Starting a Pet and Plant Care Service

Two women who love animals realized this was a problem for many families, so they started a business in which they visit a customer's house twice a day to feed the animals, pick up the mail and look after things. In exchange for this service they charge between $5 and $6 per visit.

You could start the same kind of business right out of your own house for no investment whatsoever, except a small classified ad in the newspaper. If you figure that it takes about fifteen minutes to a half hour to drive to someone's house, feed the pets and let the dog out to play, you can average from $10 to $15 an hour for your service.

The advantage for your customers is obvious. There is a responsible person checking their house every day, the pets do not have to be put into an expensive boarding kennel, the plants will not die from lack of water, mail and newspapers will be picked up so that would-be burglars will not have any idea that no one is home. So, for about $5 to $6 per day, your customer can go on vacation with the secure feeling that everything is being looked after.

In reality you are offering much more than just pet and plant care. You are providing home security. You will find that after you have served a few clients, word-of-mouth advertising will be your most valuable advertising. And it will be free.

The two women mentioned above had full-time jobs when they began this service. But within a matter of months they had so many clients that they were able to give up their full-time jobs and devote all their time to the work they liked best, namely, taking care of people's homes and pets. Their customers are required to leave enough pet food in the house to take care of the animals throughout the vacation. If you buy food for the pets, this should be added to your fee. You will not have any billing problems if you ask for payment before the customer leaves for vacation, or, at the latest, as soon as your customer returns.

Your expenses are really limited only to the gasoline needed to drive your car to the customer's house. If your service will extend over a period of weeks, as it will for customers who go away on longer vacations, you should advise your clients to notify the police that the pet and plant care service will be visiting their home daily.

As your business grows, you will find that you can hire others to service additional homes. You can figure that with an earning rate of $4 to $10 an hour, you could be drawing an income from this business of anywhere from $150 to $400 per week. And that is with almost no expenses to you. Stress to your prospective clients that your service is performed by mature people who have a great deal of experience in caring for pets. Your service should be much preferred to the services of a neighborhood youngster. Most people will gladly pay as much as $10 a day to have their homes looked after in this manner, especially if they have more than one pet. Rates in boarding kennels are usually $5 a day per pet, and this places a pet in an unfamiliar setting which cannot compare to being at home. The prerequisite, of course, is that you enjoy animals and that you are able to give them the affection that is missing while their owners are away.

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Gary Saunders is a popular author who has also written articles on burt hendricks and home bakeries.

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