Business
forms are an essential part of a
professional pet grooming
business operation. Would you
believe that thousands of pet
grooming businesses do NOT have
a brochure? Yikes, sad but true!
No wonder there are some
stressed business owners in this
industry. How can a pet groomer
possibly communicate all the
services and benefits they offer
to every new customer without a
basic tool like a brochure? They
cannot without losing
productivity.
You may not
think that there is a
significant amount of data
associated with pet grooming,
but there is. You need to
maintain service histories for
each client, perhaps through the
lifetime of their pet. There is
important information for pet
health conditions, their
veterinarian and vaccination
records. Styling requires
notations and options for
different trims, face styles,
feet styles and finishing
touches. Of course, there are
financial transactions and
retail sales. Business forms are
important to promoting more
business too, and a professional
business that sells for top
market value always has a system
of business forms. They help to
back the value of the business.
Just a few
years ago there was little to
recommend in the way of pet
grooming business software, but
that's not true any more. The
choices are still limited, but
the number of products are on
the increase. Automating your
operation with software helps to
reduce the need for as many
business forms, but you always
need some client relations forms
like brochures, price sheets,
and your professional stationery
and business card.
Client Relations Forms
Client
relations forms provide new
customers with the information
that you hope will bond them
into loyal clients. For example,
you should have a brochure
explaining the services you
offer, your standards of
operation, your days and hours
of operation, how you store pet
owner information and records,
what supplementary services you
offer like pick-up and delivery,
and of course, contact
information including mailing
address, location, a map for
hard-to-find locations,
telephone, fax, e-mail and web
site. Be sure to include a
complete price list with the
brochure. For an extensive list
of client relations business
forms, and supplier information,
refer to the
Client Relations Main Menu.
Bookkeeping Forms
Busy pet
grooming business owners need
efficient and easy-to-use
bookkeeping forms. After a long
day grooming pets, you don't
usually feel like tallying the
day's receipts, but you must as
a responsible business owner. A
good system of bookkeeping
forms, like those in the book
From Problems to Profits,
can reduce the cost of a
bookkeeper happily surprised to
receive organized daily records
following this book's
bookkeeping system part of The
Madson Management System.
When asked
to appraise a business, your
financials records are critical
to a high appraisal. Most
groomers have little to show.
We've gotten records appraisals
for businesses using a system of
bookkeeping like The Madson
Management System. Appraisers
are concerned about the validity
of their appraisals and the more
organized and detailed data you
have about your operation, the
more likely they will lend a
higher appraised value. In fact,
well-organized grooming
businesses sell more easily
because the buyer is more
confident they can follow your
documented system.
Sources for Business Forms
There are two primary supplies
for pet grooming business forms.
Call Find A Groomer, Inc. at
800-556-5131 for a catalog, or
visit their
web site. However, Madson
forms are ideally used only by
readers of
From Problems to Profits and
Grooming Business in a Box®.
Unlike any other business forms
they are a part of an entire
proven system of management, and
they are the only forms that can
with detailed instructions in
the book.
Barkleigh
Productions, Inc. has a business
form catalog. Call them at
717-691-3388.
Software
As an
Internet-oriented person you are
likely to have computer skills.
You may want to automate your
pet grooming business with
software. Accounting packages
like QuickBooks are very good
for handling your bookkeeping
needs, and a good publishing
package is very helpful for
business forms.
Pet
grooming operations software
varies greatly. There are some
that are primarily appointment
scheduling packages, to others
that handle accounting, or even
merge with QuickBooks. Remember
to shop and compare. To the best
of our knowledge none of today's
grooming operations software is
fully-complete, but that is
likely to change. In fact, we
expect that there will be much
more sophisticated packages
coming in the years ahead. A
great integrated package would
not only do scheduling, order
taking and office functions, but
advanced marketing and
advertising, custom management
reports and more. See below for
some product leads.
Sources for Software
Software vendors often advertise
in trade
magazines. We maintain a
growing list of software
publishing vendors in the in the
Publisher section of the
PetGroomer.com Yellow Pages.
Check the Software and Office
Supply and Products section of
the
PetGroomer.com Classified Ads.
If you are using pet grooming
software, how about sharing your
experience with the software?
Please let us now by
e-mail. Thank you.
