Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Katie Ballard. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Katie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One thing we always find fascinating is how differently entrepreneurs think about revenue growth and cost reductions – both can be powerful ways to improve profitability. What do you spend more of your time and energy on?
In the pet sitting industry it is standard to have 45-50% of your gross revenue dedicated toward labor costs. However, I have found that to attract and retain the best help you must often go above this general rule. Labor costs are by far our biggest expense. I find by increasing labor costs to obtain higher quality help I actually save money on managerial costs as the team often requires less support. This allows me to spend the majority of my time growing revenue.
The majority of my time is spent on assisting potential and current clients, scheduling, building relationships, and marketing. Potential clients will reach out initially in all different forms: Facebook, Google, NextDoor, phone calls, website, etc. My goal is to funnel them all to our website which then directs them to create an account on our Time to Pet software. Time to Pet has been instrumental in keeping the entire operation running smoothly. Obtaining this software was one of the best decisions I ever made. It is excellent for the client in that it is user friendly and allows them to schedule visits, communicate with their sitter, and pay via the app. It is also fabulous on the business side as it is highly customizable and allows for pet reports, client communication, sitter/client invoicing, etc. I oversee the operations on Time to Pet to make sure everything is running smoothly.
The amount of time spent actively marketing is quite small. We struggle to keep up with the demand as is so marketing too much could become troublesome if we are not able to assist clients that request services. Marketing tasks that I have completed include attended community events, mailed flyers, visited local veterinarian offices, and maintained a strong social media presence.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
HI! Thank you so much for taking the time to interview me! I am the owner of Nona Paws Pet Sitting. We are located in Lake Nona, a suburb of Orlando, Florida. We provide dog walking and pet sitting services out of the client’s home 365 days a year 24 hours a day. Clients most commonly request us for midday dog walks, vacation pet visits (2-4 visits/day), cat sitting, and overnight pet sitting. We take care of all furry creatures big and small. While most are dogs and cats, we take care of fish, birds, turtles and other exotic animals. Each visit includes pictures, a video and a detailed write up from our sitters communicated via our Time to Pet app. Pet visits and walks are also time and GPS monitored.
I founded the business in 2020. I’ve always been a pet-lover, but my career path didn’t initially take me down that route. After graduating from Grand Valley State University in Michigan with a M.Ed in School Counseling, I moved to Florida to begin my career as a School Counselor. I worked at Lake Nona Middle School as a School Counselor for 11 years and for many years was very active in the triathlon community competing in several half and full Ironman triathlons. This led to several injuries including hip surgery. I had to seriously rethink if my body could handle that level of activity anymore. One day after hip surgery my mom said to me, “You should go on a walk. A short walk. Like what normal people do.” I told her that that was boring and I would only want to go for a walk if I had a dog to walk. And that is how it began.
While Nona Paws Pet Sitting started as more of a hobby for me to stay active, it quickly transformed into my passion and career. While I loved working in the education field, the lack of respect towards the profession and low salary was also a driving force to grow the business even faster. I became Pet CPR and First Aid Certified and developed relationships with other pet care professionals. The more the business grew, the more I noticed the need for trustworthy pet-sitting, dog-walking and pet-care services for the Lake Nona community. This need combined with my passion has led me to expand and bring on the most qualified pet-service providers to assist me. I now have a team of 16 pet sitters, all of whom have undergone extensive background checks. They are a wonderful group of individuals who come together to provide the most dependable, loving care to the pets in our community. I am so honored to work along beside them. Looking back it is hard to believe the company has grown this much in just 2.5 years!
What am I most proud of? Well, by far I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be able to create something that others relied on to pay their mortgage, utilities, college tuition and child’s horseback riding lessons. The happiness and joy that this business has brought into my life is immeasurable. I am humbled that it has had a positive affect on others as well.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
Prior to being a business owner, I did not have any professional managerial experience. All of that has been a bit of a learning curve for me. I have had several outstanding bosses in the past and my fair share of terrible ones. I used that as a framework to start and built upon that. While I still have a lot to learn, I have always felt that a leader gains respect from their team by being humble and leading through service. I think it is important to get in there and do the dirty work right alongside your team. Never ask your team to do something you wouldn’t do yourself. I also think as a leader it is important to create genuine relationships with each person on your team. It is important to check in and ask how their kids are, how their last vacation went, how their sick parent is doing, etc. To help keep our team cohesive and build relationships, I use Slack to post weekly updates. Here we celebrate our teammates successes, share upcoming events, and focus on recent areas of concerns in a positive way. Lastly, once a year I also conduct an anonymous pet sitter survey to review job satisfaction on procedures, communication, service locations, compensation, etc. They are asked what they feel is going well and what could be improved. These survey results are reviewed and taken into consideration when making future business decisions.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
Yes! Kristin Morrison’s “30 Days to Start and Grow Your Pet Sitting and Dog Walking Business” was amazingly helpful. That brought business concepts to light that I wasn’t aware of such as business tax receipts, learning about SEO, employment laws, business contracts, taxes, designing a logo, marketing strategies, and more. Some things are intuitive when starting a business but many things are not! I remember listening to her book while I was on an Alaskan cruise with my mom in the summer of 2019 and taking copious notes on all of the things I should do. By the time I was done listening to her book I had a complete picture of what I should do and a roadmap of how I was going to get there.
In addition I found a business coach, Melinda Walker. She is the owner of Athens Pet Sitter and the Profitable Pet Sitter in Athens, GA. With over 15 years experience and over $1 million earned as a pet sitting business owner, she was instrumental in answering my many questions, helping me create goals, and making suggestions for ways to grow the business. We would talk every other week for about an hour each time. Our talks were always solution focused and up-lifting. It was with her guidance I was able to grow to a team of 16 pet sitters and generate a 6 figure revenue in less than 2 years. I am forever grateful for her friendship and guidance.
Contact Info:
- Website: nonapawspetsitting.com