469: Pets, People, and Purpose with Carla McClellan
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In the ever-evolving landscape of pet care, how do you carve a niche that not only serves your clients but also gives back to the community? Carla McClellan, the founder and owner of Tallahassee Lassie Pet Care, shares her journey from a modest beginning to leading a thriving business that puts community at its heart. With a rich background in social work and public health, Carla infuses her business with a unique blend of care, compassion, and community service. From establishing partnerships with local nonprofits to launching mobile pet food pantries, she's on a mission to ensure no pet or pet owner in Tallahassee goes unsupported. Carla's approach goes beyond pet sitting; it's about building a community network that uplifts every member. Join us as Carla shares her insights on growing a business that not only looks after pets but fosters a sense of belonging and support within the community.
Main topics
Client Relationships
Pet Pantries Initiative
Community Partnerships
Employee Engagement
Main takeaway: Embrace the power of integrating community service into your business model, to not only enhance your brand but also to make a tangible difference in your community.
About our guest:
Carla returned to the Tallahassee area in 2014 where she was working in social work. After some soul searching, she made the decision to use her social work skills in the pet world as well as continue with the human side, their owners. Carla has over 20 years experience caring for animals and has owned a pet most of her life. She is currently mom to two pugs and one cat. Along with a few outdoor cats she feeds every evening.
Carla is certified in pet CPR and First Aid by the Pet Health Academy and is a member of Pet Sitters International and National Association of Professional Pet Sitters. She takes this knowledge and receives Continuing Education Units, along with providing training to her team. She also utilizes Pet Pro Hero and Fetch Find in teaching her team.
One of the most important aspects of this work is community - for her to hire within the community, spend local dollars, and participate in local non-profits within the community. She uses her business as a vehicle of good, always.
Links:
https://www.tallahasseelassiepetcare.com
https://www.facebook.com/tallylassiepets
https://www.instagram.com/tallylassiepets/
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
work, pet, employees, clients, helps, carla, community, business, conversation, important, day, gift, scheduling, events, rescues, reminder, team, life, long, walks
SPEAKERS
Collin F., Carla M.
Collin Funkhouser 00:03
Welcome to pet sitter confessional. Today, we're brought to you by time to pet and pet perennials. What does your community do for you? How have they supported and encouraged and enriched your life and your business? More importantly, what have you done for your community? As we recognize that we don't exist in a vacuum, our businesses are able to contribute to the overall success for the betterment of our community at large. There are ways that we can give back to those who need it most where we live. That's why today we are super excited to have Karla McClellan, owner of Tallahassee, Lassie Petcare on the show to talk about why it is so critical and important to her to be involved in her community and the ways that she works that out how it helps her attract clients, how it helps her attract her team members who are also part of that vision and see that goal. Carla also talks about how she is building that team with an operations manager, and how she keeps things consistent between everybody and on mission.
Carla M. 01:14
Let's get started. Thank you. It's so good to be here. So I am Carla McClellan. I own Tallahassee lassoo pet care. I'm from Tallahassee and moved back after grad school and lost my former profession to start this business. Formerly, I was in social work in public health. So I kind of brought some of those skill sets with me to starting this business. And I started with my own client base, about 20 clients, a few routes, and just very small. And now we have nine employees, about 500 client families. And we're seeing clients all day, which is awesome. And part of that I started an active retiree program that we'll talk about with our hiring. And then for the community involvement, I've always pretty much had a volunteer commitment in the community before I even started the business. But it was really important to me that we give back from our business to the community. So each month, we donate either goods, services, time, or finances to different nonprofits in town. And we also partner to help our local humane society, we volunteer at their events, we do fundraising for them. And then we have smaller rescues, one that actually is spay and neuter. They're not a rescue, they're spay and neuter clinic. And they also have a thrift store. So we help support them. And we just tried to give back to the community and everything we're doing.
Collin Funkhouser 02:46
I know that can be pretty overwhelming for people of how do I give back? What do I do? Do I need to host events do I need to do fundraisers do I need, and I like how you said, you know, will volunteer at their events. And I think that's an important really important thing is to look at what's already going on in your community and go, do they need help? Can I serve them? And maybe you know, if you can't find something, or if you think there's still a need, okay, maybe you find that route, but starting with what's there already, because you know, the Humane Society, local shelters, local nonprofits, they are, you know, in desperate need of people to show up. And so to look at going, hey, I can plug in there, we can support that. And I can boost those efforts and actually make a bigger contribution than if we tried to go and do this out on our own.
Carla M. 03:30
Exactly. And that's actually what our latest project is, is we're partnering with store, it's called Community thrift store. She already donates a large amount of money in time and unkind to nonprofits. So we're actually partnering with her to open pantries that are mobile in the community, pet pantries, not pet food pantries that we would have to go to for clients, but we only have one in Tallahassee. And it's through the Humane Society, they have a different process. But we don't really have like boots on the ground pet pantries for pet food. So that's what we're working with community thrift store right now to launch those. We're launching the first one at my church, my home church. So it's kind of interesting. Well, it's really interesting, because now we do involved the community thrift store, United Church of Tallahassee, which, you know, if your go to church or not, that's you. I just prefer I like my church. But we've partnered with him. And then we also work with the Humane Society and elder care services. So there is four different organizations that were helping with one effort and that effort being the pet food pantry, and getting pet food out to community members that don't have the means to support their pets or themselves right now.
Collin Funkhouser 04:48
Yeah. How do you start those conversations with those people, Carla, because that's again, another thing of like, oh, man, there's so many ideas, who do I talk to? How do I approach this and let them know that I want to be a partner in this
Carla M. 04:59
Very good question, Collin. I know that for a lot of us, we got into this because we prefer pets to people. So that can be difficult and challenging for a lot of sitters. For sure. I am lucky in the fact that I'm typically extroverted and I enjoy just walking out with people and introducing myself. But I might have a mentee, that's that terrifies her. So what I would say to her is, you know, these community members really want our help more than we want to help them. So we're never going to be bothering them. If we want to call the Humane Society and say, Hey, we're looking to help with any event that you have, or any drive that you're having any fundraising thing that you're having, call them, they're going to be so happy to help you, I promise they really are, they're going to be happy that you're wanting to help them, it'd be a mutually beneficial relationship. If you're not comfortable on the phone, you can always go to their office, all of the girls at our local humane society are so willing to help us and for us to help them. So there is that initial fear and hesitation of like, oh, I have to go introduce myself to this person, and I don't know them. But if you keep in your mind, they really want your help. And they're gonna be really excited to make that connection with you. It can minimize that fear for sure. Yeah.
Collin Funkhouser 06:18
And it's not a like, oh, here I am to save the day kind of mentality. Right. But it's a here I am to help.
Carla M. 06:25
And he's here to help. And we want to Yeah, yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 06:29
it really is such a different mindset when we approach it in that way. And, and you know what you're talking? As you're talking, Carla, you know, people are hearing different names of organizations and things. And I'm sure that that's just part of you. As you have contributed as you have networked, you found other opportunities to continue to dig in. Yes,
Carla M. 06:51
yes. So that's another thing last year, one of our big projects was tally spay. That's a whole other organization. And that is a it's a spay and neuter clinics specifically for space leaders, shots, vaccines, that's all they do. And it was launched by our local animal shelter. So now we have that where are we concerned clients that are having issues or pet parents, not necessarily our clients, but any pet parents, because that is a big part of our business. We like to educate pet parents in the community, regardless of if they're our clients or not. We just want to be able to provide education. So being able to promote the speed clinic and let people know, hey, you can go get a spade on for $5. And that's huge. And that's something that you can do online, that you don't even have to go in person to talk to people, you can share these events online, you can start a pet parent group on Facebook, to educate pet parents, you can reach out to other organizations in your town, most towns do have a county humane society. And then I would hope that most towns would have a city animal shelter. But you know, with funding in the way that things are going, I don't know how long that's gonna be. But either way, you can find them in your town, you can always look up the animal rescue whatever town you're in, and link up that way too. Yeah.
Collin Funkhouser 08:13
And it just starts with one conversation. I know, in our town, we did a couple Google searches, because that's just what we do, right? It's like, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna find the rescuers. I'm gonna find it. I was like, wow, there's none. But do you actually talk to people? And they're like, oh, no, there are several, there's like 20 of them. They're just not all listing on Google, or they don't all have Facebook pages, you know, they're doing it in other ways. And so that's why those conversations are so important. And we went to a couple events of events, you know, dog in the park kind of things. And we were just like, Wait, where are they? How are they? Where did they? Where are you? Right? It was just a great time to get connected and realize like, okay, like, I gotta build a Rolodex here have more more contacts, because we didn't have that. And it really helped us be better community members, right and serve our clients. And other than just people in general, because now we know where to send people how to connect with them where other resources are, right.
Carla M. 09:04
And that's one way to that you can utilize your social media network, if you do have a pet parent group on there. We I launched a Betty White Day, a couple of years ago, where I'm Betty White Day, we did donations and all of this to different rescues. So we had to pull up, make a list like you're talking about, and there were some that had not been added to the internet. There were some that had long been closed. I mean, just getting that list was a huge undertaking. And some people might not have time for that. But it did benefit us for the dog owners group and the pet parents groups because it shows everybody here's a list of all the rescues currently in Tallahassee, this is what they do, this is what they need. So that's always thought you know, when
Collin Funkhouser 09:50
you mentioned social media, I just an idea of we get a lot of people who asked like, what do I share my social media, what kind of things do I post? Well, a great thing to do is reshare local events, repost what other people are doing contribute that way maybe you don't have the finances to sponsor something, or to buy things for something. But resharing that to help bring more people in is another way to contribute and show like, this is important to me. And that's something else to remember of our, our online presence is a reflection of what's important to us what our mission, vision and value are as a company. So what we reshare what we repost but we interact with is messaging to people around us, what our where our values lie. Exactly.
Carla M. 10:31
And it helps you're on engagement. If you think about it, you know, if you're trying to reach a target for your socials, and you need to be posting a certain amount each week, might as well share something that's good for the community. And then you're also posting so you've got your own goal. We do that with walkthrough Wednesdays and so our shelter aren't you know, our local, you know, shelter, closed their walks walkthroughs during COVID. So they only have three days a week where we can do walkthroughs, where you can go and actually meet the dogs, everything else is by appointment only. So when they started doing that, we did start sharing the walkthrough Wednesdays because our kennel stay full here, it's just, it's really sad. I mean, they were doubled up. A couple months ago, we had two dogs per crate for how many we had. So yeah, bet sharing that, you know, if I share that on my page, and 19,000 people see that post, that's more chance for that dog to get about.
Collin Funkhouser 11:28
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Collin Funkhouser 11:57
you're looking for new PET scanning 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/confessions. Karla you know you're really passionate about community involvement. Why is that? I know a lot of people can go through life and kind of keep their head down and, and focus and there's a lot of things going on in our lives. We're very busy people. Why is that important to you? Yeah,
Carla M. 12:23
so for me, a large part of it is that I myself am in recovery. I've been in recovery since 2003. Well, 2005 is when I'm actually got clean and sober. But a younger me in 2003 was quite the troublemaker, and I took from my community a lot more than I ever contributed to my community. Even though my parents did not raise me that way. And my mom did raise me to be a volunteer, I did not choose that path. So when I finally did get my life together, so to speak, it just became really important for me to give back in any way I can, I kind of considered a living amends, because I just wasn't always a nice person. And I wasn't always that person that would contribute to the community at all. So this way, it's just kind of a full circle moment for me to give back where I used to take is kind of how I feel about an
Collin Funkhouser 13:17
aspect of now I can write like I've, I've changed and I have the opportunity now I'm able to do this. And it's a mindset of, of no matter where we are in our lives or in our business, finding what we can do. Right. And that's, that's what it takes to bring a community together. And, and it also is a change of my our mindset, our heart as well as we engage in those activities. Yeah,
Carla M. 13:40
for sure. And I mean, it really does, like my community members here became my family. So it really does give me a whole new life perspective at life too. And, I mean, I've been doing this now I think as far as volunteering and being involved for like 20 years, but the last five years have really been intensified, I think when we were all kind of locked in our homes. And some of us chose to use that time to get more involved, which I did. And it just opened up. I mean, there were so many more ways I could give service that I hadn't even thought about before. And now I just it's just my lifestyle.
Collin Funkhouser 14:17
And when you say give service, are you talking about serving potential clients or serving your community in that way?
Carla M. 14:24
Yeah, yeah. I mean, of course, I love welcoming new clients. But when I'm talking about serving, it's usually community.
Collin Funkhouser 14:30
It's just finding those places to plug in, right and what fits with us. It's some trial and error. Sometimes, you know, have you ever tried to do something that didn't work out and you had to retool it and move on? Yeah,
Carla M. 14:40
there were a few like social campaign launches that I had tried a long time ago that are just like not really hitting me to move that along. There are a couple of events that we did, that we don't mind being involved on and being there but we found the ROI wasn't really worth our time to be there for the whole event. So So instead, we just kind of make our presence known make a donation and move along. But that's what you learned over time. I mean, there might be some events where you get great engagement and a great number of new customers, then there's other events that it's just kind of a bust. So for me, I've just learned that over time, I know that when I'm going to host an event, which I've never hosted my own as this business, it's always with a nonprofit, or with another business, like Colin was talking about, because we don't want to reinvent the wheel. But if I am hosting an event, I'm gonna be doing that with either the Humane Society because a lot of their clients are our target clients as well, we get a lot of good clients from the Humane Society rescues, or at some of our target apartment complexes that are pet friendly, will hold like Dog Days, doggie parades around Halloween, Thanksgiving, we might ask like, Hey, can we come up with some pupcakes things like that are gonna, for us, at least in our market are gonna work a little better than just having a table at a random community event. You just have to meet and just have to really, because I want to be at our meeting, of course, like I want to be, oh, let's go to all these events, by you have to be really strategic and target where you're going to be specifically. And
Collin Funkhouser 16:19
that is really key. I'm glad how you said like, well, this event is one where we can make a presence. No, maybe we can sponsor maybe we can donate some items. But we don't need to show up for that. But we do need to show up for this one. And maybe we won't sponsor but we'll contribute with volunteer hours. And and that just takes you going house, you know how what what is my capacity right now? My hand? And I think that's the other question to Carla's? You're you running a big business? You know, you've got a lot going on? You got a lot of employees a lot of things going on? How do you find time to to make this
Carla M. 16:52
happen? Yeah, I don't know. I do get that question a lot. It's funny, I think it helps that I don't have human children. Okay, if I had human children, that would definitely limit my capacity, for sure. And then it helps an adult sleep a lot, require a lot of sleep. But no, seriously, delegating has saved my life for sure. So what we've recently done this coming year, which is very different for me, it's only been the last three months, but our operations manager is doing pretty much all of the onboards right now. Wow. So yeah, it's scary. And it's I mean, it's good. She's great at her job. But it is weird, because my job has changed so drastically. But delegating things like that. I'm still a point of contact, like I still like to answer the phone and help the bat. But delegating her actually scheduling, meet and greets, scheduling employees, doing the kind of day to day operations has really given me a lot more time. Now before she came on. I did have another I had an assistant and that was great. But she and I were both good at the same thing. So you need to look for somebody that's going to be good at what you're not good at. That's another thing that I found with hiring.
Collin Funkhouser 18:26
That's really hard, right? Because a lot of us go well, I'm, you know, no shade, whatever. But like, a lot of us will go, I'm amazing. So if I just had to me, this would be better, right? But then what you realize is you're just doing twice as much work that you're excelling at, and you're doing twice. You're not doing twice the work and suffering Exactly. And it kind of it takes a lot of work to work well with somebody who's not like you. And yeah, and it causes us a lot of growth and a lot of a lot of probably, you know, pain through that. But we see that on the other end.
Carla M. 19:03
Exactly. And that's what I try to remember I do a lot of reflecting and looking at well, last year it was the sun this year, it's this and that helps me tremendously because I remember last year at this time, I didn't know if we were going to survive 2023 Let alone grow it which we did we only 20% But that's still good. But you know, or we're grateful for that. But just because I had so many health challenges, and we were I knew that Helen was leaving and sunshine was coming on eventually it just didn't know what that timeframe was looking like. But all of that anxiety and created within me. Just because there was so much change happening at once. It was quite an ordeal. Okay, but that's why for me I have to really like step back and do these other things that refill me so like I saying, I do yoga. I used to run but I can't do that. I mean More swimming when it's not 20 degrees out, community, you know, things that can kind of still fill me up. So I'm not getting overwhelmed with it all, is if you think about it too long, you'll get overwhelmed. For sure. Yeah. Well,
Collin Funkhouser 20:14
that aspect of thinking about it too long. I know there are times where when we're busy, we get into this rhythm of making decisions fast, right? And we go, boom, boom, boom, and we knock him out. And then when we get less busy, or when things really pile on, it's easy to get stuck on one thing, and just have it be an all consuming decision, or topic. And it's hard to move away from that and focus on other other things. Yes,
Carla M. 20:40
it really is. That was me this weekend was a QuickBooks and accounting stuff. I had like five days to get it done. And I'm still almost done.
Collin Funkhouser 20:52
Well, so how do you prevent yourself from getting stuck on on one thing, and make sure that you're moving to other things.
Carla M. 21:00
So lately, and this is partly just living with ADHD, but also living as a business owner. By lately I've been the sound surge juvenile, but it works. I've been setting timers. So I will, if I'm sitting down here, and I'm talking to you, and I know, at one o'clock, I need to check into my bank account and do some money, business, say any of the finances or something, I'll be like Alexa, one o'clock, remind me, no matter where I am, and my other tasks, I'm switching, because otherwise, I'll do what you just said, like, I'll lose all this time. So and that helps when I do it. And I tell her to remind me. The part is, is having those reminders, and it has helped out my team and to have people that can hold me accountable, because they can just text like, hey, I need to do this by two o'clock, can you send me a reminder and make sure I did it? And that really helps lots, you know, yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 21:56
those those self imposed constraints. You know, I remember whenever I was going through something I learned about myself, when I was going through school, man, I was really on top of stuff, I was a super productive person. But then I got out of school, you know, and I was like, wait, I have nothing in my life constraining me. I'm terrible at this actually turns out, right, I work within a system imposed by somebody else.
Carla M. 22:19
Now, right, I have to make your own. Yeah.
Collin Funkhouser 22:23
And sitting down no matter what you're doing. I mean, we make it an I just did this last night of going, we have 30 minutes to talk about this. Yeah. And setting that timer so that we are all aware, right, it adds a little sense of urgency. Sure, if it needs to go long, we can make it go long, whatever. But like, we know, like, this is a constraint replacing on this. And it helps us be efficient with that time, so that we can go on to the other 1000 other things that we have to do. And just that just that little imposed boundary that little impose structure makes you go, Okay, this is what I'm dedicating, and then we it's allows your brain to push everything else to the side. And you know, with ADHD, it's like, it's really important to keep those really short windows, right of like, okay, now, it's 15 minutes, it because if beyond that, my mind is going to wander. Thanks, knowing ourself that takes knowing what we can handle and just being okay with setting those throughout your day.
Carla M. 23:16
That's so true, and finding people that are used to working with that. So one of our former manager was a dog walker for us for three years. And then I made her manager, and she was leaving to go to law school. So we needed to replace her with a new manager who's our current. But one of the things during hiring they Helen was very clear on is, you know, our business owner is neurodivergent, you will probably have to stop her and make her sit down and say I need to talk to you right now about this thing. You might have to remind her, but it was good. Because setting that expectation upfront is for me, it was important in any hiring, especially if it's somebody I'm going to be working with on the management level, because we're working together every day. But they're going to need to know how to navigate that to we don't want somebody who it's going to like stress them out, or frustrate them if their boss has some ADHD issues. But I ended up working perfectly she has two kids with it. So it's perfect. She knows exactly how to get my attention and slow me down and it's just about finding the right person for you.
Collin Funkhouser 24:27
Yeah, and that's those are hard conversations to have right those aren't you have to be a little bit vulnerable. And to go Yeah, so not a little bit like it's a lot a bit vulnerable. Going like hey, I'm this is how I work. This is how I function best. I mean, how do you have that conversation Carla with people as you're bringing them in because that's that's not a conversation a lot of us are have or feel comfortable having. Yeah,
Carla M. 24:54
so with admin, I just some very direct and upfront about it. Like, this is who I am, this is how I work. You know, it's pretty much squirrel in the middle of the road half the time, but I'm working on it, this is how I manage it. And we just have this frank conversations, it was not easy when I first started doing that, because I just I didn't enjoy being vulnerable, who does. But it's definitely helped because you find out who you can work with. Now, this is really only just for admin. So when I say that, that's Operations Manager, and any team leads, other centers that are just now coming on sunshine, managing them more than I am. So we don't usually have to have that conversation. If they move up to admin, I'll talk to them about it.
Collin Funkhouser 25:44
Yeah, you mentioned squirrel in the middle of the road. literally an hour ago, I was in my hallway. And I turned around three times trying to figure out what I was doing. right there with you have like, what's going
Carla M. 25:59
on the water's fine here.
Collin Funkhouser 26:01
And many of us have, we go, okay, I need help. Okay, I'm gonna go get help. But we don't set them up for success by being honest with them about us and our expectations. And then we get frustrated. And we go, why can't they? Well, right. That's might not be how they do anything. And they've never interacted with someone like you or they don't know how to, to, to present things or what you need. And that's a, hey, here's what I need. When I say XYZ, I have to give the people a little bit of a dictionary like translation service of like, when I say this, I actually mean, but my brain doesn't allow me to say that because of how I'm wired. Like, it's just just
Carla M. 26:39
let people in a little bit. Yeah, exactly. It's like, here's the puzzle of my brain. Thank you for coming. I hope you can figure it out.
Collin Funkhouser 26:49
Don't have a box with a finished photo on it. Let me know
Carla M. 26:52
what it's supposed to look like anymore. We're just going with it.
Collin Funkhouser 26:58
Well, you've, you've talked about your team, quite a bit, Carla. And I wanted to ask you kind of how How far were you into your journey as a business when you decided I need to build a team? And what's that process been like for you?
Carla M. 27:12
Yeah, so it was only probably about a year end. And I actually started with this is how I founded the active retiree program, because it was my stepdad and my mom and one of my mom's friends who are our first actual, like non family employees. Well, my mom, my stepdad, obviously, I'm by what I found in that process is it was really beneficial to them, because they're retired don't have a lot going on kind of need something to do. I'm absolutely responsible, reliable, consistent. Amazing. So that's how we started that about a year and and I'm now we have employees that are, you know, average normal, I don't know what where do you want to save for that typical employees. And then we also still have the active retiree program. Um, but it's always been pretty much word of mouth, I think that we did post the app a couple of times, did get a one good employee from posting in a dog mom group, or a pet parent group, one of those. But usually, it's word of mouth, through our newsletter, through current employees through clients, we've actually had one of our best employee relationships was a client's daughter who joined us, that was the one that was with us for four years. So that was pretty cool. We had another client who joined us as a part time employee, and she still works with us part time, which is cool, because they know how it works. Like they know what to expect on a pet parent side. So I love that I really love that. Was
Collin Funkhouser 28:47
that when you made when they make that transition? Did you struggle with that relationship change at all of like, because I know a lot of businesses go okay, now I need to make a business client relationship distinction, right? I'm not going to, I make I'm gonna care for them, I'm going to vote for them. But I'm not going to breach that relationship. And it's a very different kind of thing when they actually become an employee of yours. It was that a struggle for you at all? Or did it was that kind of an easy transition?
Carla M. 29:11
It was pretty easy. Just because we're so close with our clients, we really do become like family after a while we stay in touch, we communicate on a regular basis. Um, so it was pretty seamless. If she had not been such a regular client. It might have been weird. Like, it might have been a little different. We did have conversations, of course, the one that I'm thinking about this from us for the longest is this will be her third summer working with us. But I know that we did have conversations about you know, if you decide you don't like this, we still want to be able to pet set for you things like that. But that was never an issue. There was one plant that we heard that didn't work out. And I didn't really know how that was gonna impact our relationship with her pets. But it hasn't been an issue yet because she was we He ended up finding out that she really only wanted to work fast for the discount. So, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you find that out too. That was fine. That was fun to that. Yeah, we should only last about a month and a half. I'm glad that we only spent six weeks finding that out, but it could have been a lot worse. Our
Collin Funkhouser 30:22
friends at Pet perennials make it easy to send a heartfelt condolence gift directly to someone with a broken heart. They have this awesome direct to consumer gift model that takes the effort off of us and it certainly thoughtful, personalized empathic gift reaches our client or employee on our behalf. All gift packages include a handwritten card, colorful gift wrap and shipping fees across the US and Canada. They also offer an array of milestone gifts and greeting cards that can be sent to celebrate birthdays, extend, get well wishes and welcome new or even rescued pets. Additionally, there are gift choices in case you need to send a sympathy gift in memory of a special human client, or celebrate a pregnancy engagement or wedding of a pet lover. If you're interested register for a free business gift perks account, unlock the all inclusive discounted package pricing, since the service is used on an as needed basis, there are no monthly or annual obligations or minimum purchase, Learn more at Pet perennials.com Check out their business program or register for that free gift perks account by using the link in the show notes. Yeah, you mentioned like had they been a less regular client? It would have been awkward. I'll I was I did a meet and greet once. And while I was doing the mean greets the first time I've met this person, they start asking Are you hiring? What's the pay? How's this? Wow,
Carla M. 31:38
sounds like the last lady that we just Yeah. And I was like
Collin Funkhouser 31:44
I wasn't prepared for this. Go online slash career clip? Yeah,
Carla M. 31:49
it's weird. Because even the employees we have rarely use that pet setting discount. So when that was one of the first things out of her mouth very quickly, it just, Oh, okay. Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 32:03
it changes that, right. And you've got to really make sure again, and it's part of that, okay, I'm just gonna put them in my process, to ask the same questions to kind of vet this like I would anybody else. Because when they are an employee, if they do make it through, I still have to treat them like, like an employee, right? They're still held to the same standards. And that's hard when we have friends or families or acquaintances. You know, we've had people who are going to our kids school that we know that want to apply, and it's like, okay, like, we're still going to hold you to the same stuff here. So like, let's have that conversation. Now. It's you don't get a buy, just because we know you, right? Or you don't get a pass just because of this. It's right, there's still this relationship that
Carla M. 32:42
we have to have. Right. And that's been the biggest thing. I think of hiring just in Tallahassee in general, there are not many people that I don't know, by somebody else, or some way it's just wild. I mean, everybody's connected in this home. And we're not even that tiny. But yeah, those it can be weird when you have somebody that you're just like, oh, I don't know, what if this doesn't work out. And I've had to have great conversations. A friend of mine, a close friend of mines daughter worked for us for years, and it did work out great. But we had very frank conversations like you and I are still friends, no matter what happens. The employee relationship is just with your daughter, not with you. And I like very clear boundaries. Some friendships can handle and some can't. So it really is on you. And like where you are with your boundaries and your family and friends and their boundaries. And if you think that it's going to risk the relationship, don't risk it. You know, if you feel like y'all are strong going into this, and you've got good solid boundaries, go for it. But it really is an individual thing. Because that can get messy, it can get very messy. Yeah. And
Collin Funkhouser 33:49
you know, the fact that you even had that conversation beforehand of going, Hey, even if this doesn't work out, we still want to be able to take care of your pets. That's that's a healthy approach. Right? That really is instead of just like crossing your fingers and like hoping it's going to be okay. It's like, no, we need to have this conversation. And that's true in business and in life of like, if you watch like, old like early 2000 sitcoms are your like, if you guys would just talk about this, there would be no problem here like sci fi. And
Carla M. 34:16
that's the thing about communication and conversations. Like just talk about. Yeah,
Collin Funkhouser 34:23
it is hard because it means that sometimes that means we have to be in an in an uncomfortable situation of light. And I don't know if you've ever started a conversation like that. No, I have sometimes we're going like, look, this is uncomfortable for me. And I'm not really sure how to say this, but I feel it's important to have this conversation and just letting them know, right, that's a great way to just ease into that so that they don't feel like it's a you know, it's a confrontational thing. It's like no, this is just something that needs to happen. Right. Right. And as you as you've grown, you know, I know an aspect of that is you said you have got nine employees now that are working for you can persistency is a big thing that a lot of people work with, how do you help maintain that between them and the visits? They do?
Carla M. 35:08
Yeah, so we're pretty regularly in contact with all of the employees, we have slack. But we also text a lot. And we do all pause meetings where we're having like team building, sometimes we'll have a training component that sometimes it's more of a fun component to that. And then the reminders, we're pretty big on reminding everybody of, you know, their schedule, policies, everything like that a lot of people, a lot of our people have been here so long, they don't really need the reminders. But just staying open and having communication, I think, for any mobile business, it can be difficult because we kind of can work in these silos. So what really helps us is our software number one, because impact reports, we can all see what's going on. And it helps me to have an open door policy here at our office. So our office is housed in my home. But I still have an open door policy during the week. So employees can come by whenever they need, if they need to take a nap on the hammer, they can come by, they just need poop bags or treats they can come by, that really helps a lot because I want them to know I'm always here, if they just need to talk like we're here for them. So that really helps. Because we don't have the store we're going to every day, you know, it's not like we're at the doggy daycare place for the groom or shop or you know, we're on the roads. So just letting them know like I am here. Please stop by if you need anything, how are you doing checking in, that really helps. Another thing is being mindful of how often we are scheduling different centers. So one of our best centers is great, he's the best one of the best chairs we have. I expect Toby here a very long time. However, we need to keep him around six sets a day. If he doesn't need more than six, that's a little too much for him. Okay, we have another setter, she's great with 910 a day. Totally fine, never an issue. So I think that's another thing is you have to look at your team, their personality, their ability to work under stressful conditions, and just kind of get to know them. And then you can schedule them how they need to be scheduled. So you keep consistency, you're not burning your employees out. And everybody's happy.
Collin Funkhouser 37:26
Yeah, that that's key is recognizing not everybody who comes to the door is a comfortable with taking on the same amount of work or type of work or be able to or wanting to. And many times we can say okay, well, I've hired three people now they must all work the same and do all the same and be worker bees out there doing the work without going. Are they okay, walking. And we've had those conversations of that. And we've had an employee who came to us and said, I think my max is about an hour and a half total of walks during the day. But if I could do other pet sets or other cat sets or stuff like that, that'd be fine. But I'm just, I don't feel good. If I do more than that kind of walks, especially back to back and I was like, This is great to know. That's great.
Carla M. 38:13
Yeah.
Collin Funkhouser 38:14
Wonderful.
Carla M. 38:16
I love them. Please tell me stuff, please.
Collin Funkhouser 38:20
Because you know, there are times where you can feel like a possible reaction is to get offended or hurt or frustrated by that. But to go, okay, they've told me a limit that I need to see. I need to respect that. And are there limits that some people have that won't work for your company? Absolutely. Right that but those are a case by case basis. Having an open door allows you to hear that, because then you can decide if you can or cannot make adjustments, because the last thing you want is somebody just comes in and goes I quitting by and having no idea why. And yeah, it's it's because that really throws you off. And you're like I did what happened. And it could have been something as simple as well, you were scheduling them for two hours of walks. And they really felt bad after that, and it wasn't comfortable for them. So if you would have done an hour and a half, they would have stuck around longer.
Carla M. 39:12
Yeah. Now that's important. It's very important. It's just kind of going back to knowing the limitations for yourself and your team.
Collin Funkhouser 39:20
Yeah. And so when you've got that process, you know, how are you? How are you keeping everything? I mean, I know you have somebody who's doing the the scheduling and stuff right now. Did you did you train them on kind of what your expectations were? Or did you let them figure it out and make their own system?
Carla M. 39:38
Yeah, so our former manager did two weeks of one on one training with current manager, okay. And then the current manager and I worked together like, Well, we still work together every day, but you know, well, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, that we're working together. She is And she came in. And we were both pretty clear on like, what I need help with what I'm struggling with what she can do what she enjoys doing. So that right off the bat, having that conversation was super helpful because it took a lot of stress off of me knowing like, oh, I have a bookkeeper in house that can help. Yeah, I don't have to make myself do this all the time. If I'm not that great at it. Or, you know, I have somebody that can go out in the field and cover because right now I'm not able to be the backup because of walks, got chronic injury thing going on. But you know, having not having hurts, like, if we need a backup, we've got somebody that can go about having those conversations up front, of course, like you said, and I check in with her pretty much every week, every other week to make sure she's not getting burned. Because that's really important to me that our team is not getting burnout. So we touch base about that fairly regularly. And then our team lead, it's the same way of like making sure she's not getting burned. And then with our software, it's nice because I can make I have a lot of mental notes that I'm learning, I need to put on paper for these people that are helping me. So the mental notes, now we started putting in our software, we can put on staff profiles, and then we can put private notes and client profiles as well. So if I need to put something on there, like, okay, Kim doesn't do dog walks, she only does visits and cat sets, because she's got a bad knee. That's what we can put in our software. But a lot of it lives in my brain. So I am learning that I need to put it on paper. So someone can come in and be me loves the other really important thing I've learned this last couple of years, is making sure that my business can continue if I was to suddenly be out for however long, you know, if I was incapacitated, as my business is gonna be able to continue. Things like that are really, really important. I'm finding especially as we get older, you
Collin Funkhouser 42:04
mentioned the where's that information stored? I was I was doing a training a new employee the other day, and he stepped out of his car came walking over with his leash and gear. And I said, Oh, you don't need the leash for this one. And he went, Oh, how do I know? And I went? Oh, yeah, you wouldn't? Because it's not written down anywhere. It's just fine.
Carla M. 42:24
Right? So Right? Brain, thing
Collin Funkhouser 42:27
of like, awkward. And it's important, because let's say you are running a business solo, this is still important, incredibly critical to to have that information somewhere else. Because there are going to be times where you're busy, where you're tired, or you're sick, you don't feel well, you're a family members in the hospital, you're distracted, you've got a lot of pressure coming on. Trying to keep all that information in one place. Your brain is a great recipe to not remember it right. I know you Carl, you mentioned some health things that that came up over the past couple years, you know, this, this this system. And it sounds like it's even more important. And you've you've seen that over the over that time.
Carla M. 43:08
Yeah, for sure. I have to have three surgeries that were not expected or planned. So three emergency surgeries. Had I not hired our team in place and our processes the way that they are? It would have been a freaking mess. I already know that. Yeah, it would have been a mess. I know that when my dad died, it was before we had time to pat. And that was really hard because it was, you know, I didn't have an online scheduling system. At that point. It was all in my brain or my Google Calendar or in my Drive. And I didn't have employees at that point. So what ended up happening, luckily, is I had other sitter agencies step up and offer to go see all my pets and not charge me Of course, because my dad had just died. But I did get through that time. Just barely, though, if I had had software in a team, it would have made a big difference for me during that, that situation because he died right between years or right between Thanksgiving and Christmas. 2019. So, and we didn't get our software until 2020. So I'm just really lucky we got through that for sure. Yeah.
Collin Funkhouser 44:18
Yeah. It's it's that reminder. And you know, Carl, I'm sorry to hear about your dad. And you know, I know that that's, I'm sure that's still really hard these days. And it comes and goes. And it's a reminder that I'm okay today, but I don't know about tomorrow. And I don't know how I'm going to operate under XYZ conditions unforeseen circumstances, and it's not that we run through life or run our business, terrified or trying to think of all the nuclear fallout disasters zombie apocalypse stops is going to happen. But we go, what can I do today to make my life a little bit easier tomorrow, and it's one thing at a time, and it builds up right and that's the other thing of these these kinds of things. They stack on top of one another? Other have now I've got my software. Now I've got an organization system, what information can I put in there? Now? How do I keep that update now? Can I have somebody else run it now? Can I, you know, it's the stair step approach to us being able to focus on other things, right.
Carla M. 45:13
And then as I love that stair step approach, because that's exactly what it is. And then it's like each, each quarter, really, I'm building and learning and growing in some kind of methods. Well,
Collin Funkhouser 45:24
and it's a reminder to that if we have staff, they're going to go through some things as well to have, they are going to have life events, they're going to have struggles, they're going to have concerns that are going to need to be addressed. And we're going to have to be you'll give them grace, just as much as we would give ourselves grace in that time. Exactly.
Carla M. 45:45
Yeah, that's the other thing. Like I feel like everybody in the world is kind of struggling right now with something or that, you know, a lot of heaviness in the world. So just giving each other grace is so important. Carla,
Collin Funkhouser 45:56
I really want to thank you for for coming on the show today and walking us through that encouraging us to dig into our community and give back in some way and build a team that helps not just support us but them as well and recognizing that it is a team effort, and community effort in all things. To get connected with Karla visit her website, Tallahassee Lassie, pet care.com And she's on Facebook and Instagram at tally Lassie pets. My biggest takeaway from my conversation with Carla was get to know people get to know the people in your community, those who are needing help with volunteering and caring for those in where you live those on your team as your team members, those on your client list. Getting to know people as people allows us to better able to serve them and understand them and their pain points. It allows us to know how when to give back and who to partner with. It allows us to know who are good fit for our clients and who is a good fit to work with us, as an employee. Focus on people understand that they have their own needs, their own wants, their own objectives, their own driving factors. And then we as a business we as a person can come alongside them and help them with that and help them be successful. We want to thank today's sponsors, time to pet and pet perennials for making today's show possible. And we really want to thank you for listening. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. And we'll be back again soon.
