Take Yourself Seriously
You’re now not just a dog trainer. You’re a CEO. And if you want to have a 6-figure dog training business in the near future, you have to believe that you ALREADY own one.
If you already have one, you have to be conscious of this! I’ve worked with clients that didn’t even realize they have a six-figure business until I asked them about their goals.
If you aren’t disciplined with yourself, your family, and your schedule, it is easy to be a bit too flexible and overwhelm yourself. Be proactive and determine your hours of operation. Having hours I know I’ll be working allows me to communicate them to clients and family. If you’re too wishy washy about your hours, you’ll end up working all the hours you don’t actually want to be working.
If you want to have a 6-figure dog training business in the near future, you have to believe that you ALREADY own one.
Delegate Personal Tasks
My students are often surprised to learn that I have a yard scooper service come TWICE a week (its a small yard and my corgi always goes in the same spots…) While I LOVE my dogs, I do not want to spend my valuable time scooping their poo. I’d much rather be talking to clients, playing with my daughter, or playing with my dogs.
Everything that takes time and energy away from the things you truly love and want to do are contributing to burnout.
Think about what you’re doing regularly that you don’t absolutely love. Grocery shopping? Laundry? Mowing? These things should be delegated to someone else. A family member. Or someone that is paid to do this work for you. Your time is more valuable than money. If tasks are taking your time and energy away from your business and they aren’t lighting you up with joy, then its time to delegate ASAP.
Another thing I don’t do is go grocery shopping. Every Friday morning my husband goes to get us groceries. He takes his earbuds and listens to a podcast or his favorite music. He actually finds it enjoyable! In the meantime, I spend some quality time with my toddler. We read, we play, or we go on a short walk just her and I. When I get into work, I feel really good about how I spent my morning and am energized to get some things done.
This didn’t come about without some trial and error. I had to really tune into how certain activities made me feel. If I felt annoyed and frustrated after them, I asked my husband to take care of them. We are quite opposite in our preferences – I enjoy mowing, taking our daughter to the playground, and feeding the dogs. He enjoys grocery shopping and doing the dishes. The hardest part about delegating? It’s usually realizing what you need to delegate and how to ask for the help you need – but it is so worth it!
I had to really tune into how certain activities made me feel.
Say No
Or at least “maybe.” I’m the first one to say “yes” to invitations. I love getting out of the house. BUT if you’re not careful, this can take time away from the time you need to be spending with your thinking cap (CEO cap) on. Additionally, if you say yes to other’s invitations – you’re saying yes to their plans, not yours. This is why I’m a huge fan of planning out your free time in your calendar so that if an invitation comes your way, you know what you’re saying no to.
I’m also more of an introvert so I need my space. If I end up doing too many activities with others, I feel drained, anxious, and irritable. As much as I want to be super social, I need to be considerate of my own boundaries and limitations. And I have to preserve some energy for clients!
Be conscious of how much energy you’re letting others take from you that may leave you irritable around your family or clients.
Make Your Life Easier
Take the time to set yourself up for success. Stop getting frustrated at situations in your home by taking care of them once and for all. I read Denise Duffield-Thomas‘s book, Chillpreneur, and one of my favorite takeaways from her work is to make life easier on yourself.
A few examples…
- Get extra laptop charging cables so you never run out of battery no matter where you are. I have one cable for my desk and one for my bag.
- Same for phone chargers. Get a few extra chargers so you don’t have to get up every time your phone has a low battery.
- Limited cabinet or storage space? Clear out containers or utensils you don’t use very often and put them in a box for safekeeping, but stop letting them take up precious day-to-day access cabinet space!
Ultimately, quit putting up with minor inconveniences, because they REALLY do add up. What constantly bugs you about your home? Take 30 minutes this weekend to take care of it once and for all.
Focus on Money-Making Activities
Nothing has taught me how to be efficient quite like becoming a mom. No one is more efficient with their time than moms. We don’t have hours upon hours to mess around online. We have to make sure every move we make is worth time away from our kids.
For me, that means that everything I do should have an emotional and/or financial payout afterward. I should feel better AND earn revenue from my work. This means I need to spend my time getting to know my ideal clients, talking to them about what I can do to help them, and then deliver on it. That’s it – I now leave tasks such as tweaking my website, producing my podcast, and responding to non-client inquiries to my assistant(s).
You have to become more and more comfortable with imperfection. You have to accept that mistakes are going to happen, but that’s the only way to get better. It’s not that the other things aren’t important, but they are not tasks that will directly grow my business and anyone else can be trained up on how to do them – so you should!
That means that everything I do should have an emotional and/or financial payout afterward. I should feel better AND earn revenue from my work.
Persist in Finding the Right Team Members
This leads me to my last tip – try, try again. Admittedly, it has taken me months to find the right team members. People that had the right attitude, tenacity, skillset, and responsiveness to run more things behind the scenes for me. I’ve made all the mistakes – hiring based on being recommended to me, assuming someone knew what they were doing, hiring purely based on skillset and not attitude, etc.
I had to get tough on myself and really sit down and define who I needed – not just what tasks needed to be handled. I had to make the tough decisions to let others go and say no to nice, but not-right potential team members. This is part of being the CEO. You shoulder the responsibility to choosing the people that support you.
I also help my Chief Executive Trainer students do this with the help of The Modern Dog Trainer Leadership Coach, Cherylann, as a part of that program.
In the Chief Executive Trainer program, I help six-figure dog training business owners grasping at straws due to burnout or overwhelm transform their business into a fulfilling, industry-leading multi-six-figure business that is better able to run on its own and better serve its clients.
We help 6-figure dog business owners move to multi-six figures, take back your time, and make more money without adding more to your workload through my three-step Revive. Refresh. Recalibrate. process.
We address three parts of your business that are holding you back from massive success.
- Systems – We immediately take back your time by identifying and optimizing systems that aren’t working in your favor.
- Services – We standardize your services into packages and programs that skyrocket your profitability within weeks, not months.
- Team Members – We work together to help you be a better leader to your team so that they are enthusiastic about your company’s vision and their part in it.
