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Learning to Love the Business Side of Your Business
Morag Heirs draws from her experience of 20 years running her own businesses to offer advice on helping canine training and behavior professionals enjoy — and
While dog trainers may often choose the profession because they really love dogs and to help dogs and their people, they may not automatically love the business side of the equation
become more efficient at — running the business side of their work
© Can Stock Photo/adogslifephoto
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n my experience, dog people generally get into this industry because they really love dogs and get a real kick out of helping pet dogs and their people to build better relationships. But no matter what their training or background – academic course, apprenticeship, learning through experience – the chances are that, again in my experience, they did not get much help or education in the running a business aspect. Let me ask you, “Did you really get into this because you wanted to be self employed or to run your own company?” And let me ask in a broader sense, “Why do we assume that amazing dog trainers and behavior con sultants will automatically be great entrepreneurs?” It’s a totally differ ent skill set!
Background Picture the scene all the way back to Christmas 2014. Yet again I was busy searching for receipts, printing invoices, completing spreadsheets and having a minor nervous breakdown when my printer gave up the ghost. Here in the United Kingdom we file our tax returns at the end of January and even though I had kept records and had boxes of paperwork 18
BARKS from the Guild/March 2020
it still ended up being one of those jobs that got left to the last minute. It’s not that I can’t do tax returns; in fact, I quite like playing with spreadsheets. I still find it exciting discovering accountancy programs that allow me to project my cash flow in the future, but it’s not where my natural talent lies. It takes extra effort for me to be able to be good at that part of running a business, and that means more stress and pres sure. In a nutshell, doing my accounts was the thing I hated most about running my own business. And I’ve never done them since that year – now I have an office manager who I consider to be an essential part of my team! I have been running my own businesses since I was 21, when I set up my first company specializing in remedial massage therapy (for hu mans!). Thankfully, I have had the support of my father, who is a profes sional entrepreneur and an accountant, throughout. I also managed to win startup funding, which came with business mentoring as part of the package. But while my professional training courses (bodywork, massage therapy, aromatherapy and more) did include some basic business plan ning, it all felt very dry and theoretical. My canine training courses had
