We recently connected with Kate McPike and have shared our conversation below.

Kate , appreciate you joining us today. Do you take vacations? How do you keep things going – any advice for entrepreneurs who feel like they can’t step away from their business for a short vacation?

I am a pet sitter which means I take care of people’s pets while they are on vacation–I go to their home. I have owned my business for over six years. I usually take a vacation (3 – 5 days) once a year. As much as I would like to take a vacation and actually go on a cruise or a foreign country, I don’t feel I can take the time, let alone enjoy myself once there. So I visit a friend in Boise, Idaho, or I go to North Carolina near Chapel Hill to see a friend. That’s it….Idaho or North Carolina. By the way, I live in Phoenix, AZ.

In order to make it OK not to take a vacation (in my mind), I tell people (and myself): “I take care of people’s pets so they can take a vacation.”

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

In 2013 I was newly retired and living in a suburb of Houston. I knew no one and had moved there for personal reasons. I needed a cat sitter as I was going out of town. I knew what credentials I wanted the pet sitter to have: bonded/insured, pet CPR/first aid trained, professional, and experienced. I found the perfect woman who was a little older than I was. She took great care of my two cats–I was impressed!

After I got home I contacted her and told her if she needed help, I would like to work for her. I said: “I have no family here–no husband, no kids, and I know no one so I would be available to help on holidays, weekends etc.” She did a quick interview, a background check and called me and said: “if you are serious about working for me, come to my house tomorrow and we’ll go over everything,” I worked for her for approximately two years. She sold her business, and I didn’t want to work for the new owner. Some of the clients asked if I would continue taking care of their dogs/cats, and I told them I would.

In March of 2016 I moved to Phoenix, Arizona, with the idea of starting my own pet sitting business. I modeled my business after the woman’s I worked for in Texas. She was a great resource, and to this day, I still call her if I’m unsure about something. I

A co-worker from my previous corporate job volunteered to create and maintain my website (for free!). He was the webmaster at that company. He also created my logo. I wanted my company to be called Kate’s Pet Care, but he shortened it to K8’s Pet Care.” I didn’t have the heart to say “hey, spell out my name” since he was doing it for free, so I left it. Now I’m glad I did.

After 5-1/2 years of owning my own business and pet sitting dogs and cats pretty much 24/7, a friend approached me and said she was thinking of starting a pet sitting business and asked me to help her get started. Once she made the decision to do it, I asked her if she’d like to buy my dog client list and I’d go cats only. She jumped at that chance–clients without lifting a finger! She and I worked together to make sure it was a smooth transfer of business. The transfer of clients was official September 1, 2021.

Since then I have been taking care of cats only, and my new business name is K8’s Cats of Ahwatukee. I’m thrilled and so is the woman who took over my dog clients. We are both proud to say that all of my previous dog clients stayed with her and didn’t attempt to find a new pet sitter.

While people say “cats are easier”, I’d like to say “they are not!” The difference in taking care of a cat vs. a dog is that I don’t have to get up at 5 am and let a cat out to go to the bathroom. I also don’t have to interrupt my day and go let a cat out to go to the bathroom (or walk him/her). So my time has been freed up immensely since going cats only. I am usually busy in the mornings and early evenings, and my daytime is my own time. As such, my social life has improved greatly and I also have time to pursue my hobbies: cookie baking/decorating, rock painting, reading and more.

We’d appreciate any insights you can share with us about selling a business.

I’m a planner and a goal setter. When I started my business, my goal was to keep it open for six years and then “be done with it.” I planned to really retire. I hired a former pet sitter who sold her business for six figures(!) and is now a pet sitting business coach. She answered my questions: where to list my business for sale, how to determine selling price, and more. I also listened to webinars from various sources that talked about closing or selling a business. I found that SCORE (a division of Small Business Administration) had some great webinars on the topic. And the pet sitting business coach had a webinar on the same topic. Those helped immensely.

The time was nearing for me to list my business, and an acquaintance who had become a friend during Covid approached me about pet sitting. She and I had been trading books during Covid because the library was closed. One evening she brought back a few of my books and said she was thinking of going into pet sitting. I told her I’d be happy to help her–show her everything I know–and that if she wanted to help me do some pet sitting, she could work for me for a while to see if that was something for her.

We met, I gave her copies of my contracts and verbally went through the whole process of getting a potential client, making that person a client, and then what I do during a pet sit. After that she helped me with a few pet sits and decided pet sitting was for her. After a month or two of pet sitting on her own, I asked her if she’d be interested in buying my dog client list. I told her I’d make the price attractive for both of us and that she could make payments. After a few weeks of thinking it over, she said she wanted to buy the client list. It was about 25 dog clients as I had quit taking large dogs a couple of years prior; and in all honesty, I turned away more business than I accepted because I was choosy. I took into consideration: where the potential client lived, how many days they wanted me to pet sit, how many dogs they had, medications involved, how many visits they wanted, etc., before I accepted a client.

It took us about two months to make the transition. I notified my dog clients that someone would be taking over the their pet sitting needs and they would have an opportunity to meet her if they wanted to. I also gave them the option of getting their house key back (an indication they didn’t want her to pet sit for them). Very few wanted their house key back. In those two months, I made appointments for all of my clients and took the future owner to meet them all.

I didn’t realize it, but I am evidently well connected in the pet world in my little area of Phoenix, AZ. The buyer told me that just mentioning my name opened many doors for her and, that alone, was worth what she was paying me for my business. The doors that were opened for her were: dog trainers, specialty pet stores, groomers, and other pet sitters.

On September 1, 2021, we signed our contract. I am proud to say, all of the clients have stayed with her. No one has asked me to pet sit for them. In my opinion that shows that the transition went well, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Everything will work out–it always does.

I tend to be an anxious person. Sometimes I make a quick decision that isn’t the best decision for the situation or the timing is off. When I started my pet sitting business, I would work myself into a tizzy occasionally because of scheduling issues: “HOW am I going to complete 16 visits in one day PLUS stay overnight at a client’s home?” or “WHY did I say ‘yes’ to that client–they live too far away–I’ll be driving forever? OR “YIKES, I double booked an overnight visit with two different clients”–you get the idea. I would lose sleep over these things and stress over something I created.

After many sleepless nights and the upcoming pet sits I had been stressing about were completed (or sometimes even cancelled due to the owner cancelling their trip), I realized “that wasn’t so bad…it worked out.”

Things really do work out–no need to stress. If I’m stressing about it, it’s not the right job for me. I have even called new clients back and told them “I have been thinking about my upcoming pet sit with your pets, and I don’t think it’s going to work out because…….” While I haven’t done this very often, people are very appreciative of my honesty.. I always give them another pet sitter’s name and contact information.

When the woman who bought my business calls in a panic about something she realizes she’s done (double booked a client), or saying “yes” to a client she’s decided isn’t a good fit, I give her my suggestion for a solution and tell her “it will work out….it always does” and it really does.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.k8scats.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/K8scats.of.ahwatukee