412: 4 Lessons From 4 Years of Podcasting
Brought to you by
Pet Sitters Associates. Use ‘Confessional’ at checkout
We just celebrated four years of podcasting! We can’t believe where the time has gone. What started off as a to share from our experiences quickly turned into a while of showcasing the amazing people working in the pet industry. We’ve been honored to share their stories and learn from the best of the best. We break down four lessons we’ve learned and how they’re impacting our own business, and the importance of tackling big problems.
Main topics
Why we started podcasting
Learn from others
Doing hard things
What we’ve learned
Main takeaway: Your mindset will set your ability to take on challenges and tackle new information!
Links:
ProTrainings: For 10% off any of their courses, use CPR-petsitterconfessional
Give us a call! (636) 364-8260
Follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter
Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, & TuneIn
Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, pet sitters, pet, hiring, clients, people, work, knowing, day, industry, care, services, fixed mindset, community, boarding, confessional, change, mindset, podcast, social media
SPEAKERS
Collin, Meghan
Meghan 00:00
Oh Hi there. Welcome to pet sitter confessional and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter, thank you to our Patreon members and pet sitters associates for sponsoring today's episode. If you don't know what a Patreon member is, they are listeners who have found value in any one of our 400 Plus episodes. If you have enjoyed listening and would like to keep the podcast going, you can go to petsitter conventional.com/support, to see all of the ways that you can help support the show. So August 10, was just few days ago, and it was our four year podcast aversary.
Collin 00:33
That's a word it's trust us. Sure. Wait. So
Meghan 00:37
we hit four years of pet sitter confessional, and thank you listeners for helping us to keep going for giving us amazing topic ideas and guests you would like us to interview, we are so glad that you keep going on this journey with us and discovering the life of a pet sitter and what that means and how everybody runs their businesses differently. We'd like to reflect on how the podcast has changed our business over the past four years and how our business has really evolved. But first, in order to do that, we need to take a step back and introduce ourselves. So let's start at the beginning. 11 years ago, we got married. And 11 years ago, we were petsitting. About six months into our marriage, we started a financial course by Dave Ramsey. And he talks all about how to pay down debt with a debt snowball and other sources of income that you could possibly do. So I was Googling one day and I found dog sitting. And we had just moved to Lubbock, Texas to go to graduate school. And so a good way for us to earn some extra money was to do this dog sitting thing
Collin 01:38
that we started out on the rover platform and advertising on Craigslist to be a decade ago. And we were almost exclusively overnights and staying in people's homes. We barely saw one another Megan drove our car and I rode my bike everywhere. And we kind of split the city in half to take care of everything. And we were just very busy. We were doing an awful lot of petsitting. And we were very much learning as we went. We later moved to Arlington, Texas for some more schooling and we continued to pet set, we did take a brief hiatus from our intensive pet sitting here. We because we were having our kids at that time. And then shortly after that we moved to Missouri so I could take a position as a biologist with the Department of Conservation here. And at that time, we switched from exclusively doing in home care and staying in overnights in people's homes, to almost exclusively boarding and daycare from our own home,
Meghan 02:34
then COVID Hit that year that shall not be named. We needed. We knew that we needed to make a change Collins Job had brought him home. And he could come down for lunch. And it was so nice to all be together as a family. And we knew we wanted more of this so that in 2021, he quit his job once they said, you know, we need everybody back at the office, we said no, that that's not ideally what we want for our family. We want something more than this. And so he quit his job. And we both went full time into pet care. Also in 2021, we hired for the first time, we knew that we didn't want to do this alone, that we wanted it to be a team effort more than just call it an eye. And so we also expanded to a remote area that is two hours south of where we live. And we hired we hired there we hired here. And so it's been this continual process over the past almost two years of hiring and expanding and figuring out exactly what our we want our business to look like and how it fits into our goals for our family. We started this podcast as a way to share our experiences, but ultimately to tell other stories as well, because there are so many other Petcare businesses out there. And each one runs a little bit differently, they offer different services. And when we all come together and support the industry and elevate the industry, we can make it better and we can make our businesses better to
Collin 03:52
the fact is, is that we when we first started did not do enough learning from others in our early days. And a goal of our podcast is to help others who may be in the same position as us or maybe go along their journey at their different stage and just to be exposed to different experiences and ways of doing things.
Meghan 04:12
Well. And even if you go back to the early episodes, which I really hope you don't do, because I think they're terrible. But we didn't realize until we started talking with other people and their businesses and how they were expanding to different areas, just all of the opportunity and ways that we could go about this business.
Collin 04:29
And one of the things that's come from doing this podcast and talking with pet sitters from across the globe, is that one thing we've learned is that there's no one size fits all for running our business. And this is both incredibly encouraging. It's also incredibly frustrating and can be can be rather overwhelming at times when you think of just all the innumerable possibilities that are out there to run your business. And there are just so many options for every aspect of the business. And it's important to remember that just because it's worked for someone else doesn't mean that it'll work for you. And you shouldn't pursue it just because one person tells you to, instead getting that information and reflecting on it and thinking, how would I implement that? How would that help me serve my clients better? Does that actually help me reach my goals? And actually processing it and actually internalizing a little bit will help you see, okay, this is an idea. This is one way of possibly doing it. Does that work? For me? Does it work for me and how the vision that I have for my business,
Meghan 05:30
and I feel like that's something that a lot of us can do better at is asking ourselves that our businesses the hard questions of going, Yeah, this this work for somebody else? Do I actually want it to work for me? Does this align with where I want to go in our business, you know, we were doing boarding a daycare. And that's fabulous. And there was there's a lot of potential for growth in that and financial reward. But at the end of the day, it wasn't aligning with what we were doing, and so that the boarding a daycare may work for a lot of people, but it wasn't aligning, it wasn't true to what we wanted. So we had to say no.
Collin 06:05
And part of that is setting aside your preconceived notions as an individual and what you are expecting, and that when you ask a question, to be okay to receive all possibilities across the spectrum of people's experiences, and not feeling like you have to, or should gravitate towards one thing over another, just because it fits in with how you were wanting it to go. Anyway, I see this a lot on different Facebook groups, when people ask a question, and people give an honest response. And you can tell that somebody isn't receptive to that they're not actually looking for open feedback, what they were really hoping is that people would, you know, come alongside them and say, yes, your initial thought was the right one. But when we are in business, and this as a personal growth aspect going, I don't have all of the answers. I'm not perfect. I'm not all knowing. And that's okay. And that means that whenever I ask a question, I'm going to get a lot of variation in the response back to me. And then it is my responsibility to take that and go. Now I need to process this and actually look at those and ask the hard questions about every single one of those, like you said, Megan, four years
Meghan 07:13
ago, this podcast started, really, because Colin and I came up with this idea, and we were going to share our stories and our experiences. But then we realized that we could actually interview others from their businesses, and how that was so much more impactful than us just getting up here blabbering on every week. And we quickly realized just all of the other possibilities out there, it's like you were talking about at the beginning, Colin, no two people run their businesses the same, whether it's services or prices, or how they add the extra flair that they do and their secret sauce to their businesses. And so once we realized that we wanted this to be something more, we wanted our business to be something more than just Colin and I, we started hiring and realized quickly that we were we needed others opinions and others perspectives on how they had done it before. And I think that that's something that can be really helpful for other people is going and listening to how other people have done this before and not necessarily reinventing the wheel every time. I'm not saying copying other people either. But really just just seeing how how they've navigated these waters, and how they've worked through problems and come to the conclusions that they have.
Collin 08:19
One of the potential dangers of running your own business. While while we do go after running our business, our own businesses, because of the freedoms that it provides. If we don't want to work for a boss, we want to make our own way in the world. There are many dangers that can come on. And one of those is actually the lack of people to go and talk to about your business. You're the boss, you're running the business, you are in some instances expected or believed to have all of the answers. And there can also come a stage where you start to think that all of your ideas are the best ideas. And when you are removed from other people, without having others around you to really go back and forth with to speak into your life to hear your ideas, you can start to not understand or not believe that there are other possibilities beyond what you are currently doing. And this is why going and talking to other people are listening to their stories is so beneficial. Maybe you'll never go and do that thing that you hear somebody do. But it may inspire you to seek after new things. Or maybe they can talk about something that you've been thinking about doing for a very long time. And now to see how somebody is actually implementing it or the pitfalls that came with it you never expected or or maybe you still think it can work given your scenario. When we're learning from other people, we're actually fast tracking the learning process because instead of us having to go out and experience the 1000 different ways to not run a business or the other possibilities that we've never thought of and we have to come up with us. Instead of going that way. We can now listen to other people and hear how they did it did it and how it did or did not work out for them and their business.
Meghan 09:59
Yeah being siloed is never good when you are running a business, particularly in this industry where you have other than meet and greets, you really don't see other people. And so that's why I think that some of the episodes that we've had interviewing people who have really connected their community to them and other pet sitters in their area are really crucial. I don't Alesia obiano, did that they've got a Chicago pet sitters network. Also, Arizona had one, Minnesota I believe, obviously, Texas and Florida, with their associations. It's just great to see others. Can other pet sitters connecting with each other, because we do need each other, you know, we cannot be on an island all by ourselves. Like you said, we don't have all the answers. And so when we reach out for resources within the petsitting industry, it can be really beneficial. Obviously, we need outside resources as well, you know, CPAs, tax accountants, lawyers, all this sort of stuff to really solidify the bones of our business. And then also business coaches outside who can bring in a fresh perspective of, Am I doing this right? Is this typically what you see when people implement XYZ? But knowing that we can as pet sitters commiserate with each other and say, Hey, how do you handle this when a client says this? Or how have you done large farm animals sitting? That's not something that I have experience with? So how do you go about it in your business,
Collin 11:19
and that truly is far and away? The single biggest thing that I've taken away from our podcast and have been able to apply to our business is really just the possibilities that are out there, the number of things you can try, and that it's okay to experiment with new things in your business. And just knowing okay, what are people pricing? How are they structuring their services? What does the scheduling look like? How is their marketing doing? What are these things going? Where are they going for resources, all of these things help bring in new information so that we can stay creative and stay engaged in our personal business as well.
Meghan 11:56
I also particularly enjoy all of the roundtables that we do, we had the future of pet care, pricing, your services, self care roundtable. And then we also did a mom's roundtable as well, I will I want to continue doing those. So if you have other ideas for roundtables, we would love to hear them. They're great to get many perspectives in the same room on the same conversation on the same track and going, how has this worked for you? What are we how can we make this thing even better?
Collin 12:23
One of my personal favorite episodes that we've done is a little one that's been a little bit more recent here, but it was episode 397. It was my conversation with Dr. Michael Urich, about the perceived generational differences in our business and how we need to be careful of our biases, when we're hiring, when we're managing when we're firing when we're training, and how a lot of the generational differences that we think are there are actually just in our imagination, but but because they're in our imagination, they are in fact real. And we need to deal with those. And we need to overcome those biases. And so I just from a management and interpersonal relational kind of interaction, there was a I really enjoyed that conversation. And I hope to be able to do those more moving forward.
Meghan 13:05
I know that we've only been hiring for a few years now. But I definitely think the market has shifted, thanks a lot to 2020. Because people are looking for different things. Now just like client expectation, expectations have changed. So have staff and employee expectations, they want more, they want to feel connected, they want to be involved with something that's bigger than just them. They want the flexibility. And I think all of those things are our companies can provide them,
Collin 13:30
it really does change the perspective on your role as a business owner in the community, because now we have a really big chance to make an impact in our local community. And in the industry at large, we have people looking to be connected with something bigger, better greater than themselves, to be fired up with their passion and connected to a community of like minded individuals. And we have these businesses taking care of people's pets and serving others, what better way to get them connected to that and help the health of the industry for another 30 years by employing them and training people to be high quality professional pet care providers. It also helps serve our community that are in the need that is there. And yes, it does grow our business but we are able to help and serve not just our clients but also potential hires if you choose to go down that road, you don't have to it's not necessary. You can still be involved in the industry and in so many other ways. But it is important for us and it's something that's been impressed upon me more and more is the importance of investing back into the industry and making sure that the industry is healthy and set up for success in the long term.
Meghan 14:45
And that's not just the pet sitting and dog walking industry. That's the pet industry as a whole. So that means rescues and shelters. Going to volunteering your time as a dog walker to go walk dogs I mean what awesome way to also promote your business say hey, once a month We go and volunteer or once a month, we go and pick up trash along the side of the road so that we can have a healthier place to walk and a better community.
Collin 15:07
That has been a mindset change over the last four years of starting out going, this is our business for us doing our thing. And then understanding that it has a broader importance or it can have a broader impact on those around us. And that's not a requirement. It's not necessary. But it is an option that you can choose to pursue, if you so desire, and realizing that people look to you in your industry in your community as being a business owner. And that's not taken lightly, and that there are responsibilities that go along with that. And so just growing to understand that it's more than just being about us, at the end of the day, it's more about being about other people, and making sure that they are cared for and served well and with excellence.
Meghan 15:57
And the fact that we can do hard things, one of the biggest lessons that I've learned through doing the podcast through being a pet sitter dog walker over the last 11 years, and now having employees in two separate service areas is we can do hard things. And that's not just you, and I call it that's everybody, we as pet sitters we do hard things day in and day out 6am to 10pm. Or if you have staff managing them, it is hard to run a business successfully and keep it going year after year, particularly when there's ups and downs the highs and lows of something. Sometimes people are traveling sometimes people don't need dog walk sometimes people get injured and need to take time off it but we do these hard things because we love the pets. We know that our businesses make the community better at the end of the day, we can help pet parents have peace of mind. And I think that's something that we really need to get across to our clients and our staff members as well as it's not just like you are scooping litter for the 15th time today. Yes, that is true, but you have a bigger impact. You are setting the community up for success you are allowing people to travel to do things that they want to do. If you offer poop scooping, you are helping your community not be as polluted. If you offer wedding pet attendant services, you are helping people celebrate the biggest and most awesome day of their life. So again, I think it all circles back to helping people. And while we walk dogs, and we take care of cats and fish and lizards, it's about helping people we are. We are care providers for pets, but we are care providers for people too. We care for them by caring for their pets. Something that you definitely need in your business is 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 have provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance. Because you work in the pet care industry, you can take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom in running your business. Learn why pet sitters Associates is the perfect fit for you and get a free quote today at Pet said llc.com. If you would like a discount, because who doesn't, you can click membership petsitter confessional and use the discount code confessional when you go to checkout. If you want $10 off, check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again at pets@llc.com. So after four years, we have some big lessons that we have learned. And we're going to talk about four of those today. The first one is hiring. I think that a call in your conversations with Kim atony tank have been invaluable. Knowing the difference between an independent contractor and an employee, even before we started hiring was crucial to knowing which path we should take and then ultimately sticking with it even through the tough times. Because employing people managing people is not for the faint of heart. But knowing at the end of the day, I chose we chose employees and I have complete control over our employees. That gives me so much peace of mind. Also leaning on other industry resources that talk about hiring and the ins and outs and the nuts and bolts of that, you know Kristen Morrison, Bella Vasta, Janie Budnik, Robert Strickland, there's a lot more and to see how they've dealt with staffing issues and continue to deal with it in their own businesses is helpful to know Okay, they've done this, they're continuing to do it. I can do this too. Because as as I just mentioned, managing other people is hard. But knowing that there have been other pet sitters who have their own teams who have walked these waters before really gives us the confidence and the skill set to know that we can do this. It's like what I say about giving birth, you know, millions of people have done it before millions of people will do it after I birth to babies. So we like we're all in this together. And so like I know I can do this because people have forged the path before us. There's also amazing state and local resources that you can go to for your hiring questions and small business resources. Your community college may even have some as well there are there's just there's a lot of have knowledge base out there. And it can be really daunting to hire. But knowing that other people have done, it makes it a little less daunting.
Collin 20:08
It's definitely one of those things in life that you don't know what you don't know. And then whenever you come upon something that you have no familiarity with it is very daunting. I think that's a really great word to describe this as, oh, I don't need to worry about all XYZ, I don't even know what to worry about. And then you start to want to do things with with your business. And so beyond just hiring, like one of the big takeaways from this, for me was the the need for finding solid resources, and asking good questions, and then digging in as deep as you can, every time you encounter something that you're unsure about, or that you don't know, and you feel like, because this can be a big roadblock for people say, oh, I want to grow, I want to do these things. But it feels like there's a lot of stuff for me to do. And I don't know, so I never will. And trust us, like, if we can work through this process, you can to
Meghan 21:05
another lesson that we have is around mindset. Over the past four years, our mindset has really shifted in multifaceted ways. And I think one of the first eye opening conversations was when you talked with Nicole Ryan, and that was around the growth mindset and the fixed mindset, she really broke those down and told us how she incorporates that into her business, whether it's the growth and fixed mindset, or just shifting from client expectations, or even the services that you provide. Having that clear mindset on exactly what you want now and where you want to go as well, in your personal mindset, can be really mentally draining, there's a lot to grasp and a lot to work through. Because you can go from 6am to 10pm, seven days a week, and nobody's going to tell you to stop because you are your own business. And you are the boss,
21:53
that really understanding what you want. At the end of the day. And our conversation with Nicole looking at how changeable do we think we are? Do we think that our circumstances are a result of things that we've done or that things that people have done around us and to us, and what's our agency in that and it is mentally draining, to think about all that we have to account for and and trying to understand where our limits are as a person and knowing what where our limits are right now. Because we can only do so much in accepting that that's okay. And knowing that I can grow a little bit more today and a little bit more tomorrow. But that possibility is there it is so freeing to know that where I am today is not where I'm going to be tomorrow. And I should be excited about that.
Meghan 22:41
And it's a difference there of the growth mindset versus the fixed mindset of growth of okay, what do I now do with this information? I analyze it, I figure out what do I do with all this information? I've got all the different possibilities. They're all laid out, I now need to figure out are these feasible pros and cons and then do I want to do this versus the fixed mindset of No, I'm just gonna stay in my lane, I just want to vent or rant or I just need someone to commiserate with me, which is fine. But you also need to be malleable to an extent because the clients expectations are changing all the time. COVID completely flipped this industry on its head. Now we're coming back to the Yes, business people are traveling again, clients are wanting house sitting all these the travel is back. But at the end of the day, we need to come back and say okay, we need to be a little more myopic here and say, Does this align with what I want? Another aspect
Collin 23:35
of the fixed mindset is not just that you want to stay in your lane, but you think that you have no other option that you you can't change that it can't be changed that the problem is what the problem is, and there's no possible way around it. And instead going okay, I've tried 13 different ways, but I haven't tried 14, or maybe I'm coming at this entirely wrong. And I need to take a different or unique perspective. Maybe I feel like the reason I'm not getting clients is because my software, but maybe it's how I'm answering the phone, or maybe it's the questions that I'm asking them or maybe it's the different steps or maybe and realizing that for every issue that we have, there are almost an infinite number of things that we personally have control over. Now there also are an infinite number of things that we don't have control over. But it is become become it upon us to process what we can and look at what our area of control our circle of control that and then taking ownership of that and going these are the things that I can control. And so it is therefore my responsibility to do something about that.
Meghan 24:39
Well, it's just like what we're dealing with right now of a couple weeks ago. You got 15 calls or 20 calls in a week and every single one of them the first question was, do you offer boarding and we were going we're trying to we were pulling our hair out going what in the world is happening? But it's because Google was servicing us for boarding it's on for some reason. It's on our Google my bed Notice, and we are trying to get that change as fast as possible. We're trying to pump out blogs for the SEO of we provide dog walking and pet sitting in your home we come to you,
Collin 25:09
we really did rack our brains about possible solutions to this. I mean, they range to everything from let's just not answer the phone and let them leave a voicemail. And then if they say they're looking for boarding, I'm not going to call them back. And we decided we didn't want to provide customer service. So then we went, Okay, what would be a better way to do this. So we would need to look at the scripts that we're saying we need to be asking good questions of them, really digging into the reason they are looking for this service that we don't offer. And, and really, it boiled down to two different scenarios of sometimes some peat moss, people who called the boarding was just what they expected. This is just what they did. This was the habit that they had, they were calling to talk to a boarding facility. And whenever they found out they weren't talking to a boarding facility. They didn't know what to do. They didn't know how to process that. And they ended up saying no, they thank you, I don't want to do that. Then there were the people who this was the their expectation for quality of care, that they viewed this as a superior service to having somebody quote just unquote, come over to their home and leaving their pets alone, overnight. And so we were able to have deeper, more meaningful conversations with people on the phone to really dig into exactly what they were expecting and what their problem was, so that we could better understand and present ourselves as not just an alternative but a more premium solution to that problem that they were experiencing.
Meghan 26:42
Yeah, that gets back to the difference of the fixed versus growth mindset. If we continue to have a fixed mindset, we would have just thrown up our hands and said, I don't know we're not gonna answer the phone, we're done. Let's call it a day. But with the growth mindset, we were saying, How can we make ourselves better? How can we make our business better? And how can we potentially serve these clients better, and getting to the root of exactly why they aren't, they need what they need.
Collin 27:05
And part of this mindset growth that we've seen is our understanding also of compassion, fatigue, recognizing that it is real, it is a thing. And it's not just that we're tired, or not just that we aren't motivated, or that we just need to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and keep carrying on. That's not what this is. It's so much more. It's such a holistic impact that it has on us, we see so many things we see brand new puppies and kittens, we also are with the last with our pet parents on the last day of their puppies and kittens. It could be we walk in and we find a client has passed away. Now we have to go through that grieving process, we all care so much about the well being of the pets and the satisfaction of their owners that if we don't have a check on that, if we aren't checking in with ourselves, and having that regulated to some extent, we will undergo extreme compassion fatigue, we will burn out from carrying too much at it, it is a thing, it is a thing you can care so much that you neglect everything else. And that mentally spiritually, emotionally, physically, you are not able to take on another thing or tackle a new challenge or change the way you need to. Because there's nothing left in the tank.
Meghan 28:23
In this business, you also have to think about your personal mindset shift as well going from I can't to I can, it could be adding services, increasing prices, cutting out an entire service or adding a service area, hiring, shutting down your business, selling your business. Being an entrepreneur is not an easy thing. And especially in this industry, where it is relational. It is a people business really as much as it is an animal business.
Collin 28:50
And many of those things that you just listed off, Megan are topics that that a lot of us never want to approach or we don't feel like we can change how many of us look at our price sheet and go, I can't change this, or Oh, I could never cut out that service. I would never want to add this or I couldn't possibly hire or I could ever dream of shutting down my business like what why would I ever need or want to do that? Until we want to write and we move from the I can't to I can. And a lot of times it's because we want to a lot more times it's because we need to write Oh, I could never increase my prices. Nobody would ever pay that. And then we see massive amounts of inflation coming through the economy and we have to and now things that we never thought were possible. We're actually actively doing and it's the seeing and part of this is seeing what other people are doing, how they're interacting what their responses, and then knowing okay, I would maybe I'd like to try that and just trying things is where this mindset shift comes in. From I can't do I can it starts with trying dipping your toe into less anxiety inducing or less costly ventures as you begin to build that muscle of experimentation.
Meghan 30:07
That leads right into another lesson that we've learned over the past four years is boundaries when we talk about and a lot of other sitters that we've interviewed, talk about it, you know, you can't be all things to all people all of the time, you just can't You can't serve all the clients. You can't pet all the pets, you can't be everything to everybody else. And then because there's nothing left for you. So you need to set boundaries for communications, when can clients contact you? When are you? When do you have office hours? When are you going to take time off for yourself and travel and go do the things that you actually want to do go see the plays or go to the art exhibits or go do yoga on a paddleboard? Draw those red lines for pet care for your business? Because that is going to set you up for success and for longevity down the road? The sitters who the sitters who do not do these things, they burn out, they have that compassion, fatigue, and they they end their businesses fairly quickly, versus the people who understand that they have to have these in order to in order for them to be here for the long haul.
Collin 31:10
Knowing what you're willing to do and what you're not to do, especially around pet care. Like you said, Megan, are you willing to Job share? Are you willing to take on a pet with a doggie door? Are you willing to see a cat every other day? Are you willing to take a dog with him with a with no fenced in yard, these will get asked of you, people will come to you and start asking you at these edge cases. And you need to decide what you are and what you are not okay with. That's part of setting boundaries, because that gives you mental peace. And now understand that you're not for everybody, this can be hard. In the beginning, it is hard in the beginning, when nobody's contacting you. And you feel like well, in order to fill my schedule, I have to take on everybody. But every time you have that decision, ask yourself, it's a great way add a zero to the to the end result. If I had 10 More people asked me of this, would I be okay with that. But 100 People ask the same thing of me, would I be able to accomplish that. And you'll quickly find that all these edge cases, and these little exceptions that you're trying to take on are not scalable, and aren't actually doable in your business?
Meghan 32:10
Which means that you have to understand your why what you want for your business. Why are you doing this? Why are you waking up every morning and going and picking up poop for a living and scooping litter and doing all of the little intricate details that we have to do during a pet set and caring for the home as well? Understanding why what motivates you? Is it is it personal reasons? Is it business reasons? Is it do you have to do you feel like you have to prove something to someone, knowing exactly why you do what you do is going to help guide you is going to protect yourself because you you know yourself, you've asked yourself the hard questions about you, you as a person, and then what your business philosophy is and why you keep the business going day in and day out. And you are not your business. So knowing your personal why as a person, and then knowing your business, why we'll make sure that you care for you before anyone else. Before we started our business, we weren't really creating things on social media, we were mostly consuming it and using it. But now social media plays a critical role in our businesses, it's very easy to just post pictures of cute dogs and cats are to share adoptable pets out. And while that is important, it's also critical for you to provide value to your potential clients. Because they are able to see how you structure your business and what you think is important again, your why you can blast your your mission and vision and values and goals for your company on social media. And have that connect with people they can understand they can feel the emotions of that you care about this business, you care about the animals and the people and your employees behind this you, you have a genuine connection towards to your community and want to make it better. While you cannot control the algorithm. Leveraging your social media and the control you do have over it is going to allow you to have more exposure to clients that you may not be able to reach otherwise, providing that value that shareable content is a great way to set yourself up as an expert in your community. You know, there's obviously a need for physical marketing and emails and newsletters. But because not everybody's on social media, but it is important to have a strong online presence because people do social proof. And I'm not saying that the way that Colin and I approach social media and do it needs to be the be all and end all method. But we have gotten a lot of compliments on how we approach social media and people in the wild. But you know, potential clients and networking things. They say, Oh, you're the the pet sitters on Facebook that I see and it feels good to know that hey, you know, it's not all not all for naught. We are doing something productive here. We are using our time well. If you want to learn more about how we approach to social media, it's on episode 188 to 76 332 and 382
Collin 34:57
was specifically one of our conversations that we had with with Jane Harrell about marketing and looking at other sitters on Facebook and Instagram to elevate their company by showcasing their expertise, it's really helped us to streamline our approach. I know Jane Harrell is really all about finding the channels that work for you that jive with how you operate and where your people are in the need to put out that high quality content, but not needing to be on every possible channel, because you're going to spread yourself way too thin. And we I really like her philosophy on make that high quality content, push it out to the places where it belongs, and trust that it's going to work and start getting you traction, because you have to do a little bit of thinking up front of going, where are my clients, as you put that avatar together? It's not just where do they shop? It's not just what are they buying? It's not just where do they live? It's also how are they spending their online time when they're looking at their phone when they're behind their computer screen? Where are they where are they going? Where are they clicking? And trying to make sure that we are getting in front of them as in as many touch points as we can make sure those are those are high quality.
Meghan 36:06
And with social media chat GBT coming on the market has been amazing. It's provided innumerable ways of highlighting our businesses and showcasing exactly what we do, because it's never going to generate the same verbiage twice. And you couldn't go in and ask say, Edit this make it shorter make it longer. I'm a pet sitter. What are some common pet parent obstacles they may have when hiring a pet sitter. And then you can say how can I as a pet sitter overcome these obstacles? There are a lot of lessons that we've learned over the past four years of podcasting, but these are the four big ones hiring, mindset, social media, and setting boundaries. What lessons have you learned listening to petsitter confessional, we would love to hear it. You can email us at feedback at petsitter confessional.com or reach us on Facebook and Instagram at Pet Sitter confessional. Thank you very much for joining us today and for pet sitters associates for sponsoring today's episode and we will talk with you next time. Bye
