In this episode of the Mind Your Own Dog Business podcast, Kristen Lee covers the toxic AF Hustle Crisis Cycle that many dog trainers and dog businesses unexpectedly find themselves cycling in and out of, leaving them in financial crisis mode and completely burned out.
She covers what exactly the cycle and toxic dynamics are in your dog training business and how throwing more money and effort into marketing your dog training business can throw you further into the cycle. She also covers how to break out of it and the areas of your dog training business to focus on to get out of the cycle.
It's raw, and it's real. And it's what you need to know as a dog trainer and dog business owner.
Episode Links:
Work with Dog Biz School
In this episode of the Mind Your Own Dog Business podcast, Kristen Lee covers the toxic AF Hustle Crisis Cycle that many dog trainers and dog businesses unexpectedly find themselves cycling in and out of, leaving them in financial crisis mode and completely burned out.
She covers what exactly the cycle and toxic dynamics are in your dog training business and how throwing more money and effort into marketing your dog training business can throw you further into the cycle. She also covers how to break out of it and the areas of your dog training business to focus on to get out of the cycle.
It's raw, and it's real. And it's what you need to know as a dog trainer and dog business owner.
Episode Links:
Work with Dog Biz School
You're listening to the mind your own dog business podcast. I'm your host, leading expert in dog business strategies, Kristen Leigh. 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 going to smash All of those glass ceilings that have been holding you back and catapult your dog business 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 and dog walker or whatever slice 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. Hello. Hey. Fancy seeing you here around my neck of woods. Well, you're probably saying the same like goddamn Kristen fucking Lee. It's been almost a year since you've had an episode of Mind Your Own Dog Biz. And now you're like, Oh, fancy seeing you here. Well, come on in. Come on into my little slice of podcast heaven over here. Take your shoes off. Take your bra off. Here's a comfy blanket. I got some some warm ambient lighting I won't turn on the big light because fuck the big light and can I offer you a coffee? Espresso, Topo Chico Why am I doing all this because I want to express my motherfucking gratitude to all my listeners both the ones that have been supporting me since 2018 to the ones that are sitting here with me in 2024 And yeah, you all are so fucking awesome. My sincere gratitude for sticking with me. Over these years to all my new listeners. Hey, welcome. It's an inconsistent shit show in here But I really appreciate you all and I know a lot of my episodes have been inconsistent some weeks I'm like, here's all the stuff and the things and I give you a million things in episodes and like just go Okay, cool. Bye and then peace the fuck off for like a year. So Your support your listens your downloads your messages. They do not go unnoticed And if I did not have you all listening to me and cheering me on and bugging me for episodes and you're not bugging by the way, please, please, please bug me because it puts a bug up my ass. I wouldn't have anything. So you all are amazing, amazing, amazing humans and dealing with me, having a human experience while running businesses myself and having uncomfortable experiences, running businesses and multiple businesses at that now, but that's a whole other podcast. Hub is a funny side note. Grassroots. Uh, yeah, we as an organization slash business acquired another business in the summer of 2023. Completely outside the dog industry, like completely, we did not see that one fucking coming and it has been a lesson in growth and discomfort and that everything I have been preaching since 2018 to all of you, but that's a whole other podcast episode that I'll have Maggie come on and talk about cause she can tell the story better. And yeah, it's, it's been a learning experience to say the very least. So appreciate you all kind of reiterate that. For listening and thank you for dealing with the inconsistency again. I'm just having a human experience here and come on in my space is safe We're gonna have some conversations. We have some coffee. We're gonna have some unfiltered a dog based strategy and we also have puppies No, no puppies Sorry, I, I'm telling you all, I'll never get another puppy again. I have a grown, my, can you also believe my lab from the last time we had this conversation? Last time we've had an episode. She's almost a grown ass fucking woman at this point. We're in a 16 month old adolescent's hell. Well, it's not really hell, it's like, one day it's everything's perfect, it's gonna be awesome, and then the next day she's trying to jump out a window. Yeah, not like that didn't happen fucking today. So yeah. It's always good when her two brain cells rub together. Today they did not rub together. But I wanted to get right into today's episode topic and this is a, I don't know how to describe it. It's, it's not triggering. Um, and it's not calling anybody out or judgment or shame for anything. It's something that we all experience as business owners at some point or another. It could be that you've gone through it. You've gone through the muck and the fuck of it. That's all I can say. It could be that you're currently experiencing it or it could be that you've never experienced it But chances are as a business owner, it doesn't even mean like you have to be a dog business owner to like to like Like, experience this at all because every single business owner on planet experiences it even if you're just selling Etsy downloads, if you're doing a plumbing business, if you're doing a hair salon business or whatever else. But it's a toxic, toxic cycle that we go into and that's the hustle. Crisis cycle and it is toxic as fuck and the issue with it, like any toxic relationship, it tries to keep you in. Now if you've had any like toxic relationships, this might be a trigger warning. Um, I'm not talking about toxic relationships with humans, but it might trigger some things around that because listen. The hustle crisis cycle is kind of like having this like really codependent, narcissistic relationship with your business. I might be off on that, but it's, it's a real weird codependency and like, it's like trauma bonding with your business. It's gross. So I want to chat about that today and I want to talk about how it starts. What are some of the signs that you're seeing? Like my brother and sisters in Christ, like, what are you seeing here? This is why you need to get out of it. And then also how the fuck to get out of it and how to break away from it. If you are a dogma school student or a previous student, or if you've worked in any of our coursework, this is like gospel. We've talked about this so many times and my biggest thing moving forward in 2024. When I spoke with our coaches and our updated programs, uh, moving into 2024, because we're actually, we actually tossed out all of our old coursework. Uh, yeah, that was fun, but it needed to be done. But one of my biggest things was like, listen, I don't want our students or future clients, they really get stuck in the hustle crisis cycle. And it's so easy to get sucked in because like. You do this work, and you get this like, fantastic fucking result, and then you're like, Yay! And then you do the stuff and the things, because you got the result, and then like, you're sitting there 60 days later, or 45 days later, and you're like, Ah! Holy crap, I need to get back into hustle, hustle, hustle mode. So let's talk about it. And so the hustle crisis cycle goes down like this, and I see it a lot in dog trainers. I see it happen. And this actually keeps a lot of dog trainers, um, right now stuck and overwhelmed. And it keeps you on this perpetual, like hamster wheel and like out of like hamster wheel on hell on fire, right? You're consistently trying to catch up, trying to consistently catch up on chasing clients, chasing sales, chasing marketing, chasing, uh, chasing your client's compliance and programs and everything else like that. So it looks like this. You know, doo doo doo doo doo. You're a dog trainer and you had an okay month. Right? Your income is pretty steady. You know, it might not be where you want it to be at. But you had an okay month, or months, or year, or whatever. And it starts to get a little quiet. Right? You're like, okay. Well, maybe it's the economy. Uh, false. Uh, but maybe it's the season, maybe it's the holiday season, maybe kids are out away at spring break and people aren't training their dogs or boarding their dogs, right? So you get these little indicators of like, hmm. I got to put a pin in this. And then you get an influx of prospective clients coming in, right? They're reaching out to you. They're DMing you, maybe put some lead gen in it. And then you're like, yes, sales. So you work your ass off for a couple of weeks doing sales or even a couple of days doing sales and signing people in the contracts and getting them on board with training. And then you get sucked right into delivering your training contracts, right? Or your classes, or your one on one, or whatever else you fucking do. And then you get so involved and so in in in loped. Involved, like, is that the right word? In in loped? That's not even a word. Kristen's making words up. That's totally cool. But you get so involved in delivering and performing for your clients and getting them through board and trains and doing all the stuff and the things that other areas of your business that might have had those little amber flags or yellow flags when everything started to be like, Hmm, something's a little off. Not where I want to be. It's a little quiet. Those things get put on the back burner. And then when it comes to finishing up your delivery of your clients, maybe 45 days, 60 days, 90 days out. You're like, holy crap. I was busy as fuck the last three months or two months or whatever. I need to fill my bucket of leads, right? You're like, holy crap. I need to fill my fucking programs. And it keeps you on this chasing cycle of consistently having to throw money into lead generation. It keeps you on the cycle of consistently chasing clients to fill up. And then you start to just like, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And you get on the cycle of where you're trying to always get people signed. It's like a consistent, like, it's almost like you're, you're. Um, taking on water in your boat and you're, it's like you're flushing it out, like popping it out with buckets, but it keeps going, going, going, right? And then you get back into another cycle of you have to deliver for clients or, you know, maybe you sign some clients because you're so potentially desperate to make payroll or desperate to pay yourself or pay your bills. You might've ignored some red flags in the sales process. And then you have some really crappy clients sneak in. And they're not complying in their coursework. They're not doing the things you're telling them to do. Maybe they want a refund. Um, maybe they've just been pains in the asses, and they've, they've just blown up your boundaries and everything else like that. But because you are in such a, like a crunch mode to get the money in, to make sales, and to make everything work, It kind of blew past you, right? And then you start the cycle over and over and over and over again, right? And it's really interesting because then what starts to happen, you're on the hustle crisis cycle because you're like, Oh my god, I have to make sales, I have to do this, I have to make money. Um, your whole survival mechanism around money gets triggered. And it puts you into like this crazy, crazy, crazy spiral. And you just, you're just focused, focused, focused, focused, focused on like just acting and acting and throwing tactics. And then what starts to happen is like, all right, you exhaust everything. You're like, all right, I'm going to throw, I'm going to like, I'm gonna throw all my energy and my time into marketing. I'm going to throw all my energy and time into lead generation. I'm gonna throw all my time and energy into client acquisition. Right. And then you ignore. Other parts of the business, like your sales process, you ignore the other parts of your business, like your programs that can protect you from like taking on more water. So then now you have this pressure of throwing yourself into your sales and your marketing and filling up your calendar of Training calls or consults and your night's schedule of going to one on ones and meet and greets. And you have all this pressure on you because you might have invested some money into ads or lead generation or whatever else the fuck you do these days. And now you're like, oh my god, I have to perform. I have to make the sale. And then you get your brain starts to freak you the fuck out that you have to do this, have to do this, have to do this. And then it's like you have all this pressure on top of you. And then your brain literally goes into like survivalship mode and crazy mode. And then you make enough just to get by, right? You make enough to get by. You feel good. You have some peak performance going on. Maybe you have some good clients that came in with that. Maybe some of the shitty clients didn't come in through the cycle. And then you're like, alright, I can chill. Payroll's made. I got my mortgage paid. I have a little bit socked away for a little bit more. And then, all of a sudden, it comes right back at you to bite you in the fucking ass. And listen. If this is your current experience or you've lived this experience, like I'm literally not going to throw some marketed bullshit of like, you're not, you're not alone. You are seriously not the fuck alone. Like every business owner I've worked with in this industry has gone through some level. Some have gone through some incredibly, incredibly stressful levels of where they have negative 50k in their bank because maybe the IRS took it out. Um, I've had people that have gone through a really small iteration. They're like, yeah, I only have 5k left over after I pay everything this month. We all go through this cycle, right? And the problem about it is it keeps your nervous system. as a business owner, like in this crazy fight or flight experience. And it keeps you like so far away from the actual gaps and plugs that you need to do in order to avoid the cycle. It's fucked up. It's a really fucked up cycle. And again, it ties back into if you have any issues. around money. Like if you have any money trauma, if you grew up, you know, not having a lot of money, if you lived in, you know, poverty or you've lived in the thing of like money's never been enough, it's going to trigger the fuck out of you even more and add on to the compound and the pressure. And it stresses you the fuck out. It's no way to live. It's no way to live. And again, it goes back and it repeats over and over and over and all these iterations to the point of where you're like, I'm just throwing everything at the wall. I don't have time. And this is where we hear people say, All right, well, I'm going to create a, this is like for example, I'll give you an example on a call we'll have. So we go through all the different areas of the business, and we're like, all right, cool. So these are areas of your marketing that we know fits to what you need, and fits to the client that you want to attract, and also how we've redefined your programs. This is where we need to start to focus on. And it goes to, I don't have any fucking time. Right. Cause you're like so stuck in that, that, that burnout of just like trying to get all the marketing and sales done that you don't even want to look at that shit. Right. And the way we start to teach marketing and the way we teach marketing and sales is not to do that when everything's on fucking fire. Do the complete opposite. I know it sounds so crazy, but we are one of those people that are just like. If something's going really, really good, like if you are cruising, you have enough clients filtering in, you have, you're booked up, you are waitlisted for a year, fucking throw marketing at it, right? Because it'll keep you out of that cycle. So again, if we look at your business and we want to talk about this really quickly, remember your business is an ecosystem and the hustle crisis cycle is dependent. It is dependent like a toxic partner to have a weakened ecosystem. That means if you're not marketing at the right time. Being a little bit more consistent with it. Ha ha ha no judgment again again I am NOT the most consistent person in the world, but I do live a human experience like you hustle crisis cycle But if we're not actively engaging in marketing if we're not actively looking at our finances and getting real with them It's like okay cool, and you can listen to Fucking all the episodes we have about financial stuff if we're actively ignoring our financials if we don't know what our budget is if we don't Know what our number is right now. I just want to shoot for 10 million dollars a year, bro cool If we are over delivering in our programs, if we are undercharging in our programs, um, I see that so much, so much of the undercharging. If we're throwing all of our energy in our, I call it sweat equity and building an online course and then running cheap ads to it, that's where there's going to be problems, right? So we have to look at our business as a whole. ecosystem and create wellness around it. You can't have one without the other. It's like if you're on a diet, right? And you're like, I'm going to cut out. I'm going to cut out and just eat meat and butter. Good. Cool. Your carnivore diet? Respect that. However, there's going to be other aspects of your life that you're starting to miss, right? Sometimes some kale is good for you. Very similar to dog training, uh, dog training business. If you're going to throw all of your energy and your time into making it fucking working, making money this month, into marketing and sales, into lead generation, and then you sell all those things, but your business has some gaping buttholes. If your programs are out of whack and they're not priced accordingly, what's going to happen? You're going to go back on the marketing and that the marketing, well, yeah, it's a marketing hustle cycle too, but you're going to go back on the hustle crisis cycle and you're going to end up chasing. Each month clients, only thing you should be chasing is quality of your training programs peeps. And we are going to get into it for 2024 about the quality of programs because that's going to save a lot of heartache and a lot of grief and a lot of pressure on you. So we have awareness of this. We're okay. We're sitting in this. We're absorbing it. We're sitting in our, our dirty hustle crisis cycle. Now, getting out of this toxic relationship. Three things. All right. First, don't have to be burnt out. You don't have to be bitter. You don't have to have resentment towards your business. It happens, right? So first thing you have to do is have complete empathy for yourself and understanding, right? Don't overblame yourself. Don't overblame others. Don't overblame the economy. Don't overblame clients for taking too much of your time. So have respect for yourself, have empathy for yourself, and reframe it. Use it as a spot of like, okay, cool, Kristen gave me awareness around this, how can we move forward with it? Now, this is where you need to take an honest inventory of your business, of your dog training business. What needs to be updated? What needs to be changed? What things have you been putting on the back burner for a while? If you are, you know, scared of numbers, not necessarily, I don't want to say scared, but if you are one of those people that avoid numbers and finances and taking an honest look at it, maybe it's time to look at it. Maybe it's time to kind of shine a light in the closet and see there's not really a spooky business boogeyman in there, right? So take a look at where you've been avoiding things. Maybe you've been avoiding putting boundaries in place with your clients during your program. Then, after you get an inventory of all that, of the things that you know you need to do, is you need to create your own internal business wellness plan. Right? So what does that cover? What are the key foundations of any business strategy? Not dog, not just dog training or dog walking or pet businesses or whatever else out there. Finances. Understanding your finances from a non emotional viewpoint. Now, I know I say that, and I say that so, like, understanding your finances without a, like, without a emotional viewpoint. I'm not a boomer. I fucking hate Dave Ramsey, by the way. But, honestly, taking a look at your finances and be like, alright, cool. What is my numbers? Where do they match up with my programs? Right? Getting an understanding of what that number is. Again, go back. There's plenty of episodes you can listen to about that. Then, using that number, To update your programs. Okay. Now here's the kicker. And this is where I'm going to call out some of you. Just because you update your program prices does not mean you need to update the delivery in your offerings. Meaning you don't need to add 80 different fucking things to change your price by 1, 000. Okay? Okay? Again, those gaps. Tell me about those gaps. You're gonna still be in that rowboat plugging water out, getting water out for the gaps here. So you gotta look at your programs. Yes, even that online course that people told you to make that was going to be the lifesaver of everything and save you time and energy. That's collecting crickets, maybe charge like 67 bucks or 85 bucks or 89 or 79. That's just sitting there cricketing away, not even used. Maybe one person bought it and used it and yeah. That's also looking about how your, how your programs are currently structured now. If you have one of the big three, the board and train, the group classes or the privates, like, how are they structured? What are you doing? What aren't you doing? What are you over giving on? How much time and energy are you spending? Are they even quality? Are you saying it's quality and you're throwing a whole bunch of shit at clients and then surprise Pikachu face when they don't comply because they're busy fucking individuals. Are you underselling people to in those programs, right? The next place you got to look at is your marketing. Are you essentially ignoring your marketing and only using it when you need it? Because listen, marketing, again, it's art and science, but it's also about nurturing your, nurturing your people. So when you ram a whole bunch of legion on somebody without developing a relationship and nurturing that relationship, because you need to make money now in order to pay your bills and your car payment and your apartment, your apartment note and everything else like that, or get food for your own dogs. Everything feels off kilter, right? And then the next place you need to look at is your sales and your self care. Because sales and self care go through sales. I mean, sales go through self care and self care is sales. See? Even I mess it up sometimes. So yeah, that's your, that's how to get out of the hustle crisis cycle. And listen, I don't envy you. Like I don't envy anybody who's in it and I have so much empathy. It's a really shitty fucking place to be in. It really is. But the good news is, like they say in a labyrinth, I have the power or you have no power over me. See, I'm now, I'm misquoting movies. My husband would kill me. He would kill me if I misquoted a movie, but I don't give a shit. He don't listen to this. But you literally have the power to get out of it. And all that is, is just looking and focusing on areas. And I know it's so hard for me to say that and I say it, so like oblivious. Like, oh, you just need to look on these areas. When you're like, holy crap, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to make payroll. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to pay my mortgage or my car payment, or even feed my own fucking dogs. But I can promise you, sitting down. Getting honest with yourself, seeing what you've been doing, what's been working, what hasn't been working, and what you need to update and how you can go through your own like internalized wellness plan checklist will get you the fuck out of it. Well also. Also, my friend, practicing boundaries with yourself and not getting caught up in your own internal drama of, yes, I work really well under pressure. I am neurodivergent and we work really well in hustles and like cycles of like crisis and hustle. Yes, me too. I am calm as fuck when there's a crisis, but you know what's even better when you don't have crisis is to deal with, especially in your business anyway. So that's it for today. I hope to see you guys soon and yeah, let me know if you want to help out of your hustle crisis cycle. It ain't going to be fun, but I will share the stall cleaning with you, my friends. All right. We'll talk to you later. Bye y'all. 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 personally and produced by the Unicorns over at the DogBizSchool team. For more information on how to get in touch with me, for more information on DogBizSchool, or to learn more on how we can help you with your dog business, Feel free to visit our website at dogbizschool. com. Now if you really enjoyed this episode, do me a favor and leave a five star review on Apple. The reason why? Because we want to disrupt more dog training businesses and how people do the business of dogs. Till next time. Bye!