I had already spent some time setting up a website myself as I didn’t have a budget for advertising and website development, but I knew it would take a long time for it to move up the rankings and have any hope of being seen by people using search engines to find dog boarding. Therefore, I had absolutely no idea of how long it would take before I received my first paying guest. Because of this I decided to carry on working as a carer and fit my hours around any customers I might receive in the meantime. My job as a carer was on a zero hours contract basis and very flexible so there would be no problem getting time off if and when I finally got a doggy customer. Eventually, if my dog boarding business got busier I aimed to gradually reduce my carer hours until I finally gave up the job completely.
A few weeks after receiving my licence from Peterborough City Council I got a call out of the blue from my dog boarding contact. She said she had had enquiries from a couple of people that she was unable to accommodate and had passed my details on to them so they might be calling me to arrange dog boarding. This was very exciting news! I waited and hoped against hope that I would indeed be contacted by these prospective customers and that I could at last get my business started for real.
Not long after I was delighted to receive calls from both sets of people who had been given my number and we set up appointments for "Meet and Greet" sessions where they could come over with their dogs to meet me, have a look round and see for themselves whether I would be able to offer them the kind of service they were looking for.