Growing up, I spent a lot of time around the world’s best farriers as they came to our home and were trained by my father, Dr. Doug Butler. I was able to work side-by-side with many of them as they became master craftsmen and learned the fundamentals of farriery. I also have worked and consulted with farriers from around the world.

This chance to observe has given me a unique perspective on the habits and behaviors of success. I want to share 10 traits I’ve learned from observing these habits and behaviors up close so you can use them in your life and farrier business.

1. Ambitious And Resistant To Complacency

It used to be that a farrier could expand their business steadily over time. Today, change happens quickly and the best farriers force themselves and his or her business to change for the better. The best farriers choose not to just react to the changes they see — they proactively prepare for the future they want to create.

The top professionals in any industry rarely permit themselves a moment of mental rest. They are always simultaneously implementing what is working now and at the same time planning a replacement for when it is no longer working. Being content with getting by isn’t the behavior of top professionals in any field.

Farriers must be responsive to the constant changes around them: client demands, understanding horse anatomy and conformation so the proper farrier work can be done in any situation, threats from new competitors, etc.

There are three ways to avoid complacency:

Continually educate yourself. Read voraciously – study other successful business individuals.

Network with other farriers and other business leaders you admire who are where you want to be.

Learn marketing methods and media beyond what you are currently familiar with and use.

Look for new ways to attract new clients to your business. This can’t be something you’ll get around to someday — it must be something you are constantly working on, testing and implementing.

The best farriers attract more clients because they are good at what they do and because they are good at promoting what they do to others. You must master these skills as well.

Explore multiple ways to attract clients. Most farriers don’t think about what might happen if the method they’ve been using is no longer effective. I’ve found that farriers use a variety of marketing methods and funnels to successfully promote their skills and abilities.

2. Big And Bold Thinkers

It is crucial to protect your profit margins. The cost of travel will continue to rise over the years, so how will you continue to protect your profit margin against this inflation?

Photo: Doug Anderson

Some farriers hope to be bigger and more successful someday. They aren’t really serious or committed to what it takes to achieve greater success.

It takes commitment and focus to think big. It takes courage to act on these bold ideas. Your farrier business will become as big as you think it can.

You have to be 100% committed to whatever you set out to accomplish. I recently read the following statistics from author Ron Sparks about what would happen if various individuals were only 99.9% committed:

An hour of unsafe drinking water every month.

• 16,000 lost pieces of mail per hour.
• 20,000 incorrectly filled prescriptions every year.
• 22,000 checks deducted from the wrong account each hour.

What story have you told yourself about your farrier business? If you want to be more successful, you’ve got to change the limiting beliefs that are holding you back. Here are some common beliefs that farriers tell themselves that can limit their business:

• Thinking your business is different. “He could do that, but I couldn’t because …”
• Allowing yourself to be controlled by the opinions and beliefs of others. “I can’t charge that price because the farrier down the road charges less than that.”
• Allowing yourself to be controlled by past experience. “I tried that and it didn’t work…”
• Fear. “I hope the horse owner doesn’t find out what I don’t know.”

Get over the stories you have been telling yourself. One of the most important big, bold ideas you must implement in your farrier business is that of doing the things necessary to be viewed as an authority by horse owners. Here are some suggestions on how to do that:

• Your market needs clarity about you. Are you going to provide it, or will you let someone else do it for you?
• Remember, horse owners accept you as you present yourself. Write a brief summary of how you are now presenting yourself to your clients.
• Position yourself into a category of one. What can you do better than any other farrier in your area?

3. Extreme Self-Confidence and Self-Belief

Successful individuals are extremely confident in themselves and what they do. They believe they can:

• Make things happen.
• Conquer any difficulties that are in their path.
• Do what others can’t or won’t.

Unsuccessful individuals never launch ideas or fully commit to implementing ideas because they lack confidence in their own ability to follow through with what they start.

How you can develop extreme self-confidence:

• Change your associations (what you read and who you associate with).
• Be and act better than your competition. When horse owners notice the difference, your confidence skyrockets.
• Develop new skills.
• Do what you say you will do.

4. Protect Profit Margins

Sacrificing margins to make a sale does not pay. It takes zero imagination to cut prices and offer discounts so that you have a slim to non-existent profit margin. You must protect profits, not sacrifice them.

There are three areas of concern:

• Rising costs of travel and inventory. It costs more to transport your equipment and inventory to do your job right. With some farriers willing to cut prices to get the job, you must build your value to cover these additional costs.
• Increasing cost of running your business. You must raise your prices to cover these costs.
• Horse owners expect more today. They feel entitled to the best deal. This means that you have to get better at building more value into what you sell without increasing expenses.

There are ways to protect profits:

• Know and pay attention to the critical numbers in your business.
• Offer new and different products and services.
• Increase the value of what you sell beyond easily comparable products.

5. Continual Practicing And Searching For New Educational Opportunities

Evaluating how you work with horse owners and their resulting perception of you an important part of developing your business.

In the January/February 1998 issue of American Farrier’s Journal, my father wrote an article “10 Ways To Master The Skills Of Farriery.” I encourage you to read this article atamericanfarriers.com/10ways. Here are some of the principles:

• Decide to master all of the skills of farriery.
• Set specific, well-defined goals.
• Measure your progress in all seven skill areas (identified in the article).
• Practice all skills to achieve perfection.
• Learn every day.
• Seek a coach or a mentor.
• Seek long-term success.
• Balance your business and personal life.

This was great advice then and it’s great advice now. The best farriers continually practice and get better at the skills of this craft.

6. Unrelenting Focus On Establishing And Reaching Goals

Business consultant Jim Collins calls this habit fanatic discipline or the 20 Mile March in his book Great by Choice. “The 20 Mile March is more than a philosophy,” he writes. “It’s about having concrete, clear, intelligent, and rigorously pursued performance mechanisms that keep you on track. The 20 Mile March creates two types of self-imposed discomfort: (1) the discomfort of unwavering commitment to high performance in difficult conditions, and (2) the discomfort of holding back in good conditions.”

Collins lists seven major components of these goals:

• You must have performance markers of minimum, target and optimal goals.
• You must have self-imposed constraints to decide what goals you will strive for every day.
• You must tailor your goals to your business and its environment.
• You must set goals that are largely within your control to achieve.
• The goal should be just right for you and your team.
• Your goals should be designed and self-imposed by you, not by someone who doesn’t understand your business.
• Your goals must be consistently achieved.

7. Successfully Manage A Daily Schedule And Adapt Prioritization

In his book, The Midas Touch, self-help author Robert Kiyosaki defines FOCUS as: Follow One Course Until Successful.

“My favorite words of that acronym are until successful. Focus is power measured over time,” he says.

“For example, it is easy for me to stay on my diet from breakfast to lunch. But to stay focused for years on the diet is the true power of focus. I have gone on diets, lost weight, gained it back, and had to lose the weight again. That is the lack of focus over time.”

Here’s a quick exercise. Write down three areas that you are most productive.

Next, determine if these are the areas of your business you are currently best investing your time. Is this the right area of focus?

8. Use Leverage Points And Multipliers To Maximize Productivity And Results

To grow your business, you need to better leverage the assets you have. Your own individual assets aren’t enough. For another exercise, here are several questions to ask yourself and evaluate the answers:

• How have I leveraged times when I’m not usually busy?
• Is my pre-sales process more effective than my competition? What am I providing to horse owners before they schedule an appointment?
• Are horse owners commenting on the experiences they’re having as a result of my work?
• Do horse owners perceive that I have additional value above and beyond just the “guy who shoes their horses?”
• Are my clients loyal once they’ve purchased from me (or are other competitors more persuasive in their marketing to pull these horse owners into their businesses)?
• Do horse owners feel that what I do is extraordinary or ordinary?
• What territory, niche or market square am I dominating? Are there market gaps that no one is really addressing in your area?
• What unmet needs do horse owners have? How could I meet those better than my competitors?
• How well am I implementing what I learned? What am I doing to ensure that I’ll be in a different place 6 months from now?

9. Develop A Marketing Plan And Stick To It

List the ways you market your farrier business to new clients in several categories. (See a worksheet at americanfarriers.com/traits to better evaluate these.)

Like the other areas of this article, this evaluation is an important process for the new farrier or one who has 30 years invested in the industry.

Marketing is often a subject that farriers don’t consider. The incorrect notion is that marketing is something only big businesses use. Any successful business develops a strategy and examines it to measure its success. Improvements are made in response to unachieved goals.

For example, examine the use of testimonials. This can be an effective way of promoting your business. Where are you using the testimonials? Do the testimonials include the name of your business? Could they be improved by using photos or video?

Testimonials are just part of the marketing plan. After performing the exercise on the American Farriers Journal website, think of new ways to better market your farrier practice as a result of this exercise.

10. Steadfast In Implementation

When all is said and done, you get paid for results, not excuses. You don’t stay at the top for long by being easy on yourself. The leaders in any field are those who expect the best from themselves in every setting.

This can cause stress and unhappiness because you are always working to implement and know you must continually do more.

Jim Collins calls this habit “productive paranoia” or being obsessed on implementation in his book Great by Choice.

“Leaders remain obsessively focused on their objectives and hypervigilant about changes in their environment; they push for perfect execution and adjust to changing condition,” he writes.

Collins calls responding to changes by competitors that will affect a business as the “zoom out, zoom in” theory.

Zoom out:

• Sense a change in conditions.
• Assess the time frame: how much time before the risk profile changes?
• Assess with rigor: Do the new conditions call for disrupting plans? If so, how?

Zoom In:

• Focus on supreme execution of plans and objectives.

When you know what you need to do, you get busy with doing it consistently. You don’t procrastinate or make excuses.

Be one who implements quickly. Remember, top earners in this business or any other are those who have adopted the habit of implementation.

Your Homework

I encourage you to pick four of these 10 habits and adopt them by this time next year. If you work on one habit every 3 months for 20 minutes a day, it will be yours for life.

Put up signs around your home or in your shoeing rig to remind yourself of the habits you are going to develop and then make it happen. Then, you will employ the behaviors and skills of the top and most highly paid farriers in this business.