Pet Business Interview - Pawsible Marketing

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Leslie MayToday’s pet business interview is with Leslie May -the President of Pawsible Marketing. Leslie is a marketing consultant to pet business owners and helps them plan and implement their marketing strategies.

1. What kind of business do you run?

I own and operate Pawsible Marketing, a marketing firm whose core focus and specialty is helping pet business with their all of their marketing efforts and needs to grow sales and revenue. Whether a pet business is just starting out or they have an existing pet business that needs help with marketing, I can help their business achieve what they need to get to the next level, through marketing tactics like:

* marketing planning and strategy
* brand development
* marketing direction
* online and offline marketing
* viral marketing
* blogging
* public and media relations
* websites
* corporate communications programs
* advertising
* cause marketing
* new product launches
* sales and advertising collateral development
* case studies
* freelance writing
* lead generation
* trade shows, events
* and more.

2. How long have you been in business?

In 2002, I opened the doors of May Marketing, Inc., and began helping a wide variety of small to medium sized businesses with their marketing needs. Over the years, my work has helped many companies grow their sales and revenue, and become much more successful in their niche.

I have always had a love for animals and decided in 2007 to bring my marketing expertise to the pet business world through Pawsible Marketing, in hopes that I could share my knowledge and experience with other pet lovers, just like me.

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

It was a natural progression from my role as marketing consultant for other small/medium sized business. And I had many friends who encouraged me to utilize my marketing skills to help other pet business with their marketing needs.

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

Plan to spend time and resources on your marketing. While it may be an expense, it’s key to running, creating and keeping a business successful. You need marketing to help your business launch and grow, don’t neglect it and don’t be limiting.

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

My greatest challenge is the long hours. Starting, growing and sustaining a successful business takes a lot of work. It’s not a 9-5 job, by any means. Like any business owner I feel that sometimes the long hours interfere with time I’d love to be spending elsewhere. For me that would be doing agility with my dogs (our favorite pastime).

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

Marketing is a tough business. New and innovative ways to market products or services are constantly coming to the forefront. It is a challenge to keep up with the latest means of marketing, but I really enjoy the creativity involved and learning and growing myself. And I enjoy bringing these new ideas to my clients.

7. What daily tasks do you enjoy most?

I really enjoy talking with my clients, helping them make the best decisions for their business going forward. Learning about their business, and consulting with them on key marketing directions and tactics to take is incredibly rewarding. When they succeed, I feel like I’ve succeeded.

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

I rarely look back at anything as a mistake, only a learning experience; so thinking about what I would have done anything differently, really isn’t something I think much about or dwell on. I’m optimistic, open and am always looking for what can be improved upon – no matter what it is for my business or my clients businesses.

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

I did have some incredible mentors throughout my career and feel I was really blessed in that area. From the time I began my career in the early ‘80s, until now, I have always had someone (whether they be a boss, peer or even a past client) that has helped me learn, grow and succeed.

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

Most all of my business comes to me through referrals, MySpace, word of mouth, and through leads from my website. I may do some prospecting or cold prospecting, but only to those businesses I find or come across that I see immediate key ideas that I would like to present to and share with them.

11. What form(s) of marketing do you recommend to your clients?

What I find is that every business is different, and every business has a target audience and potential client with unique and varied attributes, wants and needs. What may work for some businesses, may not work for others. That’s why the consulting that I do with my clients in the initial stages of our relationship is so important; helping them to understand their potential client base and how to best market to them.

I always tell my clients that offering a high quality service or product, showcasing that product/service in a professional and eye catching manner, providing that service/product at a good, competitive price, along with amazing service, are the keys to any business to help them stand out from the competition, no matter what that business offers.

For those that reach a national (or even International) audience, I have seen that blogging can be an incredible tool for their business. Because an important part of marketing is relationship building, blogging is a wonderful means to build a relationship with a customer or potential customer. And blogging can be an inexpensive way to market. But there are right ways to blog and wrong ways, knowing the difference is very important.

I have also found that in this age of the Internet and the gravitation toward network marketing, referrals are a very important part of acquiring new, and sustaining current, business for any company, local, national or International. But most importantly, knowing how to gain referrals and turn them into new business is key.

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

One of the reasons I started Pawsible Marketing was because there isn’t a lot of competition for this type of niche business. There are a few marketing companies that help pet businesses, but most offer specialized services or target larger pet businesses. What I do is help the small to medium sized pet business with all of their marketing needs – whether it is strategy and planning, creating a brochure or blog, or implementing any marketing tactics that may be suitable for their particular business, client or prospective client.

Thank you Leslie for sharing some great marketing tips. If you would like to find out more about Leslie you can visit her site at www.marketingmypetbusiness.com



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Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Pet Business Interview - Pawsible Marketing | On The Net | Free Information Resource | Information Resource on Various Topics on March 6, 2008 2:04 am

    [...] Pet Business Interview - Pawsible Marketing Filed Under Pet Business Interviews | March 6, 2008 Today’s pet business interview is with Leslie May -the President of Pawsible Marketing. Leslie is a marketing consultant to pet business owners and helps them plan and implement their marketing strategies. 1. What kind of business do you run? I own and operate Pawsible Marketing, a marketing firm whose core focus and specialty is helping pet business with their all of their marketing efforts and n Click here for the source [...]

  2. eric on March 6, 2008 6:06 am

    that’s a whole lot of info…tnx

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