Blog

Hop On Board The PSO Bus: Destination NAPPS 2016!

I-95 travel routePicture this: A luxurious and comfortable bus pulls into a roadside area along the East Coast’s 1-95 South. Inside the bus are a few dozen of your professional pet sitting colleagues who are making the journey together from New Jersey to sunny Orlando, Florida.

You recognize many smiling faces.

Some, you’ve had the great fortune to cross paths with in person at other industry events; while you feel like you’ve known the others forever from the virtual connections you’ve formed through the years.

You immediately feel the same sense of love, support, and wave of excitement that comes from attending a long-awaited family reunion.

You hop on the bus, settle into your seat, and the journey continues on its scheduled 2-day ride to Orlando, Florida.

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What Is The Intent Of Your Image? Getting The Right Photo In Your Content Is Important

images in content

Before you started reading these words, I bet the image above caught your eye. Am I right?

What exactly about it got your attention?

The colors?
The lion?
The giraffe?
The action?

What FEELINGS did the picture invoke in you?

This answer is going to be different for everyone.  Did you focus on the lion or were you more drawn to the plight of the giraffe?  Think about the INTENT for each animal.  It’s completely different!   Eat or be eaten.

WHAT IS THE INTENT OF THE IMAGES IN YOUR CONTENT?  

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A Time To Give Thanks To Our Pet Professional Community

thank you to pet services industry

Danica and I were recently enjoying an episode of Sid the Science Kid together.

A joke was told that can serve as a great lesson to all professional pet care providers.

This is the joke:

What do you give a 900-pound gorilla for his birthday? I don’t know, but you better hope he likes it!

It’s cute for a child and can serve as an important reminder for business owners like us who offer a local service to our community.

This joke makes two assumptions.

1. The gorilla better like the gift you choose to get him for his birthday, or else…

2. The gorilla is grumpy and picky (“he better like it”) and might retaliate if he deems the gift unacceptable.

So what does this very analytical approach to a seemingly innocent joke tell us?

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3 Specific Examples Of HOW To Market To Your Ideal Client

marketing in the pet industryLarge dogs, medium, or small?
Cats?
Horses?
Distance you have to drive?
Pay via credit card or check?
Monday-Friday midday visits or vacation overnights?

Are you building your ideal client avatar?  If you’re not, you should be.  It will streamline your marketing efforts, be more cost effective, and it will attract clients that you love working with.

We’ve talked WHAT your ideal client looks like.
We’ve talked about WHY you should keep an ideal client in mind.

Now we are going to talk about HOW to reach them.

It’s easy:

Give them what they want: and they all want INFORMATION about things that are IMPORTANT to them.

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Marcus Sheridan Unplugged: How to Differentiate Yourself and Achieve Success [Video]

Have you ever wondered how you can differentiate yourself as a pet sitter?

If so, you’re in for a real treat! Our guest for today’s episode, Marcus Sheridan, shares his own journey of differentiating himself as a standout in the pool industry and eventually, as a marketing genius.

Marcus Sheridan is perhaps best known to folks as founder of the popular sales and marketing blog, The Sales Lion. He started his career as founder and CEO of River Pools, where he developed one of the most educational blogs in the entire pool industry.

Marcus says you have to trust people, and build trust with others in order to succeed in business. However, that doesn’t mean putting your head in the sand either, as he was to find out later in a tough lesson.

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How Professional Pet Sitter Headshots Changed The Lives of Those On Both Sides of the Camera

Michael Bagley Photography shooting pet sitters
It’s Michael Bagley!

Think for a minute… what was your most recent ‘defining moment’ in your life?

You know, it’s those moments in time that were truly pivotal and transforming for you.

I know personally they usually sneak up on me.  They may not seem like such a big deal at the time but then when I have time to process, it’s sometimes hard to wrap my head around the power of what happened.

I had such a moment at the recent PetSittingOlogy Conference PSO2015.  I think a lot of people did.

It started when Michael Bagley (2014 conference speaker and our official event photographer) put an idea on the table.  What if he were to come back and offer professional head shots for all of the attendees?

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