481: Evolving with Heart with Reilly Kahat
Time to Pet
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Pet Perennials
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What does it take to transform challenges into a thriving business? Reilly Kahat, owner and founder of Pet Fit, shares his transition from a dog walker to the owner of a flourishing pet care service. Following an unforeseen business closure that left him questioning his next steps, Reilly leverages his deep affection for animals to build a community rooted business from the ground up. He explores the importance of adaptive branding, the move towards a membership-based model for consistent service, and the cultivation of a supportive team dynamic. Reflecting on the hurdles faced, including navigating through the COVID-19 pandemic, Reilly illustrates how setbacks were not just obstacles but opportunities for growth and deeper community engagement.
Main topics:
Business Journey
Membership Model Shift
Branding and Engagement
Leadership and Team Management
Main takeaway: Every challenge in our journey is a lesson in disguise, teaching us to be more adaptable, empathetic, and focused on the true essence of pet care.
About our guest:
Reilly Kahat is the Founder and Lead Adventurer at Pet Fit, a pioneering pet care service rooted in the lush landscapes of Ellicott City, Maryland, where he spent his formative years. From an early age, Reilly's life on a family farmette instilled in him a profound respect for animals and an understanding of the care they require. His childhood dreams of canine companionship became a reality with the adoption of Fender, a Maltese, marking the beginning of his lifelong journey with pets.
Reilly's educational pursuits took him to Colorado, where he sought an Eco/Bio degree with aspirations of contributing positively to society. However, it was the mountainous adventures with Patches, a dog that accompanied him during his college years, that illuminated his true passion for pet care and the great outdoors. Returning to Ellicott City without Patches but not without ambition, Reilly adopted Murphy from a local rescue, Small Miracles, and embraced his role as a devoted Dog Dad.
His experiences as a client of pet care services and later as a dog walker unveiled a significant gap in the market: the need for a professional, reliable, and adventure-centric pet care company. This realization spurred Reilly to establish Pet Fit, a testament to his commitment to offering exceptional care and customer service. Pet Fit isn't just a business; it's a reflection of Reilly's dedication to the health, well-being, and adventurous spirit of pets, providing Ellicott City's pet parents with a trusted partner in their pets' care journey.
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https://www.instagram.com/petfit.us
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
clients, people, dog, started, pet, day, business, team members, walk, figuring, set, gift, work, business owner, running, thought, membership, learned, hikes, Reilly
SPEAKERS
Collin, Reilly K.
Collin Funkhouser 00:02
Welcome to pet sitter confessional, a podcast by pet sitters for pet sitters. Today, we're brought to you by time to pet and pet perennials. Today, we are super excited to have Reilly Kahat, owner of pet fit on to talk about his journey into pet care. Oh, he's focused on rowing a team and how he connects with his clients, and a whole lot more, I'm sure that we're gonna get to Reilly. So, Reilly, for those who aren't familiar with you? Could you please tell a little bit more about who you are and what you do? Yeah.
Reilly K. 00:31
Hi, Colin, thank you very much for having me. I am a big fan of the show. So it's cool to be here. My name is Reilly, and I'm the owner and founder of pet fit. We're based out of Maryland. I've been doing this. Let's see, we started at the very end of 2018. So I've been in the industry for I guess we just hit our five year mark. So 2024 will be our sixth year and been a lot of ups and downs. But we're in a good spot. So
Collin Funkhouser 01:06
five years really is a massive milestone, right? It's like, it's just enough to now you've started to see a few cycles of business see a few cycles of things. But also, it kind of shows you how much more there still is to go. Yes,
Reilly K. 01:22
absolutely. I when I first started. So originally, when I was in Colorado for a while, go into school, ended up leaving, they're coming back home and just needed a job. So I got a job as a dog walker for another business. The guy was great, who was running it, but maybe only four or five months in, he decided to go another direction, shut down. And I was kind of left questioning like, Okay, do I want to start applying for other jobs, you know, be a cashier somewhere? Or should I try to kind of do this on my own. So I ended up getting started that way, there's a whole story around me trying to buy his client list and his business, that kind of falling through. And then I ended up just setting up my own business with our own name. But going into it, I was like, Okay, after one year, I don't want to be walking dogs anymore. Like, I'll be totally done. I'll have a team behind me. And little did I know, you know, take me two, almost three years to even get to that point. So definitely a lot to go and a lot slower progress than maybe the novice entrepreneur, Reilly thought. But throughout the whole time, you know, we did go through COVID pretty early, which was a bit of a setback, whole time I had in mind. Because I always heard that most businesses, I don't know the stat like 90% don't make it past five years. So I always just had in my head. If I can just get through five years, like, I'll be set, I'll be established. And it's only up from here. And that's
Collin Funkhouser 03:16
such an interesting stat. And I've heard a lot of explanations for why why it does, why it does happen. Right? Like, sometimes it's because companies grow too fast, right? And they can't manage they don't have systems and processes in place. Sometimes it's because they don't grow fast enough, or they have they've over leveraged on capital and things like that. And, you know, it's it's interesting, because in our industry, like we don't need a whole lot of capital to, to start, but we have to get the people coming in so that our we do get that revenue, because otherwise we can't we can't pay our own bills. And we've got to go do something else pretty quick.
Reilly K. 03:51
Yeah, absolutely, definitely fortunate, especially as a young guy, never having run a business kind of falling into something that is relatively, you know, I don't want to say easy, but relatively not capital intensive, or, you know, requiring an insane like technical skill set to get started. So I was able to kind of just figure things out as I went. And yeah, and I think being five years in I'm certainly not where I would have guessed, I would have been five years in having started but I've learned so much in the last two years, I would say the growth and momentum has been exponential. So it sort of just took me you know, two or three years to kind of get the feel of things, you know, figure out what my skill set is. And finally, you know, get the machine rolling on its own a little bit.
Collin Funkhouser 04:49
I'm glad that you mentioned figure out what our skill what your skill set is right because as the business owner, we we have to figure out what what kind of jives With us, then what we're going to actually want to do what we're good at. And honestly what we're horrible at, right? Because that's, that's also really important. I talked to a lot of people. And it's always like, yes, absolutely know what you love. But really importantly, know what you're terrible at. So you don't ever touch those things.
Reilly K. 05:19
You Yeah, absolutely, that's something that I'd have definitely struggled with, I tend to, I love learning new things and figuring everything out and systematizing around it. But it's a disadvantage at times, because I think like, oh, I can just do this all myself, I'll figure it out. I end up putting a lot of time into it. And like, you know, in the back of my head, really wanting to handle all that type of stuff on my own. And then it's taken me time to realize, okay, as much as I would enjoy figuring this out, I'm much better off just kind of getting the idea started and handing it off to somebody else. Oh,
Collin Funkhouser 06:00
that's really hard. And I as you're saying that I'm just remembering of all the times I've looked at a problem and gone, Oh, give me a couple minutes, I'll I'll take care of that, right. And sometimes it's Oh, designing a banner to go to a conference, or it's doing a flyer or business cards or bookings on the website or new advertising campaign. It's like, up until this point, I've always gone. Oh, I'll just yeah, I'll just study a little bit. I'll read some blogs, I'll listen to some podcasts, and I'll pieces together, and I'll make it work. But there will come a time there does come a time in our businesses where we go. No, that's that's not going to be the most fruitful effort. I need to spend my time somewhere else. And somebody who actually legitimately maybe loves doing this, or does this for a living should probably take over those things. So that I'm not having to
Reilly K. 06:45
Yeah, for sure. For sure. I think, you know, a combination of perfectionism. And maybe like, self doubt or insecurity about the business world plays into that, because it's sort of like, okay, I want to do all these things. And also, I should be able to do all these things. Seemingly, everyone else is handling all this stuff. Like, why is that not something I can also do, but as you you know, listen to podcasts like yours and talk to other business owners, you realize, that's kind of just the name of the game.
Collin Funkhouser 07:19
It is and that it's okay to put that stuff aside. And it's not admitting like, Oh, I'm a, I'm a terrible business owner, I don't know what I'm doing. It's, well, in some aspects, it is going, you know, what, I don't know what I'm doing, and so on. I'm going to choose to have someone else take care of this, or I'm going to choose not to put this on. And that's, it's very, it's very humbling experience, but it's also very freeing when we realize nope, I'm at my limits. Someone else take over?
Reilly K. 07:42
Yeah, yeah, definitely I am. As far as we like, the interests and skill sets go, I'm definitely tend to be more like, good at coming up with ideas and getting them started and sort of researching a time figuring out what system may or may not work the best for us. But then when it comes down to like the nitty gritty of handling admin stuff, and managing, you know, emails and scheduling, that's one of the things I realized that I was holding on to for way too long. And my brain is just not organized enough to manage that, like we did fine. You know, I never had any huge mistakes, but sort of realizing that okay, somebody else actually would really excel at this, where it's taking a ton of my time, it's a huge drain. And, you know, working on scheduling and answering messages, as much as it is integral to the running of the business, it's not growing the business at all, it's just kind of a maintenance task. So I finally was able to get one of our awesome team members to step up and help me with some of that stuff. And it has been just life changing, kind of being able to take my hands off, let somebody else run with it. And she does an amazing job. I couldn't be happier. Well,
Collin Funkhouser 09:07
in realizing I'd love how you put that to have is this growing? Or is this maintaining? And what's my role and and really sounds like you've really fallen into this. No, my role is to grow this My role is to expand and push and go to that next big idea. I need to then be smart about and wise about bringing the right people on to think okay, here's a brand new idea. Now you manage this and oversee it. Now I can go and do this other thing. And that's really such a better way to scale as opposed to us trying to always add more to our plate, then we have to be both the expanders and the maintainers and that's where stuff really does break down.
Reilly K. 09:45
Yeah, yeah. 100% I I really you know, I think like many pet sitters and dog walkers, you know, I got into it, realizing that one I'm great at you know building relationships, talking with clients, I'm great with the dogs, I'm great at kind of building out the brand, but then when it comes down to a lot of the more, you know, maintenance stuff, it just was not my skill set. So I was truck, kind of nose to the grindstone for those first two, three years handling all that on my own. And I think that's why our growth was fairly slow getting started, at least compared to some other businesses that I hear about. And then, like I said, the beginning the last couple of years, once I kind of started releasing some of that, being able to focus where my skills are, like just talking to people bringing in clients, working with the team, we've really just started to grow so much faster.
Collin Funkhouser 10:45
Were those skills, something that you've had to work on focus on? Did you find you fell into those naturally? Or? Or did you have a education experience or other jobs that you felt like prepared you for those? Um,
Reilly K. 10:59
I think probably a little more naturally. I've always been a talker, you know, I wouldn't say I'm extroverted. But if I get in a conversation, where I'm comfortable, I, you know, I could just go on and on and on. So when it came down to just kind of chatting with clients and asking them questions, you know, getting to know them a little bit, getting other dogs, I just kind of excelled on that front. And then as far as marketing, and that kind of thing, bringing clients in, I definitely didn't have any experience, but I was always creative. So I, you know, dealt a lot with Photoshop over the years making videos and all that kind of stuff. So I was maybe had a little bit of a natural inclination towards that side of things also. And then certainly, just on top of where I already felt like I was doing a good job, I have just learned so much over the years. I mean, all my time, these days, almost instead of watching a Netflix show, I'm listening to a business podcast or self improvement content, that kind of thing, just always trying to level up as much as I can.
Collin Funkhouser 12:19
It's an important reminder that we all start somewhere, and that we can go okay, what do I have? What am I already predisposed to liking, or have a proclivity for or an interest in, because it's going I don't know, if you were ever like this in school of going well, the the topics that I was interested in, I would spend all day studying for those, and the topics that I had no interested in, you couldn't pay me money to study for those topics, right? It was like, I just wasn't motivated to do that. Because that's not where my interest or skills were. But as a bit, as a business owner, it kind of changes a little bit where, okay, I might not have an interest in this, I do need to do it to some extent until I can then pass it on to somebody else, and then build from there by seeking out extra resources help or offloading things or just saying no to them entirely. Because then that way, you really can keep the stuff that feeds you so that you're more excited to get up the next day. Yes, yeah,
Reilly K. 13:14
for sure. I was very similar. You know, anything that caught my interest, I would totally nerd out about learn everything I could, you know, honestly stay up all night researching something. So I definitely was the same way. And then other things I wasn't interested in, would totally ignore put off the work. I'll say, as far as running a business goes, I do think at the beginning, it's important to kind of try to learn at least the beginning of all the different things, you know, figure out the premise of all the hats that you might wear in the business, just enough to where you can find the right person to take that off the off your hands, or when you do delegate to somebody, you're knowledgeable enough to at least keep track of it. And like, okay, this person is doing a good job, they're not doing a good job, like, gotta find somebody new, that kind of thing.
Collin Funkhouser 14:12
Right? So that when that person is talking to you on the other side of the phone, or on the other side of the table, you're not just nodding your head, because you're ready to get this over with you do need to understand, you know, because you at the end of the day, what they tell you, you're going to have to make decisions on you're going to have to understand what that actually means and interpret that correctly. And if you're just out there going well I don't know. They said yes. So I don't know really what that means about this. Oh, go ahead and do XYZ it's like yeah, you know, that's the you get into a lot of trouble that way when you just take things at face value, even for people that are working for with your company, know enough to understand and be be knowledgeable enough to know what what different numbers mean or different answers mean that all that kind of stuff is just it's so important.
Reilly K. 14:54
Yeah, for sure. I think it applies to everything but the most common exam Apple has definitely, you know, know your numbers enough to make sure like, if you have an accountant, they're not ripping you off, which is kind of like the easiest for people to understand, like, just know it enough to kind of be able to keep tabs on things. But then definitely don't feel bad or be scared of handing it off to somebody else. Because sometimes that's the best thing you could do. Back
Collin Funkhouser 15:23
in 2018, you're starting out pet fit is the business that you're running today. Is it like the business you started back in 2018.
Reilly K. 15:31
I'm similar in a lot of ways different in a lot of ways. When I started, you know, I didn't have some grand idea of starting a business where I was ideating on it a long time, I kind of just got thrown into it, I was walking dogs, but this other guy, he moved on, I thought I was gonna buy his business and have his help, kind of setting up and there was a little bit of a falling out there. He didn't feel comfortable sharing the client list. And basically, you know, we avoided our contract, and I was kind of at square one. So I had built relationships with a few different clients from that business, was able to approach them get my first few people and just kind of was totally winging it. I mean, I, I did have the wherewithal to get software right away. So I think that was a great decision. I started with time to pet eventually moved away, and now I'm back on time to pet. But at the time, you know, I was I've always had dogs growing up, we had horses, my family's got some chickens and goats and stuff. So I was fairly knowledgeable as far as what's good for dogs, you know how to treat animals, but I didn't have much technical skill as far as what gear to use, you know, what's the best, you know, healthiest treats for them and all this stuff. When we first started out. Just as an example, I was always using a retractable leash, which is something we would never do now. Just with all the risks, but at the time, it's like, oh, okay, well, this will give the dog some more freedom, they can get more exercise on on the walk. And I had no consideration of like, okay, this could break, it could tangle around a dog's leg, it could tangle around my leg, all these sort of, you know, different things. And then I didn't have a brand getting started. So it was just kind of me path, it was just a name, there was no real meaning behind it. At the time, I was rushed to get set up, I can't even remember the other ideas I had. But I wanted to choose something. You know, this may go against common advice, but I want to choose something somewhat generic, because I didn't know where the business was going to go. So I didn't want to, you know, form an LLC with dog walking in the name because I thought maybe you know, maybe one day I'll be selling treats or run a store or something like that. So I wanted to keep it somewhat open. And then yeah, just I would say the biggest change was when the lockdown started after sort of, you know, the pandemic hit, I suddenly had lost 90% of my business. And there were some families, we were really, you know, they were really great clients. And I was kind of caught off guard and surprised at how quickly they were to cut us out. You know, I felt like we were integral to their kind of routine and their family, all of a sudden, you know, they cancelled all their services, they never followed up with another message. And it set me back. And plus, I had a lot of extra time. So we had a few clients who kept us on. But during that huge new amount of free time I had I was really thinking like, what, like, Where was my failure here. And that's when I realized it was mostly around branding and the customer experience and really like Not, I was much more transactional at the beginning I think is the best way to put it. And so since then, you know, I've worked with Doc's design to get logos and a color palette and everything set up. We totally redid our website, I sat down for a long time and thought about, okay, why am I doing this? What do we want to provide for the community and the clients sort of what are our long term goals? And after sort of thinking through all of that making Some changes visually. And I don't know what you would say like, as far as our philosophy goes, Yeah, then started building clients back up, eventually people started going back to work. And since then just kind of arm our relationship with the community and with our clients is much more important, I would say, much more meaningful for both us and for the clients, we really do feel like we're a part of their family, you know, we're doing a great service for them. And so, you know, I don't know. But I would have to imagine if, God forbid, there was a pandemic to that we'd have a lot more people that would keep us on and stay in touch, or at least come back after things got better than the first time around.
Collin Funkhouser 20:55
Have you heard of time to pet krisann from raining cats and dogs has this to say
21:00
becoming a time to pet clients has been a game changer for us. We can give our pet services clients real time, cloud based information they never imagined they'd be interested in. And most importantly, to me personally, I can better manage my company and look forward to more and not a small thing. Time to pet is responsive to my requests for new features, and modifications to existing ones.
Collin Funkhouser 21:25
If you're looking for new pet saying software, give time to pet a try listeners of our show can save 50% off your first three months by visiting time to pet.com/confessions. Well, would you describe the pet fit brand?
Reilly K. 21:40
Yeah, so we are certainly very fitness focused, that's definitely in the name. And our branding and kind of our mentality around everything is very outdoorsy and adventury. And so we'd like to think that we're doing you know, even though we are certainly just taking dogs out, making sure they poop, making sure they pee getting them back in the house safely. We like to kind of frame things, as you know, this is an awesome time for your dog to get outside really experienced the world with somebody who's there, just for them. So we love any opportunity to get dogs near the woods, or any big fields kind of outside of the suburban neighborhood where most of our clients are, and focus a lot on enrichment and just, you know, letting the dog be as much as a dog as they want to be. So I would say that's kind of kind of where we are. We were running a lot of adventure hikes for a little while, which I played into kind of the branding decisions we met with we made with lots of trees and mountains. We haven't been doing much of that recently. So that's another thing that sort of changed. But we very much still kind of embody that outdoorsy hiking mentality. And that's what we like to portray to clients. And I think they definitely enjoy thinking like, okay, my dog going out on this Excellent Adventure, you know, versus just somebody stopping by to make sure they went to the bathroom while
Collin Funkhouser 23:36
I was at work. And really, it's about trying to connect with the clients who see that because I know, we get clients who just want the potty let out. They don't want anything actually, they don't really care. They just want the potty let out. And I'm all I'm always frustrated because I'm like, Oh no, don't you want like everything that we offer? Like, Oh,
Reilly K. 23:56
yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We get clients like that, too. You know, and they're great clients, you know, that they pay their bills on time, they're happy that we're taking care of the dogs, but they tend to engage a little bit less, you know, they're normally not responding to the visit reports and, you know, sharing stuff on social media and kind of getting involved in that way. And it's not to say we don't want them as clients, we're happy to take care of all the dogs but when we can connect with someone like you said, you know, on a deeper level, somebody who relates with our branding and kind of our philosophy, it is just so awesome. Like that's my favorite thing about running this business is just seeing clients happy and enjoy what we do and grateful and coming home without worrying about their pets and it's uh, I feel pretty lucky to be in this in this industry. You know, we kind of just get to help Dogs and help people make money.
Collin Funkhouser 25:02
As a business owner, again, it's hard whenever you have clients who do they gush over you, they respond to every message, they share all of your social media posts, they're replying, they're engaged, they're really, like they're really getting it. And then you have those clients who don't. And I think it's important to remember that it's not that they're not appreciative, it's just, they may be displaying it in a different way. Or, or they only want it to be transactional, they might not be looking for a relationship. And that's difficult to have like, as going, No, I'm supposed to build a relationship with you. So just hold on, right, we're gonna have a relationship. And if that other person is going, No, please stop. I just want you to take care of this. Like, there's nothing that we can do at that point, we just continue to serve them well, and and know that that person doesn't want anything more out of this. And then we decide is that, is that something we're going to be okay with? Or do we need to move on from them?
Reilly K. 25:57
Hmm, yeah, that's definitely always difficult, you know, especially just trying to gauge like, are you happy with the way we've been doing things? We haven't been getting any feedback? Yeah, you know, we've mentioned a couple of these questions in the walk reports of like, how we should approach something, and you're not really getting much of a response. Maybe they fill out our extremely thorough forms. And it's just all one word answers, no detail. And that can be tough. I think we get, it's a lot of times our, I would say, just extremely busy, kind of maybe higher net worth clients who tend to take that route. They're like, look, I'm, I'm willing to pay whatever it takes just, you know, make sure my dog is taken care of, don't bother me if you don't have to. And this relationship will work like that. And it's always a little jarring. But you know, there are some of our best clients for sure. Yep. Same of those people who just go basically they're like, Yep,
Collin Funkhouser 27:05
I don't really care what you have to text me. I'm going to know you're here, because I see you on the cameras. So enjoy. Like, I'll wait for my next monthly bill. You're like, okay, I guess Yeah, that's just, but just knowing that that's, we then have to navigate the waters of both of those. And that while we may want everybody to be gushing and leaving all the reviews and going out and screaming from the rooftops just being okay with recognizing not everybody's going to do that, and we can still serve them well. And that's, that's our responsibility. What what do we have control over?
Reilly K. 27:39
Yes, for sure. And, you know, at the end of the day, even if you're not getting a lot of feedback from the client, you know, the beautiful thing about this business is you're always getting direct feedback from the dog. So you can show up, you can see that they're having a good time. Often, you know, if it's a busy person like that, prior to us coming on, they were not in, you know, the best routine, and we're not necessarily getting out as consistently as they should be. So very quickly, you know, we start coming every day, every couple of days, you can really see the dog lighten up and seem healthier and more active. And that's always, you know, just really awesome to see.
Collin Funkhouser 28:20
You mentioned that you had you're not doing adventurer hikes as much right now, is that a market shift? Is that a business decision? Or is that something else?
Reilly K. 28:30
A little bit of both. So the hikes we started up when I did the rebrand it was in the middle of the lock downs. So most of our clients prior were working nine to five needed us there in the middle of the day. And then, during that sort of downtime when everyone was home, or if they weren't home, they had their kids out of school. So child was home and could watch the dog. We were really just looking for another way to serve the community and serve the pet owners. And you know, I was in Colorado hiking all the time with the dog I had at the time, and just really loved that experience. So I thought okay, maybe this is something I can bring to the community. We have tons of nice hiking trails around here. But not everybody is that type of person or that type of dog owner, but most dogs are that type of dog. Right. You know what I mean? So we definitely enjoyed setting that up. And we ran some hikes for a while. People were definitely happy. And then when people started going back to work and needed more just regular mid day visits. We were constrained a little bit as far as staffing the adventure hikes go. Me sort of because at the time it was mostly just me doing them. So I struggled a little bit figuring out both, like numbers wise how much to charge to have a client, you know, or a team member, pick up the dog, take them out, go back to the house. And then I struggled a little bit more, the only way to really make it work was to do groups. And I, you know, I'm not a trainer, I'm great with dogs, but I don't have the best, you know, maybe behavioral analysis compared to a professional trainer. So I stressed a lot about pairing dogs up, you know, what if we make a mistake, and two dogs are fighting while we're out there. So all these things sort of started coming up. And then the other part was, if I'm sending team members out there in the woods, there's not usually cell signal. So how could they get in touch with me? Are they even able to fill out their reports, if there's an emergency, how's it going to be handled, and I ended up just deciding that the best way for us to grow was to stop doing the hikes, I continue to do some on my own occasionally. But really focused on building a staff, team member base that can just help as many people who are back at work as possible. And we still try to carry like I mentioned before, carry that kind of outdoorsy adventure mentality into the mid day walks. So it was a little bit, you know, a market shift with people going back to work. And then also just what's the word operational? You know, drag, I guess.
Collin Funkhouser 31:42
Yeah, you know, I'll never forget, I was at a business meeting, and I had talked was talking about what we do as a business. And the guy across from me was just standing, his eyes were huge. And he was like, what an operational nightmare. And I was like, Oh, yes, you? Absolutely. It is a nightmare, I told. And yeah, because you're right of going, if I because it's not just how many people can I walk in a day, but now I'm going I've got an adventure hike that's going to last what, three, four hours is somewhere around where I've also got to be doing other walks, but I can't dedicate one person more to this than another one. And then I can't do this one too early, and I can't do this one. And all of a sudden, you're right, just going okay, all that's being cut loose like that. And that's just operationally let alone like you said, What happens if they fall? Right now I've got to do I equip every one of them with a GPS with a Garmin GPS alert system? You know, and how do I make that work? And this is where we go. As business owners, we go, I may want to still offer this, this this, I still may have a heart and passion for this. But can I make it work? Is it workable for my company for me, and listing out all those limitations? And then you can really line that out and see, no, no, it's not going to work right now. You know, and I'll just find, I'll move it I'm sure you've just got it sitting over here maybe ready to pop back out later if an opportunity arises. But it's not gone forever, but just for now realizing that's not for right now. And I can focus my time and attention on my staff which is really important. I can focus them on other things that are actually going to help us grow as opposed to just sitting trying to chunk away at this or that you're this outward. So this slows way down and keep us from getting to where we want to go eventually.
Reilly K. 33:25
Hmm yeah, all of that is very well said. I think the biggest fear of mine was definitely the staff. We had a girl rolled her ankle in the woods pretty early on and was out for a couple of weeks. She didn't break it but it was very severely sprained and she couldn't put any weight on it and I just could not stop thinking about okay what if you know what if she did break her ankle we're making worker's comp claims then I need to have somebody there to replace her account always be me and just developed you know, maybe some are rational and some logical fear around that situation. And it was just easiest for us to like you said just cut it loose. I do have it tidied up on the side ready to pop back with you know when the time comes. clients ask us about it. But as far as you know, and I'm sure some people out there I do an adventure hikes where it's very well integrated into the way they do things and it works very well for him but for us it was just too difficult to keep this well oiled machine you know, up and running smoothly while while handling those hikes all the time.
Collin Funkhouser 34:43
How early into your business, Reilly did you start doing membership based dog walks?
Reilly K. 34:49
So the membership is fairly recent. And we we have been getting some confusion around what a membership is and so I'm still kind of iterating and playing with the language we have on our website and the best way to portray what we're doing to clients and potential clients. For us, it was really what what happened was, I was trying to grow the team, and also bring in clients. And we were taking constantly taking individual walks, or sort of occasional walks, where somebody would book three, four times or maybe, you know, once every month, and we had a ton of clients like that, and they would fill up our schedule. But then one of our everyday regular clients who had been using us five days a week for four years, would just want to reschedule something or add an additional walk in our schedule was totally filled up. And I started noticing I'm having to decline our best clients, walks and opportunities to get on the schedule, because we're taking in all these, you know, I don't want to say random, but not as consistent jobs. And it really started to drain on me emotionally having to say no to great clients, and also impact kind of the experience our best clients were having. So it was a tough decision. But I decided that I do need to cut out irregular occasional new clients. So we can focus all of our attention on our regular clients. And it was probably about maybe 25% individuals, 75% of regulars. So it was a solid chunk of revenue that we were sort of cutting out, which was a little scary for me. But at the end of the day, if I wasn't really giving everything we had in the best experience to our regulars, the whole thing was going to fall apart. So it was kind of just a necessary decision, at least where we were the membership. As far as is setup right now, it just means that we require at least one walk a week, set on a recurring schedule in order to join. So if you want to use our services, you can get set up at a minimum with, you know, let's say Friday, every week, we'll build that monthly. But once you are a member or our setup, by having at least one walk a week, you can add any additional walks you want, you can reschedule any time. So it's sort of just the membership is sort of just like, the barrier to entry is getting set on a monthly schedule. We get some confusion people people ask, you know, is it like a monthly flat rate, and then we can use you as much as we want and stuff like that. So I've been a little unsure if that's the best terminology, you know, recurring only doesn't sound as fun or, you know, people said, That's not sort of what our membership is, is, is to join, you got to sign up, you know, monthly schedule, at least one walk a week.
Collin Funkhouser 38:27
Okay, because that's what I was going to ask about that confusion, because I can definitely see people are going, Oh, well, my gym has a membership. And I can show up as many times a day or not, and us kind of use as much or as little. But from your perspective going? No, this is what you need to do to gain gain access to our services at all right? And I definitely see that. Now, once you are a member, you can do all of these things. And here's the benefits. But there's, there's no one offs, right? You either are a member of us, or you are not. And it's a very different mindset for a huge chunk of the population. I mean, as you were experiencing 25% of your revenue was from these one offs. And I know that that's a struggle that a lot of people have have. I know when I get a phone call, I can just hear in the tone of voice I'm going you are going to use us this one time, and I will never see you again. I just I just know. Right. And so why then risk not being able to take on a really great client, or if you have a commitment of Yeah, you know, because I know right rally, you don't do petsitting services, but a lot of people do and going Why would I take on this one and really stretch myself when I when you know an existing client isn't you know, may have an emergency and they're not gonna be able to use me or the walks right. If this one person is going to be home today. They don't need me and then I can't reschedule them. That's not a really good customer experience for them. It's not a good feeling for them to go know when I'm being bumped? Like what, like, instead of going first come first serve, basically you're going, No, I'm here to serve members. And it sounds much more like a, like a, like a country club aspect of like, look, once you're in here like, Sure, then you can make the reservation at the table, then you can book your tea time. But you got to be a member first to get that done.
Reilly K. 40:20
Huh, yeah, for sure. And once people join, we really are able to give them just a much better experience ever since we made the switch, we've never had to say no to any client about a reschedule or an additional date, we've got our team built up well enough, and, you know, our routes kind of set up enough to where even if somebody does have an emergency, or make a last minute visit, you know, we're just we're always able to help them out. And that's something we just couldn't do before. And I think that it has gone a long way with sort of what we're talking about at the beginning, just really being an asset to families and, and them feeling like, you know, we're not something that they want to lose, you know, and just more of a more integral in both the community and these people's lives. And that's, that's what I want to do. And I, you know, I'm in this business, mostly, because, you know, it's a, it's a career choice where you're not like, you're not necessarily you're not getting one over on anybody, you're really just helping from beginning to end helping dogs helping clients, helping staff members, you know, in so it's just such a beautiful way to make a living. I don't know, I think the the membership part was important, we certainly struggled at first making the change. I cut off individual clients right around, you know, the time that the economy sort of started to slow down. And I didn't necessarily anticipate how much of our growth was from individual people. So I hired staff, I switched a membership only and then was like, wow, okay, we are not getting as many clients in as we were before. I've got team members who would much more, they would be very willing to do longer shifts, and get more hours and make more money. And I just don't have the clients here for them. And so that was jarring, for sure. But we've been it's I think most businesses start off word of mouth and whether that just carries them the whole time or not. That was when we face the reality that okay, we have to do some intentional marketing now to get this message out to find those people who do want us there to do what to join the membership and do see the value in you know the way we do things.
Collin Funkhouser 43:23
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Reilly K. 46:00
Yeah, I'm definitely still working on figuring out how to touch base with the dog owners out there and have them understand what we're doing. We get a lot of people who do call and they say, Hey, I'm gone for the weekend. Can you come by, you know, three times a day. And you know, I just have to tell them no, you know, we're a recurring only business, if you did want to get set up, you know, for a weekly walk, then we could add these additional ones while you're gone. But it's just kind of the way we do things. And so it's it's been a challenge for sure. I think the biggest challenge I've faced yet is figuring out how to get in front of people with this kind of membership concept. You know, we've done a lot of door hangers and flyers, which we've gotten some good, some good clients from, I haven't done a ton of social media or you know, Google ads, or Facebook ads, that's kind of our next. I don't know, I'm losing all my words, it's hard. It's our next thing on the on the to do list, is to start dabbling with some of that, and see if we can make some creative pieces of content videos, you know, combined with testimonials from current clients, and really show people you know why we're here and what we do and why we might be a good fit
Collin Funkhouser 47:28
for them. Because it is hard, because while the client may understand the service, they might not understand the business structure behind it. Right and going it because I've had that conversation with Megan many times for us, as in our business going, people want the service, they don't want it how we're saying we're going to offer it right. And that's, that's hard, right? I'm going okay, I know you say you want the walk, here's the things you need to do to get the walker, here's the setting you want, here's what you need to do. Here's how we provide that. And we think how we provide it is a huge selling point. No, we think oh, like, obviously. But if people don't see the superstructure, right, how we're going to administer the service, if they don't see the value in that, it's hard to convince them to sign on when all they're sitting over here is going, I just want the service, just just show up, just show up for three times come on what's so hard about that you're going out. But that's not how we do things. And that that's where that message is really hard to get across.
Reilly K. 48:25
Absolutely. And you know, I'm still figuring it out. But we're doing well and, you know, amazing benefits, or at least what I see as amazing benefits to the clients aside. The other huge part of it, as far as running a business goes is it's just made things so much more manageable. For myself and for the team. We have consistent walks every day of the week. We know they're there week in and week out, we can predict our income much better. It allows me to kind of forecast when I need to hire a new team member much easier. building our routes much more efficiently. And it's just been a huge blessing. Honestly, as far as my time and mental health goes, you know, it's just so much smoother than what I'm running around doing meet and greets all the time, bringing clients on making sure I have a team member to serve those clients but then they're not here the next week, the team members still expecting work. We don't necessarily have it for them. So it's been it's been a game changer on that on that front as well. How have
Collin Funkhouser 49:45
you been leading your team? Through through these changes are how do you see yourself as leading them in your company?
Reilly K. 49:52
Leading is something I think I do fairly well at. I'm sure I'm not not getting the, you know, I'm sure I'm getting biased feedback from our team members, but they definitely seem happy with the way I've been running things, I have had to learn a lot. And I'm much more kind of hands on, you know, I haven't had a lot of training materials like structured out and written down, which we do want to do eventually, just to help us stay consistent and grow. But, you know, for me, it's much more about getting out there, showing them how I do things, how I approach the dogs, how I talk with the clients, and just kind of leading by example, and then at the same time taking into account, you know, that, um, the, the hardest thing for me is, has been realizing that not everybody is going to have the same passion as I do. Even if they're an awesome dog walker, you know, it's not their business, know, they may just just want to get a paycheck. And there's honestly nothing wrong with that. And so it took me a while at the beginning to figure out how to approach you know, maybe reports being a little lackluster, or mistakes being made, and figuring out how to talk to them and get them to understand, you know, kind of the importance of doing things the way I want them done. And, man, I don't know, I'll be becoming a better leader is definitely something I am just constantly working on. I'm certainly asking for their feedback as much as possible. I try to take into account what they say no, my myself personally, I always kind of have, I've thought about just about everything. So let's say somebody brings something up, you know, oh, I think it would be great if we, if we started doing this this for the clients. And at first, I would tend to say things like, oh, yeah, I've already been thinking about that, you know, we're gonna get that started soon, which is kind of, I think, demoralizing for the person who brings it up. And I've learned to be much more, just listen much better, and just say, Oh, wow, that is a really great idea. You know, I've briefly thought about that. But I'm curious, you know, how you would want to set that up and just hearing from them more, and not? I just always, I always used to just kind of make things about myself, if that makes sense. You know, okay, I already had that idea. You know, because I thought I was putting on this level of aptitude by doing that. And it was a benefit. But at the end of the day, it just, it makes them not want to bring things up, they're assuming I already have it under control, and maybe I don't. So that was a big learning thing. And then I used to nag way more, you know, I'm very particular. So I would send messages, you know, if a harness was twisted, right away, send a message, hey, why was this harness, twist it up? You know, I told you that to check to make sure they're all flat, and was just constantly immediately confronting team members about every little thing, which I think was also demoralizing for them. They're juggling a lot when they're out there. And I had to realize that if they're messing up, it's probably a fault in my training, in me kind of portraying things to them. So those couple things, as far as leading goes, I've got a long way to go. But I think just realizing that the staff is human, they want their ideas to be heard, they want to contribute. They don't necessarily just want to be, you know, clocking in following instructions to a tee, you know, not having any input. And so I'm trying to bring them into the vision a lot more. And I think it's gone a long way with their morale, and also them making less mistakes. I think when they're more excited about the work, they're kind of more engaged and more in tune and doing things a lot more efficiently and following the SOPs a lot more closely. There was a long ramble there, but I think there was Some good bits of that.
Collin Funkhouser 55:02
A couple things stood out to me as far as you know, a lot of people who have staff, they get frustrated because they don't feel like they're getting good feedback. And I think that starts with, what unconscious signals are we sending to them? Like, kind of like what you realized early on there while you're going? Yeah, when I say these things, I'm trying to convey one thing, but they're picking up on something else, right? When I say, oh, yeah, I think I thought about that yesterday, we're not gonna do that. Why they have no incentive of coming to you tomorrow with another idea. Right? They, we, when we say, Oh, we're open door policy, right? Come in, come and talk to us, we will be fine. If every time you they come in you go, yeah, I've thought about that. Oh, yeah. Cool, cool. Well, anyway, they're not going to come back in. So genuinely sing it with an interest going, tell me how you would do that. asking some questions. And maybe you do say that that's something that you thought of, but now with their information, we're going to talk about that again, and move forward from there. And then understanding that, when we talked about being a leader, it's also important to know who we're leading. And knowing the people as people, right, you said that my staff are human, right, they're going to make mistakes. So I have to know who they are. So I know how to lead them. Because if I'm just trying to do everything, the exact same, treat everybody in the same manner, that's going to work for nobody, right? Like, I'm really going to make some angry people, but instead taking the time to get to know them, and then you know how to lead that person well, and then the next person well, and you know, and actually have those relationships too. And that's definitely an important part kind of knowing the team members on a more personal level to where you can sort of realize, okay, this person is going to respond very well, to just, you know, straightforward
Reilly K. 56:45
kind of criticism, where's this person, my thing that, you know, they're about to get fired if I if I correct them on something and just figuring out the nuances of how to approach everybody. And my tone of voice, especially if I'm in my work mood. And I just say, some specially texting, you know, send a message to somebody, hey, the client said this, you know, why did this happen? I realized fairly early on that I was just not, it was not coming across to them the way it was in my head. I'm normally not mad or frustrated, I do understand that they're all human, but I wasn't carrying that to them very well. So I started doing a lot of one just waiting to say something, you know, the harness was twisted. I already um, I'm looking at a report of a walk that already happened. So they're in the middle of their day. Me calling them right away to bug them about it. It's not going to untwist the harness in the walk that already happened. Oh,
Collin Funkhouser 57:57
come on.
Reilly K. 57:58
Yeah, so just giving some space one for me to kind of continue to think about what happened and how to approach the situation. And to to just not drag them down while they're out working. You know, I, I want it to be a fun experience for all of them. So I tend to wait until at least after a shift or maybe at the end of the week, I touch base with someone and let them know things that can be improved on. I've learned to always kind of you know, I Gary Vee always has some phrase, I don't know exactly what it is. But it's basically like, give a little honey with the vinegar. So I've learned to always kind of say, okay, you've been doing this really well, you've been doing this phenomenal, your report looks great. I have been noticing that, you know, the harnesses are a little bit loose, I think it would go a long way for the comfort of the dog, you know, and visually for the client. If you just took that extra couple minutes to make sure they're all snug. Don't worry about going over your allotted time by a few minutes. We'd rather get everything you know, safe and secure for the dog, then you'll be rushing through it. And so that's gone a long way. And then I would say probably the other thing is just letting them take time off has been huge. So I was strict on on people requesting off at first sort of out of necessity. And it just made the whole experience for them in combination with my nagging you know, in combination with my strictness on sort of timing and stuff, much less dirt desirable and we did have a lot more turnover of staff at the beginning and I think I was a huge reason why. So now I'm I'm sort of take the philosophy have enough team members that anyone can take a day off, if they need to, it's not going to drag down the business, they need that time. You know, at the end of the day, most of them are part time workers, you know, this isn't their life, like it is my life. So they deserve to, you know, take a day when they need one, whether for family and emergency, or just because they're tired, it is so
Collin Funkhouser 1:00:26
important to remember that, you know, that the they, they're not going to have the same passion as you because it's not yours, and they have their different motivations, and that that's okay. And that when they need that time off, we should work to make that available to them. Because if we need days off, if we need time to ourselves to recover and recoup, they need that as well. And to be able to provide that as an amazing thing to be able to do for them. And I was going to, when you're walking through that statement of how you corrected somebody on the harnesses, like how important it is, is just like you did is it's reminder to me to have going, we need to point back to why this correction is important. I don't just want to sit here and go, well, the harness was wrong. And you need to fix that next time. Okay, bye. Come comfort, safety, aesthetics, like all these are critically important. And then you if you need to dig deeper back and go see our company values. And here's our mission statement, here's, here's all the stuff that's really important to us and see how that flows to this thing that happened, our our mission of best customer experience possible. That's why these things are matter, or whatever that is, for us, it's going, this is an outflow that because we know in our head, why things are important. Our staff don't because they didn't write it right. They're not, they're not thinking you're obsessing about this stuff, 24/7 like we are. So just taking that moment to point that out to going you know how I say these things are important twist and harness as a reflection of those. And that's why these are important to them.
Reilly K. 1:01:56
That is very crucial. And it's funny that it took me a while to kind of realize that because growing up and in jobs I've had in the past, I was always the person that's, you know, asking why like, Okay, I will do this, but can you explain me why that makes sense. And it was very hard to be motivated to do things or follow directions a specific way if I didn't understand the value behind it. So that's super important. And I do try to try to convey those things to the team, I'll try to make videos every once in a while, like, if I notice, one person is making some sort of mistake, I will approach them about it. But if it's sort of something that all the team is not necessarily a mistake, but could improve on, I'll tend to make a video of just me talking, you know, kind of explaining, you know why something should be done a certain way, the value it brings for the dog and the team member and not singling out anybody. And then I think that that has been doing very well for us as well, because it's not putting anybody on the spot. They're not necessarily like questioning, you know, how good of an employee they are, just because I want to correct one little thing. They're like, Oh, this is just, it's just kind of ongoing training. I found that doing videos like that, at least for me, work a lot better than kind of talking to somebody one on one about something that is minor. Yeah, so I don't I've got a long way to go on the leadership side. Learning to manage people has been very difficult. I think I'm getting better at it. The team seems happy. We've got people who have been sticking around a long time. So I think I'm improving but there's miles to go for sure.
Collin Funkhouser 1:04:11
Reilly, I really appreciate you coming on the show today and encouraging us to make some of those tough decisions as far as what fits with us operationally and what's going to be a good fit and as a reminder to us to serve our clients well and treat our staff well too and to never stop learning and improving. I do know that there's a whole lot more here and you have a lot on your plate and cool stuff that you do. So for people who are interested in following up and getting in touch with you How best can they do that?
Reilly K. 1:04:40
Anyone can reach me probably the best thing would be just a DM on Instagram. We are pet fit.us Our website is also pet fit.us and my email is Reilly at Pet fit.us. So you Mail me, check out our website, check out our Instagram, I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. Or if you just want to, you know, commiserate about some business stuff, I'm happy to be there for that as well. And I'm just grateful that you had me on the show, I hope there was something there that other business owners could take away. Hopefully, there's some nuggets in there that are helpful for anybody,
Collin Funkhouser 1:05:25
I really appreciate it. And you coming on, I really, really appreciate your time today. So thank you. Yeah,
Reilly K. 1:05:30
of course, happy to be here. And, you know, good luck to all the business owners out there. And, you know, as, as hardest things get that you'll, you'll get through it, just put your mind to it. And, you know, definitely utilize resources like this podcast, groups on Facebook, all that kind of stuff was huge for me, because it's isolating, running a pet business by yourself especially. So definitely utilize all the people and resources around you.
Collin Funkhouser 1:06:02
We often talk about the why in business for when we get started or when times get tough that we can grit and push through. When we focus on our why we should also reassess that every time that we look to make a change in our business. Why am I doing this? To what end? Is this beneficial to me? My employees if I have them or or my clients that I'm serving or for their pets that I am tending to? Why is this always checking our motivations and our reasoning, not just that we are approaching people with a purity of motivation and of mind and conscience, but also so that we know it's something we can stick to because it's actually in alignment with us, not just making changes to chase after the dollar or to get more popular or to get more likes or whatever. But genuinely, what's the purpose? What is the reason for this? What's the heart behind what we do? We want to thank today's sponsor is time to pet and pet rails for making today's show possible. And we really want to thank you for listening. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and we'll be back again soon.
