452: Keeping the Momentum After a Difficult Year
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What was your 2023 like? If you’re like many, it was a very successful, but very difficult year. Running a business means tackling the ups, and working through the downs. The difficulties we face will be as unique as the businesses we run. We break down four challenges we worked through in our business this year, how they’re not all solved yet, and how we’re growing from each of them.
Main topics:
Things are hard sometimes
Our 4 challenges
The questions we ask
Finding something to be proud of
Main takeaway: No matter the challenges, lean into the strengths that you bring to the table, ask good questions, and don’t be afraid to change tactics if they’re not working out!
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
year, pet, clients, people, staff, service, work, change, expectations, challenges, kennel, dog, care, company, software, visits, talk, price, options, confessional
SPEAKERS
Collin Funkhouser, Meghan
Meghan 00:00
Oh hello, welcome to 2024 You're listening to pet sitter confessional an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Thank you to pet sitters associates and our Patreon members for sponsoring today's show. We greatly appreciate you, if you have found value in the over 400 episodes that we have produced, you can go to petsitter confessional.com/support, to see all of the ways that you can help out. We are now officially in a new year. And when 2023 gave us a lot of lessons, it was very hard for us in in business wise, it was very hard.
Collin Funkhouser 00:38
Yep, it was it was definitely not what we expected. Going into the year threw us a lot of curveballs. So
Meghan 00:44
as we kick off 2024, we wanted to talk about some of the lessons that we learned from our business, some of the takeaways, some of the hard things that we dealt with and how we overcame them. It was interesting because it was our best year ever. From a revenue perspective, we grew our staff a lot. We grew the number of our staff, we grew our revenue, we did more visits than we ever have before. And we grew our client base by a substantial amount. So from
Collin Funkhouser 01:10
the outset, just reflecting on 2023. If you look at by the numbers from that perspective, it was a fantastic year. But it was hard. We these didn't these did not come easily to us. Our mission as a company is to help pet parents live their best life through all stages of life with their pet. And 2023 certainly made that difficult for a lot of different reasons. And so we really wanted to talk about four challenges that we faced as a company last year, and what we learned from those,
Meghan 01:41
we changed software's halfway through the year. And now we use time to vet which is amazing. The software
Collin Funkhouser 01:47
that we weren't using was great for us when we were small. But as we grew, we really started to torture the software more and more and found more places where it broke for us. As a company. As we added staff as we added complexity, we were using it in a way that it was never meant to be used. Staff found it clunky and overwhelming. Our clients didn't like the booking process, it started to fail on us messages didn't get sent, things were backed up and they weren't synced. And so what we decided to do, Megan said halfway through the year and a month before the July 4 weekend, which is a very busy time, we completely ripped out the entire back end of our company and replaced it with time to pet.
Meghan 02:31
And while we are never going to use another software because we absolutely love time to pet. It was met with some challenges with staff. They loved it. But it was a new system to learn a new system to how how does this work? What are where do we go to find this there was a lot of information that they could now go and surface that really wasn't available before. Before there was just one place to find information. And with time to pet, there's a lot of nuance to it. And it's great because clients can add a bunch of different details. But it was a learning curve for our staff. For clients as well. We said, Hey, we are going to be transitioning to a new system, a new software, you're going to need to activate your account, there's some steps that you're going to need to do to update your information. And this is how you schedule and time to pet is great with a lot a lot of videos and a lot of tutorials. But it was still a challenge for our clients to move to a new system change is hard.
Collin Funkhouser 03:25
Yeah, so it meant we had to shoot a lot of how to videos, especially for our staff, we had to change things about our policies, about our procedures about our expectations for what reports look like. So we have to go back and rip into our field operations manuals, and all of these things and clients helping them along this process of while it's an easier system, it's just a different system and encouraging people and trying to set up a timeline and then making sure nothing got missed. And scheduling and making sure that you know the For while we were running both systems simultaneously just to make sure things didn't fall through the cracks. And it was challenging, because now we added way more to our plate during a very, very busy time for our company, but it was necessary. And on the back end, it has certainly paid off. But at the time, it felt very, it was very monumental. It was very like I don't know if we're gonna be able to get over this hump. But we did and we're really glad we got on the other side.
Meghan 04:20
The second challenge we faced this year was with client behavior. It seemed as the year progressed, price sensitivity was a huge issue for people even some with our existing clients as well. We lost a few of our dog walks and pets. It's because the economy and it's slowing and are we had to we increase our prices this year. And people some of them did not go along the ride with us that led
Collin Funkhouser 04:43
us to try and offer some more affordable options. And we talked about on previous episodes about how we can structure something that is not cheap. That is still a premium service, but maybe more affordable for people. So that's where we came up with a 20 for 20 kind of service that we can offer people that still Little is profitable for us, it's easy for staff to get involved in makes it more approachable for our existing clients to retain them. And then something that is, I think it's a struggle for a lot of people, it may just be our clients, the booking time, like how when do they expect to be able to book their services? You know, five years ago, clients would know, okay, Christmas is coming up, I'm gonna book 18 months out, or maybe I'm going to book a cruise in two years, I'm gonna go ahead and book your services, then. That is not the case, at least for our clients and art where we live now. People expect to be able to book three days before they leave on a week long vacation. That is just how people are managing their time. COVID really broke a lot of people broke their expectations. And it changed how they plan their time. They expect and are able to book hotels, last minute flights, last minute car rentals. Last minute, all of the travel industry has adapted to this last minute kind of thing. And we are trying to keep up with that and figure out how do we make that work from a logistics standpoint, making sure that we have the staff on hand that we have the capacity ready to go, while also balancing making sure that we don't get overwhelmed.
Meghan 06:10
And it was quite frustrating, because we kept saying in our email newsletters and on our social media to book early, it just seems that something that we are doing is not resonating with people in order to get them to take action sooner. Yeah, to
Collin Funkhouser 06:24
put this into perspective, I think a month and a half before Thanksgiving, we were probably at like 20, maybe 25% capacity. And we were thinking okay, maybe nobody's traveling for Thanksgiving this year. And then three weeks before Thanksgiving, we were at like 75% capacity. And then a week before Thanksgiving, we were in 120% capacity. We're just like, up until the very last it was so bizarre to watch that unfold and going okay, well, maybe it's not going to be as busy. Oh, no, it's actually busier than it was previously. But people waited way up until the last minute. And so doing things like setting expectations for all visits must be booked by set time, or, you know, changing cancellation policies, things like that to try and make it easier for our clients to get into their brains that no, you do need to book these early. And if that is the expectation. So retraining people has been something we've been working on this year,
Meghan 07:16
I think our biggest challenge through 2023 has been staff retention, it has been very difficult. And it doesn't seem like it's just an our business problem. But it's industry wide of retaining people, getting people in the door, having them excel and then retaining them. We had such a big problem with this, that we actually had over one over a 100% turnover this year, which is abysmal. And it really felt like it was it just seemed like it was a huge slog this year of trying to get people to stay. And we tried a lot of different tactics, we tried being flexible, because that's what people are wanting nowadays,
Collin Funkhouser 07:53
we also changed a lot about our hiring and onboarding process, I think is one of the biggest things that we did to make sure that we set up the expectations appropriately from day zero, right and especially like you said, Begley, we are ending this year with fewer staff than we started the year with. That's not it's not very uplifting. Especially when you think of it the big year that we had it really puts into, into stark contrast, the slog it was to get there. So we've started to look for people and hiring people that are wanting more of a lifestyle kind of job, not something that they just can show up and do. And that is an expectation that we have found that a lot of people coming into the job market are wanting, they want to show up at five o'clock to start at five o'clock. And that is not something that can be done in the pet care industry. In this In Home Pet Care and dog walking, there is prep work that you have to do before you show up at five o'clock, you've got to look at the weather, you've got to think about your clothing, you've got to look at the schedule. And you have to also look at all the information that is there in the software for the pet. And a lot of people just don't want to do that. And and the people that have left our company, they've all said, you have an amazing service. I'm going to recommend you to other people. I love what you do. It's not for me, basically saying that's not the kind of job that I can fit into the way I live or that wasn't what I want to do with my time. Because as we see it, there are really three models of staffing in the pet care industry. I mean, for the longest time it was the use of ICS independent contractors where they got to pick and choose the types of days the visits they wanted to do when and where and how they wanted to work. Then the industry transitioned and is still transitioning more to an employee model where the employees are paid either hourly or a piecemeal work and they are trained, but there is still this tendency to have them select the days and times that they want to work. The industry is also starting to make even smaller shifts now towards a true more more like a shift work of set Time and days where people are expected to work this morning, afternoon, evening weekend, kind of positions where the business hires for a time for an actual position and then pays those employees an hourly rate of this, okay, we want you to sign up and you're going to work six to 12, or you're going to work 11 to five, are you going to work five to 10, or four to 10, something in that's Monday through Friday, every day is when you are going to work in that shift. And we'll pay you hourly for the time that you're working in there. That's the model we are trying to grow in our business and to make an thing. And that is a model that is hard for a lot of people coming into the industry, as hires to expect because they expect to be able to turn this on and off, they expect it to be something that is just a gig or just a side thing that they are not looking to take seriously like a true part time job. And so trying to set those expectations up front and trying to set everything to make them be successful make it worth their time, while we still retain profitability as a business is something that we have been working to really refine this year. And so after talking with a ton of people about this, the silver lining to this is really, this is just the hiring market that businesses are in, it's just going to be hard for a while. And while that might not sound really comforting it is to us because it lets us know a we're not the only ones struggling in and be we're not doing anything wrong in our processes or in our procedures or anything like that. It's just the job pool is just the job market, and people's expectations coming and going through what they're looking for. The
Meghan 11:42
last big challenge that we've had this year has been the market fit, breaking the mold of kennel and boarding culture in our area. And that has been difficult because people don't often think about In Home Pet Care. I feel like even though we try to shout it from the rooftops and try to educate people on what we do, it still seems that we aren't heard, or people aren't listening. Or maybe they just we haven't reached the right people for the service that we're trying to offer. Well, they
Collin Funkhouser 12:10
just don't think about it in our area in our neck of the woods. First and foremost, when people think pet care, they think boarding they think could take care of they think kennel facility, that's where they go to it's the it's the culture, it's the mindset of pet parents is that's what they go to. So it's not just oh, we need to educate about how we're different or like Why Choose Us over another In Home Pet Care Service, because that's not the education that we're trying to do. We're trying to do education that In Home Pet Care Service is a thing. It's something that is an option for you. And this does leach back up into the other changing thing about client behavior about price sensitivity, because our services our premium, our one on one or in home are way more tailored than aborting than a kennel than daycare, that that does mean that our prices tend to be and actually are quite a bit higher than people's expectations. So not only are in our area, the the mindshare is in boarding and kennel. But then when people think about pricing, we've actually gotten calls, they've gone. I contacted the border, but their prices were too high. Can I want to know what your prices are? At which point that's a very tough conversation to have with somebody that price sensitive. We do the best we can we educate them about that. But piecing together all of those little things of going not only are we in a position of going no, not just this is a kind of pet care that is out there. But it is worth paying for also, because when people do think in home care, they think I can get my friend family neighbors acquaintance most people already know like and trust and we'll do it for free or a case of beer or some cookies. Now we go okay, now sure you used to get that from your neighbor, we need to be paying for that. Now. That is a it's a premium service. This educational thing is a long game. It is something that we are in we are pushing the envelope for where we live. And it's just meant that we've had to change how we market and what our messaging actually is for people in our area. Yeah,
Meghan 14:10
a lot more in home come to you personal I specialized one on one more of that type of language. And we've also talked about how we are the full double decker cheeseburger with all of the toppings on top. And a lot of people if they aren't going to go to a board or a kennel. They just want the bare bones like plain hamburger and we get on the phone with them and we go well we can we offer this and this and this and this are all the benefits and the bells and whistles of us and they just go well I just want a plain hamburger. Thank you.
Collin Funkhouser 14:43
Yeah, and that keyword just anytime on our phone conversation or we get a message from somebody on an email or through direct message or through our software. When they say just I just need that's a key word that we go okay. This person is asking for Plain hamburger, they're not looking for the the double deluxe thing. So now that I know that they want the basics, how do I phrase and present to them what we do offer, and hopefully they do see that value. But it's understanding that at the end of the day, if people are that price sensitive, they're looking for these things. They want what they've gotten in the past, because again, if they've only ever used a certain kind of pet care, but that's not an option, because they waited too late to book because that's what people are doing. They're waiting too late to book and then they come and they looking for all their options. They they're unfamiliar with our kind of service. And now we're having to educate them on all of the benefits, and why the price
Meghan 15:39
is so much higher, most people are immediately turned off. It's
Collin Funkhouser 15:42
it's a big ask for a lot of people. And and that's and that's just part of this understanding of this in this new economy and this new market and this new understanding of what that client's expectations are. How do we fit into that? Where do we position ourselves? How do we talk to people, it's really stretched us and pushed us a heck of a lot further than we were at the beginning of this year, as we've experienced this, as as we've really dug into what the markets actually like and gotten down and understood what's driving it?
Meghan 16:18
Well. And I think also, we've come to the realization that we're not going to be able to convert everybody, you know, we track our clients of track our potential clients of who contacts us and through what method but most of them, if they say boring, they don't convert. That's, that's not our potential client. And we can talk, talk on the phone with them until they're till we're all blue in the face. But if they want what they want, and they what they want is not us, I can't I'm not going to be able to say anything, or say some flowery language that's going to convince them to use me. Yeah.
Collin Funkhouser 16:51
And again, that's not to say that we don't try. And that's not to say We also haven't had people who wanted boarding or wanting wanting a daycare, and decided to use our service because nothing else was available. We've gotten that plenty of times. But you know, those conversion rates are really low and being okay with that, and just sitting with that and going. That's just the reality. That's just the reality that it is right now,
Meghan 17:14
I can't change somebody's pocketbook. If they can only afford $7 a day and I'm way more than $7 a day, they're never gonna go with me and I have to be okay with that. Absolutely. Something that is great. No matter the time of year 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'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 reading 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 you join by clicking membership Pet Sitter confessional and use the discount code confessional when you go to checkout. Check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again at Pet said llc.com. So what do we do with all of that all of those challenges? We have grown in 2023. But it was very rough. By golly it has. So we wanted to process those things through some questions. And the first one is, what are our options? Now, with these challenges? What do we do? We can either close up shop and say, Well, it's been a really rough year. So thank you and goodbye. Or we can keep going we can say we have gone into the valley, we have done, we have dealt with these things. But we do see a light at the end of the tunnel. And we want to keep going. And that really feeds
Collin Funkhouser 18:38
into the second question that we asked ourselves standing here in 2024. Going, what can we change, given the challenges that we faced in 2023? What is under our control? We've already talked about some things that are way outside of our control of the expectations of new hires, what is the actual job market like right now? What's the pool of people looking for jobs? And what are they expecting? Can we even possibly meet those yes or no? If we can't change those, we can't change the people in the job market. That's not something we can stress about or with
Meghan 19:08
potential clients. I can't change their pocketbook. I can't change the number of daycare and boarding facilities in my area. So what can I change? So we
Collin Funkhouser 19:16
can look at our prices, we can look at our services, we can look at our service area, we can look at how we offer services we can look at when we're scheduling things we can look at when we're open maybe when we're closed, we can look at all of those things. In addition to the booking timelines we can control when we message clients about booking, we can control when we say no to clients. And yes, it's going to sting whenever the really great long term client and books today for a visit that are for visits that start tomorrow that go for two weeks because they just decided to go to Europe because yes, that's happened like, but we're going to have to tell them no. And that is something that we can change. When we look at challenges in the world. At the end of the day, no matter what the challenges are. To what challenges you're facing, or we're facing in our business, we can only change what we can control. And too often, we think way too highly of ourselves of what we think we can control, when, in reality, it's way more limited than we actually expect. And that should be so freeing to us. Because when we think about control, it's not about breath, it's about depth of, I could maybe try and influence somebody over the phone, but it's going to be very weak, it's going to be very tenuous, but myself, my behavior, my reactions, how I respond in that situation, that is a deep was deep work that had that is going to take place and will be long lasting, as well.
Meghan 20:47
Another question is, what opportunities are we overlooking? Is there someone that we can partner with that we haven't thought about for a long time that we met at the beginning of the year through a networking event?
Collin Funkhouser 21:00
Are there things that we are under utilizing? Are there memberships that we aren't taking full advantage of? Are there places where we do need to go and do some more door knocking? Or do we need to with our knowledge of the market and client expectations, really look at our services and go maybe there's something else we can add here, maybe there is an opportunity that we've missed in the language that clients have been using in their expectations that we actually can and are going to be really good at filling. So sitting in that and going, Okay, I've got a lot of data. It's not in a spreadsheet. It's this stuff is hard to fit in the spreadsheet. But we know what people are asking for, we know what their expectations are, how do we weave in between those? As
Meghan 21:43
far as staff retention? Are there employees that we have, or that you have that want to do more that you either want to pick up more hours or want to do more things in your company or a different things? Have you picked their brains lately on how they can be more involved in the company about their their opinions, their feedback, where they see that we can improve as a company, because if they see you as the boss, investing in them, wanting their opinions, seeing them as a valued member of the team, they are more likely to stick around. Also ask yourself, What can
Collin Funkhouser 22:15
I learn from what just happened. And you don't have to do this at the end of the year, you can do this as you as you're going through a challenge. And as we've even presented here, some of our challenges are not yet done, we have not yet fully overcome them. Instead, what we have learned is, we are going to have to adapt and sit with these for a while. What we thought would just be a quick, okay, I can change one thing, and it'll make it better. Oh, that turned into Oh, companies change to things and maybe that'll get better. And now it's three things. And now Nope, none of that actually, it's a continuing evolving process. It's a hit and miss kind of thing. There's no one size fits all, there's no golden ticket to getting through this. It's just a lot of hard work. And that's one of the biggest lessons from this is the lesson of working with staff and that that turnover with them going, okay, that's just part of this. That's what we've agreed to. That's what we signed up to definitely get to do today. And so we get to do today is involve ourselves in that and take on that and manage that. And finding joy in that, that lesson of going, I'm going to do this now. And that means I'm going to be just a little bit better the next time we have to go through this. As we dig into our market, the more nose that we get from potential clients, the more nose we get from partnerships, the more nose that we get from avenues that we try and pursue. Those are lessons learned of how do we fit here? How do we operate as a company the way we want to operate the benefits that we see bringing into this? How do we shape and mold that into the community and fit that with maybe what people don't even know expect or know that they want yet. And that's totally fine and going, we're learning, we're learning that we've got a lot more work to do. And trying to get excited about that. Really going into the New Year refreshed, maybe not refreshed, but ready. But going. There are opportunities here for us to do more and dig in deep.
Meghan 24:16
Well, and with that, the last question is what does this make possible? Think
Collin Funkhouser 24:20
of the spirit of this is now that I am where I am. What does this make possible? And for us going okay, sure, we have lost some staff. And we aren't taking on as many clients as we expected to? Well, that's probably because of the economy and I can't control that. And staff are leaving me for their own individual reasons. So we are a lean, mean fighting machine kind of company right now. We're way more nimble, right? We can actually adapt a lot faster right now. It's not as big of a ship that we're having to move and turn and juxtapose against things. We can try a lot of things we can really experiment with the kind of services that we offer, how we offer them, and when we offer them. And where we do that within our service radius. That really means that we can take advantage of the dedicated hardcore staff that are with us to go along that journey because they're bought in, they know exactly what they got into, and they love it. And to lean into that as a company and go you all are here because you want to be not because it's just another part time job. Not because because it's just, you know, something along those lines. Let's try and work together to make something happen here. And realizing that that is an amazing thing to have. It's so beautiful to have before you that would not have been possible before. In the
Meghan 25:45
end, though, even though 2023 was a tough year. But there are some things that we are very proud of. We did a lot of large projects this year. And one of them was a very, super cute pup named DACs. He is part of our senior support services for those in assisted or independent living facilities. So far, we have been caring for him three times a day, seven days a week for the past year and a half. That has been a massive project. We have needed a lot of staff members to accomplish that. And we've done it when
Collin Funkhouser 26:13
the family first contacted us, they said we want mom to just love the dog. We just want her to love we don't want to worry about anything else. So three times a day, seven days a week, last year and a half. We've done grooming visits, we've done visits to vets, we've done all sorts of things. You can have food, water, medications, brushing all of that stuff, so that she can just have a dog and love on it. And then also because of our team approach for reuse, where we do have scheduling of morning, afternoon, evening so forth. When clients traveling, they need three visits a day, there will be three different staff members doing that. We think that's really important to give the staff members time off, keep them fresh and allows us to do things like when we had a client reach out to us over the summer and asked us Hey, last year I traveled and I needed to board my dog but nobody would keep up with the grooming requirements of my dog because he has long flowy coats absolutely gorgeous. And so it broke her heart but she shaved her dogs so they could go on there month and a half long vacation, which they do every year. But this year she thought would be different. She wanted to find a different option. And she came to us. She said I'm not shaving my dog. Can you keep up with his grooming? We said absolutely. So for four times a day for a month and a half straight. We kept up with not just his grooming, but their ragdoll cats grooming. We've watered their plants, we kept everything pristine, and they came back and there was not a single knot in that dog's hair. We're incredibly proud of this. Because of our team based approach and the dedication of our staff, we were able to take on that large project. Additionally, we're really proud of the fact that we have embraced automation as much as we possibly can. Now this was really driven out of the turnover that we had of staff of how can we keep people coming in through the door, get them trained, get them ready, get them up to speed without sucking away all of Megan's in my time in that process. So for our training for our onboarding of staff, we click one button that immediately schedules 12 things and automatically sends out messages at set time intervals to bring that person on board provide them the online training, and all of the videos and the tests and everything involved with that. It took a lot of time to get set up it was but it saved us so much time on the back end.
Meghan 28:28
We are also proud of hosting to pet loss Memorial events this year. We started this a couple years ago because our mission as a company is to help pet parents live their best life through all stages of life with their pet. And one day. Unfortunately, that will be to help pet parents live their best life through all stages of life without their pet. pets don't live long enough, unfortunately. And so we thought what a great way to really support come alongside pet parents and offer them this way to cope. Because pet loss is not something that's often talked about. It's definitely not accepted. And we wanted to normalize that. So we hosted one in each of our service areas. And we hope to continue that for years to come. We would like to know how your 2023 was was it good? Was it rough? What are you looking forward to in this new year? What lessons are you taking from last year into this year? You can email us at feedback at Pet Sitter confessional.com or look us up on Facebook or Instagram at Pet Sitter confessional. Thank you very much for taking your time listening to this today. We are so excited for this new year. Hopefully you are too and we will talk with you next time. Bye bye
