[00:00:01] Speaker A: And we're back. I am Dara Forleo and this is the Business of Pet Care, where the conversation continues. Welcome back to the Business of Pet Care. If you are loving what you are watching or listening to, do not miss a moment of the Business of Pet Care or any of your favorite NOW Media TV shows. Live or on demand, anytime, anywhere. Download the free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS and enjoy instant access to our full lineup of, yes, wait for it, bilingual programming in both English and Spanish. And if you prefer to listen on the go, you can catch the podcast version of the shows right on NOW Media TV website, which is NOW Media TV for business and breaking news to lifestyle, culture and everything in between. Now media TV is streaming 247 ready whenever you are.
And right now I am here with Joe Myers and we are talking about referrals. Many pet business owners are constantly struggling. Not pet biz. Yes, pet business owners, there we go. Are struggling because happy clients don't always spread the word.
And I think that's pretty, pretty common.
So, Joe, back to it. How do businesses, how can they make it easy and fun for clients to refer friends? And again, this is another challenge. I have.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Provide the best service in town.
Number one, you know, they talk about, like, yeah, I know, right? They talk about word of mouth. Like, it's, it's that easy, right? All you have to do is just be good and people are going to talk about you. They forget one thing when they tell you that is human psychology is like, we expect good service. We expect good customer care. We expect to go in and having our dog being healthy and happy and safe. And these are, these are baseline expectations. So when it happens, it's like, oh, oh, cool. Thank you so much. Like, I don't owe you anything. I gave you money. We're done. And so because that's what our clients are expecting, you know, there's that 8020 rule. Like, people are more willing to, like, say a negative thing than a positive thing, right?
[00:02:28] Speaker A: Absolutely. They're going to.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Let me tell you, I have the tea on what happened to me at the grocery store. And I'm going to tell everybody because I feel like this story because of that, it's kind of like you're going up a hill. It's a lot more difficult. And so what we recommend is to be always on is that from day one, what our expectation for our clients when they come in with us is a referral. And so we typically will. I will ask two questions. We recommend that after especially recurring businesses It's a little different because people are coming in, they're coming out. You don't want to ask them all the time. But typically within that first two or three weeks of a reoccurring, we ask a simple question to everybody. We usually sometimes a software to intermediate. This is, would you recommend our service to a friend or family?
And then based on that response, if it's like a 10, you know, on a scale from one to 10, and anybody that's nine or tens, we ask them for a review and a referral.
So you want to make sure that you're not just asking all of your customers for review for a referral. Right.
You want to make sure that you have really happy customers and you're only asking them. So that's. Step one is to filter out the customers that might aren't telling you. You know those people that are sevens, eights, they're just like, yeah, it was good. I mean, it's nothing to write home about. You're gonna, you're gonna get. You're gonna spin your wheels.
So once you filtered them to the nines and tens, that's. Would you recommend us nines and tens?
Then you ask for them, and then you make it fun, make it a part of your personality. Put it on their list. Give them a piece of the pie. So let's say a customer. Let's say your total cost of a customer coming in is a hundred dollars. Give them $5 for referring that person. Give them $10 for referring that as a business owner. Most business owners have to pay for new customers. That's just the thing. They have to run Google Ads, they have to run Facebook ads, they have to run meta ads, they have to email system.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Right?
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Exactly. You have to run them either way, so why not in house? So you filtered them out. So now you know that the people are giving you. Customers are good customers to you. They like you. They would tell people regardless. But again, we got that human psychology piece we have to deal with. So that's where we give them a piece of the puzzle and then make it social. Put a star on their account, on their daycare card. We've done this before.
Have little stars for every two referrals. And at the fifth star, they get a big bonus and they get a discount. And we actually had a client do this was like bring a friend program. It was a pet boarding, pet boarding facility, pet daycare.
And one happy customer, she referred five friends in two months solely because they wanted to receive free warm blankets during their boarding time.
So that it was literally. They had. They have washer and dryer on site. Who doesn't if you're dealing with dogs? Right.
[00:05:42] Speaker A: Warm blankets in itself right there.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Like, it was a two, three dollar upsell every time they did, you know, boarding. Oh, you want a warm blanket at. At bedtime. Yeah, for sure. I'll add that for $5.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: I would totally do that for the chore.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: But you know what's even better than $5? Bill's number. Because do you know how much bill's number cost me? $0. So she was literally like. She was like, oh, you need another person. Here you go. Oh, you need another person. Here you go. Oh, you need another person, here you go. So it was like one customer got on this. Like, wow, I love you guys so much, and I really want to buy that service, but maybe it's not in the budget. Maybe I don't. I don't want that much. But I'd be willing to send you 15 friends because again.
Right. And they were. She was only targeted when they knew that she was filtered out. So I think what a lot of people do and a lot of customers, business owners get frustrated is they ask everybody for a referral.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: Without asking that first question.
Yeah. It becomes so mundane.
Switch it up. Make it seasonal. Make it fun. We've even had clients ask their customers, what would you like for a Referral?
You know, 2% off your next bill, 5% off this, a free toy. And then they selected it. So, like, they're a part of the conversation.
Yeah. And then they're like, this is really cool. And then you want to reward.
You want to reward those people that give you the most referrals. We've typically. And it's like, it is like 2% of your clients will give you 80 of your reviews. It is wild. Because they just know social people, their social butterflies. They love you so much. You've made such a. Back to the previous segment. Transformation in their life and their dog, in their family and their business, whatever the case may be. And they're gonna. They're gonna. So you gotta have those. Those soldiers in your army. You gotta give him a lieutenant hat.
Right. Like, give somebody, you know, hey, here's a free week of daycare. You brought me 15 customers.
So. Right. So once you know the. Your business and what that cost per acquisition is, then you can take that time. You can take that money you're gonna spend anyway.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: And get it right back into the business. Because what are they gonna do? You're giving Them in house. Incentives.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: Yeah, they're gonna book.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: Oh, I was gonna book anyway. Cool, done. I'll tell four more people about you and then you keep on going there.
Reviews are really good way to ask for referrals. So if you see anybody that has given you a good review, privately message them or like thank them publicly on the review site. And then privately message them and say like, thank you. So I didn't even know you loved us this much. Do you mind referring some friends? We have this awesome referral program and then make those referrals time sensitive, which a lot of people don't do.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: That is, we have learned that lesson is make sure that you put that date on there. Because even when you send emails, I've noticed if you don't have that respond by or get in touch by people, don't respond. And then you're like, wait, where are you? Why didn't you answer? Oh, I didn't know it.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Oh, I just, I just thought it was kind of just happening. I yell, I was gonna get to it.
Life gets busy. We're all busy. You ask most people, they say, how are you? I'm busy. Right. So you need to add those. And that's why we recommend.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Everyone's always saying that I'm so busy, that's great.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: So that's why we ask them. We ask like, you know, switch it out every month, every three months so it feels different and then ask, you know, hey, are our Starbucks gift card referrals ending on Friday?
Vote in our poll about what do you not the next referral to be?
[00:09:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: And then it's like, and then, and you're constantly asking this audience like, would you recommend this to a friend?
Yes, I would. Well what will it take?
What is it going to take? Is it going to take a free night of daycare? Is it going to write a free grooming?
But you do need to understand your business to make sure that you're not overspending for those referrals as well. I've had clients do that. They gave away like $200 of referrals for like one client. And we looked at their, their, their business and I was like, new customers typically only make you 150. So I don't know if that business model is gonna work out. So we adjusted that and then they were able to get the same number of referrals for a ten dollar Starbucks gift card. Because Starbucks was right next door to.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Their, ah, there, the boarding facility.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: And so like, yeah, I'll tell everybody here you Go, boop, boop, loop. And then it just adds to the account. You make it a part of the process, make it fun, and make it reflective of your business as well. If you're a. If you're grooming, make it a part of that. Make it a sham. A free shampoo or a free blow dryer, free nail trim.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Like to do teeth brushing or a Dremel or something. That's exactly not gonna take you a lot of time but still is a high value.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: And then make those customers that are referrals on your team, they are a soldiers in your army. You're gonna have to roll out a new service. Ask them first.
They're so invested into your business. A lot of the times people forget these customers. They kind of take advantage of them. They're like, oh, yeah, Betty, she's been with me forever.
Yep. And then they forget about Betty. And then you roll a new business and a new model, and a lot of the times Betty will just fade away. And you'll like, look up and be like, betty hasn't booked for six months. And then you call Betty and she's down the street because they. They listened to her and she's. She's referring half your clients to the other place. Right? So.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Right. And I was gonna say, and we don't want Betty to. To be forgotten about because then Betty could potentially become part of our next conversation, which is talking about reviews.
So, Joe, tell us one more time, how can we find you? How can they find you? Where can they find you?
[00:12:01] Speaker B: Excellent. So I've run Share marketing Agency for about eight years now. So you can go to Share marketing agency or you can email me directly
[email protected].
[00:12:16] Speaker A: Thank you so much.
All right, and we will be back. And again, up next, the. This is one of my favorite topics. So I want to talk about online reviews and what is really the. What is that doing to building that trust and that growth in your pet care business?
We will be right back.
We'll be right back. Do not go anywhere. This is the business of pet care.
And we're back. I am Dara Forleo and this is the business of pet Care where the conversation continues. Welcome back to the business of pet care.
We are back with Joe. And many pet owners are. Or pet business owners are worried about missing reviews, negative reviews.
So let's talk about how to turn these reviews into credibility and growth.
And, you know, negative reviews are.
They're so hard.
We take them personally, especially I think being in the pet industry. And we're we're entrepreneurs and we're building and creating these businesses. And to be almost verbally assaulted or attacked on, on social media or Google or, or wherever the platforms are, we take it so personally and it's so hard to not do that.
But a negative review is, is really a potential for creating some, some new trust and, and trying to turn around what was negative into a positive. So what do you think about that, Joe?
[00:14:11] Speaker B: Well, yes, absolutely. These reviews are becoming such a part of our buying cycle in every area of our life.
Everything we buy now has a review. I don't know about you, but when I used to go to the grocery store in the mall, there were no stars or comments or reviews. And now everything I buy on Amazon and Petco and Chewy, they all have reviews. And for me personally, and a lot of pet owners, a lot of pet owners, like, if it doesn't have a review that's suspicious of it being, you know, knockoff fake, not real. So that is, that's the reality we live into. We can't avoid them, we can't pretend they're going to go away. Because if I pull up a business and there are zero reviews, I'm vicious that like, not. No one has loved it enough to spend seconds giving a review.
And it's all five stars. What is happening? We understand. People are people.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Thank you. I was just going to bring that up because I have so many, I work with, you know, a lot of groomers and they're like, we have all five star reviews. Like, that's kind of suspicious. You, you got to have some negative in there. Nobody can be perfect every time.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: Exactly. And understand like, you know, new businesses, if they have 10, it's five. And then there's this sliding scale and we can get into like Google, Facebook's algorithm and Google's algorithm, but no need to go there. The one thing to note is that reviews are public and you mentioned bad reviews and that sometimes feels like a knife in the back of a customer. Right. We've done. As a, as an entrepreneur, as an owner, you do everything. You can have a really good experience.
Sometimes it's a new employee, sometimes it's something out of your control.
Things happen and that's the time where I think the reviews need to be responded to. This is a spectator sport.
A lot of the times these reviews are done by a very small percentage, but they're read by everybody.
So responding with empathy, responding with like, understanding, not admitting, not placing blame, you.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: Know, that is a huge thing.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: You didn't you know, you didn't read our manual. You didn't. You didn't do. Who cares what they did or didn't do in this moment? Your goal is to.
Exactly. They don't care. Like, you could have it plastered on your site, you know, but you want to write it in a way where if you read it as a prospective customer, you'd be like, oh, they did everything they could.
Right. Like, I'm so sorry that happened to you. You know, as noted on our website, we have a very clear cancellation policy.
We understand.
We even reached out to you to try to make this right and never heard back. You want to feel like, as the, as the business owner, you've done. You've done everything short and sweet. Keep personal details. What I typically, I recommend this to the clients we work with is write one and then delete it and then write another one.
[00:17:29] Speaker A: Throw it up, throw exactly what you want out.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: Yep, exactly. Write another one and then send that to your empathetic employees.
If you're not empathetic yourself, just send that to somebody who's empathetic and say, we are so sorry that you experienced that. Yeah, you don't want to. You don't want to take the blame. Like, you know, we're sorry. We're awful at our job. Right. Like, you don't want to take the blame. You don't want to fall on your sword because that causes some legal troubles. And you never want that. You don't want to show up in the court. Like, look at. Look what they admitted on Google. They failed me. But you do want to. You do want to feel empathetic. You want to feel like, as a business owner, you've done exactly what you need to to resolve the situation and understand sometimes it's best to just part ways. Like, I'm so sorry that you don't appreciate that policy.
I wish you and your dog all the best.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, and I think that that is a big part of it is we. We don't have to have every client.
And usually. And. And I know one of the things I do before we go anywhere, I always look at the reviews, and I never read the five star. I only read the one star, and I only look at how the owner responds.
And because I know there's always two sides to the story. But if, like you said, the owner is just.
You didn't do this or attacking them back, it's like, I don't want to go to that place.
[00:19:00] Speaker B: You feel like you're an edge, right?
[00:19:02] Speaker A: Like, yeah, I want to support.
I, I want to see exactly what you said. And, and again, it, it feels because we take it personally, especially small businesses, and because that, that's our, that's our nurturing, that's our, our, our, our lifeline, you know, and, and having somebody not like it or, or hate it.
But, you know, then I think about when I want to leave a negative review and how I feel is I want to be felt, heard and maybe I wasn't inside the facility and because of the commotion or whatever was going on. So I want to feel heard and I want to feel that something.
I, I don't.
People think a lot of people are looking for I want a free service or I want something free. But typically it's not that as much wanting to be heard and, and felt because of whatever's going on in their world at that moment too.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: Exactly. They want to feel like, here's a real complaint of a real issue.
And again, we're talking about like reasonable, honest, trustworthy people. Not trolls. Right, Trolls. You can ask the platforms to delete them. There is a process there. So I would recommend if you do have a troll go to the platform, they can recognize when people actually haven't visited your service. They can use that with like their GPS or the cadence and the tone in which they mention your review.
So if it's. We're again, reasonable people here and they want to be heard, they want a call from the owner, they want to feel like maybe the front desk person didn't accidentally did something.
Right. And they, that front desk person was concerned and concerned about what's going to happen if the manager heard they did something, so they tried to scoot it under the rug. Right. This is, this is. Can I talk to your manager in a digital form?
Any of those negative reviews. And so those times is you want to have, you want to take the high ground, you know, like in those moments like I'm sorry you experienced that, you know, this is what we try to do. This is what we try for. Our manager has reached out to you and connected.
You know, our manager has sent you multiple emails or a manager is connected or we will call you right away. Right. So you want to feel at the end that as the business owner you have like not going to cover up. We are human. Human things happen.
But we have done everything we can to make it right. And you can't avoid them.
But then the other side is for every negative one, you do need to make it a part of your business to get good ones.
[00:21:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:52] Speaker B: Because we Talked about prior. These aren't things that just flow out of people's mouths. And texting, you know, make it a part of that experience, make it a part of their onboarding structure within that first couple of weeks to ask for that and incentivize it appropriately.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: So real quick also. And now I hope I can remember what I was going to say while we were talking about that.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: Because it was on the tip of my tongue and I was like, oh, the trolls. Okay, so if you have somebody that posts a, A, let's just say they've never used your service, they've heard something they didn't like, something somebody else said, and they're leaving a review based on that, and it's something that's not taken down. So how do you. How would you respond to something that is like, okay, this person never actually utilized our services, but is making a judgment based on something else?
[00:22:59] Speaker B: Certainly. Yeah. So I would certainly try through each of the platforms and they all have them. It's called, like, manual review, typically.
So you can ask for manual review of a, Of. Of a review.
And a lot of the times they'll look at it. Sometimes it's manual, a lot of times it's computer language reading it. So after that, then I would make it very clear that this person has not visited my business, has not been a patron. So, like, hey, awful person. 642, you know, like, according to our records, we don't. We've never seen you or your.
Your dog.
And it feels like these are. You're making a statement based on what you've heard, not experience.
We'd love to have you come in.
We'll reach out to you. Can you please message us your direct line? So basically, like, call their bluff.
[00:23:52] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:23:53] Speaker B: And invite them in. Like, that's my. That's my thought. Is kind of like killing them with kindness.
Like, I'm so sorry what you've heard. We'd love to have you, like, come down and then a lot of the time get that right. Like, yeah, like, oh, like. And a lot of the times people will like White Night, so something bad happened to their friend, and they'll come in. And Google has been very clear and so has Facebook and so has Yelp that you can't do that because that's not a real customer review. But even in that instance, you can say, like, you know, please see our response to Betty.
We're in the process of resolving it with Betty.
So you want to feel like you are. You are hearing them, responding to them, and Stepping up to this level of like, hey, like, I'm a human, you're a human. We're working through this together and ultimately maybe the best thing for us is just to part. But you want to, they want to feel like they've been heard, like you mentioned, and you're making a reasonable ex, a reasonable resolution to whatever incidents occurred. People don't think you need to give away the farm. Like, oh, we're so sorry that you're, you're, you're. It took a little longer for your dog to get picked up. We're going to give you a free year of daycare. Right. Like, right. People are reasonable as well. And you want to do custom. You want to do business with people that are reasonable. So act reasonable, respond reasonably.
[00:25:20] Speaker A: Yes. That is great. All right, we are going to take another quick break and we will be right back. That was a lot of information to take in. So I hope everybody's going to go back and re listen to this and come back. We will be back and we are going to jump into our final segment where we are going to create what everybody wants to create that marketing plan that's going to grow the business and we're going to be able to conquer this in 12 minutes.
We'll be right back. Do not go anywhere. This is the Business of Pet Care.
And we're back. I am Dara Forleo and this is the Business of Pet Care where the conversation continues. Welcome back to the Business of Pet Care. If you are once again loving what you're watching or listening to, do not miss a moment of the Business of pet Care on any of your favorite NOW Media TV shows. They are live or on demand, anytime, anywhere. Don't forget, download the Now Media TV app on Roku and ISO and you can enjoy instant access full lineup of all of our bilingual programming in both English and Spanish. And if you prefer to listen on the go catch the podcast version of the show right on Now Media TV. You can visit the website at NowMedia TV for business, for breaking news and lifestyle culture and everything in between. Now media is constantly streaming 247 ready whenever you are. And Joe, in this final segment, we are going to talk about building a marketing plan that actually grows your business.
And you know, this is one thing that again, I said earlier, I know enough to be dangerous, right? And trying to plan this out in my head and trying to figure out, you know, a lot of people just post, they don't even plan about this or, or work out what they're going to do. So besides thinking we're going to post three days a week, we're going to do our recordings once a month and we're going to post them out, you know what else is leading to this stress and a lot of these missed opportunities, certainly.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much for having me. This has been a ton of fun.
Marketing planning is definitely one of my, definitely one of my favorite topics. Because without this, without a plan, every day feels like you're on the bottom of a mountain.
And so you wake up in the morning, you wake up in the morning and you're like, oh, look, there's the mountaintop. And every morning you wake up and you're on the bottom. And so a marketing plan allows you to take incremental steps to the top.
And so if I told you, let's go hike up that mountain, how would you know that you are moving towards that goal? Right. You would look around each day and test your progress against one goal, the top of the mountain. So I recommend not starting with the plan, but starting with the destination.
So for all of those things, smart goals, big fan of those smart, measurable, actionable, reasonal, realistic and timely.
So you need to have at least, I recommend for all my clients 5 smart goals that reflect their business.
So once we have those five smart goals, then we can back into a plan to achieve those. So I typically recommend six months, three months, in a month.
Each of those smart goals. Love it. So each of those smart goals, we have that plan. So let's just say a month and let's just say smart goal number one is to grow our social media. That's a bad smart goal. So I tell my clients to go back to the drawing board, grow our social media by 5%.
Perfect. That's an easy smart goal. So now we, our plan is to get to 5% growth.
That's pretty. That's a bad goal too. 5% growth in engagement. Engagement is likes, comments or share share marketing.
So that's a good smart goal. So now we can back into that.
So for our posts, what do you think we're going to put on the bottom of every every post? Share this like this comment on this because our smart goal.
Exactly. Now our smart goal is reflected in our call to action, right? Without that goal of 5% growth in engagement, you're going to write good copy, you're going to write good content and people are going to see it. And we call them just, you know, they're gonna thumb on by, right?
Oh, that's cool. Oh, that's cool. Oh, that's cool. Oh, I gotta. Like this. Oh, I gotta comment. What's my fate? What's my favorite dog haircut? Oh, wow. I gotta. I gotta comment on that, right? Because again, so now our plan is reflecting our goals. So then let's say sales. Okay. I want to grow my sales by 10%. Probably a bad goal because it's not specific enough. I want to grow this product sales by this channel. You know, this product sales by 10%.
Awesome. So now we can make a plan for that product sales. Understanding that. Okay, where are my sales coming from?
Okay. 95% of them are coming from Google. Wow. Maybe I should spend more than 10% on my Google Ads to gain my goal. So you're backing into each of those smart goals, and then you fill in your calendar with each of those smart goals. So we have people that are like, tactical. They'll color coordinate. Smart Goal 1, here's my plan. Smart Goal 2, here's my plan. Smart goal 3, here's my plan. Okay. Awesome. I want a better email open rates. Perfect. I'm going to optimize my emails. Cool. I'm going to send it on this day and this day. And so then, so it's goal plan.
And then analytics allows us to determine where we're at. Along that. So everyone talks about analytics like they're these magical, like, ooh, check your analytics. I looked at my analytics today and I'm like, what? You are crazy. You. That's. That is it. That's like saying, I looked at a book today. Like, what knowledge.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: I looked at my analytics today, Joe.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly. But.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: And I. It's fine that my social media likes pictures better than my videos.
[00:31:59] Speaker B: Perfect. How many are you going to post a lot of photos tomorrow? Let's see a photo post and then I'll tell you. It's.
There it is. Right?
[00:32:06] Speaker A: It's like, it's.
[00:32:07] Speaker B: You're looking at the pages of a book and not reading them. Right. So, like, your analytics should be reflected on your plan, which is reflected on your goals.
So without the goals, the plan is hogwash. Without. Without the plan, the analytics are hogwash. Right. Because you're, you're. You're reading your. Your armchair, quarterbacking your business because you've looked at what happened and you're saying, I should do this. But then tomorrow you don't do the thing that helps this move along. Right. It's like, it's like you're walking. I'm gonna go back. I love analogies. Big fan. You're walking up that hill Right.
And you know, you start running, you go faster, but if you didn't know you needed to get to the hill in a, in a week or a month, you. Who cares about your pace? Right? You would just walk until whenever you kind of want to walk, and then you'd stop.
And then you take you two years to get to a mountain that would take you 30 days. Initially, we've seen with clients is once they start doing that, their six months goals become their one month goals.
It's wild. Oh, I want to grow. I want to get 4,000 people like me on social media. They do it for a month. They're halfway there. They're like, oh, wow, I didn't, I didn't know I could do that. Because they're not focused on the journey, they're just focused on. They wake up every day at the bottom of the mountain.
So that's marketing. Planning has to start with goals. It has to start with a plan.
And then those analytics are reflected on that. Your takeaway about my photos are better. Engagement is a really good takeaway. If your goal is about engagement.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: If your goal is about. Is your goal is about like, awareness, that's not a good. You're looking at the analytics wrong. Right. Because the analytics will show you these platforms are masters at manipulation. And I mean that in the best way is they want you to participate with them. That's their goals, that's their plan.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: So now you have to say on that platform.
[00:34:17] Speaker B: Exactly. They want you to look at the back end and be like, look, there's green on one of these charts.
But that's their charts.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:26] Speaker B: To reflect your, to get you to post tomorrow.
It's not you saying like, wow, I really want more engagement. Well, maybe Facebook's not working for me. I'm gonna go to Instagram or Instagram's not working for me. I'm gonna go to TikTok. Right? So once you have that goal and that plan in place, then you look at that analytics with like a different light. You're like, hey, like, you know, Yesterday I walked 15 steps. Maybe tomorrow I need to rock 30.
So you understand those analytics and then, you know, we all want conversion, we all want dollars at the end of the day, then you can understand those analytics as a step. Let's say you look in your analytics and there's nobody from Facebook that has ever bought from your business, ever.
But you're spending two hours a day on Facebook looking at the analytics. Like, who cares?
You want that? That's what they call this. In the space. And we call it all the time. It's called vanity metrics.
Vanity metrics. It feels good.
[00:35:25] Speaker A: It feels good and does nothing.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: I know some businesses that we've walked in there and we're like, why are you spending $2,000 a week on Facebook ads and you have nothing to show for in your back end? Analytics. But we have 10,000 views every month on our business. You're giving Facebook $2,000? Of course you're gonna have 10,000 views. You know, we had one client. Half the views were from a country they didn't ship to.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:56] Speaker B: That is Vanity 101. Or audiences that don't buy their product.
I don't care if your mom likes your Facebook page. I don't care.
I've had a client tell me that before. Like, well, my mother says she never sees any of our posts. I'm like, your mom doesn't buy your product.
Social media is goal plan analytics. Goal plan analytics. If you do it any other order, you look at the analytics to maybe determine your plan to talk about. It's like, it's so out of whack. You wouldn't approach any. You wouldn't approach hiking a mountain that way. You wouldn't be like, I want.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that. It. It makes total sense. And everything you say makes sense, but how do you execute it?
[00:36:42] Speaker B: I. I say accountability. Personally, I'd say accountability. And your. Like, your social. Your social environment is. Accountability helps. So either have a fellow business owner or an agency. Shameless. Plug for share marketing agency. Yep.
[00:37:00] Speaker A: Because I'm gonna ask you about it.
[00:37:01] Speaker B: So that's. That's. That's how it works. Is accountability.
Accountability. And then we always recommend that our clients are, like, engaged with another business owner in a similar life cycle.
So, like, through. We do, like, masterminds, where I run a pet marketing mastermind as well, through share marketing.
[00:37:19] Speaker A: I'm gonna ask you about that, so.
[00:37:21] Speaker B: Exactly. And so this is where, like, they're on the phone and they're talking and they're chatting and they're having a similar problem. And it's like, you know, back to the hiking analogy. It's like, hey, I'm on that. I'm on that cliff. How'd you get over it? Oh, I just walked around. Oh, I didn't even realize that, like, these little resources, these little things that can feel monumental until somebody's already done them. They're like, hey, how did you grow your. Oh, I'm working on doing Google Ads now, I think.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: I'm not asking the Question. Right. Though when I say to execute it and I mean doing it. Yes. But also so you think about. And it's like, okay, I got to do three Facebook posts or three, three posts a week.
How important is a blog?
What's the point of it? I think a lot of people ask about that because I know I've been doing that.
How important is LinkedIn to the business? As a business owner and being posted on there, I mean, this is all part of it. And it seems like there's so many different platforms and what way do you lean to? Where do you focus? How I feel like personally, I'm just going to go real quick personally and say, I feel like I'm split. I'm a, I'm a professional brand, but I'm a personal brand as well. And my time is split on social media, personally and business. And I don't mean my personal Facebook page, I mean my personal brand Facebook page. Right.
It's like, how do you, can you break that cycle? Because I don't have enough of me.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: Excel spreadsheet and I'm like posted, posted. What's the topic this week? Oh, something happened. Nope, can't write about that now. Gotta change it.
[00:39:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say, I would say, to answer the blog question, it's a slow death.
It'll be relevant for the next year and a half or so. But with ChatGPT, Chat GPT, if you're not pumping out a thousand articles a week, written content is going quickly away.
[00:39:24] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:39:24] Speaker B: So I'd recommend that for that.
For the other platforms, again, I kind of go back to the goal and plan.
So it's like if your business goal is this, then execute what makes sense there. And then we recommend tracking it monthly so we have a scorecard that we implement for clients.
So then you're tracking that and then you only track what you can affect because again, we want to stay away from those vanity metrics. So let's say on LinkedIn, your personal brand, you want to connect with 15 people. Right? That's your goal. Right. That's your smart goal. I want to connect with 15 people. People on this.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:59] Speaker B: You track that and then you look back on what you did. Did that, did that hit the goal? Amazing. Cool. Then do, do it twice.
Did that hit the goal and bring in revenue? Awesome. Then you can take that effort and time that DAR is working on it and add a dollar value to it and then outsource that. So either an in house customer service person, an agency side, and then that's where that's where you can do, you know, that's when there are $17 because you're like, you know, that's not important. So I'm not going to do that anymore. This brings in 90 of my revenue and my revenue is X. So I could pay somebody Y to accomplish that. Right. But if you're not tracking, if you're not tracking the month over month, every day you wake up and you're at the bottom of a mountain. And then it doesn't feel like I'm.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: At the bottom of the mountain every day of the month.
[00:40:49] Speaker B: Right. Like, and say, because you can't.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: So I love it. I'm sorry. We went over and it was great and I wish we could keep going. Might have to go to another platform for it.
[00:41:02] Speaker B: I love it, I love it, I love it. The after show. I'm ready for it.
[00:41:06] Speaker A: The after show. Oh, we'll do the after show. All right, so tell us one more time you have masterminds and you are.
Where can they find you?
[00:41:17] Speaker B: Excellent. So share marketing agency. There you can find our pet marketing mastermind. So this is a group of pet business owners getting together every week, solving problems, working together. So that's typically for our, like, you know, business owners with like single entrepreneurship or smaller businesses that really want to connect with fellow owners to really ironing iron, sharpening iron, and then share marketing agency as well is where you can connect with our staff and agency. Been running it for eight years in the pet space. Absolutely. Love the pet space, love pets, love our dog and we'd love to grow businesses. It's a lot of fun for us.
We love connecting with pet owners. We've worked in other industries many years ago and all of us were like, you know, pet people are awesome, right? Let's just work with pet clients. And it's been fantastic ever since.
[00:42:09] Speaker A: That is amazing. Well, I am glad you're here and you and I met back in earlier this year and it has been fun since getting to know you more. Thank you so much for sharing insights and all your great advice. I took my notes and I hope I'm going to go back and listen to it and take some more notes. And to everyone watching, you know, growing a business is not just luck. It is about strategy, consistency and connection. And by implementing all the tips that you learned today, you could be attracting more clients, building better trust and growing your business of confidence.
Hey guys, I look forward to seeing you again. My name's Dara Forleo and this is the business side effect here. And you guys keep learning, keep innovating, and I will see you next week.
This has been a NOW Media Networks feature presentation.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: All rights reserved.
[00:43:09] Speaker A: Welcome to the business of pet care. I'm Dara Forleo, here to pull back the curtains on what's really happening in the pet industry.
Welcome to the business of pet care. I am Dara Forleo and today we are jumping into strategies that can help your pet business thrive.
Whether you're a groomer, a trainer, or a boutique owner. In a world where social media feels so overwhelming, connecting with new clients can sometimes seem almost impossible.
Joining us today is Joseph Myers, a marketing Expert with over 15 years of experience, eight of which are dedicated to helping pet businesses grow.
Joe has helped top brands and countless small businesses develop strategies, marketing plans and attract clients. That is, and also continue to help you build that lasting relationship. But on beyond all of his expertise, he is a lifelong dog lover and really that's what we're here for, right? We all love the animals and he is passionate about mentoring and helping pet business owners succeed. Seed Joe, I am so excited to have you on here today.
Let's, let's start with, with social media. You know, I, I am not a fan of social media. Not gonna say how many owners out there feel like posting is such a void and so heavy. And I was supposed to post today and I didn't.
[00:44:54] Speaker B: Well, Dara, thank you so much for, for having me.
Hopefully by the end of this, this our time talking together, you will be a, a social media fan.
Maybe not the process, but hopefully the outcome. So I'm so excited to dive into this area.
This is, this is kind of our, this is our news segment. This is our, our entertainment.
It'd be like you telling me 20 years ago, like, I don't want to put an ad on, on the tv. I'm like, well, you don't. But that's where everyone's hanging out, right? That's, this is the mall of today.
So hopefully by the end of this, I can make you a believer, maybe change what you're doing currently and we'll have a ton of fun doing it.
[00:45:34] Speaker A: All right, I'm game for that because it is to get everything set up and I, I am.
I've taken some classes, some digital marketing, some, some promptings and I think I'm dangerous.
I, I know enough to be dangerous, but not enough to execute it and trying to figure out. I see so many posts when I'm scrolling about. People like posting every day is not the, it's not going to help. What, what is the secret? Is there a secret to posting?
[00:46:14] Speaker B: Certainly, yeah. Thank you so much. I know there is a ton of information there. There's probably a guru behind every corner.
So what, what I tell my clients is there's two sides to social media. There's two sides and people typically only focus on one or the other. The first side of it is there's this. The. They call it the algorithm. You know, the quote unquote, the algorithm. The big scary guy in the room, the algorithm that's scaring you. And the other side is your. The other side is, is the people following you. Right. So a lot of people just focus on the algorithm and those are the people that are saying, I gotta post every day. I gotta post every day. I gotta post every day. And then the other side is like, these are people that want real value. They want that, like that transformational moment.
So my answer is going to be kind of twofold. Post every day? Yes. Don't post every day.
[00:47:06] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:47:07] Speaker B: There is no secret formula, secret success.
But will I say this is like value entertainment transformation. Those should be the only things.
Entertainment transformation, that is it.
That is it. That's all you should post about.
Posting about anything else is not worth it. Because the audience wants high value. They want to know that, like, you know what you are talking about. You are the subject matter expert. You know exactly what to do in a dog boarding or a dog daycare situation. You are the person.
Entertainment. We all love to giggle, to laugh, to have fun, to watch a dog chase its tail, to watch a dog engage, right? And then transformation ultimately is where every business owner should focus. Not 90% of their posts. You want either the person who's watching that to be confirmed that you're the right person.
You did the thing, you did the, you did the grooming, right? They were shaggy before and now they're beautiful. They were untrained and now they're trained. They were bored and now they're happy. Right? That is that transformation side of it. So should you post every day? Yes, if you can tell quite quality stories every day in those three categories, Post every day. And then the other thing, the thing that I think you probably don't do, which I want you to do, want everyone to do, is, yeah, don't make social media a thing you do every day.
Make it a thing you do once a week.
Bulk create balts. Bulk, bulk, bulk caption, bulk edit and then schedule your posts. Bulk, bulk, bulk. Trying to do. Trying to do social media every day will drain you. You'll get a weekend, you'll get two weeks in.
It's like, it's like if I told you make good food and you had to go to the grocery store every day, how many days do you stop by McDonald's? We stopped by Burger King. Right.
[00:49:15] Speaker A: Like the easy way out.
[00:49:18] Speaker B: We all do this with groceries, right? We all go probably once a week, go get groceries, go to Costco, pick up a gallon size of goldfish. So we eat those for the rest of our lives. Sometimes lifestyle supplies of those. But social media feels like it has to be like in the moment when value, entertainment and transformation have nothing about the moment. They have about the feeling about the other person on the other side of that phone. Right?
[00:49:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:46] Speaker B: It's not about what you're doing on a Tuesday because most businesses, the same thing happens every week. It's the same. So you can tell a hundred stories and you don't really have to worry about it being, oh, this is my Wednesday post and this is my Tuesday post. So like three posts a week, one of each and then record them all. If you're doing one of each, you can record all of your posts in a day.
In one day.
[00:50:17] Speaker A: Sounds so easy, Joe.
[00:50:18] Speaker B: I know. This is. I know.
[00:50:22] Speaker A: Record.
Tell me what you mean.
Record. Because again, I'm gonna go back to. I have not executed this. However, I just downloaded all of my analytics currently that I have on my Facebook page.
My videos don't do as well as my cute picture posts or.
[00:50:48] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, lean into that. So, right, so that would be like that entertainment, you know, maybe value. You could talk about that. And then the videos. So the videos on these social media platforms, like if you're above 45 seconds, unless you are a master storyteller who's super funny and has 12 quips, that's too long.
Too long. So what I'm saying is, let's just say three times a week, four weeks, right? That's 12 videos. Let's say there are 30 second seats each. That is not a lot of content. 12 videos, 30 seconds each, right? That is six minutes of recording. I'm asking you to record six minutes a month.
Six minutes a month. And then the other ones are easy. I know, right? But I think it's because it's like if I told you again, like grocery analogy, right? If I said like every day you have to go buy, you have to buy. You have to go, go to the store and buy cereal, right? You would be like, what are you talking about? You just buy it once. So once you get into this recording and this mental, this, this creative thought process. A lot of people who are business owners. How many hats do you have on right now? You have like 16, right? You have your accounting ad and your social media and this ad and this hat and this hat. So I'm saying is like take three hours once a month and just put on the social media hat and the rest of the month it's all it is is engagement and saving what your audience wants. That's the rest of what you're doing. You're just liking. You have to. The social part of that you have to engage with. I'm not saying you have to only be on social for, you know, that time. But the rest of the time, the rest of the month it's liking and then saving things that the people that are your customers are sharing. So follow your customers. What kind of fun stuff are they? What do they want to see? They want to see, they want to see Dara doing the fun latest tick tock dance.
Right? That's a conversation Dara's got to have with Dara if she wants to go dance. But like I don't know Joe, you.
[00:52:49] Speaker A: Pushed me out of my comfort level there.
[00:52:52] Speaker B: But that's, that's, that piece of that puzzle is like it has to be this give and take. This give and take. And if you, if a business, I see it all the time. I'm like just bull create.
[00:53:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:02] Speaker B: You know, if a month is too big of a, it feels too big. Just do a week.
Spend Fridays at 11 o' clock am till Fridays at noon and just do the social for that week. And if it's six, it's four videos or two photos, post schedule, off to the races. Because then you start off every week, boom, boom, boom. Your clients are engaging, your clients are engaging. And social media is like building a house. It is. It's not like turning on a faucet.
[00:53:32] Speaker A: And it is. I know we're going to come back to that. But Joe, real quick, tell us your business name, tell us how we can reach you because I know there's a lot of people out there that's going to be, be like this is great information.
[00:53:47] Speaker B: Love it. Awesome. So I've run Share Marketing Agency for almost eight years now. So you can reach us at Share Marketing Agency or you can email me personally. Joeharemarketing Agency. The reason I named it Share is because on social media when you love something, you share.
[00:54:09] Speaker A: That is genius. Brilliant. All right, we will be right back. Up next, Joe and I are going to start talking about how to create a referral system that actually works even when we're busy. And I think we kind of talked a little bit about this, but we'll get more into it. We'll be right back.
We'll be right back. Do not go anywhere. This is the business of pet care.
