Pet Sitter Spotlight: Grace Steckler, Saving Grace Pet Care

Grace Steckler owns Saving Grace Pet Care in Washington, D.C., a booming pet-sitting and dog-walking company that has three franchises in the nation’s capital. And it all started with her taking a job as a dog walker.

When she moved to Washington, D.C., the former nun of 12 years and high school teacher knew that she didn’t want to continue to teach, so she just happened to get a job as a dog walker as a temporary way to pay the rent.

“I really liked it, so I just decided I could go out on my own and do it, and I did,” Grace recalls.

With her teaching ability and good business sense, Grace officially opened her own pet-sitting service in 2001. As business started to grow, Grace had to turn down clients as a solopreneur. She thought, “Well this is kind of silly, turning down people,” so she hired someone to help. Now her staff totals about 35.

Over time, she was able to turn it into a business she could run rather than a business she had to be “doing.” She thinks a lot of pet sitters struggle with that transition.

“When I started franchising, I thought, ‘I can teach people how to jump in and do this as a business rather than kind of be stuck if you don’t want to be stuck,’” Grace says.

Instincts serve her well

Grace’s teaching experience—particularly her communication and management skills—served her well when she entered the pet-sitting industry.

“Classroom management is very similar to managing groups of dogs,” she notes.

As a teacher, you learn to be assertive in the classroom, she explains, because if you are not leading the class, the high schoolers will walk all over you. She found it was similar with dog walking. Dogs can sense when you’re not in charge. Grace says her “matter-of-factness” has been very useful.

When Grace was starting out, she took a Red Cross pet first aid course and read Patti Moran’s book Pet Sitting for Profit. She also attended a regional PSI meeting in Arlington, Va., several years ago. An avid reader, Grace is always reading business books.

She likes reading PSI’s bimonthly magazine, Pet Sitter’s World, saying, “It really has been great for marketing materials and keeping abreast of what’s happening in the pet-sitting industry.”

Grace also provides ongoing educational training for her dog walkers, addressing important topics in an email series.

Business thrives near the Capitol

Saving Grace Pet Care has approximately 700 clients, including some clients that Grace walked when she was first starting out. Her staff of about 35 is a mixture of employees and IC’s, but the company is moving toward an all employee model.

The business is based in Capitol Hill, a historic neighborhood east of the Capitol. It’s the perfect neighborhood for dog walking, Grace says.

“It’s high density but not high rise,” she explains.

With the number of residences, they are able to make tight routes for dog walkers, who have four-square blocks they are responsible for. That makes it efficient for the walkers, allowing them to earn money in a short amount of time.

Saving Grace Pet Care’s bread and butter is mid-day dog walking, Grace says. The company also offers pet sitting and in-home boarding, primarily for dogs and cats. They serve a few bird clients and the occasional guinea pig, but no livestock or exotic animals. Grace and her husband, David, also have another property where they often take dogs to get exercise. It’s a niche service they call “Camp Saving Grace.”

Grace says her business never had to do a ton of marketing. They mostly rely on word of mouth. But from the beginning, Grace says it was always important for her to have a good website and to look professional.

She feels there is more competition in dog walking now than when she started 17 years ago, so her company is trying out some different marketing strategies to see what sticks. They have tried things like hosting Yappy Hour and writing for a neighborhood blog.

Delegation is a key

Grace hasn’t walked dogs every day in 12 years, because her business has grown to the point where she doesn’t need to. You could say Grace’s daily role is the project leader. For example, she is taking the lead on a new website for the company. She makes the decisions on things like software for the business and is responsible for the final hiring of staff. With four kids—two of them homeschooled—she tries not to take on anything time sensitive.

One tool that her business could not do without is a scheduling system. When they switched from paper, they were able to double business that year. Having competent and engaged managers is also huge, Grace says.

Grace once read in The E Myth that you have to run your business like a business—work on it, not in it. So she wrote job descriptions for everyone in the company, which was hugely helpful when she franchised. Order is something she experienced as a nun, and something that is part of her nature also.

She recognizes that there are some aspects of business that are important to her and come naturally to her, and she loves to delegate the other things. For example, she has a business manager who loves doing payroll. Grace says it is important to be able to delegate the work you’re not good at.

“I don’t do anything if it can’t meet the win-win test,” she explains, saying if something is not a win for her and her staff and her clients, then they don’t do it. They find a new solution.

Keeping things in perspective

The most stressful part of running a business is “being responsible for everything,” Grace says, because ultimately the buck stops with her. She actively works to maintain a sense of perspective. As the owner, she gets faced with the big things, but she has to keep in perspective the 250 visits that went right that day. She said she has a great husband who is so supportive, and having a support system is important.

A proud moment for Grace was when she opened up franchising and three of her dog walkers were three of the first people to buy franchises. She said her business has 14 walkers who have been with them for more than three years, and many of them for more than six years.

“I think our staff retention is a thing I’m proud of, because it makes me feel that I’m doing something right,” Grace says.

When asked to give advice to new pet sitters, Grace highlighted that one practice her company has is that they are always honest with clients. They screen clients very closely, and if they think something is a bad fit, they tell the person up front. If they send them away with a referral, she feels like they are serving them better, because someone else is going to be able to meet their needs.

“If you can identify those clients for whom you are not going to be a good fit early on, you’re going to save yourself so much heartache,” Grace says.

She also recommends people guard against saying things like, “I’m just a dog walker.” It’s a real job for professionals. Grace had an employee who had previously worked in corporate America who said she had no idea how much work goes into pet sitting and dog walking.

“We should really appreciate our own value,” Grace says.