465: Building a Team Structure with Anna Rickert
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How do you envision your business in the future? If building a team and having employees are on that list, you need to carefully consider your team's structure. Creating a team involves ensuring each person is in the right role, equipped with clear directions to accomplish their tasks. Anna Rickert, the owner of Pup Culture Dog Walking and Pet Sitting, joins us to share her strategies for developing a robust business structure. Aiming for her business to operate independently of her presence, Anna discusses the importance of having a balanced mix of services and a team that excels in delivering them.
Main topics:
Cutting out services
Bringing on a manager
Building a team structure
Managing a large team
Main takeaway: It’s not all about the money, reduce the headaches where you can!
About our guests:
Hi, I’m Anna Rickert, the owner of Pup Culture Dog Walking and Pet Sitting. I grew up in Minnesota with a household of pets and have loved animals ever since. Right now I have two fur babies (a cat and dog) of my own: Ellie and June. Ellie is a tabby cat who I adopted from the Animal Ark and June is a black lab mix who I adopted from the Humane Society in Golden Valley. June is an escape artist and is reactive when she is on leash, so we have worked extensively on her leash manners. I attended the College of Saint Benedict and majored in English and secondary education. I was a middle and high school language arts teacher for nine years, but I decided to trade in working with children for my real dream of working with animals. I have volunteered as a foster dog mom and have fostered over fifteen foster dogs in my home. I also volunteered as a case manager for The Retrievers for years. My work in rescue and with The Retrievers has made pets’ safety a top priority at Pup Culture. I believe strongly in respecting and loving all animals, so I became a vegan a couple years ago. I am also certified in pet first aid and CPR. I currently serve on the board of the Professional Pet Sitters of Minnesota, and I’m committed to fostering connections and professionalism in the pet care industry.
For years I was unable to own a dog because of long work hours and travel, so I understand the guilt that busy people who own pets often feel. I strive to offer the type of service that I would want as a pet parent. I am dedicated to providing you with reliable, friendly service, so you don’t have to worry about your pet when you are gone. We provide safe, healthy dog walks and pet-sitting with lots of loving.
Links:
https://www.instagram.com/pupculturemn
https://www.facebook.com/PupCultureMN/
https://www.sixfigurepetbusinessacademy.com
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
pet, business, clients, visits, pet sitters, dog, talk, services coordinator, manager, goals, team, dog walkers, feel, hire, work, leads, hiring, sitters, field, run
SPEAKERS
Anna R., Collin Funkhouser
Collin Funkhouser 00:02
Welcome to pet sitter confessional today, we're brought to you by time to pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters. What does the future of your business look like? Is everything still relying on you? And what kind of goals are you setting for yourself now that are different than what you had in the beginning, our businesses change and adapt and evolve as we do. As well, as we fall in love with different parts of our businesses as our needs change. So too, does our business. Today, we're really excited to have Anna Rickard, owner of pop culture on the show to talk about how she stripped out services that weren't serving her or her staff. Well, how it's been bringing on a manager and building a robust team structure that she hopes will last when she's not with the business anymore. Let's get started.
Anna R. 00:51
So I own pop culture, dog walking and pet sitting. And we're based, I guess, technically, in Golden Valley, Minnesota, although we cover Minneapolis and the north and west metro area, we have a large surface area. And we have been in business since 2013, so about 10 and a half years. And we have a team of 27 employees, and we do dog walking and cat sitting during the hours of 9am to 4pm, Monday through Friday, and little bit less than the weekends. So we focus mostly on dog whacking. And
Collin Funkhouser 01:35
there's a lot there's a lot there. So you have a really large service area, how would you have that divided up between your employees?
Anna R. 01:42
Yeah, so we kind of have it divided into four sections. And we, I have team leads and each team lead, and it takes one of those sections, and it's kind of kind of oversees the employees in that area. And you know, the clients too. We're down to team leads, though, so I could use two more. But that's, that's what we strive for, and keep our sitters and walkers to those areas and even smaller, like within those areas, you know, because of course, we don't want them, you know, driving far and whatnot. So, yeah, so that's kind of how we, we do that. And it's worked out pretty well. Although I do find that it's sometimes difficult, because we'll be overstaffed in like one area, and then like understaffed and another area and, you know, various, like, you know, will suddenly get a bunch of client inquiries and one area but not another? And, you know, so it's a little bit of a balancing act, too.
Collin Funkhouser 02:47
So are you so you say you are having you hire staff that live in that service area? Or are you okay with them driving into that service area?
Anna R. 02:57
For the most part, we like to hire people that live in that area, or close to like, where they'll be doing visits? Because we've been in Minnesota and winters? You know, we don't want people driving real far. I mean, otherwise, I wouldn't mind. But it really is that you know, because even on really snowy days, or whatever, we'll still visit if we have to. And so if people have to drive really far to do, you know, to do those visits, and if it's bad weather, I just found that it doesn't work out. So it's best if they live close, you know?
Collin Funkhouser 03:30
Yeah. And I know, that's one part of trying to talk with potential hires, about how that works. I that's something that we have to really spend a lot of time communicating with them of just how intensive the driving is and how we're trying to manage that and how, yeah, okay. I mean, we get people who apply to our job who live like 45 minutes away, and we're like, okay, you're telling me you're okay to drive 45 minutes in for like, three hours, maybe four hours work, and then drive 45 minutes back home? And they're like, oh, yeah, no, that's no problem. And I, I just don't believe that. And plus, I'm also worried during weather or traffic or who knows what comes up it just the reliability there starts to come
Anna R. 04:09
into question. Right, right. And sometimes, yeah, I mean, I feel bad, you know, talking people out of the job, but I mean, sometimes you have to, because you just, you know, how it is, you know, from seeing, you know, trying it with, you know, various employees and then just from doing visits yourself, how, like, you can just get so burned out from driving so much, you know, so So it's almost saving people from themselves a little bit, you know, when, when you're trying to talk them out of like, you're gonna hate that 45 minute drive in, you know, and then drives them more, you know, all day and then yeah, so. So, yeah, I mean, I hate to not hire people just because of the location but it is definitely a factor when
Collin Funkhouser 04:56
we're working in operations like we are far p mu all of the moving pieces, it's we have to consider that of how reliable and consistent can this one piece be, and then communicate that to the best we can. So when you when you are setting up those, do you know about how how much a staff member is driving in any given day, because I know that's a big worry that a lot of people have been bringing them on and trying to understand, you know, how we can best manage that with them.
Anna R. 05:24
You know, we've gotten a downsell portion of our team driver, like I want to say, a total of less than 20 miles a day between, you know, visits. I don't have the exact numbers for me, but I would say that that's probably about average. I guess that doesn't sound that bad in theory, but you know, when you're going from visit to visit, the, you know, if you do run into, you know, we have road construction in the summer and whatnot, you know, it still gets to be a lot,
Collin Funkhouser 05:56
it does add up, because if you have people who are working five days a week, you know, that's, that's 100 miles a week, that's 400 miles a month. And, you know, that's, that's 5000 miles a year, you know, that's that that does add up. And I think that's part of us just trying to like and have like conversations with people, because what we do is so weird. And a lot of people who are new to the industry don't consider that just sitting down and kind of putting some of the stuff in front of them to help them understand. That's really what one of the best things that we can do on our part. Yeah, definitely. You mentioned that you focus primarily on dog walking and cat sitting. And was there ever a time where you offered pet sitting? And was that? Or did you ever make that shift as a company?
Anna R. 06:38
Yeah, we offered pet sitting, you know, dogs sitting overnight, and, you know, drop in visits for years, from when we started, like 2013 until actually 2020 or 2021 2021. And then I, I wanted to stop offering dog walk or dogs sitting and overnight. For years, most of our business has always been daily dog walking, like I want to say 75% Plus, and I wanted to stop the pet sitting side for years, but I was just always really nervous to do it. Because I don't know, niching down just, you know, made me really nervous that we lose clients or, you know, clients that maybe used us for both, although they're really we really didn't have a lot of overlap with that I realized as I was kind of like, you know, digging deeper into the numbers and stuff. And so 2021 We stopped doing? Yeah, dogs sitting and overnights. And technically, our hours, I kind of said were like 8am to 6pm because we had a lot of cat clients who are like, twice a day. So you know, morning and then like kind of evening, and we had a fair amount of employees who still worked like evenings for us or weekends, you know, because they had like nine to five jobs. And so I didn't want to completely cut them out, either. And so we kept that for a while. And then this June, June of this year, 2023, we cut our hours down to 9am to 4pm, Monday through Friday and a nine to two on weekends. And I did that too. I wanted to cut out some kind of more cat sitting and just really focused on the dog whacking. But a lot of our clients just now if they want to day visits, we'll just schedule right at nine and then like 330, you know, even on the weekends, like not even like 130 and I feel bad about that. But, you know, they seem to be fine with it. And so, we didn't lose as many cat clients as I thought we would. But yeah, dog walking has just always been a huge part of our business. It just I don't know why it just has always been that way. And, you know, I even cash I remember like, probably six, seven years ago, I like to talk to like two different consulting business coaches. And, you know, I just wanted to cut out the dogs sitting in, you know, I had one tell me don't because it's an extra stream of income. And then the other one was like, Oh, well, if you really want to then do it, you know, and so I don't know, I just put it off for years. And then finally, just during the pandemic and everything I was just like, you know, just done with the dogs, you know, just working so late working so early, you know. So, yeah, it
Collin Funkhouser 09:46
is a whole nother level of commitment, isn't it? And I know for us it's it can cause quite a bit of headache for staffing too. And so finding people to do early mornings, late nights weekend. In the consistency there really can drive a lot of decisions to go, you know what, actually, and plus the consistency of going, Man, if I could provide Monday through Friday, nine to four job for somebody like, wow, like, that's, to me, that's a little bit more of an easy sell to get somebody to come on board as opposed to, well, sometimes you may have one hour, and sometimes you may have 47 hours. So it's kind of like, good luck.
Anna R. 10:28
Yeah, exactly. That's what I found is like, I'm probably not even making money on this like, dog thing, because, you know, it was like, I had to have like, twice the amount of people that you would normally need, because, you know, yeah, between early morning, you know, late night, people who did overnights I mean, it just didn't make sense for the it being such a small part of our business.
Collin Funkhouser 10:46
So you kind of sounds like you kind of reach that point of going, you know, what, this isn't worth the headache? Do you have any words of advice for people who are listening to this and feel like they're maybe on the fence of, of cutting out an entire service like that?
Anna R. 11:01
Yeah, I mean, I would definitely, yeah, the pros and the cons. And, you know, not just amount of visits or amount of revenue or whatever, but, you know, your actual, like, mental well being, and how much is this, you know, affecting your life, just the added stress or whatnot. And so I think you have to take that into account and to ultimately do what is best for you. I mean, once we cut out the dog sitting, it felt like that, all that we got for requests for like months, you know, that's what it felt like, it was just like, you know, the overnights, like, everybody wanted them all of a sudden, and we didn't offer them anymore. But once you get over that, and you set yourself up for you know, kind of that whatever you want it to be as far as the niche. I mean, people will, you know, find you and I guess I would just say yeah, don't be afraid to do what is best. And even if you know, because as we got bigger and looking at like the, the amount of money that dogs getting was bringing in, even though it's still a small percentage, it's like, oh, I don't want to, you know, cut out that much money out of my business. But it's, we still continue to grow and grow, you know, even after cutting out the services and cutting our hours and everything and so so I think you can't be too afraid of losing some of that, you know, money, clients, whatever. Because ultimately, I think you still gain new clients who you know, want exactly what you're providing? Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 12:37
it I think I'm really I'm really glad that you mentioned how it's more than just the money aspect of it. Because as a business owner, that's where we tend to think a lot about right of going, what's my revenue and my meeting my goals? Am I paying for my own bills? Am I do I have enough for my team if I have them? And we worry about that, but going at the end of the day, like what's my mental burden? Am I feeling burned out from this, or my staff feeling burned out from this? Am I tired of always having to be rehiring for something because I just can't feel that one spot, whatever that is like we all have those pain points, then it is difficult to step back and look at your business and go, You know what? Maybe the business model that I want is broken. Maybe that's not maybe that's I'm not that kind of person that wants to run that kind of business. So then what can I run? And really putting that together with like, again, with where I want to be mentally? Like how, how good do I want to sleep at night? Like all these things we have to take take into balance?
Anna R. 13:37
Yeah, I mean, not having to watch my phone Until 9pm Until the last visit is done. I mean, there's just money can't buy that, you know, I don't know, that's, that was my biggest thing I just hated always kind of been on call, you know, even if I had, you know, at the time I had like an admin or whatever, but it was it's still you still just feel on the hook, you know. And so that's been
Collin Funkhouser 14:04
so great. On the countless times that what yeah, we've been like on the couch, like, oh my gosh, we were like we've we've had a long day, we really want to go to bed, but we're waiting for that last visit to wrap up because it's like, I can't, I've got to be here for this person. And that's why that's something that we gladly do to be there. Like, we don't want to leave them hanging and just put our phones on silent and go to bed like we want to be we need to be there for somebody going. I don't know how how much of this is scalable for us in where we really want to go. And as you as you streamlined that and kind of honed in on your, your services and how did that impact, like how you marketed and how you were able to connect with clients?
Anna R. 14:43
Yeah, we focused, you know, with focusing a lot more on the dog whacking. You know, we focus a lot more on how it benefit clients as far as you know, not having to rush home during the day or worried about their jobs during the day or you know, I, I always frame it to poor dogs who, you know, maybe can't handle doggy daycare clients who don't want to maybe bring their dogs to doggy daycare, for whatever reason, I feel like I use that a lot in marketing. And so, yeah, so it's a lot less about, like, you know, peace of mind. I mean, of course, we still want to provide peace of mind, but you know, someone's just gone for, you know, part of the day not, you know, for a week at a time or whatever. And so kind of focusing more on conveniently are and how we can help the clients so that they don't have to worry during the day,
Collin Funkhouser 15:36
that convenience aspect, that's huge, because you're right, people who are looking for that, that daily thing, those daily dog walks, that that's the pain point there of okay, if I, if they are taking them to a daycare, if they're worried about doing a daycare going, we don't have to do that you don't have to worry about pickup or drop off times are spending that time in the traffic or, or the adding that extra miles to you. So now we can bring in this other thing and, and remembering like, there are pain points specifically. And that's part of that marketing messaging that gets hard because I know, I tend to think a lot about oh, the dog, oh, the your dog needs to pee. Do you worry about your dog need to Pete you'd worry about this. But realizing no, no, no. Like, the human has a whole other aspect of things that need to be spoken to, that often get left on the sideline.
Anna R. 16:21
Yeah, and I mean, so many of our clients, hire out for everything, you know, Lon, whatever. And so kind of making it, you know, just another thing that we're taking off their plate to you know, I, I feel like we use that a lot in our marketing to
Collin Funkhouser 16:38
know, it's important to remember that of going this is a this is a lifestyle aspect for them. Right. And I started in 2013. What happened in 2013, that made you decide that pet care is what you needed to do?
Anna R. 16:55
Yeah, so I was a teacher for nine years, I had English language arts, middle school, high school, and I for a little while, that I didn't want to teach anymore, and sort of kind of thinking, Alright, if I make this huge career change, you know, that's all I went to school for. That's, you know, all I know, both of my parents were teachers that I didn't want to just just jump into, like, I don't know, just a different job for the sake of a job. And it's so cliched, but I I literally thought, you know, if I wasn't getting paid what I want to do all day, and, you know, it was either hanging out with dogs all day or read all day, because, you know, I was an English teacher. And I don't want to I didn't want to go back to school for like, a master's and like, because I'd probably be a librarian, and I didn't want to go to school for that, or go back to school for that. And so I decided I tried, yeah, dog walking and pet sitting. And I started the business, got everything set up. And I'd signed a contract to teach for one more year. So I, I was just very part time for 2013 into 2014. And then went full time, June of 2014, stop teaching just jumped in and luck. I mean, you know, my paychecks went through the summer. And so I was like, okay, by the fall, I just have to be up and running like business. And you know, at the time I just calculated like, how many visits I'd have to do a day or week to equal my, like, teaching salary. And so that's, that's what I, you know, just went with at first. But then, you know, I read like, you know, I started doing research on like, their business and industry and stuff, and I read Kristin Morrison's book at the time, like six figure, you know, Palestinian business or whatever. And I was like, Oh, this can actually be like, a legit, you know, like, not just me, but like, you know, an actual business with the team and stuff. And so that is what really got me started with, with employees and stuff.
Collin Funkhouser 19:15
Those goals are so important. You know, I love how you sat down and went, Hey, okay, how do I what do I have to do to match my income, right? And just and it gives us something to go okay, like, I've got one more down and while it while it can be a little overwhelming at first, it also as you chunk away, and you get that one more, and you get that one more, and you get that one where it's like, oh my gosh, like things are happening, right? It's like and it's really is a place where if you don't have those kinds of goals written out, it kind of feels like you know, to what end am I working, what is actually happening and what's going on, but to be able to, you know, Megan and I started out going, we want to pay for our groceries right? And then we need your business to pay for our car insurance and it just building up from there. And it's exciting. It kind of builds this anticipation in this like Oh, Okay, what's the next thing we can tackle?
Anna R. 20:03
Yeah, totally. I remember this so cheesy, but I remember like, literally, I'd be like walking dogs. And I would just have it in my head, like, just the number of visits a day. And kind of the amount like as far as to get to six figures. And I just remember like, repeating that over in my head, like, um, yeah, I was so focused on that for a long time. And then too, so? Yeah, it is, it is good to have some of those goals and like broken down exactly. Like, you know, how many visits does it take to get to that, you know, or how many employees would I need to have to get to us? Number two, you know,
Collin Funkhouser 20:41
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Collin Funkhouser 21:07
If you're looking for new pet saying software, do you have time to put a try listeners of our show can save 50% off your first three months by visiting time to pet.com/confession? What are some goals that you're striving for now? Or maybe how have your goals changed over the years. So
Anna R. 21:23
I guess now what I'm striving for is, you know, I want the business to run, whether I'm there or not, and I want to get it, not that I want to sell the business, but I want to get it to a place where I could sell it at any time, because I'm definitely not there. And to that point, then everything would be running fairly smoothly and at its own. So I think it's a good goal to set just because if I don't, I'm not organized enough to have it running. Like, already. And so so that's kind of my next goal. Another goal, I mean, seven figures, you know, I would, I wouldn't mind heading that, I will say like, it is good to set goals and feel good to achieve them. But I found after kind of, you know, setting those first initial goals and, you know, being having a business for a few years, that once you do hit them, it's kind of you know, it's great for like, I don't know, a moment a day, whatever, but really have to enjoy working towards that goal to you know, because once you hit it, it's, it's really it's not nothing changes, really. And so, you know, I mean, it does, but it doesn't, you know, or there's new problems. And so you just find that, you know, like back then, you know, it's like, oh, if I just hit six figures, then I'll have made it but then I hit six, but you know, and feel any different. And so you really have to appreciate all of the work as you're doing it. Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 22:57
really, I mean, it really takes being in the moment to to look around and go, Man, I run, you know, a bad a business, you know, I this is awesome. This is this, this thing is great. And sometimes I don't know, sometimes your goal can be I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make it another year, right? Keep the business going. So it kind of starts at like, keep the business from failing, right? So how do I grow, grow, grow, grow to Okay, now I need to my goal is now to sustain, sustain and now that's going to change and adapt as markets change. client needs change, staffing or issues come up arise, you make big shifts in your in your services that you offer, but it's like, keep business, keep business, keep business and that goal of going you know, what, how would I not going? How would I make this business run without me? Like there's so many benefits to that, like, even if you are even if you're a solo printer, and you're only in this going, Oh, my goodness, like, if you like if something happened to you and you couldn't run you couldn't be in your business? What couldn't you wouldn't be great to have something to hand to somebody to go, here's how you could take over, here's how this thing could happen. Here's all how things work. So from a from a, like longevity perspective to have like, okay, we're not going to be around in our businesses. We're not, I don't have the secret elixir to living forever. So like, I don't know, something's gonna happen to this business when we're gone. And if we can do something to where it continues, you know, for the next person or maybe we do decide, you know, what, my passions have changed my life. My station in life is different. I need to step back now. It provides you with that there so figuring out how could that could work like that? That's a that's a whole matrix of things. Right? Like, oh, gosh, you know, that kind of thing is takes a long time.
Anna R. 24:38
Yeah. Oh, definitely. And just, I mean, oh, yeah. Just managing all the Yeah, processes and, you know, procedure. Yeah, it's a lot but it is necessary. I mean, truly, and you know, because I even I hate to say it, but I mean, you know if something happened to me Tomorrow, I'm not sure that the business could last, you know, and that is not a, you know, it should even now be able to run without me or, you know, my managers should be able to take over whatever the case is. And so, yeah, so even Yeah, if you are solo, whatever I think everybody needs to think about
Collin Funkhouser 25:19
that. Definitely. We mentioned your, your, your manager there. And I know you have several different kinds of managers, so to talk to us about those positions that you've created.
Anna R. 25:31
Yeah, so I've got a field manager, and a client services coordinator. And then we talked a little bit about I have two team leads, I would like to have four. And then I also have a team trainer who just is still in the field, but trains people. So that's kind of our, you know, organizational map. And so the field manager, she does all the hiring and, you know, weeding through applications, we use Jaz HR. And so, you know, she does the phone interviews, the in person interviews, I still will occasionally fit in, if we are hiring somebody like 14 lead or more of a leadership position. And field manager, she also will train new employees. She will also cover if we're really short staffed, she'll cover visits in the field too. And then my client services coordinator, she started the team lead and we created this position for her because we needed somebody to she does all the scheduling. And all the you know, she responds to clients and time to Pat does all the message eating and time to pet. And she, um, yeah, it's pretty much in front of our computer all day. And on Slack, we use Slack to communicate with our team. And so she's also a vet tech. So like, if our team have any questions or issues in the field, like with the health of pots, or whatever, you know, it's really nice to have her there to answer the questions. And so she's been very helpful. But yeah, she does all the scheduling and everything. And so we only put her in the field if we absolutely have to, um, because, you know, we do kind of need somebody to be around to, you know, respond to clients, let them respond to our team and stuff. And then, yeah, the team leads I mentioned, oversee the specific areas and, you know, help with training and overseeing our team and the various areas. And we'll also, you know, cover visits or take visits if we're, you know, short staffed or someone is sick or on vacation or whatever. So, yeah, that's kind of how
Collin Funkhouser 28:00
we have it. Yeah. And I know that that's a that's a lot of different people managing different things. And I mean, so when you sat down, like, what was the first, did you have an order, maybe of the first position you made? And did you grow from there? Did you envision kind of this, there's a hierarchy and then fill in expands to it? Well,
Anna R. 28:21
I initially had kind of, yeah, kind of the idea of like, a manager admin person, who would, you know, do the scheduling and, you know, respond to clients and things like that. And then I also need in mind, kind of, like break down our service area into smaller, you know, portions. And as we've grown so that our dog walkers and pet sitters feel like they have someone who they can, you know, go to if they have, you know, questions, concerns, issues. And also, I mean, just a matter of like filling in, again, if we're short staffed or someone's sick or on vacation, and I don't my team leads don't currently do this. But ideally, I would like them to do all of the, we call them registration meetings, but the meet and greets for their area two, I still do a lot of the registration meetings, but I would eventually like to have them do that as well. So that's initially what I kind of thought was kind of my plan. And then the field manager position. I kind of made it up when I found my field manager. And because I also had another manager who kind of oversaw I guess you could call her like an operations manager, you know, just kind of overseeing kind of everything. And where those came from, and I just with the field manager, I just knew that I wanted to not be hiring or not be doing all the hiring basically. And she has done that in previous jobs and very good get at it. So, okay, I handed that off to her. So
Collin Funkhouser 30:04
it sounded like it sounds like you had people on your team that you recognize these talents in and saw where you could place them in a different position in your company, or did you open up a position and then go search directly
Anna R. 30:18
for that person. Still a little bit of both, ideally, I would like to hire from within because, you know, it's so much easier, because they already know, how we run and everything. And so I have promoted some of our walkers and sitters to team leads, but we have hired from outside for team leads, as well. And my field manager, she had actually applied for just my kind of general manager position. And I just hired my general manager. Um, but yeah, I just really liked her experience and stuff. And so then I created the field manager. And then my manager, my general manager. I had, she was with us for about a little over a year. And then she took on, you know, another position and kind of like her old, old field. And so we've been without one sense, and so I guess I'm kind of taking on that role, I guess. But ultimately, I would like to hire another kind of general manager, Operations Manager, but I'm a little over leveraged on the management side as it is. And so I'm gonna hold off a little bit on that. But, you know, it's just, even though I am a little over, leveraged on the leadership and management, I would rather be paying more for that than to have to not take vacations, like I, you know, didn't for like eight years, and you know, just knowing what we have people in place to do things, whether I'm there or not, or it's just, it's worth it. You know, for me anyway, worth the money. And yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 32:10
at what scale did you bring on your had your first manager? Because that's, that's a lot of questions of, oh, do I need a manager it? But I've got two staff or whenever I've got 15 staff or 20? Staff? Or? Or was it just a personal preference, where you're like, you know what, these things I don't want to do any longer. So I need somebody's help, I need help to do this.
Anna R. 32:30
Yeah, it was a little bit of both, I had a pet sitter dog walker, who pre pandemic, who I asked if she wanted to kind of Yeah, kind of be a manager admin, and take over a lot of like the scheduling and responding to clients in times of pet. And so that's kind of where it started, she was very part time, she still did a lot of pet sitting and dog walking for us. And then, you know, with the pandemic, I needed her a lot less. And so, you know, we kind of cut back on that. But then we grew quickly after the pandemic, part of it was I absorbed a business that was closed and kind of bought a business that was closing. And so we grew kind of quickly from there. And, um, yeah, I was just stretched way too thin. And so I hired a manager, I was looking for a manager and hired one outside of pop culture, and then started adding kind of a team lead position too. And, you know, I had a couple of dog walkers, pet sitters, who I knew would be good for the role and so kind of, you know, put them in those roles, and then Pentagon from there. So,
Collin Funkhouser 33:45
you know, when you're training and you're hiring for this, like you said, they're all part time in these positions, for the most part, field
Anna R. 33:53
managers full time. My team leads kind of depends on the kind of work like nine to three, I've got one that works, basically full time, and oh, my client services coordinator, she works, you know, Monday through Friday, nine to four are open hours. So she's, you know, close to full time too. And, oh, I did forget to mention, I do have an assistant manager who works on the weekends she covers every other weekend. That's
Collin Funkhouser 34:24
again, these are positions where you know my mind I fully understand what it means to hire a dog walker or petsitter once we start talking about hiring a manager you know, that's that's something that we have not personally hired on in our own business. So it is kind of hard for me to go how oh gosh, what is compensation look like for this? How many hours can I give this person? You know, but it sounds like what you did was like, okay, maybe I can, a pathway to this is going if I have somebody in my company who already who I feel like can take on some more responsibilities. I can start giving them a few hours, a few hours and then possibly give them more hours and then more hours and just grow Oh, it kind of organically that way to see kind of what exactly you need in your business and then and where you are right now and going yeah, i Sounds like you could just post a full time field manager position and and absorb that into your company, you know if you know if you need it to,
Anna R. 35:16
do you think at work to someone on slowly and yeah, if you find someone on your team that seems like they would be a good fit, I definitely think that's the way to go. If you can. That may not always be the case. I mean, again, like, I would like to have two more team leads, and I would love to hire from within, but I don't have anybody else on our team who is really interested, or who I think would be a good fit for the position. So I mean, sometimes do you still hire outside? But I do think it's, if you if you have those people on your team, I think moving them up is so much easier. And yeah, as far as training and everything, because they already know how you kind of run things. And so it's, it's much easier. Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 36:06
now are they do they do a lot of interaction with one another, or kind of how do you have that setup of, of reporting to you are interacting at the at that level,
Anna R. 36:15
my field manager and I, we meet weekly in person, and, you know, kind of go over, you know, since she's in charge of hiring, over hiring, and you know, how that's going and things like that, and just anything else that we're working on, and then feeds and my client services coordinator, we were meeting weekly and monthly. Lately, we've been so understaffed that like, somebody is always like, out in the field. And so we've had a hard time like meeting like in person. So we're trying to do it monthly, but we kind of put that up, but that's actually that's one of my, like, 2024 goals is to make sure to like, you know, keep that at least monthly meeting, I'd probably like to make it like every week or every other week with my team leads just to make sure that everything is you know, just so we're all on the same page and everything. But we do have, you know, we've got like a leadership channel in Slack, you know, for all of like, my team leads, Field Manager, Client Services Coordinator, and then my client services coordinator, like we have a channel for each of our team members. And then we've got like the team lead on that channel. And, you know, the field manager, my client services coordinator, so we all kind of, you know, can help out our dog walkers and hot sitters, you know, if they need help in the field or whatever, I
Collin Funkhouser 37:43
really liked that idea of having that channel of kind of that little group chat with not just you know, because it would be kind of easy to have it siloed of Team Lead and, and your staff member, but including your client service coordinator on that with the team lead with the team member helps have a little bit more cohesive. And so everybody really knows kind of like, Okay, where is this issue? Or, or where does this thing stand? Or how is this progressing? So everybody's in the loop on something?
Anna R. 38:10
Yeah, exactly. It does make it so much easier, because otherwise Yeah, if everybody's just like, direct, you know, D I mean, on Slack, you know, it's you just don't necessarily know what's going on. So yeah, it does kind of keep everybody in the loop. We're talking about
Collin Funkhouser 38:26
the National Association of Professional pet sitters is the only national nonprofit professional petsitting association dedicated to raising and abiding by industry standards. Our friends at naps provide pet sitters with the tools and resources to own and operate successful pet sitting businesses. And a key aspect of that is their in person and pet sitting conference this year at the bloom and grow your business March 1 through third in Savannah, Georgia. Their goal is to bring together industry leaders with session topics that are idea focused and on a wide range of subjects to foster learning inspiration and provoke conversations that truly matter. Believe it or not, registration is still open for just a few more days. If you are listening to this episode, right when it comes out. Registration is now $225. For your ticket, visit the NAPS website at Pet sitters.org. For information regarding the naps, membership, certification and complete conference details once again just a few more days left to register for the NAPS conference in Savannah, Georgia. When when we bring on staff members for like dog walking and pet sitting again, I know what it means for them to do a great job of being a dog walker and pet sitter right I can I can assess their work really well. How do you go about assessing whether a team lead or your client service coordinator or your field manager? How do you know Okay, yeah, they're doing a good job or
Anna R. 39:52
not with my field manager over and I'm like hiring numbers every week and when Meet kind of in our weekly meetings, we kind of go over, you know, what needs to get done. And so I just kind of assess, I guess, you know, in, you know, how, how she's doing. And, you know, if we're kind of getting everything done, you know, she's got, we've got, like hiring goals and things like that, but I honestly didn't hit them in 2023. I don't blame her at all. I mean, I it's, you know, it's kind of the nature of the business. And, you know, I also kind of assess, like, how often, you know, because she does training and kind of oversees staff, oversees our team in general, just kind of how often she, you know, interacting with our various team members and checking in with them and things like that. And then our team leads, they oversee, you know, a portion of our dog walkers and pet sitters. And so whenever they're on, they're always checking, you know, visit reports, and, you know, photos and like in time to pet like the time and like mileage and just checking everything, and so they have spreadsheets that they fill out for each of our walkers in scenarios. And so, you know, I kind of keep an eye on that, that they're doing that and then you know, if if issues crop up, that they're reaching out to the dog, Walker pet sitter, and, you know, talking about whatever the issue might be with them. And so that's kind of how I oversee that. And then the client services coordinator, we've got a few kind of scheduling numbers that I kind of have her oversee, and that I kind of watch, you know, one of them in time the pet is, it's a number of types of pet, you know, and it basically tracks like, you know, how efficient are walkers and sitters are, and so I kind of watch it, and I watch that, because she does the scheduling. So to make sure that you know, all of our routes are efficient, and also kind of watching, you know, how quickly she responds to clients and time deposit and things like that. So yeah, some of it's not so formal. But
Collin Funkhouser 42:14
I think that really stresses the importance because, you know, you're like, oh, yeah, like, it's, it's efficiency reports, it's, are they managing? Are they are they submitting spreadsheets correctly? What are the hiring numbers? Like, how are these things like, sitting down and going? It starts with us going, what do I deem important for this person? Not how do they think they're doing that? I mean, sure that you can take this into an assessment when you're talking to them, but going, No, this is not it's not a subjective, it is an objective measurement of whether they are doing well or not. And that's what we get, we have to we don't we get to, we have to decide, because if we don't, the person we hire in whatever position is just gonna be floundering. They're just gonna be making stuff up and we're gonna go well, I don't know, if it's, you know, nobody's gonna know what's going on. And that's unkind to them. That's not a well run business. And so to be able to sit down and go, No, I need you to be hitting this XYZ and it can sound harsh, but it's business it's mission critical. So going, this is where you need to be focused and that's okay to then have a conversation and to help them equip them train them to meet that Anna I noticed on your website you talked about kind of relieving pet parent guilt and and helping people to live that life and how do how are you maybe we already talked about this and about about how are you speaking to clients about this because I know when I've tried in the past to craft that message sometimes I can feel like all I'm doing is just making them feel worse about about their pet
Anna R. 43:47
Yeah, yeah, I mean it really is a fine line I guess and although really any client that is reaching out to us you know, whether they're using us for dog walking or pet sitting or cat sitting doing even that not to like toot my own horn or to you know, like our business but I'm ready like doing a good thing for their pet so I mean, they shouldn't feel guilty because obviously they're caring enough to you know, spend this extra money on their pet they obviously do care a lot about their pets and so kind of the break during the day how their dogs enjoy you know, being with us and you know being out you know, we try to like make the updates kind of fun and photos and things that we send to clients in time to pet and yeah then you know, we did contact about how our services benefits the clients and how they don't have to feel that guilt then you know, or feel guilty about like going out for a happy hour after work or you know, going to kids games or whatever because you know, the dad is taking care
Collin Funkhouser 44:55
of you mentioned there of like, just straight up talking about how much fun Dogs have with you, or how much cats enjoyed their time with you. Like, that's focused purely purely on the positive aspect of it. And, and it's an that's such a great way to get around that instead of being like, are you worried your pet sad and depressed at home without you while you're working long hours? It's like, Ah, no, don't start there. Right? Like, talk about the the, you know, you can go straight to the end and go, here's, you know, here's Baxter out enjoying his his sniff Aurier is adventure walk that he's out with today and getting exercise and exploring new places. And, and people kind of this almost makes it kind of an aspirational thing of like, wow, I want my dog to have that I want my cat to have that experience. Let me how do I make that
Anna R. 45:43
happen? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well,
Collin Funkhouser 45:47
I want to thank you so much for taking your time today to talk with us. And walk us through how you've made it to those growing pains and how you've positioned people in your company to make it more robust as you've focused on serving your clients in new ways to and growing your services. But I know that there's a whole lot more here. So if people want to follow along with what you're doing, and what pop culture has going on, how best can people do that? Yeah,
Anna R. 46:13
so you can check out our website, pop culture, mn.com, or our Instagram or Facebook at pop culture, MN. If people want to get a hold of me, you can email me at Anna at pop culture. mn.com.
Collin Funkhouser 46:28
This has been such a pleasure. I really appreciate your time today.
Anna R. 46:32
Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much.
Collin Funkhouser 46:35
What vision do you have for your business? A Conversation with Anna reminded me that it's important to understand the work required, the tools we need and the team we need to build around us to meet the vision that we have for our business and our life. Whether that means hiring, whether that means getting that CPA, whether it's getting a coach, whether it's building that network, there are things that we have to do in order to get to where we want to go. It just doesn't happen overnight. We want to thank our sponsors time to pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters for making today's show possible. We really want to thank you so much for listening. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. And we'll be back again soon.
