Episode 349: The Key to an Efficient Pet Sitting Business

Topics & Key Points

• Four Pillars of pet business success and Efficiency
• Evaluate and optimize your onboarding system for new clients.
• Implement a systematic approach to marketing to save time and boost creativity.
• Develop a comprehensive hiring system to find the right employees and foster a positive work environment.
• Streamline payment collection processes to improve efficiency and customer experience.
• Prioritize systems and processes in your business to reduce overwhelm and maximize success.
• Assess your current systems and identify areas for improvement.

Timestamps

[03:13] The importance of having a smooth onboarding system for new clients [06:14] The importance of having an efficient marketing system [08:07]The significance of having a well-structured hiring system [10:47] Maximizing success and efficiency in your pet business [11:55] The importance of collecting payments efficiently [13:59] Improving processes for business growth

Notable Quotes

[14:48]"You do not have to be overwhelmed or overworked or stressed out or hating your business. You just need to have better systems. Figure out the exact details and make your dreams your reality."    [15:10] "The devil is in the details. Figure out what it is that you want and make your dreams, your reality. It's not about following what others are doing, but creating your own path to success." - Bella Vasta

Resources

• Podcast: Bella in Your Business: Pet Industry Business Podcast
• Join Mastermind
• Better Marketing With Bella 
• Joey Coleman's Never Lose an Employee Again 
• Instagram 
• Email Bella: bella@jumpconsulting.net

• Website
• Facebook
• YouTube

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Transcript

Welcome to another episode of Bella in your business. My name is Bella Vasta. And how's your summer going? My summer is crazy. The days are flying by, I kind of feel like a chicken with my head cut off trying to do work with my daughter running in. How are you guys doing? I want to know, like, DM me, tag me back, let me know your biggest tip or trick and I might. I might talk about it on our next episode, in terms of how are you managing summer and also being a parent for the parents that are out there. Today, though, you know, there are so many things as a coach, I get to have this 30,000-foot view of everything and we go in I had a coaching call this week and the poor gal, she's in better marketing, and Bella, and she's in the mastermind she just recently joined both of them. So she's getting into the whole jumper community. And, you know, she was just like, she was crying at the beginning. She was overwhelmed. She's, I think she felt a little embarrassed at first, but I was like, Girl, people cry with me all the time. Because our businesses are us right there, like our blood, sweat, and tears week, you my listeners have created something from nothing. And many of you are also employing many people which is really kind of cool, that you're pumping money back into the economy, your local economy, and changing people's lives. So I don't want you to forget, like how much of I know not gonna say that word. Because kids might be listening, how much of an awesome person you are, let's put it that way. So today, you know, there are four major categories, and I want you to kind of think about them. If I make you upset, it's probably because it's something you need to work on. Or, or I've triggered something inside of you. So I want you to go deep on that. But today, I'm going to talk about four different things that you need in your business, to maximize your success and essentially make everything very efficient. The problem is, is that I see sometimes people are trying to save, and solve the same problem again and again and again. And I want to make sure that you my loyal listeners are not one of those people. And so I'm going to try to identify four different areas. And of course, we're not going to be able to get into how to and doing it all today. But I want you to kind of consider it. So have you ever had a client that you have automatically explained away in your head? Oh, they're old, they can't do it? Oh, I'll do it for them their special needs client? Oh, I want to make sure that this is done right. So I'm going to do it? Well, the first thing I want to encourage you to consider is your onboarding system for new clients. Is it working? And are you using it 100% A lot of you guys are spending a lot of money on some software systems, but you're not using it to its fullest potential. And you're missing out, you're paying people to do this for you. Or you're spending your own time, which is adding to your overwhelm and exhaustion and, and all of that stuff because you're giving yourself extra jobs. So I want you to think about what your onboarding system looks like. What does it look like from where it becomes a lead to an actual client? How are we going? How are we calling people back? How are we getting them the information? How are we getting them to sign up? Are we having to have conversations on the phone by email by text? Please, please don't tell me you're doing it by text. But you know, like how are we doing this? How are we getting people in? Is it the smoothest system possible? And when we get them in? Are they actually in control of the information in your system? And I'm gonna say system not portal. Please don't call it a portal. Nobody wants a portal. The minute you tell someone to sign in to our portal, they're like, Ah, it's like, it's like the C word like the COVID word. Okay, so I want you to figure out how can you reframe that, but you need to get a really good onboarding system. Because without a good onboarding system, you are creating more chaos for you. You are creating more time that you have to spend on yourself. But you're also creating a bad experience for your customer. Like, I had a blog a while ago, and it said why Rover is always going to win over the professional pet sitter. And it's because it's so easy to sign up with them. Guys, I know you're like, but I need to ask all this and I need to do all that. I get it and do it. But there is a time and a place to do all of that. And it is not right out of the gate. Okay, you have to distinctly determine what questions you need the answers to and at what point of the process. So the very first thing is Can your onboarding process be better? Something cool that we do in the mastermind every single year when we talk about systems and processes is we pick a couple of people, and they you know, nominate themselves. And we go through their process as a client. And it's cool, because when you get like two or three people that have time to pet or two or three people that have like precise Petcare, for example. And the experience is different because these systems allow you to customize them. And sometimes people customize them in the wrong way. So the very first thing I want you to think about today is your onboarding of new clients, the easiest possible thing. The second thing I want you to talk about, or think about is your marketing, like running, okay, and I think I've shared this with you guys before on the podcast, but those of you who follow me on Instagram, at Bella vasta, be like I'm Victor ASEA. Um, what I do is when I have stories that I do, anytime that you see captions come up, that have yellow words, and a white background, my social media team knows to take those and make it into a real. And then they add, like some background music trending background music, they might add B roll, they might add a whole bunch of different stuff. But like that's my little like would do. Also with marketing, we do our marketing in like quarters. So we like to batch h h our content, we think about what are our buckets, and we've done many shows on that before. And you have to get your marketing also on a system. If you're waking up every day thinking, what do I need to make in Canva today, or you're waking up every day thinking shoot, I forgot, hug your cat day yesterday, then, your system is defunct, and it is not efficient. And we are looking for efficiency, because with efficiency comes systems, and with systems comes less time and money wasted, which equals ultimately, less overwhelm for everybody. Okay, so I want you to think about what can you do to improve your marketing. This goes without saying we also have better marketing with Bella, where we provide you with all of your marketing every single month. We've been doing that since January of 2018. And we have people that have been in the program since January of 2018. Because that's how good it is. So if you're not creative, if you're not sure what works on social if you're not up to date on all the changes that happen every single month on social that needs to change your social strategy, then consider DMing me and we can talk more about that later. Or if you want to go pick it out and just look at it. It's jumpconsulting.net/marketing. All right. The third thing is getting new employees. So guys, have you ever been at the stage where you have someone on your team that is just draining you, they are sucking all the energy out of you, and you wish you could just like to fire them or replace them or if given the chance to hire them again, you would not hire them again, knowing what you know now. Well, if you're in that position, and you don't have a full funnel of people that you can bring into your organization, then you're a hostage in your business. And there's a lot of people that are hostage in their business right now, I don't want that to be you. So it is imperative that we also figure out and work on a really good hiring system, I can tell you about one of my clients who has people lined up waiting to work for her. Or I can tell you about another client who revamped her entire system. It's like 11 or 12 Steps long that when she gets involved in one of the final interviews, she is the most perfect person. And not only did they work out for the hiring, but they stay on for a long time. This stuff can happen. I've done it with many people. It is not your area. It is not that people don't want to work it is none of that. It is most likely your system and the way that you're going about it. Just like I talked about onboarding new clients, we need to onboard and source new employees in a way that makes people feel realy excited that it gets them excited and almost become advocates to want to work with you. And we kind of talked about that and a few episodes ago with Joey Coleman. If you have not listened to the Joey Coleman expert about a month ago, you have to go back and listen to it because it was amazing. The book is also amazing to his book which just came out at the end of January and debuted at number five on the Wall Street Journal. It was the sequel to never losing a client. This is never to lose an employee, okay, or never lose a customer. I think that's what it's called. And then it's called Never Lose an Employee. It's a really good book and it will expand your brain on all the different tiny details and areas that you can be doing during the interviewing, onboarding, training, and building that company culture. And so that is a system that if you can maximize it to the fullest potential, you can solve the hiring problem, okay, you can have it drawn out so systematically that if you're not getting the results you need, you can identify where in that process, it is broken down, and you need to fix it, guys, it is wildly amazing, there is a different way to do it, other than sitting there hoping that people work out. That is a really good recipe for disaster. And I know I might be talking about or hitting some nerves right now. But I'm telling you, I just want to let you know, there's hope out there. There are other ways of doing it. And my clients are succeeding with it, the ones that are putting in the work, the ones that are determining who am I and what am I looking for. And how can I make this happen? So let's just review quickly. So to maximize success, and make your pet business efficient, you need to look at your onboarding for all of your new clients, you need to look at your marketing systems so that you're not distracted by that. And also, let's just say about marketing, that takes a lot of creativity. And you can't be creative when you're constantly like feeling like you're under 100-pound weight, or you're held hostage, or you're putting out fires, or you're solving the same problems all the time. You can't be creative, you can't like it just doesn't work in your brain. And so and then getting new employees, so the whole hiring funnel, if you get that system figured out, you can be great. And the last one, this might kind of sound silly, but collecting payments, some of you all are doing like 50% upfront and 50 50% on the back, or are going through and getting checks or waiting for checks to be sent to you from the bank, or you're still like depositing checks, all of that is costing you time and money because your time is worth money. All right, I've got the ones that are on like time to pet where you are, you're you are bound to we pay or stripe, that makes my business hard, a little sad. That's another story for another time. But if you're on like precise Petcare, or any of the others that have an open API that allow you to bring in places like authorized.net, or to shop your rate around, and you haven't shopped around for the last six months, send me an email Bella at junk consulting dotnet, because I've got to hook up to a great representative of a credit card company who is also a CPA. So he understands likwhate your p&l is and your bottom line. And it's kind of a triple threat. But you're collecting payments and the way people pay is something that you need to look at to find out if we're losing efficiency in our business there. The reason is twofold. One I just told you about all the ones for you internally, but externally, did you know that if people don't see the money, it's just automatically deducted? They don't have to think about paying you, which means the question of whether should I stop this service never happens. Do I have to go grab my wallet and get the security code off of my card? All of that stuff. Anytime someone has to go grab their wallet or their card, or think about paying you, you have just opened up an opportunity for them to cancel on you. It is proven that I think don't quote me I think it was like 35% people will spend like 35% More when they don't see it, you know, Apple Pay billing, or it's already loaded in or not even that but like a lot of you are dog walkers where you can just have an automatic reoccurring payment. Even the petsitting you should just automatic reoccurring payments. Okay, we've got your card on file, which is going to charge that sounds good. Yep. Keep it like that. Guys, I want you to, I want you to think about these areas, the onboarding of new clients marketing, getting new employees, and collecting payments. These are the processes that I see the most convoluted in so many, so many companies, I want you to think real honestly with yourself, is there any room for improvement in any of that, if there is, it is going to make a dynamic shift in your business. Now if you're one of those people that are on the cusp of I want to start hiring an internal operation, I want to start hiring an office manager and stuff. This is stuff that you need to take care of now before you hire someone. Because if you hire someone to do 10 hours of work, when it's only two hours of work if it was on a better system, then that's eight hours of work that you're saving yourself, not to mention eight potential hours of questions that are interrupting you from doing whatever you're doing, and onward and so on. So, in conclusion, you do not have to be overwhelmed or overworked or stressed out or hate your business or miss out on the summer with your kids or cookouts or Labor Day, or anything else that's coming up. You don't you just Need to have better systems. I say this lovingly as a former pet sitting dog walking business owner, it is just petsitting. We do not need to overcomplicate it, the devil is in the details. So figure out the exact details and do it based on what you want to create your business, not what often Joe Schmoe or someone else on a Facebook group is doing, I want you to figure out what it is that you want. And make your dreams your reality. If you have trouble figuring out what it is that you want, and how to get there. That's me. That's where I help people. That's my forte. And if we've never met before, I would love more than anything just to have a 20-minute conversation with you and try to solve one problem, you can do that by going to jumpconsulting.net/20, and you can get right on my calendar and pick my brain about anything that you want. It is the highlight of my day when I get to talk to you guys. This has been another episode of Bella in your business. I hope you have enjoyed this. I hope this has given you something to think about onboarding your client's marketing, getting new employees like the hiring funnel, or collecting payments. You can also search the website jump consulting.net up at the top right corner, go to the magnifying glass and you can search these topics because I have written tons of stuff on this stuff. We have over 500 blogs, 200 videos 300, And whatever I don't even remember right now podcasts there's so much out there for you that we have. And then if you want a community around you we got the mastermind if you want marketing done for you we got better marketing with Bella. Or if you want coaching sessions, oh wait, this is airing the week of my birthday. We have an amazing special going on right now. It's 50% off, if I come to you or you come to me, or 50% off 645-minute coaching sessions that you can use anytime within six months. So you want to go and check out our website, check out Instagram, DM me, email me whatever it is, I'm everywhere guys, and I'm the easiest person to get a hold of. And I hope to see you there but guys, you don't have to hate your business. You don't have to hate your life. You don't have to feel like you're underwater. If you're doing that the systems are defunct, and we need to change them and there is a better way. It's it's not that it doesn't work. It just doesn't work this way. And I want so badly to help you with that. You guys have been another episode of Bella in your business. Remember when life gets you down always keep jumping