There are times when I don’t understand how big my company is. A couple occurrences happened this week that illuminated that fact for me. The first was a simple search of demographics for pet sitting clients that led me to the website of Pet Sitters International that gave me the demographics for pet sitters and pet sitting companies. The average pet sitting company has a third of the revenue as we do.
That was the first instance. The second was going to an Octoberfest party at our pastor’s house and having it turn out to be the house of a former client. I cannot say exactly how many clients we’ve serviced in Kings Grant or the number of houses in Kings Grant so the percentage odds of it happening are lost on me, and I would put it at less than a 1% chance. Still it happened, and it shows just how many neighborhoods and places we have been to.
I am very good at highlighting the negatives and talking about all that has gone wrong. I am so good at it that I often forget to talk about what is going right. I forget it in my own mind at times. It isn’t good to only focus on the negative. We need to find areas for improvement but we also need to understand what we’ve done right.
It is good to be reminded of the good. In some ways I believe modern society has trained us to focus on the negative. We are told to stay hungry and keep pushing and all of this. As a business owner I am exposed to hustle culture whether I want to be or not. I need to look at what I have done right and then do more of that. Instead of being in a state where I am constantly trying to improve things that don’t need improving.
At times I can here my father’s voice in my head asking me why I would do that. Why wouldn’t I want this client or that as I am looking at the demographic marketing. Is following this advice in someway cutting off my nose to spite my face. I have to look at metrics against metrics before making a decision on that.
I am never certain if I am doing the right thing, but now I understand that I have done something right to end up in the place I am.
David Huzzard Writes 