My Favorite Holiday Gift for Dog Walking & Pet Sitting Clients
Getting your dog walking and pet sitting clients a holiday gift is a great idea. It shows you care about them and appreciate their business, among other things.
I've heard of lots of great gift ideas before.
My favorite though is...
More...
...a personalized calendar.
It looks something like this:
Why I Love The Calendar Gift
It shows effort
Most people today are looking for "quick and easy." Although producing a calendar like this is relatively simple and something you can do for your clients on a large scale, it's definitely not as quick and easy as giving your clients a gift card or a box of cookies or something like that.
But this is precisely why there's a lot of value attached to it.
Your client will know that it took you some advanced planning to get a picture of their pet. Then time to create the calendar customized specifically and only for them. Then time to order it and give it to them before the holidays.
They'll understand the effort that went into it. And they'll appreciate that.
It shows you care
Because of the effort that needs to go into this holiday gift, your client will get a sense that you care and went above and beyond what you needed to do.
Every pet owner wants the best for their pet and a dog walker and pet sitter who cares deeply will definitely attract a lot of loyalty from their client.
It's a constant reminder of your business
When I give these holiday gift calendars to clients, it's rare that I don't see them on the refrigerator (or hanging somewhere else in the home) the next time I visit.
It's essentially a sure thing that my gift to them is going to be in plain view for the next 365 days.
That's an entire year of goodwill and warm fuzzies that your client associates with YOU and your business. How awesome is that!?!
It's easy access to your contact information
We give our dog walking and pet sitting clients magnetic business cards with our contact info on them at every consultation. We hope that these end up on the fridge so that the client can easily find our email and phone number to contact us.
But, this doesn't always happen for a variety of reasons.
So, having a calendar with your contact info on it is a great replacement for the business card. They're much more likely to get hung in plain sight and, thus, you're front and center with your client at all times.
We add our contact info below the main image of the pet. It's small enough to be out of the way to not detract from the photo, but large enough to be noticed. It looks like this:
It's not hard to do
To be clear, this is going to take you some time. However, it's relatively simple to do.
First, get a picture of your client's pet. It doesn't have to fancy. Any good phone these days will do a perfectly fine job of capturing that Kodak moment with a good enough picture resolution.
Next, design the full image you're going to use with a tool like canva or snappa. Just upload the pet photo, your contact info (and logo), and any image background you'll use. Then, save your work and download it. Then, upload that saved file to the calendar designer and you're all done.
It's not expensive
Our typical dog walking client provides us with about $1200 a year in revenue.
This calendar costs about $9 to make.
Would I spend $9 to help ensure that I continue to receive $1200 back? All...Day...Long.
There are lots of other inexpensive holiday gifts you can give your dog walking and pet siting clients. Many that cost less than $9 each. But will any of those produce the goodwill and intangible value that a calendar like this creates? What is that worth to you?
Where to get the calendar?
I get my customized holiday gift calendars from Cafe Press here.
Make sure to order them well in advance of when you need them. Although they're pretty quick with turnaround, remember that you may need a few days for them to be printed plus another 2-10 days for shipping.
What's your favorite gift?
This calendar idea is just one of many great holiday gifts you can give your clients. What's your favorite and what have you given in the past? Leave a comment for us below. Thanks!
About the Author John Reh
John loves animals and business. He put the two together and built a multi-million dollar dog walking/running and pet sitting business with hard work, systems, and great people. He now teaches everything he's learned in the Pet Business Masters! community.