In this episode of the Mind Your Own Dog Business podcast, the Grassroots Dog Biz School team sits down and talks about finances for dog trainers and dog business owners. Now, in true Dog Biz School style, this isn't just the basic bitch advice of "knowing your numbers" or what accounting software to use.
Kristen, Maggie, and Ashely deep dive into the mindset of money with dog trainers, how to financially plan for the lifestyle and business you want as a dog business owner, WHY charging a higher priced dog training program is in demand for dog owners (and how dog owners are spending their money is none of your business) along with breaking out of the planning to be broke cycle and using your money as a reinvestment back to your future dog owner clients. Along with the emotional choke-hold, most dog biz owners get into when it comes to their financial situations and decision making.
It's raw, and it's real. And it's what you need to know as a dog trainer and dog business owner.
Join our Finances Fucking Matter Live Class Thursday, 6/1, at 2 pm EST.
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4QeAVh_hTaqT3CyAaAslxA
If you'd like your numbers run for the session, email the office at clientsuccess@dogbizschool.com
Episode Links:
Work with Dog Biz School
Instagram - Dog Biz School
The information on this podcast and the resources available through this podcast are not intended as, and shall not be understood or construed as, financial advice. I am not an attorney, accountant, or financial advisor, nor are we holding ourselves out to be, and the information contained on this podcast is not a substitute for financial advice from a professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation.
In this episode of the Mind Your Own Dog Business podcast, the Grassroots Dog Biz School team sits down and talks about finances for dog trainers and dog business owners. Now, in true Dog Biz School style, this isn't just the basic bitch advice of "knowing your numbers" or what accounting software to use.
Kristen, Maggie, and Ashely deep dive into the mindset of money with dog trainers, how to financially plan for the lifestyle and business you want as a dog business owner, WHY charging a higher priced dog training program is in demand for dog owners (and how dog owners are spending their money is none of your business) along with breaking out of the planning to be broke cycle and using your money as a reinvestment back to your future dog owner clients. Along with the emotional choke-hold, most dog biz owners get into when it comes to their financial situations and decision making.
It's raw, and it's real. And it's what you need to know as a dog trainer and dog business owner.
Join our Finances Fucking Matter Live Class Thursday, 6/1, at 2 pm EST.
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4QeAVh_hTaqT3CyAaAslxA
If you'd like your numbers run for the session, email the office at clientsuccess@dogbizschool.com
Episode Links:
Work with Dog Biz School
Instagram - Dog Biz School
The information on this podcast and the resources available through this podcast are not intended as, and shall not be understood or construed as, financial advice. I am not an attorney, accountant, or financial advisor, nor are we holding ourselves out to be, and the information contained on this podcast is not a substitute for financial advice from a professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation.
You're listening to the Mind Your Own Dog Business podcast. I'm your host leading expert in dog business strategics Kristin Lee. Guys, get ready for your journey. Your journey to cutting edge marketing and sales, creating a standout kick ass dog business brand, along with mastering your mindset that's gonna smash all this glass ceilings that have been holding you back and catapult your dog misses to the next level with actionable steps. You can take right away. We're going to empower you. We're going to grow you as you step into your authentic self, not only as a dog trainer, dog walker, or whatever slice of the pet industry you find yourself in, but as that badass entrepreneur, my mission is to disrupt the current norm. Cut through the noise, cut through the bullshit, and empower the incredible women of the dog business industry to step into the spotlight, reclaim control, and transform not only their businesses, but their lives. It's real, it's raw, it's uncensored, and it's what this dog business industry needs. Let's do this guys. Well, hello everybody. Welcome to you. Today's episode of The Mind You Own Motherfucking Dog Biz podcast. I'm your fucking favorite host that keeps it real, that keeps it raw, that other people aren't fucking telling you. Just blowing smoke up your ass when it comes to growing and sustaining a profitable and healthy dog. Business or whatever type of business you have in this incredible industry. Anyway, before we get kicked off today, this episode is about finances. We are not giving financial advice. We are not financial planners or financial investors or whatever else, so this is financial information. So yeah, this is not financial advice though. Anyway, welcome. Today I have two of my very favorite guests. Here we have Ashley, who you've heard so many times on the podcast. I'm not gonna make her cry again. Cause before we were recording we had to stop cuz somebody came up to the house and we're like, uh, awkward. And I said, Hmm, maybe I'll make Ashley a co-host on the podcast since you all are really liking her so far. And she's like, And then today we also have the woman, the myth, the motherfucking legend, the Maggie Christina, who is back from maternity leave. And hell basically, literally hell, uh, look, I've been teach, I've been teaching, uh, financial education and the dog world for years, and I swear to God the last few years for myself, So glad, so thankful that I've taken my own visa over the years, because I don't know how I would've survived. No. Got poisoned and sick for a while and then you're in a huge fucking lawsuit and everything else now. Hard pregnancy, and then four months now since a little bucket of joy's been born. So the, the Kessler child, the Kessler child, Kristen has poked at him a couple times with a. Six. So things are going well on that end. Hey, he smiled at I played. He did. He loves Kristen. I'm playing hard to get with him. Yeah, it's working. He's like, oh my God, I want this lady. It's working. It's working. Well, and also, you know, this is my second now, my oldest son, Mason's 11. For those of you guys that have been following me for a while, and let's, let's face it like, you know, you might be early on in your business and if you've got kids having. Financial education and your and your business is so critical you don't have time. The same way, you know, some of us do that are footloose and fancy free without kids, and I've been there too myself. We didn't have to take stuff as seriously, but if you got kids or you're, you know, you've been in the industry for a long time, I feel like financial conversations is basically what everyone needs to have right now. Yeah. I don't care how long you've been doing it. Yeah, something. We've been talking to a lot of people the last two weeks and money is, and finances is the one thing that keeps popping up on everybody's radar. Yep. So what we wanna do today is kind of dig a little bit deep into that and go into a dive around financials for dog trainers and for business owners. What does it mean? Yeah. What does it mean? What does it mean? Because all this will tie in with pricing, and I know everybody always wants to know how do I price myself? How do I. I price myself. Well, we gotta get an understanding of the finances. The finances, the finances and the strategy around it, and the formulas you can plug and play. Now, these aren't formulas that are in some weird whackadoo fucking spreadsheet with percentages that you need to pay out to employees or whatever else. This is straight up advanced financial strategy for dog business owners. Yeah, that's broken. Down and it's crafted around exactly what you need and what your business needs as a dog trainer. Yeah. Ashley, I know you went through a whole financial journey yourself, um, over the last couple years, and when we were talking in kind of mind hiding about this episode, you're like, holy crap, nobody's talking about this in the dog chaining industry. Yeah, so I've, I've hired quite a few coaches. Which is before grants and all the advice I got was, yeah, raise your prices. Raise your prices. But nobody told me like how or why or why I'm choosing that number in the first place. Mm-hmm. And how to manage your money once you have it. Cuz that's a whole nother ballgame too. Yeah. You think ha, not having money or not having control of your money is hard. Imagine having a lot of it and all of a sudden responsibility just like grows exponentially. Exactly. Well, we always say that's actually a risk in dog bus school is when you come in and then all of a sudden you have your first whatever K month, like 10 K month or 15 K month or whatever else. That's when people start really making dumb fucking decisions. Yep. That's why it's so. So important to have a team on your side when it comes to this. Also, super quick, before we officially get kicked off into today's, uh, little topics we wanna chat with you on, we are doing another webinar. Thank you so much for all the people that showed up to get your shit together. That was insane. That was insane. Yeah. Well, and this is, this is the tail of, to get your shit together is everybody's like, I don't even know what my number is. Yeah. So what we're gonna be doing is this. Thursday, I believe it's June 1st at 2:00 PM Eastern. If we might change the time, I'm not sure yet. We're gonna do a financial deep dive around finances for pet business professionals. Yeah, for dog trainers, and then also for anybody else's in the industry. Cause it's super important. So the link will be below. Feel free to watch it. The replay will be available to you 24 hours later. It'll get automatically sent. But I wanna see all of you there. I'm excited about it. I know Maggie's super excited to kind of come back. Yeah. Full steam on this and yeah, let's go into it. Well, and, and all of the formula, like there's. You know, just a few really simple formulas we tend to follow. Um, you know, that's gonna be a really good time for you guys to bring your own stories, your own numbers to the table. If you wanna have a breakdown, I can, I can handle a couple of those live. Um, so that's gonna be a really good time to join there. But I think just rolling into that, it's like, Leads a, you know, I think Ashley could attest to this too, you know, how many times were you, were you told just raise your prices a million times. Yeah. And there's a point where I would imagine still, I mean, you know, this happens to me too, where it's like you're asked to raise your prices to a point where emotionally it feels weird. Oh yeah, yeah. And it's like, does, but what does it, what does a calculator say? So I think I. Simplified version is, you know, we first do, we first run your numbers, we call it backwards budget. It's like, Ashley put it perfectly where you're, um, you're not planning on where you're at today. You're planning on where you wanna be in the future. We run those numbers and then we can actually, we, so when people are like, well, what should I base my, my prices on my, my answers always, you should base your. Prices on how much you need to make to be in business. It's as simple as that. How much, because you know, we've, I've worked with a whole bunch of people over the years. We talked to a lot of people and it's amazing how like some of you could be stuck in a situation where you're making, you know, $40,000 a month, but if you have a bazillion employees, you're making less than your employees at a take home level. Yep. Right. So like more. More money through your business doesn't mean anything. We had a facility get into contact with us the other day, for example, and they were boasting how they made like a half a million a year on their daycare and boarding sales. But she also mentioned that, you know, she's got 22 employees and it's like she had to cut her pay and Yeah. And that she's had to cut her own salary and she's like, but the business is doing great. It's like, but is it? Yeah. You know, so that's the thing guys, is if you're like branding, you're like, I'm barely even making money, or I'm making like five or 10 grand, but I feel like I can't get ahead. Um, there's definitely this, this is the baseline work that we've found that like none of you guys have been taught how to do. Yeah. And, and so that's really, really important. Um, I don't know. There's a lot to cover on this one. Do you wanna talk about money mindset first? I feel like this. Yeah. This is always front and center of, of a lot of people's, not necessarily issues, but tie, arounds around money. Cuz like for us in the industry, there's so many emotions when it comes to like opening a dog training business. You got it? Mm-hmm. Cause you wanna take care of the dogs and there's, and the expectation of society and money and all this type of thing where people always feel like weird about charging. Right. They always feel they have emotions around them. So I really wanna get the money mindset because this is not gonna sit here and be like, let's manifest or, you know, things like that. Um, cause I feel like that's also a wormhole people use to avoid looking at money. Mm-hmm. And finances and their numbers. But I really wanna chat about money mindset, Maggie. Yeah. I don't know. I wanna hear your take on it, Ashley. We're gonna pass the buck around. Yeah. Well, so, so what, what do you. Can you say your mindset was after, you know, like when you first found us because you had started to learn how to invest and all that kind of stuff. So, so actually, uh, as Maggie was saying earlier, when once you start getting money, you, you tend to make really bad decisions afterwards. So I, grassroots was my bad decision. That turned into a really good ones. So I had just, just hit my very, very first $15,000 month that I've thought I was on top of the world. And so then I dropped it into grassroots. Mm-hmm. Because I was just spending money like crazy at that point. Turned out to be a really good financial decision, but it could have been a very bad one had, had I spent it on anywhere else. Um, but, but in the very beginning, I. I was really concerned about my prices, um, and feeling like I don't, am I worth it? Like, yes. Mm-hmm. I'm supposed to raise my prices. I see that I do need more money coming in, but am I good enough to charge those prices or who am I to charge this price? Yeah. Yeah. Um, so that was a big hangup and then, From, from just the, uh, people I had surrounded myself with before my previous business. Like you're, the mindset is your, Kind of a bad person. If you're wealthy, you don't really care about dogs, you just care about the money, and I never ever want to be mm-hmm. In that position. I don't want anybody to think I care about money more than I care about dogs. I mean, this is, this is my passion. I love to help people and I love to help dogs, but I also need to get paid. Yes. I need to be in business in order to help people and dogs. Yeah. And I can't do that. If I am well, well, well undercharging, which, which I was by a lot. By a lot. A lot. Yeah. That's such, that's such an important piece of it though, right? Mm-hmm. It's the. The emotion, you know, like when there's emotion involved in trying to make those decisions, those financial decisions for your business, you're not relying on what the calculator says. Like, I feel like that leads you, that's what I called, like the emotional purgatory. Mm-hmm. Right. You're in this purgatory of, well, I need to survive. You know, I've got, my kids are watching me, or my husband's relying on me, or, or my dog's relying on me. Yep. Um, but you've like bled yourself to believe that helping every single person you possibly can. Regardless of how much it takes from you is also simultaneously supposed to be the correct way forward. But those two things can't exist together exactly like under the same situation, and so it really does. Has become a, a literal light to keep afloat. Yep. Um, and that's, this is so important that like I, you know, it frustrates me to no end that few people talk about when we allow ourselves to get stuck there. And then when we have everybody just screaming at the other side, we'll just raise your prices. And it's like, well, don't you think I already know that? But if I, it was that easy, I would've raised them last year or raised them. Why have I forgot about that? Done that yet? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, why didn't I think about that? That's what everybody says. Yeah. But if we don't have a clear idea of what does that mean, why are we doing it? You know? For example, if it's like, well, I need to make an extra $10 per client so that I can ensure healthy food for my child. Mm-hmm. Of course you're gonna charge that. Yeah. Right. If you know what it's going towards. And that's where, you know, we also need to have the conversation in this industry about, yes, you do need to make a healthy living. You do need to make enough so that you can, you know, fund your next pieces of growth, whether you wanna hire that mentor or build that facility or get that new vehicle so you're not stranded on the side of the road with. That client's dog, right? Clients have to be willing to invest in you as a whole, not how you are today. You as a whole is you today, plus you making everything better for the next client, right? So with that mindset, each client is investing in your future client. So, and then that means somebody before invested in them today anyway, so it's a pay. That's how I look at business. Go ahead. What I see a lot of you all doing, like when we're having conversations and kind of going over numbers and money and like pricing and showing you what, like, okay, cool, with just making this shift around money can actually net you a little bit more in your pocket and or a lot more, or a lot more in your pocket. We always butt up against the whole train of thought and my mindset of, well, my clients wouldn't pay that. My clients won't pay that. My, it's, it's, it's impossible. It's impossible. My clients won't pay that. Yeah. That's really too bad because you're making decisions for other grown ass adults and like how they spend their money and what they see value in is none of our None of your business. Yes. None of your business. Mind your own dog business. Yeah. That means mind your own. You need to be charging ba. Baseline what you have to charge to be out of poverty. And for some of you guys, that is true no matter how much money is coming through the business, right? That doesn't mean that you have stable work-life balance, that you're putting money away for the future in case of emergencies, right? Yep. And like, you know, we mentioned briefly, I'm coming out of a really horrendous situation where my partner and I were literally like, Gased by what's called a Brownfield site. I didn't even know what the fuck that was. Brownfield site is like a small Superfund site. It's got chemicals in the ground that were then coming up into our apartment and like it was terrible. So Camp Lagoon, that's t c e. That's the same stuff that I was exposed to. Mm-hmm. I mean, we were sick, sick, sick. That took a whole lot out. Then I got pregnant, you know? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Thank God I practiced what we preach about, like setting yourself up for scenarios. Yep. You know, you, it's future planning is really, really, it's really important and it's so simple. That's the other thing, Ashley, right? Like when we run quote unquote business numbers, it's not rocket science. You could literally do it on the back of a napkin. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's really. Easy wants to know what your, what numbers to run. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And so like why not plan for you're, you're no good to clients. Future you out of business is no good to to clients cuz you're not gonna have any Yep. Yeah. Yeah. You're gonna get burned out and you're just gonna be done. Or somebody else like us is gonna come in and take over and, you know, business. Yeah. Re. Benefits of the work that you weren't able to do or didn't wanna do. Yep. So, you know, and we're especially going into a day and age now where you're not going to, you cannot skimp on your own financial education. You cannot get away with avoiding, knowing how to look at just the simple numbers of like, this is how much I should be making, this is how much I can be, you know, Uh, can be making if I do X, Y, or Z, and this is how much or limited amount I'm gonna make if I don't make any other changes, right? This is what we do with people on calls all the time as we're getting'em started into the school, is like, well, what is your plan? How much are you bringing in? What, like, you know, how many people do you have to sell on average to meet your goal? And every single time, there's not a single time that those formulations. Haven't come back, telling everyone on board that like, you're fucked if you keep going the way you're going. Yep. Whether you hire us or not is irrelevant. You cannot continue the way you're going. And that's purgatory. That's seeing some of the writing on the walls, but being just busy enough hustling in a same broken system that you're not really, you don't have to slow down to see. See it yet, but when some shit breaks or some shit puts you behind, there's no more catching up. You're just, you're done. And we see a lot of people, especially three years now after, uh, the first of Covid hit, um, people that didn't really know how to get their shit together. They're slowly in, in many situations, quickly petering out about, yeah, about right now and. I would hope most of you guys aren't that far along or just, you know, following those people thinking that these are mentors of yours that are actually secretly struggling and you're like, oh shit. Oh yeah. You know what? Like they're burned out and they seem to be doing all the right things, but they don't seem very he or happy. Yeah. We just had a call with somebody like that. Mm-hmm. That they're like, yeah, we've been, we've got a few, A lot of cultures. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah, I've been filming tour for a while. This person that has this amazing something, something program. Yeah. Where this person, this seminar, and it's like you can name drop all you want 99, 9 0.9% of the time. We know all those fuckers. We love them, we hold space for them, but they are fucking broke. Mm-hmm. So if you're falling their advice, man, I mean, Look, look, when you have a a dog trainer's conference that has a key speaker that everybody knows that's on stage, rod, I know that has a heart attack, I'm gonna call it as it is. Yeah. It happens. We get burned out. Older age, these things happen. But then when we, when those people that we all love and adore in the industry don't even have enough in the bank account to they, they gotta go and like get help. Help of, of supporters. I'm sorry, but that breaks my heart. It does. It does. Yeah. It really, I'm not talking shit. I'm legitimately it's, it's a problem. We need to have a better mindset around this stuff. Yeah. And we need to stop, you know, shaming young trainers too into like, oh, they charge too much. No, you don't charge enough. If you, if you've ever caught yourself saying that person charges too much. You have the money mindset problem. Yep. Yes. Yep, yep. I've had conversations with people that, I remember Ashley, I did a post on my, uh, Instagram page and I had a few people reach out to me, most likely around like, Hey, I wanna have a conversation around the ethics around having a 7,500 board and train. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, yeah, I welcome this conversation around. Mm-hmm. Because I feel that more trainers, well, don't you. Do you think you're hurting dog owners by, by having such a high end program, how is this hurting dog owners? How? Yeah. How is it when somebody sees value and understands, like when they're buying a higher end program, they're actually purchasing a better version of that trainer? A lot of you guys don't put your neck out to learn what that looks like, but it's their available to you too. In terms of program development. People buy it. It's their, it's their what they choose. Choose to spend their money on. It's not business. If they wanna, you know, buy a bunch of hookers and whatever, like fi, they're gonna do that regardless of what we sit here and talk shit about on a podcast. Right. So if some people are going to and like to spend a lot of money on their dogs, yeah, that's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. Like, yeah, what we're saying, have a high value program like that. It's not because you. You're like, I wanna be super elitist and tap into capitalism. No, it's people want to spend their money on you. That's where they see the value. I could go on and on and on about how I offered a dog trainer five times the amount of money for a program to get my dog in. And I wasn't being Karen about it. I was like, listen, if you could fit my dog in, I am willing to pay you five times. Times of what this is. Well, that's a whole different side. That's a whole other conversation. Well notion. So when Kristen got her puppy, we know the kind of things that people with, you know, even that have high standards for their dogs. Yeah. Hello? Like dog people, dog trainers. Um, when we're trying to raise puppies, we also get busy. Yeah, right. You guys get busy. So like, Kristen's out trying to throw money around to have somebody. Come in and do Like Cora. Yeah, Cora and she'd and nobody, nobody was offering the service. Yeah. And, and these are the services that you guys could be charging. Yeah. Like high-end prices. That, and this is a whole different tangent, but it's true. Yeah. For me, that few weeks was well worth 5k. Like that's what I put my value in at that time. So yeah. So I think we start to have to talk about that. It's like, who the fuck carries. About like what people wanna spend their money on. It's how you can tap into that and how you can get unfuck your mindset around money and finances. Not be afraid of the money, and just really tap into the calculator and yeah, and really serve those people. Okay. Cool. Do you wanna talk about budgeting? Cause I've talked about budgeting on here, but I think coming from Mama Maggie mm-hmm. It might be better. This is, this is what I'm gonna propose. It would be awesome. Let's do a pregame, guys. Okay. Cause I'm assuming if you're listening to this, you know where to find our stuff. Come join us for the live version of running calculations. And I'm gonna give you guys homework right now, right? I'm gonna prove a point. I want you to write down your budget, right? How much does it cost for you to pay your rent or your mortgage, all of your personal is, and then add in your business expenses. Get a total number. How much does your. Lifestyle as a dog entrepreneur cost you every single month, and I want you to bring that number. On, was it Thursday?
Thursday at 2:00 PM Eastern? Yeah. And I will show you guys the rest. If you can't make it live, literally just email the office at client success@dogmissschool.com with your numbers and we will fucking cover it for you. And you can listen to the replay letter. Yeah, because what's gonna happen, and I'm looking over at Ashley, she may or may not know what I'm thinking on this one. She's like, I got my calculator ready. Yes. Well, and and we're not gonna mention anything, but like you guys will absolutely forget some key things that we're gonna add on. And you're gonna be like, oh my God. I was just thinking that. I was gonna say, I'm gonna give you secondary homework. Yep. You're going to, you're going to do Maggie's homework and then I want you to write it all over again with all the missing stuff that you didn't put in your budget. Yeah. Like uh, your weed budget. She's gonna say weed. Yep. This is hilarious. Cuz this is the shit that people start adding onto their secondary list. Yep. Um. Stuff you actually spend money on. It's not just your, your survival basics. Mm-hmm. But, you know, your, your DoorDash, how much money are you spending on that every month? Add that in there. Yeah. A housekeeper. Um, if you drink a lot on the weekends, going to the IB clinic on Mondays. Mm-hmm. Like, there are things that it's like, oh my God, if I did that, I would actually be taking better care of myself and I would perform better at work. This is another thing. It's like, wait, which things could so that, and if this is like way advanced stuff, but then you start getting into like learning how to pull things apart and be like, is this thing actually making me more money? Versus is this just an expense? And most of you guys that get stuck in finances don't value. Tell you the things that actually will make you more money. It's the first things that y'all are gonna take off your list. Mm-hmm. You're going to go, you know what? I'm not gonna learn how to, how to run the correct Google ads or Facebook ads so that I can recreate leads. Like just flip a switch, have 'em on, and fill up my board and train spots. You're gonna go buy a fucking car instead, or you are gonna spend 80 hours scouring all this. Vice and not get anywhere with it. Yeah. Oh my God. The number one problem that I actually see today that I wasn't seeing five, 10 years ago. Now, there's such an overload of businessy information out there. You guys are so in the weeds with like this podcast or that blog or this YouTube channel or that fucking, uh, TikTok or. Or whatever. You guys can't see the forest through the trees when it comes to what's actually important in your business anymore. Yep. That's why we're talking about finances. Nobody else is talking about it, but it's also the root of all good and evil that will sprout from everything that you've put your energy into. Yep. Everything that's, here's another thing nobody thinks about when it comes to budgeting and finances is what else is a bud budgeting under financial need. Energy and time. Mm, yeah. Yep. Energy and time. You know, the, we all know the old saying, you know, time is money, but what is, how, what does that actually mean when you're sitting at home on a Sunday night, half a glass of, or you know, half a bottle of wine in. Like just going through a bunch of information and webinars and things and stuff and getting a busy list, you know, together checklist, but not really actually getting anywhere. There's so much time and energy spent. Yeah. Not doing anything in this industry right now. It's really, it's, it's a shame and that's a lot of the stuff that we see. People get told to go out, go out and do this, go out and do that. And it's like, Fun with the busy work, but you're not gonna get any traction. Yeah. So budgeting your time and stuff is also invaluable. That's why I mentioned like house cleaning, you know, if you're like still trying to clean up after your kids and you have a, a business or whatever, like, unless you really enjoy that time, fucking, that's who you hire first. Outsource it out. Yeah. Not as, not an assistant trainer or service at a virtual VA or something like that. So, God, there's so much to this. Keep going. All right. What else have we got? Um, oh, planning on being broke. Yep. Planning on being broke. So this is another thing we talk to people a lot about, um, when you're first kind of in the stages of, all right, I need to get better at being financially. Really savvy in my business. It's that whole going back to let's, let's work on a budget. Right? This is kind of actually what, uh, Ashley and I were saying too. It's like the first budget you, you will run, and I guess this is good for you guys to be aware of. You're, it's your, what we call your plan on being broke budget. Yep. Right? So it's like you're just thinking about necessities. If you think about that's, that almost puts you in a loop in your business of living paycheck to paycheck. Think about that. You're probably that sense of living, living paycheck to paycheck, but you're a business owner, you don't have a paycheck. Yeah. You might as well just get a full-time job if you're gonna live that way. Yeah. Yeah. Go back to the Brisa years or something. Yeah. You never less stressful. That's stressful. You get better benefits. Yeah. Saying Welcome to Costco, we love you. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. So it's just so, it's just stuff to really keep in mind and, and again, I'm saying this with love to, even those of you that are like, but I'm making the business is making a lot of money. Well that's, that's one thing. But like is, you know, does the business have solid footing and having investment. You know, we talk about this a lot in the background. Yeah. Especially with clients that have earned more and more money. It's like, well, do you own the property? You know, are you leasing a building that you brought in $500,000 a year and you think you're doing great? Well, we need to be looking at purchasing property. You know, how is that gonna fit in the budget? Well, I don't have the money for it. Well, okay, let's fix the business system. Figure out where. That money's blocked up, fix that and then gets you on a better track. Yeah. This is why we say too, this is financial information and things to think about. It's not financial advice in particular because you guys are all, you guys all have different, different things in situations. You know, sometimes we talk to those of you guys that are like, yeah, I'm, I'm in a little bit of debt, and it's like, well, $200,000. And then other folks, it's like, oh my God, I made how much debt? It's like $35. Yeah. I was thinking like three grand. Yeah. So, you know, you have to start from where you're at, but you have to learn how to break through your, your, your personal and at an advances advanced step with clients. We start talking about the differentiation between running a business budget versus a personal budget. Mm-hmm. And how those d. Different things are actually handled differently. I run my, my personal budget, like I'm fucking Dave Ramsey student, you know, rice and beans. Save all the money, you know, really invest, get everything paid off in the business end. That's all my money, that's making money, me money, so I'm gonna throw that around left and right. I don't care so much because it, it earns itself back relatively quickly. You know, and that's another thing. It's like you have to learn how to hold money in two different categories almost at the same time. Um, that also lends the, lends the credence to when we talk about, you know, how you should have an idea of how much, how much do you need to survive the, the cheap version of you, right. The Dave Ramsey version. Give yourself a salary. Yep, yep. And be cheap. Is, is fucking. Give a dollar here and there, coupon cut. I don't give a shit. You know, buy things with your 50% off, less Mark Price. Great. Awesome. I was grow, you know, raised by teacher. I know how that shit goes. But don't treat your business money the same, you treat as you treat your personal money. When people have the two mixed up, this is when we, you know, have conversations for example, where holy shit, this person's, you know, had 15. 15 board and trains last year. If they only would've charged, you know, this much more, even, even a grand more, which people wouldn't even bat an eye at, they're $15,000 more ahead. Yeah. And they're too terrified to put a five, you know, $500 down to learn how to do that because they're afraid of losing money. But at the same time, it's like you're gonna throw away 15, 20, sometimes a hundred thousand. Dollars on a single gym because you're, you're trying to like, you know, scrimp and save quarters. Yeah. To make a decision, to make an emotional decision. Yeah. Because a lot of the times, like if you do decide to work with us and we're like, okay, cool. This is the plan, this is that, you know, we are gonna ask you for money unapologetically. Right. Because it's the way we operate business. And I see a lot of people making. Making decisions from the place concurrently. We had a really great conversation with somebody, um, last week, and she's like, oh my God, but she couldn't get over this one part of it. And I was like, dude, what is it worth to you? She's like, it's worth all the money in the world. It's worth the $15,000. Cool. What do you, how do you wanna earn that $15,000? And because she was so stuck in a place, and this is not, this is not hate torture at all. Why we're doing this conversation, having these conversations and doing that webinar. You guys are hearting yourself by not making non-emotional decisions. Yeah, non-emotional decisions. Now we're not saying go fucking throw all your money at one thing or go into massive debts, do stuff. But it's like when we put aside, okay, cool. And we stop, we start. Cuz I think a lot of people too are like, oh my God, I gotta, I gotta pay it all up front or whatever. But if you take a second and be like, okay. Cool. Can you show me how to get that 15 kk? What does it take to do that? Yeah. Nine times outta 10 we're gonna be like, okay, cool. Let's do this. And you're gonna be like, oh my fucking God. Why didn't I ask, why didn't I ask this sooner? But when you're stuck in such an emotional state of flustered and trying to make a decision from being such a survival place, it's, it's super fucking hard. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, it's like, I think the saying goes, people can't afford us without us. Yeah. No, you can't afford us. Nobody can afford us if they're not gonna do what we tell 'em to do. Exactly. But the, the weird fact is like, so the financial stuff with you guys, and I say you guys literally, you're listening to this. I mean, you too, all of you guys have this weird relation. Relationship with like, you know, I'm working with dogs, therefore I have a big heart. So you know, if I charge money, this is where everybody starts. If I charge money, that makes me a piece of shit human. And then you go through that struggle and you come out the other side going, well, I have to survive. Somehow that leads you into the common business to purgatory where you're making some money. It's never enough to get ahead. It's never enough to actually take care of you long term. The amount of. Professional burnout in this industry is off the charts. Yep. It's the highest in any other professional industry in the United, at least United States, if not now, peppered around the world and, and we're stuck in this purgatory. And why? Because we're afraid of our own financial shadows. Yep. I'm gonna tell you guys the same thing that I tell all, all of our clients as they're learning to make more money. Money not yours. Okay, so let's get that clear right now. You take, you take what you need from it and the, and the rest is you are responsible for it. Some of it, some of it's gonna come back to you and that's fine cuz your hard work and all that is, is great. But like, if you feel bad about quote unquote earning more money, you have the wrong idea. You're looking at it from, no offense guys. Cause I know you guys have big hearts, but it's actually a selfish me, me, me, me, me standpoint, but I don't feel good to I this and I that and blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, well, who gives a shit? If you are saying to me, to us, I am here to make a, a dent in the world. Yep. I am here to help dogs. I'm here to help people. Guess what? You need fuck funding. No one's gonna come to your rescue. No one's gonna come to your rescue when you find yourself down and out because you didn't make the right financial decisions for your future clients. So it's not about you making more money, it's about taking care of you well enough so that you can afford to continue and make better and better, better programs. And experiences for the clients that do hire you. Otherwise, if you don't p, those of you that get stuck and you're like, I'm just never gonna raise my prices, I'm just never gonna push the envelope, that is such a disservice to your clients. Why are you gonna try to, and, and you're gonna notice it's gonna become more and more difficult to coach clients. You're gonna become more and more sour and issues with boundaries and owner compliance. Owner compliance, and clients having meltdowns. They're not following through because they're following your lead. Yeah. Mm. I'm gonna go get more confidence. Yeah. Mic dropped. Mic dropped. Yeah. That's one of the things too. It's like if you've ever been on a call with us and you're like, God, they were harsh, it's because we are setting a standard. Standard of like how we expect you to behave or not behave, but perform in school and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. So it's fucking important. And I think too, when we think about money, we have to use money. We don't, like Maggie was saying, the money is not ours. It comes in, you take your portion, you re, you redistribute it. But we have to look at money as a tool for investing, right? So the money doesn't stop in your bank account. So it's like, okay, cool. What do I wanna reinvest a dog to school? Is it, um, do I want to go to that seminar that I've been wanting to go to for years? Do I wanna actually say, okay, cool, I'm tired of having dogs in my house. I wanna build that little, uh, we call it a cottage facility in the back of my, in the back of my yard. Do I want to and start to invest in real estate for myself? So I have some generational wealth. I can start building for children and my other futures. Do I wanna get a facility? Do I wanna start investing in other people? Um, for example, one of you all know Emily very well. Emily would be on the webinar too on Thursday. But one of Emily sings is with her money. With the money she makes, she reinvests back into employment. She creates jobs, she creates community with her staff. That's one of Emily's matters when it comes to that. Mm-hmm. So we have to look at the money as a tool for investing, not just in yourself, but also like, what do you wanna put out there in the world? What do you wanna do? Good. Because there is no broke fucking Phil Philanthropists. Philanthropists, yeah. Like broke as philanthropists. And one thing we see a lot of people starting to gear towards is nonprofit. Like I see a lot of people that are like struggling in business, like, oh, I wanna start. Nonprofit. Yeah. And yes. And not for profit doesn't mean no profit. Like nonprofits have to earn money to survive. They're actually no d The only reason why they're different than a business taxes is taxes. Yeah. And they're supposed to, uh, makes you feel good to say I'm a. Nonprofit. I love a lot of nonprofit owners. Dr. Terry's won fucking Love, you know that home? She, she takes salary from there. I bet you Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's a job too. But it, but it's not that you're not supposed to run profits through that system because the, the, or any organiz or any organization or people within an organization need money to survive and to be. Available. So this is the biggest farce in our industry as far as the nonprofit sector goes. Is that there, I don't know who decided along the way that the dog industry was any different than any other nonprofit sector. Mm-hmm. And that you're a piece of shit if you earn money. Right. And how many people at rescue are churches are nonprofit. Mm-hmm. And they take money left and right. They, for their members member. Huge real estate holders. Yeah. Huge Catholic churches. Yeah, Catholic church. The Mormon church. Yeah. Like these are, you know, it's a whole thing. It's a whole thing, but, but it's true guys. Yeah. And when you look around at our industry and everybody's like, well my, you know, my rescue would be doing better. People didn't suck and just gave me money for free more. It's like, where did we. Get this mentality that we all deserve a handout. You know, and, and you have to remember too, like those of you guys that are in a regular business and you're still like, well, I wanna make it low cost and blah, blah, blah. That's a nonprofit's job. Yeah. You know, we, we gotta learn to stay in our lane, mind our own dog business, and be willing to demand to earn what you deserve and have every right to earn. Or the first few year business, your first decade in business, you earn the money, you invest it back into something so it earns you more money. And then when you hit that 10 years, yeah, cool. Have that nonprofit, have that business that will allow you to, to train dogs for free. Cuz you'll have the time and energy, you'll have a business that's set up cuz you made the fucking money for it. So that's my thought on that. I know Maggie. Yeah, well, like where, where, let me count the ways, go me. Count the ways. Um, I, you know, I think at the end of the day, like we have to, we have to remember too that dogs are a luxury item. They are, um, you know, speaking of like nonprofits and my worth and all these things, it's like we have to remember at the end of the day who we're actually selling to. Yep. You know, these are people, these are people that like get dogs because they wanna enrich Frenchy. Yeah. They wanna enrich their families and their home lives. And like, there's a lot tied into that. We are no longer an industry of, you know, obedience courses in eight week group classes. Like, I mean, yes, there's, there's still the hobby. Hobby piece out there. Yeah. But the industry is no longer like, you know, hobby dog people, it's family, dog people. Mm-hmm. And you know, our roles and responsibilities have morphed and that's part of what's going on, guys, is that, you know, when we look out to the sea of, Hey, what's everyone doing? Especially with like daycare training, day training, all that, it's all the same shit that we've been offering since like the. Late nineties. Right. And so, you know, uh, coming with, coming with this like mentality of like, okay, finances, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That also leads us later on down the road into when we really do look at our programs, pricing, et cetera, we also have to con take, take into consideration who are we actually consumer of the current dog owner. Yep. And when we start to make adjustments on. Owner needs an owner recognition. All of a sudden the value, the price point actually goes through the roof. Yeah. A lot of you guys were told by the quote unquote industry experts over 2020, that dog training was gonna take a dive. Do you remember being told that too? Or hearing that? Through the grapevine. I kept my head down at that point. Yeah. So I was not affected by that. Oh, right. So you just kind of pushed through it. Yeah. Well a lot of be like, I know we watched kind of a lot of those associations and stuff and the verbiage that they put out, but that was kind of the general consensus is like, it's gonna be an obvious slowdown. And the reality is dog. Uh, dog own ending on services like, damn near doubled. I mean, no, it was a 30% increase, 30%, 33% increase, 33% increase overall, and that's for daycare, walking training, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But like certain versions of it went through the roof, but yet we didn't see that growth individually with all you. You guys that were in business, most of you guys, 70% of you guys took nose dive Yep. And went downhill because you didn't know you, you're not connected with your con consumer. And believe it or not, you know, skipping ahead in past finances does lead to that in a way because you're not considering the bottom line. You're not con, you're not doing the dirty work of disconnect. Protecting the emotional beliefs around the money. Yep. Right. Because we keep our prices closely in that, that locked cage of, I feel good about it because I'm a captain, save Aho and I'm gonna keep dog training cheap for everyone. And then you know, you're, and now you're, you don't have the right clients when there's a recession. All of a sudden all your clients dip off and you see these giant ebbs and flows. All the leads, no leads, and all the leads and all, you know, everybody buys this. Yeah. Or now everybody's just buying that. That's mostly due to your, your emotional state and these internal beliefs you have about your business that simply are not true. If I had a quarter for every time somebody said, well, my business, blah, blah, blah. I know. I was just thinking the outliers say, saying, well, I, okay, well, but I. I live in rural area, but I do this, or I live in a city, or I, you know, I live in a blue collar town, but my clients, and it's like, okay, you're, are you open to doing this in a better way? Because if you are, yep, you're gonna make more money, you're gonna be more connected to your clients, you're gonna understand the market better. Yep. You're gonna always be planning for essentially the next best thing. And the next disaster. Hopefully the disaster doesn't happen, but we all hit shit from time to time. You know, like are, you're either gonna be prepared or you're not. Yep. And when you don't build the rest of your systems around your baseline finances, that your whole thing is like built on a, on a, what is it? Uh, house of Cards. Yep. Yep. Right. It's like one stiff wind in the. The whole thing's get knocked down. Little pigs, little pigs, let me in. Not by the hell of ok. Did you ever hear the metal version of that song? That's what I thought you were doing. That pig pig. Listen to that after we're done. Anyway. Well, I think this is a really good, I think this is a good point to kind of wrap up and just really, really encourage you all to come on Tuesday if you can, and bring your numbers like Maggie would. So be happy. Maggie and Ashley both would be so happy to sit down and run your numbers. Even if you think they're super complicated. There's. There's nothing complicated about it. Yeah. Or I mean, reach out and let, reach out to it privately. Like some of you guys, it's kinda like pulling down your business panties in front of each other. It's the GYN exam. Yeah. You can like fold your underwear and your pants so that, so the bend over and cough for me. So the GYN doesn't your underwear, but God forbid they're in your, you know who you don't do that and your. The gynecologist goes right up. No, the GY knows definitely in the, no, that's what I'm saying. Cause you ever do the thing of where you go to the gyno office and you hide your underwear even though they're gonna be like in you. Yeah. Oh yeah. You put it underneath the shirt. Oh yeah. The shame of my underwear. Hello. Meanwhile it's meat drapes. Mad Moro. What is sound like when I say that? Groups. All right, salmon. Talk to you guys later. All right, we'll see you all later. See you Tuesday. The link will be at the bottom. Talk to you later. Bye bye. Hey there. Thanks for checking out another episode of The Mind Your Own Dog Business podcast. Mind Your Own Dog business is hosted by me, Kristen Lee, and produced by the Unicorns over at the Dog This School team. For more information on how to get in touch with me for more information on Dog This School, or to learn more on how we can help you with your dog business. Feel free to visit our website@dogbusschool.com. Now, if you really enjoy this episode, do me a favor and leave a five star review on Apple. The reason why, because we wanna disrupt more dog training businesses and how people do the business of dogs. Till next time, I Hi.