The importance of branding your pet sitting startup
“A brand is a product or service made distinctive by its positioning relative to the competition and by its personality in the context of the target market”[1] Wow! That’s a lot of big concepts to say that your startup pet care business’s brand is what helps potential customers know immediately what you do and how you approach doing it. Your brand may be a bit of text or a logo or both that you place on your stationary, your advertising flyers, and pet sitting home business cards. Branding successes that may come to mind are Coca Cola’s red background with stylized white letters, the Mercedes Benz hood ornament, the Lexus canted “L”, and the blue circle surrounding the words, “Intel inside”.
Your pet sitting business brand aligns customer expectations about the quality or characteristics that make your business special or unique. Here you are really fortunate in your choice of a pet sitting business because “pet” is the key word and pet pictures are eye catching and easily interpreted. When your business has a picture or a drawing of an appealing pet, potential customers immediately know that you do something good with animals. If the simple phrase that follows tells them that you provide pet sitting services, or that you are starting a pet care business, there is your brand.
Here are some tips for creating a brand for your startup pet sitting business:
1) Pick a short name that conveys what you do. I recommend that you think hard about this decision because it has long term consequences. You may want to carry a pad of paper and a pen around with you to jot down ideas about the name of your business. Once you have settled on a name that works for your pet sitting startup business, you must do a bit of research to be certain that your great idea for the name of your pet sitting home business has not already been chosen by another company. You can check with your county clerk to see if anyone in your area has filed a DBA (doing-business-as) for that name. You can also check to see if the name has been trademarked by visiting: http://www.uspto.gov (this is the patent office) where trademarks are registered. Do not skip this step – I did when I first started my pet care business and I was sorry.
If you can afford it, I recommend that you have your logo professionally designed. Your logo will appear on everything from your pet sitting business cards and stationery to invoices, brochures, and advertising. Getting professional help from a graphics artist or marketing professional adds polish to your branding efforts.
3) You should also work with the graphic artist to develop brand guidelines such as: what color your logo should be, what fonts should be used on documents and brochures, what size your logo should be with respect to its page, and what tagline should appear with your logo. The goal is to create consistent look for all the times a customer or vendor will see your brand.
4) Once you have your logo and text tag, get your paper items professionally printed. I found that in the long run, it was no more expensive to have a local printer make my pet sitting business cards, brochures, and flyers, than to take the time and materials to print them myself. AND, the look from a professional printer was significantly more professional.
5) Try to register a website domain name that includes the text tag (brand) of your pet sitting home business e.g. Best.Pet.Sitters.of.Phoenix.com.
Following these five steps will get your pet sitting startup on the way to establishing a successful brand, will help gain referrals, and build your pet sitting home business.
John A. Corey created his own highly successful pet-sitting business, Critters Choice and is the author of Pet Sitting Success: The Critters Choice Way. His goal is to share the hands-on knowledge he has gained over the last 19 years, which makes it possible for others to avoid many of the common pitfalls all pet sitting startups experience and quickly move on to achieving success.
What are the real costs of starting a pet sitting business?
Now that you have decided to free yourself from working for someone else and be able to select your hours and work schedule by starting your own pet sitting business, you need to get down to some serious thinking about your business costs. Costs are the money that goes out your door and you want to ensure that you spend that money wisely. Your costs will also be a significant driver in determining your fees. So, let’s look at both these factors – money coming in and money going out.
I think the best place to begin your analysis of cost for your pet sitting business is by looking in detail at startup costs and monthly costs to run your business. The bottom line of this analysis will give you one of the two key numbers you need to build your business plan - expenses. Pet sitting start up costs should be considered separately in your calculations from ongoing costs. The pet sitting business startup costs include: establishing your office, purchasing communications and computer equipment, insurance, bonding, professional fees, and doing-business-as registration. Although advertising your pet sitting home business is a constant cost, advertising costs for your pet sitting startup will be higher than your average monthly advertising costs.
Next, you need to consider the monthly costs of your pet sitting business. Because a pet sitting business is a service rather than product oriented, the highest cost item in your budget will be labor. You have control over this because you are the owner, but you need to pay yourself commensurate with your efforts. After all, you decided to open a pet sitting home business not only for the freedom it allows you, but also to make money. When you hire staff to help your growing pet sitting business, labor will become a fixed or more predictable expense.
I found that creating a budget either on paper or using a spreadsheet was very helpful in setting up my pet sitting business budget. A spreadsheet reminds you of expense categories and allows you to forecast expenses of your pet sitting business over time. You need to have line items in your budget for supplies, telephone, transportation, computer services, printing and advertising. Since you are using part of your home for business, you may be able to deduct expenses for mortgage interest, insurance, utilities, repairs, and depreciation, so you should document those costs.
When you complete the analysis of expenses for starting and managing your pet sitting business, it is time to look at the other significant number in your business plan: receipts (money coming in). Determining the appropriate fees to charge for your pet sitting home business services requires some investigation. You should spend time contacting local veterinarians, kennels, and other pet sitting business to establish what is being charged in your area. Be sure to capture oranges to oranges fee comparison because some service providers will have low fees and then charge extra for otherwise routine services. When I began collecting market information, I learned that not everyone was willing to share fee information upfront with me. However, by asking only one fee-related question per call to another pet sitting home business, I was able to build a good picture of what the market will bear.
You should price your services in the middle of pack, not at the lower end. I recommend that you differentiate your pet sitting home business from the competition based on quality and trustworthiness, not cost. Your service is valuable and you will work hard to provide a quality service. You should never feel uncomfortable about expecting to be paid fairly for your pet care services.
John A. Corey created his own highly successful pet-sitting business, Critters Choice and is the author of Pet Sitting Success: The Critters Choice Way. His goal is to share the hands-on knowledge he has gained over the last 19 years, which makes it possible for others to avoid many of the common pitfalls all pet sitting startups experience and quickly move on to achieving success.