The skills that got you fully booked won't keep you there

Most dog groomers spend their first year believing that more dogs equals more success.

And at the beginning, that's true.

More dogs means more experience, more confidence and more income. But what happens when you're fully booked and still not earning what you want? When every new booking feels less like progress and more like overwhelm?

In this first episode, Karen Fisher explores why the skills that help you build a busy diary aren't the same skills needed to run a profitable, sustainable business.

You'll learn:

• Why "more effort = more results" eventually stops working.
• Why pricing isn't just about adding £5 to every groom.
• How branding, marketing, customer experience and pricing all work together as one business engine.
• Why chasing every new revenue stream won't fix weak business foundations.
• How to redefine success on your own terms—not someone else's.

Whether you're just starting out or you've been fully booked for years, this episode will help you look at your business in a completely different way.

Want to dive deeper?

Watch Karen's free Dog Grooming Business Engine training here and discover the framework behind a business that supports your life instead of consuming it.

Want to build a calmer, more profitable dog grooming business?

The Dog Grooming Business Academy helps ambitious groomers master pricing, marketing, branding and customer experience so they can build a business that works for their life - not the other way around.

Enjoying the podcast?

If you're listening while grooming today, Karen would love to see what you're working on! Share a photo or selfie to your Instagram, Facebook or TikTok Stories, tag @thedoggroomingbusinessacademy, and she'll share your post. At the end of each month, one listener will receive a grooming goodie bag full of treats from some of Karen's favourite brands.

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider following, rating and reviewing the show. It helps more dog groomers discover the business education they never received in grooming school.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Business of Dog Grooming podcast with me, Karen Fisher, dog groomer, business strategist, and founder of the Dog Grooming Business Academy. This is the podcast for dog groomers who know success isn't measured by money alone. It's about loving the dogs you groom, working with clients who value and respect you, financial security, and building a business that supports your life instead of consuming it. If you're ready for honest business conversations and practical strategies that recognise what it's really like to work in your business as well as on it, you're in the right place. Hello and welcome to episode 1, season 1 of the Business of Dog Grooming podcast. Quite fittingly, today what I want to talk about is starting up our dog grooming businesses as compared to running them long term and the skills that are very different in those early days that we have to leave behind sometimes if we want to systemise and maintain our businesses without them consuming our lives. So I myself I built my business back in 2009, my very first one. I started off as a solo groomer, I was renting a very small building on a farm, and I grew and I grew and I grew. And I think this is a very common story for many dog groomers that in those early days, more effort equals more results. So the more dogs we can book in means more money, it means more practice for us as stylists as well. Because let's face it, we come out of dog grooming um school or training, whatever you trained, and we want to get our hands on more dogs, we want to practice those skills because we know that it does matter. Our styling skills do matter, it's not just about um the money and things. We need to know that we're quite adequate stylists, and imposter syndrome is rife when you're brand new, isn't it? I mean, I was quite lucky. I started in an era when Instagram wasn't around yet and Facebook dog grooming forums, groups, comparisons, they weren't really a thing 17 years ago. So I wasn't comparing myself to other dog groomers lately, like the poor groomers are nowadays that step into our industry. But even then, you come out with crippling imposter syndrome and you think, oh my god, this is so hard. So you want to get your hands on dogs. Also, you've just probably spent 10 grand or more on training, equipment, salon setup, whatever you've needed. A planning permission, all of these things you'd invested into this new dream job that you want to do, and so therefore, you do want to start earning some money, you want to start grooming some dogs and getting some money back to compensate for what you've put in. And you've got the on-looking family, friends who are kind of watching you from the sidelines, smiling politely, but you want to prove to them that your business idea was not a bad one, that you are going to be a successful dog groomer. So let's face it, in that initial 12 months, 18 months of building your business where you can have a space for more dogs, you can add more dogs. Client acquisition is often, let's just call it, done at any cost. It's often done with quite flexible boundaries, with pricing that isn't perhaps um correct. But I know I think when I first priced my business back in 2009, my dog grooms, it was based on the simple concept of what I thought I could get away with. Yeah, exactly. How many dog groomers have done that? I mean, this was 17 years ago. There wasn't all the discussions on pricing on forums like there is now and things. That luckily that was quite um if there was, I wasn't involved in them, but it wasn't quite as um viral as what it is now. And pricing was just it what it was what it was, and you just it was just about getting money back, getting some practice with your dogs. And even now, I think many groomers, that build stage is where more effort equals more results, more dogs in the diary equals more money, it also equals more practice, and so we build, we build messy, we build in many different ways. We just want to get our business built, and we keep telling ourselves, you know what, I will sort that business stuff out when I am fully booked. Because my main priority right now is proving to my friends and family I've got a good business, is improving my grooming skills, and it's getting some money back, isn't it? And so we just build, build, build, build, build. Because the more money comes from more dogs, more dogs come from more Facebook posts and more Instagram posts and more websites. That is our priority until that diary becomes fully booked. And that messy build stage, that time when more effort equals more results, once you are fully booked, the whole game changes and no one tells you. And the thing is, people keep playing by the old rules of more effort equals more results, and then what happens once you're fully booked is more effort then means burnout. It means overwhelm. Because more dogs now, more dogs now means more overwhelm. You haven't got time left in your diary. All that business stuff you told yourself you'd sort out when you were fully booked, hmm, there's no time to do it anymore because you're so overwhelmed doing dogs all the time and then getting back to clients every evening that you haven't got time for that business stuff, and the overwhelm starts to build, and you kind of think I will set some time aside to sort out my business, but then you get an inquiry and you're like, Well, do I say no to this cockoo or do I do my business stuff? And but no, don't say no to the money because we haven't got enough money yet, and the business stuff gets pushed to one side, and the cycle continues. Who can relate to this? I think it's a really common scenario in in our industry, and I think there's no shame to be had in it, but I think it's really important to recognize the pattern so you can get out of it. Because if you you when you get to this stage and you are fully booked, and you know yourself now that more dogs will be more overwhelmed, less time with your family, that business you built that was meant to be fitting around your family turns out it's consuming your entire life, and you're like, Oh, what do I do? You know, now more dogs equals more overwhelm, but you know you're not earning enough money for the work you're putting into the business, and therefore, the obvious answer that we often hear is put up your prices. That is why every Facebook post about pricing, every Facebook forum, they always get loads of likes, loads of comments, loads of viral hits, which is fine because you know what, pricing is the obvious answer to I haven't got enough money, I'm fully booked because it isn't you are now in the kind of work smart and not harder stage of your business. Back in that build stage, back in that um that growth stage, work smarter not harder is 50% true because of course you want to enhance what you have from the dogs you have in the door, you want to get as much money as you can from the you want to be as strong as you can, but there's only so much you can get from those dogs to compensate from the empty spaces you still have in your diary. So, in that build stage, work smarter not harder is 50% true, but work harder not smarter and get some more dogs in is also 50% true. But once we get to the fully booked, oh my god, can't fit any more dogs in, this is when work smarter not harder needs to come into place, but we haven't got any goddamn time to do it because we're too busy grooming dogs. Hence why the obvious answer is put up your prices, and you know what? It's not the wrong answer, it is one of the things you will need to do, but it's not as simple as those four words. Putting up your prices, if you we we need to reverse engineer that, we need to peel that right back to the core of where your prices are going wrong. How much do you put up your prices by? Um, it's not just add a fiver, it's not just compare to local other grog dog rumors, it's peeling back and looking at your individual numbers in your business, knowing what your bottom line is, what we call your cost plus price line in the academy, and knowing where that is for you in your prices. So, knowing that whenever you charge anything lower than that, you've got an expensive hobby, not a business. Anything above that is a viable business. And knowing that boundary, that barrier, that is super, super important once you get to the fully booked stage. Because at that point, you can no longer add more dogs to get more money, you need to sort out your pricing. But again, reverse engineering the pricing again, you not only need the mindset to charge it, of course you do, of course, you need to believe you're worth those money. But even with the mindset of Mariah Carey, you can believe you're worth every single penny. You need the customers to understand that price too. You need your customers to realize she is worth that more, and that's down to things like your marketing, your branding, how you stand out locally, having a pool of other warm potential clients that could fill any slots you have. All of this is one big system. So our growth in like that early stage when we're still growing and we have more room for dogs. That's linear, that's like a linear. Imagine a line going upwards. But once we get fully booked, it's no longer a line because the line means more overwhelm. Now it's a it's like a web almost because every single thing affects something else. So you're pricing, you're like, oh, I might put my prices up. Oh, but first I need to work on this or work on that, or I need to look at this number, and it all kind of comes back to something else. So knowing how to get everything back under control, how to start making changes is a really, really important skill to have, and understanding the web of your business, what we call business engine in the academy, is really important because every single part of your business, from your branding to your pricing to your marketing, to even down to your styling skills and your customer experience, they all work as one cohesive system to keep your business kind of churning, keep it going, so that you can finally feel in control. Because the longer you keep going with that kind of more effort equals more results, that linear mindset, that linear way of thinking, that's when you're gonna get to overwhelm. That's when we see people thinking, oh my goodness, teeth cleaning, spa packages, they're the next thing to save my business because I'm fully booked, I'm not earning enough, this is the magic wand I need. And they go and do teeth cleaning and they go and do spa packages, both of which, can I just put a point in are very, very good revenue streams. I'm not saying they're not, but they are not sticking plasters for a business that isn't strong in the first place. If you are hemorrhaging money due to a lack of decent pricing and a lack of financial knowledge of your business, it doesn't matter how many sticking plaster add-ons you get, they're never gonna actually work. Because if you haven't got the basic business skills to price your dog grooms, you're not gonna have the business skills to price the teeth cleaning appropriately. If you haven't got the business skills to communicate the value of a good schedule with your dog grooms and how how much you're worth every penny you charge, you're not gonna know how to communicate the value of maintenance teeth cleans and long ongoing dental care. If you don't know how to stand out with your branding as the dog groomer in your area to choose, and therefore people are willing to pay you more because oh my god, she is so amazing, then you're not gonna know how to stand out as the dog groomer to choose for dental care. All of these very fundamental business skills you need to kind of master before you add more to your plate, because that's adding more to your plate is following that old build mentality that more effort equals more results mentality that works, it works in the first 18 months, but it doesn't work once you're fully booked because then it just leads to overwhelm, and you be that's why we see many dog groomers. We try these add-ons, they try these uh teeth cleaning or spa packages, then they're saying six months down the line didn't work for me, my owners didn't respect it, my owners didn't like it, I've scrapped it. Anyone relating here? Can any does anyone seen these discussions? That's why, because it doesn't work for you because if you haven't got the fundamental business skills, that is not your fault. You were never ever taught them. These things are always going to be like short hit wonders before they lose momentum and they're before you lose a good customer base from them. So that is why we have to get into a different mindset, the boss mindset, once you become fully booked. So let's discuss how perhaps we can look at this. So, first of all, don't beat yourself up for the messy build. Because to be brutally honest, in some ways, the messy build teaches you as many lessons as building strong and steady does. You learn about price chasers, don't you just? You learn about the owners that like groomer hopped all over town and they've come to you because you're a new dog groomer. You meet the the um the owners that have dogs with aggression problems or behavioral problems, and they've been through many, many groomers, they've been told a thousand times your dog needs work. They come to you, you're exactly the same, you can't groom it, and they end up making you feel like it's your fault because you're new, not the fact they're into now their dog needs work. So we meet all these people in the messy build, and it's like a little journey to a little bit of clarity, I think, in our industry, and it's it's not necessarily a bad thing, and like I said before, the more dogs we get our hands on in the early days, the quicker our skills will develop, and that is a really super important thing to remember as well. I'm not gonna judge you, but also we need to accept in the second stage of it. So we've we're after the build stage when we're in that fully booked stage, running a business, it's not actually destination. There is no destination in your business that you will ever ever get to where you think, got it, sorted it, this is it. It's a journey. I'm so sorry, it is a continuous journey, but you've got that's why you have to work on enjoying the journey, not just waiting to enjoy the business once you have got to X result or this or that or the other. Because you thought that you'd enjoy the job more once you got fully booked, but yet you haven't got enough money. That's proof that it's not an actual destination, it's a journey. So enjoying your business, knowing how to look at your finances, your marketing, knowing how to deal with your customers, working on making that journey as enjoyable as possible, working on having customers that respect you, customers that value you, dogs that you enjoy grooming. That's the journey. That is the journey. There is no destination, and also embracing the fact that every single person has a different idea of what their journey should be and what success is. For some people, their journey is I want a salon with five staff and maybe a second salon one day, whatever it is. Absolutely valid goal, good for you, not a problem. I had that myself at one point, that was my journey. Other people, they want the garden shared, they want the place for themselves, they want to have to talk to nobody all day, listen to radio two, bit of Vernon K10 to the top, and groom some dogs. That again is a very, very valid version of success and valid version of someone else's journey. And that's why often we see comparisons on social media, and I'm cringing thinking, well, she might not want what she wants, or he might not want what he wants. It's all very different, and it's okay to want different things, but remember what you wanted from your business back on day one. If you can peel back what you wanted when you first thought of becoming a dog groomer, when you had that conversation to your partner, your parents, and said, I want to become a dog groomer, I'm thinking of doing this. What were those things you you said you listed? Was it because you wanted a certain amount of money? Was it because you wanted to work around your kids into the school run? Was it because you just wanted to work with the dogs? What was it? Because you might actually already have it, but you don't realize it. But we go out there, we get on social media, we see everyone else's journeys, everyone else's goals, everyone else's destination, and we get shiny object syndrome because we're like, oh, that looks good, oh that looks good, oh she's doing this, oh he's doing that. I might do this because we're in that linear build mindset, we're in that more effort equals more results. I don't think I'm where I want to be yet, therefore, I need to put more work into this to get more results. And quite often, the actual answer is not adding more, it is peeling back, peeling back to what you wanted, what your journey wants to look like, what your version of success looks like, and making sure you know how to maintain that, knowing what enough is for you because you might find that you've actually achieved so many of your goals already, and that's what we need to do once we get to the fully booked stage is press stop on the build for a minute. It's time to pat down the sand of that messy sand castle, put some shells on it and make it look how you want it to make. Make your business something that serves the life and your stage of life that you're in. Okay, so that is regard to what got you here, what got you from zero to fully booked, is not what will get you from fully booked to keeping a maintenance, stopping yourself from burning out, stopping yourself from overwhelm. If you stay in that build mindset, if you stay in that more, more not enough yet mindset, and you take that into the the fully booked time era of your business, that's when you'll become obsessed with pricing because you never have enough, and you think that's the one thing you haven't got more of, that'll be the obvious answer, and you'll forget to peel back, and that there's more to your business and a deeper understanding of how every single piece works together. Also, um, I'm just gonna touch this. I'm sure some of you are sat there thinking about it. In the build stage, we often have new dog groomers coming in, and one of the biggest complaints um we as experienced dog groomers have is they're undercutting on prices, they are um they're coming in at super duper low prices, and experienced dog groomers like, I can't compete with that, I can't possibly compete with those prices. No, we can't. There are two things to be said here. First of all, we haven't got to because, as I said, pricing is not the only part of our business that's important. We have marketing, branding, customer experience, customer service, value communication, all of these things that we should be polishing, enhancing, offering top-class service of that means we don't have to compete on pricing because our customers know we are far superior in other elements. So there's no reason our customers will leave and flock to brand new dog groomers. Brand new dog groomers speaking to you for a second. Please don't be threatened by that. But you can tread your own path in the industry, but you must know your bottom line. You must know your bottom line for your pricing. Don't come out the gates like many of us are thinking I'm gonna charge what I think I can get away with. My skills are basic, I don't think I can charge much yet. I'm gonna undercut them all because at least that will get dogs in my door, I'll get practice. Yeah, I realize this, but many of us did that, many of that still happens. But the longer you maintain that, the longer you use that as your pricing method, as what I can get away with, the more work you have to do when you get to the fully booked stage, and you're there thinking, oh crap, I am way below what I want to be earning here. I'm pulling a pittance from my business. You've got more work to do then. So your messy build isn't just messy, it's it's got it's possibly gonna self-sabotage you. You have to know your bottom line. Your bottom line is basically what the the boundary from where your price is becoming viable for your business, and below that is an expensive hobby. So, are you paying yourself? Are you covering your bills? Yes, your initial investment of whatever it is 10-15 grand, you're not gonna get that back in year one, I'll be brutally honest. But if you divide it over the first five years of your business career, can you get a repayment plan in place there and make sure you're getting that back over time? Like somebody with a student loan. Are you getting that back? But you need to know your bottom line. You still need to look at your figures, even though you're brand new. It's what we call the cost plus pricing line in the academy, it's what we teach groomers to work out first off, because that is their baseline. And then what happens there? It means you can come into our industry, you can still earn money to pay your bills and pay yourself a decent wage. And then as you go through our industry, as you get more experience, as your skills develop, as your customer service develops, because believe me, customers are a learning curve in themselves, as you get those things yourself, you then move on to what we call value-based pricing. This is something we teach more experienced groomers in the academy. They're basically adding value because they're adding they're offering a more superior service. By all of us doing that, what it means is that the more experienced groomers are not threatened by your lower prices because they know they're charging more, but they know they're also have adding more value, they're communicating more. But it gives you a place to get a foot in the door of our industry without getting into debt and without kind of undercutting everybody else. So that is the way we teach pricing in the grooming guidance academy. Sorry, it was just renamed actually the dog grooming business academy, should have mentioned that. Um, that's the way we teach pricing, is so that people, brand new groomers, can come out of the gates still with some kind of profit, but more experienced groomers are communicating that higher level of skills, a higher level experience that does cost more money, and that seminates to the to the general public, and they know a higher level of groom is going to cost more money. Wouldn't that be a nice way to live, anyway? That was a side, and then about pricing for one second. I do apologize, it's something um I do teach in depth in the academy because I studied it at university. But pricing is really important, integral cog in your business, and you need to sort it as a priority. And even in the build stage of your business, your pricing should be something that is not sabotaging you. Okay, but I'm gonna leave that there for today. I basically wanted to come and just talk about the mindset of the build stage. That build mindset, add more, more effort equals more results. Yet that works, that works for 12 to 18 months. It stops working the minute you become fully booked. The minute you become fully booked, the rules flip. And that rule and that that game plan that makes you overwhelmed, it makes you burn out. That's when you have to get back in control of your business. If anyone hasn't watched it yet, I have a free training on the dog grooming business engine. Um, if you head to the caption of this podcast or even the links in my Instagram bio, you will find the link there. It's a completely free webinar, it's about an hour and a quarter long. But we go into others' integral cogs for business. Um, and that is it for today. Thank you for joining me for episode one, season one. I'm sure, like many things, I will look back on this one day in years to come and think, oh god, that was basic. But that is part of the build, okay? Let's embrace the build, let's not be ashamed of it. It is always gonna get you somewhere, but don't forget the rules do change once you are fully booked. Thank you so much. Enjoy your day, and I shall see you next week.