Be your dog's superhero: An interview with UK-based trainer and pet business coach Dominic Hodgson

Here's a cool approach to dog training: Teach your dog that you are a benevolent god. A superhero, if you will. That is UK-based trainer Dominic Hodgson's approach. In this episode, Annie interviews Dom about his journey from actor to tobacco salesman to dog walker to dog trainer to pet business consultant through his company, Grow Your Pet Business Fast. Annie learns about several dog business areas she never considered, and gets some great business advice from this titan in the field.

Head over to Dom's Podcast, The Poodle To Pitbull Pet Business Podcast, to hear Dom interview Annie! Apple Podcasts

How To Be Your Dog's Superhero! Amazon

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Transcript

Annie

There's this thing that dog trainers sometimes say, which is that the only thing two dog trainers can agree on is that the other person is doing everything wrong. And, you know, I kind of hate that kind of way of looking at things. It's not how I see things. I do think that there are some good dog trainers out there and bad dog trainers. There's maybe two large categories of dog trainers, but there are so many good dog trainers who are doing so many cool things and I'm always excited to learn about what they're doing.

Today's conversation is with a dog trainer who is indeed doing so many cool things. I am speaking to Dom Hodgson who went from being an actor to being a tobacco salesman to starting his own dog-walking business, realized he needed to learn about dog training in order to be a better walker. And now he is a pet business coach and he has his own podcast called the Poodle to Pit Bull pet business podcast. I am on his podcast this week and he is on mine. And this meant that we got to have two really great conversations recently. So if you want to learn more about me, head over to his podcast, if you want to learn more about him, keep on listening. I’m thrilled to be able to share this conversation with you.

*Intro*

Hi, my name is Annie Grossman and I'm a dog trainer. This podcast is brought to you by school for the dogs, a Manhattan based facility I own and operate along with some of the city's finest dog trainers. During this podcast, we'll be answering your questions geeking out on animal behavior, discussing pet trends and interviewing industry experts. Welcome to school for the dogs podcast.

Dom

Hello, and thank you for having me on the show, Annie. My name's Dom Hodgson. I am a dog trainer, a pet business coach and a regular dog owner slash lover. And I live in Sunderland, which is a city in the Northeast of England, probably near Newcastle. That's probably where most of your listeners will maybe be familiar with the nearest.

Annie

What is your business called?

Dom

So there are two, well, three, two main kind of arms to the business. So my original business, was Pack Leader Dog Adventures. And I set that up in 2011. That was primarily in a dog adventure and luxury home boarding business, just myself running that, and then that developed into a training business and then an online training business. And I've written a bunch of books and kind of for the last, maybe, three, four years. I have been mainly, apart from writing, I’ve been mainly helping other pet business owners to improve that marketing so they can make more of an impact with their amazing skills and services.

Annie

So I first encountered you through your podcast and then I did have a chance to read a few of your books. I really love your approach because to me, it gets right down to the heart of what I think most dog owners misunderstand before they discover, you know, what I like to call “good dog training,” which is you need to have your dog--you need to have a dog who likes you. That would be, that would be my summary of your general approach, but I'm curious how you got to that point, which seems, you know what I'm sayin it, and we're laughing and it seems so simple. And yet, and yet it's actually it's it's sort of a genius way to approach it. So tell me about your path. You started out as an actor, is that right?

Dom

This is true. Yeah, many, many, many, many moons ago. That was my original passion. When I left school, I wanted to be a song and dance man. And I obviously wasn't very good at that because I ended up becoming a sales rep for a tobacco company. And I spent 10 years as a sales rep. Just living locally me,my wife, Beth, who was a teacher, this year, she's moved into the business now and our two kids and I did that for 10 years. I didn’t want to do it for another kind of 30 years. So I left and my only interest at the time where I knew, I wanted to work outdoors and my other interest was I had been recently helping out at my local rescue center just to give something back to the rescues- the rescue community who had given us two amazing dogs at the time.

And so I thought, well, why don't ... I did a bit of research and thought, why don't I set up a dog walking, a dog adventure business. That way I get to work with dogs and I get to be outdoors, my two passions combined. And that was what I did. And Pack Leader Dog Adventures was born. And I brought with me some marketing knowledge from a previous job. I actually probably brought more market and knowledge than I brought dog handing knowledge because I set up this business and within about six months I was pretty full, but I quickly realized that I didn't know enough about dogs. So whilst I was really passionate and I was really enthusiastic and I was really keen to provide an enhanced adventure exercise experience for my clients. Sadly, I really didn't have enough practical dog handler knowledge.

And what happened was I would pick the dogs up. We would go for a tromp along the beach. We have some really nice beaches here in the Northeast, and I would walk for like an hour or so then I would let the dogs off lead and they would play and sniff and chase rabbits and stuff and over...and then I would put them back on lead again and then walk back to the van. And that would be the adventure, done. And over time the dogs started to get more and more interested in each other and interested in anything that wasn't me really. And the sort of final straw came one day when I was standing in the middle of this field with a bunch of leads in my hand and I was screaming for these dogs to come back and listen, and they were taking no notice of me at all. And that was a real wake up call to me that my dream dog walking business had developed into a bit of a nightmare really. And it was all down to me. It was all down to the- there was nothing wrong with the dogs,

Annie

Your, your energy wasn't common, assertive enough. You being the dominant leader that...

Dom

I just wasn’t Interesting enough, you know, as we touched upon before. And I was not definitely wasn't calm or assertive either. I wasn't interesting enough. And consequently, there were finding other things to do. So I knew I had to up my game, I knew I had to up my skills with regards to the dog training. And so I got in contact with a friend, a Facebook friend, actually, and she recommended a guy called John Rogerson. And as it happened, he was running a seven day dog behavior course nearby where I lived later that year. So I immediately signed up for it. And I went on that course. And on that course, I met my, who became my dog training mentor a local guy, Dave Davies, and yeah, completely changed my life. You know, I learned how to, how to bond, connect and be a dog's best friend.

And I tell the story, partly because you asked me, but I tell the story because I think that's the situation a lot of pet dog owners find themselves in, you know, they get a dog and they think just because they love it, that it's going to do what they want, you know, or it's going to want to be with them. And you know, you don't need to be you don't need to be a dog psychologist to be a successful dog owner, but you do need to be vaguely interesting to your dog. Or certainly life is a lot easier if you can, if you can make yourself more interesting to your dog so I learned how to play, interact, and I learned how to enjoy it as well. You know, I realized what I was missing out on all this time when I was just basically chasing around after these dogs, instead of turning the tables and making myself more interesting to them by using toys, treats and games. And yeah, it completely transformed my business and my whole kind of dog training and philosophy really.

Annie

Prior to that,if you had a philosophy about dog training or a method, how would you have described it, or what did you think about dog training as like as a career or area?

Dom

I really hadn't. I had really underestimated what was required to be to be a successful dog walker. You know, I just thought I had two dogs of my own. I added a mongrel bitch called Flor, who we'd had since she was about nine weeks old. She was a rescue and we did everything wrong with her. And then the dog who got me into the...we didn't socialize her enough, you know, what as soon as we got out, we didn't get enough history, partly that could have been the rescue's fault, but we didn't. She was, well, to tell you the whole story.

We had just moved into our first house, me and Beth, with our young son, Alex and Beth was still at university hours. I was doing odd jobs and singing in the clubs and stuff. And we, you know, we didn't have we didn't have any money. We didn't have any… life was really tough. And then we through this this rescue puppy into the mix and you know, I didn't know what socialization was. So I just took the vet’s advice and kept her in doors for a month whilst her injections, you know took effect. And then when I did socialize that she was actually quite fearful and I thought the best way to conquer that was to integrate it with other dogs and stuff. So I will be constantly looking for groups of people who were hanging around, chatting with their dogs and trying to get my dog to play with their dogs. And she really didn't want to do that. And she really let me know that she didn't want to do that as well. You know? And so yeah, everything.

Annie

You learned about dog training through, you said this one specific mentor, which I think you and I have talked about this before. I was jealous because I feel like I didn't have one kind of person to lead me down the path of good dog training. Did you have some kind of like epiphany moment about it?

Dom

Yeah, there really was actually. So the whole now bear in mind, I haven't. So when you asked before where I had my dog trainer knowledge come from it, I can come from anywhere, apart from, you know, watching the likes of the Dog Whisperer on the tele', you know, and thinking, wow, you know, he seems to have all this, he seems to have it right. But then what he was doing...

Annie

Well, yeah, I felt the same way. Like this guy, this guy's clearly amazing! How could you say otherwise?

Dom

Yeah, what’s not to like, you know, I mean, he doesn't even have to, you know, he just looks at a dog and it just what he wants, you know? And that's, I mean, as we know, not, it's not everything is, as it appears, but I think that having quite a strong personality, that's a really difficult thing to teach people who don't have a strong personality, you know? And it often it isn't necessarily anyway, but so that, that was all my experience. So when I went on John Rogerson’s seven day dog behavior course, everything was like a light bulb moment almost, you know, because I was just the green-eye dog walker, I don't walk us, sit at the back of the room, asking all the dumb questions. And again, we're getting fantastic answers as well. But what happened was John roped in a friend of his called Dave Davies.

And Dave came along to do a scent work demonstration with his little rescue dog, Hamish. This is a dog who Dave got from the rescue when he was a police officer. And he became a firearms and narcotics and cache detective dog, you know? And so anyway, Dave was...we walked into this hall where Dave was standing in the middle of the room and he just had a tennis ball. And Hamish was like, it's still a scruffy little terrier, but in his eyes, he was just like locked onto Dave the whole time. And Dave had him jumping in the air and spinning round and doing rollovers. And Dave was having a great time and Hamish was having a great time. And that really was my like light bulb moment, you know, I just looked at it and I thought that is what I want. I want my dogs. And I want my client's dogs to look at me like that. I want to have that kind of control where it's not about the dog doing it because I'm telling them to do it. It's about the dog doing it because he wants to do it, you know, because he really wants to be with me.

And I was lucky, you know, Dave lives just 20 miles down the road. So as soon as that course finished, I continued my education with him. And he basically taught me everything I know, you know. And then I went off and implemented it in the business and created all the kind of safety and stimulation systems and stuff that ended up helping my business to be a success, but it made a massive difference. But that, that was my light bulb moment.

Annie

So interesting. I think that idea that it's possible to have a dog that will do what you want the dog to do without you constantly telling the dog to do is that's another kind of like simple but complicated line of line of thinking, because I think we, as humans, are so conditioned to think like dog training is about I say “sit” and you sit. Like as if like my “sit”causes the sit, or as if like, or like sit or else. You know, there's always like if you don't do it, which I don't, I don't know why that is. All I can think is it must stem from like us being oppressed as people in society leads to us wanting to oppress the dogs, but yeah, it's possible and not hard to get a dog who wants to do what you want the dog to do. And so much of it stems from, like I was saying, what seems like your kind of raison d'etre is to teach people that like, Hey, you can get your dog to like you.

Dom

Yeah, you can. And the easiest you make yourself, you make life a lot easier for yourself. If you only allow the dog to enjoy doing things with you, you know? So there's obviously the dog wants to do stuff. Most dogs want to do things. They enjoy doing things. They enjoy running, chasing, exploring, or, you know, they might enjoy tuggy or fetch or whatever sniffing. And if you're the provider, you know, which obviously requires you to do stuff, you know, it's not, I'm not saying this is totally, you know, it's not just about walking around, calm assertive and having a dog follow you around, you know. I’m often ...

Annie

It takes effort. It should be fun effort. And if it's not fun effort, then maybe it's not, you know, the right situation for you or the dog.

Dom

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. But the big, the whole, you know, play with your dog, be your dog’s superhero type of thing. That was like the big light bulb moment for me, which became like the philosophy, but tied with that is this element of, you know, you'll make life a lot easier for yourself if you only let your dog enjoy doing things with you, you know? So I don't.. the dogs that come on our adventures, we don't particularly let them play and chase each other. We much prefer to provide the play and the stimulation through us, through the games that we play. That way, the focus is always on us, you know? And this is what makes the dogs kind of gravitate towards you, you know? And certainly been the case with my dogs as well, requires you to be selfish. And it doesn't, you know, some people don't like it, you know, when you're out and about in the park, and then, you know, they might say, you see you and your dog is like an easy 10 minute play session for them, you know, but I am quite selfish with my dogs. I just, I like my dogs to enjoy being with me because I like to enjoy being with them. And yeah. And it just, it makes for an easier life basically.

Annie

I tell dog owners when I take my dog to the dog park, which I try and do, you know, only thoughtfully, only after sort of gauging which dogs are there, what the space is like. But I try and think of it as like, this is me and my dog hanging out at the dog park where... this is me and my dog, where we have a chance to hang out with him off leash and he can sniff around. And the rest of this part, he has to be on leash, but in this area, he can be off-leash and we're hanging out together. I mean, even if I'm, you know, 10 feet away from him or 20 feet away from him, like we're still there as a unit together. And if he wants to interact with other dogs, that's like, totally cool. But like,I'm still part of that. It's not something that's, it's not like we're there as two individual units. And similar idea, I guess, as like, you know, I mean, as you know, I want to be selfish and I want my dog to be there for me, but I don't... I guess I feel like selfish has a negative connotation to it, but I understand what you're saying, that it's like, you want to be the focus.

So your business was successful because the dogs loved it. And probably the people loved it because the dogs were happy and safe, which is underrated. Right. I'm sure you heard any horror stories of businesses similar to yours where, where things have gone awry with the dogs.

Dom

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm not saying it's never happened with us, but it's rarely happened, you know, in like nine years. And it's for that reason, you know, I don't want, I want to go out and I want to enjoy it. I want to enjoy it. And I want my son, Alex, when he's out with the dogs, I want us to enjoy it as much as the dogs, you know, and to me, the first way to ensure that we're going to enjoy it is, like you said, is to make it safe, you know? And, and if I know that the dogs are always near me and then I know that they live, you know, the owners have trust in me. So trusting us to look after the dogs.

Annie

So was this a financially successful business?

Dom

Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. And that's still going now. We scaled it back a bit, so we've had numerous staff levels over the last five, six, seven years, and now there's just me and Alex. And obviously that's, as I have with what's happened with COVID, that's been quite a good thing, really having quite low numbers, but yeah, we're just in a position. We have another opportunity on the horizon actually, imminently, which I might be able to tell you about next time where we possibly be scaling up again. But yeah, no, great really great business and a great, an enjoyable business, you know, and because of the fact that we were premium and we were niche, the the business had good cashflow, which enabled me to, you know, invest in exploring other business opportunities as well,

Annie

I feel like I feel like my business and your business have, you know, we've evolved differently in that, but like both towards like both we're both in these, you know, successful niche businesses for like dog owners who I think really want the best for their dogs in a very thoughtful way. But you know, I feel like I started a business by accident, like passion led to a business where you were like, I want a business what can I be passionate about?

But then the other thing is I feel like we, we kind of, we didn't become niche on purpose. Like we started out, you know, like putting paper posters on signposts and you know, offering free, free first sessions left and right. And, you know, and ended up having to become more and more niche, basically having to charge more and more, because like to run a business right in New York City, like you can't be giving things away, you know. If you want to have a nice space for people to come, if you want to have, you know, if you want to have staff that you can, you can pay a living wage, you know, this, that, and the other, like, but then that forces us to end up having like a certain kind of client who, you know, and then a subsection of that client base, which is like people who like, get what you're doing. And like, it sounds like we both have this sort of like self-selecting group of like wonderful people. We're doing this with.

And I'm so interested to learn about how you then parlayed that into a business helping budding dog professionals, because I'm interested A. ‘cause I would like to maybe know how I could do that too. Can you coach me on how to become a coach?

Dom

For sure. Yeah. For sure. Absolutely.

Annie

The other thing is, I think it's a really interesting thing right now because we're totally living in a moment where people are exploring plan B options, whether or not I think those options are going to be lucrative or not. I mean, I think some people are maybe like figuring out how to like dive into their hobbies at home more just because they're home more. And in a lot of cases, I think that might end up leading to some sort of professional path. So tell me about what your...how you got into that area of the business. And also then I would love to learn how it's changed in the last, you know, six months.

Dom

Yeah, sure. So the transition for me happened because I... after my kind of big light bulb moment, it took about one of the year of growing and then the business was full. And then I took on a staff member, my first staff member, and we grew again, and then we got full again. And I kind of just to tie in what you were saying before actually, I kind of,, I didn't want to go big with staff and numbers, at the time anyway. And so I thought, well, what else can we do? And the girl who was working for me at the time, she was running an online horse store, selling stuff for horsey people, you know? And so, and I had an idea to do that, like an online dog store as well. So we did that together as like a partnership.

Anyway, one reason or another, the partnership didn't really work out. And so I decided to do the dog store on my own. And I plowed another bunch of money into that. Only to realize it was all kind of up and running that it really wasn't…

Annie

What was the dog store?

Dom

It was Pack Leader Dog Adventures, like online store, basically. So it was yeah…

Annie

Leashes?

Dom

All kinds. Yeah. You know, high-end treats, toys, apparel you know, all that kind of thing.

Again, this wasn't... it was easier to do because I was so premium with the dog adventure business, I had like a good base, you know, so I had a cashflow to be able to invest in trying something new and I invested a lot, you know, and trusted a lot of SEO and Google pay-per-click, inverted commerce experts who said that they knew how to do all this, and then basically it didn't work out.

It didn't work out for lots of reasons, but mainly I think it was because it wasn't, I wasn't really into it. I mean, I was into it as in whatever I do, I'll put on 110% into it, but that whole thing of, you know, getting the deliveries, packaging ups and on again, like I was, wasn't enjoying that at all. And I was kind of feeling, I felt like I was throwing good money after bad as well because the guys who I had trusted with the marketing side of thing, I didn't feel like they had come through with what they had promised. Again, I’m not blaming them, blaming me, it was me who invested in it, but that was a kind of another big light bulb moment for me, which was, you know, that I really didn't know enough about marketing. You know, I didn't know enough. I was passionate again. I was passionate about the store, but I wasn't, but that passion didn't pay off in the same way as it had done for my bricks and mortar dog adventure business, you know?

So I, then I went on a big kind of market and journey similar to what I did with the dog training. And then I invested in, you know coaches and courses and masterminds and all this kind of thing to basically up my marketing knowledge. So, and then I got really good at certain things. Got really good at building an email list, writing emails, creating online courses, writing in general, you know, work really hard to to do all these things. And yeah, and then that led me to right in my first couple of books and creating some, like an online dog training inner circle.

Annie

You really thoughtfully decided you needed to get good at marketing.

Dom

Yeah, I really did. Yeah. I knew that was kind of missing...

Annie

Were there some like particular resources that helped you?

Dom

Yeah, so I had a bunch of like a bunch of mentors along the way. Ben Settle I would.. he is like an email specialist, so I was in his inner circle for awhile. A guy called John McCulloch, the evil, bald genius that’s his kind of moniker. He's like a direct response. ..

Annie

What Is an inner circle?

Dom

Like a membership you know? So you'll get access to resources and… Who else.. Dan Kennedy and stuff as well, you know, these like more kind of what a lot of inexperienced business owners would class as like old fashioned marketing methods, you know, but more tried and tested in my opinion than a lot of the sort of fluffy bunny stuff that like that a lot of people do these days.

So yeah, so again, so that was like, and many others as well, many others...Vicky Fraser, she helped me with the book writing side of things.

Annie

What’s the fluffy bunny stuff?

Dom

Just people kind of spreading themselves too thin across four or five different social media platforms. And not really, you know, we're not really making any impact on any of them, you know, not really building a list. It's all just, they put content out there or they put stuff out there and it's on there one day and it disappeared a couple hours later and then they've got to do something else and rare is the stuff that they're putting out, connecting with people in their town who could potentially buy the services, you know?

Annie

Right. Interesting. And of course, I see a parallel between the two things, the two areas you became an expert in first dog training and then marketing, right. It's about like getting other animals to like you. Yeah.

Dom

Yeah, absolutely. So one of Dave's big lessons that Dave taught me, Dave Davies was, you've got to get the dog's attention. You know, you have to get the dog's attention. If the dog isn't looking at you, then the dog isn't listening to you. And then, you know, so it's pointless teaching them anything, unless you've got his attention, which is where the whole, you know, find out what the dog likes. And I call it the dog's kryptonite. You're going to find out what the dog's kryptonite is, find out what he likes. And once you know what that is, well, then you've got a really good chance of getting this attention and then you've got an even better chance of teaching them something.

And yeah, it's just a similar with marketing, you know, you've got, you've got to get the attention of the ideal prospect, you know, and you want to, you need to put the right kind of bait out to get them to..

Annie

I didn't know. I was going to be as like excited about dog training as I was, until I got into it. It's addictive when you feel like you can get, you could get a dog's interest, right. Because dogs are awesome. Like there's a dog in the room and you're the person that dog wants to be with. Like, I don't know that to me, that's like a great thing. You know, in high school, I did this one year in high school that was like in a very small school where they actually had a dog at the school. And I think in the yearbook, I was voted nicest to dog. Now, looking back, I think maybe it was also maybe like something of a social crutch.

So as you learned about marketing and you were successful then was, were you just like, Oh, I need to figure out how to help other people figure this out too?

Dom

But then people start asking you as well, you know, so people start saying, you know, can you... you're really good at this? You know, can you show me how to do this? Or, you know, and then you've written a book, you know, like, I wish I could write a book, that kind of thing. And so, yeah, that I think it was 2017. I did my first seminar, like I just called it… well I did two seminars-I did a, how to be a dog’s superhero seminar, which is like a dog training one, and also a grow your pet business fast seminar for, pet professionals, you know, dog walkers trainers, groomers, daycare owners, and yeah. And that kind of, that kind of changed really. As soon as I did that one event, and then I got like a bunch more bookings for that. And then everything kind of quickly snowballed really where…

Annie

So an event like you were at a space and you gave a talk?

Dom

Yeah, that was it. Yeah. So a dog trainer friend of mine, Jane Arden, who lives at, just about near Manchester where she got me down to her place and we did the two seminars there. And then it just kind of snowballed, you know.

Annie

Have you seen a change in the kinds of businesses? Well, I guess two questions. Are there some pet businesses that you're seeing that you work with that are really succeeding during COVID or any that are that are failing?

Dom

Yeah, I think I think dog walkers have probably been hit the hardest because from what I can see anyway, because in the UK we've had like a furlough scheme where employees have been able to-through grants from the government, they've been able to keep paying their employees, but they haven't had to come into work. You know, so that's meant that a lot of people are still working from home, you know, so we have to come up with other ways to convince the dog owners that actually the adventure or the daily walk with the dog walker is still a vital part of the dog's well-being. You know, it's not just about him going out because you weren't there at the time, you know? But so I think they've, I think the dog walkers have had the biggest hangover from a COVID.

Annie

So you mean you trying to get dog owners to keep thinking that this is something that they should keep investing in? Is that what you're saying?

Dom

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because I mean, that just because they're like, at first, you know, when COVID first hit, obviously everybody was in a real state of shock and everything kind of, well, certainly over here, everything really like seized up almost completely, you know, for about 8 to 10 weeks. But obviously in that time as well, a lot of ...so I have a number of scanners, dog pet scanners, who are in my inner circle as well as private clients of mine. And there were like just as busy over lockdown because everybody wanted to get a puppy. You know, everybody thought, well, whilst we're stuck at home, let's get a puppy. So there's been...they were really busy.

Annie

You mean they put chips in dogs?

Dom

No, no, sorry. As in like a pregnancy scanner, you know, like these..

Annie

Scanner, like working at a hospital?

Dom

They have like a mobile scanning business where they go, where they go to the breeder's house with the scanner check, if the dog's pregnant, make sure that they're, you know, healthy, that kind of thing.

Annie

Oh, that's a business that never occurred to me that that existed.

Dom

Yeah.

Annie

So there's like mobile groomers and then mobile pregnancy scanners.

Dom

Yeah.

Annie

I guess, I like, because I live in an urban area and I take for granted that anybody could go to the vet, but yeah, like there are plenty of people in like rural areas who need other animals scanned too. Wow. Mind blown. Okay. I don't think that business would take off in New York city.

Dom

It might not travel, no. But yeah, then obviously groomers, they all shut down, but then there was a big backlog of grooms , so groomers have been really busy. And then dog trainers have been really busy. Day-cares are a few of them… most of the guys in my world, they're up to like 90%, 80, 90, maybe it's a hundred percent occupancy again in their daycare centers. So yeah, it's a mixed bag really.

Annie

So what kind of reinventions have you seen or what kind of grand failures and also.. you may choose which question to answer first. Sorry to bombard you.. But so if you're a dog training, I mean a dog walking like business owner and you have people walking for you, so you just like paid them to stay home basically. Right. I mean, we had similar PPP loans in America, so we're those people, those people were getting paid for, like, at my work we called it “ghost walks” like walks that didn't actually happen, but we're going to pay you for it anyway. Like I had people like that, but I had them busy doing other things to like grow the business. Like, I don't know what other businesses did. Like I'm, I'm curious, like, did some people just be like, okay, well you can't walk and you're going to get paid for walking and like, do whatever you feel.

Dom

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think there was a lot of that to be fair. I think, no, I don't think a lot of people were proactive enough with their staff members, but a lot of, most of the guys in my world certainly were very proactive in lockdown at, like basically being of service to dog owners their town, you know? So we had lots of people, we had lots of dog trainers, obviously who created local Facebook, you know, COVID support groups and stuff like that for people with dogs and they would run challenges and you know, just basically did have an online content to keep themselves top of mind. And often they were able to sell like some kind of online course or program on the back of that as well. But not just trainers had, like, we had dog walkers able to do a lot too. I even have some dog groomers able to do that. You know, they were, they were creating a local group on social media for their clients and for dog owners in that town who will unable to get to the groomers and they would do like a little five day you know, how to keep the dogs court in tip top condition and stuff, and then sell them a little, you know, how to home groom your dog type of thing on the back of it. And obviously, you know, without scissors and stuff, but keeping them nice and tidy.

Annie

Right. So there, so you did see some like reinvention.

Dom

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Now my kind of, I mean, apart from, as far as mainly the dog trainers, there immediate because there's a lot of things we can teach online as a dog trainer. I recently spoke to Amy Smith, who is the Soundproof puppy app inventor. She's a good friend of mine. You should get on the show actually, Annie. So it's like an app with the sound effects on. So for puppies

Annie

I've seen that. Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Dom

So Amy runs Amy's Puppy Preschool in Sydney. And she said like that, she told me that the, sort of the quality of the training through Zoom has been like phenomenal, you know because obviously these dogs, they aren't in a stimulating environment-come right back to what we were talking about before, when we know about the dog, you know, the puppies are being taught in an environment where there's no distractions and stuff. So they're like racing through the curriculum and stuff, you know? But so the immediate winners are dog trainers

Annie

And people have time to work at home with their dogs now in a way that they might not otherwise.

Dom

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And with the sort of the groomers and the daycares and the dog walkers, a lot of the stuff that we were doing was mainly just to like, to keep your top of mind, you know, so my advice to anybody who is suffering from a local lockdown now or anything else, if you know, is you got to keep marketing, you know, you've got to keep doing something to A) communicate with your existing clients and, and reassure them and let them know that you're there for them. But also to just to be there for the wider dog community in your town, you know, and people remember if you are somebody who comes through for them at a time when they're, you know, when they're lacking connections and stuff. So yeah, that was the main reason why I kept everybody going. And I think it's been a big reason why they've all recovered pretty well from what happened.

Annie

So interesting. So do people pay you as like a coach then for like a six week period?

Dom

Yeah so we have a couple of rolling programs really. So there's a pet business inner circle is the entry level, like the intro level. But we have a, like a private Google forum-the guys get access to a bunch of online...the guys get access to a bunch of online materials. We do live question and answers a couple of times a month, and then they get like a 12 page newsletter. And you can see I'm showing you this now. They get like a 12 page newsletter once a month as well. So they get this, and then this sort of deep into one particular aspect of marketing for pet business owners. Pricing, or pay printing promotions or positioning or how to write emails, all that kind of thing. They get a CD and stuff as well. And, yeah, so I try to get people a really good mix of online and offline, you know, printed material, visual stuff, audio stuff. So they get a nice mix because people learn different ways, obviously.

Annie

So interesting. And what do people pay and how long of a period is it for?

Dom

So that's just like rolling really. There's the PBIC gold membership that just rolls on. That's like I think it's 97 English pounds a month for that. And then I have two smaller private coaching levels like a PBIC diamond and a PBIC platinum. And these are for bigger pet businesses. People who have staff, people who have like number of different arms to the business, you know, and be like yourself really, I guess, you know, I mean, if you've got like training and daycare or walking and depending on the needs of the business. You know, obviously somebody just started out as a dog walker or a dog groomer, well they're going to get a lot of information from even...just from like my lower level, you know, my lower level group. Whereas a bigger business like yourself, I'm not trying to push myself here, but you, you know, you have quite, you know, you've done a lot of the basics. You know, you have probably some quite unique problems you think that are unique to you, and you'll probably benefit from more of a sounding board really than anything else. You know,

Annie

I think I need to hire you to help me set up something like what you have set up.

Dom

Well, we have a number of people who are doing that now as well in my world, we got to. So Katie Costa Pallia, she's one of my platinum members she has-originally had a field business, you know, like a field hire business, and she's a dog trainer as well.

Annie

I don't know what that is. A field hire business?

Dom

A field when people come and hire the field for an hour, you know, so they can...

Annie

Oh, like an actual field.

Dom

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Annie

We're talking from very different places.

Dom

Like a fenced in field, you know.

Annie

So their field rental service is like a thing.

Dom

Yeah. It's a thing. Yeah. It's a thing

Annie

For dogs. Or you can rent a field for any reason?

Dom

Well, mainly for dogs, because obviously it's safe. See, that's where it's for people who, you know, they want to enjoy like a nice, safe exercise session with their dog, or maybe their dog has a bad recall and stuff like that, you know? So but anyway,

Annie

I didn't never know this was a thing. So people like say like, Hey, I have a big field. You can rent it out for your dogs to play.

Dom

Yeah.

Annie

Oh my God. I've never heard...

Dom

Annie, you should know that!

Annie

Yeah, but I don't know anybody who has a field. Actually, I guess I do notin New York city.

Dom

Well, there's a lot in the UK and now there's hundreds of them.

Annie

Of fields for dogs that you can rent by the hour.

Dom

Yeah.

Annie

So she has a field rental service….

Dom

And she recently set up her own like dog training club. And I've got another dog trainer who is kind of, she's done dog training for many, many years, Carol Clark. She's the Doggy Doctor. She did actually use to be a doctor. That's why she's called the Doggy Doctor. Carol is setting up as a sort of reinvented herself as a teacher to other dog trainers, you know, to help them, to give them the confidence to transition from, you know, just going on lots of courses to actually go and doing the consults and stuff, you know? So she's helping them with that and yeah. Yeah. So we’re helping people, I help people to, you know, fix that business, their immediate business, and then I help them to kind of reinvent and, explore new opportunities and stuff as well.

Annie

Here’s two things I've learned as a business owner, again, not having gone into a business with the idea I was going to run a business, having a lot of revelations. But one is like, there are a lot of things I could do, but I could pay someone else to do them and then like, I will have time to do something else, like how to like economize time, like, you know. Like I could put up a shelf, like I know how to use a drill, but like sometimes it's worth it for me to have someone else do that because then I have time to do something else that only I can do. Like that was a revelation. Um,'s not just like, Oh, just do it all yourself. You'll just get it done. So I guess like outsourcing.

Dom

Yeah yeah smart.

Annie

I guess what you would and outsourcing ideally to someone who's like better at something than you are.

But the other thing is like, sometimes it's just really worth it to like pay people to help you like think about things and like access things that you wouldn't access otherwise like the whole consultant world sort of makes sense to me in a way that it didn't because like, you know, for much of early life, you just kind of, as a kid, it doesn't seem like you're paying people to help you. You're just, you know, you're trying to like bump into people who maybe will help you along the way. But you know, most kids aren't like, you know, have a pocket full of money trying to get people to teach them things. But as you get older, like, you know, we were talking about apprenticing, right? Like it, it can be very hard to apprentice without like paying someone, I think that can feel.. With something like dog training, I don't know. It didn't, that's just, again, something that I guess I never really thought about paying, paying to learn something rather than the apprentice being like the helpful person to...I dunno.

Dom

Yeah, it speeds things up, you know, if you, if you’re prepared to pay to get advice for things, it speeds things up and it..what it does as well is…

Annie

You’ve already made the mistake. So you don't have to…

Dom

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And it's also, it's fresh eyes as well, you know? So like you and me and everybody else, we're usually too close to the business to spot where things can be changed or where things can be dropped or where things can be pushed and, you know, which we need to do to make room for the big new idea that you have, you know, and if you are, if you're sitting on a big idea, then you're usually going to be far better off reorganizing your existing business. Like you said, outsourcing some stuff, cutting back some stuff, or there is increase in prices to reduce the demand a little bit, whatever there's, there's loads of different things we can do.

Best off doing that before you, you know, try and find time to do the big new thing and and getting some outside help, it just gives fresh eyes. You know, you get some fresh eyes on the business. You know, I don't always have all of the answers for my guys, but I have most of the answers most of the time, you know, like you said, purely, because just because we've had the experience and I can pull from what I've seen somebody else do as well, what I've helped somebody else do in their business.

Annie

And again, they like you, you built a business about people liking you. Like you got the dogs like you. Well I assume they like you otherwise they wouldn't keep working with you. And clearly you're a very likable guy.

The other question I had was about new people that are contacting you or are you seeing, cause I suspect that you know, I got into... I sort of decided to figure out my plan B career around 2009, 2010, like when, you know, like when everything crashed and I just sort of realized I needed to do something else. I think that happened for a lot of people around then and I feel like we're living, I'm guessing in a moment where there are a lot of people, like I was thinking about, you know, maybe I could become a dog trainer. Do you think that's the case?

Dom

Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah, I really do. I was the same. So I was 2011 when I started mine. So it would have been early 2011 when we were a little bit behind you guys anyways in regards kind of the economic climate and stuff, but it was slap bang in the middle of the last financial crisis. So yeah, it was... it felt like a good time to me to do it, to make the leap. And I think there'll be a lot of people now who are, you know, thinking, do I really want to go back to doing what I was doing before? Don't, you know, and a lot, you know, a lot of businesses will be closing at the same time, unfortunately. But yeah, there'll be a lot of people I think who will step up and certainly, I've just recently run a challenge, actually like a dog walker’s business challenge. And yeah, we had a bunch of people who, cause I've actually helped a lot of people to do what I did, you know, to go from being employed, to owning their own kind of premium pet business. So yeah, I get a lot of satisfaction from that, you know, from helping people to do, to make the leap, like what I did.

Annie

That's so cool. And now your, your sons are doing it with you, right?

Dom

Yeah. So my oldest son, Alex, he's the adventure manager.

Annie

I like that title.

Dom

Yeah. And yeah, and he's been doing this for about three or four years now. My youngest son he's doing his A levels. But yeah, but the big sort of move this year was again, talking about making a big leap. We just we've been talking about this for a long time. Beth, my wife, she was a deputy head teacher and really quite a stressful job. She enjoyed it, but you know, it was very stressful. So this year in January, February, we took the decision to Christmas and then in February she told the boss that she was going to be leaving. And she's now, she's now full time here as like operations manager. And so she's doing all of the, all of the stuff that I'm not very good at

Annie

Adventure manager. I love that. I love that title.

Well, tell me, tell me about the superhero kind of cause I'm looking at your book, cover of your books here. They're great. There's such great little books. Yeah. I mean, I don't, I don't say little like…

Dom

...pocket.

Annie

Yeah. I mean like they're physically small, but no, but I mean like they're to the point they're quick reads, like you cut to the chase, like you I feel like say what I'm trying to say always just in a different way, which is like, this stuff makes sense. Like this isn’t complicated, you can understand this, you don't need some to like speak some magic language. You don't need, you know, 10,000 pages, right? Like you've just kind of like cut to the chase here. Like someone could sit down and read this book and in, I don't know what two hours ..

Dom

Hopefully. Yeah.

Annie

What I wanted to ask you about is this amazing caricature that's on the back of the book. It is your head..

Dom

What do you mean that’s my whole body! in No, I'm only kidding.

Annie

So, your actual body in a superhero outfit, that's like gold and super muscly with a maroon cape and maroon gloves …

Dom

It’s the Ironman clothes.

Annie

and like a maroon cod piece and boots. And but it's just, it's your head and then you have... smiling and then the best part is you have a tennis ball attached to your waist. That's like your Spiderman tool. How did this picture come about? You know, my father was an illustrator and a cartoonist, so I'm particularly interested.

Dom

Cool, cool. So the, the credits for that reading was core to the idea for it must go to my good friend, Vicky Fraser, who was...I invested in her how to write a book course about four or five years ago. And so I did that and I started to write the book and the original title of the book, the working title of the book was “The Dog Audit.”

Annie

Because it like a course that helps you, right?

Dom

Yeah yeah it was like a course to help you to write a book, you know? And, my original working title was The Dog Audit. And that, that is actually a chapter in the book, because that was one of the things that I learned from John and Dave was like, you know, you find, find out what the dog likes, you know, if it's pointless using , you know, a clicker and hot dogs, if the dog just likes tennis balls, you know, like let's find out what the dog likes first and make life easy for ourselves.

So I did this whole dog audit thing and Vicky said... but I had to add a sentence in the, I think in my draft first chapter on my introduction. And I said something like you know, your dog will follow you around like you're Spiderman, or you'll be...you can be your dog’s superhero, you know, and it was Vicki who said, she said, that's, she said, The Dog Audit, she said, it's a bit dry. You know, she said, you might want to jazz it up a bit with a superhero thing. So that was where the whole superhero thing came from. And obviously at the time I was talking about using the dog’s kryptonite, you know, and so that sounds, that kind of sinks in with all superhero vibe. So, yeah, that was, that was where it came from.

Annie

It's genius. It's so great. Yeah, it's true though. Like audit seems like I picture like, you know, hunched over a calculator punching buttons, but that could be someone else's brand, you know, The Dog would come audit your business, and then give you tennis balls, if only.

Well I'm, I'm really glad to get to know you. I'm just a huge fan of what you're doing and I think it's, it's cool that you're helping others. And I would love to learn from you about how maybe I could help others as well. Because I think there's there's room room for more of us.

Dom

There is, yeah, there really is a hundred percent. And it'd be a natural extension. From what I know from already talking to you about what you're doing, you know, I think there'll be a natural extension for you to be able to impact more people's lives and help more people to do you know, what it is that you've, that you've bought that you already do so successfully at School for the Dogs? Definitely. Yeah, you can definitely scale that.

Annie

Yeah. Yeah. And we have a book in the works, but right now we're, we're, we're trying to get people to our online course which is kind of a book. I mean, it's all content coming at you in one form or another, it's just, like you said, it's like, how do you learn best? So, yeah, you know, like our online course comes with like, you know, a textbook. So if you just want to sit down and read something through.

Well, I look forward to talking to you again. This is our second conversation and in a week, and I feel like we are going to have to talk next week.

Dom

To keep it going. No, it's been awesome. I've really enjoyed it.

Annie

Where can people find you these days if, if they want the full Dominic Hodgson experience?

Dom

Well, there's many ways to get the full dominant culture and experience. They can just Google “Dominic Hodgson dog trainer”. Check out the books on Amazon. There's a, I think there's about eight books on there now. “How to be a dog superhero” is the main dog training book. I have two pet business bibles one is “Walk yourself Wealthy” that is specifically for dog walkers. And then there is the Ultimate Pet Business Plan. And I have a podcast called the Poodle to Pit Bull Pet Business podcast, Which Annie was the lovely guest on.

And yeah, if people want to kind of reach out and find out if they want to, if they want to find out more about what I do with regards to helping them with their pet business, you can go to grow your petbusinessfast.com/33ideas, three-three ideas, and you get 33 marketing, tips, hints,strategies, fired it into your inbox one a day for 33 days. And by the end of the 33 days, you can decide whether you think I'm the real deal or whether you think I'm full of -it. And then take it from there. Yeah. And, you know, coaching services as well, but join the email list to be the best way to find out more about me.

Annie

Awesome. Well, let's talk again soon. Thank you so much for your time. And I sure hope this recorded.

Dom

Don't say that Annie, don't say that..

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