Cheat Sheet for Scheduling: Click Here
Calendar Rules & Scheduling
Before you jump in to this, you need to know the importance of this. We are a dog training and service based business. All we have is our time. As you get dogs into our program and schedule them this is all the Dog Pro’s have to go on. You need to make sure you are scheduling accurately. If not you are not setting your team up for success.
The Cardinal Sin of Calendars
When scheduling appointments on people’s calendars, the cardinal sin is hitting “This and future events” and “All events” when you save an appointment. When putting an appointment in, you want to hit save and follow that up with “This event only”. DO NOT HIT EITHER OF THE OTHER TWO OPTIONS OR IT MESSES THE EVENTS UP GOING FORWARD. OR IT MESSES THEM UP GOING FORWARD AND BACKWARD.
Scheduling Principles
1) Keep Saturday, 4-5 & 5:30-6:30 weekday spots available for only people who can ONLY meet with us then. These spots are prime time golden hours and should be reserved as they are very limited!
2) If they have a puppy & a dog and they bought training for both, we need to plan the training based on the puppy training scheduling above
3) The idea for puppy programs is to get the dog to the point of where the dog is getting seen by a trainer until they are 6 months & then most of the puppy issues are gone and we will maintain their training through games.
4) On calendar: Mark each lesson as puppy or adult
Adult would mean 4.5-5 months or older
5) On calendar mark each lesson as a big or small in terms of what size the dog will be. Under 25 pounds full grown then it is a small dog. If it is bigger than 25 pounds then it is big.
6) Until you have the scheduling down pat and make no mistakes, there is no shame in pulling out a scheduling cheat sheet in appointments.
7) Schedule based off parts of town. If you see that a DP’s last appointment is in a part of town that is over thirty minutes away you need to give them some driving time. So if you need to adjust the appointment start times, then do that. Make sure their previous appointment wasn’t on the opposite side of town.
8) If the calendar is booked up and you are booking out over 2 weeks, make sure when scheduling to tell people that if someone cancels before the first day, we are glad to move them up and get them started sooner. Note: if we are hiring and you know that, you can also let people know we are hiring and getting new trainers trained so we don’t have to make people wait (say this diplomatically). You can also let them know that it is a good sign that we have a waitlist as well, because if we have such a wait list we clearly do really goood work (say this diplomatically)!
9) If a trainer lives near an area, see if you can make their first/last one by their house. Example: If we have a client in Hendersonville (just north of Nashville) I am going to make it the first/last appt of the Dog Pro that we have who lives in Hendersonville. Another example: We have a trainer at the Nash location who lives 45 mins west of the city. Bellevue is on the western most side of Nashville, so if I can I make his last appt or his stop in a Bellevue appointment. This is nice because the trainers can leave home later or get home earlier after work. If we can group appointments well too, it saves the DP money and the company money.
How To Format appointments
All Programs Format:
Graduation Lesson Example: Cordova Corey McDaniel A6 Graduation? Big Off
Part of town + First & last name + A (Adult) or P (Puppy) Lesson # + Big or small + On or off
The last lesson has the word “Graduation?” thrown in to signify that this is the potential graduation.
Pro Tip: Copy and paste is your best friend when scheduling peoples appointments!
Done-With-You:
Normal Lesson Example: Cordova Corey McDaniel A1 Big Off
Puppy Lesson Example: Cordova Corey McDaniel P1 Big Off
2 Dog Example: Cordova Corey McDaniel A1 2 Dog Big Off
Done-For-You:
Bootcamp Part:
1 Dog Bootcamp Example: Cordova Corey McDaniel WDBC A1 Off
2 Dog Bootcamp Example: Cordova Corey McDaniel 2 Dog WDBC A1 Off
With-Them Part:
Cordova Corey McDaniel WDBC With-Them A1 Off (Keep the A count going)
Cordova Corey McDaniel 2 Dog WDBC With-Them A1 Off (Keep the A count going)
Programs & Scheduling
Puppy Programs
On-Leash Puppy Program: 16 weeks or younger - Start by scheduling 7 lessons. 3 puppy appointments then once the dog is 4 1/2 - 5 months old, schedule the remaining 4 back to back. 6-7 lessons based off age. If the dog is 12 weeks when we start we need to do 3 puppy and 4 adult.
Puppy Off-Leash Program: Start by scheduling 7 lessons. 2-3 puppy appointments then once the dog is 4 1/2 - 5 months old, schedule the remaining 4-5 back to back.
We do not start training puppies until they are 12 weeks.
Adult Dog Programs
Adult On-Leash Program: 16 weeks and older - Start by scheduling 4 lessons week to week.
Note: If the dog Is 16 weeks though (see puppy scheduling for specifics), we need to space the lessons out a bit so we can get the dog to the 6 month mark.
Adult On-Leash + Program: 16 weeks and older - Start by scheduling 5 lessons week to week.
Adult Off-Leash Program: Start by scheduling 6 lessons week to week.
Two Dog Programs
Two Dog On-Leash Program: Start by scheduling 5 lessons week to week.
Two Dog Off-Leash Program: Start by scheduling 7 lessons week to week.
Note: If there is a puppy involved in the training we need to make sure we schedule based on the age of the puppy.
Three Dog Programs
Three Dog On-Leash Program:Start by scheduling 7 lessons week to week.
Three Dog Off-Leash Program: Start by scheduling 9 lessons week to week.
Note: If there is a puppy involved in the training we need to make sure we schedule based on the age of the puppy.
Wonder Dog Bootcamp
1 Dog Bootcamp: Schedule 8 daily appointments Tuesday-Friday and then 4 weekly 1-on-1’s
2 Dog Bootcamp: Schedule 10-12 daily appointments Tuesday-Friday and then 5 weekly 1-on-1’s
3 Dog Bootcamp: Schedule 12-15 daily appointments Tuesday-Friday and then 6 weekly 1-on-1’s
Accelerated Scheduling
Use the same amount of lessons that correspond with the program you sold above but do 2-3 lessons a week.
Puppy Scheduling Specific
10-12 Weeks: Schedule one puppy appointment asap, one puppy appointment two weeks after, one puppy appointment two weeks after, then 4 adult appointments every two weeks after until 4 are planned. By the end of this the dog will be 6 months - 6.5 months.
12-14 Weeks: Schedule one puppy appointment asap, one puppy appointment two weeks after, one puppy appointment two weeks after, then one adult appointment two weeks after followed by 3 adult appointments week to week. By the end of this the dog will be 6 months - 6.5 months.
14-16 Weeks: One puppy appointment asap, wait two weeks and then another puppy appointment. Wait two weeks then plan one more puppy appointment. Then 4 adult appointments back to back weekly. By the end of this the dog will be 6 months - 6.5 months.
Over 16 Weeks: If the dog is over 16 weeks old, sell them an adult program. Space the first appointment and the second 2 weeks apart, then week to week for the rest.
Scheduling Exercises
Walk through with your trainer you scheduling 1 of each program. Then schedule a puppy program based off each age.
Note:
Since we “Train the dog until the dog is trained” you will want to stay away from giving n estimate of how many weeks it will take to train the dog. If you say it generally takes 4 weeks, people generally won’t believe it. But worse than that, they will equate the weeks to the total investment and then try to get an hourly price from it.
So when scheduling say “We are going to start with X amount of weeks and then of course if we need to add more then we will from there.”