, try new things, go to conferences, read books, that's super important experiment with things and your business. We talked about that a few times on the podcast of starting small with experiments and knowing and gaining confidence. And so you can do bigger and bigger things in your business. You know, taking new information in particularly from other people, even outside of the industry really allows you to adapt that information to how you operate and how you stay ahead of the curve. Because when you develop yourself, you're going to continue to grow your skills, the skill, the personal skills, the professional skills, and ones that you can use in managing your staff or dealing with client issues or like we just talked about time management and organization. Ultimately, this is essential for the pet business owner toolbox. Because when we stop learning, we stopped growing, we stopped being able to change and adapt with what our clients are expecting and what the market is demanding. And our business falters as a result.
Collin 17:29
And a lot of times we fall out of love with our business because it's not fresh with us. And it grows stale. And we stop wanting to invest and pour our energies into it because we get distracted by other things. So when you learn when you grow, when you adapt, your business stays fresh, your business stays connected with the clients that need you, it continues to grow and expand and meet people's needs in new ways. And as a business owner, when you develop yourself professionally, you are bringing in new skills to enhance the client experience, you stay on top of the latest practices in websites or in marketing or in social media, or in creative manners. When you develop yourself personally, you are able to set better boundaries, you're better able to say no to things, you're better able to seek out new opportunities so that you stay fresh and engaged and in love with the business that you have. Again, if you decide that that's what you want to go to, it's not always this rosy colored thing where it just gets better. And everything's more beautiful in the end or whatever. Sometimes you fall in love with your business. And that's perfectly fine. Part of being able to know when that happens is by developing and seeking out new information. So when you can go you know what this actually isn't for me anymore, because I've learned that these bad habits, these behaviors are signs that something bad is going on. And I need to make a correction.
Meghan 18:48
And you are not willing or wanting or able to delegate those tasks that you don't want to do to other people. If those are not something that is able to be delegated, or you don't want to and you no longer want to do them, you fall out of love and then you just choose to not have a business anymore, right? You just mentioned another tool a minute ago, you said marketing and that is the next one marketing and online presence. So think about for your own pet business. What does this tool look like for you? Is it pretty oiled and polished? Or is it pretty rusted and busted? You know, it's the one where we usually start off with a lot of gusto and zazz. And we are energetic about it. We love posting cute pets to social media and getting our website with the right wording and our Google My Business and our flyers and our marketing and events and all these things that we can do and it feels very sparkly and awesome. But then it starts to fade a little bit. We can get distracted or we start nitpicking little things and then we start to get drugged down in the mundane tasks of things and it doesn't seem as bright and shiny anymore. So think about it this way. Your marketing An online presence is really a highly detailed and customized tool for your business. You know, some people may not even have this tool in their toolbox at all yet. We know several like that some people don't have a website, some people don't have a Facebook, it's really all about what you make it for your business and the clients that you want to go after and how you want to serve them, right? Well,
Collin 20:20
while others may have a whole suite range of options from this tool that they use every single day. And so they don't just have one tool here, they've got 14 different ones. And they're all from different manufacturers, and whatever is I'm stretching the analogy here of tools box, but whatever, like it's highly adaptable to your company of what you want to do. It's everything from word of mouth flyers and mailers and business cards to that website, Google business, social media and those targeted ads that you can do it just speaking of targeted ads, we actually spoke with an ad manager about our business about what options we would have said something that's actually really creepy to me is that we could send, we could pay for targeted ads to go to people who visited a specific address. So it was they visited an address, and they had their phone on them the next time, they would browse on their websites, and they would go across Google and stuff, they would start seeing our ads pop up. And he was like, Oh, you need to do this with other pet care people so that you can get in front of their clients.
Meghan 21:27
And so this was not a digital address that they you know, google.com or whatever. This was a physical location that they're following Yes, pin that their phone is tracking. Like out in the wild, I go to Walmart or I go to PetSmart. Their phone is tracking them. And then we could target those people that go to our local pet store.
Collin 21:46
Yeah, it was really gross and very, very creepy. Right? It really made me feel highly uncomfortable.
Meghan 21:52
Well, and I think the point that you were trying to speak there of the highly creepy, not the fact that people go to PetSmart? Well, it's the fact that you could track, you know, they walked into this specific daycare or this specific boarding and place. And we don't feel that that's super ethical, because we could then go in and be forward facing to their clients and try to take their clients from them, we would not want that done to us. So we would not do that to other people.
22:16
And you don't have to either. And the point of that little diatribe is that just because there is a tool that is available? Doesn't mean that it has to be in your specific toolbox. You can pick and choose Tools that align with your goals, your ethics, your morals in the mission of your company.
Meghan 22:37
Yeah, basically, what do they say to superheroes? They say use your powers for good. not evil. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. So the next one is the pet business owner mindset. We talked, we talked about this, too. You know, it's a tool that you need to have because your mindset matters. It drives you to tackle problems and how you celebrate successes, the good and the bad, the wins and the losses. You know, what aspect of this is emotional intelligence. And you talked with Wayne Hartley, all about this on an episode titled emotional intelligence with Wayne Hartley. Yeah, we'll have that in the show notes. Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and understand and manage and ultimately utilize your own or others emotions effectively, it really has four parts here. It's self awareness, it's being aware of you, and how you operate and asking, you know, it's asking yourself the deep questions, the hard questions, then it's self management. Okay, so now what do you do with that information? After you've asked yourself the hard questions, how do you manage yourself, then there's the social awareness and the relationship management. So emotional intelligence is crucial in our personal and professional life, because it helps us to individualize things and to navigate these complex social situations while also maintaining positive relationships and then making better decisions, better personal decisions, and then better business decisions because our personal our person is in a better mindset. So we are able to make better choices
24:10
and this gets back to that mindset because having a good emotional intelligence helps you there it helps you in a lot of ways, but just to that we wanted to touch on was the first one it helps you be a better leader helps you improve your leadership because you business owners with a high emotional intelligence, you actually understand and manage their own emotions, as well as empathizing with others around them,
Meghan 24:33
which is very important when you have staff because they have feelings to their people. And you want to be able to again Yeah, empathize with them saying I understand this, but you know, either we need to stick with this or you know, we can go with what you want today,
Collin 24:49
right? It helps you with your decision making. It helps you effectively communicate, you know how you're feeling so you can communicate that to others helps you weed through some rash decisions that you may decide You want to make, and this all leads to a positive work environment, people like being there. And when because when employees feel understood and valued, they're more likely to be engaged and motivated and loyal to the company, which leads to a lot of things. But it can also help in working with clients. So the second part of this is enhanced customer relations. If you have a good emotional intelligence, you, you better understand and anticipate the needs and emotions of your customers. So when that person calls you, and they're frustrated, because you said no, sometimes we have to understand they, when we said I'm full, what they heard was, they can't go see grandma dying two states over. That's what they heard. That's where this the social awareness comes in, where now we are talking at two different emotional levels. For this for you, it's a simple business decision. For them, it's their ability to say goodbye to their grandma, in not that we should allow it to sway or allowed to alter us or our decisions or, or change our boundaries. But being aware of that helps us as we talk to that person, and allowed us to to empathize with them in that moment,
Meghan 26:09
and it makes it easier for us to put ourselves in their shoes and say, okay, they responded because XYZ, they responded emotionally because they couldn't go see grandma Dine, they had to stay home, because they were last minute I couldn't accommodate or whatever the case may be, but you are able to better say, Okay, I understand the full picture. You know, we operate as business owners, we operate on facts, we always should not emotions, but I can understand where this person is coming from because of their circumstances or situations,
Collin 26:43
but and all that process of connecting and empathizing, it builds trust, it builds loyalty, it builds satisfaction with your existing clients,
Meghan 26:52
because working with clients is customer service and a tool that you need to have in your toolbox, the communication tool and the client service tool. Now, how do you work with clients? I know many people prefer pets more than humans. And that's a question that is an immediate red flag when when somebody applies to work for us, because the humans pay the bills, you have to have some sort of empathy, some sort of human communication ability to do this job. Even if you never see another human, you are still sending updates to clients, you're still in communication with them in some form.
Collin 27:27
Yeah, we like it. Like it or not, you are in a customer service industry, which means we need to service and attend to the customer. And this includes understanding how you are going to do things like handle conflicts, right? Do you have policies that you can point to and stand behind? How do you communicate with your clients? You get to decide that, but you have to understand that while we may think texting or email is enough, and it usually isn't most scenarios, some people love phone calls, when would you make a phone call? Is that ever in your decision making process? Because if you expect a high level of communication from your clients, when changes come up? Are you doing the same? Are you leading by example? Are you setting that tone for your clients, for your staff in that and treating them? Well through that process? Because this is where we do start to truly when we treat our customers? Well, but it's true. Gaining a new customer is client is way more costly than preserving an old one. In most cases. So famous staff same was the exit Yes, very true. So you have to figure out and go, Okay, how do I keep these people? How do I make them part of my company? How do I build that trust, build that loyalty, build that commitment, that is where your customer service comes in, and how you treat them when they have problems when they have concerns, and really paying attention to that and not letting it just slide by the wayside and hope that everything's gonna be okay.
Meghan 28:52
Because what you don't want to have happen is problems to arise, whether your staff or your clients, there are things that going are going to come up and so a tool that you need to have in your toolbox. And the last one we're going to talk about is the adaptability tool, the problem solving tool, you know, Surely you've run into a problem in your business. I know we have a few times over the past almost 12 years now
Collin 29:12
it's been smooth sailing for years and years and years, right?
Meghan 29:16
Not true. Listen to past episodes. But for those that haven't had problems, you know, problems are going to come up you know, you get locked out of a house you miss an alarm, a client gets stuck overseas for another three weeks, a staff member doesn't show up to a visit. There are an infinite number of ways that these pet care visits can go wrong, but it's ultimately about how you handle those or do you remain calm under pressure. Are you frantic? Do you do you freak out at any little thing? These again, asking yourself the hard questions. How am I going to handle not necessarily every specific little situation but when stress has come up? How do I deal with them? Do I have proper coping mechanisms to handle these? You know the key to problem solving is having the right mindset So when we get locked down in fear, that's not going to help us it isn't going to get us anywhere.
Collin 30:06
Yeah, what does Ardmore say? But she says, I give you permission to freak out later. In the moment in that moment, you have to make tough decisions. And ones that you always don't want to have to make you how you are given decisions, you are given situations and things that you never asked for. And yet you must act on them.
Meghan 30:27
Well, and she's talking about in the instance of you walk in, and the dogs laying on the floor, even they're having a seizure, or just you don't understand what's going on, or the cat is in a weird behavior and just keeps hissing at you over and over again. And it's out of character for a cat like something is going wrong. You need to administer pet first aid and CPR.
Collin 30:45
Right? But so for you, Lord of the Rings fans out there. Remember when Frodo turns to Gandalf, and he says, I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened. And what does Gandalf say? I have no idea.
30:58
So many people know it. He says Gandalf says so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. And I love this because this really rounds out everything that we've been talking about. This rounds out the personal decisions, the personal ownership that we take on as business owners for our businesses, because you don't always get to choose which hard decisions are put on your plate. But you do get to decide how you are going to respond
Meghan 31:31
to them. Yeah, that's part of the problem solving. Knowing yourself knowing how you are going to react and then setting your business up and your personal life up for you to succeed using these different tools that we've talked about. What tools are you using? What did we miss? Let us know you can send us an email at feedback at Pet Sitter confessional.com Or we are on Facebook and Instagram at Pet Sitter confessional. We'd like to thank pet sitters associates and our lovely Patreon members and also thank you for listening to this in any of the other 379 episodes that we have made. If you would like to consider supporting the show if you found value in it, you can do so at Pet Sitter confessional.com/support and we will talk with you next time. Bye
