3 Mistakes That Will Tank Your Dog Training Business

Let me walk you through three mistakes you’re going to make over the next two, three, maybe five years that will absolutely tank your dog training business. Make them and you stay exactly where you are, and I don’t know why anyone would choose that.

If you don’t know me, I run Yorkshire Canine Academy and I mentor dog trainers around the world, helping them get to £5k and £10k months, in plenty of cases £20k months, and in some cases £100k a month or £200k a year. That’s roughly 400,000 Australian dollars or 300,000 US dollars.

The first two mistakes matter, but the third is the one that finishes people. You need to fix the first two if you want to survive it.

Mistake 1: Hiring a marketing agency

At some point you’ll get sick of moving sideways. Because you don’t really know what marketing is, and the thought of doing it yourself scares you, you’ll hand it to someone else. I’ve made this mistake myself on several occasions, so let me save you the pain.

Here’s what happens. They pitch-deck you. They show slides of who they’ve helped, usually their top one percent of results, or they hide the results behind metrics you don’t understand. They overcomplicate marketing so you feel you couldn’t possibly do it alone. Then they lock you into a retainer, typically £2k to £3k a month. A good one might want £5k a month plus a profit share.

Don’t do it. Most agencies aren’t niche, and the few that are niche to dog training usually aren’t very good. Go and read their testimonials. A non-niche agency has no clue about your business, your clients or their problems, and understanding your client is most of what marketing is. On top of that, anyone can start an agency. Being successful as an agency just means being good at selling agency services and locking people in. They don’t have to achieve anything for you.

Marketing isn’t as complicated as you think. Even a ten percent understanding goes a very long way if you’ve got a good skill set. There may be great agencies out there, but they’re few and far between. Every mentee of mine who tried an agency before joining wasted tens of thousands of pounds or dollars and ended up nowhere.

Mistake 2: Comparing yourself to other dog trainers

Without naming names, there are a lot of dog trainers who look like they’re doing exceptionally well on the surface and are, in reality, in trouble. A big follower count has no correlation with how well a business is actually doing. You don’t want to be famous. You want to be wealthy enough to protect the people around you and build something real.

Stop caring what other dog trainers think. You do not need the approval of the industry to be successful. If someone hasn’t achieved what you intend to achieve, their opinion doesn’t matter. Don’t let strangers on the internet stop you serving the people closest to you.

There’s a second danger. When you compare yourself to someone, you subconsciously start to emulate them. I’ve seen the pattern consistently. If their success is superficial, you’ll end up copying the wrong things and cooking your own business. Comparison is the thief of joy, and in this case I agree with the cliche.

Mistake 3: Refusing to market yourself at all

This is the one that finishes people. The industry is changing. More marketers are coming in with weaker dog training skills, and they’ll push their version of dog training on everyone purely because they’re good at marketing. You can fight that or you can accept it and swim with the current.

What a lot of you are doing instead is being stubborn. “I don’t need to market. I don’t need to post. I let the results do the talking.” You can be the best dog trainer in the world, but if you don’t know how to market yourself, you are not helping a single dog. That attitude is an anchor dragging you to the bottom of the ocean.

You need to shift your mindset. You are a business owner and a marketer who trains dogs. If you don’t accept that, you’ll burn out, give up, or go back to a job you hate, and you’re not helping any dogs from behind a desk. Chances are you started this to help more dogs. Marketing is how you reach them.

If you’re ready to take marketing seriously but don’t want to hand it to an agency, learning to do it yourself with support is exactly what Vantage Pro Mentorship is for.

Key takeaways

• Agencies charge £2k to £5k a month, rarely understand dog training, and don’t need results to keep your retainer. Learn the basics yourself.
• Follower counts tell you nothing about a trainer’s business. Stop comparing, because you’ll end up copying.
• Refusing to market means refusing to help dogs. You’re a business owner who trains dogs.

Fight those three things and they will kill your dog training business. If you’d rather fix them, apply for a call, read the testimonials from trainers who were once in your position and are now doing £60k, £100k and £200k a year, and we’ll tell you honestly whether Vantage is the right move.