566: The Cost of Not Trying
Brought to you by: Pet Sitters Associates. Use ‘Confessional’ at checkout
What’s holding you back from making the changes your business needs? Fear of the unknown can keep us stuck in outdated pricing, ineffective policies, and stale marketing strategies. In this episode we tackle the fears that prevent pet sitters from evolving, from raising rates to implementing new policies. We discuss how to test small changes, embrace iterative improvements, and reframe failure as a learning opportunity. If you’ve been hesitant to make a big decision in your business, this episode will help you push past the fear and take action.
Main topics:
Fear of change in business
Raising prices with confidence
Updating policies for efficiency
Evolving marketing for better clients
Opportunity costs of inaction
Main takeaway: “The biggest risk isn’t trying something new—it’s staying stuck in something that isn’t working.”
As business owners, we tend to overanalyze decisions, fearing the worst. What if clients leave? What if a new policy upsets employees? What if a marketing change flops? But here’s the reality: inaction is its own risk.
If your prices are too low, you’ll burn out trying to make ends meet. If your policies are too flexible, clients may take advantage of them. If your marketing isn’t attracting the right clients, you’ll struggle to grow. Every choice has a cost—including the choice to do nothing.
Instead of fearing failure, reframe it as an experiment. Test a small change and track the results. If it doesn’t work, tweak it. Your business is a living thing, meant to evolve. The worst thing you can do is stay in place while the world moves forward.
💡 What’s one change you’ve been avoiding in your business? Let’s talk about it in the comments!
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Pet sitter confessional, listener survey, fear of change, lead magnet, price increase, marketing message, operational changes, client feedback, business evolution, decision-making, opportunity costs, iterative process, qualitative data, quantitative data, business growth.
SPEAKERS
Collin, Meghan
Meghan 00:00
Hi, I'm Meghan. I'm Collin, and we are the host of pet sitter confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Thank you for joining us today for episode 566 we also want to thank pet sitters associates for sponsoring today's episode and our Patreon people who have found value in some or all of the podcasts that we've done and want to give a little bit of their coffee money back to help support the show. If that sounds like you, you can go to pet sitter, confessional.com/support, to see all of the ways that you can help out. Last week, we announced that we had a listener survey, and we were blown away by all of the responses that we received. Thank you so much. There were a lot of them, and we, as we're churning through that data, we have a lot to plan for the podcast. So thank you again for everyone who responded. We also said that there would be a $50 tiny horse gift card that we were giving away, and the winner of that is leash and love Pet Services. Woo. So thank you leash and love for answering the survey, and we hope you enjoy your gift card. Recently, we were talking about the fear of making changes in our businesses. We've all been there knowing that something isn't working, but really hesitating to change it because, well, what if the new thing is worse? What if I don't like the end product? What if I can't decide what to do next? What if we lose clients? What if we make the wrong decision? There are so many what ifs in our lives, especially in our businesses, as we are trying to do the best that we can, and we don't really know the next step sometimes. So we ask ourselves, what's scarier trying something or not trying something. Think about that for a second. Trying something new is really hard and scary and uncomfortable, but not trying something well, you may end up with regrets, and while it may not be the best thing that you've ever put together, you did something new, no matter what it is, change is hard, change is uncomfortable, even when we know that something needs to be improved, actually taking action can feel like stepping into the unknown. It's like jumping off a cliff. What's at the bottom we don't know, but if we let that fear freeze us and keep us frozen, we risk staying stuck in something that definitely isn't working. We had a lead magnet that we were using, but it really wasn't working. We couldn't figure out exactly why we thought it was great, but not a lot of clients were clicking on it and entering their email when they would go to our website, so we needed to change it up.
Collin 02:07
But any change as a business owner is difficult because there's just a lot on the line. We've built something from the ground up. So it's personal to us. This lead magnet that I had put together and that we had designed in Canva and posted, there were hours spent in this document, and we thought that it was going to work out. Well, however, it just wasn't. And so change feels risky, because our brain defaults to stay where it's safe, right? Okay, it's not working, but at least we know that it's the known aspect of where we are, meaning that anything beyond that that's new to us, that's new information that we have no experience with, yet, the safe place that a lot of us find ourselves in is going I know it doesn't work, or it's not working the best, but at least I know and I'm familiar with that. So here's where we have to understand, though, that the real risk in all of this is actually not evolving at all, and the risk is in not changing where we are, or
Meghan 03:07
maybe convincing ourselves that we don't have the time to change it. We know how much time it's spent on the last lead magnet, it was like a cumulative 10 hours. We don't have those 10 hours right now because we're in a busy season, or we just don't have the motivation to spend that much time working on something else, and so we convince ourselves to stay with the thing that's not working, the thing that's essentially broken, because we don't want to try something new. And it's kind of a confirmation bias of like, oh, we actually don't have the time right now, so we don't want to try something new, so we'll just stick with what it is right now. Even though every business is different, there are definitely some common fears that we all have as business owners, pet sitters, dog walkers. So let's walk through those and then see what happens if we let them hold us back. The first one is raising prices. A lot of us just a lot of us just did this on January 1. You know, we fear what if clients leave? We'll lose too many customers. It'll hurt our bottom line. We won't make as much this year, because even though we do a price increase, all of our clients will leave, and it will sink our business. Well, the reality is that if we stay too cheap, it can mean that we're actually working harder for less, or attracting the wrong clients, or not being able to pay our employees the minimum wage that keeps going up every year with this particular one, a lot of times we let our feelings and our emotions get in the way from us actually moving forward. The numbers don't lie. The data doesn't lie. If you can't pay your bills next month because of your prices, you have to raise you aren't a charity, and you shouldn't be acting like it. If you have a team, you do have a responsibility to your employees and the government that you are paying them. Well, just know that if you have this fear of, I don't want to raise prices. Well, we have that same fear a few weeks ago, and we did, and I'm not sure that really ever goes away, because every time we take a big breath in of, oh, man, are people actually going to pay this? But we have to sit in the reality of this is something we have to do. We may not actually even want to raise our prices, but we have to in order to keep our business moving. Moving Forward.
Collin 05:00
Yeah. So each time we do a price increase, each time a business does a price increase, the fear there again, is that we fear of losing out on our existing clients. We're going to make people mad. We have to come alongside this and go I need to reassess my marketing. I need to reassess my brand fit. I need to reassess my messaging and the value that my clients get, and too often we as business owners get stuck in the pricing right? I see it. I feel this every time we do a price increase. I just see it as I'm getting more expensive. But a mindset that really helps get through this is the mindset of becoming more in alignment with the value we provide when we see our prices is more in alignment with the true value that people receive on their end, price increases become just a little bit easier. And also here, just if worst case scenario, we may lose, we may actually lose some price sensitive clients. Here, you are going to lose people each time you raise prices, and that's okay, because you're more likely to gain more clients who actually value your service and see that in that price and how it's reflected in their life.
Meghan 06:14
Many times in business, we feel like something operationally is not working, whether it's hiring or scheduling or your policies. So you know that something needs to change about that, but what if employees push back on your policies? They don't like the new key policy or the inclement weather policy? What if clients push back? You don't want angry clients, and then they won't use you again? So that fear is really well, people won't like the new way that we do things. But the reality is, if something isn't working it, tweaking it is the only way that we can improve it. Maybe it's not a complete overhaul, maybe it's just a slight change, but if we don't try to make it better, it's just going to keep being broken.
Collin 06:51
And to be perfectly honest here, the ones that complain most about policy or operational changes are usually the ones that were abusing it to their advantage in the first place, we're usually the ones that we're trying to eke out the most, or push the boundaries the most. And as soon as you redraw that line and carve it just a little bit closer or a little bit tighter to where you actually want it to be, that's where people freak out because they realize they're not going to get their way anymore. And so with these changes that comes along with the messaging of why these are important, the benefits that it does get your employees or your clients, how it's going to improve their life, whether it is a cancelation policy or whether it is a mile tracking policy, and why you have to do things the way you are, you have to do it really focus in again, on on those benefits, but also recognize that at the end of the day, if it's the best fit for you and your business, that is what you need to focus on as well, and that it's okay to have policies, to have procedures, to have hiring and scheduling, all these things that fit you and the model that you want to run, because
Meghan 07:59
it's Your business. It's your business, it's not your client's business, it's not your employees business. In order to end up in a better place for your business, you have to iterate. You have to try new things, especially when something's not working. If something is working and you want to tweak it a little bit to potentially make it better, that's great. But if something is broken, you have to try to fix it.
Collin 08:18
And in the worst case scenario here, it may just take a few times to find the right balance. You may over correct in a particular direction with a policy because of the behaviors that you're seeing, but as those people get weeded out of your company, or as you get feedback, and as the employees talk to you about how things are working, you can adjust it. It's not a set it once, and I can't touch it again for another decade. It's a I'm going to implement this, see how it works, and as Megan, as you said, do that iterative process work through those to see what kind of response you get and what kind of change you're actually getting on the back end. But that does mean that we have to be tracking as we implement and monitoring and reviewing throughout this entire process, but that only makes us better. Bellies
Meghan 09:02
right into another fear of trying a new marketing message or a marketing approach. What if it flops? What if I don't like it? What if my clients don't like it? What if it doesn't connect with the clients that I actually want it to? We have this fear that we're going to waste time and money on something ultimately ineffective. Nobody wants to do that. But the reality is, our old methods might already be ineffective. We just don't realize it. We keep getting great dane owners that contact us, but really want Huskies or we really keep getting pet sitting clients contact us but really want dog walking. What's
Collin 09:33
that old saying? I know 50% of my marketing works, I just don't know which which half we have to continually try new things, and that comes into that beta testing, or that differential testing with I'm going to put out a couple different messages and see what kind of response I get from each of those, and then lean into the one that starts getting me in the direction where I want to go. And that often is the scariest part of marketing messaging, or really any time. Time we're faced with making a change is going. I don't know which way to move at all, at all. It's like a game of hot and cold, but there's nobody on the other end yelling hot or cold. It's just me wandering around in the darkness until I stub my toe. That's what it feels like a lot of times when we're making decisions, the only way that we know a direction that we need to be progressing in is to move in any direction, to break us out of that stasis where we are so we don't get locked up and just think, well, it's better to be here where it's safe. And I know that I'm failing, but at least I know that instead of well, I could be over to the left or to the right or a little forward or a little behind and not know how that puts me. Yeah,
Meghan 10:38
I feel like making decisions on quantitative data is so much easier than making decisions on qualitative data. So we talked about raising prices. That's pretty easy to make a decision on. I can either pay my bills next month or I can't, and I have to raise prices if I can't. So that's that's a no brainer, but it's areas where we don't have strict numbers on that. It's like more of a feeling of, Oh, I feel like I'm getting more of these type of clients that I actually want, or, Oh no, I don't want these, but they keep contacting me. It's more of a gut feeling and qualitative data than hard numbers
Collin 11:09
well, so the worst case here is this trying a new approach, is that maybe we learn something that doesn't work and we just pivot faster the next time, each time that you try something, you're going to scratch off your list of Well, that didn't work and that didn't work and that didn't work. And while this can seem defeating, we should instead go. I am now one step closer to honing and refining my message to the people that need to be receiving it, because
Meghan 11:33
at the end of the day, if I am so fearful that I don't actually want to move, there is a cost of not trying things. So let's flip the script. What happens when we don't change if we don't raise prices, we struggle to keep up with rising costs. Again, we may not be able to feed ourselves next month. If we don't adjust our policies, we stay overwhelmed and stuck in inefficiency, or we have clients try to take advantage of us. If we don't adapt our marketing, we slowly fade into the background while our competitors stand out and people stop using us because they go to the bigger, flashier thing. Basically, the biggest risk is standing still. But here's the thing, when we look back on our business journey, are we really going to regret trying something? We probably aren't going to be on our death beds thinking, Man, I really should have changed the color of my logo from red to blue. I know that would have been the thing that made people just knock down my doors, and I would have had a wait list a mile long. But we might regret not taking a risk when we had a chance, not raising our prices when we were struggling, knowing that, oh man, I don't want to burden my clients any more than I already am. Or we might regret not hiring help when we were drowning in work, or not trying a new service that could have been a game changer, but we were just so scared of oh, I don't know exactly how that's gonna work, so I'm just not gonna try it. I'm gonna put in a box over there, and maybe we'll get to it someday. Regret doesn't usually come from trying and failing. It comes from never trying at all. Something you'll never regret is pet sitters. Associates as a pet sitter, you know how much trust goes into caring for someone's furry family member. But who's got your back for over 20 years, pet sitters Associates has been helping pet care pros like you with affordable, flexible insurance coverage, whether you're walking dogs, pet sitting or just starting out. They make it easy to protect your business. Get a free quote today at petsit llc.com and as a listener, you get $10 off your membership when you use code confessional at checkout. That's petsit llc.com Because peace of mind is part of great pet care. So how do we push past this fear of changing something and trying something new? The first step is to start small test changes on a limited scale before fully committing. Maybe you adjust your prices for new clients first, or introduce a new service as a trial. If you're going to start doing adventure hikes, maybe try it with a subset of people who regularly use you on a consistent basis for dog walking. Instead of doing a total rebrand and changing your logo and all of your colors and your fonts, tweak your marketing message a little bit by shifting the tone from one thing to another. You can also set a deadline. Don't let a decision drag on forever. Maybe you even need to set a timer of okay, I'm going to take 30 minutes and work on this, and when it's done, it's I'm just going to make a decision with the best information that I have available. Give yourself a date to make a choice and move forward.
Collin 14:09
This is really empowering, because it adds a sense of urgency to our plate. And that doesn't mean we're going to be overwhelmed by this. We're already worried about making this decision. But what the sense of urgency does is I have to do this and move on, because there are 1000 other things that I have to make a decision on, and I just have to do this and start working on it so I can work on the next thing that's on my plate, if we just let it sit on our plate, and then let the next thing sit there. It's going to build up and build up, and then it's gonna be harder to actually work through these in a clear and concise manner. If this
Meghan 14:49
is something you struggled with, we actually talked about this on episode 562 all about giving yourself a deadline. The third thing you can try to help you try to overcome something new, is remind yourself of. Worst case scenario, if the worst thing that happens is we tweak it again, is that really that bad? I had a therapist one time tell me to go to the catastrophic end of something to just play out the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen. When I did that, I found that the scenarios at the end were not as bad as I had made them out to be. So if you want to try a new service and you put it out there, and nobody really takes the bait, or you try a promotion, nobody really takes the bait, you can just try again, because there is so much content out there, and businesses are always trying to get in front of as many eyeballs as possible, and people have busy lives and things going on. A lot of times they aren't even going to remember the thing that you tried six months ago. You will, because it was very impactful, and maybe it didn't work like you wanted it to, but most people aren't going to remember every little thing that you tried.
Collin 15:46
And importantly, here you got new information in your business. Our fear of moving, or a fear of trying something new, pulls us out of stasis. Is means that we have to get new information somehow, trying and moving in a single direction, in any direction, helps you get better information to know how to better run your business, and know what to try the next time, and then the next time, and repeating that cycle allows you to actually make and implement real, structural, robust changes.
Meghan 16:15
And finally, look at the cost of not changing picture yourself a year from now, are you going to be doing the exact same thing? Are you going to be dealing with the same frustrations? Wouldn't it almost be worse to be in the exact same place you are now, if you are starting to get burned out, if you are frustrated with where your business is or where it's going, you can change this. Maybe it's something small, like you don't feel like you're connecting enough with your clients, so you want to send out a weekly or a monthly email newsletter. Maybe it's something big, like you're really frustrated with your logo and you just need to get a new one and send it off to somebody and have them completely redo it, and maybe your website, too. The beautiful thing about running our own businesses is we can change whatever we want when we want, because at the end of the day, running a business means constantly evolving. If we let this fear stop us from making necessary changes, we're going to stagnate. We're not going to grow. We have to be ready and willing to potentially fail so that we can learn the lessons we need to to make our businesses better. We
Collin 17:10
talk a lot about opportunity costs in our business, especially when it comes to making sure that we are charging appropriately for our time. You know how much more so when it comes to lack of decisions or waiting on our decisions or our fear of change. Just think of it in this way. Let's say that your state just passed a new minimum wage. Well, you know that a, your prices can't support a minimum wage if you have employees and B, structurally, you aren't set up to be efficient in your operations. Well, if you sit and wait on that change because you're just afraid of the amount of work that's going to take place, afraid of approaching your clients, afraid of approaching your team about the changes that you're going to have to make, what's going to happen. The cost of that is unhappy clients, unhappy teams, and no business just being very frank about this. So in this instance, yes, our hand was forced. We had to make changes. There was no other option for us to get around this. But even in the decisions where it is up to us to make those, there are opportunity costs of sitting and waiting. We let the fear of the unknown damage our ability and inhibit our ability to make the necessary changes and move in the necessary way that we need to now, yes, a lot of times we don't know what that direction is, and that's okay. There's no one size fits all. There's no one thing that's going to just completely solve it all for us. We have to try. That's what we're talking about here. We're talking about the fear of trying something, the opportunity costs of not trying something. At the end of the day, we have the ability to try and not try, because we know our businesses, we know the context, we know the goals that we have set up and the direction that we would like to go someday that is enough, and should be enough to give us direction and give us some guidance, at least to start knowing full well that if I don't try this one thing, if I don't work on these couple things in my business, I don't know what's going to happen at the end of the day. That should be more scary. I know it is to me whenever we have a decision or where we need to change something, and we don't know what gets us motivated, what keeps us trying something new, is knowing that if I stay where I am, if we do nothing else in our business, there's no way it's going to get any better, how much more so in our personal lives as well, if we're unhappy, if we need a change, we need to do Something different about that.
Meghan 19:41
So what about you? What's something in your business that you've been afraid to change, but know that you really need to? We would love to hear your thoughts. You can email us at Pet Sitter confessional@gmail.com We'd also like to thank you for listening today and pet sitters associates for sponsoring today's episode. We will talk with you next time bye. You.
