My husband and I own and operate our own pet care business- we provide pet sitting and dog walking services. We are willing to accommodate alternative requests when they are made but we rarely get them. I know that pet care businesses are gaining popularity because people are doing more for their pets. However, as a small business what services could I offer or what approaches could I take to appeal to pet owners more than the average pet sitter? While I’m willing to undergo additional training for more skills like grooming and training, what services could be useful that I could offer right away? My business already offers pet sitting visits that are one hour in duration, which is unheard of among professional sitters around here (most people stay for 30 minutes or so). Without dropping prices, what could I do that would appeal to you and make my business your first choice? I want to be unconventional- don’t want to stick to JUST dog walking, pet sitting and house sitting.
Health care! There are so manmy things you can do without a vet that will make sure to keep low cost for owners and more income for you! The DHPP (parvo combo) vaccines can be given by you and if you do cats, the FVRCP vaccines can be done as well. Reaearch small animal care and learn the facts, so you can educate your customers! Dogs need HeartGuard or a heart worm prevention once a month, and if they go months or more without it, they need to be tested first, or if they have heartworms, giving them the preentative could kill them! Also, little things like not being abl to give cats the flea prevention from Walmart stores could be a good thing to spread around. It has an active ingredient permethrin and is very toxic and can kill them. Puppies and kittens need at least three vaccines (DHPP/FVRCP) to be protected, and until they are 3 months and cn be on the heartguard, they need de-worming with Strongid or another pyrantel based wormer to prevent those nasty intestinal worms. Also, outside cats need to be tested for leukemia and vaccoinated yearly. These are just a few very commonly ovrlooked things I see daily,and you can investigate them more thoroughly or even ask your vet about them. The Strongid you can also keep on hand, but stay away from trying to do rabies vaccines yourself (its illegal) and leave the heartworm prevention and testing to the vets as well. GOOD LUCK!!! You can also check out this Dog Business

I reviewed a site last week for one of my larger personal coaching clients – a successful online wholesaler with a tight Ferret niche.

Their ‘cleanly designed’ main content site has only 12 pages in total.

Two of those pages were the obligatory “About Us” (i.e. about them) information, and an additional page was a Contact form with very little text on it.

Leaving 9 “Product” pages (segmented into categories)… all rather sad little pages that listed their products — about 200 of them — most with only a single line description per item.

And you can probably guess how direct business their main content site is currently generating. Virtually zero! If it wasn’t for their eBay and Amazon business they would be struggling to keep their doors open.

Pet Fanatics are screaming for information.

I’ve spoken a lot about creating your own information product, defining profitable niches, and engaging fellow pet fanatics with your own blog.

It’s true, in my opinion information products are the fastest and most profitable avenues to start to turn your passion for pets into “lifestyle” income. However, I also consult with several very large physical product manufacturers and marketers (like my client mentioned above), treat bakers and service providers (dog sitters, doggy day care operations, pooper-scooper businesses, etc.).

But to be truly successful in today’s market place all of these businesses require one key ingredient, without which they’ll struggle to survive. Content.

Compelling content really is king on the Internet and ultimately when marketing your physical products or services, and the moment your web presence starts providing more fascinatingly descriptive content, results will almost automatically improve.

So my advice to this company?

Well I obviously had a lot to say, but here’s the annotated version:

1) Start again! The current site is a total waste of time. Redesign the navigation so the focus is all about… the visitor, not you, the company.

2) Separate each ’product’ into at least one full and very descriptive (but not boring) page.

Give specifics on how products have helped fellow ferret fanatics enjoy their furry friends more or solve a common problem (like odors with ferrets), and where possible give case studies and live example of actual results achieved.

And ideally have a lot more than one page for each product category — maybe even separate web sites. It really is true that “the more you tell them more you sell them.”

3) Add features that compel visiting prospective clients to inquire. “Contact Us?” Phooey! How about a form on every service page, where the title of the form ties into the product itself?

Also, maybe most critically, test your sales pages, until the conversion of “visitor into client” is optimised.

These ideas are just for starters – and if you have a site or business you would like help getting started or taking it to the next level go to the Contact Doug tab and leave me a detailed message about what you are looking for – I will get back with you as soon as possible. Also, I have been working to create a new weekly training program with that will show you how to develop your own $6 a day pet related income stream in as little as 90 days from start to finish – this training will include regular homework, limited direct email access and access to all my reports, and resource guides…Stay Tuned!