Unleashing Solutions: Your Common Trainer Struggles | SOURCE

Like to welcome everybody to The Source Podcast, everything working dogs. We're excited about this week's episode because I know it's jam-packed with information that's going to help you at least one of you guys in some shape or form. But there's a lot of information that's going to be packed in this week's podcast, and I'm excited to jump right in. I have my co-host with me today, the voice of reason, Maya Simpson.

Thanks for joining from G1, broadcasting live from G1.

Yes, that's right. And I'm, uh, at the other office now. So excited to get started, excited to talk about and get on the topic that we'll have today. Uh, Maya, what's our topic today? I forgot.

So we're touching— oh, okay. I was like, you know, that's okay. Um, today we're going to be touching on a lot of the common struggles that we see from new trainers, experienced trainers, Anyone that comes in our courses or has already graduated from a course and that just reaches out with some questions and just approaching those and seeing from someone's perspective who has run K9s since the early 2000s to now, you have a wealth of knowledge and I'm looking forward to hearing from you and listening to you share that with all of our other trainers.

Yeah, you know, I was— I'm excited about this week's episode because I really wanted to do this one. And touch on this topic because it's something that not only do I feel has value to our listeners, but it's something that's often not talked about, to include, you know, just the things that we go through as new trainers. I think back and it's a very vivid memory on the struggles that I went through. And I like to take the perspective that I can learn from that and then help somebody else out that is probably struggling with the same things. And as I talk to our students, as I talk to other kennel owners or business owners— and it, it does cross the lines a lot of times from industry to industry— but as I talk to other business owners and specifically kennel owners, even trainers that maybe don't have a facility. They struggle with a lot of the same areas that I did even, you know, 20 years ago. So I'm excited to jump into this because of that, and I know again there's one thing that somebody can get out of this that's going to help them. So I'm happy about that.

Yeah, absolutely. And we get a lot of common questions. I do our social media side, so we'll get a lot of common questions. And I know that you field a lot of the phone call and text conversations of people sending questions in. So what is by far the most common question you get asked, either by prospects looking at coming to training or by those who have already graduated?

Yeah, well, let's, let's look at that from two perspectives. The first one that I get for somebody that hasn't signed up for a course or doesn't have the training yet. So the first question is, is will CCU help me to gain employment, or will they help me on the business side of things to get started and such? And that's kind of a loaded question, uh, from my perspective, because, you know, I spent 20 years getting this information, and I, and I often say this, I spent millions of of dollars reinvesting in myself and in CCU specifically to get where we are today. I think back to the early days and it was me and Adam Crenshaw spamming people. And I tell this story because it's pretty funny. Uh, we had a requirement, and please don't hold this against me, but, uh, we— I purchased this, I found this, uh, internet scrapper. And what it would do is you put in the criteria and it would scrape the internet for email addresses, uh, within the criteria that you gave it. And so early on, we knew nothing about marketing. We knew nothing about, uh, even the requirements that, uh, entities like Google had, that we had to follow those rules. We had no idea about this. This is how uh, how it was in the infancy, I guess. Uh, but I bought this program. It was like $10 a week or a month or something like that. It was pretty inexpensive, but it would give you all these emails, and we had to sift through the emails, and then we would send out emails specifically to the ones that fit the criteria specifically that we wanted. And at that time, it was law enforcement because I had it in my mind back then that we were only going to train law enforcement and that's it. And quickly did I realize that we had to generate revenue, we had to generate revenue quickly to continue to move forward. So we began to open up the doors to other facets of training. So it definitely was a learning experience. I tell that story because I had a requirement again, don't hold this against me, that Adam and I, which was doing everything— we were training, we were taking care of dogs in the kennel, and we were running the marketing. So we were running 7 days a week, anywhere from 10 to 16 hours a day, and we did that for a number of years. The requirement was every, every day we had to send out 25 emails off this list. And I vividly remember a Friday afternoon where Kryn wanted to go home and of course spend time with his family. And, you know, we've had been burning the oil from both ends. Um, is that, is that a right term? I don't know. Anyway, uh, we were burning from both ends. Uh, like I said, we were running 7 days a week, uh, 10 to 16 hours a day at least. And, um, we just didn't have the business that we needed. And, uh, so we were sending out all these emails and Kryn wanted to go home and I was yelling at him about getting his email sent out. And then we find out that we've been blacklisted off Google and, uh, took me some time to get us off that blacklist. Um, yeah, and, uh, just absolutely crazy. But I say that to say You know, when somebody asks us that proverbial question, are we going to help you get a job? Are we going to do this for you and do that for you from the business perspective? You know, it's hard to teach business in a, in a period of time, right? You're going to have to either go to a business school, learn from hard knocks, from the streets, I call it. Like we did, or get a, get a mentor to help you. And unfortunately, I want to teach you from our perspective to be a great trainer. That's hard enough as it is in the time frame that we have. And to get you good and started in that realm, we'll give you support. But that question, will we help you get a job or start a business? It's too broad and there's too much information to be able to do that for every single student. And not have a full-time person doing that. Do we have connections? Do we have a very strong network? And do we help students, point them in the right direction and connect them with the right people? Absolutely. But to get you a job or to help you start a kennel, there's just not enough time in the day to do that. Um, we have come up with some ways to try to help mitigate some of that. Which we'll talk about later. But at the end of the day, there's just so much packed into that one question that it's too hard to say yes and be honest about. Yes, we'll be able to do that because it's just— the industry is, um, is very unique. And not just the industry as a whole, but also it's demographically unique. It's, um, not just demographically, but it's also, uh, the area of training you want to get into is kind of unique based on the, the, uh, avatar, the person you're directly targeting to sell your services to. So, um, that's probably the biggest question that I get is, will you help me to start a business or help me to get a job? And Yes, we will help you, but it's limited. And no, we can't wave a magic wand and make somebody hire you or, you know, help you run a successful business. That's a lot of time. Even today, I mean, we work my— I mean, how many hours a week do we work? And we have a business that's running and we are still refining that, still working on that countless hours each week. To keep that going and to stay where we are and to gain momentum every single day.

Like you go to university for 4 years or you go to a school for 2 years, they can't guarantee you employment. It's all about what you as the student take out of that time there and your training there. So that's one of the biggest things that I see so many students that come in and you just can see like their dedication and their passion to this industry and into learning. And that's awesome to see every time. Now, you mentioned, you know, some of your lessons that you learned early on were hard knocks. So you didn't come from a business background, is that right?

No, absolutely not. For those that listen to this podcast know that my background is law enforcement. So I went to college for a little while, played sports, played football specifically, left college and got into law enforcement. And spent a number of years in law enforcement before deciding to move on to this business realm, which I had no idea. I was so lost. I say lost in the sauce because I had no idea what that entailed. I thought it'd be cool to have a business. That's the end of it. Like, oh, it'd be so cool to have my own business. And even when I started CCU, it was literally just something cool to say that I had. That I owned a business. But my plan was to stay in law enforcement and run and just have CCU in the background or on the side to take up some of my time to be able to train some dogs and such, um, on my off days. And, uh, it kind of just took on a whole life of its own. Yeah, but I had no idea. And I often say that if I knew then what I know now, I 100% would not have started a business.

100%.

I mean, literally, I love what I do. I would not change it for the world. However, there's a lot more to running a business than what people think. And it's not just the numbers. It's not just the day-to-day grind, but it is absolutely— and I And we're in a good place now, but we still grind like, like no— every day, every day, every day. And we got a full team and we still put in the hours and the time. So those that think they're going to be their own boss and think it's cool and just think they're going to do whatever they want to do, I can tell you that's not the case. I don't do what I want to do, uh, every day. I, I grind. And, and I honestly believe I work for every single client that comes in the door, and I try to cater to them as much as we can, um, to, to, to keep them happy. So it's not me working for myself or doing whatever I want to do, or that I have more time now or anything like that. It is really 100% a grind every single day. Yep.

Yeah. So I actually talked to a couple trainers, uh, trainer students and some of our trainers here about some areas they struggled with either at the beginning of their course. Now that they're in a course or now they're on staff. And one of the things they mentioned was client communication.

Yeah.

Was that something that, cause I know originally y'all, you and, um, Adam had said that you were just doing law enforcement, but you did end up branching out into civilian. So now was that an area that y'all struggled with as well in your business?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, especially coming from a law enforcement background, you're very to the point when you deal with people. You know, you're not, uh, per se customer-minded. You're, you're very direct, you're very, uh, legal-minded. So it's very— it's pretty much black and white. So, but business is nowhere near being black and white and catering to each and every client the way they need to be catered to is something that you got to be, be able to adjust to. And I— especially people coming in new, it's very different being commercial. And, and I tell people that, especially when it's a law enforcement trainer that has background in law enforcement training. It's easy to run your department training because you're going to do what I tell you to do, how I tell you to do it, and such. If not, then there's consequences to that. But when you're dealing with a customer on the commercial side, it's a, a lot different. Not to mention, you know, when I work for an agency, okay, I just had to follow policy. I didn't have to worry about them— a person coming back to us or you know, being a longtime friend and client, becoming a longtime friend and client of ours. So I had no forethought to the future, but in our, in where we're at now in a customer-minded, in a commercial entity, we're not as rigid as we would've been or that I would've been in law enforcement. So making that transition from one day to the next and realizing that it's not telling people what to do and how to do it. It's being softer, it's being more compassionate, it's being more minded to catering to their needs versus our own needs and marrying up seamlessly. So teaching somebody to do that takes time, especially if they're not used to that. And, you know, always explaining to them there's more to kicking somebody out of school or getting somebody to perform a certain way as a handler than yelling and screaming at them or, you know, giving up on them. You gotta find ways to communicate and to help that person versus pushing them away. And, uh, yeah, that's a— that takes time to, to better deal with that. To include, you know, maybe a customer that's not happy. How do you salvage that relationship and how do you work through that disgruntled person without per se losing them? Because you don't want to get to that point where you're pushing all your customers away either. So it's something to be learned while still having policies and procedures and, and ways we do things as well. So you got to marry all those things up in a big ball of wax to be able to be successful in this.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's one thing that I will say for those who don't know, I've mentioned this in a couple of episodes I've been on. I started out as a client and then I'm now on the team full-time. But that was one of the things that I really appreciated about the trainers was just that it wasn't about what I wanted to hear, but the information was presented in a way that was digestible as someone who didn't understand dog training. So it wasn't, you know, oh, your dog did so great. It was, here are the areas you need to work on as a handler, and here are some things that you two should work on before your next session. But it was broken down in a way that a client can really understand and apply outside of their training session, which I always thought was great. But outside of that, you mentioned, like, with our students here, what are some of— let me figure out With our students that we have here, you mentioned like if there's a situation where they have to be counseled or worst case scenario, they have to, you know, end their session or their time at the school. What are some of the main areas our students struggle with when it comes to training?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, is the intensity of information. So every course we have a set amount of time to train somebody. And that's not to say we can't extend time or that, but obviously, you know, we're in business, so time is money. And, you know, back in the day, I'm giving everything away, but I learned, you know, that I just— I can't allow my heart to take over everybody else on the team. And that's why we have procedures and things that we develop to hold everybody accountable. So I can't just make a decision and give stuff away free, um, it has to follow strict guidelines. But with that being said, the biggest thing that people struggle, struggle with here that I see is the fact that they have to study, the fact that they have to learn information, and they're held accountable to that both in a field setting, meaning application, and also in the classroom. And we don't deviate from those standards. And so that's really the biggest struggle— somebody that's not used to studying and not used to training all day and then going home and having to study in the evening time and get up and repeat, uh, because we have a wide range of students from young, those that have been in the military or getting out of the military, those that have been out for some time, civilians that have never seen that type of structure, and then law enforcement. And, you know, unfortunately, there's a lot of law enforcement classes that are not set up that way in training. Although it's a great accomplishment, we tell everybody day one, like, they have to study every single day. There's no way possible to pass our courses unless you study and put in the work. Now, do we have a lot of people that fail? No, not, not comparatively to the number, but that's because we mentor those people. And when we see them struggling, we give them help in those areas where we can say, hey, try this, this, and this. Or, you know, a lot of students will tell us, man, I just, I haven't been studying. And it shows, we can tell. And so they gotta buckle down and just do it. But that's probably the biggest struggle is the mental game, if you will.

Yeah. So now would you say that was the same for you when you were an early trainer, K-9 trainer? 'Cause I mean, I don't think we had the same resources that we have now as far as the classroom learning that we have at CCU.

Yeah, no, it— that was not a struggle for me. Um, and, and I'll tell you why. I wanted to do this so bad, like, it didn't matter to me. And I, I put in a lot of free stuff. I did a lot of stuff on my own. I'll tell you up front, I did not receive the best training initially. Uh, my training was very subpar. It was to get me through and to check off the box and to collect the check, and that was it. Hence one of the reasons why our courses are developed the way they are. They're not easy, but they're very accomplishable, but they're packed with information and learning because I never want a student to feel like I have— like I did. When I left school. I was literally lost. And if I wasn't the person that I was, I would have failed miserably as a K-9 handler. But I, I just would not settle for that. So I sought out resources, I did extra training, I learned things, I went to every class I could go to, additional class. I talked to every handler I could. I trained with people even if I didn't believe in their philosophies. I wanted to learn from everybody and apply and try things out. And, uh, that's exactly what I did. And I wrote everything down. I had a little journal, and I would be up at night and I would write things down in my little journal— things I was learning, things I was contemplating, things that I was going over in my own head with my dog or with another dog. And I even took on civilian clients because I kind of figured out that it was kind of easy to train police dogs because all I had to do was put them into drive and use that to my advantage. But civilian dogs came with a whole bunch of issues. Every one of them could be, uh, you know, you couldn't just use a ball to train that. You couldn't just use drive to train that dog. And on top of that, you didn't have a regimen like you did with law enforcement. So my handlers, I could say, hey, do this, this, and this, this many times a day for this long, and da da da da da. With a civilian client, you say that and you might get 10% of that. And it's not because they don't want to, it's because they don't have time and it's not their profession. So this is their hobby or this is their pet. They don't want to— they don't have time to put countless hours in like we do or like my handlers do. So I had to figure out ways to do that. So for like 2 years, I did that for free just to have the opportunity, because I didn't feel comfortable charging people for training that I was not comfortable with. So I felt like if I was going to charge somebody for training, I had to be the expert. I had to be the professional, and that comes with an air of confidence and, um, and experience that I wasn't going to screw their dog up. And I see a lot of people out there putting their hands on people's dogs that don't have the experience or the education, and it's just a disaster waiting to happen. And, uh, it's unfortunate because most times the client doesn't realize that and doesn't know that, but I was very upfront Initially, I would tell people, hey, I'm new at this, I'm just— I need the experience, so if you don't mind, I'd like to train your dog, no cost, if you'll just give me some time and chisel out some time with me and your dog each week. And then I tried different things, I put together different programs, and they allowed me the flexibility of that. And I'm forever grateful for those clients that allow me to do that.

Yeah. Now, going back to what you'd said about people easily messing up civilian or just pet dogs, I guess you'd say, that is one of the things here at CCU. Our students go through, what, 3 days of classes before they're ever hands-on with any dog, any of their dogs, even the handler students. But they have to go through health, nutrition, first aid. I'm sure there's some other courses that I haven't sat in on, but just there's so many things that go into it before you ever touch a dog.

Yeah, it's funny because this class that's in now, this, uh, particular student kept asking, when am I going to get to meet my dog? And, uh, you know, we had to tell her, like, you know, for one, you don't need to be touching a dog until you can do that safely, both for you, for the dog, and for others around you. We have a lot of students here, we got a lot of staff here, we We got a lot of dogs here. So without managing things safely, a lot can go wrong very quickly. And, you know, obviously we want to keep all the dogs safe, as safe as possible. We want to keep all the students and the staff as safe as possible. And a lot of things we learned from our mistakes. Probably one of the best teachers is, is mistakes, right? So, and that's in business and that's in operations and that's in training. So, We have just learned over the years, take it slow, lay a good foundation, and then everything else can move pretty quickly once we get all that done. So our first week is really, really slow in our eyes, and we say that all the time. It's kind of a boring week per se, but it lays the foundation for everything else we're gonna do. And then once we get past that week 1, it's very rapid growth very quickly. Yeah, so yep, absolutely it is.

We'll have them, uh, they'll be in class one day and, you know, the next week they're out there doing bite work. That's one of the most— this is a side note, but that's one of the most exciting things for me to watch. Um, for those who don't know, I don't touch the dogs. I video, I take pictures, I don't, I don't train them, I don't handle them. Um, so it's always fun for me to see it when they get in that decoy suit, which there's other steps leading up to that, but the first time they get in the decoy suit, that's one of the I try to make time to video that for every class just because it always makes good content. But that's a side note. So moving into— we're going to move away from trainer struggles and into the business side of things. So now you mentioned that you as a trainer or as a handler didn't have the best training to start out. Is that kind of why you decided to start doing CCU on the side, start building those resources?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, although this was like an idea that came out of just wanting to have a business, right, it was really more so to help people out because I always felt like— I felt bad that I was put in that situation. And unfortunately, we were a department that was starting a new unit I had limited experience in canine from special operations in my previous position, and so we were very like, like I say, because of our experience and all that. Um, and I had to learn very rapidly. And I'm not saying my experience in training was all bad because it taught me a lot about what not to do, but then I started thinking like we needed to develop more structured training. And that's what I always look at— how can we get the best results consistently? And what I found out is, of course, in business, data tells us. We can read data, we can read the results, and then make changes in that process if it's documented. And so it's very similar in training. If we see certain areas where we struggle, we get feedback from students where they struggle, we're able to go back and pinpoint exactly where that's happening and what we need to inject or what we need to modify to eliminate that problem. And so in that, that's what I began doing very early on in my career was I began to, like I told you guys about the journal, I began to write things down and I began to become a student of results. And what I mean by that is I studied results and what we were doing to achieve those results. And I said we, me, um, what I was doing to achieve those results. And so I've carried that on to today. Like how much documentation goes on with our trainers in the background that nobody ever sees. Yeah, that's a big shock to most people. Our kennel, I mean, they're bombarded with paperwork per se, but they document everything.

Everything.

Yeah, it's built into our DNA, um, from, from the top down. So, um, which is good because we can go back and analyze, we can go back and see when this problem first started. We can go back and see things that we can do. I review quarterly injury reports. I review, um, the reasons why those— I review if we have students that fail certification. I go back and review all that to make sure and to identify if there's areas we can improve. And most times there, there is. So we go back as a team, identify those, and come back as a team to figure out how, what the solution is to, to mitigate that risk or that problem, or to increase the likelihood of success for our students or our dogs. All that is like in the archives, just gigabytes of, probably terabytes of information. That we have. But again, that's one of the things that I saw was a big hindrance to us early on, and I knew that I had to come up with ways to make it as quick and easy as possible to document that. And then also to, you know, marry up the trainer experience, the kennel staff experience, the client experience, and how do we get that all in full circle. And so we've got a good handle on that for sure.

Yeah. So then, you know, now we have all of these policies and procedures in place. And like you mentioned with paperwork, I've seen situations where the kennel is able to pull up a timestamp document of a situation and, you know, use that for whatever they may need, whether it's a client concern, Kennel Master concern, whatever. But when you first started CCU, you know, was paperwork where you struggled initially? Because I know you've mentioned in a previous podcast you and Adam didn't have the policies and procedures that we have now. But where, where was that big area of struggle for you at the beginning of CCU?

It was finding time. Time was the big struggle, um, you know, being new. But when I first started CCU, time Where do I find the time in the day to do everything I need to do? And I had to put ways to try to simplify, I mean simplify, still achieve the same results, but be able to simplify things to make it as easy as possible. Because a trainer that's bogged down with hours and hours and hours of paperwork is not training. So I marry up how that happens. How do we refine the process so that it's not a big takeaway from training, but yet still accomplish the requirements of documentation. So we went through several trials, but, you know, really finding time to get everything in the day. Just think about it. I gotta develop courses. I gotta talk to clients. I gotta get new clients in. I have to train. I have to take care of dogs. We have to market. We— I have to then answer government inquiries on licenses, uh, you know, deal with our accountants and our insurance people. Um, so they're just— the list just continues to roll, and just finding time to be able to do all of that.

Yeah.

And You know, with new students going out there and wanting to start a business, that's one of their biggest things is like, how do I find time to do all this? And, and I try to mentor them before they leave and tell them like the overwhelming amount of work it's going to take. You know, you don't have classes, if you don't have your courses, you your services planned out? How are people going to sign up? How are people going to pay you? Like, the list just goes on, on the decisions you have to make and the things you have to put into place. And on top of that, you want to be a great trainer and a great trainer. So again, it's cool to say you have a business, but that business will quickly go away if you don't have these things in place. And, and I know that. And, you know, my full-time job is unfortunately sitting behind a desk, paperwork, getting out and seeing who I can see. And people joke all the time, well, oh, you're just sitting in an office, or you're just doing this. And I'm like, they, they don't see the magnitude of things that have to be done to keep a business going. 100%. Yep. So, and I'm not complaining, I'm not, you know, trying to impress people. What I am trying to do is reveal to people that are looking to do this the magnitude of work it takes to do this, to keep yourself, uh, one, out of hot water, but keep yourself growing. This is very— what's the best word in in this are the best explanation. Our industry is not— you know, a manufacturer can build a car or build something, a house, and it's very— it's easy. You just make the right cuts, you nail the boards the right way, or you screw them in the right way, you make the weld in the right place. It's very procedural, right? Step by step. Training is not like that. Dog services are not like that because we're dealing with an animal that has a mind of its own, then we're dealing with an owner that has a mind of their own, and we're trying to bring all that together. And every dog and every client is different. So, you know, even though we have great outlines and what we're going to follow and what we're going to do every day, it still adjusts a little bit to the trainer and their unique perspective, the dog and their unique learning capabilities, and the owner or handler and their unique capabilities. So we have to come up with ways to still get the same results and approach it 25 different ways at times. And so that's difficult to do. And build and have the time to do that. So on top of being a great trainer, because that's what everybody sees, that's the, that's the forward-facing, um, that's what, that's the forward-facing that the client sees, but they don't see everything else that goes on the background. So we got to do things back here that directly gives results in front of the client and still have time to do all that. Because I can tell you, if as a new trainer, if you don't put out a good dog, that word gets around very quickly and done before you even get started. Now you're trying to answer people, get people to sign up consistently. You're trying to get answer questions, because even today, even with all this going on, I'm still dealing with clients all day.

Yeah.

Some form or fashion, sending them invoices, sending them, um, getting them the information they need to get signed up, dealing with tech issues if that's failing, um, you know, making sure that all the required documents for vaccinations are in and monitoring that and making sure that's moving. So there is so much to do for a new trainer that it's easy for them to get overwhelmed. Um, with everything on their plate and, and then still operate and still do what they want to do, which is train dogs.

Exactly.

That's what we all got into this for. It wasn't to be sitting here on this podcast, believe it or not, to, um, you know, do all this paperwork and develop all these processes and do all this stuff. It wasn't to do any of that. It was to do what I love to do, which was to train dogs and to see the results of that. But you can't do that if you can't get people in the door. You can't make a living if you don't have revenue coming in. So all that has to come full circle with you.

Yeah.

So you either hire people to do that, and most new trainers don't have the funding to do that, uh, or the management, because what is that person going to do Despite the number of people that we've hired with high education and a lot of experience, it doesn't translate very well into doing what we need to do to, to make this run because we're a very niche industry. Go to school to learn to be an operations manager for, uh, a K-9 facility. You don't go to school to learn to market a canine company that deals with, um, B2C, which is business to client, B2B business, and then also on the government side. You know, it, it's very unique in what we do and what we present on a daily basis. And there's just unfortunately no school to do it. So you have to train everybody to do that. But if you don't know yourself how to deal with the government, you don't know how to write proposals, you don't know how to, uh, what the timeline and what the scope looks like on a proposal or RFP if you don't even know what that means. Um, you know, all these things you don't know about, then you got to then set yourself up for all that. So it's a never-ending evolution of things to do. Uh, it's, it's the fourth month of the year and I'm just now getting caught up for the turn of the year. Budgets, new budgets, licenses, license renewal, taxes, uh, what else, insurance renewals. All this stuff comes in the first quarter of, of the year every year, and then everybody wants something now. And so, you know, just dealing with all that is pretty— could be pretty overwhelming for somebody. Absolutely.

It sounds like it. I got overwhelmed listening to it. So Some of the other things that we hear a lot about is just bringing in clients, but also the mentorship. And you kind of touched on that a little bit. There's the canine industry from my, my nearly a year involved with it is one of the closest knit, whether you're talking law enforcement trainers, you know, pet dog trainers, et cetera. But there seems to be a disconnect or maybe like just a lack of information sharing when it comes to mentoring new trainers.

Yeah. And, you know, I'm glad you brought that up because that's something that was very hard to start. You know, when I first started, I hate to date myself, but we didn't have the luxury of the internet and all the resources that are available right now for today's trainers, um, the podcasts like what we're putting out now, the, the apps that are out there, the information you can find on the internet. That just wasn't heavily available back then. Yeah, but you know, those things are now available and now at people's fingertips. You know, finding somebody that's going to share information with you is, is very hard as well because everybody thinks that you're going to take their business. And so because of my struggles, we feel very strongly about mentoring our students. You know, obviously we have limited hours in the day, but we always chisel out as much time as we can. Now, I have a policy. I'm not doing anything for you because that's what a lot of people want. They want you to hold their hand. They want you to do everything for them. They want you to tell them exactly step by step how to do things. I refuse to do that. You know, I go back to the old adage: you can give somebody fish to eat, or you can teach them to fish and they can feed themselves for a lifetime.

Yep.

And so that's what I— that, that's what I live by. In that regard. And I do the same thing with handler training. I'm not going to tell you step by step how to handle your dog. I'm going to give you the resources that it takes for you to be a great handler for a career. And so in that, mentorship is important. However, nobody wants to mentor other people because they think they're going to steal their business or they're going to take their clients and such. Yeah, I definitely won't deal with anybody I don't trust. Period. Um, I definitely won't deal with somebody that, uh, doesn't want to put in the work. They just want somebody to hand something to them. In that case, just pay somebody to do it. Don't come to me for free stuff. But somebody that's very vested in this and has legitimate questions and puts in the work and just doesn't pick up the phone and go, hey, how do I do this? They've done their research. They put in the effort to, to learn on their own as well. Uh, I 100%— we're going to help you out as much as, as we can. So, um, or at least point you in the right direction or connect you with the right people. Uh, and that's something that we 100% live by. But again, I'm not doing it for you, and there's just too much time in the day to do that. And there's some things that I can't do for you because we have services that we charge for. There's things, you know, the biggest thing now that I had to learn was I get paid for my time. And if my time or my trainer's times or my staff's time is not being compensated, that means it's coming out of the business pocket, which then means that we're not going to be a profitable business. We're going to be a nonprofit business, and that's not good either because obviously we got to cut expenses somehow if we're not charging for them. And so every bit of that, some things I'm limited on what I can share because we have other programs or services that we offer to combat those questions or to help with those questions that we have spent the time in development And when it comes to research and development, that's the free time we put in in order to develop something to solve somebody's problem. But then it becomes a paid service or product, and I can't release information free because of that, and neither can any of our other staff. So we're all held to the same standard. But that's the reason why sometimes I'll say, hey, you got to sign up for this class because this class teaches the full perspective. And a lot of times it's not good just to get a little piece of the pie because then it only confuses you. So you need to get the full picture. And that's usually presented in a way that through a, through a class or a lesson or some other structured form of presentation. So, but it is very important to get a mentor. Somebody to bounce ideas off of. But not— don't use that mentor in the sense of just give me all the answers, because it's impossible to do that.

Yeah. Or do it for me.

Well, that, you know, it's no different than somebody calling me on the phone saying, hey, I got this problem with my dog, what do I do? I need to see the dog. I need to see the full scope of what's going on. We don't just tell you do this because of that, because it's not that simple. We're dealing with a lot more than just what you see on the outward behavioral side of things. There could be underlying problems and all that, and then I tell you what to do over the phone and it messes up, and now we have a bigger problem. So same thing in business. I can't give you all the answers because I don't have the full scope of what's going on. Why are you not retaining clients? Why are you not getting clients in? There's a, there's a lot of underlying things that it could be in order to make a decision on the direction we need to go to make it happen.

Yeah. So then leading off of that, you know, do you know of any resources for trainers that are looking to sort of bring their company, um, to the next level or even just start their company? We could be talking new companies, existing companies, et cetera.

Yeah, there's a couple things that I, I firmly believe in because it's really helped me. And like I told you guys, I was you know, I didn't have the business background. I didn't have— and on top of that, I didn't have the, the money to just go out there and hire these consultants or to hire a business manager or any of that. So I had to learn from the streets, if you will. And so that street education helped me to find and seek out resources and And, and I say I am 100%, and that's why— and Maya, you can attest to this, I've said this from day one— why I love you so much is because you are an avid researcher, right? And that's the way I operate. I research everything before I jump into it.

Yep.

And, um, when, when I'm struggling with something, I get on and I research. I call on people and I say, hey, what do you think about this? What's your take on this? So forth and so on. So we bounce ideas off each other that way, and then I delve into research, and I delve into how other people are doing it and how they were successful. And I bring stuff to Maya and say, Maya, what do you think about this? I mean, on two occasions just this week, I brought stuff to you and said, what do you think about this? Should we do this? Should we not? And you came back with the most detailed no that you could give me.

And well, because no is not an answer. No is part of an answer. There needs to be a reason for that.

And yeah, exactly. And, um, so I love it because, because of that, you know, I'm a very impulse person. Like, I, if I get something in my head, I'm not stopping until I solve that, whether it's staying up all night, whether it's working for 3 or 4 days, whether it's You know, missing time with this or that, I get stuck and I can't leave the task alone until it's completed. So there's resources out there that I personally draw upon and continue to draw upon because they're invaluable. The first one is the SBA. A lot of people don't realize this. The Small Business Administration has offices around the country, and I can think of 3— 2 offices that we're sitting in between, one in Gainesville and one in Athens. And I used to go to the one in Athens because we were closer to that one, and they offer free services. Yeah, there's some courses you can pay for. They do online training. They do— they bring in experts and But the cost is very minimal. And a lot of times, if you'll reach out to them and tell them, hey, I don't have the funding, they will give you a scholarship to attend the class. And, um, that's what I did when I first started. I could not believe it was free. I thought it was a gimmick. I was like, okay, so when are you going to hit me with a bill? And they were like, no, it's paid for by your tax dollars. Could not believe it. So guys, look for those SBA offices. Because you sign up, you get a business consultant and they work with you. They sit down and do an interview with you initially. They learn about your business and you can always email, call them, or set up a meeting with them to come in and talk about what you're planning. And they can help you not only find resources, but tap into other ways to help you find the answers to what you're looking for. So they're your trusty right-hand man or woman that's going to help you to be as successful as possible. Again, they're not going to run it for you, but they're going to help you. And these people have experience in business. Most of them are former business owners that now work for the SBA full-time. Most of them, the gentlemen that I know personally that I've been working with, Uh, he's owned like 5 to 6 businesses and he retired and now he does this full-time and he's the area director.

Wow.

But it's a wealth of information. And then there's people that are trusted providers for the SBA that they can say, go see this person. And that's anything from taxes to revenue, um, writing contract. I mean, there's just a plethora of information to include marketing. I think you attended one or two marketing classes with them, and I think like $49, and you spent half a day or a day with somebody that's a professional that they brought in to teach a class on marketing. And, you know, you may not be able to use it 100%, but you can always take away from new learning and new perspectives and things of that nature. So Great resource, period. Uh, so SBA, find out— Small Business Administration, find out where their offices are and get connected with that. Another great resource is the VA has a lot of great resources for veterans, and I know a lot of people give the VA a bad name. 100%, I can tell you through experience numerous times on how many times the VA helps people. And if you'll just allow them, remember they're dealing with a lot of people. And so to have individualized care at the moment you need it when it's not an emergency just doesn't work that way. Sometimes you got to sign up, sometimes you got to make appointments, but there's so many resources that the VA has that will help a veteran from loans to to also business classes. There's a lot of vendors that have attached themselves to the VA to be able to help facilitate some of that stuff— trusted providers. And those trusted providers, the VA can turn you on to them and, and give you a professional that can also help you. Some of it's paid, some of it's not. A lot of it's free. But the problem is, is a lot of people want to just connect with these people when they are in a time of need versus building a relationship with them. And at the end of the day, if I know you for 5 seconds, I'm less likely to help you than if I've known you for a year and we have a relationship. Yeah, the way it is. So build a relationship with the SBA, build a relationship with the VA, you will uncover that there's so many resources out there for you that's absolutely free. But unfortunately, you're not going to have the experience that I have, and you're just starting out. Remember, a lot of people see where we're at today, but they didn't see the 20 years of, of struggles that we went through to get here.

Yeah.

And we joke about that, but I've been in times where my house was in foreclosure. I've been in times when I had $137 in my bank account, and I work for a company, CCU, that I didn't have an income coming in from. It wasn't like when I worked for the government where every week or every 1st and 15th there was a check hitting my account. Well, I own a business now, and so my pay is based on how many clients we bring in, not based on a set salary. So, and that's after we pay for the broken faucet, we pay for the septic tank that just went out, we pay for the car crash that an employee had, we pay for the insurance, the taxes, the licenses, and all these other things that we have to pay first, or you're not going to be in business. And then you get a paycheck. My point behind that is, is that's why it's important to begin to build that experience. And don't expect to be where we're at right now and you just started off, unless you just had the money to buy into something like that, and then that's a whole different perspective. But if you don't and you're trying to build it on your own, slow and go is the name of the game. And learn to watch your pennies and where you need to invest that one penny in order to get maximum results. Because that taught me so much as well, is how to manage that, that revenue that we were bringing in that I had no experience in at all. So it's more complex, but those resources are there for you, uh, the ones that I just mentioned. I mean, those are the two major ones, um, we've connected with the Chamber of Commerce, and that's another great resource. They have lunch and learns, and they always have events going on that support businesses to include the latest legislation that's coming out. So I recommend getting connected with them as well. And again, that's just more time you spend in other places, but it all lends to your experiences and your resources. If you call me and ask me, most times, or a lot of times, I'm not going to be able to do it myself, or I may not be the best person to help you. So I'm going to direct you to someone else. Hey, if you got a dog question as far as health and well-being, I'm not answering that. I'm giving you to Deborah Clark, expert, right? Uh, if you have a marketing question, yeah, I can give you some guidance, but I'm going to turn you to Maya Simpson because she has the experience. She's doing it every single day. She knows the good and the bad, and I get a caption of that on Thursdays in our marketing meeting, right? I ask questions, you have answers, we move on. And so the best person to contact is a professional, and they are— you need me to teach you about behavior and all that? Hey, join one of our classes or reach out to us because that's where I excel. You need me to help you get through the stress of running a business? That's why I excel, because I've been done that, right? Um, you need resources to call on? Okay, well, here's some people I trust, and this is what I would do if I was in your situation. But it's not wave your magic wand and you have this already, because there's a lot to develop outside of just being a trainer.

Blood, sweat, and tears.

Yeah, well, and that's also if you want to be successful and be longstanding and build a, a sustainable business. And that's really what my goal has always been. It hasn't been for me. I was telling somebody this, uh, earlier this week on a meeting that I was having with another facility that we're looking at licensing, and, uh, I told him it's not about me. I purposely keep my name off everything as much as possible. I don't want CCU to be about me, and it's not about me. You should get any trainer at CCU, any staff member at CCU, and it's the same experience. That's what my goal is. Not, oh, I only want to deal with AJ, or something happens to AJ, the whole company and everybody that's being employed goes away. Well, that's not a good feeling. I don't want our staff to think if something ever happens to me, it's done. I want them to know and be assured that they can make a career out of this with a company that's going to continue to support them, and it doesn't depend on one person. The machine will run because of everybody else involved, and that has— that's been my goal. That's why it's not AJ Vargas's training. That's why it's not AJ's, not plastered on everything there is, because it's not about me. It's about everybody else in this industry. It's CCU is what makes it run. But that also puts us in a position to expand very easily, to take on new facilities and some other resources that we've built out. And also fuels the reason why we built out those resources, because the last part of the resources that I built out is what's coming out very soon, which is our business suite. Because I go back to when I was a new trainer on how much I had to do to make this successful. Everybody doesn't have that, nor do they have that time. So part of that is, is coming up with resources that we can use to help other trainers or other handlers or other people that want to open up facilities. Yes, it's going to cost you money, but the amount of money it costs you is far less than the amount of time you're going to have to put in to get to that position. It took me 20 years to get here and where we are right now. Where you're gonna— you could go through rapid growth and excel very quickly with the business suites that we have developed, and I'm happy that we're able to do that now. And have the time to sit down and go, okay, where are the struggles that people are having and how can we solve those struggles with them? Who answers your phone? Who gives clients information? Who sells your products or services to them? Well, you do. Well, that means you can't train dogs and provide exceptional training because you're stuck answering the phone, answering emails, and doing training and trying to develop classes and trying to take people's payment and following up with XYZ person, we want to be able to take that off your plate and provide you some resources again that pay for our time on a fractional level. And that's the important thing. How much does it cost to hire a marketing manager, a, an ad agency, um, start a website? Uh, I mean, that's thousands and thousands of dollars. But we came up with a way to do that fractionally. Network builds upon itself, becomes a resource in, in and of itself, and provides you the resources that you need to be successful as a trainer or a new facility or, uh, whatnot. I mean, just think about the lesson plans that somebody could get instantaneously with a license agreement and have every lesson plan we've al— that we developed and get the continued development that our team goes through on a weekly basis. It's just, it's just remarkable. So I'm happy to say that's the last resource that we can lend somebody to is that business suites, if you will. And that's what we termed it because that's really what it is. It's a, it's a suite of business solutions for a trainer or a facility to help them grow exponentially and give them the resources that took us decades to, to develop.

Yeah, yeah. I'm really excited to see, um, the future of business suites and also most importantly to see those trainers be able to keep putting out exceptional dogs, keep putting out exceptional training work, but also be able to live and not have to be working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Yeah, it's, uh, it's daunting. And like I said, everybody's not cut out for that. You know, everything always goes well to start. You know, people are excited. But what happens when that newness wears down? Do you still like that new car that you bought and spent all that money for because you impulse bought? Or do you still love your business the same way you did when you first started and it was new and fresh and shiny and clean, and everybody looked at you as this business owner. Now the, the newness is wore out, and now the reality is hit, which is I have no time. And on top of that, all my time and effort, I get an occasional person that calls me, is what one trainer told me. And everybody that calls me never signs up. And how do I get consistently— get these people to call in? How do I get consistently people to sign up? How do I keep people, get people into training and all this other stuff? And like I told him, that's the number one question, bro. Like, that's what we spent decades figuring out, because that's it. If you don't have customers that are paying on a consistent basis, you cannot survive. An occasional client doesn't make it. There's only so many friends you can train their dogs for, right, that are willing to pay you to do it. After that, what do you do? There's only so far that word of mouth will take you.

Yeah.

Now you gotta go out and create a machine that automatically brings in leads and then have conversions that make those leads possible. And then work on that percentage. I think our percentage is around less than 3% of the leads we bring in close. And we consistently work on increasing that percentage. But think about that. If you bring in 100 clients, only 3 of them are gonna become clients of yours on an average.

Yep.

So how many clients do you need to survive every month in order to make it and live? That's a great question, right? Because there's only so many friends that will help you out and let you train their dog. Now it becomes reality where you got to be a consumer or a customer provider on a consistent basis.

Yeah.

And think about it, these big companies that say McDonald's, how do they get people in the door? You know, there, there's people they pay good money to figure that out. There's science behind it. There's, there's a lot that goes into that. People are— and, and that's what I thought. If I build it, the Field of Dreams, if you will, they will come. Well, when I'm laid up on my couch depressed and don't have any money within 6 months, and I'm trying to figure out what the heck is going on, that's the reason why we started providing other training services. Because the Lord blessed me with a talent And I was picking and choosing how I used that talent. And I learned very quickly that you'll learn a lesson when you don't use the talents that you're being given. And, and that's what happened to me. And, uh, so, you know, those opportunities that come our way, we seize them. And I don't complain. I'm thankful for everything that comes our way because without, without that, we wouldn't have anything. It wasn't through my doing. At all. So I encourage new trainers and new business owners to, to don't believe that falsehood that it just happens and, oh, I'm just going to build this successful business and it's easy. It is difficult. It takes work and hard work. But utilize those resources that are out there for you. They're there 100%. But don't—

man, this is a Oh, sorry, you need to keep going.

No, no, don't give up. Keep pushing. Like, every day, chip away. There's two things I say when people say, how— what's going on, man? I'm blessed, which means I'm thankful for everything that comes my way. And secondly, I'm chipping away every day. I got my head down and I'm taking a step forward, trying to pound and beat the pavement. And, uh, yeah, because I have a responsibility, and that responsibility is to students, our customers, and most importantly, people like Maya Simpson, our staff. I owe every single staff member my full 100% dedication. And, um, yeah, so that's every single day, just grind.

I'm, I'm one of those who's not cut out for business owners.

Well, not it, but not everybody is. Not everybody's cut out to be a handler or a trainer, right? And I say that all the time. I did it because I thought it was cool. Again, if I knew then what I know now, 100%, I wouldn't do it. But now I have a very unique perspective. At the same time, there would be nothing I would change. At all, because I love what I do. I love what I do every single day now, you know. I love the people I have the opportunity to work around. We have a great team, and I just love it. I sit back— I often sit back and just look and watch and just think and listen, and it's just so cool to see our, our team work and put things together. It's the coolest thing ever.

Um, we also have a great team though. I love our team.

Yeah.

Which, I mean, obviously there's been changes throughout the 20 years. I mean, that's two decades, but we have a great team. We always have.

Yeah, you know, people, you know, obviously find other opportunities or things that they want to do that really fulfill them, and that's what it's about. No hard feelings, uh, at all. And that— but that's business, right? We're constantly working on growing the team and putting the right people on the bus that we need to take it wherever we're going to go. And that's really what we want. We want people on the, on the team, and I've heard you say it many times, hey, whatever you need me to do, let's do it. And we want the bus filled. And I read a book years ago about that, like, I want to hire people that just want to get on the bus and ride it, no matter what seat you're in. You could be driving the bus, you could be in the back, or you could be you know, in the middle, it doesn't matter. Let's just get on the bus and ride it. Yeah, because wherever it goes, we're willing to go, but we got to take it wherever it's going to go. And, and I believe in that. So, you know, you lose one team member, maybe it's, you know, an opportunity to fill another position that's more beneficial at the time. Uh, so hey, let's continue to chip away, but I absolutely love the team. I love hanging around everybody. I can hang out with everybody on the team. Like, that's how I feel. We can hang out and have a great time and chill or do whatever we want to do and be okay with that. It's not one of those things where I come to work and, okay, we work together, but I don't like you. I, I just never like that. Yep, our team's always been a good team, uh, And particularly now, it's just great working with everybody. It really is.

Yeah, it is. But all right, I think we've gone, we've gone over our time. But this is really great, all the information that was shared in this. And I'll have some links down below to some local SBA resources, VA resources for, you know, you to check out if you'd like to get some more information. We'll also have our website and all of our contact info links. So if you want to be first on the list when we officially release Business Suites. Go ahead and click that link below and sign up, and you will be the first to know when everything is put out.

Yeah, that's great, Ma. Another resource for people, which is awesome. I want to remind people that on Tuesdays we do our short sets. Join us, 10 to 15 minutes thereabouts on a quick training set. Pushes you towards training, gives you some ideas on some things you can work on for the week, uh, and really push yourself in the training realm. And don't forget to like, subscribe, and definitely share this to people that would be— that you think would benefit from this type of information and, uh, could, could benefit. Maybe they're struggling in business, maybe they just need some resources or some help, uh, or they're somebody that's aspiring to get into this industry. 100%. I know CCU is a great resource for that.

Absolutely.

All right, well, I guess we'll see everybody on Tuesday.

Yeah, on Tuesday.

I think so. I'll be behind the camera.