All tagged hard

518: Pulling Your Punches

What does it mean to pull your punches in business? In this episode, we explore the concept of strategically holding back to ensure sustainable growth and long-term success. We discuss how pacing your expansion, marketing, and client onboarding can help maintain high service quality and prevent burnout. Learn how to set realistic client expectations, manage your resources wisely, and avoid the race to the bottom on pricing. Join us as we dive into strategies for balancing ambition with caution, adapting to challenges, and positioning your business for lasting success.

495: From Fired to Flourishing with Joette White

How are you navigating the challenges of business ownership? Joette White, owner of Park Cities Pet Sitter, shares her journey from being fired to successfully owning and growing a pet sitting business. She emphasizes the importance of staff management and trusting employees to foster growth. Joette highlights how personal growth and learning from failures have shaped her leadership style. She discusses adapting to challenges, especially during the pandemic, to strengthen the business foundation. Joette stresses the need for clear leadership and allowing space for staff to develop their strengths and confidence

471: Supporting Our Clients Through Anticipatory Grief with Erica Messer

What is anticipatory grief and how can we help our client through it? In the complex landscape of pet care, we face the delicate issue of anticipatory grief among pet owners—a pre-loss mourning filled with anxiety and sorrow. Erica Messer, founder of Wolfie’s Wish, discusses the critical need for pet care providers to offer support and practical resources to our clients. She advocates for early conversations about end-of-life decisions, emphasizing the importance of self-care for both owners and ourselves. She reminds us that in addressing anticipatory grief, our actions resonate more profoundly than words, fostering a supportive community for both pets and their owners.

470: Don’t Just Learn: DO!

What are you learning right now? Are you doing anything with it? We’re reflecting on the overwhelming abundance of information available to us, especially in running a pet care business. There is a crucial difference between endlessly acquiring knowledge and actually applying it to make tangible progress in our business. Something that is a hard balance to walk. We want to encourage you to prioritize action over consumption of new information!

454: Fighting Jealousy to Find Joy in Your Business

How do you overcome jealousy? As we step into the new year, it's an opportunity to embrace both new regulations and manage our emotions effectively. We begin by discussing the FinCEN and the U.S. Beneficial Ownership Information Registry, outlining what registration entails and its requirements. We then address a common yet powerful emotion: jealousy. We explore its triggers and potential impacts on your business. We then share four practical ways to start fighting jealousy so you can have more joy in your life.

453: No Matter What it Takes with Athena Karvellas

Where does your value come from? Athena Karvellas, owner of Pet Sitting by Athena, shares her journey from veterinary technician to pet sitter and business owner. She reflects on the emotional transition from dealing with pet trauma in a clinical setting to forming close, nurturing relationships in pet sitting. Athena's story is one of finding her true calling and the fulfillment that comes from directly impacting the lives of pets and their families. Athena walks through how she connects clients to her passion through her onboarding process and the partnerships she builds.

418: Putting in Hard Work

How does continually taking shortcuts in your business hurt you in the long run? While it may seem like a good idea to go after “tips and tricks” or “hacks” to overcome obstacles, you end up cheating yourself out of learning opportunities and confidence building. We break down several elements as to why tackling hard things is good for you, and how to know the difference between a hard task and a hardship in your life. 

389: Live Life Full and Happy with Morgan Weber

How do you delight your clients? To delight your clients, you must first find delight and joy in the services you’re offering. Morgan Weber, owner of Lucky Pups Adventure, joins the show to talk about how living a fulfilling life in the present is crucial rather than waiting for some future event to happen. She explains how taking the time to appreciate the little things in life and finding joy in even the most mundane tasks is essential. She discusses how to ensure customer satisfaction by finding delight in the services you offer. Then stresses the importance of treating every client with the utmost care and attention to detail, which can lead to word-of-mouth referrals and long-term client relationships. She also gives advice on how to grieve the loss of a client’s pet and how to work closely with a significant other in your business.

350: Appreciating Your Business

Do you appreciate your business? Many of us struggle to see the value our business brings to us, as we focus on the hardships and frustrations. Appreciating your business has to be a conscious effort every day and is influenced by many things. We break down what it means to be appreciative of your business, why it’s so hard, and what it means to stay content.