680: The Reason Clients Choose You (It’s Not Your Features)
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What kind of business are you actually running—premium or luxury? In this episode, we unpack the critical difference between commodity, premium, and luxury brands and why that distinction matters for pet sitters and dog walkers. We explore how most pet care businesses market themselves with premium messaging even though the service clients are buying is deeply emotional and closer to luxury. We discuss why feature lists like insurance, certifications, and software can unintentionally push you into price comparisons. And we explain how shifting toward lifestyle and identity-based messaging can attract the right clients and build stronger brand loyalty.
Main topics:
Commodity vs Premium vs Luxury
How Clients Actually Buy
Premium Feature-Based Marketing Problem
Luxury Identity and Belonging
Aligning Messaging With Clients
Main takeaway: Luxury buyers aren’t asking what makes you better—they’re asking, ‘Are these my kind of people?
For years, the industry has focused on features: insurance, certifications, software, and years of experience. Those things absolutely matter—but they aren’t usually the reason a client chooses you. Pet care is emotional. People want to know that the person walking their dog or caring for their cat understands their values, their philosophy, and the way they see their pet. When clients feel that connection, they stop comparing checklists and start choosing relationships.
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Premium, luxury, commodity, pet care, dog walking, pet sitting, brand differentiation, client avatar, emotional connection, peace of mind, personalization, brand loyalty, marketing strategy, client experience, professional services.
SPEAKERS
Collin, Meghan
Meghan 00:02
For years in the pet care industry, we've heard a lot about becoming premium. You know, raise your prices, elevate your brand, provide better service. But at the exact same time, we also hear something else. People say, pet sitting and dog walking are luxuries. These two ideas sound familiar, premium and luxury, but they actually describe two completely different types of businesses. So understanding that difference matters more than most pet care providers realize, because many businesses are operating in a luxury category while marketing themselves like a premium product, not good. So today we're unpacking the difference between commodity premium and luxury brands. What that means for us as dog walkers and pet sitters. Hi, I'm Megan. I'm Collin. We are the host of pet sitter confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Thank you for joining us today. We'd also like to thank our sponsors, dogho pet sitters associates and our Patreon supporters, who are pet sitters and dog walkers, just like you have found value in the podcast. Want to keep it going to 700 episodes and beyond, and they've gone to pet sitter confessional.com/support, to see the ways that they can help out. If that sounds like you do it too. This topic luxury or premium comes up all the time when people talk about pricing, differentiation and standing out, most markets organize themselves around three different types of brand, commodity, premium and luxury. So these are not just pricing levels. When we think about commodity, we think about bottom of the barrel, super cheap. When we think about luxury, we think ultra expensive, only for the wealthy. You know, they represent these. These three categories represent completely different ways of competing commodity. When we talk about this, we think of sugar. Sugar is sugar. You walk into the grocery store and buy whichever one is cheapest. You probably don't have a favorite brand of sugar. Commodity brands compete on price and availability. So the buyer's question is simple, what does it cost? Is it cheaper than something else? Okay, that's what I'm gonna go with. An example of a premium brand would be apple. So Apple, as we know, is not the cheapest phone, but people buy it because it performs better, it lasts longer, and it works smoothly. You know exactly what you're getting when you buy an Apple phone. It's quality. Premium brands compete on proof and performance. They have been here time after time. So the buyer's question here becomes, what makes you better,
Collin Funkhouser 02:27
especially makes you better at your job, at what you are trying to do, which one's going to perform better? So premium brands tend to focus on the facts. On the comparison chart of the sheet of I have this list of features and this is the features I now sell to you as what you want or what you need to be better, to be best to because they're going to outperform everything everything else.
Meghan 02:49
Then when we talk about luxury brands, we think of Hermes. You know, they make handbags and they cost 10s of 1000s of dollars, very, very expensive. Do the items perform any better than a Walmart purse? Well, no, the Hermes purse doesn't make you a sandwich or go wash your car. Same thing with the Walmart purse. They're essentially the same. The function is the same. They have pockets for you to put stuff in. They have a handle for you to carry it, but they essentially function the same. But that's not where they are. Competing. Luxury brands compete on identity and belonging. Think of like a club you want to be part of it. You want the Hermes bag rather than the cheap Walmart bag. The question the buyer has then is, is this for someone like me? Can I relate to this? Is this something that I like or I want to be a part of? So commodity sells on affordability, very, very cheap. Premium sells performance again, what are the facts and the features? And then luxury sells on belonging. So that's what we're going to
Collin Funkhouser 03:49
talk about. Yeah, those and those three things are really important to understand, and a lot of this we have to tease out from our own personality and our own bias. I know I love looking at comparison charts of performance items and looking at checklists. I will make a spreadsheet to compare anything every day all the time. I want to be able to see and make a direct comparison from one thing to another. I want to have my list of features that I can look at to then say, Is this going to perform best for me,
Meghan 04:19
whereas I am more of the commodity buyer. I love a good sale. I love to get the thing the cheapest that it possibly can be. So when we as business owners think about the type of business we want to be, we don't necessarily want to have our own bias into this. We want to look at our community, the people that we serve, the people that we want to be attracting into our business, kind of our client avatar, and going, Okay, where do these people fall in? Or maybe you don't even want to focus on the people at all. And you think, because of my business and my mission, I want to go in this direction.
Collin Funkhouser 04:51
Yeah, you make that statement, that opinion about your business and who you're trying to serve. Because each one of these categories, they buy for different reasons. A. Commodity buyer wants that lowest friction purchase. They are not invested emotionally in the brand at all. They could care less about who makes whatever they are using. They just know that they have a problem and they need it solved immediately. A great example of this are gas stations. Gas stations, they try and say, Oh, well, we add extra performance boost, and we help extra cleaner. And we do this. We do that. It's gasoline. The only real difference is, is it 299 or is it 301? You're literally making a purchasing decision based off of two cents per gallon. Obviously, we know that adds up and so on and so forth, but you're basically saying which one's the cheapest in town, and I'm going to go there to get the gas that I need.
Meghan 05:44
Now the exception here would be a buckies, because that is a brand, a brand in and of itself, right? They are not, they're not really here for the commodity. They're here for their brand.
Collin Funkhouser 05:55
Yeah, okay, well, that's you found the one exception to this. But you see how there are ways to be in a commodity market, but still differentiate yourself, right? They're not. They're not separating themselves on the gas. It's the experience of walking through those doors and having way too many items to pick and choose from and being slightly overwhelmed. But everybody's really friendly and says, Welcome to buckies. Another example, maybe just generic grocery stores, ones that just kind of they carry the cheapest items and everything's in there. They have exactly what you need. But you're not going in there to see two or three different kinds of eggs or kinds of milk. You go in there, you get the cheap milk because that's what's there. Now you might not care about that. You're just there because you're worried about price.
Meghan 06:38
This is contrasted with premium buyers who really want reliability and confidence when we talk about the, you know, the Apple device, I want my phone to work 24/7 365, I don't want to even turn it off ever. I want it to always be hooked up, ready to go whenever I need it. And this is true for the buyer who's looking at the premium service when we think about a vacuum cleaner, right? Dyson, those are super reliable. They suck up X amount per minute, and they have really powerful suction powers and everything else that they tout in a vacuum. You know exactly what you're getting. Same thing with Toyota. The reliability is there. Year after year. They never break down.
Collin Funkhouser 07:19
Premium buyers want to know that the item works better, that it's going to last longer, and they really want to feel like they've made the smart choice. This is the decision that somebody who's looking at high quality really is going to buy, and Toyota is the perfect example of this. If somebody wants a car that will always turn on and last a million and a half miles, they're going to buy a Toyota. They might not that because that's what they're looking for. They're not looking for the status that comes with something because that's the next the next tier, next level of brand that we're looking for here is luxury. This is something entirely different. When buyers go here, they are really looking for identity signaling. They want to be shown that they are part of the in group, the in crowd, that by having this item, by associating themselves with this other brand, that they are of a kind, that other people can look to them and immediately recognize a status about them. And yes,
Meghan 08:17
this is the Hermes bag, or the Rolex people can see, oh, you have a Rolex watch, Wow, you are of a certain image, a certain status. You see this a lot in cars, Ferrari or Maserati. But this doesn't just extend to status symbols or physical things. It's also services or belonging to a country club or a certain membership at a very fancy hotel or restaurant that only the exclusive people can get in luxury. Buyers want to feel part of the group. They want to feel aligned with a certain lifestyle. They also want to be recognized for their taste of, oh, you belong to the Country Club. Well, that's those are high food and people there. You know, the product really becomes part of how they see themselves, and obviously how other people see them as well, but more so how they see their own selves.
Collin Funkhouser 09:05
And that's really part of this. It's this personal identity. And so you see how we've spanned the spectrum here of commodity. There's no emotional investment. They do not care. They're going to grab what's on the shelf and they're going to walk away and be done. Premium. Now we start looking at facts and figures and comparison shopping, and then luxury, we've moved way past all of this is, is a Ferrari technically a better car than a Toyota? I'm going to say, no, it's really not, however, it is a status symbol to drive a Ferrari. Only 13,000 are made every year, 13,000 and I found this out, the average selling price of a Ferrari is $325,000 That immediately tells the world what kind of person you are. A you like Ferraris, you are part of that in crowd, you have the money to spend, and people associate that with you. It becomes extremely emotional. It's nothing but emotion. Months, and that's the key to understanding the difference between all these it's not just how much somebody can spend. That's where I fall down. I know a lot of people, we get into the mindset of commodity is cheap. Premium is little, middle, middle, throat, and then luxury is just really expensive. It's not about the dollars and cents of these things. It's about the emotions behind it, and the group that people perceive that they are part of, because they have that item.
Meghan 10:25
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Collin Funkhouser 11:02
as we think about dog walking and pet sitting, this is where things get a little interesting for how our industry operates, because pet care is not a commodity for most of our clients. It really is not. People may call and they are concerned about price but being price sensitive, again, being price sensitive is not the same as being a commodity. Kind of business where the person doesn't care who's coming and who's going and what's taking place, what they are actually purchasing. It's our industry is also not purely premium either. It's not just about the facts and figures and good better and best kind of comparisons. The pet care market and pet care industry actually behaves a actually behaves much closer to a luxury industry. I mean, just think about it. Clients are not buying a functional they're not simply buying I'll add that it's not simply buying a functional task. Also, they don't need our services in most cases, this isn't a do or die kind of thing.
Meghan 12:02
Now, of course, there are exceptions to every rule, people in assisted living facilities, people who are immobile, who can't get out of the bed and walk the dog themselves. Like yes, those are instances where they may be on disability and have no other option. But think about
Collin Funkhouser 12:17
the purchasing decisions behind pet care and dog walking. The person is trying to buy peace of mind. That's ultimately what they want. Now they may have quibbles about how much that peace of mind costs them, but that doesn't mean that they're commodity shopping. A true commodity market would be the person does not care who comes and goes from their home to walk their dog. They genuinely don't they don't ask any questions about background checks, anything about that. They don't care. They just want random people to come off the street and walk their dog. That would be a true commodity level
Meghan 12:47
for these we often think about the clients who are shopping on rover and wag. They don't really care who they get. Maybe they want the one, the sitter with the most stars, but they don't really care who it is. They just want somebody to come walk
Collin Funkhouser 12:59
their dog, right? But for the majority of people, they're looking for trust. They are looking for somebody to care for something that they love and that they love deeply, a member of their family. Here you can start hearing that there's a lot more emotions involved in this. This is where a luxury purchase is very emotional, as we already talked about, impact care is deeply emotional. It's nothing but emotions. When we are dealing with the pet owners and their their their biases, their fears, their anxieties, they want somebody that is aligned with their lifestyle. How many times have you been asked what you know? How are you going to correct my dog on the leash? How do you handle misbehaviors do? Are you okay with using XYZ kind of equipment and tools? This is what I do. This is my kind of of program. This is my process. These are my procedures. This is how I live with my pet. And what they're asking you is, are you okay with that? Do you align with me? Because they want to know, is this person for me?
Meghan 14:01
Well, it's even something like, when you have to give medication, how gentle Are you going to be? It's philosophy. Are you aligning with my philosophy as a pet owner? Do we gel? Are we on the same page?
Collin Funkhouser 14:14
Yeah, that's identity they want to know. Am I the kind of person? Am I the kind of person the pet owner wants to see themselves as the kind of person who treats their pet like family or whatever marketing that is, whatever, whatever connection point you make. That's why people choose professional pet sitters and dog walkers, because they want to align themselves with a viewpoint of the world that they agree with. They want to be known as that kind of person to their circles, to their family and to their friends and co workers.
Meghan 14:42
As a solo pet sitter and dog walker, this is almost easier, because you are one person and you just have to connect with that owner. If you own a company with a team, this can be harder, because you as the company have to have the backing of this is the way we handle it. Every single person is trained the same way. And have to communicate that to the owner is okay this, you may not get the same person every time, but we all have the same philosophy.
Collin Funkhouser 15:08
I love that, and remember, we really need to make sure we are focusing not on the price. Do not hear that we are talking about inexpensive, middle of the ground or hyper expensive services, because what is a luxury to somebody? I mean, that's a price point that you can't really define. We really need to make sure we're focusing on the emotions and the purchasing. Reason behind it. Why did they go with that? What are they looking for? The price is inconsequential. At that point, when we focus too much on the price point, we put ourselves back into the commodity thinking back into the more comparison and checkbox thinking that's is a concern for people, is a concern for pet owners, but they're really looking for that emotional connection to have with not just their pet but with the people that they're partnering with too.
Meghan 15:55
We've certainly had a lot of clients over the years in various tax brackets, and it doesn't necessarily matter the income level of the person. It's more so the heart behind them of they passionately care for their pet, and they don't really care what the cost is. They want somebody who cares just as much on the other end of the leash.
Collin Funkhouser 16:14
Yeah, that is a very interesting thing to think back about our clients over the years and who we're currently serving. They live in all sorts of zip codes, area codes, all sorts of places, all sorts of homes. But there's one thing in common, they love their pets. And so we don't really think ourselves as I'm only for rich people. No, I'm for people who love their pets. That's who we are for and that's what we're connecting on. That's what that's the luxury stock connection that we have to make in order for those clients to see themselves in us, to start building that trust and to see themselves in us.
Meghan 16:52
But here's where the disconnect happens. Most professional pet sitters market themselves as premium. What do we emphasize? Think of your most recent social media post or email newsletter or flyer that you put out. What did you put on there? What did you emphasize for a lot of us, the majority of us, for years, we've been told, okay, what's important? You are licensed, you are insured, you are background checked, you have software, you have these certifications. A lot of times, that is what we put on there that those are our selling points to clients. I have a lot of experience. I'm very reliable. I'm dependable. I will always show up. Okay, cool, but those are all features. When you think of an Apple phone, when they go to sell they talk about the camera quality, it's got this many pixels, or the processor speed, or the battery life, it'll last for days. You never have to charge it. You know, it's it's that equivalent that we're talking about. The features are our premium marketing here, those things do matter. We do care. I want an amazing camera quality when I go to take pictures of dogs. I don't want my battery to drain after the third visit. I want it to last all day or beyond that same thing here, we do want our clients to know that we have these qualifications. Of course, I want them to know that I'm insured and licensed and bonded and that my employees have background checks. Those are all very good things for them to know, because it provides that trust that I'm not just gonna a flighty sitter who's gonna be here one day and the next. I have invested back into my company, and that should matter to the client. But remember, luxury buyers are rarely persuaded by features alone. Okay, cool. You have insurance, but I want to belong to something. Luxury clients are persuaded by belonging and alignment. So instead of asking, What makes you better? What do you have that the other dog walker down the street doesn't have luxury clients? Ask, Are these my kind of people again, that that brand, that belonging, that community, that that emotional feeling of, I want to be with these people, kind of, kind of like the these people are cool, and I want to be in the in crowd, and the with the cool people, it's kind of like that.
Collin Funkhouser 19:01
Yeah, they see themselves there. I mean, back to the Apple example. They offer a wide range of cell phones, and their cell phone is designed for a very specific group of people. Each phone is designed with a group of people in mind, and those features, all of the specs, are designed so that people know, hey, that's the phone for me. I'm a pro and I like big screens, and I like need a lot of battery, and I take lots of photos. I need the latest and greatest, biggest pro phone. Or if I don't care about photos, if I'm not doing things, I'm just texting and doing phone calls. Again, you're it's segmented on features. Contrast this with the Hermes bags of the Kelly and the Birkin. Why would you buy one over the other? No one knows. There's functionally, there's no need to buy one versus the other. There's not, you can't compare a spec sheet to go this one has this capacity and this one has this kind of pockets. And there's that literally does not exist for those two bags. You buy them because you want an earn. Mes bag, period. That's it. You're not going in comparison. And I don't have an Excel spreadsheet for the Hermes bags to know which one is better, good, better or best for us. A, I don't have that kind of money, but B, like, you can't do that with what they're selling, because they're selling Hermes. They're selling that lifestyle. They're selling that connection. And in pet care, when we find ourselves emphasizing insured, bonded, background checked updates at every time this and this and this, you get this, this is what you get. Here's the laundry list of things that you get with my service. We are selling our feature set, we're felt we're selling the spec sheet, and then the client's going to take that and go, Hmm, okay, how does that align with my needs? Now I'm going to go talk to this person and get their fact sheet and get their specs, and then I can compare one to the next to the next to the next.
Meghan 20:49
Now, yes, there are clients who do care about that, but think about how that list made you feel when you read that. Insured, bonded, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, fact, fact, it was not emotional at all. And that's what we really want to get to, is the emotions. How do we pull emotions out of our clients to get them to go with us?
Collin Funkhouser 21:08
Yeah, well, and I feel like, as the pet care industry, we have marketed our services at this premium style marketing for for a couple reasons. I think the first one is we have pushed hard against the non professionals, the people who don't have these things. We've been trying to find ways to differentiate ourselves from the masses, from the friends, families, neighbors and acquaintances. And we've been so focused on that that we've built out our fact sheets, we've built the checklist, we've built all of the specs, and now we're saying, compare this. This is what you
Meghan 21:42
look for. This is because we know that anybody else doesn't have that. Yeah.
Collin Funkhouser 21:46
And so it actually feels weird to go like, on one hand, with the friends, families, neighbors and acquaintances, people use those based off of what, well, convenience and emotion. Then in the middle, we've got our premium marketing about facts and figures. And then on the far luxury side, we also get back to emotion and that connection, but it's a different kind of connection. It's the security and the peace of mind with the emotion, with the friends, families, neighbors and acquaintances. That is emotion based off of familiarity and what their perceived safety and security, because it's a known quantity, what we have to do is go from this premium facts and figures, which is great, we have to separate. We have to find ways of differentiating ourselves. Now we've got to now talk about what it how it makes the people feel.
Meghan 22:34
And now a word from Michelle with dog CO, what
Speaker 1 22:37
does it take to scale your pet care business? My name is Michelle Klein. I'm the founder of dog co launch, where pet care companies come to grow and scale, and I want to send you a case study of how one of my clients took his monthly revenue in just one year from $17,000 to over $73,000 and yes, that is monthly revenue, not annual. To get this case study and learn more about dog CO and what we do and how we help companies go to dog CO, launch.com forward slash case study.
Meghan 23:11
So we've talked about premium, how it's all about facts, luxury all about emotion. There is a danger here of premium marketing in a luxury market, when you sell luxury services with premium messaging, two problems happen. The first one is you start competing with everybody else. If your marketing is all about again, the fact sheet, insurance, software, certifications, years of experience, then the next sitter can say the same thing. Think about how many Facebook posts of pet sitters and dog walkers you've seen that say, I'm reliable. I have lots of experience. You are now in a feature arms
Collin Funkhouser 23:45
race where everybody's using the same words to describe what they do,
Meghan 23:49
and it actually dulls it down. What does experience mean? Does it mean experience going from home to home, caring for medically needy and special behavioral clients, or does it mean you were a teenager and you had a dog that your parents mostly cared for. Clients can't tell the difference if
Collin Funkhouser 24:05
Ferrari marketed their car by saying, our steering wheel will turn the car left and right, that doesn't tell that it's then it's the exact same as the Toyota Corolla. Oh, our steering wheel does the same thing. Well, we have four wheels. Well, we do too. We've got four doors. We have glass in our windows. Hey, and our car is painted, everybody, well,
Meghan 24:26
that's weird. A client would say, then, why are you so much more costly? Why would I pay $45 for a 30 minute visit, when I can pay the person who has the same credentials $10
Collin Funkhouser 24:37
a visit? If that sounds familiar, is because that is the second danger of premium marketing messaging when we are actually a luxury service, because when we do that, we attract the wrong kind of buyer. Premium messaging attracts comparison shoppers. It attracts people who are primed and ready to go fact for fact spec. By spec for you to compare it to the other people. I actually had this conversation with somebody when I was talking about, oh, because I hate, well, hey. Well, just so that, you know, we're, we're this and this and this and this and this. And the person responded, yeah, my last person was the exact same, and they were half the price. Ah, well, now, now all of a sudden, I've got to shift my messaging. I've got to shift my talking points now. I have to start talking about the relationship and the dependability and the reliability and all of those things that people get and all and what that does then is that is that's actually the luxury more messaging that we should have been using all along, because luxury messaging attracts alignment. Shoppers. Remember premium buyers, who is the best value they're looking for? What's the best for the value that I can get? And luxury buyers are going, these are my people. I immediately see what you do, why you do it, and it's, it's the thing for me,
Meghan 25:56
I get the value, the price doesn't actually matter at that point, it's I know when I choose these people or choose this person, I am going to have ultimate peace of mind. I can turn off my phone while on vacation and I know that they're going to handle it, or I can go to my daughter's wedding and not check my phone because I know that if anything comes up, they've got it.
Collin Funkhouser 26:18
So while we've pushed into premium marketing and premium messaging. It's done the thing that we were trying to avoid in the first place. It's the comparison game. When everybody's saying the same thing, everything is meaningless, and now we can't be the comparisons don't work, and people just choose based off of price. And now that's really putting us back in the comparison and the commodity market, isn't it, which is what we're trying to avoid from the very beginning. We don't want to be seen on price, don't we have to set our prices for various reasons and for business practices. Don't worry about the price. I'll just take care of you. And when we do the fact sheet and the spec sheet, people can compare. And when they compare, they compare, they look at price, because that's the only differentiating factor there. And we will become a commodity market, the last thing that we want to be in the entire world. And I think it's it's really important that we note, and we've said it before, like insurance, software, certifications, training, background checks, all of that stuff, SOPs, policies, all of those are absolutely critical to running a business. They are essential and they are important. And the clients do get benefit from those.
Meghan 27:29
We are not saying don't have those or those are not important. They are very important. They are critical. But when you go to talk to clients, when you go to message them in any sort of capacity, you have to be talking about what their lifestyle looks when they use you, what kind of identity they're going to have. It's important to communicate things like attention and thoughtfulness, personalization, care philosophy.
Collin Funkhouser 27:52
And that doesn't have to be I pay See, here's, here's where we tend to go. I pay attention to my to your pets. I will pay attention. I promise. I really will. I will I will absolutely pay attention. But we can communicate that in other ways. Maybe while we're doing the meet and greet, we're in the home, and we notice that there are some baby gates that are up that the client hasn't mentioned yet or brought any attention. They haven't called our attention to it. So if I say, Hey, I've noticed that you have some baby gates around. Talk to me about why those are there and what we need to do with them. I paid attention, and I brought it into the care for that client, the personalization aspect, depending on the breed, the age, the energy levels, the complexity of the routine, and all the medications take to them, a care plan for what to do,
Meghan 28:39
because you're the professional you've seen this probably a lot of times over the years, and so what is your expert opinion? They may then say, Wow, I never thought of that. Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention.
Collin Funkhouser 28:50
A premium business will leave it up to the client to select what option is best for them. A luxury business is going to say, based off of your needs, here's what you need to do, and there is that thoughtfulness. Then of I thought about you. I've thought about your pets. I've thought about your home. I noted, actually, when you told me when the trash was supposed to be picked up, I took it out for you, even though you didn't ask me to. I did that for you, because that's all included with what we do and and you can design this for how your business and what you want to do in your business, you don't have to do all the things all the time. We're not saying everybody becomes a boutique concierge level style business, but you can integrate all of these things in the care philosophy, right? Are are you fear free? Are you force free? Are you going to work with or against? Or what kind of training will you do or not do? Or what tools will you use or not use? Or how will you What are you okay with, with number of visits per day versus not? All of that comes into play when, and it starts with us as the businesses and the business owners having opinions about things instead of again, saying, hey, client, here all the facts. I'm the best. You tell me when to show up and. What to do, and I'll do it, and I'll do it perfectly, versus Megan, you said, I'm the professional. I have experience, I have training. Let me put those to work for you, dear client, by giving you recommendations and showing you what the care should look like.
Meghan 30:17
And hopefully you can see that over time. When we do this, it's going to attract a certain client that is not bottom of the barrel price shopping. Because ultimately, I don't think that those kind of clients really want to be cared for at that level. They just want somebody to come in and throw food on the floor and then leave.
Collin Funkhouser 30:32
Yeah, exactly. They have different purchasing decisions. They have different initiatives and desires for their purchase again, if somebody who is a commodity level client. They do just want a random person to come in and Huck food through the window and then never deal with anything else. A luxury a client who is of a more luxury client who is who is willing to go through this stuff. They want to be shown. They want to be given that experience. They want to know what's going on. So instead of saying something like, I am an insured dog walker. Will walk your dog on a walk. Well, I'm a dog walker. I'm gonna treat your pet like my family. You should miss your pets. Don't worry about them, or we support you to live your best life with your pet. That's what we do now. We can have ways of now, when the client contacts us, I need to then share how I'm going to do that. I'm not going to say we treat your pets like family, because we have insurance. You know, we're thoughtful and we'll personalize it for you actually have that conversation with that client. These kind of messagings are not feature lists. They're identity statements. The client will see these statements and go, I want somebody who will treat their like family. I don't want to worry I'm okay with missing or I want to live my best life. That's I need, that company, that's who I need. And then we, as the businesses, we're going to show show them what that actually looks like.
Meghan 31:59
It is a good idea to flush out these statements more as you were saying, because even some of these are starting to be used very frequently in the industry, like we treat your pets like family. Okay, what does that actually mean? How does that play out? What do you provide? What is the experience that I get with your company? Another popular one is peace of mind. I provide you peace of mind. Okay, well, what does that brass tax? What does that actually mean? Because, yes, of course, I want peace of mind, but how do I know that I'm going to get that with you? What do you provide? So when you sell to this type of client, emphasize feeling and emotion, relationship experience, instead of proving you are, better demonstrate that you belong in the client's world, that by having you in their inner circle, they are going to be so blessed when you go to make this pivot from premium to luxury, you want to shift that positioning. So the question then changes from, what makes us better, what's our laundry list of things versus what does our ideal client believe about their pets? What do they want for their pets? What do they want for themselves? What do they think that their pets deserve to have, obviously, hopefully, the best care. And then your messaging should reflect that worldview. Yeah.
Collin Funkhouser 33:12
I mean, just think of a client who is a busy professional. From your perspective, take some time and think about, what does that person believe about their pets? What do they want for their pet? What do they hope for their pet? What about people who see their pets as family members? What kind of fears and anxieties does that person have again? What do they hope and want for their pet? What kind of care do they want for their pet? Someone who values calm, reliable care, all three of these segments, we didn't mention anything about income again, I need to drive that point home again. We didn't mention anything about income. We mentioned what do they want for their pet? That is where we start thinking about more emotional and desires and outcome based care for their pet and themselves as well. But they have an outcome and a desire that they want luxury brands build community and alignment with those kind of people. Community and alignment. They see a group that they can connect with, and they know everything about this company is part of what I want to be in. It's not just again, not they're not looking for feature comparisons, and I'll talk about here, when we look at brand loyalty, there is an increasing brand loyalty as you go from commodity premium then to luxury. There's no brand loyalty with commodity kind of shoppers, they, again, literally do not care premium. They may have some loyalty, as long as the brand that they prefer is the best, has the best feature set
Meghan 34:43
well, and also is consistent with the features, right? If I have an iPhone and all of a sudden, Apple stops making the best quality camera, well, I can't have that. I'll switch to anything else, because really, what I care about is not the status of having an Apple iPhone, but it's having the best features possible. Possible for my business,
Collin Funkhouser 35:01
exactly, versus an Hermes bag. Again, if you are willing to spend 10s of 1000s of dollars for a Birkin, you're not going anywhere. You're going to want to continue to be there. And the next time they update that, or have something else that is an accessory, or whatever that is, you can get another one, because that is the image. The image lasts longer than a feature set in spec sheet. Computers and phones, cars get outdated so fast, and then we move on to the next thing. And as long as it's the next better or biggest thing, that's what we want.
Meghan 35:31
Well, and I know we're talking a lot about products here, right? Vacuums, cars, iPhones. We're talking about products, but this also is for services as well, again, being seen at the country club, or telling your friend, oh, I can't do that thing because I have to go to the country club meeting, or I have to go swim at the country club pool. Or think
Collin Funkhouser 35:50
of, think of yoga, or go taking a special yoga class, these services that we get, or house cleaners or yard crews. A lot of people aren't scared of grass or leaves. They want the status of having a yard crew. It's not they didn't do that based off of the sharpness of their blades or how many leaves they got off their yard. They wanted a status symbol. They moved into the neighborhood and everyone else had a yard crew. So they need a yard crew so they can be part of the in crowd for because they have a yard crew, they're perfectly capable of cutting their grass, and they probably have a lawn mower in their shed anyway, but they have one because it's a status symbol. That's a service that they get, painters, whatever that is. Now they are saying, I use these people, and they're the best, because other people who are awesome also use them. If they're part of that group. I use this dog walker because everyone in my neighborhood does, and they're and my neighbors are amazing, and they use this dog walk. So I want to use that dog walker. I want to be seen as part of that club, so I can go talk to people about my dog. It sounds a little middle school ish, a little clicky, a little clicky, but that's exactly what it is when people who are in the and I'm going to go to Hermes Ferrari, when they see these things. They know that's my people. I like that person. That means I like that bag. I need that bag so I can be like them. It's exactly what's happening here. And there's that stickiness, because they're part of a culture. They're part of an image, versus that spec sheet and versus that price.
Meghan 37:15
So then what are you doing to create that culture in your business? If this is truly something you want for your business of not just talking about a sheet, a fact sheet, but going to a luxury messaging. How does that play out in your business? It's not just social media posts. It's not just email newsletters. It's it's more of a culture. It's more of how you make them feel. So in what other ways, other than social media posts, can you include your clients into your world
Collin Funkhouser 37:43
every time they touch your business, what do they experience every time they have to book what happens every time they have a question? What comes up? This is where we as businesses can excel, because we have a direct connection to our client. They know who we are. Our customer service must be outstanding. We must have that ingrain when they tell us something, we've got to put it down somewhere so we never forget it one and done that. You don't have to tell me five times. You only have to tell me twice. Tell me once, and I'm just gonna hear it in passing. I'm gonna put it somewhere so I can continue to serve you the best. That level of attention and thoughtfulness is what we're talking about here.
Meghan 38:18
I know a lot of times you come to me after a meet and greet and you say, the client didn't actually say this, but I noticed this and asked a question based off of this, again, with your baby gate example earlier, of the client didn't point this out, but I noticed and was able to, we were able to better tailor our care, because the client had forgotten, or the client, a lot of times, didn't think this was important. Of, oh, right, my door doesn't actually latch all the way and you have to do this super tricky method in order to get it closed. Well, that's why we test keys and do test doors at the meet and greet, to notice these little things that come up.
Collin Funkhouser 38:53
Go and market this as we ask lots of questions during the meet and greet, we're very noisy, noisy. We're going to take lots of notes and photos. Well, that sounds a bit intrusive. So with any well, how do I market that? How do I market what people experience? The thing is, is that in more luxury brands, luxury markets, you don't, you don't market because the client is going to go to their friend and say, this dog walker just came over and and Sam, they really got me, they really got Baxter in what he's needing, and they really put out this plan that I think is gonna be amazing for him. There's no amount of marketing that I can do to get that kind of impact. That's where the power starts to become is when people go to their friends and say, those guys get me, oh, my goodness, my life is actually so much better than my dog. Can you believe that that's where that power comes from? When we nail that clients can't help but rave about us, and
Meghan 39:58
that's different for every business. Yes, pet sitting and dog walking exist in a fascinating space, and we are at such an amazing time where we have so many tools at our disposal to make a client's experience top notch, better than ever. The work itself in pet sitting and dog walking can look simple from the outside, oh, you just clip a leash on a dog and you take it out, or you play with a cat or put some food on the floor for a cat, not a big deal, but the value clients receive is deeply emotional. They are able to enjoy their life, have their best life possible, because they know they can rely on you, and that's why so many successful pet care businesses are actually operating in a luxury category. The challenge is recognizing it. The challenge is also doing something about it, and marketing that way, and having clients feel that and experience that. It's not easy, but it can be done once you realize and understand whether you are competing as a commodity, a premium or a luxury brand, everything else becomes clearer. Your messaging becomes clear. I know exactly who I'm targeting, who I'm wanting to work with. Your pricing, well, you're not going to be a luxury brand and charge $5 for a walk. Your marketing also becomes very clear. You know exactly what you're going to say and who you're going to say it. And then your client expectations also become clear. They know what to expect, that guarantee of service, that feeling that they get, they're going to go tell their friends how they're what they should be feeling, too. Then the real question becomes, are you marketing the business that you actually are or the business that you're supposed to be? We appreciate you joining us today. Thank you so much for listening. We hope that this was helpful, and if it is, share with a friend, please. We would like to thank our sponsors, dog co launch and pet sitters associates, we will talk with you next time bye. You.
