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At one time we offered consultation services
to help transition pet grooming business into
schools, but today our hands are full with
Grooming Business in a Box®. Are there other
consultants?
You only need one hand to count the number of
consultants available to help you more quickly
transition into a school while maintaining
your established grooming services. Consider
Golden
Paws.
Mitzi Hicks has assisted several grooming
business owners in more than one state with
state licensing, curricula, marketing and
more. Depending upon state requirements the
tasks to open a school may take weeks or
months. Having a consultant assist you may cut
the time in half.
Expand Your Business
We’ve had thousands of pet grooming business
owners expand their businesses by making the
big step and becoming an employer. Most of
them followed The Madson Management System™ in
From Problems to Profits. First they
executed Step Two of the Business Plan adding
additional groomers, and then they progressed
to Step Three of the Business Plan. Today they
also use the Pet Grooming Business Plan Helper
& Sampler workbook and CD-ROM to prepare an
expansion business plan. In fact, we purposely
included a sample expansion plan in the
sampler section, The Mary Groomer Business
Plan. Mary’s plan describes how she started a
one-person shop and expanded into a large pet
salon over a period of 5 years. Mary’s is
not the only route. You can expand in other
ways. We’ve helped hundreds of pet groomers to
buy their commercial buildings and stop paying
rent. Some of them expanded with pet day care,
pet hotel accommodations, boarding, boutique
retail and pet training. What’s important to
remember is that they started as pet groomers.
Just like you. They gained confidence in being
a groomer, and found new confidence they could
be an employer of a growing business. It’s a
choice some make. It’s not right or wrong,
it’s simply a choice. Never forget the core
service when you expand. Pet grooming has one
major advantage over other pet care services.
Many pet owners don’t take pets to their vets
until there are problems. Some only need day
care services or boarding services on
occasion. Loyal pet grooming clients visit
their groomers on average every 4 to 8 weeks.
Everyone in the pet industry is envious of
this frequency rate and that’s why you see so
many non-grooming businesses add pet grooming
departments, such as vets, boarding facilities
and retail pet stores. The benefit for
owners of large centers goes beyond financial
gain. They didn’t have to give up working with
pets in order to put the clippers and scissors
down and groom less and thereby reduce bodily
wear and tear.
Absentee Ownership Grooming business owners with staffed
operations can become absentee owners. This
means they may only work on-site a few days
each week or month. They are entirely reliant
upon dependable and professional management.
It’s very difficult to find these individuals.
The best route is for the owners to start up
to 2 years ahead of their assuming an absentee
ownership by hiring and training a manager.
The candidate should work with them at least 1
year before changes are made in the owner’s
working lifestyle. Even then the owner will
have to develop a system of accountability and
maintain contact with the business on a
regular basis. It can be done and is done, but
it works best for owners with truly
exceptional managerial experience and an
exemplary system of management such as the The
Madson Management System™ described in the
book,
From Problems to Profits. |
