Jacob Morgan explains why dog trainers with big followings aren't getting clients: they're talking to other trainers, not pet owners. He suggests either rewrite your content for actual customers or sell courses and mentorship to trainers instead.
You're doing everything right. You're creating content, you're building an audience. You're getting views and maybe downloads, but you're not getting any clients. Your DMs are full of other dog trainers maybe asking for advice or just hyping you up, but not pet owners who you actually help asking for your services. Your audience loves you, but they're never going to buy from you. Why? Because you have a content audience mismatch. You are accidentally creating content for your peers, not your customers, and it's the silent killer of your business. Today we're going to diagnose this problem. I'm going to show you how to figure out if your content is attracting the wrong people and how to pivot your strategy towards high paying clients instead of broke colleagues. This happens to so many trainers, especially those that are passionate and knowledgeable. You start a podcast or a YouTube channel and you start talking about the things that interest you. You do deep dives on learning theory. You debate the nuances of different training tools. You interview other trainers about their competitive dog sport journey and you accidentally become a guru to other dog trainers. They love your content because it's technical, it's advanced, and it speaks their language. But your ideal cl, the desperate pet owner with a reactive dog, is completely lost. They don't care about the four quadrants of operant conditioning. Sorry to say. They just want their dog to stop barking and lunging. You have built an audience of aspiring dog trainers who now want your knowledge for free, not an audience of pet owners who want to pay you for a result. So how do you know if you have this problem? You need to do an audience audit. Go through your last 10 pieces of content and ask yourself one simple question. Who is this for? And be brutally honest. Is your podcast episode on the history of Schutzhund really suitable for the struggling pet owner that can't get their dog to come back when it's cold? Or the guy who wants to get into dog sports? Is your Instagram post discussing the difference between operant and classical conditioning suitable for the family with a new puppy? Or is it for other dog trainers? Look at your DMs, look at your comments. Who's actually engaging with you? If it's a sea of other trainers, you have a content audience mismatch. Your content is a lead magnet for the wrong leads. Once you've identified the problem, you have two choices. Option one. You can pivot. This is the most common and most direct solution. You can pivot your content strategy to speak directly to your ideal client. Stop talking about the things that interest you and start talking about the things that are keeping them up at night. Instead of a podcast about dog Sports, create a YouTube channel discussing maybe three reasons your dog pulls on the leash. Maybe instead of a deep dive on canine training theory, create a guide for the 5 minute fix for puppy biting or whatever. Your content needs to be less about the intricacies of dog training and more about the client's problems and ultimately how to solve them. It needs to be simple, relatable and focused on their pain points. Option two is the product. What if you've already built a large audience of other trainers? You don't have to throw it away, you just need to create a product for them. This is where you can monitor, monetize your accidental guru status. And this is the path I've taken. To be honest, my content attracts other dog trainers who want to build their businesses. So I create a product for them, a mentorship program. I'm not trying to sell them dog training, I'm trying to sell them business coaching. So if your content is attracting aspiring dog trainers, stop trying to sell them pet dog training. Maybe create a new offer so long as you can deliver the results. Maybe it's a shadow program, a business mastermind or something along those lines. You have an audience that wants to learn from you. You just need to sell them what they actually want to buy. If you're interested in joining our mentorship program, you can check the links in the description. I've got some free TR training there. If you're on this channel, you should already be able to solve people's problems at a very high certainty. If you can't yet do that, I'd recommend you check out our dog trainer development program. Or if you want to go ahead, jump straight into the business mentorship. There's a link below that will give you all the information you need in order to make a well informed decision that's right for you and your business might see you in there.
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