259: INSPIRE with Dom Hodgson
Summary:
How do we keep up the momentum of growth and success we have, without pulling our hair out? Dom Hodgson, the Pet Biz Wiz, talks about growing your business sustainably through pricing and upselling on additional services. By continuing to focus on the fundamentals of our businesses, we’ll be less likely to make rushed and stressed decisions. Dom also shares what it means to give your clients a premium on-boarding experience and how to increase lock-in of existing clients. Dom has an upcoming live event in March (INSPIRE 2022) that we are taking part in, and would love to see you there!
Main topics:
2022 challenges
Keeping growth momentum
On-boarding experience
INSPIRE 2022
Main takeaway: We can get so busy that we start to forget the fundamentals of our business and need to refocus from time to time.
About our guest:
Dom Hodgson was born in Sunderland , in the North East of England in January 1978. He left school at 16 and began a career as a singer and dance teacher before getting a 'proper job' as sales rep for a tobacco company. 10 years later he fancied a change and launched a dog adventure business called Pack Leader Dog Adventures.
From there he got into dog training which eventually led to his online and offline dog training program and the launch of his Amazon bestselling, highly acclaimed book 'How to Be Your Dogs Superhero'. The year after Dom penned Walk Yourself Wealthy, which shows pet business owners how to turn their passion for pooches intoa profitable business. In 2018 Dom wrote his third book 'Worry Free Walks: How to transform your dangerous, difficult and devilish dog into a problem free pooch that your proud to take to the park.
The latest book 'Worry Free Walks' is the first in a 5 book series that aims to fill the knowledge gap for dog owners who love their dogs dearly, but have no control over them. He lives in Sunderland with his wife Beth, two sons, Alex and Toby, and Barry (the Dogue de Bordeaux) and Sidney (the Cocker Spaniel). In no particular order he loves red wine, ballet, HBO television shows, cheese, baking bread and chillaxing at the park with his dogs and a Jack Reacher book.
Links:
INSPIRE Sign up by Feb 28th for a massive discount
Free Copy of Walk Yourself Wealthy
Dom was also on episode 151 and episode 112
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, clients, business, pet, dog, service, event, money, niche, big, price, year, pricing, talking, dog walkers, marketing, grow, upsell, growth phase, easy
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin, Dominic
Meghan 00:10
Hello, I'm Meghan I'm Collin and this is Pet Sitter confessional an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter.
Collin 00:20
Hello, and welcome to a very special Friday episode. What does it mean to give our clients a highly choreographed onboarding experience? And how do we sustain the growth that many of us so desperately want for our business without pulling our hair out? Dominic Kotzen, the pet biz was joins the show, again to discuss these topics and many more. Plus we talk about his upcoming live event in March. Let's get started.
Dominic 00:44
Secondly, Colin, thanks so much for having me on again. Paul. I'm really looking forward to chatting with you today. Yeah, hello, everybody. My name is Dom Hodgson. I am known as the pet biz whiz. And I am British. That's why I sound like this. I don't have a speech impediment. And yeah, I've been in the pet industry for about 10 years now. We're actually celebrating our 10th birthday this year. And for the last kind of five years, I have been primarily coaching other pet business owners, usually service best pet business owners, so sitters, walkers, trainers, daycare owners, to better improve their marketing so they can make more money so they can make more of an impact in their community, and basically create a really safe and sustainable and successful business. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm, that's my main thing that I do now. All the time.
Collin 01:35
Yeah. Well, I love the fact that part of that mission for you is to have them make an impact on their community. And I feel like as pet businesses, we can really do that in a lot of different ways. What do you see is some of the biggest impacts that we're able to make?
Dominic 01:51
Oh, yeah, like so, so many, you know, where I think this is one of the well, certainly my experience is one of the few professions where you can, you can really fulfill your dreams, you know, you can create a fun business for yourself. And you can also be incredibly useful, you know, to pet dog owners in your town. And you can, you can obviously help them to enjoy their lives better, you can provide more, you know, stimulation and play and all these kinds of things for the dogs that you look after, and relationships in a safe environment for them. Yeah, that's the same time as like making money, you know, and I don't know, I'm gonna do probably people from other professions who said they can do a similar thing, but I think with us pet people were so kind of heart centered. And, you know, we really do have the dog's interest at heart. This is, you know, it's a it's a dream, isn't it? You know, you guys that you guys are kind of living that dream it as well.
Collin 02:51
Yeah, it's, it's kind of weird to describe exactly what we do, because the actual service has such like, levity, and joy and fun to it. But we take it super seriously. Like it is life and death in many situations when we're caring for people's pets. And that's a weird balance to strike. And to make sure that we're keeping those kinds of in focused and remembering at the end of the day, what what we're in it for, and why we're doing it.
Dominic 03:18
Yeah, I agree. 100%, you hit the nail on the head there, buddy? I am. Yeah, we're here ultimately, to to be that, what we call, I've called my service over the years, like the six emergency service, you know, so there's like, the different emergency services where the six emergency service where the where that kind of second family for people who don't have that second family to call on, you know, with their dog? Yeah. And, yeah, it's it, like you said, it's a super serious, you know, you there's, whilst it's fun, and it's a really business, I think, in marketing, the business exciting and different directions, you can take it in. But yeah, you provide a very serious service for people. And, you know, they, again, but that's, you know, that's something to be kind of proud of, as well, isn't it? You know, this is something to you know, if, you know, you've got clients who like they trust you guys, implicitly, you know, and that's a, it's a weighty responsibility, but it's also something to be really proud of, as well. But it
Collin 04:22
doesn't come without its, you know, its struggles. And so you're plugged in to a lot of businesses and people are coming to you to ask questions. With it being a new year and kind of where we've come from, what are some of the biggest challenges that you're seeing?
Dominic 04:39
I think a lot of the challenges that I'm seeing are, well, they're just a lot of the there's kind of macro, bigger things that I'll talk about in a second. There's the usual challenges of running a business, you know, competition, you know, keeping up with demand now that everything is kind of unlocking and people are going back to work. Can going on holiday and all this kind of thing certainly UK anywhere this is this is happening a lot now with it, you know, it's well past its peak, fingers crossed the COVID. And this is just some that will learn to live with now. So it's like it's almost business as usual now and so because of that we have all of the usual things that we want to deal with, you know, like competition, and, you know, making sure that we are making sure that really that the business is growing in the direction that you want it to grow in, you know, because when people start moving around, and then they need, they're looking for helpers like us, and the guys who are listening to this podcast, it's very easy for you to go from, you know, zero or 70, for all to full to bursting really quite quickly. And you want to make sure you need to make sure that you are your premium niched, in my opinion as well. You know, they said that, because this you're going to build a business that you love as well, you know, it's, I think the danger really is I don't think there's Yeah, I think the big danger really is that you don't think enough about the business side of the business and the direction you want it to go in. And you let the business kind of run away from you and running off in all kinds of different directions, because that's, this is very possible now that we've got all this kind of movement and things just things are just getting so much back to normal. on a bigger scale. We've got things like, we've got challenges, like inflation, you know, is running rampant, pretty much both sides, it for you guys as well as us. There's certainly over here, I'm not sure what it's like over there, kind of over here, there's a bit of a cost of living crisis, where energy prices are going through the roof, and all these things that it comes back to how you kind of deal with these things like inflation, and cost of living squeezes, is through pricing power. You know, and I think a lot of there isn't a podcast that I do, there isn't a coaching call that I do with my clients where we're not talking about pricing at some point, you know, whether it's increasing prices, pushing price, introducing upsells, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever it is, you know, and you've been even viewed me enough times, and you've heard about my stuff and read my emails and things to know, this is something that I talked about. But this is the reason is because like, that's the bottom line, you know, the bottom line, you know how much money you have in your account at the end of the month, or the end of the week. And the end of the year, this, a lot of this all comes down to pricing, you know, and how confident you are with your pricing, how much you are seen as an expert in your town. And yet, you're basically a pricing power. And not only does it affect us, so not only do we need to be constantly aware of prices, and have the ability to push price to keep ahead of inflation and keep up with this cost of living crisis, like I said, that's going on over here. But that's also obviously happening with our clients as well, you know, so they're going to be whilst we're getting back to normal. People are moving around or going on holiday and all these type of things. They're still there, their budgets are being squeezed, you know, and you always want to be kind of swimming upstream with the type of clients that you're choosing. So you are serving people who have that more disposable income, oh, that's, that's such a double sided thing. You you want to be pricing, you want to have pricing power, so that you can keep up with this. So you can maintain your standard of living and increase it. But you also it's going to make for a much safer business, if you are targeting people who have that disposable income, you know, yeah, inflation over there. Sorry.
Collin 08:40
No, I love I love all of it. Yeah, inflation over here is hit like seven and a half percent recently. I know you talk a lot about premiumization of service and being premium and being a leader in your market and in the industry. Where does that start? Right? How do we start viewing ourselves that way? Versus just another company? Good question. I think
Dominic 09:07
I think it's, I think a lot of it comes down to kind of confidence. And many pet professionals suffer from like imposter syndrome, you know, where they where they worry about not being as good as the competition who've been around longer than them, or they worry about, and this happens right throughout the industry as well, not just with walkers and sitters, you know, as trainers. The amount of trainers I speak to who, you know, they've spent their entire career just basically earning money to go on more and more courses. You know, it's like, this is their life, and some of them enjoy it for sure. But it doesn't help you particularly grow up a profitable sustainable business, you know, so, I think, for me, it's I think it's not too difficult to be like really good at something. You know, it's not too good. It's not too difficult to be the best that you can be. I'm certainly better than most of the competition, because we're the best one in the world. Most people People aren't doing that good. You know, most people aren't offering that greater service. You know, we have we have dog walkers galore in Sunderland where I am now. But like, you know, there's not a week goes by where I'm either I'm seeing people just pulling up in the vans and opening the doors and the dogs are all running wild or, you know, this person's lost a dog or this person had a dog out and never got ran over and stuff and like, there's generally the standard, like it didn't it didn't that great, you know, so certainly meeting the standard and exceeding the standards, this should be capable, everybody should be capable of doing this, you know? And then, you know, you've got to be confident, as long as you're keeping the dog safe, you know, and you're providing a stimulating environment for them. And yeah, you're, you're giving the client what they need. This is, you know, that's like enough
Collin 10:45
to start with. Yeah, it really, it really is. And I think like you said, this competence part comes in with recognizing that the service we provide, I think, just foundational to that is that it is needed, right? People need this service. And as you said, as we're as we're meeting the client's needs, in a safe, proper, effective manner, like, that is a great foundation to start from. And then sure, you can get some more education and you can, you know, shadow people, you can start learning other things and growing little by little, but then that real key part there is telling other people about it, right. And that's where this, this marketing aspect comes in, where we are messaging about who we are, what we do, why we do that, you know, marketing is really a black box, too many people. And I feel like a lot of people get frustrated with what quote unquote, marketing is in their life because of, you know, how they're running it. So if when you hear, you know, marketing is not working for me, how should I be marketing? I don't know how to get the clients that I want. What are some of your thought processes where you start kind of trying to lead that person?
Dominic 11:55
Usually, usually, it's to do with the, the who, you know, what, who are you targeting? First of all, none of people even think about that. So who am I targeting in my town, it's bad idea to just say to yourself that, you know, I'm going to take anybody with a dog and a wallet, you know, or a dog and a person. I mean, that's my ideal client is somebody with a dog and a wallet. And this is what most people start off with, this is their kind of attitude. And consequently, you end up getting all kinds of clients that a lot of whom maybe aren't a very good fit for you, you know, who maybe with hindsight, you wouldn't have picked? Well, you can bypass all that by just targeting better targeting better who it is that you want to be, that you want to be, have as your clients, you know, and as I said previously, to me, certainly my business is made perfect sense. And it's proved to be a winning strategy to target people who want something extra, who wants something different, who are prepared to pay for that, as well, you know, who are prepared to pay for a better service wrapped up in a better marketing message and stuff as well, you know, and it's like, everybody has this opportunity as well, almost everybody has this opportunity in their town to be the top dog, you know, this is within your grasp, doesn't matter whether you're just starting out, or they've been going for two months, or two years, or 10 years, you've got this opportunity now, and you know, somebody is going to claim that top spot, why not be you? Yeah, you know, I mean, this is there. So it's definitely the Who who are you targeting? And then yeah, like, why why should they choose you, you kind of you hit upon this before, you know, who am I? What do I do? What do I do this different? Why should people choose me? You know, why should people choose you? So then we come back to things like, like being premium, you know, some people just will pay for a higher price service anyway, it's naturally what they do, you know, they buy the, the penthouse and not just the other thing, or they buy the S class Mercedes instead of the C class Mercedes, or you know, all these kinds of things. This is just what they do, you know, so you can be the S class Mercedes dogwalker in your town, petsitter in your town. That's, that's yours to claim. And then there's other things like nition, you know, if you niche down, you're seen as being more specialists straightaway. Yeah, most existing businesses could just look at their existing client base and see what commonalities there are between the clients, you know, do you mainly serve? Bulldogs? Do you mainly serve gundogs? Do you mainly bird dogs? I think it is over there. And you may only serve Schnauzers you know, like, what, what is the what? Who are you already attracting that is making up the main bulk of the money that you're earning? That's probably going to be the dogs that you enjoy working with the most as well you know, and it's going to be like your what is something that you're passionate about? Might not be breed might be relationship with the dog might be that, you know, you might mainly serve on your client list. You might mainly have, you know, women over 50 single women over 50 You know, bingo, that's your niche. You know, mean? Like, it's you know, that is that is, you can take that and target more of those people. And you can specialize as you know, I specialize in helping, you know, orderly or older women who were struggling to what their dogs and stuff, you know, this is this is our special you can specialize by anything you want, really. But they usually there'll be some obvious ones within your, your existing client list. If you're a new business, then you should, you know, go with go with Cody, go go with your heart go with what people aren't doing at the moment.
Collin 15:31
And that's where that that pricing power really comes in. Because that that basically says I can charge what I want, because of the niche that I'm in, because that's where the demand that I have that I've kind of fallen into. And I love that idea of looking at what you're currently doing. Because then you know, it comes easy to you like, Oh, this is how I'm already talking. This is how I'm already messaging, this is how I already am operating, instead of trying to completely whole cloth change all of your operations and your business to meet a new demand and just kind of looking at where you are right now. And obviously you can make those changes if necessary. But kind of doing that inward reflection really helps make sure that you are but that you're aware of what's going on, I don't think many people can look at their client list. Or could right now say, what's the vast majority, you know, what, who am I serving right now, it takes a little bit of time, but it really sets you up very well, when you start making business decisions, price increases with new services, messaging, all of that really, as you said, starts with the who and when we That's That's all that's on us to figure out.
Dominic 16:42
Yeah, and like you said, not too difficult to figure out really, you know, just take a take a look at it, they take a look at the client base and see, you know, see where the most money is coming from as well, you know, so you might have a lot of clients, but you know, just do a little 8020 job on it. See which of the 20% of the clients are bringing in 80% of the money for you, you know that, again, that there'll be commonalities between those people as well. And like you said, this is not a you know, this is doesn't have to be you can make it as big a job as you want it to be. But you know, if I'm guessing most people, if they're honest, their website copy is going to look pretty similar to the other everybody else's website copy in their town, you know, in their industry. Well, if you look at if you look down your client list, and you have, like I said, if you have a lot of Cocker Spaniels, you know, and, or pointer dogs or whatever, and then you you just you go back onto your website, and then you just tweak it, you know, see it instead of just saying, you know, we love dogs you sell, you know, we have pointers, you know, and we specialize in pointers. And what this does is it does two things, it makes the existing pointer clients feel like more likely found somebody who is a is an expert, and they've made they feel more attached to you, you know, because you're obviously leaning into this niche. And it makes it really easy for new Pointer customers to find you, you know, because when they're scrolling through Google, and they're looking at this dog walker and that dog on the other one, the old sound predator, they all sound pretty similar, you know, and then they stumble across one that is like, it just seems to them, you know, they just didn't notice you. And then they like, they won't believe their luck that they've been able to find somebody who is, you know, who was specializes in looking after their kind of dog. The big fear that everybody has with this is their people merely worry about, oh, well, if I if I only concentrate on this, well, then I cut off all of the other dogs, you know, that could potentially look after him in a way? Yeah, you do. But you know, that's enough. As long as there's enough of those particular kind of dogs. People will travel far and wide. You know, I have clients who like they've got they've got their clients are traveling, like hundreds of miles, you know, like to leave dogs with them or to train with them because they had been seen as a specialist in this in a niche
Collin 19:00
for many years reflecting on I know for at least US reflecting on last year 2021 It was a it was a banner year, for most of us was a lot of growth. There was a lot of expansion, there was a lot of demand in and I think we're now looking at maybe some headwinds in 2022 and beyond or maybe not but how do we what's something that I know many people struggle with is they're growing like gangbusters and things can start to kind of unravel or feel like it's going crazy. So how do we how do we keep this growth this momentum up while while saving our sanity? Good one good one. Yeah.
Dominic 19:43
I think um I think when you when you're in a growth phase when you're when you're in a real growth phase in your approach in your approach and you know, your books being full, your diary been full. This is where like planning And remembering these kind of foundational fundamentals of the business, like pricing and stuff like that, it's this is where it's really critical. Because when you're, when you're busy, you tend to forget about the basics, you know, you tend to forget about things you forget about things like price, you know, and it's what I would, I would suggest everybody does, and including you guys would be to be more aggressive with pricing than what you are doing now. You know, so, it's, it's always going to be better for you to be slightly higher price than you are now, almost always, you know, because you're going to have, especially now that you're expanding, you're gonna have more margin built into the, the service offering, you know, so the staff member gets a good read, you guys get a better rate. And also you have more, you have more money to invest in advertising, you have more money to invest in on board in the clients and stuff as well, and making sure that they have like a really great experience with you, which in turn, makes them more likely to refer you to others and stuff as well, you know, you were, there is one of the things that I I mean, I speak to my coaching clients, like every three months, okay, so every three months, we do a lot of work, when somebody comes in as a coaching client. At the start, we do a lot of the heavy lifting at the start. But every three months that we've they fill in a detailed form that I've put together, and then we do a call. And on the call that I did with somebody on Friday, we're talking about price again, you know, price comes up, she done this, this and this took on two staff members. And the plans, a bit of seven kind of been to a little bit of a growth phase, and I'm just going to a little bit of a reordering phase, you know, which is great. But at the same time as I am, they're reminded, like, look, you know, if you're if you're still in demand for this, then we need to push the price with that. Yeah, because we want to kind of dampen demand a little bit. And we want to, we want to make sure that we're always growing more profitably. And also, yeah, this, this, come back to all the time. But like, you know, you you see, you can, the business can grow as fast almost as fast as you want. If you have decent what you do. And we're going through a, like a big growth phase as we are at the moment. Anybody anybody can grow, like really quickly, you know, but it isn't much fun, just growing quickly, you know, you want to grow probably a little bit, not as quickly and more profitably, you know, and yeah, that's true, you know, you, like you'd mentioned about, you know, hanging on to the horns and stuff of it. Yeah, you know, you, you want to, you want to kind of ride that wave, you also want to do is what the pricing power also enables you to do is it enables you to create things I just mentioned, a really good experience for the clients, you know, so onboarding materials, onboarding, gifts, referral gifts, all this kind of thing. And when you do that, or you know, enroll, enroll your clients turn it into a bit of a club, you know, so when they join your business, they join in, like a club. Yeah, so they're feeling like they're part of something bigger, and more special than just like a service provider. If you do stuff like that, what you also do is you protect the business as it grows as well, you know, because what you don't want to do is you don't just want to grow and get kind of complacent and have people come in, and then somebody come in and undercutting you, and then the clients are got, you want it when they, when they come in, you want to lock them in, you know, and lock them in for like a long period of time. I don't mean lock them in with like, a contract per se, you know, but you lock them in with the experience that you provide for them, you know, so they feel valued, they feel appreciated, you know, they feel like they're part of like something special. And we start to sound a bit because I'm talking about some things that people don't really recognize, but there's this huge part of the job, you know, providing, especially when you're your premium tool, is you want to provide a premium experience for people you this should be a highly choreographed sequence of events as well you know, this, this onboarding experience and what follows after that as well, because it needs to be you know, it really it really needs to be this is the most you know, when somebody comes into the business, they've taken a massive step obviously to to go from, you know, stalking you on Facebook and you're asking for asking people if they if they can recommend you and all this kind of thing, you know, there is their situation as with their dogs deteriorated to a point where they're like desperate for your help, whatever it is, they've taken a huge step to get in touch with you. But that is not it's not like you do the meet and greet and then you know you agree to look after the dog and then that's it. It's a lot you know that you there's a lot more to it than that, you know, there's such a thing as like buyer's remorse. You know, you don't want people you want people to feel happy and feel welcomed and feel appreciated and feel like they want to spend more money with you as well, you know, and they want to refer you with their friends, and they understand the rules as well of the game, which are whatever you want them to be, you know, you know, you can insist on people giving you referrals, if you want, you know, this is like, they're much more likely to give them that way, I guarantee it, as well as, as well as, you know, the providing a fantastic experience as well. But yeah, you made a good point before as well, calling about the time, you know, we time we money, we can always earn more money, you know, like, time, not so much. This is this is it, you know, this is this is that all of the time that you've got now is all of the time that you're going to have. So you want to make sure that you're that you're growing, that you're not just growing for growing sick. And, you know, it is possible by doing some of the things that we've talked about now to to grow the business without actually, as drastically growing the client base. You know, I have I have a goal for this year. So I have a goal for this year to double my coaching business. Right. It's a big goal. It's a lofty goal, but I won't hit that number by doubling the amount of clients that I deal with. I can't because, well, I can't and I don't want to, I don't want, I don't want to work, I don't want to work double the amount of time, you know, yeah, so how am I gonna? How am I gonna do that, then? Well, I'm gonna do it through, you know, I'll have to bring some new some new clients on as well. But I'll bring those clients on at higher prices, I'll target better, you know, I'll target people who have six figure plus businesses, who they're the people that I'm best off helping anyway, you know, because there's usually loads of things that they're missing, they usually rushing around like headless chickens, you know, and they're missing all these, like, really easy wins that are there. For someone like me, it's really obvious to spot you know, when but yeah, you want to try to be careful in this. In this kind of growth phase when you know, when when we're in a phase like we are at the moment, and that a little bit, I think we're a little bit behind the fears that you were you are over there. But like money's literally like running uphill, you know, it's like it. It's easy, it's easy, it's easy to get complacent, it's easy to let the business run away from you. So I would really think about that you really think about what it is that you guys want, not you guys, you too, but when you you and everybody listening to this, you know what you want, you know, because this is your business, you are in control of it. And I've had to do this several times in my business journey, you know, and take a step back and say, Oh, well, I could do that. And I could do that. And I could do this, you know, but like, really? What's making me happy? You know? And how much money do I really want to earn? You know, like, How much money do I need? You know, how much money do we need to be happy, you know, to do all of the things that we want to do, you know, on this stuff slightly different if you have a business that you want to build, to sell or whatever, you know, and that kind of thing. But again, does that even does that goal fit in with what you want? You know, with what you want from from the business, you know, so yeah, you got to really, once you once you ride on the coattails of this, you make sure that you're putting these systems in place, to lock in all of the clients to onboard them to upsell them to higher priced services and stuff as well. To get them to refer people this is this is kind of how you managed to grow your business exponentially without it all just been about more clients, more clients, more clients, more staff, more staff, more services, you
Collin 28:34
know, that's a kind of can be a balancing act I feel like to have when you talk about upselling them to a service. On one hand, we need to think about how and what else we can do to offer to our existing clients. On the other hand, we can feel like sometimes we get stretched too thin with the amount of services that we offer. I know that something that Megan and I talk about is that right now we're really trying to focus on two, maybe three services, especially in our new area just because it's easier to message and to focus and to get people's brains wrapped around what it is that our company is doing. And then adding the second part of like, Okay, now let's plan down the line of what we can add to this. So how do we strike this balance between wanting to upsell and provide additional things versus trying to stay focused and not feel like we were trying to do everything
Dominic 29:30
you have like two things going on? Okay, I call it like the twin engines of business. Okay, so you have the first engine is all about promoting the business, getting eyes on the services, attracting the right kind of clients, and hopefully, you know, putting the right kind of marketing materials out there offline and offline, just getting people on an email list all this kind of doing events, you know, whatever it is. That's that's the the front end if you like, you know, so that's kind of what you guys are That's what you're talking about, and you're on your new service area. Yeah. So that's all the activity, you're trying to keep that nice and simple, which is good. Because then people are going to get to know you for this for your main service. And obviously, you think this is your best bet. To get fresh eyes on the business, you know, and to bring in new clients for this new thing, success engine number one, okay, well, once the most people only ever concentrate on engine number one, more clients, fresh eyes more, more, more, more, more, more. But there's a second engine. And the second engine deals with onboarding upselling getting referrals and testimonials, providing a fantastic experience, like all the things we just talked before locking people in, you know, maybe it's cross selling, all this kind of thing as well, you know, and all of the big money, all of the easy money in your business is made from engine number two, okay? Comparatively, very little effort is required to turn somebody from someone who was using you once a week to somebody who's using your twice a week, or from somebody who's using your standard service to somebody who's using your premium service, or from somebody who's using a dog sitting service to somebody who's also using the grooming service, or whatever else it is that you're offering as well, it's comparatively easy to take them from spending a certain amount of money with you to spend them more money with you than it is to get them to go from prospect to customer. So you need to have, you need to have both engines running, obviously, and when the when the, when you're doing when you're a new business, or when you're doing what you guys are doing where you're all, you know, you're you're starting up effectively in a new town, you know, in a new area, the obviously, most of your efforts go into this, because you just want eyes on the business, you want the right kind of people contacting you, you want to be able to communicate why you're different to everybody else, and what how you can help people. But you got to have this second system in place, the second set of systems in place to do all of the things that I just talked about there that engine number two deals with, you know, and if you don't, you just end up with a many headed beast of a business that is all about more clients, more services, more staff and more stress, in my opinion, anyway, you know, you've got to, is this this balancing act. And this engine number two is essentially it's all about systems, it's all about, you know, planning out what the customer journey is going to look like, you know, everything from, you know, scripts, upsell postcards that we give to people remind us about referrals, you know, there's like, the whole list of things that we can build, you just build it up slowly over time. But but but the important thing is that, remember, the big takeaway from this podcast people is all of the hidden money, all of the big money, all of the easy money is can be exploited via engine number two, this is where like, likes of a business coach comes in, you know, because they can see all these things. You know, like, I like I said, you know, most people, most people don't, you know, 100,000 pounds or $100,000, or, you know, let's just say that number is 100,000. You know, there's usually there might be anywhere from like, 10 to 20 to 30 to 40,000, that you can find quite easily jumping, but without getting but you know, but there is, you know, I'm not blowing smoke on my own, but like this is I do this every day, you know, unless it's like the fun part, you know, want to get in the form of so Monterrey okay, what we got, you know, one of the assets, what are we doing? And then you lay it all out, and you know, you because because I do this all the time, because it's fresh eyes as well. So whether it's me, okay, I'll take the plug out of it, whether it's me, or whether it's any other sort of pet business coaches out there, this is what you get the benefit of is this, like fresh eyes, you know,
Collin 34:01
yeah, it's so important to have fresh eyes and fresh understanding about our business and continuing to learn about things that that are going to help us in the long run. And that that's, that's a major component of something that I know that you have coming out really soon. And that Megan and I are going to be taking part in as well. So tell us about inspire and kind of where the origins of that are and why that's something you think is so needed.
Dominic 34:26
Okay, cool. Yeah. So the orange of the oranges. Fair enough. Apples and oranges. As your podcast style. Yeah, the origins of it are in the fact that I loved events, basically. Okay, I've I kicked off my Excel coaching business with events. I did. I did an event I sold a boot camp. And since I've been a coach for the last five years, I've always had events as some thing that I do. So what be it, we run day to day a three day boot camps appear in Sunderland people come from all over the UK to visit them to learn how to grow their business, you know, I've done tours of the UK, we've been up and down and spoken in different places I've done. I've done dozens and dozens of live webinars, you know, online seminars and stuff, delivered all kinds of information, all kinds of different people in the pet industry, I love doing live things. And I didn't have a chance to do any real. In person live things, obviously, because of the pandemic, you know, we had a, we actually had a big event planned impact, I did impact 2019 And then add impact 2020 planned. And we've had to put that back. And that is actually happening this year. And what also happened with the pandemic, it was I wanted to do, I thought I'm going to do an online event. So I didn't inspire event then which was it was about a week long weekend, I think it was events to help pet business owners during what was obviously an incredibly difficult time where we're out of it now and things are going wonderfully. But at the time, you know, people were stressed, worried they were they were losing money in clients hand over fist, you know, and we it was really important time to, for me, I felt it was really important time for me to kind of step up and help not only my own clients, but the wider industry as well. And then this year, I just kind of wanted to start my year with a real bang. You know, I do a number of different events throughout the year and online boot camps and my business in a box and all these different things. And I've got my impact event happening in Sunderland in May. But I wanted to do something big to kick off the year and inspire the online pet business boot camp. That's kind of what I come up with, you know, so it's going to be a week well, just over a week, almost 10 days, this event is going to last starts March the 11th I'll be doing some sort of pet business basics pet business 101 over the first weekend. And I'll also be talking about different ways to market your business. You're not talking about how to do effective paper and ink, how to do, how to write copy that attracts people how to niche down how to increase prices without losing clients. Also how to different ways to promote your business. That's where you guys are gonna come in, thankfully on the Saturday talking about the podcast and the effect that that's had on your business. Then throughout the week, we got a bunch of different people from the industry. Industry leading dog trainers, award winning dog walkers, calientes Taylor, he's a dog grooming legend Pitch Perfect TV show Star, he got to be on top of how to be a dog groomer. So we're gonna do that throughout the whole week. And then at the end of the week, I'm going to do some a couple of days on staffing, scaling and Systemising the business. So yeah, and I just wanted to I wanted to do well, the number of different reasons I want to do this. One is I just wanted to do something big. I wanted to do something big to kick off my year. I do best when I do something big, big and exciting things happening. So this is like going to be a challenge for me obviously because I'm going to be certainly doing or taking part in live presentations or 10 days you know, I should get sponsored really physician now. It's gonna be a test of my endurance. But yeah, and then you know, I just wanted to do something really big to to help me attract more people into my world. To help pet business owners I want to impact 1000 pet business owners this year, whether that's helping people start up or just helping existing pet business owners to have more control more fun make more money and stuff in their business. And as well something else which is really important to me, I find I get what I want when I help people get what they want as well. So I this is I have a sort of a wider mission if you like this year, which is my opposite I've called it operation elevate and this is about elevating and helping people who are in my world private coaching clients and also people like yourselves who like I respect and I think you do a wonderful things as well is to help me to elevate them and to elevate likes you guys and stuff too. So kind of everybody wins. You know, we come together over these 10 days. We share lots of awesome information. We get people taking action, you know and you're well well yeah, we'll make a bit of money along the way but like this is you know, it's about me bringing new people into my world. I want to find more ambitious pet business owners you know, who, who like their their marketing at the moment is like the missing piece of the puzzle. You know, they're awesome at what they do. They love it. They love their clients, but like they suck at selling. They know they can't they find it difficult to get the reward and the recognition for for their their superpower skills and services, so, so yeah, that's and that's the event in a nutshell really inspired the online pet business boot camp.
Collin 40:09
I'm really excited about it and to see all the people come together for that. And I know there's a lot of different moving pieces for this. But if someone's listening to this going, hmm, is that is that for me? Is this something that is for people just started their journey? Is this something that has been in for 20 or 30 years? Or who should really be considering going to this and taking part?
Dominic 40:32
I would say I would say anyone now I might shoot myself in the foot little bit here, because it hasn't, I haven't I haven't, I have bitten off a lot with this, you know. So like I said, I've tried to do it, where it's, we've got like, at the start of the start of the boot camp, I'm doing the business basics, you know, the price in the communication, the niche and all this kind of thing, then we're going to go a little bit left field and interview somebody different every day and talk about their business journey. And you know, there might be people who they don't know where to even start thinking about becoming a groomer of opening a field business or, you know, becoming an animal therapist or something that well guess what we're going to speak to an expert, who was doing that now. And then at the end of the week, like I said, for the last weekend, we're gonna be talking about some stuff in scaling up Systemising, how to take that business to the next level kind of thing you know, and the things that you need to get. So in a way, I would say anybody who is in the service, pet industry, service sector, dog, Walker, trainer, groomer, daycare, therapists, PET scanner, pet photographer, pet sitter, any of all, any of us guys are listening to this, you will guarantee you will get value from this from this boot camp. And just as a little as a little sort of qualify. And really, I have I have a number of people who have been in my world for like a long time now. So they're, they've been recent coaching clients of mine for like five years. Okay. And they're there, maybe they're a private client in mind, they get a they get a dawn sfax on the desk on a on a Monday morning, we do a Foundation's call on a Wednesday, they might listen to the podcast on a weekend, they get my ledger that lands on their doormat once a month as well. They get a lot of DOM, and they've done all of the courses and they've been to the seminars that have these guys will still be here at this event. Yeah. Why? Because they'll pick up something that they've that they might have missed, you know, or they'll hear something in a slightly different kind of way. And these are the guys who like, you know, for all intensive purposes, could probably teach my stuff like as well as I do, you know, but because they you know, because they've had it through repetition of calling, but they'll still be there. And also anybody who is new to me who like for whom if marketing overwhelms you and befuddles you, and, you know, it scares you, like, trust me, you'll, you'll go away with like two or three nuggets that will, you know, completely transform your business. Not only that's the confidence factor to so when you when you hang around with people who are go getters who are doing all these exciting things in their business, it kind of rubs off on you, you know, it boosts your confidence. And it helps you lift your ambition and really reached out a little bit higher. So yeah, it's, I would say anybody in the pet service sector doesn't matter if you're starting next month, or you want to be starting before the end of the year, or whether you've been going for 1020 years, you know, you will almost guarantee you'll you'll pick up something that is going to help you with your business. So
Collin 43:39
how can people get signed up, find out more information and get registered for it starts? He said it starts March 11. Right.
Dominic 43:47
March 11. Yeah, great. Thank you for reminding me to actually give the URL out. Sometimes a failing. Yeah, so what I've done is I've tried to make it super accessible for everybody. Okay, so we've we've priced the tickets. Now bear in mind. And in May Collin I'm doing I'm doing a completely different event, but I'm doing a three day business boot camp in May in Sunderland. So in person live event, the tickets for that there were they weren't special for 1000 pounds each. Okay, and this is a tender thing that's online, but it's different. It's not even half or a quarter that I've priced the tickets at 127 English pounds. But but but you can actually get 100 pounds off the price of the ticket if you grab it before the end of Feb. So view before the end of Feb if you go and if you go to pet business marketing.com forward slash Inspire. You can get a full all access ticket to all of the 10 live presentations that I've just talked about with the 10 speakers of which you and Megan are are two of those. You can get all of that access to all of that out Adding the recordings as well. And there's a bunch of bonuses to that I've kind of thrown in for 27 English pounds. I don't know what that works out and dollars Burmese $40 or something I don't know. It's a bargain a bargain of the century anyway,
Collin 45:12
that's awesome. I'm trying to do that conversion right now. It's about $36. Currently, currently, as we're recording, wow, well, they go, they go. Perfect. And, yeah, no, I'm really excited about it. I think these kinds of events are really needed in the petsitting industry for people to continue to just learn from other people. But also to start. I as the title says, inspiring, inspiring ourselves and seeing more in ourselves to do bigger and better things. And that starts with community and education and getting plugged into people who are kind of doing what you want to be doing. And so anything like this is, is always a good thing for us. And so I'm really excited and we're really honored to take part of it, we will have links to that directly in the show notes, people can click and start checking that out and get registered today. We know it's gonna be a lot of fun. So really looking forward to that. Thank you so much for coming on DOM and sharing more about overcoming these challenges and giving us a new fresh reminder in this new year about the importance of pricing and the power that it brings to our business. Always Always a pleasure to have you on and super excited to for everything that's coming up.
Dominic 46:22
pleasures all mine. Yes, I'll see you and hopefully a lot of your listeners at Inspire
