Podcasts about napps

How are you navigating the challenges of business ownership? Joette White, owner of Park Cities Pet Sitter, shares her journey from being fired to successfully owning and growing a pet sitting business. She emphasizes the importance of staff management and trusting employees to foster growth. Joette highlights how personal growth and learning from failures have shaped her leadership style. She discusses adapting to challenges, especially during the pandemic, to strengthen the business foundation. Joette stresses the need for clear leadership and allowing space for staff to develop their strengths and confidence Main topics: Business Ownership Staff Management Personal Growth Pandemic Adaptation Leadership Challenges Main takeaway: If you don't give people the opportunity to fail, then they can't grow. About our guest: Joette has served on the Board of The National Association of Professional Pet Sitters, helping to educate others in the industry about best practices.  Her company has won a multitude of local awards including Angie's List Super Service Award for 5 consecutive years, “Best of Dallas” by D Magazine, and “Best of's” from WFAA Channel 8, Dallas Voice, and The Dallas Observer.  Park Cities Pet Sitter was also awarded the prestigious NAPPS 2017 Business of the Year–this is a national award given to a pet sitting company that demonstrates outstanding business practices and vision in maintaining and growing their business. Joette is married and is a mother to two boys.  Animals have always been a huge part of her life. In addition to “herding” the four Park Cities Pet Sitter office cats (Carl, Kruzer, Henry and George), Joette also has a sweet rescue dog named Phyllis and a short-haired rabbit named Toofus at her home. She strongly believes in giving back to her church and community, and does so by working with local shelters, as well as through education, training, and fund raising activities. Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joette-white-43814b24/ Email Joette: joette@pcpsi.com Website: https://www.pcpsi.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parkcitiespetsitter Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/park-cities-pet-sitter-inc- Twitter: https://twitter.com/PCPSI Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Park-Cities-Pet-Sitter-Inc-300134640612 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCQVE7LfCLlayBOB9I8XWSA EOS - entrepreneur operating system: https://www.eosworldwide.com Buy PSC Merch Give us a call! (636) 364-8260  Follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com Full show notes and transcript   Sponsored by: ❤️ Our AMAZING Patreon Supporters Time to Pet Visit: https://timetopet.com/confessional Code: 50% off first 3 months  

After a stellar academic career that included teaching equine science at Otterbine University, Lucy Cryan successfully transitioned into the world of professional pet sitting. Now at the helm of Cryan Enterprises in Ohio, she has earned recognition as Business of the Year by the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters. Tune in to hear her story. EPISODE NOTES: Lucy Cryan Takes the Reins as the NAPPS Business of the Year

More on Amber Van Denzen Amber Van Denzen is the founder of Atta Boy Animal Care based in Bartow, FL. She is an emergency medicine veterinary technician. Amber is a member of two professional pet sitting organizations: NAPPS and PSI. Learn more at www.attaboyanimalcare.com.   More on Dr. John McGlone and Larry Nouvel Dr. John McGlone is a professor who heads the laboratory of animal behavior at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. Larry Nouvel is a chemist and biologist. Both develop pet health products for companies, including Tevra Brands. Learn more at www.tevrabrands.com and www.vetality.com.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another paw-some episode of the Pets Are Family Podcast, where we dive into the furry world of pets and the people who adore them. This week, we're bringing you a special guest who has turned her passion for pets into a thriving business. Meet Joni Sullivan, co-owner of Joan of Ark Pet Sitting in Rockland, MA, a trailblazer in the pet sitting industry, and a proud member of the board of NAPPS, the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters.The Evolution of Pet Sitting: Joni shares her fascinating journey from the early days of Joan of Ark Pet Sitting in 1998, when she navigated pre-smartphone challenges, to adapting and growing the business into a thriving service that quadrupled during 2020.Mission with a Heart: Learn about JOA's mission to care for pets like their own, creating a stress-free experience for both the pets and their parents. Joni and her partner Crys's commitment to overnight stays and day visits exemplifies their dedication.Certification and Contributions: Joni takes us through her achievements, including the challenging but rewarding process of becoming NAPPS certified and her involvement in the Marketing and Events Committees. Her Fear-Free Certification and contributions beyond pet sitting illuminate her multifaceted expertise.Advocacy and Vision for the Future: As a passionate advocate for professional pet sitters and animal welfare, Joni discusses her love for NAPPS, her vision for its growth, and her commitment to enriching the pet sitting community through education, certification, and community outreach.Why Tune In?Whether you're a pet parent, a budding entrepreneur, or someone passionate about animal welfare, Joni's insights into the pet industry, her personal journey of growth and adaptation, and her forward-thinking approach to pet care are incredibly motivating.Engage with Us:After listening, don't forget to subscribe to the Pets Are Family Podcast on YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Share your thoughts, stories, or a laugh with us. Let's continue to build a community that celebrates and supports the incredible bond between pets and families.#PetsAreFamily #PetSittingExcellence #JoniSullivan #JoanOfArkPetSitting #NAPPS #AnimalWelfare #PetCareProfessionals #EntrepreneurialJourney #PetLove #CommunityOutreachSupport the show

What do you do when life happens? The fact is, things happen that are out of our control, and our only roll is in how we respond. When running a business, we set policies that match the flexibility many clients need, or adapt to their requests if we want. In our personal lives, we respond by stepping up and showing our true character. Jessica and Chris Milam, owners of Fur Services Fur Pets, discuss what it means to live a life full of the right amount of crazy, love, and passion. Main topics: Setting yourself apart Customer centric Taking on a leadership role Growing their family Main takeaway: Running a client centric company means meeting them where they are, but not trying to change them into something they're not. About our guests: Jessica founded Fur Services Fur Pets in 2013 with a desire to combine her pet care experience and her exceptional customer-driven mindset to create a personal mission to build a Customer-Centric Pet Care Company that focuses on quality over profit margins.  Her passion focuses on building a team of excellent Pet Companions that provide worry-free pet care for wag-worthy results.Jessica has 20 years in the pet care industry and holds a CPPS Certification from PSI and a Pet Sitter Certification through NAPPS.Jessica began attending conferences starting with the Texas Pet Sitters Conference in 2017 and has attended each year since.  She has also attended The NAPPS and PSI annual conferences since 2017.Jessica currently sits on the board of the Texas Pet Sitters Association and co-organizes their annual conference.Chris has 14 years in the pet industry and joined Fur Services Fur pets in 2015; going full-time in 2016.  Chris is the team lead and head trainer for the Fur Services Fur Pets team.  He is currently taking courses with the Karen Pryor Academy to become a Positive Reinforcement Dog Trainer.Chris has been attending the Texas Pet Sitting Conference since 2017 and has attended both NAPPS and PSI conferences since then.Both Jessica and Chris are Pet CPR/First Aid Certified, have completed all levels of FetchFind Pet Industry Training, are Elite Fear Free Certified and have undergone FBI Fingerprinting and Background Checks.Together, Jessica and Chris adopted a sibling set of human children in 2022 and have a menagerie of pets including a rescued street dog named Penelope, four rescued cats: Iris, Calliope, Cowboy and Cruella, two ball pythons; Nagini and Sully and a few fish in a freshwater tank.Chris and Jessica are also the proud owners of SignGypsies Aubrey, a yard greeting company dedicated to spreading joy and celebration through custom-curated yard signs. Links: https://www.furservicesfurpets.com https://txpetsitters.com Buy PSC Merch Give us a call! (636) 364-8260  Follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com Full show notes and transcript   Sponsored by: ❤️ Our AMAZING Patreon Supporters Time to Pet Visit: https://timetopet.com/confessional Code: 50% off first 3 months National Association of Professional Pet Sitters www.petsitters.org

What problems are you solving for your clients? Kevin Johnson, owner of Planet Paws Pet Care, views his entire role as being the problem solver for his clients. Kevin transitioned from being a defense attorney to running a successful pet sitting business. He emphasizes the importance of communication skills in building trust with clients and identifying their pain points. He believes in being a problem solver and guiding clients to the right services, even if it means referring them elsewhere. Kevin also highlights the value of networking, joining the chamber of commerce, and filling gaps in the market. He and his wife work together in the business, with her focusing on marketing and business operations. Kevin participates in events to raise awareness of his business and engage with the community. Main topics Skills from a lawyer Building trust Building a network Guiding clients Main takeaway: Part of building trust is in identifying pain points, and then being able to discuss solutions rationally and calmly. About our guest: Kevin founded Planet Paws Pet Care, a full-service pet care company in September 2021, along with his wife Kristie, when they couldn't find good pet care for their dogs. Kevin spent 18 years as a criminal defense attorney. Originally, intended to be a part-time business, Kevin relinquished his law books for a leash full-time when he found out his health greatly improved, and his stress levels went down. In his diligent quest to offer the best services, Kevin provides overnight dog boarding, vacation care visits, dog walks, as well as potty and play visits. Kevin is certified in pet first aid and CPR, a Fear-Free Certified Professional Pet Sitter, and a NAPPS-certified pet sitter. He is a proud member of the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters (NAPPS). Kevin and Kristie are proud dog parents to Finn, a vivacious four-year-old Siberian Husky, and Poe, a lively four-year-old American Staffordshire Terrier. These close-knit relationships with his pets allow him to understand and cater to the individual needs of each furry friend that steps into Planet Paws Pet Care. Outside of his professional capacity, Kevin finds solace in camping (they still camp in a tent) and riding his beloved Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He loves attending comic cons with his Star Wars costuming group. He engages in his Rumble Boxing classes to keep up with his active lifestyle and energetic pups. With his diverse experience, Kevin ensures every interaction at Planet Paws radiates warmth, care, and professionalism. As a passionate pet lover and a dedicated professional, he's dedicated to redefined pet care; creating a haven for your pets, while providing peace of mind for you. Links https://www.facebook.com/Kevincjohnson99 https://planetpawspetcare.com kevin@planetpawspetcare.com https://www.whole-dog-journal.com Buy PSC Merch Give us a call! (636) 364-8260  Follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com Full show notes and transcript   Sponsored by: ❤️ Our AMAZING Patreon Supporters  Time to Pet Visit: https://timetopet.com/confessional Code: 50% off first 3 months  Pet Perennials Visit: https://petperennials.com/pages/register-for-a-business-account Code: 'PSC' when registering for a $2 off coupon on any purchases in the 1st 90 days  

Esto es Gente Interesante, soy Oriol Roda y en esta entrevista vamos a descubrir cómo funciona la economía de la atención y como las grandes empresas tecnológicas utilizan nuestros datos con Thomás Petit, una eminencia en el crecimiento de aplicaciones móviles. Fue él quien impulsó el fenomenal auge de 8fit, una aplicación de entrenamiento físico que emergió en paralelo con Mammoth Hunters y que rápidamente se convirtió en un fenómeno.Thomás no es solo un mago de las métricas y la estrategia. Yo lo sigo desde hace tiempo en Twitter, y más allá de sus logros en el crecimiento de apps, he descubierto que es un profundo conocedor de las entrañas de la economía digital. Pero eso no es todo, Thomás también es un crítico agudo y reflexivo, cuestionando y desafiando muchas de las prácticas estándar de la industria.Si quieres entender cómo las grandes apps escalan, las tácticas y estrategias detrás de sus campañas y la verdadera naturaleza de la economía digital, entonces estás en el lugar correcto. Además, nos sumergiremos en debates candentes sobre ética, privacidad y cómo la monetización de la atención está redefiniendo la era digital. Acompáñanos en esta conversación reveladora.¡Vamos a ello!

March started with a bang! Spring conference season just wrapped up and Professional Pet Sitters week concluded as well. We share our experiences attending the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters conference. We talk through what to consider when determining if you should go to a conference or not. We also give an overview of Professional Pet Sitters week, and why customer service is central to what we do. Main topics Pet Sitter tip feedback NAPPS conference Professional Pet Sitters Week Importance of customer service Main takeaway: As business owners, it's our responsibility to think deeply about how we operate to make sure we're in alignment with our values and serving our clients with excellence. Links: Industry conferences: petsitterconfessional.com/conferences Buy PSC Merch Give us a call! (636) 364-8260  Follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com Full show notes and transcript   Sponsored by: ❤️ Our AMAZING Patreon Supporters Pet Sitters Associates Visit: https://www.petsitllc.com Code: Confessional

Reports and analysts are saying 2023 is not shaping up to be a good year for the global economy. Monetary policy and interest rates are slowing the economy down, and most suggest a recession is in the work in the next 12 months. How do we digest this data and apply it to your business? What does this mean for the pet services industry? We break down several key questions for you to think through in your business. We also address the very real need for a support network and the psychological toll a recession takes on small business owners.  Main topics: Create a pricing spread Monitor your debt levels Strengthen your team Watch your mental health Main takeaway: Preparing for a recession is more than just focusing on your business and fundamentals, it's about building a support network and keeping track of your mental health.   Links: Handling inflation:https://www.petsitterconfessional.com/episodes/292 Uncertainty: https://www.petsitterconfessional.com/episodes/266 NAPPS sign-up: https://petsitters.org/page/EventsTab Recession in 12 months? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-17/forecast-for-us-recession-within-year-hits-100-in-blow-to-biden  25 year low mortgages: https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/news/10192022-mortgage-application-volume Job losses on the horizon: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/economists-expect-recession-job-losses-by-2023.html Recession and mental health: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4880023/?utm_source=fbia and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4741013/ Buy PSC Merch Give us a call! (636) 364-8260  Follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com Full show notes and transcript   Sponsored by: ❤️ Our AMAZING Patreon Supporters Pet Sitters Associates Visit: https://www.petsitllc.com Code: Confessional

What is a Google My Business (GMB) listing and how does it help a local business? Amy Toman, from Pet Sitter SEO, discusses the power behind a well optimized GMB listing and how client behavior is changing when searching for services. She gives advice on what to avoid to make sure your listing doesn't get removed (including how to use your address appropriately), why you should list your business on quality directory services, and how to approach Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Topics on this episode: * Do directories help my SEO? * What's new with GMB? * Optimizing GMB settings * Preventing your listing from being removed Main take away: Follow the Google guidelines for setting up your GMB listing, so you never risk it being removed. About our guest: Amy Toman is the founder of Pet Sitter SEO, a digital marketing company that specializes in SEO and Google My Business audits for small businesses in the pet care industry. She's worked with pet sitters for over five years, and started her company in 2017. Amy's a Product Expert for Google Business Profiles, has written for Pet Sitters International and NAPPS, and has spoken at conferences by PSI, NAPPS, and the Texas Pet Sitters Conference. She's been cited in many SEO industry articles as an SEO to follow, and has been featured in several podcasts, discussing both local SEO and pet sitter SEO. She loves solving puzzles, which is why she loves SEO. She's married, has three adult children, and two happy cats. And when she's not buried in websites, she loves to read and watch classic movies. Amy may be reached at amy@petsitterseo.com or at her website, PetSitterSEO.com. Links: Website (www.petsitterseo.com) On Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/PetSitterSEO/) Email: Amy@petsitterseo.com Google Photo Tool (https://cloud.google.com/vision/docs/drag-and-drop.) Google analytics (https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/provision/#/provision) Google Search Console (https://search.google.com/search-console/welcome) Google My Business Listing (https://www.google.com/business/) Google Inactive Account Manager (https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546?hl=en) Give us a call! (636) 364-8260 Follow us on: Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/petsitterconfessional/), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/petsitterconfessional/), Twitter (https://twitter.com/psconfessional) Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com (mailto:feedback@petsitterconfessional.com) Full show notes and transcript (https://www.petsitterconfessional.com/episodes/267)

Becky O'Neil, owner of Becky's Pet Care, left the medical field to pursue a career in pet care so she could spend more time with her child. After 20+ years in the industry, she has over 150 employees and has had to adapt, and adopt, new technology and business planning to continue to thrive and meet the needs of her clients. Becky shares what her definition of success is, and why it's so important to be running the business you want. We also discuss the upcoming NAPPS 2021 conference and what to expect from the speakers. Topics on this episode: * Business Planning * Hiring * Success * NAPPS Conference Main take away: People run their business their way; you need to run your business your way. About our guest: Becky's love of animals originated in her childhood, spent on a farm in Pennsylvania where she helped raise and care for many animals including livestock, family pets, and horses. In 1998, Becky founded Becky's Pet Care, Inc. as a one-woman enterprise, which she nurtured to its current status as a leading pet care provider in Northern Virginia. In addition to running her very active business, Becky enthusiastically supports various local and national animal rescue groups and participates in several local community organizations. She serves on the board of the Community Business Partnership in Alexandria, is President of her local PTA in Arlington, and as President of the Northern Virginia Professional Pet Sitters Network, where she also fulfilled past terms as Vice President and Treasurer. Becky currently lives in Arlington, Virginia with her son, her daughter, and her black Labs, Teddy Bear and Rylee. Links: Email: Becky@beckyspetcare.com Becky's Pet Care: https://beckyspetcare.com NAPPS 2021 Conference: https://petsitters.org/page/EventsTab Full show notes and transcript (https://www.petsitterconfessional.com/episodes/214)

Episode 57 - Napps gets Medical Attention - Napps hangs out in the med-bay and everyone has a good time. Back Stratos Stratagem today! - https://tinyurl.com/StratosStratagem Check out the Scum Summer Giveaway! - https://twitter.com/FeddieScum/status/1424756227700035593?s=19 Music and SFX - https://freesound.org/people/podenecromaniac/sounds/335532/ Air Prelude by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100337 Artist: http://incompetech.com/ "Mourning Day" by Nicolas Jeudy and DARK FANTASY STUDIO Feddie Scum - The Gundam RPG Podcast Twitter - https://twitter.com/FeddieScum Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/feddiescum Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWptBHBc3no9bht-EpZO8wQ Support us on Patreon! - https://www.patreon.com/deadsetmedia Check out our merch store! - https://feddiescum.bigcartel.com

Summary: Why should we have a good support community and what does it mean to be an advocate for the pet care industry? Heather Branch, owner of Best Friends Forever Pet Services and a board member of NAPPS, shares about the tribe around her business and gives advice for building a strong foundation. Her tribe, which includes her staff, help make her better and continue to push for more education and excellence. She stresses the importance of learning about running a business and not just focusing on the pet care. Heather also encourages us to get involved in the pet care industry at the local and national level to start advocating for the industry and let our voices be heard. Topics on this episode: * Laying strong foundations * Keeping good staff * Finding joy * Getting involved and advocating Main take away: Your voice is important! Get involved and help shape the industry for the future! Links: NAPPS (https://petsitters.org) Check out her website (https://www.bestfriendsforeverpetservices.com) Email Heather: heather@bffpetservices.net Full show notes and transcript (https://www.petsitterconfessional.com/episodes/199)

In this episode, I'm talking to Jessica Abernathy who is a pet sitting industry expert and current president of the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters (NAPPS). Jessica has a ton of great stories to share about getting started as a pet sitter and what she wishes she did differently from the beginning. One thing she wishes she knew about sooner is NAPPS! I was so interested to hear about the wealth of info and resources they offer to their members including certification for pet sitters and also a pet parent membership level. Jessica also talks about the number one thing that prevents most people from growing their pet industry business. It might not be what you think it is! Listen to find out. The rest of the shownotes can be found at wearwagrepeat.com/podcast

In Episode 5 of Covered in Pet Hair, Jessica Abernathy, President of the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters, shares encouraging words about the pet sitting industry and its participants; each so resilient that NAPPS rewarded all of its members with the 2021 Business of the Year award. Jessica and Isabel are old pals. They have both been members of the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters for over a decade, served on the NAPPS Board of Directors together, and partaken in many happy hours at industry events over the years. During the show, Isabel asks Jessica about her cat's peculiar name and how he earned such an unexpected moniker. Jessica describes her kitten rescue efforts and her knack for giving her fosters terrible names, which, at least in this one case, stuck permanently. Jessica is a true believer in pets as family and strives to be an excellent pet parent and care provider. She's recently started coaching pet sitting business owners and individuals, which is a new passion that she plans to nurture in the new year. EPISODE NOTES: Just a Chicago Girl

In Episode 5 of Covered in Pet Hair, Jessica Abernathy, President of the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters, shares encouraging words about the pet sitting industry and its participants; each so resilient that NAPPS rewarded all of its members with the 2021 Business of the Year award. Jessica and Isabel are old pals. They have both been members of the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters for over a decade, served on the NAPPS Board of Directors together, and partaken in many happy hours at industry events over the years. During the show, Isabel asks Jessica about her cat's peculiar name and how he earned such an unexpected moniker. Jessica describes her kitten rescue efforts and her knack for giving her fosters terrible names, which, at least in this one case, stuck permanently. Jessica is a true believer in pets as family and strives to be an excellent pet parent and care provider. She's recently started coaching pet sitting business owners and individuals, which is a new passion that she plans to nurture in the new year. EPISODE NOTES: Just a Chicago Girl

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Consider becoming a Patreon member and supporting the showTopics on this episode:What to expect from the conferenceGetting preparedThinking outside the boxCovid-19 opportunitiesThe biggest concern?Becoming a NAPPS memberMain take away? Now really is the BEST time to look at your business and remake it into something you've always wanted. There are still a lot of opportunities on the road ahead.Links:Check out the NAPPS conferenceRead their Pledge of Professional ConductConsider supporting the showRead the full transcript hereGive us a call! (636) 364-8260Check out our pet sitter resourcesFollow us on: Instagram, Facebook, TwitterSubscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, & TuneInEmail us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com

This podcast is sponsored by Pet Sitters Associates. Pet Sitter Confessional listeners can get a discount when joining by clicking membership Pet Sitter Confessional discount code Confessional at check-out to get $10 off today. Check out the benefits of membership and insurance at petsitllc.com.Topics on this episode:Discussion about the article from David PearsallIt's hard finding good informationWhat we AREN'T saying about regulationsWhat others ARE sayingWhy we need to be preparedWhat do the lack of regulations and standards do to us pet sittersWhat do the lack of regulations and standards do to pet ownersWhat can we do?Ask a Pet Biz Coach with Natasha O'BanionMain take away? As an industry we must be proactive in speaking up about regulations to make the industry safe, equal, and welcoming to all.Links:Check out Start. Scale. Sail. and use PSC20 for 15% off.The article that started this discussion.PSINAPPSIBSPAPet Business Legislative ReviewRegulation of the Pet Sitting IndustryRead the full transcript hereGive us a call! (636) 364-8260Follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, TwitterSubscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, & TuneInEmail us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com

We start off 2020 with an update on our foster dog Mama, plus good new for Roger, we talk about our overnight stay at Gaylord Rockies hotel, and we discuss movies we saw during the holidays, we also talk about our 20 for 2020, and an update on our 12 year old foster Nay Nay.

Preparing for a pet sitter any time can be an overwhelming undertaking. Who do I hire? What questions do I ask? How soon before I need one should I hire one? With the holidays fast approaching, Mary Obedier from Chase’n Tails Pet Care will help us answer those questions and more. Maybe you’ve even considered being a professional pet sitter. Listen in and learn what it takes. Mary Oberdier is the owner of Chase’n Tails Pet Care and Founder of Bradenton/Sarasota Professional Pet Sitters, a group of pet-sitting professionals in the Manatee and Sarasota counties area and beyond who come together to encourage and help each other be the best at their business. Mary started her pet sitting business in 2012 after working in the banking industry her whole life. After much research, she started her business and joined NAPPS to become certified, insured and bonded. Chasen Tails is named after her black lab mix, Chase who lived to be 15 years old.

Preparing for a pet sitter any time can be an overwhelming undertaking. Who do I hire? What questions do I ask? How soon before I need one should I hire one?With the holidays fast approaching, Mary Obedier from Chase’n Tails Pet Care will help us answer those questions and more. Maybe you’ve even considered being a professional pet sitter. Listen in and learn what it takes.Mary Oberdier is the owner of Chase’n Tails Pet Care and Founder of Bradenton/Sarasota Professional Pet Sitters, a group of pet-sitting professionals in the Manatee and Sarasota counties area and beyond who come together to encourage and help each other be the best at their business.Mary started her pet sitting business in 2012 after working in the banking industry her whole life. After much research, she started her business and joined NAPPS to become certified, insured and bonded. Chasen Tails is named after her black lab mix, Chase who lived to be 15 years old.

The Financial Services Compliant Accreditation Program is an exclusive benefit for members of the National Association of Professional Process Servers. Learn more at https://napps.org/

The National Association of Professional Process Servers, commonly known as NAPPS, is a Worldwide Organization of professional process servers and the first resource for credible information regarding the profession. Learn more at https://napps.org/

The National Association of Professional Process Servers, commonly known as NAPPS, is a Worldwide Organization of professional process servers and the first resource for credible information regarding the profession. Learn more at https://napps.org/ Learn about upcoming NAPPS events: https://napps.org/UpcomingEvents.aspx   All links below are provided for your reference only and should not be considered an endorsement or approval of any products or services. Be sure to review all your options, do your research, and talk to trusted friends and other professionals to help you decide on service providers. Here are some examples of places to domain names and website hosting: https://www.godaddy.com/ https://www.siteground.com/ https://www.bluehost.com/ https://www.hostgator.com/ There are lots of YouTube tutorials which can walk you through the process of setting up a website - search for "wordpress" or "godaddy wordpress" etc for some great tutorials. Need to create a Facebook Page for your business? Visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/creation/ Need to create a LInkedIn Page for your business? Visit https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/company-pages Need to claim or set up your Yelp business page? Visit https://biz.yelp.com/ Need to set up your Google business listing? Visit https://www.google.com/business/ Learn about the laws and rules for commercial emails from the FTC: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business   Here are some examples of services to manage your e-mail subscriber list or direct mail marketing: https://mailchimp.com/ https://www.postcardmania.com/ https://opknockcards.com/

The National Association of Professional Process Servers, commonly known as NAPPS, is a Worldwide Organization of professional process servers and the first resource for credible information regarding the profession. Learn more at https://napps.org/

Mighty Mike: What's up, Server Nation? My name is Michael Reid, the Podcast Server. You are listening to Process Server Daily. On this podcast, we interview the top legal support professionals and get the tips, tools and tactics that they use to get the job done and build a successful company. I'm a big fan of storytelling and I'm excited about today's guest. Mighty Mike: Before we get started, let's give a big shout out to my new sponsor, ServeManager. They have a special gift for all of my listeners at the end of today's episode. Mighty Mike: Okay, Server Nation. We are joined by the owner of On Time Process Services, located in Klamath Falls, Oregon. He specializes in skip trace investigation and serving hard to find individuals. Gary Clayton, welcome to the show. Gary Clayton: Thank you. Mighty Mike: It's good to have you on. Gary, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started in this industry. Gary Clayton: So I started in 2014, as kind of a just a side gig as I worked for Sears for approximately 10 years. I went through a divorce myself and during the processes of the divorce, I had to hire a process server to serve my ex-wife. It took him about five minutes, cost $125 that was the moment that said I was in the wrong industry. Mighty Mike: That's so funny, because that's exactly how I got started. Except for he got paid ... Actually, I'm the one who got served and he told me he got paid 50 bucks. How funny. It's crazy. Gary Clayton: Yeah. Mighty Mike: Some of the saddest moments in our lives end up giving us the greatest joys, so that's pretty cool. And so, how about now, you got a family? Gary Clayton: Yeah, so I got five kids, a wife. Being in this industry and being a business owner, sometimes it's got its ups and its downs, and I like the idea of being able to make my own schedule to be with the kids more or with the wife more. Mighty Mike: Yeah, family's definitely the most important and that's one of the reasons I started my own business because I didn't someone to tell me that my life would be turned upside down because I missed one day to go to my daughter's dance recital or something like that. I didn't want anyone to have that kind of control over me and so I'm with you there, brother. Mighty Mike: So Gary, there's a reason why you're on this show, as I always say, you know everybody's got different things going on, but I noticed you over the last doing a lot of really cool things, and so sometimes in the most tragic things come out the greatest triumphs, and so what is your worst experience working the field? Gary Clayton: So probably our worst experience was doing a serve for a divorce party kind of like that are what a majority of our serves are. And we were actually, there two of us servers out there, me and a colleague and we had actually gotten held at gunpoint by three individuals, two males and a female, for about two hours before we had actually gotten rescued. Gary Clayton: That was probably our worst experience as far as serving goes. Mighty Mike: Wow, so tell me more about that. And I don't wanna take you back to you know, much trauma, but take me back to the moment when they were ... did they just pull the gun out, you were at the door, knocking on the door? How did it happen? Gary Clayton: Yeah, so we walked up, we knew it was gonna be a difficult serve, and we were warned that the defendant actually had firearms and was hostile. So we went in a team. We knocked on the door, as soon as we knocked on the door, the defendant opened the door and had had a pistol in his hand right, both me and my colleague. Gary Clayton: We proceeded just to back out of the situation, but as soon as we backed out, two individuals come around the side of house, and both of them had pistols as well. So we were kinda trapped. I was able to reach down and hit real quick on my phone for dispatch, and I threw the phone into the bed of my truck and it took them a little while to get out there to us. Gary Clayton: But we were pretty well trapped, they had us go around to the back of that house and we were stuck there. Mighty Mike: Oh my gosh, what do you think they were gonna do? What were they saying? Gary Clayton: Well there's so many things that go through your head at that time. We were both confident that we were gonna get out safe, but when you're in the moment, five minutes turns into five hours in a couple of seconds. You know it's just crazy how fast it goes. Gary Clayton: When the sheriff's department pulled up there, and finally got us out of that situation, it felt like a ton of bricks off of your shoulders. Mighty Mike: Wow, so tell me about when the sheriff arrived. I mean, they had to have came out guns blazing, right? I mean, hey, "Put your guns down," this type of thing, or? Gary Clayton: Well, actually what happened was, because they didn't have any communication back and forth through the phone, it was just an open line, they didn't really know what was going on. So they came in being cautious, but they didn't bring nearly enough manpower with them. And so it was one officer that came out and once he kinda realized what was going on, he retreated back to his car and then that's when they just started coming in from every angle. Gary Clayton: The defendant and his team, the two individuals that was with him, they came to their senses fairly quick, put their guns down, and surrendered. Mighty Mike: Oh, okay, good. Yeah. That's a pretty ... man that's an intense situation. I've actually never had something that intense. Mighty Mike: You know, I gotta tell you, being able to have ... in the pre-show, we had a little conversation about, you know, being connected to dispatch and stuff. You guys have that privilege I guess you could call it, to be able to speak directly to dispatch, right? Gary Clayton: Yeah, so we all have radios here, where we had to go to actually a pretty extensive training class, each one of us, to be able to connect with dispatch. And when we're out in the areas where cell phones don't work, that's our only communication and so dispatch is pretty good at making sure we're checking in with them and they're checking in with us. Gary Clayton: And if we need backup, depending on what it is, they'll send a sheriff out. We had the incident last week that you had seen online about me following an individual down into California. We had actually radioed to dispatch to see if they would assist us in stopping the vehicle and they were like, "Nope, it's civil, follow them until he stops or you run out of gas." Mighty Mike: Wow, that's crazy. And then, in that story, you followed him down there and then the, what is it, CHP, the state police? Gary Clayton: Yeah, we were originally at the individual, the defendant's house, and as soon as we'd seen him pull in, we pulled in behind him and he was able to wedge his self around my car. And so I pulled out, followed him through town, he jumped on Highway 97, which a highway here, and he started heading towards south. Gary Clayton: A lot of the individuals here Klamath, since we're so close to California, they think that if they go into California, that they can't be served. So as soon as they get on 97 South, we automatically know that they're heading into California, so we contact the Department of Agriculture down there, 'cause they have the transfer station, the bus station we call 'em. Gary Clayton: And they'll typically assist us in stopping 'em, however this day, there was a CHP officer that was actually passing through about ten minutes before we were coming through, and the transfer station supervisor actually stopped CHP and asked him if he would hang out to assist with that. And they did, they were really good at helping us with it. Gary Clayton: However it ended up being a pretty serious situation, they did step in and help us. Mighty Mike: So, a couple things I want to say about your worst experience. First of all, do everything you can to be prepared, because when you think, "Oh, it's probably just one guy, and we got this handled. You know, I got my gun, if he has a gun then we'll handle it," right? Mighty Mike: I know that's a very simplified version, but you know, in this case there were multiple people and then if you did have a gun, now you're having a shootout with three guys. I mean, it's insane what can happen if you're trigger happy. That's one thing. Mighty Mike: It's insane, I mean, did anyone end up getting shot that day? Gary Clayton: No, there was no gunfire and actually we don't carry here. Each one of my process servers, I allow them to make the decision, however, I strongly discourage my individuals or my process servers from carrying, maybe keeping it in a vehicle or something like that. Gary Clayton: We've seen in the past with open carry or concealed carry if the defendant or the individual we're serving sees it, it brings a higher threat. And so we were seeing a lot of pushback from it, so without having a firearm ... Gary Clayton: And yeah, it's a dangerous industry, but we were able to eliminate a lot of problems just by taking the firearms out of the equation. Mighty Mike: Yeah that's, I mean, each business has to make the decision based on their area, based on their ability to handle different situations and I think that's commendable that you made that decision. Mighty Mike: I think maybe too, another way could be to have a concealed weapons permit so that ... I'm not familiar with Oregon's laws on that. Are you able to, is it a law where you can conceal carry? Gary Clayton: Yeah, you can conceal carry. And my process servers, they do conceal carry. We just try to keep the intensity between a firearm and open carry at a bay. Mighty Mike: Well what I get from your story most is be prepared, and be cool and calm and collected and then to be able to get your phone like that and hit it and throw it in the back of the truck the way that you did, I don't know that I could have or would've done, thought to do something like that. 'Cause had you not done that, you'd have been at their mercy for who knows how long. Gary Clayton: Right yeah, and so the idea was that when we went into this group, we were prepared because we had gotten word beforehand that the individual may act like this. So before we'd even gotten to the house, we had already had 911 dialed into our phones. 'Cause we didn't know what we were walking into. And you never know what you're walking into. You can walk in and they can have a conversation with you for 20 minutes about their day, or you can walk into guns. Mighty Mike: And sometimes you walk in to have a five-minute conversation, and then they find out you're there to serve them, and then they're pulling out guns. That can happen too. Mighty Mike: Well, that's great. So Gary, what do you want Server Nation to get from your story, your worst experience? Gary Clayton: Well, just to be safe and always be prepared. And the idea is to go home, if you have a family, to go home to your family every day, or if you don't have a family to go home alive every day. You know, stay safe and always be prepared for the worst. Mighty Mike: So Gary, that's awesome. Tell me your greatest experience working in the field? Gary Clayton: So this actually just happened not too long ago. We had a locate, a serve locate. It was kind of like a will, where an individual here in Klamath County was getting an inheritance from relatives out of Texas, and we were hired to do a locate and then to do the serve. Gary Clayton: And when we did the locate and found that this individual who was inheriting a large amount of money had to be notified of it, we were kind of intrigued that most of the time we're bringing bad news to people and this instance, it wasn't bad news, it was kind of a cool story where this guy has been living a mediocre life working 9 to 5, and now he no longer has to. Gary Clayton: So it was kind of a cool experience to have. Mighty Mike: That's a really cool experience. How much money was it? Gary Clayton: Oh, you know, I don't remember right off hand, but I think we're ... it was well over $2,000,000. Mighty Mike: Oh man, how much did you make on that one? Gary Clayton: Well, first we quoted it at 65 for this serve, and then at 65 an hour to do the locator, 125, whichever one we went to. Afterward we were like, wow, we don't think we charged enough for this one. Mighty Mike: Exactly. You were more like private security for that delivery. Gary Clayton: Yeah, you know the funny thing is, is that the individual when we were going to serve them, he avoided us. For several weeks he avoided us. We had a location form, we tried to explain to him what it was and he didn't believe it, he kinda blew us off. And then finally when we got him pinned down to actually get him served with the notice of what he needed to do next, it was ... he still didn't believe it. It took him several minutes to actually comprehend what was going on. Mighty Mike: Wow. And so you just never know, that's one of the other cool things that I love about this industry, is you never know what you're gonna get. You know one day, you know ... I don't know. You get some of the same things over and over, and I look at it like those keep the lights on. And then other days you get things you're like, yeah, this is cool. And I get to serve a pro-NBA player, you know? Or you know, Fergie or you know you go serve some celebrity that's always fun. Gary Clayton: And challenging. Mighty Mike: And challenging. We're up here in the sticks, you're further up in the sticks, but I'm up in Chico and it's still pretty far up here, so the best we get is I guess, Tom Hanks. He lives in Redding. Gary Clayton: That's always fun. Mighty Mike: Yeah, good deal. So that's great, that's what I get from your story. What do you want Server Nation to get from your greatest experience? Gary Clayton: Take everything positive. And enjoy what you're doing. If you don't enjoy what you're doing in a career, then you always should change things up. So even though we're typically, as I call doing this devil's work, or bearing bad news for people, you're just a messenger. It's all we are is we're messengers. We're just out here to do our job and be positive with it. Gary Clayton: If you're ... Most of the time if you go out, and you're negative when you're going out to do these serves, you're gonna get a negative reaction. If you go out and you be positive with these individuals or these defendants, they're only defendants to somebody else, they're not a defendant to you. So being positive can take you a long way. Mighty Mike: That's great. Gary, what are you working on right now that has you most excited? Gary Clayton: So we're actually expanding. Our biggest thing right now is that we want to move from just Klamath County or Oregon, we serve all of Oregon, but we wanna take this nationwide with the approach that what On Time Process Services has been doing for multiple years. You can go to our Facebook page or our Google page, and you can see our reviews that we've even had positive reviews from individuals that we've served. And we wanna be able to take that across the nation and open it up across the nation and we're working, doing our due diligence to make everything work right. Mighty Mike: What I take from what you're most excited about, you say you're growing nationwide. How does somebody even fathom that when they're just starting out. How do they go from just starting out to where you're at, where you're like, "Okay, we're getting ready to set off on a nationwide jaunt."? Gary Clayton: So I would say, starting out, definitely get used to your area, the law, the restrictions, and the way service is done before you even approach going nationwide. If you can't make your local customers happy, the chances of you going nationwide and making customers all across the country happy is probably gonna be slim. Gary Clayton: Know your area, know what you're doing, read, do a lot of research, reach out to mentors. NAPPS is a very good platform for new process servers to reach out to and get the education that they need. Gary Clayton: Your local associations is also huge, you know reaching out to your local associations. Mighty Mike: Yeah, Gary does Oregon have an association? Gary Clayton: Yeah, Oregon has the Oregon Association of Process Servers. I think the people that's been sitting on the board has been doing it for quite a long time, and we're not too involved with the association, we're members of the association, but we're working on our business, our [inaudible 00:16:32], our PR, to work with that, to start moving that in the direction we want it to. Mighty Mike: That's great, so if you're an Oregon process server, definitely go and check out the Oregon Association, the National Association of Process Servers. Mighty Mike: Server Nation, Gary has been dropping some major value bombs on us today, but prepare yourself because we're headed into the rapid fire round right after a word from our sponsors. Mighty Mike: Server Nation, imagine what you could do with another 25 minutes per job. This is how much time process servers who use ServeManager are saving. At just 100 jobs per month, that's over 40 hours that can be spent growing your business but doing more important things like spending time with your family. From job creation to affidavit generation, ServeManager is fully featured and hands down the most intuitive process serving software on the market. I use it for my business, I think you should use it too. Mighty Mike: In my firm it's important for me to be able to automate the systems that get things done. ServeManager has done just that with their API integration, where you can set up literally any app that integrates with Zapier will integrate with ServeManager. I love it. I have set my whole firm up. Mighty Mike: Go to ProcessServerDaily.com/ServeManager to get your free trial. If you like it after the 14 day free trial, they've offered to give you another 60 days for free as a thank you for being a Process Server Daily listener. That's ProcessServerDaily.com/ServeManager. Mighty Mike: Okay, welcome back to the show. Gary, are you ready for the rapid fire round? Gary Clayton: Absolutely. Mighty Mike: Awesome. What is your favorite skip trace tactic? Gary Clayton: I would definitely say that we use court records a lot. Most of the defendants that we're trying to locate at one point in time or another they've either had a traffic violation or some of type of a civil case. Gary Clayton: And you can pull a lot of information just from your local court records. I know Oregon is huge, we're set up with tailor hosting, which we get to pull all the records for that. And then of course we run plates. DMV's really good here, we can link [inaudible 00:18:46], we can run names and first and last name with a possible date of birth, and they give us a lotta information from that as well too. Mighty Mike: Yeah, California's got it pretty locked up unless you have a, I think there's maybe 500 certificates or something like that. It's very difficult to get that kind of information here. That's pretty cool that Oregon does that. Are you able to just be able to just search it right on the database or do you have to call 'em, or? Gary Clayton: There are multiple platforms so you can, for DMV we can call in, so if we're in the field and we have an individual who believes is there, we have a car in the driveway, we'll run the plate right there and if it comes back to that individual, we'll go up and confront him that. Gary Clayton: We can call in, we can fax it in, or they'll have an online access come 2020, they're gonna go online for DMV. Court documents, we can call or we can access it online for court documents. Mighty Mike: Wow, that's really cool. So you're the first person who's come on this show and mentioned the court documents, so I wanna dig a little ... I know this is rapid fire round but I want people to learn from it as well. Mighty Mike: So when it comes to a court document, do you go ... so you get Michael Reid, how do you use the court documents. Do you search for my name via the court record? Gary Clayton: Yeah, so we can pull up records with just a name, first and last name, and then we can kinda plug and play to see where it's at. It's not just putting in somebody's name, and then you get just that individual, 'cause there's a lot of Gary Claytons and there's a lot of Michaels out there. Gary Clayton: You have to pinpoint ... if we have a small claims document we're serving, we can see that they have this small claims, so we can link it to that individual and then we go back and ... We had a hard to find individual, the credit union, that we were looking for. They were trying to find this individual for almost a year, and then they contacted us. Gary Clayton: We put him into the court records, and come to find out, he had a restraining order put on him a couple weeks ago and so we were able to link the address to where he was served by the sheriff's department to link right back to him. So it was a very good tactic to be able to use that and the credit union didn't have that information. Mighty Mike: What is your favorite skip tracing tool? Gary Clayton: Favorite tool ... I like Delvepoint, I think it is? Or IDI, I like both of those programs. I really use, I try to go for what is inexpensive first. There's actually a program out there called SpyFly.com and it's very inexpensive, and it gives you pretty good record information. Gary Clayton: Sometimes you have to look through and go through different things, but SpyFly was our number one platform that we used for a long time. Mighty Mike: What is your favorite tool for defense? Gary Clayton: So, favorite tool for defense is for one, our dispatch. Being able to reach out to dispatch, that's huge for defense for us. Gary Clayton: I use ... I don't carry a firearm, but I do carry a baton or ASP. I carry a bear mace just in case. And also, my flashlight. I have a high powered flashlight and if I'm serving at night, ain't nobody gonna see me once that goes into their eyes. Mighty Mike: Is it like a spotlight? Gary Clayton: It's not really a spotlight, it's Bushnell, it's just a high powered, high Lumens Flashlight. Mighty Mike: What book would you recommend? Gary Clayton: The NAPPS book, that's what I would recommend. Mighty Mike: Yeah, that's a good one, no that's a good one. It's actually kind of shocking that those books are huge, and they ship 'em out to all the members. Mighty Mike: What is the greatest advice you have ever received? Gary Clayton: So, the greatest advice that I have ever received, I have a mentor that's been in the industry for about 35 years that retired out and I ended up purchasing his business from him just to basically let him out and take over the contracts that he had. And he said, "Always be pleasant. Always be pleasant to the person you're serving, don't ever come at 'em with judgment. If you're judging the individual, it's not your place to judge, whatever they're going through is their own deal, it's not your deal, so don't ever judge 'em." Mighty Mike: Yeah Gary, that's perfect. Being able to go out and to be able to handle yourself well around people and not judging them. Okay, that's great advice. Mighty Mike: Gary, what parting piece of advice do you have for the struggling server out there, where his business is circling the drain? What advice do you have for that server? Gary Clayton: Always pay, if you're outsourcing serves, always pay your outsource companies in advance or fairly quickly. Customer service is huge. If you're making your customers or your clients happy, they're gonna come back and use you every time. Gary Clayton: We're fairly expensive for our area, roughly $35 more than any other server in our area. So we have a majority of the business just because they can track our information online. We send them regularly updates, and they know that they can call and get one of us on the phone at any time of the day. Gary Clayton: I'm not saying answer your phone at ten o'clock at night, but customer service is huge and it's key for this industry. Mighty Mike: So Gary, what I take most from what you just said is that, 'cause you said to pay your servers on time and to pay them ahead of time, many times if you deal with these big process serving companies, many times how a lot of severs get started, right? They contact all these companies all over the country and say, "Hey, I can do your serves." Mighty Mike: But even though they're doing serves so inexpensive, they end up still being owed, you know, five thousand, seven thousand, some outrageous amount by this huge company that should be able to pay them on time. Gary Clayton: Yeah, definitely. You know, I have a philosophy about the big companies out there. It's different for different areas. My area is small, we don't have a lot of people, a lot of process servers to choose from here. But if you're in a secluded area where you don't have a lot of competition, if you are not using those big companies, then that serve's still gotta be done. And if they can't get that big company to do that serve, who are they gonna call? They're gonna call you, and you're gonna get that business, and you're not gonna be paying the middle person. Gary Clayton: I started out doing serves for ABC and a lot of other pro reps and other big companies, and then I slowly kind of backed out because I was paying them for what I was gonna do anyway. Mighty Mike: Hey brother, one man's failure is another man's success, you gotta capitalize on that stuff, so that's good Gary. I really feel Server Nation has gained a lot from this interview. Mighty Mike: Gary, what is the best that we can connect with you? And then we can say goodbye. Gary Clayton: You can go to www.ontimeproserv.com without the e at the end, or 541-810-3411. Look up process servers for Oregon, we come up typically #1. Or if you wanna get directly to me, call our office in Klamath Falls, 541-810-2172. Gary Clayton: I'd be more than happy to, if anybody's out there that's wanting to get into process serving, or has questions about it, give me a call, I'll sit down. I'm all about working for yourself and mentoring with the information that I have. Mighty Mike: Gary, I wanna personally thank you for being on the show today. I've been impressed with your story and I'm excited to share it with the world. Gary Clayton: Thank you Michael for having me on the show. It was a pleasure. Mighty Mike: Until next time Server Nation, you've been served up some awesomeness On Time Gary, and Mighty Mike, the Podcast Server. Mighty Mike: Don't forget to get your free 14 day free trial of ServeManager. If you like it, you get another 60 days for free, Server Nation. Even if you love your current software, you should at least check it out. ProcessServerDaily.com/ServeManager

Have you ever asked yourself, “What if I could do 60,000 appointments in one year?” This exemplary business woman has accomplished just that. In this episode of Handling Business, we interview Joette White - award-winning business owner, board member, wife, mother, actress and active community member. She has owned Park Cities Pet Sitter since 2002 and has dedicated herself to creating the very best pet care business by investing in her employees happiness and well-being. Because of Joette’s exemplary business practices, her company was awarded NAPPS’ 2017 Business of the Year, a national award given to a pet sitting company that demonstrates outstanding business practices and vision in maintaining and growing their business. Park Cities Pet Sitter has also won many local-based awards, including Angie’s List Super Service Award for the last 5 consecutive years, “Best of Dallas” by D Magazine, and has been featured on WFAA Channel 8, Dallas Voice, and The Dallas Observer. In this episode we discuss how Joette bought her business over a decade ago and took it from a few pet sitters to 47 pet sitters who take care of thousands of clients. Joette shares how she continually adapts and makes changes to her business as it scales. She also talks about how she made the switch from independent contractors to employees and how this big shift might not cost as much as you think. Last year, Joette purchased her second pet sitting business to merge with her Park Cities Pet Sitter and stresses how important it is to do your due diligence when purchasing a business. There’s many factors you must consider such as, does their business model align with your own? Is the current business owner able to step away? How are the clients going to react to this switch and how do you mitigate the risks? The biggest takeaway from this episode is what makes Joette so successful. She believes that you get back what you give and that we are all connected and we are all human. It’s all about relationships with your clients and staff that are based on compassion, healthy boundaries, empathy, loyalty and trust. Many people in the pet industry think that they only need to be good with pets, but they must be equally great with people too or be able to bring on a business partner who is. Joette also insisted that success is not only all about your client’s happiness, it’s actually all about your team’s happiness. Your clients will be happy if your team is. Joette contributes her success to her outstanding team and their dedication to providing her clients with exemplary, high quality service.

This Episodes Sponsosr: ServeManager Special Offer Get an Extra 60 Days Free! Listeners of the Process Server Daily podcast get a total of 74 days to try ServeManager free of charge. That’s an additional 60 days longer than ServeManager’s typical 14 day trial.   To receive an additional 60 days, you must provide a credit card at the end of your 14 day trial. Your card will NOT be billed until the end of your additional 60 days. You can cancel at anytime before that date. After your additional 60 days, your card will be billed. **THIS OFFER IS VALID FOR NEW CUSTOMERS ONLY** ---------------------------- Server Nation, welcome back to the show! Our guest today is none other than the man, the myth, the legend, and the Sasquatch of the Northwest. The owner of Central Washington Legal Services, he has 10 years of experience serving papers and can bowl his butt off with a regular score of 300. Chris Svelnys, welcome to the show.     Hey. Thanks a lot, brother. I appreciate it.   Chris, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started in this industry?     Well, it all started back in 2000 ... I want to say around 2007. I was working at Wal-Mart and I kind of befriended the department manager really quick. That's how I roll, make new friends with the bosses. He's a little ... He's just a couple years older than me and he's a nice guy. He just ... He asked me one day, after working for him for about six months to a year, he's like, "Hey, you want to make some extra money on the side?" I kind of knew what he did on the side and I said, "Oh, doing what?" He's like, "Serving papers," and I'm like, "Oh, man. Okay. I've seen the movie "Pineapple Express," it is kind of like that?" and he's like, "No, no, no. Well, sometimes."He's like, "Tell you what." He's like ...   His mom kind of half-ran the office, It used to be her business 30 years ago. Her and this guy, Junior, was helping out this older lady that was doing it. She only had 10 customers, just barely making a few hundred bucks a month. Well, they took it over and she passed away, so they took it over and they ran it 10 times fold and grew the business exponentially.    Her son, Derek, my boss, he was helping out, and so he was like, "Well, just swing by the office and the guy will take you out for a day. I'll text you and make sure your mind is all cleared and you're not a crazy person, which I know you're not," that's why he was telling me about it, kind of like who you know, not what you know. I said, "Okay."   Took me out for a day and went up North to Oroville, to the border of USA and Canada, and we maybe hit three or four houses, all of which he went out of the car and I didn't get to see any of the dialogue so I'm getting super nervous and wondering how I'm actually going to serve papers if I don't know what the dialogue is like. He comes back and we just ... He asks me about my whole life story, the 12 hours that we drove, and i came back that night. The next day, I guess he told the owner, said, "Hey, yeah, he's a good guy. Hire him." The rest is history.     The first few days, I went ... I started out as an independent contractor for a few months. I was only doing it part-time so it really wasn't worth my time, especially being new to the areas and not knowing where everything was at and new to the business. I ended up going on the books with the company for eight, nine years until last year. We took over the business again, my buddy and his mom, because she shared the business with another owner in Alaska, in the west-side, and he broke off. He's doing his own thing so they took it over last summer, so now I became an independent contractor again. It just ... It's more fortunate for me now, since I know everywhere, all the counties and all the clients and the clientele and the process and everything. That's pretty much how I started it.     Well, that's awesome, Chris. You got a family?     I do, yeah. I have a dad out here, I have a mom ... I'm from Connecticut, born and raised. I moved out here in '05. After 9/11, my dad moved out here and I have a bunch of step-family out here. One of my middle brothers is out here. My oldest brother is back east with my mom, so I got family up and down the east coast and New York and New England area, and then I have a bunch of step-family out here in Washington state, Idaho, and parts of Oregon.     That's awesome.     Super blessed. Just awesome people out here in the west coast.     That's awesome, Chris. I've got to tell you that one of the main reasons I wanted you to come on the show is when I heard your story. We may get to that. If you want to share that same story, that's fine, but you got a lot going on. With these kind of stories, you got to be able to share it, man. You can't keep them to yourself!     I know, I know. Really, really quick on that one story, if I do get into it, my boss was actually at a NAPPS meeting, N-A-P-P-S meeting, a couple states away. After it happened, I was so distraught and I called her up and she just starts busting out laughing. She's like, "Hold on, repeat what you just said to me. You're on speakerphone with about 10 other NAPPS members. Go ahead, Chris. What happened?" I told them and they were all just around a bonfire or something, just dying laughing. They're like, "How does this happen?"     Then, from that point on, just the most bizarre, craziest stuff happens to me, and it's just laughable.     Yeah. Well, we always like to get started ... We don't want to focus on the negative things in life, but there's a reason why you're on this show. You got a lot going on, you got a lot of great stories.    First, we're going to start with your worst experience in the field. Can you tell us about that?     Yeah. My worst experience by far would have to be ... I was going to a house and I'd been there a couple times before. It's a repeater house. Every time I go there, something bad happens.    The first time, I got bit by a dog. Flesh wound, cut the skin. Second time I went there, I locked my keys in my car. The guy I served was the boyfriend of the lady I was serving and he was nice enough to accept the papers and help me get back in my car. I had to break into my car.   Then, the third time, which was the worst serve ever, I was going ... It just rained out and it was like a single-wide trailer. I walked around the corner and I ended up slipping on the mud and pretty much thought I broke my leg. I did a full half split, right to the ground, screaming bloody murder. I thought I broke my leg. I'm rolling around in the mud, in the grass, yelling for help from anybody. No one's around, so I ended up crawling back to my Chevy Tracker that I had and hoisting myself up. Called my boss, got to my phone, called my boss. Screaming at her, telling her I broke my leg, I broke my leg, I need to go to the hospital, and she's like, "Oh, my God." She's like, "Okay, just call 911 and have the ambulance come there." I'm like, "No, I'm already in the car."   All of a sudden, the people come up and they pull up, the owners of the property, and they're ... I'm screaming at them. Not at them directly, but just in pain.    I was in so much pain. They said, "Did you want us to bring you to the hospital?" I was like, "No, I'm already in here," and they're like, "Oh, my God. I'm sorry." You could see the streak of where my leg came out under me on their property there and I just said, "Yeah, I got to go now. I got to go now." I just ... All I could think about was getting to the hospital. I was going, "Hey, by the way, is so-and-so here?" They're like, "Yeah." I said, "Here you go. You've been served."     I got the papers served, that was all that matters, and I drove to the hospital, which was just five minutes away from there. I couldn't get out of the car. I saw a couple EMTs washing the EMT van, the hospital track, and I yelled at them. They came and got a wheelchair for me. I ended up pulling the worst hammy of all times, from my lower back down to behind my leg and my knee. Just completely black and blue. I couldn't walk for about three weeks, had to go on unemployment for a few weeks and physical therapy and ...Yeah, so I have yet to be back to that property.    I'm prepared to wear all body armor and just go back there again. That was by far the worst, painful experience, serve I've ever had to deal with.     Now, would you say that you fell because of the rain, the mud, or ...     Oh, yeah, that was the rain and the mud.     Right on.     There was really nothing they could do about it. People say, "Oh, you go after the property owners." I'm like, "Nah, it was pure accident, myself." There's nothing they could have done about it. The way their low land is at, it's just mud and grass everywhere.     That's a pretty terrible experience.    What do you want Server Nation to get from your story?   Oh, with that experience, just to really watch where you're going and tread lightly on all different kinds of terrain and property. That's not the only time I fell in the 10 years I've been doing this. I fell a lot, but that was definitely the worst. It can happen in our line of work. Just to really be careful. Safety is your number one concern, as always. Just to be careful and just watch where you're walking, watch where you're stepping.     No, that's great. I got to tell you, people so often think, "Oh, have you ever had a gun in your face?" No, but I stepped wrong and went down a flight of stairs, and not just any, concrete stairs with the little rocks on them. I think that's worse.     Right.    Funny, I've actually had a few guns pulled on me over 10 years, all of which were really respectful once they found out who ... They knew who I was, they disengaged their weapon and put it in their holster or away from me, and they were super nice. I was way out in the country. I wouldn't expect anything less from the owners out there. Nothing still as far as scarier as that. I literally thought I broke my leg bad.     Yeah, that's a terrible experience. Yeah, Server Nation, watch where you're going and be prepared.     I got to tell you, wearing the right shoes, Sometimes, I wear dress shoes if I know I'm serving businesses. If I go up to the mountains, I don't just carry a .38, I carry a cannon     Right.   Right.     It just depends on each ... Every situation is different.     Right. Yeah.     Being prepared for all those situations ... It's hard to prepare for something like mud. If you slip in the mud, I guess just having your cell phone on you always, because you could've ...     True, yeah.     You could've called from the mud if you had to.     Right, yeah. crawling around and getting back into the vehicle, yeah.   That's true.     Yeah. Chris, that's a good story to start with. Tell us about your greatest experience working in the field.     I serve papers as professionally as I can. I try and treat others the way I want to be treated, respect. This one is a little different than most, I would say. My grandmother passed away ... My last known grandparent ...   My grandmother passed away last ... My last known grandparent passed away last September and I got the news at the start of my day. She lives back East in Connecticut with my other family over there and I was driving, I was heading to my first job, just a couple minutes away my stepdad calls me up. Everything was good with her health-wise, but she ended up passing away right then and there that morning. I was just really in shock and I get to my first serve and I try to compose myself and really didn't get emotional. I was still kind of in shock. I get to the door and this older lady who kind of reminded me of my grandmother answered the door and I just bawled right when she came to the porch on the steps.     Oh wow.   She had no idea why I was there and I just bawl for about five, ten minutes and she just hugged me and held me. Told her that I ... Finally, it took me about 10, 15 minutes to tell her who I am, why I'm there, and why I'm bawling like a baby. I served the papers. She was super nice, super friendly, one of the nicest people that I ever served. To show that kind of compassion, you know, being served papers from one human being to another, she just knew that I needed a hug and a shoulder to cry on. I tell people about her all the time. Well, I just went and served her again a few weeks ago and I pull up, and as soon as I get out of my car and turn around to face her house, she's already outside with her arms wide open to give me a hug.     I just ... You know, of course, I was more composed this time and I just told her, I said, "I tell people about you all the time, this lady who I served who was there for me when I needed somebody, just a human interaction." That's definitely one of my best serves that I can ever think. After that, after I served her, and composed myself, I had one of the best serving days ever. It's almost like my grandma was like, "You know what? It's okay, Chris. I'm gone, but I'm going to make sure everybody's home today," and I knocked out over 35 jobs that day.   Oh, wow.     It was just like she was with me. I could have gone home and taken the day off. I said, "No, this job needs to get done. Clients need attempts and statuses and everything, so I'm going for it." It was like one of the best serving days I've ever had.     That's the part of this job that we don't talk about a whole lot that ... I think in both of your experiences that you've shared today, what I've taken from it is that we're people too. The people who we're serving are people; like the guys that pulled up in the car, imagine if they were what everybody else portrays people that we're serving to be. They pull up in their car and they're like, "What the hell are you doing on my property?"     Absolutely.     "I'm injured." "I don't care. Get off my property."     Exactly, yep.     That's cool.   "Get injured somewhere else."     "Yeah, not on my property." "Are you so and so?" "No." You're like having to deal with all that. You know, I think you were fortunate, blessed, lucky, whatever you want to call it. I call it blessed. But, the elderly lady, I have a lot of respect for elderly people and the wisdom that they can share with us.     Absolutely.     That's good. What do you want Server Nation to take from your story?     Again, back to the beginning of that story, I just try and serve everybody with respect. A lot of times when I serve people that have not been served in the past by other servers, and I'm not trying to put down other Process Server companies and any other independent contract servers, but a lot of them tell me that a lot of them just get the papers served and the server is super rude, sometimes nasty, and throw the papers in their face. I never do that. I'm always professional with every serve. I take it ... I don't know where everybody else serves if there's like no cell service or connection, but when I'm serving people up in the mountains and I'm super nice to them like I am with everybody, if your car breaks down and you were nice to that person, you can go back to that house and say, "Hey."     It's happened to me before. They gave me shelter, and they gave me a phone, they gave me water, they let me use their restroom. They remembered me serving them as a professional and it goes a lot way by treating people with respect. Treating people ... You're serving, no matter what the paperwork with the utmost respect that you wanted to be treated with.     That's awesome. I love that story and I love that perspective. I like to say, "Treat others the way that you want to be treated." They're a human. When you're out there serving papers, of course, be prepared, be respectful, number one things. Chris, what are you working on right now that has you most fired up?     Getting to jobs that are way up in the mountains that there's just no way, again, to the jobs, and keeping the clients happy, keeping the clients as customers, and trying my hardest to get to properties that I can get to with all the snow up here in the Pacific Northwest and the terrain of the mountains the way they are. Every winter I look forward to this. It's really tough to try and get to these. I've had jobs, I'm not going to lie, that I've had since the middle of November and beginning of December that I just cannot get to. With the three, four feet of snow, I don't own a snowmobile so I can't park up and get a truck, and get up and get my snowmobile onto the terrain and get up there. Now with the snowmelt, it's ... Spring's right around the corner, everything's melting, so now clients are getting happy where I can finally get to these jobs that I haven't been able to get to just because of the terrain that we have jobs for.     Right. Well, that's awesome. I've got to tell you, there's a guy up in Alaska who, on most of his jobs, he was telling me that he goes up to the mountain on-     Helicopter?     Snowmobile.   Oh.     Helicopter. No, he did say that. He said that on some of them he does have to go wait until the ice is actually frozen so that he can go on a snowmobile over the ice.     Wow.     Yeah, and then also he'll ride quads and things like that. Most of the serves that he does is on quad or snowmobile. I'm just like, wow. What I wanted to ask you is, how bad do these clients want these people served? Because one time I had a situation where I had to serve a pot grower and they wanted me to get pictures and I said, "Well, there's gates and I might be able to serve them, but as far as the pictures go, you know, you're probably not going to get very good pictures because they have these big, old fences with tarps up and stuff," and they wanted to get pictures of the pot. I was like, "You know, I could get a drone and fly it over and take pictures." They said, "Okay, yeah, do that." I said, "Well, I'm going to have to charge the expense for the drone to you." I was able to do that $750 drone.   Wow, I'm actually really impressed.   Yeah, so maybe you want to call your client and go, "Look, between you and this guy, we could get ourselves a snowmobile up here and then we'll be in operation."   No, that's correct. For the most part, all clients ... We've had the same clients for years, and years, and years, they know us, they trust us, and as long as they know that I am trying at least every few days or once a week to go to these impossible areas ... I mean, every time I get a little bit closer, a little bit closer, I'll take a picture of the road, the street sign, "Okay, I'm getting this close or this close." They see that we're working and they're really good with that. Clients are really relaxed with that and they're like, "Okay, this company, they're trying. Chris is trying." They just sit on the paperwork and know that I'll get it done when I can get up there.   Server Nation, Chris has been dropping some major value bombs on us today, but prepare yourself because we're headed into the rapid fire round right after a word from our sponsors.   SPONSOR: Servemanager   Server Nation, imagine what you could do with another 25 minutes per job? 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That's processerverdaily.com/servemanager     Welcome back to the show.    Chris, are you ready for the rapid fire round?     I'm ready now. Sasquatch of the Northwest is ready.     Yes. That's what I'm talking about. That's awesome. What is your favorite tool for defense?     My mind and my mouth. I've gotten into many, many altercations that could have ended up being physical. If I was talked my way out of them because of a couple things of advice I was always taught by the veteran server who trained me for that day was that, one, no paper is worth getting punched, stabbed, shot, or killed over, and no paper is worth spending a night in jail with Bubba. That's for you and the person you're serving. I mean, if they start to get angry say, "Hey, you know what? I'm a legal courier. I'm just trying to do my job." When I worked for the old owner, for the good eight years right there, we weren't even allowed to have a weapon on us. We weren't even allowed to have bug spray. We weren't allowed to have any weapons.     Now that I'm an IC, I've always had my concealed weapons permit, but I never really brought it with me because I learned to not have to use weapons. I just use my mind, and my quick talking, and talk my way out of every possible physical confrontation. I've never been swung at. I've been, of course, yelled at and pretty close to being spit at, and people in my face to get me off the property. I just put my hands up and say, "Okay, sorry to bother you. Just trying to do my job."     Yeah. I've got to tell you, situational awareness and being able to look at a situation and come at it from a perspective of, "I'm just trying to do a job." Just yesterday I was down in Yuba City and I had a situation where I pulled up to a property and everyone's outside, everyone and their mother's outside. I think they were even cooking on an actual stove in the front yard. There's a car parked sideways and another one, a car parked out of the window. It's just insane. It was an insane ...    You're walking up there thinking, "I shouldn't be walking up here." Because I'm a little bit stubborn and I have like 40 serves to do, I don't want to come back.     Right.     In this situation, I just walk up. Before I could even get out of my car though, one guy's like peeking over my shoulder in the car to see what I'm doing-     One guy is like peeking over my shoulder in the car to see what I'm doing. Am I getting out? Am I an officer? I don't do anything to make people think that I am a cop for multiple reasons, but this situation I got out, and I just said, "Hey, guys. How's it going guys?" And you just be like that nice guy that's like, "Hey, what's going on? Do you know the people that live in that house?" This guy yesterday was like, "No, nobody by that name lives in there. Some lady named Tina lives in there," and I said, "Oh, okay and what's your name?" And he just walked away.     He walks inside the house that I was talking about, but then there's this young kid like 16 something, somewhere around there, and he's like, "No, that girl moved out. She's my age. She moved out a long time ago," and he seemed a little bit more ...     It's crazy situation awareness being able to see a situation where there's like five guys, and you see they're carrying guns, don't stop, just keep going, like it's not worth your life.    Chris, what is the greatest advice you have ever received?     On top of no paper is worth getting killed over or spending a night in jail with over, but the greatest advice, everybody talked about it before is just to treat people the way you want to be treated, and it goes so far with everything, you know, not just this job, but in your in period, in general, but that is definitely. You want to definitely be sociable, be friendly, be professional, and that will just go a long way.     This next question, it trips up a lot of people when they come on here. They're not sure how to go about it, but I know that with your awesome skills, the man, the myth, the legend, the Sasquatch of the North.     That's right.     What would you do if you woke up today, had all the same skills and knowledge, had no clients, a smartphone, a car, and only $100, what would you do in the next week?     In the next week, with just that I would immediately start making friends with all the local attorney offices, all the local courthouses, the clerks are your best friends at all the courts, the district courts, superior court, clerks offices. I can't tell you how much I love all of them over here in the six counties that I cover. They are a huge resource for you. So, definitely befriend them. Most of them are good people. A lot of them can get a little frustrated with the people they deal with, and even the service they deal with, but definitely with making revenue, generate a lot of business for you.     They turn a lot of people your way, because they get a bunch of walk-ins every day, all different counties. Different, you know, I said district or superior court. So, that would be like your first step is just to befriend the clerks offices, and then make your way into the attorney's offices, and just be very professional, very sociable, and have just a good persona of what you're doing and what you plan to do with your business, and you'll see it grow, just exponentially.     That's awesome, Chris. That's great advice. I have a question. So, when you talk about going to clerks and things like that, what is the best way? Because in many counties they don't allow you to, they're not allowed to promote any individual, independent contractors, or any companies, they usually just send people to the sheriff. Do you find it's different in your county or is there something you're doing that I'm not doing?   You know, some of the courts, they actually have business card slots there.     Oh, wow.     You put your business cards next to the window of the clerk's office windows. Their rules is they can't give any legal advice to people, that's their biggest rule, but as far as referring to people to process servers, I haven't had a problem in any of the counties here in Washington state. They say, "Hey, check out the servers here." There's a list of business cards here, and if you develop more of a better relationship with them, a more personal relationship with them by seeing them every week, day in and day out, they kind of know you personally, and they'll say, "Hey, this guy, he's a good guy, a good server. Go send the business that way."     Yeah, and I've said this a 1,000 times. I'll say it again. The court clerks have all the power.     They do.     If you go there, if you make an enemy out of a court clerk ...     Oh, yeah. No. We've had our run ins with some of the clerk's offices and even our clerk's offices, there might be one or two, they're having a bad day and you step on the wrong toe, and man it's no help at all.     Yeah, you'll show up to their window, and they'll take a lunch.   Yeah, oh yeah. Most of them do here, like from 12:00 to 1:00, you can't get help, but even if I'm running a little bit late, I can just call a direct number here and there, and I'll talk to my favorite person, and they'll wait for me and file my paperwork before they go to lunch.     That's awesome.     It helps if you're just really friendly with the clerk's offices.   That's a really good tip.    So, what I take most from your story, like we talked about before, you treat others the way you want to be treated, get out there and make friends with people. You just find situations to be able to grow your network. They say your network is your network. You know, if you don't know anybody, nobody knows you, you're probably working a minimum wage job. It's just usually how it works.     Yep.     So, that's what I get most from your story. Chris, we're going to go ahead and wrap it up.    What is your parting piece of advice for Server Nation?     Is just to network, treat people with respect, treat your affiliates with respect, your neighboring partners in businesses. We do so much work for neighboring county affiliates of ours, and they really, without them, you know, we wouldn't see quite a bit of business that we do see, and I'm so grateful to just have that kind of connection and networking capabilities with the neighboring affiliates and other serving companies in this state and surrounding counties, and just to draw out there everyday and there's no sick days in this job.     Isn't that the truth?     You're in your car for most the day, so it's fine, and just go out there and be safe, and just every day is a new day. Every paper is a new paper. Every person is a new person, and that's one of the reasons that I love this job is because you meet all different kinds of characters. Mostly good. Some bad. Some interesting, but enjoy what you do.     Chris, what is the best that we can connect with you, and then we'll say good-bye.     The best way to connect with me is my email, which is chrissvelyns@gmail.com, and my phone number is 509-770-3336 and call me day or night, I will always be around. If anybody has any questions or needs advice, I'm here, and I'm located here Mosaic, Washington, and another email would be A2Zlegalcouriers@gmail.com   That's awesome. Is that your web domain as well? Legal Couriers?   Yeah, A to Z Legal Couriers, yeah, that's where I'm contracted for.     Chris, I want to personally thank you for coming on the show. I have been so impressed with your story, and I'm excited to share it with the world.     Thank you for the opportunity.     Until next time, Server Nation. You have been served up some awesomeness by the man, the myth, the legend, the Sasquatch of the northwest, and Mighty Mike the Podcast Server.    Server Nation, I want to personally thank you for listening to that episode, and I want to invite you to visit the website. ProcessServerDaily.Com/Podcast. Check out the episodes, you can even ask a question. I will air your voice clip on my podcast so that my guests can answer your question directly.    www.ProcessServerDaily.com  

Mighty Mike: What's up, Server Nation? This is Mighty Mike, the Podcast Server, and you are listening to www.ProcessServerDaily.com Mighty Mike: You guys, I'm super excited about today's episode. If you have a story that you want to tell, that you're excited about. Maybe a dog chased you, maybe a guy tried to shoot you with his gun, maybe you had a heart-warming story where you helped somebody in need. Guys, I want to hear the story on this show. Go to www.ProcessServerDaily.Com/BeAGuest.html Find some studio time, go to www.ProcessServerDaily.Com/BeAGuest.html Mighty Mike: I look forward to speaking to you and hearing your story! Let's get to the show. Mighty Mike: What's up, Server Nation? You are listening to Process Server Daily, and I am your host, Mighty Mike the Podcast Server. Our guest today has recently appeared on Vice TV where he has been on the hunt for the most notorious Neo-Nazi of our time. He has been in business for 25 years and he owns and operates Encore Delivery Systems located in Columbus, Ohio. Mighty Mike: Jeff Cremeans, welcome to the show. Jeff C.: Pleasure to be here, Mike. Mighty Mike: Awesome, Jeff. I want to hear from you, Jeff! Tell us a little bit about yourself that wasn't in the intro. Take it away. Jeff C.: Sure. My name is Jeff Cremeans. I've been a process server for about 25 years. I started off, giving my age here, back in 1989 working for a law firm in Columbus, Ohio. Started off as a messenger working in the mail room. Did filings at the court house. Started to do the subpoenas, that type of thing. I'll make a long story short. I had an attorney, of the many duties I did in the mail room, wanted me to go get him a hotdog. So I went and got him a hotdog, I brought it back and he yelled at me, he said, "Why wasn't there mustard on it?" I thought, "You know, I'm gonna start my own business and I'm gonna charge this guy 25 bucks to go get his hotdog." Jeff C.: So I started a company out of law firm called City Wide Legal Messenger Service. Took off really well in Columbus, Ohio. There's a need for that type of thing here. I owned that for a few years. I sold that company to another company. I worked there for 11 years and then I've owned Encore since then. So I've had Encore for about 14 years. So ... Mighty Mike: That's awesome. Yeah, when I was watching the show, it's really cool, your office looks really cool. It looks like you got a pretty good size operation going on there. Jeff C.: Yeah, doing good. In any given time, we'll have eight or nine servers out, serving anything from child support papers to foreclosures. I don't get out as much and serve, certainly on this big case I'm helping out on, the Andrew Anglin case. But, yeah, I have a great group of servers. Very hard workers and do a great job. So ... Mighty Mike: Jeff, one of the most important things as process servers, for anybody, actually, is family. You got a family? Jeff C.: Sure do. I have a daughter at Ken State. Freshman at Ken State University. I've a son that's a sophomore. Yeah, they're pretty much my world, so ... Yeah. Mighty Mike: That's awesome. Jeff, there's a reason why you're on my show. You have a lot going on right now. Full of great experiences. But first, tell me about your worst experience working in the field. Jeff C.: You know, I think a lot of the process servers cross and that start talking about bad stories. Everybody's got a lot of bad stories. I think the one that really stood out to me was one, believe it or not, where I wasn't out in the field. Long story short, I'm sitting in my office, I had let everybody go early. I'm in the office by myself, just doing paperwork and in walks four people. I won't put their description out, but they were not very nice-looking people. I said, "Can I help you?" They said, "Yeah. One of your servers have been pounding on the door at my grandmother's house. We're here to see what's going on." Course, they were not so nice about it. I thought, "Well," I looked up and I saw these four guys. They meant business and they were there to do some damage or something. I thought, "Well, gosh, here we go." I can hold my own, but not with four guys. They were really upset that the server ... Now, how they go to where we were, they did some diligence on finding who we were and our address and everything. I got to give 'em that. Jeff C.: Anyway, I'll be honest with you, I was scared for my life. I thought if these guys want to start one me, there's not a whole lot I can do, but I explained to them. I calmed 'em down, I said, "Look, I'm sorry. This is not the way we do business and I apologize that your grandmother was scared," and all this stuff. Turns out that the server that went out, he was a newbie. He was trained and everything, but he had it to where he thought he could pound on doors and maybe even intimidate people, scare people to come to the door. Boy, did I have a long talk with after him that. I told him, "Hey, look, you're gonna go out, you're gonna go looking for trouble. You're gonna get it." Jeff C.: Fortunately, the trouble came to the office and it affected me. Nothing ended up happening. I talked to these guys and they end up not hurting me, which is a good thing. So the moral of the story, and for everybody out there, whether you're training a server or you're serving yourself, you don't have to ... there's times you have to get creative and aggressive. We can talk about that later in the podcast, but the big thing is, I explained to the server, "There was an old lady in there. You were scaring her to death. She had her grandkids come here and threaten me and want to know what's going on. Take it easy, man. You don't have to do that. If they don't answer the door, you don't have to pound on it." The lady wasn't even avoiding servers, so he learned a big lesson. He learned from that and turned out to be a great server. Not so aggressive anymore after that. Mighty Mike: I've recounted an experience that I've had too in a previous podcast about knocking on a door and being really gung-ho, and then realizing it was a 14 year old girl in there, terrified! She's told not to answer the door and it really helped correct my perspective that you never know ... I just had one yesterday. They told me she's an elderly lady and I've been there at all different times during the day. So I decided to come at night. Sure enough, her car was there, but she wasn't answering the door. The neighbors said, "Oh, she's in there." But I thought, "Man, I'm just gonna come back again at night and maybe she won't be in the shower or in the back room or wherever. Whatever she's doing to keep her from answering the door, giving her the benefit of the doubt- Jeff C.: Right. Mighty Mike: That she might actually answer the door if I come in a different time. Jeff C.: Yeah. Mighty Mike: Yeah, what I take from your story is prudence. Have a little bit of prudence when you come to the door. It's one of the most valuable asset in any industry. Mighty Mike: Jeff, tell us about your greatest experience working in the field. Jeff C.: Well, as many as there are bad, there are some good experiences out there. I think one that stands out to me is, and this is back in my City Wide Legal Messenger Service days, I was young and I was just new to the industry and learning, and doing stuff. I got a job to serve a wealthy person in a domestic case. Long story short, I had attempted many times. Pulled out all the tricks. I dressed up for Halloween, did the whole pizza delivery thing. Nothing worked. This guy, he was a dodger and he knew the game. He had been served before. Jeff C.: I pulled up one day, I just happened to be around the neighborhood. I thought, "Let me go try this guy again." I got there and he was out back, washing one of his expensive cars with his brother. I pulled up and he looked at me and started to run. Then he stopped and he's like, "You got me." He put out his hand and he shook my hand. He's like, "Congratulations, man. You played a good game." He was serious, very nice. We ended up talking there for a minute, so it was kind of ... never had that happen before, but it was nice to know that old game of hide and seek, he was not a sore loser, you know? So, yeah, that's kind of a good story. Mighty Mike: That's cool when they're like that. Some people just have a habit of dodging and ducking and hiding under couches, and things like that. Every once in a while, you'll get that guy that's probably like you would be when you're retired or something like that, or if someone else was trying to serve you. Ultimately, you're gonna accept the responsibility for your own problems, but you don't mind giving 'em a little run for his money. Jeff C.: Sure. Mighty Mike: That's a great experience. Mighty Mike: Jeff, tell me what you're working on right now that you're most excited about. Jeff C.: Well, in the past few years, we've gotten accounts with the Children's Services and the child support. It's a lot of work. It's lucrative, but dodging has increased with the child support papers as everybody knows, especially at that end of the stuff that we serve. So I've been able to hire more servers, it's broadened our horizons as far as learning more about the industry and finding people, the skip tracing, that type of thing. Jeff C.: Then, of course, there's the case we're trying to serve, the famous neo-Nazi. That has been the most challenging serve in my career in 25 plus years. So the reason why this case is so challenging to serve, this guy, he's a national, if not worldly-known neo-Nazi. He's got his own website, the Daily Stormer, that's been very controversial, but he has so much help hiding out. I've never seen anybody have so much support in hiding out. Anything from his father with all his property he owns, and people putting him up in places, this type of thing. But, yeah, it's been a very challenging serve. Worked very hard and done all the skip tracing. Done everything we possibly can to this point. Right now, we're relying on tips from a lot of different people that have maybe spotted him or know where he's at. We had a pretty good tip, as you saw in the Vice show. That's probably our best tip and missed him there. But, so, yeah. Jeff C.: There's a lot of things going on, a lot of good things. Growing at a steady pace and, again, I think any processor out there will tell you each case is different, each server's different. You don't want to get too emotionally involved, especially when someone's dodging, but there comes a time where, "Ask us for help," you know. One person can't do everything. If you feel like you've exhausted all your efforts in getting the serve, get somebody else on it. Get a fresh face, that type of thing. So ... Mighty Mike: Yeah, that's good, Jeff. I'll tell you, when I was watching the video, and you were going over the footage in the store where you were watching him with his protein powder, I got this feeling, almost like that's happened to me before where I've seen someone I was hunting for three months. He was a pot farmer up in [inaudible 00:09:36] Creek. Anyone knows you go up there, you gotta go up there with the AKs and [inaudible 00:09:40] dogs, and ready to go. Mighty Mike: I saw him in a park. He was apparently getting visitation with his kids, and I didn't have the papers, so I ran back, I drove back to my house. By the time I got there, he wasn't there. I was so mad at myself. How did you feel when that- Jeff C.: First, it was just shock and awe seeing him there. My son and I were just walking through the store and it was one of those things, when I first saw him, I thought, "Oh, man. That guy looks familiar," and I got closer. As I got closer, I thought, "Oh my gosh, that's him." No doubt in my mind whatsoever. In fact, I submitted a declaration to the court for the attorney's request to explain that I saw him. I got up, I was watching him. I was standing there as you could see in the video, watching him. Very nervous. He was kind of looking behind his shoulders and just kind of looked really, really paranoid, that type of thing. I thought, "You know, I don't have the papers. They're not even in my car. They're at home. By the time I get it and do that, it's not gonna happen." Plus, I had my son with me. It was really not a whole lot I could have done, like I couldn't leave him there. Jeff C.: As he was checking out, I proceeded to go through the store, past self check out lines. I looked over and I just thought, "You know, I gotta say something to him. I gotta go talk to him. I just can't" ... So as he was walking out, I pulled up right in front of him with my car. My exact words to him was like, "You know, you look like somebody I know. Is your name Andrew?" "Nope." He was gone. He was not gonna hang around. It was him, it was definitely him. Now- Jeff: He was not going to hang around, and it was him. It was definitely him. Now, people, especially his attorney ... What are the odds? What are the odds of tracking somebody down for almost a year and you see them at a grocery store? I don't know, but it happened and it was ... Needless to say, I have the papers with me every time. I have them in my briefcase, I have them in my car, I have them at work. I have other people that have them. All my servers have a copy of this stuff [inaudible 00:11:24] just in case something like that were to happen again. Don't think I'll ever get that opportunity again, but you never know. Mighty Mike: Yeah, I actually keep a bucket now, because of that experience that I had. I'll tell you one fun experience. I was in the courthouse and I'd been hunting this ... trying to serve this professor of Chico State University. He was retired. And so, I had served him like three times before and then he moved. We go to court every day to file papers at the courthouse. And so, I was in line at the courthouse and I heard this voice, and I was like, "I know that voice." And I listened and I heard it. He's just shooting it with a couple guys, "Yeah, no, I'm a professor down over at Chico State." And I thought, "That's him." And I didn't have the documents, but I was at the courthouse. So I said ... I looked it up on my phone, and I bought a copy of the paperwork at the courthouse. I checked the box individual and said, "Here you go." Jeff: Oh, nice. Very nice. Mighty Mike: I felt like such a ninja when I did that. It was cool. Jeff: Yeah. Mighty Mike: So I mean, if I would have saw him at the store I would have been in trouble. What I wanted to know, and I'm sure other servers are the same, is what's the next step? You can only skip trace them so much, right? Jeff: Yeah. Mighty Mike: You can only- Jeff: Yeah, there's a lot of people looking for this guy for one reason or another. It's not just to serve him papers. As you can imagine, he's made a lot of people upset with his comments and his viewpoints. Hey, you know, I believe in the first amendment. I think everybody can believe in whatever they want to believe in. You believe clowns should make more money when they go to parties? Fine. Just the fact that threaten violence and harass people I don't think bodes well. Jeff: So anyway, with that being said, a lot of people look for him. We're all trying to put feelers out there and we're all going off tips, whether it be the media, reporters, and other process servers. And from here, where do we go? Waiting on a tip. There's been rumor that he claims he's in Cambodia, then he was in Nigeria, then he was in Russia. Personally, my opinion, I think he's right here, whether it be in town or the state of Ohio, at least in the United States. He's not overseas. So it's going to be off a tip. It's going to get lucky. Somebody's going to see him, he's going to show his self somewhere. That's pretty much all we can do right now, just sit back and wait. Mighty Mike: Yeah, you just have got to post somebody up over by the protein powder. That's what you have got to do. Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Mighty Mike: Okay. So I hope you get him and when you do get him, maybe we'll have you back on the show or even we'll do a Facebook Live so that'll just be [inaudible 00:13:49]. Jeff: I look forward to the day, believe me. Mighty Mike: Now dreams of the day. Jeff: Yeah. Mighty Mike: Server Nation, Jeff has been dropping some major value bombs on us today, but prepare yourself, because we are headed into the rapid fire round right after a word from our sponsors. Mighty Mike: Server Nation, I know you're with the times and you want to do whatever you can to have all of the resources for your client. That is why I created 123efile.com. As a process server, attorney, or even an improper you can visit the website and file your documents in any of the Tyler courts in California. With it's easy to use one-page operation, you can have your e-filing done in a matter of minutes and get back to what really matters. If your time is important to you, visit 123efile.com. Mighty Mike: Welcome back to the show. Jeff, are you ready for the rapid fire round? Jeff: I think I am. Mighty Mike: If you could recommend one app, what would it be and why? Jeff: I think Road Warrior's a good app. I'm not a humongous app fan. I kind of do a lot of things old school. I think if you're diligent enough and you really want it bad, you can find the right app and it'll get you where you need to be. Mighty Mike: Very good. Road Warrior is ... I swear by the Road Warrior. Jeff: Yeah. Mighty Mike: I mean, if another one came out I would try it, but I haven't found any other app like that. Jeff: Yeah, it's a good app. Mighty Mike: And if you have it set to go straight into the Waze app, it works really good in the city. You can pick different navigators, but yeah, Road Warrior's a great one. What case tracking software would you recommend as the best? I would take you as a Process Server Toolbox guy. Jeff: Yeah, yeah, Process Server's Toolbox or like Serve Manager. Again, I don't even ... To be honest with you, I don't use them. Again, I'm- Mighty Mike: Really? Jeff: Yeah, I'm a firm believer in the old fashioned way of doing things, and my customers seem to like it. I've tried to offer them the different softwares and the Process Server's Tool and everything, and my customers like, you know, "Just use the court's return. We don't want this. We don't want that." And I've just kind of been doing that for years, and it works for me so far. Mighty Mike: No, I'm intrigued, Jeff, because, let me tell you something, there's a beauty in simplicity. So I'm just curious, we don't have to go too far into it, but you have like a service request form? Jeff: Yes. Mighty Mike: And they fill that out. And is your return or your field sheet, if you were, is that a part of the same form? Jeff: No, that's a different form in fact. And that's the thing, we kind of create our own affidavits and our own returns of service if they want. For anybody that has just your federal district return of service, we'll start off with that. If somebody wants something different, we've created so many different types of affidavits and non-serve affidavits and returns of service. We've had people say, "Yep, we don't want this notarized. You don't have to notarize it," so we'll just make it a simple proof of service. Mighty Mike: Yeah. Jeff: Of course, as you know, in California they have their own and New York wants certain things. A lot of the different states and people want different things. Mighty Mike: Definitely. Jeff: So we kind of have a variety of affidavits and stuff we use. Mighty Mike: That's cool. Yeah, that's cheaper. Jeff: Yeah, it is. It is. Mighty Mike: I tell you, there's beauty in simplicity. When I first started out, I had a form and I thought I was a genius because I had my service request area on top where I gave the customer's info and special instructions, and then at the bottom it had four spots for first attempt, second attempt, third attempt. And I only did four attempts because most of my customers were for unlawful detainers. In our local area, you had to get three attempts for diligence before you could post or subserve. So yeah, there's beauty in simplicity. I appreciate that. Mighty Mike: What is your favorite skip trace tactic? Jeff: I think what's worked for us over the years are the neighbors. Knocking on the doors next to it. I tell you, there's ... We have had more nosy neighbors help us get people served than anything. It's a simple skip tracing tool. There's a lot of ways of skip tracing, but, boy, just I don't know how many times ... And I'm sure a lot of servers have experienced this. The neighbor's out washing the car, you go over, "Hey, is so-and-so here?" "Oh, you know what? No, they're down the street at this park at the baseball game." "Oh, really? Which park is that?" "You know, blah, blah, blah park." You go down there. Now, if somebody's been dodging for a few weeks and you really want to get them served, I don't mind going to a park at a ballgame and getting them served. It may be the only opportunity to get them. So yeah, I think neighbors are very informative, and can be very helpful for getting somebody. Mighty Mike: Yeah, and actually, you can skip trace a specific address, not a person, and it'll give you the people that live in that general area. Or you can go on Google and find out what the nextdoor neighbor's address is and skip trace them and get the phone number. And then call them up, say, "Hi, is this ..." So if you're looking for Jill, you call up the neighbor and say, "Hi, is this Jill?" And then she's going to go, "Oh no, Jill lives nextdoor." "Okay. Oh, sorry about that." You know? Jeff: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mighty Mike: That's a good one that works a lot. Jeff: Yeah. Mighty Mike: Jeff, what is your favorite tool for defense? Jeff: I think there's weapons and there's this and there's that. I firmly believe in being human with people, talking to them. One thing that taught me about that bad experience, I think if you're there and you're calm and you hear them, and you're honest with them, say, "Hey, look, I got these papers," well I think that's worked more than anything. To be, for lack of a better word, aggressive or cocky or pushy and doing too much, I don't think that's going to help you out. I think really trying to talk to people. And there's a lot of different ways of doing that. Jeff: My biggest thing is somebody that's wanting to avoid service, I try to tell them, "Hey, look, I'm going to come back. I'm going to keep coming back. I'm not going to go away and this is not going to go away." I'm not a lawyer, I can't give them legal advice, but I try to tell them, "Hey, look, you're best off taking this now." So things like that and that nature, that to be me has been the best tool. Call it a tool. Call it whatever you want. I think it's a really good tool to use. Mighty Mike: Yeah, I did a poll on Facebook and, "What was the best tool for defense?" And people came back ... And actually, I gave some options and I gave like a gun, and a knife, and all these things. And then, I gave a few options. It was like common sense ... Jeff: Yes. Mighty Mike: Those things that are inside of you, like in your brain and in your habits, and the way that you treat people, the way that you talk to people, those are the things that had the most hits. I think one of them had like 64. Common sense had like 64, and the next one had 30. And the actual gun I think only had like 16. We all like to talk about the guns that we own, but the truth is, when you're out there serving, using your gift of gab or your ability to control a situation with your words is way more powerful than a gun. Jeff: Absolutely Mighty Mike: A gun is an immediate ... It's not an answer. It's not a resolution. It's a tragedy if you did have to pull it out. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-gun. I'm just saying I agree with you. That's absolutely correct. Jeff: And yeah, guns can be dangerous and they can promote ... get you into a situation where somebody could get hurt or killed. Again, I'm totally not anti-gun either. I totally believe in that, and a lot of people should have one for their protection. I've never been a really big badge guy. Again, I'm just kind of human, old fashioned way of doing things. Mighty Mike: Yeah, in California it's actually become quite a ... most of the server companies, it's quite anti-badge, because a lot of people are getting convicted and charged, and potentially convicted for impersonating an officer. Jeff: Yes. Mighty Mike: Throwing around words like, "Officer of the court," and things like that. Jeff: Mm-hmm Mighty Mike: You know, I used to do it when I first started because that's what they said in my training class, and really we're not. Joe down the street could serve papers, but he can't serve more than 10 in California. I know it's different in every state, but ... Jeff: Mm-hmm Mighty Mike: Jeff, what book would you recommend? Jeff: Anything John Grisham. I'm a huge John Grisham fan. In fact, the older I get, I'm doing a lot more reading. And I love to read, it's just like a lot of people, you just don't have the time. But John Grisham, really just the fact ... You know, he's mentioned process servers in his stories and subpoenas being served. I always kind of liked that part of it, but just his work is just I think is amazing. And the legal aspect of it, I'm really interested in that part of it. http://www.jgrisham.com/books/ Mighty Mike: That's really cool. I'm going to have to check it out, John Grisham. I'm actually writing a book. It's going to be done here in about 90 days is my goal. And it's going to be on process server safety and best business practices. It's going to be great! Jeff: That's awesome! Mighty Mike: Yeah, you can get a free copy at www.processserverdaily.com/freebook.html when it comes out. Mighty Mike: Jeff, did you have a mentor? Jeff: I started off at a young age. I’m the second youngest of 10 children. Growing up, it was one of those things where, as you can imagine, you either go off to college or go get a job. You're not going to hang around the house, that type of thing. My mentor was no doubt about it my father. He was a hard-working man, raising 10 kids, him and my mother. To me, they’re the most awesome people in the planet, but nevertheless, he said, “Work hard and be nice and don’t ever give up.” He was always supportive of all my brothers and sisters, whatever road they took. He was so excited for me when I started City Wide Legal Messenger Service. He loaned me $1,000, which I had to pay him back by the way. He wasn’t that nice! Jeff: He was truly my mentor. Did he know anything about filing stuff at the courthouses, doing certain papers? Absolutely not. Just his life lessons taught me, even to this day, I still use them. It has really taught me a lot and just got me far. Mighty Mike: That’s great. You answered one of the questions. What’s the greatest advice you’ve ever received? Jeff: The greatest advice I’ve ever received is definitely from my father. Be humbler. Be nice. Work hard. I taught my own kids that. I’d tell you. If you're nice … Don’t be too nice. You're going to be taken advantage of. I’m not saying that, but I’d say being nice, being compassionate, being humble will get so you much further in life. I truly believe that, and that’s the way I try to live my life and do my work. Mighty Mike: To provide an abundance of value without expectation just as a business practice, but also just as a person. There are many examples of that, whether it’s in your love life or with your family. If you provide value without expectation, it will come back to you. Like you said, don’t be taken advantage of, but sometimes it might feel like it and then the next day, you're like, wow, I didn’t expect you to do all these nice things for me. Jeff: Right. Mighty Mike: That’s the idea. Jeff, what would you do if you woke up today, had all the same skills and knowledge, had no clients, a smartphone, a car and only $100? What would you do in the next week? Jeff: I would definitely do some work reaching out to other people, advertising to a certain extent. I’d tell you. The best thing that I would do is to get out there and do a good job for folks. I think word of mouth advertisement has been a key for me to my success. It’s one thing to go out and say you're a process server or say you're going to do this and do that, but if you do it, it takes that one paralegal that you do a great job for. You communicate the whole time. You're doing everything you need to be doing. That paralegal could be involved in a group that tells another paralegal and so on and so forth. Jeff: I think part of doing that good job is communicating. Somebody sends you a paper. Don’t take three days to get back to them if it’s a rush and what’s going on. Certainly don’t take another week to send them back to return a service, that type of thing because again, that word of mouth could also hurt you too. It could be a very valuable factor. It could also hurt your business. I would pound the pavement and get out there and try to talk to as many people as I could, talk to paralegal groups, bar association, that type of thing. Mighty Mike: That’s good. One of the things that I take from your story is that, from your methods, is that be diligent. Get out there. Sometimes it’s nice to have a little hand-up, not a hand-out, but the truth is in this example, you only have $100. You have a car. You have the knowledge that you already have, and you have a smartphone so you can give the internet … You can search things. Guys, anybody can do this. You get out there and go after it. I say anybody can do it, like anybody who wants to build a business. Some people, they’re not cut out for serving papers, and if that’s the case, build the business; have someone else serve the papers. There’s a lot of really good husband and wife teams out there. Jeff, what is a parting piece of guidance you want to give to the servers out there? Jeff: Again, what we’ve talked about previously. Stay humble. Treat people with kindness. You have a job to do and certainly do it. In doing so, just remember this thing is bigger than you. Don’t go out there thinking you're Captain Bob, the process server and think that you're better than everybody, that type of thing. Just go out and communicate with your customer. Take good care of your customer. Communication is key. Jeff: I touched base on it earlier. I don't know how times I’ve used servers across the nation where they do 75% of the job. What I mean by that is, hey man, I got this rush. I need to serve right away. This is a big customer, blah, blah, blah. By gosh. They went out and they got it served right away, did a great job. A week later, hey, where is my return of service? I got to get this filed. The attorney is screaming at me. They got to get this filed. Follow through on your job. Do what it all right, not just half of it. Definitely get in the network groups. Meeting new guys and get involved with this and NAPPS members and stuff, a great, great tool. It’s great to get advice to people. Jeff: Again, I’ve been doing this for a lot of years. I still seek advice. I’ll call a server that I’ve been dealing with for 20 years and say, “Hey, man. How would you do this? What’s your viewpoint on this?” Never stop learning because I’d tell you. There’s a lot to learn in this industry. Mighty Mike: You're right, Jeff. There is. A big part of the industry for process servers, what I find most often is that they find themselves in a chasm alone by themselves and the way that they think that every other processor is their competition. The truth is that many process servers out there have too much work and they would be more than glad to give you the work if you can give them a discount. Jeff: Absolutely. Mighty Mike: If that’s what you need to get off the ground and to get your business rolling so you can raise your prices and have some more customers, more attorney clients come in, then that’s what you got to do. Jeff: Absolutely. Mighty Mike: I started out making $20 a paper. How about you? Jeff: When I worked at the law firm, I think I made about $4 an hour. Whether that’d be filing at the courthouse or serve a paper even add to that, yeah, it’s … I think then after that, as time went on, I think I was getting $20 a paper at that point. It’s been a long road. I certainly charge more for that these days. Mighty Mike: Jeff, I appreciate your story. I want to personally thank you for being on the show. I’ve been really impressed with your story and the whole situation with the neo-Nazi. That’s just a side thing. Watching the video and seeing your operation going on, it’s definitely worth being excited about. I’m excited to share it with the world. Jeff, what’s the best way that we can connect with you and then we’ll say goodbye? Jeff: Sure. You can reach us via email. Our email address is jeffENCORE@sbcglobal.net. Definitely a phone a call away, (614) 414-0730. Mighty Mike: Excellent. You can get that information in the show notes at www.processserverdaily.com/jeff.html Until next time, server nation, you’ve been served up some awesomeness by Jeff, the Nazi hunter and Mighty Mike, the podcast server. Mighty Mike: Server nation, I know that you know all about directories and that you know the importance of getting yourself on the web in as many places as possible, but it’s more than that, server nation. It’s about putting yourself on the websites that get ranked on Google, Yahoo and Bing. I’m excited about a new program that I’m starting. Really quickly, let me tell you. As a process server, I don’t cover the whole country, right? We send servers out to other process servers and we call that affiliates. My new program is going to incorporate a system. When my customers come on to my website and they do a location search, try to find a process server in a specific location, many times, I do not serve that area and so I might hire an affiliate in another area and manage to serve that way. That takes time and effort away from my local customers and the local efforts that I have here in Northern California. I want to personally invite each and every member of server nation to add themselves to my directory on my website. This is what’s going to happen. My customers who come to me loyally will search a specific location. If I don’t cover a specific location but you do, guess who shows up? You do. How great is that, server nation? I’m going to share something that means so much to me, my customers. I believe that this will benefit my customers because they will have a resource to go to, to find process servers and to get the best rates nationwide. Oh, but there’s a catch, server nation. There’s always a catch... My directory is free for an affiliate to sign up and get the basic affiliate level. If you do not perform when my customers come and they see that it’s not me or one of my employees or contractors and they see that it’s you, they’re going to see a rating next to your name. If your rating falls, you may not get any business. Server nation, give it a shot. Sign up for the free listing, but please, take care of my customers. I love them like they’re family. Visit www.processserverdaily.com/affiliates.html Mighty Mike: Until next time, server nation, stay safe out there!

Mary Oberdier is the owner of Chasen Tails Pet Care and Founder of Bradenton/Sarasota Professional Pet Sitters. She is also the founder of Bradenton/Sarasota Professional Pet Sitters, a group of pet-sitting professionals in the Manatee and Sarasota counties area and beyond who come together to encourage and help each other be the best at their business.Mary started her pet sitting business in 2012 after working in the banking industry her whole life. After much research, she started her business and joined NAPPS to become certified, insured and bonded. Chasen Tails is named after her black lab mix, Chase who lived to be 15 years old.

Have handheld microphone, must travel. That’s the motto for Oh Behave Show Host Arden Moore as she hosts this special episode at the annual NAPPS (National Association of Professional Pet Sitters) in the land of Mickey Mouse. Tune in and find out some crazy requests pet sitters honor for their clients, some of the strangest insurance claims filed in this pet industry, meet a successful entrepreneur specializing in doggy doo-doo bags, a pair of genuine catty experts on all things feline and one of the top dog trainers on the planet. Yes, all in this one jam-packed episode! Questions or Comments? Send them to: arden@petliferadio.com. More details on this episode MP3 Podcast - "Rover" Reporter Arden Moore Interviews Pet Sitters, Pet Experts and More at the NAPPS Conference in Orlando on Pet Life Radio

Animal Radio® is on-the-road again! This time we're live from the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California for the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters Conference. Something weird happens when the whole gang leave the studios! In hard economic times, Pet Sitting makes a great career. This week we'll find out the realities behind being your own boss. Best-selling author Arden Moore guests. 'Reverse-sneezing' is common among dogs - but sometimes it'll send the guardian running to the hospital. Dr. Debbie explains this phenomenon. She also has advice on pheromones, hot-spots and car-sickness. Vinnie Penn has a problem with people that 'baby-talk' to their pets. And as if that was his only gripe, he has issues with 'Yappy-Hours.' Bobbie Hill won't step foot on the Queen Mary for our live broadcast. She says the ship is haunted. Do the studio pets see ghosts? Did the rest of the Animal Radio® air-talent scare the ghosts away? Bobbie has news about a 'free-adoption event' for everyone! Vladae has tips for breaking the news about the recession to your dog. Do microchips give your pets cancer? Despite what others are saying, the risk is definitely worth it. Animal Radio® debunks the myths. More at AnimalRadio.com.