657: At The Crossroads in Pet Care with Matthew Kutas
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What does the future of the pet service industry look like as technology and client expectations evolve? Matthew Kutas, founder and CEO of Republic of Dog, talks about the challenges and opportunities facing pet care businesses today. He discusses how technology can streamline operations without losing the emotional connection at the heart of the work, and why onboarding is a make-or-break process for client trust. Matthew shares insights on staffing, scaling, and the professionalization of the industry. He also explores how pet care intersects with city planning, corporate wellness, and strategic partnerships, pointing to new opportunities for growth.
Main topics:
Technology’s impact on pet services
Onboarding as client trust foundation
Balancing scaling with personalization
Staffing challenges and expectations
City planning, condos, and corporate programs
Main takeaway: “Technology should give you more time to do the important things—it should enhance the client’s experience, not replace the human connection.” – Matthew Kutas
As pet care professionals, we often look to tech to solve our pain points. Scheduling tools, payment systems, even AI—these can save hours of work. But Matthew Kutas reminds us that the point isn’t to automate away the heart of our service. Instead, we should use the time we gain to deepen relationships with clients and their pets. Send that personal message. Make that check-in call. Show you care. Because in an industry built on trust, the human connection is what truly sets us apart.
About our guest: Matthew Kutas is the founder and CEO of Republic of Dog, based in Canada. With over 25 years in the pet service industry, he has built and operated businesses in dog walking, daycare, grooming, and boarding, before shifting into consulting and advising. Today, his focus is on how pet services integrate into urban living, condos, and hotels, while also addressing industry-wide challenges like technology, staffing, and scaling. Matthew works with pet care companies, city planners, and property managers to ensure pets remain central in both business growth and community design.
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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 industry, client experience, technology impact, human connection, onboarding process, staff training, pet ownership, city planning, pet-friendly policies, strategic partnerships, professionalization, emotional service, scaling challenges, pet wellness, industry growth
SPEAKERS
Collin, Matthew Kutas
Collin 00:00
Collin, well, hello everybody, and welcome back. The future of the industry seems to be up in the air more and more these days, since we have to make tough decisions on how to serve clients while also running a business that serves us and making sure that we keep the heart of all that this is about. This episode is brought to you by our friends at tie into pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters today. We're actually really excited to have Matthew, founder and CEO of Republic of dog, on the show to talk about a little bit about his background in the industry, but really about how we can best shape the industry as a whole, to make sure that we keep what's most important at the center of everything that we do. Matthew, I'm really excited to have you on the show and talk to you about this. For those who aren't familiar with you or your background, could you please tell us a little bit more about yourself?
Matthew Kutas 00:46
Thanks. Collin, of course, I have been in the pet service industry for 25 years. I am up in Canada, so who won't say that too often? And I started in dog walking, which I did, and built a couple businesses in that space, and then got into other services, from boarding, daycare, retail grooming, and did that for about 18 years, and then slowly started to slide into consulting, both on the working with businesses within the space, but also very interested in the dog community within our, you know, living like condos and residential hotels and from a bigger place, how they sort of fit into the city ecosystem as the sort of dog population is growing so much, and how it's going to sort of coexist as we kind of go forward.
Collin 01:41
I'm very interested to dive into the that part of things a little bit later, because that's a very interesting turn and a very 30,000 foot view, as we think about communities. But in your time in the industry, I know you've probably seen a lot of changes, one of those being obviously technology. And I was curious, from your perspective, kind of, what you've seen all the various aspects and facets of the community and in the industry. How is, how is technology, or from your perspective, helping or hindering pet businesses and the owners that are running them?
Matthew Kutas 02:16
Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's had a couple evolutions. I mean, the biggest, first kind of evolution of technology was all the software, all of the sort of booking software that sort of came about. I mean, I've been in this business so long that we started by doing walking on Excel, and so we would have to kind of create the walking list and changes and on a daily, minute by minute basis. So when sort of software became sort of accessible, that was sort of a major change. That certainly changed a lot of how we ran the business, how our SOPs were running. Our ability to expand became a big difference. And I think the big change is sort of the intellectual sharing, where before, sort of software, you were sort of, you know, the business was run by one person, or two people who kind of knew everything that was going on. And with the software, it kind of made the client experience better, but also from just running the staff and so forth. I mean, more recently, you have sort of the AI and sort of CRM stuff. The AI is kind of fascinating. I think it's going to create a lot more people that come into the space. It has a sort of a negative part where it can kind of remove you from the client experience and kind of creating that sort of really important part of this industry, which is so unique, which is, it's an emotional service. There's not a lot of other services that are like this. I mean, child care would be maybe the closest one, and so it will the I think the real collision will be, as the technology starts to grow, and you're already seeing it a fair bit, is, will that sort of emotional connection through the client and the provider start to separate, which I think is a really interesting thing to watch. And you start of already seeing, sort of the bigger brands using it, you kind of kind of try to figure out how to make that work.
Collin 04:07
It's interesting. It kind of removes that, that human connection and aspect as we use it, to replace, kind of our I just some of the simple things like writing a happy birthday message. If we jump over to AI and we say, hey, write a happy birthday message to Dakota from my business. Well, we don't go through then that emotional experience of writing and crafting, thinking about our times with the pets. We don't we do all of a sudden, lose that connection, and then from the client's perspective, like they get this kind of, I mean, automated dry response sent to them without the humanity there. And so it just starts like you're talking about, like you get a little bit of separation over time of the less and less touch points that I have with the pets, and especially as businesses have gotten bigger. Or right? I think you know what we've seen. We've seen there are more large pet sitting businesses where the owners are doing no or very little field work, and have you know, sometimes never even seen their clients. It's all, you know, their managers and things like that. And so there's all this emote not just like physical distance, but emotional distance as well, between the people that we're trying to serve.
Matthew Kutas 05:22
I think that's absolutely true. And I think what happens then is you sort of remove away from what your core brand or your core mission is, and and the thing I always ask a lot of owners is, Who are you, what do you do, and what makes you different than the other people in your business, and I think especially for the client. So for a long time, I always still did the initial consultation, because it really kept me in tune with where the client was, what were the things that concerned them? Because it sort of shifted over time of the things that were important. I mean, on a very base level. When I first started, it was mostly female owners that you were dealing with, with clients, and then you started to see more male and female together at the at the consultation, and then it kind of was pretty equal. And so when you lose that, and what's quite interesting is, because of covid, a lot of people stopped doing sort of in person consultations or meet and greets, whatever you call them. And I found after covid Or that people sort of continue that or started only doing virtual and so even on that base level with technology, just doing zoom consultation, you're already removing yourself from the client, from the bond that you create with that client and understanding, and I think that's the biggest thing about this industry, is that expectations and understanding your client are so important for growth and for continual growth. And I think convenience sometimes Trumps that, and that's not always a great thing.
Collin 06:59
Walk us through how we can make those better decisions. Then, of okay, I'm I want to run a streamlined, efficient business, but also I want to make sure I'm meeting my clients needs in this way, like, how, what are some what's either a decision tree or something like that, you know, somebody's listening to this, going, Man, I, I was just about to roll out, you know, Zoom meet and greets. What do I do now?
Matthew Kutas 07:21
Well, I think, you know, I think the onboarding process Funny enough, even from the when I started till now, it's still one of the major things people struggle with or do correctly. I've always said that first two or three months generally defines your relationship with that client, whether it's a setting expectations, understanding what they're what it's important to them. And I'll give you a perfect example, is if I'm meeting with a client, and I and I had, you know, was talking to them, and I really got the sense that they were really concerned about a maybe security, like someone coming into their house, but also really concerned about timing, right? I would then make a note for myself and the manager to do touch points in that first month of saying, Hey, how was the timing? How was this? I just want to let you know this was the issue. And so you're creating this kind of experience right from the beginning, instead of waiting for something or them to come to you. And I think with AI, this kind of thing of like sending, because you can now, with AI, obviously send touch points sort of as you go, but you're not actually getting the real reaction. Where, if I'm talking to you, Collin, and I'm seeing your face, and you're you're trying to be nice, because I'm going into your house and you don't want to upset me or or the or the sitter, you're not so sure about, if I'm actually talking to you, I can say, hey, there's I just want you know, it's really helpful for me to understand if there's any issues, and I can kind of get to the heart of it, because especially in this business, if a client comes to you and they feel like maybe you haven't seen or heard what they wanted, even though they may stay a little longer, the next thing that there's an issue, they that that relationship may be severed or may be damaged in a way that it's hard to kind of recalibrate. So to get back to your original thing, I think it's just creating an onboarding process that allows you to understand your client as well as meeting your clients needs within those first two months, and not removing yourself from the human side, you'd be surprised how much just a phone call sometimes, instead of just doing an email or a text message, where, you know, I always say, when you're you know friends or family, you send a text message and you give a thumbs up, that's not a connection. And so just picking up the phone and giving a chance for people to just express themselves and feel like you want. They that their business is important to you and that the customer service experience is important.
Collin 09:52
People are looking for that kind of connection, right? There's one part. There's one thing to have a service that's executed, but they do want to. Know, who's on the other end of that? Of, yeah, it's nice that the walk happened, and it's nice that the pet sitting was done and you brought in the mail or whatever. But the person on the other end of that, whether it is your team, whether it's you know, you doing it, or whoever it is they want to be able to we just, we see this in our own business, where we get people who, they start to go through our onboarding process, and I get a phone call, right, and they say, I just wanted to talk to somebody, hi and like, they don't have questions. They just wanted to see what this was all about. You know, hear a little bit more about us and see, you know, kind of hear from us, kind of what we wanted to do, why we were doing this. You're more of our story. And that's always stuck with me every time I get those phone calls of, well, I started to fill out the form, and I don't have any questions. I just wanted to hear your you and talk to you, and it's really like, Oh, okay. Like we can never lose that. We can never lose these human these human touch points with people, whether there are actual clients, you know, fostering continuing, fostering those relationships Well, these potential clients coming in the door, because that is, that is a differentiator for a lot of people. Of can I talk to somebody I know? Like, for example, we have tried out several different softwares over the years in our business. And I'll tell you, the one thing that really differentiates the good from the best is, when I have a problem, can I get a person to help me immediately, right? Like, what's that connection
Matthew Kutas 11:20
that I have there well, and you think about it this way, is from a service level. There is not a lot of tactile experience, meaning, if you have a cleaning service that comes to your house, you come back and you say, my house is cleaning. You go pick up the dry cleaning. So the experience comes from that interaction, because the client doesn't see the dog walk. They don't see the board, so to speak. There may be a pictures and all of that stuff, but creating a tactile experience from the whole the whole process is about and especially because it's emotional, what you are getting at is, hey, are you a kind of person that's going to care for my dog the way that I would want you to? And on top of it, will you take my concerns seriously and rapidly and to speak on the technology thing, and what you were mentioning, someone was showing me a new software that deals with sort of client issues, so you call in and the AI kind of, and everyone's gone through that experience where you're sitting there going, you're saying, repeating over and over into the phone, Red Red Door, red door. Help, help. Yes. Can I talk to a person? Operator, yeah. And I think that's a big and I would say to people in this industry, if you think about yourself, more from the concierge concept, opposed to where it's shifting to, which is a concierge and experience. And so if you can look at this business that way, I think there's a lot of growth potential. I think if you kind of keep going the way with the technology, I think people are going to have a hard time. And I think because, I think in general, just in society, people are craving more of that personal touch and also human touch. And then we're going to feel that more and more as sort of AI grows and so forth. Because there's that kind of proverbial question, I know it's happened at each stage of you've talked a bit of okay, I'm going to do Excel now we've got some scheduling softwares. Now I'm getting AI. I'm getting more accessible CRMs. This, this scalability versus personalized care of I think there is a feel that as I scale, I have to become more and more impersonalized. I have to lose that touch in order for me to go from serving 10 clients to 1000 but it sounds like you like I don't know. Are you disagreeing with that? Are you saying that are you saying that they're just better ways to operate? Well, time is finite, and so the way I look at it is to say, if you're saving time by these new technologies, which are great, what are you using that time for? And so you mentioned the part earlier, where is if you're using the time to pull yourself out of the business and let only other people operate it. Then who? Then, who is giving the direction of the business? Who is giving the quality of service? Because I think curation is a big part of scaling and and making sure. And that's, I think the funny thing when a lot of people talk about scaling and people help people scale is scaling is really tough, and it's really hard and and so being able to to know how to use your time, and part of that is saying, Hey, these are the three core parts of my business that are most important to me. And by gaining time that should be that you're putting more time into those core three things. And I think what's happening a lot of people is because the service industry is is hard and can be exhausting, as everyone knows who's run their own business.
Collin 14:50
Yeah, I'm taking I'm taking notes, I'm listening
Matthew Kutas 14:53
and so but what AI should be doing, or technology should be is giving you. More time to do those important things, because how many times do people say, Oh, I just am so tired, I just can't get back to these emails, or I should be checking in with the clients, but I'm just and so that's the part that I think technology offers to people, is to say, hey, now I have the time to kind of do it the way I always wanted to. And I think if you think if you think about it from that perspective, it has a little
Collin 15:23
bit of a shift. Yeah, maybe this is a interesting example here, you know, of, how do I get more time back? How am I actually using this? Is it just for me to automate more things? Or how do I use this tool like you're talking about? Of, okay, well, we had a client reach out to us, and they were struggling to find a good toy that would meet their pets needs. And so I said, lay all their toys out on your on your kitchen. Make sure they're all lined out and take a picture of it for me. I took that I took that picture. I threw it into an AI bot, and I gave it some parameters, and I said, based off of the toys that we're not liking, what are some possible recommendations that we could use to move forward with this? And boom, got 10 and and said, Hey, let's try some of these things. This is that's a very personalized one on one level of attention that we can start directing this towards. And it didn't eat up an entire afternoon of my day, doing all this research, and, you know, going from store to store, that kind of thing. I think that's a little bit more about what you're talking about here.
Matthew Kutas 16:19
Yeah, using it to enhance the quality of service you're getting, and and, and then. And I'll use this example. When we were first starting using before we had sort of software to run our payment, it was taking us two and a half days of the week to either track down payment or to process all the payments. Yeah, right. And so when you have that software to do it, okay, you're getting that time back. How do you put that back? Because you're getting convenience for the client with the software, they can now process their payments really easily. But what are you doing with that time? Opposed to saying, oh my gosh, now I have more time for myself, right? And work life balance is important. And I say that to anyone I'm talking to, it is important to be a good owner, is to have that, you know, to be energized and ready for for the day. But, yeah, I would say your example is absolutely correct. You're using the tool to enhance the client's experience. And I think that's that's an important point.
Collin 17:22
You know, a lot of what we're talking about here is, you know, these, the business, the industry, has really become very professionalized over the last 2030, years, and increasingly, with an eye towards business operations, management level, SOP, policies, procedures, these kind of, like a lot of people would say, these stuffy, corporatey kind of things and feelings, when the industry is all about passion and heart. How do we make sure that we continue to put pets first as we go to look at our businesses to more professionalize and corporatize a lot of in a lot of instances, of, instances of, okay, I've got to get policies and procedures and boundaries, and I've got to do all this stuff. How do we make sure we don't lose that pets? First mindset?
Matthew Kutas 18:10
Well, I'll talk about it from from different services first. Let's just say you have a dog walking company, the unit of time that you're walking that dog never changes. So the quality of whatever procedures or SOPs you have, what all that is that hour or hour and a half, whatever it is, is the same, no matter if you're a big company, small company, medium company, and so, I think you know, if you think about it from that perspective, saying, What is that happening in that timeframe? Right? Am I? Is the procedures and policy? Am I creating a thing for my staff that now they're rushing, or they're feeling like so that 80% of their time is concentrating on all these policies and procedures that I have? Yeah, and they're not focusing on the dog or the client. And I say this, and I use this example all the time, so in school and education, if you have class sizes that are 50 kids with one, how much time is your child getting? And as a parent, you'd be like, This is not great. My child is not and it's the same in this context with daycares or dog walking. Is am I creating an environment? So actually, with procedures and policies that this time is actually even more concentrated on the dog. Because way I look at policies and procedures is they create an environment so that the walker, sitter, whatever it is, is actually free to concentrate most on the dog. I find companies that don't have structure or using it the wrong way, they're actually not concentrating on the dog at all. Either they're always running behind or they're having to check in 47 times, or whatever version of it is. And so that unit is not there. And I think the other part of it is, I think you're right, there's now. Sort of a growth of sort of more, you know, corporate entities. There's a lot of big franchise companies that are really growing within the industry. And I think the big thing that, I think that is the blind spot for most people, is knowing how to hire and train their staff in a way that provides what you're talking about. Because for me, staffing is as much an art as a science. It's it's very hard to do it well. In probably the 25 years I've had, I've maybe had a handful of people who do it really well. It's hard to take out your your own bias, your own understanding of what and, you know, it's interesting. I had to talk with someone yesterday of the idea of, they teach courses on leading in the corporate level, but using the idea of your relationship with your dog, on how you should work with staff, how to lead. You know, can you see, do you have a core value of what you're looking for? And then how do you get the best out of that person? Because every personality is different. Everyone's experience doing the services is totally different. And and how do you then create this experience that you want the clients to have every time? And I think that's a really hard part about this industry, because if you use dog walking example, it's hard to be you're not out there, right? The manager is not out there, the owner is not out there, the staff is so how do you create an environment with these policies that allows for the best possible outcome on the service every single time? And it's, it's, it's, it's hard, and it takes a lot of understanding of what you're trying to create each day for those dogs.
Collin 21:41
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Speaker 1 21:46
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Collin 22:11
If 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 time to pet.com/confessional you Yeah. I mean, one way you know you could, you could sure tag along and follow your employees with binoculars from across the street, making sure they're doing what you need to. And you may need to do that from time to time to make sure they're following whatever. So you have review things. But those that structure that you're talking about, does that give them freedom or constraints? And because you could, you could certainly imagine policies where it's like, okay, well, you're going to arrive, you're going to check in, then you're going to personally call me to make sure that I know that you're there, and then you're going to start, and then you're going to walk seven feet, and then seven feet you're going to do this, and then six feet you're going to do that. Okay, like you're saying there, that's not allowing that person to focus on the quality work. Are we more focused on, like, do we have policies and procedures, a business structure that's focused more on outcomes and end results and that good experience, versus step by step, second by second, control over what's going on there, and really giving our client our team free? Because if you are growing a team like, I think something that Meg and I have really had to embrace is I'm bringing on people that, like, I should inherently trust and that I want to do this job, and I think they're going to be really good at this, and I want them to be part of this. And so if, if I believe all three of those things, I do need to, at that point, step back and go, Hey, go, be awesome, and everybody's going to be just a little bit different, but viewing that as a strength of like, yeah, now, now the dog is going to make 14 new friends, as opposed to one new robot. Like, that's that's good. Like, we want that absolutely.
Matthew Kutas 23:52
And the other element of what you're talking about is how you are training them. Because if you are having to do what you're saying, your training process is probably flawed and and because you're that's almost like continual training, right? You're constantly still micromanaging them. And I the way I look at, if someone comes and asks me to look at their staff and saying they're having staffing issues, I want to look at their floor like I asked them, Who are the two or three Walker sitters that you have, that you were most worried about or concerned about, because, to me, that determines what kind of staff they have, because everyone can manage. Someone who's amazing, doesn't need a lot of this and, you know, and has the best personality. You know, I always joke. I always joke with clients where they say, you know, I'm not taking on any new clients like any and I say, What about a five day a week golden retriever? Yeah, I'll take that on, because obviously and so with the staffing is, how are you from a ownership? How are you elevating your floor? And that tells me a lot about the procedures and policies. Because if you're I have a funny example. I. Was working with an owner, and I asked them to send me their contract that they give to their walkers, and it was 22 pages, and it had, you could tell everything that had ever gone on with their staff, issues that they had was in this kind of thing. And to me, I just sort of said to them. I said, Look, this does not create an environment that says, hey, I trust you. I'm going to train you. You're going to be successful. It says, Hey, you're going to mess up, and I want to make sure I'm covered. And it just, it's just that sort of mindset of saying, how do we take the people who are here who need a bit more help and get them here? And when you do that, your whole staff tend, and that's, for me, a procedure or policy is what you work on. I mean, policies, to me, are about holding the rubber band when it stretches, when things maybe go a little off, or you have staffing people, Collin, sick, that's what it should be. It holds the kind of rubber band without breaking. It's not about holding so tight that the staff member is scared to do anything and make decisions. And I think that's probably where people kind of go off, and
Collin 26:09
that definitely connects back to the discussion about keeping that human aspect of our business and keeping that emotional connection with our clients. Now we're expanding that out and going okay to my to my team as well, and in how I interact with you and how I view you and how I value you as we look to go, Okay, I want to make sure that if this is a service business, that I do have heart, that I do have passion behind this, that does need to go into the relationships that I have, whether that is with a client or with My team that I'm building
Matthew Kutas 26:41
absolutely and staffing, to me, is always about expectations. I used to always say to my managers, don't be a personality driven manager. Be an expectation manager, right? And meaning, because this sometimes we hire people and we staff people and we say, Oh, I'd love they're great. I'd love that they'd be like, a great friend, or they'd be great to hang out with. That may be possible, but that's not what you're looking for, especially if you're trying to scale, you have to say, hey, this person I trust, I've set up expectations for them. They understand. So if there is conflict or there is some issue, they're not saying, oh, you know, Collin is not saying, oh, Matthew hates me, or Matt doesn't want to he doesn't trust me, or whatever version it is, or he keeps changing his mind on what he wants. I think expectation with staffing is almost the most essential thing to having a successful staff. This is what the job is. This is what I looking for you. This is how I'm going to help you, and this is the sort of ecosystem I have created to support you, and so if there is an issue, you can say, Hey, did you we talked about there's something you didn't understand, because you just, I find a lot of times with staffing, because it's stressful, sometimes when you're trying to solve problems, that it becomes personality driven, and that's usually where you have fracturing in your staff or low retention rate, and especially as you scale, because you're not going to always get it right. You know, especially when you're staffing up, you're going to make mistakes, right? You know, what did I hear lately? Someone said that an interview is is like two people meeting at a bar for the first time and lying to each other, right? Because that person is projecting who they want to be, and you're projecting how great the job is, yeah, and sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn't, but I think expectations is a massive one, and especially when you're in need, I always say that's the interesting one for the owner, where you're desperate for new staff. And so usually your instincts are correct, but mostly it's sort of saying, Hey, this is not the right fit for me. This doesn't fit into my triangle of what I'm looking for from staff and what you talked about, enthusiasm, care for dogs, respect and trust. And a lot of times we know it's not correct, and we still do it. And then we're we go, oh yeah, that's exactly what I thought. Hey, look,
Collin 29:08
yeah, you know, and that is that's hard as a business owner, looking to scale without losing that connection, making sure bring all those right people. Of You're right. I think many of our first instincts is, Do I like this person? Yeah, would I? Would I would I want to be best friends with this person I know I really struggle with. I'm a very personality driven kind of individual, of, I either click with people or I don't, and I have a hard time then investing back into those people that I don't click with. It's kind of like, well, I'm just going to write that off. Because whatever, whatever like I kind of, I have that personality of, I want everybody to be friends with me, and I want to be friends with everybody. And if I don't get that in, don't get that immediately, it's hard for me to move forward. And we definitely had struggled with that in the beginning of going through that process and setting myself aside. And we had one great person where we came in, we were kind of desperate for a hire, but not really, and it was just, I think I remember stepping back with Meg. And going, look on paper, this is the perfect person for this job. There's no and then that was one of our first times where we went, Okay, I'm he didn't laugh at my jokes, and it was kind of hard to get through some conversations. But like, we're gonna hire this person and phenomenal employee, because it was just, you're like, you're talking about like we were focused more on those outcomes. How do we get better at setting ourselves aside during maybe not just this process, but at the at the business level, sometimes too, because we do have to operate a business that has needs, wants and expectations outside of ourselves. How do we get better at that aspect as we look to scale and grow.
Matthew Kutas 30:42
I think the most important thing, and you hear this people talk about, in most businesses, is you really do have to know what your strengths and weaknesses are and what you are good and not good at, and then bringing in people, or, you know, having a partner who, who can complement that. When I used to do staffing, I would sort of have them, you know, they would do their initial sort of interview, and then I'd have two other touchpoint interviews that they would have with sort of different personality types who worked for me so that I could so it was a whole kind of process to say, Hey, this is what I got from the first and then hearing what they thought and so forth. But I think at the most important thing, when you scale is bringing in people who do things well that maybe is not your strength and and especially from a staffing you know, finding good managers is incredibly hard because you're asking them to kind of do the hard work, right? You know, every manager knows the 5am text message saying, you know, I'm not coming in today, and my shift starts at six, and so having someone who does those things, and I think when you hire that manager, how do they compliment you? My best managers I've had are not people who are the same as me, or think the same as me. They actually have a slightly different perspective, and that gave me an insight into something maybe I wasn't seeing. Because in the end of the day, I think a lot of owners feel like it's a failure if they're not good at one aspect of their their business, and whether it's the accounting or the clients, or you just, you just can't be and I think for staffing is the the major one. It's, I would say the number one thing I hear when I talk to owners is sort of staff. It's always staff issues, right? And I think that's across most industries. And I think the most important thing that you're talking about is, if you, if you instinct is not good, or you, you don't feel like that's a strength for you. What are the things you're putting in place to counteract that? Whether it's other staff members, if it is a you know, what I used to do is having these things that they would do in their first three weeks that would challenge the things you'd want to see, whether it was stress, whether it was being responsible, and you're allowing that's where your procedures and policy, I think, have had some value for you, because then you're allowing things in real time to give you answers, opposed to what we like to say is my instincts or my gut or whatever version of It is. And I'm sure you found this Collin is some people are amazing interviewers and terrible workers. Some people are terrible interviewers and amazing and like the thing that you talked about. And so it's, I think it's just having those kind of things in place that sort of counteract your own, maybe your own, weaknesses.
Collin 33:40
Yeah, it's really kind of setting up things, either that's people or policies, procedures, whatever that is that will tell me no at some point, right? Come back and say, Ah, wait, wait a minute. Let's double check No. And so whether that is a trusted business partner, whether that is outsourcing this process to somebody, but yeah, you need to have a little bit of that pushback. And that's definitely a struggle as a as a entrepreneur, right? We started the business we're running. The business we're running, we're barreling through it, and there's no real person that can speak in and say, no, let's not do that. Or, Hey, do we really do this the right way? Or that kind of questioning that comes from outside that is really powerful to us, and kind of what you're talking about here of like, hey, let's, let's put some brakes on here. Let's get some ways to steer here so that I'm not just the personality, you know, making all these things happen.
Matthew Kutas 34:32
Well, I generally believe, one thing that I think is true for my 25 years is, if you spend time with someone, or you have these things people do reveal themselves. It's impossible not to and, and, and, and part of that is sort of seeing it for what it is. And because you can't change people's personality, that's an incredible mistake, where people said, you know, they Oh, they're very negative. But I really liked x, but. Are going to be negative. That's their personal personality, so and I think that's a mistake that people make, where they think they can change someone, or that once they start working, they'll be x. You can help them with procedures and policies and all that, but you can't change who they are, right?
Collin 35:16
You wrote a piece a couple months ago, several months ago, at this point, about how your view that the industry is at a crossroads. I'd like for you to talk a little bit about what that Crossroads is, and really kind of which direction you're hoping that we're going
Matthew Kutas 35:32
to take with that Well, I mean, I think you had during covid, it was the biggest shift in the industry, you had the most amount of dog adoptions and dog ownership rise in the last 25 years. It changed demographically who dog owners are or pet parents are. And you also had a lot of people get into the industry because they sort of thought, wow, look at this opportunity here. And you know, I think anyone who had a business during covid, probably the most annoying question was, oh, my gosh, you must be so busy because there's so many new dogs. And so, I think there's a couple things going on. I think there's the rise of apps, of service apps. There are some major corporations expanding franchises that are are doing the landscape. It's also an industry where it's a very low bar to entry, right? Dog walking. I mean, you could start tomorrow if you wanted to. And I think, you know, the one that I always use is sort of training. Is an interesting one where I think the client doesn't really understand the difference between what you know quality trainer is and and not. And so you're also having the client with all this access to information at the same time, which is through the internet, through Google, through all of that sort of stuff. So I think the crossroads for me is I think the market is saturated. I think there is just from rover to to these larger corporations. I think there is too many people in the marketplace not providing enough unique service. And I think there is also a lot of people in it who are not approaching it. There is sort of this odd idea of approaching it like a business as some sort of negative and for me, the most important thing from from my perspective, being in is having clients and people look at the industry as a professional industry of quality and conscience, but also understanding where the client is. I think that the new that new breed of client that's coming up has a totally different understanding of what they're looking from from a service level, I think with social media and all that stuff, it's a more complicated landscape. I mean, I'm sure everyone's seen where some service provider does something that the client doesn't like, and they go on social media and blast them, and there's 150 people telling them that this company is terrible. And so that kind of landscape is different. I think what I'd like to see the Crossroads is there's not a lot of help for people when they get into the industry. There's not a lot of training. You think about it from everywhere. Every other industry has some sort of kind of thing you could go to train, mentor. I think sometimes the community and the industry is not as collaborative as as it could be. And so I think that, and I've talked about this before, I think strategic partnership is a big part of where successful companies are going to go. I think it's hard to scale now like than it used to be. I think it's very expensive to scale like if you're getting into brick and mortars. And I think there's this idea that because you like dogs, or you like cats, you like pets that you this is the right industry for you, and I don't think that's actually correct, and so I'm hoping that you there is more kind of infrastructure for helping people be successful and understanding what the how to be successful, but also just from the other things I'm doing, how is that integrated into the community as a whole? Because now pets are now part of the full circle of how we look at things from an everyday life. And I think you'll you're seeing now, like, if you think about where I started with walking, and when you look at something like rover, that's a very large evolution on how we're changing, and that younger generation that's coming in, that's how they're more used to purchasing services, where 20 years ago, no one would ever let the clients that we had, or 15 years ago would ever consider that to be a reasonable way to do. Services for something that was an emotional service, right? Someone who does not trained or not vetted, really, who you know, might be someone different every other week, but I call it the Uber generation. That's how they're used to doing it, and that's going to continue to grow. It's not going to go in the other way. And so I think people in the industry have to understand that. And then, how do you create a counter balance to that? What is the counter service to that? Because it's going to get more, not less, right? And you're already seeing it right? There's a ton of aggregates now of like, how to find pets, to do providers for you. It's hard to tell now, because AI with websites and all that. Like, the difference between a truly professional company and maybe one that's struggling that way, their websites may look very similar, yeah, where maybe 1015, years ago there was a gap.
Collin 40:53
Yeah, my blood pressure just went up thinking about every time I ask AI, like, dog walker near me, that kind of stuff. And like, we are basically placed at the same level as like. I'm like, No, I know you just ah, no. I think it's interesting that you identified two aspects there of like internal and external problems and crossroads, and one of those being the, I guess you know, the commoditization of many of the services that we've offered you talked about there's way too many undifferentiated services in the marketplace. There's this big glut, and that really has an impact, as far as like for industry identity, because often it was okay we do dog walking. Well, when dog walking becomes the commodity and what's a race to the bottom, and there's way too many people in there. That's hard to pull our mindset out and go, Oh no, no, no. Not that, not that. So sounds. You know, there's this need for the the industry, the professionals, those approaching this as a business, to try and go, where do we look and how do we move to something different to serve those needs in a different way that you're talking about too of okay, there's the external Uber generation expectations here and how they operate. Are we shifting to meet different and future demands, and are we okay with kind of leaving behind the $20 the $15.30 minute dog walk kind of thing that's been there for 30 years? Hey, pet pros. Are you a passionate pet sitter or dedicated dog walker looking to take your career to the next level? Join the National Association of Professional pet sitters, the leading organization dedicated to elevating pet care with industry resources, ongoing education and a network of like minded experts. Naps empowers you to shine, whether you're expanding your business or building new client relationships their community is here to support you every step of the way. Visit pet sitters.org today to learn more and join the movement. Take the leap and let your career flourish. Naps where pet care meets excellence.
Matthew Kutas 42:57
Absolutely, and I think you know you're already seeing a massive trend towards wellness and that kind of holistic idea towards Pet Services, I think, speaking earlier, just about the idea of concierge, that idea of clients, because that's a big differentiator of Client Services. I mean, dog walk is the function, in a way, right? That's the service that you're providing, but that's not the experience you're providing. That's not what you're actually selling, right, what you're and that's the thing that I think is quite interesting is I think people look at it the wrong way, which is, to me,
Collin 43:35
it's the whole tactile experience
Matthew Kutas 43:37
that they get, from the booking to the check ins to the and I always ask owners, how many times have you called clients unsolicited, to check in, to to to explain what you do, and how often are you looking out in the landscape and innovating what you're doing right? And because I you know, if you take a company that's charging $35 for a walk, and you look at a company is doing $18 and I asked them, I said, What makes you different? And their answers tend to be generalized, or they're not able to articulate it in the proper way. And I always say, if you can't articulate it to me, how do you articulate it to a client? And and, and where are you going with your services? Because, as you said, if you get a lot of people and everything just looks like dog walking, then it does become the industry gets saturated and pushed down, and then the the difference in quality becomes unrecognizable. Yeah, yeah.
Collin 44:38
And that that communication to clients is right, it's hard. You ask people, hey, what makes you different? Well, I love pets, and I'm really passionate about this, and I may be, you know, pet first aid and CPR certified, and you're looking at going, Well, then why are you 35 and why are you 18? Help me understand this, and there usually is a lot more there. We just tend to be really bad about talking about it. And I. Right? Like I remember being asked that very that question when we started. We went full time in our business. We were doing some marketing and stuff, and a marketer gets a marketer right. He asked me. He said, What makes you different? And I went through, oh, well, we're certified, we're this, we have a license, we're insured, blah, blah. And his basic question boiled down to, but what does that get me right? How does that? How does that change what I'm getting? And that was the first time that I had ever really like thought through that process of, oh, right, this is all a lot of this is just me focused and how cool I am, and what I think is neat, but not like what you get at the end of this. And trying to communicate that in a different way to people, to help set to help really drive that differentiation there
Matthew Kutas 45:44
absolutely and I, and they use the same example of trainers, and they put all their accreditations and and the customer has no idea what that means. And and understanding your customer is you have to understand what they're looking for, and what can you do to fulfill that need, maybe in a unique way. I always say, How often have you done a survey for your clients? Hey, what can we do differently? What is it? And you can make it anonymous, but But getting back to the thing about scalability, success and scalability is that you could change around the who's doing the service, and the quality of service is the same, so that the client is so Collin is not upset that his normal Walker isn't there, because he knows that he his dog is going to get the same service, same experience. All of the touch points are going to be similar. So he could be comfortable, because you can't scale if you can't do that right, right? Every, every, every walking company, or whatever service it is who's tried to scale, and the person says, Collin says, I only want Stacy to walk my dog. That's not as you can't scale, right? Because Stacy is won't be there forever, and and, and Stacy gets sick, and Stacy goes on vacation, and, and so I think that part of it, I agree with you. What you said is that most people can't explain it. They have in their mind what they think they do well, but they can't communicate it to the client. Because I think a lot of times they maybe don't understand what the
Collin 47:14
client's looking for. Truly, that hurts. Yeah, that's definitely You're right. We don't understand. We think, oh, I'll just throw this out there. Everybody needs this. So it hasn't been hard, and a lot of times it hasn't been that hard a lot, because it's been picked up quickly, right? People find us, we get the natural, organic growth. We don't have to communicate or do that messaging. But then we reach a point, whether either in a saturated market in our area or a client base, where all of a sudden we can't grow anymore and and we don't understand even why we're getting the people that we do. And there's a lot of confusion there that you have to work through to fully understand what's going on well,
Matthew Kutas 47:51
especially in pricing. I mean, if you're at the top end of pricing, right, that limits the people that you can go after because of how much it costs to use your service, so it becomes more important to to deliver value to that client if you want to be a differentiator. I mean, if you're at $15 a dog, like for a dog walk, then the expectation is about price a lot of times, right? And but if you're at the top end, and that's the challenge with scaling, is you're building your model based on that pricing, so then you're spending money on managers or growth based on that. And so if it starts to stagnate, because people are like, Hey, I don't this is not a $35 service or whatever version of it is, because that's a big commitment for people, especially these days you talk about daycares, you're up into the 45 $50 a day, plus transportation. What are you doing to give that quality of service and experience to that clientele that not only gives them satisfaction, but then in turn, goes and talks to other people and says, Hey, this is unbelievable. Collins daycare is just incredibly this is what they did, X, Y and Zed. And I think a lot of people sometimes remove themselves from the fact that, hey, this $200 a week they're spending is really important to them. Yeah, and, and I shouldn't take that for granted for a second, because how am I earning that? And I think that's the thing sometimes people, I think, in the service industry, forget you're earning that every day. It doesn't just become, you know, commonplace. You have to constantly earn that's why service industry is hard. And everyone who owns a restaurant will tell you is you could cook three exact same meals, and you may have three different reactions to it. And so being able to remember that, that it's a client first business and and keep that always at top of mind, am I? Am I doing the best for my. Clients, am I providing the best? Is there anything else I could do? And I think it's hard, but that's an important element that I think sometimes gets lost.
Collin 50:09
When did you realize it was important to start working with city planners, administrators, that kind of stuff in the industry, to make and to help this, you know, get us through this crossroads that you're talking about. Well, I think
Matthew Kutas 50:24
it's quite fascinating that. So when I was sort of in 2016 2017 I was starting to get a lot of calls from condos or hotels for service providing, saying, Hey, we have clients here. Would you, you know, could you offer services? And at the time, you know, from a from an ownership standpoint, it didn't make a lot of sense, because these are, especially at hotels or whatever, these are one off clients. You don't know them very like, it's kind of a risk and versus reward kind of experience. But what I started to see is that you had, you know, there's, there's multiple demographics having the same time. One people are having children later, and the dog has become a sort of the beginning of that kind of evolution, or not having kids at all, and the dog becomes part of the family that way you're having I think during covid millennials, I think 60% of millennials got a pet, and and so, and I think it's something like 30% of non traditional pet owners got a pet. I always tell this little stat that I think is, you know, I know we're talking about dogs, but more cats were adopted and ownership of cats than dogs during covid. You just don't, you just don't see them, right? And so when I was seeing this, I started to think to myself, Hey, okay, if you're going from 5% pet ownership in a condo and you're a and you're getting to 30% or 25% that can changes the ecosystem completely. It changes it for the people who are pet owners and people who are not, but and also, if you zoom that out, cities in itself, are getting more dense. They're going vertical. There's more traffic, more congestion, less green space in where I am in trial, there was a report, this is 2019 before all of this. You know, the covid change was there was a report that the city didn't have the infrastructure for the pet population. And I just actually wrote about this today. I just saw an ad here where the city of Toronto put out an ad, and it's like a growling dog, and it says it has a you know thing comes across and says, if your dog's not leashed, it's your problem. And it's like this very sort of, you know, strong kind of you know thing. And it kind of led me to think about it for a bit, and it made me think, wow, they just don't know what to do. It's and, and so that's sort of kind of what moved me towards that of saying, Hey, this is two things that are colliding at the same time, and you can't just ignore it. On the sort of business side, like the hotels and condos, they're all marketing towards this new client base, right? And so, and you'd be shocked. You would think that they would kind of be looking at the back end, policies and procedures and training, but they're not. They're just trying to go after the client base. And then for cities, you're like, Well, we're out now completely on top of each other in public spaces. More and more pet owners want dog inclusivity in stores and and and on public transport. So how do you create this kind of environment that's just going to keep rising and so that's what really interested me, of how, we do that? How do we integrate these two things together and create a wellness kind of proposition for dogs and pet owners, but also understanding that these two things of non dog owners have to kind of live together within this, these communities, and it would would kind of blow your mind how little this is being thought of or considered in all of these entities. I'll use this one example. I went to a big condo building, and we do sort of an audit of them, and say, hey, you know, what's your pet inclusivity? What are they doing? Well, what are they struggling with? And I always ask them to set a pet registry. And this place had 600 units, and I got an Excel sheet back with two dogs names on it, and because they just didn't know Yeah, and, and so I think just where we're going, it just feels like there has to be some sort of consideration of policies and procedures, where a lot of them, and I'm sure it's the same Where you are were written probably 50 years ago, and haven't evolved and haven't brought in expertise to kind of say, hey, let's, let's find a positive solution. We can't sit there and and just have negative like, here's what you can't do, here's what you can't do. That's not, that's not a sustainable model. So that's sort of, you know, what sort of drove. Into that space.
Collin 55:01
I mean, I'm just thinking of the prevalence of poop stations, a lot of apartments or condos, they have one out front or maybe one out back by the dumpster. And you start talking about, okay, we're going from 50 or sorry, five to 30% ownership. Sure, they're not all dogs, but I'm sure there's a whole lot more in there. Do is just talk about infrastructure like that's a very basic level infrastructure. Do we have enough needs for this? Do the staff know to replace this a lot sooner than they used to? Because I'm sure you know, a decade ago, when they put those in, they replaced it once a month, and now, do we have the supplies are we budgeting for now once a week to get that stuff? Like you can see how all that kind of quickly snowballs and yet, people, oh, pet friendly. We're pet friendly. Pet Friendly. We want pets. We want pets. We want pets. We have pets. They're pushing that in, but not here from your perspective, like, there's nothing on the back end of this. They're just trying to do a big grab for all of these. Yeah, for sure, and I'll give you
Matthew Kutas 56:01
sort of a connection. So in a lot of cities, they required condominiums to put in. You had to have parking, and you had to have public parking as part of it to get your permit. Because there's just was a massive thing. You have these massive buildings going up, and there's and so there'll have to be requirements, from my perspective, that there has to be dog like the green space. What is the size of that green space? None of these places have fire procedures. They're not, you know, there's no onboarding process for them, as you said, waste stations, training for staff, right? And, and this is what I find fascinating. If you have a you know, you're first time dog owner, and I'm not sure what's where, what the procedure is, where you are, but here, the only real requirement by the city is that you get a license, a tag, right? That's $35 $45 they know where the dog is, and you have this tag, and I've always thought to myself how crazy that is, that there's no so you've identified the problem. And instead of having some kind of support package and some kind of process that not only gives you information as the city, but also gives information back to this new time dog owner about how to evaluate their dog in public spaces, know, all the policy and procedures, but also give them support. Here's preferred partners of support for these issues, because I think there's this weird it's sort of, we talked earlier that we're both parents. It's the same thing. It's like this kind of weird thing that, because you have kids, you should be good at it, as any parent knows that you're reminded every day of of our failings and so and same with dog ownership or dog parents, is that just because you are the dog doesn't mean you're going to be naturally good at it or understand how to do it. And it's also something that I find with with a lot of dog owners, it's hard to admit you're struggling or you don't know what to do. It's almost like a sense of failure. And so having that all of this infrastructure in place is the best way, from my perspective, to have this kind of harmonious existence because restrictions, and I mean licenses, you know, serve a certain purpose, but they don't really address the issues that the city already know exists, right? And that's your first touch point with with
Collin 58:36
these, with these pet parents, you mentioned the, excuse me, you mentioned the licensing. I know for us, we just learned you talk about like, there's no back end support, there's no education and outreach about these things. Like, that's a big thing, okay, I need to get a license. Like, we just learned in our city that if you spay or neuter your dog, you get a discount on the license. Where was that information? Like, that's that's, why is it that kind of thing out there? Because a lot of times it's like, oh, well, nobody's talking from one to the other. So there's also systems of communication that have to be developed in these partnerships with this between the city and the veterinary offices and the trainers and all of these things to know what is out there. I mean, when you go and you talk to the either the planners or the construction crews, these who are building the condos and hotels and things like that, how do those conversations typically go? I mean, do people latch on to this, or do they kind of look at you and quickly, you know, say, Oh, I have a phone call and run away. I don't know.
Matthew Kutas 59:42
I always say that it depends a lot if the person across the table has owned, has been a pet, bear or pet before, yeah. So then there's a little bit of if they're not, they look at you slightly crazy. Sure. I think, I think what always interest. Is that a lot of these places look at things from a dollars and cents kind of point of view, and so they and what I try to tell them, and let's talk about the condo part, is, don't look at it as you know, they'll say, I'll give you an example. They all put here. They all put sort of a grooming like wash station in their building. And every single time I've gone to me and they're like, can you think you could figure a way for us to use that? And I say them all the time, I said, look, it's fundamentally not an understanding of of pet parents, which is a they probably have a groomer that they go to, that they love, that they go to and they take their dog to. So they don't want to do it in this, you know, two by two little room that you've created. And secondly, the way you've built it, they have to go down there, wash their dog, then take their wet dog back up to their condo. Instead, what they're just thinking themselves. Why don't I just do it in the shower, right in my place? And so I think, but the reason they put it in is they think this will stop from having mud on the lobby, right? And so I think I try to tell them, I say, Hey, if you're if it's about dollar and cents for you, by creating a kind of 360 degree ecosystem for the pet community within your condo, your dollar and cents is going to come from retention, right where a lot of these vertical buildings are trying to create a horizontal experience. And anyone who lives on in a neighborhood, on a house, you are less likely to move because your kids have friends there, they go to school, there, you like the neighbors, you do all that. And in vertical living, it's sometimes harder to create that and they're and part of what they're not understanding is that pet parents are looking at this ecosystem around the condo. What you said that word pet friendly, which generally means we let pets in, or a hotel, we have a bowl and a bed, and that's basically it. And so I try to say, hey, this will actually create, not only for pet owners or pet parents, for non pet parents, by having that ecosystem. Oh, wow, this condo is they have a policy. They have a conflict resolution. There's someone for me to talk to. There's a whole thing in there. So it doesn't, because the other, you know, part that I tell people is you don't want to be known as the dog hotel in a bad way, as the dog condo in a bad way, where people who are non pet owners go, I don't want it's crazy, I and so those things are sort of colliding. But, yeah, I think it's and I think it comes back to the industry too. It's the same idea, which is talking the language they understand, and having them understand it's a real issue is the sort of first threshold to get over and and because they literally see it as, Wow, this is crazy. We have all these people who have dogs who want to come here. We have a dog washing station that's enough to get them in and it, and I think that's a lot of way they think is imposed to and goes back to our conversation earlier about understanding what your clients looking for and your clients needs, and addressing those through that lens, not through the lens of what you're trying to achieve by it well. So what
Collin 1:03:23
can we do as small businesses and locally to help this process, to help broaden out this ecosystem where we live? I think, I think a
Matthew Kutas 1:03:34
lot of it is quite interesting, which is, I've always find it fascinating how many small businesses don't approach condos and these things to do strategic partnerships with them, which I think is important. I think, I think one of the main points that's important is that vets become this kind of interesting point of expertise, where vets end up being the first point of contact for a lot of pet parents and vets don't, in my experience, know a lot about dog behavior, right? Because that's not their expertise. They don't always know recommendations for dog ownership. I mean, to me, the first point of contact is educating people on finding dogs that fit within your lifestyle and your expectation. We've all had clients where you're like, they're having issues with their you're like, yes, you decided to get a wymarander. Shocked. And you're telling me that he gets a little anxious. And so I think that education is important. I think pet service companies in my general thing that I hope for them is to approach their business as a professional in person. Important and a worthwhile enterprise as a business, and not be scared of that aspect of it. Like, somehow, if you run it that way, it becomes like we talked about less emotional whatever, because I think they have the most point of contact with owners and pet parents, their way of communicating. It's almost like, I always say this, sometimes it's like a relationship, like a bartender, right where they tell you their secrets, and, you know, you know, a lot like, it's a very intimate relationship in a lot of ways. I think elevating the industry, I think offering services to these communities is certainly somewhere that's advantageous to both the pet business owner, but also the community as a whole, right, and also providing services and expectations at a higher level, so that the industry is taken more seriously. And I think what will happen is these entities will then start looking towards that, because I think sometimes they don't look at as a truly serious business, or something that matches what they consider their corporate image, corporate expectation, or whatever version of it is.
Collin 1:06:11
There's a lot of work still to do, but that's very exciting, and there's some actionable things that we can do in our communities. Matthew, I really want to thank you for coming on the show today, sharing with us how we can keep that personal touch, keep pets at the center of what we do in both our businesses and in our communities. I know there's a lot here, and we covered a lot of ground here, so if people are interested in learning more about what you're doing, or reach out for questions things like that, how best can they do that?
Matthew Kutas 1:06:37
It comes just go to our site, Republic of dog.ca just send us a message and love to talk. As I said, my favorite thing right now is just talking to so many different people in the industry and who are doing so many different things in this space, which is just growing and expanding at such a rapid pace that it's an exciting time, and it's an interesting time, for sure.
Collin 1:06:59
Yeah, it is. Matthew, again, I really want to thank you for your time today and coming on the show and sharing this with us. Thank you so much. It was my pleasure. Collin, thanks for having me. I love when Matthew said that technology should give you more time to do the important things. It should enhance the client's experience, not replace the human connection. As business owners and pet care professionals, we often look to technology to solve our pain points, scheduling tools, payment systems, even AI these can save hours and hours of work, but as Matthew reminds us, the point isn't to automate away the heart of our service. Instead, we should use the time we gain to deepen the relationships with clients and their pets, send that personal message, make that check in call, show you care, because in an industry built on trust, the human connection is what truly sets you apart. We want to thank today's sponsors. Time to pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters 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
