463: Networking for Success with Angela Reinbacher
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What does it mean to surround yourself with people who can help make you better? How do we go about being vulnerable enough to admit we need that help? As a business owner, personal improvement and a supportive network are key to longevity! Angela Reinbacher, owner of Wild Paws, shares how she is making networking work for her. Angela also talks about how she is approaching marketing with video to attract her clientele, while also managing the growth in a healthy and sustainable way.
Main topics:
Finding our market
Taking feedback well
Don’t reinvent the wheel
Networking that works
Main takeaway: Once you’re ok with hearing ‘no’, you’re going to fly through brick walls.
About our guest:
Angela runs Wild Paws, based in Colorado. Being a Millennial on the cusp of Gen Z, age focuses on growing her business by not being stuck in “pet only” spaces or mindsets. She believes “all business is business” so she applies what she’s learned in other industries to her percare business.
Links:
https://www.wildpawscolorado.com
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, pet, business, videos, clients, thought, pet sitter, dog, angela, mailers, started, networking, friends, day, website, year, call, facebook, meetup, cool
SPEAKERS
Angela Reinbacher, Collin Funkhouser
Collin Funkhouser 00:03
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 surround yourself with people that can make you better? And how do we go about admitting to ourselves that we have areas that we can improve, and then get connected with people who can actually make a difference? Today, we're really excited to talk with Angela Reinbacher owner of wild paws based out in Colorado, about building a network of people both in and outside of the petsitting industry so that you can have a community close at home to strengthen you learn from and grow as a person. Let's get started. Of
Angela R. 00:44
course. Thanks, Colin, my name is Angela and I run a while pause. We are based out of Castle Rock, Colorado, we've only been in business for three years as of September. So that means we started in September 2020. People thought I was crazy, because it's a lot of when businesses were closing. But I saw kind of an in with the market. And so I just walked into it. And within a few months, I hired my first employee, and we've rocked and rolled and now it's three years old.
Collin Funkhouser 01:12
So talk to me about that in in the market. Were you closely watching this space? Or did you just kind of have an epiphany moment where you knew it was time.
Angela R. 01:21
So I was doing marketing for myself, I like ran a small freelance business. And because COVID Hit that turned upside down, I was doing nothing. I lived alone. And I was bored and stuck inside. And I basically downloaded rover for like the first time was like, What can I do? So I started walking couple dogs and realize these nurses were reaching out to me, these professionals who still had to go into office and I thought hang on, there's a market just because of COVID like COVID has demolished pet sitting but then create a new market of dog walking. So within six months, I was fully on my own, like supporting myself and one staff member. And that's that's how I actually got started was on rover until I till I had enough to go off of it.
Collin Funkhouser 02:10
Yeah, what? How did you come across that? Were you just searching for, you know, side gigs, things that I can do? Or was it recommended by somebody.
Angela R. 02:19
So I had done dog walking for a business that function similar to mine back in college for like a semester. And so I had the idea of like, I know how to go and respect a person's house, understand how to send photos and updates. But I hadn't used the rover app. So I was kind of like, well, if I understand the concept, I can just apply it to like this kind of freelance gig work of dog walking.
Collin Funkhouser 02:43
Yeah, well, and kind of it's always an interesting process, right? Where you have that idea or like general concept, and then you start going, how do I make that work for me? Right? What would I What would I do with that? And kind of make it my own?
Angela R. 02:56
Totally, yeah, because one of the first things that I did for like getting reviews too, because reviews promote you so much, is like putting a really nice Frank photo on someone's counter for them to come home to and it was those little things that just helped me snowball for referrals. And like the reviews at first. And that's really how I kicked things off.
Collin Funkhouser 03:14
Oh, gosh, yeah. Cuz those, you know, those touches, we think a lot of bout of, you know, how much does this go noticed? What impact does this actually do? Is this just something that makes me feel? Like I'm certainly we've certainly done that before of like, we think, Oh, man, this will be this will really blow them away. And then it's crickets, and then you do something else? And it's like, the best thing in the world. Yeah.
Angela R. 03:39
Yeah, I try to have the mindset of I am giving with no expectation. So like, hopefully, maybe they'll leave a review, or they'll like it, and if not, like how to protect myself is to not expect to thank you, because you're not gonna always get it.
Collin Funkhouser 03:54
And that what that's really hard, especially when we work so hard, right in the for the service, right? We really pour ourselves into doing this kind of work. It is a work of passion. And you're right, not that we sit back and go okay, now let the accolades begin. But when we don't get a response, it can be very like, I didn't think notice didn't, but I tried so hard. And to not take that personally, but instead mentally be able to go. I didn't I know I did my best. And that's that has to be enough for me.
Angela R. 04:25
Yeah, yeah, totally. And I think that also comes with growth, too, because the bigger the business gets, the more I'm doing these things. So the less I'm thinking about the one individual because I just handed out 10 things this week. Five of them were gourmet cookies, two or bouquets of flowers, and three were this, like, there's so much more going on that you end up like, you're gonna clap and be happy when the two people say thank you, but the other eight, it's cool. You already forgot about your
Collin Funkhouser 04:48
career. You're right, like it's very interesting, because while this is still an exceptionally and deeply personalized business, the more clients we have, the less impact kind of like those Will things have on us? Because we know like, collectively, there's there's a bigger impact happening here. And I'm not quite so emotionally maybe dependent on that one person to say thank you to me.
Angela R. 05:11
Yeah, it's so much easier to not take it personally, the more you grow, for sure.
Collin Funkhouser 05:17
You described a little bit about the kind of clients that were reaching out to you, the nurses, the professionals, with people still in the office who had created this market, opening, what is generally the market like where you are operating.
Angela R. 05:31
It's changed a lot since I started, as most of probably say that, since traveling is more common. Now, again, people are not holding back with that. I think a lot of us would probably say in 2021, when things began to open slowly, there was a huge need for pet sitting because everyone got those animals and 2020, those COVID Dogs are like COVID cats, right. And so everyone was looking for pet sitters, and then everything was booming, booming, booming. And so I then experienced a lot of growth in 2021, a lot of growth in 2022. And I'm like, we're gonna crush it in 2023. And I'd be looking at the numbers now going, huh? Am I crushing? It crushing me? Yeah. I think just people have found those pet sitters in 2021 2022 for their COVID animals. And so now they're not looking for new ones until they get burned by their old ones. And so it's less new animals. In my opinion, in the mix. At least we're where we're servicing and Castle Rock. And so it's really getting in front of people who, like, haven't traveled yet or just moved into town. The adjustment in the town people are aware we're getting a lot of new business from
Collin Funkhouser 06:43
okay. Yeah, that's, that's interesting to think about. And those are those are good questions that if we're if listeners aren't doing this, to try and understand who is coming to my business, what market segment is this? Because I love how you broke down that angel of like, people with brand new pets, people with pain points at work, people with, you know, travel needs people something else, like all of those are little different market segments. And while you may love Google, well, just word of mouth will get me there. It's like, well, sometimes we need to be thinking about how we can speak directly to that person. Because just saying, Oh, I'll walk anybody's dog. Well, right. But like, how are you speaking to the brand new person to tell like that is a person that's out there? How you're going to get connected with them?
Angela R. 07:28
Definitely. And people talk about avatars alive, like who's your best avatar? And I'm thinking, which bucket are we talking about? Because my cat avatar is different than my dog wagging? Which is different than the pet sitting? Like they're very three different voices that I'm speaking to.
Collin Funkhouser 07:44
Yeah, no, that's, that is so huge. And when we forget that, we start speaking this really just like bland, monotone, boilerplate language, right? That's
Angela R. 07:55
not gonna catch them all, like, Pokemon can't do it. Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 07:59
I don't know, if you're, I we find ourselves doing this some time of, of going, Okay, we need to make a social media post. And then as we sit there, we think about it, and we overthink it. And then all of a sudden you look back and you're like, This is just mush. It says nothing. This is I don't I, instead of coming out and being a little bit more bold, in the words not being brash, or, you know, obscene. That's what I'm saying. But like, direct and pointed to a particular people speaking in that voice, like you talked to, like you just mentioned,
Angela R. 08:29
totally. And I do think we can advertise differently to those people and in just even different segments, right. Some of them might respond better to mailers, some might respond better to like, paid ads on social media, like you can get in front of them in different ways. Like the hospitals, right? Like, if you have one nurse that goes to hospital, can you send them with brochures, you know, things, things of that sort?
Collin Funkhouser 08:51
So how are you advertising these these days? I mean, because that's kind of what we're, that's really what we're talking about here is what methods are you trying to use to get to those people? Yeah,
Angela R. 09:01
so this is really fun to me, because I used to be in the bandwagon of word of mouth is just letting me get all the business and life. And whatever mouth just like kind of slows down because life changes and the COVID Puppies have their pet suitors. And so I think word of mouth got me probably the first 150 grand the business made. And then I'm like, I gotta kind of pivot here. And so slowly tried new things. And then as of the summer, I finally was like, You know what, let's just, let's just try things. So I have a couple things going on. Right now. I have Facebook ads, which are very fun to experiment with. I'm getting much better results than I had expected being a service based business. And I'm also doing these map mailers, and I'm so excited about this. So I had this idea because people talk about lead like lead generation, right. And I think your podcast was talked about a few times to have like How to get people to your site and how to get them to like, put their email address in. And so I'm thinking, what do I have to offer that I'll get an email because me being a 28 year old millennial and like, I've never give out my email list is my junk mail, because I'm trying to perceive anything.
Collin Funkhouser 10:15
I don't know if you use it if you use an iPhone, but you can sign up for services, and it gives you an option to hide your email address from people. When you sign up. I use it all the time, because I'm like, no, no, no junk mail.
Angela R. 10:29
While Yep, yeah, so I'm thinking like, what is gonna be worth it? And then I thought, and how can I get it sponsored? And so because if I'm thinking about mailers, I'm like, Man, that's gonna cost a pretty penny. Like, even if I do like the direct mailers through the post office 19 cents apiece, plus your print, if you're doing it, like by hand, you're looking at 55 cents, a stamp plus the print. And so I'm thinking, how can I get this funded? So I thought, okay, my community has a lot of like home grown bars and breweries, I said, What if I made a map of a town with a few different cool landmarks, and then I put on their dog friendly locations, and I have all drawn out I mean, I like hired a freelancer to to, like do watercolor, like digitally with it and things. And then I said, You know what, hang on, what if I go to those businesses and I say, hey, for X amount of money, you can be on the mound. Yeah. And so now they have to buy in, because not only that, but then if I send it to them, now, they're super intrigued with it, because they had a buy in with it. And then I have now money for printing. And I have money for ads. So I can like promote it on Facebook and things as well as promoted like physically in mail. That was my newest creation that I'm almost like finished and ready to send out is my mailers. So
Collin Funkhouser 11:53
how, how was that received by the breweries? Because I just purchased? Like, I know, like, when it feels weird approaching companies with that kind of stuff, because it almost feels like I don't know, like, Oh, I'm holding you hostage, like, Oh, I've got this thing. Do you want an A? So what did that conversation look like when you took that idea to them?
Angela R. 12:09
Yeah, so I actually did it via email from them Facebook message for a few. And so I at first, it took me a while to find their email. So you gotta get creative for finding their emails. I mean, like, you got to look at who Facebook's registered to things like that, because they're not really posting them on their websites anymore, right? I know. And so I was actually what surprised me was the bigger ones were the ones to buy into it, the smaller ones who I thought would want it more. Were kind of like, not that interested. But let me know on round two, I'm curious of your results. So it's almost like the smaller ones were a little more skeptical. The bigger ones. Literally, I reached out to one they go actually, we have three businesses in the area. Will you take all three? And I was like for three times the money? Absolutely. Yes. So I probably got, I would say like a 45% success rate of people who bought in which is higher than I expected. My goal was 10, I got nine. And then I was like, I threw basically, one of my clients owns a wine bar. I was like, I'm gonna throw you a freebie. We're gonna put you on here because you're a client. And I made a really nice message to them. I'm like the why? Oh, great. And then their dogs are?
Collin Funkhouser 13:21
So So you have the map. And so yeah, this is what you are doing direct mail, your mail, you're taking that map, and you're now mailing that to people in your community? Is that right? Yeah,
Angela R. 13:29
yeah, the whole front side is going to be kind of like, what the map looks like a little bit of a legend at the bottom, sponsored by wild paws the back all about us. Yeah, with like, who it would have been sent to like the current resident at whatever address, and then like a QR code information about us. So then hopefully, my thought is, it's so nice. And you want to save it for spring, you're gonna slap that baby up on your fridge, where you put in the junk drawer that you're not going to throw out?
Collin Funkhouser 13:57
Well, it's so you know, it's taking this, this idea of I do need to maybe I'll have a lead magnet. So we go, okay, I put this on my website. But if we went through all that trouble to do that, it's trying to go like, what else can we do with this and trying to do this direct mailing, which we know when targeted as a really does have a good ROI on it. Especially I will say when it's about local communities, like people really dig that kind of stuff, and making something like this. The other key important factor of that is that it is shareable. Right? This is something that somebody can look at and go, Hmm, might not be for me, because maybe I don't drink or maybe you know, whatever. I'm not into breweries, I want to be home. But like, but I have a friend at work, or I have somebody else now that this is something that they can take and they can hand to them, which is a lot more impactful than saying, Oh, you've got to Google this thing or you got to go to this website. That's too many hurdles, just hand something to somebody, it's more more sticky in that way. And it can kind of go beyond that initial price per mail because that's going to get shared out or at least some Have a look.
Angela R. 15:00
Yeah. So the other component is I do want to put it on my website with like a, an email by and so to speak, where you just put in your email and you get it. But through the chamber, you've talked about the chamber on your on your podcast before, my chamber does this really cool thing where, once a year, if you're a member, you can get a list of new residence for the last quarter. So I got it. My homie got it for me too. So I have six months worth of new addresses of people who don't probably have friends in the area might not have family and they don't got a pet sitter. So like, I'm now going to mail them this value add. So my first round of mailing is going to strictly go to people who have moved into town the last six months, hoping that you have not found your pet sitter yet. Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 15:43
that's that's huge. And so when we talk about benefits of networking, and trying to get access to like, there's this information, somebody has this information out there. I know if you've ever sat there actually and been like, who has this? Like who do I talk to that kind of information of new home sales? Sure, you can scrape Zillow, you can you can go maybe if you have a friend in the real estate that can do an MLS search or things like that, like but this this networking of going here's and that can be hard to have as a business to be like No, I, I know, we have to be better at just us personally going. We need to be selfish in this ask because it's beneficial to us. i This is something that I need and is helpful to me. It's okay for me to ask that instead of always going, No, no, it's fine. I'll be fine. Because I know if it's there,
Angela R. 16:30
ask for that. And then use totally Yeah, just like how we said like, don't give with an expectation. Well, don't ask expecting a yes. But like, go for the ask just like you know, don't feel that they're gonna say yes, but go for it. Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 16:47
yeah, that's, that's, that's huge. Because then you'll never know, if you don't ask, alright. And then you'll be always be wondering. And so many times that happens in business where we have this idea, we have this concept, we have this idea where or this this vision, and but Well, I'm gonna, I'm not. And we kind of talk ourselves back from it, instead of just going, you know, what if I actually did that, what would that actually look like? And sometimes that just means writing it down on pen and paper, and kind of brainstorming some things a vision casting and what that is going to be, then you'll see some steps you can pick up on so that you can actually take action on that instead of always keeping it up in our head.
Angela R. 17:22
Yeah, definitely. And like with my mailers, I thought, I'm going to do this anyway. So if, if no one even opts in to pitching in, in the end, I'm going to send it to them, they're gonna see the final product, and they're gonna want to next time, because I knew I wanted to commit to it. So I thought, why not go for it? I did not. Like I was hoping for 10. I got nine. And at that point, I was like, this was still a good turnout. Pitching at that point, I was pitching a theory, I wasn't even pitching like anything I could tangibly show them.
Collin Funkhouser 17:53
Right. So when you go back to them for that second round, what are you planning to show them to convince them that this was a success or whatever?
Angela R. 18:01
Yeah, I want to show them stats. So I have roughly like 2400 mailers, I want to get out because those are all the new residents in six months. And then I also once I start running it on my website and through Facebook to push it a little bit. I want to wait until the weather's a tad nicer, and start pushing on Facebook. And then I can come to them and say, here's the stats of the people who opted in. And here's the amount who got direct mailers who for sure saw it. Yeah, you had all of that exposure for this amount. Right?
Collin Funkhouser 18:31
Yeah. And especially linking it to that QR code. Because then those are some hard stats of like, these people got the mailer. And they didn't just like I know they did something with this, because they scan this QR code, and I can see that here, or here's the change in website traffic, or whatever that is, yeah, start tying those in together. Because at the end of the day, it is a business decision for them. You know, sometimes as businesses, we make decisions, because it's a good business decision. Sometimes we make decisions because it's good for the community. Like it's a it's a charitable kind of thing. We want to support something. And we all have our own reasons for doing that and being respectful of them going okay, yeah, no, I get it like, this is brand new. That's kind of unproven in our area. So yeah, but you better believe I'm going to be back for round two. Yeah. Have you heard of time to pet Susan, the pet gal has this to say time to
Susan 19:18
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 19:35
you're looking for new petsitting software, give time to pet a try. Listeners of our show can save 50% off your first three months by visiting times pet.com/confessional. You also mentioned that you're running Facebook ads and I know you did post recently about how you're not just posting static images either on these.
Angela R. 19:57
So, um, I don't know how much you're Are you into Facebook ads very much? No,
Collin Funkhouser 20:01
we we have done the Google side of thing. But we haven't done a Facebook stuff. So that's why I'm really interested.
Angela R. 20:08
Yeah. So I'm all about let's innovate, let's not reinvent the wheel. Like we all got time for that. So something Facebook does that I think is brilliant for people like us, is there's this button, if you click About in someone's Facebook page, you can click transparency, you can not only see if they're running ads, you can literally look at what they're running. So I started looking at rover, and whack whack wasn't running any though rover ran a ton of them. I was looking at other businesses in the area in my area, other bigger businesses nationwide. And I'm looking at what are they doing, because if they're if they're putting money into this, and they're big businesses, it has to be working, right? Like they're not wasting money, they found something that works. And so if I'm looking at it, it's either basic images that move, so it's technically a video, but they're kind of basic, they got some transitions, or it's like full fledged videos. And I was like, great, we're gonna recreate it. Yeah, recreate it with the content that I have. So I did two types. I did the basic image that moves. And I did kind of like my homemade video in Premiere Pro, but some music to both of them had different things. And with the transparency, you can also see the copy they're doing so the actual text, which is wild to me, like I mean, you can literally besides copying their audience, you can copy like everything else. It's insane. So I'm also looking at what are they writing in these in these ads that are catching people's attention. And I mean, literally hundreds of these things. So there's just so many options. And in the end, I honestly use chat GPT because it was giving me some good ideas for the wind. Seriously. And so what I found was that my homemade video of a compilation, it goes like dog, cat, dog, cat, dog, cat, and it has some text overlay that kind of like almost narrates it, but there's no voice, I found that that had been performing the best since the beginning, not by much, it performs about 34 cents a click, my other ones performed 50 cents, so not a huge difference. But enough to where I'm like this heaps performing better than like the static images that move a little Yeah. And so I just keep putting like, little more money into that one than all the other ones. But I really enjoy like every other month or every month just exploring a little more of like, let's just try another one while running the one that we know goes great. Let's run another one and see if it can beat it.
Collin Funkhouser 22:33
Yeah, we'll continue to do that a b testing is so critical is because we don't want to look up and find that we are not not if we're not trying to make those marginal gains like month over month, quarter over quarter, we're not going to know what we could have expected if we if we didn't make those changes. So that kind of experimentation is really critical to making sure that we are running healthy ads, healthy posts looking at that. And so whether you run ads or not going, if I what am I posting? Right? Well, let me look back at my insights. And let me see what's performing better. Okay, I need to be posting more of that, if that's what I'm trying to
Angela R. 23:09
get. Totally Yeah. And
Collin Funkhouser 23:13
it also kind of helps crack the nut so to speak of, it's hard to show what we do. Right? It's images and just static images, video is really something that I know we could be doing a lot more of to have really showing that story, really bringing people into that moment. Because, you know, pet parents don't know what to expect, especially if it's the first time they've used a service like this. So being able to walk them through that show them those different aspects, or just have that that movie that's kind of like a little slideshow, so to speak of moving it with the motion and things like that going, Look, we've got all these images anyway, might have tried to use them in a new way as well. Definitely.
Angela R. 23:53
And one of the things too, that I was thinking of with static images is what if they don't even think it's me because I can take some gorgeous photos. But then people are gonna be thinking these are stock photos. They're so good. Like what I started doing with the videos was I have a half sleeve on my left arm. So I started putting my left arm in almost every video because then you can identify that like, despite its five different videos, like compiled together, you can tell it's all made because the same tattooed are the whole time. Like
Collin Funkhouser 24:25
you're trying to prove an alibi.
Angela R. 24:30
Because usually I send people photos and they go oh, cool, like where'd you get? And I'm like, No, I took it. Like, no,
Collin Funkhouser 24:36
it is interesting what people think of what we send them sometimes and like where we got them and and the use of stock photos is so prevalent right in the industry. Yeah, and I understand the need for it. Sometimes if sometimes we just can't we don't have the image to display what we're trying to get to. So that's fine. But when we can use your own photos, but But you know, clients potential clients don't really know the difference unless it's their dog. I guess or unless you've got a cool tattoo you can show off.
Angela R. 25:05
Yeah, so it was only for my ad because I was like, Okay, I want to make like some form of like little trust. Despite that, like people might think like tattoos aren't trusting. But let's, let's just say that they are. And like, it was their idea that like this, this is the same person the video, this was like home may despite that, like, it has a cool kind of videography aspect to it.
Collin Funkhouser 25:23
Yeah, kind of letting him know, like, this is what we do. Or this is what I do, right? Like, this is me. And that's where that personality comes in. That's where our voice comes in. Where it can say, No, this is this is not just something that I had made. But no, I did this. And that's kind of showing off that skill a little bit, too. Yeah, yeah. How much time does that take? Typically, Angela, for making a video like that. And getting Oh.
Angela R. 25:50
Depends on the scale of one to 10. How much are you a perfectionist? So I've done videos in the past and, like, make them for various things for freelance work, people would hire me out for it. So like, I use Premiere Pro through Adobe, like I literally pay a subscription to use it, it's way more than is needed. People can probably make it in like iMovie. So I honestly think no one should spend more than 30 minutes. But I spent like quite a bit of time because I was like, very perfectionist about certain things, and I wanted to get lightings, right and certain way I was, it's just the way that I have learned to do videos. So little, probably it's probably about an hour and a half like, a little more than I do.
Collin Funkhouser 26:36
But But if that's something that you're gonna get lots of traction on, right, that you're gonna use for probably a little while or repurpose in other ways. Or you might not leave it up for six months, but you might take it down, put it back up, take it down like this, this is going to be investment if you're planning on using it for a while. Because, you know, I know that you even use video a lot, even on your own website to have like, you know, there's there's not you you talking about the business showing off things like it's throughout everything on that. And I really love how you do that. Because it really does bring people in and makes it captivating makes them go oh, what it what is she saying? Right? What
Angela R. 27:07
did she say? Yeah, thanks. It was another thing that I thought of just this year of, because I up until probably August, I only have photos and I thought hang on, like it'd be so much more captivating, they put a couple of videos in, it makes it really more seem like personalized, and I'm petting a cat or like other things to where you get a feel of like your animal is loved. Versus like I can take a selfie with an animal. But you know, who is it more about that near the animal?
Collin Funkhouser 27:36
Well, I know some people may be worried about putting videos on their websites if they are worried about you know, load time or things like that. But on the other hand, we also have to go well, a you know, we can upload an unlisted photo on YouTube. So it's not actually hosted on the website. So it loads really fast. And there are ways to do that. Also pros and cons, but I rather have a slightly slower vote loading website. But people are more captivated and buy into me and trust me more, or a video web page that loads super fast. That's kind of bland, right? And doesn't have my personality there.
Angela R. 28:07
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Collin Funkhouser 28:10
So you're you're actively advertising, you're pushing a lot of this content out, you know, how is that impacting? How have you seen that impact your growth and changes to your company?
Angela R. 28:22
Yeah, a lot more calls? A lot more.
Collin Funkhouser 28:25
It's working.
Angela R. 28:26
Yeah, definitely a lot more like form submitted on the website, like contact forms. So we have on their website, you can call us, you can email us. Or you can fill out this form. And the form is kind of like your name, tell me what kind of service you're looking for drop in overnight, dog walking, if you've got dates in mind. So someone can fill out that form. And then we call them. Yeah, so three different options. And those just really skyrocketed. And I directly related to the advertising because I'm also watching my clicks from the ads go up. Now I can do a lot more with Facebook of having like, basically different landing pages and ending pages to really track conversion, I have not spent that much time doing it yet. So that's my goal for 2024. So I can actually track how many people get across the finish line. But for now, I'm seeing people are clicking and my phone keeps ringing. And it's a lot of people too who are traveling because I have a couple different audiences going. And one of my audiences you have to be interested in traveling and different certain things on Facebook in order for it to even go to you. So hopefully it is capturing people who want to take those vacations. We have a cat clan, they were going for five months this year. Oh, great. Like that's who I want. I want you
Collin Funkhouser 29:48
Well, that's that's important to remember too with Facebook, you can subdivide those audiences and go off of interest and things like that. And, and that's where not being afraid to be opinionated about who is this for right Who is this?
Angela R. 30:00
based on income level?
Collin Funkhouser 30:05
When you're watching, when just from your gut sense, Angela, do you feel like the people that are contacting you like, do you feel like they are a good fit? Because I know you're not really quite tracking conversions yet. But do you feel like oh, no, the right people are contacting me? Are we still need you still needing to kind of make those slight, slight adjustments?
Angela R. 30:25
Yes and no, some people still contact us for boarding. And I think that's just the I don't read, like, they don't didn't do their research. They didn't actually read anything. They just saw dogs and pet care. And they're like, maybe they'll board my dog. And we always trying to flip those clients, right, like on the phone. We don't do that. Here's what we do, though. Instead, like, if you're interested in these services, happy to have a meet and greet kind of thing. Yeah. And we've got those since day one. So we just still get them. And I think it's a lack of people doing any research or reading comprehension. And at the same time, some people end up not knowing what different options petsitting has so works out. And if not, at least we answered the phone, and no one can say like wild pauses and answer their phone.
Collin Funkhouser 31:10
Well, right, because that's part of it, too. Right? That's part of just going, you know, that's part of my reputation. We answer we even though I might not love talking on the phone, or whatever, like that's part of this is what I need to do. And that for us, just wheat is one of the biggest aspects of client expectations in what kind of care was out there. So we're constantly battling against this market fit of what people what's the community's expectations? What's the history of pet care for where we are, because we know, you know, when we started our business, it wasn't, you know, there we were day one. But pet care had been in the area for a very, very, very long time. People have these ingrained habits, they have these ingrained preconceptions and biases and thoughts, and well, that's fine. But like we our job now is to try and help them understand what their options are, which they might not be they understand and just going okay, look, you might never heard of this. Here's this option. Maybe it's not just an option, it could be the preferred method for you. But you know, I'm not gonna get offended when somebody calls an Astra aborting for the 17 1000s. Time. Like it's okay.
Angela R. 32:16
Definitely, or so many people want overnights, right. But either they don't like our pricing, or whatnot, whatever it may be. And then I tell them, we can do drop in care, like, you know, three to six times a day we do some people six times a day, it's wild. They go that's an option. I'm like, Yeah, and it might be a great fit for you. Like let's talk about it. You didn't the most simple form of pet care.
Collin Funkhouser 32:39
Well, you put your right because people go okay, well, I need to find I need to find pet care. So we look for boarding, oh, I couldn't find a boarding so I need to find pet care. Well, I had my my cousin stay a long time ago or my my the girl who lived down the street or the boy across the neighborhood like they stayed in my house. Let me try and find that. So they're just going based off of what they've had before. Sometimes it's not even a preference or really desire. It's just what they know. And so then we can only you get to step in and go. Hey, let me tell you, like a whole new world out there for you. Yeah,
Angela R. 33:09
you the Aladdin song a whole new world.
Collin Funkhouser 33:13
Just that should be once we reach that part of my spiel, I should have that lightly playing in the background just to do some priming mental priming for people. I'll be like, no new experience is
Angela R. 33:22
slowly fading.
Collin Funkhouser 33:25
So yeah, you've experienced a lot of growth. What has it been like for you? Personally managing that and taking that on? Great
Angela R. 33:34
question. Not sure I do it.
33:39
Next question.
Angela R. 33:41
Um, yeah, managing growth is hard. I think I was put in a position that forced me to have grit though, because I lived alone 1000 miles away from family. And so it was me myself and I to figure it out, there was absolutely no option to fail. It's either going to work or it's going to work. So then I get gritty and stubborn. Like, even this past year, I was like, I think I missed a lot of red flags in which I should have just jumped ship. But I kept pressing on because I'm pretty stubborn and pretty gritty, like, and so, um, because I actually, to be honest, I envy a lot of people who had partners at home, who one could be stable for them financially, and emotionally. Instead, I came home, my dog doesn't want to listen to me and I'm still broke. So I had to push through like a lot to get to the point of feeling like I have stability and sustainability and I'm finally scaling the scaling process is wildly hard. What,
Collin Funkhouser 34:42
what what makes that process so hard?
Angela R. 34:46
I think it's hard because so being a solo means that I don't have a partner in business, right? So no one else I own 100% No one else has buy in. And so I'm the only one who's gonna run to the brick wall. When the employee calls off and I call another employee to call in and they don't well, they don't have the same bind as me. And in the end, the buck stops here and I got to figure it out. And so ends up being like, sometimes you run yourself so ragged, because things are kind of crumbling around you, you have to make sure it all stays up and that the, the experience for the client still stays good, right? Like last week, an employee broke her wrist on the job, no one else could fill in. So like, how do you pivot? You have to though. So it's one of those things where like, scaling is hard, because I'm not at the point yet, where I have extra people in the field, who can always step in or like are almost like pay to be on call. Like, we're not there yet. Hopefully some day. And so instead, we have enough plus, like, one extra who's off that day. But if they can't come in, maybe they're too like out of town or just an hour away or just don't want to,
Collin Funkhouser 35:53
you know, yeah, you said that phrase like no one else has the same buy in. And I think I think that that really puts the that right on the nail of why this can feel so lonely sometimes,
Angela R. 36:09
oh my gosh, yes. And no one else gets it. Right. Like, oh, I mean, other business owners. Sure. But you'll chat to your friend. And you're like, I'm confused why you're always tired. And I was like, first off, physically, I walked 10 Miles Second of all the amount of stress in my head like
Collin Funkhouser 36:25
Yeah, cuz there's nobody who, who, because we feel like and a lot of times the reality is, it does all rest of us. The weight is all on our shoulders. There's no one else, you know, we get that a lot. Don't Isn't there anybody else who would want who had to do this or sacrifice this? And it's like, no, right there. We have an inmate, we have amazing employees. But they just it's not their business. Right? They don't care as much, there's not as much and that's fine. Because you know, there. That's not their role. It's our it's our role. And we have to take that on. And sometimes that is hard to put that on and still find joy in the day to day and still find purpose whenever it just feels like a slog. But the other thing you pointed out there to Angela's? What's the customer service? And at the end of this, like, do they notice a difference is that and that's a great metric, right? Because nobody noticed. It was chaos. And we managed it. And the client came back and was like, this was this looked easy, fantastic. And like
Angela R. 37:23
me so much sense of accomplishment when those things happen. I'm like, no one realizes I just saved the day, but saved and everyone's happy.
Collin Funkhouser 37:34
Yeah. And that goes back to the, you know, the, where do we find value or if we get if we need that external validation, this that's hard and we stop wanting to do that. And all of a sudden, we're not going the extra mile. We're not putting in that hard work. We get jaded, we get frustrated, we get resentful, right? We'll get that phone call from the client. We'll just if our first thought is not again, it's like okay, real heart check right now. Where am I? And why is that?
Angela R. 38:05
Yeah, totally.
Collin Funkhouser 38:12
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Angela R. 39:33
Well, I mean, failure for me would mean that I'm back at my parents house in Illinois, and I live in Colorado, so like, failure would be I'm I am 18 years old again, like I'm back home. And so in my mind, I was like, we're not doing that. Like there's no opportunity to fail here. We're gonna figure it out. Right? If that means you're working 60 hour weeks, we're working 60 Like, we're gonna we're gonna do it. And so what I mean now, right there's we're a team of seven We're doing good things, we're growing a lot. So like, that's wonderful. And it also meant I had to lean on, like friends in different ways that the few friends who understood there wasn't many of them. But there's a couple. And like, they were the ones who could offer like encouragement, but also said things like, I'm so proud of you. Because, one, I knew that they understood it. So hearing it from them meant so much. And also they weren't the ones trying to convince me to get out of it, right? Because so many people in the beginning were like, it's just not worth it. Got like you graduate in business, go get a business job. And I'm like, I'm doing something here, like. Yeah. And then like, as the years went on, right, like, last year, I started a meetup of just entrepreneurs, because I was like, I need more friends like this. I want to meet people who are young, and who are doing the hard stuff. Because these are the people that I'm realizing I'm mentally thriving around. Because we all have similar mindsets. And we all want to succeed. We're all doing hard things. And we're, I can ask questions. You have answers I've never heard of before. You're succeeding in ways that I wish I could. Like, I want to hear everyone's stories.
Collin Funkhouser 41:14
Talk to us about that, Angela, because I know that that's something that's been really, as you mentioned, like, it's been very beneficial to you. And I'm just gonna pause and say many of us when we think about networking, and partnerships, and I'm not going to be corny and say partnerships, whatever kind of pet plan, is that we Sorry, that was bad, is that we tend to think of networking with just other pet care professionals and other people doing pet care industry stuff. Why? Why did you decide to start a network of people outside of that industry to
Angela R. 41:46
Great question, I think of networking in like a social network, or are you doing like a professional network. In this case, I was truly doing a social network. I looked at my town who the average age is 45 to 50. Y'all got two to three kids. And the median household incomes roughly 125 grand and up like statistically, right? If you look at Google, okay, and I am living by myself single, no children trying to do a business and I'm 28. Like, I don't any of these categories. And so I was like, Okay, where can I find people like me, and I'm thinking I'm roughly 35 miles from Denver, but it is worth the drive to see if I can find friends. And I just started posting on Facebook, like, hey, any like minded people who are maybe in their 20s and 30s, pursuing entrepreneurship, who want to meet up. So our first meetup was literally where people and like, it's been a year now we have 40 to 50, who come each time. So super cool. Yeah, and like half the people reoccur half are new every time like, and like we have a Facebook group of like 500. So roughly 500 People see the event, we get about 50, who come out. And like, I am so bold on these Facebook posts, because I'd be saying, I do not want your business card. I don't even like this is not for sales. I don't want to like I want to know who you are. I want to know what your hobbies are. Do you like skiing? Are you a hiker? What do you like to do? Like, what are you looking forward to next year, I want to also hear about your business. But please don't come here selling me. Because we got the like, network marketers, you got your real estate agents coming, which is cool, but you're trying to sell me you got your financial burden, like they were truly trying to sell you like, you know, when they're just cool. And you know, and they're trying to sell you. And so like it took a while for to get on. And truly Colin is the coolest thing. Now people come, I will ask them, Why did you come they go, I just want to make a friend. And I'm like, I'm like people get it now. Like, we are truly here just to meet like minded people. Like I just set up a double date next week for people that me and my boyfriend Matt there are like this is great. Your friends. It's
Collin Funkhouser 44:00
it's so important to have that community and many people, especially in the pet industry, it is so lonely, right? Not just because we don't have anybody who we can commiserate with, right? So that's one level. So it's like, no, the pet care industry is very specific and kind of how we operate this. Then there's the I run a business, I'm in my age group i Who do I get connected with to also commiserate at this level? Right? And then it just bringing people together to have people to talk to right is really what that is. And when you were describing the network marketer, people showing up I just I cringed a little bit, I was like, ah, because that's when people think, oh, net business, people are going to be there. We're going to be networking. Here's my car, just give me referrals. here's this, here's that let me put you into my seat. I've had people who've said, like, I'm gonna do what I like, I'm gonna have you scan my QR code so I can so I can track you and I know when I met you and I'm like, Oh
Angela R. 44:52
my gosh, and then you're automatically in my contacts
Collin Funkhouser 44:55
and walk the other way. But just to come with that. Look that There's nothing asked, other than that you show up as your genuine, authentic self. Yeah. And how scary that is for a lot of people to be, but how freeing it is when you find that space?
Angela R. 45:11
Totally 100% agree. And I mean, it took a while to truly cultivate. But now that it is, I mean, it isn't that I actually genuinely look forward to going to, like, it's every two weeks, so twice a month we do it. And yeah, it's I don't know, it's really fun to watch, because I didn't expect it to one get this big. And I didn't expect to be doing it a whole year later, I thought I'm gonna meet a couple of friends and like, that's it. And then people were like, No, are you doing it again? I want to come back. When is it? When are you doing it again?
Collin Funkhouser 45:44
So you know, as far as like hosting that if somebody's interested in possibly doing something or something like that in their in their area to grow that network, any any recommendations for for finding places, venues and helping set that tone and guiding that? Yeah,
Angela R. 45:59
definitely. So Facebook, despite that, like, you know, people think it's outdated. It's amazing sell in certain ways. And so finding like groups and finding groups of people who want to meet up is brilliant. If you're near a big city, there's probably big city name, Meetup group, or big city name, meet new friends, like those Facebook groups exist there. I'm in like five of them for Denver. So what I did was I posted in them, saying, Hey, this is who I am, this is what I'm trying to do anyone interested. And people commented. And now instead, fast forward a year, we do it as an event. So on Facebook, we create an event. And it's like date and time and location. And I just share it to those Facebook groups, and people say they're interested or people say they're going, and some people say neither, and they still show up. It's cool. And so in the beginning, it's kind of like weird, because you don't know how many people are gonna show up. Like in the beginning, like 50 People said, their interest in four people showed up, I didn't realize the numbers were gonna pan out like that. And so, like finding a location was kind of strange at first. And so I went to a location, I knew how like, kind of like a bigger dining area since I wasn't sure what to expect. There's only four of us. And then it slowly grew. I mean, like, slowly grown. So once I got to, like 15 people, I went to a local bar in town, and was like, hey, like, Monday nights are normally slow nights for like hospitality. Would you mind hosting like a meet up? You don't gotta close down the bar. But like, can we have a section of it? Yeah. And they're like, absolutely. So then we met there. Later on, we switched to a different location to be further into the city, the heart of it. And I just went to those people. I said, Hey, this is a really cool location. We're about this many people we meet here every two weeks. Could we have a section of your bar? And they said, Yeah, now we've been in that place for the last like, five months. People love it has a rooftop. Now we went, we went on up until November. We watched the sunset over the mountains like Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 47:55
well, and again, what a great way to involve your community as well. Right? Going to local places and saying, I've got this meetup. Can we use this place? And is finding those like, Yeah, this is typically slower. So it's not going to be a huge inconvenience to them, it's actually going to not going well, we could sure help you but going, Hey, I know it's slow. We're looking for a place for a bunch of people to get together and hang out. Would this be okay, what do you think? And that's, and I know, there are some people who are listening to that into like, going like, that is bold, like that is bold, bold, bold, just watching these blades. And, and that can make some people kind of go, Oh my gosh, like, how do I do that? But it's just it's as simple as like, I have a need, I'm gonna ask, because otherwise, I'm never going to know. Totally.
Angela R. 48:38
And once you're okay, hearing No, you're like, you're gonna fly through brick walls. I mean, like, nothing's gonna stop you. Because if the worst that can happen is you here know, your day didn't actually change. Like, you know, like, it's all nothing changed your, your, your starting place still, you're good. Um, so what does entrepreneur meetup I recently started, so that's in Denver, 30 miles from where I work. And so I now started a meetup in the place that Tom and I were at Castle Rock. And my thought process was that it's not for entrepreneurs, it's just for women who live in the area. And we meet at a wine bar, wine bar is held by my client, because I thought we're gonna bring her in on this, like, support her. And my thought process was, who calls me 95% women. And it just makes sense by our demographic that we got down here. It's a it's the women are planning the trips for their families, all these types of things. And so I thought I want to get in front of more women. So why not just host a meet up, like, and I don't even come in branded shirts or anything. I'm just coming as myself as if it's the entrepreneur meetup in the sense of, I'm not looking for anything, but what I want to do is say my name and where I work, because it's gonna start sticking with
Collin Funkhouser 49:57
you. Yeah, yeah. And I think what's really key as people are listening to this, some people will be hyperventilating at the thought of hosting social events. And that's okay. Like it's, it's, it just takes a little bit, maybe finding some help having a partner, their family members help out how to one person who's also passionate to bring them in. But really asking yourself, what do I want out of this? If in and really like, seriously ask yourself, anytime you start bringing people together going, what do I want out of this? What does success look like for me, you know, because, you know, sure, go and join the, the young professionals group through the chamber code, go join the other, you know, BNI, or 1 Million Cups or whatever networking stuff that have that be your business, networking events and those things, build that other social graph for you, right, because at the end of the day, what we need as individuals as humans, is we need to be surrounding ourselves with people that are going to help us be be better, right and finding that group.
Angela R. 50:54
Definitely. It's one of those things to where, like, if we're thinking of marketing in a in a general sense, you remember the brands you see often right, and maybe you're just passing by on you're seeing it on a commercial, you weren't really paying attention to them commercial though, but like you saw it, it's like the brand recognition. So if you want to be big in your town, like you need the recognition, whether it's your face, and you're talking to people, or whether like they're seeing fires, right. And so in my in my thought process, this is just another form of brand recognition. So I actually teamed up with a realtor to do the one in my town. And we both come at it with the same thing of like, we're just meeting new friends, like, that's what we're gonna do, we're gonna bring a group of women together and have some wine. And we also started and run two Facebook groups in the area, like specific to our town. And it's purely on the basis of like, bringing the town together, we're sharing what events the town's doing, it's a lot of events in the small town. A lot of events going on or like if there's updates about like trails being like, down because they're too muddy, because we live in Colorado, so like, it's
Collin Funkhouser 52:03
a very Colorado thing.
Angela R. 52:06
They literally have trail Thursdays I have shared so many videos of me and elk, because I have to drive to this neighborhood. This these these clients, yo these clients are top tier clients, they have a second house in Hawaii. So we come visited her cats two to three times a day for three weeks at a time, every other month. And there are two herds of elk who live in this neighborhood. And every time I have to take a video of me saying hello friends sometimes I do a selfie, sometimes it's just the elk the other day, it was like 10 feet from me and I actually got scared and drove away. So I share a lot of videos in those groups are like Oh.
Collin Funkhouser 52:54
So for those of you who live in in Colorado, I'm sure this is all resonating with you.
Angela R. 52:59
In Illinois, every time you pass a cow people say hi cows, you can start doing those videos. Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 53:05
that's good point. So elk, elk are the cows of Colorado, I'm understanding. Okay, they're good. But
Angela R. 53:12
I like I like the similarity, we're
Collin Funkhouser 53:14
gonna roll with it put on a t shirt. But because that that aspect of surrounding yourself with people are gonna help make you better. I know, one aspect of that is sometimes it means that that person is technically or may on the outside be more successful than you. And that that can be really, really hard to approach from, from a personal perspective to admit that or to to do that in a humble manner. Oh,
Angela R. 53:40
my gosh, I love those people. Yeah. There's so much to learn, right? And if you're finding them in these natural places, they genuinely want to talk. And they're like, non, you know, you're not threatened by each other, hopefully. And so I mean, I love picking people's brains. There's people in our meetups who make multimillion dollars, could you not in their businesses, and there's people who haven't started it. And so why do a wide range and you can learn from anybody, but the people who I can tell are, like more established? I asked so many questions. One of my favorite questions is like, what do you do for marketing? Because I get like, just very curious on like, what's working for them? Because things just shift so much in the economy. And so I like to know, Are you shifting your marketing practices? How are you getting in front of people? And yeah, I love learning from people who are quote unquote, more successful than me.
Collin Funkhouser 54:37
Yeah, well, and it takes us having to go take put aside whatever pride or whatever things that we are bringing to the table or jealousy sometimes there's a lot of stuff that I don't want to talk to him because he saw like, I don't, I don't need to learn anything. I'm just gonna go here and do it on my own. Right. Like, like going no, no, it's okay. Right? If that's if that's somebody who we look up to who's doing cool stuff, maybe Maybe they're just doing something really neat that you want to learn more about B, being genuinely curious about people is wonderful. Because it means that we can learn from so many people across the board, whether they're in our industry or not.
Angela R. 55:14
Definitely, and they can be teaching things you've never considered like this summer, someone came who he owns a business, and that overarching business has bought five, and they they run the five, they own a portion of the five, right? So it does, it's a fairly big business since they own the five. And he's like, Have you ever thought about acquiring a business close to yours who also uses time to pet and who you can quickly, like, engulf and just literally double your revenue? Yeah. And I was like, hang on, didn't think this was a thing. Tell me more. We actually went through the buying process together. Like it was going to be in my name, but like, he helped me through it, of potentially me buying a business in downtown Denver, and falling through, which was okay. Um, but like, I first off, I learned so much in regards to the process. I also learned business practices that business does that I literally applied to my business today. Yep. Like, yeah. And I would have never considered buying a business like, that just sounds weird. I have my own Why do I need another one? And so someone's like, I don't think you realize, like, business through acquisition is also a really great thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Collin Funkhouser 56:29
It's just it's learning that because a lot of and part of that is just like, what are the possibilities? Like, what are what are? What are people do? What, what's cool stuff people are doing, and how they're being creative. And then always bringing that back and going, Okay, again, like, we just started talking at the beginning of our conversation, and you're like, what does that mean, for me? How can I do that? What would that mean? If I, okay, now, let me think through this process, and that's how we stay engaged. That's how we stay running a fresh company, like when when we can have a company that continues to be to be fresh, and we had to find that as is, is fit for the market. It's in serving the clients? Well, like, that's where we maintain that through out of the box thinking and exposing ourselves to new ideas.
Angela R. 57:11
Yeah, and that could also be our drive, right? Because for me, it gets me out of the mundane of getting bored doing the same thing every day, or like, to be honest, three years in, I'm not as passionate as my employees, I want to hire passionate employees, and I want to go run the business. Yeah. And so like, when I'm called into the field, I'm like, man.
Collin Funkhouser 57:37
And that's, and that's fine. Because again, that's part of the lifecycle of being a business owner of we learn about ourselves, right? You know, staying solo and being a solo business, like you are passionate about all aspects of it, then if you do hire, you're either going to go, Oh, I'm actually passionate about managing people. I'm passionate about oversight. I'm passionate about management or passion, or not. And you can learn that about yourself. But that's part of going, how do I know what passion is I'm going to have it got to experience it, I'm going to learn it from other people kind of kind of trying to experiment with it in my business as well. Oh, my gosh, Angela, that's so much fun. I'm, I absolutely love hearing your story and hearing you bringing people and connecting people with the purpose of making each other better through friendship, like, that's so powerful and impactful. When we think about how, when we surround ourselves with people who make us better, we're gonna make other people better, right? Just being a little bit of honesty here, like, everybody learns from that everybody grows, and then we can and then we take that we impact people in our business, we impact our employees, we impact our community. And then we start really seeing these big impacts that we're able to have from something that's just it from a such a simple and unique way of going. I want I want to connect people. Right? That's, that's, that's an amazing thing. I absolutely love hearing how you're doing that. Oh, thank you. And I really want to thank you for for coming on the show today, Angela, and sharing about this, how you are using those ads, how you are marketing people, how you're carving out and finding that voice for each individual, one of them. And you are you're trying those new things and learning from others and encouraging us to do it. Because we can get old, we can get stodgy right in our ways, and we can get kind of in a funk and just go well, this is just how it is. We got to break out of that. And I really appreciate that strong reminder for people who want to follow along with you and get connected with everything that wild paws is doing. How can they do that?
Angela R. 59:35
Yeah, great question. Um, so wild paws is she's doing her thing and Castle Rock. But, um, but more importantly, I actually I've been wanting to, like start my own podcasts and audio for a while now. So my goal is to get that out by q1 called Success unleashed. Okay, so hopefully by q1 and 2024 people Well can hear more from me. And that would be cool. Because I want to bring out people like that I've met my entrepreneur group who can like speak into like, crazy ideas that maybe we haven't thought of that like can apply because all business in the end is business. Like there are so many overarching like cool things we can learn from each other. So that's probably the best way to get in contact with me because I mean, social media is cool my emails on my website, but I'm honed into the business. Okay.
Collin Funkhouser 1:00:31
Okay, well, I have you had sent me over some links for that so we can get those in the show notes and stuff and just have that kind of people's on people's radar. Moving forward, Angela, that's fantastic. So again, thank you so much for your time today. I really, really appreciate it.
Angela R. 1:00:45
My pleasure. Thank you.
Collin Funkhouser 1:00:46
I really appreciate how Angela pointed out that networking takes many different forms. It's not just exchanging business cards can be commiserating or talking about what you're struggling with could be for social reasons to have a point to go out and grab a drink or grab a coffee or go to lunch and just have friendship and camaraderie for a little bit, which is so important in this day and age when we are so disconnected from those around us. Going in with a purpose helps our networking be successful to us because we can define it. Knowing why we're there and what purpose we want helps us approach that with openness and being receptive from things that people may share or speak into our lives. Love to know how you are networking in your community and who you are getting connected with and being inspired by, let us know you can send an email to feedback at the pet sir confessional.com. Or share that out in social media and tag us with who is inspiring you today. We want to thank our sponsors today, time to vet and the peaceful pet music calm music for pets YouTube channel for making today's show possible. And we really want to thank you so much for listening. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. And we'll be back again soon.
