Mindset Matters – Building Confidence in Your Grooming Business

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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.

Hi everyone and welcome back to this next episode of the podcast Trust. It's just going to be me today. Thank you very much as always for all of your support. We found out the other week that we've also been nominated for Voice of the Year at Groomphoria and that award is happening in November. So make sure, if you're looking to come to that, make sure I'll be there with my stand and I'm also doing a talk there, so make sure you come and say hello. I was also nominated for the Facebook group, was also nominated for an award as well.

So once again, fantastic. Love these nominations coming through. Completely unexpected and you know, it's mainly down to actually the people in the group making it what it is. I'm there to facilitate and help out as and when I can, but it's the, the people that listen to the podcast, it's the people that contribute to the group, the admins that help me run the group, they're, they're all fantastic people as well. So, yeah, thank you very much and we should be finding out the results soon of podcast of the Year at the Liz Paul Awards.

That's happening in a couple of weekends time at the World Grooming Conference. So looking forward to that. I'm going to be there as well with a trade stand. So please, if you come into that, please come and say hello, say hi. It's always nice to be chatting to, to, to everyone. So what I wanted to cover in this episode was I do a lot of marketing around the pet groomer business program and we talk about the various mentors that we have. There's obviously myself, we've got Robin Waite who is our pricing mentor.

Funny Snaid is our money coach. Lauren Mather is our branding and graphic design mentor. Zoe Kahns is our social media mentor. Jamie Stenton does websites and Google and things like that. And then we've also got Louise who is our mindset mentor. Louise James. Now, I often, I tell people about all the various support that we have within the program, but do sometimes wonder whether people actually understand what that means. Like what is a mindset mentor? What is a mindset call? And I sometimes wonder if people don't quite understand the power that we deliver within the program.

So I thought I'd give you a little bit of a behind the scenes look as to what actually goes on. And we're going to focus on our mindset calls and which are led by our incredible mindset coach, Louise James.

Bit of backstory, really. Me and Louise met in 2021, and Louise is a pet groomer. And in 2021, she was running her own business over in Essex, and she came to me for some help and support. I was actually helping another client nearby, and I remember sort of thinking, oh, can I take two dog groomers on in the same place? I had a real. A real limiting belief thinking like, oh, they're in competition with each other and stuff like that. And I remember turning to my mentors and, and asking their advice and it was like, yeah, of course you can.

They all offer different services. Everyone, you know, all individual. And Louise's clients go to Louise's clients because of Louise and the other groomers. Clients go to the other groomer because of them. So I got over myself. And I remember Louise saying once on a call, it was a sales call, and she was like, do you want to work with me? And I was like, no, no, no, it's not that. And I had to explain my. My limiting beliefs. But me and Louise did some work together for six months, and I just found her incredible.

Such a positive person, positive mindset. And I did a mindset course and introduced Louise to it too. But Louise also had a lot of background in sort of NLP and loved the. The sort of, like, working out why mindset is stopping people. And I knew that I wanted to deliver the program and I knew that, you know, I couldn't just put together a program where I said, right, right, everyone just put your prices up and, you know, sound like a stock record. Put your prices up, prices up, prices up.

I know from running our own business and helping my wife and helping other groomers that there is such a barrier, such a mindset barrier when it comes to things like putting your prices up, setting your boundaries and stuff like that. So I knew that the key to helping people and getting the great results that we do is making sure that we help them with their mindset. So I did some learning around mindset. Louise had a very similar background and very similar learning. And we came together and I was like, oh, Louise, would you like.

I'd be honored if you would be my mindset mentor on the program. And Louise bit my arm off, thankfully. And that was. She's been on our business program ever since. And sometimes I get a Bit jealous because I think sometimes some of our clients actually really enjoy Louise. You know, they love her sessions and Louise gets some fantastic results for clients. Absolutely changes their mindset and changes their perception on everything. And I would go as far as saying that Louise has actually changed some people's lives with the, the work that she's done with them.

So, you know, my hat goes off to Lou and I thank her so much for the work that she does with, with my clients, with the program's clients. So I wanted to give you a bit of a, an insight into what a mindset calls about. Now, we don't record these mindset calls and we don't publish them to the members. Like everything on the program is recorded and is put into our portal and clients can watch it back on their app or on the desktop. But I always thought, well, we won't record the mindset calls because, you know, you do have to be a bit vulnerable at times.

And quite often on some of our zooms, we share the highs and we share the lows and we have tears and, you know, we give people virtual hugs.

So I always sort of said we won't record and publish these calls so that people do feel comfortable about being a little bit vulnerable and talking about things.

But I've got, but I'm gonna sort of just give you a bit of a behind the scenes of the kind of topics that Louise covers. And she ran a call on Thursday and I've just gone over some of the topics that she covered in that call and how she supported some of the groomers. Now, obviously I'm not going to disclose who they were or any names or anything like that, but I just want to give you a feel for what a mindset call is all about. And they're run on a Thursday evening, every other week, half past seven till nine o'.

Clock. Everyone is welcome to join and people join as and when they need to. Sometimes people will go a few months or a few weeks or maybe six months, and then maybe something will creep in and I'll be like, right, let's go and jump on one of Louise's calls and get that, get that ironed out. So these are some of the takeaways from her call the other night. And obviously, like I said, I'm not going to be sharing actual names and locations and stuff like that. But I just want to give you an idea of what, what is covered.

So, you know, I've kind of touched on why, why mindset is important. But every groomer I've ever worked with, you know, they know how to groom a dog and I often say, you know, you know how to groom a dog with standing on your, standing on their head. But running a business is a whole different skill. And I've spoken to quite a few people in the last couple of weeks actually who have had really high powered corporate jobs, management sort of jobs and they've run their own businesses within different areas.

Not, not dog breaming or they've been like directors of corporate businesses and stuff. But when they say, they often say to me like I just can't do it. I can't, I can't translate what I did in the corporate world and bring it into the dog grooming business. It doesn't seem to work and they struggle to, to transition that over into their own business and they causes some real barriers. So often the biggest thing that holds them back isn't actually the, you know, is actually their mindset. The dog grooming skill is a, is a practical skill that we all that groomers are always improving and learning.

But the biggest barrier is what's quite often is our, is our mind, is our head, it's between our ears, it's our mindset.

So that's why I knew that the key to getting fantastic results that we do on the program is to try and start changing that mindset and giving people reasons why they feel the way they do, understanding the physical and the emotional reactions that they have, looking at their fears and habits, self doubt imposter syndrome, limiting beliefs and try and help people through this. And some people, they get it, they get it so quickly and they really understand it. Some clients can change their mindset very, very quickly with our help.

Others, you know, they take a bit longer, sometimes over 12, 12 months. You know, we work very hard with some groomers to, to help shift those limiting beliefs and help them overcome their fears. And this is one of the reasons actually why I call my business program a program and not a course. Because you know, courses are kind of designed to be finished and they've got an end stage and an end point. But my program is not designed to finish. I don't believe that you complete business.

I don't believe that you're ever, you know, business is always changing, it's always moving forwards and you might have a very positive mindset or you might have overcome certain parts of your mindset, but there may be a trigger and you're triggered like six months later and we just need to have you back in and, and help you reset it and move Forwards again. So it's a, it's a fluid, constant thing that we're always working on. And, you know, this is the beauty of humans, isn't it? Everyone's different, everyone reacts differently.

And that makes my job, like, fantastic as well, because I see so many different people day in, day out, and when we're doing the calls and stuff. And my job as a coach is to really understand, like, what makes that groomer tick, what drives that groomer, what holds that groomer back. And this is one of the reasons why I don't want lots and lots of people on the program. I want to be working with people so I can understand their, their, their habits, who they are, why they're doing their business, what's going on in their business.

So I think that's another reason why the program works so well as well. This podcast is sponsored by Low Pay. Low pay is half the price of sumup and Zettle. So you keep more of the money that you earn. Rates start at 0.79%. So let's have a look at what was covered in the mindset call. So there's quite a lot of non business stuff that comes up, like work life, balance. But then I also kind of think, well, when you run a small business, like a pet groomers, you're very intertwined with your business.

So there's a lot of juggling between your home life and your business life as small, small business entrepreneurs. It's very, very demanding. So a few of the members were struggling with that feeling of constantly being on, like switched on, you know, juggling clients, juggling their home life, everything in between. And Louise really helped them to take a step back and start to reframe what balance actually means. What does that mean to them? And you know, sometimes it's this always saying yes to people and it's time to like, really rethink about, you know, do you need to say yes to everyone?

And it's a little bit about being selfish. And something we talk about quite a lot is we look towards the, the mentors in our lives that we look up to and who we admire. And we kind of do an exercise where we work out, where we look at their, how they run their businesses and how they run their lives. And quite often the things that stand out for me, for my mentors is that they're very willing to say no and they're very, very controlling of their time or their time is very precious and they're very willing to say no if it doesn't fit in with Their schedule.

And sometimes for some people that comes across as quite selfish and maybe a little bit arrogant. But I think they really hold the key when it comes to running a small business that they protect their time. I think that's the right word. They protect their time. And quite often sometimes they have bas that protect the time for them. But I think that's, that's probably like something that we could all learn from is protecting our time and, and saying no so that we can start having a bit of headspace.

Because it is hard. Like running a business, running a home life, running your pets, running your children. You know, there's so much to do. So one member who I'm extremely proud of had this sort of query. She, she runs her own business, she works on her own in a salon. She's got a teenage daughter and a horse and dogs. And, and she came across like she got a bit down with things lately. And she's like, I'm really not. Business is really sort of taking over, so how do we change that?

And we spent a good sort of month sort of discussing ideas. And this is where I'm so proud is because she listened to everyone's opinions, didn't make any knee jerk reactions, didn't like, didn't change anything really quickly, but really sort of discussed it with the group and discussed it with me and Louise so that we could come up with a plan. And she's finally come up with like a, a winter schedule for her, for her business. So taking like split shifts in a way. So, you know, starting in the morning, doing a few of the appointments and then taking some time out during the day in the winter when the, when the weather's nice, but then when there's light so that she can go and ride her horse, muck out her stables, walk her dog.

And then because her daughter is a bit older and also is not always there with her, she's with her dad as well. Take the opportunity to then come back to the salon and do the rest of the dogs for that day. Going into the dark now that doesn't. That will never suit everyone. Not everyone likes to work like that with split shifts and stuff like that. But this is all about testing. And this groomer is starting to test that. And she's done her first week or so.

It needs some tweaking. But what it means is that she's starting to feel a lot more relieved about her, her work schedule and starting to make her work work around her rather than her work around work. And I hope that makes sense. But yeah, it's about, you know, we gave her permission, I suppose, in a way, to adjust how she works, adjust how she does things and work slightly differently. And I think this is one of the things that when we set our businesses up, we kind of think, well, everyone is working Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, or.

Or Tuesday to Saturday. That's, you know, Saturday is a big, big one. Everyone has this limiting belief that. Well, not everyone, but people have this limiting belief that people want Saturday appointments. And yes, they do want Saturday appointments, but does it have to be you that offers them? You know, if you don't want to work Saturdays? Why do you work Saturdays if you don't want to? There's going to be someone out there that will work Saturdays, so let them have the appointments and you can have the time off and spend with your family and friends and go horse riding or go walking or spend some time with your own pets or with your own children.

It's about prioritizing you. And business is like, this is why we go into business, so we can make our own decisions and make our own choices. And that's really important. We want you to enjoy your business rather than it being a chain around your neck. So. So we kind of gave this groomer permission to step outside the box, think outside the box, try new things. And we sort of sat down and said, well, yeah, the split shift works. You know, tell your customers, get them on board.

You can do it in the winter and then go back to normal in the summer. But this is what business is about. It's about being flexible. So again, you start to realize that your business should fit around your life and not consume your life. The next sort of topic they discussed was about boundaries, and it was about clients showing up late or ignoring the timings or not turning up at all. I'm sure you can all relate to this one. But Louise guided the group through how to.

To communicate those boundaries calmly and competently, but most importantly, not to be apologetic about it. And I think this is where the leadership aspect of being your own boss, running your own business comes in. And people like leadership. People like to be told what they need to do. Well, not everyone, but most people like to have that bit of leadership. So it's about finding the inner leader in you, I suppose. And off the back of this conversation, one of the groomers decided that she was going to lock the salon door during the grooms for safety and peace of mind, and put up a friendly note explaining why.

And another one is implementing a doorbell system. So that she can control her dog's control when the dogs are handed over. This is certainly a boundary that my wife has put in place over the years. We've got a car park outside our salon and quite often at like quarter to nine, people rock up in the car park. And the old days, like someone would go out and grab the dog or the door would be open, they'd wander in, someone grab the dog. But at quarter to nine you're still like turning the baths on, getting the computers ready, cleaning the, like cleaning up from the day before maybe, or making a cup of tea and having a slice of toast.

So now the door is locked and Emma makes them wait in the car park until 9 o' clock and then she welcomes them in. A lot more calmer, a lot more friendlier than thinking, ah, quarter nine, guys, you're not in till nine. So boundaries. But you know, it's very easy to actually blame the customers for this. But actually quite a lot of the time comes down to us not setting these boundaries and not making sure these boundaries stick. So next topic around this was all about pricing.

Pricing probably comes up in nearly every single, like every single coaching call that we have. There's always a conversation about pricing. But a few groomers who on the call were nervous about increasing their prices, especially for long term loyal clients. Loyal being in inverted commas. But Louise helped them to unpack that guilt and it was amazing to sort of see that they had a real shift in perspective as well. They realized that loyal goes both ways. And it's okay to raise your prices to reflect your time, skill and rising costs.

So one group groomer has decided to record a short video explaining her price increase to clients. And this is always a better way to do your price increases is to take your clients on that journey as well. She's decided to do a video so she's transparent and confident and again showing leadership within her business and communicating these price increases. We're not going to justify our price increases. That's not the thing. But instead of hiding behind a text message or a sign in the salon, she's going to do a, a video explaining that the prices are going up and, and getting that out there.

And that gives you, it's done, it's done. It gives you more confidence as well. So an important part of running your business is like adapting and adapting to change and this can be really fast, fast moving change or, or slow changes when it comes to like marketing and stuff like that. But a groomer had to have a, had needed Some help and advice around some life circumstances that were changing quite fast need to help her pivot her business because the location where she's grooming from is not going to be available for very much longer.

So it was just nice for this groomer to sit down with Louise and the group, be open about what's going on and then discuss her options, maybe looking at mobile grooming or house to house grooming or table rent. Because one of the things when it comes to making decisions is the procrastination about it. And when things are changing fast, you need to make fast decisions, decisions. And if we don't, if we sort of procrastinate, we then maybe start losing customers because of it. Maybe they don't quite understand what's going on or it's not being communicated to them, then all of a sudden everything's changed and the customers are completely left behind.

So that's the beauty of having this sort of group coaching. And it's not just the Louise James Show. There'll be other inputs as well from other groomers that have tried stuff or have implemented stuff or looked at stuff so that we can their their sort of opinion as well and start to weigh up the pros and cons. So I love it, hearing the group working together because it captures the spirit of the whole program and no matter what happens, you know, we're always there to support them and there's always a solution.

It doesn't always happen that we think we come up with a solution there and then. Like we were saying about the, the groomer earlier that's now doing split shifts. That was probably a good month's worth of like chatting, messaging, threshing out the decisions, flashing out the pros, cons before actually making a decision and sort of starting to test it. But there's always a solution. It's not always right in front of us. It does sometimes take some time to flesh out and to think about. But we can always come up with solutions and we're always here to support people when they pivot.

Another sort of thing that came up was you may have experienced this, clients canceling last minute again and again or turning up late or expecting a special treatment. And Louise guided the group through this to stop seeing the, this is like a down point of their business or an awkward like conversation to have with the, with the, with the client. But to reframe this as like training opposite opportunities with the clients, you know, it's a bit like a teaching them new tricks, teaching the old dog new tricks, train the clients appropriately so they understand your boundaries and understand what's needed on them.

And if they're not the client for you and they don't understand or refuse to understand those boundaries and refuse to comply with your requests, then maybe they're not the client for you. And that's a difficult one as well. But one of the members decides to bring in a deposit policy and otherwise sending a simple but professional message and just to confirm her cancellation terms. There's no good having cancellation terms unless you enforce them. So that's also very important to emphasize to our clients. This is about taking control of the business, but taking control calmly, confidently, and fairly so that we don't have this biggest big, like, splat on social media and have a go at all of our customers because we haven't firmly implemented our boundaries ourselves.

So, you know, that is some of an idea about what we did did in that. In that session, you know, and I love these sessions. I love hearing the results and seeing the groomers grow. They're all real groomers, you know, making real decisions about how they change decisions that they change, how they feel about their business. And that's really important. Louise always does an incredible job holding that space for their conversations, guiding them, challenging them. That's very important that they challenge, that they're challenged with some of their mindset.

So someone can go from saying I can't to saying I can. And here's how. And that's a really important shift in that mindset. And when they're surrounded by a group of supported, like, mind groomers, the shift can happen really fast as well, because, you know, most people have gone through it and they can see that people have gone through it and have come out the other side. So, yeah, that's like, that's a sort of quick precis of our mindset call and what our mindset mentor Louise does on the program and how she helps groomers shift their.

Their mindset with their balance with their lives and their businesses. Lots of mindset words in there. So if you do, like, feel stuck or feel overwhelmed or unsure how to balance your business and your life, I want you to know that you don't have to figure it out alone. Inside the Pet Groomer Business program, you'll. You'll learn strategies and we'll help you with systems, but you'll have mindset support from the likes of myself and Louise James to help you stay calm, keep you confident, and keep you into control.

So, yeah, if you like the sound of this and you want to know a bit more. I'll put the link to our landing page in the comments or just drop me a message. My DMs are always open. If you are sending me a message on Facebook, please friend request me as well because those messages will go into the message request pot. I don't always remember to check that, so if I haven't replied, it might be that it's just stuck in my messenger pot, which I can't see at the moment.

So please send us a friend request if you're going to message us as well. Or you can email on info at pets passion to profit.com Excellent. I hope you've enjoyed that. I hope it's given you a bit more of an insight into how we work on the program, how our mindset mentor works, and how we help help pet groomers with their mindset. Until next time, I'll bid you farewell and I'll see you soon. Take care everyone. 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 Low Pay. Head over to www.lowpay.com to find out more about their payment solution.

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