Franchise Supermarket spoke to The Cat Butler herself about her first year as a franchise

Sandra James, founder of the The Cat Butler franchise, explains how she came about to become a premier cat sitting service and her decisions on launching her own business - and then why she decided to turn it into a franchise. 

After being made redundant from a corporate career in financial services, I launched The Cat Butler in 2015 as a stress-free and feline-friendly alternative to a traditional cattery. We are a specialist service, caring for cats in their own homes when their owners are on holiday or travelling. 

The business went from strength to strength and quickly expanded in the South Hertfordshire area and we were soon getting requests for our Cat Butlers from across the country. We have an excellent reputation in the areas we service and hundreds of 5-star online reviews. Vets and animal charities also recommend us because of the premium service that we provide.

It was soon clear that there was a gap in the market for cat holiday care. Cat owners love our service because we take away the stress and hassle of putting kitty in the dreaded pet carrier and transporting (an often very disgruntled cat!) to the cattery. 

We also care for and keep an eye on the house while the client is away and offer a complimentary Home Care & Security Service. But most importantly, our feline customers are very happy as they get to stay in their own homes where they are happiest! It's a win-win for the cat and the owner!

At the beginning of 2020, I decided to franchise The Cat Butler across the UK - giving other cat-loving professionals the opportunity to run their own Cat Butler business and provide exceptional cat care in their local area.

Unfortunately then COVID happened in March 2020 and of course, travel was off the cards! The next few weeks were spent dealing with the hundreds of booking cancellations. It was very depressing. For the first time, things seemed very uncertain and I was unsure whether I would even have a business when we came out the other side of the pandemic. I started having doubts as to whether franchising was a good idea after all! I then bit the bullet and decided to spend the free time I had focussing on building The Cat Butler brand and developing the franchise model. My Franchise consultants, Julie and Mash from The Franchise Company helped me greatly during those months and lifted me when the doubt crept in.

We worked hard during the next few months in lockdown - there was so much to do - in a way, I was grateful for the free time! We launched a brand new website, promotional video and put everything in place to get the franchise off the ground. We also worked hard on our online visibility - our social media followers have increased more than tenfold to over 100,000!

Then the unthinkable happened after travel restrictions were eased - the phones didn't stop ringing - it was manic! Then it became clear why there was such a demand for our cat sitting services - the massive increase in new cats acquired during the pandemic; The Pet Food Manufacturers Association (PFMA) estimates that some 12.2 million homes across the UK are now ruled by a cat. That’s a 63% increase from 7.5 million cats the year before the pandemic! We are struggling to keep up with the demand for our Cat Butlers and have had to bring new Butlers on board to help care for all those new kitties!

The franchise launch was also a big success and we've been inundated with cat lovers wanting to run their own cat sitting business. In fact, we're just about to sign up our first franchisee!