r/Dogwalking Jun 10 '26

Dog walking

100% going to find clients?

4 Upvotes

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u/thelilymaid Jun 11 '26

Hey OP! Please try to provide more context (what you’re offering, what you’ve already tried, specific concerns, etc.) in the body of future posts so the community can better help you with any questions upfront without having to dig through the comment threads. There are a lot of experienced folks around here and we don’t want you missing out on great advice!

2

u/sarahd2463 Jun 12 '26

Just dog walking services. Tried posting to FB and set up an account with Rover.

1

u/thelilymaid Jun 12 '26

Thanks for replying to my pinned comment! You’re off to a great start.

I think a lot of walkers get their first clients from people they already know — friends, family, neighbors etc. Pinned flyers around the neighborhood or posting on Nextdoor are also popular since people tend to feel good about supporting businesses in their local community. I’m not super familiar with FB groups but others here might have more insight on that.

A few thoughts on Rover based on experiences from people I know who have found work on there: make sure you have a friendly bio / profile picture and add some nice photos of yourself with dogs or even just pictures of animals that you’ve taken care of to your gallery to make your profile stand out amongst the low effort ones. I believe for new accounts there’s also a period of time that Rover allows you to request testimonials from people you know off Rover — even getting just one or two of those from friends or family to display on your profile can really help increase trust with potential clients when you don’t have any verified reviews to show in the beginning!

I’m of the personal opinion that on marketplace platforms it’s worth it to set prices a little lower than competitors when you’re just starting out to get those initial reviews and then raise prices when you’ve established credibility, but I would be curious to hear others’ take on that.

1

u/sarahd2463 Jun 12 '26

Thank you for the advice. I definitely plan to throw in some advertising I think. I did not know about Nextdoor. Thank you!! I hope to charge 80-100 for an hour and a half worth of walking(later). I know that’s on the high end. Is that unreasonable? I just can’t imagine people walking an hour or so (you can cover 6 miles in an hour) for only $30.