606: The Power of Both/And Thinking
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In today’s pet care world, it’s easy to fall into false choices — between daycare and in-home care, solo sitters and teams, enrichment and exercise, and more. But these false dichotomies often lead to confused clients, bad service matches, and needless infighting between pet professionals. In this episode, we explore the most common false dichotomies in pet care, how they show up in client conversations and marketing, and how we as pet sitters and dog walkers can communicate more clearly and provide better care by embracing nuance. Because in pet care, it’s rarely either/or — and pets deserve better.
Main Topics:
False dichotomies in pet care
Educating clients through conversation
Marketing value over price
Blending enrichment and exercise
Embracing nuance in business decisions
Main Takeaway: Clients have been sold so many false choices. They don’t know what to believe anymore.
And that’s where we come in. As professional pet sitters and dog walkers, we’re not just providing a service—we’re a guide helping pet parents cut through the noise. Too often, they’ve been told it’s boarding or in-home care. That it’s enrichment or exercise. That it’s the neighbor or the pro. But the truth is, the best care often lives in the both/and. When we educate with empathy and lead with clarity, we help our clients feel confident—and pets get what they really need.
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
False dichotomies, pet care industry, client communication, limiting beliefs, marketing strategies, professional pet sitters, daycare vs boarding, in-home care, pricing strategies, enrichment vs exercise, flexible care, client education, business models, pet needs, industry leadership
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin
Meghan 00:00
Collin. Hi, I'm Megan. I'm Collin. We are the host of pet sitter confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. We appreciate you listening today. We'd also like to thank our sponsors, pet sitters, associates, dog co launch and our executive producers on Patreon. We do have a patreon page for those who find value in the show and want to give back. If you'd like to learn more and enjoy the podcast, you can go to pet sitter, confessional.com/support, to see a bunch of ways you can help out. The pet care industry is full of false dichotomies. This is either or thinking that really hurts the clients, pets and professionals. Us. Today, we're going to explore what exactly is a false dichotomy. Why does it show up in pet care at all, and how we can overcome this. Sometimes our false choices lead to worse outcomes, but we can overcome this by communicating better, marketing better, talking to clients more thoughtfully, and helping them a lot of times. These are limiting beliefs that we have experienced, whether in our personal life or in our business, or we're trying to compare ourselves to somebody else and make decisions based off of choices other people have made for their own businesses, thinking that it's going to be good for us too.
Collin 01:03
Well, the false dichotomy really is where we, whether intentionally or unintentionally, set up the choice between two things. I'd be like me asking you, okay, your shirt can be red or blue. What I have done is I've inherently limited that. I've just selectively limited to those two colors and presented them to you like, those are the only two possible options we out of all the colors in the world, I've said it has to be blue or red. Now this is false, because, well, can we do another shirt option? Like, what other options are there actually out there? And it's when we cut off other possibilities, other options to us, and we believe there's only two we have to choose. It's either this way or this way. And false dichotomies come up for several different reasons. They come up from basically a lack of understanding or lack of knowledge. The more that we know, the more possibilities, the more options, the more outcomes we can actually be aware of we can choose from so educating and being exposed to a wider variety of things. And then the second one that is really relevant is preconceived biases, or the notions that we bring into different situations from our past experiences. And this enters the fray through this of Well, the last time I tried to do x, y, z, it didn't work. So I only can do these two things right. The last time I tried to print on a yellow shirt, it was horrible and awful, so I only have blue or red today. Instead, what we should do is, each time we approach a new option, always, we can pull from and look back on previous and past experiences, combine that with our expanded learning and understanding and knowledge that we've gained over the years and over the time, and put these together to actually look at a much more inclusive options that we have to choose from
Meghan 02:50
well, and we do this with our kids too, because we don't want them to get overwhelmed at so many possibilities. So we can say, for your snack, you can either have the apple or the orange. Of course, there's bananas and grapes out there, but because we don't want to overwhelm them, we just say, here are your two options. The same can happen in our businesses. Of well, we may know that there's a lot of other possibilities out there, but we don't know exactly how they're going to work out, so we don't really research them, because these are these two options are the most familiar. We want to start with some of the false dichotomies that clients believe that we've heard some of our own clients say. So the dichotomy here is daycare and boarding versus in home care. Sometimes it can be framed as well. Which is better? I want to choose boarding, but I also want to hear what you have to say. How is it different? And why should I choose you? The reality is that some pets do need daycare, while others thrive in in home care. Some need a mix of both. This
Collin 03:39
is commonly presented by a well intentioned pet owner coming, and they are looking for the quote, unquote best. They've heard about a couple options, and they want to know what is best for their pet. And we can kind of subconsciously, sometimes or unintentionally reinforce this stereotype when we bash the daycare of the facilities, the kennels, right? That instead of actually helping a client think through their own pet needs and what the client is looking for. So each time we get this question, Hey, I'm looking I'm trying to decide between boarding versus having you guys come over, I need you to tell me about what you do. We always ground the conversation and flip it back on them and say, what, what are you looking for? Tell me what you would like to have happen. Basically, I'm asking, what does success look like to you in this scenario? Because we're trying to break out of this dichotomy. We're trying to remove ourselves out of this because we know it's not an apples to apples comparison. The clients don't know that, and they are putting these on the same field and going, Okay, which one of these two things is better? And we do have to take that step back and go. But what are your needs? What do you you want to have happen? What does your pet do best with and then we can have a conversation around that and build more of a pro cons checklist versus a direct one for one comparison, because
Meghan 04:55
a lot of times it's a mixture of both. If a dog is needing daycare three days a week, well you can probably. Supplement with walks the other days so they can still get that enrichment and variety.
Collin 05:04
We've also had potential clients reach out to us and present you basically choosing between a professional pet sitter or their friend and neighbor.
Meghan 05:10
And this one can be really hard, because you don't want to offend the person by saying, Oh, I've got all of this insurance and background checks and bonding and certifications while your neighbor doesn't have any of that, and you have no idea what's going on during their visit, and they could be throwing a party and cleaning it all up, and you have no
Collin 05:27
idea, right? So the client is coming to you and basically presenting it as well. My friend is going to love my pets more and a professional is going to be more transactional. That's honestly where they come in a lot of cases, of Well, you're a business, so you're going to be transactional versus my friend, who's going to be more loving and ooey gooey. So we obviously know this is wrong. We know that as professional sitters, we bring skill, yes, we bring backups, yes, we bring trust and consistency with love, right? We're the ooey gooey people. We do this day in and day out. We want to be here, and so we do have to walk that line, Megan, I'm glad you said that, because we've got to walk the line of not shaming their friend, not degrading them in any way, but we have to educate them in a positive way about what we actually do bring for the to the table. And I think that really starts with talking about why we're here, why we are in business, and why we do what we do. Because when people think about businesses most of the time they think, well, they're in this to make money. And yes, we would agree you should be making money in your business. But that's not the first reason we're here, or at least it's not the first reason that we stay here because we like helping people, like people being with their pets, and so we can talk about those aspects to them and let them in on what exactly we do, and again, why
Meghan 06:41
we're here? Well, let's go to the opposite extreme, the complete other end of the spectrum of going, Well, my neighbor comes in and just throws some cat food on the floor and leaves, and that's kind of what I expect. Well, we then have to educate and say, well, we don't do that either. We are going to check your home security make sure that it looks like somebody lives there. We are going to scoop the litter every time we come over, we are going to get eyes on your cat to make sure that everything is okay and they're not injured or hurt. You could offer a potential alternative of job sharing with the neighbor or the friend or the family. Now this isn't really something that we are okay with doing in our business, but it is an option of maybe the friend is staying overnight, and you come in during the day while the friend is at work, or
Collin 07:21
what we encounter a lot of times is somebody we can get to the point where the person the client is actually talking about, well, my neighbor doesn't want to do the super early morning visit or the afternoon visit because they're at work, but they can do the evening visit. And then that's up to us as businesses to decide if that's something that we are okay with, and if so, what kind of waivers, what kind of policies can we have in place to make sure that we are protected if we do that well? And this actually kind of bleeds into another dichotomy that we get presented with, of, usually, if it's a friend or family member, they also want to have this question of, well, do I need to choose between live in care or multiple visits? All right? And this is because that may be what they're used to. They're used to having somebody come in and stay 24/7 or somebody who works from home come over and do with that, instead of the coming and going. A lot of people, that's new to them, right? They're not comfortable with that, and so they are coming to us and basically saying, okay, here are two, only two options. Tell me about live in care versus multiple visits. And this comes from the fact that they believe that the best possible care. If you really say you love pets and you're here for these reasons, you would only offer consistently live in care and constant around the clock care you, that's what you would choose, right? An owner would also say, Well, I love my pets more than anything. I must pick the live in care because that's what they need if I love them right kind of following that down that that trajectory there, if this, then that of, if I love my pets, then they can never be alone. And so they put themselves in presenting this live and care versus multiple visits in that that's how it's couched in their brain. And we have to come to them and again, educate gently, educate politely, of talking about how many pets actually thrive with structured check in visits, so that you can stay on their routine and they don't need somebody around full time, and that that's okay for them to do that, and yes it is safe, and yes it is secure, and yes, everything will be okay.
Meghan 09:20
Now, of course, there are medical and behavioral reasons why somebody would need to stay there full time for the pet, but in general, most pets don't need 24 hours a day somebody monitoring them. The alternative here is offering overnight, so maybe 10 or 12 hours overnight, while also mixing in some visits during the day,
Collin 09:38
or even an almost overnight, where you come over and you stay at their house from eight to 10, or nine to 10, and then get back over there from six to seven the next morning to limit the amount of time that they're home alone, and then sprinkle in visits throughout the day. It's all in how we present these to the clients. And again, we talked about where do false dichotomies come from? It comes from a lack of knowledge or B preconceived notions and biases that. Come with we are responsible, then, at that point, for educating them on all of their options and guiding them to the best one and best fit for them, a
Meghan 10:11
best fit for your company is pet sitters. Associates, all professionals should have specific pet business insurance. As a pet sitter, you know how much trust goes into caring for someone's furry family member, but who's got your back for over 25 years, pet sitters Associates has been helping pet care pros like you with affordable, flexible insurance coverage, whether you're walking dogs, pet sitting or just starting out, they make it easy to protect your business. Get a free quote today at pets@llc.com and as a listener, you get $10 off your membership when you use code confessional at checkout. That's pets@llc.com because your peace of mind is part of great pet care. Even us as pet care pros can feel like we fall into false dichotomies as well these limiting beliefs that make us feel like we have to choose one thing or another because again, of something that we've experienced in the past, or something that we see another business doing, and we go, oh, well, I didn't really, I only thought there was one option, but here's another option, and But there's even more out there that I don't even know about yet.
Collin 11:06
And some of these, I think, can be rooted in deeply held convictions and beliefs, and I think that that's it's not saying, Okay, I have to question everything that I believe, or I have to question everything that I've learned or have known up to this point. But I think it is good to make sure that we are expanding our knowledge and our understanding of what truly is possible. You know, of maybe it's something that you've always done it a particular way, and then somebody presents it to you in a different way, and you think, Well, I can't possibly do that. I know a great one actually, that comes up a lot in this is pen and paper versus software. Oh, I see this all of the time. Of pen and paper is the only way to run, because that's all I've ever run. And somebody comes along and says, Okay, well, have you tried software? And immediately the thought is, you mean I have to completely and totally give up all of my pen and paper and go 100% into software, and the answer is no, right? Like those, you do not have to it's not one or the other. To the exclusion of the
Meghan 12:08
first, yeah, if you present welcome packets to clients at meet and greets, and you're like, I love this, clients have given me feedback before. Of this is the way to go, and I know that I can use some of the bits of software, but I'm real. I'm not willing to give this part up. It's too important, and clients love it too much. That's That's okay,
Collin 12:26
yep. So again, it's really understanding what are the options for you, how you operate, how you serve your clients, and what's the best possible fit between them, right? It's not saying that we can't ever have improvements, because that's not that's obviously not true, but we can just enhance what we are doing. I know another one that comes up all of the time again, all these are all of the time, right? But one is, is remaining a solo sitter or having a team. Here, it's usually presented something like this on an online post on Facebook, whatever is solo is the only way to provide loving care, or teams are the only way that you can scale your business and see what this word here, this word is only that's what we want to push back against here, this, this truly is a false dichotomy, because both are amazing, fantastic, great models of running your business. We know many solo sitters who are running six figure and up businesses based off of how they are pricing and how they are structured, and what they are doing and they are thriving. They've been doing this for decades. We know other people who have been growing and scaling teams and are living also equally amazing lives. What matters here is fit, right? It's fit for you, fit for your clients, fit for the pets in how you view that, right? It matters in your systems, it matters in your communication, in what you want out of this. So that we should stay away from presenting this such as it's this way or that way. There's nothing possible. You know, there's no mixture here. We have to stay flexible. We have to stay thoughtful in how we talk to our clients about our services and about how we want to run and manage our own business. And that's
Meghan 14:00
why it's so important to keep learning, to keep learning about the different ways people are running their businesses. So whether it's listening to someone here on the podcast that we interview, or going into Facebook groups and asking a question about how people run a certain aspect of their business, or talking with your local network of pet sitters and dog walkers, even conferences can be amazing for this, because if you feel like you want to change something, or you feel stuck in a certain position. I'm sure there are lots of other people who run their businesses completely differently. There's such a myriad of options out there for everything in this business,
Collin 14:31
yeah, everything from solo where no one else is involved in your business, to having people who are on only part time and with variable hours for set days of the week to give you a break, all the way up to the extreme where you are completely out of the field. You've got managers upon managers and team leads and in the field leads, and you have people who are working full time for you and all sorts of things for you. Again, the spectrum there is immense, and there is something along that for everybody
Meghan 14:58
we couldn't talk about. False dichotomies without talking about pricing. So premium pricing versus accessibility. The false idea here is that you are either affordable or you are premium. The truth, though, is you can communicate value at any price point. The goal is clarity, not exclusivity. Now, obviously you have to pay your bills. You can't not have electricity in your home just because you want to offer cheap dog walks. That's not going to work. So there is a minimum viable option here, but a lot of times on the other end, we hear, oh, people could never pay that price. I'm never I'm going to lose all of my clients. They're going to go to someone else if I raise my prices anymore.
Collin 15:36
So this all boils down to, how are we marketing and messaging to our clients about our services. Are we really talking about value here, or are we talking about a specific price point, a specific dollar amount that people are paying? Or are we talking about what they get, the life they get to lead, the problems that we are solving for them? And bad messaging and marketing happens across the board. You know, both you know small businesses and big players in the industry as well. We have to message with nuance about our pricing and about what people get from us, because at the end of the day, there is $1 amount to what we do. It does cost something, but when our clients better understand what they get from that, it completely removes the discussion of pricing versus accessibility, and it comes to solutions for them, we
Meghan 16:25
talked about selling what has to be experienced on episode 598 so it is hard to communicate that value, but if you just say, Oh, I'm reliable, pay me $45 for a walk, not many people are probably going to take you up on that. But when you are able to use emotion and clearly communicate the value for what they're going to be paying. Hopefully you'll have people knocking down your doors. Another good false dichotomy, or I guess bad false dichotomy, is enrichment versus exercise. Sometimes we can tend to think walks must be about exercise or enrichment. We must pound the pavement and get in a good two miles or stop and sniff every single flower. Well, that's not necessarily the case. A best practice could be both and both, pound the pavement, get in as many steps as possible, while also, if the dog wants to sniff, let the dog sniff. But it's also going to depend on what the client is looking for. If it's a young golden retriever, they're probably going to be looking for a lot more exercise than, say, an older Chihuahua,
Collin 17:21
and clients love to be seen and heard on this they want again. You are, you are taking this apart, and you're going, I don't have to do one or the other. I can do both. I can mix it up in between them, and I'm going to make sure I'm meeting your pets needs. When we talk about the power that we provide of the one on one, the individualized care, the personalized care that we provide, this is at the core of that. This is what we are talking about, if you're taking care of cats, many people will say, Oh, well, you either going to do a play session or you're going to do sit quietly with the cat and ignore them if they want. Why not? Both see what the cat actually wants to do, right, and adapt your visits to that. These kind of beliefs that we're talking about here with the indirect with the care like this. These come from not having a lot of knowledge or understanding on actually pets and their behavior, and so the more that we can learn specifically about individual animals and get to know them personally through a good onboarding and intake process and to trial visits, then we really can step out of the box, and instead of allowing it to become just a cookie cutter of a chunk, a chunk of chunk, this is what I do, always what I do. Nothing else shall come between. We can go there's nuance here. There's actually a lot of gray area in between here that we get to play in, that we get to experiment with, that we can bond with and build a relationship with both the pet and their
Meghan 18:38
owner. And going back to the first point of being a professional, that's something that we can bring to the table. Of going we are going to notice these things. We are going to notice changes in behavior, or we are going to report on your dog's poop, whether you like it or not, welcome. And now a word from Michelle with dog co launch.
Speaker 1 18:55
Dog co Business Summit is coming up soon, located in Winston, Salem, North Carolina, September 26 through the 28th This is a conference for scaling pet care companies. Learn from top industry leaders about how to take your pet care business to the next level. Go to dogco summit.com to get your ticket today,
Meghan 19:17
through all of these limiting beliefs, it is important to remember how we market and communicate. We don't want to reinforce these false dichotomies with either in ourselves or with clients. So to do that, we want to use inclusive language. We want to avoid saying things like the only right way is to do this. We don't want to shame other care options. We don't want to put others down. Because while we know that we offer the best care in our entire city. We also want to be people of integrity that are kind to others.
Collin 19:45
Well, this fits so well with the story brand framework, where we get to be the guide. We get to help the pet owner, the pet parent, decide on the best option before them. We get to take them along that journey, that thought process. We get to say for. Your pet based off of your needs. Here's what may work best. Here are things to consider. Here are pros and cons to each that it elevates you as a professional in that it helps them see the good, positive outcomes that that you have seen and that you have experienced with your business and your way of working, and it put it empowers them to make an educated decision instead of coming in and just saying, I need a or b, tell me which one, or if there's only a or b, we get to come alongside them and point out to all the options and take them from where they're starting to an end point along the way. And and, yeah, it may mean that they ultimately don't choose us. That certainly happens to us whenever we get a potential client, reach out, I'm talking with them, figuring out what they want. You will come across people who go, nope, I need somebody there. 24/7, regardless of whether I've, you know, explained why they don't, or blah, blah, blah, or what we can do, or how we can adapt to that, and given them other options. If somebody's just stuck on one thing, we have to step back and go, okay, that's okay. I understand. We are respecting that client. We're treating them with dignity. Clients get bombarded with bad messaging, bad marketing, with with high, you know, tension and high stress sales pitches all of the time from other brands. We have to and we must be above that and be better than that. Treat them like humans, and treat them with respect and dignity that they deserve, and that means presenting options and educating over forcing them into one option versus the other,
Meghan 21:27
and not bad talking to other people, because nobody wants to work with a business that is just putting down their competition and saying, Well, you need to choose me and definitely don't go with them because of XYZ reasons, and I've heard this about them. Instead, we want to educate rather than shame. Clients have been sold false choices online. They don't know what to believe anymore, because it seems like everything can just be made up. But help them think about the nuances of this. So if they want walks for their dog, say we can offer enrichment and exercise, and these are the ways that we do that, why should they choose in home care? Well, it can match or exceed facility care, depending on the pet. Again, we're not putting anyone in a box here. It could be a conglomeration of care options, both friends and professionals can be loving towards your pet, but because I'm a professional, I bring reliability and depth that I will be there when you need me, and if I cannot, then I have backups in case. And here
Collin 22:22
we're talking about educating without shaming. In regards to shaming the potential client, as well as potential shaming the other businesses or other ways of operating, we again get to take to the client and say, Okay, I know you think that may be the best option, or that these are the only things that we're choosing from right now. But here is what all of your options are, and based off of what I'm hearing from you and your needs, here's my recommendation for how we could help you solve that, to get you where you need to go. And then likewise, if they come in, they say, Okay, I'm I want boarding and or I don't want boarding, and like, oh yeah, that's a horrible place. Don't, don't take them there. And that's XYZ and blah blah. We have to stay away from that. We have to instead, present facts, talk about what's best for them and their pet all along that way. And when we view what we do as educating over and against marketing or advertising, this really helps cement us in a foundation of strength, knowing that we are here to help people make well informed decisions that's in the best interest of them and their pet the
Meghan 23:24
not shaming extends to ourselves as well. We don't know what we don't know. When we first started out, 13 years ago, we had no idea the breadth of knowledge that we were about to obtain over the next decade. There is so much to this business, and a lot of times we operate out of ignorance, not necessarily because we're doing it on purpose. We just don't know, and that's why the educating, not only our clients but ourselves, is super important so that we can offer that excellent professional service that clients expect. We should embrace that both and thinking it doesn't always have to be or walks or daycare. Well, maybe it's a blend of both. Some clients and pets do best with this with in home care and boarding exercise and enrichment, because in a lot of cases, the both and serves pets better
Collin 24:12
because it allows their needs to be met with hyper specificity. It allows for a lot more ways to adapt and grow with the pet as their needs changed. The needs of a 10 week old puppy are very different than a 10 year old lab, and so we can come alongside that client and think of again out of the box, thinking, this takes the education. This takes sometimes stepping out of our comfort zone, reaching for some knowledge and understanding what's going on. And think of what does the pet need when, when we start our services and our businesses with what is the pets need? What's in their best interest, not in what do I want to provide, or what's the lifestyle I want to live? This really flips how we talk. This really flips how we communicate and structure everything. And the recommendations that we give to the owner as well. Because the more flexible that we are, the more nuanced we are as business owners, as pet sitters and dog walkers, the more valuable we become to our clients, because they truly see us as somebody who is giving them the best possible information that we can that they know they can come to us and get an unbiased opinion and a professional recommendation on what their pet needs.
Meghan 25:30
So that's not to say that if 90% of people coming to you are wanting overnights, that you should start offering overnights when you don't want to leave your bed ever, but it can inform your choices moving forward of okay, maybe I start offering almost overnight, or maybe I look for other ways to enhance the services I do offer. We can use the data that clients are giving us in order to make more informed choices. When we have these limiting beliefs, these false dichotomies, it can really hurt us. It can hurt our business. It can hurt potentially, our clients and ultimately the pets we serve our clients best when we embrace that nuance, when we educate well them and ourselves, and we think in terms of the both and rather than the either or so. Watch out for your marketing. Watch your conversations, watch your mindset around this topic, when we have flexible and thoughtful care that really is going to shape the future of the industry, and you can be a leader in modeling that if you've had beliefs that have held you back from making big decisions or false dichotomies that you've believed, we would love to hear them. You can email us at Pet Sitter confessional@gmail.com, or look us up on Facebook and Instagram at Pet Sitter confessional, we appreciate you joining us today, and also want to thank our sponsors, pet sitters, associates and dog co launch, and we can't forget our Patreon people too. We will talk with you next time bye.
