We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Devon Padley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Devon below.

Alright, Devon thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I’ve always been a pet lover, since early, early childhood. In elementary school I would go door to door in my neighborhood and offer to walk their dogs for a dollar. That’s not where the idea to create my business came from, or maybe it is and the idea had been brewing inside me for all those years, but I didn’t realize it would be something to pursue full time until 2022.

In 2015 I was in NYC studying acting, living out of the room I rented in a 4th floor walk up apartment in Harlem, desperately sad for companionship (specifically of the animal-sort, but also just generally). My childhood dog had just passed away and I was struggling with where to put all that love I had for her now that she was gone. The app Rover had just hit the scene and I decided to give it a try; wanting a little extra income and a pet to snuggle, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. And it was! It was the perfect job for an acting student’s wild schedule and forced me to provide myself with some semblance of a routine.

Fast forward over the few years of hobby sitting, moving back home to New Hampshire, bartending, auditioning, producing my own films, and a casual global pandemic, in the summer of 2021 I had an ankle surgery that left me unable to walk for 6 weeks. I couldn’t pet sit, I couldn’t bartend, I could only sit and think, and in that time I decided that when I was able to again, I would put more focus into building my pet care business. It was the perfect job for an actor, working for myself with a malleable schedule that I could twist and turn around auditions, shoots, rehearsals and performances. I also knew I had something special I could offer these clients, I have always felt a deep and special connection with pets and knew deep down that this was truly my gift and what I was here to do. In January of 2022, I hard launched Devon’s Dog Sitting LLC and went full time in February 2023. I have attended pet care conferences around the country, acquired certifications, learned more about business than I ever intended to as a college drop out who went to an acting conservatory, and have recently hired my first two employees. Creating a team with the same passion and standard of care that I bring to every client is wildly important to me, especially in an industry that to most sounds like “just walking a dog.”

Devon, 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 am Devon Padley, I am a New Hampshire-born and raised actor and entrepreneur.

Everything I do feeds into the other, and I am a pet care professional, business owner, and creative. The pet care business, that has grown wildly in the last three years, provides me the ability to also pursue artistic endeavors, but is just as much the center of my life as anything else I have created.

Devon’s Dog Sitting LLC as a brand is everything I have ever wanted to express as an artist = humor, professionalism (a relaxed but trustworthy professionalism), class, and heart. Every day as an entrepreneur I am utilizing skills that I learned in acting school to sell my product and to connect with clients.

A lot of pet care companies boast about becoming your pet’s second best friend, but I am clear from the jump that I will become your pet’s best friend and you will just need to accept that.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Initially the word of mouth recommendations were unparalleled, but as I have grown my online presence as well as my business, Google truly has become such a funnel into my website without having to spend any money on advertising. Good and clear SEO can truly do so much to help you! Do the research to see what will help your SEO, ask your clients directly (not with a mass email sent to all) for reviews, explain the importance of reviews and what they mean to a small business. Be sure to share photos on your Google profile that show who you are and what you do. For a service based business, so often we see photos of results, or in my case, smiling pets, but clients want to know who YOU are, they want to see your face! Make yourself recognizable. So many of my new clients feel comfortable with me at our first meeting because, thanks to the content I have out there, they feel like they know me.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Networking with other professionals in my field, either locally or nationally, has been one of the greatest influences on my reputation. Specifically the connections I have made with other local pet care businesses. So often people around me will mention the other local businesses as if they are my sworn enemy just because they perceive them as my “competition”, when more often than not, the people they are referring to are great friends of mine. Perhaps this comes from my work as an actor, where so often actors are pit against each other (specifically actresses) and made to feel that it is every man for himself, but I would so rather fly in the other direction. There is no gatekeeping when it comes to the things I learn and I will go out of my way to help you succeed, because another’s success is not my failure. It took a long time to grow to that understanding but it is one of, if not The most important principle in my life.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://devonsdogsitting.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/devonsdogsitting AND instagram.com/devonpadley
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DevonsDogSitting