Do I have my meet & greet / booking order of operations correct?

I Agree with Deb in that you should not mark yourself as unavailable until a job is actually booked. But you should also attempt to have your M&Gs as soon as possible, emphasizing to the potential customer that you may not be available to them.

Why set the meet and greet so far out? Chances are once they meet you they will either commit or decline then and there after they see how you work with their pets. I would set up meet and greets fairly soon after getting a request. If they're unsure because they're not sure if they'll leave or not and need the service, then you could always suggest drop-in sitting instead if applicable, that way you can still take on other clients and the pressure isn't so high on whether they book you or not. Also, unless these dogs would be a huge under taking, I wouldn't mark yourself unavailable.

Agree with both Karen and Deb, but want to make sure to emphasis Karen's point.

Even if your (potential) booking is weeks out, take care of the meet and greet as soon as possible. Follow up and book the request with the owners as early as possible.

That way you can be sure you are not wasting your time with someone who will flake at the last minute, while you are missing out on more reliable people. Plus the owners can be confident in knowing that they're locking in your services to care for their pups.

I agree you should try to have the M&G and finalize the booking as soon as you can, even if the stay is weeks away. As for how to handle competing requests for the same time frame, I don't immediately decline new requests unless I'm sure I am booked. Instead, I'll send a message letting the new client know that I have a pending request for that time period, but that I will follow up with them on X day. Some clients will move on to other options, but if they are really interested in booking with me, they may wait.

I'd recommend you do not mark unavailable prior to a booking. Rover encourages people to set up meet & greets with a few sitters and then choose the best match.

Also, it seems that your position in search results would suffer from declining often due to "availability" when really you do not know if business will get booked or not. https://support.rover.com/hc/en-us/ar...