Greedy Bitch

Today’s episode is sponsored by the Membership Model Masterclass, a 6 module masterclass where we teach you all about creating and implementing a membership.

I want to start by talking about the different niches that you can go into, and they’re not always mobile or feline-exclusive. You can also do one-on-one, which is one pet start to finish at a time. You can do housecall, which means going into someone’s home to groom their pets. You may also have high-end grooming. By high-end grooming, I mean you have a skillset whether that’s handstripping, scissor cuts, proper poodle patterns, etc.

Mobile Grooming

Let’s talk about the price difference. So when you’re doing mobile, you know that you’re pretty much going to be grooming every pet start to finish. Most mobiles are cage free - they do not have kennel banks. They’re generally not kennel drying.

That client is not getting just a groom, they’re also getting one on one attention, they don’t have to leave their driveway, they’re pet is cage free, so they're going to have to pay me more.

So since I’m mobile, I’m going to be grooming less clients, which means I have less clients, which means I have to charge more.

When I had my grooming salon, I would charge an average Shih Tzu getting a 5F all over $55. Anything more than that would be $65 and even up to $75.

When I went mobile, I started my dog prices at $79. That was for the first hour. Being mobile, I had to charge $20 more at least, realistically. This is because I am going to be grooming less pets.

Housecall

You have to carry everything you want into someone’s home, and use whatever they have in order to groom. That’s incredibly difficult.

The truth is that you have to charge even more sometimes because a van is designed to be clean and just work. So if you are going into someone’s home, you might be using their sink, on their floor, bent over the tub. You might have to clean their entire bathroom because there’s pet hair everywhere. You have to do more work, therefore, you need to charge more.

Not only does the owner not even have to get out of the house, they don’t even have to go out at all, they don’t have to bring their pet to the driveway. A lot of housecall groomers allow the owner to watch. I mean, that’s a nice thing to have if you’re that kind of owner. This is great for your geriatric pets, or those who have car ride issues. This is also great for dogs who may be neurotic and they’ll do better at home.

Feline Exclusivity

This means only grooming cats.

So in my mobile I was charging dogs $79 for the first hour and then $1 a minute after that, based on 15 minute increments, so realistically $80-$102. Now for cats I started at $100 and the most expensive, except for rare cases, was $165.

I had cats who got baths, cats who got comb cuts which is similar to a 5F on a dog, and lion cuts which is where the cat is shaved strategically, kind of like a lion. Now these limited services are great for me, and it’s great for marketing. It’s great for not confusing my clients.

I was also a Certified Feline Master Groomer, so I was able to charge more for my skillset, as well as being mobile. The more niches you have, the more you can charge. Because of this I was able to go from an average ticket of $90 to $125.

One-On-One Grooming

This is a specialized service. This is because some shops have everyone drop off in the morning and then everyone is done by the end of the day. Other shops have appointments cycling through all day. Some places take 2 hours, some take 4 hours.

So with a client that doesn’t want their dog in a “cage”, or a client that doesn’t want their pet for more than an hour to two hours, would appreciate this specialized service.

If you are checking in and out, cleaning and sanitizing, it’ll probably take you about an hour to groom a Shih Tzu getting a 5F.

So in an eight hour shift, at best, you’re going to be able to get eight dogs done. But realistically, you’re going to get done between 5 and 6, because not every dog is going to be cookie-cutter, not every client is going to be picking up right away. There’s always going to be these little bits of overlap.

With that said, you have to charge more. I would even suggest having a deposit of the groom price the very first time they come in. So if you’re charging $79, I would have a deposit of $79. This is because if they don’t show up you still get paid. If they don’t show up you didn’t get paid and you won’t be able to call somebody to come before your next dog comes in.

Now for a regular client, you could have a $20 deposit, whatever you want to make your cancellation policy ultimately.

Cage-Free Grooming

I mean dogs running around like in daycare. I think this works great in theory. I do also think it’s an incredible amount of liability.

If you want to offer cage-free grooming, that is a great way to sell your services. You can market that their pet isn’t in a cage all day. People, for some reason, can put their dog in a crate all day at home, but then when you put a dog in a crate at a grooming salon it’s suddenly torture.

Now what else would those people want to see? They’d probably want to see their dog playing, so you can create marketing for that.

You can definitely charge more for this service because generally those dogs are going to be there all day playing in daycare. By the time they get home they’re going to be exhausted and happy.

The more niched down you get, the more specific of a client you are going to get, and that client will pay more. Realistically, you can add $20-$30 more than your typical groom.

Grooming from Home

If you have a house in a place that you can legally have a grooming salon in your house.

So you have to think about who the client is that wants their pet to go into someone’s home that contains a grooming salon area. So who is this client and why will they pay more? This client will pay more money simply because they feel like your home is more cozy, you’re going to take better care of their animal, perhaps the owner can stay, etc.

That client is more than happy to pay double, if not triple sometimes, to be able to stay there with their pet while they don’t have to worry about hair being all over their house.

If you guys are interested in learning more about the Membership Model Masterclass, be sure to visit me at savvygroomer.com/mm. This is a 6 module masterclass where we teach you how to create and implement your membership model, including knowing your clientele, perfecting your pricing, and handling client reactions.

We also offer a free membership model workshop where you can decide if a membership model is right for you and your business. You can access this by visiting savvygroomer.com/mw. Thank you all so much for listening to this podcast, Riches are in the niches.

Be sure to visit me at SavvyGroomer.com to see my current opportunities to work with me in growing your pet grooming business plus more free resources for you to learn. See you in our free community on Facebook - Savvy Pet Professionals (facebook.com/groups/savvygroomer)! As always, Happy Grooming

 Listen to your market

If there’s one thing that holds promising entrepreneurs back from launching their grooming

business, it’s this: a lack of confidence in their skills- beyond grooming. Sure, you think that you can make more grooming for yourself, but how do you know if people will walk in the door?

Imagine spending weeks, months, even years of time—plus the cost of a salon build out (or grooming van), marketing materials, grooming supplies and all the other pieces that go along with it—only to discover it’s not what your soul mate client wants or needs. How frustrating would that be?

You don’t have to leave it to chance, though. There are plenty of ways to test your idea

before spending the time, energy and money going out on your own.

Ask, and Listen

This is the simplest way to get a feel for what your market needs and wants. Simply ask them in casual conversation.  Depending on where you work and who you work for this may be difficult… Don’t do this if you don’t have permission to! 

Do this in a respectful way or make sure that you are asking questions that are cumulative over time.
For best results, keep it short, but do ask:

These three pieces will give you insights of your soul mate client.

Unfulfilled Requests

If you have a community (or are part of one) of ideal clients, pay attention to what

they’re asking about the most. These are the things the market is searching for. For example, if you’re a groomer who enjoys grooming cats and your salon gets calls all day long for cat grooming, clearly there is a need for a cat groomer in that area.

The same thing goes for Doodles. If you’re getting calls all day for Doodles, ask yourself: Do you want to specialize in Doodles? Now, for some of us, that’s not something we want to do. Maybe you’re like, even though there’s a market for it, there’s lots of people calling for cat grooming and doodle grooming but I don’t want that to be what I do. So make sure that these unfulfilled requests are also in line with what makes you happy. Don’t just pick something because there’s a need for it. Pick something that you value and there’s a need for it. 

Study Your Competition

Hopefully you have a list of competitors and you’re following them on facebook, and paying attention to their salon’s reviews. Or their Instagram. This is a great way to gain insight into what they’re doing—not to copy them, but to discover what’s working and what’s not.  Learn what they may like to do and what they seem to avoid.

Consider reaching out to them. Again, you should never copy them, but you may want to create potential professional relationships.  Always attempt to have a community over competition mindset, rarely are groomers competing over the same clients...  Encouraging clients to stick with one groomer is easier when everyone knows everyone and everyone is on friendly terms.

And I understand not everyone is going to be willing to be your friend. I understand not everyone is going to be willing to reach out and create that. But it’s nice if you’re the first person. You can always leave that lifeline open in case they ever change their mind. There are a lot of old school groomers who are afraid to share and the more we create this community the better it’s going to be. The other thing I want to notice is, is your competition fulfilling those unfulfilled requests? Or do you notice that they’re getting a lot of bad reviews from those requests that you’re noticing? For instance, again, if you have cat grooming or if you’re interested in cat grooming and you’re noticing that your competition/community is getting a lot of negative reviews for their cat grooming. This may be an even bigger indicator that you could fulfill that request for your community.  

Of course, take that with a grain of salt because, as we know, there are certain clientele that are far more likely to leave negative Yelp reviews. So take that with a grain of salt.

Set the Bar on “Minimum” Services

Creating services in a vacuum is a great way to waste a lot of time and money on services that don’t actually make money. Instead, pay attention to what your market is asking for, find

out what they’re willing to pay, and break down per hour what you need to charge.  If you need to charge $50/hour to run your shop but you charge $10 for a 15 minute nail trim it’s time to charge more or stop offering these standalone services.  The same goes for large breed dogs who aren’t being charged the same hourly rate as small dogs.  If a shih tzu takes me 1 hour and is charged $50, it’s good to charge a minimum of $100 for a husky de-shed that takes 2 hours.

You may say, like, okay, those are comparable. But we’re not taking into account the extra effort, the extra cleanup, the possible need for having a second person for a larger dog. This is also where we like to teach the point system. Because straight hourly is not an effective way for you to go ahead and charge all of these things. It’s going to be really important for you to go ahead and make sure that you are charging based upon the time, care and attention each pet requires. 

The information you gain from these activities alone will give you incredible insight

into your market and what you need and what they want, before you consider going out on your own!

That said, if you are currently in business, and you don’t have a ton of soulmate clients, or if you’re on the journey of doing that - you are on the journey of finding your soulmate clients. Ask your current clients these questions. Go ahead and ask them why they choose your salon, you can always send this out as an email survey. Ask them to rank them potentially from a scale of 1-5, what is the most important thing: location, reputation, atmosphere, style of grooming, or price. Price is really important too. Because if all of your clients are picking you because of your pricing, I hate to say it this way, but you’re doing it wrong. And that is the worst case scenario. If the only reason people choose you is because of your price, that leads itself to a problem when you have to eventually increase your prices. Because everyone has to raise their prices between inflation, real estate prices going up. It costs more money to live.

You might ask them what is their preferred way to be contacted. If you find out that most of your clientele prefer to have a phone call and your goal is to really streamline your business and take that pressure off of you, you may not have your soulmate clients. And again, ask them, what they really value or what they feel like is the best value that they get from your business. If it’s just the haircut, then you want to consider am I pricing appropriately for the haircut I’m giving. And I don’t believe, The Savvy Groomer as a whole, does not believe that a better haircut is the way we make the most money. I think it’s honestly, for better or worse, is one of the last things that clients want. Of course they want an adequate haircut. But if your clients want the best haircut that’s a very vain client and most of us don’t have the emotional energy to train our new groomers to get our groomers to the same level if we have a particular style or a particular skillset. Something that could have taken us 10 years, now we’ve got to train somebody to also have that same level of skill, or hire somebody with that same level of skill. 

Start paying attention to unfulfilled requests in your shop. Or things that you’re being called for. Maybe start tracking what people are calling for. Are they calling for last minute appointments? Are they calling for Saturday appointments? What are these things that they’re calling for, that either you can’t accommodate right now, but you’re noticing an increase of? 

Of course, look at your local community, and reach out to them. Ask them, what do you love to do? What do you specialize in? It might be something you don’t like doing. If you don’t like grooming cats and don’t like grooming doodles, find somebody who will take them. And on the flipside, maybe you don’t like doing shih tzus and yorkies. Maybe they don’t like doing Cocker Spaniels. I had this one groomer that loved grooming cocker spaniels, and she loved grooming Goldens. Or maybe you love grooming Wheatens. You’d rather groom a Wheaten than a doodle. Creating this community is going to allow you to do this. Also if you had to consider increasing your prices on things like those doodles, it may be a great time to call them and say, Hey, I’m going to be doubling or tripling my prices of doodles, just so you know you’re going to get a call from a lot of them. This is my current price. And you’re going to allow them to make their own decisions. But if they’re currently charging $80 to $100 for a doodle, and you’re going to be charging $200 minimum. Maybe they won’t go all the way up to $200 but they may consider going up to $150. And, again, that’s up to them to what they choose to do.

And setting these minimum services. Look through your services and ask yourself, am I really making any money? I really discourage walk in services. I don’t think that they’re good for our industry. I don’t think that most of us have the staff to accommodate these things. We used to have more groomers that would consider working for us. It’s getting harder and harder to find people that are competent and able to do these services, things like being available to do a walk in nail trim. Well, that means that I have to have a bather on staff who is not bathing and otherwise not preoccupied and otherwise not fully booked. You can do same day appointments if you want to have that availability. But really consider getting rid of those walk in services. And really ask yourself if these cheaper services really do an overall good, if they’re going to attract your soulmate client. I find that a lot of these services, like walk in nail trims, or these standalone face, feet, sannies, brush out services, they’re actually encouraging the opposite of your soulmate client. If your soulmate client wants a bath, blow dry, and a groom, every 4 weeks, why would they need a walk in or a standalone nail clip. If they’re getting groomed every 4 weeks, why would they need a brush out service? For better or worse, you guys know my feelings on face, feet, sannies. I think we are talking them out of getting an all over haircut. If you are getting a haircut service and you are using a groomer, I can’t give you a discount on my groomer’s services. Why? Because I’m taking money out of my pocket and their pocket and doing basically all of the same work, to save a customer a little bit of money. It’s just not good for groomer morale and it makes us work harder than we really need to. 

So consider all of these things if you are considering opening a business or if you currently own a business. Consider what are the best options for your market and what is your market trying to tell you and in retrospect what are you listening to. Stop paying attention to these fling clients. Start listening to what your soulmate clients want and start speaking back to them in a language that they will understand. 

If you’re interested in learning more about how to increase your prices and be able to find those soulmate clients, and charge what you’re worth, consider purchasing my Price Increase Masterclass. Go to savvygroomer.com/pimc. That’s going to allow you to check out what we’re currently offering and we would love to see you there.

Build a Business, Not a Job

Many people dream of working for themselves, being their own boss. They’d have the freedom to only take on the pets they love while turning away the clients that frustrate them.

What they don’t realize, though, is that there is a huge difference between building a business and being self-employed.

Business owners scale their income. Self-employed people trade dollars for hours.

Business owners leverage the skills and talents of others. Self-employed people rely only on their own skills.

Discouraged yet? Don’t be. Every business owner started out self-employed. It’s a very personal choice if you want to continue to stay there. These tips will help you build a sustainable business instead of just another job.

Don’t Try to Do It All Yourself

Building a sustainable business requires that you leverage the talents and time of others. While it might seem cost-effective to simply do everything yourself—especially in the start-up phase when you likely have more time than money—it’s a path to burnout and stress.

Instead, separate your tasks into those that you love and are especially suited for (such as marketing or customer service) and those you dislike and aren’t good at. (like cleaning kennels or book keeping) Then make a solid plan to get those that you aren’t good at off your list of things to do. If you feel like you can’t afford to outsource it all right now, start with what you tend to procrastinate the most on, even if it’s just a few hours each month.

Don’t Allow Yourself to Work All the Time

The trouble with working for yourself is that you live to work since there’s always work to do, it’s easy to find yourself working every available moment—often to the detriment of your family relationships.

You can help avoid this by:

Vacations and Downtime Are Important

Don’t create a business that requires you to be “at the shop” every day. At the start, you may need to be available more, but you should definitely be planning for the day when you can be “off the grid” for extended periods of time.

Have trusted employees or possibly a manager who can handle things when you’re not available. Leverage automation tools and systems that don’t require a person to be there. Create repeatable systems so you’re not always re-inventing the wheel While you might not be able to hit the road with no internet access for weeks at a time, at the very least you should be able to reduce your workload to a daily check-in.

Sound impossible? It’s not. With some forethought and planning, you can create a team—and the systems they need—to successfully run your business without becoming overwhelmed and overworked.

Too Many Clients, Too Little Time

Prospective clients are knocking down your door to get appointments and your phone is ringing off the hook with new business inquiries — congrats! While it might be stressful and confusing, having too many prospective clients and not enough time to take them on can be a good problem for a few reasons.

But you don’t want to let this problem go on for too long! If you don’t seize this opportunity appropriately, you could be turning away soulmate clients and missing opportunities to form new business relationships. So, how do you deal with this problem?

There are a few things to consider, so let’s break it down.

Assess what type of clients you have

The first thing to ask is, who are your soulmate clients? How many soulmate clients do you have?

If you don’t already know, I like to use a framework that puts clients into three categories:

Soulmate clients

Have the pet breed you want and like to groom

Are willing to pay your price

Come every 4 weeks

Provide an easy or enjoyable haircut

Ideal clients

Are not perfect but are pretty darn good

Fling clients

Call you when they need you and don’t get consistent grooms

Don’t have a meaningful business relationship with you

So, the first step is to look at your client list and put each client into one of these three categories. If you’d like, you can make a spreadsheet or literally print out a list of all of your clients and then sort them into each category. I like to use 3 colored highlighters and use one color for each category.

Then, take a look at the overall make up of your clientele and ask the following questions:

What category do the majority of your clients fall under?

How often is each client coming in for a groom?

Do any of them frequently cancel or give you trouble?

Of your soulmate clients, are there any underlying similarities that they all share? Do they fall under the same demographics?

Are you attracting your soulmate clients intentionally or did you just get lucky?

If you don’t have many soulmate clients, you can ask the following questions:

Are prospective clients not finding you?

Are you not marketing to your soulmate client market?

Does your business not stand out?

Is your business misaligned with your target market?

Are you not fulfilling the clients’ needs?

Raise your prices

Once you’ve finished categorizing your current client list and answering those questions, a good next step is to re-evaluate your business numbers and raise your prices.

It is important to raise your prices because since you can’t keep taking on more clients, you should pick higher quality clients instead (assuming that you don’t already have a full roster of soulmate clients). If you raise your prices, you will probably lose some clients, but you will be weeding out fling clients to make more room for more soulmate clients.

Raise the bar for entry

In addition to raising prices, you can also start interviewing clients, requiring an application before they make an appointment, mandating that all appointments are made online, setting certain conditions to make an appointment (like requiring them to commit to a 4-week groom schedule), or offering consultation grooms before taking on a new client.

That might sound like a lot, but since you might be working with your soulmate clients every month for years to come, it is important to pick clients that are the best fit for you. Adding these extra layers before taking on new clients helps you decide if you want to decide to commit to a long-term business partnership with someone and ultimately help you both in the long run. And again, it will help you weed out fling clients who don’t want to deal with the new parameters you set in place.

Invest in your relationships with your soulmate clients

You should choose to invest in your soulmate clients. Don’t commit to investing in subpar clients if they won’t give you something in return. And don’t turn away soulmate clients just because you’re already committed to a bad client!

I like to compare these business relationships to romantic relationships. If you’ve lived with a partner for 7 years but they don’t want to get married and commit to you, then you shouldn’t commit to them either! Go find someone better who values your worth.

It is not worth spending the effort to convince your fling clients that they need to spend the money on your services, because no amount of convincing will work on them. Instead, find the clients who value your work and will pay for your services without any extra convincing because they know the value.

Investing in soulmate clients can also help your business by improving the morale of your staff. By only working with pets that you want to work with, you can reduce the stress and fear that might come with grooming aggressive or difficult pets and help your staff enjoy coming to work. The more your staff loves their jobs, the longer they will stay with your business and the more excited they’ll be to go to work every day, and therefore the more your business will thrive.

Start a membership model

I am a huge fan of using a membership model. Membership models are a whole other topic that I can get into in another post, but the short of it is that they can help you find more soulmate clients who are willing to commit to a long-term business relationship with you. A membership model also makes it easy to start a waitlist for any prospective clients that you cannot take on at the moment but might have an opening for in the future.

Summary: What to do if you have too many clients and too little time

In summary, having too many prospective clients and too little time to take them all on can be a great opportunity to assess your overall client base and make adjustments that will improve your business.

Implementing changes like raising your prices, starting an application process, or creating a membership model can help you minimize the number of fling clients and maximize the number of soulmate clients. These changes will help you find clients who properly value the service and experience that you provide and who are therefore willing to pay a higher price and invest in a long-term business relationship with you so that you can thrive.

The ROI of Education for Pet Groomers

From college degrees to master groomer certifications, there is a lot of education options for pet groomers. But many people pay for education because they feel they should, not because it will actually help them make more money.

I’m going to share my thoughts on the ROI of different education options and help you figure out what is best for your business.

What is ROI?

ROI stands for “return on investment,” which is the amount of money you earn back relative to the cost of the investment. In more simple terms, ROI asks “how do you get your money back?”

If you invest $100 in something and it earns you $1,000 that might be a good ROI.

If you invest $100 and only get $105 back, that is not as good of an ROI.

ROI is a great measuring tool to help you decide whether an investment is worth it or not, but it depends on what your individual goals are.

I find that many groomers pay for education simply because they feel they should, not because it will help them make more money. If you’re considering getting more education, ROI can be a great tool to help you determine what options might be worthwhile for your business.

What kinds of education is there for pet groomers?

There are many different types of education, each with its own ROI. You need to know your own goals to figure out which type of education might have the best ROI for you.

College degree

Many people get a college degree. College can be a great option for many people, but do you need a business degree to run a grooming salon?

Each situation is unique, but most salon owners do not have a college business degree.

Why is this the case? The grooming industry is unique and many courses don’t apply well to the industry. For example, if you run a mobile grooming business, taking a class on retail probably won’t be helpful.

If you’re going to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on a degree, you’re going to want to get a ton of benefit out of it. You should make a lot more money than you would without one. Since most business courses don’t apply well to the grooming industry, chances are it is not going to help you make a ton of money. So, it has a high cost and low ROI

Grooming school

Another option is attending classes at a grooming school. Many grooming schools have online classes now, like Paragon and the National Cat Groomers Association.

In college, I paid $4,000–5,000 for a grooming class, which led to me starting my grooming business and making about $100,000. This is a great ROI. Since the initial investment in a class is lower than a four-year degree, the return was better.

Of course, this is just my experience. Everyone’s situation is different and results vary.

Apprenticeship

Apprenticeships generally don’t pay way but they are a great way to gain grooming experience. You do not have to invest any cash, but you do invest your labor hours. While you work, you also gain a ton of useful skills that you might learn in an expensive class.

You can also learn what you like to do or don’t like to do. I worked a 6-month apprenticeship at a salon that only worked with a few specific breeds. The experience taught me that I didn’t like to do pattern breed cuts or hand scissoring. Someone else might have learned that breed cuts were their passion!

Since work experience like this is free, apprenticeships and other work experiences can have a great ROI. But of course, each situation is unique so results may vary based on your goals and personal journey.

Trade shows

Seminars at trade shows are a great place to learn new skills. But many people prioritize going to breed seminars over business classes.

But in reality, most groomers don’t spend much time doing these specific breed cuts. Breed cuts might be a passion or a hobby of yours, but they aren’t relevant to your shop or brand and won’t help you make more money. This is a bad ROI.

Master Groomer Certification

This might be an unpopular opinion but it is very rare for someone to make a lot of money from getting their groomer certification. The one exception is if your brand is truly based around it.

The reason it won’t help you make money is that most clients don’t know what the certification means. Clients need to understand why it matters to them and what value it adds to your services.

Savvy Groomer courses

Shameless plug alert! The Savvy Groomer courses are a great option if you want to invest in growing your business. Of course, I am biased, but let’s look at the ROI.

For example, my Price Increase Class costs $600. That seems like a lot, but the course is all about learning how to make more money. Say you increase the price for all your dogs by $20, and you groom just 25 dogs per week. You’ll make $25,000 more in the first year! That is an amazing ROI!

By comparison, if you spend $600 on a breed class, that probably won’t earn you that much money.

The Price Increase Class is open on our website for self-study.

Key takeaways

Whatever you choose to do for your education is ultimately up to you. If you’re interested in taking a class or getting certifications, that’s great! You can choose to do something simply because you enjoy it — you don’t have to evaluate the ROI of everything.

But if you’re doing something because you feel like you’re supposed to then I encourage you to question what education can actually produce for you. Are you going to make money back on the investment? Does it make sense for your specific situation and business goals?

I've had small one-on-one grooming business owners ask me how they can compete with big box store prices — and the short answer is that they can’t and they shouldn’t try to!

The fact of the matter is that one-on-one grooming businesses are not very scalable. To make things work, they need to be small, boutique-style salons with a specific and loyal clientele.

People don’t like when I tell them this, but it’s just the truth! So, let's dive into one-on-one pricing and how it needs to work to be successful.

One-on-one grooming salons need to be small by nature

Some of the major attractions of one-on-one grooming are the ability to minimize the number of dogs in the salon at once, create a quieter environment, run a kennel-free business, and overall maintain a more relaxed atmosphere.

Some traditional grooming salons might advertise these benefits, but if the business has 2+ groomers then it is probably hard for them to actually maintain a quiet, relaxed environment simply because of the number of dogs and groomers in the salon at once. Therefore, it is really hard to scale and grow a one-on-one grooming business because, by nature, it has to be a small business that doesn’t groom that many dogs in a day.

Schedule limitations with one-on-one grooming

It can also be hard to scale a one-on-one grooming business because it requires you to keep a very tight schedule. Since each pet needs to be checked in, groomed straight through, and then checked out before the next pet comes in, both the clients and the groomer need to keep a tight schedule and be on time.

If a client is late checking in their pet, then your groom time might spill over into the next client’s slot, pushing the entire schedule and messing up the system. It also doesn’t allow much time to deal with difficult pets or for any of the pets to have a bad day. Therefore, you have to be prepared to tell someone that you can’t groom their dog on time and still charge full price.

If you operate your business from 9–5 and allow 1.5 hours for each groom, that would allow for you to groom 5 dogs per day and have 30 minutes dedicated to clean up and administrative tasks at the end of the day. That is not a lot of dogs per day, which means that the one-on-one model will only work well if you have great clients and charge a really high boutique price point.

How one-on-one pricing compares to other models

Alternatively, a traditional grooming salon might have everyone check in in the morning, allot 1 hour to groom each dog, and then have to check out in the afternoon. This schedule can allow for more flexibility and means you are less reliant on each client showing up exactly on time and their dog behaving perfectly. It also allows you to take advantage of things like drying kennels, express grooms, and more. With this model, your schedule can run from 9–3:30, allowing for a shorter, more relaxed day. You can go home at 3:30, or spend the last 1.5 hours of the day cleaning up and doing administrative work. You can groom up to 6 dogs per groomer and easily scale the business, adding another groomer or bather to the system.

Another alternative is mobile grooming. Mobile grooming is a type of one-on-one grooming, but you have much more control over your schedule. Instead of relying on the clients to drop off their pets on time, you can provide them a 2-hour window of when you will show up and then it is up to you to follow your schedule. This model allows you to groom the same number of pets but with a lot more wiggle room and control.

How much to charge for one-on-one grooming?

I can’t tell you an exact number of what you should charge for one-on-one grooming, because that depends on the specific numbers for your business. You can use my resources to help figure out what you should be charging specifically for your business.

But, in general, one-on-one businesses should be charging 75-100% more than traditional businesses. You should aim to price the same or even above what mobile prices would be. Each pet is the only pet in your salon for an hour and a half, and that is worth a lot!

Will people pay boutique prices for one-on-one grooming?

Many groomers worry that their clients won’t be willing to pay high prices. The key here is finding clients who will value the benefits they get from their pet being groomed one-on-one. If they truly value this model, then they’ll be willing to pay.

You should find clients who value your work for the experience that you provide, and they should choose you for your work rather than your low prices.

A good analogy is hair salons. There is going to be the Supercuts-type places, and there are going to be high-end, boutique salons. The high-end salons might charge double or triple what a discount place is going to charge, but they are also going to have clients who value the service and experience that they get so they are willing to pay the higher price. You can think of your one-on-one grooming salon like a high-end hair salon and go after the market that is willing to pay your higher price point.

Isn’t That Price Gouging?

If you’ve followed along with the Savvy Groomer at all, you probably know by now that I am a huge advocate for price increases in the grooming industry. Over the years, prices have barely increased across the industry. That means that prices are not keeping up with inflation or the latest trends and many groomers are suffering financially because of it.

I am a strong advocate for groomers to strategically increase their prices based on their needs and goals, and then yearly price increases after that to at least keep up with inflation.

This can mean that many groomers might increase their prices from $35 a dog to up to $150 a dog.

This is quite the price increase and many people have an emotional reaction to these numbers. “Isn’t that price gouging?” they ask.

In this article, we’ll take a look at what makes for fair pricing and why I believe that strategic price increases are not price gouging.

Let’s start by defining some terms.

What is price gouging?

It is important to define what we are talking about. According to Wikipedia, price gouging occurs when a seller increases the prices of goods, services, or commodities to a level that is much higher than what is considered reasonable or fair. Usually, this event happens after a demand or supply shock, such as a dramatic price increase on basic goods after a natural disaster.

We all experienced how the price of basic goods such as toilet paper and face masks went up during the Covid-19 pandemic!

What is inflation?

Inflation is a general increase in prices and a fall in the purchasing power of money. Basically, the value of the dollar goes down. Inflation rates change from year to year, but on average, inflation is about 2–3% yearly.

A great example of inflation is the housing market. The value of homes has gone way up over the years. In 1965, the average cost of a home was about $21,500. Today, the average cost is about $348,000. For an industry example, groomers in 1980 charged about $20 per dog. To understand this figure in today’s terms, we have to adjust for inflation. That $20 from 1980 would be worth about $73 today.

How can we determine what’s fair?

When determining a fair price, we often compare ourselves to others in the industry. But before we can determine what a fair price is for a dog groom, we need to determine if we’ve been fair to ourselves as an industry and if the market is fair.

Because I don’t think that the market is fair! In general, as an industry, most groomers have not raised their prices to even keep up with inflation, let alone to reflect their time, effort, and skill. It is common for groomers to have the same prices for 20 years!

In the industry, we struggle with the race to the bottom — meaning that we try to outcompete and get customers by having the cheapest prices. A groomer will leave a business to open their own shop, and either match or undercut the prices of their old boss (who already hadn’t raised their prices in decades!). They’ll hire a groomer to join their business, and then that groomer will eventually leave to do the same thing. I call this the “cycle of suck.” We see this happen over and over in the industry and prices suffer because of it.

Groomers also try to compete with big businesses like Petco and PetSmart, but these businesses actually offer their grooming services at a loss. They make their money off of getting customers in their stores and buying things, not from grooming. So why would we try to compete with their prices if they are losing money on grooming? That is definitely not fair.

When considering what’s fair, we also have to consider the most popular dog breeds today. Dog breeds are trendy, and groomers are not getting the same breeds that they did decades ago.

For example, doodles are a newer, insanely popular breed. Some days, all we get might be doodles. These dogs have a very challenging coat and difficult personality. Grooming 5 doodles all day can be much more mentally and physically draining than grooming 10 pugs or shih tzus in a day, and I believe that our prices should account for those differences.

Some people might call this price gouging, but I don’t think so! I think that is entirely fair.

Why we shouldn’t be afraid to raise prices

Change can be hard, and many people might not understand your price increase right away. But in order to survive as an industry, we need to stand up for ourselves, create an industry of respect, and charge prices that allow us to hire and pay people fairly. If more groomers learn about the importance of charging a fair, modern price, then these higher prices will no longer be seen as shocking. Instead, our new prices will become the industry standard, new groomers will be attracted to the industry, and groomers will thrive.

Learn more:

If you want to learn more about pricing, watch this replay of The Savvy Groomer Live on YouTube on this topic and please subscribe to my channel! You can also sign up for my self-paced Price Increase Masterclass.

Mobile Grooming & How to Deal with Soaring Gas Prices I am sure we’ve all complained about increasing gas prices by now. In California, prices are as high as $7, and prices are universally above $3 across the country. With all the geopolitical factors going on in the world, we don’t really know how high prices will go or how long high gas prices will last. As a mobile groomer, your first instinct might be to get very stressed about this. Increased gas prices mean increased overhead and fewer profits, right? Maybe not. In my opinion, gas prices should actually not affect mobile grooming businesses that much. Keep listening for my perspective on what you should do to deal with soaring gas prices as a mobile groomer. Set a baseline for your pricing Any time the prices of your supplies increase significantly, you should look at your pricing to make sure you’re in a good place. I also recommend evaluating your pricing at least once every 6–12 months. When setting your pricing, a good place to start is to look at the average cost of rent in your area and multiply that number by 3–4. That is the minimum you need to pay your full-time groomers. However, you also need to keep payroll at or below 30% of your gross income. Using these numbers, you can reverse engineer what your pricing needs to be. For example, if rent is $2,000 in my area, then my full-time groomer needs to make $6-8,000 per month. To make about $6,000, they need to groom $20,000 per month (because $6,000 is about 30% of $20,000). If I divide that by 5 days per week, then I find that they need to groom $1000 a day. At 8 dogs per day, that’s $125 per dog. Of course, that exercise only gives you a very rough estimate, because there are so many other factors that go into your pricing, but it gives you a good general sense of your prices. Say you’re currently charging $80 per dog, then this exercise will tell you that you need to raise prices. Factor in travel and gas costs Now that you have a general sense of your pricing, you can take it a step further and factor in your gas estimates. If your groomer is doing 8 dogs per day, how much gas will they use in a month? To figure this out, you need to factor in the type of vehicle, the type of fuel it uses, and what gas mileage it gets. Here’s how to determine your gas mileage: Pull up to the gas station and write down the number on the odometer Fill up and save your receipt Repeat for 3-5 fills If you are using an app like Moego to check in and out to track gas mileage, be sure to check in even while the vehicle is idling If you are using a generator, record generator hours too Determining your gas mileage gives a realistic picture of how much this actually affects you. For example, when I drove my diesel Sprinter van to mobile grooming clients, I tracked that I used about 40 gallons of diesel per month. Say diesel was $3.50 then, and it increases to $10 today (a crazy price!). $3.50 x 40 = $140 per month on diesel then versus $10 x 40 = $400 now. Worst case scenario, that is an increase of $260 per month. So, while an almost 3x increase in the cost of gas sounds like a lot, it is actually only an increase of a couple of hundred bucks per month. To help put things in perspective, groomers commonly spend hundreds or thousands per year on supplies like shampoo and scissors without batting an eyelash. There is just this emotional component that exists around spending money on gas that doesn’t exist on other things. This increase should not hurt your business that much. Is it inconvenient and annoying? Yes. But it is not a major problem. And if it is a major problem, then you’ve got bigger problems with your business! How to deal with soaring prices (if needed) If increased gas prices are breaking the bank, you need to redo your key performance indicators (KPIs). Make sure that your prices are based on accurate numbers and keep up with inflation. It is also a good idea to use high numbers when you are making your estimates. Historically, we’ve dealt with high gas prices before so we should always be planning for this stuff, saving for an emergency fund or sinking fund, and factoring these costs into our business plans. But if you’ve increased your prices and factored in gas expenses, and you are still worried about high gas prices, what can you do? First, you need to be really clear if this is a temporary or permanent change. If you think it is a permanent change to your pricing, implementing a travel fee is a good long-term solution. You can shrink the geographic area that you are willing to service and tell your clients who live outside of that area that there will be a $25 travel fee going forward. For clients even further out, there will be a $50 travel fee. This can be a win-win situation because it is fair to your clients while also tightening up your route and helping you save money on gas. If you think it might be a temporary change, another possible solution is to send clients a courtesy note explaining that you are monitoring gas prices and may need to temporarily increase rates. A good way to do this is to set ranges. When gas costs between $4-6 per gallon, you’ll charge $X for a travel fee, and when gas costs between $6-8, you’ll charge another rate. When gas prices drop below $4 again, you’ll drop the travel fee. This is transparent and helps clients know what to expect. However, I think you have to be very careful not to piss clients off with fees. It can seem like you are nickel and diming them or that you have a lot of hidden fees. Why you shouldn’t charge a gas fee Since mobile grooming is a luxury, all-in-one business, travel is part of the service. Clients cannot buy your services without you traveling. Imagine if a taxi company charged you extra fees for gas. The gas should be included! It is also like selling grooming services but charging extra for shampoo or for water usage. If the prices of water increased, you’d never charge a client a water fee! These things are not actually extras or upgrades, because they are a required part of the basic service itself. People are already upset about increasing gas prices, so don’t add fuel to the fire.

In this episode of Greedy Bitch

What We Can Do About The Groomer Shortage

We'll discuss:

Hello, hello and welcome to Greedy Bitch, a podcast where groomers stop apologizing for charging their worth.  I’m your host River Lee, founder of the Savvy Groomer. Let’s talk about today's topic:

What We Can Do About The Groomer Shortage

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard that we are currently experiencing a pet groomer shortage like never before. I like to call it a pet groomer drought! Today I’m going to break down the groomer drought and what we can do about it as an industry.

Why is there a groomer drought?

If you haven’t heard, we are currently experiencing a huge shortage of pet groomers. The industry needs more pet groomers!

There are three theories about why there is such a massive shortage.

First, Covid-19:

I know it sounds cliche but the truth is the circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic caused a lot of groomers to close their shops for months — some chose to retire, change careers, or spend more time at home with their two or four legged kids. For many, it was easier to let the business go rather than weather the storm.  For others their health made it simply not safe to go into work so they had to make hard choices.  Grooming is a physical job and for many this was just the push to leave an industry where our back hurts, we breathe pet hair in all day and move on to potentially greener pastures.

Second, groomers making career shifts:

Since many salons have been closed or only allowed limited hours, many groomers decided to open their own businesses instead of going back into their old shop or relying on unemployment. During the pandemic, mobile groomers and in their home salons have exploded in popularity. Those who switched from shop to mobile or one on one went from grooming 8-10 dogs a day in a shop to grooming 5-6 per day. Just to do some quick math - that’s the difference between grooming between 2080 - 2600 appointments a year to 1300 - 1560 appointments a year.  Every groomer who made a shift from shop to mobile is grooming an average of 780 - 1040 less appointments a year.  That’s a LOT of appointments to have to be filled in by another groomer! 

Third, no one was training new groomers:

During Covid-19 grooming schools were shut down across the country for months or even years. No schools means no new groomers.  You may argue, “I didn’t learn at a grooming school, I learned on the job!” and I agree but as there are less and less groomers it’s become increasingly so that as an industry we rely on grooming schools to help us get new groomers out the door.  Alternatively, places like Petco and PetSmart, who are some of the highest creators of new groomers nationwide, were closed for a long time in most states. Just to put in perspective there are almost 1400 Petco stores in the U.S. alone, and about 1650 PetSmart locations.  If each of those stores trained just one groomer a year, that’s 3,050 groomers that were not trained in 2020. 

Lastly, people just simply got more dogs:

Again, Covid-19 reshaped the world. People who were working from home or who were home more often decided to get a dog.  Not only did they adopt a dog but many of them adopted dogs that required regular grooming.  The explosion of Doodles and Poodle mixes has made the demand for skilled grooming higher than ever - especially these mixes of high maintenance, difficult coats and often difficult temperaments.  Where a groomer may have breezed through a day of 6-8 Shih Tzus, they now find themselves trying not to burn out while they wrestle 2 or 3 80 pound Doodles whose owner wants a hand scissor cut because it’s the “breed standard”.  Those who have been grooming 5, 10, 15, 20+ years have seen the shift in breeds and mixes. We almost would rather have the Cockers, Wheatons or Scotties, instead of the Bernedoodles, Shepadoodles, and Aussiedoodles - well, almost.

These have all made the entire industry make a giant shift

What do we do as an industry to fix the groomer shortage?

The groomer shortage is obviously a huge problem, so here are four things we can do to help fix it.

Build your staff

While it might be a long-term fix, investing in your staff is a huge way to help fix the groomer shortage. If you currently have bathers or other novice employees, train them and build them up to become your ideal groomer over the next year or two. 

An alternative but great way to invest in your future staff is to join a grooming school mentorship program. You’ll get a free intern for 100–150 hours of work. Once their internship is over, you can hire them as hourly employees and continue their training. 

Recruit from your competition

Think about what makes your salon and your location special. Maybe it is nice weather, better pay, lower taxes, or growth opportunities. Try to entice groomers from another state to relocate and work for you. Just a word to the wise: this can be a little tricky since if a staff member is easily swayed by extra money or if they think the grass is always greener - they may choose to leave your business when a better opportunity arises.

Go solo

Many businesses want to go big, hiring many groomers or having big mobile fleets, but that requires a lot of employee management. If you’d rather wrangle dogs than employees, consider going solo. If you find a niche, market well, and set high prices then you will have effortless success as a solo groomer. I have taught many solo groomers how to work less than 40 hours a week and earn 6 figures.  There is a lot of opportunity available for those who are ready to step into excellence.

Increase your prices

The bottom line is that we need more groomers. The best way to attract more groomers is to raise prices! Right now there is a lot of belief that groomers earn very little money or are broke.  By charging more than a liveable wage you are helping the market correct itself.  Grooming prices have simply not kept up with inflation. A groomer charging $45 in 1980 would need to be charging $144 in 2020 to keep up with inflation. Now that number is closer to $160!  We need to stop apologizing for charging our value and start taking control of our future.

For those looking to restructure or increase your prices The Savvy Groomer is offering a 6-module masterclass on how to calculate your pricing, increase your pricing, and strategies to communicate your pricing to your clients!  You’ll feel better knowing to stop winging your prices. We’ll teach you how to really understand your business, your model, your numbers, your employees and the customer psychology that dictates prices that will sustain your business.  If you’re ready to learn the formula for success go to our Price Increase Masterclass. You’ll also find other tools to grow your business on our website www.savvygroomer.com.

Thank you all so much for listening to this podcast: What We Can Do About The Groomer Shortage. As always, happy grooming!

Hello hello and welcome to Greedy Bitch, a podcast where groomers stop apologizing for charging their worth.  I’m your host River Lee, founder of the Savvy Groomer, let’s talk about today's topic:

Why every groomer needs to avoid cookie cutter prices

We’ve all asked around in Facebook groups to see what other groomers are charging. This works fine for a quick thermometer check, but this is awful for setting your prices. It is awful because every groomer’s business is so different. 

I’m going to show you why you need to evaluate how your business is different and create a pricing structure that works for you.

What is cookie cutter pricing?

Cookie cutter pricing is a pricing structure that assumes what works for other groomers will also work for you. Cookie cutter pricing takes other groomers’ prices at face value and fails to consider what factors might be affecting their prices, such as geographical location, experience level, business type, number of employees, products used, and so on.

This happens a lot in community forums like Facebook groups. We ask other groomers what their pricing is and then take those prices and use them in our own business. 

Asking around can be okay for a quick temperature check, but it is important to ask for as much extra information as you can before putting too much trust in someone else’s business model.

Are they running their business out of a salon, a mobile salon, or a home? Do they have pick-up and drop-off times or do they do dogs one-on-one? Do they use top-tier luxury products or cheap products? What level of care are they providing for their animals?

If you don’t ask these questions, you are doing yourself and the industry a disservice. You really cannot base your prices off of this without considering all these factors.

An example of why cookie cutter pricing doesn’t work: My blonde moment

If you’ve been following along, you might know that I recently dyed my hair blonde. My friend also dyes her hair blonde.

She pays a lot less for her hair treatments, but her hair is damaged from it. She also goes several weeks between appointments, so her roots often show. She is fine with this, so she continues to pay the price that she pays. It is her hair and it is completely up to her what she wants and she can decide what is worth it to her.

On the other hand, I pay a premium for my hair treatments and I go every three weeks, so in total, I am paying so much more for my hair. However, my hair is not damaged. Also, I have really dark hair that I want covered, so it is worth it to me to go more often.

You might be wondering, River, what does this have to do with pet grooming? My point is, even though my friend and I get the same basic result (blonde hair), you can’t compare the services. You can’t expect me to pay the same price that my friend does when I am buying much more expensive products and am going twice as often.

A pet grooming business coaching example... Let’s look at another more relevant example. 

I have two wonderful business coaching clients who have very similar business models. They’re both solopreneurs with one-on-one grooming businesses providing similar services. However, one business is in California and one is in a rural area. California is one of the most expensive areas in the country, and a rural salon just cannot compete on those prices. 

So, it is completely unrealistic for both of these businesses to charge the same prices, even though they are so similar in other ways.

This is a great example of why asking for other groomers’ prices in a Facebook group and using those prices in your business is such a bad idea.

Besides, the market is wrong and so most groomers are not charging enough to be profitable, let alone keep up with inflation, anyhow. 

Why is the market wrong?

You can learn more about why the market is wrong in my recent blog post and live stream on this topic, but basically, most groomers are not charging enough to even keep up with inflation. 

Many groomers have been in the business for 30 or 40 years but have not raised their prices every year to keep up with inflation. 

Say you’ve been in business for 40 years. In 1980, you used to charge $45 to groom a dog. $45 in 1980 is worth $145 today — so you would need to charge $145 just to keep up with your old prices. But you also need to honor the fact that during that timeframe, you’ve become an incredible groomer with 40 years of experience. Therefore, $145 is not enough and you need to factor in your experience level and any certifications you’ve earned since then.

Also, many groomers look to big box stores like Petco and PetSmart to set their prices. What most people don’t realize is that these stores sell grooming services as loss leaders. This means that they actually lose money on grooming, but it gets people into the stores to buy their products and that’s how they make money. 

Many times the market is just a race to the bottom, which is not sustainable and hurts business.

What can we do to avoid cookie cutter prices?

As an industry, we need to make our prices match what we want in our life and business, which means no more cookie cutter prices. Stop basing your prices off of what other people charge.

To start, you should start evaluating your pricing annually. Inflation happens at an average rate of 3–5% per year, so raising your prices at least that much every year is a great place to start. But don’t stop there! There is so much that needs to go into pricing. 

Everyone is afraid of raising prices, being the most expensive, and losing clients. But you need to realize that if you do things right, you can groom fewer pets and make the same amount of money — or more! 

Calculate how much you are going to earn at certain price points. Make choices that are best for you, your family, and your business. Use guidelines to create your own pricing structure around your wants and needs. Consider things like what salary you need for yourself and/or for your employees, what types of pets you want to groom, how many pets you want to groom, how many hours you want to work per week, how much time you want to take off, and so on.

Your long-term happiness is so important. And using cookie cutter prices and just keeping up with inflation is not enough. 

That sounds great, right? But it also sounds really hard and scary, I know. That’s where The Savvy Groomer can help.

Hire business coaching services or take my masterclass!

I highly suggest you sign up for my 6-module Price Increase masterclass. This is an amazing, information-packed course where I will help you develop a personal pricing framework. 

I know that this is a diverse industry with all kinds of unique businesses, so I work hard to look at every business as an individual business and create plans that support all my different types of clients.

Key takeaways

If you’ve been using cookie cutter prices and not keeping up with inflation in your business, don’t feel badly. For a while, I didn’t know any better either. It is not our fault we didn’t know, because how could we? But now that we know, we need to stop with cookie cutter prices. 

That said, we need to strategize our price increases and make strong business plans to roll them out. Good marketing is critical and being prepared with things like scripted talking points can be a game-changer. 

It is so important to know how much your services are worth and to charge appropriately for your skillset, location, and business goals.