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I have been involved in small business consulting across the pet industry for many years. I have also owned and operated several pet businesses, with gross operating incomes ranging from US$100,000 to $500,000 per year. I have made a common observation in each of these businesses, whether it was an animal hospital, a boarding facility, or an in-home dog training and pet care service company: The professionals who own and work within small pet-related businesses often seem to display a distinct lack of formalized people training skills.

It is thus my belief that there is a lack of competent people training skills across the pet industry, and that this deficit is largely responsible for many of the issues that commonly plague professional individuals and their businesses. I outline some of them on the following page. All things being equal, if one has all the necessary attending expertise and behavioral analytical skills within the scope of pet dog training yet is still experiencing issues within one’s business, I hypothesize it is related directly to one’s ability to train, coach and mentor people. These are skills that do not always come naturally and, consequently, require some additional education and adult learning. Some people are lucky to have natural leadership skills, but refined communication skills and management skills are usually learned in a formal setting.

As professionals, we need to ask ourselves if we can relate to one or more of the following problems within our businesses:

• Difficulty in converting prospects to customers.

• Private training clients who start out “gung ho” and then fall off the program prior to achieving their goals.

• Pet care clients who disregard our advice.

• Substantial group class attrition.

• Time expended trying to convince clients, rather than teach them.

• Frustrated clients who appear to just “not get it.”

• Lack of client knowledge retention across our training services.

• An apparent lack of client commitment to our methods and suggested ideas.

• Incomplete homework assignments and insufficient practice of skills.

• Difficulty and frustration engaging clients and changing their attitudes so we can build consensus and support their needs.

In our roles as training and behavior experts, we are both teachers and trainers. We have a unique role to play when clients seek our help and expertise. Irrespective of how competent we are at our craft or how much knowledge we have, if we cannot adequately impart this onto our clients, then we are doing them a disservice.