Become a successful dog training professional,

Agenda and objectives

1. Intro

   • What does «professional» mean in our industry?
   • A perspective shift.

2. Successful Private Training

   You want the best for your clients and their dogs. Are your services set up to help you achieve your goals for clients, for dogs, and for yourself financially, too? In our travels and work throughout the US and other countries we’ve seen similar service structure flaws that keep trainers from reaching full success. In this session we’ll look at simple ways to rework your private training to provide a three way win for you, clients, and dogs.

   • Re-packaging private training.
     • Private training goals and how to better meet them.
   • Policies that set trainers, clients, and dogs up for success.
   • Setting rates.
     • What your rates tell potential clients?
     • How free advice hurts dogs
   • Selling your services.
     • Tasteful, appropriate strategies for offering your services.
     • Comfortable ways to talk to clients about the costs—and benefits—of training.

3. Successful Class Programs

   Teaching group classes can be daunting – choosing what materials to teach, what order to arrange them in, how best to present them; handling students and dogs with widely disparate skill and experience levels; keeping the attention of multiple dogs and people; finding a way to impact students’ daily lives with their dogs, not just their dogs’ performance in class; gaining student compliance; handling barking dogs and active children. Learn to prepare your clients for real-world success outside of class, inspire rampant word of mouth, successfully handle disparate skill and experience levels (human and canine!), create a calm and focused learning environment, and keep students coming back through graduation and into the next class.

   • It’s all about the curriculum.
   • What are you really teaching?
   • Classes for real-life success.

4. Marketing

   To train dogs for a living you have to have clients. To get clients, you’ll need a marketing plan. And if the thought of marketing sends you running for cover or gets you snoring, this session is just the trick. You’ll learn innovative marketing approaches designed for dog pros, approaches that don’t require you to sell yourself to vets and other referral sources or spend a fortune.

   • What marketing is—and isn’t
     • Taking the fear, cost, and dread out of marketing.
   • Getting your message right (Are you sure you’re marketing to potential clients?)
   • Marketing projects that really work
     • Using marketing to educate your community about dogs and dog behavior.
   • What makes a successful website

5. Getting it all done

   By the end of the weekend you’ll be wondering how you’re going to find time to implement the new ideas you’ve learned. So we’ll end with some simple strategies for getting more out of your day.

   • Protecting your time
     • The professional dog trainer’s schedule
   • The master schedule
     • A place for everything, and everything in it’s place.
     • Getting off the hamster wheel

Speaker Bio

Veronica Boutelle, MA Ed, CTC, is the founder and president of dog*tec, a business support company dedicated to helping dog businesses succeed.

She is the author of How To Run a Dog Business: Putting Your Career Where Your Heart Is, co-author of Minding Your Dog Business: A Practical Guide To Business Success For Dog Professionals.

She also contributes regularly to many additional publications, including the APDT New Zealand and APDT Australia member magazines. The former Director of Behavior & Training at the San Francisco SPCA, Veronica now teaches seminars and consults one-on-one around the globe, helping dog professionals to achieve business success and put their careers where their hearts are.