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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.
Right, excellent. Welcome everyone. Welcome to our next A podcast episode and in this one we are joined by friend and client, Joe. Welcome, Joe, how are you? I'm fine, thank you. I hope you are too. Yeah, very well, very well. So, Joe, you're the owner of Short Bark and Sides in Edgeware. So coming onto this podcast today, we've been working together for over a year now and we just wanted to explore your, your business journey. So perhaps we can just start a little bit at the beginning and like, how did you get into the pet grooming industry?
Why did you become a groomer?
I was in a. I, I'd always, always been in medical based jobs of some form and I was working in cancer support for nine years and I was very, very unhappy. Lots of different reasons. You get overloaded with sad stories and my boss was not the boss I needed her or wanted her to be. And I was looking for other positions and in the charity sector, because it was a charity cancer support organization, I kind of out salaried myself. And also my job role was a cross between a counsellor and a social worker and I wasn't qualified as either.
And so I couldn't find another role.
And the only time I seemed to be calm was when I was with my own dog. And I just quite simply said to him, I used to come home, I was coming home crying every night. And I quite simply said to my mom, all I want to do is work with dogs. I just want to be with dogs. And she said, why don't you be a groomer? And I said, okay. That was the scar of it. Did you take your dogs? What kind of, what breed of dogs did you have?
Did you take them to a groomer at the time? Yeah, I had, I had just one dog who's still with us, Jasper.
He's nearly 12 now.
I had a mobile groomer that came and parked on my drive and every six weeks and he went to her.
But he, he didn't enjoy being groomed. He's, he, he still doesn't enjoy being groomed. I'm quite ashamed of that, me being the groomer. But he's supposed to be the example, but he's not. No. What did I mean, was it like the, the mobile van would turn up, you'd hand Jasper over and then they wave their magic wand and Jasper looking lovely and smelling great. Or did you sort of have a look in and see what happened and did you have any understanding? So when I sort of decided that I was possibly going to go down this, this dog grooming route, I didn't say anything to the groomer but I did look in her van.
I mean I had seen inside the van because I'd handed him over in the van and I asked her how many dogs she groomed a day and she told me nine. And I thought, wow, oh my God, that's mental.
And couldn't even imagine grooming nine dogs in a day with travel. I just, it was. Blew my mind a bit. So, yeah, I mean I, I sort of, I phoned around local groomers, I did a bit of market research. I obviously didn't tell my own groomer what I was intending to do, but yeah, I, I did my research and I kind of, I thought I knew what I was getting into but I don't think anybody really knows what they're getting into until they do it. Do you think you do it?
If you knew, do you think you would have done it?
I think I would have maybe been a bit more hesitant. I think I was like every other dog owner that brings their dog for grooming, that it's a wash drying a bit of the clear. I just had no idea the level of learning and intricacy that there is in the job. I had not clue and I think that's why as an industry we are actually quite undervalued. But because I was like everybody else, yeah, they put them in the bath, I give them a wash and they click them and that's it.
Finished. Yeah. And I think as an industry maybe we're a bit guilty of not explaining or not selling the owners or the, the wider public what pet grooming is a bit like. And obviously we've got a lot of people now on tick tock, filming themselves and, and stuff like that. But you know, I suppose we need to do some education around our jobs and, and what pet grooming is actually, actually like in reality. Although all the owners like that. I don't know. Well, I think, I think I make it quite clear to my clients what's involved.
Not in a bad way, but you know, they're quite aware that it's. They said to me sometimes, I didn't realize it was such physical work. I think the thing about me was I was giving hunting my dog over and it was going into a van and the door was shut and that was it. So with my salon, it's very much that they come in my gate and then my door is open and I. It's my convert. My garage is converted. So what you see is what you get.
And so you can see, you know, they, sometimes they do see me working when they brought their dog early and they say, it's really physical for you, isn't it? And I like, yeah, yeah. So what, what year did you actually set up and convert your. Convert your garage?
July. I opened July 2020.
I walked out my job in February 2020 and then we went into lockdown in the March, so I had already sort of enrolled on the course. So I moved my course and then we moved it again and I started end of May and did it into June. I think I finished something like the 27th of June.
And during that time the builders came and converted my garage and I opened on the 6th of July. Nice. Hit the ground running. Yeah. What kind of consideration did you give to the business side of running a dog grooming business? You know, you, have you ever been, you've been self employed before? Had you run a business before? Yeah, so I, I've grown up in a business family. My parents, my dad had three hairdressing salons, so. And I was, I used to go when I was little or younger, I used to go every Saturday.
I was well aware of what went on. They would talk about business, you know, at night we always had family dinners. So I, I knew what went on in a business and what. My dad didn't work Mondays and what my dad had to do, you know, all his books and everything.
And so I was aware. But also when I first left school, I trained to be a chiropodist and I have my own domiciliary business for two years. So I ran my own business then. So you kind of knew what you're, what you're getting into. Yeah. And then I, then I did something. I did medical sales for seven years and then I went back to chiropody for 12 years while I was living down here because I'm not from London, I'm from Leeds. 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. I'm trying to remember when we had a conversation because I think you'd opened your, you'd opened your business up. I think before you even joined us as a, as a client. We Had a conversation before that, didn't we? Absolutely. So within. So you opened around the July. When did you start thinking, is there more to this or I'm struggling or what? How did you find the first six months?
Well, I opened in the July and I think the first six months was okay. It wasn't because I got at the Christmas in the Christmas of 2020. 2020, I was fully booked. So all the people that couldn't get appointments with their own groomers came to me. So I ended up with quite a full diary, bearing in mind that I still wasn't probably at the speed that I am at now, and I was maybe doing three or four a day.
So I think that the first six months was gradual, Gradual. Then I got to the Christmas, it got very busy and then a good percentage of those clients actually stayed with me.
So, yeah, I think then it sort of slowly, slowly started to improve. Um, yeah. And did you. Can you remember what your sort of introductory prices were in 2020?
Very low.
How low can you go? How low is. I think I was charging D5 to 40 for dogs. I think my 45. Maybe some of the prices for Mockapoos.
Yeah. So low.
How did that match? Because you obviously come from employment and you're being paid a salary. Were you finding that your. The money that you were making from the business was enough? Was it meeting the salary that you were earning? No, not at that time. So I was on a very high salary.
But what I. So I wasn't really taking much in wages. But because of COVID at the beginning, we had a mortgage holiday that really helped us massively. And then I. And we went through all of our finances with a fine tooth came and we just got rid of a million and one subscriptions and things that we paid for. And I think that we save something like excluding the mortgage, we save something like £700amonth just on, you know, going through our bank account and just seeing our statement and just seeing what we didn't need at that time.
So, no, I wasn't earning. I didn't pay myself much at all for the first year.
I did pay myself something because I needed to contribute, but not. Not much. Okay, so how was you. You sort of went through the first year, you know, were you busy? You had lots of customers. Did you find it like, was it. Were they demanding? Were you working long hours?
Yeah, I found that I was working very. I was working six days at the beginning and I was working long hours. Part of that was experience. Part of that was running A business like this was very different to running a chiropody business. So with chiropody I would walk in, I was a domiciliary chiropode. So I'd walk into their house, I'd say hi, how are you? I'd sit down, I'd do their feed, they'd give me their money and I would do glove. And there was nothing more than that.
With this it was very different because first of all you don't know the dog's behavior. And secondly, people are people are people and not always pleasant or they're panickety or they have unrealistic expectations.
So yeah, my experience that, that's. I think when I started to think this is, might need a bit help here.
Sort of wonder how can I do this differently or better? Yeah, I think that my local community, I felt very pressured to do, to do the right job because then if I didn't do it the local grapevine was gonna start moving and people would be talking and I go to that groomer and I just was so conscious of, I was just so conscious of doing a good job and if they left are they gonna bad mouth me? And you know, Facebook And I just, I found it all really quite daunting.
They had quite a power that I remember when, when we first started working together and we started to introduce or about some changes and your, the community element of your business where you know, you've got a very close knit community around you. You were so sort of under the crush there, like paranoid about what they were going to say about you. Worried that upsetting one member of the community would then, you know, have a big knock on effect and people would like drop you like a, like a hot stones kind of thing.
Yeah, yeah, I, it's, it was very hard for me to separate out. I knew a lot of people and I knew people through people that weren't necessarily friends, but I knew a lot of people and I was very, it felt very pressurized for me that if I put my prices up or if I made a mistake or they didn't like the groom, what were they going to say? Were they going to judge me? Were they going to judge my prices? And as an overthinker that just did my head in because I had real fear, proper fear about that.
And I remember something happening and I can't remember what the incident was, but I remember sitting on my sofa and crying and saying to my husband, what if, what if, what if? And being in a complete state about it. Anxiety was through the Roof and yeah, I think that was, I think that was probably the time sort of when it was all that was going on as I was becoming more experienced and getting busier and people were recommended to me. That fear of, I know I need to earn more but I'm scared to put my prices up.
People's opinions of me, it just was massive in my head, Massive. So if you, if you, you're having demand to earn more so you could contribute to the, to the house more, but you're fearful about putting your prices up. Were you finding yourself sort of bending your, your boundaries and working longer hours, squeezing more people in? Definitely. Working weekends or. Yeah, well, as I said at the beginning, I worked six days, then I went to five days in the April, in the April of 2021, I got a Saturday girl so I could put more clients in.
But yes, I would squeeze people in. I would do days that I didn't want. I would do some days, not whole days, but I'd put an extra client in or I'd do a late night and I'd still be grooming at 9 o' clock in the evening.
And I was, it was very full on for me. I did what I could to earn, to earn the money that I needed to earn. And there was part of me that was like, oh, this is amazing, I'm really, really busy. But I knew, I knew that I couldn't do it long term, five days a week.
I was no spring chicken. I was 52 when I started, so I just thought my body was hurting and I kind of was in this position where I needed to earn certain amounts and I couldn't let it go and what was I going to do about that? There's a lot of pressure from home, isn't there, with like you said, mortgages and repayments and stuff like that, to earn the money that you need. And if we're not willing to put our prices up, then the option is to just to work more and more and more, isn't it?
Yeah. So what gives? So you know, what made you, what brought you to me? What made you decide to reach out to myself and pet Passion to profit, to, to see if there's better that you can do. Like, is there a different way of doing stuff? I think, I think it was the fear, the fear for me of upsetting people and I needed to become more business minded. I found this very different to my chiropody business and I, I needed to be more boundaried and boundaries are not my thing.
I've been A people pleaser all my life. And so boundaries weren't there for me. I would bend over backwards for my clients, and it wasn't reciprocated. There wasn't thanks for it. And if it suited them, they would walk away, and I would be really upset about it because I hadn't done. They hadn't given back to me what I'd given to them. And I think it was this fear and this lack of boundaries that I thought, okay, I need some help in running this business because I need to make it more than it is.
But I really don't know how to do that.
Yeah, you don't know. You don't know what? You don't know, do you? No, no, exactly. You know, I'm a people person, but I needed to be a business person. I needed to run the business as a business. And my mindset was not there.
It was me personally that was running the business. It wasn't the business for the business.
And so everything was very personal for me. So you reached out to us, and what did you like about the pet grooming business program before you joined us? What did you like? What made you sort of want to join us?
The support from you and the other mentors and the targeted support.
Your weekly calls. Louise with mindset. And, you know, I. I don't think right at the beginning, I even knew about Robin or Fanny or any of them. But, you know, and also the fact that there was a WhatsApp group, that there were other groomers that I could talk to. And I think for me, I needed to be talking to other people with the same mindset because I felt that a lot of. Although I'd made friends with local groomers, the mindset was very different to mine. They were running businesses for different reasons.
And I needed my business to be a success, and I needed to. I knew that people that were on your program also would feel like that. So for me, that was the attraction was to be able to be mingling with people who were of the same mindset and learning from people who were experts, really.
And what about your other half? What did. Mark, isn't it? Yeah. So I get a lot of. I speak to a lot of groomers, and I get a lot of pushback with regards to the program because, you know, they feel that it could be really helpful. They leave the sales call and go and explain it to other halves. And it's quite often, oh, no. Oh, no, no. I get a lot of no's because of other half. So what did. What does Mark thought, think of it when you explained.
So Mark doesn't really get involved in my business. Yes, we have discussions but the, the financially it was my business and it's coming out of my money. The payment was coming out of my money. So I obviously discussed it with him and he said if you feel that it will help you. He is very supportive and he said if you feel that it will help you give it a go.
You know, for him we're both self employed so the pressure's massive and he wanted it to be a success for me and if it was, it was going to help him financially. Otherwise all the pressure was on him. Yeah, he certainly benefited from it. Yeah. So whilst he's not, he's actually not a very open minded person in many ways.
He, he was encouraging for me. You know, he said if it's right for you then you've got to do it because you need to see where it's going to take you. Yeah. So let's talk about where it's taken you.
Amazing, amazing. Part of the journey. So you joined us in January 2023 I believe so it's been almost over, over two years now. It's 22 I think I've been with you two and a half years. Oh okay. Two and a half years. I was, I was frantically looking it up before, before I joined the call. But did you not find it? No, I think it's been over two years. Definitely. Excellent. So tell us like how did you, did you start from foot forward or did you find it a little bit like oh, this is quite scary what, what we're having to do and what we're having to look at.
Yeah, I remember the feeling of overwhelm.
So I would come onto the calls and I would be listening to all the stuff on Kajabi and everything that was recorded and it was like mind blowing and it felt for me like, oh, I've got to do it all at once and I've got to do this and I've got to do that and I can't even remember if I had an administrator then because then I was working and coming in and dealing with my own calls and appointments and callbacks, whatever.
So I think that I was like, when am I going to find the time to do all this?
I just haven't got, I just haven't got that time to do it. And I remember speaking to you and saying that I felt very overwhelmed and you said, write a list, tick it off, you don't have to do it all at once.
And I did.
And then actually it all sort of like evened itself out and, and you just said to me you need to prioritize. The problem for me was I didn't know what to prioritize. I think at the beginning because everything, you get so much information and you learn so much at the very beginning that you, you, you want to run with it but it's, you just, there's not enough hours in the day when you're already working to do that. I don't think there is for anybody unless you weren't working.
But yeah, I think, I think I was very overwhelmed at the beginning that you sorted me out. I think for me whenever I look at business tasks that I need to do, I always prioritize. Like you said, they're always prioritized. And priority for within the business has always got to be money, hasn't it? You know? Yeah. Always look at, you know, other invoices that need sending out, other payments need to be chasing or do I need to like in your case like get a grip of your money and sort of start looking at your business money, work out where it's going, what you need and then how to get it.
So can you think about like when you start to make the decision about your, your like initial price increase, how you felt about putting your prices up? Terrified. Absolutely terrified. Terrified. And I, I think for you know, I did more than one price increase a year at the beginning because I needed, I knew my prices were low and I needed to get to where I needed to get to, to be able to earn a decent living.
But I wasn't confident to do a massive jump. So I was doing three pounds, four pounds, two pounds. And some people, I felt so bad or I was so scared of what they were going to say, I left them where they were. I didn't even tell them I was doing a price increase and I just left their prices. And that was probably one of the worst mistakes I made because that meant that when I did increase it there was a one hell of a catch up for then.
This was one of the, one of the issues. Was it the mindset issue I was around, you know, if I put my prices up, what are people going to say? Are people going to be upset with me? Because I think that's quite, that was quite a big issue for you, wasn't it? Yeah. You were making them feel about you and your services. Are they going to then talk to about me and are we, am I going to lose loads and loads of clients? So tell us like, how did it work out?
How have you lost? You know, are you sitting here with nothing in your diary? I'm sitting here with a diary full for eight weeks.
My prices compared to when I did my first price increase is.
I don't even know what percentage it is, but massive. My grooms average now around 77, 78 pounds a groom.
But yeah, 35 straight. And I was charging 35 pounds at the beginning. Yeah. So 70, 75 pounds. That's incredible. So really, I would say that in I pro. I think I must have done a price increase before I joined the program. So I would say that in the last three to three and a half, four years, it's gone for around 40 pounds up to about 70 pounds. 77 pounds. Yeah. Amazing. And how have we managed or how have we helped you to get over that mindset? Sort of barriers?
How, how have you. Obviously a lot of personal development. But what's been really helpful to, to move past that.
Louise once said something to me in a mindset call that has really, really stuck with me and that it was that my business is a business that is me, anybody that works for me, my accountant, people on the group, but it's not a personal to me. And that I have to take me as a person out of the equation and remember that this is a business. So whenever I'm faltering because my, my personal head gets involved, I remember what she says and I can sometimes even say out loud, this is what my business needs.
This is not me. This is what my business needs. And, and that's really, really helped me with my mindset when I've had to make and do things that have been what I would consider big changes, like getting, you know, losing my Saturday, stopping my Saturdays, getting rid of certain dogs because they're too big, too heavy, I. I had to just not worry about it anymore.
And actually, you know, people that didn't respect me and my time or my skill were not clients that I wanted. And I had to remember that it wasn't me personally, it was my business. My business didn't want them or need them in, you know, with me. So I needed to get the clients that I needed to have that were good for me, good for my mindset, and good for, you know, income. Yeah. And I think that's a really good way to look at it, obviously, because I think many people struggle with price increases or making decisions in their business because they feel that they have to justify it.
They have to justify to their customer why they're doing what they're doing. But that justification is, is fine, isn't it? I'm doing this because my business needs me to do it. Does there need to be any more justification to your customer? No. And you know, my, my most recent price increase in April, I quite simply said to people, it's my annual price increase.
You know, I always do my best to keep in line with inflation and, but everything has gone up. It's a necessary evil. I didn't use those words, but words to the effect of.
And I thank them for their understanding, you know, and I didn't have, I had one person that left, but I knew she was going to leave. I knew she was because she's been moaning about my prices since the day she came to me. That was expensive. So.
Okay, bye. And in a few months time, when she comes back, will you be allowing her back? I don't think she'll come back. She's, she's very, I don't, I really don't think that she'll come back. And actually if she does, I won't take her back because she's, she's someone that I don't need, I don't need as a client. She's so negative all the time and I just, I don't want that. And I don't need it. I'm so booked up, I don't need, I don't need it for her to have.
What if I put my, when I put my prices up again, she'll complain again. Yeah. Whereas if we think back two years ago, that person leaving because you've done a price increase would probably have seen you on the sofa with Mark in tears. Sort of. Yes, like floods of tears, really. Sort of mindset taking a big dip, sort of worrying about what you've done.
I, I, I really, this, this year. And since my price increase in April, I think I've got a vision about what I want to do, where I want to go and the person that I am. And actually I'm no competition groomer, you know, but I know I'm not a bad groomer and actually if they could do it themselves, they would be doing it themselves and they can't. So I have a skill set that they don't have.
You know, I offer stuff within the salon that other salons don't offer.
I do reiki for dogs, I do joint and mobility spas, elderly dog care.
You know, I do things that other salons don't necessarily do and if they want someone that does those things and has skill set to do those things, then that's what they have to pay me.
And I've really come to the conclusion that my business is my business and this is me. This is me. And by having that sort of definition and in your business and in your head, you actually start finding the customers that are right for you and your business. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think I now have a client base that I really like. I don't have any dogs that I find difficult, overly. I'm not saying they're all great, because they're not, but, you know, I love the dogs that come in.
I love the clients that come in.
If they turned around and said they had to go elsewhere because of their moving price or whatever, I really. I'm fine about it. I'm fine. I'm okay about it. It's like, okay, bye. Next.
You definitely worked on that. I said before, before we started this recording, I was like, wow, how much you've changed your. Your mindset from a couple of years ago. It's incredible how you're very beholden to your community, into your clients, whereas now it's kind of, like completely flipped.
Yeah. And there's a few reasons for that, some personal reasons.
And I have done a lot of work on myself as a person and done a lot of what they call shadow work so that they, you know, I understand myself better. I understand why I react the way I react to. And I understand that I can choose how I react to something happening and that I don't. It doesn't have to be negative, that I am actually in control of how I feel and what I do. And that's been massive for me. Yeah, it's amazing. And control around your business and control around your customers, but also you've grown and taken control of your finances as well.
Yeah. Tell us a bit about that if you're happy to.
We've had a lot of historical debt which seemed to be as fast as we get rid of it would be back. And I suppose you could call it living beyond your means. And it really felt like a noose around our necks. And, you know, I listened to Fanny's calls on money management, and I made a decision 18 months ago that it enough was enough, and I didn't want to live with this shadow over our heads constantly and that we needed to get rid of it. And so I had a chat with my husband.
We sat down, we looked at our finances. We decided what we were going to do with the debt, how if we were going to amalgamate it, where we were going to pay things off what we could afford, and we split the money. We would physically put money away every month and we have paid off in 18 months half of what we owed. And it was an enormous amount. Yeah. So I remember you. I remember you saying, like, for the first time in your adult life, you're going to be.
You're well and truly en route to being debt free. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, I think that managing my money. I know last May we went away on holiday and that was the first time in my adult life that I actually paid for a holiday without putting it on a credit card and having to pay it off because I'd saved up for it. We'd saved up for it, and that was such a massive thing for us.
And it feels really good to take control. Yeah.
You know, it felt. There have been times, you know, that I felt a little bit out of control with the business, with staffing issues, with money and, you know, with your help and support, and I've managed to bring it back together and reroute myself, so to speak, and just not panic. I think that's the thing. Stop panicking. I think it's a focus thing, isn't it? And we can get so busy and tied up in our business and in our lives, and when we lose that little bit of focus, we start to going down new paths or avenues or drift and then, you know, we come back onto zoom calls or maybe a one to one and we just refocus.
Right? What is the goal? What are we working for? What is the, you know, what. What do you want to achieve in the next six months? What are you looking at? And that kind of just gets your blinkers back on, gets your head back in the game and then restart, go again and refocus. I think that's where it helps. Yeah, I think, I mean, that's why I still join the calls after all this time.
And often it can be newer people on the calls, and I'm just one of the oldies, but I like to listen because actually it motivates me and because everybody comes up with new ideas and you learn from other people. I have learned a massive amount from the community and I still come on the calls because it focuses my mind. It really helps me to say, okay, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. I mean, I'm. I'm only human, you know, whatever my mindset is, however, I feel like I'm marching ahead and I'm, you know, know what I'm doing.
I know where I'm going. I get days where I'm like, not quite sure, but the calls resend to me, I think.
And occasionally, you know, then I'll re listen to a call, a recorded call or, you know, and it's really amazing how just listening to other people speak clears your head and also makes you feel not alone. Because everyone's going through similar experiences. Yeah, we're all doing it all over the country, suffering the same things and the same doubts and the same fears, but you can overcome them. It just takes time. And do you think, you know, before, before pre Bill, before you joined the program, did you just think, you know, we've got debt, this is all I can.
That's just life. Everyone's got debt and that's all we deal with. My prices are low or prices are like £40. I can't really do much more than that. I just have to work harder, you see. Did you think there must be more to this or were you just accepting that, you know, this is just how we live our lives and this is where it has to be.
I think that I wanted more. I. I think that I've always been someone that when I do something, I throw myself into it. And I never, you know, I never really play around at stuff. I kind of like, if I'm doing it, I'm doing it properly.
So I wasn't one of these people or a groomer that just was happy to do four dogs a day, go sit down, you know, and £200, £150, £200 and then. And just have my dinner and, and watch telly, you know, that wasn't me and it isn't me because I've never been that way. I have always strived for more. And that's where I thought that the program could help me was because I didn't know how to get there, but I knew that I didn't want to leave it how it was.
I think I had lots of ideas in my head and I didn't know how to implement them. Had you ever had like mentors before coaches, everything like that? How did you. Because it can be kind of a bit of a strange concept, can't it? But it's just like someone holding, holding your hand in a way and guiding you and spotting find all the blind spots around your business. And have you thought of this and have a look at that. And does it help with the preventing procrastination within your business?
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I've been a procrastinator also, so people pleaser. Suffer with overwhelm, procrastination. I mean, you know, sit on the sofa with the cart, think straight, sit on the sofa with a coffee and just don't do anything. So. Because it's all too much for my head.
And I think that when, I mean, at the beginning, that was still me. When I first joined the program, that was. I hadn't changed any at the beginning. So it really did help to have somebody say, focus your head and say, okay, look at it this way, look at it that way. Write a list, do this, do that.
Although I don't think you ever tell people to do anything. You always make a suggestion. How about you look at it this way? And I think that with your support, it really helped me channel my mindset and the way that I was thinking the fear was still there because I hadn't overcome that at the time. But it did help. It did stop me procrastinating about whether I should do something or not because, you know, you made me look at worst case scenario. You know what's going to happen?
You know, you put your prices up. What's going to happen? Someone's going to say no. Oh, okay. They might leave. Okay. And Robin will challenge people to go out and get no's. Won't he desensitize you from that? And to show you that actually a no is not a problem.
Yeah, I mean, I no longer worry about people saying no.
It's funny because my administrator who literally saves my life every week, she.
She'll be the one that she'll. Somebody will say something and she'll be up, up in arms about. About it. And I'd be like, doesn't matter. Just let them go. Whatever. Doesn't matter. I don't think she'll come back, you know, or it. It. I'm not phased. She's phased.
And I say to her, it doesn't matter. She was worried.
I think she was worried a while back that was going to lose people. I think when I did said I was going to do something, I can't actually remember what it was. And she said, oh, do you really want to do that? And I went, yeah.
She was worried about me losing people. And I was just like, whatever, there will be somebody else that will replace them. Yeah, yeah, that's it. That's it. And this is just complete mindset shift, isn't it? So what does your business look like today? How many days a week are you working? Money wise? Are you making the money that you want, need? I'm working four days a Week I work Tuesday to Friday, although today I am working, but I work Tuesday to Friday, 9 till 5:30 ish.
I do four to five dogs a day, teeth cleaning and nail clipping. In between dogs, I'm earning approximately. I work on my own or except on a Thursday where I've got somebody that she, she's, she did work experience for me. She's training as a groomer and I've said to her she can work for me on a Thursday. I can. Because of her hours, I can only fit one extra dog in and that basically pays her wage. So I'm kind of doing it as a favor for her.
So, Yeah, I do 20 to 21 dogs a week and I'm taking around 1600 pounds a week, six, six and a half thousand a month.
How does that make you feel?
Amazing. Amazing. I'm blown away every time I do my monthly, my monthly books have kind of like, whoa, I've done that.
Yeah, I think it really, it makes me really excited actually. It makes me. When I add up, because I add up every day at the end of each day and I add it up and when I've had a really brilliant day and I'm just like, can't believe I've taken that, you know, some days I'm taking up to £500 on my own and I just think everything is, it's achievable for anybody. It's just about hardening up a little bit, toughening up a little bit, changing your mindset and believing in yourself.
And I think, I think. And also another important message that I always want to convey is, and I do this exercise on my workshops is like, why, why it's important for the actual pet that we charge higher prices, you know, because like you were saying, if you, you were charging 35, 40 pounds, you were working long hours, you were having to do like a large amount of pets per day. You're working six days a week. So you're tired, get frustrated. Pets can be very difficult or the owners can be very difficult.
So can you see from putting your prices up how your, your customers have actually benefited from paying higher prices? How the dogs have actually benefited from that? Yeah, I. So my strut line is, is working at your dog's pace, not mine.
And I tell people, they say, how long? And I'll go two hours. Ish. It might be a bit more, might be a bit less. It might be, I will not rush your dog. I will do it at your dog's pace. And if necessary, I'll give the Dog, Reiki. If it's anxious, an anxious dog, I'll give it, I'll put it on the floor, let it go for a run in the garden.
You know, I work with the dog in the dog's best interest. And that is why I charge higher prices, because they won't get it in every salon, understandably. Because people have different, you know, different ways of working and they have staff and they have over overheads different to my overheads.
And, you know, I, I, if people want that service, that their dog is nurtured, you know, then and looked after and allowed to run, not crated, allowed to run in the garden. And there's nothing wrong with all of those other things. I don't mean that other people don't nurture their dogs. I just, you know, I work holistically and my aim is that the dogs that come here have the most comfortable experience that is humanly possible.
And it's my job to make that so for them. And I have dogs that come in that are terrified of going to the groomers and they run in here, literally run. They're pulling their owners up the driveway.
And that makes me really happy. That feels like a really big achievement for me. Yeah. And do you think if you were charging like £40, £45 for those dogs, would you be able to offer that sort of level of service? No, because I think I'd feel undervalued and I think that I would be like just trying to get them in and out to get more people. Yeah. And then obviously the knock on effect for debt and monthly payments and everything has a detrimental effect to your business and your mindset, doesn't it?
Absolutely. I just, as a groomer, I want to be the best that I can be for my clients, my dogs and for myself.
I don't ever want to look back and think, I didn't do that well. I want to do it well.
And I, I mean, I have a need to do everything I do well. Whether that's the truth of it is another matter. But that's my need is to do something and do it properly. Nice.
And what's, what's the future looking like for Joe of six months to a year?
I'd like to reduce down to three days a week.
And either I haven't decided whether I will employ somebody to work the other two days or whether I will rent the space. I just haven't made a decision on that yet.
I want to concentrate more on offering Reiki for dogs, Reiki for pets, cats as well. Anything Draw the line at rats.
So I'm looking at doing more spiritual stuff. So Reiki for animals and breath work and Reiki for people as well, because that's in my heart and my soul as well as dogs. I think, I think I found my, your niche. My niche is dogs and energy work.
They're the things that make me really, really happy. And the beauty of this is everything that you've learned over the last two and a half years with the marketing, the branding, the pricing, the customer service, the minds, you can carry all of that into your human business as well, can't you? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I, I, I'm doing a, like a local dog fair fest thing in July and it's ridiculous how excited I am about doing it because I'm going to be doing Reiki on the day for dogs people, if they want it.
I'm going to be doing teeth cleaning assessments and I'm going to be doing nail clipping on the day. And those are the things that, because I've got, I've got fibromyalgia, which is nothing to do with the grooming. I've had that for years, I think, but recently diagnosed and I know that physically I need to just take a little bit of a step back from that and long term I'm not going to be able to physically carry on the way that I work now. But I don't want to lose the dogs because they make me so happy.
So to have somebody grooming for me and then, or for me to reduce the amount that I'm grooming and then concentrate on energy work with animals and teeth cleaning, which is less stressful on my joints, is the dream really. I think it's also a key, isn't it, to business ownership? When we get into business, we obviously we do take a risk. We are like coming away from employment, employment rights and salary, so we are taking a risk. But actually that business can also give us options and freedom.
If you, if you hadn't have designed the business how you want it to run and how the money that it wants to make, that dream of going into people breath work and Reiki would be very difficult to achieve, I wouldn't. Be able to achieve it either. I, this, I am thankful to this program for bringing me to where I am today because I couldn't have done it on my own. I really don't think I, I could have done it on my own. I think I've needed all of you as mentors and all of the community to push me and challenge me to be the person and groomer that I really had in my head.
And I just don't think I could have done that on my own because I've learned so much and continue to learn. It's not over. I continue to learn every day.
And I'm just so thankful because it feels like a blessing that I joined the program and I met you and have been given the opportunity to make my business what it is. It's amazing. It's amazing. And I often say to people, someone was saying to me the other day how well I've done, but actually, we kind of point you in those directions, but it's you, the business owner, that then takes the action. And it's, I'm very aware that we can, we support you and help you, but it's you that have to face those customers and tell them about the, the higher prices, and it's you that has to do that.
So, you know, hats off to you for taking the action and doing the work within your business, because without the action, you know, you wouldn't be where you were. So, like, a big round of applause to you as well for making this. Thank you. Thank you so much. Anyone that's sitting on the fence or thinking about joining us, joining our community in the program, I think I know what you're going to say, but what would you, what would you say to them? Do it, do it, do it.
Join. Don't hesitate. I, I, Any money, you get back very quickly with the, with the changes that you implement. You, you, you, Anything you've paid out, you earn back quickly. I think that if you value learning, experience and education and community, that's 100% what you get here. And I see how I've made some amazing friends, people that I speak to regularly outside of the program.
And, you know, I, I just, and I see how the others are come along as well. It's not just me. I watch other people, you know, succeeding, and I'm genuinely delighted for them. And it, it makes me really excited to see people growing. And I, and I feel, I'm always plugging you because I feel like everybody should have built because, because it's, it's just the most amazing program. I think if you have any doubt, put it to the back of your mind and just do it. Just do it.
Or reach out. Yeah.
At least. Yeah. Excellent. Well, thank you very much and thank you for coming on and sharing your experience and your financial challenges and everything that you've worked through. It's been an incredible journey and you thinking this morning, we discussed how much you've. You've changed as a person. Full of better and full of. Full of positives as well. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you for asking me. Yeah, we're welcome. Thank you so much. And I'll see you all soon. I hope you've 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.lopay.com to find out more about their payment solution. Sam.
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