Getting Organized

Despite all of mankind’s advancements we’ve still not found a way to add hours to the day, be two places at once, or stop time to get a few more things done. Most small business owners long for these breakthroughs. But as they don’t appear imminent, here are some non-science fiction approaches to lengthen your day. The trick is to work smarter, not harder.

Schedule it
We’ve written in the past about using a master schedule, but it bears repeating. A master schedule breaks each week into blocks of time dedicated to certain tasks—marketing, administrative work, time to see clients, etc. And also non-work blocks—time for family and friends, exercise, hobbies, errands and house cleaning, and so on. In short, each thing that needs room in your schedule is assigned a specific spot or spots.

The master schedule ensures pre-planned room for everything you need to get done or want to do. It takes the guesswork out of trying to juggle all the balls you’ve got in the air. Instead, you can concentrate on the one your schedule says to, setting the others down without worry. And for those of us with the procrastination gene, it means a structure for productivity.

Use do dates
Without a master schedule so many great ideas—marketing projects, new services, a nice handout on Busting the Dominance Myth—are wistfully pushed off to “someday, when I get a chance…” With a master schedule, you simply assign your great ideas to the next open marketing or project time slots in your calendar. These are do dates. So much more effective than traditional due dates, which cause stress as they approach and guilt as they pass, do dates allow you to get things done in the specific blocks of time assigned for them.

For example, we write dozens of articles a year for various journals, newsletters, and the like. If you were to look at our calendar you’d see the due dates in very small letters—almost not noticeable. But look a couple weeks ahead of each of those and you’ll find the do dates for each article in large type. Thursday mornings are writing time in our master schedule, so at the beginning of each year the needed Thursday mornings are blocked out to produce articles. We never have to worry about when they’re going to get done, or suddenly realize the day before that we’re up against a deadline.

Take time off
Seriously. Do it. You have to. We’re not made to run 24/7. There’s no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. We often ask, when lecturing to dog pros, for a show of hands from the audience—how many of you have two days off every or most weeks? It’s not uncommon to see five hands go up in a room of 200 or 300 people. Ask about one day a week and you may see a dozen or so arms raised. That’s not tenable, not sustainable, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

Part of using a master schedule is building in the downtime. The only way to get days off is to take them. Cross them out in your calendar and then don’t schedule over them. It’s easy to fill our lives to the point of overflowing. The only way to stop it is to call time-out. The earth will continue turning, we promise.

Prioritize
Creating a master schedule may force you to confront what you’ve long suspected—that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day or days in the week to do everything you have on your plate. It’s time to make some choices. And they get made whether you make them deliberately or not. In our business coaching work, we’ve heard many dog trainers, dog walkers, dog daycare operators, and the like lament the lack of time for their own dogs, or for the exercise regime they promised themselves this year, or for more time with family—or just time to do nothing at all.

It’s often the most precious things that get cut when we try to stuff more into our lives than can actually fit. Taking a hard look at everything you do allows you to make conscious choices about what to set aside. There may not be anything you’re happy about letting go, but putting off the decision doesn’t mean it doesn’t get made. It means that more important things fall by the wayside. It means a lack of balance between work and home (some of us lean toward working too much, some of us toward not enough) and a path toward eventual burnout.

Be realistic
There are fewer hours in the day than we think, and fewer minutes in each hour. It’s like eating at a buffet and never failing to put far too much food on the plate. We think we can squeeze a bit more in, take on another project, say “yes” to one more request. And everything takes longer than it seems like it should. Part of successful scheduling is making peace with this. There really are only 60 minutes in an hour and they go by fast. There are only 24 hours in a day and we sleep and eat our way through quite a few of those. We might as well accept that everything will take longer than we think and plan accordingly.

At dogbiz we plan emergency and flex time into each day and week and project. We assume that things will come up, that clients and colleagues will make requests, that there will be unanticipated opportunities we’ll want to pursue, that our best-laid plans will occasionally have flaws. The extra time built into the schedule keeps everything on target when the unpredictable-but-inevitable shows up.

Start by building an overflow or catch-all block into your weekly master schedule. For example, a two-hour spot that you can toss any miscellaneous tasks into or use when something else goes over its allotted time. When you’re planning something larger, such as a new marketing project, give it several more blocks of time than you expect it to take. If you finish early you can move the next project up or even treat yourself to some extra time off.

And then practice saying “no.” Go back to the step where you set your priorities and check any new requests or opportunities against them. It’s hard sometimes. We think we should do things just because we could, because we’ve been asked. But is there truly room? Does it serve your central goals? Is it worth neglecting something else? If the answers are no, take a pass.

Schedule your clients
Don’t hand clients the keys to your business by asking questions like “When would be good for you?” when scheduling appointments. Remember that having a master schedule means having set times for everything. This includes client appointments. Choose the times that you will see clients, preferably keeping them the same each week and clustering them for efficiency. Then offer clients your open slots to choose from. (And watch those geographical boundaries—don’t lose time unnecessarily in the car.)

Stand firm when potential clients say none of your times work. Simply offer them what you have open the following week to give them more choices. Do not bend if they request a day or time that’s not on your master schedule. Tell them kindly and confidently, “I’m sorry; I don’t have appointments at that time. It looks like our schedules may just not be a match. I can offer you a referral to a colleague who may better be able to accommodate you.” (You can leave that last sentence out if there isn’t anyone you can refer to.) We’d be willing to bet (and we can back it up from years of experience coaching dog pros on this) that 9.9 times out of 10 they’ll suddenly find room in their schedules for one of your pre-set times. Confidence breeds confidence. When you don’t seem to need their business you’re suddenly that much more desirable. Professionals (think doctors, lawyers, etc.) don’t ask clients what days and times are good for them; they offer set appointments.

Hire help
We know the protest—“I can’t afford it.” Our comeback, always, is “Can you afford not to?” Let go the stigma; you don’t have to be wealthy to hire help. Let go the fear; the $10 you pay someone else frees up an hour you could use to make $75 or $100 training, or to work on a marketing project to bring in more pet sitting or boarding clients. Spending money really can make you money. If you’re stretched so thin that you truly cannot fit in the time to see more clients or work on pushing your business forward, how will you break the impasse if not by bringing in some assistance to free up your time?

Start small if you feel unsure or the budget is tight. Even five hours a week can make a significant difference. Choose some things that weigh on you, that you either dread or feel are a taking up needed time. Hand them over. They could be business tasks such as administrative work, accounting, cleaning your classroom or daycare space, printing and organizing handouts for classes, returning phone calls, etc. Or perhaps help at home would free you up—some babysitting, dog walking, or house cleaning.

Stop the hamster wheel
If you’re in so deep that you can’t see where the time would come from to sit down to take these steps, it might be time for a shut-down. Take a day—a week if you can—and turn it all off. No phone calls or email or client appointments. Use the time to catch your breath and create your master calendar. To take a look at all the balls you juggle and decide which to let fall and which to protect. To look at where you might want help and take steps toward finding it. To set do dates so you know what you’re going to be able to accomplish and when. To make any other changes you need to allow you to move forward refreshed and with a new plan in place.

If you’re already scheduled to the hilt it may be difficult to find this time. Your first step, then, is to look forward just far enough that there’s a day or week not already full. Block it out. With a fat Sharpie pen. Protect it. Resist the temptation to schedule anything over it; there’s nothing that can’t wait. Because there isn’t anything as important as achieving a sustainable schedule—your business’ success and longevity depend on it.

If you’d like some one-on-one help getting a handle on your schedule, please consider personalized business coaching with one our consultants.

There are all kinds of advantages to working from home in your own dog business. Obviously hanging out with the dogs is top of the list. Working in your pajamas, setting your own schedule, running to the kitchen for a tea or coffee hit, and the absence of distracting coworkers and unreasonable supervisors probably make many a dog pro’s list as well.

But there are the downsides, too, most of which stem from a lack of imposed structure and accountability. Left to one’s own devices and surrounded by the distractions of home (dogs, other family members, laundry, dishes in the sink, the TV, the garden…), solid productivity can be challenging.

Here are 7 strategies we use ourselves at dogbiz. We hope they help you rock working from home as a dog pro, especially on your non-client pajama days!

1. Set a start time and get going first thing
For most people, the best, most focused hours are in the morning, so don’t waste those puttering around the house. Tackle a work project right away to get your day off to a great start. Getting something important off your to-do list at the beginning of your workday can lend a lot of energy and momentum to the rest of the day.

I love mornings. Getting to my desk by 6:30am allows for nice chunky breaks during the rest of the day. –Deborsha

If you tend to require a bit more time to wake up and get going, give yourself that time—but set a specific start time for your work day to provide structure.

I like to spend an hour working in my greenhouse before I sit down at my desk. As a non-morning person, that hour motivates me to get up on time, and puts me in a great mood, ready to tackle the day’s schedule. –Veronica

2. Create schedule structure
Speaking of structure, most of us need it. Left to our own devices, it’s too easy to jump from task to task, deciding that perhaps cleaning out the fridge has higher priority than writing that handout about leash reactivity. And for the workaholics among us, a lack of structure can mean a lack of needed downtime.

The cool thing is that your structure can be whatever you want it to be. You get to work whichever hours you wish, and enjoy downtime when you like, too. The trick is just to be deliberate about these choices. How will you spend the hours of the day? And during your work hours, what specifically will you work on?

Breaking up your work hours into category chunks—time for marketing, for example, and time for client or class prep, admin work, etc., helps provide structure and avoid that “lost” feeling of trying to figure out where to put your energy when you land at your desk.

When scheduling a new task, I consider whether it’s a ‘touch it once’ task, or one that will need a few chunks of time to accomplish – for example, a writing project that I may want to revisit after a day or two with fresh eyes. If it’s something that will need multiple sessions, I schedule all of those into my calendar so I know the time will be there. – Tia 

I don’t open my email until I’ve accomplished at least one thing on my day’s to-do list first. That way, I start my day with my agenda and not anyone else’s, and keep moving forward on my most important projects. I then check my email at three set times per day. This keeps me from getting distracted from larger projects, while still making sure I get clients and colleagues what they need. – Gina

3. Plan ahead
Starting your day without knowing what you intend to accomplish almost always results in accomplishing less than you could. At the very least, end each workday by deciding what you’ll tackle the next workday. Better yet, plan each week out in advance. And even better than that, plan larger projects and goals by the quarter or even the year. This will make it easier to decide what you should be working on week-to-week and day-by-day.

At the end of each day I take a few moments to jot down my priority tasks for the next day. I find this helpful in a couple of ways. One, I can mentally leave work behind and not lose sleep over my to-do list! And two, I can come in the next morning and just pick up right where I need to. – Tia

When I fail to plan ahead, which I sometimes do when I’m transitioning back into my office after traveling to speak at a conference or seminar, I really notice the difference. Just picking something off a big to-do list always leaves me worried I’m focusing on the wrong thing—and I usually find I am. –Veronica

4. Go to the office
Working from your bedroom or kitchen table can make you feel like you’re at work all the time. If at all possible, set yourself up in a room that’s a dedicated office. As you walk toward the threshold of your office, set an intention of focus. Leave the rest of your home behind—you’re at work now, just as you would be if you drove to an office building somewhere. (Except there are lots of dog pillows in this office.)

If you don’t have the luxury of a dedicated office room, consider something like an office hutch so you can close the doors on your computer at the end of your work time. At the very least, pack your laptop away each day or put a cover over your computer. Putting your computer away will help you mentally “leave” work, and getting it back out each morning will help you “arrive.”

If you find it challenging at times to stay focused at home, leave to work somewhere else. Sometimes a change of venue can help create focus. Take your laptop to a local café or the library, or even a park bench. Before you leave, decide specifically what you’ll work on when you get there, and what you intend to accomplish before returning home.

I frequently tackle large projects outside of my office. Leaving behind email, social media, in-baskets, and the drone of printers, I find I can complete the task quicker and my attention stays more focused on the task at… oh, look, a squirrel! –Deborsha

5. Reduce and manage distractions and interruptions
If other family members are home during your work hours, use your training skills to teach them when not to interrupt. (A visual signal, like a closed door, “At work” door sign, wearing earphones, etc., can help.) Turn off social media and email except when these items are on your schedule. If you have distractions that are less easily controlled, like small children or a new puppy, build your schedule around their rhythms, taking advantage of nap times, for example, to work on projects that require deeper focus.

6. Build in breaks
Research suggests that we’re more productive (and healthier) when we get up and move around about once an hour. Some dogs provide built-in timer service to remind you to get up on a regular basis. Small children are good for this, too. But if there are no kids around and your senior dog tends to snooze for hours at a stretch, set a timer when you sit down at your desk. When it goes off, stretch, drink some water (hydration helps keep energy up), move around, and let your mind rest for a few minutes.

I make Alexa work for her room and board, setting alarms throughout the day to make sure I get up to eat, pet the kitties, and exercise. –Deborsha

The hour after I pick my kids up from school is one of the most productive of my day. That quick 30-minute break in the middle of the afternoon and the mental break it provides revives my flagging energy and leaves me ready to dig into another project. In fact, I’m frequently surprised when my end-of-day alarm goes off. –Gina

7. Take full advantage of being home
Since you’re home, you can use your breaks to get a few things done around the house, too. Use a break to put in a load of laundry that you can transfer to the dryer on your next break. Spend ten minutes dead-heading flowers in the garden while getting a little fresh air, or working on another hobby, or getting a little exercise. Get a bit of advanced dinner prep done. Play with or train the dog—no doubt he’d appreciate a 10-minute game of fetch or enjoy perfecting his new trick or weave pole speed. It’s important to be disciplined when working from home, but you can do that while still enjoying the perks of being there.

You know you should follow up with clients, that it’s part of good customer service. But you worry about intruding, irritating, being perceived as a pest. And now, on top of typical questions about follow up (how, how often, when to stop), there’s the complication of what to do about clients whose services were interrupted by the pandemic.

Here are our guidelines for effective follow-up practices, both in general and pandemic-related:

Reframing client follow up
First, let’s adopt a healthy perspective about client follow up. Too many trainers avoid the practice out of fear of being pushy. We urge you to trade in that notion for the reality—follow up is about showing up. It’s about good customer service, making sure clients have what they need from you. It’s about recognizing that life gets busy and sometimes people need (and are grateful for) a gentle nudge. Following up with clients who have outstanding appointments or who have finished a class is thoughtful and professional—and it often generates additional work. That means more revenue for you and more help for dogs and their people.

So set down those worries about being a pest. It’s not likely to feel that way to your clients, especially if you follow good follow up practices. Let’s talk about those next.

Creating a follow-up schedule
A follow-up schedule will help make sure reaching out to clients actually happens, and will relieve any worries about when and how often. Make those policy decisions up front once, and you never have to fret about that again.

Unfortunately there is no collected industry data to indicate the optimum number of times to follow up, or the spacing of those contacts. If you need some guidelines to get you started, we generally recommend a schedule that looks something like this:

Private training clients who haven’t finished a package: Send two scheduling reminders within the first week, another the following week, and then a check-in a month later if you still have not heard back.

Private training clients who have finished a package: Send a thank you follow up within a week, and three check-ins at the 1 month, 3 month, and 1 year mark.

Students who have finished a class: Send a personal recommendation for their next class within a few days, followed by one or two reminders within two weeks, and then check- ins at the 6 month and 1 year mark.

You can adjust these general recommendations to best suit your business, but they should give you a sense of what a thoughtful, engaged follow-up schedule can look like.

Ideally you’ll also stay in touch over the long haul via your regular marketing channels such as email newsletters and social media, too.

The idea with all of this is to stay in front of the clients and students you worked so hard to get, by showing them that you care about their results and progress and reminding them that you are there. Doing so will increase the amount of repeat business you enjoy.

Put your follow ups in your calendar
Set aside a regular block of time in your weekly schedule to take care of follow ups. Depending on the size of your business, one or two hours should do the trick. Next, schedule follow-ups for each client into that block of time. This will set you up for an easy, efficient, consistent follow-up process.

Reaching out
How you follow up is up to you. Choose the mode you’re most comfortable with. Email or phone are the most common options, but you could also text if that’s been your typical mode of communication with clients. The advantage of email is that you can write template letters that you simply personalize, to make follow up as efficient as possible. (If you’re a little more techie, you can use your email newsletter or other automation software to schedule your follow ups to go out automatically!)

Letting go
Don’t fret when you don’t hear back. People are busy and like everyone else, your clients are likely juggling all sorts of competing responsibilities and priorities. It doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate hearing from you.

In the case of clients who don’t complete their package with you despite your repeated attempts to reach out, it’s okay to let go. You can’t be responsible for others’ choices. If you’ve done your due diligence and made the effort to provide the service you were paid for, let go the guilt or worry if they choose not to finish. They may be happy with progress already made and just too busy to let you know, or they may have more pressing life issues at hand at the moment.

Setting up for success
Part of setting up for success is creating your follow-up schedule and then calendaring your clients into it. You can also create follow-up success by employing strong policies and protocols to reduce the likelihood of clients not finishing with you in a timely manner.

To protect your schedule and your clients’ progress, consider pre-scheduling all appointments in your packages up front, instead of scheduling from one appointment to the next. Back that up with a strong cancellation policy for both private training and classes and for ongoing services like dog walking.

The pandemic has accelerated some of these issues, particularly with students and clients choosing to wait to resume in-person services, even when given the choice to continue with you online. Moving forward, add a policy to your contract allowing you to transition clients and students between in-person and online services as you see fit for safety. Doing so will protect not only your income but your clients’ and students’ training progress.

Pandemic follow-up notes for dog walkers & daycares
Ideally you kept in touch with your clients while shut down. Either way, you’ll want to reach out to let clients know when you’re resuming services, and what those services will look like, including any pandemic-related policies. (If you haven’t resumed yet, you can also touch base with clients to ask them what they’ll need and their timing for coming back, to help you plan.)

If you don’t hear from clients, plan to follow up with check-ins a week out, two weeks later, and a month after that. Ask them how they and their dog are doing, let them know you’re there if and when they’re ready to pick back up, and that you’d love to hear from them either way, just to know they’re alright. Dog walking and dog daycare are founded on long-term relationships, and you’re reaching out within that context. Even if some clients don’t return to your services, you’ll want the chance to connect and share well-wishes.

Need effective client contracts with strong policy language?
Our Business Toolkit for Trainers, Business Toolkit for Walkers & Sitters, and Business Toolkit for Daycare & Boarding all include easy-to-use client contracts, in addition to a wide variety of other tools for your business. And we’ve updated them with COVID-19 specific policies, too.