In this podcast interview, Adam Katz from Dog Trainer Tool Box (https://www.dogtrainertoolbox.com) dives into his biography and how he positioned himself as an expert in Facebook advertising for dog trainers, offering "done for you" dog training websites, SEO for dog trainers, and serving as a comprehensive business coach for dog trainers. During our podcast, Adam emphasized the transformative impact of persuasive copywriting in marketing, highlighting how small adjustments in language can dramatically enhance customer engagement and boost sales. He underscored the crucial role of understanding human psychology in effectively communicating with clients and attracting them to dog training services, advocating for a strategic approach to aligning messaging with customer needs and emotions.

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Transcript of Podcast:

Lianne Shinton (00:14)

Hi everyone, I'm Lianne Shinton, the host and also owner of Pet Biz Experts, a CRM software company for dog trainers. And today we have Adam Katz joining us from the Dog Trainer Toolbox. And before you chat with me, Adam just wanted to share a little story about you. The last time I think we saw each other in person, we'd gone for dinner, you and Carla, and we had dinner in Vegas. Do you remember that?

Adam G. Katz (00:44)

Yeah.

Lianne Shinton (00:45)

Okay. I've known you for a long time and the thing that stood out was a lot of the dog trainers that were really, you know, on the worldwide web at the time, cause this was a long time ago. We were watching you and we were aware that you'd started, I think it was dog problems .com and.

just getting a URL like that at this day and age is like not even possible because all the good ones are gone. So you had this great URL, but you, you were a dog trainer and you were using online courses to train people and you developed a subscription or membership type of course. And it was just outstanding, like light years ahead of the rest of us. And, and, you know, we took notice. So I think that you are an expert in.

the field that you're in. I know that you've evolved and I'd love to hear more about your journey from, you know, when you decided, Hey, I'm going to be a dog trainer to I'm going to go online and I'm also going to help dog trainers, which I know you do a lot with the dog trainer toolbox.

Adam G. Katz (01:49)

Thanks, yeah, so it's just dogtrainertoolbox.com for anybody at home. Where do I start? So I've owned three dog training businesses in two different states, in Los Angeles, one in Las Vegas, one in Reno, Nevada, and then concurrent with that, at a certain point, I guess between dog training company number one and dog training company two, I started up a...

mail order company, this was kind of before the internet really took off and published a, self -published a book, one original book, I've since self -published I want to say somewhere over 25, 26 books available at amazon .com but you know if you buy one you kind of, you know the gist of all of them. But anyways, I had self -published a hard copy of the original book and it was at a time when

the internet was just starting to take off. But prior to that, I had been running my own actual dog training company, live, you know, meet people in person, a dog training company in Los Angeles, and was having incredible success. And this was at a time around the mid -90s, really before the whole dog training industry kind of took off. And prior to that,

It was just like you would go to the parks and rec and take a dog training class with some old German guy and you'd pay 15 bucks and he was, he had his own job like working as a butcher or something and so on. In evenings or weekends he would run these dog training classes, right? It just says kind of like a side hustle but.

Up until around the early to mid 90s, with the exception of maybe one or two big names, it wasn't something that your average dog trainer could do as a career. But...

around the mid 90s or so that started to change. And so I had learned dog training. I had been a college student up at University of California at Berkeley and was at a study group and a friend of mine was married to an Israeli guy who had trained dogs in Israel and had this little dog training company in Northern California.

And I was amazed by it because he had this huge, what I thought was huge at the time, Rottweiler and this huge pit bull mix. And while all of us college kids were moving around the kitchen and into the living room, these two dogs were like quoting a down stay, which at the time was like the most amazing thing I'd ever seen a dog in real life do. You know, cause there's this disconnect between, you know, what you see on TV, what you see dogs do on TV and they do these amazing tricks and they hit these cues, but you don't really think about that. And when you see a dog do something,

do anything in real life, especially mid -90s. It wasn't like you were tripping over dog trainers on every corner. I was just, my mind was blown. And I asked Sarah, the woman who was my friend and was leading the study group, I said, what's your boyfriend or your husband do exactly? And she said, well, he's a professional dog trainer.

And I said, like, can people make money, you know, actually doing that? And she said, yeah, Adam, it's amazing. He charges a thousand bucks a dog and he meets people at the local park and he's got this little, like a Nissan pickup truck, like a blue Nissan pickup truck with a shell on the back. And he's really good.

and he's really good at fixing aggression problems and he's got more clients than he can turn away, or more clients than he can handle, so he's turning people away. And I thought, just like the business side of me was like, holy crap, so this guy, he's probably not even here legally. He probably doesn't even have an actual formal business set up, who knows?

And you know, as a college kid, I'm thinking a thousand bucks a dog and he's like, how many days a week could this guy be working? Turns out he's working like six, seven days a week from like nine in the morning till like seven at night.

virtually no overhead. It was all referrals because it wasn't like, again, there weren't like tons and tons of dog trainers. So he'd go into a veterinary clinic in the Bay Area or a groomer or a dog club or whatever it is and he'd be like, you know, one of the few experts and he was a good trainer, right? So he can get the results. And so he would get...

just 100 % free referrals. And it was just amazing. I mean, I figured he was probably making, I don't know, 15, $20 ,000 a month with literally no overhead. And he's a young, good looking guy, like mid 20s, making this kind of money, living in America. It was a pretty cool thing. And up to that point, I had kind of...

I kind of thought I would get into the advertising industry because I was really into advertising and marketing as a kid. I was like one of those geeks who would spend all of his time at the local public library and read all of the marketing books and all of the advertising and copywriting and business books. And that was just really what kind of turned me on as a kid. And through junior high and then high school, I got into journalism, but I was, I was the guy that was designing like the ads and stuff. And then in college, I went to a couple of different colleges.

before going to UC Berkeley and I was always one of the editors on the newspaper and so that was kind of the direction that I thought I was gonna go. I thought I was gonna be in advertising or journalism, God forbid. And...

And so I ended up having a couple of like apprenticeships and internships at larger advertising agencies while I was in college. And I realized that I did not want to spend the rest of my life sitting in some office having the fluorescent lights burn off my vitamins, right? So I was like when I stumbled onto this dog trainer guy, I was like, this is super cool. I'd always been interested, you know, I had always been into dogs. I always liked dogs, but just never thought about it.

thought somebody could make a living doing it. And this guy's got this little business where like, shoot, you could do this, I mean, almost anywhere.

And just like immediately I knew it was so public relations friendly. It was the type of thing where like you could walk into a party and people ask you, what do you do for a living? You're a dog trainer. You're probably the only dog trainer that they know. Whereas if you become a lawyer or an accountant, and maybe they know five or six of those people. But if you're a dog trainer, you're like the only dog trainer that they know. And if...

they have somebody or somebody at the party has a dog, they're definitely calling you. So that was all of the stuff that just like immediately clicked to me. Like this is cool. And, and I get to work outside with dogs. You know, how frigging cool was that? Right? So, so I basically like approached them and said, you know, I need more information. You got it. You got it.

Teach me, I want to learn everything about this. And he was like, yeah, thanks, but no thanks. And so I started hassling Sarah, my friend who was his wife, and I said, is there anything you could do? Listen, I'm really good with advertising. I've done all these, I had done my own little advertising projects. I used to run an ad, a classified ad in the back of the National Enquirer magazine, National Magazine for a chili.

recipe. It was like Uncle Harleys secret spicy chili recipe and when they'd order I'd send them the chili recipe on like a 3x5 card.

for like a dollar or something. And I had this program that I had done like I used to do. I did this program on how to keep your kid out of cults because cults like in the early 90s was like a big thing and the Christian right was like, I'm afraid my kid's going to get into a cult. So I recorded this audio lecture, this one hour audio lecture, and I would sell it like in the back of magazines and stuff. And I had this, previous to that, I had this apprenticeship at a direct response advertising agency in Los Angeles. And I had worked for another marketing agency.

in San Francisco. So I had some chops, even though as a college student I had some experience. I kind of knew about what needed to be done. My parents had a family business. I kind of dabbled in some of the marketing with that. And so...

Sarah knew about that and she said well what if you like approach the guy's name was alone and and he wants to do a dog training video and he wants to sell it as like an infomercial on TV but he doesn't know how to do any of that so maybe you guys can kind of work something out so she kind of pitched me to him and about it took him about three weeks to decide I was I was on a road trip to Oregon I had a silver Volvo with my guitar on the trunk and a change of clothes and

was just having a good time as a college student on summer break and I get this call like I think my pager right it was back when we had pagers and so I call and and there's a message from Sarah saying hey Alon would like to get together and work with you so apprentice with him.

for about a year, year and a half, graduated from university, still felt like I needed a little bit more, right? And so after I graduated and ended up, I found he had a huge library of dog training books. And one of the dog training books was written by a guy named Tom Rose, who had a dog school for dog trainers in the Midwest, in St. Louis, outside of St. Louis. And so in the back of the book, there was contact information. So I called him up and after I graduated,

up packing everything I owned in the back of a little Mitsubishi truck and drove halfway across the country and did that for a couple of months until I was at a point where I was comfortable. Well, after I was done with that I went back to Southern California, started up my own dog training business, had similar success and after, I can't remember, about five to seven years, I was

I still had that mail order bug, like the advertising and marketing bug. And so I was making like averaging between, I don't know, nine to $11 ,000 a month, which was like amazing for a dog trainer at that time. And my AVID program was like,

My basic program was like 300 bucks. My middle program was 500 bucks. And my platinum program, which was like nobody ever really chose, it was just there to get them to pick the other two programs, was like 900 or a thousand bucks. So I was selling like a lot of clients and doing all pretty much the work myself. But for a guy who never had a real job and you know, dog training and that, like it was amazing. So I created this course.

the three ring binder and I started advertising the course in the back of like what was dog sports magazine or dog world magazine, dog fancy magazine and it was titled something like how you can make $11 ,000 a month plus training dogs in your neighborhood park. And I ended up selling that course for between 500 to 800 bucks depending on all the.

the add -ons that you chose, ended up selling that to a lot of other dog trainers around the country who are actually still in business today and still big successes. So it's kind of interesting how everybody, including myself, is still in some way related to the industry. And so that was good. It was kind of cool that I was able to supplement my dog training revenue with this mail order stuff. But it dawned on me that...

there are way more dog owners than there are professional dog trainers, right? And so I was making, I don't know, 1 ,500 to 2 ,500 bucks a month selling my courses to other dog trainers. But it dawned on me that, hey, I could sell the same dog training information that I'm giving my clients, my in -person dog training clients, I can sell that information. And this thing, the internet was just starting to take off.

So I wrote a book, I wrote a little 125 page book, which later ended up being a 325 page book. But I started selling the initial 125 page book.

I self -published it, so I'd have this big rig that would pull up in front of my little one -bedroom apartment above my parents' shop, and they'd bring a pallet of like a thousand books, and I'd have to hustle those books up into my one -bedroom apartment. I had copies of these books stacked up like behind the toilet and the bathroom and in my kitchen and in my bedroom, and like literally, like I was living in a warehouse, and I was doing all the fulfillment myself. So somebody would find me online, and at that point,

it was all SEO stuff and there wasn't hardly any competition and there was this thing that came out called PPC which was pay per click and it was really before Google. There was Yahoo but there was a bunch of other search engines like Alta Vista and Lycos and several others and you could get clicks for like national keywords like keywords like dog training or dog obedience or dog obedience training program that type of thing and you could buy those clicks for like

two to three cents and.

like the traffic was completely unjaded back then, unjaded, because, you know, it wasn't like now where everybody's, you know, everybody's been through the, you know, all that they've been taken advantage of and they're so skeptical and all of that. It was like, it was a new thing. And so I started selling these little dog training books for, it was like $12 and then 15 bucks with shipping. And every day I'd sell, I don't know, about three or four of them. And I'd package them up and I'd wheel them across the street to the

the post office because I lived in like above a shop in a commercial area and I'd take him and I'd stand in line and the postmaster guy was this old guy from Guam and he'd say you know we got to be friends and and I'd ship these out every day.

It was nice, but it wasn't like I was never going to quit the dog training, my in -person dog training business, which at that point, I think it was like year five to year seven, I was already starting to get really burnt out. It was just, it was something that I just felt like I wasn't.

I wasn't at my highest and best use. And I was never, I was always, I always loved dogs. I was into dogs. I thought dogs were cool. But I'm not like you and Brett are. I'm not like a dog sport person. I'm not like the kind of guy that does dogs as a hobby. That's just not where my interests lie, right? So I knew I didn't want to be doing the face -to -face dog training. And I didn't have the, I didn't feel like I had the temperament to grow the business into something bigger and deal with employees. Like my family always had,

You know like retail companies and my father always told me like you don't want employees You don't want employees like do something that you don't need employees, right? so the mail order thing was really attractive and then the so the internet came along and I started selling the books and Realized that at a $12 a book. I was never gonna get rich so

I expanded the book to like 325 pages. I added five audio cassette tapes, which were each was like a one hour lecture. So they'd get the book and they get five one hour lectures and they get a little hard disk of links. It was like Adam's 500 favorite links. And that was like a big deal back then because, you know, it's like, these are Adam's hand selected links. It was like, and now you got to Google big frigging deal, right? So, so.

Anyways, that was the package and so once I packaged that up they got the book, they got the five audio cassettes, they got the disc, and they got a like a what would it be, eight and a half by...

five and a half card stock card of like puppy raising tips that they can put like with a magnet on their refrigerator so that as a reminder of like what they should be doing with their puppy. So it was a package and they got all that for 50 bucks, right? And still shipping the stuff out like out of my one bedroom apartment.

And so, funny thing happened, I went from selling like three to four of those, just the book a day, to selling three to four to five of the $50 package. I got rid of, you couldn't just buy the book. If you wanted the book, you had to buy the whole package. And so now it's like, wow, now I'm making 200 bucks a day, which, before expenses, but still, my expenses were, I had the hard expenses, and the advertising expenses were minimal.

because most of it was just organic SEO. And that was pretty cool because now it was like, shoot, I can make the money from the dog trading business, but I can make almost as much from this little internet business thing that I started. And that was pretty cool. After a year or two of doing that, you'd dawn on me, hey dummy, you could also sell VHS tapes. This was before DVDs, right?

So I recorded five VHS programs. Each one was on like a different behavior. So you can get Housebreaking in a Hurry and you can get How to Teach Your Dog to Lie Down and Stay Down until you tell them to get up and teach your dog how to come every time you call them. So five different VHS tapes for a hundred bucks. You can get all five for a hundred bucks or you can get that with the book package for a hundred and fifty bucks. Right.

So now I was selling, I don't know, two or three of the $50 packages a day and maybe a couple of the $150 packages a day. So suddenly, you know, I went from, and I remember the first, I didn't even know if it would work with the VHS tapes and stuff. I had a friend from college that I paid and it was like, we had a big falling out because he thought.

I didn't negotiate the price first, which is a lesson for you kids. When you hire somebody, always negotiate the price first. And so I ended up spending like a thousand bucks on him for like half a day of filming me sitting on a couch. And the whole thing was not good, but you know, we were learning. And so, so suddenly I was at a point where I was making 11 or 12 ,000 bucks for my little internet business thing. And so that was like, holy cow, how long can this go on?

Eventually I got some people to take care of the fulfillment for me so I can get that stuff out of my like the boxes and stuff out of my living room and they did the shipping and the customer service and that was great. I had to pay a little bit more but it was super.

And so it gave me location independence, right? I closed that first dog training business down. I decided I wanted to move to Texas and was consistently making, you know, between 11 to $15 ,000 a month selling the courses and the fulfillment company was in Georgia and everything was cool, but it was always stressful because by that time more and more players started entering into the field, right? And not only that, but more and more, there weren't not just other

dog trainers but also internet sharks and that was something that was just kind of coming on my radar around 2000, 2001 there about. Eventually I moved to Costa Rica and what I noticed was

people were starting to become more and more familiar with buying digital downloads, right? So what I ended up doing was I took all of my info products and I turned them into digital products. And then in around 2006, the landscape was starting to change. There was a lot more competition. And basically with any kind of marketing, the person who can...

pay who can afford to pay the most to acquire a client is the one who wins. So if you can pay a hundred bucks to acquire a client and still make a good profit and I can only pay 50 bucks to acquire a client and then it starts eating into my profit, eventually you're going to win. You're going to end up market share. So 2006 came along.

and this thing called membership subscription website started to come on the scene. So I took all of my info products and I converted them to digital and I put them behind a paywall. So now if you wanted to buy the book, you got a free month of the access to the subscription website features, which also included not only the digital content but more digital content and access to a discussion forum, which was kind of like a new thing back then and I had other professional dog

trainers helping me answer questions and there was all kinds of different benefits and you got all that for $39 and what I found was that just like a gym membership a lot of people would sign up and continue to pay month over month because they thought well...

It's just cheaper to keep it. I may need it at some point. I may decide to use it. You know, the dog's getting older. He may have other behavior problems. And so what we found was that the average member stayed about seven to eight months, but we'd have about 20 to 30%. I think it was closer to 30%.

of the membership base who would just let it roll month over month, year over year. And that was just sweet. And so we started to see the business take off in January of 2008. Made $81 ,000. It peaked two months later.

in March of 2008 at around $83 ,000 and some change in one month. And as far as expenses, I only had, I had advertising expenses and I had a full -time employee who was running my Google Ads at the time and I eventually learned how to run Google Ads from him and his wife who we paid 600 bucks a month to handle the customer service. So he was making about 5 ,000 to 6 ,000 a month. I had my advertising expenses

Expenses her fee for 600 bucks a month and I was just stacking cash I mean it was we were living in Costa Rica and Panama in Bogota, Colombia at the time You know your expenses our expenses were about 40 to 50 percent of what they would have been in the United States And and and life was good and that kind of set me up and that whole thing over a pair of years end up making me Well over six million dollars with with very very little expenses aside from taxes

of course, taxes, you always have taxes. So that was pretty cool, but that eventually, that whole project eventually sunset. We wrote it out for a number of years around 2000, I don't remember, maybe around 2014 or so.

eventually shut it down, the landscape changed, Google changed the rules and the problem is that when you're dependent upon a big platform like Google or Facebook or whatever it is, they can arbitrarily change the rules. And so what they started doing was they started applying rules to us that they weren't applying to any of the competition. And even though it was obvious that a lot of the competition, the competitors were like these internet sharks who hadn't even trained a dog in their life.

they were enforcing stuff with us and not with them. So for example, I had a legit testimonial from the Dr. Phil show. They had called me up when they needed a dog for one of their, the rape victims that was on their show. And they, the producer called me up and said, Hey Adam, you know, senior stuff, who can you recommend? And then they sent me a really nice testimonial. Well, Google said, you can't use that unless you provide documentation that they actually sent that. Well, they sent that like 10 years ago and that producer,

I mean, she probably moved to Australia by that point. I didn't have a contact or documentation or any of that. And I had like hundreds of testimonials and they were like, yeah, you need to put behind, below every one of them. You know, these results may not be typical, you know, as if I was selling some stock security or something.

And meanwhile, we'd look at these internet marketing sharks and they weren't enforcing the same thing on them. So it was completely arbitrary and capricious. And a number of things kept happening like that. The landscape just kept changing. The cost per click became prohibitive to advertise.

Because when your competition is advertising that, you know, hey, you can learn how to train a dog without touching the dog, without remote collars, without food, without touch, without leashes, without training collars, without anything, you know, and people are too gullible to realize it's baloney, still really, really difficult to compete with. So I figured I had a good one. We shut that down. And I had learned a lot about.

Google Ads, I had learned a lot about social media marketing, about video marketing, about email marketing, about SEO, a lot of different stuff over the years of running dogproblems .com. And so I started up a Google Ads agency to help other dog training businesses because now at the time dog training businesses were starting to become a thing and there were a lot of dog trainers in every city. You were one of them. And we ran Google Ads for well over 100 dog training, excuse me, 100 dog training businesses at the time.

time and helped a lot of dog trainers help a lot of dogs and I thought that was the best part it was because

I could still hit the goals of one of my life missions in helping more dog owners without having for me to deal with the face to face and hands on aspects of actually training client dogs. I can help other people who really got a charge and got electrified from helping dog owners face to face. I can help them because I had actually done it and I had all these skills. So we did that for about seven or eight years. Got kind of

Bored with that, got tired of fighting with Google, handed that business over to my lead tech at the time. His name was Brandon and he continued to service those clients. And I saw there started to be a shift. I saw at a certain point about a year and a half ago, some of my friends, professional dog trainers who had been clients started contacting me and saying, you know, hey,

I've been getting really good results with Facebook ads. You should look into this because with what you know about Google ads and the rest, you could really maybe have some significant impact, you know, kind of doing what you were doing with Google ads but with Facebook. At this point in my life, I'm 53 now, kind of semi -retired, I decided like I didn't want to start, I didn't want to have another agency with employees, even though most of the employees were virtual. I didn't want to just rebuild what I did. But I like the idea of continuing to help the dog.

dog training industry and I like the idea of keeping my fingers in the advertising industry because I think there's real power there in knowing how to continue to reach people and get them to motivate to take action and do stuff. And so what I decided was okay I'm going to keep it small. I'm going to take on about 12 to 13 clients and maybe a few clients outside of the dog training industry. Again just to keep my fingers in the advertising industry.

And I've been doing that and it's been working really, really well. I mean, every campaign you have to test, you know, obviously, just like with any type of advertising, you have to test it. So that first 30 days is always a test. But if you can get the campaign dialed in, you can get a consistent flow of...

of new clients for about 30 to 70 percent less than what we were spending on Google Ads clients. And I still think, you know, the average dog trainer should run Google Ads. I still think that any time that you can invest a dollar and get seven to nine dollars back or at least invest a dollar and get minimum three dollars back, it's a good thing. But.

I'm seeing this window of opportunity with Facebook right now where it's not always going to be like this. In a few years, everybody's going to rush out and every dog trainer in your city is going to also be running Facebook ads just like every dog trainer's currently running Google ads. But for right now...

I think there's a real opportunity to dominate with Facebook ads and so that's where I wanted to position myself for the next coming several years as we continue to test other ways to help dog trainers meet their goals and continue to get a consistent flow of new clients. So wow, was that a long -winded biography or what?

Lianne Shinton (30:55)

That was fantastic. I liked hearing about the aha moments that you had in your journey and that you had your eyes open and you followed and evolved. And, you know, even with dog training, like I always feel like if somebody's out there doing it better, I want to learn it. Like I want to evolve and I want to learn as much as I can. And definitely sounds like you were just open to that. And you're such a gift to our world because now with all of your experience and marketing training and

you know, as a real dog trainer, you can bring that help to us. And amazing that it's evolving into Facebook ads. Also, just to mention too, like your dogproblems .com and at the peak, I mean, making so much money, especially I think 2008 was like a big housing crisis, especially in Las Vegas. Like dog training is kind of like a sort of recession proof industry. Like,

We were doing great. I was a part of a franchise in 2008 and it was like no problem even though the whole world was falling apart, especially Las Vegas. So amazing, amazing.

Adam G. Katz (32:05)

Yeah, we're really blessed to be in this industry to not only do what we love doing and helping dogs and owners, but also the fact that when you look at the 2008, the market crash, as well as the whole COVID thing, like, wow, how blessed are we to be in an industry that has really survived all of that? And hopefully it continues to do that.

But, I mean, bottom line, all of our goals is we want to help dogs, we want to help dog owners, but the fact that we can actually make a living doing that is a very cool thing.

Lianne Shinton (32:46)

Absolutely. Now, one of the things I've noticed you've been talking about on your Facebook page and group, which I, is it marketing, dog trainer marketing group. That's the one. So that's a fantastic group. So it's free group, right? Okay.

Adam G. Katz (32:57)

The downtrend in the marketing group? Yeah.

Yep, absolutely free. You'll be amongst, you can join. You'll be amongst, at this point, over 4 ,900 professional dog training business owners swapping secret strategies, tactics, and tips on how to grow your dog training business.

Lianne Shinton (33:17)

And I've noticed lately you've been posting about kind of helping us to understand. I think you have a strong interest in persuasive copy or persuasive text. And if you could share a little bit about kind of that and how we can use persuasive text, maybe if we're not even running ads, but in our website and our Facebook posts and such to think like how the average Joe would want to hear.

Adam G. Katz (33:22)

Thank you.

Mm -hmm.

Lianne Shinton (33:46)

what we have to say.

Adam G. Katz (33:48)

Yeah, so this is really cool. Copywriting, not copyright in terms of like, you know, when you write a piece of music and then you copyright the music, but writing copy is the art of writing persuasive text that persuasive words that get people to take action.

And so the whole concept behind copywriting and advertising in general is that you can A -B test different words, right, to figure out what gives you the best response. So if I write one ad, as we call that, the A, and I use the word, the phrase,

invest in your dog's happiness. And then I take the exact same ad with the exact same image and everything's the same, but I just changed the headline and I changed it to we can train any dog. So a recent test that I did, you know, you can run those two ads with Facebook or with Google, whatever you're using, and you can find which one gets the most clicks, which one gets the most sales just by changing.

the words in one line of text, you can get three times the amount of sales or more from one versus the other. And so to me, it's still like magic. It's like, wow, I can figure this, I can figure out what words work better than other words and just by changing the words, I can make more money or I can reach more people or I can help more dog owners. It's crazy, it's like magic, right?

So especially with Google Ads over the years, we were able to test and figure out and the sales letter that we used for dogproblems .com to sell the membership site, we did extensive testing with that. And so we figured out, you know, what are the money keywords? What are the keywords that get people to click and to take action? And so, and Facebook's an amazing platform for that because you can get so detailed. So it's minuscule detail.

about what works and what doesn't work. So it's really pretty cool. The more you can study in master language, the better the communicator you're going to be and the better communicator you can be means that you can...

You have more success with your clients, you can have more success with your love life, you can have more success with your business, with your family, with your kids. It affects everything. Like the words that you use, you know, changing, sometimes just one word can have a dramatic effect on the results that you get. And so for me, I'm very passionate about that.

Lianne Shinton (36:29)

You're very passionate about this topic and I think it's something that most of us don't even think about. And nowadays I just use chat GPT and I think it's actually making me dumber. But I guess one question I had as we were starting to think about like text that's going to attract people to your business is, you know, knowing in the news, like they say, don't watch the news because the news.

Adam G. Katz (36:40)

Hehehe.

Lianne Shinton (36:55)

makes everybody negative. It's kind of falsified. And there's been studies that show that there's like a 63 percent higher click through rate and this and that if you're publishing negative news, if you're making people worried and stressed about tornadoes and terrorism and all that kind of stuff, people are going to watch. They're going to tune in. So I wonder.

and you would probably be a good one to answer this, is there some way we could use that when we're trying to attract people without being too crass? But if we talked about like, hey, dog's getting hit by cars, you get training and you can avoid some of those things, dogs having foreign body surgery, is there something we could do kind of in the negative that would attract more people or would that maybe?

get all the Karens upset and like unfollowing because we're talking about scary stuff.

Adam G. Katz (37:57)

The answer is it depends. It depends on the context. So if I'm writing long copy, which is like, for example, if I push somebody to a landing page or maybe I give them a brochure, I want them to take something home and read about me or.

If I'm being interviewed, like if I send out a press release, then yeah, I mean, conflict works great to get eyeballs. That's why you see so many of these Twitter threads just blow up because it's all about conflict, right? And the news, the news media loves conflict. So anytime that you can create conflict, that's a good thing for...

in a certain context, right? So it depends. If I'm sending out a press release, maybe I'll invent, or not necessarily invent, but amplify or magnify a conflict that already exists. So for example,

I've always been a balanced trainer, so I use tools to train dogs. I use prong collars, I use remote collars, I use choke chains, et cetera, et cetera. I use a crate. And the enemy to that are the purely positive trainers, and these are trainers who don't use any of those tools. They take a different approach, and I think that, I legitimately think it's...

90 % kind of a bullshit approach. There's maybe 10 % that is good. If you...

put it in the right context, you know, puppy training stuff or certain types of temperaments, but in general, I think there's a lot of politics in dog training. And so what I'll do is I'll amplify that in the context of, you know, coming out as a white knight in my pressure releases to position myself as the person that's bringing you the real information, the actual dog training approach that's, you know, used by police dog trainers and search and rescue dog trainers and handicapped.

dog trainers and stuff and isn't trying to sell you something to take advantage of you and rob you of your money, right? So there's, you're setting up a conflict there and the media loves that. The media loves if you come out and you've got an issue and you're angry about it and you're challenging about that. But I will say that in the context of your, for example, the copy, which is again the text on your website, I think there's a better approach and the better approach is simply,

looking at how do you push their emotional hot buttons and talk to them in the language that they understand basically what we call enter the conversation in their mind, right? So...

If you ask most of your dog training clients, before they're your dog training clients, they're just a prospect and they come to you and you say, what is it that you're looking for? And they usually have like one issue, like, he jumps up on me or he doesn't come when I call. So, okay, that's easy to fix. In general though, in addition to that, what else would really help you? And everyone pretty much says the same thing. They say, well, I just kind of want my dog to listen to me. I just want to get my dog to listen to me.

Okay, so that's actually a headline that I've used. I listened to what people were saying and I used that as one of my headlines and it worked great. It's almost easy to a certain extent because what you're doing is you're listening to the language that they're using and you're entering the conversation in their head and I just want to get my dog to listen to me. And so you slap that headline on the top of your website. Here's how to get your attention.

Nashville dog owners, here's how to get your dog to listen to you anywhere you go, right? And boom, it connects, they understand, you've just pushed their emotional hot button. And then the next process, of course, is using different tactics, like features and benefits, not just listing features, but also listing benefits. So the feature is you get to teach your dog to come on command. The benefit is that you never embarrass at the dog park again.

You know, the feature is you get to teach the dog to lie down and stay down. The benefit is that you can take your dog with you to Starbucks and have him lie down. And when you go in to get a napkin or another bagel or something, you can come out, he's still going to be there, right? So, so features and benefits make your website more persuasive, make your advertising more persuasive. Testimonials written the right way, not the wrong way. The wrong way is, hey, Lianne's an amazing dog trainer, dot, dot, dot, Susan.

L, right? And it's a picture of a dog that looks like you bought the picture from istockphoto .com. It's not credible. It doesn't persuade anybody, even if it's true, right? So what we do, we do a done for you dog training business website where we take care of all this stuff so you, the dog trainer, doesn't have to figure it out on your own.

I've already A -B tested all this stuff and so we basically plugged your name and your photo and your services into my template that I've created and A -B tested and it works like gangbusters. So when you write testimonials, you want to have a picture of the owner and the dog so they can see that it's a real person and the client's first name and last name and the city and the state which...

lends to credibility. It says, Hey, this is somebody that's actually in my, maybe in my neighborhood, definitely in my community. It's a real person. It's not just something that this dog trainer made up. This is completely not credible. Right? So you do testimonials the right way, not the wrong way. You incorporate social proof, you know, as seen on.

XYZ magazine as seen in the something, the Beach Reporter, the XYZ Bulletin, voted number one dog trainer in Boise, Idaho for five years in a row. You put that on your website and that's social proof. It says to people, hey, it's not just.

Adam saying, I'm the best dog trainer, you should come work with me. It's somebody else saying it. And so, for example, if you're walking down, you know, down a road and you end up walking behind two women and you kind of overhear the conversation and they happen to be talking about the best auto mechanic in Nashville.

And they're like, this guy's incredible. And not only that, he's super cheap and he's super nice and I never have to wait. And they've got coffee in the lobby. They're just great, right? And I overhear them saying that, because they're not trying to sell me anything. Like they're not compromised. I'm like, hell yeah. If I need a mechanic, I'm going to go check out the guy that they were talking about, Jim Bob, right? But.

If Jim Bob walks up to me on the street and says, hey, I'm a mechanic and I'm the best mechanic and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I

professional dog trainer knows all of this stuff. Like if I pull on the leash at a certain time, the dog's gonna react this way instead of that way. Well, when it comes to marketing and advertising and copywriting, there are all these shortcuts and hacks you can use to get better results from your website and your advertisement and all of that. So the whole goal is that instead of having to spend a bunch of time and energy and money and you get 100 people who end up on your website and then one out of 100 calls you, what if you could just change

what you have on the website, like the words and how you phrase things and go from like one in a hundred to like one in ten or maybe one in five. Where you've just 100 extra revenue without having to even spend any more money. So this copywriting stuff, strongly recommend that you look into and learn it because it's an applicable skill that will help all aspects of your life, but specifically your dog training business.

Lianne Shinton (46:17)

Yeah, I've definitely experienced using content that my clients could relate to. I've done it wrong, where I say the word recall or reactivity and things like that, where my clients are like, what's a recall? And I'm like, yeah, of course they don't know what that is. You know, it's the come command. But how simple is that? But lesson learned.

Adam G. Katz (46:40)

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, you never want to use industry jargon.

to non -industry people. It's like an in -group, out -group thing that industry jargon was kind of designed to help people in the group differentiate themselves from people outside the group. But when it comes to marketing and advertising, and that's fine when you're talking to other dog trainers, but when it comes to marketing and advertising, you want to speak the language of the client, of the average dog owner. And let's be honest, even when you're talking to other professional dog trainers, half the time, they don't know what those words mean anything, or they have different,

different definitions than you do. So it's like, you know, you clear communication is so important and specifically words that push their emotional hot buttons so that, you know, you can get them to pick up the phone or text you or whatever means of contact that you're using. You can get them to take action. And so I've got a couple of books that I typically recommend to people who are just getting into it. Now, I'll give you a fair warning. Copywriting like anything else is a skill and it could take years to do.

it really, really well. But at least if you know what good copy is, either you could, you know, make some improvements yourself or if you do hire a professional copywriter, at least you'll be able to see kind of what is good copy and what's not good copy. So one of the books I recommend is called

Copywriting Secrets by a guy named Jim Edwards. You can get the book on Amazon .com. It's a really good book for people that don't know anything about copywriting. It'll really cover a lot of the basics. And the other one is called Cashvertising by a guy named Drew Eric Whitman.

cash and advertising, cash for tizing. Also a really, really good book and that one's super easy to read. You could read it probably in a couple hours and knock that one out and at least get a basic understanding of what this copywriting stuff is. The number one mistake that new copywriters, specifically dog trainers make that I see when they try to improve the copy, the words on their website and their advertisement is that they write stuff that sounds

like a spam email, right? It's like got a hundred exclamation points and it's this is the greatest thing you ever you know and it's too hypey so you have to learn how to to moderate to push their emotional hot buns without sounding like the guy that's coming out and screaming and yelling about how great your thing is because that doesn't actually sell anybody.

Lianne Shinton (49:13)

It's fascinating. I'm more of an audiobook person, so I'm gonna have to look and see if I can just listen to those books, because I probably haven't read a book in like 70 years. So, yeah.

Adam G. Katz (49:22)

Yeah, no, do it, do it. Especially the one by, I'm pretty sure the one by Jim Edwards is available as an audiobook. It's psychology. So I mean, if you like dog psychology, you probably like human psychology. And the more you learn about how the mind works and how you can influence people, the better marketer you're gonna be, the better business person you're gonna be. I'll give you another quick example. The law of reciprocity.

There's another book called Influence by a guy named Robert Ciodini who was a researcher in the, I want to say late 80s and he found that there are seven core principles that you can use to influence people. One of them is the law of reciprocity and we're hardwired to kind of feel certain ways. Like for example, if I give you something, you're going to feel obligated to do something for me in return.

or give me something in return. Like it's very hard to receive a gift and not want to actually.

return the favor and give somebody else a gift or if somebody does a favor for you, it's hard to not then, you know, feel like you're kind of obligated to do a favor in return, unless you're a sociopath. But for most people, there's this law of reciprocity. And what these researchers found out was that not only is there a law of reciprocity, but you can do something small for somebody and then they can feel compelled to do something big.

back for you. So the example that they gave in the book, they looked at this cult that used to be in all the airports in America.

and the Colton members would go out in front of the airport and they would pick wild flowers. And they'd walk up to people in the airport and they'd gift them a flower and then they'd follow it up and say, and by the way, if you wouldn't mind donating to our church, we would really appreciate it. And they found that just doing that, giving them a little free gift, increased their donations by something like 400%. I mean, it was something really, really extraordinary how much more donations they got just by doing that.

one little thing. So how do you use that as a dog trainer? One of the ways that I used it was people would come to our free consultation and it'd be hot outside and they'd walk into my little area and the first thing I'd do is I would offer them a free bottle of water.

You know, it's hot outside, would you like a bottle of water? thank you so much. They go, they sit down, they enjoy the bottle of water. Well, what happens is I've just gifted them something. Now you've got that law for a supprocity working in your favor. Doesn't mean you're going to sign every client, but when it's like the difference between yes or no, just a little bit this way or a little bit that way, I want every little thing I can use to be working in my favor. So there's a lot of benefit to sitting human psychology in addition to dog psychology.

I know everyone's a, you know, every pro dog trainer in their heart is a hobbyist and they want to spend all of their free time studying dog behavior. My advice is if you want to have a successful dog training business, it also requires studying human psychology as well because as you know, 90 % of this business is training the owner, not training the dog.

Lianne Shinton (52:42)

Yes, absolutely it is. And yeah, it's like a bait word for me as a dog trainer. Like when you mentioned like, well, if you like dog psychology, you might like human psychology, you might like this book. I'm like, I'm totally getting that book now. Like, you know, I'm just, it's just fascinating to me. It's interesting to me. I always want to learn about stuff like that. So, and I think that we could probably start a cult too, just as a side business, because you keep mentioning this and I'm like, I feel like maybe this is like an aha moment.

Adam G. Katz (52:55)

Yeah.

This could be your next business, Lee.

Lianne Shinton (53:13)

Well, I could keep it organized with our CRM and everything, like make sure we capture all those leads, put them in nurture and give them a flower. So.

Adam G. Katz (53:19)

I'm a free flower I got from the back of my house. The other thing that I like is that I'm a very value oriented individual. I don't want to spend a dollar and get $1 of value. I want to spend a dollar and get $3 worth of value back.

And in all my, every aspect of my life I'm like that, right? Like I only buy previously owned vehicles, cars, because I feel like, you know, let somebody else take the depreciation hit, you know, and then I could still get 90 % of the car's life and I'm getting it at a 30 % discount or a 50 % discount or whatever. So I like the value play. And that's what all this stuff kind of is, is it's saying like, okay, if I'm gonna invest whatever it is, a thousand bucks a month in my business, 2 ,000, 3 ,000 bucks a month.

off, like how can I increase the value of the dollars that I'm spending to get back more value for my money? And that's what studying human psychology, specifically marketing and advertising does for you. It allows you to get more value for your money. And I love that.

Lianne Shinton (54:27)

Yeah, you're definitely a numbers guy. See, I'm not a numbers guy, but it's nice to have you as part of our team, you know, supporting our dog training through the free Facebook group, through using, you know, Google ads, Facebook ads, your website development. It's great because you can look at things from a different perspective than I, because I'm like not a numbers guy, but everything I hear from you is you're definitely a numbers guy. No? OK.

Adam G. Katz (54:52)

I'm not a numbers guy though, I'm a psychology guy. I mean, the numbers, they're important, right? I mean, you need to know some basic numbers, otherwise, you know, the money's gonna go out and you're gonna be left broke. But I'm very much more of a, I guess, psychology guy than I am a, like there's guys out there. You're probably more of a numbers person than you are, or an organization person.

Lianne Shinton (54:58)

Yeah.

Adam G. Katz (55:16)

then you're letting on. I mean, in order to run the type of software and business that you do, I would imagine you're very, very organized with columns and follow -up series and all that kind of stuff. And that is super important as well. And that's not really my strong point. So I think that what you're offering, because it automates so much of this stuff for the average dog training business owner,

is a real gift because if you had to do that kind of stuff, and I don't have the temperament to do that kind of stuff, like I can write a follow -up series, but in terms of setting up the technical part of how to put that into play, I wanna work with someone like you who could do that for me, and specifically a system that we can put in place that will automate that process, and that's a huge part of this whole thing too, because if all you're doing is just trying to bring in a new lead, but you're not,

not working the lead consistently, you're leaving 90 % of your money on the table. Meaning, if I get a lead and I call that lead back once and they don't answer the phone and I hang up and then I go on to the next lead and I never follow up with that first lead, I'm leaving a ton of money on the table. And so with your program, with your system and your software, you're able to automate so much of that follow -up sequence so that...

I'm not having to kind of like keep everything super organized myself and do a lot of, the follow -up can be automated through text and through email and stuff. And so it's, what you're offering is a huge part of the marketing puzzle that dog trainers can use to...

to make more money and to help more dog owners and to really reach their goal and to make running a business much easier. I mean if I had this when I was, you know, when I had my in -person dog training businesses, it would have made my life so much easier and it would have made all the marketing stuff that I'm talking about so much more effective too because you've got, you know, a back end and you're organized and all of it. So I think it's, I think what you're doing is great. I think it's a necessary component to every dog trainer's business.

Lianne Shinton (57:31)

Yeah, in the past, you know, I ran Google ads with you and they were fantastic. I was getting so many leads, but I wasn't answering my phone. And so eventually I ended up building out a CRM that could help with that. So yeah, lead follow up, cause you can't just pay for leads and they come in and then you're like not converting them because it could be, you need sales training too, but it could also be that those leads are basically just going in the garbage. So that's definitely important.

Adam G. Katz (57:50)

Yeah.

Lianne Shinton (58:00)

I wanted to ask more about the Dog Trainer Toolbox and like where people can get started. You know, maybe they already have a website or maybe they don't. Maybe they're interested in Facebook ads. Maybe talk a little bit about that.

Adam G. Katz (58:12)

Sure.

So if you go to dogtrainertoolbox .com, you'll notice that there's a number of different services as well as information products. So for example, if you're just getting into the business and you don't know how to sell yourself on the phone or you don't know how to run an in -person consultation, or maybe you do, but you just want to be better at it, we've got information products you can purchase and then download and go through those. And a lot of those have actual real -life recordings of clients calling dog trainers.

can hear other dog trainers like what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong. So it's pretty cool stuff to kind of get you on the right path because if...

Again, if you pay for leads but then the leads come in and you answer the phone, hello, or you don't know how to talk to clients, you're not going to make sales. So we've got the info products. We've also got a number of services, some of which I offer myself and others that I refer you to because they're people that I've worked with or my friends or clients have worked with them and said, hey, we've got a really good result. So for example, I'm not currently running Google Ads, but if you go to dogtrainertoolbox .com, you can click on the link.

box that says Google Ads and I'll send you, you put your email in and I'll send you, I'll connect you to the guy that I do recommend who is running Google Ads and does a really good job. As far as where to get started, really I think the foundation for everything is your website because if you're running Google Ads, if you're running Facebook Ads, if you're doing...

veterinary clinic networking, if you're doing cold walk -ups or if you're doing on the street side training and people are rolling down their window and you're giving them your business card, eventually they always end up on your website. So the better your website converts, the more money you're going to make, the more consultations you're going to book. It just makes everything else that you're doing work better.

I get people who are like, well, can't I just like copy your demo site and I'll change it a little bit? I mean, in theory you could, but every single time that I've looked at the people who do that.

They're really, they don't understand like the why behind why it works and they miss that when they try and copy it. And then also typically like the spacing's all wrong and just doesn't end up looking like a professional business website. So we've got that, we've got that offer, the Done For Your Dog Training Business website so that you get up and running from day one and everything on the website's already been A, B tested to get you the best response possible. And it's almost like having an unfair advantage.

over a lot of the other dog training businesses in your market because if they spend a dollar to bring traffic and you spend a dollar to bring traffic to your website, your website is gonna be converting so much better than theirs is. So that's for starters.

Google Ads is great. Google Ads, you're getting really high quality traffic. You're getting people who are actively looking for what it is that you have to sell, who are clicking on a link and coming to your website, and then hopefully your website persuades them. So Google Ads is great. The downside to Google Ads at this point in time is that literally every dog trainer is using it, and it's super expensive. So even back when I was running the Google Ads, you're paying an average of $2 to $6 per click, and I know in a lot of markets,

It's now it's even more expensive than that. So you know you think about it like somebody clicks and that's like that could be dinner for you and your wife at Taco Bell, you know, that's which isn't cheap anymore either but right so, you know some markets like Las Vegas you could easily spend 12 to 14 bucks per click for the money keywords and those are the ones that you want right? Those are the ones that really move your needle. You don't want to advertise, you know for a keyword that's like a Filipina dog trainer who wears red tennis shoes and trains.

at the Main Street Park because you're gonna get like, you know, one click a year and yeah, you're gonna get it for a nickel but it's probably not gonna convert. You wanna go after those money keywords, the ones that really, really move the needle. Like...

dog trainer near me, dog obedience training near me, dog training, dog trainer, those types of keywords. And there's a lot of them, right, that you want to focus on. And so because they work so well, and it's basically an auction, you're bidding against all the other people who are bidding on those keywords too. And so it could become very, very expensive just to run the ads. And if you don't know what you're doing, you're going up against

people who are professional ad managers who do know what they're doing. And so, for example, if you've been on the keyword dog training, right, Google has a high likelihood of showing your ad when somebody types in dog training book or dog training leash or whatever, right? And you're not selling a dog training book, you're selling dog training, you know.

services, right? And so the professional ad manager, he knows how to run a negative keyword list and make it so that if somebody types in dog training book, your ad doesn't show and you're not wasting the four to six dollars per click on that, you know, having that ad show for that. So there's a real benefit in working with a professional. Same thing with Facebook ads. So what I like about Facebook ads is that click for click,

you can buy clicks, you can buy leads for about 30 to 70 % less than you can with Google Ads. So for example, Google Ads in a certain market you might be spending six, eight dollars per click. In the same market, you might be spending anywhere from 40 to 70 cents per click. So it's significantly less expensive.

That being said, people go to Facebook to look at kitty videos and to screw around with their friends and argue about politics. They're not going to actively look for what you have to sell. They're not going to Facebook for that and that's why you need to use the right...

the right words in your advertisement to actually hook something. So it's kind of like a school of fish swimming by and you need to use your ad to hook those and pull those in. But you can pull those in for much cheaper than you can with Google. So on average with Google we're seeing a cost per lead of anywhere from $40 to $60. Again, depends on the market, depends on the...

the keywords that you're targeting, but in general $40 to $60 per lead. With Facebook we're seeing an average of about $10 per lead. So it's significantly more affordable. And so there's a lot of opportunity there. Now that has to, what also has, you have to weigh is that the quality of the leads with Google is typically better.

which, you know, again, but you're paying for that. So there's a little bit of a difference there per lead, but the leads are so much cheaper that you end up coming out ahead. And we have several clients now who've completely stopped running their Google ad campaigns.

and are only running Facebook campaigns because it's working so well for them. Now, do I recommend that? No, I think that if you have the staff, if you can handle the volume of leads, do both. You know, as long as you're getting a good return on investment, you know, if you're spending a dollar and you're getting $3 back, or if you're spending a dollar and you're getting $10 back, keep doing that. Don't stop doing that, right? But what I am saying is that it's a really good idea to not have all your eggs in the Google basket and to at least test and diversify getting leads from different sources.

And Facebook is one of those that I found right now is working really well. You know, next year it might be TikTok, it might be something else that comes up. It might be Twitter, who knows what. But for right now we're getting really good results with Facebook ads. So if you're interested in that, go to dogtrainertoolbox .com, click on the box that says Facebook ads, and you can test it for really pretty cheap. And the other thing is the way that I do it, which is different from a lot of other people, because I've been a dog trainer myself,

I don't do any long -term contracts because I know that all marketing all advertising is always a test and so you can run it for a month very inexpensively compared to Google Ads And see if it works, right? And if it works it gets a good return on investment It typically continues to work month over month If it doesn't work you shut it off and then deploy the money elsewhere in testing something else So what you're doing is a business owners as a doctoring business owner. You're constantly collecting

different things that that feed you leads right so that you're not dependent upon any one lead source because any one lead source can dry up you know typically over a period of months but can dry up at any time or maybe your ad account gets banned because Google just arbitrarily decides that you did something wrong even though you didn't that happens so it's really really a good idea to to not have all your eggs in one basket and diversify your lead inflow.

Lianne Shinton (1:07:23)

Yeah, and as you say that, that you don't have the contract, you know, you can go month to month. I think for dog trainers out there, if you're doing well right now, everything's going good, you're very happy with the income you're making, it might be a good time to explore doing some Facebook ads so that if there is that ebb and flow that tends to happen in the dog trainer world, you can contact Adam and say, turn my Facebook ads on, I need them right now.

or I wanna grow, I wanna have more staff, you know, I really wanna turn my receptionist wants to be a trainer, like I wanna double my training clients. So you'd be able to just turn those ads on and off kind of, I assume.

Adam G. Katz (1:08:04)

Yeah, to some extent, I mean, you're always, what's gonna happen is you're gonna...

If you work with someone like me, you don't have the month -in -month contract, but if you have a campaign that works, you probably want to continue to have it running even if you dial down the ad spend because you're paying to hold the territory. So, for example, I only take one client per market. I was thinking about not doing that for Facebook ads because in theory you can run several different clients in the same market and it shouldn't matter so much, but...

I've A, B tested one specific set of ads that work really, really well. And so to bring on additional dog training clients, sorry, that came out funny, additional dog training clients in the same market.

it becomes a little bit of a problem because it's like now I need two sets of ads that work equally well otherwise one is getting more of an advantage than the other client. So really what I've decided to do is just take on one client per market and so once you hire me for markets like a city typically or a territory like a part of a city if it's a mega city like a Dallas or Los Angeles maybe you get the part of the city that you can reliably service.

reliably cover.

and then somebody else can take the other part of the city. So for example, if you're in the South Bay and somebody else is in the North Bay, then that doesn't matter. But for medium to smaller size cities, typically you're gonna have one dog trainer per market. And so because of that, you're paying not only for the ads, but also the management fee goes towards locking up your territory. So once you have me or whoever you're working with that's good, you wanna hold onto them so that your competition doesn't end up using that person. And then,

And when you're ready to turn it back on, you're like, hey, sorry, this guy's been paying me and I can't just turn him off because he's been paying me and go back to working with you. So if you find somebody, my advice is at least continue to run the campaign enough to cover the costs of keeping that person because there's a lot of people advertising now to the dog trading industry. And I see people coming in every week because what happens is these marketing gurus, they use dog

training as a good example.

They're like, here's an industry that's great for becoming an agency. And you see these guys that they go to a weekend seminar and then suddenly they're a dog training marketing professional, right? And they're offering their services for Google Ads and for SEO and for all this stuff. And they're learning on your dime. They really don't know what the hell they're doing, right? And so you get a lot of these people come in and typically those guys want to lock you into a long -term contract because there should be

is it just takes some time for it to work and it really doesn't. I mean within 30 days you should pretty much know I mean sometimes there'll be a campaign that's kind of like it's kind of iffy it's kind of on the borderline let's maybe run it for an additional month and see how it does see if we can kind of get it together and dial it in to get it to work even better but for the most part like if it's just dead and you're not getting

If you work with me, you're gonna get leads. The question is how many leads do you get and how much profit do you make from those leads? But generally speaking, you're gonna know by the end of the first 30 days, does it make sense to continue this or should I turn it off and deploy the money somewhere else? So if it works well, in my opinion, you should...

keep that stuff in place and continue to use that ad manager even if it just means turning it down and you're paying to just kind of cover the cost of the campaign in order to hold that territory. Otherwise your competition is going to be using them.

Lianne Shinton (1:11:53)

Yeah, that's pretty exciting that you can get results in 30 days. That's fantastic.

Adam G. Katz (1:12:00)

Yeah, if it works, you start getting leads within the first couple of days. And sometimes there's some tweaking, but usually by the end of the first 30 days, you kind of know like, okay, does this work or does this not work? By the way, also, I've been finding success with two types of Facebook ad campaigns. One of them is called lead campaigns, where...

Lianne Shinton (1:12:06)

Wow.

Adam G. Katz (1:12:22)

Basically the person clicks on the ad and then there's a form that pops up and they enter their information or in some cases Facebook pre -populates their information which is kind of tricky but it pre -populates their information and then we have them enter, excuse me, we have them enter a couple of...

personal details like what's your dog's name, that type of thing, just to make sure that they're awake and they're a real person, not a bot. And then they fill that out and then they press send and then Facebook basically sends you the lead, right? And so they never actually hit your website. So that's the first way that we run these campaigns. And then the second way that we run the campaigns is just a strict traffic campaign where they click on the ad on Facebook.

and then it takes them to your website and then your website closes them. And I found that both work and both don't work. So typically what we'll do is we'll start out depending on the qualities of the different market and the individual dog trainer, whether or not they have a dog training website that converts traffic really well, like our Done For You dog training business website does, or not.

So if they do have a good website, typically I'll start off by sending the traffic to their homepage. But other clients, maybe I try it with the lead ads first and if that doesn't work then we switch it over to the traffic campaign. So they both work and they both don't work depending on the market and the individual dog trainer.

Lianne Shinton (1:13:49)

That's fantastic information. So we are almost getting to the hour here and there's one thing I wanted to ask you because you're funny and I remember you telling me this story once and I wanted to see if you could share like a funny story from your experience as a dog trainer, but I do have one that comes to mind. So I'm hoping it's that one that you're going to share, but if you've got another one, I'm totally excited to hear it.

Adam G. Katz (1:14:01)

Funny looking.

Huh?

Okay, well give me a hand. I'm not sure which one you're...

Lianne Shinton (1:14:21)

There was a Chihuahua in a park with a cup and a Dasani water.

Adam G. Katz (1:14:27)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it. So a very frou -frou woman shows up at the park. I was running one -on -one private dog training lessons from a local park in Los Angeles. And she shows up and she's got this little chihuahua or some little dog, I can't remember. And she shows up and she was like this classic stereotype of this.

uppity white woman, I hate saying that but let's be honest, uppity white woman who's uptight and stuff and she's got her little goosey bag and she's got the dog's, I don't know, the dog had a little outfit on or some bullshit and she's got her Evian water bottle and she's got the little cup, you know, just in case the dog gets thirsty, you know, for our, during our one hour session, you know, if the dog gets thirsty or something she's got this and she's got the bag over her shoulder and the leash and

and the husband in tow and the husband is completely disinterested. He's playing with his, I don't remember if he was playing with his phone or playing with something, right? Completely not paying attention, just yes dear, yes, no dear, yes dear, following us around. And so we're in the middle of the park and of course the dog defecates, right? And she like, and then she keeps walking and I'm like.

You know, you need to clean that up. This is like my office. We don't want somebody stepping in it. And she gets so flustered and she's so nervous. I don't know why, because I don't think like I'm a super intimidating guy or something, but she gets so flustered and so nervous. She goes, and she says, well, I didn't bring a bag. And so like, I'm like, well, like.

maybe use the cup like the water that you've got the Evian bottle water, the Evian water and the cup, dump the water out of the cup. And in my mind, I'm thinking dump the water out of the cup and use the cup as a shovel, right? To pick out the poop and then throw the cup away. So she says, yeah, good idea. So she dumps the water out of the cup and sets the water bottle down and reaches down with her bare hands and picks up the poop and proceeds to put it into the cup.

And I react, right? Now, the husband's not paying attention at this point, right? Or maybe that's just normal for them. And I'm like, my God, that's, what are you doing? What are you doing? And she gets super defensive and she goes, what, what? I'm like, use the cup as a shovel, you idiot. Don't use your bare hands. That's disgusting. And so the husband who now doesn't want to seem like he's,

Also an idiot says, honey, what are you doing, what are you doing? So then she redirects and gets defensive towards him and she says, what, what, what do you think is gonna happen once we have kids? You don't think there's gonna be like poop on the floor and you're gonna have to pick it up with your bare hands? And I was like, my God, I need to start a mail order company so I can get away from working with these kind of people. Gonna start something up with this new internet thing. Gonna make myself six million dollars.

Never have to deal with dog owners again because these people, as you know, don't tell me you don't know, these people are fucking crazy because you're dealing with the general public just like you would in any retail business. You have some amazing, wonderful people, but you also have people that are just fucking nuts. And that's just the way that is. So that was one. I mean, really, I had so many colorful characters. I had a woman who, I didn't realize it at the time, but she was like one of the top porn stars.

come and be like my client and apparently she had a crush on me and she took me out to dinner and I just thought it was like, hey, take a dog trainer out to dinner kind of thing. And then I come to find out she's like this porn star and stuff. She didn't look like it. Like, you know, she dressed down, you know, wore like the glasses and stuff and you know, and so I, you know, I was this innocent kid. So I had a guy that was like the captain of the Kings, the hockey team.

and his like Jerry Maguire like agent and just all kinds of interesting people. I had one guy that had been like a professional pool player and gambler and he had some kind of condition and he had like large chunks of skin falling off his arms. And I had another couple, they came to me like on a Friday, paid for the program, young couple, good looking couple.

being a little bit rough around the edges, but nothing abnormal. And they go home, they finish the lesson on Friday, they go home on Saturday night, or they go home after the lesson, and then on Saturday night, they get into an argument, he pulls out a gun, shoots her in the head, puts the gun in his mouth, swallows the bullet, kills himself. And then the weirdest thing is that the following Tuesday,

The brother who was a truck driver, like a long haul truck driver who lived with them, calls me on the phone and wants to know if he can get the money back for the unused dog training lessons. And it wasn't that much, it was like 600 bucks maybe. And I was like, how far down the list does the dog trainer have to, your brother and his wife just killed themselves in your house. And how far down the list does the dog trainer have to be of money? And I just told him like,

You know, you can use the credit and bring the dog in, but no, we don't offer refunds. And he was like, okay, well, I'm pretty good with dogs anyways, so I think I'll just train it myself. Thank you. And I was in such shock, I thought this must be some scam just to get their money back or something. But no, I called the Toronto Police Department, confirmed the whole story. It was as reported and just, just weird, weird stuff. So I had my limit around year seven.

For me, that was like as much as I could take of dealing with the general public. Because I'm an extroverted introvert and I really don't like people so much unless, not like you obviously, but like the general public, I don't like being around the general public. Pretty happy just being in my little cave here and doing what I do best. So to those of you who love working with people, I salute you. My hat's off to you. You're doing the Lord's work.

Lianne Shinton (1:20:53)

Yeah.

I think you have a bit more of a wild ride than some of the rest of us. I gotta say though that the Sony poop cup story, I've kinda like told a few people that as if it's my own because it's so funny. Like how you recoiled in disgust when she like scooped it up and put it in the cup. That's what we do.

Adam G. Katz (1:21:16)

Yeah, and then the husband like, keyed off me, right? Like the husband probably would have just ignored it and was like, yeah, she's doing crazy shit like this all the time. But like when he realized that I was like recoiling in horror, he wanted to be kind of like on my side of the issue, not on hers, which big mistake to those of you who are married, big mistake, always side with your wife. But.

Lianne Shinton (1:21:23)

shit. I can't.

Yeah. Yeah.

Hahaha!

Yeah, that one's fantastic. Yeah. Awesome.

Adam G. Katz (1:21:41)

Yeah, so, anyways, hopefully this has been helpful and like I said, anybody who's interested in growing their dog training business, check out dogtrainingtoolbox .com and definitely follow up with Lianne if you haven't already because I think her programs, her software, her offer is really a winner in helping you really manage and grow your dog training business as well.

Lianne Shinton (1:22:04)

And what's that free group again? The Doc Trainer in Marketing.

Adam G. Katz (1:22:07)

If you go to Facebook, it's the Dog Trainer Marketing Group. You'll see a picture of me with the Dutch Shepherd. And all you gotta do is click join. It'll ask you a couple of questions to make sure you're not a bot. And it's free and it's a super resource because we've got some members that are doing well over a million dollars. Some of them are doing two million dollars a year. And it's just awesome to be able to, especially if you're new, to get in there and get answers from.

Lianne Shinton (1:22:21)

It is.

Adam G. Katz (1:22:33)

not only myself but other people who are currently doing it with their dog training business. So super resource and the best part it's free. Also if you haven't yet check out Katz on Marketing, K -A -T -Z, Katz on Marketing on YouTube, that's my YouTube channel. I've got over 300 videos at this point on the art and science of starting and growing a dog training business. And again you can watch it in your living room, it's completely free. And it's, if I do say so myself, it's a wealth of information.

Lianne Shinton (1:22:39)

Yeah, just the other.

Yeah, absolutely. And just the other day, like you're very interactive on that Facebook group. And I love like, I think it was Mike Joseph posted something about like how to deal with the objection of like, I got to talk to my husband and you, I think you made a video like to help. And that's the thing. You're not just like using chat GPT to respond to us and try to help us. You're getting out there and helping us with real words and you know, real responses and video responses as well. So that's really appreciated. Yeah.

Adam G. Katz (1:23:28)

I'm the best, yeah.

Lianne Shinton (1:23:30)

Well, thanks everybody for watching. I'm again, Lianne Shinton, the host and owner of Pet Biz Experts CRM. And thank you, Adam, so much from the Dog Trainer Toolbox. Awesome.

Adam G. Katz (1:23:39)

My pleasure. Thanks, guys.