401: How to Retain the Best Clients with Candace D’Agnolo
How do you keep clients coming back over and over? Candace D’Agnolo, from Pet Boss Nation, joins the show to discuss how to create raving fans of your business. Candace breaks down strategies for building long-lasting relationships with clients, and how to help them fall in love with your services. She also shows us ways to increase the perceived value of your business, while anticipating your client’s needs. Finally, Candace encourages us to implement follow-up services as a way to keep clients invested and engaged.
Main Topics
Building lasting relationships
Increasing perceived value
Anticipating needs
Follow-up services
Main takeaway: If you approach your clients from a place of service - it’s never selling.
About our guest:
From failing to scaling, broke to naming her price and selling businesses, and from chained to her storefront to traveling the world, Candace has experienced first-hand the extreme struggles and ultimate successes of pet entrepreneurship since 2004.
The one thing she wished she had but couldn't find was a support system of industry peers who believed in community over competition, mentors who could guide her, and a resource for the best marketing ideas around.
Candace owned and operated three brick and mortar pet businesses with 27 employees before she turned 30 called Dogaholics. And by the time the recession rolled around in 2010, she was buried in debt--to the tune of $400,000. WOAH. Despite the outward appearance of success, her health, wealth and happiness were so far out of reach, she wondered when she'd ever see them again.
But then, the tide changed. She invested in the support she desperately needed from mentors and went on to hit the multiple 7-figure revenue mark. Even after selling three pet businesses, one to Bentley's Pet Stuff and another to Destination Pet (together totaling a multiple 7 figure exit), her proudest moment was actually going from a negative $5,000 in the bank on the regular to three months worth of business expenses saved. It proved she was on the right track and could do anything!
Her original brick and mortar retail pet supply stores transformed into multiple revenue streams including retail, grooming, doggy daycare, boarding, training, dog walking, play park memberships, online informational products, books and merchandise.
Pet Boss Nation was founded in 2017 because Candace knew the pet industry was craving connection, needed leadership from the trenches and some business secrets to add to all the love of health and wellness knowledge for animals!
Having created a community from 0-4,000+ in a short amount of time, Candace and the Pet Boss Nation team now teach business growth strategies through coursework, seminars, private sessions, brand partnerships, one-on-one sessions, and through industry magazine columns, webinars and blogs.
Links:
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
pet, clients, business, customers, dog, service, feel, opportunities, learn, call, offer, give, expectations, day, grooming, company, ended, walking, pet sitters, thinking
SPEAKERS
Collin, Candace D.
Collin 00:03
Welcome to pet sitter confessional. Today, we're brought to you by time to pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters. Today, we are super excited to have Candice from pet boss nation and the boss your business podcast. And if you're not listening to that, if you're not involved with that content, there will be links in the show notes directly for you to go get in contact with that, Candice. It is a pleasure and an honor to have you on today I'm super excited to dive into a topic that I don't feel like we talk a lot about in running our businesses, but doing dog walking and pet sitting is client retention and conversion of clients into our business. But for those who aren't familiar with you and all of your body of work, can you please tell us a little bit more about yourself and all that you do?
Candace D. 00:44
Well, thanks so much for having me here. Colin, I'm really excited. I've been following your podcast for a while. And I love listening. So I really feel honored to be here today on your on your podcast.
00:56
Thank you. Thank you.
Candace D. 00:57
So at Pet boss nation, we are keeping it simple. Here we help pet business owners who have a local pet business. So your pet retailers, dog daycares, pet sitters, and more all increase their revenue, through improving their marketing strategies, and also helping them with their leadership styles. And a sense ultimately, to get their life back, reclaim their life back so that they can have a thriving life and a thriving business. So we support all the different pieces. And we do it through a variety of ways. I have a membership, we have our podcast as well, we have YouTube, I do one on ones. And we've really created this big community in the pet industry, my pet boss nation, of a collaboration and the different niches within the space coming together to partner and to learn more about how the whole ecosystem works. You know, I have an extensive career in the pet industry, I started back in 2004, which we might have time to kind of go through some of the things I've done personally. But I just had found that everyone was kind of in their little silos. And I wanted a place where we could learn about the different revenue streams inside the pet space and kind of how they all play together. Because ultimately, we all share the same customer, that pet parent. And there's lots of ways that we can collaborate and do business together. So I wanted to find a creative space, but ultimately a business coaching company that helps the small business owner improve their professional skills and running a business to make it a little bit easier for everybody.
Collin 02:31
You said that phrase we all share the same customer I think we forget about that because we are in our silos of, of oh, that's the only touchpoint or I'm they only see me here and we forget about the vets the groomers the trainer's the boardings the day care the whole circle around them, right? Like why is it important for us as business owners to keep that top of mind while we're serving our
Candace D. 02:54
customers? Well, that is really kind of the start of the lead generation and opportunities. And it's because when we, you know, a new pet parent, they let's say they get a dog and they now are going to their veterinarian that might be the first place they might go or they're going to going to go to the local pet supply store. And as a former pet supply store owner, I tell you, I have had more new pet parents come in and ask for a dog trainer referral or a pet sitter referral. And, and so that ecosystem of well then I'm gonna refer out as a retailer refer out to the pet sitter, while the pet sitter now is in the person's home seeing the type of dog food that they might be carrying, or seeing that really worn out dog bed. And they might be able to refer back to the business, or they're on a walk with the dog. And they realize that this dog is pulling a lot these people really need to hire a dog trainer or is a reactionary dog. And so now they've got a dog, a dog trainer that they can refer out or a dog daycare, you know, we have to I'm a former dog daycare owner as well. And we would do an assessment test to pass the dogs a daycare and then not every dog up passes our assessment tests. And so the reason I ended up offering dog walking services was because I didn't want to say no to that bit potential business that was there. So we started a whole new revenue stream of dog walking, basically for the dogs who are getting turned away from daycare and that evolved. But the daycares need a referral of a pet sitter dog walker for the dogs who are not, who shouldn't be going to daycare. So there is this whole ecosystem. And why it matters is that this is at least my personal belief is that when a small business is thriving in a local community, it can be a huge game changer to that local community and inspires your fellow business owners and inspires the people who you employ. And the ripple effect and the legacy that you can leave is just profound, honestly, when we start to really collaborate and connect with each other and other small business owners, instead of feeling like it's competition. So that's the main that's the main thing. But ultimately, this this this relationship building that we all need to be working on and partnering with other businesses to drives us new customers,
Collin 05:02
it does well and it keeps the industry as a whole healthy because if people don't if people stop owning pets, I'm out of a job, right? My business doesn't do. So right, we are incentivized to compete make our communities more pet friendly and more pet accessible to pet owners. And that means having these kinds of connections and these, this collaborative effort to make sure that this pet stays with this person for as long as possible and in an unhealthy in sound way. And so by reaching out to building those relationships and getting out of our silo, it helps not only our businesses, but it helps the pet parents lead a better life with their pet as well. Then you mentioned retail store. You mentioned a daycare facility. Yeah.
Candace D. 05:45
I've worked in almost all the silos. Yeah, so I very first started as a doggy bakery business with Mike one of my girlfriends. And we ended up wholesaling dog paste retreat. So I learned how to exhibit at the big trade shows and sell and open up wholesale lines. And ship across the country. This was back in like I said, 2004. And then I ended up wanting to just start my own business. And so in 2006, I started dog holics in Chicago, Illinois, and dog a holics. The first location was retail boutique think you know, high end collars, leashes, toys, all natural foods. But again, back in 2006, like there weren't very many of us across the country. And then we also offered self wash, but I couldn't really get the self wash off the ground. I think, again, as a concept, people aren't really used to that. This this is before Facebook, or this is I think Yelp was around. But even having an online store. I feel like that tells us it doesn't seem that long ago, but I feel like even back then, like the digital avenues to market were not like they are now. But I didn't wasn't able to fill myself watchface. So I ended up meeting a groomer who was getting back into the industry and wanted to help grow or like, build their client book. So together, we work to grow a client book for grooming out of that location. A year later, I opened a second location, because I thought How hard could this be? You know, I've already like done it once, how hard could it be and open up a second location and then realized, Oh, my goodness, I can't pull myself in both places at the same time. And realize then, as I grew my team, how much I didn't have as far as employee handbooks or policies and job descriptions. And I really ended up becoming like an HR office, right, where, but anyway, I had I had the second location where we did all retail also and again, grooming. And then about a year after that, I found out that it was going to be construction happening right next door to one of the businesses and they were going to close the whole block. And I thought, Well, gosh, I'll be out of business real quick there if no one can actually walk on my side of the street. So I moved across the street to my route my retail store across the street. But I couldn't get out of my existing lease because it was like not like I was going to disappear. go out of business, my landlord would be able to find me down the street at somebody else's building. Look across your eye. Yeah, pretty much. So I was like, oh, everyone's like, Oh, just bail on the lease. I'm like, it's not like I'm like going off to another country, like they're gonna be able to find me. So I what was cool about that other space, though, was that it had a lot of outdoor space. So I decided I surveyed my customers and I decided that I would do a doggy daycare out of that other retail space. And that is a whole long story. But ultimately, it took a long time to get there. But we did get there and turning that business around and we had a doggy daycare. And then like I said, I started a dog walking business because of the dogs that were getting turned down from daycare. So one point I did have three physical locations and a dog walking business all in Chicago, Illinois, and I was about 30 years old. And then and I was going through the recession. So at the time of 22 Those are just gone through the recession of 2008 2009 So that was really a tough spot but I close one location I sold a location to Bentley's pet stuff, which is a Marcus Lemonis company they were featured on market samonas was the prophet as they call me to TV show on CNBC called the prophet and he would invest in Mom and Pop type businesses and then Oh he'd make over the businesses on the show and then decide if he was going to invest in them. He did that with Bentley's pet stuff. I reached out to Bentley's pet stuff they acquired my retail store. And then I ended up selling my doggy daycare to destination pets at the beginning of the pandemic and right like a week before the pandemic Wow, yeah, born under a lucky star there with that one. And the dog walking business though I ended up closing completely, which is again another whole nother story but it closed it we had enough business for seven full time walkers. But I my customers were running my business and I had there was a lot about petsitting that I just didn't really get because I was not thinking about it as a If it was a solution to Phil a problem at the time, and I wasn't really thinking about how does that business really benefit the customer and us as a company, and I wasn't strategic about it, and that ended up, you know, biting me in the butt the next, you know, later on.
Collin 10:18
Lots of lots of lessons, there can be no so
Candace D. 10:21
much. I know, we don't know me well, but it's kind of like learning from a fire hose or drinking from a fire hose. When you talk to me, it's that I throw a lot at you. And hopefully, hopefully, your listeners will come away with something. And I think what's
Collin 10:34
important, what's what's central to that is that in the pet care industry, this is a relationship based business. Yeah, it's relationship. And we want as a business long term clients, because less turnover with us is going to mean less headache, it's going to mean less overhead of us doing onboarding, and meet and greets, and giving up materials and wasting, quote, unquote, wasting our time bringing people and it's very costly to us both with our time when we're paying staff members to do that. So in your time running the myriad of silos that you were involved in? How did you find building those long term relationships with clients? What are some things that you did to invest back into them?
Candace D. 11:16
Well, and this is something that we teach about at Pet boss nation, too, is that we want to really get to know the customer, right, have build that intimate relationship. And so if we look at like, well, what is it that? What opportunities are we giving our customers to connect with us and connect with and potentially with each other? And how do we connect, I guess, in the pet sitting space, how are we connecting with the pets. And that ultimately, will lead to longer retention, and we can talk about those strategies. But I want to kind of go back real quick a little bit and just explain that all of us need to be attracting business to us, right, that's that driving the traffic driving the leads. And then and then once you're getting these leads, we need to convert them, right, we have to actually close the deal, like close the sale, get them to buy, get them to commit. And then once we've gotten that commitment from them, we need to retain that client base, because you've worked so hard, you've you've run the ads, or maybe you've you've paid for the pop up booth at the bark in the park, or, you know, you've you've dedicated a day to walk in all the veterinarians offices and putting up posters in there, or whatever it is, you've done, right? You've dedicated time to try to find these people. You've gotten them to buy that one time. And now, how do we get them to buy again, how do we get them to keep paying us and then so that's that retention piece and getting to build that that trust and get them to buy more frequently, and we'd like to teach a pet boss nation that if you can increase you know, if you can get your customers to spend more frequently, it's much easier than good trying to find new customers again.
Collin 12:48
Have you heard of time to pet krisann from raining cats and dogs has this to say
12:52
becoming a time to pet client has been a game changer for us. We can give our pet services clients real time, cloud based information they never imagined they'd be interested in. And most importantly, to me personally, I can better manage my company and look forward to more and not a small thing. Time to pet is responsive to my requests for new features and modifications to existing ones.
Collin 13:17
If you're looking for new pet selling software, give time to pet a try listeners of our show save 50% off your first three months by visiting time to vet.com/confessional. Yeah, it's it's when you look at the ROI on that investment. Okay, if I spend $1 to try and convince my existing customers to do something more with me, that's going to not just go further, it's gonna be an easier spend than going out and trying to go to the wider market of going okay, because at that point, you are trying to convince people okay, no, come to me. But when somebody is in front of you being like, Yes, I trust you. I know you. You're my go to person for this. You said that phrase of what opportunities do we give clients? Do we give clients to connect back with us? I think that's so critical of realizing that we have clients that want more from us, they are actively looking to us going Okay, what else? What else is there? What else? Yeah, and we can be oblivious to that sometimes because we're busy doing other things.
Candace D. 14:07
Right, right. One thing that came to mind when we think about, I guess, that first interaction it's that I love you know, we just had a column we just said well, you know, this column will tell your listeners you they were just calling and Meghan were just over in the pet boss club, our monthly group membership, helping fill in as a business coach for me while I was on maternity leave, and during a live q&a. You drop the wisdom bomb of you don't like to call it a meet and greet anymore. Right? It's like a home consultation, right or what are some of the other ones?
Collin 14:43
Oh, a first new client setup or new client,
Candace D. 14:47
client setup, New Client Onboarding, right. So I think we have to start kind of start there, right. If we can capture someone's attention and help them fall in love I have with us right to help that client just completely fall head over heels in love with us during that first meet and greets even like dating, right? It's like, okay, how can I wow them? How can we move them. And a lot of it is going to be some hand holding strong communication skills, really laying out what your boundaries are, what their what their expectations are, right? I think a lot of disappointment can come from unmet expectations. And if we can get clear and take time in the initial introduction, initial meeting, to really get to know each other, and learn what their expectations are, and be open to receiving them, right and thinking, Okay, I have these policies in place. But maybe this client needs a different type of service, or has different desires than my other some of my other clients. And so I think being open to what our client desire is, can we meet that expectation, and then have that conversation and set, set the tone for what like, what's the next what's the rest of the relationship will be like. And at that point, then is maintaining that communication, like we want to check in after that meet and greet after that first service. If it's an immediate follow up after that first day, maybe it's not just a quick email, maybe it isn't an email that triggers it, but maybe it's a text message, or maybe it's actually picking up the phone and calling. Or maybe it's even you grabbing your cell phones, and recording a video message of you saying, Hey, I just wrapping up my day, I've walked all, you know, I've seen all the clients for the day wanted to follow back up with you see how it went your home, now, I had such a great time, I want to keep lines of communication open. So if there's anything I could do to improve, please let me know. Now I want to take the best care of your pet, you could record a video like that in 60 seconds and shoot it as a text message off. And you know, that's gonna seem like, wow, my mind, you know, pets that are just really thinking about my dog and me at the end of their day. And it has given me now they've said, I want to hear how it went from your perspective. And I want that feedback so that I can be better for you and your pet. It makes it a lot easier from the consumer standpoint that they've already put that wall down, because it can be awkward for a customer to feel like, I don't really like the way that that thing was done. And now I have to I have to initiate confrontation. Yeah. And I don't want I don't personally, I don't like doing that. I've learned to become better at it. Because I have had up to you know, 30 employees. At one point, I think I've employed like 200 people crazy. But I've had to learn to be good at confrontation. But I think what we can do as a service provider is perfect. Give them opportunities to let let our customers know that we want this feedback, I would much rather them scream and yell at me personally than have them go to the internet and scream and yell. Yeah. You know, I'll take it, because it's always an opportunity to improve. But I think in the beginning, it's just we want to align expectations, and deliver the best service that we can. Because I think it's in doing this in the beginning, making making or opening up those lines of communication and the beginning and providing opportunities for your customers to no one know how to get a hold of you right and what the not only the best or easiest form is for you, but what's going to make that communication happen with ease for that customer. And then that kind of setting the tone that will start to kind of build that relationship, build that trust. And then I think they're already going to start to fall in love with you, I think that it's easier to grow the relationship. And then over time, you know, you can continue to do things that would support the retention and then staying with you for a longer amount of time. But I think that initial hand holding is really really where you earn their trust. And even and then it kind of goes from there. Well, when
Collin 19:09
you're when you're vulnerable because that's what that takes, right. When you take the perspective of don't make the client initiate confrontation, or feel like they're giving you bad news. You take that initiative upon yourself so that they know okay, this door is open. It's one thing to say come to me with any problems come to me with any concerns. I statistically people won't do that. Right. I taught for years and years. You know, we're even running our business for a year. We're doing this 11 years now. If you just say, let me know if you have any questions, let me know any concerns, comments, concerns, criticisms, right. Cricket? Crickets, literal crickets like you have to go to them and open that door. It's kind of like showing them look door open. I'm here. Hi. Yeah, I want to know, I want to know and sometimes we can feel that that no news is good news. Right. And so what'd you make? You're making me go find a news. Why would you do that correctly? That's great, they're going to actually say they're gonna respond to something. That's the only way that we have that conversation with them. The only way they can go, oh, wow, this, this person does care, this company genuinely wants to know that they're doing a good job for me. And then we need to be open to that.
Candace D. 20:17
Yes, open, open to hearing, hearing the feedback, regardless of if it's good or bad. And, you know, I like, again, I think I've growing up in the age of online reviews, it's hard to hear negative things that happened. But it's, it's always an opportunity to grow and to learn.
Collin 20:38
You mentioned a couple of different methods of calling texting video are there specific, maybe not just communication channels, but the techniques or styles that you found that have worked really well, when working with people on this?
Candace D. 20:53
Well, there are a couple of interesting tech platforms that make it easy, and maybe even some of the tech platforms you might be using, with your current petsitting software could integrate somehow with this kind of feedback. But there's a platform called Video Haske, which I really love. And it's a quick way to shoot off videos, to your customers and kind of, they can prompt right back back and forth with you. Or you can they can have an option to chat or video or audio message you. And it's a little bit easier I think for than going like logging into a platform and having to remember passwords and send you a message to the portal. But there's something like that. And then even thinking like Voxer, right, I don't know if you're familiar with Voxer. But it's another kind of like a walkie talkie app, we found that a lot of pets that are companies actually in dog walking companies use Voxer to have group threads with all of their teams, you can create channels, and you can just pick up your phone and talk right into it. Like what quick little voice memos. So even even thinking that that might be a way to communicate with your customers just get all your clients on boarded onto the Voxer app so that you can communicate quickly via audio that way, I like to just approach it as the not so much. I think we've talked about like, Well, don't take the bad review personally. And let's let's focus, I guess real quick on that negative part of it, let's say you aren't getting that feedback, I like to let the person vent and share what they want to share, right, we want that person to feel like they've been heard, we need to we need to take our walls down and let the person communicate everything that they want to say. And then we can repeat back to them what it is that we have heard, or what we think we've heard and their main concerns, and then we can let them know, either why we have a certain role in place, or why we do what we do. Or it's an opportunity to say, you know, we did drop the ball there or we we have a lot to learn from here, I'm going to go back to our team and we are going to rethink about how we handle a certain situation, right, like acknowledge to them that you are going to take action to resolve it. Because I think at least my experience when customers are upset, they just worry that other people are going to other pet parents, other clients of yours are also experiencing this problem. And so we want to acknowledge that we've heard you Is this correct? We agree we need to make some improvements, maybe more training with this team member or we think a system or something and then we can go back and revisit it. So that that's kind of some communication steps on how to handle when something goes wrong. And I will tell you, I got having had a grooming business and having had doggy daycare where fights happen and dogs may maybe get nicked or the customer doesn't like the way the dog was groomed. We have dealt with this a lot on kind of not me not say that customer expectation or they don't really think about situations that can happen with their dog because they are live animals minds of their own. So I've handled this a lot. And I think what I get what we find is that we can retain that customer. How we handle the problems is is a retention strategy, right? It's, it's if you can hear them out and continue to have opportunities to work with you. If you really want to want to keep the client let's say if it's if it's if it's an arrow, Mayor, maybe on your part, and you want to keep the clients how you handle that can can can bond that customer to you for life.
Collin 24:13
I think that's really important canvas. I'm glad you said that of just because a client reaches out to you with a complaint with dissatisfaction with concerns doesn't mean they're immediately going to run away from you or does it mean they're going to go and start bad mouthing you on the internet? Like that doesn't mean that it's in that moment how we choose to handle that. And sometimes you can get your most dedicated clients. Whenever you take that and you turn it back into something positive not whitewashing it, turning into something that's not but going. Wow, that's an amazing concern. I hear you I can definitely understand why that was something that you think is, you know, that's important to you. And we definitely agree that here are XYZ steps. Let's go talk to people and we're going to get this changed over so that never happens again, like letting people know that the action that you're going to take is huge, and they're going to someone that can sometimes tournament to your biggest cheerleaders for your best. Yeah,
Candace D. 25:05
yeah, we had one in the grooming space where the client wasn't happy with the way her schnauzer was groomed. And she was really upset. And they were a good customer of ours buying other products from us. And so, what I decided to do was, I knew I needed to interview groomer soon. And I asked her if she would be willing to assist us in the interview process of our next groomer so that we could find someone for her and for other customers that were up to her expectations. She felt very honored that I would even suggest that she loved it. And we her dog would end up getting a free groom out of it. But she wasn't looking for the free groom. She was really looking for someone who knew how to groom a Schnauzer. And I think for me, too, and I think about that the white glove service at my even my home unit going into people's homes, I don't mind paying more money, but I want to be able to find a service provider that can meet my needs, and is willing to work with me, I guess, on on growing their skill set, even you know,
Collin 26:05
and not saying that we have to continue to take on clients, if they are problem clients, if they are, you know, belligerent towards us if they are you acting straightaway, that's not that is outside of our comfort zone. That's not saying well stick with him, because that's gonna, I think it's important that we write it because that's not we don't, we don't want people running our business. But that doesn't mean we can't take feedback to become better. Right? That's, there's a distinction there.
Candace D. 26:27
There are opportunities inside the the challenges that we face with clients and can and how we handle those situations, can continue to lifelong clients. And going back to something else that you had said about, if we don't give them opportunities to communicate with us, they, they probably won't share anything, it's almost like they'll continue to use your service. Because maybe there really isn't anyone else in town that they can rely on. But that doesn't mean they're going to actually refer business to you. It's kind of like I feel okay with this service. But the minute I refer somebody now, it's my name is associated, that I recommended you and if you don't live up to their expectations is gonna look bad on me,
Collin 27:13
right now with the way the economy is going off, people being a lot more conservative with how they spend their money. They recognize, oh, you know, changing service providers is actually quite a difficult, I've gotta go back out there, kind of do the Google search, and I got a call people and set up to me, I might as well just stay where I am. Right. And that, to me is you could have a full client list and be booked every day and be 100% of capacity. But if you have clients that are just using you because well, you know, reasons. It's like, like, Okay, well, how do so how do we how do we tap into that Canvas and reach out to that kind of client and make sure that we don't have people that are just sitting there? Because there's no other option? Or because they feel trapped with us?
Candace D. 27:53
Yeah, well, surveys, surveys are a great way to get that started. And I think oftentimes, maybe the outdated thinking was oh, survey our customers once a year with an annual survey, but which is great. at bare minimum, you should absolutely do that. But if you can come up with some sort of easy to fill out form something that doesn't take a lot of time, you know, you can use Google Forms for this. On there's a lot of other form form makers out there like Typeform. And we currently use air table to keep ourselves organized. And you can make forms through air table as well. But just a short survey that's just checking in with them. Is there anything that we can be doing better? Have we met your expectations and satisfaction and have that online form or a printout form that you leave with them kind of like a comment card is available regularly? Like I would you know, go do it after those first visits, maybe have a 30 day check in? And then a quarterly check in? You could certainly do it every time you add in a new walker or sitter if they're if their senator changes? I don't know. I'm sure obviously you have a wide listenership. So there's a lot of people who maybe have employees or contractors that are longtime workers of theirs, but other people try to change it up and put like a team of people write on a house visit so that the customer doesn't get used to like just one person all the time and heartbroken when the person you know, goes on vacation. So no matter how it's done, you know, I would just always have some sort of a check in after there's a new person that's gone there. And then that is just whether it could also be on your website. It could be that a link to the survey could be on your website. It can be in the in the footer of email newsletters you send out it can be a regular post do you integrate into your social media plan? I think oftentimes we make these surveys once and then we forget about them and we don't talk about them enough and or we're afraid we're afraid to get the feedback I think is really what it comes down to
Collin 30:01
And I think I like the idea of doing much shorter, more frequent ones, because that allows you because into, okay, when was my annual survey? It's 17 pages. Here's an essay, right? Because it's it's closed book, you're being graded, I'm gonna come to your house and watch, you take it like it becomes a big thing. We amp ourselves up for it, and we get anxious to hit sand and all that stuff. But just having much shorter ones, it allows you to cover a lot more information to like that as well. And they're just much they're just lighter. And they're like, Okay, here's this touch point, here's this touch point, here's this thing over here, and let us know, right? It's always a, let us know, and here's an opportunity, let us know, here's an opportunity, and I'm giving that back to them, is going to strengthen that relationship and really help them feel invested that again, this person, this company really, really gets me they're really trying and I like that because they feel like there's a connection there. Because there is a connection there. The National Association of Professional pet sitters has a vision, and they need your help. They envision a future where pet care professionals and pet parents collaborate to make a significant positive 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 volunteer driven Association. They actually offer a trial membership and various webinars to showcase the many naps member benefits offered. Visit the NATs website today at Pet sitters.org for membership details and more information.
Candace D. 31:26
And this is making me think just like more connections, and how you can continue to work on this retention piece and building the relationship. One of the things I always found interesting about pet sitters is that you know you are going to people into people's homes, you usually have at least compared to at the pet retail stores, you know, you wouldn't know way more that's going on with their life, then pet store what right you might see the wedding planning stuff out, or you might see the new baby things arriving or you know, they're gonna have a new baby because the dogs acting differently. And you notice that you know, we are in their homes or that they're working a lot or that someone might be sick in their family like you are seeing what's going on with the customers live life. And so there's opportunities for you to acknowledge maybe what they're going through through a small gift, a small gesture, maybe it's a handwritten card, maybe it's a funny card, like if they seem really stressed out, maybe you get a humorous card and leave it for them from their dog even or from their pet, or a little houseplant or a little bouquet like a small bouquet of flowers. You don't have to do this for every single client all the time. But it's that that thoughtfulness as a gift or an acknowledgement that you're there for them. Not necessarily to help them through this problem, but that you're there for them to support their pets needs. And that you're kind of acknowledging and gesturing to them that you're thinking of them.
Collin 32:54
Helping them in their life where they are recognizing Exactly Okay, I may I really love puppies. Well, you know what we don't puppies don't do stay puppies forever, they're going to age out who are going to get older, they're going to have health problems, the family is going to move a couple of times, they may have kids, they may not have kids, they may have their parents move in with them, they have all sorts of things go on. And if we we can, we are the ones that can have that conversation with them. I know, just for us, when we get a new client, if we know they're new to town, they get sent a link directly to a web page on our website that has all of the blogs about local pet things. Go Hey, welcome to town, here's everything you need to know to get settled in less than if you have questions. And really just simple something as simple as referring out resources we have a blog about dealing with with newborns and dogs and cats. Great. If we know that's happening, hey, here's this, you know, let us know if any other questions or here's some other resources, here's a great book, here's a great thing. Just equipping people with knowledge is one of the single best gift that you can give to somebody and allow them to continue again, our goal is to make sure that this pet parent lives their best life possible with their furry family member. And that takes us going okay, I know you don't have time to go and do all the research and read this article and synthesize this together. But I do and that's what I take that part of our job as being educators. I know you mentioned that earlier. And educating people about this. And that's where we can step up and really help people in that way. And then they turn and look at us and go those people are really helping Wow.
Candace D. 34:20
Yeah, and I like to also call that like anticipating their need, or like if we can I love people in my life who can anticipate my needs. Because I'm so busy and I mean we're all busy, but like I feel like I'm I'm juggling so much I'm spending a lot of plates and if someone else shows up and anticipates my need and thinks ahead for me, because they know the path I'm on they can see it's in a sense like you just said about the puppet someone moving to town. They can help anticipate my needs. You'll have a relationship with me for a very long time.
Collin 34:56
That takes just paying attention being mindful and approaching it Sometimes it can be difficult to communicate as far as if we do see a serious issue or concern. But But in those difficult conversations, I like to start off by going. I'm here because we love your pet. And we are so thankful for you all as clients. And I want you to know that everything I'm saying is going to be said out of love and support for you. And so I hope you hear it with that heart. And then going from there and trying to set that groundwork of like, Look, I'm not here to criticize, I'm not here to you know, whatever. But I do need to, I am obligated to have this hard conversation with you. It right now, when it comes to I think what's interesting about our conversation so far, Candace is we're talking about client retention. And we haven't said anything about lock in prices or locking contracts and forcing people to work with our with, with our, with our with our companies, right? We're not going okay, here's, here's your one year long contract, great 100%, client retention, retention, everything that we're focusing on, is that relationship base, right? It's so critical to always refer back to that. And and when you when you when you do think about that? How do we? Or how do we go about approaching people with additional services to further that relationship? Maybe we do want to we're just providing dog walks, but we want to be able to provide them other things. Is there? Is there an appropriate way to go about extending offers for other additional services, that's not going to make them feel like we're just selling to them?
Candace D. 36:24
Hmm. Well, if this is something you want to do, then definitely, you know, pause and take take a minute to think about what will it look like? If they say yes, to your offer? You know, and meaning like if you if you see that they have a dog that needs to be that sheds a lot. And you're like, gosh, I'm visiting this house, I could use the Furminator brush and dish help D shed this dog that would that would help save some time. Okay, well, if you're going to offer that, how long will that actually take? So whatever service it is that you want to add to it, think about how long will this take? What would it look like if they did this, you know, once a week or every day? What if they added more pets? What if all my clients started doing this you could have it that's not gonna happen overnight. There are there is a path that we all go on in our entrepreneurship journey. And it's you know, we kind of start at stage one, stage one, and then we move along. So it's not going to go go there overnight. But I think that was the problem with when I had my dog walking business was that I was trying to solve an immediate thing. And that worked. And then it just kind of kept going. And I hadn't re evaluated what it was I was selling so. So really take time to think about how much time will the service actually take, how much would you charge for it to be worth your time so that you don't start resenting with this package you've put together and added for them. And then once you have those things in place, it just goes back to that conversation. And, you know, if it's, if it's coming from a place of service, which pet care providers are service providers, at the end of the day, if it's coming from a place of service, it's never selling, it's never salesy, you are helping that perfect that person, a customer of yours, make the perfect purchase. And this is something that one of my mentors has always shared with me. And this is a principle in retail we use a lot, but it's helping the person make a perfect purchase. And making a perfect purchase is investing in you right as a setter, they're making a perfect purchase with you. And so by anticipating their needs in their household or in their pets journey, it is helping them know that they've made the perfect purchase with you. Because because you are offering them solutions, they can say no, certainly, but never be afraid to make a suggestion of an added service you could sell to them. I like
Collin 38:48
that concept of the perfect purchase. Because that is that is individualized to every single person, right. So that that does you start this conversation by off by saying, like get knowing the person knowing the people that you're talking to. And that's where this this one on this in this personalized experience come in, because it may still be the same service. But how it's presented and discussed and shared with that person for the particular problem that they have, is going to be unique and different to every single person that we have on our client list.
Candace D. 39:18
Mm hmm. And sometimes you can have those one on one conversations just depends on how big your client base is. And, you know, you can even send out like a mad like, say you have a lot of clients and a lot of a lot of senators, you could send out a mass message about here's what we're offering, book a call with me or book a call with this person on our team to learn more. And it's a Calendly link that goes to a 15 minute 30 minute conversation. You both know when you can show up to the call. And you can really dive deeper in with that. That customer who's interested. We did that for our doggy daycare when we need to to raise our prices across the board. I was really nervous to do that. And I thought well, gosh, I might get some pushback. So I'm stuck of losing the customer, I'm going to make the announcement and then have a place where everyone can, if they really have concerns, they can book a call. Because so many times when we would try to call people they would be working or go to voicemail, it was so hard to like, kind of actually connect. Yeah, we use Calendly and appointment software's like that to talk to our customers sometimes.
Collin 40:19
And I love that because it gives you that opportunity to have that one on one, if that's what they need, again, giving you the opportunities to come to you going here again, doors open, here's a Calendly link, because again, it's like, okay, I'm offering adventurer hikes today, or I'm gonna start offering adventure hikes, here's the three hour service, blah, blah, you can write it up in there and give the boilerplate, you know, ad copy, and things like that. But to help people who might have additional questions, you do need to offer that go. Because I know for like brand new clients, I think we tend to forget it's brand new clients love to ask lots of questions about you. And even existing clients may have additional questions about the new service they want to enter into, because they're a new client for that service. And offering that to them instead of just being like, yeah, you've been with me three years, you know, yeah, drill anyway.
Candace D. 41:07
Yeah. Or assume or assume that they really know all of the, here's another problem is that we might assume that they know we offer all these services because we're like, all their client base. They can they get emails from me, they follow me on social media, they know everything I offer, or they don't
Collin 41:23
know, I like it's just the straight from experience. Yeah, we've grown our service listing. And when I say things about like, oh, yeah, we offer pet photography or adventurer hikes. They're like, what? Yeah, wow. Oh, my goodness. Because we forget, we're like, oh, yeah, they they tune out after all those posts on social media, because the I'm solving their need, right, they don't get to that part of the email, because I'm solving their need. So I need to approach them in an in a different way. So that I don't, and it's reminder for us not to take them for granted as clients in basically it may help make sure that they don't feel ignored in our company, right? I know that this is a big topic. And this whole time we've talking about just retention as as running a business. But there's a lot more that goes into this, Candace, and you all have something really exciting coming up that people want to know more information about so talk to me about your boot camp that you've been putting together.
Candace D. 42:17
So we kick things off at Pet boss nation on July 16. With our summer pet biz boot camp, it's the pet business Boot Camp, where we are going to be focusing specifically on this traffic, conversion and retention strategy for pet businesses, which all fall under that marketing umbrella, which is the fun stuff. In business, I feel like it's a fun piece of business. And this bootcamp is six days of virtual fun, where we go into what we're we're using a pop up Facebook group, we'll also be using zoom. So don't worry if you're not a Facebook user, you know, you can still learn from this program. But we will share specific strategies with you that we have taught hundreds, if not 1000s of pet professionals around the world really on how to improve their sales and improve their profit and revenue. So I'll be doing that in the bootcamp. It is $10 to sign up for the bootcamp, it will be well worth it for you. You can learn more at Pet biz bootcamp.com. That's PTVIZBOT ca mp.com.
Collin 43:28
Well, that's it. But yeah,
Candace D. 43:33
I mean, that this bootcamp, we're gonna give you your business workout.
Collin 43:39
That's fantastic. And so this is this is for? Is it a pet? It's Pet business specific content for people to implement in their business?
Candace D. 43:49
Yes, it is. A workshop for any local pet business owner. You know, at Pet boss nation, we really do. Try to support the people who live in the local communities, whether that's in working with pets, whether that's a physical location, or like pet sitters and dog trainer hours. While we know we all need digital presence, and we all need to be online. We support still that Mom and Pop not the big online giants or big online stores. So anybody who has a local pet business is welcome to join us. And we will be starting off by going over what our pet business success system looks like and how you can be incorporating this into your pet business. And then we are going to be walking through specific strategies every day that week. The trainings are about an hour to 90 minutes so really want to take that much of your time everything is recorded and you can watch you know, have it on replay. We have a little workbook she'll go through but it will really help you understand where you are right now in business and where you can go by applying these principles in place. Okay, I can't give away too much now about what we would cover all those little details, or you got to sign up for the pet business bootcamp to find out at PEP is boot camp.com. You can you can learn more there. And we'll have it all mapped out for you to learn more.
Collin 45:12
Oh, that sounds super exciting, Candace, I know that'll be a great resource. And for people to get connected, because this marketing thing is kind of hard, right? And it does take approaching it with with an interesting touch. And especially with the kind of in the industry that we are in doing dog walking, pet sitting coming in people's homes, it's a little bit different. And people struggle with that. I know. It's like, oh, I'm passionate about pets. But oh, yeah, I've got this business thing to run. And I've got a marketing i Well, what's that, so I've just kind of resources really needed. So I'm really excited to see this, and what it's going to include.
Candace D. 45:46
And we have this little like pyramid that we'd like to focus on in our in our sessions. And it's really helping pet business owners go from this hobbyist or a hobby business owner, to the go to authority in their area. So if you go from a hobbyist to growing your business, to becoming locally famous, as we like to say, and then becoming the go to authority, and you you go on that journey, really only when you start investing in yourself, and investing in your own professional development, to see to one to change your own mindset maybe about what's possible for your business. But then learning from peers, learning from the community and learning from experts like myself and like and like you guys. So it's really important that we as the owners of our companies, CEOs of our companies, that we invest in our own mindset and brainpower and business knowledge.
Collin 46:41
Absolutely can't I couldn't say it better. So so it's pet biz boot camp, if you're interested in the boot camp, where can people go find pet boss nation, and the podcast and everything that you have going on over there?
Candace D. 46:54
Yeah, you can visit pet boss.com. That's the easiest place to get connected to us and all the social platforms. But we do have a podcast called boss, your business, the pet boss podcast, you can find it on all streaming platforms. And then after the boot camp, or during the boot camp, we will be opening up our monthly membership, the pet boss Club, which is normally closed throughout the year. But we have opportunities a couple times where we invite people to join us in our monthly business coaching programs. And at the Pepper's boot camp, you will be invited to join us there too.
Collin 47:28
Okay, super exciting. Well, I will have links to the boot camp, pet boss station in the podcast and a few other things that we've talked about here. So people can click right to that, Candice. This has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing that with us all about this today. And yeah, I just I just really, really appreciate it. Thank you, Colin, I appreciate being here. How do you keep clients coming back over and over by building strong relationships with them and giving them more opportunities to not just interact with your company, but by giving them more opportunities to spend money with your company and see themselves as part of helping you grow and see themselves as part of your community. By increasing your perceived value to your clients, they will see you as indispensable to the lifestyle that they want to lead and how they want to care for their pets. anticipating your client's needs might seem like a particularly daunting task, but truly you understand kind of clients that you are already serving. If you haven't done so, take a look at your entire client list and look for patterns. What are typical careers that people have? How often do they use your services? Where are they going on vacation? Why do people call you versus book through your software versus go through your website versus go through email. All of these are going to provide insights into the type of client that you are serving. And once you know the type of client that you are already serving, you will know them better and you can then anticipate their needs better than before. This not just helps serve your existing clients, but it reaches and expands your ability to serve more clients as they encounter your services and understand that you are for them even though they might not know it yet. We want to thank today's sponsor is tied to pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters. And we really want to thank you so much for listening. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and we'll be back again soon.
49:39
Me
