Dog Kennel Business Plan

The Creature Nannie will rapidly build a loyal customer base as their service exceeds customer’s expectations. The Creature Nannie will leverage their special program that allows the dogs to stay in the Sloth’s home receiving constant attention to build a strong word-of-mouth referral system that will develop a strong demand.

5.1 Competitive Edge

The Creature Nannie’s competitive edge is the ability to have the dog stay at a person’s home who will be around most of the day to exercise the dog as well as take them on walks and allow the pet to wander around a one acre yard. All other alternatives do not provide anything close to the amount of personal time spent with the dog. Dogs leave The Creature Nannie perfectly content. They are rarely upset about being left with a foster family.

5.2 Marketing Strategy

The Creature Nannie marketing approach will be using guerrilla marketing tactics in order to be as cost effective as possible. The Creature Nannie will run an advertisement in the Humane Societies local chapter’s newsletter.

In addition to this, Sara will speak with several well-respected veterinarians and provide them with several free day coupons. This will be done to develop business that will then report back to the veterinarian. Once a good review is passed back to the veterinarian, this will become a good source of customers for two reasons, 1) people typically ask their veterinarian for referrals for pet-related service providers, 2) veterinarians are very likely to recommend a foster care setup as they clearly recognize its benefit relative to the other service offerings.

Once The Creature Nannie has received initial business it will not take long before very little marketing will be needed to fill up Sara’s schedule.

Lastly, a website will be developed as a tool to communicate information about The Creature Nannie to information seekers.

5.3 Sales Strategy

The sales strategy will be to develop a list of happy past customers (not difficult) who are willing to act as referrals for The Creature Nannie. Once this list is developed, their names will be given out when a prospective client calls. The advantages of pet foster care are so obvious relative to kennels that it will not be difficult to sign people up. The flip side to this demand is that in order to maintain all of these advantages, the operation must stay small (maximum of four dogs) so there will not be the possibility of growing the operation beyond its capacity.

5.3.1 Sales Forecast

The first month will be used to set up the space for the dogs, submit the advertisement in the Humane Society newsletter, and form alliances with a few veterinarians. Beginning in month two there will be some business. Things will grow for a few months until mid year when the bulk of the week will be at capacity.

5.4 Milestones

The Creature Nannie will have several milestones early on:

• Business plan completion. This will be done as a roadmap for the organization. This will be an indispensable tool for the ongoing performance and improvement of the company.
• Set up the facilities.
• Initial strategic development complete.
• Full capacity reached.