E: 1 Why Most Horse Businesses Stay Stuck (and how to fix it)

Why are so many talented equine professionals stuck — even when they're working hard and genuinely good at what they do? In this first episode, we're makes the case that the problem isn't effort or skill. Its structure.

Topics covered:

• Why hustle alone will never build a sustainable horse business
• The critical difference between craft skill and business skill
• The five most common reasons equine businesses plateau
• What actually fixes it — and where to start this week

Whether you're a farrier, bodyworker, trainer, veterinarian, or nutritionist, this episode will reframe how you think about your business — and give you one concrete action to take before the next episode drops.

Keywords: equine business, horse business, farrier business, equine professional, horse trainer business, profitable horse business, equine entrepreneur, horse business growth

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Alright, let me ask you something. You're good at what you do, right? Maybe you're great. You've put in the hours, you've been to all the clinics, you've done all the certific certifications, you've had hands-on experience, maybe even years and years and years of hands-on experience. You know your craft. Your clients trust you, and their horses respond to you. And yet, the business side of things feels like you are constantly pushing a boulder uphill. You're busy, but not necessarily profitable. You're working hard, but not building something. You keep waiting for like things to click, to fall into place, more clients, more word of mouth, more something, and it's just not happening the way you imagined it would. The way it looks like it's happening for other people, even. But here's what I want you to understand. Number one, it's not because you're not good enough, and it's not because you're not working hard enough, because skill and structure are two completely different things, and most horse businesses have a whole lot of the first thing, a whole lot of skill, and almost none of the second. And so that is what we're going to dive into today. Welcome to the Profitable Horse Business Podcast, the show for equine professionals who are dead serious about building a business that actually works. And I don't just mean works as in you have clients and makes money, makes some money, but I mean actually works. When you take the the horse math out of it, if you will. So that doesn't matter if you're a farrier, if you're a veterinarian, if you're a body worker, a trainer, a nutritionist, a coach, I hear the same complaint echoed across equine professionals. If horses are at the center of what you do, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Audrey. If this is your first time listening, allow me to take a second to introduce myself. If you've listened to my human podcast or my equine podcast, you might know quite a bit about me. My background is a little unconventional, and that's what's going to make this podcast different. For a significant stretch for my career, I was doing several things at once. I have had my own functional health practice in the human world for over 20 years. During that time, I was in school, I was adding certifications. I went from a master's degree in science to a master's degree in nursing to a uh postgraduate certificate in uh F to a doctorate in traditional naturopathy, all the while adding certifications for equine nutrition and body work and all the things, right? At the same time, because I cannot sit still, I was also embedded in other people's businesses, mostly as a consultant, because I had run a marketing business before I ever got into healthcare. So I was mostly in there as a consultant, sometimes as a team of a consultant, but I was running the growth function of those businesses myself, scaling them to six figures, multiple six figures, and to beyond seven figures, not watching from the outside, actually doing it. So when people ask me how I know what I know about business, that's how. It's not theory. I don't have an MBA. My husband went and got an MBA. Um, but it was real businesses, real numbers, real decisions happening in real time while I was also building something of my own. And I'll be forever thankful for the experiences that I had in other people's businesses because it allowed me to see from the very small scale to the very large scale and implement things and see what worked and see what didn't. And it works, right? So about 10 years into my functional practice, I grew the horse business. I added the horse business and it grew too. And what I found in the equine world was a community full of incredibly talented, deeply passionate professionals and a staggering gap in business knowledge. Not because horse people aren't smart, they are. They're some of the smartest, most intuitive people I know, but because the industry doesn't teach it. It doesn't come with um uh this information in your classes, and and because you can't be good at it all, you can't teach at all. Uh, and most equine professionals come up through the ranks learning their craft, not their commerce. And that gap between skill and structure is exactly what this podcast exists to close. We're closing the gap, we're narrowing the distance. So whether you've been at this for 20 years or you're just getting started, welcome. And I am so glad that you are here. So let's start with something I just want to say plainly because I think it has to be said. Effort is not a business strategy. Now, I'm not suggesting that effort doesn't matter. It absolutely does. 100%. You have to put in the effort in this industry, especially, because often you're showing up physically, mentally, often emotionally, every single day. I am well aware. I've been part of the early mornings, the late nights, the long drives between clients. I know what it costs to do this work. But the trap that so many people fall into, so many equine professionals fall into, is that they believe if they just work harder, they grind more. And you do have to have a significant amount of grind. Please don't let me undersell you on grind. But if you just do more, if you're already grinding and you you add more clients, you add more hours, you add more hustle, that eventually the business part takes care of itself. The profit part takes care of itself. And it it won't, it doesn't. And I don't say that to be harsh, but I say it because I've watched it play out over and over and over again. Talented, dedicated professionals who are genuinely excellent at what they do, burn themselves out, spin their wheels, wonder why the numbers never quite add up. The effort is there, the intention is there, but there is no structure. And the thing about structure is that it's not glamorous. It's not the exciting part, it's not hands-on horses, it's not helping horses with nutrition, it's not, you know, your performance, if you're a performance vet, it's not, you know, in the weeds taking care of a horse and helping them get better. But a structure is what turns a job that is slowly killing you into a business. Structure is what lets you work less and earn more. Structure is what make growth feel sustainable instead of how the heck am I gonna get through all of these clients, right? So if you've been pouring yourself into this work and wondering why you're not further along, I want you to genuinely consider is the problem your effort or is it your systems? I would bet on the systems every single time. Almost every time, anyways. If you're listening to this, I'm gonna assume that you are one that is putting in the effort, right? And when we think of the equine industry as a whole, I think it's not discussed enough that being good at what you do does not necessarily make you successful in your business or even good at running your business. They are two entirely separate skill sets. And in this world, you need both to succeed. And I'm gonna harp on bets again because I see this a lot. Uh, you know, we have the whole shortage of equine vets for a number of reasons. A lot of veterinarians, people who might have gone into large animal practice are going into small animal practice because it's more eight to five, it's more profitable, all these things. It's not that being an equine vet can't be profitable, it's that you have to understand systems. So I'm gonna use farrier as an example this time. Think about it this way. A farrier can have the best eye for movement and balance. They can be doing continuing education, they can be uh, you know, putting on a balanced shoe every time. Their horses hold their work longer than anyone else's. That's a craft. That's skill that's earned through years of dedicated practice and study. But that same farrier may have no idea how to price their services profitably. They might be terrible at collecting on late invoices. And guys, this is not just farriers. I hear this from farriers, vets, bodyworkers, and I'm like, why are you driving to their house if they're not gonna pay you? Right? But that farrier, that same farrier who is amazing at their craft might have zero referral systems. So when a client moves away, that relationship just evaporates. They might be so busy and reactive to scheduling that they never look, not even one time, at if their their routes through their, let's call it a territory, even though, you know, whatever region they're working in, um, are even efficient. That's not a farer problem. It's not just farriers that have that problem. You can replace farrier in that story with bodyworker, nutritionist, veterinarian, sometimes trainer, especially for the the young trainers who are just starting out and they're kind of like half saddle. What was one I had saw one the other day of a uh a trainer that's like half saddle will travel or something like that was their motto. Meaning a trainer that will come to you. Most people in the equine industry are so reactive to scheduling and other situations, they don't even know where they're at. The skill is there, the business infrastructure is not. And guys, I get it, it's the boring part. But I want to be sure that you understand that while I'm harping on this, I'm also really empathetic about this because nobody taught you this. Nobody taught me this. I learned it the hard way. If you come up through an apprenticeship, if you learned your craft, if you went to school for equine science or vet medicine or any of the certifications in this space, you learned your craft. Nobody sat you down and said, Okay, now let's talk about how to structure your service offerings, how to build a client retention system, how to know whether or not you're profitable or you're just covering your costs before the end of the year when you add it all up. That information is generally not part of the package. So when you went out into the world, you hung your shingle, you started doing the things that you were trained to do, the business side, you've kind of been bootstrapping it, figuring it out as you go, trial and error, maybe doing what this guy did, right? But most of the time alone. So it feels like your business is failing despite you doing all the right things, but it's not failure. It's just the reality of how this industry, and frankly, a lot of industries work. It's very much mirrored in in the human uh industries as well. And for healthcare practitioners, for physicians, um, that's why, you know, it's uh a lot of physicians these days are also getting MBAs, which is not necessarily what I think you should get. Uh, because I think an MBA it does teach some things, of course. My husband has a lot of ideas and information, especially on the operation side, that I probably wouldn't have come up with alone. However, it's by in my opinion, by the time it's in college classes, it's in it's a dated idea for the most part. There are, of course, you know, some foundational things, but I digress. So I want you to know from the other side of this, from my side of this, where I have a structure and a profitable business that you don't have to be a uh natural-born entrepreneur to run a successful business. I hope lots of people do it in lots of industries that were not uh kind of that natural-born entrepreneur. You don't have to love spreadsheets. I flippin' hate spreadsheets. You don't have to have an MBA. What you do need is to understand a small number of foundational principles and apply them consistently. That's it. Fundamentals applied consensus consistently. It's not complicated, it's not sexy, it's not just instinct, especially when nobody, when you've never been exposed to it, when nobody has ever shown it to you. I want to pull back the curtain a little bit here because I think context matters, and I think the context of how I learned what I know is actually relevant to whether or not you want to trust about what I'm going to tell you. And so, as I said in the intro, for a long stretch of my career, I wasn't doing just one thing. I'm not doing just one thing now. I still occasionally consult on other people's businesses. Um, I don't look for that uh privilege, but people come and ask me and we do that. Um, I have a full book of equine clients and a full book of human clients that is booked out for six, eight weeks in advance and paid six, eight weeks in advance. But for a long time, I was doing several things simultaneously. I was running my own functional health practice, seeing clients, building a business, figuring out the exact same stuff that I'm talking to you about today. Um, I was in school, I was adding certifications. Uh, I was also, again, consulting with other people's businesses, growing them up to seven figures and beyond. I was also, uh, you know, halfway through that journey starting my equine business. All of those things grew that to multiple six figures. I want to be clear about what this means because I think it, I think it matters. I was not sitting in an office theorizing business strategy. I was inside real companies in various industries, including equine industries and health industries and the restaurant industry, as odd as that is, and online teaching industries. And I was uh uh what was one? One was hospital operations industry, one was um project management consulting, like all kinds of different things. Uh and all while I was doing that all while running my own practice, adding a practice, and continuing my own education. That season of my life was a lot. I still, like I said, I don't sit still well, so I still run at full pace most of the time. But what came out of that very uh busy time period was a depth of understanding about business that I don't think I could have gotten any other way. Because I wasn't just learning from other businesses, I was learning in my own at the same time, applying things in real time, and I was seeing what translated across industries and what didn't. I was building an instinct for what actually moves the needle versus what just sounds good in a book. And when I built the horse business, I got to do it with all of that already in my toolkit. So, everything I knew, well, you know, even with everything I knew, the equine world still had things to teach me, right? Client relationships are different, emotional stakes are different, people are deeply attached to their animals in a way that changes how you communicate, how you handle difficult conversations, how you build trust. There's a seasonality to the business, the physical demands of the work when I was doing more in-person work. Uh, and then even the the way referrals move through barn communities. There are layers to this industry that are very specific to the equine industry. But the fundamentals, the foundational business principles that determine whether a business grows or stalls are universal. Pricing strategy, client retention, financial clarity, referral systems, building something that doesn't require you to personally like strap it together and hold it together every single day. That stuff works in every industry, including the e-coin industry. And so that's what I want to bring to you in this podcast. Not theory, not a business school framework that has never touched the real world, but a perspective that was built in the trenches across multiple businesses and industries, including two of my own that are still thriving 20 and 10 years later, and then applied here in the ecoine space where I've lived it working and I've watched it work. So when I I tell you that the problems you're experiencing are fixable, I'm not saying that just because I want to be like, oh, fluff you up and be encouraging. I mean, I do want to be encouraging and positive, but I'm saying it because I've seen it happen repeatedly and have made it happen. And so that's the foundation that we're building on here in uh in the Profitable Horse Business Podcast. So, let's talk about why horse businesses stay stuck. The real reasons. This is kind of the meat of this podcast. Uh I'm gonna walk you through the patterns I see most consistently, and I want you to be honest with yourself as you're listening and see if any of these resonate. Number one, biggest thing I see, no pricing strategy. Just a number. Most equine professionals set their price based on one of two things. Number one, what they think the market will bear, or number two, what everyone else is charging. Neither of those is a pricing strategy, though that might not be the wrong thing to do directly out of school. In fact, I encourage my certified equine functional nutrition practitioners to look around at what's being charged in their area and start there. If we are looking, and and nutrition consulting is a little bit different because it doesn't have to be done in person, but a pricing strategy actually starts with your cost. And that starts with knowing what those are. Do you know what it costs you truly? Your time, your supplies, your vehicle, your insurance, your continuing education, depending on what avenue you're in, what those are the costs that go into what it costs you to deliver your service. Do you know what your actual hourly rate works out to after expenses? And do you know your break-even point? Most people don't. Most people don't even want to look. I'm uh for real, most people don't even want to look. They have a number that feels okay, that doesn't get much pushback, and that's what they stick with. And then on the backside of that, while they're at home or while they're trying to pay their bills, they wonder why that money never feels like enough. Pricing is a system and it requires math, not vibes, right? And when you actually do the math, and I'm not talking about horse girl math, calling myself out here, sometimes it's eye-opening in a way that explains a lot. I made the same mistake with the minerals metals main test for a long time. And I was making, by the time I figured in the cost that the test cost me, and then my time, and then the time I worked with a client, and then all the follow-up time, I was losing money on every single test. Right? Reason number two, the business that runs on referrals alone with no intentional referral system. Let me preface this by saying world of mouth referrals are wonderful. They are the best, they are what I survive on. Like that is my business, is so many world of mouth referrals. In this industry, they are often the primary driver of new business, and that is a good thing. The problem is when referrals are your only strategy and they are entirely passive. You just kind of hope people will mention you. You're not creating conditions that make referrals more likely, you're not nurturing relationships that, you know, in a way that keeps you top of mind. You're just kind of waiting, right? You're not responsive, you're not proactive. The referrals as a strategy, if that's what your business runs on, and most, like I said, most of the e-coin industry does, that is not a business development strategy. That is hope. Hope is not a plan, and it doesn't always work out, right? So you have to have a plan. Problem number three uh over reliance on hustle in an effort to compensate for lack of symptoms. Symptoms systems. This one's probably the most common. It's the most insidious because on the surface, it looks like success. You're busy, you're booked, you're moving, people want you, and that is awesome. But you're the system, meaning you are the only reason anything runs. And that means if you are sick or injured or need a week off, everything stops, including your paycheck. There's no leverage, there's no capacity for growth because you're already maxed out. You can't bring anyone else in because nothing is documented or standardized. You've built yourself a very, very busy and probably not very well paying job. Not a business. You can do that and work for anyone, right? And take all the risk out of it. A business can, in theory, operate without you in it every single day. A job requires you to show up every single day. Most equine professionals, if you're really being honest with yourself, you have a job. And you went into this to help the horses, of course, but also to have a business, to build a business, the freedom that that brings. The fourth problem I see is not understanding the numbers. And this is kind of like number one, but I'm not just talking about pricing. I'm talking about the full financial pictures. I know it makes you want to plug your ears and cover your eyes, right? I get it. It it has it for me too in the past, especially early on in my human practice and even early on on in my equine business, because I it started as an oopsie. I never intended it to be what it is. So when it started as an oopsie, it was just like, don't let me lose money on this, right? Like, that's all I wanted to do. Now, the full financial picture is revenue, its expenses, its profit margin, its cash flow. And I want you to answer honestly do you know right now whether or not you're profitable? Do you? You might feel like you are, but are you really? Do you know which of your service offerings actually makes you the most money? Not just an idea, but truly. Have you done the math? Have you sat down? Even if it's on a scratch paper. I told you at the very beginning of the episode I hate spreadsheets. I'm terrible at them. I like to write it down. I have a whole notebook. My current one is, and it's not even a fancy notebook. My current one, oh, it might be fancy. It's a five-star notebook. When I was in school, I remember five stars. Like you were way cooler if you had a five-star rather regular than a regular uh spiral notebook. But full financial picture. Revenue expenses, profit margin, cash flow. Are you profitable right now? That's question number one. Number two, do you know which service offering actually makes you money versus which ones make you busy? Because there can be a difference. Do you know what your average client lifetime value is? These are not hard numbers to find to put together. They're not complicated concepts, but most horse business owners, like I said, I don't care if you are a veterinarian or a farrier or a body worker or a nutritionist or a saddle fitter or a trainer or a boarding barn, although, or a lesson barn. Although those two aren't my, you know, specialty, if you will. You can apply it to that too. Most horse business owners don't know their numbers because they've been too busy doing the work in the business to look at the business. And if you don't know your numbers, you cannot make good decisions. You are flying blind. Reason number five, and this is a big one, and it's really specific, and I don't want you to feel called out, but undercharging out of passion or guilt. This one is really specific to people who do what they do because they love it. And I I get it. I started there. Most people in the equine world do what they do because they love horses. They want to help as many horses as possible. And that is absolutely a beautiful thing. And I encourage it. But it can also quietly sabotage your business. When you love what you do, there's a push to make it accessible, to not feel like you're just in it for the money, to keep prices low because you don't want horses to go without care. And those are all genuinely good impulses. But the practical reality behind that is if you undercharge to the point where the business doesn't sustain you, you eventually have to stop doing it. And then you can't take care of horses or these clients. And you've burned yourself out, probably physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially. Charging appropriately is not greed, it's sustainability. And sustainable is what allows you to be there for a long haul. It's what allows a bodyworker to make it a career, not a side hustle. It is what allows a veterinarian to stay in large animal practice, not pivot and go to small animal practice or quit altogether. So, what does that actually look like? What does the fix look like? I'm going to be really straightforward with you here. It's not one thing. It's a lot of small things done consistently. I've used that word consistently a lot throughout this episode. Consistency, consistency, consistency. And this is actually good news because small things are doable. You don't have to overhaul your entire business overnight. You just need to take a step in the right direction. So here's a few areas to focus on to get started. Number one, know your numbers. Before you change anything, before you change anything, before you take your next continuing education, unless it's required for licensure and you have to do it, get clarity on your financial picture. What are your actual costs? What is your real hourly rate? That means after expenses, including your education, your mileage, all those things. What is your revenue each month? And what is actually left over after you pay for everything it takes to run your business? That's your gross and net profit. If you don't know these numbers, finding out is your first job. Not because these numbers are fun, they suck, right? You might find out good news. You might be like, oh my god, yes, I'm crushing it. On the backside to that, you might be like, What am I where's that money go? That's always my husband's question is well, I see what you made, but what did you do with that money? I'm like, ugh, ponies, right? But the numbers also might not be good. But here's the thing: you cannot make good decisions in the dark. So you have to know these numbers, no matter how uncomfortable it is. Second, build your pricing on math, not market pressure. Once you know your cost, you can price to be actually profitable. And this might mean an uncomfortable conversation raising your rates. It almost almost always does. And it that feels super scary. I've had to do a number of price raises throughout my 20 total years in business and 10 years in the equine business. But I'll tell you what I've seen over and over and over again. When equine professionals raise their prices, when it's done thoughtfully, communicated well, the world doesn't end, even though it feels like it's going to. Often you might lose a price-sensitive client or two, and genuinely, you or generally, excuse me, you gain clients who respect the value. And then oftentimes, if a client leave, this has been my experience, if you raise prices, and I usually give a little cushion, so I give warning, I communicate it well, I give a coupon code for repeat clients, all I do all the things, right? Even if the client goes somewhere else and they're like, oh, well, I found somebody to do X, Y, and Z. They don't get the same results nine times out of ten, and they come back, right? But the good thing is revenue goes up, resentment goes down. So your prices should reflect the skill, the expertise, and and the real cost of delivering excellence service full stop. Number three, the third thing to focus on, right? So first we're knowing our numbers, second, we're building our pricing on math, not market pressure. Third, that now, building your price on math, that doesn't mean not to look at what's happening in your area. Like I, uh friend of mine that's a trainer and I'm always pushing her to increase her prices, even though it means that I'm gonna have to pay more for her service. A lot of times her pushback is, quote, in this area. So what do we have to do to elevate ourselves above the trainer down the street? Because she does way better than the trainer down the street. I would never take a horse to the trainer down the street. But how do we communicate that better, right? Third thing to do is stop being the system and start building one. Pick one thing in your business that happens over and over and over again. I uh always tell my team if it happens more than twice, you need to write that down. You need to make an SOP. So things like client onboarding, scheduling, follow-up after orders or appointments or whatever it is. Write down how you do it. Document it. Create a repeatable process, even if for now it's just for you. That is the very beginning of building infrastructure. And it's how you create, how you start to create, anyway, something that grows, scales, or runs without requiring every ounce of your energy. Number four, get intentional about client relationships. Again, the best source of new business is existing business. It's your existing clients. Are you staying in touch? Are you adding value between appointments? Are you making it easy for them to refer people to you? Are you creating the kind of experience that makes people want to tell their barn friends about you? And I'm not, I don't want you to give people discounts for referrals, but that's that's an episode for a different day. Referrals are great, but passive hope is not a referral strategy. So you have to get intentional about this. And then number five, treat this like a business, not just a calling. Sounds blunt. I know, and I mean it with the utmost respect. I mean it with the full I'm well, I mean it with the utmost respect. I am saying it with my full chest because I am also in the same boat. The fact that you love what you do is absolutely a gift, but that love alone will not pay your bills, fund your retirement, pay for your kids' college fund, or keep you in business long enough to serve the clients and horses who need you. Period. You are allowed to build something profitable. If you want me to go down that route, profitable is biblical. You're allowed to be both excellent at your craft and excellent at business. Those two things are not conflicting ideas. And in fact, the second one, being excellent at business, is what makes the first one sustainable. So, I've harped on that a bit. Maybe too much. So I want to talk to you a little bit about what's coming up on this podcast, what you can expect from this show, because I want you to know what you're signing up for when you click follow. I'm trying to make this podcast as practical as possible. I'm not necessarily here to inspire you, although I hope to do that and send you off feeling fuzzy. I hope that happens sometimes too. But primarily, I want you to walk away from every single episode with something you can actually use, a concept that changes or pivots the way you're thinking, a question that you can go apply in your own business, a framework that makes something clearer than it was before you listened. We're gonna talk about pricing, we're gonna talk about client relationships, we're gonna talk about retention, we're gonna talk about referral systems that actually work, we're gonna talk about scaling and marketing and what it means in this industry and what it requires. We're gonna talk about financial fundamentals that most equine professionals have never once been taught. We will also, of course, talk about the mindset stuff too, because I've seen incredibly smart, capable people stay stuck, not because they didn't have all the information in the world, but because they were holding beliefs around money and worth and what they deserve and guilt from childhood stuff and all that stuff was cliently, quietly running the show. We're gonna get into all of it. This is episode one, or the official episode one. Technically it's episode two, because they wouldn't let me create an episode zero. But if you've made it this far, I'm so glad you're here. This tells me you're someone who's serious about building something real, and that is exactly who this show is for. Now, let me leave you with one last thing that I want you to take away from today. You are not stuck because you're not working hard enough. You are not stuck because you're not talented enough. And you are not stuck because the e-coin industry is too hard or too broken or too small or too saturated or whatever it is that you might be telling yourself. You are stuck, if you are stuck, because you have been running on skill and effort alone without any structure underneath it. And structure is what allows the business to actually grow. And that is fixable. It's so fixable, absolutely fixable. The first step is just being honest with yourself about where those gaps are. Not with judgment, just clarity. Because you can't fix what you won't look at. Take a good look at your numbers this week. Not a panicked look, just a curious one. What do you actually make? What does it actually cost you to run this business? And is the math working in your favor? That's it. That's your homework, and we'll build from there. So thank you so much for listening to the very first official episode of the Profitable Horse Podcast. If this resonated with you, I would love you to share it with other equine professionals who need to hear it. Word of mouth, as we established today, is so powerful. I will see you in the next episode.