2015 Horse Business Survey- Trends We’re Seeing So Far

NOTE: In addition to granting us permission to post preliminary trends from their 2015 Horse Business Survey on EquineChronicle.com, the folks at Equestrian Professional are asking for your help! They would like to know what trends, observations, or information about the horse industry, our Equine Chronicle readers are seeing/anticipating for 2015. Share your comments with us on The Equine Chronicle Facebook page or in the comment section below this post.

Equestrian Professional

As many of you already know, Equestrian Professional conducts a horse business survey every year in order to get information directly from horse professionals to share at our annual Rethinking the Horse Business Webinar. 

We then crunch the data, put together charts, and compare the results of the current year to past results.  This survey enables us to provide you with an inside look of how horse professionals from a wide variety of breeds and disciplines are faring.

Here are three interesting trends we are seeing at first glance:

1. Horse professionals are struggling to find properties and/or facilities that are close enough to their client base. We’ve suspected that equine land use would become an issue for some time. However, this is the first time it has shown up in our survey.

2. Horse professionals are finding it challenging to re-educate clients who have unrealistic expectations and preconceived ideas about horses and riding because they have succumbed to large marketing campaigns and Internet information about training horses. At the webinar we’ll  share some tips for how to combat this.

3. Horse professionals are having difficulty getting hobby riders to commit to more comprehensive programs i.e. following a successful and progressive learning track of taking regular lessons, moving on to leasing, then buying and (for some disciplines) onto competition.  You’ll hear our take on a proactive way to tackle this issue.

Perhaps none of these challenges come as any surprise to you. However, it is only the tip of the information iceberg that this year’s survey is providing. We have over 450 responses so far and our goal is to hit 1200 survey responses. And, we need your help!

We want this year’s presentation to be the best! We work really hard to make this webinar valuable to you. Please take a moment and help us get the word out. Here is what you can do:

1. Share the link to the webinar sign up page on all your social media platforms and/or in an email to your horse business friends http://www.equestrianprofessional.com/public/1645.cfm
   
2. Forward this link to your friends in the industry with a personal note suggesting they participate in the webinar and survey.
   
3. Add yourself to our FB Event Page and use the Invite Button to invite your Facebook friends https://www.facebook.com/events/893958690667033/?ref=22&;source=1

Thank you so much for your help. We know how busy you all are and that your time is at a premium. So, your help means a lot to us.