Episode 20: Becoming A Successful Dog Business Coach With Guest Maggie Christina

In today’s episode of Mind Your Own Dog Business podcast, Kristen Lee and her collaborator, Maggie Christina of Grassroots Enterprises, discuss their dog business-coaching program. Maggie and Kristen are all about loving, supporting, and strategically enhancing anyone with a dog-related business. When you transition to become a dog business coach, you have a much greater sphere of influence and a great deal more responsibility, which means you also need people around you to help with the larger workload. You don’t need to do it all. 

Maggie is a strategic badass and explains just what coaches can do to upgrade programs and technology before a launch. Many of the best or most popular trainers become coaches. The trick is charging what you’re worth and being confident in your marketing and sales. When considering a business coach to hire, ask them who’s in their network as coaches. If the coach answers no one and that he or she is doing this all on his or her own, that’s a warning sign that they’ve started a coaching business out of burnout from training or another dog-related venture. You want a coach that has support and a network around them. 

Kristen explains just how central a real in-person phone call is to your sales process, especially with a dog owner who is super emotionally connected to their pet. Getting rid of tech in this instance gives you the upper hand in business. Kristen and Maggie also share just how important it is to protect yourself as a coach and to invest in game-changing experiences like a business retreat where you walk away with a working business plan. Another wise word of advice is, be prepared to invest more into your students as a coach than you’ve ever done before as a dog trainer. The perspective that comes along with having a coach is one of the most valuable assets you could give to your program.