The Pet Biz Helper

A couple of weeks ago Danielle Chonody from The Circle of Pet Sitting Excellence interviewed me to discuss fresh new tips that pet sitters can use to get new clients using social media.  Here is what she said about our interview…

Last week I interviewed Joan Fernandez from PetBusinessVA.com and learned a lot of fresh new tips for using Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to promote a pet sitting business.

It’s funny because I think I originally connected with Joan on Twitter and we have kept in touch on Facebook.

It’s amazing how much social media is growing!  Facebook now has 300 million users - and the fastest growing segment on Facebook is women aged 55-65. So it’s not just for the teens anymore. More than 1.5 million pieces of information including web links, news stories, videos, photos, blog posts, and notes, are shared on Facebook every day.  You can find some other great social media tidbits in this video on Joans blog :

http://www.petbusinessva.com/social-media-revolution/

Some big advantages of using social media marketing include:

1. It’s FREE

2. You can use it to network with peers

3. You can use it to build relationships

4. You can connect with people that you otherwise wouldn’t

Social media can also help you to build closer relationships with existing clients, build credibility, and increase your website traffic.

One of the highlights of the call for me were Joans tips on using Twitter to connect with people looking for pet sitters in your local area.  Joan uses keywords such as pet sitter and her city name to do twitter searches using Tweetdeck,Twellow, and LocalTweeps.com to find tweets from people in her area of Washington DC who are looking for pet sitter recommendations.  A trick I’d never thought of trying before! Joan also introduced us to twitter email alerts using tweetbeep.com using these types of keywords.

At the end of the call Joan also showed us how to save time with social media by using Ping to send updates to you Twitter, Facebook and Linked In profiles. We also discussed cell phone applications that you can use on the go to post pictures of clients pets and new updates.

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I want to share a little secret with you guys that makes my life so much easier when it comes to social media. Are you ready? Here it goes…Ping.fm. Ping.fm is a FREE service that makes updating your social networks a snap. You can update your status in over 35 social networks with a touch of a button.  I update my status in the Ping.fm website and the same status posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed,  and Delicious at the same time. I don’t have to login into each account to do this. The Ping.fm website combines all my social network accounts into one.  I will not be able to live without Ping.fm! Try it and let me know what you think.

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Last week, I discussed the advantages and disadvantages on using a Facebook profile/fan page as your company’s webpage. Well, people can also do a search within Facebook and find your profile or fan page.  Optimizing your Facebook fan page can help increase the chances of this happening. Search Engine Land gives great tips for getting your fan page found on Facebook. These tips are:

1. Use your pet biz brand for your Facebook page name.

2. Build your followers

3. Create a branded Facebook username

4. Create fresh content regularly

5. Advertise on branded “interests” - Search Enginer Land explains “While this won’t boost you into the natural Facebook search results, this will allow you to show up on selected terms. While Facebook ads still run off of “interests” rather than keywords, bidding solely on extremely targeted interests, you can boost your possibility of being found. In addition, Facebook does run select Microsoft-network ads, so advertising in adCenter could help you sneak in and steal some of that Facebook search traffic (if you know what you are doing).”

6. Fill in all information about your pet biz.

Follow these tips and your will see your pet biz fan page show up when Facebook users search by keywords or “interests”.

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I read an article written by Hubspot.com about using Facebook as your company’s website and then I thought….hhhuuuummmm…it might be a good idea. But then I thought about it a little bit more and realized that it is important for a company to have a legitimate website outside of just Facebook so that you can build credibility in the cyber world. You should be able to interact with clients by all means possible ~ Facebook, company’s website, Twitter, etc. That way the client can pick their favorite choice of interaction with your pet company.

Additional points to think about on this matter…

• Limitations on Facebook ~ If you have your own domain you are not limited to what Facebook allows you to post.
• Search Engine Traffic ~ As Hubspots says “Having a website and building landing pages are vital to increasing your search traffic and leads.”

How your pet biz handles online presence? Do you have a website and a Facebook account?

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Nowadays everyone has a blog site. For this reason, you have to make sure you promote your blog effectively so that your rankings go up and people can find your website in the search engines. Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.com made a great video on how to he promote his blogs. It is a little lengthy,but is worth it. I’m sure you will learn something that you could apply to your blog.

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Usually, social media networking sites have more than one purpose. I always knew Twitter had a lot to offer…more than just tweeting. Mashable’s website ~ The Social Media Guide ~ discusses things you can do on Twitter other than tweeting…

1. Share files on Twitter using www.filesocial.com ~ Files need to be smaller than 50 MB.

2. Exchange business cards ~ www.twtBizCard.com is a service that lets you create an electronic business card that you can easily tweet.

3. Share music ~ Songza (http://songza.fm/) is a music search engine that lets you tweet music you select.

4. Share videos ~ You can share videos using 12 seconds website. This is a great tool for really short videos…just 12 seconds!

5. Raise money ~ A neat website to raise money for great causes is Twitpay. Raising money using Twitter really works!

6. Find a job ~ You can even find a job using Twitter…www.tweetmyjobs.

Twitter can be used for some many things. What things do you do on Twitter besides tweeting?

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I learned about the Heartselling Model from Sharla Jacobs a couple of months ago and it really works. As a always, I just want to share this information with you guys.

The 5 elements of the Heartselling Model are:

1. Connect (Fire) - Connection comes from the fire element. Your heart is related to the fire elements. When you meet new people, use your fire element to connect!
2. Serve (Earth) - Never forget that you are offering a service and that the point is to serve. The Earth is so full of life and abundance and provides us with nourishment. Thus, the Earth element is about service. Engage with the potential clients from a state of service.
3. Acknowledge (Metal) - The metal element is about seeing the shining diamond in everyone. Make sure you leave people feeling better than how you found them.
4. Be curious (Water) - For this item, think about the ocean. Sometimes the ocean is really beautiful, but other times is stormy. How often do you think about what is under the surface? Express genuine curiosity about a potential client and that creates trust. Take the the time to care about your potential client.
5. Give them a choice (Wood) - Think about an acorn. It has to burst from its shell and grow into a tree. Its vision is to become an oak tree.  It’s the boldness and decisiveness it takes to take a stand for other people’s lives. To have an effective Heartselling sale you can’t just pray that someone is going to call you. You have to be bold! So when the time is right you have to give them a choice.

If you follow at least one of the elements described above you will turn potential clients into actual clients.

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Do you still have doubts about social media sites? Well, think no more! Therese Kopwida, from PetsitUSA shared this video with her subscribers and now I want to share it with you. The stats in this video about social media are unbelievable. I saw this video last week and fell in love with it.  Enjoy!

Here is a summary of the “crazy” stats.

1. By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
2. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
3. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
4. Years to Reach 50 millions Users:  Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
5. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia
6. Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)
7. comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network
8. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
9. 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
10. % of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
11. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
12. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama
13. 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
14. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
15. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
16. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
17. Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
18. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
19. 54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
20. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
21. If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour
22. Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0
23. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
24. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
25. People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services  than how Google ranks them
26. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
27. Only 14% trust advertisements
28. Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
29. 90% of people that can TiVo ads do
30. Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
31. 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone
32. According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available
33. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
34. In the near future we will no longer search for  products and services they will find us via social media
35. More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.
36. Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second
37. Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser

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If you want your pet business to succeed and grow you have to delegate. As business owners we like to think that we can do it all, but in reality we can’t. Delegating is a skill that every business owner should have. Keep reading if you want to learn how to delegate.

How do you start thinking about delegating?

1. Make a list of business related things that you hate doing and you might want to delegate out.

2. Track your time for 7 days and identify how much time you spend on tasks you don’t like doing.

3. Make sure your define your biz mission statement and relay that information to the virtual assistant.

Is hiring a virtual assistant the way to go?

Virtual assistants are partners, not employees. If you are feeling overwhelmed or frustrated because you can’t get things done then you should consider hiring a virtual assistant and utilizing their expertise.

Partnering up with a virtual assistant will free your time to do other things and you will be happier. Start with baby steps and delegate one thing at a time and see how it goes. Believe me, if you find the right virtual assistant you will soon be thinking “What else can I delegate?”.

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Word-of-mouth marketing is very important for a pet business. I found this great article on the Small Business Trends website ~ 16 things you can do yourself to create word-of-mouth for your business. I summarized the 15 things that are important to me when it comes to dealing with my clients and staff.

1. Do more of what your customers like. Use the feedback that your current clients give you to identify what they like.
2. Stop doing what makes them unhappy. Identify what they don’t like also. A survey might be a good idea to identify what your clients like and what they don’t like.
3. Ask your employees. They write your story every day so ask them! Do more of what makes them recommend their company to their friends. Stop doing anything else.
4. Review your sales reports. Are your sales going up or down?  A word-of-mouth, viral ad, campaign will accelerate the results.Why? More people will tell your story. And if that story is a story of a company whose customers are abandoning it, then more people  will hear that story. If your sales are going up, find out why. Do more of that.
5. Review your sales-by-item reports.
6. Hire A-Players. Hire the best. Then you have the asset to create the best.
7. Remove C-Players.
8. Motivate your employees with incentives that matter to them. Ask them what is meaningful. You may be surprised at what and how little it will cost.
9. Connect their meaningful incentives to the goals of their company. Explain why they are important to reach. To do that, you must answer these three questions your employees will have: What’s in it for me? Why should I care? Why should I believe?
10. Stay out of their way. Do your employees generate revenue? Do they lower expenses? Do they make each other happy? Do they make customers happy? Stay out of their way while they do that.
11. Give them the tools and resources they need.
12. Make employee reviews a celebration. Celebrate their strengths and accomplishments. Find ways and tools and areas where their strengths are on display.
13. Celebrate failure. Acknowledge it, allow it, recognize it. And learn from it.
14. Use social media.
15. Know your community.

Lesson learned ~ Make sure you listen to what your clients and employees are saying. Listen first and then act! Social media and surveys could be your ears

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