The PNGP Sage - Chapter 2 - The Grand Opening!

   After another solid month of non-stop preparation and moving everyone into the house during March, by April 1, 2011, Pack n' Go Pets Exclusive was registered, insured and solidified and was able to finally celebrate its' Grand Opening! We had our first round of client paperwork finished, a completed website (compliments of James and his good friend, Chris), business cards and customized dog treats for marketing! That very first week of April after opening, we even had several new clients already boarding their dogs with us. What a thrilling, yet scary feeling to start ones own business and take on a new house.
    We began pouring through phone books, online directories and anywhere else we could find pet-friendly businesses and compiling a on-going list of places we would go drop off materials at, events we could attend and neighborhoods we could potential market in. We use an online website called EditGrid for a good chunk of our record keeping, as it is a wonderful tool to help keep things organized. It is a handy spreadsheet based program good for lists, charts and budget work. Anyhow, we compiled the start of this list and began to group the list (at the time) of 60 some odd pet related businesses we would visit, by location and picked a few days over the next few weeks driving to each one, introducing ourselves and asking if we could leave our marketing materials with them.
    I forgot to mention, we had also joined forces with my stepsister, Nicole and her baking company called, "Nicole's Cookie Jar" to help both of our companies market. To do this, we designed a homemade, healthy, but yummy dog bone shaped treat, pre-packaged in a cute plastic casing with a oaktag label sporting both our company's information and a list of ingredients. We had two sets of cookie packages - one had a single treat, these were to give out at events or to visiting clients, and the other had a package of 5 or so treats, meant to be given as a "Thank You" gift to stores that accepted our business materials. These we gave out during the above mentioned marketing. I can say, they were a huge hit! Thus began the marketing campaign for our newly born business.