The Pros and Cons of Pet Sitting

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The popularity of pet sitting is growing rapidly.  Four years ago when I started my pet sitting business in Dallas Fort Worth many people I spoke to had no idea that pet sitting was an option to boarding their pets when they traveled. Today pet sitting is regularly in the news and the largest pet sitting franchise in the United States opens 4-5 new locations every month.  

A pet sitter is someone who visits a client’s home once or several times a day to feed, water, walk and play with pets while clients are at work or out of town. Often pet sitters also perform home services such as mail collection, garbage disposal, and plant watering. Pet sitting is an alternative to boarding and offers the benefit of keeping pets in a familiar environment and maintaining their regular routine. This means that pets are less stressed and avoid coming in contact with other animals from which they can pick up disease. Pet sitting also offers more convenience to owners as they do not have to drop and pick up pets from a boarding facility.  

Pricing for pet sitting varies from $14-25 per 30 minute visit depending on region. Some pet sitters charge extra for administering medications to pets, and charge extra for each additional pet. The price that you charge will have to cover your transportation costs to and from visits. You should do some research about the rates of other pet sitters in your area to see what you can expect to earn per visit.  

The Pros 

I love pet sitting as I get to interact with many different pets and they always greet me with happy faces and wagging tails. I also get to meet owners and share stories about their pets. At a pet sitting visit you are paid to play and spend time cuddling with the pets, what could seem less like work?   Pet sitting is a business you can start small with low start up cost and low overheads. You can grow the business as you grow your business skills. I started small and have slowly built up a base of regular clients. You are also able to start the business part time while continuing to work a day job. I still run my business part-time and use contractors to help me with pet sitting visits.  It is a great business to start if you have not previously owned your own business as you can learn along the way.  

The Cons 

Pet sitters take on a lot of responsibility while caring for pets because pet owners are relying on the sitter to manage their pet’s health and well-being in their absence. Pet owners also trust you with the keys and security of their home.  As a pet sitter you need to be organized and keep track of scheduled visits, keys and contracts. The worst thing a pet sitter can do is to miss a scheduled visit. 

As a pet sitter you must be comfortable entering client’s homes to visit pets. Sometimes visits will have to be made to customer’s homes at night when the home is dark. You must be comfortable entering customer’s homes and walking around neighborhoods with dogs to walk them at night.   The busiest times of the year for a pet sitting business are during major holidays such as Christmas and Thanksgiving, long weekends, and during school holidays. You have to be prepared to work on these holidays and on weekends while your family and friends are enjoying time off.   

As a pet sitter you must be prepared to clean litter boxes each visit and clean up accidents in the home whenever they occur. In my business this has often meant cleaning vomit, poop and pee from carpets, hard floors, and pets. 

Dogs will need walking come rain or shine and you will often have to make visits when you are tired or even sick. Pet sitting is something you have to make a total commitment to pursuing as you will have to be there when the pets need you.  

Be Interviewed and Promote Your Pet Business on Working with Pets

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I would like to hear from other pet care professionals and business owners abouttheir experiences working with pets and be able to share this knowledge with readersof this blog.  As I am a pet sitter I have little knowledge of the pros and cons and intricacies of running other types of pet businesses.   

If you would like to share the answers to the questions below as part of aninterview on this blog then I will also run a feature about your business with theinterview and give you a link back to your website.   Please share the answers to all or some of the following questions with us by emailing yourresponses to me at daniellechonody@gmail.com.  Look forward to hearing from you soon!

1.     What kind of business do you run?

2.     How long have you been in business?

3.     Why did you choose to start a pet care business?

4.     What advice would you give someone about to launch a new pet care business?

5.     What has been the greatest challenge in growing your business?

6.     What are the pros and cons of your profession?

7.     What daily tasks do you enjoy most?

8.     If you could have done anything differently what would it have been?

9.     Did you have a mentor or business coach? If so how did they help you?

10. Are you a member of any professional associations? How have they helped you?

11. What form(s) of marketing have you found the most effective in reaching pet owners? 

12. Do you offer clients incentives for giving referrals?

13.  At what stage of your business growth did you choose to take on help?

14. Did you choose to use employees or independent contractors? Why?

15.  What have you found is the best way to find new staff members?

16. What have you done to differentiate your business from your local competitors? 

Defining Your Ideal Employee (or Independent Contractor)

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In my previous article - When is the Right Time to Hire Help? - I advised that the first step to take when considering taking on help is to define your ideal employee. This is an important step that is easily skipped over. But including this step in yoru hiring process will aid you in the process of looking for and screening candidates and save you a lot of stress and pain later.

When I hired the first contractor into my pet sitting business, it happened pretty much by chance. One of my pet sitting customers said they would be interested in becoming a sitter so I gave her the job and she starting taking on sitting assignments. For a while she did fine but because we had not set any ground rules or even discussed a job description we ended up having disagreements because we didn’t have the same expectations. I expected that when she said she wanted to take on a job that she wouldn’t call at the last minute needing a replacement because something else came up. I expected that she would commit to the job and the job would be her first priority. But I blame myself - I had really given little thought to what my ideal employee would be like and I hadn’t been very specific about my expectations.

When you think about the vision you have for your business what does your relationship with your employees or contractors look like?

Do they work unsupervised or with close supervision?

Do they contribute to the business by offering ideas and improvements or do they just do their job and leave the creative work to you?

Do they work as a team or independently?

Is it important that they want to improve their skills by attending regular training?

These are all important questions to ask yourself to determine what you want in perfect staff member.

There are other practical considerations that you also need to consider. The first is whether you need staff to work part time hours or a full work week. This will depend on the type of work that they will be doing for you. One of the major considerations you need to make before you advertise for help is whether you want to work with employees or independent contractors. This will depend on how much control you need to have on how they perform the job. With contractors you must be careful to follow IRS rules and this means that you can control the end result of their work but not how the result is achieved. I will cover the rules in more detail in my next post in this series.

Once you have determined the hours they will work and type of staff you want to work with you will also need to think about the personality traits that you would like your staff members to have. Again this will depend on the work will do in your pet business. If they are working with customers you want them to be outgoing, have confidence, and be polite and courteous. If they will be working with the pets only then it is more important that they have experience working with animals.

A part of their personality is also their motivation for performing the job for you. Do they want the job just to pay the bills or are there other motivators for them? Are they interested in a part time job with pets because they love to be around animals? In my experience you want to find staff members who are motivated by the joy of the work itself as they will often go the extra mile to make pets happy and at ease.

Along with the right personality it is also important that they have the right skills for the job. If they will be working in an office you will want someone with good computer, email, organizational, and phone skills. If they are working with pets you will need to find out what type of pets they are comfortable working with, if they are confident to give medications including shots, and have they been trained in pet first aid. One other important skill to consider is writing skills. I get my sitters to write a note to clients at each visit to tell them about the pet and their behavior. It is important that the sitter be able to write an informative and legible note.

Finally there are practical considerations to consider. Of course it is vital that your new staff member will be able to perform the work you need done. If they need them to drive to pet sitting, walking, or training jobs they will need a drivers license, good driving record, and reliable vehicle. If you want to be able to contact them by phone or email, you may need them to have a cell phone or computer and internet access. If you staff will be entering clients homes you will want to conduct a background check and if they will be handling money a credit check is also advisable.

Make a list of the personality traits, skill set, and practical requirements of your ideal staff member. This list will help you to write your advertisements and also help you to screen candidates once you begin interviewing. We’ll get to these topics in the next few posts - but until then please tell me about the experiences that you have had with staff and how this has shaped how you define your ideal employee/contractor.

Start an Online Pet Business

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Online Pet BusinessOn this blog and in my free ebook - Your New Pet Care Career   I have talked about the many common and unusual career options that are available in the pet care industry.  However, I haven’t discussed the many pet care businesses that you are also able to start online. 

Today I found a great ebook by Diana Ratliff that gives you the details about starting 10 unique online pet businesses.  The internet and pet industry are both growing in popularity so now is a great time to start an internet pet business.  The best part is that you can easily combine an online pet business with an existing offline pet business such as grooming, pet sitting, dog daycare, or even a veterinary care business.   

The ebook covers the follwowing 10 Popular Online Pet Businesses

  1. eBay or Online Auction Sales
  2. Membership Site
  3. Catalog-type Site
  4. Product Review Site or Newsletter
  5. Affiliate Sales
  6. Salesletter Selling Single Product
  7. Paid Newsletter
  8. Writing for Pay
  9. Online Services for Others in the Pet Business Industry
  10. Blogging

The book explains what each business IS - a brief description of what you’d be getting into, and what your online pet business might look like and how it would operate. 

What type of work is actually involved in each business, on a day-to-day or ongoing basis, so you won’t waste time and effort pursuing a pet busienss that simply doesn’t fit into your schedule OR your budget.

How to be successful in this type of online business - what you need to master to go from obscurity to profit.

The pros of each business model - is this Internet pet business easy to start?  Cheap to run?  Can it be done without a website? 

The cons of each business model - you’ll learn upfront if this type of business requires a complicated website, lots of time to manage and update, or if there’s simply too much competition.

AND Suggested resources for further study - so that once you’ve narrowed down your preferences, you know EXACTLY HOW TO GET STARTED.

Even though I was familiar with each of these online pet businesses Diana explains the inner workings of each business in very clear and simple terms. The pros and cons that she lists make it easy to see how each business would fit into your lifestye and how much time and money would be required.

Her online pet business ebook is available for only $7 and you can get a copy by clicking here.  It is a great investment even if you are just curious about the opportunities available online.

Gooming Expo - September 6-9th Pennsylvania

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I received a notice in my email today about another pet business seminar in Hersey Pennsylvania this September - the Groom Expo.  The Groom Expo is held September 6-9th at Hershey Lodge and Convention Centre.

During the 4 day event they have a pet tradeshow, seminars on grooming, animal behavior and first aid, and a silent auction on the Sunday night.

There are several packages available to attend one or multiple days of the expo. You can find all the details of the expo at Groom Expo.

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