How to Run a Successful Pet Day Care

If you are someone who likes animals, and want to spend time with them, then you should consider opening a pet day care as your career choice. Another reason why this is a good idea is because more and more people are becoming pet owners nowadays. In other words, the consumer base for this service in particular has been on the rise for quite some time.

Of course, much like with any other business, you need to have a business plan. The article will provide you with some useful tips and instructions on how to start you own pet day care. It will also tell you what kind of services you can offer to make your business more tempting and how to advertise your services.

Location

Clearly, the most important thing you need is location, and this one will be the trickiest to obtain. You will need to pick a place, where there is enough space to keep all of the animals and, at the same time, to be located at a convenient place, where a lot of people can easily reach you. In other words you’ll need a place that is a bit remote, but at the same time not too far away from urban areas, where all of the pet owners live.

It may be too expensive to buy a new place or too inconvenient to keep all of the animals at your home. So, the best and most budget-friendly solution is to see if you can rent a house that you’ll turn into a pet day care. This way, if your plan doesn’t go as planned you won’t end up with a whole house that you don’t know what to do with. Make sure the house has a large backyard, so that pets can have their play space, and a place to exercise.

Startup costs

Let’s move on to another important item on this list, and that is funding. If you are about to start your own pet day care, then you’ll need to get investors to fund you. It is a job that requires a lot of expenses, but it also has high ROI. However, if you do not have previous work experience it will be hard to sell your idea, and get them on board.

You’ll need to work on your presentation, and convince the board that your pitch can result in a lucrative line of work. You basically need to show the statistics of how many pet owners live nearby, and how previous pet day cares have managed to achieve a significant revenue. Tell them how you plan to distribute your budget and what you plan to acquire. Present how you plan on getting exposure and the details of your advertising campaign.

Alternatively, you can get crowdfunded. This way you can immediately know whether people in your town would like to have someone who offers these services. You’ll have to advertise your crowdfunding campaign as well, but at least you won’t depend on the kindness of one or two investors to get your business going. Just do a research on how to create a compelling Kickstarter campaign and you are good to go.

Services and goals

As a pet day care center, you’ll have to offer all kinds of different services to attract your potential customers. Basically, your services need to reflect just how much you care for the well-being of pets and animals in general. So, you can say that there will a big field for them to run around in, say how you will offer grooming services and how the pets will have a nice place to stay.

Say how your goals are to keep the pets healthy, and what kind of diet they will be on while staying in your day care center. Additionally, you’ll need a day care vet to reassure your clients that their friends are taken care of properly. You goal is to keep the animals healthy, and to make them feel welcome, to help them socialize and to make sure their stay in your daycare is a pleasant one.

Advertising campaign

It’s time to plan out your advertising campaign, either for your crowdfunding campaign or for your future business. So, you’ll need a website, you’ll need to create social networks for that website, you’ll need some local SEO and you’ll need content.

As far as your website is concerned, it would be good to hire a designer to build it, and to optimize it for devices like smartphones and tablets. Make sure that it is crawlable, and that your content is visible. Fill out the about us and contact us section properly, and upload some high quality photos of your pet day care, so that people can see what your home looks like.

The next thing you need to do is work on your social media presence. So, create an account on as many platforms as possible, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +, Pinterest, etc. You can install tools to help you track engagement, and help you optimize your posting times and activity on those networks. Make sure you are using adequate tools by going through the reviews and to find out what to expect from a particular tool. Visit a website called CrowdReviews.com, where you can find reviews for almost any software or tools that can help you optimize workflow, or manage your social network pages.

Lastly, you’ll need content that people will read or watch, and discover your website and your daycare. The content will also serve as a validation of your goals and professionalism. See, what other quality blog posts on the same topic have covered, and see if you can bring something more to the table, so that your content exceeds theirs in terms of quality. Make sure to mention your daycare name and its location, because that will be useful for Local SEO purposes. Moreover, you’ll need to hire a local SEO agency to help you out with this, and you can also check reviews for them on the previously mentioned website.

Supplies

It’s good to have list of supplies that you will need for your pet day care. You will need some pillows for pets to sleep on, some chewing toys and some quality food for pets. You’ll also need some products for bathing pets and for grooming them, since you want to impress the owners who have entrusted you with their furry little friends. Also, if you plan on training pets as well, then you will need some treats and some items to build a training course.

Insurance

It’s in your interest to have your daycare insured. Talk to the insurance company, see what kind of packages they offer, and if something gets damaged you’ll have a good back up to replace it. It will also send out a good message that you plan to take care of the estate you’ve rented, and it will also build trust between you and your clients.

Hiring proficient staff

Another step towards professionalism is hiring competent staff. Sure, a lot of people would love to work at a place like yours, but you’ll need someone who knows what they are doing. You’ll need a licensed vet and trainer, since these two are the most important roles, for others, you’ll need people who really know how to take care of animals and how to clean them, because animals can sense if someone is nervous and they tend to get nervous around those people as well. You might also need a professional driver, who will pick up and leave animals at their owner’s house, but only if you plan to include this as part of your service as well. This will also ensure that your place is safe, and your clients will be far more at ease knowing that their beloved pets are in the hands of professionals.

To sum up, taking care of animals is truly noble, and more and more people are in need of these services. Whenever someone goes on a vacation or if they need to go on a business trip, one of the major concerns is what they should do with their pet, so finding clients won’t be too difficult. Furthermore, if animals love your place, the clients are likely to leave them there again or maybe just bring them over for grooming and to socialize with other animals. Just follow the instructions and you’ll do just fine.