Objective: These first five lessons introduce you to the pet sitting industry that you will become part of. You'll gain a complete understanding of who will be using your service and how you'll create a life-long relationship with each client.

Outline: In 2009, pet owners in the U.S. alone will spend $45.4 billion on pet products and services, up from $43.2 billion in 2008. These numbers have no sign of slowing down, and the need for responsible, reliable and professional pet care providers is in high demand. Come along for the ride and see how you'll fit right in.

Objective: Discover what personal qualities and traits are vital to your success. Take an honest look at which qualities you already possess and which you'll need to master.

Outline: Running your own business while becoming your own boss is a dream come true for most people. However, without developing the necessary personal qualities and traits required to run things smoothly, you may quickly find yourself struggling to get off the ground. You'll learn the 4 qualities you'll want to master to become a rock star pet sitter and discover just how easy it is to become better than the rest.

Objective: Begin to establish the habits that will propel you to succeed while working from home — and avoid the ones that won't.

Outline: Many startups have come and gone from people who were mislead by the allure of a home-based business, falsely believing the rules for success aren't the same as they might be in an office. Successfully managing a business from home presents its own set of rules you must follow. Discover the 7 common traps to avoid and you can be one of the almost 2 million home businesses earning over 6 figures or more.

Objective: Using The Three Stooges as an example of what other options are available to your typical clients, you'll learn all it takes to confidently offer a more humane alternative to the traditional boarding options.

Outline: A look into a world where pet sitters do not exist highlights the glaring need for professionally trained and educated pet care providers. Thankfully, we are given the opportunity to offer a more humane (and pleasant) alternative to the older, traditional styles of caged boarding. Discover why pet owners hire a pet sitter, what you're expected to provide and how the role you play will enhance your life and the lives of your clients.

Objective: Get to know exactly who your pet sitting business is intended for (your target market) and you'll become a magnet for new clients by naturally attracting them.

Outline: Most service businesses exist as a solution to someone's problem. Every situation we find ourselves in is a problem we are looking to solve. In order for you to be the solution as a pet care provider, you first need to identify the problem you are solving and, perhaps equally as important, identify who might be having the problem. Once we identify the 'who,' we will have a clear picture of our target market: the people who are most likely to use your service. With a clear picture in mind, you'll be well equipped to create the ideal solution.

Objective: Formulate the perfect mission statement that genuinely reflects your goals and personality while speaking volumes about your business.

Outline: A well crafted mission statement is the foundation for any business, big or small. It will help keep your business on track and profitable while announcing what you do, how you do it and why you do it. Whether kept private or announced online, your mission statement will be inspiring and motivational. Let's explore the 3-step process to forming your perfect mission statement. Your mission statement will help you tap into what makes you unique and will set you apart from the others.

Objective: Choose the most appropriate services to offer your clients that both match your personality, availability, lifestyle, and are in line with your business goals.

Outline: As a pet sitter, it's important that you enjoy the journey as much as you enjoy the destination. In other words, it's vital to the success of your business that you truly enjoy the service you are providing. Luckily, you have the benefit of choosing from an array of services to offer your clients that best fit your personality, lifestyle and goals.

Objective: Generate a list of possible business names and arrive at one that is creative, defines you and attracts clients to want to work with you.

Outline: Choosing a name for your new business can be one of the most exhilarating tasks — or it can be one of the most terrifying. Our aim is to make the process of choosing a business name exciting and stress-free while tapping into your creative side. Get ready to show off your personality to create a memorable and ideal name for your new pet sitting business.

Objective: Register a domain name that will make it simple for clients to locate your website and one that the search engines will love.

Outline: Half the battle to a successful website lies squarely in its domain name. Since your website aims to produce the majority of your clients, it's imperative to pick a memorable and effective domain name that will resonate with your target market. We'll explore the characteristics of a good domain name, the elements that can be a domain name killer, and show how your domain name can be used to protect your online reputation.

Objective: Evaluate the various business structures available to make the most informed decision in setting up yours the right way.

Outline: No matter how meticulous we are or how much we prepare for the day-to-day operation of our business, things can and do go wrong. Savvy business owners hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Choosing the best legal structure will, perhaps most importantly, keep your personal liability (finances, property, assets...) protected. This way, should someone feel the need to sue you, only the assets of the company will be at stake while your personal assets will remain protected. Plus, you'll be announcing to the world that you are a professional and not a hobbyist.

Objective:Uncover the various factors that influence the ideal service fees for your particular market. Research the competition to get a gage and set your own fees.

Outline: The goal of any business, of course, is to make a profit. If your service fees are priced too low, you'll find yourself working hard with relatively nothing to show for it. If your fees are set too high, you may not win enough clients to keep your business afloat. We'll reveal what it takes to get your pricing just right by diving into the psychology of pricing and spell out 3 ways to justify your service fees.

Objective: Get completely comfortable with the concept of requesting payment and choose the most convenient methods of accepting them.

Outline: Have you ever noticed that asking for payment just makes some people uncomfortable? If you've never been in business before where you actually had to request money for yourself, you might think it's a bit strange, inappropriate or downright rude. We're about to turn those theories on their head and reveal the best method, the best time and the best way to ask for payment so you can focus on growing your business and not chasing down money.

Objective: Locate the perfect banking partner to join your team that will give your business the freedom to grown and expand, as necessary.

Outline: Choosing the right business-banking partner to team with should be handled with the same dedicated approach to setting up other areas of your business. Ideally, your business banker will act as a financial advisor, when appropriate, and will give you the needed tools to thrive, flourish and grow. Let's analyze the 6 key factors to consider when choosing a banking partner.

Objective: Align yourself with a pet sitting organization to stay on top of your industry and create accountability in the eyes of your potential clients.

Outline: Joining an appropriate pet sitting organization or two will help establish credibility, accountability and trust with your clients before they even pick up the phone to call you. Aligning yourself with any of the top pet sitting organizations will let a potential client know that you are committed to a high standard of practice, you are credible and trustworthy, and you are knowledgeable and take your business seriously. We spotlight the best of the best for your consideration.

Objective: Compare pet sitting insurance options and choose a policy that best reflects your business model.

Outline: Becoming insured and bonded will be one of the best decisions you ever make in regards to your business. It will help protect you in any unforeseen circumstance and will take a big chunk of the risk out in your perspective client's mind when choosing the most qualified pet sitter for the job. 10 true-to-life recent claims help drive the point home.

Objective: Choose the method of business communication that best fits with your lifestyle and preferences, and evaluate between the top 3 options.

Outline: Let's face it. Without any clients, you have no business. If clients cannot reach you in a timely manner, they will look elsewhere for their pet sitting needs. How you choose to stay accessible can be a deciding factor in how successful your business becomes. However, knowing when to 'turn off' and take time for yourself is a delicate balance. Learn the tricks of the trade and choose the best method of reachability that's right for you.

Objective: Visualize your ideal logo, then effectively communicate the elements of your logo design to get it created in the best possible way.

Outline: The life of a logo is not an easy one. A logo is expected to perform many functions for your business, and must do them well. Your logo will also play a pivotal role in your marketing efforts and can easily influence the success of your pet sitting business. We'll dissect the making of a successful logo along with the 3 basic rules to follow to make certain your logo talks continuously behind your back.

Objective: Understand the true reason you hand someone your business card, what you should include on it, and why.

Outline: The purpose of a business card is much more than passing along your contact info. Sure it's necessary to present your contact details but the ultimate goal is to win the person's business. People will make an immediate assumption about you and the service you provide just by holding your business card. Our plan is to make sure your card is professional and stays in line with your other marketing efforts to increase your client-base.

Objective: Evaluate your personal skills and resources to choose the best approach for getting your website build correctly from the beginning.

Outline: Taking the time before you begin to learn exactly what a successful website entails will be time well invested. It's certainly harder to back peddle if the search engines get a poor first impression of your site than to give them an ideal website in the first place. If you can build a website that truly makes the search engines happy, you will not need to spend valuable time, resources and money on other marking strategies. The goal is for your website to produce the majority of your new client-base. Let's begin with an overview of the process.

Objective: Utilize the most important pages on your website to keep each visitor engaged, and you have a great chance of gaining a new client.

Outline: Studies have shown that a visitor will spend no more than 30 seconds at any given site looking for the information needed. A quick scan of your website's homepage must quickly and accurately engage the visitor to keep reading and take appropriate action. You'll learn the most important pages to publish, what each page should contain, and how to handle that all-important pricing page.

Objective: Create your website in such a way that makes it easy (and even entices) visitors to take action and get in touch with you.

Outline: The goal of your pet sitting website is not simply to give the visitor information. This is where most pet sitting business websites fail. The goal of your website is to entice your visitor to take appropriate action. It's of the utmost importance to create your site in such a way that makes it attractive (and simple) for the visitor to initiate contact with you. You'll also want to make sure you are requesting the necessary details so you can get the client on board as efficiently as possible.

Objective: Build a website that makes for a wonderful user experience and you will see your client-base grow along with your search engine rankings.

Outline: Creating a phenomenal user experience is important for both your website user and Google. Google rewards websites that keep the user in mind at all times by placing those pages higher in their search results. In order to keep your eye on delivering the ultimate user experience, you'll first need a good system in place to show how visitors are interacting with your site at all times.

Objective: Implement the 10 most important factors that Google says are vital in your quest for search engine dominance.

Outline: Google is not so mysterious as some believe. Sure it may take nothing short of a technical genius and engineer to understand how they arrive at their search results, but they make it quite clear what they value in a website and what elements they reward. In this lesson, we go straight to the horse's mouth (that's Google) and follow their advice in optimizing your website.

Objective: Send and receive email using your business email account through the Gmail system.

Outline: Now that you're a bona fide business owner, you can confidently present yourself as one. Put your aol, hotmail, yahoo or other personal email accounts aside for a minute. You have a few options when it comes to creating a business email account. In this lesson, you'll see how easy it is to harness the power of Gmail (Google's free email system) to send and receive email from your business account. Plus, you'll learn how to set up a forward to receive all business email through your current personal account.

Objective: Sit confidently by crossing your T's and dotting your I's before you officially launch your big marketing tool — your website.

Outline: With everything in place, you are ready to push the big red button and make your site live. Your master checklist will keep everything tidy and in place, and make certain you've dotted all your I's and crossed all your T's. You'll give your site one last test drive before publishing it online.

Objective: Grasp how search engines work and submit your website to the best directories, review sites and search engines for maximum visibility.

Outline: Back in the 1990s, there was a popular service that claimed to submit your website to 400 directories for just $99. As enticing as that offer sounds, it just wasn't necessary. Plus, Google and the other search engines frown on submissions that are not done by hand, by a human. (They can tell.) There are still hundreds of directories out there, but only a small handful are worth your time. We'll give you a search engine submission primer that will have your site polished and ready for its big day. Plus, we'll lead you directly to the submission pages that are the most important.

Objective: Keep your website performing strongly by converting visitors into clients with cost-effective user testing programs.

Outline: Believe it or not, you can tell so much more about visitor actions on your site than just what pages he visited. How would you like to see a recorded session of his entire experience, complete with his mouse movements and keystrokes? Or an overview of which links on your site get the biggest response? All possible with technology readily available. Scary, but extremely helpful to keep your site performing strongly.

Objective: Get a hold of the much needed forms and documents to keep your pet sitting business running smoothly.

Outline: You can easily find websites offering you a bundle of pet sitting forms and contracts. We believe less is more. If you can get the job done with just the necessary forms, you and your clients will be much happier. Nobody likes going form-happy. In our Document Library, you have complete, unlimited access to download the forms you need. Save time and money by adding your name and logo while making the forms your own.