Wouldn’t it be great to create a program that results in recurring revenue in your pet business each month? Planning and forecasting your income would be so much easier if you could count on a certain amount of revenue that results from the way you set up your revenue streams.
It’s easier than you may think and we have four options that you can implement in less than 45 days. The great thing about recurring revenue in your pet business is you make the sale once and then get ongoing revenue on a regular basis. The easiest way to increase revenue is to sell more to your existing clients. They benefit from the convenience and fun that you’re providing for them and their dog.
Following is a list of ideas that you can use to add a revenue stream in 45 days or less
- Groom add-ons that are put on a regular schedule (e.g., nail trim, brush-out, blow-out, bath, shed control)
- Monthly Club: Kong; Puzzle of the month club; Toy of the month; Treat of the month
- Trick of the month; Manners reinforcement
- Retail item features (key is an encouragement to buy)
Be sure to watch our video for more details on implementing these ideas in less than 45 days.
Recurring Revenue In Your Pet Business
Robin: Our topic today is on recurring revenue and how to create recurring revenue. One thing that we saw during COVID and are still continuing to see now is that diversification made a huge difference in how well your business did during COVID. I think that's true for any business, not just the pet care industry. I think diversification became really important during COVID because so many industries, including, obviously, the pet industry, had to shut down.
We know we saw facilities that did primarily lodging took the largest hit because they didn't have anything to fall back on. Whereas facilities that had other revenue streams, whether it was daycare training, grooming, or they just created revenue streams during COVID to make up for lost lodging income, those are the businesses that really did well.
I would say that probably that's always been the case, that diversification is a good idea, but I feel like [00:01:00] we never really talked about it that much in the pet industry until COVID. Now, obviously, we're talking about it a lot more.
We wanted to talk about some ideas for how to diversify. I know last week we talked about membership programs. That's actually one way of creating recurring revenue. You don't have to diversify with recurring revenue, but our feeling is, if you're going to diversify, you might as well look at recurring revenue because it's a really good way to, month after month, make what is really considered passive income, where you work for the sale initially, then you obviously have to deliver on that promise of whatever you sold.
If you get somebody into a monthly commitment, then that's what's considered recurring revenue where you're not having to do the sale every month, the sale just happens automatically. Do you want to start with anything before we go into some examples, Susan?
Susan: No, but I think, pensively look at recurring revenue and we think, [00:02:00] "Why would a client want to do that?" It's because it's convenient. I don't have to think about it and remember to purchase all the time. I think you need to see that you're actually being a service to your clients. It's just like Amazon Subscribe & Save, it's setting it up to where it automatically happens and the client doesn't have to think about it.
I can tell you, what I wish my pet providers would do would be, talk to me about my pups and the grooming or bath schedule or nail trim schedule and just say, how often do you want it done? Let's just set it up and get you booked, and then we'll just do it automatically because I don't like having to remember to make those appointments.
Look at it that you're providing a relief to the client by making it easy to have recurring revenue in whatever form it takes. I know you've got lots of ideas, Robin.
Robin: Yes, we're going to challenge everybody listening to this today. If you haven't added something new [00:03:00] lately, then I would say, we want to challenge you to add at least one additional revenue stream to your business in the next, I'm going to say 45 days. You're probably thinking, "45 days? That's not enough time to do anything." But, again, this doesn't have to be something huge.
The rollout of a large membership or a completely new program like moving from daycare to Daycare 2.0, that might require more than 45 days, but we're going to give you some ideas that require less time, and I'm sure that you guys can think of your own ideas as well. Just one example of what Susan just talked about. Getting your clients on some recurring schedule of nail trims or a bath, or even if it's just some basic maintenance, if they have a dog, like a schnauzer or dog that needs a little bit of clipping or whatever, getting them on some kind of routine schedule for that.
That's not anything that takes more than probably a couple of weeks to come up with the pricing structure and [00:04:00] create a few marketing materials and roll it out. It's optional for people, they don't have to do it. It's really a matter of coming up with the pricing, coming up with the marketing flyers, and then teaching your staff, and you can start rolling it out.
I think sometimes we-- "we" meaning the general pet industry, get caught up in, "Everything has to be a hundred percent perfectly done and I need to know all the obstacles that might get in my way before I ever roll anything out." If you do that, you're going to never get anything new started. So, perfection is really the enemy here. I say this as a perfectionist.
For those of you that have seen me and Susan talk before, we really are striving for 80% is good enough. I had to tell myself that over and over, and it was something my staff actually taught me to just get something started. Susan and I are big fans of building the plane while you're flying it, so we just roll something out and you can adjust it as you go, and that's fine. [00:05:00]
Something as simple as starting some type of monthly subscription or recurring appointment for some additional service, grooming is just a good example. That doesn't have to be a full groom either, I will say. I know I would probably not necessarily do a full groom. I would do something smaller, like a bath or nail trims or something like that.
Susan: Even a brush out for those longer coated dogs that get tangles in their hindquarters or behind the ears. If they're coming to the daycare every week, say, "How about on the first Thursday of every month, we'll just do a brush out and it'll be this much money. We'll just automatically book it and add it on." I would love that. People are busy and they don't have time to do that maintenance.
So, if you can set it up and make it easy and get the appointment booked, especially for the dogs that are coming in regularly, think about how much extra revenue you could get if half your dogs did monthly nail trims with you that come to daycare. Every [00:06:00] pet should really have their nails trimmed every month.
Robin: Yes, and I would say, even for short hair dogs-- Jess O'Connor, who is a good friend of ours, she's one of the employees over there at Blue9 Pet Products, but she also is a groomer. I have a lab, so, short coat, wash and wear dog, what would I need for some kind of continuing thing?
She was the first person when I was-- A lot of people think labs don't shed, which is crazy. That's like crazy talk because labs shed a lot. Right now, he's actually blowing his coat, so he sheds even more. It's little tiny hair, but it's enough hair that you'll form little tumbleweeds in my house. A lot of hair. It's not as much hair as like a Malamute, I will grant that. I had a shepherd and it's not as much hair as that, but he definitely sheds.
Right now, I can pet him and there'll be here on my hand because he's blowing his coat. Jess was the first person-- I've had labs for, I don't know, probably 15, 20 years. Jess was the first person that said, "You know what you should do? Just once a month, take a [00:07:00] doggie blow dryer and just blow out his coat." I was like, "Are you kidding me?"
And she did it for me one time when I was in Iowa visiting Blue9, and guess what? Right after that, I bought a little dog blow dryer, so now I do that myself, but I would totally pay for someone to do that. I don't even bathe him. I literally just get him on a stand and blow out his coat. You'd even tell folks the main benefit you're giving your client is less hair in their home. It's a no-brainer.
Susan: Oh, exactly. You can either do like you do, Robin, just blow it out or create a shed control program. We had that at our business, and it is a great monthly recurring revenue where you do include the bath and blow out and there's some tools and stuff you can do. Yes, market it, "Less hair in your house," and that's huge.
Robin: Yes, people will definitely do that. What did you charge for it? Do you remember, Susan, for your program?
Susan: For our [unintelligible 00:07:58], the first [00:08:00] two programs were a little bit more than the bath because we spent a little bit more time, but then, after those first two appointments and you knew that the dog was coming in regularly, it was probably like 10% less than the bath price would be. So, for the client, long-term they save.
Robin: I'm just doing some math real quick. What would you say? I'm going to go really cheap. I probably would not charge $30. I probably would charge more than that, but 30 times 12 is $360 from one client. Now, obviously, you have to back out whatever you're going to pay an employee to do that service and supplies. Still, if you figure, $360 from one person; and then you just figure, 10% even of your clients doing that, that's going to add up pretty quickly.
So, if I said I had, let's say 25 clients doing-- That's $9,000. This is where [00:09:00] I feel like we, in the pet industry, don't get very creative and we basically are boarding, and daycare, and basic baths when they need it, or grooming when the client calls for it. But we need to get more creative on offering these recurring services that a client's, "Oh, totally convenient, I will do that. I always forget he needs a bath anyway."
I use the example in a couple of Facebook lives ago, about my carwash. I signed up for a carwash that's a monthly carwash so that I can go every month. I don't have to pay. I get into a special line, that's a fast-track line in the carwash and I can get my car washed.
My husband and I did that because it's just convenient. We get in the faster line when we do go to wash our car as well. The way we bought that is we went for a carwash and the attendant said, while we were paying, "Did you know we have a monthly thing, so you don't have to pay every time? I was like, "Oh, sold." [00:10:00] It took them all of about two minutes, literally, to sell that to me.
I just think we need to get creative about that. That's one simple idea that you could easily roll out in less than 45 days. The other one, and this is one we've talked about really several times since COVID, and that is a Kong club. This could be any Puzzle Toy Club. It could even be Puzzle of the Month Club.
Susan: Oh, I love that.
Robin: Yes, it just came to me right in a second. You could actually do a Puzzle of the Month Club. What a Kong club is, when we initially created that idea, it is basically the idea that you will-- Everybody, hopefully, knows what a Kong is. It's a hard rubber toy with a hole in the center so that you can stuff it with food or treats or whatever you want to put in there.
Our idea is that you would make either a monthly or a weekly offering where you create the Kongs. You stuff the Kongs with any kind of food that you want, any kind of [00:11:00] food that's acceptable, obviously, to dogs, and then you have them prepared and you sell them to the client. The idea here is that on a monthly or weekly basis, the client brings back the Kongs you provided and they drop them off and they get a new set of Kongs.
Let's say you had three Kongs a week that you would give to your client for the weekly subscription, when they're done with their three, they bring those three back the next week and they get three more stuffed Kongs. You're buying the Kong toys once, that's the idea behind this, and you're just reusing them all. Because part of the subscription is they bring the Kong back.
For those of you that have grandparents, because I'm going to say nobody remembers this. Maybe your parents, maybe your grandparents used to have monthly milk subscriptions like this, where the milk was dropped off on the front door in those glass jars, and then when you were done, you put those jars back on the front porch and the milkman came and took those and then [00:12:00] gave you new ones. That's actually how I get my eggs now. I bring back the cartons and I get new eggs from my egg layer.
Susan: Some people may remember the big water bottles, the big five-gallon water bottles that--
Robin: Oh, yeah, that's another good one.
Susan: Yeah, that you would bring your empties. Yeah, you can get creative with-- I love the puzzle of the month because then you could trade out to different kinds. You could have some lick mats. I kind of got into the lick mats. I think those are cool.
Robin: Portia said Charles Chips. That's a good Pennsylvania company right there. Charles Chips is the same thing and they have pretzels too, so they would deliver it to your house.
Yeah, anything like that, but I'm going to give you some pricing because we did a little scenario with Kongs, but, actually, literally, that Puzzle of the Month Club, I like that even better in a lot of ways, because you could have a group of puzzles and maybe you have 12 of 5 different types of puzzles, but then you could rotate them among the different clients.
To some extent, that would [00:13:00] help to just provide some uniqueness each month to what the dog's getting. It also gives the client a month to teach their dog how to use it. Then, if they found out their dog really liked it, you could actually put that in your retail store and sell it to them. You could get additional revenue and plus it's a really good way for me--
I know for me, I have bought so many different puzzle toys, and because I have a lab, some of them he's really good at, and some of them they're too cheap for him. He'll just hit it with his nose and the whole thing will fall over and all the treats will fall out and I'm like, "Okay, that was a waste of--" It would also be a really good way to be able to experiment for myself without having to invest in the actual toy and then be able to see if he really likes it, then I would be like, "Okay, I want to buy this for him, myself, and still stay in the puzzle toys to try other toys."
Susan: Even a toy of the month club. I was just [00:14:00] thinking today because we're getting ready to do some major remodeling in my house and I've got to get rid of stuff that I don't need. The dog toys have always been sacred, but then I'm like, "Some of these toys look brand new because they're just not interesting to my dogs. But to other dogs, I know they would love them." You could almost do the same thing if you're having trouble finding toys.
Robin: Yeah. You could actually market it as a way of saying, Let your dog try these things and see if he'll like; if they do, it's almost like doing selling products with a sample option.
Susan: Yeah, exactly.
Robin: That's a whole nother thing you could do. Look, we're creating things for you guys just on the spot here.
Susan: Dogs are more interested in something new, I always say you should rotate toys anyway, which I do at Christmas. I have my bag of Christmas toys that come out and then they get to stay through winter and then they go away, but I don't do it any other time of the year.
Robin: Exactly. We had some projections and I did this analysis [00:15:00] just for the Kong club where you were doing Kong's rotating them like I had talked about, to begin with. I had done a analysis to say expenses would be, for instance-- I'm going to see if I can share this. Let me try this real quick because it might help. Oh, I don't know. I didn't set up my thing for sharing, so it might not work, but let me just try really quick and see what happens.
Susan: We'll see if the tech gods are with you.
Robin: Exactly. Wait, I don't know. It's showing that something sharing, but let me see if it's going to-- No, I can't do it on my laptop. Okay, I'm just going to explain to you what they are. I said the expenses for preparing 12 Kongs, and I'm assuming that one staff could prepare 12 Kongs in an hour. Which, honestly, they should be able to do way more than 12, but I was being very generous here.
I just said $12 an hour because that's average salary hourly rate for a staff member. Then [00:16:00] I said supplies to prepare those Kongs, I just estimated a dollar per Kong. Again, you could probably do it for a lot less than a dollar per Kong, but I was trying to keep the math easy for myself. So that's $12 as well, $1 per Kong for 12 Kongs.
Total expenses to put together 12 Kongs would be $24 at the most. I can guarantee you'll be able to do that for less. Then let's say your initial investment of those 12 Kongs, if you buy them from a distributor, you're probably going to pay about $7, so that's $84. That's your initial investment of those 12 Kongs to purchase, then you're going to keep using those over and over.
Then I said, possible monthly revenue for three Kongs per week, so this would be, you're going to give three Kongs every week to the dog and that would be $10 a week. Possible monthly revenue, obviously, for 10 times four for four weeks in the month would be $40.
So if you just use those basic scenarios with just one three Kong a week subscription, [00:17:00] you would be earning $16 profit for every single subscription you sell. After you've sold six subscriptions, you've already paid back your initial investment to purchase those Kongs. Then for every 10 subscriptions, you would be earning an additional $160 per month for a profit, strictly profit.
Again, if you're looking at, "I could make $160 per month," and your goal is just to have 10% to 20% of your clients, that ends up being a couple of thousand dollars a month, additional money that you could have in your pocket in less than 45 days.
Again, because you want to keep this on a subscription, you're earning that essentially passive revenue every single month. To me, this is definitely something worth trying. Again, I gave you numbers that are probably higher. I think you'd probably make more than $160 [00:18:00] because your staff would be able to fill the Kongs faster, probably, and you're probably going to fill the Kongs for less. You're probably going to be around 50 cents per Kong, depending on the ingredients you use.
I have people that rotate flavors. I have seen people that only do this at certain times a year. Although we're saying we would recommend trying to do it as monthly recurring revenue, I have seen people that just roll this out over the holidays or during peak seasons, so that is an option.
Susan: What is the Kong holder for the large size is a six-pack, almost come in because they fit perfectly in there.
Robin: Which is a great idea. That's a great display thing, too. You can put it up on the counter and say, "You could take this home." Actually, I would even give that to people to take it home with.
Susan: Exactly, give six-pack holders with your brand printed on them.
Robin: Oh, that's even better. I like that a lot. That's a really good idea.
Susan: I'll tell you, brainstorming today is flowing.
Robin: Exactly. That's a really [00:19:00] simple idea. Honestly, here's an idea because I know for a lot of you that are the business owners that are tuning in, you're probably like, "I don't have time to do this." This is a really good idea for a lead staff member. Susan and I are really big about, if you're going to hire people into sort of a management role or leadership role, we like the idea of giving them small projects and see how they do on those small projects before you give them the reins to do something major.
This is a really good simple idea for an up-and-coming employee that you want to say, "Hey, I'm going to give this to you to create the whole program, just run with it." Tell them they have two weeks to do it or whatever. It's a really good idea for somebody on your team to get a little bit more responsibility. It's a good way for you to test how well they are able to take on a task like this and it frees up your time.
It's not just you taking something on your plate. This is something your [00:20:00] staff can do. Honestly, if you get several staff together, you'd probably have them come up with a way better system and process, and everything, probably come up with a really cool name because they'll all brainstorm together too. It also makes them have more buy-in to the whole program too. When they have a vested interest in seeing it succeed, they're going to be a little bit more enthusiastic about promoting it and recommending it and that kind of thing.
Susan: Absolutely.
Robin: That's our first example. Anything you guys want to talk about that before we move on to another idea?
Susan: No, let's try a new idea.
Robin: All right. Our other idea is, and we have talked about this before which is Trick of the Month. It's something I did in my facility 20 years ago. What I did at that time was, I just told my clients, mainly daycare clients, when they came in, we were going to have a special to teach certain trick and we would change the trick, [00:21:00] obviously, every month.
The trick was generally something relatively easy. I wasn't teaching them like, "Pick up all the toys and put them in the trash basket." That's a little more complex trick. I was teaching things like shake, or roll over, or play dead, or sit up, or sit pretty. Things like that.
I charged them one fee for me to teach that trick to them. The caveat was they needed to bring their dog at least three times. Generally speaking, I didn't guarantee how long it would take me to do the trick. But these were primarily clients that were willing to come usually two to three times a week anyway, but I had the whole month to teach the trick. That was mine.
Now, typically, I finish teaching the trick usually within one or two sessions because they're relatively easy tricks. This is an option where you offer this as an additional revenue stream to your clients that are already coming in. This could be during lodging. As long as they're staying several days, it could be during daycare, [00:22:00] it could also be something that you would do if you are a pet sitter or a dog walker, where you're going to do an overnight pet sit for several days, you could offer this as an extra fee, an extra additional revenue idea for that dog who you're going to spend the night with for several days. Or if you're doing dog walking, it could also be something you add on to that.
This is something you could add, literally, on to anything. We actually also have seen this added into grooming. If you have a dog that comes in for grooming and then they don't go home for several hours, you could add this on as well.
The only thing is, you would have to get really easy tricks because you're probably not going to see that dog again for grooming, unless they come back in just for the Trick of the Month, which is possible, but probably not as likely. The whole idea is that you're telling the client you're going to work with their dog to teach them a fun trick.
The great thing about Trick of the Month is, nobody cares, meaning, the pet parent, generally doesn't care if you need to still use [00:23:00] treats to show off the dog's behavior. Unlike obedience, I can tell you this as a dog trainer, when you're teaching obedience behaviors, everybody's like, "How do you get rid of the food? He's not doing well because he sees the treat."
That whole thing goes out the window when you're teaching tricks. When you're teaching tricks and you walk out in the lobby and you're like, "Here's how the dog does a spin," and you're using a treat, nobody cares. Then you give the treat to the owner, they do it, they're just thrilled. I love Trick of the Month for that as well.
What are the things about Trick of the Month do you want to talk about? Oh, Debbie, I'm getting about this in just a second. "I'm not a trainer." I'm going to talk about that in just a second.
Susan: I'm not a trainer either, so we definitely have to keep us honest on that, but I love Trick of the Month because I think it's something fun. It takes away the pressure and expectation of the dog being able to do basic behaviors, and manners, and stuff like that. I think it's just to have fun [00:24:00] with the dog. As you say, it's something then as the pet parent, when they go home, even if there's kids, it's just something fun to do with your dog, is to have them do that trick.
Robin: Debbie said, what about basic obedience reinforcement? I actually think that's a really good idea as well, Debbie, and the great thing about obedience reinforcement is, generally, I would recommend that for dogs who have already been trained o that your staff is basically reinforcing behaviors the dog already knows.
That is another thing that we have always recommended that you offer dogs that come to lodging for you.
For every dog that's going to do a stay and they've had training before, you might just do the whole upsell of, "Hey, while they're here, we can just reinforce these three basic commands." And you charge an extra fee for that.
A lot of clients are going to want to do that, especially if they invested in having their dog trained, to begin with, to make sure that their dog doesn't lose the skills or not use them at all. You could do the same thing for daycare as well. [00:25:00] For those dogs, I would typically take the dog out of daycare to do the training, so you're not going to do the training during daycare. You do want to have a staff member that's available that can take the dog out.
The great thing about those reinforcement training and/or what I call refresher training and Trick of the Month is you don't have to be a trainer. This is a really good way for somebody that's interested in dog behavior, interested in maybe learning about training one of your staff members who's expressed an interest in it. It's a really good way for them to get started down what could be a training track for your company. But you don't have to be a trainer because the dog doesn't have to be perfect in everything.
Worst-case scenario, let's just say, because you're worried, I know. Everybody gets worried about this. Let's just say, worst-case scenario, you charge somebody $25 to teach the spin and the dog doesn't learn it. Just give them their $25 back. That's the worst-case scenario. I can guarantee you, nobody ever [00:26:00] tells me that they had to do that because the tricks you're choosing are not that hard. That's the whole idea behind Trick of the Month is you're not teaching really complex tricks. You're teaching tricks that are relatively easy to teach.
Susan: You're adding on manners refresher to the lodging stay. You can make that recurring revenue that you make a note in the record, so the next time the dog comes into lodge, you can say, "Oh, we did a manners refresher last time, remember how well that worked? Do you want to add that on again?" So that they just know that every time they come, they're going to get that refresher or they're going to get another fun trick that if they've agreed to it once, it becomes recurring revenue because then it's easy for them to say yes the next time.
Robin: Yeah, that's a great idea. Debbie has an awesome idea. Debbie's in our brainstorming mode. I have never thought about this, but this is brilliant, Debbie. So she said you could have a premiere Trick of the Month that includes a fun, quick [00:27:00] little video or pictures that they can post on their social media, which is bonus free advertising. I love that.
You could actually do the basic Trick of the Month and then the premier Trick of the Month, which includes a video and you give that to them. These days you can easily email videos from your camera or from your iPhone or whatever, or put them in Dropbox and they can download them without you having to buy any software or having any kind of problem like that. That's even more awesome. I love that idea, Debbie.
I do understand, though, like Debbie said, she's not a trainer, so how do you teach those? We do have a link to--
[ring]
Robin: Oh my gosh. I have no idea what that noise was just now.
Susan: I've been having this little bell come off of my computer every morning and I have no idea where it's coming from either. It sounds like that. I'm going to have to figure out why.
Robin: If anyone knows what that bell sound was just let me know because I have no idea. Okay, I just was pulling a link up, though. [00:28:00] We partnered with Blue9 Pet Products, for those that are familiar, they have the climb and the balanced harness and just some awesome products, so we love them. Jamie Popper is on their staff, who is a dog trainer, and I'm a dog trainer as well. We partnered together to create a program called Trick of the Month. It is a program that is for the business owner where you pay one time, the price is $249, so this isn't crazy expensive.
In the Trick of the Month Program that you buy from The Dog Gurus, it includes 15 different videos demonstrated by Jamie Popper to show you or actually to show your staff exactly how to teach the tricks. For those of you like Debbie, who you're like, "No, honestly, I wouldn't even know where to start. I'm not a trainer. I've never taught tricks." That can be intimidating. I can tell you that Jamie does a really amazing job of breaking these tricks down into very [00:29:00] easy-to-understand components.
What we would recommend in that situation is, you purchase that and then you use those videos for whatever staff member you want to give the responsibility for to teach Trick of the Month, you give them that access to that program. They can watch the videos and do the training themselves, so they have a guide to go by.
That program also includes an entire business PDF so that you can actually go through the numbers and decide how much to charge. Nikki asked, what did you charge for Trick of the Month? when I did it like 20 years ago, I charged $40 a month. I can tell you very few people are charging that much now. I always just roll my eyes like, "I did it 17 years ago, 17 to 20 years ago, $40 a month." I would charge at least that.
Our minimum that we would recommend charging, because, Susan and I know that people are like, nobody's going to pay $40. I can guarantee you, they'll pay $40 a month to [00:30:00] teach a trick. Susan and I recommend, at a minimum, charge $25.
Susan: Then the $40 could be your premier where you send them the video, but you've got to make sure your logo is on the video.
Robin: Well, that's true. That's a really good idea. All right, let me pull up my little subscription thing here because I did some examples for this too. I said, for staff time to teach a trick, I'm going to say approximately an hour and that's usually going to be in tiny increments. You're very unlikely to take a dog out for an hour and do training for an hour. That's generally too long.
What you're usually going to do is take a dog out of the daycare or out of the lodging enclosure or whatever and do a 15, possibly a 20-minute training session. If it's a puppy, you're probably going to do a 10-minute session, and you might do that enough times to equate an hour. Usually, within an hour, you can teach most of the basic tricks.
I put staff time to teach a trick approximately one hour times 12 [00:31:00] months. I just use that $12 an hour scenario that we used before, that would be $144. Then I said, treats, because we would recommend training with treats, all training with positive reinforcement. So I said about $3 times 12 months, that would be $36. Total expenses for one subscription, this is just for one year long subscriptions, the expenses to you would be $180.
Then your initial investment, if you didn't have to buy anything, that would be all that your expenses consist of. But if you are saying, "Okay, I don't have a trainer on staff and I would need some help in teaching this." Then we would say, purchase Trick of the Month, that's $249 one-time investment and you're done.
Possible revenue, this is, again, at the lowest price point, which we would recommend, which would be $25 a month. I would not do $25 a month. I would totally do at least $35. I'm just telling you, but bare minimum, $25 a month, times 12, [00:32:00] you're getting $300 a year extra from somebody.
Now, possible results. For one Trick of the Month subscription, you're making $120 just for one client signing up for that for a year. After you sold a little over two subscriptions, like two and a quarter subscriptions, you've paid back that initial investment. So, that $249, you've already paid it back with just two subscriptions. This is why we say launch this at 45 days. Your initial investment comes back to you right away.
Then for every 10 subscriptions, every10 clients that sign up for this for a year, you're earning $1,200 more a year. Then again, multiply that by 10% to 20% of your clients, and you're pocketing a lot of revenue. Again, this is not an easy thing to set up and you could easily launch this in 45 days. We saw this happen during COVID, we saw a lot of facilities launch this in 30 days or less. We're giving you 45 days and that's actually two extra [00:33:00] weeks, which is awesome.
Susan: Yeah, it's a great way to make more money this summer. We know things are coming back and you're going to be busy, so why not maximize that? There's a lot of lost revenue that you want to make up for. So these are just some ideas, like Robin said at the very beginning, you only have to sell it once and then you get ongoing revenue.
Robin: Yeah, that's a great point. Most people now are in the situation of, "Hey, we're getting busier," unless you're in Canada, which I know is still a problem, but hopefully, Canada will open up as well. Across the United States, we're seeing things pick up, and hopefully, that will happen in Canada as well.
What did happen in United States is that business is starting to come back faster than everyone's prepared for. And especially faster than you have staffing for. The one thing we're hearing over and over is, people now have more than enough business and too much business for [00:34:00] the current staff.
So, guess what? We have people now turning dogs away, which, a year ago, none of us would have said that. Everybody would have said, we need every dog in this facility possible because of all the losses during COVID shutdowns. Now we actually have people turning dogs away because they don't have the staff to manage it.
Here's the great thing. You could have the same staff, even though it's shorthanded, but you can still increase your revenue by offering these additional recurring revenue streams. It's a great way to continue generating more revenue for your business. Even if you don't have the massive numbers of staff that you're supposed to have at this time of year.
We are seeing business pick up too, so this is a great opportunity to make up some losses from last year as well. Christina said the basic enrichment course was really helpful for the basics. She is talking about, if you are enrolled in Pet Guru College, there is an enrichment role, which is a whole series of training [00:35:00] videos for an enrichment counselor.
Some of them include some of the basic enrichment-type course pro activities that you can do, and you could add that as a revenue stream. If you don't offer it as Daycare 2.0, you could offer enrichment activities, similar to what we just described for Trick of the Month. You could just do an enrichment activity a month if you wanted to. So there's a lot of that as well.
Susan: We've also had groomers that have added enrichment for the dogs that come in. I think enrichment activities is awesome for dog walkers to offer, to make you be different than everybody else that's walking.
Robin: Yeah, I think there's a lot of ideas for that. Then Millie said, is this all done online or in-person? That's a really good question. We're actually talking about all in person right now. However, for those of you that are in Canada, this is something you could do online. During COVID shutdowns in the United States, we were encouraging people to create [00:36:00] online programs of some sort.
The most basic way of doing that for the cheapest was to do something on Facebook, where you actually charge people to get access to a Facebook page. On that Facebook page, you're creating videos that they can watch and they can submit themselves doing videos, or however you want to do it. We had several people that did a trick program through online Facebook thing.
If you have a trainer, you might go even more into training lessons online and that kind of thing. But I'm talking more about those that don't necessarily have a trainer and they're going to stick with some of the basics. Susan talks a lot about doing enrichment online, do you want to talk a little bit about that, Susan?
Susan: Yeah, I think pet parents don't necessarily think about how to do enrichment activities with their dogs. I think it would be great. You could even do an enrichment challenge, which would be a great way to get people introduced to your business and just set up and every day, go on and do a Facebook live like Robin and I are.
Talk about an enrichment activity [00:37:00] that the followers could do with their dog at home, and then just do a different one for five days during the challenge and have a little party at the end to celebrate.
They could show off what they've done and during the challenge, they could post either videos or pictures. It's a way for the pet parent to see how much their dog enjoys it, then you may be able to convert them to doing enrichment onsite with you. Or you could just do it, like Robin said, as a Facebook group and a monthly membership where you're helping them do it at home.
Part of it is, they might sign up for a recurring subscription to do that because a lot of what pet parents need is just the reminder and the idea of what to do. If it's a low-cost subscription, just doing an enrichment club online I think would be something cool and you're just giving the ideas and showing them how to do it.
Robin: Yeah, I definitely think that there's an option to do some of this online, especially if you [00:38:00] are in an area where the businesses are still shut down, which would help to bring in some additional revenue.
Portia said, I've been doing parkour work with my young dog over the last week and those tricks can be good add ons too.
For those that aren't familiar with that sort of like urban agility where they're doing stuff with dogs around the town and sometimes in parks and stuff, but I consider it more like urban agility. There's a lot of fun, games, and activities you could do, and again, even the line of tricks, but for more active dogs. That's a really good idea as well.
Then, Karen had asked, they pay for the month and are taught the trick every time they come in for boarding or daycare that month? You could do it that way. The way I actually did it was, they pay for the month for whatever that trick is, and then I teach the trick until the dog knows it, which is usually one or two sessions, one or two visits.
Then, when let's say they come to daycare three days a week, that first two days I'm going to work with the dog. When the [00:39:00] owner picks it up, the dog hopefully knows the trick by the second or third visit. When the owner picks it up, I show them how to do it, and then I'm done. So, I don't work the dog out. I might just do it for fun while I'm in daycare, but I won't take the dog out specifically to train them anymore, same thing with lodging as well.
You're only teaching the trick until the dog knows it and then you show the owner how to do it, and then you're done working with the dog. All right, so one last quick one. I don't know why we always say we're going to finish these in 40 minutes, but--
Susan: It's a goal that we can work towards. We were on fire with creativity today, so it just didn't work out.
Robin: So many ideas. Our last idea is, any type of retail that you can add where you are actively encouraging the person to purchase every month. I know a lot of people do online retail and we have some people do physical retail, obviously, where someone comes in the store. The [00:40:00] challenge is if you're not actively promoting it and marketing it, if you have an online store, typically, it's just going to sit as an online store because you're not driving traffic to it.
The whole idea of build it and they will come doesn't necessarily work with an online store. You have to still actively promote it and actively give your clients a reason to purchase. Same thing with the products that you might have in your store. They need to be things that are creative. Unless there's something like food where, obviously, the dog needs food on a recurring basis, that's a really good product to sell. If you have the space and you want to manage food expiration dates and that kind of thing because that can be a bit overwhelming at times.
Otherwise, if it's things like collars and leashes and basics like that, the owner typically needs one of those, maybe two of those, but they're not going to buy them all the time. So if you're selling products in your store, you do want to look at being able to [00:41:00] rotate inventory and again, having a reason for the owner to purchase.
One of the things that we've actually partnered with The Dog Gurus was the company Dog is Good, it has a new division called Dig Direct, where you can actually sign up. They build the store for you, so your store can actually be already built, and then they create marketing materials for you every single month as well.
They have all the social media posts, all the Instagram posts, all the product graphics, and then themes. They even give you an entire template for, here's a newsletter you can send out this month with all the specials in it. They do everything for you other than you have to obviously post it and encourage people to purchase. They do that for you, so it's really self-contained reason for your clients to buy every month.
The Dog is Good brand is a well-known brand. It's been around for over a decade now. That's nice too because you know it's a brand that [00:42:00] people resonate with. They're just about to start, and Portia, I don't know if you were on the training the other day, but they're just about to start pop-up shops where Dog is Good or Dig Direct is actually the online portion of it, where you can actually have a link on your website that goes directly to their products, people buy them and then you get commission on them. You don't even have to store the inventory or anything. That's the online version of it.
They're getting ready to start pop-up shops, which are, if you're in that online version already, you can also sign up to have inventory in your store. Or you can take that inventory and go to a community event. I wished I would've had that when I used to go to all my community events and just sit at my table and try to get people to come over to my table. When all I usually had was a dog sitting there and I was just trying to always come up with creative reasons to do a game or something.
Whereas if I had a bunch of really cool [00:43:00] shirts and hats and t-shirts, I felt like people would have come over, and then I could have sold those and also talked to them about my dog training and daycare business. Anyway, that's another option that is available right now just in the United States, but they are going to be opening it up internationally. Hopefully, by the end of the year, they'll have it internationally.
So, that's another way. Again, the reason we're saying you could start that in 45 days is the whole online presence is all built for you by Dog is Good. That happens immediately upon sign up. Immediately upon sign up, you have a whole store all ready. That's another option as well.
Yes, Portia, I haven't watched the training, but they just did training like two days ago, I think. I got to go find the link and watch it, but they're getting ready to start the pop-ups shop portion of it. I'm going to go find a link for that, Susan.
[ring]
Robin: Oh my gosh. That's that ring again.
Susan: No, somebody has to know what that bell is because I get that bell every morning.
Robin: [00:44:00] I don't know what that bell is. It happened when I went to that other website, though. I don't know. I'm going to put a link in there for Dig Direct and you can click on that. You can see what our store looks like at The Dog Gurus, but then there's also a Join Now button and you can see the different options for signing up for something like that.
I will say Dog is Good, this division is brand new for them. They haven't even launched it fully. It's actually what's considered pre-launch, so it also gives you the opportunity to start in there on something at the ground level. Yeah, that's fine, Portia. Portia put her link in there as well, so if anyone is interested in seeing that, you'll see Phillyfairdogmother.digdirect.com as well. Or you can email Portia if you have more questions or you can email us, either way.
Susan: I love just the ideas. It's easier to sell more to existing clients, which is what this is all about, and starting up to where you're only doing the sale [00:45:00] once because we know you guys don't like to sell, a lot of you. Working with your front desk staff and then you get the recurring--
I think you could do a treat of the month too. You've got to see the treat pantry I have for my pups and how many treats I'm buying. Set that up and do it for them. It's all about convenience. The pet parent just gets into the routine that you're supporting them and their dog, and then you're making more money. It's a win-win.
Robin: That treat of the month would be really good too, as another sample idea, where they sample whatever the treats are, and then if the dog really likes them, you sell them. There might be a month where they're either like, "Oh, the treat this month, my dog didn't like at all." But then another month where they're like, "My dog loves these treats and he's really picky, so I got to find these," then you have them available to sell.
That could be another thing in your online store if you don't have physical products, where now you've given a reason to drive those people to your store to purchase. That's a really good idea too. [00:46:00]
Susan: It's the little things about treats. I love our Kelly Eisen. What's her treats?
Robin: Einstein Pets.
Susan: Einstein Pets. They really spoiled me because they don't crumble, but when I'm in a pet store buying different brands and I bought another kind of a hard treat just to try it, I took that down to the beach and brought it back and it had crumbs all over the bag. I'm like, "My gosh, all I did was go to the beach and back and there was just too many crumbs."
It's these little things that you can test for the pet parents so they don't have that frustration. I wasted my money on these treats that became crumbs.
Robin: Yeah, that's awesome. All right, hopefully, this gave you guys some ideas and some inspiration. I'm sure you can come up with other ideas. I'm sure if you get your staff together and have them watch this Facebook live, they will come up with ideas as well.
Our whole wish for everybody and our challenge to everybody is that in the next 45 days, try to start something that will bring in some [00:47:00] recurring revenue every month for your business, and then get that launched before this busy summer season starts for most of us.