Are you prepared? 2022 may have a lot in store for your pet business. But… do you know how to approach it so it goes in your favor? There is going to be some turbulence along the way but with the right support and by taking the right steps you can make 2022 work in your favor. It is so important to learn how to sell right now so you can overcome any stepping stones that come your way. I am going to be there to tell you how to do it and most importantly WHY. The why in the whole thing has such a large play and today we are going to talk about it.
Biggest Takeaways
Become the solution and learn how to establish and define your business. As the economy changes and becomes more and more volatile people start to have more problems. What they need right now is for you to solve them and show them the value you can provide during these hard times.
How Are You Preparing Your Business
If you have been staying up to date on my Podcast I am sure you are aware of how much the market is changing right now…. but does your office manager know? What about your social media manager? Do you have plans in place for how your business is going to stay on top of the economy? Now is the time to prepare your business for these changes.
Be The Solution
Start asking yourself the right questions. How does your sales process make people feel? Are they supported and cared for? Do you solve their problems and offer solutions? If you are just throwing prices at them and waiting for them to decide how they want to solve their problem then you are not selling. To be the solution you need to talk and connect with them really understand their problem and provide value with your solution.
Show Highlights
- Being established and solving problems [7.50]
- Why you should be the solution [12.45]
- Why stepping up your sales game will set you aside [19.23]
Want Free Sales Training?
Sales is BIG on my heart this season…. and I want you to be prepared for what is coming. In a few months and you will be saying, “Bella! How do I get more clients?”
Here is a FREE 3 part sales training from Aaron Michael Miller on my podcast. He is already helping turn mindsets around by helping my clients with scripts AND MOST IMPORTANTLY teaching their team how to sell.
“He is brilliant when it comes to the sales process and communication. I was loving it! It was all gold!”
Next time you get in that car to drive 20 min, or walk a dog… take a listen. You won’t be sorry.
……did I mention it is FREE? Have your Office Managers listen too!
- #1: Episode #263: One Secret To Winning Almost Every Sale
- #2: Episode #264: The Trick To Be Confident In Closing Sales
- #3: Episode #265: How To Leverage Your Competition For More Sales
Links
Mastermind
Better Marketing with Bella
Virtual Consultation Podcast Episodes
Bella Vasta Instagram
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Transcript:
This is episode 274 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 to another episode of Bella in Your Business. I’m really excited for this episode. I’m really going to try to set the scene for you to make you really understand why you need to be focusing on sales, the why behind all of it. I’ve got three major points here to tell you about today. It might be a shorter podcast, which is fine because you know me. I’m going to stop talking when I have nothing left to say about the topic.
But it’s really about why 2022 is the year that you must know sales in your pet business versus any others. I’m going to tell you right now, it’s basically one, because there’s lots of sales to be had, two, it’s going to define who you are, and three, the economy is volatile. So let’s start digging right on into it. There are lots of sales to be had. There’s so much movement happening. I have one person who had had her business for over 15 years and she just decided she was going to sell it and she sold it and she got rid of it. So there’s like a lot of turbulence that’s happening. And that means that when new owners take over, they really don’t actually understand the culture, the value proposition, all of this stuff. And most of the time they’re just kind of frozen in fear and they’re just kind of doing the same old thing. And that’s really an opportunity for you to step up, level up and really put yourself out there. I have another client who moved across country. She moved from Florida all the way up to Vermont or like somewhere up in New England. And the thing is, is she sold it to one of her clients. But the thing that happens is that this happens fast. Okay. And when it happens fast, not only do you want your business ready to be sold, but all of a sudden there’s like this vacuum almost in the market if it’s not properly taken over. Most of the time it takes a little bit for people to actually get their bearing and understand like, this business, it’s not just dog walking and pet sitting. Like these are the problems that we solve kind of going back to what we talked about last episode, problem solving versus order taking. And there was actually two people, another one moved from New York to Texas, right? And so what’s happening is a lot of people are actually selling or they’re trying to operate in two different states, which actually is proving to be pretty difficult for some if they didn’t already have an established business with systems and processes in the first one.
The great resignation as it’s called is shifting many people. And so maybe it’s not the actual business owner who thinks that they’re going to ever be getting out or moving or selling, but it’s their partner or their spouse that all of a sudden is getting a better job offer or a better opportunity someplace else. And it’s causing them to sell their business and move. So that is a really great time for you to really talk about things like how well you’re established and leverage all of the collaborations, hopefully, that you’ve been doing in your community. And that is going to give you a leg up on sales. It’s going to show the potential customer that you have this longevity. There’s a lot of ways that you can leverage that. And that’s going to be really important.
The second thing is defining who you are. So how your sales process makes them feel determines if you’re actually good at sales. There’s a couple of different examples I can throw out here, but you know, are you just like any other company where people just sign up and then they start getting all these templated emails because you have things so automated that it literally is all automated and there’s no personability with it? Or is it going to make people feel like so excited to spend money with you? There’s lots of different ways to do this. The how we’re not talking about the how necessarily today, but these are things that you want to think about.
So you work so hard at marketing and getting them in, but once they’re in, how does your sales process make them feel? Are you consulting with them? Again, are you solving problems? Or are you giving them a menu and saying, here, choose from the menu? Also, how unique is your service? Do you only do hour long walks? Do you only do hikes? Do you specialize in something? Or are you just like, pick in the mill, whatever you want, we do it all, and we don’t really specialize in anything? When you can really double down and say that, you know, we do midday dog walks, Monday through Friday. That’s what we’re really good at. And here’s why. Or you say like, we’re really good at taking care of your home and security when you are traveling. So it’s not just your pets we’re taking care of, but it’s also your home and hey, potential client. Did you think about X, Y, and Z like mail, newspaper, trash, all that stuff. And really knowing how to leverage that in sales, it’s going to be really important.
How unique is your whole entire experience? Cause that really defines who you are. I always like to use the analogy of going out to a restaurant. You go into one restaurant, you have to open up the front door and then open up the next door that comes in. Cause usually, you know, like that little like mud room or whatnot. You come up to a hostess and they might be clicking away on TikTok on their phone or whatever they’re doing. And they kind of look up and they’re like, hi, how many? And it’s like you and someone else standing there and you’re like, and they’re like, okay. And they look at something, they’re like, follow me. And they grab menus and they’re off and they’re not talking to you. They’re so far ahead. You sit down. By the time you sit down, you look up. They’re already walking away. The menus are on the table and that’s it. As opposed to walking up to some place and they’re opening the door for you. They’re, are you this evening? They see that you’re with someone else. Two for dinner? Or do you have a reservation, especially this day and age, right? And they ask you at the podium, like, are you celebrating anything particular? They’re like right this way, they’re walking with you, they’re looking back at you, they’re engaging with you in conversation. You sit down, maybe they put the napkin on your lap or they put the actual menu in your hand, not on the table. They tell you who your waiter or waitress is gonna be, maybe what the specials are, or find out if it’s your first time here. You know, all of that, they announce themselves and they let you know what to expect. You can absolutely do this in the pet world, you know? So defining who you are, it’s like, there’s a difference between saying that you provide peace of mind, trust and security, and then also showing it to them by anticipating their expectations, by answering their questions before they even realize that they have them. How are you presenting all of that before a consultation, during a consultation, after a consultation, before the service starts, when you charge them, then of course during the service period. What about after the service period? There is a whole client love system where like if you hit them on the right note, you’re gonna have a perfect harmony of an excited client to spend money with you. They’re not gonna care if you have a $5 increase because they know that they can rely and trust on the quality service that you have.
This might be considered customer service. It is customer service, but the way that you serve your customer also sells them on their decision to keep spending money with you. Okay? So I want you to think about that. Maybe you only jog dogs. Maybe you only do virtual consultations. You need to set this up for them. Here’s one thing. Like if you’re doing a virtual consultation or you’re doing an actual consultation, send them a calendar invite. Most people are working from home now and most people are actually living by calendars now. That little tiny thing so that it shows up on their phone if they want it to, right? If they accept it is just something that is going to like help secure them in their brain, especially if you’re not doing some sort of a consultation within like, you know, 12 or 24 hours of talking to them. So your sales process is going to define who you are. It’s going to tell them who you are and what they can expect. And I don’t think people are actually paying enough attention to this whole kind of process.
The last one is that the economy is crap or volatile. People are afraid and they’re going to be tight with their money. So we have this big avalanche of, my gosh, we’re like all out of ground mint, right? And everyone just started traveling like gangbusters in the summer of 2021 into, you know, the holidays. But now, you know, the economy is changing a little bit. We’re realizing that rates are increasing everywhere, like publicly. I mean, they already kind of were increasing. The supply chain is crazy. Have you guys been into Kohl’s or Target? Like, have you seen that they’re like literally taking racks out so they don’t have empty racks? Like things are sparse. Like it kind of leaves you feeling a little weird. I know a lot of people are having staffing issues, not just in the pet industry. I think the biggest resignation I just saw in the news was actually the restaurants and such, but everybody is feeling it.
So with all this volatility, how are you going to use that as positivity in your company? How are you going to get ahead of it and establish consumer confidence in your business? Right. The other thing that’s happening is we know that at one point in 2020 during lockdown, all the pets were adopted. A lot of pets were adopted. But then what happened, people started going back to work and now all of a sudden it’s kind of like when everyone would adopt pets around the holidays around December or so. And then, you know, March, April, the summer comes and then all of a sudden they’re like, actually, I don’t want this pet anymore. Well, from a sales standpoint, we now have new consumers getting more adoptions because these pets are being returned and then new people are adopting them. Maybe they’re first time parents, maybe they’re not. Maybe these pets have more special needs. What are you doing to show to the new pet parent, the new rescue parent, the new adoptive parent, how you are the perfect solution for them? What about all the relocations? Depending on where you live, you know, there’s a lot of Californians moving to Arizona and Texas, or people getting new jobs or a new job schedule. Maybe their job looks different now, and now they’re actually working from home.
Are we positioning ourselves in such a way that we’re talking about, okay, are you that busy pet parent that’s working from home, that’s on Zoom, and that has a dog barking in the background because Amazon comes up and down the street more times than the ice cream truck, right? I don’t know about you, but Amazon’s coming up and down my street about 10 times a day. And Rocco lets me know every single time. In fact, I’m sure you’ve heard him bark in the background on some of these podcasts. And so how are we combating that with our new pet parents or our existing pet parents that now have these new problems? You need to step up your sales game. You need to position yourself as the perfect person to confidently consult with these pet parents to draw attention to their new problems, to ease their mind, and then to help solve them in the most seamless way possible. It is all about the way that they feel.
I do not want, and we’re gonna talk so much about this, your stinkin’ thinkin’, your I don’t like being a sleazy salesperson to get in the way of this. It is your duty as this pet professional who knows so much about dogs and cats to come alongside these people and help them with their problem. It is a disservice if you sit back and you just let it happen. You need to think about in every aspect of the way that people interact with your company, how are you selling? What kind of social media are you posting out there? When you’re creating content, is it content to come alongside and help people? In my Better Marketing with Bella that we just had, we just had a bonus thing. Usually we only do group coaching calls in the middle months, like for this semester, it would be February, March, April, and May, where everyone comes on and it’s kind of like a roundup where I present some material. Well, what I did is I actually snuck in an extra one for January this year and we actually helped train everyone’s social media managers and office managers. And in part of that, we gave them this PDF on how to engage with people, but also giving them some thought processes of like, what are you making for social to meet people halfway? Because if you’re just slapping your logo on a picture of a dog and putting it on and saying, this is cute, fluffy, we loved him today, that’s not doing anything. Because when people are in that investigative stage and they’re seeing if they can know, like, and trust you, or they’re seeing if you’re a real company, they wanna get to know you. And they wanna get to know you and your employees. They wanna feel like they know what they’re getting into. So what’s your social media saying? How are you drawing people into your social media? All those times that people are posting about lost dogs, or I just got a new pet, or I found a dog, or someone needs to rescue this dog. How are you coming alongside to add value to that conversation? All of that is a portion, it’s a part of the entire sales process. And I want you guys to start thinking about every single time that you are public facing, you are leaving an impression in someone’s brain. They are making an impression whether you realize it or not. So whether it’s on social media, whether it’s the way you’re answering emails, whether it’s the way you’re answering the phone, whether it’s the way that you’re setting up consultations and presenting in consultations, whether it’s the way between consultations to that initial service, whether it’s during the service and after the service. All of these things are so unique and you have to understand that the sales process is a lot more than when someone calls you up and they ask you how much do you charge or they email you or they DM you or however it comes to you these days. I want you to realize that 2022 is going to be the year, if I can help it, that you step up your sales game, that you get rid of all this horrible thinking that sales is sleazy, that it makes you uncomfortable, that you don’t like to ask for the sale, and that we really get good at it, you guys, because this is gonna be the thing that is going to set you aside, one of the things that is gonna set you aside from all of your competition and the friends and family and the Rover and everything else. People want confidence when they’re spending money right now, more so than ever, I believe. And I wanna help you do that.
So to recap, I want you to really sit there and think about it. A lot of podcasts, I kinda tell you step one, step two, step three. This one is not one of these podcasts. This is something I want you to process between now and next week when I come back at you with more sales stuff. I want you to think about that there’s a lot more sales out there to be had. I know a lot of you guys have revenue goals for this year or for the next 90 days, how are you gonna reach those revenue goals? It’s not just a matter of being a sitting duck and waiting for inbound sales. You can do outbound sales where you go out and attract people. Like attracts like. I want you to understand who you uniquely are in your community and I want you to stand tall on that. I want you to be putting that message out in every opportunity that you get and really asserting that this is who you are and you’re unique. Uniqueness will draw and attract new people. And I want you to understand that during all of this volatility, people are looking for leadership. They are looking for confidence in the service providers that they use. They’re almost expecting you to cancel on them or have horrible response times or have not anticipating their things. They, I mean, we kind of expect now that you need to make a reservation for a restaurant or that you need to maybe wait day or two for a phone call back because everybody has the, whether it’s an excuse or an actuality of we’re short staffed, it’s kind of the lay of the land. What can you do to step that up? And that’s why I want you to think about 2022 is gonna be the year that you can actually be in harmony with sales.
Let me know what you think about this episode. If you want to know more about how to do all of this, we are diving deep into all of this in the mastermind in February. That is going to be our entire topic. I’ve got a ton of amazing trainings and content and experts coming in to really help the pet sitters just knock it up a notch. If you think virtual consultations are something that is just completely bonkers, I challenge you go back to a couple of episodes that we’ve done on virtual consultations. They are a big hit. They absolutely can help. And if you think that I’m absolutely off my rocker, shoot me an email, Bella at jumpconsulting.net. Let’s have a conversation about it. I’d love to go and debunk some of the stinking thinking that you have. Oftentimes I feel like most people’s hindrance, the things that keep moving them forward is because they don’t want to get uncomfortable. Magic happens when you get to your uncomfortable level. Does that make sense? I hope so. And I really hope that you’re along the sales train with me this year, this quarter, the next couple weeks, months that we’re going to be diving into it here. This has been another episode of Bella in Your Business. Go ahead and keep sharing this. I love your feedback. Michelle, Catherine, you guys have been rocking it. Joette, Shannon, I love your feedback, you guys. Keep it coming. You can get me on any of the socials. Follow me on Instagram. I always try to keep it real and fun and entertaining. Just find me at @BellaVasta on Instagram. Or like I said, you can email me at [email protected]. Now remember when life gets you down, always keep jumping.