How to start a dog walking business

You need to assess your local dog walking business landscape, develop a dog walking business plan, and market your dog walking business in order to start a dog walking business. For more details on the steps you can take to start a dog-walking business, reference this guide:

• Assess your local dog-walking business landscape. Before taking any steps to start your dog walking business, you should first do some research on the dog walking businesses that already exist in your area.

  You want to be sure there is enough of a demand in your community for a new dog walking business or if your area happens to have a lot of dog walking businesses already. If you live in a large metro area, it is likely that your dog-walking business will succeed fairly easily, even if there are many already operating.

  Those in smaller communities can have a tougher time if there are already many dog-walking services; however, if your town is lacking, you can take full advantage of this missing enterprise.

  Doing this research is also critical in terms of how you should market your business and how much you should charge your clientele. Since you are starting a new business, you may want to charge under your community's market rate at first in order to gain more clients.

  All services that are in high demand and have more customers than providers can seek to charge higher fees for their services. This is no different when it comes to a dog-walking business.

  It is important to assess your local landscape and do the proper research to determine if you can start a profitable dog-walking business.

• Develop a dog-walking business plan. All successful businesses start with a business plan. Even though dog walking is a fairly simple business, it is still highly recommended that you craft a comprehensive business plan.

  Creating a business plan provides you with a strong framework for your business to follow. This improves how you strategize and market your dog walking business and is crucial to getting your business off the ground and having it flourish in its early stages.

  Writing a business plan is not all that complicated. It should contain a clear illustration of what you want your business to be and a sense of what competition you will face in this market.

  You also need to develop organizational plans for your business, especially if you plan on hiring additional dog walkers or any sort of administrative staff.

  Another addition to your business plan should be what services you will offer. Clearly, you are going to offer dog walking, but perhaps, in addition, you might want to offer services like dog sitting, dog boarding, or even dog training.

  Additional services and specialties can help your business stand apart from others. You also create new revenue streams when you provide additional dog services.

  Business plans should always contain your marketing strategy. This applies to how you will make your services known to customers, and we'll cover more on this in the next step.

  Finally, a business plan should have financial projections for your dog-walking business. This includes the cost of your services, as well as the costs of your overhead, like equipment, employees, etc. You should also try to come to an expected revenue number. This number should reflect the amount of money that makes your business sustainable and profitable.

• Market your dog walking business. Marketing is a critical component of any business and this holds true even with a dog-walking business. You might be able to get a few clients that are dog owners and are friends or acquaintances of yours, but you need to find a way to reach larger groups of possible clients.

  It should also be mentioned here that you need to pick a name for your business. Try to make it short, clever, dog-related, and memorable.

  The great news is that marketing a dog-walking business is not very expensive. You can do this by creating flyers with your business's contact information and placing them around your community.

  You should be sure to put up fliers in places like parks, community centers, and of course dog parks. You might also see if local vets or pet supply stores will let you put up fliers in their businesses. The more exposure you have to dog owners, the better.

  In the modern world, social media is a critical marketing tool. You should create social media accounts for your dog-walking business and try to gain friends and followers. You can post about your services and pricing and show actual pictures of your services in action, as long as your clients don't mind their pups being displayed on social media.

  Similarly, you should also develop a website for your dog-walking business. This is relatively inexpensive, and if you have some extra cash, you can hire a professional to do a stellar website for your business.

  You should have your pricing and contact information, as well as things like customer testimonies about your services on it. Make sure your social media business accounts link to your website and vice versa.

  One of the best forms of marketing for a dog walking business is word of mouth. Here you don't actually have to do much of the marketing at all; just simply provide very good dog-walking services and ask your clients to recommend you to their friends and neighbors.

  Many dog owners are quite particular about who they allow to take care of their pets, so if an existing customer can vouch for your services, you'll likely have no problem obtaining clients. You can also incentivize your clients to make recommendations by offering them perks, like free dog walks.