459: Try, Fail, and Adjust with Marie and Justin Plummer
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What does it take to embrace creativity and flexibility as a business owner? Running a successful pet care business involves much more than providing excellent care for animals. It's about creative problem-solving, adaptability, and understanding the deep connection between pets and their families. Marie and Justin Plummer, the entrepreneurial duo behind Winston Salem Dog Care, share their journey from a small start-up to a thriving business with 17 employees. Their discussion delves into the nuances of hiring staff with a focus on professionalism in the pet care industry, while also maintaining a deeply personal touch. They highlight the importance of iteration in refining their hiring and onboarding processes and the role of technology in facilitating growth. The Plummers' story is a testament to the power of creativity, flexibility, and continuous learning in building a business that not only succeeds but also brings joy and satisfaction to its owners and clients alike.
Main topics:
Managing Growth
Hiring & Onboarding Process
Technology Integration
Creative Problem-Solving
Main takeaway: Is the business working for us, or are we employees in our business.
About our guests:
Marie Plummer, Owner & Founder
I am a wife, a mother to 3, and a lover of ALL animals, especially my whippet, Vera.
For as long as I can remember, I have been rescuing and taking care of all kinds of animals. I began pet sitting in high school and continued into college.
Winston Salem Dog Care was born out of my love for my 1st and most precious whippet, Patton. As he began to age into his teens it became important to me to find quality in-home pet care when I needed to be away. After struggling to find that care sometimes, I set out to be that caregiver for others. A few ideas later, and here we are.
Justin Plummer, Owner
Over the past 4 years, I have been blessed to partner with my wife to build one of Winston-Salem’s finest pet care companies. After receiving training from the Whippet rescue of Asheville, we are excited to now use that knowledge to service Winston-Salem at a higher level.
We have had dogs of our own the majority of our marriage. Little did I expect, that January night, when she showed up with a Whippet, what a journey we had started and what a dynamic Patton would being to create our lives. 3 dogs and 3 kids later, here we are.
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
work, dog, people, business, pet, good, care, interview, clients, talk, figure, job, staff, process, winston salem, justin, started, understand, professional, home
SPEAKERS
Marie P., Collin F., Justin P.
Collin Funkhouser 00:01
Welcome to pet sitter confessional today, we're brought to you by time to pet and the peaceful pet music, calm music for pets YouTube channel. What does it mean to be a creative and run a business? Believe it or not the tasks that you would do and how you plan how you design, how you market, communicate, reach out, get in touch, and projected towards the future. All of that is an insanely deep creative process. One that when we do it well, helps our business. So today, we're really excited to have Marie and Justin Plummer owners of Winston Salem dog care on the show to talk about their journey into business, how they stay creative, and flexible. They share how they have developed their hiring and onboarding process through iteration after iteration. And you'll see that theme throughout the entirety of our conversation. Let's get started. Thanks for having us.
Marie P. 00:53
Thanks for having us. So we were started by myself singularly, in April of 2014. That's our fault. My husband, Justin, he owned a CrossFit gym at the time, and I was transitioning out of full time high school teaching. And started by myself for the first couple of years found myself exceptionally busy with a packed schedule. Holidays really wasn't home. And so we started talking about the possibility of hiring and looking for some things to help with our growth. When we sat down and kind of talked to our financial planners, we figured out that we should bring him on. And we sold our CrossFit gym, he came on a full time, I guess, just a little shorter. Two years ago, we started actually hiring staff once we discovered that there are these wonderful things called apps. And once we found time to pit we hired our first staffer in that April, I think, and we told her, don't quit your day job. Let's start slow. Because I was afraid I won't be able to fill her schedule. And then about four months later, we were about seven deep. And within a year and a half later, we were up to I think we're up to about 17 employees now. We are dual faceted. So we do in home care as well as daycare and boarding. We have 16 acres outside of the city limits to where we can do that comfortably. And we are with my health education background. We do a lot of hospice care, sick care that other a lot of other centers don't do. But we just really try to be an extenuation of parents and just help them fill in the gaps with whatever type of care they need. Wow, that's
Collin Funkhouser 02:39
that's quite a lot. A lot of the journey that you that you've been on since you since you started what you started, you started in 2014. What What was it then that you decided like now now it's time to do this.
Marie P. 02:54
I had had my first son and he I was nannying. At the time I just left teaching just because I was getting a little burnt out and didn't feel like a lot of other professionals were as excited as I was. And so I was like let's step away for a while and kind of see what happens. I asked my friends like what am I good at and we're like, you know, you've been doing dog rescue What about dogs are really good at cooking. I was afraid if I opened a cooking business I would never cook for us again. Winston Salem dog here was born. Um, I just started I will say I started on rover picked up a lot of clients from there. And I just I needed to be able to I wanted to be with my kids, I didn't want them to have to be in other places all day. Mom and dad not home at that time Justin was working in a gym so he was working for am sometimes the eight or nine o'clock granted, he'd come home sometimes during the middle of the day. But I just didn't feel like it was going to work for our family. And that's kind of every you know, once you have a kid that kind of drives every decision from then on out. So I just I wanted more flexibility but like I said, I grew so fast. I lost that quickly. And that's how we we ended up kind of restructuring and moving changed our model a little bit. So Justin,
Collin Funkhouser 04:20
what was it like watching the growth of this business? That memory it started?
Justin P. 04:25
Ah, I don't really know. Because it had so much going on at the time. Yeah, so maybe Colin, I reflect back right now thinking on it. But you know, I don't know this is kind of what just happened, you know, we're working on stuff every day anyway. So just kept working and and things just kept getting bigger and bigger. And you know, I would help out with what I could with our stuff from the home. As far as the daycare and boarding that we did we did out of our home and just I'm back Can I know if I can say as I say, wow, look at this thing. It's just days we got more stuff to handle and more stuff to him worked out for handling. Okay, time to make a change another kid showed up. Yeah, so in about a two and a half year period of time, or you can make it four years total. So if you haven't 15 2015 to 2019 said, she, she left teaching, we had our first kid, she started the dog business, we had our second kid, we had our third kid, I left left the gym business. So kind of six major white things. When now looks back, and like, you know, a very small window of time, you know, and you condense that even more. So our first kid in 2016 to our last kid and leaving the gym, you know, end of 2019. So a little two and a half years there three years. It's kind of like, it was just life in Oh, whirlwind just just don't sell them stuff every day. And then Okay, wow, guess who we are now with enough perspective and time to reflect back a little bit? That's
Collin Funkhouser 06:10
so often the case. You're right. You know how you were like, Man, I don't really know what it was like in the moment, because we were you know, and we've had those to where it's like, where we look back and go, Yeah, we weren't thinking, man, what's the potential for this? What's the 10 year plan? What's the goal? What's the this was? Those days? It's just what can we do? What do we have to cover? How do we solve this? How do we and not and that's not a bad thing. Sometimes we're just in that moment. And and we'll have time later
06:39
to reflect.
Justin P. 06:41
Hindsight is 2010.
Collin Funkhouser 06:46
It is so you talked about a little bit about the services that you that you offer kind of what's the split between those does kindling and boarding does that take up most of the business? Or is it mostly alcohol services,
Marie P. 06:58
we so we don't want to become commercial. And we've been very purposeful about trying to find a hybrid between can a wife and dog staying in the home life. Because what we discovered here in Winston Salem, is it's actually against zoning to keep dogs in your home for PE. And so we've been kind of dealing with city council for a while trying to work on that. A lot of people didn't know it. But I like to read and kind of learn things. And the groups that we're in are phenomenal. And I learned so much about what I need to you know, make sure we're looking into. And so when we found that out, we're like, oh, well, let's go get onto some agricultural property where we're not, we don't have to ask for permits, no one has to give us permission. And more importantly, no one can take it away from us. And so we moved out here, and we wanted to keep that that model but have a separate space. Because now that we had kids, it wasn't as easy to just have dogs running around upstairs with us all the time. So we created, you know, an open concept space here at home, we have 16 acres for the dogs to go on. But that is kept, it can only get so big, we only have so much space before we really outgrow when we lose that feeling. So the majority of our visits are in home visits, overnights vacation care, that type thing I would say it's probably 7030. And we're and we and we stay so booked up here at home that we don't even we didn't mark it until this last year. And we've barely really even had to do that. Because with having both facets, a lot of people will call and say are you full for boarding? And we're like, yes, but guess what, we can come to your house. And they're like, what, I don't have to make another phone call. So they just love the fact that you know, we can meet them really, you know, wherever they are. So that part of our business has really just word of mouth, keeps it running, you know, 98% booked and then we just we just grow the the in home visits side.
Collin Funkhouser 09:00
That's quite a commitment to the business to go out and find the agricultural property and continue to do that. Did you? Was that something that you? You? You want you want it to keep going or I know a lot of people would just go, oh, well, if I can't do this, I'll just cut that out and adapt my business to do something else. Yeah, well,
Justin P. 09:22
when we realized we needed to make the movie change. That was October of 2021. And when I seen at that point, we had done like $70,000 for the year onboarding. Like, too much money like Yeah. So so that was a kicker for me. And then overall now, something I have reflected on over the last few years looking back at the growth is it would mean when you're following God's plan, it works out, you know, pretty pretty smoothly when it's time to go. Because we were in so we're in Winston Salem and know how much you know about Winston enter anything, but we were in a great home, great normal neighborhood. You know, all the lots were, you know, a neighborhood been around 5060 years, you know, you know, third of an acre, lots nice houses, it'd be like 1800 to 2000 square foot houses. So just a normal, you know, getting American aid, but it didn't neighbors, all that stuff, you know, kids can run around and play and enjoy it. And when it came time to move, it was a week and a half what time we decided we needed to move. It was 10 days from the Saturday we needed to move to finding the new place to sing and putting an offer and getting it accepted. Yeah, we
Marie P. 10:42
moved a lot of real estate in about seven days going into Christmas. And it just, it all happened so perfectly. And so fast. Our house went online, live at 8am, we had an offer at 930. And our realtor was like you guys can make so much more less hold out. We're like, No, we're not going to whatever the gift horse thing is, is like we have an offer, it's way more than we ever thought we got this is all lining up to perfectly I don't care, I'm not going to let another $10,000 mess this up. And it gave us a very, we had a very interesting perspective because most people start a business. And they have to spend that huge upfront amount of money in the beginning. But what's so beautiful about dog care is you know, the, there's minimal upfront investment, especially if you're going out to people's homes. Yeah, there's really not that huge costs. So we went from creating a business not having that upfront to moving and then having to outfit spaces. The good news was we already knew what we wanted, we'd already done a lot of trial and adjust. So it was quick. And also it was quick. But we we had a plan, which is the first, probably 1500 probably the first 15,000 visits of our business happened by accident, they just blew up. So we, we actually kind of had a plan of what we wanted this to look like when we came here. But it was definitely a unique perspective. And I'm thankful that we were already two and a half years seasoned before we had to actually do some things like spend a lot of money. Because I think that might have freaked us out in the beginning. But like Justin said, we already knew that we were creeping on, you know, breaking 100,000 If we could do daycare and get a little bit more boarding, and more importantly, it was the peace of mind just the safety knowing that, you know, the dogs had a great place to go, the kids had a safe place. And that we could be mom and dad and business owner safely in the same space.
Collin Funkhouser 12:38
Yeah, that that sometimes we do get overwhelmed. Yeah, if you would have talked to yourself back in 2014. And going yeah, you need to go find agricultural property, and you're going to convert this thing and make this conversion and deal with 16 acres you've been like I never I'm fine. I'm sometimes that proof of concept is like I need to prove it to my market and my community. I also need to prove it to myself, I need to build some skill sets, I need to get some mindset stuff so that I can then go and embrace the changes and do the do the hard work that needs
Marie P. 13:07
to happen. Yes, yes. And I actually I spoke to Jamie but Nick, I've started working with her. And when I first talked to her, she was like, You know what, you know, what's the visit volume you guys are running. And I told her and she's like, okay, and I said, I have no back office, like I don't have, you know, SOP together and none of that stuff. She's like, really, I was like, we went so fast. We just woke up one day. And we're like, oh my gosh, here we are, we have a team, we have all these visits, we really need to figure it out. So we kind of built our business backwards. I'm thankful for it, because I think it kind of helped us figure out a lot of roadblocks before they happen. So I think once we get it down on paper, we won't have to modify quite so much. Because we've already been through a lot of a lot of fire fire safety training. So yeah, that's been a blessing. But she was like, I can't believe you made it this far without any of this and like, we'll just call it my teaching and coaching experience. But now we've got to now we have it. So now we got to get it to where you know, we're not the center of it, but we're very, very thankful for it.
Collin Funkhouser 14:04
You mentioned a phrase earlier the try fail and adjust. Where does that mindset come forward for for both of you?
Justin P. 14:13
Well, I've learned that's wife, you know, because we just, we live here in Winston Salem, and there's a medical school here a lot of doctors so it's kind of a quick analogy. So if I'm interviewing and talking with people from med school, or a doctor's I have to remind them that you know, Doctor training is you know, you got to do all the grades in school. You got to go to get into med school you spent four years in med school, you do your residency, internship all these things to be actually become a doctor. And everything they're taught during that whole multi year process is stuff that was learned because people died right I mean, that's, that's life. Yeah. That's how I how everything works. And so he's just once again blessed to have people can kind of coach and mentor us and who are Are you no further along in life and a lot of areas you tell you this, that's what life is, you know, fortunately, you know, you with your podcast, you're able to, you know, interview people talk with people just spread the word a little bit to other other business owners in a similar industry. And, you know, it just it creates the sense that where everybody listens, to some extent that they're not alone, the things that they're facing and going through is normal life stuff. And it's just it is, it's this, you know, you got to be mature enough and old enough to understand that.
Marie P. 15:29
And I was, I kind of from the female perspective, I, I play college athletics. So, learning to kind of overcome comes natural, not quitting. You know, it's been hammered into me for years. But I had some type of epiphany when I turned 40. And I'm not really sure what happened. But I thought 40 was gonna be this scary birthday. And you were gonna, like turn to dust and nothing was gonna work. Like, life is almost over. And I turned 40. And I have to tell you guys, it was the best birthday I've ever had. Because for some reason, I felt like I lived enough life to have earned a little bit of perspective. And I had enough life left to fix it. If I didn't like what what was coming to mind. And it just really hit me after having three kids. Now having dealt a year and some change with, you know, 15 potential employees every day, is I've been alive long enough to know that the stuff doesn't stop coming. When I see new people in the groups talking, I just ID in them. And I tell them, like, this is it. This is how it's gonna be every day and nothing's killed you yet you are still here. You've overcome all of it. So let's just we're professional answer finders, we're problem solvers. That's really all we do. And it just, when I hit when I hit that milestone, it just hit me that there's never been a period in my life that something isn't trying to steal my joy, or become a fire, or explode. And there's all these things that people like to say about you things come in threes, or whatever, we try to be very careful not to speak anything into those type situations, because a lot of times it does happen that way. But just remembering that we're going to get through this faster, faster, if we're smart about it. But it's going to be okay, it really works out. Because, you know, a lot of people would just kind of you. And I did this a lot when I was younger, I'm starting to get out of that now though. Being able to stop, appreciate what's going on, and just figure out how to handle it. Right? Just just just get it done breaking into pieces, keep things in frozen. My daughter loves to watch that movie, and she talks about just continuing to do the next right thing. And it will just come out like oh my gosh, that's amazing. But yeah, I just at 40 I thought you know what stuffs gonna happen? We're gonna get through it, it's gonna be okay. And our staff is the same way now they'll call and they're like, oh my gosh, right. Totally fine. We got it. It's okay. Give us about 30 minutes. Stop talking. Why until it just just let me let me process it. I'll fix it. So yeah, I just, we've we've gotten enough experience now just to know it, it's going to be okay, well, we'll figure it out.
Justin P. 18:17
And that's frozen, too, by the way, too.
Collin Funkhouser 18:19
Okay, I'll make sure that links in the show notes so people can go. Look, I Yes, it's fine. But Justin, when you said, you know, it's just part of life. And I think that process, we have to embrace that part of that, that process of, of, I'm not an expert at everything, all I can do is try and and understand that, I'm probably going to fail at this, it's probably not going to work out for you know, the first time I do that. I know. That's a lesson that we try and teach. Like, our daughter was really into volleyball this this past year. And it was like she was so excited to do it. And she started doing it. And I remember one time she came to me, she was like, I'm not good at this. And I was like, I I know like you're it's your first time. Right? Like, but are you? Do you enjoy it enough to try again tomorrow? And she was like, Yeah, I like this. Okay, here's some of this resiliency. And then yes, still us as business owners. It's like, I'm supposed to be a fully grown adult, I'm supposed to be responsible and stuff and think still, I get into that mindset of like, I did it the first time and it didn't work out. I just, you know, burn it all down. Like because this is terrible. And those days in the beginning, just to sit back and go, if I get an opportunity to do this again, tomorrow, if I make that time, and if I'm intentional about it, and then embracing the fact that that stuff doesn't stop, stop coming. Like you said, like, I can do the best that I can today. That doesn't mean anything about what's going to happen tomorrow, right? Like just because we executed as best we could, you know, making sure that we locked all the doors today doesn't mean something potentially happen tomorrow or whatever. And just okay, Today's a new day. That means new opportunities and it means new struggles that we're going to have to work on.
Justin P. 20:04
Yeah, she said that epiphany, a 40 year old enough to realize those, in your most cases mature enough to where you realize when you're jumping off a cliff, and you can decide to come back a little bit
Marie P. 20:18
after I saw one of my kids throw a tantrum in the floor, and they're like, I quit. I'm never doing this again. I'm like, Oh, God, that's what I look like.
Justin P. 20:28
Seeing you, in a microcosm of others is a big factor.
20:30
Yeah. That's what I look like, oh, anyway, anyway, this
Collin Funkhouser 20:35
is getting uncomfortable. So you mentioned your team, and I know you grew so fast, to talk to us about how you brought people on, and how you're keeping a strong team together through through that through that rapid pace.
Marie P. 20:53
So we learned, Justin has really been in charge, and I'll let him speak about it, he's been in charge of our hiring process. And we're a little different, just talking to other. First of all, I love that community of dog care providers like we are. So I was so shocked to find such a huge group who's willing to spend time sending messages helping each other. And so I kind of pulled the water a little bit, and Michelle Klein, you know, is here in wisdom with us. And so part of what fueled our massive growth is when she went to nine to four dog walking, all of those vacation, clients had to have somewhere to go. Um, so a lot of those came to us. And so that's where we had a huge influx from there as well. But we decided we did not want to buy into the, this is a high turnover field, and that it's got to be short little pieces, you want people who are jumping in between jobs. We didn't like that, because I knew how much it cost to train and professionalize a sitter. And so we kind of went at it a little different. And we started trying to find people who already had established businesses, but didn't like interacting with people. Because what we found is a lot of dog walkers are naturally introverted, your dog people, their dog people. And so we find, we found a couple people who had fliers up that, you know, we liked the look of them. And we're like, we just sat down with them and said, Hey, how would you like it, if I just want to all this business Gee, and I deal with all the headaches, like, this sounds amazing. Just don't put me management. Sounds great. And then we ended up with a good bit of second career folks. So we do have quite a few people who work for us that want to work 25 plus hours. And because of that dedication, you know, obviously, we've been very dedicated to training them, and making sure that they have all the tools that they need. But Justin has really handled the sit down interview process. And I let him talk about it. Because he's nailed it, there was definitely some try fail in there. One, he'll talk about one thing with how we actually did daily training that literally cut down on people quitting pretty much right from the get go. Because I love people and I love talking. And so I enjoyed training so much. Because we would get to sit down and go do training and eat lunch and get to you know, talk to them and know them, you know all the things you think you would normally do. I wasn't respecting the fact that if you're an in home dog care provider, it's a very lonely job. It is a very rewarding, I feel like we get constant positive feedback from the animals every time we walk into a door that most jobs don't get. But you're ultimately out there for you know, 810 hours a day by yourself. So I am so proud of what he's done with our hiring funnel. I'll let him talk about it. And I just love the fact that he's constantly reading and just constantly re evaluating. Not even necessarily just the numbers, but the feel of what's working and what not what's not working and just keeping up with what we like and what we don't like. And then just the constant feedback feedback from staff who are working with us. Again, don't have an old paper like JD would like me to have an old paper but I feel like we got a good process.
Collin Funkhouser 24:18
Have you heard of time to pet Susan the pet gal has this to say time to
Susan 24:23
pet has helped us grow exponentially. We believe the platform's features make us by far more professional than other companies who use conventional dashboards. They are the software gurus constantly developing and improving the platform based on user feedback. This decision was a good one. If
Collin Funkhouser 24:39
you're looking for new pet sitting software, give time to pet a try. Listeners of our show will save 50% off your first three months by visiting time to pet.com/confessional. I'd love to hear about this this process and kind of hear about that iteration that you've done over the over the years.
Justin P. 24:56
Well, good artists copy Great artists steal So, I've probably said this already, but we were just blessed enough a number of years ago to get hooked up with some people who could coach and mentor us on business and finances are gonna get us for thinking to how we wanted to live. So Sam restarted this business most recently, as a personal trainer in a gym for a while. First business is a marketing company. So still do that today. And you know, I've been in business with that for 20 years. So been interviewing, you know, training people, like even you like physical workout training, you know, in the gym sales and all that for a long time. So, basically, it just comes down to finding people who want to do what you want to do. In the case of hiring people, you know, to work in dark hair, it's, do they want to do the job? I mean, it's that simple is do they want to do the job. Yeah. And one of the best principles I've learned is, you know, listen, what people say, watch what they do. You know, what they do? It shows you their beliefs. So if they want to do the job, how much can we expose them to what the job is? Before, you know, before we hire them, right? Because that benefits, everybody lets us know that, hey, this person, and specifically with Petcare, it took me six months to realize this myself, once I was in the daily groove of it, is everybody has animal experience. Everybody's care for animals, everybody's care for dogs, you know, and the basic care for dogs, it's pretty simple, right? Walk them, feed them water, I'm, you know, my five year old girl can do that. And she's super cute while she does it. Right. You know, however, those little skills are drastically different than, you know, running a good business providing a good service and being a professional. Right, right. So. So when we interview people, we tell them, you know, our interview and training process is geared towards helping people learn the habits and the mindset of a professional in the pet care industry. Right, the skills of actually doing this stuff is simple, right? And that's the reality, I can teach any monkey to walk a dog and change the water bowl. Okay. But only people can learn to think, can learn to provide a good service and can learn to make people's, you know, other people, the customers and clients lives better. That's what professionals do. That's why they get paid for that. Yeah. Right. So how do you find people who want to do that is you expose them to it. So specifically for us in how we interview, first thing is just the application or website, you know, anybody can do that, you know, you get 50 applications, you know, in 10 of them have some sort of merit to it, right? You know, how many people go on there filling up stuff online, especially now, application is so easy, right? You don't even have to go places to pick them up, die, they come to you. So, a couple questions on there, you know, generally, the more people write, you can tell by their writing by, you know, this is somebody who may or may potentially be a good fit, then call into a phone interview. So with a phone interview, I want to hear how much they want to talk and engage. Because the phone interview is really the beginning of a relationship. Right. And if we can't have a relationship, if we don't like each other than us working together, it's completely out the window. And if we can just talk and interact and there's no relationship. On the phone interview, I am obviously getting to know them a little bit a little bit their background, just general stuff, hey, how you doing, you know, wife, kids, family, all that stuff. I'm telling them about me. And then I'm explaining the job to them. You know, I explained them prerequisites. So specifically for us, I tell them to tangible prerequisites is a good reliable car, and a good quality cell phone. Because if you don't have a car and don't have a good phone, and they're out instantly driving job, I say that about three or four times. If you don't like driving, we don't want to put miles on your car. That's fine. Just this job is not for you. It's a driving job. So I emphasize that. And then I talked about two intangibles, which are patience, and flexibility. So I referenced the flexibility in time, because working with other people and on their appointments, things change a lot. Right appointments, change and add and cancel. And that flexibility in nature is up and down. So if you're someone who wants I want my nine to five, I want to be there and boom and have a salad. That's awesome. This job is not for you. Yeah. I talk about patients specifically. That's where I kind of build. I set out to help build a relationship with Maria and I, because I asked for them that they're going to need patients specifically with us. Because we're people and we screw up stuff. One of the best things that I heard from one of the first guys I got to know how to college. He was super successful dermatologist for years. He said people expect perfection unless you tell them otherwise. Well, since nobody's perfect. Let's go ahead and get that out the way now. Let me bring that up. Run. So when we do mess up or do something you don't like, remember where I talked about this? Yeah. So as building the relationship showing some humanity there on our side. So I kind of go through that. And I listened to their answers in their responses. Because the words can be yes. But there's also tonality, there's hesitancy is all these little people nuances. Right. So you try to pick up on those. And then I'll ask them, I'll tell them what we have available, you know, what we're hiring for what specific shifts, I kind of go into more details of the of the of the job, what we're looking for the shift wise and all that. And, you know, people are so eager to please, yes, I can do that. Yes, I can do that. Okay. Well, once again, they say that we actually get to doing that. Is that the case? You know, you say you're available anytime? Well, are you married? Do you have case you already have another job? We're not available anytime you already had these commitments? Yeah. So it's, it's filtering out all the stuff people say to see what, what they really mean. Right. So that's kind of the phone interview part. And then if that goes, well, then we got a resume and references. So kind of basic stuff there and looking at references, better quality potential interview, interviewers have better references. Better references mean, that they call you back or answer you quickly. And when you mentioned the interviewees name, you can see them right up to the phone. Yeah, yeah. Because the person you're interviewing has made that kind of impact in the in the, in the references life, after resume references, and we do a background check. So it's kind of standard stuff there. And anybody who may have something come up in their background checks, we'll mention it to you on the phone. Right. And like all of us, we all got stuff. You know, some people got on a legal record, somebody didn't. But once again, part of why. And then there's the in person interview for us with, you know, where we interview is in person to build relationships, more importantly, to see if they want to do the job. Because it doesn't matter how much you like them. If they don't want to do the job, then, you know, we don't need to work together. We're not going to work together.
Collin Funkhouser 32:21
That's so hard, because I've met with so many people, and I'm like, oh, there's such a great person. Man, we were we could have been buddies. And then we can be like, but I don't I don't think they'd be good.
Justin P. 32:33
Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, I've got a good podcast creator and content, all that stuff. That's okay, you know, we're still good people, we're still great people, you're still nice, we still enjoyed our time, just means we're not meant to work together in the pet care capacity, right, which is totally fine. You know, and specifically, when we bring them in for the first in person interview, you know, we work out of our home, the job of caring for other people's pets is in other homes. So when we bring them here, the first thing, obviously, is we get them face to face interaction, build that relationship, we show them our play. So we have going on, introduce them to some of the staff that we have here. Once again, building relationships, and building credibility in their mind, you know, what we have going on. And then also, in walking them around our facility, I get to see them interact with some dogs, you know, I walked them into a crazy environment with 678 Dogs jumping on them and see how they respond. Let them talk to some of our staff to see how they respond, how they talk, how they interact there, because I wanted them to see that, right? It's a dog job, how do you really react around dogs? Yeah, right. And I also know that anything they'll experience here is way more than going into someone else's home with you know, just one of their potential two dogs, right. And then next step interview is we'll just while they're still here, we'll sit down and talk in a lot more details of the job, I'll expose them to our app, some of the tools that we use, you know, walk them through that, let them get a feel for it talked to them more about kind of just scheduling and the flexibility and patience necessary there. So all that kind of back end stuff, we talked a lot about pay, you know how that comes together. And because they're getting a job because they want more money. So they know how pay works, they know what they're gonna get paid. Because if there's an issue, let's talk about that. Now, if we can't get through it, that's fine. We can't get through it, therefore we can't work together. So the I think the biggest thing overall was interviewing people is do as much as you can to kick them out of your interview process. And you're not mean or rude with it. It's just you expose them to as much of the job and all the things as possible. And then if they're not meant to do it, then they'll hesitate or balk and they won't want to take the next steps. Yeah. So after we talk, you know, some back end stuff, and then I'll actually give them a little mock appointment, you know, in our home in a semi controlled environment, caring for our dog, right? Because I'm gonna see them just troubleshoot and do and do a few things, you know, offhand, right there. So that's kind of how our in our first in person interview goes. That's about two hours and then We get into what I consider the most important part of the interview process, which is infield training, or what we call Ursini shadowing, and field interview and shadowing, to where for five hours, they will come into the field and follow me or some of our other team members going in at home, they'll do the driving, they'll go into appointments, you know, they'll see how we do those things. Right. And so we've been building to this over the course of the whole interview process. And I tell everybody, this is the most important part of the interview process, because this is where you truly get to experience the full job. Yeah, right. And I find anybody who balks at that, and by the time we get there, there's very few, but you still find a few, you know, you know, pretty much they kind of go into training. And, you know, it's again, people can talk good, they can be animal people. And, you know, animals are great animals are wonderful. However, when you get out there doing the job, it can be different. And the best example, and then I'll be quiet, is, um, you know, we had a guy, you know, he was animal person. So, you know, little, you know, not the, the he wasn't gonna laugh or the party was good with animals care for animals, degrade with the animals had fun with the job things and all that with the backend stuff that we had talked about, we got to the infield interview. And the last dog we went to to see was an elderly dog like 17, he'd been having problems, just incontinence, all those things that does come from having an elderly dog. So I purposely put that dog on the schedule. Because this guy we're interviewing him, he said the right things he was doing decently, but I just still wasn't convinced he wanted to do the job. And also with it being an elderly dog, I wanted to get some eyes on it as well, because we've been having issues his parents were out of town for a couple days. So we've had to clean them up a few times in modified just because of his age and his health and being 17, frothy 1718. So we got to this dog's deployment and know that the dog had, and we hadn't been there, our team had been there maybe five hours, early years, playing that timeframe, you know, he had been sedentary he had up on himself putting himself you know, and with him being older, his joints didn't work anyway, so he couldn't really get up and walk at that point in time. And so, you know, we had to go in had to clean the dog Bay, they clean up the area, and all those things, talk to the parents a little bit. And then after this appointment, and he was so emotionally distraught, he realized he didn't want to do the job. And, you know, you're elderly and sick, dogs are not good. And nobody likes to see any type of living creature, you know, struggle like that. It's still part of the job and still gotta care for, you know, and if you're not willing to do that, that's fine. Just this type job is not for you. And
Marie P. 37:45
there are plenty of sitters who don't take elderly or hospice care dogs. But but we do. And so we were able to figure you know, if, if that's something we have to talk to all of our stuff about what that will look like, what our lines are, how we talk to parents, when end of life is definitely a thing. With my background, we actually get a lot of calls from vets who will say we've talked to the parents, they're not getting it, could you please break this down for them. So it is helpful when we can expose them to that early. But the biggest thing, I think Justin hit on it just a little bit, he has them drive to all of the visits, they don't ride with us. Number one, obviously, me having a male ride around in my car, him having a female ride around in his car, it's an issue. But more importantly, what would happen is we used to do where I would train the females, they would ride around with me, where he has switched it now where they have to experience that in car time by themselves. A lot of people loved it when they rode around with me. And then what we found out is they would get a couple of weeks in and they're like this is so lonely. Like there's no one to talk to this is you know, I don't like this. So the second he switched to the to the in infield stuff all being they have to experience the driving part. Um, it definitely cut down on a lot of people getting through the process and then finding out that it wasn't for them. So I'm so thankful he figured that tweak out. Because it really pretty much. You know, we don't have anyone that gets to the infield at this point and makes it all the way to training and decides they don't like
Collin Funkhouser 39:23
it. It just said I love how you started off by describing like, oh, well, you just need to find people who want to do the job. Right. And it sounds so simple. It really, really like oh yeah, of course just just they want to do it. We have to define and show them what that means. And that's where we fall down. That's where it's hard. We struggle and we find those various aspects of oh, what does it mean to do this job? Oh, right. The driving, right. Oh, the cleaning up of an elderly pet. Oh, right. I was training a staff member and we came in and the cats I don't know It was like a little eight pound cat. I still do not know how to this. The largest like, terracotta pot of this plant in the corner. Rash down. I think it tried to climb to the top of this little potted tree. And just uh oh, it was it was like Yeah. Oh, right. This is part of the job cleaning up this fallen tree in somebody's house. Okay, here we go. And, and it's that stuff where people go, oh yeah, I want to take care of pets, and we go, but do you want to do what's required to take care of pets? And trying to match those up is the process that we as the employers as a business have to come up with?
Justin P. 40:40
Yeah. And kind of just even to pick apart your words a little bit. Colin, do you want to care for pets? Or do you want to be a professional in the pet care industry? Yeah. Because your daughter can take care of pets, my daughter can take care of pets, my daughter does help take care of pets. She loves the little ones and hold them we take pictures of the clients. It's awesome. Right? That's different than doing the job and being a professional. Because we're interviewing because we're running a business.
Collin Funkhouser 41:05
Do you find that that's hard for people to grasp of, oh, this can be your profession? Or do they pick up on that pretty quick?
Justin P. 41:12
Well, I've mentioned it from the very beginning. You know, I talked about it and I talked about our interview process is geared towards that I mentioned it multiple times. Yeah, one of the beauties that we kind of see now is in our progression of hiring people at the beginning will take anybody I suppose we're willing to deal with this great Come on. You know, we've went from just, you know, go K getting applications, to get an application to people who liked animals, to getting applications that people who had animal experience to getting people who had care for animals for money, but just helping people out or who had volunteer experience to now like, I can't remember the last person we had an application for, who hadn't worked at some sort of pet care facility, whether a rescue or been employed by some of the local local places, pet care places here in Winston, you know, or had their own pet care business in another place, you know, who are hadn't already had the professional experience.
Marie P. 42:08
And I think on your last podcast, you guys were talking, they were talking about how they've tried to create an environment where the the staff is respected, and how it kind of they've created an environment where staff gets respected, they get time off, and they need it. And it's created an environment where those same staff are willing to jump in. Were there other situations? That was that's been our motto, or when I heard that I was like, no, yes, that is what we're trying to create. So word has gotten out. So for anyone who's kind of struggling with, you know, I'm putting so much work into this, put so much work into it, because it gets better, to the point now that the word has gotten out to other facilities in our town. And we're noticing those people are getting unhappy with situations where corporate isn't taking care of them. And they're being really you know, owned and micromanaged. versus, you know, we try to have a team where everyone has input, everyone feels respected. And we treat them like we don't own them, you know, if they want time off, we're going to figure out how to make it work. They're coming to us now and wanting to work with us, because they've heard from our staff and from other people and from client. And we've had a lot of, we even have people who are in rescue, we have a couple people who own their own, like bakeries and stuff for dogs that just need to supplement their income who work for us. And I feel like that's such a huge testament to the process and the environment. Because just word of mouth, in the community is making people want to apply. And it's just it's increased the quality of who, you know, we're getting those applications for. So it really does come back to you when you really put the legwork in to try to figure out what isn't isn't working.
Justin P. 43:58
Right, you go back to something you mentioned earlier is you know, change, get a process down and change it, you know, referring to your, your daughter, your son, you know, and then now that we're interviewing more people who already have a professional experience, you know, I'm beginning to tweak the interview process a little bit because I no longer have to determine if they want to be a professional in the tech industry. They've already done it for years in other capacities or other places. Yeah, so now with these people who like the lady, she started interviewing the other day actually had Enfield with her tomorrow. You know, before I would require five hours tomorrow we're going to do three hours. Why? Because this lady started and ran a rescue in Texas, you know, so she did all this stuff we require with that down there, you know, all while raising her three young kids as well. You know, so I know she wants to be a professional she's already done in her references rave raved about her. And her references talked about how well she cared for animals how well she went out of her way for animals while still being a good mother. Sure. So she she found that she she found that kind of work that dynamic. So and she reached out to us after a few months of moving here, you know, back to our area. So I know she's fresh. I know she has to be a professional, she wants to be a professional. No, she understands the details of that. So for her in her case, and the more people were interviewing now I just need to determine if we're the right fit by who we are and how we operate. expose her to that as much as possible, and then still walk her through enough steps to where she knows she's earning. She's earning a spot on the team. Yeah, that's,
Collin Funkhouser 45:31
that's, that's critical there. And I know when, when I after I finished with interviews, and I'm debriefing with met with Megan, and we're going through things, she always asked me this question of of, do you think they understand what we do? Or do you do you think they understand what their responsibilities are? And that's such an important question to ask of, do they do they actually understand or like Justin, you're saying, Are they just people pleasing? And saying, oh, yeah, no, that's takes. That's wonderful. That takes what Yep, absolutely, I'll do that. Like, teasing that apart, understanding it, and the backgrounds will speak to that background checks, will speak to that references will speak to that. It how they act will speak to that. And you have to put all those pieces together to to understand, does this person not only want to be a professional, but do they understand what it means for us to be a professional? That is key. Yeah.
Justin P. 46:25
And then once again, to kind of pick apart something you said there? is, you know, I think is making your wife? Yes, yeah. Yeah. So working with the wife is the best. Yes. It's great. Absolutely. You know, you send you guys, you know, do you understand, one of the best things I learned was taught years ago, is understanding comes way after the fact. You know, said I tell people want to get them started, it'll take about three months to find a routine, and other three months of working to really Dow that routine in? You know, so for me, it wasn't until, you know, I had been, you know, fully dog walking out in the field for three to six months, I really began to understand things. Yeah, right. So when we interview, I say, I want to expose them to the job. And I tell them understanding will come later,
Marie P. 47:10
we've had to set that expectation, because what we've started to see more of it. I've heard other podcasts where people kind of refer to like, it being a softness, I don't think it's a softness, it's somewhere in between, uh, I either do it right, or I don't do it at all. And then just not having the best self image. Sometimes, I guess in work situations, it was a complete game changer for us. First, I feel like for our, our staff, as well as for me, that when he said that I was like, Oh, my gosh, you're right, like it does, there's a window of absolute time. You know, what, here, whatever people want to decide that it is, I'm sure some people have a better process than we do. And they figure it out faster. But there's a learning curve, like they're you, it's gonna take you this long, before you feel comfortable, just telling them that it's okay, that this is going to stress you out, you're gonna be like reading through the notes at night, trying to make sure you understand everything. And that you're probably going to get a message from me that you probably you know, left the door unlocked or left to canned food out or whatever, while you're trying to wrap your head around all this information. We didn't run into people calling us we won't, I just can't do this. Because again, we told them, it's okay, you're gonna mess up, you're gonna make mistakes, know that anything, any interaction you get from us is us improving, not us condemning. And just letting it helped me as well as an owner understand and know that, because in the beginning, I would see a card come through, or I get a message from a client, like, my door unlocked. And my thought was, You're a grown human, I can't teach you how to lock the door, like lock the door. And you know, then I actually, you know, got out there and I thought, you know, hey, I need to teach them that kind of lock the deadbolt first. Because if you take that key off that deadbolt and you lock the door handle, it's really not secure. And if you lock the deadbolt, then we at least know we have one contact in place. And I never would have to let in this business what I have thought that I had to teach from people how to lock a door, but slowing myself down and understanding that I do need to articulate the steps and the importance and just the fact that I can't get mad when they mess something up in the first 3060 days. That there is a lot there's a lot there's some grace from us that has to come in there. Because if we hired based off of my initial feeling of perfection that everyone should have, because I do it right. We wouldn't have a team. I really had to it. I struggle with things that don't have definitive, measurable timeframes or or aspects to them and so just some of these little things that Justin started putting into words with our hires. It not only like I said help them understand that but it helped me is and employer understand, they're in the newbie window. And we we got to learn from this not fuss about it. So and our staff said they love that and I even started doing this little thing where, you know, I've read all the people help books and I, I felt like I when we first started working together, I felt like I was the disciplinarian and Justin was nice dad. And so like when people needed to take a month off, they call Justin. And I got stuck with the, you know, because it was always well, you did such you've talked to I knew all the clients. So just as like, well, you know, the client, you call them you have more rapport with them. So it was always me having to call and fix the little things that might have happened. I ended up in this like, be the tough person role. But I started I started doing what am I, one of my staffers, she ran a warehouse for Hanes brand for 30 years. And so she's so good at being aware of the positive and negative. And so I just made a nice comment to someone. And she was like, Do you know how far that went with that person? Like, they sent me a message. And they were like, you see what Marie said, you know, whatever they were like, yeah. Oh my god, really. And so I created this Excel sheet where I make sure that I am legitimately patting them on the back for something that I have noticed, be it fantastic pictures, we started a brag channel in Slack. So when like really nice, happiness cards come through, or we get reviews on Google, I will, or a comment, I'll copy and paste it into the brag channel. And I'm like, hey, guess what, you know, because we have some quite some staff who write some phenomenal cards, like I don't, they're like English majors. I'm like, wow, this is Shakespeare. And our clients just sit around waiting for the cards to come through, like on family trips, or like, our whole family sits around waiting for the card. And phenomenal and so like, I'll share them. And it has gone such a long way with just our staff morale, with me remembering to interject those positive things. And so we went through the good cop, bad cop. Now it's like we're finding a really good mix, because the communication just getting better. The expectation is getting spelled out better. And it's freeing up more time for me to remember to do the positive, you know, reinforcement as well, because I wouldn't, you know, wouldn't treat my kids like that. So that's been a big, big learning experience, too, is just not forgetting how far a good comment goes. And making sure that that stays balanced on some level, because too much of either can create a copy sitter or lazy sitter. And you know, someone who's just very appreciative. We have a lot of staff now who say, you know, I've never been anywhere that people like to say nice things to me. And like that is friggin shame. And I was upset with myself for a while because I overlooked it. But again, you know, try Phil adjust. We figured out that it's very important. We need to make sure that we're taking that time to do it because, you know, a year ago it wouldn't have it was always important to me but not high enough up my priority sheet. Now I have found out that three good comments will save us with the headaches.
Collin Funkhouser 53:20
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Marie P. 54:47
And when people are like give me a list, what did you do? Tell me I might there are some bullet points but you gotta there's some feel and no one likes to hear that there's feel because again, that quantitative, measurable bullet pointed, you know, list, obviously, there's some things we all do to be successful. But there is some magic sauce just in personality, the willingness to continue to be a lifelong learner. And, you know, just the, the remembrance of like I even told my staff stop, call me your boss, I'm not your boss, there is nothing in this business that I would not do or have not done that you have already done. And I want you guys to know that on Thanksgiving I'm hustling to. So I'm just another team member, we just orchestrate. We just make sure all the pieces go where they need to go. But we are no better or no worse than anyone else that's on our team. And just, you know, just remembering that I didn't want to create a dictatorship, I'd already worked in that. I didn't want to have that again. But again, not quite quantifiable. Not quite, you know, can't quite put it on paper. Other than I guess we just put a bullet point, don't be a jerk. I mean, that might cover it. But just remembering to be human and be nice. Don't Don't be a jerk. Don't be a crazy boss. You know?
Collin Funkhouser 56:06
How do you to decide what to focus on? Because with a business with an operation that you are running, I'm sure you've got 1000 things on your to do list or on your want to get to list? Where do you start with that kind of process?
Justin P. 56:18
Ah, well, that's where in our specific case, which you can relate to, is you work with your spouse. So God gave me the Completer. And because you guys have complementary things that when you're working together, it just naturally works out. Right meaning as as she's in this particular case, with the dog care, she started this business first. So she was doing everything. Right. And I would help out when I could with the daycare. And boy, because that was from the home. Because I already had was involved with two other businesses that couldn't go out and run into the dog opponents in other people's homes. Yeah. So you know, I was already from when she started kind of helping out with the stuff that was at the house daycare and boarding. When I came on more full time role in 2020. Then, you know, yeah, we were able to, I was able to do more of the dog stuff outside the home. I still base that around we have going on in the home. However, once again, thank you, Jesus. I left my gym twice, wrapped up with that begin to phase out end of 2019. Last day, January 2024. January 24 2020, literally right before, what happened six weeks later. Yeah. Yes. So God gave us this nice quiet time of about six weeks to where there was nothing going on in the home, no daycare, no boarding to where we can regroup as a family, I can begin to kind of get my feet wet going into other people's homes doing that. Finding my routine and rhythm with that going into people's homes process. And then we slowly began to ramp up back about Memorial Day of 2020. And then obviously, never 2021 Everybody changed off free. You know, we had learned habits and Warren discipline and gotten this stuff squared away when we got to 2021. And then because we had that timeframe, we had three kids, she was getting to the mother and stuff more. So I began doing as much of the outside the home or as much of the dock here as I could whether daycare boarding or the walkway to other people's homes. So there was that element. And then once we really began to grow, began bringing on employees and everything, you know, so once again, from my gym background, and all those things, I already had experience interviewing people and sales, and you know, finding people to work with us. So I just kind of naturally took on that role, because I'd already done it. You know, her being the teacher background, she cares about the paperwork, she cares about crossing the T's and dotting the lowercase j's and, and all that. So once again, it's the this the the natural blend working together there. Yeah, so. So that just kind of fell itself into place. Now, since we want you to have leveled up in business, what we're working on finding now is delayed because the dog care walls are taking care of themselves and naturally takes care of itself. Right. Which we just went we mentioned to herself to ourselves the other day, we now need to define the administrative stuff and who's going to do what when? Because now there's three to four people, you know, with hands in the administrative stuff. So we haven't nailed out those parameters yet. We know that's what we're in the process of nailing down as far as back end administrative roles and responsibilities and tasks.
Marie P. 59:30
There's basically two ways that we've kind of, I feel like we've looked how we how we kind of manage a day. Obviously the most important thing when we wake up is is our family taking care of and the kids are okay. So we are not so we are we are we've we found out we are not I'm not a good employee. I don't know by him. I'm not a good employee. I am an entrepreneur at heart. I don't want people telling me to do stupid stuff for no reason. And that don't move something forward. So whether that makes us serial entrepreneurs or lifelong entrepreneurs, I don't know, we're business owners. That's just how we think. So we know that the employee side of the matrix is not for us. So we have always kind of had that mindset every day, we're going to look at is this business working for us? Or are we employees in our business? And that's kind of where we knew where he says natural. These are the thoughts we're having that he defines as natural. Is it working for us? Is it working for our family? Is it working for our staff? Is it working for our clients. And so that's why we knew the gym wasn't working, you know, the payout was not what it needed to be for the time investment that he was making, and what that was costing him physically. And he wasn't able to be home or when he almost fell asleep at the table one day talking to me, I thought he had cancer. And we just figured out he was just working too much. Because this guy would get he had to go to work at what 5am I would wake up to do a feeding at 330. And he's like, Well, I'll just get up and do it because I gotta be up an hour and a half anyway. And so I'm like, Oh, you're amazing. Well, they hit me, he's getting no sleep, and he would never complain about it. So again, we looked at is it paying us well is the time is. And time is money, people say that it is like there are things we do in our business, I will pay a fortune for because the time that it opens up, is 5000 million dollars worth whatever the small investment may be time time is what it is we're confined by it. So there are things I pay for that don't necessarily make sense on an Excel sheet. But they make sense in time, family time interactions with our kids. Then on a daily basis in our business, what we're looking at the things that jump out fast is to us Do we have an emergency? Do we have a sick dog? Do we have someone that like, literally needs to go to the vet now? Are there any major fires? Then we're looking at our our staffs needs met today? Do we have somewhat like we have a staffer right now whose mom is battling cancer? Does she need to be off today? Um, does she need to run out who can cover that? How are we taking care of them? We had a staffer have surgery, we're making sure that you know foods getting taken to her family that you know that they're an extenuation of our family, making sure they're taken care of as well. And then we just kind of then we start looking at the things as far as the things that we need for oxygen, which are those things, staff and clients. And then we get into the things that aren't combustible, they're not going to catch on fire today. So, you know, like Christmas presents need to go out to staff. Do we ever SOP together and Janie's Janie's like get it done? Like now and I'm like, but it's like number seven on clothes. But I with the increase in you know, office management and that type of thing. I'm starting to get a lot of that off my plate. And then once we finally started rolling, and we had like last month, we had like 50 new clients come on board. And we were like, I can't texted Janie and like, I don't know what to do. We can't slow down long enough for me to carve out 10 hours. Yeah. So you know, obviously, and I'm sure you guys have seen this in your business. If you don't respond quickly to those people. They go elsewhere. Yeah, so that obviously gets moved up higher, you know, on the list. And we even had a powwow yesterday with just a mastermind with our other administrative people on, you know, how can we improve the process? Like with Robert Strickland, his automation stuff is phenomenal. I'm not smart enough. I'm trying to figure it out. But even though I can't do the big chunks that Robert is doing, just those little pieces that people are pointing out in those groups about, is your process actually working again, am I an employee? Or am I an owner? Do we have a process that makes this easy for everyone across the board? So those things have moved up on that priority list of should this get done today or not? Because again, we're getting to the point and I wish we'd done this a little bit sooner. But again, our growth was so fast, but like we were talking earlier, we're starting to see a long game, because it's not just us anymore. Yeah. Now we've got three managers who you know, need to come to work and know that our process works. Because again, I told you, I don't like working in a job where I feel like I'm beating my head against a wall. I don't want them to feel like they're coming to a business to be an employee beating their head against the process. So I'm getting those things in place I now need them now are much higher priority for us again, because we have other people who are carrying our we had a friend who told us that your biggest blessings will also be your biggest burdens and to keep that in focus when you're building your business and doing anything else because you know when you get those fire, you get a fire on Thanksgiving. You're like I don't have time for this today like seriously, but just remembering. It provides us the ability to live a fantastic life with my kids not rolling out of bed till they want to and whatever else Since it's the big picture, those things make it worth it. But just remember, like I said, a lot of things have moved up in Priority just because we have people who want to help. And we want to make sure they don't have their hands tied behind their back.
Collin Funkhouser 1:05:11
I love that perspective of going. There are so many things to work on in my business, we all have a list a mile long, but it's about our priorities. It really, truly is, where do my priorities align with what the business needs to work on? And sometimes, yeah, we may need to reach further down on the list to bring something up, because we we start thinking a little bit further ahead. And but that's as our perspective changes, we need to that changes our priorities, right? Like, it's this kind of continuous moving piece and these puzzles that are coming around, as we grow. Yeah, as we grow and develop, right?
Marie P. 1:05:43
Is that it's that same mindset, again, we're we're talking about, nothing's gonna burn you down, except for a couple of things, like losing a dog or not showing up for a visit, you know, it, just remembering that, you know, there's not really anything that's going to just make you throw yourself on the floor, waddled around and scream, I quit, I'm not doing this, you know, it's time management's obviously, very important. But again, you know, a business is living and breathing, and it's moldable. It's like a Rubik's Cube, you know, you just kind of you turn the pieces where you need them to go that day, there has to be some long term thinking otherwise, you turn into a three year old trying to get cookies every five minutes. But just just, it's gonna be okay. You know, don't don't get so tied down in your process that it doesn't let you breathe. I don't have burnout issues. I don't have blood pressure issues. Do I get to the gym as much as I would like? No. But again, I know that there are certain periods that it's going to be way easier, certain periods that it's not, we just, and he's been so good about mapping out what our year looks like. And what we've we've been alive in our business has been alive long enough now that she's starting to get into that toddler phase where we're starting to see that, you know, certain times of the year, there are certain routines that work well, we know what our numbers are now, where highs or lows or peaks are, where things may transition. And we just, you know, we roll with it, you just just you know, I know January, February, we're going to be slow. So I know, I'm going to be able to prioritize SOP and whatever else and our new processes and making sure kits are stocked, you know, it's it's breathe time, it's revamped time. And we're excited. Our accountant told us last year, we're not allowed to say January slow anymore, because it's really not. But it is it is definitely not July. And so I'm looking forward to that time. But I just can't tell business owners enough that you know, it's going to be okay. You may not have an answer today. But you just keep hammering at it. I used to I used to do Ironman before I had kids and my coach used to always tell me, the only way you do 140 Miles is one mile at a time. So if you don't have the answer to the question that you have the day wife is probably going to throw you something tomorrow that will make it so infocus that you're like how did I not know that. So just just keep chipping. keep hammering, figuring out what you can be successful and when for you know when that day with and it just, it's, you know, we're, I guess six, six, almost seven years old now. And it will work out especially if you can stay positive and excited about your business. And if you can't be than that as a sign and go hire someone who can come in and put some life back in it. Because there's nothing that makes us we just hired a kennel manager who fell in our lap. Again, someone not happy with another situation ended up here. And I'm gonna tell you what, she has just blown my heart open for just the things that I forgot. I got so tied down into the process of what we were doing that I forgot to enjoy it and what we're doing with the dogs and so she's brought in an art program that the dogs are down, they're making Christmas trees and like all kinds of fun stuff. Oh my god, this was our vision. And you know, I thought it was would be this long process. And guys literally, in one day, I went from a to do list of 5000 things to do in our in our Kindle business. She shows up. And within like 48 hours, we've got the top 50 things on my list knocked out. And you know, she's like, and she's just like, Yeah, I'm just glad somebody's listening to me. I'm so excited this someone likes my ideas. Our clients love it. We've never, you know, our capacity for daycare is starting to get maxed out and we're so excited for it. And again, it was one person it was one day. And if you'd asked me at 6am If I would feel the way I did at 9am I would have told you no way. I didn't even I didn't even know I wasn't happy until like I said she blew it open. So just hang on. I sat down with another business owner here that owns a dog another dog care business here in Winston the other day, and she she she messaged me she like before we sat down to talk, she was like, I really thought my business wasn't going to make it. I was like you just need sometimes you just need somebody to tell you, you got a good thing. keep hammering is going to be okay. It's going to be okay. Find someone who believes in you will tell you that even if you've got to go hire them, find someone, if you're if you're burning out, it's time to find someone to help you. And that's okay. And getting employees is not that hard. You know, there's enough of us now that I'll walk anybody through it. Yeah, there, there are people that will, that will help take it off. So you can remember why you built it. I
Collin Funkhouser 1:10:37
love that. Remember why you built it. I think that's where we do need to stay focused every day. And if we can wake up with that, keep that in perspective, things will work out and we will know, right? A lot of times, it's hard to know, like, what, what I work on? Well, it's going to be okay, like, what what can I focus on, right,
Marie P. 1:10:54
I'll tell you the single most unutilized thing in your home is your mirror in your bathroom, get a dry erase marker. And if it's bugging you, or making you happy, throw it up there because I'm gonna tell you why I come up with some of my best ideas and solutions between getting a shower getting ready in the morning and just seeing it there. So if you even just have to tell yourself, put your y on that on your on your mirror, you know, this is it, especially when we get in like what we used to do. Like when we were doing all this from home, and it was literal chaos, we used to I would take an hour go into time to paint and I would write down what the report payout was going to be like the next seven days, I would just write the number on that we turn one whole wall of our kitchen into a whiteboard. And I would just we painted it and I would right up there with a number amount was just I was like, what is that? I was like, that's how much money we're gonna make in the next seven days. He's like, Yep, I can suck this up. Do anything for that. So whatever motivates you figure it out. If it's a trip to Hawaii in two years, I don't know, just write it on a mirror somewhere so that you see it, put it on your rearview mirror or whatever. I just found if you keep those things in front of you, you can take a lot more beating than you ever thought possible. Well, I
Collin Funkhouser 1:12:03
want to thank you both so much for coming on the show today and sharing with us your journey and your immense words of encouragement. It's so cool to see and hear what you were both working on and how you are you I mean, you're really changing your business, your lives. And that impacts the industry and your community. So it's really cool. And I'm really, really thankful for our time to get to talk today. For those who want to reach out, follow along with all the cool stuff or maybe pick your brains on some other stuff. How best can people get in touch and follow along with all that you guys do? They
Marie P. 1:12:35
can find us on our website, which is ws doc here i.com. And I am in all of pretty much all that I know of the sitter groups. I'm in Roberts group, pet sitters, confessions, all of those. And then my email address is listed on the website. Our phone number is 336505 pets. I will invest anytime and to anyone that I can because we are so thankful for all the people that had helped us we don't have it all figured out. But it's like I told my friend here on Wednesday, if I don't know, I know people who do I can I'm good at connecting you to people who will help you figure out a solution. And I just want to tell you, thank you. This is our first podcast ever. So thank you, sir rookie rookie podcast. So just thank you for having us. And we're excited that you guys even knew that we existed and then reached out. So thank you. And good luck to you, man.
Collin Funkhouser 1:13:29
Don't get so tied down with your processes that you can't breathe. What a wonderful reminder that while we should write things down, have a process, have our procedures have things lined out, ironed out so we can teach people show people maybe sell our business if that's something that we want to do. No process is so precious, that if it starts to impact us in our ability to do our work, to serve our clients and to lead and be well, nothing is so precious that we can't throw it away and start over again. We built them in the first place. We can decide and create new things as we change as our business grows and evolves. as well. We want to thank today's sponsors, time to pet and the peaceful pet music calm music for pets on youtube channel for sponsoring today's show. We really want to thank you so much for listening. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. And we'll be back again soon.
