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by Valynne | Oct 7, 2011 | Caretaking / House and Pet Sitting, Heath and Wellness, Writers and Readers |
Six-Figure Pet Sitting by Kristin Morrison
I recently purchased a copy of Six-Figure Pet Sitting by Kristin Morrison. It took me a week or two to actually take the time to sit down and read it, but once I picked it up, I could not put it down.
In Chapter 5, Kristin discusses the concept of Inner Value, or the lack thereof. Although this book specifically covers pet sitting, what she has to say about inner value is pretty universal and worth pondering, whatever your occupation.
The following is an except from Six-Figure Pet Sitting:
“Do You Lack Inner Value?
A symptom of the lack of inner value is often under-earning. This lack of inner value can be made to look productive through marketing and activities to increase your business, but often there is little or no follow through to ‘close the deal’. Remember the sabotaging techniques you previously wrote about? A lack of inner value can also sabotage all of your efforts and often will feel as though you, once again, have your foot on the gas and the brake at the same time.
Having a lack of inner value that sabotages your business and financial success is often expressed through:
- Not raising client rates for two or more years.
- Being afraid to say no to a client request.
- Working too hard and not having a lot to show for it.
- Not holding clients to terms outlined in the contract.
- Not having clients sign a contract.
- Giving discounts without clients asking for them.
- Not keeping orderly and accurate business records.
- Being afraid to hire people and/or saying no to new business.
- Returning client calls too late: 24-48 hours later.
- Marketing a lot but feeling too tired to call new clients back.
- Not spending enough time doing revenue-producing activities.
List all the ways you notice that YOU lack inner value and sabotage your business and profit…”
She then goes on to have you list positive actions you can take to stop sabotaging yourself and provides a series of “action steps” that seriously encourages follow-through.
If you are a house and pet sitter, or are considering becoming one, please buy this book. This is just one of the excerpts that resounded with me. Thank you, Kristin ~ I SO needed to read this guide right before launching Phase II of Caretaking Couple! Here’s to Inner Value,
Valynne
PS You can find even more tools and resources (including business coaching, teleclasses, forms and a blog) at Six-Figure Pet Sitting Academy.
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by Valynne | Oct 4, 2011 | Caretaking / House and Pet Sitting, Dog Walking |
Rusty Rests After a Sunday Morning Social at Laurelhurst Park
Paul and I get a lot of questions regarding the future of Caretaking Couple now that we have decided to call Portland, OR home. There is no doubt in my mind we will continue to house and pet sit here in the US and eventually beyond…we will just be doing it with a “home-base” from now on.
This will allow us to only take the sits that we really want to take. It will allow us stay put when we feel like nesting, and to hit the road when the wanderlust returns. AND it will allow me to take on more clients. That is right, I will be dedicating the hours of 11am – 3pm each weekday to walking local dogs. And I can’t wait to get started.
This is our first official announcement…stay tuned for more details on a separate page I am adding to this blog in the next week or so. My goal is to fill these hours walking dogs right here in the Alberta District. I am meeting with other walkers in the area and brainstorming ideas regarding cross-promotion, covering for each other while on vacation, and other important stuff.
Please let me know if you have any comments/questions/suggestions for us while I work on revamping our business model. It doesn’t matter if you are a homeowner, a sitter, an aspiring sitter, or simply a supportive friend ~ we always appreciate hearing from you.
by Valynne | Jun 20, 2011 | Caretaking / House and Pet Sitting, Music, Photography, Travel |
Lake Charles Sunset
Paul and I were contacted by a couple in Lake Charles who are big into travel and interested in doing home exchanges and possibly taking on some house and pet sits themselves. We really enjoyed meeting them before they headed off on their vacation. This couple connected us with their friends as well, who had a beautiful waterfront camp that they frequented on weekends. They even had RV hook-ups for their friends and family when they came to visit! So cool. This picture was taken from the camp. What a beautiful spot. Thank you for your Southern Hospitality, Micky and Martha!
Lake Charles Lawn
Paul loves these riding lawn mowers. He won’t let me mow any of the lawns on our sits. True story. So, here he is…mowing the lawn. We were perched on a rock up on Bear Mountain when we lived in Evergreen, Colorado and didn’t need a lawn mower (the elk took care of random patches of grass). Perhaps he feels he is making up for lost time.
American Alligator
We drove the Creole Nature Trail to Holly Beach and stopped at the Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge along the way. This is the first alligator either of us has seen out of captivity. I took the picture from a boardwalk and am not as close to said alligator as I look. I do love a good shot but am not so foolish as to annoy an alligator. Note to Birders: The Creole Trail is considered one of the top ten birding locations in the country, with over 300 species of birds. Three hundred!
Holly Beach Rules
The trail led us to Holly Beach, also known as the “Cajun Riviera”. We parked on the beach (no wheelies were popped) and walked along the shore, meeting lots of friendly people along the way.
Holly Beach Houses
Almost all of the homes on Holly Beach were rebuilt after Hurricane Rita came through and demolished the area back in 2005. Several families have been unable to rebuild due to more stringent building codes. I move around too much to ever feel complete loyalty to any one place, but it leaves me with a heavy heart to think of those that are displaced and then unable to rebuild on their property, which in some cases has been in the family for generations.
Fun in the Sun
We were fortunate enough to have this salt water pool all to ourselves during the two week sit. What a luxury it was (Louisiana gets HOT in the summertime). Some days we were in and out of the pool several times a day. Rough life, I know.
Grayson Capps Has a story to Tell
Did you know that I love Grayson Capps and the Lost Cause Minstrels? I discovered them while on a sit for my cousins in Connecticut several years ago. They had a Netflix account and I watched the film A Love Song for Bobby Long while there. It is based on the novel Off Magazine Street by Grayson’s father, Ronald Everett Capps.
I fell in love with the imagery, storyline, soundtrack (which featured Grayson’s songs)…everything. As luck would have it, the band happened to be playing at The Maple Tree Cafe around about the same time, so I went with my friend Kim and it was love at first song.
When Paul discovered that Grayson Capps and the Lost Cause Minstrels would be playing at The Porch while we were in Lake Charles, I nearly peed myself. I believe Grayson is telling a story about “Washboard Lisa” in the picture above. Don’t you love it when musicians give you a glimpse of themselves and their lives between songs?
John Milham on drums, Christian Grizzard on bass, Chris Spies on keyboards and Corky Hughes on guitar.
I’ve had the opportunity to talk with Grayson Capps twice, and both times have been such a pleasure. The three of us talked about the film and the book his father wrote that prompted it, and Grayson having lost so much of his music and belongings in Katrina, and the passing of Pinetop Perkins.
Grayson & Me
Having the opportunity to experience Grayson Capps and the Lost Cause Minstrels again was the highlight of my stay in Lake Charles. That, and the po’ boys, étouffée and lively conversation at Big Daddy’s Sports Grill. Oh, and the pool. Lake Charles was good to us.
On the Road Again
Next stop? Amarillo, Texas. This was a quick lunch break at a Louisiana rest stop. Quick, because it was over 105 outside. So long, swimming pool. It can’t ALL be glitz and glam, eh?
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by Valynne | Jun 8, 2011 | Caretaking / House and Pet Sitting, Writing |
Our six month sit in Tennessee has come to an end. While Signal Mountain wasn’t really “us”, it was a good place to hunker. When we did go out, it was to Chattanooga.
I will miss my yoga classes at North Shore Yoga (Sunday mornings with Kay, especially), hiking Signal Point with Paul (and JohnE!), and the Monday evening writer’s group at Signal Mountain Library.
All has been quiet on the blogging front, but I did get a lot of writing done. My book was finished…until it wasn’t. These guys helped me to clarify where I am going with it and to realize the errors of my grammatical ways. BIG thanks to Bruce, Frank, and Joe!
Two of My Signal Mountain Library Writing Group Mentors, Frank & Bruce
It won’t be quite the same, but we are going to continue to critique each others work from afar. I will start seriously looking for a publisher in Portland, Oregon. Our next sit will be in the Alberta Arts District, beginning in late June.
It has been two weeks since we left Tennessee (ending with a short but sweet visit with Peg and Owen in Memphis on the way out). Since then, we have been to Louisiana (New Orleans), Nevada (Las Vegas), and Arizona (Sedona & Jerome).
I will be blogging about each of those places in the next few days.
We are back in Louisiana now, on a two week sit in Lake Charles. Yes, it is very hot here in June! Lucky for us, we are staying in a nice, cool home with a swimming pool out back. I don’t have too much else to share as we just arrived…
I can tell you this much; the food is really YUMMY (can you say Etouffee?) and the people are really friendly (excepting the local who murdered his estranged wife on Sunday and is on the lam. In the general vicinity. Doors are locked).
It is time to get back into my Beachbody routine (drinking Shakeology each morning and working out in the evening is a good place to start). I have been a bit naughty (might as well fess up now, as future posts will only give me away)…
P.S. Please forgive the lack of pictures as I am struggling to upload them at present. I don’t know if it is a WordPress issue, an i-Photo issue, or simply (and most likely) a Valynne issue.
P.P.S. Just found out Grayson Capps is playing at a local coffee shop next week (happy dance)! I think I like it here : )
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by Valynne | Mar 4, 2011 | A Quick Question, Caretaking / House and Pet Sitting, Social Media Experiments, Writers and Readers |
“A book is a gift you can open again and again.” Garrison Keillor
Our Caretaking Couple e-Book is coming along. The first several chapters are polished while the last few are still a bit…ahem…rough. Time to finish what I started, methinks!
I receive and respond to several questions about house and pet sitting and living simply in general via e-mail, and am doing my best to address the most relevant ones in this book. Now is is your chance…
If you have any questions/comments/suggestions of your own for us, I would love it if you would share them here on the blog (you can do this by clicking on the comments link). XOX,
V&P
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by Valynne | Feb 27, 2011 | A Quick Question, Caretaking / House and Pet Sitting, Travel |
Oregon, home of our next sit (Summer 2011)
It is official – our next sit is in Portland, Oregon (beginning in late June). We have been dreaming of the Pacific Northwest for a while now. Neither of us have actually been to Oregon, but we continue to hear great things. Have you been? If so, we would love to hear from you as well!
We have a little more than a month between sits (this one here in Tennessee ends in May) and are unsure what to do with it. Our first choice is Europe (England, Italy, and Amsterdam) but I would have to find us more sits before we can justify a trip like that. So, I am on it…looking for long term sits (preferably in OR, WA, or NorCal) that begin right around October 2011.
If I do line up more sits on the Pacific side, we will most likely road trip it out to MA to get the rest of our belongings from storage, and fly to Europe from the Atlantic side. If not, we are thinking we will take our time driving from here to there (TN to OR), stopping to see loved ones in Colorado and California for sure. Hopefully I will firm up the deets in the next week or so.
Please leave a comment if you have anything you would like to share about Portland, or anything, really…
