OverDog: Dog Daycare & Boarding Business Tips (Fernando Camacho)

How do you determine what to charge people for what you do? Was it a well thought out process or just some numbers you chose at random?

Your pricing is very important to not only how much money you make but also the impression of your business and how the public will perceive you.  In this episode, we'll discuss your pricing so you'll have a better understand of what you want and need to charge for all your services. 

Bigger isn't always better. Having a small boutique dog daycare business that is thriving can make you a good living without the stress and problems of managing everything that comes from having a larger facility. And there's plenty that big business can learn from the little guys. 

Today I bring on Kritika Prakash who owns Pack of Paws in Toronto Canada, who shares what she's done to cultivate loyal, long term clients and dogs that don't cause trouble and love being there. 

How cool would it be to have access dog owners right in your area? How great would it be to be seen in the community more often and have your business be top of mind to them?

All this is possible with Facebook groups and in this episode I'll show you how you can utilize them to position your business as an authority and help you get more customers. The best part is it's totally free to do and can be insanely impactful - IF you're willing to put in the time to build it right. 

The trend in dog daycare is moving away from just playgroups to more of an enrichment and training model. That sounds great but how do you do it?

On today's show learn from Mandy Eakin of Manners Matter, a dog daycare that has been doing day training and working with dogs while they are at daycare for some time now. See how they structure their services and how it works as a revenue stream. 

Getting all the leads in the world won't make a damn bit of difference if you can't convert them into paying customers. To do that, you need to have a process designed to make people feel comfortable, overcome their objections and help them take the next step. So, what's your process? Do you have one?

No worries, I've got you covered. In this episode we'll go over the things you need to do in order to transform those hard earned leads into life long customers that will continue to buy from you over and over again. 

There are two things I know to be true of the future of the dog daycare industry. One, that business owners need to get creative in finding new ways to bring in more money and two, that we need to figure out how to provide more value to the customers. If you do #2, you'll get #1. 

On todays's show Kristen Delea-Sacco of Metro Pooch joins us to share a few of the inventive programs she's come up with in her business that have increased her revenue and, at the same time, is really helping her customers out (both dogs and people). 

Having a business with plenty of clients is great, UNLESS it has you overworked, overstressed and overwhelmed. If you feel like you're stuck putting out fires all day and are constantly scrambling to balance too many things within your business, you need to listen carefully here. 

I'll go over 8 tips that will help you create a business that runs smoothly, that requires less effort and allows you to step away a bit. Sound good?

Luckily for you there are so many different channels available to market your business. This is great because you've got a lot of options to grow your dog daycare business, however it's also overwhelming and more than a bit confusing. 

In today's episode we'll go over all of the marketing options out there and help you determine which ones are the best use of your time and will give you the best results, at the lowest cost. 

We learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes, but what's even better is that if we can learn from the mistakes of others, so that we don't have to make them at all. 

In this episode, I'll highlight 8 mistakes I see being made by dog daycares over and over again. These things are holding businesses back, causing more problems and hampering growth potential. See which one's you can improve upon and make your daycare business the best it can be.  

Every business wants and needs customers. It's what brings in revenue and helps us to grow. Customers are the best, BUT they are also the worst. Nothing saps the fun out a business quicker than pain in the butt customers who cause you and your staff aggravation and stress. 

In this episode, we'll discuss how to make sure you're brining in the right kind of customers, how stop them from becoming problematic and the best way to let them go when necessary. 

In this weeks episode Fern answers a question from a listener why he's struggling to get in more dog daycare customers and keep them for a longer period of time. 

The key is to figure out where the problem is in your sales process and then take action to improve it. Learn how you can determine where you need to focus your time in order to make your customer acquisition and retention rates go up and stay up. 

I really believe that in the very near future all dog daycare businesses are going to have to incorporate training into their service offerings. Having a training program enables you to provide a much needed service to your customers, helps shape better behavior in the dogs and will bring in more money to your business. 

The question then becomes, how do you create a structured program to accomplish all that? Today's special guest has been doing it for years and is going to show you how. 

Satisfied customers will get you no where. To have a thriving business that beats the competition and is around for years to come, you need to turn your customers into raving fans. Raving fans are loyal to your business no matter what, buy more stuff from you and go out of their way to promote you. 

In this episode you'll learn exactly how you can turn all those average customers into high octane raving fans. 

With all the responsibilities and daily stresses, it's easy to feel burned out and exhausted, however you can't stay that way for too long. If you do, both your personal life and your business will ultimately suffer. 

But there is a way to run your own business, keep your sanity and enjoy your days. On today's show I'll go over some ways you can create a lifestyle and business that runs smoother, is less stressful and brings you more daIly joy. 

How cool would it be if both customers and non customers were so excited about what you are doing that they feel compelled to share it with everyone they know? That would mean that other people are talking about your business and there's a buzz about your business that keeps customers coming back for more and brings in new people who are fired up by how you do business. 

In this episode, I go over 4 things you can do to make your business go viral and create more excitement for your brand. 

Discover how a new, indoor only, dog daycare in South Philadelphia was able to double their revenue in only a few months. Hanora Rodgers from Wag Days joins the show to share her incredible growth journey.  Learn what she did to get more clients, increase her profit margin and expand her services in such a short period of time. 

Everyone wants to be profitable as soon as possible but very few have a plan on how to do it. If you know how to run and market your business, it's actually not as hard as you might think, as you'll learn from this week's guest. 

Discover how The Dog Patch in Florida went from just opening to looking for their second location in only a year and a half. 

So much of the stress and frustration created by employees is in some way related to the communication within your organization. If you get intentional about how you communicate with your staff and foster an environment where open communication is encouraged, you'll see an improvement in not only your staff's productivity but create a better company culture all around. 

This episode will give you specific tips on how you can do that. 

There are a number of annual conferences that are specifically for dog daycare and boarding businesses. These events are an amazing way to learn new information that will help you move your business forward, as well as allow you to network with others doing just what you are. 

In this episode, I'll go over the main events in the industry and tell you how you can get the most out of them. 

When someone is searching the web for the services you provide you want your business to show up as close to the top of the search results as possible. If you're not up there, they may never see your business and head over to your competitors. 

In this episode, I'll go over some simple things you can do to help your business get ranked higher so that you get more people to find you online. 

If your customers (and prospects) only identify you as your main service, it greatly limits your business. If, however, you are seen as much more than "just a daycare" or whatever your main service is, you'll have no problem growing and remaining successful over time. 

In this episode we'll discuss 5 ways you can help you business be seen as the go to place for all things dog, keeping you top of mind and helping your business reach expand well past your customer base. 

Do you want a business that's around 10 or 20+ years from now? If so, you need to do things today to set up that future success. In today's episode, we'll discuss some of the core things you need to be doing right now that will not only enable your business to stand the test of time, but also make the journey easy and enjoyable. 

If you want your business to be the very best you need to know how it's REALY doing and you, as the business owner, have a very one sided viewpoint. To know the complete truth about you business you need to ask both your customers and your staff for their opinion on things. 

Today we'll talk about how to use surveys to get gold nuggets out of your customer base and your employees that will enable your business to be world class. I'll also give you the exact questions you should be asking to get the best info. 

There's lots of new tools and channels that you can use to reach leads and customers in today's ever changing digital ecosystem. They all have value and can work but no matter what new tool comes on the market, there's one that's been around since the beginning of the internet that’s still a very powerful way to build your business . . . email. 

Yes, email. Today we'll talk about why email is still so important and how you can use it better to grow your dog business. 

Traditional dog boarding has historically meant placing dogs in kennels and is still the most common method dog businesses use for keeping dogs overnight. Recently, some businesses have been taking a much different approach to boarding dogs. Instead of caging them, why not let them all sleep together in a group?

Cage-free boarding is actually not something all that new. In fact, there are businesses that have been doing it successfully for years. In this episode, learn how one growing business has perfected the cage-free environment. 

Are you running around all day crazy busy but still feel like you can't get to everything you need to do? And after a long day of work, feel like you didn't get much accomplished?

Running a dog daycare business comes with a lot of work that needs to be done on a daily basis and often it can feel like there's just not enough time in the day to get to it all. However, if you learn to better manage your time you'll find that you'll not only get it all done, but be much more productive as well. 

As entrepreneurs we tend to think that we can do it all on our own. We can figure everything, overcome every challenge and don't need any helping hands along the way. Often it's true, we can do it all on our own, however we could move much faster and go to higher levels if we just had some guidance along the way. 

In this episode, I'll discuss why I think every business owner needs a coach and share some of my personal experience with the various coaches I've had over the years. 

Often the biggest issues in dog daycare facilities come from the dogs in the play groups. Managing a pack of dogs is not an easy thing to do and and requires some specific knowledge and skills to make sure that both dogs and staff are safe and enjoying their time there. 

In this episode, I'll teach you how to handle the play groups better so that you have less problems and stress, while creating a great environment for all. 

Many of the problems that dog daycares have with the play groups is caused by having dogs there that are not a good fit for the environment. These dogs are labeled "problem dogs" and cause stress for you, your staff and the other dogs in the groups. 

To create a happy pack that's easy to manage, you need to better assess dogs as they come into your facility for the first time. In this episode, we'll discuss what to look for when a new dog comes in and how to determine if they will do well in your daycare long term. 

There has never been more competition in the dog daycare industry. More and more places are opening up all the time and you have new companies like Rover.com entering the marketplace, giving people a lot of different choices for their dog's care. 

If you want to separate yourself from all these other businesses and make you the obvious choice in a sea of similar services, you NEED to do a few things to make you stand out and survive the test of time. 

A lack of communication is probably one of the major caused for stress and problems in any dog daycare business. Good communication across your entire business, however, will help the dogs behave better, keep customers happy and greatly improve your staff morale and loyalty. 

In this episode we'll discuss some key areas that you can focus on improving your communication and I'll give you specific tips on how to do it. 

The way to create a loyal, engaged mass of customers is to make sure they are excited about bringing their dog to daycare on a regular basis. One way to do that is to do different things to keep people coming back and give the dogs more fun while they’re with you. 

In today’s episode, you’ll learn how one dog daycare has been creating quite the local buzz by holding different themed events for the dogs. 

As entrepreneurs we're built to put our heads down, working to move our businesses forward. Although I do believe that if you are smart and are willing to put in the work, you can accomplish anything, it doesn't have to be that hard and we don't have to go it alone. 

By leveraging the knowledge and resources of others we can greatly speed up our success and avoid many of the obstacles slowing us down. Let's expand your circle and discuss how you can use networking to help you and your business in so many ways. 

I firmly believe that the dog daycare business model is changing. It's changing because we're learning more about how to take better care of dogs and the consumer is starting to want more for their dogs than just being loosely watched as they run around aimlessly all day long. 

Now we're seeing a new and improved breed of daycare emerge that structures the dog's day, provides them with useful activities and helps them leave better than when they started coming. That's what enrichment daycare can do. It's the future of this business and today I've brought on a special guest that is leading the way in providing dogs and people exactly what they need. 

If you want to sustain your business over the long term you need continually bring in new customers, however it's even more important to make sure those customers stay with your for as long as possible. 

In this episode we'll discuss some ways you can increase the time that you hold on to customers, keeping them happy, loyal and spending money with you. 

Wouldn’t it be great if you only had customers you loved? People who appreciated what you do, were amazingly loyal and made your job easy. Discover how you can create a business that attracts great clients and a system for attracting the best people, while repelling those that will only make your life difficult. 

Staffing continues to be one the biggest issue in the dog daycare industry. Everyone seems to be focused on where to find good people, how to interview and the quality of the candidate pool. All that's important but also meaningless if you're not taking good care of people and have the right environment for them once they are hired. 

We just completed the first of a series of Staffing Masterclasses designed to help you improve your staffing issues and the very first topic was company culture. It was such an amazing class with so much good, business changing, info that I wanted to bring you some of the highlights so you can improve your own company culture, enabling you to attract and keep your staff. 

In every market there are low end service offering and their are high end businesses. There is an audience for every kind of business so it's up to you to decide what kind you want to create, the kind of service you want to provide and how you want to serve. 

In this episode I discuss why you should provide a high quality of service that will bring you better customers and less headaches. 

What do you do when you haven't seen a regular customer in a while? Do we just assume that they no longer need you or that they founds someplace else to go? 

No way. They might not be lost forever - they just might need a little help finding their way back. And that's where your lost customer marketing campaign will help you bring those people back into your business. 

If you're looking to really supercharge your marketing efforts, paid advertising can help you reach more people and get more customers. Hands down, the best bang for your buck is using digital ads on the two big platforms: Google and Facebook. They are both powerful but very different, so which one is better? 

Today we'll discuss the pros and cons of both so you can better understand how, when and if you should use them. 

You've heard it before: "failing to plan is planning to fail." That's true for much about your business but especially when it comes to your marketing. In order to set yourself up for success you need to have a vision of what you want to accomplish, as well as a specific timeline of implementation. 

In this episode we'll discuss how to create a marketing calendar for the next 12 months so that you are less stressed, while greatly increasing the power of all of your marketing efforts. 

Online video consumption has been going up every year and even though it's such a powerful tool to grow your dog business, few companies are taking advantage of it. 

Today we'll talk about why you should be utilizing video in your marketing, what kinds of videos you should be making, where to put them and how to get it all done. 

A lot has happened in the dog industry over the past 12 months. There were ups and downs, and sometimes all you could do as owners is hold on tight. With the new year upon us, it's a great time to look back at what happened in 2022 and then prepare to move forward. 

Today we'll discuss the current state of things and I'll make some prediction for 2023, as well as give you some tips so that you can make this coming year your best one ever. 

Your website is one of the most important business assets you have. It can either draw people in and help them to become customers or it can turn people away, never to return. Think of your website as your digital storefront - it's the first impression people get of your business online so you want it to be good. 

In order to take really good care of people and move them toward a buying decision, your website needs to have certain things. In this episode I'll share what I think is critical to have on your website to help your business succeed. 

One of the most in demand services in pet businesses right now is training. And one of the biggest opportunities for revenue growth for pet businesses is with day training and board & train programs. These are not only be a great value add for your clients, but they can be a big profit center for your business. 

The problem is how can you effectively structure those programs so that they are useful and appealing to the client, while still being manageable for you and your staff? 

Today's guest has been running all kinds of training programs for years and is here to show you just how she makes it work. 

One of the hardest part of running a dog daycare business is dealing with the many facets of having employees. It's difficult to get good people, train them properly, create an environment that they will enjoy and to help them work together as a team. By far, staffing issues are the number one pain point in this industry year after year. 

Today you're going to get some great insight on how you can better your understanding and your management of your staff. Scott Greenberg joins us and shares his personal tips on how you can keep you and your staff happy together.

Everyone is alway so focused on getting new people interested in your business that sometimes we forget to take care of our existing customers. Yes, bringing in new leads is important, however if you do an amazing job with the customers you already have, they will stay with your for longer - making your more money in the end. 

Today we'll talk about some strategies to help your customers stay with you longer, become more loyal to your brand and spend more money with you over time. 

One of the first questions I ask new clients is "what makes your business different and better than the competition." It's a question you need to have a very clear answer for because it will dictate all of your marketing and is usually the reason why someone will do business with you instead of everyone else out there. 

In this episode we'll go over what a USP is, how to discover yours and how to use it to bring in more customers who love what you do. 

There's a trend in every industry that's become one of the most popular and successful business models available. Very few pet businesses, however, are taking advantage of it and I think that needs to change. 

We're talking about membership programs. Offering your services for a regular fee that is automatically charged to the customer every month. There's just so many advantages to offering memberships and you'll learn them all, as well as how to implement them, in this episode. 

As the dog daycare industry evolves, gets more crowded and attracts more attention, it becomes more important to showcase that your business operates at a high level. There are many ways to do this, one of which is to get your staff certified by a 3rd party organization. 

That can be a great way to show potential customers that your business is better than the rest but is it really worth it and how does it work? Learn all this and more on this episode. 

Working with live animals can often be unpredictable and no matter how careful you are, eventually dogs are going to get into a fight. When it happens, it can be frightening and leave you, your staff and the dogs shaken. 

In this episode, we'll discuss what to do if the dogs get into it and, more importantly, the things you can do to prevent something like this from ever happening in the first place. 

For your marketing to be successful, you not only need the right message going to the right target market but it also has to be delivered at the right time. Timing is everything! 

In this episode we'll discuss what kinds of marketing campaigns you should be running and when is the optimal time of year to launch them so that you see the most success from them, while spend the least amount of money. 

Many dog daycares have small splash pools that the dogs can play around in but what about offering swimming as an additional service? Not only is swimming great for dogs with injuries and physical limitations, it's also tremendous fun for the dogs, as well as a great additional revenue stream. 

In this week's episode learn how Pawsitively Pooched in Calgary, Canada has developed a swimming program that is bringing in profits and creating a buzz throughout area. 

If you want to reach people for your business (whether it's customers or prospects) you need to do it in the way that's easy for THEM. In todays very digital society, text messaging is the number one way that people communicate, so it makes sense that you should be utilizing it for your dog business. 

In this episode we'll discuss how you can use text message marketing to take better care of customers and convert more leads. You'll learn the best practices, as well as some ways you can use text messaging in your business today.  

To see your dog daycare business succeed long term you need to continually evolve your service offerings and add in new ways to take care of your customer base. There are a lot of new things you can implement, however introducing it to your clientele and integrating it into your existing business model can be tricky. 

Learn how Wag Days of Philadelphia was able to roll out 3 new programs into their business successfully. We'll discuss how they were able to set things up so that everything ran smoothly as they experimented with the new services, as well as how they got their customers excited and participating. 

Setting a price for the services you provide can be tricky and difficult to decide upon. Should you put your prices lower than the competition? Should you just charge what everyone else is? Or do you go luxury and set your price at the top. 

What you choose to charge should be well thought out and reflect the kind of business you have, as well as, the market you're in. In this week's podcast we'll go over some pricing strategies and talk about the psychology behind it all. 

If you're thinking of jumping in and starting a dog daycare business there are two main ways to do it: create your own or buy into a franchise. Both options have positive and negatives and which one is best for you depends upon the kind of person you are and the kind of business you're looking to create. 

In this episode, I'm joined by Steven Parker from K9 Resorts to explain the ins and outs of being a part of a franchise. 

If you're looking to start a dog daycare, are interested in expanding your existing space or want to add an additional location, finding the money to fund your dreams can be a big obstacle. There's good news though - you do have options to make it all happen. 

In today's episode the folks at Live Oak Bank (who specialize in helping pet business) join us to fill us in on all the financing possibilities you have available to you. 

I run a lot of different marketing campaigns throughout the year for my clients. A few of them I run again and again because they always produce big results and help the dog daycare businesses that I work with grow their customer base and out pace their competition. 

In this episode, I share my five favorite campaigns that I use across all my client accounts. 

After working with dog daycare businesses for the past few years I've noticed a few things that are consistently done by the top players that lead them to amazing, long-term success. 

In this episode, I share what those key factors are and how you can implement them in your own business to help you grow bigger, better and stand the test of time. 

As you grow your dog business I'm guessing you spend lots of time and attention on how to improve your facility, your services, your operations and everything else in your business. However, you probably neglect the single biggest influence on the success of your business - you. 

Everything in your business is affected by you. So it would make sense to take really good care of yourself and do things to improve yourself and how you show up for your business each and everyday. Let's look into how you can do that in today's episode. 

Most dog daycare businesses find themselves busy the same days every week, while the other days are consistently slow. As a business, the obvious opportunity for more revenue is to get more dogs in on those light days, which usually tend to be Mondays and Fridays. 

Today we'll discuss some different things you can do to get those off day numbers up and even out the flow of dogs coming for daycare every week. 

Summertime is a time of brief change. School is out and people looking to travel more which means they will  most likely also be changing they way they utilize your business. This means you need to adapt your marketing campaigns in order to see continued success. What worked before summer doesn't usually work during summer.

In this episode I'll share some of the marketing campaigns I run for my clients and give you some idea on what you can do during this very unique time of year.

This episode is sponsored by Natura. 

People love saving money and getting good deals. In the quest to acquire more customers it's tempting to discount your services to try to make them more appealing for people to buy BUT is it really the right thing to do for your business?

In this episode we'll discuss the good and the bad of offering discounts, as well as how you can use them the right way for your business. 

Learn some valuable lessons from someone who started her own dog daycare from the ground up by herself, grew it to a second location and then sold them both. Lori Zimmerman, former owner of Pups@Play in New Jersey comes on to share her story on how she was able to do it all. 

She's going to tell you the big lessons she learned, the mistakes to avoid and the things that make the biggest difference for success. 

Britt and Sully from The Bark Yard in South Portland, Maine join us to share their story of making their dream of opening a dog daycare business a reality. You'll hear how they got creative to get the town to change the zoning laws, how they built out their services and learn about their early success. 

These guys are doing great things in only a short amount of time. 

There's one GIANT problem with the dog daycare business model . . . you don't get much, if any, time with the human paying the bills. Sure you get countless hours with their dog, however the person footing the bill rarely gets any personal attention. Because of that, there can often be a big disconnect between the customer and the business.

If you want to strengthen your relationship with your customer base, making them feel more connected to your business and increasing their loyalty to you, you have to go out of your way to get in front of them. I'll give you five different ways that you can accomplish this so that you can build a bond with your customers that will keep them happier and with you for longer.

Your website can and should be one of your greatest tools to showcase what you do, build trust with the viewer and lead them to take the next step with you. Unfortunately, many websites are not really set up properly and instead of moving people into a buying decision, they are confusing them and causing them to click away.

In this episode, I'll go over 10 different ways you can improve your website in ways that will make it easy for people to find what they are looking for and to take the actions that will eventually lead them to become a paying customer.

Learn how Playful Pack began with a dream of opening a single dog daycare, then grew it to multiple locations across the East Coast and now have begun franchising. Oh, and they did all that in a very short period of time. 

Discover the secret to their success, the lessons they learned along the way and how they plan for the future. 

Of all the kinds of marketing you can do for your business, my all time favorite is content marketing. By putting out value into the marketplace you don't have to sell so hard and will find you get a lot more warm leads reaching out to you (instead of you having to hustle so much, making lots of offers to a cold audience). 

Learn how you can do content marketing, including examples, tools and use cases in this week's episode. 

On today's show I invite on one of my newer clients, Tahlia Henderson of K9 and Company, who's doing some cool things with 3 dog daycare facilities in Australia. Learn how she's leveraging her existing space and taking great care of both the dogs and her human clients by taking action and trying stuff out. 

Tahlia shares her amazing growth strategies as well as her unique service offerings and how she plans to develop the business over time. 

If you want your business to thrive you need to do some regular gardening on it. Just like flowering plants, to keep your business healthy, you need to cut out some parts in order to allow the others to reach their full potential. 

No matter what stage your business is at, it's a good idea to constantly take a few steps back and see what areas could use a little pruning. In this episode, we'll discuss the benefits of regular business trimming and how to do it. 

With increased competition in the industry, combined with a rise in online web searches, it's never been more important to get your business to show up at the top of Google.  In this episode you'll learn why SEO is so important right now and some tips on how you can boost your own rankings in online searches.

If you're looking for a cash injection into your business, you need to think about creating a special offer, available for a set limited time. You might be familiar with this concept and perhaps have tried it in the past, however, to be really successful you need to make sure you do it right. 

On today's show I bring back on Allison Jacobs of Scout's Honor to share what she did to take her results from $800 for an offer to $34,000. 

Just about every single dog daycare business owner struggles with staffing issues. It's always the number one complaint, and yes, dealing with staff is challenging, stressful and exhausting. However, your staff is the backbone of your business, whom without, you would never be able to keep your doors open.

On this episode we'll be discussing ways to show your employees some love, so they feel better about work and help them stay longer with less problems. 

I know you really love your customers but do they know? Too often we are so concerned with the day to day activities of running a dog daycare business that we neglect to continually show our existing customers just how much we appreciate them.

In this episode, we'll discuss some ways you can make your customers feel the love from your business, keeping them coming back for years to come, while feeling compelled to tell everyone how awesome you are. 

Traditional group play dog daycare is great for many dogs, however it's not the right environment for all. Those dogs that are not a good fit for group play typically have to be turned away because most businesses are not set up to handle single dogs that can't be in the groups. 

Learn how The Yellow Dog Barn has turned solo dog play into a lucrative revenue stream and one of their most in demand services. Discover how they handle the dogs, as well as, how they structure their days to manage both the dogs and staff, so that it works together with their group play service. 

Running your own business is a lot of work. There's always so much to do and never enough time to get it all done. So, we do what all entrepreneurs do, we put our heads down and grind it out. We sacrifice our time, energy and often, our sanity for the good of the business. 

The problem that so many face in the dog daycare industry is that you can only keep that up so long and then you fall apart - mentally and physically. In order to make your business a success AND feel good doing it, you need make sure you're taking care of yourself FIRST. 

The term "work-life" balance it thrown around a lot these days, however I don't think people are having the right conversations about this topic and most people are not properly prioritizing it. 

In today's episode Patrick Lyons from Culture By Design comes back on to teach you why this is so important, as well as how to implement it for yourself and all your employees. 

A giant problem in the dog daycare industry is that you don't get much time with the paying (human) customers.  That means you need to find creative ways to get in front of them if you want them to feel connected with you and your business. 

One easy way to do this is with regular email newsletters. In today's episode we'll discuss why they are so powerful, what to put in them and exactly how you can get them done. 

Just under 100 years ago Napoleon Hill published his success principals after studying and interviewing the most successful people in the world. He found that all the top successes did some of the same actions to build their empires and compiled these into a course on how anyone can achieve great results by following the same principals. 

Reading these and then putting them into action has greatly changed my business and life. In this podcast I'm going to share Hill's 17 principals of success and give you tips on how you can implement them in your life with epic results. 

For one week (or more) every year people are ready and happy to spend lots of money. If done right, Black Friday promotions can mean a giant cash infusion right before the holidays. Many businesses, however, miss out on this prime opportunity because they don't understand  how to structure a good offer or market it effectively. 

In this episode we'll break down how you can take advantage of Black Friday by finding the right promotions for your business and how to properly advertise it so that it sees success. 

They say "success leaves clues." I believe that's true but failure also gives us valuable lessons that can teach about success. I've found that businesses that experience problems have certain things in common that cause or greatly contribute to their ultimate failure.

In this episode, we'll go over the top 5 issues that are plaguing failing dog daycare businesses, as well as what you can do to avoid and/or improve these areas in your own business.

Taylor Swift seems to be on an unstoppable journey to take over the world. She just become a billionaire and is the most popular artist on plant Earth. Whether you're a fan of her music or not, you can learn a lot from how she continues to build her brand and grows her empire. 

In today's episode we'll look at some of the ways Taylor markets and promotes herself, and how you can do similar things to build your pet business. 

Everything starts at the top and trickles down throughout your entire business. If you, as the senior leader, or your management team are not effective leaders, everything will suffer. Learning how to lead properly is a skill that is worth investing in for everyone of influence in your organization. 

To help you understand exactly how you can become a better leader and build leaders in your staff I brought Phillip Paris back on the podcast to discuss the specifics of this very important topic. 

I just got back from the Pet Boarding and Daycare Expo in Hershey Pennsylvania and wanted to share some of the things I learned there. I met so many great people and saw some amazing presentations that have opened my mind to new ideas and fired me up to implement in some things for future growth.

Learn what I discovered there, as well as what you should do with all that knowledge that you've learned.

Most people who start a pet business do so with the dream of being their own boss and having the control and freedom of working for themselves. They no longer have to do what someone else tells them and now get to make the big decisions and grow the business they way they want to. 

The unfortunate reality for many is that they get sucked into doing the day to day tasks of running the business, like checking in clients, cleaning, working the play groups and all the other various odd  jobs that you, as the business owner, should not be doing. Soon you realize that you don't have your own business but have actually just given yourself another job. 

Today we'll discuss how you can break this cycle and back into the business owner role so you can make time for the big picture stuff that will bring you more success, freedom and happiness. 

Everyone in this industry complains about the constant employee turnover. It seems that most dog daycare businesses can't seem to find good staff have trouble keeping people for any length of time. 

There are a few businesses out there that seemed to have cracked the code and are experiencing great retention rates, as well as high engagement and happiness from their staff. 

Today you'll hear from Rich Schlatter of K9 Resorts in New Jersey, who shares what he feels is the key to his incredibly high staff retention. 

I'm a firm believer that dog businesses can learn a lot from looking at what other successful people and businesses are doing outside of the pet industry. And nobody - nobody - does it better than Disney. 

Walt Disney is my all time favorite entrepreneur and we can learn so much from his life and the way he and his team have created an unforgettable business. In today's podcast I'll go over some of the big lessons you can learn from Walt and how you can put it to use in your own business. 

Enrichment is a hot topic in the industry right now and many businesses are figuring out how to incorporate it into their current business model. Some pet businesses are taking it further and making enrichment a main offering. Pet Camp in San Fransisco is one such place that's really elevated the idea of enrichment to an exciting new level. 

In this episode you'll hear from Mark Klaiman, owner of Pet Camp, who tells us all about his cool new enrichment center. 

Over the last couple of years the pet industry has been a bit of a roller coaster. We've had ups and downs but through it all, the industry as a whole has grown. But what's to come for the new year?

Some things are going to change in 2024 and this business is going to continue to evolve. If you can keep up with it all, your business should flourish, but those that can't will find themselves left behind. 

In this episode Fern discusses what he believes will be important in the new year and how you can set up your business for success in 2024 and beyond. 

How you look at the world around you is so much more important than you realize. Your personal mindset is greatly affecting everything that happens to you and if you're not careful, it can limit and often totally derail your success in all areas of your life. 

Fern shares his personal story on how he was able to transform his life from one of negativity and become the positive, outgoing person he is today. With some simple (but not easy) actions you can improve everything in your life and become the best version of yourself. 

Every year the dog daycare and boarding industry gets more crowded with new businesses vying for the same customers. It's never been more important to separate yourself from your competitors so that you can attract right kinds of people to your business and show everyone why you are the right choice. 

In this episode we'll go over exactly how you can determine what your competitive advantages are and how to showcase them in everything you do, helping your business become the best option for pet care in your area. 

Thanks to technology you have some amazing things available to you that can help you build your business in many ways. These tools are readily available to everyone and very user friendly so even the most un-tech savvy personal can utilize them. 

In this episode, Fern goes over is favorite online tools and how you can use them in your business. 

Learn the strategies and insights that can transform your dog daycare business into a recognized authority in the field. From creating a nurturing environment for furry friends to implementing innovative services, we explore the key elements that set successful dog daycares apart. Get valuable tips on building credibility, establishing a strong online presence, and fostering positive relationships with both clients and their beloved pets. 

Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting, this episode provides actionable advice to elevate your dog daycare business to new heights, becoming a trusted authority in pet care.

As an entrepreneur there's so many things you need to do on a daily basis that it can be hard to keep track of what's really important. To make sure you're heading in the right direction, you need to focus on the metrics that will have the biggest impact on your business success. By knowing where you're at and where you want to go, you can craft the proper plan to get there. 

In this episode we'll go over some of the KPI's (key performance indicators) you should know, monitor and continually strive to improve. 

The pet industry is constantly changing and evolving. As our human lifestyles are altered by events like COVID and the work from home movement, things that worked previously for your business are no longer effective. If you want to stay relevant and be able to compete with all the new businesses in your area, you need to understand the current trends in the industry and take the actions that will keep your business needed. 

In this episode we'll discuss some of the biggest aspects of the dog daycare business and how you can keep your business successful into the future. 

In the episode of the Overdog podcast, Fern interviews Kelli from Perfect Pooch, a comprehensive pet care service. They discuss the successful strategies implemented at Perfect Pooch, focusing on personalized client services and staff incentives. Kelli highlights the importance of action and implementation in seeing results, sharing how proactive measures in training, customer engagement, and staff motivation have positively impacted her business. The discussion also covers innovative programs like puppy preschool, enrichment activities tailored to specific dog breeds, and a monthly incentive plan for staff that has significantly improved workplace culture and efficiency. 

Perfect Pooch has enhanced its service quality and customer satisfaction through these initiatives, showcasing the potential for growth and improvement in the pet care industry.

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 Here is the information of our guest in the episode today:

Website: https://perfect-pooch.com
Email: kelli.dodds@perfect-pooch.com

Marketing is essential for success in every pet business. You'll constantly need to bring in new leads, educate your audience and build your brand in order to see long term, sustained growth. Often, success or failure of your marketing efforts hinges on the timing of your campaigns. 

In this episode we'll discuss how to determine when marketing is necessary and how to deploy campaigns throughout your sales process to improve your results, bringing you a greater return on your marketing investment.