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What is your process when you encounter a problem in your business? Whether it’s client problems or administrative concerns, you first have to ask yourself a series of questions about how you’d like to solve them. Self coaching is the process we all go through when we take time to process a problem or question, before reaching out for help. We break down common questions, and a multi-step process to coach yourself through.
Main topics
Episode 384 feedback
What is self coaching
How to ask good questions
Know your mission
Main takeaway: Planning is beautiful, but if it just sits on the table, it’s useless.
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, clients, questions, pet sitters, solutions, work, problem, pet, goals, talk, ideas, company, confessional, florida, solve, intricacies, people, logo, define, process
SPEAKERS
Collin, Meghan
Meghan 00:04
Hi, I'm Meghan. I'm Collin. And we are the hosts of pet sitter confessional and open honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Thank you very much for listening today. Thank you also to pet sitters associates and the Florida Pet Services Association for sponsoring today's episode. And our stupendous Patreon members for finding value in the show and contributing a few dollars, few of their hard earned dollars every month to giving back to the podcast and keep it going. Yeah,
Collin 00:29
absolutely. We have two different tiers. And if you'd like to learn more about those or other ways to support the show, you can go to petsitter confessional.com/support.
Meghan 00:37
We've had some great feedback recently, from our episodes, and one of those was about the physical marketing that we had talked about back in episode 384.
00:46
Yeah, several people actually asked us Where Where do we get all of our stuff, we talked about our physical marketing. But yeah, so importantly, we print our postcards straight from Canva. You make the design in Canva. And you can have it printed and shipped to you. They're pretty high quality, pretty good pricing as well. And we've that's how we've been printing our our postcards for that we send out to our clients. For our tennis balls and poop bag holders, we actually use two different companies. And we really tried to go locally when we were ordering those, but at the time that we were placing those orders, none of the local available shops had any inventory or availability to get those in. And they were backordered by something like over six months. So we went with the national companies and then had to call a few different ones to find inventory. And this was kind of a big deal, but they're starting to get those in a lot easier now. So we've used identity links, and English promo. And then we order our T shirts, we have t shirts that we print out for our staff and ourselves, let's say pets that are on the front and our logo on the back. And we ordered those through Printful. We also
Meghan 01:50
have some other feedback from cursed from cat sitting by cursed. She said I'm a cat sitter in the UK, you're so right about physical marketing, I have business cards and postcards with my cat's faces on them. I have key rings in the shape of my logo with my business name and phone number and I make catnip toys for my clients cats in the shape of the logo, a cat's face, and stitched their name on the back. Plus, there's a hanging ribbon with the business name and phone number on it. I've just had a banner made for a summer festival I'm attending to showcase my business. These are awesome marketing tips and marketing ideas to get your name your logo and your business out there. And I do believe that Printful the company we get our T shirts from they have a whole assortment of anything and everything you could put your logo and your name on. Yeah,
02:33
we think a lot about how do I promote but sometimes we need gift ideas to so Printful you can throw your logo on a tumbler on a pillowcase on an iPhone case on the ear pod covers all sorts of things, or just tennis shoes or socks even. So you can really go wild with this, I think what's really important is to ask yourself the question of what do my clients need? What's not going to be just more junk or, or, or crap in their home and in their life, it needs to be valuable to them. It needs to be reflecting well, on you and your business too. So always go through that procedure of asking those questions.
Meghan 03:10
Speaking of asking questions, that is what we're going to talk about
Collin 03:13
today, hey, look at that transition.
Meghan 03:16
We encounter problems, basically all of the time in our businesses, whether they're small or big problems. And we often have a lot of questions that come up as we need answered, It doesn't matter if you've been in business two weeks or 20 years, you still have things that you encounter, whether it's client problems or admin stuff that you don't really understand or need some kind of feedback on. So we want to dive into a little bit of how to handle that. Because here's the thing, how will you know what the right answer is for the question that you have for the problem you are trying to solve? You have to take a moment to do some self reflection or self coaching, before you can really get that feedback and do something with it. Because trying to solve problems in your business is hard, particularly when you've never dealt with it before you don't know how to handle it. You don't know the right questions to ask. And so it can be very easy to just throw your hands up and say, I don't know what to do. I need help give me help right now.
Collin 04:15
But you don't know what help is going to look like until you've asked some questions first. And I think that's where you have to start before you start going and asking questions of other people or seeking advice from other people. You have to know or be able to judge what's going to work for you or what's actually a good fit. This this process is a little bit there's a lot more to this, but this is a small section of self coaching. And it's the process of of guiding yourself to achieve your goals basically involves self reflection, personal growth, behavioral change techniques, which are usually guided by a trained professional in a coaching scenario, but now we're trying to implement some of these questions some of these prompts in our own life so that when we encounter a problem, when we do have a question We take a moment to sit back and go, Okay. In order for me to find a solution to this, what are some things that I need to know I need to care about? What's my goal for this? And just walk through it a little bit slower pace, as opposed to just give me an answer right now,
Meghan 05:14
because ultimately, nobody knows your business better than you do. Even a coach, if you hire a coach or a business consultant, they're not going to know the intricacies the financials, your area better than you do. And also your goals and dreams for your business where you want to be in 1020 30 years from now, do you not do not want to have a business at all? Do you want to grow and scale yourself out of the business? Only you know these things. And once you dig deep, ask yourself the hard questions, then you're going to have a better understanding of how to approach the problem that you're having. Well, in
Collin 05:49
this the goal of self coaching this process is for you to develop the skills and abilities that are going to enable you to be more effective in managing your own life and your own business. Here's
Meghan 06:00
some common questions that we see. And we get all the time. The first one is, I'm not getting enough clients for X service. Well, a question to ask there is, do you know your target client? And are you going where they are? If you are wanting people who do yoga a lot and you want to get them for dog walking? Are you going to yoga studios or juice bars or healthy establishments? To connect with those clients? What relationships are you building with groomers and vets and trainers in the area? You know, maybe there are apartment buildings that you really want to get into? Well, are you working with the concierge? Is there one that you can connect with? What is your social media and website presence in in the city that you are in or in the town that you're in? You know, if somebody Google's you, will they find you asking yourself who is your target client? Are you going where they are in both the digital and physical spaces?
06:53
And even asking yourself what kind of methods have I been using up to this point, because not all methods of advertising and marketing are created equal? And so you may say, Well, I'm posting on social media all the time, and I'm not getting any interactions. Well, then you have to ask, well, is the content that I'm posting, is that good? Is that who I'm wanting for it and make sure that all goes boils back down to who you tried to talk to?
Meghan 07:14
Another problem is my staff are hard to manage. So how do I manage them? Well, have you done a personality test on them and yourself to know how to manage them in a way that is best for you and for them or you a micromanager but they don't like that? Or vice versa? That is really important to know.
Collin 07:31
Any relationship taking a moment to go, Okay, what's my role in this? I'm really struggling to connect with this person. I don't feel like we're communicating well, do I even understand my communication strategy? How do I understand what I need? How I am going, what kind of expectations I have to get back from this person? Instead of always going, Oh, it's that other person's problem? Or they're they're hard. They're difficult going? Well, I have some agency and this so before I go down this rabbit hole of how do I manage problem staff going? How do I know myself a little bit better first.
Meghan 08:02
Another problem is maybe your clients are giving you trouble? Maybe they the expectations are off? Well, then you ask yourself the question, do I have the contract and policies and communication to back up the decisions that I'm making whether to fire them or to stand firm in our policies, this is something we see a lot because the expectations there are need really need to be clearly communicated before you even walk into the meet and greet so that the client isn't caught off guard, and you are not wasting your time. Ultimately,
Collin 08:32
always define your terms. If you are looking at the clients that you're serving, or the inquiries that you're getting and going, none of these seem to match what's the unfortunately a reaction can be? What's wrong with them? What's wrong with them before the before asking yourself? Did I set themselves that I set them up for success? Or coming into my company? Did I outline my processes appropriately? Did I define my terms for when I say petsitting? This is what I mean? When I say overnight care. This is what I mean? When I say expert, you have to take that moment, that first step of going, Man, I'm really struggling in this area, turning that gaze inward and going before I can move forward. What do I what am I doing? And this can be this whole process can can feel a little defeatist or feel a little like oh my gosh, it's always my fault. No, we're not placing blame. There's no blame here. All we're doing is we're asking the question of what role do I have in this in what's happening? Is there anything I have control over before I move forward?
Meghan 09:39
Something that's a real struggle right now is getting quality potential employees applying to your business. So a question to ask is, well, what does my job ad look like? It hasn't been updated since I started hiring three years ago. What does it look like? Am I going after that one specific person that I think would be great for the job?
Collin 10:00
Here's how this question is usually phrased in Facebook groups or post us? How do you find employees? Or where are you getting quality employees? You have to take a moment and go, What does a quality employee look like to me? How do I define that? What would it mean to be excellent or to excel in my company, then I have to write something that matches that to attract that person. And then I have to put it in places where that person is, instead of going, the the job pool is out there and nobody wants to work. And I can't get anybody because they don't want to work for me. Well going, Are you talking to the right people? We do that question with all of our clients. It's the exact same thing when we're working with our employees and trying to attract hires of going, Who am I talking to? First? Who do I want? That's where that question started with? Who do I want? And what does my company need? If you can't define those, if you haven't defined those, you will continually find that fits for your company.
Meghan 10:59
Questions also come up about trainings and certifications. What do I need? Is this important to do? Or do my clients care? Well ask yourself, will it help you serve your clients better? So I know we took the fear freeze petsitter certification, and it has definitely helped us serve our clients better, but also our staff because we can train our staff and say, Hey, these are things that we do as a company. These are things we don't do and it helps us to further our mission and values.
Collin 11:25
Again, taking that big step back and going okay, before I get caught up in the training, the intricacies the pricing the timetables before I get into the the curriculum, and all of that stuff and the certifications in the letters after my name. Is it actually useful to me? Does it help my company? Is it does it get closed me closer or further away from my mission and my values as a company that's That is huge.
Meghan 11:49
One thing that is beneficial to you is pet sitters associates. As pet care professionals, your clients trust you to care for their furry family members. And that's why pet service Associates is here to help for over 20 years, they provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance. Because you work in the pet care industry, you can take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom in running your business. Learn why pet sitters Associates is the perfect fit for you and get a free quote, at pets@llc.com You can get a discount, because who doesn't love that when you join by clicking membership Pet Sitter confessional and using the discount code confessional when you go to checkout, check out the benefits of membership and insurance once again, add pets@llc.com We just worked through some problems and questions that you can ask yourself, obviously they are the problems that we could encounter in our business are basically infinite. Why? But there are. So there's a simple process that you can go through each time that something comes up in your business. And that's where it really the self coaching comes in. The first one is pretty easy. It's identifying the problem, the first step is to see what the problem is, it's important to really articulate it and maybe even write it down or verbally say it to somebody else. So that you know what you are actually trying to solve.
13:01
Yeah, to put it another way is my ladder against the right wall, right as we are working. And we are are trying our best in our businesses, we're trying to climb that ladder to get work done. But if our ladder is leaning against the wrong wall, we're painting the wrong house. So we have to make sure that we are clearly defined, because that's going to set our course as we move forward with this entire process and the rest of our business,
Meghan 13:24
then once you have the problem defined, you need to reflect on it and understand it. And this is the hard part where people go, I don't want to sit down and think about this, I don't have time to do this. I'm so busy that I just want somebody else to give me the answer and they'll solve it for me. But again, ultimately, you know your business best you know your community best you know the goals and dreams that you have for your business and no one particularly in Facebook land, nobody on the other side of the world is going to be able to understand and know the intricacies of how to best answer your question, then you so reflecting on the problem trying to understand why it exists. What are the causes of it? Is it something you did? Is it something outside of your control? What are the contributing factors to that problem? This step again really requires that self awareness that honest introspection, yes, the time to the time to sit down and to think about what you're doing. Maybe it's you only have five minutes in between clients to sit in your car and go, Okay, that what what is the root of this? How can I address this
Collin 14:36
and not being afraid to steer that lens back on yourself, which is the hardest part about this entire process? And which is why usually going to a coach or somebody outside do is more helpful because they can do that a lot easier and start asking you personal questions, but sitting here and going What was my role in this? What are the root causes of this problem? And not being afraid to go did I have any role in this problem? It's not bad to ask yourself that every time because then you can march forward and Okay, I did, there was nothing I could have done differently. Okay. Now what does that mean? Or maybe I really messed up on this. Now I have to make these corrections. But that starts here is reflecting an understanding.
Meghan 15:17
And then define your goal. So we talk about goals, the SMART goals, the Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and time bound goals. So what would it look like for this problem to be solved?
Collin 15:28
So, if the problem was attracting the right clients, it would if the problem was solved, you would be matched with clients that met your perfect avatar and that loved your business and your service and you had a growing and robust company. That's what that would look like, that's, you're setting a metric out there to get this Saul says, you know, okay, I'm going to do work. But how do I know when to stop doing the work? Or how do I know it has been successful while I've already defined it? So going back to that original problem that you came up, maybe it's I don't have I'm not finding good employees? Well, what would it mean for that to be solved? Well, I have two good employees that do the work and love my loving my company. Okay, now we have something to work towards. And that ties
Meghan 16:07
right into the next step, which is brainstorming solutions come up with as many potential solutions as you can even the silly ones, or the ones that are a little outlandish that you probably won't go with just write everything down in a Notes app and on a physical piece of paper. Just try to get it out of your head as much as possible. Because I know, I know, when I write things down or get it in my phone, it almost generates more ideas, because I'm able to free up my brain space with the first four things I have that are possible solutions. And then my brain goes okay, well, what what else I brained up to those, those can be out of my brain right now. There are some other options, what could they be?
Collin 16:46
Yeah, really take your time on this stage, because it's about quantity rather than quality is going to help you push beyond the limits that you think you have for to create possible solutions and brainstorm ideas for this. There's an idea. And this might be kind of hard for me to describe it in when you're working creatively. There's this there's this misperception that my first five ideas or the ideas that I come with, come up with immediately, those are my best ones. And then anything after that is actually those are bad ideas. But the exact inverse is true, the more you struggle, and the more you have to push and dig to come up with possible solutions and answers, the better those answers are going to be for you and your business, the obvious ones are going to bubble up first. But they're obvious for a lot of reasons. Maybe everyone's tried them, maybe you even tried them before you've heard about them. And they're not working for some reason, well, then you have to move past those. So really take time to dig deep here and sit think and the process of writing it out going okay, I don't have to worry about remembering that idea. Because it's over here, I can fill the space with other things, you just want to dump as much as you possibly can. And after
Meghan 17:54
the brain dump comes the evaluation stage, you then select a solution. So you go through them, you say, No, this is not silly mark a market off your list. This is not going to work for XYZ reason I don't have time or the money or the skills. Okay, not gonna work. Consider the pros and cons of each. Once you get your list narrowed down, you can really start to hone in on okay, this is not going to work, this is potentially going to work and then select one that you think is most likely going to achieve your goal. Think, again, think about the resources that you have at your disposal. Do you have enough money for this project? Or for this solution? Do you do you need to outsource to somebody else? Because you need you want to get a website done? You know, people have been asking, Do you have a website? Okay, no, I don't have a website. And I don't really have the skills or the the knowledge to get one done. So I want to outsource that. And then think about the potential consequences of each action to so not just the pros and cons of your maybe top two or three options. But the consequences if I go with this, what happens is a good as a bad should I choose something else.
Collin 18:58
Maybe it's the website and I'll just take one step back and acknowledge the fact that many times the solutions that we come up for answers to our problems that we have in our life, all of them will have cons recognize that there will be a con to most of them or not, if not all of them. And that's okay. Well, at this stage, what you are doing is you are evaluating, evaluating and going okay, this all of these have cons so technically, they're all They're what they're all bad ideas. No, it just means that you have to consider is this con. Is it worth it to move forward with this solution over and against this other one, building a website? I have to invest money into my website. Okay, I don't have money, but I really need a website. So is it worth it? Is it worth it to me to invest money in a website to get to where I want to go versus not investing my money in a website? Will that help me or not? Only you can decide that we're not saying a website is absolutely necessary. But if you are feeling like you're trying to grow and do different things, it could be one so Lucien, and you have to decide, is it worth that investment? Or should I not invest that money or not or that time or the energy or the resources and going okay, this is a big problem for me. So I'm going to x I should expect there to be a big investment other than my time, energy, resources or talents to overcome that. And that's just how that goes.
Savanna 20:18
Hi, everyone. This is Savannah Westwood. From the savvy center in Orlando, Florida. We are so excited to host the first annual fpsa summit at Florida days in Orlando, Florida, August 25. Through the 27th and 2023. This three day event will be convenient for both business owners and managers. And a great way to get a business trip into lovely Orlando, Florida. This workshop will help you elevate content. And as well as continue and grow, strengthen your pet businesses Enjoy two full days of workshops and also have some time for fun networking events, dinners, and more. We'll see you there.
Meghan 20:56
Once you have selected a solution, then you need to create an action plan for that and break down your solution into smaller manageable steps. We say you don't eat the whole elephant all at one time you eat it little bit by little bit. Not that we're eating elephants is just an analogy. But it makes it easier to start and help monitor your progress. When you start small, then you can set timelines for when you want to achieve those steps. If your problem is I want to get more daily dog walks. And your solution that you've come up with is I need to go network with more businesses, boots on the ground marketing so that they know more about me. I've selected locations of places I want to go and people I want to talk to and I've done my research and my homework. Okay, now this is the action plan step of when am I going to do this? How many stores or businesses am I going to visit every week? Do I have a goal we just we just talked to one of our friends who works at a Mexican restaurant here in town. And he is having he's doing a side business. And he said I want to get one new client every week. And this is how I'm doing that. And we said that's, that's great. That's a good goal to have
Collin 22:04
those those achievable, those goals that can help you and having that that path forward of going. Okay, my goal is one new client a week. How do I get there? How many, how many stores am I going to have to go talk to how many flyers I'm going to have to put out how many Facebook posts I'm going to have to make how many ads am I going to have to run, that's where you start refining this process of achieving that. Because then ultimately, you have to take action. Here's the wonderful part about planning and doing all the introspection. It doesn't require you to do anything outwardly or external, up until this point. All of this is behind the scenes. All of this is thinking and scheming and making plans and problem finding solutions and everything. But then at some point, you have to take action. Just as there were always be cons for possible solutions to your problems, there will always be reasons for you to not take action. They'll all it'll oh, maybe tomorrow or Oh, it's raining today, or oh, I need to take this phone call. Because it requires this requires discipline and perseverance to push through and get into taking action on the plan that you've made. Plans are beautiful, but they're useless. If they're just sitting on a table.
Meghan 23:10
Once you have the plans and you take the action, then you need to go and review how it's gone. If you were going to do and boots on the ground, what were the metrics that you were using to know if this is successful or not regularly review that progress, if something isn't working and be willing to adjust your plan. This this process of self coaching involves being flexible, because we Yes, while you know yourself best. Ultimately, there are some things that you're going to try that aren't going to work out. But it's the point of failing well, so you will fail in business, whether it's small or big, but it's failing. Well, it's learning from what you do at every step of the process.
Collin 23:46
And discovering more about yourself or going man, I'm really bad at the planning stage or the execution stage or me and I really struggle with brainstorming ideas. Now you can start thinking okay, how do I get better at that? What do I do? What resources can I go? Who do I need to talk to? And we see the cyclical both personal and professional development through this entire thing. As long as we have that mindset of going? Could I be a little bit better? Not obsessively. Right. That is definitely a very toxic trait to get down into of going. I must I'm never good enough. And I'm not worthy of these things. But going I that was hard for me. Why was that hard for me? Now what can I do to make that just a little bit better? Let's be honest, asking good questions is really hard. Knowing what questions to ask is even harder. It has helped definitely by having a laser focus on your your your your business, which is why you must have your mission and your goals outlined so that when a problem comes up, you can point to your mission you can point to your goals and your values and go okay, given the problem, given the mission, given the values that I have, what are possible solutions and you might not know all of them, which is why going to ask people for help is important. But here's the thing, information and it Advice is as numerous as the grains of sand on a beach, there are so many different ways of doing things. Ultimately, you will still be held responsible for evaluating the response that you get to make sure that it is good is useful and it is appropriate for your business. So you don't have to know all of the possible answers or all the possible solutions. But before you go and ask people already have some things lined out already have thought through the process. It's just like when you go, maybe I was the only person who did this, I would look at a math problem, I immediately raise my hand and I'd go talk to the teacher and I say, I don't understand this. And what was the teacher's response every single time? What did you try? Well, I did I didn't understand I just did it. What did you try?
25:50
Okay, in my business, I hit a wall, I don't understand something. What have I tried? What have I thought about what have I done? What resources have I've pulled together and looked at so that when I go ask for help? I am I'm way more equipped to handle not just the response, but then implementing that in my business? Because someone may say, oh, you can't get clients? Well, all you need to do is obviously spent $300,000 Paying for advertising in your city over the next year? Well, no, I can't do that. Thank you for the response. But that's not feasible for me, you won't know that until you've thought through a lot of these questions.
Meghan 26:23
Well, and truly the more knowledge and the more thought and research and processing that you have done about a particular problem before you go and ask for help, the better understanding the person on the other side is going to have in terms of answering your question or trying to help you solve your problem. Because just posing a simple question of how do I get more clients? Well, again, there's a million different responses for ways that you could market and advertise your business. Now, if you were to go in, and instead of that simple question, say, I need to get x client that lives in X city, and shops at x place.
Collin 27:04
And here's what I've done up until this point, what other ways
Meghan 27:07
or methods could I try to attract this client to my business?
Collin 27:13
Yeah, it's be being very informed about your business. It helps you and helps other people, when you reach out for help. You know, if you don't know what questions to ask or you are struggling, please ask them in our center confessional Facebook group, there's tons of people there. They're wonderful and sharing. They're so giving of their time and their resources and their energy. And they're going to ask really good questions of you. They're going to ask some of these questions that we've walked through, we will probably ask the same questions as well, to get you prompted and thinking. But ultimately, no one is going as Megan, you've said multiple times, no one is going to solve your exact problems in the way that you can because no one knows your business better than you. That's just the end of it. That's just now you can adapt best practices you can learn from other people. But when it comes to you and your business only you only you know that only you know what things would work for you and what you would even want to implement
Meghan 28:01
well, and we've talked about this many times. But again, somebody who lives in Phoenix is not going to operate the same way that somebody in Florida lives or New York at some point, it is geographically limited in the knowledge that that person can give because a big city is not going to operate the same as a small city. And I'm not saying we're not having a pricing discussion right now, because they have different ways of operating and different marketing and advertising needs. And you are probably targeting a different client than a different another pet sitter in a different city. So it's all about being introspective in your business. And before you reach out for help, asking those hard questions of yourself and your business,
28:40
because asking for help is still important. Ask for help. Always ask for help if you're stuck, if you have questions, if you have problems, ask for helping go to those outside resources. Those are still critical. They're still massively important in your personal development and your professional development in the health and wellness of your business. Sometimes you need outside people right?
Meghan 28:59
And it's really even more important to dive deep into yourself and what you need to solve a problem. If you have tips or tricks for how you solve and implement solutions in your business. You can let us know at feedback at Pet Sitter confessional.com or on Facebook and Instagram at Pet Sitter confessional. Thank you so much for taking your most valuable asset your time and listening to this today. We are very appreciative. Thank you also to pet sitters associates and the Florida Pet Services Association for sponsoring today's episode, and we'll talk with you next time. Bye
