Today we’d like to introduce you to Courtney Ceacal.
Hi Courtney , it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
After learning the hard way, the importance of removing a pet’s waste, I started Palmetto Scoopers on October 17th, 2014, to provide pet parents with a solution to keeping their yards waste-free, and through my experiences, educate other pet owners on why this is so important. I started Palmetto Scoopers 8 years ago after suddenly my family experienced the loss of our dog Tyger. My two youngest kids still remember to this day that late at night having to go to the emergency vet for them to hold his body for us to get his autopsy, it revealed that he passed due to eating his own waste, something common when pets are outdoors and become bored. With that information, I found there were not many local companies offering this service, so I took action and created a company that would help other families and pet owners keep their backyards clean and waste-free. I then started to do more research on pet waste removal businesses across the country and realized that I needed a website and had to begin doing some marketing of the business as we were completely unknown to our surrounding communities and businesses. I found a website designer who created my website for the business and then began working on Search Engine Optimization which I realized that I knew nothing about. I paid for several different SEO marketing and Digital Media Marketing courses to get familiar with how to get my business found on the internet. I then began listing my business on free websites to begin building my SEO base. By the end of 2015 I had only accumulated about 10 clients and was wondering if I had made the right decision to start this business as several of my associates assumed my business to be unwanted since they’d never heard of this kind of business before and some close family members as well. But I still pushed on as I was determined to make it work and came up with my motivational quote “This has to work, or this has to work! There is no other option.”
I continued to work on learning about SEO and SEM to build an online presence for the business. Getting clients to find my business still has proved to be very difficult and felt like all that I was doing was not working since I wanted to see success from my efforts immediately even though I didn’t. I began looking for opportunities to showcase my business at different local events that will have dog owners that may need my services. I found several events that I was able to attend that year. The first was a locally owned veterinarian office celebrating its 5th year in business and wanted to hire someone to pick up the dog’s poop during the event just in case some attendees didn’t or had an accident that they were unable to clean up. It was a great opportunity to showcase the business and we also gave away 1 month of service free in a raffle to one of the attendees. I continued to promote the business on social media platforms and whatever free websites I can use for backlinks to the business website to increase the online ranking for the business. Later this year, I was one of the sponsors of Bark to The Bark 2016, hosted by Pawmetto Lifeline, one of the largest dog rescue shelters in this area. I was able to give out my business material to almost 800 pet owners that year in my local community and enjoyed educating my community on the importance of removing dog waste from their yards while meeting their pups. I continue to work with this shelter and several others in the area to help bring awareness to the need of a good home for all pets no matter breed or age.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
On October 17th I started Poop Busters, 6 months later, I got a call from the Owner of the Franchise Poop Busters that I needed to pay them royalties for using the name or changing the business name. That was when I learned about trademarking your business. So, I quickly started brainstorming to come up with new names and settled on Palmetto Scoopers. As the year began, I was enjoying some of the success I have had as I felt like things were coming into place as I was acquiring clients at a consistent rate which showed me my new marketing tactics were working as I wanted to have the business seen everywhere. Then the pandemic happened, and my business slowed down on acquiring new clients as the world had begun to shut down as we all were unaware of how to deal with such a crisis in the world. During the months of March and April my business growth was very slow but none of my current clients had stopped using their services as they were still working just from home, which I enjoyed since several of our new clients that signed up the previous year I had never spoken with or met. I’m still dealing with staffing issues as well but has improved some since the pandemic.
Having to learn marketing to get my business noticed on Google and other platforms has been and is still quite difficult as most people don’t understand the significance of what we do as a business.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
This is important to me because at the time of Tyger’s passing, I had no idea how dangerous his pet waste was. I mean on average a single gram can contain about 23 million parasites or that despite common belief, dog waste can take up to a year or more to fully break down. So, when you know better, not only do you do better – but you help others do better as well. I started Palmetto Scoopers with the goal to help other pet owners never experience what my family experienced. Removing pet waste is important because it protects your pet, and other’s pets, from being exposed to harmful bacteria. The Environmental Protection Agency lists dog waste in the same category as toxic chemicals and oils. On our website, we list several misconceptions and statistics about the dangers of your cat or dog being exposed to waste to help educate pet owners on its importance.
As it’s getting warmer outside, we tend to let our pets run around in the backyard more often and so, it’s really important, now more than ever, to remember to pick up that waste so that they aren’t exposed to harmful chemicals. And so, for people, like many of my clients, who have busy work schedules, or are taking care of their kids – we are here to help keep their yards clean and their pets safe.
I’m proud of being able to create a substantial business to employee, pet lovers of my community while showing my kids that you can do whatever you work hard for without letting anything stop you. Despite the many obstacles, you will have to overcome in your journey as you go.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
While this was going on there were a lot of people starting to adopt dogs to help cope with staying inside their homes for extended periods of time, not knowing if this would ever change. By September, I had seen a large increase in new clients that were new pet owners as well and wanted to keep their yards poop-free and safe for their pets. I also began reaching out to other local pet business owners to see if we could collaborate to help bring awareness to their business and mine as well. I was able to make friends with several local pet care businesses as well as lawn companies. I found a Podcast that would allow me to speak on their platform called Pet Sitter Confessional and one other as well. I started to work on my story to home on the important parts of it and what were some key points I can make to help out other pet owners who are like myself. So, I started thinking what I can do to help increase the awareness of the business and where are my ideal clients at right now since they’re not working. Then I decided to create a calendar to sell and donate 100% of the proceeds to a local shelter of my choosing and in this calendar, I would share my story on how I started the business and why I started this business. I then decided that I would send one of my calendars to all of the local news stations in the area to see if they would like to do a story on the business. I also started to look for opportunities I might have missed to showcase my business as the world was slowly opening back up and people were looking for opportunities to get outside.
One last thing I would say I learned from the pandemic is that you do not want to overleverage yourself in business with taking on too much debt without having enough cash to pay it back 4x first before you take it.
Pricing:
- $100.00/monthly for up to 4 dogs includes disposal of waste off property 1 visit per week for 4 weeks
- $200.00/monthly for up to 4 dogs includes 8 visits per month includes disposal of waste off property
- $150.00 one-time cleaning
- Cat Litter Box cleaning $13.50 per litter box per visit
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.palmettoscoopers.com
- Instagram: @palmettoscoopers
- Facebook: @palmettoscoopers1
- Youtube: @palmettoscoopers
- Yelp: palmettoscoopers
