New Pet Business Startup based in Sheffield - Feedback and Advice

Hi everyone,

I'm Jim and I have recently started my own business, called Leaders Pet Products. We produce and sell exciting pet products that aim to make your life as a pet owner easier, and it would be great if anyone had any feedback or advice as we look to grow and improve our brand.

I'll just give a quick background as to how the business came to be and what we hope to achieve in the future. I've lived in Sheffield all of my life, except for three years when I attended Loughborough University. It was during these three years while back home in Sheffield for the summer holidays that I had an idea while walking my Dog (A Border Collie named Fin) with my family.

We stopped off at the Norfolk Arms at the top of Ringinglow Road for lunch and we decided to sit outside in the beer garden. However, we had to tie Fin's lead around the table leg, which meant we had to take his lead off at the collar, before wrapping it round the table leg and through the handle of the lead, before securing it back onto the collar. In doing this I had to let go of Fin as it was very fiddly, which resulted in him deciding to wander off around the beer garden saying hello to everyone!

It then got me thinking as to why there wasn't a well known lead that could allow you to easily secure your Dog to something or to yourself, without having to take them off the lead. A lead that could do this to me seemed not only more convenient, but also safer for your Dog as they would be less likely to come loose from your control if you were to secure them anywhere!

I then took my ideas as to how to solve this problem to the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce and they then helped me to develop a business plan through workshops and tutoring, which allowed me to launch the business in November.

Since the launch we have had some great days of selling at local Christmas Fayres such as Whirlow Farm and High Storrs and we are currently in the process of developing our website. However, in the mean time it would be brilliant if you could have a look at, as well as like and share, our Facebook page (w w w.facebook. com/leaderspets) and provide a bit of feedback as to how we could improve. Whether that be through suggestions as to how we could improve our branding and designs, or what sort of products you think that we should add to our current range. At the moment we only stock items for Dogs, however we are in the process of developing a range of items for Cats so hopefully they will be on the way soon!

We thank you in advanced for any ideas and thoughts that you may have to help us improve, and we appreciate you taking the time to help out a local Sheffield business.

Thanks again,

Jim at Leaders Pets

Leaders Facebook page: w w w.facebook. com/leaderspets

Good luck withyour new venture

I know that dilema well.

Good idea, and good luck

Good idea! I dog-walk for an elderly lady (she manages to take her pooch out for little strolls as well), and I've wondered about something like this - she has to hold her walking stick in one hand and the dog lead in the other. It means she can't carry a brolly when raining, and struggles when she has to do any poop-scooping and I wondered if there was something where she could attach the dog lead round her waist (for example) or to her walking stick ...

Hi Jessm,

Our leads are great for handsfree walking by attaching the handle around something like a belt loop.

If you don't happen to be wearing clothes that have a belt loop then people who have used our leads before have tied their old dog lead around their waist before attaching our lead to it to allow for handsfree walking!

Hope that helps,

Jim at Leaders Pets

I have scanned you thread, good luck to you. There are leads already available though, we have had them for thirteen years. Ours are very thick leather as we have German Shepherds. Our leads have clips on both ends so you can have a long 'normal lead' which clips on to the dogs collar or you can clip the other end so you can wear it diagonally across your body, the dog walks more to a heal position but has some freedom to move. I prefer to wear my lead like this all the time as I feel 'safe'. I can't accidentally let go of the lead if the dog pulls (which it might do if another dog was aggressive). It also allows for a relaxed walking position without the need to hold the lead.

Hi Leader,

I chatted to you at Whirlow Farm - hope you did well there. There are training leads which we use for our dogs. My partner likes being able to tie them round his waist. However, these leads do look really appealing and the handles look nice and comfy - something I'm not sure necessarily applies to the training lead. Good luck with everything

Hi Everyone!

Thanks a lot for all of your great feedback following my last post, it was great to hear so many different ideas and opinions relating to the Leaders brand.

I'm very excited to announce that we have just launched our new website, which can be found at www. leaderspets .co.uk. Here we have our exciting range of products, including our own innovative dog leads, available for purchase at affordable prices.

As a special thank you to all Sheffield Forum members we are offering a 10% discount on your first purchase, up until the 1st of February next year. Just enter the code SHEFF10 at checkout to receive this discount!

We thank you for your past input and we hope to make many of your happy customers in the future.

Thanks again,

Jim at Leaders Pets!

Website: www. leaderspets .co.uk

Facebook: www. facebook .com/leaderspets

Twitter: www. twitter .com/leaderspets

Threads merged.

Good luck with your new business!

I just wanted to point out that if you get rid of the spaces in your web address and make it a link you'll get more traffic, and better still, use key words as the link and it will help your SEO

All the best!

Hi Jim. I see you have a Twitter account. I think you could use this more effectively

Firstly you could build up a follower base of pet owners and tweet regularly about your products but also subjects of interest to the owners

Secondly you could use Twitter to find, for instance, dog owners (who tweet about their dogs) and send them direct messages about products for dogs.

I know a little about this as a friend of mine provides these services for businesses as it can be quite onerous in terms of the time needed to run an effective Twitter account. Happy to have a chat if you like

I can't see the whole post properly on my phone so I just wanted to ask if you do collars or is it just leads you specialise in? Ta x