645: Saying No, Growing Smart: Building Your Dream Business with Lindsey Perriello
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What does it take to build a successful, heart-centered pet sitting business? Lindsey Perriello shares her path from surgical tech to pet care professional, highlighting the emotional toll of past jobs and how her values shaped the company she leads today. She discusses the challenges of setting boundaries, training staff, and keeping a personal touch with 300+ clients. Lindsey’s approach is rooted in education, empathy, and honesty—qualities she believes all pet sitters should bring to their work. This conversation is full of practical insights and vulnerable moments that reflect the realities of small business ownership.
Main topics:
Career change to pet care
Ethical client relationships
Continuing education & certifications
Managing staff and quality control
Boundaries and pricing challenges
Main takeaway: “Families are putting their trust in us, and in return, I want to do the best that I can.”
When someone hands you their keys and their pets, they’re not just hiring a service—they’re extending trust. Our job isn’t simply to meet expectations; it’s to honor that trust through professionalism, communication, and care that never cuts corners.
Training, insurance, certifications, systems—these aren’t boxes to check. They’re how we prove we take that trust seriously.
Whether you’re solo or leading a team, remember: your clients don’t see your behind-the-scenes effort, but they feel it in every visit report, every thoughtful update, every safe return home.
💬 What’s one way you show clients they can trust you?
About our guest: Lindsey Perriello is the owner of Lindsey’s Dog Walking, based in Lower Burrell, Pennsylvania. After over a decade as a surgical tech and a stint in memorial sales, Lindsey turned to pet care in 2018. She built her business on principles of continuing education, staff reliability, and personal relationships with clients. Lindsey is certified through Pet Sitters International, Fear Free Pets, and Karen Pryor Academy. Her team of five serves a small, local area with high standards and big heart. Known for her attention to detail and compassionate care, Lindsey has grown her client base to over 300 through word-of-mouth and social media, all while prioritizing work-life balance and client trust.
Links:
Website: https://lindseysdogwalking.com
Facebook: Ladies with Leashes
Instagram: @ladieswithleashes
TikTok: @ladieswithleashes
Email: lindseyperriellow@gmail.com
Organizations Mentioned:
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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Pet Sitter Confessional, its hosts, or sponsors. We interview individuals based on their experience and expertise within the pet care industry. Any statements made outside of this platform, or unrelated to the topic discussed, are solely the responsibility of the guest.
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Pet sitting business, Lindsay's dog walking, boundaries, certifications, pricing, staying small, client education, ongoing education, professional pet sitter, National Association of Professional Pet Sitters, Time to Pet, client relationships, business challenges, employee hiring, quality of care
SPEAKERS
Collin, Lindsey Perriello
Collin 00:02
What does it take to build a successful, heart centered pet sitting business? Lindsay, owner of Lindsay's dog walking joins the show today to share her journey from the operating room to running a thriving pet care business in Pennsylvania. She dives into boundaries, certifications, pricing and how staying small helps her stay connected. This is Pet Sitter confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Today, we're brought to you by our friends at time to pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters. Let's get started. Sure.
Lindsey Perriello 00:34
Thank you for having me. By the way, I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I started my business in 2018 um, I'm married. I've been married for 18 years. I met my husband in band camp. He not that anybody cares, but he played the saxophone, and I was in Color Guard. And we have two bastard hounds and an English bulldog. And, yeah, that's, that's
Collin 01:06
us as a fellow band nerd. Hello, I was, I was Drum Major in marching band and played the clarinet. So that's, that's great. You you started in 2018 What were you doing before then? And what was it like, you know, coming into the pet industry.
Lindsey Perriello 01:26
So I had been working in the operating room as a surgical technologist for about 11 years, and I needed a change. I just couldn't do it anymore. It's, it's a great job, and I absolutely loved the people I worked with. You would never like you can never find a better group of people. But I just after 11 years, I needed a change, and oddly enough, I ended up working in the death industry for about two years. I worked at a cemetery across the street from my house. I was what they call a memorial counselor, and I sold grave plots, headstones, caskets, urns, all that stuff. I did it for about two years, and I have to tell you, there's a lot of money to be made. Man, I did very, very well, but I came home feeling like a piece of garbage every day, because you're taught to sell people during the worst times of their life, when people are upset, they're crying, they just lost the loved one. And I just always felt like I'm taking advantage of these people. I'm taking advantage of them, even though I do believe that pre arranging, pre arranging, your your burial and your, you know, your service and all that stuff. I think it's a good idea, but to take advantage of people during the worst day of their life, and I was doing that day after day, because this was a commission only job, and I only got health insurance if I sold so much. So I, in order to survive, this is what I had to do, and I didn't feel good about myself anymore, so I couple I didn't work for a couple of years. I did some babysitting for my friends. You know? I did some odds and ends, here and there. But a couple years down the road, I saw an ad on Facebook for rover, and I'm like, Oh, you can make up to $1,000 a month. You walk dogs, you pet sit like, I can do this. I've had dogs my whole life, you know, the famous I've had dogs my whole life, I can do this, you know. So I signed up for rover, and did I sorry? I have to think you have to cut this part out. You're fine. Yeah, I did work for rover for a couple of months, but I quit and ended up creating my own business after learning more about online apps and how they work, I It's like the cemetery scenario all over again. I just didn't feel good about working for rover, and that's how I created Lindsay's dog walking. You know, that's that's
Collin 04:54
interesting that you bring up the not wanting. Like, how do you feel? Like, that shapes how. You treat your clients because you know, you talk about how the working in the cemetery and that that you know that that industry of you didn't want to take advantage of people, and then the being working with rover and feeling like you didn't want to take advantage of people and not liking this, how does that shape what you do now in your business?
Lindsey Perriello 05:18
So I am very passionate about what I do, and I'm always trying to educate people how to make good decisions when they're hiring somebody to watch their pets. And I might be a little obnoxious about it. I'm sure I'm going to some people, but it's I'm just I believe this with all my heart that you should hire somebody that you know gets ongoing or continuing education, somebody who is fully insured, somebody that has a good, dependable, reliable staff, especially because there's backup there's a backup plan. We can handle emergencies like I believe in all this. I don't feel like I'm taking advantage of people, even though there are people that think that because my my prices may seem high to them.
Collin 06:18
So yeah, when you believe in the model so much, it's easy to talk about it, and you're right, it's it. I struggle with this too. When I'm talking to people on the phone, or I'm in the meet and greet, and I feel like I'm starting to, like, sell and it gets into a heavy pitch, because it's like, well, yes, I am trying to tell you to use me, but the only reason I'm doing that is because I truly believe that we are the best in your that's your best option, and I know you're going to pay me money, and I know I am more costly, but at the end of the day, you're not going to get any better than we are. And that is a difficult balance to walk as as a as a business owner, in what we do, and especially how the community may view us, especially in relation to, like, what they're used to. I don't know what it's like in your area, Lindsay, but for us, it's, it's still very, very heavy non professional, you know, teens or, you know, people. Hey, I'll pick that up after work. That's totally fine. I'll take care of it. And so that's kind of the norm. And then here we come in, and there's this weird perception of what we're trying to do and why we're here, and trying to overcome that with the client like really, the education of clients is still one of the biggest gaps that we personally see in in what we're trying to do.
Lindsey Perriello 07:33
Yeah, and like you said, it almost seems like we're trying to sell people, but we're not. We just want people to make good decisions, and we know what we bring to the table. And we're not talking about a person working a cash a cash register. We're talking about you're giving your keys to your home, and you're putting your pets lives in someone's hands. The price should not be the first thing you you think about, it should be qualifications, right?
Speaker 1 08:09
Well, I know you've you've gotten, you have a lot of qualifications. You know, you're fear free, you've gone through Karen Pryor. You're a certified professional pet sitter. You've done all of these things. I mean, why did you find that important to do?
Lindsey Perriello 08:24
Because, like I said, families are putting their trust in us, and in return, I want to do the best that I can, and whatever information or webinars or whatever I can take in. I'm going to do it because I want to provide them with the best care possible, just as I would want someone to do for me and my dogs, because I don't have children, and my dogs are my life, and that's the type of person I would want taking care of my dogs. So I'm gonna try and do it all. It's It's hard because you there's no pet sitter Academy, there's no pet sitter College, like you just have to go out and find it on your own. I didn't know about PSI or naps or fear free, or any of those associations when I first started. I, you know, it took time to learn all of this. I didn't have anybody to guide me or help me, so it took time. But, you know, I think
Collin 09:30
it's really telling that you went to the quality of care that you want to provide. And I see this, I see this conversation a lot in different Facebook groups of, Hey, is it worth it to be fear free, certified, or is it worth it to go through care and prior training? Or is it worth it to be certified? And I think at the end, because many people respond and say, No, my clients have never asked me they don't care about my insurance. They don't care about this, right? Like Megan and I have been doing this for 13 years, nobody i. Waiting for the day that somebody asks to see my insurance because I'll be so excited to whip it out of my pocket and wave it in their face. Yes, here it is. But what it does, it gives us peace of mind and confidence in what we're doing and knowing, hey, I want the best, and if that's our drive, if that's our focus, that shapes all that we approach, and all that we try and do and seek after, for for the benefit of our clients, and going, I don't know everything. I want to do the best and be the best. So where do I go for that, and where? What information can I get so that the next time I show up at my client's home to do the dog walk, I'm better than I was yesterday. Like that should be something we should all be wanting to do and and to be seeking after
Lindsey Perriello 10:46
Sure, I agree. Yep.
Collin 10:50
So you started in 2018 what? What were some of the challenges that you faced over the years in running your business?
Lindsey Perriello 10:59
Well, just like I previously stated, trying to find education, where to get education, learn more. Because when I first started on rover, and I was thinking about creating my own business, I did reach out to another pet sitter in the area. And it did not go well. I don't know what had happened, but I was not treated well. We'll just say that there's enough dogs for everyone. You know what I mean. There's enough pet dogs in the area for everybody to have business and thrive and do well, but I never reached out again to anybody after that. But some of the challenges were trying to just find a friend or someone to talk to or someone to network with, because I was too scared after that to reach out to anyone. I still am. I'm kind of like a loner on my own. I try to just figure things out for myself. But I'd say creating the LLC that was that was tough. My husband did it actually, and I know it wasn't easy for him, trying to find staff, trying to find employees, that's always a challenge. But I am so fortunate. I have five of the best people that have been with me practically since the beginning, and I just love them. Everybody loves them. I don't know how I got so fortunate to find them and then another challenge. And I don't mean to stir the pot by bringing this up, but I'm being honest. I never knew the difference between positive reinforcement and balance training. So, you know, growing up, we always had great danes, mastiffs, big dogs, extra large breed dogs, and we would use choke chains. And, you know, I didn't know any anything about it. I don't want to deep too I don't want to dive too deep into it. But there's so many politics involved in training and what methods and what tools you use, and I didn't know any of this.
Collin 13:45
And, yeah, I remember the first time we were doing some networking, and I reached out to a trainer, and they asked, what kind of tools do you use? And I remember my blood went cold because I was like, Oh no, this, this is going to make or break this relationship and how we're going to move forward. And, you know, there is that aspect of of, you know, sometimes we just don't know what we don't know. And that links back to that importance of continuing, continuing education and diving it into it for ourselves, and then bringing that language and that knowledge in for our clients, and just kind of understanding, like, look, people are gonna have a lot of opinions about this. At least I can have my opinion based off of the work that I've done, and that, ultimately, at the end of the day, is so important to know why we're doing things. I see people fall into that trap all the time. I know we've done it from time. You know, certainly of Well, I don't know why, but I'm just gonna do this because I think everybody else is doing it. I'm gonna use these words. I don't really these words. I don't really know what they mean, but I hear somebody else using it, so I'm going to use that and and really it's do I fully understand what I'm doing? And that takes a that's kind of a next step in that evolution of running your business and knowing what's going on.
Lindsey Perriello 14:57
And again. Then where do you go to learn which which way you want to do things? Or so. If I were to give anybody advice, anybody starting out new, I would say, do your own research. You know, try to learn as much as possible, and
Collin 15:23
that's all you can do, yeah, and give yourself Grace along the way of I may have to change my thought process around something I have. I may uncover some biases that I have, or thought that we know something was true. And I mean, I have to forgive myself sometimes and know okay, I didn't know everything, and that process is hard too, especially if you've thought something for years and years to then suddenly try and change. You know, that's a that that's a that's a really personal thing to work through and and it revolves everything around our ideas and concepts, around running a business, and what we do. I a big one that I see a lot is, is hiring people. And so it sounds like, I mean, it sounds like you brought on people pretty early on after you started your business. Why? Why did? Why was that?
Lindsey Perriello 16:12
I became so busy. I just, I couldn't handle the load by myself anymore, and it just really took off. I never thought it would be like this. I thought, you know, I have a couple clients, and I'll do a couple walks every week, and it just kept going and going and going. And we have about 300 clients now and but I have a really small service area. I'm not looking to be a millionaire, millionaire. I'm not looking to be, you know, anything other than just my little town of lower borough. Maybe we'll go out a couple miles,
Lindsey Perriello 16:55
but I'm not looking to take over the whole, you know, western side of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 17:02
So, you know was that, did you ever struggle with that of wanting to grow more or do more? Or was that something that you realized of what you were comfortable with from the very beginning?
Lindsey Perriello 17:16
I thought about it a couple times, but again, I'm not I'm not looking to make boo coo bucks, I'm just looking to be able to pay my bills and have some extra money for myself and my husband. He's the breadwinner here, so this is more of like a supplemental income for us. And the girls have worked for me. They're all part time. Some of them have other jobs, and it would be really hard to find staff expand. It's just, I'm finding that people don't want to do overnights, overnight pet sitting. They just want to work like 10 to two and do dog walking, no weekends, and that's it. It's really hard. It's such a challenge. I've just given up. I've given up.
Collin 18:10
Have you heard of time to pet? Dan from NYC? Pooch has this to say?
Speaker 2 18:14
Time to bet, has been a total game changer for us. It helped us streamline many aspects of our operation, from scheduling and communication to billing and customer management. We actually tested other pet sitting softwares in the past, but these other solutions were clunky and riddled with problems. Everything in time to pet has been so well thought out. It's intuitive, feature rich, and it's always improving. If
Collin 18:35
you're looking for new pet sitting software, give time to pet a try. Listeners of our show will save 50% off your first three months by visiting tied to pet.com/confessional Well, and, you know, offering overnights anyway is hard enough as it is to be, you know, paying fair and scheduling appropriately and making sure that people have what they want and need, and that it's such an Interesting service to try and offer, and to know that, yeah, not everybody wants to do that, like I personally Megan and I, when we started first off, we did start on rover two, right? So this your story sounds very familiar. Of Yeah, we were needing to make some extra money, and we went, Oh, hey, let's do that. And that was 13 years ago. We got started on that, and we almost exclusively did overnights in people's homes as well. And there were times where we had a little apartment when we were living in Texas, and we would split up, and she would take the western side of the city, I took the eastern side of the city, and we didn't see each other for, like, weeks at a time, sometimes because we were living in other people's homes. And I just think now, of like, how much I love my own bed, and how, like, you could not pay me enough to go leave and live inside, even with cable and a Jacuzzi. It's like, No, I'm I'm good, right? Like, and so what I'm hearing you're talking about here, Lindsay, is like, I. Yeah, know the business you want to run and fit to that, and I absolutely love that, because I too often we get caught up in that trap of more and more and more and more and more. Why? Well, it's because I was told to, and I've got to do this, and I've got to do this, and I got it is, instead of being like, content with what we're being and just being honest with ourselves, of, hey, any more than this is way more headache or not what I want for my life to look like. I love the balance that I have, and that's something that we really have to take a very close look at ourselves to know what do we want our business to be? And
Lindsey Perriello 20:42
when I first started, I was in that honeymoon stage where I just took every job possible. I was so excited, and I'm like, oh, this person called me. This person called me, and I was I was doing it all, and I just That's why I brought more people on, because I was burning myself out. I'll never forget I had a lady call and wanted me to take care of her cats. No problem, I love cats. No problem. I'll be there. And I was there for I was supposed to do a half hour visit every day, and she had asked, well, we were inside for the meet and greet, and she said that she had plants outside. Could I water the plants when I was done taking care of the cats? And I'm like, Yeah, that's fine, no problem. Well, on my first visit, I actually went outside and looked at the plants, and here there were, like, there was a whole garden. There were, like, 69 and it took, it took me an half every visit. It was not half. Oh, yeah, learn my lesson with that one. Yep.
Collin 21:52
We were, we were, when we first started Lindsay, we were charging, what was it? $35 a day for however many pets, for and for however many visits you wanted, right? And we had a, yeah, no, it was again 13 years ago. We had no idea. We just thought, hey, we'll make some extra money. This will be fine. And then we had, we had a person who wanted us to come over five times a day, and they had
Lindsey Perriello 22:19
12 dogs.
Collin 22:22
And I remember, wow, that going in my head going, well, that's ridiculous. And that was really the first little like, like, first little block that just fell out of my concept of what we were doing, and going, No, no, actually, there is an upper limit to this. And then Megan, I really took a hard look at what we were offering, and now pulling that back, and just over time learning like these gardens, like, yeah, we offer that. And hey, do you need us to water your plants Absolutely. Now I've learned show me that process, because we too have walked into, oh no, you've got, you have rows of corn, and you have, you know, it's a half acre plot of garden. Oh, this was Oops.
Lindsey Perriello 23:13
Oh, man, live and learn
Collin 23:17
you too well. And then, you know, it's that. It's a discovery process, and that's where that you know, where we go. Hey, my business is not going to look the same 10 years from now, because I'm going to learn a lot of lessons between now and then, right? And that's just, that's just part of it.
Lindsey Perriello 23:33
Yeah, yeah. It is now,
Collin 23:41
with your with your team, how do you I mean, you have high standards for yourself, and you seek after, you know, certifications and trainings and things like that. How do you work to have that same level of consistency and professionalism for each of your staff
Lindsey Perriello 23:59
members? Well, another thing I do is I always ask for feedback from the clients. Like, especially if it's a new client, I always contact them and say, like, how to do? Can we change anything? I just want everyone to be happy. We do have several protocols in place for safety reasons, like, when we do come over for meet and greet, may have a fenced in yard. You know, we check the fence for any holes or loose areas where the dogs may be able to escape. You know, we have a very lengthy questionnaire that we go over with all the clients. You know, are they afraid of fireworks, thunder, allergies, stuff like that. We cover everything. We have a vet release form. I'm sure you know what that is. You know? I, I. I try to offer them, you know, if I find a webinar or some educational video, I'll send it to them.
Lindsey Perriello 25:12
But ultimately, you know, I'm the captain of the ship,
Lindsey Perriello 25:22
and I need to provide them with the education they need to. Although two of the girls that work for me, they came from a place where they worked in kennels, they worked in animal shelters, volunteered animal shelters, so they're eligible too. We just all help each other.
Collin 25:45
Well, that what you start off with is talking about those. It's the standardized safety checks, the standardized questionnaires, the standardized forms. It's, you know, we spend a lot of our time trying to make everything as straightforward as possible, so we can see all the information at once, and that's you know what you're like. Okay, let me take all of the unknowns and put it in a form, put it into a questionnaire, and then we can make that full assessment. And I know our questionnaires have certainly grown over the years. I Yeah, you know where you again, you learn, and you go, Oh, okay, I do have to ask about
Lindsey Perriello 26:28
that again. It comes with experience, and you know you learn to ask this question or inquire about this or sorry.
Collin 26:43
Yeah, I know one for us was we'd be over there. They'd want pet sitting visits, you know, three or four times a day for their dog. Okay, cool, great. And I'd be sitting there. They answered all these questions, and they filled out all the forms, and I talked to them on the phone, and I'm in person with them, and I'm talking about the dog, and they're going away for two weeks. And, okay, this is great. And then a cat runs through the living room, and
Lindsey Perriello 27:09
you go, what
Speaker 1 27:12
about that? And client goes, Huh? Oh, yeah, I've got a cat. You're just like, Oh,
Lindsey Perriello 27:21
why does that happen all the time? I know.
Collin 27:25
So we've, we've had to start asking, like, because we used to ask, are there any other animals that will need care while you're away? Okay, well, in their mind, they're going, Okay, well, Cat's got an automatic litter box, an automatic feeder, an automatic fountain. No, don't care for the cat. So I've had to start asking, is there anything else alive in your house, right? Just like, is there anything else alive? And like Lindsay, people will go, oh yeah, I do have two Bearded Dragons downstairs that I guess you should probably look at. Yeah, I should probably know about the two Bearded Dragons downstairs. Yep, absolutely.
Lindsey Perriello 28:09
Oh, my Lord, just because they don't need a lot of attention, that doesn't mean that
Lindsey Perriello 28:19
they don't deserve to be cared for. I mean, we still want to look in on them and see that they're okay. And, you know, they have water in their bowl, and we need to know, yeah,
Speaker 1 28:33
well, now you've, you you've mentioned you have, you know, have 300 or more clients. That's a lot of people to have in a database, or to know, how do you with a large client base like that, how do you still have maintain a personal touch
Lindsey Perriello 28:48
and connection with each of them? At first, I didn't want to get too personal with my clients. I just wanted to have, like a business relationship. But that's not how it goes, because sometimes you see the clients and they want to talk and ask you about your life, and you know you want to ask them about theirs, and you
Tori L. 29:10
just become friends. I'll tell you, I I try to always send a very detailed update
Lindsey Perriello 29:26
to all the clients, just to give them peace of mind that everything went well. I know sometimes I probably go overboard, and we always try to send really nice photos to our clients, if we can get them like the photos are our last thing to worry about, but we always try to send like, nice photos, and we've gone into clients' homes where they've actually had them framed, they've put them on Canvas, and that always makes me feel good to see that. But we've actually become really close with our clients. And you know, every once in a while, like if somebody loses a dog, or, you know, a pet will send them a card or get them a gift. Or we actually just lost one of our long time clients, who's been with us since 2018 it was a golden retriever that we walked three times a week, and we made a succulent. What do you call it? Like a succulent garden? Kind of
Collin 30:34
like a Yeah? Like a little plant basket thing for them, I know what you're talking about, but I do not know the name,
Lindsey Perriello 30:40
yeah, yeah, but we all got together and made it and brought it over to them. And another example is
Lindsey Perriello 30:50
I actually had Easter dinner with some of my clients, who I've only known years. They invited us over for Easter, and that's like, we become so close with these people and their homes every day we and let's be honest, like we don't go in someone's house and stare at the ceiling like we notice things around the house. We have to look around and you know, we can see when someone's we can tell what's going on in their lives. So if I think something's going on. I'll make it a point to ask how they're doing, how they're feeling. Are they okay?
Lindsey Perriello 31:27
I try to go above and beyond, and even, like one of my employees, she was
Lindsey Perriello 31:35
taking care of a dog for a lady that had surgery. She had hip surgery, so she was down for a while. It was over. It was over a holiday. I think it was Memorial Day. And my employee brought her a paper plate with dinner on it from her barbecue, because she had to go over to walk the dog in the evening. So she that lady didn't have any family or anything, and she brought her a plate of food. And, you know, my other my other girl, she, she brings her own dog's raincoats to the client's house, and we'll put them on those dogs if it's raining out, like stuff like that. We just try to take such good care of them and treat them like they're our own. And you know what? I mean? It's just, you know, you don't want to get too personal and ask too many questions, but you want them to know that we care.
Speaker 1 32:40
You mentioned the, you know, we're not in their homes staring at their ceiling. I mean, we've, we've learned that some of our clients were pregnant before the rest of their family, because we saw the ultrasounds on the on the refrigerator, or we know where they're going for vacation, or we know they're struggling with, you know, whatever, because you see things and you know, we teach, you know, we talk about privacy and where we're going to, I'm not going to barge into rooms that are closed and all of those things, but we're there in people's homes. And as much as we want to say, No, this is a business transaction, and this man, we get connected with people and even the services that we offer. I mean, we, we actually just finished a series of visits where we were taking we were doing the evening walk for one of our clients who she was doing pets, pet sitting, visits and stuff. But she asked us if we could help her with her evening walks with her dogs while she recovered from hip surgery and hip replacement. Well, we've been walking this dog now every day every night for two months straight so that she could get that and I mean, man, you talk about always seeing the client talking to them, seeing her progression, seeing how she's doing, the her ups, her downs, and she just reached out to us this week and said, Hey, I'm feeling better. You guys have helped me heal and take care of myself without feeling guilty about my dog. And I'm going to try to start taking over some of these walks. And we couldn't be happier to know that, oh my gosh, she's back and she's ready and she's happy and she's full health, and that we're cheering her on like that is that's a personal touch. And did she pay us for all those walks? Absolutely, but she, you know, that's, that's the weird relationship that we find ourselves in, and the kind of industry that we're that
Lindsey Perriello 34:22
we do. I was gonna say it's almost like, sometimes you feel bad for having to invoice them, because you have a good time with them. You talk to them, and they're like, your friend, but you're like, Okay, you have to pay now.
Collin 34:36
I know, really it is. It is due in 30 days. Just so you know, like, I'll see you tomorrow.
Collin 34:45
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Speaker 1 35:19
and I know we have certainly tried. And do have boundaries. You know, nobody has our personal phone number. We have a business line that people can call and everything like that. But when, when, when we and our team, when we can encourage or cheer on or be encouraged and be cheered on by our employee, by our clients, like that is that really changes the game and the perspective of to as to why we're doing this right, and what we get to do every day. Lindsay, how are you, how are you finding clients? How are you attracting clients or bringing them into your company? These days,
Lindsey Perriello 35:56
honestly, word of mouth helped me tremendously. It's, it's always been word of mouth,
Speaker 3 36:04
I think Facebook too. I try to stay off next door, the next door app, I the next door app, whoo. Crazy place to be. I, I'll tell you
Lindsey Perriello 36:22
a quick story about Instagram. I do have Instagram. I try not to go on it too often, because it's just too much for me. I don't know, but I had somebody private messaged me inquiring about my services, and it was a celebrity, and I'm like, Oh, this is like, some stupid fake profile, and I just ignored them. I never wrote back. And they're like, hey, like, I really, I need your help. This is I'm not talking like worldwide celebrity, I'm talking celebrity to Pittsburgh. And I kept ignoring them, I went right back, because I'm like, This is not a real account. Well, they ended up calling me, and I, I was able to help them, and that's an experience I will never forget. And I've I really wish my dad was still alive, because if he knew that, I guess I guess I really couldn't tell him, because it's confidential, but he would just, he would love this, that whole situation, just knowing that I helped this family. But then this family went on to tell their friends about us, and then they started calling us. And, you know, I wish, I wish I would have asked if I could take a picture with them to share on my social media, because it would be so cool. Like, look who I got defensive for. But I didn't ask, because I wanted to stay professional. And, you know, I didn't know if they would want to do something like that and but anyway, I we live about 45 minutes away from Pittsburgh, and that's where this family is located. And I'm so excited because all these like well known people, are calling us now, and I can't take them on because I'm 45 minutes away. I did it one time because it was slow, and I will travel farther if it's slow. I've done it before, I mean, but I can't do it every day, and I can't do it all summer, so I ended up sending them to other pet sitters that I know out that way, and, oh, darn, I wish I lived closer to Pittsburgh. But,
Speaker 1 38:52
yeah, yeah, those, there's those opportunities that come up and you're like, Oh, if I would have known or done, or, you know, should have, could have, would have, kind of things, and then to remember, like, well, but that wasn't for me, or that wasn't the time, or I'll just, you know,
Lindsey Perriello 39:07
move, move on to the next thing. But that that was a
Lindsey Perriello 39:12
one of the highlights of my pet sitting career, being in the home and seeing somebody that you always see on TV in person, it was just cool. I mean, yeah, who doesn't like stuff like that? So, yeah,
Speaker 1 39:28
yeah, if you could go back and talk to your your your younger self in 2018, 2017 you know, and go like, hey, one day, guess what you're gonna do through pet sitting? It's like, No way,
Lindsey Perriello 39:42
yeah, but I would say All in all, word of mouth and Facebook have helped me the most. Yeah, it takes build up a clientele. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes years and years, and I. Unless you aggressively advertise. But I just haven't had to do that.
Collin 40:07
What, What's kept you going year after year? I mean, you're coming up into your eighth year of business. What's what's been the motivating and keep pushing you forward.
Lindsey Perriello 40:20
I just grown to love our clients, the people and their pets. And I want to go to work. I want to see them, I want to be with them. And I hardly ever wake up and say, Oh, I have to go to work. Oh, you know, like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. I do that on day like today, when it's 90 degrees.
Collin 40:44
Sure that's fair, that's acceptable. You're allowed that, Lindsay,
Lindsey Perriello 40:49
but I like being able to make my own schedule. I like being around dogs. I like being around animals. I like being outside. I like the people I work with. I know I'm sorry. I love the people I work with. The
Lindsey Perriello 41:11
only thing I don't like about my job, I will say, is when people come after me, come at me
Lindsey Perriello 41:22
over the price, over my pricing, and I think that they're reasonable. But if I have one complaint about this job, it's just because I charge $20 for 30 minutes. I don't take home $20 I probably take, like, a tiny bit of that. There's so much overhead with this job, like, I don't think people understand that. Can I just name a few, like, insurance, workers comp eats up a lot of money. You know, education, background checks, all kinds of stuff. So, all in all, I'm not really making $20 you know what? I mean, that's like, my point, yeah, yep.
Collin 42:18
And it in, you know, and knowing the back end of it. You know, when we get pushed back on our prices, there are times where I'm like, I will show you how this breaks out. I have 13 spreadsheets that you know for how I can show you exactly how everything lays out and how I don't see very much of this. And at the end of the day, you know, the client doesn't care about our expenses. They just want to know, hey, can you do this, and is it at a price that I can afford? And there are times where, man, we still have to put food on our table. I still have to pay my employees. We still have to pay for the training and the meetings and the new leashes and all the gear and all these, all the insurances and everything like that. We've got to pay for that. I can't go below a certain dollar amount without eating into somebody's pocket. And that is what like I know that there's just that bottom line. And as the industry continues to grow and evolve and change, I think there are some perceptions of people who know the value of what they're getting, but it's definitely precarious. As as wages go up, as everything gets more and more costly, we have to watch our prices so that we can still afford things and still make a living while also being affordable for people, because it's very easy to all of a sudden they say, you know, nope, you know what? Every 30 minute visit is, $63 that'll pay all my bills, yeah, but nobody will book that in a lot of our service areas, and so there we've got finding that balance and not feeling guilty whenever somebody pushes back on our prices. Man, yeah, that is that is not a fun part of talking to new but new clients or even existing ones. If we have to raise prices,
Lindsey Perriello 44:01
I think I take it personally when people will tell me how ridiculous the prices are, and it hurts me like i i know it shouldn't hurt me. I don't know why I get so upset about it. What I ended up doing was I did add on a 15 minute visit, 15 for $15 and it really took off, like a whole bunch of people. They now I got, like, a bunch of people out of nowhere, and I wanted to make an affordable service for everyone. Because I've, I've heard it a million times. People will say, I want to use you, but I can't afford you. I can't. So here you go, 15 minutes, dog out, we can clean a litter box and feed your cat in 15 minutes. Now, it doesn't leave us much time to play or, you know, give them TLC, but I mean, it's better of nothing, right?
Collin 44:59
Yeah, yeah. And that's, you know, we went through that same process of, like, how do I make my can I make my existing services less expensive? Well, no, the only thing that we can really mess around with here is time. So can I make something with my time that still allows me to do what I consider a good job? Because we've had people who'd be like, Oh, no, I only want you just come in, Huck some food on the floor and then leave right and I'll see. It's like, No, I don't, I don't do that. Like, there is a minimum amount of time I'm going to spend in your in your home, and so even then, like, I can only go down so few, you know, cut the time so much before I start cutting into a quality product or quality service, I should say, for them, and I start cutting into what we deem as below what we're willing to do. And even then, there's education to our clients about what we offer and why we often talk about for us, of like, yeah, we we're the We're the Double, you know, super extra Deluxe everything on it, bacon cheeseburger. And we get people who go, can I have a plain single Patty hamburger with with no salt? And we're like, No, that is not what we offer. We do not, and we have to be okay with that and real. But even though it still hurts, because it feels like it feels like I'm saying no to you because of cost and what I'm saying what we've had to rephrase it as we have to say no because of quality of your expectations, and that's not something we're willing to do.
Lindsey Perriello 46:37
I was warned not to do that. The 15 for the 15, because everyone kept saying, Don't do it. Don't do it. Because what's going to happen is, when you're there, they're going to start saying, Well, can you water a plant while you're there? Can you do this while you're there? And it's going to start running over 15 minutes. And shockingly, that has not happened. So I made a good decision for once, go meet.
Collin 47:00
Round of applause, right? I love that when you're like, it actually worked.
Lindsey Perriello 47:04
Yes, so far, so far, yeah,
Speaker 1 47:09
Yep, absolutely. Well, Lindsay, if someone's listening to this, and I know a lot of our listeners, they are, maybe there may be part time or just getting into the industry, what's some advice that you would give to them to become that full time professional pet sitter?
Lindsey Perriello 47:33
It's okay. I know everybody says this, but truly it is okay to say no. It is okay to turn down jobs. You don't have to take every job. And if you do, go to a meet and greet, a consultation, and you don't feel good about it, don't do it, you're going to burn yourself out and take your time to find the right employees. Because you have to be able to trust them 100,000,000% and like I said before, they're not working a cash register. They're going in people's homes and
Tori L. 48:15
taking care of their pets, and I would say, wear sunscreen. I did not.
Lindsey Perriello 48:28
I did not, and I am on my fourth skin surgery for cancer on my face. Yeah, I did not wear sunscreen, and we spent a lot of time outside. So all in all, what I mean is take care of yourself.
Lindsey Perriello 48:50
Take care of your body. Get a good pair of shoes. I would say,
Lindsey Perriello 48:59
Join naps or join psi and suck in all the information that you can. I'm a certified pet sitter through psi, and I have to earn 30 CEUs in order to what's it called, when you when they reissue you,
Collin 49:23
oh, yeah, to recertify, right? Isn't
Lindsey Perriello 49:29
that definitely do that, and if you can find a good network of pet sitters, join it. I mean, there's no reason not to join it. Have dinner, you know, have a good group of friends around you that are there to talk or help or even be a backup for you. There's a lot of money to be made in the pet industry, I believe. Anyway, yeah.
Speaker 1 50:00
Yeah, but there are, there are healthy ways and there are unhealthy ways to make that money, right? Like you can certainly make a lot of money working 6am to 10pm seven days a week, 365 days a year, never taking a day off, drinking enough water, getting enough sleep, right? Absolutely. But for how long are you going to be able to do that. Yeah, like, that's and I think that's what Megan and I learned pretty early on, was the fact that it never takes a break. There's not like a season, because it just takes, it takes one client to need to travel for a weekend where you will never have a weekend off for months on end. It just takes one and right? That that was the part where we started to get it was like, okay, it was exhilarating, because we were like, Girl, good, good job security. It's always there. And then it was a little bit of overwhelm, because, oh,
Lindsey Perriello 50:54
it's always there,
Collin 50:57
right? It never stops. And so we have to impose that on that to take care of ourselves, just like you said, Lindsay, right? Take care of yourself.
Lindsey Perriello 51:10
It's hard because you you hardly have time to even take care of your own pets, you know. And it's not nine to five, it's nine to 9am to 9pm maybe even overnights. It just never stops. And you have to be ready for that. You have to be ready to you know, there's people have emergencies and they have to run out in a hurry. Can you come over? Yeah, I'm on call. My phone never shuts off. I'm on call for my clients. Some of my clients are nurses. They're on call. If they're not home, I have to run over and take care of their pets, and I'm fine with it. That's what I'm here for. That's my job. I don't mind.
Lindsey Perriello 51:52
But I mean, be ready to do things like that, right?
Speaker 1 52:00
And be ready to to know when, like, you said, to know when to say no and what no one to say yes. I mean something we've had to say a lot to ourselves. Of like, your emergency is not my my problem in a lot of cases, like, I get it what, like, what we encounter a lot Lindsay is somebody will call us and they'll say, Hey, I'm just trying to get established with a sitter. I don't have any travel planned. And we'll say, great. Well, go here to do the meet and greet and go through our process, and we'll get you onboarded. We'll be ready for you. And then we hear nothing back from them until four, four months later, it's a it's a Friday morning. Hey, we're leaving out of town. Can you start? Start tonight, and I'm like, No, I not. No, it's used to be time was we jump at it. I try and get over there, do the meet and greet that morning, get everything on boarded, get everything taken care of, and then we do the visit that weekend. And then we'd hear nothing from them, right? We were killing ourselves, for people who didn't care about us or our business, and they were just looking for a solution to their immediate problem. And we quickly realized that's not worth it, right? It's not worth it. Me stressing out for four hours to go take care of this, when nothing's going to happen at the end of it. And man, that's that was a hard, hard learned lesson, and one that I still have to fight a lot. I'm still always inclined when I get that emergency phone call to be like, yes, we will come and save the day and going, yeah, no, that's not for me to do. Like we I don't. We don't have to do it every time.
Lindsey Perriello 53:39
I actually started charging for meet and greets. I never did that before. There's I do charge $15 to to come out, just because, like you were saying, people, they want, they want to meet you, and they want to have you as a backup, and they you never hear from them again. And you know, I have to pay my employee to come for a consultation with me. And sometimes we're there for like, two hours or two and a half hours. And you know, I I'm not trying to be unfriendly, but people get off topic, and they start talking about other stuff that has nothing to do with the pets. And before you know, we're there for two hours, and then we never hear back from them again. And this happens so often. I thought, You know what? I'm $15 now, if, if you want us to come out, we'll stay as long as it takes, but I can't do it for free anymore. I just can't. And there's people they they just want to talk to you. They have no intention of using you. They just want to talk like they need someone to talk to, and
Collin 54:46
that's that's not the service, that's not the service that I personally offer. You can you can dial zero for the operator and go talk to them. I. Yeah. Man, well, Lindsay, I really want to thank you for coming on the show today and sharing with us your journey in pet care and how you've found balance and how you continue to refine what your business looks like, to make sure that it works for you and encouraging us to say no and take care of ourselves. I know there's a whole lot here and again, with your business ever changing, and your all of your years doing this, there's a lot of knowledge and information that you have. If people are interested in getting connected following along with what you're doing. How best can they do that?
Lindsey Perriello 55:33
They could follow us on Facebook. My Facebook is ladies with leashes. They could follow us on Instagram. I have a website, Lindsay's dog walking.com, I actually I have a Tiktok too that I use just for fun. And we
Lindsey Perriello 55:56
actually had a video that did pretty well the other day, 165,000 views like that means anything, right?
Collin 56:04
That's a lot more views than I have. So that's pretty cool.
Lindsey Perriello 56:08
I got paid $1 for every review. But, yeah, if anybody ever wants to reach out, just to talk, be friends, whatever, feel free email me. Lindsay perillo@gmail.com do awesome.
Speaker 1 56:23
Well, I'll have links to all of those in the show notes and on our website so people can get connected and get in contact with you, Lindsay, and start, start doing that and picking your brain on stuff. I have really enjoyed our conversation, and I'm very thankful for our time today, Lindsay, it means a lot. Thank you so much for coming on the
Lindsey Perriello 56:40
show today. Thank you. Thank you so much. Pet
Speaker 1 56:44
Sitting, dog walking is not a commodity, so why is our first thought typically about the price. I love Lindsay's quote when she said, you're giving your keys to your home and your pets their lives to someone else. The price should not be the first thing that you think about. Yes, this goes for both the owner and also ourselves as the business owner. When we look to design our services, when we look to design how we operate in the promises that we're going to keep, we should stay focused on that and then look at the price to make sure that is commensurate with the level of work and professionalism and certifications and safety protocols, all of that should be tied into place. Then it is our job as the business owner to then market message and educate our communities for why our quality, our standard of care, is better than others options. We'd like to thank our friends time to pet and the National Association of Professional petsers for making this show possible. And we really want to thank you so much for listening. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and we'll be back again soon. You.
