Dog Trainer, Manager, Entrepreneur?

By Connie Cleveland

 

A Business Owner’s Perspective

Listening to a recent interview, this question was posed to comedian Brian Regan: “Your colleagues are in awe of how much material you produce. How is it that you come up with so much material?” Without any hesitation he responded, “I see funny where other people see ordinary.”

I shook my head in agreement. When he talks about the emergency room, or shipping through UPS, I laugh until my sides ache. He is absolutely right, he sees funny where I see ordinary.

My sister is a high school art teacher. On a recent visit, she was driving me around the area and suddenly turned down a side street and asked if I minded if we stop at the scrap metal yard. I couldn’t imagine what we needed, but said sure. I watched as she wandered around, looking, gazing, picking up bent pieces of metal and examining them. “Look!” she held up a bent and rusty piece of some sort of something- “If I get these three pieces, they will make a stunning sculpture on the side of the barn!” She gathered them in her arms and set off to pay.

They will? I thought. She sees art and I see scrap metal.

It’s the time of year that my dear friend showers me with fresh vegetables from her garden. It’s a good thing, because when I see a garden, I don’t see new growth or beauty, let alone delicious food. I feel sweaty and dirty and start to itch for all the bug bites that I imagine.

My parents got me my first dog when I was eight-years-old, but I was already a dog fanatic. I was one of those kids who  wanted to pet every dog she saw. I learned to walk holding on to the family Puli. Every Albert Payson Terhune book was read to me long before I could read them myself, and by middle school I knew I wanted to be a dog trainer like the author Blanche Saunders (because her Poodles could jump and retrieve), or a veterinarian like James Herriot.

But hearing Brian Regan, gave me pause to stop and think about my own ability. I am not a comedian, nor am I an artist or a gardener. However, when most people would say, “I see a dog,” I realized that I saw an opportunity to communicate with another species.

I see a dog and wonder what I can teach it, how engaged it will be, and what it could learn. I meet dogs that I want to communicate with, and I meet some that are begging me (or someone) to communicate with them. I now understand, where other people see hair and slobber, dirty footprints and loud barking, I see an opportunity to have a relationship with another species.

All I ever wanted to be was a dog trainer. In fact, it wasn’t until I had three full-time employees and ten part-time employees that it occurred to me that I was a business owner. I did not set out to own a small business, it just happened to me. There were more students than I could teach and more dogs than I could train. I needed help, and the Dog Trainers Workshop evolved.

However, that evolution did not include  a small business owner at the helm. I am a dog trainer. I remember one of my first employees trying to explain to me that working for me was frustrating because of the lack of organization. Where were the job descriptions and why had we not written and documented all the operating procedures?

Ten years ago an accountant asked me what my “exit strategy” was. Exit strategy? I thought he was kidding. Why did I need an exit strategy? I love what I do and intend to do it forever.

However, gradually (probably far too gradually), it became clear to me that I was a business owner, and in order to be successful, I needed to learn how to lead a small business. It was not sustainable to spend all my time perfecting my dog training skills. If I did that, who was going to lead my business?  I was facing frustrated employees and an unmanageable schedule.

If I was going to lead my business, I needed to become passionate about learning how to do so.

Running a business demands knowledge about leadership, management, marketing, finance, lead generating and converting, and customer fulfilment. Perhaps true entrepreneurs start with those passions and easily develop the skills needed to be a business owner. However, my passion for dog training did not lead me to study any of those subjects. In fact, there was a time that if you had suggested that I study those subjects I would have recoiled, thinking “How could I make time for that? My interest is in behavior modification and learning theory!”

I’ve heard my story from numerous professionals. Any doctor or veterinarian will tell you that they learned about medicine in school, but nothing about running a business. In fact, it seems that most businesses fail, not because of the owner’s lack of technical skill, but because of their lack of knowledge about what is required to run the business.

Thankfully, a business degree is not the only way to learn to run a business. Once I set out to educate myself, information was plentiful. Over time, words like leadership, manager, business development, and strategic planning were part of my vocabulary. I found numerous opportunities to surround myself with other small business owners. Coaches and mentors are plentiful as well as well-designed business development programs.

I consider it a great gift that I have a passion that allows me to see the world differently than others. Pursuing that gift and having it become an avocation has been a blessing. I may have stumbled into business ownership, but thankfully that realization has given me the motivation to grow as a dog trainer and as the manager and the entrepreneur that my business needs.

 

Connie Cleveland

Connie Cleveland is a nationally-recognized dog trainer recognized for her work with family dogs and dogs involved in obedience and field trial competitions, as well as dogs exhibiting challenging behavioral problems. She is also the owner of the Dog Trainers Workshop, a spacious training and boarding facility for dog lovers featuring an indoor training facility, an outdoor agility ring, and a boarding kennel set on 14 acres with a pond and walking trail. Cleveland’s eleven obedience trial championship dogs include her dog Eli, the first Golden Retriever to earn both field and obedience championships, and her dog Ezra, the only Labrador to have earned an obedience trial championship, a field championship, and an amateur field championship. To learn more about Dog Trainers Workshop or to reach Connie, see https://www.dogtrainersworkshop.com or https://www.facebook.com/DogTrainersWorkshop.