Episode 454: Tips For Hiring Pet Sitters For The Holidays

Are you about to get slammed with holiday bookings… and still don’t have enough pet sitters lined up? If the answer is yes, you're not alone—and you're not behind yet, but you’re about to be. In this episode, I’m here to help you get ahead of the madness. The holidays aren’t just busy—they're a pressure cooker. Your clients are planning $5,000+ vacations and expecting their pet sitter (you!) to run their home like clockwork. But here's the truth: you can't deliver peace of mind if you're short-staffed, hiring reactively, or skipping the systems. So in this episode of Bella in Your Business, I’m walking you through exactly how to hire pet sitters for the holidays the smart, legal, and sustainable way. In This Episode, You’ll Discover: Why hiring in Q4 is harder—and what to do about it starting today The legal interview questions to ask (and what can get you sued) How to make holiday work appealing so your team doesn’t quit mid-season Why clear onboarding is non-negotiable—and how to set up a 6-step process Genius ways to recruit returning college students, past staff, and local talent How to spot red flag answers that scream “I’m going to bail on you” Timestamps 04:00 – Why you must start hiring before the holidays hit—and the trends showing it’ll be busier than ever 07:30 – The 6-step hiring process that filters out the flakes and sets you up to scale 11:45 – What’s illegal to ask in interviews—and the exact phrases to say instead 19:30 – How to communicate holiday work expectations without sounding desperate or begging 28:00 – Creative (and proven) ways to find seasonal pet sitters, from college students to vet techs Notable Quotes “If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a hell no.” “You are their insurance policy for their pets and home—and you can’t deliver that without a rock-solid team.” “Hiring is a leadership play, not a desperate grab.” Resources & Links: Book a 20-Min Coaching Call with Bella Join the Mastermind Pet Sitter Hiring Jump Method Watch all our Podcasts on YouTube   ?   Transcript Welcome to another episode of Bella in your business. My name is Bella Vasta and today we're going to talk all about hiring for the holidays. But before we get started, I wanted to say ? last week we talked all about mindset. I gave you three different episodes to go check out to help with your mindset because especially now coming into fourth quarter, we're going to need all the mindset and positivity possible because it's about to get really busy. ? In that light, I would be so honored if you would like and subscribe to this podcast. Believe it or not, a lot of people actually don't subscribe to it, but they're listening to it. Our numbers are going up and I absolutely love it. So feel free to share it with anyone you want. As you see, we have ? a lot, hundreds of episodes for you to listen to. So I wanted to thank you for that. I've also been having some really amazing discussions with you guys, even out as far as Dubai. I wanna say hi to Sam if you're listening. Thank you so much for our conversation last week. I really enjoyed it and that's super. So if you guys wanna get on my calendar and just have some questions you wanna ask me, feel free to go to jumpconsulting.net forward slash 20. I am truly here to help you. I'm not here to even sell to you, which I know is probably weird to hear, ? but I love working with business owners that are ready. And ? if there's other things that you need to do, I'm gonna give you resources or whatever, because at the end of the day, I wanna change your I-cans into I-cans and inspire you to greatness. All right, let's get into today's episode. Did you know that according to Yahoo Finance, 2025 is literally predicted to be one of the biggest years for holiday travel? We're not just talking about people taking quick weekend trips. we're seeing multi-generational travel happening because the older generation has this money and they're funding a lot of the trips. And there's also this trend of getting off the beaten path and taking unique experiences. So people are really drawn to, instead of the all-inclusive corporate kind of hotels and experiences that you see, people are really getting into the meaningful ? memory creating, right? This is what people are really starting to value. And I, I know this is as a trend. I see this happening because the more and more things are being automated and AI is coming into everyone's life. The more people are looking for that human connection and that personal experience. want you to keep that in mind as we talk today. Okay. This isn't just for clients. This is also going to be for employees, which we're going to talk about. And so the pet owners, they need their home situation to run like absolute clockwork. They don't want to ever wonder, you know, if the power word to go out is the pets that are going to get there. They're spending thousands of dollars on these trips and you are like their insurance policy for their home and their pets. And so you can only deliver peace of mind if you have a rock solid team in place that is also systematically trained and it doesn't matter who you send into what house because the client is always going to get this same experience. cannot stress that enough. All right. So let's dive in. ? The hiring starts now. Okay. And like you're hearing this right now, the beginning of October. When I say now, it really would have been better like to start in September, but go ahead and start now. If this is something you've been procrastinating, think of this as your, as your sign to get out there and hire. Okay. And I get it because summer is your busiest season, but traditionally this is when, in the fall, when pet sitting companies really start another hiring blitz. It's usually in the spring and in the fall, okay? I've been doing this for 20 years. I see these trends all the time. Okay, so the holidays feel far away, but the problem is is that by the time you realize you're gonna need help, it's gonna be too late to find good help. It's very difficult to hire fourth quarter, because not a lot of people are looking for jobs. When we go into first quarter, people are definitely, because they've got all these like New Year's resolutions and they want to make more money and they want to have more fun. Like it's just it's this is the climate we're in. So I for the sake of this conversation, I want to all agree about that. So the very first thing that I'm going to need you to do and if you're writing notes, go for it. If you're listening to this transcript, then put it into chat. GPT, I know a lot of you guys do that already to kind of create these trainings and SOPs. ? The first thing I want you to do is get your ads out there. Okay? If you don't have a smooth hiring process, it can take even longer if you're trying to do all of this by hand each time. Your hiring process should be at least six steps. Okay? If you're putting an ad out there and then talking to people on the phone and then wondering why they're ghosting you or not feeling like you can actually invest time and money into them to train them properly, it's because it started wrong. Your process started wrong. Okay, I will die on that hill. Okay? The next thing that you're gonna wanna do is the interviewing, background checks, making the hiring decisions, and then onboarding and initial training. This is also a very sensitive process. You need to have onboarding in as clear and concise steps as possible. Last week I helped Carla in the mastermind ? on a quick 20 minute call. I helped her with her onboarding process because it was very confusing and at that point you don't want to lose people when they're trying to get onboarded into your organization and then the training Your training cannot consist of just follow me around and watch what I do That's a great way to lay awake at night and wonder if things are being done properly Okay, you need a systemized training established. So we're gonna assume that all of this stuff has been done We've talked about it many times in the podcast. I have six months worth of this stuff all in the mastermind right now I'm going to assume that we have all those details because this is about thinking ahead today. Today is about thinking ahead for the holidays. ? And so when you when when you have them in the point where they're proving it to you, it's like the 30 day review, right? This person is out there now. It's really important to have those checks and balances to let them know that in 30 days you're going to be grading them on this criteria. And here's the kicker. that most people forget about, you allow them to also grade you on how was the onboarding process, how was the training process, how do they feel about it. When you let them bring their opinion into you, it builds tremendous respect and opens up the lines of communication. All right, so while we're interviewing these people, I never want you to ask things like, Do you celebrate Christmas? What holidays do you celebrate? What's your religion? Do you have family obligations during the holidays? Are you married? Do you have kids? Where's your family from? Do you travel home for the holidays? That's all illegal, okay? All of that is about a protected class, religion, natural origin, family status. Even if you have good intentions and you're just trying to figure out availability, these questions could be used as evidence against discrimination. So I want you guys to know that. The other thing is is that You do have a legitimate business need and you need people who can work during the holidays. And it's called a bonafide occupation qualification. It's an essential foundation of function of this particular job. So how do you find this out? Okay. You want to be direct about the job requirements.