The Million-Dollar Dog Trainer: From Steph Curry to Netflix

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Earn Your Leisure
Episode: The Million-Dollar Dog Trainer: From Steph Curry to Netflix
Hosts: Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings
Guest: Josh Leverette (Founder, Cali K9)
Date: February 12, 2026

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Overview

This episode dives into the entrepreneurial journey of Josh Leverette, founder of Cali K9 and star of the Netflix series “K9 Intervention.” From the streets of Oakland to becoming a sought-after dog trainer for celebrities like Steph Curry and beyond, Josh unpacks how he built a thriving, multi-faceted business in dog training—a field often overlooked as a serious path to wealth and brand building. The conversation explores his path from hustling in various trades (legal and otherwise), the business mechanics of dog training, leveraging social proof and digital marketing, and scaling into media and real estate.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Early Hustles ([05:27]–[09:13])

• From Oakland to Entrepreneurship: Josh’s journey began in Oakland, graduating just before 9/11, which derailed his planned aviation career. Inspired by "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," he searched for unconventional hustles, starting with rim shops and moving briefly into the medical marijuana business.
• Pivot to Dogs: Security was key in his cannabis days, leading him to train protection dogs as an alternative to firearms. His passion for dogs and the entrepreneurial influence of his mother set the foundation for his shift.

2. Learning Dog Training & Early Business Moves ([09:13]–[14:31])

• Mentorship: First learned from a local East Oakland dog trainer, then from professional clubs in Seattle after relocating.
• From Security Dogs to Behavior Cases: Mastered training high-drive breeds (German Shepherds, Rottweilers, Belgian Malinois) for protection, then translated those skills into solving everyday behavioral issues.
• Bootstrapping with Social Media: Leveraged Craigslist, flyers, and especially Yelp to build reputation. Early adoption of YouTube and later Instagram helped attract clients.

“Once I learned what a bad review was, I say, yo, you got to have an impeccable reputation if you're going to play with this Internet.” — Josh Leverette ([13:28])

3. Content and Social Proof ([14:31]–[17:05])

• Building Organic, Day-in-the-Life Content: Josh documented his grind, creating commercials and behind-the-scenes looks on YouTube well before it was common in his industry.
• Package Pricing: Initial training packages ranged from $1,000–$2,000, including private and group sessions (the latter serving as lead generation in busy parks).

4. Scaling the Business Model ([17:05]–[23:56])

• Team Building: Early on, Josh brought in mentees and trainers to expand capacity, focusing on those eager to learn directly from him.
• Location Strategy: Positioned himself in Silicon Valley targeting wealthy clients for “recession-proof” business; emphasized offering solutions to “rich people’s problems.”

“I positioned myself in a place where I knew that the average income was over 200k in the household.” — Josh Leverette ([21:55])

• Establishing Trust: Relied on consistent five-star reviews, testimonials, celebrity endorsements, and public demos with his personal, highly-trained German Shepherd.

5. The Celebrity Effect ([26:00]–[29:29])

• Breakthrough Client: Steph Curry became the turning point after Josh hustled to introduce himself, cementing credibility and attracting myriad other stars (Kevin Hart, Michael B. Jordan, Kylie Jenner).
• Handling Celebrity Relations: Maintains boundaries—requests favors sparingly and always asks permission to use content for promotion.

“People are mesmerized when your favorite sports team is the Niners... or the Warriors... you get a nice little boost, a lot of trust.” — Josh Leverette ([29:17])

6. From Netflix to National Brand ([31:42]–[37:22])

• Landing "K9 Intervention": After working with Andre Berto in LA, a connection led to a production deal and ultimately Netflix. The series showcased authentic, docu-style dog training instead of reality TV tropes.
• Show’s Impact: Shifted perception of dog training, expanded reach globally, and set up follow-on digital products and online coaching.

7. Becoming a True Entrepreneur ([37:22]–[41:07])

• Business Development: Self-taught in P&Ls and scaling, Josh switched hustle mindset (“stuffing money in the safe”) to building robust sales funnels and running paid ads for lead generation.
• Digital Offerings: Transitioned to Zoom coaching and online courses for wider reach and scalability post-Netflix.

8. Funnels, Scaling & Products ([41:07]–[47:06])

• Funnel Philosophy: “Fame doesn’t pay, funnels do.” TV exposure was used to drive clients into digital evaluation, courses, and mentoring—the latter scaling up to high-ticket and profit-sharing models.
• Licensing and Franchising: Expanding through mentorship and future licensing to launch Cali K9 branches nationwide/internationally; already set up shop in New York via family and former mentees.
• Multiple Revenue Streams: Physical products (Turbo Treats dog treats, training kits), digital courses, mentorship, and potential franchising.

9. Real Estate Investments ([48:41]–[50:16])

• Reinvesting Profits: Inspired by a friend, Josh started buying and renovating homes and now develops property internationally—recently investing in Morocco.

“The dog money just goes into the real estate.” — Josh Leverette ([49:31])

10. Scaling Mindset & Future Opportunities ([50:16]–[53:44])

• International Vision: Sees opportunities in underdeveloped markets, especially Africa; advises other entrepreneurs to become financially literate for growth.

11. Digital Marketing Mastery ([51:39]–[53:44])

• Ads & Creative: Emphasizes testing, speaking directly to clients’ problems, content volume, and not being cheap with ad spend.

“You can't be cheap. If you want to go big, you gotta buy... You gotta buy the whole pound.” — Josh Leverette ([52:44])

12. Legacy, Family, and the Next Moves ([53:44]–[55:21])

• Children & Brand Longevity: Plans to launch a large-scale app/platform, grow Turbo Treats as an acquirable brand, and keep legacy options open for his kids.

13. Practical Dog Owner Advice ([55:21]–[59:50])

• Top Mistakes: Over-humanizing dogs and lack of structure.
• Practical Tips: 15 minutes a day of consistent training, structure, and motivation through positive reinforcement are key.
• Best Guard Dog Breeds: German Shepherds, Rottweilers, Belgian Malinois, but the fit should depend on lifestyle—not just breed hype.

“If you treat a dog like a human, they'll treat you like a dog.” — Josh Leverette ([55:33])

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Notable Quotes

• On Building Trust:
  “Social proof. You know, being able to be transparent online, show the testimonials, having those five-star Yelp reviews, having the celebrities, showing the results... that's what gets people to say yes.” ([21:55])

• On the Power of Social Media:
  “A picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million.” ([25:20])

• On Celebrity Clients:
  “If Steph trusts you, I'm gonna trust you.” ([29:17])

• On Motivation:
  “Dogs either like praise, food or toys, right? So we sell them the praise, we sell them the food and the toys and teach them how to praise.” ([57:20])

• On Practical Training:
  “15 minutes a day keeps a bad behavior away.” ([55:33])

• On His Early Approach:
  “I just was treating it like it was trapping, bro. I just... stuff that money in the safe.” ([37:51])

• On Fame vs. Business:
  “Fame doesn’t pay. Funnels do.” ([41:07])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Josh’s Background and Early Hustles: [05:27]–[09:13]
• Mentors & Dog Training Foundations: [09:30]–[14:31]
• Building the Brand via Social: [14:31]–[17:05]
• Team Building & Scaling: [17:05]–[23:56]
• Celebrity Breakthrough with Steph Curry: [26:27]–[29:29]
• Netflix & Global Recognition: [31:42]–[37:22]
• Digital Courses & Funnels: [41:07]–[45:41]
• Product Lines, Licensing, and Scaling: [45:41]–[47:06]
• Real Estate and Wealth Building: [48:41]–[50:16]
• Advice for Entrepreneurs on Ads: [51:39]–[53:44]
• Owner Tips & Dog Training Wisdom: [55:21]–[59:50]

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Final Thoughts

For entrepreneurs and business-minded listeners, this episode is a masterclass in spotting opportunity in "unsexy" industries, leveraging social proof and digital marketing, and strategically scaling a brand across industries. For dog owners, it offers actionable advice for better relationships with their pets—and a window into a booming business few truly understand.

Follow Josh Leverette:

• Website: calik9.com
• Instagram: @calik9
• YouTube: Cali K9
• Netflix: [K9 Intervention]

Learn more about business and entrepreneurship at Earn Your Leisure.

Transcript

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[Interviewer 1]

When I did the podcast with you.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

All I was telling you probably the.

[Interviewer 1]

Most impactful interview I've done In my.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Career, heroes now, like real heroes Detroit.

[Interviewer 2]

Talk about the tax l. We talk.

[Interviewer 1]

About finance, but we talk in a language that is common to the people. That's from the communities that we grew up with.

[Interviewer 2]

You all are the bright spot. Thank you.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Real estate.

[Interviewer 2]

Thank you.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

And entrepreneurship for black Americans.

[Interviewer 1]

This is the knowledge that actually matters. I applaud both of you for this.

[Interviewer 2]

Thank you.

[Interviewer 1]

Literacy isn't a. A country issue. It's not an American issue. It's a world issue.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

We came to earn our leisure.

[Interviewer 2]

All right, guys, welcome back.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

We got a special episode. We got my brother, Josh Leverette, Where My dog's At actually was introduced in Dubai, Terence J's wedding.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Epic situation. Congratulations to him again. But we started to talk about, you know, business and investing and different things. And, you know, we always meet entrepreneurs that most people kind of don't think about. Non traditional businesses, let's just say that.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Or businesses that, you know, make a lot of sense, but you don't really think about it. And this is one of the things that. That's kind of the. The blueprint of eyl. We did the vending machine episode. You see vending machines your whole life, and nobody really thinks about who owns the vending machines.

[Interviewer 1]

Trucking. The same thing.

[Interviewer 2]

Trucking.

[Interviewer 1]

Yep.

[Interviewer 2]

You know, you see trucks on the highway all the time. And the vast majority of people never really looked at trucking as, like, a business, maybe an occupation at one day, like, I could drive a truck. But they never really looked at it like, who's making millions of dollars from owning the actual trucks? And the same goes for, you know, mobile homes. That.

[Interviewer 1]

That one set it off.

[Interviewer 2]

Variety. Variety of different things. So this one is something that's really big as far as dog training.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Yes, sir.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

So you've been in the game for a long time and. And built a. A real empire in. In the form of media. Did the show with Netflix celebrity clients, then, you know, was able to flip into the real estate from that. So multi layered, multi facet operation that you got going. But I think that is something that I don't think a lot of people fully appreciate the business because everybody has dog. A lot of people have dogs.

[Interviewer 1]

I think, you know who appreciates it? The people who are dogs. Because if you can't control a dog, you're always looking like, yo, man, what am I supposed to do? We don't have pets. But I could imagine, I've seen it with people just, like, out of control. I actually watched my wife get dragged down by a Dog, she was trying to walk it and it was a Rockweiler. Yeah. Hello.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

People get sick of that.

[Interviewer 2]

Hello, house.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Every day. You give drag, man, you got a new stuff.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, the Rockweiler didn't last much longer after that.

[Interviewer 2]

First and foremost, thank you for joining us.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Thanks for having me, man. Appreciate your brother.

[Interviewer 2]

No, all good, man. All right, so let's, let's, let's. Where does it start, right? Like, when does this actually start? Where you, you say, okay, I have a skill with dogs and I'm actually going to turn it into a business.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So we gotta go rewind, go Back to Oakland, California, 2005.

[Interviewer 1]

One time, one time. One time for me, for the bay. Come on.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

You know, you know, I went to school, I graduated, and I ended up going to a trade school. And in the trade school, it was for airline aviation maintenance. And with the aviation maintenance, I graduated 2001. So y' all know what happened 2001. 9 11. Yeah, right. So 911 comes through and it's basically like, you know, I'm in school and the next day I start. After I started school, you had the World Trade center situation. So I go into an industry knowing that, you know, it was, it was affected, you know, the people wouldn't want to fly. It was, it was bad, right? And you know, basically I was like, well, I started, let me go ahead and finish. But in the process, I started reading books, right? And in high school, my independent teacher at Oakland, from Oakland Tech High School, he gave me rich dad, poor dad, right? So that opened up, you know, my whole understanding of about to go into this job. You know, like, how is this all going to work out? This goes against all the rules of this book. So I read it again once I was in school and I started coming up with ideas to do like hot dog trucks outside of the damn airport. You know, I was discover whatever I could do to trap some, some money. And of course, coming from Oakland, California, you know, there's a lot of different hustles, a lot of street hustles, but, you know, we're trying to stay clear of that, right? Because I got friends, you know, doing, doing long ties in the pen. So I'm trying to figure out something. Plus, my mom is an entrepreneur. So, you know, I really, you know, learned a lot about, you know, small business. But, you know, I finished school and I had an opportunity to go work as an aircraft and get it, get in as the, in the union as an aircraft cleaner. Long story short, I get caught up by the smoking weed when I'm in training after I had got in this whole situation. So ends up after I get into this, I work for Southwest, got into the apprenticeship, didn't work out, sent my ass back to Oakland. So I had to figure out I was going to do. So I started Savage Wheels. And I was wearing the rims and the spinners and everything, and the TVs and the headrests, all that. So I started Savage Wheels, which is my rim company. And midway through that, I was a cool company. You know, I was very hands on, whatever. But then the weed game, you know, the medical marijuana situation, and especially in California, became the new thing, right? So I said, I'm gonna shut these doors down and put some lights up, right? So I started getting down on the. On the medical cannabis, you know, and I started growing pounds. And I was doing my thing, doing that. But, you know, I. I told my moms when I was doing it, she was like, mom, it's medical. It's cool. Don't worry about it. But then she thought how I was moving. She was like, nah, you moving like a D boy. You know what I mean? So. So it ends up kind of one of situations, like, all right, I got it. I got to switch lanes. Well, part of the process of. Of growing the medical marijuana was security, right? And I didn't want to get caught with guns, money, and weed. I was like, but if I have these dogs, you know, if I have security dogs, this might be a better security option, you know, and if I get in trouble, at least I had these dogs. I have to have firearms and catch a case, right? So that's really the nut symbol now. I always love dogs. I grew up with dogs. But I saw this as, like, all right, I started learning how to train the dogs for protection, and we train the dogs for protection. You're learning a whole nother level of dog training because you're dealing with super fire dogs, you know, a lot of power, a lot of strength, a lot of drive. And I started doing the protection stuff, and I fell in love with it. So in. In the process of falling in love with that, I was like, well, maybe I could do this as a business. And I ended up meeting the mentor and just kind of sitting, you know what? Let me go ahead, walk away from the game, you know what I'm saying? I was figuring, like, a lot of dudes was coming from out of town. They were trying to, like. I knew that eventually things were going to get overly competitive. I wanted to get to a lane that was. Was. Was. Well, I Was being my own lane.

[Interviewer 1]

How in this point did you figure out how to train, right? You said that you were learning to train it. How did you learn how to train it? What type of dog specifically? Like, there's certain dogs that you're not going to use for security. Like, I was looking into this, right? Having a home, it's like, do you get a dog? What type of dog? So how did you learn how to do this?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So I, you know, I had. My first mentor was from, you know, East Oakland, California, Shout out Raz Harambe, you know, a Jamaican brother who took me under his wing, right, to show me the game, you know, And I was like, bro, I want to learn this, plus I want to learn how to, you know, I want to learn it for my dog, plus I want to learn how to do it. Because I was always infatuated with like dog training, protection dogs and all that, right? So he took me under his wing and I just show up every Saturday. I stopped going to the club. I stopped. I was not interested in anything but just training these dogs, right? And I was really doing again for my, for my business, security, but also because I was very passionate about it. And, you know, I ended up having a conversation. One of my close friends, he's about to go do some crazy shit. He was like, josh, man, I don't know, man, I'm about to go do some wild shit, man. Money funny. Da da. I said, bro, go up to where our football coach is, go with Jeremiah. Because my other man, he had already caught a case. He ended up going to work for our football coach in Seattle. I said, go to Seattle. And me talking him into moving to Seattle, I talked myself into moving to Seattle because I knew that's where my man's was. They had a little club and all that. And then so I said, I took, you know, everything I was doing in Oakland and I said, let me pack my bags, I'm going to go up to. I called my football coach who had offered me a job the year before. It was like, yo, coach, what's up with that job? So I go up to. I go up to Seattle and I move into a two story house. I pack up my lights, all that underneath, you know, in my little trailer, and I got a two story house so I could grow bud downstairs and live upstairs and then go to work. Well, two days into me living in Seattle, after my coach gave me the job, I saw a house get raided, right? Crazy. Like crazy. Maybe like all type of, you know, cops, AR15s, everything. So I said, yo, this is hot. So I was like, look, I'm about to make this dog thing work, right? I was, I don't know about the growing thing. So I literally met my next mentors, like, God sent, bro. I met my next mentor, Bob Smith, you know, and you know, in this industry, like, you know, you go training like high caliber German shepherds. You were asking what kind of dogs you got? German shepherds, Rottweilers, Dutch shepherds, Belgian Malawise, like the biting dogs, the dogs that, you know, actually working dogs. And I ended up, you know, going to a training club, meeting my mentor, and I think the rest was history, bro. I, I just, I just really like locked in and was like, you know what, I'm about to make this into something. Because I saw it, he was actually monetizing it. He was selling packages for like 2,000, $5,000 to train these people's dogs. And his thing was like, wasn't even about the protection, it was about behavior modification. So you take the knowledge that you have from the protection and now you can train the most advanced, elite, high drive dogs. Now you could train any dog. So he started teaching me how to just make money training, you know, average dogs is just being aggressive or unsocial, whatever. And once he opened the door to that, I just saw the opportunity, man, and was like, you know what, I'm about to turn this up. And I basically cut off every other backup plan. I didn't want the Social Security because what, I mean, what ended up happening was I didn't want any, what is it? Not Social Security, but the when the unemployment, other cause. What ended up happening is 2009, now you have mass layoffs because the economy, right? So I ended up saying, you know what, I'm gonna design these flyers, I'm build this little makeshift website and I'm going all in on this dog fan. I'm gonna follow what Bob told me. So my mentor ended up getting me the game on that. And at the same time, my mom gave me a book called Social Media One Hour a day, right? And in that social media book, I never opened it, but I committed to social media one hour a day. So I made Facebook page. You know, I'll be on, on, on, on Craigslist making ads. You know, I found a shorty who knew how to make do HTML so she would do fancy ads. And I'm like advertising literally from Craigslist. Then I'm going up to the park, passing out flyers, doing my thing. And then I heard about Yelp, right? And the way I heard about Yelp was from not showing up to an appointment and finding out what it was to have a bad review. So once I learned what a bad review was, I say, yo, you got to have an impeccable reputation if you're going to play with this Internet because, you know, your name is out there and anybody can say anything. So you got to stand on good business. So the combination of like learning my skills, learning how to hustle on the Internet and just, you know, cut off all backup plans allowed me to just continue to just progress. And I basically moved. I said, I'm going to go to Silicon Valley, which is south of the bay, you know, south of Oakland, where I'm from, because those checks don't bounce. You know, it's Silicon Valley money. So it's big money out there. So, you know, I just rented a room and. And I literally hustled and sold training packages until I had 100,000 stacked in this little. Into this little safe. And I never spent any of it, right? I didn't buy a pair of tennis shoes because coming from the game, you take ups and downs sometimes, you know, you just gotta like, you gotta go on stack mode. You know what I mean? You got, you know, you know what it is to lose it all. So I gotta, I don't want to lose it. So basically, bro, I just put my head down, bro, and it just built a brand organically from the mud in San Jose. And then from there, you know, I started getting celebrities. I started getting, you know, getting real good reviews. Continue to make social media. Instagram popped out, so now the videos are popping and YouTube all. I became a YouTuber in 2009, before cast was even YouTube. I just made sense to me to put your out there on social media at this time.

[Interviewer 1]

This is, I mean, YouTube comes out 2005 or 6, 2009. It's really early. What type of content are you making? Right? Like you didn't open the book on social media, but you're making at that time in the early stages. What are you. Are you trying to get creative of ways to attract people? Like, what was the content based on?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So my first video was basically like a commercial, you know, And I still have my same editor from that long ago, Drew. He made me, he always made me look good on camera. So the first thing I made was like a commercial, right? So I'd always put that in my ads on, on Craigslist, the free ads. But then I made Day in the Life and the Day in the Life was Just to follow me around while me just hustling, you know, going to appointments, you know, advertising, going to different, you know, establishments, meeting and greeting people. And yeah, it was just doing that, like just this Day in the Life video. So I made like four episodes. But I figured, like, damn, this editing shit's kind of expensive, you know. Cause I was investing a lot, which I kind of wish I never stopped being a youtuber. Cause then once Instagram came out, I was like, oh, I could just upload my own stuff. So then I just remember to post, post, post, post and just really just showcase my life. Just showcase me training dogs and showcase me being that guy. And then having the celebs on there and having, you know, the different, different. Just being organic, man. The whole thing was just to be organic, man. And I was always real, real all about just being organic and being an example and showing, even showing the youngsters like, yo, you don't have to go play ball. You don't have to be a rapper. Like, I'm making money. And like I said, I have already stacked 100 G's cash in a safe, you know what I mean, in the first couple years of my business. So, you know, it was just. It's all that, man. I just make content about, you know, what, what, what was. What I was doing on my day in the life.

[Interviewer 2]

So how much, how much were the packages?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So, you know, I sell. I started selling packages, like a thousand dollars, $2,000, you know, what does that include? So that would include like a certain amount of like private sessions and then group classes, right? So people will need to get started, you know, with some private instruction. And then they start coming to the groups. And I would use the group classes to be like a walking billboard. So I started doing a group classes in highly populated areas, right? And then, and then people would see that, and that would be a free lead magnet, right? So that would be able to get leads, be passing out flyers, and people would see me everywhere, you know, so. So that was pretty much with the packages included, you know, now my packages, now we're in this more of a digital world. I do zooms and kickstart calls and more like zoom training I could do from anywhere. But it was all about selling, just selling training packages.

[Interviewer 2]

So like $1,000. How many, how many training sessions is that?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Oh, that would get you like 10 sessions, five sessions, five sessions private and five sessions group. And the thing about the group is the group, you're going to show up, they're going to come regardless that hour Is fixed. You see what I mean? So if you sell them privates and you throw the groups in, you could throw as many groups as you want. So I can say, oh, it's 10 groups. It's all good, because they going to just be coming to the same group I was going to do anyway.

[Interviewer 2]

That's enough to. You don't have at the 10. Good.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Well, they would have. Depends on what kind of dog we're dealing with. You got big problems, you got little problems, you got big problems. You know, I got to get you on a bigger package, you know?

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, yeah.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

And then depending if you wanted to do protection training. So it's basically all about the evaluation. And then once you do the evaluation, you know, you assess the dog, assess the client, and, you know, you try to, you know, try to try to get that money.

[Interviewer 1]

All right, take me through the process of assessing, right? Like when you're evaluating, let's say it is for behavior modification. Is the problem the dog or is it the owner? Like, what's the.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

What's the.

[Interviewer 1]

The first thing you're looking at when you're looking at these people as they sign up as clients, you're like, all right, session one. I can. Like, what are you seeing. Looking for right away?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So when I'm doing a temperament and evaluation, what I'm generally assessing is, like, the major thing is the dog's problem. Like, what are they struggling with? It is. It's both the owner and the dog's problem, right? Because the owner's got the problem and they're the ones paying, right? So when I'm looking at a dog, number one, I'm gonna assess the temperament, right? I'm saying, is this dog a dominant dog and just getting away with being a bully and pushing everybody over, or is he a scaredy cat and he's doing react and he's aggressive because he's scared? Either way it goes, they need training. So whatever problem they have, we don't even address the problem at first. What we do is we address the actual fact that they don't have any training and any communication with their dog. Like, the dog's really, like, checked out. So how is he going to trust you and respect you if the dog is. Is. Has. You haven't worked with the dog and built any rapport or built any value for your. For your leadership? And, you know, pretty much the whole goal is just to assess whether the dog has too much energy or the dog has. Is not getting enough exercise or the dog is becoming dominant and getting away with too much or you know, the dog is not being supported when he's nervous. So all of these things will contribute to the dog continuously to have this problem.

[Interviewer 2]

So, okay, so on the business side, right, you're doing $1,000 per client for the most part, right? How many clients can you realistically work in a schedule, like on a monthly basis without it becoming like too much?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Well, I knew right there when I built the brand, it wasn't about because in Rich dad, Poor dad, right, you say you could be self employed, you could be a business owner. So right there I knew that I needed to have a business where I had people who work for me. So immediately I started training mentor mentees, right? So I would be able to leverage. So if I had easy dogs, I could pass them off. And I can have multiple trainers who can do dog training sessions. So of course you have as many as you hours you have in a day, right? But then you have to have time for marketing, you have time for group class. You got to have all these different things. So it was really about just packing up that calendar, making sure I was packing up my other, you know, my trainer's calendar and then being able to leverage the, the trainer's skill set. But I had to make sure that they, you know, they're wearing my brand, so I had to make sure that they were tight and I would kind of take them under my wing before I put them out there, and then they would go out there and do their thing.

[Interviewer 2]

So you got other people that was training the dogs?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Yeah, immediately. Immediately. I immediately took on a mentee. How did you get those people, man? You know what? I always look for people to get mentees. I always look for people who want it for me. I don't go chasing them. I look for who's chasing me. You see what I'm saying? It's like one of those things that I like who likes me shout out to man, Goldie down there in Florida, right on his P talk, right? The thing is you got to get people who are engaged, you know what I mean? Like, the teacher is going to get the best results from the teacher, from the teacher's pet in the front of the class doing this, you know, that's the one they engage, they getting information. So I would go for people who really wanted to be down, you know, because if you go try to chase them, they gonna feel like they're the chase or, you know, they're the prey. You gotta go chase them. I'm the catch. You see what I'm saying, so I want them to, you know, come to me and then I know that they're gonna be ready, they're gonna be loyal to the brand, you know, and that was the thing of building a culture for people to be proud to say, I work for Cali K9. I'm rock with Cali K9. So that's what I did. I really made it a culture. I made it something like, man, that's a cool place to train my dog. That's a cool place to work, you know, and that's always kind of built. Built everything on that culture.

[Interviewer 1]

Knowing your skill set, knowing your expertise, did you ever struggle with pricing? Right? Did you ever think, you know what, obviously, 2008, 2009, you think like, yo, the economy's bad, maybe I shouldn't charge this. Like, how did you go about that? And the second part to it is what we kind of glossed over is that there has to be trust there. So how did you build trust with clients? Obviously you have mentees, but how did you build the trust in Cali Canine to say, people are like, all right, I believe in that. This is a good guy we should deal with.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So the first. So. So building the trust all came from social proof. You know, being able to be transparent online, show the testimonials, having those five star Yelp reviews, having the celebrities, you know, being, you know, showing the results, having these clients, right, that, that ultimately is going to be. It's almost like, you know, you dating somebody, you going out in the data pool. Like, you know, first it's like, oh, got a nice smile. But then what else? The guy's conversation has an outfit, you know, what's the education like? You know, so it's like you got to have all of these things for people to, to trust and say yes. Right? And then the third, the first question was with the pricing. As far as far as the pricing, I live in Silicon Valley, so I positioned myself in a place where I knew that the average income was over 200k in the household. And just like my man hit 500, say it was recession proof. You know, this is a game where when you, when you're fixing rich people's problems, that's a liability for them. You know what I mean? So when they have a liability, they need to fix it. It's not, it's not a question of if, it's when they have to fix it, because now they can get sued. Their dog, they're responsible for their dog, they're responsible for their dog biting their Baby, they're responsible for their dog getting out and biting the neighbors. And see, my story goes all the way back where I had a dog that killed a dog. So my story is like, if you don't fix this, this can escalate. So how long are you gonna wait? And you got a lot of people, you know, rescuing dogs, and they're pulling dogs out the shelter. Well, you don't know what kind of past that dog has had, right? What that dog's been allowed to get away with. So it really comes down to, like, people have a super need. In Silicon Valley, it was like the perfect storm. You know, you got technology, you had high income, you had me. And being from Oakland, California, being a hustler, I was always like one of them type of dudes. I jump out my minivan and go talk to that client right there. Like, I'm not gonna sit there and wait for you to come on the Internet or find me to hear. I'm gonna go talk to you right there. And then also having your demo dog, your demo dog, that's your business. Go. When you have your dog, your personal dog is trained up.

[Interviewer 1]

So you're walking around with a dog.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

What, everywhere? Everywhere with my dog.

[Interviewer 1]

What kind of dog was it?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So I had a German shepherd at the time. And see, the reason why I didn't come in with the pit, because I felt like the pit might be a little bit. The whole combination, that game might get threatened. But when I hit him with that German command and I'm spitting German to that German shepherd, oh, they gonna say.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah, German, the language.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Absolutely.

[Interviewer 2]

You speak German?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

No, absolutely not. I know. I know 10 commands, and you would think I spoke German.

[Interviewer 2]

But the 10. What's the. To the commands?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Oh, man. Everything from. So you got sits, plots, blibe, revere, giblaut, you know, various. Oh, these are all things. Sit down, come. He'll, you know, bark, search. You know, these are all the things that I learned training these high. These high. These protection dogs.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah, but why. Why German, though?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So German is because a lot of these dogs that we get come from Europe, you know, the European bloodlines, the true working dogs.

[Interviewer 2]

They used to hearing that.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Well, they used to hearing that. And another thing is, you know, if I don't want you to be able to talk to my dog. So, you know, I might speak my dog in Swahili. I might speak to him in Arabic. I might speak to him in. In Mandarin, because now you have no control over my dog. So that's one thing. Plus the fact that. That. That's their lineage. You know, they come from Europe.

[Interviewer 2]

So how did you like the marketing? It's just all, like, word of mouth. Or was it like one client that kind of, like, changed things for you when you got him and he started to put you in different position?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Well, my man told me one time, he says, a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million. You know, shout out my boy Master Bong, another early pioneer in. In the podcast or in the. I think he's a podcast and different. This YouTube. And when I knew that, I said, I just got to keep making content, you know, and people going to see the content, gonna see it on YouTube, they're gonna see the shorts on Instagram. And I think just, you know, the Yelp reviews, you know, people come from all over the place, and a lot of times people don't buy from you when they first meet you. There might be 10 touch points. So my whole goal is to just be everywhere to where they gonna say, okay, checks this box, checks this box, checks this box, checks this box. And when the Netflix come out, that was like, the super box.

[Interviewer 1]

We don't get there.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Yeah, this.

[Interviewer 1]

This sounds like a real Bay Area story, right?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Come on, man.

[Interviewer 1]

Got one. Like, if you got the girl, you got the pretty girl that's gonna attract more girls. You walking around with the dog is pretty spectacular, right? You're walking around the dog, showing command, more people attracting to you. Who is that? That person or client that changed everything for you, right? Like, you know, you starting out in the dog parks and you walk around. But who's that person that was like, oh, they. They're my client now we out here.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Yeah, I would say it was Steph Curry. I would say Steph Curry and shout Out. You know, I always give pay homage to my barrier boys, like Neph Deferrell, man, you know, you know, I was. He was my client, took care of all the rappers first. I took care of the street dudes first. And then what happened is, you know, hip hop and entertainment and sports, it all kind of like we all hang out at the same spot. So I remember being at this. This after party with Neff one time, you know, and, you know, shout out Vallejo. Neff was like, come on, Josh, come hang out with us. This, you know, tonight. So, you know, you build this relationship with your clients as you start working with them, spending time. So we went out to the city, San Francisco, and it was this after party after, you know, after the club or whatever, and we went to this back room and all the ball players were there. And I'm in there with Neff right now. I had already met Drake, but he wasn't my client. I met him at a video shoot that I had brought a dog to, right? So I had met Chubbs, right? And I had met Drake back in the day, like, back when YOLO Model Song came out. Model Song. So, but when I was in there, Steph and Aisha was just in there chilling, and I'm like, shit, I'm gonna go get this opportunity. I'm gonna go walk up and introduce myself, you know. So I walked up, hey, how you doing, Steph? You know, I'm Josh Cali K9 barrier dog trainer. And that was that, right? I didn't hear back from. From a year to a year later, you know, and then once, once, once Steph hit me. Then it's like, who don't love Steph Curry?

[Interviewer 2]

He DM'd you or something?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Well, no, his assistant hit me, okay. And she. She said, scheduled a, you know, evaluation. Actually, they was already sold. They. We got these dogs. We want you to train them. That pulled up got Steph, right? Steph was, like, involved, bro. He was, like, training, you know, bounce. We did all the drills where he's got the dog on the down. We swinging golf clubs, bouncing basketballs all around, Like I would say. Cause he got. He got in there and he got his hands dirty. He rolled up his sleeves. And yeah, I think Steph was like, that was like that. Okay, he got Step. Cause once I got Steph, then I started getting calls from other people, you know, and they, ah, well, you should. You should come meet us. See this and that. And then it turned into, you know, Kevin Hart, and it turned into, I mean, Michael B. Jordan. I mean, so many, you know, so many people over the years. I mean, I've been doing 16 years, so now, I mean, everybody. Kylie Jenner, I mean, we've. It's. It's. It's really expanded. But, you know, celebrities for me are like, extra social proof. It's not like the end all be all. That's not the goal.

[Interviewer 1]

Right?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

You know, And a lot of times they require more than your average client. And if I'm trying to scale, I can't just be focused on celebrities, you know what I mean?

[Interviewer 1]

So.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

But the celebrity, I say Steph would be that one.

[Interviewer 2]

So, like, working with a celebrity using the Steph Curry, how is that? Because a lot of people kind of ruin relationships because it's a delicate line. You're working with a celebrity, and you want to use that as a form of validation. But then some. Some people might ruin a relationship by posting something that they might not have wanted you to post or they might not have. You might not have had a conversation about, oh, is it okay if I'm filming or is it okay if I take a picture? They might. I got my home in the background, so talk about that.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So, you know, for me, man, I never try to, like, push myself on. On any of my clients ever. You know, I rarely ask favors of them, anything past just whatever our business is. But I think there's times where, you know, like, he did a video with me where, you know, I hooked him up with a sweater, some merch, and then I'm like, yo, Steph, you mind doing a little shout out? Come on, it's right there in front of my van Cali Canine rap Van dog right there. You know, it's just like one of them situations where, you know, if they rock with you, they throw you a bone, they'll do something. And they know. I mean, Vernon Davis had this conversation a long time ago. He said, man, I know that you're gonna use my name to say he was already up on game, but I mean, people are. People are mesmerized when your favorite home, your favorite sports team is the Niners. At his time, like Vernon, nobody was bigger than Vernon or the Warriors. Like, nobody's bigger than Steph. So it really does give you a nice little boost, a lot of trust, you know, A lot of people call me, man, steph trusts you. I'm gonna trust you. You know what I mean? It's one of those things. So that was definitely cool. But for me, I'm always try to, you know, it's like always about respecting boundaries. You know what I mean? Some people, they get too caught up with the celebrities and they figure, like, that's their one chance. I'm always just like, cool. Like, if it's cool, it's cool. But I'm not gonna be too invasive, you know, And I think that's the key. And sometimes, you know that you might film something, they say, oh, that was there, and you just quick to take it off and apologize, you know, it wasn't what we tried intended to do. But yeah, man, it's a delicate situation. Usually like a picture in a situation they're not showing their house or showing too much of their stuff is usually, you know, the most I ask. And if they want to do more, then it's all good.

[Interviewer 1]

How does it work? When you have clients, specifically celebrity clients that have more than one dog, like, how does that work? Is it. Is it your visit is just for one specific dog or is it for the household? Right, because sometimes we got two or three dogs. Some people got more than that. How do you handle those situations?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Well, every dog needs to be trained its own way based on his temperament. And then you have to make sure you get the whole family involved, right? So by having the family involved, you're not gonna have a dog that's getting over on somebody and then one person's being the pack leader, right? So you gotta make sure everybody's involved. And then when you have multiple dogs, you gotta train them separately. That means you gotta get paid twice. That's all that means.

[Interviewer 1]

Gotta mean. Gotta mean.

[Interviewer 2]

So when on the branding side, when does the net Netflix thing come into play?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So the branding, okay, so. So what ended up happening was I had clients down in la. I ended up training Rico Love's dog, right? And then Rico ended up sending me Andre Berto, who's one of my, you know, best friends now, you know, so we built a real good relationship. And I would go down there, I sold because Andre Berto's house got broken into, so I ended up selling him my personal dog, right? And then we became friends. So I had to go to LA and I service the dog and I'd go down there, hang out with Berto and. And then one day, man, I ended up there and shout out Tiff, the pretty artist. She was there and. And she was like, yo, what you do is amazing. You know, I have to introduce you to my. My fiance. He's a, you know, he's a. He's a. He works in production. So, you know, we set up the appointment. I took the demo Dog took Birdo, you know, we took the, you know, jumped in the race and went to the studio and I went to the, you know, the boardroom and had a meeting and they liked it, man, and they wanted to sign me, right? So that kind of turned in. That's how it kind of happened, I guess. Netflix, you know, are the. They just like the fact, like, I was good on camera because I'd already practiced, right, with my. All this, all this content I've been making, right? And then. And then again, I just. I had the. The names, the celebrities, you know, people. People, you know, they gravitate towards that. So they, they like that. They saw the success that I had, the, the brand that I was establishing, all the stuff I had. So it kind of turned into that. I mean, I didn't even know. Like, I didn't even, like, when I signed the production deal, I didn't know it was gonna be Netflix. Even when they said, yo, you bout to be big. You on Netflix. Even when they told me it was Netflix, I'm like, word, okay. Like, it didn't hit me until, like, oh, damn. Like, Netflix is real. Like, literally when that show came out, like, I went to dinner, like, the second night I was there, like, yo, you that guy. So again, yeah, Netflix. Netflix was a big one.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. Prior to meeting you, the only time I heard of dog training was the Dog Whisperer.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Right? Shout Out. Ceaser.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. So Ceaser, have you. Have you watched him? Or have you guys been in contact with each other? Was he a mentor in any way to you? Did he give you advice on how to get into this business? Because he was. I forget what network he was on, but every time it was on, I was like, you watch it because you're like, how's he doing that? Right? And now it's like, I feel like you've taken over that space completely. How has there been, like, crossing paths at any point?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Yeah, man. For me, man, I'm not one of those dudes who, like, don't acknowledge or don't pay homage to the people who kind of like, lay the groundwork, even if we don't see exactly eye to eye in our methodology. Shout out Caesar, man. He made people aware that this was a real thing. So, yeah, I'm cool with Caesar. We always back up forth, you know, I might pull up to his ranch. We chit chat a little bit on Instagram, you know, it's all respect, you know, but yeah, I mean, Caesar. Caesar's a, you know, a dog man. Fellow dog man. That's the thing about, like, I grew up a dog man. Like, I always had dogs growing up as a kid. And when you're like a real dog man, like, you really know dogs. Not like something you read in a book and then eventually do it when you're like 25. I mean, when you really raise around dogs, you really know dogs. So it's like for all the guys who are like, that is like a mutual respect you already know. Like, if you know, you know, you know. So.

[Interviewer 2]

So look back to this Netflix situation. So can you just break this down? Like, how does this actually work? Right? You come because they doing a show around you, right? So, okay, you sign the production deal, and then they put together the whole idea of, like, okay, this is what we're going to do. We're going to film you here. We're going to film you here. Like, how does that actually work? And then like you said, from when it goes to Netflix, because there's millions of pieces of content on Netflix, right? Do they market it for you? Are you responsible for the promotion? How does that whole process work?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So Netflix went hard for me, man. I can't even lie. They put me. So basically, we had a concept. You shoot a sizzle reel, right? So you show, like, a proof of concept, and then the production company shops that around. And then.

[Interviewer 2]

So you met with the production company first?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

First, yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

You said, okay. And then. And then they said, look, we just got this idea. And then they just pitched it to Netflix.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Exactly.

[Interviewer 2]

Netflix agreed to pick it up.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Exactly, exactly. So it was crazy because Michael B. Had already hit me and we were talking and just talking like, oh, man, we might do something, man. You know, right before, like, you know, before he had the big Amazon deal and Michael B. Was. We were talking about it, but we didn't never, like, make it formal. So when you sign up, I was already in this deal. Then six months into my deal, into my production contract, Mike hit me like, yo, you ready? I'm like, what you mean about that? Yeah, I'm locked in. But it ended up working out, man. Shout out the brother. But he. We ended up, you know, I said, netflix picked it up, they liked it. And then from there, it was like, this is going to be, you know, just. They're going to. They brought in a director, and the director was dope Elise Duran, because she was like, I don't want to make it some corny reality. She want to make it a docu series. I'm following you. I really wanted to, like, show it not. Not some, you know, where they do all of the dramatic interviews. And, you know, it's like they just. She just wanted to catch it. Just like. Like me doing my thing. And that's what I loved about it, because I was able to keep it authentic, super organic. They didn't try to push anything on me. Crazy. They just said, do what you do. And then what we did is we actually casted people just, like, locally, and then we kind of, like, cast it out a little bit more. But we were able to get a lot of people with problem. I mean, dog problems are probably 75% of dog households have dog problems, and they're just living with them. So it's not hard to find people who got problems, you know, and then a lot of people, you Know, can't afford little quality training. So, yeah, a lot of people that we. We brought on to the cast were really grateful, and we were able to really make a big impact and. And put together some good episodes.

[Interviewer 1]

So you're the guy with the skill, right? You got the talent to do it. You have the clients to do it. Are you also the person that's doing all the business as well? Because a lot of times when we go into entrepreneurship, we really don't know business. We kind of get forcing it. Yeah, we're making money, but we don't understand business. We don't understand, you know, profit margins and, you know, P. Ls, we. That's not something that we're thinking. Is that something that you had to learn, or did you have partners along with you to help guide you in that. In that space and where the mistakes mean.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

To be honest, man, I'm. I'm, you know, 100, owner operator, Cali K9. And I just was. I just was. I was treating it like it was trapping, bro. I just. I was stuffing that money in the safe. As long as the money was stacking in the safe, they were just stacking the safe. Then I put in the safety deposit box. It is stacking the safe deposit boxes. No more. So then I'm like, having to buy multiple. So for me, it wasn't. It was just about hustle and stack, hustle and stack, hustle and stack. And then I invested in, like, agility equipment and things that would, like, help the brand out. I really, at the time, I really wasn't really running ads. Eventually I started learning about, you know, a lot more like building landing pages, you know, and, you know, how to, you know, better conversions and, you know, just all of the sales funnels process. I mean, that was really like learning sales funnels, like the last four years of my year of my career, and it's been pretty much. That's been the thing that's been allowing me to scale because now I know how to, like, acquire customers, spend money on ads, get roas, you know, build products, verbally integrate. So a lot of this was just, man, just school of the hard knocks, bro. I mean, my mom, she sold skincare products in Oakland since 85. You know what I mean? We started out the back of the trunk, you know, and she built her reputation in Oakland, you know, selling skincare products. So she would just throw me out there and go, say, hey, go make this transaction. Go. Go help this client. Go talk to this person. So that was definitely something that gave Me, like, a boost of being able to, like, be confident talking to people and things like that. But yeah, bro, it's just kind of like learning as you go. And especially in, like, today's age, like, a lot of these sales funnels and this Internet marketing is still new, and it's constantly evolving. So there's not anybody, like, most of the guys I hire, I might end up knowing more than them just because they. They don't have a business that they run. They haven't run into this to these situations that they got to get themselves out of. So you kind of learn as you go, bro. And that's been like. It's been like the balance of becoming, you know, it was always me being a businessman as well as me being the talent, you know, you had to develop yourself as a businessman.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. I'm thinking now, like, you have a digital product for something that you physically have to do. So, like, when you're doing it on Zoom, how does that work? Do you, like, just give commands to the owners of, like, how does this. How does this work from a digital standpoint?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So, so. So tell me this. What's the difference between me sitting in a chair and instructing you or me sitting in a chair from a computer instructing you?

[Interviewer 1]

What's the difference? You physically being there?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

But I'm other than that.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, right.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

I'm there, you're there. My eyes are there.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

My comments are there.

[Interviewer 1]

You see?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So the whole digital play was all about scaling, you know, be able to help people outside, especially when I had, you know, the Netflix came out. Now, I'm not a local trainer, I'm a international trainer. So first things first. When the show came out, I had to put together a course. You see what I mean? I got to get it so I have something to sell all these people who are far away. So that was pretty much the. The thing with the digital. And I think digital training is really no different because you could literally train your dog from your own living room. And you introduce the distraction slow, and then the distractions get bigger. Eventually you go outside, you introduce the distractions. But this is the same stuff I teach people to do when they're in person. So it's really not a big difference.

[Interviewer 1]

You know, you're able to replicate yourself.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Exactly, exactly.

[Interviewer 2]

So you said something. Fame doesn't pay. Funnels do. You talked about the funnels, but elaborate on the funnels and, you know, the systems that you put in place.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Well, you know, a lot of people get an opportunity to be on tv, right? And they might do appearances, they might get to, you know, while they're popular, you know, but what. What I did was I took all of that traffic, right? And I said, okay, how do we make customers out of these people? Again, I had the different. Different stages that people can buy it. You know, you got these mini courses. You have, you know, the whole. The whole, you know, the full course. You have the course with all of the. The. The. We call it babies and zoom zooms and wham. Zoom zooms and wham whams. All the details and all the things that you. We have the. The extra, you know, coaching or the extra, you know, a full year of being able to come in the person. So it really is about taking your customer through a journey, figuring out, like, I mean, first, most of my clients, they have a decent amount of money, right? Because they have to have disposable income to fix a dog. So, you know, my process, I had to learn, like, it's all about the evaluation. I get them in on evaluation, I talk about their problems. I qualify them, they qualify me. And it's all about the upsell. So for me, it's just about taking them through to get that lifetime value up. You know, how much they're gonna spend with you over lifetime, you know, and really, like I said, when you. When you sell them, you gotta make sure that you're getting more than what it talk took to. To get them to buy them, right? So, like in today's world, when I'm running ads, for example, my customer acquisition might be $300. I might spend $300 to get that client that's gonna spend 2,000, right? But I had to learn that before, you know, you just be passing out flyers, hoping you get customers. Well, now you're in this digital age where we're making content and you got the organic, you got the paid content, and your whole goal is to get people to get in front of the right people, right? And Instagram and Facebook, they want to get you in front of the right people so you could continue to pay them. So really, it was just all about starting to learn all this digital stuff, man, and, you know, really, really, really becoming a understander of what to do with that, with that traffic, you know, and being able to turn them into leads. So not all leads. Not everybody who's following you on Instagram is gonna be a customer. But if you go through a hundred of them or 200 of them, you might get one. So it's like digging through the weeds, you know?

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. What does scaling look like you talked about scaling? Obviously replicating yourself. You said this is a digital product. Is there more products that are coming or that are on board now in terms of maybe some of the equipment that you're using? Is it some of the food that they may be using to train dogs? Like, how do you scale going from where you were in 2009 to present day?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So, you know, I've, I've already made it to where I've had, you know, a lot of trainers. You know, I've had big facilities, keeping 40 dogs in a facility at one time. But again, you're maxed out at 40 dogs. Right. And then for most people, they'll say, oh, 40 dogs at 5K, that's some good cheese. You know, but you got a lot of problems, you got a lot of liability that comes with that. And then you're just capped out. Right. And then you, you know, when you have people's dogs overnight. Yes. Like having people's children. So just the stress of that was like, all right, let me figure out how to do it. So then I switched it up and I started going to in person, but doing semi private. So multiple people coming in. So basically pure group class training, but just smaller groups.

[Interviewer 2]

All right.

[Interviewer 1]

So I, I, when people, when you're training the dog, they come to you.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So they most part. Yeah. So they either come to us.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Or we have a VIP where we go to them.

[Interviewer 1]

Got you.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Or we would take their dogs and have them dropping off and come to us.

[Interviewer 1]

Gotcha.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

But I wanted to get rid of that. So as of this year, we're getting rid of the board and train. And what I'm doing is now pushing more digital. So the digital programs are the ones, the courses, and with the support, not just a course, but like actual coaching where they, you know, you're getting checked on, you're making sure you're doing your drills. And that allows me to just not only work on California or where I'm in Miami, but, you know, international. And then we also have, you know, products. So we'll, we'll sell them a training kit or we'll get them, we'll just launch Turbo Treats, which is my new dog treats line. And it's, you know, a single ingredient, super high quality, a human grade thing that a lot of my clients, the kind of clients I have, would like and, you know, just basically giving them a nice little package and then being able to give them all their online instruction plus all their tools and, and, and, you know, get them going and I figure, you know, I can only hold 40 dogs, whereas I could do 400 digital digital clients.

[Interviewer 2]

Oh yeah, Talk about the multiple streams of income. You talked about the products a little bit. But explain your whole tree when it comes to like the different products, offerings and multiple streams of.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So people come in. The first one would be the evaluation. From the evaluation they ascend to a training package. So that might be maybe a thousand dollar or fifteen hundred dollar service package or maybe a five thousand dollars, six thousand dollars training board and train. And then if they want to continue on, then they could keep coming for like a monthly recurring class. They want to stay part of a community. The next level would be to say, okay, well I actually really like this. I want to become a dog trainer. Trainer, right. So I coach dog trainers who want to learn how to be, you know, monetized and make better use of their time so they can come into a mentorship program. And then I have a mentorship pro that's a five thousand dollar offer that then it sends up to a twenty thousand dollars where it's like more one on one with me really hands on, holding their hand. Right. And then right now we're really preparing for something that's going to be like, I can license them to be a Cali canine facilitator, then I can run ads to that city and then we could partner up and make money together. Right. And none of this requires like a facility necessarily. Like the way I got it structured now, it's, it's very profit heavy because you don't need to have a big old facility, you just need to run it, run the structure exactly how I run it. And if we can buy the customers and take them to that city, then that's Cali Canine, wherever we are, worldwide.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. When you look at it, it sounds like you've done a lot of analytics on it. LA, obviously, a lot of dogs, LA Miami for sure, a lot of dogs. But New York, a lot of dog. Have you ever thought about coming north or on the Northeast? Because I feel like everybody, if you know somebody that has at least a dog, 100%.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So I'm actually born in New York, Right. And my father lives in the Bronx and my brother Twili, he was living in LA at the time. Well, he was working as a, a waiter, you know, doing waiting tables and he wanted to get into music and this. I said, nah, bro, like let me, let me show you this new dog thing we doing. So he comes up to the bay. He was my first mentee. Right. So we rocking. He's working with me. So that was another he's cheese training sessions. And I'm putting my brother on, you know, I'm keeping it in the family. And then our older brother Quasi ends up getting in a motorcycle accident on Jersey Turnpike and almost kills himself, right? So then at that time, it was almost best for Twili to come back out here to help him. And I was like, bro, like, let's set your brand up in New York. So we are. He has Metro dog training here in, in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg, and then I also have NYK canine training up in Middletown. So I have some of my mentees who are actually out here. So it just allows me to expand like that, but not having to be like, so hands on with them. Like, I gotta deal with bosses who can handle their own business.

[Interviewer 2]

Like, franchise model.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Well, franchise not even for them. I just mentored them so they could set up their program. But like, the next level would be for them to be a licensed Cali canine facility, you know, so that. That's how we could take it to the next level.

[Interviewer 2]

What about real estate? How'd you get into real estate, man?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

You know, it was funny, man, because one of my partners, he was. I had opened up another facility in the bay, and he was helping me clean up my house when I was getting rid of it. And he ran into a bank statement. I had like 500 bands in the account. He was like, he was a real estate. He's a real estate guy. And he's like, bro, you gotta buy some property, you know, like, you gotta do something with this cash. And at the time I'm just like, you know, I missed the stack at all, you know. So he basically, you know, did renovations and all that. So I started buying homes and started renovating homes, you know, had to learn. I've been doing that 10 years. You know, I had my bumps in the road and that and learning that. But that evolved into now me becoming a real estate developer on the side, you know, and now I'm doing a project, like I said, where my wife is from. She's from Morocco, Marrakech. And that's the number one tourist destination in Africa. So 2003, right after Netflix, I basically paid a million dollars cash for a plot of land, 6 acres. So we're going to build 15 villas on those and, you know, continue on with the real estate. So it's basically like the dog money just goes into the real estate, you know, it's pretty much like how I've been doing it. And like I said, I've been buying and selling some homes again, bumping my head along the way, like with everything, you know, even with this digital marketing, man. Spend money, you lose money, you know, but it's like, you know, you're not a boss, you can't take a loss, you know, so it's been a hell of experience on both sides. But yeah, the real estate is ultimately like one of those, the wealth, that's more of the wealth play, you know, being able to hold your assets and be able to rent them out and get, you know, passive cash flow and appreciation from those.

[Interviewer 1]

To talk about opportunities, I think as we were speaking while we were out in Dubai, every time I spoke to you, you were always thinking of opportunities. How do you look at the landscape, especially from an international standpoint? We were, we were in Abu Dhabi. Like, I can see something happening here. Doing the analytics. How do you go about looking at future opportunities for yourself in the business realm?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Well, you know, I just think that, you know, there's a lot of places that aren't developed, you know, Africa being one of them, you know, and I just think that, you know, they all go through this, this, this development phase where, you know, it's like, you could be late or you could be early. I mean, we saw Dubai. Everybody out there is talking about what you could have had if you would have did that, you know, 10 years ago, invested in Dubai. Whereas I look at, you know, the same type of opportunities. So I'm really trying into the, the whole growth and development and really, you know, being part of the, the upswing versus the downturn, you know. So, yeah, man, I'm just all about, like, just trying to get financially more literate so I can make better moves, you know, knowing what to do with my money. I mean, for a long time, for, I think a lot of small business guys, they don't know how to take that money that they're making and grow their business or even a lot of stuff that they, when it comes to acquiring new clients and being able to do sales funnels and tracking KPIs and building out teams to be able to really scale. Like, it's like a whole skill set. I feel like you're not going to really learn unless you really do it, you know.

[Interviewer 2]

So talk about ads. Like, how effective has ads been for you, like, on the social side? And what advice would you give for a business owner that's looking to, to start running ads for their business?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So with ads, man, it really comes down to testing, you know, you don't know what your people like about you. So all you got to do is put out a lot of content. And once you kind of get an idea on what they know about you, then you just gotta, like, double down on that type of content. You know, with ads, I think there's, you know, the organic and then there's the paid. I mean, of course you don't want to be. While you're interrupting people scrolling while they're on the Internet. You don't want to be too salesy, you know. So I think it's really about being able to get your message off and sell to them indirectly, you know, speak to their problems, speak to their situation. The way with, with ads, generally, I shoot ads where I'll make certain creatives that are really talking to my avatar a lot more direct because I know that Instagram's gonna make them watch that, whereas the people who are just scrolling, I want them to watch me will just kind of, you know, they don't want to see just being overly sold. But what I think about ads is you have to shoot creatives to hook the client. And then after that, your organic content is what really makes them fall in love with you. Right? So, and then another thing is you can't be cheap. Like, you have to spend like, you know, it's like I look at almost like being in, in like the streets. Like, you, you have to spend, you know, I mean, you gotta buy your own. If you want to go big, you gotta buy. You can't just buy a. The eighth. You got to buy the whole pound, you know, and it's. The whole thing is like, as you become more sophisticated with your ads, you know, you start to get more confidence and you start gambling on yourself. You're like, I'm gonna spend 100 today. I'm gonna spend 200 today. You know, right now I spend like a thousand a day. But I got homeboys who got brands, they spend a hundred thousand a day, you know, so it's just, you realize like that return on ad spend that you're getting, and it really comes down to just, you know, having a lot of creatives working, making content like crazy, getting really good on camera, getting lots of, you know, social proof. So when that, when the ad hits, you know, they like, damn, okay, let me call them.

[Interviewer 1]

This is big business. I, I think we, we underestimate it. But a lot of people have pets, and taking care of pets is a extremely lucrative business. Is this a legacy situation for you? Right? Like, you've got Cali K9, you've got kids, obviously you got your wife involved in it. Is this something that you see yourself continuing doing on eventually to the point where it's like, like, hey, we might want to sell this off or keep this inside the family. How are you viewing the future of the brand?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

You know, the next move is really like, I'm launching the app, right? And I always had an app on a small level, but I didn't really, like, leverage it. You know, I was on a yacht in, in Miami with, with the guy who's Doves Fitness, and he's got 6, 000 subscribers paying him $30 a month. You know, what do you say? What is it? Not 6,000. He says he got 60,000-right people on paying him $30 a month, you know, so the goal is to just build. Like I want to get more into the technology space, you know, the educational space, I think is something that everybody needs. So as far as the Cali canine brand, I don't know, man. Like, I'm building Turbo treats to blow that up and maybe get that acquired, but I don't know what I'm gonna do it. You know, I feel like sometimes, like, I kind of want to leave something for the kids so they can. They have something to, you know, know is for sure. You know, it's a unique brand, and I think there's nothing better than building a brand. I think that the, you know, you get the best return on your investment when you have actually a brand built versus just being another random dog trainer. So I don't know, man. It's really what they want to do, you know, but, you know, there's. There's, hey, somebody make the right offer, man. You know how it is, you know, for sure.

[Interviewer 2]

So what's, what's a few things that any dog owner can do to, you know, have their dog more compliant? And what's some of the biggest mistakes that you see from dog owners that they make with their dogs?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

I think humanizing dogs. Humanizing dogs. So you say if you treat a dog like a human, they'll treat you like a dog, right? So when you overly humanize a dog for dominant dogs, that becomes like a indicator that they could kind of like push you around, get away with stuff, and then they'll. They'll push boundaries a lot more. For a nervous dog, a lot of times that attribute to them, you know, you not be. Have setting any boundaries and structure and you being too, too lax and overly humanizing them will make them not trust you. So I think like really setting structure. Just like children, you know, you got to give them structure. There's. That is a loved kid when they really have that structure versus a kid who just gets to do whatever, you know what I mean? They're gonna bump their head. So the key is, is like 15 minutes of drink. We say 15 minutes a day. He's a bad behavior away. You give, we have these, these, these, these repetitions that you do. You hold your dog accountable right from your own house. And it'll just make living with your dog so much easier by giving your dog some structure. We focus on five pillars. Obedience, socialization, agility, behavior management and problem solving. And before we fix a problem, we have to fix all these other things, right? And this is what gives your dog the confidence and the respect and the boundaries that they need to have. So it's really giving your dog like some real structure, you know. And you know, I think that that's, that's going to give you, that's going to make your life easier. It's going to take the liability out of owning the dog. And then I think a lot of people, they tend to, they under motivate their dog. They do that old school. Sit. Sit your ass down. You know what I mean? It's like. Yeah, think about it like if you're, if you, if, if the, if the, a kid for example, is, is excited about doing something, they're gonna want to do it. And I think that that's what you gotta do. You gotta make your dog wanna do it. And this is why turbo treats came out. Cause it's like I gotta have the best product to, to make these dogs want to train.

[Interviewer 1]

That's the reinforcement.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

That's the reinforcement, positive reinforcement. Dogs either like praise food or toys, right? So we sell them the pray we sell them the food and the toys and teach them how to praise. But you got to learn how to motivate your dog and really make sure that they, you know, are engaged to give them something to focus on. Otherwise they're going to be distracted. It's almost like, like I look at it almost like dating. Like you got to be attractive to your partner. Otherwise their eyes are going to be going elsewhere. They're going to get distracted. If you're not fun, you're not fly, you're not smelling good. You know what I mean? There's certain things that are going to keep them engaged and attracted versus letting the compete competition outside, you know what I mean? Attract your lady. So it's like the same thing you Got to stay attractive and. But then also, you know, set those boundaries as well.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, I was close, man, we were really close as a family to getting a dog and I couldn't pull the trigger. I'm wondering, now that I think about it, in terms of protective dogs or like, what are the top five protective dogs from your expertise?

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Well, a lot of people, a lot of people tend to try to incorporate the Belgian Malawi in their lifestyle. Right. That is a great police dog. But again, that dog's out biting people, jumping over fences, going through say so for as a day to day dog is probably not the best one. I like rottweilers, but they're rottweilers. They, they dominant, they pushy, they're strong, you know, so if you don't train them, you know, they have their issues. Pit bulls are great, but they can be dog aggressive naturally because that's their origin, right? To be pit fighters, right? And dog fighters. And you got schnauzers. I mean, a lot of dog breeds are. Could be. It just depends on the fit for the family. You know, are you an athletic type? Do you run a lot? Do you take your dog out? Do you have a big yard? You know what I mean? All of these factor in based on the dog's temperament. So I think it's more about pairing the right person up with the right dog.

[Interviewer 1]

I was gonna get a bully.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

A bully? Well, bully, I mean, a bully's only this big, you know what I mean? It ain't gonna stop nobody from really.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, he's just chilling.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

Yeah, if he's chilling. If he's chilling. So if it's not a protection dog, then, you know, I mean, honestly, there's a lot of good dogs in the shelter, man, that just, they need homes and good dogs. They just need some structure. But like, if you want a particular dog for protection, I, my recommendation is just go buy a fully trained dog that's already dialed in. And it's not cheap because a lot of people are getting their houses broken into. A lot of these ball players, they go into games and they, they, they come back to their house, they go on vacation, they come back to their house, totally ran in shambles. You know, people need to invest in their security. So I think that easygoing protection dog would probably be like a solid German shepherd, to be, be honest. But then you got a hairy dog, right? So it's like no dog is perfect. You know, you're just all about what you like and then, you know, the training that you put into the dog.

[Interviewer 2]

Gotcha oh, my brother. Appreciate it, man. How can the people reach out to you as far as if they want their dog train? Like, what's the website, socials, all of that.

[Josh Leverette (Cali K9 Founder)]

So I'm pretty much Cali K9 all over. I got the Cali K9 on, on Instagram, Cali K9 on YouTube, and then I got K9 Intervention on Netflix and. Yeah, man. And then kalik9.com to schedule an evaluation to do your training digital or to look into the mentorship program. We always, always tell dudes, man. I mean, I coach a lot of guys, man, and you know, take their life from making 5k a month to 35k a month. It's like people sleep on that. Like, that's a lot of money. Especially if you somewhere, you know, down in the south or something like that, or, you know, you making this little 5k job, all of a sudden you really ready to make some money. So the mentorship as well, man.

[Interviewer 2]

Cali k9.com There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Tap in. All right, y'. All.

[Interviewer 1]

Where my dog's at?

[Interviewer 2]

All right, Shaw, thank you for rocking. See you next week.

[Interviewer 1]

Peace. Ciao.

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