From Banking to Whiskers | A Cat Sitter’s Ledger of Paws and People

✨ Hello, I’m Fran, Your NLP and Business Coach, bringing you one of the many ways a business can be started. In this episode, I’m interviewing Alex Booth, founder of The Cat Butler Bournemouth.

Alex delivers in-home cat care while owners are away, a passion she brings to life after a long career in banking.

With a deep love for cats and a steadfast commitment to quality, Alex offers a personalised, high-quality service tailored to each cat’s unique needs.

Beyond her business, Alex dedicates time to voluntary work with a pet charity and helps reunite lost pets with their owners.

You can connect to Alex in the following ways ⬇️
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61577623979595
https://www.thecatbutler.co.uk/

* As a coach, I listen without judgment, understanding that others views may differ from my own.

#nlpcoach #nlpcoaching #creativity #inspiration #transformation

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 0:30 The Cat Butler Story And Services
• 1:40 Microchips, Scan Angels, And Lost Pets
• 4:03 Reading Cat Behaviour And Earning Trust
• 8:43 Banking Skills That Power Pet Care
• 11:00 Property Checks And Client Communication
• 12:20 Visit Lengths, Routines, And Care Blocks
• 14:23 Roots, Values, And Nature-Driven Mindset
• 18:23 Redundancy To Franchise: Finding The Fit
• 21:06 Growth Plans, Charities, And Standards

Transcript

Fran: 0:00

Hello everyone, welcome to the Melancholy Coaching Podcast. I'm Fran, your host and NLP coach. Join me as I interview inspiring business owners and self-improvement seekers about their experiences whilst delving into personal development, motivation and strategies for overcoming challenges. Let's ignite our creative potential together. Hello and welcome to Melancholy Coaching Podcast. I'm Fran, your NLP and Business Coach, and I'm pleased to introduce an inspiring guest who owns the Cat Butler Bournemouth. Alex delivers in-home cat care while their owners are away, a service she offers after a long career in banking. With a love for cats and a commitment to care, Alex provides a personalised high-quality service tailored to your unique cat's needs and your cat's unique needs as well. All the uniques in there. Alex also does voluntary work with a pet charity and helps to reunite lost pets with their owners as well. So Alex, welcome to the show.

Alex: 1:11

Oh, thank you very much, Fran.

Fran: 1:12

Lovely to be here. It's all all about the animals today. Fabulous. It's always all about the animals in my life. We're going to mainly talk about the the cat butler because I'm fascinated with that. But the the work you do with the scanning for the microchips and stuff like that to reunite lost pets, is that kind of dogs as well? Or it's not wouldn't just be cats, would it?

Alex: 1:37

So I registered with scan angels. So when I first started the cat butler, actually part of being a part of the the cat butler team is to do some charity work. And I've always done loads of charity work, even when I was working at the bank, and I looked into what I could do and came up with the idea of the scan angels. So that's a group of people across the country that have microchip scanners, and we register on a website called Microchips Central. And then if somebody finds a cat or a dog or a horse or a tortoise or anything that's got a microchip, they can go and look onto the Microchip Central website and they can find their closest person with a microchip scanner and contact them. And then either they can bring the animal to you if they can, or quite often I tend to go out to people and scan the microchip and then help them to contact the microchip companies and just reunite the owners. So it's very much a communication piece, chatting through how the process works, reassuring people. And then, for example, if a cat or a dog doesn't have a microchip, it's also about talking about the next steps. So is that then contacting a rescue to support? Do we need to get that animal to a vet? If it doesn't seem to be in particularly good health, what are the next steps moving forward to just do the best thing for that animal that's maybe lost? You're a pet superhero. That's what I think.

Fran: 3:17

Oh dear. Right. I kind of threw that one in there because I was just curious about that. The way that this works is I've got a couple of pre-planned questions for you, and we'll have a little chat around that if that's okay with you. Because I like to have a go at being organized anyway. So I know that you're a bit of a nature geek. We've actually met in person, haven't we? So you know for transparency, we actually met at a local networking group for that's right, yes. And met in person. So I know already that you're a bit of a nature geek and a warm water scuba diver.

Alex: 3:50

Yes, I'm far too wimpy to be a cold water scuba diver.

Fran: 3:55

Thinking about those the passions that you've got there, how does say these passions influence the way that you run the cat butler in Bournemouth?

Alex: 4:04

I think just that level of sort of caring for the animals and being able to interpret, you know, whether an animal is happy, uncomfortable, and actually how to win that animal over, to be perfectly honest with you. So you'll get some cats that are really outgoing and really nosy and will accept you straight away, and other ones that that won't, they'll hide under the bed, they'll run away from you, and and they don't really want to interact. And it's how to turn that around. You know, for for a cat, for example, they're in their own home, so they're full of, they're surrounded by their own smells and things that they're used to, but then they've got this person wandering into the house. They're like, Who are you and what are you doing here? So, quite often in those sorts of situations, I'll just very quietly sit on the floor, maybe have some treats or a cuddly blanket, or just a gentle chat away to them, just to see if they'll come out. And quite often what will happen is they'll come and have a little look, and they'll come and see what I'm all about, and eventually they'll work out that I'm the food lady as well. And that's that's often a big turning point when they realise I'm the food lady and they'll be like, Oh, okay, yeah, you're all right. I try to that would work on me. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It generally works on me as well.

Fran: 5:32

Right. So the these passions of yours, so the scuba diving. Yeah, okay, we'll leave that aside for now because you've already kind of said it's warm water, and you know, possibly that's just an escape for yourself. But the being a nature geek and a nature lover, I should imagine that that pays forward a lot for running the cat butler bournoth because you've got that curiosity about nature and you know, where where are the squirrels kind of thing? And cats tend to hide, don't they? They tend to be they take a little while to warm up sometimes, don't they?

Alex: 6:02

Yeah, some of them really do. Yeah, some of them really do take a little time to warm up. And you know, I still have a couple of clients that that will hide under the bed, but then they'll hide under the bed for their owners as well. So you sometimes just have to accept that that's the case. I've got one client who one of hers is he hides under the bed all the time. And I sort of, she had cameras throughout the house, and I was very much like, if I hear giggling through the cameras, because I'm laying on my belly talking to Reggie under the bed, then we're we're gonna fall out. And she was like, I promise I won't laugh. But it's that sort of having the ability to just accept that actually sometimes they're not going to be the cuddly, playful, warm cats that that sometimes you do get, that that's their nature, and it's actually working to make sure that you understand that and that you don't push them too far and make them uncomfortable. So it's very much the cat's environment doing what they need you to do. And it might just be okay, accept that that this cat is going to be under the bed most of the time, but I'll chat away, I'll pop the food down, maybe even have a little sing sometimes. If there's sometimes customers leave the radio on, so I'll have a little sing round if the radio's on. And just it's just that presence sometimes that they need to go, okay. Well, I can I'm fairly safe, I'm at home, I can come out, I can eat my food, I can drink my water, you know, I'm I'm comfortable, but I'm still not going to come out and sit on your lap.

Fran: 7:33

Yeah, but there's no immediate threat of danger, so I'll I'll creep out. Yeah, absolutely. This leads nicely on to my next question, by the way. Okay. So after a long career in banking, yeah, which you had, what skill sets do you think you were able to transfer to the cat butler?

Alex: 7:53

I think the main thing is that calm in any situation. So working in banking is obviously I was very customer-facing. So as a bank manager, my favourite bit was being out in the banking hall, chatting to customers. I'm a bit of a problem solver. So, you know, anything strange or untoward or just needed fixing, I quite relish being a bit of a fixer. And so that that all ties in beautifully with the cat butler. So I spend my time talking to people on the phone when they first inquire, and just finding out that level of information that I need to make sure I can do a great sit and make sure their cat's really comfortable. And also for the owner to have trust in me, because it's their most precious thing that I'm looking after for either a couple of days or a week or two weeks. And they need to trust that the person that they're letting into their house as well and giving keys to is fully trustworthy, capable to deal in a situation if something does happen. So I don't know, if the pipes burst, we're getting into winter, you know, what is that person going to do in that situation? Which is the difference between somebody that might just pop in and pop some food down. I'm actually checking the properties as well to make sure that everything is safe and secure. And if anything does happen, I've also got the information to turn the stopcock off. I've got all the details of where the fuse boards are and things like that. So I can at least make the property safe and try and minimize any any damage if something horrible does happen.

Fran: 9:33

Yeah, Nasi. I'm I'm pleased that you mentioned that actually, because initially people or potential clients may not be aware that it isn't just, even though their companion animals are obviously the most important, it isn't just that. You actually can check on the property as well, can't you?

Alex: 9:52

Absolutely. So part of my process when I start a sit and when I end a sit is I'll do a video of the whole property and I'll send it to them via WhatsApp and say, look, this is your property, this is how it's looking as I've arrived today. Just check and make sure everything looks like it's in the right place, nothing's been disturbed, nothing's happened, and nothing's unusual. If it is, let me know and I'll check it and see what's happened. And I do the same when I leave so they can see that the house is still standing, nothing has happened and it's all left neat and tidy. And like I say, if anything does happen, I'm in contact with my clients all of the time. So I can let them know. And I also make sure I have an emergency contact on there as well, so that if anything does happen, I can at least contact somebody else to go, look, this has happened, I've made it safe, but maybe we need to organize getting a plumber out or whatever it might be to kind of fix the problem.

Fran: 10:49

So yes, you can actually work with clients to you know maintain the best environment possible for their companion animal while they're not actually in the property.

Alex: 10:58

That's right, yeah.

Fran: 10:59

So that's just piqued another bit of curiosity. And I believe I did ask you this in person when we when we spoke, because we did have a little conversation about this. To my memory, yeah, you don't sleep over, do you, at clients' houses? So you're you're you go in and do blocks of time.

Alex: 11:18

That's right, yes. So I do visits in the house. So a client can request one visit a day, two visits a day, three visits a day if they want, and I do a minimum of 30 minutes. However, I'm quite easily distracted, especially if a cat is quite cuddly out or playful or wants some attention. And quite frequently I'm there for probably 40, 45 minutes. So yeah, it's a good block of time that I spend there, and that gives me the time to make sure everything's done. The cat gets some good interaction, good playtime, good cuddle time, whatever they need, and I can make sure that the property's all okay and safe and secure.

Fran: 11:59

Yeah, so I'm gonna throw something at you here. Okay. I'm gonna throw something at you. So we've got to know you a little bit as a charity worker. You know, nature geek. Yeah. Um the scuba diving. I'm gonna have a conversation with you about that another time because I know nothing about it. However, all the listeners today, what else would you tell us that will get to know you? Like how else can we get to know you?

Alex: 12:30

So I think most of me stems from my parents. My dad was a lovely man, very tall, very large like me, a photographer, keen photographer. So if you go to Highcliffe Castle, a lot of the photographs of the rebuilding of that of the castle were actually from my dad because he was quite curious. And when they were doing, they started the work, he went up to the stonemasons and just sort of said, Can I start taking some pictures? And they said yes. And yeah, he got all very involved in that. He was a volunteer there, and he was also the person that looked after everybody's dogs. So whenever anybody went away, we ended up with loads of dogs in our house. He didn't do it as a business, he just did it purely because he loved dogs. But he also was a nature geek. And I remember, you know, from a really early age, we'd be walking in the woods, he would have his camera, I would have my camera because I did take pictures when I was quite young, and we'd be out photographing nature, and I was always knee-high in mud, lovely, and looking for butterflies and bugs and bees and all of those sorts of things. So he really influenced me on my love of nature and and my probably my curiosity when it comes to those sorts of things. So, but also my mum was she was a referee for for Dorset tennis. My brothers are both tennis coaches, so we're quite a sporty family as well. I was a bit of the black sheep because I gave up tennis and I took up badminton. So I used to play county-level badminton, so we were quite sporty, we were quite nature-y, and my mum would organise everybody. She would organise tournaments, she worked as a receptionist in the dental surgery, so she was very much an organizer. And I've kind of got the best bits from both of them, I'd like to say. So I'm quite good at uh organising, and I'm quite calm, which was very much my my dad. He was always very calm and he just like gets stuff sorted for you.

Fran: 14:40

Sounds as though that's like um, because you've grown up with this lovely belief system and set of values that have been paid forward by your parents. That's lovely. There was lovely nurture there by the very much so. Yeah, I like that very much. And then that's able to kind of pay forward for your life, really, isn't it? And you're still involved in that nature and in the the love of animals and stuff like that as well.

Alex: 15:04

Yeah, very much so. And it's always been, I suppose, part of the plan, really. I don't really ever have a plan. Planning is not my forte. I'm very much a fly by the seat of my pants, and I used to always get told off for it in the bank because they'd like a plan and I never have one, but it would always work, so I'd be okay. And this is this is how the cat butler came around. I I took redundancy and I said, I'll have six months off and I'll think about what I want to do. And some form of pet sitting was always there in the background, but I wasn't sure how to start it. And then I got to about Christmas and I was like, okay, I've had my six months now. I probably ought to start looking at doing something proper now. So I was looking at all the corporate jobs and I was like, it's not really nothing's really grabbing me as to what I want to do. And then up on Facebook popped the cat butler. And I was like, Yeah, you're calling. Yeah. So I thought initially I went, Oh, it's just a scam, it'll be something silly, but I'll fill in the form and and send it off. So that's what I did. And literally within an hour, Sandra, who owns the Cat Butler franchise, she phoned me up and we had a really good chat. And I was like, Oh, this is proper. Okay. Yeah. So we went on to the next stage and they sorted out all the bits and pieces that they needed to sort out. Spoke to her again, and I was like, Yeah, no, I think this is what I want to do. And it took, it probably took six months because they're also really passionate about cats and making sure that they have the right people in the right place and that it's going to work. So it took a long time, but it's absolutely where I wanted to be. And it like you say, it fell in my lap and it was the right thing at the right time. And yeah, here I am. So that leads me beautifully on to what's next for you. So I think next is I'm growing the business. And that's really my focus to make sure that I have a reputation within the Bournemouth area of being the cat lady. I want to do a little bit more work with some further charities. So there's another charity in pool called Wastes and Strays, which is a cat rescue. So I want to get a little bit more involved with them and do more work and raise more awareness for them because they do some great work. They do re-homing, they do direct homing, and they also get involved with things like the trap Newton release for feral cats and things like that, to kind of try and put a stop on the increasing numbers of stray cats. Yeah, it's a good idea. So that's kind of my next step on that side of things. And hopefully, as the business grows, I'll look to employ one or two more butlers within the Bournemouth area.

Fran: 18:02

Oh, wow.

Alex: 18:03

Um, and start to just increase my ability to look after more and more cats and train them up to the level that I've been trained, so that there's a real consistency in the level of care, so that people don't have to worry that if they don't have me, they have my proteges, then they'll still get that that same level of care.

Fran: 18:24

Yeah. There's a lot of integrity involved in it as well, isn't there? Very much so. Yeah, and trust.

Alex: 18:31

Yeah, and and and welfare for the cats as well. You know, we we absolutely have the ability to decline sits if we want to. If we're not comfortable or we're not happy, we can do that as well. And and I've not had to do that yet, fortunately. And all my clients are lovely, and I've got some lovely cats and people that I work with. So it's it's really good. I've been really lucky.

Fran: 18:54

All right. So thank you, Alex, for sharing your journey and your passion for pets. Include all pets, not just the cats. Yeah, absolutely. Those of you interested in learning more about Alex, the cat butler. Alex covers the Dorset areas. So we're based in the UK for any overseas listeners. So Alex covers the Dorset area of Christchurch, Bournemouth, and uh Verndown, and then Ringwood, which is just on the edge of Hampshire, isn't it? It's just on the border there.

Alex: 19:26

Okay.

Fran: 19:27

That's not to say that anybody out of those areas can't come and find your page and support you and you know, enjoy your content. So you can find Alex as the Cat Butler Bournemouth on Facebook. Is there any other social media platform that you're planning to use, or is it just Facebook that you're concentrating on? It's just Facebook at the moment. Okay. So this is a business page, isn't it? Yes. So it's it's literally the Cat Butler Bournemouth, and then you'll find Alex. So as Alex has mentioned, it's actually a franchise. So to find a cat butler near you, which again, I presume they're UK based, are they? They're just they are. Okay. So it's www.thecatbutler.co.uk. And by going on there, you can find a cat butler in your local area. What other kind of information is on there? Can they they can they find you from the website?

Alex: 20:23

They can find me from the website if they put in a sort of postcode, but there's also lots of information. There's lots of cat care articles on there. You know, we're coming up to Christmas, so there's care articles about how to keep your cat safe at Christmas. We do lots of things on fireworks, how to choose a cat sitter, when you're getting a kitten, how to care for them, indoor cats, outdoor cats. There's all sorts of information on the website. And there's also a search page. So if you're not from Bournemouth but you want to find a cat butler, then you can pop in your postcode and it will take you to the page of your local cat butler.

Fran: 21:01

Amazing. Thank you so much. Just giving that bit of added information there. So for anyone interested in more content like this, I'm trying trying to focus because I'm thinking about fluffy cats. So I'm like, just focus. If you're interested in more content like this, be sure to visit www.melancolymentor.com and follow us for the latest updates. So that's me. Um, and until next time, stay curious and keep igniting your creative potential. And do go and find the Cat Butler Bournemouth on Facebook. And equally, you can go to the Cat Butler website and just search for one in your area. Okay, so thank you for joining me today. Thank you. I'm so distracted, seriously, by it. Like they're just the moment you said like like fluffy kittens and stuff like that, you know, like my imaginations were on wild now. So nice. Yeah, thank you very so much, Alex, for joining me today. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you for joining me on the Melancholy Coaching Podcast. I'd love you to subscribe for queries or to connect, email info at melancholymentor.com. Until next time, keep igniting your creative potential.