How To Open & Operate a Financially Successful Pet Sitting Business: With Companion CD-ROM (How to Open and Operate a Financially Successful...) [Paperback]

Angela Williams Duea (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 22, 2008

The pet sitting business is booming. In the United States alone there are more than 63.2 million individuals who own a pet or even two. Reports tell us that, in America, there are roughly 64 million dogs and 76 million cats in households. The pet sitting business has been earmarked by the U.S. Bureau of Labor as a small business industry that will thrive in the coming years, with pet sitting services located throughout the states. According to a recent Iams Survey, 76 percent of pet parents use some type of pet care when traveling. There is big money in this business. This guide provides readers with an understanding of the basic concepts of starting their own service business. This new book is a comprehensive and detailed study of the business side of pet sitting. You will learn everything from the initial startup decisions to working with clients. If you are investigating opportunities in this type of business, you should begin by reading this book. You can build a highly successful business using your talent and understanding of animals while providing a much needed service to their owners. If you enjoy working with people and animals, this may be the perfect business for you. Keep in mind that this business looks easy but, as with any business, looks can be deceiving. This complete manual will arm you with everything you need, including sample business forms; contracts; worksheets and checklists for planning, opening, and running day-to-day operations; setting up your office; and dozens of other valuable, timesaving tools of the trade that no business should be without. While providing detailed instruction and examples, the author leads you through every detail that will bring success. You will learn how to draw up a winning business plan (the companion CD-ROM has the actual business plan you can use in Microsoft Word) and about choosing a name; getting started; the who, what, when, why, and how of pet sitting; equipment; selling your other services to your present customers, such as pet walking, training, nutritional items, photography and portraiture; pet accessories; how to attract and bid on new jobs; contracts and billing procedures; advertising; insurance; legal matters; basic cost control systems; market research; getting new clients; tax laws; zoning laws; pricing; leads; sales and marketing techniques; and pricing formulas. You will learn how to set up computer systems to save time and money, how to hire and keep a qualified professional staff if necessary, how to meet IRS requirements, how to manage and train employees, how to generate high profile public relations and publicity, and how to implement low cost internal marketing ideas. You will learn how to build your business by using low and no cost ways to satisfy customers, as well as ways to increase sales and have customers refer others to you. You will learn the basics of accounting and bookkeeping procedures, auditing, successful budgeting, and profit planning development, as well as thousands of great tips and useful guidelines. This manual delivers innovative ways demonstrated to streamline your business. Learn new ways to make your operation run smoother and increase performance. Successful entrepreneurs will appreciate this valuable resource and reference it in their daily activities as a source of ready-to-use forms, Web sites, operating and cost cutting ideas, and mathematical formulas that can easily be applied to their operations. The companion CD-ROM contains all the forms found in the book, as well as a sample business plan you can adapt for your own use.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Publishing Company (FL); Pap/Cdr edition (September 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1601382294
• ISBN-13: 978-1601382290
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #98,994 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Helpful!, October 28, 2008

By 

C. Michel - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How To Open & Operate a Financially Successful Pet Sitting Business: With Companion CD-ROM (How to Open and Operate a Financially Successful...) (Paperback)

This is something I do on the side; pet sit. When I began reading this, I found it a very interesting and useful tool for people who want to actually move their part time, or extra cash making pet sitting business into an actual full time career. It explains how to go about getting a lawyer and how having one can help you through not only legal matters but even just registering your business' name. This book goes through many different ways of setting up ways to be paid, so you have many options on how large or small to make your bill. In later chapters it also explains on how to care for each type of animal in order to further educate people so they can become good pet sitters.

This book is packed with so much information, but is not excessively long. If you're an animal lover and wanting to open your own business dealing with them this is the book for you. It is well worth the $39.95 price tag. This book defiantly deserves a 5/5.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive guide to pet sitting, December 10, 2008

By 

Colin C. Mccandless (Franklin, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How To Open & Operate a Financially Successful Pet Sitting Business: With Companion CD-ROM (How to Open and Operate a Financially Successful...) (Paperback)

"How to Open and Operate a Financially Successful Pet Sitting Business" by Angela Williams Duea guides the reader on how to turn a pet passion into a pet profession.
Duea's book is designed to provide instructions and advice to aspiring pet sitting business owners on everything from creating a business plan, naming a business and managing personnel and clients to giving information and background on the types of pets one may encounter in the job.
The author goes above and beyond, including helpful resources with her book such as appendices featuring a pre-written business plan, sample business forms and contracts, employee hiring agreements, marketing materials a pet sympathy card for an owner who recently lost their animal and even pet bakery recipes for making homemade dog biscuits and kitten cookies.
This is backed up with a companion CD-Rom that contains all this practical material on a disk.
Duea explains why a pet sitting business is important to pet owners and why it is a good time to start one: there are more than 60 million pet owners in America meaning a high potential client base, people pamper their pets and treat them like family, and it is a relatively new industry.
Interviews with experts in the field offer valuable insights from accomplished professionals who have learned from experience about budgeting time, the best types of accounting and client software, the importance of liability insurance and sensitive subjects like how to handle difficult customers/situations and delinquent accounts.
She takes the reader through the step by step process of an average sitting appointment and shares recommended do's and don'ts.
Where Duea's depth and breadth of knowledge and research really shine through is in the section where she gives tips on caring for a wide range of animals.
She begins by discussing basic guidelines on feeding habits, proper handling, health monitoring and how to detect signs of aggression in common animals like dogs, cats, birds, fish and reptiles.
Then she goes on to cover both exotic animals such as hedgehogs, chinchillas, monkeys, wallabies and pot bellied pigs; and farm animals (her husband is a cattle rancher) like cows, horses, sheep and goats.
Duea imparts a wealth of information and although I may never work as a professional pet sitter, I feel like a learned a lot about the trade, as will others who pick up this book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic advice on starting a pet sitting business, July 29, 2009

By 

Kathryn Radeff - See all my reviews

This review is from: How To Open & Operate a Financially Successful Pet Sitting Business: With Companion CD-ROM (How to Open and Operate a Financially Successful...) (Paperback)

In this exceptionally well-written and wonderfully organized book, accomplished writer and professional businesswoman Angela Williams Duea introduces home business basics and gives all the important information you need in a positive way to not only start and run a pet sitting business, but how to prosper in your new venture. The demand for pet sitters has never been greater, but to succeed in this field, you'll need much more than a love for animals--you'll need to enjoy working with people and have business savvy as well. That includes the commercial side of it.

"How to Open & Operate a Financially Successful Pet Sitting Business" is full of cleaver and creative ideas you can use to successfully get the word out about who you are and what you do quickly and cheaply. Everything you need to know on getting started from sample documents to handling policies and procedures to safety issues, as well as creating a business plan is included. The book contains wonderful tips, proven marketing techniques and easily followed methods. And while Duea's purpose in the book is to tell about building a pet sitting business and developing a successful career in a rewarding profession, it's also about developing friendships, as well as business and professional relationships. Duea includes plenty of real-life case studies to help you decide if you have what it takes to be a pet sitter. The second part of the book deals with interacting with clients. She also includes a heartfelt sympathy card to send to a client that experiences the loss of a pet. This is an excellent book highly recommended.