Ready to start your dog training business but feeling overwhelmed? Fear not, because today, we're joined by industry veteran and author Veronica Boutelle. Together, we're walking you through the journey of launching your own venture or enhancing your current business, from defining clear goals and vision to striking a balance between work and life.
We're not just training dogs here; we're teaching trainers to take the reins of their business, ensuring they not only love their work but the life they're building around it. So, listen in, and get ready to take notes - this episode is packed with insights to help you launch and grow your dog training business.
The Aggression in Dogs Conference
The Aggression in Dogs Master Course and Expert Webinar Bundle --- LIMITED TIME SPECIAL OFFER
The Bitey End of the Dog Bonus Episodes
About Veronica:
Veronica and her team have been helping R+ dog trainers create their dream businesses since 2003.
Veronica is the author of How to Run a Dog Business and writes for multiple industry journals, including regular business columns in PPG’s Barks from the Guild, APDT’s Chronicle of the Dog, as well as APDT Australia’s Clicks and the APDT New Zealand member newsletter. She is a sought-after speaker at conferences and dog training schools across the country and internationally, teaching R+ dog trainers how to help more dogs while better enjoying their businesses in countries ranging from North America to South America, Europe to Down Under. She is also a Clicker Expo faculty member.
Veronica combines her experience as a professional dog trainer and business owner with her former career as a classroom teacher, teacher educator, and curriculum developer to create unique and effective programs and products to help dog trainers start, grow, and enjoy successful businesses.
Fun Fact: Veronica grows much of her own food and is rarely seen at home without dirt under her fingernails. She’s also a compulsive weed puller. See weed, must pull.
www.dogbizsuccess.com
www.dogbizsuccess.com/thrive
facebook: dogbizsuccess
instagram: dogbiz_success
Ready to start your dog training business but feeling overwhelmed? Fear not, because today, we're joined by industry veteran and author Veronica Boutelle. Together, we're walking you through the journey of launching your own venture or enhancing your current business, from defining clear goals and vision to striking a balance between work and life.
We're not just training dogs here; we're teaching trainers to take the reins of their business, ensuring they not only love their work but the life they're building around it. So, listen in, and get ready to take notes - this episode is packed with insights to help you launch and grow your dog training business.
The Aggression in Dogs Conference
The Aggression in Dogs Master Course and Expert Webinar Bundle --- LIMITED TIME SPECIAL OFFER
The Bitey End of the Dog Bonus Episodes
About Veronica:
Veronica and her team have been helping R+ dog trainers create their dream businesses since 2003.
Veronica is the author of How to Run a Dog Business and writes for multiple industry journals, including regular business columns in PPG’s Barks from the Guild, APDT’s Chronicle of the Dog, as well as APDT Australia’s Clicks and the APDT New Zealand member newsletter. She is a sought-after speaker at conferences and dog training schools across the country and internationally, teaching R+ dog trainers how to help more dogs while better enjoying their businesses in countries ranging from North America to South America, Europe to Down Under. She is also a Clicker Expo faculty member.
Veronica combines her experience as a professional dog trainer and business owner with her former career as a classroom teacher, teacher educator, and curriculum developer to create unique and effective programs and products to help dog trainers start, grow, and enjoy successful businesses.
Fun Fact: Veronica grows much of her own food and is rarely seen at home without dirt under her fingernails. She’s also a compulsive weed puller. See weed, must pull.
www.dogbizsuccess.com
www.dogbizsuccess.com/thrive
facebook: dogbizsuccess
instagram: dogbiz_success
This episode is for all the dog pros out there. Whether you're just starting out and training with your business or run a flourishing multi-location enterprise offering everything from training to daycare to veterinary services, this episode is for you. Veronica and I dive into many of the common issues we can face as entrepreneurs and how we can solve those business speed bumps. Veronica and her team have been helping positive reinforcement dog trainers create their dream businesses since 2003. She's the author of How to Run a Dog Business and writes for multiple industry journals, including regular business columns and PPGs Barks from the Guild, apdt's Chronicle of the Dog, as well as APDT Australia's Clicks and the APDT New Zealand member newsletter. She's a sought after speaker at conferences and dog training schools across the country and internationally teaching positive reinforcement dog trainers how to help more dogs while better enjoying their businesses in countries ranging from North America to South America and Europe to Down Under. She's also a clicker expo faculty member. Veronica combines her experience as a professional dog trainer and business owner with her former career as a classroom teacher, teacher educator and curriculum developer to create unique and effective programs and products to help dog trainers start, grow and enjoy successful businesses. And if you are enjoying the bitey end of the dog. You can support the podcast by going to aggressivedogcom, where there area variety of resources to learn more about helping dogs with aggression issues, including the upcoming Aggression and Dogs conference happening from September 29th through October 1st 2023, in Chicago, illinois, with both in-person and online options. You can also learn more about the Aggression and Dogs Master course, which is the most comprehensive course available anywhere in the world for learning how to work with and help dogs with aggression issues.
Speaker 1:Hey guys, welcome back to the Bitey End of the Dog. This week I have another very special guest with me, somebody I've known for a long time, and you guys know I like to tell a personal story about how I meet my guests. So this is going way back before I even had any kind of major business at all and I needed help growing my business or exploring different options. So I reached out to these guys, veronica and Gina. The business even then was called something differently. I'll let Veronica dive into that. So, so helpful. I did a consult with Gina and she helped steer me into certain directions of things I was thinking about. I was thinking about opening like a big facility and Gina helped me realize that some of the aspects of what I was thinking about were probably not the best idea, and I'm so glad I did that, because life would be so much different now if I had taken that direction. So really excited, veronica. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it's so fun to be here, mike.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so you used to be called dog tech. Right now, it's now.
Speaker 2:It did right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've changed the name. So I would first love the listeners to know about how you got started in that aspect of things, because you know about the training stuff. You're a very, very experienced trainer, knowledgeable, have a lot of background in that but then you got into the business side of things. So what is that about and how did you get into that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that happened 20 years ago. We're in our 20th anniversary year this year. Yeah, and Gina and I were working at the San Francisco SPCA. Back then I was the director of behavior and training and Gina was our rehab coordinator and was also one of the instructors in the original Academy for Dog Trainers with Jean Donson, and we were both Academy grads ourselves too, and the Academy was part of the BNT department, and we basically watched for three years while cadre after cadre of amazing trainers graduated from that program really skilled, talented people And then we watched as they went out into the world and fell on their faces, ended up having to go back and take jobs that they didn't like, or add part-time jobs to try to keep the roof over their heads and the food on their table, and I kept thinking that all three years somebody should do something about this.
Speaker 2:Somebody needs to step in and teach people how to run the business side of dog training. That idea kicked around in my head for a few years, and then, when my time at the SPCA came to an end and I was sort of looking around thinking what was I going to do next? And it suddenly hit me that that's what I should do next, and so we did. So we decided to launch that business And in the beginning, honestly, we thought, well, we'll just help people who are coming out of the Academy there in the San Francisco Bay area And, if I'm really honest, i don't think I realized that I was going to spend the next 20 years of my life helping positive reinforcement dog trainers all over the world learn the business side of things, and it's been an incredible pleasure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what an amazing journey. I mean and I was joking this I didn't plan for it this season, but for whatever reason, i've had quite a few grads or people that were involved in the SFSBCA And it's always referred to it.
Speaker 1:It is like the Silicon Valley of dog training, at least in the United States like so many talented people have come out of the Academy or that just that general area too. It's like pushing out talent for the last 20 years. You know, i had Janice Bradley on for another episode of this podcast and it's just just amazing how much so it must have been really cool to come up during that time. But you also found, like you know, a niche spot in the space where it was sorely needed. As you were saying, there's like, even to this day, there just isn't a lot of education for us trainers on the business side of things, right? So in that regard, what would you say is the some of the top things that trainers are struggling with? So you mentioned things like people going out in the real world. Back then they had a very difficult time selling anything, probably, and so what do you think it is now Like? what are the top things you're seeing people coming to you for?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's interesting. In some ways things haven't changed. The big difference that I see between 20 years ago and now is that, you know, gina and I spent a lot of our time back then just trying to convince people that it was actually possible to make a real full time living doing this. There was the sort of pervasive belief that you could only be a dog trainer if you had a significant other at home bringing money in from someplace else or you were just going to do it as a hobby thing on nights and weekends, and I think that that kind of pervasive myth is largely dispelled these days. But the kinds of things that people struggle with outside that, i think, are largely the same that most of us come into this work from a place of altruism rather than entrepreneurialism.
Speaker 2:I don't know a lot of positive reinforcement dog trainers who grew up thinking I'm going to own a business one day And then that business ended up being dog training.
Speaker 2:It's usually, you know, someday I want to make my living with dogs, and then you give yourself the gift of that, of following that passion, and then you look around and realize, wow, right, if I'm, if I'm going to do this full time, i'm probably going to have to start a business because it's not like there are jobs all over the place for dog trainers, and so I think so many of us come into the business part of it just out of necessity, not out of a driving passion and desire for that side.
Speaker 2:So you go in and you you learn the whole bit about working with dogs And then you also realize, oh yeah, there's this whole learning curve about working with people And then on top of all of that we have to master this business skill set And I think some of the things like marketing and rate setting and selling those kinds of topics are really really anxiety inducing for positive reinforcement dog trainers And that's been the case, you know, the last 20 years.
Speaker 2:It's been the case everywhere in the world that we've worked, that those things are just really stressful. And then I think you add on top of that the general sense of isolation that so many dog trainers feel. And you know how do you go after such a steep learning curve by yourself, without any kind of support around, and I think it just it creates for a lot of burnout and disappointment And the biggest edification in what we do is keeping really, really amazing, talented, passionate trainers in the game, long enough to learn the business skills and get as good at that as they are at training, so that they can go and do what they're really meant to do in the world.
Speaker 1:And I love that you're focusing on that right now and how you're describing it because it is you're helping so many people and also the industry, right. So the positive reinforcement training community. It's just amazing that how much it's impactful just because you know, when you step aside from the dogs and what we do with dogs and helping the people, you got to help the trainers too and making a living. And you know, i was thinking you had mentioned, like the entrepreneurial side and I was going to ask you, you know, do you find that it's far and few between like the having that entrepreneurial sort of I guess in air quotes here spirit or you know that it is rare to see.
Speaker 1:You know, in my experience it's like something that somebody starts with first and like, oh yeah, that's right, i'm also going to do dogs. It's always I'm going to do dogs and oh wait, i have to be an entrepreneur. Do you think there's like this guilt factor or like what is it that's holding sometimes people back, like they don't want to offend anybody by charging, like just slightly more? you know, and it's interesting dynamic, i see. Do you see the same thing where it's almost like this guilt of like actually making money at this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we do. And I think I think because most of us get into this work from that altruistic side, from that incredible desire to save dogs lives and improve dogs lives, we have a mindset, we come at it as a helping profession, right. And so I think that that does come with this, this heady, intense kind of sense of, as you say, of guilt, of somehow it's somehow inappropriate to charge, and especially to charge, professional rates for this work we're doing, because we've come into it from this position of passion of helping. I think for me, one of the big ways of getting around that is helping people to see that when they charge a professional fee for the work they do, they end up helping more. They help more for a number of reasons, not least of which because they're more likely to stay in the game longer and have more opportunity over the years to help more people, but also, too, because people really do value what they pay for.
Speaker 2:And we've all had that experience of.
Speaker 2:I don't know a positive reinforcement dog trainer who hasn't at least once made the mistake of giving advice away for free and then experiencing that really intense frustration of people not following through on that advice.
Speaker 2:And you know, a lot of times when people ask a dog trainer for help, they there's a sense up front that it's going to be easier than it is, and then they learn what's actually involved in changing dog behavior and in changing their own behavior to support that change in dog behavior, and it's really easy to rationalize.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, i don't really have the time now, i'll do that later when you haven't paid for that advice. And so I think you know, both in terms of having a stronger impact on the people you're sharing your knowledge and skills with, and also being able to stay in the game to avoid burnout to both emotional burnout but also the burnout that comes with not having steady finances underneath you. You know the stress of that and just the practical reality of then having to go and spend a certain portion of your time running after money outside of the passion that you really want to be doing. So we do spend a lot of our time in dog biz trying to help people shift that mindset around guilt, because it doesn't. It doesn't do them good, but it also it really in the end it harms dogs too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, i completely agree, you know, and it's it's hard to kind of think of that, especially when you're first starting out. And you kind of also mentioned the overwhelming aspect. So I'm sure you have lots of your clients coming to you. They are overwhelmed, you know. They don't know where to start. You know they've got all of these things to think about marketing and packages and setting prices and all the stuff and taxes and bookkeeping, and then they oh, by the way, you also have to learn how to train dogs and know about behavior So where do you start?
Speaker 1:Like, let's say, something comes to you. I'm like I just don't know what to do. You know my numbers are a mess. I'm not. you know, i don't know where to start with my taxes and like, and they're just completely overwhelmed. So not giving you like a specific particular area, but like what's your approach when you find that And maybe it's a newer trainer and they just got out of the academy or KPI or some other school, they're starting their business, they quit their job and they're just like let's go and like where do you start with them?
Speaker 2:Well, the first thing is goals, vision. I think a lot of times we come into this we think, oh, i want to train dogs for a living, but the vision's too nebulous, it's too large and fuzzy, and so to really kind of drill down to if this can look, however you want it to look, a year from now, five years from now, what is that? You know what does it mean to you to be a dog trainer? And that's both in terms of how you want to spend your business time, what kinds of cases you want to take, whether you want to be working. You know, how much of your time do you want to be spending teaching people versus actually training dogs? all of those sorts of things. How many hours do you want to work a week? and what do you need to make? What do you need to make to feel satisfied? What do you need to make to feel safe in the world, to make ends meet? And sometimes people don't know that number, so we help them figure out what that number is.
Speaker 2:But then there's the other piece, the balance piece. What do you want it to feel like? What do you want your downtime to look like? How much of that would you like to have, because I think again, when we don't have a clear vision of where we're headed, we may not end up someplace that we'd like to be, and it's hard for us as coaches to help people get where they want to go if there's not some initial vision, and that vision might change over time It often does.
Speaker 2:I mean, you've been doing this a very long time. I'm sure your business has evolved over time. You know we start someplace and then we adjust. But that's a big thing for us is just really getting a sense of what people want both sides of the business life equation to look like, because one of the things that I've often seen over the years is that people get so subsumed in the business they end up burning out, whether they're financially successful in the business or not. They end up burning out because they're not taking care of themselves, and it's a shame to me, because one of the glorious things about starting your own business is you get to be in control, and we want people to learn how to take advantage of that control, both on making sure that they're running businesses that they enjoy, but also that they're enjoying the life that gets built around that business too.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, And I love that the ethics of your business are really coming through too, because you care about people, you care about their wellbeing when you're asking them about that balance in their life, because there's sometimes we get coached about this hustle culture. You work 100 hours, you work 120 hours, we get to outwork everybody which there's some semblance of truth to that but it also does not take into account the actual wellbeing and sleep and taking care of yourself, which doesn't do anybody any good. So I think the hustle culture is toxic, because I was there, I was in that hustle culture and I realized now how toxic it was, And so it's. I love that side of the message you're putting out there is. It's beautiful, especially in our community.
Speaker 2:Gina always says her way. I love that hustle culture. That's great. Her way of saying that is put down the busy badge. I like that.
Speaker 2:That part of the hustle culture is it's somehow a badge of honor when someone says, how are you to say, oh, i'm really busy? And that part of what we've tried to do inside of the company, but also to teach those that we serve, is to find a different answer to that. Because we don't want to be busy, we want to be maybe, we want to be productive, we want to be balanced, we want to be content, we want to feel like we're making a difference, we want to be energized and engaged, but not just busy, because that usually means I'm stressed, i'm overwhelmed, i'm working more than I want to be working, i'm burnt out, i'm not getting enough time with my own dogs or my family, and so, yeah, just that balance piece is huge. And again, sometimes I find that some of the people that we work with and when they come to us, they're really ready to hear this and they, oh yeah, they want that really badly.
Speaker 2:And sometimes I think people feel guilty about that too. They feel like they should be going all the time And I always say if you're not ready to do these things for yourself yet whether it's raising your rates or getting control of your schedule, taking better care of yourself if you're not willing to do these things for yourself yet, do them for the dogs, because what we find is the practices that are the best for your business. They're going to be best for the dogs too, because, again, they keep you in the game longer to serve more dogs over time, and they're also going to lead to having better outcomes with the dogs that you're working with too.
Speaker 1:Totally, totally. And it just when you're saying that it resonated with me, because when I first, when you first start out, right, so you've got your training email set up, mike at dogtrainingcom whatever it is you set yourself off, you're like all right, i got it. So you are like looking forward to emails or something like an email inquiry.
Speaker 1:So yes, i got an email, or like you even like sign up for like newsletters, just so you get more emails, So you feel busy or you feel more successful, And so like there's like almost this time where it becomes like this badge of honor I, oh, I get like 200 emails a day I have to reply to and that's like your badge of like being busy full circle.
Speaker 2:You realize like what was I thinking?
Speaker 1:And then you're like now the badge of honor is like all right, i am, maybe I'll answer two or three emails a day because the rest of it is automated. Or you have systems in place that create efficiencies, or you have a team answering emails for you And so it frees up your time to do that. Work life balance more, help dogs more because you're not sitting there answering emails. So totally, totally resonates with me because I'm 100% guilty of doing that. You know, getting into that busy, busy mindset, just a busy work, just to feel like I'm doing something All right.
Speaker 1:So let's I have another question. I'd love to get into some more tangible suggestions and tips from you, but I also wanted to see your lens, or what you're seeing as industry trends now. So, especially with the pandemic we had, so we had tons of online I'm sure many of your clients have gone shifted in that direction doing online consults, virtual consults and offering online education, whether it's webinars or pursuing different aspects online. How else have you seen businesses for trainers change in the last few years And what do you see happening, maybe even five, 10 years from now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is really interesting. You're right The most obvious shifts is so much movement online, and I think we were very, very slowly heading there, but I think that we are generally an industry that changes very slowly, and I think the pandemic sped that up for us quite a bit, and so we have a lot of our clients and our Thrive members who have moved or in the process of moving all of their businesses online. We also see a lot of people who are adding online components to their businesses, and so that might be anything from giving clients a choice of working with them in person or working with them online, or it might be adding on-demand aspects online. One of the things that we're really loving in some of this hybridization we're seeing, though, where trainers are creating really creative packages, that in which they're doing some work with people in person and then they're supporting that work with features that are online that allow them to have more touch points with clients each week. I think that's one of the things I'm most excited about in general whether people are working online or working in person or some hybrid mixture of that is that for many, many years, gina and I have been shouting from the rooftops you can't just see your clients one hour a week Like it. Just if we think about how much we're asking of people in terms of changing their own behavior, in terms of the knowledge and skill set that we're asking them to the learning curve, we're asking them to go on with us and the kind of results that they want to see in their dog and that we want to see for them, the idea that we sort of talk at them for an hour and then leave them to their own devices for all the hours of the seven days in between.
Speaker 2:One of the things that's so exciting about kind of these last few years is that we're seeing more and more trainers embrace that idea of being there in a more ongoing way for their clients and adding additional support, because online has allowed us to do so much more without the commensurate impact on our schedules, right That we can have additional touch points with clients without having to get in the car and drive across down to their homes. It just it makes it easier for us to get creative in how we do this, and so we're excited about that and the kind of impact that it's having on case outcomes and also, i think, just sort of the general satisfaction that the trainers were working with, their feeling about the work that they're doing and the kind of support they're providing for their clients and what they're seeing come from that. So that's one thing that I think is exciting. Some of the other shifts we're seeing are less resistance to more professional pricing, less resistance to and less fear around the pricing and also around putting together more substantial packages that really do support clients in reaching toward their goals Just some of the business practices we've been teaching for a long time.
Speaker 2:I think that the pandemic when that first hit and everybody's businesses just ground to a halt and there was such necessity to take bold action that it removed some of the resistance of that. I mean, the clients that we've been working with for years largely have done that, but we felt like we were sort of making that change trainer by trainer by trainer, and now it just seems like we're able to get that messaging out a little bit more easily, partly because we're working differently too, but I think also just because the pandemic finally shook things up. We're a bit of a lemming industry. Everybody runs their businesses the same way.
Speaker 2:because everybody runs their businesses the same way And we do kind of a little bit of a copycat stuff, and we've always found it a little bit difficult to punch through that and to encourage the industry to innovate. So I think that's what have been kind of on the grand scale. One of the big silver linings of the pandemic for our industry is that I think we're just we're moving faster, we're experimenting more, we're being a little bit more bold or taking more risks, and I think that's exciting. I think that means, by and large, we're helping more dogs too, and I think we're getting better at competing competing with trainers using aversive methods and things like that too because we are getting a little bit better about how we present our services and market ourselves and things that we're offering. So I'm excited about that.
Speaker 1:I am too. I am too, and again hats off to you guys for really helping to make that shift in our positive community with the marketing side and with just general business, because it shows, i mean it really does. And it's been a long journey. Right, it's been a slow journey over the years in terms of shifting it. So, getting back to the touch points you had mentioned touch points and different technology we can use to communicate with clients Are you seeing any particular software or apps that's more effective for the clients that you're working with, or anything in?
Speaker 2:particular. It's funny, i mean, i think, what we're seeing. So two things the simple thing that we're seeing the most of is just Zoom and related similar sorts of things. That just the ability, for example.
Speaker 2:So you and I are recording this during the month of our Thrive Group Coaching Program that's really focused on packages, building service packages, and this is a super fun month every year because one of the things we say in Thrive a lot, there's a phrase where when members you wanna say oh my gosh, this is blowing my mind or this burst of creativity, you see marbles everywhere. And this is a month where just the marbles are spilled everywhere and everyone has to be kind of careful not to slip on them on the floor because there's so much creativity. Some of it is so simple though. Just for example, you think about so often in the past you're either doing private training or you're doing group classes, and now we're seeing trainers do hybridize those sorts of things too. So you can, as a traditional trainer who's sort of just traditionally done private training So in the past that might have been okay.
Speaker 2:I can if I'm really really busy and I'm really huffing it. Maybe I can carry like 20 clients a week, you know. And then you just you know you die in the schedule and no wonder you're only seeing them once a week, because where would you fit in to do any more. But now we're seeing things where and here's the simplest example I can think of is just providing group office hours for those 20 clients. Now you have a way to be present for people and to create some community among them, community among clients who are experiencing similar things, without getting in your car, without you're not having to add 20 touchpoints, one for each of those clients, can simply just add this one touchpoint for any of them who need it. And that is on the really, really simple level, and all you need for that is Zoom. That's it, easy peasy. It just doesn't get any easier. And we also see, on the more complex level and there's all kinds of things in between we see a lot of our members creating membership programs now, where they're, you know, rather than looking at, you know, kind of individual clients or groups of people who are going through a class together, that they are creating really rich experiences that provide all kinds of different education and instruction and support into, you know, recurring paid membership program. So we're seeing things like that, which might use Zoom, which might use some sort of an LMS, a learning management system. You know various different versions of that. So we're seeing things like that.
Speaker 2:And then the other big piece of technology is in the automation area. You mentioned that earlier And everything from automating marketing to automating onboarding, to automating client engagement and support, but just getting a lot of the admin things off of our plates. You thinking it through, thinking that client experience through, really, really clearly, once having someone if you're not you know techie, which I find that 99% of us in our industry you're not you know that you have someone build that out for you And then that runs in the background while you're doing the work you really want to be doing, which is working with people and their dogs. What I love about automation is partly that it takes so much of that admin work off of people's plates, but also that it tends to take better care of clients, because when we don't automate it, that means we're most of the time not doing as much as we could or should be doing, not doing it as regularly.
Speaker 2:If you even just think about, you know, follow up. I mean, you know how many conversations have we had over the years all of us, you know with fellow trainers going Oh gosh, i'm so bad about feel Everyone's bad about follow up. Very few people are good at follow up But you know, computer systems are really good at it. If you just tell them what you want it to do, they're excellent at it.
Speaker 1:I mean, and it's amazing, the explosion of different technology for even specific to dog trainers. you know it's like pocket sweet or acuity We're super super excited about clicks.
Speaker 2:Yes, clicks is one that's been built, and you know, full disclosure, built by a family member of mine, but super excited because this is a young man who's grown up techie but also grown up in the field, you know, who has, you know, spent his career as a dog trainer and also has this tech background and has figured out Oh okay, here's what trainers really need to automate all of this and done it in a way where those of us who are not techie can go in there and it's just. It's so much more intuitive and so much of it's already built out in there for us to use. We're not having to adapt it to our industry. So things like that. I just so so exciting that you know you can be a non techie, non business person and have so much of this done for you, because we're at this point now where the tech can do it.
Speaker 1:It beats the old days, you know the old fashioned email for everything. Right Before they was even like text messages. Now I'm really dating us, but so so let me ask you this What are your thoughts on AI? Have you played around with that or any of your clients using AI for what they're doing there?
Speaker 2:We're just starting to see a little bit of that, Like I know that some of the software, like clicks, for example, is building AI in there. I think it's really interesting. I mean, you know it's funny, I I sit on the fence about it a little bit. So full disclosure. You know, my original background was in education and I spent, you know, a number of years teaching English and history and teaching people how to write and all this other. There's this part of me that's just completely horrified and offended by the idea.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, you know I do love anything that's going to save people time and allow them to, you know, to pursue the part of their work that they got into this to do in the first place. So we've been kind of taking a look at it and it's really interesting. I was looking just last week at because the software we use for our Thrive membership program has added AI and we were playing with it a little bit and sort of seeing what it could do. A woman on my team put in something like she prompted it to write an article about. it was about five things that someone starting their dog training business might be concerned about, or something like that And it was fascinating to read it. I mean it was grammatically perfect, i mean.
Speaker 2:I have to say like I couldn't find a comma out, you know, in the wrong spot, and it was well written. And I would say that three out of the five points for spot on, one of them was completely off and the fourth one was, yeah, sort of. But you'd have to spin it this way for it to make sense. And even though the writing was really good, it didn't have quite like if we were putting it out for ourselves. I mean didn't have our brand voice. It wasn't. You know it was. It was a little academic, wasn't as jaunty as I'd want it to be. But if you're staring at a blank piece of paper really struggling to put a blog post together for your dog training business, or you're trying to generate some social media content or you're wanting to put together an ebook for a lead magnet, and staring at a blank piece of paper is really painful for you. It would be a lot faster to take that and clean it up than it would be to do from the beginning.
Speaker 2:You'd still have to put that effort in, I think.
Speaker 1:But yeah you know.
Speaker 2:So the English teacher in me is full on horrified. The business coach in me is like, yeah, use the tools that work for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know not to get too off topic. I've been playing around with it a little bit, but it's it spits out pretty good training advice. You know it's definitely slanted towards positive reinforcement based methods most of the time not all the time, but you know it's going to be exciting to see what happens over the next few years within how just how how much better it gets.
Speaker 1:And the expectations is just going to keep exponentially getting better. So, yeah, interesting times for sure, especially when we're looking at, you know, writing those articles, or the copywriting that we need to do, or marketing ads or whatever. It's going to get good at that. So we shall see, we shall see. Well, i'm going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors And when we come back I want to jump into maybe some strategies and tips for packages and people at work regression cases. How does? how do I look at pricing there, so we will be right back. Hey guys, thanks for tuning in And I hope you are enjoying this episode. I have a very special offer that I'm announcing just before the aggression and dogs conference this year. You've heard me talk about the aggression and dogs master course on this podcast And for a limited time, to celebrate the fourth annual aggression and dogs conference, i'm going to be launching a bundle offer that includes the course and all 19 webinars available on aggressive dogcom.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's all of the webinars. The webinars alone would typically cost more than $580 to purchase together, but I'm including them for free in this special bundle deal with the aggression and dogs master course. Just some of the topics for the webinars include how to break up a dog fight, assessing canine posture and movement, the genetics of aggression, dog to cat aggression, dog to child directed aggression. And treat and retreat with some of the most respected behavior pros in our field, including Suzanne Clodier, grisha Stewart, dr Amy Cook, dr Christina Spalding, laura Monaco-Tarelli, jen Shriak, Trish McMillan and Dr Jessica Heckman, just to name a few. You're going to receive all 19 webinars, the master course, live group, mentor sessions with me and access to the private Facebook group a value of over $2,700, all for just the price of the master course, which is $495. There's only going to be 50 bundles available in this offer and I'm going to drop a link to the bundle in the show notes for this episode. The offer is going to expire on October 8th 2023, that's October 8th 2023, which is just one week after the conference, though the bundle typically sells out quickly, so please take advantage. If you are interested, head on over to the show notes for this episode in the podcast platform you are listening to and click on the Aggression in Dogs Master Course and Expert Webinar Bundle link. I also want to take a moment to support Sinthor Pangal, who's going to be speaking at the Aggression in Dogs conference this year, sinthor shared the story of an organization doing truly amazing work to help animals.
Speaker 1:Charlie's Animal Rescue Center C-A-R-E, or CARE for short, is an animal shelter providing timely medical aid to injured and ill animals of the streets in Bangalore City. They aim to provide life-saving veterinary care, on par with private veterinary setups, to all animals, irrespective of their ownership status. Care has a rescue helpline, animal ambulance services and a fully equipped veterinary trauma care unit. Care strives to provide dignity to animals who are old, blind, paraplegic and suffering from chronic diseases, and allow them to live out their lives at the shelter in a safe and peaceful environment. Care is home to many dogs, cats, rabbits, ducks, hens, pigs, skinny pigs, birds and even terrapins. No animal left behind is their main model. Apart from rescue and shelter services, care also provides adoption services, humane education in schools, animal cruelty prevention and control, and volunteering opportunities. You have to check out their Instagram channel, where you can see all the wonderful work they are doing to care for and save dogs and animals in need. Their Instagram handle is charliesanimalrescuecenter and that center is spelled C-E-N-T-R-E, so it's charliesanimalrescuecentercom. You've got to check out that Instagram account. It's really wonderful work they're doing. Please consider donating to this wonderful cause. You can do that directly through their website at charlies-carecom. That's charlies-carecom. I'm going to be sure to drop a link in the show notes for both their Instagram and a way to donate.
Speaker 1:Alright, we're back here with Veronica Boutel from Dogbiz and we are talking about all things business and dog training And I would love to jump into. let's start maybe with aggression cases. So like there's obviously quite a number of trainers that listen into the podcast that either focus exclusively on aggression cases or have a high percentage of aggression cases, and one of the number one questions I get is how should I price myself? Should I price my aggression cases higher? Should I? what should I do? Should I do it sardly? Should I do packages or singles? So let's answer that first part, like more or less for aggression cases.
Speaker 2:As much as you can get yourself to do the biggest number you can force through your lips. Here's the funny thing. So people who do both, who say, hey, i do basic manners and I also do aggression Should I charge more for aggression? Generally, the answer for us is no, you can't. You absolutely can. Generally, we say no, and it's not though because we think that you shouldn't charge more for aggression. We just don't think you should necessarily charge less for basic manners. So if you're doing both, you have a finite number of hours in your day. You have a finite number of clients you can take on. I want you to maximize your income for every hour that you're working, and so if what you're saying is that you're worth X number of dollars you can make, you know a difference in life and it's worth this much, then I want you to own that in any of the work that you do, not just in the aggression.
Speaker 2:And I want to be really clear again, it's not that I'm because I've heard all the arguments. I totally get it. You know aggression is more emotionally demanding work. Often There is a higher level of knowledge and skill set, there's more risk involving. There's all, all of reasons you absolutely should charge top dollar for it. I just think that when you're running a business it's simpler to go ahead and charge that top dollar for the other work that you do too, partly because you know it so often gets pointed out, some cases are a mix.
Speaker 2:You know you end up doing some aggression and some basic manners. Some people have a basic manners problem and they call you because they think they have an aggression problem and it happens in the other direction as well. So things can get kind of confusing quickly. But also the distinction that we often make about aggression and basic manners, you know it's just. It's sometimes just kind of lost on the client.
Speaker 2:Ultimately, if you think whether I have a dog who's not coming when called or I have a dog who's, you know, growling and barking at people at the door, the reality is that I have a problem that is negatively impacting my life and I want a professional to fix it. And I am not as a basic manners potential client. I'm not. I'm not comparing myself to a client who has an aggression issue. Right, we are, because we see both sides. We see, but but they're not. They have a problem. They want someone to provide a solution that you know to help them solve that. So I want all of your listeners who are doing aggression cases to charge really top fees. I'm just sort of saying you don't have to charge less for other things.
Speaker 1:Make sense? And what do you say to the people that are kind of on the cusp of really getting busy, but they're not so they're worried about if I raise my prices and I'm just squeaking out you know five, 10 consults a week and that's the business demand I'm seeing. How do you answer that? Like you know, maybe they're charging X, but you think they can charge X plus this month, right? Where does that conversation go?
Speaker 2:Well, and it's interesting because I'll bet too that one of the things that not only are they, are they perhaps not that dance card isn't full, but they may also be hearing people tell them that they're too expensive. And so when they hear one of us that dogbists say you should raise their rates, they're thinking, well, hold on, but I'm not even. I can't even get full the rates I'm at now. If I raise it, isn't it just going to get worse? And here's one of the things and I you're probably not going to believe me until you've done it and even experienced it yourself, but I'm telling you this with 20 years of experience doing this under my belt Raise your rates, you will get busier. I don't care if you've just started or you've been doing this for 20 years raise your rates, you will get busier. I've never seen an exception to it. When people come to us and they say I'm really struggling, i'm not getting enough phone calls, or I'm getting phone calls but I'm not getting a good conversion rate, there are a number of things that we look at, but the thing we all look at first is what are the rates? we're looking to see. If you're not charging enough, i, literally in 20 years can think of one time that I told a trainer, let's back off that a little bit. I wouldn't even begin to know how many times you had to count how many times we've told our clients or thrive members, people we've met at conferences, whatever it is, you've got to raise your rates. And one of the most and it's never gotten tiring for me I mean any of us ask any of us at Doggbiz One of the things we've loved the most is that phone call or that email or the comment in the chat during a thrive session, or somebody walking up to us at a conference and saying I was totally scared to do it. I didn't believe you but I did. And oh my gosh, like every time I raised my rates, i just get busier. And yeah, i mean that's the fact.
Speaker 2:I remember the last conference I went to. Last conference I was at just before the pandemic. A woman walked up to me and she said she was an old client of mine And she says she has either problem. We're at the trade show, she's what. I have a problem. I said okay. And she says I am way too busy. She said I have got a waitlist that is nine yards long And I just I can't accommodate everybody. And she says, and I raised my rates and it got worse. And I raised my rates and it got worse, and I raised my rates and it got worse. She says, so I don't know what to do. I said, yep, no, i get that, okay. Well, yeah, because she thought, well, i just keep raising them until it's so high that people back off. But the higher she got, the more people wanted her. And you know that was a pretty extreme version of that story, but we see that all the time.
Speaker 1:So we had to solve her problem in another way.
Speaker 2:But that's a fun problem to solve. But that's the more you charge, the more in demand you are. And partly that's because when people have a really serious problem, they don't want to work with the cheap dog trainer, they want to work with the best dog trainer, right, when you have a serious health issue, you don't looking go looking for a cheap doctor, you look for the best doctor. When you're in serious legal trouble, you don't go looking for the cheapest lawyer, you go looking for the best lawyer. And we tend to equate costs with value. We assume that the more expensive service provider is the better one. So that's part of it.
Speaker 2:And if you are hearing people say, oh, but you charge too much, you charge too much and they're not converting, one of the reasons we look at rates when we hear that is because if your rate is lower, the people who are coming to you, they're the ones who are really only invested in training if it's going to be cheap and easy, the people who are really serious about it. They're going to look for them. And that's one of the reasons, too, when we talk about outcompeting aversive based trainers, one of the reasons that so many people who really mean well and love their dogs, choose aversive trainers and then go to positive trainers afterwards to fix the damage is because they assume the aversive trainer must be better, and one of the reasons they made that assumption is because they charge so much more than we do. Interesting point.
Speaker 1:We see it over and over and over again.
Speaker 2:And so my advice, whether you are just starting out or you're 20 years in, if you're not as full as you want to be, raise your rates. If you're already as full as you want to be, i really want you to raise your rates anyway, because I'd like to see you make more for the same amount of work, or even give yourself the option of working less, because you can make more for the same amount of work. So there's all of that too, and I do want to say too, because I know I bet you, the majority of your listeners out there, are thinking, yeah, but what about the people who really, really can't afford it? I want to help everybody And I totally get that, but here's a couple of things to think about. You have a finite number of spots. You can only work with a certain number of clients at a time And you're going to make the same amount of impact whether you're working with dogs who live in a mansion or you're working with dogs who you know live in a one bedroom apartment, and you're going to help more dogs over time if you stay financially solvent for a long career.
Speaker 2:The next thing to think about is that and we've all been there right, we've all driven up to a palatial home, tried to sell a package and been told it was too expensive. And we've also all driven up to a modest home and thought, oh, there's no way they're going to be able to afford this. And then they say, yeah, anything, can you take a credit card? Can I have a payment plan? This isn't just about people's socioeconomic status. It's about their values. It's about their priorities. How important is the dog to them? And then the third thing is that if you want to help people who truly cannot afford it but would do anything they could for their dogs, if you're making good money from your paid clients, then you have the space in your schedule to decide to do pro bono or reduced rate work. But you cannot build your business on that. You have to have a solid business so that you can divert an amount of your time and energy and resources to people who really can't afford you.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly. I still echo that point, because you're going to just be able to provide more of those resources for people The bigger your business grows, and so I've been really happy over the last couple of years to be able to give away so many scholarships and give so many opportunities, and I wouldn't be able to do that if I hadn't grown the business, and now I'm in a place where I can do that, and that's something to think about. Let's make sure you are financially self-advanced and then some, and then you're going to be able to help even way more people than you were before. So it's a good place to be in right.
Speaker 2:I kind of think about it as the. It's like the airline model Put on your own air mask before helping others, your feet have to be on solid ground in order to sustain someone else's weight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. So next big question that I'm sure you get a lot, and then especially for aggression cases. So I always tell people this during my workshops. they always ask me like so, mike, did you like singles or packages?
Speaker 1:And I tell them Veronica and Gina would be yelling at me if they heard me say this but because I do singles, because for me I like the flexibility of being able to and I'm using air quotes for anybody who can't see me a firing somebody or not working with a client anymore just allows me much more flexibility and space to say this person's not doing that. because I like to have a case load full of clients that are just like scrambling to, like do the work and making sure they follow, they follow through and you don't have to follow before them. So that's why I like singles. However, i'm like that will totally go against every business coaches advice in the world, because that does not, you know, unless you have that demand, you're able to have things automated where you can get lots of singles in there, and then also the follow ups are kind of automated as well. That's one side, but it's not a good business model. So take it from there.
Speaker 2:First of all, i'm not going to yell at you especially not in front of everybody, and so there are certain things that we feel pretty strongly about, that we teach, but One of the things we always layer across anything we say is don't fix what isn't broken. If something that we say is counter to success that you're having or that a listener's having, there are exceptions. There are always exceptions to rules.
Speaker 2:So, I just want to put that out there first. Don't fix what isn't broken. But we really, really love packages and we love to see them as large as possible, and there are a number of reasons for that. For us it's a triple win It's a win for the trainer, it's a win for the client and it's a win for the dog.
Speaker 2:There is nothing more tragic for the client or the dog or the trainer than a non-result case or that horrible feeling you have as a trainer when the relationship ends and you think, oh God, we could have gotten so much farther, and it's that fear that you haven't gotten them far enough along to make that lasting change and impact.
Speaker 2:You also don't want a situation where the client feels like, okay, well, i spent this money in this time and Barney's still doing this.
Speaker 2:If I'd have still doing that, because then you run the risk of the client deciding that it was the trainer's fault or deciding that it was the dog's fault, or deciding that it was the fault of the methodology and going a different direction. So that's another thing we don't like to see. I think one of the another really huge component of burnout is financial stress when you're running your own business, and the vast majority of positive trainers really don't enjoy the sales part of the process. And when you do singles it means that at the end of every session there's that awkward, uncomfortable moment about am I coming back? And so you're having to do so much more sales because you're having to sell at every session. And the other thing I don't like about it is that when you don't know how much time you have, one of the things that I see happen so often with trainers is that fear that you're not going to be called back means that we try to download everything we know.
Speaker 2:We try to make sure that the client has all the knowledge that we think that they need to have And we overwhelm them which means it went up in a self-fulfilling prophecy that are less likely to call us back because we've overwhelmed them and or given them the impression that they don't need us now, and so we overload, and so we're not doing our best teaching.
Speaker 2:We're not splitting, we're lumping like crazy, and so we're just we're not supporting that learning curve in that process.
Speaker 2:And I would just say one other thing here, which is that if you think about how much knowledge and skill we have as trainers, you think about especially trainers who are doing aggression, the number of hours that they spend with you and your program, you know the book learning and the studying and the practice. The idea that we can download enough of that knowledge and skill to somebody in a single hour a week, and especially if we're only doing it for one week or only doing it week to week and we don't really know when the client's going to stop, i just I think that it's not a practical way to go And it also I think it undermines and undervalues the incredible knowledge and skill set that we have as professionals. So I worry about that. You know when we, when we leave it in the client's hands. It's kind of like a doctor saying well, you know, you decide if you need the next chemo treatment or not, but it's you know, ultimately the patient gets to decide.
Speaker 2:But the doctor's the only one who can really make that recommendation. So when we sell enough training upfront, when we sell a larger package, we reduce that likelihood that the clients quit early, either because they're frustrated because they're at a difficult part of the learning curve and they're not seeing enough change yet they haven't stuck with it long enough or they quit because they start to get some relief And they think, well, okay, this is better, so I'm going to save my time and financial resources, but we haven't done the proofing that's necessary to make sure that that change is going to stay in place right. So for all of those reasons, we really, really like to see trainers sell packages, and also because, as scary as it is to sell a package, you're doing it once. And here's the thing I love what you said about wanting the control of working with clients who are really right for you. It's an enormous part of what we teach and thrive is this ideal of the ideal client and the ideal client avatar, of working with clients who feel you, who reinforce you, who do the work and whatever it is that's important to you, the ones that give you energy instead of sapping it right.
Speaker 2:But part of this is about, first of all, we can fire clients even if we're in the middle of a package. It's your business, your control. You get to do that. It might be a little bit messier but it can still be done.
Speaker 2:But the main thing for us is building in, thinking about okay, who is my ideal client? getting really, really clear on who they are so that the packages are built for them. The way your services work, the marketing is built to attract them. The screening and onboarding process is built to make sure that you're screening in the clients you're looking for and out the ones that you aren't, so that you have a really really high likelihood of selling these larger packages to those perfect clients and not being in that situation very often where you have to say, look, i'm going to have to put my foot down here about this homework, compliance or whatever it is, but you still have the option of getting out of those relationships. But what I'd really like to see is we set up the business so that it's just really rare that you encounter a client that you would want to drop in the first place.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that. That's a great, great way of putting it into place. What's your advice So in terms of package size? so let's say we've got somebody. Okay, i want to do packages, but they're kind of newer. Maybe two aggression cases. So, for instance, you get, you start to work aggression case, you start to see the same kind of cases over and over. So you might have a dog that guards their football with Mr and Mrs Jones And then you kind of know, probably going to take three, four, seven, whatever number. It is right. You get experienced enough to know that package size. What's your advice for somebody that maybe it's just starting out and kind of like oh, should I sell five or should I say do a 10 pack? or like what is the general recommendation there?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, so we've really really moved away from the idea of package being about the sort of notion of a three pack or a five pack or a 10 pack. It's really more about sitting down and thinking what is the ultimate outcome of this right Like, what is it that we're trying to accomplish in the training? but also, what do I think the clients that I want to work with? what kind of support do they need? So it's less about a pack of things, it's more about what we want the service to look like. What happens at a given week with the client? I mean, what are the different kinds of touch points, what are the ways that we're interacting and working with them? And then, how many weeks, what length of time, do we think we want to provide that kind of an experience for people? So kind of moving away from it's a set number of sessions to be used over some period of time, but more about the overall learning experience that we're looking to set up. And then, how many weeks are we going to be replicating that? for, as you say, when you're first getting started, there's sort of this sense of like, well, i don't know, i mean, that's what that person's doing, so maybe I'll just do what they're doing. You just you know where do you get the experience from, but that's part of why. A couple of things One is that's work that I would probably turn towards some professional support for, whether that's one-on-one consulting with us or what's really, over the last few years, kind of become our favorite way to do this, which is through the Thrive Group coaching program, because then you are in a community of trainers that are, some of whom are just starting their businesses and some of whom have been doing this work for 20 years and everything in between and have spent this time together sharing all of these best ideas and playing with it. So we're doing all this teaching around it.
Speaker 2:Like, here are all the different ways that a package could come together. Here are all the different building blocks, all the different features that could have. Why would you use this feature versus that feature? When would you combine these ones? You know, if your goal is to do this, here are five different ways you could get there.
Speaker 2:And then the what are our members called the hive mind, which is when they're then bringing the incredible weight of all of their creativity and bouncing their ideas off of ours and each other's. And then we're looking at that and going, oh my God, we've never thought of that. You know us coaches and thinking, well, shoot, okay. Well, if you're doing that, then could we do it this way too. And so all of a sudden, this idea of staring at a blank piece of paper saying, what should the service look like? You're not sitting there in this vacuum trying to figure that out because you have, you know, all of this experience, sort of this hive mind, all these other trainers pulled together to think that through and then to go out and experiment with it a little bit Like I really enjoyed this part, but I didn't like that part.
Speaker 2:I'm going to take this out because the thing is we just don't see a one right way to do it. Because when we think about services, first of all, who is your ideal client? Because what I'm going to recommend for you is going to be really different than that trainer over there who wants a client more like this, that trainer over there who wants a client who's more this way. That's going to be a huge part of it. But also, what do you enjoy?
Speaker 2:How do you enjoy teaching? What kinds of modalities? Which of these building blocks are a right for your skill set and your comfort zone, and whether you want to be online or offline and or, you know, in person and what combination of that, and also, i think too, just the joy piece. That's one of the thing one of our coaches, tia, talks about, that sort of the joy test What will you enjoy doing? What does it best look like for you? And so we've really moved away from this idea that there is this one right way to construct a package, whether that's for aggression or puppies or you know anything else you can think of.
Speaker 1:Love it And it sounds like you've created such a wonderful community there too. You know I was going to ask you about resources for building, you know, because as trainers we feel lonely a lot of times. And then especially the business stuff. I mean, there's not a lot of, you know. There's groups and Facebook groups and different places you can go, but when it comes to business there's not a lot of resources for that. So it sounds like you've created quite the community there with the Thrive membership.
Speaker 2:It's one of the things that I, for me, if I had to pick, like the number one silver lining to come out of the pandemic, it is this new sense of community, of moving away from that isolation. It was really interesting all of those years doing our consulting one-on-one. It was a really interesting vantage point because you can imagine that you know, we spent all this time talking to trainers one-on-one all around the country, all around the world, and seeing the trends And they're all experiencing it by themselves. We can see that so many trainers are having such a similar experience. They have the same doubts, the same fears, the same sense of isolation, the same learning curve, struggles, all of those things. But each of them, i think, experienced it to this really intense degree because they were experiencing it by themselves. And it didn't matter if one of us said you know, you're not alone in that, because they were alone in that Because they didn't have anyone else to talk to about it us, but not being able to see another trainer who's having this sort of say. And so a lot of times you look around the world, you think, well, everyone else is so put together And you don't realize that they're all looking around at you thinking well, they're all put together, we're having so much of whether it's imposter syndrome or whatever it is that you're not alone in that.
Speaker 2:I think what the pandemic did is that when everyone's businesses crashed, in that moment there was the sense of everybody was vulnerable And nobody could walk around pretending like they had nothing right now, because at that moment none of us did.
Speaker 2:We were trying to, like everybody else, figure out what to do, and we launched the six week free program called Survive and Thrive back then, and we basically just invited any positive reinforcement trainer around the world to do it, and It was just this incredible moment where trainers really let their guard down and were honest and vulnerable with each other, and it created a space where we could start to be really creative and rather than holding our best ideas Against our chest, where nobody could see them, we started putting them out there and letting them get better by that that kind of group think, and so members of surviving thrive assets to keep doing it, and so we pivoted into our thrive membership program And so for the last three years we've just continued to cultivate that kind of kind of a culture, and it's this remarkably open, safe place inside of an industry which, unfortunately, it's always struck me as so ironic that, you know, in an industry of positive reinforcement trainers, we haven't always been as positive with each other as we could be And the support of each other as we could be.
Speaker 2:And so here in this space, it's a neat thing that, you know, members are as excited or more excited about the success of a fellow members they are about their own, and so it's just created this place where we're just getting better and better and better at doing our work, because we recognize that The success pie is infinite. It's not that, if you know that, if you're successful, that means that there's less success.
Speaker 1:For me, it's just like that there are so many dogs out there who need us, so It's beautiful, beautiful and before we wrap up, i did have one is because you were talking about. You know, i was just thinking about just the individualism as well, as this is just as important as this community, right, and you know, think about niche or ditch, depending on if you're Canadian or not. How do you see that evolving, seeing many more trainers focus on one particular area, whether it's enrichment or nose work or aggression? Do you see that continuing as a trend, in it being beneficial for our, for our industry and community?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, it's always been something that we've, that we've pushed a bit. I mean there's there's absolutely nothing wrong with generalizing, and it's. It's really common for trainers to come in and generalize in the beginning of their careers until they really figure out you just what exactly They're most passionate about or have the most aptitude, or for sightment around and you can build a really successful business being a generalist. But we have always noticed that one of the fastest routes to success is to niche down, because it gives you a real marketing edge and sharpness. It allows you to better focus in on who your ideal clients are, because your ideal clients for your puppy program might be different than your ideal clients for your kids and dogs program, which might be different from your enrichment program, and so it simplifies the marketing. And it also means that for the people who are looking for that specific thing you do, you have made their choices here. You just made it easier and so, yeah, we are seeing a lot of that. We're seeing more of it than we ever have. We're seeing more creative approaches to it than we ever have, both in terms of the marketing aspect of it.
Speaker 2:But just just what the you know what the niches are themselves. You know that, that because you can have the same issues, someone, i mean that, this notion that, like you have to come up with something no one's ever done Before, you don't really really don't. But it's just that there's so much more to our industry these days and, as we were talking about the beginning, you know, the innovation has really, really sped up, which is a beautiful thing, and so there's all sorts of yeah, i mean, no one would have thought of an enrichment niche, you know, 10 years ago, right it just. And so, yeah, i'm excited about it.
Speaker 2:I'm loving every little. You know new idea, nuance, and I just I feel like, yeah, i just I feel like I can't get through a week anymore without going, wow, i've never seen that before, i never would have thought that. Or are you having some idea that someone's done? you know, give one of us a new idea. It's it's, it's an exciting time in our history.
Speaker 1:It is and for the listeners, please, we need more people specializing in aggression. So it's there's plenty of business to go around in this niche. So, yeah, you know where to find. Yeah, and it's one of the most successful ones to it is yeah, i think about demand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there really is and there's demand, and also it's the sort of thing that when people need it, they really really need it. Yeah, yeah, you know, and it's life changing for them and for their dogs, and so, yeah, i echo that sentiment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't have to do a lot of sales, let's get the client contacting you, it doesn't take much to lock that sale, in other words, right. So, veronica, this has been fantastic. Where can people find you? Which is the best way, and what are you up to next?
Speaker 2:Yes, so the best way to find us is at our website, which is dogbusuccesscom, and for anyone for whom the sort of notion of being a part of a really supportive community of business owners inside of our industry, for anyone who for whom that really resonated, you can find that on our website.
Speaker 2:You can also just go straight to dogbusuccesscom, slash thrive and find the waitlist there. We only open the program once a year because the culture in there is so important to us and we really cultivate it and protect it, and so we kind of you know on board, you know new cadre once a year, and partly that's because the members also put a lot of time and energy into welcoming new members in, which is beautiful, and so we just we really like to focus on doing that once a year, but in the meantime the waitlist is always open And I think you know. Next, we are just continuing to innovate and play inside of that community sandbox. We will also be heading out to PPG this fall. We're going to do some teaching at the summit there and, really excited, we actually have a whole day at the front of that just for thrive members, which will be the first time that we all get together in person, and so that's that's really exciting, exciting piece for us as well.
Speaker 1:Wonderful, wonderful and, as usual, i'll link to all those in the show notes if anybody's interested in linking up. So thank you so much, veronica. This has been absolutely wonderful. I learned a lot, as always, and I hope to see you again in the future.
Speaker 2:I look forward to that. Thank you for having me, thanks to you and all of your listeners who do that important work on aggression on the front lines. It's life changing, i know, and it's so, so glad you are out there doing it.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you. Veronica truly is a wealth of information around all things business and self care for the entrepreneur and beyond. It was wonderful chatting with her and I hope you have gained some nice tips you can use in your own business. And don't forget to head on over to aggressive dog dot com for more information about helping dogs with aggression, from the aggression and dogs master course to webinars from world renowned experts and even an annual conference. We have options for both pet pros and pet owners to learn more about aggression and dogs. We also have the help for dogs with aggression bonus episodes that you can subscribe to. These are solo shows where I walk you through how to work with a variety of types of aggression, such as resource guarding, dog to dog aggression, territorial aggression, fear based aggression and much, much more. You can find a link to subscribe in the show notes or by hitting the subscribe button if you are listening in on Apple podcasts. Thanks for listening and stay well, my friends.