547: Finding Key Differentiators with Michelle Kline
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What makes your pet care business stand out in a competitive market? Michelle Kline, founder of DogCo Launch, shares about the power of key differentiators and how they can make your business irresistible to the right clients. Michelle breaks down what differentiators are, why they matter, and how to identify them in ways that resonate with your target audience. From leveraging client feedback to refining your messaging, she gives actionable strategies for positioning your services uniquely—without overcomplicating your operations. Whether you’re looking to refine your offerings or rethink your marketing, this episode is packed with insights to help your business shine.
Main topics:
Defining key business differentiators
Identifying target client avatars
Using client feedback effectively
Data-driven decision-making strategies
Marketing and framing unique services
Main takeaway: A differentiator doesn’t have to be an entirely new service—it can be how you frame and present your existing services to align with client needs.
Did you know your business's unique value doesn’t always come from creating something entirely new? A key differentiator can simply be the way you present your existing services to align with what your clients truly care about. Think about how your services solve specific problems or bring joy to your clients—then highlight that! For example, offering a personalized touch, like on-demand walks tailored to healthcare workers' schedules, could be what sets you apart. It’s not about reinventing the wheel; it’s about helping your clients see the magic in what you already do.
About our guest:
Michelle Kline is the founder of DogCo Launch - a place where pet care business owners grow and scale. Michelle comes from her own experience in the pet care industry where she grew a 25 person dog walking company during the pandemic, and now helps pet care business owners grow thriving businesses.
Links:
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Website: https://www.dogcolaunch.com
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
pet sitter confessional, key differentiators, dog CO, target avatar, client feedback, operational differentiator, value statements, marketing challenges, client retention, data-driven decisions, competitive landscape, client interviews, marketing leads, client experience, strategic insights
SPEAKERS
Collin, Michelle K.
Collin 00:00
Music. Welcome to pet sitter confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. We're brought to you by Ty to pet and pet perennials. Today, we're really excited to have Michelle Kline from Dogco on the show to talk about key differentiators as a business. What the heck are they? Why are they important? And how do we make sure that they are meaningful and not just spurious, things that are just distractions to us and our potential clients? So Michelle, I'm super excited to have you back on the show. It's been a little while we had you back on about over a year ago, and then we had you on a round table. So for those who are not familiar with you and haven't listened to those previous episodes, because you please tell us a little bit more about little bit more about who you are and what
Michelle K. 00:43
you do. Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Michelle Kline, and I am the founder of dogco launch, which is a place where businesses are supported to grow and scale in the pet care industry, specifically in dog walking. That is my niche. That is what I personally did with my business, was scale up a dog walking and venture services company. But that is, that is my thing. I love to help pet care companies grow. Now
Collin 01:11
you've been doing that. How long have you been doing that now with with dog CO is that?
Michelle K. 01:16
Yeah, a little under two years.
Collin 01:18
Two years. Wow, that's awesome. That's really exciting. It's really neat to see everything that you're doing. I know you do. I know you do those challenges and stuff like that. We're always fun to follow along with those two. Yeah,
Michelle K. 01:27
yeah. Like marketing challenges. I've done a hiring challenge. You know, those two tend to go hand in hand in this business model, at least. But, yeah, it's super fun, and I love what I do.
Collin 01:41
Well, have you on the show today to talk about key differentiators as a business, and that may be a term that people aren't very familiar with, or haven't heard it in this kind of context. So for you, Michelle, from your perspective,
Michelle K. 01:53
how would you define that? Yeah, so when we are, you know, this is my definition, at least when we are looking at why would a client choose to work with your business? That is what a differentiator is going to do. It ideally is something through the lens of a client, some type of value to the client that makes your business stand out and is something unique about your business valued to what the client would prioritize and want,
Collin 02:28
yeah, which makes it different than what our priorities are sometimes, which I think, is where, where the struggle comes in as a business owner, because we come in and it's our Business, right? It's, it's what we want. It's from our motivation, our our desires, our values, all of that. But sometimes we can hit some friction where we're going, Wait, how? How do I get this? Who is this for? So we also, also have to do a little bit of research and get more customer focused in the end, yeah, 100%
Michelle K. 02:59
so one thing I am huge about is that we need to know who your pet care business is marketing to. We need to know who is your target avatar. And I think sometimes that idea can make people a little bit nervous, because they're like, Well, if you have a dog, you're my target avatar. And it's like, we're not saying that we would turn people away if they wanted to work with you, and they weren't your core avatar. But what we are saying is that we need to know who we're marketing to. I was just reading a study yesterday about how millennials specifically want to purchase and millennials oftentimes fall into the young professional category that can be a great client type for dog walking, and millennials, according to the study, care very much that they are purchasing something that feels very specific to them, that feels like special and unique to what they would want as a consumer. So when we're looking for a key differentiator, we really need to know who we're speaking to to know what they would want.
Collin 04:05
Yeah, and I think when when people may hear that, it doesn't mean that everything has to be totally customized, because that's definitely a route that we can go down and really end up burning ourselves out on of oh my gosh, everything is so specific, is so unique, one offs that I can't actually get enough traction in this, and everything is so specific and actually makes it harder for us. But what you're doing is going, No, there's, there's a kind of a group that you can target and talk to where I don't know. It's kind of like, whenever you hear a horoscope, you read the newspaper horoscope, and everyone's like, Oh, that describes me, right? It's like, Oh, how did they know? It's like, well, you know, there are, there are trends.
Michelle K. 04:45
So here's Yes, 100% and here's what's super interesting. So I really agree with this, and what we want to find is the intersection of unique, specific value and scalability. So. So when I was looking at my service area and trying to identify, who am I speaking to, who am I looking to work with, as I started drilling into the data on my community and who so far, it resonated with my service, who I felt like I understood and I was getting feedback from, you know, kind of the intersection of all the information, I came to realize that in my community, because we are a very healthcare driven community, we had 20,000 individuals who would be female, between the ages of young 20s to late 30s, who would work in healthcare in my community, I Personally, for me, do not want 20,000 clients. I would be good with like, one to two. You can have a very large dog walking company with that many clients. So I was like, you know, could, could I get 10% of this segment? Yeah, I could. And I think if I were speaking directly to them, that's possible. So that's kind of how I think about
Collin 05:59
it. Yeah, it really is. That law of numbers, isn't it? Of going? Because it can go both ways of going. Oh my gosh. There are so many possibilities. There are so many possibilities that I don't know where to start. We can also, if I I've done this before, we're all start kind of drilling down. I'll go, there's only one person like this. Oh no, oh. We have to do is go somewhere in the middle, right? There's a sweet spot for not just the people most likely to use us, but the people who we can most likely talk to and get connected with, yep,
Michelle K. 06:32
and I think get feedback from. So one piece that I want to encourage companies with, if you're struggling with who to serve, figure out who in your client base. You could do basically an interview with like, what value do you get from our service? Because you're really looking for the intersection of who receives the most value from what you do with the client type that you love to serve. And so like, let your clients tell you the value they get. Yeah,
Collin 07:03
that really helps put it into context, too, because I've had those moments where you go, yeah, why are you using me? Like, why? Why? Like, I don't you're here. You're here a lot, and I really appreciate that, but many times we don't know, but that ask can be really hard, because if we're not ready to receive both positive or negative feedback, because that could right? It's very likely they could come back and say, well, you're kind of the first person that I found, and you show up. So thank you very much. It's like, okay, cool, cool, cool, great, oh, I'll take that, but you don't know until you ask, yeah,
Michelle K. 07:35
well, and I've noticed, I think sometimes companies are afraid to ask, because if the client comes back with, you know, I really, really wish you did this. I think they're a little afraid they're going to be obligated to either do that or to hurt the relationship. And I don't believe that's true. I think there are ways that we can really hear people and that most people just want to be heard more so than they want to be overly accommodated to. That doesn't mean there won't be the client that comes through that, you know, wants all the things, but I think most people want to feel like you've genuinely heard and considered what they have said. Yeah, I
Collin 08:15
know we've sent out client surveys before, and there's always a small subset who'll be like, you know, what would you like to see in the future, and that there will be people who say cheaper services, and it's like, yeah, that's not where we're headed, right? So, okay, yeah. Now I don't if you feel bad because you're like, Oh, I can't do that, or that's not what I want to do. But like you said, it doesn't mean they're going to immediately, you know, move on from you. It's just they need an outlet, and sometimes that's what we can do if just providing those little outlets every now and then, it gives us data, and it gives them an opportunity to feel like they're being
Michelle K. 08:48
heard. Yep, yep. Well, and I think if there's one, and I know we've kind of strayed from differentiators, we can, I can pull it back, but I think that there's one thing that I've realized is, like, really core. There are a lot of things that are core to the heart of dog co but one of the things that I'm getting more and more like impassioned about is this idea of knowing how to find data in your business to inform strategic decisions that serve you and that serve your clients like it. I think sometimes people feel like data is kind of a cold concept. It's really analytical, but I believe data is the story of your business, and can really tell the heart behind it well, and
Collin 09:32
it can help us avoid the trap of trying to be the everything to everybody, because we may feel like we are. But if we look at some statistics, you look at kind of, Oh, where are most of my clients working? Where are most of them living? Where all of a sudden, you very much realize, Oh, I'm I'm already serving a select group of people like because of something going on. Now I have to do something intentional to try and attract more of those people. Wow,
Michelle K. 10:00
Yes, yep. 100%
Collin 10:03
well. So when we think about these, these key differentiators, where do we start looking for those? You know, if somebody's listening to this going well, I don't know. I kind of, I did some look, I looked on Facebook, and there's 17 other people in my area doing this. I don't know really, what makes me unique or different at all?
Michelle K. 10:19
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when I am helping a company map a differentiator, I tend to present we can approach this from one of two ways. We can look for an operational differentiator, maybe looking for a service you can offer that's unlike what other people do some way that the service has, like, some slight tweak or unique angle to make it, you know, maybe if everybody's offering adventure hikes, we offer adventure hikes with a pup cup stop at Starbucks on the way home, you know, just something to add just a little extra oomph To the client experience. So we can start operationally, or we can start with the value statements of the way that the services are framed and presented to clients. And that's where I personally do not believe that a differentiator has to be. Man, I went out and invested money into this totally new revenue stream, because it, you know, that might be the right answer. But oftentimes there are ways. So one thing I did in my company is I offered more short notice availability for walks. So we presented it as on demand. If you let us know with an hour or more that you needed to walk, we would do our best to get you in so, you know, that is operational, but other companies do that. So what we would then do is the framing we would put is, here's how we can work with your on call schedule at the hospital. Here's how we can work with if you get stuck in surgery. That, in and of itself, was a differentiator for a company, the way we could accommodate, understand and work with the medical schedule, that really isn't that different from other dog walking companies. We just framed it specifically that you
Collin 12:15
used language that a target audience is going to understand, right? And that's really what that is of going, I'm going to put this, it might not be all that different, but I'm going to let you, I'm going to tell you about it using something that's going to hit home, right? And so that's where that that value, and I like how you you separate those out of operationally, and then value how we present this. Because, yes, I think a lot of people do go, well, operationally isn't just, you know, a dog walk. A dog walk is a dog walk, and it's just a potty let out. And I don't really do I need to have a, you know, a sparkle shoot, or do I need to have fireworks going off? Or do I need to drive a giant, you know, lime green van? Is that? Was that what I need to be different? And it's like, sure, you know, maybe. But also, let's be a bit more strategic about this and go framing this, you know, that really that concept of going, let's try and rework this, re present this to a group of people that they understand
Michelle K. 13:07
it. Yeah, absolutely. And there's so many creative ways to do that. And that's where I get so excited. I love marketing. I think it is fascinating. Um, like one thing we can do is, okay, so say you have an adventure services, and you're trying to figure out how to make those stand out to people, and other people offer them, and you wanted that to be your differentiator. Maybe you weren't first to the market. And it's like, okay, sure, maybe we could switch that, or maybe we could shift our company to there is something special about an adventure service for your dog's birthday, and we throw them a birthday party adventure service, and on their special day, we bring a cupcake from a local bakery. Is premium. We're paying good money for that as a consumer. But like nothing changed about the adventure service, it's just giving clients a more strategic why? I read a quote that I really liked, which said consumers want to spend money. Sometimes they just need us to give them a reason why to do it. And so I think something like that, where it's like, well, it's my dog's birthday. Of course, I have to get them an adventure service. That's what they do on their birthday. It's like, well, that's how we break it
Collin 14:23
well, and they they're looking to see how that fits in, right of going, No, I have this desire. I just need to find the right way to do it. I We all know that more and more people are viewing pets as family. You know, seven out of 10 would delay medical intervention in their their own life if it meant they could, you know, have medical intervention in the life of their pet. 70% of people that means that that person, that dog, means something to them, a whole lot more than it meant 10 years ago. So how do we how does that change our language? How does that change how we approach that person, and how does that change how we serve them? And really that where that creativity comes in, as
Michelle K. 14:57
the business owner, yeah, one. 100%
Collin 15:02
have you heard of time to pet? Dan from NYC, pooch has this to say,
15:06
time to pet 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 that these other solutions were clunky and riddled with problems. Everything in time to pet has been so well thought out. It's intuitive, feature rich, and it's always improving. If
Collin 15:27
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 I kind of led with this too, of once we, once we find out that differentiator, Michelle, how do we, how do we know if it's actually something that people are willing to pay for? You know, let's say we've decided, Okay, I think I can move forward with the pup cup stop on the way back from my adventure hike. That's, that's something that we do, or maybe it's, you know, for every you know, book hike that's booked, I you know, $1 or two is given to a nearby rescue. Okay, I've come up with something that makes me unique. How do I go about testing that and seeing if that's actually worthwhile?
Michelle K. 16:09
Yeah, absolutely. So, my opinion, we have to do that before we get much further than the idea. And we need to bring in trusted insight into that decision making process. So when I was looking at rolling out adventure services as an example, I messaged 10 dog walking clients inside of my business whose opinion I valued, who I had enough of a relationship that I knew I could ask, Hey, I'm considering rolling out a new service line. Could I run it by you and just get your very honest feedback about what the service is, why I think it would serve our clients, what I hope that it does, even what I am thinking about charging. I'm not tied to it. I just, I want to get your honest feedback. So I would try and get them like, on my side of I'm considering this because I think it would bring value to you, but you tell me, what do you think? And so I really recommend companies do that strategy before getting much further, because there's going to be a temptation to be like, That's gold. That's a great idea. And I want to do it before somebody else thinks about it, and it's tempting. And you know that speed is important, but slowly, I promise you, if you talk to 10 of your clients, the idea will be so much better by the time you actually bring it to the rest of your client base.
Collin 17:34
Well, because we sit there and we've been stewing about this for six months a year, five years, it's all it's just been all consuming, right? We can't see how it won't work. We can't not see how it can't move forward. It's not going to be a success, like you said. And then when we start trying to talk about it to people, sometimes we start at step five of getting to the point of the reason, instead of going, Well, okay, so three and a half years ago, let me start at point zero. So it also helps us learn to communicate this a little bit better, too, oh, 100%
Michelle K. 18:08
and to give our clients the context within the business to where they could even give us good feedback. Because if they come back and they're like, That sounds expensive. It's like, okay, but did I really sell them on why I think this would benefit the client base, and maybe it is expensive. Maybe that just is a data point I need to take. But I think that also can be an indication of like, just what you said, I jumped too far ahead. I have to figure out how to like, this is my opportunity to learn how to refine this pitch, almost, because, if
Collin 18:36
we're going to trusted clients, people who've used us, who are invested in us who love our service. If I can't talk to them about this, how in the heck do I expect myself to be able to do this to total strangers, right? Even though they may be, you know, my target clients and my direct avatar, if they have no history or connection with me before this, I I'm really going to hurt this potential, and then I end up going, Well, that wasn't a good idea. That worked. Never mind, right? And it could have all been in the X. Could have all been in the execution of the of the marketing
Michelle K. 19:04
well. And can I tell you, Collin, that is something I see happen a lot, where it almost seems like it feels safer to a company to test some of this messaging publicly, where it's like, well, these aren't my current clients. This, you know, like it, it feels safer. It feels like I'm a bit more like protected. It feels less vulnerable. When really, if you are willing to start with the people that are actually in your corner and get feedback from them, whatever you're dreaming up of doing has such a better chance of success because it's it's gone through the refining fire of the people who care enough about you to be like, Hey, I don't know, or maybe, have you tried this? You're
Collin 19:45
right? Because we may feel like, oh my and it comes from a point of insecurity with our existing clients, right kind of we talked about earlier, of, I don't know why you're here, so I don't really want to rock the boat and make you leave for any any reason. So I'm not going to talk to you. I'm just going to pretend like you're over here. Here, and I'm just going to keep you there, you know, locked away in the freezer. You're never going to move. So I'll just go test this with the public, and if they don't like me, that's okay, because they weren't using me anyway. And then we do end up going, well, I don't know who to talk to or even how to talk to people anymore, because I'm not doing well with either of those.
Michelle K. 20:16
Yep, and I think there's a nuance and a wisdom here, because there are some things that I do recommend you test with people who do not know you your pricing. For example, I think it's very wise to raise your external pricing on your website a couple months before you roll out an internal price increase. It just it can validate this will not slow down my lead flow, you know, things like that. Yeah. But when it comes to these really big decisions about providing value, I really recommend start with the people that you know. The fact they spend money with you, there's value. I promise, just by reaching out to them, they're not going to all of a sudden realize they don't like you. It just doesn't work that way.
Collin 20:55
They're not going to. They don't suddenly go, oh yeah, you're on my bank statement. Never mind.
Michelle K. 21:01
I hate that you asked for my opinion. You value it so much. Yeah, it doesn't work that way. No. Well,
Collin 21:07
so how do we go about from your from your experience? Michelle, what's a good way to approach a client, an existing client, in this way of getting that feedback? Is it phone calls, zoom in person, email, like, how
Michelle K. 21:20
do we go about that? Yeah, so I would say that is somewhat dependent on the depth of the relationship. If you can get people on a phone call, and I would, you know, make sure I'm really gonna be your cycle of your time, five minutes, 10 minutes tops. But if we can get people on the phone, there's just so much you can gather between tone and the way people describe you know they're going to share more with you on the phone. So if you have a relationship where you think that would be an appropriate ask, and I would probably say, like, push yourself a little bit, trust that people like you, then I say, go for the phone call if you are looking more so for like, immediate feedback from maybe a slightly larger group of people, I think text is great. Like a private message through your software. I personally send time to pet. I would do some testing through that. I would just say, Don't send it out all at once. Send out a couple. Get back what they say, take the opportunity to refine it or to see if you can explain it better, send it out again to a couple different people. And so that's one reason I do like text, is it gives you the chance to kind of like iterate it really quickly. But I do think you get higher quality feedback if you're willing to get on a phone
Collin 22:38
call. Well, I'm doing those small pushes also gives us some time to process it emotionally, right? I know me, whenever you get, like, four or five form responses, or, you know, we use Google Forms sometimes, you know, for collecting things like that during surveys. And if you all of a sudden get a big glut of those coming through, all of a sudden, it can be a very emotional like, Oh my gosh. And this person said this, and two people said this, versus going, Okay, here's five today, here's five tomorrow, and let it trickle in over time. It does allow you to both a go, Well, maybe that wording wasn't the best, and maybe let me rework this. And okay, I can actually go to bed tonight not worry about an avalanche of 100 people letting me know how much you know you know about about my company.
Michelle K. 23:20
Yeah. No, I fully agree absolutely. And I think that raises an important point. You want to pick a sample size that lets you get enough data without it paralyzing you of being like, Oh man, this is too much to work through, like I shot too high. You
Collin 23:40
know, that's good because, you know, we're not sending this out to all of our clients. I may be sending out to the people you know, my top five or 10 clients, or maybe my longest relationship clients like we have to decide how we define that trusted relationship with that client. Maybe it's somebody who's stuck with you through, you know, a couple kerfuffles and some mistakes, and they still trust you, and they redouble down on you, and they refer you all the time, but they don't book you every week. Okay? Well, that person I really value, because they see something here, versus somebody who just kind of has you on automatic payment and doesn't really even remember the name of your company. But you're convenient, right? You've got to define how that is, and we as business owners, once you pull up that client list in our software or scrolling through your phone, you get a sense of, oh, yeah, there's that person. Let me go ahead and write
Michelle K. 24:26
their name down, yeah, 100%
Collin 24:31
and with this, as we're as we're gathering that, that data, Michelle there, I know people will talk about, okay, differentiator to my clients, but I also need to, you know, or what's the role of doing market research as well, of comparing ourselves to other companies to make sure that we are, you know, having enough differentiation from from them as well. And how do we go about that process?
Michelle K. 24:54
Yeah, 100% so I'm a big fan of. So you should know the competitive landscape in your area, mostly because you should know how to position your company differently, which I think gets into this idea of differentiators. If you are the type of person where it's like, I just know I'm going to get kind of sucked into that, and I'm going to get, like, the pricing, and I'm going to get in this kind of comparative land, then it's like, Okay, once a quarter, we're just going to do a little quick circuit, and we're not going to really fixate versus there are some companies I work with that are just incredibly analytical, so they'll pull all this data and information, but they're really good about stepping back from it so that it, it doesn't get them into this like comparative headspace. My biggest recommendation is you do need to know what your competitors are doing. There is a lot of strategic insight that you can gain from okay, it's clear they're trying to position this way, so I'll probably get more traction if I position this way. It'll feel kind of against the grain, against the current of what they're doing. I think there's so much value in that. I would just say that maybe avoid the Services page. Maybe avoid the pricing page. That's going to be hard for you to not get fixated on, because I think what your competitors are charging is the least valuable piece of information you can pull from what they're doing. Yep,
Collin 26:18
I think landing on that website and just asking this question, who are they talking to, or who do they think they're talking to, right? Like, that's really what you're talking about here, of going, what direction are they, what's their what's the, what's the velocity, where they're trying to head here, versus just going and making a price comparative sheet, because, yes, that's going to be all over the map. And that doesn't mean that, oh, oh, man, look at, look, you know, 14 people are charging this for a service. Well, that doesn't tell you a whole lot, if you don't know what they're trying to do, or the behind the scenes, which we never will, right? So we just kind of have to go, especially in this context of going, who are they talking to? What are they doing, or how are they doing it? That's, that's much more of a, you know, of a feeling look versus a, I'm going to go to the pricing page and copy all that and then cry, right? Like, that's not what
Michelle K. 27:07
we do, no, and it's not helpful. Um, because pricing is so subjective and we never know what's going on inside of another company. We don't know if they're getting leads. We don't know what their client retention is. Like it? I just think there's not a lot of helpful comparison that happens with pricing. But to your point, who are they speaking to? What trajectory are they trying to take? What's their angle? What's their brand and like vibe of their tone when they write their copy? Yeah,
Collin 27:39
yeah. I that's something that is just will really stand out right when you start looking at and it doesn't. It takes a little bit of time right to do that, but I think what we do is kind of go, what's my initial reaction? Okay, I've landed on their website, or maybe they just have a Facebook page. What kind of posts are they getting? What's this What's this quality here? What kind of words are they using? And you do start to pick up if you do this enough times of going, Okay, I have a general sense of this person thinks they're what generally happens here, if we're being honest, Michelle, you go, Oh, they think they're an everybody company. And then this person, oh, they think they're an everybody company. And then everybody kind of thinks they're an everybody company. So as soon as we put a stake in the ground and go, I'm a this person company, it's easy then to go, we can steer this way.
Michelle K. 28:22
Yeah, and then yeah, totally agree.
Collin 28:27
I'm right on the same page, yeah, well, and I know, and you mentioned the like, not getting caught up in the stuff, because it is easy to be on Facebook. And somebody asks who has a dog walker recommendation? And you, my goodness, you can just sit here and hit refresh on that page and see more comments, more more comments, more comments there. Might you know this, and that's that's not healthy, like you were talking about. That's not where we need to be. We need to be spending the time doing a little bit of research and then actually working with our business, instead of worrying about the 15 more people who just commented.
Michelle K. 28:56
Yep, absolutely.
Collin 28:59
And then once we once we get this, we've started to define this. What is the process of translating the the differentiator into into marketing? Is it as simple as just waving around the flag, going, we do pub cups? Or how do we go about that
Michelle K. 29:14
process? Yeah, so very good question. I would say it's more of an art than a science, though you can probably make art scientific if you have enough data sets going not to get metaphorical about it. But So okay, maybe let's pull the thread at the pub cups, I love working with a tangible example. So if I was working that at my we're going to considering rolling that out as a differentiator, trying to figure out the way I would want to market it. I would start with these client interviews, and I would run the idea by them. Here's why I think this would be fun, is or why I want to do this. What are your thoughts about the service? And then I want to make sure that I'm asking, why, like, under what circumstances, I'm not going to hold you to it, but theoretically, under what circumstances would you book that? Like, why would you use it? Because I want to get down to like, what need does that fill for them? Now, if everybody comes back and says cup, cups are fun. That's probably going to be my marketing message. I'm probably just going to stick it straight up there. Pop cups are fun. We do those now. Book is here, and they have told me that is truly the thing they care about. I worked with a coach for a long time, and he was very big on your clients. Give you your marketing statements, and that's something I have taken very core in every business I've done. Now, if they come back and they say, I just love how excited like when I pull into Starbucks, my dog gets in the front seat, and he just he makes everybody's day, and he's so excited. And you can just tell how much he loves it, then I'm probably going to more story driven marketing, where I maybe will have a marketing statement that says something like, recreate your dog's Starbucks drive through experience even when you can't be there. Let's go get a pup cup. Things like that, where it really speaks to like why they would want to provide this experience for their dog, and again,
Collin 31:27
getting those words from those test clients or potential clients, it is just it's gold, because sometimes we might not even know the value it is to somebody. We may have some preconceived notions or biases for this, but when people can start talking or telling you, repeating it back to you in their own translation, it goes, it gives you so much clarity where you go. Dad, okay, right? I didn't even consider the, you know, the the memories that you got from the dog, you know, whenever you go out on your road trip. So, yeah, let's play into that.
Michelle K. 31:57
Yeah, well, and what's cool is, because clients will always give you something where you're like, Huh? I never would have thought that. Like another example that just came to mind. It may be someone is like, you know what? I love, how much my dog loves it. I hate when they slobber in my car because they start drooling when the whipped cream comes out. Okay? My marketing statement, then is going to be, I would love to make my car messy instead of yours. Today, let's go get a top cup. You know what? I mean? It's just like speaking to their real prerogative. So I could, I could do this all day. I think this is so fun, figuring out how to tailor what you do to why the client should care about it.
Collin 32:32
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Michelle K. 33:35
So yeah, that's like, on my perspective, what makes marketing, honestly, fun and unique is so I guess, going back to your question earlier of, how do we make this something that like, how do we translate what we want to do into the marketing, the client research? And I think it really comes down to, we have to get more comfortable with testing marketing statements. There's this temptation to like, I want to know the social media post that's going to do well, and it's like, it might it might not. Let's, let's ship it, get the data, make it better next time, and we'll iteratively get closer. And a lot of marketing is like that.
Collin 34:14
And that's that is hard, especially when we spend a lot of time crafting those those posts or those statements, where we go. Man, it took me three hours to craft this and refine this and hone this down. You want me to do that again? Or I need to come up with three more of these. But in the end, we don't. We're not always going to hit out of the park 100% of the time. And really that iterative process of I need to send something out and I get data back. I send something out, I get data back, and that data is going to be whatever we're measuring, right, leads, inquiries, bookings, whatever that is. You know, website hits. We could we that's the testing, and then seeing the results, which lets us know, are we headed in the right direction? It's a game of hot and cold, right? That's all the marketing is. It's hot, hot, hot, hot, new, cold, really cold. Why are you. Going in that direction, stop immediately, turn away.
Michelle K. 35:04
Well, and this is why, I mean, it's funny how much data has come up in this conversation. It's been in my mind a lot recently. But this is why I think having such a close pulse on the data is so important, because the second you start to stray into a direction that isn't reflective of what your clients want you to do, or your potential clients are interested in, if you have this quick feedback loop that you've established of I know what numbers I care about, and I figured out a quick cadence to get this information. Then we don't have to go too cold, like, it's not like we're gonna get a year down the road and be like, Oh my gosh. How did I get here? This is totally unexpected. It's like, No, we're gonna figure out in about a week that's not working. We should, we should go back to what we were doing and kind of test this way. Now,
Collin 35:49
what kind of data in general, do you think more people should be collecting about their business? Hmm,
Michelle K. 35:59
man, my brain just went like 50 different directions. Okay, so I think it's ultimately the only reason data matters is when it is connected to something that we are trying to do. So I am not a fan of collecting data, just for the heck of it, like, if you are tracking 50 things in your business, you're probably tracking too many. That's we want just enough information to take good action on, not to sit in this perpetual stew of the numbers and like what they could all possibly mean. That's not going to be really helpful. We want enough data to take really, really good action, and to have good enough action that so I'm kind of starting with what we shouldn't do. I don't think we should track too many things, and I also think we should be really careful on things that are more so vanity metric when it comes to data, I know it's very tempting on social media to rank the effectiveness of what you're doing based off of how many people like it or how many people leave a comment on it. And those things are important based off of the algorithm. They are not necessarily important based off of your business and actually getting people to convert and to become clients. And so we want to be careful we're not getting caught up in seeking data and growth in areas where it's like, you can have a really so a strategy I encourage people to do is to consider doing a local Facebook group for pet parents in your area. Phenomenal strategy. You can get really qualified leads out of that. And sometimes people look at that and they'll be like, well, there's already a group in my area that has 15,000 people in it. How on earth could I compare to that? And I'm like, You shouldn't be trying to 15,000 people. Do you think there's any actual legitimate connection happening there between the members and the admin of that group? Probably not. You're probably going to succeed more so with a group of 500 people that are really interested in knowing you. So we want to be careful with the vanity metrics when it comes to what to track in your business. Again, I think it's relative to what you're really looking to focus on, or what problems you're looking to course correct geometrics that I use for a health snapshot that I think are just good for pet care businesses across the board, and then we kind of dial it in based off goals, your profit margin. I encourage companies to be very protective and vigilant over making sure that it stays in a healthy range your revenue, you can choose to track that weekly, monthly or annually. You do need some form of tracking that is weekly or monthly. If we're only looking at our revenue on an annual basis, we're a little bit too far away from things that would affect change in decisions. I also recommend that we are tracking our average length of client retention. So the opposite metric of that would be, how many clients do we lose in a given period of time. We want to know, Okay, how many people do I have to replace to stay at the size that I am. I also am a fan of tracking how many qualified leads you have in your hiring pipeline at all times, and setting a baseline metric we are trying to get to. And then I am a fan of tracking your marketing leads, where people are finding you from, how many inquiries you are getting, and how many of those are converting to a meet and greet. So those are, like the heavy hitters on the data for me,
Collin 39:44
well, in that that marketing leads is so important, but not just to go. Where did you find me, but that conversion rate into did you actually become a client? That's where that gets really important. Because then you can really start to see and think about where. Potential bottlenecks are, or was that even the right potential client who reached out to me? Or is this increasing or decreasing over time, given how much money I am or am not investing in this process, because otherwise it's just kind of wide open to that, and we really have no concept or idea. Or you can even drill down even more and go, Okay, people who I get from Facebook. What kind of clients are those, versus Google, versus the, you know, the the referrals, and, you know, the client referrals from me and the word of mouth stuff like, you can start comparing and grouping your potential, you know, inquiries in these little buckets to give you an idea of where you need to redouble your
Michelle K. 40:38
efforts. Yeah, absolutely, because
Collin 40:41
there is that analysis or that paralysis of analysis, I always say that backwards, right where it is. It is very tempting to just try and grab everything, but what you find out is not everything is useful. And like you said, Michelle, it's not always relevant to the question you're trying to ask. And so sometimes, and actually quite often, the data we collect should probably change over time, as we are tackling new or different problems in our business too.
Michelle K. 41:06
Yeah, absolutely.
Collin 41:09
And you mentioned the change earlier, and I did want to loop back around to that of of you know, not straying too far from things. But there is the opposite of that, of going okay, I found my key differentiator. I know what makes me different? How do I stay true to that? Or what's the role of keeping that as trends change, or as I need to adapt as a company?
Michelle K. 41:29
Yeah, so man, ton of nuance to this, I think, because, again, I think it comes down to what you want out of your company and where you want to take it. So I think an interesting thing that's happening in our industry, a little bit, is as more and more companies have converted to employees, and more and more companies have started looking at niche service lines providing overnight is almost becoming a bit of a differentiator for a lot of companies, where they may be the only company in their area that provides in home sleepover services. Now is that going to be the most scalable service? Like maybe, maybe not. I tend to lean towards not. That doesn't mean it's not worth providing. It didn't fit into the purview of what I wanted to do. But you know that may serve the company's aims, that may be a service they really care to provide, that may be a huge revenue generator for them and worth figuring out some of this like strategic lack of scalability. So I think it really depends on what you want out of your company, what opportunities you see in your area and how that intersects into you know what you also care about providing. From a client experience standpoint,
Collin 42:49
it's having that close loop data connection. There is what that sounds like there. Michelle of going, Okay, I'm measuring, I'm measuring, and I've got my differentiator, but if I start to see these metrics change in a particular way, I need to start re sorting, realigning, maybe re communicating the differentiator. Maybe it stays the same. I just tweaked the words I used to talk about it, depending on how things are going right. It's that's where that experimentation really kicks off. When trends and the market starts to shift. We will never again, just like when we're talking to potential clients, it's never going to be 100% hit rate every time, same way when we're marketing and we're just running our business, we're going to have to do a little bit of trial and error in fast succession to get that iterative process to get that good data back to us.
Michelle K. 43:34
Yep, and I think we also have to create a certain tolerance for what can be perceived as rejection or failure, because if you are never coming up against that, we're probably not taking enough risks. I remember I had a coach who told me, you know, I was a young entrepreneur, and I was bragging about my closed rate at meet and greets. I was like, oh, yeah, I closed like 85 90% of them. And he was, as we're getting off the Zoom call, he was like, that means you're not talking to enough people. Boom. And I was like, All right, that I hear you, um, and so I think it's also kind of developing our tolerance for what what feels like failure in the moment, which actually can be a really positive, like data point for us to take as well. That's
Collin 44:23
a really good point, because many times again, we play it safe, just like when we don't want to talk to our existing clients because we're worried that they'll remember who we are when we're talking to people trying to push the envelope with with certain things, using different language trialing different ways of wording, policies or procedures to see, how does this do? Does this? Does that turn people off? Does do they fully understand it this way? Because we can become so vanilla in our language, because we still have that mindset of, I'm for everybody, which means I can't have anybody say no, even whenever I'm talking to the wrong kind of client. And we. End up really hurting ourselves and our business? Yeah, absolutely. So I find myself in those situations needing to say the hard thing, but then pulling my punch. Because I go, I don't want them to not like me or I don't I don't want to be the bearer of this bad news. But instead going, No, I've got to lean into this, because that's staying true to who we are. That's also being honest with this person, and it's also going, I've never said it like this before, and I've been burned in the past, so I need to see how this kind of
Michelle K. 45:30
comes across. Yeah, well, and I think one of the difficult realities of kind of going full circle back to this idea of having a very specific client avatar,
45:42
if someone is resonating very deeply with what you're saying, it means that someone else does not. And I think we like to pretend those are not, like two sides of the same coin. I think we like to pretend like, well, there's a magic thing I could say where everyone would resonate, and it's like there isn't, I promise. That's the way it works.
Collin 46:04
Well, I'll scratch that off my to do list. Never mind. Yeah, so sorry. Put your cash ups and dreams. You're right. As we lean into that, we have to then do that mindset work, that hard work, of going, Okay, I'm talking to this person, which, like you said, means it must. It's mutually exclusive to I am not talking to this group of people, and they're going to be turned off, not in a bad way, right? They're just not going it's we're not, you know, demeaning or talking bad about these people. It's just that doesn't connect. That's not the vibe they want, that's not what they're looking for. And we need to be okay with that, because that means we, the people we are attracting are the rabid fans who will, you know, ride or die, kind of people,
Michelle K. 46:44
yep, yep, absolutely, those super fans, like, you know, we want people who are more bought in and fewer of them. As counterintuitive as that can seem, we want more people who are so bought in that they're just like, ride or die with your company. They bring you referrals. They have high spend. Then to be like lukewarm, with twice as many, but you're not getting referrals. You're having to put a ton of money into marketing. They're not spending a ton. They turn out really quickly. It but the vanity metric can be, well, I just want volume and that that doesn't always serve you in the end. No,
Collin 47:17
Michelle, I really want to thank you for your time today and walking us through this process of understanding key differentiators, knowing what we can look for in our own business, and then how we talk to people about that, and that really important part of getting that good data so that we can make those adjustments as well. I know there's a lot here, right, and you talk a whole lot about a lot of other things. So for people who would like to get connected with you follow along with your work. Michelle, how best can they do that?
Michelle K. 47:43
Yeah, absolutely so. The best place would be in my free Facebook group. It is called Grow Your daily dog walking business with dog co launch, I run free marketing challenges. I run hiring challenges. I do a lot of content, live streams webinars to help support companies as they grow. And it's also where I put a lot of information about some of the programs that I run to help support companies in a more close knit capacity, to get them the goal, to get them to the goals they are trying to achieve and the results they want to see. So that'd be the best place. Okay,
Collin 48:19
well, I will make sure that there is a link in the show notes and on the website so people can get connected right to that and follow along. Michelle, again, this has been an immense pleasure, and I really thank you for your time today. Michelle, thank you so much.
Michelle K. 48:32
Thank you happy to be here.
Collin 48:33
What makes your business different? More importantly, what makes your business worth using and paying good money for. That is something that we as the business owners have to consider. It's not enough just to say that we are here to take care of pets. What about our service is attractive to our potential clients? Because here's the thing, when we nail our key differentiator, we will grow and foster a client list that loves you. Why? Because they see you solving all of their needs or their specific need, depending on how you market yourself, and that's why this is so critical. You become way more sticky as a business the more people begin to love you and see you as invaluable to their life, and that all starts with understanding what makes you you. We want to thank today's sponsors, tying to pet and pet perennials, for making the show possible. We also want to thank you so much for listening. In the United States, we've got the Thanksgiving holiday coming up. We know you're going to be busy. We hope you are able to take some time for yourself and focus on you and make sure that you are okay. We'll talk with you soon.
49:48
You.
