When you’re hitting 4K-6K months, you are feeling productive and accomplished. But you may soon start to experience cracks that show it just isn’t enough…
Does this sound familiar?
- You are working with a few clients a week.
- Dog training is your full-time gig now. There’s no other job to fall back on.
- You are making anywhere from 4K-6K per month.
- You’ve been training for a long time and you are a wonderful trainer, but the business is putting pressure on your passion.
Here’s our Facebook Live Replay from the Facebook Group.
Right now, as things stand, you might not want get to 10K months…
If you are priced hourly, that means you are logically thinking you’d have to work twice as hard.
You would have even less time to be with your own dogs and family.
You’d be driving all over the place.
You’d be burnt out and exhausted.
Using the traditional dog training business structure of hourly pricing – yes, that would absolutely cause burnout.
Why get to 10K months?
Getting to 10K months requires a shift in perspective. An evolution away from thinking of your value being priced by the hour.
A leveling up of how you position yourself, your services, and your business.
At first, it made sense to aim for 5K months. Maybe that’s what your parents earned. It’s a comfortable number.
It felt attainable and reasonable.
But now, with inflation, healthcare, and if you ever want to retire, you are going to need more breathing room.
You also enjoy good food and restaurants. 5K a month you still have to watch your spending very closely, but at 10K, you can give yourself a splurge budget so you can eat well and take the trip you’ve been dreaming of.
Not to mention, at 10K you are able to put more things in place to save yourself time.
You’re not worried about every little penny – you can pay for the assistant or the top-tier software to reduce your workload.
And then maybe you need a new car. A new home. A new building for a board and train program.
You now have the resources to make those things happen without straining.
Sporadic new client inquiries happen for a couple of reasons.
Reason #1: Fear of being seen and being visible.
Reason #2: The vicious cycle.
- When you get an influx of new clients, you stop marketing. You’re busy!
- Then things slow down because marketing hasn’t been consistent.
- The cycle continues!
This creates seasonality to your business. You must have a plan to be consistently visible to your potential clients – even when you are booked up. Or you WILL experience a lull.
When you aren’t able to keep the momentum going, your inquiries and income will drop off.
Lastly, you are trying to be everything to everyone.
Puppy clients. Reactivity. Resource guarding. New dog. Old dog new kid. Etc
This means you are constantly creating new things – materials – adding work to your schedule.
If you’re creative like me, it feels productive! It feels good in the moment.
But this comes as a time trade-off for other work or time with family.
This is not a sustainable path to growth.
You have to streamline to reduce your workload and be able to get to 10k months.
Not to mention, your marketing will be sporadic as well.
You will be trying to create a message that applied to everyone – and no one is going to resonate with it because it wont be speaking directly to them specifically.
Get and an outside perspective on what’s happening in your business, and apply for a complimentary Game Plan Call with our business strategist, Ty.
