Selling pet care services is much, much harder.

For a new sale to “close,” a client must give you a key to their home and trust that you’ll take great care of their pets. This is a leap of faith that can’t be underestimated. There aren’t any test drives or polished chrome to help make them feel good about the decision first. Your services are invisible, nothing more than a promise to do something in the future.

That’s why it’s so critical to understand that everything you do and say is being judged by your prospective clients. Your words, mannerisms, marketing materials, punctuality. All of these are clues. Clients are making snap judgments about you based on everything from how you dress to the quality of your business cards.

It doesn’t matter if you are the most reliable, competent and trustworthy person on the planet. If your business cards, web site and sales process are amateurish and slapped together, then that will be the expectation others have of the quality of your services. If you don’t return phone calls and emails quickly, or show up late for appointments, you send a clear message: I’m not taking this that seriously.

So be smart with your time and money by spending them in the right places. Premium, well designed business cards cost a bit more, sure. But they look much better than the alternative. Learning how to create a great WordPress site takes time, but that effort will more than pay off in new business. Consultative selling may feel unnatural at first, but it will distinguish you as a professional.

Don’t make clients guess at the quality of your work. Make it obvious in the things they can easily see.

• Landing your first clients can give you a massive emotional and moral boost. You move from being an aspiring entrepreneur to a paid professional. The joy that comes from making it over that first hump can be contagious. You’ll feel much more confident and far less desperate, and it will show.
• In a business built on trust, they can provide invaluable testimonials and references. Even one glowing review can make attracting your next clients much easier.
• You get to start doing the actual work, instead of dwelling on what that work will really be like. Something amazing happens when you just dive in and do something. The less you obsess over how it will look and what it might feel like, the more open you are to simply paying attention to what works and adapting to fit your clients’ real needs.
• You’ll be out walking dogs, meeting other dog owners and handing out lots of business cards. Much better than sitting at home.

My first client originally hired me for a full day/evening dog sit. She was bringing her dog to day care 3 times a week but neither of them really liked it. She wanted to find an alternative, preferably one where her dog could hang out at home and go out for lots of fun walks. Since I was just getting started, I offered to take care of him throughout the day, in between other walks, for the same rate as the day care. That gave me my first testimonial and reference, and walking her King Charles Spaniel has helped me meet new clients. Everyone’s happy!

So be flexible. It can help you create the strong foundation you need to get your business off the ground quickly.

Before you worry about the complex stuff that needs to happen, make a commitment to speed. Speed wins because most people don’t make it a priority. If you do, getting your business off the ground will be that much easier.

Both these sites offer an online marketplace of creative talent, connecting highly skilled labor with the companies and employers who need it. Yet, the very efficiency that makes these sites useful creates a serious problem for the freelancers who use them.

When services are presented in a lineup, talent and skill become homogenized. Most potential clients have a difficult time distinguishing the merits of one freelancer over any other. Price, however, is tangible and easy to measure. Joe charges $X, but Linda only charges $Y.

In order to compete on one of these referral sites, freelancers are often forced to underbid against up and comers willing to charge next to nothing to get their first clients. Yes, you may have more experience, etc etc. But cheaper is cheaper.

And that’s why, as a professional dog walker and pet sitter, I don’t pay to promote myself through referral sites and directories.

The clients I want are the ones who aren’t looking for the cheapest. Yes, my rates have to be competitive, and they are. But I’m not interested in joining the race to the bottom, and unfortunately when we place ourselves in a pet sitter and dog walker line up, the only way we can differentiate ourselves is with price.

Go look at any pet sitter referral site. Everyone listed has a cute picture with a dog or cat, talks about their love for animals, years of experience, and fantastic references. Since everyone looks and sounds the same, price is often what sets one apart from the other.

By all means advertise on free pet services directories. Just don’t make them a key part of your marketing mix. Focus instead on marketing tactics that require effort and creativity. Getting listed on a directory is just too easy. Writing a great adwords ad? Creating a fantastic website? Taking the time to meet dog owners face to face on the street? These all take much more time and work.

Don’t settle for being just a face in the crowd. Be one in a million.

So why should anyone be willing to pay you $20 to take their dog out for a tinkle? Or over $60 to sleep over when they’re gone? If most people are physically competent to do the job, why the need for professional dog walkers and pet sitters?

Because we don’t sell dog walking, or feeding, or cleaning litter boxes.

We sell peace of mind. Our stock in trade is trust. My clients hired me because I earned enough trust to do the first walk. They continue to call me because I earn their trust every day, with every interaction.

• Does your website demonstrate your commitment, your attention to detail, your willingness to put some thought and effort into what you do?
• Does how you answer the phone and speak with prospective clients demonstrate your professionalism, your calm yet confident personality, your easygoing and positive attitude?
• Are you on time, well put together and smiling all day, every day?

Almost anyone can walk a dog. You become irreplaceable when your clients realize they’ve been at work all day and never once wondered if you took great care of their pets. That’s peace of mind.

Remember, you’re not entitled to anyone’s trust. You have to earn it every day.

• Los Angeles is a huge, spread out city with legendary traffic problems. Some days it can take an hour just to get five or so miles. The amount of time it can take to travel from client to client can easily eat up most of the day, time that’s not going toward paid walks.
• The larger your service area, the more marketing you have to do. The more marketing you have to do, the more money you have to spend. Rather than go narrow and deep, you’re forced to go wide and shallow. This makes it much harder to get noticed at all.
• People live in neighborhoods, and becoming known as the local provider means a lot. My dog walking and pet sitting business Santa Pawnica has a very localized focus, in name and in practice. There are thousands of dogs here, and I can reach all of them within 15 to 30 minutes, even by bicycle.

There’s no point in covering a massive area when focusing on a smaller, local section will bring you the same number of clients. Conquer your neighborhood first, and you may never find the need to go outside of it. You’ll be happier, less stressed and make more money. Nice.

Dogs are naturally social and are like little four legged ice breakers. They gravitate toward each other, and the leash dance makes striking up a conversation with other dog people inevitable. All it takes to turn a chance meeting into a potential new client is the willingness to introduce yourself and smile.

Just be yourself. Have fun with the dogs and people you meet. Then, when you feel the moment is right, simply hand them a card and say something like “Here’s my card in case you ever need a dog walker or pet sitter.”

That’s it! No pushy sales pitch. Just let them know what you do and give them the means to get in touch with you in the future if they ever need you.

Often the fact that I’m a dog walker will come up naturally in the conversation, particularly when someone is asking a lot of questions about the dog I’m caring for. I simply say “I’m actually her dog walker, etc etc.” Then I’ll give them one of my cards.

My business cards themselves are sometimes a conversation piece. I exclusively use mini cards from Moo.com. I love them because they are a unique size and each card has a different cute dog pic…and I’m all about the cute dog pics. People also get a kick out of my business name Santa Pawnica. All these things put together help me stand out and make it easier to connect with potential clients.

So get out of the house! Meeting dog owners in the wild is not a replacement for Facebook, Adwords and all of the other ways for new clients to find you. But the fact that it is so inexpensive, easy and fun should put it toward the top of your marketing list.

She seems to hate people.

When curious passersby come up to her table to fawn over her assortment of adorable animals, her response to them is often cold, sometimes even harsh.

“Make a donation. Even a dollar can help.” She barks.

“Do you have dogs? Why not?” She judges.

“Landlord doesn’t allow pets? Maybe it’s time to move.” She scolds.

That last one she said to me personally. Rather than allow people to enjoy her beautiful little animals, perhaps long enough to form a bit of a bond and want to take one home, she instead acts as if their attention is somehow an inconvenience for her. It’s as if she expects everyone to pay up or adopt, right up front, for the privilege of viewing her rescued babies.

What does this have to do with the dog walking and pet sitting business? Plenty. Animal care attracts people who love animals (duh?), and unfortunately, some people who dedicate their lives to the care of dogs and cats do so not just because they love them, but because they dislike other people. After all, dogs give their love unconditionally. They don’t judge us, mock us or abuse us. For many, dogs are considered a higher life form than humans.

But dogs don’t hire walkers and sitters, people do. Dogs can’t write checks to a groomer, but people can.

Before someone will hire you to care for their pet, they have to first trust that you’ll do a great job when they have almost no way to actually see you do that job. And before they’ll trust you, they have to like you. And if you don’t like people, people won’t like you.

There are plenty of dog lovers willing to spend their lives caring for animals. There are far fewer who are also willing to care for the people who own them.

If there is any way to capture what this business is really all about, that is it.

In other words, I have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. In the 2 short months since I’ve become a professional dog walker and pet sitter and started Santa Pawnica, I’ve been lucky enough to attract the most thoughtful and generous clients I could imagine having. The type of clients who write cards telling me how grateful they are to have met me, who give me a bottle of wine as a token of their appreciation, who go out of their way to share what I do with the people they know.

I’ve been wanting to write this first post for “Sit. Good Blog!” for a while now, but waited for the right moment. I didn’t want to force it and simply hack through some standard “welcome” post. I waited for the right mood, for real inspiration to share something meaningful.

Today was that day. Today I understood just what it means to be a professional dog walker and pet sitter. It doesn’t just mean taking care of animals. It means taking care of people too. Of earning their trust by providing them the peace of mind of knowing that their pets (i.e. children) are being loved in their absence.

This business is proof that you can do what you love and make a difference just by being yourself and putting 100% into everything you do. It’s going to be a fantastic ride…I hope that you’ll enjoy it with me.