Eval Sheet Principles

Here we’re going to break down the eval sheet even further and go into some of the principles of using it that will make you the most effective you can be!

Overall

The Sheet is Tried & True

The eval sheet has been used thousands of times and has resulted in millions of dollars of dog training sold. With that being said, the sheet is open to be changed based on suggestion and input through you. It is NOT to be changed, edited, altered, etc. without running it by someone first. When people do this and they try to add stuff in or answer questions before they are asked, we miss sales. Please do not change or add to the sheet without running it by someone first.

Sell But Arm The Dog Pro’s Well

The eval process is designed to move people through a process and if it goes well, ideally they will purchase at the end of that process. BUT the goal of the top half of the sheet is to be a discovery process. Your goal is to discover as much relevant info as possible and arm the Dog Pro’s with a wealth of tactical information they can use to serve the client.

The Overall Eval

The Evaluation is a discovery process and a journey to be done together. Value 7. We clearly want to sell them training, if they are a good fit, but the eval process is designed to get their goals, problems, and then present them with the perfect solution for them. The eval process is NOT something to rush through and get done with (unless they aren’t an ideal client, then yes, do it quickly.) But for the majority of people, you should not find yourself rushing through the evaluation process. Most evals that result in signup should take around an hour. If your time on call is 30 minutes or less, you’re doing something wrong. Even if they don’t sign up, your time on call should be roughly 30-45 minutes. The ideal eval is 30 mins for greet and all of sheet, 15 mins for program pitch and 15 minutes for the signup process.

Be Wary NOT of Setting The Dog Pro’s Up For Success (Accidentally!)

When we speak, we want to speak in general terms about the outcome of training. A lot of the success of the program comes down to the client practicing with their dog when we aren’t around. So when we talk about what we do and what we teach, we want to say that we want to say the commands we teach, and that we can get the bad behaviors to go away OR make sure they happen less often. Or when we describe the fully trained dog, we want to say “A dog that listens, doesn’t misbehave generally speaking, can go places with you and is trained on and off-leash.” We want to put the generally speaking in there to make sure expectations are set properly. When we describe balanced training, we want to say so eventually we won’t have to use treats or corrections. The keyword is eventually. That can mean during training or way after. It is relative but relieves the Dog Pro of the responsibility of having to have the dog using no collar by the end of training.

Another couple ways to not set the Dog Pro’s up for success are by selling to bad clients who we shouldn’t sell in the first place. AND not notating in our database what their main thing they want resolved is.

Slow cadence down

As Eval Pros, when we’re in a missionary mindset we can get so excited to get in the eval and walk them through our sheet that when we’re talking we get to talking at 2x speed. It doesn’t really register to us, but it does to the person you’re talking to. So make sure you’re talking at a normal pace.

As well, don’t rush through through the sheet. The sheet is a discovery process and a journey to talk through WITH them. It is a time to learn about their dog, their goals, problems, what they want and need, etc. It is also your time to get to know them, so don’t be in a hurry to get through the sheet. The questions on the sheet aren’t meant to be “Yes”/“No” answers. The talking points at the bottom aren’t meant to be read in bullet form, they are meant to be expanded on, they are designed for you to plug the information you know about them in.

OWNER NOTES - What they are and how to use

The owner notes are on the sheet to take down unique information about the person or family you’re serving. So if the person in front of you is a BMW salesman, you can take a quick note of that. If they are obsessed with star wars, you can take that down too. If they are a business owner, write down the business they own. If they built the Memphis Pyramid, take a note, that is cool information.

Goals…

The Point of Goals

The goals portion is to pull out of them what their ideal outcome is and what their dream dog is like. We want to get as much information out as we can in terms of goals. With most clients you should walk away with at least 5+ goals. If you walk out with two goals, you have done something wrong. *There are a very small minority of clients who want one or two things but this is not the vast majority of people.

Vision Based Q’s

Since we’re trying to discover their ideal outcome and what they would like to see by the end, we can help this process along by asking vision based questions. “Do you want to be able to take your dog to the park off-leash? Hike off leash? Go grab the mail and have your dog walk off-leash with you?” “Do you want to be able to take your dog places with you?” Etc.

Problems

Get Context For The Problem Behaviors

When we’re running through the problem behavior questions with some clients, it goes quick, with some it goes really slow because they tell a five minute story for each question. The big thing to to recognize is that the problem questions shouldn’t be Yes/No questions. If someone just says “Yes” to a question, get some context. Example if the dog is counter surfing: “Does he just jump on the counter when you’re cooking? Or does he only do it when you’re not in the room

Don’t Be Redundant

When doing evals with people and going through the discovery process and you get to the problems section, don’t be redundant. If you know the dog jumps and they have disclosed they don’t like the jumping, just say, “I went ahead and marked here that he jumps.” Rather than asking if he jumps when you know he does jump.

Don’t Be TOO Hungry To Mark Down Problems

Sometimes we got so eager to help and serve people that we mark down every little thing that could be considered a problem, even if they don’t care about it. Example: One time we had a rep who was asking a lady about dogs on the furniture. She said she didn’t mind them being on the furniture but she didn’t want them pottying on the furniture. He marked down that furniture was an issue and to teach the dogs no furniture. The same client said that they give the dogs ice cream at night and that they sit there and wait for it. He marked down begging as a problem behavior when they give the dogs ice cream. This isn’t a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but it’s the little details that matter.

Be Careful What You Emphasize…

We can fix a lot of the dog behavior problems people encounter so long as they aren’t aggressive. Some of the ones we want to not put too much emphasis on though is digging, anything when the people aren’t home, etc.

Big Pitch

Expand On The Bullets

When you get to the big section after the problems that talks about goals, results, what we do, etc. The first thing we want to do is let them know we can help. We want to give them the confidence of knowing we can help and serve them. As for the section itself, on the sheet, it is written out in quick bullet points. The goal is to read the bullet and expand on it. They are not bullet points to be read to the clients. Expand on each sentence and each section.

Individualize The Schpeel To Them

When you’re doing the big schpeel, it’s important to use their personal goals and problems to make sure personalize the explanations. When you’re running through the commands, use their examples on bed and stay, walking so they don’t get pulled, recall so they don’t have to chase the dog. When you’re going over the bad behaviors, use the ones they gave you with the examples they gave you.

Done-With-You (DWY) Vs. Done-For-You (DFY)

When you get to the last bullet, it is important to explain the difference between done-for-you and done-with-you in clear and concise ways so each person understands.

DWY is once a week lessons with a Dog Pro where the DP trains the dog in-front of them and then has them try in front of the Dog Pro. The DP coaches and guides them to make sure the dog is doing just as good for them as the dog is for the DP. Then they have to practice twenty minutes a day when we’re not there. This way we can move on the next week when we come back out. This is a very hands on program.

DFY is a hands off program. This is for people who don’t have time to train or don’t want to participate. Typically this is going to be a higher end clientele. DFY is also double the price. This program, we come out each day some time during the day and we train the dog for them. We do Tuesday-Friday for 2-3 weeks and then we work with them 1-on-1 weekly afterwards to teach them what the dog learned in training.

The Cardinal Sin

The Cardinal Sin of the pitch is to tell them how many weeks of training we do. When you do this, what you’re going to do is get them to compare the price to the amount of weeks of training they will get. It doesn’t matter how much cool stuff comes with the program, they will take the price and divide it by the weeks of training.

Sometimes, newer reps will try to get out in front of the inevitable question and say the amount of weeks of training we do so the client doesn’t have to ask. Then they dig themselves into a hole they don’t really know how to get out of.

You will get asked how many weeks of training the program comes with. The proper response is, “There isn’t really a set timeline. I do the intro scheduling, so I will plan 6 weeks (or whatever the program is) and have your Dog Pro take it from there. Since our programs are guaranteed as long as you’re doing homework we don’t have a set timeline like other trainers. So we start with 6 weeks, and your dog may graduate in that time, but if you need more, you and your Dog Pro do that together.”