OfflineI have a new client who is a very "nervous" person She has a 4 yr geld she has brought for me to train and it's hard to assess if the horse's nervousness stems from being around her or he is just naturally nervous himself. In either case it seems to me that this just isn't going to work out but who knows I may be wrong. How long should I wait before I let her know this may not be a good match or should I give it more time to see if things could work out?
what's the best way to tell client that horse is not right for them?
Posted on: Thu, 10/04/2007 - 15:24
Great question!! I quess you will get alot of ideas on this one and what a great idea for a newsletter topic.Know your clients history with horses and their goals. If their goals don't match the horse it is really much easier to tell them and they just might make the decision themselves. Try and get the client to write out the goals. Coming soon in trainer resource page will be a goal sheet. Let me know how it goes.
Honesty and being straight foward as always helped myself and clients.. I like to have a one on one meeting, maybe lunch or dinner.... discuss positive and negative things about the horse and what is going on with the situation. You can only be as honest, real and upfront about this... Some clients will agree and take your advice and others will say i dont agree and i want to keep working at it... When that happens, then its for you to decide wether you want to be a part of it or step back and say i dont feel comfortable taking your money, i dont think it will work.
Yes i have had to tell a client that, i was honest they didnt agree... So i said i didnt feel comfortable taking thier money when nothing was going anywhere and the horse and rider werent benefiting from our lessons and training... SOME HORSES just dont work with certain riders and or programs... But you must make honest and right decisssions... You arent always going to be right and yes you will make a wrong and bad decission but hopefully we all learn from them and dont do it again.
In my 25 years of experience, I've learned that the real goal of our industry is to bring the horse and rider together. People don't pay us to tell them what they can't do, but to help them find ways to do it. To the average back yard horse loving client, what we really offer is a path to their dreams of unity with another living creator. To the hard core competitor we offer the encouragement and direction to the greatest achievement of that unity. I believe that we all got into this business because we have felt that unbelievable sense of unity, and feel we can share that with others, and maybe make a living at it.
One of the great challenge for us as trainers is focus not on what can't be done, but on what can be done, and find those simple solutions that make the relationship positive. Any time we create a positive atmosphere we begin to fulfill the dream of unity, and once we have a sense of unity, the sky is the limit.
To us its a business, to most its a hobby, but even to those that have made it a completive driven goal of perfection, our profession is only useful when we bring the positive simple solutions to the situation.
I have found that most clients will adjust their personal goals based on physical and emotional nature of themselves and their horse, all on their own. They may change horses or events, but they will both feel better about the experience, and we will have done the real job they paid for. They will never feel bad about the money they have spent and you will have made an honest living and probably a friend. In the end all business is personal.
The truth is, we as trainer must begin to see ourselves more a therapists and less a car mechanics. We have so much more to offer than where you hold your hands or where your feet go.
I hope these comments encourage all of us to keep seeing the bigger picture. To live the dream, and share the dream.
Great wisdom! Please visit the site more. Maybe you would like to write an article on this for our next news letter.
ushorsetrainer
Thanks for the encouragement. This is a great site for our profession to be encouraged and inspired. I know there isn’t a true trainer out there that doesn’t put in 14 plus hour a day into what they do. With those long hours we sometimes get into our own heads a little too much. We get to feeling a little lonely. A lot of times we seem to get along better with horses and dogs. We are a breed set apart. And it may seem like a lot of people don’t understand us. Yet we are so important to the industry and have so much to offer in the bigger picture of life. With the weather turning warm and the horses slicking off its our time to shine. God bless you all this year.