Do you feel like your business life makes you anxious or depressed? Then this Episode is perfect for you. There has been this post going around on Facebook and it gives a message that is rather discouraging and gives a weak mindset… I want you all to know the facts and so in this week’s Podcast, I am going to break down this post and show you how you can change the way your business life makes you feel.
Biggest Takeaways
It is not about your business it is about you and your mindset. Your business cannot change the way you feel only you can and it is the same way around. Your business does not have control over making you feel anxious or depressed. I am going to tell you why and how you can change these negative feelings and create the business life you want.
Have You Asked the Right Questions?
Do you know why you are feeling anxious or depressed about your business life? Is it because you are understaffed and feel overworked? Is it your time management? Do you have the right mindset? Have you asked for help or reached out to a supportive community? All these questions can help you change your mindset and see where something might be going wrong. This is your business and you have the control to change anything you need to.
The Mindset You Need
What changes have you made to help you start feeling happy about your business? Have you made a business plan with goals? Do you have resources for guidance and SOPs? We can do this together and make the changes that you need to get you where you want with your business. You can be happy with your business life every step of the way and stay happy as your continue to reach your goals. You can have a victorious mindset that will get you there.
Show Highlights
- This is TOO popular on Facebook [7:00]
- Break it down [17.50]
- Creating a business plan with goals [26.13]
Do You Want to Join a Community?
I have spent a lot of time creating the most supportive and informative community I possibly can to help you and other pet business owners seek help easily and find guidance. We are going to be talking about how to create goals and be able to reach them confidently and soon will be moving on to how to increase sales and maintain your business during such insane inflation. It is time to get into the mindset you need to be in. Are you ready to jump in and move forward?
Links
Mastermind
Jump Consulting Website
Let’s Connect
Did you enjoy the show? We would love it if you subscribed today and left us a 5-star review!
- Click this link – Bella In Your Business
- Click on the ‘Subscribe’ button below the artwork
- Go to the ‘Ratings and Reviews’ section
- Click on ‘Write a Review’’
Are You New Here?
Welcome, I am so glad you are here. If you are a dog walker, dog sitter, cat sitter, doggy daycare, or kennel owner, then you found the right place. Jump Consulting is the one place on the internet to get all the resources you need for your pet care business. Can I give you some freebies to generate sales and increase revenues for your business? Grab your freebies below.
- Are you starting out? Been in business for less than two years? Get your startup resources here.
- Do you own an established pet care business and you want to take it to the next level.? Get Your builder resources here.
Transcript:
This is episode 272 of Bella in Your Business. Hi there, I’m Bella Vasta from Jump Consulting. You might know me from CBS, NBC, Fox, Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, or maybe you’ve seen me speak on stage or read my book, The Four Dogs That Every Business Owner Needs. In any case, get ready because you’re about to get your hashtag Bella Butt Kickin’ in this next episode of Bella in Your Business.
So what do you say? Let’s get ready and jump. Welcome everybody to a new episode of Bella in Your Business. Happy New Year! It is the first week of January 2022, whether you’re listening to this now or in the future—hello! It is a new year. And as it becomes a new year, you know the past two weeks, typically at least in the United States, we all kind of kick it into lower gear where we focus on the busy holiday season and the holiday rush. If you’re a pet sitter or a dog walker, you kind of kick it into a little bit slower gear. A lot of people tend to stay home, they don’t have services, and we just reset. We do a little reset. So I am actually recording this on Monday, January 3rd, 2022, as I have just come back to the office after about two weeks of being gone.
I’ve been seeing something on Facebook lately that I wanted to address. And quite honestly, I was first going to have this as a blog, but then I decided that it might just be better if I spoke it to you, so I’m gonna kind of talk it out a little bit. There is this thing that, you know, on Facebook sometimes where someone will write something and then it’s like a copy and paste and at the end it’s like, “I copied this from a friend but I liked it so I pasted it.” Feel free to my website. That’s great, but that’s not why they’re calling. They might be saying that, but they’re calling to make a connection with you. And if you’re not offering the opportunity to make a connection with you, then you better be doing it on your social media via videos—like I’m actually doing right now as I’m recording this podcast. I am simultaneously going on an Instagram Live and just doing the beginning of it here. If you’re not following me, go ahead and follow me at @BellaVasta.
Anyway, people call not to get prices, but they want to feel the warm and fuzzies. They want a connection with you. They want to know that they can actually feel good about you. They want to feel some sort of emotion before they start exposing themselves and giving all of this information. Not to mention, most of the phone calls that I made this morning—and I made ten of them—two answered. The rest went straight to voicemail. At first I thought maybe it was just Arizona. Maybe it was only nine o’clock in Arizona. Maybe people just aren’t answering their phone. No, because then I called people in Dallas. Nobody answered there either. Actually, rather, one answered in Dallas, one answered in Arizona. Both phone calls, by the way, were under two minutes. Both phone calls were men answering the phone, and they literally were like, “Where do you live? It’s $26. You can go to the website and sign up if you want it.”
They didn’t know my name, they didn’t know my dog’s name, they didn’t know where I was going, they didn’t know if I had used a pet sitter before, they didn’t know anything about me. They basically did not want my business. I was even more put off when I called them than before I did. It bugs me to no end because I hear so many people online saying, “I want more clients, I need to get more clients, how do I get more dog walking clients?” And they’re trying all this stuff. They’re sinking money into branding and into investments and Facebook advertising, pounding the pavement, talking to groomers—when really all they need to do is answer the phone. That’s all you need to do. Most of the sale is already going to be done if you can answer the phone. People need that reassurance. You’ve got to give them a win somehow. They need to feel like they have made progress.
You have to put yourself in their shoes. Most of the time, they’re busy. Everyone’s busy. I don’t know anyone who says, “I’m not busy.” And so when someone is there wanting to solve their problem actively—they are in active problem-solving mode right now. They have already looked you up on the internet. They’ve already read your Google reviews and your Facebook page. They’ve decided to pick up the phone and call you—have an old-fashioned phone call—because they want a connection. Marrona mia, I would say. Like, this is what I say in my personal life, but it’s so frustrating to me. Ten people—I called ten people and almost everything went to voicemail. Some of the voicemails weren’t even professional. They were just, “You have reached 928… please leave a message,” with the automated system. Like, the typical one before you actually put yours on it.
And then I want to say, how about calling back some missed phone numbers? I haven’t gotten any callbacks. I used to do, “Hi, this is Bella from Bella’s House and Pet Sitting. I just missed a phone call from this number and I wanted to make sure you weren’t a client out of town needing something.” And it opened up the conversation. They’d be like, “Wow, you call back when I’m out of town? Whoa, okay.” What does that do? It went from “darn it, she didn’t answer” to “my gosh, she called me back.” And she also made it sound like she was concerned about a potential client. So what does that tell me? That if I’m a client out of town or need to get a hold of her, she is concerned enough to actually call back. Winning!
Here’s the thing, though. If you’re not going to answer the phone, and that’s okay, I’m not here to tell you that you need to—but it’s contradictory. Because you’re putting it on your Google listing and on the front page of your website, but then you’re making it go straight to voicemail. That’s not giving your potential client a win. That’s giving them a loss. That’s making them feel like they’re losing, and you don’t want to do that. I want to help you guys get sales and I want to help put this in perspective for you, because I think sometimes we get so busy or we create these excuses in our head, and we think that we’re too busy to answer the phone, or “they can just go online,” or “they’re not a real client unless they give us all their info first and prove it to me that they want to work with me.” Guys, that’s the worst attitude you can have, and I want to respectfully check you if you’re one of those people.
The thing is, more than half of people are doing things from their smartphones with their fat thumbs. We can’t even text properly, let alone click around on forms with little boxes. Let’s stop making things so complicated. If we really do need them to fill out something online, make it short and sweet. If you’re using Time To Pet, you need to open that stuff up. Stop stopping the sales process. A lot of people put the initial registration too long. Open it up so people can register all the way through—that’s how you’ll help save the sale. But I really encourage you to talk to the people.
A lot of the answering machines that I got said, “We can’t come to the phone right now.” Can we be a little more creative? We all know how voicemails work. If you’re going to tell someone to text you, be ready for them to be texting you the rest of your relationship. I wouldn’t say “text me”—it sounds cheap, like you’re a one-woman show. It doesn’t sound like a busy, big business. Texting also, and that’s a whole other story, is a time and financial suck in your business. Keep it in email, keep it on the phone, and keep it in your portal.
When I first started this out, I was going to call all these companies and talk about how I felt—if I felt like they understood me, if I understood the price, or if they felt rigid like “$26 a visit, that’s it.” These are all things your callers are curious about. They want to know if you’ll answer the phone, how they’ll feel about you, if they’ll understand the process, if they feel understood. And I couldn’t get that from anyone.
In Arizona, I called and most went to voicemail. In Dallas, same thing. One guy did answer, but he sounded like he was falling into his car. He answered with “Good morning,” and I was like, “Hi, is this the pet sitting company?” And he said, “It’s, well… how old is your dog and what kind of dog is he?” I said, “He’s a 50-pound mutt.” “Okay, and what kind of services are you looking for?” Nails on a chalkboard! It’s assuming they know what kind of services they need. Guys, I have a phone script class that walks you through an entire script—how to do it, how your office manager can do it. You need to be talking to these people for at least 15 minutes. Get them talking—it’s not about you talking. They want to know that they are understood. They want to know you see and hear them.
You are a jumper because you’re listening to this right now. I want you to check out my phone script class or some previous podcasts about how to talk on the phone. I know a lot of you are thinking, “But Bella, this isn’t the way of the world.” No, I do understand. If I’m going to open my house to you while I go away, if I’m going to give you my key access to my home and my beloved pet, I’m pretty sure I’m welcoming a phone call. Especially if I am reaching out to call you inbound.
Answer the phone. Find a solution for it. If you can’t, call people back. Think about the whole process. If you can’t answer the phone, can you call them back within 15 minutes? Can you give them an expectation—“Our hands are full of leashes and litter boxes right now, but we’ll call you back within the hour because we want a chance to earn your business and learn more about your pet.” Wow. That’s something I didn’t hear.
All I felt like was that everyone was way too busy and overworked to really care about me and my dog Rocco. And that’s why people go to Rover. That’s why people go to your competition—because they feel welcomed. They have an experience. They have a better experience than getting your voicemail that says, “Go to my website and fill out a form,” and then still having no idea when they’ll hear back.
I’m saying this with tough love right now because I love you. I want you to succeed. You are a jumper. You are meant for more. You can do more. Let’s be better. Let’s talk about this—if you’re in the mastermind, on my Instagram, wherever you see this episode posted, let’s have a conversation. I know you don’t want to be on the phone. I know you fear it. I know every time the phone rings you cringe. I get it. But you have to solve that because—newsflash—if you want sales, that’s your first line of defense.
I hope you think about it and process it. Let’s figure out how we can rise to the occasion and really wow people from the get-go. Because it doesn’t matter how good of a pet sitter you are if you never answer the phone to get the client.
This has been another episode of Bella in Your Business. Let me know your feedback. I can’t wait to hear back from you guys. Have a great weekend. Bye-bye now.
So what did you think? Did you love this episode? I sure hope you did because I put a lot of love into this for you. The best way you can show me that is by going to iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcast and go ahead and leave a review. I just might read it on the next episode. I also want to remind you that when life gets you down, remember to always keep jumping. Thanks for listening.