You may have seen her on TikTok or Instagram... this week the dog trainer known for sharing her videos on social media is making an appearance here on the FDSA podcast! If you aren't already following her, you'll want to by the time you finish listening.  

 Transcription

Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today I have Jerri Scherff here to talk about social media and dog training. Hi, Jerri. Welcome to the podcast. Hello. I'm thrilled to be here. I said something to my mom like six times.

Melissa Breau: Well, I'm thrilled to have you. So, to start us off, do you want to just share a little bit about your own dogs, maybe what you're working on with them? Yeah, I actually have something just, it's really cute too, and it's not an ad. I'm not meaning to prop up a small business though. I think it's really cute. But we're working on this little hide and seek scent game that a small business owner, it's a woman owned small business out of Seattle that they sent and asked if I would try.

And so that's what we're going to do this week is try this. And Enzo loves to find things in boxes. He loves to find things. I'm just looking for, you know, fun, interesting ways to like, you know, do this in a really mediocre sort of way because that's not my, that's not my area. So it's fun to explore that with him and see if it's something we might like to do more.

Melissa Breau: That's awesome. It certainly sounds like fun. Are you going to share stuff on your own socials when that comes out? Are people going to be able to go see what it is that you're playing with?

Jerri Scherff: Yeah, it's called Hide and Scent. And I have, I can't give you a review because I haven't used it yet, but I always give very honest reviews and we'll see. It's got like some little medallions in it and I don't know, it's interesting.

I haven't opened it up all the way because I could tell it was like a trinket thing and my, my neurodivergent mind was like, oh, you know, when I opened it. So I want to give it the respect that it deserves. Yeah, I'm saving it. I'm saving up when I can actually, you know, because as much as I like to make videos and share my experiences and that's part of my job, there are times where I don't like it and I want to just open a box and look at it with my dog, you know, and get really excited. But I remember that I'm here to share. To share my experience.

Melissa Breau: Fair enough. So speaking of all that, how did you originally get into training? How did you wind up combining out with social media? Can you give us a little your story?

Jerri Scherff: Yeah, I came into training by way out of Vet Med. So I was a veterinary technician for 18 years and a practice manager, and I worked for small and exotic animal hospitals and veterinarians and loved that.

But I could not give myself the life and the hobbies that I wanted on that salary. So after many, many years, I decided, you're nodding your head like you understand. So many people do. After many years, I just thought, you know, I've amassed this knowledge that's actually vast and broad and way beyond just dogs. I mean, I felt my eyes cross just then of like, oh, God, you know, so many species of animals and like, why am I.

Why do I feel so limited? You know, this is. A lot of people don't know what I know, you know, that it's. It's a very niche kind of thing. And so I thought about that, and I prepared myself over a series of months to basically just retire from Vet Med and to start training dogs, which I had always done on the side because I had pit bulls. I had these huge pit bulls, and they were always very well trained and very safe.

I had kids, I had. And people were like, what. What is that exactly? How do you. How do you do that? So I just always kind of helped people with their dogs and helped people at the vet clinic, and it was all just sort of, you know, the way it is before you get into something full time and you make that your sole livelihood. And I thought, well, this is something that I can do, and I certainly.

I mean, I have to be able to replace my salary. I mean, it's peanuts. And when I say it's so much lower than what people think you're gonna say, you know, it's so much lower. And I just thought, I'm gonna pay off any money that I owe. I'm gonna pay off my car. And then I had about three months salary. I did all this with, like, my tax return and just over time, and I thought, sink or swim.

And that was it. That's all I had was three months to make it, and I. And I had to do that. And that was in July of 2020. And then in October, I found a Tulsa Pack, and boy, did I scrape it right down to the penny on Those three months, let me tell you. And the way that I did that was that previous New Year's Eve, I had never done social media before.

Like, I didn't really even. Like, I maybe post once a year, twice a year to a Facebook page. I didn't have any knowledge of how to do social media. I didn't know anything about it. I had an Instagram, but I didn't really post on it. I didn't even really look at Instagram. When I say I knew nothing, I mean green. And I opened up my Facebook to public on New year's Eve of 2019.

And so then Tik Tok, you know, I saw this Covid thing was going on, and I already knew that I was gonna retire, and I knew I had to save money, and I had to. So for once in my life, Melissa, for once in my life, I prepared myself, and I was like, you know what? I think I can actually make a go of this. And so I started posting on this platform that a lot of people hadn't heard of, certainly not people that were my age.

So the Elder Millennials. It was originally called Musical Ly. And I had a friend at work that would go in the bathroom, and she knew that I danced, and I was silly. And she was the groomer at this vet clinic I worked at. And she would pull me in the bathrooms in the morning, and she'd be like, okay, do this. I'm dancing for people that can't see. And she would show me these.

She would show me these, like, simple little moves, and I'm like, okay. And she's like, okay, now do it on the. Do it to the music, okay? And we did that, you know, just silly. It was just a silly little thing. And then that turned into TikTok, and I got myself a TikTok account, and I just started posting. And I remember my oldest son said to me, do you know.

Because I'd been practicing on Facebook, right? I'd been putting things out and just put in. It was stories, stories, stories, stories. I always post in stories. Still to this day. That's how I've built everything. My son said, you know, it's really hard to get any popularity, any fame on social media. Do you know how hard that's going to be? And I don't know what it was about that, but that just chapped my rear end.

I don't. And I thought, okay, like. And, you know, a lot of us are like that when somebody tells you that you can't do something or you or it's going to be really hard and you may. It's. I'm just very competitive. Very. Almost. Almost to my detriment at times. And I took that. I'm glad he said it because I needed it and I ran with it. And pretty soon I had a viral video and then I had another one and then I had another one and another one.

And then I started figuring out like, okay, not every video is viral. Some of them are just funny. And my followers that actually are here to like talk about dogs or vet med or whatever, because I didn't start out on social media as a dog trainer. I started out as a vet tech. And I just knew that was coming. And so when I made the transition, I just said to my audience, I'm retiring.

Hope you like dog training. And all along the way I've done that, like, okay, well, built my dog business. Hope you guys like horses, you know, And I mean, it just. That's just kind of how I do stuff. I want to talk about my life, I want to share about my life because that's the only thing I'm qualified to talk about or teach about. So that was originally how it started, was just out of necessity, was because I needed followers, I needed to figure out how to make money as a dog trainer, virtually.

How do you do that? I do not like in person training. I don't like it at all. I like group classes and things like that that I think are like, you know, where you get together and it's like about the fellowship and the dogs having the exposure. I think there's so many beautiful ways to do that. But I'm not a fan of one on one in person training in the way that I think that it's been done.

I think there's a lot of people doing it well. I just am not going to be one of them. So it was a lot of it was out of necessity, but thank God, because I have trained clients all over the world from here to Australia to Saudi Arabia to all over Europe, to every single province in Canada besides the Northwest Territories. I mean, it just. I would have not had that had I just been like, oh, I'm just gonna stay in Tulsa.

Oh, I'm just gonna stay in Wichita. And so it was a little bit unconventional, but it worked for me. Nothing wrong, right? Yeah, that's right. It's my favorite thing.

Melissa Breau: So is there a story behind your handle? Why Sailor Jerri? Yeah. So a lot of people I think don't realize my name is actually Jerri. And then when they do. They think that the sailor is. Because I have a lot of tattoos and they're very nautical and very American traditional.

And I think a lot of people genuinely believe that I was in the Navy, which is hilarious to me. And I'm like, no, but thank you for having that faith in me and thinking that that could be something that I would do. So Sailor Jerry is Norman Collins. So it's just a moniker for a man named Norman Collins, who is a really famous tattoo artist. His nickname was Sailor Jerry.

And he brought basically what we know to be American traditional to the US well, it. To Hawaii. And that's where that name came from. But then later, a rum company procured the rights somehow to use his name and all of his tattooing, like all of the artwork, essentially, and put it on a 92 proof rum and many, many years ago. And which is funny because he does not drink.

He. Well, he's been, you know, dead a long time. He was like, like the twenties. The twenties. He was in his heyday. So it's been many, many years. It's been a hundred years. Wow. 100 years. Wow. Since he's been around tattooing. But it's just ironic because he was a sober man for many reasons. And so it was a little bit unusual that that happened. But then when I was in my 20s, I began a really outrageous love affair with drugs and alcohol and Sailor Jerry, the rum was one of those things.

And I got really, really sick and was really, really, really, really, in a bad way, heavy on the really. And so. But it was a long time ago. I've been sober a really long time. So I like that because now a lot of the people that heard Sailor Jerry before, like, they're not old enough to know who Norman Collins is. And they see my tattoos and they just think like, oh, that's just American traditional.

Lots of people tattoo like that. You know, there. There'd be no reason for them to really know unless that they were a tattoo enthusiast. So now when a lot of people hear Sailor Jerry, they're like, oh, that dog lady. Or, oh, that crazy lady with the horse lady. Yeah. And I just think that's great. And I think Norman would think that was great because I talk about recovery so much on my channel.

I don't know, it's just all kind of a funny little ironic sort of circle, but that's where it came from. I like that there's kind of the parallel there of. And being sober and you becoming like. That's just. There's some really nice parallels in there. Yeah. Of all that. Exactly. I think originally it just caught on to me because we. It was like the same initials, you know, because I was like 18 or 19.

I was like an idiot, you know, like. Well, no, that's not true. I was probably in my mid-20s at that point because I remember the guy that I did. I was dating a guy that introduced me to it. I remember that. And that would have been in my mid-20s. But it was just my reasons behind it at the time were stupid and dumb things that a young person does. But now they have such significance to me, you know, and I'm glad I did that. So I like that.

Melissa Breau: Yeah, it's quite an interesting story. I don't think most people either, you know, kind of pick something that's just their business or their name, and very few people have such a story behind it. So I think that's kind of neat that you have the whole story for it. You talked a little bit about the fact that you are honest about recovery on your channel.

Do you want to share a little more about kind of what else you share, what kind of content you produce, what people might expect if they're not following you and they want to go follow you after they hear this?

Jerri Scherff: Yeah, well, it's, you know, it vacillates between dumpster fire and circus. There is some coherent thought in what I do. You know, if you come to my page and you just look at my page and you just look at my reels or you just look at my posts, you're going to find probably, hopefully you can tell somebody that has a really good sense of humor, doesn't take themselves too seriously, but also is very intense.

I'm a very intense person and I don't necessarily always mean in the way that I like, behave. I mean, the things that I talk about and the way that I talk about them. I do not like to mince words. I don't like to beat around the bush. I get straight to the point. And a lot of the things that I say, most people would not say. And it's just because I don't have a lot of fear of consequences if I'm.

IfI would not knowingly do something that would harm someone else intentionally or, or I think even like in a secondary way. I have a pretty good hold on that. So most of the things that I'm doing, I've already, hopefully almost all the things I'm doing, I've put a lot of thought into why I'm saying it the way I'm saying it's. And I go for. I wouldn't call it shock factor.

I would call it that almost like the awakenings that you get as a young person, those rude awakenings where you had a jagged little pill to swallow. You know, I tend to deliver things like that, but I also want people to remember how amazing life is and that there's so many things out here for us to do, and we can do them and have fun, and we don't even need to be good at them.

We could be terrible. We could not know what we're doing. We could look stupid, we could feel stupid, and we can still get out there and do it and have fun and learn and grow. What else? So definitely horses. You're going to get horses if you come to my page. Coming up, we've got some skijoring, Some skijoring in Colorado, which, if you've never seen that, I encourage you to stop what you're doing now.

And I'm kidding. You can do it later. You can do it later. But Google it. Look it up on Instagram. Skijoring is where you run horses on a snow track at breakneck speeds as fast as you possibly can while a skier holding a rope is attached to your saddle, just on their skis, flies behind you, tries to jump over jumps and do flips and get rings. They have this, like, little baton, and they stick their arm out, like, straight in front of them, almost like Harry Potter, and they get these little rings as they're going by, like, 40 miles an hour.

It's incredible. So we're gonna go do that. My daughter's gonna see how she feels about this new sport. She's a barrel racer. So in the winter, skijoring is really fun to do for the people that rodeo, you know, in the rodeo season, but they don't in the cold, so that's something we do. I have a goat. I sometimes talk about him. Denise and I have a lot in common, and we're very good friends, and we just have different personalities.

But I think that's why I gravitate to watching her so much, is because we do have a lot of common interests. My dad was a farmer growing up and a cowboy, and I am in love and obsessed with all things country, all things natural. My boyfriend is a master hunter, and he is an upland gundog runner, and he has four, and they're all different breeds, and so I get to go out and hunt with them.

And, I mean, I could not have ever found in my lifetime. The people out of the people that I know, somebody that knows more about what he's doing than he does. And it's so fascinating for me to just go and be quiet. I don't say anything unless I have a question about why he's doing something. But I'm not. Like, if you taught it this way, like, I don't do that.

I'm just quiet and I listen. And then he introduced me to pointer trials on horseback, which is the longest running continuous sport in America. Plug for pointer trials. And so he doesn't really like to do that, but I do. So he introduced me to all the people and they have taken me under their wing and have been kind enough to teach me all about the sport, even though I have a big American bully and I don't have a pointer.

Melissa Breau: So for those who don't know what pointer trials are, me included, can you give us a short description? What is it?

Jerri Scherff: Pointer trials are essentially the highlighting of the English pointer. There's other dogs that can go in the trials too. Setters have some, they've got some for German shorthairs. But most of the time, if you say pointer trials, we're talking English pointers. And it's essentially to highlight and showcase the dog, and the best dog wins.

So they're looking for things like, is a dog really hunting or are they just running around and tagging off of the other dog? Are they using their nose? Are they really tracking or are they just running blindly around? You know, they want to see the dog's crest at the top of the prairie hills and see that perfect pointer outline. Like, there's this whole. This whole culture. It's really amazing, but that's what it is.

So they're just looking for. The pointer trials are essentially to help your breeding stock. So it's proving that your dogs can do what you say that they do. As a breeder, it's very, very important to keeping English pointers really high quality. I did not really know that before. Like, I just assumed it was like everything else. And you, like, oh, you put them in a show. Oh, you run them on a field.

Oh, you. Oh, boy. These men get together. I tell you what, I tell you what. And they ride walkers, which I do not have gaited horses. And so it's been so fun for me to get on a horse that will just, you know, I mean, we'll just go and go and go for six hours straight, just through stuff you've never even seen, like, oh, my God. Are you okay, man?

And they just go and they do it. My horses would be like, hungry. This is too. I'm too far from the bar. I want to go, you know, because we ride non gated horses, which are little princesses, you know. Little princesses. Yeah. But it's fun. It's been yet another side of dogs that I didn't know about. Now pointers, and this should be said English pointers and upland gun dogs.

And training dogs and horses has gone on in my family every generation well into slavery. So my family is. Has been doing that. But when my mother had me when she was 16 years old, so she gave me up for adoption. And so I grew up. My, you know, my dad was an officer in the Marine Corps. So we moved around all over and then we moved, boom, to Kansas.

And I'm from Georgia, which makes a lot more sense for quail plantations and upland gundog hunting. Or the only other place is the prairie is the Midwest. And so just by happenstance, I ended up having a dad that really, really liked the outdoors and taught me a lot about it and kind of sparked that thing that was already there in me. And so even though I'm adopted and I wasn't raised by my family and I did not know that that was in my family, I became a dog trainer anyway, and I became a horse person anyway.

And it's a very interesting, like, play on, you know, when people talk about nature versus nurture, and I always tell people, you have no idea how important both things are. Both so important, you know, I mean, if I didn't have the parents that I had that nurtured all of my natural talents, I certainly wouldn't be sitting here at all. And I would not have found my way to many of the things that I did that were there, you know, inside of me and, you know, already there. So. Interesting story, isn't it?

Melissa Breau I know absolutely. The number of people I know who are into dogs, who can say, like, yeah, you know, my parents were in dogs or my grandparents were in dogs. You know what I mean?

Jerri Scherff: Like, yeah, it's definitely something to both ends. There are definitely something in nature. I think it's just so important for the black community to know that this is not something that belongs to white folks. This is something that's been in our culture too. This is something that's been in Mexican culture too. This is something that's been in indigenous cultures too, you know, so it's just nice just to, to be, to keep it going so that it can, so that it can stay in my family. And that legacy isn't just lost to time. And I know that happens to a lot of families, regardless of race, where, you know, maybe they did something for generations and then it was just lost to them.

So I'm glad that we're one of the families that got to keep it. And my daughter, my sons, both really like animals as well. It's not that they don't. They're both really good with animals, too. My daughter just rides horses, so it takes all the money and all the time. So she's the one that everybody sees more, but it's just by nature of me being around her more because we're working and stuff.

Melissa Breau: So. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we started that question. We went a lot of directions with that, but we started off kind of about what you post about. I think people probably have a better sense now a little bit of that. I think they might. I hope so. I think it's pretty clear, though, that you mix, you know, your business stuff a lot with your personal story. Is there a line there for you? Do you worry about walking a line there? Do you just kind of figure it's all your life, you're just going to share all your life?

Jerri Scherff: Yeah, there's a line. And I think the line changes over time. So for me, the line. I don't film stuff inside my house. I work inside my house, but I don't make videos inside my house because. And my house just looks normal. One of my oldest sons was like, I don't know why you think our house is, like, so messy.

He's like, it's really not. He goes, it looks like everybody else's house. It's pretty normal. Like, I think he was just trying to make me feel better because I was like, you know, I'm a single mom, but I have noticed that. I have, when I moved into this house, I did draw a line there. I stopped filming stuff inside my house. You might catch me making a little video in a kitchen.

In the kitchen every once in a while. But that seems to help me that, you know, if I, if I need to make content or I need to do something, it's going to be outside. And I love that because I encourage people to be outside. You know, I want, I want that for them. So that's a line for me, that's probably about it. I'm pretty, I'm pretty open because I know what it's done for my life.

There are things that I won't share because of the traumatizing nature. And, and I either know that it's not time for me to share about it because I haven't fully processed it, so those would be things that are off limits. I had a really, really, really. I didn't. I don't know. I don't even know what I thought at the time, to be honest, but like a really weird relationship.

And I didn't talk about it, but it wasn't because I was embarrassed or because I was, you know, it wasn't any of that. I've just learned over the course. And social media has really helped me with this once. One of those jagged little pills we talked about earlier that I've learned how much your perspective changes over time and to not speak on something until you're healed from it because you'll say all types of wild stuff, you know, that you.

In retrospect, you probably wish that you wouldn't have said or would have just left as the quiet part, you know, in your brain and not verbalized it out. Like, it's not that you didn't mean to think it. It's that maybe it should have just been for you. You know, I've learned that over time. So there are things that I won't speak on until there's been enough. Enough time that's passed.

So those are some of the things that help keep me sane. But in terms of subject matter, no. If somebody asked me anything, I would answer it and I would post about most things unless I thought it would truly embarrass my mother. And then I don't. I don't. Because my mom watches all my stuff. Yeah. And while I may think that inappropriate joke is funny, it may be too far across the line for my mom. And then I won't.

Melissa Breau: Fair enough. That's right.

Jerri Scherff: Or, or my kids. I mean, my kids watch me, you know, they, they, they do. They're great. They're supportive of me. They watch all my stuff. They're in a lot of my stuff. And so I want to make sure that I don't tilt so far that it becomes embarrassing to them. Yeah. Unless it's to my teenage daughter and she thinks every major's breathing is embarrassing, so can't help her there. But I mean, I do feel like that's the teenage existence. But, you know, it is, it is. It was for me.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. I'm not sure if there's like an official number at which somebody kind of is considered an influencer, kind of reaches that influencer status. But I'm pretty sure you've made it that far. So is that something you anticipated from the beginning when you were like, I don't know anything about this, but I'm gonna go all the way. Is that something that like, just happened? What was that like?

Jerri Scherff: Well, I have delusional Kanye West- like, self confidence. So if I sat here and said that I didn't think I was going to be, that I didn't think I was going to have a large following when I started this, that's a lie. Like, I have spent my entire life, my entire life, my parents were so good to me.

I'm a classical pianist, I'm a classical musician, I'm a national champion. I'm a four time all American. Like, I've spent my whole life perfecting every single thing that I did and putting it into performance and trying to make people smile and be the very best at everything that I did. So I knew that if I put everything that I had into social media that it would be something because I know that I'm special.

But I don't think that I'm special for the sake of just, oh, I'm special. It's because I work really hard at crafting a really cool life. I've been through a lot of really deep, dark, dark stuff and I've allowed that to become. Well, I wouldn't say I allowed, I allowed myself to work through it, to find the things that are on the other side. And I'm very, very proud of that in a positive way, not in an excessive, arrogant way.

And I want to share that with the world because I know how many people there are that are like me, that are so talented, that are, that are so brilliant, that have something so funny to say or a message to share, but they're struggling with that other part of themselves and they don't know how to. So I knew. I think sometimes I thought it would be a lot more.

Because don't we always think things are going to be so much easier than they are? And then, and then sometimes I think that it's a lot more than I ever thought. You know, if I put it into perspective outside of just the terms of, or just just the metrics of social media. I think that what I've done for myself from where I came from is extraordinary. And I try to remind myself that all the time that no matter what happens with all of this, you used to drink Listerine and live in a bush.

So just keep it in perspective that all of this is icing on a very large cake that I did not deserve. You know, like, if I really had got what I deserved, it would not be this. So while I didn't. I didn't really know, but I knew that whatever it was that I did, it would be. I would be successful at it. And I tell this story occasionally, but I think it's relevant here.

The first thing I can remember ever wanting to be was just like Dolly Parton. Like, I think that there has never been a human being that has contributed more to the collective joy of Americans than Dolly Parton. And it's because she's ultra talented. She's not just a pretty face. She's not just a... She is genuinely immensely talented and has this unique kind of perspective. But she brings everybody so much joy, and she reminds us that it's fun to be alive, not to take ourselves too seriously and to always try our best.

And I just. Something about that, as a little girl, I was like, I can do that, too. I can do that, you know, and I've kept that. And so I think if you feel that way, I think fame is one of those things that always. It just. I don't know if you chase it or it chases you or you're just running around in a circle, but I knew that that was going to be a part of my life.

I just wasn't really sure how. I did not think it was going to be because somebody saw me pretending to be shot while I was riding my horse, call my mom. You know, people were like, oh, you're that lady that was. Oh, God, yes, that's me. But that's okay. That's okay. I mean, what is. When somebody reaches an influencer status, there's a lot of different levels to that.

I would not even. You know, there's people out there that millions of followers. But if you're taught, you have to think about the industry that you're in. So if you are a fitness trainer, you're competing with people like Sonata Greca, who trains, Kim Kardashian, who trains. Well, we all know that's plastic surgery, but the point remains, right? You know, they're training, you know, and. And they've got millions of followers.

So that's going to be the upper echelon there in the dog world. It's very different. What's the upper echelon? Who's that? You know, who. What's the deal? So if you're talking about comparing yourself to other people that are in your industry that are like you. You know, 200,000 followers for a woman as a dog trainer is like having 5 million as a female fitness trainer, you know?.

I think it depends on what industry you're in. I can tell you that there I made more money when I had less followers because I had a different system. I had a lot of trainers. It was a lot… I was trying to chase Denise without having literally any of the prerequisite skill set, and I was like, oh, my God, I'm gonna do the same thing. And, oh, this is gonna be.

You know, it's just. It was just too much for me. So I don't think that your follower count necessarily determines what you're capable of making. I think that comes in with what you're doing on social media. And I was not interested in talking to brands or being a traditional influencer. I was interested in changing the industry and pushing the industry towards more affordable, accessible training and also pushing people towards virtual training.

That was much more of a concern to me than getting a bunch of followers because I partnered with some brand that I don't even use. So I just. I just didn't do that. So I hope that people that are listening hear that and understand that there are many different ways that you can leverage social media. It's not just, oh, I need to partner with all these brands and do all these brand deals, and you don't necessarily need to do that.

I was trying to reach people and train dogs, and it worked out for me. And I think that's partially because I stayed away from getting distracted by some of the other things, like brand deals. And it helped me focus just solely on marketing and sharing the story. Like, marketing what I was doing and sharing that story so that I could market it and people would know what I was even talking about.

Melissa Breau: Yeah, I think that, like, that's the purest definition of influencer, though, right? Like, in some way, you're influencing people and that's your goal rather than necessarily repping a brand or anything like that.

Jerri Scherff: Yeah, I mean, I think the term influencer probably originally came from, you know, you're using. You're using your platform to influence the viewer to do things A, B, or C. But then it's evolved into this massive, you know, behemoth of people are selling products on online.

Like, if you go to TikTok, it looks like QVC. And it makes me laugh so hard. I'm like, oh, my God, we are our mothers. We're just evolved. I was watching this woman stand on this little bouncy thing, and she was just talking away about the attributes, and I thought, wow, this is Home Shopping Network. I mean, things that were successful come around again. Yeah, they do. They do.

And the platforms are just so different now that, you know, they all kind of do something slightly different. And I think that's important for people to know, too. TikTok is a product hawk. That's like, I saw that coming a few years ago. I mean, I just did. If you pay attention and you really listen to people that are making, you know, the good ones, there's bad ones out there.

But people that are really researching social media and keeping you up to date on exactly what's happening. If you stay up with that and you listen, it's like stocks, you know, you can predict what's going to happen and then you have to act accordingly. So I just removed myself out of TikTok in the way that I had been, and I just use it to, you know, really funnel people to other places.

But just today, I noticed that they gave me something as part of a beta program that's incredibly, wildly, outrageously valuable if you know what you're doing with it. And I asked one of my best friends, who is the number one? I'm number two on the Internet. She's number one of total followers of any female dog trainer ever in history. Her name is Coco Garcia, and she has a big YouTube account and a huge TikTok account.

And I said, hey, we got links in stories now on TikTok. And she's like. And then about five minutes later, she's like, I don't have it. And I'm like, oh. And she's like, I even down. I even uninstalled the app and put it in again. I was like, that was drastic. Let me go. And sure enough, it's just beta. They just gave it to certain people. And she's like, you better use the heck out of that so that we all get it.

And you know what? That sounds silly, but it's true. Nobody in this industry had blue check marks until I got one. And I bothered Instagram for a year straight in a way that they had to have just been like, get her out of here. Her and whoever she's with, shut them up. Give them check marks. I was the first one. I was certainly the first female dog trainer, the first one of the.

I mean, the first female dog trainer to have a blue check mark. But then Denise, then Michael Shikashio and then all these other people finally started getting their check marks and I take partial credit for that. And I don't care what anybody says because I hammered Meta and I also, what a lot of people didn't know was I was in Meta groups. So I was invited into the back end of Meta into many different creator groups.

I have been given so many different beta programs. I was the first person in the dog industry to receive subscriptions and then everybody got them, you know, so it's like influence is much, I was thinking on a whole different level than just, I'm a social media influencer and I can get brands and I can, which is great because people make damn good money doing that. There's nothing wrong with that.

But I was like, how can I get these platforms to notice us as an industry and to take us seriously and to give us what we're due? You know, I hope that I had a hand in all of that, but it feels good even if nobody cares. My I tell my mom, I'm like, listen, Mom. And she does not care. My mom, like, doesn't even know what I'm talking about.

It makes sense, right? I mean, I don't know, I'm just like, listen, somebody be excited for these major accomplishments that sound ridiculous, but when you're in the industry, they're not. You know, this is, this is how we progress. This is how we have clients take us seriously and know that they can come to us and trust us when we're pushing ourselves to be, you know, consummate professionals in multiple different areas. Not just with our brick and mortar businesses, but with, you know, what we're, what we're putting out to the industry as a whole.

Melissa Breau: Yeah, okay, so for those who are listening to this and they're like, okay, maybe I should start getting into that social media thing. Tips, suggestions, where should they start? Where would you start?

Jerri Scherff: If you start today. Well, if you're starting today, you need to pick up one of those handy dandy little tickets to my webinar that's coming up on the 30th of January and it is at, wouldn't you know, Fenzi Dog Sport Academy.

And I'm going to be teaching an hour long webinar that I cried many times over when I was making it. I just want everybody to know. But it was a good cry. Like, I can't do this, I can't. And then you do it and you're like, good job, buddy. Look at you. You could do it. It was kind of like that. So I put a lot into that.

From the viewpoint of someone that, you know, doesn't know anything about it to all the way up into somebody that maybe is already on social media, but they need to know where they might be going wrong. The perspective I'm telling it from is just mine. So it's not things to do wrong, things that everyone's doing wrong. I do talk about some of that stuff, but I think that's a great place to start.

That's going to help. You know, maybe where you need to look more into social media is not what people think that it is. People think that it's just luck. People think that it's just, oh, you post every day. People think that it, it is a skill just like anything else. And you can learn to be better at it. You can learn to be really good at it. You can learn to leverage it to your advantage for lots of different things.

And you cannot, you can flip the script, let's say, to be a content creator as opposed to just a consumer all the time. Now, that being said, not everybody can be a content creator. We all have to be viewers. And I think that's an important part too, is that are you participating in a healthy way on social media, especially if you're new to this, Are you just watching and gawking?

There's a lot of people watch and gawk, the voyeurs, you know, a lot of people post and ghost. So it's all about them. I used to be one of those people. It's all about them. And then they don't engage at all with anybody else. Those are not great ways to build an audience or have community because it's kind of a zero sum. It's all about one or the other.

So not only are you a content creator if that's what you're doing, but are you also leaving thoughtful comments on the accounts of people that you like? Are you watching what people do that is successful that really like gets your eye? Well, I really like how they had this or I really like how they had this and writing those things down and, and maybe trying to reproduce them in some way that's true to you.

A lot of it I think is just people are afraid to get out there and try and look stupid and oh my gosh, I can't even, I have, I'm sure, thousands of videos on the Internet of me looking stupid, you know, that I can never do anything about. I can't take them back. I can only delete what's on my, you know, what's on my page. But there's so much that I've done and said that stupid.

And that's how you learn. You nobody gets on and is just perfect and great at it. You learn by looking stupid and making mistakes. And I noticed one of my apprentices, she's also a client of mine, she posts something this morning about her dogs. And I was like going to comment on it because the recall was like really good. And of course I was like, hey, you know, that's my team.

And I noticed that her voice was like this talking to like Raleigh Fuss. And I'm like, oh, well, maybe she just did one and a half times speed because of something else. And as I was leaving the comment, it was like, this post is no longer available. And then a few minutes later it was available again with her speaking in regular speed. And I went into the comment section and I put you try to hide.

And I'm clicking with my fingers like you try to hide your 1.5 times speed voice. But I heard it and then we laughed about it together because that's something that you will post something and there'll be like a big blue circle over your eye and you're like, yeah. And you don't notice it or a sound gets removed. It's just, that's what this is. It's, it's life digitally. So you're going to get embarrassed, you're going to say dumb stuff, you're going to laugh that other people say dumb stuff.

And you just keep coming back day after day and trying to, you know, learn a little bit more and apply it the next time and you'll do a little bit better the next time.

Melissa Breau: I like that. And that's a nice tip to leave people with as they're kind of thinking through this. Do you want to say anything else on the webinar?

Jerri Scherff: Come one, come all. It's not just for dog trainers.

It's for anybody that has ever. I mean, if you're in the dog business, bonus points because it's going to be extra relevant to you. But I purposely show videos that are not just about dog training because I want people to see how you can highlight your life if you're comfortable with that and you can segue that stuff into talking about what you do. People want to know who we are.

They want to know what, what we're like, what, how do we talk to our kids? Are we a good daughter, wife, sister? Do we have a garden? Do we. Do we run with our dog? They want to know more about us. And so I think that I've done a pretty good job in that webinar of helping show people how they can balance talking about themselves, but also sticking to the plan.

Because, you know, that machine has a plan for us. Yep. That's what it's called on my to do list. The machine. Yeah. That social media. Yeah. Algorithm. The machine. The machine. Yeah. What keeps it all running.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. Awesome. Any final thoughts or maybe key points you want to leave folks with, either about social or about training or about life?

Jerri Scherf: I guess I would love if everybody tuned in on Wednesday nights if they're free.

To Denise and I's talks together. We do a live on Instagram where we have just everybody. We've got dog trainers. We're going to have a lady that trains a blind horse. That's coming up in a couple weeks. So all different kinds of things, but we do that at 6pm Central Standard Time, 4 Pacific Time every Wednesday on my page on Instagram.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. Fantastic. Everybody go and check it out. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Jerri.

Jerri Scherff: Thank you for having me. I had fun.

Melissa Breau: Absolutely. Me too. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Bronagh Daly to talk about Control Unleashed for Agility. If you haven't already subscribed to the podcast in itunes or the podcast app of your choice, they have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available.

Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by Bensound.com the track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training.

 Credits

Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called "Buddy." Audio editing provided by Chris Lang.

Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!