Dog trainers just need to love dogs right?

I came to dog training after a successful career in a large financial company and a variety of part time jobs.

Luckily I learned many skills that I now take for granted as a dog trainer.

Agility 1st offer a module in their online training course that helps people know about some of the skills that will help them with their business as just being brilliant with dogs may not be quite enough.

Agility 1st Online training course for instructors

Customer service was key when I started my first job in a bank. It was so important that they even sent us on residential courses. The courses were quite in depth and included hilarious & nerve ranking role plays. One of the trainers would come to the "desk" and we would be the cashier. When it was my turn he sat down and preceded to advise me of the death of his partner.  A bit harsh and very testing for an 18 year old but it put me in good stead for real cases. Little did I know many years later I would sadly have to deal with it during an agility lesson.  It was a small group lesson & one of my lovely long standing customers got a call that her husband had died 😢 We had met him a few times and he did have a on going illness. My previous life experiences help me to be level headed & pack her off to hospital & her dogs came home with me for a few days.

Managerial skills I learned have over the years helped organise training days & seminars, develop trainers, organise training rota's etc.  The banks invested a lot into staff training back in the day and I remember one residential course that also featured the dreaded role play. I was so happy I didn't get the one that meant discussing personal hygiene to a smelly member of staff 😂😂. Not something to worry about in the dog world although come to think of it I did have to have words with Ruth about the fish heads!!

Working in a bank when marketing became more important than customer service taught me another lesson. Whilst I was good at letting people know of any service we could offer if I felt it would be useful to them, I was never good at closing the deal preferring to give them time to think about it. Likewise I'm not the greatest in marketing any of the projects I'm involved in. For example I truly believe Wag & Tone is a brilliant dog training tool and a great class I'm just not pushy enough to get it out there enough.

Marketing in another job included developing a service, identifying target market and equally important how to decide a fair price for the product. Agility 1st shows a good example of how to work out pricing.

I have also worked in credit control (luckily that hasn't been a problem) and legal publishing (another area I hope isn't needed).

Goodness now I have just also thought about health & safety - this blog could go on and on.

Needless to say loving dogs may lead you into dog training and is a lovely and rewarding career. 

To make a good business of it there's so many other skills to enjoy learning :) I've already mentioned the Agility 1st online training programme. Your local council or bank may run business start up courses that cover some basics. I believe any training of this type may also be offset in your business accounts too.

If you just starting out and are interested in anything I've mentioned Mark or myself will be happy to help. Most of all good luck and enjoy.