Pet Sitting A Good Business for Retired People?

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Todays article is from guest author Denton Fowler. Denton wrote this article for www.PetWellbeing.com, which offers prevention and treatment products for cancer in cats and Cushings Disease in dogs..

Taking your retirement in these tough economic times is not an easy decision to make. But what if you supplemented your income with a pet sitting business in order to get paid for doing something you love?

First of all, dealing with new and different animals is not for just anyone. It takes someone who enjoys working with them. Why? Because your customers will know. And honestly, it’s your retirement. This should be something that complements your lifestyle, not adds more stress.

Ideally, you want a situation where people feel they are dropping their pets off at a grandpa’s place for the weekend. While your business understanding and structure must be in place, your public image should be warm and welcoming. There is something about an experienced, older person who loves animals that gives you an edge over other younger, just-in-it-for-money sitters.

Some simple decisions must be made like any new pet sitting business. Like what type and number of animals and what services you will offer. Obviously, your house must be part of your considerations. How many dogs can comfortably be in the house? Is there room in the basement for a shampoo table? There are a number of valuable articles at http://www.WorkingWithPets.com that can help you make these decisions.

Pet sitting is ideal for the older, retired person. Your family is grown and your schedule is your own. This is important because this type of business needs you to be available at the most common vacation times like summer, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Your vacation desires become secondary because you MUST be available when your clients need you.

Word Of Mouth

Getting the word out about your business is the most important factor because word-of-mouth will get you the growing client list you will need. If you can get your customers to recommend your services to others, you’ve got it made.

Assuming you will be sitting for dogs, the dog park is probably your biggest draw. To begin with, a t-shirt goes a long way to advertising your business. Nothing too professional because nothing says loving better than “Grandma’s Dog Sitting Service”. Again, your business has to be solid, but your face has to say ‘family’.

As you play with your dogs or talk with other dog owners at the dog park, they will see your business name and associate it with the care you show to all animals. After all, they bring their dogs to that dog park for a reason and will appreciate that you will bring their dog there as well if he is being sat by you. Be ready with a business card or a flyer when a business connection is made. But don’t force it or go looking for a client. The attention you show to your dogs is your biggest selling point. Make sure you visit all the dog parks in your area.

Business cards and flyers are essential. Not only are they important to solidify that face-to-face connection, they can be left at pet stores or tacked to the local grocery store bulletin board. It allows potential clients to go home and leave your advertising on their kitchen counter. It also shows that your ‘business’ is local and you are part of the community.

Internet Connection

Make sure that you collect emails from any clients you have. Creating a mailing list is a great way to remind people of your services when you tweak them in advance of a high-vacation period. Always give them an option to opt out of such a list.

Just as important as the ‘family’ feeling for you business is the internet face you present. Yes this is essential because some people only use the internet for looking for such services. Your website can be simple, but it needs to have at least the services, location and details of your business. Again, you can find some good advice on this site to set up an effective website. Your internet site becomes the go-to place on your business cards and any flyers you hand out.

Is a pet sitting business for you? It can be, with the proper preparation. It can easily supplement your retirement income and provide you with some easy, enjoyable company.

Free Call - 7 Secrets of Todays Top Earning Brands

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A couple of weeks ago I interviewed Kim Castle as part of my Pet Sitting Success Circle program. She shared some great info with us about designing a powerful pet sitting brand.

If you missed this call or want the chance to hear Kim again and learn more of her brand secrets Kim and her partner Vito are holding another free call on June 16th. You don’t want to miss this call - at the end of the call they will tell you about an opportunity to spend 20 minutes one on one with them to discuss how to implement the 7 secrets in your own business.

Here are all the details:

Ever wonder how the big named conglomerates get their brand?

Ever wonder how the Fortune 500’s got their success?

Think that you could never work with Disney, General Motors, or Wolfgang Puck?

Think again…

My good friend and colleague Kim Castle, co-creator of BrandU has not only worked with these guys, but they were her clients.

While Kim is known for helping thousands of clients and entrepreneurs around the world translate their business ideas into marketable money-making brands, as well as working with the “big Kahunas” —she’s got some pretty amazing information to share that I think will shock you.

Don’t worry you’ll be pleasantly shocked.

You may already know BrandU and you may have witnessed the insane growth of BrandU right before your eyes. Their business skyrocketed within only a few short years and their revenues continue to grow.

You might assume it’s because they have worked with huge named companies like IBM, m&m’s and Domino’s Pizza.

But actually it has nothing to do the roster of influential big brands. It’s something else, and guess what? It’s not such a mystery.

But it is a secret that Kim has been holding in her back pocket… until now…

Join Kim Castle and her partner Vito Montone of BrandU
For a SPECIAL FR*EE CALL on
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
5PM PST

=========================================

The 7 Secrets Behind Today’s Top-earning Brands:
Why Some Businesses Are Still Thriving in Today’s Economy and
How Yours Can Too.

span>

strong>Sign up now.
LINK TO: http://www.brandu.com/rd.cfm?id=811&af=15397

On June 16th, Kim and Vito will reveal the secrets they used to manifest their continual business growth, which has allowed them to live the life of their dreams in Southern California, network with influential people who share their vision, have amazing opportunities fall in their lap, and most importantly, live their life’s passion of helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses.

I hope you are paying attention when I tell you that what they have learned and have proven, over and over, during the past few years is that there is indeed a much easier way to create big business success—just like the “big Kahunas.”

Are you ready to find out how? Join them Tuesday, June 16th for fr*ee.

================================================

The 7 Secrets Behind Today’s Top-earning Brands: Why Some Businesses Are Still Thriving in Today’s Economy and How Yours Can Too
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
5PM PST (6PM MT, 7PM CT, 8PM ET)
75 minutes
$97 FR*EE

strong>=================================================

Remember, it’s FR*EE!

Hope to see you there!

Danielle

P.S.- Don’t miss out on joining Kim and Vito of BrandU on this call. You won’t believe the business and life-changing information you’ll walk away with. Get your seat n*ow.
LINK TO: http://www.brandu.com/rd.cfm?id=811&af=15397

Do You Know What Your Customers Are Saying About You Online?

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Quick Tip Thursday These days it is so easy for customers to rate and review your pet sitting business online. They can leave reviews on Google Maps, at online yellow pages sites, on notice and chat boards, and on directories such as Craigs List, Angies List, Citysearch, and Yelp.

As part of your weekly business marketing you should be checking in to see what your customers are saying about you online. To check up you can do a Google search on your business name and it’s also a good idea to also do a Google search on your own name if you are the business owner. What you find may surprise you!

It’s a great welcome surprise when you find that your customers leave glowing reviews and tell other users how your sitting business provided great care for their pets. Make sure that you thank these customers with a personal note.

It’s not so great when you find comments from disgruntled customers that leave negative comments at these sites. Sometimes these negative reviews may even distort the facts or give a skewed view of the actual events.

You need to be very careful leaving responses to these negative reviews. The first course of action you take should be to contact the customer if you know who left the comment. Try to rectify the situation with them and ask if they will remove the negative review or update with another review that outlines how you have fixed their greivance.

If you can’t contact the customer make sure you leave a very reasonable, level-headed response that leaves an apology, outlines what occured and then describes the policies you have put in place in your business that will make sure that a similar situation will not happen again in the future.

If you are not checking the internet regularly and searching for online reviews and comments on forums - then you may miss the opportunity to thank a customer, or respond to a customer attack. You don’t want to leave a negative review online for potential customers to read as you may be losing customers without even realizing why.

It’s not a bad idea to suggest to your customers to leave reviews online if you know that they are happy with your service. Positive reviews can give you a competative advantage over other pet sitting services in your area.

Do You Celebrate Your Pets Birthday?

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Talk Back Tuesday This week is my 34th birthday (Feb 5th) and I had the first of many celebrations tonight - enjoying dinner with my husband and step-son at a local Mexican restaurant. Of course dinner involved margarita! Couple more dinner to go and cake before the week is out. I’ll definately have to keep up the gym routine!

Typically we don’t celebrate our pets birthdays - I hate to say it but I don’t even have them written down or memorized. I know many people do celebrate the birthday of their pets and have even considered being a pet party planner as I think organizing pup parties would be so much fun (but I always wonder - what about the cats, why don’t they get to enjoy a party too? Mine would hate it so I understand a quieter affair would have to be considered). My aunt had a fun party for her Pomeranian last year and invited all his puppy friends to a party with doggie cakes, special invites, and even party favors.

So today I want to know - do you celebrate you pets birthday? What do you do? Do you celebrate the birthdays of your pet sitting clients birthdays by sending a card or small gift?

7 Questions to Ask Before You Advertise

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One of my greatest struggles in my past 4 years of business has been finding effective wasy to advertise and attract new clients. I have tried magazines, high school sports sponsorships, ads in coupon books etc and still find that most new clients find my pet sitting business through online or paper yellow pages.Â IÂ found this article online and liked it as it gives some good suggestions for testing the market and includes an exercise to determine if you should be spending money on advertising.

7 Questions to Ask Before You Advertise

Guest Author Michele Pariza Wacek

Most business owners and managers keep a fairly close eye on their marketing budgets.

And nothing throws a budget out of whack faster than advertising.

Advertising, or paying good money to get your message in front of your target market, still has a place in your marketing mix, although it’s not quite as effective as it once was.

If you’re going to advertise, you need to be smart about it — or you can quickly find yourself with a blown budget and not much to show for it. Below are seven questions to ask yourself before writing out that check.

1. Do you need to generate customers/traffic/leads/etc. right away? If so, then you better pull out your wallet. Advertising is hands down the fastest way to get your message in front of your target market. (You’re paying for placement after all.)

2. Do you have another way to get the word out about your business? For instance, do you have a customer database or an e-zine list? If so, then you might be better off sending an e-mail (assuming you have customers’ e-mails). Although technically e-mail announcements fall under advertising, I’m not counting it in this particular case because it’s more or less free (or very low cost).

Perhaps you have a good news angle and a good relationship with a reporter. Or you have a high-traffic Web site and/or blog. Or maybe you’re an active volunteer with a large organization and can use networking to get the message out.

But if none of those really apply, then you’d better take a closer look at advertising.

3. Do you need to augment your other marketing efforts? Maybe you have articles featured on a Web site targeted to your customer base. Great when your article is front and center and not-so-great when your article is buried in archives. A little advertising on that site can keep you in your target market’s sight all the time. Or maybe you struck gold and got a big article written about your company in the perfect trade publication. Fantastic for that month and not-so-fantastic for the other 11 months of the year. Or maybe it’s taking you longer than you’d like to drive traffic to your Web site. Advertising is good for speeding things along.

Frequency is king when it comes to marketing — if you’re out of your customers’ sight, you’re probably out of their mind when it comes to buying time. Advertising is a good way to beef up or speed up what you’re already doing.

4. Are other marketing methods not appropriate in this situation? Let’s say you want to have a sale. But your customer database is small (or nonexistent). Your Web site has minimal traffic. And you aren’t going to get any bites from the media since having a sale isn’t news. What do you do? Run some ads.

5. Would you rather save time than money? Let’s face it. Running an ad is easy. Other marketing methods are more time-consuming. If you want your marketing to be easy, then advertising is about as easy as it’s going to get. (Now there is a caveat to this one, because you can hire people to do some of those marketing tasks, such as updating Web sites, running PR campaigns, etc. However, not everything can be hired out so you still might be stuck spending time you don’t have.)

6. Are you planning to test a new campaign or a new product/target market? Running small, inexpensive ads can be a good way to test certain marketing aspects before launching big, expensive, time-consuming campaigns. If you want to penetrate a new market or if you have a new product to launch or a new marketing message to try, buy some ads and see what the response rate is. Another strength of advertising is control — you have total control over your test.

7. Do other marketing approaches never quite measure up? It happens. Advertising in one or two specific media outlets seem to generate more sales and more leads then anything else you’ve tried. If that’s the case, then don’t mess with it. As the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Creativity Exercise — Advertising and your business

Is advertising right for your business? Try this exercise and see.

1. What’s your biggest marketing challenge right now? Write it down.

2. Go through the above list of questions and ask yourself each one. Does it apply to your situation? If it does, write that down too.

3. Do some brainstorming. In what ways can you use advertising to solve your marketing challenges? What media would work best? Online? Print? Radio? Television? Direct mail? Something else? Make up an ad for a variety of media.

Now do the exact opposite. Think of ways advertising WON’T work for your business. Brainstorm at least 25 reasons why advertising won’t work for your specific situation. Be silly. It’s a good way to loosen you up.

4. Go back and reread both your pro and con lists. Now read your ads. Do you like what you came up with? Do any of them resonate with you, even now after coming up with your list of objections?

You may have just come up with your next advertising campaign.

Michele Pariza Wacek is the author of “Got Ideas? Unleash Your Creativity and Make More Money.” She offers two free e-zines that help subscribers combine their creativity with hard-hitting marketing and copywriting principles to become more successful at attracting new clients, selling products and services and boosting business. She can be reached at http://www.TheArtistSoul.com.

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