Greedy Bitch

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. 

So let's go ahead and get into today's topic today. We're gonna be talking about Once a year.

I don't think so. So really quickly, I wanted to touch on what a once a year or a twice a year client is. Sometimes in the form you'll see O a Y or T a Y. So a once a year or twice a year. Client is generally a client who literally comes in to be groomed once a year, generally around the holidays or for their summer shave.

Or you're gonna see that person that comes in twice a year. You know, my family growing up, we were not religious, but we had family members that were religious and it was like the Catholics that went to church Easter and Christmas, but not the rest of the year. Right now with pet grooming, I want you to think about it this way.

We want them to come on a regular schedule. It's a lot easier to have them be groomed on a regular schedule because their behavior is better. They are emotionally more prepared for it. It's not something I always, I like the phrase someone said it and I'm not sure who, I wish I could give them credit. If you guys know who said it,

please let me know that a pet that's groomed once a month, it's a part of life, a pet that get grooms once a year. It's a punishment. And from a pet's perspective, the best way someone ever explained it to me. So if a dog year, I'm sorry, if every seven dog years is one human year, that means that every eight weeks is emotionally one dog year.

And considering the fact that very often people only bring the pet in once a human year, that means that is emotionally seven dog years. If I hadn't gone to the dentist in seven years, I would forget everything that I have to do now. I personally like to see a pet on every four weeks. The reason I think it's better for the groomer,

I think it's better for the pet. I think it's better for everyone overall. So to me, the best option is for the pet to come every four weeks. Now you guys might say, well I'm perfectly happy for my clients to come in every six or every eight, and that is a very personal choice. It's between you and your clients, you and your business.

So moving forward, why do we not want once a year pets? So again, you guys might be wondering exactly what is going on in this industry that we have so many once a year clients. And the truth is that it's don't get mad at me, it's our fault. Now what happens a lot of times is that instead of us just saying,

I don't think so, or No, we get them in anyway, whether it is that some are shaved down, that once a year flea infested farm dog that has decided to randomly come in, or the bichon that gets shaved, I'm sorry. They always want them, not only do they want you to demat them, right? It's like a bichon that comes in the week of Thanksgiving and they want you to demat the dog because they can't be embarrassed in front of their mother-in-law.

They want the dog to look good. And if you shave the dog well then you are the problem. It's your fault, right? And I have no patience for that. It is not my responsibility to make sure that your pet is taken care of unless if you bring that pet to me every month, it is not my responsibility. So in your business,

and again, your business is your business. I had a lot of ones your clients in the beginning. Why? Because I unintentionally encouraged it, right? Because what would I do? I would send a mass email before the holidays and be like, oh, does your pet need to get groomed before the holiday? Do you need this? Do you need that?

And of course he'd be like, oh yeah, I forgot. I better get fluffy groomed. Now that marketing there is not actually helping me get regular monthly clients because by me also encouraging them to focus on coming in during the holidays, I am not encouraging people to make it a regular part of life. Again, it's like a nail salon that wants people to come for holidays.

Like they're like, oh, come get snowmen or Christmas trees on your nails and before Easter, do this nail art, right? Instead of being like, Nope, just come every two weeks. It's maintenance. Is your business maintenance or is your business pampering? And again, a lot of our marketing, it is about pampering. It is about spa,

which is great, but that means that unless of the client regularly gets themselves pampered on a monthly basis, and there are lots of clients that do, right? I'm the kind of person who I'm generally getting my nails done every two weeks. You know, I'm generally getting my eyelashes every two weeks. I'm generally in the hair salon at least once a month.

You know, I'm generally that kind of person who gets a massage every two to four weeks. And I see that as maintenance, not as pampering, but as maintenance. So ask yourself, are you accidentally encouraging once a year if a once a year calls? Are you taking them? And what do you wanna do about that? Now there's absolutely no wrong answer.

We always ask ourselves questions because it's an exploratory process, right? Because you might be like, you know what? I really find those once a year, Husky D sheds super satisfying. And on some level I have to agree there's nothing more satisfying. I think shepherd more so than Husky. 'cause I don't like that Huskies talk back. A lot of shepherds talk back too.

So maybe labs, let's go at labs or Bernice Mountain dogs. If I were to do just a bath and blow dry, but I wanna do a lot of 'em, I just wanna do like one. But there's so satisfying, it's so satisfying to take this big, burly, furry dog and make him beautiful. It's absolutely satisfying. That said, they're way more work.

They don't know the rhythm, they don't understand what's happening to them. And there are a bunch of them that are really well behaved. Their clients, their, I should say their owners are not, they don't appreciate us the same way we would like them to, right? Because what do they do? They expect to get in. They're the kind of person that will pre-book the week of Thanksgiving,

the week of Christmas, and that's it, right? And where our every four week client is so used to just coming in every month, they're probably not booking out for the entire year. Even if they book out two or three months at a time, they're probably not booking the month of November or December until they get closer. So then we give up all those perfect spots to those once year clients.

And how does that make our every four week clients feel? And that really stinks. You know, there's different policies you can put in place. It really depends upon what it is that you wanna do in your business. I really love the idea of, so what I did in my shop, and again, my shop was not as strict as my mobile is that if I did not see you in.

So there's lots of different ways of doing it. One way that I used to do it was that I actually would tell them, if I don't see you in October, I don't see, well, I would tell 'em if I don't see you, you in September, I don't see you in November. If I don't see you in October, I don't see you in December.

So I know we've talked about many times charging more for non monthly clients. I used the example of poor Ashley because it was just a perfect example and she's perfectly fine with me telling you guys about it. So what we ended up doing is we used the example of what she did. So we were doing a price increase for her business. She's mobile and only does dogs under 20, 20, 25 pounds.

So what we ended up saying is like, okay, here is a four week malt teeth. If you come in every four weeks, it's a hundred dollars. And then my suggestion was, okay, so it's four weeks, it's a hundred at six weeks, it's one 50, and then at eight weeks it's 200. And then anything beyond that would be a consultation groom.

And it's a a separate charge, right? 'cause you're basically a new client. If I haven't seen you in two months, which is pretty true, you know, I mean if you're only coming in my establishment at best six times a year versus the four week is coming 13 times, that's, that's a huge difference. That client is coming in less than half.

So that was my suggestion. A hundred, 1 50, 200. Now some of us are like, that's outrageous, that's ridiculous, that's not fair. B blah blah, blah, blah. Well, a lot of times our pricing needs to create behavior. If I want everyone on a four week schedule, I need to make it palatable to go on a four week schedule.

So what did she do? She said, I can't do that. I'm not, I don't feel good. I can't do that. I said, okay, so what would you like to do? She's like, well, I'd like to do a hundred, 1 20, 1 50. So it's a hundred dollars for four weeks, one 20 for six and one 50 for eight.

Well what do you guys think? Everybody went on, everyone ended up on a six week schedule because a six week schedule saved them money. Right? So what did that do? Then she had to call everyone and get them say, I'm so sorry, I had a typing error. It's actually one 50 for six weeks. Then all of a sudden everyone went up for weeks.

So that's on the lower level. On the higher level, you can do things a little more simply. So a good example would be is let's say matting in my mobile. What I did was, and for those of you guys that don't know, I owned a feeling exclusive mobile business. And what I ended up doing is I ended up charged. So my bath price for a cat was a hundred dollars a comb cut,

which is what I preferred to do, was 1 45. And that was a comb cut with a bath, a lion cut and, and we would call it an elective lion cut, which means you choose to get that lion cut was 200 and then a matted line cut started at 300. Now why did I do this? Because at 300 versus a hundred,

that's again, it's 50% more and it's $200 more than just getting your cat bathed. Now if that's not enough to deter them, the next thing we do is if your cat comes back and it's matted again, then I am going to charge you double. So the first time we're gonna give you benefit of the doubt. You didn't understand matting, you didn't understand what was going on.

I'm gonna let that go, right? I, I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt 'cause that's what I would want, right? I still have to charge you because it's more dangerous for me, it's more dangerous for the cat. Takes more time and more skill. So unfortunately I have to charge you more. However, the next time it comes,

it's double. So instead of 300, 600, why? Because you knew better and you are now willfully neglecting your pet. And then it happens a third time. Now it is $900. And believe it or not, I've had several people do the 600 and the $900 groom and a lot of 'em think that I'm faking it. And I tell them flat out,

go to somebody else. If you want me to do it, I will do it. But then they realize they could have had nine months worth of bath and blow dry for that one appointment. And it's not worth it to them either they go and find somebody else who's going to be willing to engage in willful neglect, which I am not. Or they're gonna get on a regular schedule and eventually I had everyone on a regular schedule.

So it doesn't even matter in the end, right guys? I mean, it makes sense to me. Listen, my dad used to call it stupid tax. He owned a appliance repair business. And if people, now he didn't like dogs ironically, but like if people would let the dogs, like when he is in your dishwasher, come over and like jump all over him or sniff his crotch,

he would add tacks to that. He would add tacks for people that would ask stupid questions. Not like reasonable questions, but just like really rude questions. Like, oh, like did you like drop outta college and this is why you're doing things like that. Like just rude questions. And so he would just, he'd be like, yep, there's like that.

I think what's interesting is that we're so worried about being fair to the people that are not our ideal clients. For those of you guys that this is your first time listening to the Savvy Groomer, we wanna make sure that we are treating the people that deserve our kindness the best. Because we're so worried about being fair to the eight week people that we don't think about what's fair to the four week people,

right? If I'm a four week person, I'm the one that keeps your business going. You know, I'm coming to your business 12 to 13 times a year. I'm the person probably tipping you around Christmas. I'm the person telling my friends and family, and I'm telling my friends and family that I think would actually honor and respect you, right? Because I don't wanna have you,

if I am coming in every month, then I value my pet being clean. I value those things. And so as I'm moving forward, I'm not gonna have my friend with the like matted, flee infested doodle coming to the shop. 'cause I would be embarrassed to have that client, right? That's how I would feel. So how can we support every four weeks that way these once a year people,

we can say, I don't think so going back to our once a year pets, we set the limits. We tell them yes or no, right? If you think somebody is going to not a long term asset to your business, you have every right to say no. I want you guys to think of it like this. We use the example of the soulmate clients.

We have three levels. We have the soulmate client when they meet you, they're like, oh my God, yes, I've been looking for someone just like you. Someone with your skillset, somebody who you know says the right things, does the right things. Like when people met me as a cat groomer, like, oh my God. Finally someone who understands cat behavior and grooms them and does all of that.

You know, it makes so much sense. So you know, that's where we've got all that, that we have a soulmate client. And then next we have our ideal client. And the way I would explain it is like, it's the kind of person you date, but you don't know if you wanna marry, right? If you were a soulmate person that you met,

it's love at first sight and everything is perfect, and you're like, yes, this person is exactly who I want. It's everything I wanted. And then ideal is like, you go on a date and you're like, wow, they have a lot of the qualities I would like, I don't know if they're the one, but we like the same music and we like the same things and I really enjoy their time.

So for me, a soulmate client is somebody who wants to be groomed every four weeks and they're happy to pay my prices. My ideal client might be somebody who needs to be, you know, al groomed, if you will, taught how to become that soulmate client. So they might need leverage to then make the right decision. If you've been dating,

and I've been single now for three years, it's kinda like a situation where you would be, how do I explain this? It's like if you go on a date with somebody and like I'm boujee, those that love me, know me and know I'm boujee. And if they were like, I would like to take you to McDonald's, and I'd be like,

I don't even take me to McDonald's. Maybe a Chick-fil-A but not McDonald's. So I wanna go to a nice restaurant. I wanna go to a restaurant that I wanna go to. And then I would be happy to see you. And if they don't wanna do that, then, and I've had this happen, and again, it sounds really bougie, it sounds really unreasonable,

but it's a boundary issue. 'cause I'm not willing to lower my standards for somebody because I want them to have the same standards as me. And we do this with our clients as well, right? So it would be like your client saying, I really need a Saturday. And you say, well, I don't offer Saturdays. And they might say,

but I really need a Saturday. And then you set the boundary again and I can do Friday at four. And that's one of your regular times. And then they have a choice of either going with you and and doing what you need them to do or not. And we do this again all the time in relationships, you know? And it's all about finding that healthy boundary in between.

And then we have our fling clients. And these are our once a year, twice a year clients, right? These once a year, twice a year clients. And these clients are the kind of people that you meet. And they are the McDonald's guys. They are what I call the hot pocket guys. The guys that you know you don't wanna date.

If you are feeling bad about yourself and you want someone to tell you you're pretty, you might go on a date with them. And every time you go on a date with them, you're like, why did I do this? That's the same person that calls at noon on a Saturday and asks for a bath. They come in and it's a pelted dog or a dog with fleas or God knows what,

and they don't tip, right? That's the same person. So I want you to consider who this person is in your business. For me, being a higher end business, my business, I only wanted soulmate clients. 'cause I had a very finite amount of spaces. I really want a hundred spaces to do this. So I can't waste my time on a,

on even a lot of ideals or, and I have no time for flings. When I had my shop, because I had five employees and we did 40 dogs a day, we had lots of soulmate clients, we had lots of ideal clients. And it took me a long time to realize that these fling clients were no good for me. And taking that time really allows it to change that.

And so if that's it, defining those soulmate clients and not accepting these once a year. So yeah, that was what today's topic is all about once a year. I don't think so. And remember, no is a complete sentence. Referring them to Petcos or PetSmart is not a bad idea. Telling them that, you know, you only have space for clients that commit to a maintenance schedule and you define a maintenance schedule schedule as X.

That's what I would tell people. I'd be like, just so you're aware, we only take on new clients that are willing to commit to a maintenance schedule. We define a maintenance schedule as four weeks or less. And you, and that's where I like consultation, groom a consultation groom is the most expensive groom they will have. And then from there,

it's almost like, hey, it's gonna cost you, let's say a hundred dollars for this groom, but the next time you come in, in four weeks, we're gonna only charge you 85. Right? So it's a little bit higher. And if they say, no, I'm happy to go every eight weeks, then you know that you've gotta shift your money.

And I'm a big fan of being like, if you're not willing to commit to the four week schedule and having my prices high enough, I like that business model. There are lots of business model, those guys. We talk about the Starbucks, the Dunking Donuts, and the McDonald's coffee, right? A dollar coffee is the Walmart of the grooming industry.

You may even be a good groomer, but you do a lot of, and you're not worried about quality. If someone were to come in and say, Hey, I didn't like this haircut. Be like, just be grateful your dog was even groomed or really lousy customer service. You know? Or you're just doing so much, so much quantity that you just don't have time to deal with people.

And we have our Dunking Donuts where they're like, they're still doing a lot of volume, but you know, if you come back, they're not gonna be happy, but they're gonna fix the haircut. Or you know, they're gonna have regulars. Most shops that are like six or eight week shops tend to be that more Dunkin donut style coffee grooming shop.

And you got your Starbucks. Your Starbucks people are religiously people. For me, you know, I waited in line over an hour during the pandemic to get my Starbucks. There were two Dunking Donuts I passed that had no line, and yet I still drove 20 minutes outta the way for the only Starbucks open and waited in line for an hour. Why?

Because that's the type of loyalty that people have. And that's the kind of people that are in my business. I mean, if you talk to people like Quincy, you know, she has her clients book out for a year. She literally posts, Hey, we have to book everyone for the year, and most people within 24 hours go ahead and book for the entire year.

So there are ways of building those businesses. It's about building that business around what you want, right? What do you want in your business? How do you want this to look? How do you want this to be?

How is your work life balance? Now it's really interesting how this has really been in, everyone's talking about it in the Facebook groups and as always,

I like to talk about things that everyone else is talking about so I can give you my impression and my spin on it. So let's go ahead and dive right into this. So first things first, let's talk about what work life balance is and what it is not. Work life balance is not crashing and burning and taking a week off that is not work life balance.

With this topic, I think the most important thing is we begin by talking about what burnout is. Burnout is when you've overdone it. When you have worked beyond your means and you need either a break, you need a refresh, you need a reframing, you might need a mental health holiday, a physical holiday, you know, or pivot your businesses.

I recently did a coffee live, you know, we laughed and called it a river rant on my business page and my business Facebook page rather. And it was all about millennial groomers and how people view millennial groomers as lazy. And I think that it's just that people of my generation, I'm a millennial, my both of my staff members are millennials, really value work-life balance way more than our parents did an even more so than our grandparents.

You know, my grandparents are, you know, probably in their early eighties and they, you know, didn't have any work-life balance until they retired. But they also had a pension to retire to. My grandmother was a nurse and she got a pension. My grandfather was a firefighter and so he had a pension and he has a lot in social security and I think people of my age know that when we retire there's probably not gonna be any social security left as is.

There's really not a lot to go around, you know, and that, and I don't wanna get into the politics of that. All I wanna talk about is I think that those things contribute to millennials being lazy. And by my definition, it's not that we're lazy, it's just we wanna retire early. We want to, we want to make the most money as fast as we can and then relax,

which is our hustle culture. Alternatively, you have cottage culture, which is all about being slow and deliberate, knitting, baking bread, you know, taking long walks in the woods and really being connected to nature and being, you know, at a much slower pace. And I do think that a lot of older generations really hit that hustle culture because they knew there was something at the end of the rainbow.

And I think my generation acknowledges that there's probably nothing at the end of the rainbow. There is no pension for us if we're gonna put a 4 0 1 k, you know, we have to make enough money to put it in a 4 0 1 K. And let's be very fair here with the advent of the cell phone, which is a thousand dollars computer we keep in our pocket that we've gotta replace every three years and pay a hundred dollars a month for the pleasure of using,

you know, our car payments are very expensive, our rent's really high. I think all those things contribute to it. So moving into our work life balance, I think it's really important for us to consider the fact that, you know what, to you is pleasant. Like what to you is life? So for some of us that is spending time with our children,

our human kids. For some of us that's spending time with our fur kids, I, I don't love fur babies. I don't mind fur kids. So I just say my two-legged and my four-legged kids, you know, what is it that inspires you to do that? Now there's many reasons that you're feeling burnt out and you don't have that work life balance.

For many of us, it's working long hours, grooming as many dogs as we can because we don't know what's gonna happen in the future. We don't know, you know, if we're gonna have those people come back in four weeks or some other shop gonna open up and they're gonna go to them, can we get these people in when they call? And if we don't,

are they gonna leave us and go to Petco? That feast or famine really creates that stress and that survival mentality. And I don't think it's any of our faults. I think that we've just been programmed to think that is how it's supposed to be, right? And that really is kind of how the markets have always worked. And I think a lot of people are rejecting that 'cause they're like,

this is just insanity. Either I'm grooming 10 dogs a day, or if it rains, I might only groom two or three dogs a day. And that's exhausting. Not knowing that and losing that money. Another reason would be be we're not charging enough. So many groomers are not keeping up with inflation. This year alone, we've inflated at least 4%.

Everything is going up, everything is shortage. The best example of inflation that I found was somebody had posted about chicken wings. Ha. And I remember chicken wings. I don't eat chicken wings. It's not my thing. I just, I find that there are a lot of work for not a lot of meat. And I, and I'm lazy. Like it's like something with lobster.

I love lobster, but it's just too much work and crap. I'm like, I don't, it's just too much work for me. I'm openly lazy. Gimme a steak, gimme a hamburger, I'm good with that. Or oysters. But anyway, I digress. And I'm not opening the oyster, they'll open it for me. But chicken wings, I've always remembered them as 10 cents,

25 cents on the high end, 50 cents a wing. Well a lot of places they're now a dollar a wing or they've completely taken them off the menu. That's incredible. When something has literally doubled in price, it's due to shortages. And if you guys have tried to order shampoo recently or clippers, I mean I have been trying to order a corded k m 10 for many,

many months now, and they're having shortages, there's issues around it, you know, there's lots of shortages and there's also a shortage of groomers. You know, I need to figure out where I had read that. 'cause I will never forget it said in five years we need about 50,000 groomers. And if anyone finds that, I know it was in a groomer based magazine,

I have to find it. I will never forget those numbers because it just completely shocked me. But to keep up with the demand of the amount of dogs that we have that have been bred and people adopting. And I know if you know anybody, I mean everyone knows people with dogs, obviously even the cat groomers know people with dogs. People have gotten,

I mean in, in my building alone, you know, we have 115 apartments. I wanna say we've added 30 or 40 dogs in this building. And that's with people moving down south. There's been people leaving and then there's been dogs and other people moving in. Most people have two dogs in my building. They got a second puppy or they adopted a new dog.

I mean, it's crazy. And those dogs are going to need groomers. Now obviously people can groom their own dogs if they choose to, but as an industry, we're gonna need more people. So you might be like, okay, well what does that have to do moving forward? That means that we're gonna need, we're always going to have more pets to groom than groomers to do it.

So you have to start creating healthier boundaries and you have to start creating your work life balance because it's only going to get more intense even if everyone ends up going solopreneur, which may happen guys, lots of groomers are leaving shops and opening up their own business because they want that work-life balance. And if you're an employee and you want work-life balance, you're probably not gonna get it owning your own shop unless if your boss is a jerk,

which can happen in the grooming industry. But I want you to remember that it's one of those situations where you've got to start creating more money to do less dogs, to have more time off. If I am grooming 10 dogs in eight hours and I'm burning myself out because it's a power groomer, guys, it's less than an hour a dog, it's about 45 minutes a dog.

That's a lot. That's really fast. And that is checking in, checking out. People want more of a connection when they are checking in. They wanna feel like, you know, like, and trust them that you care for their dog. Gone are the days of saying thing as last time, yeah, okay, bye. People don't want that anymore.

And if they do want that, they'll go to Petco. And honestly, I say let them, if we talk about, you know, I hate to say older groomers, so let's call them veteran groomers. I like that better. If we talk about veteran groomers, most of them came from the generation of doing 10 dogs a day in eight hours.

And that means that they were grooming guys, if they're working five days a week, they're grooming 50 dogs a week, or a hundred dog, you know, 200 dogs a month. Now I find most millennials or most people that want more work life balance wanna groom about a hundred dogs a month, which is five dogs a day, five days a week,

or you know, ish. Six dogs a day, four days a week ish. And I think that's the work life balance that a lot of us are choosing. Because if I personally, now I am, I've been grooming more than 10, less than 15, not trying to age myself too bad. Although I do look kind of young. It's one of those situations where if I groomed 10 dogs a day,

even with the best bathing system, even with the best scissors, everything, the best I would still, I would still be exhausted. And then when I go home to my son, I have nothing left. I have nothing left for dating and I have nothing left for him. Now again, I do think this is a generational thing. My grandparents have been married for over 60 years and when my mom was little,

she would walk herself to kindergarten. You know, so my grandparents didn't have the same parenting responsibilities, nor did they ever have a situation where they were a single mom. Now my mom was a single mom, but she left before we got outta bed. We would get ourselves up and I would get my sister ready for school and I would take her to school.

I would take my sister to the bus stop when we got home. I would make sure my sister got her homework done. And now mind you, my brother was older, but my brother wasn't expected to do any of these things. I don't know why. I think it's just in a very girl power meant thing. And they were kinda like, no,

like girl power. You can do everything. You don't need a man. Meanwhile the boys were like, cool, you go do all the work, we're gonna go play video games. Peace, you know? But yeah, we would be there for a few hours before my mom would get home. We would, you know, reheat some food, probably watch some tv,

do some homework for hours. And my son, I can't let him off the bus without being at the bus stop. Like I remember, not recently, but before Covid and he was like seven. So it wasn't like he was a peanut peanut, but literally I was walking to the bus stop. It was three houses down three houses. They would not let him off the bus.

They made me walk the, they, they held up traffic while I walked the three houses to let him off the bus. It's totally different. And dating is exhausting because in my thirties, trying to meet somebody who doesn't just want a hot pocket relationship, you know, it's, it's not easy. It's not, it's not easy to date. It's takes a lot of time.

I don't have friends who have friends that can set me up. And the dating pool is so big that people have so many choices. I feel like it's really hard for them to find love. So being a single mom, doing all these things, having way more expectations. Like I remember my mom in her thirties and the pressures to be pretty now.

I like being pretty and I'm pretty, 'cause I wanna be pretty and I'm okay admitting I'm pretty, I like the way I look. I work really hard at that and I spend good money. You know, my mom was a beautiful woman, but you know, mom, like it didn't matter if she wore mom jeans. I mean my mother dressed the same as my grandmother who was 20, 20, 25 years older than she was.

You know, it wasn't, it wasn't anything weird. And now the moms at the school I see take way more care of their bodies or take way more care of their looks and that costs money. You know, it takes time. So it's just so interesting the different pressures and that's makes it harder to have work life balance. And even the people that are married,

you know, it's just very different. There's different things. We're always busy, we're always doing things. So a lot of groomers decide not to be involved in a lot of things. Like they don't do fun things with their family. If you have to work Saturdays, now this is where I thought I wanted Saturdays and Sundays off because all the events were on Saturdays,

weddings and barbecues and all these things are on Saturdays. I mean, my generation definitely does way more get togethers than my parents' generations. And if they did do a barbecue at my mom's house, it goes from, you know, anywhere from like, it used to be like show up between 10 and like midnight whenever you get free. It was like an all day event.

But now it's almost like curated and it's more pumping circumstance, you know? But I mean my parents were basically like, we've got beer. Bring your own food, we'll be here. And so it's just different with that. Why does that matter? Well it matters because when you're don't looking at your pricing, if you are are, if you're an employer hiring people,

you're not. And especially if you're a veteran groomer hiring someone and you're trying to replace somebody. If you're trying to rep, if you're a power groomer, a veteran power groomer, grooming 10 to 13 dogs a day, now you're getting tired in your fifties, you're not gonna find a millennial willing to do 10 or 13 dogs a day. And it's not 'cause they're lazy,

it's because they care about their body and they want work life balance. And I don't think there's anything wrong with the life choice you made, but my generation saw your generation physically and emotionally and mentally suffer, right? Why would we want that? That sucks. We, we watched you, we don't want that for us, you know? And so you are not gonna probably hire a power groomer because even if you are a power groomer,

you're probably gonna go work for yourself, right? So what's the alternative is to hire a lazy millennial, right? Who's only gonna groom five to eight dogs a day? So then, okay, if that's the case, why is that bad? Why, why wouldn't you want employees who choose work-life balance over doing as many dogs as physically possible? Well,

I'll tell you why. Because you don't wanna increase your prices because you have unintentionally, artificially kept the industry low. And I don't blame you for this because you probably, it's really hard to tell people you deal with all the time and you have to go up a good way to look at it. And I'm gonna do my math right here. So let's say you were charging $20 a dog,

a shitzu in 1980, right? So a 4% increase would be only 80 cents, right? Well if you'd keep doing that over time, and I could probably, you know, I mean just Google, 4% increase over 20. I'm doing my math 'cause I'm thinking eighties, that wasn't long ago. Nineties, two thousands, 2000 tens, 2000 twenties guys.

The eighties was 40 years ago. Isn't that nuts? Every time I think about that, it's just like, here we go. Best inflation calculator from 2021. So if we had $20 and we've done this before in 1980, just to keep up with inflation, it would be about $65. So an average inflation rate guys of 2.94% means that we have accumulated inflated 225%.

Think about that. In 40 years, prices have gone up 225%. I don't know, many grooming salons owned by a groomer who's been grooming 30, 40 years. That has increased their prices by 200%. Now a lot of us, when we started, so I was charging $55, let's say in 2010, no, 2011 technically. So right now if I charge $55,

that means my in cumulative inflation rate has gone up 19% as of last year, well technically this year, 2021, right? So if I owned a grooming salon, which I did in 20 21, 20 11, sorry, in oh my god, in 10 years, Jesus Christ. That was just a, every time I talk dates I'm like, no problem. Then I'm like,

oh my god, that's so long ago. 10 years ago just to keep up with inflation, I would've had to gone up 66 bucks. And guys, that's just inflation. That's not including being 10 years better. A groomer having a better clientele. Everything I buy is going up with that same inflation, right? So if I had a, I use light pooch,

so the same thing, the gallons go up. So here's the thing is that sometimes we say, okay, well we'll just go up $5 a year, right? That's what we'll do. We'll just do a nice round $5 a year. Again that would be $20 in, you know, in four years. You're like, that should be enough, right?

Well it depends, depends on a lot of things guys. Depends on so much ha what services are you offering? Is that more in demand? Has minimum wage gone up? 'cause let's also look up really quickly, minimum wage. What was minimum wage in 1980? So just to keep up with inflation, a $20 shihtzu should, should now be about $65.

And if you guys are doing shihtzu for less than $65, that's insane. You're not keeping, you're, you're way below that. So just to put in perspective, that $20 shihtzu minimum wage was $3 and 10 cents. Now in 2011, federal, let's do federal. So interesting. Federal minimum wage is basically the same, it's at 7 25 in 2011. So it's very interesting when you look at all this,

and obviously no one can live on 7 25. I know there are some rural areas that can, but 90% of us in the United States cannot live on that kind of money. So, and this is what's interesting in 2011, that was the federal minimum wage. What is it in 2021? Is it the same? I always get confused 'cause I think about my state.

Yeah, non-exempt employees is still the same. That's very fascinating. So that's very interesting. That's feral. I think that being able to shift your business in the way that allows you to build a business that you want in a positive way, I think is really beautiful. It's really empowering and that's where you can really get your work life balance. Because a previous generation,

you know, or two generations ago after you've been growing 30 years, you are, you're our grandparents' age. Unless we had kids late, I had my kid early. So like, it's funny, my son has a great-grandfather who's in his eighties, you know. But I think reevaluating your business is so empowering and this is the best time to do it guys.

It's never been a better time or a better excuse to make wild changes in your business. There are a lot of groomers who are completely, completely changing their business model, partly because their employees don't appreciate them. If you're an employer, you're poised, don't appreciate you. And if you're an employee, there's a lot of, you know, employers who are those angry old school power groomers.

You know, know when I was your age, I washed every dog with dawn and I had the hand scissor everything. Like, that's awesome, good for you. That would be terrible. You know? And I'm like, listen, you know, my grandparents had a dirt floor for two years. Doesn't mean that's the lifestyle I wanna live. Remember for work life balance,

you know, if you're, how many dogs can you groom? Do you wanna work eight hours a day? How many days a week do you wanna work? And how many hours do you wanna work? If you wanna work five hours over four days grooming and then take another five to 10 hours. 'cause how many hours a week are you guys doing office hours and things like that?

Consider how many hours you're working as a groomer and then how many hours you're working in your office, in your marketing, you know, booking appointments, whatever it is. That's also why, guys, I suggest office hours and they should be short, they should be extraordinarily short or get rid of them at all. You know, Tiffany and I have been working on her business where she will either rebook you right after your appointment,

otherwise you have to book online. She will not book you over the phone, she will not book you any of those ways. And we actually did in group mentoring, we worked on a script for her to be able to explain that to clients and it really helped her. You know, Brianna, who has an incredible talent, we can get her to have to work three to four days a week doing three to four dogs a day and make a livable wage.

She doesn't need to work five days a week grooming five or six dogs. And even then that, that sounds like, oh, it's not a lot of dogs, but it depends on the level of what you're doing. I said the market will bear whatever the market will bear. And I wanna just point out one thing to you guys. If I groom 10 Shih tzus at $50,

if half my clienteles leave and I charge a hundred dollars, I will make the same amount of money, right? So guys, here is, here's the math, 10 shihtzu times 50 bucks, 500 bucks. Now 10 shihtzu times. Whoop, I'm sorry, five shih tzus times a hundred bucks says guess what? 500 bucks. So if you charge double and you lost half your clientele,

you'd be fine. You'd be fine. And think about the work life balance. So that is all about work life balance. And it is, guys, it's so important. You charge enough so you can build this life you want and then you can help other people and you know, whatever that is. And we talk about in the group, we talk about Tabitha teach and test Thrive.

Do you wanna travel and just be a good parent? Or do you wanna like be a good wife or husband? Whatever it is, you know? Or maybe you wanna teach people a skillset. You know, my goal is to be able to have a community where we're teaching and we're changing our industry.

So let's go ahead and start talking about today's topic. So today I wanna talk about how childhood wounds affect business.

Now, again, it sounds really corny, but I was reading this LinkedIn article recently and I thought, wow, this is me. All of this stuff was just me over and over and over again. And the article talked about, and if you guys want the link, I can put the link down below. But I just found it really, really fascinating and I was gonna put it up there,

but the internet is not cooperating. So here are five glaring signs that you've experienced, childhood, basically wounds. One is you're scared to speak up to advocate or defend yourself. And when I think about grooms, I think about how we're afraid to advocate for ourselves. We're afraid to tell people our new price. We're afraid to do all of these things,

enforce our policies, right? We're afraid they're going to get angry, or we're afraid they're going to leave us. And for a lot of that of us, that is a childhood wound. That is somebody taught us to not advocate for ourselves or not to defend ourselves. And unfortunately, I see this over and over and over again. One of the most important components of my price Increase Masterclass is all about how we need to really become the advocates for ourselves and use numbers,

not feelings, to decide what our pricing should be. Okay? And the number two is, you don't experience yourself as a person of worth or value. So again, I really hate the phrase in the grooming industry, charge what you're worth. I think it's kind of a toxic thing to say, but if you listen to groomers on why we should charge this or we should charge that,

it's all based on their skillset, right? It's not about I deserve a livable wage, my employees deserve a livable wage. It's all about my skillset. I offer this. And obviously we do need to make sure that you are creating a product or service that people wanna buy. We wanna make sure that you are creating that scenario, of course. But let's be real here.

How many times have you seen someone say, you know what? I just have to make a livable wage. Most unless of it is, I deserve this because I'm worth it. But you know, what is that intrinsic value? A lot of times I'll hear people say something along the lines of, you know, I'll be able to charge more when I become certified,

or I'll be able to charge more when we get the bigger facility. Or when I get the brand new mobile. It's like, okay, but do you not deserve to be comfortable? Right? Do you not deserve to live there? Number three, you're highly defensive and reactive and you can't respond with calm. Basically. You can't respond calmly. And with a little bit of,

I don't wanna say dignity, that's not fair on the flip side, right? You either have the groomer who won't defend themselves at all, right? And when they finally do defend themselves, what do they do? They start flipping out on their customers. They're nasty, they're rude, they're downright mean, right? And it's almost like this overcorrect correction.

So we have somebody who's like, okay, I'm gonna go from being really kind, you know, almost this doormat, and now I'm gonna be angry and venomous. So there's of course something in the middle. But I find that these are the two most common things that groomers do, right? And there's a big difference. And it was explaining, reacting versus responding.

You know? And when someone tells me, you know, $600 for price increase, masterclass is too much money. I don't engage with that. You know? Or if I do, you know, I'll ask 'em. I said, okay, well what do you think is a fair price? Because I asked them to think about it. What do they feel like that it's valued at?

And if they say like $20, that's when I explain, well, it's six hours of coaching content, right? Six hours of workshops. And that's a lot, right? It's a lot of content. So you know, that's very different than go f yourself. If you don't like the praise, you go, go to hell, da, da da.

No. And I need to do that. 'cause if they don't wanna buy my product, then that's okay. And the same thing with grooming. And I've been in a cat van all week and their grooming prices started a hundred dollars for a cat. I mean, some people are paying $180 for a cat client. And if somebody is like, oh,

it's very expensive, then you know, you can, you can have that conversation, right? 'cause a lot of times it's not that they don't, it's not that they don't, they can't afford it or it's expensive. It's that it's more than they thought it would be, or it's just not in their budget. And that's okay. And this is signs of a childhood wound.

Now this doesn't mean that your parents are bad. This doesn't mean that anyone did anything wrong. Like I know there were things in retrospect, my son is 10 that I should have done better, but I didn't have the skillset to help him out, right? I would be a better mother today when he was little, because I know more and I'm older than I did then,

you know? And you, there's just always more research. So when we wanna look at how we were affected as a child, we need to then go, okay, you know, when else do I act like this in my personal life? You know, things like accommodating versus actually being real. How many times do we over promise? We don't wanna tell that client,

we're gonna shave your dog. And instead what they tell 'em is, we're gonna do our best. Not, I was far more snarky, oh, when I owned my grooming salon. And if somebody said, save as much as you can, and they would have like a pelto dog, I'd be like, what? In a bag? Because, you know,

and I would tell him, I'm like, no, he's gonna be Mr. Clean bald. And so what would happen is if he came back with even a little bit of hair, they were happy. Versus if we promised them I'll save as much as I can. 'cause we wanna be accommodating. We wanna be that appeasing child. Then when that dog comes back at a four and we're really proud of ourselves,

they see that as if we had shaved with a 30, right? Another one is complaining versus requesting. I love you. I love you all. Most of my listeners are not this person. But there is definitely a problem in our grooming industry with people just complaining about situations versus asking their clients, right? A lot of people say, my clients won't pay that,

right? And I'll be like, okay, well have you asked them to pay that? And they're like, no, but they won't. And I go, okay, well ask the clients you don't like if they will pay that first, right? And of course, we do strategies, we do so many things like that in my coaching, a lot of times I will get so much pushback,

pushback, pushback, pushback. And it's this, it's this. Complaining instead of, instead of actually going through with it, I said, okay, well let's actually request what you want. But it's this avoidance tactic of, I'll just complain because I don't wanna confront compromising integrity versus leading with truth. I see this in the grooming industry. When instead of shaving a matted dog or shaving a matted cat,

we try to save the coat. I'm sorry if they neglected their pet did not brush it. And I don't expect my customers to brush their pets. And I'll tell you why. 'cause I mean, let's just say when I was in, when I was in my shop and when I was in my mobile, 'cause it's, it's like promising your dentist,

you're not gonna eat candy. I would rather them be real with me and tell the truth. And let's create a plan based on the truth versus me having to compromise my integrity. So a lot of us would rather again, be that appeasing child and try to save a dog versus hand them back a bald dog or cat. I mean cat, I feel like it's easier 'cause you're like,

listen, I'm not DM demanding this cat. I don't wanna die. Number four, you've internalized the narciss system or emotional manipulation of your parents or other authority figures in your life and potentially demonstrate some narcissistic traits. Now, I did say what, you know, what are common things of a narcissistic personality? Now, I'm not saying you guys are narcissistic,

but after, and I love reading these articles 'cause they're so eye-opening. Here is a nar. Here's examples of a narcissistic personality. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance. Exaggerates achievements and talents expects to be recognized as superior without actually having the achievements. And so you have groomers that are like, I'm a worm, I'm worthless. Like I'm not this person.

And then you have some groomers. Their business is shit like, their business is awful. They're not good groomers. They have a terrible personality. Their shop is garbage, and they think they deserve $200 an hour. So we do have groomers like that, guys, and maybe they're not a narcissist, but they have this inflated sense of ego. They have this inflated sense of importance.

Like I, you know, again, going from I deserve a livable wage is very different than I'm here. So I deserve 50%. I don't know why I deserve 50%, but I deserve 50% commission, right? To is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love. That sounds a lot like you guys when you're planning these big giant businesses.

I wanna own 10 grooming salons with daycare and boarding and grooming. And I go, okay, well tell me the reality version of that. How are you gonna get a million dollars to open this facility? Do you even want these or is it just this again, grandiose egoic plan, this fantasy. And that's, that's very different. It's, there's a big difference between daydreaming and fantasizing in unhealthy ways,

right? And a lot of you guys, when you're talking about this future business, you wanna run, you wanna run a business where your employees will magically take care of themselves. And I never have to be there and I'm just gonna replace me and I'm gonna pay them $15 an hour and I'm gonna have 30 of these salons. Like it's complete fantasy.

Like complete fantasy requires excessive admiration. This may manifest different in groomers than people think. We really love when our customers hero worship us, when we save that dog's coat, we feel like a hero. We need to a lot of groomers. So when I teach how to run a grooming salon, I do not want the groomer to be the one to check in and out the dog.

What I want is a receptionist to check in out the dog. And a groomer will often tell you, I don't want there to be any kind of communication error. And then I'll say, okay, but don't you write down the notes for next time? And they're like, well, yeah. And I said, okay. So if you write down the notes,

then communication should not be a problem, right? But what it really comes down is they want that gratification of that relationship. They want that owner to make them feel important. And there's nothing wrong with that when done correctly. But a lot of times it's just in a very toxic ways. Believes he or she is special and unique and can only be understood by,

or should be associated with other special and high status people. So I'm gonna use this in a way that I definitely have this tendency, not so much of like this really high status, but I often feel like the only kind of people I can be friends with, the only kind of people that can understand me are other groomers. I really struggle with making friends outside of the grooming industry.

Do I make them? Yes. But are they significantly harder? Yes. Because I really feel like I, I will never be understood by anyone but a groomer. And it's such a weird tendency, right? 'cause some of it's true, some of it's like, you know, no one's gonna understand what it's like to have an in their hair, but a groomer.

But there's so many instances where we self isolate as an industry, right? You could have someone buy a grooming business and they have done, like they, they're, they're, they will work alongside of us, right? They're not a groomer, but they will bathe with us. They'll blow dry with us. They will always help around us. They will never be our equal unless if they have been a groomer before.

And that's a weird potentially narcissistic tendency in this industry. One is interpersonally exploitative takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends. Not so much, not so much intentional, but we've all done this, right? We've all had our bather or our employee do the dog that we don't wanna do. You know, a lot of times the reason that we are hiring that groomer or hiring that bather or hiring that receptionist is to do shit we don't wanna do.

Right? It's like we won't do it. So we want our bather to do it. I'll, I'll say all the time to groomers like it, you know, they'll be like, I don't wanna groom cats, so I'm gonna hire someone, right? And I'll be like, okay, well do you wanna groom cats? And they're like, hell no,

I would never groom cats, cats. They're terrible, dah dah. I'm like, okay, well then why are we hiring someone to do a service that you don't wanna do? And if they leave, they can't do, right? So, and I see a lot of grooming businesses, grooming salons built on the idea of instead of creating a team and a long lasting business,

it's like, I don't wanna groom so I'm going to exploit somebody else so they can groom until their bodies don't work. I can't groom forever. So I have to have someone groom. And I'm like, okay, well how long do you think they, how long have you been grooming? They'll be like, 10 years. I'm like, okay, they've been grooming 10 years,

so you expect 'em to work for you for 10 years. And then what? And they're like, oh, I expect 'em to groom for 30 years. I'm like, well, don't really work that way, does it? Another one is envious of others who believes that others are envious of him or her. Yeah, lots of groomers yell. They do not.

They do not. How do I say this? In the nicest of ways, guys. Guys. You know, being nice is not my, my forte. I also love grooming cats. Ml, W j I, that's all I was doing all week is not all week, but I was in the cat van and I love it. I had so much fun playing with the cats and grooming the cats.

So again, a lot of groomers would be like, oh, you know, so and so does this. So a lot of groomers will just sit there and like, they're just mean bitches. They're like, oh, that salon, they think they're so good, they charge this amount of money. Who can afford that? I would never make my clients pay that kind of money.

That's highway robbery. That's price gouging. That's this, that's that. I mean, it's like high school envy, right? Another one is lacks empathy is unwilling or to recognize or identify with the feelings or needs of others. Most groomers are incredibly empathetic until they're not. I find a lot of power groomers tend to lack empathy. They'll be like, well I have,

I can groom 10 pets. Why can't my brand new baby groomer? Right? 'cause your groomer's been grooming less than a year. Or they'll hire somebody and they're like, why can't they do everything I do? And I'm like, that's because if they could do what you do, they would open their own business, right? On the flip side, you have employees that are like,

I want 50%. And when we're like, well in order to keep the business open we need to keep all payroll under 30%. And they're like, well I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna go work somewhere else. That definitely lacks empathy, right? So there's all these different ways that, and this was just in this article, the last way.

The fifth way says, you don't believe you have what it takes to make true positive change in your life. And this hit me hard guys part of partly because I see so many groomers who are ready for change, but it's like you can get, I can give you guys all the tools, I can give you all the knowledge. I can give you hundreds and hundreds of hours of free shit and hours of paid stuff.

But it's up to you to do the work. And it's up for y up to you to actually do it. And one trick I will say in one-on-one coaching is like, okay, let's close our eyes and picture ourselves in a year. Let's say in that year, you have not implemented what you have decided. You need to implement. Think, okay,

now picture five years and you have not implemented what we need to implement. Let's think of 10 years and we have not implemented what we need to implement, right? 10 years is a lot of years, guys. We overestimate what we can do in one year and we underestimate what we can do in 10. If you had told River Lee that in 10 years she was going to open and sell to grooming businesses and become an international business coach,

I would've told you you were on crack. I've been like, there is no way I could do all of that in 10 years. And yet here I am. I went from being pregnant, living in my car to being here. And it's amazing guys. But what we need to do is actually believe it. And when we believe it, we put our feet and do action.

Now, don't get me wrong, and this is, this is one of the biggest things, right? So all these childhood wounds are affecting your business because they make you go back to what, whatever your habit was as a little kid, you know? And, and I want you guys, you're gonna be triggered. If you have a family that's anything like mine,

you're gonna be triggered. I'm planning on going to Florida for Christmas and New Year's because I put me first. I know that sounds super selfish, but my emotional wellbeing is so much more important to me than I ever realized. Because when I'm okay and when I'm good, I'm a better parent. I'm a better business coach, I'm a better person. You know,

my sister is gonna be a mom. Well she, she's due on the 20th of January, but that baby is coming in hot, you know? And I think about her and I think about everything that she's gonna have to go through. And her pregnancy is triggering me because she is gonna be a single mom. And that's so hard for me to watch someone make the same mistakes I made.

Not that my son was a mistake, but you know, if I could, if there's any way that I could have protected her from doing that, it would've, but I can't. And that's very hard because my role in the family when I was growing up was the reality. And the person, like everyone would ignore the elephant in the room, whatever the elephant in the room was.

And my job was to say, Hey, there's an elephant. Is, does anyone else see this elephant? 'cause it's here, it's here. And then my job in my family when I was growing up is to figure, to figure out how to get the elephant out. And you don't realize that. But as you get older, you just, you recognize it.

'cause 10 years seems to go really quickly the older you get. But so for my family, like I have to go, okay, who am I in my family? And what was my go-to feeling? And when I was a kid, my go-to feeling was anger, resentment, picking fights, arguing. Because if I was the good nice girl, then everyone just lived in this other reality.

Just sharing guys, my dad was an alcoholic and my brother to this day will not acknowledge that our father was an alcoholic. Nope. He, he just won't. My, my brother, if you, if you talk to about our dad, he won't acknowledge it. And that's his journey, not mine. But there's a lot of wounds that come with that.

It, you know, there's lots of, you know, why did my parent pick a substance over me? And the shame and the hiding and learning how to deal with your own adult feelings around alcohol, and am I gonna end up like my dad? And, and my dad died when he was 40. Ironically, the man died of mono. You would think he would've died of any other thing on the planet,

but he died of mono. But you know, it's, I'm sure his immune system was just so compromised from drinking and everything. And the reason I share that is because when I talked to a lot of other people, when we have these childhood experiences that were not perfect, my mom worked really, really hard. She had her own issues. The woman I grew up with doesn't exist.

My mom is so amazing. Yeah. Melissa Hall's saying, I love your mom. I love my mom too. But she has grown tremendously in the last 10 years. You know, and I'm not, I'm not talking bad about her. No different than I wouldn't talk bad about me. You know, I think about who I was growing up and I was a very angry kid and my own issues because 'cause of the things I went through.

But like my mom is so wonderful in giving and supportive now, but she wasn't when I was growing up. And she wasn't when she was young, hurt people. Hurt people. And when I was, when I had my son, you know, I lived in my car and then I lived six months in my grooming salon. My mom had just gotten out of this really messed up relationship.

She had dated a crack head for like 10 years. And she didn't, she just, she just pretended like this man had never done drugs. And, you know, and that's, I don't blame her for that. You know, that was a pattern that was from her family's pattern. You know, her growing up, you know, and again,

I don't wanna just divulge those dynamics, but my grandparents had un unideal dynamics. And then when my mom was 14, my uncle Bobby died, so her brother died. And basically her whole family abandoned her and just pretended like he was still alive. You know? And that's really tough. And then when you go from there to being a mom of three kids with a dad who works,

you know, my dad worked 80 hours a week. He was, he worked seven days a week and if he took a day off, he was intoxicated. You know? And I, I can't even imagine being in that position. And so when you think of that, that role she played and the role I had to play in my life, of course it affects my business,

right? I think about how much validation I needed in my business when I had my shop. Especially I know my grandparents love me very, very much, but even now they ask me when I'm gonna get a real job. My mother bought my mobile growing business. She makes more money running the mobile business than she does as a full-time teacher. They keep asking her,

when is she gonna just dump this? Because who would ever do this? And who would ever pay this? And they're just so unsupportive. And I think I have grown enough to step away from it. And I'm so proud of my mom because she, I, I can't imagine if that was my dad. You know, my dad had his own issues.

But, you know, I can't imagine being a woman in her. I don't know if she's in her fifties or sixties. I don't even wanna say that. I feel like I'm gonna age my mom too much. But I can't imagine being a grown woman. You know, I'm a grown woman, but she's a grown ass woman. And having my father who I just want to be proud of me telling me I'm a failure all the time.

I can't imagine how that, and that does affect her business. But that's why I'm here. Right? And then for her, you know, when I need that support, it's hard. She can't give me that support. Right? I'm giving her that support. And that's a different dynamic. So that affects my business because I have to self parent myself.

Yeah. You know? And so for, for me in my business, you know, at this point doing coaching, there's all, if you think about this, if I have a mother who can't stand up to her father saying, when are you gonna get a new real job? You know, you're gonna be a failure. You're not gonna be able to do this.

If I need support, she can't give me support. She can't gimme support and she can barely stand up for herself against my grandparents, nevermind standing up for me. So this affected my business in the beginning because when I had customers, especially when they'd be like, oh, does your mom own this job place? 'cause I looked very young and I would want them again at that defensiveness,

that overly angry defensive, no ironed this, I deserve this, I do this. And it was so mad. And it was because I was taking out childhood wounds from wanting my mom to stand up for me and wanting my grandparents to see that I was successful. Taking it out on customers, you know? And we do this guys, and we don't mean to do it.

You know, sometimes, you know, our parents told us we didn't deserve things or other wounds around money. Maybe it was that. Who do you think you are? You know, the queen of England. You know, when you want something or you want some money or whatever. My dad used to tell me all the time when I was a little girl,

you know, and this is, this is not very nice. But he would tell me, you know, you got born to the wrong family. You know, you, we can't afford to keep you. You know, he was just really mean. And people that are hurt, hurt other people. So I grew up with a dad who was a drunk,

a very functional, drunk, but a drunk. And he was a very mean drunk. Never, never aggressive and never physically harmful. But he said really mean things, you know, he told my sister, I know this pregnancy is affecting her because he told her the only thing she'd ever be good for is being pregnant and living off of a man.

And I know that's, you know, absolutely devastated her. She never wanted to be a mom because of that. And again, how does that affect her business? Well, now that she is pregnant, now she doesn't own a business, she's an employee, but she doesn't wanna celebrate her pregnancy. She doesn't wanna tell anyone she's pregnant 'cause she's afraid of being judged.

And that's gonna affect her, her workday. Because instead of, you know, telling clients, Hey, I'm nine months pregnant, she's trying to hide the fact, and that's not possible. But in her mind, she's going to do that. And for some of us that have had, you know, pregnancy issues, you know, I, I had a very traumatic pregnancy with my son because I didn't feel loved and supported by anyone.

And then with my twin daughters that I, I lost at 20 weeks, you know, there was a lot of trauma for me about fearful that she might get. I, I, I, I, if you guys that don't know, I always assume people know I had, I was pregnant with twin daughters, we lost 'em at 20 weeks. My spouse left me,

I went septic and I almost died. It was incredibly traumatic. And for me, I know my wounds are coming out because I'm fearful for her health. I'm fearful for the business, right? Because God forbid something happens to this baby or to her, you know, I'm up right now staying at an Airbnb to support my family, to help support their business.

You know? And honestly, I don't mind grooming cats. So it's not a big deal. But it affects my business because that childhood wound where I'm the fixer, I'm the helper here I am leaving where I had just moved to South Carolina and up up here to help cover some of her maternity leave, right? And that affects savvy groomer because, you know,

here I am trying to work out of an Airbnb instead of being home and stable and you know, in a place where, you know, the lighting isn't crap and the internet isn't inconsistent. So we do this, you know, and a lot of it is just acknowledging it. And then self parenting. Self parenting sounded like the biggest crock of shit I ever heard until I started doing it.

It's been one of the best things I have ever done. So whenever I do something, let's say like today, you know, I was trying to get the lighting right in here and I was trying to get it cute in here. And there was just no way I, between getting the lighting, being near the internet, having my computer set up all of it,

there was just only so many options. And I was so mad and so frustrated. And what was going through my head is, C, you're a failure. C you can't even do this. Right? Like, it was all these awful things that kept running through my head. And I had to take a step back and go, Hey, hey,

hey. Right? Because unfortunately I don't have my mom a little bit now, but I didn't have neither grandparents nor a parent to say, Hey kiddo, you're doing the best you can. And you know what? You're doing this, you're gonna have a live show. Things happen. And if they can't accept it, and if they can't be happy that you're even here,

well they can go fuck themselves. Right? That's what I need someone to say. And I don't really have anyone right now in my life. I don't have a husband to say that. I know if I asked my friends, they would say that, but you know, it's not really a conversation I wanna have with my friends, right? Because I know they're,

you know, not placating me, but like I know they're gonna say that. So I have to start saying that to me. I have to say, Hey river, you're okay. You know? And just talk to myself kindly. And for a lot of us, you can tell how many people have had healthy, really healthy, really supportive childhoods by asking them,

man, isn't the voice in your head nasty? And basically everyone I know goes, yes, you're, and it's because the voice in our head is basically our parents. And unless, and the people I know that don't have that problem, they have amazing, lovely, healthy, supportive parents. And that's not many people I know. And I think it's 'cause I don't attract those people.

'cause they don't need a lot of things I have to offer. You don't need help in their business. The way that somebody who has been through trauma does. And I find most groomers have had trauma. When you pick pets over people, it's generally because you can't trust people when you would rather take a dog who will bite you and poop on the table,

or a cat that's gonna try and piss in your face, you know, over a person. It's 'cause you don't trust people. And that's okay. It's okay, you know? But we need to long term start either acknowledging these wounds and going, okay, how is this affecting my business, unintentionally affecting my business? You know? And it doesn't mean you fix 'em today.

I mean, I've been on a three year, I don't wanna call it spiritual journey, healing journey, working on myself. And it's not easy. And it's really hard to pick myself first. And there's all the guilt on every level. And I have to go, okay, if I had this perfect parent, you know, and sometimes it's the perfect mom and sometimes it's the perfect dad,

you know, like when I think about like a perfect mom, it, you know, what I would want mom to say is, you know, river, you have to put yourself first. Your mental health comes first. And then she would tell me when, when the airplane is going down, the oxygen mask come down, you've gotta put it on you first.

'cause if you're not okay, no one else is okay. Right? And on days when I feel like I'm gonna die alone, and that's an irrational fear, right? But again, childhood wounds. My grandfather told me at 25 that I was getting old and he didn't want me to die alone. Now that's because he was told, you know, he got married at 18,

he was basically told, this is what you do. And we told my mother, basically, you get married and this is what you do. My grandparents have been married forever. You know? And this is just what you do. So it's one of those things like in a perfect world that dad would be like, Hey, don't worry about it.

Mr. Wright is coming and he's gonna cherish you and he's gonna love you. Well, that same dad who would tell you that about a boy would tell you that about a customer, right? And this is why I always talk about that soulmate client. If you had that dad, that dad who would say, you wait for the right man, he's gonna come in.

Maybe not on a white horse, but he's gonna be everything you ever dreamed of. That is the same dad that when you say, I wanna fire this customer. And he would say, well, tell me why. And you would say how this customer is disrespectful and mean and awful. He would be like, you know what, sweetie, here's what we do.

We're gonna write a script together. We're gonna fire this client and the right one is gonna come along. And that's what a lot of us need is those perfect parents that we didn't have. So we've gotta create them and parent ourselves. And I do find that in a lot of my coaching, I have to, I don't wanna say parent people, but I have to be that supportive voice.

'cause it's hard to believe in yourself. And it's not that you don't believe in yourself at all, but it's like, there's only so far we can go. You believe we can be his success, but only a little bit of a success. Right? Just, just enough. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed the my TED Talk today. Today's topic was all about how C child childhood wounds affect business.

And these are just examples. If you're triggered this holiday season, give yourself some grace. Parent yourself. And then when you hear these wounds come up, think about how you are internalizing them and projecting them in your business, you're gonna be so much happier. Once I realized that I didn't need the approval of my grooming clients, it was so much easier.

I didn't need their validation. I needed my validation. I knew it was badass. I knew my grooms were, my dog grooms were okay. My cat grooms pretty damn good. You know, I didn't need that validation from them anymore. That validation I was seeking from them was validation I wanted from my, my family. And then once I didn't need that,

the customer's validation anymore, that's when my mom paid attention and she saw someone she wanted to be. And that was really, really good for me. A lot of us keep awful clients because that was our role as a kid. The peacekeeper. The pleaser, the accommodator, right? It's almost like you feel like you deserve, right? I don't know if your family did that at all.

A lot of people's family told them they didn't. They, they didn't feel like they could have that autonomy. And not to get too far down that rabbit hole, but if you guys have had any physical violations, and then it's very hard for people that have had been through that kind of trauma to say no. Or on the flip side, they're very sensitive and say no to everything.

So this week's topic, if preparing for the holiday rush, you might be like, what does that even mean?

And we'll get into that. But this is gonna be the perspective from the employees. I think it's so important to talk about not just being a business owner, but for those of you guys that are employees, or if you are a business owner and you have employees, I want you to think about these things for your employees because building a great culture is so important.

So let's talk first about stocking up. I know we talked about this in the last video, but what's important for an employee to stock up on, depending upon how your business is run, would be make sure your stuff is in good working orders, blades, clippers, make sure your stuff is sharpened. If it isn't sharpened already, make sure that you go out and you order a bunch of new blades.

And you might be like, why? And it's very simple. If you do a ton of once a year shave downs or a dog comes in matted, or you drop your blades, or your fellow coworker drops an entire box of your blades, which has happened to me, you need to have extras. And some shops, you're very blessed and you have coworkers that'll lend you stuff.

The shop may have their very own blades and extra things like that, but not everyone does. Make sure you have everything within working order because you don't wanna be doing all of those grooms with stuff that's not working. Change your blade, drive, send out your clippers if you have a spare clipper, make sure everything that you may need between now and Christmas is done.

Most people will try to send it out after Thanksgiving to get it back the last two weeks before Christmas, and everyone does that so everyone's like, oh, I'll just send it out right after Thanksgiving. It's great. But everyone has that idea. And if you do that and your sharpness backlogged either A, if they're rushing through everyone, they're not gonna do a great job.

Or worse, they may not even get you your stuff back. Make sure you have extras if you have to order them. Don't order them the day before, even if Amazon Prime promises one to two day shipping because they're gonna start getting back love with Christmas crap. If you have only one smock, order another order. Two more. In a perfect world,

your shop will provide you with a smock. If your shop is not one of those shops and you need to provide your own smock, you really need to consider having at least one or two extras, especially if they're on their last thread. What are you gonna do if you have like your zipper rips or like I like the pullover ones and let's say that's starting to come undone.

The same thing with grooming pants. And if it's starting to come undone, it is time to get an extra one. And I would strongly suggest that you keep those either in your car or in a locker, wherever you have it in the shop that you can keep it. Let's be honest, if you get soaked and water, like you know, like those burners that like saturate you,

they shake all over you and you're sopping wet head toe, either that or you get anal glands or a dog poops or pees all over you and then you've got a spare set and that just makes you a holiday way more merry. There's nothing worse than smelling like dog or cat pee all day and not having a spare smock. And speaking of spare clothes,

you know how your shoes are looking. Do they need to be replaced or need to be replaced shortly? If you're thinking they need to be replaced in the next one to two months, I would just go out and buy another pair. I don't care if they're sneakers or dance clothes or whatever it is, you don't wanna be going through this holiday season rushing around in shoes that are falling apart because that is a health hazard and it's really bad for your back and your knees.

You need your back and knees, especially right now. And let's say you order it again with the Christmas season, you know the post office u p s, FedEx, they're at capacity. They may or may not be able to get you your stuff and if they can't get you your stuff, then you might have a hole in your shoe or have the soles coming undone and not being able to get them.

And I would strongly suggest investing in a good pair of shoes. We are on our feet all day, and even those of you guys are lucky enough to have boss that lets you sit to groom. It's still a lot of pressure on our feet and we need good shoes. It's always great to have a backup pair. Don't wear flip flops when you're grooming like I do.

That's bad. I have my, I would say they're, they're in pretty good shape. You know, Dan goes, and then my older pair are not quite dead, so that is my backup pair. And so let's talk about the truth. Okay, is the shop you work for a shit show or is it a sanctuary? I'd really like to invite you guys to have a respectful conversation with your boss,

and these are a few of the topics I want you to talk about. Go ahead and ask them how many dogs or cats they're honestly expecting you to groom. And this comes down to you'll know. You'll know if your shop is the kind of shop, if you've worked there multiple seasons, are they the kind of shop that just buries you and dogs because people keep calling and they don't wanna turn away pets.

And this is especially true if you're working for a salon that is not run by someone who's ever been a groomer, a son has been a groomer. They could be that veteran groomer that's like, oh, I can groom 15 dogs a day. And you're like, well, I'm a six dog person. So you know, have a honest, respectful conversation with them.

And be honest with how many large dogs you can honestly groom before you start to feel hurt, you'll injure yourself. Worst case scenario, your boss doesn't want you to be injured. If you are injured, you can't work and do not work when you are injured. That is a great way to have permanent injuries. I know it sounds really kind of dark and morbid,

but if you pull your back and you keep lifting dogs, your body is cannot maintain that something else is going to give. And you need to have a constitution of boss about large dogs. I find that the holiday season really was our biggest large dog season. That could create a lot of physical pain because not only are you gonna be lifting heavy dogs,

dogs groom once a year are generally not the best behave. They tend to lay down, they tend to lay down on top of you. They tend to buck and act up just because they don't know what the routine is. And doing a lot of brushing is again really bad for our bodies doing a lot of scissoring. If they expect you to hand scissor,

that dog is really bad for your body. So you know your body, you know your limits. If you're a baby groomer and you've never groomed, this is your first holiday season, first of all, welcome baby groomer being a groomer's awesome, you'll love it, you'll stay with us forever. But if you're a baby groomer, I would not do more than one to two large dogs per day.

If you are doing an average of five dogs, which is very normal for a baby groomer doing more than five dogs. So I would say like hops two dogs, like two big dogs and then three little dogs. Without sounding weird to your boss, I would have a very frank conversation reminding them and making sure that there is workers' comp. Not every state requires your employer to have workers' comp.

I'm gonna assume you guys are legal. W two employees. There is almost nowhere where being an independent contractor groomer is legal. If you are a groomer who gets paid under the table, you are really running the risk of getting badly injured and losing your career because you didn't wanna pay, you know, probably 10 to 15% taxes because your boss pays the other half.

Be careful because you know, if you are an independent contractor and not a W two employee, then you need to have disability insurance as well as T B I, which just temporary disability insurance. If you are a legal W two employee, I would have a really respectful but frank conversation with your boss and ask them point blank, do you have workers' comp?

God forbid I ever get hurt. And that's important because your boss really should because if you get a dog that throws your back out the season, if you get bit really bad if you slip and fall because it's just gonna be busier, most places do at least 20% more dogs. And if you work in that salon where they're doing double or triple the amount of dogs,

the likelihood of having an injury, it's just more likely. And you need to make sure you're covered. God forbid this happens because you need to make money if you're injured, you can't live on candy and fairies while you're not working and you really cannot go back to work injured. And a lot of people assume that that's what they'll do and that's a great way to get permanently injured and things not heal well,

I know in our early twenties and even some people their early thirties and I think they'll just bounce back. I will tell you as a groomer over 10 years, you know, I'm in my early thirties and I will tell you like I have carpal tunnel in both my hands. I'm gonna need shoulder surgery at some point. You know, my body hurts and a lot of that is grooming when I should have taken some time and rested.

So go ahead and have a conversation with your boss and be clear on the maximum amount of pets you'll groom and create healthy boundaries with you and your boss. It's so important for you to communicate in a respectful way, but be firm. So I want you to really think about that, be kind and clear and firm. And then the next thing I wanna talk about is don't be bullied by your clients.

You know, make sure you know your shop's policies and know what you are or are not allowed to enforce. And this might sound a little bit weird, we need to know when it's time to call a manager and when it's up to you to deal with it. So if you're the kind of groomer who checks in and out your pets, this is very important.

If you're the kind of groomer that just literally sits in the back and you never have to deal with the client, you don't have to worry about this. But if you're the kind of groomer who is checking in and out your dogs, or at least checking them in to find out what's going on with the groom, I strongly suggest to my business owners that you should not take in flea dogs during the holidays as an employee.

I know you don't wanna deal with flea dogs ever, nevermind during the holiday season. If the shop is a no flea policy and you know this because you've read your policies, how are you supposed to approach that client? And this should be trained already, but I think it's easier to be clear and go through these policies with your boss again in a respectful manner and say to your boss,

okay, so if someone comes in and their pet is mad at and it has fleas, how would you like me to handle that as a business owner? Unless if I've done the scenario multiple times with my employee and trained them, I would rather deal with that, especially during the crazy holiday rush than have my employee and a customer fighting up front because a lot of customers are gonna be like,

my dog is gonna fleas. And you can just see them bouncing off the dog and they're like, yeah, no, that that's, please, I as an employee would rather hand it to the manager or to your boss because simply put, that's their call. And you know, sometimes they're gonna enforce a policy and sometimes they're gonna be like, eh,

this is a really good client and you're not gonna be privy to those things. You're really not. They may have had that client for four years and you just started a year ago, and that client is just such a dynamo client that they're like, this really sucks, but we'll make an exception for you. And so know when they want you to call a manager,

call the boss and what you're supposed to do with it. And when in doubt, remember it's not your business. You can't make business decisions for your shop. And if your boss is pushing you to do that, you need to create again, healthy, respectful boundaries. So if my boss is like, oh, use your best judgment, that's a trap because they're essentially saying,

use your best judgment based upon what I perceive as best judgment. They may be like, well, did you really think that was appropriate? It's Christmas. Do you wanna ruin someone's Christmas because they're using their measuring stick to make that decision. Your measuring stick may be totally different and it's completely inappropriate for them unless if they have taught you where the guardrails are and what they like the business to be,

it makes it impossible. You can't win and you will be thrown under the bus if something bad happens with that client. And I guess that kind of brings me into just don't be bullied by your boss. I know it's easier said than done, but don't let your boss push you around. A great way to do that is go ahead and refresh yourself on what your actual job description is.

Now I know some of you guys are like, I don't have a job description. You should have a written job description from your boss. And if you don't have one, I would really ask your boss, say, Hey, I know right now it's crazy, it's not gonna happen before Thanksgiving, but maybe have a 20, 30 minute meeting again with your boss and say,

let's write down what my job is and what my job is not. And that's really important. And the reason that's important is because you need to know what your responsibilities are and what they're not. And when they make these giant vague blanket statements, like anything I tell you to do, well it's pretty broad because they have to train you on whatever your job description is.

Let's say I'm a groomer and part of my job description is to do towels. Have you been trained how they want towels done? And you would be like, that's really stupid. Anyone can do towels. I should know how do towels? Okay, but are they using bleach or are they using vinegar? Do they double wash them? A lot of shops double wash them.

Do you separate urine, feces, vomit piss, like if they're covered in the towels, like do you do that or do you just throw 'em all in at once? And again, so how your boss wants things done, don't do guesswork. That's a great way to get yelled at and be treated like crap because you are not in your boss's mind to know what they want you to do.

And if you're a boss listening right now, you should be doing all these things. And this is what employee handbook is forced. You can train your staff how you want it done. And again, you can do these things in a very respectful way without coming across like a an unappreciative employee. Go to your boss, go back over how you're paid and find out,

God forbid, if there are any issues, how are you gonna get paid? So for instance, let's say the client is unhappy. Remember we talked about the flea dog client. You guys don't normally do fleas and because you don't normally do fleas, you decide your boss tells you to do this dog with fleas and they didn't charge extra. Well, that's not really fair as an employee,

right? Like isn't there gonna be, there's no flea charge, therefore you get paid the same grooming a dog that's invested with fleas instead of a dog that's not. But again, you can have that conversation in a respectful way. What if the client is unhappy because either you or the client or someone somehow misunderstood the haircut. And this happens a lot more than people like to admit.

This is the reason that my shop had cameras and a microphone. Because if somebody says, well, I mean, let's be honest, it happens a lot with the husband will drop off the dog and then the wife picks up and how many times does a husband say a four and then the wife comes in and she won a three eighth comb or they're like,

oh you know, he keeps getting his ears in the water bowl, why don't we just take them up? And I'd be like, yeah, you wanna take 'em to the leather, like makes your life a lot simpler. And if you do that and they say yes, and then you come back and they're like, no, no, I thought it was gonna be really furry.

Okay, how does that get refunded? So if your boss decides to refund that groom or take a percentage off that groom and you are paid commission, how does that work? And again, your boss may or may not understand a lot of the legalities of being a boss. Your boss can't take money from your paycheck. That's technically a business loss, not an employee's loss.

Your boss can't take money off of your check because they made a business decision to refund a client. And the same thing, what if they completely refund that client? You then get nothing. You get a little bit of money, how much do you get? And these are things again, to ask your boss and a respectful, kind hearted way and you know where you work.

And I just wanna say one thing that I think is so important. Please, please, please, please, please do not let your boss force you to do things that are dangerous. A lot of us have really good hearts and we just wanna please our boss. And we're just really kind people. If it's dangerous and it's not in your job description,

don't do it. I e I am not an electrician. I am not in the middle of a grooming day when there is hair on the floor and it's wet gonna go and fiddle around with my dryer because it's like not working. Like I am not gonna sit there and play with cords. I'm not gonna put lights on things like that. Don't do that.

You're like, oh, stand on your table and change that light bulb. No, because if I fall off my table, that's not my job description. And it's gonna be a lot harder for you to get workers' comp because you're being an idiot climbing on a grooming table. That's what you're, that's what the insurance company's gonna be like. Well that's just people being stupid.

Even if your boss told you, your boss wouldn't tell the insurance company. No, no, no. I totally told her Climb on the table. And the same thing goes for grooming. Don't groom an aggressive dog or a dog too big for you that is gonna damage you or harm you. I am a cat groomer, I'm a certified feeling master groomer.

I don't take cat grooming lately. I find it really easy. But I paid a lot of money and I did a lot of training to make it easy. That's very important to point out, if you don't know anything about cat grooming and your boss has decided during the holidays when you're gonna learn how to groom cats, or if you are in the kind of shop where they don't know what they're doing with cats and they're like,

Hey, just just like hold this cat while we trim the nails. That's up to you. A cat bite can end your career. A cat scratch can put you in the hospital. Don't take cat grooming lightly. They're not willing to invest in learning from a company like the National Cat Grooms Institute on how to properly groom cats. I wouldn't touch it.

It's not worth it. It's not worth a career ending bite for that reason. And the same thing with a very, very large dog. I'm little, I'm really five one. And I remember, you know, I worked at PetSmart and I had a great Dane was doing really, really great and then the dog lost his shit and he jumped out of the tub,

he ripped the tub off the wall and then knocked an entire thing of cage banks on top of me. There was no hope if that dog got upset of me being able to contain that dog by myself. So I encourage you if, especially if you're grooming alone, I wasn't grooming alone alone, but there was no one available if things went south, don't do things that could potentially end your career.

Thankfully that didn't end my career, but it was really eye-opening because we put the dogs in, they can't jump out because the lead's too small. Well that's great except shit happens. You know, the leads half snap, but don't snap all the way. All these awful things can happen that we don't even think about. And just remember, no job is worth the career ending bite.

No job is worth a fractured back or even an emotional breakdown. I mean, if your boss is kind of boss that like berates you and tells you to do things and just shit's all over you, no job's worth that. No job's worth the mental breakdown. If you gotta stick it out through the end of the year, you gotta do what you gotta do.

But take every money you can and get the fuck out because you can't live that way. That's awful. I've been on both sides. I've been the employee who was treated verbally terrible and then I've been the really frustrated boss and I'm not proud to admit it. I used to yell at employees when I first opened my business because I was like, why can't you do this?

And it's 'cause I didn't train them how to do it. Like I had completely unrealistic expectations of 'em and then got super mad at them, you know? But you have to live and learn. And unfortunately I got taught somehow about, I'm like, wow, I can't keep employees. And so I had to learn how to be a good boss to keep my employees and make my employees happy.

But hopefully, you know, little employees here, you can learn that before you open up your own business or just teach your bosses by not letting them completely run over you. Now I will say I don't wanna make this so important. If your boss is awesome, if the shop you work for is awesome, please give them thanks. Be appreciative of your boss and your coworkers,

even if it's not the best place. Coming from a place of gratitude is so important. Be thankful for your boss. Are you guys gonna do anything for the holiday, whether it's Thanksgiving or Christmas? You know, go ahead and ask them how you can help. You know, how can you can show your gratitude for such awesome people around you? And again,

that's not your job as an employee, but what might be your position is, Hey, can I bring the plates? Hey, can I bring a bottle of Sprite and some cups? Doing something a little bit like that will really help your boss know that you appreciate what they're doing. I'm not saying go buy everyone lunch, you don't have to do that.

But just something small. I mean offer to bring the plates. I mean you can get a whole stack at the dollar store and not use it for three years. Trust me, I've been there, done that. And if you have a really awesome boss, seriously consider writing a handwritten note because no one does it anymore. And tell your boss, you know,

maybe how much you appreciate your job and that you appreciate that they gave you your job, you know, and how you're continue to honor their sacrifice into the next year. And I think what's interesting in the grooming industry is we never really talk about our bosses in an appreciative way. A lot of times we forget that our bosses give up a lot to own their own shop.

They really do. And if they're mobile and they have multiple vans, they've given up a lot, they've potentially sacrificed a lot to open up their own business. And sometimes it was really interesting 'cause people would always assume that when I owned my shop that I was like some sort of rich bitch. Like I was like river, like owns her own shop.

She buys like a prima bathing system, which was like two grand. Oh she buys this like she's just spending money. But what was so interesting is like these employees acted like spoiled rats and they didn't understand. They just saw the success, they didn't see the suffering. And it was really hard as a boss to be treated like a piece of shit when I gave up a lot in order to build a business that I then could employ people.

And I think as an employee you really should consider just telling your boss that you appreciate it, even if they're assholes. But knowing that you appreciate that they have sacrificed and now they have this amazing job, it's still better than going out and getting a loan for 20, 30, 50, a hundred thousand dollars to go out on your own to potentially lose money as an employee.

When you go to work, you always make money. That's a blessing. So I appreciate your boss a little bit, even if they're not perfect. 'cause no one's perfect. Another way to get through the holiday rush this year as an employee is to start your plan for 2020. And I'm not talking about getting the details done, I'm not talking about that.

I just want you to think about the big picture for next year. And honestly, the reason for that is, is because it's a lot easier to get through the tough times when you have a goal. When you are looking at what you're gonna be able to do and what you're gonna be able to accomplish next year and looking forward to all that positive stuff right now,

it's probably really hard. You're tired, you're stressed out, you know you need a sandwich or something because you don't even remember the last time you ate when you were at work. You need water or you know, 30 cans of Red Bull, whatever your flavor. So I get it. But start thinking about next year, next year you're gonna start getting serious about opening your own place.

Are you gonna start saving for your grooming van? How about getting your personal finances under control? And don't be afraid to sign up for personal clients on a leash. Are you gonna go to trade show or two? Maybe you're gonna start watching some online classes or webinars. I really enjoy learn to groom dogs.com. I don't groom dogs anymore, but when I did,

I loved that I could have that in the background and I liked hearing all of that. Webinars are great, especially the free ones who doesn't love free shit, go ahead and listen to it, but make the time to do it and say, okay, I'm really gonna start learning more, exploring more, maybe listen to more books. I listen to books,

I listen to audio books, podcasts, or even you know, reading. Maybe this year you're gonna hire a business coach and I know you guys are employees, but if you're going to start a business, I would strongly suggest hiring a business coach. Because if you're gonna start a business, you need to know how to start it right? It's a lot more expensive to hire someone to fix all your problems than it is to hire someone off the bat in order to grow your business.

So if you don't look at the big picture today, it's a lot harder to get through everything. Like we said, I found a lot of times doing this that if I didn't do this, like I just wanna lay down because it's exhausting. The whole season is exhausting. And I will say having the way my business is set up, I'm really not much busier.

Some of my clients want extra baths, but for the most part, my clients are all regular. So it's easy to fit everybody in. I don't miss the chaos of having the shop. And I do think that different business models have different ways of dealing with it. So go ahead and give yourself some grace. Try your best to give everyone else some grace.

And what grace really is, is forgiveness. Without earning it, everyone's probably gonna drive you nuts, but plan for it. Have some sort of affirmation, incantation, you know, however you wanna consider it. And I'm gonna like give you a little bit of a secret. So I always say really mean things in my head because that's who I am.

So what I will generally say in my head, obviously bitch you don't deserve how nice I'm being, but I'll do it anyway. That's what I say to myself because this person, like if it's a client or even your boss, if your boss is like losing their fucking chicken nuggets or like, like they're just being crazy, just stop and think to yourself,

why are they being crazy? They're probably being crazy because they know business is gonna drop off in January and February. They have the pressure of owning a business. They have the pressure of being financially responsible for not just their own life, their own business, but you guys as employees, they're responsible for keeping food on your table. That's a lot of pressure.

So if your boss is going crazy, they're either crazy or they don't know how to handle the pressure of all of that, which is pretty normal because we're only human. And try to smile when you say things like that in your head because then you know, you won't feel yourself biting down hard in your tongue. 'cause you're gonna have days when you just wanna blow your brains out.

But don't, this is why it's important to have something to look forward to create small goals, little rewards, what makes sense, what makes you happy? Go ahead and treat yourself probably something better, like chocolate vin mints or you know, say to yourself, okay, if I do really well, I'm gonna go and take myself out somewhere. Figure out what it is that motivates you.

And then go ahead and add that as little carrot for yourself. Make sure you're doing massages, you're getting to your chiropractor, acupuncture, whatever it is. I really strongly suggest in a perfect world you are booking these on your days off. And that's pretty much because I don't want you to like go to work, go get a massage and then sleep through when you actually feel really good.

So consider doing that on your day off instead of doing it after work. And for those of you guys are like, I can't afford that, this is the time of year for tips. Take your tips, go get a massage. And even if they just sit there and rub your head and tell you you're pretty, it's gonna make you feel better.

And this week is all about part one of are you prepared for the holiday rush? And I first wanna talk to business owners and we're gonna do one this week and then we'll do another one next week.

And depending upon where you are in the world, we're either talking about Thanksgiving and Christmas. Some of you guys in other parts of the world, we're only gonna be talking about Christmas or other holidays that you may have in the month of November and December. So first things first I wanna ask you, are you prepared as far as your inventory? So if you're a business owner,

I know that you know how to order, you are more than capable of keeping things in stock. However, with the holidays coming up, I wanna ask you what is gonna happen if there's a major snowstorm where you are? Or like a lot of times what happens with Amazon Prime becoming so popular? What if instead of getting something in two or three days,

what if you can't get it in for a week or two? What if your favorite Christmas shampoo, like I love lay pooch, Noelle gets back ordered, then what are you going to do? So making sure you're gonna have more than enough of things like bandanas. I know some of you guys are like, well I could run to Joanne's fabric. Running to Joanne's fabric in the middle of the Christmas rush is gonna be a nightmare.

So make sure you have more than enough bandanas. Again, shampoo. What if your favorite shampoo goes on back order? And this time of year when I owned my dog grooming salon, we either used as a custom scent, you know, uch Noel, or we would use a more vanilla sugar cookie style and we would add that in with our promo.

If we ran out of that, it's gonna make, we're gonna have to fix the promo. And it's gonna be a lot harder to find a scent that is Christmassy because to me, Christmas smells either like pine trees, like a Neme shampoo or it smells like sugar cookies. And then again, if you are in Thanksgiving, maybe you have a pumpkin spice,

which is kind of a gross scent. But if you have pumpkin spice shampoo, you know, if you run out of that, what is your plan for the customers that maybe you want that upgrade but now can't have it? Other things that you may wanna consider is if you have enough stock of towels. Some of you guys are more than capable of at the end of the day,

taking your towels home and washing them. I, for health reasons, strongly advise not to wash personal towels with the towels at your house. A lot of these towels have blood, feces, urine on them and you may or may not be bringing home a lot of those potential diseases to your own pets. So I really don't suggest that. And on a nicer level,

I understand some people will wanna use a laundromat and for the same reasons, I don't always agree with that. But you know, if you're going to use those things, are you actually able, again, we're gonna say if you have a towel service, have you ordered extra towels? Are you planning for extra towels? If you normally do your towels once a week,

if you're doing double or triple the amount of dogs during the holiday rush, are you prepared for that? Do you have enough towels? Do you have enough towels just in the day? If for some reason you run out of them, what is your backup plan? You know, the worst thing you wanna do is have a really humid salon run outta towels.

And what are you gonna do? Have an employee run to the laundromat wash and dry. It's gonna take two hours. You know, having a plan of what you're going to do or even just keeping more of an inventory and a backlog. Because as much as we may be good at making sure we don't use four towels per dog, some employees use towels like they're going outta style and there's not much we can do about that.

And just look around if there's anything else you may need. Little things like quick stop ear cleaner, you don't wanna run out of these things when you're grooming. That is the worst time. A lot of times I've heard, you know, other grooming business owners say to me, well, I'll just run to Petco, but I can buy a gallon of professional grade ear cleaner for the same amount of money that I can buy a little thing from Petco.

It doesn't make any financial sense. And a lot of that is just a lack of preparation. So go through your salon, make sure that you're not missing anything, that there's nothing that you need to add to your list. And if there is, start thinking about it now. That is more than enough time for you to go through your store and go ahead and order those things before the end of the week.

If you order before the end of the week, you'll be able to have it in well before Thanksgiving. And then whatever you don't use before Thanksgiving, you'll probably use before Christmas. Alright, and then let's get into the nitty gritty on really refining your systems in place. And one of the main things I wanna talk about is if you start adding people in,

so your schedule, everyone's schedule's different, everyone has different business models. I know we've talked about this extensively, but having that in place, not only telling yourself that and having that plan, but also telling your staff because your staff is not always as knowledgeable as you, or maybe they're just really sweet and they don't realize the impact of things. I remember when I was a baby groomer and it was just one of those situations where like some was had this total sob story about this golden retriever about how,

you know, he had allergies and they were trying so hard and they bathed him all summer and the hose. And as this baby groomer, I'm like, oh, this is so heartbreaking. And of course this golden comes in, it's completely impacted and it's got hotspots and it's got yeasty ears and it's one of those fat goldens that pancakes and refuses to stand.

And I remember, you know, I was working for somebody and they're like, yeah, that's all you all you 'cause that kind of dog, it just took forever. And of course that owner did not wanna pay extra, even though their pet needed medicated wash, their pet needed way more brushing. Now I would've been, it would've been easier for me to get a lot of that coat out,

but at the time I did not have the skillset to get out that much impacted coat. So it was kind of a nightmare. So live and learn, right? So your baby groomer, or if you have a staff member who has the very good heart but doesn't realize what they're agreeing to, you really don't want them to pick up the phone and say,

yeah, oh my god, of course you want your decrepit golden to look beautiful for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I totally get it. And then it's that dog that takes like two people four hours and they wanna pay the same price as the golden that comes in every two or four weeks. So really communicate with your staff as well as yourself. I talk to myself a lot as if I was a staff member,

which sounds really weird, but I say to myself, alright river, what is it that our goal is for today? And is this a smart move? And you know, as much as my, as an older groomer, I guess as a, I feel like as like a boomer groomer, right? It's like, okay boomer. That's how I feel sometimes with grooming.

But yeah, with that, if I take on that old golden who really can't be groomed easily, am I setting back myself and my team? And the truth is, I would, right? Like how many hours would I set myself back? That's crazy. And with the same thing with appointments, what if one of your best clients call and they need a last minute appointment that can either be a grooming appointment or a bath appointment.

A lot of groomers, you know, have these clients that we have soft spots for. I have them as well being mobile, it's a lot easier to play with my schedule in the sense that I can honestly make a decision. And a lot of it comes down to am I in your area and do I have a spot? But when you're in a salon,

is it you know, a lack of cage space, a lack of physical resources because you can only groom so many dogs or time because a lot of times we could stay an extra hour late to take care of a good client, which is something we tend to do even though we really shouldn't always do that. So if they call, let's say they cancel their appointment because something came up,

they're taking care of their elderly family member or you know, maybe they just forgot and then you know, they're like, I'll reschedule. They don't reschedule. Shocking, I know. And then they call and they're like, oh you know, Sasha really needs a groom before Thanksgiving. You don't have to do a full haircut, just, you know, bathe her and do just like trim her up.

Which those found to trim up all over is a haircut. I don't know why people think that's not okay. How are you gonna handle that? And obviously it depends on what and why the dog et cetera. But having a framework allows you to say yes or no quicker because in theory in that moment you're gonna be so clear, so smart and be like,

Hmm, let me think about this. I'm like seven dogs deep. I'm covered in dog hair, I have anal glands in my hair, I have quick stop under my nails. Sure, let me think about for a second. If this is a wise decision. Now what's gonna happen is you're going to be like, ah. And be like, you know,

do I hate this client? Do I like this client? Like how flexible am I feeling? And that's a problem because nine times outta 10, what happens to all of us because we have such good caring hearts is we say, or I guess, and then we're either staying there late and it's always the client that you do that for that doesn't show up to pick up their dog.

They show up like an hour or two after you close because of some nonsense and they might've actually gotten stuck in traffic, but they probably just got stuck at the store grocery shopping for whatever holiday it is. So anyway, that's a great question. And if they want a last minute bath, is that something you're willing to squeeze them into? You may say,

yes, of course I wanna get everybody who wants to come in. Or you might say, no, probably not. And if I did, it'd have to be a dog that's been done in the last two weeks, or it'd have to be a dog. That's super easy. You know, you have to know yourself, your staff, and you know your clientele.

I personally had no problem squeezing in last minute baths around this time, but my clients knew as far as haircuts go, I'll trim around the eyes, I'll shave out the pads really lazily and make sure there's no poop gonna get stuck to the butt. Besides that, you're shit outta luck. There was no hope at the time in my salon I had a receptionist who was able to do basic things like that.

So at worst those are things that she could do if I didn't have a bather or a groomer or even me able to do those things. But that's a whole nother story. Now here's another good question. So that same client, who is your one of your best clients, what if she calls and let's say her sister's beagle is staying with her sister at her house and the dog wreaks you ever had like that person that they bring in their family members lab,

beagle pit, whatever is like a short coat. You don't know how that dog is, they say they have the rabies, but is it the rabies or the rabies tag? Does this dog wreak or is this dog skunky or is this dog yeasty? Like what is this gonna be? You know, what are you gonna do? It's easier to have a policy of,

yeah, we're taking any bath and we're gonna charge an extra emergency fee of let's say 25% more or 10 or $20 more as a last minute emergency fee, or no emergency fees if you guys don't want holiday emergency fee. Or are you going to go ahead and say no if they're not regular clients, we're not taking them around the holiday season. Or are you gonna say,

yes, we're gonna take these clients, but they're only going to be by referral? And obviously you can always make exceptions, but a lot of this stuff is mainly for you to say, okay, what is my ideal? And then go from there. Having no idea and taking everything as a blank slate makes it a lot harder to make decisions because during the holiday rush,

so there's actually something called decision fatigue with decision fatigue is essentially is you can only make so many decisions in one day. Having a thermometer reading on how you feel about your business is going to make it a lot easier for you to make decisions during a stressful time. Around the holidays when you're rooming dogs, watching employees, there's poop on the ground, like it is a crazy time.

So again, will you take skunk or flea infested pets? Personally, I don't believe during the holiday season you should take skunk or any pets with pesticides. The reason simply is with skunks, obviously then the entire shop reeks. If you do wanna take skunk pets, I highly suggest you do them as the very last pet and have them be a start to finish like appointment where only the owner is there if you even have the owner stay in the vestibule or if they're gonna go ahead and come back.

But I personally think that having skunk dogs around your clients is really gross. Clients don't like it. There's nothing worse than walking into a grooming salon and it wreaks a skunk. Sometimes you get that dog that was skunked months ago and you get them wet and you get the WAF of it. That's different than a freshly skunked dog. So that's personally what I would do.

But you have to know your business and your clientele. I mean, with flea dogs, I generally say I would not take pets infested with fleas or ticks. I mean, if they have one tick, that's one thing. But if that pet is infested with fleas, I would get them the hell outta your salon in general. But especially during the holiday season,

there's nothing worse as a pet owner, if I brought my dog to your salon and then it came home with fleas. And the problem is, nine times outta 10, if you accept fleas into your facility, you can't stop fleas from jumping on one pet to another pet. It's almost impossible. Also, your staff really doesn't want to be dealing with fleas when they're already having a really,

really busy season. They're already doing probably 20% more dogs. If you're used to doing eight, they're probably doing 10. You're already pushing them to the limit. So let's begin a different question. So you know, your business or the business that you work in, are your clients used to the well-oiled machine that is your shop? Or is your shop kind of chaotic already?

Let's talk about policies. What are your policies and do clients honestly know your policies? This is a tough one because I have a lot of sympathy honestly, for our clients because most people assume that they read their policies three years ago and remember them with my shop, what I had is I used to have a check-in and the check-in would actually be a little spot where it had the basic policies,

like it had the policies and it had what was done in the policies. So for instance, pickup, what was the pickup policy? The pickup policy, any bath dog was done no later than three hours. Any haircut dog was done no later than four hours unless specified. And anything beyond 30 minutes from that specified time was a fee. And so what we would do is,

so we had the policies and underneath it we had the time. So we would have fluffy Maltese, I would generally write what color the dog was, then we would also write what the haircut was and we would communicate with the owner. So it'd like half inch, round head, anything they specified. And then I would have the timely checked in the dog.

So when they were right there, I'd be like, okay, well it's 11 o'clock. And then what I would do is I would have the estimated checkout time. So let's say it's 11 o'clock, so ready, it's a haircut dog. So I would go 12, 1, 2, 3, does three o'clock work for you? And I would, they would see my fingers because it was at the four hour mark and they would kind of look and they'd be like,

yeah. I'm like, okay, do you want us to call or text you before you pick up? And they'd be like, well maybe. And that's the tough part. So they would know when they had to pick up by and I would either text or call depending upon what they wanted when they were ready. And they loved that because then they knew no later than three o'clock their pet would be ready because it was the four hours.

And with the bath dog to do the same thing, they dropped off at 11 12, 1 2. This two o'clock work for you to pick up Fluffy. And so we had a really easy system where there was no miscommunication. And then we would also write down afterwards what time the pet was picked up. The reason I did that is because let's say, and the wife called back later and you know,

she was like, oh, you know, fluffy seemed really upset. We would look at the sheet and I'd be like, well, it looks like you dropped off Fluffy at 11. We told you to come back at three, but then your husband wasn't there till five. So Fluffy was in a kennel for six hours. That's a long time for Fluffy.

And she'd be like, Hmm, you're very right there. Okay, I'm gonna talk to my husband. So these are ways that I worked on creating a well-oiled machine in my salon, but make sure your policies make sense for your clients. You know what other policies are in your systems that may or may not make any sense. So if I have clients that are busy and they're running to the store,

which is gonna be insane, they may not be able to rush back. You may want their dog done in an hour or two, but are they gonna pick up? And they may or may not want you to run late. Sometimes we overbook ourselves, what are you gonna do if you tell 'em two hours and then you get behind and now it's gonna be four?

Or you tell 'em two hours and then a dog, God forbid, knock on wood, something happens. And then now you need extra time because that dog was crazy and you had to like work around the whole salon because instead of being able to ask your bather to come help you, now you've gotta do it basically by yourself. Or if your bather does have to come help you,

then that bather is not keeping up with their own tasks and make sure that if you don't already, you get a system in place for your salon. There's so many different ways of having different business models, but having a system that works in place for your salon is going to make your salon run so much smoother. Speaking of clients, let me ask you guys a question.

Are you going to give out presents cards, food around the holidays? And if you are, do you really have time to commit to getting them done? I personally write handwritten Christmas cards to all of my clients. I have about a hundred families, and that's more than that cats. But I personally don't do sweet things like cat pictures anymore. And the reason why is because I don't have time to realistically take pictures.

Like so I do cards, you know, and I mail them out. But let's say you're giving out cookies. Well, do your customers like those cookies? Do they want those cookies? Are they a good cookie? You know, I've seen people give away cat toys and dog toys, obviously like little balls. My favorite thing, I don't do it now,

but when I owned my dog grooming salon, I had this great magnetic picture frame. I would take a quick picture of the pet and then when we gave them the photo frame, we would also give them the print. People loved it. We also did Santa. My ex-husband would come and sit in the grooming salon and he would be Santa Claus. And if they wanted pictures with Santa,

we would just do the pictures really quick and give it to them. So you would do things like that. And knowing what your clients want and knowing what's gonna make them happy, you know your clientele, you know what they like, what they don't like. Giving options is always great. Making homemade biscuits, like whatever it is that is in your heart,

go ahead and do. And if you wanna do nothing, you're not the Grinch, it's okay. You don't have to be festive, just don't go halfway through festivities. Don't say you're gonna give everyone pictures and then realize you don't have the time or energy to do it. That really sucks. It's gonna make you look really stupid. Don't do that.

And because we're talking about business owners, let's also talk about how you're gonna be treating your employees. So let's have a real conversation. Are you gonna be taking days off? So business owners, about your employees? What time are you closing and are your employees going to be working or are they gonna have the time off? Unless you have a really strong staff and you have really good regulations and in systems and all that,

I would never let your staff there. When you're not there until everyone's fully trained, it's a great way for your employees to steal from, you steal client information or make really bad decisions, and you get stuck going to work anywhere. So if your employees are not gonna be working and you are not gonna be working, do they get paid? So if you have employees that work for you and they're off,

aren't they gonna get paid? And that's really important to know and to set a standard for your employees because a lot of these employees are expecting that money or they budget based on four weeks worth of work and where they're gonna be if they're, especially if they're making hourly. You know, with commission, the goal obviously would be to do an extra week's worth of dogs within the three weeks that they're working and then they get the week off.

And that's essentially how they would get paid. But a lot of times we assume this what's gonna happen, but because of whatever goes on, maybe that doesn't happen. And so is this staff member financially prepared to take a whole week off or are you going to give them any money? And I think this should have been talked about when you were setting the schedule for the holidays,

but having a real conversation with your staff needs to happen. A lot of times we just do whatever the hell we want as a business owner and expect our staff to just be okay with that. I don't think you should be slaves to your staff. I don't think that you should have to worry about what your staff is going to do. However, I do believe in being a benevolent leader,

and I do believe that you should treat people like you wanna be treated. You know, long story short, when I was, I was managing a doggy daycare when I was pregnant with my son and they told me flat out I could not take a maternity leave. And I'm like, well, that's not the way that works. And they said, well,

we can't afford it. So pretty much you'll have to work till you have this baby. And then when you have this baby, we don't know what you're gonna do, but we can't afford for you to take eight weeks off, 12 weeks off. They said, we really don't even want you gone for two weeks, but have these conversations with your staff.

If they're going to be off, are you going to subsidize their income at all? And you don't have to, but at least let them know what is going on. Another thing is about pay. Again, another way you may wanna soften this is to let your employees know that there are gonna be any bonuses or any holiday extras when we're creating culture.

No one really talks about creating culture in this industry. You wanna create a staff that enjoys you and really looks up to you being this cruel boss that we all have had. At some point. If you've owned your own business, it's different than when you have a boss. But I mean, I've had a lot of bosses I loved and I've had a lot of bosses that really didn't give a shit about me.

And you know, I understand now as a business owner why they didn't care about me because I was just a cog in the machine. But those people don't ever stay there. They could be the best employee, but if someone's a cog in the machine, they're not gonna stay. You know? They don't wanna be that lesson. It is I with my employees,

what I would let them know is, yes, we're gonna be closed. At the end of my time owning my shop, they had a base salary and then they made bonuses and things like that. So I told 'em flat out, you were gonna get your base salary because I'm closing because that's what I choose to do. I knew they had family and everything like that,

and that was not easy, but that's why they had a base salary and they got bonuses and didn't get straight commission. And then as far as bonuses went, their bonuses were quarterly and the bonuses, it was calculated monthly, but paid out quarterly. So the bonuses were based upon if they beat projection. And so that what that meant is, yes,

I'm going to ask you to work really hard. If you work really hard and you groom regularly, then we are as a team, not just one person, but as a team. If we beat these, then we would get a set amount of money and that again, would be based upon how many pets we groomed and everything like that. And so those are really nice.

If you wanna give somebody a bonus maybe for November and say, Hey, if you groom X amount of dollars this month, I'll give you X amount of bonus as a kicker. Or you know, Hey, December's coming up. If you groom this many pets, you know and or there's no incidents in the salon or whatever it is, you can give them an incentive to keep working hard now on the bad side with our employees because why not?

Let's talk about employee issues. So this is the time of year employees know we can't fire them. You can't afford to fire someone, so they're gonna pull a lot of shit. If your employee shows up late, what are you gonna do about it? And how late before you really get pissed off. So if my employee shows up 10 minutes late,

and obviously you're gonna say something to them, but what is the consequence? Is there no consequence if they're 15 minutes late, if they're 30 minutes late, what if they're late four hours? What if they call out? What if they no call, no show. Now you probably have policies in place for these things and if you don't, you need to,

if you have employees, you need policies in your employee handbook and how all of this will be handled. That said, this time of year, they know that you can't fire them. Why? Because you don't wanna groom all their goddamn dogs the rest of the month. That's the truth. I mean, I've been there. So if they know you're gonna,

you're not gonna fire them, what are they gonna do? They're gonna walk all over you. So if someone is 30 minutes late for work, what is the consequence? And make sure your staff knows. Does that mean they stay 30 minutes late? Well, what if they can't? What if they have to go pick up their kid at school? What are you going to do and being able to stick to that gun?

What if they're hours late? What if they're three hours late? What if they show up high or intoxicated? I mean these are all very normal things, but it has the added pressure of if you have a full day worth of groom dogs and your bather and every other person has a full day's worth of dogs and they don't show up or they show up late,

then that creates a lot of pressure on your staff. This is also why I tell the people that I'm generally coaching that want to build a business. So I have three different categories of groomers. You're an employee, which you should be a W two employee. You are a self-employed groomer, which is a one groomer house, or you have independent contractors working for you.

And then third is a business owner. A business owner should be a manager, an entrepreneur. They should be focusing on those things because then either you or your manager should not be grooming full-time because then if your staff comes in drunk high, they make a really stupid mistake, they do something really stupid, you can send them home and somebody can take over their day at dogs.

Your manager's not gonna wanna do that. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Same thing with you, you probably, if you get the nice sweet taste of never having to groom all day, then when you have to step in though, you know you can do it. That's important. Make sure you have a plan in place if there is an issue with your staff,

because then if your staff decide to pull something like that, you are able to make decisions without sitting there grinding your emotional gears. Remember decision fatigue. I wanna make sure that you don't put yourself in a place where you're just fried and you start crying and you just have this total meltdown. 'cause it sucks. It sucks when you have an employee pulling shit at the busiest times of the year because you just want them to do what you're paying them to do.

And for some reason they just don't. And there's really no reason they've just chosen not to. So those aren't my thoughts today on making sure you are prepared for the holiday rush if you're an employer.

So let's go ahead and start talking about what today's show is all about today. I wanna talk about what is imposter syndrome,

just because I know as we get closer to the holidays, I wanna talk a little bit about mental health. Again, I am not a psychologist. I don't pretend to be a psychologist. I just have a lot of insight. I dealt with a lot of mental health issues. I had a really traumatic event. I've had a lot of traumatic events actually happen in my life.

But I thought it was so important for us to sit down as a a community and talk about these things that affect us. I think that pretending like we're okay, this whole suffer in silence, like suck it up and suffer in silence, just needs to end. So I wanna talk about my experiences and experiences I've had coaching people. So what exactly is imposter syndrome?

So imposter syndrome is the persistent inability to believe in one's success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one's own efforts or skills. So just myself, I will tell you how many times I feel, why am I here? Like who am I? Like, you know, why am I the one teaching these people? And that is an example of imposter syndrome.

Now, I definitely think that it's overused. I think that there's a lot of people that are not suffering from it and they just have low self-esteem. But if you are a business owner, and if you suddenly feel like this anxiety like in your chest and you're like, I'm just winging this, like what if people find out I'm not successful as I,

I think I am. That is a great example of imposter syndrome. So, and that's, and that's just, you know, again, it can be low self-esteem, but a lot of times it is just simply a woman feeling this way. Kate Winslet, who played Rose on Titanic, I feel like everyone should know who that is in that role,

she consistently felt like people are gonna realize she's not as talented as they thought she was. And it's this deep seated fear. Now it can manifest itself in so many different ways, right? It can manifest itself in anxiety, in depression, in feeling lethargic and feeling paralyzed with fear. Where theirs is the thing, right, is that the whole point of imposter syndrome is that,

you know, rationally you are a badass, but there's like this little evil voice on your shoulder saying like, no, you're not. Who are you? No one cares what you have to say. Like these really toxic things. And I think so many of us, maybe not every day, but there's sometimes we're like laying in bed. You know,

we're right, we're ready to fall asleep. And just as a business owner, especially women business owners, we're sitting there saying like, what if I wake up tomorrow and nobody, nobody's gonna be there at my grooming salon. No one is going to pay attention to what I'm doing. What if this is all fake? And it's this really insane place,

right? It's this really toxic place that we go to. And I just wanna look for other examples outside of the grooming industry so people can hear it. Because maybe you're like, well, you know, how do I know? These are great examples? I just looked really quick online. Some examples of imposter syndrome would be, my friends are only still here because they pity me,

right? So another example would be, you know, in your, in a grooming business, the equivalent would be, you know, people only like me because I'm cheap, right? Not because you do a good skill, not because you're a great groomer, not because you have great customer service, but because of my price point. People will only stay with me if I'm cheap.

Another one would be, I'm not as good as people tell me I am. They're just being polite to me. How many of you guys have like put out a groom in a Facebook group and people are like, oh my god, it's great, it's beautiful, it's amazing, dah dah, dah it. And you kind of deflect it. You're like,

oh, it's not that good. I'm not this person. You always like idolize and put up on a pedestal, somebody else, right? You know, we can name names, but it's so interesting, especially women business owners, we do this a lot where we'll be like, oh, you know, I'm not this person, therefore I'm unworthy, right?

Another saying would be, this good thing is just a fluke. Now, I had this really unhealthy habit in my life that if something bad happened, it felt right. Like it felt like I was always waiting for the the, I used the saying the other shoe would drop. I was constantly waiting for something bad to happen because that felt normal and that felt right.

And then when something felt good, it was a fluke. It was just gonna happen for a short period of time. And it really came down to, and I really kind of stepped back. Like I didn't think, oh, I'm a bad person, deserve bad things to happen to me. What it was is that I was just feeling like deep down,

I didn't deserve good things to happen to me. Not because I did anything in particular to not deserve them, but you know, it was almost like being a supporting character and everyone's story and needing to feel like if something good happened to me, there would be a consequence. And again, we're kind of going outside of imposter syndrome, but I think this whole mentality ties really well into itself.

And I think we need to expose it because I think a lot of people are fighting this like, you know, suck it up, rub some dirt in it, and then going home and being upset and crying and doing this in silence. And it's not okay. You know, as an industry we have incredibly empathetic women who deserve to feel good. And I'm not gonna sit by and pretend like this is not an a problem in our industry.

Another saying would be, everyone is going to realize that I'm just a fraud. And some days I feel like that, I'm like, who am I? Like, you know, people will put like, well what are your credentials? And I, and I'm thinking to myself, oh my God, I don't have a PhD or even, you know,

a an M B a A MAs, you know, master's in business. You know, I don't have those things. And I'm like, am I less worthy because of that? Am I less effective? Of course not. You know, I don't think spending the next eight years in college is going to help anyone here. I think what's gonna help them is getting,

you know, boots on the ground and making courses and helping them change their lives. So it's things like that. We create that. And a lot of times I'll see people who are like, I wanna get my master groomer certification before I open a business. Because if I don't have that, then everyone's gonna realize that I'm just a crappy dog groomer.

I'm a bad CAC groomer. And they're not. And it's so interesting. It's like this piece of paper do doesn't make you more valid. It doesn't make you more worthy. And on the flip side, you know, having that piece of paper, you know, having that certification is an accomplishment. We can say it's both. We can say getting this,

you know, certificate does not make you more worthy. While also saying accomplishing something is amazing. We can say both guys as an industry. And I think that's really important. Another one is saying, what if I'm just faking being a good person and everyone is falling for it? I sometimes feel this way with coaching is again, like I know rationally that's not true.

Sometimes I'm like, man, like am I really helping these people? Like what if what I say to them is gonna destroy their lives? Like what if I'm not as good as I think I am? And that's not rational because if you talk to anyone, can, I just had a great coaching call today. If you talk to anyone who has been on my coaching calls,

who's ever been in any of my classes, I know the results I get, I know. But there's still this piece of me that tells me, what if you're wrong? You know? And it's not from a healthy place. It's not from that cautious healthy place. It's from this really toxic place. And it's either generally childhood trauma or it's relationship trauma.

You know, whether that's not having a mother who loved us enough, not having a father who supported us. Some of us have had kind of all of that, you know? And that doesn't mean that we can't grow up to have fantastic relationships with their parents. My dad unfortunately passed away before we could fix that relationship. You know? And I,

and I share with people that my dad, I think was very broken and broken. People hurt other people. I think about how unfortunate his life was and how unhappy he probably was. And as a healthy adult, now I can look back and realize that's what happened to him. It's not that he wanted to hurt me. He was just so unhappy.

He inflicted his unhappiness onto me and my siblings. One of the biggest aha moments I had, 'cause it crushed me. I remember being 18 years old. Now mind you, I moved when I was 16 and I was teaching a dog training class and I was so proud. 'cause here I was 18 and you think you're a hot shit. And I'm so smart and I'm teaching this giant class.

And he came to watch it and I'm like, oh my god, my dad's gonna see me shine. He's gonna see me be a badass. He's gonna see all this. And I'll never forget what he said to me. You know, he was smoking a cigarette. He was, he literally smoked a carton, not a pack, but a car and a cigarette today.

And he was flicking his cigarette. He said, man, it must really suck to know that your job can be replaced by a rolled up newspaper. And I will never forget how much that crushed me. And I was a smart, you know, ambitious 18 year old girl, but my daddy told me that I was useless and pathetic. And whether I wanna pretend otherwise,

that's incredibly damaging. You know? And maybe you didn't have that happen to you, you know? But as an adult, as a healthy adult now after going through a lot of therapy and learning a lot of things about me, I don't think he said that to hurt me. I think there was some kind of like jealous, mad feeling of like,

here she is living her dream and I'm suffering. You know? 'cause he was working a job he hated because he felt trapped and he was unhappy. And people like that hurt other people. And unintentionally, you know? So I don't think it was a bad person, but I think hurt people hurt other people. So, you know, things like that,

you know, that means I have to parent myself. I have to be my own cheerleader. So when in my head, you know, things like, man, nobody caress what you say. Nobody. Why are you even doing this? You know, people are gonna think this or they're gonna realize you're not as smart as you think you are. I have to go wait a minute.

And I parent myself. You know, river, you're amazing. You're helping so many people. You know, I have to be in my own head that supportive father figure of like, I'm so proud of you. I know it's hard to do this. I know this is outside your comfort. I know the last thing you wanna do is be in front of people.

'cause I don't like the spotlight. I I really, it was funny, I had a conversation with a friend of mine and I said, man, I wish I could just give someone my knowledge and they could go do this almost like a speech writer. But unfortunately sometimes we're called to these things, right? So being able to do that and parent myself,

soothe myself when these things happen, because that's what I wish I had. I wish I had a mom or a dad. My mom is much closer to me now. We've, you know, really grown closer. And a lot of that is though she wasn't parented in a healthy way. And so she has to in her, you know, fifties and sixties.

I don't know how my mom is, I feel bad. I'm like, I don't know. I'm doing some math. Not sure, you know, she looks good for her age no matter how old she is, you know, helping her parent herself because she didn't get the support that she needed. She needed that love and hugs and kisses and you can do anything you want.

And she didn't get that. So if she didn't get that, how could she give me that? And so I have to do it. So with things like imposter syndrome guys, we have to understand who we are and understand what we are giving ourselves. If we don't get it from somewhere else, it's these really toxic, unfortunate feelings. And I say women a lot because I think that women and men,

you know, without any politics involved, we tend to just feel differently. We are, we are socially trained to be humble. I mean, you would never hear a man say, I, I got into an accident because I wasn't being humble enough. That's, that's not how the universe works, right? That is a toxic part of our brain that says,

you do not deserve to succeed. You do not deserve, I'm getting goosebumps. That's how I know I'm on the right track. You know, you do not deserve to do well. And that's super toxic. And it's okay because we hear it in ourselves and we go, wait, wait, wait. If I had a loving father or a loving mother,

and I'm not saying you guys didn't, I didn't. So they love me now. And I know if my dad was alive, now he would be here for me. I really, well I hope, I hope he would have had the time to grow and to get out of those toxic cycles, you know, I hope. But that's unfortunately with death,

you, you don't know what someone could have been. You know, that said like, we have to break free of these things because it's the mindset. It doesn't matter how much money you're making, if your mindset is bad, if you feel like you deserve to go into a car accident, then that just means we have internal work to do. And give yourself some,

some grace. We can't be mean to ourself either. 'cause 'cause what happens is we get very like beat ourselves up again. It's like, not only are we like, man, you suck. You know, you weren't humble. You got into a car accident. Then the other side of it's like, you're being dumb. Don't be dumb Candace. Like,

what do you think this is? Just be kind to ourselves. Again, think about like the dog that's scared on the table, the dog that's like pancaking. What we wanna do is be super mad with the dog that's scared, but we know that he's just not used to being groomed. So we have to be kind, right? We have to train kindness and compassion,

right? While still getting things done where we can be so kind and compassionate. We don't get anything done. We've gotta find a balance. So that's where Candace, you can parent yourself there and say, you know, Candace, I, you know, that's a really unfortunate train of thought. You know, being humble is not the same as being humiliating.

You know, you taking care of your wonderful family, you having ambitions, you wanting to grow, you wanting to do more does not mean that you deserve bad things to happen to you. You know, no differently than a child gets cancer, right? A child doesn't get cancer 'cause he deserves it. You know, that's not because he like, you know,

colored the walls or something, right? We would never think of that to somebody else. If you just imagine you, I always think of my age around five or six. 'cause I had a traumatic event happen when I was around that age. And I just think about Little River, you know? And I like to just imagine braiding her hair and being like,

sweetie, you know, this isn't the way things work. You know, bad things don't happen to good people because they've done bad things or because they feel like they've gotten too big for their britches. That's not why bad things happen. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. And that's just the way the world works. You know, I've had amazing people in my life have ha horrible things happen to me.

I don't think my daughters died because I deserved it when it first happened. I did. Because that's what we do, right? We torture ourselves, right? I mean, that's what we do, right? I'm not a good enough mother. I'm not this, I'm not that. Therefore I deserve, that's not the way this goes. This is not the way the universe works.

If it is, you know, then I think that if there is a God, if there is a universal plan, I, I just can't buy that, you know, e I just can't, I can't imagine anything working that way. Maybe that's hopeful. Maybe that is, you know, maybe that's a little too rose colored glasses. I just don't buy it.

I don't buy that. The world is meant to be painful. I've ne once I decided that my life would be fun and that the world was meant to be fun, things got a lot easier. You know? And I don't know exactly what that means. And some days things suck, but guess what? Ultimately things are going to work out and you just have to have faith in that.

And some days they're gonna suck. Especially coming into the holiday season, I think preparing for these things, there are so many things in our industry that we don't talk about. Like, I agree, we need to raise our prices. I agree, we need to streamline our business, but there's, there's no way to do any of those things if we are mentally unhappy,

unprepared, you know, we just can't do it. Like, if you feel like if you feel like you don't deserve what you have, then it's impossible to get more of it. And on the flip side, if you have this very like, negative egotistical, I deserve, I earned dah, dah, dah, that's not good energy either. We've gotta find a balance,

right? Like, I don't think I deserve savvy groomer to do well. I think I've earned it. I think I've put in the time, I think I've been able to help enough people to earn a good living. And that's what I want for you guys. I want you guys to earn a good living, to build wealth, to build long term whatever it is that you want.

If that's freedom and flexibility, great. If that's simplicity, great. If that is a huge empire, great. Whatever you want in this season of life and in the next season of life, great. And I think that's the thing is rationally you feel like, okay, rationally you think, I know, I know I'm good at what I do,

but it's just this little heart space and it's, it's healing those either childhood wounds or you know, know just things that we haven't learned. You know? And I, I do wish I had had a different upbringing of warmth and support, but if I did, I couldn't be here for a lot of people. So I'm okay with it. Ultimately it all works out.

You know, it's, it really, really tough because in that scenario it's like, did I do something wrong? And you know, rationally you didn't. But emotionally things just feel, you know, you could have weird feelings about things that make zero sense. What's interesting, Megan, is when something bad happens, you don't go, oh goody, something amazing's gonna happen afterwards,

right? That's unfortunately you can tell, right? Because if, if you really believed in the 50 50 split, every time something bad happened, we would be like, oh, this sucks. But okay, what's the awesome thing? What, what's my prize? But we don't feel that way When something good happens, we say, oh, what's my punishment?

And that is generally either societal or childhood trauma. And especially as women, we are taught that you can be only so happy, right? It's kind of the high heel thing. You can look, you can look really sexy or you can be really comfortable, right? It's like that. Or even you've heard of like the crazy hot, like, women can't be beautiful,

smart and lovely. They can only be so much of so much, right? We can't be everything. It's just crazy. So I think that is really painful society wise, you know, and I'm not here to tackle society. I'm here to have us think about how it applies to our lives personally. Because I think that if we change the individuals,

we can change a culture. And especially in an industry that people treat us un you know, I think unintentionally poor, they don't know what we do and they don't understand what it is that we do. They don't understand how hard it is to do what we're doing. One of, you know, one of my coaching clients, she has a hurt shoulder.

It's because she does lots of big dogs and she's gonna have to cut her big dogs. And when we talked about it, she's like, I tried so hard not to do this. 'cause I didn't want them to think that I didn't love their dogs. And I'm like, girl, you are 26, you've hurt your shoulder, you're probably gonna need surgery.

Because you didn't want people to think you didn't love their dogs. Because that is what happens in our minds, these crazy leaps, right? And it can't be, I have to protect my body, you know, because I'm, some people are just not designed for it. There's some of us that can groom big dogs for 30, 40 years and not hurt.

And then some of us, our bodies just break down. I don't know if it's genes. I think some of it is we have bad habits. I think some of it is what we're using for mechanics. But I mean, we have a lot of big crazy dogs and those are hard to groom. But I want you to think about it. If you,

if you really believed when something bad happens, something good happens and something good happens, something bad happens, you really believe in 50 50. Then when something bad were to happen, you would think, oh goody goody, I get my prize now. But we don't, it's always the other way. It's always, we think of some, something bad happens to us and we're like,

oh, I deserve it because of this. Or Oh, I knew this couldn't last that long. You know, it could be your marriage. Right? You know, I was just thinking that if I was still married, I would be four years married. Today, this is my ex's wedding anniversary and it's crazy. You know, I can't believe that,

you know, I would've been there. And it's so weird to think about because it's weird to think that, you know, when I, when I got married, I was like, okay, like this is the person I spent the rest of my life with this and that. And then when that fell apart, it was my fault. And I felt awful.

Like I was a failure. Like, you know, here was this good thing and then something bad had to happen because things were too good. It's really toxic and it's not our fault that we feel that way, but it's our opportunity to say something nice to ourselves, right? You know, I wish I had had the parent that when I, when I feel that way and I feel like I can't do anything right and insert terrible feeling,

somebody would've just like picked me up as a little girl and just hugged me and be like, you can take on the world. Don't worry about it. Everything's gonna work out. But there wasn't that person. So I have to be that person. And it's really weird sounding, it's really weird to say like, okay, now in your mind, pretend that you're a little girl and comfort her.

But if you didn't have that, like I didn't have that, that's a great way to do it, right? And so like for Megan, like in that situation, you know, she can just sit there and imagine whatever age you remember yourselves needing that parenting and just being like, you know, Hey Megan, I, this is just a tragedy.

There's no reason people pass. You know, I wish there was, you know, there, there's no way. 'cause you wouldn't have never told me when my dad passed, like, oh, he passed because of this. Or my, I can say that my daughter's passed to help people, but that's not really the truth. It's that when my daughter's passed,

I took that hurt and anger and frustration and why me and I use that energy to help other people, right? And I'm sure for you, you used those feelings to do something good. Whether that was to put your time into, you know, your child or you know, make sure your marriage works better, right? You put that energy, you know,

you have two options. You can either stick in the woe is eye, why me? Or we can go, okay, you know what good can come from this and it's really hard. And there's no right or wrong way. If you stick in, woe his eye. You can do that. I think having a pity party is a good idea for a little bit.

Have it up, cake, balloons, the whole shebang and then decide what you wanna do. Because pretending like you don't deserve a pity potty is really not fair because, you know, suffering isn't is a complicated situation. You know, it's just how long you wanna stay there, right? How long do you wanna live in the pity party and how do you wanna leave?

You know? And it's your party. You can cry if you wanna, right? So don't feel bad. But you know, staying there, and we've all seen people that stay there. We've seen the people that suffer needlessly for a very long time. I had one client who had a boyfriend who died 20 years ago. Love of her life, it's awful,

but it's all she ever talked about. And she just stayed stuck. She never got married, she never had kids. She had this one poor dachshund that she tortured because she just was empty and just like made this poor dog crazy because, I don't know, I think she just needed something to love and dote on, right? And in a healthy way.

And we see that in our clients. You know, it's, it's easier to point it out in a client than it is for us. And so just give yourself some grace guys, you know? So that was today's topic. I hope that was useful to you guys. You know, it's all about what is imposter syndrome. And we talked a little bit also about some other mental health topics.

So let's go ahead and start talking about three business principles. I learned the hard way now when I was thinking about a topic to do today,

I wanted to do something that might be a little, it was a little bit hard for me to figure out how to package this. And these were three different things that I really had to learn the hard way. And I hope that you can avoid learning the hard way personally. So number one is going to be to know your audience. I know this sounds kinda like a loaded question,

but how often do you guys think about who you're talking to? Are they a professional, you know, business professional? Are they an employee? Are they a grooming professional? Who are you talking to when you're doing things and what is their value system? I was talking today with one of my coaching clients and we were talking about how she is doing mobile,

very ex, very exclusive, like all small pets under 20 pounds. And her dog haircut started $120. And part of the things that she was talking about was how can, how can I work on converting people that are saying I'm too expensive? And one of the most important things I said to her was for her to know her audience. Is this somebody who is willing to change their mind?

Is this somebody who's going to be convinced? Probably not. We used the example of when I was growing up, I had, we had a little dog. He was, he looked like a, his name was Benji. He looked kinda like a P V G V and he got shaved once a year. I don't think there's anything you could have told my mom growing up.

You could have told her they were washing that dog battery acid. I don't think she'd care. Not because she didn't love Benji, but because she wasn't very wealthy and it wasn't, it wasn't something she could worry about. She was having enough time putting food on the table for her three kids, nevermind getting the pet groomed. So with that, I want you to think about is it worth trying to convince these people?

Is it worth trying to educate these people? What are the things that you're doing on a daily basis and do they make sense? You know, when you're knowing your audience, what's, if there, you know, is there something going on? They need to take a step back and go, okay, who is it that I'm talking to? You know,

who is it that I'm talking to? What do they value? You know, should I continue on this or is this just a waste of my time? And I know that sounds kind of unfair because it really sucks to go, why am I wasting my time? But sometimes you just are. Sometimes no matter what you say, no matter what you do,

you're not going to change their mind. They're not gonna, they're not gonna see your side of the conversation. They're just not going to. So it doesn't make any sense to continue being like a broken record. I see this happen a lot with you guys that are talking about a client who is not your ideal client or your soulmate client. They are just a client that won't listen to you.

And if you take a step back and you've said something over and over and over again and go, okay, who is my audience? What is their value system? Do they care? Probably not. And that's probably just putting yourself in a bad situation. And I don't think that makes any sense. Now you can keep doing it. I learned that the hard way.

I'd like you to be able to take that knowledge and be able to be more flexible like that. Alright, so number two, trust but verify. I thought this was a great aha moment. And basically what I realized was that yes, I should trust what my clients are saying. Yes, I should trust what other groomers are telling me. Yes,

I should trust what the vet is saying, but I need to verify that. And what ends up happening is a lot of times we just trust someone's word or we trust someone's integrity. For instance, if you get a check from a client, you know you're trusting that they are gonna cash that. You know, make sure it's for the right amount.

Make sure when you get money it's for the right amount. Yes, trust, but make sure you verify what they're doing. I can't tell you how many times I see in posts on Facebook groups talking about how someone shorted them some money, how someone wrote money out for the wrong amount. And this of course could be just a mistake, but it also could be someone seeing what they can get away with.

Another great example of trust but verify is in vet notes. Recently I was talking to one of my cat groomer friends and she mentioned that she had one of the most matted cats she's ever done. She's done thousands and thousands and thousands of cats. Like she's groomed thousands of cats. And this is one of the most matted cats she's ever groomed. Now,

when she got the vet notes, the cat had been to the vet within the last couple of weeks, it mentioned nothing about the matting. And to me that's really weird. If I'm a veterinarian and I get a cat in and the cat is basically a turtle shell, you'd think that I would put some notes in something. But they didn't put any notes on the cat's health.

They mentioned the cat had a little bit of dry skin, but mostly healthy. Well that dry skin was a pelt and lots of dead skin cells. So again, she got a vet report saying a cat was mostly healthy except a little dry skin, which she instead got was this incredible turtle shell. So again, trust what the vet says, but verify.

Now if she had just promised that customer based on those vet notes said, oh, the vet is saying the cat's not matted, no big deal, well then she could've gotten herself in a lot of trouble 'cause she would've had this cat and it's a much more expensive groom 'cause it's pelted versus if the cat was just a little bit dry skin, right?

Same thing with your employees. You wanna make sure that they are doing what you say, but double check their work. One of the biggest things I see happening with you guys with employees is that you just trust them is implicitly, which is great until something goes wrong. For instance, even when I'm grooming, I like to take before and afters. If I had somebody in the van with me,

I would love to see them double check my work. Why? Because I'm not perfect. And they're gonna notice something that I didn't see. 'cause I've been looking at it too long, right? One of my favorite things about when I had my shop was that we would have, the receptionist was the one who would verify or double check the dogs. It was so nice because what would happen is when you're a groomer and you're done,

you're on the fence of like, am I done? Am I not done? Like when's good enough? They could go ahead, put the dog away, the receptionist would come out, look at the dog and say, you know what, can you just soften this line? Or you know what? This hair had fluffed out, can you fix this?

And it allowed her, the receptionist to both trust that groomer and know that she's not gonna do something outrageous. She's not gonna forget a whole leg, although I have done that one Thanksgiving. But she's going to go ahead and look at what's going on. And the same thing with our customers, right? You wanna trust them, you wanna verify. And then we have number three.

Number three is accuracy matters. It's really easy to understand why accuracy matters when we're grooming. You know, if you're not accurate, i e, if you do a crap job, then it's gonna be really obvious. It's really uncomfortable watching some people who their grooms are just way off the mark as a mediocre dog groomer. I'm not really one to like judge another groomer,

but there are some grooms that I'm like, is this the rough cut? Is this an owner groom? And it's not even a new groomer, it's just somebody who I don't know if they didn't, they just don't have any skills or what it is. But the problem with that is that this is what you're selling. You're, and again, I don't think there's a big difference between having competition level grooming.

So yeah, accuracy matters. We're selling haircuts. We wanna have a good haircut. You don't need the world's best haircut. Although that is definitely a marketing opportunity for you guys if you guys do have those. But there has to be a level and a standard and you have to decide what that level and standard is. What is good enough? What is accurate,

right? Also, when you're putting in notes, accuracy matters. When you put in a dog's age, it may not matter. Now, for instance, like obviously if it's a rescue dog, there's nothing you can do. But if you put in an age, let's say, of two years old when the pet is five, that doesn't matter right now,

but it is gonna matter when the pet is eight, it's gonna, you know, we're gonna see you say, okay, this pet is this much older. It matters with weight, with your accuracy. Now it may not matter for something as simple as a bath or blow dry, but things like, if you ever, now not many groomers do this anymore,

but I know 10 years ago when I started grooming, people would do a lot of spot on treatments and accuracy matters. If the vet does not put in the right weight of that pet, you could accidentally overdose that dog. So I know that does, it's not as popular now, but I remember when that was like a big deal, mostly because it was like when birth control came out,

everyone's like, woo hoo, we're not gonna have to deal with fleas and ticks ever again. I mean, it was amazing. It was just this mind blowing technology. So accuracy matters, you know the right name, calling someone by the right name, calling a pet by the right name. Now, did I ever do that? Oh yeah, definitely.

Do you have any Bellas? We had, and we have, we're in Patriots, new England Patriots place, the football team, we had a lot of Brady's, we had a lot of poppies for like big poppy who's from the Red Sox. We have a lot of maxes. So it's really important to write down which max is getting which haircut and making sure that whatever you put the right leash in the right dog thing,

when you are inaccurate, you are opening up your business to problems. And I know this seems really obvious, but a lot of gut, listen, no judgment. A lot of you guys start getting sloppy, you get tired and you start getting sloppy. And the problem with getting sloppy is the fact that what ends up happening, good, bad, or indifferent,

you are going to end up with a situation where something goes wrong, just horribly wrong. Yeah, I'm sure you guys have heard of the instances where someone sends home the wrong dog, where a salon gives the wrong haircut to the wrong dog. Like let's say there's two max the be ons, one is getting a five strip and one is getting a face,

feet standing. It's really important to know which max is which and what they're getting. 'cause if you don't, you're gonna have one really pissed off customer. You know, as somebody who just shaved her own dog. It's one of those things that, you know, if I had given this haircut to the wrong dog, that owner would not be very happy.

You know, it never, it never happens the other way. It never happens that the dog getting the five strip only gets the face feet, Sandy, that's not what happens. What always happens is the dog getting the face feet, Sandy gets the five strip. So again, remember, accuracy matters. So these are the three business principles I learned the hard way,

and I hope, again, I know they're kind of like, well duh, but you know what? A lot of times they creep up on us. Know your audience. Know who you're talking to and why it matters. Are you just talking to a wall? Do they really care or are you, and are you talking to them in the way that they should be talked to?

A lot of times we use all these terminologies and we assume they have the knowledge of groomers. You know, they don't understand mad, they don't, they don't understand breeds, they don't understand coat colors and types. You know, yelling at your owner to brush their dog more when they don't know how to brush. You don't. You're not listening to your audience.

Your audience does not know how to properly brush their dog. They may say they do, but let's be honest, most of them don't. Two, trust but verify. We can keep using the brush analogy. How many times have we heard a customer say, yes, I brushed my dog. You touched the dog. Right? You don't just take their word for it.

You touch the dog and you find out that doesn't happen, right? Didn't happen. And then accuracy matters. Make sure you are meticulous. Now you're only human. You're only human, so you're gonna make mistakes. But focusing on being accurate, not perfect, but accurate will help you grow your business in a way that you're going to be able to relax it a little bit.

As you have employees, it's important to set that standard of excellence and accuracy because if they slip up a little bit, they're gonna slip up more often than you. Why? Because if they really were that amazing, let's be honest, they'd own their own business. They're either young or they're just, you know, a little sloppy. Artistic people tend to be a little sloppy.

It just is what it is. I think that sometimes we expect too much of people and then sometimes we set them up to fail, you know? But it's important you know, to write down things. It's important to make sure what you're doing is correct, accurate, and written the right way, or communicated the right way. This was three business principles I learned the hard way.

So what today's River Rant is about is that I was actually on, I was just in Facebook, you know, me, just troll, not trolling, Facebook like strolling through Facebook rather. And there was a comment talking about animal behavior college. Now, as you guys may or may not know, I've done a whole video on animal behavior college, not really saying if it's a good program or a bad program, but if it works for you as a potential employer.

And I think there's just so much misunderstanding about being an employer and what does that mean? I feel like so often the industry just says things like, just be an employer. Like just hire a bather. Like it's so easy, right? Like you should just be able to magically just be able to go out there and hire someone willy-nilly. And what I noticed is that there's all these common threads that people are posting when it comes to saying like, what makes 'em a good employer, right? Because there's only two ways to get an employee, right? It's either build your own from scratch, right? Or bribe someone enough that they're gonna come over to your side of the table. And that's not easy, right? It's not easy to have somebody come over, right? 

Because if they're happy in their job, if they're stable in their job, they like the clientele, right? They're pretty cozy. And if they're really cozy, why would they then turn around? Right? And for better or for worse, leave their comfy cozy job and come to yours. There has to be something better on the other side. The grass has to be greener. Now, what Gen Z and millennials want is generally not more money.

It's not. There's this huge lie that, you know, they only want money. I I can't offer them enough money. No. First of all, you can't, because if you offer someone more money, they will just go somewhere and get more money, right? I remember having an employee tell me they were gonna leave me over a dollar an hour.

And I said, you'd let me know I would give the $8 an hour. And they were very right. They said, well, if you were gonna gimme more than another dollar an hour, you should just given it to me. And so that's when I realized that it doesn't matter how much more you give people for dollar amounts, they'll always want more.

Some of that is lack of budgeting. Some of that is just for better, for worse, right? Having people that really aren't, you know, they always want more, right? So it's the groomer mentality. So let's talk about that, right? Let's talk about employees and what we can do about that. So I got in the mail and I wanted to do this grant anyway,

So this said head start is hiring. So I got this randomly in the mail. It literally says, postal customer, it's not even addressed to me. They have no idea who I am. It's literally bought a bunch of addresses and sent it to me, right? So they said, headstart is hiring a thousand dollars sign-on bonus offered teacher, teacher assistance, family advocate, therapeutic integration, specialist substitutes. So send your resume, go hire, write. This is Headstart. Join our team. Start your rewarding career path with East Bay Community Action Programs. Head Start. We're seeking passionate individuals who want to make a difference in child children's lives. You'll be part of supportive work environment with competitive ways, tuition reimbursement, and a competitive benefit packages. So they deal with children from birth to age five. Now, when we think about it, right? When we think about when, when we're offering things to people, our jobs are not sig, they're more skilled, I would agree, but they're not harder than taking care of infant children.

So this company's offering a thousand dollars sign-on bonus tuition reimbursement, right? And benefits. That's a lot. That's a lot to compete with, with somebody who is not right? They're not invested. If they're not invested in a grooming career, we can't compete with them. Also, chick-fil-A, chick-fil-A recently was in the drive-through. 'cause I'm bad. They're offering their key holders where I'm at, not managers key holders, $30 an hour, right? Plus benefits. And they offer all these other things, right? We are now competing with McDonald's, with Chick-fil-A with other places. You know, the higher minimum wage goes up, the harder it is for us to compete, right?

Because for better or for worse, when you look at this, you realize that this used to be considered a shit job, right? You'd be like, I don't wanna be a daycare worker. They make no money, there's no benefits, there's no this, there's no that. And now they're doing that, right? The reason nobody wanted to work at McDonald's is because it was a terrible pay. There was no benefits, right? And now they're getting those things. And we're a skilled labor.

We are a skilled trade, and we need to be treated as such. And what I'm finding is that a lot of employers almost wanna hire McDonald's workers. They wanna hire Chick-fil-A workers, right? And they wanna treat them as such and, and then they're wondering why they can't find them. Now, I'm not saying they're treating them poorly. I'm not saying they're intentionally doing these things.

So give you, in my silly dating analogy, forgive me as somebody who's been s slogging myself through the dating pool. And first of all, I'm not everyone's soulmate either. I'm perfectly fine, perfectly fine not being everyone's soulmate. But what was really interesting was that I found that a lot of the things that men were saying really didn't resonate with me.

Right? So they would be like things like, oh, I have a car. I'm like, well, if you're in your thirties, forties, or fifties, I hope you have your own car. We're in an area where having a car's fairly normal, I have a job. Okay? So you have a job and you have transportation to have a job.

It is not uncommon for somebody who's 30, 40 or 50 in my area to live at home or have roommates. So they'd be like, I have my own place. It's like, okay, but do you own that place? Or do you, you know, do you rent that place? And you know, are you spending a lower amount of your money in order to save up and buy your own place?

Right? So basically they're like, I'm nice, I have a car, I have a job. And it's like, okay, is that it? And they're like, well, yeah. Like I, I, I have a car, I have a job. And so I deserve you as my girlfriend. And it's just so interesting. 'cause again, it's not about the money, right? It's not about having someone be rich, right? So again, in this analogy, you as an employer, you're saying, you know, I pay W two, I have nice clients. I'm, I'm a nice employer, you should just come work for me. It's like, okay, well so does everyone else.

And you might be like, well, no, there's lots of 10 99. And that's like that guy saying, well, no, there's lots of really crappy men out there. It's like, okay, but I'm not looking, you know, you are not competing with the crepe if you are a good employer, right? And I mean, good as in standard, right? The standard as an industry should be, you pay W two, you pay a livable wage, you're kind to your employees, right? These should be normal standardized things. And as Gen Z is coming up into the grooming industry, they're not used to all of the potential problems that a lot of us millennials, our Gen X or our boomers dealt with, right? You can't verbally abuse your employees anymore. Like I remember it was very common 15 years ago that your employer would basically verbally abuse you, right? That's not so common anymore. And people aren't gonna stand for it. They're gonna leave 'cause they have options. So when you're, you know, standard and you're pointing down to what we would consider below standards, that doesn't make me more likely to wanna work with you, it makes me go, well, yeah, this is what I deserve. And so if your job is either to build a groomer, if you're gonna have employees, you're gonna need to build a groomer or basically bribe them away from somebody else, right? So if you think about that, right?

It's basically like you either need to take someone who's single and tell them all the reasons that you're wonderful and why they should consider investing in this. Or you need to have somebody who's already in a relationship and basically be so amazing they break up with their current employer and leave them for you. Now, there's some wackiness when it comes to the relationship analogy.

So, you know, I apologize, I'm not saying be a homewrecker, et cetera, but a lot of you guys don't realize when you are bribing these groomers away from their employers, you essentially are an employer homewrecker. And that's okay. You know why? Because again, maybe that wasn't the right working relationship for them. Maybe they are gonna be significantly happier with you.

But that said, you have to be prepared to do that. And if you can't, if you're just a standard kind of grooming business, then you have to get really good at something now as someone who's been really, you know, single for a long time. And a lot of that honestly is by choice at this point, just because the dating pool is very difficult.

The same as the employment market. And it's been really nice to get to know me, right? And I almost feel like I wish a lot of you guys as an employers would really take a step back and get to know you as a business, as a, as a boss, right? As a leader. Who are you as a leader? What do you want in these relationships, both with your clients and then with that, you need to grow, right? A lot of us get stuck in the scenario where we start by having a relationship with our clients, right? This very one-on-one relationship. When we bring in this other groomer and we're now an employer, we have to have the clients attached to the business, right? They can't be attached to me, the boss, me, the groomer owner. I need them to be attached to the business that way they know anyone who comes into the business, you can trust. Doggy daycares do this very, very well, right? You know, you can meet the, the daycare owner, you can trust them, you can like them, but you know anyone who watches your dog you trust, right? So this is again, right where you also notice, right, that that per right, that person in that doggy daycare, you know any, they're gonna have other people handling your dog and you're not gonna meet them all. And that's perfectly normal as a grooming industry, we need to shift towards that. The way that we do hiring ads is just ridiculous as an industry.

They're either like super, super sticky, cutesy, like, you see corporate doing this. It's almost defensive the way that a lot of corporates talk about our industry. It's like, haven't you always wanted to make poodles runway ready? It's like, hmm, we're a skilled trade that deserves respect. Or it's like, yo, we're hiring. I mean, again, right? We wanna create a a d, you know, a basically a dating profile, right? And those are hard too, because some people wanna know a lot of information, but some people just wanna know the highlights. It gets really tricky. But that's a whole nother conversation. But I agree. I think that when we're creating these hire, if you notice too, and the reason I use this is 'cause this is actually really good. This is, this was, someone was paid to create this. And you could tell the copy on this is really solid.

'cause if you notice, when you look at the average grooming for hire post, we wanna list out everything they have to do. It's like, how do you feel like picking up poop? How do you feel about being bitten? Like, you know, like we're almost talking them out of being in our industry. And I also see that same weird dynamic in general. I see so often that groomers will complain about how awful and miserable grooming is, and then be like, why can't I hire anyone?

It's like, well, which is it? Is this a grueling, difficult, awful job that no one should ever join? Or is it a rewarding career? You can't live in both worlds. Now you can say it's a like, okay, like being a mom, like a human mom, right? My sister has an almost two year old. That kid is just a lot.

You know? Yes, it is difficult, but if you notice the way you frame it, you're gonna scare people away. Like if you listen to people, and again, no, no disrespect you do you, if you listen to people that do not want children that talk about why they don't want kids, it's the same or similar language, then somebody who is talking, you know about the grooming industry, right? And the people that are saying they don't want kids, they don't want kids, right? They're talking, they're explaining why they don't want kids. And they're almost trying to convince others of why they shouldn't maybe want kids. And I think too often the way we talk about our industry, and it is a di it is a weird dynamic, right? Because it is really hard. It is really this, okay, well if it's all those things, then why would you want someone to come into this industry not get benefits and make the same as somebody managing a Chick-fil-A or not even managing, just being a key holder at Chick-fil-A. Why would you do that? So you have to be very careful, right? You have to find that balance. And it's not easy because again, over and over and over again, we keep creating these scenarios that bite ourself in the foot. So in this ad, it talks about all the benefits, right? Of working for the company, not why you shouldn't or what disqualifies you, right? And we do get a lot of people interested in becoming a groomer and they don't understand.

But that's again, where we can use certain tools to our advantage. Things like animal behavior college. Now, I don't particularly love the program and I don't know enough about the program to give an honest review of it, but I will say this is that you get over a hundred hours for free trying someone out, you get to train them your way,

you get to bring them into the fold as a recipe groomer. And then if it doesn't work out, you don't have to hire them. And I think I've done, I've done the math before, but really quickly. So I wanna say, and I'm hoping I'm not lying here, I believe it's 150 hours worth of grooming. So at 150 hours, right? And my state is $13 an hour minimum wage. So if I were to pay someone 150 hours at $13 an hour, that is $1,950. So I get to try somebody out for $1,950. And if they don't work out, I don't have to hire them. Otherwise I even at minimum wage, I would've had to hire them. I would've still paid that money, right? I would've still paid that money. So this gives us an opportunity to do that. And on the flip side, right, we get to be able to try out being a teacher and being an employer. I think a lot of us are very confused on our long-term goals with hiring and managing a staff. I think it's never been a better time to consider solo entrepreneurship, at least until you really get your clientele down. Whether that's in a membership model, whether that is building a clientele that trusts you, you know, as in the business. Like I trust the business, not necessarily personally you. I think that's a great opportunity. So in that analogy, right, of the dating, it's kind of like if you had your parents meet every person you dated, and if you guys that did not magically meet the love of your life when you were 15, I'm unfortunately one of those people, you know, you did have to date a lot of people to find the right person, right? You have to. So for every 10 dates, right? 10 dates, I'm gonna get one person, right? Who I wanna go on a second or a third date.

And sometimes it's less, but that's because I've invested a lot of time in the beginning of it, right? And that's your hiring process. You know, if, if I match someone on a dating app and I spend two months talking to them, right? And then we go on a first date, that first date has significantly higher likelihood of having a second or third date.

Absolutely. But I've also invested all of that time, right? So that's where the savvy groomer, we teach you guys a lot of hiring techniques in the higher masterclass we already teach you. You know, you should have, there's, there's a four step process. You need to have a 15 minute phone call. Do you actually like this person? We need to have an in-person neutral territory.

We need to have a, a skill assessment, and then we need to have a working interview. And when you go through all of that, yes, you'll have significantly less turnover. Why? Because you've invested a lot of time in hiring that person. So if you want less turnover, you'll have to invest a lot of time and energy into the hiring process.

And I think a lot of you guys are like, but I don't wanna do all that. It's like, okay, well then you gotta hire them and find out the hard way, right? There's just too many ways of how to deal with that. One thing I had mentioned to this person is, you know, being, doing exit interview. So if you're gonna do an exit interview, what happened there? What was that conversation? You know, why did they leave? Did they leave you over more money? Did they leave you over the grooming industry? Just wasn't for them. Did they leave? Because, you know, maybe the perfect clientele that you have is not their soulmate clients, right? I remember, you know, many moons ago, and it's not legal obviously, but I worked for a woman for free for six months after grooming school. 'cause I needed to gain some skillset. And all she did was poodles and schnauzers. That's all she did. She did poodles in, in, you know, English saddle cuts and continentals, and she hated schnauzer cuts, not schnauzer. She did schnauzer hand strip planks.

So I got really good at hand stripping, and I got really good at following grooming patterns and I hated it. I'm like, I just wanna zone out, do one length all over, not sit there and go, okay, how high should I put this line? Where does this, what's the dog's confirmation? I didn't like it at all. It was not for me, right? So it had nothing to do with her. It had everything to do with me in that I wasn't the right fit for that business. Right? And again, sometimes it takes time to find that out. It's like dating, you might not find out for six months that this person is not the right person for you. So when we go on an exit interview, was it just I didn't ask the right questions during the interview? Was it that they changed and they grew and they learned something different? Right? And that can happen a thousand percent. I think one thing we have to remember is that it takes two years to build a solid groomer who can be by themselves and we can trust them, right? With not anything, but most things, like most things, depending upon how much you've invested in them, but it, they leave after five. The average person in our industry leaves after five years. Now, I don't know if that is from the time of bathing or if that's the time of finished grooming, but that's the statistic that I found. Also. 70% of the grooming industry is under the age of 40.

I'm gonna say that again. 70% of the grooming industry is under the age of 40. How many of you guys think that 30% is a majority of grooming business owners? 30% of our industries over the age of 40? Which means that, you know, and again, I don't have the stat of how many of those people are business owners, but what I will tell you is that I, if it's, if it's less than half, I would be shocked. Most of the people I know that are over 40, and they are still grooming, either do it as a hobby or they own their own business. I don't meet a ton of women over 40 who don't want to be business owners in the sense that they're like, listen, if I am getting older and I don't wanna groom as much, I'm not gonna make as much, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So they open their own shop. So if your goal is to have low turnover, well, okay, well, unless if you catch someone when they're 18, 19, 20, right? The reality is that you're not gonna have them forever. You might have them for five years if they decide to stay in the industry.

Or maybe you'll have them for 10 years before they decide to go out on their own. Maybe after three years they go decide to go out on their own.