Our First Competition and Survey - Tell us What You Need to Win

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Pet Business Question I’m excited to launch our very first competition here at Working with Pets and even more eager toÂ receive your feedback! So all you have to do to enter the competition is to fill out a quick 3 question online survey to tell me what you need to enable you to grow your pet business.

The competitionÂ prize is a pre-launch copy of my new teleseminar series “Secrets of Pet Business Success” where you will hear meÂ interview 5 successful pet business owners to discover their success secrets. This will go on sale next month butÂ some oneÂ will beÂ enjoying itÂ on the 29th June whenÂ I announce the competition winner. The winner will be selected randomly from the competition entrants.

As a special thank you to everyone who takes the time to fill out the survey I will be giving all entrants a free copy of Hub Blueprint - a guide that will show you how to use Hub Pages to increase the traffic to your website from the search engines.Â This guide leads you through the process of setting up your first Hub page with screen shots and videos.Â Click here to go straight to the survey and pick up your free guide.

The results from the survey will help me to focus this blog on topics that interest you and allow me to develop new products that let you grow your pet business faster.Â

Click here to visit the survey and send in your entry by June 28th to get your free Hub Pages Blueprint and be entered in the drawing to win “Secrets of Pet Business Success” right now!

How to Use a Blog to Promote Your Pet Business Locally

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How to use a blog In the last few months I have been taking a hard look at my large yellow pages directory bills that arrive each month. I’ve been wondering - am I really getting the best value for my marketing dollar? I always make sure to ask new pet sitting clients where they found me and usually people find me on the internet or pick up my flyers at a local store. About one in 10 find me in the yellow pages directory. That’s a big expense when other marketing methods are working more effectively for me. Next year I’m considering dropping the expense of the yellow pages and branching out to other marketing opportunities.

This week I finally thought about how I can use a locally focused pet blog to attract community pet owners. In the past I have always thought about the internet as being a medium that is very wide reaching (global in fact!) and therefore wouldn’t be suited to marketing to the target market of my pet sitting business - people in the surrounding cities to Euless, Texas.

But when you think about ways in which you use the internet to find local information - you will discover that there are plenty of sites on the web that are very targeted to local markets. Just to take an example - how do you use the web to find out what there is to do in town this weekend? I would visit the Dallas City Guide or Fort Worth City Guide. These local sites provide community members with valuable information.

In my county I did a search and I couldn’t find a good website that provides local pet owners with comprehensive and up to date information about pet events, dog parks, local pet service providers, and news. A one stop guide for new residents who are pet lovers. When you look at it - this type of site would be an obvious place to market your locally based pet business right? Well if you don’t have such a website in your city - why not create your own. Provide pet owners with a resource and create a place online where you can give your business great exposure - for FREE!

It will take some time and effort on your part to set up the site and you want to set it up so that it will be readily indexed by the big search engines (Google and Yahoo) to ensure people can find you. The best way to attract search engine traffic is by setting this site up as a blog. A blog is a list of articles that are published to one webpage - and if you are reading this at Workingwithpets.com then you are currently reading a blog.

Blogs are one of the simplest types of websites to create - if set up your site with a web host who has the Cpanel application (for example I use and recommned www.hostmonster.com) then setting up a new blog on your own domain with Wordpress can take as little as 5-10 minutes.

I have started setting up my site this week - you can see the beginnings of my new blog by clicking here - Tarrant County Pet Owners Guide.

I have just made one post today - a brief guide to local dog parks and some basic dog park tips. I also plan to visit some local dog parks and do a few reviews - maybe even include some photos or videos so that residents can see the park before they plan their visits.

Some of the other topics that I’m considering publishing on the blog are spotlights of local pet rescue organizations, reviews of new pet businesses, and other ways that local pet owners are having fun with their pets.

You can see from the layout that I also have room to place advertising on the right side of the text. At first I plan to insert an ad for my pet sitting business and partner with friends to fill the other spaces. As traffic to the site grows I will be able to ask a reasonable fee for ad placement and add another income stream to my business.

To get your blog going you will want to publish new articles regularly - at least 2-3 times per week or daily if possible. If you are limited for time and don’t think you will be able to post regularly why not recruit other members of your family, your employees, or local writers looking for contract work and pay them a fee per post. You will need to set specific topic, quality and length requirements for them but they may come with other creative ideas for your site. I am going to ask my contract pet sitters if they would like to write articles about their city pets or pet attractions for a flat rate per article to boost their pet sitting income.

Take a look around and see if your community has a local information hub for pet lovers. If not then think about creating your own as a way to publicize your local pet business.

If you would like help to set up a blog please send me an email at daniellechonody@gmail.com. I will be more than happy to offer advice and give you more tips to get your new site started.

Want Your Small Pet Business to Sound More Professional?

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Hosted Phone Service When customers call your pet business do they recognize you as home run business or a large professional organization?

In some pet businesses it may be the home run business sound that you want. Sometimes it is beneficial to be seen as a small family business where they will get personal service from the owner. This is often the case for a pet sitting business or any other local pet service business.

If you own a pet business where you want to project a very professional big company image (even if you are not a big company) then you may want to consider a hosted phone service. This type of service can integrate your business by linking up employees that are not working in the same location (perhaps that work from their own homes or even in different cities) by allowing customers to call a central number to reach anyone in your company.

Such a service is GotVmail. With GotVmail customers can call a toll-free number and get a professional company greeting and then be given a menu of options such as:

To speak to a sales representative press 1

To speak to a marketing representative press 2

For customer service press 3

This system will then redirect customer calls to different phone numbers that can be land line phones, cell phones, VoIP phones, or SmartPhones.

I can see this being especially useful if you use virtual assistants to manage marketing and customers service functions in your business. Having one number for customers to call that will direct them to the right person to speak to gives them the impression that you have a central office with employees and gives the customer more convenience.

The GotVmail system gives you switchboard functionality for your pet business without purchasing any of your own hardware items. To sign up for the hosted phone service costs from $9.95 per month and it is currently available in the US and Mexico. You can get more information at their website www.gotvmail.com.

I can see myself using this type of service in the future as my business expands and I take on virtual help to conduct customer follow up, take reservations, and manage pet sitters.

If you have experience with this type of service please comment and let us know how it has worked for you.

Do College Students Make Good Contract Pet Sitters?

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This week I’ve interviewed two new prospective pet sitters that contacted me through my web site “Join Our Team” form.Â The interviews went well and it took me less time than ever to get prepared as I now have a well defined hiring process. I’m going ot share this with you in the coming weeks.

Both applicants turned out to be college studentsÂ that are available for the summer and Christmas holiday periods only. I enjoyed meeting both applicants - they wereÂ outgoing and positive and have plenty of great experience with pets - both have their own and have taken care of pets for family and friends and one has also worked with pet rescue organizations.

A few years ago I considered putting up flyers at local colleges to attract pet sitters but it’s one of the good ideas that I didn’t ever get around to putting into action. However, I had not considered students with families in my service area that travel to college in other cities.Â

Now I’mÂ beginning to think that taking on these students as high season contract sitters is a pretty good idea. I always struggle with the rush of clients in summer, and at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don’t want to take on more sitters at these times and then disappoint them when I don’t have ongoing visits to keep them busy the rest of the year.

Having aÂ contract sitter that is available justÂ in those peak seasons could work out very well and allow me toÂ have extra sitters available only when I need them. Â

I’m going to give these gals a chance this year and see how this strategy works. I’ll let you know what happens!

Does anyone have experience working with college student seasonal sitters?Â How has it worked for you? Did you have any customer resistance to younger sitters (between age of 18 and 21?)

If you haven’t used contractors in your pet sitting business you can read my article “Are Employess or Independent Contractors Right for Your Business?”

The Travelling Pet Sitter - How to Take a Break from Your Pet Business

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Sedona Arizona I have been enjoying spending time with my mom who has been visiting from Australia for the last 3 1/2 weeks. That’s us in the picture to the left. During her visit we escaped the Dallas heat for a week and drove to Sedona, Arizona. We stayed at a beautiful bed and breakfast - The Briar Patch Inn on Canyon Creek and spent our days hiking around the big red rocks and visiting the nearby historic mining town of Jerome. We also took a trip to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. The scenery was stunning and it was great to take a break from pet sitting visits and my day job.

Some pet sitters will tell you that they are never able to take time away from their business. Luckily I haven’t ever had this problem. In the early years of my business I partnered with another local pet sitter and we worked together to manage each others business for a couple of weeks each year so we could each take a break. I did this again for her this year when she traveled to Israel for 2 weeks.

Cathedral Rock Sedona In the last couple of years I have had contract pet sitters who I have been able to put to work and have on call for emergency visits which I’ve been away. I use my cell phone number in all my advertising so that I can carry it with me and answer customer calls and booking inquiries on the road. As the availability of wi-fi has increased I now find that I can always check my email at least once a day while I am away to check if I’ve received internet reservations or customer emails. All 3 of the small bed and breakfast lodges we stayed at had good internet access in the shared common areas and office.

Even with good planning and a couple of sitters on call the trip didn’t go totally without a hitch or two. On our drive to Sedona on the Wednesday I had 2 calls from existing customers wanting to schedule last minute weekend visits. I was able to cover one of these jobs but had to politely explain to the other customer that we would not be available as we were out of town. I also had to turn down one new customer that also wanted to schedule last minute visits. I think that you have to expect that will be some jobs that you will just have to turn away if you want to take a break for yourself.

Here are some tips for planning a get away from your pet business:

1) Find another local pet sitter who is willing to partner with you so you can manage each others business. This tactic also gives you a great emergency back up plan

2) Send out an email or letter to clients letting them know that you will be taking vacation and asking them to book early that you can can organize a sitter to care for their pets

3) Confirm which of your contract sitters will be available during your vacation and for how many visits each day

4) Put together a packet for each sitter with their customer contracts and keys and their schedule

5) Organize a contact person who has access to your key and contract files so that they can access them if existing customers call to schedule last minute visits and get them to your sitters.

6) Direct incoming business calls to a cell phone that you can carry with you or that you can give to someone that will manage your calls.

7) Carry your sitter contact information with you in a planner

Accept that you may have to turn down new customers if they call after you have left on your trip

Danielle Chonody It is possible to have a pet sitting business and be able to get away and take vacation time for yourself and your family. You just need to make sure that you are organized, have a plan, and set aside a small period of time each day of your trip to check in.