Even if you love shoeing for a living, remember that you’re in it for the money, warns farrier Brian Robertson of Owosso, Mich. “When you wake up in the morning, you have got to be a businessman; from the minute you wake up until the minute you are off the clock,” he says.

At some point in their careers, a lot of farriers have a disturbing epiphany.

Every farrier has experienced it during his or her career: You tell a client something, and he or she hears something completely different.