Business Dog Training

Most of you who read my blog know I have a 3 month old puppy, Ben. His blog is here. Both my wife Janet and I have had dogs, and I have taken dogs through group obedience classes before. I watch Cesar. I knew the basics, I thought. I may have been able to take Ben to 50% of what he could be, but I doubt he would have been that responsive to everyone, even me all the time. Ben deserves better than 50%. Don’t all dogs? I mean we brought them into our homes out of their natural order, we should at least make their lives with their human pack as “natural” as possible. That means we need to be strong leaders and 50% isn’t good enough. The same is true of your business.

Not everyone is a strong business pack leader. So if you find yourself in this position, what can you do? One, you can get training, and there are lots of good trainers out there. Two, you can hire a strong pack leader. Most small business people opt to do nothing. Thereby relegating their business to less than it could be. Some will bring on a partner to help run the business, but very few and generally only if they are against the wall. Let’s talk about getting a coach to help train you and your staff.

So once you find a trainer, however you find them, and that is another blog for another day. Once you have a trainer, they will need to train different people. Your staff, yourself, and maybe your investors. Much like training a dog, your trainer can teach your staff new tricks, but if you don’t support and reinforce their training, they will start jumping on people and messing in the house.

Almost without exception, if you show me a dog misbehaving, I’ll show you an owner who didn’t follow through with their training. As a dog owner, I have some bad habits I have “picked up” over the years. The worse is inconsistency. So our dog trainer not only has to train the dog, he has to break my bad habits as well so we are training the dog in a consistent manor. As a business owner, I’m sure you also have some “bad habits”. If you don’t correct them, it doesn't matter what else the trainer does.

If you are not committed to learning new tricks that YOU have you do, save your money and don’t pay for a trainer. Both the dog and owner need training, and the same is true for businesses. Staff and Owner.