Celebrity Apprentice Follow-Up - Pedigree Dog Adoption Drive

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Celebrity Apprentice DogWell - I did make a point to watch the Celebrity Apprentice episode on Thursday night, but I have to admit I was a little disappointed. It was very dramatized and they spent less than 1/2 of the show actually working on the assignment.

They did have 2 teams - they had all men on one team and all women on the other - and each team was given the task to create a 30 minute commercial for the Pedigree Dog Adoption drive. The men were lead by Gene Simmons from Kiss and women were lead by Nely Galan - a TV executive. Each team had 8 hours to tape the ad and edit.

It was interesting to see the teams go about the task very differently - the women spent time planning and speaking with the Pedigree rep to find out their vision for the campaign. The men dived right in to making the video with no planning and didn’t bother to speak with Pedigree. The women worked as a team, getting everyone a task to complete. The men chose a director, Stephen Baldwin, and Gene and Stephen went ahead and completed the ad without much help from the rest of the team - they even sent the others home!

The learnings that I did take away from the show were that vital elements to a publicity campaign are to:

1) Appeal to your audience’s emotions

2) Make it real

3) Make good use of storytelling

4) Use star power / celebrity

Both the teams showed good dogs in bad situations that were given a good home and became members of the family. They used realism, storytelling and emotion - but the men got the upper hand and won the challenge through their choice to use Lennox Lewis (heavyweight fighter) as lead actor in their commerical.

To really do a better job I felt that they needed more time to research or at least discuss the demographics of pet owner or pet adopter market.

If you have any other learnings or comments please let us know by leaving a comment with this thread.

My 2007 Bookshelf

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Yesterday Lynn Terry shared the books she ordered from Amazon in 2007 at her blog and I though it was a fun idea. I order most of my books from Barnes and Noble so I pulled up my account to see what was on my order list this year and also checked out my home bookshelf.  I found that there were more than I thought and many I still need to finish reading!

Here is my list:

101 Best Businesses for Pet Lovers

The Secret Gratitude Book

What Clients Love: A Field Guide to Growing Your Business

Everything I Know About Business I Learned from my Mama: A Down-Home Approach to Business and Personal Success

E-Myth Mastery: The Seven Essential Disciplines for Building a World Class Company

Nolo’s Quick LLC: All You Need to Know About Limited Liability Companies

The Millionaire Maker: Act, Think, and Make Money the Way the Wealthy Do

The Millionaire Maker’s Guide to Creating a Cash Machine for Life

Power of An Hour: Business and Life Mastery in One Hour A Week

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth

Franchise Bible

Podcasting Bible

I picked up the following books to learn more about managing money and investing:

Cashflow Quadrant: Rich Dad’s Guide to Financial Freedom

Real Estate Investing for Dummies

And I bought the following two training books to help me at work - but they are also great books for training employees:

Telling Ain’t Training

101 Ways to Make Training Active (Active Training Series)

What about you? Did you read any great books that you’d like to share? Let us know about them by leaving a comment..

Celebrity Apprentice Teams Create Homeless Dog Awareness Campaign

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Celebrity DogThis month Donald Trump is back on NBC with a new series of the Apprentice with a cast of business-savy celebrities. A great opportunity to see some celebrities left out in the cold you could say but how does that relate to working with pets?

This week on the January 10th show his star apprentices are helping to raise awareness of the 4 million homeless dogs in shelters across the USA. The cast will split into two teams and compete to create the best community awareness campaign for “Pedigree Food for Dogs” annual Adoption Drive that is officially launched on February 7th.

As part of the show each team will visit an animal shelter and review campaigns from previous adoption events.

The winning community service announcement will be aired during the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show on February 11th and 12th.

So why should you tune in to the Apprentice on January 10th?

1 ) to pick up tips that you can apply to marketing your pet business in your community with press releases

2) to learn the strategies that are used to get the attention of pet lovers

3) to gain knowledge that you can apply to help your local pet rescue groups get more exposure and more publicity for their community events.

I’ll get back to you with a review later this week - but tune in yourself on the 10th at 9pm EST / 8pm CT on NBC and let me know what you think!

10 Easy Ways to Green Your Pet Business

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Green PetsLately you can’t avoid hearing about the damage we as humans are causing to the environment and the potential impacts it is having and going to have on the world we live in. One of the ways to cut down this impact is to make sure we use eco-friendly products for our pets and as part of the day to day running of our pet businesses. Here are some ways to minimize the impact of our pets:

1. Use recycled office paper - when I visited Staples this past week I noticed that we now have the option of purchasing recycled printer paper. The paper is a slightly higher price than regular but well worth the fuzzy feeling you’ll get when using.

2. Recycle ink printer cartridges - don’t throw used printer cartridges away! You can get a discount on new cartridges when you take them to a office supply store for refilling or recycling. Check out www.recycle4charity.com for some other options that will help raise money for your community. They also accept used cell phones.

3. Recycle pet food packaging - make sure you check into your cities recycling capabilities and put out paper and plastic packaging to recycle pick up.

4. Always pick up the poop when walking dogs - doggie poop left on the ground can get into ground water. Make sure you take bags to collect poop when walking dogs and pick up as much as you can.

5. Use biodegradable doggie poop bags - you can now purchase biodegradable plastic poop collection bags at most pet stores and also order them online at www.poopbags.com or www.skooperbox.com.

6. Use natural cleaning products - when cleaning up accidents use cleaning products made from natural ingredients when possible. Mrs Myers has a range of natural pet cleaning products at www.mrsmyers.com.

7. Use natural shampoos and grooming products - if your business involves bathing pets consider using natural shampoos and grooming wipes that don’t contain harsh chemicals and are biodegradable. Uptown Critters carries a wide range of natural pet cleaners.

8. Encourage owners to use earth friendly cat litters - there is new cat litter on the market that is 100% earth friendly and flushable so it does not end up filling our landfills. One of these is Perfect Litter and you can get a free sample at www.perfectlitter.com

9. Purchase pet toys made from eco-friendly and recycled materials - if you buy toys as client gifts consider toys that are made from recycled materials. These are widely available online and in stores. Buy these toys for your own pets.

10. Encourage owners to feed pets natural or organic pet foods - natural foods are more healthy for pets and also result is less pet waste.

To find innovative green pet products visit the Great Green Pet blog. This is a blog for pet shoppers that highlights the latest eco-friendly toys, accessories, and supplies for pets.

If you have other suggestions for greening a pet business please leave your comments on this post.

What 5 New Skills do you Want to Learn in 2008?

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Learn New Pet Business SkillsHappy New Year! Welcome to a new year and with a new year comes many new chances to learn new skills that you can use to create a more joyous life and business. Really we get this opportunity every day - but at this time of year change is in the air and I tend to give the subject of new goals and challenges more thought.

So today I wanted to ask you which skills you would most like to learn this year and what information I can give you here at Working with Pets that can help you learn.

To break the ice here is my list of 5 skills that I would love to learn or improve this year:

1) Learn how to set up systems and outsource work so that my pet sitting sitting business can manage itself next Christmas. My family have made plans to travel to Tennessee together next Christmas so that the whole family can celebrate together and I don’t want to be the one not to go because of my business. To take time away I will have to ensure I have a staff of available sitters, put together systems for managing new customer calls, distribution of pet sitting jobs, an emergency management plan, and possibly even outsource my responsibilities to an office manager. This one scares me a little as I will have to relinquish control to others - this is a common fear for any pet business owner - but one we eventually have to overcome to grow our pet business. I’ll let you know how I progress with this goal - I did make some big strides this year by setting up job assignment systems, and a pet sitter incentive plan. I’ll be telling you about these in future posts.

2) Learn how to create a interactive online forum where pet business owners can learn from and help each other. This is my next project and I have already made a start. I hope to have this up and running later this month so that pet business owners can network and share ideas. I want this to be a place where new and experienced pet business owners alike can come for inspiration and discuss everything about their business and also make new friends. Stay tuned for a launch announcement!

3) Learn how to share knowledge through teleconferences and podcasts. This year I hope to host several live tele-conferences and create recorded podcasts that will be available on this blog. Achieving this will require that I find topics of interest, learn how to use recording software, polish my speaking skills, and network with other pet professionals to partner with interview candidates.

4) Learn to balance work commitments with family and fitness. I want to be able to post valuable content here for you at Working with Pets, maintain quality time with family, and also make time to eat healthy and exercise. This is a time management task and a task to use time more effectively.

5) Learn to focus on one goal until it is complete. I have to admit that I have “shiny object syndrome”. Any time there is something new mentioned on a blog, in a magazine, or that I read or a book - I like to drop everything and run after the new idea. I am easily distracted by new stuff. This year I want to avoid distraction and remain focused on my goals for my business, my family, and my health and fitness.

So please tell me about your plans for the new year and share some of the new skills that you look forward to learning. You can leave a comment with this post or email me at daniellechonody@gmail.com.

What information can I give you here that will help you learn those new skills? What topics would you like to see discussed here in 2008? What questions do you need answered to take your pet business to a new level of success in 2008?

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