527: Cars and Culture with Morgan Weber
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Ever wondered how company culture influences business decisions? In this episode, Morgan Weber, CEO and founder of Lucky Pup Adventures, shares how her commitment to a caring company culture led to providing company cars for her team. She discusses the impact this decision has on employee safety, well-being, and client trust. Morgan also delves into the importance of aligning actions with core values and how this shapes every aspect of her business. Tune in to learn how intentional culture-building can drive meaningful changes in your company.
Main topics:
Importance of Company Culture
Providing Employee Peace of Mind
Benefits of Company Cars
Aligning Actions with Values
Brand Visibility and Trust
Main takeaway: If I'm going to take my responsibility as a business owner seriously, what does that mean to me?
About our guest:
Morgan Weber is the founder of Lucky Pup Adventures in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. After her previous career left her burnt out and unsatisfied, Morgan spent the last 11 years growing their pet care business and was the PSI 2022 Pet Sitter of The Year. Morgan believes in ditching burnout and hustle culture while still creating a great life for her and her team. She wants to embolden other Pet Professionals to lead full, happy lives with businesses that allow them to live life more like the pets they serve: with joy, enthusiasm, and time for their favorite things. When she isn't working you can find her curling, knitting, and sitting on the back porch with her husband and pups.
Link:
Episode 389: https://www.petsitterconfessional.com/episodes/389
Lucky Pup Podcast: https://luckypupliving.com/luckypuppod/
https://luckypupadventures.com
https://www.instagram.com/memoryflame.co/
https://www.instagram.com/morganandenasweber/
https://www.instagram.com/theaquariumkeepers/
https://www.instagram.com/_luckypup/
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
car, clients, vehicles, culture, employees, business, pet sitters, pet, company, mileage reimbursement, benefits, decision, people, question, core values, big, pay, team, team members, person
SPEAKERS
Collin, Morgan W.
Collin 00:00
. Welcome to pet sitter confessional today, we're brought to you by time to pet and pet perennials. What does your culture mean to you? How would you define it? How does it shape your decisions and the directions that you move in your business? What are you willing to do and commit to what hard choices are ahead that you know you're going to have to face because of the culture that you are surrounding yourself and developing for your company. Whether you think you have a culture or not, let me assure you that you absolutely do. The power comes in being intentional to develop it and turn it into something that is beneficial for everybody involved with your company. Today, we're really excited to have Morgan Webber, owner of Lucky pop adventures, on the show, to talk about her decision into getting company cars for her employees, and how that aligned with the culture she was trying to develop. Let's get started.
Morgan W. 00:59
I joke that I am the CEO, which is the chief everything Officer of Lucky pup at all, which means that there's a few things that kind of fall under my umbrella. So the main thing is that we started a pet sitting and dog walking company in 2013 and that's called Lucky pup adventures. And we serve the area of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. And so we're a metro of about 300,000 people or so. And then in 2021 January, 2021 I started memory flame candle company after the death of my beloved dog, Olive. And so I help people, help people with hurting hearts. So whether somebody is gifting a memorial candle to a client of theirs, who their pets have passed away, or they have a friend in their life who's going through a hard time, we can help them send nice candles. And then the latest activity that I've started is last year I started the lucky pup podcast, because, you know, why not do something else? And so we are not quite as prolific as you and Megan are over here at Pet Sitter confessional, but we've got a really great lineup of business other business professionals who are actually outside of the pet care industry. We're talking kind of business foundations, business fundamentals, and we're going to get into Season Two here is starting, and we're going to talk a lot about burnout and culture there as well. So I love talking about all things business, and I'm really excited to talk about vehicles, because I get a lot of questions about vehicles, because we provide vehicles for our team, and it's a question that a lot of people have around logistics, and then also, like you said, kind of the why? Like, what was the reason why we started doing this? So I don't know how much time that was, I think that was maybe more than 30 seconds.
Collin 02:39
I think it was a little bit, and I was furiously trying to capture all the links to everything that you mentioned there. So I'll have to loop this back through while editing to make sure I got everything the vehicles aspect again, I wanted to have you on to talk about this, because it does come up a lot, and especially in that aspect of okay, we've started hiring people, and I know people are using their own vehicles and they're driving I may be doing mileage reimbursements, but then there comes that question of, well, what more can I do for my, my my team here. So when did you all start offering vehicles into your to your employees?
Morgan W. 03:18
So I hired my first employee in 20, 2018 and that was a part time employee soon after, actually she became full time. So it didn't take too long for her to transition from part time to full time. And then we got our first car in July, I want to say July of 2020, so there was about like a two year gap, and during that time, I was paying my employees a mileage reimbursement. We have a fairly large service area, so that mileage reimbursement was actually adding up to be quite a lot of money. And I think mileage reimbursements are great for our employees because they are tax free, so it's a great way to kind of boost their paychecks. But also, most people are not taking that mileage reimbursement and setting it aside in a specific vehicle expense bank account and saving it for a rainy day, right? If any of us have ever worked for a company where you were given a mileage reimbursement, I just always put that straight in my regular bank account. And the first year, I think he's the first or second year that my employee went full time. She put 21,000 business miles on her car. And if you think about somebody having to put 20,000 miles on their car, and that employee is still with me, so she's been with me for almost five years now, or full time, I should say for four, oh gosh, six years. I can't do math. She's been full time with me for six years, and that's a lot of mileage. That's a brand new car that she would have had to buy within six years, if you think about having to put 21 plus 1000 miles on a car. And so I really just one realized the i. Ask I was putting on her to put that many business miles on her personal vehicle. But also, in 2018 I got into a car accident, and it it was an older car, so it essentially totaled the car out. But I didn't really understand at that time the benefits of putting full coverage on your car, because it was a third car for us, it wasn't a great car in terms of, like, the value that it had. So we were like, you know, we're gonna put collision on it, you know, I'm not gonna put full coverage on it. But what I learned is, when you do that, when you get in an accident, if the other insurance company challenges the situation. They don't just give you money for your car. You've got to wait for it to go through the legal process. And so I actually didn't get money for our car because we were not at fault at that accident. I was not at fault in the accident, so I didn't get the money for that car for 18 months. And I just really had a realization, and for us, it was okay because it was an extra car, like I was not a car that I was relying on to live my life. But I really had this realization that, honestly, like, this is how people get can go homeless, this is how people can lose their jobs because of something like this can happen. And I just it was such. It was horrible, like I had to go to court, and we had to, you know, it was this long, drawn out process, and then we got lawyers involved in all these different things, and I just realized how much of a pain in the ass It was to be perfectly frank, and I didn't want to have to put that on other people. And so I just knew that someday I wanted to be able to provide cars for our team members, and part of that is, you know, helping them, helping cover them in case that something happened. Also knowing that a lot of insurance companies, if someone is driving for work on a personal insurance plan and something happens and they maybe say the wrong thing to the wrong person, their car insurance could potentially deny that claim. And I just knew that there was a lot of, you know, protections for our workers that I wanted to cover if I could. And so I said, You know what? I'm going to try to figure out how to make this happen.
Collin 07:15
Yeah, there's a lot tied into that decision, isn't there? Like, there's the cost aspect. I mean, you mentioned 21,000 miles. And I think if, if we, if you are listening to this, and you're not tracking your miles like very you need a, you need to do that for your tax purposes, but B, it helps you quickly realize that, like you said, Morgan, the ask that we, we do place on other people. And while we do have that mileage reimbursement, it's nice, but let's say you do the full federal reimbursement rate of, you know what? So is it 65 and a half cents these days? Half cents these days,
Morgan W. 07:43
6767 or 67 and a half, I'd have to double check, okay, yeah,
Collin 07:47
it's a lot, yeah. So you know, even at 67 you're almost at $14,000 a year in just mileage reimbursement, if you're doing that, 21,000 and so you can see very quickly how, all of a sudden, you're going, Wow, not only is this a big ask, but also, as a company like I'm expending a lot of money that isn't going possibly directly to where it needs to go, and honestly, it's probably not even offsetting the full cost of what's going on, because that doesn't even pay for the time that that person has to spend getting oil changes, the time they have to spend getting tire rotations, the time they have to spend getting their transmission serviced and all this stuff and the wear and tear and the cleaning and the upkeep, like it doesn't take into account the time when they're doing all of that. So they can show up the next day and then going, yeah, what kind of protections can we have? I know a lot of people will go, well, I'll just cover the I'll just get the non owned auto insurance for my business, so that I'm protected, but that still doesn't keep that other person, your employee, out of the courtroom right or out of the headache of what's going on there again, and you're not compensating them for that time either.
Morgan W. 08:53
Yeah, exactly. And like I said, again, most people are not taking that, say, $14,000 and setting that aside in their car fund to say, I'm gonna have to buy a new car in five years, because I just put 100,000 miles on my car for work. And so, you know, at the end of five years, I'm gonna have enough money and I can buy myself a new car. Like most people aren't doing that. And also, I really recognize that pet care is not necessarily the best paid industry. So most of us are not paying, excuse me, most of us are not paying our employees a really, like, super duper comfortable living wage. You know, I think it's a lot of us ourselves, as the owners, are not paying ourselves a super duper comfortable living wage. We're also not able to necessarily pass it on to our employees. It's, generally speaking, a lower wage industry, and I just kind of recognize that as well. To say, okay, so if I'm having to pay my employees a little bit less than I would like to because just of the economics of how much my clients are willing to pay, what are the other benefits I can offer them to help offset a little bit lower paycheck and. In order to make this worth, this work worthwhile for them. So my employees want to stay that's a really big that's a really big thing for me in my culture is like, I want to be an employer of choice, and I want to be an employer where my team wants to stick around, and I have really good retention rates, like my one gal has been with me for, you know, like I said six years, I've got other people who've been with me for two, three years, and so it's something like, what can I do to help keep those people around for as long as possible? And one of the things I found was being able to offer company cars. And you also mentioned, you know that so say it's a $14,000 mileage reimbursement that we're paying to somebody. Well, if I'm essentially just renting their car that does not pay the business back, but I've got company cars that are logo wrapped. So now that $14,000 that I was paying to rent their car, I can now pay for a billboard, essentially, that drives around town. So think about like that money utilization. How can I have multiple benefits and have this, this, this thing that I want to do. How can I help it pay off or pay my business in multiple ways? Well,
Collin 11:06
I know one aspect of this too, of of going, Yeah, I need to not just provide a benefit, but when we start looking at the multiplicative, multiple, multiplicative power of the decisions that we make, yeah, I love how you touched on that. Of going, well, I can make this actually redouble the efforts. Of, yeah, it benefits the employees. It may save me money in the long term, but also, I can make money by having my brand out there. So yeah, if you go, Well, how much would it cost to actually rent a billboard for a year? Like if I just had a billboard along a highway? What would that cost now? What if the billboard drove around town and actually help them. Was able to do stuff like, you can look at those costs and go, when we start comparing, and I love to do that of going, you know, when we have marketing opportunities that come up, going, let me compare this to my other options. Like, if I, let's say I was going to spend $14,000 on something, would it be on this? And most of us would say, oh, when you just make it that microscopic, that's actually not getting me the biggest bang for my buck as a business. So how else can I allocate those funds? And I know a big part of this is also going, Okay, I'm gonna sink a bunch of money into this, so I've gotta make sure it's a good decision. How did you land on the kind of vehicles to to pick? Because this is also, I see this all the time in Facebook groups of you know, I'm getting ready to replace a vehicle. What all do you drive? What all you drive? So what was your decision tree like when you went okay for my company, these are what my priorities and how I need to move forward.
Morgan W. 12:37
So there's a couple factors for us. One factor is, I live in the Upper Midwest, where we get cold and snow and blizzards. And so I needed something I know right for all of you folks who live, you know, south of, say, Nebraska, we get a lot of snow, and usually it comes in the form of Blizzards. So it's, you know, whiteout conditions, and we get a bunch of snow all at once, so we had to be able to get around. And part of that for our clients is, you know, if there's four to six inches of eight inches, 10 inches of snow on the ground, can my pet sitter even show up? Or am I going to have to call in backup? And so I needed something with all wheel drive that was really dependable, that lasted a long time. Because, again, if my team is putting 20 plus 1000 miles on a car like it needs to be a car that can last a long time. And then the biggest thing for us is that my local Subaru dealer is absolutely fantastic. So this is my shout out to shulty Subaru, and they they're very supportive and involved in the community, and they are known for for sponsoring vehicles. So going back to culture, one of Subaru corporates values is Subaru loves pets, and our local Subaru dealership had sponsored the car of one of our clients who runs a dog rescue. And so I reached out to her, and I said, you know, Hey, how did this work out? Like, I see you, you know, you've got the company. They've got the company, the Subaru logo on your car, but it also has your rescues wrap on it. Like, how did this work out? And she was able to provide an introduction to me. And so what I did is I went in and I needed a new car anyway. So I went into the dealership, and I was talking with somebody, and I said, Oh, here's a car. This looks like a great option for us, you know. But also I'd like to talk to the owner, because I was referred here by, you know, so and so. And she sent an email and all of these things, and we had a conversation, and he said, Well, that's a great car, but here's the deal, if we sponsor your vehicles. It has to be a brand new lease, because that's the way the company sponsors these vehicles. And I said, Well, sold, like, let's do it. Oh, you mean I'm not going to buy this, like, 10 year old Subaru, and instead, I'll get a new one. Oh, shoot. And so we have had the Subaru Outback. Subaru crosstrex in our fleet now for the last four years, and we absolutely love them. They are one. They're fantastic cars. They're comfortable, they're reliable. And my team has said, especially in the wintertime, they have told me, I feel so much safer driving this car than I do my own car, and so I don't worry about doing those visits in the winter storms like I would if I was driving my own car. So again, they get like these. That was a thing I didn't even think would be an extra benefit. Like, I didn't think, Oh, my team is going to like my office car more than their own car in these situations where they might have called out work to say, you know, hey, I just I can't make it because of this. Now I've got these office cars, and it helps them get the work done. It helps the the clients get their pets visited. So it's been really interesting to see the extra benefits that I didn't necessarily anticipate going into this, but have been definitely a big payoff of having these office cars.
Collin 16:00
Hey, you think about, we talk a ton about, I mean, you're going into a new season, talking about burnout, mental fatigue, compassion fatigue. How do I make sure I show up refreshed and focused on what I'm doing? And, yeah, we may, as the business owners, go, Well, you know, this is the kind of car that I know that I need to drive, but we are buying this, if you think of it, of like, yeah, my car. I know what I'm getting into, and I'm doing this. People, employees, they already have a car, right? They're they're signing up to join our team. They might not be thinking through all the various aspects of what we do, how we do it there, with the weather conditions, and then, yeah, you have got a white out conditions and blood blizzard. And they go, Oh, I don't drive in this kind of stuff in my car. And then what are they doing? They're out there white knuckling it, but in between visits stress to the max, freaking out, really concerned about what's going to happen in their personal safety. What does that lead to? You know, they might, you know, that leads to a exhaustion during that day, because now we're at a heightened level. Our cortisol levels are through the roof, and we're freaking out. And then we're also, we also start, you know, not looking forward to getting out there. We start dreading, oh my gosh, I gotta do this. And that's part of it, and, you know, and now that doesn't lead to good retention, but having being able to give that piece, that peace mind, to your team, to your employees, and go, we've got you covered. Here's this car. It's got, you know, it's good for all these weather conditions. You can go out there, and now they're more they're thinking more clearly. They're not just freaking out. They may still be concerned or worried about stuff, sure, but also it's like they're not thinking through all those aspects because, you know, just that fear of, you know, we've had these conversations with some of our employees of like, yeah, they they're actually sometimes concerned getting out there in the weather conditions, not because of the the driving, but what if they wreck their car and they slide off the road and now their personal car is damaged, or they get hit by somebody at a four way crossroads? It's like, yeah, that stuff that we can we have to, not have to think about, but it is tied up into all of this
Morgan W. 17:58
absolutely and just like you said, it was two winters ago. We had a really nasty winter here, and I got rear ended at a stoplight because it was icy and somebody couldn't stop soon enough. And it was just one of those more reinforcement moments of like, yes, this sucks, because I've got to call the police. I've got to wait here. The police are very busy because there's a lot of other people getting in accidents right now. Thankfully, you know, everything was fine, like, physically, because it's just, you know, you got rear ended. So, like, I had a little bit of a bumper issue, but it's just another reminder to me of how much sometimes things are outside of our control. And if I can give my team members just that little extra peace of mind, knowing, oh, I just got rear ended, but oh, my gosh, I'm glad this is not my car. You know, that just helps, you know? And again, it's I will say, like owning business cars is not inexpensive, but when I did the math, because I calculated it out, and I said, Is this going to be a smart financial decision for my business per miles? And I will say, I have not done the calculation like for last year yet, but per mile, it's actually cheaper for me to own my office cars or to lease my office cars, in my case, than it is for me to pay out mileage. And it's not a huge difference, but it is enough of a difference where, to me, it made sense. And I do have a smaller team. So if there are people out there who have, you know, teams of 20, this might not be as easy, because that's going to be a lot of cars that are going to be out there on the road. I've got a team of eight, and we have, we've got four vehicles, and so one of them goes to my full time person who works more of a managerial role. She's also kind of an on call person. In the tax code, there's also a little bit of a benefit, if you have somebody who is classified as like an on call manager, where they can actually take that vehicle home, and it's not added as a fringe benefit, so I don't have to tax her for her personal miles that she drives to and from work. So she's able to take that car home. There's an extra benefit for her. She's not having to drive. Into the office every day to pick up a car and take it out. And then I've got one car that sits at the office, and that's for our other folks who are working. And whether it's my full time other full time gal or my part time gals, they can come and pick up that car for when they're working. And then my husband and I each have a car, so he does aquarium maintenance, so he uses his car for that. And then I'm the other kind of on Call Manager, where I'm popping around all the play all over the place. And my goal is hopefully, as our team grows, to get another office car, because I'm getting enough situations now where my team members are overlapping longer shifts. And so then you have to pick who gets to drive the office car. Today. Is it because one person has more miles as one person has a longer shift? So then there's some of those values judgments that I have to start making, and I always try to make it as fair and equitable as possible for everybody. So and then whoever is not driving the office car, they get to still count their mileage reimbursement, so they still get paid that way. But I really like having the office cars for a lot of those reasons. Yeah,
Collin 21:03
again, going, I need to make the best decision in this situation, and I need to look at the totality of this. And that goes, as you mentioned, all the way back to whenever you in whatever situation that you're in, thinking through your circumstances, your area, your team, the services that you're offering and where you're located, the client, everything to go, how do I actually pick what's actually going to be rubber on the road? Literally, when the rubber meets the road, what is that decision going to be? And trying to go, okay, how can I partner with people? What are, what kind of, you know, relationships or opportunities are there out there to make the most out of this? Because, yes, certainly we can come in and ask no questions, you know, not look for any deals and just go, Yeah, whatever it is, XYZ, you know, any medium, any mo here we go and we're out the door. But going no, like, this is a big decision, and how can I stretch my dollars even further into this so that I'm not maybe paying full price for this, or I'm not doing the fast decision, but that might not be the best on the back end or most long term success. So having those partnerships really do allow you to be again, better member of the community and impacting more people and furthering that aspect as
Morgan W. 22:18
well. Yeah, and a big deal for us too is just the visibility of our brand. And we get a lot of new clients who say, you know, I've seen your cars in my neighborhood, and I know you visit so and so down the street from me. And so I, I asked them one day what they liked about your services, and they just raved about you. And so I had to sign up. Or, you know, even just people who said, I've seen your car in my neighborhood a lot, and you know, for them, that's a trust factor, right? Somebody trusts us enough to have us come to their neighborhood a lot. And so they think, Well, gosh, you've been coming to my neighborhood for the last six months. That must mean you're, you're worth it, right? You haven't been fired yet, so you might as well, maybe I should hire them too. And I also heard from our clients once, I made a post one day about our cars, and I had current clients who literally said, I feel like when I see you driving around town, even when you're not coming to see my pet, I feel like I'm watching Superman drive across town. You know how good that feels when your clients have that kind of stuff to say about you, but it's just like that, you know, like they were proud of us in the work that we do for their for them and their family, and they loved seeing us drive around town. And so I was just like, man, like, that's another side effect that I I never would have anticipated, that our clients just love seeing us around town because they like what we do for them, and they're happy that we're doing that work for other people, like, that's pretty cool. But, yeah, just that, you know, there's a lot of talk right now about people using, like, yard signs or using door hangers, and it's like, those things are, I think, are super great, but also you could do that with a car and, you know, again, yeah, you want your employees to be good drivers. And you want, you know, there's things, there's a lot of other considerations that you want to consider when you're having a branded wrapped car. But I have only had upsides to that. I've never had a client say I don't want you to pet sit for me, because it's going to be obvious that you know you're here in my neighborhood. One of our rules is we don't park in driveways unless there's a safety reason. So if it's a very busy street, or there's not a safe off street parking spot, then we'll pull into a driveway. But we have that rule even when people are driving their own personal vehicles. Once we had one of our team members cars had a huge oil leak all over somebody's driveway, and I had to go clean it up later. And so after that, we're like, you know what? We're just not going to park in driveways. And so there's not this big sign for somebody that says, hey, you're in my driveway. I'm gone. But I also like to tell people, I don't know about you guys, but I've got some neighbors who do a little, you know, do little unofficial neighborhood, watch for our for our area. You know, there's always going to be somebody in a neighborhood who's paying a 10. Question, and regardless of whether you have a branded vehicle, you park in a driveway, you don't park in your driveway, somebody's gonna know that you are not that homeowner, and you're going into their house three, four times a day like it's gonna there are other things to show that somebody is not home, that is not my branded vehicle parked out on the street. So I definitely understand why some people have that concern. I think it's a very common concern for people to say why they don't want to have a vehicle, or they don't want to have a branded vehicle. But I just like to speak from my experience, from my experience, I've never had a client not hire us or be upset that we showed up in a branded vehicle. Have
Collin 25:35
you heard of time to pet? Dan from NYC, pooch? Has this to say?
25:39
Time to bet, has been a total game changer for us. It helped us streamline many aspects of our operation, from scheduling and communication to billing and customer management. We actually tested other pet sitting softwares in the past, but these other solutions were clunky and riddled with problems. Everything in town to pet has been so well thought out. It's intuitive, feature rich, and it's always improving. If
Collin 26:00
you're looking for new pet sitting software, give time to pet a try. Listeners of our show will save 50% off your first three months by visiting time to pet.com/confessional well, and also, it's kind of built into the company at this point, isn't it? Right? Like, it's not as though the client gets an option for the branded or not branded vehicle. Oh, that's the company with right there. I'm sure very few people are shocked and surprised when the when the car pulls in, you know, pulls up to their house, it's, it's built into that because of all of the marketing and everything entailed in this. And people see this, they're familiar with it. You get people who are comfortable with that already, because you're already talking about it. You're posting about this, you're sharing about why this is beneficial. Yet another reason that people get hooked into the business. I'm sure there are clients out there who see your post on on on social media and go, ooh, I'm not comfortable with that, right? They're not going to contact you. So that's another way that's going to self filter through that process, and then hopefully over time, through some educational posts and them seeing it everywhere, it can increase general acceptance of that in the community to, again, help people understand what it actually gets them
Morgan W. 27:14
absolutely and like you said that, and I think that's again, where culture comes in. I'm a huge believer that our businesses are ecosystems, and everything feeds on everything else. And you know, I came from the architecture world, Collin, you came from the biology world. Like you kind of understand that systems are built in conjunction with other systems. And you know, whether it's intentionally or inadvertently, they all affect each other. And so yeah, our culture affects everything that we've chosen to do, and it affects our branding, and it affects, you know, these decisions we're making for our team, and everything is just so much more tied together, I think, than we sometimes realize. I
Collin 27:53
did want to go back just a step here and ask a question that I know people are probably thinking at this time, going, Okay, so you've got the vehicle in front of you. We know the why we're really thinking about this. But like, how does the business pay for this? Does a business have credit? Like, how does this work? Do I need to have credit to make this work, or take out a loan? And I guess some of that probably determines on whether you're a, you know, sole proprietor versus LLC versus S corp, you know, all that stuff, but in general, Morgan, how, how should we what kind of questions should we ask, or kind of, how was that process for you?
Morgan W. 28:27
Yeah, so, you know, first I'll say I'm not a CPA, so talk to your own. Never mind professional. But I think things for people to think about is, you know, do you want. So say you're an LLC. I'll speak to that, because that's that's how I am. Our business is an LLC. So I can speak to it from that, that perspective, there are benefits when you put more assets into an LLC, right? So if I had a personal vehicle that could that I'm using for business, it's not necessarily going to be protected by the corporate veil of my LLC. So there is a benefit to the having those vehicles inside the LLC, but yeah, when the I'll also say I am an LLC that files as an S corp. So I am both an owner and an employee of my business, and I'm also a personal individual and so on, both our we've got one vehicle that we have purchased, and we have our other three vehicles right now, or at least both that loan that was on the car that we purchased, and then the the leases for the other three vehicles are financed technically, by both the business and me as An individual. So both my individual name and my business LLC are on all of the paperwork. And I'm not sure you know if that's a necessity or if that was a you know, I'd have to ask more questions about that, but, but that's the way it is. So it's both our personal name and my my business name is on there, both. So it's technically and then, like the vehicles are registered under my LLC, and all of those things. So it's tax beneficial, because I can deduct all of the costs associated with those vehicles. So if I'm going getting car washes, we're getting our gas, we're getting our maintenance, the lease payments, all of those things are tax deductible, you know, talk to your talk to your tax professional. But those are the things that have you know, helped make it a more beneficial item for the business. So usually it either looks like you track mileage and you pay, you know, the business gets to, gets to deduct based on the miles, or you can do it on actual services, like the gas, the car washes, you know, the leases, that kind of stuff. So that's kind of the way that it's set up. And I think I answered all the questions. Was there another question I missed? Okay, sometimes you start talking and you forget what the original question
Collin 30:57
was. So what was number one? Yeah, exactly. I think that is again going at this point. This is one of those decisions that as a business, go loop in another professional. I really think that that's what I'm taking away from here. Morgan of we can ask questions on Facebook. We can ask questions from other people, but at this level of a decision when, when I am expanding assets of my company and taking on more liability and more things like that. I need to go talk to somebody to make sure this is as beneficial as possible to me, and I'm really taking advantage of everything out there. Because you sure could rush into this and have the car salespeople tell you how to do it. I don't think you really want that be sitting at the table signing paper, and there go, Oh no, it's fine. Like, no, no, go talk to somebody who actually is independent of the sale and not benefiting it from financially, and going, here is how it's going to set you up for success. And that's in business. We can often negate or downplay those kind of input into our business and go, well, we'll just do it. We'll just figure it out until tax time comes, or until we get letters, until we get questions, and we go, Oh, I didn't know, or, Oh, this isn't actually getting me the benefits that I thought it was so taking that time to really process and and see where those boundaries are in in each
Morgan W. 32:18
decision, absolutely. And I actually sat down with my CPA the other day to ask some other questions, and we were talking about the vehicle that we have purchased. Well, now we can, that's an actual asset of the company. I can now start to depreciate that. Now what's our depreciation schedule going to be? Do we want to, you know, what's our tax liability look like it's going to be this year? Does it make sense to take a big depreciation this year. Does it make sense to, you know, take a smaller depreciation this year and take more the next year? So there's a lot of those conversations that I think a lot of us get into business as pet sitters, not because we want to be, you know, these business owners, but because we love the pets. And so sometimes we say, well, I'm not. My business isn't big enough. Like, I don't need to have a CPA, I don't need to have a business attorney. And I just want to say, you do. And in some ways, you could say, well, you can't afford not to. And you know, there's always going to be a trial and error of finding kind of the right person. But I have a really amazing CPA, I have a really amazing business attorney, and I've got people on my team like that who I can reach out to when I have a question, and they're not going to charge me, you know, $400 to ask them a question. So it's not like I'm afraid, to reach out and get their personal, you know, to get their professional advice. Obviously, it's a big question that's going to involve more, you know, more billable hours and things like that, but I can reach out with a quick question, and I feel like I can have some confidence to make these decisions with people who have a professional skill set that is outside of my own, because I'm not an attorney, I am not a tax professional, and they have answers to questions I don't even know to ask. And so when I come up and have a conversation with them, they can say, well, this is great, but have you also considered and the answer is probably no, nope, I don't, because I that's not the world I live in. And so for a like, a fairly small, you know, if you think about, like, the overhead of your business, for a fairly small fraction of that overhead of your business, you can get some really great advice that can help lead these conversations. Because, yeah, I mean, those are things that I didn't again conversations I didn't really think to have the depth of when I started this idea of having company cars, and it has definitely worked beneficial. I would I keep doing it, I keep adding more cars to our fleet, so it's working for us. But I think those are definitely things that you know people need to consider when they're thinking about bringing on a car or not, or any other kind of bigger asset in their business, right?
Collin 34:46
Because you mentioned things like, oh, what's the maintenance on these, right? Can I deduct car washes from these? How am I paying employees when they are in a car? And what does that look like? What are their responsibilities? These I'm even thinking of, oh, do I need to add, or should I add? Is it prudent upon me as a company to add a safety driving course, and, like, driving expectations for people and what it means to what, what, what is the company's definition of the speed limit, right? Things like that, where all of a sudden, like, I really need to go down several more steps in this instead of just going, here's some keys, see you later,
Morgan W. 35:21
exactly, yeah, like, we have a whole we have a whole car policy book. We have a car orientation that we sit down because every car is different too, right? So we got to sit down with people and we orient them to the car and the different safety features that the cars have. Like, I, I am all about also, you know, not taking on a big debt load for your business, because I'm a big believer that our business is very fluid, and it's, you know, kind of based on the whims of our clients and the economy and everything else that affects us as pet sitters and dog walkers. So having a manageable level of overhead, I think, is an important aspect of this business. And so I have always been a person where I want to buy, like, the cheapest car possible so I can pay for it. I don't have a lot of like, overhead and debt associated with it. But also with these newer cars, and with our sponsored leases, we were able to get nice new cars. And the benefit of a nice new car is it comes with additional safety features like auto braking and lane detection and, you know, all these extra things that are they, you know, perfectly necessary, no, but they are really nice to have, especially when we consider okay. We have an extra liability now, of more people driving a company item, there's that aspect of that, having those extra safety features, I will say I did learn another lesson, because we can't think of everything before we get these vehicles. Well, I learned a hard lesson that when you have a leased vehicle, you are essentially you're just renting the vehicle, right? One of our leased vehicles got in a car accident. And it was not a when you look at the car, you would not think it was a very serious accident, but it hit the cars collided in just the right way, where it actually cracked the frame of the car and it totaled out this like brand new leased car. And I learned when you lease a car, so there's always an option to buy out the lease at the end. So you have this option, so you've already paid, say, your three years of lease payments, and at the end, they take that those payments that you've made as a credit towards buying out the car. So at the end, there's $1 amount that says you can buy this car for this amount. Yeah. Well, what I didn't really think about is, if you get in a car accident, all of that quote, unquote, equity that you've put into the car does not actually belong to you because you're just renting this car. So when our car accident happened, almost I want to say Thankfully, it was at the beginning of a lease. We lost those payments like we don't get a payout from the insurance company because they pay off the lease with the lease holder, and not me as the lease user. And so that was a really interesting thing for us to think about, is to say, Okay, now we've got, we currently have three cars and a lease program. Is that a liability we are willing to take on as a business? Do we need to, instead of having more leased vehicles? Do we need to try to move towards more purchased vehicles? That way, if we do get in a car accident, we get to keep that equity that we've put into a car. And so that was, you know, three years into owning a car where I hadn't even thought about that question, and I don't think anybody would have thought to tell me that question, either. So, you know, these are things that sometimes you live and you learn and you make a mistake, or, you know, you learn a lesson, and it's like, okay, well, maybe we should now take that information into consideration with how we want to move forward.
Collin 38:48
You know, we we're talking a lot about specifics here, of the thought processes, partnering with people, how to purchase them. You know, the benefits of this. You've mentioned maintenance, you mentioned all this stuff. And I know we started off this conversation by talking about why this was important, right? You mentioned, well, financially, it makes sense, and there's some benefits to the clients and the company and to the team, but like, but why like, like, this is a lot to take on and work through on this. So Morgan, when you think about the role that the cars play in your business. Why is that important to in, like, a big picture here? Yeah,
Morgan W. 39:27
so for us, it really comes down to the why of our business and the values, the core values that I've created for our business and the center theme of our business that we apply to, you know, every entity that we do, whether it's our memorial candles, whether it's the podcast, whether it's us as pet sitters, and how we interact with our team, the biggest thing that I want to do is five star customer service that shows we actually give a damn. And when I was working in architecture, there's actually an organization called design like you give a damn, and it was all. How do you design for people or organizations or communities who are normally outside of professional architecture services? So whether it was, you know, designing schools and really low income areas, whether it's going internationally and designing things for other kind of disadvantaged communities, all of these things. So is this kind of this idea of architecture as a very professional service? How do we make sure we are allowing everybody to have access to these really well designed spaces? And so that's always kind of stuck with me. So as I got into business, I said, Well, I want to be a business owner who gives a damn, because I think we've all had a boss. We've worked with a company who you could tell that they just really didn't care that much. And so whether they are again, intentionally or unintentionally, it's not always malicious. But I just really wanted to show that that we can do business in a way where we have a metric that just is, do we actually care, and how do we show that we care? And so that really was the impetus of why we wanted to do these vehicles. And so it really is this culture for us and these values of, how do we take our professional responsibility seriously, if I'm going to take my responsibility as a business owner. Seriously, what does that mean to me? And I think the biggest thing with culture and values is to know that there's no right or wrong answer. So because I have one value doesn't mean that somebody else has to have this value, and everybody else who doesn't have this value is doing business wrong. Like I'm not saying that at all, but for me personally, it was, what does response taking our professional responsibilities look like to me, and part of that as a business owner, as an employer, has been, how do I take care of my employees the best that I can, given the circumstances that I have? And that's one of the reasons why we decided to add the vehicles.
Collin 41:55
Really thinking through if this is true to me, what does that mean, right? And as you said, you're going to interpret that in many different ways, right? You're the phrase, you know, give a damn well, everybody's going to hear that right now and go, Oh, what? What does that mean for me? And I think really internalizing that is that next step of, how do I take this, this phrase, these these platitudes, these things that I believe, right? Okay, given so many I've listened to so many people give, give talks or presentations, and they just talk a lot about passion, right? I'm so passionate. And Passion, Passion, passion and Passion, Passion, passion, and really passionate. And we're different because we're passionate. Like, I don't think you can say that, right? The person next door, they also love pets, like, they also are passionate about this. Otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. So what does that mean for you? And I once had a marketer guy ask me. He was like, those words sound nice. What does that get me as a client? And I'll never forget that question. He said, What is your basically, what does your passion get me? Because that's all the client cares about. Flowery words are great at the end of the day, though, they want to know, what does this get me and for your team? What does that get me right? Lucky pop says that they give a damn. What does that mean for me as an employee? What does that mean for me as a community and going I need to make this actionable. I need to make this real. I need to make this, you know, basically, you know, tangible to people around me in everything that I do. And that's where you really start to see differences. You start to see different interpretations. You start to see, you know, splintering of, oh, well, I thought it meant this. Well, no, we've got to think about some more real world implications of this as well. Because at the end of the day, we don't, you know, we this is a total this is an ecosystem. We don't live alone. We do have varying inputs and outputs and other things going around. So there is that also, well, in an ideal world, right, we would do this, but because of the limitations, this is what we're trying to do right now, and making sure that we're balancing and communicating that. Well,
Morgan W. 44:00
yeah, yeah. I know Collin, you and I had this conversation a couple weeks ago where I said, you know, what is, what is one of your core values, and what does it mean to you? And I thought it was brilliant, because you said, you know, well, we take our again if we use this phrase like professional responsibilities. So how can each company interpret a particular phrase? So your interpretation of, you know, taking your responsibility seriously was that you don't allow your clients to leave handwritten notes, and everything has to be updated inside their portal. So everyone's working from the same information, everything's updated. You know that you're not going to make a mistake because everything is in one location. And I thought, Man, that is awesome, but it's also so different from how we do our business, and that's great, like and I love that there's, you know, again, that room for interpretation, and we can all have our own version of what we think is a great core value and how we want to apply it for our particular personalities. Like I'd just say that core values need to be authentic to you, because you as the business owner, you are the heart of your business. And. Yes, your team, if you have one, is also the heart of your business, but your team is going to do what you as the business owner are implementing. And so it has to be, it has to be what you want as well. And so, like, we run our businesses different. Every single person I've talked to runs their business a little bit differently. And I think that's really awesome, because it shows how our, you know, the authenticity and our personal selves can come through in business, and we can apply, you know, these different things. So another one of our core values that we have big hearts. So if I'm thinking about how I'm dealing with maybe an issue with an employee, I have to think about, okay, gosh, my core values are trust and communication and collaboration and big hearts, and that we give a damn. So how am I making sure that everything that I am implementing with my team is in alignment? And sometimes that means that I'm in the wrong, and I have not, you know, lived up to my core values and lived up to the way that I want to be running my business. And sometimes it's also a great tool to say, hey, employee, you know, remember when we talked about these core values? Remember when we talked about this issue? It still hasn't resolved, and therefore this action is going to have to happen, because this is one of our core values. So, like, one of our core values is trust. And so if I can't trust somebody, how can I trust them to go into somebody else's home to take care of all of their worldly possessions and perhaps the most important thing in their world, like, you know? So it's like, yeah, the your core values and your culture can be this really amazing tool and these guideposts for how to run your business. And sometimes it can also be kind of a challenge, because sometimes it makes us as the business owner realize where we're maybe having a deficiency or we're lacking, or we have to make a change in our own world. And I just think that's part of you know of doing business with integrity is expecting the same from yourself as you expect from your team members or from your clients or people you work with. So it's good, but it also can be a bit of a challenge sometimes.
Collin 47:05
Well, yeah, as soon as we externalize this, and we put it in black and white on a wall or in a handbook or on our website, right, other people can then look at that and go, now wait a minute, right? You say these things, but now you're we can be we get held accountable for that. When we externalize this stuff, we do, we talk a lot about the benefits. I mean, we all the time we externalize this stuff, so you can always just point back to this so you don't know. It helps you be consistent. But what does that mean? People are going to call you out and going, I'm about to make a decision. The first thing I need to do is look to these core values, look to my culture, and go, Okay, is that? Does this align with this? Does this meet these expectations? So that when I communicate this, or whenever I come down with this decision and work forward in this, it is, it is consistent, and people will see that in that this is, this isn't just platitudes or nice painting or nice script or whatever. We didn't just grab something from chatgpt or from another business like it means something to us, and so much so that we're willing to admit when we're wrong, to change direction and to seek help when we need it, to get back on track. Because, yeah, it's very when you're like, Oh man, this is what we have to do. And then you're reminded about what you said yesterday about what you need to do, and you're like, oh, right, Ah, okay, well, no, I'd have to move forward to this and that trust aspect you mentioned that, like, how many times do we say I don't trust this person, or I don't I don't trust this client? Like, okay, if that's true, what do you do? And that's really where this gets at of going that that gap between a fact and an action is where culture can really start to impact how we move.
Morgan W. 48:49
Are you willing to make the hard decisions to uphold the value in the culture that you're creating? And yeah, I tell my team all the time that the customer is not always, right? We can still treat them professionally. However, if they're not going to be professional with us, they don't get to be a client anymore, right? And that can be hard when somebody is a high dollar client. Perhaps, you know, it's like, are we willing to make that call to get rid of a client, even though maybe they're helping pay some bills? Oh, that can, that can get kind of sticky. One thing I realized a little while ago was, you know, I'm saying that continuing education is one of our core values, but I did not have a formal continuing education policy for my team to pay them to take continuing education, right? So can I say that continuing education is one of my core values. If I'm not creating a man a policy where my team can know, what does that mean? I can get paid for X number of hours within X number of time frame in order to, you know, take my continuing education. Is there a a plan of what continuing. Communication, I think is valuable to them as our team, in order to take better care of our clients, you know, all of these things can serve as an accountability, you know, item. But also, yeah, how do we decide where I've had people ask, Well, you talk about, you know, the the benefit of Facebook groups or any kind of, you know, online community is it provides a place to ask questions. But the downside of that is there's usually not enough room in a social media post to provide enough background on the question that we're asking to thoroughly answer the question appropriately. You know. So end of the year is coming up, people are going to start asking, how am I going to what kind of bonus structure should I give my employees this year? Well, what are your core values? What are the you know, what initiatives have you been pushing this year in your business? Can you tie some kind of financial benefit into these things? If your core value is, you know, customer service, that wows. Well, do you have some team members who are wowing harder than other team members are? You know, you can start to build this into like a compensation benefit package. So there's a lot of different ways that our core values can really go deep into our business and really become this tool to answer almost any question in your business. You can take it back to your core values.
Collin 51:20
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Morgan W. 52:42
is it really, whatever it takes?
Collin 52:44
Is that really what you're going with here again? I'm sure that, you know, everybody works really hard to make sure that it goes well, and that's things, and what they're trying to communicate is like, you know, it's tied into, you know, safety and customer experience and all this stuff. But that phrase, whatever it takes. I went, ooh, that that sounds kind of dangerous from a culture perspective, because what does that tie to do? Can this start getting into, you know, you think about in your own business, if you have that, whatever it takes. Does that mean that, like you're willing to, you know, not tell the truth to a client so that they have a good experience on their you're going to hide things, right? Well, that's whatever it takes. So when we have these things going, No, this is our interpretation of this phrase, right? Getting back to that going, when we say whatever it takes, we mean in a positive sense, or in this direct sense, and tying it to, you know, truthfulness and everything else, because these can get distorted in a sense where people can internalize it, and go, Oh, right, yeah, I'll do whatever it takes to make this work. And we go, No, not like that. What do you mean? It's like, well, so to really understanding the implications of what we're doing and having good policies and procedures built around them to direct that, you know, one that we kind of worked through a little while ago when we one of our values is, you know, the client, you will be respected, right? Promise that we have to to clients well, that that means a lot of different stuff, but we realized that we really needed to beef up our our privacy policy of what that meant from an employee perspective, what that meant, what when we say, you will be respected, what does that mean when we're in the home? Because originally we wrote that, and we were like, Oh, this just means, like, we're going to work with the client. We're going to partner with them, you know, they're going to, they're going to give us tips and tricks, because they're the pet owner. We want to make sure that their voices are heard. But now that we have employees, like, oh, this also means like, you know, the snooping, what doors to go in, how we're going to take photos, you know, privacy, all of that aspects and digital privacy and everything in between, really branched out from that very recently for us, where we went, this is an area where we need to grow, because we see a big deficiency over here.
Morgan W. 54:51
And even taking that another way to think, What does respecting my clients mean, and how do how are we talking about our clients, like in our private community? Educations with each other. You know, that was one thing where it's like our we have a similar phrase, one that kind of goes into, kind of like our big heart and and kind of our trust and our professional responsibilities. But for us that also means, do I care that my client's house is not super picked up?
55:18
Oh yeah, you
Morgan W. 55:19
know. Or do I care that my client left for vacation and they didn't really clean their litter box for the three days before they left? So I show up and I've got a kind of a lot of litter to scoop. Okay, if that happens, like, am I, how am I talking about that as a group in our team communications? You know, there's a lot of different layers to these things, and especially if you think about maybe you're having a team member who has been somebody where you're like, oh, you know, like they kind of do a good job. But also, there's these other challenges that we have with them as a team member, you know, this is where your core values can come into play. And you can say, hey, team member, here are core values. And these are specific situations that are not in alignment with our core values, and it can be another way to think about those hiring and firing decisions, because sometimes you can have a person where you say, you know, gosh, I kind of want to keep them, but I also feel like they're not a great fit for the team. Well, can we apply our core values? Let's look at, you know, these different situations, and are they in align with our core values? And if yes, great, we can work on other things to keep them on as a team member. If not, we might have to have that hard conversation about them no longer being a team member. And so I think there's so many benefits to what these core values can can do, and then your culture is really the action of those core values. What is this, you know? What is this feeling that we are creating within the team? Well, that's really putting those core values into action, and that's kind of where your culture comes from. And I think it's
Collin 56:48
important there to note is, whether you you have a team or you're a solo you still have a culture, right? You still have a culture and processes of making those decisions, of working through situations, of how you interact with others. Basically, that's what that internal culture is. How are you talking about particular clients, to others in your community, or to your friends, to your family? How are you thinking through and applying these beliefs to these situations that come up? Because a lot of times we go, oh, well, I don't have a culture because, you know, I don't see anybody, or I don't have a culture because I don't work with anybody, or maybe I just started so I don't have a culture. And I think the truth is, and really one of these dangerous aspects is there's a culture there, whether we know it or not. There is a way of operating where the power comes in this and in which you talk, Morgan is going. I need to be intentional with my culture. I need to take this and actually not just not just standardize it, but work on implementing this consistently and have something that's in place, that it's defined to point to, to rely on, and to grow from.
Morgan W. 57:54
Yeah, absolutely. And we had a culture before we ever hired an employee. And I would argue that a culture is even more important, or maybe not more important, but equally as important when you are a solo business owner as when you have a team. And if you want to hire a team, especially, you need to define what that culture is and what those core values are, because how could you possibly bring a team member on to fulfill the vision of your business if your business doesn't have a vision, and that's what, yeah, and that's when you start to get a lot of disconnect between people hiring and having a really poor experience hiring because you don't know who you're even hoping to hire, because you don't have that culture and that vision and that mission and that purpose for your business, that why for your business? And so you can't bring on a person who can help further that mission and that vision, because you don't really know what that is yet. And so I really love when people start thinking about this before they even hire, because it can help them find the right person the first time. It can help you write that hiring ad to speak to the person that you want to help bring and bring that vision and that culture of your business forward, and especially in this world where I don't know about where you live, Collin, or when people, where people live, who are listening to this, but in my community, there are a lot of new pet sitters right now. I started pet sitting in 2013 which is the tail end of a last big recession. And I know there's a lot of other pet sitters who started in that timeframe who are still around today. Yeah, you guys started in that same timeframe. A lot of people did. And why is that? Generally speaking, when the economy starts to slow down, people start to get side gigs. I started pet sitting on the side of my architecture job, because I was making 12 bucks an hour in a professional business, and it's pretty hard to pay your bills when you're only making 12 bucks an hour. And so we started pet sitting, and it grew and it grew, and we professionalize it and all these things, but when you are trying to stand out in a more saturated environment, how are you going? To stand out. It's going to be your culture. It's going to be why you do what you do and how you do it. And that is how you're going to stand out from every other pet sitter, every other dog walker. You're going to make yourself. The story that you're telling your clients is why they're going to come to you like that is your culture. So for people to think about, oh, gosh, I don't know. I don't have a culture. I don't have core values. Think about why you do what you do. So, you know, Collin, you could say, hey, we, you know, say if we didn't have a core value yet, but one of our things that we're really particular about is that our clients have to give us updated information in this particular way. Well, that's a core value, you know, the respect, that's a core value. And so if you don't have one, you know, written out, I call them words on the wall. If you don't have those words on the wall yet, or the words on your website, just think about, why am I doing things the way that I'm doing? What's important to me with my clients, and those are your core values. And then you can start to formalize them and write them down, play with them, put them on your website. You know, work with people too. Maybe you ask your clients like, what was what did you like about the way that we do something? That's probably a core value, that's probably the culture and why they picked you over somebody else. And
Collin 1:01:11
that's a really good point too, of going, yeah, there's the internal culture, but it's also related to our clients, right? That's part of your culture. Many of us get very frustrated through growing a business and running a business, of going, I don't feel connected with my clients, or I don't feel like I'm attracting the right clients. And so we tend to focus on, what's my marketing messaging? Where am I marketing? How do I get connected to these people? But like, what are they connecting to? And I think that's that's where we miss that point. If we're going, Oh, I just need to change the words. I need a different picture. Like Megan and I are going this big deep dive into Google ads right now, and it's, it's whatever. It's a thing that's happening, and that's, you know, we're just swapping out words and photos and trying to, you know, optimize for this and that and this and that. But once people get connected into our company, they reach out to us asking that question of, what did they just connect to? What are they moving into and understanding that has implications, that tone that we carry, the processes that we have, how we respond, all of those things start evolving the culture again, whether we know it or not, and a lot of times we just copy and paste what somebody else is doing and go, This is what we are, but not have a reason for it, not have a rhyme or purpose behind everything. And so you're right if we haven't outlined these things, or maybe even if we have taking some moments to write out those things, ask some good questions, get those words on the wall, and just think about them for a minute, making sure we have that space in our day to do this, because that's where this comes into to play of going, I need five minutes to think about this today. Maybe, maybe 30 minutes. I'm gonna go sit in the sunshine, or, you know, sit in a swing and have some tea and think about this. What is it? Why? Why is what is the purpose behind this? And and really understand what
Morgan W. 1:03:02
the back end of this is, yeah, absolutely. And the more we can hone again, that authentic story and not just borrowing somebody else's vision. And I think, you know, sometimes there's this let's phrase called Steal Like an Artist. You know, sometimes, yeah, you're gonna borrow something from somebody, because not a whole lot in this world is brand new information. And so you're going to borrow things and you're going to try them on, and you're going to test it out. And you can say, I didn't love this, but maybe my version of this is this. And so it, you know, you can, you can borrow things to begin with, but you are a unique person. You have your own, you know, experiences in life. You have your own reasons for doing things the way that you do them, and so you want it to be authentic to you. And the more authentic you can be, the more authentic the story is that you can tell to the world. And whether that is just here, your new clients, whether that's to if you have team members, your new team members, whether that's, you know, here, if I'm going to go and Proposition A partnership with somebody in the community, what is my story? What story have I been telling in the last six months, in the last year, in the last five years, before I approach this company? Because if a company is going to drive around, if I'm going to drive around town with somebody else's logo on my car, they better feel that I am in alignment with their values, because otherwise they would not want it to put their value, their brand on my car, right. There has to be an alignment. And similarly, if I'm going to drive around town with somebody else's logo on my car, I better feel in alignment with their business and their choices and their values, because if I don't, if I disagree with a lot that somebody else does, why would I want to have that much of a public partnership with somebody right? So these are other things to think about when you want to maybe. Reach out to your local dealership to see if they're willing to do a similar kind of sponsorship deal. Who are you going to pick? And why would they want to pick you? So it's, you know, again, this ecosystem of everything being connected, this story that we're telling on social media and on our website and to our team and to our clients, it all comes together and it and again, being authentic, you don't have to put on a show, right? This is not you putting on your tap shoes and kind of going out there on the internet and trying to, you know, convince everybody to come to you. Morgan here, I mean, if you want to, I'm not saying you shouldn't. Maybe you're a good tap dancer. Maybe this is a really good idea. But when we try to, you know, when we try too hard sometimes, and we try to really put on this show, again, we're not being authentic, and I think clients especially feel that. And the more authentic you can be, the more you're going to attract those clients that you do really agree with, and you do really connect with, and they like the way that you run business, and they don't question your policies because they came to you because they like those policies, you know, to the more open and honest we can be with those things. We can deter the people who are not going to be a good fit, and we can attract the people who are going to be a good fit. And it not saying that business is going to be completely easy and you're never going to have any challenges if you do all these things, but it does make a difference, and
Collin 1:06:22
that's where it comes in. It does make a difference. It makes a difference when we wrap our cars, because we attract people who like wrapped cars, right? We attract people when the more we talk about who we are and what we do and and connect with those right people. And Morgan, I really appreciate you coming on the show today to walk us through those two aspects of not just getting your car wrapped, but why? Why is that important to you and where those decisions flow from? I know that there's a lot here, right? There's, there's really takes a lot to dig deep, and it's a very personal thing. You mentioned, being authentic to self, right? That takes a lot of work and a lot of processes to think through. If people are interested in doing more of this kind of work and seeing what kind of culture they currently have and how to make those changes, how best can people do that? Yeah,
Morgan W. 1:07:11
so with the lucky pup podcast, I'm working on a new cohort, which I'm very excited about. It's gonna be a really small group cohort where we're taking individual business owners. It's going to be a small group, and we're going to dive into all of these details. So I've got a whole framework of lessons that we're going to go through that talk about, again, this ecosystem of business. How does every part of our business influence every other part we are? We're covering all of the things. It's going to be a six month process. So it's going to be October to October to April. So we're going to dive in. We're going to work together. But my favorite part about this program is that there are one on one sessions, so we have kind of two different options for those. But the whole point of the one on one session is to dive in and actually apply the lessons that we're talking about as a group to each person's individual business, because I don't know about you, Collin, but I have been known to, like, read a book or listen to a podcast and taken a course and not really known how that lesson that's being taught can actually apply to my individual business. And then, you know, there's a little bit of a disconnect between what I've learned and maybe what I can actually do with that information, so we're gonna try to avoid that, and we're gonna dive in and have a one on one session to figure out, how does this actually apply to each person's business, each person's business, and it's not a cookie cutter, you know, one lesson applies to everybody type of program. But very much. Okay, Collin, what is that you want to get out of your business. What is your definition of success? What metrics are you running your business by? Oh, if you don't know, that's okay, we're gonna figure that out together. But then, how do we apply all these different lessons about customer service and the financials in our business and the team that we have, and a team I use very loosely, whether that's actual employees who are out walking dogs or taking care of cats. Their team could also be, what kind of consultants do you have on board? Who do you have who can help support your business journey to make it so you don't have to burn out, and you're not creating a business that you need a break from and an escape from all the time. How can we create something that's really unique to you and it's going to help further you as an individual? Because again, burnout, I think burnout is more rampant in our industry than we care to admit. And many of us say, Oh, don't worry, I'm not burnt out. I'm just really working my 16 hour days, and I haven't taken a day off in the last three years, and I've overbooked myself most weekends. But don't worry, everything's fine. Well, that's probably actually burnout, and we're kind of afraid to label it as such. So how can we create a business where you don't get totally burnt out, and you can still pay your bills and you can still serve your clients well? So that's what we're doing in the aligned cohort. So people can visit our website, which is lucky pup living.com or visit lucky pup pod on social media, and we're talking about it there as well. So it's. Thing I'm really excited about, and kind of, again, this idea of the ecosystem, and how can we create these businesses where the culture is tied into everything that we do, but also it's tied into us as people and what we want out of our business. Because a lot of us are putting our business first, and we forget that if we don't put ourselves first, there's going to be no business left. Because if we get so burnt out to the point that we want to burn it all down, we can't serve our clients that way if there's no business left. So we had to take care of ourselves
Collin 1:10:30
too. Awesome. Well, Morgan, I really appreciate that. I'll have those links to your podcast, Lucky pup livings. People can get connected with all that. So your podcast link and the website, Lucky pup, living two separate things. So people get connected and get on to the cohort, if they're interested in those coming up really soon. Last question for you, Morgan, what book are you reading?
Morgan W. 1:10:50
Oh, gosh, I you know, I'm reading some books. I have actually started. I have a friend who took me into a fantasy book binge. So I've read a lot less business books the last three months because I've been on my fantasy book bench. But the book that I'm reading the most right now is clockwork, which is an amazing business amazing business book, which is also very much talking about all of these things. How do you create a business that works for you? One of my favorite books,
1:11:18
awesome. We'll
Collin 1:11:19
have a link to that as well. I couldn't have you on the podcast and not get a book recommendation. The universe would not tolerate that. So glad we got that.
Morgan W. 1:11:28
You know that I have a book recommendation for just about everything. So
Collin 1:11:34
good, perfect. Morgan, I can't thank you enough again for coming on. I'll have all those links in the show notes and on the website so people can get connected as always, and it's immense pleasure. We never have enough time, so we'll just have to do this again. That
Morgan W. 1:11:46
sounds perfect. Thanks so much, Collin. Because of
Collin 1:11:48
how Morgan was shaping the culture for her company, she was committed to providing cars for her employees. There's a lot that's tied into this, and it's not for everybody. So what is culture? What is your culture demanding that you do in your company. How does that change your response rates? How does that change the activities that you're involved in, the associations that you have, the partnerships that you build, the donations that you give? How does that train your dedication to training and your onboarding process and everything involved in that your culture should be woven through everything that your company does, because it helps strengthen and guide those decisions that are so critical to everything that you do, without an understanding of what our culture is, we just end up making the best of each moment, instead of having a consistent through line that gives a story and purpose our clients and a team, if we have them, something that they can be committed to we want to thank today's sponsors, time to pat and pet perennials for making today's show possible. And we really want to thank you so much for taking your most valuable asset, your time to listen to us today. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and we'll be back again soon.
