Balancing Profit and Social Responsibility with Julie Harrell

**SPEAKER_1** (0:04)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:18)
Welcome back to the show. I'm Stephen Sakach, joined by my co-host, Mike Liwski, and our special guest today. Before we start, a little bit of news. This morning, our AI Chief Marketing Officer, platform at aicmo.io won gold medal from the Merit Awards for marketing communications, technology and innovation. And I heard a few minutes ago we're also featured in Performance Marketing World's Top Tools of this week. So, fun way to kick off the day. If you are a small business or run a small marketing team, check it out at aicmo.io. We really want to help you market with purpose, and that gets us to the show today.
We're speaking with a leader who proves that even the most unexpected industries can create real impact, not just for the customers, but for their communities and teams. And we have a lot of franchises that have been around for many years, and we wanted to dive in with some that are in the early stages of the journey. And that's the case today. Mike, introduce our guest today.

**Mike Liwski** (1:20)
Oh, I'd absolutely love to, Stephen, looking forward to the conversation. So today, our special guest is Julie Harrell, the president of Cooper's Scoopers. It's a pet waste removal company with an unwavering focus on dignity, service, and making sure that they're social goods. So Julie has taken what some might see as a basic service and transformed it into really a mission-driven enterprise from employing and uplifting team members to upbuilding a business that people are proud of to be a part of. She's redefining what it means really to lead with heart, which we know we really love to talk about here on the show. So Julie, welcome to our show today.

**Julie Harrell** (2:12)
Thank you. Super excited to be here.

**Mike Liwski** (2:15)
We are super excited for this conversation. Maybe just to start us off on a lighter note, what inspired you to turn a scooping business into a platform that is making a social impact and benefiting communities?

**Julie Harrell** (2:36)
Yeah, so I actually took on this opportunity back in December. So the concept of Cooper's Scoopers was created last summer. And it was an incredible, very heartwarming story. So our founder was spending time with her grandparents, and they had a little fluffy dog, obviously providing them a lot of companionship in their older age. Maybe not going out as much, maybe not seeing people as often, but always having that wet nose to snuggle with. But also seeing the challenges when it comes to being able to have a clean, safe backyard for that pet, and also grandchildren come over to run around. So I saw a real need there for being able to enjoy that companionship without the dirty work that comes in it. So I was really excited to take on this opportunity back in December for Cooper's Scoopers as the president. Again, we may be in the pet waste business, but at our core, we're about dignity opportunities for our franchisees, and also making sure that we are creating a clean, safe environment for residential and commercial customers.

**Stephen Sakach** (3:51)
That wet-nose comment just reminded me how I woke up this morning. I had my little eight-pound Maltese, just jump on my chest and poke me. It's time to get up, time to go outside. Julie, many people underestimate industries like yours in a lot of ways, yet I think what's unique is you can find ways to touch people in very real, consistent ways. How has purpose shifted the perception of your business internally, externally?

**Julie Harrell** (4:24)
Yeah, so the biggest thing is making sure that we are sending in Cooper certified technicians for all of our customers. We want to make sure not only that the backyard is safe and clean, but we want to make sure that our customers know who's entering their backyard, know who is potentially, the biggest thing for us is making sure that we're going above and beyond in that service. They know who's coming, they know what services they're getting. Then our technicians go above and beyond on making sure that the gates close, that there's nothing in the backyard that's going to harm the pet. Really doing that with our branding, making sure that our technicians are fully branded as they're entering any property and sharing that story as well, the founder's story with all of our customers.

**Stephen Sakach** (5:16)
I just went on a trip and as I'm in the airport, I heard we had five rattlesnakes in our backyard.