Lianne Shinton (00:00)

Hey everybody and welcome. So I'm Lianne Shinton from Automation Dogs. Welcome to my podcast. On my podcast, I commonly speak with experts. You're going to hear from one amazing expert today. And these experts are brought to you dog trainers to help you with your business. So today without further ado, welcome Adam Katz.

Adam G. Katz (00:22)

Happy to be here, thanks for having me.

Lianne Shinton (00:24)

Awesome. I'm so glad you were able to jump on this podcast with me. know I've had you on before and it's one of my highest viewed podcasts. I think you were on my very first podcast as well. And you are, you have dogtrainertoolbox.com, dogtrainertoolbox.com, right? Okay. So I, I want to talk with you because there's a couple of things that I see on my end.

Adam G. Katz (00:40)

Right. Good. Very good.

Lianne Shinton (00:51)

helping dog trainers that I wanna talk about because it seems to be kind of a common thing. So we're gonna talk about it today and we're not picking on anybody, we just wanna help and we're gonna talk through solutions, takeaways that you can take away and implement right away. And Adam, I know you as well have some things that you'd like to talk about. So let's dive into your stuff first. Sure, sure.

Adam G. Katz (01:13)

Yeah, let's let's jump into what you want to talk about first. And then

we can because because we'll leave my stuff for the end and I can go on and on so.

Lianne Shinton (01:20)

Okay, yeah, and your stuff is, it's been very popular on Facebook recently, so I think people will want to hear about that. First, yeah.

Adam G. Katz (01:30)

Let's give them a teaser so

they stick around to the end. So there's been a lot of controversy specifically around Justin Rigney and his negative keywords. I'm not talking about his potty mouth. I'm not talking about his profanity. You know, actually I love the guy. I think he's amazing. But there's a lot of maybe miscommunications or lack of nuance regarding Google ads.

I don't even run Google ads anymore. had one of the largest Google ads agencies in the dog training industry. At any given time, we'd be running campaigns for between 50 to 60, sometimes 70 different dog training businesses. And about, I can't remember, think around 2019, I said no more, I'm tired of messing around with Google and I sold it to my lead tech. So I don't even run Google ads anymore, but I want you guys to be safe because there are so many sharks out there, SEO guys and Google ads and Facebook ads.

do run Facebook ads. That's another story for another day. But I want you guys to be safe specifically in regards to Google ads and your Google business profile and your SEO, especially when hiring somebody to know whether or not they're taking advantage of you. So we'll get to that a little bit later in the video and we'll start off with with something I know Liam wanted to really talk about first. How's that for a teaser?

Lianne Shinton (02:41)

Okay, okay, cool, cool.

That's a great teaser. That's a great teaser. I'm excited. That's why I'm here. So something that I see commonly is when we talk on the phone as business owners. So I call dog trainers. That's something I do to help them, to invite them to be on my podcast for various reasons.

Nine and a half times out of ten they don't answer their phone and there's no automation attached to that. So it's a completely missed opportunity. You know, I assume the way I see it from my perspective that could have been a lead and totally missed opportunity. So attaching automation to a missed phone call as simple as a text that fires off that says, hey, this is Leanne from Automation Dogs I saw I just missed your call. How can I help? Now I've captured the opportunity.

The thing I wanted to speak on today was actually the ones that answered their phone, which is awesome. I applaud you. However, I'm hearing this is an example of one from today. They answered, hello?

Yeah. And that's not how we answer a business phone. So there's a, just a conversation I'd like to have with you, Adam, because your background is in, um, you know, marketing and helping dog trainers. And I started out my life as my first like job after McDonald's was working as a receptionist in my dad's office. And he sent me to a phone course.

Like I'm like, can pick up the phone and answer the phones. Like it's not that hard. But he sent me to phone course and I got all these certification from like Bell Canada to like answer phones as like a professional administrative person. And I was like, I was really young and I'm like, this is so easy. Like, but I am sorry again, not to pick on anybody, but apparently we need to talk about it. And my certification that I got from Bell Canada, you know, it, it did help me.

so that I could be a smidge better. When we answer the phones, tonality is really important. Presenting in a helpful way, announcing, you know, hey, if it's someone just calling your business, this IQ canine training, how can I help you? I also just wanted to just throw it out there that I think it's good to say your name to help people make a connection with you as well. So.

Hey, this IQK9 training. This is Leanne. How can I help you? Give me your thoughts.

Adam G. Katz (05:08)

Absolutely.

Absolutely. mean, it's, it's to me when I call a business owner, be it a dog trainer or any business owner and they answer the phone with hello. I'm like, did, did I call the right number? Like, is this, is this IQ canine dog training or is it, you know, did I get the wrong number? Right. So right, right off the bat, you're starting off on the wrong foot. So no bueno, not good. Right. Number two.

Lianne Shinton (05:22)

Yeah.

Adam G. Katz (05:36)

There's kind of at least in North America, US, Canada, and probably the rest of the Western world, England and Australia, I assume as well. There's an expectation that a business is going to answer a phone in a certain manner. Hi, this is Adam with dogtrainertoolbox.com. How may I help you? Right? You don't have to be a genius salesperson to be able to kind of understand why that would be important. I would think, although so many of you don't do it that...

I don't know where the disconnect is, right? Like you don't want to be starting off on the wrong foot. Dog training by many people as a profession can already be perceived as being kind of like kind of a not a real profession. So we want to do everything we can to present ourselves as professionals. And that starts off right off the bat with answering the phone. Hi, this is Adam from dogtrainertoolbox.com or

insert your name in your business name. It's not that hard guys.

Lianne Shinton (06:34)

And saying the name, I think that is important. I don't know how much science is behind that, but I, you know, I put a lot of studies into statistics and things like that. However, I really haven't about using your name. It just seems like it would be a really good idea. And I'll also kind of extend this into the websites that we audit sometimes. And we see there's no information as to any kind of person.

on the website, like it's cold and generic versus trying to help people make a connection with you and your pictures and your name.

Adam G. Katz (07:11)

Yeah, 100%. There's this phenomenon with small business owners, including dog trainers is that everybody, everybody who maybe isn't as sophisticated as they will be once they get educated wants to present themselves as a professional business. And so they call themselves, you know, Jones canine corporation limited or something like that. And, you know, typically

People want to do business with other people. They don't want to do business with an IBM corporation. They want to do business with, with John, especially with a local business, right? It's person to person, it's personable. And so when you call a business or when you hit their website, if the website doesn't have information on who's actually behind the business, and I don't mean like, you know, this is our mission statement, you know, cause nothing turns me off more than

reading somebody's mission statement when I hire a plumber, you know, or a dog trainer in this case. So I want to know, hey, this business is owned by John and Susan. They live in Ocala, Florida, my community, right with me. And John grew up going to Summerall High School and he met Susie when he was in the army. And along the way he learned dog training and he fell in love with dogs. you know, there's like, okay, this is like a real person I can connect with.

Not some, you know, IQ canine training corporation, you know, with business offices and in two locations and, know, here to serve you, you know, no, no, I just, just want to deal with, with Leanne.

Lianne Shinton (08:51)

Yeah.

Yeah. And disclaimer, IQK9 Training, my old dog training business name, and they are wonderful. And yeah, gorgeous.

Adam G. Katz (08:55)

Yeah. So I have, I have a client,

I have a client named Nick. I can't even remember his last name right now, but he, when he first reached out to me to have me do his website, he had a couple of ideas for, for his business name. Right. And, and they were like your typical, you know, canine training, unlimited to kind of names, right? Like names that you would immediately forget. You know, even if you saw it, saw the business.

drive by, you saw the truck with the truck wrap, you would forget the name two minutes after you saw the truck and the wrap. And so the guy's name was Nick. And I think it was me, maybe he suggested it, but I think it was me who said, why don't you just call it Nick's dog training? Brilliant. How easy is that to remember? Nick, the name of his business is Nick's dog training.

Super easy, right? Like I can remember that by the time I get home, even if I didn't write it down, Nick's dog training, super easy. So, you know, it's a feel good thing. It's like, Hey, there's a real person. He's not hiding behind some corporate vague name. He's not trying to sound cool. You know, it's just Nick's dog training. Super. Hey Nick, I got a dog. Get him trained. Can you help me out? I'm gonna call Nick. Right. Make sense.

Lianne Shinton (10:07)

Yep,

yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And saying your name, I think when you answer the phone is really important to whether you're calling them. Of course you're going to say your name, but if they call you, yeah, say your name. I remember I used to work at emergency hospital for dogs and cats and such. So I still remember like it's the same thing every time. It's veterinary emergency, critical care. This is Leanne, how can I help you? Like it is ingrained.

And so I think that saying the name is important. Even in that missed call text back, hey, this is Leanne from Automation Docs. I saw I just missed your call. How can I help? And I think having the name in all of those places really helps build trust for people.

Adam G. Katz (10:45)

Yeah. And especially if you're asking me for, you're asking me to give you 3000 bucks. Okay. And my first impression is, you know, I call you and hello, you know, and there's especially if there's dogs barking in the background or kids or whatever. I had a sales call a couple months ago with the guy who, it was obvious he, in fact, he even told me he was at the drive-through of Hardee's or something. while he was on the call with me, he's like,

He set up this appointment for me to help him with his business, you know, to help him, you know, run ads for him or whatever it was. And I can hear his kids playing in the back. His wife's like, get me the one. Make sure mine has tomatoes on the call with me, the professional call here. And, you know, again, people just don't stop to think like, what am I communicating? Am I coming across as a professional and if you're not fix it, stop doing that. Stop doing anything that makes you look not like a professional.

I mean, people give me a hard time because I say that dog trainers should show up to meet their clients dressed professionally. You know, if I mean, you could do whatever you want, but for my money, you know, if I take an A and a B, dog trainer A, dog trainer B, and one of them's dressed professionally and then one of them is wearing just regular street clothes and no shirts not tucked in, et cetera, et cetera. I'm going with A every single time.

Look, I'm 55. Maybe I'm a little bit old school at this point. know, think about how if you lose one out of 10 clients, because you're not entering the phone like a professional business, you're not dressing, you know, like a professional, then, you know, what are you even doing? Why even pay for leads or pay to promote your business if you're going to just flush one out of every 10 leads down the toilet. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse at this point. So I'll turn it back over to you.

Lianne Shinton (12:31)

I think that's something that we don't think about enough to, in our dog training business is.

Flushing that lead, leaking money, leaking profit, especially when we're paying for an ad and then we're not working, that one lead could be a $2,500 sale, easy.

Adam G. Katz (12:48)

yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, it's such a, such a problem for my business. You know, I'm running Facebook ads and you know, it's, it's, it's a lot more economical than running Google ads, but at the same time, the, because the, the leads are coming from social media, you're grabbing them when they may be doing something else. You know, they may be at work, they may be putting the baby down and looking at the phone at the same time, whatever it is. Right. So they're submitting their information and then you, the client, you, you, the, dog trainer has to

follow up with that client. And that means having a process and a system for working the leads. so what does that mean? Just as an example, it might be on day one, the day that the lead comes in, day one, day three, and day five, you follow up with a call, a text, an email on day one, day three, and day five. And if you're lazy, then on day two and day four, you just follow up with the email and the text.

And by the way, this is where automation dogs really shines because you guys are able to automate, you know, 66 % of that process, right? Automation follow up with the email and the text because it's hard. It's a lot of work working that lead. But if you do that, if you just do a five day follow up and on day five, if for whatever reason you still haven't heard back from them, a lot of people you hear back sooner, but if for whatever reason you haven't,

you haven't heard back from the lead that fifth day you follow up with something like, hey, we've been trying to reach you and just want to let you know that this is the final time we will be contacting you. So if you want to take advantage of our free dog training, consultation, evaluation and temperament test, which is normally $89, but for a limited time, we're offering it for free, but you need to call me back within the next 24 hours so that I can get you booked into my calendar because our times are our time slots are getting booked up really fast. So I need to hear back from you.

And if you do that on the fifth day, it really gives them a kick in the butt. And what we found is that if you implement that five day process, you will increase your revenue by 30 to 40%. That's significant. At the end of your year, that means 30 to 40 % more revenue. So if you're making $100,000, that means you're making $140,000 or at least $130,000 by implementing that process.

You can go more. A lot of dog trainers will go more. They'll say that it's the last time and then they'll keep calling them and they'll follow up once, once or twice every week thereafter, right? Because you'll eventually pick those people up. Sometimes six months later, three months later, something, you know, somebody died in the family and they're like, they had to put the dog training on the, on the back burner for now. You know, from the time that they responded to your ad to the time that you were able to make contact, somebody died, right? Imagine that falls in your lab. You're not thinking about dog training at that moment. Guess what?

When my dog trainer follows up, you know, two months or a month or three months later, whatever it is, all of a sudden now they're in that frame of mind. They still have that need. Oh yeah. I meant to get back to this, but uncle Joe died and um, but, now I'm free. Let's do this. Right. So working that lead, the follow-up so, so important. And again, that's where you guys would, what you're offering. That's why I love what you're, you're offering and why I recommend it to so many of my clients because it, that

Lianne Shinton (15:46)

Totally.

Adam G. Katz (16:00)

the amount of labor, you you might not think calling and emailing and texting one person, but once you've got 50 people in your funnel, having to go through and make those calls, either you kind of need a full-time person or you're going to have to automate at least two, at least two thirds of it with, with a program like what you guys are offering at Automation Dogs.

Lianne Shinton (16:20)

Yeah, as you're saying that, it's making me think of a statistic that I think is ever-changing. But right now, because people are, you know, they're busy and they're entitled, they want an answer now. If you don't give them an answer, if you don't answer your phones, you have to follow up. So the first statistic I just want to share is what they call the golden window. And that's the first five minutes. So if you just Google it yourself, like how quickly do I need to respond to a lead?

What is the golden window? Like you can just search these things. I'm not making it up. And you can essentially figure out that if you respond within five minutes, your chances of converting that lead are like 80 % more than if you didn't respond for an hour. The dropping off point, yeah, the dropping off point after 10 minutes is almost like calling them an hour later or a day later. So that first five minutes is what's critical. And that's where

Adam G. Katz (17:05)

100%.

Lianne Shinton (17:15)

Like we're in this podcast right now, we can't be answering our phones. That's where automation comes in. But another statistic that I wanted to share is this one's ever changing too, because the world changes with smartphones and the way people are. But 80 % of folks will convert after six to eight follow-ups. Like that's a lot of follow-ups.

Adam G. Katz (17:37)

Which

six day that's, say that again, 80%. 80 % of the people that you haven't been able to get in touch with initially.

Lianne Shinton (17:40)

80 percent.

You

have to follow up six to eight times to convert 80 % of those people.

Adam G. Katz (17:52)

Yeah. And I would, I would guesstimate that probably 95 % of dog trainers in our industry, you know, don't even follow up like a second, the second day, you know, they call back once and then they, they don't even follow up a second time, you know? So yeah, amazing. That's an amazing statistic. So again, it's 80 % of how'd you phrase that?

Lianne Shinton (18:18)

80

% of folks will convert after the 6th to 8th follow-up. So emails going out.

Adam G. Katz (18:24)

Okay, so 20 %

only 20 % are responding after the first day. And that's if you don't, if you don't answer the call right when they call, right.

Lianne Shinton (18:35)

They may respond after the third or fourth follow-up, they're 80 % of people are going to need like six to eight follow-ups. And nowadays I'm checking that statistic because there's conversionally Harvard, they're studying the way leads interact. And I'm seeing now it's saying like 12 follow-ups are necessary for 80 % of people. So that's why I had mentioned like these statistics change. And I think it's just the way the world is with our smartphones. And I mean, if I'm looking for something like a nail salon,

Adam G. Katz (18:38)

but only 20%.

Right.

Wow.

Lianne Shinton (19:04)

I'll just go down the list and whoever answers the phone and can get me in. So that's the way leads are working. Like we expect someone to respond to us right away. If we don't get that, we're going to call the next dog trainer on the list. And if we call back an hour later, that dog trainer already booked them, we don't stand a chance.

Adam G. Katz (19:10)

Yeah.

Right, right.

Especially with online marketing where, especially with search marketing, like Google ads, for example, you know, they're actively searching for the service that you have to offer. But if they click on your link and then they call you and you don't answer the phone, they hit the back button.

And they call the next person on the list and the next one and the next one till they get somebody who actually answers the phone. Right. So it's a little bit different with, for example, with Facebook ads, you may may or may not, but you may be the only dog training ad that they see, you know, that day. And if they respond to it, then you, you're the lead is a little bit more exclusive in that sense. Similar with your truck wrap or a billboard or the signage you may have out in front of your, your dog training facility.

Right. You're, you're the only one, but definitely for, you know, it used to be yellow pages, you know, we'd have these, Hey kids, we used to have these yellow pages. They were like big books and you'd look up dog trainer and there'd be like this list of dog trainers. Right. Well, the same thing with Google now. Right. And so you have this list, even, even for those who are starting to use a chat GPT or other, other AI, you know, for search, what, what'll happen is even those, they'll give you a list of like three or four.

Right. And then these people are calling each one that's on the list. So all of this stuff comprehensively is, is so important, whether it be the answering on the first call or your followup sequence or whatever it is, it's all, it's all just a part of building a business that is basically a giant system that becomes a money-making machine. And, and, and for those of you, if you don't like that nomenclature, a machine to help you help more dog owners and more dogs.

You however you want to look at it, one's linked to the other, but you're, building this hyper, hopefully you're building this hyper efficient system that maximizes your ad spend dollars and maximizes your efforts and your energy so that, you know, you're not, if you get 10 leads, you're not only, you're not signing, you know, one out of every 10, you know, you're signing nine out of every 10 or eight out of every 10, you know, you're not having to, to piss all this money away or all this time or all this effort to get the leads in the first place.

Cause leads are hard, right? So you want to maximize what's coming in. And the way to do that is setting up systems and working at like a business, not working at it's the dog training business. It's not to doctrine and hobby. Probably heard me say that before.

Lianne Shinton (21:52)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and that kind of circles back around what I was thinking earlier too, is like really assessing as a business, what are we doing here? What actually moves the needle? And that would be more money. And I know that Adam, you just said, Adam, like, let me rephrase that because we don't want to sound cold, but we have to think about, like, we're trying to make money so we can have food on the table. We can buy new wrestling kennels.

to fill our kennels. We compare our staff more. So we're not just being greedy and, you know, buying jewelry and shoes.

Adam G. Katz (22:28)

Yeah, the better business,

the better you run your business, the better you're able to help the dog owners and the dogs, right? The more money you have to spend on going to seminars to become a better dog trainer so that you can provide a better service, et cetera, et cetera. Everything that you make can be reinvested into the business to create a more efficient business to ultimately help dogs and help dog owners. forget that to me, that's a given. That's, know, we're not in the dog training business for the money.

Lianne Shinton (22:36)

you

Yes.

Adam G. Katz (22:58)

You know, I have a law firm or I'd have a real estate investment firm or a hundred other things before dog training for me anyways, would be above, you know, making money. But since we are in the dog training business, because we have chosen to help dogs and to help their owners, you know, have a more satisfying relationship and be able to enjoy each other more. We've all gotten into this business as a way to do that and as a way to make a living.

So the two, it's all hand in hand.

Lianne Shinton (23:30)

Yes.

Adam G. Katz (23:30)

So there.

Lianne Shinton (23:31)

There was something we just spoke on earlier and I just wanted to quickly share a little bit of a takeaway, actionable takeaway that folks could do right away. Because we talked about like, hey, maybe on your website, having a bit of a story about yourself and saying, well, I'm Leanne, I got into dogs when I was young, I love dogs, dogs are cool, I ended up going to school. Having a bit of that story really helps people connect with you.

And so the takeaway I want to give you today, Adam, have you heard of Donald Miller?

He's, yeah, the story-brain guy.

Adam G. Katz (24:01)

the story brand guy.

Yeah, somebody told me about that recently. It was you.

Lianne Shinton (24:05)

maybe it was me.

So Donald Miller, New York Times bestselling author, just all around great helper of the businesses. And if you go to, think it's storybrand.ai, you'll fill out a survey. And in that survey, you tell it about yourself and your business. And it will write for you using the Storybrand brain. It will write your story, your bio.

that you can then put on your website. So I just wanted to give that as a takeaway. They do a seven day free trial. I know I sound like an infomercial, but I thought it was super cool. And I'm like, of course we can use ChatGPT, but I thought using the Storybrand AI brain would be kind of helpful because they have, you know, certain strategies to that. And that AI is specifically following Donald Miller's template.

Adam G. Katz (24:57)

Yeah, I haven't looked into it. It sounds fantastic. One of the things I tell people in general about writing about themselves, their bio, it should be a secondary part of the website. It's an important part, but it should be written in the context of remembering this. The dog owner is really not so concerned about you and all the things that you've done.

If I'm the dog owner, I'm really concerned about me. So that bio should be written in the context, in the framework of how is this guy able to help me? So for example, instead of saying, you know, I went to the Tom Rose school for professional dog trainers and I received this certificate and me, me, me, me, me. Well, how does that serve you, the dog owner? So, you know, was really fascinated with how to fix.

dog training problems as a kid. After I graduated from college, the first thing I did was I went to this school I heard about in the back of a book I had read called the Tom Rose School for Professional Dog Trainers. And what fascinated me so much about going to that school was that there was the promise that I would learn how to help dog owners just like you fix your dog's behavior problems and specifically dog aggression issues.

If you've ever wanted to be able to take your dog out to, let's say a local concert at the park or sit out with him at a cafe and not have to worry about his reactivity when another dog walks by. These are the types of things I learned when I, when I, I, you know, I to the Tom Rowe school of professional dog trainers. And by the way, when I was there, I, I, I won an award because of blah, blah, blah. But you see, I'm not just, it's not just me, me, me. I'm trying to kind of reorient, reorient,

What I'm saying, so, you know, I have a, let me see if I can pull this up. Hopefully it won't shut off. Let me.

Lianne Shinton (26:51)

Well, while you're looking

for that, I wanted to just share, think the framework for storybrand.ai, Donald Miller's framework is making the customer the hero in the story and you're their guide.

So how are you going to, as their guide, help them to achieve the success and make them the hero of the story?

Adam G. Katz (27:14)

Perfect.

Yeah. Yeah. As long as it's oriented to the you rather than the me, you're going to be really, really on point. So let me read you this. This is from one of our Dunfrey Dog Training Business websites, which I don't even offer. I'm not offering at this point anyways. But just to give you an example, on the About page, Monica Black works magic with dogs. Her approach is fast, fun, and helps you to develop a balanced relationship with you and your dog. Here's why.

Lianne Shinton (27:18)

Yeah.

Adam G. Katz (27:43)

Is your dog barking excessively biting people or other dogs? Now remember this is all in the bio, right? Jumping, chewing or potty or potting in the house, pulling on the lead, disobeying your commands. If so, we can help at Marin County dog training. We're professional dog trainers and helping people with their dogs is both our business and our passion. Got a family dog. We teach you how to stop your dog's behavior problem. You also learn

how to develop a more satisfying relationship with your companion and how to communicate with your dog so that your commands are both understood and have meaning. Let me show you what's possible at our first meeting. We're currently offering a free consultation, evaluation and temperament test. That's where I go into my pitch, right? We work with dog owners who are serious about transforming their dog's behavior if this sounds like you. So if you look at that or you listen to that,

You know, how many times did I talk about you versus how many times did I talk about me, the dog trainer and all the different stuff. And when I go to a dog trainers website and I see their about page and they've got this long list of all the seminars they've already attended. Like, like anybody cares, right? Like, okay, it builds maybe credibility. You can make that argument, but really the most important thing in my life is me. It's not you, the dog trainer. It's me. So you got to write that in a way as to.

the person reading it connects and feels like, how has this happened? How is this helping me? Not just, great. You're a dog training. You're a wizard. So.

Lianne Shinton (29:15)

Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. So hopefully there's some takeaways there in the way that people present themselves, the way that people share their story in a way that makes the client the hero and they're the guy, much like Donald Miller's book and his whole brand.

Adam G. Katz (29:34)

Yeah, I you're really, you're really hot on that lately. So I need to, I need to check that out and see what it's all about. Cause I know if you like it, there must be something to it.

Lianne Shinton (29:36)

I know I say it's a podcast.

Well, I think it spoke to me because it's hard for me to explain to people what I do. And I can tell you how I got here and how I was a dog trainer. And I knew that there was a piece missing in my business and how I had to figure it out to where a lead would come in. And it was just thrown in the garbage essentially. And I needed a solution for that. And my receptionist said, I'm moving back to Canada. And I'm like, my gosh, what am I going to do?

And so I needed solutions for the front end of my business because if I didn't have that and I didn't work my leads, I didn't have customers to make money. So that was the piece that I built, but it's really hard to explain what I do because people compare what we do to other CRMs that are out there that are only for operations. Whereas ours is for growth. It's to help you sell, it's to help you close. Those other CRMs that are out there,

Adam G. Katz (30:19)

Right.

Lianne Shinton (30:39)

are not. They're for once the client says yes and that's great but what about this part over here where I missed that phone call? What's my solution for that? And that's where it's like I don't even know what that's called so I started getting into story brand.

Adam G. Katz (30:50)

Is

the lead nurturing?

Lianne Shinton (30:53)

Yeah, like lead management. But then when I use the word lead, my mom's like, is that a leash? And I'm like, Mom, Mom, she's a teacher. So I would lean on her for editing sometimes. So yeah, she's like, what does a leash have to do with this? And I'm like, okay. So yeah, I think lead. Yeah.

Adam G. Katz (30:55)

Okay.

What's the lead? Yeah.

You know that I think that's a really important point, especially with

the dog trainers because dog trainers their heads in, you know, hold the lead tight or don't hold the lead tight, you know that. So yeah, that was sort of that language.

Lianne Shinton (31:21)

Yes.

And if I say lead management, then people think, she runs ads. I do not run ads. Adam runs the ads. So my world is running this automated system. Like it's a CRM, a customer relationship management tool. but yeah, it's hard for me to explain. And that's why I've been leaning into Donald Miller's story brand to try and help me explain to dog trainers and others what I do.

Adam G. Katz (31:30)

Right. Right.

Gotcha. Perfect.

Lianne Shinton (31:50)

Yeah.

So hopefully there's some takeaways for folks there. Again, free trial story brand.ai. We're not in a commercial or anything. I just think it's really cool and fun and it's free. But I would love to shift into, you mentioned Justin Rigney's video the other day and the negative keywords. And I would love to learn from you because that is something that I don't know about. So yeah.

Adam G. Katz (32:16)

Cool. maybe many of you, or maybe you haven't, I don't know, but Justin Rigney, immensely popular dog trainer on social media. He's a content machine. In that regard, he does, in my opinion, everything right because he's creating, I don't know, between one to three pieces of content that he's posting every single day, constantly keeping his name and his face in front of you. You don't necessarily have to do that, but it is one of many strategies and it's a super powerful strategy. think he's used it.

incredibly effectively to build up his personal brand and his reputation and his seminars and his dog training business. But he went on a rant about a week ago about all of the problems he's been having with Google, with his Google business profile and with his Google ads. he how, you know, I was the only person he mentioned by name because I was the first

Person that helped him with that back when I had my agency and, uh, I'm very thankful because he was very positive and complimentary. Uh, you know, he mentioned I was the only one that was able to make it rain. If you know how Justin talks, I was able to make it rain, uh, with, with leads. don't know. I don't know if I'm doing Justin or if I'm doing Trump at this point, but, but, um, but anyways, um, after I sold my, my Google ads business, the guy who took it over.

Lianne Shinton (33:18)

Yes.

Adam G. Katz (33:34)

Justin didn't have as positive of an experience for whatever reason and then went on and tried several several others and couldn't figure out why he wasn't getting good results at that point. And and then he did. So I had addressed that in my video and then he did another video where he was talking about how he stumbled upon his negative keyword list and how it had certain his his list had certain

keywords that he felt shouldn't have been on his negative keyword list. So let's roll real quick in case you're not an egghead when it comes to Google ads. Google ads appear at the top of the search results. So when you type in dog trainer or dog trainer near me or whatever, you get the results. Usually the first two or three results are actually pay-per-click ads. So the advertiser, the dog trainer runs these ads and it has a little bit of information and then the dog owner clicks on that.

And then Google charges them. If it's one of the, we'll call it money keyword anywhere from like back when I was doing it, was anywhere from two to $6 on average. Some markets were a lot more expensive. Like Vegas was 10 or $11, but now I would imagine it's probably even more expensive. It's, you know, most likely three to $9 per click. So what happens is as a dog trainer, you hire somebody to run your ad campaign. You got to pay them the management fees. That could be 500 to 1500 bucks, depending on.

know what you're getting and who's running the ads. But the, the ad spend budget is separate. So for most dog trainers on average, they would spend about 50 bucks a day. just for the sake of argument, let's keep that number in mind, 50 bucks a day, 1500 bucks a month. You spend 1500 bucks a month, you know, and, and, know, maybe, you know, through the course of the month, you get X amount of leads and you get a seven to nine times return on investment or at least a three times return on your investment. So how that works.

is most people, Grigny included, are under the mistaken assumption that you want to have big giant keywords like dog training or dog obedience or maybe the names of your competitors or just the word dogs. And what happens is that Google shows the ad for not only those keywords but other related searches that thinks that somebody looking for dog training.

may also be interested in. So what happens is these dog trainers or the inexperienced people who are running their ad campaigns are advertising under search terms like dog training or dogs. And Google is showing the ad. Now remember, I've only got 50 bucks a day and I might be spending an average of five bucks per click. So basically, throughout the period of the entire day, I've only got 10 clicks. So let me ask you, what makes more sense?

to have the ad show every time somebody does a search for dogs, which who know what the hell they may be, their real intent is. Maybe they're looking for dogs for adoption. Maybe they're looking for pictures of dogs or even dog training. Maybe they're looking for a dog training book or dog training backpack or dog training course, whatever it may be. Very, very broad, generally low intent. So as the ad manager, I may, depending on my strategy, I may take those broad keywords

Stick them on my negative keyword list. My negative keyword list tells Google, don't show the ad if somebody searches for that. Do show the ad if somebody is searching for dog trainer near me or dog training Knoxville or dog obedience Knoxville or dog obedience trainer near me. Those are high intent keywords. We call those positive keywords. The negative keywords are basically everything else. Everything else that a person could be

service dog trainer near me, police dog trainer near me. If I'm not offering, if I'm the dog trainer, excuse me, if I'm the dog trainer and I'm not offering police dog training, I'm not offering service dog training, we wanna have that on the negative keyword list because look, people will click on fucking anything, right? If they type in service dog trainer near me and the ad comes up and even though the ad doesn't say anything about service dog training, they'll click on it anyways because Google showed it to them. Well, guess what? Now you're just out.

Lianne Shinton (37:19)

Mmm.

Adam G. Katz (37:47)

five dollars or more, you know, basically lunch at Taco Bell, right? Just because one person clicked. So Justin went on this rant. Again, I love Justin. I think you guys super smart. He's got a wicked sense of humor. He's got a lot of the pieces of the puzzle, but in terms of understanding Google ads, nobody really took the time to explain it to him. So he and he's been screwed over so many times. He's understandably a little bit hot and bothered about, you know, about

everything associated with Google ads. So he did kind of this rant video, which I'm doing my own response video should be up later tonight. That kind of explains in a little bit more detail how this stuff works because he's just completely misguided on how those negative keywords work. And so he was, he was very hot and bothered when he found out that whoever ran his ads campaign last had keywords like dogs or dog training elite, which was one of his competitors. Trust me.

You do not want to run ads, you know, that come up when somebody's searching for your competitors brand name, their trademark brand name. And all of a sudden they see your ad coming up when somebody types in their trademark brand name. That's called unfair business practices. It can in certain circumstances, depending on the attorney general for your state, get them involved. It can open you up to lawsuits. And more importantly, it's a crappy keyword to be advertising under because

Lianne Shinton (38:49)

Hmm.

Adam G. Katz (39:13)

80 % of those searches are pre-existing clients for your competitor. So they type in the competitor's name, whatever the competitor's name is, Training Elite, or Send Me and Send, or whatever it is, right? And then they click on it and you answer the phone, you hi, this is Adam's Dog Training Company. And hi, this is Adam with Adam's Dog Training Company, to be more precise. And they're like, sorry, I thought I was trying to reach Dog Training Elite. Guess what?

Lianne Shinton (39:38)

Hmm.

You paid five bucks for that.

Adam G. Katz (39:39)

Not only would you

never have signed that client because they're already a client for that other dog training business, but you just lost your five to $9 as well. So you got, you got spanked two different times because you were ignorant about how the process works in terms of what should or should not be on your negative keyword list. So I I'm making this video not to criticize Justin again. He's it's understandable, you know, why he feels that way. He just hasn't been educated on how the thing works.

And he doesn't really want to be educated. He wants to just find some Google gangsta. He can kind of pass it off to and hope that they run it right. But my position is this. You have to have a certain base amount of knowledge to kind of understand how the whole thing works in order to hire somebody to make sure they're not taking advantage of you. So as an analogy, if I need work on my car and I take my car to the local car mechanic and he tells me like, hey, Adam, you need a new flux capacitor and it's going to be six thousand bucks.

I know that there's no such thing as a flux capacitor except in the Back to the Future movie and regular cars don't have a flux capacitor. So you're trying to take advantage of me. You're trying to screw me because I at least have that base level of knowledge to know that there's no flux capacitor. I'm never going to be an auto mechanic, right? You may never, are probably never going to be a Google ads manager, right? But in order to protect yourself as a consumer, you need to have a basic understanding of how this stuff works.

Lianne Shinton (40:43)

you

Adam G. Katz (41:08)

I'm trying to do that with some of my videos in response to some of Justin's videos. Not because I have a problem with Justin. love Justin, but because I want to help you guys out in the industry to better understand how all this stuff works so that you can protect yourselves from being taken advantage of. Just like the dog training industry, you know how people can go to a weekend seminar and suddenly they're a master dog trainer? Well, it's the same thing in the paid ads industry, be it Google ads or Facebook ads or

SEO or whatever else there is out there people are pushing Google business profile. These people, go to a weekend seminar and suddenly they're an expert and they make big promises that they can't deliver on just because they want your money. And so the more information you can arm yourself with not to become an expert in those fields, but just to be able to hire your own Google gangsta intelligently, it's going to make sure that you're a little bit more protected than you would be otherwise.

Lianne Shinton (42:02)

That was a very good, I'm going to say rant, but yeah, I learned a lot in that. And yeah, the flex capacitor is for time travel. So I totally get that.

Adam G. Katz (42:07)

It's a wrap.

Yeah, unless you have a time travel machine, you're just

trying to take your money, Leanne.

Lianne Shinton (42:19)

I think when you really spoke about the keyword of Dark Trainer Elite or whatever it may be that's your competitor, that really resonated with me. Yeah, that was powerful information.

Adam G. Katz (42:32)

Yeah. and so many people do it and it's, it's, it's just, it's, it's a bad idea. It's a bad idea. I get it. You can do it. I don't know why Google allows it. ⁓ you know, they, they should have a mechanism in there that even prevents you from doing it because it's not. Not only is it not right, but it's, it's probably going to get you into trouble. And more importantly, I mean, this is probably why Google allows it is because it makes them money. Cause every time somebody does click on it and you know, they get an extra.

Lianne Shinton (42:42)

Hmm.

Adam G. Katz (43:00)

five to nine dollars, but I don't want that for you. You know, I want you to be to be smart and be an educated consumer and know it's even when you do everything right with an ad campaign, be it Google ads or Facebook ads or, you know, print ads in your local local, you know, weekly newspaper or whatever it is. It is it is very hard even doing everything right to get a winning campaign, to get everything like doubt and just right. But it's even harder when you're

when you're ignorant about the process. So I'm hoping that I can bring a little bit of light to helping people understand a little bit more about what they should and shouldn't be doing, specifically in this case in regard to Google Ads.

Lianne Shinton (43:38)

Yeah, and you haven't been in the Google ad game for a long time. So I used you 100 years ago when I moved from Oceanside to Fulbrook, and I used you during that move while we waiting for our website to kind of optimize and optimize. Another word that as a business owner, we need to make sure we learn what these things mean so that we know what's happening. Just wanted to mention, too, though, that since you've been out of the Google ad game

and AI has recently come into play, I Googled that does AI add negative keywords to your, I'm getting a bit of an echo, but ⁓ to your negative keywords in your ad campaigns and it said yes. So I don't know what any of that means because I'm not an ad guy.

Adam G. Katz (44:06)

you know, can say, I think that in the future, want to have a computer to work to your, and then say, don't know, I mean, to your computer in your iPhone, and you said, yeah, so I don't know if you a computer that you need. You I'm sure.

Yeah, no, the way that the various AI models incorporate the results is completely different than

Search paid search marketing, right? So the negative keyword thing wouldn't even come into play so much. what I can tell you about getting optimized is there's kind of a process now where people are kind of like, you know, what pulling a quote means, you know, like in an article, like if you're reading a magazine article, who does that anymore? Right. But, and the whole article, they'll pull a quote out and they might put it like at the very top of the page. Right. And so.

Lianne Shinton (44:53)

Yes, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Adam G. Katz (45:02)

It's kind of the same thing with AI and your websites. from what I've read anyways, is that the AI will try to pull a quote or post, post some information off the webpage to figure out if, that makes sense to incorporate, into the results that you get when somebody uses an AI model for search. But I think it's a totally different discipline. I don't, I don't believe it works with, with, with negative keywords and positive keywords and all of that. think it's a separate kind of thing.

Lianne Shinton (45:28)

Okay.

Okay.

Adam G. Katz (45:30)

So

I got to ask real quick, is that a kitty right in the corner? What is that over your left ear? is that flirt? Okay. Hi, flirt. Hi, flirty baby. ⁓

Lianne Shinton (45:34)

That's, that's flirty. Yeah, that's, that's flirty. She's sleeping. She's a perfect angel. Yeah, you got this Jack Russell and we never hear the end of it over there. You're like one

of those fur mummies. Fur mummies. Fur mummies. Fur mummies. a fur mummy. Yeah, fur mommy. Fur mommy.

Adam G. Katz (45:53)

I can't tell what you're for mommy. Yeah, exactly.

For daddy in this case, right? Yeah.

Lianne Shinton (46:01)

I say

mummy maybe because I'm Canadian. versus mommy.

Adam G. Katz (46:04)

I think so. Yeah.

Yeah. Y'all like maple syrup and weird beer and stuff out there. So I don't even know where your brain's at sometimes. But, mummy, mummy. Yes. Yes, mummy. I feel like I'm in a Pink Floyd song right now. Anyways, yeah, yeah, it's, Parson Russell Terrier. cute as a bun. Can't get enough of him. Just want to eat him. Anyways.

Lianne Shinton (46:27)

Yeah, that's that's flirting too.

Adam G. Katz (46:32)

So hopefully this has been helpful to you guys. think I'm probably running long at this point, but I'll turn it over to you.

Lianne Shinton (46:36)

Yeah, we've talked

for almost 50 minutes. So yeah, we'll wrap it up. And yeah, thank you everyone for listening. Adam, if folks have questions, how can they reach you? What should they do to connect with you to help maybe get your advice and direction for their business?

Adam G. Katz (46:52)

Yeah. If you guys have any questions about anything, head on over to the dog trainer marketing group on Facebook. You'll see a picture of me with a Dutch shepherd on the, the, on the masthead of it. it's free to join. You'll be amongst over 5,000 professional dog training business owners, swapping secrets, strategies, tactics, and tips on how to grow your dog training business, how to run a dog training business, how to start a dog training business. And we've got, we've got a really good community. I'm really good about clamping down on the spam and the

the, the, bullshitters. And we've got, we've got a handful of people that are doing over a million dollars a year with the dog training business. Some of them over $2 million a year with the dog training business in there. And they'll chime in at times to answer questions. If I can't answer it, it's a really good group, to, get questions specific to, the, marketing and advertising and the business side of the dog training business. if you want to work with me specifically, have me run your Facebook ads, or if you'd like to know who I recommend for other services like.

Google Ads or SEO or automating your business, out, excuse me, check out dogtrainertoolbox.com and you can see all of my info products and services and stuff at dogtrainertoolbox.com.

Lianne Shinton (48:00)

Thank you, Adam. And I will try to give a little pitch based on my story brand ⁓ kind of theme there, but try to explain what the heck I do over here. But I also help dog trainers and a dog trainer myself, of course, been doing this for over 33 years. And a lot of our clients are solo dog trainers, solo entrepreneurs. And some are big time dog trainers, like Adam said, some making a million.

Adam G. Katz (48:02)

No pleasure.

Do it. Let's do it.

Lianne Shinton (48:29)

$2 million a year and on up. And no matter if you're just a one man show, you're just starting out, you've been in a one man show for 12 years, or you're a huge organization that's in like multi-million dollar figures, when people reach out to me, it's always for the same reason, they're in chaos and they need a system to help them be organized. So it's not just the ones that are bringing in big money, it's also newer dog trainers and such.

That's why I'm here so that you don't have to sell your soul to your business. You can automate it and take a little break. was recently actually at one of Justin's seminars. was at Professional K9 Development. I can never say what's wrong with me. Professional K9 Trainer Development Conference and it was in Ohio and Justin was the keynote speaker.

And one of my clients actually had come to see Justin as well. So we were sitting in the keynote, which was like over two hours. And he leaned over to me and he showed me his phone. He's like, I booked three clients right now because of your system. Just sitting here on vacation with my wife. Of course, as dog trainers, we take a vacation by going to a dog training seminar because that's how we roll. But yeah, I was like, that felt really good for me to know that just in that like two hour period.

Adam G. Katz (49:33)

Nice.

Right.

Yeah.

Lianne Shinton (49:48)

His system was working for him, his website was working for him, and he was on vacation.

Adam G. Katz (49:53)

I love it. That's why, that's why I refer people to you because it's, it's, it's really, it's a system. It's a process that goes hand in hand with what I'm doing. And I think anybody that's, that's, you know, doing any volume of business needs, needs a solution. Like what you're offering.

Lianne Shinton (50:08)

Awesome. Well, thank you everybody for listening again. Adam Katz, thank you. And I'm Leanne Shinton and everybody have a great day.

Adam G. Katz (50:18)

Later guys.

Lianne Shinton (50:19)

Later.