How to survive (or even thrive!) in your animal training/ behaviour business during an economic crisis

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There’s no doubt about it – times are tough right now! With the cost of living crisis, rising inflation and worries about a recession, lots of peoples’ disposable income has been hit hard.

And, of course, if someone is struggling to keep up with paying their bills, they’re not likely to find money for dog training sessions or support for their stressed-out cat!

These financial pressures mean that many dog trainers and animal behaviour professionals are finding that, in contrast to being booked out for months in advance not long ago, they’re now struggling to get any clients at all.

But don’t panic! Whilst I don’t have a magic wand, I am going to share some advice to help you through this tricky time.

Things you probably shouldn’t do…

First of all, let’s look at some things that I’d generally advise against, even if they might seem like a simple answer to your problems.

Don’t ‘panic slash’ your prices

Take your time to make business decisions and consider the strategy (and all the potential pros and cons) behind them, rather than just taking panicked action in response to a quiet couple of days! Whilst it might be ok to offer a limited time discount for certain clients or services (discussed later), don’t be tempted to just reduce all of your service prices in the hope that this will win you clients. Honestly, unless you’re selling something for peanuts (not advisable!), it’s unlikely to have the effect you want and may actually de-value your brand, making a later price increase more tricky.

Don’t just offer anything that will sell

Be very cautious if you’re feeling tempted to start offering a long-term service, such as dog walking, if you know that you don’t want to (or won’t be able to) continue this into the long term. If you do, you may well end up with a lot of disgruntled customers when you later dump them all and they have to find someone to replace you. If you’re thinking along these lines, maybe consider a shorter-term alternative such as a six-week ‘walk and train’/ ‘we train for you’ package.

Don’t think short term only

Building on the above two points, try to consider your strategy for the longer term, as well as making any tweaks to keep things afloat in the short term. If you think short-term only, you’ll likely find yourself making knee-jerk decisions and then encountering the same issues again a few months further down the line. Combining quick wins with a longer term strategy which actually gets to the heart of the issue is a far better idea (oooh… so many parallels with animal behaviour modification!).

Don’t make it hard for people

Finally, try to make it easy for people to actually book in with you. You’d be amazed how hard some trainers and behaviourists make it! If you have barriers in place because you want to filter people to check that they’re a good fit to work with you, then that’s absolutely fine but there’s generally no need to make someone wanting to book on to a puppy class wait for 5 days before you get back to them with some details and a complicated set of instructions about how to proceed. Make it easy for them to give you money!

Things that you could do…

Ok, so that’s enough about what NOT to do, let’s look at what you could do.

Add bonuses or sweeteners to your existing services

Think about ways that you could enhance your standard services by adding something extra, rather than by reducing the price. To make this sustainable, you should try to make sure that whatever you add is not something that will cost you a lot of money or time. For example, you might offer free access to a recording of a tricks class or a PDF guide of enrichment ideas. If you’ve got the time available, you could even offer something like one extra free session for every package of 5 purchased.

Offer a loyalty discount

Everyone loves to feel appreciated and special. You can help your existing clients to feel like they’re in a special club by offering a discount, just for them. They already know you and have (hopefully) had a good experience of working with you before, so they’re in prime position to be tempted back into signing up for something else. Make it even easier for them to click ‘buy’ with an exclusive, limited-time discount.

Create a lower priced offer (which still pays you well!)

Have a look at your most popular packages and services, to see if there’s anything that you could strip out to create a more ‘basic’ version. You could then market this service at a more affordable price, whilst maintaining the same profit margins for you time to deliver it. [That last bit is important – this is not about reducing the ‘hourly rate’ for your package, it’s about streamlining the package to its essentials (or creating a ‘starter’ version of something), which still serves both you and your clients well.]

Offer payment plans for high-ticket services

Given that cash-flow can be tricky when the economy is not being kind to us, offering payment plans can be helpful to many potential clients. However, if you don’t have an automated system to take care of this, you’ll need to factor in the additional time that this will take and be clear in your T+Cs about the appropriate proportion of the overall cost being made in advance of each session, in case they default on the agreement.

Build confidence in your buyers

If you have time on your hands but don’t currently offer the option of a free call prior to someone signing up to work with you, this could be a good way to help potential clients to build confidence in paying for your expertise. They can get to see that you’re a real person, have any niggling questions answered and then feel more secure in their decision to move forward with you. Just be sure not to get caught up trying to solve their problem on the call! Want to learn how best to offer (and handle) client calls? This course has you covered.

Cut out any unnecessary expenses

Most of us spend money on things that we could do without in our business. Getting a handle on this can be a really easy way to help your finances through a difficult time. A useful exercise is to go through your last 12 months of accounts and scrutinise every expense. Are there recurring payments for things that don’t offer you value any more? Could you re-negotiate ongoing fees for things like venue hire? Are there any patterns to your spending which you could learn from going forward? Don’t cut out anything that saves you time (unless you have lots of time and no money) or which is specifically designed to improve your business in the longer run, as you’ll probably regret it. Where possible, for every purchase or expense going forward, give yourself 24 hours to decide if you really need it. This will help you avoid spending money that you could be saving.

Be visible

Keeping yourself at the forefront of people’s minds can be invaluable in terms of getting word-of-mouth referrals. Visit veterinary surgeries and ask how you can support them, pop in to your local pet shop to have a chat and hand over some flyers, post on social media (but don’t use time spent faffing on social media as an excuse to do nothing productive!), keep in touch with past clients through your email marketing platform. There are so many ways to increase your visibility. You could even look at getting some publicity through the local newspaper or radio station.

Leverage other income streams

Now, I’m not suggesting that you set up a pet shop in your garage (the necessary spend on stock would be a nightmare!) or create an all-singing-all-dancing online course (it takes quite a bit of time and tech to set one up properly) but, if you already have some resources, selling these might be another potential source of income. Or perhaps you fancy running a paid online workshop for pet owners (or even other professionals) on a particular topic. Open your mind to the possibilities of other ways to sell your knowledge and skills!

Look after your mental health

It is a worrying time for many people right now and that can take its toll on your metal health. Try to focus on the things you can control, rather than things you can’t. If possible, look out for the opportunities and different ways of doing things that this challenging time can bring about. Connect with other trainers and behaviourists who you can trust, so that you can support each other through it. This could be both practically (eg. referring clients on to each other or sharing resources) and emotionally (just being able to be honest and open about your struggles can be a huge relief).

Use your free time wisely

If you’re struggling to get clients, it might be tempting to just sit on the sofa feeling miserable while eating a giant tub of ice-cream but that won’t help your business! In quieter times, it’s a good opportunity to focus on all of the business-y things that you never usually get round to. You could write some helpful blog posts and share them with your audience, update your website, work on your marketing, sort out your SEO (this is the perfect resource for you!), refresh your social media bios and Google profile, ask previous clients to post reviews, create templates (like these ones) for all those things that you find yourself re-creating every few weeks. There are so many business-enhancing ‘jobs’ that you could tick off your to-do list.

Elevate your business to appeal to the premium market

Unfortunately, the people who are most vulnerable to economic crises like this one are often the very people who were struggling most in the first place. It’s sad but true. Therefore, by elevating your business to appeal to a more premium market, your business can be somewhat sheltered from the knock-on effects of economic changes on the hardest-hit pet-owning public. This will then allow you to help those who perhaps can’t afford your core services in a way that won’t cost them a penny. You could provide free educational content (blogs, downloads etc.), offer a limited number of pro-bono sessions, create special discounts for specific groups of clients etc. Elevating your business to a more premium position in the market is not the work of a moment, however, so this is a longer term strategy…. one that it makes sense to get started on as soon as possible. If you’d like to explore what might be possible for you and your business, take a look at my services - they’re specifically designed for exactly this purpose.

Through business coaching, online courses/ resources, branding and website design/ templates, I can help you to have a business that more easily weathers economic storms like this one. Because, let’s be realistic, this won’t be the last time that small businesses like ours face this kind of challenge. If you’d like to explore whether I’d be a good fit to help you, just book a free 20 minute Clarity Call.

Hang in there… in time, things will change. If you take the right actions now, you may well find that you come out of this stronger than you started!

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