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The Everyday Trainer Podcast
The Everyday Trainer Podcast
Behind the Curtain: Building a Dog Training Business
What happens when your dog training skills outpace your business skills? In this episode, I sit down with Tori, the administrative powerhouse behind The Everyday Trainer, to pull back the curtain on the messy, challenging, and often overwhelming business side of dog training.
Four years ago, I was drowning in 4,000 unread emails while running a thriving dog training practice. My fatal flaw? Being exceptional with dogs but completely overwhelmed by the administrative tasks that kept my business running. Enter Tori, who transformed chaos into systems that allowed The Everyday Trainer to flourish.
We candidly discuss the unsustainable pace that leads many talented dog trainers to burnout—the 24/7 demands, the constant client communications, the struggle to maintain quality while handling everything alone. Through our journey of building systems, facing burnout, and eventually creating Trainers Collective, we reveal the hidden challenges most dog trainers never talk about.
This episode offers rare insight into what actually makes a dog training business sustainable. We explore how automation saves sanity, why responding quickly to leads matters more than you think, and how aligning your business with personal values creates longevity. For dog trainers wondering why they're working constantly but not seeing growth, this conversation illuminates the path forward.
Whether you're just starting your dog training business or struggling to scale an existing one, our hard-earned lessons will help you build something that serves both your clients and your wellbeing. The most successful dog trainers aren't necessarily the most skilled—they're the ones who recognize when to seek help and how to build systems that allow their talent to shine.
Visit us at https://www.trainerscollective.com/
Hello, hello and welcome back to the Everyday Trainer podcast. My name is Meg and I am a dog trainer. Today's episode we're talking about the business side of things. So I have the woman behind the curtain, tori. Me and Tori have worked with each other for about four years and she's helped me grow the Everyday Trainer to what it is today. So we're going to talk all about our journey in that business and how it led to the Trainers Collective. So this is a business episode. If y'all are here for dog training, we're going to talk a little bit more about the behind the scenes business side of things. You know the drill grab yourself a tasty drink and meet us back here. Hello, tori.
Speaker 2:Hello, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, of course it's in due time. It's been a bit.
Speaker 2:I know it's been four years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're recording this online because Tori is still in Florida. I have not yet convinced her to move out to California just yet, but we will see. We will see. Yeah, and honestly, it feels kind of weird to record online, because all of my podcasts are in person. I was telling her right before this. I'm like, oh, this is weird. I don't. I don't know how I feel about this. So, tori, tell us a little bit about who you are.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Tori. I've worked with Meg for four years now and I am now the co-owner and business partner and trainers collective, which is our business that helps the dog training businesses get set up, figure out all their stuff. How long have?
Speaker 1:we had the Trainers Collective for.
Speaker 2:I was thinking about that the other day. I think we started it officially yeah, like October of last year, so it's been almost exactly a year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and prior to that you started Everyday Trainer in 22 or 21, somewhere around there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, around that time frame I had just transitioned to business in college and we had a mutual friend that introduced me. It worked out. The rest was history.
Speaker 1:The rest was history. So Tori has started working for me in the everyday trainer about four years ago and she started off as just kind of a part time position as an admin person and helping me respond to people. I think that is kind of my fatal flaw and I talk about that all the time in you know, the training business you're so busy with all of the dogs and running around and it's 24 seven work that you don't have time to do the back end of things. So that's what you helped me with back then and I think it was like right after COVID, right.
Speaker 2:It was yeah, yeah. I remember I, like you gave me all the passwords to everything and I logged into the emails and you had like 4,000 unread emails and I was like, oh my God.
Speaker 1:Oh God, it's so bad. It's so bad. But I think know your strengths, you know I am not that person and I still like I still get anxious looking at my email. If you don't have access to my email, I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't even want to, I don't even want to look at this.
Speaker 2:I know I always like CC you on some emails and I'm like she's not going to read it.
Speaker 1:It but that's okay. At least you have a copy of it, and that's what matters when you have to go search for it later on. Exactly, I think everybody needs a tori in their life.
Speaker 2:Have you always been super organized? Yeah, probably. I like I know like shane talks about how he's like I was that kid that just like shoved papers in his backpack. I was the opposite of that. Like I had color coordinated folders for every single like elective, and I've always been pretty organized, especially like on a computer, because it stresses me out otherwise, like it's a control thing, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so when you started working for me, you were in school. What were you studying?
Speaker 2:So when I started working for you, I had just switched my major from nursing over to business.
Speaker 1:Why did you get out of nursing? Why did I get out of?
Speaker 2:nursing. I hated it, I. It was not for me. I did not like, let's just say, the environment of working in a hospital is not for everybody, and I am not one of those people and I didn't want to like stick it out, to like hopefully get another job out of college. I was like, if I'm going to be spending all this money on college, I want it to be like useful and something that I'm actually interested in. And so I had switched over to business pretty much like within the same month of started working for you.
Speaker 1:So I got really lucky.
Speaker 2:The stars aligned.
Speaker 1:And how do you feel about like your values kind of aligning with where you're at now?
Speaker 2:I definitely think like that switch was meant to happen. For sure, I definitely, like I need there's stresses that come with everything, right. So, like with nursing school, it was very like high stress, high stakes, like somebody could be like coding and you have to jump in and be able to do CPR right away. And I just didn't want that for my life. People that can do that like all power to you. That's just not me, right.
Speaker 2:I wanted something that was more low stakes and low pressure, and so when I first started working with you, it still felt super high stakes, right. Because, like there's different types of pressures with owning a business. There's worrying about how you're going to make money, worrying about how you're going to get clients, worrying about whether you're going to upset people by telling them no or, you know, going against what they're asking for. But it's a different type of pressure and I think it aligns more with my values because I get flexibility and I get to have a community with the people that I'm interacting with and you kind of get to like make people happy and still help people in a different way than the healthcare field.
Speaker 1:It's definitely a different kind of stakes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, and it's still like it's high pressure, like it's high stakes, for sure, but you can, at the end of the day, you can say it's not life or death, everything's okay, it's going to work out, and I also.
Speaker 1:I also love that in business you, we have a hundred percent control over what happens A hundred percent. If you and I ever need to have a little brainstorm, all right, we have a problem, we are the only ones who are going to solve it, which is sometimes really scary, but I think it's kind of fun Like it's a fun game and if you're smart, it's an enjoyable thing to problem solve. You know, as things come up in business. So basically I was running the everyday trainer and I was really struggling getting back to people. I had a really quality service, which was our dog training. I had good trainers at the time.
Speaker 1:I had that side of the business, but my bottleneck basically was I wasn't getting back to people. I didn't have systems set up. I didn't have a business number. Everything was being funneled through me and I'm very much like a workaholic. I love to work and in the beginning I was genuinely working 24-7. I never took a day off. We had our walking side of the business. We had our training side of the business. Dogs are 24-7. Even if you have a sick day, you cannot step away from the business because either you have a whole bunch of people who have reached out to you or people who want to schedule with you, or people who are dropping their dogs off.
Speaker 1:There's just so much going on in a dog training business and for a while I was really okay being the one to kind of hustle in the beginning and be like all right, I have these trainers, I'm organizing everything, I'm doing the phone calls, I'm responding, I'm scheduling, I'm sending invoices, I'm doing all of these things. I was fine to do it in the beginning, but I learned very quickly that, oh, this is not sustainable and that's something that we talk about with our trainers collective people all the time is, how you structure your business determines what's sustainable for you. You know, and we get a lot of people who don't want these huge dog training business. They just want to keep it small because they're like this is what's sustainable for me and I value, you know, the one-on-one time with the dogs that I have. Like I don't want to have a big facility and a whole bunch of trainers and all of this stuff and so we'll kind of help them, you know, structure their business in a way that aligns with that.
Speaker 1:I realized with the everyday trainer that I could not do all of the backend stuff. That is not my strength. I am not very. I am not very organized Like I'm good at setting things up, but I cannot sustain them. Know yourself, I cannot respond to emails all the time. It kills me. So I did it for a really long time and then I was like, okay, I need to hire an admin person, because my job has now turned into admin. When I hired trainers, when I hired people, then my admin tripled because for every trainer you have extra admin work that you have to do. And so I learned, like, okay, in my business I'm no longer the dog trainer, I'm the admin person. This is not my strength, I need to hire somebody whose strength that is.
Speaker 1:So I met Tori through a mutual friend of ours. She kind of got me started with the admin stuff. She had a photography business at the time and she introduced me to HoneyBook, which is the CRM software that we use now. And if you're like Megan, what the heck is a CRM software? It's basically our client relationship management software and that's how we do everything in the business. It's how we send emails and invoices and all of our communication and our contacts forms, all the automations like basically the whole back end of our business is run in HoneyBook for the Everyday Trainer and Trainers Collective. So she's the one who kind of introduced me to that and I, you know, went down the rabbit hole and set all of that up myself. And so when you came on, tori, I was like, hey, please manage this account. Here's how things are, here's how everything is structured. Go get them, tiger. And I didn't really give you a whole lot, so I think you did a very good job of when you did start working for me. You figured this stuff out.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I really um, my like. My favorite thing and part of like why we started trainers collective, was I really like setting up backend systems. I don't know why. I just really enjoy it. It's kind of like therapeutic for me.
Speaker 2:So you had kind of you had a good system set up, but there was no automations. It was very of. You had a good system set up, but there was no automations. It was very. Everything was manual. It needed to be run by somebody, and I think something that a lot of business owners don't talk about, especially in the dog training world, is you could be the sole trainer in your company as the owner, and then you go and hire new trainers and you become a manager.
Speaker 2:You're adding so many jobs just by hiring trainers and scaling that you need to learn how to delegate a lot of those, and so that's what you did, because you were hiring trainers. And then now you're a dog trainer, a business owner, a manager, an admin person for all of your dog trainers and yourself. You were wearing every single hat that you could possibly wear when owning a business. It was on you that becomes a lot, and then you hired me and you had a really good system set up, but it wasn't automated, it wasn't sustainable. So, yeah, I just I kind of just messed around with it. And that's why I say to everybody if you don't know how to work with something, you have to spend time doing it. Same thing with dog training you don't know how to teach a dog how to sit, you have to practice a million times, right, and that's kind of what it is with systems as well.
Speaker 2:I mess around with HoneyBook. I wasn't afraid to like get in there. I made myself a project practice sending stuff to my email to see what it looked like from the client facing side. I, you know, watch tutorials on YouTube and kind of just like made it a game on like how to figure out how to make this like as self-sufficient as possible. And I think that allowed me to grow my place in your business, because it became okay I'm not just only sending contracts and invoices and responding to clients, because now I set up a system that allows the computer to take care of that for me. I now have more room to help you with other things going on in your business and I think that definitely helped you grow. You're able to start a Shopify and you were able to order merch and you were able to, you know, add these things. That kind of uh helped your business grow to what it is today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's kind of huge and this is something that we talk about. Trainers, collective people all the time they're like I want to shop and I want a community and I want, and then they don't have like an admin person and they're already so booked and busy and I'm like, listen, you are not going to be able to handle all of that, because we sold literally one product in like four colors and we could barely manage like all of the leashes coming to my house and fulfilling the orders and doing you know everything.
Speaker 1:So even though from the outside it looks like, oh, I want to sell leashes, or I want to sell merch or have a guide, there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes and if you don't have somebody helping with you it's going to make it really hard and you might be able to figure your way out through. But sustaining that, I think, is the most difficult thing for most people.
Speaker 2:I think is the most difficult thing for most people. Yeah, I think people they see the product of it but they don't see all the work that goes on behind the scenes and I think that's like really undervalued. When you first started selling leashes, I literally would come over to your house for like three hours at a time and we'd sit there and just like pack leashes and then we eventually got a place that does it for us. But like that was a lot. You know like there's a lot of work that goes on behind that.
Speaker 1:I had probably 30 boxes of leashes just like stacked in my doorway.
Speaker 2:I have a picture.
Speaker 1:I don't remember what this was for. I think it was like somebody's graduation or something. But I was in Tampa at your house packaging leashes. Do you remember what that was for? It popped up on like my photo memories and I was like why was I at Tori's house Like packaging?
Speaker 2:leashes, I think you had a client there that you were like going to see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but why did I come over and package leashes at your house?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's just like stuff like that. You know, it's literally.
Speaker 2:I was in charge of like printing all the labels oh maybe that's what it was, and so I think you were like collecting labels to stick onto the packages oh my gosh, it's so chaotic it took hours every week to do that on top of all the other things you were doing. You know like there's a lot of work that goes into it. It's either a lot of work, a lot of money or both.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's a lot and I feel like I am slacking. You know, I had a phone call with somebody who had a product that I want to stock in the store yesterday and she was like, yeah, your online store is really small. And I was like don't you have like 20 products in there? I guess I was like we're just for you, we're restocking, I promise no, but there it could go so much further, even with more systems, and I feel like we haven't even discovered the there's so many layers to it.
Speaker 1:There's so many layers. We're good at it and we're not that good at it.
Speaker 2:There's always something new to unlock, there's always gonna new to unlock, there's always going to be the next hustle to chase, you know. So you got to figure out, like where do you feel satisfied and like what brings you joy, and then stop before it gets overwhelming, or stop before it gets to a place where, like you can't sustain it, or you hire enough people to sustain it for you. Those are your options as a business owner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So I feel like the turning point for me and the everyday trainer is we got to a really good place with all of the systems and then I feel like I didn't have the systems on the trainer's side of things and by the time I got to that point in my business I was so burnt out I couldn't even I don't think I could put the energy into training people how they needed to be trained in order to have everything running like as smoothly as possible. You know, because it started off with we had so many clients and then I hired more people. They were really great, but I didn't have the automations and the backend and the admin stuff covered. So that side of it was kind of the bottleneck and then we got that side of things fixed and then in working on that then the quality kind of went down a little bit. So then, you know, more of the energy had to go into like the trainers and training them, and I feel like at that point I was just I was so burnt out. I think, looking back on my business, just in the past couple of years, I should have done what I did sooner, which was I ended up putting pause on the business in Orlando, the in-person business.
Speaker 1:After six years of doing things it got to just be too much for me. I was running everything out of my house it was. It had just gotten bigger than I could handle at the time. And I kind of talk about my, my burnout and we. We don't need to get into details on all of that, but I definitely did hit that like burnout wall and had the conversation with you about hey, I'm I'm kind of letting everybody go. I'm still giving you the option to keep your job If you want. I don't know what it's going to look like. I'm shutting down the in-person side of things and I'm going to go live in my van and you know, do do that journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you in the beginning we're like, okay, let me think about it, let me take some time away from the business. So you took about three months off um away from my business and during that time I was kind of tying up loose ends in the everyday trainer Orlando and you know, taking on the last dogs, and I went back to doing everything myself again. So I went from like three years with you where you were running the entire, you know, back end of my business to okay, I'm gonna simplify, we're gonna go back, I'm just gonna be doing everything for the next, you know, three or six months, however long I'm still here. And I think that was kind of a wake up call for both of us.
Speaker 1:I was like I can't do this. I cannot be the person who is training all of these dogs, because I still had a lot of dogs that I was training and be getting back to people and I know you kind of, you know, took a step back from the dog training world. It's a lot, it's a, it's a very, it's a very overwhelming industry. It's a very emotional industry. We're working with people's dogs. People get upset with us, like things happen, you know, and so I think dealing with that all the time just like got to you for sure it did, it did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I definitely I don't regret that three month little break that I took. I'm really happy that I did it and I wouldn't change that because I think I definitely needed a reframe. Like, it's very easy to get so caught up in the noise of it all that you forget why you're doing it exactly, and I I needed to take a step back and be like oh wait, I do enjoy doing these things.
Speaker 1:I just need to go about it from a different way yeah, exactly, and I went through the same thing too but with, like the dog, my dog training, business side of things of okay, I have kind of lost the plot a little bit. You know, like it, we were just in survival mode for so long Cause there was like something always happening and if you, if you work with dogs, whether you're a dog walker or a daycare person or you know work with any type of animal, really you understand that, like it, there's always something. It's like a high risk working environment. We're dealing with people's emotions, their dogs are in a stressful state. They're in a stressful state like we are kind of the problem solvers for a lot of people and it's just, it's just big feelings in an industry.
Speaker 1:So I kind of, you know, lost the plot a bit, getting burnt out and I was like, oh my gosh, I have to like step away from my business. And that time where it was like just me was very like it brought a lot of. It brought so much clarity to what I wanted out of my business and, more importantly, my day to day and checking in with my values kind of led me to that point and that discovery in my career and in my business. I talk about values all the time, especially with my virtual shadow program students, and it's just, it's something that you can write out. You can write out the things that are important to you, what you want your day to look like, and you structure your business around that, because the noise of dog training and the noise of running a dog training business can get very, very loud and you're going to lose the plot unless you can have something grounded that you can refer back to.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, you have to like, really want it and really be connected with yourself and remember why you're doing it. So I think, like listing out your values is actually a really great way to do that, because it's like I, you, you could be, you know, two months into, two years in and be like why am I doing this? This I don't even remember, because it's a lot. It's not an easy job to have, it's not an easy industry to be a part of. So I think, sitting down with yourself asking yourself, why am I doing this? And it's okay if the reason is I want to make money. That's an okay reason to run a business. You know what I mean. But it's not enough. If you're going to do it long-term and sustain it, you have to find something that grounds you. It has to be something you enjoy. It has to have certain pros and cons.
Speaker 2:For me, I really enjoy the business that we run right now because I feel like I'm part of a community. You know what I mean. I feel like I get to be very authentic with people. I feel like I get to help people and when we get those texts, that's like hey, I just booked my first client. Thank you so much for the help. Everything you set up has been amazing. It reminds me, and it's yeah, that's why I do this. This keeps me going to want to do it for the next person, because I really enjoy helping, being able to help people in that way and being able to set people up for success and watch them do it in a more effortless way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's cool too to be able to help them do what they're most passionate about.
Speaker 2:Definitely, yeah, I don't think very many people are getting into the dog training industry if they're not passionate about dogs and if they are, they probably don't make it.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. Well, that goes back. Okay yeah. So you want to do this to make money, but that's not going to carry you through this.
Speaker 2:Right, it'll get you through a couple months, but you won't make it very far If all you care about is the money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you can't, okay. So kind of the turning point for me is you ended up coming back three months later and you were like, hey, I want to work with you again and I was like great, would love to have you back. I just don't know what that's gonna look like, because I think at that time I had about what I six months or was it like three months before I was planning on leaving you left in August, so I think it's three months.
Speaker 1:Three months, yeah. So I came to you and I was like all right, we got three months in this house and after those three months I am leaving. I'm stepping away from the in-person business in Orlando. I don't know what things are going to look like, but I kind of gave you the offer of if you can help me make back your salary, then I'll put you back on payroll, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll never forget. We made that shit in three days. Literally three days yeah.
Speaker 1:Because I was not getting back to people and just you going and following up with people and sending invoices and you know you had so many people that you had trained during those three months and they're like I never paid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so bad.
Speaker 1:Oh my god it's literally so bad. But I feel like a lot of dog trainers also feel that way. I know that because we all work with them and they're all bad at getting paid. Yes, yeah, yeah, for sure, okay so I had like three months in the Orlando house.
Speaker 1:We wrapped up way I know that because we all work with them and they're all bad at getting paid yes, yeah, yeah, for sure, Okay. So I had like three months in the Orlando house. We wrapped up the boarding trains and boarding dogs and I loaded up my van and headed out West. I had to get out to Joshua tree for the retreat which was last September. We had a text in our like group chat with everybody and they're like it's been a year and I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:Like, oh, I miss you guys, but it it really kind of like had one of those like zoom out moments where I was like, wow, we did, we created like a whole business in that year. So it's hard to believe that it's been a year. We started trainers collective in September of last year and it was born from the place of you and I having these skills of we know how to set up dog training businesses. We know how to build websites. We know how to set up HoneyBook. We know how to run ads. There are a lot of dog trainers out there who don't know this stuff, who don't have the support that we have and need help with it.
Speaker 2:The retreat that you did and Joshua Tree really like kickstarted it, because a lot of them were like I love this, how do I do it? You know what I mean? Like you were sitting there telling them how important setting up these systems or how important it was to have a website, and they were like cool, how? And you're like you know what, let's bring in Tori, let's figure this out together. And it kind of built the framework for like hey, let's do this for everybody, let's do this for people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is definitely something that dog trainers need help with. So we created Trainers Collective and that's where we do. The website builds CRM for folks, we run ads for people, but I would say, a lot of our people that we work with at Trainers Collective are new dog trainers who are either just getting started or maybe they've had their business for a little bit and it's like running okay, but they're doing paper contracts and they have no automations, they have no website, they don't have any of the back-end stuff, and so they're not really able to grow their business at all yeah, a lot of them are like keeping track of what clients they have to train in their notes app, and that is not sustainable.
Speaker 2:That's crazy. You cannot do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I think that's so many people and I think it's because, as dog trainers, we're very good at being present and reading the dog in that moment and admin stuff is just not on the radar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean like if I was out training dogs all day, I wouldn't want to come home and sit at my computer. My job is to sit at my computer nine to five and so I'm able to sit down, send invoices, read, read emails, set up systems. You know what I mean. But if I were in your shoes, the last thing I'd want to do when I get home is open up my email to like 20 emails. That does not sound fun. So it's super easy to just go into your notes app and let me write this down. You're like I'll find it later. And then you go and search in your notes app and we're like damn, where did I put that? And you like have no systems, you have absolutely nothing to stay organized no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Like I don't want to go and do that every day. That does not align with my values at all. But I think it's like a puzzle. You like it Like. You like setting up all of that stuff and you're fast at it too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have gotten very quick at it to where I can set up a honey book in like a week, versus before I think it probably would take me three weeks to a month and that's crazy.
Speaker 1:But people don't know. People don't know that because you do it literally every single day, you're super fast at it, and people are like well, I'm going to try to figure it out on my own. And I'm gonna try to figure it out on my own and I'm like best of luck, like there's no way. I'm like it would it would take me three months to do it. So, and I'm okay at it, I'm like familiar with it.
Speaker 2:But for a majority of folks, I'm like oh good luck, you know, and your honey book was actually like pretty set up as well.
Speaker 1:I had all of the email templates like written out, you know, but I didn't have any autom but I didn't have any automations? I didn't have any automations.
Speaker 2:I don't know if HoneyBook had.
Speaker 1:Did HoneyBook have automations at the time? They might not have.
Speaker 2:That would make sense.
Speaker 1:I don't think so, because I feel like you would have at least tried.
Speaker 2:That's the other thing.
Speaker 1:that's crazy, no, actually it did.
Speaker 2:It did because I remember the person that I like you had hired one of your trainers to send out and like respond to leads, and you were like, okay, like she needs to be a trainer, I need to hire someone else. And when you first hired me I went to go like send emails and like respond to leads, and I was like, oh, she keeps replying before me because I didn't realize it was an automation sending like with her email signature. That's hilarious.
Speaker 1:I think that was the only automation, though it was the contact form, automation email, yeah, Okay. So basically, what we're talking about when we're talking about like the CRM and automations and stuff, is you have to think about your client's journey into working with you. Okay. So you have to put yourselves in their shoes and be like okay, if I am looking for dog trainers, first of all, what am I looking for on the website? What do they need to? What do I need to show? What do they want to see as a prospective client of mine? And then what's their journey like? So they, you know, find me on social media, and then they go to the website and then they're like oh my gosh, I like everything that I see here. So I'm going to fill out this contact form and that contact form sends an automatic email that's like hey, thanks so much for reaching out, Click here to schedule a phone consultation with us. And so what that does it? Just that one little automation can just buy you so much time, because it's so, so important that, as we're getting people in, we respond to them quickly.
Speaker 1:I would say that that is the most important thing in growing a dog training business If you're booked and busy and you know having clients come in is not your issue. That's not that big of a deal, you know, because people are going to work with you regardless. Maybe you've built a name for yourself and they're willing to wait, but for a majority of the dog training businesses that we work with, I would say their funnel is the amount of leads that they have coming in, because they just don't have a website or the social media or, you know, any sort of marketing going on and so they're not showing up in front of people and therefore they're not getting business. It's not from a lack of skills.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of the dog trainers that we work with are extremely empathetic, kindhearted, talented dog trainers. They just don't know how to get clients and show up in front of those people. So we basically meet with everybody all of our trainers, collective clients and we talk with them about all of their business details. What are the services that you offer? Who are the clients that you work with? Where do you service? We get really in depth in what they've got going on and then we come to them with a game plan of okay, you don't have a great website, as far as you know your SEO goes, which is the keywords on the website that help you show up Like. There's literally so many things that go into it literally so many things that go into it.
Speaker 1:It's just like a never ending tunnel. But okay, you know you need better SEO on your website, and so we build out a website for you based on these services. This is your bread and butter service, so let's really like emphasize that on your website. Let's make it clear how people are going to feel once they work with you. Once they're done working with you, how can they contact you? How can we make all of that as easy as possible?
Speaker 1:Especially today, I think having a very well-structured business is important because it's so easy to do right. It's so easy to set up an automation that sends an email to somebody once they fill that out so that they can schedule a phone call with you. So you're not doing the back and forth like, oh well, I can't meet at this time or, you know, playing phone tag with a client, because if it's difficult to work with you, you can be the best dog trainer in the world, but people are just not going to work with you, and I find that almost the better dog trainers, the people that I am like oh my gosh, yes, I would 1000% send my dog to you, I would argue are not the best at business because they're really good at dog training. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yep, that's something that I think we both have found out with trainers collective of like. I look at these people's Instagrams and I, you know, look at their, the way their business is set up and I'm like you are such a good dog trainer Like I would send my dog to you. I don't know how to find you, I don't know how to work with you. You know what I mean, and that's where we come in, because it's like you could be the best dog trainer in your city, but if nobody knows you exist, how are they going to work with you? How are they going to know that you're the best dog trainer in that city?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what would you say are some of the top mistakes that people make when they're running their dog training business?
Speaker 2:I think top mistakes are they try to do everything themselves, which I know, like we've talked about this entire podcast, but like that is such a common theme is they try to wear every single hat and they're not willing to outsource anything.
Speaker 2:The other thing is like being hard to get in touch with. So like if somebody, let's say you have a contact form on your website and somebody fills it out, if you don't reply for two or three days, they already reached out to four other dog trainers. You know, like you, it is a race who gets there first. You could be the best dog trainer, but if you don't respond and you're hard to get in touch with, they're not going with, they're not going to work with you, they're not going to choose you. People need you to be as accessible to them in the beginning as possible to build that trust. Because if you make it hard to be in touch with and you, you know, take five days to send the contract, in their minds they're thinking I'm going to send my dog to you for a board and train and I'm not going to hear from you for the next three weeks and that's scary, because we love our dogs like we love our kids. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:No, and I think that's huge because it is such an emotional industry and that is what people are thinking. You know, like getting back to people is by far the most important thing. I also feel like something else that we see a lot is people thinking that social media is enough or thinking that social media is going to run their business for them. Yes, yes, we do see that.
Speaker 1:But I think social media is just a piece of the puzzle. All of this kind of plays into itself. So let's look at the everyday trainer. We have the CRM, the backend. We have the website, which covers all of the services that we offer. We're very easy to get in touch with. There's a contact form.
Speaker 1:I have this podcast, I have social media, I have YouTube. I have all of these things that work together to build up trust, and social media is just a piece of that puzzle to build up trust, because if somebody is going to send their dog to me, they need to know who I am and what I believe in. And so I'm always telling trainers your social media is not for other dog trainers, your social media is for your ideal client. How am I going to you know, go to your page and want to hire you If I don't even see your face? I don't know what type of training you do, I don't know where you live or who you are. We have to you know, kind of put it all out there as dog trainers in order to gain that trust with our clients.
Speaker 2:You have to be willing to be vulnerable in that way. Yeah, yeah, but that's how, that's how people relate to you. You know what I mean. Like that's how you build that trust and that's how people are like oh my God, I really like her. A lot of people come to you and they're like I love Meg, and they've never met you. They just know your social media, they listen to your podcast, they watch your YouTube and they're like I love Meg, you know what I mean. And like that alone gets people to book with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that goes back to the authenticity. I don't know why I said it like that. That goes back to authenticity and aligning with your values. You know I do my best to show up as transparently as possible and part of that is, you know, talking on this podcast and being like I burned myself out and here's all the. You know you've made mistakes. Here's all the mistakes that I've made, laid it out on the table. Very, you know transparent about who I am and you know what I do and what my values are. So it's tough to show up online or show up in your business authentically if you haven't sat down with yourself and kind of thought about that. You know, thought about like damn, what are my values and how do I want to live my days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think people can see that if you're not being, if you're not acting in alignment with yourself, people can tell you know, like your social media, like, if you look at like any influencer that you follow, you can tell when they're doing a brand deal that they don't love or they're, you know, making a video that, like, doesn't really agree with the message, when they're doing a brand deal that they don't love or they're making a video that doesn't really agree with the message that they're trying to say. Because people know, through community and through communication, that doesn't feel right. Something feels off. They might not be able to put their finger on it, but it feels off. So if you sit down with yourself, figure out your values, figure out what's important to you and you show up online in an authentic, kind way, people are going to be attracted to that and they're going to flock to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's showing up in all facets of your business, not just social media.
Speaker 2:Not just online, right, and it's an important piece, but it's not everything. You have to show up that way when you're doing phone calls with clients. You have to show up that way when you're doing a in-person consultation yeah, any communication with them. You have to be true to yourself and you have to be authentic, and that means like your business has to be authentic, like you are your business.
Speaker 1:I think not being authentic leads to that burnout and that's why I ended up hitting that burnout point in the business and like same thing for you. You know we had to kind of like realign with okay, why am I doing this, why am I here, why am I doing this? I've kind of lost the plot a little bit that that grounding force is always those values. So I went ahead and I wrote mine out and this is something that I'll do probably every couple months, I would say like every two to three months. I'll kind of sit down and do a little meditation and realign myself with my values, because they do change, I think, based on, you know, as we grow and get older and wiser and learn all of our lessons. So I picked one, two, three, four, five, six. I have six. My first is freedom, and this is a big one for me and why I struggled so much with the business in Orlando, because it was really structured around board and trains and I had no freedom. You're basically on house arrest. You can't ever leave the dogs. If you do leave the dogs, it's like I'm so stressed out, even if I'm just going to get coffee. You know it stresses me out if I'm ever leaving the house without the dogs and so doing board and trains and having people's dogs in my care, I wasn't able to have any bit of freedom. And for a while in my business, I tried, I tried to, you know, take off and I tried to go on vacation, and I was just never able to like. I always had to come back and put out fires. So my business wasn't sustainable in that way where I could step away and everything would run smoothly. That just wasn't the case. So that kind of led me to taking that step back and changing the way that I structured my business, and so now my life looks very differently and I'm very happy because one of my biggest values is freedom, and now I actually have that. I get to live a life and travel in our vans, and if we want to go on a road trip, we can go on a road trip and I don't have to worry about things falling apart. Whenever I leave, I leave.
Speaker 1:My next one was compassion, and that is kind of my why behind I never, why I refuse to shame clients instead of empower them, like shaming dog owners or shaming the trainers that we work with. I think it's super important to be compassionate with people and where they are in their struggle with their dog training business or training their dog, and I hope that I never lose that compassion, you know. So I wrote it out of like this is something that's really important to me and I always want to stay by this. Towards the end, I was getting so burnt out. I was like numb to everything. I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't, I can't do this anymore. You know, when you're no longer compassionate, then you need to take a step back. I would say. But I don't know, it's surprising, because there are a lot of dog training people out there that, like, completely lack that compassion. But anyway, I'm not going to get into that.
Speaker 1:Um, my next one was simplicity, and this is why I design systems that are easy to use and are repeatable, basically everything in my business. Before I do it let's say, we're gonna, you know, launch this merch that we just got. I wouldn't do it if I didn't have the systems in place to have somebody fulfill those orders and, you know, have things run smoothly, because if it's not sustainable, what's the point? I'm not going to be able to replicate it in the future. So that is a huge decision maker for me and my business is like is it simple? Are the systems in place like simple and is it sustainable for me? Because if it's difficult, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna keep doing it. I'll set it up up and then I'm like, oh, this is sucked. Why would you sign yourself up for that? Why would I sign myself up to fulfill hundreds of leash orders for hours and hours every day? That was a lot. It was a lot.
Speaker 1:My next one is integrity, and this is why I'm very selective about who I work with, even if it's, you know, dog training clients or trainers that I'm hiring for the everyday trainer, or people that we work for in trainers collective. I know you and I both kind of believe in this. We don't just take anybody on. We never want anybody to feel pressured or like we're forcing them to do something or feel like they have to. We genuinely make sure that we position ourselves as like, make sure that we're a good fit before we start working together, and that's kind of where that integrity comes in for me. My next one is growth. This is why I continue investing in my education and you know my time as a dog trainer in learning more about the back end business side of things. Growth is super, super important to me and I hate being stagnant, so we've always got some sort of like side project going on where we're just learning more.
Speaker 1:You know, I think the store was a big one for me setting up the online community. That was something that was really big and has honestly been in the works for years. I think a lot of people can look at the online community and be like, oh yeah, that's cool. You know I can set that up and have it running and successful in a month, but it's something that I've worked at for years and figuring out what types of videos people want to see in an online community, what people are willing to pay, what sort of follow-up do I need? Do I need to do you know, group classes and what does that look like? We've built that over the years and now somebody like Shane Shane's has had Shane has had his community for two years. We set that up from him for him a couple years ago and he's killed it. He's consistently posting videos in there and now he gets to live his life off of that income yeah, you know he has.
Speaker 2:he constantly is uploading new stuff in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's crazy. People love that, people love that, but that's so hard to maintain too. He's built it. He's built it and I've kind of told him that this is a long game. This is not something that overnight you're going to be making $10,000 a month with your online training community, but it's one of those things that we learned through my business of okay, this is a really good thing to have as a dog trainer. Those people who aren't local to you. They can come and learn in your community. But it's taken years to develop and kind of make it the best version that it can be.
Speaker 1:We know what works. We know what works in our training businesses. We know what works in even running ads or email marketing, all of that side of things. We know that stuff because we do focus on growth and further educating ourselves in our business. And then the last one that I have is community. I think both you and I, you know, have this as our values. We have nothing if we don't have community, and I know we're both kind of more introverted, for sure, and, yeah, like the idea of being the you know person that lives under a rock, but I think, when it comes down to, it.
Speaker 2:We're not, I agree. I think it wouldn't be so high on our value list if we were. It's hard sometimes.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. I just run away.
Speaker 2:I have to put myself out there and talk to people. What?
Speaker 1:I know you have to record a podcast, you have to show up on social media, it's a lot, but I think that brings those authentic community members. You know, and even for this podcast, like I am, I have so many people every week that listen to this podcast and I am so incredibly grateful because that, in my mind, is crazy. But that's just on the community that we've built. You know, and this community even though you don't like talking on camera or on any of these things, like this community was built in part by you, you know, and I think that says a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for that credit.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it, yeah, but I think it's more about us.
Speaker 1:It's about building something bigger than one trainer.
Speaker 1:You know, it could be very easy for us to just kind of run with the everyday trainer and be like, okay, we're just going to scale this as big as we can and make as much money as possible and hire as many trainers and gatekeep everything.
Speaker 1:But that's not. What I think is best for this industry is, I think we should share as much information as possible of how to do this well and how to run a dog training business in a sustainable way, or, you know, dog walking business or grooming business, you know, whatever your pet care business is, sharing the how-to's and the behind the scenes for it is super important for me as it. I know it is for you too, because there's so many dogs out there and I think, at the end of the day, we all have the same vision of we want to help as many dogs as possible, and trained dogs typically don't end up in shelters. They don't end up getting euthanized. You know, the more trainers that are kind and compassionate, that we can support with the things that we know, the more dogs we can help.
Speaker 2:I think wanting other trainers to succeed is. You know the energy that you need to put out in the world and trying to like gatekeep how you get your business to succeed is only like defeating the purpose. You know like you value goals, or sorry, you value growth. You value helping dogs. You value so many things that you can't do if you keep it to yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you want to share our values for trainers collective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's do it. So when we first started trainers collective, we sat down and we came up with a list of our values and we have checked in since, but I think our values have remained pretty much the same from the beginning. Our goal is very much the same as it was when we first started this business. So some of our values are authenticity. It's really important to us that we show up with all of our clients in the way that is honest and just straight up. It's very important to us. We don't want to gatekeep anything. We build websites and then we transfer ownership Like we are not going to keep that. We are not going to, you know, hold something over your head. We offer reoccurring services. If you don't want to do them, you do not have to do them, and the availability of your website isn't dependent on that. It's super important for us, I think, because our goal is to help other dog trainers grow as much as they can, to be as authentic and to be as open and transparent in that way. The other one we have is community, which I think we both have touched on a lot. It's really important to have that community and rely on each other to get rid of that noise and make sure that you don't get burnt out and have people to lean on when you need support.
Speaker 2:The other three that we have is sustainability. Obviously, 90% of our business is about systems. It's about hiring the right people. It's about pricing your services in a way that is worth it to you and the amount of work that you're putting in. And if you can't sit down and do that, it's not sustainable and it's really important for us, for our business, but also for all the businesses that we help. How can we make this sustainable? How can we make sure the longevity of your business is what you want it to be Quality.
Speaker 2:We, like you said, we're not going to necessarily work with every single person that comes to us just to get that sale. We're not going to necessarily work with every single person that comes to us just to get that sale. We're not going to book as many people as we can just to say that we booked them right. We really value putting out quality work and we really value working with people that we feel align with that, and quality comes down to what type of websites are we building for these trainers? Because that's how they show up, that's their business and that's in our hands.
Speaker 2:So if we put out really bad quality stuff, that has a whole ripple effect and it goes way beyond us. And then empowerment I think a lot of trainers that come to us either don't know where to start or are in a place where they feel very discouraged, and I think it's really important for us to empower our clients and make them feel like, hey, I've been in your place, I 100% know what this feels like. Here's how you get through that and kind of just give them that confidence of like you are a good dog trainer, you are a good person, you are a good business owner. You just need a little bit of help and there's nothing wrong with that. Let's do it together.
Speaker 1:I love that and I've definitely felt that way. You know, in the beginning I was like, oh my gosh, what am I doing? There's always that imposter syndrome in, like any new endeavor that you do, and dog training is, you know, everybody that we talked to is like I can't charge that much, like what you know. And so it's our job to kind of be like you have a good thing going on, we work with a lot of people, we see what you've got going on, you've got good skills, you've got good communication.
Speaker 2:You're just missing this little piece of the puzzle and then you can, you know, be what you want, be successful, you know yeah, and I think that's one of like the benefits of working with us, especially doing like our consultation calls and like doing the like business consulting sessions. That we do is a lot of trainers. They don't know what to charge for their services. They don't know what other trainers are charging, because they haven't necessarily had a chance to build up that community yet, and so we can be like yeah, we've worked with three trainers who live in your state and they all charge 150 for private lessons. You don't need to be charging $50, you know, raise your prices.
Speaker 2:You can do this. Other people are doing it too, it's okay.
Speaker 1:That's what I really struggled with in the beginning is I reached out to a marketing company that like specialized with drug trainers, not because I necessarily wanted the marketing, but I was like, do you do like business consultation? And they were like, yeah, well, you know, we'll talk with you about your business. Because I was like, what is everybody else doing? I was very much in my bubble and that was even when, you know, we were working together. I had trainers, I had you, I had the basics, I had the email templates and I was like I don't, is this what everybody else is doing? What sort of contracts? Yeah, we were just kind of like shrugging at each other.
Speaker 1:We didn't really know what anybody else was doing, and that led me to reach out to that first marketing company. I was like, hey, I just want to see that I'm doing all of the things that I need to be doing. And ultimately we figured that out. We were like, oh, we're actually doing all the things. You know, we're doing all the things. Yeah, yeah, we just didn't have anybody to compare it to and it it felt very isolating. It felt like, you know, I, I didn't really have a dog training community at that point. We weren't working with other dog trainers so we didn't know what everybody else was doing, and I feel that's a common thing. When I get on the phone calls with people they're like what am I doing? How much am I charging? Here are my services. Is that a good idea? Like, I literally have no idea, you know.
Speaker 2:So it's so hard to know?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, Like if you don't go out and talk to somebody, it's. I have no idea what other people in our industry are charging if we don't go out and talk to them about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I feel like that is the coolest part of what we have is the community that we've built, and we have all of these dog trainers who have done my virtual shadow program and know each other that way, or did trainers collective and know each other that way. I do think that we need to come up with some sort of online community, whether it's Mighty Networks or what's the other one Substack, substack I think we should do a substack for dog training businesses. So if you guys want to be a part of a substack with us, let us know.
Speaker 2:We might be able to figure that out. I will. I will build that out, guys.
Speaker 1:Tori, tori, I will figure it out and then I will figure it out for you. Yeah, yeah, tori will figure out sub stack for us. Is there anything that, any piece of advice that you would give to a new dog trainer business?
Speaker 2:I would say find your people and lean on each other. It's so easy to try to do everything yourself, but if you don't go out and seek help, you are going to get burnt out. So and have systems and have systems. Even with systems, you can't do everything yourself. But have systems and lean on your peers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. Well, I wouldn't be here without you. So I appreciate you, tori. Thank you, I wouldn't be here either, couldn't be here without you, so I appreciate you, tori.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I wouldn't be here either.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. And thank you to you guys as well for tuning in every week. I hope you got some valuable insight into the back end of how we run things. Thank you so much and we'll see you back here next week.