You Don’t Have to Build This Alone

Starting an Equine Assisted Learning business is exciting, but it can also become overwhelming pretty quickly. You may have the horses, the passion and a clear vision of the difference you want to make, but then comes everything else that goes along with actually building a business: finding clients, choosing programs, figuring out insurance, setting prices, marketing, paperwork, social media, websites and all the little details you didn’t even know you needed to think about.

Before long, it can feel like you have to figure out absolutely everything yourself before you can even get started.

The good news is, you don’t.

Stop Reinventing the Wheel

One of the biggest advantages of being part of an established Equine Assisted Learning community is that you don’t have to recreate everything that has already been created, tested and learned.

There is absolutely value in making your business your own. Your personality, horses, community, experiences and the people you want to serve should influence what you build. But making something your own is very different from starting from scratch.

Instead of spending months creating programs, forms, business processes and marketing ideas, you can learn from people who have already walked that road. You can find out what has worked, what hasn’t worked and, sometimes even more importantly, what they wish they had known when they started.

That allows you to put more of your time and energy where it really matters: working with your horses, developing your skills, building relationships and getting your programs in front of the people who need them.

There Is Huge Value in Having People to Ask

No matter how much training you receive, there will always be situations you haven’t encountered before. You may wonder what to charge for a particular group, how someone else approached a corporate client, what insurance they use, how they marketed a new program or what they would do differently in a situation with a horse or participant.

Sometimes you don’t need another course, a Google search or hours of trying to figure it out yourself. You simply need to be able to ask someone who understands this work.

That is where having a strong community becomes incredibly valuable. Being surrounded by other facilitators means having access to different experiences, perspectives, ideas and lessons learned. Someone else may have already dealt with the exact challenge you’re facing, and a ten-minute conversation can sometimes save you weeks of frustration.

Other Facilitators Aren’t Your Competition

There are so many people who can benefit from Equine Assisted Learning, and there is room for different facilitators, different horses, different specialties and different communities.

When facilitators share ideas, answer questions, recommend one another and celebrate each other’s successes, it strengthens the entire Equine Assisted Learning industry. The more successful programs there are in our communities, the more people understand what EAL is and the incredible impact horses can have as teachers.

We don’t need to protect every idea as though someone else’s success somehow takes away from our own. We can grow much further when we grow together.

Use What’s Already There, Then Make It Yours

Having proven programs, resources, business tools, training and a community behind you doesn’t mean your business has to look exactly like everyone else’s. It actually gives you a stronger foundation from which to create something that feels authentically yours.

Use the curriculum. Use the resources. Ask questions. Learn from the people who have gone before you and take advantage of the tools that already exist. Then bring the piece nobody else can duplicate: you, your horses and the way you connect with the people you serve.

Building a successful Equine Assisted Learning business was never supposed to be about proving you can do everything yourself. It is about creating something sustainable that allows you to continue doing the work you became passionate about in the first place.

Find your people, use your community and stop reinventing the wheel. There is a whole lot more we can accomplish when we do this together.