This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Dylan Blau. What does dog training have to do with massive success in entrepreneurship? A lot actually. Dylan is the founder of Epic Dog Pros and a professional dog training expert and behaviorist. He has rehabilitated thousands of dogs; training some of the most challenging cases from extreme aggression to dogs scared of everything. His consistency & dependability is incomparable allowing him to do what others cannot.
Aside from that, he is a Public Figure, Mentor, Life Coach, and social media/PR wizard who used these tools to create all of his businesses and grow exponentially. In fact, hacking social media was the key to showcasing his talents in dog training to the world and making him known selling millions’ worth of dog training programs. Nowadays, he works with Celebrities, YouTube Influencers, Facebook Public Figures, Authors & other Social Media Celebrities to help them maximize their selling potential on social media.
So, going back to my question at the beginning. What does dog training have to with massive entrepreneur success? Dylan’s shares how he used everything he knows about dog training to create a massive brand and business.
@WeAreDogTraining on Instagram
Dylan has been training dogs for 13 years and never expected to be in that business. He originally went to school for musical theatre and even did standup comedy for a while. He thought he was headed into acting. He ended having an opportunity in Arizona to work with dogs and learn lessons from watching Cesar Milan. This inspired him and a friend to rescue dogs and train them. And he did. He found he understood it almost intuitively and continued to develop the skill. He felt that he needed to share his knowledge and what he learned to help others learn it.
As he went down the entrepreneur path, he found people like Tai Lopez and others. He immersed himself in learning top minds. This let him to fall in love with social media as it became an amazing stage for him to share everything he was doing. It began to take off. After training thousands of dogs and being known for really helping problem dogs and aggressive dogs, his teachings have been adopted by many throughout the world.
“Training a dog is solving a problem. And working with animals is almost more fun than working with people as they don’t give you excuses. They only show you their limitations. The problems to solve.”
Humans put up barriers and resistance. People can go to therapy for years and never solve their problems. And several years ago, Dylan doubled down on his brand on social media as a dog trainer and he now has hundreds of thousands of followers across many platforms and ways to get to his teaching and training. His whole business literally runs on social media and has allowed him to sell millions in his programs.
During Covid, he offered to help others with the strategies he has used to grow online and now his latest business, The Blau Agency has grown tremendously.
What are the principles that make for successful dog training that relate well to entrepreneurship?
- Consistency – Training a dog is all about creating a consistent day to day routine of actions that will help the dog to grow and progress. It is the same with an entrepreneur. Every day you work on the same things and trying to get better at them. Clarity –
- Clarity is one of the biggest reasons why dog trainers and dogs, and business owners and entrepreneurs will succeed or not. Things must be clear, easy to follow, and understand. The opposite of clarity is confusion and when we and dogs get confused, we shut down. Dylan uses the example of ordering a black coffee vs. trying to figure out Starbucks’ men. Black coffee is easy and universal.
- Confidence: You need to build confidence in your dog just as you need to build confidence in yourself as a business owner or entrepreneur. Fear is a terrible motivator. Building confidence builds motivation and confidence comes from healthy communication that is clear (clarity) and consistent.
- Patience: You must be patient with the process as you put in the work in the other areas with a dog and as a business owner or entrepreneur.
At the 21-minute mark, we discuss these and my DCP formula in more detail and get into overcoming the challenges that happen even if you are doing well. We also discuss structure. It’s best to just listen.
- When you hit a roadblock, your ability to adapt, evolve, and problem solve comes down to your mantra (your battle cry) and your confidence/clarity in that you can work around it.
Talk to us about hacking social media to grow a business, what should we know?
- Social media are free platforms where you can show people who you are every day and get attention to your brand and your business.
- With the right strategy, it can seem effortless.
- Dylan explains social media using his father, who is a successful, old school entrepreneur who never used social media. These business can and will continue to succeed.
- But Dylan said that social media is “Missed Potential Income.”
- Instagram is one of the best platforms to be on.
- .Tik Tok is now a must and has taken over social media.
- LinkedIn is still good.
- Parler is a new one.
- Dylan focuses the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, and Youtube.
- Dylan learned that the more he showed people, the more they responded and connect with him.
- If you can use social media to make your customers feel like they know you, the more successful you will be.
- If people see you consistently with confidence and clarity talking about a topic that you know, they will come to you because you are always there when the time is right for them.
- Every day, Dylan wants people to see him, engage with him, and have an opportunity to interact with them.
- Dylan was not originally a fan of Tik Tok, but now in his mind, it is the #1 place to be currently. It is a goldmine for anybody and Tik Tok will allow you have to fund with social media – it is all about being relatable and vulnerable.
How are you able to put yourself across all these platforms, how much time are spending a day, and what is your strategy to monetize? How do you manage it all consistently every day?
- First, you need to present yourself in a way that gives you credibility. People judge your social media pages the way they judge a book cover.
- You want to develop your brand to be credible. It could be with PR, features, etc.
- Then you need to generate an outflow – a way to connect and develop a relationship.
- Relationships create opportunities.
- Connect with people – Dylan does this through Direct Messaging
- Opportunities create sales.
- Collaborations are important such as going on podcasts or with other social media influencers.
- You can certainly hire people to help you like VA’s or direct hires.
- Focus on what you are good and get help for the rest.
- At the 40 min mark, Dylan talks about how creates content and documents what he is doing as he goes.
- Documentary style content is the easiest to make. Show people the inside look at things.
- To collaborate – Dylan will go onto someone’s page and like 10 photos that he thinks is meaningful to the creator, then comment on 1-2 posts, then follows them. Once they respond and follow back, he direct messages them with a simple message to connect.
- He and his assistants send messages connecting every day.
“The more you know yourself the more you can show yourself.”
Any last thoughts?
- Have fun. Enjoy your life.
- Money is a result of doing what you love to do.
- Play the long game. Don’t think short term.
Best Quote: Training a dog is solving a problem. And working with animals is almost more fun than working with people as they don’t give you excuses. They only show you their limitations. The problems to solve.
Dylan's Misfit 3:
- Taking responsibility. You are wherever you are in life, because of everything you’ve done. You are in control.
- Ask for help. Life is more fun with people. Surround yourself with great people to help you grow.
- Have fun. Enjoy life! Believe in yourself to be yourself.
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