573: Building a Team That Empowers Your Business with Angela Watts
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How do you go from burnout to building a thriving pet care business? In this episode, Angela Watts of Pawsitive Dawg Walking shares her journey of navigating personal and professional challenges while scaling her business. She discusses the importance of building a strong management team, creating effective SOPs, and empowering employees to take ownership. Whether you’re starting out or scaling up, Angela’s insights will inspire you to streamline operations, support your team, and grow with purpose.
Main topics:
Building a supportive management team
Creating effective training programs
Developing and refining SOPs
Balancing personal and business challenges
Scaling sustainably with employee empowerment
Main takeaway: “Building a strong management team, empowering employees, and implementing clear SOPs are essential for scaling a pet care business sustainably while maintaining high-quality service.”
Scaling your pet care business isn’t just about working harder—it’s about creating the right foundation for growth. A strong management team, backed by clear and effective systems, allows your business to run smoothly even when you’re not there. By empowering your employees with the tools and support they need to succeed, you’ll foster a team that’s invested in your vision and your clients’ happiness. Growth doesn’t have to mean chaos—when you focus on the people and processes that matter most, you can scale sustainably while maintaining the high-quality care your clients and their pets deserve.
About our guest:
Angela Watts is the owner of Pawsitive Dawg Walking, a thriving pet care business based in Waltham, Massachusetts. With over a decade of experience in the pet care industry, Angela has built her company from the ground up, overcoming personal and professional challenges to create a business rooted in compassion, teamwork, and exceptional care. A former special education teacher, Angela brings her teaching expertise to the training and development of her team, ensuring consistent, high-quality service for her clients. Known for her innovative approach to management and her dedication to her community, Angela is passionate about empowering her team and setting a high standard for the pet care industry. When she’s not running her business, Angela enjoys spending time with her beloved dog, Okie, and mentoring other pet care professionals to help elevate the industry as a whole.
Links:
Email: pawsitivedawgwalking@gmail.com
https://www.pawsitivedawgwalking.com
https://www.facebook.com/PawsitiveDawgWalking/
https://www.instagram.com/pawsitivedawgwalking/
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
pet sitting, dog walking, business growth, management team, SOPs, employee training, client profiles, pandemic impact, mental health, independent contractors, team building, service area, on-demand scheduling, pet care industry, business scaling
SPEAKERS
Collin, Angela W.
Collin 00:00
Music, hello and welcome to pet sitter confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Today's sponsors are our friends at time to pet and pet perennials. How do you go from burnout to a thriving business? This week, we're joined by Angela watts, owner of positive dog walking, to share her journey navigating personal and professional challenges, all the while keeping in the goal of providing high quality pet care without sacrifice. To do this, she built a team had SOPs and built employees that had ownership over their tasks so that she could focus on the things that she wanted to let's get started.
Angela W. 00:41
Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. So I'm Angela. I'm the owner of positive dog walking and pet sitting in Waltham, Massachusetts. So we're a suburb, you know, just about 20 minutes outside of Boston. I've been doing this professionally since 2012 so a long time, and it event. It started off with just I was married at the time, and it was my husband and I, and it was just the two of us. So I did cat sitting and dog sitting on the weekends, school vacations, summer vacations, because I was a special ed teacher. And I was a special ed teacher for 15 years before doing this. And my husband, at the time, was the dog walker, and so at the time, it was just supposed to be me and him forever. We weren't going to hire employees, and we were just going to build this business just the two of us be a husband and wife team forever. Obviously, that didn't happen, and and things you know, didn't turn out the way they were supposed to, or the way we had originally planned. But in 2014 he ended up getting sick and couldn't work anymore, and but I was still teaching, and so we didn't want to give up the business, because we thought maybe he could go back to work at some point, and then I had to still teach, take care of him, run the business. And so at the time, I didn't want employees. I only, I only hired independent contractors, and I wanted people who had their own business, because I couldn't provide training. Because obviously that wasn't how you, you know, with independent contractors, you can't provide the training. So that's exactly what I needed. I needed somebody just to help out interim until I could, you know, get into the business full time. And I ended up taking a leave of absence in 2015 and was like, You know what I did well over the summer, let's see if we can make this full time. We moved back in with my parents, and I loved it. I loved every single second of it. It totally helped my mental health, because I was stressing taking care of him, you know, trying to manage the business, trying to figure out how to even deal with hiring employees at this point, you know, it was a lot like brand new, not having any income going from, you know, having a steady income, having health insurance, having a paycheck every week, to being like, Oh, I only have two dog walks Today. Like I have no money coming in, you know. So that was, that was a struggle. That was definitely a struggle for a couple years for us, but, and he ended up not being able to work for a while, and then we ended up, you know, getting divorced. But so that was tough. And then the pandemic happened, right? And so, you know, we're just trying to get the business running. The pandemic happens. And then we lost 90% of our business because Massachusetts was very we were shut down. We were shut down probably for almost, like, a year and a half. You know, I didn't start picking our business back up until 2022 pretty much. And so from 2022 to now I we grew from having 10 employees, and we now have 32 so it's been quite a journey, you know, between everything that's happened with, you know, my, my, my ex husband, the business and, you know, just the pandemic and and everything, and I, I have my team to like, I'm forever grateful for all of them to like, help me through everything and like, really build the business to like where it is right now. Because without them, like, I never would have been able to pull through. Because there was, at one point, I was contacting all my local pet sitters to be like, Can I join your company? Can we merge? Like, I don't think I want to do this anymore, you know, like I I almost gave up at one point. So yeah, and here I am, yeah, oh,
Collin 04:54
you know, it's just hearing that Angela. It's a reminder of just how. So often, like, even I forget how closely, like, my personal life interacts with the business. Like, I like to imagine a lot of times, like, No, my business sits over here, nice and neat, and there it is. And then I have a personal life over here, but that there's just this awfully messy middle where every they all impact one another, you know. And to hear how going into going into it, it was like, man, it helped your mental health. You're able to focus on other things when you went full time into the business, and then you had to pull back out of that too. And now growing your team through the pandemic, and knowing that, like, there how connected each one of those are, and it does take, like, we've got, to find ways to manage that. How, where did you go for for help during those times? Oh
Angela W. 05:45
my gosh, everywhere. Like, I definitely went to therapy, like I had to, you know, between, between, like, going through my divorce, my separation, divorce, and all of that too. And my friends, I leaned in on, I leaned on my friends. I didn't even know the pet sitting forums existed, either. And like, I think when I was thinking about quitting in like, 2021 2022 i That's when I found all the forums and and building community, I think, with people who not only are like me, but also have been through a lot of things was was super helpful. And, and just finding people that not only like, like my friends were always there to, like, listen to me, but a lot of people don't understand the business aspect of of everything and and sometimes your business completely takes over your entire life, you know, and a lot of people don't understand that. And so finding other business owners, not just other business owners, like in the restaurant field or, you know, but in the pet space, because that's a whole different mindset, and because we're 24/7 365, you know, like we don't shut down on the weekends. We don't shut down after five o'clock and and so finding people that really understood that, and networking with them and and just touching base, like I haven't been to any of the pet sitting conferences yet, just because of my dog and her health issues and things like that, but at some point, I think once I'm able to travel and meet other people in person, that's going to be a game changer for me. But just the community online has been huge.
Collin 07:38
It really does give you such a foundation to know that there are other people who out there who get it right. And like you said, going to friends is fine, but when you own your own business, it's like, Nope, it's it's 24/7 365, days a year, not a day off. And there's things that I have to worry about that they don't understand, right? I can't just check this at the door. I can't just leave it behind and pick it back up on Monday. Like, that's not how any of this works. And to have somebody come alongside you, the biggest thing is, sometimes we don't even need that solution. We just need to somebody to, like, put, put their arm around us and go, Yeah, I get it. It is hard. And you're like, Oh, thank goodness. Okay, I'm not the only one. Oh, no, exactly
Angela W. 08:21
No. It's, it's definitely, it's an isolating career, you know, or it can be, it can be, I don't feel isolated anymore so
Collin 08:33
well. So you, you came back out of, out of COVID, and you, you know, you were opening up there, and you talked about that growth that you've had since then. What was it that spurred that growth and that renewed interest in your business?
Angela W. 08:53
Probably having one of my employees that was that was with us for a few years, he would always leave in the summer to do another job. And so I was looking to build out a management team. Because I was like, I if I'm going to make this long term, I cannot keep going at this level. I was working six to seven months straight without a day off, like it was just insane. And I was like, if I want to make this happen, I need to figure out ways that I can take time off. And in order to do that, I need to find some management. But I wasn't at a space that I had enough money to support an admin person, so I couldn't just hire somebody outside. I had to hire somebody from within and
09:47
but also,
Angela W. 09:49
you know, they had to be within our business for a couple years to know how things are run already, because I tried to hire people that had managerial experience. Who wanted to get into the pet care world as maybe like a stepping stone to, like, eventually become an admin it just never worked out. And so when he saw me advertising for people as like a stepping stone to a management position, he was like, You know what? What? What would what would you think if, if I became a manager, or, like, if, would you consider putting me in that role? And I was like, Oh, would you consider being with us full time, like, you know, and not leaving in the summer? And so we talked about it, and he was like, You know what, I want to do this. I believe in you. And he loved this job. So I was like, let's do it. And that was the cornerstone of really changing the business. And that was fall, I think, of 2022 and so he had been with me 2016 I think he came in. So he had been with me already, like six years at that point. And he was very experienced. He knows the animals so well and and he knew how to how to take care of them, and so that's how we started. Is, is building out SOPs based on things that he already did, you know? So he would write them all down. I would edit them, and then I slowly started teaching him how to do some of the scheduling or some of the messaging, and I would model for him like I would do a screen share, or I would do a video, and then I would have him take the video and write an SOP for it, and putting it into his own words. And so we did this over and over and over for all of our different processes, and then we were at a point that we're like, Okay, now, you know, we keep hiring all these people. Let's hire another manager, and we'll put her to the test with these SOPs. And so we would have her read these SOPs, watch the videos, and gradually start teaching her the skills. And then once we had both of them on, like our management team, we all put our heads together and and figured out, like, what are the areas that we really need to focus on? And it was like, we do a great job training, but we really needed to hone in on our training program. We really needed to hone in on our hiring process. So that's what we worked on. And, you know, really figuring out the systems, and who did we want to hire and and once we had those solid systems in place, and yes, they change all the time. And you know, every document that we create is evergreen, and it's on Google Docs, and we can constantly keep changing it, but it just kept getting easier and easier and easier. And then we were able to hire a team lead person who, you know, wasn't full time, but they worked a couple hours to help us with some of the easier admin work. And, you know. And then we hired another one, and, like, we slowly just kept building out our management team. And once I had that, then we were able to, like, really start hiring and training people faster and and it, it really just snowballed. But we were always at the point that, like, we couldn't keep up with the demand of the clients like I have, like, you know, use time to pet right? Yeah. So we have clients that go onto our website. They clip, check availability, and it creates an account for them. And right now we have 94 people on that list that are on a wait list, you know. And it's, it's, we just, we don't have, we can't hire fast enough for the demand, and not all those clients will still want to be use us, you know what I mean, but at least they're there. We can follow through with them and things like that. But we've always been at a place that, like, we can't keep up with the demand, so I want to, like, really focus on, like, let's hire quality people so that we can keep up with the demand so and that's why I joined Michelle's mastermind to kind of hopefully help me figure that out with hiring and things like that.
Collin 14:11
I love hearing your process of how you built out your SOPs, and it's not a method that I had actually heard of before, of having you shoot the videos and then having your team write the SOPs that go along with it. I think this is fantastic because, like, I get in my head so often when I'm writing it and I'm shooting a video and I'm also writing the SOP, and what happens is I shortcut all of the little steps, all of the little assumptions that I have in my background, information that I bring into this process, someone who's watching it, who may have some familiarity, but not, like, the deep, intimate details or history that I have with something, it's basically externalizing. And what a great check to go. Wait, wait, wait, what did you do there? Or, like, why did you do this? I'm sure that that would just really help be make those as robust as possible, because so. Often I write something and I forget that someone else is going to be reading it right, and then I then somebody else reads it, and it doesn't make any sense, and I'm like, Oh, well, that that was not that was kind of wasted. So I love that you, you worked with your team right to develop that and to have them come around you, you know, and say, I believe in you. I believe in this company. I want to help this like, what a what an amazing opportunity, an amazing thing to go, okay, yeah, I this is possible with this help and yet another reminder of getting good people around us to to have that and to encourage us and then rely on their skills, because I'm sure they were doing things that you were like, I don't want to do that at all. Or, or they were really good at it. And you're like, thank goodness someone finally is
Angela W. 15:47
no we right now, I have the dream team, like, between our management team and between our pet care, you know, like our cat sitters, our dog sitters, our pet sitters, they are amazing, and our management team all has different strengths, so that when you put put us together, we're, like, unstoppable. Like, one is very analytical, one is very detail oriented, one is very creative, one is very communicative. And like, I'm just the big picture person, you know? And like, the the person that kind of, like, I have this vision, but I don't know how to get there. And between all five of us, it's like, we can really, like, figure out anything like, give us a problem, and we can figure it out, you know, it's, it's actually, really, and we're in a good space right now. So I'm so, so happy. Did
Collin 16:38
you struggle with stepping out of those roles one at a time, or were you giving them up, like, willingly and couldn't get away from them fast
Speaker 1 16:46
enough? No, it was a struggle. It because this is my baby, right? Like I
Angela W. 16:52
we've I built it from the beginning. It's had its bumps. Like, I mean, it's, it's, um, and I felt like if I gave up control, then I would not be as involved in my business as I wanted to be, and I wanted to keep the connection with my team, I wanted to keep the connection with my clients, and I didn't want to lose that, and that's what I was afraid of. But once I got over that fear, and I was like, No, this is going to help me to keep my relationship and and free up some of my mind space so that I have the bandwidth to, like, deal with things and problem solve and, and, you know, creatively think. Then I was like, Okay, I'm I'm gonna, like, get, get over my control issues and just let people, like, do their thing and shine. And I'm so glad
Collin 17:48
that I did. You really do feel that that literal weight lifted off of your shoulders and your chest, and it's like, you know, you mentioned, like, bandwidth. It's like, yeah, I get just a little bit more breathing space, and I can just just, you know, that easy exhale and stuff always just going, like, you know, constantly freaked out and stressed out and worried to have help there to go, you know, you are taking this on. So I can breathe a little bit easier and focus on this other stuff. Like, it really helps you use that word earlier, like snowballed, like you see that process of as you bring on people, as you bring on a good team, they're helping you do more. You're scaling through that as they're taking on more initiatives that are now working outside of what you could possibly ever do alone, meaning you just get a lot of a lot more places faster than as a business. Yeah,
Angela W. 18:39
yeah. That's exactly what once I got out of my own way, you know, that's when things started going and, I mean, granted, I was probably in a bad mental state too, with my divorce and the pandemic and and all of that. But my business is what really helped me get through everything. You know, I had, I had something to like, really focus in on and, you know, just surrounding myself with with like minded people who had the same vision and mission as me and we just wanted to grow our business like it really, really helped. Have
Collin 19:14
you heard of time to pet? Dan from NYC, pooch has this to say,
Speaker 2 19:18
time to bet, has been a total game changer for us. It helped us streamline many aspects of our operation, from scheduling and communication to billing and customer management. We actually tested other pet sitting softwares in the past, but these other solutions were clunky and riddled with problems. Everything in time to pet has been so well thought out, it's intuitive, feature rich, and it's always improving. If you're
Collin 19:39
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 tied to pet.com/confessional well, so you mentioned managers a couple times. What is your structure like then? Kind of what have you built out to support what your vision is?
Angela W. 19:58
So if you. Think about a management system. I guess I would probably be the still the general manager, right? And then I have a regular manager who, kind of, I would say, deals with basically everything I do, but not like, still doesn't submit payroll or do the financial piece, but she knows how to do everything. And then eventually, like, I'll teach her how to do payroll. And then we have an assistant manager who focuses on the HR stuff. So he'll do the time sheets. He'll, you know, keep track of the new hires, like, we have a new hire tracker, like, so he will look at and like, monitor what they're doing for their training to make sure they're completing everything in order. And then we have an assistant or a team lead who focuses on, like, marketing and pet sitting and updating profiles. And then another team lead that focuses in on communicating with the clients and kind of communicating with our team and building some team community. We just started with a community board, you know, because I feel like that was part that was missing from our team is, is we're so isolated in terms of like we don't see each other all that often, and how can we pull together as a team? So that's her job right now, but everybody has been trained to do everything. So we cross train on how to read messages, how to respond to clients, how to do some scheduling, how to tag messages, so that I'm basically only reading one or two messages a day. Now you know that I have to follow up with instead of reading hundreds, um, we have like a discussion board that, you know, we keep track of everything, um, but the reason we cross train everybody to do everything and then eventually specialize in certain areas is so if anybody decides to leave for whatever reason, I don't have to panic and be like, Oh no. Now we don't have anybody that knows how to do this. Everybody can just step up and fill in, and then we can train a new person following our SOPs, you know. So that was my, my mindset of of making sure we train everybody on how to do everything. And then I could also see, like, what are our strengths? You know, like one person numbers is really is their strength. So that's why that person's working on time sheets and analyzing those kind of things. And then somebody else's strengths is communication. So that's why they're focusing on the communication with the clients and the team members, and then the other person's strengths is, is marketing. So they're creating all of our social media content and and things like that. But it took a while to figure out who was good at what and and things like that. So that
Collin 22:57
is a an eternal problem of going who's good at what? And it takes us being intentional, present, listening attentive. We have to be planning and getting to know the actual person. And I think that's where a lot of this falls down with with people as they go, Well, I just need somebody to get in there and work and do the work. But if we're not attentive to how they're working, what they're struggling with, what they're exceedingly well at, like that stuff we go when we get to the point where we need extra help, we don't know where to turn right, and that's where we get really frustrated. And it's just because we don't know our employees. We don't know the people around us. And so how, how did you go about that? Were you just watching intently? Did you do surveys, or, what was that process? Like? No,
Angela W. 23:42
it was mostly watching. So, like, I, you know, we created the SOPs, and I would have them do it, and either they would screen share things with me and I would watch them do it, or I would have them do a video and then share it to me so I could watch or I just watched them from behind the scene, like, how, how long are they taking to do this particular project? And in the beginning, of course, it's going to take them longer because they're learning how to do the skill. But are they getting faster? You know if, if something took them two hours the first time, and they're continually doing it for two hours, but I know it only takes me a half hour. If they're not going to get down to a half hour in a certain amount of time, then I know that they're struggling with something. So then I'll follow up and and ask them, like giving them feedback, you know what? What kind of things are they struggling with? Or can I did I not show them how to do it properly? Or can I do some retraining and things like that? So
Collin 24:38
it takes a lot of patience, right? Because just as you're what like watching somebody through screen sharing, I would have to, I don't know, I'd have to be on mute with no camera, and my sitting on my hands, so that I would just be patient enough to let them do it. Because if, if I, if you jump in, you're not letting them learn that process, right? That's that takes a point where we as the owner. In the trainer in that aspect, have to go, just let them work it out, because then, then I'll have a better picture of what I'm working with and how to help them. If I jump in every time the moment, they're like, oh, where was that button? Or, man, what was that report? And I'm gonna go, Oh, it's right over there. And it's gotta, you do the report thing. It's like that that doesn't help them in the long run, if I'm trying to see where their strengths are, and I that's that's hard, that's at least for me and my person, my personality,
Angela W. 25:29
it is super hard. But I think as a I have the background of a teacher, right? And so being a facilitator, and you know, you're teaching how to do things and and, and doing so we follow the Gradual Release of responsibilities. So I do, we, do, you do, and so that really helps. And we do that in our training model too. And since we've been implementing that, that I think was the hardest part, is training our managers how to train our staff. And once we were able to figure that out, that's been the whole like, oh, wow, we can get these people up and running now a little bit quicker than we were before, because we have a concrete program and how we do our training and, and, and that's how I do it with our managers too. So
Collin 26:21
I, I need that on a t shirt or something. I just, I that's that that really puts into context, like, what a wonderful and beautiful way to help somebody move through information and get to a point that you want, like, you do have to know an end point of what are, what's the goal that you will be doing eventually on your own? And it's interesting that you know, when you started talking about bringing people on you, you specifically went to ICS because you knew you didn't have the time or capacity to train them for helping your business. How was it developing those training protocols to get to a point where you were confident to go now, I'm ready.
Angela W. 27:05
It took a while, and I'm we're constantly keeping it's changing after, changing after, because everybody's different, you know. So like, you think you have it right the first time, and then you have a new hire, and then something happens. You're like, Oh no, I didn't now, I gotta redo this part, you know. So that's what's great about our business, is like it's so nothing is ever the same, and everything is constantly changing based on what we've learned. And it took a lot of time. I can't even imagine how many hours we put into coming up with our training program and just redoing it over and over and over again. Um, it's gotta be well over 200 hours, you know, from start to finish. I mean, yeah, what
Collin 27:54
is, what is the mix? Because I know that, you know, a lot of people like to do, like, all online, little bit of shadowing by themselves, or like mostly shadowing. How have you fallen out in that that balance between training methodologies,
Angela W. 28:09
our training is very thorough, and most people will say it's too much, but it's it's working. It's definitely working for our team. So when they, when we, when they first come on, they do about three hours of onboarding, and that's done at their home, and then some of it's done, you know, with me through zoom. And then they do, a cat sitter, probably will do about five hours of online training, and then a dog sitter, dog walker, will probably do, I'd say, about eight hours of online training, and this is all before they do shadowing. And so we use Fetch find. We have some of our own curriculum too. But the reason we do the on the fetch, find in the online stuff before they're Shadowing is it teaches them how to use the app. And a lot of people, that's what stumbles them in the beginning. And so we want them to focus in on using the app. Like, are you able to start and stop your timer on time? Are you able to read the Event Notes? Because we'll put, you know, what they're supposed to be working on in the Event Notes. Are they following those directions to a T you know, they're very detailed. Are they skipping things are how many questions are they asking throughout this training? Because it really should be straightforward, like we have developed it so that it really should be minimal questions during their onboarding process. So if there's a lot of questions with that part, we know that they may not be a good fit, you know, and so, so the first day, as long as they go through the onboarding process. Success with me. Then they move on to the fetch find, and then we have them do certain certain sections. And once, it's depending on their schedule, but they generally can get through the fetch find, you know, in about three or four days. And then once they're at that point, we're like, okay, they seem to have got this down. Let's start our shadowing, and then they'll shadow for five visits first. So their first day is is five shadows. This will give us time to figure out, like, Alright, how are they doing with just following us like they're all they're doing is observing, and we're teaching them how to access homes, how to enter the home safely, how to interact with the pets, like safe greetings and things like that. And there are some people that won't even make it through that day, because we can see right away that they're not going to be a good bit because they're not following directions, or they're really struggling with the app, or just the driving between visits to visits, you know, because that's a lot for some people, the driving and just concentrating on what needs to happen on the visit and then driving. And so we've had a couple of people leave on their first day too, because they're like, this is just not what I thought it was going to be. And then if they make it through that day, then we have them go through the rest of their shadowing. So our cat sitters, they shadow another 10 visits. Our dog walkers shadow another 25 visits. And then our pet sitters, who work with both cats and dogs will shadow another 30 visits before they're on their own. And then that's just with our management team. And then the next couple of weeks, it takes us time to build up their clientele, you know, like who like we build up their schedules and who like, where they're going to go and things like that. During that time, they meet the rest of our team, and they'll shadow other people and meet other dogs and other cats, and, you know, hopefully learn some different tricks of the trade and and, you know, obviously we have some standards that they have to follow, but everybody does things a little bit differently, like how They hold their poop bags or where they you know those little things. You know how they organize their cars. And so they'll learn other tricks in the trade through them. But and then we have them part of a mentor program for an entire year. So we check in with them at least once a week, once a month, every other month and then, and then yearly, and then as needed too. But it's, it's a very thorough program, and then by the time they graduate out of it, they're ready, they're comfortable. And knock on wood, we haven't had any workers comp claims in a couple years and zero liability claims in 11 years. So,
Collin 33:03
yeah, one of those were it, yeah, you people who go, you do what you do, how many hours of training? Oh my gosh. It's just, you know, quote, unquote, whatever it is, and going, Yeah, well, as the business owner, and as somebody who has so many years experience in this, you know, coming up on what with four, you know, 1213, years of experience in this going, No, you have no idea what I can encounter. I've got to be ready for things. I have to train people. It's for their safety, for the pets safety. And I love how you have this set up with the the online, and then moving into the in person, because I know we struggled. Initially. We didn't have it separated. And we felt like when you were in person, you were having to cover so much ground. It made the visits miserable, because it was like, I have to cover the theory and show you practically how to implement this and doing those at the same time. It's not good
Speaker 1 34:02
like that too. It was too much. Yeah, and people just
Collin 34:06
they, they, you can't absorb as much information as I can spew out in 30 minutes, right? Like, I'm really good at talking and talking fast. It that's not a good way to listen standing in a stranger's home with a dog that's barking or a cat that's hissing, as you and me being like, well, also don't forget that. The reason we do it's like, like, just break it up and give people that space to absorb and then apply it.
Angela W. 34:31
And I think the videos help give them the background knowledge, right? So then they can listen to it. They can put the like, however their learning style is, like, they can put the subtitles on if they need to, you know. So, like, they can absorb the material multiple ways. And then we have a training manual. Like our training manuals, like, probably, I don't even know, at this point, maybe 150 pages long, you know. So they also go through that. And so, like, that is written. Material too. So they're learning it multiple ways before they see it, and then they're doing it. They're hands on, you know. So hopefully by the time they get to the shadowing at the end, they've encountered the same thing multiple times, multiple ways, so it it kind of sinks in.
Collin 35:18
Yeah, yeah. You're trying to cover as many bases that to prevent the first time they've seen something without you there. And that's that transition from I'm here, I'm here to help. I'm here to guide you through your first time on XYZ and ABC. Eventually, there's going to come a time where they're going to encounter something for the first time, and no one's going to be there. Are they ready? Do they have the background? Do they have the confidence? Do they have the community and support to get them through that? Because that's what we've seen a lot of people fall out on, is once they kind of go out on their own and they encounter all of those new first times that can be overwhelming for a lot of people, and to try and extend that and build that confidence, to get them to that point where they can take those on, it is a lengthy process, and it is necessary too.
Angela W. 36:13
And I think what's great for them is we use something called Open phone our management team, and so we have one number that our our employees can text or call, but all of our managers are on there, so no matter what, even though they are on their own, somebody is always available in case something happens or in case they have a question. And we've done such a great job over the last year between our team members telling us things that need to be updated, our managers going through things. The Profiles are so up to date that no matter what, the most of the questions are always answered in the profile, you know? So that's that's been helping out a lot, too,
Collin 36:58
that that front end work right where you go. I'm going to take a few extra minutes on this profile to really outline the procedure or to point out this thing, make sure the wording is exactly the way it needs to be, because, again, I'm not the one doing this visit. It could be 234, people removed by the time that this is actually being implemented. And does that make sense? Is it clear so that I'm not making anybody panic when they're in the field.
Angela W. 37:24
And what makes sense to one person, to somebody else, to somebody else, to the fourth person, it doesn't make sense. So I love when they're like, wait, what does this mean? And I'm like, oh, that could be worded a little bit differently. How would that? What can we do to make that sound better to make it, you know, make sense. And then they give us their input and like, Oh yeah, that makes sense. So we're constantly updating profiles and putting that work up front with their help too. Like it makes them feel like they're part of the process.
Collin 37:57
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Angela W. 39:05
the client inputs it all up front. Like, so when they on, when they before we do a meet and greet, we have them fill out not even their profile. Like, I give them questionnaires like, like a list of questions, and I copy and paste it into this blank section called the pet care notes. And there's like, home entry, you know, mail, feeding, temperament gear, like litter box stuff, like, basically everything we need to know is in that one section with a bunch of questions that they need to answer. And then my our one of our managers, we have two that will update profiles. They take that information and then plug it into the appropriate places of the profile before the meet and greet. So then when I go to the meet and greet, I vary. There may be some things that like are kind of they don't make sense to me. So then I'll clarify it at the meet and greet or. Uh, something else was mentioned about the temperament that they didn't, you know, mention, or I noticed something about the temperament that was different than what was in they they wrote down. So then I'll update it after the meet and greet. Then we go in and do our first visit. Our manager will do the first visit to see how the animal is without meeting somebody. And then they'll update the profile after that visit, you know? So it's constantly being refined based on what we see. And sometimes what we do is, when we are at the visit, we'll make a note in our visit note, be like, Oh, we noticed this, so we'll update the profile. So then our team leads, that's their cue. When they're reading messages, they mark the message as profile update needed. So then later in the day, we look at the person doing the profile updates, we'll look at the those particular messages, and they'll just focus in on that task and start updating profiles. And then our other manager will look at it and make sure it makes sense what they did. And if that doesn't make sense, then they fix it, clear it out, so it's profile update needed, and then once they do it, they tag it, profile update review. And then once the other manager looks at it, it's profile update approved, and then we know it's been done.
Collin 41:16
I love that so much, because something that I know we've struggled with is trying, is trying to figure out a way to capture that, that level of institutional knowledge that the business has, and how to keep that in a succinct manner, and because we want to ensure that that high quality continuity of care from one person to the next, and that no one person is the linchpin to the keeper of all knowledge for this pet, no matter how long they've been with us. And just like you've kind of set up your your management team, it sounds like that's how you're setting up your your other team that are out doing visits of here, you know you may learn something about this pet, this cat, this dog, this parakeet, whatever. We need to get that out of your brain and into the software so that if you're not here tomorrow, anyone else can just walk in and having done that full review, understand what's going on. And that kind of information capture is really critical to that success, that successful handing off of the baton, so to speak.
Angela W. 42:17
And we have our pet sitters are fantastic. They'll come in and be like, Oh, in your profile, I noticed that the food was supposed to be on the counter, but it was in a bin this time. Is that going to be where it's always is? If so, we'll update your profile. So then, you know, the pet sitters are noticing these things. So then we can, we can follow up with the owners, if they don't get back to us, and then update the profile and say one of the possible places for the food is in this bin.
Collin 42:47
It sounds like you're again, you're empowering your team to do that and have that. And I think that that's also really critical, because if, if Angela was just in charge of managing all of the notes and making sure that they were all up to date by like, that's not gonna happen. So going like, hey, team like, you're critical to making sure this is up to date. If you notice something, ask the client to double check. And that's okay. The we hope the clients are going to want to know that we have the right information and clarify. Asking for clarification is never a bad thing. But sometimes it can be if staff members aren't empowered to do that, they may feel out of line to do that or not know where that boundary is so clearly defining. No part of you, being a cat sitter, a dog walker, a pet sitter, for me, is going to the client and asking for clarification like that just really helps that entire process from the ground up.
Angela W. 43:43
Yeah, because if I don't know, I could never run this business without them, like it's it, thinking about everything that everybody does, it's completely overwhelming. So yeah, I don't, I couldn't imagine doing this solo again.
Collin 44:00
When you hire new people, do you hire for specific areas? Or are you saying, No, you have to service our entire service radius or area. How does, how does that process work?
Angela W. 44:11
Um, they have to service our entire service area. So like, which is a five mile radius from my house. So it's not love it? No, it's not big. It's not big at all, but we are expanding out to be, like seven miles out in one direction, into this one one area, because it's a huge area that has like 13 or 14, maybe even 15 villages, and we only provide services in like 14 of the, I mean, four of those villages right now, but we just keep getting inquiries for this, this city, and so I'm like, alright, well, I have three cat sitters, or three pet sitters, or, you know, two dog walkers in this area. So maybe it's time we start expanding, you know. So nobody at this. Point is driving more than like five to six miles in between each visit. But generally it's like a mile to two miles in between each visit, like we try the dog walkers are easier to, you know, group walks based on location. But you know, when your dog sitting or cat sitting, it's it is what it is sometimes, you know, and but we reimburse our team mileage the the standard IRS rate, so it's fine. And, you know, most people are, are fine driving, but that's, that's part of, like, the interview process, right? We really iron that out and, like, communicate that. And that's why we do such intense training, because we want them to see what a typical date could look like. You know, with all of that,
Collin 45:49
yeah, I know with the pet sitting, it's kind of, yeah, I can't, I can't force everybody in the same neighborhood to go on vacation at the same time, right? But I can kind of group my dog walks and so, yeah, with the pet sitting, you do find that just kind of statistically, you do end up kind of driving across your entire service area every day, just because of how that works. You know, the law of large numbers and so going that. That's another reason why to be so careful with that service area and to treat that like a hard cutoff, because it just takes one mile, two mile extras, and all of a sudden it's, it's chaos with Drive times and with your profits, because you're happy you are paying for that, right? Like that's that all has to go into account. Well,
Angela W. 46:33
around here, sometimes one mile can be 20 minutes, 25 minutes, yeah, so it can, it can take, take a while,
46:42
yeah,
Collin 46:44
but you're also, I think you're also an on demand service. How do you make that work with your team?
Angela W. 46:52
So when we hire, we hire for time blocks. So people will will work between seven they'll be available between seven and 10 in the morning. And so they may or may not have visits, and that's set right away in in our first interaction, like this is an on demand company. You may or may not have work this. We do not guarantee income. We do not guarantee ours. There is room for growth. So at some point, like, if you've been with us, you know, over a year, there is room for, you know, more hours, more you know, admin work for the right people. And so we hire for the time blocks. So there are people that work from, you know, seven in the morning, or available from seven in the morning to 10 in the morning, and then people that are available from 10 to two, or, you know, 11 to two or 12 to three things like that, basically over staffing, right? And so we have more than enough staff to cover what we need. And so the 10 to two is our most popular time frame. So we try to hire that is our hardest thing to hire for, unfortunately, but we try to hire as many staff as we can during that period, and so having the profiles updated, having lock boxes or coated doors, that is what makes it easy for us, so I don't over schedule anybody like I leave enough room in everybody's schedule so that we can each take on, you know, an extra one to four visits if we needed, you know, our full time, people can take up to an extra four visits, but our part time, people maybe can only take up one extra visit, but if I spread it out between somebody calls out sick and they had six visits. I can spread those six visits out between, you know, the six people, and then I still have room for people clients that need a visit last minute. Generally, people that request last minute services, they're requesting them at night, time between like eight and 10, and at night, every once in a while, they may request it in the morning, for like, later in the day, but we don't usually get something that needs service within like, an hour or two, you know, like, so it's fine we have the availability if, if they need it, but generally they give us enough notice, you Know, Like six hours or so,
Collin 49:21
yeah, well, and having that flexibility, I think that's where, really, where that superpower is with how you schedule each employee of not overburdening them, right? Like 80% full is full because you need that flexibility. And, man, it can be so tempting to just fill that all every time, right? And going, but if I do that, I have no flexibility later, and when things go wrong, because they will go wrong, right? When they go wrong, I'll be kicking myself for not leaving that open. Yeah,
Angela W. 49:52
and the goal is for me to never be pulled into the field, and so I don't want to be pulled in the field, so if I leave. Everybody at 80% then we're always going to have availability. But if I fill everybody, then there's, then that's, that's kind of where I'm I'm at, like, if everybody's at 80% right now, then I need to hire two more people. So if I need to hire one person, I need to hire two. If I need to hire two, I need to hire four, you know? So that's kind of the way we look at it, yeah, if I know somebody's leaving, then I'm going to try to hire two people. And
Collin 50:24
is that just because, again, like for how you schedule or statistically, are you just trying to hedge your bets and hope that okay with one of the leaves I'm still not caught without? Are you just planning on the schedule is going to get filled up
50:36
pretty quick both? Yeah,
50:39
I should have seen that coming out. Yeah,
Angela W. 50:41
definitely both. But, you know, I'm always trying to plan ahead, like, so I'm always hiring. We're always trying to hire, like, one or two people a month and with and the thing is, is it's hard to find people that are like, Well, what do you mean? I'm not going to get hours or not work. Well, if you need the money, this is not the job for you. Like, this is meant to be supplemental income. I say it's their coffee money, or spending money, you know, or going out to eat money. It's not to pay your rent or mortgage, if, if this money is needed to pay those, those required bills. This is not the position for you, yeah, and,
Collin 51:17
you know, we, we try and screen for that in a polite manner, you know, like, Hey, tell us about your current situation, be as detailed as possible. And you're right. You know, people respond with, well, I'm looking to get my first apartment, so I'm needing to get a job to make sure that I can pay my living expenses. And it's like, we need to have a conversation like, maybe once you get another more predictable income for and then maybe reach out like this, but this this because then you get a lot of expectations. People get frustrated. They carry tension and anxiety, and I we just, we just can't have that, right? That's not what we want to be bringing into our clients. Although, you know, our goal is to always fill people's schedules as much as we can. We don't want to just have a bunch of people who are on the payroll and we're giving zero hours to we want to be able to provide that work and have them engage in something that they love. But sometimes it just can't happen. And we do have to have people who are okay with
52:15
that. Yep, no,
Angela W. 52:16
exactly. And that seems to be working out for us and how we can grow in scale. And then we find out there are really some rock star people. And then that's when we have the conversation like, Hey, are you willing to pick up some more hours? Do you want to be available for more hours, other than 10 to two? What about nine to three? Like, we start that conversation, you know. And and then we we figure out like, well, what are the criterias for a promotion, you know? What do you have to do, you know? So, right,
Collin 52:48
yeah. I mean, it's, I love your story, Angela, you know, because you know, hearing how you went from contacting other people in your area saying, Could we merge? Can we do this? I need a burnout, and then hearing now where you're, you know, full steam ahead, invested rock star team going on like, what? What do you what changed for you in that process to get you to where you are now,
Angela W. 53:20
just letting go, um, you know, my management team, I have a, I have a supportive partner now, you know, um, and, and just having the mindset of, like, it's going to be okay, like, no matter what I'm I'm supported, I'm going to be okay, I'm going to fall, I'm going to fail, and that's okay. Like, I'm going to learn in the process, and as long as everybody is happy, healthy, safe, pets, clients, my team myself, like, that's all that matters to me. So, you know, like, I I feel like we do have the best job in the world, so, like, if we can, like, create those careers, and that's, that's kind of what's keeping me going, like, I want to create a business that, like, other people can feel the passion that I feel for the animals and doing what I do, you know, like, whether I've had a couple people on our team, and I've, I've mentored them to open their own business, you know, like, and that's okay, like, they're, they're not in my service area, you know. And so I don't, I don't view people as competition, like they're my colleagues. Like, I want to, I want to, like, really up level our industry, and we are new. We're only what, 30 years our industry is only 30 years old, so, like, really trying to make this like, this is a career for people. You know, it's not just, I mean, you're walking my dog, you know, or you're just taking care of my cat, like, like we are. We're doing something
Collin 54:58
here. So. I Angela, thank you so much for coming on the show today and sharing your journey, and in being able to hear your passion, your enthusiasm, the love that you have for your business and the people that you work with. It's really inspiring. And I'm really thankful for your time today. For those who want to get in touch with you, follow along with all your cool stuff. How can they do that?
Angela W. 55:21
So we're all on socials. At positive dog walking, they can find us there on on Facebook and Instagram, email would be info, and then it's at positive dog walking com. But positive is P, A, W, and then dog is D, A, W, G,
Collin 55:36
that got me the first time I
Speaker 3 55:38
gave the dog, it got me. And I was like, Wait a minute. So yes, D, A, W, I will make sure.
Collin 55:45
I'll make sure those are all links in the show notes and on the website, so people can get connect with you and follow along. Angela, this has been an immense joy and pleasure. I'm so thankful for having you on so thank you for thank you so
Angela W. 55:57
much. Well, thank you for having me. We'll take care.
Collin 55:59
One of my biggest takeaways from my conversation with Angela was around the importance of having structure in scaling. Angela said building a strong management team, empowering employees and implementing clear SOPs are essential for scaling pet care businesses sustainably while maintaining high quality service, even if we personally never want to bring on team members, having things in place, written down and processes fully understood, allows us to scale easier. Taking on one client, taking on five clients, taking on 10 clients, having processes for all of that, and implementing it without sacrificing quality, means that we have to have all of our ducks in a row again, whether we have team members or we are by ourselves, having things outlined clearly, not just for people to know about, but so that we can follow them and be predictable in our actions, allows us to have a business that thrives without as much headache we want to thank today's sponsors, our friends at tying to pet and pet perennials, for making this show possible. And we really want to thank you so much for listening today. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and we'll be back again soon. You
