If you know which package you’d like, you may choose from the options below. If you’re not sure, we generally recommend starting with a single appointment to get a feel for the process and you and your consultant can explore what might be best for your goals. If you decide on a package, at the end of your one hour consult, we’ll roll that first appointment into the package you choose.
Please choose your 0ption:
There’s no sugar coating it – bad reviews hurt. Receiving negative feedback can be challenging even for the most resilient, and if it’s in the public sphere it can be doubly hard. Nowadays the court of public opinion is everywhere. From social media, Yelp and Google business listings, to good old-fashioned word of mouth, discussing the various merits of businesses is second nature to many people. When it goes well, this can be fantastic and is a solid way to generate interest in your work. Glowing reviews can have a big impact on people’s decision to use your services. But yep, that’s right – the opposite is also true. A bad review, and the way you respond to it, is a crucial part of brand reputation.
So what should you do if you receive the dreaded negative review?
Take a deep breath…but respond quickly
Dog trainers often help clients understand that when a dog is stressed and over threshold, their capacity to think clearly is reduced. We’re no different. If you’ve received negative feedback and can feel it in your body – increased heart rate, agitation, churning stomach – take a moment before responding. If possible, engage in an activity that helps you feel calmer, whatever that may be for you. A walk with your dog, breathing exercises, a chat with a close friend or anything that prevents you from reacting while heightened (never a great idea!). Once you feel your equilibrium returning, plan a prompt response. Getting back to people quickly will help to deescalate the situation and will prevent you from agonizing over it too. Unless the feedback is abusive, it’s best to provide a response, especially if it’s on an online and public forum. This shows you take feedback seriously and allows you to share your perspective.
Is there any learning here?
At some stage in your business, you will encounter a tricky or unhappy customer. It’s impossible to keep everyone satisfied all of the time, and sometimes complaints really are unjustified and unreasonable. We know it’s easier said than done, but getting defensive can end up inflaming customers further as well as alienating new ones. Try to view the feedback objectively and empathetically. Is there some truth to their experience? How would you feel in their situation? Is there any learning or insight that can be used to improve your business? Perhaps a process change or clearer policies could prevent similar issues happening in the future. Do you need to revisit your ideal client avatar to ensure it’s a good fit right from the start? Or was it a simple mistake (we all make them)? Acknowledge the client’s experience and how they are feeling, and reinforce the standards and values you aspire to in your business. This can be as simple as:
‘We’re very sorry to hear you didn’t enjoy your recent experience with us. That’s certainly not the way we want you to feel after attending one of our classes. We’re committed to learning, improving and providing a high quality service, and really appreciate you taking the time to share this valuable feedback.’
Keep it short, and ideally offline
If you think the negative review is uncalled-for, it’s often best to simply say you’re sorry they didn’t enjoy their experience and that you hope they’ll give your services another chance (if you do hope that!). If you feel their feedback is justified, apologize and take responsibility, including ways you will mitigate against such issues in the future. Avoid long explanations or a back-and-forth with clients online. For complex problems, encourage clients to speak with you privately. If you have their contact details, let them know you will email or call them to chat further about their concerns. If you don’t, ask them to get in touch with you and provide your contact details. While it can feel like the scariest option (we totally get it!), often a phone call can be far more effective than an email exchange.
Build your positive review bank
Don’t forget the positive ones! A healthy collection of positive reviews will easily outweigh the odd unfavorable one, and it’s just as important to acknowledge this feedback. Thank clients when they take the time to review your business, and when they send friends and family your way. Word of mouth reigns supreme in the dog training world. Invite clients to submit online reviews via direct requests and surveys. Seek out testimonials and case studies and use them to enrich your website.
A strong referral network can be the cornerstone of a successful dog training or walking business. From a marketing perspective, word of mouth referrals from clients and other professionals helps to drive traffic your way and elevate your reputation. These networks can also help you feel less isolated in your work, and embed you within the local community. Initiating contact with potential networks is a great strategy within any marketing plan, as is maintaining and enriching these relationships. So why can it feel so hard to do?
For some, striking up conversations with potential referral contacts feels as natural as smiling at every dog on your morning walk. For many, however, the idea of doing a promotional blast in their area fills them with dread and anxiety. Promoting your own business and services can feel uncomfortable – nervousness and concern about being too sales-y may be enough for you to avoid it altogether. Yet there are ways to approach this key marketing area which may remove some of the ‘ick’ and allow you to break the networking ice in comfort.
Try a reframe
When we are running a business, and especially one we really care about, everything about it can feel personal. As the driving force behind all decisions, it’s easy to worry about the perceptions of others and for imposter syndrome to take hold. If you don’t relish the limelight, being the name and face of your dog work is likely to take some getting used to. Rather than thinking ‘now I basically have to become a Juilliard graduate and completely change my personality’, it can be helpful to remind yourself of why you’re doing this work in the first place.
For many R+ dog pros, it’s because they love what they do and really want to make a difference to the lives of people and dogs. Marketing your business, therefore, isn’t about being the star of the show and telling everyone how great you are. Instead, it’s just an everyday part of the work that allows you to have the impact you want – no different to doing your taxes! This reframe may help to take the intensity out of promotional interactions. The local groomer wasn’t so interested in what you had to say this time? Ah well – that’s just part of the game when you’re making the world better for dogs.
Cast a wide net
When thinking about potential referral sources, get creative! They don’t have to be limited to dog businesses, such as vets and pet stores. Dogs live with and impact all sorts of people which means you can cast a wide networking net. Community centers, dentists, cafes, hairdressers and accountants are likely to be filled with dog loving staff and clients. The more conversations you have, the more practiced you will become at talking about your amazing business. It also serves as a reminder that if one door isn’t quite open yet, there are plenty of others to walk up to. If there are businesses you already have contact with, this can also provide a softer conversation starter. If you have a favorite cafe or local gym you frequent, promoting your business in these spaces can provide a comfier starting point.
Do your research
Have you ever had a client mention that they love your website, or were excited to see that you offer a particular service? Feels good, right? Small businesses in particular often put a lot of heart and soul into the products and services they offer. Prior to approaching a potential network contact, take some time to understand what they do and what makes them unique. Not only will they appreciate you taking an interest, it can also provide good conversation material and will help you find shared values. If you’re passionate about canine nutrition and a store near you prides itself on sourcing local and high quality pet food options, this could be a perfect ice breaker. Or perhaps your local garden center specializes in sustainable planting methods and you’re a bit of green thumb. Could you chat to them about which plants are safe and resilient for dogs? Finding common ground is one way to combat possible conversation lulls and deepen relationships.
Let your work do the talking
Handing out business cards and flyers, especially to a cold contact, can be a particularly intimidating thing to do for many people. It also doesn’t provide a lot of information about who you are and what makes you different. Creating resources that do the talking for you, and create value for others, is a great way around this. Think about the likely business pain points for potential referrals. Anything that saves them time, generates more business for them or furthers their cause is likely to be well received.
If you are approaching a local vet, for example, a handout on specific behavior issues, such as housetraining or separation anxiety, is likely to make a bigger impact. Similarly, with your client’s permission you could provide vets with clear and helpful assessment notes they can refer to when seeing mutual clients. You could even organize a meeting to chat about what information is most useful to them, and vice versa.
If you have an online or print newsletter, ask a local business if you can interview them for a feature story. Not only do most people love talking about what they do, it also means they will be keen to feature your newsletter at their premises and/or via their social media. If you’re in need of material for the rest of your newsletter, dogbiz offers an easy way to make this happen.
If thawing rather than breaking the networking ice feels more natural, don’t let this be a barrier to your business success. Experiment with a range of strategies and find what works for you. What may feel gut wrenching at first will soon become second nature and you’ll be networking up a (quiet and thoughtful) storm.
Does your website offer a warm hello to everyone? Web accessibility is a term that promotes tools and technologies that can be understood and navigated by all, including those with disabilities. Google’s own website posits that “everyone should be able to access and enjoy the web”, and there is big overlap between search engine rankings and accessibility. This increasingly important part of web design means that the more accessible your site is, the more likely it will appear at the top of search results.
Over the past month at dogbiz we’ve been deep diving on ways to create a stellar website as part of our THRIVE! program. We’ve also been doing plenty of (actual and figurative) fist pumps witnessing members making huge strides on their own sites. Great writing is an integral part of the process, regardless of the type of dog pro you are. Once you’ve crafted your amazing content, you also want to ensure your site is available to everyone.
If web accessibility is new territory for you, we’ve got a few pointers to help you get started.
Equip yourself with the right information
The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) provides international standards for the web and has a range of materials to help you better understand accessibility. They also offer free online courses if you want to gain a deeper understanding on certain topics. To assess your own site and see where you’re at in terms of accessibility, take a look at the WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool.
If someone else is designing your site, ask them how they will approach this part of it. Are they aware of accessibility principles? What elements do they plan to incorporate so your site is easy to read and navigate? Many elements can be straightforward while others require specific skills and knowledge to implement. Planning from the start can save you a lot of time so include this in early conversations and designs.
Keep the principles front of mind
Once you start delving into the myriad of ways to create an accessible site, you may be struck with overwhelm paralysis. How do you even start? What should you include or not include? What does input modalities even mean? Don’t panic! You don’t need to incorporate everything all at once and technology is always evolving. Your website is essentially a living document and can be tackled one stage at a time. Understanding the four main accessibility principles outlined by the WAI can help to zoom out and keep the bigger picture in mind.
The principles emphasize creating online content that is:
Perceivable
Users should be able to recognise and understand the information being presented to them. This means considering a variety of senses. For example, are there closed captions on video content for those with auditory difficulties? Is there enough disparity between colors so that text can be easily read? You can use free online color contrast checkers to test this.
Operable
Websites should be easy to use and navigate for a variety of people. Visitors to your site should be able to access all functions, from shifting to and from a page, selecting a link on a menu and being able to play and pause videos and audio. This could mean large and plainly labeled navigation buttons, clear text headings and being able to hover over menu options without the text disappearing after a certain amount of time.
Understandable
Content should always be intelligible! This goes for written text as well as images and graphics. This is a key one for dog pros. We’re often so immersed in the world of dog training we forget that terms like conditioning, desensitization and socialization may not mean much to those landing on our site. Aim for content that is simple and jargon free and keep web pages and menus organized with a clear flow and structure. Muddled and text heavy sites can be particularly inaccessible for those with cognitive difficulties, as well as those who don’t speak your site’s primary language.
Robust
This principle suggests that content on your site should be efficient enough to be accessed and interpreted by multiple users and technologies, particularly assistive ones. If you’re working with a web developer, this is where their skills can really shine in terms of the backend of your site. For example, ensuring your website code can be easily read by screen readers for those with visual impairments.
Just as we want our training venues to be inclusive spaces, creating an accessible website means removing barriers for those wanting to engage with your services. Not only will you be reaching a wider audience, you’re also more likely to be boosted in those crucial search engine rankings. Incorporating accessibility into your design thinking will help to enhance as well as future-proof your business.
With over half the world using social media, it’s easy to see how these platforms have become synonymous with getting your brand and business out there. There are a host of tools and methods related to social media marketing, and navigating these can feel exhausting. While there is no doubt that social media can be a dog pro’s best friend, if you find yourself agonizing over posts and spending way longer than you would like scrolling through the abyss, it may be time to re-examine the friendship.
So what do you need to think about when it comes to social media and your business?
Understand the purpose
If you have a social media account for your business, what is its purpose? Which platforms are you using and why? And how does social media fit along your client journey? Understanding the aims of your social media presence, whether it’s improving brand awareness, getting more traffic to your website, or engaging with your current clients, is key to its effective use. Amassing followers can feel rewarding, but if those followers aren’t engaging with your content or converting into paying clients and opportunities, it may not be the best use of your time.
It can also be beneficial to understand which social media platforms your ideal clients favor. Taking a look at the demographics associated with each one may help inform your social media strategy and stop you feeling you have to be active on every channel. There’s little point pouring all your effort into making incredible Tik Tok videos if the suburban families you want to work with are all hanging out on Facebook.
Play out those ‘what ifs’
Social media is an enticing marketing avenue for a reason – you can share promotional content without cost and feedback happens in real time, making it a great place to experiment with different messages and approaches. It also provides you with a potentially large, active and global audience. This immense scale can also be a barrier as you compete in a crowded market of short attention spans, fuelled by complex algorithms and analytics. And what happens when these platforms fail?
Many will recall the big outage of 2019 in which Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp all went down for 14 hours. For the average user, this may have meant a short hiatus from watching cat videos. For many business owners, it marked a disconcerting disruption to ad campaigns, live presentations, bookings and sales. It also served as a reminder that as a business owner, you don’t actually own the client data on your social media business pages. If these pages are hacked or banned for a vague or misunderstood violation, they can be lost for good. It can be beneficial to mentally play out these scenarios. If your social media pages disappeared overnight, do you have other ways of connecting with your audience? Maintaining email lists, nurturing client relationships, and employing diverse marketing tactics are key ways to mitigate against putting all your eggs in the social media basket.
Look after yourself
At dogbiz we love seeing people flourish in their personal and professional lives. For some people, social media can be a cause of stress and frustration. There is also compelling evidence to suggest that extended social media use isn’t great for our brains. There have also been concerns raised about the privacy and ethics of these platforms. For those who may want to jump off the social media bandwagon, or reduce their use of it, business pages can present a quandary. How can you spend less time on social media if your business is closely tied to it? It’s so easy to take a quick peek at your latest business post and then find yourself raging in the comments section of an aversive dog trainer post two hours later. The good news is that if you want to shift your relationship with social media and its role in your business, there are plenty of options to play with.
Expand your marketing horizons
Thinking of different ways to market your business, particularly in your local area, can be a fun and creative opportunity. Selecting options that fit you and your personality also tends to make it easier to get out there and promote yourself.
A few ideas to kick around:
If social media is working well for you, keep it up! If you are struggling with it, however, don’t despair. Just like in the dog pro world, there is space for everyone to find solutions that fit their business.
