April is a dog mom of 2 that just recently left corporate America to run her daycare and boarding business, Rocky’s Retreat. Rocky’s offers a boutique experience that allows dogs to thrive.
Biggest Takeaway You Don’t Want To Miss:
- There’s never going to be “perfect time” to leave your corporate job to become a full-time small business owner. There will always be another hiccup or another goal you want to hit before taking the plunge. April’s advice? Acknowledge your fear but don’t suppress it. Oftentimes doing something scared can be the kick-in-the-pants you need to propel yourself to greatness!
Show Highlights
- Who is April Cox? [1:45]
- What was your intention for the business when you purchased it? [2:20]
- What is your relationship with fear? [3:40]
- Can you describe your goal for leaving Corporate America? [7:00]
- How did you learn to be a caretaker for other people’s dogs as opposed to caring for your own? [9:00]
- In what ways did your life change when you left Corporate America? [10:20]
- What’s your advice for someone that wants to leave their full-time job to focus on their business, but hasn’t been able to bring themselves to do it yet? [12:00]
- What attracted you to buy Rocky’s Retreat? [14:00]
Special Offer
- Get a free gift for signing up to April’s email list at www.rockysretreat.com. She sends out great info like tips and recipes!
Links
- Jump & Scale Webinar: https://jumpconsulting.net/scale
- April’s Website: http://rockysretreat.com
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Transcript:
This is episode 128 of Bella in Your Business. It’s a must-have attend if you want staff, you want to grow, you feel like you’re held hostage, or you have too high turnover. Signing up is as easy as going to jumpconsulting.net/scale. That’s jumpconsulting.net/scale.
Welcome to Bella in Your Business, where Bella will discuss anything and everything about your pet sitting business to help you land on target. So get ready, Bella’s got your chute. Let’s jump.
Welcome to Bella in Your Business. My name is Bella Vasta, and today I’ve actually got a fellow colleague of mine here. I have got April Cox with me, and she is a dog mom of two, recently left corporate America to run her daycare and boarding business, Rocky’s Retreat. Rocky’s is a boutique experience that allows dogs to thrive, led by the amazing April. April’s also a mastermind member who I’ve just been watching her journey. She’s been kicking so much butt and having fun while doing it. Her outlook and her mindset are so inspiring that I wanted to have her on today. So April, thanks for taking some time to sit down and chat with us.
April: Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Bella: Yeah. So April, for those of the listeners who might not know who you are, could you give us a brief introduction?
April: You know, I’ve always been an animal lover and I’ve always been an entrepreneur since I was a little girl, like I had a lemonade stand and I was always just coming up with something to do on my own. So when I figured out that the two could kind of meld, it was kind of perfect. Rocky’s Retreat was actually founded in 2011. The previous owners sold the business, and I stumbled across it in July of 2017 and made the decision that this is where I was going to go with my life. And so a couple of months of paperwork later and I became the new owner of Rocky’s Retreat.
Bella: I love it. What were the things that you were looking for when you started the business? Like what was your intention for it?
April: Really just to do something that brings me joy. In the beginning of my career in corporate America, I was doing all the things I was supposed to do—making money and moving up and being promoted and taking on more responsibility—but it just never really made my heart happy. It made my checkbook happy.
Bella: I think a lot of people can relate to that. We do things because we’re supposed to. These are the next steps. Even from kids, I think we have all these expectations placed on us, right? And so we just start going through this path of, I have to complete school, I have to go to college, I have to get a good job, I have to have—and before you know it, you’re living your life for someone else. Sounds like that’s kind of what you were like—stop. I want to do something that makes me happy.
April: Yeah. It was a little scary to think about it because there’s a lot of safety in having a steady paycheck and benefits and all of that. But I just, I almost felt like every day that I went into the cubicle, another part of my soul was dying.
Bella: I feel the same exact way. I’ve actually tried to get a couple of remote offices so that I’m not working at home. And every time I go there, I just feel the same way. I feel like it’s taking part of my soul. It’s tough. You also mentioned fear. You’re kind of afraid to go off and venture there. Can you tell us more about how you would describe your relationship with fear and what you do with that when it comes in? Because I think that’s a big part of an entrepreneurial journey.
April: Yeah, fear played a big part of it for a really long time, which is probably why I didn’t do something much sooner. I had a conversation with a girlfriend probably about four or five years ago. And once I hit 40, the desire to really go do my own thing started growing and growing and growing. Because it’s like, okay, I only have about 20, 25 more years left to work. So a girlfriend of mine said that she was really surprised I wasn’t already doing my own thing. And she said that you could just tell it’s in me. And so that really resonated with me. That was probably one of the conversations that really started getting me down the path of dealing with the fear of it—that other people saw in me that I didn’t belong in the cubicle.
Bella: Powerful.
April: Yeah, and so I just started really dealing with it and I just started making plans. I’m a planner. Five years ago I had changed jobs and I had a huge spreadsheet with the pros and cons and all of that. So I just really started planning and acknowledging the fear. I still have fear every day, and me leaving the cubicle—anybody who was even remotely connected to me on social saw how excited I was.
Bella: I did.
April: It was funny, I had so many people that reached out to me that were just genuinely excited for me. It was fun. But it literally went back and forth from one day I was excited, the next day I was terrified. I was like, I can’t do this, I’m not going to do this. What am I, crazy? So I think just kind of acknowledging your fear and not trying to just put it away, because if you put it away, it’s just going to keep building and building. And then it’s something giant that you have to deal with. Whereas if you kind of deal with it on a daily basis and work through what it is. And it’s different for everybody. Some people like to write stuff down, some people like to plan, some people want to go do yoga. It’s just different ways for people. But yeah, I think you really have to deal with it.
Bella: I think it’s really neat how you had so many different sounding boards in your life, whether it was social media or that friend you talked about. I think all of us, it’s a really important lesson that we can’t do anything alone and we all deal with fear and self-doubt. And we need those sounding boards in our life to reflect back to us and be like, wow, I’m surprised you don’t have your own thing yet. And you’re like, really?
April: Well, yeah, and knowing that people believe in us is also really powerful too, right? Yeah. My last day in corporate again, because everybody knew, I got a message on Facebook from somebody that I had worked with in my previous job. So I probably hadn’t worked with her in five years, six years. She moved out of state. And I got this message from her of just how inspiring it was and how happy she was for me. And that wasn’t the only message like that I got, but having that support and knowing that other people are excited for you, it really helps too. Just letting everybody know what your intentions are kind of builds that crowd for you. And that can help you with the fear too.
Bella: That’s so cool. So you said you’re a planner and you did all the spreadsheets and stuff. Talk to me, and I’m thinking about the people that are actually working a corporate job or another job wanting to go full time in this pet industry that is just ridiculously booming every year, right? Tell me for you personally, what was your goal for leaving the corporate? Like, what did you feel like you needed to have in place in order to walk away? Was it just a certain time or was it something tangible or was it just you were over it?
April: I did want something. I guess the tangible for me more was really understanding the business and understanding the daily flow. So I went through pretty much almost a whole year of working both my full-time job and owning the business. So I had a good idea of when it’s slow, when it’s busy, when do I need to be prepared. Like obviously next week is Thanksgiving week. It’s a crazy week for us—all hands on deck. So it was just really understanding what my busy times were, what my slow times were, getting to know my customers. And I just felt it was the time because this is a very touchy-feely business. Pets are people’s babies and they want to trust you with them. And if they don’t see you all the time, they’re not going to have that trust in you. So I just really needed to be able to put my hands more on the business and just be able to really be there, develop my team, and just grow the business. The business is great and profitable, but now it’s time to really grow and kind of expand.
Bella: So that’s really interesting. It wasn’t a matter of like, you needed all your ducks in a row or you needed to achieve X amount. It was more like before you took that step into that next boat, what I’m hearing is that you wanted to make sure that you understood all of it going into it so that you could fully immerse yourself.
April: That’s really fascinating to me. I love that. I love it. It tells a lot about how you prepare for stuff, which is probably the opposite of me, because I just jump and figure it out.
Bella: Well, there were some aspects of just figuring it out, but the business part, that’s a no-brainer for me as far as being a manager and doing payroll and having conversations when necessary. That part was a no-brainer because I’ve been doing that pretty much my whole life. But I wanted to understand the ebb and flow of the pets and their parents and the busy times. Because being a dog mom and a dog lover is a lot different than being a pet caretaker.
April: Tell us more about that because people listening might just be getting into the business right now too. Well, I mean, obviously I know my dogs and I know what their quirks are and their personalities, but that doesn’t mean that I’m an expert by any means on everybody else’s animals. And so just all the vaccines that are required and why they’re required. And there’s a big fraction of people out there that don’t believe in vaccines. And can I accept that? And is that okay? How young is too young and how old is too old and do you accept a dog when they’re in heat? There are so many things to understand about dog personalities and their temperaments. At Rocky’s Retreat we take all temperaments. The only thing we wouldn’t take would be a people-aggressive dog, so even if a dog is dog-aggressive we take them, but that’s a big responsibility. So you really have to understand how to handle a dog that doesn’t like other dogs.
Bella: And I would imagine you kind of do get those sometimes because not all dogs grow up socialized. They just grew up the only dog in their house and they don’t know there’s other dogs, right? Interesting.
April: Exactly. And so we have certain ways that we handle that. When we do daycare, we do everything in small playgroups. So we might have four or five dogs that play well together. And then we might have a dog that doesn’t play well with other dogs, and that’s fine. We just rotate them out so they still get their playtime, but it’s not necessarily in a pack. And so that’s something that’s important because you can’t just throw a bunch of dogs together and expect them to get along. You have to understand personalities, temperaments, and read their body language.
Bella: I think a lot of new pet sitters and dog walkers listening to this will get a lot out of that because you’re right. You can’t just love dogs and think, “I can start a business.” There’s a whole new level of awareness, training, and leadership that’s required to really make sure everyone is safe and happy.
April: Exactly. You have to have that business mindset and the leadership mindset, and you have to know when to make the tough calls. Sometimes you have to tell a client, “I’m sorry, this isn’t a good fit,” and that’s okay. You can’t make everyone happy all the time, and that’s been one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned—being okay with that.
Bella: Yes, boundaries! I love it. And I think that’s something that comes with experience. A lot of people are scared to say no at first because they’re worried about losing business, but what you’re doing is protecting your brand and the experience you’re creating.
April: Right. And once you do it once or twice, you realize the world doesn’t end. In fact, it actually opens doors for the right clients to come in. Because when you’re spending time trying to please the wrong clients, you’re not giving your best to the ones who are a perfect fit.
Bella: Absolutely. That’s so true. So now that you’ve officially made the jump, tell me what a day in your life looks like now versus before when you were in corporate America.
April: Oh, it’s so different. In corporate, it was wake up, get ready, sit in traffic, sit in a cubicle all day, come home, maybe get a workout in if I wasn’t too exhausted, and then go to bed and do it all over again. Now, I get up early because I actually want to. I go in and see all the dogs that are boarding, help the team get started for the day, and make sure everyone’s good. I talk to clients, answer emails, do payroll, and manage social media. There’s so much more variety, and even though I’m working longer hours, it doesn’t feel like it because I love it.
Bella: That’s the magic right there. It’s not about working less—it’s about doing something that fills you up so much that the time doesn’t drain you.
April: Exactly. And I also have a lot more flexibility. If I need to run an errand or take a personal break, I can. I don’t feel guilty asking for time off because I’m the one making the schedule. That’s such a freeing feeling.
Bella: Oh yes, that freedom is priceless. So looking back, if you could tell your past self—the one sitting in that cubicle—something, what would it be?
April: I would tell her to stop waiting for the perfect moment because it’s never going to come. You just have to take the leap. There will always be fear, there will always be unknowns, but that’s part of the journey. And honestly, even when it’s hard, I’d still choose this over the cubicle any day.
Bella: That’s beautiful. And it’s so true—there’s no perfect time to start anything. You just have to start and figure it out as you go.
April: Yes, and I think it’s important to surround yourself with people who lift you up and inspire you. Having that network—like our mastermind group—has been huge for me. Being around other business owners who get it and who encourage you makes all the difference.
Bella: I couldn’t agree more. That community is everything. You can’t do this journey alone, and being able to share wins, frustrations, and ideas with people who understand makes it so much richer.
April: Definitely. And also being open to learning. I’m constantly learning something new, whether it’s about marketing, finances, dog behavior, or leadership. You can’t ever get complacent in this industry because things are always changing.
Bella: Yes! I think that’s one of the keys to long-term success—being adaptable and willing to grow. That’s how you stay ahead.
April: Absolutely.
Bella: Well, April, this has been such a great conversation. I love your heart, your story, and your bravery in making that leap. I think a lot of listeners are going to be inspired by you.
April: Thank you so much, Bella. I really appreciate it, and I hope so too.
Bella: If people want to follow you or learn more about Rocky’s Retreat, where can they find you?
April: You can find us at rockysretreat.com or on Facebook and Instagram under Rocky’s Retreat.
Bella: Awesome. Thank you so much for being here, April.
April: Thanks, Bella.
Bella: You guys, that’s it for today’s episode of Bella in Your Business. I hope you got a ton of inspiration from April’s story. Remember—when life gets you down, always keep jumping.
Thanks for jumping with Bella in Your Business. For more information, free articles, and coaching sessions, go to jumpconsulting.net. And remember—Bella’s got your chute.