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Welcome to the Pet Grooming Business Podcast with me, Bill Betts, where we give practical business advice to help you grow your pet grooming business. This podcast is sponsored by Low Pay, the low rate payment app that gives you more. So without further ado, let's get going.
Well, well, well. Welcome everyone. Welcome back to this pod. And first of all, I just want to say a very big thank you to all the listeners and for sticking with me and also for your reviews. It's been awesome. Now if you haven't done me a review, please just go in there and hit the stars button on your podcast platform. And also remember to hit the subscribe button because then that means you get a notification every time our podcast comes out. Now, if your first, if this is your first podcast that you, that you're listening to, I really encourage you to go back to number one.
I think there's around 130 episodes that we've recorded so far. And the very first episode that I recorded was all about imposter syndrome. And I did that really on purpose because I feel a lot of people don't know why imposter syndrome is and I feel many of us suffer from it and it's something that we can do sometimes something about. So please make sure you go back to the number one episode and listen to that. It's all about imposter syndrome. I hope you enjoy it. I, I like to bring on lots of guests that give you, hopefully give you lots of different perspectives when it comes to business.
But I am also aware that sometimes I don't record my own episode. So here we are. Here's one for you. I've got. It's just myself talking and I'm gonna.
When we've written a blog about this, five signs that your pet grooming prices are possibly too low. And I think this is a really important topic because one job I have as a mentor, I suppose, or my main purpose as a mentor is to ask questions and also highlight areas of our businesses where maybe we need to focus on or, or maybe ask the business owner some pointy questions and make people think. Now I'm a big believer that there's no right or wrong answer. It's your business, it's your rules.
But I'm, I'm also a big believer that we can learn so much from each other as well. So I'm not gonna sit here or, and tell you what your prices should be. I'm not gonna be here sort of saying a cockapoo must be X price because I believe that your prices are unique to your business and they should be make, they should be matching your expenditure and kind of what you want from your business in income wise. But I need to ask you questions as a, as a business coach, a mentor, I'm here to ask you questions and to make you think and that's all you know.
If you, if you come away from this podcast and you've got the, the questions going round and round in your head and you're, you're asking yourselves these questions and if the answers are yep, my, my process are fine, then fantastic and that's great. If you're ask questions and you think there's something niggling in the back of your, in your mind about it, then then obviously I've also done a good job here as well because it's a, it's made you consider it and it's made you ask the question of your business and that's what it's all about.
So we're going to be talking about 5, no 5 possible signs that your pet grooming prices are too low. And some of them might be very obvious, some of them might, might, you might not be experiencing right now and some of them you might think, oh, I've never, I've not thought of that. So let's dive in and have a look at the first one. I have written a blog about this as well which you can find on, on my website, www.petpassiontoprofit.com so the first one is probably the, the biggest obvious one and that there's never enough money left in your bank.
Now there could be a couple of reasons for this one re one find with my clients, especially if they are sole traders, is bank accounts are mixed up. So business and personal bank accounts are, are the same which means that they, they don't quite identify what's business money and what's personal money and everything is just mashed together and then there's just nothing at the end of the month sometimes. Now the reason why I say sole trader Unlimited company, the reason why I different differentiate that is because as a sole trader you don need legally you don't need to have a separate bank account.
So you know, it's quite easy just to set yourself up as a sole trader, keep with the same bank account and run everything through there. But that often I find leads to quite a confusing mindset where they're not quite sure how much money the business has made. I describe it as having water running through your, through your account. So like let's think like water is money. Money flows into your account as you make sales, as you, as you do dog grooms. And then there's nothing in the way, there's no barriers, there's no dams in the way to stop the water, the money running out.
So you get paid, let's say it's Monday Today, you get £150 today for the work you've done and on the way home you stop, you stop at co op because you need some eggs for dinner and you spend some of that £150. Then you might need to put some fuel in the car. Then maybe if you have children, they've got a swimming lesson that you need to pay for. And then, oh, we've got a holiday installment coming up, so I'll use some of that. And that £150 gets eroded away and just flows through your accounts.
And then you get to the end of the month and you think, what have I actually done this month, money wise? And where is the money? So that is one, one problem and that could be a cash flow problem. If you're a limited company, the reason why it's a little bit different as a limited company is because you are legally required to have a separate bank account because your limited company is its own entity. So the money is your company's and it's not yours. So that's one reason why I do like having a limited company, because I find for me, it separates out my mindset and makes me deal with the money in a, in a more sort of it's not my money, it's the business's money.
So it helps my mindset and helps the flow of I pay myself as a wage and dividends and on a particular day anyway, that's probably a whole new podcast, but so one reason why you might not have money left in the bank is, could be your cash flow. But if we think about it, if, if we're spending, if we're spending more than what we've got coming in, well, this might be because our prices are too low and we're not achieving the income that we want to pay for all the bills.
Now, yes, we can look at our bills and we should be looking at our expenses and putting pressure on our expenses to reduce them. But ultimately, if our prices are too low, we're not going to be making the money that, that we want or that we need to cover our business. So pricing can be a real root cause from cause for not having money left in the bank. The good thing about that is when we do increase our prices. The money, the money that we get in falls straight to the, to the sort of profit part of our business.
Once we've, once we've organized it and once we've sorted out our expenses, we can learn how much money we need. We can then make sure our prices reflect that and then we can start seeing the profit coming through. So that's number one, four more to go. So one thing that you might be looking at your, your diary, so number two is like you're working all the hours under the sun just to cover your bills. Now I see this quite a, when I speak to, to people that would like to join my business program, quite often they tell me they're working sort of eight in the morning till six at night or maybe later.
They're working six days a week, sometimes seven because, you know, they're either really wanting to please their customers, which is an issue in itself with our boundaries and something again, because we're a service industry, we're a bit, bit of people pleasers. But a lot of the time it is to do as many dogs as we possibly can to get the money coming into our account so that we can cover our, cover our expenses. So six days a week, squeezing in one more dog just because you need to make ends meet.
So, you know, I find pet groomers are really, really hard working people. But a lot of that time, again, as they, as they work with me on the business program, we start looking at the finances side of things and we start adjusting the prices and I start showing them how they can start reducing their workload and then start reducing their hours as well. So I personally think four days a week is, is quite a nice sweet spot for pet groomers because it gives your body a chance to rest.
You got your three days off, it gives you a bit of opportunity to work on your business, do paperwork and it gives you a bit more of a life as well. Whether you've got family or whether you've got, you know, pets, you get to spend more time with your actual dogs, taking them out, walking them, or maybe you've got youngsters running around and, and kids to sort out. You know, it gives you a bit more time which then hopefully makes you feel a lot better about, you know, what, going to work and having a business and trying to keep a household going as well.
Working all the hours under the sun could be a sign that your prices are just too low and you need to start looking at that. This podcast is sponsored by Low Pay. Low pay is half the price. Of sum up and zettle so you keep more of the money that you earn. Rate starts at 0.79% now to begin with. Number three is the physical and mental burnout. Now to begin with, if you're a brand new groomer or you're, you know, a year in, maybe if you're a year into this and you're working all the hours under the sun, you might start to be feeling a bit physically and mentally burnt out.
If you're a brand new groomer or groomer in training. Listening to this, you really got to understand this, this point, this is a really, really important point to start thinking about. If you are looking to create a career from dog grooming, you've got to try really hard to avoid this physical and mental burnout. Now I've seen it. My, my wife EMMA been working 21 years as a dog groomer, been through frozen shoulders, low backache, you know, all the, all the physical pain, but the tiredness as well of running the business and the tiredness of, you know, dealing with the customers.
But then, so that's a bit of, a bit of physical burnout, but also the mental burnout is the, the sheer state of the animals that you see, the neglect sometimes that you see in, in the animals that come through your door. So you've got to start think, start protecting yourself and start, you know, start protecting yourself from physical exhaustion and mental exhaustion and you might be like grooming away, this might be your second year and think, well, that's not, that's not, that's not me at the moment.
But, and, and I really hope that you don't come across this, I really hope that you don't get this burnout. But it is a real thing within the industry. So you've got to be really mindful of that. And the reason why having higher prices can help stop this is because not only are you able to do less work, so you're not having to do like the volume of dogs day in, day out. Obviously you're, you're potentially able to reduce your workload so you can reduce your days.
You can put better boundaries in place with your customers, you can push customers away that give you the ick or make you feel unworthy or like you look in the diary and go, oh, not them again. So, so having higher prices obviously can, can empower you to do all that stuff. But, but also, you know, the financial reward, you're running a business, you're, you know, you're being an entrepreneur is the, is like, is taking a Risk in the reward for profit. So if you are grinding away and your finances aren't adding up, it adds so much more stress to your life.
And this is, you know, when we ask the question, why are we impro. Why are we in business? Why do we do this? It's gonna be, you know, to be our own boss and to, to create a lifestyle and look after the family or look after the house, you know, look after our pets. So we've gotta, when we ask the questions, why am I doing this? You know, if we have got low prices, the answer is going to be potentially, I don't know why I'm doing this.
I'm slogging my guts out for no reason and not getting any reward for it. So just have that in mind. And when, and when you start thinking, well, you know, when, when, why am I doing it? I'm doing it for the pets, when that start, that message starts to disappear because you're becoming more physically and mentally burnt out, then you know that things need start re. You need some reevaluation within your business and within your life. And ask, and start asking yourself the why. Okay, so physically, physical and mental burnout could also be a, a one of the reasons or one of the signs that your prices are on the low side.
Number four, you struggle to make any time to work on your business. Working on your business is really important so that you can carry on with your marketing. Because we know that we get, you know, dogs pass away, people move out of the area, new groomers turn up and you know, many people flock to them because it's a new shin thing and they want to try out the new business in town. And all of a sudden you're losing, you know, the business that you have and you've had no time to work on it.
You've had no time to produce your marketing assets. You've had no time to do your social media posts to introduce new services that keeps your, your business fresh. So you know, you're just doing dog after dog after dog mode and there's no time or energy left to work on the business. Maybe you haven't reviewed your prices for like a year or two and they're really stagnant, or you haven't reviewed your, your expenses and you're paying like month after month for a subscription that you're not even using.
But when do you have the time to even do all this? So again, you know, this kind of goes into that, that factor where you're, you're having to do grind dog after dog, after dog to meet your bills because again, your prices are potentially too low to, to run your business. So again, you need to be asking yourself these questions. Do you get a chance to work is to, to implement new services, to look at the add ons, to run your accounts. Do you leave your accounts to the very last minute which causes you panic and stress?
Oh, it's just so, so scary, isn't it? But again, if we think if we have higher prices and we can do less dogs and have a day off, extra day off a week, then we get a chance to put our business into an upward cycle instead of that downward spiral sort of thing. So having no time to work on your business could be a sign that your prices are too low. Now, one, one, this might sound a little bit counterintuitive and you might not have thought of this, you might not get this to begin with, but one, another sign that your prices are too low is that everyone you sell your prices to say yes instantly.
So at first you know, this is like fantastic. Everyone wants to use my business. This is like awesome news. Everyone wants to say, everyone wants to come and use us. But when they're saying yes without blinking, it's often a sign that your prices are too low and that there's room to grow those prices because you're not putting them under any pressure. You're not, you're not making them think about your services. You know, they're saying yes. And then all you're doing is you're flooding your diary and this, you know, this happens so much to brand new groomers and you get massive like dumps of dopamine because you know, you've just opened your business.
You want to be popular, you want to be earning money. You want to, you want to, you want to get customers in. You have this big surge of dopamine because everyone's saying, yes, I want to use your business. Yes, yes, yes, yes. But believe me, like in a few months or a year's time, you're going to turn around and go, Jesus, I'm, I'm so worn out, I'm so tired. I've not had a chance to do this. I've not had a chance to do that. And you turn around and it's like, what has happened in the last year because you flooded your diary with, with, with cheap grooms where people are all saying yes.
So that is also an indication that your prices are too low. So our clients on the pet grooming program are given resources and, and given lessons and to understand about tracking our sales, like tracking our yeses, tracking our nos, sort of testing prices as well. So that's number five on the list. Everyone says yes to your prices. Now, if you're nodding along to some of these, going, yeah, there's no time to work on my business. Yeah, everyone says yes to my prices. Yep, I've got no money left over at the end of the month.
Yes, I'm tired and I can't burn out. You know, this is the time to take some action, isn't it? You know, we've highlighted it. Maybe you needed someone just to give you a bit of. A bit of a kick and say that this is. This doesn't have to be like this. Business doesn't have to be like this. May. You needed someone to give you a bit of validation. You know, one thing, one thing I want you to just think of is, is this it? Is there more to this?
What am I missing? Why am I feeling like this? What can I do to do about it? Okay, now I want to make sure. I really, really want to make sure that you don't feel like a failure. This is not failure, okay? This is growth. When you start asking your questions and you start analyzing your business, you start finding things that could be done better or thinking about things that in a different way, that is growth. It is not failure. Okay? Failure for me is when you know you've done something, it hasn't worked, you do it again, it hasn't worked, you do it again, it hasn't worked.
That's like failing to change, isn't it? That's failing to recognize that what you're doing isn't working and then sort of moving it forward. So I want to make sure that you're. You're aware that this is all part of growing, growing as a business. No matter how many years you've been in business, whether it's brand new or whether you've been 5, 10, 15, 20 years in business, this is all part of growing your business and growing as a person, as a business owner. Okay, so I'm gonna leave it there.
I'm gonna leave you there thinking about these questions. By all means, go back over the podcast, have a listen again, because it was quite quick and punchy. Maybe go and read the blog as well on our website just to sort of let it sink in. But go and go and ask those questions. Maybe write them down and write out. Just let your. Your pen flow on the paper and let. And let your thoughts and feelings flow out onto the page and review it. You know, think about it.
But this is the main message is to actually take action and start asking these questions. So, you know, what can I do to help you? Well, there's the pet grooming business program and this is where we've identified all these issues. We work the groomers within the community to overcome these. But this isn't a sales pitch for that. This is all about you asking these questions and then thinking, what am I going to be doing about it? So I really hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm going to try my absolute best to get some more of these podcasts with just myself.
If you fancy encouraging me, then drop me a message. If you've enjoyed this, obviously leave some reviews and subscribe to the podcast. I'll see you on the next one. I hope you've found that valuable and go work on your business. Take care everyone. See you all soon. Bye bye. I hope you have enjoyed this podcast. Please make sure you give us a like or a review to help people find it. The podcast is sponsored by Lope. Head over to www.blowpay.com to find out more about their payment solution.
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