Hi, friend.
What happens when a former social worker, a serial entrepreneur, an eternal optimist, and recovering people pleaser has a dream? (All one person, btw.)
Answer: That person becomes obsessed with turning the dream into reality. And while FetchFind is absolutely your partner in running your business and training your staff, I constantly imagine what more FetchFind could become. I thought if we had more experts and more partners, I could make a difference.
Yet, for 18 months, that pursuit seemed absurd. In a pandemic lots of companies were scaling back, not creating new initiatives.
Then, as always, my inspiration came from my 10-year-old daughter, Sadie. She had been through a lot of changes in the last year, as I earlier wrote about to you. We got our dream dog, Willow the Collie. We moved (twice). She’s navigating her parents’ divorce. She saw how much I was working to pivot the business. But still, she decided to go all-in for the big ask.
She prepared her pitch. She made her presentation (photo here), and she asked for a bird. Now, I love birds. I do. I once owned a parrot named Tahoe. And I love animals and having multiple pets in our home at all times. But one more pet right now (especially as I am starting to travel again) was a huge ask.
Yet, here I am, trying to raise a strong, capable and thoughtful person. Always telling her things like: “if you don’t ask, you don’t get.” Or “Dream big and fight for those dreams” and “you are capable of creating the life you want.”
If I have one takeaway from the past two years, it’s this: I can’t expect Sadie to live big if I don’t show her how.
I am clear that if I want to leave a mark on our industry for generations to come, it’s worth the risks to make it happen. One of the steps I took was to seek out leaders both in and outside the pet industry to ask if they would partner with me to help you—because as a small business owner myself, it was always difficult for me to get access to (and afford) world-class brand partnerships and resources. That is where Cintas comes in and their dedication to the pet industry with an entire catalogue of products and services to help all of us move our businesses forward.
And that’s how the FetchFind Marketplace (and our partnership with Cintas and others) was born. And I’ll never look back.
And, yes, of course, we got the bird! Sweetie is funny and intelligent and adds so much joy to our life and household. (Here’s her adorable feathery face!)
MARK YOUR CALENDAR~~
Tuesday, November 2 @ 10 am CST; our FB weekly Live broadcasts are back.
Thanks for being part of the FetchFind community.
Go big.
XO,
Jamie