468: The Best Way to Meet Lots of Pet Sitter Friends
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Have you been to a conference? In a first for us, we were LIVE all weekend at the 2024 Texas Pet Sitters Association Conference! It was a jammed packed weekend filled with amazing people and great information. We sat down with some of the amazing speakers, vendors, and attendees from the conference to share a little of our experience. We were so thrilled to get reconnected with friends from previous years, and make new friends as well. We firmly believe educational conferences help grow you, your business, and the pet sitting community. Listen in to get a little taste of what it's like to attend a conference, and check out our resource pages to see which one you can attend!
Main topics:
Things we were learning
People we connected with
Why you should attend
Main takeaway: If you can, plan to attend at least one in-person conference!
Links:
Texas Pet Sitters: https://txpetsitters.com
https://www.petsitterconfessional.com/conferences
https://theaquariumkeepers.com
https://tinypawsbookkeeping.com
https://www.coveredinpethair.net
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
pet sitters, people, aquarium, conference, fish, pet, year, psi, business, pet sitting business, client, learn, industry, petco, naps, walking, running, texas, wonderful, care
SPEAKERS
Austin W., Collin Funkhouser, Anne-Marie K., Beth Stultz-Hairston, Meghan, Isabel Alvarez Arata, Morgan W.
Meghan 00:06
Hello, welcome to pet sitter confessional I podcast by pet sitters for pet sitters. I'm Meghan. I'm Collin, and we are at the Texas pet sitters conference.
Collin Funkhouser 00:14
We are indeed we're just just actually in the middle of day two, officially. And we're all taking a break. And during the the nice sunshiny days outside. It's been a lot of fun so far and getting connected with people who we are know on the internet. Really? Yeah, they're
Meghan 00:30
tiny Facebook pictures.
Collin Funkhouser 00:32
I think I even recognize somebody's car from an Instagram post the parking lot. So no, it is a really wonderful time it was 115 people here. Yeah,
Meghan 00:42
we've heard from Kate McQuillan with pet sitters Ireland. So far, she talked about marketing as a business owner, a little bit of blogging, which is super important.
Collin Funkhouser 00:51
Yeah, blogging has been a big topic. I know. And it's something that it's it's a reminder that it's first, it's really hard to stay on top of unless you come in with a plan, because time gets away from you. And topics are hard to come up with. But having planning out a schedule, for at least a month or two of at least topic ideas really helps you be consistent with that. And you'll find that as you get that muscle built, it becomes just a little bit easier to do that. And it's also understanding that these don't have to be big 10 page research topics, we're only talking about 1000 words or less for a blog to keep it readable and for the attention span of most people. But
Meghan 01:34
they really are crucial to your website, because Google is going to surface that information. And if you put a blog out that says, you know why cat daily cat visits are so important. They're going to know okay, this company with this website, does canceling visits. And when people go to search in Google for canceling, you're going to pop up. Right
Collin Funkhouser 01:54
and and they're shareable to that don't forget about that aspect of when you have somebody who asks you a question about why do you do things a certain way, share that back out to them, you could say, Hey, here's explains it more in depth. And then that's something you can also put in share out on social media as well of, here's something that we talk a lot about, of why we need daily cat visits or, or things like that, or how many litter boxes do you need for each cat. Having that as a resource. That's what it becomes. It's Yes, the SEO, but then it's a resource, it's a tool that you can share out for potential clients or existing clients as their circumstances change as well.
Meghan 02:29
We also heard from a personal trainer that said, if you walk 10 minutes after a meal that has been proven to be more effective than if you just walk 60 minutes randomly throughout the day. Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 02:40
and really the point there was, it's not just when you it's not just that you exercise, it's important of when you exercise and how things are timed. And that when we look at making these big life changing decisions for how we are going to live, to have a plan for that. So again, it comes back to that consistency of I need, I know I need to walk every day. And we walk a lot as dog walkers as pet sitters. But here is an intentional act that I am doing. And I need to schedule that I need to have that on my calendar, I need to have reminders set in place for that and have space in my day that are gonna allow me to do that
Meghan 03:19
an important point that he brought up was trying to do too much at one time. So he said people who make lifestyle changes, who make one lifestyle change at a time, do significantly better than people who change try to change two or three things at the same time. So if you're wanting to eat healthier, you don't cut out all sweets and all carbs. And also to all at the same time, you would pick one of those or say it's something in your business of I want to shrink my service area, I want to raise my prices, and I want to add a service at the same time, you wouldn't do all three of those, you would pick one.
Collin Funkhouser 03:51
And that's something that we have from our science background to if you change one variable at a time. And usually that's in the context of figuring out what a problem is, or figuring out what's going to make the biggest impact. But it's also just from the reality of it's easier to manage one change at a time. It's easier to stay consistent with that and allows you to really see the impact that that one thing is or is not making on your life so you know how to make additional changes. Well, we're sitting here with Beth from psi. Hi, Beth, how
04:22
are you doing? I'm doing well. How are y'all doing
Collin Funkhouser 04:24
really excited to have you and for you to be here at this conference. I mean, how many years has Have you been attending this?
Beth Stultz-Hairston 04:30
I think I've lost count we were at if we were not at the first Texas conference. We're at the second I believe so. We've been a sponsor for several years now. And I have been amazed at how much has grown year over year. And so we're always excited to get a chance to come to Texas and see everyone.
Meghan 04:45
Tell us a little bit about PSI and what you all do. So we
Beth Stultz-Hairston 04:49
are the largest Educational Association for pet sitters and dog walkers. And so we offer a variety of business tools, educational resources for pet sitting and dog walking business owners, and our focus is Education. And that's why we love events like this. Because coming together face to face, there's not a better learning opportunity. Why do you
Collin Funkhouser 05:07
think being in person in these kinds of events is so impactful for people?
Beth Stultz-Hairston 05:11
I think that pet sitting and dog walking can be a lonely career. And so you can take advantage of webinars and wonderful podcasts like yours and our magazine. And those resources are great. But there's something about coming together and just being face to face. With people that know your struggles. They're in that same profession and just the synergy that takes place. You can't find it anywhere else,
Meghan 05:31
or even just going to dinner with someone or taking a walk during a break. You can really commiserate with what we do and know that you are not alone. Exactly.
Beth Stultz-Hairston 05:39
Even I mean, I've been in this industry with psi for it'll be 20 years in September, but I'm envisioning I'm in the sessions taking notes steel, but then it's it was at lunch or dinner, I think I have my most of my biggest aha moments. Just hear what other people are doing their business or what their struggles are, or what solutions they found to their problems. And so exactly, it's outside of session times. I think that's where the magic happens a lot. Well,
Collin Funkhouser 06:02
you mentioned you've been with with psi for about 20 years. Psi has a really big year coming up though, don't they? Yes.
Beth Stultz-Hairston 06:09
So this year 2024 is psi 30th birthday. So March 17, will be 30 years. And then march 3 through ninth is the 30th annual professional pet sitters week. So we're saying the all year long? Oh, we're celebrating three decades of petsitting excellence.
Collin Funkhouser 06:25
I mean, that's that's a long time to be together as an organization, what kind of what kind of what, what does that really take to be around for that long? I
Beth Stultz-Hairston 06:34
think we can really attribute that to our founder and CEO, Patti Moran, she is such a visionary. She's credited with being probably the first professional pet sitting business owner in the United States, short pets in for profit. And so she really ran with the ideas that she had sort of carved her path and then wanted to help others. And so that's what we've continued to do, for the last three decades, just continually evolve to make sure that we're meeting the needs of pet sitters and dog walkers. Because
Collin Funkhouser 07:00
it has changed a lot. I mean, just not just with things like the technologies that are out there. But just the general awareness of the public, right?
Beth Stultz-Hairston 07:08
Absolutely. In the early years, one of the biggest struggles was just helping the general public understand that pet sitters and dog walkers are available. Now they understand that idea, but we continue to talk about professionalism and why you want to choose a professional pet sitter. And what that looks like, other than also the needs of pet pet parents are changing. And so we're working with our members to say, in this new climate, how do you best meet those needs to keep your business successful?
Collin Funkhouser 07:32
Right? Well, and I know you go, you'll have a certification program and ongoing courses and education. Can you talk to us a little bit more about that? Sure. As
Beth Stultz-Hairston 07:39
I said, Education is our main focus. So there we accomplish that in a variety of ways. Our members get a monthly toolkit each month that has a featured resource, a feature article, educational articles that can share with clients. We have pet sitters World Magazine, which is chock full of business tips, and pet care tips and information and member stories. We also have free webinars throughout the year. Our free member Webinar Series this year is focusing on how to market your business more effectively. And then, as you said, the certification program. And that's a way while this is a largely unregulated industry. The certification mark shows that you have demonstrated you have the other skill set needed to offer professional pet sitting services
Collin Funkhouser 08:19
with a lot of ongoing education to and just access to more resources because you guys are adding courses and stuff all the time.
Beth Stultz-Hairston 08:26
We have new courses every month. We have new resources every month. But we found that that's what it takes in this industry is ever changing. We found that our members and professional pet sitters at large are just hungry for more hungry for more information to make sure they offer the best services. And so we're happy to provide that as best as we can. Okay,
Collin Funkhouser 08:43
well, that's a super exciting year coming up and you know, it's this wonderful asset that the community has and those resources where people can get connected. Where's the best place for people to go for more information about that? You
Beth Stultz-Hairston 08:56
can find everything we offer@pitzer.com.com Okay,
Collin Funkhouser 08:59
well, we will have those links in the show notes. Very good.
Meghan 09:02
Thank you very much. Thank you. So please introduce yourselves.
Austin W. 09:07
My name is Austin Weber. Most people would hear about me because I'm married to Morgan Webber, who is the owner founder of Lucky puppet ventures lucky pup podcast memory flame Candle Company. And I do the aquarium keeper. So I take care of aquariums as well as all of the fun other pet stuff.
Morgan W. 09:30
But Austin also likes to remind me that he is a co founder of Lucky puppet ventures because as I have kind of taken over the day to day stuff for like the last five years or so. He technically was our first pet sitter. He was the one who was out doing the pet sitting and dog walking. And so whenever I say that I you know, as a founder and the owner he's like what you don't tell them about me. I'm the co founder actually
Austin W. 09:52
my business I started.
Collin Funkhouser 09:55
We can we can fight that out later. We just listened to a talk that you gave about keeping aquarium safe and fish alive. My only question from you is how many fish themed shirts do you have in your wardrobe.
Austin W. 10:10
I'm fishing themed T shirts, I've got like four or five button ups and then I got I got so many like T shirts and tank tops and stuff that are fishy
Morgan W. 10:23
he picked up a fish's of Hawaii muscle tank the summer while we were in Hawaii, so it's awesome.
Austin W. 10:29
I love that shirt.
Collin Funkhouser 10:33
I love how during the talk, I mean, you spent a lot of time talking about the equipment, because that is so foreign to a lot of people because most of its hidden behind the scenes too. It's hidden behind all the pretty fish. So it's it's really important to know kind of what we're looking at whenever we've got that tank in front of us.
Austin W. 10:51
Yeah, um, I mean, if as far as a pet sitting capacity goes, you know, the equipment has to be functioning properly for you to make sure that you're doing your job as a pet sitter. So even just having like a base knowledge of this is what type of filter this is. And this is the very, very basic function of how it works and what it does. Well allow, you know, pet sitters to make sure that it's functioning appropriately, make sure the fish are getting oxygen in their water. So everything ideally is just as good as when the owners left it when they get home. That because
Collin Funkhouser 11:25
you're you're going in on the maintenance into people's homes right keeping up with their with their tanks as part of that ongoing schedule. Yeah, I
Austin W. 11:32
I go to a bunch of different homes and businesses every one to two weeks and take care of aquariums there you know, water changes, equipment, checks, you know, basic, basic maintenance to keep everything running smoothly and make the aquarium habitat appropriate for all the Live Live critters in it,
Morgan W. 11:51
make it look pretty
Austin W. 11:53
and clean algae and make it look pretty
Collin Funkhouser 11:57
well, how much was that a part of the pet sitting business that you were running? That you co founded? Was that a big aspect of what you were doing as well or did this branch off entirely separate?
Austin W. 12:12
Um, the the aquarium care came quite a bit later, probably five years ago or so, five, six, I guess six years ago. It was one of those things where the retail business that I work at the owner does aquarium care outside of the retail business. And at one point, I was like, hey, you know, this kind of cool job, you know, and I'm big into fish and aquariums. Like if you ever needed more help doing that type of thing he ever got busy enough, you know, I I joined working for you in that. And he kind of looked at me and said, You don't need to work for me, you don't need me taking a cut of the profit for this. Like you can do it yourself. And then it happened to fall under the insurance that we already had for our pet sitting business that I could go and start doing this. So it just worked out very easily that I could start taking care of aquariums and and it was just made sense and it fit and it's not mine. I know quite a bit about and I developed even more since then. So
Morgan W. 13:17
but I would also say that it's part of the backstory of our pet sitting business because way back in 2012 2013 He started working at Petco, and at part of the Petco world is they also have fish. And when at Petco, they make you a manager of something and they're like, well figure it out, you know, like we're a big box, we'll give you some, you know, we'll give you some education shows. And yeah, but you know, if you want to be good in that role, you have to take the initiative to figure things out beyond the training that they give you. And so he was at Petco, we started kind of pet sitting at about the same time. And then he became the manager of the fish department later. And he kind of said, well, this is something that's cool, but I also need to learn significantly more than what I'm currently you know, what I currently know of, so I feel like also if we hadn't, you know, if we hadn't been in pet setting, we probably wouldn't spend as much time at in that Petco job and then you went to bed come in the fish, you know, the fish guy, so I feel like it all really is kind of tied together. And also, aquarium keepers is the name of the the fish maintenance business of you know, that's kind of our first step of the ever growing expansion of Lucky pup adventures umbrella. That was kind of the first next step thing that happened. So it was it started the rest of the avalanche of
Austin W. 14:33
data. I kind of forgot about that. Yeah, I we started the pet sitting business and we needed another income for me. So that's when I started working at Petco. And then I eventually got promoted a few times and yeah, I started running the fish department. And I was like, I don't know anything about fish or I don't know nearly enough to do this well. And I learned by doing so I came home with a 55 gallon aquarium one day, just like this There's gonna be our new saltwater tank because I learned by doing and she was like, why on earth would we ever need an aquarium? This
Morgan W. 15:05
bit? I thought, Well, at first I thought aquariums were stupid. Like, let's just put that out there like why would but also we got an aquarium because I wouldn't let them have a snake. Because they tried to bring a snake home.
15:15
I did, I had to take it back. Like when I was shaken to the door. She was on. She was in New York State.
Morgan W. 15:21
I was on a family trip and I come home and there's a snake in my house. And I was like, No, this is not staying. And now you know, snakes, whatever, it's fine. But back then I was very reptile opposed. And I was like, well, if a fish tank keeps you from bringing another snake home, sure, do an aquarium, but I never saw the value of them. And then as we had them as kind of an addicting hobby. So we got this a 55 gallon one and then we got like a 70 gallon. And now we're up to a 400 gallon aquarium. So, you know it kind of spiraled from there too. So there's a theme in our lives, things tend to spiral and grow, it gets bigger and bigger.
Meghan 16:00
So what piece of advice would you have for pet sitters who don't know a lot about aquariums but need to take care of their client's pets and maybe they don't have a whole lot of fish that they take care of. So they don't need to know a plethora of information. But as far as maybe a few clients, what would your advice be? don't
Austin W. 16:18
overfeed the fish. Number one like that is where the most people get into trouble. It's too much food is going in there. Because most of the time the equipment that's functioning is going to stay functioning, you're not going to have to deal with power outages and temperatures getting weird and stuff like that. So the biggest thing would be don't overfeed the fish if when you're meeting with your your client, and you're going to take care of their aquarium, if you can have them show you how much food that they use, or if they can pre portioned the food for like, hey, they eat every day, and they eat this much. And you can have them put it in like little Ziploc bags or something like that. So that you can then feed the amount that they do, because over feeding the fish is going to cause the most problems in the like the short term care space. And then the other thing is Rinse your hands thoroughly with water especially if you are using not necessarily perfumes, but especially like hand sanitizers, or things like that to clean your hands off, because any of those antibacterial things will actually there's good bacteria that live in the aquarium and can it and it can totally disrupt the ecosystem of the aquarium. So be careful with what's on your hands. And you can rinse them thoroughly with water. Because if the water from the faucet will take that stuff off your hands, then it won't come off your hands in the water of the aquarium. So if it's not exiting your hands when you wash them, it also won't exit your hands into the aquarium.
Morgan W. 17:49
And I would also add, you know, if you have questions about aquariums, you got questions about fish, you want to learn more information, see if you have a local fish shop in your town because those people are really passionate, and they you know, like Walmart sells fish, while the people who are cleaning the tanks at Walmart or you know, feeding the fish, they really don't know a whole lot because they've just been kind of rotated into that position. And honestly kind of the same thing again, with some of those big box pet stores. Sometimes you get people in there who are really passionate about that position or that thing, and then you know, they learn a lot of information. But if you have like a local pet store that sells fish, that's a great place to go and just ask questions, because those people tend to be really passionate about what they're doing. And they can give you really good information, but not every town has one. And sometimes, you know, again, just like anything, just because they do a thing doesn't mean that they're going to be super knowledgeable or be like, you know, the best explainer about something. But that's another good place to start is just your local fish shop.
Austin W. 18:41
Yeah, and as far as like super basic stuff. I know. Psi has a learning that I made, like two years ago, like a little online course that I did about fish care and, and that so that's a available resource for any of the psi members that are listening. Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 19:01
and I think I heard you mentioned you also do some like long distance remotes consulting with people like we're really in a jam, we're really trying to crack a hard problem.
Austin W. 19:11
Yeah, I've actually done that with so we're at the Texas pet sitters conference. I have done that for both Jessica and Kathy who are organizers of this conference where I've done a zoom or a FaceTime call with them, where we've looked at issues with their aquariums and kind of parse through all the things that could be wrong or even as a beginner and they didn't have the knowledge base of where to go to get all these answers and I kind of walked them through what they should be doing for regular care for the aquarium and you know what to watch for how to take care of it what how all their equipment functions, like all that stuff. Like I can generally have a zoom call or a or a FaceTime call where I can identify all the stuff and what the parts are and how to take it apart and fix it and clean it and what your settings should be and stuff like that. Well
Meghan 20:01
thank you Austin and Morgan if people would like to find out more about you guys and pick your brain and get connected how can they do that?
Morgan W. 20:07
Well I would say if you guys are people or Instagram users I'm Austin does not do social media so it's awful social media so if you need to get a hold of Austin you got to kind of go through send something to the lucky pup account so on Instagram at underscore lucky pup, or you know his aquarium keeper things are also there. I think it's at the aquarium keepers but we haven't posted there for a while but messages
Austin W. 20:30
come through on the aquarium keepers Facebook, I do find them in a timely manner and reply to them.
Morgan W. 20:36
So there you go. The aquarium Instagram on Facebook. No,
Austin W. 20:40
I don't, I don't, I don't do that. That exists. And there's
Morgan W. 20:43
a website has a website has a console form too as well. So you can actually find a time to come you know, to get together,
Austin W. 20:51
email me through the aquarium keepers.com. There's contact and I I get those emails, right, right onto my phone.
Collin Funkhouser 20:58
Okay, well, perfect. Well, we'll have those links in the show notes so people can get connected and start asking all their fishy questions to you. And I'll get to their their client stuff. So thank you both for stopping by. Thank you appreciate it. Like we would
Meghan 21:12
love to tell you about our friends at pet sitters associates as pet care professionals, your clients trust you to care for their furry family members. And that's why pet sitters Associates is here to help. for over 20 years, they've provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance. Because you work in the pet care industry, you can take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom in running your business. Learn why pet sitters Associates is the perfect fit for you and get a free quote at pets@llc.com. You can get a discount when joining by clicking membership petsitter confessional and use the discount code confessional when you go to checkout, check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again at pets@llc.com. Hey,
Collin Funkhouser 21:47
we're here with Michelle Klein from dog co launch. Super excited to see you and be here at the Texas pet sitters Association Conference. Michelle, how you been?
21:55
I've been great. I'm so excited to be here. It's been a whirlwind weekend, just lots of time with people. You know, it's been great. It's been really fun. So I'm just happy to be here also. Hi, Megan. Hi,
Collin Funkhouser 22:08
Michelle, I actually just saw that you posted something about books that have really impacted you. What Why is it so important to be a reader in this industry,
22:18
we live in such an interesting time where we can really learn about whatever we care about, and whatever is going to move the needle for us the most in our businesses. And so reading I have found it's just one of the best ways to do that. Because it's content that forces you to really sit down and take it in. It's not like a tick tock reel where it's like, you know, maybe I get a blip from that, but then I keep going, it's content, you have to actually have to sit down and really invest in if you're going to make it through that book. There's also a lot out there which kind of sparked that, that top reads list that I just put out, because, you know, I want to help people with resources that at
Collin Funkhouser 23:00
least helped me. Yeah, I know, one of the list. One on the books on your list was actually the blue ocean strategy, as I saw.
23:11
That was that book itself was the inspiration for the pivot I made in my company really, okay, I read that book. And I was just like, you know, I think this would be a blue ocean strategy in my specific community. And that book really gave me the tools to think about differentiating my business in a really unique way from my
Collin Funkhouser 23:29
competitors. Yeah, because that book is all about finding the space where there's really nobody else. And that you can even define some of that own space for yourself. And I'm glad that you mentioned the hole in my community, because a lot of times we're so connected these days, and we've been watching a lot of things about social media you hear at the conference, but just that just because somebody else is doing it across the world or in another state, if it's not being done locally, where you are, it's still a blue ocean that you can go to, to make it to make happen where you are. Well,
24:01
and you know, that was a bit of a mindset shift for me in my business, because I used to see that as competition, you know, where it's like, well, somebody else already did this somewhere. And it's like, you know, I think actually, that's somebody I couldn't learn from so I really pushed myself to start reaching out to these people just cold emailing them, what have you learned more you share with me because nobody's doing that here. So that was a big difference too.
Meghan 24:26
And truthfully, nobody's doing it the way that you do it. And your unique perspective on the services you offer, and just the way that you do it. Well, I guess
24:35
this would make it not a blue ocean strategy. But there's just so much business out there. And so many dogs, I think really working on that mindset of Yes, we all bring something really individual into the world. And that in and of itself is a blue ocean strategy of leveraging yours specific, unique talents, strengths and interests into what you do.
Collin Funkhouser 24:55
So tell us about some exciting stuff that you have going on out at dawn co launch Hey, thanks coming up.
25:00
Yeah, absolutely. So if you don't know who I am, my name is Michelle Klein. I'm the founder of.co launch, and I help companies grow in scale in dog walking. So I really have two main things that I focus on right now. The first, I'm not sure if this will still be open by the time this airs, but if not keep an eye for down the road. Doug Keeling and I have been working on a solo team transition business bundle to help companies make that transition. The other thing I do are a small group masterminds to help companies scale with dog walking. You can check that on my website, www dot dog pillow. launch.com. Cool.
Collin Funkhouser 25:37
Thank you so much, Michelle. Appreciate you.
25:39
Thanks, guys.
Collin Funkhouser 25:41
We're here talking bookkeeping with tiny paws. How are you doing?
Anne-Marie K. 25:45
I am doing fantastic. This has been a great weekend here in Texas. I'm Anne Marie gate, owner of tiny paws bookkeeping here at the Texas pet sitters conference as a vendor for my first vendor event here.
Collin Funkhouser 25:59
How's that been? For you? So
Anne-Marie K. 26:00
far? It's been really wonderful. I mean, the people here are so gracious. And we've had just a great time meeting new faces, old faces, you know, making friends everywhere. It's been great.
Collin Funkhouser 26:12
And you even started off the conference with a talk about KPIs in business to
Anne-Marie K. 26:19
I did, right. It's like ripping a band aid off first time public speaking and a very, very long time since college. But again, it's the people here wonderful. It's a nice, warm audience. So it was an easy first time up there. But yeah, we had a great time talking about, you know, important numbers to follow in your business and what to pay attention to. Because it's
Meghan 26:40
not something that people really think about, or really enjoy the bookkeeping side of things. So that's really where you come in and help people out. Yes,
Anne-Marie K. 26:48
indeed. Absolutely. Yeah. It's bookkeeping is easily one of the first things people shuffle off to the side, because it's not the sexy part of, of petsitting. It's, and it's not the daily task that kind of demands our attention. So, you know, we come in, we help them we take it over and make sure that they understand their numbers in an easy to digest way.
Meghan 27:08
And you've been able to grow a team doing that as well. So congratulations on that. We've got a lot of bookkeepers now.
Anne-Marie K. 27:13
Thank you. Yeah, we have a team of three part time staff that are not bookkeepers. Yeah, Kim, Dina and Karina have been wonderful for our, you know, growing our clientele and, you know, just being sort of extensions of me when I can't handle everybody, they're, they're learning to step in and, and be my right hands.
Collin Funkhouser 27:36
So in your talk, you mentioned five KPIs that we should all know, what's one that probably people get wrong the most, or maybe don't know how to apply properly in their business.
Anne-Marie K. 27:49
One that I find really fascinating is customer acquisition cost. It's not something that we talk about a lot, but it's the cost it takes to get one new client to sign on with you. So the accumulation of your advertising sales and marketing costs in a given time period, divided by the number of clients that you gain in that same time period is your client acquisition is the amount of money you spend to get one person to come on. And while we talking about advertising costs, I don't know that we always talk about it in terms of the number of clients that it brings in. So it really allows you to kind of dig into each marketing effort to realize that return on investment, that ROI of each dollar that you spend in a given area, whether it's Facebook ads, Google ads, are an event that you go to and have a booth at, like, what is it money just going out the door with no clients coming in? So one that we just don't put as high on the list? I think as we should? Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 28:50
absolutely. And especially when you break it down by by your marketing effort, that's where you really get a lot of power in that because then you can really see what's coming back to you. Because sometimes you don't know, am I just throwing good money after bad? Or? Or you may you may, I'm sure you even asked me, how much are you spending on marketing? And they may say, Oh, $1,000 it's like, what's it getting? You
Meghan 29:14
know, that measure of success for you?
Anne-Marie K. 29:15
Exactly, exactly. And it can really help you dial in as to which effort is going to be more advantageous or more effective for you, too.
Collin Funkhouser 29:24
One of the questions that you were asked and I just wanted to bring it back up here was somebody asked, What's something that you see a lot of people doing? Like just spending too much money on or not? Or maybe not enough money? I don't know from what you say.
Anne-Marie K. 29:39
One of the big ones that I think people can either overspend or overstretch themselves is across coaching programs. We have a bunch of great mentors and and coaches within our industry. But I see people who will pick three sometimes even four of those not only are the expense To but we just don't have the time and our days to commit to for full programs. And so we kind of get excited about something new that comes on the market, a new program that's open their doors, and there's limited space. So we want to jump in and get it. But before we know it, we've signed up for three, and we've got two hours on our week to do and it's just not effective. And then again, we're spending money, that we're not really realizing any benefit from. That that's a really big one. Another one that we struggle with is staff pay. Everybody is in the process of hiring staff and the trials and tribulations that come with that. And we're seeing a lot of minimum wage numbers increasing go up and struggling to meet those along with customer costs.
Collin Funkhouser 30:48
Well, Emery, thank you so much for stopping by. And it's so cool and wonderful to get connected with you at the in person now. The conference. So again, how can people get connected with you and follow along with everything?
Anne-Marie K. 31:02
Yeah, you can find us online, on our website at Facebook and on Instagram at Tiny paws bookkeeping.com. Isabel,
Collin Funkhouser 31:10
how are you doing today? Doing
Isabel Alvarez Arata 31:13
so well. I'm like on adrenaline from the weekend.
Collin Funkhouser 31:17
It's been, it's been a wild ride.
Isabel Alvarez Arata 31:19
It has been fantastic. This is my second year emceeing the Texas pet sitters conference, and this year, it was bigger, better, more energy. It was fantastic. It was really great. But obviously I have to be on my toes as MC running, checking the time messing up the time fixing the time that I messed up, you know, all that stuff.
Collin Funkhouser 31:40
Yeah, there's a lot. There's so much that goes into these behind the scenes. I mean, what what kind of stuff do people not really understand? Well, first
Isabel Alvarez Arata 31:49
of all, I don't do any of the planning. I get involved toward, like a month before the conference, we have a couple calls. And then they give me the schedule, they give me the speaker lineup. I do, I make sure that I've got a good bio, I kind of tweaked the bios, I introduce the topic. So I've gotta get my notes ready. We got to make sure that I know the flow of the day. Which, you know, was the toughest thing about this weekend, it was just like, everything was happening so fast. The hours that people were speaking, I felt like it was 15 minutes. And then by 3pm, I thought it was still midday, because it was just such a fast moving conference, we have so much content, so many people, so many things to do. And obviously we want to keep people here only from like eight to five, we don't want to go over we don't want to disrespect the time for the speakers. So it's just a lot, a lot to do. And then obviously there are some behind the scenes things that happened while we were here. So like, you know, making sure that people aren't speaking too loudly. We had one of our attendees give us the best tip. She said that in her kids school, they say waterfall, and everybody says she unfortunately, she only told me about this today on Sunday. I wish I'd been doing that all weekend. But we tried to keep everybody quiet. We try to keep people participating. We want you know, for people to get the most out of their experience. We have to make sure that they know when to get breaks when not to get breaks. We need to keep the toilet paper stocked. Yeah, yeah, that helps me with that.
Collin Funkhouser 33:31
It's a big deal. You've got what how many people? Did
Isabel Alvarez Arata 33:33
we have? 115? Almost. Yeah.
Collin Funkhouser 33:36
Would you've got that many people in one place? It's the little details. Yeah,
Isabel Alvarez Arata 33:39
I caught you coming out of the bathroom. And I was like, Hey, can you steal some toilet paper for us? We don't want to go run low on that. Never.
Collin Funkhouser 33:47
You've been coming to these conferences for years now. And you know, when you had your pet sitting business and now as emcee for somebody who's listening who maybe is nervous about going or unsure, what would you say to that person?
Isabel Alvarez Arata 34:02
Well, I can speak to the NAPS conferences and the Texas pet sitters conferences. I went to my first naps conference in 2010. And everybody was super welcoming. I went to my first Texas pet sitters conference as a speaker and 2617. And everybody is so welcoming. Texas, they're more festive. They're more I guess it's a little more casual than the NAPS conference. So there's a little more flexibility with kind of like ad libbing stuff or you know, bringing on sponsors and vendors to say hello even though it's not on the schedule of naps runs a tighter ship. We kind of here at the Texas pet sitters conference kind of respond to what the what the attendees kind of are giving us his feedback. In the moment naps takes everything like very much according to the schedule. Both are fantastic. I've heard exceptional things about psi as well. I've never attended one, but I've heard it optional things, there are people that last year went to four conferences. Yeah. So they went to the Florida pet sitters Conference, which is a new conference, they came here, they went to naps, and they went to psi. And I can tell you that those are the leaders in our industry, because they are, you know, doing the FaceTime. They're meeting the players, they're learning from the best. And so I think that if budget allows, go to one of the conferences, whichever one's closest to you, the organization of these top four organizations, it doesn't really matter. It's about getting you there. You might end up meeting somebody who you can groom with at the next conference, you're going to learn so much, but you're also going to learn from each other. That's that's the most valuable thing for me, is that you get to see people who are in the trenches with you. You learn what works for them, what doesn't work for them, you get ideas. It's really just a matter of connecting within the industry and industry. That's so lonely sometimes,
Collin Funkhouser 35:59
right? Yeah, that's the big thing. Getting that FaceTime. Lucky. You said and, and we're so we're so really, we got four really amazing conferences that it is now pick one that is close to you maybe have topics that are relevant to you. Yeah, and then go.
Isabel Alvarez Arata 36:15
Yeah, and you know, sometimes the topics may not feel like they're super relevant to you, because maybe you're a newer petsitter. And you're like, I don't know anything about SEO? Like, what am I going to get out of that? Because it sounds too advanced or the contrary, I've been in business 20 years, I don't need to learn about this basic thing. But every single speaker is selected, so that they can provide some kind of insight to everybody, to everybody who comes in the door. I would recommend it for somebody who hasn't even started their business and who's thinking about starting a pet sitting dog walking business, I would recommend it to a 30 year veteran of the industry, and everybody in between, because there's always takeaways. And again, it's that meeting people face to face and making connections. that truly makes it a unique experience. And one that's worth the investment. Right?
Collin Funkhouser 37:08
Yeah. Well, how can I know you you also host a YouTube and then you have a podcast stuff on your own? I do. How can people get to that and listen to it. Okay,
Isabel Alvarez Arata 37:17
I'm on covered in pet hair. on every platform that's covered in pet hair, on every platform, YouTube, pet life, radio, all the podcasting platforms, I do a late night TV inspired show. It's also known as a boozy show for pet lovers because we share a drink my guests, and I chat about pet related things. There's some in education, but mostly, it's just getting to know the people in our industry, because again, I like to highlight how important it is to connect with people on a human level. Even if you've never seen them before, you don't know what they're doing. They're working hard. And they deserve a platform to share all the that the the the difference they're making in the industry. And it's not just for, you know, the industry players, but also for the pets. There's so many people who are passionate about pets that we don't know about. And we want to hear their story. And so I let them share that story on my podcast over a drink, and maybe some boozy games that we play. It's
Collin Funkhouser 38:14
absolutely a lot of fun. I will have links to those. Thank you so much for stopping by and for doing such a wonderful job being an MC. Thank
Isabel Alvarez Arata 38:21
you so much. It was such a pleasure to finally meet you to in person. I feel like I know you the second I laid eyes on you. I was like, I can pick you out of a lineup
Collin Funkhouser 38:31
for sure. Yes, yeah. But I won't hopefully. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's been a really fun weekend. And there's been a lot of amazing speakers. I know one of my biggest takeaways was on Austin Weber's talk about aquarium and just how that is such an underserved part of the business. A lot of times we see those sitting in quarters, but might not know exactly what's going on. And so it's asking some good and relevant questions is really important. Whenever you're doing those meet and greets, and you're actually seeing what the client has in their home.
Meghan 39:05
My biggest takeaway was with Kate McQuillan, she told us about reels and more specifically how to create them. And they're very big and scary. For me personally, I don't like to be in front of a camera, but she showed us that there actually Instagram makes templates that you can just plug your pictures in. And you can go from there. It's not about creating long videos and splicing them up. It's you can do pictures again, there's there's a lot more, it's a lot less scary than it used to be.
Collin Funkhouser 39:29
And I think just overall something to remember is whether you go to a conference or you're reading information is that it can be really overwhelming when you get in a lot of new stuff in your life. As far as that data or the things on your to do list. It can be really overwhelming. So always taking a step back and assessing what's actually important to me. What do I need to focus on? Maybe what's one thing that I can do with one action step that I have that can actually improve my life or my business? us. We do want to thank pet sitters associates for making today's show possible. And we want to also thank our Patreon supporters, people like brandy Annabella, Mary, Deborah and Kevin, Kiley, Julie, Holly, Barbara, Kristen and Kathy, thank
Meghan 40:13
you all for finding value in the show have almost 500 episodes and continuing to keep it going. If you would like to learn more about what a Patreon member is and join these awesome people, you can do so at petsitter professional.com/support. If you have been to a conference and we'd love to encourage others to attend one as well, you can give us a call and leave a voicemail at 636-364-8260 or if you've never been to one and are a little nervous and would like some some help in knowing which is the right one for you. You can send us a message on Facebook or Instagram at Pitzer confessional. Thank you very much for listening to this today. And we will talk with you next time.
Collin Funkhouser 40:46
Bye
