Avoid The 5 Pet Care Business Mistakes I’ve Made

Filed Under Pet Business Tips |

Steve Pavlina has a great blog on personal development and one of his articles last month inspired me to think about the things I would do differently if I was starting my pet care business today. Steve’s post “10 Stupid Mistakes Made by the Newly Self-Employed” highlights the mistakes that he has seen many of his coaching clients make and some he too has made as a new business owner.

Here are 5 of what I feel have been my biggest mistakes - I hope that by sharing them that you can avoid some of these pitfalls:

1) Not taking full advantage of networking and learning from others - when I initially started my pet care business I did reach out to other pet sitters via online chat groups and met several other local pet sitters for lunch. This one networking event resulted in an introduction to a sitter in my area that was interested in getting my help with her clients over the busy holiday season. This worked well for both of us, I learnt a lot from her, and we have been working to support each other ever since.

Unfortunately although I made a good start, as my business progressed I let other commitments stand in my way of continuing to meet other sitters. I think that had I persisted with networking that I could have learned many other lessons from my peers, could have opened up more opportunities for my business and would have had more support through the busy periods.

I would recommend that anyone starting a new pet care business do all they can to reach out to other pet professionals in person and via internet forums to create a network of friends that they can rely on for help and support.

2) Spending too much on website development and hosting - when I set up my first pet sitting website I had plenty of ideas for what it would look like and say but no skills in web design and no knowledge of how to get a site online. I wanted someone who could make it easy for me and ended up paying around $35 per month for the setup and hosting. Relying on someone else to modify my site it was always a challenge to make regular changes and improvements.

After researching web site hosting and design over the past 3 years I realize I could have got a site online for a much lower monthly expense and had more control. There are several do it yourself website builders that you can use to set up a great site and also get tools to help promote your site. The one I recommmend is Simple Web Site Builder.

If you have some technical skills and want to set up a site yourself using a private host and writing your own web pages you can host your own site for as little as $4-6 per month at Hostmonster. A great ebook to get you started is nuts and bolts of setting up the site is Create A Website by Bina Omar. She explains all aspects of the process of design, getting a domain name and the transfer of files to your web host.

3) Not having a marketing plan - When I started I printed fliers and business cards, put up my website and advertised in the yellow pages. I also spent on advertising dollars on local clipper magazines, neighborhood welcome services, and school directories and not all of these yielded great returns. I didn’t have either a marketing budget or a marketing plan. Spending some extra time planning your marketing will allow you to define your ideal customers, find out where to find them, and be more efficient and consistent in your marketing efforts. Some great tips on marketing can be found in Fabienne Fredrickson’s weekly ezine - Client Attraction.

4) Not developing a business plan - when I got started my plan was to escape my day job by building a pet sitting business. This was my vision but I didn’t sit down and plot out what my business would have to look like to achieve this goal. Having a clear vision of what you want your business to look like will bring you closer to the goal and give you realistic view of the challenges you will face on the way. A business plan is also essential if you plan to borrow money to finance.

There is a useful article at Thinking Home Business - Helpful Tools for Writing a Business Plan that gives you some online sources of templates and worksheets for putting together your first plan. The book E-Myth Mastery: The Seven Essential Disciplines for Building a World Class Company is also a great resource for business planning.

5) Not Knowing my Tax Deductions - there are so many great tax deductions available for small businesses and of course it’s hard to know them all when you first start a business. I know I missed many deductions on my first couple of tax returns.

Do some research when you are starting your business and make sure you keep records of all your expenses. A good book to give you some tips is Home Business Tax Deductions: Keep What You Earn. I would also recommend talking upfront to your accountant about the best structure for your business to make sure you keep more of your money at tax time.



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Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Christine on June 24, 2007 7:59 pm

    Hello,

    I am just starting a pet sitting business and stumbled upon your site. Thank you so much
    for a very informative and helpful article.

    Will certainly keep in touch when things get underway.

    Best Regards,
    Christine

  2. Danielle Chonody on June 25, 2007 2:39 am

    Thanks Christine I’m glad you enjoyed it!

    In the next month I will be putting up a new site just for pet sitters with pet sitting business forms and my coaching program details.

    Best of luck with your new business
    Danielle

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