Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lauren Sisak. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Lauren thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

Sit. Stay. Stella. started as a way to escape from my reactive dog, Stella, if I am being perfectly honest. I wanted to dog sit “normal” dogs as a way to counter the hard days with a dog with behavioral challenges. My first sitting was definitely not a “normal” dog, nor my second or third or even 10th.

When guardians of reactive dogs would return recharged from their trip or see how their stranger danger dog was curled in my lap and become overwhelmed with emotions–I knew THIS Is what I needed to be doing.

In a strange way, being able to help others that also had complex dogs was very therapeutic for me. I was no longer alone, I didn’t feel like an absolute failure, and when I returned to Stella, I had a newfound appreciation for her. It saved our relationship in many ways.

From there I began the process of becoming a trainer and the sittings became hybrid sitting + training informed experiences aka “traincations”. I filled a need for guardians who could not send their big feelings dog to a boarding facility or leave with a random sitter from an app.

The next year and a half I fumbled through my corporate job, quite unhappy, just counting down till the next sitting or training session. Until finally one day, I left my job and never looked back.

The first month was rough–there were weeks I only made $150 to start and I seriously panicked. What would I do when my savings ran out? What if I failed?

It took about 4-6 weeks for the business to seriously gain traction and I will never forget the week the Stellar Sitter Squad doubled from 3 to 6 sitters. I felt like we could REALLY do this. Today, we have 10 Stellar Sitters and counting.

There were so many processes and things to figure out, the website, invoicing, lead forms, CRM, rates, payroll, taxes, trademarks and soooooo much more. We still have a ways to go, but with my 13 person Squad, including my Stellar Sitters, Stellar Sitters Manager, Social Media Manager, Client Success Manager, and admin, we have a strong foundation.

Lauren, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My background is in sales, where I would help large companies with their health insurance benefits and strategies so I am quite familiar with what clients want, how to deal with painpoints, and how to tackle significant hurdles.

I had the most incredible mentor, Neal Sweeney, who to this day has been one of the most influential forces in my business. He was a tough mentor and barely gave me the time of day in the beginning, so I worked to take all of the tasks off his plate that he did not want to handle, soon making myself indispensable. I enabled him to focus on the parts of his role he enjoyed most and support him in any way possible and in exchange, he invested in me and always looked out for me. I think about him a lot when I think about what support I may need in my business, how to delegate and of course, how a true partnership and team should operate.

When creating the business model for Sit. Stay. Stella. I thought about a lot of these former experiences–what do people need? What do they NOT want to waste time doing? How can we build a service model that takes all of the guesswork out of it for them from walks to sitting to training?

I understand that dog training and sitting is one small piece of the pie for a household and my company aims to make it as easy as pie! There are so many sources of stress in our daily lives, especially with the current mental health crisis, so our aim is to be the one area that our clients do not need to worry about. Our services were derived from client needs so we know exactly what dog guardians want.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

This is definitely an area where quality over quantity is SUPER important and that was one of the first tough lessons I learned. Anyone can book your sitting or training services, but will they be your ideal, long term client?

The moment I realized the client relationship was a two way street, my perspective changed. Yes, the client needed to choose us, but we also had a say in whether we wanted to work with them.

Social media and referrals have been the absolute best way to build our ideal client base for a few reasons. If they have seen our content, then they have a sense of my personality, the type of training we provide, and there is upfront buy-in for our training philosophy. If they have been referred, the client experience speaks for itself and an ideal client tends to attract more ideal clients because like attracts like.

We also receive a significant number of referrals from fellow trainers, so again, there is already buy-in and they have filtered out anyone that may not be a good fit for us, understanding our business model. I also incentivize my Stellar Sitter Squad to refer clients because they are also the best representation of our services and will help find that warm lead.

These strategies have proven way more effective than more traditional strategies, such as Yelp ads, which may lead to plenty of leads, but they are not qualified in advance like the ones that come from these other sources.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

During our period of rapid growth, it was clear that we did not have the right systems in place. I had no admin, no automation, and I was constantly late on sending out invoices, so I was paying sitters weeks before I was getting paid.

I was trying to do it all. Social media, admin, marketing, meet and greet calls, plus training, traincations, Stellar School, managing the team, oh and you know, trying to have a life too. It was unsustainable, but I seriously thought I was the problem.

“If only I could wake up earlier.”
“If only I had a weekend where I can focus on these tasks.”
“If only I had a day off.”
“If only, if only, if only….”

And then you realize you are ONE person with the same 24 hours in a day as everyone else. There is no Time Machine or secret coffee recipe or sleep routine that makes you superwoman. You need a team.

So I hired an admin and social media manager before I really could afford either and then I found I had more time in the day to work on what I enjoyed most, which was spending time with clients and dogs, making me more productive and a better CEO.

It felt incredibly risky to bet on myself, but then I remembered, I already left my job! That WAS the riskiest move, what’s a couple more independent contractors?

There have been several iterations of stories just like this where we constantly needed to pivot. It can be frustrating to think you just had the final draft, but then you remember if you aren’t constantly evolving then you are stagnant and cannot grow.

The biggest hurdle has been not taking these challenges personally and taking care of my mental health accordingly. I focus on this just like I focus on the business and it becomes mutually beneficial to both.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sitstaystella.com
• Instagram: @sitstaystella_
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-sisak-7b01a211a/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/sit-stay-stella-new-york

Image Credits

Sabrina Satti from Satti Photography