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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.
All right, welcome everyone. Welcome to this next edition of our chat and podcast. I'm very pleased to be joined by client and friend, John. Welcome, John. Oh, hello. Thank you for having me on. How you doing? Doing okay? Yeah, it's, it's made for a nice little break from, from, from work today, I think. This hasn't a welcome relief. It's a little bit different, isn't it? So, John, you're the, you're the proud owner of Harvey's Dog Grooming Salon. Perhaps you can tell everyone whereabouts in the world you're.
You're based. Yeah, we are. Carnforth, which is northwest Lancashire, probably. Nearest big city is Lancaster, Morecambe, Blackpool, that area, bit over Blackwall on the edge of the Lake District. I'm glad you, I'm glad you pinned yourself in because my, my geography is pretty rubbish, but now I've got a fairly good idea as to where you are. Yeah. Have you always lived around there? Have you grown up in that area? Yeah, grew up here and I always lived, lived around and about this area specifically. My mum and dad ran a little news agents on this street where I am now back in the 1970s and we all lived above it.
So it's quite nice to come back and I can see the shock that we used to have.
I'll put your name back on the street. Put the fan back. Yeah, that's right. So we moved away when I was about 10. My dad got a job in Chester and we lived in North Wales and from the age of 10 to about the age of about 40, I lived that side and then through circumstances of. Ends up coming back up this way from Yazaka. Yeah, Come back home. That's it. Come back home. Now, I don't know how to say this without being rude, but you were.
You're not in the early start of your life, if that makes sense. You've had a career before, before dog grooming. Tell us what you did before you became a pet groomer. O was. I was always office based, so I was a numbers nerd. Accounting and financial controls.
MI analyst, that sort of job. Worked for Lloyds bank for most of that time, so had a 23 year career at Lloyds Bank. Right. As a, as an, as an accountant and then a financial Controller, then a data analyst there. Yeah, that was, that was in Chester, but yeah, not anymore, thankfully. So I was going to ask, actually it's quite interesting, like you went into like white collar employment. Your parents owned a, owned them on a newspaper shop. I was going to ask whether that was something that was installed in you like, you know, get a job, get a pension, get a big house, get a big tv, you know, retired and die.
It was always looking for like the, the security of having a job. Yeah, that's right. It was always that. So it's kind of spend your, spend your working life gathering as much as you can, try and try and get by, especially when you've got young kids. It was literally trying to just get by, trying to make it off to, to have a few little luxuries then drop dead at the end of it all. And that's, that's life. But you know, I've got out of that little cycle now doing something I wanted to do for a long time.
Really. Yeah. Tell us about that. So what, what prompted you to obviously leave your secure job, but also what prompted you to go into the pet grooming industry? Okay, so the, the reason I left my job originally, like I say, I've been with Lloyds Bank 23 years and it was office based at first and then it was working from home in between that. I spent a lot of time living up in Lancaster, but working in Chester. So I had this daily commute to Chester and back every day and the trains were notoriously bad, sometimes they didn't run.
I had to go get the car. So I was killing myself on the M6 every day. Thinking back into work totally stressed me out and I might as well just say as it is, I had a bit of a breakdown because of it all, because of the bulb, the stress of the travel, the cost of the travel, it was basically killing me. So had a bit of time off. Then when I came back I fought the union, fought with the union to get something called Agile working, which was, it was very, very new at Lloyds bank at that time and I still lived 90 miles away from my office.
It was unsustainable to keep working there and didn't want to just leave because I'd been there so long and I didn't want to lose benefits. I'd built up staff, mortgage, that sort of thing. So I had this lengthy battle to win the right to work from home, which eventually it did do and now it's commonplace now. So yeah, you can all, you can all thank me for that trail. Trailblazer, yeah. Pioneered of working from home. Boris. Never thought of it. I thought of it.
So. But then when Covid came about and there was lockdowns and things like that, I managed to avoid getting Covid first wave when it was first popular. I got it just as we were starting to roll out vaccinations and my wife had had a vaccination because she was a frontline nurse. I hadn't had it because that was just an office. An office bloke working from home and got Covid quite badly, got taken to hospital, got put in intensive care, got told I was going to die, got told I should start writing some messages to the family because they were allowed to see me.
So that was a bit of a. That was a bit of a tough time to. To get through when. I suppose when we think about being intensive care, if you're okay to talk about this. Yeah, you all think about being unconscious and have tubes and. But it sounds like you were conscious and you knew, like they were talking to you and saying, you know. Yeah, well, the worst. Anxious isn't good. How weird. How strange. Like. Yeah, the worst thing that stood there talking about you while. Stood next to you, next to you.
You know, a little. Little group of them sort of tutting on, shaking their heads and muttering and. And going off. And then, you know, my. The only thing that I had to do all day was try and get off my bed onto the chair that was right next to my bed and that was my exercise and I couldn't do it. I couldn't get from the bed to the chair. And they said, you know, you probably not going to come out of this, just so you know, so there's no point in sugar coating it.
That was that. That was how it was. But then they came around after a few days and, and said, we've got this trial drug and it's based on like a rheumatism drug. Do you want to try it? I said, well, just give me everything you've got. I'll just try anything and everything, you know, you can find a smarty on the floor and wrap it up and give it to me, I'll try that. So anyway, I started taking this trial drug and in about a week I was out of intensive care, back on the ward.
And then the people that were coming around the bedside were, instead of sort of shaking head and tutting, muttering, they were going, oh, that's okay, you might actually get out of this. Wow.
So that gave me quite a bit of a spur to Carry on. Plus, I'd also ordered a new car which was being delivered to my house. And I thought, there's no way I'm not getting home to drive that car. Whatever it drives you, you know, whatever you got to focus on. You got to focus on some means, I suppose, to. Yeah. Make you fight it. Yeah, yeah. So I did everything they told me to do. Eventually got well enough to, you know, these little things like walk to the bathroom and back.
And it was. It was a weird time because you get to know the people in the other beds on the ward and sometimes you wake up and there's curtains around the bed and it's like, oh, where's. Where's Dave? But then Dave's not there anymore because he's, you know, he's died. And I lost something.
Yeah, it was really. It was a surreal time. It was really tough on, you know. Had you ever been through anything like that before? Like, in. In your life? Yeah, well, yeah, I was. I was young. I got run over by a car when I was about three years old and put into hospital and apparently, apparently had died as well. So, yeah, every now and again I'll just die and come back and saw fires. There's someone up there just doesn't want you. Yeah, it must be that.
Not his time right now. Not his time. Yeah, I'll live forever, probably. But, yeah, eventually I got well enough to go home and I remember the wheeling me down the corridor in a wheelchair and all the nurses and that all lined up the corridor. They're all clapping and cheering. The wife's waiting for me in the corridor. It's just like. It's just like, best thing ever.
But, yeah, that was. That was that. But when I got home when I was recovering, I took a bit of time off work, obviously, because I still couldn't walk to the end because I couldn't walk upstairs, things like that.
I got moved redundant whilst I was sort of off recovering. And I remember getting the letter through the post and I thought, yeah, I should be really upset about this, but I actually quite like the idea. I've been there 23 years. They've got to pay me to leave. When else are you going to get that kind of money?
It just gives me the opportunity to do something and, you know, put. Put a stamp on. On the world that says I was actually here and the reason I chose Dog Rubid. 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%. I've always loved dogs and always had dogs. I think this is going to sound weird as well, so prepare yourself for this. I used to have visions of things that were going to happen to me.
It sounds a bit odd when you say it out loud, but I'd have this like dream, this vivid dream or a vision. I'd say, oh, this, this happened in my, in my dream. And then it happened. And I remember about 10 years ago I had this, this vision where I was running a little dog grooming salon on the street where I'd grown up, right? And it, I, I wrote it down in an email and sent it to, to Michelle and said because I was, she was at work, sent it to her.
I said, oh, about this dream, I slight censored like 10, 11 years or so ago. I sent that to her and I've still got that and you might help to remind me, but it's a bit weird. But I kind of always thought, yeah, if I ever get the opportunity, I want to work with dogs in some capacity because, you know, dogs better people. Aren'T they dogs who apparently did. Did you have. When you, you said you always owned dogs, did you have dogs that needed grooming? Did you take them to the, to the groom?
Yeah, yeah, we always took them. We always had spaniels and yeah, we always took them to the groomers and you know, whatever, whatever price it was 15 quid, 20 quid or something, you think, wow, 20 quid just to, you know, just to shave off a cocker spaniel. And I'm going, wow, 55 quid to shave off a.
But yeah, I always thought there's something in, in dog grooming. I look to courses a long time ago, residential courses and things like that, but at that time I was still working at the bank and hadn't got any kind of, you know, payout or anything like that. And I thought, can't just leave and do that. I've got to do it with some money behind so that I can do the training, get qualified, buy the equipment, get myself set up and have a bit of a, you know, a buffer behind me to get me through, you know, the first year or two years or whatever it is that it takes to be able to speak.
It's quite hard, isn't it, leaving an employed role? Yeah. Depending on how, how poor your, your health or mental health is, I suppose. But it's very hard to leave that employed role, especially if you've got family around you that are going, john, why are you doing this? Yeah, why are you, why are you giving up your, your pension, your, you know, your salary, your sick pay to go and work for yourself? It's difficult to have choice though, because it was redundancy. So they did say to me, if you can find yourself another role within the bank somewhere that will allow you to work at home, then by all means apply for it and we'll try and help you to get it.
That's all. I can't be bothered. I can't be bothered looking for a role somewhere.
There's no real opportunities of a similar role as someone, you know, my age that's wanting to work at home and not wanting to go in the office. I just thought, no, it's the right time anyway. And a salary is nice, it's, it's guaranteed. I have a pension paid, you know, their company's contribution. That was nice. Eight holidays, pension, sick pay, it's all nice. But it's not really exciting, is it? No, no, no, no. Well, I was in a very similar situation. I was told, you know, you need to go and find a different role within the organization.
And I was like, well, don't want a different role, you know. So in a way I didn't get my redundant but it forced my hand to choose different paths for myself. So interesting. So what, what course did you choose? What path did you go down? So whilst I was off, off recovering and I think that was maybe January 2021 and my contract with the bank ran out end of June so I had a few months of being paid by the bank. I thought I'm not going back to work, I'm just gonna.
Because I'm not well enough anyway. I'm just gonna stay off and I'm going to start looking around at courses and came across a course, Canine Groom School, which is in Houskill, which is clither away outworse Yorkshire. It's in a beautiful part of the world. And contacted them to see what they do. Got invited to go down and have a look, which we did. We drove down, I'd look at the place where the duo lived, the training, you know, the setup there was fantastic. To do hydrotherapy as well for dogs.
It was really nice setup. And went through the courses and the fees settled on the City and Gills 3.
And it was like, it was like a 29 day course and it was about an hour's drive from home. I thought, yeah, I'll do that. I don't mind doing that every day. I'm not so not like I'm working.
I'm actually getting paid still whilst I'm doing this. So, yeah, so, yeah, I booked it, right. My wife paid the deposit for me because at that point I hadn't had me pay out. She paid a deposit, she paid for the course and said, just give it me back when you, you get your money. Which I must remember to do that at some point.
Is it Michelle or your other half, always supportive, or was it, oh, John, hey, how are you gonna do this and are we gonna afford it? No, she's always been, you know, you should do in life. You should do what you want to do. You shouldn't feel like you're trapped into doing something that you're not happy with. She said, you know, whatever decision you make, I'm 100% behind you. Unless it fails who was traced around.
No, shouldn't say that. No, she totally 100% behind me. Which is what I needed to hear, really, because it meant that I could go for it without worrying. I mean, if it all goes wrong, then what's the, what's the worst that could happen? That just. Astral print of jar. I think, I think you're right. And actually one of my mentors sort of said to me that if you resign and it goes wrong, the worst that can happen is you could rejoin the police service. I was like, that's never going to happen.
It won't go wrong. But I think, I think many of us, because of, like, mindset and negative bias, we, we very often sort of look at the negative, don't we? But humans are really resourceful and resilient, aren't we? So, you know, we can put things in place to make sure things don't go wrong. Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that in a. In a bit, can't we? But how did you. You did your, your grooming course and how did you, um, you know, how confident were you with setting up your business?
Did you decide that you wanted to be a business owner or were you looking for a grooming job? No, I didn't, I didn't want to. I didn't want to go to work for anybody else. I wanted to be my own boss because, you know, I would never get that opportunity again to be my own boss. Uh, it's. It was then or it was never. So the original, original plan was convert the garage into a, to a salon, work from home, and we got all the costings to do that.
We booked somebody to come and do it. But getting the count getting past the council was it's a nightmare. And every, every point he wanted 300 pounds to look at this or 400 pounds just to, you know, give you this sign off or this inspection. I just thought, you know what, I'll forget it, I'll just go and rent a shop somewhere.
But plus also, there was two or three other dog groomers in the town that I live. I thought I'd probably be working away from the town that I live. Just. Just for context, I live in Hesham, which is about seven or eight miles from Marsala. In Hesham, there's quite a few dog groomers mostly go by, a lot of them run by travelers and they're all, you know, shave off the 20 quid still and, you know, and they also do.
What's it called, what's it called when you're breeding? The fertility clinics. Fertility. And they do raw food and do everything all in one, one skanky little warehouse. And so I thought, no, I can't compete with them now, I'm gonna. But then I got offered an opportunity to rent a room at a local dog boarding kennels three or four miles from home and went to meet the owners, had a chat with them and it seemed great and I thought it was a great opportunity because there are big dog boarding kennels.
They've got tons of dogs in all the time. Surely some of them are going to want grooming before they go home. And I thought it's going to be like a conveyor belt of word for clients, this, because they're always busy, they're always full. I'm sure they'll push it for me, you know, come and have your dog boarded with us. And we're offering dog grooming for you. But you don't look. Not many, not many kennels do that. So I thought this could really, really work. And the room itself was a bit of a bit dingy.
It was a bit like, like a prison cell, really. Had tiny windows in it. But they had. They had their own bath and they had a table there already. They had a couple of sand dryers already.
It was fine. It served a purpose. It was just something that they had set up before they'd had other groomers in there or. Yeah, they tried employing a dog groomer and because she was what. What they said to me was because she was on the salary, she didn't work hard enough, she'd just do one or two dogs and go home. She wasn't paid, you know, by the dog or anything like that. It was just. She paid a Salary and that was that did a little sacking her.
So they still had some of the equipment.
So I says yeah, I'll, I'll rent this room. I think it's about 500 quid a month with all the bills included but it's not too bad. But it just didn't work because the guys that ran it, they just didn't want me there, they wanted the money off me but then they wouldn't help me market my business. I wasn't allowed to put a sign up, I wasn't allowed to use their reception to meet clients. It was ridiculous. I see snake dogs in through the back door and they had this weird policy of closing the gates two or three times a day to the public which meant nobody could get in.
And if I had a client coming in they used to have to go and find someone to get them to open the gate. It was just a real faff. It created a lot of barriers, didn't they? By sounds of it like physical and again customers and I, I've, I speak, I remember speaking to you at the time when you were there but I've spoken to many groomers that work out of daycare, they work out of, you know, kennels and work our pet shops and, and everyone sort of feels that it should be like mvets maybe like a perfect partnership.
Yeah, it should be, it should be, shouldn't it? But I, I'm. And I'm sure there's listeners that do do it and it does work but so far I suppose I only come across those that are having issues but I've not found that the bond is generally there. The partnership doesn't always seem to gel. And it is very strange. And I think one of the breaking points was when I started saying that I wanted to do emipep dog teeth cleaning they said well you haven't got a license to clean folks teeth.
I said well I don't need a license to clean dog's teeth, I'm just going to do it. And so they refused to allow me to put a sign up in the reception saying that clean dog's teeth.
They just made things so difficult for me that in the end I just said look, I'm just going to leave because this is not working. Then they tried to hold me to the rest of a six month contrast. Right. I got out of it in the end and fortunately at that same time the shop that I'm in now became available to rent and it was about the same price in rent, didn't include the utilities But I thought, it's High Street, I'm going to be seen. It's, you know, I've already foreseen this in a vision that it's going to happen.
Future Victor going back to the kennels. Do you remember? And this like, kind of like you were saying that, oh, I'm just going to get dogs from the kennels and they come in for their, for their groom, then they're going to go home happy. Do you remember that labradoodle that you did? Yes.
I remember that. I remember sitting on the sofa, like messaging you and talking to you about it, because maybe you can tell the listeners what happened. And I remember talking to my wife going, what happened? What should we say? Like, what's the advice here? And what could he have done differently but tell, tell them the story. Well, basically this, this labradoodle had come in to the kennels and she did actually say, can you have a groom whilst, whilst you're here now when I hit the dog up, you'll be all nice and ready to go home.
So that was fine. I meant to get the dog. It's a labradoodle called Bear from, from its kennel, it's cell. So like they're like cells of that particular.
And it was matted to high heaven all over. You couldn't, you couldn't even get like one of the teeth of a coat up through it. It was, it was horrendous. Couldn't get a hold of the woman to said to say, I'm gonna have to shave your dog off. So I just did it, shaved it off. I think I did it on a seven. I managed to get a seven through it. So it wasn't a disaster.
And she, when she came and to collect a dog, she seemed all right and she was quite happy and she paid. Can't remember if she gave me a tip or not, but she paid really happy with it. Off she went. And then it was, it was sometime later that I started getting messages from her saying that she was really unhappy and, you know, I shouldn't have shaved the dog off.
I can't remember exactly how the conversation went, but I ended up saying to her something like, go and have a drink or something like that.
And then she kicks off saying, well, actually I'm an alcoholic and you shouldn't have said that to me. Well, Jesus Christ, it's, it's, it's one thing you don't say to an alcoholic person. I was going to have drink. Yeah. So, yeah, I could have really learned a lesson from that. I think you're quite, you're quite new into the grooming industry, weren't you? And I remember, I don't know if you reached out to the, to the Facebook group or reached out to me personally, but it was like, what have I done wrong?
What I. What have I done wrong in this situation? You know, I was presented with a matted dog and I. And I shaved it off. And in your eyes, you. And, you know, and quite rightly so, you was. You're looking after the dog's welfare and you did what you needed to do and you did what was good for the dog. But, well, what she said was when she took the dog out, she went into it, into a pet shop or something, and the, the, the owner said, oh, my God, look at that dog.
I'm going to have to sell you a coat. And it was from that point onwards that she, she decided that I really ruined her dog by shaving it off.
I mean, I didn't realize that she was an alcoholic.
Apologetic for that. I shouldn't have said, oh, don't have a drink. But I was also new to facing public as well. But for. Yeah, I've been 23 years behind the desk in an office, so there's a lot learned. There's a lot of lessons in there, isn't. Yeah, you have to assume everyone's not alert now, but it's, it's, you know. I think we just, we just chatted through it and we. And sort of. Yeah. How we manage people's expectations, you know, the. How to deal with these sort of situations.
And we still get the odd complaint now and then for shaving down these dogs. But, you know, this fact of being a dog groomer, unfortunately, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Well, now make sure I get all of them. Yeah, that's it. It's the management. So this. That was probably a great example as well as to why, you know, it just didn't really. The model just didn't really work for you, did they? Because, you know, the dogs were dropped off, you never really got to see the owners. You didn't have a relationship with the, the owners from the, the kennel dogs.
So it wasn't. In your personal person, aren't you. You like to chat to people and meet. They weren't really jetting, was it? Not at all. So in. Quite often their, their first contact was with me was when they're picking the dog up and, you know, immediately looking at the face to see what kind of reaction because you haven't been able to discuss how they want the dog at all because they weren't there. So you've got to take a bit of a guess room based on what's in front of you.
Especially when you're a new groomer as well, you know. Yeah. And you haven't got a few years of experience to think, right, I know what I'm doing with this one. It's sort of tended to be, what, I'll shave ass potentially. You put yourself under a lot of pressure there. Yeah, I did. It wasn't. It was learning curve I like to call it now, Bill. It's a.
So what? So obviously it didn't put you off grooming because you went, you went out and you followed. Literally followed your dream. Yeah. And. And found this shop in. On the high street. You know, your shop looks fantastic and, and anyone that's listening and watching this, you know, check out Harvey's Dog Groo Salon. Go and have a look at the website, look at the photos. You've. You've put so much effort into your shop, haven't you? Yeah, loads. Yeah, I have. I've done most of it myself, apart from the repaint that we had done a couple of months ago.
Pay someone. Pay someone to do that because now I can pay people to see things for me. Yeah, I did it first time. It wasn't brilliant, but I liked it. But yeah, some blood, sweat and tears going into it. How did you come to your. To your name, the name of your business? Yeah, so Harvey's.
That was Harvey. That was my dog. Little tag there. Harvey was my golden cocker spaniel. And sadly not with us anymore. But I just wanted to name, name it after him. So he's kind of still here. Yeah, it's, it's just, it's just named. After the dog dedicated to Harvey. It's Harvey that you wear within your, within your logo as well, on your brain. Yeah, that's Cox spaniel. Yeah, yeah, he's there. Yeah. So it just, it just makes sure. Makes me think of him every day, you see.
So what was it like going from a secluded sort of hidden away grooming salon to a high street shop with rent overheads, you know? Yeah. A little bit out of the frying pan into the fire or, or what? Yeah. And obviously bear in mind that I've never grown my own business before that point. I've never run a shop before. So it. All of a sudden, all of a sudden everything's on you. You, you are the whole. So you've Got to be the person that's opening the shop in the morning, taking the bookings.
You've. The one that's got to keep the lights and the piecing on and the water on, keeping the supplies coming in, the shampoo and make sure everything's maintained, keep it clean. You got. And that's before you even start doing any dog grooming.
And then you got to do your numbers, you know, keep on top of your books.
So, you know, advertising, it's just everything is all. Is suddenly all on your head. So it's. It was massively overwhelming for me at first and I probably made loads of mistakes along the way, muddled through lots of things that I didn't really understand at first, like tax. You know, make us spend about first six months thinking it's quite good this. I could just pay myself whatever ear and every month it's brilliant. And I thought, actually, shouldn't I be putting some away for tax? But I think I.
Yeah, so. So this sort of year or so was, was a bit mad and it's a bit of a blur when you look back and you know, you kind of muddle, muddle through it all the best, best you can. I think when people first open a shop or a new groomers, they have a big influx, don't they, of inquiries. And it's actually quite. I suppose it's a false reassurance in a way because you get a big influx of inquiries and people and obviously there may be gurus around you like, that are fully booked and really busy, so you starting to get the overflow.
So the first couple of months can be quite busy, but then that leads you into a bit of a full sense of security in a way. It does. I remember when I first opened here, literally on, on the day that this day before I opened those, I was in here painting or putting a unit together or something and I couldn't get anything done because people kept knocking on the doors. They know, can you, can you put my cockpang and can you, can you put my chew bar in and things like that.
So, yeah, the first few months was, was mad. But then I wasn't in the, in the, you know, I wasn't in the right headspace to think I need to rebook these people once, once that I've done them, I never thought that far ahead. So after, after being flat out for a few months, then start thinking, all right, okay, where's. Where's the next lot of bookings?
You can quite literally see it on, on the, on my graph that I've got of Inc.
It's like goes up and then he goes there, goes down like that. And that's where I forgot to book everybody back in. And there's seen the new groomer now and they'll go off to the next one. And all these things you learn though, as you, as you go through. Yeah. Did you offer any like introductory discounts or anything like that to people? I probably did. Let me just let me think. I was probably offering. Knowing me, I'm offering free grooms. That's not us. Just please come to me again.
These are all things that I know, Bill, make your hair curl to hear. But yeah, you know, you offer all those, don't you, when you. You're not a business person by trading out, you've come from a nice, safe, secure job and suddenly you're complete entire business walking around and you don't know what to do and you'll just. You just want customers, lots of them. I think it also feeds into our, our personality as well. Does it? Because. Because we run a service industry. We're very much people driven.
We're very people pleasers, aren't we? Because we want. And you want to see people happy. You want to see people using our services and money sometimes gets neglected or, or put to one side and it's like, oh, well, it's just money, isn't it? But you can't, you can't pay your mortgage on like people's smiles, can you? Gotta. How did you, you know, where. What sort of price point did you enter? How did you decide your prices? Oh, well, it's very, very low, very low prices. I mean, I think everybody must look at what pets at home are charging and I'll do it for cheaper than that.
I'll get loads. I'll be. I'll get loads of business in that way. And I think part of it is you want to, you want to be booked up and say, oh, I'm dead busy man. Booked off for the next four years and all your dreams are 20 quid. That's why I can't remember what was charging. But I think, I don't think any of them were over 40. Over 40 pounds. Some really daft prices.
Yeah. I think that when I was on the. Yeah, when I first started, I was doing. I think I was doing crockapoos for about £30. Wow. Yeah. Superhero. And what was. Obviously we. We probably understand the thoughts behind it. Eli, I need to get my diary busy. I need to see that. There's the diary I just need to. Need that cash coming in. But when you were going home at night, you know, having done like five, six dogs a day, what were your sort of like feelings and thoughts around it?
So can you remember you, you feel like you, you'd work so hard all day and all you've done really is keep, keep the shot going for another day with a little bit of money for yourself and was it worth it? So you go home a bit, still a bit flat really, you know, flat and tired.
Yeah, yeah, I covered in hair gift. It was, you know, not, not great. Whether it's your mental health again and. You get, you get into that rinse and repeat sort of situation, don't you? It's like you, I suppose you, you become a little bit trapped in the fact that you have to keep up the, the numbers so that to pay the bills and then you have to pay the bills so you have to make sure you got the numbers. And it's just this big sort of cycle, isn't it?
It is, yeah. I think it was not long after that that came across your group on, on Facebook and I'd look, I'll look, I'll look at this, see what's going on here. What's going on here? I mean, we were chatting. I remember chatting to you when you were at the, at the kennels and then you went quiet for a bit, obviously, while you were setting up the, the shop and busy with all the new inquiries and stuff. But you then reached out to sort of see if there's anything that you could be doing differently.
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Um, I mean, it was pretty chaotic for me. Didn't have a clue what I was doing or how if I was doing anything right or, you know, or in, in the best way or the most efficiently or the most, in the most cost effective way. And I had no systems in place, really. I was still pen and paper diary. There's nothing wrong with pen and paper diary, but that doesn't send out reminders to people and that doesn't give you a report of, you know, what's it, what's coming in, what's doing.
So I think the first steps were getting myself systemized with as much as possible and making sure that, you know, at least take some of that pressure off by getting a booking system in place. You know, not an online booking system, but something that I could look at and say, right, I've got these dogs in. These ones haven't been here for three months. And it sends out this reminder to these people who've not been in.
It's getting your head around building systems or processes for stuff. Yeah. And you know, we always talk about looking at. To people like McDonald's and businesses like that, you know, they are ultra systemized in what they do from, from the customer driving into the car park to leaving the car park. There's probably a system like how you park, you know, how they make the burgers, how they, how they fry the fries. And that efficiency leads to extra time for us and money, doesn't it? So that's really important.
So I remember, I think we had a. You. You came and chatted to me about the, the business program that we run and we had a conversation about it, but you didn't sign up straight away, did you? No, no. And, and, and to be completely honest with you, when you told me how much it was, I thought, God, I'm not spending that.
I'll never make that money back.
And I thought if, if I spend that, then I'm just going to ruin, you know, ruin my business. I'll have nothing left. And that's that. So because I knew best, I thought I'll just leave that so carrying what I'm doing. Don knows best. Oh, he. We're not talking like 15,000 or. No, no, no, no, we're not. But yeah, I did, did walk away from it. I wanted to. I just wanted to keep going as it was and see if anything changed.
If you keep doing the same thing over and over, nothing's gonna change. That's the way that is. And what was your money mindset like then? Just get enough in to pay the bills and then try and get as much. It's basically just grab all that you can as quickly as possible because you don't know where the next, next one's coming from. Because at that point I hadn't got any, any sort of past months or any past periods to look back on to see what was going to happen in the future.
So I had nothing to compare anything to.
So it was, it was case of rabbit while it's there. So kind of like, like hand to mouth kind of the money came in. Yeah, the money went straight out again kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, always. Yeah. But that had to stop, you know, And I think when I, I don't know how much longer it was after that that I got back in touch with you and take. It was long enough for me to have rewrite them to me of. To have had a price increase, because I remember you getting back in touch with me and my heart sinking, going, oh, no.
John's got back in touch and the. Price has gone up last time. What was he gonna say this time? But I. No, I knew that I needed what your group gives me and what your. Your course gives. I spoke to another groomer, just that, you know, Gemma.
I spoke to her quite in great length about. About the. The group and on the course to see if it was. Was what I needed to do. And she totally convinced me, you know, she should pay us something. It's been that it is. She would certainly tell you straight, wouldn't she? Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, I think. I mean, you're never sure. You're never not sure what she's. What she's talking to you about. You never, never not clear what she means.
I like that. Because, you know, it's not. Not just listening to. To what I tell you about the benefits of the program, but it's really nice to see you going out and doing your sort of due diligence and. Yeah. And speaking to other members of the program just to like, make sure, like, what is it actually really about and how have you benefited from it? Because all the members on there will sit down and talk. Talk you through what they've been through and what they're going through and what they've achieved.
So. But it's really nice for me to have that. You know, it's not just take my word for it, go and speak to. To anyone else. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think since. Since joining, what that did was it gave me a means to. To put processes in place for everything and outsource as much of the stuff that somebody else can do. Take it off my hands as possible. And, you know, whatever. Whatever you spend, you're getting back many, many, many times over back. Because it's not just.
It's not just about money. It's about. It's about time as well and quality. It gives you a bit of.
It gives you. It gives you a chance to really look. Look through your business and look where your issues are. And there's dozens of people there that can all offer you advice. Not just you, it's the whole group. Yeah, they've all been through it and they'll all tell you what's what and how to change things. So you've been. You've been with us now. I can't remember how many months it was. It was 18, though. 18 months. And I think you put a win in the other day, saying that you'd made about you'd added an extra 50 odd thousand to your total.
Yeah. So I'll never lose the fact that I'm a numbers geek. So I've got spreadsheets on everything. So from the day I started being a dog groomer, I know what I've been taking in. I know what that money's been related to, what services I've done to get that money in, know what money goes out so I can, you know, in, in this. I think it was in the 18 months before joining the program, average turnover was something like three and a half thousand pounds a month in the 18 months before joining.
But since, since joining that has become six and a half thousand edging up towards 7,000 per month. So it's years, not far off. Doubled my turnover. And yeah, we've gone from he's going. To break my business to actually he's doubled my, doubled my income. Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's what I tell everybody. I might have two people before you actually built. So I fired you their names afterwards because got two very interested people. But yeah, I think what, I think what the group does, it takes away that fear of doing quite radical things with your business.
It's like taking handbrake off really. It's like before join the handbrake was on and I thought anything I did wrong would just kill my business stone dead. But since joining that, that handbrake's off and you can make, make a decision and it'll either work or it won't work. And if it doesn't work, you can make another decision and do something different. And there's so many. So just the wife.
I'll call you back in a minute, all right? Okay, bye.
Sorry about that. Right.
Yeah, you can, that was a. Do you, do you, do you know what your handbrake is?
Yeah, it's the handbrake is fear of not having any customers. The handbrake's you, isn't it? Oh that, yes. Yeah, yeah. The handbrake is like handbrake, yes. But the handbrake is us in, in the business because you know, we stop the business from growing and we stop the business from changing, evolving. It's always like. And that's the fear in us, isn't it? And the, the confidence and stuff. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. It is a fear. It is a fear and you know that fear stops you from taking chances.
But they're not, they're not, it's not taking chances, it's taking controlled opportune. It's taking it's taking control. Chances is what Inside the chart there's, you know, anything new you think about trying, there's somebody that's done it and you can talk to them, find out what they did, they'll tell you what they did and what they did wrong probably and what they do now. So I'm always looking for that next, the next income stream. So it's not just dog grooming, it's teeth cleaning. Now teeth cleaning has got gone huge.
Hugely. Well, I've got somebody who's contacted me, another dog groomer in two towns away and she said, I can't. Your results you get from teeth cleaning are nothing like results I get. I can't do it. She said, can I come and watch you clean dog's teeth? She'll pay you. And like an idiot, I said, no, don't worry, you can just come and watch. You don't have to pay me.
Yeah, I know. No, but I mentioned, I mentioned the group to her and she's her and her sister who don't. But they're interested in that. So. But yeah, I should have said, yeah, you can pay me to teach her how to clean dog's teeth up. But.
So, yeah, duck sea cleaning and the next, next big one's going to be cat grooming. That's it. So you, you've, you've taken your income up to about 7,000, you've got an apprentice potentially starting soon and then we're going to support you in taking that, you know, we're gonna 20, 25. I'd like to see you sort of going over the 100k. That's probably your goal, isn't it? Let's have a. Does that include cash? Sorry? 100 grand. Cash. That's the. Include cups.
Take you over that 100k mark. I think that would be pretty fantastic, wouldn't it? Yeah, it would, it would. And again, some, you know, something that I was worried about last year hitting the VATS barrier. I'm not even bothered about now. If I go over the VAT barrier, you've only got to go over it once and then you've done it then you know, it's just deal with that as that comes and be supported through that because, you know, people pay VAT on most things and why shouldn't they avat on their documents?
Yeah, yeah. How do you, you know, how do you find your. Has your customer date? The type of customer you deal with? Your, the kind of demographic that you deal with is your like customer demographic. Changed a lot since I'VE put, been putting prices up. Yes, changed hugely. A lot of my customers now tend to be from the, the, how can I say this? The more, more affluent areas in local towns, you know, and they tend to be a bit older, quite happy to spend a bit of money.
So that's what I like as well because these, these people aren't gonna let you down, I don't think as much as, you know, people who, who just there to get the best price and if they don't want to turn up one morning, just go and turn up one morning because they're not bothered about your business.
Yeah, yeah. I find that demographic is, you know, more affluent people now. They treat you a bit more like an expert in your, in your profession, I suppose. Yeah, they do. Which is, you know, something that's ever happened to me before and. No, it, no, it's true though because when I work for the bank, you're just a, you know, faceless name that's, you know, that sends an email out to somebody else somewhere in the country and you'll never meet them, they'll never thank you for it and it's just all a bit faceless.
Whereas now it's nice to get that bit of recognition. Did you. One thing that I, I found when I left my employment and went self employed and did this business, I, I never saw myself as a very creative person. Have you found that? You, you, you know, you're, you're a bit freer, you're a bit more creative in life. Yeah, I mean I always was a little bit. Even when I worked for the bank, if there's a project to do where they needed something, design it, give it to me to do because I could make it quite fun and quite interesting.
So I, I always used to end up with that sort of thing to do and it's sort of the, the only time I could use any creativity that I had. Um, so yeah, I use it. I started producing some really good videos actually when I, I, I had um, I got into trouble actually. I got into trouble with the SIS Assisters, believe it or not, had a cease and desist letter from, from their record label saying please we not use Filthy Filthy Gorgeous for your soundtrack to one of your adverts.
Was that an advert for your dog grooming? Yeah, yeah, it was.
But I like, and I like doing that sort of thing.
I'm always trying to think of really good ways to use videos and, you know, canva and things like that to put adverts out. I don't know if it gets me anywhere, you know, none of the other dog groomers do that sort of thing. But I quite like it. And even if it doesn't bring me any more customers, I've enjoyed myself doing it. Anyway, that's it. It's what we talk about, isn't it? It's building that know like and trust with people. It's another touch point for your customers to, to sort of have a look at and keep them entertained and intrigued.
But business is about enjoyment, isn't it as well? And oh yeah, got to sit on that treadmill doing dog after dog after dog, Facebook post, after Facebook post, after Facebook post. You know, turning up, going home, paying the bills, just. I'm sure there's many people out there that sort of look at their business and just go, well, I've created like a prison for myself. I've been, I've created employment for myself. Yeah, yeah. I don't see it that way. I see it like I've built this ship that I'm now sailing.
Yeah. And if it crashes, it's. It crashes. But we'll, we'll have a, we'll have a good time cruising in the meantime. But no, I think, I think one, one of the things that I mentioned earlier is getting an apprentice in. I think what it's not just about with getting the apprentices, it's not just about me also trying a few more dogs in and give myself a lot more money. I think it's more about giving yourself more time during the day. So that, I mean, I'm more interested in keep it relatively slow, slow paced and having a bit more time to make great videos and get in trouble with other record bands.
Excellent. And actually I think like knowing you now, I think you're going to enjoy the process of actually teaching someone else and having someone in the salon to chat to and attitude. Yeah. But also imparting your knowledge and teaching them and watching them grow and gain new skills and qualifications and stuff. I think you'll, you'll enjoy that. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to teaching somebody like you say, and it feels a bit wrong me saying that, passing on my experience because I've only got three and a half years experience, but I've learned a lot in that three and a half years, you know, complete loop skill.
Yeah. More than one skill really, isn't it? When you look at it, there's lots of skills that you have to learn all at once and if I can pass some of that on to somebody Then, brilliant, because I plan to retire in a few years time and I need somebody to keep steering the ship for me. That's it. And you've gone from having that money mindset of money in, money out, money in, money out, and now you've got that money set of, you know, I'll make some money, I'll look at my spending, I'll make sure that I've got money left over.
And you've built up a buffer as well, haven't you, within your business? Yeah, that's right, yeah. I mean, but part of it was I wanted to have it if. If a disaster happened and I was off work for a month, with whatever, for whatever reason, could the business still operate or would it go under? And so I wanted to build up that. That buffer of, you know, a month's worth of, you know, not. Not just to keep the shop rubbing, but also to keep paying myself because it's very important I keep paying myself.
So, yeah, I did that and yeah, I built, I think, yeah, about six weeks of. Six weeks of turnover sloshing about at the minute. And how's that made you feel when it comes to operating your business? It's given me. It's helped me relax a lot because as you know, about this time every year I go into a bit of a panic. So when I start messaging me saying I've got no customers or phone's not ringing and the phone does ring, I think last year it didn't ring because I'd broken the SIM in my phone.
So that was. That was that reason was that this. Time, this last year, Because I remember, yeah, you kept me very busy for a couple of weeks because I would literally be watching your comments in the, in the Facebook group or the WhatsApp group saying, you know, oh, it's really quiet and I'm not getting many inquiries and I would be sitting here sort of looking at your website, I'd be like, try this, John. I'll be looking at your social media like, have you tried this? And then I was like, have you actually phone, like called your phone?
Yeah, yeah, it turned out it was. My phone and the sim. SIM had broken. Phone calls, were you. That's right, for about two weeks.
So, yeah, there was that. So. But I've got. Because, again, because I'm a bit of a geek when it comes to numbers, I keep like a trend, a graph of a turnover and it goes back a few years now. So you can see every October time, it does dip. Well, just in this area anyway, it dips a little bit Summer holidays, it dips a bit. Kids go back to school, you get a bit of an influx. Then it dips a bit, a little bit again in October before it goes mad.
November, right to Christmas. So I'm prepared for that now. I can see that coming in advance. And you know, even, even though I've not had quite as many phone calls, I've still not had any free time. I've not, I think on, on one hand, how many appointments I've had free in, in October, it's, it's been busy. I think what we're, what we're building here and I wrote this down was like trust. And I think what we're, what we're now starting to see with you, something that we've worked on is that, that trusting of your business and building that trust within the business that, well, one, you've got evidence to show you that you got trends and they go up and down.
And when we first opened it was February and October were the quiet times. September for us this year was, was very quiet, you know, but it picks up again. But you've got to, you've got to, I think you go insane as a business owner if you didn't trust your business a bit to know that, you know, okay, we're having a quiet spell, but it will, it will pick up again. That's it. Yeah. And because you know that now, because you've also got a bit of a buffer behind you, you can sort of relax a little bit knowing, you know, that everyone hasn't disappeared and gone somewhere else.
They'll be back. And I'm, I'm also, I'm better now at rebooking customers than I used to be. I didn't used to do it and just, you know, then I'd be wait, just waiting for them to ring me to come back and, but now first I'd ask them and they're leaving, you know, rebook while she's still here and you know, nine out of 10 of them, nine out of 10 do so. And if you look ahead, November's pretty full, December's getting full because people are rebooking the next ones, which is.
And the other thing is because my prices are higher now rebooking good people, good customers rather than, you know, scratchy people that want to pay 30 quid. For the price driven people. So, you know, looking forwards, hopefully this will, this will appear in some of your dreams. Because that'd be quite interesting, wouldn't it? If you appear in my dreams, Bill, I'LL change what I mean.
Yeah. Let me know as well if it was a good or bad dream because I might have to like watch myself like when I'm crossing the road. If you, if you dream that I get one over or something like that, I want to know. But yeah, looking forward. If we, hopefully if we had this podcast in October 2025. Yeah. What do you think the conversation will be about? Where do you think you'll be with your business? What are your, what are your goals? And yeah, so, so I want to be, I want to be hitting that 100,000pound mark.
I'm, I'm a little bit away from that at the minute, but I'm working on my own. But this time next year my apprentice will have been there, you know, 11 months, will be in a, you know, proper routine. Um, I've got a landline now so I'm hoping that's going to just add a little bit more trust in, in, in the, in the business. Um, so I'm looking forward to getting that up and running. Um, so I, I think, yeah, I think that it'll still be steady. I think we'll, we'll, we'll have added cat grooming as well.
So that way you, you're not reliant on the number of dogs that you're getting in as well because some of those appointments could be cats.
So yeah, I think this time next year it's going to be bigger and better. Bigger and better. Bigger and better. Looking forward to it. Yeah, yeah. You've always got me there behind you, putting a rocket up you and you do start to relax or relax or worry. Yeah, I know, I know. Well, yeah, when I start worrying, you're on speed dials. There's always stuff we can do in marketing. I mean, I can't wait. We're seeing you in November for your cat grooming course and then you. I can't wait to watch you grow with your apprentice and then introduce new services and then could you ever imagine when you started your business that you could.
There's potentially you're going to be a six figure business owner. Not a chance. Not, Not a chance. All I wanted to do was match what I was earning at the bank, you know, sorry, twenty something thousand pounds salary at the bank with some benefits but dwindling benefits. But yeah, things have just really skyrocketed, especially in the last 18 months and you know, I want to keep that going. I'm not going to like, like I said, I want to retire in the next few years and before that I might, I might even try and get a second branch set up and running in another area.
We'll talk about that. Shape well thank you for joining us today John. It's been, you know, a pleasure finding out about your journey and finding out a bit more about you and and how you set up your business and then looking forward to celebrating your aspirations. Hopefully maybe we'll have you on this time next year to see to see. Where it went this time next year. Rogers yeah, that's it. Will be 100k business owner. Thanks for having me on. It's been great kid. You're welcome and we'll see you soon.
You will. Take care. Take care. Bye bye bye 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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