Show Notes
Dog trainers are told online income is “easy.” Create a course. Stick it on Kajabi or Thinkific. Say “buy my thing.” Wake up to money in your sleep. If that is true, why are so many online memberships, £7 offers and “video vaults” quietly gathering dust?
This episode is all about why “easy online income” is a myth and what you actually need in place before online courses, memberships and low-cost digital offers will work for your dog business.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
There is a perception that online training is as simple as create a course, stick it on a platform, stick it on your website, and say - here's a course, buy my thing, and then voila, you're making money whilst you're sleeping. Easy online income is a myth: low‑ticket video courses and memberships are often harder to sell than one to one service. Giving buyers access to a big video vault just does not cut it. Free dog training advice is everywhere; people pay not for information, but for you, your personality, story, experience, guidance, and a clear, simple path to a result. Technology, including remote or online services do have a place within most dog businesses, but it needs to be used in the right way. A way that genuinely makes sense for your customers and produces good results e.g. delivering one to one lessons over Zoom. If you do run an online membership, make sure you are present and offer in-depth advice and a genuine community that owners can use to support each other. It´s not making money in your sleep Online offers only work when you already have audience, trust, and community in place. So, your first step is to actively build an audience.
BEST MOMENTS “The online space is so noisy…You're no longer competing with other dog trainers for attention. You're competing with the entire advertising system.”
“If it really were that simple, why is everybody not raking it in.”
"The marketplace is shifting for everybody … we're craving human connection … because the tech's overwhelming everybody."
“It's the equivalent of an in-person business just online.”
“You got to stand out in a way that works for you, in a way that aligns with your brand.
Join our free 90‑minute webinar where we’ll walk you through what’s working right now for dog pros who want a business that actually supports their life. Sign up here - https://www.caninebusinessacademy.com/90-min-masterclass
SOCIALS AND IMPORTANT LINKS https://www.tiktok.com/@letstalkdogbusiness https://www.youtube.com/@LetsTalkDogBusiness
Website www.caninebusinessacademy.com Community Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/caninebusinessacademycommunity
Let´s Talk Dog Business Strategy Book - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lets-Talk-Dog-Business-Strategy/dp/1068791705
Email: [email protected]
ABOUT THE HOSTS
Jo Moorcroft and Vicky Davies are dog behaviourists, business strategists, and co-founders of Canine Business Academy—the UK’s go-to hub for dog professionals who want more than just a logo and a dream.
With a combined passion for dogs and business done properly, Jo and Vicky have helped hundreds of canine professionals build sustainable, profitable businesses rooted in real impact.
🏆 Their award-winning work has earned recognition including: – UK StartUp Awards: Business to Business (Midlands) – Small Business Awards UK: Most Innovative Small Business 2025 – Business Awards UK: Most Innovative Pet Product 2024 – Plus shortlists at the Women in Business and Great British Businesswoman Awards
They’re also No.1 bestselling authors of Let’s Talk Dog Business Strategy, featured on BBC Radio, FOX, NBC, and more—with 63,000+ downloads of this very podcast.
Their philosophy is simple: Give a shit. Get shit done. Get results.
This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
More from Let's Talk Dog Business
Would you love to specialise in one area of dog training? but are worried that limiting your clients to people you really want to work with would leave you poor or what would happen if doing that didn´t work out? In this episode, we explore how focusing on what you do best builds trust, helps the right type of clients to find you, while making your business more rewarding and, often, more profitable.
Are you struggling to market your dog business, gain traction and bring in a steady stream of customers? Have you fallen into the trap of wasting hours redesigning logos, websites, and posting on socials instead of getting out there and getting known? In this episode, we share how to stop being a local secret and build high demand.
How do you keep going when everything feels like a s**tshow? How do you keep your business and personal life on track? Life doesn’t stop when you’re dealing with grief, family illness, or a crisis with your dog. So, in this episode, we get honest about the different approaches when trying to cope, including throwing ourselves into work, shutting down, compartmentalising, or getting stuck in the worst-case scenario. We talk about losing beloved dogs, managing a sudden spinal injury, caring for a parent, and the pressure we felt to make our struggles sound “bad enough” to be taken seriously. We discuss why there’s no one right way to cope and how finding people you can talk to without judgement, and making space to open the box, can help you to keep moving forward.
Building a successful pet business takes more than passion: you need to choose the right work, charge properly and actively work to build a business that supports the life you want. In this episode, we sit down with Tatum Brown of The Social Dog Company a strategy and marketing coach that enables dog trainers to finally charge what they are worth.
In this episode we get honest about one of the biggest struggles facing dog trainers and behaviourists: knowing what to charge for your services and feeling confident enough to believe you deserve to earn a decent living. We look at why trainers can end up undercharging, separating training from behaviour work, and believing they need more qualifications or a more impressive title before they can charge more.We discuss why the value of your work isn’t determined by how “simple” a dog’s problem looks, and why the real thing you are being paid for is the impact you can have on someone’s life. Then, we explore how to stop comparing yourself to other people, recognise what you are actually good at, and build a business around the work you genuinely want to do.KEY TAKEAWAYSYou Are Solving Much Bigger Problems Than You Think: Clients aren’t simply paying you to show them how to train their dog. They are paying you to help them solve a problem that is negatively affecting their life, one that is maybe even making them think about giving up their dog. Understanding that changes how you see your value, your service and what you can reasonably charge.Stop Thinking of Yourself As Just a Dog Trainer: Most of the time dog trainers do far more than simply show a client a technique. They use their experience to identify the root cause of an issue and actively coach and support owners until their problem is solved.You Don’t Need a Bigger Title to Be Worth More: The pressure to become a behaviourist or collect more qualifications can come from a belief that you need external validation before you are good enough to charge properly. In reality, all dog owners are really interested in is whether you can solve their problem.Stop Trying to Be Someone Else: Just because you can work with certain types of dogs or behaviour cases doesn’t mean you should. Understanding what you genuinely enjoy, what you are good at and where your strengths lie will help you to build a business that actually suits you.BEST MOMENTS“I was making like £15, £20 grand a month in some months.”“You can be the reason they keep the dog, and you can be the reason they love their dog again, and you can just make that difference.”“That's what you're being paid for. That's why you should be earning a decent wage. That's why you do deserve it.”“To warrant that fee, I need to become a behaviourist. I need to have level five, level six, all the stuff masters. No, you f**king don't. No, you don't.”“Someone is not reaching out to you for you to show them what to do. They're reaching out to you for you to help them work through it.”IMPORTANT LINKS https://www.caninebusinessacademy.com/gsd-buisness-accelerator https://www.tiktok.com/@letstalkdogbusiness https://www.youtube.com/@LetsTalkDogBusiness