We recently connected with Roger Ma and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Roger, thanks for joining us today. Crazy stuff happening is almost as certain as death and taxes – it’s technically “unexpected” but something unexpected happening is to be expected and so can you share a crazy story with our readers
The pandemic hit us about two years back and when March 2020 came around, when we went on official lockdown statewide, nearly all of our teammates were in fear and felt paranoid about coming into work. At the same time, everyone was fearful and started bunkering up at home so we had a crazy first couple weeks of virtually no people shopping and nearly all of our distributors/vendors thought it would be a doomsday type of year.

Fortunately, with people stuck at home looking for hobbies to get into, our online sales started picking up and despite seeing a massive drop in walk-in business (we did curbside for almost two months to protect our team from exposure to the public), we saw a tremendous amount of traffic hitting our online sales channel + phone calls started rolling in.

Though business was good, we still issues with manpower as only a handful of our teammates were willing to work due to the pandemic fear. Not only did I work long 16-18 hour days but we had to meet deadlines for FedEx/UPS/USPS pickups and at the same time, online customers expected us to ship within a timely manner despite us only having 10% of our manpower at a time when there was a surge in online sales.

Thank goodness the mandates slowly got lifted and our team felt more at ease after a couple months and started coming back, so that alleviated a lot of the stress the few of us had from working hard both mentally and physically.

Tough times never last, tough people do!

Roger, 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?
I’m a born and raised San Diegan but have spent some years working abroad (Hong Kong). As someone who avidly travels, I noticed that many local fish stores around the globe had some many intricate aquariums that were much more than just fish and fake decor. I got exposed to aquascaping while visiting some stores in Asia and Europe and saw that there was a huge void in this aspect of the industry/hobby stateside. We started sourcing around the country and found a handful of companies that had also began spearheading aquascaping so that is what got us started as the very first aquascape-focused local fish store in San Diego. Since then, we’ve done everything from aquascape demos and even monthly workshops/classes teaching aspiring hobbyists in how they can build a piece of nature right in their very own personal space at home or work. It’s been a honor and blessing to grow and build a community right here in my very own hometown!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
Giving personalized attention to each person who walks into our doors is something we emphasize heavily on for our team. Not only do we greet each person with a smile but we ensure we are giving them all the right directions when it comes to setting up a proper aquarium and will always make sure they select compatible species. We will lose out on a sale because we want everyone to take the correct steps for the long-term health of their fish and aquarium.

We are also very finicky when it comes to the quality and health of our livestock here at Pet Zone SD. Not only does our team hand-select each and every fish but we are very adamant when it comes to sourcing the species from the right supplier. Not only do we ensure the fish are raised in the right environment but we ensure the farms we work with are using ethical methods.

We also ensure all the livestock that arrives are in stable and healthy condition and will always quarantine beforehand to ensure each fish going to their forever homes are not going to be spreading any parasites or diseases to their new tank-mates.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
Empowering your team and giving them recognition goes a long way. You have to find each person’s strength and help garner their talent and allow them to grow. People come into work not because they simply want a paycheck but they want something that is aligned with their views and passion. I believe that giving each team member a way to gain intrinsic value from their daily task(s) will increase morale as a whole as each person is working towards their own individual goals on both a personal and professional level and when the entire team is on the same page with a bigger goal, this allows the high morale is stay in place.

Contact Info:

• Website: petzonesd.com & hakkai.com
• Instagram: @petzone @hakkaisd
• Facebook: facebook.com/petzonesd & facebook.com/hakkaisd
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/2734551 & https://www.linkedin.com/company/71371090
• Twitter: @petzonesandiego @hakkaisd
• Youtube: youtube.com/petzone
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/pet-zone-tropical-fish-san-diego-2 & https://www.yelp.com/biz/pet-zone-tropical-fish-san-diego & https://www.yelp.com/biz/hakkai-aquascape-design-gallery-san-diego

Image Credits
Filbert Banh