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Well this is a hot topic, and our answers may push buttons, but that is not our intent. As management consultants with 40 years of proven experience in the field we've had decades to learn what works well and what doesn't.

Too many grooming business owners and their employees have been indoctrinated into the "old school" of grooming business management where the business owner and full-charge groomers MUST, without question or attempt, operate as follows:

• Full charge groomers must groom pets from start-to-finish, meaning no assistance from pet bathers or assistant groomers, and in some cases, "because pet owners want it that way or it is not compassionate or humane to let more than one groomer groom any pet."

• Full charge groomers must be paid by commission, and never hourly or salary.

• Pet owner clients "belong" or in other words, are owned, by the full-charge groomers. In fact, in some businesses with more than one full-charge groomer the ones with more seniority or skills get to decide how many and which clients they want to accept. It is acceptable for a disgruntled full-charge groomer employee to threaten the owner that they will terminate their employment and "take their  clients with them" even when the clients came from the owner's business, and not a clientele brought to the owner when the full charge employee was first hired.

• Full charge groomers are allowed with little question to state what days they work, and even hours in extreme cases.

• Full charge groomers have the right to override the signature styling and standards set by the business owner and groom the pet the way they say is correct.

• Full charge groomers are asked to help intake and outtake of clients and pets, and asked to answer the telephone, and handle the business' cash receipts.

• Teamwork is entirely absent, and damaging cliques possible.

Are grooming businesses with employees operating in such a fashion rare or common. Based on our management consultation services provided since 1987 to thousands of businesses, we would say that most of clients are operating very close or exactly as described above.

We always valued our full-charge groomers, enough so that we did not expect them to work in our business under such conditions. Yes, some of you will say that the full-charge groomers expect and want to work under such conditions. Of course they do! That's the old school, and they know no different!

Recently a participant at the April 2000 Becoming the Business Person That Grooms Workshop shared that since she started using The Madson Management System in From Problems to Profits, and that means in part not operating in a manner described above as it pertains to full-charge groomers, an interesting experience. Those full groomers that wouldn't adapt, and they were even offered higher wages, left the business but she had no problem hiring new full charge groomers. Shortly after hiring an experienced groomer willing to adapt to The Madson Management System the groomer shared with tears coming from her eyes, that she never thought she would ever work in a business where the owner was wisely running the business, paying great wages, and none of the other full-charge groomers were on edge competing against one another for clients, pets and more. It was a dream come true, and it dawned on her after years in the field that "the old school ways of management" were more than outdated, but foolish and needless. A wonderful story and inspiration for all of us to reconsider. Imagine the tears of joy. The owner was very moved, and inspired, and shares that today she can't wait to go to work each day, she loves her business again.

That's why we say "from problems to profits." Yes, the old school exists by a large majority, and many full charge groomer job candidates coming into your business know nothing else. However, these are times of change and owners empowered with knowledge and management training experience, will take a sword to the old school and eliminate it from their businesses like hundreds of our clients have.

Most of our consultation clients tell us that their full-charge groomers say it was "fear of change" that made them at first say, "NO!" to any changes required by The Madson Management System. After a few weeks with a steady salary equal to what they earned on commission, and without the wear and tear of pre-bathing and bathing duties, and more time to focus on what they love best, finish trimming, they tell us they would never go back to the old school ways.

If you are unwilling to learn and implement today's proven new methods of management, such as The Madson Management System, it is okay and no one here would even think of slighting you in any way. Indeed, we do have empathy for you as your work will be tough, and wearing, and the owner should always "be in love" with their business. The old school ways of management often destroy the love of owning a grooming business, and that will stifle any business from growing and developing profitability and net worth.

Owners take back your business by properly managing your full-charge groomers. You are responsible to manage a well-documented personnel department with an employee handbook, job descriptions, and perhaps job agreements. If you don't have a small personnel department within your grooming business you are basically losing the respect of your full-charge groomers, and not laying out policies and procedures for employment, and thereby indirectly allowing or encouraging your full-charge groomers to think that they are supposed to be running the show. If you don't know what is required of being a grooming employer, you can learn more in several chapters of From Problems to Profits, and by taking local classes offered your local SBA, SBDC or local colleges or adult education center offering business courses in employment.

Full-charge groomers need to be well-managed so that they can do what they do best nearly all day, every work day, and that is, artistic pet styling. As an employee they are obligated to perform grooming to the standards of the owner, but if there is disagreement, you should listen as they may know better. In the end though as an employee you have the upper hand in making the final decision, but coming to a team decision could be very valuable for morale, and the pleasure of clients and pets.

Clients belong to the owner and never the full-charge groomer employees. If your business was taken to court for mishandling a pet, do you think the Judge would ever decide that the liability of a judgment against a business would fall on the full-charge groomer and not the owner. Of course not! Employees that say that any client belongs to just them is being allowed to manage for their interest, and not the team or owner, and that always leads to major problems. Further if the employee says that the pet owner wants it that way, obviously the owner has taken a back seat to the employee and again forgotten that the law states that the fiduciary relationship IS always between the business owner and the pet owner; that is law!

It is for the owner to accept the responsibility to achieve complete client satisfaction and then assign styling duties and responsibilities to the appropriate full-charge groomer and other staff. In the best run businesses, pet owners universally trust the owner to deliver the services they require and desire, knowing in complete faith that the business owner will choose the appropriate staff. They never burden the pet owner with making a decision to choose a groomer. Owners that ask clients to choose a groomer, or allow full-charge groomers to compete for a client, have legally misplaced the professional code of conduct and their legal role based on the fiduciary relationship between the business owner and client.

Well, we have probably pushed a few buttons just trying to help here, but readers, we have been in more well run business with happy employees than just about anyone else in the world. Dozens contact us each day, and what we have described briefly is the way these advanced businesses are being run regardless. In fact, these businesses are often the only ones in true compliance with the grooming industry's fiduciary relationship between salon owner and pet owner, so how can others really denigrate this message, because it is based on the law we accept if we are to own a U.S. business.

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