How A Dog Trainer Built A Business By Outworking Everyone — with Kris Morrill

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it.

0:37All right, welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I'm Cliff McRae filling in for Bill Gilliland with your local business training and coaching firm, Action Coach Business Growth Partners. I'm excited to have Chris Morrill with Revolutionary Canine as the focus for our Epic Entrepreneurs podcast episode today. So, Chris, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and your company, what primary products or services you offer the community. All right, sounds good. Well, Cliff, first off, I just want to say thank you for allowing me the opportunity to be on the podcast.

1:10Thank you for highlighting local businesses and things of that nature. It really means a lot that we have that kind of support from our community here in Western Carolina. But as you said, I do own Revolutionary Canine. It is a dog training company. We currently now have two locations. We started at our flagship location in 2018 in South Georgia. The city is Albany, Georgia, to be exact. And from there, we service the majority of the southeast, North Florida, Alabama, South Georgia, obviously. Then we started to realize that we were getting dogs from other parts of the country versus just our immediate region.

1:51So we were looking at the idea of expansion, and then around the 2001 mark, we decided to purchase 16 acres here in Western Carolina, and it's been kind of off and running since. But this has definitely been something that has been a fun journey, the build. This is my second business as an entrepreneur. First, I had a gym business, and I was actually in the fitness industry for about 15 years before jumping back into dog training. So the build is always fun. You know, the day to day, it's something that in the dog training business that I like to tell people, it's, it's the same thing every day, but very different.

2:29Okay. Okay. That's awesome. So how's the difference in weather between the locations? Tremendous, man. So it's, it's one of those things that you can wake up in South Georgia, throw a hoodie on, go outside and, and maybe shiver for about 10 minutes and out of nowhere, you're sweating bullets. So the summers in Albany, Georgia are absolutely brutal. They can get anywhere between 98 and 102 degrees. The heat index is much higher. And I don't care what you say, man. If the weatherman says, hey, it's 92, but it feels like 105, it's 105. You know what I mean? Like I'm not, I don't get into the semantics of it, but you literally can go outside and you just have gnats ice skating on your eyeballs all day long and you're sweating profusely.

3:17And then North Carolina, you wake up in the morning and you might be really chilly. It could be, you know, 32 degrees, 38 degrees. And then by this time, 11 o 'clock hits, it's nice hoodie weather. There's no gnats. It's just, it's great. So the winters in North Carolina, much more harsh than the winters in South Georgia, but definitely the summers in South Georgia trump the summers in North Carolina by a long shot. So I can definitely see the mystique behind people wanting to come up here during the summer and then go back down to Florida for the wintertime or South Georgia for the wintertime because the winters up here are rather brutal.

3:59They're gloomy, but again, you can't go wrong in Western Carolina in the summertime. Yep. No, I agree with that. So if you had to start your business from square one, would you do anything differently? I don't know, because I truly feel that every decision that we make lands us in the place that we are. So there's – with any business, whether it's dog training, whether it's fitness, whether it's a service industry of lawn care or plumbing or whatever, I think every business grows at the pace that it's supposed to. Meaning every decision that I have made up to this point has given me the knowledge, has given me maybe the mental and physical fortitude to be privileged today.

4:47So I don't know if I would do anything differently. I guess if you told me that if I could take a blue pill and go back in time and know everything that I know now, would I do some things differently? Yeah, absolutely. I think we would all look at our businesses and say, I would probably do some things differently because I have made a lot of, I'm not going to say I've made a lot of poor decisions. Let's just say I've learned a lot over the last seven years with the dog training industry alone that I could have probably foregone and not, not spent money on certain things that I know would not be beneficial in the long run.

5:23So I would, at the end of the day, I would say, no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to go back with a clean slate with the same amount of knowledge I had. But if I could go back with the same knowledge I have now, yeah, I think everybody would agree that they would go back and change a few things. But I really like where we're at right now. I like, as I said previously, I love the build. I love getting up every morning and seeing how I can create something new, whether that be a new revenue stream, new way to get out in front of people, a new way to help the clientele that we currently have. So I don't think I would do much differently having had that opportunity.

6:01Okay. All right. Great. So what would you say are the biggest things you've learned as an owner and employer since you started your business? Since I've started this particular business, I would say that dealing with live animals is a completely different monster than anything else. And that you have to surround yourself with good people. You have to get up and put on your boots every single day with the intent of being productive. It doesn't matter. Dogs don't care if you don't feel good. Dogs don't care if you didn't get enough sleep the night before. Dogs don't care if you had to travel. Again, if you were up with a screaming baby or anything, they don't care because they still have to eat.

6:49They still have to go outside, use the bathroom. They still have to be clean. And so caring for animals, I would say would be that for me. It's just a huge difference between this and anything else. And I tell that to my people that attention to detail can make or break a business easily. But in the dog world, when you're dealing with live animals, every day you have to be on your game every single day of the week because the dogs, they can't take care of themselves. It's not like we own an antique shop where if somebody doesn't show up until 30 minutes later, it's not that big of a deal. It is a huge deal.

7:31So we have to make sure that everyone is on the same page. Everyone knows what their schedule is. Everyone knows what is expected of them. And that would be it for me as far as the dog training, this business in particular. Okay. Okay, great. So what are some common misconceptions about running a business and how do you address them? Well, I think the biggest common misunderstanding of running your own business is the fact that you get to make your own schedule. You know, I will be talking to other people that they may work for a bigger company or a larger organization and they say, you know, it must be nice.

8:10You know, that everybody prefaces everything they want to, you know, compliment you about or, you know, lack thereof with the it must be nice. Almost like we business owners have this silver spoon that that we don't have to get up and work our 80 hours a week or we don't we can make our own schedule. That's the biggest misconception. I think people look at business owners as the quote unquote bosses or the kings of their little kingdom. them and they don't really do that much work. They get to make their own schedule. They get to go and take exotic trips and all this kind of stuff. And I guess to some extent, depending on what kind of business you're in, that may or may not be true.

8:53But from the leadership standpoint where I'm at, I pride myself on leading by example. And I think that's a huge misconception in the in the business world is that people that have the outside. I look at business owners as ducks on the pond. I mean, if you look at that duck, you can see that duck is swimming effortlessly. It's almost like they're just floating on top of the water. But if you were to look underneath the water, you would see the duck's feet just going a thousand miles an hour because they're fighting against current. They're fighting against things that's going on. They're dedicated in getting to the position or the, uh, the destination that they're, they're trying to get to and they're going full steam ahead.

9:35And that's a business owner. And I think that would be one of the largest misconceptions of a good business owner. Anyways, the fact that we get to make our own schedules, we get a pretty lax schedule. We have people that we pay to do stuff for us. And that's not the case at all. I can't speak for every business owner out there. I can't speak for every entrepreneur, but I can speak for myself. And that is, that is very far from the truth. Yeah, love it. Love it. So how do you address, you know, vacations or how do you handle them, actually? So to be honest with you, I don't get to take a ton of vacations.

10:08Matter of fact, just giving you an example, as far as Christmas is concerned, we have two properties. We have a staff and it just so works out where staff want to take. I mean, Christmas is on the same day for everybody. You know, it's not like a birthday or, you know, a family vacation. I mean, Christmas is on the same day. So we don't take Christmases off. Our staff can take Christmas off if they would like, but I'll get up first thing in the morning, go out, and work every dog. Get every dog out. Make sure they're clean. Make sure their crates are clean. Make sure their kennels are clean. Make sure they get fresh water.

10:42Make sure they eat when they're accustomed to eating. Those things just have to happen. And again, that's the difference between running a business that has live animals to tend to versus running an antique shop or an art gallery or something like that. You have to take all of that into consideration, and you don't get vacations like your normal jobs that don't deal with live animals. So we allow for our staff to take vacations if they want, and we eat it ourselves, and that's just how it is. But again, lead by example. I have no problem getting out. And I can assure you that there's not one person that works for us that will not tell you that, man, Chris, for a 47-year-old guy, he crushes it every single day because that's just in my DNA.

11:35And I think that's in every good business owner's DNA is to try to outwork those around you. I mean, it's a competition for me every day. I want to outwork everyone that works here. And it's kind of a crazy way back to that first question about what's the misconception of running a business is I want to outwork my employees. I want them to see me grinding it out and doing the things that – and that will inevitably, if they're the right person, that will inevitably push them to be better themselves. Okay. I love that. That's a great answer. So what have you attributed your growth to so far in your business?

12:12My business specifically, being able to understand people. And that's one of the biggest downfalls, I would say, of the dog training industry or dog industry as a whole is the majority of people that are really good with dogs are not good at all with people. Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah. Because they can take a dog and they can do these magical things with this dog. But when it comes time to relay that information to the owner, they really don't have that skill set. And someone like me, and I'm not saying I do it the best at by any stretch of imagination. However, I have had so much experience in the service industries from a retail standpoint or from the fitness business where I was constantly one-on-one with someone.

13:07And that I attribute my success or the success of this company by one hard work, good work with what we do. And you can't be just good with people. You have to be good at your craft as well. We are very good at training dogs. We understand canine behavior. I would be embarrassed to tell you how much money I have spent on education just for dog training alone, but all of that would be fine and good, but would not work out as well if we were not able to communicate that information to the dog owner. because at the end of the day, I don't need another fluffy. I don't need another rip. I need a client that can take that dog and make that dog look as good, if not better than I can make that dog look.

13:58But it's, it's, that's, that would be, I would say one of the biggest attributes to our success is the ability to teach the other end of the leash, not just the, the, the end of the leash It has the pause on the ground. Okay. So how do you balance your personal life with the demands of running your business? Man, what's that? Personal life. Yeah. Yeah, man. So this is the thing, you know, I, again, when it, when it all goes down, when it all falls, when all the dust settles, I'm still going to be there editing videos. I'm still going to be editing pictures. I'm still going to be doing an online class or setting up the next thing that I'm doing, answering emails, answering phone calls.

14:45I still do that. So I call that the, you know, the 501. Like I clock in at 501. Even though I'm at the kennel at 7 o 'clock in the morning, staff starts rolling in from there. We close our doors at 5 o 'clock, and then I clock in, right? So then I'm doing all of the other stuff that did not get handled during the day. Maybe I don't like where a particular dog is at, so I get that dog back out and I work that dog until I get to a point where I'm saying, okay, this is good for this particular dog for the night. And then I go into the other stuff. So personal life and business life, they all kind of mesh together.

15:27Uh, my fiance who will, uh, be my wife in about 10 days understands that the, the business is the life. And although we're not, you know, 100 % just grinding it out every single day, every minute of the day with dogs, I, you still have to have that mindset of, uh, of work. So yes, we'll go out and we'll, we'll have a nice dinner, but then I'll come back and let dogs out. or maybe we'll set it up with staff or we'll take a few days to go do something here and there. But a lot of our quote unquote vacation trips are wrapped around maybe a seminar that I'm teaching or a clinic that I'm going to as a student.

16:08So it all kind of intertwines. So I don't look at, and it may not be the most healthy thing, but I'm still in that era of growth. And I want to know everything about the entire aspect of the business that I have going on. So in order to achieve that, there's really not a ton of, you would never see me going like, hey, I'm just going to take the week off and go to the beach and lounge around. Like that's not even my style. I think I would probably be in a deep depression at the end of that quote unquote vacation because I enjoy every aspect of the work. Okay. And congratulations, by the way, you said you're going to give me getting married here in 10 days.

16:52You said, yeah, man, it's, uh, you know, it's, um, it's, it's fun, man. You know, uh, you know, later in life, once you, you kind of realize, you know, what you're looking for, what you want, um, you know, and things kind of start falling into place. It's a good feeling, you know, so it's not like we're two kids right out of college or whatever, making bad decisions. It's, uh, it's, uh, it's, it's good, man. We're definitely both excited about it for sure. Oh, that's awesome. All right. And we kind of talked about this a little bit earlier. You're kind of talking about your staff quite a bit. So let's dig into that a little bit further.

17:25What qualities do you look for in employees and how do you foster a positive and productive work environment?

17:34So I, three words, attention to detail. Attention to detail is everything, not in just this business, but in every business. When we have trainers come through our train the trainer program, I harp on them about attention to detail. Attention to detail will make a good business great or a good business tank. You know, it's just one of those things that if you don't have attention to detail, then you certainly don't need to be working around animals because an animal will tell you something. And if you but if you're not paying attention to it, you won't catch it. So we. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that we have all these systems in place that are fail safe, but a lot of that, a lot of those quote unquote systems derive from the staff.

18:28And it's an ongoing battle. And what I'm looking for in a staff and a dog trainer is someone that, and this is more specifically catered to around our business, I'm looking for someone that has a passion for animals. I'm looking for someone that can leave their emotions in the car before they walk inside because we don't want to be emotional when we're working with dogs. You have to understand in the dog training business or in the dog world in general, they don't speak English. Like you would never have a dog on a podcast answering questions, you know, because they don't speak. They can only understand the words that you have taught them.

19:07So I'm looking for somebody that has patience. I'm looking for someone that's eager to learn every day because the dog is going to teach you something. Every dog is different and you have to train the dog in front of you. And I think as a whole, that's another attribute that makes us so good at what we do is we don't, there's no cookie cutter format to training a dog. So if you can be at work on time, because obviously that is a huge thing when you're dealing with animals, be at work on time, dedication to the craft, continually wanting to learn, and pay attention to detail. And I tell everyone, I tell everyone when we're sitting down, have an interview, because we're not to the point yet where we have an HR or anything like that, or we have people doing interviews.

19:54I do every interview. I still answer the phone. So if you call any of the numbers, it goes to my number because we're even though we are two locations deep, several employees, we've had over 2300 dogs come through our board and train program over the last seven years. I still don't I don't want to lose that grassroots feel to where you can pick up the phone and call me and ask a question in regards to your dog. Or if you have questions about whether or not Revolutionary Canine is right for you, that you won't pick up the phone and actually talk to the person that created the business in general.

20:30So but in the interview, back to that, I tell them that all I really want you to do is try to outwork me. and it's, that's no, that's no easy task, Cliff. I'm going to tell you, man, because I hit the ground running every single day and I've had employees look at me before and say, man, we're just not built like that. You know? And I'm like, bro, you, I'm 27 years, you're elder, and you're going to sit here and tell me you're not built like this. I was like, so we, we either need to go back to the building, the, you know, the building blocks and figure this thing out, or you might need to find something else to do because it's not, it's not, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that every single day is just sunshine and rainbows, man.

21:15Sometimes, I mean, some days it's, it's rough around here, but at the end of the day, the, the finished product is, is, I don't know, man, it's, you know, I'm not, I'm not trying to be all hallmarky with it, but that's what it's all about. You know, being able to take a dog that let's say this person has not even been able to take out in public in fear of this dog biting someone, you know, taking that dog from that person, working that dog through its demons, and then making that transition from trainer to dog to now the, the owner is actually the trainer and the handler. Um, it's, it's harmony, man.

21:55And that's, that's what it's all about. And the one reason I tell people in these trainer classes that I teach, I give you this information or I'm teaching you this information because I know that what I'm telling you is not going to make you a million dollars. What I'm telling you has to go with your work ethic. And at the end of the day, I just, and this is maybe creeping out on some arrogance, man, but I don't think that there's too many people out there in the world that's going to or willing to outwork me. And I try my best to to bestow that on our employees. And, and that's, that's, again, that's what I'm looking for in staff.

22:34I really want someone that's going to come to work, grind it out, not, you know, not ask, you know, how can we do this easier necessarily? No, let's just get it done. And that way, because our, first and foremost animal welfare is at the top of our list. And a lot of times, man, you have to die to self in order to make sure that the dogs get everything that they want. Mm hmm. OK. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah. So now we're going to head into the quickfire round. So basically how this works is I'm going to say a word and I want you to give me the first thing that pops into your mind when you hear that word in regards to running your business.

23:12Well, you kind of talked about this first one here a little bit before. So let's get into a little bit more education. Education. Education is the top, man, is the top. I tell people all the time, you cannot, no one can take your knowledge from you. So I am that guy. I geek out on it. Whatever I'm on, I'm on. That's why it's probably a good thing. I never got into drugs, man, because I have the most addictive personality. If I'm on something, man, I'm on it. And education is just, you can't beat it because in this world, especially not this, not just a dog training business, but, but heck man, look how far technology has advanced just in the last 10 years.

23:57You know, you would never 10 years ago, 20, uh, 20 years ago, you're not thinking about sitting down, listening to a podcast, right? You're looking at the newspaper. You're, you know, you're reading stuff out of a book. It's, it's one of those things that technology alone has advanced so much. And if you don't stay up on the times and you are going to be left, and although what worked 40 years ago will still work today, it's just not as efficient. So I want to know everything that I can about what I've got going on right now. And education, education is something I would pay for over and over and over again, because that's, I mean, that's how passionately I feel about that.

24:37I think education is key. Now, do I think that you need to go out and go, you know, get a master's degree in marketing or business and that's not even what you're on right now? No, I think that's ridiculous. But if you're, if you want to be a welder, I mean, go take every single welding class that you can, perfect your trade, be that guy, be the expert, be the one that doesn't have to say, oh, let me get back to you on that, you know, and speak it and like they say, Say it with your chest. Have the ability, have that knowledge base to where when somebody asks you a question, you can firmly stand on that and say, this is not only what I know to be true, this is also what I have done and seen this full force.

25:22It's just like with education, I'm sure you've heard of Bloom's taxonomy. You know, in the beginning, that first stage of learning is just memorization. We can't really do a whole lot with memorization and still we start being able to apply and create our own thing. And that's where education is the forefront of everything, in my opinion. Planning. You said money? I'm sorry, planning. Planning. Oh, you're talking to the wrong guy, man. I plan as I go, dude. Like it's not, um, so yeah, planning for me, I'm not, I'm not that type a person. I, I, I literally take things and run with it. Just like this podcast, you say, you know, in the email that I read, there's going to be no scripts.

26:05You're not going to get questions ahead of time. Why? Because you want, you want the real stuff. You want people to say what's on their heart. You want people, I mean, look at this. You say, okay, now the quick fire round, I'm going to give you a word. You tell me something about that word. There's no planning in that. Right. And I think that the people that have to sit down and make a plan may not be actually running that business through passion. I think passion would be a better word than planning. Now, my future wife, who is a CPA, she would crawl in her seat if she heard because her thing is like, what's the plan?

26:39I don't have a plan. Like, okay, I'll give you a quick story if you got time. I'll give you a quick story about when I started this company and I was sitting across from the vice president of a bank. And the guy said, well, what do you need to do today? And I said, well, I just need to open up a business checking account. And he said, okay, it'll just be this, this, that, and the other. Do you need any money today? And I was like, yeah, I always need money. What are you giving out? And he said, well, I mean, I don't know if you need to take out a capital loan or something like that. And I said, sure, we can do that.