644: Copycats: They Can Copy the Idea, Not the Way You Deliver
Brought to you by:
Pet Sitters Associates. Use ‘Confessional’ at checkout
What do you do when competitors copy your ideas, wording, or services? In this episode, we share a practical mindset shift: ideas are cheap—execution is everything. We explore how delivery, team training, client experience, and reliability become the differentiators copycats can’t replicate. We talk through stability as a strategy, resisting reactive changes, and doubling down on strengths. We close with concrete ways to serve deeper, not louder, so you lead for years—not minutes.
Main topics:
Copying vs. true execution
Delivery as differentiation
Stability as a strategy
Serve deeper, not louder
Training and systems moat
Main takeaway: “People can copy what you offer. They can’t copy who you are.”
People can copy your prices, your services, even your words—but not you. Your standards, training, reliability, and care are built day after day through consistent delivery. That’s the moat no one sees on a webpage. When imitation shows up, don’t get reactive—get excellent. Keep serving deeper, refining your systems, and showing up for clients. Consistency beats mimicry every time.
Links:
Give us a call! (636) 364-8260
Follow us on: Instagram and Facebook
Subscribe on iTunes or Spotify
Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Copycats, pet sitter, frustration, innovation, execution, market differentiation, customer service, training and development, legal aspects, consistency, client experience, service delivery, business strategy, competition, mindset shifts.
SPEAKERS
Collin, Meghan
Meghan 00:02
You work hard, you experiment, you try something new, then one day, someone copies it. There's this gut reaction, annoyance, violation, frustration, insecurity. If you have felt that you are not alone, let's talk about it. I'm Megan, I'm Collin, and we are the hosts of pet sitter confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Thank you so much for listening today. We would also like to thank our sponsor, pet sitters associates and our Patreon people, for supporting today's show. They have listened to one or 644 episodes of the podcast now, and they love it. They want to give a few dollars of their hard earned money back every month to help support the podcast and to keep it going, if that sounds like you, you're listening in like, yeah, I would love to help. You can go to pet sitter, confessional.com/support, to see all of the ways that you can help. So let's talk about copycats. They don't copy by accident. They see the cool thing that you were doing or something that they think works for you, and because you're doing it and they copy it. They see stuff that works. They mirror maybe services or prices or the same software that you have your policies, or maybe they copy words on your website. It feels personal. It feels like an attack against your character. You've worked hard to create something, or maybe worked something out over a long period of time and really honed it to the best that it can be, and then somebody just feel steals it from you. It doesn't feel good.
Speaker 1 01:24
Well, it really stings, because you put in hours and hours and hours of work. Maybe you actually paid somebody for this. You went and got you paid for your brand, or you paid for this copy on your website, and then somebody comes in and just goes, copy, paste and adds it to theirs, right? You spent those creative hours. You really brainstorm this. You had lots of trial and error. Maybe risk you. You took a risk on putting out a service or wording, or took that risk to increase to a certain level of pricing, and immediately somebody comes by and takes it from you. And
Meghan 01:57
sometimes it can be really obvious with a service of that's not been offered in your area before, and you were the first one to do it, and then a couple months later, somebody else is doing it. And it can be frustrating. Of I'm trying to create this market here, and while I'm glad that people also think it's awesome, it can be a little frustrating when you are trying to do a thing,
Collin 02:16
they took a shortcut that you really pushed to make a reality. You really pushed in a direction, you really tried, and then they just came in and took that shortcut. It really does feel like theft, even though, if legally it isn't, they're just copying you, and there's this underneath you start to feel like, Am I good enough to stand out anymore? And what's the point in pushing forward and adapting and always changing. If the moment I do it, all of the novelty, the newness the market I've just created that just gets sucked away by all the copycats,
Meghan 02:51
and even if just one or two other people are doing it, it can start to feel like a commodity, like the same service is being offered by so many people in my area that what I'm doing isn't special anymore. I don't stand out. How can I continue to raise the bar and differentiate myself when people are just continuing to copy me? Because, I mean, I'm glad they think I'm awesome, but it is. It's irritating
Speaker 1 03:13
well, so this is where you have to come in with a couple different mindset shifts. And the first one is really understanding at its core that the people the other business, they can copy the idea, but never the execution of
Meghan 03:26
it. That is true. They don't know your secret sauce. You know, we say often a dog walk is a dog walk. Is a dog walk? Okay? Well, how do you do it? Do you offer chilled water during the walk? Or maybe there's a service that has never been offered before, or with prices you are continuing to raise the bar and offer higher and higher prices, but your value also goes along with that. It's not just a number on a website or a number on a Facebook page. You know the value that you offer, and it's probably not the same value as the someone who's copying you. Well, you
Collin 03:55
have to be honest here. Ideas are cheap, even though it takes a while to come up with them, hone them, refine them. The idea is cheap. It's really the execution that is the true separator. The execution is the hard part. And I know there are times where you may look at another person who is doing something or copying what you're doing. We've got to have the mindset of, I can out operate them. It's not I can out innovate them. It's I can do that way better than they ever can. They can't. They will never have your background, your systems. They're not going to have your culture or your consistency, your discipline, to every day show up and be excellent, because that is something that very, very, very few people can do. They may be able to show up that first day, but it's the second, third, fourth and the infinite one.
Meghan 04:50
We can really see this very well in products, right? There's 15,000 different types of vacuums you can buy, and yes, there's different attachments and different. Settings. But it doesn't just have to be about the actual product. It can be about the customer service on the back end, or the guarantee that they offer, or maybe you donate $1 per service to the Humane Society back or some other community initiative. How you do the dog walk is different. How the vacuum opera, how the Shark vacuum, operates, versus the Dyson, is different.
Speaker 1 05:20
Delivery is hard delivery on that promise, consistency in your service and how you serve other people, that's really what is felt by the customers, felt by the client is when is when you go, Hey, anybody can read a social media post and it sound wonderful. How did it actually turn out for that person? How did it actually turn out for the dog? Were they actually safe? Did that client actually have peace of mind? That's the true differentiator is delivering on your promise. And while it is frustrating to see the same ad copy that you have out there that you just wrote, and that somebody copies it and puts it on and you have the initial thought of, well, can people even tell the difference between us if we sound and look the same? They absolutely can when they experience it. And that's ultimately where, where the dividing line is, is the experience for the client
Meghan 06:14
well, and something also, if you are the one being copied, you may look at a thing that somebody else copied from you and go, well, that actually didn't work for me. I tried that, I tried that initiative, or I tried that ad copy, and well, what that person doesn't know is that that thing didn't work at all. And so sometimes when people copy us, I kind of get a good chuckle, because I'm like, Well, okay, if they can make it work, God bless. Go on, because it's more power to you, because it sure didn't work for
Collin 06:41
us, right? Well, that is a good feeling, because, again, they don't know the background. They don't have the why behind it. They don't know why it's done a certain way. They're just copying it and kind of being blindly taken in one direction versus another. And it really does prove that when you are copied, this can sound kind of trite, right, right, but you really are the leader. When people are looking to you to pull services from, pull copy from, pull ads from, pull ideas from, that means that you are the leader for where you are in your market. They don't copy from the bottom of the class. Nobody's looking over the shoulder at the people making an F on the test. They're always trying to look over the shoulder of people making A's and A pluses consistently, because they know that they know what the excellence actually is, and so this is a bad badge that we can wear on our shoulder, right? This is evidence that we you are setting the standard when people think pet care, dog walking, professionalism, you're top of mind, not just in your market, for your clients, but also for your competitors. And that's amazing. It means that they the market, saw value in what you've built, and are looking to you continually.
Meghan 07:53
But it can be hard when you are continued to be copied over and over again to go, well, then I have sure I'm the leader, but then I'm the one generating all of the ideas, and sure, they can execute differently, but all of the ideas, I'm having to work extra hard, because all the ideas are coming from me and my brain and what I can come up with. And at some point I feel like I'm going to run out of ideas, and then we're all just going to be again, the same company, but
Speaker 1 08:17
again, because you have the background that you do, you have to trust in the first thing that we talked about, you can out operate them. I mean, we see this all the time. If you go to an event and there are other people there as dog walking and pet sitting businesses, and you have your display and you're doing pop cups, or you're doing whatever, and the next time you go to an event, oh, a few more people have pop cups, and a few more people have these things that you had, and a few more you had, and a few more people have branded this and branded that when they didn't before. And you kind of are because you're spearheading the market the person who's immediately behind you. It's easier for them to step in and take that idea and take that idea, but again, here's the thing, they can't do that at all. And when you have the mind share of what professionalism is, they are just cheap copies and cheap knockoffs. Nobody can do it as good as you can, but they're trying. And so this does a couple of things. I mean, this does validate what you're doing. This does mean that that standard that you're setting, when other pet owners look to the market, they see that and you will stand out based off of how you operate, based off how you bring those people in, that customer service that you have, that nobody else can copy or duplicate. Those are true differentiators that can never be taken from you, even if they take the same words.
Meghan 09:36
The copying is easy. Copy, Paste, done. It's the delivery that is hard. Your market may see value in what you built, not what somebody else built, but that's where the real innovation actually lives. So in the service based industry, in service delivery, it's not the service you offer, but how you deliver it. It's all the intangibles. How easy was it? Was there a. Lot of friction. Did they have to jump through a lot of hoops, or was it just that the onboarding process was super easy and seamless?
Collin 10:06
It's also in things like the quality of your photos. Do you obsess about that? Do you take 45 photos and then only select the top three? Nobody else is doing that. Nobody else is making sure that things are in focus, well lit, that they are well framed that they capture of the story of your time with that pet. These are things that you cannot copy off of a website, because this is on the user experience end. This is of the customer experience. What's your response time? This is, how quickly do you respond back to them? What's your tone every time they do that. Are you annoyed? Are you frustrated? Are you angry? You can't copy that off of a website or a social media post your reliability, right? You can't copy this. You can't copy the fact that you will always be there. That's a promise that Megan and I have in our business. We don't guarantee times, but I guarantee
Speaker 1 10:56
visits will always be done, always we will every time that we say we're gonna do that's a promise that we're never going to break, and that builds that peace of mind. This is a much broader picture of that customer experience than just words on a page and photos on a website. It's do you actually do what you're say you're going to do? And we know 90% of the providers out there can't
Collin 11:19
do that and cannot deliver consistently.
Meghan 11:22
The innovation also lives in your training and your team development. If you have employees, this is where you can shine. Copycats can't replicate your standards or your coaching or your onboarding. For your employees, they don't know what videos they watch or what the setup is for shadowing, even if you say, we use PET sit Pro to train our employees. Well, another company doesn't know what videos you make them watch, and the quizzes that you have them take, and all of the back end
Collin 11:48
support. And this holds true even if you are and especially true if you are a solo business operator in that you're what you expose yourself to, the trainings that you undergo, the quizzes that you take the certifications that you get in your life, those are what separates you, and not just that, but in how you apply it to your business. Megan and I think, over the last year, have really started to see what we do and how we do it as a training and development business, training and developing professional level dog walkers and pet sitters. The reason we view that is is because we have to take people, come from wherever they are, and bring them up to our internal standards. That process is really refined and crafted, and we're constantly changing it to make sure that we're meeting their needs, providing them resources, and then the oversight and how we hold them accountable to that. When you view yourself as a training and development institution in the pet care space, it really changes the game on how you approach your people, which impacts the quality of care and the output for your
Meghan 12:55
clients. You can also innovate and be different through how you handle issues. If a client has an issue and comes to you and says, I need to cancel for this, well, what is your policy about that? Sure somebody can copy your cancelation policy. But how do you do you handhold clients through that? How are you nurturing your client base? It's not just nurturing employees, but how are you nurturing your clients? What happens behind the scenes that nobody can see? Again, we're talking about kind of your secret sauce here, innovation isn't always shiny. Sometimes it's invisible. It's what happens behind the computer, how you interact with clients.
Collin 13:29
What's that phone call like when they call upset or worried about something? How do you guide them through that? Like you said, Do you handhold? Do you just wave them off and say, Never mind. I'm too busy right now. I can't meet that or take care of you, or do you have a service mindset and a servant mindset of helping people and listening to them and adapting to what they need and how they need it? That is all part of that process. And again, I keep coming back to this because it's all superficial level things that you see on the internet and on websites, it's just words on a page, it's just photos. It really has me thinking of, you know, if, if somebody completely copied your brand, your name, your words, your services, could somebody blindfolded tell the difference between them?
Speaker 1 14:17
Really think about that. The answer is, is yes, they could tell the difference with how you handle that phone call, how you write your update. They could tell the difference with how their pets are feeling whenever you leave, versus the other copycat. That is really what sets businesses apart, is we are a people business. We're a feelings and emotion business. Because of that. People have feelings, they have emotions, they have concerns, they have desires, they have biases, they have all these things. It's how we handle, manage and direct and guide those that really changes the game for operating and when we focus on those, versus just our ad copy and what's in our handbook, when we focus on the outcomes people based outcomes. Human outcomes, that's the difference.
Meghan 15:03
Do you know what? We hope everyone copies great 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 petsit llc.com as a listener, you get $10 off your membership when you use code confessional at checkout. That's petsit llc.com because your peace of mind is part of great pet care. Now, of course, when we talk about copying, we have to talk about a legal aspect of this. I mean, if your name is trademarked or copyrighted or registered. There could be some legal roads that you could go down if you talk to a lawyer. We are not lawyers. We're not here to give advice on any of that, but we are saying that copying one social media post is one thing versus an entire website that is likely where you should get legal involved.
Collin 15:56
Yeah, this is copying ad posts, not copyright laws in how it changes to your brand and your business name and your life. Your licensing. I know for me in these instances, when I hear this, I have this gut reaction to I need to then change everything. I need to then rip everything out and start all over again and try and be completely new and fresh. And I think really where the power comes in, sometimes the best move as a business is to not move at all. Stability really is a strategy. You can look at businesses across industries to this. One of my favorite go tos is the Bic crystal ballpoint pen. It hasn't changed in something like 50 years. They've just, they've just really, really honed in on making this the most excellent, most cheap, most dependable, reliable pin, and they haven't changed it at all. You don't have to consistently reinvent yourself or your business or your services just because one person copies you.
Meghan 16:52
So say you add pet taxi services, and then a month later, your competitor does the exact same thing. Well, you've already built out the infrastructure. You've already worked out the kinks. You know exactly how this works, versus somebody who's just slapping this on and they don't really know what they're doing or what all of this entails. You've thought about this. You You've maybe even tested the market before you put it on your website and started promoting on social media. So you've already worked out the kinks. You have the infrastructure. You know exactly the systems that are in place and you can now do this for the long term, versus somebody who slaps it on their website doesn't know what they're doing and is probably going to burn out faster because they don't know the intricacies of what you know. They just said, Oh, well, I guess we should do this.
Collin 17:34
Yep. And you focus on that pet taxi. You focus on that pet taxi. And you refine, you refine, you refine. You offer it, and you never waver from your vision, the values that you had in offering that you never waver from your standards, from your policies, in that you are so consistent that you become unshakable.
Speaker 1 17:53
Going back to the Bic pen, that crystal ballpoint pen, there are so many cheap pens out there, but nobody knows what they are, because you just think of that pin, it's defined the category. Why would you buy anything else when that pin is around proven
Collin 18:09
trustworthy and reliable, we don't have to outrun people or our businesses by changing we outrun them by performing and performing consistently. Megan and I have said this forever, of the hardest thing about this kind of business is not showing up that one time, not just doing it once it's doing it excellent and performing at a high, consistent level every single time. When we think about our business, we think about Will we and how do we ensure that we are performing at the same high level today as we will be and as we want to be in 10 or 20 years. How do I guarantee that that changes how you approach your business operations. It changes the promises that you make. It changes the words that you use internally and the drive that you have and the team that you
Meghan 19:01
build. Now, of course, we have to add the caveat of, well, if you expanded to a service area and then you saw your competitors doing the same thing, but you realized that, no, that's not something you want to do anymore, or there isn't actually interest where you thought there was. Then of course, you can change. You can pull the plug that we're not saying, that you shouldn't just because you got to outlast them. No, that's not what we're saying. But if you truly believe in what you do and are excellent at it, then you have every right to keep doing it, even if somebody is trying to copy you.
Speaker 1 19:31
Yeah, we're not going to stick it out just to be spiteful here. So we're also not going to just change our pricing in a panic because somebody else raised to our pricing, or maybe they lowered and are trying to undercut us and where we used to be. We're not going to trash talk our competitors in our community. We're not going to trash talk other businesses and try and demean them in what they're doing. We're not going to get reactive or emotional or comment and be snide in comments or try and, you know, demean them in any way. And that
Meghan 19:57
can be hard when you go to events and you're like. Well, they're just copying the same thing. I don't look any different, or they have the same brand colors now, or they're offering the same service, or they're giving the same swag away. It can be hard not to just turn the other way and completely ignore them and not go say hi. Yeah.
Collin 20:13
We cannot burn our energy in obsessing over them. You have so much more on your plate, and you have so much more important things to do, ie delivering amazing services and thinking of another idea and getting good and quality sleep. The thing about this is, is that when we react in this way, it places them in control. It means that I am spending more time thinking about them, worried about them, obsessing over them, that I am focused on what I need to be doing and my own
Meghan 20:47
priorities. A lot of times we just need to put our head down and move on forward. Be the bull. Just keep going.
Speaker 1 20:53
Execution is what brings us back into control, absolutely, and it's focusing on what we can control. You'll never be able to control what they copy off of your website. You'll never be able to control what they put on their table at that event or what service they think they want to offer. You can't control that. So instead, get busy about the work that you can actually do impacting your business and the lives of your clients and your team,
Meghan 21:15
which is why you should double down on your strengths. Are you really good at taking pictures, or excellent at your updates or budgeting or finances, so you can be here in 10 years, so you know how much money you have to invest back in you in the business. You can also improve your systems. That is a practical step you can do to be better than everybody else do. You need to get a better software or a better onboarding system for clients and employees,
Collin 21:41
you can also start serving deeper and not louder. Not everything you do needs to be squawked about online. You don't need to post all this flashy stuff promoting and talking about and playing up and trying to puff yourself up online. Instead, focus on those things that you can do, really invest in your clients, really make sure that they are taken care of at a personal level. What trainings are you pulling back into and putting in front of your team members? Or are you investing in yourself? Not every training certificate has to be posted online, and just this really shows why you're doing this. And when you do these things internally, when you focus deeply and inwardly on everything that you're doing and how you are serving other people. You don't have to brag about that. It doesn't have to be talked about everywhere as possible, because it is. It cheapens what you're doing. It takes the focus off the purpose that you're trying to do and how you're trying to help people. But that
Meghan 22:37
doesn't mean never talking about yourself, because, of course, people want to celebrate with you when you've hit 1000 visits for the year, or you've hit the revenue goal, or you've donated X amount to the Humane Society,
Collin 22:49
yeah, but I think it really is about keeping your eyes on your client, not your copycat. I think it's really about making sure that everything you do is focused on serving the people in front of you, not the people coming behind you. We don't want to try and serve the people who are stealing our ideas and taking all this stuff. I want to serve the people who are invested, who are invested in me. They want to see me succeed. They should and deserve all of my undivided attention when we are hyper focused on making sure that our clients are well cared for and our team is the best, that's where we start seeing true results, and also you stop having as many headaches and sleepless nights, because you're not worried about somebody else doing something. You're focused on what you can actually implement, which you can actually change. I
Meghan 23:36
definitely agree with not obsessing. We do a market analysis at the beginning of the year, though, look at our competitors, what they're doing, how much they're charging. So at some point you will be cognizant of these things going on. But yes, not dwelling on them is very healthy. Copycats often burn out because shortcut thinkers rarely have that staying power. What I was talking about a minute ago, of that infrastructure, of they don't know everything the six months of hard times that you had to go through in order to build this thing or expand to this area or charge this
Speaker 1 24:09
they haven't built that muscle. They haven't built that resilience to go through those moments, or the policies and the procedures, that infrastructure that nobody raves about, the scaffolding in a building. They just care that the building is there until the building gets shaken and then they're really worried about what is supporting it and what that infrastructure actually is.
Collin 24:29
Your goal is five year excellence, not five minute attention, and that's all copycatters are after. They're just trying to ride your coattails to get the attention, get the get the promotion, get the clicks that you're getting, because that's what they're after, just these quick one offs. But that's not what we're after. I don't want the most clicks today. I want to be here in 510, 1520, years.
Meghan 24:55
So we need to be the company that stays, not the company that imitates. We don't want to be. The copycat. We want to be the innovators, then the leaders, setting the stage, rolling out the red carpet, going, Okay, let's walk on through. Here we go.
Collin 25:08
Because people can copy what you offer. They can't copy what you do
Speaker 1 25:11
and who you are. They can't copy you. And that is where we can sit back and go, Well, I still have the upper hand, because I am me. I am who I am. Come and get it,
Meghan 25:28
take it or leave it, I guess. Yeah, consistency beats mimicry every time it's staying the course. Doing you the best that you can, you don't win by having the newest idea. You win by having the best execution. If you have thoughts on copycats or have been copied before, 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 listening today. Thank you for taking your time. We hope that this has been helpful to you. We would also like to thank pet sitters Associates, and we will talk with you next time, bye. You.
