– If you run a dog training
or dog walking business, then this episode of Fix Your Business is definitely going to be for you. We're talking about how to
potentially double your turnover in your business within the shortest space
of time as possible. [upbeat music] So on a Fix Your Business today, I've got Rachel Cathorne
and I have to be careful 'cause I did get to pronounce
the name wrong earlier on so I'll remember that. So Rachel runs a successful dog walking and training business, that's
just over one years old. So welcome to the show, Rachel. – Thank you. – Excellent, so we're gonna be digging into your business obviously and giving you a bit of advice about kind of how you productize dog walking and dog training, package it up and hopefully sell it for more than what you're
currently selling it at.
And we've already talked off air about some of the stories and
beliefs and patterns that you're already
starting to kind of using that stopping you from
growing your business. But for the benefit of the viewers, why don't you just give us a
quick sort of potted history about how you came to setting up the business in the first place? – So I always volunteered as a dog trainer and it got to stage the
normal, you hate your job. You think, No, I wanna change my career. So yeah, last year I decided to start my own
business, Rachels Rambles. I already had lots of people coming to me, asking for dog help, but I just did it obviously
like for free for friends. Yeah, and so far so good. It's been successful. I've had clients from day one, lots of recommendations, in
touch with other dog walkers in the area and dog trainers. But now I feel I've just
got to the point where, I have the same income every month and it's right, it's fine.
'Cause I never thought I'd
be at this point anyway, but you know, you wanna add more, you wanna grow your
business and I wanna grow it in a way that I'm not exhausting myself. I'm doing it the smarter way. – That's it. So we had kind of a
brief sort of discussion about what your capacity was at currently. So one of the first
questions I asked you was. Do you have capacity to take
on more clients at the moment and your answer was – Yes. [Robin chuckles] – And then we talked about, okay. So what does your average day look like? How much time would you
say you've got spare? And the answer for that was.
– Not at all. – Not at all. This is obviously quite a
common sort of dilemma or quandary and especially in sort of the dog walking dog training industries, is that where we kind of
fool ourselves into thinking that the only way to grow a
business is to get more clients. But then actually when we look at it, we don't have the time
to service more clients. So for you at the moment, it's like, your earnings capacity at the moment is kind of cut by your ability to be able to deliver more training
workshops and things like that. What are the other things? So we were running through the
pricing of your programmes. And I'm just going to jump
onto a screen share momentarily 'cause this is quite important I feel. So these are my notes. So hopefully you can read them. Hopefully the viewers will be able to translate them as well. So, well, a couple of things
that you mentioned at the start were about sort of marketing. Can we get more clients? We've kind of just spoken
about that very briefly.
But how do I say no to people as well? It sounds like you've taking on work for the sake of taking on work. 'Cause there's this is
driver to get more money. But then we were looking at the pricing, which you're currently charging. So you charge 10 pounds for group walk and then eight pounds
for 30 minutes solo walk. And then you have group
classes and group training. We're running at the moment, which is 80 pounds for six
sessions for six weeks. And then your one to one is
25 pounds for a half hour and 45 pounds for full hour. And obviously one of the things that you're doing at the moment is you're selling, your consultations, your hourly rates, which… Just walk us through
what's the process around putting together a
consultation with a client. – So the person contacts me. It's usually through social media. To be fair that's quite a lot where I get a lot of my business from, and I book in a discovery call so we can talk to them and
discuss their training needs.
Like, what is it? Is it something they
exactly wanna pinpoint or behaviour they're struggling with? And then from there we book
in a one to one session, they get some feedback
notes and things like that. And then I say to them, whether they need. Is this is a bit more of a serious problem than just one hour. You know, you might need some
more support and that's where we potentially look into
more training sessions. But to be honest to me
as like a business owner, that is where I get stuck. And I struggled to sell myself and go, "Oh, well you need to book six sessions." 'Cause I'm always like, "Oh my God, they're
gonna buy six sessions? "They're just gonna want two, "and they're not gonna want six of me.
"And then I've just got six weeks" and like, what the hell do I, you know, so that's what goes through my mind a bit. [Rachel chuckles] – So let's try and break
it down a little bit. So we'll deal with the
consultation side at first. And then we'll look at how you go about selling a followup package afterwards. So the initial consultation. So it sounds like it's not
just one hour of your time. It's like you've got to
show up like drive there you've got to deliver the consultation.
You've got some notes to write after you obviously you've
got to drive home as well. Potentially, there
might be a followup call where then you might
sell them something else. They've already had a 15
minute call to start off with. you start, that sounds
like several hours work. So actually our hourly rate's more like, it's not 45 pounds for an hour. It's 10 pounds an hour
or something like that or best case 15 pounds an hour. And what you might find is… Then also by the time you
start to factor in things like well travel generally, but
also doing marketing and sales and all of the other bits of business, your bookkeeping and et cetera, et cetera. But actually, if you worked
out what your hourly rate is, you'd probably be like It six pounds a hour or something. – Yeah [chuckles] – Go and earn more money
working in Waitress and it'd be a bit disappointing. So we've got to start to
create a business model that is gonna work
better for your business.
So your target monthly turnover was 2K. – Yup. – So go back to my screen share. We always start off with our goal in mind and then we work backwards from that. 'Cause otherwise what happens is, or this is what most business owners do, they go about their daily
life with that business, doing all of these random sort of tasks with no real sense of direction. And it ends up just being like you would just be jumping around going from one thing to the next. No real sense of direction, get to the end of the day
and collect some money. That's okay, that'll do. But there's no real like idea.
You haven't got a concrete purpose when you wake up in the morning basically, and it's perfectly normal. This is what a lot of business owners do. The one mistake which
they do make at this point is they don't look at these
tasks each month and go actually, was it
worthwhile doing that task? If it wasn't then I
shouldn't have done it. And I certainly shouldn't
do it moving forward.
And so what you start to see
is then you've got these tasks, which then are more specific and are gonna push you
towards your goal quicker. 'Cause you're doing fewer things. So it's like, if you put 121/2% of your energy into eight things. Are any of those eight
things gonna work out? Probably not because you're
only putting a fraction of the energy. And so the more energy we can give specific tasks the better. So what we want to do though, is we want to have in mind your goal, which is initially 2000 pounds a month and it could potentially be 5k a month or even 10K month potentially longer term, but let's hit 2K first and then we could start to
kind of grow it from there. So at the moment with that, if you're earning like 10 pound an hour, well there's only 200 hours a month. Generally when you can work, if you work in the basis of nine to five, Monday to Friday is like 200 hours. So you already kind of…
Even if you were at like full capacity, earning that money every single
hour that you're at work, we've already established you're not. So we've got to design
a business that is gonna start to get you there
a little bit quicker. Essentially business kind of works in a number of different ways. So down at the bottom
here, you'll have like, say somebody messages
you on Facebook and says, "Hey, I've seen your page
I see you do dog walking," or maybe they've been referred to you. "Can you help us out? "Fido's playing up" or "we've got to get back to work, "Fido needs a walk." So then you'll reply to it.
And quite often people
will give them the price at this point without any education. And then you'll never
hear from them again. So do you do that? – I try not to because honestly from what you have said before, a few videos that I've watched. I give them a bit of an insight as to what my walks are about or what my training is about and my methods and stuff like that.
And then see if they respond
and then when they do, I kind of ignore the question if they go, "And how much is it?" I go more into, this is what I do. And then usually I'll by the
second message I've told them. – You still shouldn't give
them the price on that because one of the things
which you have a call, and I can't remember
what you've called it, but you've got that initial sort of call, 15 minute call – [Rachel] Consultation call, yeah. – So you've got the 15 minute consult call where you're then going to
book them onto a consultation. And eventually what's gonna happen is you're gonna sell them a package. Okay, so we've got this now a bit of a customer
journey designed for you.
And if you start giving people the price, at the wrong step, it's gonna, break this and you're not gonna
be able to move them up through the scales of initiative. And also like whilst you're selling… So we have the consultations, you're currently selling
it 45 pounds for an hour. I've worked with dog
trainers, dog behaviourists who are selling those
initial consultations. So they have a very
specific target market. So there'll be breed specific. So they know the dogs inside and out and their problems and challenges. And then they've got a
very specific solution, to that, to whatever problems
it is that they're exhibiting. So they'll charge in excessive, like 500. I know some dog trainers
who'll be charging 850 pounds for just a consultation
phase of that process. Now it's not just an hour time block that they're selling at 150 pounds. They stack a lot of value in there so they'll have maybe several followups, they'll have a bit of remote support.
They'll have a much more in depth report, which they give to them and
various other things like that before they then move
them onto the package. But it's super specific in
terms of market and products, which they're selling. So you think about it this way. You've got to find 20 clients
to sell a consultation to for every one that they
sell their consultation to.
One of the challenges which you mentioned to me was this about, can I say no to people? So that person has learned
to say no to 19 people in order to get the one perfect client who they can help. And all day long, they're getting inquiries, dachshand specialist is getting inquiries from lurchers and Labrador dog owners or people who don't have… Maybe they are a behaviourist, specialist in separation anxiety.
And so they don't take on necessarily the lower level stresses and anxieties that the dogs have. They are super specific in
terms of what they're doing. So they can afford to
say no to the 19 people who don't fit the market or product niche for that one perfect client. What sort of feelings are coming up when I say to you that you could say no and turn down a client? – My first thing is
probably finding my niche. Like you said like there's
a lady does dachshands or separation anxiety
and things like that. I do find a lot of staffy owners
come to me and lurch owners because I own one of them, myself, I own staff and a lurcher. So I get a lot of
inquiries from them maybe 'cause I can be really relatable I guess.
But yeah, I don't
suppose I've got a niche. I suppose, maybe pet dog training, but yeah, I'm not a specialist
in any area, if you like, I'm just a general pet dog owner, trainer. [Rachel laughing] – Imagine if there's a
staffy dog owner out there and you're putting out
content marketing wise all of the time, which is
talking about a staffies. Do you think that that
content is gonna speak to that dog owner? – Yes. – Most people's concern or fear is that there's not enough
staffy dog owners out there for there to be enough customers out there in order to satisfy their
business, basically. But actually I bet if you look at it, there's probably hundreds of
thousands of staffy owners and So your base is down in Essex, which is pretty well
populated Southeast of UK. I mean there's thousands of
people out there with Staffies. – Yeah, I do see a lot on
my walks around the town. – And not only that, but now you're an expert in Staffies. There'll be people up in Liverpool who will see your YouTube
videos about Staffies and go, "well, we can't travel down sea, "but can we do a session on zoom "or can we just have a
consultation with you?" And there'll be because you're an expert, you've positioned yourself as an expert.
Now all of a sudden, if
you're selling a consultation for 250 quids, because that person's
desperate to work with you, it's like, well that's five
times the value right there. – Yeah. – What's the difference like? What's changed? Not a lot. It's just, we call your ability
to articulate your value. If you're there saying I'm an
expert in Staffies and lurches and all lurches, but let's
just stick with Staffies. I'm an expert in Staffies. I only work with staffy dogs. You'll get people from all over the world. My friend who runs the
dachshands training business, she's got clients all over the world.
– I guess it's slightly
nervous to say that I'm an expert in the area that could be a self doubt almost. – Okay, Oh that's interesting. So how many staffies have you worked with. – Probably about five or six since starting my business last year. So training wise. – How many of them did
you get good results with. – All of them. So there's your evidence. – Yeah. – Yep, so fear comes from this whole thing of things being much
worse in the imagination than they are in reality, We will search like in reality for things to back up the
stories that we tell ourselves. So if we start saying, I'm not an expert. We'll go out and look for
evidence that backs up with, we're not an expert and you actually have to just stop that like to say, actually, I'm gonna go out and look for evidence that is the opposite of that. So that simple exercise
which I did with you is.
How many stuffies you've worked with? How many have you managed to help? All of them Yeah, you're an expert in Staffies. Some people could define it by how many qualifications you've got and all this sort of stuff. But ultimately if you can get the desired
result and outcome, which is to stop staffy from being aggressive towards other dogs. [dog barking] And you can do that consistently. That makes you an expert in my opinion. – Okay So we go out and gather evidence to back up the message that
we're starting to put out. So it's about specificity. But going back to my little diagram here, so now all of a sudden, if you're… we'll scratch you doing, we're no longer gonna be doing 45 pound an hour consultations. So your consultation won't
just jump to 250 quid. – Yeah – It's a process of
testing and validating, test and validate. So what I would suggest is your consultation price
needs to go up to…
Well, let's play a game actually. I'm gonna start increasing the numbers. Tell me what point it starts
to get uncomfortable, okay. 60 Pounds, 75 pounds,
90 pounds, 120 pounds. – Probably there – Right, okay so that's the price you need to go forward
with your consultations. So we're gonna scratch that. We're gonna now sell our
consultations for 120 pounds. Okay, which is nearly
three times the price of what you were selling
them at currently. And what's gonna happen
is I'm gonna challenge you to pitch the next 10 to
20 people who come along, who want to work with you. You're gonna pitch them a
consultation at 120 pounds. – Okay – Now I can guarantee that
your conversion rate will be somewhere between one in
five and one in three. So at the first 10, somewhere between two, three or four, people are gonna still
wanna say yes to this. I can guarantee it. If they don't, I'll pay you 250 quid. I'm that confident, but what's gonna happen is the first eight are gonna say no, it's going to be the
last two annoying buggers who are going to say yes.
Because clients are like buses basically. So you've got to go through
that painful process over the next four to six weeks, pitching 10 to 20 people at
your new consultation rate. You'll get more rejection, more noes, but we've just established you can have a third of the clients and still make the same
money from the consultations. Okay. – Yes. – And at that price, let's say, for example, if you're doing, I don't know, five consultations a month.
So we'll take that… Let's just get rid of that for a second. So we're doing five
consultations at 120 pounds each so per month. Can't right now. [Robin and Rachel laughing] Probably will get horribly wrong. Here we go. So for each month, five
consultations, 120 pounds. So that equals 600 pounds
a month worth of revenue just from consultations. So that's five hours of your time, plus all the meandering, travelling, writing reports and things like that.
But you're getting paid a bit more for it, but that's half your revenue
that you already making each month just in consultations alone. – Yeah. So I would suggest you
could do nothing different, but sell your consultations
for 120 quid and get 2K. – Okay. – How'd you feel about that so far? [Rachel laughing] – Maybe I just don't see that many people that need my help or I don't know. – How many consultations
did you do say in August? – I did one ongoing client. So she booked six sessions with me, but that was from a consultation and I probably did three
other consultations. – Okay, so four
consultations then basically, but one was from an
existing client really? Okay, so you're not far
off getting five there. And again, it might just be a matter of, I don't want to go right the way through your sort of marketing funnel necessarily 'cause it's one of those
things I talk about, like I compare businesses to like a rattly old Fiat 500 engine. At the moment your pricing and the way you've designed
your products is a bit broken.
So we've got to fix that first so that when we then add
rocket fuel marketing into that that engine,
now it's finely tuned. It's now a rocket engine. Your business is just gonna explode, but we've gotta get you
confidently selling your products, same product for more basically first. So even if we had four clients
there who paid 120 quid for that initial consultation, that would have been originally
a bit about 180 quids worth of revenue. Under my new pricing structure, you've got 490 pounds worth of revenue. Three times close to
four times the revenue. – Yeah – So that will make a
big difference to you. You'll take an extra 400
quid a month will you? – Yeah, I wouldn't turn it down. – So the second part of the
question you asked was about. How do I sell it? Like I'm not very
confident about selling it. So talk to me a bit about that, that sort of what's going on. – I mean, I'm quite good
at talking to people and things like that. People always say that I'm
approachable and everything, but it's just, I guess it is the noes.
Like sometimes I have been
turned down because of my prices. And if you're saying
they're already cheap, that's kind of what then goes, "Oh, well, if I'm already cheap "and people are turning me down." But yeah, it's just to be able to, confidently say that
yeah, these my prices, this is take it or leave it kind of thing. – First little tip, you can
do it without even saying, take it or leave it. It's just these are my prices. I am good at what I do, I'm an expert. If you wanna get great results, we work together. This is the package that
I'm recommending for you. So you've got to say it with some level of
authority and confidence, but there was one thing
which you said there, which was about all people
already saying it's too expensive at the existing price.
So, if I put it up even more
people are gonna say no. Again, this is about evidence. Like, if I were to say to you. How do you know people aren't
gonna say yes, 120 quid? You don't know, cause you
haven't pitched it at 120 pounds. That's why I'm challenging you rather than what you've done is you've
created a story for yourself. You've gone out to find evidence, and that evidence looks like, people currently say no
to your existing prices, – Yeah.
You've got no evidence for 120 pounds, so actually you kind of like that story, and that belief you created
for yourself Isn't true. – Yeah. – Fair enough, If you pitched 20 people , 120 quid and they all say no, I'd eat my words and
I'd give you some cash. I mean, that genuinely, but I know, that there is a market out
there for experts like you, for selling consultations at 120 pounds so comfortably. So what happens during
the sales conversation, and so in that 15 minute
call, you've talked about, your business their dog, and
the challenges they're having, and you get to that point, if you pitched them the consultation. So imagine with not
pitching it's 120 pounds, and that person says, "Oh gosh, that's expensive." What do you normally find yourself saying? [Rachel laughing] [indistinct] – I'll probably go like looking to like a course or a programme, that we can put onto, and if ever so you want
many sessions are booked we can look into a discount or something.
– Okay, we're just talking
about at the moment, 'cause again, we're not
selling them the package yet. We're gonna do the consultation, – Alright okay yeah – And then from the consultation, that's the point where you'll upsell them, a package of a programme of
training sessions afterwards. So we're just focusing on
the 120 pounds consultation. – To be fair that the
people that have no so far have just gone Okay, but you've got my details, So if you do struggle like everyone, you can always message
me and inquire again. So I have kind of accepted that this is my price at the moment, but I think with the 120,
yeah, it's slightly expensive. I'm sorry. – Okay, Jack sake okay right. Is it okay okay to reflect
something back to you? – Yes, of course. – So most people, when they sell, it's normally a reflection
of their own value systems, So if you were to go and buy
something for 120 pounds, that might feel expensive to you.
– so what's happening is
you're attaching emotionally, to the sale based on
your own value system. – Yeah. – I find it too expensive, therefore other people
will find it too expensive. So you've gotta find a
way and it's not easy, but you gotta find a
way to kind of detach, from that emotional side
of that value system there. And it can be expensive over here, but your business to get to 2K a month, it need you to be rock solid, and be like, no 120 pounds' a bargain. – Yeah. – Like this is the best
thing for you and your dog. Like, that's why I'm
recommending the consultation. If I didn't think I could help you, I wouldn't be recommending
my consultation.
[bell ringing] But if you want to work with me, and start to listen to the tonality, which I'm using here as well, if you want to work with me, and you want your dog to
stop barking at the postman, [dog barking] let's book the consultation. When can you do it? – Yeah, so what about you want this? You want your dog to stop doing this? I'm the person that can give it to you. Let's go – Yeah, It's much more so
don't forget you're the expert. Your clients need you
more than you need them.
'Cause what's also happening now is, if you're attached to that yes and the no, because, you need that 45
pounds from the consultation, because you need to pay your rent, and you need to put food on your table. Now, all of a sudden you're not operating, in your client's best interests. It's all about Rachel and
paying for Rachel's life.
So that's one of the best things about, if you can get control of
the pricing side of things, and charge a bit more, it gives you a bit of extra
flexibility and freedom, to like, it's all of a sudden
you're making more money. So it's no longer power about you. It's just like you can pick
and choose who you work with. It gives you more time to
offer better quality products, et cetera, et cetera. So let's think about sort of some of the objections you might get. They might turn around blunt flat blunt go, that's expensive. The best weapon in your armoury, when you get that objection,
is never about price, never about price. But, the best question
you can ask somebody, is what do you mean. And they might say something like, "Oh, I've noticed Dave down the road, "charges like two pound
for his consultation" It just like, yeah, but Dave's
not qualified with the MDT, Dave's doing this on as a side hustle.
Actually, if you've seen
the reviews on his website, [Robin laughing]. – Yeah. – Go and spend two quid with Dave, but Dave doesn't know what he's doing. Okay, or you can come
and spend 120 pounds, somebody who knows exactly
what they're doing. And actually I'll tell you what, if we get to the end of the consultation, and I give you the report, and you actually don't feel
you've had value for money, out of that process. I'll just refund you the money, and you can then go and take that money, and spend it with Dave if you want to. So what we've done is
it's something called, a risk reversal with kind
of de-risking it for them, So what it does is it focuses them, on whether they want the product or not.
– Right. – So they've got nowhere to go now, they're kind of like,
oh she's just told me, she's gonna give me the
money back if it's cheat. So it's kind of a no brainer, why wouldn't they spend 120 quid with you? That makes sense.
– Yeah. – Only what'll happen is, if that is just not bought into, or not bought into the process, and that's absolutely fine. They'll just walk away anyway despite the fact, you just said, "I'll give you money back
if you don't get it." So think about like
what sort of questions, you could ask somebody to kind of, loop them background on, so that one, which is, what you mean? And they'll start giving
you a whole load of excuses.
Well, great. If you're worried
about investing 120 quid, totally get it, it's a lot of money. They might want to go and speak to the husband, and wife
or partner, whatever. and that's cool too, but just, you know, let me talk about what's
gonna happen with Fido, then if your husband says, No, we're not spending 120 quid, and he's still barking at the postman. They're gonna mind about the
dog barking at the postman. what are you going to do then? So you can start to kind
of get them focused, on the problem again. – Yes. – And it becomes not about the price. Does that make sense? – Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
– Have you any questions
for me at this point? – None so far, I don't think so, none. – So what are you gonna say? So let's say for example, I was a client, and I've just said to you… and you've just pitched me
the 120 pound consultation. And I say, "Oh, Rachel, that's a
little more expensive "Than I was thinking." What are you gonna say to me? – What do you mean? [Rachel laughing] – Great question. – I would say maybe it can always be like, if it's not right now, not this month I'm always
available next month. – 'Cause otherwise what's happening is, you're kind of letting them off the hook. – Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see
what you mean straight away. – You, when you're buying stuff, you want to be left off the hook. – Yeah. – Yeah, but in this instance,
because they've got a dog, which has a problem,
challenge, needs help, an issue which needs help
with some kind of anxiety, or problem and you can help them, You've got to get them
refocused on the problem.
You say. What do you mean? Okay, well, I don't have the money, or it's just more money
than I was thinking It was. Well, that's great obviously, if we were to take money
out of the picture… And this is another way of
handling that objection. If we take money out of the picture Do you understand the
process of the consultation, do you think is going to be helpful? And I'll probably go, "Yeah, that sounds fantastic, Great." So you told me at the
start of the consultation, that you get really anxious, at quarter past nine every morning , because you can hear the
footsteps of the postman, and you know the dog's
gonna go absolutely mental, and you have this race to get there, before he shreds all the
letters, every morning. I need to assess the situation, which is what that consultation is about. And I can start to give
you a bit of a plan, a strategy for you taking control of that, and training the dog to stop it.
We can also look at
further training sessions, but this is the start of
the process to stop Fido, from tearing the post up, and barking every morning at the postman. Oh yeah, when you say it like that- – Yeah. – It's very different to kind of, even letting people off the hook, or feeling like you've
got to justify yourself. – Yeah I think that actually
I have to justify my prices. I charge this much because
I did this, this, this, and this and this. And then sometimes if I
feel like is too much, I then just and something else. Also, I do this, this, this, this, this, and this. – You know, and then another way, you mentioned it before, I mean, it's 120 quids. I would hope that most
people could afford that, if they can't afford 120 pounds they're gonna struggle
to pay for an ongoing, series of training sessions. they might be more appropriate, if the challenge with the dog, isn't big enough to come
into the group workshops, something like that.
But you could also say to them, "well, listen, if it's literally the fact "that you want to do this "You don't have 120 quids, "Why don't we split it
down into two payments? "Could you do 60 pounds now? "Then 60 pounds, on the
day or the day before." Ideally, for consultations, you want payment in advance or in full.
'Cause you don't want no shows, and things like that happening, It gets people committed. So you could potentially split it up, into a couple of payments
if you wanted to. – Okay. – Or you could say to them, "Well, listen "if this is gonna be," It might be that it's middle of the month, They're running a bit short. "Well, how about let's
book this session today, "So that's in the diary, " I'll send you the invoice,
but you pay on payday. " – Okay, yeah. – Again, what's happening
is you're giving them, really clear instructions, on what the next steps
are on your process.
– Yes. – Okay. – Yeah. – So, I've given you a little
like sales masterClass, 101 in about a space of about
five or 10 minutes there. What's gonna happen is you'll
learn to set the consultation, and then I'm gonna go back
to my terrible diagram again. – Yeah. – Everybody can read the words on it. So then we're kinda gonna
get into the territory, of the packages, okay? So we've done the consultation next stage, at the end of the consultation, or after the consultation, We'll then sell them a package.
Now, actually you do the
consultation and find his, post shredding antics, like
worse than you thought. And he's a bit of an old dog anyway, so he's gonna take him
a while to teach him, how to behave when the
postman starts walking, down the drive and things like that. So, but the packages which
he wants to be selling, it's what I call the
one, two or three pack. So, silver, gold or platinum. And it depends on the
severity of the issue, but Fido, you reckon could be fixed. If you had a weekly training session, for two or three months, you reckon you could have it licked. Okay, but what you sell them
is not 200 pounds a month, or 45 pound a session or
whatever it looks like. You sold them a three month programme, that by the end of it, we'll
have Fido sitting quietly, looking up at the owner, every time the postman comes along, 'cause we've got it solved.
Dad's happy for babies dad is happy, because there's no barking or, his post is in one piece. So we sell them a package, three month package @ 600 pounds. Okay?
– Yes. It's one training session
a week for 12 weeks, at the end of it, Fido's
are gonna be good as gold, and Hey plus then, maybe we'll fix a couple of other issues, along the way, as well as a brucey bonus. Okay, but we get them focused
on one specific problem, So we start to then sell
packages at 600 pounds. Now, again, it might be that
it's a three month programme, So you could say, Well, it's 200 pounds a
month for three months. so you can split it down. But you're selling them
a specific package, with specific outcomes and results. Okay, and obviously if
you then did twice a week, or three times a week, if
the issue was more severe, which it might be in some cases Separation, anxiety, for example, it's just absolutely
like destroying the dog.
That could be like a
two pack or three packs, or two or three sessions a week, until the problem's resolved. And that could be as much as 1200 pounds, or even 1800 pounds. And again, people will hear
those big numbers, and go, "Oh my gosh, that's expensive" and this, that, and the other. But imagine a scenario where you're doing, four or five consultations a month, so you're getting a few hundred pounds in, and you've got maybe one
or two or three clients, on just your one or two pack already. But then every now and then
a client drops in and says, "Rachel now I can see this
whole load of issues here, "We want to resolve all of them, " We'll go for your three
pack and it's 1800 quid." – Mh.
– Okay, your goal was 2000. You could sell one consultation a month, and one platinum package. And you've hit your goal
as one client a month. – Yeah. – But, it takes time for
you to gradually, pick up, and start to sell bigger packages, for more money and things like that. So, I said, take the
consultations for example, we've agreed you and I have agreed, you're gonna start selling
those at 120 quid each. – Yap. You gotta take the prices
off your website for now, 'cause we're gonna be
practising your prices. It's important 'cause one of
the challenges you face is, you set your pitch at 120
quid and somebody will say, "Oh, but I saw it on your
website It's 45 pounds." – Yeah.
– Like the price whilst
we're testing prices, take your prices off your website, okay? Really important. Next 10 to 20 people
picture that 120 pounds. When you sold like three,
four, five of them, I want you to consider, putting up to 150. When you sold three,
four, five of them at 150, start thinking about putting up to 180. So we're gradually as
your confidence grows, we're gradually increment that price, and you'll sell them for more and more. – Well, I need one question. We forgot to… And quite a lot of people, I get recommended from
people that I've helped. "Oh, so you helped my friend, and they've recommended me to you. If I'm then starting increasing my prices every four to five. And then when you sold it to Philly for 120, no, 150? [Rachel laughing] – You say, "I'm full capacity, I'm good at what I do, my coach has told me to put my prices up." – Alright, okay. [Rachel laughing] – Don't feel you've got to justify it, just make it matter of fact to say yeah.
Or if you were worried
about it, you could just, you could just say, " Do you know what actually,
I'll honour James' Price, If that's what James told you,
he was happy to honour that." – Okay. – So then there's no problem with that, You don't lose any face either by… You probably get more Goodwill
by kind of just saying, "Yeah, I'll go okay for that one." You're not going to be putting, your prices up every five minutes. It's probably going to be
like every four to six weeks. You'll get, as your confidence builds, and you pitch for, 10 to 20
people over four to six weeks, confidence builds, we sell four or five, then I'll put my price up. It's not like you'll
be changing every day. It's gonna gradually increment, sort of on a monthly bimonthly basis. – Okay. – I would focus to make
life easy for yourself. I would focus just on the pricing, for the consultation initially. Don't worry too much about the packages, 'cause you'll sell some packages anyway.
But you can use similar techniques, as you learned through applying
it to the consultations. You'll start to learn the techniques, which you can then apply
to your packages as well. – Yes. – But I'll leave and my
parting words for you will be, throughout your sales process, assume a position of leadership. Don't let the client say to you, "Oh, well I only want
to book one session." If you're set there and little Fido like tearing the post up, and you're like that
dog needs four sessions, you've got to sell that
client four sessions, or be prepared to walk away. – Okay. – Because if you're
selling them one session, it's to satisfy your own
needs to make money – – Yes. – And all times you need to be operating, within the dog and the owner as well… But within the dog's best interests.
And clients will try
everything they possibly can, to try and tell you what
they think they need, and a lot of the time it's wrong. And you've kind of got
to just ignore that, and just say, "No, I'm really sorry, Mrs. Smith. "But from what I've seen, "What we discussed in
your initial assessment, "And what I've seen in the consultation, "We need at least eight sessions, "cause it's quite a severe problem, "That is going to be close to 400 pounds, "but by the end of it, I
can't guarantee anything, "But I'm pretty confident
based on what I've seen, "The dogs I've worked with in the past, "That we can resolve that issue, "But it's eight session over eight weeks, "So we can split that down into two payments if you want to." – Okay.
– "Oh, but can't we just try
four and see how it goes? "No, no, I think you're
missing the point here, "It's eight sessions,
that's what he needs." – Yeah, yeah so you can
almost be like eight sessions, and then, we can see at
the end of it where we are, – Yeah. – If he still needs more, if
it's even more behavioural, or if we've completed what we're after, but eight sessions is the minimum, that this dog needs kinda thing. – Yep, and you've also
got to get into the habit, with your walking clients, unfortunately kinda taking
the Mickey here a little bit. because you're doing training, with them mostly out in the walks, but not really paying for that,
not at those prices anyway.
So, I would consider having
a training walk price, which is close to double
your normal walk price. – Right, okay. – So normal walk, just take them out, give them a good stretch
of the legs, and come back, no training. Training walk is now double the price, of what it was last week. – Yeah, 'cause I find that a bit like my dog walking clients, 'cause it was just started up, as a kind of a way to learn
as well about dogs behaviour, different dogs and everything like that, learning from each individual. But now I find a lot as a dog walks, does take up a lot of my day, and then I've got to do
all my training elements, in an evening because
I've booked top of my day, for dog walking.
So, yeah I'll have to look
at process of dogs walks. – Definitely, and it might be, so… Well have a think about it, and you can always kinda
find back to me in the group, either in pet professional network, or and confidently charge more group, once you've had a chance, to kind of process today's session, which hopefully has been enjoyable , – Yes. And keep us posted with
your progress as well, share your wins. So if you do go out and
seller consultation, for three times the the price, let everybody know, talk about
it and share that with us, I'd really appreciate it.
– I would too. – Cool, right we there,
we at the end of it. We did go for a little bit, I'm afraid. So we're a bit beyond five o'clock, but, if you're watching this
and you want a bit of help, in terms of fixing your
pet professional business, or any business for that matter, that involves some kind of a service, which you wants to productize, or involves clients and
customers that maybe, are pulling you around
rather than you being able, to make it work for yourself better. If you want to increase your turnover, then drop me a line.
We're always looking for
guests to fix your business. And obviously, what we'll also do is, we will share Rachel's details. [bell ringing] You can go and check out Rachel's Rambles, you're on Facebook, aren't you , you've got a Facebook page, you've got Instagram, and also we'll share the
website address as well. So if anybody's down in Essex, and wants some help with their dog, obviously you can go
and speak to Rachel too. Rachel hopefully that's enjoyable, It's been a real pleasure- – Yeah, an eye opener. Like I said before, I've
never owned a business, So, actually talking to somebody, that knows how businesses work, and knows how to make money, and make it the most
successful business as you can, 'cause I think that's the
goal at the end of the day.
I want my business to be successful, I don't just wanna five years time and go that was the worst experience of my life. [Rachel and Robin laughing] So, yeah it's been really
interesting, really interesting. – Awesome, I'm pleased to hear it. And what will happen is, you're gonna get a buck for
this when you hit two… and I say, when not if, but when you hit 2000 pound a month, in terms of turnover, you'd be like, I want more. How do I get more? And it will keep on escalating from there. If you apply some of the
principles you've learned today, you'll have everything you need to go up, 3K, 4K 5K and beyond quite with ease- – Okay – Thank you Rachel. – Thank you so much [upbeat music].