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At the end of the day, what is the number one thing your potential pet
sitting clients want from you?
The best care for the pet? A fair price?
Sure. But the most important thing a pet owner is looking for is peace of mind.
Peace of mind knowing they have made the right decision by hiring you
(rather than anybody else).
How can you be certain you are properly providing them this trust and
security in the first place?
Read The Full Article »
Human beings are goal-seeking creatures. We are impatient and try, and fall, and try again until we learn to walk. We babble and coo and struggle until we learn to talk.
Skinned knees mean nothing in the quest to ride a bicycle. Recently, the world has watched Olympic athletes over-come incredible obstacles in the quest for a medal. When a client tells me they have had a goal, but in the past 6 months they have made little or no progress towards achieving it, I encourage them to ask themselves the following 10 questions: Read The Full Article »
Though Pinterest launched over 2 years ago, it has grown faster than any other site in the U.S., reaching nearly 10 million unique hits per month. This is yet another social media app where people share things they like… but it IS much different. How is it so addictive? Why are user sessions longer than on youtube? It is an extreme in visual enjoyment.
So does it have use for your pet sitting business? It might. As usual, a new method of marketing can be useful depending on the time you have to put into it. Keeping that in mind, sitters do spend their days with a dream that so many others have: ‘Playing with dogs all day.’ Perhaps you can l
et them escape to a fun-filled life while at work… through you.
Unlike Facebook or Linkedin, your posts are seen by anyone looking for something under a specific pinboard. For example, if you created a ‘board’ called ‘cute dogs’ and began posting pictures of cute dogs, anyone could repost those pictures.
The focus comes in with creating useful pinboard names with pictures / articles people want to reshare. For example, you could put the name of your business… or ‘Cute Dogs in (enter town here).’ Be creative. With so many people now on Pinterest, it is worth it to see if it would work for you.
Here are some statistics of pinterest. Review them and see if it fits the current demographics of your clients.
(Source Modea - http://www.modea.com/)
In sum, the typical Pinterest user seems to be young, upper-middle class, and female. It just so happens that this demographic is pretty similar to those who also have a passion for dogs.
Do you use Pinterest?
Awww — How nice! Someone made a computer desktop wallpaper for APSE with ‘pet holiday’ reminders on them. That was so nice, we’re putting them all here so you can download them and use them for your computer screens. Read The Full Article »
This month APSE has focused on client retention and customer satisfaction. We had the Director of Operations at Zappos come and chat with us about creating a culture client’s love. So far we have had tips to satisfy clients, updates to our media library, forms for pet sitters, and marketing reports all based on improving client retention.
The basic idea of client retention is to be there for them; be empathetic and do whatever you can for them. People have a general need to feel connected and acknowledged. So many business owners tend to focus on getting new clients rather than improving relationships with current clients. It is easier and more cost effective to focus on current clients than on getting new clients.
Here are some specific things you can do to improve customer satisfaction: Read The Full Article »
Mark these on your calendar! Let client’s know how ‘in the know’ you are by supplying them with this list of pet-centric holidays throughout the year. These are all holidays created by different organizations in order to raise awareness. By posting them on your Facebook wall, announcing them to workers, or creating a celebration around a certain day you help your business in multiple ways: It creates a fun environment (Squirrel Appreciation Day), it shows your company has compassion for certain causes (Pet Theft Awareness Day), and it gives you some great things to blog / share with your clients.
We scoured the internet to find these, so Read The Full Article »
Hopefully as a business owner you have heard you should learn about your clients. You have probably also heard you need to focus on your demographics and learn what
type of clients would work well with your business. The downside to this is that sometimes we forget our clients are really people, too. With almost all people, communication and open mindedness is almost always the key to success. (Hear what members had to say and how other sitters keep client’s happy.)
1. Give customers more than they expect
Whether from promises you place on your website or from what others do in your area, know what your customers expect from you and then do more. For example: Read The Full Article »
To fly without a place to land… or drive to an unknown destination without a map just sounds crazy, doesn’t 
it? In the age of GPS, it’s so easy to pick a location and go. Would you drive to a new client’s house without an address?
The 2011 APSE Pet Sitter Industry Survey showed that only about 50% of people have a written plan of where they want their business to go. However, almost everyone had Read The Full Article »
To the entire pet sitting industry:
It remains our absolute pleasure providing you with the tools, education and resources needed to grow your pet sitting business.
Whether you are just starting out, or just starting to grow, we will continue to be there for you.
We are excited to celebrate in your continued success in the coming year!
Read The Full Article »
You know the amazing company Zappos, right?
Well, last month, one of our APSE members started a conversation about the Zappos Insights Tour in Las Vegas she recently attended.
She gave it rave reviews and from that moment a buzz began by other members in our forums.
Plans made on this discussion thread by a couple of members for a weekend Vegas getaway quickly transformed into the scheduling of our first unofficial APSE meet-up.
On January 26-28, 2012 Joshua Cary, Paul Franklin and Danielle Chonody will all be in Vegas together to enjoy a weekend of fun with plenty of other APSE members who have decided to join us for the trip.
(Some are arriving as early as Tuesday, January 24, 2012 and others leaving Sunday, January 29, 2012.)
We want to keep the meet-up casual and spontaneous. Our only scheduled activities are:
The rest of the weekend will be relaxed fun activities enjoying the Vegas scene (food, shopping, nightlife, thrill rides, shows…)
Read The Full Article »
APSE is like no other pet care association. If you need to grow your business, APSE is the place to come to ask for that much needed help. Find like-minded business owners that want to grow and help others grow. APSE has the tools needed to make you a successful business owner.Dedi Wood, Shadow & Marty's
Copyright © 2010-2012 Association of Pet Sitting Excellence.
