We recently connected with Christine Mcgarry and have shared our conversation below.

Christine, appreciate you joining us today. It’s easy to look at a business or industry as an outsider and assume it’s super profitable – but we’ve seen over and over again in our conversation with folks that most industries have factors that make profitability a challenge. What’s biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

Before I decided to make the leap from corporate sales life to a Dog Trainer and business owner, I wrote a 3 month business plan. I had a pretty good idea of what it would take to run the business since I had been apprenticing for 7 months at a large training facility. My mentor had also shared with me a valuable lesson about the challenges of making a profit in this industry: If you want to have a staff and scale your business, you are eventually going to run into a quality issues. Dog training needs dog trainers and how to you bring in something with experience who is going to do everything you want while representing your brand without constantly looking over your shoulder?
I was not interested in having staff at Magnus K9, however the lesson was still true for a single employee business. My time is my money and there is a ceiling I will hit where I cannot take on more clients, therefore limiting my profits. I have to be strategic about my scheduling if I want to maximize my profitability.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I worked for a decade as a sales executive at various SaaS companies. I am an extrovert at heart and I genuinely enjoy getting to meet new people, which is what made me successful in these roles.
When I got my first dog, I did some internet dog training until I inevitably hit a wall and couldn’t progress with him any further. So I sought out a local dog training company and I didn’t know it at the time but walking into this facility for the first time would change the trajectory of my life. After working with this training group for almost 2 years, I decided that I was going to leave the corporate world behind and do an apprenticeship. I was 7 months pregnant at the time and I couldn’t imagine going back to work at a computer after having a child. I wanted something more fulfilling in my life.
Apprenticeships look different in any profession and here I wore every hat while I got the ins and outs of running the business. That meant everything from cleaning dog kennels when they were at their worst, to reviewing calendars and invoicing clients, and so much more. It’s the absolute best way to discover if you really want to get into a new profession. Additionally, this establishment specialized in both pet and working dogs so I was exposed to a variety of dog training that most people don’t get to see. I worked with police K9s, detection dogs, service animals, and hundreds of pet dogs. This experience has bolstered my skill set and I get to offer these training services as part of my company now.
After my apprenticeship, I went to school for an official certification under a world-renown trainer who specialized in “balanced” dog training. While my family was living in Colorado at the time, we knew we would be relocating to Pennsylvania, where I am from, so I established the business in PA and started my marketing efforts for this area prior to making the move.
At the end of the day, dog training is about working with people, and I really love people. I dislike seeing people’s lives turned upside down by their dogs and I want to relieve that friction that may exist between humans and their dogs.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

The first question I asked to all existing dog training company owners was “What’s the most successful way you obtained clients?” And unfortunately, everyone told me different things! I knew I didn’t want to spend money on marketing approaches and instead I used my time to do some grassroots approaches. I signed up to be a vendor at events, I made lists of dog related businesses where I could drop cards and fliers.
The absolute most successful strategy for growing clientele is word of mouth. I have been working here for 3 months and over 50% of my clients come to me because they heard about me from someone else!

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Having the apprenticeship experience helped tremendously in understanding what I’d need for my business. I have a small facility where clients come for the initial meeting and then in the future we go back and forth between their home and my establishment.
At the beginning when I was building business plans to try and forecast potential revenue, I was also making a list of the expenses and divided them into stages of when I might need to purchase. For example, I definitely needed new crates immediately, but I didn’t need to purchase many more leashes until later. I could use the ones I had. Having a very detailed list of projected expenses allowed me to conceptualize my idea and ensure I had the funds to cover the start up costs. Because as any business owners knows, there are even more costs at the beginning then you could imagine!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.magnusk9.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/magnusk9training/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MagnusK9Training/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-mcgarry-15a094312/