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0:34

On today's episode of Let's Talk Dog

0:36

Business, we have Michael Aseta. This

0:38

is definitely an episode you do not

0:41

want to miss. He is a breath

0:43

of fresh air and you will walk

0:45

away with some amazing tips to start

0:47

implementing immediately. Hi

0:54

everybody. Today, I'm really looking forward to

0:56

today. I feel like we're chatting to a

0:58

really old friend now, but in an amazing

1:00

way. We've got the lovely,

1:02

lovely Michael with us. For those of

1:05

you who haven't heard of Michael, you

1:07

did some training for us, didn't you,

1:09

in our Let's Talk Dog Business show

1:11

on our Facebook group? Yes,

1:14

it was wonderful. It was a great time. Wonderful.

1:17

I like it. Michael always lifts

1:19

the mood. Yeah, Michael's mate. We love

1:21

Michael and you're going to love him

1:23

too and you're going to find out

1:25

why now. Michael, tell everybody more about

1:27

you, what you do, and how we've

1:30

become to be your new annoying bestie

1:32

UK friends. Absolutely.

1:35

Well, I'm across the pond in the

1:37

United States. I

1:39

started out my dog business journey

1:42

doing a lot of virtual training

1:44

during the COVID pandemic and figuring

1:47

out how to help

1:49

people from afar and work

1:51

out the business and that side of things.

1:54

Now, I help dog business owners

1:56

who are struggling with that aspect

1:58

of their business. day

4:00

and I'm a father, so

4:02

I have to homeschool my son and I got

4:04

to do this and I got to do that

4:06

and all these other things that might get in

4:08

the way of running a successful business. So how

4:10

can I automate as much as possible? That is

4:12

the operation side of things. So when it comes

4:14

to a dog training business, sure, you could just

4:16

go out and yell at the top of your

4:18

lungs in a street corner, I train dogs, but

4:20

you're only going to get so far doing that.

4:23

You have to master those other aspects, marketing, sales

4:25

and operations to really excel, not only start the

4:27

business off, but grow and scale

4:29

the business to what you really want, what you need. Yeah.

4:32

Amazing. I was

4:34

just going to say, so a lot of

4:36

dog trainers would be scared off by anything

4:38

tech. Like it's something that

4:40

really worries a lot of people that

4:42

we speak to and they don't understand

4:44

it and they don't know where to

4:46

start with it. So what would your

4:48

advice be on simplifying everything so that

4:50

they can, it can help them understand

4:52

things a little bit better? Absolutely.

4:55

And I'm in the same pocket where

4:58

when I first started out, very similar

5:00

to dog trainers in trying to explain

5:02

dog training to somebody, you know

5:04

it so well that trying to explain it to somebody

5:06

else, you're like, how do you not get this? Right?

5:09

So let's say a dog trainer really understands reactive

5:11

dogs and they start talking to someone. They're like,

5:13

yeah, your dogs fear aggressive and the reactive and

5:15

all this other stuff. And the person's like so

5:18

confused. And I have no idea what you're talking

5:20

about. If they boil it down to the simplest

5:22

terms and say, your dog just doesn't know what

5:24

to do. We have to clarify what they should

5:26

be doing in those scenarios and help them habitualize

5:29

to the situation. Even that

5:31

word habitualize it. That's too big. We need to make

5:33

it easier. Hey, your dog just needs to know that

5:35

this is normal and they don't need to freak out.

5:38

So if we can go back to the way we were

5:41

before we understood dog training at a deep level

5:43

and try to break it down to explain to other

5:45

people, we need to do the exact

5:47

same thing almost in reverse when it comes to the

5:49

tech side of things. So knowing more is definitely going

5:51

to help. But the confidence

5:54

only comes through successful repetition. So

5:57

the first thing you have to do is start. You have to go,

5:59

okay, I know nothing. what I'm doing and I'm

6:01

just going to build it out. I built my first

6:03

website when I was 16 years old and it

6:05

was terrible. I built the next website when I was 18

6:07

and then again and again and again and again and

6:10

I got to the point where I can whip up a website

6:12

in about a day or so. So

6:15

that takes a really long time to do and

6:17

there's so many other facets to it that you

6:20

don't necessarily have to understand to start.

6:23

But for those who are struggling and they have no

6:26

idea where to start, the easiest thing is to get

6:28

out of pen and paper and just write down where

6:30

your ideal person

6:32

is currently and where you would like

6:35

to get them to. So if your

6:37

ideal person, your ideal client is taking

6:39

their dog to the dog park, which

6:43

dog parks are crazy and all over the place and people

6:45

just go because they're trying to get their dog's energy out

6:47

because they don't know how to solve certain problems. Well, the

6:49

first thing you need to do is maybe go to the

6:51

dog park and see if you can engage with people. I

6:54

did that early on in the beginning. I would go to the dog park. I

6:56

stood up on this big rock in the middle of the park and I just

6:58

yelled my name. I was like, hi, my name is Michael. I said, I train

7:01

dogs. If you want anything, I would be over there for the next 10 minutes

7:03

and I would just hang out there and people would come over and

7:05

ask me questions and whatnot. And

7:07

that was the first thing that I did. So I said, where

7:09

are my ideal people and where do I want them to go?

7:11

Well, I want them to train with me. Cool.

7:14

So what are the pieces along the way that they

7:16

need to do? First, they need to know who

7:18

I am and what I do. So I tell them, my

7:20

name is Michael. I train dogs. I'm going to be over there. You

7:22

can ask me questions in a little bit. Then

7:24

during that conversation, I need to tell them more about

7:26

what I do and the process of how I can

7:28

get them the result that they want, but I need

7:30

to know what their problem is. All

7:33

of this to say,

7:35

this whole journey I call the client

7:38

adventure map is a

7:40

guided process to get them from where they

7:42

are to where you want them to go. And

7:44

then you worry about putting it online and making

7:46

it into a funnel, making it into, well, my

7:48

people are on social media and I want to

7:51

show them that I have what they're looking for,

7:53

but I need to know what they're looking for

7:55

first. Right. I can't just go make something up

7:57

and say, Hey, I train X, Y, and Z.

8:00

It's like, no, I have to say I help people who are really

8:02

busy, but they want to be able to do cool stuff with their dog.

8:05

So I make content about that. Then

8:07

they're interested a little bit more. They know who I am,

8:10

I built rapport, and then I can work them along the

8:12

way. But again, I don't want to get too crazy

8:15

into the nitty-gitty unless you want to. But

8:17

the map is really where people need

8:19

to start. They have to write down what

8:22

the journey is from where their ideal people

8:24

are to where they want to go, and

8:26

then figure out how to get it online.

8:28

You could freelance people, you could hire people to do that,

8:31

but that map is the really important part. If

8:33

you don't have that, no fancy website, no running ads,

8:35

none of that's going to work. It's

8:37

what I wasted the first year and a half of

8:39

my business on. I was trying

8:42

to do all the other stuff, the

8:44

fancy stuff, the branding, the colors, merchandise,

8:46

all of this stuff, and I didn't

8:48

have the map laid out. That's

8:50

where I tell people to start with now. Do you

8:52

know that's so important, isn't it, for you

8:54

to be saying that? Because this is the

8:56

message that we're trying to get across. Yeah,

8:58

we harp on about it all the time.

9:00

All the time, yeah. You can't possibly attract

9:02

people if A, you don't know

9:04

who your clients are. Like, you can't

9:06

even start the map. You can't even begin looking for them if you

9:09

don't know who they are. And then

9:11

that stems back to what's the purpose of

9:13

your business? What are you actually trying to

9:15

achieve? What's your niche? What's your

9:18

special superpower that you've got?

9:20

And then how do you want to execute that?

9:22

Then, yeah, exactly. Like you say, where are? I love

9:25

the fact. I can actually see you standing in a

9:27

park and screaming that. I love it. I've got a

9:29

vision in my head if you do it. And

9:32

having that big smile on your face, which you've got right now,

9:34

if anyone's watching this. It's

9:37

great. I want, I actually challenge people to do it.

9:39

I feel like we should try this. I

9:41

want to do it. And I film it and we'll

9:43

send it to you. Actually, Hannah, we had a guest

9:45

recently, Hannah Malloy, who's a dog trainer, and she did

9:47

something similar. She was going to parks and just shouting

9:49

out, who wants my help? And it

9:51

worked really well for her, didn't it? So maybe this

9:53

is the strategy. It's the power of

9:56

that. Like it's identifying

9:58

that journey, isn't it? and like,

10:00

where are you people out there? Cause

10:02

we've had so many people say this

10:05

week actually, like, oh,

10:07

I've got no inquiries. There's not enough leads

10:09

coming in. The

10:11

sales are drying up and it's really difficult

10:13

when you're in that position, isn't it? Cause

10:15

we've all been there. We've all had that

10:18

feeling, but it's

10:20

really hard to articulate

10:23

and almost truly understand

10:25

that you are never going to get those

10:27

leads and inquiries. If you haven't done this

10:29

pre-work a bit first, it

10:32

just can't work or it does. It's

10:34

a bit of fluke. It's a bit of chance and

10:37

you may attract some people and you may get some money,

10:39

but it's not a sustainable

10:41

thing then, is it? Well,

10:44

I love what Alex Formosi says, which I know we've

10:46

talked about Alex Formosi in the past. He

10:49

says there's three things you can do every day to get

10:51

clients. And this is what I check off first thing in

10:53

the morning. I either make some type of content.

10:55

I either reach out to some type of people where

10:57

I run ads. Those are the three. If

10:59

you don't know what to do, you have no business

11:02

coming in, no one's filling out your forms. No one,

11:04

you don't have anybody in a message. You either make

11:06

content and post it. You either start running

11:08

ads if you have money, if you don't, then you can't

11:10

do that. The last thing is to just reach out to

11:12

people, go on to social media. I used to, every

11:15

day I'd go through my entire email list and my

11:17

phone list and I would just start talking to people.

11:19

You don't have to sound weird about it. Hey, you

11:21

want to buy this thing? That's weird. Just say, hey,

11:23

what's going on? What are you doing? Do you know

11:25

anybody who's looking for this service? This is what I

11:28

do now. And then they go, why didn't

11:30

you ask me? And they almost feel obligated to say

11:32

that they need some kind of help, right? I feel

11:34

left out. Those are the three things that you can

11:36

do if you're in that position where you don't have

11:38

any clients and you're not busy. You want to stack

11:40

that calendar as best you can. So find something to

11:42

do, one of those three. This

11:44

week for us, I find that

11:46

the stars are just really weirdly aligning this

11:49

week because we were at our business mastermind

11:51

yesterday and we were

11:53

talking all about Alex Hormozee and

11:55

the ways that he recommends getting

11:57

clients. And it's exactly that. And

12:00

like, you're now talking about it today. And

12:02

it's just really strange. We do it all

12:04

the time, don't we? Like every day we

12:06

make a conscious effort to

12:08

go, right, who can

12:10

we talk to? It's a conversation. Everything starts with

12:12

a conversation and you never know where it's going

12:14

to lead. Some of our biggest

12:16

months actually have been at the back of

12:18

conversations with existing clients that have already invested

12:21

money with us. And then we've spotted somewhere

12:23

that they're really struggling and going, do you

12:25

know what, we can help you out a

12:27

bit more with that. So there's an additional

12:29

fee. Here it is. What

12:31

do you think? And they're like, yeah, cool. I'm

12:34

in, because then there's that no like and trust

12:36

relationship. But it starts off with a conversation. Yeah.

12:39

And we often liken it, and you probably do this

12:41

as well, to when you start a relationship with somebody,

12:43

you don't just go straight in. You've got to build

12:45

a little bit of rapport with somebody. You've got to

12:47

get to know them, get a feel for them, see

12:50

whether you like them, see whether they're like you back and

12:53

look at it a bit like dating. Absolutely.

12:56

And I love, I learned this many, many years ago,

12:58

and it's served me very well. Theodore

13:00

Roosevelt was considered one of the

13:02

best conversationalists as a president. And

13:05

it was because the day before he was meeting

13:07

with somebody, he would learn as much as he

13:09

possibly could about their topic of expertise, and then

13:11

ask them questions all day. So

13:14

people would walk away going, oh my God, he

13:16

was amazing, he was a great conversationalist. Be like, oh,

13:18

what'd you talk about? They would think about it. They

13:20

would go, not much about him, but

13:22

I talked a whole bunch. And they just felt

13:24

heard and listened to, that's what we all want.

13:27

So whenever I'm engaging with somebody new, I

13:29

want to hear more about them and what their story is.

13:32

Now that also serves you in business and sales

13:34

because you need to know what experiences they're going

13:36

through. What have they struggled with in

13:39

the past? Have they had bad experiences? What have

13:41

they tried and hasn't worked? Maybe they had an

13:43

older dog and now they have a puppy and

13:45

what they did last time is not working anymore.

13:47

Well, something's changed, right? Clearly it's a different dog.

13:49

Maybe the methods they're remembering aren't the same methods

13:52

that they used or any number

13:54

of things. So you have to find those out. And

13:56

then you can tailor your service to their

13:58

specific needs, which makes... it 10 times

14:00

better. If you're giving a cookie cutter mold to

14:03

have somebody, they're going to be lost. They're

14:05

going to be, oh, this isn't really for me.

14:07

And they're going to go find something else. But

14:09

if you can tailor, even if you have a

14:12

formula of your training program, you can tailor it

14:14

specifically to them. They're going to feel that much

14:16

more heard and listened to. Yeah. So true.

14:18

And it's really interesting because we hear a lot

14:21

of feedback about people saying, well, how do you

14:23

have time to have conversations with people? How do

14:25

you have time to reach out to people? But

14:27

the way we look at that is that we're

14:29

going to build a really great relationship with that

14:32

person if we start off on that foot, rather

14:34

than just going, I'm going to grab as many

14:36

people as I can, and then they're not that

14:38

great quality. So it's a really

14:41

nice way to look at that nurturing kind

14:43

of relationship as well, isn't it? Absolutely.

14:45

You want to have a deep pool

14:48

of good relationships, which statistics

14:50

say you can have around 150 to 200 really

14:52

good relationship before things

14:55

start to fall off. So you

14:57

only need about 150 really deep

15:00

relationships in order for things to

15:02

work out for you. You don't need millions and

15:04

millions of followers. And I was thinking

15:06

about this morning when I was taking the dogs out,

15:08

I was thinking about niches. And I keep hearing people

15:10

talk about you have to niche down, niche down, niche

15:12

down, niche down. What ends up happening is you're so

15:14

niche down that 10 people know who you are. So

15:18

you kind of have to bounce back and

15:20

forth where you niche open, get

15:22

a bunch of attention from people in that

15:24

general circle, let's say dog business, and then

15:26

you bring it down to dog business trainers,

15:29

or dog business merchandise, or whatever it may

15:31

be. But same thing in terms of dog

15:33

training. So it's people who own dogs. Well,

15:35

is it busy dog owners? Is it new

15:37

dog owners? Is it young dog owners or

15:40

old dog owners, or rescue dog owners, whatever

15:42

it may be. So we

15:44

reach out to these big people, big

15:46

groups, and then we consolidate afterwards. But

15:48

you need that attention first, and then

15:50

you can kind of filter out the

15:53

right people for you. Yeah, that's what

15:55

I was thinking about this morning. Yeah, yeah, it

15:57

is. It just comes back. down

16:00

to again, just like you need to know what the purpose

16:02

of your bloody business is in the first place. Cause I,

16:05

yes, I would say arguably every dog trainer

16:07

goes, yep, I'm just going to go out

16:09

to dog owners everywhere. And

16:12

we're like, awesome. Now

16:14

what? So are you going to take on,

16:16

um, I don't know, like aggressive cases. So

16:19

you're going to take on separation anxiety. I

16:21

hate separation. Someone's

16:24

got to do it really well. The

16:26

three of us. Do I know

16:29

if you're listening, master

16:32

that and people will pay you a lot of money.

16:34

Yeah. Um, but you know what I mean?

16:36

Like, but we will actively sell. I do

16:39

not want that. So someone's inquiring with it.

16:41

I'm going, no, that's not for me. Go

16:43

to this person here. It's not my bag.

16:45

Don't want to do it. Um, aggression. I'll

16:47

take it. I like it. It's interesting. Um,

16:49

we're good at it. Anything

16:51

else is like, but again, like we

16:54

had to think, because we've been having this conversation

16:56

a lot recently, um, with some of our clients

16:59

and some

17:01

really, some

17:03

really respond well to a niche

17:05

in terms of, you

17:07

know, we all have it, don't we? We all have

17:09

like a preference of a type of dog. We either

17:11

like working with or a type of case and some

17:14

people can segment it in terms

17:16

of, oh, I'll just do puppy, like puppy's

17:18

totally my bag or aggression. I'll, I'll talk

17:20

quite happily, take those. But then you've got

17:22

these people that kind of fall in a

17:25

broader category, let's say. And I would say I'm

17:27

one of these cause I, I quite like working

17:29

puppy, but it was a quite

17:32

like working aggression. So

17:34

from a marketing point of view on what

17:37

was my old business now, I

17:39

looked at it more from an, actually

17:41

I want to educate you as the

17:44

human. So the human becomes my target

17:47

audience and that's ultimately my,

17:50

my segment, my niche area going that

17:53

that's where I'm aiming. So only

17:56

reach out if you want to truly

17:58

understand the inner workings of your journey. dog

18:00

and how you can almost change

18:02

your behavior to have a

18:04

better relationship with your dog, which will therefore

18:06

impact your relationship with other human beings. And

18:09

that was my messaging. And then everybody

18:11

I attracted, I was like, awesome. I can

18:13

chat about psychology all day longer. I love it. And

18:16

we get some really cool results with the dogs. Yeah.

18:18

You'd also get people that came to you

18:21

saying, oh, I saw your website. I really like

18:23

the fact that we get to learn about the

18:25

dogs and we get to find out all this

18:27

geeky stuff. And you know straight away you've got

18:29

the right person then. Yeah. And then ultimately you're

18:31

going to turn off the right people for you

18:33

as well. Because I was like, well, actually I

18:35

don't want to work with anyone who's not

18:38

going to, because I know it's my natural

18:40

personality to lean into those conversations. So

18:43

even though, yes, I believe it or not, I

18:45

can actually shut up and just train the dog, but I don't like

18:47

shutting up. Can you believe that? I

18:50

like talking to people. So I

18:53

need to actually deter the people that don't

18:55

like talking away from me because I'm naturally

18:57

going to slip into it. So

19:00

I think you have to have a lot of awareness about yourself

19:02

as well, don't you? Definitely.

19:04

And it opens up a completely different

19:07

mindset on the marketing aspect. So

19:09

if I'm not only thinking about puppies versus

19:12

older dogs or rescues, and instead you're thinking

19:14

about busy single moms who have a 90

19:16

pound dog that they can't walk,

19:19

well, that's a whole subset that you can

19:21

help. Or you have people

19:23

who are in their 80s who got a new

19:25

puppy and they just don't have the same energy

19:27

to train the dog. Well, that's a whole different

19:29

group. So you have these different pockets of people,

19:31

because the people are the ones who end up

19:33

making the decision, not necessarily the dog. So

19:37

then you can market and create offers

19:39

and services that help those people specifically.

19:42

You might have a different walking program for

19:44

the one who can't walk the hundred pound

19:46

dog versus somebody who's really athletic and fit

19:48

and wants to go out and take their

19:50

dog hiking. They're going to be completely different

19:52

programs, but you're now not competing with the

19:54

guy down the street. That person

19:57

helps just general obedience. You help people who

19:59

want climb Mount Everest with

20:01

their dog. That's a completely different marketing

20:03

campaign and you've got a completely different group

20:05

and you're singled out, you're by yourself as

20:07

one entity. You created a

20:10

monopoly on that subset.

20:12

Yeah, yeah. What's your thoughts

20:15

on, so you know

20:17

again, typical generic

20:20

dog trainer offers all

20:23

the services, all the

20:25

puppy classes, adult classes, adolescents one-to-ones

20:27

and could literally capture anyone like

20:29

that broad person. If

20:32

that type of person came to you then

20:34

and asked for help with lead

20:37

magnets and funnels and everything, what's

20:40

kind of the process? Cause my gut is

20:42

immediately to go, well, we need to pick

20:45

an area of focus. We

20:48

can't do it all. How

20:50

do we- Definitely, I was talking to a trainer, yeah, the

20:52

other day he was mentioning how he wanted to do virtual.

20:54

He was doing board and training, he's doing in-person. He wants

20:56

to do groups on the weekend and all these things. And

20:58

I said, what are you doing a lot of right now?

21:00

And he said, board and trainings. He was like, that's what

21:03

pays the bills, but I want to do these other things

21:05

cause the other trainers in the areas are offering these other

21:07

things. And I said, okay, have you figured out the

21:09

board and train? He goes, yeah, it's pretty

21:11

good. And I was like, are you worried every

21:13

month about getting clients in the board and train? He goes, yeah,

21:15

it's like my main focus. And I said, cool, then don't move

21:17

on to the next thing. I

21:19

think most trainers will try to do everything

21:21

cause they're trying to diversify their

21:23

pot, which is fine. And that makes sense when

21:25

you're big enough to do so. But

21:28

when you're starting out, you gotta focus on

21:30

one thing, get it so good that

21:33

you no longer have to think about it, or you can

21:35

hire somebody else to manage everything and you just come in

21:37

as the hero to save the day. And

21:39

then you move on to the next thing. So

21:41

if your board and train is doing really,

21:43

really well, and you're no longer thinking about

21:45

it, your ads are running great, you're getting

21:47

plenty of referrals, testimonials, it's almost on autopilot,

21:49

then you can start running virtuals in your

21:51

spare time. And then those get really

21:54

good. And then you start doing in-person weekend

21:56

group classes type thing. But I think

21:58

most people just do too much all at once. months,

22:00

and they haven't figured out any of those one

22:02

pieces. And so, and entrepreneurs do

22:04

this all the time. We bounce

22:06

around from different ideas thinking, oh, ads will work.

22:09

It's not really working. I'm kind of stressed with

22:11

this. I don't know enough. Let me go learn

22:13

about it. While I'm learning about it, let me

22:15

go do social media. Well,

22:17

now I've forgotten about the ads completely, and social media is not

22:19

working. So let me go run and try to make phone calls

22:22

every day. The phone calls really suck because I'm

22:24

getting rejected 100 times a day. Let me go back

22:26

to ads. And we just go in this vicious

22:28

circle where we haven't honed in and picked

22:30

on anything. But if you stay the course on

22:32

one thing long enough, you don't

22:34

have to think about it anymore. Like people who are on

22:36

a diet or people who start working out or just walking

22:38

10,000 steps a day, that just becomes

22:40

a part of your life. You're not thinking about it

22:42

anymore. And then you can focus on the other things.

22:45

We only have so much brain power to put towards

22:47

any new task at a given time. So

22:49

get really good at it and then move on

22:51

to the next thing. That's my advice for new

22:53

dog trainers trying to figure out or those who

22:55

have a whole bunch of stuff. Consolidate

22:57

it, the one big thing, get it really good,

22:59

and then you can kind of branch off. Yeah.

23:02

I feel like it could sound like we've totally

23:04

given you all this information to say. I was

23:06

going to say, it sounds like we've slipped you

23:09

a tenner or something. Ten dollars. Be excited. Check.

23:14

But this is where it all comes back to strategy,

23:16

doesn't it? And the importance of that strategy. Because you

23:18

can just get a pin and put it in things

23:20

and go like, I'm going to try a bit of

23:22

that and try a bit of this. And it

23:24

never has any kind of real bigger picture purpose. It's

23:27

never going to work, is it? You're always going to

23:29

just, like you say, go round in circles and

23:31

end up. This is where people get overwhelmed with

23:34

everything and step away from it, which is what

23:36

we're trying to prevent. Yeah. Well,

23:38

it's exactly what ultimately we

23:40

did in our businesses. We consolidated

23:43

everything into one program, one offer,

23:45

one sell. One business. Well,

23:48

yeah, one business now. But

23:50

yeah, essentially it's one program that we don't

23:52

really have to think about.

23:54

It sells itself and

23:57

that generates. And

23:59

we've talked about it before. But that generated like

24:01

90K within 10 months because

24:03

it was just all of our focus on that

24:05

one thing and delivering it really well. So

24:08

then every time an inquiry comes in now, we're

24:10

just like, yeah, it's just this program, this program.

24:13

And then as we've grown bigger, we've incorporated new

24:15

programs. So now we're doing a lot more of trained for

24:17

you. But we've got

24:20

the space to do that because this one just

24:22

ticks over without us thinking about it. And we're

24:24

kind of, I wouldn't even

24:26

say that we're massively well known for

24:28

it in the local area. But because

24:30

we know the confidence level is so

24:32

high on it because it's just worked.

24:35

Why? You don't have that same fear, do you? So

24:37

you don't feel

24:40

like you need to go out and...

24:42

Because that's ultimately where it comes from, isn't it?

24:44

It's fear. It's fear of it

24:46

not working. So you're going to try a million

24:48

other things instead, all at the same

24:50

time. Right.

24:52

And to give yourself even a better

24:55

competitive advantage, if you

24:57

and Joe Schmo down the street are doing

24:59

the exact same thing, you're offering obedience, essential

25:01

manners, reactivity training, puppy courses, whatever it is,

25:04

but you say, I'm only going to

25:06

focus on the puppy courses or the

25:08

puppy training. Well, they're split into

25:10

800 baskets. You've got one basket, you're

25:13

protecting that basket at all costs. So

25:15

people who have puppies go, okay, I could get

25:17

all of this over here or this one guy

25:19

who's really specific on puppies. I'm going to go

25:22

to him because he knows exactly what he's doing.

25:24

And then maybe I'll go check out them later

25:26

when my puppy's older. So you get all of

25:28

the new people and then you get

25:30

that so good that then you can offer them

25:32

the adolescence package where

25:34

the puppy is now older and now they have different problems.

25:37

So it gives you a

25:39

competitive advantage if people listening needed more of

25:41

a reason not to diversify and go all

25:43

over the place. Yeah,

25:45

it's so true. And again, when

25:48

you logically think about it again, so from your

25:52

lead magnet and marketing company now,

25:54

I just

25:57

don't see how it could ever work when you're trying to

25:59

do all of these things. Like

26:01

with that example you were saying about the board and train and

26:03

the birch and everything else, how

26:06

confusing is that to a potential client?

26:08

Because ultimately you are

26:10

trying to tap into every single thought

26:12

process that that person has got, which

26:15

is impossible. I

26:18

get so stuck because I don't know how, how

26:21

it's possible, but we all think it's doable.

26:29

Yeah. And this is one of the best exercises

26:31

that you could possibly do. Pick

26:34

dog training in general. Let's say, let's say, let's make it a

26:36

little more niche. Potty

26:39

training. Write down

26:41

all the things someone would have to do

26:43

in order to be successful with potty training.

26:46

And I mean like set a timer for 10 minutes and

26:48

write down anything that comes to mind. Okay. They have to

26:50

have a good schedule. They have to have a good routine.

26:52

They have to have water and food intake measured that like

26:55

all of these other things, you write all of this down.

26:58

Then try to do the next

27:01

thing and say, okay, well, um, and

27:03

we're going to teach loose leash walking, write down everything

27:05

they would need to learn. They have to know how

27:07

to hold the leash. If you're doing clicker training, you

27:10

have to know how to use a clicker, where, what

27:12

treats to use, how to find the right reinforcement, what

27:14

the environment is, the timing, all of these other things,

27:16

reward schedules, like they're going to have such a massive

27:18

list now as someone to do both those things at

27:20

the exact same time, they're going to

27:22

get so overwhelmed and you can't create a really good,

27:25

strong service if you're trying to do both of

27:27

those at the same time, it'd be much easier

27:29

to say, okay, I'm just going to do the potty

27:31

training. I'm going to get that really good. I'm going

27:33

to make a lead magnet for it. I'm going

27:35

to make an initial service offer for it. And

27:37

then I'm going to make a follow-up offer because people

27:39

who buy from me once are more likely to

27:41

buy from me a second time. So I want

27:43

to help them implement the strategies even better. And

27:46

then once that's fully fleshed out, then you move

27:48

on to the next thing. Like Apple didn't come

27:50

out with the computer, the phone, and the iPod

27:53

all at once, I don't think they came

27:55

up with the iPod first. Right. And

27:57

then they came out with the phone and then they came out with the computer.

28:00

with these other things later on as they got better and

28:02

then multiple iPads and then the Apple Vision Pro and all

28:04

these other things because they're at such a

28:06

massive scale. I think people, trainers specifically, look

28:09

at those big businesses. I'm like, oh, they

28:11

have all these different services. That's not how

28:13

they started. They started out with one person

28:15

going out, answering one specific question, and then

28:17

growing from there because people asked for it. Do

28:19

one thing until people ask you for the next thing. Yeah.

28:22

And another example of that is Dyson

28:24

with the vacuums. They started with vacuums.

28:26

Now they do hair dryers and hair

28:28

wraps and what else? All

28:30

sorts of things, don't they, Dyson? If

28:33

they'd have started with that, people would have gone,

28:35

yeah, I might get a vacuum from there, but

28:37

I don't know if that's really going to be

28:39

any good. But because it was like, this is

28:41

the all singing, dancing vacuum that everybody needs. Actually,

28:43

that is a good example because I think

28:47

there's a fear again of I'm only

28:49

going to be known for puppies, but

28:53

when you diversify into other things, like, I

28:56

don't know, your adolescence and your reactivity or

28:58

whatever it may be, I'm only known for

29:00

puppies. But like you

29:02

say, you build on it and you've

29:04

got the chance to upsell

29:07

them into a bigger

29:10

program or that longer term relationship. But

29:12

yeah, like with Dyson, everybody would arguably

29:14

still say, I know them for vacuums,

29:16

but that hasn't put me off buying

29:19

a hair dryer from them. I

29:21

personally don't have a hair dryer from

29:24

them. Very good. It wouldn't put me

29:26

off. Just because I know

29:28

them as vacuums, it's like, well, yeah,

29:30

you do these other products as well, but that's your

29:33

core product. And it's not

29:35

a bad thing. There's no police

29:38

involved in any

29:40

of this. There's

29:42

no rules of this. You can do anything

29:44

you want. Because that's the other fear, isn't

29:46

it? That people go, oh my

29:48

gosh, if I choose this thing and then

29:51

I don't like it or it doesn't work,

29:53

then what? Well, change it. It's

29:56

fine. Yeah. Definitely. And

29:58

don't go all in. until you

30:00

know that it works. When

30:03

I have an idea, I then post it almost immediately. I'm like,

30:05

all right, let me go post this, see what people think of

30:07

it. If it's a bad idea, at least I know, and I

30:09

can move on with my life. If I

30:11

spend two months building out this entire

30:13

program, filming courses, making all of this

30:15

stuff, and then I bring it to

30:18

market and people go, that's not really what

30:20

I needed or what I wanted. Well, now I just wasted a whole

30:22

bunch of time. And I feel like

30:24

it didn't work in the first place. You

30:27

have to start and then fix it later. It's

30:29

much better to start not perfect and then work

30:31

on it over time, then try to make it

30:34

perfect and never begin. Well, that's

30:36

really weird. Oh my God, this episode

30:38

is just so this morning, we were

30:40

listening to a podcast and the

30:43

advice on that was take messy action,

30:46

which is exactly that, isn't it? People are

30:48

so hung up on being absolutely

30:50

perfect. And in an ideal world, we will want

30:53

to be perfect with everything, but it puts you

30:55

off actually starting to do it, doesn't it? So

30:57

we get a lot of people who want to

30:59

start some sort of online membership or course or

31:02

something. And it's like all of this, oh,

31:05

the filming, I've got a good backdrop. I don't

31:07

know if the content's exactly right. I don't know

31:09

this, I don't know that. And it's like, just

31:11

start something and then you can always add to

31:13

it and make it better. Yeah,

31:16

that's it. It's that messy action

31:18

with a caveat of stop

31:21

and think a little bit.

31:24

Don't jump straight into doing. So

31:26

we've started implementing this recently, because

31:28

we're all the same, aren't we?

31:30

As entrepreneurs, you read a book

31:32

and you go, shiny

31:34

new thing, I need to try that and implement that

31:36

into the business. That could be awesome. I think a

31:38

big one for dog trainers at the moment is passive

31:41

income. I see that a lot

31:43

where everyone's really intent on trying to build

31:46

courses so they don't,

31:48

I don't feel like they don't have, but they

31:50

want that passive income. They want an additional income

31:52

stream because there's only one of them and there's

31:54

only so much you can do in that time,

31:56

isn't it? And then there seems to be a

31:58

reluctance about wanting to bring other people. people into

32:00

the business and do training. Do

32:03

you know what I mean? Like actually have a team. So

32:05

yeah, this passive income seems really shiny

32:08

object syndrome, but

32:12

it's so important to actually just stop and

32:14

think, like write it down on a post-it

32:17

note or something, stick it on your fridge

32:19

and let it just cement and

32:22

fester for the next few days. Have

32:24

a little think about it, then take the

32:26

messy action of, like you said, post it

32:28

to your group of people, like to your

32:30

peers. If you're in a mastermind or a

32:32

coaching network or whatever it may be, ask

32:35

your peers to give you honest feedback on

32:37

what it is and be

32:39

ready to receive the information

32:42

that comes back to you because you think it's a brilliant

32:44

idea, don't you? We all do it. You have those like

32:46

moments in the shower or something, or when you walk in

32:48

the dark and it's like, oh, light bulb

32:50

moment, genius idea, let's do this. I was

32:52

like, no, actually that was, that was shit.

32:56

But also not only ask your peers, ask your audience

32:58

because they're the people that are going to potentially buy

33:00

it from you. And if they don't like the idea,

33:02

like you said earlier, Michael, if they don't like it,

33:04

then it's a waste of everybody's time and effort anyway.

33:08

And if you really need a way

33:10

to monetize your ideas, this is one of

33:12

the best things that you could do. I'll,

33:16

let's say when I'm making a course, I'll make

33:18

like 10 to 30% of that course and ask

33:21

if people want to prepay it. They're

33:23

like, oh, you can get an early discount if

33:25

you pre-order it. That's what I meant to

33:28

say. Pre-order it. If nobody buys it, then

33:31

I'd stop right there. If a

33:33

whole bunch of people buy it, okay, now I can finish the

33:35

rest of the course. And I'm,

33:37

I'm marketing it with that in

33:40

the message. Hey, this is not

33:42

done yet, but I want to give people the opportunity

33:44

to test it out. Let me know what questions they

33:47

have so I can make it better. So

33:49

if you market it in that way, that's a much

33:52

way, a much better way to do it. But I

33:54

started my dog training business with courses. And

33:56

so for those who are thinking about it and they're like, ah, maybe I

33:58

shouldn't start a course now. courses are fine. Only

34:01

if you one understand

34:03

who your person is and what

34:06

their problems are. And two,

34:08

if you can make it so good that it

34:11

can stand alone, but don't leave it alone. So

34:14

I made an obedience course, a manners course,

34:16

reactivity course, loose leash walking puppy got all

34:18

these different courses. And I tried

34:20

to sell them individually and they didn't do as well.

34:23

I put them all together, just like we

34:25

were talking about earlier, consolidating, I put them

34:27

all together into a university and I added

34:29

it just as a bonus to my private

34:31

coaching, which made it 10 times

34:34

better because now during my private coaching, I can say,

34:36

Hey, did you watch episodes one through

34:38

10 of the course? No, I didn't

34:40

watch it. Well, let's cancel our session this week because

34:42

you didn't do the homework from last week. Go

34:45

do that and then we can meet. So

34:47

it kept them accountable, gave them more resources

34:49

and ways to implement. And

34:51

it just made it easier for me as a

34:53

business owner to run the business knowing that people

34:55

are going to be more successful in the end.

34:58

So if you don't know who your target market is

35:00

and who you're trying to help, you can't make a

35:02

good course anyway. And if you're trying to just sell

35:04

the course to have passive income, it's going to come

35:07

across that way. They're going to

35:09

be like, ah, this person just doesn't want to meet with me.

35:11

They're just giving me some fluff. Now you could give away part

35:13

of your course for free and then upsell it. You could do

35:15

something like that. And there's so many different things you can do

35:17

with a course, but make it so good

35:19

that it could stand alone and then don't leave it

35:21

alone. I really like the

35:24

idea though. I know you put it together as a

35:26

bundle because that was more effective, but there's no reason

35:28

why people can't just start with one thing

35:30

like loose lead walking and create a little, just,

35:32

I don't know, a 10 minute

35:35

video on it so that it assists

35:37

people on their one-to-one program with you.

35:39

And then you can start building that

35:41

and putting it together as a bundle

35:43

and there's your online course done for

35:45

you. So the way

35:47

of breaking it down like that, I think people think

35:49

it's just a mountainous task to

35:52

go, how do I start filming this

35:54

course? Well, just little bits like that

35:56

are going to help your existing one-to-one

35:58

clients anyway, aren't they? and then you can

36:00

just start building it and put it together. Absolutely.

36:03

I only put it together because it was all there

36:05

and I had made it was 100 pieces

36:08

of content per course. And you do not

36:10

need to do that. It needs to be

36:12

as helpful and as short and concise as

36:14

possible. So 10 video or 10

36:16

minute video might even be better than the 100

36:19

videos I did. I broke it down

36:21

into about a minute, minute

36:24

to three minute sections of

36:26

explanations because I wanted to make it short and concise and

36:28

people could go, OK, this is what I'm struggling with. Let

36:30

me go here. And I did

36:32

all that. It didn't work as well by

36:34

itself. That's what I'm saying. But make it as short

36:36

and concise as possible. If I were to go do

36:38

it again, I would make them short. It's

36:41

just a lot for someone to go through. Yeah.

36:43

And there's that. You know, you get to a certain point

36:45

like that. Yeah. And it's overwhelming, isn't

36:48

it? This is too much of it. I would

36:50

literally switch off from it as well. Yeah. Comes

36:52

back to that customer journey again, doesn't it? And

36:54

thinking about the customer, the end result, who's going

36:56

to use it? How are they going to use

36:58

it? Are they going to use it?

37:02

Because again, depending on who

37:04

you're marketing to, if you're marketing to busy

37:07

professionals that have got no time and then you

37:09

give them a course to go and watch. Realistically,

37:12

are they going to go and watch you? Maybe

37:14

not. Depends how invested they are. But again, you've

37:17

got to start thinking of these things and go,

37:19

right, there's a majority here somewhere. But I do

37:21

really like the idea and it's something that we

37:23

certainly do a lot of. If we're

37:25

thinking about something, we'll start to seed it

37:27

a little bit, just in conversations and go,

37:29

oh, this is coming up. This is coming

37:31

up if you're interested. Register your interest here

37:34

and just gauge it. Because then if you

37:36

get no interest and you've got normally

37:38

a warm-ish audience with some

37:41

engagement, well, then you

37:43

go, oh, OK, there's nothing. They

37:45

don't want this. Whereas a

37:47

lot of people go out and create the whole thing and

37:49

then try and sell it. Yeah, it

37:51

all. That's what I did. I got that

37:53

feeling. That's

37:56

why it's like 100 pieces of content.

38:00

And it was like six months of work, not to scare

38:02

anybody from making under piece of content. But when you have

38:04

no idea what you're doing, it takes a

38:06

really long time. And so

38:09

I would have been better if

38:11

I just started off small, got it really

38:14

good, and then grown from there. So that's

38:16

what I'm trying to get

38:18

across as my message here. Yeah. I also

38:20

like the idea of doing 10% of

38:23

it, finding out if it's something people want, and then going,

38:25

oh my God, I now need to make the rest of

38:27

it. And there's some pressure there to do. But that's good

38:29

pressure. Because if you're anything like us, we need that kick

38:32

up the bum to actually action

38:34

things sometimes. Weirdos that thrive off of

38:36

pressure. But at least it

38:38

gets it done there, doesn't it? I

38:40

mean, deadlines make decisions. So if you say, hey, this is

38:42

when I'm going to have the 10% done, and

38:45

now people are expecting more, it's like, all right, well,

38:48

now I got to perform. I got to do more.

38:50

And it's got to be better than what it was.

38:53

And you also get all of the questions that those people

38:55

have. So it's really hard to sit in your room alone

38:57

and write down all the questions somebody has, because you're not

38:59

in their mind. You don't know what their life is like.

39:01

So when people write in the comments of your course saying,

39:04

hey, these are the questions that

39:06

I have, awesome. Now I can make a whole different video

39:08

on it. Or you can make a whole Q&A section on

39:10

it. Or if it's in a community, you can do a

39:12

live Q&A. Or if it's in person, just write down all

39:14

the questions people have. I mean, I should have

39:16

done that when I first started training dogs, because I've

39:19

trained thousands of dogs at this point. And if I

39:21

wrote down all the questions that every single person had,

39:23

I'd have binders and binders

39:25

and filing cabinets full of all

39:27

these questions. And I'd

39:30

have plenty of resources. Yeah.

39:34

We've got a Facebook group for our business

39:36

coaching clients, which I think you're in now.

39:38

And to get into that group, we

39:41

ask people a question about what do

39:43

they need basically in their business to

39:45

make things better. So all of that

39:47

gives us data to be

39:49

able to then create, well, these podcasts and

39:51

part of our coaching program as well. So

39:53

it's thinking of ways that you can collate

39:56

that information. So put polls out or ask

39:58

questions. you've got a

40:00

Facebook group, you use it in that way as well

40:02

to be constructive. Absolutely.

40:05

Yeah. Yeah. So

40:07

what would you say, so on

40:09

your client adventure map then, how

40:12

many, how many stops are on

40:14

the map? Oh, stops,

40:17

destinations, exes. It's

40:22

really dependent on, I like to think of it as when

40:24

you go camping, right? Like you have the parking lot. Then

40:27

you have a sign that says, go take this

40:29

route, go take this route, right? So maybe you go to the lake,

40:31

maybe you go up the hill, maybe you go to the mountain, whatever

40:33

it may be. So it doesn't

40:35

need to be that picture

40:38

esque. You just need to figure out where are my pool

40:41

of people, which I call the parking lot, like they're all

40:43

just standing around waiting. They don't know they have a problem

40:45

or they don't know where to go and they think they

40:47

have a problem, but they don't know what the solution is.

40:50

And so you're the guide that comes up and says, Hey,

40:52

you can take option A. That's going to take you over

40:54

there where you can get a free resource. Or

40:57

you can take option B where we can go sit

40:59

and have a conversation at a picnic table and that's

41:01

more of you coaching them through it. And

41:03

then you could say, Hey, I'm going to, you

41:05

know, we're going to get in this car. We're going to go up to the top of

41:07

the mountain and that's going to be the

41:09

done for you, where you're actually doing most of the

41:11

work for them. Maybe you're training the dog for the

41:13

majority of the part, and then you're just passing the

41:16

leash and saying, Hey, just ask them to sit and

41:18

I'll give them the treat or something like that. Right.

41:21

So you have these different avenues where they're

41:24

doing the majority of the work. You're doing the work together,

41:26

and then you're doing the majority of the work. But

41:29

along that path, you can also get

41:31

people to go from, well, they're doing

41:33

the majority of the work to working

41:35

with you, to you doing it, because

41:37

people can go get the information anywhere,

41:39

right? There's millions, I think billions

41:41

of videos on YouTube on just

41:44

dog training in general. So the information

41:46

is available. It might not be

41:48

tailored specifically for them and their needs,

41:50

but it's there. It's the implementation that

41:52

most people struggle with. So

41:54

your goal is to find out what are they struggling

41:56

with trying to do with themselves,

41:58

meet them there because Most people want to do

42:00

things by themselves in the beginning. They go, I

42:02

could figure this out. And it's an ego thing.

42:04

So they want to go figure it out. And

42:06

then you say, hey, you figured

42:09

this out. Or you've tried to figure this

42:11

out. You're working on it. But there's some things you're

42:13

still struggling with. Let me help you implement it a

42:15

little bit better. And then you can move

42:17

them up. Some people call it the value

42:19

ladder, or your sales process in that way. So people

42:22

are on social media, that's your parking lot. You

42:24

go on social media, and you say, hey, I

42:26

have this free guide on teaching your dog how

42:28

to peacefully walk with you in three easy steps.

42:30

They try to do it on their own. It's

42:33

a simple guide. It's got three steps on it, three

42:35

pages. And it just lays out the instructions that you

42:37

would tell somebody if you were with them. At

42:40

the end of the book, you say, hey, if you want a

42:42

more in-depth guide, you can watch this YouTube video. So

42:44

you make a YouTube video that goes along with the

42:46

guide. And then at the

42:49

end of the video, you say, hey, if you want to work

42:51

with me, there'll be a link down in the description. They click

42:53

on the link in the description. It takes them to a page

42:55

where you can walk them through the three steps. Same three steps,

42:58

three different versions of the

43:00

process. So there we only

43:02

have social media, PDF,

43:06

YouTube working with you. That's four steps in

43:08

your process. You could have a zillion steps

43:11

in the process. But

43:13

trying to make it as simple as possible is

43:15

where I would start, especially if you're new at

43:17

thinking in this type of linear

43:20

progress. Someone's where they're at. Where do I want

43:22

to get them to? And what problems along the

43:24

way can I solve for them? And how can

43:26

I make it easier for them without adding

43:28

time or adding sacrifice? If someone has to

43:31

give up 10 years of

43:33

their life to fully train their dog, well, no

43:36

one's going to do that. If they can give up a weekend and get 90%

43:38

of dog training in their mind so they can go and do

43:41

it on their own at their own time, that's much

43:43

better than 10 years of trying to figure it out. So that's

43:46

what you're trying to sell is the implementation. And

43:49

then the sacrifice. If someone has to give up

43:51

their relationship and force their

43:54

dog to do things that they don't want to do, and

43:56

now their dog is like a robot shut down, ears pinned,

43:58

back tail, never wagging. Well, that's no fun. But

44:00

if instead we flip it, now they have

44:03

more personality, they're jumping around, they're excited to

44:05

work with us, they're thinking of their own

44:07

problems and solutions, well, that's a much better

44:09

relationship that someone can have with their dog.

44:11

And if you help them do that, the

44:13

dopamine they get from hanging out with their

44:15

dog is directed towards

44:17

you as well. Oh, well, this person helped me do

44:19

this. So then they recommend them to all their friends.

44:21

And that's how we grow a dog business.

44:25

Wow. So simple. Look at the fuck.

44:27

That's it all in your go. Five minutes. There

44:29

you go. In a nutshell, that's

44:32

it. I like it,

44:34

I like it. So what does your dog training business look

44:36

like for you now then? Because obviously you've got the two

44:38

and we feel your pain of running two businesses, but

44:41

it's all good fun. It's a lot, yeah. So

44:43

what does the dog training business look like for you now?

44:47

I do around two to five clients

44:49

a month and that's about it. So I cap it

44:51

off very low. And

44:54

that's because I want to give them as

44:56

much attention as I possibly can while I'm

44:58

doing these other, not side quests, but the other

45:00

business and homeschooling my son and all of these other

45:02

things. So right now I'm

45:04

still doing a lot of virtual with the

45:06

courses added in as a bonus. And

45:08

I will meet with people if they happen to be

45:10

in the area to answer some simple questions or I'll

45:12

travel out to them. A lot

45:15

of times what happens is they just need

45:17

a nudge in the right direction. And I

45:19

noticed this when I first started offering the

45:22

virtual training, I didn't have it down pat,

45:24

I didn't have all the resources that were

45:26

necessary. And so a gentleman

45:28

with his, there was a three

45:31

month old German shepherd, started doing some training and

45:33

we were doing least walking. And I

45:35

was explaining everything. I had a simplified version of the

45:37

course and he was

45:39

going through, but he was still not getting

45:41

it. So I went out to him and

45:44

I said the exact same things that I was saying

45:46

in the virtual, in the courses.

45:48

And he finally got it because he was like,

45:50

oh, I thought it was something different. I

45:53

thought there was something I was missing and it wasn't.

45:55

He just didn't, he didn't believe in what I was

45:57

telling him he had to go do and he wasn't

45:59

following. through with it. So that's a perfect example,

46:01

again, of that implementation. So right now, I'm

46:03

doing a lot of virtuals and working with just a few people

46:06

per month so I can give them 100% of my

46:08

time. And I'm actually working on a new offer,

46:11

which has gotten me sitting down and

46:13

writing down a whole boat. I think

46:15

I wrote down like 160 different

46:17

problems someone could run into. And

46:19

I've been dwindling it down to about

46:21

15 features of a big offer

46:23

that'll be a couple thousand dollars per

46:26

offer. So that'll be coming down the line in terms

46:28

of dog business. But that's a great exercise for people

46:30

who don't know where to start. Write down all the

46:32

problems, figure out what you're willing to do

46:34

and what you're not willing to do to help someone solve

46:37

their problems, and then package it all

46:39

together in one. Amazing.

46:42

I love it. And how are you finding the

46:44

virtual side of it?

46:46

It's quite the niched

46:48

pocket. What I mean by that is there

46:51

are some people who take to it lovingly,

46:53

they absolutely adore it. I've noticed that

46:55

with the younger generations, they love it.

46:59

And some generations and some individuals who

47:01

are just not tech savvy, it's a

47:03

real obstacle for them. And it's

47:05

more painful than they're willing to go through, especially

47:07

if they paid a lot of money. They're like,

47:09

well, I can't figure out the Zoom thing. And

47:11

I don't want to do it. And that's totally

47:13

fine. Those are just not the people that I'm

47:15

going to work with. There are people in their

47:18

area that'll work with them. The virtual for me

47:20

gives it more flexibility. I give them the recordings

47:22

of the sessions. I give them different resources. We

47:24

can pull up their training videos. I have them

47:27

record all their training and send it to me so I

47:29

can review in real time. And then we watch it in

47:32

the session that we do together, which is about an

47:34

hour session once a week. And so we go over all

47:36

the things that they're doing wrong and we'd fix them

47:38

and work through it. So if you

47:40

know what you're doing, if you're a little tech savvy,

47:42

or you at least spend time figuring out what you

47:44

need to do to help somebody get along, you don't

47:47

need to be perfect at Zoom or any of the

47:49

video softwares. You just need to know the features that

47:51

can help you teach. That's about

47:53

it. And you just need to be one step ahead of

47:55

the person who's struggling with it. So they're like, I

47:58

can't figure out how to get on Zoom. Google,

48:00

how do you get on Zoom? Either

48:02

send them a video or you

48:04

get on the phone with them and say, okay, click this

48:06

button, click this button, click this button. And I've done that

48:08

plenty in the beginning to help people get to where we

48:11

need to get to the resources. Because

48:13

people, again, that implementation is huge. If it's

48:15

too difficult for someone to start, they're not

48:17

going to. And that's a big

48:19

problem. And

48:21

your programs are quite high ticket, aren't they?

48:24

Yes. Yes. A couple thousand dollars per

48:27

and this new program is going to be closer

48:29

to 10 to 15,000 for

48:32

a month of training. I love

48:35

that. How many people go, oh my

48:37

God, there is no way I can charge,

48:40

I hate the word charge, there's

48:42

no way I can charge that much. There

48:45

are a lot of trainers and my advice to them is

48:47

always just double your prices and see what happens. Because

48:49

that was the advice I was given. I wanted

48:51

to do more podcasts. I wanted to do more

48:53

marketing and focus on the other things. And a

48:56

mentor of mine said, you don't have the time

48:58

because you're not charging enough. It's like you can't

49:00

possibly focus the right amount of energy in

49:03

the business because you're struggling every day trying to

49:05

get the sale. So if

49:07

you made more money, you could worry less and

49:09

focus on these other things, which means you can

49:11

provide more free value for other people. I was

49:13

talking to a trainer the other day, and he

49:15

wants to offer free courses

49:18

for those who can't pay for it. I said, that's

49:20

fine, but you have a business to run. I'm all

49:22

for helping more people. But if I don't have any

49:25

money, I can't help more people. If you have a

49:27

lot of money, you can help more people. So

49:29

for him, I said, double your prices, see what

49:31

happens. If it doesn't work this month, okay, you

49:34

got to do some adjustment. You can always A

49:36

and B test. But odds are you're going to

49:38

get the same complaints of people saying, that's too

49:40

much money, or, oh my God, that's a steal.

49:42

I love that. That's fantastic. And

49:45

then you can put your focus on the free stuff.

49:47

But if you think your

49:49

services aren't worth one, the

49:51

price that you currently have, then you need to

49:53

fix your offer. But

49:56

if you think it's not worth, let's

49:58

say doubling your price, then I'll I would

50:00

fix the offer because your offer should be so good.

50:02

Like the offer that I have right now, in my

50:04

mind, it's like $30,000. Like

50:07

that's, that's what it should be worth, but I'm going to make

50:09

it only 10 or $15,000 because

50:12

the conviction that I'll have when I'm

50:14

talking to someone is absolutely outrageous. They'll

50:17

be like, well, okay, it's $10,000. Like, yeah, it could be $50,000.

50:21

This is like an absolute steal. You're getting

50:23

something that nobody else offers. Right.

50:25

And think about anytime you've bought something and you're like,

50:27

Oh my God, it's this price. That's crazy. You go

50:30

to Costco, you go to BJ's Sam's

50:32

club. Like, Oh my God, a pack of

50:34

bananas for 50 cents. That's crazy. Even

50:36

something that small, the value

50:38

outweighs the price considerably. And

50:41

so you have no problem purchasing it and people have

50:43

no problem buying it when

50:45

your offer is that good. So if your

50:47

offer isn't that good, this is an other

50:49

Alex or a Mosey thing. He says, you

50:51

might just be not that good. Or

50:55

in your mind, you're like, well, it might

50:57

just be that limiting factor where you aren't what

50:59

you think you are. So if

51:01

that's your limiting factor, then you just need to

51:03

go, okay, what can I add to this offer

51:05

to make it better? What other problems can I

51:08

solve for people? And I did not understand this

51:10

for so long. Um, and then I,

51:12

I read like nine marketing books in

51:14

a row within the course of

51:16

like three weeks. And I finally,

51:18

it finally clicked. I was like, Oh, that's what they're

51:20

talking. So I'm going to, I'm going to bring

51:22

this up now instead of just thinking

51:24

about the problems that they have currently,

51:28

when someone solves a problem, they end

51:30

up having another problem.

51:34

So if somebody is

51:36

trying to get their dog to walk nice on leash,

51:38

rather than let's go back to step, somebody's dog is

51:40

fat. Well, they want

51:42

to exercise their dog, but their dog doesn't walk

51:44

nice on leash. So let's teach them to teach

51:46

their dog to walk nice on leash. Cool.

51:49

Now they've done that. Well, they

51:51

can get their dog out and they can start burning some

51:53

energy and some calories so that their

51:55

dog isn't fat anymore. But now their dogs reactive to other

51:57

people because every time they go out, they see other. people

51:59

and they get so excited. Well, that's a new problem.

52:02

So now I need to solve that problem in teaching the

52:04

dog manners. Well, now that we're going out more, I'm getting

52:06

bored of walking around the block. So I want to take

52:08

my dog on hikes and we want to go do other

52:10

things. Well, now I got to teach my dog how to

52:13

be off leash. So you see how there's this natural

52:15

progression of everything

52:17

that you're doing with your dog. So once you solve

52:20

this one problem and you've created this new solution, there's

52:22

another problem that needs to be solved. That's

52:24

what that massive offer can be.

52:26

So if you're only solving potty

52:28

training, now that they have potty

52:30

training down, what's the next thing that they need to solve?

52:33

And I'll let the brain start

52:35

kicking there for everybody listening. I

52:38

love this. Yeah. We've literally done a

52:40

podcast episode between us on this

52:43

very... Yeah, because there's a lot of, again,

52:45

coming back to the fear, there's a fear

52:47

of, if I create a program,

52:50

how do I fill it if they've only got

52:52

a loose lead walking issue? So

52:54

it kind of fits perfectly around

52:56

that actually. Yeah. It's such

52:59

a breath of fresh air, actually, talking

53:02

to you because it is so... And

53:04

you can see, can't you? Already I'm

53:06

hearing people's thoughts

53:08

wherever you are in the world going,

53:13

surely... Because there will be people out there that will think

53:15

this, but surely you, we, all of you out

53:17

there who are charging, there's

53:21

that word again, a high

53:23

ticket and not thinking about the dogs.

53:25

What about the people who genuinely can't

53:28

afford that and now you're alienating them because

53:30

you can't help their dogs? How

53:33

did you combat that

53:35

thought process? Because it's all

53:38

there, isn't it? We all have it.

53:41

Yeah. It's the implementation. So when

53:44

it comes to... When I first started, I offered

53:46

a $400 and $800 and

53:48

a $2,000 offer. And my goal was to try to sell the $2,000

53:51

offer as much as possible because I'm starting

53:53

off in business. I need some capital to get things

53:55

running. And so the $400 is

53:57

what I sold the

53:59

most of. But unfortunately, the quality

54:01

of clients at the $400 price level

54:03

was not great. So they didn't get

54:05

as great results because they didn't invest

54:07

as much time. The

54:10

$800 offer, people invested more

54:12

time, but it wasn't the same as people who paid

54:15

And for $2,000, they got 32 private sessions. That's

54:19

one every two weeks for an entire year and

54:22

then some. So the

54:24

people who did that were really invested. They

54:27

had multiple dogs, they had multiple questions and

54:29

problems that they wanted to solve.

54:32

So while I was doing that, I

54:34

was offering free content online, YouTube

54:36

and TikTok and all of these other things. However,

54:39

the people who watch the TikToks and

54:42

the YouTube don't implement the same as

54:44

the guy who pays the $2,000. So

54:48

although, yes, I want to help those people as

54:50

much as possible, I can give them everything, the

54:53

whole kit and caboodle. And at the end

54:55

of the day, they might not implement it because there

54:57

isn't enough investment. How often do we buy a book

54:59

and don't read it? It's like, ah, well, the

55:01

book was $10 or if you get a

55:03

free book, you put it on the counter, you don't do anything with

55:05

it. Transversely, if it was

55:07

a $100 book, a textbook in

55:09

college, you're probably going to read the whole thing or

55:12

at least a majority of it and get

55:14

everything you need. I think one reason, I

55:16

know college is expensive for other reasons, but

55:18

one of those reasons is because you have

55:20

to have some type of pain associated with

55:22

it. And you'll see a difference for those

55:25

that went to college. If you paid for

55:27

college yourself versus having it subsidized, someone else

55:29

paid for it. If you paid for

55:31

it completely by yourself, you took it a little more

55:34

seriously. I graduated in three years. I had a great

55:37

GPA because I was paying it for it

55:39

myself. Those who go to college for

55:41

free, they take some time. Maybe they do five years.

55:43

They don't know what they want to study right away.

55:46

It's this innate nature of human

55:48

beings that the more effort we put into something, the

55:50

more we get out of it. If

55:52

I put $5,000 into a training program, I'm

55:54

going to get $5,000 or more dollars worth

55:58

out of it. So

56:00

that's what I would say for those of you who

56:02

want to help people for free, they can give you

56:04

something, a dollar even. That's

56:07

a little bit more of an investment than free. But

56:10

you can offer those free services, especially in

56:12

that client adventure map in that lead magnet

56:14

form. You don't want to give up

56:16

so much of your time for those who aren't

56:18

going to give up their time. So you say, hey,

56:20

here's a PDF, 10 steps on how to do

56:22

this. If you don't do it, then

56:24

you're not going to get the result. And that's the end of

56:27

that. But if you do it, you will get the result. And

56:29

then if you want, you can move on to the next

56:31

step. Or you can offer a free community until it gets

56:33

big enough to where then you charge people. You

56:36

can do it that way as well. And then all those

56:38

people get grandfathered in where they're still free. You could do that

56:40

as well. If you're really in your heart, you're like, I

56:42

have to do something free. That's

56:44

what social media is for. Yeah.

56:47

Oh, this perceived value thing is so big

56:51

with us that we're just... And you can

56:53

relate it to so many different industries as

56:55

well, can't you? Because arguably YouTube, you can

56:58

learn to do absolutely anything. So forget dog

57:00

training for a minute. You can learn to

57:02

build a whole house on YouTube. But

57:05

who has got the time, inclination, and drive

57:07

to build your own house? There are some

57:10

people that do it, some crazy people that

57:12

aren't builders that actually could. But

57:15

who realistically is going to do that? You're just going to

57:17

get a builder in to do it for you, aren't you?

57:20

So this is that where that trained for

57:22

you type aspect that we're now bringing in,

57:24

that we would never have brought in at

57:26

the beginning. But we're starting to

57:28

see that people need that sometimes. We were

57:30

only having a conversation earlier with somebody that

57:32

said, oh yeah, I know you dog trainers,

57:34

but I want someone to do it for me. We

57:37

can do that for you. But

57:39

it's not a service we outwardly advertise,

57:42

is it? Because we don't want everybody to

57:44

think that we can do it for that. It has to

57:47

be our choice about who we work with as well. Yeah,

57:49

that's it. And our bread and

57:51

butter is that program that works and just

57:53

sells off the shelf really. You don't want

57:55

to mess that up because it works really

57:57

beautifully. So you then start implementing things. a

58:00

little bit hush-hush behind the scenes. And

58:02

then we are, oh yeah, look, that works. Now you can start

58:05

to, you're almost testing it. You're testing it. Like, do I

58:07

like it? Do I really like it? Do I want to do

58:09

this? I like doing it for people that I know

58:11

and that we've built a relationship with. Do I want to

58:14

go and put myself in a position then

58:16

where I've got somebody's dog potentially for

58:18

a long time and we don't get on

58:20

and just know. Yeah, and we've also built

58:22

that initial relationship with those people who've done

58:24

our program before. So we kind of know

58:26

them and we know that, A,

58:29

we know they need the help,

58:31

and B, we know that they

58:34

would feedback with us genuinely and

58:36

honestly as well, which is really

58:38

important. Yeah, and that perceived value

58:40

is so important because it

58:42

doesn't matter how good your marketing message

58:44

is. It doesn't matter how good of

58:46

a dog trainer you are. If

58:49

the person receiving that message does

58:51

not see the value in it, then

58:54

they're never going to buy. And certainly

58:56

kind of like going back to the

58:58

price points of everything. It's

59:02

always going to get kicked back, aren't you,

59:04

from everyone, certainly your peers, I think, when

59:06

you increase your fees and family and friends,

59:09

people having nothing to do with your business

59:11

at all. Who's going to

59:13

pay? You charge how much for dog training? And

59:15

you don't even have a dog. What would you

59:17

even know about this? But anyway, but

59:20

it is that perceived

59:22

value because ultimately,

59:25

if everything was down

59:28

to price decision, surely

59:31

the dog industry for

59:34

training purposes anyway, should

59:37

be fetching a lot higher than it

59:39

is in terms of turnover because

59:41

if everybody is that cost conscious

59:44

and will only spend 30 pound

59:46

an hour seems to be the thing over here, 30 pound

59:50

for a session, surely everyone would

59:52

be rammed and wouldn't have to be worrying

59:54

about leads because it's 30 quid. But

59:57

that's not the case. People are

59:59

desperate. for leads at £30

1:00:02

for an hour. So it's

1:00:04

not price point, it's that perceived value.

1:00:07

Somebody's not willing to give you £30.

1:00:09

They don't see the value in what you're offering. And

1:00:12

if you are going into business, you're just starting,

1:00:15

don't try to race to the

1:00:17

bottom in price compared to your

1:00:19

competitors. If someone's offering it for 1000 and

1:00:21

you're like, well, I'll do it for 800. And

1:00:23

then they do a deal at 500. Now you're at 300. You're

1:00:26

just going straight to the

1:00:28

bottom. And you can only do that with

1:00:30

massive scale like Walmart or Costco or BJs.

1:00:32

You cannot do that as an independent person.

1:00:34

If somebody's offering 1000 and you offer 10,000,

1:00:38

well, just by comparison, looking at

1:00:40

the numbers, someone's going to go, they have to be

1:00:42

better if they're charging that much, just

1:00:44

by perceived value of it. Now, you do

1:00:46

actually have to be better to charge that

1:00:48

much. You can't be worse than they are

1:00:50

and say, oh, that's my prices kind of

1:00:52

thing. But I do think I

1:00:54

want to go back for a second. I do think there

1:00:57

is a shift. Because so

1:00:59

many people are trying to do an

1:01:01

online community and courses and these

1:01:03

other things, because it's a trend.

1:01:05

It's popular now to do. There is

1:01:07

a vacuum, a black

1:01:09

hole to speak of, where

1:01:12

if you're willing to go out and personally

1:01:14

do the training of the dog and then

1:01:16

pass the leash off to them and help

1:01:18

them just implement what the dog now knows,

1:01:21

there is a pocket there for a particular

1:01:23

trainer that's really good at doing that, that

1:01:26

nobody is marketing to. The

1:01:29

busy person is like, I don't want to learn dog training.

1:01:31

I've watched the videos and it's not for me. I just

1:01:33

want the dog to be as great as possible without

1:01:36

having to do any of that work. Maybe they need to

1:01:38

know 10% of dog

1:01:40

training, if that, to be able to manage

1:01:42

and maintain behaviors for a long period of

1:01:44

time. But there's definitely, I think

1:01:47

in the next six months to 12

1:01:49

months, a pocket that's going to form where people

1:01:51

are going to jump on that. So if you can jump on

1:01:53

it now while you're listening to this, you might

1:01:55

get an advantage over the competition. Even if it's on

1:01:57

the backend, you're doing it privately. You're saying, Hey, people

1:02:00

in the community are asking about it. Let me see

1:02:02

if it's something I can test out and enjoy doing.

1:02:04

Because if you don't enjoy it, then it's not worth

1:02:06

a gazillion dollars. I'm

1:02:09

in love with this episode already. It's just amazing. You

1:02:12

just validated everything even more for us. I

1:02:16

feel like we need to get Michael on again. I

1:02:19

feel like we've even touched the surface.

1:02:21

If we don't end this episode soon, it'll be about

1:02:23

five hours long. Which

1:02:26

I know some people are doing, but we'll

1:02:30

break it down into several parts. This

1:02:32

is part one of Michael's episode, part one of

1:02:34

10. Yeah,

1:02:37

people got to leave a review and tell us if they want

1:02:40

more. Yeah, we've seeded it and

1:02:42

now we need some feedback on it.

1:02:47

Ah, fab. Well, before we officially

1:02:49

wrap up then, because I feel

1:02:51

like there are so many golden

1:02:53

nuggets in that conversation, what

1:02:55

would your top tip or three top

1:02:58

tips, if you will, be

1:03:00

to the dog training

1:03:02

community at the moment in terms of

1:03:06

trying to achieve our vision,

1:03:09

I suppose, of uplifting this industry? Absolutely.

1:03:12

I'll go back to what we started off

1:03:14

with, which was marketing, sales, and

1:03:16

operations. And we'll do it

1:03:18

in the least exciting order first. Operations

1:03:21

would be focusing on one

1:03:24

thing specifically, get so good at it

1:03:27

that nobody can attest to anything

1:03:29

else besides the fact that you're amazing at what you

1:03:31

do. And then try to

1:03:33

systematize and automate as much as possible. You

1:03:35

can outsource it. You can hire other people

1:03:37

to do it. But first,

1:03:39

get it down really, really well. And what I'm talking about

1:03:42

is that client adventure map, where people are, where you want

1:03:44

to get them to. Second, sales

1:03:46

is you are worth more than what

1:03:48

you think you are. And

1:03:51

so value your time and access to

1:03:53

you by charging what you are worth

1:03:55

and maybe then some, because you have

1:03:58

a perceived value of yourself. and

1:04:00

other people, you can even ask them, you can say, hey, what do

1:04:02

you think about me? And your friends and

1:04:04

family will tell you that you're amazing. And then you

1:04:06

say, but why? And you just keep asking them, and

1:04:08

eventually they'll start talking about how you help them and

1:04:10

you've guided them and supported them through different things in

1:04:12

their life. And you'll feel so much better, then

1:04:15

you can charge the price that you feel at that

1:04:17

point. So definitely

1:04:19

double your prices. That would be my best

1:04:22

advice for everybody who's a dog trainer, because you're worth

1:04:24

so much more. The skill set that you have is

1:04:26

a dying art in some way, because everybody's

1:04:28

just doing the generic thing. So if you

1:04:30

do something particularly well, you should be compensated

1:04:33

well for it. And last,

1:04:35

marketing, same thing of

1:04:37

the implementation and honing in on one

1:04:39

area. So if you really like Facebook,

1:04:41

start on Facebook. If you really like

1:04:44

Instagram, start on Instagram. If you like

1:04:46

TikTok, YouTube, whatever it is, just do

1:04:48

something long enough to have enough information

1:04:50

and data to change and correct

1:04:52

your course of action. So if you're doing a

1:04:54

hundred days on Facebook posting, you need to know

1:04:56

at the end of those hundred days, how many

1:04:59

people engaged? Was it worth it? Did

1:05:01

people opt in for things?

1:05:03

Did they ask me questions? And really go in on

1:05:05

it. Don't just do it 50% and hope it

1:05:08

works out. No,

1:05:10

go 110%. Post every

1:05:12

day, post often, communicate

1:05:14

with people, join groups, all of those

1:05:16

things, and really try to master that

1:05:19

one skill before you move on to

1:05:21

the next. Anybody can clip up long

1:05:23

form content into short pieces and put

1:05:25

them all over the place. But to

1:05:27

have something truly curated and helping those

1:05:29

that need it is

1:05:31

your superpower and will differentiate you

1:05:33

from everybody else. So that's my marketing tip. Hone

1:05:35

in on one thing, get really good at it,

1:05:37

and then you can grow

1:05:39

from there. Love it. Okay,

1:05:42

so we're asking this question to

1:05:45

everybody. What one person

1:05:47

do you know that we should

1:05:49

absolutely have on this podcast to

1:05:51

help uplift the industry even further?

1:05:57

Hmm. I love

1:05:59

a thinking face. Yeah. Everybody really struggles with

1:06:01

this answer because they're thinking of either

1:06:03

lots of people or they're like, what

1:06:05

person would actually contribute

1:06:07

to this mission? Unfortunately,

1:06:12

the name that comes to mind is no longer with

1:06:14

us, which is very sad. His

1:06:18

name is Dr. Stephen McKenzie. He's a wonderful...

1:06:21

He invented or founded the program that I

1:06:23

went to school to study animal science and

1:06:25

canine training for. And he would

1:06:27

have been the best person to have on in

1:06:30

terms of just 50 years

1:06:32

of training experience in business and so

1:06:35

much. He would have been fantastic, but I have to... People

1:06:38

can research about him though, can't they? Oh

1:06:40

yes, he's got a few books out. Dog

1:06:44

aggression, controlling aggression. He was a police dog

1:06:46

handler for a number of years. He's absolutely

1:06:48

fantastic. Wonderful. He didn't write down as

1:06:50

much as he should have. He had so much

1:06:53

in his brain that when he would do lectures,

1:06:55

he would just go off on tangents. And there

1:06:57

was somebody dedicated. There was a teacher's assistant who

1:06:59

just wrote down everything he said so they could

1:07:01

make a curriculum for it. Because he would just

1:07:03

talk and he'd be like, oh, we're

1:07:05

talking about the Yerkes-Dachshund law. We're talking about this, we're talking

1:07:07

about that. And

1:07:09

he didn't want things to be different between

1:07:11

the classes, but I

1:07:13

digress. You

1:07:16

can always get back to us and we can let everyone know.

1:07:19

Definitely. I'll have to get you a list of names on

1:07:23

different areas because there's a couple

1:07:25

of people that do

1:07:27

something particularly well and I'm having

1:07:29

a hard time picking one. I'll

1:07:31

let you know. Absolutely. We

1:07:33

await it. Tune

1:07:36

in next time. Yeah, on the next episode.

1:07:39

And then lastly, where can people find out

1:07:41

more about you on both of your businesses?

1:07:45

Absolutely. So if you're looking for

1:07:47

dog training, dogtrainingdone.com, D-O-N-E, dogtrainingdone.com is

1:07:49

where I do my dog training

1:07:51

services. And the

1:07:54

caninebusinessbuilder.com is where I do

1:07:56

all of the funnel building, website building, marketing, and

1:07:58

other things for dog business. Cool.

1:08:01

We'll put all of those details in the show notes for

1:08:03

everyone. Wonderful. Fab.

1:08:05

Thanks for joining us today, Michael. Always

1:08:07

lovely to see you. Thank

1:08:10

you for having me. It was a blast. We will definitely

1:08:12

have to do this again at some point in the future

1:08:14

if the demand is high enough. We'll

1:08:16

create it. Yeah, we will. Create a buzz. Get

1:08:18

you back on. I think we'll just get you

1:08:21

back on anyway, because we love you. Oh,

1:08:25

thank you so much. Thank you.

1:08:27

See you.