Going From Free to Paid House Sitting
Ok, so you’re a semi-experienced house sitter. You’re probably on a few of the free exchange platforms and have a dozen or so stellar reviews, and overall have truly enjoyed the experience being a house sitter. But, along the way, you’ve realized that house/pet sitting actually takes a decent amount of work and time, and that there are pet owners who likely would pay good money to secure a reliable, consistent one vs. having to find a new one every time on the free platforms.
Well, my friend you are correct! There ARE pet owners who are willing to pay good money to secure a reliable, consistent house sitter for their furry friends.
I am here to tell you how to leverage all your awesome experience as a free sitter into paid opportunities.
Who Am I To Teach This?
I am KellySue and I’ve been a paid house sitter since 2019 and currently live this lifestyle full time in NJ/PA, USA. We (my boyfriend Nate and I) are also members of Trusted House Sitters and, like you, have loads of 5 star reviews. We use TH to fill the gaps in between our paid local sits, but for the most part, our paid sits last us about 7 months/year. We make $13K annually at this point in paid sits and it has increased every year.
Why Am I Blogging About Paid Local House Sitting?
I have found such a lack of information regarding paid house sitting online, and specifically paid local house sitting, that I wrote an e-book and made an entire e-course on the topic! It’s also why I am writing this blog and have a youtube video about it - there just isn’t anyone teaching about how to get started in your local community as a paid house sitter!
And it’s literally all I’ve been doing since day 1, and I consider myself an expert on the topic.
Okay, let’s get into it.
Local is Ideal (In My Opinion)
This is my take, but I am sure there are traveling paid house sitters out there too. Local is just my specialty and preference. I think we have been so successful in this arena because local clients who love you end up hiring you multiple times a year, thus filling up your calendar and decreasing the need to keep finding new clients. In my 5+ years house sitting journey, I have never had more than maybe 7-8 clients per year, and that’s on the high end. We niched down to cats in 2022 and I would say we have 5 regular, repeat clients annually and use a TH pet parent to fill in the gaps, who also travels multiple times a year for weeks at a time. My clients travel A LOT!
I believe that, just like pet parents who hire dog walkers or drop in sitters, if they trust you and you connect well with their pets, they will want you back. No pet parent is going to want to go through another meet & greet or interview each time they go away, or to orient a new sitter to the routines each time. Once they land you and they know you do a great job, it’s so much easier to just re-book you and have that peace of mind of knowing you will do another great job.
So this is why I say local is ideal. Can you charge for traveling sits? I am sure you can. I just would find it a little harder - how and where are you advertising? Will they become repeat clients for you or will it just be a one and done? To me, it’s not worth it. I also know enough about house sitting that I personally would not want to be pet sitting while on vacation because I know that sh*t happens! And if you are sitting on vacation, well, those pets and that house is your priority, not your vacation. So, personally, Nate & I don’t book vacations around house sits. When I’m on vacation, I don’t want to be worrying about anything or have to forego our adventures due to some unforeseen emergency. But hey - that’s just us! You do you!
Learn to Market Yourself
As an experienced house sitter, my friend, you have a huge advantage compared to newbies who are trying to get into this line of work. Your hands-on years or seasons of experience as a house sitter is so valuable! So now, the trick is to showcase that in a confident way in your marketing efforts!
I’m going to assume you do not have a website or a business FB page, as most folks getting into this line of work do not have those things set up yet. (Nor do you need it to get started!)
So your new best friend is called CANVA. This is a relatively user-friendly graphic design app where you can find ready-made templates to plug your information into for marketing purposes. Anyone can create a free account and while it does not give you all the bells and whistles, it’s enough to help you create a decent marketing flyer. I am confident you can also find a Canva Beginner’s Tutorial on YouTube. Or, if you’d like to hire me to make you some marketing materials (you know I’m a Virtual Assistant by trade, right?), just email me at kellysue.va@gmail.com and we can get that set up for you. I’d love to help!
Why do you need a marketing flyer, you ask? So you can share it everywhere and anywhere!
More on that later, for now, here’s what to include on your marketing flyer:
Your name/Business Name if you are using one
A tagline of sorts, ex.“Exclusively Housesitting for Cats”
Contact Info (just an email is sufficient)
Rates (yes put your rates on the flyer - it is a helpful filter!)
Service Areas
A testimonial if possible or years of experience - or both!
A photo of you with a pet.
Best Practices
Make it legible - do not use fancy cursive that no one can read. I get it, it’s pretty, but you want to make everything easy to read and the fancy fonts do not allow for that and people will scroll past.
Yes include your rates - if you do not, you will get inquires about your rates and that can be annoying. I find that rates are a helpful, easy filter. We charge $80/day, so anyone who does not want to pay that much will not be reaching out, and I prefer it that way. I’m not here to negotiate my rates.
Yes, use a photo with your face. Do not use a stock photo of an animal. People hiring a house sitter will want to know who you are and see you. They will connect with you easier this way. All of the flyers where I’ve included pics of Nate & I have gotten much more engagement than when I use a stock photo. Take some selfies with pets and choose one where we can see your face & a cute pet with you.
A tagline helps you niche down. Let’s say you only want to do dogs - include that in your tagline again so it filters out people who are not a fit for your services. And, if you are like us, you only want to house sit, make that clear or else you’ll get inquiries for drop ins, walks, boarding, etc.
Where to Post?
Use Facebook groups to market your local services. Get into local FB groups where you want to sit and follow the group’s rules for self-promo days and be consistent.
More than half of my regular, repeat clients found me through my FB posts in their neighborhood groups. And the rest have been client referrals! I have done zero paid marketing and do not really market myself on instagram because I know my ideal clients are not there. FB has the advantage when it comes to local marketing on socials.
Need More Support on Your House Sitting Journey?
In my 70 page e-book, I share everything you need to know to get started with paid local house sitting—from finding your ideal clients and creating great marketing materials to confidently navigating meet-and-greets and delivering the kind of exceptional service that leaves clients wanting to hire you back! The e-book also has a helpful Resource section with handy checklists for your Meet & Greets, Sit Wrap Up and Intake Forms.
I also created an e-course to accompany the book for those of you who, like me, enjoy learning through video & audio content! The ebook gives you the roadmap, but the videos offer the hands-on experience and personal stories that will make everything click! There are 24 micro-modules so you can zip through them at your leisure.
Grab both for only $55 here!
You can also book a House Sitting Chat with me anytime (from that same page) - if you’ve been putting these things into practice, but want to tweek some things, have questions about invoicing, finances, tech, pet behaviors, etc - I am happy to connect 1:1 with you!
You can book a chat right here!
