So You Want To Start A Pet-sitting Business - Now What?
There are many different issues to consider when you first decide you’d like to enjoy the freedom of making money pet sitting. First and foremost, it is very important not to underestimate the power of the name and branding of your pet care business.
As a general rule of thumb, the name you choose should be easy to remember and not too complex while still sending a significant message to potential customers. For example, calling your business something along the lines of “The Peaceful Pooch” sends the message that you cater mainly to dogs while a name such as “Fluent in Fish” will tend to attract those with koi garden ponds and indoor aquariums.
Steps to Claiming the Name of your Pet Care Business
The best ideas about my pet sitting service always come to me when I’m on the go, so when I was thinking about a pet sitting business issue like naming my business, I carried around a pocket notepad to capture something when it popped into my head. I highly recommend this process because it will give you a number of ideas to narrow down to your favorites.
Once you’ve decided on a few finalists, the best way to approach the next step of determining the availability of the names is to move from small to large. By this I mean the following:
• First, you’ll want to check with the county clerk to see if there is another pet sitting business in your county that currently has rights to the names.
• Second, you’ll want to move on to the Secretary of State to perform a statewide check on pet care business names.
• Finally, you can actually have your chosen business name trademarked by contacting the United States Patenting and Trademark Office.
You may not think it’s important to take that final step, but believe me, I know from personal experience that if you begin using a pet sitting business name that has been trademarked by another company, it can be not only inconvenient, but costly as well.
Pet Sitting Business – To Logo or Not to Logo
While it is not absolutely necessary for you to have a signature logo for your pet care business, it can be quite a valuable marketing and branding tool. There is something about the visual representation of a service or business that makes people think of something specific. For example, the “golden arches” could only mean McDonald’s and their distinctive Big Mac; your logo will automatically draw people’s attention to you and your pet sitting service!
John A. Corey is a full time pet sitter and author of Pet Sitting Success: The Critters Choice Way (www.howtobeapetsitter.net). His goal is to share the hands-on knowledge he has gained over the last 19 years, which makes it possible for others to avoid many of the common pitfalls nearly all pet sitting businesses experience while starting up and move on to achieving success.
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