410: Finding Creative Flow
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How do you stay creative? As a busy business owner, our ability to be and stay creative is critical to the longevity of our business. Unfortunately, we often find ourselves unable to reach creative flow and end up sticking to the same old same old. We break out ways in which creativity is essential to your business (it’s WAY more than social media posts). We also share the common reasons we find it difficult to be creative and 3 strategies you can use to start overcoming them today.
Main topics
Why it’s essential
What are the roadblocks
Strategies to overcoming them
Main takeaway: strike a balance between daily responsibilities and creative growth, foster community engagement, and cultivate a creative approach to problem-solving, which aligns your business with creative aspirations.
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
creative, clients, pet, pet sitter, creativity, business, fostering, ideas, dog, stress, services, care, helps, find, episode, challenges, exploration, create, loyal customer base, marketing
SPEAKERS
Collin, Meghan
Meghan 00:03
Welcome to pet sitter confessional an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Thank you to pet sitters associates for sponsoring today's episode and our Patreon supporters who have found value in the show and support us with a few dollars every month if you would like to learn more about how to do that, and if you have found value in any of the 400 episodes that we have done, you can go to pet sitter confessional.com/support. We haven't talked about this in a while. But if you're listening to us in a podcast player like Apple podcasts, Google or Spotify, you could actually click a subscribe or follow button so that you automatically get downloaded the episode and you never miss them.
Collin 00:39
Yeah, if you're finding that you're going to the podcast app to search for us to then see if we have a new episode. You don't have to do that all the time.
Meghan 00:44
Or if you're going to our website every week and saying, Hey, this is what's new. You don't have to do that now in the
Collin 00:50
podcast app that you're listening to this go to follow or go to subscribe or go to like the different verbiage for each different one. But I encourage you to do that so that you never miss one of our episodes.
Meghan 01:00
We are very busy pad business owners. And one of the things that is sometimes a struggle for us is being creative when we're going 6am to 10pm, seven days a week and we don't really get a break or a breather, being creative, sparking those ideas. And that newness in our business can be really hard. It's not always the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about being a pet sitter, or running a pet sitting business. But being creative plays a vital role in differentiating your services and contributing to your continued success. It What's it, it keeps people knowing about you and keeps you going day after day, because you are able to say, Ah, this new idea, I would love to see this to fruition. You do it, you get some confidence and you're able to keep going. So in
Collin 01:41
today's episode, we want to break down why it's so essential. We want to talk about the roadblocks to being creative in the kind of business and industry that we're in. And then finally, we didn't talk about how to overcome those.
Meghan 01:51
Here's why creativity is essential for a pet sitting business owner. Because innovation in services is critical. Creativity can lead to these innovative services that set your business apart from others. It's not just a dog walk anymore. It's a premium service where you have chilled water on the walk and you take a sniff Ari and these things that help you offer a specialized care routine or unique play sessions or tailored packages that cater to specific pet needs or owner preferences.
Collin 02:20
Anytime a client contacts you and they have very particular needs. They say I've got a an eight month old puppy that is very energetic and we're still in the teething phase. I need you to come over while I'm gone on vacation for a weekend. In what unique ways could you help solve that problem for that client that takes being creative. That is a creative process of getting a little bit of information in and then coming up with a way to overcome that. And having that be different from client to client,
Meghan 02:49
like you just alluded to problem solving is another big one. It creative thinking helps in coming up with unique solutions to problems that ultimately enables us to adapt to these unexpected expectations or clients that have different requests or odd requests. How will you get the cat out from behind the washing machine? We've had that happen before? How will you get to the home when the road has been washed out? We just had that happen last week. You know, the pet care industry, like many others can change due to shifting regulations or economic factors or consumer trends. Hello, everybody wants a house sitting. But creativity really enables a business owner to adapt and thrive in these changing circumstances because you were able to find new ways to serve clients or comply with regulations.
Collin 03:34
I think probably the first one where a lot of people think creativity is important is actually in marketing and branding, right? This isn't our messaging. This is where we think oh, I'm making something in Canva I'm writing I'm editing this photo. But a creative approach to marketing and branding can actually help in reaching a broader audience. Or, importantly here reach a more niche audience more effectively, the better you are at marketing you will be there, you'll be able to either reach a lot of generic people or a very few specific people from eye catching logos and advertisements to engage in social media content. The way that you are creative and how creative you are can make your business either more appealing or less appealing or more memorable to potential clients by offering personalized experiences or themed care like holiday or seasonal activities for the pets. This can make your business more appealing to your clients and telling people about that helps them connect with you better. Your creative engagement not only makes the pets happy, but it also provides talking points to clients that they can share with others which is where we really get a lot of our word of mouth referrals because you are you are talk worthy people want to talk about the experiences what they're hearing or seeing about your company
Meghan 04:49
and thus it builds a community it gets you out of the box thinking of who can I partner with what pet related or non pet related events can I go to do I want to be a realtor as well? pockets. Do I want to partner with a cookie dough shop that offers a dog friendly peanut butter flavor? Yes, yes, you do. So again, these out of the box thinking ideas or workshops or social gatherings can really create a loyal customer base that sees the business as more than just you provide dog walks, you provide Pet Sets, it's no it's more holistic of not just a dog walk, but from puppy and Kitty to elder pet. We take care of everything and can serve you in these ways,
Collin 05:27
like and you started talking off about the episode about how we are busy business owners. And the next reason that creativity can be really helpful for us. It's actually stress management, running penciling businesses, a grind sometimes. So okay, honestly, a lot of a lot of times. But here's, here's what we're talking about with this. It's not, oh, I have to come up with a bunch of different ways to manage my stress. No, it's actually the therapeutic aspect of being creative. And the stress relief that that gives you by engaging in these creative activities or creative thinking, it can be a refreshing break from your routine, and actually can even contribute to your overall well being and how much you appreciate the job. So this is things like playing, or having to connect the dot books or the adult coloring books, or even just brainstorming ideas or flyers or things that really, you don't even have to use in your business. That's what I encourage you to do with this one is when you go through the creative process not going I've got to use this, I've got to use this for my business. I can't waste this. But no, no stress on this. If you just want to sit in doodle on a page, making mindless scribbles for a little while while you kind of collect yourself and calm down. That's actually being creative in the aspect of you making something but there's no, there's no there's no purpose for it, which is what the wishes what the purpose is, right? It's not because it's sometimes when we are in the creative flow, and we are we are trying to make something we get blocked up. Because we are trying to do something with it. It's important to it's got a deadline, it's got all the stuff associated with it. In this aspect where we're relieving our stress, we're just enjoying what we're creating and what we're doing in that moment.
Meghan 07:04
Circling back to the marketing and branding. If you have an awesome idea for your team to do if you have employees this can really enhance employee engagement of say you want to go do a photo shoot at this place. Or if you're on Tik Tok, you want to go do a tick tock dance somewhere. Or if you are volunteering at a shelter walking dogs, this can really make the employee feel more valued. And like they're part of something bigger because it foster fosters a creative environment of oh, how can we use this? Or what can we do in our business with this that we just encountered. Encourage your employees to come up with new ideas or ways to improve the services that you have if you just have a simple dog walk and a simple pet set. But you aren't really creative and that you don't know how to enhance them. You can go to them and say hey, I would like to we would like to offer more things or it's an add on services. What do you think would be good you were the ones doing the visits day in and day out? How can we make this better that is going to encourage a more positive and dynamic workplace,
Collin 08:07
they're going to feel valued and invested and like they are seen and they are hurt if you come to them and you go look, nothing is so important are so precious that it can't be burned to the ground and an incident. If it's not helping or if it's not the way we'd like to offer this give me feedback on how we're doing walks or what the SOPs are, or how you see the branding and marketing what you're connecting to this, this helps you helps you take some of the mental burden off of yourself that you weren't having to go all this alone. It's looping them into the process and helping them feel valued. And it's making the company better as a whole.
Meghan 08:37
Creativity isn't just about thinking outside the box. It's about continually evolving and adapting the services to meet the client's needs in unique ways. Everybody wanted how sitting? Well, I don't do that. But here's what I can do. I can do it almost overnight. It helps you really stand out in a competitive market when there's so many dog walkers and pet sitters and everybody's offering services. It enhances that customer satisfaction and really, ultimately contributes to your personal and professional growth. That's what this is about. So you can keep doing what you do best in your business. We'd like to tell you about our friends at pet sitters associates. As pet care professionals, your clients trust you to care for their furry family members. And that's why pet sitters Associates is here to help. for over 20 years they've provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance. Because you work in the pet care industry. You can take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom in running your business. Learn why pet sitters Associates is the perfect fit for you and get a free quote at pets@llc.com. You can get a discount when joining by clicking membership petsitter confessional and use the discount code confessional when you go to checkout to get $10 off. Check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again at pets@llc.com. While being creative is essential. It is not easy. We have a lot of things going on a lot of things that as you like to say call him break us up. Sorry. They block us they prevent us from getting in that creative flow. So when it comes to tapping into that flow, that mental state where ideas and inspiration come easily, there are some challenges that we face. One of them is time, as we've discussed, we don't have a lot of time, the time required for the day to day operations, being in the field, walking the dogs, feeding the pets, and then all of the administrative tasks, scheduling, taxes, all that sort of stuff that leaves very little room for that creative thinking. And we're often fragmented in our schedule. So it's hard to find that uninterrupted time for reflection and creativity.
Collin 10:34
Let's say you sit down, you go, Okay, I need to create a social media post for tomorrow, I need to sit down and think about this, I get a phone call, and I got on the phone call, and I gotta go. Now that gives me some follow ups, I gotta do that. And I'm going to go back down. Oh, no, we're going to try and do my social media for tomorrow. And then I got a new client inquiry through my website. So I've got to go do this. And the continual interruptions and the short timeframes really do prevent us from sitting down and trying to focus on one thing at a time, and it's a big detriment to trying to be creative.
Meghan 11:03
And because of that, we often are physically exhausted, we work with the animals, and it requires a lot of physical energy and stamina. But also mentally, we are task switching over and over and over again. Throughout the day, the wear and tear from our body of walking dogs or caring for the pets can be mentally and physically fatiguing, which hinders our ability to think creatively, and then creates emotional stress, we are dealing with different animals, again, the task switching going from, from house to house, dealing with specific needs of the clients and the pets managing those client expectations, which can be difficult sometimes that stress can can dampen the creativity and make it more difficult to enter a relaxed state, when you have 30 minutes blocked off on your calendar, and you spend the first 10 to 15 minutes of just trying to get to that state of mental relaxation, that can be a sign that you are not trying to relax often enough. Or let's just
Collin 11:56
say you have a day where you're like, Okay, I've got to come up with a blog for Friday, and it's Wednesday. So what's my blog idea? Well, Wednesday, you have a client that contacts you and their pet has passed away and their pets dead. Well, now you have to go through that grieving process. And so while you're continually grieving and the emotional stress compounded on top of that of still having visits, still doing walks, still dealing with the pet that won't take the medication or the dog that won't go out to pee or the cat that you can't find or the the traffic that's there. And you still have to be creative in that you have to be doing these things, it compounds one on top of the other. And one of the biggest stresses that we have, and that leads to a lot of this is actually financial stress, financial pressure, especially for new businesses just trying to get off the ground, you come out with a lot of excitement, a lot of energy, you're ready to go hit the ground running, launch your business. And then financial challenges are going to be right at that forefront because now you're stressing about getting enough clients because you need to pay your bills. And you're worried about making that next electricity payment payment, you're worried about that grocery payment, you're worried about this, all of these things of balancing a budget, finding new clients managing expenses, takes up a lot of precedence, it's the first and foremost, it's the most important thing that you have to focus on in that time. And this pushes the creative development to the side, you're emotionally drained, you're physically worn out, you don't have any more bandwidth or mental processing power to dedicate to being creative. And it's also one of the most unfortunate times because as a new business, you need to be pumping out new ideas, you need to be getting your name out there with marketing, you need to be juicing those word of mouth referrals from clients. And yet at the same time, it's also the hardest, because we're making all of this adjustment all at once. All of this just leads to a straight up lack of inspiration. A lot of what we do revolves around routine tasks, we do the same thing pretty much every day, we got the same things on our plates. And it's hard for us to get out side of that. So we have to find inspiration for creative pursuits. It's challenging to do that, though. So we have to, you know, staying motivated and inspired is actually key to achieving this creative flow. And without new stimulus or new challenges, it can be difficult to actually do because we're not exposing ourselves to new ideas, new things, we're not seeking out new challenges. We're not seeking out new books or talking to new people in different industries or trying new types of pets or new clients. All of that leads to us doing the same thing every day, day in, day out and we build the box just a little bit smaller and a little bit smaller and a little bit smaller around ourselves. And it gets harder and harder to do something new about that. So we have to actually end up developing those muscles to fill those with purpose and creativity.
Meghan 14:44
It can be difficult because while we don't do the exact same things every day, we can fall into the same routine. And because of that it can be often hard to separate work from your personal life. If you've heard of the work life balance. That's not really a thing, in particular in the In this industry, that constant immersion in our work can lead to burnout and hamper our creativity. So we just spent the past few minutes being Debbie downers and saying all of the bad things that why we cannot be creative in our business. But what do we do about that there is hope. Thankfully, we can balance a routine and do that creative exploration, we can develop a schedule that includes both routine tasks, and the designated creative exploration time. During this time, you can engage in activities outside of the normal scope of our business. So it can still be related to the pet industry. But maybe it's going to a conference or a seminar, or exploring new parks and trails that you want to do with your dogs. You may also want to try out new pet toys or games that you can incorporate to enhance that physical and mental stimulation and enrichment during your petsitting visits. With all things though, it is important to include that rest and that self care to avoid physical exhaustion.
Collin 15:58
So what you're doing here is you're carving out time to be creative to try new things. I love that phrase, experimentation time, this is the time that I'm separating out from everything else to try something new. And yes, I'm gonna be dedicated to the business and the dog walks, you know that those trails going, Hey, there's this one over here, but I've never had time to go do it. And I don't really want to go there for the first time with a pack of dogs. So I need to do that at some point. So that is creative of going, I need to go hike history, I need to think about what it's going to be like with me walking with my six dogs, maybe it's the new toys that you have never had a chance to explore, you see a blog post about them. And you want to see what it's actually like how to put it together so that you can recommend it to a client, this is focused on your work and for your business is going to benefit your business. But it's also extremely creative. This is part of that process we talked about earlier of just going, I need to try something new, so I can kind of experience it for the first time. And then having that creative time that's just for you. Maybe you don't go walk the new trail for your business, but you go walk the new trail for you. And finding the purpose behind each one of those activities is going to help guide you along this process and create that space that you need.
Meghan 17:07
I have seen dog walkers, not with dogs out on a walk. And I thought oh, that is interesting. Because when you are on a walk with a dog, you are very focused and alert and your head is on a swivel and, and all the things that we tell our staff to be mindful of. But then when you just do it by yourself without a dog, you say, oh, I can actually enjoy this, I don't have to worry about anything.
Collin 17:32
Exactly. Your shoulders can relax your breathing a little more, you're not worried about the timeline or checking your phone to make sure that you're getting the updates and the photos and everything. You don't have that stress, you're not carrying that stress and burden into that time. by allocating this time for both these essential tasks of finding new trails or looking for new toys, and then this creative exploration, we're balancing those between the years, you're actually fostering an environment, you're fostering a calendar, you're fostering a schedule a day that encourages creativity and helps overcome the challenge of a fragmented schedule and lack of inspiration. When we talked about this schedule thing going, okay, maybe the only critical creative or exploration time you want to set aside is 15 minutes, at least you're setting aside that time to do nothing but think of new things or try one thing new. This also helps lower the stakes such that the cost of doing this new thing doesn't have to be high, you can just say okay, I'm going to try a new coffee, or I'm going to try a new tea during my exploration time. If you don't like that, that's fine, dump it down the sink and brew the one that you actually like, but at least you tried something new.
Meghan 18:36
When you create these community engagement programs, like your pet events or your workshops, you can really engage clients in these activities as well send them out in your email newsletter, blast them on social media, you are going to be doing this event and you want your clients to participate. They can share their thoughts and ideas and encourage them to do so because it's going to then provide you with more ideas of how you can best serve them. Your clients are are not really your guinea pigs, but they can be a very valuable asset. And you can get their feedback on what they would like to see more of, well, yeah,
Collin 19:09
if you have clients that you love, ask them what they would love to see from you so that you are getting these great suggestions because they are going to give you feedback and information to attract other clients like themselves. When you engage with the community. It helps build a loyal customer base and it fosters this environment where both clients and you can share ideas and creativity openly. This is going to strengthen the relationship and actually help with that work life balance because you don't feel like you're having to do all this on your own. You're outsourcing some of these ideas to other people, and you can work collaboratively to make something that benefits everybody.
Meghan 19:43
The last strategy for overcoming the roadblocks to your creative mind is implementing a problem solving approach. You can establish a system where the or creative problem solving is part of the decision making in your business. It could include brainstorming sessions or mind mapping tools or even like we talked about earlier, engaging your employees to find a solution, they have awesome ideas as well and are in the field day in and day out seeing these pets over and over again. So find creative solutions to the challenges, maybe even open up your books and say, Hey, we need to find more money here, or we need some we have some budget constraints, how can we overcome this
Collin 20:22
and then regularly invest in professional developments that focuses on creativity and innovation, such as workshops, or online courses, we go to a lot of seminars for running a pet business, or financial numbers and all of those things. When was the last time you read a book, or listen to a podcast or looked at a seven day challenge about being creative, or how to get into a creative flow or trying new things, that part of ourselves is absolutely essential to business, as we've already discussed, by making creativity a core aspect of your problem solving. You're fostering a culture and again, even if you're solo, you still need this culture so that you are reliant on this process as well. We a lot of times think that oh, it's just me. So I don't have a culture. No, you are your culture. And you need to ask yourself, do you like that? Is it beneficial to you, but it fosters this culture where innovative thinking is applied to various aspects of the business, all aspects, not just marketing, not just branding, not just outreach, but in everything. It encourages a mindset that looks beyond your conventional solutions and embraces change and growth, just because you read it in a book. Just because you listened to it on a podcast, if somebody said, This is how I saw this, or you listen to a seminar, this is how this somebody says this is how I saw this doesn't mean that you have to do the exact same thing. And honestly, you probably shouldn't, because just because it worked for somebody one time, 10 years ago, even if it was another dog walker, even if especially if it was them, doesn't mean it's gonna apply to you, your market you how you want to run your business. And it's part of this process is anytime you get new information, just asking yourself some really simple questions. Do I like that? How would I implement that in my business the way I would want to do it to serve my clients in my market? Once you can address those questions, then you can see how you can move forward with that.
Meghan 22:14
Again, a lot of times we think that being creative is making social media posts. And that is certainly one aspect to it. But it's also where can I drop off my flyers today? How can I get business cards in people's hands? How can I network? How can I expand my reach while also fostering the community that I have not just pet owners, but other people as well? How can I make my community better. And you can only do that, when you take the time, when you have the mental capacity and the bandwidth to do this, when you have an innovative way to solve problems.
Collin 22:45
For me personally, I when I am struggling to be creative, I have to ask myself the simple question of is the issue that I don't have any ideas? Or is the issue that I don't have access to ideas? And so this gets back to what we've been saying here of? Is it the time aspect? Are you too stressed? Or do you need to expose yourself to new things. So the first step in all of this is to create that space create a permanent or a not a permanent but an intentional void in your life. boredom, creates voids and flows from these voids that we set in there. And we don't like them. Especially as busy business owners, we'd like to try and fill them with things. So we fill them with busyness, we fill them with distractions. Instead, we have to develop muscles that fill them with purpose and creativity when we have those spaces and not being afraid of the space between things on our calendar or on our schedule, that is where we will actually thrive and where we will live and getting these ideas to come to us and work through them as we build those muscles.
Meghan 23:46
There is a sort of balance here, I guess, if you will, between these daily responsibilities and this creative growth, the fostering the community engagement, the cultivating a creative approach to problem solving. And then all of that ties in with aligning your operations with creative aspirations, making sure that aligns with your mission, vision and values. This is a lot to consider and it takes a lot of time. It's not easy, but there is hope in that there are ways to continue to be creative even when you are running a pet sitting business. We would love to know how you do it how you stay creative. You can email us at feedback at Pet Sitter confessional.com or hit us up on Facebook and Instagram at Pet Sitter confessional. Thank you so much for taking your most valuable asset your time and listening to this today. Thank you also to pet sitters associates and we will talk with you next time. Bye
