Veronica

Are you dreaming about making your full-time living as a dog trainer, dog walker, or similar? Maybe you have a part-time hobby business you don’t know how to take further. Or you’ve never been sure how to take the first step to start your dog business.

Either way, there’s the big transition challenge: How do you actually leave behind a regular paycheck to run a dog business full time? How do you get to the point where you can quit your job, put your current career in your rearview mirror, and say good-bye forever to your boss? How do you make the transition from dog pro hobbyist to dog pro for a living?

Over the years of helping dog lovers make this leap we’ve found there are three key ingredients to a successful transition. Master these and you’re much more likely to find yourself in the enviable position of making your living working with dogs.

1. Transition Mindset
We put this one first because without it, no amount of planning or strategy will get you to full-time dog pro. Pursuing a big dream is both exciting and scary. Making the decision to leave a steady job or quit a career you’ve invested time, energy, and money into takes some guts. Choosing to strike out on your own as a small business owner is a bold choice. No matter who you are, there will be moments of doubt, pangs of fear, and days where you feel dispirited. Without a strong transition mindset, it can be easy to quit or to tell yourself that now isn’t the right time.

We’ve found the dog pros who make it through their transitions are those with fierce determination and desire. They don’t necessarily have more dog talent or business skill than others. They go through all the same feelings of doubt and fear. They get tired. It’s just that they want to be full-time dog trainers or dog walkers so badly that they keep pushing. They push through the doubt. They push through the fear. They dust themselves off after setbacks. They allow themselves to believe that it really is possible to get where they mean to go—that’s their key difference.

And it really is possible. There are dog pros all over the globe working full-time in their walking and training and daycare businesses. They all started from scratch. They all began with excitement and anxiety. They all cultivated a transition mindset to put their excitement to work and their anxiety to bed (or at least to keep it from getting in their way).

Cultivation is an important word. You don’t have to be born with a naturally bold or confident mindset. You can create it by stoking your desire, visualizing your life as a dog pro, developing personal mantras to battle tough moments, and taking small step after small step to build momentum and belief that carries you forward.

2. A Transition Plan
Armed with a transition mindset, you also need a transition plan to apply it to. No amount of mindset is likely to get you to full-time dog pro on its own, particularly if part of your challenge is replacing your current paycheck income. Here are some of the most critical pieces of a strong transition plan:

Budgeting and feasibility. You have to know what you need your business to make, and assess whether the business you have in mind can safely be expected to do that.

Prep work. This includes personal prep, which for some may involve tightening the budget. It almost always includes prioritization. You’re probably already plenty busy. Implementing a transition plan will add a lot to your plate, including starting and/or growing your business. A successful transition requires streamlining in order to protect the things that matter most to you (for example, time with friends, family, and your own dogs), and time to take good care of yourself to maintain your energy. Without this step it’s easy to burnout before reaching your goal.

You’ll also have prep work for your business. Decisions like how you package and provide your services, what you charge for them, and the policies you set all have a tremendous impact on the revenue your business is capable of, and how effective you are for your clients. Getting these things right significantly increases your chances of a successful transition.

Milestones. How do you know when to reduce your cubicle time or quit your job altogether? How can you tell when your business can be safely relied upon to pay your bills? Your milestones will tell you. These are carefully crafted “When… then…” statements that indicate when it’s safe to take a step in your action plan. Every transition plan’s milestones will be different, as they depend on the parameters of your personal situation. But one thing is the same for everyone: Without them, it’s all too easy to either jump too soon, putting yourself at financial risk, or move more slowly than needed, risking burnout before achieving your goal.

Marketing. How do you reach your milestones? How do you get your business generating enough revenue to allow you to reduce your hours or give your boss notice? That’s the role of a strong marketing plan. To move through your transition plan you must grow your business. To do that, you need clients. To get clients, you must learn to market your dog business.

3. Transition Support
Transitions are equal parts exciting, scary, and exhausting. You’re essentially working two jobs—your regular one and building your business. Plus all the other things you do—running your household, caring for family, exercising your dog… Let’s just say it’s a lot. We find that dog pros who build a support system before jumping into a transition are far more likely to find themselves working with dogs full time at the end. If you tend to adopt a stoic, “I can manage” attitude, this is one time to fight that inclination.

Support plans are as personalized as transition plans. Yours might include personal support (via paid professionals or the helping hands of friends, family, and neighbors) with household responsibilities, child or dog care, errands, mealtimes, etc. You might choose to hire help for your part-time business to free yourself up to serve more clients or work on your marketing. If you’re not entrepreneurial by nature or lack business experience, you might benefit from professional support through classes, or the guidance of a personal business coach. Whatever elements you choose for your support plan, putting one in place will greatly increase your chances of a successful transition.

What do you think? Tired of daydreaming from the sidelines? Ready to make your living working full-time in your own dog training business? If so, start cultivating your transition mindset, working on your transition plan, and lining up your support. There is no better way to make a living than working with dogs, as any dog pro will tell you. They’re all out there doing it, and you can, too.

For more tips, continue reading Part 2, How to Become a Full-Time Dog Pro. 

Ready to take the next step? Find out more about Starting Your R+ Dog Training Business and how we can help you launch your dream job with confidence.

Dreaming about working full-time in your own dog training or dog walking business, but can’t imagine how to make the leap? You need a transition plan. Whether you’re working full-time in another career, or spinning the hamster wheel balancing a part-time hobby business alongside your “real” job, a well-designed transition plan lays out a clear, step-by-step path to running your dog business full-time.

And in case you’re wondering whether it’s really possible to go full time, the answer is yes. It really is possible. We know, because we’ve been helping dog professionals do just that since 2003. So if you’re serious about working with dogs for a living, read on!

Creating a Transition Plan to Full Time Dog Pro
Your transition plan needs four steps:

1. Determine feasibility. Can you make ends meet with the services you’re looking to provide? And what does it mean to meet ends? We focus on this step here in Part.

2. Assess, prioritize, adjust. Before you enter a transition, you have to know where you stand. (It’s hard to make a plan to get somewhere without knowing where the starting line is!) So in Part 2 of this series, we outline how to assess your starting point, and then look at ways to set yourself up for success by prioritizing all the things you juggle and making sure your business is optimized to serve you and your clients.
3. Line up support. You’re much more likely to get to the other side of your transition plan if you don’t head in alone. In Part 3 we look at some simple and creative ways to line up the support you need.
4. Set milestones and marketing plans. How do you know you’ve arrived? How do you decide when to quit your job or scale back? Your milestones, set ahead of time for personal comfort and financial safety, will tell you. And marketing will help you reach those milestones as fast as possible. So in Part 4 we look at how to set milestones and choose creative marketing approaches to hit them.

Let’s start with Step 1:

What Is Feasibility?
Technically put, feasibility is a comparison of revenue to expenses. Simply put, is your business set up to make what you need?

To answer that question, you have to know what you need. If you’re not sure, it’s time for some personal budgeting. Ick, we know, but it’s not as awful as it sounds. Make a list of your household expenses. These would include rent or mortgage payment (include property taxes if you own your home), utilities, insurance (including medical), transportation, food, pets, children, and personal expenses (entertainment, grooming, clothing, and the like). Don’t forget big picture items like taxes and savings.

Estimating Revenue
When we create transition plans for dogbiz business consulting clients, we’re always careful to estimate revenue conservatively. We want any miscalculations to come out in your favor, so rather than basing your numbers on a full calendar year, assume 10 months of active work time. This will help accommodate holidays, your own vacation time (yes, dog pros can—and should—take vacations), and the unexpected.

To calculate your revenue, first decide on your capacity. When your business is running on all cylinders, how many clients can you handle sustainably? How many private training clients per week? How many classes can you teach, and with how many students max per class? What number of dogs can comfortably and safely play on your daycare floor or vacation with you in your boarding facility? How many dog walks can you take, or pet sits can you make?

Next, multiply that number by your rates to give you a weekly revenue. Multiply this number by 4 for the month and your resulting monthly number by 10 for the year. The number you get will be a simple estimate of your maximum gross revenue, or what you’ll make if your dance card is full. Divide this by 12 for your average monthly gross intake.

Because we want to be conservative about revenue, you’ve got a few more calculations to make: Multiply your gross monthly number by 75% and 50% to give you safer numbers to work with. These numbers will help show you what level of capacity you need to reach to cover your needs.

Estimating Expenses
To help protect against unwelcome surprises we estimate expenses liberally. To get a sense of your expenses, determine costs in three categories:

General expenses. Include any vehicle costs, communication fees (phone, internet, etc.), office supplies, training or care supplies, staffing costs if you have them, and marketing.

Professional expenses. Your professional membership and certification fees go here, as does your budget for ongoing professional development like courses, conferences, seminars, web seminars, books, and DVDs. Also include liability insurance and professional support such as accounting and business consulting.

Facility expenses. If you’re bricks-and-mortar based, you’ll have rent or mortgage to contend with, as well as utilities and repairs.

If you’re just getting started, don’t forget start-up costs. Though these won’t factor into your monthly feasibility figures, you need to consider initial education costs, marketing (logo and website), and if applicable, facility setup and build-out or improvements.

What The Numbers Say
Just a little more math and we can see where you sit. Simply subtract your monthly expenses number from your monthly gross revenue number to get your net monthly revenue, or what’s left for you. How does that number look? Is it enough to cover your personal needs?

Don’t panic or become discouraged if the answer is no. Very often an adjustment or two can work wonders. Are there additional services you might add? Or changes you can make to the service you’re planning or already offer that would increase revenue? Most dog pros set their rates too low—do you have room to raise revenue through a rate increase? We look in at these sorts of adjustments in Part 2 of this series.

Are You Ready To Go Full Time?
If you’re ready to put your career where your heart is, it’s time to build your transition plan. Start by setting aside some time to run your numbers, and then read Part 2 of this series. The dogs are waiting for you!

Find out more about Starting Your R+ Dog Training Business with our services and toolkits.

If you missed part 1 in this series on creating a transition plan to full-time dog pro, which summarized the four steps of a transition plan and covered how to assess the financial feasibility of your dream business, you can read Part 1 here. In this article we turn to step 2 of your plan, which involves getting yourself and your business ready for the transition.

The transition period to full-time dog pro can be both exciting and trying. It’s a great feeling to be underway in pursuit of your dog career goals, but juggling your “regular” job and life responsibilities with starting or growing your dog business can get exhausting pretty fast. The personal, work, and business assessments, adjustments, and priority-setting you’ll do here in step 2 are designed to get you through your transition as quickly as possible. We don’t want you getting stuck mid-stream!

Assess Your Job Situation
If you’re working a regular job, part of your transition to full-time dog pro will be a transition out of your current work. In some situations this will be a smooth, gradual process. For others, the change will be a bit more challenging. Here are some questions you’ll need to answer:

Can your hours be flexible? Do you have the luxury of heading into the office late or taking a long lunch to fit in a day training client, dog walk, or pet sit visit? Can you work from home all or part time to help accommodate a boarder or board & train guest? Or are you expected in the office 8-5, relegating your dog service hours to nights and weekends?

Can you exit gradually? Will you be able to reduce your work hours over time (say, reducing from 40 hours to 32, then 32 to 20, and so on), or will you have to quit your job all at once?

Obviously a job with flexible hours that allows a gradual exit will make for the easiest transition—you’ll be able to ramp down at your job as your clients and revenue ramp up. But don’t despair if your situation doesn’t allow for this kind of flexibility. Though your transition may take a bit longer and require a larger amount of juggling to build to a safe quitting point, even a despotic boss and set-in-stone hours can’t keep a dedicated dog pro from full-time dog work.

Assess Your Finances
Take a look at your financial assets: Do you have a safety net? This might come in the form of other household income that can help you transition more quickly, or savings that allow you quit that job a bit earlier.

Backup income or savings of some kind will be of particular help to anyone stuck in a full-time-or-nothing job with inflexible hours, but if that’s you and you don’t have a safety net, continue to resist despair. Double down on the rest of the steps in this article to help compensate, and have heart. Though your plan may take longer to implement, it’ll be all the sweeter when you reach the end.

Prioritize Your Activities
We find that most of our clients have a lot going on: Work, starting or running the business, family, hobbies, volunteer work, household responsibilities. Oh! And the dog! All too often the juggling act begins to break down during transition, and sadly it seems the things that matter most get caught in the tumble.

Realistically you won’t be able to handle everything once you’re in transition mode. The trick to keep this reality from becoming disastrous or guilt-ridden is to decide now, up front, what you’re going to temporarily set down in order to pursue your goals. Because if you don’t make the hard decision to let go of your volunteer work at the shelter or your crafting classes at the community center, it’ll likely be your own dog not getting walked or your personal health not being tended to. And remember: You can pick everything back up once you’re your own boss.

Prioritize Your Spending
What can you let go of in order to get what you want? Are there large or small sacrifices worth making to get out of that cubicle or away from that boss so you can spend your days with dogs? Take a hard look at your personal budget. Is there room for tightening?

Assess & Adjust Your Business
One trick to getting through your transition plan as quickly as possible is making sure your business—whether old news or brand new—is running as efficiently as possible.

Adjust your services. You’ll be able to quit your job a lot earlier if your services are maximized for your clients’ success and your revenue.

Trainers, look at shortening initial consults if you’re running over 90 minutes, and shorten those write-ups, too. Be sure you’re selling packages in order to increase revenue and better help clients meet training goals. If your work schedule allows, consider offering day training or board & train to maximize revenue and training results. Teaching classes? Switch to open enrollment, particularly for your entry level puppy and basic manners classes, to avoid losing money to cancelled or under-enrolled courses. Then offer short-run topics-based classes like 3 or 4-week courses on loose-leash walking or recall. These fill more quickly than longer intermediate or advanced classes. If you can provide specialty or niche courses, like agility or nosework or growly dog classes, that will help, too.

Dog walkers and pet sitters, remove offerings that aren’t in your or the animals’ best interests, such as shorter walks or visits that come with a small payout and leave more of your time spent in the car than with the four-leggeds.

Adjust your rates. You’ll also get to the other side of your transition more quickly if you’re making more for the services you provide. This is the best, most risk-free time to raise your rates, now while you’ve still got an outside income. And once you do, you’ll be able to save faster while you’re still working, in order to expand or build your safety net.

Adjust your policies. Good policies save money. Sometimes a lot of money. If you don’t have strong scheduling and cancellation policies that you consistently enforce, it’s time to tighten up. How to know if yours need tightening? If you find yourself asking the question, “What time is good for you?” your scheduling policy most certainly needs attention. And if your cancellation policy is some form of “XX hours notice,” it’s time to take a good look there, too.

Automate. Get as many of your systems streamlined as possible to help save precious time during your transition. Choose from the myriad software options available to dog professionals, including Dog Biz Pro for trainers, Scout and Better Walker for dog walkers, PetSitClick and Petcheck for sitters, and PocketSuite for just about any small business—just to name a few. Where applicable, automate payment for your services online as well. For example, it’s easy these days to set up payment for dog training classes on your website with programs like Dog Biz Pro.

Adjust Your Schedule
Once you enter your transition period, you’re going to be busy. It’s no easy task juggling the job, the business, and life outside of work, too. Set yourself up with a master schedule to make the juggling a bit easier and much less stressful. A master schedule helps you get through your transition plan faster, too, by ensuring a more efficient use of your time for things like marketing, which will be key to reaching your goal of being a full-time dog pro.

Are You Ready To Go Full Time?
If you’re ready to put your career where your heart is, spend some time making your assessments and adjustments and prioritizing what’s most important to you during your transition period. Then read Part 3 of this series to learn how to set up the support systems you’ll need to make it through your transition to full-time dog trainer or dog walker as fast and as easily as possible.

Find out more about Starting Your R+ Dog Training Business with our services and toolkits.