Farriers are self-employed small business owners. Each one of us wants to work hard and earn lots of money. That’s possible, and with a little thought, we can make just as much money with less effort.

We all have 24 hours to accomplish what we want to on a given day. Each of us has priorities that are important to us — family, friends, hobbies, work and whatnot. We can achieve this by setting boundaries

Drawing Lines

I run a multi-farrier practice consisting of different levels of apprentices on a 4-year program — Tyler Robinson, CJF, Kelton Harris, CF, and Jeb Hunt. We mainly work at our shop doing haul-ins. Once a week we travel to a large account for the day. My guys travel to several local accounts 1 day a week. One of the lines that I’ve drawn is I don’t work weekends anymore because I’m a family man and I enjoy being with them and doing whatever they’re doing.

One of the greatest parts about being self-employed is that we get to make our own schedule. If you’re doing things that you don’t want to do, you’re really the only one to blame because you’re deciding what to do. So, you need to set some boundaries — some hours of operation. You need to make a plan because if you’re not making a plan, you’re planning to fail. That’s an old saying, but it is so true. People will work you to death if you let them. If you just wander through life, whenever someone calls you and they ask, “Can you shoe my horse?” They don’t care that it’s Saturday and your kid has a game. They want to know if you can shoe a horse. If you say that you will, now you just traded your family life for shoeing that horse. That’s when things get a little sketchy.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a family man or you have interests outside of work. Make time for the things that make you happy. I have a great friend in California who goes golfing every Monday at noon, Whatever is important to you, schedule it and make a plan.

I set my schedule to be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except for Wednesdays we try to be done at noon. While that seems like we’re not working very hard, I still get up at 5:30. I workout, plan and spend time with my family. By the time the horses arrive at 9 a.m. at the house, my apprentices have things set up and we’re rolling. We get a lot done through 5 p.m. If we go to big accounts, there are exceptions and we’ll go past 5 p.m. sometimes.

I use Google Calendar for my scheduling. All the shoeing is all laid out for the entire year. My apprentices can all check the schedule on their phones, as well. It’s very simple, if I want to schedule something with my wife, boom, it’s in. Even the simplest things need to be scheduled or, in my experience, it won’t be a priority. You wouldn’t think you’d need to write all this stuff down, but I’ll promise you that if you don’t, it doesn’t happen when we get busy. If it’s important to you, whatever it is, schedule it.

It’s Your Time

You can’t say hi to a farrier without them saying, “Have you been busy?” Maybe it’s a self-employed thing, but I have found nearly all farriers say it. Being busy is important because we want to make as much money as we can to feed our families, pay for the house, car or whatever. But busy doesn’t mean making that you’re money. We have to make sure we’re not giving our time away. I use a 5-week schedule to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Clients will try to talk you into all these schedules. They prefer a 6- or 7-week schedule or suggest that they’ll call when they’re horses are ready. At a certain point, that’s not going to work just because it messes up our schedule. When most my clients are on a 5-week schedule, it’s easy to plan.

I have different big accounts once a week that is scheduled every Tuesday. You can almost set your clock to it because every Tuesday in 5 weeks, we’re going to be there. The rest of the time, we have clients hauling horses to my house. Every 5 weeks, the same person comes at 9 a.m. Monday. The same person comes at 11 a.m. Thursday, so on and so forth.

It’s important to make money and ensure that we have quality of life, but it also needs to be beneficial to the clients. We don’t want them to feel like we are taking advantage of them. I’m not afraid to charge for what I’m worth. I also want them to feel good about it. I want them to feel that they’re getting a deal and a lot of benefit out of this. So, when I discuss my 5-week schedule with them, I explain to them that it’s only one more shoeing annually than a 6-week schedule.

There are so many benefits to a 5-week schedule for them and their horse. For example, I believe that length is the enemy. It doesn’t matter what kind of horse you’re dealing with, we can better maintain the length, leverage, or support that we’re shoeing for in a short time frame. We also don’t have to push the envelope on trimming them as short, because we know we’re going to see them in 5 weeks, rather than 8 weeks.

We also get to shoe a little tighter, because we’re not going to need as much expansion. The horse is going to keep more shoes on with a shorter schedule. In a shorter cycle, there will be more resets, because when do shoes get lost most often? It’s usually at the end of the cycle unless something weird happens. The shoe gets long, loosens up and it gets lost. When the horse is being shod every 5 weeks, they usually never get to that point because they are already reset. Another reason there are more resets is that the toes and nail holes don’t wear out as fast. That usually happens more at the end of a longer cycle. The longer the hoof, the more wear that we’re going to get on the toe. The longer it gets, the more wear occurs in the nail holes, and the nails loosen.

A 5-week schedule also means that it’s a quicker appointment. It takes a lot less time to trim a horse at 5 weeks than it does for one that is on an 8-week schedule. That’s the whole point — time is money. That doesn’t mean that quality suffers. I’m never worried about going fast when I’m working on a horse. A fun fact for you, though. If you can save 5 minutes on a horse and you’re doing five horses a day, 5 days a week, that’s going to save you 108 hours or 13 ½ days annually. That means that you’re going to get 2 weeks off if you can save 5 minutes a horse.

Good Clients Wanted

We’re all trying to get the best clients, but we don’t need everyone. We need a select group. It doesn’t matter whether we’re trying to build a business or we have a monster that we’re trying to shrink down to an easier to control practice, but going from 6 weeks to 5 weeks means 17% fewer clients. That’s huge. That’s a significant number of clients that you don’t need.

This rolls into another topic — raising prices and taking on new clients. No one says, “Woo, I’m so glad you raised my prices.” So, I want to encourage you to take on new clients because they come with new prices. If you’re bringing them on at the same price as your current clients, that’s not fair. Your clients have been with you for a long time. They’ve proven themselves. It’s a lot like buying stock. It’s cheaper when you get in early. The key is when you get too many clients, raise the old clients prices to where the new clients are and then some will drop off. Ultimately, our prices keep creeping up the ladder.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense to kill ourselves for $75 when we could be charging $150. We can be making the same money and doing half the work. Take a look at Figure 1 and find what you charge on the left side. If it’s not there, go to the closest number. Then see how many days you’re working. You’ll find a ballpark figure based on shoeing 25 horses a week. This doesn’t count trims. (I realize most of you shoe a lot more horses that 25 per week.)

It becomes clear when you break this down that you can only make so much money at $100 a horse. If you work 6 days a week, you’ll make $156,000. If you’re at $200 and you’re working 3 days a week, you’re making $156,000. Easy math I know, but, raising your prices is truly the easiest way to make more money.

To take on new clients, I have to leave room for them. So, my client book is 80% full. Rugeley, England, farrier Grant Moon, who is a great mentor of mine, looked at my book when I was in a transitional phase. He told me, “You couldn’t take on a big account right now, even if they called you. You’d be 6 weeks out before you could fit them in. They’re going to get someone else.”

That was an opportunity to raise my new client prices by 30% or 40%, which was a great plan because I didn’t care if they said yes or not, I was too busy anyway. What if the new clients get a hefty raise, they agree, how do I go about cutting down on my existing clients? My uncle who is a retired stockbroker told me, “Your bottom-end clients cost you the most money and your top-end clients make you the most money.” To identify them, he suggested giving clients letter grades — A through D. Clients who were rated a D had their rates raised. If they stay, that’s great. They’re not in the D category anymore. I don’t know about you but if we charge our worst client double, they’re not our worst client anymore! They won’t be an A, but they’ll be a B client.

The reason they’re in the B category is that people who were B and C are now C and D since they’re paying $50 less than the B clients. The A clients can be whatever you want, but they are my big clients. They are your money makers who have 50 trims or whatever.

In this system, you’re only risking clients in the D category. It’s like playing blackjack, it’s a calculated risk, you can’t lose what you don’t gamble. You can’t lose clients who are an A, B, or C. No one wants to lose their business. It’s a fear that a lot of people have. You will lose a few clients this way but never as many as you think, besides you need room for new clients higher priced clients anyway. The most common question I get is “what if the D clients talk to the C clients?” If you want you can explain it to them, better shoeing area, horses, closer, etc. Ultimately they know why they’re D clients, and it usually doesn’t come up.

It’s a Business

There are a lot of farriers who will say, “My clients won’t pay that.” I hear it everywhere I go. You know what? You might be right. I’ve had clients who won’t pay it, too. I don’t shoe for them anymore. You have to outgrow certain clients. Some are never going to buy the premium vehicle or see the value in your shoeing. That’s fine. You don’t need everybody to join you.

You might feel defensive because they’re good clients. I love all my clients. I can tell you their birthdays, horses’ names, ages and how they’re bred. But you have to set these things aside and remember that this is a business. Does your family really care who you shoe for if you’re not making as much money as you should be? At the end of the day, if your great client won’t let you raise their prices, how much do they care about you and how great of a client are they?

Would your clients leave if you raise prices by $5? If you don’t and you’re doing 25 horses a week, you just gave up $6,500 last year (Figure 2). If you’re doing 50 horses a week, you gave up $13,000. I would suggest raising older clients in the 10% to 20% category. A 10% raise is more than fair. Annual inflation is 4% so if you’re not raising your prices, you make 4% less every year! If you’ve done any continuing education, you have a strong case that you’re worth more now than you were last year. If you are charging $200 and don’t increase your prices 10%, you just gave up $26,000! That’s only shoeing 25 horses per week and no barefoot trims. It doesn’t count trims or other services. So, there’s a lot left on the table that you can go after with a little planning and working on your education.

How do you sell it? This is the trickiest part for a lot of people. First, say it in a nice tone. Remember, its not what you say, its how you say it. “You bet, I can do it that, but it’s going to $50. Are you OK with that?” It’s much better than “That’s going to cost you 50 Bucks!” It sounds simple, but I’ll promise you, we’ve all made that mistake.

Honesty is always a good policy. I’m not suggesting doing anybody wrong. When justifying the raise, you can say, “Well, I’ve been going to a lot of educational clinics and I believe that I’m a better farrier.” Or you can just simply say “I have too many clients and not enough time for everyone, love for you to stay, I understand if you can’t”. Between education and inflation, I think that it’s fair that I raise your prices by 10%.” Most people are fine with it. You’ll get some backlash, but it’s important to remember that no one is excited about paying more for anything! If they value your service, that’s not going to stop them.

If you want to make everybody happy, you’re going to have to sell ice cream. At the end of the day, it’s about improving the quality of your life. Yes, we’re farriers, but it’s all about how we live our lives. Identify what’s important to you and schedule your life around it.

We all have to make money. Try to do that 5 days a week. If you can’t make enough money in 5 days, you need to reassess why. If you work 7 days a week, your body’s going to hurt and give out. You’re going to run your truck ragged, your helpers will quit. It’s going to be hard for anyone to be around you because you’re not happy. Pay attention to your schedule, shoe for you and what makes you happy.

November 2020