How to upsell to increase your dog sitting revenue

Today we’re talking about one of the most overlooked ways to increase your income as a pet sitter… and that’s upselling.

Now before you panic and think “I hate selling” or “I don’t want to feel pushy”, stay with me  because when upselling is done properly, it actually improves your client’s experience while increasing your revenue.

In fact, upselling is one of the simplest ways to grow your income without needing more dogs, more hours, or more stress.

So in this episode we’re going to cover:

• What upselling actually means in a dog sitting business
• The most effective types of upsells for pet sitters
• How to introduce them subtly so they feel natural
• How much extra income they can generate
• And where to start if you’ve never done this before

Find more about Paws to profit here https://pawstoprofit.com.au/

Transcript

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Today we're talking about one of the most overlooked ways to increase your income as a pet sitter, and that's upselling. Now, before you panic and think I hate selling and I don't want to feel pushy, stay with me because when upselling is done properly, it actually improves your client's experience while also increasing your revenue. So keep listening. Welcome to Pause to Profit, the podcast for anyone who dreams of starting a profitable dog city business or is already on the journey but struggling to turn it into a thriving income stream. I'm Tanya Williams, your host and chief Porsen at TreeSpot Dogs. What started as a casual side hustle for me has grown into a thriving full-time business. And let me tell you, running a successful dogbiz takes a lot more than just loving dogs. On this podcast, I'll share the real story the wins, the challenges, and the messy middle, along with practical strategies you can use to grow your own business. I know what works because I've built it myself. Countless five-star reviews, a wait list of clients, and new inquiries coming in every single day without spending a cent on ads or marketing. So if you want to learn the secrets to turning your love of dogs into a profitable business, you're in the right place. Let's dive in. Welcome back to the A Pause to Profit Podcast, a show that keeps helps you turn puppy cuddles into profit and build a thriving dog sitting business. I'm Tanya Williams, founder of Three Sport Dogs and creator of the Pause to Profit program, where I'll help pet sitters move beyond a hobby phase and build a professional, profitable business doing something that they genuinely love. Now, today we're talking about one of the most overlooked ways to increase your revenue as a pet sitter, and that is upselling. Now, before you panic and think, I hate selling or I don't want to feel pushy, stay with me because when upselling is done properly, it actually improves your client's experience while also increasing your revenue. So upselling is one of the simplest ways to grow your income without needing more dogs, more hours, and more stress. So in this episode, we're going to cover what what upselling actually means in a dog sitting business, the most effective types of upsells, how to introduce them subtly so they feel natural, how much extra income they can generate, and where to start if you've never done it before. Okay, so keep listening. Let's go. So what is upselling actually? Well, upselling just means offering additional services that enhance your main service that the client has already booked. Okay. The key point here is that the client has already decided to buy from you, they've already trusted you with your dog. So upselling is not about convincing someone to book, it's about enhancing the experience they're already paying for. Think of it when you go to McDonald's, right? What do they ask? Would you like fries with that? Or when you check into a hotel and they give you a room upgrade. Like that's upselling. Okay. And in the in the dog sitting world, there are many ways you can do this in a way that actually feels uh natural and valuable. Okay. Because the types of services that we're offering as upsells are services that the dog owners actually value. Okay. And that's something really important to keep into your mind. Because where you think you're selling to someone, if it's done in the right way, you're actually providing them with a service that actually could save them time, money, resources, whatever it might be. But they might go, oh my God, that saves me having to do that. So it's actually really helpful. So flip the switch on your thinking about selling. Okay. So why is it so powerful? Well, one of the biggest mistakes new dog siters make is thinking that the only way to increase income is to take on more dogs. But there's a limit to that, right? Because your space is limited, your time is limited, your energy is limited, whereas upsetting increases revenue per booking instead. So let me give you a simple example. So let's say your overnight boarding is $65 a night. Now imagine you offer maybe some additional add-ons, like a $10 enrichment pack, a $15 grooming brush and freshen up, and maybe a $12 homemade doggy dinner upgrade. Even if like half of your clients choose an add-on, the revenue per dog might might increase by $10 to $20 a day. If you bought $20 a month, that could easily be, you know, $200, $400 in extra income from not doing that much more. And if you multiply those upsells, that can grow into thousands of dollars per year without increasing your workload dramatically. Can you see the picture here? It's not about adding things that are going to take you a bunch of time or create more stress. It's about creating things that help both you and the owner. So let's talk about the types of upsells that you can offer. Now I've sort of broken these into different categories to make it sort of easy to follow. Um, but look, this stuff is not uh hard to do. It's something that um as a dog city, you probably cross a lot of this stuff already, but it's just um basically charging for stuff that you may already be doing for free. Okay. So uh let's talk about, let's start with enrichment upsells. So enrichment upsells are very popular with with dog owners, and that includes things like licky mats. So if you give them a lickey mat um during their stay, or um you put together like some puzzle toys and play and do that. Snuffle snuffle mats. Um, so having time with that because that's enrichment, right? Frozen enrichment treats, like there's lots of things you can do with freezing things inside of Kongs and stuff like that. Or maybe you do some sort of special play session with that, which is one-on-one with them. Um, you might call it like an enrichment pack, um, you know, whatever it is. Get creative with that. You don't have to sell all of that at once. You can choose to go, well, hey, we do licymat's for $10, or we do special snuffle rug time that's just for them, or whatever it might be. Think about the different types of things you can offer based on the types of services that you do. Food upgrades is a good one as well, okay? But you obviously need to be mindful of dogs' allergies and and anything that you know they can't eat. So you don't want to offer a food upgrade of something where they're allergic to chicken and you're giving them some sort of dehydrated chicken treats, like common sense prevails, right? But you could do homemade dog meals. So we have um a few regulars that go, oh, it just saves me having to pack it all up and whatever. Can you just do their moot their food for them? And we just like we just pay extra for that. Um, and that's easy for us to do because we can mix it up in a batch. Um, it's easy for us because we know what they're getting, and it's easy for the owner as well. Um, fresh cooked toppers. So if you do something extra that um you cut up or put on top of um their food to get them to eat, you can maybe charge for that. Pappuccinos is another good one, again, to be mindful of any sort of allergies or things that they can't have. Um, maybe a dog-safe bone brother topper, or you could do some dog-friendly birthday treats. We um have an option where people can take home little doggy treat packs, um, so little homemade dog treats. Um, again, get creative with it, and it's just something that's a little bit extra special and position it in that way. Here's a special treat. You know, while they're having a little sleepover with us, we're gonna do something a little bit more fun, and that's how you position it. Um, spar or grooming add-ons. Now, I'm not talking about having, you know, like giving giving dogs full haircuts or anything like that. I'm not qualified to do that and I won't do that. I would refer people to groomers. But you can do things like a brush, um, you know, like a brush every day or a face tidy. So sometimes um we'll do like a face and butt trim, um, a tear staying clean because they can be like really hard and frustrating for owners to to clean up, or a paw balm treatment on their on their pores, or you can do like a little fresh freshen up and and splits before a spritz before they go home with some nice perfume, like that sort of stuff. Um, again, it's a little add-on that you can add that's um nice for the owners as well. Or you can do things like premium experience upsells where you can get really creative with this stuff, but you might do extra one-on-one cuddle time so they get extra time with you by themselves, or an adventure walk, um, or even just a normal 15-minute walk. You can do pool sessions. So if you've got like a pool or like an area like that, you can go, hey, we're gonna do a special swimming lesson or something like that. Um, birthday celebrations. So if it's their birthday during their stay, you could package up something that's like some fun photos, a fun photo shoot, and a little birthday cake and some treats and that sort of thing. Um, photo packages. Now, uh we tend to do a lot of like photos and videos for free. But if you wanted to create something that was extra special and you did something with backgrounds and all sorts of stuff, you could do a photo package as well. So again, everyone's different. Um, think about what's going to work for you and what's gonna work for your clients. Lots of ideas there. So, how to upsell without feeling pushy. And this is one thing people often think, oh, I can't sell, I'm not a salesperson. This is not about being a salesperson, this is simply just about asking questions, right? So um, you know, I think many pet pet sitters think that upselling means being salesy, but it doesn't because it's all about how you present it. So instead of asking clients directly if they want something or do you want this, you can say, um, you know, offer it as an optional upgrade. So instead of saying, Do you want to buy these enrichment toys, you say, oh, we offer optional enrichment packs during their style, which includes licky mats and puzzle toys. If you'd like to add that on, we're happy to do that. So again, you can see the difference rather than just going, do you want this? You'll position it in a way where you say, Hey, we offer these as well, in case you didn't know. Totally optional, but up to you if you'd like to do it or not, and give them the option. I have something that's called the Paul Refique menu that is on our website, but I have a link that I will share with people. So before they stay, when we're confirming all the details, I'll go, oh, and by the way, let me know if you want to order anything from the Paul Refique menu and we can just add that onto their stay. And you know, like you sometimes you're surprised by who takes that up and what they actually do. They might add on walks and meals and treats and so forth, which is great, right? It's extra for us and it's helping the owners um with something that they don't have to worry about either. So it doesn't need to be hard, okay? You just need to make them um make them aware that it actually exists because you've got to remember, they're not gonna know all the things that you do unless you've very clearly communicated that. Um, so you can do that through your booking form as well. So some of those things could be included in a booking form. As I said, we've got a special link that we link from our website. Um, and you can just you know list add-ons. So well, the enrichment pack is $10 and the the brush is $15 and the homemade dinner's $12 or you know, whatever it is, and they can click and order it. Um, make it easy for them. If you make it too hard, they won't do it. So let's talk about the impact that this can have on your income. So if we talk about the numbers, so imagine, okay, I'm just gonna pull some numbers out of the air, but imagine an average day is three nights, okay? If your client adds like a $10 enrichment pack, a dinner upgrade, and a freshen up, that could be say $37, $35 extra per booking. Multiply that by across 20 bookings a month, that's an extra $740 and extra revenue. Across a year, it's dealing $9,000 extra revenue. So you can see if you have a few of those, how that can quickly add up to being a lot of extra revenue over a month or a yearly period. Because you might not think, oh, $10, what's $10? But when you've got multiple people doing that each time they stay, or you know, like obviously multiple clients doing that, that quickly adds up and can add up to a lot of extra income for you. So what you don't need necessarily more dogs, more clients, and more advertising, you just need to increase the value of each of those bookings, and that's what we do with upselling. Okay, so where do you start if you haven't done it before? Now I get if you haven't done anything like this, it can feel a little bit overwhelming and a bit scary and go, oh my god, how do I do this? But take that step back and just go with those suggestions that I've given you. So whether it's a simple um order form that you create that you can email to them before their stay, whether you do something digital like what I have, which I'm with a menu where they can click on it, send through an order form. Um, but you know, just start simple and you don't have to all have this massive, big long menu of like 30 things. You can just have like a small number of things on there. Again, come back to what makes you feel comfortable to start with, okay? So start with, I would say, I would start with three options. So maybe something to do with enrichment, grooming, and maybe some sort of a food option, okay? Add them to your booking form or your website or your welcome guide, um, you know, wherever you've got those sorts of things. Mention them in your meet and greet as well and say, yep. Also, we've got other options like we can do meals and treats. And, you know, if you want to want to give them a bath before they go home, we can do that as well. You know, whatever it might be. Um, no pressure, just an option, just letting you know. So again, it's just a conversation, right? Just be relaxed and calm and casual about it, and that's going to make a huge difference. So the most successful dog businesses don't just sell a service, they create an experience, okay? We talk about our weekend porcation packages where they can drop off in the a.m., pick up in the PM, they get a special gourmet meal, they get pull time in the by the in the cabana, and we create this whole like experience for them. So, again, that's an upsell, okay? They're paying a little bit extra to get all these little um extra services. So their dog is having their own porcation while they're away as well. Okay, it's all in how you position it and brand it. Upsells are a way to enhance that experience, and when they're done properly, they improve the dog's stay, they delight the owner, they increase your income. And guess what? That's a win for everyone. Okay, that's it on upsells. Uh, if today's episode made you realize that your dog sitting business may be leaving money on the table, you're not alone. Start focusing on the base, um, not just on the base service price, but some of those upsells you can do. Because the magic happens when you start thinking like a business owner and designing a full experience around your service. So if you want more practical strategies like this to help you grow your dog sitting business, join the pause to profit program, which you'll find at pausedtoprofit.com.au. Now, a little note, this is the last episode in this series of the podcast because I'm going to be taking a hiatus to work on my positively spoilt podcast. Now, this is something that I do which focuses on helping owners raise a happy and healthy oodle. And then um, I'm also going to be playing in the next series of Pauls of Profits. So if you like the information that I share and you are a dog owner, then you can tune in to Positively Spoiled when we start that up. So make sure you go and follow along for that. Um, so be sure to also go back and listen to past episodes of the podcast in the meantime. We've built a whole bunch of stuff. There's been 25 episodes. 25. I can't believe we've got 25 in the bag. Um, but we've covered all sorts of topics from marketing to profiles to standing out to niching to pricing to you name it. There's probably an episode on it. So go back and listen to those in the meantime. Until our next series, please um, you know, keep building that business that gives you the freedom, the flexibility, and plenty of tail wags. Stay pawsome, and I will see you on the next series. Thank you for listening. Um, and that's all for me. Until next time. Thanks for tuning in to Pause to Profit. If you love what you heard and you want to take things further, I'd love to invite you to join the Pause to Profit program. It's a self-paced online course that shows you exactly how to turn puppy cuddles into profit. In just 90 days, you'll learn how to build a thriving dog sitting business with minimal upfront costs, maximum tailwagging fun, and the joy of doing something you truly love. This is the roadmap every aspiring or new dog sitter needs to go from simply surviving to absolutely thriving. You can get all the details at pausetoprofit.com.au. Until next time, have a positive day!