Setting Up to Survive & Thrive

Niki Tudge is hosting our Corporate Partners

at dog*biz Veronica Boutelle & Gina Phairas. 

A FREE Business Contingency Webinar for PPG Members

CEUS: PPAB 1.5, CCPDT 1, KPA 1, IAABC (pending)

Over the last few weeks dog trainers have scrambled to set up alternative ways of offering services, as both a way to continue helping dogs and their people and in the rush to shore up lost revenue.

As a result, the pandemic has created a wave of innovation and creativity throughout our industry. How well it serves us individually and as a community, both through and beyond this crisis, will depend on how carefully we implement our ideas.

This is a time to act swiftly. But it is also a time for deliberate, thoughtful choices. Choices about which services will set you up for best success during and after the crisis. And about how to provide those services, too. In-person services do not translate directly to their virtual counterparts. We will need to translate apples into oranges to set ourselves, our businesses, and our clients up for success. It is an easy time to make limiting mistakes.

How do we best package, price, and market online privates and classes in a way that serves our ends now and meets our needs later, too?

And how do we deliver them? What do online training best practices look like? What translates, and what needs to be creatively adjusted for training success? Same for classes—what curriculum and instructional adjustments are required for powerful outcomes?

We’ve engaged in an impressive flurry of activity to weather this storm, each of us individually and collectively as an industry. Join Veronica Boutelle and Gina Phairas of dogbiz for their expert insights on the opportunities of this moment as well as its potential pitfalls.

It’s time to take a breath to set ourselves up not just to survive, but to thrive—both through this crisis and beyond.

Veronica Boutelle, MA Ed., CTC

Founder, Consultant Lead, DWA Director

Veronica is the former Director of Behavior & Training for the San Francisco SPCA. She has been helping dog professionals create their dream businesses through dogbiz since 2003.

Veronica is the author of How to Run a Dog Business and The Business of Dog Walking, the co-author of Minding Your Dog Business, and writes for multiple industry journals, including regular business columns in PPG’s Barks from the Guild and APDT’s Chronicle of the Dog. She is a sought-after speaker at conferences and dog training schools across the country and internationally, teaching R+ dog pros how to help more dogs in countries ranging from North America to South America, Europe to Down Under.

Veronica has made good use of her previous career as a classroom teacher, teacher educator, and curriculum developer to bring more effective curriculum and instructional strategies to group dog training classes.

Fun Fact: Veronica grows much of her own food and is rarely seen at home without dirt under her fingernails.

Gina Phairas, BSc Comms, CTC

Founder, Consultant Lead, dogbiz U Director

Gina is a former San Francisco SPCA Academy for Dog Trainers instructor, teaching fellow trainers alongside Jean Donaldson and Janis Bradley. Gina brings extensive experience in the dog industry to her work, including serving as Behavior Rehabilitation Coordinator at the SF/SPCA, co-founding a consulting non-profit for shelters and rescues, consulting for and managing one of the first dog daycares in the CA Bay Area, and running her own successful dog training business.

These days Gina uses her experience and advertising background to support dog professionals by leading our talented consulting team and running dogbiz University, her brain child for providing effective, easy-access business support to R+ dog professionals. She also regularly shares dog business wisdom at dog training conferences and seminars, including those held by PPG, APDT, and as Clicker Expo faculty.

Fun Fact: In her first career Gina worked on television commercials and news programs. She’s also hosted a music video show.