In this episode of the Pet Biz Podcast, host Lianne Shinton sits down with Robert Forto, a seasoned dog trainer and entrepreneur based in Alaska. Robert is the owner of Alaska Dog Works and the co-founder of Dog Works Radio. Beyond his work as a dog musher and lifelong learner, Robert has established himself as a tech-savvy podcasting expert, guiding others in creating strong, enduring brands through their podcasts. Tune in as Robert shares the story behind his podcasting journey, along with invaluable tips for pet professionals—especially dog trainers—on how to launch their own podcasts and harness the power of this medium.

Visit Dog Works Radio: https://dogworksradio.com/robert-forto/

Reach out to Robert here: https://alaskadogworks.com

Watch Now!

Transcript of Podcast:

Lianne Shinton (00:00)

Well, welcome everybody to Pet Biz Experts podcast. Today we have joining us from Alaska Dog Works, Robert Forto. I am Leanne, the host and also the owner of Pet Biz Experts, a software CRM for pet professionals. And today we have a very wonderful topic, which I'm so excited to learn from you, Robert. We're going to be talking about implementing a podcast to help your dog training business.

But maybe before we dive in and unpack too much, would you mind introducing yourself, Robert, and just sharing a little bit about your dog training and your podcasting?

Robert Forto (00:45)

Yes. So as Leanne said, I am Robert Forto. I am the host of dog works radio and the owner of Alaska dog works. I've been a dog trainer since 1994 and have been podcasting since January of 2009. And to my best recollection, I don't think we've ever missed a week. We host a weekly podcast and it's a labor of love and also our primary marketing vehicle for our business. And I'm excited to share.

my knowledge with you and our listeners, but our listeners that are listening today, please excuse the barking dog. since this is a dog training podcast, I figured I'd add a little flavor to the mix and you might hear that in the background. You know how it goes sometimes.

Lianne Shinton (01:31)

Fantastic. And yes, as a podcaster myself, you know, you got to roll with it. We live in our RV and you never know that I could be mowing the lawn. My Starlink may not be perfect, but got to roll with it. So I guess the first question I have for you, it sounds like the podcasting is going fantastic for you and we'll dive into that. But what inspired you to start a podcast for your doc training business?

Robert Forto (01:59)

Well, there's a story in that, of course, I was a musician as well as a dog trainer in college in the early 90s. And I thought for sure we were going to be the next rendition of Nirvana or Soundgarden or something like that. I was going to school in Portland, Oregon. So I

Did a lot of playing in clubs and bars, but that sort of turned into a love of audio. I, you know, I knew all of about sound design and mixing and all of that, because when you're a small band, you have to wear all the hats, including messing around with the soundboard and doing all that. So about 10 or 15 years later, of course, I was moving on from the band and moving on from college and started a dog training.

company in Denver, Colorado called Denver dog works. And on Saturday mornings, we would hold group classes in our parking lot. Very similar to how many other dog trainers do. And I thought, wow, there, there is something here that is missing. And I thought, why don't we start a podcast in the lobby of our training center then after group class, everybody can come in.

and sit around in the lobby and have their questions answered. So we went to guitar center, bought a couple of cheap microphones and a little mixing board and plugged it up into my laptop. And I would just have people come around to the other side of the table, if you will, and ask questions like, why is my dog pulling or why does it jump on the counters or what's the importance of crate training or whatever.

And then we would offer the answers to those questions. And then of course, we compress those down and put them on a very early rendition of, of podcasting back then. And it, it just took off, you know, cause not only were they getting their questions answered right there on the spot, but now we're able to open that up to a much wider audience and share that with the world, so to speak.

Lianne Shinton (04:04)

That's very interesting. I love those like aha moments that your journey, you know, dog training and music and just it came together and you just like paying attention to like, Hey, this could be valuable for people. So that's so interesting to me. Can you walk us through the initial steps you took to get your podcast up and running?

Robert Forto (04:26)

Yes. So back then we were paying a lot of money for yellow page advertising. We were paying about a thousand dollars or more a month to be in that book. And that was of course, how most people found us in Denver and you know, in Denver, it's a much bigger market than we're in right now. So it worked out well, but we had to do something very quickly. Like, can we continue with this?

huge amount of advertising or should we do something different? And that's where the podcast came in and we just sort of jumped in with two feet, as I mentioned, a couple of mics, a mixing board and a laptop, and we were off and running. But back then, even though podcasting was taking off, it is not what it is today. They did not have, you know, the ease of, of setup and, you know, direct to Apple and Spotify and I heart and all of those.

You had to do all of that manually. So we went with a service called blog talk radio and it was, it was clunky. The audio was terrible. it was expensive. it was time consuming to edit all of the things that you can think can go wrong with a podcast. That was it. But Hey, that was what was available then. And you can just go with the name blog talk radio was marrying what everybody was doing at the time blogging. And then of course.

talking on, you know, more of a talk radio type thing and just marrying those together. And the next thing you know, we had an audio player, we put it on a website and started sharing it on social media and it just sort of took off from there.

Lianne Shinton (06:06)

That's so interesting. Yeah. The journey would be so different for me. I just went on Facebook and I searched like how to start a podcast and there's a bunch of groups and I was able to kind of figure it out from there. And you mentioned that the podcasting has benefited your dog training business. Could you share a little bit more about how it has benefited? Like what are the clients listening to your podcast? That's how they're finding you. They're getting more information. Like what does that kind of look like?

Robert Forto (06:36)

Yeah, it has been huge for us, especially when we moved up to Alaska, because we knew at that point with such a small market, we had to have reach. We had to be able to work with clients outside of Alaska. And we do a lot of therapy dog training and service dog training and that sort of thing. So obviously that type of programming could be offered elsewhere. And with a worldwide audience that a podcast has,

It has enabled us to do so. And I think that's in a very important part of this in a lot of people, dog trainers in particular have blinders on when they think about, okay, well, I'm dealing with, you know, my neighborhood or my part of the city or whatever, or my niche, whether it be puppy training or, you know, aggressive dogs or whatever, but expand your horizons by offering something like a podcast can really help your business grow. And I think that's a key takeaway to this.

but it is not something that happens overnight. It is a very slow process. It takes a lot of time to gain momentum. I spoke last year at Podcast Movement, the largest podcasting conference in the world, and my talk was literally how it took us eight years to finally reach that first million downloads. And that is a long haul. It's not like social media where, hey, you can have...

100 friends today and a thousand friends in a month and so on and so forth. It took us a very long time to finally reach that crest, if you will. And then once we did that, you know, we were sort of off to the races. It took us from 2009, January of 2009 to August of 2017 before we finally reached that first one million downloads.

And anybody that's in the podcasting space knows that, hey, that's sort of a milestone that a lot of people are trying to reach for. And once we did that, we learned a lot along the way and it truly helped out how we can promote ourselves and, you know, kind of be an expert in the space, if you will.

Lianne Shinton (08:42)

Interesting. So I like what you said about like maybe focus on a certain sort of niche within the dog training, like maybe just focus on puppy training, for example. And that might be a kind of a safe place for people to start so that you don't have to talk about e -collars or prong collars or any of the big stuff. Just start somewhere where you feel comfortable. Maybe that would be a good tip for them if they're afraid to.

talk about some of those tougher topics.

Robert Forto (09:14)

For sure. And just like, you know, in your day to day dog training business, I am a big proponent of don't offer a service that you don't know anything about or have never competed in or completed in in your life. You know, don't, don't talk about service dog training, for example, on a podcast, if you've only trained your own service dog, or don't talk about competition obedience or protection sports or whatever, unless you have a lot of experience in that because

In this space, in podcasting in particular, it is such an intimate relationship with your audience, with your listeners. You're literally in their ears and it will show a hundred percent your expertise and what you're capable of and what you are knowledgeable about and that sort of thing. And don't be afraid to reach out and get guests on your podcast. If you don't know anything about a topic, hey,

get somebody on that knows, yeah, they might be competition, but that opens up your audience in such a grander scale to have on guests. And of course, it's a heck of a lot easier to talk to somebody on the microphone than it is just to talk to a computer screen or dead air as they show.

Lianne Shinton (10:30)

Do you guys do a lot of like podcasts where it's just you talking to the computer or do you do more with interviews like this?

Robert Forto (10:36)

We do, we do probably about 60 40 where 60 % of them are either my wife, Michelle, who is also my business partner and I just really just diving into a topic and it's, it's sort of a weekly podcast of training tips. And every week we, we try to figure out what the trending topic is that you, if you will, and kind of go with that, whether it be crate training or.

fireworks on the 4th of July or whatever that topic is, and we'll dive into that to try to keep relevant, but about 40 % of our podcast episodes are interviews. We've done a lot of interviews with authors and filmmakers and veterinarians and other dog trainers, as I mentioned, and just really getting that well -rounded content I think is very important. But, you know, listeners have, have their, their

their likenesses, if you will. Some of them like those just quick advice type podcasts and others like those more long form interviews. And it really just depends on what your audience is looking for and what they're asking about.

Lianne Shinton (11:51)

And what types of content do you find is most engaging with your audience?

Robert Forto (11:58)

We have a pretty good response to both. I think, like I said, I think both sides of it are meeting a need, if you will. Those interviews allow us to expand on topics that, like I said, that we may not know a whole lot about. I think some of our most interesting podcasts are with filmmakers because obviously they are storytellers. So they make great podcast guests. They're able to sort of

weave around, you know, the interview top telling stories or whatever, but you know, just your basic informational podcast episodes can be excellent because they're providing true value to your listeners. And I think that is so important. I think a lot of people get into podcasting and thinking they, they can just throw out that wide net and just go after everything. And that's just not the case. And it's the same in, in your dog training business. You just can't.

offer everything. You have to really niche down and figure out what you're good at. And I think the podcast can do the same thing.

Lianne Shinton (13:02)

Let's talk for a second about equipment and some of the techie stuff. What equipment and software do you use to produce your podcast?

Robert Forto (13:11)

Well, as I mentioned, we started off about as bare bones as you could get back in the day, bought the cheapest mics and the cheapest mixing board and, you know, the cheapest software we could possibly use and being a musician. I knew a lot of stuff that was good and bad. I knew what to pick that, you know, that would do well. And right now we're way above the typical. We have the microphone I'm on right now is called a Shure SM7B.

It's sort of the gold standard for talk radio and podcasting. It's about a $600 microphone. You do not need anything like that. A good USB mic and a very quiet, controlled space will do just fine. We use a road caster pro for our mixing board, which allows us to add sound effects and do all that sort of stuff. And we're Apple folks here. So everything that we use is plugged into one type of Apple device or another.

You don't need that either. You can do everything if you needed to from your iPhone or from an iPad or something like that. There are so many different variations to what you can use for your podcast. For our editing software, we use a product called Hindenburg. It's sort of the standard of what people use in the radio space. It's that type of software there, but there are again, there's all sorts of

of audio interfaces, if you will, or editing programs. Adobe makes a couple of really good ones called Audition and Audacity. Those are a couple of good ones. And there's, there's all sorts of other ones. I know that you use Riverside. That's sort of the up and comer. We just started using that just last year. We found out about it at that podcast movement and my goodness, there are so many tools out there that you can use now, especially with video.

But use what you find comfortable whether it be as you have on a headset and a microphone and that sort of thing find out what works and what your budget calls for and I think that Will help you much much better down the road if at all possible Buy the best equipment that you can so you can grow into your equipment. Don't buy something on the cheap just because hey I see this at Walmart for $30. Let me pick it up today and hopefully

that will work out well. So buy what you can afford and buy what you're comfortable with. And I think that will really help you out.

Lianne Shinton (15:47)

And then do you do the editing or do you have like a VA that you send the podcast off to?

Robert Forto (15:53)

I do everything myself and it truly is a labor of love, a good takeaway for people that are thinking about getting into this podcast space. I always say it's a three or four to one ratio. So every hour that you're spending behind the mic, use three or four hours to do everything else that includes editing and promoting and talking to your guests and you know, graphics and all of that.

That three or four to one ratio has really helped us out in the long run. It is a lot of time for what you're producing, but you know, if that's your primary marketing engine, if you will, spending three or four hours on that promotional piece of that marketing piece to your business is in line with other types of marketing. A lot of experts, if you will, will say that 25 % ish

of your business should be spent on marketing and advertising that could either be time or dollars. And I think that that's an important thing to take away. If you're, if you're spending 40 hours a week doing, dog training, at least spend 10 hours a week doing everything else, that promotion or advertising piece.

Lianne Shinton (17:11)

And how do you guys promote your podcast to attract new listeners and potential clients?

Robert Forto (17:17)

First and foremost, if you are a podcaster, I highly suggest you get on other podcasts, just like I'm doing today with Leanne. That is so important because when you're on other podcasts in the same space, you already have that built in audience. So if Leanne has a dog podcast, I would love to be on your podcast because that's where my audience is. It's obviously cross promotional. we do a lot of, promotion on social media.

our website is probably our biggest promotion engine, but by far our most important asset hands down is our email list. we have an email list of about 7 ,000 people or so. And I would say more people that listen there every week than anywhere else. We always embed a player where they can get the email right on their phone and we'll have a player to the podcast. They can click on it right there in the email.

And they can listen right there, whether they're listening in the car or on, on the go or walking the dog or whatever. We make it as seamless and as painless as possible to promote our podcast. We want to make sure that people don't have to click around and find that we want to make sure that they can just hit play wherever they're at and listen as they're going.

Lianne Shinton (18:38)

I love the suggestion of asking to be on someone's podcast. And I think that's how we met was I literally put out my first podcast on Adam Katz's social media group for his Facebook group for marketing for dog trainers. And like you messaged me right away. Like I want to be on your podcast and like, sounds great. And we've already shot one podcast and it is something that every dog trainer groomer

is welcome to join me on and it's where we talk about your business and I interview you so that your potential clients can see this on your social media, your website, just being interviewed talking about your services. So anybody is welcome to join me on my podcast and you may have, you may want to kind of ask dog trainers too, if they have something to speak on that they might like to be interviewed by you too.

Robert Forto (19:32)

Yeah, social proof is so important and what better way than to be on a podcast, whether it's audio or video. You're literally, as I said, you're talking into somebody's ears and what better way to promote yourself than just to sit down with somebody else and tell their listeners who you are and what you're all about. I think that is so powerful.

And I've been on a lot of podcasts in my day, probably more than a hundred over the years. And each time I learned something new from the guests or excuse me, from the host, you know, we share things offline as you and I have talked several times in between our recordings about learning about each other and our podcasts and you know, how we can help each other and all that. That is so valuable to us in the dog training industry. And I think that that is another very cool takeaway.

that there should be more collaboration and less competition. Of course, everybody wants their business to grow and be successful, but we only grow through networking and through relationships, and I think that's what's important.

Lianne Shinton (20:41)

Excellent information. Now, one of the things that stood out to me is that you guys have done such a great job about getting your podcast out weekly, which is so much work. I mean, for me, I'm not as quick as you guys. I do pre -record mine. They don't air live like a webinar or anything like that where it's live. We pre -record, we do editing. It sounds like you do the same. How do you guys manage your time?

effort required to consistently produce new episodes.

Robert Forto (21:12)

we have been big proponents of batch recording when possible. So we will record two or three, especially if they're informational type podcast episodes. So we'll record two or three at a time and then, you know, edit them all up in a batch. And then of course, schedule them out to, to drop on particular days. We have been steadfast in our, our podcast episode drops. We always drop an episode at 4 a local time.

On Sunday mornings. I think that that's very important to have that consistency. So when somebody is looking for your podcast, they know it's going to be there on Sunday morning or Monday morning or whatever time it is. we do it at 4 AM just because, our, our mode of thinking is it's 8 AM on the East coast and it's, two or three o 'clock in the afternoon in Europe. So it makes it a perfect time to do that.

We typically record our episodes a week ahead of time. So if we're recording this week, it's going to air next week and You know, we'll sit down record and you know do all the prep and all that beforehand and then we will take our time to do our editing and Then every Sunday morning after it has already aired is when I do a lot of the promotions So I schedule out as many things as possible using a program called Hoot Suite

where I can schedule things out for as far as I want. I always share all of our episodes at least seven times. So it will be shared that first day. It will be shared sometime that first week. And then I will share it on the exact same day for the next six months. So if you were on my podcast this week, you will have your episode shared on July 1st.

July 1st, August 1st, September 1st, et cetera, et cetera. So that keeps it evergreen and evergreen content is very important in podcasting, especially if it is informational type shows. So if you're talking about crate training or loose leash walking or whatever, you can record that in July and then of course, air it again in December, as long as you're not talking about, hey, what's the weather like in your neck of the woods? As long as we're not talking about summer once the middle of winter.

your podcast can continue to serve you pretty much in perpetuity.

Lianne Shinton (23:38)

Do you guys do video podcasts as well or are yours more just audio?

Robert Forto (23:44)

We are dabbling our feet in video podcasting. One of the big struggles we have here in Alaska is we still have pretty crappy internet. we're still using an old school modem and all of that. So video podcasting can be sketchy. and I know you're using star link and we we've tried that, but we have too many trees where we live. So we'd have to cut down.

a bunch of trees to try Starlink. So, you know, how that goes. But video is is the wave of the future. They talk about it all the time at the conferences. And, you know, that's what people are looking for. YouTube is is the second largest search engine in the world. Second only to Google and guess who owns YouTube? That is Google. So video podcasting is king. Even if you just put your audio podcast on YouTube with

great descriptions and keywords and titles and all of that. It's going to help you out a lot.

Lianne Shinton (24:48)

Yeah, that's good advice. Now, I'm wondering, like, do you have any podcasts that you've shot that maybe an interview and you were just like, this is so interesting to me. I'm just having so much fun in this. Is there one out there that you really love that we could maybe share in the link that stood out to you?

Robert Forto (25:08)

my goodness. There are so many. Like I said, a lot of my conversations with filmmakers have been excellent. A lot of conversations that I've had with veterinarians have been great. I will send over a couple that I think your listeners will like and I hope they enjoy it for sure. Probably one of my vet episodes that I've done with somebody in that space is probably a key.

Lianne Shinton (25:37)

And then do you find that like the podcasts with the most engagement, like the most views are the same ones or are you seeing like a different trend there?

Robert Forto (25:47)

You know, it really depends on the topic. We use a service called vidIQ and that is tied to our YouTube account. And what that does is every day, you know, AI is changing everything and pretty much every walk of life. And what that does is it provides suggestions and trending topics for that particular day or that particular time. So if people are searching for

whatever it is, obviously we're recording this and I just talked about evergreen content, but we're recording this right before 4th of July and I would bet there is a heck of a lot of searches out there right now in the dog training space of people trying to figure out what they should do with their dog on the 4th of July. So that's a huge one. Now it's too late to do anything for dog training now for, you know, your dog on the 4th of July, but

What a great time to talk about that in January or February on your podcast. You know, Hey, get your dog ready. It's six months away. I know you have a puppy. That would be great to share on a dog training podcast. also if, if something is, is coming out recently, like a new book is coming out or a new dog film, I think that's a important topics to cover and do not be afraid to reach out to folks and you know, who, who cares who they are. If they're.

You know, a director or an actor in a film or an author or whomever, it doesn't hurt to ask, reach out to them and say, Hey, would you like to be on our podcast? And a lot of times, the bigger names, if you will have PR agencies and that sort of thing, they will, they will obviously be the middleman. I can't tell you how many times every week we get pitches from PR companies that say, Hey,

You know, my client wrote a book about this or is in this movie or in this film or whatever. And we've gotten a lot of guests that way. And as your podcast continues to grow, more and more connections can be made to make your, your booking of guests a heck of a lot easier.

Lianne Shinton (27:53)

Yeah, as you say that, it makes me think like, cause I've lived in Las Vegas and had my job training business there in California. We've had some celebrities come through sports, you know, a lot of famous sports people. that might be something where you could ask them to be on your podcast. People would watch cause they're like interested in that person. and it gives you credibility because it kind of comes off like a testimonial too.

Robert Forto (28:17)

Yep. And that's true. But a big key to that is if you're doing podcasting, do not expect these big name guests to carry your podcast. They just have other things to do. Don't expect, you know, the, you know, the a -list celebrity, if you will, my goodness, I have on, you know, Mr. Jones from whatever movie, they're going to make my, my numbers blow up. And that's usually not the case. You may see.

you know, kind of an uptick in listeners, but they're not going to share it often. They're not going to promote it often. It's your job to promote your podcast and, you know, do the best that you can with that. And, you know, bring real value to your listeners. And it's not always the big names that provide the most value.

Lianne Shinton (29:12)

So my next question is like you're, you're doing your podcast to help promote your dog training business and help give people information to help them with their dogs. Is there any kind of profit that you can get just from the podcast side of things? I've heard that you can get money, you know, from subscriptions or some things. Maybe could you talk about that? I have a podcast, but I don't even know. Cause that really wasn't my, my focus.

Robert Forto (29:37)

Yeah, there's a whole bunch of ways you can monetize your podcast. You can do sponsorships and ads and things like Patreon and buy me a cup of coffee or any of those types of things will help you monetize your podcast. And when you reach a certain level, depending on your host and your host for people that are just thinking about the podcasting space, your host is where

Your files live and then of course are distributed to the other platforms like Apple or I heart or Spotify or whatever. Once you reach a certain, audience level, typically it's about a thousand or 10 ,000 downloads per episode. You have the ability to have advertisers or sponsors on your podcast. And one of the most common ways is dynamic advertising. Those are the ads that you typically hear on podcasts.

either at the beginning, in the middle or at the end. And they're typically set up very similar to how advertising is on social media or on Google or whatever. If a person is listening to your podcast and they're also interested in whatever, let's say that they have been searching for or listening about buying a new Ford truck, you will be very, it would be very typical that they will hear an ad for a local Ford

dealership right on your podcast and that makes it very important because Obviously the advertising or paying for that targeted local content but it also makes it a much more individual experience because if Leanne is looking for Ford trucks and I'm looking for a new mattress My ads will be different than yours and I think that's very important and that's what advertisers are looking for

But it does take a certain level of downloads or listeners in order to do that. And I think most of them are about a thousand or 10 ,000 per episode. And it doesn't pay a heck of a lot. It took us a long time, as I mentioned, for us to finally get monetized to do that. But now we receive a decent amount of money from advertising, several hundred dollars per episode, which is key if you're a small

dog training company, mom and pop type deal, those extra a hundred dollars or more can really help. But by far our biggest revenue comes through other people that listen to our podcasts that want dog training. As I said, at the top of the show, they'll say, Hey, I heard your podcast and we live in Alabama. Do you work with service dogs or whatever? And we do that. just this year we've had.

clients in Alabama and Texas and California and Washington and Oregon. And almost all of those people found that found us on our podcast first. And then they reached out to us, whether through social media or through our website or whatever, and learned about our podcasts, listened to some episodes, found out who we are and what we're all about. And then of course dove deeper and decided at a later time to sign up. So that is probably our biggest.

revenue draw are those are those people that that want dog training and heard about us or listen to us or whatever

Lianne Shinton (33:11)

And just to clarify, are they sending their dog to you or are you doing remote training?

Robert Forto (33:18)

A little bit of both. We're in a very interesting position here in Alaska, especially in the summer. A lot of people want to visit Alaska. It's their bucket list trip, if you will. So they will send their dog up to us to do a board and train. We call it our peak performance program and they will come up afterwards to pick up the dog and then, Hey, they have a vacation or they will come up with their dog, do their week or two vacation around Alaska.

then do their send home classes and their followup classes and all of that at once. So they'll do, you know, the double whammy, if he will, they'll do a bucket list, Alaska trip and do dog training and have their dog boarded all at the same time. So that works out well. we do do some remote training again with our slow internet. It makes remote training a little tough because, you know, anytime you're dealing with zoom or anything like that, if it's a,

a crappy connection, your clients will be turned off very quickly if it's constantly freezing or whatever. So that works out okay. But again, most of our training comes from either service dog or therapy dog training outside or those trips where people are coming up with their dogs.

Lianne Shinton (34:36)

That's super cool that they're coming to Alaska to train their dog. I love that.

Robert Forto (34:41)

Yes.

Lianne Shinton (34:43)

So my next question is what advice would you give to other dog trainers or maybe groomers, boarding facilities, daycares, small business owners who are considering starting their own podcast?

Robert Forto (34:56)

biggest piece of advice is just do it, sit down, hit record, no matter how bad it is at the very beginning, you will get better. but know that it is the long game. It's not going to be an immediate payoff. You're not going to see thousands of dollars roll in from, you know, a handful of episodes or something like that. if, if you're just starting out and you're not comfortable behind the mic practice it, you know, get used to.

to talking on a microphone, get used to talking to other people, develop your own style of whatever that is, whether it's an interview style or storytelling style or whatever, but always remember that you're talking to somebody else. It is not your show. It is their information, whatever that is. So don't get on there and just talk about how great of a dog trainer you are, how good of a groomer you are, or how great your business is or whatever.

You have to provide value. Every dog trainer in the world thinks that they're the best. And I would venture to say that you may be a dang good dog trainer, but so is the guy right down the road or in the next city over or whatever. You have to have something that differentiates you and what better way than having a podcast where you can really connect with your audience and really tell those stories.

Lianne Shinton (36:20)

And are there any common mistakes that you see with podcasters and how to avoid them?

Robert Forto (36:27)

some common pitfalls are not doing anything after it's published. So they think, it's there. I put it on Facebook or social media and I'm going to get a thousand listeners from that. That is not the case. It takes a lot of work. As I mentioned, if you remember, I said that four to one or three to one rule.

the, a lot of that is that promotional piece. so scheduling things out is very important. So I think probably the biggest pitfall is thinking that the content is there. The content is out. It's just going to take care of itself. I am sitting here right now looking at hundreds of books on the bookshelf. And if I did not have some type of promotion in regard to those books, I would have never known they exist.

So whether I saw it on the internet or whatever, hey, read my book about XYZ. I would never know it existed unless somebody promoted it. And if you think of your podcast in that same fashion, that it's only going to get read or heard if you promote it or people find out about it, it's very similar to that.

Lianne Shinton (37:38)

And do you have any future plans for your podcast? How do you see it evolving? Do you have any speaker presentations that you're going to be doing at any big shows?

Robert Forto (37:48)

there's always something in the works. we will be at the podcast movement conference in August. I always find some key takeaway from there. we, we, we've learned so much from going to those types of things. one thing that we have done for the last several years, we have a sister podcast called mushing. We also own mushing magazine for, for the sport of dog sledding. We, we purchased that in December.

so every year during the month of, of March, we do a nightly podcast called mushing and, we talk about the Iditarod and we're on for a couple hours a day talking about that race, you know, the day on the trail and all of that. And that has been a huge boon for our podcasting platform. We have hundreds of thousands of people that listen to that every year. I think this year we had.

Just under three quarters of a million people that listened to that podcast during that two week time. So that's always changing. as I mentioned, video is always possible. I don't know how much we'll dive into that. It's so easy to podcast without video. Hey, you can just show up in your PJs and turn your mic on and just go to town. if you're on video, you gotta, you know, look nice and brush your hair and

make sure the dogs aren't barking and all that sort of stuff. So, you know, there's always something to do that's different. But, you know, what you do and what you make of it, just make sure that you're doing the best you can.

Lianne Shinton (39:26)

Fantastic. And Robert, if you don't mind just sharing again where our listeners can find you, whether it be needing dog training in Alaska under Alaska Dog Works or any of your wonderful podcasts.

Robert Forto (39:38)

All of our podcasts can be found on all the platforms. Our most popular dog training podcast is called dog works radio. We're at dog works radio .com. That's probably the best place, but you can find us on anywhere, social media, whether it be Facebook or X or Twitter or whatever it's called or LinkedIn or Spotify or whatever dog works radio is the spot.

Lianne Shinton (40:05)

Perfect. Is there anything else you'd like to add that I might have missed?

Robert Forto (40:10)

Well, first off, thank you very much for inviting me on your show for two episodes. I really appreciate that. I hope I was able to provide value to your audience. I really appreciate what you're doing in the dog training space and helping people promote their own stuff. I think that is so important. So thank you very much for being here and being that, that, that platform for all of us. I think that's very important.

Lianne Shinton (40:37)

And if anybody's listening, is there anybody that you would like to interview that you could speak to, I guess at this time so they can know to reach out to you to maybe be on your podcast and help you?

Robert Forto (40:48)

Yeah, reach out. I would love to have anybody that is interested in talking about whatever topic. And as I said, if you don't, if you don't have expertise in something, find somebody that does and have them on your show. So I would love to talk to other dog trainers about whatever or groomers or veterinarians or whomever. You are the Pet Biz Expert Podcast. So, Hey, you've got all sorts of folks. So come on over. You can be on my show and we'll do our best to promote you as well.

Lianne Shinton (41:19)

Yeah, I was thinking too, like a lot of my listeners are in dog sports and you already have the mushing, the dog sleds, the Iditarod. So maybe some of our dog trainers that are out there that are competing in Mondial Ring, PSA, dog diving, that would be probably a good fit.

Robert Forto (41:37)

Yeah, we just did an episode last week about dock diving. I've never done that before. you know, with sled dogs, most sled dogs do not like water. So we aren't a big dock diving people here, but we had an excellent episode with a up and coming dog trainer. Her name is Destiny Lytle. She is right here in Alaska and she was very nervous at first to be on our podcast and now, she is promoting her episode all over the place and

was so excited to be on. So that's what it is about, folks. It's that collaboration and sharing of knowledge, which is so important.

Lianne Shinton (42:16)

Fantastic. Yeah, I know there's a groomer friend of mine and she just is in the Guinness Book of World Records and things like that. So I'm sure some of the folks watching will reach out to you and also for pet biz experts. If you're a dog trainer, a groomer, a pet professional, we're happy to interview you so that you can be on our podcast and talk about your business and use that on your website, social media content and so on. Awesome. Well, thank you.

Robert Forto (42:40)

It has been a pleasure.

Lianne Shinton (42:44)

Yeah, thank you so much Robert and we hope to have you again soon and everyone again I'm Leanne the host and owner of Pet Biz Experts and thanks for listening.