445: When Life Happens with Jessica and Chris Milam

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National Association of Professional Pet Sitters. Learn more at www.petsitters.org.

What do you do when life happens? The fact is, things happen that are out of our control, and our only roll is in how we respond. When running a business, we set policies that match the flexibility many clients need, or adapt to their requests if we want. In our personal lives, we respond by stepping up and showing our true character. Jessica and Chris Milam, owners of Fur Services Fur Pets, discuss what it means to live a life full of the right amount of crazy, love, and passion.

Main topics:

• Setting yourself apart

• Customer centric

• Taking on a leadership role

• Growing their family

Main takeaway: Running a client centric company means meeting them where they are, but not trying to change them into something they’re not.

About our guests:

Jessica founded Fur Services Fur Pets in 2013 with a desire to combine her pet care experience and her exceptional customer-driven mindset to create a personal mission to build a Customer-Centric Pet Care Company that focuses on quality over profit margins.  Her passion focuses on building a team of excellent Pet Companions that provide worry-free pet care for wag-worthy results.Jessica has 20 years in the pet care industry and holds a CPPS Certification from PSI and a Pet Sitter Certification through NAPPS.Jessica began attending conferences starting with the Texas Pet Sitters Conference in 2017 and has attended each year since.  She has also attended The NAPPS and PSI annual conferences since 2017.Jessica currently sits on the board of the Texas Pet Sitters Association and co-organizes their annual conference.Chris has 14 years in the pet industry and joined Fur Services Fur pets in 2015; going full-time in 2016.  Chris is the team lead and head trainer for the Fur Services Fur Pets team.  He is currently taking courses with the Karen Pryor Academy to become a Positive Reinforcement Dog Trainer.Chris has been attending the Texas Pet Sitting Conference since 2017 and has attended both NAPPS and PSI conferences since then.Both Jessica and Chris are Pet CPR/First Aid Certified, have completed all levels of FetchFind Pet Industry Training, are Elite Fear Free Certified and have undergone FBI Fingerprinting and Background Checks.Together, Jessica and Chris adopted a sibling set of human children in 2022 and have a menagerie of pets including a rescued street dog named Penelope, four rescued cats: Iris, Calliope, Cowboy and Cruella, two ball pythons; Nagini and Sully and a few fish in a freshwater tank.Chris and Jessica are also the proud owners of SignGypsies Aubrey, a yard greeting company dedicated to spreading joy and celebration through custom-curated yard signs.

Links:

https://www.furservicesfurpets.com

https://txpetsitters.com

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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

Provided by otter.ai

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

clients, kids, pet sitters, pet, work, started, business, home, staff member, staff, dog, knew, conference, chris, meet, person, employee, visit, schedule, company

SPEAKERSJessica Milam, Chris Milam, Collin Funkhouser

Collin Funkhouser  00:01

Welcome to pet sitter confessional today are brought to you by time to pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters. Life happens. It's kind of what it does. But how do we take more control over that and exert an intentionality over our time, our calendar and what happens to us? How do we help make life happen? Today, we are super excited to have Jessica and Chris myeloma, owners of first services for pets today, they joined the show to talk about what it means to set yourself apart without demeaning or talking down to other people, how we can take a leadership role in the industry and why it's critical that we lend our voice. And what do you do when life throws you a curveball that you just have to catch? Let's get started

Chris Milam  00:53

Thank you for

Jessica Milam  00:55

having us. I'm Jessica. And we have a pet sitting business. And for Far North Texas, we cover like prosper, Salina, little elm, that kind of area. And we yeah, we opened in 2013. So we've been in business just a little over 10 years. I'm

Chris Milam  01:11

Chris, I'm the one that jokes around a lot, and is probably the worst employee ever. But I'm great. And same time. I'm, I'm a pet sitter dog walker trainer. Now 2013,

Jessica Milam  01:22

I had been, quite frankly, been sick for a year because I was working at target as a second job. And I caught all the like germs and stuff there. And so when I had been sick for like three weeks, and target was like, you either need to come back to work or you quit. I was like, Yeah, I can't talk and I've got a fever. I'm not coming back. So that was an April and in May, a neighbor was posting that they needed someone to wash their puppy for the weekend. And I was like, I've done this, I had worked in boarding and daycare for a couple of years before college. And I had done pet sitting on the side through our clients there that needed extra care. And so I was like, I've got this, I'm experienced, I know what to do. And so I reached out, and it kind of went from there. They recommended me on every single local Facebook group. And so I started picking up clients at that point. So yeah, just a need for extra money. And I, we had looked for a pet sitter earlier that year, and the only one we could find charged a lot of miscellaneous fees, which I know is the thing now, but I didn't know then. And it was gonna cost us like 50 something dollars per visit to come out and watch our Menagerie. And we were you know, I was broke, there was no way I can afford that. And so I started with the idea of providing something that was really educational experience care that was more affordable. I started with just as her as a client. By June, I had like three or four clients. And by that Thanksgiving, I was pretty much working most weekends. So that was 2013. Chris joined me in 2015, because by then, I was working every single night, every single morning before work every single weekend. And I was we were getting to the point where I had more than three clients. So I knew that I could do three clients before work. I could do three clients after work. And I go about 11pm and do three clients at 11pm to like 1am Yeah, no, I keep crazy hours. And so at that Chris was like at home like video gaming during all this time. So when like the fourth person was added, I was like dope for the win. Yeah. So at that point, I was like, guess what you could just start helping. So that's when he started helping me. And he had also worked in boarding and daycare with us. We had done, I

Chris Milam  03:28

worked. So we worked for a large boarding facility, she worked she was manager and I was at a different location back end. Yeah. So

Jessica Milam  03:39

that's when he got to be encouraged to join me and encouraged and so he was also working nights, so he would come home from his work, he'd do the morning visit. And then I would do all the evening and stuff. So it worked out really well. And then we kind of tracked along, we found conferences, the end of 2016. And in 2017, we added our first staff member,

Chris Milam  04:04

okay, because I got tired of working every day, bless his heart,

Jessica Milam  04:07

he did in 2016, he quit his full time job to join me full time, which by 2017. That meant that he had one client a day Monday through Friday. And on weekends, he had Pet Sets and that was too much work for him. And so after seven days a week for a month, he was like No, I'm done like, but sometimes you only work for 30 minutes. He's like, Yeah, I know. But that's every day,

Chris Milam  04:29

every day. So I'm having a day off where I'm not doing

Jessica Milam  04:32

anything. So that's when we hired our first sitter was that June in 2017.

Collin Funkhouser  04:37

I will say Chris, that that is something that is very weighty on people and I've even heard from our own staff have having set days of like, you can't not be here. You've got to show up. It is very mentally weighty for people especially with that level of that commitment. That's it's demanded of us almost.

Chris Milam  04:55

I've never been in management. I've always been an employee that makes sense and I'm Up until now, I've owned my own business with my wife. Other than that, so I came from the background of, hey, I'm used to have at least two days off a week. And having, even if it's just 30 minutes, it's still 30 minutes. And it's not my play day off, putting into my Xbox time, come on now.

Jessica Milam  05:15

I came from the point where I was working seven days a week for several years through high school, through college, and through like my first job and stuff, so I was like, What's the big deal? It's 30 minutes a day, like what is like, go to your visit and go out of your life? So definitely two different mentalities here.

Collin Funkhouser  05:32

Does that help find a happy balance? Or do you feel like it tends to push more of one way than the other, I

Jessica Milam  05:38

will tell you that it gives me a very different perspective, because I've, I've done employee, I've done management. But when you have an employee, like your husband, who is very, has very clear sense of what he wants and doesn't want, it really makes you understand other people. And so I have a much different management style than a lot of people do. Because I have a very tough cookie as my employee.

Chris Milam  06:02

It's my beginning.

Collin Funkhouser  06:06

service that you offer, basically,

06:09

completely, you know, I'm happy about that.

Chris Milam  06:12

I'm, I'm the worst employee in recording this. And I'm also one of the best employees. So I mean, you have your good your ups and downs every employee is going to have they're really good at something. They're really terrible at something. So you just got to find that happy push pull. Yeah, you got to find a happy medium. And so I, I can I can tell you, myself, obviously, but other people use case kind of, for her, I think imaging this in her brain, it's because she's very type A, so she lists out and then she has to have like a Venn diagram, I guess, and the middle that's me. come a long way.

Collin Funkhouser  06:52

Lots of management opportunities, but, but it's important, I think, when we bring on staff members, because we only know how we operate, right? That's, that's where our strengths are. And then all of a sudden, we have somebody sitting next to us. It's like, like, you're kind of poking them going, Okay, do the thing, right? Do it, do it. And if we don't understand their motivations and why they're there, it does. It does end up with a lot of clashing with people. So

Chris Milam  07:16

here's how I say that. She's very type A I'm very type cave, like kava, you know, like the turtle, one find Nemo, like, glow. That's me. And she's very direct and to the point. Yeah, so we went through a lot of this

Jessica Milam  07:30

with those different types of styles that's developed a lot of our systems, because things that, you know, losing pinker clients paperwork early on, and not knowing anything about the science because it was gone. Or like saying it was like he had a client that he had at that time, that was like Monday through Friday, 30 minutes. And he'd be there for like, three or four hours. Because he's like, what was the puppy was planning what was the hole to leave him? I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's, that's how that works. And so a lot of our stuff is like, has grown from me saying something and him doing something that he interpreted. And so it really makes you get clear. And so I think that it gives us a step up as as managers and bosses and leaders now because like I said, he's he is a he's definitely your he was your typical employee and some of the best and worst parts of that, which has led us to become better bosses, because we can understand that whole day act to act me. That's not the right way. Harmony dichotomy. Thank you.

Chris Milam  08:29

I knew that word. That's impressive.

Collin Funkhouser  08:32

Two thumbs up. Because, again, we've got to figure out how we operate and how people that we also operate around us and knowing that there's not really like a right way or wrong way. So when I mean, when you to have those conversations about how to resolve that, how do you how do you balance that out? Or have different bring your each perspectives about a particular client or about a particular staff member and work through that?

Jessica Milam  09:00

Well, I'm looking at me because generally, it's me going, Okay, here's what we need to do. And him going well, that's just ridiculous, because he is still very much an employee mindset. And he also, he's like, Well, that's that expectation of our staff is, is there like way too high? Or your expectation of us is like, that's crazy. Mostly a lot of arguments.

Chris Milam  09:23

Most of our arguments these days is when she says the schedules drive time between them like there's no way with traffic is with all this construction. We're gonna make this and 15 minutes 30 minutes across town. Yeah, well,

Jessica Milam  09:34

there's just fly. No, but I mean, honestly, it's been a lot of we, a lot of over the years like figuring things out. Lots of conversations, lots of fights. We are not great at communicating. We do not ever recommend working with your spouse unless you have a different relationship with us. Because it is a whole nother ballgame. But y'all do it beautifully. I assume. Because y'all seem to from the outside.

Collin Funkhouser  10:00

I mean, I mean, we do have those I mean, it's just, it's just a matter of fact of there's different perspectives on things, right? A client does something and I have my immediate reaction, and Megan has hers. And now we've got to vocalize that and understand, okay. You didn't say that to be annoying. And I didn't say this to be mean. But this is how I feel right? And now we've got to, but but we have to make a business decision at the end of the day. That's the

Chris Milam  10:22

hard part. Yeah, that's the hard part. So

Jessica Milam  10:24

I'm the business minded person. He's the emotional person. So recently, we had a client get really upset about something that was like a minuscule, pretty miniscule, and he's like, Screw it. We're done. I'm done with this. And I was like, well, that's, you know, here's the deal. The client thought this, you thought this, or a staff thought this. So like, it makes sense, where they're upset. Here's what we need to do, like their top 10 client,

Chris Milam  10:47

like, don't send me back.

Jessica Milam  10:51

So most often, I'm like, the fair brain. And I just like, I mean, I will have my moments of screaming and getting upset. But like, I come back to that. Okay, well, but you know,

Chris Milam  10:59

when she gets upset, I walk away. Yeah. Because if

Jessica Milam  11:03

I'm upset, then there's a really big problem. But yeah,

Collin Funkhouser  11:06

well, I think that, I think that ties to how you both can describe yourselves to you know, just just just kind of what I know. And reading, it's, it's, you know, you're, it seems like a lot of your energy is building, right, the team building the business focused on the business. And then Chris, you're focused on the pet care, right, being an active part of that group and everything. And so it really does have these to mesh well, with with that. So you get you do get to different perspectives, which, which is hard as a solopreneur. Because again, you only have your own perspective, and why it's even more important to reach out to other people and talk about, hey, this is what I'm doing. I think that's one of the biggest takeaways just from this is going we, we have to go to someone external, especially in tough times, or when we're unsure because otherwise, again, we only know ourselves.

Jessica Milam  11:53

Yeah, and that is one of the big things is that I have, because of him being who he is, and the way that he's come into it as of late. And I don't think that a bad way, I just mean that he's learned to be a manager. But that was not natural. For him, it was not natural to become a manager, or a boss or the owner of a company. And so he's had to learn that but because of the background he comes from, I had a very unique perspective into the employee mentality, employee mindset, and how it felt for an employee to work for me in my company, and in this industry, because this industry is not easy for employees. And so with that, we've been able to really tailor our business to try to make it to where it is the most, you know, fair and fun and happy place that fits employees, where they're coming, we

Chris Milam  12:38

try to make our group of family essentially, and

Jessica Milam  12:41

just meet them, you know, with expectations they would have coming in. And so that really has given us a heads up with it. It also taught me very early on that I am not the best at this. I hear so many people, you know, they're concerned about hiring staff because they're afraid someone won't be as good as them, you know, hiring him, we would go into the same house and the dog would be like, playing with him and goofing off with him. Like a dog has never moved, the dog comes over it goes out to go potty it comes into sound goes to sleep like he's never played I didn't know he played. But I've realized that there are people out there that are so much better at the at the playing and the fun and the you know, typical pet care that I am, I'm phenomenal in emergency, you call me with a dogfight. And I will walk you through that thing. And you'll feel like it was the most easy breezy process in the world. I can do all the hard stuff. But when it comes to like the day to day pet care, there are so many people that are way better at the fun client interaction or pet interaction than I am. And it's give me a dog who wants to cuddle on the couch and I can pet it for an hour like, I don't want I'm not gonna throw ball for an hour. It's just not my personality. But I

Collin Funkhouser  13:42

think that's important to note that notice that when we are in that mindset of growing and expanding, if that's what we want to do going, just I think it's very powerful to just go There's somebody amazing out there, that's gonna have real How do I how do I get in touch with them and foster them instead of I just want to clone I just want to body I just want someone to walk in there going. Because we aren't the be all end all. Like I learned that every single day like I when I do training visits with staff. I'll be like, Yeah, I see. I'm the problem here. So I'm just curious.

Jessica Milam  14:12

When we hire people that are like me, Chris, like so they're a lot like you, so maybe we can hire more people like me, are the ones who are like in there like, oh, it's law bird and I'm okay with slavery in a very small increments. But I don't want a lot of it. I mean, I've covered it already. But we'd have staff who are like, Oh my God, give me all the kisses and I'm like, Oh, you kiss me. That sucks. So like finding the people exactly. So we're very much alike. And that was probably our biggest thing going forward. Was that learning that okay? Yeah, he's phenomenal. This he we need more people like him and me are people that are better at this than me because I'm great at the backend. I'm great at the client and I'm not great at the managing. But maybe I don't need to be in the field every day because I'd rather walk 10 hours a day than sitting throw a ball for 10 hours or be cuddled Like

Chris Milam  15:00

slobbered on. So I've actually had other pet sitters down me for this. So like, I'll go into the meet and greet. And I'm very, I'm I'm, you think I walked out with a new best friend, actress woman Meet Greets? Yeah. I mean, I get Xbox gamer tags from from the guys. And I play Xbox with him. But you know, people doubt me for that. But at the same time, I'm creating, I'm creating a network, because I'm learning, hey, this is what you do for a living. And if somebody asked me that, I can do that, right? The I'm just creating an environment where, hey, cool. People want to hang out. I'm cool with that. And it's, it's not just you're not just my client, you're asking to become my friend to an extent. They probably won't ever get to know my kids or something like that. But I'm creating an environment that most most petsitter is like, Oh, I don't want that. Small things like that. I'm just different.

Collin Funkhouser  15:52

Well, it is it is it's deciding what you want those boundaries to be right how you want to be connected with that. And that is a fine line. I think, many times we pull back hard from No, I'm not your friend, right. I'm a business. I will not do XYZ. This is we're to talk business now. And I think that is appropriate in some situations. But I think it's also we have to check as to why we're doing that. Is this a reaction? Because we're afraid of being connected with this person? Did something bad happened in the past? Do we think we're not supposed to? And then we need to ask ourselves, like, why like, is that? How do I want to be connected with others?

Chris Milam  16:28

You mean, we talk video games, we play video games, I don't I don't go out and say hey, let's you should do this. And they don't suggest it to me kind of thing. It's just a platonic thing of hey, let's hang out. It

Collin Funkhouser  16:39

really it really humanizes that aspects. Right. And I wish I wish I it sounds like that's kind of why you highlight that with your, with your staff, to your clients, to your community, because you are people you are connected is important. We are local, we know you people, we know what's going on. We have personalities. I mean, I was just in a meet and greet not too long ago, and the clients had exploded Halloween all over their house. And I just had an a gut reaction of, and I told him like my grandma used to do this all the time, right. And then we were off talking about Halloween decorations and how she used to play take all the napkin holders and she replaced all the artwork in the house became. And it was just a great moment to pause and connect with these people on a human level to try and understand like, what is making them tick and that they start to have that know, like and trust factor, which is an annoying marketing term, but it's a real thing when you're in that house talking to that person.

Chris Milam  17:28

We've gotten so many, like our business got built on word of mouth, right? Yeah. And, and and when I create that aspect of somebody, they Dude, we get, they send us names all day long. It's crazy. You become

Collin Funkhouser  17:44

talk worthy, because there's something to talk about. Right? I think that's what's important. It's more than just the services. It's the people behind them that become important. Yes.

Jessica Milam  17:53

It's why I don't do meet and greets. Because I go in, I say, Okay, where's your pet? Great. My name is Jessica. Any questions? Awesome. Let's go. And like that's it. Whereas he knows where they're going. Like, where they worked, what their whole history? Like?

Chris Milam  18:06

Well, my first one, my first question is after they showed me everything, I'm like, are we gonna be more fun? Just just because I'm not here just to be helpful. I plan to go home. Have

Collin Funkhouser  18:14

you heard of time to pet Susan, the pet gal has this to say

Susan  18:18

time to pet has helped us grow exponentially. We believe the platform's features make us by far more professional than other companies who use conventional dashboards. They are the software gurus constantly developing and improving the platform based on user feedback. This decision was a good one,

Collin Funkhouser  18:35

if you're looking for new pet scan software, give time to pet a try, listeners of our show can save 50% off your first three months by visiting time to pet.com/confessional. When we talk about what's our secret sauce, right, what makes you different, a lot of that really is the personality that we get to bring into it. And if we have if we have staff, encouraging them to do that within some parameters that fit the company, but us really not being afraid to do that and show up as ourselves to do it to our clients.

Jessica Milam  19:02

We really did when we started, we hired our neighbors. When we started, we started with a one mile radius. And it was our first staff members were literally our neighbors, they were our friends. They have kids, or friends, kids, and we've expanded out from there now but we still have lots of people who work for us that are our neighbors, they are our friends. They are people that we know, or that our clients know. And so we really, we try and be part of the community and then our clients are part of the community. Most of our clients live within three miles of us were on the same Facebook groups, our kids go to school together. We see each other at the grocery store. And so it's teachers. Yeah, and they they friended me on Facebook, we don't allow them to friend Chris on Facebook, but they friend me on Facebook and so they get to know us they get to know our kids, they get to know what's going on their life. And I think that that is really powerful. Because it there's boundaries that your client should be but I also think it really makes them get to know you and love you and trust you more just like you said, but they also get to know that you're not Just the business, you're not just, you know a name, you are your people behind it, your family behind it. My, you know, my staff have families that were supporting. And so that makes a whole nother level of trusting, trusting, loving, supporting,

Chris Milam  20:14

oh, that's if there's a paycheck, you're supporting the whole thing. But

Collin Funkhouser  20:20

do you ever worry about being being lumped in with the neighborhood kid or the person or the neighbor next door? Or kind of having any confusion around that language? Or is it more important to have that community aspect?

Jessica Milam  20:32

We used to be the neighbor next door. We really I mean, that's how we started. And we've really elevated it. So I don't worry about it. I don't think that people see us in anywhere in the same aspects. When people refer to us, they refer to us as a company or their team. So it doesn't, I don't get worried about that anymore.

Collin Funkhouser  20:50

So how have you worked to differentiate and set for services apart from others?

Jessica Milam  20:56

Yeah, it's a great question. So when we decided that we really needed to create a brand and a company, not just us being petsitting, we started with a logo, we started with the websites. And then we kind of built it from there we made we were really, it was really important for us to have our staff in uniforms, so that if people saw us or our team, they recognize the purple shirts with the, you know, with the dog and the cat on it. And making sure that we use certain language that we always included our name. It wasn't when people tagged me on Facebook or tag our business. I don't say oh, yeah, we pet said contact me we always say yeah, for services, is a professional organization. We are bonded and insured and background checks. We worked with a branding company to come up with a tagline and award winning company. Yeah, and things to say. And so we use all of that to really elevate ourselves. Because I do think that if you are coming across as just the other person next door, because people tag me, they tagged me all the time. So if I always respond to that tag with my company name and our who we are and that we you know, provide worryfree care for wag are the results that it makes it sound better than Oh, I just love your pet just like it's my own. Because you know, we started there, everyone starts there. And some people stay there. And that's great. But I told someone recently, it's great. But everyone should be loving your pet. Like if they're, if you're paying them take care of your pet, that should be what you're doing in the moment. It should never be a oh, I don't love your pet like mine. Like that should never be an option. So. So yeah, we really started using our brand and making our brand more known. So that wasn't just Jessica, or Jessica and Chris. It was first services.

Chris Milam  22:31

Jessica's husband? Yeah.

Collin Funkhouser  22:33

That other guy? Yeah, I think part of that too, is what it sounds like, you're really defining what the company is. I know, it's something that we're working on with ours, because we're still kind of trying to grow brand recognition and our new service area. So we're always adding comma, like Sarah in a coma, like a dog walking and pet sitting company, like because people don't know what we do. And it's really important. You have to do that for a while and probably never stop ultimately, because every day there's somebody who's never seen the Flintstones. So there's somebody new who's and doesn't know who your company is or what you do. And that's what starts to get mindshare of people. Because now when people think when you want, if you want to get to the point where people think pet care, they think you, you have to define that for people. Right? You have to push that out there.

Jessica Milam  23:16

Yeah, and we absolutely do. And we and even if it's something that we can see, like, you know, you see the pics of post, I'm looking for someone to watch my dog for a week for $100, we will say, Hey, I'm the owner for services or pets. You know, that's, you're gonna be looking for this type of person. If you ever want something different, we're here for you. So we we're not derogatory. We don't like say, oh, that's ridiculous. No, hey, here's what you should be looking for. Doesn't bad mouth, you know, some foul mouth either, because I don't allow him to. It's a controlling aspect of my life. But no. So we I try and make sure that even in the situations where it's clearly not a good fit for me, we educate inside generally say, you know, that's, you know, everyone can afford what they can afford, you really want to try and find someone who is insured if you can, and here's why. If you ever need something else, we're happy to help you. Here's our company. And here's our website, that kind of thing. And that way, there's always that response. But it's super professional. And it's encouraging because, you know, if you only have $100 to spend and that's it, we were there, we were going out of time with family. And that's all we had. And so we totally respect that everyone's coming from a different place. And you got to meet them where they are, or help them get to where they need to.

Chris Milam  24:21

That we built our business on not saying no, no, we say no more often now than we ever have in our lives. But when we started the company, it was we never said no. And so we built it on that. So like last minute stuff. Okay, got it. And our customers came to rely on it heavily. And some people have used it on me wrong. Yeah, but there's a lot that we got new customers out of it. Like there used to be someone backed out last minute okay, yeah, we got it.

Collin Funkhouser  24:51

So is that those are things that a lot of people would not want to take on now. So for you is that a just a philosophical like, we don't want to be a company that says Do you want to grow big enough to do that? Or did you have experiences in the past where you had said no to before or something like that?

Chris Milam  25:06

I grew up with my parents saying no all the time.

Jessica Milam  25:10

So I grew up in a family that we never made plans last minute, my brother was special needs. And so we literally like Thanksgiving week, were out of school. And we didn't know on Tuesday, if we were leaving Wednesday morning to go on a trip, because with my brother at all dependent on what was going on, during the summer, my dad was an air conditioning heating. And so we never knew until the week of if we're going to be able to go because if he got a lot of work, or if there was a lot of calls or was really hot, then we weren't going anywhere. And so when we started this, I start this phrase that started and has stuck is life happens, life happens for our clients, things happen last minute, and sometimes they get called into work at six o'clock in the morning, and they have to be there by eight. And they need someone to come and watch their dog. Life happens, they you know, a nurse gets called off because they show up to work. There's too many nurses, not enough patients, they have to go home. So they shouldn't be penalized, because they're not making money that day. You know, funerals, sporting events, you know, my kids in a tournament we knew was gonna be this morning, we didn't know they were going to be going all weekend, is there any way you can step in and take care of our pets. And so we've really employed that with our clients. And that's where it started. And that's where our last minute never say no kind of mentality started was if we have the physical ability to make it happen, will absolutely make it happen. But it's continued on with our staff. And it's been really grateful and helpful as we adopted our kids. Because, you know, our life happens every freaking day things change. And so having that kind of culture with our team and our clients has really been helpful, because we can say, You know what, actually, we can't help you this weekend. My kid has all these things going on, and we don't have any more space in our schedule. So it does definitely change. Yeah, but that's how it started was just that I grew up in a house that we never made plans. We didn't make plans a weekend we didn't make plans for today, we didn't make plans for tomorrow is whatever happened right now. So from the

Collin Funkhouser  26:57

from the perspective of the of the staff, though, you know, is that how do you communicate that those last minute changes to them? Right, like that seems I know, I have deaf members,

Chris Milam  27:07

Julie took them on, okay.

Jessica Milam  27:11

So part of that is the way that we do everything. So first, we communicate that in our interview, because we do understand that our staff members, they have families they have, maybe they have other jobs or even call them late or call them early, or let them go or whatever. And then if they have kids, or whatever that's going on. So we communicate that starting with the interviewer. And then as far as like the practicality of like adding stuff their schedule or taking things off their schedule, because people cancel part of it. Because we do, we do something really weird and ridiculous, because it takes a lot of time. But I send them out a schedule a month in advance that schedule tells them here's the days that you're off, here's the days that you're working. And if we're going to work you it's during these shifts. So they know upfront, we're going to work from seven to three on these days, the week, but we're not going to work it on these days. So they can make their life schedule around that. And then I generally do the exact you're going to these visits at these times. And all of that the day before a couple days before generally on Sundays, I try and do it for Monday, Tuesday. And then I work through the week as it goes. So sometimes they don't even know about the cancellations or the additions. Our policy with them just to respect their time is that I don't make any changes that would start their day earlier or in their day later, after 10 o'clock at night. And then any changes on the day? Have we always ask them, Hey, we had someone who needs another visit? Would you like it? Yes or no. And then if they don't, then we'll open up to our other team. It just depends on the order of seniority, and then anything else then either Chris or I will take it just kind of pins on what's going on. But we really push that our teams tend to like it because they even if they have a cancellation, there's a good chance we're gonna have someone get added. So they're still getting that money. And because we're able to be flexible on both sides, the cancellations and in the last minute stuff, it really does wash out in the end.

Collin Funkhouser  28:54

And it sounds like as long as that's communicated well in advance. Right. And if it is part of that culture, too, right? I'm sure they understand that, that that kind of same grace applies to their own life too. With with staff too. Yeah,

Chris Milam  29:07

absolutely. Tires.

Jessica Milam  29:08

Yes. batteries aren't working out. We are we and we are very, we are very lenient when it comes to their life happening, if they have last minute appointments, if their kids are sick, things like that.

Chris Milam  29:18

Good times, I've got to change a tire for

Jessica Milam  29:22

a flat tire, no problem, of course, within a few minutes change for the car. So part of that was also that if there is because I always hear people say, Well, what about the money they were planning on making if they're planning on working eight hours tomorrow, and you get cancellations because of the way that we operate. And because we have Chris because that is a big part of it. We have Chris, I can take stuff off his schedule and put it on there. So if it's something where they need that money, or I know that they really need this many hours a week or they really are counting on that income, then we just move stuff from his schedule onto there. So they still get the money that they were anticipating he's thrilled because he gets done early or he gets to come home. We do we really build the culture on all sides of our business. That

Collin Funkhouser  30:00

way, one of the things that you mentioned earlier, we were talking about kind of not not down talking or downgrading other other options. I know that in running a business, it can be hard to look at other competitors, quote unquote, or other offerings of pet care. Let's say that, how how do you walk through? Or how can you encourage other people to find those ways to differentiate themselves without being negative towards others?

Jessica Milam  30:25

Yeah. First of all, I think we're all individual i, we started, we didn't know there was a network of pet sitters. So in some ways we started when we were not on a single forum, we weren't on a single Facebook group. We didn't join any of those until the end of 2016. When we found the conference, when we went to the conference, people were talking about the Facebook groups or like, what Facebook groups we didn't know there were other people out there, you can make a business out of this. Yeah. So for us, we really started a lot of that beforehand. But but one thing we always says we kept a pulse on what all of the people around us are doing. And there's things that they do that we love. And we get to know all of the businesses in our area, because there are times that you that client does not fit us at all, or that staff member doesn't fit us at all. And so we we send them to those other those other businesses, whether as a client or a staff, or potential staff member, because everything doesn't fit every single person. And so we just keep an eye on what are other people doing. What do we like about that? What do we don't like about that. And then what is our values? For me, when we started this, my whole thing was education. Because you have a bunch of people out there that are doing stuff they don't really know much about when when we worked in boarding and daycare, you met people that were in boarding in daycare and did not know anything about animal behavior, they didn't understand looking at pets, and we had a lot of experience in boarding and daycare and since boarding daycare that made us really knowledgeable and experience. And so for me, it's always been learning as much as we can, and becoming as educated as we can. And we like to say that we're one of the most educated teams around. Because we really do push education, we pay our staff when it's slow. They come in, they pick pick up books, we have a whole library of books that they can come pick up, they can read, we pay them to read them, because we want them to continue learning and growing and finding out more and more. So I think it's a matter of figuring out what's important to you, what's valuable to you, what works for your life, because what works for our life 10 years ago does not work for our life now. So we've had to really change and shift that. And I think that figuring those things out, and then looking at other competitors in your area and figure out does anybody do this? Do they do this? Well, talking to them, we have a really great network of, of, of other centers around here. And so we often will bounce things off of each other. We'll ask them, you know, what, do you do this? Why do you do this? And I'll say, Wow, I would never do that. It's very respectful. But I wouldn't do it that way. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with not doing what other people are doing. But if it is figuring out what matters to you is the most important

Chris Milam  32:47

thing. And also this to that like, like, the end the relationship that regards to other businesses around us, right, like other pet sitters. So team, whatever doesn't matter. Man, there's so many clients we get from them. Done, we would never gotten. Yeah, we've built referrals just refer referrals out because they won't come this way.

Jessica Milam  33:09

Yeah. And part of that talking to other people and finding out how do you do this? And what do you do? And why do you do this has been building this relationship where they've gotten to know us and why we do things. And when, when their books, they send their clients to us knowing that we're going to get their clients right back, we have a really, because we have more volume ability than others. They trust that we're not going to take that client we're doing Chris is doing a live in this week for a client. It's been her client for several years, it's a really good friend of hers, she sent them to us absolutely knowing that we charge a little bit less than she does. But we're only here for when she needs us to be here for our client. We're not here forever. And I think that building those relationships will help you in defining what's important to your business, but also built builds those relationships and help gives you a network where you can refer out because that's when we're booked. I need someone to send someone to I don't want to say no, I want to say we can't but this person can or

Collin Funkhouser  34:01

Yeah, yeah. Well, and it also is about understanding like all the facets of differentiation, okay, education is one service radius is one my service suite that I offer is another one. But as we've already kind of mentioned, to have like this customer centric focused of our of who you're actually serving, you know, with, with Chris going in and making those connections within that meet and greet building that and fostering that, you know, that that is another area of differentiation, too. Yeah,

Jessica Milam  34:30

we that was one thing for us. i So I grew up. I grew up I worked for my dad's air conditioning heating business for 15 years. And with that, I really learned what businesses do great and what businesses don't and one of those is customer service. And so when we started this, my whole thing was we wanted to be we wanted to provide the best customer service out there. So we still to this day, I meet clients where they are that's one of our big things. It's like happens thing. If they if it's better for them to text me than they can text me they know that it may be slower for me to respond for text, but they can text me if they want to. Yeah, if they want to Facebook message me, they can Facebook message me, I'm on Facebook all the time, that's totally fine. You know, the portal, we always communicate, if you send it in the portal, it goes to everyone, if you send it suggests me, then it only goes to me and it takes me a bit to respond, and then not everyone sees it. So here's the way that we prefer you to communicate. But whatever works for you is how we're going to make it work for us. Because that's what makes your life better. Trying to get someone was a round peg in a square hole is never going to work. And if you're forcing your clients to be that round, that square hole, that square peg, trying to go into whatever I tried, if you're trying to get your clients to change for you, they're not going to be clients long term, because no one can change your life for a service, it doesn't matter how much you're not home, they're not going to change the way they do life to make it work for you. So we can,

Chris Milam  35:53

you shouldn't have to try to force someone.

Jessica Milam  35:55

I'm kind of a high maintenance customer. So I try and meet those high maintenance customers myself. Because I have a lot of expectations as a as a customer. And so I think about what do I want out of a company, especially if I'm paying them a lot of money. And we try and like do those things for them.

Collin Funkhouser  36:11

That's a, don't try and change the customer. I think that is something that we often try and do force them into our service suite, our onboarding process or our software. And that's why we get hung up a lot of times just us in our business personally if like, this person does not want to use our software. So I I have to be okay with not serving them and kind of asking ourselves like, Okay, do we do we not use our software for this one client? No, obviously, we can't do that. So they aren't a good fit for us. And like you said, Jessica, that that means that relationships going to have more probability of success because we align on more more commonalities. Yeah.

Jessica Milam  36:53

And we don't, we don't trash them, we don't think bad about them, we just say, You know what, that's totally fine. But my friend, she does this. And she only does text messages and emails, she doesn't have software, she's going to text you after every visit. And so we send them to them. Because it's okay, software is a pain in the butt software for someone who doesn't understand how to put the stuff in or doesn't want to fill it out or older clientele. When we first started software, Chris would take hold the hand of all of our seniors, we had lots of clients that were 60 7080 years old, and he would go over there and he would get on their computer, or he'd bring our computer and he'd fill out the software with them. Yep. And so he would walk them through that. And I think it's important, so I'm

Chris Milam  37:31

not gonna punish someone that didn't come up with our technology. For for not knowing it. That's crazy to me. Yeah. And

Jessica Milam  37:39

for people who don't I saw somewhere recently, how do you force people to download your app? Well, why they get the emails? Why do they have to have the app, they if they want to go on their computer and login on the website and do everything that way? That's totally fine. There's no reason they have to have the app to work with me, they just need to be in the software. So if they're okay getting an email, then let them have email, what's the big deal, so we, we are very much you know, life happens and, and let's meet the client where they are. And same thing with our team, we meet them. You know, some people do not work for us. But when they when they're a great team member, we meet them where they are, if they need to have extra time, we had someone who went through a lot of trauma a couple of years ago with roommates, and we gave them the time that they needed, and they became our absolute best employee we've ever had. We just lost her. We lost her I was very sad, we all cried. We had a whole lunch and everything. But like you, we really feel like we're all people, we all make mistakes, we're all genuine. And we have to have some compassion for each other in business as a business owner to a client and as a business owner to a staff member. And we ask that same compassion back and I think it works really well. Overall.

Collin Funkhouser  38:44

I know part of you know that continuing education, as you mentioned, you attended the conference, and I assume you're talking about the pet sitters Association Conference. So got some terms there. But you've you've become both of you are heavily involved with that conference now. And, and, and Chris is violently shaking his head. But if Jessica wasn't involved as she is, you wouldn't be as involved as you were. So that's me.

Chris Milam  39:08

I get the backing of when she gets frustrated or the happy celebration stuff, too. So it's, I guess we know.

Collin Funkhouser  39:16

So why why was that important to you, Jessica, to be involved in that.

Jessica Milam  39:21

Um, well, I think it changed the scope of our business. So before we showed up to the Texas conference, the first time down and you know, at the bluebonnet bunk and biscuit years ago, we had no idea that there were other people that were like us, we we didn't know that this was an industry. We didn't know that you could have a team we didn't know that you could grow it to something big. My dream has always been to have a boarding a daycare facility. That has been my paws since I was 18. I have the blueprints I have the plans. I have the entire business plan, the staffing, everything. I know exactly what I wanted. And so when I left boarding and daycare, it was always to come back to it as my own business owner and I was like Uh, you know, pet sitters are okay, but that's not really the way to go. You know, I knew what didn't work in boarding daycare, and I figured I knew how to fix it. And so I didn't know there was another option. I didn't know petsitting was a industry, I knew that it was something that people did here and there. And so when we found the conference, and we went to the conference, it was incredible to meet other people that were doing what we did. He just did a whole head explosion thing for the

Collin Funkhouser  40:28

sound sorry.

Jessica Milam  40:31

And so meeting people and listening to the speakers, I remember there were a couple of speakers that really made me think one of them was Isabel irata.

40:38

I wish she was slipcovered

Jessica Milam  40:41

and her pet hair now, but she had her own business at that point. And her whole thing was, Why are you dragging yourself through the mud and working 24 hours a day, no one is out there applauding for you for killing yourself. Like you need to give yourself time and space. And I remember walking away because at that point, we were kind of killing ourselves. We were busy all the time, I was working, you know, 60 hours a week in my normal job, I was coming home working 2030 hours a week in this job. And it was exhausting. And so

Chris Milam  41:08

go back and listen to that speech.

Jessica Milam  41:09

Anyway. So I, we left there meeting people that did what we did, they were having the same struggles we met, they're leaving people who had a team. And we were blown away that they had this team and these people, they had a lot of clients they had, you know, we had never thought about when you walk down the road in a sketchy area, should you have something to protect yourself against stray dogs, I had never even considered it. I walked in the dark in my neighborhood with dogs all the time, it never even occurred to me that I should have something to protect myself. But we left there with so many tools and resources. And it literally changed how we looked at our business and where we thought our business could go. And I think it's so important that people get outside of their bubble, and where other people are. And I think that Facebook groups are phenomenal for that. But I think that in person at conferences is a really different mindset. You're not just with people who are looking at all the negative, you're not with just people who are complaining about clients or dogs, your look, you're around people who are making it work, or who are trying to make it work by learning more. And I think there's just it's an invaluable resource to get in person with other people who are doing what you're doing and learning from them. And then learning from the conference speakers and things. So from that experience, when they asked me to join them, I was like, Absolutely, yes, I also was very starstruck because Kathy had a boarding and daycare facility. And she had a pet sitting business. And she wrote a book and I was like, Oh, my God, she wants to talk to

Chris Milam  42:34

me. Yes, I have her book.

Collin Funkhouser  42:37

We have a library Chris

Jessica Milam  42:41

isn't library, it has her name on it and everything. But reading is not my friend. So that's why I thought it was important to get involved because I think it's really important for all the small people like me that didn't understand that there was more out there to, to show up and and learn from others.

Collin Funkhouser  42:56

Well, it's interesting, because as you said, back in 2013, when that friend asks you for help or, you know, you even said like, Yeah, I knew what to do. And I went and did the visit. And so we all have that we all we're all confident in our own services, until you learn something new, right? And then you're faced with the situation and it's better to be faced with the situation is nice conference room and the air conditioning, laughter a nice coffee and some breakfast, learning about something, then be in the situation going,

Chris Milam  43:23

Oh, that's new. I can be a social butterfly.

Jessica Milam  43:28

I didn't even know I didn't know there was insurance for our industry. I didn't know that there was industry, I didn't realize that I didn't know that those things existed. I didn't know about software. At that point. I'm pretty sure my husband had lost about 2025 30% of our client forms that had, you know all the information on them. They had the address and the alarm code and the how to feed the pet. And I was

Chris Milam  43:50

like, housing.

Jessica Milam  43:52

Like how do you like what do you do about this? What do other people do when they have a spouse helping them? Like we had a clipboard, but he'd like the clipboard would like fly out the window or fly out the door when he opened the door. And then he dropped in the wet and you bring me back this crumpled wet thing going. I'm not sure if this paper this is because you can't read it anymore. Like, cool.

Chris Milam  44:09

I was doing handwritten notes back then. And my handwriting is terrible. Terrible. Looks like my doctor looks really good compared mine. Yeah.

Jessica Milam  44:17

So, um, you know, just getting there and seeing like, oh, there's other things here is so important because it really did change everything for us.

Collin Funkhouser  44:26

I don't know, part of that is that ongoing education and increase I know you're you're diving into training and things now why why was that important for you to do? So

Chris Milam  44:34

in our area? There's a whole lot of balanced and very, very not positive training around us. And there's no one really we could refer to me there's a couple out there but pretty good distance from where we're at. And it's something I've always been interested in. But, um, and I've we've always self taught our dogs. So it's I've been taking the Karen Pryor course courses and phenomenal, very in depth. But the yeah it to me it's to give us another a another income revenue right? And and be it's also something I'm interested in see it's given our constant of the option because I get tired of referring out someone else when I could do it myself. One part of

Jessica Milam  45:22

that was that we always refer to our trainer that we use for our dog. We bless. Bless my dog we a few years ago, we adopted a dog a Staffy from a shelter, and she was in the shelter. She'd been there for five months, and no one had adopted her. She was great with all the kids, all the people, all volunteers, she came home and she snapped me three times the first day and bid me the second day. And we were like, holy cow, what have we gotten into. And so we employed a trainer and going through that training process with her, had we gone a balanced route or a route that use a shot color pinch color, she would not have become the dog that she became when we could bring seven kids in to pet her. Because at that point, I couldn't pet her. And so she was my sole dog. Yeah, seeing how that how that training experience change was really important to us. So we always refer to this trainer, but she lives over an hour away. So when traffic in our area got really bad it was two hours for to get here. So referring to her is no longer was no longer feasible. And we have clients who keep using all the trainers that people recommend, and it's ruining their dogs, it's making their dogs aggressive. It's making their dogs more anxious, super sick. They can't we've had dogs come home, completely lethargic, throwing up for weeks after training, after boarding trains. And so there's just not a better option. And we're tired of our our clients dogs being run because of the way they're being trained. So that was another big push on it.

Collin Funkhouser  46:41

Yeah, again, sometimes you have to take that into your own, you know, take that into your own hands exactly kind of kind of gets back to why you started your services in the first place of can't find these reasonably priced and well educated pet care pet service options. So if that's not out there, and that's something that as business owners, we all face of going okay, if this service isn't out there, I have to ask, Do I the one to offer that? And if I did offer it like what would it look like for us and that's a continual process for everybody. The National Association of Professional pet sitters or naps is the only national nonprofit professional petsitting association dedicated to raising and abiding by industry standards. Naps provides pet sitters with the tools and resources to own and operate successful pet sitting businesses. And a major component of that is their in person conference. Their 2024 conference is being held in beautiful Savannah, Georgia March 1 through third, their bloom and grow your business conference. 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 matter. Registration is open through February 19 of next year, and it is just $225. Visit the NAPS website at Pet sitters.org for information regarding naps, membership certification and complete conference details. Now, I would be remiss if I didn't talk with with you too. If I didn't ask about the newest additions to the first service is a family and I'm going to do my best to not let Chris make me cry during any stories no matter what he tells during this conversation.

Chris Milam  48:27

I get him every time. Every time

Collin Funkhouser  48:29

you were running this business. You were doing all this stuff. And then you kind of had something something special happened to you epiphany

Chris Milam  48:37

happened again. Yeah. So also with I never wanted kids never ever, ever wanted kids. It's almost like it's carwash one day. And there's a local news network and runs what's called Wednesday's child. And is they spotlight someone in foster care and the kid's name was CRISPR at the time, which perfectly for me write my name, and saw it and message Jessica is like, hey, I want to adopt a kid or a foster kid or something. And she's like, okay, get it going. And she gotta go in. And just kind of took off from there. She She originally said, You're right. You don't want kids. I'm like, No, I'm serious. And then just from there,

Jessica Milam  49:22

first of all I did I was like, you're wanting to adopt a kid all of a sudden, because I've always wanted lots of kids I've always wanted to adopt. I've always wanted lots of them. She comes from a very big family. I do I have lots and lots family. But um, so we did everything in record time. Normally, it's a three to four months to do all your training and do your home study and all this stuff. And we did ours with we finished all the training by the end of three weeks. And also this COVID was good for something. And I'm with COVID all the training had gone online so we can do it all online, so we just like plowed through it already. We're just waiting on the home study. The home study came we did in April, and that's when we found out the kid was just not a good Kid for us, it wasn't a good match for us, we would have to shut down the business get, he'd have to get another job one of us have stay home 24 hours a day just wasn't going to be a good fit. So we opened up our house to, you know, other options, which was up to four kids and all teenagers, because we knew that teenage population needed it. And then we were still building, we're building a house in this process.

Chris Milam  50:22

I also came from a very broken family. So I could relate to more older kids, I guess you say, the trauma base of it. Yeah.

Jessica Milam  50:30

So we, that was back in April, May. We had our home sitting in May, everything was approved. And we're very impatient people, which we try and pretend to be patient, but we're not. So in September, we're like what the heck, no one's chosen us yet. Everyone we've reached out to hasn't been a good match. Which if you know anything about the adoption world, it's like a two year process. Like, oh, here we are, like we started in March. It's September. We're being ridiculous. But that's. So we moved into our new house on we we moved in September 20. And on just that week, I'd seen a group of kids on line, it was big group, we're asking how does a big group work? Because there's certain laws and

Chris Milam  51:08

I was asking, I was not I went to one that failed that one. So those are

Jessica Milam  51:15

on the waiting trial website, there's a group of seven. And in Texas, you can't have more than six kids under the age of 18. And one house when you're in the foster adoption program. So even if you had biological kids, you can't have more than six. And so I reached out, like, how does this work? Do you have to like choose which kid you don't get? And then also the analytical side of me was like, Okay, how would this work if we had seven kids? And so they responded to No, there's a special process you go through, so I was like, okay, so if you had seven kids, what would you need? You need like someone to help watch them? How would our business work? What kind of vehicle we need to drive? We're building this house, or we're now in this house? Where would all those kids sleep? And so I had all of it worked out. But I knew that they weren't a good group for us for many reasons. And two weeks later, we got an email saying, Hey, were you serious about seven? And it was a description of seven kids. And he was at work and I knew that was not a conversation, you have a phone call just waiting. Entire profit has been a you have to decide what you want. And and then I have to do what I want. Because you don't force kids on each other. Right? So by the time he walked in the door, I had gotten a call from our agency going, Hey, did you see that message I sent you. And I was like, I did. But Chris hasn't been home yet.

Chris Milam  52:29

You said you won't be home until like 10 o'clock tonight.

Jessica Milam  52:31

So it wasn't that late. But anyway, it was later. Like he when he gets home, I share it with him like, Well, we've already gotten you approved with the caseworker. They love you. And the CASA worker loves you. So I just need a final yes or no. So the state can approve you. And I was like, we got that message at 11 o'clock. It's five, six o'clock in the evening. Yeah, it was that quick. So he got home. And I said, Okay, we got an email, and I printed it out and let him read through everything he's like, so what do you wanna do? I'm like, I am not a part of this conversation with your head. You need to have this conversation yourself and decide, is this what you want? And so we kind of went our separate ways. And we told our Xbox, yeah, we told her.

Chris Milam  53:09

I read through it, I played Xbox, because that's how I that's how I break down stuff. That's something like calming, that's, that's just how me works. And so I went through that process, and I read over the kids again, and I do three or four times or more. I should probably more than that. Because I sort of pre late that night. And then yeah, I'm at work.

Jessica Milam  53:30

So we told me, let him know that next morning, so I called them back next morning after he said, Yes, let's do it. I was like, Are you sure? He's like, Yep, let's do it. And I said, Okay, we're, we want to move forward. They Okay, great. We've already gotten the approval from the state because they love you so much. They don't want to delay. We're like, oh, you sign off. So when we, yes, the paperwork show that they were going to collect applications till November 5. This is October 5. And I was like, great. So we have some time to like, we have boxes everywhere. Yeah, we just started packing boxes everywhere. We have no furniture. We're like, we've got some time to figure this out. Because if they don't, they're not going to take the application till November 5, then it's going to be like December, January before anybody moves in. No. Later that day, I had a phone call with every person in my agency, and they were giving me all the rules, all the things we need to know. And oh, by the way, they want to move them in in the next two weeks. No, hold

Chris Milam  54:19

on. Well, she's not saying is. So we went for adoption, these kids were in foster care. So there's a whole bunch of extra rules to it. Well,

Jessica Milam  54:26

and either way, when you have seven kids in Texas, you have to have a 24 hour awake policy. That was the first thing they told me. Which means that an adult needs to be awake in the home, every single moment of the day, if there are kids in the home that need to be somewhat awake, which includes at night, so they had said, you know, you can find someone in your neighborhood who can come over and stay up at night you just pay him 10 $12 an hour, no big deal. And we're like, oh, okay, cool. That makes total sense. I mean, that'd be weird, but that's, you know, okay. That didn't actually happen. Nobody wants people want to make like 25 $30 an hour for that. So that opened up more more and They have to jump through all the hoops of the state in the foster care agency make them jump through. So federal background check, fingerprints, CPR and First Aid certain trauma classes. But anyways, they wanted to move in within two weeks. And we said, No, we have no furniture we have we can't go from zero to seven and two weeks. We didn't we thought we'd have until like, November, December, January. And like, no, they want them in before the holidays. And like, Which holiday they said, Halloween, I was like, no, no. So we're like, we're gonna have to like slow down on this process is too fast. So the next week, we had a meeting with all of the people in the state, and asked our questions, I said, Halloween is not doable. I cannot have seven kids here before Halloween, I have to figure out how to we still have furniture,

Chris Milam  55:44

we had to get the fire marshal in here, because we have to get all our stuff.

Jessica Milam  55:49

I know another home study done because we're in a different house this time. And then we had to figure out how to like manage seven kids, cuz you know, like, what do you do? Well, and this

Collin Funkhouser  55:57

process, you're still running a business to while you're also doing all this,

Chris Milam  56:00

ya know, our customers. When when we announced it, we did we set up hangers, backpack hangers on our wall, seven or seven backpacks, and the outpouring from our clients, not just our clients, but I mean, our our support tree was much bigger than I thought it was. But our clients are our family, obviously. And others. And it just, it was crazy. And like this era was super understanding. It was happy for us. Some of them, some of them were gonna fail or business miserably because of it.

Jessica Milam  56:37

But that's good. But yeah, it's a whole thing. So later on, we ended up negotiating, we met the kids, and then two of them moved in October 29. So that was before Halloween. And we had agreed to do a they said a slow move in. So in our heads and in my mom's head and like the normal peoples have like, Okay, we'll have two kids for a month, and then two kids for a month. And then what moved to our kids in four months in the last three like a month later. No, no, it was two kids. Then two weeks later, two more kids and then a week and a half later, the rest of them before Thanksgiving. So

Chris Milam  57:08

in six weeks, some kids, their kids and some kids have lots of gray hair now because once they

Jessica Milam  57:14

moved in and Thanksgiving week, and that was when we first started staying up all the time. And he had overnights already booked because you know, we're gonna ensure that you booked months in advance. So he was working the entire time. And so we just jumped straight in to seven kids and a business.

Chris Milam  57:32

But you didn't cry on congratulations. I

Collin Funkhouser  57:34

did. Well, you know, it's still as far as the business goes, what were some of the big foundational things that you had to change to make this work for you? Because if Chris is out doing visits, and Jessica, you're staying up all night, like what did you do to make this new lifestyle because I mean kids are lifestyle. Seven brand new kids over the course of a few weeks is an entirely different trajectory for you. We'd

Chris Milam  57:59

like to see where the right amount of crazy

Jessica Milam  58:00

there's that. The main thing is that we we had so I had always built our business that I wanted to be able to stay home with my kids. That was the goal. Now I will say that we had given up on having kids that year. So we overbooked Thanksgiving, overbooked Christmas. And we were very, very grateful that it was 2021. So we had a whole lot of cancellations. So patients came in, they came off of my schedule, which made me go Oh, good, because I don't know who would watch these kids otherwise. And they went onto Christmas schedule or one of our other staff schedule, whoever lost the visits, and we just made it work. Thanksgiving was okay. Christmas was horrible. Mostly because he had overnights the entire two weeks that they were off of school, which meant absolutely no sleep for me because he was doing overnights and working all day. They told us the second day of the break that we were going to have a surprise visit from the state, which is part of what they do is they do these surprise visits and they want to go through your house and they wanted to we had to have everything in order. And there was this three page list of what an order meant. We had not seen it before that day. They sent it to us at that time. At that point, we didn't have a vehicle that could take all the kids with us so we were homebound. We were just waiting for this person to randomly show up. We were trying to keep the house spotless. We were trying to keep all the things in if they unplugged something in the wall, we made sure we put a plug in like there was a whole thing and it was exhausting. We

Chris Milam  59:26

say outside as much as possible. So they my parents could never find they

Jessica Milam  59:31

would pick me up they picked me up so we could like hang out at my parents house was like I don't know what I'll do if they show up. Like I don't know what it was. So, because we didn't have all we didn't know, I don't think they didn't tell us that you could have handsoap on the counter. You had to have hands so blocked up. Like who knew that they didn't like well, we just you know, assumed you know, like your face is

Chris Milam  59:48

how we felt called shock shock when

Jessica Milam  59:53

we knew that, you know, outlets need to be covered. We knew that. You know serious chemicals had to be put away but we didn't know about hey So if we didn't know that toothpaste wasn't to be allowed to be seen, like being

Chris Milam  1:00:04

each has their own separate baskets, it could. Yeah,

Jessica Milam  1:00:06

we had those things. But there was a whole list of things that we had no idea that had to be done. Because we just weren't shared. We didn't know it. So that was really stressful. And it was a really, really long break. We also got COVID. At the very end of it. All seven of us are seven kids plus me. So that was super fun. We spent a lot of time in those long lines. We didn't get it. Oh, yeah, Kelly didn't we didn't know Callie. And we spent a lot of time in the lines going to get tested like the car lions just hanging out. Then he had to take off of work to do that, because we didn't have a vehicle big enough for all of our so it was a it was a very interesting thing. But we had set up the business to where it could kind of run as it needed to. I had an admin who was kind of helping. But we had a day in January, it was we were two months in, I was going to sleep It was first time I was like planning to sleep while the kids were at school. I went to sleep and I woke up at 215 to go get the kids. And I saw that my staff member had just finished her 7am visit. And I was like, Oh my God. And so I looked at

Chris Milam  1:01:04

the schedule. And she freaked out on me because I didn't realize it Yes, I was

Jessica Milam  1:01:07

visiting visits, he didn't realize my admin didn't pay attention. She didn't notice it. So my 7am person had not done any visits at all that day, she had come in late didn't think to call didn't contact anybody. You know, the worst, the worst, and I never slept again, because I was so traumatized by that. That I couldn't sleep. When I tried to sleep I couldn't sleep. So I just I would take naps here and there. And I did that until June,

Chris Milam  1:01:30

like 9000 doctors appointments in the process. Yeah, we

Jessica Milam  1:01:34

did 36 doctor's appointments between March and April. But yeah, you one you just do what you got to do. But two, we had set up our business that it could operate that way, you know, having time to pet make things amazing because our staff can respond to clients questions, it doesn't have to be me, the fact that you have everything where they can just send a request, I can approve it, we're good. So really, at that time, the only thing I did in the business was do the schedule and do payroll. And that was it. I eventually had to do our taxes. But other than that, like everything else was just automatically on autopilot. Because we didn't have a choice I was at my limits.

Collin Funkhouser  1:02:08

Well, that really goes to to planning for what you want, right? What is this? What is the life that you want to lead? And how does the business fit and foster that for you at whatever stage you are is going I can lead a life my life doesn't have to be my business. I can make it my business. If I want it my I can make my life my business. I want to but I don't have to do that. Right and going yeah, how do I make these two work? Well, it's not necessarily a balance. It's really an integration of the two.

Chris Milam  1:02:35

Yeah. So I kind of I mean, I kind of I completely agree with your Facebook's posting to do the day, I had to guess who went hiking or something?

1:02:44

Oh, yes. Yeah. So we went to a business, I was at a business thing. And a guy was like, you know, well, that's how big you're gonna make this right, how big your to grow? How blah, blah. And that really struck me for a moment of like, I don't know, I don't care. I just want to spend more time with my family. Right? Like that's, that's

Chris Milam  1:03:01

all my clients, they say that oh, well. We can only do from seven to 10. And then two to five and 710. Right. I'm like, what? Yeah, per se. Yeah. And she goes, Well, who's gonna be the presenter? I'm like, Well, it's the only one person because I don't know about you. But I just go home has been telling my kids at night. Yeah. Which I never had to say that before. The first time I said, I was like, Holy crap, I have kids. And I have a lot of them. And also, but also in respect of that, as well as my kids. So the very first six months, I was hurt, I had a foot foot injury, and I couldn't work. I had surgery and everything. And I shall honor that. But like, when I started going back to work, they they were literally hugging on my legs and saying don't go to work, Dad don't go to work. And that's because their original father didn't come home. Because he got locked away. came home one day. Yeah. So. So yeah, he was working, never came home because he got incarcerated, basically. But I'm not knocking him for that everyone has a choice, right? But that that feeling right there when the kids grab you and say, don't go to work that kills me, even to this day. Like the 20 not to be two years, we've had our oldest to write and the 12 and 13. And when they grab on us they don't go to work or why do you have to go to work? Well, first off, do you like this house? While you sleep? Do you like all the things you yet?

Jessica Milam  1:04:33

Do you want to eat tomorrow? Yes, great, then we have to work.

Chris Milam  1:04:37

But it's still that feeling of like us. Like we went one of our kids went in for a birthday party that a sleepover and the rest of us went for a hike at one of the local trails or whatever. And I want moments like that. I enjoyed that. Yeah, hanging out with the kids.

Jessica Milam  1:04:56

I think the practical side of all of it is that we communicate with our clients and When we were starting to win, we were confirmed we were going to adopt them, or that they were going to move in with us. And we're gonna go through the process, we let our clients know, we said, hey, we just want you to know, this is gonna be a huge life change for us. Here's how we're planning on it, here's our backups. And here's what's going to happen going forward, there's gonna be times that we're not available, there's going to be some less availability for overnights and things. And we communicated that to them. We also told them, you know, how we have it planned to continue communication. Our clients were instantly amazed and shocked and some judgmental, but some very happy for us. But

Chris Milam  1:05:33

some of them saw, we were going to our business in closing, failed miserably. That's

Jessica Milam  1:05:38

okay. But we just we just communicate all along the way. So every pathway can make it and that's also where letting your clients and a little bit to understand know your life and know you helps because he is I hear about our kids all the time from our clients. Like, we'll have a brand new client, I'll get a message oh my gosh, I can't believe that your kids we adopted so and so or whatever. And so it

Chris Milam  1:05:59

was crazy. I mean, if people have been adopted, or it's been affected by adoption, or foster care, it's once you hit that, like, open up to somebody just a little bit like, Oh, you got seven kids, or they'll like, be like, really? I see toys on the floor. I'm like, Hey, how's your kid? Just just a conversation starter? Right? Yeah. break that wall. So you're not just very rigid, like some people around here. And I play that's not me. That's not me. I'm not I'm not saying rigid. But. But it's a conversation starter. And it will kind of just spin into like the like, you have kids similar? Yeah, I got a few. Letting

Jessica Milam  1:06:32

people know that we're a family business that we have kids does make a difference. Because I think people who have kids understand that people who don't have kids, sometimes they understand sometimes they don't. And that's totally fine. And if it doesn't work for them, if we have people that are concerned about it, or if it becomes a problem, we always just tell them, we have other people

Collin Funkhouser  1:06:48

who can refer you to that if somebody's listening to this, and they are going well, I don't I don't have kids. I don't have seven kids, certainly, how do I make those connect? You know, it's, it's what it's about going like, who are you as a person and connect with other people at that level? That's all that that's what this is about. It's finding that connection point so that when life happens to them, you somebody else, you have that relationship that's going to carry you through that. And to hang on to something greater, really? Yeah,

Jessica Milam  1:07:19

for sure. We were the people who didn't have kids for a long time. And when people talked about their kids and petsitting. And things were like, well, this is what we would do. And so some of those things like oh, okay, well, this makes a little hard. They're my kids have spent many hours in our van as a pet sitter, while they're on there. They're reading and they're doing tablets, and they're watching movies while I'm inside petsitting. Because that's what we have to do. You know, you do what you got to do. But I think it is finding out like what is important to you and what, what part of you do you want to share. Because if people know you and they get to know who you are and what matters to you, it really does build a better connection. And

Chris Milam  1:07:50

our kids actually look forward to that. Because they don't generally get a lot of screen time or tablet time. They're like, Yeah, that's cool. Well, my switch or whatever, the tablet. They're okay with that. And it's

Collin Funkhouser  1:08:07

it is just about finding that connection point. And really making the most of it. I think that that is is one of the most simplistic and most frustrating things that you can try and focus on because it's simple. It's it's very like, oh, yeah, just do that. But it's never just do that. Right. There's all these other complicating factors that you have to balance while you work through that.

Chris Milam  1:08:24

Yeah, Jessica, just like said that if there's 100 people in a room, and I walk in randomly, and I'll have 98 friends.

Jessica Milam  1:08:33

I'm hoping nobody saw me.

Collin Funkhouser  1:08:37

Who just right around that corner? What I don't know. Anyway, I

Chris Milam  1:08:40

became friends, like some random garments are picking on him. Hi.

Collin Funkhouser  1:08:47

Well, Jessica, and Chris, I really appreciate your your time today, I know that you've got a lot on your plate. So I really genuinely been so appreciative of you guys jumping on and talking us through that and encouragement to to give that grace to other people, not just ourselves, but to those around us. And to really bend more than I think most of us are willing to at times but to stand up for the things that we believe in for those who want to get connected with you and follow along with everything that you have going on how best can they do that? Um, so

Jessica Milam  1:09:21

I'm on Facebook, I do welcome friend requests. It's Jessica marlim on there, and then for our business. We're first services for pets if you are for both of those first four services for pets.com or on Facebook, for services for pets, Instagram, I don't like Instagram, but I'm on there. And if you're interested in conference stuff, the Texas pet sitters conference has TX pet sitters.com. We are sold out for this year's conference, but you can definitely follow along for next year.

Chris Milam  1:09:50

And they recommend falling around for next year. Highly recommended. Okay.

Collin Funkhouser  1:09:57

Okay, well, thank you both again, so much. for coming on the show today, I'm so so glad I got to meet you all at the conference and get connected and looking forward to this year's upcoming conference as well. Yeah. Thanks.

Chris Milam  1:10:08

Thanks for having me on.

Collin Funkhouser  1:10:09

So how do you respond when life happens? We have two options, we can either step up and show our true character, or we can shrink away to life will happen whether we do things or not, we are judged we are seen based off of how we respond to that. And that goes for our business as well. We make policies procedures, we we adapt and respond to flexibility needed or necessary as we want to run our business or not. And just personally, we can make that decision of how we respond to when things happen to our own life. And we make things happen when we are intentional and we set those goals. We set those things before us that we want and then we work towards them. We want to thank today's sponsors tied to pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters for making today's show possible. And 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.