Episode 379: Discovering the Secret to Getting Lots of Employees and Clients with Angela Watts

Have you ever felt totally overwhelmed trying to market your growing pet care business? My amazing guest Angela Watts shares her story of nearly drowning before discovering my marketing program that helped her thrive. Angela started Pawsitive Dawg Walking and Pet Sitting in 2012 and soon found herself solely responsible for the fledgling company when her husband fell ill. Juggling caretaking, a full-time teaching job, and running a pet service pushed Angela to the brink of total burnout. She even lost 95% of her business at one point! Yet Angela persisted and has grown Positive Paws into a 20-person operation through perseverance and nurturing leadership. Still, she struggled mightily with marketing and outsourcing tasks that stole her energy and creativity. Angela admits feeling continually overwhelmed trying to run social media, create content calendars, blog, and keep up with 10 marketing channels while also managing employees and dozens of client pets daily. She thought about closing up shop many times. Then Angela discovered my Done-For-You marketing program. She went from completely overwhelmed and ready to quit to having her inquiries triple in just two months! Hear Angela explain in her own words how following the program’s customized content calendar, leveraging done-for-you graphics, and receiving 1-on-1 coaching helped her finally gain control of marketing. So she could focus on growing her business and caring for pets. If you feel utterly overwhelmed trying to market your own successful pet care operation, you need to hear Angela's story. Her story of finding the support and systems to master marketing so she could get her life and business back. The lessons from this incredible conversation apply to any pet business owner struggling under the weight of scaling. Don't miss out on this episode of Bella In Your Business! If you are ready to chat, I would love for you to get on my calendar for a free 20 minute call! Topics & Key Points: Starting a dog walking business, overcoming challenges, and growing a successful company. Overcoming burnout and finding support in the industry Business goals and marketing strategies for a dog walking and training service Outsourcing social media marketing for a pet care business Business growth through improved marketing strategies Marketing program Timestamps: [1:02] Starting a dog-walking business [5:33] Finding support in the industry [9:29]Business goals and marketing strategies [13:51] Social media marketing for a pet care business [18:36] Business growth [22:43] Marketing strategies and personal growth [27:30] Marketing program Notable Quotes: [17:20] " And then people employees are going to see all these graphics on my website and or my social media and say, Wow, I really want to work for that company" [21:17] "They're checking out your Google reviews, they're checking out your website, they're checking out your about us page, because they want to be able to see you and get a feel for you." [26:08] "So now I have the space to actually breathe and like, plan where I want to take this business, I actually have time to take care of myself do some self-care, things like work out or, you know, relax, if I want to. It just has changed my life, honestly" Resources: Podcast: Bella in Your Business: Pet Industry Business Podcast Join Mastermind Email Bella: bella@jumpconsulting.net Sign up for a 20 mins call  Better Marketing with Bella Connect with Bella Website Facebook YouTube Did you love this episode? If you liked this episode, please head on over to iTunes and leave a five-star rating and review. Every single review helps get this community bigger, stronger, and better. It gets other jumpers just like you into the community. Always remember when life gets down, Always Keep Jumping. Transcript: Welcome, everybody to another episode of Bella in Your Business. My name is Bella Vasta. I am joined by a special guest today, I'm excited to share her with you because, in the middle of one of our coaching calls, she said some pretty amazing things that I just really wanted to amplify in hopes that it gives you hope that you know if you're struggling out there that there are ways and people are being successful, that are struggling with the same things that you are struggling with and figuring out how to overachieve it. So without further ado, this podcast today is all about inspiration. And I can't wait to share it with you today. Angela Watts from Positive Dog is joining us. And she's gonna tell you a cool story today. And I can't wait. So Angela, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Absolutely. Um, for those who do not know you, why don't you give us a brief background? Tell us about you how you started and where you're located. Give us the origin story here. Oh, goodness. So it is a long story. But I'll try to make it as short as possible. So I was married in 2004. And I had a couple of dogs. And there weren't any dog-walking companies back then. And there was one boarding facility that was near us. And we lived about an hour and a half away from Boston. And we worked in the Boston area. So we had to commute. And our poor dogs were left alone for like 10 hours a day, sometimes 12 hours a day. And things just got a little bit hectic with work and having the dog so we ended up moving back to our hometown of Waltham in Massachusetts. And I got a job closer to home and my husband at the time got a job closer to home. And he started working at a doggy daycare. So then our dog started going to daycare and we started to explore the pet industry. He did so well in the daycare that they wanted him to start walking dogs. And then they missed him in the daycare and wanted him back in the daycare. But he didn't want to go back. And so he wanted to continue walking dogs. So one day he came home and said I quit my job. And I said oh goodness, he You can't quit your job and me living on one income here in this area. So what are we going to do? He's like, I want to start a dog walking company. And I was like, Okay, I don't know how that's gonna work. But let's try it. So we moved back with my parents, unfortunately. But thankfully, they took us back and started the dog walking company in 2000 in 2012. And so I was a special ed teacher at the time. And so I do cat sitting and pet sitting in the evenings, weekends, school, vacation, and summer vacations, and he did the dog walking. It took a little over a year and a half to build a clientele for him. And then he ended up getting sick. And then he could no longer work. But he had, you know, 12 to 15 dogs a day. And we didn't want to give up those clients. So I started hiring. And it was very stressful, trying to take care of him trying to work full time as a teacher and manage the business. So something had to give in I decided in 2015 to take a leave of absence from teaching, and I have never looked back. So I did try to go back to teaching part-time in 2017 for half a year, but it was just too much. And you know, this is my passion. This is my love. And I'm using teaching, you know, with my staff and my clients and things like that. So I am following my passion at this point. That is incredible. Go on. Are you gonna say something to say and now I have a team of 20 people. I love that. Originally, we were not supposed to have any employees. It was supposed to be my husband and I forever just the two of us walking dogs, you know, taking care of but life just changes. You know, we ended up getting divorced in 2018. So you know it, I went through a little funk in 2018 2019 COVID hit 2020 and I you know, I almost gave up my business. I reached out to some of my colleagues in the area and I was like, I don't know what to do. I'm so overwhelmed. I don't want to go back to working crazy hours again. And you know I thought about working with I'm like, giving up all my clientele and becoming an employee of somebody else. But they kind of inspired me to keep going, because they knew I was going through a divorce. And it did like, and then, you know, I just worked through everything. And then 2022 came, was a great year 2023 was a fantastic year. And now, I started working with you in 2024. And my business has exploded even more. So I'm so excited about that. That is amazing. And I think all of that is so important because I think what people are realizing now that the industry is you know, getting to be a lot of people are now you know, a decade in, and they're like, they're reevaluating Angela, just like you did you know, in those multiple different types of years, it's, you know, life hits us. And when we're doing something for a decade, life is going to hit us divorces, depression, medical issues with people that we love or ourselves, you know, our business just naturally is going to ebb and flow according to our personal, our own life. And I don't think that it is feasible to think that you can be a worker and a business person. decades upon decades, would you agree? Yeah, no, I couldn't do it. I mean, I, I ground, you know, from 2015. Until 2020, COVID ahead. But you know, I still went through my funk. When I was trying to when I was going through my divorce in 2018 2019, it took a while, we finally got divorced in 2022. But, you know, it just it, I couldn't sustain what I was doing. I was working, you know, 7080 hours a week. And I just couldn't do it anymore, you know, and then I had nothing, I lost 95% of my business. I was like, I don't know if I can go back to that again. Right. Right. And what happened? How did you bounce back? I think that's a really, we should probably start a whole series on this. How did you bounce back? From you know, that 2020 to 2021 2022? What kind of like, gave you that? Um, what Where did you find that I know that you said,