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Time = Money in a Pet Grooming Salon

Time is money in our business. Sure, we love pets. I don’t know anyone who gets involved in this career who isn’t passionate about animals. Still – time is money. And in this fast paced world, it never seems any of us have enough of either!

My goal is always to turn a small to medium-sized pet in an hour or less; bathe, dry, haircut, and/or finish-work on a bath and brush style pet.

If you are not turning at least a dog an hour, you have an issue somewhere in your routine.

Here are some ideas/methods that allow seasoned pet professionals to hit that goal. Take a read and see if you can identify ideas you can try to help increase your speed in the grooming department. The times given are for small to medium-sized pets. Read the rest of this entry »

5 Steps for Setting Goals in Your Grooming Department

Last night I was sitting with Misty Fowler, our grooming department manager at one of my companies, Whiskers Resort & Pet Spa. It was our annual Christmas party.

Our conversation touched on the amazing growth that company had accomplished in the past few years. Misty beamed as she reported, “The grooming department is only $2,800 short of achieving our annual goal. And we still have the entire month of December to go!”

I was intrigued. She went on to explain how they did it.

A year ago she determined what she wanted for a growth rate in the grooming department. She figured out what that number would be based on the current year’s annual sales for the grooming department.

Once she had her annual target, she divided it by 12 to give her a monthly goal. Taking it one step further, she divided that monthly number by 4.3 to give her a weekly goal to aim for. Finally, she divided that weekly number by six to give her a daily target. She now had a clear road map. She, and her team, knew what they had to do to reach their annual goal. Read the rest of this entry »

New Release: Creating Consistency in Your Grooming Business

CreatingConsistencyinYourGroomingBusiness This new video release features a great conversation with seasoned professional pet stylists, Lindsay Dicken, Marc LaFleur, and Melissa Verplank about building consistency. What makes this discussion truly interesting was their variety of grooming backgrounds. You’ll discover a few common threads kept surfacing as they talked. It did not matter if the business was a small or large salon, a mobile groomer, or a fixed location grooming salon.

Amazingly, they all found solutions to this pesky problem in a similar way.

Join this group as they share their experiences with you. You get to be a fly on the wall as they talk about ways to build consistency within their grooming businesses.

Customer Service Basics

happy-clientrrr This is the time of year when we think a lot about being grateful. As someone who works with people every day, I often think about customer service and how much of it makes an impact on our business and ourselves.

It’s easy to take your customers for granted when your shop is booked out several weeks in advance – or if you’re the only game in town. Sooner or later, another business like yours is going to spring up nearby. Are you ready? If all things are equal…

• Convenience
• Location
• Quality
• Price

…what do you do to set yourself apart? When your clients have coffee with their friends do they say, “They aren’t that great, but they’re so close to my house…” OR “I have to drive out of my way to get there, BUT IT’S WORTH IT.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Surviving the Holiday Rush

After working professional in the pet grooming industry over 35 years, the only time I worry about dealing with clients is the Christmas holiday season.

The two weeks preceding the actual day can be a chaotic mess. With Christmas shopping, decorating, baking, family gatherings, holiday socials to attend, and every regular client you have wanting to be booked as close to Christmas as possible . . . phew! December can be an exhausting month!

But, wait – it doesn’t have to be! Christmas organizing all year round will let you create that picture perfect holiday without nearly the stress. Read the rest of this entry »

Build Compassion Toward Your Clients

What does it take to build a robust following of grooming clients? Simply put – compassion.

I’ve been in this industry a long time. I’ve seen my fair share of groomers pass though my employment. I’ve had groomers and stylists that were phenomenal. They were super speedy. They could make a dog look dynamite in no time. Their advanced grooming skills were flawless.

…But they had personalities of snakes.

I’ve had groomers that were far from top level stylists. Their work would be considered “fair.” They got the dogs neat and clean, but they had not mastered advance styling skills. There was very little hand-scissoring, no hand-stripping, and their knowledge of correct breed profile trimming was limited. What they did have was compassion. They simply loved helping people and their pets

Who do you think had the fullest schedule?

Here’s the #1 secret ingredient to maintaining a full appointment book: compassion. It’s caring sincerely about a client’s needs, wants, concerns, and desires.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thinning Shears are the Pet Stylist’s Eraser

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been grooming or how talented you are as a pet stylist – sometimes you just need a little help. An “oops” can occur at any time. Mistakes happen.

Maybe there is a spot on the coat that you just can’t get smooth. Maybe there is tracking in the coat from the clippers or guard comb. You may have left scissor marks in the coat – or a hole in the coat you accidentally made with clippers or scissors. You might even be working with a dog that will not hold still long enough to work safely with clippers or scissors – leaving the coat rough and jagged.

Thinning shears can be your savior. They erase rough spots. They blend out jagged edges. They smooth out transition areas. They fix mistakes.

The difference between a good stylist and a great stylist can be determined by how much value they place on their blending shears.

Read the rest of this entry »

Rating Dog Personalities

You have a new client on the books. It’s a Lhasa/Maltese mix – or in the new world of designer dogs, it’s a “Lhatese.” The client arrives precisely 15 minutes late. She’s dressed to the nines and everything matches… even the dog.

The dog’s name? You guessed it…

…Precious.

You know you’re in trouble.

If you’re a one groomer salon, you can keep the personalities of all your canine clients in your head. You know any dog named Precious is far from… precious.

But what if you start expanding your salon? What if you bring on a new bather? Or maybe you have an assistant handling your appointments? Or maybe you have an inexperienced groomer joining your team.?

Wouldn’t it be helpful to know the personality rating of the dogs scheduled for the day?

Read the rest of this entry »

Come! Sit! Stay!

Leadership. If you’re running a business, you know leadership is important. Yet, when I’m speaking before groups of pet professionals, there are always questions on this topic. Here are a few typical ones that always seem to crop up when I do an open mic session.

How do I create a reliable team?
How do I motivate my team?
How do I bring consistency to my team?
How do I create respect?
How do I stop the bickering?
How do I create an enjoyable work environment?

I’m not going to lie. Being a great leader is certainly a challenge. It constantly takes work on the part of the leader. The second you let your guard down, forward momentum can be lost. Directions are not followed. The morale of the team sinks. Productivity dwindles. And customer service goes out the window. Sound familiar? Read the rest of this entry »

What Does the Client Want?

The #1 Role of Service Based Businesses: Solution Experts

A product is a physical thing. You can see it and touch it. You can box up the parts or the assembled item and know how it will look, how big it is, and where you’ll put it when you get home. A service, by contrast, is intangible. You can’t mail a service to your house or carry it from a store.

In most cases, services are purchased – touch, taste, smell, and sight unseen. It’s a leap of faith based on the client’s ability to say what they want and the expert’s ability to interpret them correctly. When you go to a salon or barbershop, you can’t try out a haircut before you buy it. You tell your stylist what you want, then – hopefully – you get it. The better you describe what you want, the better the outcome. Dogs can’t tell you to take a little off the top, so how can you unlock the secret of what your (human) client wants?

By understanding that the person asking the questions controls the conversation!

Read the rest of this entry »

Time = Money in a Pet Grooming Salon

5 Steps for Setting Goals in Your Grooming Department

New Release: Creating Consistency in Your Grooming Business

Customer Service Basics

Surviving the Holiday Rush

Build Compassion Toward Your Clients

Thinning Shears are the Pet Stylist’s Eraser

Rating Dog Personalities

Come! Sit! Stay!

What Does the Client Want?

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