success

Don’t you just love using four-letter words?

They have power.

Use the right ones at the right time and you’ll succeed beyond your wildest dreams.

They make you feel good, keep you energized and have others looking up to you in admiration.

I’m not, of course, talking about those four-letter obscenities. I’m talking about the two four-letter words that most of us forget about.

Earlier this month, I was thrilled to be asked to write for the Technorati Small Business Channel.

Technorati was founded to help people discover great blog content, and their network of media sites was just ranked the 5th largest media property.

Needless to say, I’m stoked to have been given this opportunity to expand my business knowledge to a wider audience.

With that said, below are the first 5 articles published on Technorati. I’m certain pet sitters can find value in these posts.

We recently updated our “What Is PetSittingOlogy (About Us)” page (check it out, you can listen to an interview and learn more about my background).

The following list of 8 components was originally featured on that ‘About’ page but didn’t fit the bill during our page revamp.

So, it’s now restructured into a full-featured blog post here. Please make it feel welcome.

And, here we go…

My wife Alitia absolutely loves our Tivo. She’s also the one in charge of the remote control, for the record.

One of the brilliant ways Alitia saves us money each month is on movie rentals.

Instead of shelling out $5 per rental (or more on a Netflix service fee), she’ll go through the Tivo guide and search our channels for upcoming movies to record.

We then build up a library of movies to watch at our leisure (with no late fees, of course). A common enough practice.

Apparently, we’ve been catching a string of movies about dogs and honestly I don’t know how many more I can take.

Who can use a healthy dose of good news right about now?

Well, if you’re a member of PSI (Pet Sitters International) or NAPPS (National Association of Professional Pet Sitters) you are now eligible to receive quality and affordable health care.

If your pet sitting business is your main source of income, you may have found health care to be a near impossibility to afford or obtain.

There seem to be a variety of misconceptions about becoming a pet sitter and running a pet sitting business in general.

It looks like the industry has fallen into the “easy as pie, anyone can do it” category, along with “anyone can make money fast from pet sitting.”

I see two schools of thought on this subject:

On one hand, since there are no tests to pass or forms to fill out, anyone can open up shop and call themselves a pet sitter and start making money from it.

And on the other hand, it’s still every bit a business and requires a certain level of business skill including knowledge that is specific to the pet care world.