Picture it: October 4th, 2021. An ordinary day in the repetitive matrix we call life in the pandemic world as dog biz owners. Which coincidentally happens to be in Mercury retrograde. Millions of people, dog business owners, are rebooting their phones, checking their wifi, restarting their apps, wondering, "fuck did I pay my internet bill?!"

This was the day that Facebook broke. And being the capitalist mega-machine, it also took down its other platforms, Instagram, WhatsApp. Que influencers freaking out, social media managers hanging up their hats for the day to enjoy some downtime, and others flocking to Tik-Tok, Reddit, and Twitter.

But in all honestly, it left many dog trainers, dog walkers, and other pet pros wondering what would happen if our main content & lead generation channels one day bit the dust?

You probably saw other business coaches saying, "Well, dontchaknow this is why you cannot rely on one or two platforms for your marketing because you don't have ownership." No fucking shit, and thanks for stating the obvious.

My pet-professional friends and dog biz owners, I'm here to break some bad news when it comes to digital ownership for your dog business:

You own NONE of your online platforms, from social media to your dog training youtube channel, to your linktree bio, from your website to your google ads. And everything in-between. None of that is owned by you.

Is this a conspiracy theory - doomsday conversation?

Absolutely freaking not. It's a heavy reminder of the things we come to rely on for lead generation for dog trainers, dog walkers, pet-sitters; we don't have control over technology. Software can break, it will break, and we are at the mercy of the social media overlords.

BUT - what do we have 100% control over? Great question, fellow control-freak dog business owner.

We have ownership and control for the internal systems and processes we built for our pet businesses. This means taking the conversations, connections, and reciprocity you've made over the years of being a dog trainer, dog walker creating content, bringing new prospective clients in from lead generation, and taking those conversations off-line.

Sometimes, pet professionals and dog trainers can lose sight of the goal of digital content creation, and lead generation IS to take those badass leads/prospective dog owners off-line through a proper sales process and into a paid customer experience journey.

As our lead sales trainer, Emily, says, "Sales is life, yo."

You also have control of balancing your marketing portfolio with the skills of making and maintaining connections in your local community (not just pet-related), tapping into old-school guerilla marketing.

So next time a platform goes belly-side up and the world is collectively flipping out, just realize you have the ultimate power in your hands when it comes to your dog business. This might be the wake-up call we all needed.

And next (there will be a next time!) a platform goes down, be grateful for the respite, and take some time for you and your personal dogs.