dog walking business

Podcast Episode #111: Dealing with Depression and Anxiety as a Pet Business Owner

coach for pet sitters, Dog Walking Business Coach, Dog Walking Business Coaching, pet business coach, pet business podcast, Pet Sit Coach, Pet Sitting Business Coach, Pet Sitting Coach, pet sitting coaching, podcast for pet business owners, podcast for pet sitters, Prosperous Pet Business podcast / /

In today’s coaching session, I’m working with Cora, a pet business owner who sometimes struggles with occasional bouts of depression and anxiety. When it hits her, it causes her to suffer – and her business to suffer.

When she’s not experiencing depression and anxiety her energy level is high, her response time to clients is quick, and she’s able to bill clients in a prompt manner as well as other necessary business tasks.

When she’s going through a challenging time, things look very different: it can take her a week or two to return client calls, it can be like slogging through quicksand to bill her clients in a timely manner and she has very little energy to run her business.

She feels physically and mentally stopped.

Now, you know this (but I have to say this to protect myself and to protect you listeners): I’m not a therapist nor a medical doctor. I’m a business and life coach.

If you are suffering from depression or anxiety, please see a medical professional.

In today’s coaching session I’m not trying to diagnose Cora, nor cure her anxiety or depression. I can’t do that nor would attempt to do that.

I am simply having a conversation with Cora about depression and anxiety and how it impacts her business and her life. I’m not trying to fix Cora’s depression or anxiety but rather to help her navigate her business during this time.

Again, if you’re struggling with depression or anxiety, please get help from a medical professional.

I want to say a huge thank you to Cora for having the courage to come on this podcast and be a voice for those of you who suffer from depression and anxiety and are also trying to run your business, raise your kids, and/or navigate your personal and work life.

Even if you don’t experience depression and anxiety, you may know someone who does, and this episode may help you feel more empathy and compassion for this often silent illness that can be crippling in ways that cannot be seen.

Click to listen to Dealing with Depression and Anxiety as a Pet Business Owner.

Links mentioned in the podcast:

Podcast Episode #111: Dealing with Depression and Anxiety as a Pet Business Owner Read More »

Cheap, Fast, Good. Pick two.

dog walking tips, pet sitting business tips, Pet Sitting Rates, pet sitting tips / /

pick twoA few years ago I contacted a web designer and told him I wanted a new website created in a hurry. He said, “I can do it cheap, fast or good. But you can only pick two. Which two do you want?”

Your pet sitting and dog walking clients may want all three too but guess what? It’s impossible to get all three in business…unless you want to go out of business because you aren’t making a profit.

If you are a ‘cheap pet sitter’ you are going to begin to get resentful (always happens when the pet sitter wakes up and realizes his or her price are well below market rate). If you try to raise your price too much, too fast then your clients will get resentful. (You don’t want that.) Raising your rates yearly (even by just $1) will help ease the resentment factor and bring your low prices to market rate sooner than if you wait years before raising them.

If you really need clients and some are cheap clients wanting discounts I recommend lowering the amount of time that you’ll spend with the pet. So if your regular 30-minute visit is $18 a visit, offer to do a 15-minute visit for $16. In this way the client will feel like they are getting something and you will have more time for more full price visits. (Obviously you’ll want to make sure that the pet who is getting less time will be well taken care of in 15-minutes. A 15-minute visit works well for shy cats who hide under the bed.)

If you are a sitter who says yes to last minute pet sits and dog walks you will also get resentful. So charge for those last minute sits. I recommend charging your clients a $20-$30 Last Minute Fee (LMF) for those clients who need to meet you or one of your sitters in less than 3 days. If UPS can charge for last minute delivery so can you!

And good? Well, if you aren’t good you won’t be in business very long. Good should always be a part of your business practice. And even better…strive for great. If you are great at what you do your clients will love you and thank you. (And refer you to their friends and neighbors.)

So the next time a client calls and says, “I need you to pet sit tomorrow. I need a low rate and I need you to do a great job with my dog” simply say, “Sure. You can have any two. Which two do you want? Cheap, fast or good?”

 

 

Cheap, Fast, Good. Pick two. Read More »

5 Business Tips for Successful Holiday Pet Sitting and Dog Walking

How to Start a Dog Walking Business, How to Start a Pet Sitting Business, Pet Business, Pet Sit Coach, Pet Sitting Business, Pet Sitting Business Coach, pet sitting marketing / /

4065380186_5475889415_m

Below are 5 of the most important tips for holiday pet sitting and dog walking business success:

1) Charge and enforce a holiday fee. Many pet sitters are resistant to charging a holiday fee because they are afraid or embarrassed to ask for more money over the holidays. Get over your fear and DO IT. You (and your staff) are giving of your time to work during this special time of year and deserve to be compensated for it.

2) Have your holiday fee be over the holiday period, not just on the actual holiday days. My holiday period this year is Dec. 20-January 3. Clients are charged an additional $5 for visits and $10 per night during this entire period.

Charging a holiday fee for the entire holiday period can help your profit increase by $500-$1,500+ during the holiday season!

I recommend that half of that holiday fee goes to the sitter working that particular holiday job. The other half goes to the company. Obviously if you are the one doing the job(s) you would receive all of it.

Why should your company get a portion of that holiday fee if your staff are doing the holiday jobs? The bulk of December reservations are often (obviously) only around the holidays so often times pet sitting business owners will find they are super stressed this time of year but are not making any more money than they might make in say, April. Having you, the business owner, receive a portion of that holiday fee will help your business thrive financially during the holiday season.

3) Figure out exactly how many visits you want to take NOW so you can have a sane holiday. Holidays only come once a year, folks. It’s up to you to decide now how you want to spend the days that are special to you.

If you want to spend Christmas day pet sitting from morning till evening with a brief holiday dinner in between jobs that is no problem. If that is what you want.

But if you don’t want that, decide now and limit the number of visits that you are willing to take. Make a time plan of the special holiday days that matter to you (Christmas Eve/Christmas/New Years) and block off the time for you that is sacred. Be clear and firm that nothing can touch that time you have blocked off for yourself and your family, no matter how insistent a client might be that YOU are the only one who can care for her pets.

Sound easy? It’s not. That’s why deciding now and sticking to a holiday time plan will help you stand behind your no (or help you get a staff member to take an insistent client).

4) Have all of your holiday cards and gifts purchased and sent off by December 18. If you get all of the holiday preparation done by December 18 you will be able to focus on the business of pet sitting and be able to enjoy your own holiday period. Start today by outlining all that you need to do to be fully prepared for the holiday for both your business and personal life. Next write down the action steps that you need to do between now and December 18. Put the action steps in your calendar on the specific days that you intend to accomplish them.

Example:
December 7: Purchase holiday cards, purchase staff gift cards
December 8: Write holiday cards
December 10: Mail holiday cards

5) Buy yourself a holiday gift to honor all the hard work you’ve done in your business this year. Why is this a success tip? Because it is a way of honoring all the hard work you’ve done this year. When we honor ourselves, more money flows to us. Always.

This is an action step I give to my coaching clients this time of year and sometimes it is the hardest action step they can take! Allow yourself to give something to you. Pet sitting is a business of serving and taking care of others; explore a way to bring that focus to yourself in the form of a gift for you.

Here are some gifts that pet sitters have bought for themselves to honor the work they’ve done in their businesses: a six-pack of massage certificates to use at various times in 2010, a novel that a pet sitter has been wanting to read all year but hasn’t made the time to read (part of her gift to herself was putting time in her time plan to read the book too!), a 2-day spa retreat with a girlfriend in January, a new car (!), a dinner out at a favorite restaurant.

Happy Holidays everyone!

For many more holiday success tips you can purchase the Riches and Relaxation for Holiday Pet Sitting Recording.

5 Business Tips for Successful Holiday Pet Sitting and Dog Walking Read More »

How to Create a 3-Day Pet Sitting Workweek Teleclass: January 6, 2010

How to Create a 3-Day Pet Sitting Workweek, Pet Business, Pet Business Marketing, Pet Sitting Business / /

book1(4)

This will be my last teleclass before I head out for my 2-month trip around the world until April 2010.

I’m a business coach who practices what I preach and I’m offering this teleclass to share my secrets with all of you wonderful pet sitters before departing for my traveling adventure.

This teleclass will truly change your life by profoundly transforming the way you relate to your work and your work schedule! You will come away excited and ready to create a work schedule that is beyond your wildest dreams (while being firmly rooted in reality).

Most pet sitters think that they have to work long and hard hours to create a successful and profitable business. If you are one of them you are not alone.

I thought that I had to work countless hours to make a lot of money until the year I began running my business in a completely different way.

In one year I began transforming my relationship with my business and the way I ran my business. To my surprise and amazement my profits began to rise even though I was working much, much less! It didn’t make sense at first (in fact it blew my mind a bit!) but then it completely made sense.

In less than one year, I went from working 12-14 hours a day, 7 days a week to working three 8-hour days a week.

If you have an established business and responsible staff members that you trust, you can too!

All it takes is some out-of-the box thinking and a willingness to try some new ways of running your company that I will outline in this teleclass so that you can create the schedule that works best for you in 2010.

Whether you want to take one day off a week, weekends off, or create a 3-day workweek like I created, it’s up to you. I will tell you how to do it and outline the step-by-step method necessary to create time off.

Click here to find out more and to sign up for the How to Create a 3-Day Pet Sitting Workweek Teleclass.

How to Create a 3-Day Pet Sitting Workweek Teleclass: January 6, 2010 Read More »

3 Common Pet Sitting Business Challenges (and How to Deal with Them!)

Dealing with Pet Sitting Client Conflics, Dog Walking Business Start Up, How to Start a Pet Sitting Business, Pet Sitting Startup / /

kristin-006201


Challenge #1: Your clients are often late in paying their pet sitting or dog walking bills.

Solution A: Get a merchant credit card machine to have control over when they pay. PayPal is great but clients have to do it so you still don’t have control when you get your money.  Costco has incredibly great rates for merchant credit card processing.

Solution B: Have them mail a check prior to departure. “In order to insure your reservation we will need to receive payment 3 days prior to departure. A post-dated check for the final date of service is also fine.” Business owners: the important thing is to get full payment prior to departure!

Challenge #2: You don’t know why but you find that you often attract difficult and ultra-picky clients who are not easy to work with.

Solution A: Get skilled at seeing the signs of impossible clients: “we’ve gone through 3 pet sitters this year”, writing a novel as instructions for their pets, interrogating you in the initial phone call about where you find your people, etc.  Choose NOT to take them on as clients.

Solution B: When you do make a mistake and take on one of these clients be willing to let them go. 95% of stress often comes from 5% of those difficult and ultra-challenging clients–let go of those 5% and you may find you have only 5% stress!

Challenge #3: You often have clients calling for services 1-3 days prior to departure and you have to scramble to meet with them or set up a sitter to meet with them. This leads to you being grumpy and irritable.

Solution A: Charge a $30 last minute fee. Say, “We’d love to help and it’s a lot to scramble to get our staff member Suzie to meet with you so we do charge a $30 last minute fee when you have to meet one of our staff members in less than 72 hours. She’s definitely available. Can I go ahead and get your information so I can set up a meeting?”

3 Common Pet Sitting Business Challenges (and How to Deal with Them!) Read More »

Can Pet Sitting Business Owners Leave their Businesses and Travel for 2 Months?

Dog Sitting Business, dog walking business, Goal Setting, Pet Business, Pet Sitting Business / /

262792170_327bd54d1d_m

Yes. Yes. Yes! If you’ve got a supportive management team and great pet sitters and walkers on staff you can take time off to see the world.

And that’s just what I am going to be doing in January 2010.

When my business was 3-5 years old I traveled each year for 2 months. I would do lots of pet sitting for 10 months and then have my manager oversee everything for the two months that I’d be gone from the business and out of the country.

I went on a lot of great trips. I traveled for two months in Europe. Two months in Bali. Two months in Thailand. (Thai villagers dressed me up in Thai gown and crown and I led a parade of villagers down the street but that’s for another blog post!)

I have been desiring to travel again. What has held me back is that my business is now MUCH larger than it was 10-12 years ago! We have 35 staff members. Our huge client list continues to grow with the new calls we get daily.

I have been mulling over traveling for an extended period of time for awhile now and was noticing that fear was holding me back. I try to live my life in such a way that I normally don’t let fear run my life. I’ve coached many of you business owners on how to make peace with your fears and really live in a way that is fulfilling and meaningful both in business and in life. And yet here I was finding myself wanting to travel and letting the thoughts of fear stop me from committing to something that I really want to do.

My fear thoughts went something like this:  Will everything be okay while I’m gone? What if something happens while I’m away? What if……? (fill in the blank.)

Well, last week I decided to look the fear straight in the eye and smile at it and say, “I’m going.”

So I took the first step and asked my main business manager if she could manage the business while I was away. She said that she would love to.

And now I’m compiling an ultra long list of many tasks that need to be completed before I depart in 5 months. I’m also exploring: where do I want to go? I’m still mulling it over. Bali is definitely calling to me. I might start there and end up some place totally different.

I’ll keep you posted!

In the meantime I’d love to hear about you: what are some unrealized dreams that you have that you are afraid of fulfilling? Is there a way your business could support you in making those visions a reality? Email me privately or post your comment below if you like.

Can Pet Sitting Business Owners Leave their Businesses and Travel for 2 Months? Read More »

New Pet Sitters: How to Determine Your Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Rates

Dog Walking Business Start Up, Dog Walking Rates, Pet Sitting Business, Pet Sitting Rates, Pet Sitting Startup / /

2892058635_da341cba5f_mIf you are a new pet sitter here’s the easiest way to determine your pet sitting and dog walking rates:

1) Create a spreadsheet with at least 10 different competitors on the far left.

2) On the columns to the right have each service plus time limits plus extra pet fee. Find your competitors’ rates sheets and enter their totals there.

3) If you can’t find ten competitors in your area then look in the next immediate town until you have ten different pet sitters listed in or near your town.

4) Figure out the medium range by looking at the range of prices for each service from your ten competitors.

I usually recommend that new pet sitters have their rates be in the middle-range of your competitors when you are first starting out.

Here’s how to determine the average middle: Let’s say you create your competitor pricing spreadsheet and you find the range is $12-$20 per 30- minute pet sitting visit. You’ll want to start out with a rate $16 per visit.

Once you develop a stellar reputation as a pet sitter you can (and should) raise your middle-range rates.

New Pet Sitters: How to Determine Your Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Rates Read More »

What do YOU want to read about in the Six-Figure Pet Sitting Blog?

Blogging, Dog Sitting Business, dog walking business, Pet Business, pet sitting blog, Pet Sitting Business / /

blogimageWhile I’m still working on my ability to upload pictures and make this blog ‘pretty’ I’d like to know what business topics that you would like to read about here.

Feel free to post your topic ideas and preferences or email them directly to me and I’ll create blog posts from your suggestions.

What do YOU want to read about in the Six-Figure Pet Sitting Blog? Read More »

How to Make $4,800 More This Year in Your Pet Sitting Business – Without Doing More Work!

Dog Sitting Business, dog walking business, Pet Business, Pet Sitting Business / /

Let me guess: you’ve been thinking about raising your rates but thinking about it as far as you’ve gotten…

This can be a costly mistake in business. Why? Well, most of your creditors raise their rates yearly to keep up with inflation. If you are not at least keeping up with the rising cost of …

How to Make $4,800 More This Year in Your Pet Sitting Business – Without Doing More Work!Read More »

How to Make $4,800 More This Year in Your Pet Sitting Business – Without Doing More Work! Read More »

Scroll to Top