Yesterday my wife told me that she ran a visit report to see where the company was in 2019 vs today and that we still haven’t gotten back to 2019 visit numbers. The reason is simple, dog walking. That is the beginning, middle, and end of that story.
If we could pull out the pet sitting vs the dog walking numbers we would see that we are much more of a pet sitting company now than we were then. The reasons are multifold. The most obvious being that after covid a large portion of the population continued to work remotely. The second is economics. People have less money to spend. Covid wasn’t just a health crisis. It was also an economic crisis that devastated supply chains and caused all sorts of issues. The recovery from covid was one of the largest consolidations of wealth this country has ever seen.
I remember being in a coffee shop in Gettysburg and overhearing a conversation on how all the houses were being bought up sight unseen by investors. Gettysburg is an excellent market for short term rentals and suddenly all these houses are leaving the market as soon as they hit it. We now have hedge fund companies like Blackstone that own massive portfolios of rental property.
The economy is not in a good position. It has become more and more and more top heavy as the years have gone on. Our client base has gotten older and wealthier. We are dealing with far more retired people traveling the globe than we do the average working man. Even if that working man happens to be from the affluent working class like a doctor or lawyer.
This is the change. Money in this country has continued to be consolidated by the elite while the average person is struggling to pay their grocery bill. I saw a stat this morning that the stock market has never hit all-time highs while unemployment is at a four year high. That is currently what is happening and that is a biproduct of a top heavy economy.
JP Morgan Chase just made a huge purchase of treasury bonds. That means there faith in the stock market is wavering. They are expecting there to be a big dip and investors to start selling off. Whether they are right or not remains to be determined, but things aren’t good out there, and no business has the option to not participate in the economy.
My goal is to recover that dog walking business. I am unsure how, but I know there is a way, and I look forward to figuring out what it is.
David Huzzard Writes 