2026 Is Make Or Break For Your Dog Training Business

Let me go through 3 mistakes you're going to make over the next 2, 3, maybe 5 years that are absolutely going to tank your dog training business. If you make these mistakes, you're going to stay exactly where you are. And I don't know why anyone would do anything that results in staying the same. I'm going to cover each one, explain why it'll keep you stuck, and tell you what to do instead. If you don't know me, I run a company called Yorkshire Canine Academy. I mentor dog trainers all across the world, helping them grow their business to $5,000, $10,000 a month, in many instances $20,000 a month, £100,000 a month, £200,000 a year. That is double Australian dollars. So £200,000 a year, $400,000 Australian dollars, around $300,000 USD. Now the first two mistakes are important, but the last one will, well, absolutely fuck you. You've got to fix the first two if you hopefully want to survive the third. One of the first things you're gonna think about doing is hiring a marketing agency. You're gonna get sick of moving sideways in your business. And because of you have no idea what marketing actually is or even the definition of it, you're gonna go out there and you're gonna hand it to someone else because the thought of dealing with it yourself potentially scares you. And I've actually made this mistake on several occasions, so let me just save you the pain. Here's what's likely going to happen. They're going to come in and they're going to pitch deck you. They're going to show you some slides showing you what they've done, who they've helped. And a word of warning, they're going to show you maybe like a top 1% of their results, or they're going to disguise those results with numbers and metrics you don't have a clue about. They're going to majorly overcomplicate marketing to make you feel like you can't possibly do it on your own. Then they're going to lock you in for a retainer, typically between $2,000 and $3,000 a month. A good one might ask for like more like $5,000 a month plus a profit share. Um, I highly recommend that you don't do this. Here's why. Typically they're not niche marketers, and if they are niche to dog training, they usually just not very good. So go and read their testimonials. If they're not niche, they're not actually going to have a clue about your business, your clients, or how things work. One of the biggest things in marketing is having a comprehensive understanding of your clients and their problems. They're not going to have a clue about a dog or any level of understanding of our industry. On top of that, something I didn't know for a long time is any fucking idiot can actually start a marketing agency. Like, any moron. Because being successful in a marketing agency is just being able to sell your agency services and lock people into retainers. They don't actually need to achieve anything for your business, they just suck the oxygen out of it. Marketing is actually not as complicated as you think, and you're much better off learning to do it yourself. Even having a 10% understanding of marketing can go an exceptionally long way if you had a good skill set. There are of course exceptions. There are probably some great agencies out there, but they are few and far between. Any of my mentees that have previously tried agencies in the past have literally wasted tens of thousands of pounds or dollars with these agencies got absolutely nowhere other than, like I said, just being a lot of money down. Most will come to you with like really big promises, lock you into contracts, and leave you absolutely fucked, which of course we don't want. All right, mistake number 2. Uh, let me give you a little bit of insight without naming names. There are a lot of dog trainers out there who on the surface look like they're doing exceptionally well. These boys and girls are often screwed. Please do not think that a high follower count on social media or a big social media presence is in any way correlative with how well they're actually doing. You do not want to be famous, you just want to be wealthy. And I know you might not want to hear that, but you need to start thinking about making more money. You want to protect those around you, you want to build something real, and you need to stop giving a fuck what other dog trainers are doing. While I'm on this, please do not let the opinions of strangers on the internet hold you back from serving those closest to you. Get out of the mindset that you need the approval from other dog trainers in your industry to be successful. You absolutely do not. If they have not achieved what you intend to achieve, their opinion does not matter. Let me be very clear on that. Furthermore, when you compare yourself to others, you will subconsciously start to emulate them, and I've seen this pattern consistently. The danger is if their success is superficial, you'll end up cooking yourself too, you will be fucked. Be careful who you compare yourself to. As they say, comparison is the thief of joy, and in this instance, I actually agree. To summarize that last one, stop comparing yourself to others. You don't know how well other dog trainers are doing. They're more than likely doing terribly. If you compare a lot, you'll end up copying them subconsciously, and then you will fuck yourself as well. All right, and the last one. This one will fuck you, and it's fucked many up until this point. The industry we're in is changing. There are more marketers coming in with lesser dog training skills, and they're going to project their bullshit dog training on everyone purely because they are good at marketing. You can fight it, or you can accept it and swim with the river of change. But what a lot of you are doing is being so just totally stubborn. I don't need to market. I don't need to post on social media. I don't need to do any of that. Listen, you can be the best dog trainer in the world. If you don't know how to market yourself, you're not helping anyone. Let me be very clear. You are not helping a single dog if you refuse to market yourself. Don't get me started on all those who kick off about marketing a dog training business. All these miserable fucks on social media going, I don't need to market, I let the results do the speaking. Go and look on Companies House, their companies are liquidated. And it's all well and good having that attitude, but it's an attitude that is like an anchor that is dragging you to the bottom of the ocean where you will drown. You have to start shifting your mindset. You are a business owner, a marketer that trains dogs. If you do not accept that, you you will not survive. You will either burn out, give up, or go back to a shitty job, and you're not going to help any dogs behind a desk. Chances are you started this journey to help more dogs, and if you don't accept that you need to market yourself, you are not going to help anyone. It's as simple as that. And I'm sorry to go off on a bit of a tangent, but that's how I'm seeing things right now. If you fight those three things, it will kill your dog training business. And if you want to revitalise your business, then I suggest you click the link in the description and go ahead and read a bunch of testimonials of people that probably once in your position, people that are now going on to do 60, 100, 200 grand a year. And that's in Great British pounds, by the way. Even more if you're from the US or Australia, which is where a lot of my clients are from. Listen, this channel makes no income claims. I don't know a thing about you. This is just a YouTube video. If you're probably not going to do well just off watching a YouTube video, if you want actual results, I highly suggest you pay me something. Other than that, I'll catch you in the next one.