Upleveling your skills offers you the opportunity to open up increased income and refresh your business outlook. Join Kim and Cara this week as they discuss how they have both recently upleveled their skills and their offerings. You’ll find new ideas and a lot of inspiration.

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Welcome to The Business Animal podcast. Saddle up for a

gallop to the top of the animal industry, where you'll learn how

to tame your wild business beast with tips, techniques, and tools

that will take overwhelm to obedience school, and have you

wagging your tail with joy. And now your hosts, Kim Beer, and

Cara Taylor Swift.

Hey there business animals, it's Kim with

Be More Business

and Cara with Fast Horse Photography.

And welcome to The Business Animal. Today we're

going to be talking about up leveling your professional

skills. And this topic came to us because Cara has recently had

a wonderful experience with a videographer, but she's up here

and a colleague in visual storytelling, which is obviously

something photographers are interested in. So tell us about

that a little bit.

Yeah, I have been wanting to do this for a

while. So it's been on my goals list. And this year, you know,

when I sat down and I was planning, you know, what are the

big things that I'm going to work on this year for my

business. And one of those big goals was adding a video

component to my equine and equestrian portrait sessions. So

I had gone back and forth, I have bought an online course and

I you know, it just it didn't quite fit what I wanted. And I

tried some different things. So I decided to just go to the

source. And I went to Natalie McFarlane, who's amazing. And I

hired her to do some mentoring for me. And we spent a couple

days together. And it really I have to say I loved every minute

of learning something new. It's been a while since I really

spent some time just kind of up leveling and learning and

immersing myself in a dedicated way to something that was still

related to what I do, but a little bit different. And I have

to say, since Natalie has left, I've been making myself use the

skills and certainly felt re energized in some ways about how

I think about photography and the art of telling stories with

the use of our cameras. So I have to say that I'm excited

that we're talking about this, but it definitely was inspired

by some of the work that both Kim and I have done recently to

just grow our own businesses.

Absolutely, absolutely. And so we thought

you know a lot about sharing our experiences in entrepreneurship

has to do with sharing with each other the things that are

working for our businesses. And I think this is one of those

moments to share something that really has worked for both of

us. And very recently, both of us added to our skill set. And

we completely didn't bring into the whole conversation ahead of

time, Cara. We've also added the podcasting skill set to our

repertoire within the last year as well. That was a whole

learning curve, I guess we consider ourselves podcasting

veterans at this point. But bringing new skills into your

business is an important piece of things. And so our big three

for you today is one as to why you would want to do this is to

diversify your skill set and or add an income stream to your

already existing business. So we're going to talk about that.

The second reason you might want to consider up leveling your

skills would be to offer yourself a competitive advantage

or competitive differentiation. And then finally, it does keep

you fresh and motivated. Like Cara said, it feels like she's

re energized around her photography business. Cara, you

have some things here you wanted to talk about directly around

why you would want to do this a further thoughts that you have.

So why don't you share those at this time, and then we'll dig

into number one.

Yeah, I'm happy to So Kim just listed a

big three today for three reasons that we're going to

specifically talk about that you want to consider up leveling

your professional skills in your animal, equine, pet based

business, but there are actually a lot of different reasons I'm

just gonna briefly kind of run through them real quick.

Hopefully we will inspire you to dig into our big three when I do

but first of all up leveling you know, it's hard to think okay,

everything is working just fine. Right now my business is

working. I'm you know, creating an income for myself. Why would

I want to add something new to the mix? Right? So first of all,

it can open up new opportunities for you. And I can't sit here

and tell you exactly how but I have seen in my own business,

how when I learned something new and start to put it into use for

my business, how it has created new connections. I've met new

people, I've gotten new clients, and there's just so many things

around that. It's also when you have a new skill set that

something that differentiates you here we go with that word

again Kim remember I had a horrible time on that episode

when something that differentiates you from the

crowd from your competition that's going to be appealing to

consumers out there looking for someone like you, it's gonna be

appealing to those new potential clients. And it's also something

new that you can provide to your existing clients. So people come

back to you, maybe they need to work with you again, you know,

how do you take what you've already provided to them, and

then uplevel, that service to them with your new skill. Now

they have new things, to brag on you about new things to talk

about new things to share online. I mean, there's all

these different things that are happening as a result of them

being able to talk about, you know, working with you, it also

the biggest one, it really helps you remain relevant in your

industry. Think about what has happened just in the last two

years with COVID, the world is changing so fast, right?

Technology is changing things around us how we do business,

it's changing. And we have to be able to adapt as business

owners. So having some new skill sets and learning new things is

a great way for you to remain relevant to what's happening in

your industry right now. And not only remain relevant, you don't

need to be running behind everyone. I think if you can be

the person in your industry that's setting those trends.

That's the one that's coming up with the ideas first, that's

making those changes and adding things to your business that

other businesses like yours haven't, that's really giving

you a competitive advantage. Adding new skill sets can also

help you diversify the services and the products that you offer.

So thinking about that in terms of how can I pivot this into

something that I can sell to a client, you know, or that I can

offer as a service upgrade. So thinking about it that way, I've

already mentioned that it you know, has really opened new

doors, new relationships, new connections, new opportunities,

it can make your business something that people just, they

like more, they want to hear more about your business because

you're doing fresh things. And I think one of the fun ones we

don't think about is in that I've recently experienced is

it's it doesn't always have to be about the business. It's okay

to just enjoy learning new things and picking something

else up to help keep you fresh and inspired. It's kind of fun

sometimes to learn new things. I mean, right now I'm taking

pictures, but really all you want to do is edit video.

That'll change after you edit video for a while

I'm sure it will. While you are going through this list, one of

the things that came up to me that kind of dovetails in with a

little bit of what we're going to talk about in the Big Three

is that, you know, adding another skill set or up leveling

the skills you have deepens your brand message. So you know if

your branding is all about healthy animals, let's say and

really maintaining a healthy animal. And let's say your way

of doing that is providing massage services up leveling

your skills to maybe also consider nutritional advice, or

teaching massage skills or something like that to the

clients. It deepens the brand message about who you are. And

it deepens your mission in your business as well. So all of this

is is a positive movement to keep your business moving

forward and really keep your clients hooked on to you and

where they really want to stay with you long term. So let's

dive into the diversifying your skill set and adding the bat

income stream. So here's my story with this. I've been an

entrepreneurial consultant for the past 10 years, I've been

working with entrepreneurs for over 30. So one of the things

that I saw happen a lot with my clients is that I would provide

them with an awesome website, I give them great marketing

materials, and they wouldn't use them. And then they kind of

complain about oh, I have to you know, I have to do better my

marketing or I have to get different marketing. And I'm

like you already have marketing. Why are you not using the

marketing? Well, the truth of that is a very complicated

answer. And it's very different for every single person. A lot

of times it has to do with limiting beliefs or it has to do

with somebody's own personal trauma and that I had no control

over as a graphic designer, as a website designer, as a marketing

person. I couldn't help my clients with that. And it felt

like this huge roadblock that was in front of them that there

was no way for me to help them solve and I hated watching them

It broke my heart watching them kind of run into that wall and

then sometimes not ever getting over it or it taking a really

long time to get over it and by then they're burned out so when

I wanted to add a skill set to uplevel my business I attacked

that barrier. I wanted to help my clients be able to get past

it. So I added a whole nother portion to my business, which is

now the Gestalt coaching a portion of which happens with

the horses because I wanted to help my entrepreneurial clients

get through that barrier as quickly and efficiently as

possible and not watch them fail but instead watch them succeed

at being able to get their business off the ground and

really moving forward in a manner that was productive. So I

went back and took a look at a certification program that I'd

been doing marketing for for a really long time and ended up

becoming a certified equine Gestaltist so that I was able to

help my clients being able to get through those barriers. And

I'll tell you it is it's a huge difference when I can sit with

somebody and I can look at why aren't you using your marketing?

Or what's stopping you in this business plan? Or what are you

worried about? And they can tell me that, and then we can

actually work through it together, experiment with it,

see what is going to really shift things for them, and then

watch the transformation happen, and they just soar. So I love

the fact that I added that to my business, and that it's such a

benefit to my clients. It again, it goes back to it deepens my

brand message, it adds a level of success that my clients

wouldn't reach otherwise, which then furthers it for me not only

as an additional income stream, but let's face it, the more

successful my clients are, the more of the marketing and

consulting services they need, and they're gonna have the

wherewithal to pay for them. So it's a win win situation all the

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I think that's huge. I mean, you're looking at it from that

perspective of what is another way I can help the folks that I

work with do better with the stuff that I'm providing them,

like I want them to have more successful businesses be more

successful with the tools that I give them. And so you've thought

about it from that perspective of how does up leveling my skill

set? How does that help my clients be happier with the

services that I provide or be more successful with the

services that I provide them. And I also think about it from

that perspective of there's so much security around

diversifying your income streams. I mean, we have seen

industries locally around us close because of COVID

restrictions or because just the environment that we're in right

now has changed with how we want to be served and have the types

of services that we want to see out there. So having the

security of having multiple income streams come in, I think

is huge. You know, there's different ways that different

industries have done that, but thinking about it in terms of

like having a side hustle, even, you know, and how can you look

at your animal business and say, where is a way that I can learn

something new that I can offer something new, that I could

provide something new, sell something new, I mean, I think

all of that is huge. So I love that you've done that from the

perspective of how you know, helping your clients. But it

just makes sense in terms of small business ownership in the

safety and security around that.

It does. And I you know another example of that

in my life is my ranch. When I took over this ranch in

management, we were a cow calf operation and that was it. That

was the baseline it was all that the ranch did and when the

cattle market went kaboom. If you're not diversified, you

don't have the ability to recover from that it was a hard

lesson for me. And then when I was offered the opportunity to

keep going, I gotta tell you, I pulled it up by the bootstraps.

I'm very proud of myself and that I survived a recession and

a cattle market crash in this last couple of decades. But the

income diversification here was really important to me. So we

added the motorcycle races we added and you know and the

Gestalt stuff that's added to the ranch as well and hunting

and all of those things. So I know my ranch is a business and

those are skills that it earned so it's not necessarily me up

leveling it but my business The Ranch itself up leveled it

skills and what it offers. And now it's just it's better

because I don't have to worry that much.

And you're learning how to serve different

audiences that is up leveling, I mean, you're not just working

with one specific clientele, you've learned how to reap some

value out of a property that was single minded, focused for so

long, you really did up level skills there by learning how to

create space for the races, you know, and and create space for

the crops or whatever it is that you've done with the ranch so

far. So that's amazing.

Yeah, and it's awesome, because now I don't if

one sector of it fails, the other ones pick up the slack, or

at least band-aid enough to get the other one back up.

Everything is circular. In ranching and business in life,

you know, I mean, it may be down now, but it'll be back up later.

And you just got to be able to ride the wave on the down as

well as the up. And so it's very rare that, you know, if you have

more than one income stream, they're all down at the same

time. Are we ready to move on to number two?

Yeah, let's do it.

So the competitive advantage part, it

really goes hand in hand with the diversification of the skill

set and income streams. Because competitive advantage and

deepening that mission is such an important part of this. For

me, my clients that come to me for business consulting, I feel

like the deck is stacked in their favor in success rather

than another business coach or consultant, because we're

getting at the heart of the matter of what is going to

really shift their lives and shift their businesses. That to

me really makes me very different from the other options

they have in this area, or in the industries that I serve. So

I feel like that is a huge, huge competitive advantage. And I

feel like that bears out in the testimonials from my clients and

the people that I work with. So I know for me, that was another

big reason why I wanted to take the extra certifications for the

equine Gestaltist program.

When you learn those new skills that are

related to your existing business, I think that you find

all sorts of ways to bring new value to your existing clients.

And that's what we talk about all the time. How do you bring

value? How do you bring value and a great example that always

cracks me up, it's super simple is I have a farrier that comes

out and does work on my horses. And he's a great guy. He's a

regular farrier, there's nothing special about his skill set. In

my opinion. It's he's a great guy. We don't do a ton of work

with our horses. They just need basic work done. And if I

thought to myself, well, maybe I need someone that is a full time

farrier, that this is their specialty. Of course, we all

want to work with, you know the best in the industry, that sort

of thing. But I'll tell you what keeps me coming back to this

farrier is that not only does he do a great job with my horses,

but every time he comes out, he is helping me with a horse

related issue. I could have a question around working through

a problem, a training issue with one of my horses. And he has

advice, I had a recent issue where I had the vet out. And

they thought that my horse had a pulled tendon. And it ended up

being an abscess that he was able to diagnose. And it changed

the way that I was treating that horse. He's helped us with so

many things, and it cracks me up because he's coming out for

farrier work. But the value that he brings, every time he comes

out, he helped me hang a gate the other day, while he was out

there. It's just it's silly. It sounds silly. But the truth of

the matter is he brings all of these different skill sets when

he comes out, which makes him so much more valuable for just the

work that he originally came out for. So for him being able to

add on to what he does, yeah, I'm happy to spend 20 minutes

helping you, you know, hang that gate, and I'll pay him for his

time. Like that's the kind of thing that to me, you know, is a

silly kind of simple example. But if you can make yourself

invaluable to your clients, they will be less tempted to look

down the road for the newest, greatest best, the biggest

thing, whatever is happening in your your area. So I just think

that that was a kind of a fun example. But that's really true

to my life right now.

Yeah, it is true anywhere where you can get

endeared to your clients. Again, Cara mentioned it, bring the

value, bring the service level, bring the relationship. And when

you get that together, it really does offer you a competitive

advantage and it increases customer loyalty.

You know, as an entrepreneur, we have the

need to continuously be evolving our skills, we have to remain

competitive. And we like we said before, we have to keep up with

those changes in our industry. And so it's really on us to make

sure that we're doing that I just spent 30 minutes on the

phone with an older woman who was wanting to get some updated

portraits done headshots done because her current portrait was

10 years old. And we ended up getting in this conversation

around her struggling with interviews and being hired due

to her age. And I found it really interesting. It's it

really is something you have to continuously be up leveling

yourself personally in order to be relevant in all industries,

not just in the animal industry.

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So Cara, I think we're ready to talk about big three number

three, which is keeping you fresh and motivated. Now you

said working with Natalie and getting that new set of skills

around video really reenergized you. I had a similar experience

with getting my certification tell us about your experience

as a photographer that shoots kind of

the same type of thing on a regular basis, people with their

horses, you kind of get into a routine, you get kind of a set

pose flow that you work through, the expectation is pretty

similar from client to client. So I'm very kind of comfortable

with that. And I'm not gonna say it gets boring, but it gets

routine. So learning this new skill really made me think about

what I do from the on the photography side of things in a

totally new perspective. It reenergized me it got me excited

it even while I added the skill, and I'm in the process of

finessing that skill set. It also changed and re energized

the photography side. So it got me excited and looking at some

different poses I could do in some different flow tactics,

learning this new skill, reworked kind of everything and

gave everything a new glow.

I love that too. And I'll tell you watching my

clients be more successful with the certification around the

Gestalt has really helped me and seeing the difference that it

makes in their lives and their attitudes and the shifts in

their business it really makes makes me know I made the right

decision. So I think it's a really good thing. If you're

feeling burned out or you're feeling less than excited. If

you look at a new skill, a lot of times that kind of bumps you

out of that feeling and get you into a more positive headspace

and motivated and fresh outlooks and all of those things. So

Cara, in her infinite wisdom has compiled you guys a list of

places that you might look for these up leveled skill

opportunities for continuing education or for being able to

add something new to your business. So this time, Cara, I

invite you to give them that list because it's awesome. I've

learned a couple of things on this list.

Well, okay, so we're talking about up

leveling, but you might be, you know, thinking to yourself,

well, I need to get some ideas around what I might want to do,

or I've got some ideas, but what are my next steps. So I tell

people start small, you don't have to make a huge investment

right off the bat, just start thinking of little ways to bring

value or add to what you do for your existing clients or in your

business. So a great place to start in a place that I started

first was online learning. There are so many options out there.

Right now, there's online courses, which can be a small

investment or huge investment, they can be short, or they can

be you know more lengthy where you're doing them repetitively,

or you're doing different meeting times, but you can do

some bite sized stuff like with YouTube, you can learn sometimes

you can learn a really quick little micro skill by doing a

two or three minute YouTube video and boom, you've already

changed something in your process. Looking to places like

LinkedIn is another great way to learn something new or to see

what's being offered and using environments like Skillshare

even where people are sharing education and topics around

things that they do. So just think about it in terms of doing

something bite sized of it doesn't have to be huge, but it

can be something small but totally relevant to your animal

business. Also, mentoring is a great way to up your your skill

level mentoring from someone who's really great at something

that you want to learn like what I did with working with Natalie

on creating video, so I decided to go right to the source. And

then another great one that Kim mentioned when we were talking

through this is adding a certification. So going out

learning something new, getting certified in something new is

another great way you can also do in-person learning such as

attending a class, even if you're not enrolling in college,

there's a lot of just classroom opportunities that are still

available at a community level or attend a workshop. You know,

like we do with Cowgirls and Cameras, we have photography

workshops that we offer. So thinking about what is a

workshop that you could attend that you could learn something

new. You can also do something different, like buying new

equipment, or renting new equipment so that you can know

how to use it that you can decide if you like using it if

it's something that you enjoy. And then when the time comes

that someone is looking for that skill, you know how to use that

gear, because you've tested it, you've spent time with it or you

own it. Another great thing is thinking about as a business

owner learning about something that adds to your business. So

think about like adding an affiliate program that

complements your business. If you're someone that trains

horses, maybe you offer nutritional supplements, and you

learn about great nutritional supplements that you can then

sell to your clientele. If you do saddle fitting, maybe you

offer a special type of saddle pads that are perfect for you

know, different types of horses. I recently did obedience

training with my new puppy. And one of the first things they did

when I got there is they recommended a collar and they

told me the benefits of the collar and then sold me the

collar. So I'm a sucker for that, I guess anyway, so

thinking about the ways that you can look at your existing

business and add to that learning something new and then

having another product that you could potentially offer. And

then one more example is you know, if you do equine massage

or equine chiropractic work, you know maybe you add a new service

like Magna wave or something else that's related that is

helpful that but it's another product or service that you can

offer to your clients. Any other ideas Kim?

No, I think that is a really nice and

comprehensive list and gives people a lot of places and

avenues that they can go down and look for opportunities to

uplevel their skill set and take advantage of our big three that

we've covered in this episode this week. Thank you guys so

much for hanging out with us and tuning into The Business Animal.

We will be back next week with a another great episode.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Business

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more. Find us at thebusinessanimal.com We'd love

to hear from you. Until next time, keep your business well