Grow Your Dog Walking Business The Easy Way

As a pet lover and entrepreneur starting a dog walking business is a great low-cost entry to the pet service industry.

With over 70% of households in the US owning at least one pet, demand to keep them well-looked after is high. The pet industry is continuing to expand steadily as more and more people take ownership of new pets and the trend to treat dogs (and cats) as members of the family who are worthy of discretionary spending grows.

Starting any business can be overwhelming, and there are several steps you need to take to ensure your business is built for long-term success. But you've done your research and weighed up the pros and cons of starting a dog walking business and have decided that it's the right move for you. So what next?

In this guide, we'll take a look at the simple steps you can take to grow your dog walking business the easy way.

Promoting Your Dog Walking Business

Getting repeat business, landing new clients, and growing your dog walking business are all functions of strategic marketing. Apart from word-of-mouth advertising, here are some other effective ways to promote your newly established dog walking business:

• Ask for referrals: People tend to trust recommendations from those they know (family and friends) more than other forms of advertising. Make sure to ask existing clients to recommend your business to others who may need your services.
• Flyers and dog walking business cards: Handing out dog walking business cards and putting up flyers are great ways to target local dog owners. 
• Create an online presence: Most businesses these days have a website and you can definitely reach more clients with an online presence. It makes clients take you and your business more seriously. The Book Your Pet app provides a personalized digital storefront without having expensive website development costs. 
• Use social media: Share pictures and videos from your walks on different social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. You can reach a wider audience using social media. It's usually a good practice to ask permission from pet owners before sharing videos and pictures of their pets. You may want to consider asking them to sign a waiver as part of your service agreement. 
• Use testimonials from clients: As soon as you start rendering your services, make sure to ask for testimonials from your clients. Print the testimonials on your flyers, add them to your social media accounts or include them on your website to attract more clients.
• Offer impressive customer service: Doing everything right to land new clients is great, but retaining existing clients goes beyond giving out your dog walking business cards. Ensure to provide client-specific services, listen to your clients' needs, and implement positive suggestions. Don't put off any client issues or concerns - deal with them promptly. 

Managing Your Dog Walking Business

Starting and promoting a dog walking business is only half of the growth equation; managing the business is entirely a different ball game. Sadly, this is where many new petpreneurs drop the ball and watch their dream and vision go down the drain.

Here are a few important tips to help you go from merely starting a dog walking business to tracking, managing, and growing your business into a successful one.

Meet With Owners And Dogs Before The First Booking

One of the common mistakes with first-time dog walking business owners is falling into the trap of accepting a difficult dog. The pet can pose a significant danger to you and the public if you can't control it, and that’s not good for your business.

The mistake usually stems from being too eager to land new clients. You might end up with an unruly dog if you rush into booking a pet or accepting business without first meeting with the owner and their dog. 

To save lots of avoidable headaches, ensure to always see the dog and its owner in person. This will help you determine whether or not to accept the client. Of course, you may lose some businesses when you do this, but it's a lot safer and cheaper than being sued (or suing the owner) for damages caused by a dangerous dog.

Leverage Tech Solutions

Running a business nowadays is a lot easier with innovative tech solutions. Instead of relying on fallible human memory to manage your business, it makes sense to use these modern solutions that can significantly reduce stress and maximize productivity.

The Book Your Pet app automates nearly every aspect of your dog walking business, including sending text and email reminders to clients, giving you complete control over all booking approvals, completing repetitive admin tasks, and more. (We’ll discuss the app in more detail in a bit.) 

In the meantime, understand that trying to manually keep track of every aspect of your business can be tiring, and frustrating, and will cause you to start making mistakes that cost you money. Eliminate all that hard work with pet-specific tech solutions.

Keep On Top Of Daily Business Operations 

Just because you don’t sit behind a desk with files, computers, and cash registers doesn't mean your small dog walking business isn’t a proper business. If you neglect the day-to-day running of your business, it's only a matter of time before things start to spin out of control.

To avoid this, you need to keep on top of your daily business operations, such as:

• Tracking your income and expenses
• Maintaining a business budget
• Keeping and timely filing accurate self-assessment tax returns 
• Keeping personal finances separate from your business account
• Ensuring that pet supplies are available and proper and accurate records of purchases are maintained

Understand Local Leash Laws And Dog Walking Regulations

Here’s one of the reasons doing your due diligence is important when starting a dog walking business. It allows you to understand the key regulations and dog-specific laws applicable in your state or region.

Walking a pooch for pay without understanding the legal requirements and responsibilities may land your business on the wrong side of the law. Some of the important regulations to keep in mind are:

• Sanitation laws (pooper scooper regulations) require dog walkers to collect and dispose of dog waste properly
• Local leash law requires dogs to be restrained at all times in public spaces
• Protecting the personal details of all your clients
• Sticking to the recommended number of dogs you can walk at one time (usually a maximum of four dogs in most places)

Be sure to check your local laws to see what applies before you take your clients’ pets for regular walks. The last thing you want for your business is to create a reputation of running afoul of the law or having to explain to clients why you didn’t return with their dog. This can harm your reputation and prevent future growth. 

Introducing The Book Your Pet App

Walking a dog might be easy when it's your dog and you’re not looking to make money out of the activity. But starting a dog walking business isn’t always a walk in the park (pun intended).

Many pet business owners are forced to give up on all the fun things they enjoy in their business because they're tied up in the daily grind of boring admin. Caring for dogs is great, but that's only half the job when it comes to running your own pet business. 

Owning and successfully managing a dog walking business (or any other type of pet business for that matter) doesn't have to be stressful if you have the right tools. That’s where Book Your Pet can help.

The app is a simple but highly-effective tech solution designed by petpreneurs with lots of experience running pet businesses. The primary purpose of the app is to make life easier for petpreneurs to start and grow their pet business. That way, you can focus on delivering the best care services to clients and their animals. 

Regardless of your area of speciality – pet walking, grooming, sitting, training, or even pet photography – Book Your Pet is a practical and easy-to-operate tool for expanding your business.

Some of its interesting features include:

• Tracking your operations: This puts you in the know about different aspects of your business operations by allowing you to keep track of all pet bookings, deposits, and sales. Plus, you can quickly view client details which are presented in a one-click report, so they're easily accessible.
• Full control over booking approval: Petpreneurs can stay on top of all booking approvals right from the app. Your clients have a full view of your services and pricing and can book instantly with an inbuilt 'Book Now' button, saving you time on back-and-forth correspondence and long wait periods for your clients while you find the time to respond.
• Synced calendars: Sync the Book Your Pet app to your calendar to automatically manage new and existing appointments.
• Payment reminders: This feature makes it easy for clients to pay you by sending payment reminders. You only need to set up the reminders and forget them. The app will automatically do the rest! 
• Built-in integrations: The app integrates seamlessly with powerful but easy-to-use accounting and financial tools. First is Quickbooks, the accounting software that lets you track expenses, create invoices, manage cash flow, and more all in one place. It also integrates with Stripe, an online payment processing tool that makes it easy for you to accept payments from mobile wallets, debit cards, and credit cards. 
• Improved communication: Petpreneurs no longer need to worry about forgetting to send important follow-ups and reminders. You can write your message once and setup when you want the app to send the message as well as the intervals to send it.

Get Ready To Grow Your Dog Walking Business

Growing a successful dog walking business doesn't have to be difficult, especially when you have the correct processes and procedures in place.

Taking the time to promote and manage your business properly will set you up for long-term success and growth. Keep in mind that even the smallest businesses can be very demanding, and a dog walking business is no different. 

Thankfully, you can leverage technology by using cutting-edge tools like Book Your Pet to tackle most of your day-to-day business activities and ensure a prosperous pet business.

Want to learn more about Book Your Pet and how you can grow your dog walking business with ease? Book a 1:1 call with the team today.