It
is becoming more common for
veterinarians to add ancillary
services to their practices. The
intent arises from a growing
recognition in the veterinary
medical profession that they
need to diversify their revenue
base. Most practices today
operate on tight profit margins,
and additional revenue centers
offers them a new opportunity to
boost profit. Pet owners that
use grooming services typically
visit their groomer 4 to 8 times
a year, and at an average
service fee of say $30, the
potential new gross revenue for
the veterinarian is up to $240 a
year per pet owner, and of
course more when the pet owner
has more than one pet. Not many
other non-medical pet care
services offer such potential
increases in revenue on an
ongoing basis. Also,
veterinarians adding pet
grooming services do so because
a growing number of consumers
are demonstrating their
purchasing loyalty to one-stop
convenience centers, like having
both medical and non-medical pet
care services in one convenient
location. For example, PETsMART
has already lead the way
building veterinary-grooming
centers as part of their retail
strategy.
Integrating pet grooming into a
veterinary practice should be done to increase cash flow and
revenues of course. It also provides a more esteemed professional
image to pet owners that their veterinarian is a full-service
practice, and that can be marketed well. You never hear this, but
after being in the grooming profession for about 40 years, we can
tell you that a professional pet groomer uniquely observes and
feels every pet they groom from head to toe. Over the years we
discovered by observation thousands of conditions on the pets we
groomed, including swelling, lumps, bumps, cuts, scratches,
oozing, infestations, and even rubber bands and other foreign
matter in their teeth. We never made a diagnosis and instead
informed the pet owner with a written observations describing our
observations, and suggested they seek veterinary medical for a
professional diagnosis. If the pet groomer resided within a
veterinary medical practice, from a business viewpoint, the
veterinarian stands to gain from providing the medical attention
indicated by the groomer’s observations.
Leasing out space to pet
groomers is only one pathway to adding ancillary pet grooming
services, and most likely the least profitable for the
veterinarian. However, the rent does indeed raise the gross
revenue of the practice. What it rarely does is to offer the
potential income of instead hiring groomers, paying the operating
costs and retaining profit that could far exceed the leasing
option. Here as pet grooming business management consultants we
discover whether the veterinarian - business owner is more focused
on their practice of veterinary care with some commitment to add
ancillary services the "easy way" by leasing space to a
groomer, or the veterinarian - business owner is more focused on
building a very large practice with maximum profitability. Either
is fine, it is a choice.
Many veterinarians will tell
you that it is difficult to find a pet groomer, and more difficult
to keep them after a year or two. That is true, but in our
extensive field experience we share that there are stable pet
groomers that could stay longer, and that there are unique methods
of management to develop a 2-3 pet groomer operation where if one
leaves, others come up through promotion and take the place of the
departing pet groomer. The problem is that nationwide today
veterinarians don’t have the knowledge of how to do this, but
some have found the way with the well-respected The Madson
Management System for Pet Grooming Businesses by Find A Groomer, Inc.
It's the only proven
"system" of its kind today in the pet grooming industry
and it creates a career path where grooming departments on an
ongoing basis begin with pet bathers, who progress with on-the-job
training to become assistant pet groomers, and finally full-charge
pet groomers. Most employees that learn through on-the-job
training are more loyal, and ironically, this system of grooming
typically reduces the veterinarians payroll for the grooming
department by up to 15% compared to the common practice of paying
groomers up to 60% commissions. It all gets down to having the
knowledge of proven management systems for pet grooming that can
put to rest forever the common problems of hiring and keeping
loyal pet groomers in a veterinary practice. It also requires that
someone in the practice manage the grooming department. Of course,
the hired pet groomer can manage it to a great deal, but someone
like the office manager or administrator still needs to be there
for the hired pet groomer to answer to, and to strategize customer
relations, hours of operation, fees, appointment scheduling,
bookkeeping and other management tasks best not left to pet
groomers, and who are best left to doing what they do best, groom
pets well.
Veterinarians should never
just hire a willing pet groomer and install a department. There
needs to be a departmental business plan written. Business plans
are the mainstay of planning successful operations, even pet
grooming. Where do they start? There are only a couple books in
the entire industry suitable to veterinarians developing an
effective business plan. We suggest
The
Art & Business of Grooming and
From
Problems to Profits - The Madson Management System for Pet
Grooming Businesses. The
latter is actually formatted as an award-winning professional
business plan easily adaptable for veterinary-based grooming
departments. The key is a plan, and that plan will let the
veterinarian better hire the appropriate groomer who can reach the
quality and financial goals of the business plan. The plan will
also set milestones for hiring additional groomers as the
department grows.
One of the most
costly mistakes made by veterinarians with grooming departments,
and even most growing pet grooming salon owners today is to have
one basic job description, full-charge Pet Groomer. That means the
same individual grooms a pet from start to finish, for every pet.
As the business, grows they simply hire another full-charge Pet
Groomer. As an efficiency expert in pet grooming we have
eliminated this profit-draining practice for thousands of grooming
businesses without lowering quality or humane care one bit. In a
nutshell, today a full-charge pet groomer earns around $12 to $14
an hour, generally. Where that is the only position, it means the
veterinarian paid the full-charge pet groomer up to $14 an hour to
bathe the pet, something we have done by $7 an hour pet bathers.
It also means they paid the full-charge pet groomer up to $14 an
hour to do what is commonly called, "pre-trimming prep
work," whereas we assign that work to assistant groomers at
$8 to $9 an hour. Day-after-day our system cuts groomer payroll by
up to 15% over grooming departments using only full-charge
groomers, and that can amount to $10,000 to $20,000 in additional
profit for large grooming businesses.
Further, we are
less dependent on full-charge pet groomers often in chronic
shortage, and this team operation actually provides a steady year
round on-the-job training device with excellent quality too. If
readers have an interest in this system they should start by
reading the only book on the subject, the before mentioned From
Problems to Profits. Today there is remarkable evolution
happening at one school of pet grooming, Madeline’s Institute of
Pet Grooming in Santa Clara, California. It is the only school
offering a week long career management course as part of its
regular curriculum based on this book. As a result of taking this
course, many students are approaching veterinarians with an
interest in expanding their practice.
What is happening is almost
unheard of in the grooming industry, but so far nearly in 1998
every student seeking employment at a veterinarian was placed
weeks before they graduated. It is a sign of the future. Also,
wise veterinarians can instead hire new grooming career seekers
and send them to this or a similar school paying their tuition on
an agreed basis for eventual repayment.
The success
of adding pet grooming services to a veterinary practice must
begin with a departmental business plan with a 36 to 60 month
projection for employment and service goals. Like any other
business plan there must be stated and measurable goals for client
relations, cost-efficiency, operations, marketing and management
analysis. Just hiring a pet groomer and letting them run a
department mostly independent of the practice is likely doomed to
eventual failure in many possible ways. However, with a business
plan managed by the office administrator veterinarians should be
able to get up to 30% or more their clients to become loyal
clients of their grooming department.
Based on our
studies, 1,000 loyal pet owners can generate $180,000 to $240,000
gross revenue from pet grooming services a year quite easily, and
in fact, many of our clients do better. Marketing is very
important though, and the medical office staff and veterinarian
must work with the grooming staff to conjointly suggest the
other’s services, and most importantly, to strongly encourage
regular grooming appointment scheduling programs to their clients.
At least once a month, the performance of the veterinary practice
and its ancillary departments should be reviewed at a staff
meeting to see if goals are being met, and if not, why. Of course,
that means written goals were first established, and so we return
to the key advice, develop a complete departmental business plan
for every ancillary service before adding it. Would you like to
attend a management workshop on this subject with the people that
created the classic From Problems to
Profits book. If so, click here for workshops
and consultations.
2002 Compensation
Statistics for Groomers Working
in Veterinary Environment
The Veterinary Hospital Managers
Assn. released a Survey of
Salary and Benefits. The average
annual salary for a groomer
working in a vet environment is
$29,849 full-time and the hourly
average is $10.09. On average,
veterinarians provide 73% of the
employee health insurance
program. In comparison Vet Techs
averaged $11.98 to $13.82
depending upon regional area.
Figures released September 2002.
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