Business Building For The Pet Business Owner

I started working with dogs when I was a 14 year old kid chasing after my mentor, a great dog trainer. I continued working with dogs for years training for this trainer and others. While I honed my craft and learned an enormous amount from my mentor and other dog trainers it wasn’t until I was 25 that I started my own business.

At that point I was a college dropout, was working a graveyard job in a soul-crushing factory in order to pay the bills (at $12 an hour), was on the verge of bankruptcy, had a year old daughter and another on the way, and was crammed with this little family in a tiny little condo. Needless to say, I was at a crossroads. I could continue in my path or get this business going.

I had one thing going for me, though….

I had spent the previous year in relentless study of business principles. No, not the kind you learn going to college where professors teach you the theory behind how to grow your business.

Instead, I was learning from forums, information products, interviewing people who were successful, reading books and more. I wasn’t learning theory. I was learning real-life tactics that worked in the trenches and, above all, were affordable and easy enough for a broke, uneducated dog trainer to accomplish. My passion for figuring out how to build and grow a business was only rivaled to the passion I had as a nerdy 14 year old who wanted nothing more than to spend his day with man’s best friend.

It worked. That first year I cleared, after expenses, over 6 figures. Every year since then has seen growth to my business. We’re now a small business with a few employees and I have the freedom to travel the world with my family working on new dog projects that we’re passionate about.

Are we the perfect company? Absolutely not.

Am I smarter than other business owners? Nope. Just ask my wife how smart I am.

Do we make mistakes, sometimes fail to practice what we preach business-wise, and otherwise miss out on plenty of growth opportunities? You betcha. Our process is just like any other business owner’s and we’ve yet to reach ‘business nirvana’.

In spite of my failings and inadequacies do I have something I can teach you as a business owner? A big, fat ‘YES’.

While I don’t claim to be smarter, more successful, richer, or better than other business owners, since dropping out of college, I estimate I’ve since spent the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree at a fine University in products, coaching, consulting, and mentors. I absolutely know that since that first year in business until now I’ve gained a wealth of knowledge on real-world ways to grow a business and an income in ways that typically aren’t being done in our industry.

Not only have I amassed this business building info I’ve also found a way to systematize it in such a way that just about any business owner can start to see immediate AND long lasting growth from their business.

Maybe you want to travel the world like me. Maybe you just want more time off. Maybe you want more money for your kid’s college, to work with shelters, or to bulk up your shoe collection. Regardless on WHY you want growth in your business and more control over your income and time I’m confident I can help you with the HOW.

Introducing:

Undercover Income:

Finding Revenue Just Beneath the Surface Where You Never Thought to Look

When you’ve been in business, whether 6 months or 20 years, you create assets that can be leveraged to bring in more revenue, more clients, and more control over your time and income IF you know how to use those assets correctly.

ALL of us have assets in our business. They may be as intangible as ‘good will’ or ‘reputation’ or intellectual property or they may be something real like a customer list, facility, or employees. How you use those assets means the difference between a good living and growth.

Our Undercover Income System is designed to help you find and unlock those assets that you’d never thought of and see measurable, double-digit growth within months.

1- Define and create your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). If you don’t effectively differentiate yourself from your competitors why would they want to come to you in the first place, pay you higher fees, keep coming back, and recommending their friends?

Your USP is what turns you from a commodity into a valued professional. Your USP is essentially the message that you project to your prospective market. There is a science behind crafting a USP and masterful USPs have been the difference maker for companies for year. If you’ve thought that your prices should go up, that your time is more valuable than you are getting, that you don’t have the control over your time that you want, then you need to craft a brilliant USP.

2- Integrate your USP. As your USP is the message you give to your prospects it needs to be integrated into everything you do. It needs to be ingrained in your sales scripts, recorded messages, website, marketing material, greetings that your employees give, and everything else. This is more than just a snappy slogan; it’s the backbone of who you are and the problems you solve for your customers.

3- Database. The secret is out, the money is in the list. That ‘list’ is your current customers and your prospects. The name of the game here is lifetime value. What does a 10%+ raise mean if you can accomplish that every year? While database marketing is the quickest and most effective way to increase lifetime value of a client it is almost entirely ignored by people in our industry.

4- Internet marketing. Everyone wants to START with getting more traffic to their website. But think about it, if your systems aren’t honed it won’t help much to be driving in more traffic to your website. Let’s use the example of your business systems as a salesperson. If your salesperson doesn’t have great skills, does it pay to put him or her in front of a lot more people? Once you’ve accomplished the first three steps our system shows you how to drive lots more traffic to your site through simple, yet effective means. Instead of having a less than par salesperson you can have a ‘rainmaker’ style sales person working for you 24/7. We teach you how to avoid some of the fatal mistakes that actually turn visitors off when they get to your site and how to add elements to your site that are proven to get more leads, more interest, and more sales.

5- Copywriting. Make no mistake, folks. Whether you like it or not we’re in the sales business. Unless you want to try to do all the talking and all the selling to every single person who is interested in your company (good luck) then you need to learn the skills of copywriting. Effective copywriting magnetically attracts people who are the best match for your services while simultaneously repelling those who are most prone to being cheap, late, lazy, and a bad match for your services. The best copywriting is almost a license to ‘print currency’ as it serves to persuade people to open their wallets without you being present.

6- Effective advertising. If you want to create a mailer, print ad, postcard, newspaper spot, PPC campaign then you’d better know how to do it right. Not knowing how to craft the right ad is the quickest way to flush money down the toilet. If you can find the right ads, though, it’s almost like turning on the ‘client faucet’ on demand.

7- Joint Ventures. JV’s are the quickest way to inject much needed profits in the short term. In the long term, strong JV partners can feed clients into your pipeline in ways that are low cost or even free.

The bottom line is that this system puts the microscope on your business from a variety of different angles. The truth? Most business owners will get this full system and only have the time, ability, capacity to implement a handful of ideas. That’s okay, because consider what that can do for you. As the saying goes, ‘little hinges swing big doors’. What if just a few ideas lead to JUST one more client per month. Would that be valuable? For us we’re always thinking in those terms. Our average client is worth approximately $1700 so if we can get just ONE MORE CLIENT that translates to OVER $20,000 per year!

What about you? What does the extra client per month mean? What if it were two…or three? And what if you could not only learn how to get just a few more clients here or there but you were able to increase the amount of money those clients spent with you…and the amount of times they bought from you….and the amount of referrals they gave you?

I hope you’re seeing what I’m getting at. If I could help you make just a handful of changes that brought big earnings back into your bank account, what would that be worth to you?

For me, if I believed a system could bring me just 1 client per month and an extra $20,000 this year, and next, and next, and the one after, and so on I’d be calling my credit card company to see if I could up my limits. (Sigh, I know this isn’t a good business principle but I DID do this. One of the reasons I was next to bankrupt was because I had maxed out a card with $6500 so that I could get some internet training from some people I really respected. THAT took some sales ability to get my wife to sign off when I was just making $12 an hour. Luckily it paid off and that knowledge was a big part of how I saw that 6 figure payday my first year in business.)

When I do private consulting with business owners I have to charge a premium on my time.

For the first time, though, we’re going to be offering this system in a group setting. What that means is that for a small, limited group I’m going to be sharing a two-day intensive workshop that is guaranteed to take your business to the next level.

And I’m the guy who puts his money where his mouth is. I’ll let you come to the full two days, let you take the materials and workbooks, participate in all the discussions, learn from everyone at the workshop….

…and if you still don’t think you got your money’s worth I’ll give it all back. Yup. Every penny. If you don’t think my information is going to benefit you then I don’t WANT your money. And you can keep the training materials, your notes, and the contacts you made as an ‘I’m sorry’ gift.

Here’s how I see it, you’ve only got a few options:

1- You come to the workshop, hate it, get nothing, and you get your money back.

2- You come to the workshop, love it, yet decide to implement nothing. Boo to you on that one.

3- You come to the workshop, love it, start implementing just a few of the ideas and start seeing new clients, new revenue, and new control over your time as a result of what you learn.

I’ve taken all the risk for you. All I ask is that you come with an open mind, ready to learn, and go home with an attitude of being ready to implement.

Sound fair?

Price for two-day workshop to learn the Undercover Income System: $600

Early Bird Special: $450 before May 31, 2013

Hosted by: Jill Priest, near Toronto Canada

Location: Essa Valley Feed n’ Pet Centre, 4919 County Road 90, Essa, Ontario (about a 90-minute drive north from Pearson International Airport in Toronto). Depending on the number of attendees, a group van may be arranged. For Information, contact: Jill Priest, Time and Patience Dog Training, [email protected] or phone 416.487.4292.

Dog Training and Culture

Dog Training

Teaching a dog training class to locals here in Jaco, Costa Rica.

Dog Training and Culture

As I’ve previously written on this blog I’m currently living with my family in Costa Rica. We’re working on a variety of projects from work projects to charitable projects along with attempting to learn how to surf and playing in the pool a lot.

One of these projects I’m working on is a new spanish language dog training site where I’m teaching a lot of my dog training concepts in the Spanish language and am creating a Spanish language equivalent to my current dog training DVD product line.

I’m working with a lot of the locals here in both private training at their homes and group training classes in front of a local veterinarian’s office. Aside from the fact that it’s VERY hot here and my video work catches me sweating quite a bit I’m running into some new types of dog training challenges that I haven’t run across before.

No, when it comes to bad dog behavior I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a pretty wide range over the years from everything to puppy problems, aggression, house training, destruction, and more. What I’m seeing here, though, is a difference in dog training culture and that is posing new challenges to my work. I’m learning how to adapt my training style based on how people perceive dogs and I’m doing my best to help push the dog culture in a direction that I think is more beneficial.

Dog Training- What Are The Cultural Challenges?

Let me first state that I love the people here in Costa Rica. They are warm, open, and inviting. I have the luxury of speaking Spanish so I can fit in pretty quick with new groups. My wife and kids don’t speak Spanish yet but, even so, they are finding the people to be so accepting and open.

I say that because as I outline the cultural differences here I don’t want to come off as sounding like I’m ‘spitefully critical’ or that I feel that I am a better person because my dog culture is different. Bear in mind, I do feel like the culture I bring to dogs IS better than what I’ve found here but that doesn’t mean that I am a better person because of that.

Here are the main differences that I chalk up to cultural variances between what I typically see here in Costa Rica and what I’m typically accustomed to in the United States:

  • Dog crates- I’ve yet to meet someone who has used a dog crate to house train a dog or work on destruction. In the United States the culture has shifted towards large scale acceptance of dog crates or dog kennels. In fact, in my Salt Lake City dog training company it is more rare to NOT see someone with a crate during a first session than it is to see a dog owner who does have a crate. It’s been pretty well established that crates are a humane way to supervise a dog in order to prevent destruction, chewing, digging, and housebreaking accidents. In contrast, the dog owners in this area seem to have zero aversion when I bring up the crate as a potential tool. It’s not that they are against using a crate, it’s just that it’s not something that has been done in this culture so it’s not really even considered. I think the other part of the equation that has prevented the crate from entering into cultural use is the expense. An average salary in this area is in the range of $350-$800 per month. Import taxes are high meaning a crate is going to cost $200 or so. Imagine spending a large portion of your monthly salary on a crate? Doesn’t seem feasible does it? We know some folks who are spending less than $200 on their rent for their house so imagine trying to find room in the budget to buy a crate. For many it just isn’t doable. In not being doable, though, it becomes very difficult to fix issues related to destruction and housebreaking.
  • The dog culture may be different, but there are definite perks in living here.

    Dog fencing- Along those same lines we meet many folks who simply let their dogs go and wander throughout the day. In many parts of rural America you can still find this as an accepted custom but in most parts of the U.S. letting your dog wander the neighborhood is sure to quickly make you a pariah. Most folks would rather be the ones who leave their Halloween decoration up until February rather than be the family that releases it’s dog onto the neighbors. I’ve found it quite acceptable here to simply let your dogs run wild in the neighborhood. Add the fact that very few people spay and neuter and it’s no wonder why there are plenty of stray dogs and aggression problems amongst dogs run rampant. Many of the people with whom I’m working have aggressive dogs and those dogs are let loose all day, get in dog fights, form unhealthy relationships with other dogs, and generally get into trouble.

  • Dog leashes- I was talking with a friend the other day and they mentioned how their neighbor walks his dog every day off leash. The dog is aggressive and if it sees another dog it will immediately attack. If it sees a bicycle it will give chase. Does this deter the neighbor from continuing to walk the dog off leash with zero control? Nope. I’ve come to realize that having control over a dog is something that is culturally foreign here. For generations dogs have lived on the street and run wild. The idea that we should teach them control seems very off to many dog owners.

Dog Training Culture- The Solution

So is there a solution to change the dog training culture in a positive way? I think so. And I’m already seeing certain evidences of how the culture is shifting towards something positive:

  • TV shows like Cesar Millan’s El Encantador de Perros have become very popular here and around Latin America. I think these shows have changed the conversation in the United States towards getting your dogs trained and I think the same thing is happening here.
  • Rescue organizations are becoming bigger and more influential. In our area here we have the McKee Foundation who helps rescue lots of pets and has been pushing the agenda of spaying and neutering for some time.
  • Trainers like myself. I’m hoping that my Spanish dog training site can gain traction and help push people towards responsible care and training of their dogs.
     

 

My New Dog Training Project In Costa Rica

I’ve never really used this website to get too personal about myself or my family. At various times I’ve mentioned my children (I’ve got four little girls ages 6, 5, 1.5, and 2 months) who keep me smiling, laughing, and partially insane. I’ve got a beautiful wife, Vanessa, who has been very tolerant of dogs passing in and out of her house since we got married in 2003.

For the past seven years we’ve lived in Utah where I’ve been running my Salt Lake City Dog Training business. Running CommuniCanine has been great and we’ve won awards, helped lots of dogs, had some tears, and seen a good portion of the beautiful state of Utah in the process.

As a family, though, we’ve wanted adventure for some time. We’ve wanted to try something different and give our kids a different experience.

So for the last month we’ve been living in Costa Rica and will likely be here several months more. CommuniCanine in Utah continues to be run and actually seems to be growing faster with me not around. I’m not sure if I feel complimented by that fact or hurt.

We’ve come to Costa Rica for several reasons:

  • I’m going to be working on a new dog training project. There currently is very little information available for Spanish speakers on how to train their dogs. Depending on which statistic you look at Spanish is either the second or third most spoken language in the world. Latin America has been following a similar curve in dog ownership and culture as you see in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Dogs are becoming more and more like members of the family and, as such, need training. I speak fluent Spanish as I spent two years living in the Canary Islands during the ages of 19-21. I’m going to be creating a new dog training website for Spanish speakers (the website is currently live but there is nothing on it). I’m already filming dog training with dog owners here. As a side note, if you or someone you know, happens to need dog training in Costa Rica let me know.
  • We’re also attempting to get a project off the ground working with orphans and dogs. Truthfully, this currently isn’t going as well as I’d hoped due to certain financing and donations not coming through.
  • We’re going to be working with some rescue organizations down here in Costa Rica to help with the stray dog problem.
  • I’m using the extra time I now have (I’ve been working myself crazy for years with our Utah dog training business. I was always working IN the business and never ON the business.) to work on new projects in Utah. We’re currently trying to put together a program to help troubled youth through the avenue of dog training.
  • We wanted some time to spend together as a family.
  • It NEVER snows in Costa Rica and that is a big plus for me. Growing up in California I never became accustomed to cold winters and years of living in Utah and Massachusetts certainly haven’t converted me to a cold weather fan.
  • We’re looking to explore more of this great world we live in, learn new foods, expose our kids to new cultures and languages, and have an adventure.

I’m going to start using this website to document our dog training adventure here in paradise. I’m going to write about case studies of the dogs I’m training and let you know how we’re doing in Latin America.

I invite you to read along and comment on these posts, I hope they’ll be interesting and valuable to you.

 

Dog Training Tools

If you want to properly train your dog then you’ve got to start with the right dog training tools. If you wanted to hammer in a nail and you chose a screwdriver or if you wanted to change the oil in your car and you chose a hand saw to do the job then you’ve chosen wrong. In the same way, using the wrong leashes or collars can set back your training efforts.

Stop Thinking About It And Start Training! Grab One Of My Money Back Guaranteed Training Programs And Start Fixing Your Dog’s Problems Today…
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Boot Camp

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Potty Training With The Matchstick Trick

The matchstick trick is a weird dog training technique. Every time I suggest it to a client I typically hear, “You want me to do what?” It works, though. Let me preface the trick first, however, with the reasons why you would want to do this trick.

The matchstick trick is a method for getting your dog to go to the bathroom right now. There are several reasons why you would want to use this trick.

1. You are house training a puppy. When you are house training a puppy or any age dog for that matter one of your main goals is to get your dog on a bathroom schedule. In order to get that dog on a schedule your dog needs to go to the bathroom when you want him to go to the bathroom. For some dogs this is a challenge. You take them out and they just sniff around for a while and don’t feel like going to the bathroom. You, being the person in the situation, know that it is going to be a while before Fido is going to have a chance to go to the bathroom again, so it would be in his best interest to go now. (It is tough explaining best interest to a dog) Use the matchstick trick and you will help Fido go now, and thus help him get on your schedule.

2. From time to time I have clients tell me that their dog is so conditioned to going to the bathroom only in the back yard. When they take their dogs on walks the dogs won’t go to the bathroom because they associate only the backyard with bathroom time. Use the matchstick trick and you can help change the association. You can show your dog that it is okay to relieve himself in spots other than the back yard.

3. Constipated dogs. If your dog has a health problem you should take him immediately to the vet. It may not hurt, however, to try the matchstick trick to see if you can help relieve your old pal of his burdens.

Ok, so what is this trick, you ask? First, get yourself a book of matches. They need to be the soft kind that you rip out of a book. Second, rip off a match. Third, this is where it gets weird; insert the NON-sulfur side, or the torn side, into your dog’s rear end. DO NOT LIGHT THE MATCH! I think that goes without saying, but believe me, I have fielded that question before. Insert the match about halfway into the backside of your dog and let the rest hang out. Any further and it could go all the way inside and that would be bad news. Now wait. The match is going to be an irritating feeling for your dog. Your dog is going to want to get rid of that feeling. To get rid of it your dog will squat to try and push it out. In the process of pushing out the match your dog will make a bowel movement and voila! Mission accomplished.

Please note, the use of a match in no way means that there will be fire in this dog behavior training technique. The only reason for using a match is because it is the right size and has a soft texture.

Obviously you must be careful with this dog training technique. If you do it incorrectly it could cause damage to your dog. Do it correctly, however, and it gives you greater control when training your dog.

Ty Brown and Dogbehavioronline.com expressly disclaim any and all responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, which may be or is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of this method.

 

House Training Formula

In this video I sit down with a client who is dealing with a puppy who needs house training help and also has manners issues. Watch carefully and take notes as I outline a course of action for dealing with these issues.

 

 

How to Train a Norfolk Terrier

Steps For Curing Dog Aggression

Want help training your Norfolk Terrier? Check out our award winning methods in our numerous training DVDs. Help your Norfolk Terrier with house training, aggression, obedience, destruction, and more. Click here.