Aileen Hodgson founded her business, K9-Kind after the 2008 recession.
Q. How and why did you start in business?
I had been working as a debt recovery paralegal in Aberdeen but what I really enjoyed was training people.
I was all set to follow a career in soft skills training when the recession hit in 2008. These kinds of jobs were the first to go and so I was stopped in my tracks.
I knew I still wanted to work in training and spend time with dogs, so here I am, training people to train their puppies and dogs.
Q. How did you get to where you are today?
With determination and the support of my very loving husband and wonderful friends.
Q. Who has helped you along the way?
I’ve been lucky to meet some other great trainers from all over the UK and abroad who have inspired and encouraged me. Since moving to Perthshire in 2018 and starting my business again from scratch, I’ve had amazing enterprise facilitation support from Growbiz, as well as access to a mentor through their mentorship programme.
I can’t tell you how much that’s helped.
Q. What was your biggest mistake?
Not going online sooner.
Technology means I’m no longer bound by distance so I can offer training to anyone in the world.
Q. What is your greatest achievement to date?
Doing this, something I genuinely love and getting paid for it.
Being told that I have inspired someone else to take the plunge to become
self-employed and do what they love.
Q. How has coronavirus impacted your business?
Not as badly as it might have done.
I was in the midst of a six-week puppy course when lockdown came into force.
So I moved it online using Zoom. My students did brilliantly and were super appreciative, so it made sense to just continue doing my courses and private sessions that way.
Q. What do you hope to achieve in the future?
I’d like to continue training in person and on zoom but I’m also creating a downloadable puppy course and tricks course, as opposed to the live course I currently offer and hope to create more of these in time.
Q. Do you want to recruit in the future?
No – one of the attractions of becoming self-employed was to keep things simple and stick to doing the thing I love, which is training, not PAYE.
However, I do enjoy supporting young people looking to come into the industry by offering work experience so I’m hoping to do more of this when lockdown restrictions are eased.
Q. What is the hardest thing about running your own business?
Stopping myself from giving away too much free advice.
I love what I do and I’m passionate about training with kindness in mind.
I’m also a talker, which means I want to share my knowledge with everyone.
Q. Any advice to wannabe entrepreneurs?
Plan it and have a financial buffer to get through your first few months, and talk to everyone.
