Summary:
On this episode, we continue the conversation about lessons from the pandemic, new marketing ideas, and an intro to using a podcast for your business, which we think is a great idea!
Topics on this episode:
Lessons from Covid-19
Marketing with a mask
Starting a local podcast for your business
Main takeaway? Start a podcast!!
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
podcast, business, pet, people, words, area, pet sitter, record, mask, megan, logo, squarespace, topic, branding, audio file, options, confessional, clients, local, continuing
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin
00:17
I'm Collin and I'm Meghan . And this is
Meghan 00:20
pet sitter confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode. This is Episode 61. And today we're going to talk about a few different topics. I wanted to do a little bit of a recap from last week, our lessons episode about COVID-19. And we had made a word cloud last week we put it out on social media about the words that you guys gave us that you learned during this time. So we wanted to do a little bit of a recap of some of those words that really stood out to us from your words. The first one I have is adapt that has been really pivotal during this time, because nobody saw this coming. And you just had to kind of figure it out as you went along during this two month process, and we're still trying to figure things out. But adapting and continuing to adapt and push your business forward through this keep moving, keep being flexible with this time.
Collin 01:20
To me, one of the words that stood out was gratitude. And to me that really stands out in that in these moments, there's so much to be thankful for. And it might not be readily apparent on the surface. But one thing that is coming up through this is how thankful all all of us are that we are healthy, that we are able to see your family or at least be in touch with them, and that we still have that and that those little things can be found in our lives every single day. And so moving forward, continuing to be thankful and grateful for those.
Meghan 01:52
And another common theme that you guys had was taking this time to kind of reflect so a lot of the words were slow down. release, relax, pause and listening. And so doing a introspective check of you and your business during this time. What makes you happy? As we talked about last week? What are the things you like about your business? What are the things you don't? And the things that you don't like? How can you change them so that you and your customers will be happy?
Collin 02:24
To me those set of words also speak of something that we didn't have, as pet care providers before. A lot of us I'm going to say the vast majority of us didn't take time to relax or pause or reflect or, or any of that, and being forced to do it now. We're all recognizing how much of a good thing that that is, and the immense value that it brings to us and our business, that it makes us I think the big takeaway word for me in this word cloud was resiliency to me, all of these Words are a component of what it means to be resilient, that these are good things to have. And that builds you and makes you a stronger, more resilient person. So those are lessons that we've taken away from this. Something else that we've all been thinking about is how to market and brand ourselves moving forward.
Meghan 03:23
And I feel like I had an epiphany the other day.
03:27
Megan was very excited about this.
Meghan 03:30
Well, and I this is not an original idea that I had. This is this is a marketing tactic that's been used forever. But I, I realized that you can start branding your mask. So as a business so as a business if you have your own shop, or even if you just purchased one t shirt or one hat for yourself or for your employees, you have your logo already on those items. And so making a mask with your logo, as Well, it's that's a great way to. I know we're supposed to be social distancing. And so maybe make your logo bigger on your mask. But you can still have it as a way to advertise your business and to potentially sell them in the store. And I do know that Ruby's red pet care has been doing this for a few weeks now. And so it's not like I said, it's not my original idea. I just don't know why people aren't doing this more. This is such a, such a great idea and a new thing that can help us spread the word about our business, right?
Collin 04:32
Because it's a couple things. It's, we need to be acknowledging the circumstances that we're in as a business, and that part of that is mask wearing. That is a way that we recognize that these are requirements or these are suggestions that we are doing, and because everybody is wearing them,
Meghan 04:51
or should be or
Collin 04:52
should be wearing them. How do we stand out how do we use that as an opportunity as business owners So whether that's just picking ones that are fit for your colors, or going through something like science.com, or real threads or something like that to get a full customized one with your logo on it, that's an opportunity. It speaks to where your priorities are as a business to have Okay, that business, they wear masks when they do things that that immediately tells them how seriously you're taking this and may communicate some steps that you are taking as a business.
Meghan 05:33
And even if you aren't coming in contact with other people while you're walking dogs or while you're doing dropping checks. You can still post those pictures on social media of you wearing your mask with the dogs or, you know, putting one on your own dog and advertising that way. There's still tactics you can use even if you aren't coming in contact with clients or other people or just even like wearing your mask to the grocery store. It's Just it's just a new way and a different way to advertise. But I think it's great. And you should be doing it.
Collin 06:06
Well, as you touched on to there, it's you can also sell these, right? So as everybody is trying to find masks that they like, this is another way to have your customers potentially support you is buying a branded mask. And so we only talked about it several episodes ago of looking at your logo and going do I like this? How can I adapt this? How can this be changed and utilized and this is a great reason why you you go through that process is because this is another thing that your logo can go on.
Meghan 06:38
Right and something that will continue for months to come because unfortunately it doesn't look like this is really going to go away and it might even come back in the fall and winter. And so continuing to have this product out there is going to potentially sustain you for a little bit,
Collin 06:54
right, because we've all we've got, if you have hats, you've got shirts and sweaters and now you Have masks available. Yeah, I thought I think that's a really good idea. And something that's got a lot of traction to it. Another part of branding and contributing to your community is messaging and keep keeping people updated and kind of using your skill set. And one of the things that is growing in popularity are podcasts. So how can we as business owners use podcasts, to our advantage,
Meghan 07:30
and as somebody who does a podcast, we felt that this would be a good topic to kind of cover Colin has been listening to podcasts for a decade now. And so that option has been out there for 1012 years. And so with the number of podcasts continuing to grow, and especially with all of the pandemic stuff, people have been trying to figure out new ways to advertise their business and kind of grow in In the digital market, and so podcast is a great way to do that.
Collin 08:03
And I will say that at first it sounds kind of confusing. How do I as a pet care business? Why would I get into podcasts? When aren't podcasts international and global? Well, yes, they can be. But one of the areas of the highest engagement and interaction levels for podcasts are actually hyper localized podcasts. You don't see them on iTunes, top 20 charts or on Google Play top 20 charts or anything like that. But there are a growing and a huge number of podcasts that are just about a city.
Meghan 08:42
Right, like if you looked up podcasts for Miami, Florida, I'm sure there's a ton out there some covering the different restaurants in the area, some covering the different small businesses. I mean, the topics are really endless when you go local,
Collin 08:55
right and they're actually I do know that there is one that covers the Florida Keys. Though for the Miami one, you're not too far off all that to say that it is in measurably doable and very pertinent to you and your business. There are some technical hurdles to get over. And there actually aren't as numerous as you would think. If you have access to a laptop and appear a pair of earbuds with a little microphone in them, you can start podcasting. You can actually start podcasting from your phone if you want to, there are free to paid options. And if you have questions about those specifically, you can reach out to us we'd be more than happy to talk you through all of those options. We wanted to use this time to just kind of brainstorm and talk about the benefits of what a podcast could be for you and your business.
Meghan 09:49
So what are some of the topics that you can cover? When you start your podcast?
Collin 09:54
People might immediately think, Oh, I have to talk about my business and what we do and do all of that. kind of stuff, I think you can cover that. But I would really use this as an opportunity to showcase your knowledge for pet care,
Meghan 10:08
right. So think about what you know, you know, dog care, you know, cat care, you might know exotic animal care,
Collin 10:17
and just turn it into a topical discussion of each one of those areas. If you have something interesting that you've learned about leash training, or maybe some behavioral things that you notice, or that you've learned about, share those, it doesn't have to be a long episode. It can be 10 minutes or less. And it's just an opportunity for you to share what you know, and then have it available to people to listen to in your area. Now what is in your area mean? Well, you can market it through areas like Instagram or Facebook and target local ads. You can also and use this. You can also use this platform to build community right in your hometown, right where you live, reaching out to restaurants or other pet care providers or vets in the area, bring them on chair discussions, and have them provide information as well. If there is a local pet shelter, go to them and ask them to have somebody come on. Use it as a resource for people in your area to keep them clued into all things pet pet care and pet health
Meghan 11:29
in Colorado Springs, Colorado, or wherever you live.
Collin 11:32
Yeah, exactly. because there aren't too many places that distill all that information together. And we as pet sitters are kind of at that center hub of information. And I can't think of much of a better way to be a really plugged in resource than to start a local podcasts that talks about local information and local relevancy to animals. And pet care.
Meghan 12:01
And then with that if you start social media accounts based around your podcasts, you can be tagging those businesses that you would like to be featured on your podcast. Or you can just let them know, Hey, this, this resource that I'm creating is out here. So it's essentially kind of the same thing that you're going for when you're advertising and marketing. So when you're advertising and marketing, yes, word of mouth is huge, and social media is huge. But a lot of times you want to pass your business cards out to groomers to vet, to animal shelters. And so it's kind of the same thing here where you want to let these people know or bring these people onto your podcast, to help foster community.
Collin 12:42
The goal is to connect with other people. And, again, you don't have to have a long discourse about your business and what you provide or anything like that. You can just be the resource that brings everything together
Meghan 12:58
because then Ideally, if you are, like you just said, the resource that brings people together, then more people will know about you more people will know about your business. And hopefully in the end, you'll have more clients.
Collin 13:11
And this doesn't have to be a very costly thing. Again, there are free options that you can get started in publishing right now. And recording with nothing more than your cell phone in your pocket. And so you can make this whatever you want it to be full, massive production, or with lots of investment or very light, and, and mobile. And I think that there are a lot of possibilities here, especially as we as pet sitters are interacting with so many people in our areas that have a lot of things to contribute, and all of the events going on that you could go cover and all of those kind of community aspects that you can really play a role in bolstering and let's say you don't want to go down the Out of doing local events or that kind of topic, you could do a podcast that focuses on other things that you are interested in animal care. So maybe you have a short dog training course that you put out in podcast form so that your clients can listen to that as well.
Meghan 14:26
Yeah, that's a great way for your clients to know that you are knowledgeable and that you are able to provide a wide array of services, because you know, you know a lot about this one topic or many topics in the pet care industry.
Collin 14:42
So you can think of it also as like a value add for your clients is that whenever they use you, you they also get access to a podcast or it's just out there for people to find and go, Oh, that person is also in my area to dive into a little bit more of the nitty gritty details of podcasting. Basically, there are two things that you as the potential podcaster really need. You need a way to record and you need a place to host your audio files. Now recording can be very simple as I mentioned earlier, it could just be the mic attached to a pair of earbuds that goes into your phone or even your computer. Now Megan and I, we use a set of pretty basic microphones that we plug in via a USB cable into our computer, we use a Mac to we record in GarageBand. However, there is another free program out there called audacity that you can use on both Windows or Mac. And again, if it's just you Recording by yourself, all you need is a great USB mic and audacity on your computer. Once you get it recorded, though you need to put it somewhere. And this is where the world of podcasting gets a little confusing is where are you going to put your audio file, one of the very popular free options If you're not sure exactly where this is going to go, or how long you're going to do, it is a new service called anchor. And basically with them, it's a free service. So you upload your file to them, give it a name, and people can immediately start listening to it in other places. Now, anchor does have its limitations, and there are some things to consider before going forward with them. So you may consider a paid plan. Well, a lot of different services provide this one of the most common one is libsyn. It's one that the really really big podcasters use and everybody in between, but they can be a little bit more on the expensive side. So you may consider something like buzzsprout, or pod feed. But again, here the options are really almost endless. The one that Megan I actually decided on was Squarespace. Now you may know Squarespace from being able to build and customize your website. They also have podcasting features integrated into that Megan and I chose to go with Squarespace for this podcast for several reasons. One, you got a really beautiful website templates that you could use and fully customize and expand if you want to add online stores or multiple pages or any of that kind of things, and again, fully customize it if you want to. And then the podcast hosting is really simple on it. And it doesn't take a lot. I'm no, I'm no genius on this on this front. So it's pretty straightforward to do and just very user friendly. So we like that it was kind of an all in one thing, you got a website, and you got the podcast hosting. So it doesn't have to be complicated. You can make it as complicated or as simple as you want. But just know that the steps really aren't as steep as a lot of people may think. So you record your audio directly into audacity or GarageBand or some other program that you decide, you may decide to lightly edit it and there it comes down to show design, how you want your show to run. You can choose for your show to be fully scripted. So you write out Everything you're going to say beforehand. There are lots of shows that do that. You could choose to go with more of a light outline or just go more extemporaneous and off the top of your head on any given topic. It's really all about your comfort level and what you are wanting the podcast to give the audience you may also use this time to challenge yourself to get outside of your comfort zone of your public speaking or engagement or speaking style and experiment and try new things. And use those lessons and skills as you develop them with your podcast to apply to your clients when you do meet and greets or when you're talking to them on the phone. This really is a great way to exercise and feel out new creative avenues for you and take those skills back into your business and apply them directly to customer service, communicating with staff and just general marketing.
Meghan 18:56
I will say though, that if you're seriously thinking about doing This to have a plan. So there are like almost a million podcasts out there. I think there's like 900,000
Collin 19:07
Yeah, it should, it'll probably hit a million by the end of the year.
Meghan 19:10
So there's obviously a lot out there and a lot of information out there, but many of those are no longer active. So either there, I'm sure there's a myriad of reasons for this, but probably a lot of them did not have a plan going in. So when you're starting off podcasting, and this is what we did, you want to have an outline for your first 1020 episodes of where you want to go with this. Because a lot of times people will get six episodes in seven episodes in and then they think they have run out of content. They just don't know what to say anymore. And so having a plan going in will hopefully prevent that
Collin 19:47
depends on your goal though, if you just want to do a six episode run of a podcast with pet care information. Do that if you want to have an ongoing update about news and events and more community outreach. Yeah, do have a plan. Sit down and think about the people you want to connect with in your community. Think about the kinds of events and topics that are coming up or just think about, a great place to start would be think about most of the questions that you get from owners about pets. Start there in and then then you can have some momentum moving forward.
Meghan 20:25
We know Dan and Mauro from Dan's pet care has started a podcast called let's talk about animals. And we know a few others as well. Miguel Rodriguez is wanting to start a dog training podcast. And so this is an awesome way to not only get your name out there, but to help others ultimately,
Collin 20:43
having that kind of goal and foundation of what can I do, how can I contribute to help others and start there. So if that's something that's interesting to you, please don't hesitate to reach out to Megan or myself. We'd love to talk to you about that and brainstorm with you about ideas for you. And see where it can go and how it can help you and your business.
Meghan 21:04
If you are looking to renew your CPR or first aid certification for pets, you can go to pro training comm and get 10% off with the code CPR dash pet sitter confessional. So if you would like to get in touch with us, you can call us at 636-364-8260 or you can find us on any basically any social media platform at pet sitter confessional, or our website pet sitter confessional calm.
21:32
We'll talk again soon.
Meghan 21:33
Thank you for joining us today.
