Greedy Bitch

o let's go ahead and start talking about today's topic, how to create better client boundaries. So I'm gonna talk to you about five different things.

So the number one thing I want you to start talk thinking about when you have client boundary issues is, are they your ideal client? I talk all the time about what I call the solem mate client. And what happens with you guys a lot of times is that you just take anyone with money. Anyone who has a wallet is a customer. And I want you guys to start changing that.

I want you, when you have a client issue to consider, is this person even worth it? Now, I know that sounds like a dick thing to say, right? That sounds like a really mean thing to say, but a lot of times when you are clashing with a customer, it's simply because you and them are not compatible. Think about to yourself,

what is it that they're upset about? Is it something that doesn't make sense for your business model? For instance, you guys know that I require every four weeks for my clients. If I have an issue with a client who wants six weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks, won't get on a regular schedule, then I'm trying to create a boundary with somebody who's not my ideal client.

And it's a waste of time and energy. And I know that sounds super harsh, but a lot of times you guys have to stop chasing the wrong people. It's kinda like if you guys ever known one of your friends who's in a terrible relationship and you're like, why don't you just break up with them and they're trying to save this terrible relationship. That's what happens when I'm watching you guys with these clients that you can tell.

It's not that they're, they're bad clients, they're just not the one for you. And too often you guys, if I ask you what's your ideal client, you'll tell me basically anyone who's willing to pay your prices, it has to be more focused than that. Lynn Paleo did a great class on finding your ideal client. You'll find a lot of these issues melting away when you create better boundaries.

But part of that is going to be making sure that they are the correct client for you. So number two, how often do we put ourselves in our client's shoes? I find more often than not, what happens with you guys is that you're not actually putting yourself in their shoes. And I understand you're like, how? What does that to do with boundaries?

If you create a boundary that isn't sustainable, that's just me. It's not, it's not sustainable. For instance, I see a lot of people that require the person to pick up their pet 30 minutes after giving a phone call. But what happens is that you have a four hour window to get the dog done, and then you expect the owner to come when you call within 30 minutes.

And most of the time you guys want busy professionals, and it's a little unrealistic. You cannot create that boundary if it does not make sense to the client. All you're going to do is have someone become more resentful and rebellious. For instance, if I drop off my dog and I ask you, when will my dog be done? I have a standard poodle.

And you say, well, it could be anywhere between two and four hours. Let's a two hour window. And I say, okay, I live about 30 minutes away. I'm gonna run some errands. If you could give me an hour warning, that would be great. And you say, okay. And then when you call, you say, okay,

you know, Rory, my dog is done. And you know, you have 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, you are going to be charged one. I'm sitting there going, why am I gonna be charged when I let you know for an hour and two, you feel like in this instance that you set a boundary of being able to be picked up in 30 minutes,

but you didn't put yourself in that person's shoes. And consider how many of us can honestly drive 15, 25 minutes to go pick up our pet with only five or 10 minutes notice. The reason I'm saying consider that is because a lot of you guys are creating boundaries and then you don't understand why people aren't living up to your expectations. And a lot of times it's because it's just not fair to the client as you're not pitting yourself in their shoes.

And that's a healthy boundary. It's, this is my standard, this is my expectation. If you don't meet it, then that's fine. And that's something too, Stephanie, we talked about, are they your ideal client? If your boundary is every four weeks, there's no point in being upset with a client who's a once a year or twice a year pet,

because they're not gonna get on a four week schedule because there's nothing you're going to do to get that client on the schedule. So your boundary irrelevant. All you're doing is frustrating yourself. So my next tip for you guys for better client boundaries, number three is going to be clear communication. I love the quote, to be unclear is to be unkind.

Often we think that giving them a four page policies, you know, procedures, that they're gonna read through all that. You know, as somebody who's been an apple connoisseur forever, I have yet to ever read the terms and conditions of my apple, you know, my watch, anything like that. So make sure that your boundaries are clear and they're easily understood.

For instance, if my boundary going back is the pet to be picked up within 30 minutes, then I have to set the clear expectation to the client. You know, one way I did that in my business is that we had a three hour window for bath dogs and a four hour window for groom dogs. We could definitely call you between two and four hours for groom dogs and two to three hours for bath dogs.

That said, they knew no matter what, that dog would be done if it was a bath dog at three hours, if it was a groom dog at four hours. So they did not need to wait for a phone call that was able to set a precedent that they had a 30 minute window past the four hours. So they knew the latest they could pick up was this and they could schedule the rest of their day.

So I set the boundary of we're not gonna sit here and watch a goddamn dog all day, but we were able to clearly communicate that in a way that we put ourselves in the client's shoes and able to help them, whatever it's gonna be. And you know, I'm assuming that the, these people are your ideal clients and they understand. I think that's perfect.

I think setting those boundaries and making sure that those boundaries are, you know, I hate to say it, but make sure they make sense. A lot of times you guys want these more high-end clients or want these clients that come in regularly and then there's a little, little hiccups where there's inconsistency and things like that. Not you, but just in the general sense,

make sure that it makes sense. So with the clear communication, make sure you guys have heard me before talking about client onboarding, right? And a client flow. So with my clients, not now 'cause we're full, but before we were full, what we would do is we would have them go to the website, they would fill out a contact form and we would go through the contact form,

you know, and it would state things like, we only do pets every four weeks, what breed, et cetera. And so basically we had the form at that point, we would then call them to make sure basically so I could smell the crazy and book them in their first appointment and then go ahead and you know, explain the policies, explain how we do things,

that way they understand how we work. So for instance, right now in my mobile business, I don't go to people's doors. They bring the pet to me. And for me that's a clear boundary because I don't go in people's homes. Why? Because I'm avoiding having them ask me to chase their cat. I can't tell you how many people are like,

it's stuck in the bathroom. And I'm like, that's perfectly fine. We're happy to charge you the $50 travel fee, go to the next pet and come back if we have to. You know? And again, that is a boundary, that is a clear communication. This client knew that we had a window and we come to have the pet ready.

And if you don't, that's fine, then we're going to have certain fees or anything like that. And those, a lot of times, fees are a great way to create better boundaries, you know, as long as they're fair. That's the thing is what's good for the goose, it's good for the gander generally, you know, I try to make sure my expectations of the client are reasonable,

are something that that person can do. Again, making sure they're my ideal client. You know, if you have somebody, if your ideal client has, you know, is a young family, you've gotta think about somebody with three little kids is far less likely to be able to pick something up right on time because they're gonna have to strap three kids in the minivan.

Alright, so let's talk about number four. Document, document, document. So things in writing are your best friends before, during, and after. Photos, video, audio, everything is documented in this business. And in my previous business, everything was documented. Every cat I grew, my do it before, a during and an after. Now,

most of my current clients don't need a during. They might if we're doing a line cut and if their skin's a little, you know, red or anything like that. But it's important to have video and or audio, especially if you have employees. I will say, when I had my shop, the best thing, well one of the best things I ever did was install in the front,

in the reception area, a audio and a camera. That way if I explained to the client, Hey, we're going to do, you know, this pet's matted, you can see the matting again, clear communication, right? And then I set my boundary, which was, it's either gonna be a very expensive shave down, you can go home and brush the dog,

you know, or you know, depending upon the case, they might, I might be willing to do small incremental like a, you know, some D matting depending upon how mad at the pet is. And that's a clear boundary. You know, another example of a boundary would be if a dog comes in that needs a D, she, if I see the pet needs a D,

she and it is what it is, then guess what? They're getting a D. She. If they don't want a D, she, I set my boundary and I say, if you don't like that, then you're welcome to go elsewhere. Does that suck? Sometimes financially, yes. But if I don't set that boundary and I'm not willing to clearly stand behind it,

then it's like little kids. I mean, we all children and Labradors, right? If you don't set black and white standards, then you're gonna get caught up in the gray. You know, it's like the dog that sometimes can jump on the couch, sometimes it can't. When it does that, you can't be mad at it. So when you have clients that you sometimes follow your policies,

but sometimes you don't. And this is a policy, but I've never actually mentioned it to you. So I'm hoping that you remember that thing you signed three years ago, which no one does. Let's be hon, let's be very, very fair. Unless if you have them sign it and go through your policies and remind them of your policies every single time,

they're not going to remember. I could honestly not tell you my hairdresser's policies, nor the woman who does my eyelashes, or the woman who does my nails, or the woman that waxes me. I have four different places I go. And I couldn't tell you a single policy, no idea. I couldn't tell you if they have a re-booking policy. I wouldn't tell.

I wouldn't know if they have anything. Honestly. I just know this is the person I go to. I book with them, I go in for my service. You know, I'm not the kind of client who ever cancels, but if I did cancel, you know, I wouldn't know what the policies were, you know? And it would be very difficult to find that out the hard way.

So I would probably call if there was an emergency and find out the hard way. So, you know, and that's, that's again, but if that's a good way to set a boundary. So for instance, if I called Rose who does my nails, and I said, Hey, I have to pick up my son at school at two o'clock.

We have an appointment at one o'clock. There's no way I'm gonna be able to get my nails done and pick him up on time. Can I move my appointment to four? Now if she says to me, absolutely, but you've gotta pay for that missed appointment, then I have to make a decision as a client. That's a boundary. And it's up to us as the business owners to decide where we are going to create that line.

And I think that there is too much of the pendulum swinging. We have people that swing one way where basically they hate their customers. Their customers are rotten, they're like little children who need to be trained and need to be taught, and they're terrible people. Or the other way where they're complete doormats. And I think we can just find ourselves somewhere in the middle.

I think we can find something in the middle where we're not doormats. Like I don't want any of you guys to be doormats and to be taken advantage of. But I also don't want you guys to be told authoritarian, you know, Nazis. Like there's no reason to be unkind. People who are just trying to live their lives. And most of the time they don't understand what we do for a living.

When they bathe their dog in the tub, it doesn't take nearly the amount of time they don't understand what we do. If they did, they'd probably be nicer. That's one reason I love cat grooming. 'cause anyone who's ever tried to bath the cat is like, hmm, thank you. They just literally just do this like, oh, thank you.

And this also leads me into my final point. I know I've said this before and some people get a little offended by it, but I want you guys, which is number five, to stop having unhealthy codependent tendencies. Now, before you freak out, and I, again, I don't pretend to be a medical professional, I'm not diagnosing anybody, but I want you guys to just hear some common codependent behaviors.

An exaggerated sense of responsibilities for the actions of others. How many times do groomers feel they're responsible to take care of a pet that's not theirs? Even though that that owner is the one who met, who didn't brush the dog and it got mad at a tendency to confuse love and pity with the tendency of love for people that can pity or rescue. I can't count how many times you guys talk about how you wanna save not just the dog,

but this customer. Like you'll have a customer who has financial issues and you take that on your own. You know, I can't tell you, and I think a lot of times you guys confuse that pity and that love feeling. And there's also a tendency to do more than their share all the time. I always tell everyone who's not in the pet industry say,

groomers are my people. They're my people. Because they will give you the shirt off their back. They will do anything for you. Now I want you guys to be kind and good, but I don't want you guys to again, be taken advantage of. So finding that in between is again, the goal. A tendency to become hurt when people don't recognize their efforts.

How many of you guys, and I love you, but it's a little toxic, you almost get so excited when like I'm in all these memes. Like when someone says, I'll pay you full price for your art. You know, you, you guys will get really excited about that. But how many times do you guys, you know, get almost offended when someone mentions the bow when the dog is,

they're like, the dog walks out instead of being like, oh my God, Fluffy's so cute. They're like, oh my god, Fluffy's bow is so cute. And you're like, bitch, did you see how a scis with this dog? Do you see how beautiful it is? A lot of you guys get hurt because someone doesn't recognize what you did for a,

like, didn't specifically applaud your effort. An unhealthy dependence on relationships. The codependent will do anything to hold onto a relationship to avoid the feeling of abandonment. How many of you guys refuse to increase a dog's price by $5? 'cause you're afraid they're going to leave you, which is bananas. Bananas guys. An extreme need for approval and recognition. Again,

I love you guys. A lot of you guys are almost crying out for someone to recognize how good you are at grooming. And I understand that sometimes we have a very thankless job, but when you feel good at what you do, you don't need others to pat you on the back. A sense of guilt when asserting themselves. Again, I love you guys.

How many times when you guys step up and create these boundaries, do you almost feel guilty? You feel guilty reminding clients what their, what your policy is and enforcing it. A compelling need to control others. And again, this is not necessarily you guys, but that's another common one. A lack of trust in self and or others. I mean,

groomers can be a little bit untrusting, not intentionally a fear of abandonment or being alone. Again, a lot of you guys will try to hold onto these toxic clients that do you no good. And you will tell me it's because of money, but here's the lie, you'll tell me it's because you don't have enough money. But then when I ask you how much money you need to earn,

you don't know. So you can't have it both ways. You can't say, I don't have enough money. And then I always say, well, how much money is enough? And you don't know. It's just something you're telling yourself instead of actually dealing with the the other problems. Difficulty identifying feelings. I've worked a lot with this with my clients.

Again, I am that person. I have very codependent tendencies that I have been working on personally. I didn't, I always tell people I, I used to think my feelings. You, if you asked me what I felt, I would tell you what I thought. And getting in touch with your feelings is really terrible, but it's ultimately makes you a lot happier.

Which sounds really crazy as I say that as I'm drinking. Yeah, difficulty adjusting to change. Yeah, every groomer ever that refuses to give up their appointment book their paper appointment, book their paper index cards and yeah, problems with intimacy and boundaries and other things can be chronic anger. Most groomers are not like this, but there are, we all have worked with somebody who would just lose their chicken nuggets and start screaming at the dogs and screaming at you over nothing.

Lying in dishonesty. Yeah, I've been a grooming business owner long enough to know there are plenty of groomers who are liars or dishonest mostly to get out of something. I always tell the story of the groomer that, you know, snipped up a dog's ear. And after they did that, they basically lied to me while the dog's ear is in ribbons,

poor communication and difficulty making decisions. Now that can just be anybody. But I want you guys to hear these tendencies. And I find now, I'm not saying groomers are codependent as a group, but what I'm saying is we have a lot of codependent behaviors that manifest themselves in our business. And by, by accepting that and by working through them, instead of just 'cause like we know,

we know what we should be doing. It's not the tactics, it's actually implementing them that we have trouble. I can give you guys scripts all day, but it's that fear of conflict, that fear of stepping up to somebody and setting our boundaries and you know, creating that. That's what a lot of us really struggle with. This is a perfect example.

You knew this client was toxic, you did everything possible. You did it even in a professional manner. And then there's that unhealthy feeling of guilt. Now, not a psychologist, not gonna pretend to be. What I would do is just do a little bit of mind mapping and write down the feeling and kind of explore why you feel that way. You know,

is it that you feel like the dog is not gonna have anybody else take care of it as well? Do you feel like you should not have instilled your boundaries? And sometimes these feelings can be not wrong, but they can be confusing. You know, I realized I had really unhealthy feelings around money and I had no idea. I thought, no,

I like money. If you ask me, I'd be like, no, I love money. Gimme some money. And then when I realized that increasing my prices felt wrong to me because I felt like I was stealing from people, that's when I realized that it wasn't healthy. And it wasn't that I didn't feel like I was worth it, it just felt like it was too much.

But then again, what is too much? And this is where we get into these spirals, and I talk a lot, way more now than I did two years ago about our emotional wellbeing. Primarily because a lot of you guys have all the right tools. You are just not implementing them, or you have all that potential and possibility. You're just getting stuck.

And these emotional roadblocks, and the more I learned about my emotional roadblocks, the better I was. You know, you guys, I almost wasn't here doing grow wealthy grooming and doing savvy groomer. If I listen to my toxic self, my toxic self tells me all the time, nobody wants to hear you. No one cares. No one wants to listen to you talk.

Who are you? But if I listen to that voice, I know I can't help the people that I'm meant to help. So, yeah, and I, I think that by taking these tools, it's not just going to create boundaries, it's gonna create better boundaries for you guys.

Our goal today is to talk about how every customer is not your customer. And I don't wanna talk necessarily about customer service and things like that,

but making sure it aligns with what you want and the best way for you to live your life. So this is also for people that are employees. It doesn't even always just mean somebody that is a business owner. And you might be like, how is that? So the best way I can explain it, and I've done this in one of my blog articles,

is when we talk about customers, I say, let's say coffee. Lots of places sell coffee. Let's talk about, we have Dunkin Donuts here. That's our like mid-level coffee. We've got Starbucks, which is our more high-end, expensive coffee. And then I'll use the example of McDonald's. 'cause McDonald's is a dollar coffee. You get a dollar coffee any size.

So the truth is all three of these places sell coffee. McDonald's, it's a dollar. So with that said, dunk of donuts is your mid-range coffee. It's like 2, 2 50 for a medium cup of coffee and Starbucks is jelly, what, two 50 or $3. Now you're sitting there going, that's not a lot of difference. But when you put in perspective,

going from $1 to $3 is literally triple the price, right? Because it's triple the price. If you think about it in the responsive grooming, instead of someone having a $40 groom, now we're talking $120 groom. That is a substantial difference. Even though it's a small monetary amount, the value has gone up significantly. So, and again, you know,

going up a dollar from Dunka Donuts to Starbucks, that is again, that is a 50% increase. It's a lot of increase. That'd be like going from a $40 room to an $8 room, right? Why do people choose to get their coffee at Dunka Donuts, Starbucks and McDonald's, we don't actually know. We are not in someone's head to find out exactly why they do things.

But if I were to take a wild guess, people go and get coffee at McDonald's because it's cheap, it's cheap, it's convenient, it's fast, they're everywhere. You can just run in and out and grab it. So with that said, that same person gets very similar convenience with Dunking Donuts. However, dunking Donuts is a specialty store. So if you're going to Dunking Donuts,

you're going out of your way. 'cause there's not as many of them, let's say as McDonald's. So that said, that person caress a little bit more and they're gonna pay a little bit more. They're gonna vote with their dollars. And Starbucks, I'm a big Starbucks person, everyone knows that I overspend my money on Starbucks. That said, I will go out of my way sometimes a long time outta my way.

So with that, I want you to think about who are you? Are you the convenient, cheap, fast person? Are you kind of mid-range? And people would like to be with you, but if they can't, then they won't. Or do you wanna be Starbucks? And Starbucks has a lot of their own problems because obviously there are less people who wanna go to Starbucks,

then McDonald's or dunk and donut's, they're gonna do less customers, but that's why they charge more to make up the difference. So in this analogy, you can also look at this for employment. You know your skillset, you know everything that you're doing. So when you're looking at this, you have to say to yourself, okay, how much am I do I need to make in a day?

What is reasonable for me to groom? What are my skill sets? What is my branding? All of these things. Sometimes when this is happening, you have to make sure that what you are doing lines up with everything. So let's say if I am a competition level groomer, but my shop looks incredibly tacky and people are wearing overalls and it's not a aesthetically pleasing place to walk in.

You know, I walk in and there's hair everywhere, which I understand. Mid Saturday there's nothing you can do. But as a customer, if I'm a wealthy customer, an affluent customer, I don't wanna come in with my Chanel heels and walk all over dog hair in the waiting room. And so we have to think about things like that. If you want somebody who's a little less high maintenance,

it's great, but someone who's less maintenance is probably not going to invest the money that you might want. So a lot of times people will say something to the effect of, I want every four week clients who pay whatever I would tell 'em to pay. And they want their dogs, not 10 strips. Like, okay, well who is the person?

Who are these people that have enough money and they see value in their pets being clean and maintained? Those are generally the same kinds of people that take care of their own selves. So those are your ideal customers, if that's what you wanna do. If you wanna be Starbucks, when you're looking at that, look at your skillset and ask yourself, am I really the groomer that I wanna be?

There are so many opportunities, but again, you have to make sure that your image is on point and not everyone is your customer. So if you own a higher-end boutiquey salon, a new found, a once year Newfoundland walks in the door, you probably don't have time to service them. And even if you do service them, it's gonna take so much more time,

energy, money on your part in order to take care of that customer. And you're taking away from the good customers that come in every four weeks. If you want a salon where you're like, oh no, I want everyone come in six to eight weeks, I'm totally fine with that, that's great. But then you have to remember that somebody who's willing to slide on times,

you've gotta fill in that spot. So knowing what you want in a customer is gonna be incredibly helpful. And not everyone is your customer. I made my, my last business. So the C rooming business, I'm mobile, I want it to be really tight. So with that, it sounds crazy, but it's a hundred to $165 per cat. They have to be on a four week schedule.

And I try to make everyone on the same schedule. And if I make it all on the same schedule, then that's gonna really help me out. I, I don't chase customers. I know the condition the cat's gonna be in. I know all of these positive things, and that's what I want in my business. And because I want those Starbucks level clients,

you know, I have a uniform, I have, you know, my branding, I believe is on point with those women. These are not necessarily, they are people that are willing to invest in the right place. I can see that in all the patterns of their purchases and like when I talk to them. And in the middle, you have lots of people in the middle,

especially if you want people with young kids. So depending upon where you live, if you live in a commuter town or in an area that's wealthy, but it's mostly young families. Someone with a young family needs more flexibility. They don't know what the hell's gonna happen with their three kids. And so if you want somebody for that, then you have to remember that that person is probably gonna cancel a lot of appointments.

That person will do their best. But if one kid gets sick, what are they gonna do? They're not gonna cart that kid to your grooming salon and then wait two, four hours for the dog to be done and then grab the dog again. That's not gonna happen. They're just gonna cancel and let the dog get dirty. And that dog is going to be a lot more maintenance than a dog owned by a woman,

let's say in her fifties or sixties when her kids are grown and they're out of the house. And on the flip side, if you want somebody who doesn't view their pet as family, or they don't invest in their pet as family, that's a lot harder sell. Those tend to be your once a year, you know, grooms, you know, either right before Christmas or right before summer.

You know, they either wanna shave them because they think they're gonna be hot or they wanna make sure that the mother-in-law doesn't judge them on Thanksgiving. There are so many people like that. I would say that's about half of the community that own pets. And then there's various shades of how much people care about their animals. But when you're in the veterinarian industry,

I notice that it's essentially like the people that will pay things. So if the pet gets sick, let's say the dog ate a sock, you have people that'll just put the dog down, you get people that'll put it on the credit card, but only for like one or two grand. And then you have people that say, I don't care what it costs.

And we tend to be the, I love my animal, I want 'em to be better, but not everybody is. And we just always assume that people will be that way. And then you start feeling compassion fatigue because you so desperately wanna make all these animals lives better and there's nothing you can do because this person has decided your McDonald's people have decided that it,

if not, it is not cheap, it is not wic, it is not convenient, then they don't want it. They will go elsewhere. So back to your skillset. With your skillset, figure out does what you wanna do with your skillset fit your clients? If you're that person who wants to do hands scissor dogs, you need the Starbucks clients because even the Dunking Donuts clients,

they can't pay you for your time. The extra time it takes you to scissor up a dog versus just running a five blade through it, it's at least double. And if you want someone to pay you double for your time, and let's be honest, double wear and tearing your body scissoring is so bad for your hands. So how are you gonna attract those people?

And then if you're an employee and you love hand scissoring, or let's say you love hand stripping, anything that's a higher end skillset, if you actually know breed profiles and make sure if you have those amazing skills that you're going to work for a place that is actually going to pay you accordingly and actually cares that you have those skillset. So if you're an employee,

tell me why you chose the business that you're working for. Do they have the customers that your skillset and what you want fits? And then if you are a business owner, are you getting the clients that you want? And if you're not, stop and think about why you're not.

So what I wanted to talk about today is when people tell you that you don't have a real job,

whether you are a pet groomer, a pet sitter, a dog trainer, this is something we hear over and over and over again. Am I right? And there's nothing more frustrating. So let me begin by talking about what the pet industry means when I'd say the pet industry. What I mean is dog trainers, dog walkers, pet sitters, groomers,

people that are doing anything with cats, honestly, behaviorists, things like that. But we know right now that the pet industry is a billion dollar industry. It's recession proof. And we get new customers every day. Somebody is always getting a puppy, somebody's always getting a cat. You know, the shelters are full of them. Breeders are gonna be breeding them.

So we have a lot of options. And by options, I mean we have a lot of clients that are coming in all the time, depending upon what kind of business you have. And so when we talk about pet groomers specifically, I wanna see, okay, what is the average groomer actually earn? And according to the census, the median salaries of groomers in the US is only $22,000.

I don't personally know any groomer that only makes $22,000. I'm pretty convinced that everyone's lying on their taxes. Maybe I'm wrong. You know, I know we make more than that. So if we're all making decent money, why is there this perception that what we do is not a real job? And everyone thinks that we just play with puppies and kitties all day right now?

Okay, so here's the question. If you are a business owner, are you earning double or at least more than you would earn working for someone else with a similar skillset that you have? So I mean that include paying yourself for the hours you spend, marketing, cleaning, being your own receptionist, and all those little jobs. Are you paying yourself for that?

And remember, you need to be paid more than just a groomer salary because you risk losing everything. So because of that, you really need to be making more than if you were just grooming for somebody. I don't think everyone should be a business owner. I do not believe that everyone should be a business owner. I think you need to find what's called your zone of genius and stick in it.

If you are the most amazing groomer, but you're terrible at being a business owner, try to find some great groomer you can work for. Because the truth is, not all of us are cut out for self-employment. And I know that's a really unpopular idea. But not everyone should own their own business. You know, you can be a great groomer and a terrible business owner as an employee.

Are you making a livable salary that reflects the skills you're doing in the physical investment you've been making? And what do I mean by the physical investment? A physical investment in someone else's business is your body is deteriorating. You have an organic machine that is slowly wearing down. Are you doing things that you're gonna get money back? So are you setting aside money for retirement?

Do they give you health insurance? You know, what is your employer doing? Because if you're just making, let's say, minimum wage or close to minimum wage, it doesn't make any sense. You could be working out McDonald's or Walmart or even like a local pharmacy stocking shelves. Not heavy stuff. I mean like bars of soap potentially for the same amount of money.

So when you're an employee, you are physically investing yourself in that business. So you need to make sure that the money you're being paid, you can set aside money for that and make sure you're a legal W two employee. There are very, very, very few situations in the griming industry where someone can actually be a 10 99, most often a 10 99 is a misclassified independent contractor.

It's so rare. And for those of you guys that work under the table, I'm not here to judge you, but it could bite you in the ass because you can't file for unemployment. There's no workers' comp if you're under the table. So just be aware of things like that. Then ask yourself, okay, why don't people think that grooming is a real job?

And the truth is, do you have financial security in your job? A lot of us don't, right? And when I say financial security, what I mean is, you know, you're gonna make at least this amount of money per week. Most of the grooming industry is commission, which is perfectly fine. However, it should be minimum wage or commission,

whichever is higher. A lot of us will have positions where it's feast or famine. We're in an industry where owners will send you home. They won't have dogs for you. You will go in and it's raining and there are no dogs, or it's snows and you don't get paid for that day. And that's, that's a really tough way to live.

You could earn $300 this week and then $2,500 the next week. That is a big swing. And it's all on things that you have no control over. So when I talk about financial security, that's what I mean, you know? And the other reason could be that there is no room for growth. Most salons do not have a grooming salon manager.

Most grooming salons are not managed very well. Let's be honest. There's no one actually training in most salons with the standard of the salon is that you want a dog to look like, because like we're not doing breed cuts. And even then we're doing breed cuts. We're not doing competition level show dog clips on a dog. You're doing variations of that.

So with that said, there is no room for growth because there is no management in most salons. Honestly, the only places that do have managers are your corporates. But however, your corporates, they don't really manage a salon because they don't actually get to train their staff. They don't actually get to make sure their staff is complying. Yes, they can order,

but a lot of times they don't. They have a set budget, and that budget is not reflecting the current needs of that salon and things like that. There's very little control and they have all the responsibility, which is the worst of both worlds. And owners tend not to manage their salons. I am always shocked at how many groomers own their shop and have employees,

but they're not actually managing their employees. They're actually training their employees. They're not doing anything to make their groomers and make their salon have more continuity. So that might be when you walk into a salon, you don't know who the boss is. And if you ask for the boss, there may not be a boss. There might be an owner, but that owner could be three dogs deep.

So what would be another reason someone wouldn't think this is a real job? How about retirement? Does anyone here have any retirement? How much retirement? How far along are you from retirement? What is your retirement goals? Grooming till we die is not an option. It's really a bad plan. Do you have any savings? And I'm not talking like basic savings.

I mean three to six months worth of, you know, an emergency fund. Do you have that? Do you have three to six months worth of personal expenses? Not even business expenses, just personal expenses. Again, there are people who are bad with money no matter where in any industry, but in an industry where you could very easily be injured,

severely, there are so many ways that we as groomers can be injured permanently and need some money in case of something bad happens. At least a float until you get a settlement, it could take years. So what's another reason? How about healthcare? How many grooming salons have you ever heard offer healthcare? There are some great salons that can afford to offer healthcare.

There's not many, no one's expected in the grooming industry to put any money towards health insurance. Like most employers. It's not even something they're going to talk about. You know, that's, that's pretty crazy. One other thing I'll mention, when you walk into a grooming salon, now, not every, and I know, I'm not saying every grooming salon,

the majority, I want you to go to your competitors' grooming salon and walk in the door. Are people dressed like they have a dress code? Or even ones vaguely implied. How many times do you guys walked into a grooming salon? And there's obviously no dress code, there's not even continuity into what constructs as a reasonable wear and what's not. We're not even talking business casual.

I don't expect anyone to be wearing khakis or dress shirts when they're grooming. But what is everyone wearing? And people are wearing overalls, like not nice, cute overalls like ratchet, fraying, trashy overalls. How many times have you guys walked into a grooming salon and people wearing PJ pants? What about, you know, tank tops? Wear girls, you know,

a little bit of strap showing. That's fine. But some women will actually be grooming. I mean, they might as well have not even worn the shirt. They're just hanging out there, hanging out there for everyone to see. And the dogs don't care. But if a client sees that, that's a problem. Or I love t-shirts. I had t-shirts in my grooming salon,

but my T-shirts were for only people who were upfront or under people's smocks not to wear when they're grooming. Why? Because a t-shirt gets wet, then it smells, then you're covered in hair. That client doesn't wanna be handed their dog by someone covered in dog hair. And you're like, that's silly. They're in a grooming salon. Yes, but that dog is gonna go from your salon into their car and they may be going to work.

You know, they would like to be clean. The whole point of them paying you is to stop the dog hair from being everywhere. That I can understand. If you were looking from the outside in, you could see these reasons being why people think that we don't have a real job. So what are some takeaways? How can we appear more professional?

I think one thing is deciding in our industry that we are going to be treated like professionals. What does that mean? If you wanna make this commitment, don't work under the table. Get a real job. That's a W two job that gives you a paycheck. Don't accept an independent contractor. Why? Because nine times outta 10, you're not an independent contractor.

Your employer's just trying to avoid taxes. There are some great Facebook groups that'll explain this way better. You don't have to accept a position that's not the right position. You are better off working for yourself than accepting a position that puts you in the same position as owning your own business without the tax write-offs. 'cause you can't, you can't write off rent that you don't pay and your 50% commission,

it's not rent. That's not how that works. We're gonna agree that we're going to get a real job and work W two. We are going to pay our taxes, not be under the table. What else are we gonna do? We're gonna dress for the job that we want, which is a professional groomer. A professional groomer is not wearing pajama pants,

is not wearing a gross, smelly, wet hair covered t-shirt. They're not, their brass and panties aren't hanging out, they're not wearing PJ pants, they're not looking like they're ready for a hoe down. Wear a smock, you know, and, and ideally a color fitting the brand and the business. But at least then you're not covered in hair,

right? So when you come out, you look like you're a professional, you look like you know what you're doing. You don't look like a crazy person. Make sure that you are doing something towards saving for retirement. You know, whether that's personal or through your business. Start, you know, go ahead and consider reaching out to someone to talk about retirement.

What is your retirement goal? Get some health insurance if you don't have health insurance. And if you've gotta pay out of pocket, that really sucks. But one dog bite, one cat bite, you've made all your money back. You know, ideally, get temporary disability insurance for that. You know, what are some other reasons? Make sure the job that you are taking has some financial security.

If you own a business, there is no financial security. But if you are taking a job from someone who is employing you, you need to make sure that that you make it least minimum wage or commission. Whichever's higher. If they tell you it's commissioned strictly, I would be very careful because what if they lose power for a week? Do you not get paid?

You know, that's also why the 50% commission rate doesn't work. The business does not have enough money to put money away for its own emergencies. None of that's good. None of that's good. What else will make you a more professional groomer? That way people view you as a professional. Because people are always going to envy us, right? They're always gonna envy us and say,

wow, I'd love to work with dogs all day. And there's no point in explaining to them that's not what we do. But to garner the same respect that we want them to give us. The same respect a teacher gets, a plumber gets, you know, a lawyer gets, they have to present themselves in a professional way. We all know a plumber who is a professional plumber who's well put together,

they're wearing a nice polo shirt or a t-shirt with their logo on it, and pants that fit and I don't see things I don't wanna see. And then someone who's a slob. You know, if you wanna project that this is your career and you're proud of your career, then project that having some personal branding will grow your business or even make you more marketable as a groomer.

And there'll always be salons that there's nothing you can do. Some salons, no matter what you do, are always gonna be just Walmart and keep churning pets out. That's them. That's not you. So, sorry guys. It was a little long today. I wanna thank you so much for being here. And I do, I think that when people say you don't have a real job,

see that as an opportunity for you to look at you and say, okay, why does this person think that I am not a professional person? I have been doing personally a lot, I've been what I, what's called leveling up. What I am doing is I am retaking my femininity and I am creating a personal brand because that's who I wanna project,

is somebody well put together, competent in feminine. That's what I want in my life personally. And I'm not saying anyone has to do that. And you don't have to. No one's, no one's telling you to go dire hair or grow it long or pit it up in a ponytail. But when you come out to that client, look at yourself and say,

do I look trustworthy? Do I look competent? Do I look put together enough that someone would leave their pet with me? If we were just sitting at a park? What do you look like? And do you, if someone says that you're, you're gonna have a real job, that is generally a sign that either they've known somebody who's a groomer,

that is a fucking mess. And if you are a mess, that's okay, but you can't expect people to respect that. So I wanna end it on this note. I wanna invite you guys to consider joining personal finance and a leash, which is my online course. This online course talks all about our survive, live, and thrive on the roadmap to financial success.

We go through everything where we talk about budgeting, we talk about how to get our money under control, because most of us, it's not a lack of money, it's just a lack of control of that money. We also go through lifestyle choices, figuring out whether you should be an employee or an owner, or both. What your zone of genius is,

you go through limiting beliefs on wealth. And I know every groomer could honestly use this course. I wanna grow this industry in a way that people see us as professionals. And sometimes that takes money. Looking at your personal situation and trying to figure out, okay, where can I make some extra money to hire someone to help me? You know, to hire a business coach,

to hire a graphic designer, to create a professional looking logo. You know, hire someone to do your payroll and do your taxes and your books make extra money in order to make a better salon. So I would really like to invite you guys to do that.

So I wanted to welcome you guys to today's topic. Hopefully we can talk a little bit about how your business is not your personal piggy bank,

ba babu. So I wanted to expand upon a great blog post I had. I'd like to begin by reading the blog post. So I'm gonna read that out and you let me know if you guys need the website. My website is savvy groomer.com/blog. All righty. So this is not your piggy bank. Now, let's be honest, we've all done it.

We're all guilty of it. The company car in hand, you're at the gas station out to dinner or the store. Is this really a business expense? Probably not. But we tell ourselves this is part of being a business owner. The business paying for things, it starts with a tank of gas, then it is towels that you're actually for the house,

but you can always give the old ones to your shop, right? This is a laptop for work. You start embezzling from your own company without even realizing it. Sometimes it's just an occasional thing. Sometimes it becomes a part of life. You've turned your business into a personal piggy bank, which does not allow it to function as needed. Now, is this because you're a bad person?

Obviously not. Is it because you're lazy or dumb? Of course not. It's just so easy because there isn't someone to tell you no or to stop it. If you were a manager of your shop, Inc, would you handle your business finances the way you currently do? Well, let's be honest, probably not. You probably would need to show your boss your projected monthly income,

the expenses, you'd know how much money the shop needed to make every day so you could plan on how you'd do it or you'd be fired, right? So let's talk about generally the two reasons that you're doing this behavior where you're kind of embezzling in your own business. There's really, the two reasons tend to be you're burnt out or your personal finances are not under control.

So let's talk a little bit about these two really specific reasons of, you know, being burnt out or you don't have your finances under control. So first one's really simple. Let's say you're burnt out. Well, why are you burnt out? A lot of times we become burnt out because we are working too many hours. A lot of times people say,

oh, I only groomed 40 hours. Great. But if you are a small business owner, how many hours are you picking up the phone, making a marketing schedule, going out and marketing? How much time are you spending dreaming about what you're, you're gonna be doing and actually making that a reality? You know, how many hours are you actually working on your business?

And what I have found in my own personal research is that most people in the pet industry are easily working 60 to 80 hours a week. They're doing 40 hours of their service and an extra 20 to 40 hours, depending upon if they have employees or not, of extra tasks, cleaning, doing laundry, you know, not just grooming pets, but returning phone calls,

inputting new clients, researching new products, things like, you know, new shampoos, going to trade shows, continue education. All those should ideally be put into your 40 hour work week, just like you would if you were a manager for a different store. Now you might be saying, oh, well, if I was a manager, I would be working potentially more hours.

Yes, but there would be a cap. And for the most part, you would be paid for those extra hours or you would've a really regular salary. And most of us don't have a really regular salary for ourselves if we're a business owner, because we'll put the business needs first. If you're being burnt out, that's almost always why you might not be charging enough.

A lot of times I tell people, if you have a particular dog breed that you don't like to groom, go ahead and give them your happy price. If you go to the business owner, your pricing can reflect that. You know, why can't you say, okay, we start our olding with sheep dogs at $150. That's the pricing that you may have to go to if you're burnt out,

what is the price? You're like, okay, I will totally do this dog. What price is that? Same thing with cats. If you are not trained in cats, please don't do cats. If you are interested in learning to groom cats, check out the National Cat Groomer Institute of America. That's a great place to start, but what's your happy price to groom a cat?

So that being said, when you're burnt out, what are things that you can do? You know, we talk about if you're physically burnt out, you might have to start thinking about doing less large dogs. If you were doing a lot of large dogs and your back hurts, you may have to move into smaller dogs or get a new setup where you have a ramp,

something that's going to alleviate that. A lot of people are like, oh, I'll just hire someone to do the big dogs. Unless if you are going to have a business plan set up with multiple employees, you don't wanna be in that position where one person calls out and now do you call those people with big dogs and reschedule them? Or if they quit or what are you gonna do that?

I see that happening more so with cats, then I see that with large dogs, but don't put yourself in that position. So with that, you know, I want, you know, being physically burnt out, you could be financially burnt out. And we'll talk about that in a second about, you know, your personal fines not being under control.

And sometimes when we're burnt out in our business, it's 'cause we feel really trapped, you know? And a lot of that comes down to does your business reflect your personal life goals by being trapped? Did you pick a business style that fits your need? I'm a lot happier mobile versus being at the shop. I felt very trapped. I felt very stuck.

Versus some people prefer to be in a salon. They care more about certainty, reliability, and for them being in a salon makes them feel like they're at home and they're relaxed and they know where they're gonna be. And when they're done, they're done. And it's all about what you love. And making sure that your personal goal wants, needs, aligns with what your life path is.

If you want to live near the beach, then owning a salon in the middle of the city is not probably gonna be exactly what you want. And eventually you're gonna grow to resent that business, especially if you're not working towards a way that you can either sell that or eventually get rid of that in order to live your dream. So let's go to number two.

Number two is not having your personal finances under control. This is far more common in pet grooming People need than people realize, I should say. The truth is, in the pet industry, there are two kinds of people. The kinds of people that the second the check comes, the money's gone. They just cannot catch up. They just cannot make enough money to pay all of their bills.

And then the other kind of person, and I mean these in very general terms, after having like a long week of grooming, they just wanna get something nice. Whether that's, you know, splurging a little bit on going out to eat, maybe getting a foot rub, a massage, getting something done that's gonna make them happy. You know, versus putting that money into their budget or go ahead and putting it into savings or retirement,

they're gonna be like, you know, I worked really hard and I deserve, you know, when you feel entitled to have a good time, that's when you overspend and you make bad choices. So with that, with this piggy bank situation, a lot of times people will have a business model that's not actually that profitable, especially not if they paid someone for all of the hours they worked for the hours they wanted.

I can't count how many times I've talked to clients that have a business where they're grooming 40 hours a week and they're being paid for that, but then they're also working 20 to 40 hours doing admin stuff and maybe their husband comes in and he's their carpenter and he does all the maintenance and he also, you know, fixes everything. And had they actually been paying someone,

their business might have actually been in the red. So a lot of times you're not paying employees or because you're not treating them as employees or you're not treating yourself as if you're an employee and working 68 hours is not an option. It's not a long-term thing. And if you have someone who wants to come help you, that's great, but even if they won't take that paycheck,

set it in the budget as if you had that person to pay, because that's the what's eventually gonna happen. People don't work for free forever, it just doesn't work. Or they become resentful. You can think that somebody loves to work for you for free, but you love to do good things. But you know, it could take a year, it could take 10 years,

but eventually someone will be like, you know what, I'm not gonna do this. Or they're not gonna put a hundred percent of their effort in, which is just as bad. There's nothing worse than having somebody who says they're gonna do something for you and help you out, and then because they're doing it for free, they just half-ass it. It's awful.

So make sure you're actually profitable. Make sure you're not using your personal money to put money into the business either. And that's an, you know, opposite piggy bank where your business isn't making a profit, so you just keep putting money in or you don't take a check or you don't take a check as if you were an employee. You know, your business is making money as you as a 40 hour groomer,

but if, if you were paying even a minimum wage employee to do the admin work, you wouldn't actually be making any money. Or your business is making money and paying you, but it's not actually making enough money to save money. So there's a lot there. I think there's a lot to unpack. I think this is a great start. So when you're thinking about your business,

make sure you're not embezzling on yourself. Make sure you're not putting money into your business that doesn't belong there, as well as taking money out. And a lot of us have done this. It's a really bad habit. You just feel entitled to the money in your business. But if your business was paying you enough money as an employee, if you had a salary as a groomer and then a salary for your admin work slash entrepreneurial work,

and it was enough money to live on, you wouldn't use that debit card at the pump. It's not appropriate. You know, and a lot of times we get you a lot of tax problems. So I wanna thank you all for being here. It's been amazing. I hope this has been helpful. Please feel free again, check out my [email protected].

Let's begin with the topic to topic today is going to be the appointment book for your finances. You're like,

what are you talking about? I don't have an appointment book for my finances. I can barely hold together an appointment book for my grooming salon. You can't run whether you own a grooming salon, you're a pet sitter and you have a schedule, you're a dog trainer. Or even if you're a veterinarian, you can't run your day willy-nilly. Letting people come and go as they please.

It doesn't work, right? And for those of you guys that are doing that, I would love for you to comment below and say, oh no, I just let people show up whenever they want, pick up whenever they want. They can have whatever services they want. Even when I own my grooming salon, I stopped allowing walk-in nail clips because people would show up whenever they wanted and I would have a dog on the table and they would show up,

and then I'd have to put the dog down or back in a crate, go over, check them in. Did they have their rabies? Did they not have their rabies? And it just created a whole mess. So I said, okay, you're gonna go come between this time of the day, or you can make a same day appointment where you can call up and I can schedule in your nail clip.

So what does that have to do with my finances? Let's have a conversation about that, right? You're gonna get sick of me saying it. I know, I know. But the truth is, your budget is the appointment book for your finances, right? Because what a budget does. Now, when I say a budget, I really suggest you do a zero based budget,

and I can explain what a zero based budget is in a moment. But when you're doing a budget, what you are doing is you are deciding the slots of money and putting a dollar amount, same as you would have. Some of you guys have multiple groomers, you might do more than one pet in a slot, but for the most part, we put one pet in a slot,

you know, to come by. We may be grooming multiple pets at once, but you wouldn't just allow 10 people to show up right in the morning, right? It wouldn't work. So what do you do? So with your money, you wanna say, let's say groceries really easy. Let's say I'm going to agree that I'm going to spend $400 a month on groceries.

It's pretty safe to say. So you can do that one of two ways. You can either give yourself a hundred dollars a week. Now, some weeks, I should say some months are a little longer. That may or may not be advisable, but at least then you have a set amount of money to do it The same way that you can only do a set number of dogs a day.

For those of you guys that go over that set number of dogs or cats, they are grooming, pet sitting for dog training, you get really stressed out, right? It's not long and sustainable. So the same thing with our budget. Now, let's explain the zero based budget. A zero based budget pretty much means you're gonna take every dollar you make and it's gonna have a plan.

And this is so backwards because we're told like you want money left over at the end of your budget, right? You don't, because what happens with that leftover money? I mean, it just goes poof, right? What happens is the money at the end of your budget just goes to whatever it is that you want. And if you have an extra $500 a month,

you might be like, oh, sweet, now I can go buy those shears. Or, oh, sweet. Now I can go out to eat five more times this month. Instead of saying, okay, the extra $500 is gonna go into retirement, we're paying off debt, or whatever it is this in this moment that you're working on. So with your appointment book for your finances,

I want you to look at how much money do you make on average. Some of you guys have a volatile income, you might be commission-based, even if you're hourly. The hourly might not be steady. How are you paid? And if you're not really sure how much you get paid on average, go ahead and take the last six months and figure out your average monthly income.

So add up all your paychecks in each month and then divide it by however months you did. So if you did six months, you would take your paychecks per month, add them together, and do that for all six months, and then add up all those six months and then divide them by six. And you could get an average. It's also good to know what your highest was and what your lowest were.

In New England, nine times outta 10. November and December are the busiest times a year, because we have Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, in January and February, it's very, very cold here. And because it's cold and it's snowing, a lot of people will push out their appointments. So people that come in December, let's say right around Christmas time,

December 25th, obviously they may choose to go all the way to the end of February or even early March, and depending on the weather, because they might not drive in the snow, or they may have the unrealistic expectation that their pet doesn't need to be groomed because it's cold out and they need all that hair. So with that, you know, I know in December and in November that I need to be able to take that money and put it into the Hills and Valleys fund or a savings account,

or however I wanna do mine for January and February. If I have a traditional salon in New England now in Arizona or somewhere warm, they have a lot of people that come in the wintertime because obviously it's much warmer in the wintertime and in the summertime it's blistering hot. So a lot of people probably get their pets shaved right before the summer, or they go somewhere else for the summer,

so they might have less people. So with your appointment book for your finances, you really wanna say, how much money am I gonna spend on X, Y, and Z? So with us, and I know a lot of times if you are an employee and not a business owner, you're an employee, you need to reinvest with your personal funds into your grooming.

So you should have a a little category of how much are you gonna spend on upgrading your equipment? How much are you gonna spend on your education? How much are you going to spend going to trade shows and seminars and continuing education? Because when you're an employee, those are your expenses. Now, you might have a great employer who's willing to pay for some of those things.

However, if you're a business owner, those should be lines in your business budget because the business should pay for those things. But if you're a business owner, you're still have a much more volatile income. So there's a lot more things going on there. Anyway. So with this appointment book for your finances, you're going to make a plan, you're gonna make a structure,

and you're gonna stick to it. I'm gonna put down in the show notes, there's a great app called Every Dollar. It actually allows you to create zero based budget. It's free if you want the upgraded version. What it'll actually do is link to your bank account and go ahead and you can just swipe your expenses right into the categories. I like the feeling of putting them in.

I find that I am a lot more aware of how much I'm spending when I actually have to input. So when I go to the gas station and I input how much I spent in gas, it allows me to keep an eye on that because obviously if I go over on gas, did I make a lot of extra trips I didn't need to, you know,

what was I doing that was different that month? And I might have to plan ahead better where let's say if I'm taking a road trip and I'm driving a long distance, I should plan in the beginning of the month to spend that extra money, whether putting a category for road trip or making the gas a little bit bigger. And the same thing with going out to eat.

If I'm going on a road trip, I'm probably gonna be eating out more. So that category will probably have to be bigger. So with that said, I wanna challenge you guys to go ahead to either every dollar.com or consider going on the Savvy Groomer page and learning how to make a zero base budget. We definitely go through all of how to create a budget in a meaningful way.

And on my online course called Personal Finance on Unleash, I would love to see you guys there. What is a 12 week course teaching people how to do a budget if you're a groomer, but also pet professionals work on that as well. So I wanna thank you so much for being here with me. Feel free to go to my website, which is Savvy Groomer,

SS A V V Y groomer.com. So I would love to see you guys at my online course, which is Personal Finance, unleash my website, savvy groomer.com.

Today's topic is bum, bum. Sometimes things just don't go to plan, right? And I am having one of those times where everything is just not quite lining up.

Things are not bad, but there's just constant shifting and moving, and it's making me a little crazy, to be honest. And I thought this was a great lesson to talk to all of you guys about. So, you know, my entire existence right now is up in the air. And it's been so frustrating because normally I like to have a plan.

I like to have a well thought out and don't say perfect plan, but I'm the kind of person if this, then that. If this happens, then I'll do this, if this, then that. But sometimes things just don't go to plan and there's really nothing that we can do about it except for reevaluate and move on. So for me, this started when I had finally made the decision to move to South Carolina.

And I got a apartment. It was perfect until it wasn't. I was promised that the owner of the home would only be there on a very rare occasion because they traveled for work. So they might be there maybe one day a month. Well, that's not what ended up happening. He ended up moving his girlfriend in and then she had his kid over a lot.

And what I was promised didn't happen. And it made it really hard for me to do my work and it really stressed me out. Now, she didn't stress me out and the kid didn't stress me out. But planning a business where I'm on calls all day where I need quiet to record, this was a big problem. And the only reason I had agreed to live with somebody is because we had basically completely separate areas and completely separate houses,

right? There was no interaction at all. And it sounds really selfish, but that's kind of what I need for my business, is I need a very private, quiet space. There's no way for me to do savvy groomer in a loud house with a young child or someone who's gonna be there all day watching tv, you know? And watching these very loud reality TVs,

which are basically shows where people are yelling at each other all day. And when I explained to them, Hey, I can hear this background noise. This isn't what we agreed to. It wasn't easy to figure out. So then what do you do? Right? Then I've gotta figure that out. And so I put a deposit, I was looking for my house anyway,

so I put a deposit on this gorgeous townhouse. It was perfect. It was everything I wanted. And I really fell in love with this townhouse. And it was taking significantly longer to build than was promised. I was promised this house was going to be done before Thanksgiving. Well, the house was not finished in November, nor was it done in December,

nor was it done in January, nor was it done in February. It was not officially done till March. And that became a problem. Long story short, we had had, I had had rather an independent inspector and they had found an electrical issue. 'cause so here I am, right? And another thing happened in between then. I was having this really uncomfortable home life situation.

And my sister found out she was six months pregnant. The father was not going to be in the picture. So she was gonna need a lot of love support. And as somebody who had gone through a pregnancy on my own and had raised my son for a long time by myself, you know, my son's father and I split when we were pregnant and I lived in my car and there was a lot of trauma around that.

You know how we talk about the Ellis Childhood trauma. So I had to make a decision, you know, she could really use my help with preparing for this baby. She didn't have a lot of time to prepare. Not only that, she had found around Thanksgiving that she was gonna have this baby. So that's right around the busy season for grooming.

So I was like, you know what? My house was gonna be done around Thanksgiving anyway, so I packed up all of my stuff and put it into storage. And I was like, when the house is done, I'll move everything into the house. And until then, I will stay at an Airbnb and Rhode Island and take care of my family. Because reevaluating your,

you know, what you at your core are about is very important. And for me, it was about taking care of my family. And I'm not gonna lie, you know, I really did not have any, want to spend another cold winter. That's really not what I wanted at all. But my love and value for my family, I had to evaluate,

okay, which do I care about more? Right? And that was to take care of them, you know, to make sure that she has a better pregnancy and that she felt safe and nurtured and to help my family's grooming business survive, right? Because she hadn't had prenatal care and they didn't know how the pregnancy was gonna go, go. You know,

there was a lot of, a lot of moving pieces to that. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna stay in Airbnb. I'm gonna enjoy my time. I'm gonna make it work. Well fast forward to purchasing my home. Finally, you know, my sister had her baby, they're pretty comfortable. I covered her maternity leave, so everything should be working out perfectly well when I went to go buy my house,

which I'm very attached to, you know, especially being, being homeless more than once, you get very attached to homes. So we did an independent inspection. It came back that there was an electrical issue and there were some other minor things, but the electrical issue was the big thing. And they basically, the builders told me I had two options,

buy it as is, and they would fix it in theory later. But they didn't agree with the electrical issue that my inspector was finding. Now, my inspector was incredibly thorough. He put readings, and again, I don't know much about electricity, but you know, the, I don't know if it's the voltage or whatever, but it kept going up and down.

One of the bedrooms was completely wired wrong. It had outlets in the house going nowhere. It had just, everything was all messed up electrically in the house. So I had to make a decision, do I close on this house and accept that my electrical issues could potentially burn my house down and take the emotional liability of that if my cat passes away,

or if my son is coming down to South Carolina and, and that were happening, or what would I do? You know? And on the flip side, just the idea of having to potentially rip out all of my walls to make sure that the electrical is fixed. 'cause in theory, everyone's like, oh, well you can just cut a small hole.

Well, we didn't know the extent of the problems. And then I had talked to somebody else, they said, this is why when you're building a new house, we tell you before they patch everything up for you to inspect the wires. Now, part of me was very upset with myself because if I had been in South Carolina where I was, I would've seen these issues,

right? I would've seen these things happening instead, by helping out my family. Now, I was in this new predicament, and long story short, they told me that if I did not close and take the house as is, that they were not only going to keep my deposit, which was well over $10,000, basically, they were just gonna sell it to somebody else for $30,000 more,

which is exactly what they did. So I had to hire an attorney. Thankfully, I do have an attorney friend who was able to fight with them over this and get my money back. But it was really devastating. This house had everything I wanted, had the right amount of bedrooms, I picked out the colors, I picked out the i, I upgraded my stove,

I upgraded my fridge. You know, I had all of the Ikea furniture and all of the furniture I had pictured and planned, and I hadn't ordered yet, but like it was mine. It was all mine. And it was so devastating, it was so devastating. And it was really hard for me to go, okay, what I'm, I'm losing my home,

this home that I've dreamed about forever, right? And then I've also lost this, this whole life. I had planned this life in South Carolina of, you know, riding my bike into downtown and, you know, having drinks downtown and having this very metropolitan life and not having the winner and having a two car garage. And I just had this whole vision of everything that I was going to do.

Now, part of you is like, why am I getting so personal? Why am I explaining this to you? Because I bet you've had things like this happen to you in your life or in your business, right? You've picked out the space to open up your business and you've, you've imagined where everything's gonna go. And you've like already picked out the tile and you've done this and that,

only to find out that the landlord gave the lease to somebody else. Or only to find out the zoning's not gonna let you do it, right? Or maybe you've done it in your house and you're gonna have it in your house. Or maybe you decide that you're gonna get a grooming van only to find out that you're not qualifying for, or you don't have a big enough down payment.

We've all been through this buildup and buildup and buildup, and then great loss. So what do we do? We roll with it. And it's not easy and we pray, or whatever it is that you do, meditate, manifest for a better resolution. And my dream is to have a house somewhere warm. And I've fallen in love with Greenville, South Carolina.

Am I gonna be there now? Not right now. Why? Because the market's crazy. And I have to look at my fundamental values. Does savvy groomer align with what I want? And I had to help my mom and my sister to make sure that their business, their grooming business aligned with what they want long term. You know, I asked my sister like,

do you wanna be grooming cats for a long time? Or is this just now to make a paycheck? What do you love about it? Can you earn enough? Can you earn enough to be a single mom? Because she's gonna be a single mom for a long time. And that kills me. 'cause I've been there. My heart breaks for her and her baby.

And this is my goal for you guys, is for you to make sure your business aligns for your long time. Because then when things don't work out the way you want them to, it gives you another opportunity to say, Hey, fundamentally, what is it that I valued? I wanted to get a bike to bike into downtown. I wanted to have live in a place that was transient.

That way I can have friendships with people from all over the world. I wanted to have a house that I can do business retreats in, or at least one-on-one in person classes. I really want to be able to have you guys come to my place, be my guest, let's go to the beach. Or go to the mountains and sit down and look at what you've done in the classes that I teach and say,

okay, what's working, what's not? And have those conversations. This is what I looked for. And a good friend of mine, you know, and I'm gonna butcher this, she said to me, you know, sometimes when we're drifting and she uses a lot of water analogies, and she's like, you know, when you're trying to, if you're,

you know, if you're in a raft, you know, and you're gonna be drifting towards an island, she says, sometimes you see the sticks and you think that they're the island, but they're just the stick. And so unfortunately, this dream house I had was my stick, right? Because it wasn't the right thing for me. I was hoping it was everything I wanted,

but it wasn't the right time, or it wasn't the right thing. Something happened. And in the moment, I was so devastated. I, I literally just was inconsolable for days. Like, absolutely, like I was shut down. I just curl up in a ball. I watch tv, I don't watch a lot of tv, and just cried and ate cheese balls.

I ate like an entire container of cheese balls. That's my bad food. I just cried because it also brought up all those old wounds. It brought up the feeling of someone ripping my home from me. I just kept crying. They took my home from me. And then good, bad, or indifferent, you know? And I, I love that I can be vulnerable with you guys.

And you know, just being very honest, it was, it sounds really messed up. But I was really upset that my mom was so kind to my sister, because she's such a different person now. And I love who she is now. And I honor who she is now. But she was not that person for me. I was so alone.

And it was really hard to see my sister be so supportive and supported rather, when I was not supported. And I love that they learned their lesson, they supported her. And I'm really sad that she's going to repeat a pattern that I've already done. So there were a lot of emotions that I had to work through. And I know for you,

if things don't go to plan, there's a lot of emotions. And sometimes it's just digging up old wounds, whether they're childhood wounds or they're just wounds from other painful experiences, right? 'cause that little shadow side in your head mindset to me, why is she more lovable than you? Why did she get to be supported? Why do they love her more than they love you?

And that's bullshit. But in the moment, in that moment, that's what my heart was saying, right? And that hurts. And I'm okay that it hurt because it allowed me to mend those feelings, right? Because that's not the reality. It's just they had to learn a lesson and then they were able to heal. Because I'm sure my mom is mortified that she was not supportive of me when I was pregnant.

And now here's her chance to redeem herself. Sometimes things work out that way. Sometimes our pain is someone else's lesson or ability to re, you know, I don't wanna say, you know, reprieve themselves, but you know, my mom was able to, right? A wrong that wrong was not righted with me, but it was righted. And I'm not okay with that in the sense that I shouldn't have been hurt in the first place.

But, you know, she proved she's a different person. And I proved that I can be supportive even when I hurt. And with the house, you know, I said to myself, okay, this is not the end. You know, I'm gonna buy land and I'm gonna buy something custom. And when the, you know, when this market calms down,

you know, I'm gonna buy, I'm gonna build a custom thing where I can do these amazing retreats, right? I'm gonna be able to do all of that. And it sucks sometimes when things don't go to plan and they take longer. 'cause I want it now. I wanted it in November, but now this dream I had is pushed further, right?

And sometimes that's what's gonna happen. And it sucks and it hurts. And it's annoying all those feelings, right? Maybe again, you plan on going mobile and you can't, or maybe you're gonna have a grooming salon in your house and that you can't, or maybe you're gonna hire employees, but there's all these obstacles in front of you. Or maybe you did hire employees and then they all quit.

Or they all, you realized how overwhelming it can be. Maybe it's something in your business that just didn't go to plan. And it sucks. You know, for me, you know that dream of being in ca, in South Carolina, in Greenville, in that warm area. And it's a great area. It's where I wanna be. But until then I'm gonna be okay.

You know, I ended up finding a place that I can do many retreats. I found a place in Newport, Rhode Island, which is one of my favorite places on the planet. If you've ever seen the Guild of Age on H B O, that's where I am. I am less than a mile from all those famous mansions. I am walking distance to fame street.

I'm walking distance to Broadway. These are where all those shops are. I can walk to probably 30 restaurants. I can take my little bike out and go ride by the ocean. I'm gonna buy me a little scooter and I'm gonna scoot to the beach in the morning and watch the waves. You know, I found an impossible place. You know, I just put it out to God in the universe.

I said, okay, this is what I want. I want a place big enough. And then I can have these meetings of the mind that I can have people come and we can do, I can pour over their information and sit at the coffee at the kitchen table, having a cup of coffee and look at them, you know, and they can come and write it off as a vacation,

you know, and see a new area and have fun. You know, it's a blessing. But it came from hurt. And it's not exactly what I wanted. But ultimately it worked out. You know, I have a year to find property and build or I can figure it out from there. 'cause sometimes things don't go to plan and sometimes they work out better and sometimes they're not quite what we want,

but they'll do for now. And that's kind of where I'm at. I am very blessed to have found the place I did. And it really fell into my lap. Ironically, the owner of this townhouse in Newport is the cousin of a famous groomer. And that is the reason he gave it to me is because he grew up knowing his cousin who was a groomer.

And it's just so interesting how the universe or God brings things together, right? It's one of those things that you're like, okay, we'll try this. I guess that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna try this out and if it doesn't work, I'm just gonna pivot. Just like you're gonna do. If things are not working out, they get better.

And it sucks to say that, 'cause I wanted my house in Greenville. I still want my house in Greenville. I, all I wanted them to do was fix it. And I wanted to move all my stuff in. And I wanna, I just want it so bad and it hurts so much. But ultimately this aligns more with my vision For now,

I'm gonna be here for my sister, for her baby, and support their business. You know, my son is gonna be able to, instead of just visiting me and me visiting him, my plan was to come down once a month for about four to five days. Now I'm gonna have him 50 50, you know? And part of me was kind of excited about being selfish and putting myself first,

but I kind of still am. And it's, it's a constant shifting. And for you, what is constantly shifting, and I hope my vulnerability does not come off as me preaching. My goal for you guys is to hear my raw truth as it's not pretty. It's not pretty, it's really not. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. I feel like Murphy's Law in a person suit,

you know, I don't like that. I don't like that. I moved everything I owned down to South Carolina. I made a plan. I had everything working and then it felt like it was ripped from me. But there's a plan. I dunno what that plan is. And when I make it my plan, you know, I have to accept when things don't go to plan.

Because things are meant to be the way they're meant to be. And you don't have to believe that. I believe that. And I think sometimes I have to believe that. 'cause otherwise I would go crazy, you know? You know, I just spent, I spent two days in a truck driving back with all of my stuff, and it was really emotionally devastating.

But I'm really okay because I know I'm gonna have the things that I've really been called to do. Savvy groomer is gonna have a place where we can invite people to do these things. I'm gonna be able to groom in the cat van if I want to, right? That's amazing. I'm gonna watch my nephew grow up a little bit. You know,

when I left, my sister was never gonna have kids, and now she's got a baby and she's on her own. So that's where you always have to ask yourself, is the plan I have aligned? And make sure your business is aligned. My business is more aligned now than it was a year ago. 'cause as I grow classes, they're all about what I've gone through.

And I feel like I've mastered, or at least I've learned the lesson and now I can share with you. So that is today's topic. And again, I hope it doesn't come off preachy. I hope it doesn't come off whiny. My goal is for me to share my vulnerability, my realness, my genuineness, so that you can hear it. And ultimately you can take that knowledge and evaluate what you're going through.

No one's perfect. And me, less so than many, many people. All right guys. So that is today's topic all about. Sometimes things just don't go to plan. Don't be hard on yourself. Don't be mean to yourself. Just say, you know, and it's hard. It was really hard for me in the moment to say, okay,

not getting this house is a blessing, not a curse. That is not what I wanted to hear. But you know, and don't you hate that? You're like, ugh. It was, it was a blessing and not a curse. And I can always pick up later where I left off, you know? And the same thing when I sold my cat grooming business.

I went through the same emotional regret. And one thing that got me through is you can always just buy another grooming van. And that's the truth. Sometimes things don't go the way we want them to. And it's not meant for us now, or it was never meant for us in the first place. And I say that as someone who's been single in July for four years.

You know, I want love and I want marriage. I want more children, but it's not meant for me right now. The savvy groomer is exploding, but I'm not going to every trade show. Why? Because it's not meant for me yet. But next year, fingers crossed it will be. I really believe that. You don't have to believe that.

And being mobbed by new people as two groomer shop in town are closing this month. I did callbacks about 10 messages this afternoon,

looking for a quick fix on stream. So Brittany, are you doing a intake form? You know, and again, are, you know, are you taking new clients? Are you going to be doing a price increase? Are you going to be streamlining things like, this is where a lot of times this is a great opportunity, especially this time of year.

September is the perfect, I like to see you guys do price increases in September and in March, either one or both, either way. So this is a great opportunity to consider, do you wanna do membership grooming, right? And have everyone commit to a four week schedule. And so there's lots of different ways. So you can either hire a VA and a VA can literally do all of that for you.

You can have a intake form, right? And when you're doing the intake form, if you do it a Google doc, you can have certain things that if they click something, so Brittany's saying of a drop in price versus a monthly price. Well, and that's the thing, right, is the monthly price should be your, your standard pricing, right?

So whatever you want to make, if it was an eight, you know, if you're not following Savvy Groomer, depends on how long you guys have been following Savvy Groomer. So let's say your goal is a hundred dollars a dog at four weeks, it should be a hundred dollars a dog, and then six and eight weeks. There should be an additional cost for that.

And so I'm assuming you say drop in, I'm assuming you're saying like a member and a non-member kind of price. So if that's the case, then you know, again, it might be getting rid of anyone who's not going to commit to a four week schedule. If you've had two groomer shops in town close this month, you're, again, if every groomer is grooming an average of a hundred to 160 dogs,

you're gonna have 200 calls easily. So it is deciding, okay, am I, how am I going to create stability in my business as these new people flood in, they're gonna be price shopping and, and couch hopping and all that stuff. Not couch hopping. How do I say couch hopping? Yeah, I just pictured like, you know, bouncing around right shop hopping,

which sounds like a weird thing to say shop hop. But again, it's one of those things where we have to make that decision of it. How are we going to make it worth our time? And you can also do things like, ha you know, I'm, I'm assuming by the way too, when they're doing their intake form, right? When they're,

'cause I don't, I also would not, I, I wish you guys would not put your phone number on your website or on your vehicles. Don't put it on, don't put it on your signage, don't put it on your, you know, website. Get your phone off, get your phone gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone.

Because again, it takes so much more time and money to do phone calls if you hire a VA to go through intake forms and have them like organize them for you and to like, yes, no maybes, they can send out Harvard letters or Harvard texts. Thank you so much for inquiring at this time. We're not gonna be offering you a consultation groom,

dah, dah dah, dah. They can bang out all of those things very quickly. Phone calls take forever. The Harvard letter style phone call takes at least 10 minutes. Even if you try to make it five, it's gonna make it 10. You know, if you have to reply 10, that's over an hour. And so for someone like Brittany who,

you know, again, she got 10 messages this afternoon, I would figure out where your phone number is and figure out if you can get it off the internet and have them go to a website. Any new client should go to an intake form where you get all the, what information do you want them to know, right? And they put all of that,

whether it's through your, some softwares have intake forms built in, or even just a Google Doc where they have to fill in that information or on your website, have that information filled in and then, you know, you let them know you're going to email them back if you're going to entertain them or not, right? A yes or a no. And that would re greatly reduce it.

'cause if you had an intake form and you let people know, pick a day, let's say Monday, I'm really into Mondays right now, you know, if you had everyone fill out those forms and then on Monday you go through the forms, right? And again, you can have Google Docs, you can have things be flagged if it's like a,

you know, for instance, let's say are you willing to commit to a four week schedule and they click no, you could have Google Docs like flag those so you automatically know that person is going to get a Harvard letter versus when I say Harvard letter I, I jokingly call that like the denial letter. Like I feel like Harvard has like some of the best,

like many people apply, thank you so much for your application, right? But yeah, it's one of those things that you can really streamline that down instead of spending, you know, a couple of hours every single night, right? You could instead just spend probably two or three hours once a week, right? And it, and it is also like,

again, do you want to start renegotiating what you have currently with your clients, right? Do you have all the monthly reoccurring clients you want? Do you wanna move into a membership and have a contract with these people? You're gonna have more leverage. There's so many different options to do that. I will say with phone calls it's the least eff efficient.

So I would highly suggest getting an intake form. Mogo has them, groomer io has them, groom more has them, most of the grooming software have them, you know, get your, you know, you know, thing off your phone, number off. So you're not trying to answer these questions. Another thing you can do too is send them a text afterwards.

Yeah. Tell people to come in and send me an email, but then at least they fill it in and if they call you, you can just text 'em and be like, Hey, thank you so much for the voicemail. You can have it on your voicemail. We return all new client inquiries during our office hours, which is Monday between three and seven,

right? And from there, right, you can, you know, we do not return phone calls one, that's another option. You know, if you're a new client, please fill the intake form. Our intake form is on our website and you can even just copy paste, right? You know, thank you so much for your inquiry. Any new clients that were required to fill out this form,

any clients who are over X amount of weeks need to fill out this form. And then you've got everyone, right? And you can do all of that and that will really, really reduce your time. But yeah, now is the time to either is to really streamline. 'cause again, if you're having 200 new people, then it's like, okay,

is the clientele I have the right clientele? Are they the perfect, are they all my soulmate clients? And what is my soulmate client? Right? If you're like, my soulmate client is a hundred people who get this haircut and they're come every four weeks and they pre-book for the year, okay, well then let's start making that a requirement of anyone new who's coming in and anyone who wants to make an appointment,

right? I mean, two, at least 200 people. And that's on the low end, right? And when I sold my shop and we, like I said, we had five employees. I think we had a clientele of like 1200 people. So this is where too, you guys may or may not, you know, have an opportunity here,

right? And again, you can always be like, listen, we're gonna be interviewing a lot of people. We're not gonna be doing any appointments over X amount of time. And you can really leverage this. And not in a negative way, right? Because again, you are, you are not any marriage. So what, unless if you have a membership,

a membership is like marriage with your clients. And that's why I really love it because you are mutually committed and they are mutually committed. You are promising them a spot in your schedule and they're promising to pay you whether or not they show up. If they're not in a marriage, you always have the option to replace 'em. And that's where I like memberships personally.

This was a great question. So the question was, I love the first consultation groom. I would appreciate tips on how to better explain the value.

Sometimes I think I don't explain it well and wanna communicate it better with them. So this is a great question. So for those of you guys that are not maybe not entirely familiar with the savvy groomer, I teach what's called a consultation groom. So in a consultation groom, let's talk consultation groom. So what are consultation groom? So consultation grooms are essentially the first time you're going to groom a dog or a cat,

let's be honest here. So unlike a regular consultation where you're not going to be, you know, manipulating the pet, touching them, grooming them, et cetera, a consultation groom is saying, I'm gonna block off a specific amount of time for you. We're going to work, work through your goals. Like as an owner, what are your goals for this pet's hair?

I'm gonna get to know this pet better and I'm gonna be able to evaluate them as an individual. So I really love consultation groups because I think it puts the power back on us and it forces people to understand that no, this is just not like a walk-in service. This is not a service that you can just kind of use and abuse and kind of disappear,

right? Consultation room sets the boundary of, hey, you have to interview to be my client, and I have to decide if we're going to have a long-term relationship. So a consultation room is kind of like a first date. It's a lot of getting to know you, you getting to know me, and then us deciding if we wanna pursue anything.

So when we're talking about the value, we really wanna focus on what the goal is. So the goal is to create a long-term relationship with that client and with that pet. So I think the easiest way to explain this too, right, to the average pet owner is to say, you know, here at example grooming, we work really hard to make sure that your pet is treated as an individual.

We wanna get to know them, you know, and and learn what is the best services for them. And by doing that, we're going to take our time, especially the first groom, because we don't know what your pet likes, what your pet doesn't like. We don't know how your pet's hair is going to react to being groomed, right? And especially with all of these mixed breeds,

it's not like I'm gonna h you, you know, a purebred dog and it's gonna be easy. And even then a lot of these purebred dogs don't, it was so nice. Gonna super zoom, like all the well-bred dogs, like, ugh, like a bichon. That looks like a bichon. It was so nice, you know? So again,

this is our opportunity to go, hmm, maybe I wanna get to know you. So again, if there's different ways of creating value during this. So what some people do, one of my students does, she has a very high consultation, so she's going to charge her her normal rate for a bath and blow dry is a hundred dollars. Her haircuts go for 150 to $200.

So her consultation groom is 300. However, that 300 includes a haircut and then a bath within four weeks. So if they come in for the groom, then she's going to include a bath and load dry within four weeks. And the reason she does that is so that way she can, it's already included and it's already telling you if that person sees value in regular maintenance grooming.

And so you could do things where you can say, okay, you're basically prepaying for two haircuts, right? Because in the first consultation room, you don't really know what you're, you're getting into. It also sets a clear divide between regular maintenance clients and you having to re reapply and come back through the process of applying to be my client, right?

So essentially what can happen there is by me doing a consultation group, I'm really holding space for that pet. I like to see you guys have consultation groom, you know, no more than one, right? A day, ideally the last groom of the day. That way, you know, it's the last appointment. If they don't show up, you're not mad.

You get to go home early. If you don't have any new clients, you've basically built in time, right? You're not gonna have to reshuffle clients. Like again, if you have a new client, they take a little longer than expected, you're not gonna have to shuffle around other clients. You know? And obviously I'm assuming that you guys are staying on time,

you're not running behind that day. But even if you are right, that's where ideally you would have a buffer and that dog should be done. A consultation groom in a perfect world should be done straight through, or a straight through is possible. And it's probably gonna be a two hour appointment. If you normally groom dogs in an hour, I would block off two hours,

right? That that might be a situation. Everyone does. Their consultation groom's different. Some of my students who are like really holistic, what they're going to do is they're gonna wait till everyone is out of the building, right? At the end of the day, everything's cleaned up and they're going to have this one pet and they're gonna lock the door,

the pet's gonna be allowed to sniff and kind wander, maybe have a L mat, right? Just like really kind of relax and chill out while the owner and the groomer are communicating and getting to know, okay, what are your goals? What is this? What is that? Letting the pet just kind of settle, sniff around, you know, if they have a tub area that's there,

the pet can wander there. And again, everyone is so different. If you don't have a safe environment for pets to wander, don't do that. But in this case, that's what they do. And again, it's more about, you know, once the pet is calm, then they can say, okay, owner, you can leave. It should take me about an hour and a half.

Obviously the owner leaves wherever the owner leaves, you might send 'em to a coffee shop. I love giving clients like $5 little coffee shop gift cards. They can go wander there, you know? And then you have un then you have time to really get to know that pet and give them really the undivided attention. Because in a perfect world, if we took this,

if we took this seriously, if we took this in a professional way, we would require people to apply to be our clientele. We would make people prove to us, right? 'cause the goal is a long-term committed relationship with these pets, right? I don't really want to groom a dog that everyone is grooming in town. I don't like it when I'm grooming a dog.

And the next thing I know that dog is also being groomed by somebody else down the street and now I've gotta fix that haircut. Or maybe they didn't get all the mats out, or maybe they used Dawn. And now the co you know, the dog is either smelly or they didn't. If it's a deisha dog, they didn't pull that code out.

So I'm saying, listen, I am willing to commit to you or are you willing to commit to me? So I think it's mainly depending upon how you're branded in the way that you're going to explain the consultation group. Let's say if you're really highend and you're really luxurious, you would explain that you're an exclusive salon. If you're a membership model, you might say that you're members only and they need to apply for membership.

If you're a more relaxed, what I call a dunking donut style grooming business, you may instead opt for more of a casual thing and be like, look, you know, pet, you know, your pet is an individual and they need to be treated like an individual. We wanna make sure your pet has the most positive experience that they possibly can.

And so in order to do that, I need to block off this time. I'm not willing to have a dog come into a strange environment and kind of get thrown into the mix. All the other dogs here are so used to this grooming salon. They're used to the people here. I mean, we really wanna set your pet up for success. And the person who just wants a haircut,

they're probably not your soulmate client. And a lot of us kind of have to decide what kind of clients we want. It's funny, 'cause I hear so people saying like, oh, I don't wanna lose clients, I don't wanna do this, I don't wanna do that. But on the flip side, they also have a never ending wait list, or they have a never ending phone calls and people calling you.

You know, the average groomer right now is grooming about a hundred dogs a month. So it's 20. If you have five days a week, let's say five dogs, and that's a mix of big and small, probably, right? So five dogs, five days a week, that's 25 a week. Four days a week. Even if you're like,

well I'm grooming eight. Well let's do that math. I think that's 40 a week. So 40, it's eight. So that's one 60. Even then, that's not a lot of people, if you really think about a Starbucks serves more coffees than that in the morning, right? If you think about how many people go to Starbucks for coffee, you only need a hundred to 160,

depending upon how many dogs are grooming per day. Committed people. That's not a lot of people, right? So what the consultation groom does is it forces people, again, if they go over a certain amount of weeks, if you're in every four weeks salon, I would have, if you're over six weeks, if you're over six weeks, you have to reapply to be a regular customer.

And again, that shows that you are setting boundaries. And the reason having those boundaries is so good is because, again, if I'm a customer, and I know that if I go over six weeks, I have to go back through that expensive consultation room, right? And again, it's like, nope, we're gonna, it's been too long. We're going to reintroduce them because we put their mental,

physical, and emotional health above that, right? And I honestly believe that, you know, we had a, a really busy salon when I had my grooming salon, we were grooming about 40 dogs a day between five people. We had bathers and, and groomers, but all the dogs were incredibly well adjusted because we did things the same way. They knew everyone.

We made sure they felt incredibly comfortable. We were hustle bustling. So we weren't always the best. But a lot of that came down to just, you know, quirky personalities with dogs. Like we had this one Aussie who literally just like happy barked at everything. And so he was groomed first thing in the morning and I was like, get him out.

Right? But you know, it wasn't ever a thing where dogs were stressed out and if they were right, we worked on that. So, but going back to consultation rooms, you know, I just think it's a win-win. And so it can be a bit, little bit difficult for us to explain that to clients, but that's only because we're not used to setting boundaries.

We're not used to communicating our needs, right? It's so interesting 'cause we're, we know we're not desperate, right? We know we're not desperate for clients. We know we have way more pets that could be groomed, right? Versus the amount of pets that are actually around, right? So if you think about it again, if that groomer needs a hundred to 160 tops,

right? Most of us are not grooming more than eight dogs a day, five days a week. There are definitely some power groomers. And again, I'm talking about one groomer, right? I'm not talking about a bather and a groom, I'm talking about one groomer. So I only need a hundred to 160 people to commit to me monthly. That's not a lot of people.

And it seems like a lot of people till you break down, right? That there are 365 days. So I would really consider the fact that having consultation groom allows you to really break that down.

So let's go ahead and get started with today's topic. So today's topic is fine tuning those smart goals. All right,

so let's go ahead and transition to these different SMART goals. And if you do not remember what SMART stands for, so SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. Basically, specific means you know, is it, you know, very clear, measurable, you know how much you know is there achievable and you actually do it real,

you know, so here you guys go. So just Googling it specific, be clear specific so your goals are easier to achieve. This also helps you know how and where to get started. Measurable measure goals can be tracked, allowing you to see your progress. They also tell you when your goal is complete actionable, are you able to make action to achieve the goal?

Actionable goals. Ensure the steps to get there are within your control. Realistic, avoid overwhelm and unnecessary stress by and frustration by making the goal realistic. And then time bound a date helps us stay focused and motivated, inspiring us to provide something to work towards. So going through all of our comments, right? Okay, so here's Ashley. She's saying,

I wanna start my own mobile next by next year. So here's what we've gotta do, right? We've gotta make it specific. So opening up a mobile business when by next year. So instead of saying something along the lines of next year, maybe we say, you know, by March, 2020, right? Or by December, 2020. So by having a specific end date that's gonna help us.

So, so we have our for, we have our goal, right? You wanna open up your own mobile next year. So let's look at what our SS is, right? So, and again, if you don't find the acronym you need, look up, there's so many things online, guys, feel free to do that. So ss set real numbers with real deadlines.

Say, don't say I want more visitors. Okay? Be clear and specific, right? Who, what, where, when, and why, right? Perfect. So, you know, is this a specific goal? No, not yet, right? So let's start, and again, I'm gonna go outta order because that's how my brain works. If you're a more linear human being,

I apologize in advance. So I wanna start my own mobile next year. So I want to you open my own mobile grooming business by let's say December, 2022. Perfect, right? And then we're like, okay, well is this, you know, so first thing I wanna ask myself is, is this achievable, right? And so this is where I might dive into this.

So this is, if this was somebody on a coaching call, I'd be like, okay, to, you know, and this is where I would ask myself, how much money do I need in order to start my mobile grooming business, right? And so I'm gonna tell you, ideally six months worth of personal expenses, ideally six months of business expenses,

and then let's say a down payment on a grooming man, right? So that's a lot of stuff. So we're like, okay, well we've got these three things that we need to get minimally. Another thing we need to take into account here is what is the lead time for building a mobile grooming van right now for hand V. So like let's say hand V is anywhere between 12 and 26 weeks average from time of financing.

So by the time you've asked what you wanna build, you've sent them the down payment, it is 12 to 26 weeks average to get that van built. So first thing we've gotta do is look at right these. So let's do relevant and is it a relevant goal? I hope, you know, I'm assuming that owning your own business is what you want.

But you wanna make sure like can you know, do I need health insurance? Is it a situation that I'm okay with potentially not making any money for three to six months while my business is being built? Am I okay with in the very beginning, grooming probably 30 to 40 hours a week and working on the backside of my business another 20 or 30 hours?

You know, working, you know, working in a salon 40 hours a week is hard. You know, working in a mobile business for 40 hours a week is hard. But then when we are our own business, we have to do the job of a receptionist, a manager, a groomer, right? We have all that other stuff. So I wanna make sure if I set this date of December, 2022,

am I gonna have all of these things, right? So this is where there might be a goal beforehand, right? I might have to say I want to save up, let's say $60,000 and we're gonna say $25,000 down payment on a grooming van. Let's say, you know, $15,000 business expenses. Yeah, I mean that's, you know, and then let's say you don't have a spouse or anything.

So you know the $20,000 for personal expenses, you know, if you're starting from zero in this example, is it likely you're gonna be able to save up $60,000? Unless if you have something to sell or to do? This may be very difficult 'cause let's look at December, 2022. If we're looking at 12 weeks, $60,000 by let's say September, 2022. That is January,

February, March, April, may, June, July, August, September. So it's eight months. Eight months. That's how much I'm gonna do my math. $60,000 divided by eight, that's about $7,500 a month saved. So a lot of times we're gonna say, I have this audacious goal and I'm like, okay, well let's break down that goal,

make sure it's a smart goal, make sure it's a realistic goal. So I wanna say it was 60 grand. I'm gonna do 25, do thousand dollars down payment on my grooming van. I'm gonna $15,000 to save for my business expenses, which is my grooming van, payment insurance, marketing for my website, et cetera. And I'm gonna have 20 grand set aside for my emergency fund,

for my personal life and my business. That way if I have to pay this and that and I have nobody come in, or God forbid we get shut down for covid, or God forbid, instead of 12 weeks, we're at 26 weeks. Or you get fired early from your current job because your job finds out that you're gonna be opening up your own business.

Whatever it is, let's use that as an example, right? So we're gonna have 60 grand. So that's where the question becomes, is that achievable, right? In eight months am I gonna be able to save $7,500 a month? So let's say this person at this point, so let's say you're looking at the $60,000 and you're like, there's absolutely no hope of me being able to do that before December, 2022.

So then let's go. So let's say instead I want to save up, you know, I want to open my own mobile grooming vis by December, 2023. Now this is less sexy, right? This is less sexy. 'cause we always wanna do everything now I don't wanna wait two years, I don't wanna do this today, I wanna do this now. But here's the thing is that by you having money saved and by doing it the right way,

it's going to be so much smoother. When people open up businesses on a shoestring budget, they have so many problems in their business. Anytime there's a little problem, it's a giant hiccup, right? Because if you're sick with C O V I D for two weeks and there's no one to groom and you have to reschedule everybody, if you have 15,000 worth of business expenses in the bank and 20,000 for personal expenses,

you're gonna take the time to heal. You're gonna do the right thing by you, okay? This just allows you to have so many more choices. And about $25,000 down on a grooming van is about average right now because don't forget you, you may or may not be able to roll your taxes into your payment. You may or may not be able to put everything into your loan.

So we wanna have that little bit of buffer and extra, okay? So I wanna open my own mobile grooming business by December, 2023. I will save up $30,000. Well, I'll save up thir $60,000 by September, 2023 and place my order for my van in September, 2023, right? So that may be a little more realistic and I, I know it's not sexy to have realistic goals.

It's more fun to like beat the odds and be crazy and this and that. But sometimes it just takes, you know, but so like here's again an example, right? I'm gonna place their order here. So you know, she's saying she might pay for conversion. So you know, and then finance the van. Well a grooming van, a professional grooming van is anywhere between $85,000 and about $120,000.

Your van, your sprinter van is anywhere between 35 and about 65 K. You know, your conversion is generally anywhere between realistically 40 to 60 K. So that's about where we're at. You know, there are some conversions that are cheaper. So you know, if we're gonna get a sprinter, which I personally think you should only do, you know,

I have pretty strong opinions. So you take what you guys want from it. I personally do not believe in D I Y grooming vans. I think, you know, and again, I know it's not a popular thing to have an opinion on. I think there are definitely people that can do it, right? I just think that for the most part it's not wise.

You know, we don't suggest clients shave their own dogs, right? And you don't need, you really don't need a college degree to do that. Engineering is a college degree. Engineering should be respected. It's not easy. You know, if you're gonna do it, just be aware that you really should never sell it because God forbid someone kills themselves,

kills a dog, you will be liable as a manufacturer if you were having an issue with a hand V van you call handy and they have a team of engineers and customer service to help walk you through a problem. And now that they have those QR codes, it literally pulls up videos how to fix something in common reasons that things could be, you know,

not ideal. So, you know, and here's my thing, Ashley is like, if you're going to pay outright for the conversion and you're gonna finance the van, that's absolutely not a problem. But that means you need to save up realistically. I mean let's, let's even do it on the very low end, you know, 30 to $60,000. You know,

to me, you know, it makes more sense for you to have some money in your emergency fund than have it down on the van. So that's really nice. So actually like here's the thing is if you're gonna have like 60 grand to do this, then you're go, you're golden, then you can have this, right? So if you have this money down,

then you're golden, right? And so we've got our six months worth of business expenses, personal expenses, I don't know what your expenses are, I'm just gonna take a wild guess, you know, and that's where you've got to, you know, do all of that, right? So I wanna save 60,000 by September, 2020. You know, I am going to put my order into handy V by September, 2022 and start my business.

Let's say you wanna start December, let's 2022. Now with that, here's the thing with that, starting December, 2022, depending upon where you are in the country, is December, 2022 the best date to start a mobile business? So this is where I might say, you know, we've got all these things, we're like, okay, well yeah, I can definitely open it by December, 2022.

But is that really the best state to open it? I always say the best times to open a grooming business is in September or in March, that is getting your feet wet before the holidays. You know, having a month or two to kind work out the kinks, get used to being in the van, build up your clientele slowly, and then you've got the holidays rush.

And then from there, in the alternative, I like to see people open it as of March. And the reason I like March is because March, you don't have to. Like I really, if you live in a place that has snow, and again, you might not live in a place that has snow. I don't like to see people open up a grooming business during snow.

'cause it's a lot of, it's like snow is the hardest time to learn. And in the deadest summer, it's the hardest time too because you're trying to learn your van and you're trying to learn how to gauge temperature and dogs dry differently in a handy v van over in a shop because it's just basically a tiny sauna on wheels. So learning the tips and tricks and getting involved in the mobile grooming groups is really gonna help you.

So going back to this, it's like, okay, so now that I have my answer, then I go, okay, well may do I want to start my mobile grooming business before then. So that might be where actually, you know, you already have some money, right? So instead of doing this, maybe instead we're gonna actually bring it sooner,

right? So maybe instead of doing it in December, 2023, we are gonna green business by, let's say September, 2022. I'm gonna save up the 60 grand by let's say realistically, you know, 'cause we want at least three months. So let's say May, 2022, okay? And then we're going to place our order in May, 2022. That is three months. So we're gonna say,

you know, building June, July, August. So you get your van in August, but realistically you're gonna get it delivered in September. You're gonna, 'cause you're gonna probably get a wrap or you're gonna have your marketing start my mobile business in September, 2022. Right? So this is again, a more goal that has been fleshed out. We've kind of worked through the kinks here.

I wanna open my mobile grooming business by September, 2022. I will save up 60,000 by May, 2022 for the down payment, the business expenses and the personal expenses and place my order for my van May, 2020. And they're gonna be building it realistically June, July, August. Lemme start my mobile business in September, 2020, right? So this is a pretty smart goal, right?

Everything here has been thought of. We've organized it, it's relevant, you know, and you know, I might even flush this goal out a little bit here and say, you know, all backend marketing website policies, pricing, and procedures will be created and set up as of let's say July, 2022. So I can start my, you know, my mo my old business taking clients,

my first clients in September, 2022. So again, like I might go, okay, like what do I, what do I need to do in this goal? And like, as you can see, we keep flushing it out. You know, it's not as sexy, right? It's not as fun as like just having this like crazy thing. Like, you know when we write something simple like I wanna open up my mobile next year.

That sounds really fun. It sounds really easy. I don't wanna say easy 'cause that's terrible, but this sounds like this is what we wanna say. But as we're starting to flesh all of this out, it is longer, it is more pragmatic. It is a situation where we are breaking it down more and we're getting really clear on what we want,

right? So let me do this again, but let's do this with somebody maybe who say, I want to earn more money next year. So let's say that's the goal we start with, right? That's what someone is gonna say. And that's not a bad goal, right? But let's make it better. I want to earn $10,000 more next year.

So this might seem like a better goal, but I actually think it's a worse goal because in order to know you wanna earn 10 grand more next year, I wanna know how much did you earn this year and how much are you gonna earn next year? So instead, what I would say I want to earn, let's say last year you made for easy math.

'cause I'm feeling lazy. Let's say you earned $40,000 last year, so I wanna earn $50,000 in 2022. Again, it's better. But here's the thing I wanna ask you. Is that net or is that gross? So what net profit is, is after you've paid all your bills, gross profit is all the money that comes in. So let's say you wanna be nice to river,

so I want to earn $50,000 gross profit it in 2022. 'cause you're like river, it's okay. I don't need to figure out my net right now. I just wanna see 50 grand on the books by the end of the year. That's fine. You know, normally we would say a hundred grand 'cause that's more realistic, but I'm feeling lazy. So we're gonna say $50,000.

Okay? So what I'm gonna do here is I'm gonna go, okay, how much is that per month, right? So I'm gonna take my $50,000, I'm gonna divide that by 12. So that's about earn $50,000 gross profit. And then I'm gonna break it down for myself. I'm gonna say 41 67 a month. And then I'm gonna break that down again by week.

So I'm gonna say 50 weeks. So it's about a thousand dollars a week, right? I'm gonna break that down so I can get it in my head. Gross profit in 2022. And I'm gonna put, well, not adding any more rooms to my bottom line or cutting any of my current, I don't wanna say entitlements, I'm gonna say entitlements.

Entitlements. So I'm not gonna change shampoos to cut money. I'm not gonna get rid of my prima, I'm not gonna sell anything. I'm gonna enjoy the shit I have, right? So we're getting a little better here. I wanna earn $50,000 gross profit. I wrote down how much it is while not adding any more grooms to my bottom line or cutting any of my current entitlements.

So this is where, you know, I'm gonna go, okay, now remember with the cutting your, your entitlements, you don't necessarily have to add that because we put gross, but if I had put net profit, then I would. So I'm actually gonna take that out because I don't have to worry about cutting money because cutting money with my gross profit is really irrelevant.

So right now I'm gonna go, okay, so I want to groom, so I have this, and I'm gonna again just copy this 'cause I'm feeling lazy and paste this, right? And I'm gonna write 25 pets a week or a hundred pets a month, right? And I am gonna do for 1200 a year. So let's break that down, right?

So if I'm gonna do 50,000 pets a year, $50,000 gross, and I'm gonna divide that by 1200 pets a year. That is right. So 50,000 divided by 1200 grooms, we're looking at about $42 a groom, right? And if we do, again, if we do a hundred, whoop, nope, we did 40, let's say, if we look at that.

So I'm like, oh man, $42 a groom. I'm already grooming 25 pets a week, right? So let's do the 25. So that would be 42. Well let's do, so 41 67 gross divided by a hundred pets a month equals 42, right? A groom. And then again, that $1,000, oh gross, 25 pets. And that's about 40.

So I'm looking at this and I'm like, man, like I sh I charge, let's say $45 a groom, right? And I didn't make $50,000. So what's going on with that? That's where that person has the opportunity to go, wait a minute, I'm already charging 45 or $50 a groom. Why? And I'm, and I'm in theory,

I think I'm grooming this many pets. What's going on here? Right? And so let's say they find out that, you know, for this example, that maybe, and again, everybody's different. Let's say this person finds out that they're not charging no call, no shows, or you know, they're doing a lot of bath dogs and their, you know,

bath dogs are like $35 for a lab and they're like, oh my God, I've been doing this. Or maybe they find out I need be doing this many dogs and they're, you know, for Shih tzus. But if they are, let's say if I can do five dogs a day, if they're shihtzu, but if they're doodles, I'm doing two,

let's say I'm doing 10 pets a week, right? I need to do a thousand dollars gross and I'm doing only 10 doodles a week. 'cause doodles are the bane of my existence, you know? And in this example, I should be charging a hundred dollars for a doodle groom. And let's say I go, oh crap, like I'm charging $75 for a doodle groom.

And that might be where I'm gonna start noticing problems. What's going on in my current business? So let's say if I'm like, man, like I already charge 50, so I can go back and say, okay, so maybe it's not about increasing pets, right? Maybe it's about increasing the groom. Maybe it's about finding out why I need these numbers to make sense.

'cause the truth is that the numbers don't lie. There are so many times you guys will throw shit out at me and I do the math and I'm like, well, there's something wrong here because the numbers you gave me don't add up. And if the numbers don't add up, it's not my fault. There's something going on here, right? So for this person,

if they're charging 45 or 50 bucks a groom, it could be that they're doing less dogs than they think they are. And it's all this, or maybe they're comping things. Maybe there's a lot of people that you know, they're giving discounts to. Or maybe it's that they're not grooming as many pets as they think they are. You know? So they can go back through all of this stuff and start looking at it.

So this is where a lot of times, as we're starting to make these our smart goals, we're gonna start seeing cracks in things. Because again, I wanna earn more money next year once we start breaking this down. What happens really quickly is we see the cracks in the foundation. And, and this might be something where we're like, okay, like I need to groom $4,200 a month,

right? Or a thousand dollars about a week. And that person might look at this and say, you know what? I wanna do less pets. I wanna take, you know, instead of earning more money, not only do I wanna earn more money, right? They might be like, take only working four days, four days a week, right?

And so we're gonna bring that down to 20 pets a day. Yeah. 20 pets a week, 80 pets a month. We're gonna do 80 times 12. 'cause I think I know what it is, but I don't wanna say it. Yep. So we got nine 60. So again, let's go ahead and do the math again, right? So we got our 41,

I'm sorry, $50,000, and we're gonna divide that by our 960 pets, right? And we're gonna do, so this is here, a $52 groom. That's not really that high, right? So let's say if you go, you know what, actually, what is a hundred thousand dollars gross look like? Gross. And let's divide that by 960 pets,

right? A year. And this is where you can start playing with this and make it kind of a game. And as you're thinking about this goal, you're like, okay, well is this a realistic goal? Now this obviously is where you're like, oh man, that's $104 a groom. But if this is your goal right here, you might say,

okay, this year in 2022, I wanna gross a hundred thousand dollars. And then in 2023, I wanna get it so that I can take an extra day off. So let's say, right, let's take that a hundred thousand dollars and let's do it by 1200 pets a year, Right? So we're gonna take our a hundred thousand dollars and we're gonna divide that by 1200 pets.

So that's about $83 a groom. So you might focus this year from going from, you know, 45 and 55 a to $83 a groom. And that would be a great goal for 2022. And then your goal for 2023 would be to bring that up, another $20, right? So again, I know it's a little confusing, but very quickly we can break down this goal,

make it realistic, and decide what we wanna focus this year on. Like this person might say, you know what? I would rather focus on taking an entire day off, and then if I increase my prices, great. Or they would be like, you know what? I really wanna double my income, and then in 2023, I will focus on taking that extra day off.

You know, there's so many different ways of figuring out how you wanna do that, you know? And there's no wrong way, guys. There's absolutely no wrong way. It's all about what you wanna do and how you wanna do it. I really appreciate it. I hope this has helped. How you can kind of start breaking down those goals, making sure they're realistic,

and start fleshing them out to make sure it's really what you wanna accomplish in 2022.

Let's go ahead and start talking about today's topic to, so if, for those of you guys that have never heard of creating a smart goal,

it is a specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely goal. Now, every single, you know, person does their goals differently, but I, I often talk about smart goals and I realize I actually have not done a live where I've really broken down what a smart goal is. So let's start with ss. SS is for specific, okay?

So when we talk about a specific goal, what we really wanna talk about is something specific, strategic or significant. So basically knowing what you will do and exactly how you're going to do it. This is not always easy, right? It's understanding, you know, what do I wanna accomplish? Why is the goal important? Who is involved? Where is it located?

And which resources or limits are involved? Now, as we come to New Year's resolutions, this is gonna be really important to know exactly what our goal is for goals. So oftentimes we're gonna say, I want to lose weight, or in my business, I want to make more money. Well, that's not a very specific goal. So think about what do I wanna accomplish?

Why is this goal important? Who is involved? Where is it located? And what resources or limits are involved, right? So be a little bit more specific in your goal. Now let's move on to the next letter, which is N. So that is for measurable, meaningful, and motivational. Okay? So think about having precise ways to measure.

Now this seems really simple and easy, but it's not always that simple. So your question's gonna be, how much, how many and how will I know when it is accomplished? Again, let's go back to, I wanna earn more money in my business. Now, that's not a very specific or a measurable goal. Maybe it's going to be, I want to earn a hundred thousand dollars in 2022,

right? So by knowing how much I will know when it is officially measured and therefore achieved, right? So you often hear people say, I wanna lose weight. Well, do you wanna lose five pounds, 10 pounds, 15 pounds by just saying weight? You're kind of setting yourself up for failure setting. I want you to consider how you are going to measure that.

Now, moving into our next letter, we have a, for our smart goals, which is attainable, achievable, and adjustable. Okay? So you wanna think about being able to visualize your path. Again, that may not seem like a big deal until you start creating your goals, right? So how can I accomplish this goal is the first question you ask yourself.

And how realistic is the goal based on other constraints such as financial factors? So let's say you are opening up your very first grooming business. You've never owned a grooming business. You are gonna open the doors as of March 1st, and you're like, you know what, I really wanna earn a hundred thousand dollars this year. Well, we've already figured out how we can measure that,

right? So for instance, you guys know I'm a numbers nerd. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna pull up a hundred thousand dollars and let's say instead of being open later, let's say we open in January for easy math, okay? Actually opening up in March is easier 'cause that would be 10 months. So let's say a hundred thousand dollars divided by 10 months,

well that's about $10,000. So if I open a grooming salon with one groomer working 20 days, which is five days a week, four weeks a month, right? So it's 20 working days, that means that groomer needs to groom $500 a day. Is that realistic? Well, it depends on how much you're paying for, you know, it depends on how much your grooms are.

So for instance, let's say if I'm grooming five dogs or five cats at a hundred dollars a piece, well that's pretty easy. I would divide by that $500, right? Divided by five. Five pets would be a hundred dollars, which is how many? How much my groom is, or $500 divided by five pets, which would be a hundred dollars per pet.

Now let's say instead I am opening up the same grooming salon, I wanna earn a hundred thousand dollars. I'm still gonna be working 20 hours a week. I'm sorry, 20 hours. A 20 days a month. Sorry, I had $500 a day. But instead of charging a hundred dollars per pet, I'm going to charge $50. That's 10. Am I realistically going to groom 10 pets at $50 per pet at $500 a day?

Maybe, but it is that really realistic. That's a lot. That's how you get burnt out. So we wanna make sure that it is in fact attainable. Now our next letter is R, relevant, realistic, and results. So basically being able to visualize the results. Now, a lot of times people get confused on this, and I understand why,

right? 'cause you're like, why does it matter? So this is where with savvy groomer, I really want you to be aware of the season of life you're in. And you guys will hear that all the time. Does this seem worthwhile, right? If you are pregnant with your fifth child and this is your last baby and you're like, I really wanna stay home with this baby,

it's probably not the right time. If you are taking care of elderly parents and that's your priority, trying to increase your revenue to a hundred thousand dollars a year may not be the right, you know, time, it may not match your other efforts or needs in your personal life. We wanna make sure that our personal and our business life really connect,

you know, and again, am I the right person to reach this goal? Sometimes you could be have the opportunity, but it may not be bright for you. And on more than one occasion, I've had a fantastic idea, but I've had to sit back and go, okay, but is this right for me? Is this right for this time in my life?

And sometimes it's not. Sometimes you need to accept the fact that even if it's a good idea, it's not a good idea for you, right? And it we also wanna make sure, especially in this day and time, is it applicable to the current socioeconomic environment? In other words, is it achievable given the current financial environment? So this might be along the lines of if you're like,

okay, I wanna work three days a week. I wanna groom no more than five pets a day and I wanna earn a hundred thousand dollars. So I'm gonna say, okay, let's go ahead and break down those numbers. So if I, you know, that would be 10 working days, 3, 6, 9, 12. So 12 working days rather A month. Okay,

we're gonna take a hundred thousand dollars. We're gonna divide that, let's say by 12 months, about $8,333. And I'm gonna divide that per month based on 12 days, which is $695. And then from 695, I'm gonna divide that by five. Could you charge $140 per pet? Potentially, but realistically, are you, and that depends upon where you are in the socioeconomic area.

Like do you live in an area that can, can the market bear that price? Now, I personally believe that very rarely does the market actually show what it can bear, but it's important for you to really consider, do you feel comfortable? Do you feel comfortable telling people, okay, your dog, your shihtzu, your small breed dog is gonna start $140.

And you may wanna build up to that, but you may not feel comfortable yet in doing that. And it's not always that easy. So consider where you're at, how much money there is. And again, it's not always a straight line guy. Sometimes like I, in Rhode Island, I would say the average cat room was like 85 bucks and I was charging $200 for a line cut.

So just because other people don't have the balls to do something doesn't mean that you don't have the balls to do something. So let's move on to our last letter. And that is t and t is for timely, trackable, and tangible. Okay? So what I want you to consider is having a timeline for achievement. Again, we wanna make sure that this is exactly where you need to be,

right? So it's gotta be time bound, right? So when you know what can I do six months from now, what can I do six weeks from now? What can I do today? We really wanna break down again, we've already figured it out, right? So let's go back. We've already figured out specific strategic and significant. We've made sure it's measurable,

meaningful, and motivational. It's attainable, achievable, adjustable. It's relevant, realistic, and we can figure out the results. So now let's actually create that timeline, right? So again, it's not always the easiest thing to do, do, because what you're, what you wanna do is say something along the lines of, I wanna earn more money or I want to grow my business.

These are not smart goals. These are just kind of wishes, right? It's kind of like that guy that you talk to, he is like, oh, I wanna open up a business. You're like, what kind of business? I don't know, I just wanna open up a business. He's like, well, do you wanna open up a grooming salon?

Yes, I wanna open up a grooming salon. Okay, when do you wanna open up a grooming salon? I don't know. At some point, well, how about in two years from now? Yes, I wanna open up a grooming salon in two years. Okay, well what do you need in order to open up that grooming salon in two years?

And as we're asking these questions, we're really beginning to flesh this all out. And what I want you to do is, when you're doing these smart goals, when you're creating these New Year's resolutions for your business or for your personal self, make sure they are smart goals. Specific, knowing what you will do and how measurable, having precise ways to measure attainable,

being able to visualize that path. Realistic, being able to visualize results, having a timeline, right? It's gotta be time bound. Having a timeline for these achievements. This is exactly what we need, guys. We need to start making sure that our goals are aligned. And one of the main things with Savvy Groomer is just because you wanna earn more money,

we wanna make sure you're in a season of life that you are ready to either sacrifice or focus towards those things. It's not always cut and dry guys, sometimes it's kind of messy. You know, for me, with savvy groomer, savvy Groomer is in a great place to grow, but my sister's gonna have a baby any day. And for Savvy Groomer right now,

things are kind of on hold because my business is me. My business caters to my life. And if I wanna be here and if I wanna meet my nephew and I wanna make that a priority, guess what? That's what my business is gonna do. It's gonna cater to me. And what I wanna teach you guys is how to make your business cater to you.

My business allows me to do what I want in my life. And what I wanna do is be the best auntie and be there to meet this little baby. Now remember, my son's 10 and I wanna be on the other end of that, you know? And considering how traumatic my last pregnancy was and losing my daughters at 20 weeks, you know,

I know that there's, you know, we talked about last week we talked about these traumas and these childhood wounds. You know, for me, making sure my sister's okay is really important to me. So as much as I'm excited, I'm also nervous, but my business has to cater to me. So we are going to learn this. And even I sometimes struggle too.

So don't feel bad. Sometimes I really go, oh man, you know, I want this and I have to go, wait a minute, let me take a step back and I have to go through my things. 'cause if I don't, if I do not make it a smart goal, I generally don't achieve it. Especially R is the hardest part for me.

'cause I have to go, oh, I really want this. And I go, wait a minute, if I in a place to actually follow through. And that's really important, you know, give yourself some grace. If your goal is something cra you know, really nice and big, this, you know, audacious goal, like opening up your own business,

that's a great goal. But let's make sure you can either afford a mobile unit or a down payment, right? Or have enough money in the bank to start that business. And I want you to remember one of the biggest aha moments I ever had, and I forget who said the quote, but they said, we overestimate what we can do in a year and we underestimate what we do in 10.

If you had told me in 10 years I would open up and sell to grooming businesses, be an international speaker, that I would be teaching hundreds and hundreds of students in the grooming industry, I would've never believed you in a second. I'd be like, that's a lot to do in 10 years. So give yourself some grace, okay guys, and really consider what 2022 has in store for you.

And don't just make it big because you feel like you need to make it big and don't make it small so you won't be disappointed. Alright everyone, well this is this show.