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The PetsitUSA Blog

    The PetsitUSA Blog

    5 Tips for Pet Sitting and Dog Walking Business Success

    Posted: 19 Mar 2012 09:00 AM PDT

    Pet Sitting SuccessHere are 5 simple steps you can take today to create more success in your pet sitting business:

    1) Accumulate business savings no matter how small. Even the act of starting with putting $10/month in a specially-designated savings account is progress!

    Your business savings account will help get you through the lean times, especially when you are first starting out. Many banks will let you create free savings accounts if you set up a monthly direct deposit from your business checking account to your savings account(s).

    Create three business savings accounts:

    1)   Prudent Reserve Account: for business emergencies

    2)    Basic Business Savings Account: to draw upon as needed for your recurring, predictable, annual expenses like business insurance

    3)   Tax Savings account: to prevent you from spending your quarterly taxes!)

    2) Create an Action Plan to ensure that your pet sitting business bookkeeping records are clean, orderly and accurate. How do you create an Action Plan? List all of the resources that you can use to get your financial life in order. Get accounting help if and when you need it. Be willing to pay someone to help you learn Quicken, Quickbooks or other financial software program.

    Knowing how much you are generating each week, month and year will help you set financial goals which will keep you focused and intentional in your daily business actions. Plus having a financial system in place now will make tax time much easier. If you find the financial aspect of business challenging, be willing to hire a bookkeeper and to delegate this task. Money spent on creating orderly financial records is always money well spent! Taking the steps you need to get your money life in order creates a foundation and container for more money to be generated.

    3) Develop a yearly business plan and create goals and visions for yourself and your business. Review your plan quarterly and adjust as needed. Having your goals written out will serve as a map and will support you get to where you want to go in your business and your life.

    Click here to download my 12-page Pet Sitting and Dog Walking Goal Setting Workbook.

    4) Budget your time realistically and focus on income-producing activities. Get clear on how many minutes it takes to drive to your dog walking/pet sitting jobs. This will help you get clarity about how many clients you can realistically take in a given day and how much time you are spending driving, which is not an income-producing activity!

    Setting a timer for those business tasks that you are resistant to and that you find challenging can help keep you on track. Focus your daily actions on income-producing activities such as marketing and answering the business phone. Incorporating income-producing activities into your daily schedule will cause your profits to rise!

    5) Let go of difficult-to-work-with clients and staff members. Difficult staff and clients can eat up as much as 95% of our energy, leaving only 5% left for the majority of our clients and staff.

    If you notice your thoughts or energy consumed by a particular client or staff member then it might be time to let that challenging person go. Be willing to ask for and receive help so that you are not making this decision on your own. Discuss your challenging staff member or client situation with someone whose opinion you value and trust.

    If you get clarity that it's better for you and your difficult client or staff member to part ways, be willing to let them go sooner rather than later. Remember: nature abhors a vacuum and taking the action of letting a challenging person go will often open the door for new (wonderful) clients and staff members to come to you!

    —

    Kristin Morrison is a pet sitting business owner and business coach for pet sitters and the author of Six-Figure Pet Sitting: Catapult Your Pet Sitting Business to Unlimited Success. Kristin is a firm believer in working smarter (not harder) and has created a six-figure pet sitting business while working three days a week.  She coaches other pet sitting business owners on the fine art of creating a successful pet sitting business while maintaining a fun and successful life. Kristin is the founder of Six-Figure Pet Sitting Academy.com.