If you had told me that I would be leaving my successful twenty year career in hospitality so that I could work with dogs I would have thought you were kidding.
But that’s just what happened.
And I was honored to be able to share my story with Melissa Marie of Proud Dog Mom on an interview for Pet Entrepreneur.
We chatted about how life was before social – and how I’d have to travel to conferences to meet the people that would help me fill the resorts with guests.
And I shared how we would start the vacation planning process by imagining the person sitting at their desk looking at their vacation balance for the year.
I had a lot of fun being part of that process and I worked my way up until at the peak of my Sales and Marketing career I was overseeing 26 different resorts all the way from resorts in Thailand to Mexico to Park City.
Eventually I became the right hand woman to the owner of the company and was offered the job as VP Operations – which in essence meant I was responsible not only for sales and marketing but running the resorts as well.
I gladly accepted, and started to oversee the resorts in full. The owner at that time started another management company and I became responsible for the ski resorts in Park City.
Now when you work in hospitality you work when people travel. I still remember that fateful day July 4, 2014. It was a bluebird day and it was 2pm. I had a few hours to myself. All the guests had checked out and we were waiting for the next round of guests to start to arrive and check in at 4pm.
I thought I’d go for a run. I was training for a half marathon at the time. About halfway through I got a call from my boyfriend.
He was celebrating the holiday on a rented sailboat with my dog and our friends in San Diego.
And all of a sudden, in the middle of that field between the 5 miles from resort I was overseeing … I felt alone.
And I felt homesick.
And right then and there I decided I wanted a change.
It took me another 8 months to plan my exit. I had to give my notice, find a replacement, train her and then start to work for myself.
Luckily for me I had contacts and picked up three resorts as my clients immediately.
But I only had about two hours of work so I started to play around on social media. Maggie was a puppy at the time and I would take photos of her and share it with a handful of Instagram friends.
As her account started to grow I started to get the attention of pet brands who asked me to help them with their own social media strategy.
Now I’m fortunate to say that I do this full time.
I’ve always been one to follow my dreams and I encourage you to do the same!
I share the full story on the podcast. Click on Pet Entrepreneur to hear the full episode. I hope you give it a listen and feel free to ask me any questions below.
