Good Neighbor Podcast: Youngstown
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Youngstown. Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Stacey Willis helps residents discover and connect with your local business owners in and around Youngstown, Ohio.
Is your business serving the residents of Youngstown? Then, we need to talk! Visit gnpYoungstown.com to schedule your free interview.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Youngstown
Ep 5: The Pawfect Groom- Niles Pet Salon and Resort
Step into the world of professional pet care with Melissa Fike, owner of Niles Pet Salon and Resort, as she reveals the unexpected path that led her from medical school aspirations to becoming a passionate pet groomer and business owner for over a decade.
What began as a simple part-time job during college transformed into a 25-year career when Melissa discovered her natural talent and deep connection with animals. After years traveling the country training others in corporate grooming, she made the pivotal decision to prioritize family and launch her own business. Today, her salon offers comprehensive services including all-breed dog and cat grooming, doggy daycare, and overnight boarding.
Melissa dispels common misconceptions about pet grooming, emphasizing that it requires extraordinary patience, technical skill, and emotional intelligence. "These dogs aren't dogs really," she explains. "They're family members, they're people's children, and they can't tell you what they want." This philosophy shapes her entire business approach, from targeting pet owners who treat their animals as family to hiring staff who share her unwavering passion for animal care.
When not at the salon, this energetic entrepreneur embraces life through dirt biking, snowboarding, and quality time with her three children. Her resilient approach to life's challenges mirrors her business philosophy: find learning opportunities in difficult situations and always move forward with positivity. Watch your pets playing throughout the day via their active Facebook pages, where Melissa regularly posts videos and educational content about proper pet care. Experience the difference that genuine passion makes at Niles Pet Salon and Resort, where your beloved pet receives the exceptional care they deserve.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Stacey Willis.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you in need of a groomer, because one might be closer than you think. Today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, melissa Fike, with Niles Pet Salon and Resort. Melissa, welcome, how are you?
Speaker 3:I'm wonderful thanks for having me today.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We are so excited to learn about your business, so let's just jump right in and tell us all about your company.
Speaker 3:Well, I have been grooming personally for over 25 years now and my business has been up and going for a little over 10. We started off small, just grooming dogs, and now we have elevated to a new level. We are doing doggy daycare and overnight boarding, along with all breed dog and cat grooming.
Speaker 2:How did this start? How did you get into this business?
Speaker 3:I kind of got into it on accident. I was going to college for something completely different. I wanted to be in the medical field, needed a part time job and I started working with animals and I got an opportunity with a large corporation to learn how to groom dogs. I had such a passion and drive for it that in a short amount of time I moved myself up the ladder and I started training for this corporate company. And I was training so much that I was gone six months out of the year traveling all over the place training and teaching people how to groom. I wanted to have a family and I realized that that kind of lifestyle was not going to work and be conductive to having a family. So I left the corporate world and opened my own little business, and I haven't been happier. It's everything that I could ever have dreamed. I've wanted it to be.
Speaker 2:So what are some of maybe the myths or misconceptions about what you do in your industry that people might have.
Speaker 3:It's a really easy thing to do, and it's really not. It takes a special person to work with animals. You have to have a lot of patience and a lot of love for what you do. These dogs aren't dogs really. They're family members, they're people's children, and now they're people's children that can't tell you what they want and how they feel. So now you have to try to figure that out. And you have to also keep a customer happy by making that dog exactly how they want it groomed and keep it beautiful for them. So there's a lot that goes into it that people don't realize.
Speaker 2:So who would you say is your target customer and how do you market to them?
Speaker 3:So my, my target customer is there. They they love their pets unconditionally, like a family member. They want to keep their dog beautiful all the time. They want to keep their dog on a regimen of grooming Um, and we don't want to be like the shave down house where, like you bring your dog once or twice a year and we just shave it down for you. We want to be the total package where you can get your dog scrims like you would do your own hair on a schedule six, seven, eight weeks, somewhere on that line. We also target the people who you know maybe you're working a lot and you don't want your dogs to sit at home alone all day while you're working. We want to target those people because now you could drop your dog off to us and they can come play for the day and be entertained and run off that energy while you're at work all day for our Doggy Daycare Program.
Speaker 2:So what do you do for fun?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, my personal life. Yeah, what do you do for fun? I'm very, very active. I have three young kids and we have a lot of fun. I love riding dirt bikes. That's probably my number one passion is being on my dirt bike in the summertime and in the winter I snowboard, but we like to go to the beach and swim and whatever we can do. You know I'm always off running with my kids every opportunity I have, because they really were the fuel for my life and everything I've kind of done. I've surrounded around them.
Speaker 2:So let's switch gears just a little bit. Can you describe a hardship or life challenge that you overcame, that made you stronger? Does anything come to mind?
Speaker 3:Oh, good grief, so many things. I mean. Life is about challenges and overcoming challenges. Right, I feel like this good old saying what doesn't kill you makes you stronger is is so relevant in so many ways, and you have to have a head space that's strong and you have to be able to persevere and go forward. I can't. There's so many things that have happened in my life. I've I've lost loved ones. Of course, we've all lost loved ones and, um, you've seen so much pain in the world, amongst your friends and things that have happened that you overcome, that you look forward, you try to stay positive. My biggest thing that I can say that I've always done is I try to find the good in everything, Even the worst situations. I look back and try to reflect of okay, this was a learning experience, what can I take from this to make this positive? What can I take from this to grow from this and move forward? And that's the biggest life lesson you can take from anything negative that's ever happened in your life.
Speaker 2:And Melissa tell our listeners one thing they should remember about Niles Pet Salon and Resort.
Speaker 3:I think the one thing that you should know is I have built this baby it's been my baby from the beginning till now, and my goal has always been the care for your pets, you know, wanting to strive for giving you and your pet the experience they deserve to have. You know my love, my passion that I have for animals, the people that I hire and put in place into that salon and that daycare facility. I'm looking for them to have that same attitude, that same love for animals that I have.
Speaker 2:How can our listeners learn more about your business? How can they find Niles Pet Salon and Resort?
Speaker 3:your business. How can they find Niles Pet Salon and Resort? We post daily on Facebook. We actually have two Facebook pages. One is geared just for the grooming side of things. I separated them because we post every day for our doggy daycare and boarding customers. We have a lot of videos and feeds that go up every day so that when you're at work you can click on the Niles Petets Lawn Doggy Daycare and Pet Boarding page and watch the dogs playing and see the experiences they're having while you're at work. And then I have a Niles Pets Lawn page just for grooming and you could just go on there and see the quality of the grooms that are coming through, and I put some educational stuff and try to teach people about grooming too.
Speaker 2:That's great, okay, well, melissa, I appreciate you being on the show and we wish you the absolute very best moving forward.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks. I'm glad I had the opportunity to sit and chat with you. Stacey, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPYoungstowncom. That's GNPYoungstowncom, or call 330-355-3122.