Going from being an independent pet sitter to hiring your first pet sitter can be a tricky, but with a simple mindset shift and a couple tips I am going to make it much easier for you!
STEP 1: Create an Ideal Pet Sitter Profile
You must be crystal clear on who it is you want to attract to a pet sitter in your business. You need to write it down so that you can imprint it onto your subconscious.
In short, you want to target people who don’t need your business as their sole source of income. It’s just not going to be enough for people to live on. If you do hire these individuals, you can expect a large amount of turnover.
Ideas for people who have other sources of income:
Freelancers
Writers
Graphic Designers
Have another part-time or full-time job that won’t interfere with their pet sitting duties.
Teachers make excellent summer pet sitters.
Stay at home Moms or Dads
Depending on how old their children are. Those with very young children don’t usually work out.
STEP 2: Manage Their Expectations by Writing a Detailed Job Description
Write a written detailed Job Description explaining exactly how the position works.
In the Job Description make note of who the position IS a good fit for.
In the Job Description make note of who the position is NOT a good fit for.
Reiterate all of the points of the job description during the face to face interview.
Ask them point blank:
Do you understand that I can not promise you a certain amount of business?
Do you understand that you will be building your book of business by absorbing the new business that is coming into the company and that we do not have a crystal ball that will tell us how quickly that will happen?
Do you have the availability and flexibility to be a part of a team like this?
So there you have it. Two simple tips that will help the process of going from an independent pet sitter to hiring that much easier of you!
TIP: If you would like some more step-by-step information on when to hire your first pet sitter and how to do that exactly click on over here. This video and post will help you.
Your Homework Assignment:
Create an Ideal Sitter Profile so you can become crystal clear on the type of pet sitter that you want to attract to your business.
Write a Detailed Job Description that you can email to prospects that explains the position and manages their expectations right from the start.
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When I started my pet sitting business I knew nothing about business. I didn’t know how to systematically get new pet sitting and dog walking clients or how to efficiently manage my business. I pretty much knew nothing, but we all have to start somewhere, right? So how did I learn? I read. I took courses. I went to live events and most importantly I took a ton of action. Learn…implement. Learn…implement. That’s how it went.
Now looking back on my pet sitting journey I have boiled down my 4 top tips for growing a wildly successful pet sitting business.
Tip #1. Create a Mindset for Success
Success is not an accident. It’s something we have to make happen on purpose, day in, day out. It all starts with knowing what you want and conditioning yourself for success, so that you can make it happen. You should fill your brain with positive, motivational books, quotes, videos and podcasts so that you can train your brain to achieve the success that you desire. You need to make this part of your daily routine. I pay for YouTube Red. I listen to all my favorite mentors daily to tune me in and keep me in a positive state of mind. YouTube Red is commercial free and the videos still play even when you navigate away from the app. I love this tool!
Tip #2. Get Really Good at Marketing Your Business
Once you’re focused on being the best version of yourself to create the success you want, you need to focus on what action you need to take. MARKETING = GETTING CLIENTS. A big piece of that action is centered around getting your pet sitting business out there! You need to have a clear message that speaks to your ideal client. Every single day you need to be doing at least one thing to get your business out there in front of your ideal prospects. You need to expand your reach and make them say, “this pet sitting business is the answer to my prayers.”
If you want to scale your business you need to get systems and processes in place. This is a crucial step! Things can really become a mess if you don’t nail this step. Your systems need to be replicable, documented and delegated. The system is what runs the business and the person runs the system. Check out my article on how to Multiply your pet sitting business here.
Tip #4. Grow Your Team
Don’t wait for five years (like I did) to grow your team. Building a team of talented pet sitters is a must. The more sitters who are on your team, the more ideal clients you can service. The more ideal client you can service, the more revenue you will generate. The more revenue you generate, the more you can invest in marketing which will in turn attract more ideal clients. And I didn’t even mention the freedom it creates in your life. That was my WHY. I crave freedom!
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Today we’re talking to the multipliers, those who are at the stage in their pet business where they have laid the foundation, have the website, the profit plan, the clarity, and all of the goodness in place. They have clients.
But they’re working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year in their business. They are doing the pet sitting, the house sitting, the dog walking, the scheduling, the emailing, the sitter management (if they have them), the client resolution, and everything that goes along with running a pet business.
This is where most of us get stuck. This was where I majorly got stuck. I had no idea how to get out of this grind of the day-to-day working constantly and not understanding what I needed to do to multiply my business. I was stuck at an income level. I lived a life that I was not happy with, working way too much, and didn’t know what to do.
So I took the first step, and I decided to go for it. I hired private mentors, joined mastermind groups, coaching programs, attended seminars. I read books. I learned. That’s pretty much what anybody can do. Because you don’t know what you don’t know. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
After years of studying and implementing, I saw my income start to increase drastically. Years later, I found out that my income level is at the top of the pet-sitting industry. So people started coming to me and saying, “Oh my gosh, Colleen. How did you do this? And can you teach me how to do it?” And I was like, “Well, I’m not a business coach.”
I started thinking that if I can help other people, I’ll give it a shot. And that’s where Pet Nanny Coach came from. At that point, I taught many pet business owners how to multiply their businesses to six figures and beyond in 12 months or less.
That’s what I’m here to talk to you about today. What needs to be done in your pet business so that you can multiply to six figures and beyond, get yourself out of the day-to-day, and start enjoying your life? When you have a business, you’re not meant to work in it seven days a week, 365 days a year. That’s more of a job, and that’s not a good job. I’d rather go work for someone else, and have my weekends and nights free, to be honest.
So the eight steps in my Multiply Formula are:
Step 1: You need to learn how to effectively manage your time so that you get more done in your business.
Everybody I talk to says: “Colleen, I don’t have the time.” Well, guess what? You need to make the time. It’s not just going to happen magically. A business wrapped in a nice big red bow is not going to be left on your front doorstep.
You have to take the time to learn about all of this stuff and implement the strategies to make it happen. So that’s step one. It would be best if you learned how to manage your time effectively. That’s going to be step one in getting you out of the business of constantly working in the business. You need to start working on the business.
Step 2: You need to put your marketing on autopilot so that you are consistently attracting a pipeline of new clients to your business.
Some pet business owners do feast or famine marketing; some don’t market at all. It’s impossible to maintain your business with that. People move. People have babies. You may have clients you no longer want to work with.
There are reasons why you need to be generating new business. And it would be best if you had a marketing plan and a marketing calendar, implemented and on autopilot so that you were consistently bringing new clients into your pet business.
Step 3: Design amazing customer experiences so that your customers refer you all over town.
Most of the sitters that I talk to pretty much are doing the basics. They answer the phone, they set up clients in the scheduling software, go to the meet and greet, have them sign the papers, and do the visits. And that’s it.
So think about what a fantastic customer experience is for you. Have you ever flown with a particular airline that’s just been amazing? And you’re like, “Oh, this is so great.” Or you’ve been to a hotel where you feel like you’re like a prince or princess. Think about things you can do to really wow these new customers of yours and make them raving fans.
Don’t just do the bare minimum. Go above and beyond and make these customers raving fans. That is how they’re going to refer you. They’re not going to refer you if you’re just kind of like, “Okay, I’m going to do the bare minimum and then roll out.” It doesn’t work that way.
Step 4: Build a team of heart-centered pet care professionals who will take stellar care of your customer’s pets.
This is another spot where sitters get stuck. They’re like, “It’s all about me. I am the reason that all of my clients love me. They’re not going to use my pet business if it’s not me doing the pet-sitting.” And I just got to tell you, you have to get that thought out of your brain because it’s not true.
It’s a story that you’ve made up in your head. And yes, if you decide to hire for the first time, you may have some customers jump ship. But I guarantee they’re not the customers that you love and adore working with. The customers that I loved and adored working with when I made this leap into building a team were happy for me. They understood that I needed to build a team to even be in business and make ends meet in this industry.
It can’t just be any team. You can’t just pick any Joe Schmoe off the street and send them out to your client’s homes. You need to find heart-centered pet care professionals who will love and adore your clients just the way you are. So what does that mean? I’ve talked about this before.
You need to have an attraction system, a hiring system, and an onboarding system that will create these amazing team members who will create unforgettable experiences for your customers. It’s no easy feat. Team building is one of the hardest things you’re going to do in your business. Learning how to do it right and building an incredible team makes life so easy, fun, and great. And you’re going to start loving your business again. It gives you the time to start enjoying your life.
Step 5: Create systems and processes in your business.
You should be documenting every single thing that you do in your pet business, more than once. So many people have their businesses in their heads, and they run it by saying, “Okay, what are we going to do now? What’s next?”
You should have everything documented, A to Z. What does every single thing in your business look like? It needs to be documented somewhere. Then it’s super easy to delegate. You don’t ever want to be the only person that knows and understands your business. If something happened to you, somebody on your team or a family member could jump in and know what to do.
Step 6: Organize your business finances and generate greater profitability by creating a Profit First financial system.
This is where I fell short for entirely too long. I was like the worst with my finances. And until Profit First by Mike Michalowicz came into my life, the more money I made, the more money I spent.
Setting up a Profit First financial system starts with organizing your finances with at least a business checking account. I can’t even tell you how many people I talked to who don’t even have business checking accounts. Everything’s being funneled into one account. By the way, there’s no judgment because I did that for a lot of years. I’m just saying there are easier ways to manage your money and create a more profitable business by getting your finances in order.
Step 7: Hire a powerhouse manager to run the day-to-day operations in your business, and you can focus your time and your energy on business growth.
Sitters sometimes say, “I’m still working in the business. How am I going to hire a manager?” This doesn’t have to happen immediately, but this needs to be a goal of yours.
The first goal is building a team of sitters. Then you remove yourself. You become the manager. When that becomes a full-time job, that is when you have to hire a powerhouse manager. I have three exceptional managers work for me, whom I trust to treat my clients well.
I call them my client’s happiness managers, and my clients love that too. But that frees up your time to focus on business growth, which is marketing, getting clients, streamlining, and systematizing so you can multiply.
Step 8: Automate as many of the manual tasks in your business to save time and increase efficiency.
You got to get on board with the technology. Not every phone call, email, the text message has to happen manually from you.
You can set up marketing campaigns where people go through funnels on your website, where the goal is for them to become buyers and customers. You can streamline your whole hiring system using automation.
You can send lockboxes and cards and all sorts of cool things using automation. Automation rules, and it’s super scary for a lot of you. I get it. I’m a tech person, so it’s not frightening for me, and I’ve embraced it. Automation and technology are here to free up your time and make you money. So if you take the time to learn it, you are going to benefit significantly from it.
To make a substantial income in this industry, you need to leverage yourself through a team of heart-centered pet care professionals who will take stellar care of your client’s pets. You have to do all this.
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There are so many new pet sitters out there that have a smaller pet sitting business, and they’re not sure if scaling to the next level is a good fit. So I put together a mini-training for you guys today. We’re going to walk through what exactly is needed to scale your business. Then you can make a decision and see if this is the right path for you.
Here at Pet Nanny Coach, We often get asked, “Should I scale my pet sitting business? Or should I stay where I am?” This is an excellent question. One that I asked myself so, so many times. I’m somebody that’s been at every level in my pet sitting career.
At one time, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do either. I was utterly lost. So first, many of you have heard me talk about getting very clear on your what and your why. What do you want your business to look like? And why do you want it?
If you’re brand new to the pet sitting industry or have been in the pet sitting business for a while, but don’t have a clear understanding of where you want to take your business, here’s my first piece of advice.
Get clear on your what and your why because clarity equals power.
What do you want your pet sitting business to look like, and why do you want it? For me, I came to this realization in kind of a backward manner. I got clear on what I didn’t like: working seven days a week, 365 days a year. I wanted a team that could do the client work while I focused on the business’s strategic position. Let me be very clear. I did not come to this realization for many, many years into my business. I stayed stuck for a long time because I wasn’t clear.
Why did I want this? My why wasn’t the money. It was so I could have a freedom-based lifestyle. When I first started my business, I did it because I was teaching special education. I taught seven-year-olds with Down Syndrome, and I was in a classroom all day, every day. That ended up being an added perk.
I worked really hard, but all I would do is look out the window and think, “Oh my gosh, I wish I could be outside. I wish I could be playing sports.” I’m a little jock. I couldn’t stand being cooped up in the room. So when I started my business, that was why I wanted freedom back in my life. I did not want to be pigeonholed and stuck in a room all day, every day. So some of you are probably saying, “Yeah, but I don’t know what I want.” I’m here to tell you that indecision leads to inaction, which is the killer of dreams.
Figure it out.
I would even challenge most of you who say, “I don’t know what I want.” I’m going to challenge you and say, “I bet you do.”
We all have those little voices in our heads speaking to us. It’s hard to tune them out. I bet you guys know what it is you want. You may be thinking, “I may want to scale my business, but I don’t know what’s involved.”
Today, I’m going to tell you what you need to do. Then you can decide if scaling your business is the right path for you. To scale your pet sitting business, you need to leverage yourself through a team, systems, and automation.
First, you need to systematize everything in your business so that anyone could replicate it. The system runs the business, and the person runs the system.
Two, you have to hire pet care professionals to do the client work: pet-sitting, dog walking, house sitting, et cetera.
Three, you need to use your now available time to focus on business growth activities like marketing your business to get more clients and have your current customers book from you more frequently.
Four, you then hire more pet care professionals to absorb the new business that you get from your business growth activities.
Five, you automate your marketing systems and manual tasks to create efficiency, which produces the ability to continue to scale. This is your recipe for scaling success.
Now, this is easier said than done. I get it. You’re probably asking yourself, “Well, how do I systematize? Or what does that even mean?” You’re probably wondering about finding good people and then trusting them to do as good of a job as you, or you’re probably like, “Business growth activities? What are those exactly?”
Some of you are saying, “Automation, that sounds scary to me.” These are all extremely common and understandable thoughts. You don’t know what you don’t know. It’s like anything else. You need to learn and then implement. I certainly had no idea about these things when I decided to go all-in with my business, but I learned.
So currently, in my business, I staff 40 plus pet sitters and three managers who run the day-to-day operations of my pet sitting business. The business requires only two hours a week of my time. My business generates a consistent 50 to 75K per month in passive income, passive meaning I don’t have to do the work to receive the income.
Now I’m not saying this was easy or that it happened overnight. But it’s possible. It took a lot of work, study, and trial and error to get where I am today. I had to learn about team building, systems, and automation before I could get there. And I know because I’ve done it.
Now I’m sure there are some of you that this doesn’t interest. You may have a small book of business, and you’re doing all the visits, or perhaps you have one or two people that help you out, and you may be very happy.
You guys, I say, “Keep doing what you’re doing and follow your bliss. There is no shame in your game.” But for those pet sitters who do want to scale, my question for you today is, “What’s holding you back?”
This is where I’m going to get deep on you. Those who know me or have followed me for a while know that I’m all about mindset and thought work. Because it’s the integral piece that so many business owners are missing. So I ask again, “What’s holding you back?”
Is it fear of control? Thinking, “Oh my goodness, nobody is going to be able to service my clients as good as I do?” Fear of the unknown. “What does this look like? And do I want to learn all of this? And I don’t know what’s involved with that and automation technology. That sounds scary. And systematizing, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
So I stay in inaction—fear of success. “I don’t need to make that much money taking care of animals. I’m all about loving animals. I don’t need to make that much money and be that successful to be important and important to the animal-loving community.” Guess what? The more successful you are, the more that you can give back to the animal-loving community.
Fear of failure. “What if I try and I go all in, and I fail. I will be judged. My family will look down on me. My peers will judge me.” Fear of failure is a real thing, guys. Oh, fear of judgment. “I don’t want to put myself out there because I don’t want to be judged.” I dealt with this at every level of my business. I still do. It’s a tough one, for sure. Fear of not being good enough. Thinking, “Well, she can do it because of X, Y, and Z, or he is successful because of X, Y, and Z. But I don’t have what it takes.” I am not special. There’s nothing about me that I have that you don’t have. And this is a lie that so many people tell themselves because they don’t want to put themselves out there. And the fear of, “I won’t be good enough, so I’m not going to succeed.”
By the way, there is no judgment if you have any of these fears, because like I said, I had every single one of them, and I still deal with some of them today. After almost 20 years in business, I still deal with these fears after all these years. Let’s do some mindful thought work. And this is where I get intense. This is like my favorite stuff here.
Step one, you need to identify and connect with the emotion you are feeling.
I’m going to run you through a quick thought model so you can see how these negative thoughts can hold you back from accomplishing your dreams. So here’s the model.
Thoughts equal your feelings, which equal your actions, which equal your results. Your thoughts create your feelings, which propel your actions, which give you your results. If your thoughts are fear of judgment, that will create a sense of anxiety, which will result in your inaction, or you not putting yourself out there, which will produce the same result of you working in the day-to-day grind of your business. But you see how it all started with the thought.
Now let’s try to do a new mindful thought. So your thought is, “I can do anything I put my mind to. I can create a pet-sitting business that generates 10K a month, 20K a month, 30K a month, 40K a month, 50K a month.”
Whatever it is, you can be very specific. That’s the thought you’re going to think, and I can do it. This is going to create a feeling of excitement for what’s possible. The action it’s going to propel is you working on your business growth, and the result will give you more clients, more money, more time, and more freedom. Do you see the difference of the thought instead of, “I don’t want to put myself out there because I’m fearful of being judged, or I’m fear of not being good enough, or I’m fearful that people won’t take as good of care of my clients like me.”
Thought work is so very important. It gives you your feeling, which keeps you in inaction, which provides you with the same result. But if you change your thinking, you change your results, and you change your life. It’s as simple as that.
When we’re feeling these negative thoughts, it’s important to recognize them and create a new positive idea. I’m going to be the watcher of my thoughts. Like anything else, this takes work and practice. I work on my thoughts every single morning. I do. I do a thought download.
I write down everything that I’m thinking. It’s like cleaning your house. You want to clean your brain. And you want to think these negative thoughts, that you might not even realize you’re thinking these certain negative thoughts until you write them down, and then you create your new positive thoughts.
Step two is you need to take massive action despite this fear you’re feeling.
Fear is okay. We all have it. It’s our primitive brains trying to keep us safe. The idea is you don’t want to let it hold you back. This is what your brain was designed to do; it wants to keep you small and to keep you safe.
It thinks it’s helping you, when in fact, it’s holding you back from great things because magic happens outside of your comfort zone. “Okay, I’m fearful of the unknown, but guess what? I’m going to change my mind. I’m going to change my thought. I’m going to act despite this fear that I’m feeling.” When you’re uncomfortable, that’s when great things happen for you.
Growth happens when you decide to move forward in spite of fear. Expansion happens in the scary place of the uncomfortable unknown. All right, to sum up.
Fact: you can scale your business without sacrificing the quality of your service. There are amazing people out there who will take great care of your client’s beloved pets.
The trick is to systematize your entire hiring and onboarding process so that you’re entirely confident in the professionals you bring onto your team and who will represent your company.
Fact: more growth doesn’t mean more work. It means having a smart and effective strategy to do less and get a greater outcome.
Fact: the less you work in your business, and the more you work on your business, the greater your success in this industry.
All right, guys, five steps to scaling your business.
One, systematize everything in your business so that anyone can replicate it. The system runs the business. The person runs the system.
Two, hire other people to do the pet-sitting, and eventually the office work too.
Three, focus on marketing your business, which is getting new clients, instead of doing the business, which is taking care of the pets.
Four, automate your marketing and processes to streamline your business, which will give you the ability to continue to scale.
And five, do daily thought work to get yourself into a positive mindset that will, in turn, bring you the results you desire.
You can create any result in your life, and it all starts with a thought.
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So many pet sitting business owners say, “I don’t have the time. I’m now doing visits 15 hours a day. How do I have the time to grow the business?” So I thought, you know what, I’m going to put together a mini-training for you guys so that you can find the time to start working on the growth of your business.
In my Multiply mastermind program, I’ve devoted an entire module to designing a time management system because, let’s get real… if you can’t take the time to work on your pet sitting business, you’re not going to be able to scale it. Learning to manage your time effectively is an absolute must!
We all have the same allotted hours a day given to us, and we all will make the time for what we want and care about. Why does the growth of your business fall to the bottom of that list?
Figure out how you’re using your time.
I want you to challenge your perspective around your time. I want you to look hard at what’s happening with your time. You have to study how you work and what you do with every single hour of every single day. This close study is the only way to recognize bad habits you’ve developed over time and get a comprehensive look at what’s consuming your time so that you can make intentional shifts to find the time you need to work on your business.
Social media is a giant time suck. I have business owners who tell me they don’t have a single minute to work on the growth of their business, but then every time I’m on Facebook, there they are! If you’re spending countless 10 to 20-minute pockets of time of day on Facebook or Instagram, I just found you more than an hour a day to work on your business.
Find those time leaks.
So I have a whole workbook here for you guys at SuccessfulPetSitter.com head over there and download it. I want you to download my Daily Log Sheet at www.SuccessfulPetSitter.com, and I want you to log every activity you partake in each day for seven to 14 consecutive days.
Then I want you to categorize each activity. You’re going to be tracking everything you do on your time log, and then we’re going to categorize them. The category of time for this exercise is tactical work. This is you working in your business.
Strategic work, this is you working on your business. And non-business-related activities like family time are not bad; we all need family time. However, I still want you to categorize it, Netflix, Facebook, et cetera.
Lastly, interruptions are huge telephone calls, computer problems, kids, et cetera, text messages, and news alerts on your phone. If you can figure out how you’re constantly interrupted, maybe putting the do not disturb on will save you an hour a day. That works for me.
For example, let’s say you did visits from 7:00 AM to 9:30 AM. This would be tactical work. You answered phone calls and emails from 9:30 to 10:30 AM, tactical work. You mapped out an email marketing campaign from 10:30 to 11:40 AM, strategic work.
From 11:40 AM to 12:10 PM, you read your favorite celebrity blogs, non-business related. You get the picture. After two weeks of consistent tracking, you’ll see trends and patterns emerge in both your activities and the types of work you’re focused on.
How much strategic work are you doing, and how much tactical work are you doing? Also, what time of the day do you find yourself being most productive with your strategic work? I found out that I’m productive in the morning. As the day progresses, the less and less excited I am to do strategic work. You need to find that time and protect it. If it’s 6:00 in the morning, you need to figure out how to get to that computer at 6:00 AM every morning so that you can maximize that productivity time.
How often are you interrupted or distracted from completing a task? I just went over that. Study those interruptions and consider what they suggest about your business systems and habits. Making connections like this allows you to begin becoming more deliberate about how you’re using your valuable time.
Speaking of, I just got interrupted. I’m in the middle of recording. I did not put my phone on do not disturb, and there it is buzzing away. At least I have the sound off. Interruptions are huge guys, figure out how you’re being interrupted and try to minimize those interruptions as much as you can.
Step to embrace the strategic work of your business. It is fun. The truth is most pet-sitting business owners are “Technicians” at heart. They feel the greatest sense of reward when they’re productive, working in their business, and caring for their furry friends.
And strategic work- thinking about and developing strategies that guide the direction of your business can be frustrating to the technically-driven person. It can feel at worst like a waste of time, and at best, like a luxury.
You need to shift your mindset. It would be best if you believed that sitting and thinking about your business is precious work. What’s more, it’s part of your job – the one you chose for yourself as an owner of a business. To stop and think differently about your business takes a massive shift in perspective.
To break this mindset that built your business and got it to this point, you need to accept that doing the strategic work has a big payoff. And it does because if you don’t take the time to think more prominent than the day-to-day and create the structure your business needs to grow, nothing’s ever going to change.
I was stuck in that mindset for entirely too long. Just thinking of the day-to-day, what problems are in front of me? What can I fix right now? Instead of looking at the bigger picture.
Make the strategic work in your pet sitting business a priority by planning your day ahead of time.
This is huge. Working on your business is not extracurricular. It’s not something you do on the weekend or at night after your kids are in bed. That would be more of your life taken up by your business, which is precisely what we’re trying to free you from. You absolutely must make space in your daily schedule to do this work – because as the owner, this is your real job.
I want you to plan your day ahead of time. This is a massive piece of the puzzle.
My challenge is to set aside one to two hours a day to work on your pet sitting business solely. Think about what you could accomplish in a year if you committed at least five hours a week to business growth. That’s 260 hours devoted to your business. Whoa! I want you to schedule this time on your calendar.
If you don’t schedule it, it’s just wishful thinking, and it will not happen. So every Monday through Friday from 5:30 AM to 7:00 AM, I’m working on my business. The times can vary. It doesn’t matter. This is simply a date you’re making with yourself. Don’t stand yourself up. That’s very rude.
If your day isn’t set before it begins, there’s no shot you’ll ever find the space you need to work on strategic priorities. Every business owner goes to bed the night before with great intentions, but if you don’t have the next day planned out, you inevitably fall into the familiar trap of having the day happen to you. Before you know it, it’s 8 PM, and you wonder where the time went.
So before your day begins, plan your schedule. Don’t make it the first task of the day. Don’t wake up and say, okay, I’m going to plan my day now. It needs to be done the day before because it won’t happen if you do it the day of.
Sit down at the end of each day, the night before, or in the morning before you arrive at the office. At the very least, I suggest the night before you even step foot into your workspace and get your priority tasks on your schedule.
I don’t want you sitting down at your desk where you work, checking your email, and then having the ambition to do your daily planning. Something else like an email, a customer, some fire you have to put out will demand your immediate attention, and your priorities will be sidelined. So if you’re going to do it in the morning of, do it before you enter your workspace, so you don’t get sidetracked.
Create systems for your life.
At Pet Nanny Coach, creating systems for your pet sitting business is a big part of what we do. Owners come to us looking for systems to give them control over all the critical parts of their businesses, produce order out of chaos, and create consistency and predictability that eliminate overwhelm and boost their businesses value.
Systems rule. And yes, systems do all of this and can ultimately help you create a business that better serves the life you dream of having. But to truly transform your business, you also need systems in your life.
In all my time working with business owners, I’ve learned how much business impacts life and how life can impact business. Imagine this: Every morning, you struggle to get your kids off to school, which creates a ripple effect. As a result, you get on the highway 10 minutes later than you want – a critical 10 minutes that means traffic is much worse – so you get to your first visit later, which pushes out the next one. So the whole day, you’re playing catch up, and it all started with getting your kids out the door on time.
There’s a system, pack their lunches and lay out their clothes the night before. Kids get bathed the night before and do not put the TV on in the morning. Four straightforward things that you can do that will keep you on track in the morning. I know this seems simple, but most won’t create and stick to this system.
I have a girlfriend. I was at her house one morning, and it was utter chaos. And the kids are always late, and they don’t have coats, forget their lunches, and forget their money. And I think if she just did these four things, her life would be so much easier, but she won’t do it.
To help you work on yourself as a leader:
Work on yourself in your own life.
Look at your life and ask what’s happening that negatively impacts your ability to be present and conscious enough to do the strategic work of your business.
Develop a routine that takes you from a reactive to a proactive state of mind – and stick to it.
That’s the goal here. We’re always trying to be proactive with our time instead of just reacting to things that happen to us day in and day out.
Howdy, Pet Lover! Do you want to have all the pet sitting clients you need? This resource is 100% FREE and is my gift to you. Enjoy!
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Today’s mini-training talks about how much you can make pet sitting. Here’s what you’ll learn.
What the earning potential is at different levels of the pet sitting industry.
Why a clear vision of what you want and why you want it is so important.
The difference between having a job and having a business.
The power of the leverage business model.
But first, in case you don’t know me, my name is Colleen Sedgwick, and I’m the founder of Pet Nanny Coach. I teach pet sitters how to launch, grow and multiply their businesses.
As you can imagine, I get asked quite often, “Colleen, is it possible to have a career taking care of animals and make a solid income doing it?” And my answer is always an emphatic, “Yes, I am living proof that it is possible.”
Back in 2001, when I started my business, I didn’t have a clear vision for my company. As you all have heard me say countless times, “I didn’t know what I wanted and why I wanted it,” which is an integral part of having a successful business. It seems basic, but it’s so necessary.
All I knew was I wanted to quit my job as a teacher and work for myself. I used to say things like, “Yeah, I want to make my hours. I want to work for myself. Make my hours. Be able to get on the shore when I want.” And I learned quickly that being the owner of the business and the technician doing the client work inside the business wasn’t easy and required an exorbitant amount of time.
I didn’t realize when I started my business that I was never meant to do the client work. I thought the opposite.
In reality, if you are doing the client work or, in our world, the pet sitting or the dog walking or the house sitting, you don’t have a business. You have a job. Please don’t get mad at me. Don’t shoot the messenger, my friends. There is no judgment here because I used to think the same thing as you.
I started this business based on my love of animals. So I should be the person out taking care of them. It makes perfect sense, right?
Wrong! As a business owner, your role is to be the strategic visionary that delegates the client work to the technicians inside the business. Who knew? I certainly didn’t. I had no idea.
In today’s training, I want to break down the earning potential for all different levels of pet sitting, so you have an unmistakable picture and can make the best decision for you on what path suits you the best.
For Solopreneurs
First, I know that some don’t want large businesses like the one that I have. You want to do pet sitting as a solo show, which is fine, by the way. You do you, my friends. Don’t email me or go to social media. But all I do is talk about growing these big businesses. If that’s not for you, that’s not for you. But we’re still going to talk, and we’re going to do some numbers for all levels, so stick with me.
Let’s do the math. Let’s assume that currently, it’s you doing all the pet-sitting. You have a packed schedule of twelve 30-minute visits per day at $22 per visit, seven days a week. This equals $264 per day, $1,840 per week, $7,392 per month, $88,704 per year. That was pretty good. On paper, this seems great. I remember the days I strived for this.
But let me be clear. This is not an equation for a happy and healthy life. This is a recipe for burnout, mistakes, unhappy clients, and an unhappy life. I know because I lived it. As a result, if this is you, you’re working way too hard. You may be asking yourself, “What am I not getting here?” You’re feeling stressed in other areas of your life. Can you relate to this? I certainly can because that was my life for quite some time.
So let’s dial this back a bit to make it more manageable. Now, let’s say that you had eight 30-minutes midday visits at $22 per visit, five days a week. So now we’re just doing midday walks. We’re not doing mornings. We’re not doing evenings. We’re not doing overnights. We’re not spending our weekends pet sitting. So it’s eight 30-minute midday visits, Monday through Friday. This equals $176 per day, $880 per week, $3,520 per month, $42,240 per year.
In this example, you’re making much less, but at least you have a life. You have your mornings, evenings and weekends free. In my opinion, this is a much more sustainable situation and a recipe for a happy life if you can live off that income. Remember, that’s your gross income and doesn’t account for what you have to pay out in taxes and your expenses.
Leverage Business Model
If your goal is to create a lucrative pet sitting career, let’s talk about the leverage business model, which I teach my Multiply Students. To make a substantial income in this industry and to achieve the freedom-based lifestyle you deserve, you need to leverage yourself through a team of heart-centered pet care professionals who hold the same beliefs, values, and pet care philosophy that you do. Let’s run some numbers to illustrate this point.
We’re going to restructure your business from that first example where you’re doing crazy visits, seven days a week, you’re making good money, but you have no life, and you’re miserable. So let’s restructure this. Okay, so say you keep six midday dog-walking clients, six visits a day at $22 per visit, five days a week. Equals $132 per day, $660 per week, $2,640 per month.
Next, you hire three pet sitters to absorb the rest of your current clients and to take on new clients. This is the same equation for all three sitters. Sitter one has eight visits a day at $22 per visit. This is $176 per day, $1,232 per week, $4,928 per month for the business, so that’s grossing for the business. Say you take 50%, so $2,464 goes to the sitter, and $2,464 goes to the business. So that’s the same equation for sitter one, sitter two, and sitter three.
Now, you have your midday walking income still, so that’s a total of $2,640 per month. So the income you received from center one is $2,464. Plus, the income from sitter two, $2,464.
The income from sitter three, $2,464. Your owner’s income is $2,640. This equals $10,032 per month. The gross revenue for the business equals $17,424 per month. Now, let’s look back at your previous structure. You were making $7,392 per month working 12 hours … 12 to 15 hours, to be quite honest, per day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Now, by bringing on only three pet centers and drastically lightening your load, you are now making $10,032 per month.
This is the recipe for creating a lucrative pet sitting career.
For those high-achieving pet sitters who do have dreams of growing a more significant business, you now have gifted yourself the time to work on your business and market your business to serve more clients and therefore make more money with even more free time.
Do you see how this works? I’m going to say that again. You’ve now gifted yourself the time to work on your business and market your business, so you can service more clients and therefore make more money and have even more free time. It’s an equation, guys.
All right, so let’s take this a few steps further so that you can see the power of a team. Twenty sitters are working five days per week. Each sitter has six visits per day at $22 per visit. This equals $2,640 in daily revenue, $13,200 in weekly revenue, $52,800 in monthly revenue. Your 50% equals $26,400 per month. Pretty great, right?
This illustrates the power of a team. You give the client work to the technicians, and you focus on the business growth or the strategy work of your company.
So Courtney Anderson of waggitytails.com leveraged herself through a team and experienced explosive growth in her business. Courtney decided to start building her team one year after she launched her business in 2014.
Courtney now employs 13 pet sitters and a part-time office manager. Her team services 200+ clients and 50 recurring weekly clients. Courtney’s yearly revenue has increased by 652%. And she attributes her massive success to the power of a team.
So get out your paper and figure out the math. How much money do you want to make? How many clients would you need to support that number? How many sitters would you need to support that number?
Remember to account for taxes and expenses from your gross income. In all these examples, I’m speaking gross. Again, you always need to pay your taxes and account for your operating expenses for the company. Luckily, in our industry, we don’t have a ton of overhead because our business occurs in our client’s homes, which is a plus. But again, these are all gross numbers. We need to account for taxes and expenses.
I honestly never dreamed that my pet sitting business would create so much prosperity in my life. After I learned about the power of leverage, team-building systems, processes, and automation, the sky became the limit for my business. And I’m so grateful for the blessing of my business. All right, guys, so this is what is possible. Let’s close this out.
This is what’s possible for you. When you’re asking, “How much can I actually make in this industry,” again, do the math. Figure out what you are going to charge. How many clients do you need? What kind of lifestyle do you want?
Remember, your business is supposed to serve your life. I speak to so many of you, and your business is not serving your life. And it’s sucking the life out of you. It’s not the purpose of a business.
Remember, if you do all the visits, you don’t have a business; you have a job.
Again, you can have a lucrative pet-sitting career by leveraging yourself through a team. If that’s not for you, have at it. Stay solo. And do the math and figure out what you need to do and how many visits you need to do in a day to create the income that you need for your life.
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Increase the Know, Like, and Trust Factor on your Website
Hey, guys! My strategy for you today is the Know, Like and Trust Factor. This was originally published in 2018 and is even more relative today.
I was out and about early this morning. I had to be at the hair stylist by seven o’clock to get my hair done. The Pet Nanny Coach site is being updated (I can’t wait until you see it!), and I needed some fresh, new photos (if I see that picture of me with Dr. Watson one more time. . . !).
I wanted to get new pictures taken for my new site, and this got me thinking about your websites. There are so many that I visit and I don’t see anything of you anywhere on your site!
I’m not saying I don’t understand, because I did the same exact thing with my first site. I didn’t want to be anywhere on there. I had pictures of pets everywhere, but Colleen was nowhere to be found until my business coach taught me the importance of the Know, Like and Trust Factor.
What is the Know, Like, and Trust Factor?
So, what is that? It is giving the people the opportunity to know, like and trust you through your website, because people like doing business with people.
People want to know who the owner of your business is. People want to know who they’re going to trust to come into their homes to care for their most precious pets, and their homes and their prized possessions, and you can do this through your website.
A Challenge – Part One
So, my challenge for you is first, to create a video on the homepage of your website – face to camera. You need to look at the camera and say, “Hi, my name is Colleen Sedgwick. I’m the owner of Pet Nanny, and my pet sitting company rules, and this is why.”.
The second part of this challenge is to look at your “About” page and spruce that page up! Your About page is the second most-visited page on your website, after your homepage. So, you really want to make this page shine.
You want to let people in. Share details about you, such as:
Let them know what organizations you belong to.
Why did you start this business?
Did you have a defining moment in your life that made you say, “Hey, I want to start a pet care service that is extraordinary.”
Are you involved in rescues?
Tell them your story
Anything that is going to open a little window into who you are is going to make a huge difference. Your website visitors are going to begin to know, like and trust you right from the get-go, and you’re going to sign up clients much more easily than when you were not showcasing yourself.
So get out there and complete this challenge! Create a face to camera video to put on your homepage, and spruce up that “About” page and show people who you are.
All right, guys, I am wishing you a great day. Take care!
Howdy, Pet Lover! Do you want to have all the pet sitting clients you need? This resource is 100% FREE and is my gift to you. Enjoy!
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Your Irresistible Free Offer (IFO) is how you can capture the contact information of prospects who visit your pet sitting business website.
Author’s Note: This post was originally published in 2014. I’m republishing it now with a new video and updated with all my current experience and tips!
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Think of the Baskin-Robbins’ iconic pink spoon. This is their IFO, which gives their customers a free taste of ice cream, so they can decide which flavor they want to buy. Ingenious!
When somebody visits your site, they should see your offer and say, “Oh that’s really enticing, I’m going to give them my email address for that.” And then you email them the irresistible free goodie that you promised.
Why do I call it irresistible? Because it needs to be just that. A free walk or a free meet-and-greet is just not going to cut it anymore.
People don’t want to share their email addresses. Their inboxes are flooded already and they are only going to give you their email address if it’s really something juicy.
Your IFO should give your ideal customer something of value. It also needs to be tempting enough for them to part with their email address.
Your IFO should be displayed on each and every page of your website, along with an opt-in box, where your prospects will give you their first name and/or email address in return for what you’re offering.
What to Offer
My first tip is that I have had the best luck with high-value coupons. I’ve tried PDFs, I’ve tried giveaways, I have tried everything under the sun. What I can tell you is that a high-value coupon with a whole number (rather than a percentage off) has given me the best conversions.
Currently, Pet Nanny is using a high-value coupon. The offer is shown on each and every page of my website.
The Nurture Sequence
After your prospect gives you their contact information in return for your free offer, they become a “warm prospect.” You should have a well-thought-out, automated follow-up process called a “Nurture Sequence, which gives these prospects added value and makes your pet sitting company the only logical choice to hire.
Throughout the sequence, you are going to let them know all about you and your business, and continue to provide value. For instance, I offer my list an Ultimate Guide for Mainline Pet Owners, which has all things pets for people that own pets on the mainline. Things like pet-friendly hotels, walking trails, the best vets, the best pet stores.
The Ultimate Guide is also a great place to feature my referral partners. I add the businesses that refer me to the guide that I give to my prospects.
Then, when they receive their final email you’ll say, “Hey, remember that coupon you opted in for seven days ago? It’s time to take action. Click below to get started.”
This is your strategy. When someone hits your website, they see the enticing high-value coupon, they give you your email, you put them in your email nurture sequence and tell them all about you and your amazing pet sitting business.
Continue to give them value and at the end of the nurture sequence, they’ll be saying, “Yes this is the pet sitting company that I want to work with.” That’s the strategy behind it.
Lifetime Customer Value
Now some of you are thinking “why on earth would I give away the farm? And why would I give so much money off a new customer? What if they don’t use me again?”
These are great questions and valid concerns. I totally get it. But when you identify the lifetime value of your customer, you’re going to understand that offering something like $25 off on the front end is going to be well worth it.
To calculate the lifetime value of your customer, look up the total amount of revenue that your business has made thus far and then divide it by the total number of revenue-generating clients. That will give you a number. This is your average lifetime value of each customer, and how much a customer is going to spend with your company.
I have had customers that have spent $50,000 with my company, and I have had customers that have spent $200 with my company. So what we’re looking for is the average.
So you might think, “Oh my gosh, if someone’s going to spend $2,000, $4,000, $5,000, whatever with your company, do you think it’s worth it giving them $25 off the front end?” I’d say so.
I think it’s a really good strategy and definitely well worth it. But you know, your client lifetime value may be lower. You might not have as many lifetime clients or as much lifetime revenue as I do.
So figure out what youractual client lifetime revenue is and determine what amount is worth it for you. You want to identify what is enticing and juicy enough to get the ball rolling and get them in the front door with your company.
Recap
So to recap, your irresistible free offer is something juicy, something compelling, something that’s going to make your visitors take action and give you their email address.
Then, you drop them into a nurture email sequence where you educate them about your company.
Your Homework
Your homework is to calculate your average lifetime customer value (calculate the amount of money your pet sitting business has made divided by the number of lifetime generating customers) and identify a high-value coupon amount to offer.
All right guys, I hope you found this helpful, go think of an awesome offer and put this strategy into action in your business right now.
Share The Love
If you like this video, please share it and hit the like button.
I’d love to hear about it and as always, I’m available to answer any questions you may have in our free Facebook group at PetNannyCoachcommunity.com. Come visit me there and add #ask to your questions and I’ll do my best to answer them all!
Wishing you a great day!
Howdy, Pet Lover! Are you struggling with attracting new clients to your pet sitting business? Would you like to have a consistent pipeline of new clients coming to your business? Well, wait no longer, my friend. Grab my FREE report, 125 Ways To Get More Pet Sitting Clients.This resource is 100% FREE and is my gift to you. Enjoy!
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