Episode 123: Solving The Hiring Problem In Your Pet Business

Abbie Hawkins is the Senior Channel Account Manager for JazzHR, the best hiring software in the pet industry. Listen in to see how over 60 pet sitting companies are turning their "I don't have anyone to hire" problem into "I have too many qualified applicants to sift through" This is a great episode you will want to hear! Biggest Takeaway You Don't Want To Miss The two problems you will always be solving in your pet sitting or dog walking company is getting more clients and getting more staff. By having a consistent, on-going hiring funnel, we can solve the problem of staffing once and for all. By always having an abundance of staff that are able to step in at any moment's notice, you are preventing yourself from being held hostage in your business. Hiring isn't a means to an end - it is an on-going process! Show Highlights How do we change the mindset from hiring one person to having an actual hiring funnel? [5:00] What happens if you don't have the right amount of staff? [6:45] How does JazzHR solve the hiring problem on a global scale? [8:00] What are some tips to having a strong hiring ad? [11:00] Can you describe what a knockout question is? [14:00] What are some sample hiring flows you've seen in other businesses? [18:00] How do I proceed when I have resignations and new positions to fill? [18:45] Any suggestions to bring in more applicants? [23:00] Links: Jump & Scale: jumpconsulting.net/scale JazzHR: http://info.jazzhr.com/jump-consulting.html Share The Show: Did you enjoy the show? We would love it if you subscribed today and left us a 5-star review! Click this link – Bella In Your Business Click on the ‘Subscribe’ button below the artwork Go to the ‘Ratings and Reviews’ section Click on ‘Write a Review’ Transcript: This is episode 123 of Bella in Your Business. Do you feel like your business is going around on a merry-go-round? Well, I’ve got news for you. This episode is sponsored by my incredible webinar series called Jump and Scale. It gets you off that merry-go-round and up to the next level in your business. It’s called Jump and Scale and it’s free for you right now. Just go ahead and sign up at jumpconsulting.net/scale. You will learn how to grow your business, increase your staff, and not be held hostage to business. So go ahead, sign up for free. That’s jumpconsulting.net/scale. I’ll see you inside. Welcome to Bella in Your Business, where Bella will discuss anything and everything about your pet sitting business to help you land on target. So get ready, Bella’s got your chute. Let’s jump. Welcome everybody to Bella in Your Business. My name is Bella Vasta from Jump Consulting, and today I have one of my virtual friends with me. I call this girlfriend because friends look out for each other, and for the past three months, she’s not only looked out for me but for 57 of you—I think that’s the number, or 54, I can’t remember because it grows all the time. My guest today is Abby Hawkins from JazzHR. Abby, how are you? Abby: Great. Thanks for having me today, Bella. Bella: Absolutely. So we are actually recording this on a Facebook Live, but it will become a podcast. I really just wanted to talk about all these woes because there are two things that I tell everyone in our community they’re always going to have to solve, and that’s getting more clients and getting more employees. If we can at least solve 50% of those problems, it would open up our life and our time and our energy to so much more. Forever, what we’ve had to do is post on Craigslist every week or post on Indeed and then sift through things. So I want to first start talking about what you see happen to businesses if they can’t find someone to hire. I imagine that all the people that you start talking with are kind of at that breaking point, right? Abby: Absolutely. When you can’t hire, tasks pile up. You have way too much work to do. You don’t have time for the real heart of your business, and it puts a strain on others in your organization as well. Bella: 100%. Not to mention, you’re not there for your family or yourself. You might be out there in the field doing more work than you actually need to be doing, going through drive-thru every day. It’s very stressful. Can I get an amen in the comments or a thumbs up if that has ever been you listening right now? So how complicated can things get? I posted on Indeed for a videographer once, and I was overwhelmed with all these applications—I probably got about 47 of them. Abby, I didn’t have the time to go through them. It almost gave me a whole other problem. How do you see people sift through all those applications? Abby: People come to us with a variety of different methods. Oftentimes, we see people are coming to us from Indeed, Craigslist, a variety of different sources, and they’re having to sift through all those job sites to find that qualified applicant—logging into Indeed, going into their email inbox, things like that. Having one centralized location where they can find all their candidates and sift through them really helps. Bella: Yeah, for sure. I remember when I had my pet sitting company, it’s like you’re working on an email reply to someone, and then you get something that dings and says “applicant received” or something like that. You get excited because you really need an employee and you’re just praying this is your next best thing. Then you get let down. It’s kind of like 50 bad first dates. It’s depressing and distracting. I try to encourage people not to be in bondage to their business or held hostage. If you and I were working together and you quit tomorrow, I would not want to be in a position where I’d have to be in the field or it would change my whole life just because you decided to quit. I always want to be in abundance of helpers or workers so I never have to feel that way. Can you talk about changing the mindset from “I want to hire one person” to “building a funnel or pool of people”? Abby: Having that candidate database you can pull from at a moment’s notice is really important. Funneling from all these different places—Indeed, Facebook, Craigslist—and having them all in one centralized location that you can go back to and build rapport with those individuals, even if you don’t have a job available right then, allows you to go back to them when a position comes up. It ensures you never have a backlog. Bella: That makes so much sense because it’s easy to lose track if they’re jumbled in your email or operations. Then you’re like, “Shoot, there was this one person, I forget her name.” Being able to have that candidate database that you can turn to is really important. Like I said, the biggest thing is to solve problems systematically. Getting more clients is easier because it’s what we start doing from the beginning, but it’s the hiring and staff support that’s harder. Abby: Sure. You can have a million clients, but if you don’t have the employees to help, your business won’t thrive. Having candidates lined up, ready to go, is essential. Bella: I hear a lot of the time, “I hate hiring,” or “I can’t trust anybody,” or “I was burnt before.” Then they become a slave to their business. They’re working seven days a week, 365 days a year. They don’t have friends or holidays. I want everyone listening to imagine never having to go through the agony of finding quality candidates again. Abby has helped solve this for so many. Why don’t you explain how you help solve this problem on a global scale? Abby: JazzHR helps better manage your candidate pipeline and streamline your hiring process. We send your job posts to Indeed, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, Google Jobs, Facebook, all the big names. You quickly start seeing those candidates come into the system. One great thing about JazzHR partnering with you is that we’ve created knockout or disqualifying questions—if a candidate doesn’t meet criteria, you don’t even have to look at their application. Bella: That’s definitely helpful. And the feedback I’ve gotten—there are three different plans, and you’ve made the middle plan incredibly affordable. I asked JazzHR to include my fun advertisement template for a dog walker or pet sitter, which you load into their account, plus a list of knockout questions they can customize. And you can see which hiring ads perform best—something you can’t easily do on Craigslist or Indeed. What are some of your tips to make a good hiring ad? Abby: Include testimonials from current employees, incentives, or perks. Be clear about your job description—if it’s weekends, note that. Make sure your job title is attention-grabbing but still qualifies for the free job boards. Our quality team reviews every posting to ensure it performs well. Bella: That’s what I love—JazzHR works for you and knows what will perform. You can post unlimited jobs within several accounts and test which job title performs best. Back when I was using Craigslist, it was $25 per posting. It was expensive and redundant. Now, having a dashboard with all applicants in one place is game-changing. Let’s talk about knockout questions. Abby: A knockout question disqualifies candidates who don’t meet your criteria. Maybe you’re looking for someone with two to three years of pet sitting experience. If they select “zero,” they’re flagged, and you can set up an automated polite rejection email. You can even schedule it to send later. Bella: Some people get mad about rejection emails, and others get mad if you don’t reply—it’s tricky. But it’s good to have a policy. Make it clear if you’ll reply to everyone or only to certain applicants so your team follows a consistent system. Let’s talk about vetting with a team. Some users have multiple team members who can all log into the portal, assign tasks, and move candidates through stages. That’s powerful. Abby: Yes, you can assign tasks and emails so everyone knows their part in the process.