389: Live Life Full and Happy with Morgan Weber
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How do you delight your clients? To delight your clients, you must first find delight and joy in the services you’re offering. Morgan Weber, owner of Lucky Pups Adventure, joins the show to talk about how living a fulfilling life in the present is crucial rather than waiting for some future event to happen. She explains how taking the time to appreciate the little things in life and finding joy in even the most mundane tasks is essential. She discusses how to ensure customer satisfaction by finding delight in the services you offer. Then stresses the importance of treating every client with the utmost care and attention to detail, which can lead to word-of-mouth referrals and long-term client relationships. She also gives advice on how to grieve the loss of a client’s pet and how to work closely with a significant other in your business.
Main topics:
Importance of finding joy
Balancing roles
Learning from failures
Standing out to potential clients
Main takeaway: Prioritize joy, flexibility, and personal growth in both personal and professional lives.
About our guest:
Morgan Weber is the founder of Lucky Pup Adventures in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. After her previous career left her burnt out and unsatisfied, Morgan spent the last 10 years growing their pet care business and was chosen as the PSI 2022 Pet Sitter of The Year. Morgan believes in serving with exceptional, authentic customer service while still creating a great life for her and her team. She founded Memory Flame remembrance candles in 2020 after the death of her young dog left her trying to heal her broken heart.
Morgan wants to embolden other Pet Professionals to lead full, happy lives. She encourages pet professionals to build businesses that allow them to live life more like the pets they serve: with joy, enthusiasm, and time for their favorite things.
Links:
Profit First: https://amzn.to/3lseUCv
The Gap and The Gain: https://amzn.to/3K7bE9V
The Five Invitations: https://amzn.to/3KaMbfP
https://www.instagram.com/morganandenasweber/
https://www.instagram.com/theaquariumkeepers/
https://www.instagram.com/_luckypup/
https://www.instagram.com/memoryflame.co/
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
pet, clients, dog, people, pet sitters, business, work, years, talk, walking, put, services, find, started, hard, visit, serving, day, live, book
SPEAKERS
Collin, Morgan W.
Collin 00:01
Welcome to pets that are confessional. Today, we're brought to you by time to pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters. How do you delight your clients? What does it mean for you to go above and beyond when serving them? Today, Morgan Weber owner of Lucky pups adventures, joins the show to share how she helps her clients live a full and happy life through a holistic approach of care and walking through them every season, she helps us understand that important process of grieving with a client whenever their pet passes away, and why it's so critical as a business owner that you stay connected and engaged and continue to experiment and not be afraid when things don't work out. Let's get started.
Morgan W. 00:44
My name is Morgan Weber. And we started petsitting and 2013. So we're into our 10th year this year. And we started on the side like so many other people, and it just kind of kept growing. And then in 2018, I left my full time job, I had gone to school to be an architect. And I was working in the architecture field for about six years. And I was just like I you know, I got to the point where I needed to get my licensing exam and be an architect or quit my job and be a dog walker. And I decided that being a dog walker was a much better fit for me. So I did that full time. And then we started hiring staff. And so yeah, here that's a short story that's 10 years wrapped into about 30 seconds.
Collin 01:32
Well, in fact, but just a little bit more 2013. What What got you started in in pet care? What was that first couple like?
Morgan W. 01:40
Yeah, so we had adopted a dog from a co workers friends is one of those like friend of a friend deals. And this coworkers friend had gotten this dog because his dad had passed away. And so we ended up with this dog. And she was amazing. And one day my coworker said, you know, hey, we used to take our dogs, our dog's name was Casey. And he'd say, we used to take our dog to Casey's house. And you know, he would pet sit for us, would you like to pet set for us instead? And I said, I mean, sure, why not? Like, I've got my weekends open, we were just out of college. And so you know, we were living in a new city, we didn't have a ton of friends. And so I was like, I've got all this free time in the world, like, Sure, why not? I'll pets it for you. And it just kind of started like that. And we thought like, wow, this is pretty fun. You know, something probably not a lot of people know is that the architecture industry does not pay well. So we were actually living in like subsidized housing while working this professional career. And so I was like, you know, I really need to make some extra money. And so we just started petsitting we started with maybe that first year, we had maybe like five clients or something. And then we actually moved to we moved closer to home and we knew we were gonna be here for a long time. And we really said, you know, let's, let's do this again, like, let's start petsitting again, and we were involved in a dog rescue and a few other groups. And we just started growing and growing and growing kind of word of mouth took over and pretty soon I was walking dogs on my lunch break. And I got to the point where I was like, you know, I cannot keep leaving my job to go do my other job to come back again to do my job. And my bosses at the time were awesome. And they were like super accommodating. But you know, I got to the point where he's like, I need to focus on one or the other. And I can't keep splitting my time and yeah petsitting one
Collin 03:26
that's hard I know many people face that decision and it can be pretty terrifying to be in that moment of going especially whenever you you're you have an eight hour nine hours a day a job and you go I have all my dedication to this this is my reliability This is my consistency I have this thing it's growing it's doesn't replace the other thing yet but maybe if I devote more time maybe it will grow and there's a lot of fear in that process. And how did you walk through that fear? Did you sit down I know some people are comforted by numbers other people didn't dive in with passion kind of what was what was that like?
Morgan W. 04:01
So I I'm kind of a big picture person, which is probably why I ended up in architecture. I like the big picture. And so I just really I kind of looked at our finances and we kind of found Dave Ramsey in college and we were not like super strict like beans and rice people but like we didn't have a lot of we really didn't have consumer debt. And that made it a lot easier to say okay, like the minimum amount of money we need to survive every month is x and we are basically making that you know, between my husband strap and my age and loved petsitting like we're basically there and so we basically bought brought the boat really really close to the dock so when we did make that jump it was not super comfortable, but it wasn't like we would just jumped into the water and we had to like swim to the boat. We were pretty close to it. But yeah, it's really hard decision. Because you do have to have some trust that this thing that you've been Built will continue on. And like you said, if I put a little bit more effort into this, and I can pull a bit more focus on it, can it keep building? Or have I kind of hit market saturation, you know, and you don't really know until you try. And so I kind of figured, well, you know, if this doesn't work, I'm not leaving my career in a bad place. Like, if I have to, I could probably call him up again, and get my old job back or, like, I worked in retail, and I'm in college, like, I could go find a retail job, like, I could make money somewhere if I had to, but I was just like, you know, I'm ready to make this jump, and I'm ready to try something new.
Collin 05:35
And it's that newness, that can be very, is a lot of that scary part comes in, because we have that predictability, we have that quote, unquote, stability, whatever that means, you know, depending on how markets are going, but we look at something and it's this opportunity before us. And we've got to try and jump that. And I know that kind of that kind of thinking never really stops as we grow in business, because there's always going to be parts where we we find ourselves looking at something going, it's not an opportunity, right? Is that an opportunity? And so how, how do you like going through your business, you're coming up on 10 years? How do you stay stay fresh, and stay adapt, adaptive, to respond to those kinds of new opportunities that come along, because I know as a lot of people, as we get older, as we get in our business longer, we tend to fall back to safety, security, stability, and no longer take those kinds of chances.
Morgan W. 06:27
I think it's probably built into my personality in a way, if anyone likes Enneagram. So I'm an Enneagram. Seven, which means that I am always into the new thing and like the new exciting thing that is always up. It's just to me, that's exciting. And I know that there's a lot of people who don't like it's very much against their kind of ingrained personality to want to do something new, they want to keep doing the thing that's working. And I tend to see a lot of opportunity. I joke that I was in Future Business Leaders of America in high school, like this little business club, because I just wanted something to do to hang out with my friends and like go to cool conferences. That's literally the only reason why I was in this club, social club, social club. And I was always like, I'm never going to be a business owner. Like, I'll never be an entrepreneur, like I'm just here to learn some Robert's Rules for meetings and like, have a good time. And then I know, right, this is this is my, this is my truth here, column. And, anyway, so I and I've turned into a serial entrepreneur, we have multiple businesses now. So we've got our pet sitting and dog walking, my husband does aquarium maintenance. And then we also started a memorial candle business. And it sometimes feels like these things are really desperate or disparate. But in truth, they all pull together under the same umbrella of, of serving how we want to serve our clients. But it really has been a moment of opportunity where we said, you know, gosh, like my husband works at an aquarium store. And with that, you know, gosh, there's people who need their aquariums cleaned. Like, we could do that. And then in 2021 of our dogs died, and I was really struggling with how to feel better. And I stumbled upon lighting a candle in memory of somebody or of your pet. And I said, Gosh, this was amazing. I bet there's other people who could use this too. And you know, I think I hear that from a lot of pet sitters, you know, they say, my pet needed a good option, like I was going out of town, I needed somebody to take care of them, or, you know, like in our situation where a friend said, Hey, would you watch my dog for me? It just becomes these moments of opportunity. And I think as business owners, we either have the opportunity to say yes, like, this sounds awesome. Let's try it out. Or say like, no, that doesn't sound too good. I'm gonna I'm gonna pass on this. And so it's just I think, partially too Do you see the world as a an abundance of opportunities? Or do you see the world as a place where, okay, I found my niche. And I'm just going to stay here and I'm going to keep going?
Collin 08:57
Well, and it also is a different viewpoint as far as like holistic view approach. And so many of us say, Oh, we have a holistic view of, of the pet. But that can come in two different aspects. I've been realizing more if you can, you can stack horizontally stacked vertically, sorry, on a dog and go what services can I provide that dog versus going out horizontally around that dog and go what other touch points exist in the life of that dog their pet parents in their community? And a should I be serving them in that way? And be how can I and there's that's definitely two different approaches. And so you know, whenever you mentioned like the aquarium business, the your candle memory, flame business, you have these opportunities to grow out around that. And that that gives a much more holistic approach to the life of the pet and their dog.
Morgan W. 09:43
Yeah, absolutely. When I was in architecture school, I had a professor who told a story about a rail line, and he said, you know, why don't you hear about whatever right, you know, I don't even remember right, whatever rail line he was talking about, and he said, if that rail line had looked at their business as a way to move Things they would have invested in, you know, like airplanes, and you know, over the road trucking and all these other things, but they were so focused on being a rail line company, that they drove themselves into the ground, because eventually, they got bought up by some other rail company, you know. And so it was really, he was talking about that in terms of architecture, like, Okay, you have to kind of think about, you're not just serving your client in one particular way, you're really serving them, their overall need, not necessarily this little niche need, like a dog needs to go for a walk. Okay, I'm not necessarily serving my client, because their dog needs to go for a walk, I'm serving my client, because they need some, like peace of mind, because they're away from home and their dog needs some enrichment, or you got to think about it from a larger perspective, from a broader perspective, like you said, and we can see a lot more opportunities, again, on how we can serve somebody that isn't necessarily this one thing that we've already thought that we're doing.
Collin 10:58
Yeah. So how do we how do we stay stay fresh and open to opportunities that starts with our US, right, and thinking and how we view ourselves a lot of times, I know, it's, oh, I just do dog walks, I just do drop ins, but just one little free switch that you can go, I don't provide dog walks, I provide dog walking services, I provide dropping services, which which expands that definition considerably to what you're bringing to bear on that client and their pet. Whether that is the peace of mind, whether that's the communication, the certifications, training, whatever you have, you're expanding that way out. And that's where we can start to find those other other niche niches and go, Oh, I could do that, or that's in my wheelhouse, or this is hard. But that takes us expanding our view of how we define who we are in our business.
Morgan W. 11:44
Absolutely. And I think one thing that pet sitters kind of maybe forget in a way, because it is we think so much all about the pets. But really we're customer service agents, and we are you know, I kind of say tongue in cheek that the pets owner is our client, they're the ones who pick up their phone and book us they are the ones who you know, write the check, or you know, click that Pay Now button. And it can be really hard to focus on the people side of the business because we're so focused on doing the best pet care we possibly can. And that's sometimes we forget that we have to make sure we're taking as good of care of the people as we are the pets, because yeah, we are we aren't just walking a dog we are providing an entire customer service experience. Well, that is
Collin 12:31
it's to Who are we who are we serving who read delighting in our in our services? And with that it's going How do I how do you how do we make sure we are delighting the client and not just doing the job because that's the at the end day, it's it's really easy to just come in to the service leave come in, do the service leave without really making it an experience? So how do you focus on that kind of thing? Yeah,
Morgan W. 12:59
I think the one thing I will say is, it's hard to do, because especially maybe you get a little bit tired, you kind of overextend yourself, you get a little bit burnt out. And again, that people side becomes much less of the focus, because you know, you were there with the pet, and you're interacting with the pet. And now the challenge, I think is that you have to tell the owner, what you're doing with that pet. And so that way they understand that value that you're bringing, not just because the dog is getting a walk, and it's getting a bathroom break, but that you are creating, like you'd mentioned a whole experience for this pet. So we try to tell stories a lot. So, you know, we try to include little and anecdotes or, you know, fun little stories about what their pets are doing. Like where we are we got freezing rain last night. And so, you know, I included in a report something about the pet said like, No, thank you, I'm not going outside in that. And you know, and it's one of those things where it can be frustrating as the pet sitter because you're like, ma'am, you gotta go pee. And she's like, No, I refuse to, and you do your best. And you know, if you can tell that story in a way that the client finds endearing? Or, you know, she replied back this morning, like, oh my gosh, that sounds just like her. You've nailed her personality, you know, so she felt a connection to us, and you know, and that we were really understanding her pet. So I think that can be a really good way to storytel through your visits and not just saying, Oh, well, we went outside and we went on a walk and you know, she peed and then we came back and then I said goodbye. You know that's, that's one way to tell a story. And another way is to really get into kind of the emotional undertones that you can tap into to really help your clients feel like you understand them. You understand their pets and that you really adore them like that. You are delighted by their pets and that's that can come across I did a phone job for a while I was like a front desk person. And when they trained me they were like so I need you to smile when you answered the phone. I was like, what kind of like misogynistic crap? Is it to tell me to smile to answer the phone. And then I was like, No, this is real, like, you sound different when you have a smile on your face, and you're talking. And the same thing I think comes on your writing report. So if I've maybe had a frustrating visit, I take a minute, and I can just go out to my car and I cooled down, or maybe I drive to my next client before I write that report, because I tried to be in a good space myself before I try to make that connection point with the client. But yeah, it can be it can be a challenge. But I think it's what can set us apart when we're thinking about being pet care professionals. And I don't know about everybody else. But I know in our area, I've really seen an influx of new pet sitters lately. And a lot of times that comes when the economy comes down a little bit, people have more free time, or maybe they're looking for a side job to help fill in those gaps. Much like how many of us started, but there's, there's a difference, I think in if we want to be seen as a professional, we need to do certain things to help bring that professionalism to our services. And finding those connection points can be a really good way to distinguish yourself from other pet sitters, or as a new pet sitter, to help bring that professionalism with you. So you can really stand out from the crowd. And you know, if somebody gives, if you give somebody really good service, they're way more likely to tell their friends about you. Word of mouth is huge and pet setting, because that's such a, like, you know, I'll use the word intimate service, we're in their homes, it's high touch, it's very personnel, and people, you know, they want to know that somebody else had a good experience with you before, they're gonna recommend you, they're not gonna say, Oh, I just kind of saw this person on social media, and they looked decent, you know, but that's, that's one referral. And another referral is, oh, my gosh, you know, I met Collin and Megan, and they just did an amazing job. And their team knew my pets, and they sent me these great stories, and they send amazing pictures, you know, that's a completely different referral, that that's going to really spread throughout the community.
Collin 17:02
It really is. And there's, I know, there's a kind of a debate or discussion on how to send the updates. A lot of people do just report cards with little checkboxes on them, other people do handcrafted written things. That's really where we've gone to, because we really want to add that personal touch that personalization, be able to tell those stories, I can't tell you how many comments we get from clients who just love that we talked about the weather so much in our updates, like people they lot they want to know is it raining? Is it windy? What's what's Is there a storm coming? Like? These are concerns because they want to know, oh, man, I need you to tell you that put down the umbrella or I need you to do this or you know, what's, what's the rain gauge, you'd be surprised how many people love that kind of information. And you can easily just take a few minutes and tell that and I know I've had those moments where I second guess myself on Oh, should I should I put myself in, you know, try and get this personalized to the to the dog and what they're thinking because I don't want to miss judge and put a personality on them that their owners don't have. But the only way that you know is you just try and you do that. And and I guarantee you you spend enough time with the dog and with any animal, you're going to pick up on his personality and then you that the client is going to know this person's really paying attention. And we've we've had clients who save not just the photos we send but the whole update. And it's always the clients who never respond to our messages. It's so funny, they never respond. And then I'll be out or somebody will call me and they'll go I was on the vacation when you took care of so and so's dog. And she just hadn't showed all those photos the entire time. And we laughed and we cried, it was so fun. And I need you to take care of our cat this time. And you just don't know what's happening out there. But that's that's part of it. You just you do what you can you do the best that you can every time and you trust, this will take me forward, this will serve my clients better. And I know things will come from that.
Morgan W. 18:48
Absolutely. And I think, too, as we're going, you know, as a potential recession, you never know, like, they've been saying a recession for a while now. So we'll see if this holds up or not. But especially when we start thinking about what are ways that I need to, you know, really make sure that I'm I have a good retention on my current clients, it's always easier to serve your existing clients just like serve the socks off of them than it is to have to go out and find new clients. And so what are ways that we can really help our current clients feel like we value them? Right. And so I think it's hard to sometimes when you're in a service industry, how do you show your appreciation for your clients? And I think that, you know, these little things really do make a difference. We started leaving Welcome Home cards. And we started signing them. So whoever's coming over to visit the pets, we have a team so we work as a team approach. So usually there's you know, between maybe like two and four people visiting a family of depending on how long they're gone. And so we all started signing the cards, because I was actually at a client's house who had a housekeeper come over and it was like a Merry Maids and they left a card and they signed it so they knew you know in a way as you know, Merry Maids is a lot more anonymous, they know who is in their house, essentially. And when we send our reports, they do have everybody's names on them. So they know who's been there. But it's different to get like an electronic report with a name on it than it is to see somebody's handwriting on a card. And so then we started writing a little note, you know, like, Oh, it's so great to see them again, I hope you had a great trip. Or if we know that they're going on a trip for something, maybe they're going on, you know, a trip for a funeral or for a wedding or an anniversary or something, we try to tailor that note to that occasion, if we happen to know what it is, there's just one more personal touch to let them know, like, hey, we see you, we value you, like, we hope you had a good time, or we're so sorry that you had to take this trip. That kind of stuff, too, I think can go a long way as
Collin 20:42
well. And that gets to a question I had about in step two of your process for your new clients, you say we prepare and plan and eyes love this language, because it really is our responsibility as the business owners as a pet care professionals to plan to prepare. So how do we get better at that? What is this stage of the process look like for you and your team? For me, it
Morgan W. 21:05
really depends on the pets, and depends on the personality of the pets. So we have a few clients where we you know, it might be that only I visit them for a little while because maybe they're little bit more nervous or it just needs takes us some time to get to know them better before I introduce them to the rest of our team or even decide maybe which members of our team to introduce our this pet to because each of our team members has different specialities or different personalities. And so we want to make sure that we're doing our best to line up the pet with our care professionals that we think is going to do the be the best match for them. So there's that part of it. But it might also be like, Hey, this is an older dog, because they've been having some incontinence problems, we're gonna bring over some of our puppy pads, we're gonna bring over some of our washable, like absorbent pads, so we can maybe put that on top of their dog beds. So if they do have an accident, we don't have to wash their dog bed as much. Or maybe it's, Hey, this dog is a little bit more nervous. And so we want to make sure that we have really good treats when we walk in that house. So that way we know they know, like, oh, yeah, this is my friend, and they feed me. I said, I'm not above bribery when it comes to pets. No, I care. Yeah, as long as it's okay with the people, right, like making sure the treats are fine. But you know, we'll do that kind of stuff. Or, you know, just knowing hey, this person, yes, they want three visits a day, but their dog normally eats at like five o'clock. Or maybe it's the opposite of, you know, we're gonna get there at five. But, you know, their dog needs to eat more at like 330 So when we're there at noon, we're gonna give them a little snacks, they don't have hunger pukes. But time we show up at five, you know, those kinds of things start to play into it, or we have in our office, like a portable radio, like an old school, digital clock radio. And for some clients where they don't maybe have a TV, like we'll bring that along and plug it in. So that way, the pet gets a lot of like background noise that they would normally get if their person maybe works from home. So we tried to do our best to really understand what the that pets routine is, and then do our best. And obviously, if you're only visiting and you know, three times a day, you can only do so much with that. But you know, we do our best to mimic whatever kind of routine that we can.
Collin 23:11
Have you heard of time to pet Claire from acting critter sitters has this to say
23:16
time to pet has honestly revolutionized how we do business. My sitters can work much more independently because they have ongoing access to customer and pet information without relying on me. I save hours upon hours of administrative time on billing, processing payments and generating paychecks
Collin 23:32
if you're looking for new pet selling software, give time to pet a try. Listeners of our show can save 50% off your first three months by visiting time to vet.com/confessional. Well, it's just thinking through those scenarios, right? If you're reviewing that information, and I remember when we do was back from our science days of whenever you get a number you get information you always ask what does this mean? What does this tell me? Hey, okay, no an age of a dog. Okay, my brain should immediately be thinking at 15 What issues could be in this dog? What other lifestyle changes have they making? What can I do to improve this dog's life while their owner is away? And then I'm doing the research. I'm talking to people I'm doing. That's that preparation that comes in of going I'm not just reading report going great. Dog seven. Cool. Let's go. It's what a seven What does a seven year old dog for this breed in this health condition. Actually Tell me about the kind of care I need to give. And obviously, we're stacking that on top of the food and the exercise and the health conditions and the expectations and all that and putting all those pieces of that actual puzzle together. And then we layer on top of that, what we can do to make it better. And that that's that that's really what that comes down to is that that preparation side and really not skipping that step. It's really it's really easy to just go great. Thank you for the information. I'll be over tomorrow and just show up and figure it out. I don't know. I don't know if you've ever done that. Man we used to and it doesn't end well. Most of the time. Natalie caught off guard and you go man, I should have known that. And so really taking that time to pour through go, what questions elder questions do I have? What red flags? Am I seeing? What are the three, five things I need to know more information about that need to follow up on, before I show up and walk through this person's door?
Morgan W. 25:13
Absolutely are we have, like, I've taken rugs like rubber back to rugs over to people's houses before because maybe their elderly pet does great when they're home. But now when we get here, they're super excited. And they show up at the door. And they're like slipping all around. So we'll bring a rubber back to rug over we have, you know, some cat toys or puzzle toys, things like that. Or some people think, you know, they just like, hey, my dog really needs a walk. And sometimes the thing is, your dog doesn't need a walk, your dog needs some brain drain. So how can we maybe do a little bit of both and help you understand the value of the brain drain? To and then you're like, oh, gosh, this is working way better? Yeah, just do the brain drain like skip the walk, you know, there's, there's ways that we can help our clients and like you said, the better we know them. And the longer we're in business, the easier that is sometimes, like I know, my onboarding form is completely different from when we started even from a couple years ago, I've started finding better ways to ask questions that maybe remove the guilt that people feel about certain aspects of their pets personality. So I might ask a question like, is there anything you know, that we need to know about your pet in relation to XYZ? Or is there anything like, you know, is there anything that we should be concerned about? Or like be mindful of when we come over? You know, that's a much better way to say like, is your dog aggressive? And people are gonna say, No, my dog is fine. Or I might ask the question, how does your dog act when somebody new comes into their home? That's a much better way to get a, like a more truthful answer than just saying, has your dog ever bitten anybody? Or is your dog aggressive? Because people a lot of times feel a lot of, you know, maybe guilt or stress about certain things. And if we can kind of do our best to remove any kind of objectivity, then we have a better way to get to that answer.
Collin 27:06
I have a great one for you. It's one that 11 years ago and never knew we would have to encounter. It's been serving this dog for several years now. And very recently, his behavior totally changed. He's a Chow is naturally a little bit protective on the door. He is he all of a sudden became extremely elevated to the point where on one visit, we weren't able to get in through the door at all, we didn't feel safe entering, reached out to the client, asking some questions, trying to be as you know, just let her know, hey, we understand? Well, I want to figure out, is he doing okay, have you seen the vet what's going on here? And the response was, Well, when you first started serving Me and him, I had just had a restraining order placed against my ex. And he started to show back up at the house now that the restraining order has expired. And all of a sudden, it's like, okay, like, totally different, we're going to take several steps way back. But that just started with a simple question of, hey, I observed this change, and we want to make sure that he's okay. And then how can we help and move on from there, and realizing that we may have a plan, and it may be the best player in the whole wide world, but then things happen. And we just have to embrace embrace and openly communicate with the client and put together a plan about what that's going to look like things we can do, how we can change. And that's the experience, the expertise, the teamwork that we bring to those situations, at running our running our businesses to help them continue to have a good life with their pet. And it was one of those, like, I hated having that conversation. And it didn't make me feel good at the end. And, you know, it was very weird place to be like, I just wanted to come in and take your dog out for a coffee, but like, okay, like I get it, like, this is where we are now. And that's now now that we know that we can do so many things different and, and going from there.
Morgan W. 28:53
And that really stresses to the importance of building up that relationship before you have to have that conversation. And you know, obviously, if it's a brand new client, you don't necessarily have a ton of time to do that work. But if it's a client, you maybe have seen a couple times, you know, the best thing that you can do, I think, is start to build that relationship from the beginning. And that can be through even your use of onboarding or like I should say, pre boarding, like your social media, how do you your website, how do you talk to your clients before you actually talk to your clients to help them understand that you are the kind of person who wants to have those conversations, and who's open to having a more deeper understanding and a deeper relationship because if you had not maybe done some of those things that you had done, she might not have been comfortable telling you like hey, I've got this crazy ex who keeps showing up you know, that's a that's a really personal conversation to have with somebody and you have to have a really good level of trust in order for someone to even want to open up to you like that.
Collin 29:55
Right and going like I like we're, we're we're the pet sitters here like this isn't a conversation I'm sure are, you know, she expected to be having with us, you know, either, but because we had had built up a relationship, and we had worked through several things prior to this, that that's what that builds to you. And you get to that point where you can now tackle harder and harder things, which, unfortunately, is either going to happen just because of life eventually, or the dog ages. And now we have more and more difficult conversations that we have to have. So these things happen naturally. But we have to do the groundwork in the preparation, so that by the time that we get to those, we're ready for them as as ready as we'll ever be, you can't be ready 100%
Morgan W. 30:34
Now, some things life just throws you in the deep end. And you know, one thing we find a lot of having these hard conversations is like you said, when people's pets get older, or you know, they have to start saying goodbye to pets, that's not something that people go into the pet sitting industry, because they are really excited to do like, care for people's pets as they're dying, or, you know, as they're getting older. And it's it's not something that anybody warns you about nothing that anybody ever tells you. There's no manual that says like, great, you're gonna be a pet sitter. Awesome. You got to like have these contracts and these things. And by the way, a lot of pets are going to die. And you've got to become emotionally ready to manage that both for yourself and to help your clients through that process. And it's hard.
Collin 31:21
Yeah, when you have that nobody told me that I was going to have a conversation one day when a client called me asking me if I thought it was time to put their dog down because of their age and illnesses. Right? Like, whoa, like, no. Like, you just use the that those conversations just completely take the wind out of your day. And you, you you be you're honest with them, you have you have one thing, if you're serving clients for several years in a row is you have a track record documented through your software and communications with how things have been progressing. And you can just talk with him about how things were going and really just sit and listen to them. At the end of the day, I'm not going to go and say yes or no one way or the other. But we can we can help commiserate with them and help them feel assured that they'll be supported, right with those kind of conversations come up. Because it is it is very, it becomes a very deep relationship, even though as odd as it is, as you mentioned earlier, Morgan, I never see the clients, right, they're never there. So all of us, weirdly, we have this intimate relationship, close relationship with them, that in some cases we feel may come out of nowhere, right? We're like, Oh, I was, I was just checking on your dog. And like, we're like best friends now or whatever, whatever.
Morgan W. 32:33
And you and some clients you just naturally connect more deeply with than others. So you don't I don't want to don't want to put this out there that like every client is gonna be your best friend, are you going to have this amazing relationship? Because that's not accurate? You know, that's not real life. But you do find those clients, who will they do trust you? And you know, sometimes that's hard, because you do have to put a boundary up with some some folks or some of those questions. It's like, well, I cannot I'm not qualified to give you medical advice, or, you know, these are some of these times, it's questions that you need to talk with your vet about this. But you know, I do tell our clients that we are an objective third party, that can be very helpful. We have actually, unfortunately, or I'll say fortunately, or unfortunately, have caught severe illnesses and our clients because we don't see our clients necessarily every day. And even those clients, we do see maybe three or four times a week, it's easier for us to see those small changes, because we are not with them. 24/7 We don't live with them all the time. And we do have a client that we visited three times a week. And one of the benefits for us as a team approach is we do get kind of a different perspective, each of us have a different perspective, and then we can kind of collaborate. We had a client a couple years ago, where one day I said to my team member who did the majority of the visits for this particular client I said, you know, does this Louis look a little slow to you? Like a little bit down shows? You know, yeah, I've been thinking about that, too. I do feel like he's a little bit, you know, just his personality a little bit more suppressed than normal. And we kind of talked, talked it over and mentioned it to the client. And she's like, uh, you know, now that you mentioned it, yeah, I've kind of seen that to take him to the vet, and he had blood cancer. And so it was just one of those moments where I was like, oh, you know, we we were able to help them catch something and get them into the vet a lot sooner than they would have otherwise. Just because when you live with your pet, you don't always see those small changes because they are so small. But when we as a service provider come in, and even again, if it's a couple times a week, we those changes are a lot more noticeable to us. And so I have had clients who say, you know, gosh, what are you seeing? Because this is what I'm seeing, you know, I just want to talk this through with you. And we can kind of help provide maybe more questions that they hadn't thought about or a different perspective. But it's it's hard and you know, to have some pet that You've been loving on for me a couple years. And suddenly they get cancer. And then in a couple of weeks, maybe they're not here anymore, or even, you know, in a couple of months, they're not here anymore. It's, it can be brutal. You know, it can be really, it's really emotionally heavy. And that's not something that people are usually comfortable about talking about. And it's often like a disenfranchised because it's elbow, you're just the pet sitter, like, you couldn't have cared that much. And it's like, no, I saw when those pet died, or this client moved away, you know, you get attached, I don't think that's a bad thing. But it is something you do have to kind of carry and learn to manage, the longer you're in business.
Collin 35:38
It really is, we had one who passed away recently, and they still had a couple other dogs that we were coming over to take care of. And we use a team based approach as well. So I'm not always over there doing the visits in man, the first time I came into that house after the dog had passed away, who it was, I mean, I just walked straight into a brick wall. And I it took me several minutes to recollect myself, because all of a sudden the realization of like, oh, okay, this is, this is different now. And yeah, I'm still in that moment being okay to text a client and say, Hey, I know my first time over here, just want to let you know, really missing them see today, but I'm really looking forward to seeing everybody else. And embracing that part of commiserating with them so that they know that yeah, they because then they feel seen you feel seen because part of that healing process, too. Absolutely.
Morgan W. 36:25
And for a lot of our clients, again, disenfranchised grief, pet is often pet loss is often disenfranchised grief, they might not have anybody else where they feel safe, sharing those memories or, or feeling like that loss is being honored. And so I think we can, it's, it's an opportunity to really, again, connect with them and let them know how much we care because we do care and their pets are very precious to us. And it's kind of a fine line to feel like you're navigating. But you know, just like you said, just enough to say, Hey, I'm really thinking about you. And gosh, I really missed them, I or I miss this aspect of them, like meeting me at the door today can go a long way to help them feel better.
Collin 37:06
Morgan, you've mentioned drop in visits and walks a couple times are those the same services that you started off offering back in 2013.
Morgan W. 37:15
So really, we started with pet sitting, because pet sitting worked, you know, around our jobs. And we really didn't advertise the dog walking as much. I think our first year we had one dog walking client and the rest were pet setting. And then even up until I became full time, I really didn't have a lot of dog walking clients, it was almost all pet sitting. Because I just didn't have the capacity. And when we first started my husband and I worked opposite shifts, so I worked like eight to five, and he maybe worked like, you know, three to nine or something like that. And so we could kind of cover all of the things that need to be covered really well with petsitting, which is a lot harder to do, maybe in some other people's other types of work. But yeah, we really started with the pet setting and dropping pet sitting we've never really did live in care or overnight care is almost all drop in sitting. And then when I went full time, we really started advertising the dog walking. And that really grew pretty quickly. And then it ended up being about 50%. So we did about 50% pet sitting 50% dog walking, and then COVID hit. And that kind of decimated our pet or I say a dog walking part. And so now it's more like 75% pet setting or maybe 60% pet setting and the rest dog walking. So it's really interesting how that has shifted over the years.
Collin 38:34
Now, do you ever get requests for people who want boarding or live in care? Because I know that seems like the preponderance of my phone calls these days if they want to board or they want us to live in their home? And that's not something that we offer? And do you get those kinds of phone calls? And if you do, how do you take that conversation? Because I feel like there's that that conversation is really hard to take and turn into something more productive or how we can serve them?
Morgan W. 38:58
Absolutely. We do get those for sure. And, and it can be hard when we were really busy. I would just say like, Nope, sorry, we don't do that, like good luck in your search. Because there was a time where we weren't taking on any new petsitting clients because we were just so busy. So that was a lot easier just to say like, Nope, I'm sorry, I know how hard it is to find, you know, pet care that you trust, I am honored that you thought of us and I'm so sorry. But you know, we don't provide that service. And now it's a little bit different because we now are back to accepting new clients. And so sometimes I do say like Sorry, we you know, we do not do overnight service. But we do, you know, the strap and services and this is what that looks like, you know, if you're interested in that, you know, I'd be happy to talk with you more. But yeah, I can definitely be hard because you know, that's what like that's like the gold standard in terms of on our ends of petsitting. And I think a lot of people don't understand that. It is truly like a gold standard, you know, premium pet care. And do they think oh overnight pet sitters I should be able to get that for 30 bucks a night, and it's no big deal. And then a lot of us are over here. And we're like, Well, it's, you know, $250 a night plus midday drop ins, because they don't think about the fact that I've got to pay either myself or somebody else at minimum of minimum wage for every hour, they're there. And they just don't think about that. And there's also, you know, the inconvenience of, not in my own home with my own family and my own pets. And so if you, you know, if you can find somebody who wants to do overnight pet care, you need to treat them well, because it's a hard service it is, you know, it's difficult to be sleeping in somebody else's house and, you know, cooking in different kitchen or, you know, just trying to manage your household plus their household at the same time. So, yeah, it's a hard service to provide. I'm, I'm always amazed at the people who say, like, nope, all I ever do is overnights and it's like, you know, gosh, you are, you are amazing, keep going.
Collin 40:54
It really is. And it's understanding a lot of when we get those phone calls going, okay, this person who's calling me they have their hierarchy of needs, right, and they have it pretty set, they have their number 12345 of what they need met. And so I can try and talk to them, and maybe, quote unquote, educate them about different options. But if that hierarchy of needs is set for them, then the I'm not going to be the one to convince them otherwise, right? And I know that going into the conversation, not in a defeatist way, but in a release of pressure for me to help convince that, like, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to every time I get a phone call going, I've got to convert this person, I got to convert this, right? No, it's Oh, you want boarding? Okay, well, let me tell you about what we offer and the benefits that it does have. And leave it at that.
Morgan W. 41:45
I'm out here like, even jealous sizing, like drop in pet sitting services, right? Because I think it's like the very best option. But it is interesting. You mentioned like people have a hierarchy of needs. I talked to a guy recently, who was in a tight spot, because his, you know, like friend from work was going to take care of their pets, and they were going on a five day vacation. And like two days before they left, they dropped out on them. And so he was really in a pinch trying to find somebody. And I he was asking about overnight pet care. And I was like, you know, here's the deal, we don't normally do it. But what we could do is maybe like some longer daytime visits. So maybe instead of coming over for like our standard visit, maybe we come over and we're there for two or three hours. And he's like, you know, no, I just really want someone to sleep in the house. And I was like, I can appreciate that. Like, I appreciate that. That's your good. You said like, that's your hierarchy of needs, and like, but you also realize your pets are sleeping. You know, and it's like, if I came over for three hours during the day, that's a way more people interaction than your dog is gonna get by just me sleeping on your couch or something. But yeah, everyone has their hierarchy of needs. And there's not a value judgment. It's not like one is better than the other. But yeah, everyone just has their own idea of what they would like. And there's a saying what does that people convinced against their will are of the same opinion still. So I'm not out here trying to convince people that what we do is really awesome. And like the best thing ever, because it might not meet their needs. And so I just like you said, I try to take the pressure off and say, Hey, this is what we do. We think we're pretty great at it. You know, if you would like this too, we'd be happy to help you. And if not, like good luck. Because it is really hard to find, you know, you want to mesh with a client and I don't want someone to to like be grudgingly take our services because it's the only option available to them. Or, you know, they I've tried to convince them that it's going to be an amazing experience. Like I want them to book with us because they're looking forward to it and they think it's going to be a good choice for their pets, because again, that's a completely different relationship to build with somebody.
Collin 43:45
Our friends at the National Association of Professional pet sitters have a vision. They envision a future where pet care professionals and pet parents collaborate to make a significant impact on the welfare of pets and the pet industry through education, certification and community outreach. Together, we can make this vision a reality. Naps is run by its members for its members. It's a completely volunteer driven Association. They offer a trial membership and various webinars to showcase the many naps member benefits offered. Visit the NAPS website today at Pet sitters.org for membership and details and more information. Well yeah, because then you don't have this this cloud hovering over you going I've gotta prove myself I gotta prove myself I gotta do this. Not that we don't shoot for excellence every single time but then all of a sudden there becomes this much cloud of dread of like, oh, this is the client that it was on the phone for 45 minutes really hammered home and man I pulled out all the stops in my argument one on one and I got him over here but now it's like, oh, geez, like now. How do I how do I live up to this or how do I maintain this or meet these expectations? And, and so yes, yes, knowing I can only do so much and that's okay. And at the end of the day, they're going to take that are not in your they may be back then they may not. But at least I've, I've told them that our services and let's just let them know that we are an option to their pet care needs.
Morgan W. 45:09
Absolutely. And that can take, you know, it's a lot easier to say that when you have a lot of clients, you know, when you're first starting out, and you're like, I've got to be everything to everybody and serve, you know, even if they call me and they're leaving at five o'clock tonight, and they call me at one in the afternoon like I'm going to do it, it's a lot easier to say yes to those type of services when you are building your business. And maybe you'd like rent is due at the end of the month and or you've got it your mortgage to pay, like it's a lot harder to turn down clients when you really need them. And it's a lot easier to say, oh, gosh, I don't I don't love working for anybody who's not in alignment with me, that's kind of a you know, it's a place of privilege to be able to say that. But at the same time, we had a client where she chose us because it was kind of last minute, we were the only ones available. And it did not go well like her, like you said her expectation was different from what we were doing. She had a lot of family stress going on at the time. And so there was just a lot of impacting factors that were built up. And she did not have a great time, we did not have a great time and by employee was fairly new at the time. And she goes, You know, it's a lot better to work for people who are excited to have you there. It's like, yes, yes, it is. But it's again, it's hard. Like you've got to kind of figure that out and kind of experiment in your business to figure out, you know, who are the people I'd like to serve? And what kind of limits maybe do I want to start putting around my services. And you know, it takes time to figure that out. And you kind of have to try something and find out if it works or not.
Collin 46:40
You've said the word we quite a lot. And you've mentioned that you work really closely with with your husband and the aquarium business. And he helped you with your, your pet sitting in the early days. How has that relationship been? And what's it been like working so closely with him?
Morgan W. 46:54
You know, it's interesting when you have somebody who has kind of a different personality type than you. So I'm very much like a big ideas kind of head in the clouds person. And his first instinct is like, well, what are the details of why this isn't going to work? Sometimes, sometimes that can be extremely frustrating. But in the end, it usually works out where we're a good balance for each other. But I can tell you it took a while. We've been together now for oh my gosh, how many years like 16 years, something like that. And it's it's taken some time to get to the point where we could work like more closely together. And I'd say in the last two or three years, probably three years, it's been a lot easier. We were a bit more on the same page. And it's been much more collaborative, you could say because in two at the beginning, I kind of had my job, he kind of had his job. And actually he started the pet sitting so we always joke. He was like you always forget to tell the part about how I was the first pet sitter. Here you go. You are the first pet sitter of Lucky pup adventures.
Collin 48:00
credit where credit's due. Thank you. All right, put that we'll write that down. Oh,
Morgan W. 48:03
yeah, write that in the show notes. And I'm so anyway, so that then his job change, and then my job change. And I started doing more of the pet sitting. And so we've kind of exchanged rolls back and forth over the years, he used to like onboard all of the new clients and I would do more of the pet sitting. And now I kind of do more of both. But it can be hard to figure out a good mix. And so whether you have a partner or a spouse in the business, maybe you have just like a business manager with you, it can be really hard to figure out which roles you should play. Because we all have different strengths. And so there are a lot of times where I'm like, hey, I need you to review this message I'm going to send to a client because I want to make sure it's coming off. You know, the way that I think it's coming off. And you know, that kind of stuff can be hard. But it's nice to have somebody whether it's again, a partner, a business manager, or just even a close confidant, you know, another pet sitter that you can bounce an idea off of and say, Hey, this is what I'm thinking of, like, Does this make sense? And that's been really nice to have for sure.
Collin 49:07
Well, yeah, especially someone who you know, you trust you, you have confidence in security in which that gives you a lot of ability to try new things to experiment with new things and your best because sometimes they don't always they don't always work out for the best.
Morgan W. 49:21
Absolutely. And you know, and I think it's also important to have somebody who knows your business. And I love you know, all of like, I love that your guys's group that you have on Facebook and sometimes people ask this like really detailed advice question and they don't realize how detailed it is. And it's like, you're gonna get a lot of advice here and some of this is probably terrible advice for your business. But nobody knows that because we don't know your business like you know your business. Yeah. And so if you can build a relationship again with a close confidant or a partner or somebody and so you know, sometimes your partner doesn't know enough about your business to be able to give you good advice about your business. But if you can find somebody who can really be that sounding board. That's really important. And you know, I'll do I'll say, Colin, you mentioned the experimenting. And sometimes things don't work, or they think they work out different than you think they're going to. So in January of 2020, our business was really picking up. And so my husband was working at a pet store. He's been working in pet retail for a long time. And our petsitting business was just getting full enough. And I said, Hey, I really need another dog walker, the, you know, we're not really finding the right kind of person to add to our team. Because you may go part time, and you're at work and start our time dog walking with us. And he's like, Yeah, I could probably do that again. So we did that. And after a while, things were getting more busy again, and we said, you know, do you want to go full time? Do you want to like, quit, we're gonna make this choice, are you going to quit your job and work full time in the business together? And he's like, Yeah, I suppose I could probably do that. So we did that quit his job, which was sort of terrifying. Because, you know, while we are in little at that point, we were in 2022. So we were two years out from the pandemic, my little like, reptilian brain just kept going, like COVID is going to come back and everything's gonna get shut down, and everybody's going to leave, and then you're going to be screwed, because now there's no extra like outside income coming in, I think there's a lot of people who are probably in that position where their business was grown. And now they have like two people in that household who are now trying to both make their income off of that business. And you know, things were going great things were kind of picking up. And then in the way that things do, things started going down a little bit again, as we kind of hit like recession fears towards the end of 2022. And then winter hit, which we are in the northern plains, we're up in South Dakota, and it gets pretty stinking miserable up here. And this was a really hard winter. And he's like, You know what, I think I need to not be walking dogs full time anymore. And I've got to go back to retail, where there's people who I can talk to, and get, and get this interaction from and go back to this part of the job that he really did enjoy. He liked where he worked. And so we made the decision then together to say like, yeah, you can go back, like, go back to work full time. And we'll start to either I'm gonna pick up more walks, or we're gonna try hiring more people, or, you know, more people on our team have more availability, like, we'll figure this out, but you have to do something and figure out whether you like it or not. And just because you make one decision in your business doesn't mean you have to stick with that forever, like, it's okay to be flexible.
Collin 52:29
It is because, well, I'll say it is it isn't. Because in a lot of cases, we see ourselves as being failures as have not succeeding, I didn't do it, right, I didn't do this is why we go down that track, instead of going, I know better, or I have to do something different now. So I'm going to make a better I'm going to do a different decision, that's going to be better fitting for me. And we forget that not just do I change and grow over time, but my business does, too. My business has its ups my business has its downs my business has, it's in between, and I need to adapt to make decisions fitting for each one of those and everything in between different scenarios. And, and that it's just me making good decisions. That's what it is not failing, I'm making a good decision today. But that's, that's not what we tell ourselves. That's not what the lizard brain says in the back. Because that that says, Never do this, again, you're gonna get hurt, you know, preserve life, preserving kind of decisions here, go back to stability, don't do this again, and just keep trying to stay as normal as possible.
Morgan W. 53:28
Mm hmm. Absolutely. And I think too, that we, you learn a lot through failure, quote, unquote, right, we're gonna put failure in quotes, because we never really fail. We just learned more information. And one of my favorite podcasts is how I built this, and every single episode and took me a while to figure this out. But every single episode is some like bajillion heir who had some horrible business failure. And they built it back, you know, or they learned something new. And they like that what they learned new was the thing that took their business off. And so it's, you know, you never fail, you just learn more information, and you can't learn more information unless you're willing to take a jump. And so we did learn a lot of things like I not necessarily, like some people love reports. Like, I am not a, like a numbers report kind of person. It's like, the last thing I want to do on my to do list I'd rather be like, you know, talking with my clients and like meeting new people. And so I did learn, I'm like, oh, gosh, you know, I probably could have caught some of these things. Six months ago, if I had been doing like X, Y, or Z. And again, you learned those things. I wouldn't know how we could have made our business better and how we're going to make our business better if we hadn't experienced those things in the first place.
Collin 54:47
You now know better and you will do better. Right? That's that's where that comes in. And you just don't know and it's okay, right? It's not we don't know everything and we can't be prepared for every single situation. We can do our best and then we move on and we Learn from that, which is a lot easier to say again, I keep saying that, like, it's an easy thing. It's not right, it's very, we have to say that it is a process. And sometimes you don't learn from it four years down the line before you can point back and go, Oh, that's why that Oh, I remember that one thing that happened. That's, that's that was preparing me
Morgan W. 55:18
for today. Yeah, and when you're in the weeds of your business, you can't see those things until you do like, zoom back out. Or maybe you have somebody who can help you zoom out and look at those things. But when you're in it, and you're in the day to day, of maybe you have a team member who's on vacation, or maybe you have a really busy holiday week, and suddenly everybody is traveling all at the same time, and you are running from, you know, seven in the morning until 10 o'clock at night, you don't have time to think about all of those things. And so, you know, one thing that as our business is growing is we're trying to figure out this balance of when do I get to stop being the chief everything officer, where I am the dogwalker, the scheduler, the customer service representative, the CFO, you know, the ce o all of these things? And when can we start to parse this out, whether it's to maybe our team members who want to take on a little extra responsibility, you know, whether that was my husband, and I, okay, are you going to take some of this, and I'm gonna take some of these other things like what fits our personalities best, like all of that is really challenging, and it does take time. And if you don't have the time and the brain space to devote to that, it's just not going to happen. So it was kind of actually tricky. When he decided he's gonna quit his job. I managed to get COVID And I was in bed for I got hit hard, and I was in bed for like two and a half weeks. And then our dog got cancer and died. And then we brought a new puppy home. And then like the summer crazy schedule took off. And so it just it was was a challenge of trying to find the right time to make all of those things happen. And yeah, if you're not paying attention to it, it's really easy to just keep going with the flow and keep visiting pets without taking that step back and trying to figure out some of those more managerial things, which, again, can be hard when you're there for the pets, you don't always think about okay, what is the business part? Like? What does the business of Lucky pup adventurers need, which is different from what maybe the team needs or what our clients need?
Collin 57:17
Right? It takes takes that time, it also takes being exposed to new ideas and to new ways of thinking and, and Morgan, I know you're, you're a big reader, you've got a lot of law books seems like you're I don't know how many you read at any given time. But
Morgan W. 57:32
I actually had to make me myself a list because it's hard to go back. And I never really keep track. And I've actually started this year off with reading a lot. So I actually have a note on my phone of which books I'm reading and finishing in each month. So in January, I finished three books. And we're in February. So we're you know, I've already finished four books in February. So it's been a little bit crazy how many books I've been consuming lately?
Collin 57:58
What have been some of your favorites that you've read? Maybe not just this year, but maybe most influential to you?
Morgan W. 58:04
Yeah, I think in terms of running the business side, I would say one of the most influential ones is profit first. And I will say this book and everything I've ever, ever get asked the question, I'm always gonna say profit first. Because it really helps set your business up for success on the financial side. And the nice thing about financial or Profit First is that it's talking about, it's like creating an envelope system for your business. And when you do work, like a service provider, where you do an hour of work, and you get paid for that hour of work, it's really easy to divide your finances up in a way that is self sustaining. And so we have, okay, this much money needs to go to taxes and this much money needs to go to, you know, payroll, and this much money goes to our vehicle expenses, and this much money goes to our profit that we can try to bring home at the end of the day, you know, for taking this risk of being a business owner. And all of these things go in the right envelopes. And so we never run out of money to pay our taxes, and we never run out of money to you know, pay our employees because we are dividing things up in a in a very specific way. So that'd be one. And, you know, Colin, you and I have joked about the book, the gap in the game, because that is a book that I will Evangelho Assize till the end of time. Because it's a great book for helping people look at the opportunities that are in life and not necessarily all of the challenges as we that we've had. So I'll say that. And then the one of the most profound books I'm reading right or I just read right now is called the Five invitations and it just gets kind of a sad book. So you got to prepare yourself. It's not going to be a book that everybody wants to read. But I'm getting ready to present at the Texas Pet Sitter conference about about honoring grief and loss and as a pet sitting business. And this book was written by a man who is a founder of a Buddhist hospice center and it has An absolutely beautiful book. And I will say so in 2020, I'm gonna go back just slightly in 2020, we had a horrible year, not only was it COVID kind of took over everything, but my beloved two and a half year old dog, we had to decide to put her down for behavioral euthanasia reasons. And that just kind of ripped my heart out and broke it into a bajillion pieces. And then we, we did that. And about two weeks later, my husband was diagnosed with a bladder tumor, which does not happen in 30 year old people, that's usually something that happens to like 90 year old men, or people who have been smoking for 70 years. And so between business kind of in the toilet, our dog dying, and the husband getting cancer, I started to look at the world differently. And I decided that, you know, yes, we have to, you know, plan for the future and make sure that we're setting ourselves up to have a good, prosperous future. At the same time, we need to live right now. Because, you know, in a moment, everything can change for you. And so, I kind of came up with our new philosophy and our new mission in life, which is to live full and live happy. And one of the things that has brought me to this book that I was mentioning to five invitations, as he talks about what death can teach us about living life, and how can we live life more fully through the lens of death. And again, this book is not going to be for everybody. But it is, it was really impactful. And especially as I'm reading this presentation, to have this really hard conversation with a group of pet sitters. It's been a really a really good book. But yeah, I think there's there's a lot about living in the moment. And as pet sitters, we have a tendency to burn ourselves out and over commit. And if we are not purposefully living a full and happy life now, and we say this one, but two things about the gap in the game, I'll bring that book back in here. In the gap in the game, there's a lot of people who say, Well, I'll be happy when I'll be happy when I have a manager to help me with my business. And then I won't be so burnt out, or I'll be happy when I hire my first employee, or I'll be happy when my business hits $50,000 in revenue, or $300,000, in revenue, or whatever that mythical thing in the future is, let's not wait until then to be happy. Let's not wait until then to live a full life. But also, if you're waiting for some future thing to happen in order for you to be happy, you're probably not going to be happy when you get it. Because it's just this like, arbitrary signpost that you happen upon. Whereas if we can do our efforts to live a full and happy life now, no matter what happens in the future, whether you get that revenue goal or you hire that person, you'll still have a happy life. And if you don't, it's okay, because you'll still have a happy life. Like, I think that's that's really important. So that's my soapbox tangent moment there, Colin.
Collin 1:02:56
I'll take it. And I
1:03:02
Morgan, I can't tell you how thankful I am for you giving us some of your time today and walking us through giving, not just our clients delight, but we taking delight in the life that we have today. And taking full advantage of that whatever that looks like, I know that there's a lot more that we could talk about here. And you actually have a lot going on. So how can how can people get in touch with you and follow along with everything that you're doing?
Morgan W. 1:03:28
Yeah, so the best place to follow kind of what we've got going on is on Instagram, I'm a big Instagram person, I share a lot of behind the scenes. So if you happen to be on Instagram, you can find us at underscore lucky pup. And I post a lot of like, kind of personal things there too. So like my cute little beagle puppy, he often makes an appearance and things like that. We do like we talked just very briefly we do memory flame candles, which is born out of the loss of our dog olive that I mentioned. And that is at memory flame.co on Instagram or memory flame.co online. And those are kind of the two places and then I am starting I've done a couple presentations for different organizations. And I talk a little bit about that over on lucky pup living.com. So those are a few places you can find us.
Collin 1:04:18
Cool. I will have links to those and some of the books that we've talked about in the show notes so listeners can go get click to that, Morgan, it's been an immense pleasure. And again, I can't thank you enough for your time. I've just really enjoyed today.
Morgan W. 1:04:31
Well, thank you, Colin, I always enjoy any chance I can spend with you and Megan, this has been a really a lot of fun.
Collin 1:04:37
What does it mean to bring to light and to delight your clients? It starts with understanding what delights you and what you can bring to the table. Only then will you be able to do this consistently and reliably predictably and enthusiastically when you are with the pets. I know there are days where it can be a drudgery where If something just doesn't work out, or you're frustrated and could go by in a blur, but by tapping into an internal motivation by something that you can see in yourself, for your reason, your passion for being there with that cat on that floor on a random Tuesday, with thunderstorms going on outside, when you can tap into that, it doesn't just make the moment special for the client. It makes it special for you, which is critical when we think about the longevity of our business and our ability to consistently provide the high quality service that we come to expect from ourselves. We'd love to know how you delight your clients and what delight you find in the services that you offer. You can send that to feedback at petsitter confessional.com. We'd love to be able to read that out on episode and continue the conversation. We want to thank today's sponsors, time to pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters. And thank you so much for listening. It means so much that you're here. We really appreciate you. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. And we'll be back again soon.
