571: Expanding Horizons with Josie Noriega
Time to Pet. Go to timetopet.com/confessional for 50% off your first 3 months.
National Association of Professional Pet Sitters. Learn more at www.petsitters.org.
Have you ever wondered what it takes to turn a thriving pet sitting business into a full-fledged dog daycare and boarding facility? Josie Noriega, owner of Super Paws Pet Care, shares her journey of navigating zoning regulations, building a superhero-themed dog resort, and balancing her original pet sitting business. From battling unexpected obstacles like dryer vent cleanouts to finding the right team members, Josie reveals the immense effort and creativity required to make her vision a reality. She highlights the power of networking and mentorship, crediting her business coach, real estate agent, and community for her success. Josie’s energy and passion for pets and her community shine through as she discusses creating services like “Bark After Dark” and low-cost events to serve both clients and their furry companions.
Main topics:
Transitioning from pet sitting to a brick-and-mortar daycare.
The importance of networking and mentorship in business growth.
Developing policies and procedures for daycare operations.
Managing employee crossover between pet sitting and daycare.
Creative services like "Bark After Dark" and community events.
Main takeaway: “You can’t do it on your own—you need a network of people to support you, from mentors to business coaches, real estate agents, and even your team members.”
Building a business isn’t about doing it all alone—it’s about leaning on the right people to help you grow. Josie Noriega shares how networking with mentors, real estate agents, and even her employees gave her the tools and confidence to open her superhero-themed dog resort. By embracing collaboration and staying open to advice, she turned a massive challenge into an exciting opportunity to serve her clients in a whole new way. Josie’s story is proof that a strong network isn’t just helpful—it’s essential.
This week on the podcast, Josie reveals how community and creativity fueled her journey into brick-and-mortar success.
🌟 Who’s in your corner helping you grow? Tag them and share below! 🎧🐾
About our guest:
Josie Noriega is the owner of Super Paws Pet Care, a superhero-themed dog daycare and boarding facility located on the outskirts of Dallas, Texas. With over 30 years of experience in the pet care industry, Josie transitioned from running a pet sitting business to creating a brick-and-mortar facility that offers crate-free boarding, daycare, grooming, and more. Her passion for pets and her community drives her to offer creative services like “Bark After Dark” and low-cost community events. A native of Canada, Josie’s dedication to building a supportive network and implementing innovative ideas has made her a trusted name in pet care. Follow her journey on Facebook or Instagram at @SuperPawsDogResort.
Links:
• Website: Super Paws Pet Care
• Facebook: Super Paws Dog Resort
• Instagram: Super Paws Dog Resort
• Master Networks (Mentioned in Interview): Master Networks Website
ProTrainings: For 10% off any of their courses, use CPR-petsitterconfessional
Give us a call! (636) 364-8260
Follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter
Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, & TuneIn
Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Pet sitting, dog resort, networking, commercial real estate, zoning, business expansion, pet care, daycare, boarding, grooming, policies and procedures, employee training, community engagement, low-cost services, business coach.
SPEAKERS
Collin, Josie Noriega
Collin 00:00
Music, welcome to pet sitter confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Today, we're brought to you by tiny pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters. Josie Noriega, owner of super paws pet care, talks about her journey into creating her own superhero themed dog resort. Her inspiration for this how she pulled together her community and reached into her network to get all the right resources to make sure that she stayed on track. Let's get started. So
Josie Noriega 00:34
I've been a pet sitter for 30 years. Super pause started out in 1995 I wasn't the original owner. We used to be Petr. I bought out the original owner 2006 and then when COVID hit, we rebranded. We became superposed. Pet Care. Been doing that for a while, and last summer, I had the opportunity to start a little daycare in a private building, and I loved it. It was so much fun that I decided I wanted to have my own brick and mortar place. And then you, you know, people say, start another business at 56 it's going to be fun. They said, it's been an adventure. End of July. I'm happy to say I am sitting in my daycare. We're not completely open yet. We're just waiting on our certificate of occupancy. But everything is ready to go. Everything is fed up. We have all of our all of our ducks in a row. Our employees are ready to go. We're just waiting on the city to give us the, you know, the heads up, and then we're we're in business.
Collin 01:50
A lot of hurry up and wait. It sounds like, oh,
Josie Noriega 01:53
the lease negotiation was the worst thing. I would have never been able to do this without a commercial real estate agent, without a real estate lawyer, without, I mean, so many people involved in this, you know, it wasn't as simple as, oh, look, this place was for rent. Let me call and see how much they won't even talk to you. I mean, if you're just calling up and asking they're like, you have to get the real estate agent to go and get and, I mean, the zoning and everything, it was just so much more than I expected it would be. I mean, I thought when I left the other place, because we were too big. I thought, man, two weeks will be in a new place. That wasn't happening.
Collin 02:38
Well, I I do want to ask about that partnership that you started with last summer. You were doing it in another location. How did that start, and kind of, what was the motivation behind that?
Josie Noriega 02:49
So I met a gentleman at a I'm a part of master network networking group. He was the marketing director for a management company that manages high rise building. So he told me, one of our high rises is right. You know, next to where we were at the meeting, there's a fourth a sixth floor Bark Park, and it's inside and outside turf areas for the tenants to bring their dogs to play. And we would like you to start a daycare here. So I visited, and yeah, we can do this. It was a little bit logistically. Was a little bit hard, because we kind of had to separate our area from the tenants coming in and out. There was a pool on one side, so we have to make sure the dogs couldn't go there. It was a lot of logistics, but we made it work for about two months, and we started getting too big. And also we had a lot of demand from our own clients outside, because this was private. It was just for the people in that building. Well, why can't we come to daycare? You know, we see all your videos, we see all the fun. And why can't you do boarding there? Well, there's no place to do boarding. You do grooming. No, we don't just do grooming. So I decided, you know, there's a demand for this that people ask me all the time, can you keep my dogs in your home? You know, can you, can you groom my dogs? I can't do that. I decided I wanted to be able to do that also to serve the clients that I have. So I went off on pretty much on my own. I only had a word, you know, word of like, wasn't really a written contract with them. It was more verbal. So it was like, you know, we're gonna lead it. It's just, we're just too big for you guys right now, we would like have 25 to 30 dogs a day, and it was too that little bark. Bark was really small. It was easier for us to just, we'll just move on to the new place. So now, since we've been gone, there's not a week that doesn't go by that I don't get a text message from somebody over there. When are you opening? Because we're only two miles down the road from where they were, yeah, where everybody's waiting on us. Oh my gosh. Well, I
Collin 04:54
love to hear that it started through a networking opportunity, right? Because I think many times we can start. I don't know. I get in my own head, of like, when I'm talking to people going, Well, what good is going to come to this? Right? Like, why? Why am I here? And I think it really is, like, you never know. And in worst case scenario, at least you're going to meet a new person and maybe have a friend, right? Like, best case scenario, new business opportunity.
Josie Noriega 05:16
So I have to say this business here would not have been possible without that networking group, my real estate agent, my real estate lawyer, my payroll company, my credit card processor, my contractor, the guy that does my HVAC, the person that came to clean the fence for the the dryers, everybody is from my business coach, my my bookkeeper, my tax accountant, they're all from that networking group. I mean, I wouldn't have not known how to do this without networking it. You have to, even if it's not you know, you think I'll never be able to use this person you know, somebody who will you know. And there's always and I network with other pet sitters all the time too. In our in our area where we're workflows, we have little groups that we meet on part of the Denton County pet sitters Association. We meet every quarter. And I mean, you have to network with other people. You can't just do it on your own, networking things in sports. I didn't think it was until this made me realize I need these folks or another, you know, daycare. I have a gentleman that's been my mentor. He owns four daycares in the Boston area, so he's pretty much, you know, showed me what he does. And so my boarding mod. My boarding model is based on his we do crate free boarding in a room with couches and doggy beds and an attendant, and they'll be, you know, watching TV, just snuggling, and everybody will be in like a big living room. It's going to be like a home away from home for the dogs that don't do it in crate, and if they want to crate, we have some, that's fine, but, you know, they don't have to be in it nice, yeah. Well, what
Collin 07:08
do you you took over the business back in 2006 What were you? What was life like before this?
Josie Noriega 07:15
I was an executive assistant, okay, the business, part time. I did. I did. I mean, I started touch sitting in 1998 when I first came to the US. I'm from Canada, and I started with the original owner, and I worked part time for her, and I was working in offices. Hated it, hated it with a passion. I'm not. I'm not a nine to five like, you know, corporate America person, and when I had the chance to buy around, I'm like, we're doing this. I'm quit my job, and we're just gonna pet sit. And at that point, I was one of the only employees she had left that was easy for me to just build it from there. And now there's, I have 3030, pet sitting employees, and there will be seven at the daycare. Wow. So what
Collin 08:07
I mean, other than the opportunity that you were kind of offered to be in the high rise, had you been thinking about doing brick and mortar prior to this? Or
Josie Noriega 08:17
I had thought about it, but 10 years ago, there was a piece of land not far from you, like, this would be perfect, and then somebody bought it and put a plant nursery on it. But, you know, I never really thought, Do I want to do this? But the demand that people are, I guess COVID has probably shifted the way people treat their pet, you know, they're more into we want them to stay with somebody, instead of putting them in a facility, into, you know, a cage, a cage, a kennel, a suite, or whatever. They're more into having that home style, you know, take taking care of them more like they're in their own homes. A lot of people have opened up the home daycare. Unfortunately, I don't have a room at home. I have a very small house, and I have 11 pets of my own, so there's no
Collin 09:09
room that'll do it. Yeah, absolutely no
Josie Noriega 09:11
room to board. I mean, honestly, you know, people come to my house, they don't, they don't even have a spare room to sleep in. Everybody, every room is cats and one dogs in the other. You know, reptiles here, bird there. So being able to open it here in a location where I can still make it feel like home is, is what, that was my intention. I want it to feel like home
Collin 09:37
well, and I know many times we have had discussions just from between Megan and I and our own business going, man, is this, is this demand somewhere where that we want to move in, and that's been a struggle that we've had constantly over the last several years of getting feedback surveys or talking with existing clients and always questioning and going, is that what we do? Is that where we need to. Move into and offer this service, and most of the time, we end up saying, No, that's not for us. We want to stay focused, or that's not where we want to go into but, you know, hearing you Josie, going, why not? Right? This is, this is,
Josie Noriega 10:17
that's one of the things in my meeting. Our President always says, you know, some people ask, why we say, why not?
Collin 10:26
And I think, I think that that's that that's hard for a lot of people. Again, that's hard for, like, just me personally, to say the why not, let's go forward and do it like I I like to have a lot more things lined up and, like, have a the connection and things and have that fiery passion for something to go into it. And I'm sure you know, and you are have wider passions and say, well, this, this, this is a great addition to here. I can serve so many more people. It really is just about how I think we are as business owners, personally, right? And like, how we are able to manage that kind of stuff, yeah,
Josie Noriega 10:58
and make sure that you have the people behind you that. I mean, you don't have all these. I honestly have never run a brick and mortar, but my business coach has had a brick and mortar for 40 some odd years. Not the same thing he did clients repair. But still, you know, it's, it's, it's all that, the different insurances and this and that, that you have to go through permits and all that it was great for, and then the cash flow and and all these things that I had no idea. I mean, exiting is you don't really have an overhead, you don't have a rent, you don't have, you know, insure. You have your insurance. But it's not like you need the business insurance. You need the pet insurance. You need the everything for the employees, too. So that was that was eye opening every when I started trying to get a loan, and it was like, How much do you need? At first, I'm thinking, 10 grand. And they're like, Are you sure? In the end, it ends up being more like, you know, close to 80. But yeah, when everything is said and done and you've paid everything and gone through everything, it's like, okay, yeah, no, 10 grand wouldn't have even paid for my signup. I signed the sign with 12. Yeah, it's insane that the things you don't even think about, but it's good to have other business owners out there that can tell you you're going to need this or that ain't going to work, or having a mentor really helped too. Well,
Collin 12:27
it sounds like that's been invaluable to you, as you've count encountered what seems like just an infinite number of unexpected things,
Josie Noriega 12:35
right? Little Things you don't even think about, like just last week was the dryer vent. I mean, it was, they had not cleaned out the dryer vents in this place for years, and and I could have burnt down the place had I turned on my dryer. But just, you know, having the guy come and inspect, and he goes, this needs to be done, and that needs to be done, and we need a fire extinguisher there. And it's like, you don't think of these things. And you you think, oh, I'll just come in and, you know, we'll bring the doggies and they'll play, and we're good. No, like having to think about storing food. I have to have two fridges, one for human food, one for pet food. I can't put the cans of at home. My dogs food goes in my regular fridge find, you know, my, my, my bearded dragons, worms go in my fridge. Who cares, you know? So I couldn't do that here. I mean, this has, this is all everything's regulated and inspected and you have to do, but you don't think of these things. You just think, I want to play with Doc and put Santa hats on it and take pictures. And, you know, have fun.
Collin 13:41
Yeah, right, it will end. And to know that, like, yeah, I have to have the building inspector. Or sometimes it's just kind of have to pay for that information and expertise, right? Of the coach of these people Sure? You know, people give free advice all of the time, but brass tacks when it comes down to, like, No, I want you to stand in my physical space and tell me the best XYZ, like that. That really does get down to going. I may, as a business, have to pay for this information, but how valuable is that information to me? How important is it that I have a clean, dry event when I didn't even know that that was a thing that needed to be done, right? Like that's right. Have you heard of time to pet? Dan from NYC, pooch has this to say, time
Speaker 1 14:26
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 time to pet has been so well thought out. It's intuitive, feature rich, and it's always improving. If
Collin 14:47
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
Josie Noriega 14:58
and everybody needs telling. You know, groomers are going to be hard to find. They're like, you know, gold and, I mean, I don't know. I think that the right people seem to become a lot coming along and just joining me, you know, like, I found the groomer. He's great. I've seen his work. We really have the same ideas. We're more about quality than quantity. You know, he wants to do the colors on the doodle ears, and so we really kind of click for that, you know, like, his work is impeccable, and we're, I mean, we're named Super paws dog resort, so our scene is all superheroes, and he's the biggest Batman fan. So the grooming area is called the bat cave, and it's all decorated with comic books and everything now ready to go for grooming, but he's got it all set up like he's Batman. So I mean, it's going to be fun, but it's also going to be, you know, very, we're, you know, rules are followed. I mean, it's going to be very, very well structured, very we've, we've gone over policies and procedures and everything for just about anything that you can think of, from, you know, a matted dog to bite, you name it. We've got books and books and procedures and all this, but thank God to chat, chat, GPT, put it all together, make it make sense. But we spent hours, you know, on putting all that because policies and procedures for pest fitting are completely different. It's you're not in, in in a facility. You're not bringing, you know, dogs that don't know each other together. You're not, you're not, you know, having to clean and sanitize and all that. It's a lot different. So our little policy book that we had is now is big. It's a lot bigger, and
Collin 16:47
that much work. What was that process like? Because that's a very different, you just said, very different mindset, and set up like, yes, you know, running a dog, walking, pet saying business, there's tons of policies and procedures and stuff. Not to say that there's not, but in a facility, there's, there's, there's a lot of policies and procedures, and a lot of them are different, and ones that you haven't had to encounter. So, you know, you went into this process when you were, you know, when the, when the, you know, start in 2006 you're coming up on, you know, 20 years in the business, and now you're basically completely rewiring your brain to think facility like, what was that like for you?
Josie Noriega 17:24
It's, it's, it's a lot of rewiring. It's a lot of work. I mean, you have to basically, it's, I know that it's going to be something that's going to take all of my days. Now, my home office is hasn't been used in weeks, pretty much office thing out of here now and then you think, you know, you're going to need a person that's going to be your representative in the face of the public. It's not like when you're visiting. You know your employees are the ones doing the business. They don't see the fly. Supplies are home when they're going. But here you're going to be face to face, so you have to make sure that you get the right employee to do that. It's been a total mind shift, just making my employees comfortable, you know, will they have a place to eat? You know, bathroom wise, we had to adjust our bathroom to make it big enough so we could accommodate, you know, wheelchairs, if we need it, for customers that came in all different things like that. It's things you don't like you said you don't think about. But the shift has been, has been, it's very different. It is so different from the fat footing. And sometimes I wonder, you know, what did I get myself into? But I'm so excited the way, you know, to see keep on going, it's coming together and just having, I mean, we had furniture building parties where I had friends and family and my husband and just come in and the broomer and putting furniture together, and putting, you know, shelves, and, oh my gosh, the sink, just the dog washing sink. They were a beast. They came from Tae mu, and the instructions were all in Chinese. So putting it through a translator to figure out where to put the pieces was interesting. But yeah, that that was, that was a beast to put together. It took a whole day just to put those together. It's been very, very eye opening. Would I do it again? I don't know. Until I know about, you know, honey coming in, we'll see
Collin 19:36
someone has kept you going through those like, you know, those, these, these, these areas, not errors, but these, these trials and trials, another thing and another thing each time. You know
Josie Noriega 19:45
the excitement that's building around it, just the neighborhood where we're in. I mean, I'll, I'll be leaving, and people have stopped me on the street on you guys opening. We're so excited to have you here. We're so you know, people are. Be stopping me like, when are you when are you good at can I get my dog groomed now? Well, people are and my clients, my pet sitting clients, same thing, you know, we just got a puppy for Christmas. We can't wait to send him to you. Or, you know, my sister lives in you in that area. She, she wants a job. You know, I got, I know people. So many people are excited about this. The excitement building for this to open has been has kept me going, really my you know, the networking groups, the Chamber of Commerce, were part of those. All those people are like, yeah, we're rooting for you. You can do it. We know you're going to be a success. You know, sometimes I'm sitting there, will I be a success? I'm glad they think I will be trying to doubt yourself, you know, like it's gonna happen. But yeah, they they all think that, yeah, they believe in me. I have to believe in myself.
Collin 20:53
That is so important as a business owner and entrepreneur, and especially when we're so low and we don't have team members to bounce off, or have those who are or those, or those furniture building parties like that. Sounds fantastic. I would get an Allen ranch and just go to town. But like when we when, when we don't have that, it is incredibly hard to stay motivated and keep going. You mentioned how, oh man, all these other people think I'm going to be successful. I guess I gotta go be successful now. Like, it is a mindset stuff, and it is encouraging. It's happened to us several times where we'll go to our chamber events, or, you know, things like that, and they'll be like, you just have the most amazing, I can't believe, you know, and I'm like, What do you mean? Me? Like, what? No, you don't even and they're like, I That's amazing. You, you, you rock it. It's like, yeah, I am going to rock it. It does change you. And so it's something that we should really seek out, not as a selfish thing of, oh, I just want people to tell me how awesome I am, but as a I need encouragement
Josie Noriega 21:52
every day, right? Yeah. I mean, my husband is, is my biggest supporter. I mean, I'll doubt myself. And he goes, hon, you took a business from somebody else and rebuilt it, and then COVID destroyed it and you rebuilt it again. So I'm I know you can do this. You know you've done it twice, so third time the charm, you know you'll be able to do it. I know you can. Yeah, no,
Collin 22:18
it really is. And so finding those people, whether it is family and friends, or whether it is a network of other sitters, or, you know, another networking of other businesses, or whatever it is like, get connected there and share openly about your business, because people want to know about it, and people find it fascinating. So it's like, Why? Why not?
Josie Noriega 22:35
And and don't be afraid to ask questions. You know, I don't know all the answers. And I even tell my employees I don't know all the answers. If you have a suggestion, let me know. I just hired a gentleman who was he worked for another daycare, and he's like, I can put down the policies and procedures for the daycare part. And the groomers like, well, I'm doing grooming, you know? Because I don't, I know nothing about grooming. I can look at a dog and say, Oh, he's cute, you know. But he'll look at him and say, Well, you know, he's the ears are too short. This is tricky. This is, you know, I have no idea, you know. So you have to get the people in that you trust, and don't be afraid to take their their opinions and their their their suggestions, and go, you know, go with it, because everybody's an expert on something, you know. So it's, it's even if it's just, it's kind of funny to say this, but my nephew is a coffee aficionado, and so he came in here and said, I don't like that coffee machine. We need to go get this one, and we need to put this in. You have to use this still water. And I'm like, Okay. And he's right, the coffee is better. But just the little things, you know, don't be afraid to take people's suggestions even, you know, it doesn't even if you won't go with it, but it's good. It's good to have other people's opinions and suggestions, because I don't have all the answers. I really don't. And you know, we're all we're all in this together. Tell my employees, we're all a big family. We're in this together. And some of them have asked me, you know, one of them, my my admin, right hand person, is starting tomorrow, actually. And she's like, what do we be doing? And I'm like, right now, you're just gonna learn everything, everything, everything that has to do with the daycare, but everything that has to do with episteme also, I want you to learn how to schedule. I want you to learn how to invoice. I want you to be able to run it when I'm not available. And so she's like, Oh, well, you have a lot of confidence in me. Yes, I do. But,
Collin 24:39
but again, you know if we need that from other people, how much more do our employees need that from us? Right? And that, what's such a gift to give somebody is your competence and your trust, and we, we often minimize that when we're interacting with people or whether we have staff and our employees around us, but they recognize that, right? When you give them a big task. Right? To have somebody like, to have somebody turn around and go, Man, you really trust me? It's like, Yeah, I do, and I know you're gonna rock it right, like, now, let's go,
Josie Noriega 25:10
Yeah, I have a trainer on board. She works for a foster group. She trains a lot of the foster dogs that have issues that you know need to, need to be taken care of before they can adopt them out. And she's also a good sounding board. She's worked in daycares also, and, and it is, you know, you have those people they she's had suggestions for this place. Like I said, the gentleman that work in another daycare, he's my main dog walker right now, but he'll come up with, you know, this dog needs training. And I think, you know, once we get open, we can bring him into the facility and take care of all these issues. And so it's good to have those people that have the, or, you know, the suggestions. And like I said, you might not, might not take him, or, like, just take him into consideration, or might put him on the shelf for later on, but it's good to because, like I said, I don't have all the answers
Collin 26:06
well. So you brought up a point there that I was thinking, Do you have are you having employees crossover between the two? You are okay. So talk about how you're setting those expectations and working with them on that.
Josie Noriega 26:17
So when we had the other day chair that the small one, the only I had some that were hybrid, doing both, and a lot of them want to come back. My nephew is one of them. He enjoyed it. He's learning how to train dog. He's trained his own service dog. She is emotional support, but she also can do like, anxiety. She detects his anxiety. So she's a big dog that came to our other daycare, and we would use her to kind of test the other dogs to see if they were friendly. Yeah. So that's, you know, something he wants to be in charge of. And I'm like, You did great at the other place, and then I have others that are like, I want more full time type work. So here, here's your opportunity for the full time work, because pet sitting and dog walking is pretty much always part time. There's not really anyone that is a full timer, because it ebbs and flows. You know, your dog walking maybe, but you're, you're pet sitting, you know, with right now it's really quiet, and then February, March is going to be insane with spring break, and then summer starts, so then it's going to be even crazier. And then all my college students come back to work, which is great, but then they all leave in September, and we're all twiddling our thumbs until the holidays. So here they'll be more the ones that wanted more a steady, steady income, a steady job, more steady hours. They've all applied to come here and work here. So I'm taking five of them from the pet sitting and bringing them over here, and I've hired three other pet sitters to replace them, so we'll be okay, yeah,
Collin 28:04
well, and so you're using two different softwares to manage everything, so that Okay, so there's, there's, again, a lot more for on them to be bringing in and kind of, you know, in learning that side of things too.
Josie Noriega 28:15
Yeah, the software, we're using channel connection for the pet for the pet resort, and we still use precise pet care for the pet sitting. So, and it's a little different. I mean, general connection is a, I didn't expect this. It manages everything, grooming, training, daycare, boarding, and so, you know, it's like having four, four softwares in one, and trying to input all the different prices and all the difference, like, Whoa, this is a lot of work.
Collin 28:46
It's one of those, you know, those setup costs. I think about that a lot, like anytime we're thinking about doing something new, I always go, there's going to be administrative overhead that's above and beyond just using it right? It's like, and then you have to add in the learning curve, and then it's the actually implementing it and tweaking everything and getting it set. And that can actually, for me, take up so much time that I get, I get behind on other stuff, and then it's like, oh, was this worth it? But, you know, going, I have to do this in order to get to my end result, like, I've just, I've got to see this through. You can't stop in the middle of it, right? Well,
Josie Noriega 29:26
I mean, this comes with, you know, the payment processing Clover little box, and then the phone that it is all connected. And it's like trying to, I am not a technological person, so trying to just connect all of this together to the computer, and I'm like, Oh my God. You know, somebody needs to come in here and just do this and tell me it's done. But, you know, there's nobody. It's me, oh no, oh my god, especially trying to figure out the payroll process. To have it connect to because, you know, where they scan the cards and the Apple Pay and all of this. And I've never we just send out invoices. They get paid. Thank you very much. So just that process took me two days to figure out how to connect that little I'm not going to call it stupid machine, but yeah, it was, it was, it was an ordeal. And then now getting the phone to connect to because it's a VoIP, and it has to connect to the software, and then the phone calls ring, and you can answer. You can see who's calling you, and answer that's also been another, yeah.
Collin 30:39
Well, how have you because, I mean, your your your pet sitting business is took up a lot of your time, and it was, it's big. It's working. There's a lot of stuff going on. How have you found time to dedicate so much energy into? How's your sleep? Josie, is what I'm asking.
Josie Noriega 30:56
I will sleep when I'm dead. I yeah, I my husband's like, go to bed hunt, because I'll be up at 2am thinking, well, if I charge this much for dog day care, how many dogs do I need to be able to pick? He's like, go to sleep. You won't you're gonna burn out if you do this. Um, so I've really had to learn how to and Business Coach, thank God. How to allocate my time in 90 minutes increments of you know, here, 90 minutes in the morning is for the pet sitting, because that's when the dog walks start and everything. And then after that, use 90 minutes for the daycare and so on and so forth. Separate it all up. You know, home time after 6pm that's it. You're dead on weekends, weekends or family time. I have a granddaughter. She's about to turn one. She's my first so it's time to spend with her. I'm, you know, I've had to learn how to manage things. And things are, some things are, I always say, you know, putting out fires. But some things are, you know, big and small, the ring and others are just little, itty bitty embers. And they can wait. They don't have to be taken care of. And I can hurt a lot on my employees, my questioning employees, I've had for years and years. My nephew started with me when he was 15. He's now 22 he can practically run the business. He's doing all the training for our new people right now. I don't have to worry. I just hear the person take care of it, you know. And he's, he's, he's getting it done. A lot of my dog walkers, they know their schedule is there. They do their thing. I I checked earlier. I'm like, wow, I haven't checked the journals today, and it's 230 let me check the journal. And everything was done. It was all perfect, you know, no, no questions, nothing. So I really do have good employees. I can't complain they. They are some of the best. I've got some really good people up there.
Collin 32:56
Yeah, that that certainly does help when you have a rock solid team that is the, you know, independent, go getters, problem solvers, competent and professional, right? It's like, wow. Like, okay, I'll let you go kill it every day, right? And it's, it's, it is part of that, of us going, Okay, I, I brought you into the company I am now just I have to trust you, and again, that gift that we get to give them of through that process and going, I am going to take you up on all of your skills and all of your feedback, and know that you're an invaluable asset, asset to the functioning of what's going on. That
Josie Noriega 33:34
was my goal when I rebranded to superfast, was to be less hands on. My first goal was get out of the field. Because I used to do as many dog walks as the employee and my husband's like, you have to stop working in the business and work on the business. So that's where i i started, getting out of there and making sure that you know anything that can and everybody is replaceable. People think they're not, that everybody is, because I am. I mean, I thought I wasn't. I had clients that, you know, I thought would never accept another dog walker or pet sitter and, and now I barely hear from them, because they're like, oh, Haley's so good, or we love Caitlin, or, you know, Tyler's the best. And it's like, yeah, that used to be me that got those messages, okay? But I see it more as a How can I put it? Makes me feel good, because I see it more as I did a good job training these folks. I did a good job picking them. So it does. It is it makes me feel confident. You know, I've done a good job that they can actually take care of this, and I don't really have to be out there doing it. That's
Collin 34:43
interesting. You mentioned that that struggle, I mean, Megan, and I felt that, I think it was the first Christmas after we had started to hire, and we didn't do some of the visits, and so we didn't get the little client cookies, or the client gifts that were left, or the tips, like. Like, now, wait a minute. I thought you oh no, and, and, but we've had to learn the same thing, and it took us a couple years to start being okay with that, to go, you know what? They're giving those gifts to them because a they're doing the work. And like, yeah, they that they deserve every aspect of it. And I'm really glad that we worked hard to train that person and have kept them, and they're so reliable and they're well loved, that is a little bit of a reflection of us as a company and what we pride ourselves in. And that's that is amazing. I don't need a little bag of cookies, right? Whenever I get that coming back, kind of thing, you know?
Josie Noriega 35:37
Yeah, I like seeing the replies on the journals, the five stars, it's always nice to see, you know, yeah, I did this, you know, I it is, it's still me. It's still me. But they don't always mean me, you know, I've had clients say that, Oh, you know, if you're not the one coming or my dog, you know, with the doggies, you know, they love all of us. If I, if I end up going as a backup, they're happy to see me. But if I'm not going and I'm seeing those pictures and those videos that the employees are sending, and they're just as happy to see them, you know, I did my job by working that is,
Collin 36:13
that is definitely different, a mindset of of I have to be doing everything, and now I can let other people use their skills that I desperately need and want in my company. That's the whole reason they're here, is to use them to the best of their ability, exactly.
Josie Noriega 36:26
And some of them are even better than me. I mean, I'm not, I'm like, not the the trainer. I mean, I'm good. I can walk the dogs that, I mean, I'm not the person that's going to, you know, train them to I don't know whatever trainers do. You know the reactivity and all that I'm like, and I have, you know, people on staff that are that's what they do. So it's great to send them out with a difficult dog. I can walk the difficult dogs, I can manage, but I would rather have somebody that is going to train them not to pull my arm out of the socket, or not to chase the bunnies, or, you know, not to go after the cars. We have one that we walk every day. Oh my gosh, he is. He's wonderful, except if a truck or a motorcycle, anything that's a big noise went by, he would charge after them, and no matter what I did, I could not break him of that. And my dog trainer walked in for the past two years, and he doesn't do that anymore. I'm like, Okay, well, they needed her more than they needed me.
Collin 37:38
Hey, did you know that the 2025 naps National Association of professionals pet sitters. Conference is taking place this very weekend, February 28 through March 2 in Tempe, Arizona. The conference theme is enrich and elevate, and their goal is to make sure that they are bringing together industry leaders with session topics that are idea focused and on a wide range of subjects. One of the topics that we're really excited about is the Saturday discussion from Michaela Vargas and her pet marketing unleashed team, talking all about branding and web design for pet businesses. Naps hopes you'll join them to foster learning and inspiration for your mind, body and business. Register and get started today at pet sitters.org that's so cool to see that and see people flourishing in those and now in now, you know you're in a position where you're going to be having to judge skills that are pertinent to a facility which are not always transferable to the pet sitting right. Like that's going to take that's a different kind of mindset, mentality, skill set that you're looking for between those,
Josie Noriega 38:47
yeah, they're, they're completely different, you know. And I know in my group of people that I do have some that are pet sitters and others that are are more geared towards this, you know, more towards that. Because the facility is not just dealing I mean, you're just just the maintenance and the sanitation itself, isn't we need. Luckily, my husband's a sanitation supervisor. He works for a company that bottles iced tea and Energy Shots, those big machines that do all that bottling his his team is is in charge of making sure that's all sanitary and safe to be to be used, so that we don't, you know, humans don't get sick. So he comes up with a lot of policies and procedures for us. You know, like just before cleaning, he knew exactly what we needed, which kind of mops and everything, to buy all kinds of different things like that, that, you know, things you don't think. But then in your people that work for you, also, I have a gentleman that was a lifeguard, and he's like, we dealt with all that stuff. We had to make sure that things were clean around the pool, so that, you know, you don't diseases and everything. So he's, he's coming in on board to work full time. Inside another person. She was a vet tech, so she's going to do the boarding side, all of our feeding in the morning, in the all the meds, the administration and that, you know, you have to make sure that you're following the right the right meds and everything, if you're just willy nilly feeding dogs and not sure who's eating what you can make everybody. So it's nice to have the vet tech on board. And you know, she can monitor if we have somebody that's been co independent, or whatever. She can monitor this person, this dog has been, you know, lethargic or whatever. She'll know these things, not, you know, people off the street. Sometimes they have no idea.
Collin 40:43
We did something similar when we were first starting in hiring. We had very bare minimum SOPs, and we went to our team and because we had tried to hire people who had more experience, and we didn't have to train from the ground up, because just Megan and I weren't ready for that. So yeah, going to them going, Hey, here's our vision for how we want to do the dog walk, or the pet sit, or the cat sit, or the this help us put this together. And as it's such a great thing to do, because it gives them a lot of input and insight, and then you get to see what's reflected back to you. Just makes you better, right? And especially if you have people with specific experience of kennel, tech, sanitation, all you know, health and safety, all that stuff going, Yeah, your skill sets are needed here. Here's a place for them. And it really just makes everything better,
Josie Noriega 41:34
yeah? Because you often get, I mean, phone walking is not rocket science, but you know, you'll get the one person that I love, animals, I can do this, and they don't realize how difficult it is. You're dealing with with live beings that need to be fed. They need to be taken out. You're taking care of people's houses. I mean, I've had people that have applied to do overnight, and then call me up at 2am and there was a noise outside, and I'm afraid, and oh my god, I've never stayed alone somewhere before. And I'm like, oh boy, okay, you have to make sure that they're they're okay with that, with just the we have snow a couple of weeks ago, and this is Dallas. We don't get so we had clients that are out of town. And, I mean, I called everybody, and it's like, we are not doing drop ins. We are shifting to overnight, or your our you know, your pet sitter will stay with your dog, an executive decision. You know this, this is better than than them not being able to get there tomorrow morning. And they were so appreciative. The clients were like, we'll pay extra fine. You know, I want everything to be go okay. I want my dog to be okay. And it worked out really good. We even have one place that is a senior home. We have three dogs in the same building, and so one girl stayed overnight with one of the senior ladies. She said we had a little slumber party. We drank hot chocolate and watched Lifetime movie until nine, and then she went to bed. He was on site the next morning to be able to walk those dogs in the building, hers and the other two ladies dogs. So it really worked out well. I mean, it really, you know, and you have to have the right people to be able to do that, you know. I couldn't have said anybody to say you're going to go sit with, you know, Miss so and so, and spend the night there. She really clicks with and they get along really well. So she's like, I'm fine staying with her.
Collin 43:31
Any of this process, were you ever, or are you worried about there being some sort of, you know, cannibalization of services, of more, you know, of pet sitting clients moving into doing boarding and daycare and losing out on that or or, how are you managing, you know, presenting both of these now? Well,
Josie Noriega 43:49
honestly, I think it's more of a it's adding services on. It's being able to take care of pets that otherwise we couldn't before, because not every dog is going to be good in daycare. I mean, not every daycare dog is going to be good for pet sitting at home. They're going to need somebody, you know, a lot of a lot of our clients will say, Well, you know, I'm going to have to find a facility because my dog can't be left alone 24 hours, or I don't want them to be at home by themselves at night. Well, here they won't have to. But then the person, the older dog that doesn't is somewhat grumpy, maybe doesn't do well in a group, you know, is more is happier. Pet Sitting at home, so being able to offer both well, they'll feed off of each other, they really will. And rooming the grooming tubes, I've had people ask me, you know, can you give them a bath? No, but now I can. But then I couldn't, but now I can say, Sure, we'll bring him to the facility. We'll have him, you know, get him all nice and pretty and bring him home, and he'll be nice and clean. So at that point, you know, we can offer a lot of different things.
Collin 44:52
I love that, that mindset, that perspective of this is all in addition to and now you have so much more. Flexibility. When you have that new client come in, that potential client come in, you're basically standing there with a with a phalanx of possibilities behind you being like, I got you right. Like, what do you need? Because I'm here to help.
Josie Noriega 45:16
We've had instances in destiny that you know, you go do the meet and greet, and you're there for the cats, and you're there for the bird or the gerbil or the aquarium, and then they have a dog, and they say, oh, but he won't be here. He's, he's going to, he's going to the 40 and it's like, oh, okay, you know, or you know, we're walking the dog, but then we see, you know? Oh, well, we don't need you next week because we're going on vacation and, you know, somebody our dog is going to boarding. So now we'll be able to say, well, your dog can come bored with us. You don't have to, you don't have to hire somebody else. Or we're not just dog walkers. We can do it all, everything, you know. So it is, I just wanted to add on services. I wanted to be and it helps the community too. I mean, we have plans to do low cost shots. We have plans to adopt the pets here, where we're in a good location, it's a storefront, and above is apartments. So it's a nice little neighborhood, so cafes, next door, next door, on that side of the yoga studio, it's all kind of different. So we'll be able to do different things where we can offer, you know, like the adoptive pets or the low cost, you know, what do you call it? The, not spay and neuter, but the the shot, the the micro chipping, all of those things. We'll be able to do all that here, so it still helps the community too, and it'll bring people in, and they'll see what, what else we have to offer.
Collin 46:48
Now, your your enthusiasm is very infectious, you know. And I love, I love hearing how just at every stage, you know your first thought, or maybe it's your second thought, I don't know, but it's just, what are the possibilities? Like? What can I do with this? And that's I love hearing that from you, because it really is a reminder to me that at every stage there's always an opportunity, and sometimes we might not know what the next step is, but if we are thinking about what could happen, right, we can really work with so much, and to hear that you're already going, Okay, I've got a physical place. Like, what can I do with a physical place? You know, community events and the free shots and the health micro chipping and this and this and this. It just, it really is such a great way to approach everything that comes across our plate is just at least going, what else, what? What could I What? What are the possibilities here?
Josie Noriega 47:46
Right? And we, I mean, it's not a big place. It's only 2600 square feet, so we have to be we have to use our imagination, but we've come up with with things that we want to do in this area. There's, like I said, there's a lot of restaurants, a lot of young professionals, they want to go to happy hour. They want to go to different events after work. So we have a service that we call it bark after dark, where, since they'll already be somebody here, anyway, they'll be able to leave their dog from daycare till 10pm so that way they can go do that happy hour. Or the young families can take the kids to soccer practice and not worry about, oh, shoot, we have to go pick up that dog. Or, you know, my dog can't go to daycare today because right after work, I have a meeting or I'm going to dinner. They won't have to worry about that. They'll they'll be able to come and pick them up. We're going to be there. We're going to be staff 24/7 since we're doing the boarding that's crate free. We'll have staff here at 24/7 so what is it to us to have an extra dog playing while, you know, mom and mom and dad are having dinner, or, you know, watching the kids play soccer. So it's different things that we can offer that not everybody that somebody's
Collin 48:57
listening to this and they're interested in maybe moving forward, in trying to do brick and mortar and expansion from that, from their business. What kind of advice would you give them as they start that?
Josie Noriega 49:12
Do your research. A lot of cities are hard to get the planning, the zoning for it. And I see so many people starting at home or starting in cities, and the panics that thin when it's like, oh my gosh, the zoning people came over, they're trying to shut us down. So make sure you do your research first. That is the biggest thing. I was lucky to find a location that had already been a daycare that had been closed for a year. So I was, you know, just coming in, I didn't have to do much to change this place, but other places that I looked at, just the zoning itself, was that was a beast. I did not want. Like to have. I see so many people they Oh, yeah, I do boarding in my home. It's like, careful, careful research, and, you know, and make sure that that you're ready for it, because it's not going to be, oh, I can walk in and, you know, my employees are gonna be handling everything, and I'll just come in about an hour a day and play with dogs. No, no, I practically live here now, and we're not even open yet, and I feel like I live here. I've been I've been here since 6am this morning, and what is it now? By 502, I'll probably have another hour before I can go home. Of stuff I need to do here, but, yeah, it takes over your life. It's a lot of work. Did I expect it to be this much? Yes, did I I mean, would I do it again? Like I said, I don't know yet. So Well, Steven, everything is up and running and everything is going, you know, hopefully splendidly, then I'll be like, Oh yeah, I'm looking for the next spot to open. But well,
Collin 51:05
Josie, again, your your enthusiasm is infectious. And I really love your your energy around this, and how you just view everything as another possibility and something to try and do, and just diving head first and then. And that's my I love hearing that from you, and it's a reminder me. I've got notes here, and if I don't get off this call soon, I'm going to be opening a daycare, because I'm going to say it's it was Josie fault. So for those, for those who are interested in following along with your journey, getting updates on how are things progressing, and getting in touch with you, Josie, how best
Josie Noriega 51:37
can they do that? All of us on Facebook, super dog, super pause, dog resort. And you know, our website, super, super pause, picture and super pause. Dog resort are both out there. If you look at the theme of our websites, they are, I have the best web designer in the world. They're both superhero themed. They're really, really cool looking, comic book kind of looking things. So that's really just follow us, you know, Google, Facebook, we're on Instagram, we're all over the place, so just give us a like. And I post a lot of reels on the dog resort. You know, this from what it looked like before to what it's starting to look like, to what's coming up, to what we're doing. So it's our journey. Is all, you know, videograph, video and all, all documented. Yeah,
Collin 52:31
no, it's cool to see the transformation and everything going into this. And I can't wait to see it up and running and in full, full operation with everything going on. So, Josie, this has been an immense pleasure, and I know you have so much on your plate, so I'm so thankful for you taking time to share today, and we'll have to do a follow up to see how everything is going soon. Once you get six months, we'll see how it's going. There you go. We'll set a date. So Josie, again. So thank you so much. This has been so much fun.
Josie Noriega 52:58
Thank you for having me.
Collin 53:01
You can't do it on your own. You need a network to support you, from mentors to business coaches, real estate agents and even your team members. Josie's discovery of the importance of having that community, of the importance of having a long term goal in mind, of just getting to know people, not really for any particular reason here and now, but we never know the kind of help that we're going to need in the future when we look to pivot, when we look to niche, when we look to change up our business, we don't really exactly know the resources we're going to need to do that. So build your support network wide and broad today, not only will it help you run a better business now, but will help set you up for success for future decisions that you don't even know you have to make. We want to thank today's sponsors time to pet and our friends at the National Association of Professional pet sitters for making the show possible. And we really want to thank you so much for listening. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and we'll be back again soon. You.
