How do Attitude and Belief Affect Your Business Growth?

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Learning to grow a successful pet care business is not just about learning business skills. To achieve great business growth will require that you will also need to achieve great personal growth.

Successful business owners have great attitude and they believe that they will be a success. Many of us through past personal relationships, circumstances, and past events have built up beliefs about success that may hold us back in achieving all that we want to in our life and our business. These may include beliefs about money, our own abilities, or other people. To achieve success we need to break through these old beliefs and create new beliefs that will aid our pursuit of business success.

We all have the ability to choose our attitude towards life and work - and our attitude that we bring to our life will affect how we interact with others and perceive events and circumstances. Another great lesson is the need to be present.

Do you believe that you are able to choose the attitude that you bring to your business every day? Even if you are stuck in traffic getting to the office, the coffee machine is broken, and you find that your computer has overnight scrambled your files – you do still have the personal choice to either let these setbacks make you angry, irritable, and flustered or to remain calm and solution focused.

Do you start each day picturing a productive and enjoyable day, or are you focused on worrying about the traffic, being late, or that big deadline or meeting? One of the laws of the universe is that what we focus on in life expands. So if you are focused on worry then more events to worry about will find their way into your day. However, if you are focused on opportunity more opportunities will magically become obvious to you.

The attitude you bring to your business each day will also have an impact on your employees, business partners, and customers. Positive energy is contagious as is negative energy. By gathering together and taking a collective decision to accept that you all choose your attitude you will create an environment at work where people are more accountable and proactive.

Lastly, the belief in yourself and belief in your ability to be a success in your business has a huge impact on your results. If you don’t fully believe that you can succeed do you think you’ll put in all the effort that you are capable of? Will the people around you be able to believe in you if you don’t?

You can work on building your belief by searching out limiting beliefs, writing them down and then turning them around into positive affirmations. By practicing these positive affirmations rather than focusing on limitations we are able to reprogram the mind and solidify our belief.

In the winter I attended a great seminar in Dallas called the Millionaire Mind intensive - I attended with another member of my business coaching group. Over the 3 days seminar we did some exercises to release existing blocking beliefs and instill new helpful beliefs. We had a great time and met some great people as well as learning more about ourselves and the way we think.

You can get 2 free tickets to a seminar in a city near you with the purchase of the book Millionaire Mind. They also run a shorter evening version of the workshop in different cities across the US. I would recommend the book “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind” even if you are not interested in the seminar as it has some great tips about the attitude and mindset of successful people.

Click here to learn more about the Millionaire Mind Evening events.

Making a Positive First Impression

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Good First ImpressionIf you are as busy as I am, the first impression that potential clients get of your business is most likely to be your answering machine message. Of course it is preferable to answer every call personally but even if you carry your phone everywhere you go - you still can’t answer two calls at once!

You answering machine message on your cell and/or business phone should be professional and give clients information about the services or products you supply. Here is a sample script:

1) Introduce yourself - for example - “Hi this is Danielle with Claws Paws and Jaws Pet Sitters”

2) Give them information about the services you provide - “Claws Paws & Jaws provide professional in-home pet sitting services including overnight and midday walking visits in the cities of Euless and Grapevine”.

3) Encourage them to leave a message and let them know when they should expect a return call from you - “Please leave us a message with your name, city, and dates that you would like service. Our office hours are from 8am-5pm and we do return all calls on the same business day”

4) Give them a place to find more information on your service/product - “For more information about our services and rates please visit us online at www.Clawspawsjaws.com”

Make sure that you are smiling as you leave the message as this will give your voice a pleasant tone, and make the delivery smooth. Listen to your message and re-record if you are not happy with your first attempt.

Check your messages regularly and get back to clients as soon as you are able. Unfortunately quick response is not very common in business today so you will often be thanked by clients you do call back promptly and will avoid them calling around to find other service providers while they wait for you to call.

Now that I’ve put that together my script I think I’m off to update my voice mail message !

Cute Cat Video Contest

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Over at Scratchings and Sniffings they are launching a cute cat video contest. Send in your video and if you are selected in their weekly drawings in June, July and August you will win a copy of the book “Hooked on a Feline: Basic Cat Care from a Different PURR-spective” and also have your video published on their site.

Click here for the entry details and rules.

Pet Care Business is Booming

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Today I found several articles which published some great figures and predictions about the pet care industry. In the past few years demand for pet related services and products has been steadily rising as per the report on Small Business Trends. Most spending growth has been occurring in specialty pet products, pet services, pet medicines, and pet insurance.

Your Healthy Pets Online published an article about making money in the pet care business. What I found most interesting about the article was the following figures about pet ownership and spending:

Over 37 million homes in the USA alone have at least one dog
More than $33.5 billion is spent annually in the USA on pets
Over 45% of all households in the USA have more than one pet

Another article I found quoted an American Chemical Society study that found that US pet owners spent $18.5 million of the $33.5 billion total on veterinary care, medications and non-food pet supplies.

These are a just a couple of many articles I have seen lately that announces that the pet business is growing steadily and that pet care is currently one of the fastest growing home business opportunities. Predictions made by ACS journal of Chemical & Engineering News are that the money spent on pet care is set to rise in the coming years at an annual rate of 6%.

This is all great news for pet care business owners and those of you who are considering starting a pet business. It also sheds light on many opportunities for possible add on income for pet business owners that can be earned by recommending pet insurance, medications, and products to our clients as affiliate sales. There are several sites online that list online affiliate opportunities. A couple are:

Affiliate Match

Commision Junction

Storefront pet businesses such as vets, groomers, and day care facilities can also take advantage of growing pet product sales by setting up displays of pet products in their locations to sell directly to customers.

5 Steps to Creating a Client Attractive Website

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In the past three years I have spent a lot of time working on the web presence of my pet sitting business. I realized that more and more of my clients were searching for their pet sitter on the internet and that my web site is the first impression that they get of me and the professionalism of my business. I love it when customers tell me they selected me as their sitter because they thought I had the best website!
Here are some tips to give your website a competitive edge:

1. Give it a personal touch

Your website should reflect your unique personality. Write as you would speak conversationally and include photos of yourself and your family if they are also involved in the business. Make sure you are smiling, look welcoming and friendly! My clients often comment that they like that they can see who I am (they know I’m a real person) and some also say they chose me because they could tell that my business is a family affair!

2. Maintain a consistent image

Make the look and feel of your website consistent with the look of your business cards, stationary and your advertising. This can be done by using the same colors, fonts, and your business’s logo. This consistency builds the image of your business and makes you more recognizable to customers.

3. Give visitors information

Let your customers know what it will be like to do business with you. People love information and it is easy to provide this via a website. Give them details of your policies, the benefits of your service, pricing structures and incentive programs. Supply downloadable copies of any application forms or other paperwork that you need completed.

4. Showcase customer testimonials

Ask your past and present customers to provide testimonials about your product or service. I recommend that you set up a regimented process to collect these such as a post job survey, so that you have a consistent supply of fresh testimonials. To encourage more effective testimonials ask customers to describe how your service or product solved a problem that they had and what life was like before they found you and how it changed for the better after using your business. Showcase these testimonials on a page of your website. To make testimonials more credible show the customers full name and their website or email address after their quote.

5. Help make the lives of your customers easier

Provide links to other complementary but non-competitive local businesses. For example customers often ask me to recommend local groomers, dog trainers, and veterinarians. This month I will be adding a list of these local businesses on my site so that customers have easy access to them and have a reason to come back to visit my site next time they are looking for a pet service provider. Make sure you have used these businesses yourself or know of others who have so that you can ensure your customers will receive quality service. Ask these businesses if they will reciprocate by placing a link to your site on their web site.

Just a few ideas for you from my lessons learnt. I hope you can put them to good use and create a site that your customers rave about! You can take a look at how I’ve used these concepts on my site at Claws Paw & Jaws Pet Sitting.

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