

THE PROFESSIONAL POOPER-SCOOPER  
How to Start Your Own Low-Cost, High-Profit  
Dog Waste Removal Service

21st Century Ebook Edition

By Matthew Osborn

Copyright 2014 Matthew Osborn

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY MATERIAL

Foreword to the 21st Century Ebook Edition. 25 Years as a "Doo-Doo Guru." How I became a Professional Pooper-Scooper. 15 Perennial Profit Principles. Overview of the Pooper-Scooper Business. Why People Hire Dog Waste Removal Services. The Need is Real and Growing. History and Outlook for Dog Waste Removal Business

GETTING STARTED

Your Mission Statement. Setting Up for Business. Business Licenses, Taxes, Etc.

MARKETING MATTERS

Consistency is Key. Some Thoughts on Attitude. Online Directories. Classified Ads. Publicity and Public Relations. Your Web Site and Social Media. Business Cards. Fliers. Direct Mail. Vehicle Signage. Yellow Pages. Customer Referrals and Word-of-Mouth. Gift Certificates. Trade Name. Pricing. Best Times for Ads. Ad Tracking. Demographics and Customer Survey Data

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

Scoops. Rakes. Shovels. Plastic Bags. Sprayers and Disinfectant

WORKING TECHNIQUES: WHERE THE POOP MEETS THE SCOOP

Search Patterns. Fences, Gates, and Locks. Different Strokes. Weather Conditions Working Around Dogs. Normal Barking or Danger? Pepper Spray? Dog Treats? Health Signs in Dog Stool. Cleaning Up After Animals Other than Dogs. Waste Disposal.

YOUR BUSINESS ON WHEELS

Humble Beginnings; Can't Afford a Truck? Home Based, With an Off-Site Garage. How to Buy a Used Vehicle. Rules of the Road. What to Carry in the Vehicle.

OFFICE OPERATIONS

Set the Boundaries of Your Service Area. Scheduling. Getting Paid. Mailing Services, Credit Cards and Online Payments. Late Pays, Collections, and Bad Debts. Using Your Computer. Customer Worksheets. A Pencil and Paper System. Customer Worksheets. Software.

CUSTOMER COMMUNICATIONS

Keep in Touch. "Under-Promise and Over-Deliver." Cell Phones, Call Forwarding, and Voice Mail. Customer Newsletters. Dog Out/Lock Out Notes. New Customer Welcome Letter. Customer Sign-up Form

HIRING HELP

Working Solo. The Decision to Be an Employer. Using a Payroll Service. Wages. Training. Using a Payroll Service. Consult a Professional.

INSURANCE

Why You Need it, and Where to get it.

APARTMENT COMPLEXES AND CONDO ASSOCIATIONS:

It's More Work, But Worth it. A Potential Profit Center for Property Managers. Pricing Can be Tricky. Not the Same as Single-Family Work. Sometimes You Just Have to Try Something Different.

MORE RESOURCES TO HELP YOUR BUSINESS

Pooper-Scooper.com. S.C.O.R.E. Your State Government. Useful Websites. Classic Books for Entrepreneurs.

AFTERWORD and AUTHOR CONTACT INFORMATION

**FOREWORD TO THE THE 21ST CENTURY EBOOK EDITION**

I have been involved in the professional pooper-scooper service industry for over 25 years. I was one of the first handful of people who established, built, and ran a successful dog waste removal service. I sold that business after 10 years of solid growth, and it continues to thrive to this day under the capable leadership of it's new owner.

In the years since I sold that operation, I have established The Pooper-Scooper Business Information Website, Pooper-Scooper.com. That's where I maintain The International Directory of Dog Waste Removal Services, where dog owners go to find a service to help them keep their yards clean. The site also includes the Scoopers & Friends Discussion board, where it has been my pleasure and privilege to read and be involved in online discussions with successful scoopers for more than 15 years.

The original version of this book was the first of its kind, the book that got the whole thing rolling, the manual covered in news stories in different countries and continents, and earned me the unofficial title of "America's DooDoo Guru."

You see, back when I started this crazy adventure, I knew that the unusual nature of the business would help me obtain publicity for my new little business. I needed all the help I could get because I had very nearly no money to get started. Over the years news stories spread far and wide, and I began to get requests for information from all over the country, from people who wanted to know how to start a dog poop scooping business of their own. In time, I had so many requests that I wrote this book about how to do it.

Technology has changed since that first version of the world's first pooper-scooper business manual. Tools changed a bit, as evidenced by the great "rake vs shovel debate" that raged on in the scoopers' discussion board a few years back. Communication and record-keeping technology has improved in ways we didn't even think about back then. Among those new technologies are GPS navigation systems, cell phone texting, maps and weather radar images on smart phones that fit in our pockets, and the ability to link directly from pages on an electronic device to resources on the Internet. I have included such links in this ebook to help you find even more useful information. Those links will appear in a different color of text on most devices, and they will be underlined. The live links in this book will look like this sentence, which links to my website at Pooper-Scooper.com.
  1. 25 Years as a "Doo-Doo Guru"

February, 2013 -- I made a business out of picking it up for 10 years, and I have spent the last 15 years helping others do the same. The "it," in this case, is dog poop.

It was February of 1988 when I first started my dog waste cleanup service. With almost no money, I was holding down two jobs to support a wife, a 3-year old daughter, and a baby on the way. Some people called me crazy. Danny Russell, an editor for Suburban News Papers, called me an "ideas man" and wrote, "He would be wasted on anyplace but the land of opportunity."

At times I would encounter odd requests - yes, even odder than my usual business. Besides cleaning up after pet dogs in back yards and apartment complexes, I strayed into cleaning up after geese, cats, a horse, and even some monkeys. When an employee balked at a request to "take care of" a 55 gallon drum of dog waste and rainwater that a prospective customer had been accumulating for some years, I went ahead and took the job, saying "I wanted to be known as the service that would take care of this kind of problem. If they couldn't call us to do it, who could they call?"

Over ten years I built the business from a mere idea into a successful enterprise, serving hundreds of clients each week. I hired several employees to drive a fleet of pickup trucks around the county, cleaning up and disposing of literally tons of dog waste every month. People began hearing about it far from Ohio, and I was receiving telephone calls from people across the country, asking me how to get into the business for themselves. To meet the demand for these requests, I wrote this how-to manual.

1n 1998 I sold the scooping service for over $200,000, and I published the first edition of this book, "The Professional Pooper-Scooper: How to Start Your Own Low-Cost, High-Profit Dog Waste Removal Service." A year later I was dubbed "America's doo-doo guru" in the book "Nice Job! The Guide to Cool, Odd, Risky and Gruesome Ways to Make a Living," (Lookout Media, Ten-Speed Press).

I gained attention from far and wide. I was featured in an article on the front page of the Los Angeles Times, I did an interview by telephone with the BBC in London, and there was a story about me in a German newspaper. There were many other newspaper articles and radio shows that mentioned this business, too. In 2001 Scott Simon, host of NPR's Weekend Edition, compared me (even if slightly tongue-in-cheek) to Thomas Edison and called me "... a visionary, a magnate... a prophet \-- at least he succeeded in turning a profit in the pet waste removal business."

As I have sold this book over the years, I have found it very gratifying when people tell me how their lives have changed because of all this. People like the woman who was living in her car and built a successful business because of this, or another woman who told me that she hadn't been able to find a job but was able to do this business to provide for her family, and even buy a home and put her daughter through college. It feels really good to hear those stories. Really, really good

In keeping with my own advice to all hopeful entrepreneurs to "provide something of value," I run a free Scoopers & Friends forum on my website at Pooper-Scooper.com. It's a space where people currently in the business, and those thinking about getting into it, discuss the common issues of small enterprises as well as the unique problems of this peculiar occupation, including the (now somewhat-settled) rake-versus-shovel controversy and the occasional query about cleaning cat boxes on the side. There's also a directory of scoopers on the website, where scoopers advertise to dog owners and apartment managers looking for services to clean up after dogs.
  2. How I Became a Professional Pooper-Scooper

Way back in the 20th Century - in February of 1988, to be exact - I started PET BUTLER dog waste removal service in Columbus, Ohio. The idea was virtually unheard of at the time, and there were probably no more than two or three businesses like it in the whole United States.

I had recently run out of time on the old GI Bill and didn't have the money to continue going to school, so I had dropped out of college. I had a small and growing family to support. We lived in a little upstairs apartment and I was working two full-time jobs just trying to keep our heads above water.

But I wasn't about to let circumstances control my fate!

I've always been interested in new and different ideas, especially ideas about making money. Even as a kid I had my little moneymaking projects, like picking wild berries in the woods, putting on a magic shows in my parents garage, collecting pop bottles for the two cents deposit on them. What with organizing my own little neighborhood pet shows, running lemonade stands, and a newspaper route, I managed to keep myself occupied and provide myself with spending money for the summers.

Along with that seemingly inborn entrepreneurial drive, I also enjoyed doing things that were just a bit out of the ordinary. After spending four years serving in the U.S. Coast Guard, I took an interest in hot air ballooning. Some people thought I was nuts for wanting to fly in a hot-air balloon, but I managed to find a young balloonist and volunteered to help him out, just be be around the action. Eventually we became friends and I was promoted to crew leader and flew many times.

Then one day, without warning, I learned that my ballooning friend had been killed in a tragic accident while flying. That was a shocking emotional blow, and I sat down in a chair in my living room throughout the rest of the day, all through the night, and into the next day, trying to figure out some way of understanding life that could help me make sense of it. In those hours, sitting there in that chair, I figured out that what made life make sense was doing what really made sense to you, striving toward creating your own reality. My friend had so much promise, so much to offer the world, and he was living life in pursuit of the dreams, visions, and goals he set for himself, and that's what made life worthwhile. He was doing what he truly loved.

I realized then that I couldn't go through life trying to fulfill other people's ideas of what life should be. If my own life was going to be worthwhile, I had to go start building a reality aimed at making my own dreams come true.

I had always dreamed of living on a tropical island, so I quit my job at the post office and moved to Hawaii, were I learned to live literally on the beach, spearing fish and cooking them over a campfire, hiking through guava forests, eating wild fruit and coconuts. I listened to the sound of the waves, watched the most gorgeous and inspiring sunsets in the world, and every now and then I would giggle at the memory of all the discouraging talk I had heard from people who said it was impossible to live life the way I wanted.

It was kind of like starting from scratch - a life reboot, you might say. Beginning from such a basic place, sleeping on the ground under a tarp, gathering wild food, I no longer felt trapped in the rat race. I was out of it. I shed that desperate feeling of being compelled by circumstances around me and driven by a society I didn't understand to perform acts I didn't want to do to achieve goals I had no part in setting.

I began to see that what makes a society what it is are mutual exchanges that benefit all parties concerned. I traded fish with a man who owned a boat; he had fish that came from the deep sea, and I had octopus and reef fish. I could now understand that when each of us specializes in tasks or services according to our own tastes, values and inclinations, then we can each be more productive and in turn exchange the fruits of our labors with others who specialize in things that we might not be so good at or that we might prefer not to do. Cooperating in this way, we all get much more than any of us could ever produce on our own.

Now as it happened, I did not move to Hawaii all alone. A girl friend went with me, and while we were there we were married. As nature took its course, several months after we started living on the beach we found out that we were going to become parents. That's when we decided to move back to the city and live in houses again.

So I was starting over from scratch again, and this time with a baby. I was grateful to take two or three low-paying jobs at the same time just to try to avoid disaster. I was willing to work long and hard, all while constantly thinking about finding some way to improve my financial condition.

Still, the first time I heard about the idea of cleaning up after people's dogs for a weekly fee, I just laughed -- I had to! It was funny! Going around cleaning up after people's dogs for money?? But I couldn't get it out of my mind. The more I thought of it, the more sense it made. I mean, here was a job that obviously has to be done, and just as obviously, there are an awful lot of people who very strongly would prefer not to do it themselves!.

The more I looked around in my city and took note of the problem, the more I thought about the idea, and the more convinced I became that this was truly a need that was not being met. As the old saying goes,: "Find a need and fill it." OK, then, I had found a need, now I just had to figure out how to fill that need.

I spent the Winter of 1987-1988 researching, studying, and planning. Remember, that was before the Internet, so I would go to the local libraries every whenever I could make some time between the two full-time jobs I was working (making less than $6 an hour at each of them), to study the demographics and census data for my city and county. I looked up information about the pet industry. I called the office responsible for issuing dog licenses, and found out that there were more than 100,000 dogs within 15 miles of my apartment.

With a hundred thousand dogs near me I wouldn't have to have even one percent of them in order to have enough customers to dramatically improve my life! I studied ways to scoop large quantities in the shortest time. I practiced with different tools, using crumpled up paper and stones as "simulated dog waste" to try to figure out how long it would take to clean a yard.

I didn't even have a car that winter. How vividly I remember walking through the snow to catch the bus for work, and saying to myself, "Someday I'm not going to have to do this anymore!"

You know that feeling when you are sure that an idea is going to work, and you just know that somebody is going to do it? I've felt that many times, but I never had the capital to take advantage of those ideas. But this time I had hold of an idea that I KNEW was going to take off, and it was not going to take much money to make it happen!

I was forced by circumstances to start very slowly. In the first month of the business, I spent a total of about $150 for tools, fliers, cards, and a couple of very small classified ads in the local newspaper. $150 might not seem like much money to you, but for me back in those days, it was a huge risk. I could not afford to fail!

Using free publicity, (as I explain in the manual that follows), I got some customers right off the bat. I made my initial investment back, plus profit, after just a couple of weeks. Now there's a Return on Investment that really means something! And after that, it was all about bootstrapping: using the money generated by the business to keep the business going and growing.

I had a lot to learn, and almost no money to spend. But little by little, constant improvements began to add up. Step by step, my little business was making customers happy and getting bigger. After a while I had to quit one of my regular jobs to keep up with it. And eventually I was able to quit regular jobs altogether.

You won't be surprised to learn that I didn't have a very good car in those days. I had to start with the old clunker that was my regular car, and would carry away the customers' dog waste in trash bags in the trunk. As if that weren't rough enough, even that old car died shortly after I started my business! So I made an arrangement with a friend of mine: I would sign up clients and give my friend the list of addresses where the yards were to be cleaned up. He would go to the yards and scoop the poop, and we would split the money. And that worked until I generated enough money that I could buy an old used car - and by that time my buddy decided he didn't want to do the job any more anyway. And in a few more months I was able to buy a second used car that I could dedicate solely to business use. That first vehicle was an old Honda Civic, for which I paid $300 in cash. I no longer had to share the car between business and family use, and I could paint sign age on it to increase business. And all the while my customer list gradually kept growing.

Over time, I began hiring employees when I couldn't do all the work by myself. When I had several people working for me I hired someone whom I knew could become a good manager. After a few years that person was able to take over more and more of the daily operation of the business.

The service outgrew the home office and I became an employer of 7 workers, with a fleet of 6 pickup trucks -- serving between 650 and 700 regular weekly customers. I was making a personal income higher than I had ever made in my life, and was able to spend a lot of time with my children, traveling and doing the things I enjoy.

After ten years of successful growth in this business that so many people had told me would never work, I felt it was time to move on to new projects. I had accomplished what I set out to do: Out of my ideas, study, vision, dreams, and an awful lot of hard work, I had created a real business, with hard assets and a tremendous amount of goodwill among my large list of customers.

For me it was time to focus on some new ideas. I sold the pooper-scooper business for $219,500.00, to my manager, who continues to improve the business and serve the customers well.

One of the greatest feelings I've ever had is to complete a project that I knew could work while just about everybody around me laughed at the idea. For me it is a terrific source of satisfaction to create a new reality out of what started as nothing but an idea; to solve problems and make things happen.

Over the years I've had so many requests for information about this business that I finally put it all down on paper. It is complete with details about operations, office procedures, and actual samples of successful marketing materials. It is a distillation of a decade of experience, starting from almost nothing and building a successful, thriving, well-liked and PROFITABLE dog waste removal service business.

If you think you might find opportunity in filling an unmet need in your community by opening your own dog waste removal service business, you'll find my startup manual is a down-to-earth and practical tool to speed your success and increase your satisfaction.

If you're the kind of person who likes to make things happen rather than just take whatever comes along in life, I wish you great success.

With my most sincere best wishes,

MATTHEW

15 Perennial Profit Principles

We can spend a lifetime learning about business; there's always more to learn. Techniques and methods are constantly changing, new social trends can be as fluid as rivers and change their courses and boundaries suddenly or gradually over time. But I believe that there are certain basic principles of business that will continue to be of infinite value to all business people both now and into the future, just as they have been in the past. These principles can be the subject of much study and thought. It might be possible to write whole books devoted exclusively to each one of them. Still, the basic themes can be summed up in just a few words to the wise. These ideas, taken to heart and applied earnestly in any enterprise can, I believe, be enduring guides to profitable, successful projects and careers.

1. Business is service.

The " ...fundamentals are all summed up in the single word 'service'..." -- Henry Ford , Moving Forward," 1930. As Zig Ziglar puts it, "You can get anything you want out of this life if you will just help enough other people get what they want." All business transactions take place because both sides are convinced they are getting something they want: a problem solved, a need met, a desire fulfilled. Not many are going to buy from you just to make you happy. But if you can make them happy, you will find many buyers.

2. Know your stuff.

Read, learn, and practice; be the expert on your business. Don't pretend to know what you don't, and don't be afraid to admit not knowing everything. But know as much as you can about your business. Read books and magazines, watch programs, and search the web for facts about your field, your competitors, your customers, and the past, present and future of your business.

3. Do what you say.

This single principle, put into action, will put you ahead of most. If you can't deliver what a prospect wants, don't say you can. If you have a money-back guarantee, refund a customer's money promptly and courteously if she asks for it. If you don't do what you say you will do, people won't trust your offer, no matter how good your product and price may sound.

4. Under promise and over deliver.

It's always better to be pleasantly surprised than to be disappointed. When the candy seller starts out with a little candy on the scale and adds more until the weight is right, the customer thinks "He adds more!" Another seller may start out with a big pile and take candy away until the weight is right. Then the buyer thinks "She takes candy away." In both cases, the end result is the same amount of candy, but the customer's feelings of satisfaction may be profoundly different. If you create expectations greater than you can fulfill, your customers will be unsatisfied. Try to exceed the customer's expectations, and this is easier if you don't promise more than you can really do in the first place.

5. Have a "Customer First" attitude.

Always ask yourself: "What's best for my customers?" Sometimes you'll have to make a conscious effort to make this question a part of your daily business decisions. This is one of those things that is much easier to say than to actually do.

6. Communicate.

Don't leave clients, prospects or associates with a feeling of worry or uncertainty. Even if you don't have the answer they want right away, tell them that you don't have the answer but that you will get back in touch at a certain time -- and then do that. A customer will excuse a missed service call if she knows that your truck broke down and you'll be there the next day. If you simply don't call, she'll be angry with you not keeping your word. This goes for employees, associates, suppliers and everyone else that you deal with in your business. Everybody feels better when they know what's going on.

7. Get help when it means better results.

Hire people who do their assigned tasks better than you do them. Use outside services like payroll accounting, mailing services, marketing firms, etc., if they can do a job better. Frequently you'll find that using a pro is actually cheaper than doing it yourself.

8. Focus on the mission.

As your business progresses, you will begin to see all kinds of possible additions to your lines. But don't lose sight of your main objectives. It's easy to let some of these projects draw your attention away from your basic business; you could end up expending more time, effort and money while getting a smaller return.

9. Stay alert; innovate, improvise, work around.

So your plans for the day didn't work out the way you had counted on. Don't let that stop your whole day from being successful -- work around the obstacles in your path. Don't let problems stop your progress, overcome them. If one door is locked, look for another. If your car won't start, take a bus or a cab to your appointment.

10. Price right.

The wrong price can seriously hurt your success. A price that's too low can be even worse than one that's too high if it prevents you from having the resources to provide the best service to your customers. A good profit can help keep you motivated through the tough and discouraging times that come to all businesses. Your prices will have to pay for: rent, utilities, repairs, insurance, outside services, taxes, licenses, registrations, back-up resources, advertising, supplies, tools, equipment, replacements for equipment, postage, phones, pagers, fuel and everything else that makes it possible for you to serve your customer. There will be unexpected costs and uncollected billings; your prices will have to cover all of that. A very low price might even cause prospects to doubt the quality of your offer. Read about pricing, learn to test prices, and make pricing a part of your overall business strategy and marketing position.

11. Give a little.

Sure, you have to keep an eye on the bottom line, but you don't have to make a profit on every single thing you ever do in your life. Give full measure, pressed down, heaped up and overflowing. It'll be a better world for everybody. A little good will here and there can go a long way towards a greater business overall.

12. Cut costs as you raise quality.

I guess it comes down to not wasting assets. Don't buy what you don't need or can't afford, but get top quality when you can. Spending a little more up front can mean fewer repairs or replacements, thus decreasing your expenses in the long run.

13. Make an offer.

Do something! After all the thinking and planning, and reading, and number crunching -- you eventually have to actually offer to sell somebody your product or service. Tell people what you do or provide, and ask for their business. Get an order, deliver the goods, and get paid. Then you'll be in business.

14. Make continuous improvements.

Little by little, small improvements add up over time. You may not be able to make your business perfect, but if you continuously make it better as you go along you may be amazed at the results. Remember the old self-improvement motto, "Every day in every way I am getting better and better"? Apply the same idea to your business and soon you'll be far ahead of where you are now. The time going to pass anyway, you might as well put it to good use.

15. Hang in there; be persistent.

"Press On: Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." -- Ray Kroc, "Grinding it Out"

OVERVIEW OF THE POOPER-SCOOPER BUSINESS

It is estimated that there are about 75 million pet dogs in the United States, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (http://www.aspca.org/about-us/faq/pet-statistics). The American Pet Products Manufacturers Association reports that pet owners spend well over 4 billion dollars a year on services for their companion animals. That number continues to increase from year to year (http://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp).

People certainly love their dogs; sometimes even more than they like other people! But there is one thing about owning and caring for a dogs that nobody likes: the mess that has to be cleaned up.

Some people find the task of cleaning up after dogs a lot more objectionable than others, and therein lies the key to an opportunity. Dog owners willing to pay for a service to clean up after their dogs represent a highly profitable market niche with a real need waiting to be filled.

Even a small percentage of the total number of dog owners could be a significant market segment for a small business. In a city with 100,000 pet dogs, for example, just one out of a hundred dog owners would be 1,000 regular weekly customers. Anyone willing to take advantage of this opportunity could make life easier and more pleasant for a lot of people, and make good money while doing so.

Why People Hire Dog Waste Removal Services:

People want dog waste removal services for three main reasons:

1) Busy people don't have time. Two-income families, single-parent households, executives and professionals work long hours; and these people are terribly pressed for time. In the precious little time they do get for themselves, there are a great many things they would rather be doing than shoveling dog poop!

2) Physical limitations reduce people's ability. Persons with assistance dogs, those who are ailing or recovering from surgery, elderly and other pet owners with limited physical abilities all need help cleaning up after their animals. For many of these dog lovers, the availability of a pooper-scooper service to clean up their yards on a regular basis be the difference that allows them to keep a beloved animal in their lives.

3) "The Repugnance Factor.": This is the big one. There are plenty of dog owners who have free time and enjoy good health, but who still appreciate the fact that they can call on a service to clean up after their pets. As one customer told me, "Some things you do for yourself, and some things you pay to have done." It's just one of those necessary chores so many people simply prefer not to do, and many of those people are delighted to pay you to take care of the problem for them. In fact, I have had many happy clients tell me how grateful they are for this service.

The Need is Real and Growing.

With each passing year that I am involved in the dog waste removal industry, the real need for this service in our society becomes clearer. Owners of pooper-scooper services frequently receive sincere thank-you notes and comments of appreciation from customers who say things like: "This is the greatest thing since sliced bread!" or "Without your service I just wouldn't be able to take care of my little Fifi." And even "Since we started using your service we no longer have fights in our house, about who has to pick up the poop." These kinds of comments are very gratifying, and you'll feel a wonderful sense of service to the community when you receive these comments.

Many clients credit their pooper-scoopers with decreasing the number of arguments among family members, saving them from getting sick to their stomachs, and soothing their relationships with neighbors. Our services give people more time for golf, shopping, family outings or anything else they prefer to do, rather than shoveling dog poop from the back yard. It's a good feeling to know that your business is making people's lives more pleasant while producing a good income for you and your employees.

It also feels good to see the instant results of your work, what psychologists call "immediate gratification." Some of the first-time jobs we do are yards that may not have been cleaned for a very long time, if ever! I'll be the first to admit that the first look at a yard like that can be a little intimidating. But with the tools and techniques I've described for you in this book, even a frightening mess like that can be completely cleaned up in a short time. And when you stand back and look at a beautiful, clean yard where no one would have dared to walk just an hour before, you'll feel a great sense of accomplishment.

You'll learn that some of the most beautiful and expensive homes in town have a "dirty little secret" in the back yard. Honestly, when I first started out in this business I was amazed when I saw some of my customers' yards for the first time! Of course nobody intends to let the problem get so bad, but people get so busy and have so many other things to do that they don't get around to this task that they would rather not do, anyway. Without someone to keep the yard clean on a regular basis it soon just gets out of hand, and until now no one has offered to take care of the problem for them.

There is no question that dog waste removal service is badly needed in cities and towns all across the country. It's not a question whether somebody is soon going to be filling this need in your community. The question is, who is going to be the one to do it? It could very well be you, even if right now you have very little money and you thought you might never be able to start your own business. That's what this manual is all about!

History and Outlook for Dog Waste Removal Business:

As near as I can tell, the oldest dog waste removal service in the United States is Poop VanScoop, in Denver, Colorado. They've been cleaning up after dogs since the late 1970's, and when I talked to the business's owner several years ago he told me they were cleaning more than 2,000 yards every week.

The first time I ever heard about a business like this was when someone told me about Pooper Scoopers of Dallas, Texas, started by Greg Grinnan in the mid 1980's. When I talked to Greg, he told me his business grew to over 300 clients in the first year,. I believe he sold that sometime around 1990.

Yucko's, a pooper-scooper service in St. Louis, Missouri, has several hundred weekly customers who each pay about $15 a week, according to newspaper reports. That service has been in business since 1990.

"Have Doggie, We'll Doo," a Chicago area service, has been featured more than once in stories in the Wall Street Journal and other media, both national and local. Diane Rossie, the founder and co-owner, started her service from almost nothing, raising herself from poverty to a successful business owner by cleaning up after dogs. I have talked to other scoopers, who, like Dianne, have credited starting this kind of business with turning their lives around, too.

The company I started in Columbus, Ohio in 1988 has grown to serve about 1000 active weekly accounts. The website at PetButler.com indicates that someone with one dog, having service once a week, pays pretty close to $50 a month, and of course, those with more dogs or more frequent service pay more than that. You can see see that revenues for a successful service like this are very good!

Services like these are growing every year because of the real need for what they are offering. Ongoing social trends will keep demand for dog-waste removal growing. As more people become used to the idea, it is spreading to a larger and larger customer base. I believe that in the future it's going to be quite normal to have a service that cleans up after dogs, just as it's not at all unusual to use a lawn maintenance service right now.

It's hard to say at this point exactly how big the mature market potential for dog waste removal services will eventually be. Most places are still waiting for the first person to start offering something like this in their area! Even in those cities where there are one or two dog waste removal businesses there is room for more. A few of the largest cities are supporting 3, 4, or even more scooping services. A newspaper article in 2006 reported that the Denver area had about 10 scooper services, one of which was serving about 1,700 customers per week!

And yet, much of the general population still does not even realize this type of service exists. There's so much room to grow, it's like asking, "How far is up?" It's a mighty big job to create, establish, promote and maintain public awareness of a new idea! First, the market in general has to be made cognizant of the fact that this type of service even exists. Even then it takes a period of time for people to "get used to the idea," and adopt the positive attitude that this service is for real and that it's a good way to make life easier for people who own dogs.

In 1988 there were maybe two or three dog waste removal services in the United States. In 1997 there were still probably fewer than 40 of them. By early 1999 that number had tripled. By 2008 I estimated that there were probably over 300 professional pooper-scoopers in the United States, and several in Canada. .There are dog waste removal businesses operating in the United Kingdom and even more countries outside of North America.

So even though growth has been good for scoopers, there is still a vast opportunity awaiting! The need is there, mostly unfilled. The "barriers to entry" are small. The cost to get started is low, and the potential rewards, both financially and in terms of personal fulfillment, are high.

Of course, individual results will vary a great deal. In my own service I started very small and grew slowly (although the percentage of increase from year to year was quite high). In my first year I made only about $2,500. That doubled, then doubled again, and several years later my service was grossing over $20,000/month, with more than 650 weekly clients, 7 employees, and a fleet of 6 pickup trucks. I talked to a guy who started a service in Texas with $10,000 and grew much more quickly. He had 300 customers before the first year was over. A service in San Jose, California sent out postcards addressed in the dogs' names and reported getting 100 customers in the first month or two.

Some new scoopers go several weeks or a month or two before getting even the first customer. And of course, there are some people who try to get started, but for any number of reasons never do succeed, and they go out of business. There are many factors involved in success. Getting out the word, proper pricing, outstanding customer service, marketing, managing costs, your own seriousness and professionalism \-- all of these factors and more will affect your income.

Back to Table of Contents
**GETTING STARTED**

YOUR MISSION STATEMENT

One of the simplest, yet most important, things you can do for your business is to write a mission statement right at the beginning. That little document, preferably less than one page long, can help keep your efforts focused on your mission through times when you are faced with a wide array of possibilities and choices. It will help you make decisions as your business grows and new opportunities come along. The mission statement is like a touchstone to help you evaluate each new question or problem as it comes along. Always look at things with the question in mind, "Is this the best way to fulfill the mission of this company?"

The mission statement will help keep your mental energies focused on:  
1) Exactly what you want the business to accomplish,  
2) For whom it will accomplish this, and  
3) How it will accomplish this.

I had copies of my original Mission Statement for Pet Butler framed and hanging in the office and by the time clock. making it nearly impossible for any employee or visitor to come into the facilities without seeing exactly what we were about. It was only two paragraphs long, and it always helped me answer the tough questions and challenges that crop up along the way as any business develops. It's remarkable how such a simple little statement can be of such immense help. This was mine:

MISSION STATEMENT  
Our business is dedicated to making life easier for dog owners  
by cleaning up and removing dog waste (feces) from customers' yards and dog pens.  
Our work will provide a very high level of service quality   
with regard to reliability, thoroughness and courtesy.

We believe the fulfillment of this mission ultimately requires satisfaction for our customers,  
a worthwhile profit for the company,  
and the opportunity for our employees to earn decent and fair compensation for their work.

It might seem like such a simple concept that you wonder why it would be necessary to put these things in writing. But believe me, as your business grows you will be faced with an unending number of constantly changing situations. Without your original "simple" goals and missions set out in writing, and kept in the forefront of your consciousness, you could easily find yourself going off in different directions as you let yourself be guided by the shifting winds of circumstances along the way, and some of those directions could take you away from what it was you originally set out to do.

From time to time, you will come across opportunities to take on projects only tangentially related to your real business. Without a tight focus on what you are about, you could find yourself spending more effort, for less return, and satisfying fewer customers -- instead of making more people happier, more easily, for greater profits.

Having a simple, clear, and practical mission statement can help you keep on track.

SETTING UP FOR BUSINESS

To set up for business, you will need:

Office space:  
You won't need a lot of space for your office when you first start out. A corner of a quiet room at home will be just fine to begin with. It will help if it's a place without a lot of noise that would interfere with phone calls. Your customers will never come to your office, but the sound of kids playing or a TV in the background will turn off a lot of prospective customers who might get the impression that you aren't really serious about being in business.

You'll need a desk or table to work on, and some kind of filing system: even a box to hold folders and notebooks and a place to keep route sheets will work at first. Although you can start this business with no computer, I imagine most people will already have a computer or smart phone or tablet or something like that, which will be very useful. I'll write more about that in the section about using a computer.

Vehicle space:  
You'll need a place to keep the vehicle you'll be using. if you have a place out in the country, or a big garage, this won't be a problem. But if you live in an apartment in the city and you don't want to leave your business vehicle on the street overnight, you may want to rent a small garage somewhere near your home office if you can afford it. Look in classified ads of your local paper, under "Garages for Rent," or scope out Craiglist.org. If you watch those ads for a few weeks, you should be able to find something affordable. You don't have to have anything fancy to start with -- you can go without running water and electricity in the garage until your business grows enough for you to afford to move to a better space. My first garage cost me about $30 a month. It was very plain, but it kept my truck off the street.

It could be possible to keep a vehicle parked on the street in a city or in front of an apartment building, but it might attract vandalism. It also might annoy your neighbors, and you don't want to do that. When I started out, I did keep my little car, painted with signs and all, on the street in front of my place for a while before I could afford to rent a garage. I managed to survive and grow the business, so it's definitely an option. (Tip: a good coat of wax on the vehicle will make it a lot easier to remove spray paint. Just sayin'.)

There's nothing wrong with larger and nicer office quarters, of course. And when your business increases in size you will need a more business-like environment, especially when you start hiring employees. But these things can be added as your business grows and you bring in the cash resources needed to pay for them. The spaces called "Office/Warehouse" or "Mini Warehouse" units are excellent choices, combining indoor garage space for several trucks and separate office space and meeting room space all in one unit. Search online, check out Craigslist, or look in the classified ads of your local paper to find these units available.

Business Name:

Choose a name that people can remember easily. The name of your business should be clear enough that anyone who hears the name will know what your service is about, but not so graphic that it is offensive or distasteful. If you include "Dog Waste Removal Service," or something similar as part of the official name of your business, it will help identify you when prospects see you listed in the telephone book, both white pages and yellow pages. (More about that in the next section.)

Be sure that the name you use is not one that is already in use. You probably don't need to register your trade name nationally, but you should at least be sure that it will be unique in your own state so that no one will confuse your business with some other company.

Registering business names varies somewhat from state to state. It's usually done through your state's Secretary of State. In some states you can get a free name availability check from your state's Secretary of State's office. Then you can register that name for a small fee. Other states may require a "Fictitious Name Registration."

You can find specific information pertaining to your state either from offices listed in the "Government" section of your phone book, or search online for "starting a business in your state]." [Visit SCORE.org to get free information and assistance from your nearest chapter of the U.S. Small Business Administration's S.C.O.R.E. (Service Corps of Retired Executives) program.

Get a business checking account at a bank using your business name so that you can accept checks made out to your company's business name.

Telephone Service:

You should have a separate telephone line for business. If you don't have the money for that in the very beginning, you can get by for a little while using your personal phone for business, but there are so many advantages to getting phone service in your business name, and the cost is so low, that when you have even a few customers you really should get that dedicated business phone.

In the United States, you may want to look into GOOGLE VOICE services, by which you can get, at no cost, a separate phone number that you can use for business, while having all calls for that number routed to any phone you designate at any time. You could have those calls sent to your home-based land line, and have them routed to your cell while you are out working. You can input contact information for special handling for existing customers. use that contact list to differentiate personal calls from calls coming from clients, and so on.

One issue with Google Voice could be that when you receive calls from people not in your contact list, the caller ID won't tell you who is calling, and it won't capture the caller's phone number, so you will want to be sure to answer those incoming calls when they come in, or hope that your outgoing voicemail message will persuade those people to leave their contact info for you. Google Voice could be a powerful solution for some of your communications needs, or it may not be for you. Some scoopers have found it to be very helpful in their businesses, so it might be something you will want to check out and learn more about.

If you absolutely cannot avoid using a personal line for business at the very beginning, at least be sure to answer the phone as a business. Explain this ahead of time to your family and friends. You don't want to confuse potential clients by presenting an image that is not strictly business.

So, even when you do get a business phone line installed, as long as you continue to conduct business from your home, remember the following guidelines:  
1) Don't let children answer the business phone.  
2) Use an appropriate, business-like answering machine or voicemail message.  
3) Don't answer the phone when the sound environment is un-businesslike; that is, when the caller is likely to hear noise from the television, children playing, or a wild party.

DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE LISTING: When you do get the business line installed, be sure to tell the phone company the FULL name of your business, including "Dog Waste Removal Service" or "Pet Waste Removal," so that your listing in both the white and yellow pages will be as informative as possible for prospective customers. Included in the cost of your phone service is a listing in both of those directories. Your line will also be listed with your local Directory Assistance, so anyone who calls 411 and asks for your company by name will receive the correct number.

In olden days, (meaning all those years ago in the 20th Century), you would have just one place to sign up for phone service. When you got a phone line for your business, it would automatically get your business name listed in an ancient artifact called The Yellow Pages, where people searching for a service would look at paper hard copy to find your company, and your business phone would be available to anyone calling 411 for Directory Assistance.

Now things are different. You may get a land line from your cable TV company or your Internet provider. You might not choose to use a land line at all, and your phone service could be from any one of several different companies. And phone companies have their own, separate Directory Assistance services, so when you call 411 you talk to a different service, using a different directory, than someone you dials 411 from their phone using a different phone company.

You could get started without your business being listed in the 411 directories, but to grow very much, I really think you need to have your business phone listed so that when people call 411 and ask for your business, they get your number. Not only will it make it easier for people to contact you and buy your service, but it will add credibility to your business. Many people will think your business might be a scam if you're not listed in the phone book and they can't get your number from the 411 operator.

I recommend getting a regular, old-fashioned land line for your business, and using that along with a cell phone. But if you're not going to do that, you can still do a a few things to get your business cell phone listed in the White Pages and with Directory Assistance, and I definitely recommend that. Go to ListYourself.net and fill out the form there. That's free. Also go to SuperPages.com and click on the button marked "Add Your FREE Listing." Verizon.com offers to list your number in their directory for a small fee. If you call 411 in your own local area give them your business name,  if they don't have your business listed, ask them how to get listed.

Business Licenses, Taxes, Etc.

Disclaimer: I am not an attorney. I do not offer legal advice.  
I do tell you my personal opinions and relate my own experiences, but  
for legal advice I recommend that you consult a legal professional  
or other appropriate professional persons or agencies in your area.

Some of the legal and regulatory issues that you should make yourself aware of, and be sure that you comply with, are:

1) Zoning: Your home office shouldn't be a problem, but you may need to check with your local zoning office to make sure it's OK to run a business out of your home. The place you keep your truck or car is more likely to come under some zoning regulation, so you'll want to check on that, as well. When you grow to several vehicles and employees, you'll most likely need to be sure your facility is zoned for your type of business. Look in the Government section of your white pages, or your city's or county's official web site for your local zoning office or board.

2) Sales Tax: Some states do not have a sales tax on personal services such as dog waste removal, but some do. If your state has a tax on your service, you'll need to collect the tax along with your fees in accordance to the laws of your particular state. You should check this with your local city or county government offices You'll usually find state tax information at  your state's Secretary of State's official website.

3) Income Tax: When you work for yourself, you'll need to report your own income. For a free "New Business" kit from the Internal Revenue Service, call 1-800-TAX-1040. or search for  "starting a business" at IRS.gov. Keep all receipts from your business expenses, to prove your entries on the Schedule C of your Form 1040. This is another one of those areas that you must fill out the forms correctly, and there seems to be a lot of misinformation, so again, I advise you to get advise directly from the IRS or a reputable tax professional such as an attorney or accountant. Also be sure to call your city and state tax offices to get all the applicable literature from them.

4) Bookkeeping: Speaking of taxes, receipts, and business expenses, you'll need some way of keeping track of all the money that comes into your business and all the money that you spend to make your business work and keep it going. Remember that disclaimer at the beginning of this section, about how I'm not a lawyer? Well, I'm not an accountant, either, so this another area where you might want to talk to a professional to make sure you get it right.

I don't think this has to be anything very complicated or difficult -- I used to use a lined notebook or composition pad, in which I drew lines to make columns for the Date of the transaction, a brief description of who paid me or what I bought, the amount of the income or the expense, and that amount written in a column of money coming IN or money going OUT. Then at the end of the month it's easy to add up all the money that came in, and all the money that went out. This type of bookkeeping is called Single Entry Bookkeeping. It's simple, requires no special accounting expertise, and according to the IRS, "It can be a simple and practical system if you are starting a small business."

Although I used to draw my own lines in a notebook, there are popular, inexpensive ready-made paper systems available at office supply stores, and online at sites like Domebooks.com

Of course, there are many software solutions for keeping the books, too. Some of them will integrate more than one function in addition to keeping track on money in and money out. They may combine invoices with monthly newsletters, and/or create customized reports to help you understand your cash flow and plan your future business actions. Lots of professional scoopers like using Quickbooks for bookkeeping and for billing their clients.

5) Business License or Permit: Another requirement that varies depending on your location is the kind of business license you may require. Some places may require no license or permit at all, while other states require every person offering a product or service to obtain a permit. Be sure to consult with your local SCORE office, county auditor, and any other state or local government agencies that may have license requirements.

6) Health Department: Ask about rules and regulations that may be applicable to your new business. When I started my company, there were hardly any regulatory compliance issues for me, since the whole idea was so new there weren't any rules specifically directed towards what I was doing. Later, because of our use of the county landfill, we did have requirements for inspections, bonding, registration, etc. These requirements were somewhat strict, and penalties for not being in compliance could be bad enough to put us out of business if we had ignored them. Eventually we contracted with a private waste hauler and no longer went to the landfill ourselves, so we were no longer covered by the Waste Hauler regulations of the Health Board or the Solid Waste Authority. You'd better call all these offices, or their counterparts for your own area, to be sure you are in compliance with any currently existing regulations covering the business intend to set up.

Back to Table of Contents
**MARKETING MATTERS**

In general, some of the top marketing methods for this kind of business are publicity, word of mouth, vehicle signage, customer referrals, classified ads in newspapers and online (like craigslist and other local online ads), your own website, and getting listed in an online directory like the International Directory of Dog Waste Removal Services at Pooper-Scooper.com.

Consistency is key.

Notice that one thing all of the most successful marketing techniques for a service business like this have in common is CONSISTENCY. It is far better to have a smaller, lower-key, cheaper marketing effort, run more often, over a longer period of time, than it is to blow a lot of cash on one or two big, splashy, expensive ads. It has been said that people don't even SEE an ad until they've been exposed it it several times! Run a big ad once or twice, and the number of people who notice it, think about it, understand it consider it, and act on it will be zero or close to it. Run a smaller ad two or three times a week for six months, and there will be a lot of people who will say, "Oh yes, I've seen them around for years! That's a good company!"

Now of course, you don't have to do all these things right off the bat. When you first start out, you might not have the money for this stuff. Start where you are, and do what you can with what you have! Tell everybody you can about your new business, and ask them to tell everybody they can. You might have to write cards by hand and put them on bulletin boards with a thumbtack. Do as much as you can for free, and you can get your first customer... and then another one... and you'll have that income to use to keep your business growing and you'll gradually be able to do more and more.

Publicity isn't something that you can run all the time, but when you first start out, and whenever your business has special events that could be considered newsworthy, issue a news release. Getting publicity in your local media might be the single most powerful thing you can do for marketing, and it costs nothing! Even if you could afford to buy the newspaper and magazine space, and the air time generated by being in the news, you just can't buy the kind of credibility that gives your business.

Word of Mouth is generated by the total of all the other marketing methods, plus your business attitude, or image, your business name, what your clients say about you, buzz generated by the publicity and the signage on your vehicle, leaving (with permission) business cards or fliers on bulletin boards and on tables at vets and groomers, things like that.

I recommend reading one of the old "Guerrilla Marketing" books by J. Conrad Levinson to get an idea of the sort of thing I mean. If you can't buy a copy, borrow one for free from your public library. In general,  guerrilla marketing is a way of reaching potential buyers and getting their attention without spending very much money. It's really more a matter of attitude than specific media or techniques. It's a matter of understanding how to get your message in front of the most likely buyers, but even more importantly it's about breaking through the clutter and capturing their attention, because people are used to seeing advertising all day long and have learned to tune it out as though it were invisible. Even if some of the specific actions that Jay wrote about in the first few versions of his books are old by now, you'll get an idea of the general attitude that generates good ideas that don't cost much.

Vehicle signage is a big one. Clear, easy-to-read lettering and phone number and simple web address on your car or truck will produce new business. It's one of the best ways to promote your business! Busy people out driving will see your vehicle. People in the neighborhoods where your current customers live will see your signs. I have had plenty of calls straight from people who saw one of my trucks out there and called in on the spot to find out how to get service.

Come up with a customer referral program, maybe something like giving a free week of service to existing customers for each new regular customer who signs up and mentions your existing client as their referrer. That can get people out there selling for you.

Simple line-ads in the free neighborhood newspapers that get left at your door every week have had good results. Run them on as consistent a schedule as you can afford. Better to be there more often than to have a bigger ad. Keep an ad on Craigslist and any other local online classifieds, too.

Use the Internet. Have your own web site and participate in social media like Facebook. Look good online, and make yourself easy to find.

Now, just what works in what proportions and exact results are really impossible to say, results will be different for each individual business. Your business's unique styles, varying community attitudes and cultures, and other factors will all mean that everyone's business is different, so what works best will be a little different for each one. In general, try everything you can think of!

Keep track of what works for you, and do more of those things. Every time you get a new customer, or when someone contacts you to get information, ask them how they heard about you, and keep track of that information. This way you'll develop a list of what works best for you.

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT ATTITUDE:

At this point I'd like to say something that relates directly to all this stuff about marketing and advertising, but also applies to everything else about your entrepreneurial journey: the attitude of persistence and making things happen.

You might not necessarily want to use any particular site or marketing method that I mentioned in this section. You will probably find a lot of places to put your ads that I don't know about. You might have resources such that you don't have to use only free advertising when you start out. If you have money you can use to pay for ads and other ways to get your message out there, great! You're a step ahead.

I do know that these resources have helped lots of other businesses get business going and have produced paying customers, but beyond that, the point I want to make right now is about attitude. I want you to understand that ways and means for you to get going ARE OUT THERE. The individual things that work best are certainly going to be different from person to person, business, to business, and community to community, but I firmly believe that we live in a world of opportunity. If you approach problems with the right attitude, you'll find or invent solutions.

Keep your eyes and your mind open, read a lot, ask a lot of "dumb" questions without fear of looking stupid. I'm not afraid to look like an idiot, because it will help me not to BE one! Try things. If they don't work, figure out why and try them again in a different way. Drop some things that don't work, and by all means, keep doing the things that DO work.

Problems are not endpoints! They're only problems! Solve them! Get over them, around them, under them, or ignore them and keep on going right through them. Over and over again, in conversations about ideas or projects, I hear so many people point out some problem with a tone of voice that indicated some kind of finality, as though the fact that there's a problem means the project can't be done. Piffle and stuff, says I!

If there were not problems involved in what you're trying to achieve, everyone would do it and there wouldn't be anything special about it. Getting over those problems is what makes the story more interesting, and the achievement sweeter.

Now, to be realistic, sure, it's true that not everything works. That's why you try more things until something does work. Maybe you can't do everything, but you can do a heck of a lot more than thought you could. A problem is just something to be solved. It's not a barrier to stop you, it's a hurdle to get over. And  all good hurdlers fall.

Publicity and Public Relations

Publicity is the most powerful marketing weapon available for a business with very little money. News stories about your business combine credibility, readership, and sense of urgency to produce a powerful effect. I think every new business should seriously consider issuing a thoughtful,well-written press release to the local media.

The most obvious advantage of publicity is its cost, or rather, lack of cost. It's FREE, or very nearly so. Whether you use a few sheets of paper, envelopes and postage stamps, or you issue your releases by email, you could receive valuable column-inches on the most desirable pages of the newspapers, repeated news spots throughout the day on one or more radio stations, and several minutes of prime-time local television coverage.

But there is even a much more important reason you should pursue publicity: credibility. Even if you had the money to buy space in the papers and time on TV and radio, you could never buy the same quality of exposure that you get by being part of the news. Thousands of readers who normally wouldn't even notice the existence of your expensive advertisement will eagerly read a news story about you and your business, and they will tell others about it.

Although publicity is a powerful marketing tool, it's important to remember that it is not the same as advertising. It is supposed to be news, after all, so use it for when you have "newsworthy" items to report. It's newsworthy when your business is involved with events that affect your community. The fact that your brand new business has started up is newsworthy, for instance. Human interest, like how you are solving a problem that people have been struggling with, could be newsworthy. For instance, "Service makes pet ownership possible for elderly." Business milestones, such as the first anniversary of your service, could be newsworthy. Volunteering to clean up a local park or beach would be worth publicizing, especially if there have been recent related news stories about how the park or beach has been plagued with dog waste that needs to be cleaned up.

You can print up your release on paper and mail it to the editor of the appropriate department at the paper, or the news departments at the TV and radio stations. Years ago, that's all there were, but now you can send your release by email or online submission forms at some sites. Look for the "Contacts" or "Submissions" link on the websites of your local media. If you don't find that link on the site, just call up the station and ask them where to submit your news.

In addition to sending your news to all of your local TV stations, radio news departments, and newspapers., also let your city lifestyle magazines know about your service, and be sure to send something to any appropriate blogs that people write about your area.

You'll find excellent, detailed guidance on how to write news releases and who to send them to in books available at your public library and at many sites on the Internet. It's not hard to produce a good publicity release, but you should study a bit to learn how it's done, what to include, what not to put in it, the type of style it should be written with, and who to send it to.

Articles like these are very helpful - check them out:  
Press Release Tips at Raventools.com  
[How to Write a Press Release, at Wikihow.com  
](http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Press-Release)7 Tips for Writing a Killer Press Release, at PRDaily.com

On the next couple of pages I've placed some examples of actual news releases that produced good results for me:

(SAMPLE PRESS RELEASE)

NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS

Contact: Matthew Osborn, Owner, Your Company Name

Phone: 1-555-555-5555

Email: you@yourdomain.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

WORK PILES UP FOR DOG SERVICE

Local dog owners were well aware of the condition of their back yards as accumulated snow and ice finally melted away. Imagine that mess multiplied over four hundred times and you'll see why there was little time for celebrating as (COMPANY NAME) last month observed its sixth anniversary as Franklin County's first commercial service dedicated to cleaning up the dog owner's messiest problem.

Recovering from the worst winter weather in ten years, combined with the annual "spring thaw rush," has kept the professional pooper-scoopers working long hours, according to Matthew Osborn, the owner and founder of the unique business. "We've had three trucks working almost every available hour of daylight recently," Osborn said. "And we are going to have to add another employee or two as more people get out into their yards and discover what Fido has left out there over the winter months."

Osborn has seen his service grow from 20 customers per week in 1988 to more than 400, and expects an increase to between 500 and 600 weekly clients in 1994. He says when he first offered his unusual service people often couldn't believe he was serious about scooping and hauling away pet waste. "Back then people would laugh and say 'Are you for real?' Now they ask 'How soon can you start in my yard?'"

# # #
(SAMPLE PRESS RELEASE)

PRESS RELEASE

(YOUR COMPANY) Dog Waste Removal Service, Street Address, Columbus, OH 43227

Contact: General Manager

Phone: Office: (614) 555-5555, Pager: XXX-XXXX

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PET BUSINESS EXTENDS SERVICE AREA

Contract with Hauler Broadens Availability of Unique Service

Dog owners outside of Franklin County are once again taking advantage of (Company

Name), a service that cleans dog waste from clients' yards and kennels. This month the

firm's owner Matthew Osborn, announced the resumption of service to Southern Delaware

County. Regulations had made it impractical for the small company to continue to offer

its work in more than one county. Now, by contracting with a waste-disposal firm, the

company no longer falls under many of those restrictions. "This is good for all concerned."

Osborn said. "We focus on pleasing our customers, the hauler gets more business, and dog

owners we used to have to turn away can now use us."

The "professional pooper-scooper" business was only an idea eight years ago, when

Osborn saw what he felt was an unmet need in the pet care industry. "People have better

things to do with their time," he reasoned. Initially offering his services while working two

jobs to support his young family, the self-described "entre-manure" now has a fleet of six

trucks to reach a growing list of clients. At the most recent count, he and his team of six full-

time and part-time employees are cleaning over five hundred backyards and dog-runs every

week. Some of the biggest challenges, according to Osborn, are large apartment

communities. "When you have a hundred or more dogs on just a few acres of ground, our

service is not a luxury, it's a necessity!"

###

# National Scoop The Poop Week

Tailor-made for you to increase awareness of your service during the Spring of each year, National Scoop the Poop Week is the last week of April. It's "official," in the sense that it's been included for many years in Chase's Calendar of Events, a reference book relied upon by reporters and researchers in print and broadcast newsrooms, libraries, and publicity departments all across the country to find out interesting facts about every day of the year.

Scoop the Poop Week being the last week in April is especially appropriate for several reasons:

...1) After the harsh winter in much of the country there is a lot to catch up on in back yards. When the snow melts it often reveals a terrible mess that people will be looking for help to clean up.  
...2) By avoiding sending news releases about the event in the first part of the month, you'll avoid having your news discarded by editors who may think it's an April Fool's joke rather than a real thing.  
...3) The middle of April is occupied by news items about taxes. By waiting until after the middle of the month, your news release is more likely to receive attention and get picked up for a story to fill in the news lull that comes after tax filing time.

You might offer offer special deals or get involved in public events, or think up your own unique ideas for this special week, but whatever you do, it's a perfect opportunity to send out a news release in your area.

On the following page is a sample news release that you may modify for your own use, with your name and other appropriate changes, to take advantage of National Scoop the Poop Week. Prepare your event or offer, and get your news release ready to send out about a week before the event starts.

# For Immediate Release:

April 17, 20xx

Contact: You Yourname  
Chief Excrement Officer, or whatever your title is

Your Pooper-Scooper Service Name  
Phone: 123-456-7890  
E-Mail: pressinfo@yourscooperservicename.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SCOOP THE POOP WEEK IN TIME FOR SENSE OF SMELL DAY

National Scoop the Poop Week is coming. The last week of April, between the snows of Winter and the sunny days of Spring, comes the time to be especially aware of the necessity and benefits of making sure all those "canine land mines" left behind by our furry friends in the backyard are cleaned up, removed, and disposed of properly.

With so many dogs in so many back yards, failure to clean up is more than an inconvenience. It's a serious public health issue. Rains wash the poop into streams and groundwater supplies; public beaches have even been closed due to bacterial growth attributed to dog feces left in back yards. Flies are attracted to uncleaned yards, where they lay their eggs, increasing their population and the problems they cause.

And, Osborn says, "The stuff is disgusting! Who can enjoy their back yards with piles of dog poop? Kids can't play, the neighbors hate the smell, nobody can have backyard cookouts until it's cleaned up!"

That's why dog-waste removal services across the USA have chosen the last week of April as National Scoop the Poop Week, reminding dog owners that now is the time to get yards, kennels and dog runs cleaned. Dog owners and others can find information gathered from the experience of people who make their livings by cleaning up after dogs at the Scoopers and Friends

Discussion Board at The Professional Pooper-Scoopers website: www.pooper-scoper.com, which also features The International Directory of Dog Waste Removal Services, listing companies willing to do the chore for a fee.

Osborn adds, "By getting those yards cleaned up now, people will be ready for National Sense of Smell Day" on April 26.

-33-

# Classified Ads in Newspapers and on the Internet:

Here is a sample of an old classified ad that was very productive for me. You may modify it and use it for your own business. Remember, the price quoted in this ad is from many years ago!

Dog Owners!  
Complete dog-waste removal  
service cleans yards and pens.  
$6.50/wk/1 dog; $3.50/add'l dog.  
Satisfaction guaranteed!  
Call (Your Company Name) 555-5555

Ads like that work best when you run them for at least several consecutive weeks, several times a year. But if you can't afford to run the ad every week for at least a month, try to run it every other week.

Back when I first started out, I couldn't afford even that much advertising. My first ad was just tiny classified in the Sunday Paper, pretty much like this:

DOG OWNERS!  
Weekly waste cleanup and removal service.  
(Your Company Name), 555-5555

Even such a small ad was good for me: it was cheap (something like $7 in those days), it actually pulled in some paying customers (which provided money for more ads), and it caught the eye of one of the local TV news producers. He put a story about my service on the local news, which in turn attracted more new customers.

You have to start somewhere! As people learn about what you are offering to do for them, they begin to tell more people, and those people tell others, and so on. The main thing is to start getting the word out there, so at least somebody learns about your service every day! If you want to sell something, sooner or later, you have to tell somebody about it. It would be great to have the resources to carry out a big campaign right from the start, but at least do what you can. TELL people about what you have to offer!

Little ads work well in the small neighborhood weekly papers that you find on your front porch. There are fewer ads in the smaller papers, and people seem to enjoy browsing in them. Your ad should include a bold headline directly addressing your prospects, a brief description of exactly what you are offering, your price, and the line "Satisfaction Guaranteed."

People are often surprised that a service like this costs so little, and I have found that putting the price in the ad produces better results than leaving it out. Otherwise many will jump to the conclusion that it's probably too expensive for them and they won't even call to find out what it costs.

People also want to feel confident that they won't be making a foolish decision by trying your service. Your promise of "Satisfaction Guaranteed" will ease that anxiety, so they'll feel more comfortable doing business with you.

Classified ads in newspapers don't cost a lot of money, but putting an online ad for dog waste removal services on Craigslist is FREE! You can post only one ad in one category at any given time, and you'll need to repost your ad periodically. Search Google for classified ad sites in your local area and check out  EBay Classifieds, Oodle.com and other classified ad sites, too.

I don't know whether to call it an advertising site, or a social networking site, but whatever... while you're out there finding online classified sites, give Yelp.com a look, too. You can get a free account for your business, which should help increase your visibility.

Be Found on the Net with Your Web Site and Social Media

Have your own website with helpful information for customers and prospective customers. If you're starting out with almost no money,  you can get a free web site from lots of places, like Wordpress, Webs, Wix, Yola and many others. If you have a little bit of money you can spend, then it's even better to get your own domain name - meaning an Internet web address of your very own. They don't cost much, in fact, you can get your own domain name for less than $15/YEAR! And web hosting for your site with your own domain name starts as low as FREE. Even a hosting service with lots of options and services and great bandwidth wouldn't cost any more than $15/month.

Do some searching on Google, ask around, be inquisitive. Check out various  domain registration and  web hosting services (I've been happy with GoDaddy for many years, myself.).

And you don't have to pay money for someone to make your web site for you. You don't even have to learn HTML or other coding language. Web hosting services like GoDaddy and many others make it easy to create your own multi-page web site with simple web builder tools. You can install  Wordpress or other blogging software and create lots of rich content without programming anything. There are lots of other sites that make it easy to create your own web pages, too.

When you have your own domain name, then use that domain for your email address. It will look a lot better and instill more confidence in potential clients, than using a run of the mill email address like gmail or hotmail or aol or anything like that. When your email address is more like yourname@yourbusiness.com, it demonstrates a commitment to what you're doing and gives the impression of a real business.

Put your contact information on every page of your web site, and add pages for your prices, a description of how your service works, reasons to hire your service, copies or links to news articles about your business. You could even put an online signup form on your site, so people can sign up for your service at any time, thus making it as convenient as possible for them to become your customers.

Make a Facebook page for your business. It doesn't cost anything, it'll be one more thing to help get your business found when dog owners search for help, and it's a great way to keep your customers involved with what's going on at your business. You can share cute pictures of dogs, seasonal tips about keeping dogs cool in the summer, helping dogs stay calm during Fourth of July fireworks, flea control, and so on. Engagement like that will provide extra value for your clients, and keep you in their awareness. That is not only an added benefit for them, but they'll also talk to more people about your service, which ultimately results in more business for you.

I believe an important element with all of these online strategies is to PROVIDE ACTUAL VALUE of some kind to people who visit your site, or your Facebook page, or subscribe to your Twitter feed or whatever it may be. I mean, don't just make it a constant string of advertisement for yourself, or a lot of empty hyperbole. Give people a real reason to want to look at your site and see what you have to say. Include something of interest, something of value. You might post articles about how to solve some pet-related problems. For example, maybe have a guest-writer post something - like a local dog trainer could write something about how to keep a dog from barking all night. OR share a post from a veterinarian about what common household plants and foods should be kept away from your dog.

Help educate people about the importance of keeping dog poop cleaned up. Lots of people falsely believe that there is no harm in leaving it on the ground. A lot of people think that mowing the grass makes the piles of dog waste magically disappear, or even that it's good for the grass. In fact, dog waste is a significant contributor to local ground water pollution, often forcing the closing of swimming beaches, for instance. You can share news articles about these and other important issues, making your site not only entertaining, but educational. That's value for people who visit your site, and the value for you is... people coming to your site!

Business Cards

You might not have thought of business cards of as an advertising medium before, but your card can be a real marketing weapon! Business cards are small enough to put in a purse, pocket or billfold, yet large enough to carry plenty of information about your service: how much you charge, and how to contact you to order service or obtain more information.

Always carry business cards to give to people! Make sure the cards are in good shape, not torn or dirty.

Buy plastic countertop cardholders at office supply stores and place these little racks of cards at dog groomers, vets, pet shops and other places. When asking permission to leave these holders at such places, mention that you have a service that many of their clients will be interested in. You might also offer to trade for such a favor by mentioning their business in your monthly customer newsletter.

Give several cards to your friends and family members so they can pass them along to interested persons. Also consider giving several cards to each new customer when you tell them about your customer referral program, to help them get free service (as they help your client list grow).

Well-designed business cards promote a professional image. You may want to go to a local print shop, or office supply store to order cards. Lots of scoopers have been happy with cards ordered online at  VistaPrint.com. where you can choose from lots of attractive styles with nice clipart pictures.

You may need to conserve as much money as possible right at the start, so you can actually make your own cards by designing them on your own computer and printing them on card stock at home, or having a few dozen copied onto card stock at a copy shop. Here are some examples of the sort of very simple kind of business cards that have worked well for me:

Fliers

If you have very little money, fliers can be one way to get started without much cash outlay. Door-to-door fliers, or handbills, can be more costly than classified advertising on a per-exposure basis, but the absolute costs of making, copying, and distributing a few hundred or even a few thousand fliers can be very low. If you have more time than money, your only out-of-pocket expense will be photocopying your fliers. Check prices for copying at a nearby office supply store, and you may find that it is cheaper to have a couple hundred pages printed there than it is to print them at home.

One-sided, black and white printing, at 8 cents per copy, if you cut your 8 1/2" X 11" sheets in two, your actual cost per flier will be 4 cents. If you have time available to pass them out door to door, this can be a cheap way to get the word out in specially targeted neighborhoods.

If your time is more limited, like if you're working full time while getting your new business started, it might not be cost-effective to personally distribute fliers. you could hire someone to pass out fliers for you, or use an advertising distributing service. Paying someone by the hour to pass out fliers will add significantly to the cost of distributing fliers.(Plus, you would have to make sure the person doing the distributing actually does pass the papers door to door, and isn't taking your money and dumping your fliers in the trash.) At this point, it becomes less expensive PER FLYER to use an advertising distributing service, even though your overall total cost is going to be a lot more than making a few fliers and handing them out yourself. When you get to this stage, it's probably better to use other advertising methods.

However, even if you have been advertising consistently in a given area for some months or even years, when you distribute fliers you will get responses from people who never knew your service existed. Fliers in large numbers can help broaden awareness of your service; they also heighten your visibility, and hence credibility, to people who may have seen your small classifieds -- which adds to their confidence in the legitimacy and reliability of your offer.

Fliers, even though they can be very low total cost for some few thousands of pieces, are quite hit or miss. I used them with some success when I first started out and didn't have enough money for other kinds of marketing. Some scoopers have had very poor results with this method. Typical response and conversion rates may be in the range of 1/2 to 3/4 of one percent. For every 1,000 fliers your pass out, you may get between 5 and 8 new customers. "Your mileage may vary," as they say.

On the following pages, I've reproduced some samples of fliers that I have used with success. One of them has the word "Key" at the bottom, followed by a code that tells me who distributed the flier, or the method used to pass it out, or other information to help me track exactly which of my fliers are producing the most business. When a new customer turns in the coupon, you can use the key code for each employee if you want to offer your workers an incentive for bringing in new business, too.

I made them half-page size in order to put two fliers on one sheet of paper, so you can cut them in half and cut your cost per flier

ATTENTION DOG OWNERS!

You love your dog...

...But you sure don't love having to clean up the mess in your yard.

Sure, somebody has to do it, but that "somebody" doesn't have to be YOU!

(YOUR COMPANY NAME) Dog Waste Removal Service

makes life easier for dog owners, with complete cleanup and removal of

all dog poop from yards and dog runs,  
because you have better things to do with your time!

For surprisingly low cost (COMPANY NAME) GUARANTEES reliable, responsible service.  
We find, scoop and haul away all those nasty "canine calling cards"

that ruin your yard and mess up your free time.

(YOUR COMPANY NAME)  
Dog Waste Cleanup and Removal Service  
Call: 555-5555  
WWW.YOURSCOOPERBUSINESSNAME.COM

\---------------------Clip here and save--------------------

$5 Save Five Dollars off your first month $5

Five Dollars off your first month's service charges with this coupon.

But Hurry! This coupon EXPIRES May 31, 1997.

(Key MRO)
Own a Dog?

YOU LOVE YOUR DOG...

But you don't love having to clean the mess in your yard. You have better things to do with your time!

IT HAS TO BE DONE...

Left to accumulate, dog waste ruins the appearance of your property, attracts disease-carrying pests, pollutes local waterways, and offends the neighbors,

not to mention endangering the health of your pets and your family.

Somebody has to do it. But that "somebody" doesn't have to be YOU!

CALL (COMPANY NAME)

For a surprisingly low price, (COMPANY NAME) comes to your yard regularly  
to clean up and remove all those "canine calling cards."

Weekly service just $X for one dog. Additional dogs, only $Z each.

SATISFACTION GUARANTEED !

Making dog-ownership easier.

Call: 555-5555

WWW.YOURSCOOPERBUSINESSNAME.COM

# A word of advice -- in all this discussion about fliers, I have assumed that you will be distributing these paper handouts door to door. You might even hand them out to people on the sidewalk at a busy street corner (provided there is no restriction against this in your town). But there is one flier-distribution method that I do not recommend, and that is placing the papers on car windshields. In my opinion, putting paper on windshields is a mistake. I personally am annoyed by such advertisements, and many other people tell me the same thing. It is also inevitable that many fliers placed on cars will blow away, or get tossed to the ground when the driver comes back to the car. You are selling a service based on cleanliness, responsibility, and good-neighborliness, so it would be inconsistent with your desired image for you to contribute to the problems of litter and pollution in your neighborhood.

Also, DO NOT PUT FLYERS IN MAILBOXES.  It's against the law. You can put them near the box, but do not put anything in the mailbox.

Direct Mail

Where I live, we can obtain from the county auditor's license bureau a computer disk of names and addresses of all the people who buy a dog license in our county. Some years ago I bought a list of nearly 100,000 names and addresses for about $14. By importing this data into a database database, we could target specific ranges of addresses on specific streets, or target certain ZIP codes and mail a card or letter to 1 or 2 or 50 or 1,000, or any number that fit into our marketing schedule and budget at any given time.

In San Jose, California there was a dog waste removal service got a list of dog-license buyers, and the data included the dogs' names. So they mailed postcards directly to the dogs, using the dog's name as the addressee. Talk about breaking through the clutter -- You can be sure those cards received special attention! he service that mailed cards to dogs grew from startup to 100 customers in 3 months, and it didn't take a lot of marketing money to do it.

To find out about obtaining such a mailing list, contact the office of your local government responsible for issuing dog licenses and ask them about how to get this information.

Vehicle Signage

Signage on your car or truck serves several excellent purposes. It helps make your trucks more visible in traffic, which increases your driving safety. Signs also identify your vehicle at the curb when seen from the house, letting customers and neighbors know just who is parked out front. And, of course, these "rolling billboards" are great advertising for your service, too! In fact, one of the most cost-efficient producers of new business for me has been is the attractive lettering I put on my trucks, and I have heard similar results from other scoopers.

Before they have a vehicle dedicated to use exclusively for business, some scoopers get magnetic signs to put on their car doors while they're doing business. Then when they're using the car for something else, like taking the kids to school or whatever, they can take the signs off.

When I first put permanent signage on my little Honda Civic, and on a couple of old used trucks I used after that, I painted the letters directly onto the vehicle myself, using a little can of enamel paint and an artist's brush. I used a pencil and stencils to outline the letters and numbers, then painted them in. With a lot of patience and a steady hand you could save a lot of money by painting your signs on your trucks yourself and produce a very nice sign.

In my experience, the pained signs were not as durable as the vinyl lettering I eventually switched to. The paint may need to be touched up every 6 months to a year. But if you have the free time, your cost of materials will be a heck of a lot lower. You can buy a high-quality brush for five dollars, more or less, and a pint of paint at a couple of bucks should be enough to put signs on more than one truck.

When I could afford it, I began using computer-cut vinyl lettering that I ordered from a local sign-making shop. I recommend putting the name of the business on the doors in 6-inch letters, and the phone number along the sides in 6-inch numbers, under 4-inch tall letters that say Dog Waste Removal Service. On the tailgate, I would carefully remove any existing (such as "Toyota," for example) with acetone and a razor-blade, and put on our own sign in 3-inch lettering: Dog Waste Removal, the name of the business, and my business phone number. I recommend putting your business website address on the truck, too.

I recommend the 6-inch and 4-inch lettering so that your signs will be easy to read from across the street or a few houses down the block.

Many sign shops offer optional installation of the material, but if you work carefully and patiently you should be able to apply the vinyl yourself. You can save some money if you just ask for directions on how to do it. The 3-M company, which makes the vinyl material, provides the sign companies with printed instructions and a little squeegee-like tool to help you install the lettering on your vehicle.

If applied correctly, this lettering is very durable. I have never been disappointed with the performance of the vinyl lettering; it lasts for years. In fact, I have had some trucks that wore out before the signs on them did!

You can make your signs signs look good, adding to the visual appeal of your business. And speaking of visual appeal, it's a good idea to keep your vehicle CLEAN. What you are selling, ultimately, is cleanliness, after all. People hire your service because they want their yards to be nice. If your truck or car looks like crap, so to speak, it will work against the image you're otherwise putting so much effort into producing. It's not a bad idea to wash the vehicle at the end of every working day. But even if you don't wash it that often, do keep aware of how you're looking to clients and potential clients.

Customer Referrals and Word-of-Mouth

Word-of-mouth is an activity that is done by other people. You can't directly make word of mouth in the same way that you can buy so many inches of space in a newspaper. But word-of-mouth can be effectively promoted in a number of ways. Your publicity will almost certainly stimulate word of mouth, for instance. When people see your on the TV news, or hear you talking with the DJs on a morning radio show, a lot of them will talk about that - and that's what word-of-mouth is all about. When people talk about your business, even if they're joking about it, there will be a rise in the level of awareness that your service exists. Now, not a lot of people are going to rush to buy your service just because they found out it exists but the more they hear about it, the more they are exposed to the idea, the more aware they are of it, the more comfortable they will become with it and the more likely they will be to eventually give it a try. So, even though some of these kinds of efforts might not produce a ton of new clients directly, they will all contribute over time to the acceptance of your business by the community at large, and thereby be a part of growing your business.

The majority of prospective clients will be looking for some way to evaluate your service before they try it. and one of those ways they will evaluate you is by hearing what others have to say about you.

The first few purchasers of any new type of product of service are part of a special segment of the general market, referred to as "Early Adopters." Early Adopters are extremely important in the whole process of generating positive word-of-mouth marketing; that is to say, they are Opinion Leaders. You know the old expression about "keeping up with the Jones's." Well, "the Jones's" are the Opinion Leaders of the community. They are the ones who are the first to try new things, and other people look to them to find out what's "in" or "cool" or "smart."

Give your Early Adopters and Opinion Leaders plenty of information both before AND after the sale! These people like to talk about what's going on, and they generally have many friends and associates who are interested in hearing what they have to say. I can get extra excited about providing service to these kinds of people just because I'm thrilled that my truck (with its glorious signage) will be seen in front of their houses every week. Potentially, that 's worth even more than the money they're paying me to clean up their dog's messes!

One of the simplest ways to promote good word-of-mouth for your business is to spend the effort and time to follow up with clients to be sure they have a pleasant experience with your service. Call them up after their first cleanup to make sure they were satisfied. Be sure to send them your New Customer Welcome letter and a sheet of General Information, Frequently Asked Questions, or whatever brochure, pamphlet or info sheet you have for new customers. Put a few of your business cards in the envelope with whatever you send to them. You want them to have as much information as possible. They like to know new information, and they will tell others.

A customer referral program is another technique to manage word-of-mouth. I offered my existing customers one free service visit for each new regular weekly customer they referred to us. Getting a new customer by giving a free service visit to an existing customer costs a lot less than paid advertising. Customers like this arrangement very much because they get free service and they get to be a hero to their friends for suggesting the wonderful service that we provide. We love the referral program because it keeps people talking about us in a positive way, spreading the news of our existence and helping us grow. As we grow, our increasing resources improves our ability to provide ever-improving service. Everybody wins!

Briefly explain your referral program over to all new customers when they sign up, and include a description of it in writing with the information/orientation materials you send to new customers. If you send out a newsletter with your monthly billing, include a line or two about the referral program by mentioning who got free service last month, something like "J. R. on the West side and Jenny in Olde Town each got a free week of service last month by telling their friends about us. You can get free service too, with our Free Service Referral Program!".

Yellow Pages

I don't think I would pay extra to have a larger ad in the Yellow Pages. The yellow pages isn't as important as it once was. But with your dedicated business phone land line, you will receive a listing in your local telephone books. If you include a brief description of your service as part of the name of your business, that single line in the phone book will serve as a small advertisement without spending any additional money. For instance, "Matt Scoops Dog Waste Removal Service" is more descriptive than just "Matt Scoops" by itself.

When your business is new and if it's the only one of it's kind in your area, your biggest Yellow Pages problem might be deciding what category to list your business under. The book might not have a separate category for pet waste removal, yet. For several years, the phone book in my city put us under "Pet Shops," or "Pet Sitters." True, we didn't even sell pet supplies or take care of animals for people on vacation, but they did not have any more appropriate category for us. We suggested the category "Pet Services," which they didn't go for, but eventually they did create a category for us: "Pet Waste Removal." So now we have a category of our own!

In all of my advertising, or when I'm just telling people about what I do for a living, I stress the name of my service so that people get to thinking of us by name. That way, they can look us up in the white pages, or ask for us at the 411 "information" number. Then they won't have to guess what category I might be under in the yellow pages. Another advantage of getting people to look us up by name is that they won't see any competing services in the same category.

GIFT CERTIFICATES

A gift of pooper-scooper service is bound to be a hit! Start reminding people about the availability of your gift certificates for Christmas along about the end of October or beginning in November. But also be sure that people are aware of the availability of these unique gifts at other times of the year, as well. Besides Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Valentine's Day, people may want to purchase a gift of dog-waste removal for birthdays and anniversaries or other occasions.

Gift certificates are also good contributions to charitable causes or organizations. They make terrific prizes or rewards for charity events. The chairwoman of a certain cancer-fighting charitable group told me year after year that our donation of a month's free cleanup service was one of the most popular items at their annual silent auction. The donation of a gift certificate to a charity is a way to promote word-of-mouth about your business. The idea is to get people talking. So be sure that whoever wins the prize has a terrific experience with your service. It's got to be convenient, pleasant, and easy for the dog owner to deal with you. Of course, you always want to be thorough and provide excellent service to all your clients, but be sure to keep all that in mind for these possibly more "high-profile" jobs.

Pay attention to the terms of your gift certificates; that is, think carefully about making clear any limits on dollar value, geographic area, service days, number of dogs, and service hours. The biggest problem of first-time jobs is that so often they are a heck of a lot more work than regular weekly cleaning. If you have a minimum rate for one-time jobs, or for first time visits, that might make it worthwhile to sell certificates for such short terms. You'll want to make sure any buyer understands any limitations.

I have also found that if I sell certificates for at least a month of weekly visits, then even if I waive the first-time fee (for promotional or good-will purposes), the subsequent cleanings make up for the extra work that the first-time cleaning might require.

On the next couple of pages I've reprinted an example of a Gift Certificate, as well as a cover letter I might send along when providing a donation of service to a local charity group.
(YOUR COMPANY NAME)

D o g W a s t e R e m o v a l S e r v i c e

Phone: (555) 555-5555 | Scooper@pooper-scooper.com

www.pooper-scooper.com

Dear Chairperson,

Enclosed is the (COMPANY NAME) gift certificate you requested.

(COMPANY NAME) is happy to be able to help your organization support a worthy cause. Just as our mission is to make like better for dog owners, we know that your mission is to make life better for our whole community by helping in concrete and specific ways. Thank you for the good work you are doing.

Just as our work requires what seems like more and growing expenses all the time, we know that yours does, as well. We hope that this gift certificate will be one small thing that you can use together with others to add up to something truly worthwhile.

The service specified in your gift certificate will be available on our regularly scheduled service days, unless otherwise written in the certificate. (We go to different parts of the county on different days.) While we can tell the gift certificate recipient the day of the week that we will provide service, we cannot guarantee a specific time of day.

Please have your certificate recipient call (COMPANY NAME) (at 555-5555) upon receiving the certificate, so we can set up the service days.

Naturally, if you have any questions about our service, please call us for complete details and answers.

Best wishes on your fund-raising project!

____________________________

Company Owner's Name

(COMPANY NAME) Dog Waste Removal Service

_The Ultimate Dog-Owner's Gift_  
(YOUR COMPANY NAME)  
D o g W a s t e R e m o v a l S e r v i c e

City, State

(555) 555-5555  
YourCompanyDomain.com

Presents this gift certificate to:

____________

From: _____________________________

Good for four consecutive weeks of

Residential dog waste removal service

For___ (number of ) dogs.

A gift of Freedom from

The dog owner's worst chore!

Just Call 555-5555 to start your service.

______________________ Certificate expires: ________

Owner: (COMPANY NAME)

Authorized Signature

# YOUR BUSINESS TRADE NAME

Just as your own body language, your speech, and the way you dress all project an image to other people and determine to a large extent what and how they think about you, your business image is the personality, so to speak, by which the public perceives what your business is all about. And your business image begins with your business name. What you name your business is the primary identifier, the signifier, the handle by which your service will be known.

Your business name can carry subtle tones of meaning. It can be playful or formal. It may convey a sense of the traditional and conventional or innovative and a bit on the weird side. It might connote speed, or reliability, or precision, or accuracy. Even though it's just a couple of words, a name can include a lot of overtones and undertones, all of which may either support the total image you want to build for your business, or possibly work against you.

Of all your marketing decisions, your business name might be the most difficult thing to change down the road. So think carefully and take your time when considering this element of your business.

A good trade name should be easy to remember, easy to spell, have some logical connection with the purpose of the business, and be in good taste. That last factor, the one about good taste, that's the tricky part. "Good taste" is not the same to all people. For the good of your business, try to see this from the point of view of your prospective customers. Your customers will be concerned about cleanliness, order, and appearance. Many of them will be rather sensitive about social graces. It's true that a person doesn't have to be the most fastidious type to want to avoid shoveling dog poop, but your primary prospects are certainly going to be concerned about neatness and cleanliness, and your trade name should support that.

Some degree of cleverness is a good thing, but cleverness for it's own sake is not what you should be looking for. What might seem like a funny joke to you might be offensive or off-putting to some of the people you hope to attract as clients. Remember -- your customers don't necessarily have the same kind of personality that you do. After all, you are the kind of person who doesn't mind cleaning up after dogs for a money, and they are the kind of people who are willing to pay somebody else to do it.

I recommend that you include a brief description of your service as part of your business name. "The Such and Such Dog Waste Removal Service," or "Our Town's Pet Poop Cleanup Brigade," or some such thing will make sure your business is not confused with any other kind of pet-related service, and will also make your listing in phone books and directories quite clear.

Exactly what little phrase would be best as a descriptor for your service? I've always liked "Dog Waste Removal Service," myself, and that seems fairly common, but there are plenty of variations. Maybe regional dialects and cultural variations make a difference. Here are some of descriptive phrases scoopers have put next to (or under) their business names:

Pet Waste Cleanup  
Dog Waste Clean-up  
Dog Waste Cleanup Service  
Dog Waste Management  
Dog Waste Disposal  
Pet Waste Removal  
Pet Waste Pickup  
Dog Waste Removal Service  
Pooper Scooper Service  
Pooper-Scooper Service  
Pooper Scoopers  
Dog Poop Cleanup Service  
Pet Yard Cleanup

Do any of these sound better next to your business name? Do any of them sort of carry a tone or feeling that you'd like to have associated with your business image?

Having gone to so much trouble to carefully create a name worthy of your new business, it would be inconvenient, to say the least, if you had to cease using it soon after your start-up because the name is already being used by another business in your state. It would also be a drag to have some other service start using your terrific name once you began to create some awareness of the benefits of your service. For these reasons, you should register your business name in your state.

Different states have different rules and regulations for registering trade names, so you'll need to check with your local government offices or your state's Secretary of State's office to find out the proper steps to take to safeguard your tradename.

PRICING IS PART OF MARKETING

Pricing is one of the most difficult decisions you will have to make when you start your new business. You want to charge enough that you won't lose money, but you don't want to charge so much that it drives away customers. How much should you charge? Should you have a simple, one-price-includes-everything system or more complex price structure? Will you quote your price as charged by the week or the month? Should clients prepay or pay after the work is done? These are just some of the many choices you'll make for your own business.

Everyone's pricing decisions will be different. There's no such thing as "the correct price" for all dog waste removal services. What may be the right price for YOUR service depends on many decisions that you must make for yourself. PRICE POSITIONING should be a part of your overall marketing strategy. Your price can be a part of the personality, or image, of your business, by conveying a subtle message about just what kind of service you are and how you might compare with other services in the marketplace.

You may want to be a low price leader, using your affordability as a benefit you can proclaim to the world. Or you may want to stress quality and reliability and actually maintain a premium price that can set your service apart as the "high quality" service among those whose primary concerns are not about price. If there are other scooper services in your marketing area, you might want to choose a path between those two ends and go with a price that puts you in the middle.

In my own case, I wanted to stress the reliability, quality, and professionalism of my service. I used the word "Butler" in the name of my business as part of that image I wanted to create. I was sure to keep my trucks clean, washing them frequently. I didn't want my employees to wear torn or ratty-looking clothing on the job, or smoke while on customers' property. I was quick to return to a yard and clean it again at no extra charge if a customer said we missed a spot. So I set my price on the high end, because I wanted to be seen as the high-end service, the luxury service, "The Dog Owner's Ultimate Service." Over the years, as other services sprang up and faded away, I never minded if some new guy started up with a lower price. I actually liked that. In fact, at least once or twice, when a new service would set their prices the same as mine, I would RAISE my price a bit, just to keep my position as the high-end leader!

Now of course, that isn't going to be the strategy for everyone. You may want to be seen as the most affordable service, because there are certainly potential customers who are going to compare prices and choose a service based on saving some money. My point is that it's wise to think carefully about how your prices will contribute to your overall business image and the niche you want your company to occupy in the market.

One tendency I've noticed among first-time business owners is a fear of asking for what seems to them like a high price. But under-pricing your service is a serious mistake. If you charge too little, you could end up working long, hard hours for very little money -- And that's not going to keep you motivated though the difficult and challenging times. If you're not making more money doing this work than you might make somewhere else, why would you keep doing it?

Figure how much money you need to make for each hour you work in the field. Divide that by the number of customers you can serve in a given period of time, and you'll have an idea of where to start your pricing calculations. For instance, if you need to make $50 an hour for your work, and you can serve four customers per hour, you'll need to charge at least $12.50 per customer. That's the general idea, anyway. You'll also need to consider all your costs, possible discounts for senior citizens or people with assistance dogs, etc.

Before I officially opened my service I took my scooping tools out into the yard, used some rocks as "simulated dog waste," and timed how long it would take me to clean a yard. Then I estimated how long it might take to travel between properties and added that to my calculations. Now, admittedly, involved quite a lot of guesswork. But the point is that I did what I could to try to come up with some idea of what to charge.

That was a long time ago, of course, but just to illustrate the process of making the calculations about what to charge, this was my thinking back in 1988 (when gas was less than a dollar a gallon, and the U.S. federal minimum wage was $3.35/hour): Based on my rough estimates, if I could complete two yard cleanups per hour, I came up with a $3.50 as the least amount I could possibly afford to charge. So I made that my lowest price, meaning $3.50 would be my discounted price for seniors and people with a service/assistance dog. Working UP from that, I made my regular price $5 a week for once-a-week service for one dog. Since part of that price was based on travel time, I added just $2.50 for each additional dog at the same site.

It turned out to be a pretty good price for everyone concerned. When I had only a few customers, the number of yards I could clean in an hour was a lot less than when I had a full schedule. That's because when I had more customers in a given neighborhood, it took less time to travel from yard to yard. With experience my scooping got faster, too.

After several months it turned out I could average six customers an hour, travel time included, over the course of a work week. That meant I was generating between $25 and $30 an hour for my pooper-scooper services. In those days, for a guy who had been $5-something an hour, that was mighty fine!

A few years later, my prices went up to $6.50 for weekly service for one dog, plus $3.50 for each additional dog. I offered a 10 percent discount to seniors over 60 years of age, and to people with assistance dogs. That price structure resulted in an average weekly fee of about $7.50 per week per customer because of the number of clients who had more than one dog. Obviously, since I was averaging more than 5 yards per hour over the course of the week, I was generating a gross income of more than $35/hour. (Remember, this was still a long time ago, so these might not be what people would charge nowadays.)

Time proved that most people were very happy with once-weekly service, but some people wanted service more often, and some people wanted it less often. I would accommodate them, with appropriate adjustments to the charges.

For twice-a-week service, I could charge something less than two times the regular weekly charge. Because the cleanup is easier and faster when you go twice as often, this might be a schedule you would want to encourage for your clients. Offering "twice the service for less than twice the cost" is one effective way to do that.

For service every-other-week, I'd charge more than the regular weekly fee per visit, but less than twice the regular cost. There is twice as much poop to scoop, but you don't have to travel so often.

I found that there was interest in a "Bag Pickup Only" service for people who scoop their own dog's poop, but need someone to dispose of the waste. These customers put the waste into a plastic bag and put it out by the curb for weekly pickup. For $5 a week I would swing by and pick up a bag on the day of the week that I was servicing that part of town. This kind of curb pickup service is convenient for some customers, and could be profitable for you.

Figuring out the time you expect the work to take, how much you need to make per hour to make it worth your while, and adding in the costs of gasoline, insurance, vehicle maintenance and replacement, advertising, additional labor costs, insurance, taxes.

Knowing what it costs you to make your service happen is only part of the pricing puzzle. Depending on the market position you want for your company, you might charge more than the average, or less. I don't like to be the "low price" guy out there. Some services charge more; up to $15 a week for one dog. You'll have to decide what's best in your own market, based on your costs, your own needs, your own business strategy and the position you want in your marketplace.

Keeping in mind that your prices will be decided by you, on the basis of such factors as your local pricing norms, the position you want to occupy in the market, your costs of doing business, how much you feel you need to make for your hours of work, and other variables, here's an example of a typical sort of pricing plan:

SERVICE PRICE EXAMPLES

REGULAR PRICE  
One Dog, one cleaning per week: $10/week  
Each additional dog: $5/week

One Dog, one cleaning every other week: $15/visit  
Each additional dog: $6/visit

One dog, cleaning two days per week: $7.50/visit ($15/week)  
Each additional dog: $4/visit

My personal preference, in order to make it easy for new clients to decide to hire me, is not to complicate my pricing too much. Rather than charging different prices for different sizes of yards, for instance, I like the idea of having a simple price structure that covers all my costs and makes it easy for prospective customers to see what the service will cost them. That has generally worked out quite well, although there have been unusual situations, such as an abnormally huge yard or some other peculiar setup that required working out a special price with the client.

In my experience, even in large yards, the dogs generally "go" in the same area all the time, especially when it's cleaned regularly, so there's usually not a lot of ground to cover even in large yards.

(Speaking of different sizes, over the years I have been asked many times if I charge more for big dogs. I would always reply "No, in fact, if I were to charge differently, I'd probably have to charge more for the small dogs, because it's harder to find and takes longer to clean up!" Seriously, though, I have always just charged the same price for any kind of dogs.)

Even though I personally like to keep pricing very simple, there is merit to a different approach. People often like to have a range of options, and there is a school of marketing thought that says some people are looking for a reason to spend more money. You could think of it as a way of keeping your base price as low as possible, while providing the option of adding additional "luxury" options for those who want to pay for them. According to that line of thinking, you should present choices for those who want more than the average buyer, at an appropriate price. In accord with such thinking, some scoopers offer a range of add-on services -- with add-on prices -- such as: cleaning the front yard in addition to the back yard, hosing off patios, applying disinfectant to concrete kennel floors, and so on, each with it's own additional price.

BY THE VISIT VERSUS BY THE MONTH:

As you can see from the sample prices I listed, I decided to price my service by the visit. However, a lot of successful scoopers prefer to charge by the month. As a fan of keeping things simple and easy to understand, I can see that a monthly price might be simpler for the client.

Charging the same price every month makes it a lot easier for clients to have automatic payments sent to you, with a recurring charge on their credit cards or a monthly subscription payment through PayPal, for example.

Charing by the visit is straightforward - "we came this many times, at this price per visit, so your bill is this much."

Simplicity in regard to charging by the visit compared to charging a regular monthly fee sort of depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, charging per visit is simple because it's easy to see that so many visits means so much money owed. But some months have more weeks than others, so if the client was thinking her cost would be $40 a month, and then after three months she gets a bill for $50 because that month had five Tuesdays in it, she might be a little confused. You many have to explain again that it's charged by the number of visits.

On the other hand, charging the same price every month is simple because the amount paid each month doesn't ever change. But a client may question whether she shouldn't have a lower bill one month because rain or snow prevented you from cleaning the yard one week.

PREPAY VS PAY AFTER SERVICE: Lots of good scoopers, especially those who charge by the month, use a pre-pay system, having the customer send the money for the month before the work is done. This prevents the possibility of not getting paid for your work.

Personally, I have always preferred to send the bill after I have done the work. I'd rather take a chance on the client than make the client take a chance on me. Besides that, I feel that this makes it easier for the client to sign up with me, and I think I get more business that way. It's true that I lose about 2 percent of expected income due to bad debts, but I think I get more than 2 percent extra business because of my policy.

In those cases where a client doesn't pay, I just don't let the bill get too high, and thus limit my exposure to losses that way. If a client has been with me for years, I let it go a little longer than if it's a new client. If someone really does never pay me, I send some reminders in the mail, and I might knock on the door a few times to try to talk to them, but that's about it. I wouldn't bother to try to take them to small claims court or anything like that.

But of course, that's just me and the way I like to do business. It's up to you how you want to do it.

LATE-PAYMENT FEE: Since I send the bill after the service, I make a note on the invoice about a late payment fee, something like $5 if the bill isn't paid in two weeks. It's not that I expect to make extra money, it's just an incentive for the customer to get that payment sent out sooner rather than later.

This isn't something that you need to be concerned about if you have a pre-pay system. In that case you would just not start the next month's service until the client pays.

DISCOUNTS

When I first figured out what I had to charge to make enough to provide my service, I made that figure my discount price, so that I could offer that best price to dog owners over 60 years of age, and to those with guide dogs and other assistance dogs. Some scoopers offer discounts to police service dogs, or to military service members.

Having a base price that is higher than your discount price also gives you a little room to maneuver when setting up a new account with someone who wants to drive a bargain. While on the one hand, there are people who may insist that you're not charging enough, and they may want to pay you more than you asked for and even give you tips or gifts at holiday time, on the other hand there are those who have a habit of making deals, who may wish to have your service at a little bit lower price than you quote them. If your discount price is set at a level where you can provide your service and still make a profit, then you can make the bargain seekers feel good about themselves and your service by allowing them to talk you down a little bit on price. They get their special deal, and you get a profitable client.

I remember one client in a three million dollar home, in a neighborhood of millionaires, just down the street from the governor's mansion, who dickered with me about price. He had already decided to get the yard scooped once every other week to save money, and when I quoted him the price for that, he countered that he would be willing to pay 50 cents less per visit. I was astonished that this multi-millionaire would be taking the time and trouble to negotiate with me for a reduction of literally 25 cents a week. Fortunately I knew how I had set up my prices and that I could afford to give a little and still make a profit, so I was able to "reluctantly" accept his offer, thus pleasing him not only with my terrific service, but also giving him the pleasure of winning his negotiation, all while adding a good customer to my client list. And besides that, I was mighty pleased just to be able to park my truck in front of his mansion every two weeks, where it was an advertisement to the other affluent dog owners in the area!

THE BEST TIMES TO ADVERTISE

It's a good idea to keep your business in front of people as much as you can, so if you can afford it, keep running your normal advertising all year. But if your money is tight, you might want to concentrate your ad spending during the seasons when it's most effective.

The scoopers I've discussed this with generally agree that the busiest time of the year for signing up new business is the early springtime. This may be especially true in the northern climates where there is cold and snow during the winter. As soon as the weather begins to warm up people start thinking about getting out and using the back yard, and that's when they realize they're going to want some help with scooping up all that poop, and they begin to respond to our advertising -- especially if there has been snow covering the ground for several weeks before a thaw.

The end of February, all of March and April and the first part of May are the best times to advertise. Advertising money spent in those months is going to do the greatest amount of productive work for you. That's the time of year when my business has always increased its customers the most.

The second best time to advertise is when the weather first begins to turn unpleasant again. At the end of September, all of October, and the first part of November you may expect to get a bit of an increase in business. Some customers will put their service on "Hold" status during that time, but I have found that new business that comes in then, as well. I think the reason for these changes in the Autumn are that some people feel that with the bad weather coming on, they won't be outside using their yards and so they are not as concerned about having their pet's waste cleaned up regularly. Others want their yards to stay nice and clean (after all, the dogs are going to keep right on making their messes all year) but they don't want to be outside in the harsh weather, scooping poop.

In my experience, the hottest months of the summer and the coldest parts of the winter are not very productive periods in terms of response to advertising. This surprised me in my first few years. I had expected that the months of June, July and August would be big, so I used to try increasing my advertising expenditure during the hot season, making my advertising more than twice as large as normal. But that didn't increase my response rates enough to justify the additional cost. For me, the hot summer months and the cold, dark months of winter were when I had the lowest response to my advertising.

CUSTOMER SOURCE TRACKING

Whether you have several marketing efforts going on at the same time, or you can only manage to do one or two things every now and then, you'll want to know which advertising is paying for itself and what's losing you money. You want to know exactly what efforts are working to produce customers. One of the simplest ways to track sources of new business is to ask each new customer as they sign up for service, "How did you find out about our service?"

On each customer's record, mark down how they found out about you. If you keep track of this information, as time goes by you'll know exactly which of your marketing efforts are producing the most business for you, and which ones cost more than they bring in.

Naturally, then, you'll be able to concentrate more of your efforts on the things that are working, and you'll know which things are wasting your money so you can stop spending on those.

DEMOGRAPHICS and PSYCHOGRAPHICS

The more you know about your customers, the better you can design your marketing, and the more you understand about the people who are the most likely to purchase your service, the better you will be able to focus your methods of reaching them. Understanding what benefits of your service are most important to different groups of people is called Market Segmentation, and is one of the most important elements of successfully promoting your business.

Understanding what your prospects read and where they get their information will help you put your advertising, social media comments, and publicity where the people who are most likely to want your service will be most likely to find out about it. Further, understanding what sort of issues are important to them, what matters most in their lives, what motivates them and how they make their buying decisions will help you write the content of your marketing materials in the ways that are most effective in getting them to take action and sign up for your service.

Lots of people assume that only the rich would pay for dog waste removal, but that is not true. Yes, some clients are quite well off, but we also work for some relatively low-income customers. Turns out people don't have to be rich to dislike scooping dog poop! And when the cost of having someone come clean up all the doggie doo-doo and take it away is less than the cost of many smartphone data plans, then a lot of ordinary people are going to take advantage of your service.

Some years ago I conducted a survey of my current customers. Here are some of the results of that survey:

Household income:  
Less than $20,000 per year.... 14%  
$20,000 - $40,000 per year.... 40%  
$40,000 - $75,000 per year... 22%  
More than $75,000 per year.. 24%

SO, even taking into account the affects of inflation in the years since that survey was taken, you can see that the majority of clients were actually in the middle range of income, with the most significant portion being in the lower middle category. And a significant portion of the people who use our services are in the bottom income level.

That income information tells me that it would be a mistake to aim advertising dollars and marketing messages exclusively at the "Upper Crust," and that it would be a good idea to include "White Picket Fences" in your marketing efforts. You can learn a lot more about these and many other market segments at the Nielsen company's website.

Women were 88% of the respondents to the survey, which seems consistent with my experience with regard to people calling for information and signing up for service. Most of our clients are female, and among couples and families, it seems that the women are the ones who are the deciders when it comes to getting this service.

Half of our clients are married.

Half of the people responding to the survey said they had children.

Of the people who completed the survey, 37% were between 30 and 40 years of age; 34% were 40 to 60; 17% were over 60; and only 12% were under 30. As you see, while the biggest single age group is in the 30's, a slight majority of the total customers are over 40.

When asked "What other household services do you use?", the responses were as follows: 44% of our customers use a lawn care service; 29% use House sitters/pet sitters; 24% use maid services. Interior decorators are used by 9% of our clients. Only 5% take advantage of mobile dog grooming services, and just one person reported that she used an errand service. One idea that this information could suggest possible marketing partnerships with grass-cutting services and maid services. Also keep your eyes open for local advertising media and methods that those kinds of services have used consistently for years. Those are the places where your best prospects are looking for information about services.

When I first considered the idea of offering a dog-waste removal service, I had thought that it would be pretty much just a luxury. I was surprised when 75% of my customers rated this service as "VERY Important" or "Important." It's not just a luxury to these people, so ALWAYS treat their satisfaction as extremely important!

I also invited my customers to make written comments on the survey. Pay heed to these comments, this is what people are paying for!

"I have a major back problem ... this work saves me from some pain."  
"Saves me much time"  
"Four dogs -- reason enough"  
"It's great!"  
"It's the best money I ever spent."  
"Grateful for your reliability, integrity, and business ingenuity."  
"I don't like picking up dog crap!"  
Deciding factor: "I missed my tee time picking this up."  
"Environmentally and aesthetically pleasing way of disposing of potentially hazardous waste"  
"Good service for reasonable price"  
"It's a luxury I enjoy."  
"Keeps the yard clean and the neighbors from complaining about the smell"  
"We are satisfied with everything."  
Deciding factor: "City trash haulers got on me for dumping hazardous waste."

And my personal favorite: "You're doing a great job. So often when dealing with small businesses they seem to lack good business sense, i.e. not dependable, don't do a thorough job, aren't receptive to their customers needs, etc. Your business has been a refreshing change, not to mention a great service. I hope all of your customers feel the way we do. Keep up the good work!!"

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**TOOLS OF THE TRADE**

The use of the right tools is one of the most basic reasons that I can clean six or more yards per hour. The choice and proper use of the right tools for dog waste removal will make a tremendous difference. It will affect how fast you can work, how well you will get the material off the ground and into your plastic bags, your physical health, and your profitability. It's a pretty important set of decisions!

SCOOPS

Forget about using anything like those "scissors-type" pooper-scoopers sold in nearly every pet-supply and hardware store in America! Those things are, at best, made for a pet-owner's small-scale cleanup of just a few piles at a time. At worst they are nearly useless and won't even clean up one pile very well, especially if weather conditions are wet or freezing, or if the dog poop consistency is less than optimal.

A bucket and a shovel is also no good. I have seen videos of newbie scoopers putting a bucket on the ground and going around the yard with a regular, heavy shovel, trying to scoop up a pile and returning to the bucket with each scoop. That's terrible. That will ruin your back and take far too much time. It sort of works, in a way, but it's awful.

You will want a two-handed system, with a high-capacity scoop in one hand and a lightweight, narrow rake or small, long-handled, shovel in the other. You want to be able to move easily through the yard, standing up straight as you work, sweeping each pile directly into a bag with one or two simple motions.

I recommend the use of a lobby dustpan or a debris pan for a scoop. These are long-handled dustpans you see being used in restaurants and many other commercial establishments. You can sweep poop into the pan without bending over, and the pan holds enough that you don't have to empty it after every pile.

There are different brands of lobby dustpans that sometimes look quite similar, but I have learned by experience that you want to get good quality products so they will last longer and be reliable. Having a handle come unattached, or otherwise become unusable while your trying to get work done is not acceptable. That's one reason I would always carry at least one spare set of scooping tools in my vehicle.

 Rubbermaid makes a good product that I used successfully for many years. The pan is hinged at the handle, but I use tape to fix it in the down position so it won't swing up and down while I use it.

You can buy a dustpan like this at hardware stores such as Lowe's, Builder's Square, or Home Depot. You can also find them at janitorial supply stores. Look under "Janitorial Supplies" in your Yellow Pages or search Google for one in your area.

Scoopers around the country swear by scoop they have affectionately dubbed "BIG RED." It's officially called the Continental Jumbo Dust Pan, but there are a few different companies that make similar models.  One of them is actually yellow. It's a larger version of a lobby pan, so it can hold more. The advantage is that you may be able to do some yards without emptying the pan as often, and you can use fewer bags. These larger scoops are also available at big hardware stores and builders' supply centers.

A possible disadvantage of a larger scoop is that it weighs more than the smaller pan to begin with, and of course if you're loading it with more poop it's going to weigh even more, putting more strain on your wrist and arm.

To lessen the strain on the wrists, some scoopers turn the handle around, or they add special handles designed to give you a better angle for holding the tool. These kinds of attachments can be found at hardware stores, specialty suppliers for products designed to help people with arthritis, or bicycle handlebar accessories stores. Some people just make their own handle.

RAKES

Although I started out using a lightweight shovel (and had great success with it), nowadays the tool of choice for the majority of professionals scoopers is a rake. Rakes can be a lot lighter than a shovel, and they may less prone to making divots in a lawn.

One    
tool that is highly recommended by some pro scoopers with years of experience is called an "Extendable Cultivator. "The handle that adjusts from 18 inches to 32 inches, from  Corona Tools USA.

Corona Tools also makes a more conventional rake, similar to the lightweight rakes popular among some scoopers.

SHOVELS

Even though rakes are favored by lots of scoopers, there are things to be said for different tools. Rakes don't have the rigid strength of a shovel for getting at old, embedded piles and won't be able to the icy, frozen stuff away from the ground in the winter. The rigid edge of the shovel is also more useful on waste that is loose or watery in consistency. For those reasons, there are some who prefer to use a lightweight shovel with a small head. People have different preferences among shovels, too. My manager had a certain kind that he liked best (until he decided to switch from shovels and go with a rake), and other workers prefer other shovels. You might try a few different styles of blades and handle lengths before you find the ones that you like the best.

Personally, one of my favorite poop-scooping tools has been the  True Temper brand "Real Tools for Kids" round-point shovel. It's lightweight, has a long enough handle, it's easy to manipulate, and performs all the tasks I ordinarily need. Some people like shovels with a more pointed blade shape. The Ames brand  "Floral Shovel" is also a good candidate.

FIND WHAT WORKS FOR YOU. While some professional scoopers prefer a rake, and others prefer a shovel, and still others swear by the extendable cultivator, as long as your tools are effective, allowing you to quickly and easily remove dog waste from the yard, use whatever works best for you. As my friend and manager used to say, you can't carry a whole "golf bag" of tools around in people's back yards. Try to find the one all-around tool that can do everything that needs to be done and save the most time and energy. Use that one tool so all you have to carry on the job is your scooper, your lobby pan, and plastic bags.

That being said, you might want to carry an extra tool or two in your truck for special situations. For instance, a large rake can be very useful and save a lot of time when cleaning first time jobs where there is a large amount of old, dried-up material. If you normally use a light rake, then maybe you'll be glad you have a stronger shovel in the truck when winter comes and there's ice in one of your client's yards, or the puppy has diarrhea.

PLASTIC BAGS

ALWAYS use a new bag at each stop. Everything we scoop goes directly into plastic bags, and those plastic bags go into other plastic bags, so everything stays relatively clean and neat. And even more importantly, using a fresh, new bag for every stop can help reduce the likelihood of spreading any canine illness from one yard to another.

Line your lobby pan with a 13-gallon, "Tall Kitchen" size, plastic trash bags. This is a good size to use because the bottom part of the bag fits inside the pan nicely, while the top part of the bag wraps around the outside. You can hold the loose end of the bag on the candle as you carry the scooper, or you can tape a clip to the handle to hold the lose end.

Use good quality bags. I have tried many different types and brands of plastic bags. My experiences with some of the cheapest bags were unhappy times. Some bags tear all too easily. Some of them will leak if you have the slightest bit of water in them. Bags that are a little bit difficult to open can be surprisingly frustrating! Even it it takes just a little bit of extra time and effort to get the bag opened up, when you're doing it 30 or 40 or 50 times a day, well, it really cuts into your time and creates a lot of unnecessary frustration.

My favorite bags for this work are Glad brand or Target brand (available at Target Stores). These brands have always worked well for me and are very cost effective. You don't necessarily have to buy the most expensive bags. Sometimes the lesser-known or house brands are good quality. But I have found that it's best to avoid the cheapest bags. Once you find the ones that work well for you, stock up on them.

I prefer bags with square corners, so they fit all the way back into the inside of the pan. Bags that are made with rounded corners (some of the bags that come in rolls are made this way) don't fit so well when you try to line the lobby pan with them. That loses a significant amount of space in the pan, and it won't hold as much waste.

The plastic should be thick enough to resist tearing too easily, and be fairly waterproof. Thicker bags also resist osmosis, or "oozing" right through the plastic, which is most likely to happen when you pick up a lot of moisture from rain or snow.

Use your shovel or rake to scoop each pile of waste directly into the bag as you walk through the yard. In most cases, the entire load from a single yard will fit into the lobby pan before you have to empty it or change the bag.

I keep a few spare bags in my back pocket as I'm working. In yards with more than one dog, or a large dog, or a dog that eats and poops a lot, and in places where you're cleaning for the first-time and places that are cleaned less than once a week, you will often have to use more than one bag before you finish the job. When the scoop pan is full, or if it gets too heavy to maneuver easily, remove that bag from the scoop and place it in a second bag. You can add the second and any additional bags of poop from the yard into that bag, too. I can usually get 4 or 5 bags from the lobby pan into the second bag. Tie each bag shut at the top, and then when the bag holding all those bags is full, tie that one shut.

SPRAYERS and DISINFECTANT

It is crucially important to always spray your tools and your boots with a kennel disinfectant after cleaning every yard in order to reduce the risk of transferring canine diseases from one location to another. (You can wear whatever kind of shoes you want, but this spraying many times a day is one reason you might prefer waterproof boots to keep your feet dry.) One of the worst diseases that could potentially be carried from yard to yard on your tools or shoes is canine parvovirus. Parvo (for short) is deadly for dogs, and even minute amounts of the live virus picked up in one yard could spread illness and death to pets in other yards if such transmission is not prevented.

Because ordinary disinfectants and household bleach are not formulated to kill all the dog-threatening pathogens, including parvo, that might be found in a sick animal's environment, I recommend using one of the disinfectant specifically made use in kennels. Such disinfectants are safe when used according to directions, and they kill an amazing range of canine pathogens.

Some disinfectants are sold in ready-to-use liquid form. I've found other products in a very highly concentrated form, which must be greatly diluted in water to be prepared for use. One gallon of concentrate lasts a long time. The cost of using these sorts of disinfectants is extremely low, like maybe a penny per customer.

You may be able to find a parvocide type kennel disinfectant at your local pet supply sources. There are many different types on the Internet. Some are available as  lemon-scented liquids. One popular product, with excellent user reviews, is  Tomyln Trifectant Disinfectant tablets. Tomyln is also, among other places, from  PetEdge.com. When your business grows to several hundred customers, the same disinfectant is available in an even more economical  powder form, which costs less than a dollar per gallon when mixed with water according to directions.

It's very easy and convenient to carry the disinfectant in a 1-gallon garden sprayer in the back of the truck. You can pump up the sprayer in the morning, and then all day it only takes a few seconds to spray your shovel, scoop, and shoes after each job. This important step could save dogs' live, and save your business!

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**WORKING TECHNIQUES: WHERE THE POOP MEETS THE SCOOP**

Alrighty then, here's the the actual work! Here's what people are going to pay you for: the physical removal of dog feces from grassy lawns, muddy yards, concrete dog pen floors, and other environments and surfaces where dogs leave their messes. As you gain experience in doing this task in different environments and conditions, you'll learn that there are many varied details facets of performing this business, and your working techniques will make a big difference in your safety, comfort, profitability and satisfaction for both you and your clients.

SEARCH PATTERNS

When people are paying you to clean up dog poop, you must be sure to get ALL of it! Even if you remove many, many pounds of feces from a terrible yard, if you miss just a couple of piles, then in the customer's eyes you have not done what you promised to do. On the other hand, if you spend too much time in each yard, you will not generate the income necessary to keep the business going and make the work worthwhile for yourself. You'll need both high productivity and high quality. That's why success in this business absolutely requires a methodical approach to efficiently finding, scooping, and bagging all those "canine calling cards."

Sometimes when a new customer signs up for service, she will specify that only a specific portion of the yard needs to be cleaned. Others will specify that the entire yard: front, side, back, along the curb by the road, etc., has to be checked. Naturally you must follow any specific instructions like these every time you do those yards. Some scoopers charge extra to clean what they consider extra areas, that is, anything other than just the back yard. Whether you choose to be an "all-inclusive" service or charge extra for the little things is up to you.

With experience, you'll find that most dogs use the same general area for their defecation most of the time. This is especially true when you are cleaning the yard on a regular basis. When you've familiar with the habits of a particular dog in a particular yard, you may discover that most of the time you can concentrate on a certain area of the yard without meticulously covering every part of the property every time you visit.

As you get to know the animals and properties on your routes you'll find that you can often search just the back yards of some places, or the front yards of others. That's not always the case, though. Some dogs make use of the entire area available to them, so be aware and alert. Even in those yards that are familiar to you, you'll still need to cover the whole place every now and then to be sure that you are getting all the poop. And you may need to pick up after some stray dog that wanders into your client's yard, as well.

First-time jobs and one-time jobs should always include carefully searching the whole yard.

When arriving at a job site, start beside the truck if you are cleaning the front yard. If you are doing only the back yard, start at the gate or entrance to the area. Note: always carry extra bags in a pocket. You'll need more than one bag in many yards. Even where you'd normally expect to need only one bag, you never know when you'll need extras.

Begin walking along the edge of the yard, searching a path about six feet wide, moving your eyes and head from side to side, scanning carefully for dog waste. Try to arrange your search path in an orderly pattern so as to reach all areas of the yard without missing corners near fences or swatches between search paths. Make a conscious effort to search all the way into the corners of the yard, because your natural tendency might be to cut those corners short, without carefully searching them.

Conduct your search path in such that it takes you to all parts of the yard, walking back and forth across the yard until you get to the far point of the yard, opposite from the where you entered. Then, keeping the same kind of orderly path, search the yard again, either in the reverse direction to the first path, or at right angles to that path, until you reach the spot where you first came in. Using this procedure, you will always automatically double-search each yard. I'll bet you'll be surprised at what you missed on the first walk-through!

Don't skip haphazardly from spot to spot. It's too easy to lose track of your pattern and miss large portions of the yard this way; while covering other spots too many times. When I see dog waste that is outside of the search path I am working, I do step out of my pattern and clean it up. I want to get it while I see it, rather than taking a chance on not finding it later. But then I resume my orderly search from the place where I left off the pattern.

Not all of the waste will be easy-to-see piles sitting up on top of the grass. Old waste, especially, will be flattened down. Leaves or cut grass clippings may partially cover it. Waste that's been mowed over may be squashed; contrary to a popular misconception, mowing the grass does not "get rid" of the poop; it mostly just mashes it down a little.

Some stools are more solid, some less. Very small piles from very small dogs may be more difficult to see. That's why it's not necessary to charge more for big dogs. Small dogs may actually take you longer to clean up after, because you have to look more carefully to find all the little piles.

On your first visit to a new job site, or at a one-time-only job, there will be a lot of old waste. Old dog poop is harder to see than new stuff, but it must be cleaned just as thoroughly as all the more readily visible waste. Once you've got a yard good and clean, and you keep it cleaned every week, your job will be easier as you keep up with the accumulation. This is why you can go so much more quickly when you have lots of regular weekly clients on your routes.

Be sure to check under bushes, around trees, in flowerbeds and other mulched areas, too.

TIE-OUT AREAS

Where dogs are kept on tie-outs or chains most of the time, you would expect to find all of the waste in the circle covered by that tie-out -- but don't count on it. Just because there is a tie-out doesn't mean that you won't have to search the rest of the yard. Some customers do put their dogs on these leashes whenever they put them in the back to do their business, and in those cases you might be able to concentrate on that small area, but a lot of people don't use those tieouts all the time, so the dog can still go potty in the rest of the yard, too

At the end of each job, after leaving the yard and getting back to the truck, after tying off the bags of waste, and before moving on to the next client, clean off your shovel or rake and spray down your tools and the bottoms of your shoes with parvocidal disinfectant. Let the disinfectant stay wet on the tools while driving to the next work location.

FENCES, GATES, and LOCKS

ALWAYS CLOSE GATES SECURELY BOTH WHEN YOU  
ENTER AND WHEN YOU LEAVE A FENCED AND GATED YARD!

I wonder if I can stress that enough? Closing gates securely both on the way in and on the way out of all yards MUST become so important to you that it's more than a habit, but becomes a way of life!

"I understand about closing gates when I leave," you may say, "but why do I have to be equally as careful about closing the gate while I'm going INTO the yard?"

Ah.... experience is a hard teacher, my friend. Sometimes a dog will be in a spot where you won't see it when you enter the the yard. Sometimes the owner will let the dog out of the house while you're there or the dog will use a doggie door. Sometimes a gate may seem to close, but not latch securely, and the dog will push it open. And in any those cases, a dog could get out and run away.

I've been fortunate not to have any catastrophes result from a dog getting away because I left a gate open. My workers and I have had a few dogs get out on us, though. Usually we've been able to go after the dog and eventually get it back into the yard. In those cases, the least of our problems was a loss of time and productivity, even though that would be reason enough by itself to concentrate on securing those gates EVERY SINGLE TIME. But there are even more important reasons to take this precaution. In one case we lost a customer, lost her good will, and lost money because of our carelessness. I am very happy to be able to say that we have not had any dogs permanently lost or hurt because of this kind of thing, but it is a real possibility. That's why you MUST be absolutely sure that you take care of this essential responsibility!

ALWAYS CLOSE GATES SECURELY BOTH WHEN YOU   
ENTER AND WHEN YOU LEAVE A FENCED AND GATED YARD!

Some people prefer to keep their fence gates locked, so you will need to make some suitable arrangements in these cases. DO NOT CLIMB OVER FENCES!: Trying to climb fences could hurt you, or you could damage the customer's property, and neither of these is anything you want.

Very rarely there may be a problem with gates that don't work, or even fences that don't have gates at all. Those would be real problems, because you're not going to allow your workers to jump or climb over fences, and you are not going to allow them to get to the back yard by going through the house. If there's no way to enter the back yard without climbing a fence or going through the customer's house, then my advice is to have the client fix that situation, or you may have to refuse to provide service for that place.

When a new customer signs up for service, ask if the area to be cleaned is fenced, and if it is, then ask if there's a lock. For clients who keep their gates locked, It's better to have some plan other than just the customer saying "I'll try to remember to unlock the gate for you." It often happens that customers will arrange to have their gates unlocked on their regular service day, but they may forget, or be in a hurry in the morning on the way to work. Maybe there's a holiday when you don't work on that person's regular service day, or some unexpected circumstances keep you from getting to that yard and you have to go on a different day that week.

Sometimes a customer will offer to loan you a copy of a key to the gate, but I would avoid doing that if at all possible. As business grows, you might end up with dozens of keys, forgetting which go where. You could lose a key. The employee who normally works a route on a given day might be absent, or you have to send a substitute to do part of a route, and that person wouldn't have the keys that go with that route. If you have to keep track of a lot of keys, eventually you would almost certainly lose one, which would be a big hassle and not be good for your professional image.

If a customer wants to keep her gate locked, then loan her a combination lock. We have found this to be, in most cases, the simplest solution to the problem. We don't charge for this loaned lock, and our customers are usually quite appreciative. This way, the client doesn't have to trust us with her key or the combination to her own locks. She doesn't have to remember to unlock the gate once a week as she's getting ready to leave in the morning. She can feel safe and secure in the knowledge that her gate will be locked all day, and we can still get in to clean the yard

If a customer really prefers to have her own combination lock on her gate, ask for the combination so you can write it next to the client's address on your route sheet.

"Dog out / Lockout" policy. Although I usually waive my service fee the first time I can't clean a yard because a dog wouldn't let me in or I was locked out, I have a policy to charge the regular fee if that happens a second or third time. The reason is because we did send our worker to the yard, and he had to try to get in and then go to the door and knock and wait. So all of that takes us as just about as much time, and costs us the same money, as when we actually do clean the yard. And then when we finally get in the following week, there is twice as much poop to clean up. We include this information in our New Customer Information package, along with occasional newsletter items that also mention that we can skip a regular service day without charge if the customer calls ahead to let us know when to skip.

DIFFERENT STROKES

Now of course I'm not a doctor, and this isn't medical advice, but I have found in my experience that the way you hold and handle your tools as you scoop the poop can be very important as it affects your wrist, elbow and arm. Improper scooper techniques can lead to pain in these areas, so let me describe the ways I've found that will minimize this kind of problem.

Naturally, if you have any special concerns about this issue, or if you find any discomfort involved in your scooping work, you should consult a proper health professional.

In "normal" conditions (that is to say, the grass is kept short, dry weather, not very windy, and the dog stool is nice and firm) place the open side of the scoop next to the waste with one hand, and with the shovel in your other hand "sweep" the waste into the scoop. Grip the shovel handle with your palm toward your body, keeping your wrist as nearly straight as is comfortable for you. You might be repeating this sweeping motion hundreds of times on a typical day, so you want to avoid putting any unnecessary strain on your wrists and elbows.

I tend to let the scoop pan hang straight down as I carry it around. I mean, I keep it in the vertical position as opposed to holding the scoop so that it is extended to some degree away from the vertical, you will put more strain on your wrist, especially as you collect more waste and the weight in the scoop increases.

Firm, solid waste is fairly easy to knock into the pan. But sometimes the feces will be very wet, or even quite loose and runny. In that case it may work better to "scrape" the poop into the pan. You might even think of this action as kind of "squeegee-ing" it into the scoop.

Old or squashed-down piles will often be slightly below the top the grass surface. Be sure to look for these patches; you may have to place the tip of the shovel more carefully in these spots in order to scoop the stuff it into the bag.

In first-time or one-time situations, where there has been a lot of accumulation of waste over a long period of time, there will be some unavoidable rough patches in the grass from which you remove the dog poop. You want to keep such damage to a minimum, of course; but when there is a lot of poop that has more or less incorporated itself into the grass, there will naturally be a few divots. It's not your fault, it's the fault of having not cleaned up the waste for so long. It'll be normal to have those patches in those cases, and it's still a big improvement over having the yard covered with feces. For the health of the turf and it's best appearance in the long run, it's best to get as much of the dog waste cleaned up as you possibly can. The grass will grow quickly and fill in the bad spots which are the result of the buildup of waste.

Try different methods as they occur to you, and take note of the scooping techniques that work best for you, helping you removing as much fecal material as possible while keeping any damage to the turf to a minimum. Experience will teach you two or three basic ways of using your tools to maintain the highest possible quality of workmanship even as conditions change from yard to yard.

WEATHER CONDITIONS:

When the weather is sweet, it's a treat to beat your feet out of doors in some of the best cared-for lawns in town. But It's not always sunshine and fair skies out there, and every season has its advantages and disadvantages with regard to working conditions. Heat, cold, rain, lightning, and snow will affect your business to varying degrees, depending on your geographic location. Below are a few pointers I've gathered from my own years of experience and from discussions with professional scoopers around the country.

RAIN

When I was working completely on my own, my personal motivation was VERY strong, so I definitely worked in some rainy, wet, muddy conditions that wouldn't be reasonable to expect normal folks to put up with. That said, though, in the years after that I found that my employees and I could work in most weather conditions. Only unusually severe weather, such as very heavy downpours, or active lightning in the area or the like would really keep us from getting out there and cleaning yards.

If there is just a light rain, then you can go ahead and work! I do highly recommend good rain gear. You'll want to make sure you have a raincoat or rain suit that keeps you dry. You'll also want good waterproof boots, because wet feet can turn an otherwise gray, but not-that-bad, day into a miserable experience.

Still, heavy downpours sometimes mean you'll need to delay working. Usually, such heavy rain only occurs at scattered intervals throughout the day, and you can work around it, possibly moving a neighborhood from morning to afternoon, based on exactly where the rain is coming down. You can see the weather radar images on a smartphone with weather apps, so you might be able to sort of dodge the worst rain and keep getting work done throughout the day. Or maybe you can sit out a couple of showers when the radar shows that a line of rain is moving through the area.

Even with weather apps on your phone, there may still be times when a whole day's work could be postponed, because very heavy rain causes several problems. Rain forms pools in low spots, and some yards can be almost entirely submerged in standing water. I don't require my workers to go snorkeling for dog poop. If if we were to clean a yard when only a small part of it is not covered with water, then as soon as the water drains away, the rest of the dog poop will be exposed, so from the client's point of view, we would not have done our job. It's better to wait until we can clean the whole yard properly.

Too much rain also means problems caused by getting water in the scoop as you clean up the yards. The water adds up as you do more and more yards. Even though you use good-quality plastic bags, if you get very much water in there with the dog waste, not only does it become very heavy, but you'll also get a rather nasty mess in the bed of your vehicle. You see, when water gets mixed with dog waste in a plastic bag, and there is a little water from rain on the outside of the bag, a thick brown liquid will begin to ooze out of the bags, right through the plastic. The more water you have in the bags, and the more pressure exerted on the bags by placing additional heavy, wet-poop-filled bags on top of them, the more of this oozing will take place. Now, I don't know if the process of this oozing is properly called osmosis or something else, but whatever it is, I call this nasty stuff "poop soup," and it's a very offensive material indeed. It's got particularly nasty, sense-piercing odor that seems to kind of stick to your skin and clothing. It's awful. I mean it. It's nasty. And this nasty liquid will out drip out of the bed of your pickup truck, and accumulate in the bottom of the dumpster where you dispose of your collected waste. It might even potentially cause problems at the landfill where the material is eventually dumped. Considering all this, then, it's a good practice to avoid getting too much water mixed in with the dog waste. Hence, a reason not to scoop poop out of puddles during rainstorms.

A couple of other complications also come up when working in heavy rain. You'll tend to work much more slowly and still miss a lot of piles in such conditions, so each yard takes considerably more time than usual. You'll also have to take much more care while driving from yard to yard in heavy rain, for safety, so the driving will take more time than usual, too.

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING

Thunderstorms carry their own special hazards because of lightning.  During a thunderstorm, being out in someone's yard while you're holding a lobby pan and rake is not safe. According to accuweather.com, lightning can strike up to 10 miles from where the rain is coming down. So,

DO NOT WORK SCOOPING POOP WHEN YOU HEAR THUNDER

OR WHEN THERE IS LIGHTNING IN THE AREA!

If you're out working and an thunderstorm approaches, get out of the yard. It's safer in your truck or car, where you can wait out the storm as it moves through, or just go back to the office and postpone the rest of the day's stops if the storm is going to last a long time. Using one of the weather apps on your phone, you can keep a close eye on local conditions hour-by-hour forecasts can give you insight into how long conditions will last, when to expect rain to start and stop, and other information that can help you decide when and if you'll want to be working outside on a particular day. Sometimes the difference in weather conditions can be dramatically different on opposite sides of town, too. Carefully watching the weather radar images on your computer at the office or on your phone or tablet while out in the field will help you make alterations in your route schedule. You may be able to go ahead and work a different neighborhood while waiting for the heavy rain to move through the spot you had originally scheduled for the morning or afternoon.

AUTUMN LEAVES

If you live in an area where leaves change color and fall off the trees in the fall, then autumn can be "Poop Camouflage Season," when those fallen leaves hide the poop. Those weeks can be a bit of a hassle for some scoopers, especially in the yards of clients oak or maple trees growing on or near the property. Be aware that work in those yards is going to go more slowly, and you'll have to be especially careful to avoid stepping in hidden piles, and you probably won't always be successful in avoiding them. It's remarkable how much poop can look like leaves.

If you've worked for that client for some months already, then you might know the places where the dog usually poops, and you can concentrate your search more, which helps. If the weather has been fairly dry, then you might have some success in trying to sort of sweep the leaves away, off of the top of the area where you're looking for piles. This is a situation in which a rake is more agile than a shovel, but whatever tool you use, but it still takes more time than usual.

If the leaves are not kept raked up, they'll accumulate to become a real hindrance to finding the poop. And if the leaves are wet from rain, it's nearly impossible to do a good job of waste removal. If you send out a monthly customer newsletter (which I highly recommend), then when the fall season starts up, remind clients that excessive leaf buildup will slow you down and hide poop, sort of asking them ahead of time for patience and understanding during the season.

You might include something in your newsletter reminder about making sure the lawn services blow away the leaves, or you might even offer a leaf-removal service of your own as an extra option with your regular poop-scooping for an additional fee. Such an add-on service would enable you to keep your service quality up to your usual high standards and also create a little extra income.

Don't overschedule - Make sure you allow plenty of time for those yards that are going to take extra time. Besides the leaves slowing you down, the days are getting shorter at that time of year, so you'll have fewer hours of daylight in which to work.

It would be nice if you could avoid doing one-time jobs, and first-time jobs when there are a lot of leaves on the ground, but since that's not really practical, then take the leaves into account when you schedule those tasks. You might as well just go ahead and take a big leaf rake with you and rake up the yard as part of the job. Be sure to include the extra time and effort in your calculations for pricing the work.

SNOW

Yes, you can keep working even in the snow... sometimes! Of course, if there's very much snow, like more than an inch, there's not much you can do. But if there is just a dusting of snow, a half inch or so, we can find enough of the dog waste to make it worthwhile to go ahead and work at our regular weekly assignments. If you don't get at least half of the waste cleaned up, the continued accumulation from week to week becomes a big problem.

Don't do first-time jobs or one-time jobs even if there's just a little snow, though. Try to schedule those jobs when there's no snow at all, because when there's a lot of old poop in the grass, even a light dusting of snow makes it almost impossible to find it all.

When there's heavier snow we'll postpone a day's scheduled work. In many cases, in the climate where I live, the snow will melt off in a day or two, so we are often able to make it up by working longer hours on a couple of days later in the week, or do a make up day on Saturday.

Those with business in places where there are times when it stays cold long enough that a snowfall does not melt for several days, a week, or more, may sometimes have to skip a whole week or even longer.

The dogs keep pooping right through the bad weather, of course, so even when the snow doesn't melt away, when the new snow stops falling it is important to get back out into the yards as soon as possible to clean up the poop from dogs going on top of the old snow. If you don't do that the waste will keep accumulating from week to week, so that by the time all that snow eventually does melt there will be a terrible mess. By keeping up with the new waste the problem of long-term accumulation can be kept to a minimum. This is important for your own work schedules, but is equally important for the satisfaction of your clients.

If you live in an area where snow is likely to prevent you from keeping your regular schedule sometimes, then it's important to have a SNOW POLICY, a clear policy about how your service will handle snowy weather, and what that means for your customers. If you have a "Snow Policy," you would include that on your New Customer Welcome sheet and probably want to add a line or two about it in your newsletter during the winter months.

Those charging by the month might want to specify that there is no reduction in the charge for a particular month in case a visit is cancelled by snow, for instance. The reasoning behind that would be that when you do get back to the yard there is twice as much to clean up. Without an up-front statement like that you might end up giving full credit for the week missed, and then picking up twice as much poop the next week for the regular charge. One scooper in New England has a stated policy that they won't scoop the yard unless there have been 5 consecutive days with no snow.

In my own service, our "Satisfaction Guaranteed" policy remained in effect at all times. Most clients would understand the reasons we would keep working when there is snow on the ground, especially when we keep up good communication with them, letting them know what's happening with our service during bad weather. But if there are some yards where we couldn't find at least half of the usual amount of waste, or if some clients weren't happy with our work for whatever reason, I wouldn't charge them. Of course, part of my market position as the "premium" pooper-scooper service included a regular price that allowed me to make these small adjustments from time to time and not suffer on the bottom line. This approach has served me well in most winter seasons. There are times when we miss a day or two of work, even a week or more, but we manage to make up most of those lost days and we mostly keep working through the winter.

There was one year when we kept getting heavy snows every few days, making it useless to try to keep up with the dogs pooping because it just got covered up. We missed about five consecutive weeks of work that year. Not only was that unusual experience very hard on our cash flow, but when we were finally able to get back in the yards and work again, we had several hundred yards with over a month's accumulation of waste!.What a mess! And in addition to that, we had a bunch of new clients calling us when they saw all that previously-frozen poop in their own yards after the thaw! We had a pretty tough couple of couple of weeks getting caught up that spring. The work was difficult and messy, there were days of long hours, employees got a bunch of overtime, but in the end we came out of it with a lot more customers than we had before, and it was worth it.

FREEZING COLD

Even without snow, freezing temperatures call for some special considerations. Sometimes cold weather actually makes it easier to scoop the poop! That's because it makes the piles firm and easy to work with. But you do have to be sure to carry more than the usual number of extra bags with you, because the piles won't be compacted so much in the bag, and they'll take up more volume, so you'll find yourself using more plastic bags.

When it's freezing outside, watch carefully for ice. You Must Watch Your Step! You'll have to be particularly careful walking on concrete patio steps and patches of ice on sidewalks and in yards.

When the cold weather actually freezes the piles of waste to the ground, then the job is more difficult and more time consuming. One special cold-weather technique that I've found to be helpful is to use a shovel, rather than a rake, and sort of insert the shovel in a horizontal motion, parallel to the ground, aiming to get under the piles. Sometimes I bash the piles with the shovel to break lots of piles loose from the ground all at once and then scoop them all up. This technique saves me a lot of time, and is also a lot easier on my wrists and arms than trying to clean up the piles with the regular technique. Before I learned to do this, I would forcefully beat against the side of each frozen pile with my shovel. It often took several blows against a pile to break it loose from the ground. I actually broke a wooden shovel handle this way once!

Piles of waste that are actually frozen into the ice are usually not worth trying to get. Sometimes you will find feces that have melted partway into ice or snow and then re-frozen. you might find that these can be removed fairly easily using a sort of chipping motion with a shovel. Holding the shovel straight up and down, use a sharp, jabbing blow at the edge of the pile. Such a technique will often break the waste out so you can scoop up. But if you find that it's not working, you might just have to let it go. Sometimes there will be a piles that are so firmly frozen into the ground that you just cannot effectively remove them.

EXTREME COLD might mean cancelling service until it warms up. When the temperature goes down much below ten degrees, and there's much of a wind, then can be dangerous to be outside because of the risk of frostbite or hypothermia. As the Centers for Disease Control cautions, "Be prepared and be aware!" Make sure that you AND your employees understand how to  work safely in cold weather. Wear at least three layers of clothing, wear a hat or a hood, use a scarf or ski mask to protect your face, and be sure your boots are warm and dry.

If the wind chill index gets down to minus 5 or below, you should consider putting off work until it warms up a little or the wind dies down.

EXTREME HEAT

In the summer in some parts of the country, there are sometimes dangerously high heat days. Make sure you and your employees carry plenty of water in your vehicles, and drink lots and lots of it. Wear a hat to protect your head from the sun.  Be aware of how your body is responding to the stress of working in the heat, use the air conditioning in your vehicle or find a spot to have a cool drink and rest a few minutes  if you notice any signs that the heat is starting to make you feel sick.

If the heat index starts to go up around 100 degrees or more, consider not working in the hottest hours of the day. You may be able to get your work done in cooler hours by starting as early as you can in the morning.

WIND

The biggest problem with strong wind is that it blows the plastic bag out of the lobby pan. Using a clip taped to the handle of the scoop can help, but a strong wind can still be a frustrating problem. Wind can even blow a partly filled bag completely out of the lobby pan, spreading the previously collected feces onto the ground so you have to scoop them up again.

The simplest technique for working in the wind, in my experience, is to keep the scoop turned into the wind at all times. That is, instead of carrying the scoop always with the open side towards the direction you are moving, keep the open side of the scoop always facing the wind so that the wind is blowing into it. Sometimes this wind-oriented approach will mean a slight change in your usual search pattern in order to keep scooping so that the wind will blow toward your open scoop.

A similar technique sometimes sometimes helps when scooping poop on hillsides and sloping surfaces. Poop rolls downhill, of course. So on an incline you want to keep the open side of your lobby pan pointed uphill. This will make it easier to scoop the dog waste down into the pan, and also keep the waste that has already been gathered from falling out of the scoop.

MAKE SURE ALL YOUR HELPERS ARE ON THE SAME PAGE.

Of course, your own situation won't be just like mine. You may have different weather conditions or other special considerations, but whatever your circumstances, it will serve your business well to make sure that everyone who is representing your business knows and follows the guidelines you set for them.

On the following page I have reproduced an instruction sheet I have given to new employees for years. It is a general overview of the working techniques that have well for me and helped me to please my customers.

In-Yard Working Procedures for Customer-Service Route Workers

Arriving at the customer's house, park the vehicle with several considerations in mind:

Safety: Park where your vehicle will not be a hazard to other drivers, where they will see your truck and easily maneuver around it. NEVER LEAVE THE ENGINE RUNNING in an unattended vehicle!

Convenience: Try to be close to the gate or entrance to the yard, so you won't have so far too walk and carry full bags back with you. Do not block the customer's driveway in case the customer or a visitor arrives or needs to leave while you are there.

Visibility: Many prospective customers might see your truck, so make it easy for them to see the signage on your vehicle. Also, it may help to park where the customer in the house can see your truck when she looks out her window, so she will know you are there.

It's a good idea to carry at least two extra bags with you into every yard. If there are two or more dogs, you will almost certainly need extra bags, and you never know when there will be extra waste, some unusual litter, a dead bird, or some other thing that you will want to have an extra bag for. It's better to have the extras in your pocket than to have to go back to the truck to get them.

As you are about to enter the yard, make some kind of noise: bang a little with the shovel on your pan, or whistle, to make sure that any dogs that may be in the yard will hear you. You will want to know if a dog is in the yard, and it's not good to surprise or startle a dog.

Even if no dogs show themselves as you approach, remember that there may still be a dog in the yard, or one might come out of the house while you are in the yard. So close the gate behind you on the way in, and keep alert while you are in the yard.

Starting in the area of where you entered the yard, search carefully in some definite pattern to cover the entire area to be cleaned. The type of pattern you will use may depend on the layout of the individual yard. A back-and-forth path that moves toward the back of the yard covers most yards efficiently. Keep your eyes moving back and forth across a path about 4 to 6 feet wide. Vary the width of your search path according to conditions such as the height of the grass, size of the piles, etc. Allow some overlap from swath to swath.

You can reverse this same path from the rear of the yard back to your starting point on the way out for a double-check. You may be surprised at what you miss on a single search, so it is best to double-check in most cases. Some yards may be OK with a single search, but usually a double-check will show you piles that you will wonder how you could possibly have missed the first time. Some yards might even require a triple check to be sure of finding everything and satisfying the customer.

The first time or two that you clean a particular yard, be sure to look everywhere in the entire yard: flower beds, mulch areas, driveways, walks... every place that a dog could go. When you become more familiar with each yard and each dog's habits, you may be able to limit your usual search areas to save time. Some dogs have very regular areas that they use, and others may continue to go in just about any and all areas of the yard. I remember one dog that used to literally go in the same spot every time. He actually pooped on top of his old poop, and every week I could walk right to that spot, make one or two swipes with the scoop, and I knew I had everything. Some dogs, though, are completely unpredictable and you will have to thoroughly search the entire yard every time to be sure of getting everything.

Never neglect to pick up any dog waste you may see, because you can be sure that the customer is going to notice what you did not see, let alone what you were too lazy to pick up. You may even have to scoop up some little sticks, clumps of mud, mushrooms, etc. if they just look like dog poop. The customer is not going to closely examine every pile in her yard. If she sees something that looks like poop to her, she's not going to be happy and we'll have to do the yard again.

# WORKING AROUND DOGS

Ordinarily, dogs are not out in the yard when we are working. They're usually in the house while we're cleaning, not because of any general policy of ours, but just because most of our customers don't leave their dogs outside while they're at work during the day.

In those cases where the dogs are in the yard while we work, we usually get along pretty well with the animals. I try to hire people who love dogs and have experience with being around them, and ordinarily you can just say hi to the dog, maybe let the dog sniff your hand, don't make sudden moves or loud noises, and you'll get along fine.

However, every now and then there will be a dog that is serious about not letting you work in the yard. You have to be able to recognize when a dog poses a real risk of biting. I have refused to work in a yard or two when there's a dog that seems to be dangerous, and if one of my workers makes the judgment call that a particular dog is just too aggressive, I won't require the person to work with that dog in the yard.

If a dog is in the yard, and you feel that it is too risky to go into that yard with the dog, then go to the front door of the house to knock and see if someone is home and can bring the dog inside while you work. If nobody answers the door, leave a note explaining that you came to clean, but the dog wouldn't let you in. You may have to make arrangements with the dog's owner, so that the dog will be indoors or otherwise restrained at the time you come to clean the yard. Also put a note on the route sheet, whether it's on paper or an electronic list on your phone or tablet, along with the address for that client, to the effect that "DOG MUST BE INSIDE" or something like that.

You might print some blank "Dog Out/Lock Out" notices to keep in your truck.

LEARN TO READ DOG BEHAVIOR AND BODY LANGUAGE. Many dogs will bark, of course, and that doesn't necessarily mean that you will be unable to work with that dog. It is important to be able to recognize signs of aggression in dogs, and to know the difference between ordinary barking and play, and fear, aggression, territory guarding, etc. You'll need to understand the difference between normal barking or a serious warning that a dog might present a danger. Whether you've had such experience with dogs or not it would be a good idea to  get some books, read materials available online, watch informational DVDs that you can buy or free videos on YouTube, or even go to a class in canine body language offered by a local trainer to learn the basics of dog behavior and safety. Your friendly local library will help you find some materials, too, if you ask.

You can hear different "tones," or moods, in various dog barks. A dog that is wagging his tail while he's barking might just be greeting you, or announcing your presence. On the other hand, a dog that has raised the hair on the back of her neck, is showing her teeth, and barks in a lower tone is seriously challenging your entry into her territory.

Sometimes a dog will present a very mild challenge, but will keep a safe distance from you as you approach the gate and enter the yard. I have generally found it safe to work with a dog that will keep its distance this way. But a challenging dog that does not back away from the fence as you approach, and does give ground or staying a respectful distance from you, is a dog I would be much more cautious about.

Ordinarily, a dog that shows you its teeth is probably going to defend its territory. This is usually a sign of aggression. But I have known at least one dog that actually grinned, showing lots of teeth, when she was happy, It looked very strange to me,but it just goes to show that dogs have individual personalities that you'll have to try to get to know as you meet each one.

Don't turn your back on a questionable dog while you're working. Also know that even if there's no dog in the yard when you go in, sometimes an owner will let a dog out of the house while you're there, or the dog might come out via a doggie door, or maybe the dog was just out of site at first. In any case, you can never be quite sure that a dog won't show up unexpectedly.

Sometimes a dog owner might notice you're in the yard while the dog is out, and, thinking that they will call the dog in, or that the dog will be calmer if the owner is closer, they come out and call the dog. That's sometimes not a problem, but I have seen lots of times when the dog becomes MORE aggressive when the owner appears, apparently because the dog is now stimulated to be more protective.

If you do happen to get caught in a yard with a dog that becomes scary, or might even try to bite you, keep your body facing toward the dog, keep your scoop and rake between you and the dog to protect yourself, and back away from the dog as you exit the area.

PEPPER SPRAY? Because of the potential risks involved in dealing with unknown dogs, it is certainly prudent to consider how you might handle an emerging unpleasant situation with an aggressive dog. I can certainly see the reasons why you might decide that you want the protection afforded by carrying dog-repellent spray. Should you carry dog-repellent spray? Well, you'll have to make that decision for yourself. You may feel differently about this than I do, but I don't carry mace.

Most of our customers are true dog lovers, and many of them think of their dogs as their children, and they'll be repelled by the very thought of you carrying mace for dogs. And even beyond the client-relations aspect, there are some practical reasons I don't carry pepper spray. Employees would have to be trained to use it properly, anyway, so, as long as you're going to be training them, why not train them to deal with dogs effectively without using repellents? Some workers, especially new ones, would inevitably use it incorrectly. Dogs that have been hurt in this way would be more likely to fear our workers in the future, and fear is the most likely cause of a dog biting us. We want to train the dog to get used to us, and to feel safe with us, not train it to fear us and try to keep us out of the yard. My opinion is that carrying pepper spray would end up losing business for us and actually make our work more dangerous in the long run.

Should you give doggie treats?

Opinions differ on this question and I can see both sides. Consider the issues carefully before you decide to give the dogs treats. I recommend not doing it, but even if you decide to give them, it's very important to make sure you have the dog owner's permission before you do.

In the early years of my dog waste removal business I would carry dog biscuits in my car and use them to make friends with the dogs. I quit doing that after it was pointed out to me that there are some good reasons for thinking twice about doing that.

For one thing, some dogs have very particular diets. If you upset that diet with your doggie treats you could disturb the animal's digestive health, or maybe do even worse damage. This is something you will become more sensitive to as you gain experience with the hundreds of dogs you will meet over the next several years. It's also an increasing sort of trend in recent times for people to be more sensitive about food issues, and they are extending that sensitivity to their pets.

Some dogs are diabetic. Some dogs are on medications that require certain food restrictions. Some people don't want their animals eating gluten. Some have their pets on vegetarian diets. For these reasons, among others, many dog owners feel very strongly that their canine friends should not be receiving foods other than what they carefully choose to feed them them.

Since your service is supposed to make life easier for dog owners, you don't want cause another problem for them by feeding their dogs something they don't know about.

There is also a security consideration involved with feeding dog treats. You will be working in the yards of some of the nicest, most expensive homes in your town. one reason many people have for getting a dog in the first place is because they are such great deterrents to burglars. If you start going into the yard once a week and giving the dog a treat, you may, without meaning to, actually be training the dog that strangers are OK as long as they have treats.

Instead of giving treat, I recommend that you let the dogs get used to you, personally: your scent, your sounds, your habits, and so forth. Talk sweetly to the animals, praise them for their good behavior. Leave the giving of treats up to the dog's owners.

HEALTH SIGNS IN DOG STOOL.

One of the most concrete ways to demonstrate your real commitment to "value added" service for your clients is to make an effort to study and learn about some of the many indications to be found in the dogs' stool. Certain parasites' eggs and worms can be seen directly. Color and consistency of the stool may give clues about possible health conditions that a vet should check out. Foreign objects in the stool may indicate important safety considerations that should be brought to the attention of the dog's owner.

Discussing these health signs to be observed in dog stool might be disgusting, and of course it's certainly not suitable material for general conversation. FAIR WARNING: The links in this section go to some gross pictures. But it could be of vital importance to doing your best work for your customers. Besides, if you can't stand to read and talk about these things, and if you can't stand to look at pictures of this stuff, you might not be going into the right business. With that in mind, let us continue:

 Roundworms look something like rubber bands in the dog waste. Of course, sometimes dogs actually do eat and subsequently poop out real rubber bands, so be sure to notice the difference. Look closely if you have to. If you find one or more roundworms in a dog's feces, whether the worms are still alive or dead, you will need to notify the animal's owner. Sometimes a worm treatment will result in the elimination of several dead roundworms, but it's still a good idea to check with the dog-owner just to make sure that she knows what's happening.

 Tapeworms in dogs may sometimes be detected by observing segments of the worms or the parasite's eggs, resembling grains of brown rice, in the dog waste. Newly eliminated, live tapeworm segments can be white, fat, and wiggly. To tell them apart from maggots you can look closely and see that they are carrot-shaped. Especially in warm weather, you will very frequently see small, white, fat, rice-sized creatures in the waste you clean up. These are not tapeworm eggs; they are the larvae of flies (maggots) that hatch from eggs laid in the waste after it is eliminated.

Diarrhea can be a symptom of certain illness or gastrointestinal distress in a dog. Sometimes diarrhea may be caused by something as simple as eating greasy table scraps, or changing to a new dog food, or feeding the animal with poor quality food. If these conditions are obviously the cause of the problem, or it's just a couple of loose piles, you might not give it much thought, or you might mention it to the dog's owner without making a big deal of it. If it is occurring frequently or causing distress for the dog, you would certainly want to tell the client about it. Frequent, unexplained diarrhea could indicate a serious problem, so you should alert your client to this condition with a note or a phone call.

 Blood in the stool can be an indication of a very serious health problem. If you find blood in a dog's waste, be sure to notify the owner as soon as possible so the owner can consult a veterinarian right away. Notice the color of the blood. Bright red blood, as opposed to dark, nearly black, blood in the stool can be a sign of problems in different parts of the digestive tract, so the owner will need that information for the vet..

Foreign objects in dog stools are sometimes nothing more serious than some rather startling or amusing stuff while you're cleaning up. However, some materials can pose a risk of injury or death to the dog, so if you see dangerous items in an animal's waste you should make the owner aware of it. Watch for sharp objects like pins or needles, splinters from bones, and so on. Pillow stuffing, upholstery, and the like can get stuck inside a dog, so if you see that a dog is pooping that kind of stuff, you might mention it to the owner with a caution about it, so maybe they can keep an eye on the dog to prevent it from chewing those things. Strings, carpet fibers, and the like can get tangled inside a dog's intestines, often requiring surgery. If these appear in a dog's waste, advise the owner to watch for what the dog is chewing on, and that such materials should be kept away from the pet for its safety. Dogs have been known to die from swallowing tampons, too, so if you see one in a dog's poop, be sure to mention it to the owner, and mention that it's potentially dangerous, so she should be sure to dispose of them someplace where the dog can't get to it. Some degree of tact and diplomacy will be required to bring this rather delicate subject to her attention, but do it for the sake of the animal's health and life, and you will win the appreciation and loyalty of your customers.

CLEAN-UP SERVICES FOR ANIMALS OTHER THAN DOGS:

Now and then you'll get unusual requests. Scoopers have cleaned horse stalls, scooped llama and alpaca poop, and I've even cleaned monkey cages. Here are some of the more common non-canine jobs:

Cat litter box service: I do not have experience with litter box service, myself. Some scoopers do offer litter box service for cat owners. You are likely to get a few requests for this type of service, and you might as well think about it ahead of time so you'll be prepared with a yes or no answer for those inquiries down the road.

The potential advantage is that you could bring in additional money from people who just hate to clean the cat box, as well as from  pregnant women who are advised to avoid cat litter, and from patients on chemotherapy or those with medications or  conditions that may weaken their immune systems. These jobs could be added to work already done at existing clients' homes, or you could squeeze them in between dog scooping stops to fill out a route and get in more stops per day.

A straightforward method of handling this work would be to simply go inside the client's home, dump the old litter, fill the box with new litter, and take the old litter with you when you go.

Other scoopers who offer this service avoid any need to go inside the people's homes, which makes it more convenient for the client and quicker for the worker. This method involves providing the boxes and litter yourself -- even MORE convenient for the client, who no longer has to buy and lug around those heavy bags of litter. The scooping service initially provides the cat owner with two litter boxes, each one pre-filled with litter and with a snap-on cover in place. Plastic containers sold as "storage boxes" work very well. If the client has more than one cat, you might provide two boxes for each cat to start with. Then when it's your day to service the litter box, the client just snaps the lid on the dirty box and puts the dirty box outside where you have agreed to pick it up. She then puts takes the lid off of the clean box she already has and puts that down for the cat to use. When you pick up the old box, you leave a clean box in it's place.

You'll do all the dumping of litter, cleaning, sanitizing, and refilling the boxes back at your office/garage. Buying litter in larger quantities might save you money. Having a work table all set up like a production line for the cleaning, sanitizing, drying, and re-filling operation will save you time.

Prices for this kind of service commonly range between $10 and $20 a week. If you're doing it in addition to scooping for dogs at the same address, you could charge a little less because you're already there and your travel expense is less. For the same reason, you might consider a multi-cat discount if you're exchanging several boxes at one location.

Pet pigs are the same as dogs when it comes to cleaning up their poop, at least that's my experience. It works fine to just scoop and bag it, like a regular yard cleanup, and charge the same as you do for dogs.

Canada Geese make a big mess in grassy areas near ponds, and sometimes scoopers will get a call to clean up after geese. These tend to be big jobs that take a lot of time, so there's no standard fee for this work. Some scoopers won't even accept jobs cleaning up after geese. I have accepted some jobs like this, and found that they can be profitable if the client is willing to pay as much as I would otherwise make in the same amount of time doing ordinary dog poop cleanups. My own style would be to look the job over and give them a price based on how long I expect it to take to do the work. I don't like to quote an hourly rate; I prefer to give the client a definite price and not say how long I think it will take.

Cleaning up goose poop is more like raking leaves or raking grass cuttings than it is like scooping dog waste. I found a wide leaf rake to be more useful than my regular tools for this kind of work. I would rake larger areas into piles and then scoop those mounds of goose poop and grass into the lobby pan and dump it all into trash bags. I'd end up with several trash bags around the area I'd cleaned, and then just tie up the bags and put them in the truck.

WASTE DISPOSAL

"What do you do with all the poop?"

If you don't have this question covered before you ever clean the first yard, you're could find yourself in a predicament, and the longer your client list, the greater the potential problem. So before you put an ad in the paper or send a press release be sure you know what you'll do with the dog waste that you'll be cleaning up, and be sure that you'll be complying with any and all applicable laws or regulations!

Don't do anything stupid!

If you were to run afoul of any health, environmental, or refuse-disposal guidelines, the resulting penalties and bad public exposure could be enough to prevent your business from ever succeeding. You could even taint the image of the whole concept in the public's mind, making it that much tougher for you or anybody else in your area to build future success in this business.

Take it or Leave it.

There is an alternative to actually taking the waste away with you when you clean up a customer's yard, thus avoiding most of the issues about how to properly dispose of collected dog poop. You could choose to leave the bagged waste at the client's property, in the client's own trash can, IF that is legal in your area.

If you have no way to transport and dispose of the waste yourself, you could offer to go the customer's yard on a regular schedule, go over the yard, find all the dog waste and scoop it up. Then, instead of taking it away with you in your truck, you could double bag it, securely close the bags, and leave it in the customers own trash cans.

Some pooper-scoopers have successfully used this approach. Though it's not the way I would do it myself, I can see some attractive aspects to it. You wouldn't necessarily need to use a truck, for one thing. You could keep all your tools in the trunk of a car, because you wouldn't need to carry a couple hundred pounds of dog doo around in your vehicle. You could also avoid the complications of a lot of regulations that might apply to solid waste transportation and disposal. And of course, you wouldn't have the expenses in money or time involved with renting a dumpster or going to the landfill to unloading your truck.

But those advantages are all strictly for you; not necessarily for your customer. Leaving the bagged waste in your client's trash doesn't position your service as an ultra-high quality service, in my opinion.

There was a short period of time, in a very limited portion of my service area, when I did offer the "clean up only" kind of service to some customers. Because of some newly enacted local regulations, it happened that we could not transport waste from properties in a certain county. prior to those rules, we had been serving that area, and suddenly we found we could not take the poop away with us for several of our clients who lived in the affected area. So I explained this to those customers, and for a while I did leave the bags at those customers' properties. During that time, my business did not grow in those neighborhoods; in fact, it slowly dwindled away. I think that kind of "half-way" service was simply not as satisfying for the customer as the complete service.

I think it's meaningful to note that when that situation changed and we were again again able to do the complete removal service in those same areas, business there picked up again!

Perhaps the "leave it" option would work if you could not find a way to comply with disposal regulations. And it might be possible to get started this way until you could afford to implement the full removal and disposal service.

Jumping through hoops can be good exercise!

I try to make my service so complete that a dog owner won't even have to think about dog poop any more. She doesn't have to smell it in her trash, she doesn't have to see bags of poop, and she doesn't have to wonder if it's legal to put it in her garbage. She just plain doesn't have to deal with it. I think this full-service approach is one of the important factors of my way of operating the dog waste removal service business that has contributed to my success.

When I first started and had only a handful of customers, I could just put a bag of waste in my regular trash at home without any problems. But very soon I began to collect more than just a few pounds of dog poop every day. I needed another method of disposal.

As I contacted various facilities and agencies, I began to see a potentially serious problem for my growing new business. It seemed like there was way of disposing of large quantities of dog waste that was both legal and practical. The local trash-burning power station prohibited the inclusion of animal feces in the refuse they accepted. Same story with the county's sanitary landfill. The more calls I made, the more it looked bad for me. Finally I asked one of those officials directly, "What are people supposed to do with their pets' poop?" The answer, amazingly, was ""Bury it or flush it down the toilet."

I called the director of the county landfill. He told me that I could fill out a form called a "Special Waste Profile" for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, and if they would approve it, then I could ask permission from the regional Solid Waste Authority to dump at the landfill.

The Special Waste Profile was fairly involved, but with a little research at the library, some careful thinking, and some help from the Ohio EPA, I managed to fill out the paperwork. A couple of weeks later I received a letter stating that it was officially OK with the OEPA if I wanted to dump dog poop at our county landfill. Then I sent that letter, along with a formal written request to dispose of pet waste, to the Solid Waste Authority. The Authority granted me permission, with an initial limit of 2 cubic yards per week, to use the landfill. That was fine with me, I was delighted!

It was kind of funny, at first, what with my first company vehicle being a little tiny Honda hatchback. I was almost lost among the huge equipment and the trucks at the dump. The landfill guys called it my "toy car." But before long I was making enough money to upgrade to a real pickup truck. And then another one. And another. And so on.

As my business grew, I would periodically apply for, and receive, permission to dump larger quantities of waste. Eventually we were dumping more than 2,000 pounds every week. And in all those years, with all that poop, there was never any problem with disposing of the waste at the landfill.

The landfill is an environmentally responsible solution.

A far cry from the old "city dump" of many decades ago,  modern sanitary landfills are designed to prevent pollution. They are lined with clay and materials to prevent pollutants from leeching into the surrounding land and water. Entombment in a landfill kills parasites and other disease organisms in animal waste, and is  one of the best ways to dispose of pet droppings.

Licensed, Bonded, and Inspected

When I started out were no special laws or regulations covering my operations. Later, however, a whole set of regulations was instituted to govern all solid waste haulers in our state, including my doggie business. When my employees and I were going to the landfill with my trucks, my company was technically considered to be a "solid waste hauler" as defined by the County Solid Waste Authority and the County Board of Health.

Suddenly my business was required to be registered with the Board of Health, to have regular vehicle inspections, and obtain a $5,000 surety bond. We were also prevented from bringing any waste from outside the county into the landfill for a while (every county has its own set of regulations pertaining to all of these sorts of things), so if we wanted to operate in the bordering counties we would have had to go through all of this in each one of them.

So for several years, as long as we were taking our vehicles to the county landfill, we were controlled by all the regulations applicable to every company defined as "solid waste haulers." This placed a practical limitation on our service area to stay within our own county lines. And because of the cost of each visit to the landfill, I limited our dump trips to just once a week.

As the business kept growing larger and larger, this became a bigger and bigger problem in a number of ways. For one thing, in the hot summer it got pretty smelly in between dump trips. Besides that, there was a lot of wear-and-tear on the trucks as the weight of the load increased. By the time we got to the landfill each week, our little trucks were carrying over a thousand pounds of waste.

Finally! A simple solution: Hire someone to haul it to the landfill!

Eventually we solved a multitude of these disposal-related problems all at once when we made a simple change in our operations: We contracted with a private waste-hauling company. The hauler provides us with a dumpster, and the hauler's truck would come to empty the dumpster twice a week.

With this change, we were no longer defined as a "solid waste hauler" because we were no longer taking our vehicles to the landfill. Thus we no longer need to register with the board of health or be bonded. We were again free to serve clients outside the county lines, too.

Now the route drivers could unload each truck every day, using the dumpster. The trucks stayed much cleaner and the unpleasant odors were confined to the dumpster. Even when it got hot in the summer, just a little lime sprinkled over the bags of waste in the dumpster destroys odors and helps control flies.

LAWN AND GARDEN LIME FOR ODOR CONTROL is cheap -- One store sells a  50 pound bag of it for $7.

The cost to hire the hauling contractor was about the same as we had been spending each month in landfill fees. I actually saved money because I didn't have the labor hours and mileage costs for my drivers to make the trip to the other end of the county and back. Plus there wasn't such a heavy load on the vehicles, thus reducing repair and maintenance costs. And we got fewer flat tires, on account of not driving over nails, wires, etc. at the dump. So, once again, an outside service saves time, effort, and money while we concentrate on our primary mission to improve our service to clients and make the employees' jobs more pleasant. Now, that's the kind of change I like to make!

What about composting the waste?

The idea of composting dog waste is a subject of widespread interest in connection with this business. It seems to me that most of the information I've seen says that composting dog poop is generally not a good idea. Apparently, the temperatures ordinarily generated naturally by composting are not high to kill the disease pathogens in the poop, and it would be potentially hazardous to handle the resulting composted material or use it on vegetable plants or in areas where people will come in contact with it. I would not recommend composting for those reasons. Furthermore, the economics of the additional handling, processing, care and maintenance of the composting facility, along with insurance and compliance issues would be disincentives, in my opinion.

That's not to say it can't be done. Some dog waste removal services DO compost what they collect. In fact, that can be a strong selling point that appeals to environmentally-conscious prospects. Of course it costs additional money to handle and process the waste, and running a composting facility is like running an additional business, with additional regulations and risks. But those scoopers feel it is worth the extra trouble, and they believe in what they are doing, so they are willing to do that. Plus, of course, if they can sell the finished product, then they've created something of value out of something that had no value before. That would have to be a satisfying feeling.

So, while it's beyond my personal area of expertise, if that is something that appeals to you, then go ahead and go for it. Just be sure to do your research and comply with all the applicable health, environmental, transportation, and work safety laws and regulations.

Back to Table of Contents
**YOUR BUSINESS ON WHEELS**

Humble beginnings: What if you can't afford a truck?

When I first started my service, I couldn't afford a vehicle devoted exclusively to the business. Heck, I could barely afford an old beat up car for my family! So, since I had only a few customers in those first few weeks, I used my personal car. I carried my tools and the double-bagged dog waste I cleaned up from the customers' yards in the trunk of my car, and I'd put those filled bags in my own trash cans as soon as I got home from my routes.

Aaaannnnd....Yes, it made my car stink.

One day my car's engine went kaput. And then I had NO car! So I made a deal with a friend of mine: I would do all the marketing, office work, billing, sign up new customers, schedule the yards and give him the route sheets, and he would run the routes and scoop the poop. For this arrangement, I paid my friend half of all the money generated from the customers whose yards he cleaned. In those days I would collect the money at the time I did the service, so some of the customers would leave the money in a spot outside the house, and so my buddy would clean up the poop, then take the money and keep half of it.

It was not an ideal arrangement for me, of course. But it demonstrates that even when you have no money for a company vehicle, or even no vehicle at all, it is still possible to get this business off the ground. With even just a few customers in the beginning, you'll be producing a cash flow and you can start to accumulate resources, by which I mean money. I saved up money this way and grew my little business one step at a time, little by little, until I could buy an old use car, and gradually made my business better and better. That is how I bootstrapped my way from having no car to eventually having a fleet of nice trucks.

Fortunately, I didn't have to rely on my friend with a car very long. After a little while I was able to save enough money from the business that I could buy my own used car. A little while more and I was able to buy my first company vehicle, a vehicle I could use exclusively for the poop business and not have split between business and personal use. I'll never forget how happy that made me.

For $300 (Three Hundred!) I bought an old, very used, very high mileage, Honda Civic CVCC two-door hatchback with a standard transmission. It wasn't exactly the finest of modern transportation, but to me it was a tremendous milestone of success! I bought stencils and paint, and put my lettering on the car in big, bright red letters for all the world to see. Was I ever proud!

Of course, my little business kept growing and I soon found myself carrying a couple hundred pounds of dog poop in the back of that little hatchback every day! I often wondered what might happen if I ever had a wreck. Oh, can you imagine the mess? Yuck! And just think what the local news media might have done with such a story. But I was very careful and, thank goodness, such a thing never occurred. With that little car I was able to bring in enough money to buy my first pickup truck.

My point is that this was how I kept taking one step at a time towards what I knew was possible. If you're starting with nothing or almost nothing, and you can't do everything you wish you could do, then do what you can, however you have to do it. Gradually make improvements, and you'll be able to do a little more, and then more, and over time all these steps will add up to amazing strides. This is how I know from my own experience that it's truly possible to start a real business with very little money and grow with it as it gets better and better.

Off-site garage:

In many places, there should be no problem with one or two business vehicles kept at your home. If your home is a large place in the country, for instance, something like that won't be an issue. On the other hand, if you operate your dog waste removal service from home and you live, say, in an apartment, then you may not want your poop truck parked on the street in front of your house. It might not even be allowed by the apartment management.

If it's just a matter of having a commercial vehicle with signage on it that's a problem, then you could try some magnetic signs. That way you could remove the signage when you aren't "on duty."

When I had that old Honda, and even when I got my first pickup truck, for a while I was going to the landfill only once a week. As I acquired more and more customers there was a growing accumulation of bags of waste in the back of my truck between trips to the dump. The odor could become objectionable and it was a little uncomfortable for me to keep the truck on the street in front of my apartment every night. I wanted to maintain my office operations at home, but it was time to find someplace else to keep the truck.

I kept my eye on the classified advertisements in the daily paper. I was watching the "Commercial" section of the classifieds, under "Garages for Rent/Lease." It didn't take long to find a cheap garage available near my home. The garage didn't have electricity or water, but all I needed was a place I could park my poop-laden truck with its attention-getting signs. For $35 a month, I could run my business from my little office at home while keeping my truck in a garage a few blocks away, off the street and out of sight.

If you need an off-site garage you could try looking on Craigslist or other online classified ads in your area. Or search Google for garages for rent in your location.

When I started running two trucks the man who owned the first garage I rented happened to have another one available right next to it. By renting these inexpensive garages, I managed to keep my business home-based until we were serving more than 300 customers a week, by which time I was making enough money to move the whole business into a nice office/garage facility.

How to buy a cheap used vehicle:

When you have very little money, you have to watch for terrific bargains. Pickup trucks are quite popular and they command a premium over passenger cars. But bargains are out there. When you are going to be in the market for a used truck, be sure to keep your purchase money in your checking account, ready for immediate access. Individuals selling used vehicles usually want to be paid in cash, so you must be able to produce that cash right away, or the truck will go to the first person in line behind you who does have it. So have the money ready.

Keep a close eye on the "Trucks for Sale" classified ads in the newspaper, Craigslist, and other local classified ads every day. Read them carefully as early as you can each morning. The old saying, "The early bird gets the worm" really applies when you're looking for a bargain in used cars or trucks. There will be other people out there looking for a good deal on a truck, too. First one on hand with the cash will win the prize. Also keep your eyes open for trucks with "For Sale" signs on them as you drive around town.

When you find a vehicle for sale at a price you can afford, you'll need to  INSPECT IT THOROUGHLY before you buy it. Always check out the vehicle in good daylight.

When I was young I was taught to remember the word B.E.L.T.S. when looking to buy a car or truck. That stand for Brakes, Exhaust, Lights, Tires, and Shocks. These are the most important safety items to check when you're looking at a used car.:

\-- If the brakes pull to one side, or if they make noise or grind when you use them, that's not a good sign. I would skip a car with brakes like that.

\-- Exhaust system should be in good shape. Go ahead and get down on the pavement and look under the car. Reach up under the car and give the exhaust pipes a tug, making sure they're solid and secure under there. Before you start the car, look inside the tailpipe. It should have clean soot, not oily sludge. A little water out the tailpipe is normal, but oily, greasy sludge in the tailpipe is a sign of engine problems. When you do start the car, look at the exhaust to be sure it's not smoky. Blue smoke in the exhaust means there's oil getting into the combustion chamber, and that's a bad engine problem.

...Lights are easy enough to check. Make sure they're all working. A light not working might just be a burned out bulb, but it might mean a bad fuse or even worse problems in the electrical system. Best to start out with all the lights working properly.

...Tires should show even wear. Tires worn more on one side than the other, or cupped with a sort of scalloped wear pattern around the edges indicate a suspension or alignment problem that could be a safety issue.

...Shocks should be in good shape. Bad shocks will wear out the tires and could cause safety issues with handling. Plus you'll have the weight of the dog poop in the vehicle, so you'll need good shocks.

If you're not used to buying old cars, I would recommend that you  watch videos on YouTube that will give you lots more insight into how to inspect a used vehicle.

The less money you have, the less choosy you can be of course. If you have only a thousand dollars or even less, you can still find usable trucks, but you will have to look for the greatest bargains and won't necessarily be able to choose the brand of truck you might prefer. In my earlier years I used several different brands of trucks because those are the ones I was able to find in my price range. My first truck was an old Chevy "LUV." I also had a Mitzubishi-made Chevy truck, some rusty Toyotas, and even a tiny Volkswagon pickup truck with a diesel engine and an "AaOOOOga" horn!

As you can gather from the first part of this section, you sometimes have to use what you can get, and there's nothing wrong with that. But eventually you can place more emphasis on certain personal preferences in your rolling stock. When I had more resources, I was happy to be able to stick with one make of truck. Besides having a more uniform company appearance, having all the same brand of truck means being able to use the same tools and many of the same parts on all of them. If you have all the same type of trucks, then when you learn a certain repair procedure once you know how to do that job the next time any of your other trucks that needs it, rather than having to learn it from scratch again. And if you buy repair manuals, you'll only need one or two, instead of a different set for each vehicle.

You might need to rent a truck temporarily:

Reliability is essential in the dog-waste removal business. Customers want to know that the work will be done properly and when they expect it. Reliability is extreme important to the type of people most likely to buy this kind of service. And dependability will be one reason loyal customers will be willing to pay more for your service, even if a lower-priced competitor should come along.

When your customer list grows you'll find that getting backed up in your schedules can mean long, hard days of work. The dogs keep doing their thing in the yards, and the more you get backed up, the tougher it is to get caught up again. You really need to keep up with all those yards, and a truck that breaks down will not only cost you money to repair, and possibly lose you customers, but will mean an awful hard job for you when you get back on the road.

If you do have a situation when you can't get a vehicle repaired immediately, you might need to rent a truck for a day or longer. Sure, it costs more than running your own truck and cuts down on your profit, so you don't want to use this option any more than necessary, but if you have full schedules the work will produce more than enough to pay for a rental, and it'll keep your customers happy, and that will keep you in business. I have rented pickup trucks and even cargo vans from U-Haul and from Budget. Of course, you'll need to visit the car wash and clean the vehicle before you return it.

Rules of the Road

Maybe it should go without saying, but I'm going to say it, anyway: **ALWAYS OBEY ALL TRAFIC LAWS, and** drive with utmost courtesy. You are in a service business, meaning you serve. You take care of people, you make them feel good. You are selling convenience and good-feelings. If you ever cut people off in traffic, fail to let somebody change lanes, or in any other way inconvenience someone, endanger their safety, or make them upset because of your behavior in the company vehicle, they are going to tell everyone they know, "That company is rude and careless!" Obviously, you're not going to get far by alienating potential clients.

Be patient. Don't drive like hell. You do have to keep up a steady pace at work, but there is no need to drive faster than the speed limit or take any chances with safety. A few seconds at the traffic light is not going to ruin your day, but a wreck sure will. Take it easy out there, and you'll be happier.

Don't drive distracted. Give your full attention to the traffic and operating your vehicle. Don't text while you're driving. Reading texts is texting, too; don't do it while you're driving. Wait till you're parked and then read the texts. Also don't eat while you're driving. Don't read maps while you're driving. Don't write notes while you're driving. Anything you have to do that isn't driving: don't do it while you're driving.

What to carry in the vehicle:

Route sheets

Note paper, sticky notes, dog out/lockout notes

Business cards maybe some possibly countertop card holders, too

Smart phone with GPS, or smartphone and separate GPS

Maps, even if you have GPS

Shovel AND Rake

Spare lobby pan

Bungee cords/tie-down cords

Milk Crate, or similar container

Sprayer with disinfectant

Boxes of 13-gallon Plastic trash bags

Paper towels

Disposable gloves

Hand Sanitizer

Tire repair kit, air pump, jack and tire iron, and make sure all drivers can fix a tire and change a tire - have practice sessions/training

Traffic cone

First Aid kit

Back to Table of Contents
**OFFICE OPERATIONS**

Set the Boundaries of Your Service Area:

Before we get to scheduling, think about the question of setting the boundaries of your service area. Should you should start with a small area and gradually expand your territory? Or should you begin right away with a service area as large as what you hope to cover when the business is in full swing?

On the one hand, a smaller initial service area could keep all your customers fairly close together, and you wouldn't be driving thirty minutes each way for a single ten dollar cleanup.

On the other hand, it is a very big job to create awareness of your new service business. It will take a lot of of time, effort, and money over the years to make the public aware that your offer exists. As difficult as this creation of awareness is, it will be even more difficult to change people's awareness. It may be counter-productive to be planting the idea that your service is "not available in my neighborhood." When the time comes that you do want to expand your boundaries, you may have poisoned your own well by having previously taught people that they can't get your service in their neighborhoods.

For me, I decided to begin right from the start with the entire area that I intended to service. I wanted all my marketing efforts to accumulate over time, and I did not want to start by putting out a message that might eventually work against me. So in the beginning there were times I'd have a job site all by itself way out there at the extremity of my service area, causing me a little too much travel time for the amount it paid, and creating an inconvenient kink in my routing system. But I was counting on adding more customers to fill in those routes by keeping all my customers satisfied, using my customer referral program, and the large, attractive signage on my trucks. It worked, and I managed to fill in those service areas with more customers as time went by.

After a while, every new customer's address fits between two other customers on a route, which increases productivity and lowers time and cost per client.

Still, there will probably always be a few locations that are not as profitable as others, if you were to consider each yard individually. But the important thing is to consider your productivity overall. You might service only four customers per hour on one day of the week, and on another day work in a community with a dense concentration of customers were you can clean as many as ten yards per hour. Consider your entire week's work schedule, measure your productivity per hour and total revenue versus costs over the whole week. Keep the big picture in mind,in order to maintain an accurate perspective on how your business is doing.

The Big Picture.

To illustrate my point, let me tell you a story from a different project, when I didn't think of a business from the big-picture, overall point of view. As a young teenager, I had a paper route. I used my bicycle to run the route and had quite a few customers. One of my customers lived at the top of a big hill. A great big, long, steep hill. In my immature business mind, I reasoned thusly: How much am I getting paid to deliver each paper? About 4 cents. Was it worth it to me to push my bike up that giant hill just for 4 cents? No. So I didn't give that customer very good service. Sometimes I'd skip it. Of course, with that kind of attitude I didn't keep that job very long, and I didn't make as much money as I would have if I'd have done a better job.

It was only years later that I realized my attitude was all wrong about that paper route and that customer on top of the hill. Rather than thinking of earning only 4 cents for that customer, I should have considered the total amount of money I could make with that paper route. I should have realized that the customer on the hill was just one part of the whole job, and the job, as a whole, WAS able to make enough money for me to make the whole route worth doing.

Rather than my small-minded thought that "this customer is only worth 4 cents," I should have thought, "This is just a small part of a bigger job that will get me what I want if I do good work." And then I should have given that customer excellent service and asked him to tell his neighbors about me so they would want to take the paper, too. If I'd have done that I might have had more customers up on that hill, and made considerably more money for an insignificant amount of extra work!

SCHEDULING

Along with efficient and effective search patterns and cleaning techniques at each job location, proper scheduling methods will be one of the biggest factors in your profitability. The size and general layout of your particular service area may require some variations in the ways you schedule your cleaning routes, but it will always be to your advantage to pay careful attention to this aspect of your service business.

I have found it profitable to cover a service area with a radius of about 15 or 20 miles. But then, that probably has to do with the particular geographic layout of the population in the area where I started my business. Your optimum range of service might be quite different from mine, but in any case, at the edges or even just beyond these boundaries, you'll have to consider carefully how potential income from business in those outlying areas will compare to the extra costs, especially in travel time, of serving those areas. This can be especially problematic in the early stages of your business, when you may have to drive several miles to clean a single yard. From a short-term point of view, such a job seems unprofitable. There will always be a first customer in any neighborhood, but if you do your job well there should soon be more customers in those communities. As few as three or four additional customers in the same vicinity increases your profits enough make it well worth your while to drive there.

Group your stops together.

Right from the start, even as my first customers signed up for service, I would try to keep customers in the same general part of town all scheduled for service on the same day of the week. Clients in different parts of town would be scheduled on different days, even when I only had a few customers for the whole week. Before I ever opened for business, I divided my intended service region into five areas, each to be served on a different day of the week. This way, rather than driving all over town every day, I could keep my individual daily routes all confined to a relatively small region while covering a much larger area over the course of the week.

At first, routing was very simple. But when I started getting dozens of clients then it wasn't so easy to keep all the routes and customer locations in my head. I found it very helpful to visualize all my customers in geographic relation to each other by using different colored pins to represent different routes on different days of the week on a large scale wall map in my office. When I put a new pin on the map, I could easily see where the new client fit between existing customers, which made it easy to figure out where to place the job on the route schedule.

You can buy a city street wall map. But to save money, I made my own large-scale wall map by buying two copies of my local city street guide, carefully removing the pages, then trimming and taping the pages together onto a large area of corkboard that I had mounted on my office wall. I ended up with a large wall map on bulletin board cork.. I added map pins for each stop of all my routes, with different colored pins for each day of the week. If a customer had service twice a week, I put two pins on that spot, with the appropriate colors. The new pin on the map when a customer signed up for service let me see right away where that stop would fit best in my existing routes, and I would assign the stop a route number accordingly.

Some scoopers prefer to computerize the mapping of client locations. One inexpensive software solution that some professional scoopers recommend for mapping and routing is Microsoft Streets and Maps.

There are also some FREE software solutions that you can find online:

MapQuest MapBuilder includes a Route Planner function

OptiMap.net says it will route up to 20 addresses

Google My Maps is also available for free.

Increasing Frequency-of-Service:

While once-a-week service is the preferred schedule for the vast majority of our customers, we do have some clients who want service every other week, and others who desire twice-a-week service.

It didn't take long to see that I happened to be driving through certain neighborhoods, especially the areas close to my office, several times a week. For customers in those areas, I was able to offer service days more often than once a week. Since I was in the area anyway, I might as well offer a day that customer really preferred, and I could also offer to serve those areas more than once a week.

Right from the start, it is practical to offer service twice a week in areas that you will be in more frequently. But for more distant areas it will still be unprofitable to schedule service more often than once a week. Even after several years there will be certain regions of your service area that you should probably offer service only once a week unless you can find other twice-a-week'ers in the same general area.

SPECIAL SERVICE REQUESTS -- Every now and then you'll get a call from a customer who wants special service on a specific day or time. Maybe they are planning a party or wedding in the back yard or something. You don't want to interrupt service for your regular customers, but it will be nice if you can have the resources available - meaning arranging extra time - so that you can accommodate these special requests. And of course, you will have to charge extra for this special service. You'll have to charge enough extra so that it is worth your time and trouble to make a special trip on a day and time that is not when you ordinarily service that location. People who request this service are almost always willing to pay what it takes.

GETTING PAID

You want to talk about bootstrapping? When I first started this business I was so strapped for cash that I was asking people to pay on the spot. I needed the cash to be able to buy gas to run my route! I'd arrive at the house, go to the front door to meet the person, then go clean up the yard, and go back to the door to get paid. Even several weeks into the business I was still being paid in cash at each stop, and customers who weren't home during the day when I worked would leave an envelope in a pre-arranged location for me to pick up when I got there.

Of course, that wasn't convenient at all for my clients, and the whole point of my business proposition was to increase the convenience of my customers' lives. I am thankful that I was able to get started the way I did, and getting paid on the spot like that was an important part of building a business up from practically nothing. But as soon I was able to make it more than a couple of weeks without collecting cash, I switched to monthly billing to make it easier for my people to do business with me.

Billing -- Before or After?

My business strategy for this service included making it as easy and convenient as possible for people to sign up, buy my service, and pay me. That's why I would send my bills to my customers at the end of the month, after doing the service for that month. Especially considering that this kind of service might be utterly new to so many people, I figured they would be more comfortable with getting started if they didn't have to pay for anything up front. They don't know my service, they need to have my reliability demonstrated through actual work before they feel good about handing over money.

Now a lot of scooping businesses, including some very successful ones, require payment in advance. They even require that a client be home on the first visit to sign a contract. From the scoopers' point of view, this prevents the possibility of getting stiffed; that is, they don't have to worry about not getting paid for work they've done. From some customers' point of view, though, it's inconvenient at best, but worse than that, it asks the customer to take the risk of paying for work that might never be done, or done unsatisfactorily. It might even be perceived as arrogant, and could be considered to demonstrate a lack of trust.

Pre-paying is increasingly popular in the the scooping business. Requiring payment in advance mostly eliminates the potential problems of collecting bad debts and missing payments. Those who favor this approach point out that folks already pay in advance for electricity, phone service, cable TV and so on. But it may be more of a problem asking people to pay in advance for something they are skeptical about in the first place. That's why some scoopers have started out by billing for services after the work is done, and then after they've been in business for a while and enjoy a good reputation in their communities, they switch to pre-pay.

In my own business operations, I made it super simple, easy and quick to set up a customer's service. I had a form on which we would wrote the customer's name, address, number of dogs, weekly service fee, how often to clean the yard, and so on, and then we'd give them a start date and start service, as easy as that. I wouldn't require any contracts or other "service agreement" forms to sign, and without requiring advance payment there was nothing else to wait for. That made it very, very easy for a customer to sign up. I figured, the fewer obstacles I put in the way of becoming a customer, the more customers I would get. And that worked out quite well for me over the years!

I guarantee my customer will be satisfied with our work. If a customer is unhappy with the work for any reason, I don't make her pay. I don't even send a bill until the end of the month when the work is done. That way the client is sure we've done our job correctly before she ever has to send payment. The payment due date printed on the bill is the fifteenth day of the following month.

Sending Paper Bills in the Mail:

Back in the olden days of the 20th Century, I printed my invoices on 8 1/2" X 11" paper with a perforation across the page 3 1/2 inches from the top. I printed the customer's name, account number, and total amount due on the top portion and ask that that part of the bill be returned in the mail along with the payment. That way, when I received the check, I had all the information to accurately post the payment to the proper account. I included a return envelope, pre-printed with my company's name and address. Customers appreciated this convenience, and I liked knowing that all the payments would be correctly and legibly addressed. This speeded up the delivery of the payments to me.

I would put the invoice and return-envelope in a number 10 business-size envelope with a window where the address goes, and arrange the printing on the bill so that when folded and inserted in the envelope, the customer's address showed in the window. Besides making it impossible to insert one client's bill in an envelope addressed to someone else, it also saved a whole lot of time and work. Before I decided to use window envelopes, I spent many tedious hours every month typing addresses on labels to stick on the blank envelopes.

Mailing Services

After some years in business, when my customer list grew so much that I was spending hours just printing bills, folding, inserting, and sticking on stamps, I began to use a mailing service. That's a separate business that performs the actual work of putting the invoices and return envelopes into the window envelopes, then they close and seal the envelopes, apply the postage and mail the finished bills.

Because the mailing service has professional grade, high-speed, high-volume machinery for these operations, and because they can pass along to their customers a lower postage rate due to their high volume, the net cost to us for this service is quite low. In fact, I found that I could have the mailing service do all that work for us not only faster than we could do it ourselves, but even at a lower cost than we could do it ourselves!

Although I found that my best solution was to print the bills myself and then drop the printed material off at the mailing service to complete the mailing, these businesses also offer to print the invoices if you provide them with a computer file.

Of course, if you are only mailing a few dozen you'll do them yourself. But when your customer list grows to over a hundred, it might be a good idea to call several local services for prices. You'll find them listed in the Yellow Pages, or search for "Mailing Services," online. The fees for this type of service can vary quite a lot from shop to shop, so be sure to compare several quotes.

Remember, if you want to accept checks made payable to your company's business name, you'll need to have a business checking account with your business name on it.

Using a Post Office Box

If you're starting your business using your home as your office, you might want to think about getting a post office box to receive mail and use as your business address so you don't get door-to-door salespeople, prospective customers, and curiosity seekers knocking on your door.

In the past, some people worried about whether they should use a post office box for their businesses, thinking that there may be some bad image associated with using a P.O. box for an address. But there are some definite advantages in using a box, and I don't think there is any cause for such a worry. It's not like you're not asking people to blindly send money to an unknown address without ever having dealt with you before. If you bill after doing the service, you will have already delivered service that people are delighted with before they even receive your invoice. .People these days are used to sending payments for services to P. O. Boxes. Check out the addresses on the bills you already pay by mail now; almost all of them go to a P.O. box.

Besides keeping your home address private, having your customers send payments to a post office box will maintain the security of your incoming mail. You can pick it up any time of the day or night, and if you go away for a day or two and can't get to your mailbox you won't have to worry about your mail being vulnerable. At the post office your mail is always going to stay dry, and it's never going to be blown around the neighborhood by wind.

Another reason to use a P.O. box is to maintain the stability of your mailing address as your operation grows. If your office grows out of the house, or you move from a small desk space to a little office and then move again to a larger facility like a garage/warehouse site, your customers can keep sending mail to the same address the whole time, even though your office is moving around.

A Post Office box is inexpensive. A small box is all you need. If you get a package sent to your box address, or if there is too much mail to fit in the box ,you'll get a note in your box and they'll give you your mail in a cardboard box. You can get a P. O. Box for about $20 or $30 for six months. Ask the counter clerk at your local post office.

Now, at some local post offices, the boxes can be very popular and you might not always be able to get the smallest size box on a given day. The first part of the month is when you are most likely to get the ones that becoming available.

If the U.S. Post Office nearest you doesn't have a box available, you might try a different branch. Or you could check some of the private mailbox services near you. A private mailbox service has the additional advantage of providing you a street address for your box, which you might actually prefer to using a numbered box. UPS Stores, Pak Mail, and other local packing and mailing services offer private mailbox services that might suit your needs.

CREDIT CARDS and ONLINE PAYMENTS

One way to make it easy for people to pay you is to offer them the option of using credit cards to purchase your service, and if you can let them pay online, that makes it even easier. If you offer customers an automatic monthly payment option, that is the most convenient payment method of all, and a lot of people will want to do that.

If you're new in business, you may not be qualify for a merchant account to accept credit cards through your bank, but there are other  options that will enable you to be paid by credit card, debit card, and more.

Maybe the most well-known payment service is PayPal. I have used PayPal for many years and have never had a problem with it. I find it to be convenient and inexpensive. I use the available downloads of transaction information in spreadsheet format because it's very helpful in doing my taxes. I particularly love the available ATM debit card that they offer -- When someone sends money to my PayPal account it is immediately available on my card and I can use it anyplace that accepts MasterCard or get cash at an ATM machine. Check it out at www.paypal.com.

2Checkout.com is another service that you can sign on with so that people can purchase your services using credit cards. They pay out once a week. Be sure to pay attention to important details in the Supplier Agreement and the terms under which they offer their services. People who have signed up without understanding those details have sometimes been unpleasantly surprised.

Some successful scoopers recommend QuickBooks with QuickBooks Payments services. It integrates the sending of invoices by email and the receipt of payments online. It's not a free system, but those who use it love it for it's ease of use and convenience.

LATE PAYS, COLLECTIONS, and BAD DEBTS:

With my billing-after-service approach, have I ever had some people fail to pay for our work? Yes, but not often. My experience has been that we'd collect about ninety-eight percent of everything we billed for. I credit my "customer-first" orientation with boosting my operation's continuing growth, with it's monthly revenue totals growing larger and larger.

If one were to look solely at the absolute numbers of dollars in bad debts, seeing a few thousand dollars worth of work that we didn't get paid for, well, that could be a little discouraging. But, that's a whole year's total of bad debts, compared to our revenue actual collected and deposited, which was a couple hundred thousand dollars. Could it have been possible for us to make that much money if we made it more difficult for customers to sign up for service? Would we have ended up collecting as much money as we did if we had put blocks in the way of people buying from us? I really don't think so.

A bad-debt average of two percent is really pretty good, according what seems to be a consensus among business people I have talked to. That figure is built into my pricing strategy right from the start. I actually plan on a certain number of people who will fail to pay. But the convenience of making it easy to get our service, and the customer goodwill generated by my no-questions-asked satisfaction guarantee, gives my service a higher value in our customers' eyes. In other words, by accepting and planning for a two-percent "bad debt" rate, we are able to charge twenty percent more than our competitors, AND we grow faster than they do. I'm willing to trade a loss of two percent for a gain in profit margin of more than twenty percent plus more rapid growth.

I mentioned earlier that we send our bills at the end of the month, with the payment due back to us by the fifteenth of the following month. To stimulate more prompt payments, my invoices included a notice that after the due date there will be a three-dollar late fee. The main reason for the late fee is to provide an incentive for prompt and timely payments. It works, too. But even though the three dollars itself was not the main reason for instituting a late fee, when you've got several hundred customers, and even a small percentage do pay that late fee in a given month, well, it's not an unwelcome little addition in income.

Occasionally there will be a customer for whom the regular billing cycle is not satisfactory. Personally, I don't see why anyone couldn't work with such a billing schedule. They aren't even billed until the work is all done, and then they have an additional two weeks to send the payment. And even then, in actual practice we don't really add the late fee unless we actually get to the end of the next month and send new invoices before the payment arrives. Still, for the satisfaction of our clients, we offer a second billing cycle. Only a few customers have requested it, but for them we print and mail invoices on a different schedule. It's a small inconvenience for us, but it really pleases the people who pay our salaries.

Most people do pay their bills on time. But there will be those occasional instances when someone does not pay up right away. Artful handling of these events is an important part of keeping customer relations on a good footing while maintaining collections. Some high degree of personal judgment is required here. A how-to book can not cover every situation, after all. But experience does suggest some general guidelines.

It's best not to let a client's balance due grow too high. For one thing, you don't want to keep doing work when you're not getting paid for it. But equally, if not even more importantly, preventing a balance from growing too large makes it easier for the customer to pay your bill. If you can keep the amount a person owes you under a hundred dollars, he can see his way to paying you eventually, even if he has to pay it in installments after you stop service. If a bill grows much larger than that, and gets to be a few hundred dollars, it's a much more difficult challenge for the client to pay it. If you can keep the past due amount under a hundred dollars, your collection rates will be much better.

There's a third benefit to both you and the client when you keep the bill from growing too large. After the bill is paid off the client will most likely want to restart the service. In this way you can keep a customer for several years, when you might otherwise have not only lost what they owed you, but lost that customer for good. What could have been a short, unpleasant, money-losing relationship can thus be turned into a long-term, happy, and profitable one.

Setting up installment payments is one way of eventually collecting the full amount of some bills when a customer gets into a situation in which she can't pay the whole bill at once. You can use a promise to waive the late fees as an incentive to encourage payments. Even when the late fee itself is not your main objective. when you have already stopped service because of non-payment, the late fee is one bit of leverage you still have to encourage the client to make at least partial payments regularly. In such cases, in our collection notices, we include a line or two to the effect that as long as we receive at least some minimum installment towards the payment of the debt by each month's due date, then we will waive the accumulating late fees. This bit of generosity on your part gives the debtor an incentive to pay at least something each month.

But what about those rare cases when the person simply never pays up? Naturally what do to about that situation is something you'll have to decide on your own.

Personally, for a variety of reasons, if someone who owes me money does not respond to our invoices, late notices, and requests for payments after six months, I mark the account as a bad debt and forget about it. My collection rate of 98% is very good as it is, and I don't expect it would improve enough to be worth the additional problems involved in going after more than that. The few remaining non-payers are not likely to improve the collection rate much.

From what I read, even though I'm not a lawyer, if you have hard evidence in the form or signed contracts, and if you can prove that your work was perfect ever time (I don't think that' possible), you could go to  small claims court. Frankly, I don't consider all that hassle to be worth my time and effort. Remember, I haven't let any individual's bill get much over $100 in the first place. It's not appealing to me to go through a lot of unpleasant and costly efforts for a relatively small return. And even if you do win, you're still responsible for collecting the judgment yourself, and there's no guarantee you'll get any money.

About the only alternative left would be to use the services of a debt collection agency. Even then, you might have to pay a fixed fee up front with no guarantee of collecting money, and you will certainly have to pay the agency a fee on what they do collect, generally about half of what they manage to squeeze out of people. Speaking just for myself, I'm not into that kind of karma. I feel a lot better about life in general by keeping debts low in the first place, and then I can just let them go.

USING YOUR COMPUTER

In the original, hard-copy-only, version of this book, this section was called "Computer or Not." It reflected the fact that when I started out in 1988, computers in the home were unusual. When I began I had no computer at all and ran the business strictly on paper and pencil. So, yes, that's possible, even today. But I wouldn't recommend it unless, you know, you don't have a computer and can't get one.

So, yes, it IS possible to get a business going and make money with no computer. But even if were to start out that way, computers are now so easily available that one of the first things you would want to buy with your pooper-scooper money would be a computer to make your work easier and help your business grow faster and more profitably. (Besides, after all, this book is now available only as an ebook, so it's pretty likely that you have a computer already.)

Your computer can keep track of clients' records, sort and print daily assignment schedules,  make those documents available for reading on cell phones or tablets when you're out in the field,  send text messages or email with or without attachments to your workers, and track employees' time and wages. You can use your desktop PC to compose and send or print all sorts of written communications. Plan budgets, cash flow, and more. Computerization saves many hours of tedious work, helps you present a professional image, and maintains a much higher level of accuracy in your records, compared to doing everything by hand.

Even if you DON'T have a Computer, GO AHEAD and start with a Pen-and-Paper System!

If, however, you're starting your dog waste removal service business with so little that you can't even get a computer, don't be discouraged! I know it's possible to start the business using only paper-and-pen, because that's how I started.

When I started I kept client records on sheets of typing paper, which I kept in manila folders; one folder for each day of the week, to correspond with my routes for those days. When a new customer would sign up for service, I'd start a client record by writing the customer information on a sheet of paper, and put it in the notebook. I was constantly re-arranging those client record sheets by the order of their service sequence. On these same worksheets I'd keep special instructions and track service days, invoices mailed, amounts due, and payments received.

To make my daily route sheets, I would write or type a temporary "master" route sheet for that day. In the proper service sequence, I'd write the customer's name and address and any special instructions I might need. I would leave some room for changes, corrections, or additions between all the entries on this page, and I would make several copies of each day's route sheet. I could then use these copies for a few weeks, making corrections and additions by hand until I had to type up a new "master."

As long as there weren't a whole lot of customers, the paper system worked. But when I had more than a hundred clients it got to be a real chore trying to keep up. And writing three hundred invoices and typing address labels by hand every month required way too many hours of tedious work.

Before I had a computer, I used to plan upcoming expenses, advertising buys, projected customer growth and revenue using graph paper, a calculator, a pencil, an eraser, and a whole lot of Wite-Out. It worked, but I knew there had to be a better way. So use some of your first pooper-scooper money to buy a computer.

A Better Way !

You don't have to have the fanciest or the fastest machine out there. You could even use a used computer. My first computer was an old XT, with one 5.25" floppy disk drive, and no hard drive. To use it, I had to boot up DOS, remove the boot-up disk, insert a program disk and load whatever application I wanted to use, whether word processor or database manager, and only then could I load the data disk and get to work. I imagine this sounds like a joke to a lot of people these days, but it was a HUGE improvement over doing everything by hand! So even if you have to start with a cheap, used system that some people might call "obsolete," every step you can take to improve speed, accuracy and the appearance of your printed materials will contribute to your clients' satisfaction, your profitability, and your happiness in business. With sometimes small but constant improvements in every aspect of business, we upgraded our computer system when we were able to, and learned to use technology to improve service for our customers, to make things easier and more pleasant for my employees, and add to our profits.

At my company, we painstakingly developed files and templates to go with our software over several years. So when a new customer signed up, it was very simple to enter all the relevant information into a basic worksheet in our database. Using software that integrates a database with a spreadsheet and word processing, we would only have to enter the information into the system just the one time. From that one record it's easy to automatically produce a New Customer Welcome Letter, daily assignment sheets sorted by service address sequence, and monthly invoices printed with a Customer Newsletter. With a system like that, you can also automatically count customers according to their account status, summarize current cash-flow, and report on total expenses in any number of categories for any given time period.

We can enter our employees' hours and production rates into a spreadsheet, which automatically calculates each person's bonus for the pay period, and then with a push of a button we can send that information to our payroll service.

You can use a separate database management program, word processor, and spreadsheet program, but it's nice to have integrated software so that all of these programs work together, saving you from having to enter the same data several times, and thereby reducing your opportunities for error.

NOTE: The computer program I used for the examples in this book is IBM's Lotus SmartSuite, which is no longer being produced (although it still runs if you happen to have a copy.) IBM eventually gave the related software Lotus Symphony code to the Apache Software Foundation and now you can download a powerful integrated office suite software product for FREE, in the form of Apache OpenOffice. I recommend it!

You can make similar sheets in programs from other software suppliers too, of course. Some of them are:  Microsoft Office, Quickbooks,and online and in-the-cloud systems you might use, some of which cost nothing at all, like Google Docs Sheets and Slides.

Whatever computer system you may choose, it's important to back up critical information. I like using a USB flash drive, but you can use a writable CD or other media to back up your working files every day by copying files to a drive that you keep in a place other than on your computer. Then if you should somehow lose data on that file you can use your backup files to restore file back to it's proper condition.

You can also sign up for a service that will automatically back up your computer throughout the day and keep the files in a remote location. Then if something happens to your computer and you lose access to all of your data, you can simply get your computer fixed, or replace it with a new computer, then log in to your backup service and download all of those files into your new computer and be back up and running quickly and easily. I had a computer motherboard go bad one day, but since I was using Carbonite, all I had to do was get a new computer, plug it in, sign on to Carbonite, and in a few hours my new system was running with all of my data and I lost nothing. Another service that will do that for you is iDrive. iDrive even has a FREE option for backing up up to 5 gigabytes of data.

Customer Worksheets:

I keep all the information about my customers on a computer spreadsheet form I call Customer Worksheet. Since the software integrates spreadsheet, database, and other functions, using the data entered on that worksheet for each client, you can build reports, forms and queries that select, sort and present all the information in your data files in different ways, thus creating daily route sheets, invoices, counts of active customers in total or by route or zip code or street name. You'll be able to project your cash flow over the upcoming months based on variations that you input, generate Past Due notices, information to help you track the effectiveness of various marketing activities, contact clients, and more.

Let's go through the worksheet line by line, or to be more precise:  field by field. You'll see how I set mine up. By keeping the information in a computer database, you can perform a lot of tasks (generating welcome letters, printing invoices, and route sheets, for example) automatically, based on the information in each line, or field. (Most of these bits of information are useful if you are using a strictly paper system, as well.)

The Account Number field helps me keep track of exactly which worksheet I'm using. I may have two or even three worksheets for some clients, if they have service more than once a week, or they are paying for another client's service as a gift, for example. Every worksheet has it's own account number. You might want to call this field "Record Number" or "Sheet Number," instead of "Account Number, but that's what I called it. I put the Account Number on the return portion of the invoice to make it easy for me to enter payments of the proper record when I get them in the mail.

Account Status refers to whether the account is a currently Active and regularly scheduled account, a one-time job, if the account is Inactive, on HOLD, Stopped for Non-Payment, or a Bad Debt. Having a "Status" field allows you to keep all records of all clients you've ever had, and to sort them according to their status for various purposes. Only "Active" accounts are used for making daily route sheets, for example.

Mail Bill? tells me whether I need to use this Worksheet to print an invoice for mailing. Inactive accounts or duplicate worksheets for twice a week customers, for example, don't need to be mailed. So when I  set up a report to generate invoices to mail out, I use this field to select only those records ("Accounts") that are used to mail bills.

Start Date and End Date are when the customer first signed up for service and when the customer stopped using our service.

Route Number refers to which route this account is grouped with for service. Each employee normally runs a particular series of customers, which I call a route. If we know the customer's route number, then we know which employee is responsible for cleaning that yard.

Sequence Number is unique to each scheduled cleaning stop. This number may change from time to time as new customers come onto a given route and the sequence of cleaning assignments changes We also occasionally change the sequence of a route or part of a route to try to arrange all these jobs in the fastest or safest order. I use the sequence number to tell the computer how to sort all of the customers for a given day and route into the proper order.

The first digit of the sequence number represents the day of the week, the second digit is the route number, and the rest of the number is the order in which the accounts are to be served. In order to cut down on how often I have to change sequence numbers on a lot of accounts, I can use decimals to place a new account between two old ones. For instance, say a new customer would fit nicely between stops that have sequence numbers 5228 and 5229 (those would be the 28th and 29th stops on Route 2 on Friday). Instead of changing every sequence number of the existing customers, I can give the new one a sequence number anywhere between those two. If I use 5228.5 for the new one, and then I get another new customer between 5228.5 and 5229, I can give that worksheet a sequence number of 5228.7. That way, when the computer report outputs a route sheet with stops in sequential order, it'll list 5228, then 5228.5, then 5228.7, followed by 5229. And so so.

Job site (if other) is for customers who want their bills sent to one place, and the work done at a different place. I use the regular Address line for the place where the bill should go, so the "Job site (if other)" field is used only if the actual work location is different from the billing location.

Frequency refers to how often we clean the yard. Weekly, 1x/month, 2x/month, 2x/week, 3x/week, or 1-time.

Welcome sent? is to mark if and on what date a Welcome Letter was mailed to this account.

Late Notice is mostly to use with the computer. If we need to write a Late Notice, we put it in this field and it will be printed on the invoice. For those people who don't require such a notice, we put a different note in this field or leave it blank.

Special_Instructions and Extra Instructions are both places to write special instructions for the worker who services this account. The computer automatically prints these lines when a route sheet is sorted and printed. Special instructions could be anything the person cleaning that yard needs to know. Some common instructions are "Dog MUST be inside," Knock at door before working," and "Leave card at door." "SKIP 3/28" tells the worker not to stop here on March 28, like maybe the client is going on vacation that week or something. You could also include the combination to a customer's gate lock on one of these lines.

Memo 1 and Memo 2 are similar to the "Special Instruction" lines, but these are for notes to be printed on the customer's invoice. Such notes might include things like "As you requested, we skipped March 28," for example. So you'd have a report that generates route sheets include the Special Instructions lines, and a different report that generates customer invoices and would be set up to include the Memo lines.

Number of Complaints helps to keep track of which customers have been less than satisfied with the service, and how often. I just put the actual number of times the client has had a complaint on this line, making it easy to see if anybody has been especially dissatisfied. I would also write a comment in the "Office Notes" box, including the date of the complaint, what the problem was, who was the worker involved, and how it was resolved. It's extremely helpful to review this information from time to time to keep a handle on how you are doing and how you might improve.

Referral_T is Referral Tracking, which is how I would keep track of the sources of new business. Always be sure to ask every new customer how she heard about your service, and enter that information here. We can tell very quickly what our most productive sources of business are this way, so that we can concentrate our marketing time and money on the things that work best for us, and not spend so much on things that don't bring in new customers.

The two Map fields are places to write down what page and coordinates the address of the job site can be found in the maps we carry in the trucks. We include this information on the route sheet to make it easy for the workers to find new or unfamiliar work locations.

The column along the right-hand side is for accounting and invoicing: "Previous" is the amount of the most recent bill sent to this account. "Received" is how much money they sent in and there's a "Date Rec'd" field to record when we received it. If there is a difference between the amount we billed the customer and the amount they sent us, it is automatically calculated by the software and is displayed in the "Past Due" field.

There are also a spots to record how many dogs a client has ("# of Dogs"), how often we clean ("Frequency" can be Weekly, 2x/week, 1x/2wks, or 1x/mo, etc.), how many times we have cleaned in the current billing period ("# of Visits"), what the charge for each service visit is ("Charge/Visit"), and the total charge for the current invoice ("Current").

Special Credit Description and CREDITS are fields for recording information about advance payments, money refunded for unsatisfactory service, or other events that create a credit amount for the client, and a field to record how much that credit amount is.

Special Service Description and Spcl Charge are to record extra services performed and how much we charged extra for those out-of-the ordinary services. Special services might include things like a special visit to clean a yard on an extra day for a birthday party to be held in the client's yard, washing a customer's patio if she arranged for that or things like that. Extra charges for first time service, or yards that are to be cleaned one time only would be listed in these areas, as well.

Route Sheets

I set up five parts of my total service area for different days of the week to arrange all the yard cleanups most efficiently. I would telling the client what day of the week her service would be. If she lived in a location that I would be near on more than one day of the week, I might be able to offer her a choice of one day or another. I generally wouldn't be able to give her a particular time of day that we would be there, because the schedule on any particular route can change now and then. As business grows, new routes come into place, routes change traffic patterns when a client is added, and of course the ordinary happenings of day-to-day business mean that a particular customer's service will not always be at the same time of day.

A route sheet is a list of all the yards to be cleaned in a day. One person can usually clean between 30 and 40 yards in a day (I have cleaned up to 60 in one day). I created a report from the database to make the route sheets. I found that if I would arrange the "Route Sheet" report to print 8 or so information fields on 3 lines of information, I could put about 18 assignments on one page. A typical route sheet for a full day's work would be 2 or 3 pages.

Down the page, one after the other, is a set of three lines for each location to be cleaned, with the following information:

Sequence Number Customer Name and Address Map Info

No. of Dogs Special Instructions

Any additional special instructions

Next Seq. No., Customer Name and Address Map Info

No. of Dogs Special Instructions, if any, for this address

Additional line for worker information, if needed

... and so on, right down the page, listing all the assignments for that day on that route.

Back to Table of Contents
**CUSTOMER COMMUNICATIONS**

Keep in touch.

Your communications with clients will create and maintain your business relationships with them. You'll shape their expectations, knowledge, and awareness about what you are doing for them. Expectations and knowledge will make a huge difference in how well satisfied your customers are with your work.

It often happens that even though you may perform exactly the same work in two cases, it will be the quality of your communication that really determines the customer's level of satisfaction. Here's a simple example: Suppose a truck breaks down and is out of service for a few hours while you repair it. Because of this, there will be some customers that you cannot service on that day, but you can easily catch up on the following day. Let's say you call a customer and either tell her on the phone or leave a message to let her know your truck had to be fixed and you will clean her yard the next morning. No problem -- she understands that such things happen, and having the yard cleaned the next morning is just as good as doing it this afternoon. Your communication kept the customer informed and she remains delighted with your great service.

In a different scenario, a long-time client knows to expect your service on this day of the week, and so has scheduled a cookout in the back yard for this evening. He knows from experience that his yard will be perfectly clean and he won't have to worry about his invited guests stepping in dog poop. So, your truck breaks down and you'll have to get this one on the day after the usual day. Let's say you don't call this time. You figure he's been a customer for a long time, and he won't mind you coming one day later than usual. Now he gets home that night, and has a yard full of dog crap while his most important business associates are on their way to his house for a back yard party. Your lack of communication in this situation means you have disappointed and angered one of your best customers.

Or, imagine a new client who has been told that her first cleanup will be today. She's only recently learned that there is such a thing as a service that cleans up after dogs. She's kind of skeptical about the whole idea, but she thinks to herself that it might be nice, so she will give it a try. If you do a good job, she just might keep this service for a long time. She's anxiously waiting to see how this is going to work out. What do you think will happen if you don't call her about the delay? She comes home and nothing's been done. Now you've got somebody out there who "knows" by experience that you don't do what you say, and she tells her friends the next day, "You know that service you told me about? Forget it!"

You see all the various consequences? These vastly different levels of customer satisfaction are all the result, NOT of the fact that your truck broke down and you couldn't finish your route that day, but simply because of the communication you provided or didn't provide for your clients.

"Under-promise and over-deliver."

It's not always the work itself that means happy or unhappy customers. It's also very largely a function of what they expect from you and what they know about your business. A saying that's used by many successful business people goes: "Under-promise and over-deliver."

"Under promise and over deliver" means to promise only what you absolutely KNOW you will be able to provide, but then actually do more than you promised. For instance, when I clean dog waste from a customer's yard, I usually also pick up litter such as strewn papers, discarded cans, and broken glass. This seems only right to me, and really makes a nice impression. But I don't advertise the fact that I clean up litter while I'm scooping poop. I don't mention it when customers sign up, and it's not anywhere in the information that we send out in the new-customer welcome letter. This is the "under-promise" part. When I do clean up some stray rubbish on a client's property, that's the "over-deliver" part.

Why do it this way? Wouldn't my offer to include picking up trash make my service more attractive and be a good selling point? Well, it might. But in some places litter is a chronic problem -- to clean up the trash in some of these yards would take hours every week. Sometimes litter may blow onto the property after I'm gone. I might not always have time to provide this extra service that isn't really what my business is about in the first place. You see, I do not clean up every bit of litter every single time. The weather can be a factor. I'll scoop up every bit of dog poop every time, but I don't take the time to clean up much litter when it's raining. If I have a heavy schedule or am otherwise pressed for time, again. I concentrate more exclusively on doing the best possible job of cleaning up the dog waste, but don't spend much time on gum wrappers or cigarette butts.

Now think of the impressions and expectations from the point of view of two different customers: one who has been promised only that we will clean up all the dog waste, the other who has been told that we also clean up litter. If wind blows trash onto the property after I've cleaned up, or if I did not clean up litter from that yard that day, the second customer is disappointed and unsatisfied because we did not do what we said we would do. As for the first customer, since she was never led to expect such a thing, is not disappointed. n fact, she's delighted because we cleaned up every bit of dog waste, which is exactly what we promised. And when I do have the time and am able to clean up some stray rubbish that had been in her yard, she is even more delighted because we did more than we said we would do.

Exactly the same work is performed in both cases. One client is absolutely delighted and the other one is justifiably dissatisfied, all because of the expectations that have been created. Remember to "Under-promise and over-deliver."

Cell Phones and Call Forwarding

Consider using a cell phone to use as your business phone. Many scoopers do. Then you can answer the phone and return calls during the day while you are out working. The more promptly you can get back to people calling you, the more likely they are to buy from you.

If you use a regular land line phone for business, you might want to use call forwarding to have those office calls re-routed to your mobile phone while you're out scooping. Either keep a pad and pencil with you, or keep notes on your phone so you can sign people up and schedule work on the spot.

Voice Mail

You can't always answer your phone. In fact, the more your client list grows, the more you will be away from your office. Even if you're using a cell phone for business, you'll be driving or otherwise unable to answer your phone sometimes. Until you can afford to hire someone to answer the phone \-- or clean the yards while you stay in the office -- your phone will often be un-manned. But it should never go un-answered.

There was a time many years ago when a lot of people didn't like "answering machines." Now, of course, everybody uses voice mail. Still, even though people now are comfortable with well thought-out, professional use of voice mail, prospective customers will be quickly turned off by an inappropriate, shoddy, or amateurish outgoing message on your voice mail. So the outgoing message on your voice mail will be the first impression many people will receive from you. The image you create in this important first contact may color your entire relationship with a client. Use it to achieve a professional, competent and caring identification in the customer's mind.

Some of the elements of an effective voice mail message are:

.....1) Use your company's name. It's amazing to me how many people who say they want to start a new business don't have a voice mail message that sounds like it's from a business. They don't even use their business name on their phone! People calling these places may think they have a wrong number, or get the impression that this is not a serious endeavor. You want people to know you mean business, so make a business-like voice mail message!

.....2) Thank the customer for calling, even though you are not available at the moment.

.....3) Sound positive and sure. You must create and develop the customers' and prospects' confidence in you and your service. It won't help to achieve that if you don't sound confident about yourself.

.....4) Tell the caller what to do. Don't confuse her with anything vague. Tell the caller to leave a name, phone number, and a message.

.....5) Assure the caller that you will return the call. AND BY GOLLY, DO RETURN THAT CALL! Check your messages frequently, especially during business hours. If your business phone is a land line you can use a voice mail service or an answering machine that you can access remotely so that even if you are on the other side of town, you can check messages and return calls frequently.

Here's an example of a good outgoing voice mail message:

"Thank you for calling (COMPANY NAME) Dog Waste Removal Service! Right now we are either on the phone or out of the office, so please leave your name, phone number and a message so we can get back to you as soon as possible. We want to be your favorite service, so

Please let us know how we can best serve you!"

Be sure to listen to your message after you record it. Make sure there's no distracting noise, like people talking or kids playing, or a TV or radio on in the background. Keep re-recording it until it has a positive, up-beat, and professional sound. Remember, this will be a lot of people's first impression of your company, and it can affect the success of your business.

Send a Customer Newsletter Monthly.

From time to time there will be things you want to tell all of your customers at once. One easy way to do that is to include a Customer Newsletter with your invoices every month. If you're not sending paper bills in the mail, you can send a newsletter by email, or include it with your electronic invoice. If you have customers who have signed up for automatic monthly payments, you can send the enews by itself.

I have found that clients really enjoy these notes, as long as you include actual useful or interesting information. Newsletters can help keep your service in the top-of-mind awareness of your customers and even help them feel like part of a "community," so to speak: a community of responsible dog owners. And of course they appreciate being kept up to date about important, relevant information such as upcoming schedule changes due to holidays, special offers you may have going on, news about your rapid growth, improvements in your service, and so forth.

If there is going to be a holiday coming up, be sure to mention it in your newsletter with any anticipated schedule adjustments around that day. Customers like to know what to expect, and you'll save yourself a lot of phone calls. A few people will still want to call just to make double certain they have it right, and sure, some people won't see the news or they'll forget about it, but you won't spend near as much time explaining things as you would have if you didn't mention it in your news. It's always better for everyone concerned if you can head off any potential confusion ahead of time.

You customer news is also an ideal spot to put a reminder to all customers, about your your Referral Program, if you have one. I found my offer to provide existing customers with one free service visit for each new customer that signs up as a result of them telling them about us to be very productive. So on each month's newsletter I would include something like "Joe B., Susan C. , and Linda D. all enjoyed a FREE week of service last month simply for telling their friends and neighbors about how our service takes care of the dog owner's worst chore! Don't forget, every time a new customer signs up and tells us they heard about us from you, you'll get a FREE service."

Other items to include in customer news would be: reminders that twice-a-week service is available in certain areas; notices to remember to keep plenty of fresh, clean water accessible to the dogs in the summer and other occasional health tips gleaned from dog magazines; news about new pet laws in your area, and similar notes.

Dog-Out/Lock-Out Notes

There may be times when an overly-aggressive dog will not let you work in a yard, or the gate will be locked, or for some other reason not your own fault you will be unable to clean a customer's yard when you get there. If no one is home to take care of the problem, you'll need to leave a note explaining what happened. You don't want the client to think that you just didn't show up.

You might want to leave a note for other reasons, as well. Perhaps you see roundworms in a dog's stool, or you notice a couple of loose slats in the fence that might be a way for the dog to get out, or maybe you'll have to explain why you can't take trash bags full of grass clippings. whatever the reasons, you'll occasionally need to leave notes for your clients.

You could rip a hunk of paper off your lunch bag to write your note on, of course, but that wouldn't make a nice impression, would it? So keep notepads for this purpose in your truck. You could use regular notepaper, or use blank sticky notes. You can write short notes on the back of a business card, too.

But in my opinion the most professional-looking, best method for leaving customer notices is the custom-printed sticky note.. If you have very little money at first, you might have to wait till you generate a few bucks before you buy these, but really they don't cost a whole lot. You can order them at online at VistaPrint.com, or at Office Depot and other printing and copy services. Here's one I have used with good results:

With these self-sticking, pre-printed notes like that, your service looks professional. Your notes are easy to read and you save time by having the most common notices preprinted.. All you have to do is check a box. Even when you need to write a more lengthy note on the back, the company name and phone number are already printed for you. All in all, the small cost is well worth it. They look like they cost a lot more than they really do.

New Customer Welcome Letter

I like to make it as convenient as possible for a new customer to sign up with my service. After all, since I'm selling convenience it would be counter-productive to make the client go through a lot of rigmarole when she signs up. Part of making it easy is keeping her on the phone with a lot of details to try to write down or remember when she's got other things things to do. We do need some basic information, of course; and we try to mention the basics of how our service works. But people are not going to remember a lot of details about all this on the spur of the moment anyway. Invariably they will think of some questions within a day or two after they sign up.

So one of the things we tell all our new customers when they sign up is that we will mail them a New Customer Welcome Letter which will explain more about our service and answer the most frequently asked questions. This helps put the customer at ease if it suddenly occurs to her 10 minutes after she hangs up to ask, "What happens if it rains?" She can rest easy, knowing that the information is on its way.

The New Customer Welcome Letter is just one of those "little details" that demonstrate your genuine concern for providing the client with the kind of service that keeps the needs and well-being of the customer first at all times. Such details will contribute substantially to your customer-retention rates and long-term profitability.

The Welcome Letter is the best place to clearly spell out all of your normal service-related policies. Your prices, holiday scheduling procedures, billing schedules and so forth should all be there. You should also be clear about some issues that won't necessarily come up with every client, but could be a potential source of confusion or disappointment down the road. (Remember, "Over-promise and under-deliver.") Things like your normal Late Fee charges, whether you charge in case a dog won't let you work or you get locked out, and so forth should all be forthrightly set in print right at the beginning. If you later decide not to charge a late fee to someone, or you waive a fee when you were locked out, that's fine. But if you don't put it in writing and distribute the information to every customer when they first sign up, you'll create a lot of bad feelings when you do try to enforce those polices later.

Along with the printed policies and most-asked questions, we send a copy of the information we have for the particular account: the address, name, how many dogs, regular service day and fees, so the customer can review what we have recorded to make sure we have it right.

Here's a sample the New Customer General Information sheet I would send new clients:

THANK YOU! AND WELCOME TO OUR DOG WASTE REMOVAL SERVICE!

GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT OUR CUSTOMER SERVICE POLICIES:

How often does our company come out?

Most customers prefer service once a week, but other schedules can be arranged. If you would like to know more about the availability of our service more or less often than once a week, please contact us.

Do we work through the winter?

Yes, we work through most weather all year. Dogs keep making their messes all year long, and our company continues to clean up and remove dog waste through winter. Some customers prefer to put service on hold for the cold months, although there may be an extra service charge for the first cleanup the following spring because of all the accumulated mess.

What happens when it snows or rains?

We'll work in most weather, but there may be days when heavy rain, or snow, or very cold weather can stop us. If there is more than about half an inch of snow, we will postpone that day's service until the next day or two, when the snow melts away. If there is so much snow that we are prevented from doing that week's work, then we will not charge for service that week. If snow stays on the ground for more than a week, but there is no new snow to cover it, we will do regular cleanups to prevent excessive buildup of dog poop in your yard. We will usually work in the rain, too, although a very heavy rainfall may postpone our service. In that case, we will most often be able to make up the work later that week.

What about holidays?

We will give our workers the following days off to spend with their families, so we won't be out on these days: 1) New Years Day. 2) Memorial Day. 3) July 4th, Independence Day. 4) Labor Day. 5) Thanksgiving Day. 6) Christmas Day.

If a holiday falls on a regular service day, we will post a revised schedule in the Customer Newsletter so you'll know how the holiday will affect your service.

Should you unlock you gate?

Yes, please. We don't allow our employees to climb or jump over fences, so please have your gate unlocked on your service day. You may provide us with a key or tell us the combination if that will be convenient for you, or, if you like, we will loan you a lock at no cost to you.

Can we work with your dog in the yard?

In most cases, YES. We love dogs! But we don't want to take unnecessary risks with your dog or our workers. Sometimes a dog will simply not allow us into the yard, making it unsafe for us. If your dog is aggressive with strangers, or if it becomes apparent to us that your dog will not let us in, then we will ask you to keep the dog inside or otherwise confine it on the day that we come to scoop.

What if you want to skip a day?

You will not be charged if you call the company office in time for us to tell the service worker to skip your yard that day. If the dog will be gone from the yard for a couple of weeks, or if for some other reason you want us to skip your yard for more than a single service day, we can put your service on hold and you will not be charged for those days. There will also be no charge for service missed due to the weather, or something that was our fault, or some other event beyond your control.

HOWEVER, if your gate is locked, or the dog will not allow us to clean the yard when we come to do the work, it may be necessary to charge for the service call that could not be completed. So, If, for instance, you get to work and remember that the gate is locked, call us early to tell us to skip that day so that you won't be charged.

How do you prefer to pay us?

If you like, we will send an invoice in the mail at the end of each month after the work is done. OR if you prefer, we can send you a monthly payment request by email and you can pay online with your credit or debit card. We also offer an automatic monthly subscription service if you would like the convenience of not having to write a check or going online to make a payment each month. We offer discounts for pre-payment of service for 6 months or a year, as well. If you would like to change your payment method , just contact us and we'll take care of that for you.

There is a $3.00 late fee for accounts not paid by the 15th of the month following the service.

Are there any contracts you have to sign?

No. We can start and stop your service over the phone. We do not require contracts, there is no minimum service period, and there is no advance notice required to cancel service.

Is there an extra charge for the first time?

If it has been more than a couple of weeks since your yard has been free of dog poop, we will check out your yard before we start service, and before we begin we will let you know if there will be any extra charge for that first cleanup. If there will be any extra charge, we'll let you know how much it will be and we'll get your approval for that before we start.

Is it possible to get a one-time-only service?

Sure! One-time-only, or short-term service may be easily arranged. Give us a call or send us an email.

How about special occasion service?

If you need special service for a backyard party or similar occasion, we can arrange an extra cleanup at a particular time and day for an extra charge. Give us a call or drop us an email to arrange that.

What do we mean by "SATISFACTION GUARANTEED"?

We promise that you will get service you are happy with or you don't have to pay for it! We know our business depends on doing excellent work, and it's the quality of our service on which we stake our success. We're working very hard to make our name mean reliable, high-quality service. We strive to provide perfect service, so if there is ever a time when our service is not completely satisfactory, please let us know right away. We will make it right, either by coming back to re-clean the yard the same day or the next day, or by crediting your account so you won't be charged.

Company contact Information:

Business Phone:

E-mail:

Facebook:

Website:

Text Messages:

THANK YOU FOR YOUR BUSINESS!

# Here's a sample of a worksheet you can use to get all of customer's information when they call for the first time. I print out these sheets and have a stack of them on the desk by the phone so I can fill out the paper sheet while talking to a new customer. If you get all of this information right, you should be able to type it just one time into your computer software and then use that for all your routing, scheduling, billing,and customer communications.

New Customer Sign Up Form

NAME:

JOBSITE:____________________

Street number, name and type (Ave, Rd, Ln, etc.) Map info

City, Zip:

BILLING NAME AND ADDRESS IF DIFFERENT:

HOME PHONE: and WORK OR CELLPHONE (IF OFFERED):

NUMBER OF DOGS: HOW OFTEN: START DATE:

SERVICE CHARGE: Extra for first time service?:_________

DISCOUNT TYPE? REGULAR SERVICE DAY:

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS:

REFERRAL TRACKING: ("How did you find out about us?") (Circle ALL that apply)

(The choices here refer to the most common sources of new customers in our market area.

For your use, substitute the names of your local newspapers, or other sources)

Sunday paper Neighborhood weekly Word-of-Mouth TRUCK Phone Book Pooper-Scooper.com Google Search Facebook Craigslist Referred by existing customer (write who:)

Say: "We have a customer referral program: When you refer a new customer to us you will get ONE REGULAR SERVICE DAY FREE". (Not for one-time jobs)

Back to Table of Contents
**HIRING HELP**

Working Solo works for a while.

For the first couple of years, I did everything all by myself. As my customer list grew longer, so did my workdays. Eventually I found myself working from early in the morning until late at night. The scooping work in people's yards had to be done in the hours of available daylight, of course. And there were lots of other things to do, too. Besides scooping the poop from customer's yards, there were phone calls to be returned, requests for information to respond to, and new clients to sign up.

You'll also need to make trips to the landfill, update route sheets, keep records of service done, and enter payments received. There is the washing and maintenance of your truck, supplies to purchase, letters to write and bills to pay.

Once your business starts growing, writing invoices, typing labels and preparing mailings each month will began to take up a lot of hours. And even more time will be required to open mail, process checks, and make bank deposits. At somewhere around 200 customers, you may begin to feel like there is more work than you can do all by yourself.

The Decision to be an Employer is up to you.

Is it possible for your service to remain a small, one-person operation? I think it probably is, if that's what you want to do. You might carefully maintain your very best customers, limit your service area, and cultivate your clients' willingness to pay a premium for your service even when the inevitable copycats come along with lower prices. If you were to keep your client list down to about 200 or so people, that might provide a nice living for you without the complications of hiring employees.

Of course, you'd have some difficulty arranging vacation time. If you live in a climate with harsh winters, you might be able to get away from work for a couple of weeks during the cold and snowy season. Sick time could be a problem if you are working by yourself, too. When the whole business depends on you it is likely that you will work even if you have the flu or some other minor ailment. Still, even if you had to miss one or two days of work,you could probably make it up later in the week. Customers are usually pretty understanding about that if you keep them informed about the situation.

But what if you have a more serious illness, or an injury? Missing work for a week or two during spring or summer could make it very difficult to catch up. The same amount of makeup work during the fall, when daylight hours are much shorter, could make it impossible to catch up with your busy schedule. You could be taking a chance on losing your entire business if you don't have any back-up worker. Maybe you could find a trusted friend to fill in for you when needed, or make other arrangements somewhat less formal than hiring employees.

In my case, it had been part of my plan all along for my company to grow large enough to hire employees to clean yards and hire a manager to handle daily operations. For me, a large part of the motivation to work those long hours during the early years with no vacations was the thought that eventually I could work less by providing employment for others. My path was to hire people.

So after my first few years, I built a great crew of workers and hired a wonderful full-time manager. Then I had time to spend with my family, so we could go on trips together to see and enjoy the country. I had time to read, to study, and to keep up with new ideas in business and marketing.

GOOD HELP IS HARD TO FIND

One of the biggest surprises for me in this business was the difficulty involved with hiring help. Maybe I should have known better, but I thought all I'd have to do would be run a help-wanted ad, pick the best from the droves of workers I imagined would show up, and viola!, instant teamwork. I was wrong. Turns out, I had a lot to learn. After my years in business, I think I can pass along a few bits of advice worth considering. These bits have come at great cost to me in experience, so I'd hate to just throw them away.

In years past I used newspaper classified ads, but nowadays you would put an ad on craigslist, and an ad on your website, and one on your facebook page. I have seen help wanted ads for pooper-scoopers on  Monster.com, too. You might put a notice on your customer newsletter that goes out with the bills.

Finding help isn't as hard as sorting out the applicants who will work out best. And hanging on to those good people is the key to a successful business. I believe in paying well. I think it's important. For one thing, paying better than average wages will attract more applicants, and among them you may find some some good workers. I would certainly advise paying more than minimum wage, maybe even twice as much as minimum wage. That's up to you, of course. In my opinion, providing decent pay, some benefits, like 6 or more paid days off per year, and reasonable flexibility in work schedules to accommodate personal needs - those sorts of things are important to people and help create loyalty.

Generally speaking, I advise trying to set up employment conditions and compensation so that what is in your best interest as the business owner is also in the best personal interest of the employee. For instance, I 'd pay my people a bonus, calculated on productivity and quality, in addition to their regular hourly wage. That is, averaging more yards per hour over the week or month meant more pay on the bonus, but callbacks for leaving piles of poop in the yard, or other complaints, would take away from the bonus.

If I could think of ways to make things better for the employees when they did things that were better for me, I'd try to implement those things.

Good leadership skills promote good workmanship and loyalty. It's not necessarily something that happens naturally, so you have to work at that yourself. Read, listen, learn, practice, discuss things with your employees. Try to make it a good environment for everyone, with respect for the individual and understanding that you, as a businessman, will do better by making things better for those people you depend on to do the work that makes your business succeed..

Wages

One of the first important questions when considering hiring helpers is how much to pay them. Let's face it, to get intelligent and capable people to come to work as a "professional pooper-scooper," you'll have to offer a much better than average wage, don't you think?

Really, the job itself isn't so bad. I've had plenty of jobs a lot worse than scooping poop! You work by yourself, with nobody breathing down your back all day. You're outdoors, which is usually an attractive feature of the job. We do have to work outside in the rain sometimes, which can be a drawback. And there's the cold weather. It can be hard work at times but mostly the actual physical labor involved is not too strenuous. Over all, this work does have certain attractions.

Importantly, there is the psychological element of the self-esteem issue -- the image of a person who cleans up dog poop for a living. I would like to think that this is silly, because a job is a job, and honest labor that makes life better for people is honorable and good, right? But it's actually an issue that should be taken seriously. I find that one of the most powerful remedies for that image problem is to pay higher-than-average wages. Almost invariably, it is the money that first attracts people to come work for us. After that, then they experience for themselves that the work is really pretty good.

And then most of our workers report things like this: "My buddies were laughing about my job the other day. I laughed right along with them, too. Then when I told them how much money I'm making here, they stopped laughing and wanted me to ask if we have any more openings!"

When I first started hiring people, back in the early 1990's, I started new employees at a straight hourly wage of $8/hour. That was when the federal minimum wage was $4.25. Pretty close to double the minimum wage right there. Plus, after a 30-day probationary period, they got bonuses based on productivity and quality of work, which resulted in my paying my workers more than double the minimum wage.

Productivity Bonuses: After a reasonable "breaking in" period, all employees were required to clean at least 4 yards per hour as an average over the course of a work week. For production greater than that that they earned a bonus of $1/hour for each extra customer-per-hour they worked that week.

For example: Someone who cleans 200 yards in a 40-hour week averages 5 yards cleaned per hour that week, so that person's bonus for the week is $40. That's one customer per hour more than 4, time 40 hours. It also works for fractions of of a dollar; calculating the hourly bonus down to the penny is pretty easy. If a person averages 5.5 yards per hour a 40-hour week, then the bonus is $1.50 per hour for that week, which would be $60.

Quality of work has to be included in this calculation, too. After all, it wouldn't be to the advantage of the customer or the company if someone did a thousand yards a week but all of them had to be re-cleaned because of poor work. We count any complaints received from clients, and the manager would spot-check yards at random from time to time. Any unsatisfactory yards are deducted from the worker's total production for purposes of calculating the bonus.

Even though new workers often think that 4 yards per hour will be impossible, it only takes a few weeks to get up to that speed. Most of my employees would settle in at between 5 and 6 customers per hour. Some can do even more than that.

This pay plan resulted in my employees generally earning between nine and twelve dollars per hour at a time when many of their friends were making $5 or $6. Of course, that being quite a while ago, you would definitely want to increase that starting wage and per-yard bonus now. Consider starting them at $14 an hour, plus $2/yard for each yard worked over 4 yards per hour. Under such a plan, a good worker could earn enough for a good living, and you'll attract responsible employees. It might seem like a lot to you, and of course with employment taxes like FICA and so on, it will cost you even more than that - BUT -- that employee can be generating more than $60 an hour for your business, so You can afford to pay people well!

Personally, I feel it's only fair to pay as high a wage as possible and still keep the company profitable. I feel that it's just wrong to pay wages so low that a person cannot live on one paycheck. But even if you feel differently about that, there are practical, self-interested reasons to pay good wages. If you pay minimum wage, you'll usually get minimum-quality workers. Intelligent, alert, sensible and hard-working people know that they can find better paying work. Poor-quality workers will not only require more re-cleans and cause the loss of customers because of bad work, they will work slower into the bargain. You may even find that the trucks they drive require more frequent repair. What I'm getting at is this: by paying higher wages to attract and retain the best employees, you'll actually be increasing your own profits in the long run!

In addition to good wages, a nice program of employee benefits makes a big difference in attracting and retaining good workers. Granted, you may not be able to afford many benefits at first, but if you gradually add benefits as your business grows and you're able to afford them, your workers will appreciate their jobs more and more. And your business will run more smoothly and end up being more profitable for you as a result. When I started hiring people, it was all I could do to provide a nice hourly wage. With more customers we were able to start granting paid holidays, and then we added personal days off, sick days, and vacations. These kinds of benefits are a large part of the reason the company has been able to hold onto a terrific crew of workers for several years now.

As the business grew the new owner was eventually able to provide employee health insurance. In recent years, the legal situation regarding employer-provided health insurance is changing rapidly, so be sure to consult a knowledgeable professional in order to be in compliance with current requirements.

Some benefits cost little or nothing. If you think about it and make employee satisfaction something that you sincerely value, you'll find lots of ways to make working at your business more beneficial. Some of them are "non-monetary," and some of them cost a little bit but not much. The idea is to make it a good place to work. If you can accommodate  workers' needs without harming your business, do it.

Say a worker needs a couple of hours off to take a kid to the dentist or pick somebody up at the airport or who knows... it doesn't really matter what it's for, that's irrelevant. If somebody needs a couple of hours off, and they can get their work done by coming in early or staying late or they get another worker to take part of their route one day, well, go ahead and allow that as long as all the work that has to be done gets done.

Training

I can almost hear some readers out there saying "Training?! To pick up dog poop?! C'mon!" OK, well, granted, dog waste removal is not rocket science. You don't need a college degree, or even a high school diploma, to succeed in this business. On my job applications I don't even ask about education! But there are right ways and wrong ways to do the job, and you'll be better off if you teach your workers to do it the right way!

Experience will teach you the techniques that help you work faster, easier, and with higher quality results. Those are the kinds of things you'll want to teach your employees, so they can put them into practice right from the start.

You will need to train people on their routes, so they can learn the route itself, in addition to the techniques of finding and scooping all that dog poop. Sending a new worker out on his own with a map and a list of stops without actually taking him on the routes a few times is asking for trouble. The new worker will become very frustrated trying to find so many new addresses. He'll be uncomfortable and unsure about where he is going and what he is doing. In general this can produce a terrible feeling of uncertainty, even inadequacy. Lack of adequate training for a new employee may also be sending an unintended signal that could come back to hurt you. By not training the new worker you demonstrate that you don't really care how the work is done. It shows that it's not important to you that the employee knows what he's doing, or that the client gets the best possible service. Obviously, that's not the kind of message you want to send.

When you take the time and effort to properly train people, you demonstrate that you want them to be comfortable in knowing just how to perform the tasks necessary to do the job. Help them get used to the route a little bit before turning them lose with a map and a long list of addresses. If you've not tried this yourself, it may be hard for you to understand just how frustrating this can be. Believe me, it'll drive a person crazy.

Physically go out with the new employee on the routes you want her to learn for at least the first few days, or if you already have trusted employees, you might send one of them out with the new worker. On these training runs you'll get a chance to talk in a setting less stressful than the hiring process. You can talk about your company's mission and your vision of development. You can begin to develop a mutual understanding of how you and your employee can contribute to each other's goals in a way that benefits both of you

You must begin to develop in the new hire the habit of always closing fence gates on the way in and out of yards. Show him how to deal with dogs in the yard, what kind of extra bits of trash or debris you might want to have cleaned up. Demonstrate different scooping methods for various conditions of waste, and how it's different on grass versus dirt or gravel surfaces.

It's important to train people to hold the scoop handle and rake properly to minimize strain on the arm and wrist. There is going to be some tiredness and soreness in the arms anyway, as you build up the muscles used most in this kind of work, but improper use of the tools could make it worse. So be sure to pay attention to this part of the job when training employees.

Teach everyone to communicate with you, or with whoever is in your office, as needed during the work day. If you have a voice mail system, teach employees how to use it; likewise with texting or cell phones or whatever your preferred method may be. You should train employees to get in touch with you whenever they have a question about finding an address, or what to do in an unfamiliar situation, or whenever they may need to clarify anything so that the customers get the best possible service. Teaching people to keep in touch about any questions that come up during the day, rather than guessing or assuming or simply going without the information they need, is going to make a huge difference in the quality of work your company provides.

Train people to use parvocidal disinfectant on tools and shoes after every job. Show them how to keep extra plastic bags in one of their pockets while they're scooping yards. Make sure they understand that it's never OK to leave the truck running when they're not sitting behind the wheel. Point out what to look for with regard to health signs in the dogs' poop, and how to fill out any customer notifications that might need to be left at the door.

Using a Payroll Service

Now, maybe you are suited by temperament, skills and training to do your own payroll, but I'm not. So right at the start when it was time to hire that first helper, I made one of my best business decisions ever -- I hired a payroll service.

One reason I chose not to use computer programs to do payroll calculations and paperwork, is that employee-related regulations come from so many local, state, and federal agencies, and they change so often, that whatever payroll software I might choose, I'd still need to keep updating them with all the changes in order to stay in compliance.

Besides that, my personality has never been particularly bent toward very detailed accounting-type work. Knowing my own weak points in this regard, it just made a heck of a lot of sense for me to use the services of professionals. They keep every number in its proper place and stay current on all the changing rules and regulations.

But, hey, it turns out there's also another great reason for me to use a payroll service: It saves money! The payroll service calculates all taxes and withholding amounts, prints pay stubs (they'll print the checks, or deposit the money directly to employees bank accounts, if you want them to), fills out all quarterly and yearly payroll tax reports, and provides me with originals and copies of everything.

They do all of that at a cost that is less than me trying to the work myself. Here's how I figure that: it would take me many hours every month to do this work myself. If I were out in the field cleaning yards for those same hours, I could be generating a heck of a lot more money that what the payroll service costs me. It just wouldn't be profitable for me to do the payroll myself!

Besides, I hate that kind of work! In the same way that my clients are willing to pay me to clean up after their dogs, so am I willing to pay someone else to do my payroll. It just makes life easier and more pleasant for me and for my employees. Using a payroll service shows them that getting their pay right is important to me, so they have more confidence in me as an employer.

Consult a Professional for Legal Matters Relating to Human Resources and Employment

I am not an attorney, and there are important legal requirements, restrictions, and ramifications involved with employing people. There are all kinds of regulations, and they seem to come from every direction: your city, other cities if your service area includes more than one municipality, county, state, various other local political subdivisions and agencies, as well as a host of federal governmental bureaus. It is your responsibility to be aware of and comply with all such matters, so be sure to consult the appropriate professionals to be certain of your responsibilities.

Obey the law, comply with all applicable regulations, make your reports, and pay your taxes. You can get advice from a lawyer you have confidence in, or you may wish to contact the local offices of the various agencies overseeing these issues. They will send you information to help you make sure you're doing the right thing. Most, if not all, of the states have their own programs set up through their respective Secretary of State's offices to help new businesses get in compliance with all of the applicable rules

Another agency that is very helpful in this regard is the Service Corps of Retired Executives, or S.C.O.R.E., a program of the U.S. Small Business Administration. S.C.O.R.E. counseling is FREE, and they offer some terrific low-cost workshops and seminars on employment matters, as well as other important topics. Go to SBA.gov, or look for the phone number in your phone book's Government section, under Small Business Administration.

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**INSURANCE**

Insurance can help protect you, your clients, and your employees from losses that could arise in the event something terrible happens at work. I recommend that you call several insurance agencies and brokers to discuss the needs and risks of your business. Obtain quotes on coverage and premiums from several companies. Premiums for similar levels of coverage and policies vary quite a bit.

Why get insurance for a pooper-scooper business? For one thing, your regular car insurance won't cover events that happen when you're using your vehicle for business. That's a pretty darn good reason right there. But there are also other possible risks. You might accidentally leave a gate open, or somehow let a dog escape from an enclosure; imagine the dog bites someone, or runs into the street and gets hit, or causes an accident. Maybe you'll accidentally damage a customer's sprinkler system. You could trip and break some expensive sculpture in a yard (yes, some yards have expensive sculptures in them!), or you might damage some lighting equipment. You might give a dog a treat and the dog chokes. In the winter you might damage a deck or concrete pad trying to chip up some frozen stuff. Any number of unforeseen events is possible, so it's wise to be insured. And of course some people just seem to love to sue small businesses, so you might want insurance just to help you defend yourself even when you're not at fault for anything.

Not all insurance companies offer coverage for this type of commercial operation, so it may be difficult to find insurance for your new scooping business. A lot of scoopers have recommended the insurance available through Pet Sitters International (www.psi.petsitterinsurance.com)

Some other resources to check out when you're looking for insurance:

State Farm

 Auto-Owners

 Travelers

American Family Insurance

State Auto Mutual

Binks Insurance (in Canada)

It's a good idea to review your insurance coverage every year or two. I once received a visit from an insurance salesman who offered to compare the rates I was paying to what he might be able to offer. I don't much enjoy these presentations, but it had been several years since I'd shopped for insurance, so I consented to the comparison, even though I've been happy with my own agent's service for quite some time. The salesman came back with a quote for a premium that was almost $1,500 LESS per year for MORE insurance than I was currently getting. Since I had always received good service from my own agent (and good service can easily be worth a little higher premium), I gave my guy a call to talk about reviewing my coverage. It didn't take more than a day for my own agent to switch carriers and come up with more coverage for even less than the price the cold-calling salesman had proposed. I was glad my insurance agent got me the greater value, but I couldn't help being a little disturbed by the question of how long I'd been paying too much. So SHOP AROUND from time to time.

Your insurance agent should also be able to get you any bonds you may be required to obtain. While we were regulated as a Solid Waste Hauler, we had to have a $5,000 Surety Bond for the County Board of Health. It doesn't cost that much to get that bond, though. We obtained this from our insurance agent for $50 a year.

One interesting thing about insurance: you can increase coverage an awful lot for only a small increase in premiums. The larger your business grows, the more you have to protect, so don't neglect to review your needs periodically to see if you might need more coverage. Many commercial clients (apartments and condo associations) may require certain levels of insurance; a requirement of a million dollars of insurance coverage is not uncommon. Some commercial clients may also want you to list them on your insurance policy. You should talk to your insurance agent about this to get all the information you need to make a decision about whether you want to do that. As for me, I would NOT agree to such arrangements with our commercial clients.

One kind of insurance that varies quite a bit from state to state is Workers' Compensation. In Ohio, we pay Workers' Comp directly to our state's Bureau of Worker's Compensation. In many other states you will purchase Workers' Comp. from insurance companies. We saved more than 50 percent on our Workers' Comp premiums by getting into a group rating as members of the Better Business Bureau in our area. Group ratings programs may be available to you through your local Chamber of Commerce, as well as the BBB.

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**APARTMENT COMPLEXES AND CONDO ASSOCIATIONS**

The vast majority of our work is for residential customers. We clean up mostly for people with just one to three dogs, in back yards and dog runs. But we also have some commercial accounts where we clean the much larger grounds of condominiums or apartment complexes. Schedules and monthly fees for these accounts are arranged on an individual basis.

Although all apartment and condo communities have clauses in their paperwork that require dog owners to clean up their pets' messes, nothing is more common than communities fouled by dog waste, causing fouled relationships among tenants and management. Frequently it's just a problem that everyone is aware of, and nobody fixes, so everyone lives with that constant sense of dissatisfaction. Sometimes management "goes after" violators, increasing the animosity of adversarial relationships, so rather than increasing satisfaction they end up increasing the general level of anger and resentment.

All of which is unfortunate, because all of that can be turned around easily and affordably simply by hiring a dog waste removal service. The cost of such a service is just a few of dollars per tenant, a small portion of the "pet rent" charged by the management, leaving the rest of the charge to cover the usual risks. Everybody wins. Tenants who were previously angry about the common areas being unusable are pleased to have their grassy recreation areas back. Dog owners are delighted, and even attracted to the community because "They even clean up after my dog!" Management companies have few problems, happier tenants, and even a new profit center!

It's more work, but it's worthwhile

Residential work is generally much easier than commercial jobs, largely because about half the day is spent driving from one yard to the next. Residential clients also tend to be more profitable on an hourly basis when you're cleaning 5 or 6 yards per hour at $10 to $15 apiece. But commercial accounts can contribute significantly to your monthly cash flow. Accounts at condominium and apartment complexes are certainly worth pursuing. They could even become a major part of the business, as more and more property managers become aware of the advantages of dog waste removal service.

These accounts tend to be somewhat of a tough sell for the most part, though. Management companies look very closely at their costs, and they might not readily see how their bottom line can be significantly improved by your service as it enhances quality of life for their tenants and employees. Of course, it's your job to teach them about this. I have a feeling that more and more property managers will begin to catch on to the profit-enhancing benefits of our services, and I have a feeling that this part of the business will be a growing opportunity.

A Potential Profit Center for Property Managers

To sell the service to apartment managers, show them how they can make a profit on it. In addition to pointing out how your service will solve a real problem, making tenants happier and drastically reducing complaints, direct their attention to how their your service can actually add dollars to their bottom line.

For example, hypothetically say you propose a monthly charge for twice a week cleaning at a given apartment complex for $400. If there are 100 dogs living there, and the management charges a fee of $10/month for each dog, the management actually makes a PROFIT of $600 a month after paying you! Tenants will have clean grassy to enjoy, dog owners pay less than they would if they bought your service on an individual basis, and rental agents have a powerful new selling point in offering not only to accept tenants with pet dogs but actually cleaning up for them. Everybody wins! What could be better than that?

It'll probably take a little trial-and-error experience as you catch on to the ways of cleaning such large areas, and you'll need a willingness to try creative approaches to problems. You'll have to use a little extra salesmanship. If you are up to the challenges, commercial dog-waste removal accounts can really be worth going after!

Pricing Can be Tricky

For regular, single-family residential customers, it's very simple to set prices according to how many dogs the customer owns and how often they want service. But when you clean an apartment complex where there are likely to be over a hundred dogs, and the actual number of animals is constantly changing due to people moving and so forth. It's hard to guess how much ground you'll actually be covering, too. So pricing these accounts can't be a simple matter of how many dogs there are.

First, you'll need to know how much you have to generate per hour to make these accounts worthwhile. How much are you you averaging per hour on your ordinary residential work? Cleaning the ordinary yards is is easier, so why would you want to make less money for more effort? Well, in fact, you might be willing to make slightly less per hour because of the larger monthly checks you'll get for these jobs, but I still think you wouldn't want to go much lower than what you could make cleaning your regular household jobs.

Keep in mind, now, while you will want to know your hourly goal in order to put your apartment proposal together, I DO NOT recommend that you quote hourly rates. You just want that number for your own use in calculating your offer. Here's why: In the same way that "$15 a week" sounds better than "$60 an hour" to your prospective residential clients, it'll be much easier to sell commercial accounts when you present a proposal to clean specific areas of the grounds a certain number of times each week for a fixed monthly fee. Telling an apartment manager that you charge $60 an hour is likely to get you laughed out of her office! However, offering to clean all the common grounds areas in the apartment complex twice a week for, say, $500 a month, may result in a mutually beneficial, profitable, long-term, business relationship.

Once you know what you want to get for each hour of work at the apartments, you're ready to start calculating your proposal. What you're really trying to estimate is how much time it will take you to clean the grounds. Since you haven't cleaned that particular site before, it can be difficult to guess this accurately, but here's how I approached the task...Well, actually I do it two ways: 1) I usually walk all over the property, looking for the places where dogs seem to do most of their business. I also look for large areas where relatively few dogs seem to go. And I try to figure out how many "yard sized areas" there are to be cleaned. I mean areas about the size of a typical yard that I'm used to cleaning. Then I figure out how long it would normally take me to clean that many yards. 2) Walk the entire area to be cleaned, walking back and forth in swaths, as though you were actually cleaning the grounds. While you're getting a good look at what you're getting into, you'll just how bad the problem is, and where are the worst areas. Time how long that walk takes you, and multiply that time by two for an estimate of how long it will take to clean the place. Now, average the two time estimates, multiply that estimated time by the amount of money you want to make per hour, and you'll have your proposed fee per visit. Experience helps, so the more you do it, the better you'll get at it.

Cleaning large areas gets to be rather tedious and fatiguing after more than about an hour and a half. If possible, try to arrange a schedule that will not put you in one spot for more than a couple hours. Go to the site more than once a week, doing different areas each time, or clean the most heavily used spots two or three times a week to keep up with accumulating waste while catching up on the less frequently used areas once a week, or every other week, to spend less time at any one visit. Or send more than one person to clean a large area.

It's not quite the same as residential work

Let me tell you the story of one commercial account, just to illustrate some of the differences between normal residential cleanups and these big jobs. Not long after I started in business, I signed up a rather large apartment complex. Since I needed all the cash I could get at the time, I bid the job at a low price because I wanted to be sure of getting the work. I initially set up the account as though it were a normal residential job, and to try to accommodate the apartment manager's desire to save money, we arranged to cleaning the entire grounds just once every two weeks. But then when my business grew, I was making a much higher hourly revenue on the normal residential work, and servicing this account became more and more of a problem for me.

As time went by, nobody was really happy with this arrangement: not me, not the tenants, and not the management. I was spending up to 6 hours at a time working at this large site, and for my extra work I was making less money than I would have been making doing regular yards. The tenants had a nice, clean area really only two days out of the month because, of course, immediately after it was cleaned the new waste began accumulating and I wouldn't be back there for two weeks. So the apartment managers still had complaints from tenants, even as they were paying to have the place cleaned up.

The job was getting to be a real pain. I didn't really want this headache any more, so I raised my price, actually sort of hoping that they would think it was too much and quit. But by then the tenants were used to the idea of not cleaning up after their own dogs, so there was in fact a greater need for our service than there had been before we started. The management kept our service even with the increased price, and we still had the same problems!

Sometimes you just need to try a different approach.

I was just about thiiiiiiiiiiiis close to throwing in the towel on that job and even giving up on commercial work entirely! On the verge of surrendering, I decided to devote just a little more time to trying to find a more creative solution. And that's how I came up with an idea I thought we ought to try (even though my manager didn't seem too eager to try my "crazy" new approach). Instead of cleaning every other week, we were going to go twice a week, while keeping our monthly fee the same! We would concentrate on the most-frequently used sections of the grounds instead of cleaning the entire place every time. Instead, we would clean the worst spots a lot more often, and do the less heavily soiled areas only as needed.

Well, not only did it work, it worked splendidly! Even though we were making four times as many trips to the site, we were actually spending far fewer total hours over the month! The tenants had cleaner grassy areas all month, and there was never again the horrible accumulation that had been normal before we tried the new approach. We were making more profits, the work was easier, tenants were happier. The property managers were delighted because we were able to effect a tremendous improvement in service without increasing our fee, and we were thrilled because we increased our profits!. By spending a little more time on the problem, and being willing to try a new and creative approach before giving up, we managed to find a win-win solution.

Hey, after all, problem-solving is what this business is all about!

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**MORE RESOURCES TO HELP YOU START YOUR BUSINESS**

The SCOOPERS & FRIENDS Discussion Board at

The Professional Pooper-Scoopers Business Information website

To provide ongoing assistance and information for your pet-waste removal service, I have set up the Scoopers & Friends message board, available online through the Professional Pooper-Scooper Service Information website. The message board is an open forum on the subject of dog-waste removal, business tips, operations, customer service, and any other topics of interest to those in the pooper-scooper business. Experienced scoopers as well as prospective business owners and dog-lovers participate in the discussions. In addition to marketing tips, suggestions on pricing, tools, and so on, people share their successes and frustrations. It's like a support group for everyone involved in this unique industry!

Pooper-Scoopers and Friends also has a Facebook page, sharing news, tips, seasonal information, dog health concerns and other items of interest to this unique group of entrepreneurs.

The International Directory of Dog Waste Removal Services is also online at the pooper-scooper.com website. The directory is a paid listing of dog waste removal service businesses There are companies listed throughout the United States, as well as Canada. Dog owners all over the country use the site to find services available in their area, so it's a good place to list your business. To list your service in the directory, sign up at www.pooper-scooper.com/getlisted.htm or send e-mail to matthew@pooper-scooper.com. Prices to be listed vary according to the size of the listing and whether you include a picture. It's very inexpensive! A basic listing is just $7 per month.

S.C.O.R.E.

The Service Corps of Retired Executives is a program of the U.S. Small Business Administration. This organization offers free one-on-one counseling with experienced business people. They have a lot of free information available for you. SCORE also offers low-cost workshops and seminars on subjects such as "Starting Right," "Sales and Marketing," and more. Find them online at score.org, look for your local chapter in the "Government" section of your phone book, ,or get automated information by phone by calling the SBA at 1-800-827-5722..

Your State and Local Government Offices:

Look through the Government section of your white pages, or search online, to see what kind of agencies your state government has available for you. All states in the USA have programs designed to help new business owners. Your state's Secretary of State office is usually an excellent place to start taking advantage of what's available. Just browsing the names of your state's offices will almost always turn up some great resources.

Don't be afraid to admit you don't have all the information you'd like when you call these places. Many times I've called an office without knowing anything more than the name of the office, but I have found that most of the time the people answering the phone will be quite helpful if they understand what you are asking. I often start such quests for new knowledge something like this: "Hi! I'm not sure who I need to speak with, or even if I have the right office. I hope you can help me!" "Do you have any programs designed to help people start new businesses?" or "How can I find out exactly what I would need to do in order to dump solid waste at the landfill?" If you are polite and patient, eventually you'll get pointed to the right people and your questions will all be answered.

Other Helpful Websites:

SBA.gov, Starting a Business?: www.sba.gov/content/follow-these-steps-starting-business

IRS.gov:  www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Starting-a-Business

CBS News, How to Write a Press Release:  www.cbsnews.com/news/how-to-write-a-press-release-with-examples/

SmallBusiness.com: www.smallbusiness.com/

Inc. Magazine: www.inc.com

Entrepreneur Magazine: www.entrepreneur.com

Business Week, Small Business: www.businessweek.com/small-business

All Business: www.allbusiness.com

Dog Channel: www.dogchannel.com

Dog FAQ's;: www.k9web.com/dog-faqs

Purina Pet Care Site: www.purina.com

How to Buy a Used Truck:  trucks.about.com/od/autobuying/a/How-To-Buy-A-Used-Truck.htm

How to Check the Engine of a Used Car: www.samarins.com/check/engine.html

Advertise Your Business on Craigslist:  dirtymarketingsecrets.com/how-to-advertise-your-business-on-craigslist

Craigslist Marketing Tips:  www.mannixmarketing.com/blog/craigslist-marketing-tips

Effective Business Card Tips:  sbinformation.about.com/od/marketingsales/tp/business-card-rules.htm

Marketing with Business Cards: www.gmarketing.com/articles/23-guerrilla-business-cards

Business Cards as Selling Tools:  blog.crowdspring.com/2011/09/lean-marketing-tips-start-with-a-business-card/

Books for Entrepreneurs:

These are some of the greatest sources on information and inspiration I know for business people, and you should be able to borrow them for FREE from your local library! And while you're there, check out the new ones that are coming out all the time.

How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie

Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill

Guerrilla Marketing, by Jay Conrad Levinson

Tested Advertising Methods, by John Caples

Nichecraft, by Dr. Lynda Falkenstein

2020 Vision, by Stan Davis and Bill Davidson

The E-Myth, and The E-Myth Revisited, by Michael Gerber

Future Perfect, by Stan Davis

The Clustering of America, by Michael J. Weiss

The Entrepreneur's Manual, by Richard M. White, Jr.

The Making of an Entrepreneur by George H. Ballas

Swim With the Sharks : Without Being Eaten Alive, by Harvey Mackay

Earning Money Without a Job, by Jay Conrad Levinson

See You at the Top, by Zig Ziglar

Super Freakonomics, and Think Like a Freak, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

_The 48 Laws of Power_ , by Robert Greene

_Innovation and Entrepreneurship_ , by Peter Drucker

_Rework_ , by Jason Fried

_The Ten Commandments for Business Failure,_ by Donald R. Keough

_Growing a Business_ , by Paul Hawken

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**AFTERWORD**

As you can see from looking at the International Directory of Dog Waste Removal Services at pooper-scooper.com, the scooping industry is growing all the time; it's not nearly so much the "oddball" idea it was 25 or 30 years ago. A lot of scoopers in business today started out with this manual and succeeded in building their own businesses, and people have told me that they see this book as not just about making a pooper-scooper business, but about how to run any kind of business in general. I am glad, because I did try to put forth in this book the way I believe any business should be run in order to be worthwhile and profitable, to satisfy customers, and to build something of real value.

What happens now is up to you. I have given you the basic information about how to get your new business off the ground, but the book can't make your decisions for you (and life wouldn't be nearly as exciting if it did!). There are many important issues that you will have to decide for yourself along the way. I often say that's the beauty -- and the tough part -- of having your own business. You get to decide how you want to run your operation, what kind of image you want to create in your community, whether you want to be the low-priced provider or strive for a "premium" marketing position for your business, and all the other things that make your business yours.

As any professional scooper will tell you, this is not a get-rich-quick kind of business,. A few have started off with great success right off the bat, true, but in most cases it will take a year or two to build the business up to the point that you can live on it full time. A lot of people start part time, working at this business in addition to having a regular job. That's how I started, even though I must say that the part-time hours I spent working the pooper-scooper business paid me a lot more than the hours I was putting in at my other jobs. And of course it all paid off!

There are certainly no guarantees of success. Some people start a little scooping business and give up after a while; but then that's the case with any type of business. It will take your own commitment, courage, imagination and perseverance, along with a lot of hard work. Getting started off on the right foot helps a lot, too, which is exactly what I've tried to help you accomplish with this manual.

Whether you decide to go ahead and start a professional pooper-scooper business after reading this book or not, I do wish you all the best! And it's my hope that you will know the feeling of being in charge of your own life, confident that you have what it takes to achieve your goals.

Best Wishes!

Matthew

###

You can contact me by email at:

Matthew@pooper-scooper.com

Or send a letter to me at:

Matthew Osborn

P.O. Box 28412

Columbus, Ohio 43228

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