Great dog-owning clients aren't found. They are created.
In this badass episode of the Mind Your Own Dog Biz, Kristen and Ashley discuss dog trainers' issues with getting their dog owners "compliant" in their training programs.
Because one struggle that's across the board with any dog trainer? Getting owners to "do the work".
Kristen and Ashley cover the steps to creating, yes, creating, awesome fucking dog training clients that want to do the work and actually do it.
They outline the simple steps you can start taking today to get better with clients in their dog training programs AND foster better relationships with dog owners.
Join our free class on 3/21 @ 11 am - click here to save your spot.
Episode Links:
Great dog-owning clients aren't found. They are created.
In this badass episode of the Mind Your Own Dog Biz, Kristen and Ashley discuss dog trainers' issues with getting their dog owners "compliant" in their training programs.
Because one struggle that's across the board with any dog trainer? Getting owners to "do the work".
Kristen and Ashley cover the steps to creating, yes, creating, awesome fucking dog training clients that want to do the work and actually do it.
They outline the simple steps you can start taking today to get better with clients in their dog training programs AND foster better relationships with dog owners.
Join our free class on 3/21 @ 11 am - click here to save your spot.
Episode Links:
You're listening to the mind your own dog business podcast. I'm your host, leading expert in dog business strategist, 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 to take. 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 bad ass 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. All right, everybody, welcome to today's motherfucking dog was podcast. And today we're gonna get right into it. I got Ashley back. See you guys! She's like, Hey, sorry. We're kind of, we're, our energy is a little bit like up and down right now because we just had a really amazing conversation with Maggie. Who's like, she's like this little, like, like we like planted her a couple of years ago and we planted her in the ground and she's like coming out of her cocoon. She's, she's not even a plant. She's like a little worm. And she's just been kind of like, she's a cicada. That's what she is. Oh my God. Maggie's a cicada. She's going to come out soon. Holy crap. I hope he, I hope everybody's ready for that. Maggie is a cicada anyway. So I wanted to chat with everybody today. I brought Ashley here because again, she is our program design, fucking geek here at dog this school, but I wanted to chat today about getting owners. To do the goddamn fucking work, because when we talk to you as a team and when we are scrolling through the social media, one of the biggest things we see are people, dog trainers saying, my clients aren't doing the work, what am I doing wrong? Why are, why am I going to a private session the next week or the couple of weeks after? And we are repeating the same information. Is it my handouts? Why am I spending hours and hours and hours and hours and night doing summaries after my sessions? If they're not doing the work, how can I make them watch my dog training videos if they're not doing the work? So my brothers and sisters in Christ, we are here today to talk to you about getting your dog owners to do the work. And here's the sneaking thing about it. We're going to talk about something that nobody else talks about finding dog owners that do the work. Are not found. They are created. It is our responsibility. Yeah. Yeah. So you could have the best marketing in the world. You can hire somebody to do your marketing, make everything look beautiful. If you are not creating the dog owners that want to do the work and building that connection. You ain't going to find them. You might have, there's unicorns out there. There's unicorns out there. I'm not going to say that. We have to talk about creating that process for them. So Ashley, let's get right into it. So Ashley, how the fuck do you get owners to do the work? The dog owners to do the work for dog trainers? Give us all the information now. Now. That's a lot. You're like, God damn it. Thanks. Do you want to start off? And I know you shared your story a few times with the dog. Biz school, the dog to school crew and the audience and the podcast audience. But when you came to us, one of the biggest pain points for you in the pinch point that made you really resentful towards people was exactly on these lines. It's like, you were pouring your heart and your soul and your mental energy out on delivering the training quality or the training programs, a quality program, but they weren't doing the work and it was pissing you the fuck off. So like, tell a little bit about that. Yeah. Well, all right. This. There are so many avenues to go down here. Intuition, Ashley. Go with your gut. Okay. So, yeah. When I originally started out as a horse trainer, and that's where I learned how to hate people, because those people, my God, you think dog training clients are bad? Dear Jesus. Horse training clients are worse because the horse lives with you and not with the client, right? So these people really are hands off a lot of them. Um, and that's that really upset me because it's I'm doing all the work here and then they come in. They can't ride their horse as well as I can because they're not practicing. Um. That's where I burn out from people. So I switched to dogs because I thought those people were better. It's not true. At that moment, at that moment, she knew she fucked up. Yeah, exactly. So found out it's, it's actually yeah, some of it was the clients but mostly it's me. It's me, my programs, the way I am delivering things and also my mindset towards people. So one thing I want to, like, just get out of your minds, I hate the word client compliance. I hate it. Who here, who here is a listener that uses that word? Raise your hand. We all do. It's everywhere. It's in every marketing, all this stuff. Do you want your clients to do things? Client compliance. We hear this all the time. I hate it. Because it feels like I don't even like that word for dogs. We're, we're working as a team here. We have a shared goal. I would like to reframe this and say client collaboration, because that's really what we're doing here. Right? We're working together towards a shared goal. Both that we, we, Both find important. I want you to have the best life with your dog. You want to have the best life with your dog. Let's work together as a team. So with that in mind, you're not coming in here as this big educator. You got your ego, your best dog trainer in the world. I'm sure you are. That's wonderful. But We need to make space for our clients to, uh, to have these breakthroughs themselves and actually start thinking for themselves. And, and they are your, your employee, almost they're doing the board and train at home. How, how do we, how do we coach our employees to do the things we want? Right. I don't know because I don't have employees. They're my, they're my students. No, no, that is, I mean, holy shit, Ashley. Aside from what we were also going to talk about around the program design aspect of it. That is a huge. Fucking component of this conversation is how can we look at it? Because the majority of my listeners on here are not like your dog needs to comply, not perfect obedience and knows that I'm the leader and shit like that. Right? The majority of the people that listen to this are not those people, but how can we start to put that mindset into the collaboration and partnership and teamwork with the dog owner without redirecting the blame to them? Cause they're not doing the work. Yeah. So, so what do we do when our dogs are failing at something? We look for what, am I saying the right thing to the dog? Is my timing right? Is the environment right? Is, we, we look at all of these other factors. We don't just blame the dog. Oh, this dog is just stupid or they're being a bad dog. There's always a reason why the dog can't comply. Maybe they have a health issue and they have arthritis, so they can't sit. Or whatever and they've been saying no to your sitqueue, but really they're in pain. Our clients are very much the same way. What is going on in the rest of their life? Are they actually able to complete the things we're asking them? Like, um, I have a, I had a client who had really, really, really extreme anxiety. Um, she, she couldn't even leave her house. That's how bad her anxiety was. So me asking her to get in the car and take her dog to Home Depot is not possible for her. Absolutely not. She's not going to be able to comply to my request. So I have to figure out, okay, I see that your anxiety is so bad. How can I work through this with you as a team so that we can actually get this dog training done? Um, in her case, I actually, I upsold to a board and train because that made more sense. It took, it gave her a break from the anxiety of having to care for her two really wild dogs. I got to do all of the stuff with the dogs and then seeing all the stuff that her dog was doing motivated her and inspired her that yeah, she can actually do these things. So she's in a much better place now. She is doing all the things and it is amazing. But I, I really had to look at what was going on in her life, all the things outside of her dog to get that collaboration with her because it had nothing to do with her dog. Yeah. And you know, I'm, I'm, all of this is processing in my own brain right now. So I'm literally speaking from like a processing situation of how I do this and any out, if you're looking from it, from an outside lens, right? So you have this client. that herself has anxiety, right? And I'm assuming her dogs had anxiety too, or like it was part of the mixture of why you were brought in there, right? If that's what I do. Okay. Yeah. Anxiety, reactivity, shit like that. And as dog trainers, y'all know, part of like your kind of rehab around that is getting the dog comfortable in different environments and shit like that. So part of the training program, you go in and I'm speaking not as you, Ash, I'm speaking in general, general dog training public. It's like, all right, well, in order to get from a to B to C to D with this dog owner and their goals, they need to be able to go to home Depot or Lowe's or the fucking park. And that's part that's, that's your agenda as a dog trainer going in with this program. But we're not thinking in the, we're not thinking in the owner's perspective and environment of what's going on with this person. So immediately if Ashley was to be like, no, you need to do this, this and this and this. Go in there and do her private sessions. She comes back. Why didn't you go to Lowe's? Why didn't you go to Home Depot? Immediately right now, I, I, I honestly, and I say this with a lot of love, but a lot of dog trainers out there would brand her a really shitty client because she's not doing the work. She's, she's one of my favorite clients. Yeah. Because we did not give this space, like Ashley said, to have that open, connected conversation of where. Yeah, she can't do it. Like she cannot do it. and listen and also, go ahead. Go ahead. No, you go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, I needed to create the space where she felt safe enough to say, Hey Ashley, I am having this really bad time in my personal life and I, I cannot do this. And I, she felt terrible. She was. You know, when you're, when you're having a really hard time, it's so hard to ask for help, but you have to be there to be that safe space so that they feel comfortable saying, Yo, I can't, I can't do my homework. I can't do any of this. This is just too much. And then being open to having these conversations. Okay, I see. This is, this is where our problem is. Let's come up with a solution together. We work as a team here. I am here to hold your hand through this process. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just like, boom. It's like, yeah, we can update your programs as much as possible. But if you don't have that mindset of being able to create that space and listen, I was going to say like, you know, people like, Oh, I don't want why any clients like that. They're usually pains in the asses. Like now it's Ashley's favorite client. I know what Ashley's dog training program prices are. That person is paying a very, very high price premium service for that done for you, quote, unquote, dog training, a board and train program. Yeah. And she's, she's now, uh, we've been together a year now and she's not going anywhere fast soon with she's not leaving me. Yeah. Because she wants to be there. She wants to be with you. She still wants to collaborate. And that's the thing too, about like programs and quote unquote owner compliance. Like we have to also think about as trainers and sir, cause we are, you guys are service providers at the end of the day. It's like, but what's the greater impact of the services for your people that you deliver for your program. So you have this person who's got like, what is it called? I can't think of the word. The thing where you're afraid to not necessarily go outside, but going outside is incredibly overwhelming and oversimulated where you don't want to go. I don't, I don't know what the name is either. It's like something agoraphobia or something like that. Um, you have somebody like that who's a truly great person on the inside, but they're going through their own personal shit. And then you have other. You have the higher end, this person's a high end client, but then like you have the other people, like, I'll give you an example, like me, like I need specific services for my dog, right? I need specific services. I would love a specific service, but I can't necessarily do the work at the end of the day. I need a service. That doesn't mean I'm a owner. That doesn't mean I'm not a non compliant dog owner. I still give, you know, I will still follow direction on things, but I have other impacts in my life. So if somebody would take, you know, my dog and do a specific style adventure day and then work on her, you know, on her back end, like obedience and cleaning her up and all that type of stuff, that's great for me. Cause that creates. space, which I actually have right now because I have somebody doing that for me in order to deliver value and impact dog trainers and give you this podcast that we're fucking recording right now. Yeah. Yeah. And on the outside, I seem like a shitty dog owner because I'm like, here, I'm going to write you a check, go take my dog, do whatever the fuck you want with it. Right. And we have this preconceived mindset because, Oh, they're just writing the check and they don't care. They just want things. They expect a miracle. People that have high impact roles. And listen, I don't have a high impact role in this world. Like my role is so tiny. I'm like Maggie. I'm like the cicada, like, I don't have a high impact, you know, I know I impact people, but think about the neurosurgeon. That's going to be working on somebody who could, who needs a craniotomy. Think about the lawyer that is defending her, her client to get her child back. Like we have to think about that. It's like, are they non compliant? Or are you not addressing their, their environment and their needs and their impact? Again, fuck the program design. We'll talk about program design in just a second, but we need to think about the collaboration, like you said. the partnership and the teamwork. And you pick up the slack where they can't do it and then you educate where they can and it makes it a whole lot easier for them to then move forward with the things you're asking them because they are not overwhelmed by everything in their life plus their job. Right. And throwing more stuff at them like well maybe I could just give more handouts, more paperwork, more online stuff, more summaries. It's not going to solve the problem. No, people, listen, people are going to prioritize what means the most to them if they have the time for it. I'll give you a really good example. I'll give you a really good personal example too, right? Fuck the fuck my dog right now talking about her, but like for me, so I've been on a really, I've been really trying to take care of myself like health wise. Right. Um, I haven't shared with this. I haven't shared people with this, but I've been going through some mental health stuff and I just had the realization through a really great therapist of what's been going on. And I have things to do and things to work on and priorities to be set. Right. And I was like, the next thing I need to do, because this is just a symptom of what was going on with me is I need to get like my diet cleaned up and in shape and in order. So I can start, you know, releasing some weight that I've gained over the years for inflammation. And I hired a health coach for this and I've used this company years ago. I absolutely love them. Absolutely fucking love this company, right? They're very supportive. They give you everything you need. They do a, b, c, d, e, f, g. They fucking check all the lists off. Right. And my coach, God bless them had, you know, we had the weekly check ins where I fill out the sheet. I may know my progress. I know like what I ate. I know how I'm feeling. I know my stress levels. I know my water intake because I had other things going on with work with. business with bringing Ashley on board. It wasn't a priority to me. Right. And I said to that person, I said, Luca, Hey, I don't know if I need to pause this. It's just, it feels way too overwhelming for me. And they said to me, they're like, listen, you're a human. I get that. Let me know how I can collaborate. And he, they actually said, how can I collaborate with you to help you through this next transition of your life? And having that pressure off of me and them creating something specifically for me, where I don't feel pressurized. I need to do meet all these like check marks at the end of the week has made it so much more easier for me to be quote unquote compliant on my updated diet macros. Boom. So you, I just had the breakthrough around that too. And I'm like, holy crap. Cause I can be branded a bad client. I was, I'm still paying my, my, my bill each month. It goes right through. I wasn't showing up until it was Luca reach out to me. They're like, Hey, how are you doing? Can I help you with anything? And that, that reach out, because it is, it is so hard to ask for help, especially when you feel buried under everything, having your coach notice, Oh, you've been quiet and then reaching out and saying, Hey, how can I help you? How can I serve you better? And then they did. Yeah. And versus saying you're a bad client, but I'm still going to take your money, but also them feel bad about it. This is fucking huge. Wow. Damn. So in conclusion, no, I'm just kidding. But honestly, I think the first thing is like, you need to check yourself. Like you need to check your mindset around this. And say, Hey, owner compliance. Yeah, you do have to follow a specific set of perimeters to get results for the dogs. It's dog training. It's like fucking science at the end of the day, but it's like, we also need to take that other equivalent to it. Cause again, fucking great dog owners are created, not fucking found. Fuck. Yeah. So another, another thing I want to bring up is you want to model the behavior you want to see from your client., if you are, if you are distant, if you are hard to connect with. Just that's just your personality. Maybe get some therapies. It's Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win People and Influence, How to Win and Influence Friends or something like that. Yeah. Read a book. If, if you are not putting what you want out into the world, you are, you're not going to get that back, you know? So, so this kind of goes into program design and stuff, but. You do, you really want to model the behavior you want from your clients. So you want to be engaged. You want to be available. Obviously, we can't over deliver, but this is again, circles back into program design so that we can actually do this without over delivering. Yeah. But you need, you need to be excited about training. Nobody wants to listen to a trainer who is burnout, really. Right? I don't want to be coached by that. No. No. Yeah. If, even if you are burnout, lie to yourself, put it together, just shit together for an hour. Yeah. You can cry about it later, but, but really show up as the person you want your client to be. Be a, be a good student yourself. If you're learning from somebody else, if you have a business coach, be, be the student you want your students to be right. And then as you, as you learn how to be a good student, then you start to realize, Oh, this is, I would, I want this from my clients. How, how is my coach getting me to do this? So you can learn from other people as well. And what, what doesn't work? This is, I, I went through a health coaching program that was. It was really, the information was really, really good, great stuff, but the amount of homework that I had to do basically caused another eating disorder. So, I couldn't, I could not keep up with the amount of homework that I was being given and it was, it was really overwhelming and I forget where I'm going with this, why I'm saying this. You dropped the program where you really needed it. Yeah, I, I dropped a program that I really needed because it was, it was too hard for me to do. Yeah. As, as a business owner with all of the other things going on in my life, taking care of my own dog, it was just way too much. So I dropped and not because she didn't have great information to share with me. It was because the structure of her program was just. Too hard. Yeah. That's another thing. It's like fucking checking with your programs. Are you expecting too much from people? Yeah. Expectations are huge. And something that I have done in the past, I guess my whole life of business. I like to notice patterns. We do this with dogs too, but I want you to pay attention to your humans as well. Is there a, let's say you have a, I don't know, 12 week package of lessons, back to back, you do one every week. Is there a point in that program, maybe a week, Six, where some of your students start to drop off, they ghost you, quote, quote, yeah, they, they ghost you. Um, maybe you start to get some pushback on, I don't know, whatever you're teaching, um, there, there might be a problem in your program, not your students, you know. So you always want to keep an eye on your client experience and, and where they seem to excel and where they seem to drop off. You need to pay attention to those things and then make improvements to, to fix those things. I update my programs every six months because I'm a crazy person. Ah, bullshit. You do it every two months. Yeah, you're right. She's like, I'm updating them. I'm like, okay. Yep, again and again and again. Well, that's also why we've made you really shine with program design when teaching it out with our students. Cause you, you take it to heart. You don't like, and that's the thing too. I think, you know, and if I offend anybody, I apologize, but like, y'all need to keep your egos a check at the end of the day with this stuff. It's like, yes, they're all don't twist my words. There are going to be some shitty clients out there. Like there that's, that's, that's the cost of doing business. You are going to have horrible clients sometimes. My lawyer and I talk about it. I was like, that's about us doing business. I'm like, yeah, I understand that. I've seen that in the last couple months, but we have to also say, all right. I'm like, Ashley said, I'm seeing a very clear and distinct pattern here. What's the common denominator. And you need to like, do a little self direction and reflection and be like, all right, well, what do I need to change or update on how I'm delivering the information to my clients? Whether that is the board and train programs, your private session to group classes, because Hey, If I'm starting to notice a pattern of people dropping off here and we don't, we don't take it to heart and we say, okay, I'm going to comment it's here and not take it as a personal attack to myself. And then redirect blame to people and call them shitty owners, which also creates an echo chamber in this industry. Y'all, I see you in the free groups about that shit. Like, I don't like that. And we say, okay, what can I improve? I have a sneaking suspicion, a little bit of improvement around that too, is going to also result in a better compliance. Because again, like, listen, I'm going to say this. I am an over deliverer. Like if you were, if, and we've had to directly remove me from stuff because I will, if you are a one on one client, the Kristen Leigh ride is not fun. You have to get off that roller coaster. It's like this. It's like the death coaster. I swear to God, but because I have such high expectations for myself. Right. I started to put that onto our one on one VIP clients, right. And that was not fun. And that was not fun for them. And what started to happen, people started to be quiet. So I'm like, they're being quiet. They are not happy. So let me give more. Right. Yeah. And then people started dropping and I'm like, Ooh, Dangerville Robertson, what the fuck's going on? But I'm sitting here, I'm like, but I'm the best at what I do with this marketing stuff and the sales stuff and organizational management. And it's like, cause I wasn't giving so much. I've given so much and creating such the best stuff in the industry. And people are like, no, no, no, no, no, no, Kristen. I don't like this. This is too much. This is too much. But because my, our amazing students, like, and we still have the most awesome VIP people, they were feeling so overwhelmed because I wasn't taking an account. They also had other shit going on. They might've, they needed support on. It was like, Ooh, and it really, it really fucking wrecked me inside and it hurt my ego. And then I got some feedback once and I'm like, Oh my God, I'm the worst. I'm like the worst person at this. I shouldn't be doing this anymore. Right. And I feel like a lot of people have had that experience. Like as dog trainers, it's like, you put your heart and soul into something. People aren't complying. So you give more, more, more, and then you get feedback. You're like, ouch. And so your ego protects you. It's like, fuck them people. You know what I mean? God, I'm having all the breakthroughs today. You are. This is a good day for you, Kristen. It's a very good day. I'm going to have a Tim Tam after this to reward myself. Anybody knows what Tim Tams are? They are fucking delicious. Do you know what a Tim Tam is? No, it's probably not gluten free, is it? Oh my god, no. It's an Australian cookie. I can't eat anything. It's an Australian cookie. It's delicious. Anyway, but going back to that, like, yeah, you gotta, you gotta check yourself, peeps. Yeah, how, how many of you spend at least 30 minutes to an hour or even two hours Writing up your lesson reports after your lessons and they are the bane of your existence and none of your clients ever read them. Ah, right? That, I hated that. It's, it's information we really, really need to share with our clients because we do all of the training stuff, like the exercises in the lessons, but there's more backstory to that, that we need to get into our clients heads for it to come full circle. So we, we write up all of this great information. We write up the, the exercise instructions. And then we see that it's been unread in your email. And you're like, God damn clients not doing the fucking work. They suck. Yeah. I'm writing up all this great stuff and they're just not even utilizing it. Well, you already came in for the lesson. You dropped some information on them. They're only going to retain 10 percent of that because that's just how human brains works. And, but they, but they felt like they got their lesson. They felt like they got the information. So what you're writing up afterwards is almost irrelevant. I ain't got time to read that, you know? So Ashley, are you, as I'm going to, I'm going to pump Ashley up for a second here. I'm going to pump her ego up healthily. As one of the leading people in the dog training industry that has the best program design out there. So you need to listen to what she says. That's why we hired her. Are you giving dog trainers the official permission to stop writing summaries? Yeah, don't do that. It will, you'll stop crying at night. I used to stay up till like two in the morning because, you know, like procrastination. I don't want to write this up because they're not going to read it. And I would just have a shitty night for the rest of my night after work. You're like, I need to go in the bubble bath. Yeah, I do. I just want to be done with my day instead of writing up all these reports that nobody's ever going to read. So yeah, I figured out a way to not do that while still delivering the information at strategic points. in their program. We don't have to dump all of this information on them. I keep my lessons for just working on exercises. But outside of that, I am educating the humans on how to be a good dog parent. All of the lifestyle things we have to adjust. This gets taught outside of lesson time, but before we go to the lesson. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's not an afterthought anymore. This is preparation for what we're going to do in the in person lesson. You need to know this information first. And that's where pitch coming in comes. Fusion programs. Fusion programs. Well, that's the thing too. It's like, that's the reason why, you know, Maggie created the fusion program, like design. And it's so funny these days, like, I went back. It's last night. I was up because I was devastated over some news I got about a personal friend and I could not sleep. So I was going through old. I was going through old Facebook posts of grassroots and I found this one post we did four years ago today. And it was even scammed by other people. And the reason why we've done fusion programs. Is so people like when you have specific emergencies or even just like not, it's not even emergency backup things, but I'm getting to the point of where it's like fusion programs were created to help the dog owners. And the last four years they've been so master size, I think we've delivered it enough to people. That word's got out. And now we see like these hybrid plans and this and that. And it's like, there's nothing like an actual dog with school fusion program, like the original one. So I don't want you all to get it like confused. Cause you see a lot of the coaches teaching pro hybrids and it's like, no, it's just a master size, master size version of a fusion program that we've created. You can't get the information unless you actually are a student. Um, But anyway, that's my pitch in there, but it's, it's really interesting to see the fusion programs and the fusion programs actually allow you to have that better client experience that we've been talking about. And yeah, that's my own. That's I'm going to shut up now. I'm talking, I'm doing too much self promotion on this. Yeah. So switching for me, switching to the fusion program made a massive difference in my client collaboration. Um, and it's also something that I have, again, like I said, I do my program updates every six months, but really it's two months. Every eight weeks. I am constantly on the lookout of what, what is working, what is not working. How can I improve this to make this experience even easier and even more better for the clients? How can I educate them? Um, so this is, I want this for you guys too, to, to be able to continuously look at that quality control and work on it because this is, this is what sets you apart from all of the other trainers out there. We're all doing the same thing. We're training dogs. Uh, we, I mean, we all have our different skill sets, but in the end, we're, we're dog trainers. It's the same service. Yeah. So the, your programs and the way you educate people is what makes you different than everybody else. Absolutely. So I'm actually going to wrap this up because I feel like we have a lot of really good information and a lot of food for thought here. Well, to summarize, it's like, you know, if you are struggling with dog owner compliance and you find yourself saying, Oh my God, I hate my dog owners and got to check yourself. You got to say, okay, what is my mindset? Am I just pushing and leaning in too much of they need to comply and they need to do what I say? Are you not taking the human edge and experience and checking their environments? Secondly, you need to start to think about like, are we collaborating as a team? Are we collaborating as a team with the dog? We are, I know I'm with the dog, but am I taking into account the human? That even includes if you just do fucking, I don't care if you're a fucking franchise e caller trader, right. When I'm talking about this, like, but are you actually collaborating as a team? Yeah. With the dog owner. Right. Cause I know a lot of those franchises, I mean, Ashley gets a lot of them. My husband gets a lot of them because they're not taking an accountership of that quality of education and partnership with the dog owner. Right. They're cranking, they're cranking dogs in and out, but they're not saying, okay, how are we making this a lifestyle? And how are we making this almost a lifetime client? Right. Yeah. Yep. Are we also, number three, I might have, or I might have said ABC, now I'm like, number three, are we taking an account, like, The fucking person, like, are we taking into account what the person does in their life? Like, this is why making that connection on the sales call, like the initial first point of contact, not even giving a fuck about what they're calling about and learning about that person. And this is something that is so hard to teach to people. And we've been teaching this for almost 20 years. It's like their dog owner is calling you with a problem. Yes. And you have the solution to some training. But are you fucking learning about the person, like who they are, what kind of impact they have in the world, you know, they might be a nurse, they might be a doctor, they might be, you know, somebody who's leading a really, really, really, really busy lifestyle. And there's more impacts than goes beyond your level of like, like understanding, like you are impacting people's lives and other people's lives through dog training to understand who the fuck they are. Right. And then almost like your programs like are you throwing way too much shit at people at the end of the, at the end of the lesson you go in there you do your work, and you're like oh god damn I got to cover the summary oh my god they need to do ABC and D by next week. And then you go in there and they're not doing any of the work and you show up with a bad fucking attitude and they're starting to reflect that attitude. So are you checking your door and then the last thing is like get your full compute your your programs right like update your programs like you don't need to do it every two months like Ashley only reason why Ashley can do that. And the only reason why we've always given her leniency and not come down to on her as a student. And she's not doing it as an excuse to not do sales and do the work, right? So you don't need to do too much, right? For listeners that aren't even students of ours yet, like when's the last time you've gone through and been like, all right, I'm a commentator here. I'm going to take an objective look and see when my updates have been, Oh damn, I am giving way too much. And I make freaking the fucking people out. I am pulling a Kristen Lee here, breaking people out. No wonder why they're dropping like flies. Surprise peek at your face. All right. So, I mean, it starts with you, with the, you know, with the, The getting owners to comply, it's not getting compliance. It's building partnership, collaboration, coaching people, and to be really good dog owners and dog parents. So, and not judging them. If you need to do something where people, somebody is like here, I'm going to throw 1, 500 a month. So you can get your Labrador out twice a week and your hat. And they're like, you're like, Ooh, this person's throwing money at me judging how they're spending them. No, that person needs that service. That's why they love that service. And that's why they're pulling the money. It's not that they're a bad dog owner. Like, stop the judgment too. They're, they're, they're actually prioritizing their dog because they know that they do not have the time to get them out and they need to. Right. So they're outsourcing that because they actually do care about their dog. Yeah. They just can't physically do it themselves. Like I said in the beginning of this episode, The only reason why I'm able to have these also breakthroughs that are also going to unpack you all later on down the road, and to also be able to deliver this really great information is because I outsourced a premium service. So my dog can go fucking go get, go get her, her IBD triggered by being too excited, no less, but whatever. She got a double dose this morning of meds. She got her time gel and her pro viable pace this morning. But honestly, like she was picked up this morning by. amazing crew of people. She's going to be out in the fucking woods all day, working on off leash training. And I know I'm able to sit down and clear my space. I was able to have a meeting with Ashley before I was able to have a meeting with Maggie before. And now I have the space and the clarity and the creativity and the energy to be able to talk to all of you. Right. What if, what if somebody out there is like that? Like. That is waiting to give you 1, 500 a month in recurrent revenue to barely do like four services a month. I think that's pretty damn good. So anyway, I digress. It's not the Christian show right now. It's the my drone dog biz podcast listeners. So yeah, I mean, this was a good episode. I think this is a really great reminder of, you know, it's not, it's sometimes it's not the owner's fault. It's our, it's our thing and just reframing that and redirecting that conversation. So yeah, Ashley. You're awesome. You are awesome. And a reminder, if you want to learn stuff, if you want to have, if you want to have a conversation with us, like there's so many different ways to reach out to us. Do I even need to tell them how to reach out to us? Like, I mean, just reach out to us. You can reach out to one of us. We don't bite. We're not selling you fucking shit. We're not selling you done for you marketing. So you can have 20 board and trains and your program this month. I just want to have a conversation and see, see where you're at and see what is going, what is going on in your programs? Cause the, the, actually the more we collaborate together as trainers. The more we don't have to keep reinventing the wheel. I thank God. I don't, I don't want to have to keep updating my programs. If we work together, I love it. Yes you do. If we work together, put our heads together, we can all come up with really, really solid ideas. That supports all of our clients. So really guys, I just want to, I just want to talk. She does. She's literally the golden retriever, emotional support dog that goes around to the schools and it's like, has the blue vest on. It's like, I just want love. And I just want to talk about my belly and we'll talk. Yeah. I mean, just reach out to us, go to our website. I mean, do whatever. I don't give a shit. Like just reach out to us and somebody will be there, but there's no formal process if needed. So, and we're here, we're happy to chat and I'm happy to throw a lot of stuff your way too. If you want to talk, if you want to talk business and get down to it and get a really good plan, I'm the person, but if you just want to chat programs and seeing what gaps and opportunities you might have versus obstacles, you know, reach out to us and we'll get you in touch with Ashley. She's happy. She's happy to talk to you. My tail is wagging. Nice and low and flat and back and forth. Full body wag and ears or she's got the ears back and she's just smiling. She's a good girl. She's good, Ashley. Ashley, what's your favorite treat? What are you eating these days? I know you're not eating, you have, you have like a stomach like my dog, but. Yeah, I have a stomach like your dog, so basically all I eat is meat and lettuce. Okay, that's Betty, she eats fish and, fish and veg, and fucking sweet potatoes, yeah. I'll throw you a sweet potato, how's that? I'm, I'm on the barf diet for dogs. It's the only thing that makes me not sick. Oh, poor thing. I feel you. All right, everybody. We're going to wrap this up. Thank you so much. And I, Ashley, I appreciate you being on here. You're never stranger on here. I'm glad you're talking to more people and connecting with all of our dog trainers. And again, doors open, reach out and we'll chat with everybody. All right. We'll talk to you soon. 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 Leigh, and produced by the Unicorns over at the Dog Biz School team. For more information on how to get in touch with me, for more information on Dog Biz School, 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.