DogCo Secrets

🎙️ Episode 130 – You Can’t Sell What You Can’t Staff One of the biggest growth constraints I see in pet care businesses isn’t marketing. It isn’t sales. It isn’t pricing. It’s staffing. In this episode, I explain why one of the most overlooked growth strategies is making sure your team grows slightly ahead of demand instead of constantly trying to catch up. It’s a mindset shift that can dramatical...

Most business owners spend a tremendous amount of time trying to generate more leads. I know I did. Looking back, one of the biggest mistakes I made in my own pet care business was overemphasizing new client acquisition while underestimating the power of retaining the incredible clients we already had. In this episode, I share one of the most important lessons I’ve learned since selling my pet car...

Holiday weekends can bring out two very different emotions for pet care business owners. For some, they’re exciting opportunities to serve more clients and generate meaningful revenue. For others, they can feel exhausting, overwhelming, and like another reminder of how much personal time the business demands. In this episode, I wanted to offer a little encouragement as we head into one of the busi...

Every business has constraints. The challenge is that most business owners spend their time trying to solve symptoms instead of identifying the one issue that’s actually limiting growth. In this episode, I explore one of the most difficult constraints to recognize because it’s also the most personal: the owner bottleneck. As businesses grow, there comes a point where the owner’s involvement can qu...

The words we use reveal more about what we believe than we often realize. In this episode, I share a moment that completely challenged the way I think about leadership, goal setting, and the mindset I bring into my own business. What started as a simple piece of feedback from a team member turned into one of the most significant personal leadership lessons I’ve had this year. We explore the subtle...

Most business owners spend a lot of time thinking about how to make more money. Far fewer spend time thinking about how to keep the profit they’ve already created. In this episode, I walk through some of the most practical strategies I use when helping pet care companies protect margin and improve profitability. This isn’t a conversation about lofty business principles or complicated financial the...

Most business owners don’t have a work ethic problem. They have an allocation problem. In this episode, I challenge you to take a hard look at where your time, money, energy, and attention are actually going, and whether those investments are producing a meaningful return.   We talk about the 80/20 Principle, the idea that a small percentage of your efforts are responsible for the majority of your...

Most business owners know that time is valuable. The challenge is that knowing time matters and actually managing it well are two very different things. In this episode, I break down three patterns I consistently see among high-performing business owners, leaders, and operators when it comes to how they structure, protect, and invest their time.   This conversation was inspired by a realization I’...

Firing someone is one of the hardest responsibilities that comes with leadership. In this episode, I tackle a topic most business owners would rather avoid and share my approach to handling employee terminations with as much clarity, dignity, and kindness as possible.   While I never take the decision to let someone go lightly, I do believe that protecting your business, your team, and your cultur...

What happens when a pet care business owner decides the industry doesn’t need another scheduling tool, it needs better growth tools? In this episode, I sit down with Jordy McNamara, founder of Critter, to talk about where pet care technology is headed, why marketing remains one of the biggest untapped opportunities in our industry, and how business owners can use automation without sacrificing the...

Most business owners assume employee turnover comes down to compensation. If people leave, they must have found a better-paying opportunity somewhere else. In this episode, I challenge that assumption. Drawing on insights from Joey Coleman’s research on employee retention, as well as my own experience building and leading a pet care company, I explore why pay is often a much smaller factor in rete...

In this episode, I’m reflecting on five beliefs that have fundamentally changed for me over the last five years as a business owner.   When I look back at who I was coming out of the pandemic, I see someone who was working hard, growing quickly, and learning constantly, but I also see someone who held very different assumptions about leadership, feedback, success, time, and personal growth. This c...

In this episode, I’m talking through one of the more difficult leadership situations that almost every growing business owner eventually faces - what to do when you have a genuinely good manager or team member whose performance starts slipping.   This is not a conversation about bad hires or obvious culture mismatches. This is about the harder and more nuanced situation where someone has already d...

In this episode, I’m getting very direct about three mindset patterns that I believe quietly keep business owners stuck: avoidance, learned helplessness, and the belief that working harder is always the answer. I recorded this conversation because I genuinely want to see people win this year, and sometimes the most important shifts are not tactical, they’re mental. The way we think about difficult...

In this episode, I’m talking about something I’ve been thinking about a lot this year, my identity as a business owner and the role my company actually needs me to play right now.   One of the biggest mistakes I see entrepreneurs make is assuming their role should stay static as the business grows. But different stages of business require different versions of leadership, and part of growth is lea...

In this episode, I sit down with Rachel Bowers for one of the most honest conversations we’ve had on the podcast about the realities of scaling a pet care business.   Rachel built Brooklyn Bark from a solo dog walking business into a large-scale New York City operation handling hundreds of visits per day, and this conversation goes far beyond growth tactics. We talk about what scaling actually fee...

In this episode, I’m breaking down three very practical reasons why potential clients may be choosing another pet care company instead of yours, and more importantly, what you can do about it.   Most business owners immediately assume the issue is pricing, competition, or market saturation. But in many cases, the problem is much simpler and much more fixable. I walk through the three areas I would...

What if the biggest growth opportunity in your business this year isn’t more leads, but keeping the people you already have, both your clients and your team? In this conversation with bestselling author Joey Coleman, we dive deep into client retention, employee retention, customer experience, AI, automation, relationship-building, and what actually creates loyalty in 2026. This episode originally...

In this episode, I’m breaking down the three pieces of software I would use if I had to run a pet care business as simply and effectively as possible. There are a lot of tools out there, and it’s easy to overcomplicate your tech stack. But if your goal is to grow and scale, you don’t need everything, you need the right things working together.   I walk through the three core systems I believe are...

In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain a bit and sharing four assumptions I made coming into 2026 that either weren’t correct or should have been on my radar earlier. This year has already forced a lot of growth for me, and I’m realizing that some of the biggest lessons aren’t about what’s working, they’re about what I missed.   I walk through everything from the identity shift required whe...

In this episode, I’m sharing one of the more controversial strategies I’ve used in my business, and one that had a direct impact on increasing take-home pay for my team. As a business owner, there are real limits to how much you can increase wages without putting pressure on your margins. I ran into that ceiling myself, and instead of pushing further on hourly pay, I started asking a different que...

In this episode, I’m breaking down when it actually makes sense to invest in your business, and when it doesn’t. I’m very pro-investment, but there is nuance, and knowing the difference is what allows you to grow strategically instead of reactively.   I walk through three scenarios where investing tends to make sense, including when you see a clear return, when you’re solving a specific skill gap,...

In this episode, I’m breaking down my top three takeaways from my recent conversation with Steve Beck, and why I think they matter so much for how you lead your business right now. The biggest one is this, avoiding hard conversations is often the real bottleneck in your business. Not operations, not marketing, not lead flow, but the things you know need to be addressed and haven’t.   I also talk a...

In this episode, I’m joined by Steve Beck: someone I’ve known for a long time and someone whose work has become incredibly relevant for the clients I serve today. We talk about one of the most overlooked challenges in growing a team, navigating people, conflict, and communication in a way that actually moves the business forward.   If you’ve ever felt like your business got harder as you added mor...

In this episode, I’m sharing a simple rule we use at DogCo that has had a significant impact on how our team operates: if you have feedback to give, give it within 24 hours. Most issues inside a team aren’t big at the start, they become big because no one addressed them early. They are often a result of avoided conversations, delayed feedback, and an attempt to keep things comfortable in the momen...