Your business, your life, your version of success

If your dog grooming business was supposed to give you more freedom, why does it so often feel as though your whole life has to fit around it?

In this episode, I’m talking about goal-setting—but not the rushed, overly optimistic goals we tend to make on 1st January and forget three weeks later.

Instead, I’ll help you think about what you genuinely want from your business, the season of life you’re currently in and how to turn your ambitions into a practical strategy.

We’ll explore:

• Your pinnacle goal: the big ambition you may not be ready to say out loud
• Why three-to-five-year goals should reflect your current season of life
• How to build your business around your life—not squeeze your life into whatever space the business leaves behind
• Why the final quarter of the year is the perfect time to plan for the next one
• How to reverse-engineer goals such as increasing your prices, updating your terms and conditions or finally stopping working Saturdays
• Why copying somebody else’s version of success rarely works
• The difference between a vision board and what I call a build board
• One simple weekly exercise to help you start behaving like the future version of yourself

You don’t need to abandon your biggest ambitions because life is busy. But you do need to plan for them in a way that gives them—and you—a genuine chance of success.

The Dog Grooming Business Academy’s live 2027 Strategy Planning Session will take place in November and will be available to Pro members.

Find out more about joining the Academy here

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

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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 meant to buy money alone. It's about loving the dogs be groomed, 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, recognise what it's really like to work in your business as well as honest, you're in the right place. Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to the Business of Doggering podcast. Now I know you guys have been listening every single week. For you, it hasn't been much of a break. I'm gonna let you in a little secret here. For me, it's been around six weeks since I've recorded one of these. I actually batched the first five, six episodes of this podcast back in July 2026. I plan to have the entire summer off. So we batch them. My amazing VA Kirsty, she schedules all my tech things. She's she's the um the tech brains behind the academy. I create the content, I am the educator about anything technical. Kirsty and Caitlin, my tech girls, they schedule things, upload podcasts, email sequences and things. They do all that techie stuff. So they scheduled this all. And then um I've had a break over the summer. I've been able to plan to break from recording the podcast around the six weeks holidays with my kids. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm still a dog groomer. I still had to groom as we all do over the summer holidays. We all know our clients can't just take six weeks off with their dogs. However, with regard to admin, extra tasks, anything other than ticking over, I've had a few weeks off. So for me, it's been a minute since I recorded the podcast. And I tell you what, I'm so pleased to be back. It's great. I've really miss doing these. Um, also, uh, looking back at the last um the last few weeks since I've I'm recording this in September now, the ones we've recorded, wow. Thank you so much for your feedback. Thank you for the downloads. We are hitting some amazing download figures already. Well, I think in our first three episodes, we had 500 downloads in the first three weeks, which apparently, I mean, I've got no idea of these, like what stats are good and what aren't. Apparently, it's quite good. So, thank you so much. And I know it must be fairly good because we've had lots of lovely new members as well joining over the past few weeks. So, I'm back on the um topic of having the summer off, having the plan in place to be able to take a back seat occasionally in our business. I thought today would be a really good opportunity to look at goals, look at strategy setting, look at how we can perhaps forward plan our year a little bit to take back control. So many of us feel overwhelmed in our dog grooming businesses. We feel like we're constantly firefighting or playing whack-mo with the problems that occur. No plan, perhaps living week to week. And we're always working towards something. I'm not saying we're not, we're always working towards a certain goal or a certain um uh destination, a version of success, getting there, wherever there may be. However, it's hard to sometimes plan where that is and not feel like you're on it every single week. The ability to peel back sometimes. Now, as I've said, we can't, as dog groomers, take six weeks off over the summer holidays. I think anyone would be quite naive to think we could. We we ask dogs to come on a six-week, four-week schedule to be groomed regularly. We can't then turn around and go, I'm sorry, can't work in July or August because the kids are off school. That's not the way a dog grooming business it works. So there is an element of we can't have it all, but we can certainly have more control than what some groomers do. We can peel back over the school holidays sometimes. We can reduce our hours, we can push some dogs either side. There is an element of business ownership that we can't avoid. We are gonna have to work extra hours some days to compensate for having time off, but with a little bit of planning, it's possible. Like I said, I batched all my first five episodes of the podcast back in July. Was it an intense few days getting them out there? Of course it was. Did my poor VA Kirsty have a little bit of work getting them all scheduled? Of course she did, but it meant that both of us, as mothers of school-aged kids, could then take a little bit more of a back seat in August. So that's what I'm talking about, how we can apply those principles to our dogging business. Now, things with um like goal setting, it's often something we don't think about until after the 26th of December. And then we have about five days of panic going, what do I want from the next year ahead? And we do goal setting in that week or the first of January, but normally by about the third week of Jan, they're all kind of forgotten. We're just back to um business mode as normal, just keep on plowing on, keep on working, hoping it all works out this year. This year will be the year it all happens. But as I'm sure, especially those of us in the northern hemisphere know, with the dark nights and the dark mornings and the cold days, those um those ideas, those goals, that motivation, that New Year's energy, it can dwindle as the end of January approaches and things are tight. So let's talk about goal setting, first of all, a little bit earlier on. I don't know why we all leave it till so late in the year. I think the perfect time to do goal setting is in the last quarter of the year before. So for us, Q4 will start on the 1st of October. So the last three months of 2026 are gonna start. I think well, I think this is released on the 23rd of September. So they're gonna start next week, a week after next. So let's use this last quarter, let's be realistic, let's use October and November, because December is off the cards if you're a dog grim, you're far too busy, to plan some goals for 2027, to plan ahead, to think what we want from next year. So when it does come to January the 1st, we're not then planning, we're walking, we're going, we're on that journey. It's like anything we plan. If you were to plan a hike or a journey or, I don't know, a car journey from Scotland to Cornwall, you wouldn't just set off that day, you would plan ahead. You would think, right, where are we going to stop for lunch? Where are we going to stop and do this? How many miles are we going to do on this leg of the hike? And you plan that journey ahead. So when it comes to the actual journey day, the actual journey time, you've got an idea of where you're going and you've broken it down, hopefully, into manageable chunks. Same goes for goal setting. There is no point setting them on day one on January the 1st if you want to start walking that day too, because you're you're going to be so keen to get walking to get going, your goals are going to be so rushed, you're not going to really plan them ahead, and you're probably not going to break them down into manageable goals, manageable chunks. So, what we do in the academy is we have um a strategy planning session, and this year we're actually going to have that strategy session for 2027 in November because I want the members to not worry in December about doing too much academy work and logging in, but just getting through it, enjoying time with their family. Obviously, the academy content will all be there for them, and we'll have a few little QA's and things, but nothing's going to be too um intensive in December. That is the way we work as groomers. But in January, I want them to have everything they need to just get cracking. Why why wait until we can get a call scheduled in January to get goal setting and strategies done? We're doing that in November this year. So we're going to help them plan when their price increase will be and reverse engineer that then when they're going to calculate the prices, reverse engineer of when they're going to tell the customers. And we plan every single thing down to in their diaries how they can plan ahead. So again, if they are someone like me, like a mother with school-aged kids, they can maybe plan that August will be nothing more than groomed dogs. Because maybe in August, maybe they don't want to do their accounts in August. Maybe they can do their accounts in January, sorry, not January, in July, but then leave August accounts, but instead protect two or three days in September to catch up, to to get up on the on the on what's been been building up in the background over August. That that kind of thing, that kind of forward planning to plan days around things to protect what you want to protect. That's what I mean about goal setting and then making those goals into strategies. So the way I often um the way I teach goals in the academy, the way we look at goals, we look at various levels of goal. All of us in our um businesses, in our own careers in the dog grooming industry, we have what I would call our pinnacle goal. That dream that we don't often vocalize, that we have in the back of our head of wherever it is we want to be, whether that be for you teaching dog grooming one day in your own academy, your own school, maybe it will be um a chain of shops, a chain of salons, maybe it will be a competition groomers, maybe you want to be on groom team Scotland or groom team England or whatever it is, whatever your your secret dream that you don't want to admit because it seems a little bit too ambitious. That dream, that goal. And we all have that in the back of our head. That goal, that pinnacle goal, it can actually change over the years. You might come into the industry and have that goal really strong in your head. Two or three years in, you might actually think, yeah, do you know what? I've had a taste of that. I don't think I'm gonna do that anymore and do this instead. That's fine. We are all allowed to change our minds, nothing is set in stone. But that's your pinnacle goal, and you will have that in the back of your head. Um, and you don't have to vocalize it, no one's making you. I think there's no point in making people do uncomfortable if they don't want to be. But what I would urge you to do is write it down somewhere, record it, um, just make a note of it. And then what you can do is as you progress through this industry, as you progress through your career, visit occasionally, visit, visit that goal. Is it still applicable to what you really still want from an industry? Has it changed? If it's changed, don't cross out the old one, write the new one below. So you can maybe keep a track of what you really want. And over time, you will, you might even look back to the original goal and think, you know what, I want I actually do still want that. But always be honest with yourself. You don't have to be honest with everybody else. If they ask you what you want and you say some one thing because you it makes you more comfortable, I'm not gonna call anyone out on that. We all do that, we all want to sometimes protect our pride because sometimes vocalizing that really ambitious goal, um, we feel like we then beholden ourselves to doing it. And what if we don't win Premier Groom? What if we don't get on the groom team England? What if we don't get a chain of three shops in the local area? And we feel a little bit um, we attach shame to it for some reason because we haven't achieved it, or we end up with those people, we all know those people, that keep asking, oh, have you got a second shop yet? Or oh, have you won a competition yet? All of this business. The ones who secretly love to keep you in your little box and they don't want to see you shine. But by vocalizing our goal to them, we sometimes feel a little bit silly, and that's not fair. So, what I would say is with regards to that goal, that really blumming ambitious goal, you have that ambition, you embrace that ambition, write it down, record it somewhere. Do not leave it just in your head because the longer it is in your head, the longer it is going to be affected, bashed, dented, faded, damaged by everyone else's view of what you should be doing in our industry. So please write that down. Okay. The next level of goal we often talk about in the academy are the three to five year goals. Now, let me explain why they are three to five years, because what a random amount of time, Karen. Okay. Three to five years is often the length of time it takes us, especially as women, to go through a different season of our life. So maybe three to five years can be the difference between having elderly parents that are very self-sufficient care for themselves to having parents that need more care. Three to five years can be the time for a partner or somebody to have a job promotion or a different job, or maybe they're gonna retire, or maybe you might meet a partner. All these things often it's it takes more than a year, but within three to five years, our lives can change quite a lot. As a parent, three to five years can be the difference between not having children or having children. It can be the difference between having children at home and therefore your working hours are gonna be very different from five years from there where your children are at school, different working hours. It can be the difference between having children that you take to school every day, therefore you're doing the school run and you're restricted to six hours, or children that are old enough to walk to school themselves or are going to high school. All of these things, normally within three to five years, life can change, life can shift. Maybe your kids are at high school, maybe they're off to uni. So within the three to five years, these are the life-changing things that will affect your income, your um financial support, your outgoings, if I enjoy university kids, that kind of thing. All of these things can change in three to five years, or your even your hours, maybe you have to reduce your hours to look after the elderly parents, to support a partner in their business, whatever it is. This is why some um look when you look at the season of your life, whatever season you're in, they often last around three to five years. And therefore, what we do in the academy is we look, what is your three to five year, what season are you in? What do you want from this season? So, say you have, I'm just using examples myself here. I have school age kids, one can walk himself to school, the other one, I still need to pick her up and drop her off. So, in the next three to five years for me, what do I want from this season? What hours do I want to work around my youngest child that I still have to do school run for? What kind of money do I therefore want from that? What kind of time off do I want? Do I want every weekend off? Do I want certain school holidays off? That is my three to five year plan, my strategy, my goals. And whatever your season is, maybe you're hoping you're gonna meet a partner in the next three to five years, maybe you're hoping you're gonna start a family, maybe you're hoping you're gonna be single again. Who knows? We're all different stages. But what you know is what you're hoping the next three to five years will bring you, or what it's probably gonna bring you, and how you need to plan for that in your business. So, for example, let's say you are thinking, I want to start a family in the next three to five years, but you're also thinking, I want to expand my business and get two more shops. We have to therefore put a pinch of reality in here and think, right, how am I gonna do that? Do I need to tread water in salon one for the next two years until we've had this baby and it's old enough to go into childcare, and then I'll plan for salon two in year three. That kind of thing. It's basically about being realistic rather than going on the hopes and dreams train and thinking it's all gonna work out and piling on, piling on, piling on until it all falls because you just assumed it would all work out. It's about embracing our reality, making goals that fit it, not saying I'm never gonna do this or this isn't gonna happen for me, but things are gonna happen much more successfully and have a much better chance of happening for you if you plan them around the reality of the life you're in. So if you do want that second, third salon, but you also want to start a family, or you also know your parents are getting to an age where you have to put them, like you have to look after them more, okay. So plan it out a little bit better. Think, right, my parents are getting older, but after this year, I can they can come here, whatever it is, think right, I might not be able to do salon two this year, but I can probably do it in 18 months' time when this has happened, and plan these things out. Whereas blinkers on, thinking it's all going to work out, not looking at the reality of the season you're in or the responsibilities you currently have, or perhaps are coming at you like a steam train and ignoring them and still plowing on regardless. That's when the goals you have, that's when they don't work, that's when they fail because we haven't necessarily planned around the reality of what we're in. It's not about me being a Debbie Downer, it's not about me saying you can't do these things, it's about saying, actually, you freaking well can do everything you want to do. You really can. You just need to plan like a business owner around the reality rather than like a dreamer around it's all gonna work out, it'll be fine. And it's okay. That's what bring you success. Sometimes you have to put the brakes on things for a certain amount of time so you can prepare for them better, to so you can give them more chance of success when you're ready. If you're giving things a little chance of success because you're so stretched thin around other responsibilities that you can't control, you're not giving that dream a proper chance of success. Sometimes it's hard to wait, it's hard to hold back, it's hard to think, but I want to do this now, I don't want to do it in six months' time. I get it. We all want to keep going. But if you want to have the energy, the time, the investment, the financial um preparation to put into things to make them really work, then think about when it is best to plan it around your current um season of life. Okay. That is it, that is three to five year goals. So, what I would say is embrace where you are now. Don't apologize for it. The reason we get burnt out as dog groomers is because we're trying to fit our life around our business. How about we fit our business around our life a bit more? How about we prioritize our life, where we are, what we have, the responsibilities we have, the joys we have, if we still have elderly parents that are alive, we have kids that are still at school, whatever it is, we have a partner that is healthy, whatever it is we have, our our health, my God, our health. Let's fit our business around that. Let's protect our lives, put a nice little wall around our lives, and build our business around the space, time, and energy we have left rather than blink us on, regardlessly building a business just because we know it's on our on our goals, and then trying to fit our life around what's left. That's why we're getting burnt out. We're trying to do everything, and we can do everything if we plan it. We just need a bit of forward planning. So, like me in August, I just said I had six weeks off from doing anything other than treading water in the business. Yeah, because I planned ahead. I planned ahead that July was going to be quite intense, but that's okay because my kids are still at school, I can get that done. And September is quite intense, but August, therefore, I could protect. So I planned my life and I put my business around my boundaries of my life. I didn't hit August and thinking, oh my God, my kids are off school, I've got to have days out, I've got a holiday booked, I've got this, that, and the other going on, and then try and fit my life around a full diary of dogs, a full diary in the academy, doing lessons, planning seminars. No, if I if I can push things around a little bit to suit my lifestyle and what I want to accomplish with my family, that is much more important. That is how I've not burnt out. Yes, September is busy, but in a way, I am so ready for it now because I've had that rest. Whereas if I plowed down regardless and tried to balance both full-time motherhood and August with kids off school and all the days out and expenses and everything that involves, alongside a business that was running just the same as ever, I would have burnt out. I would have hit September and gone, oh my God, I'm knackered. And the quality of my work, it would all would have suffered. So that's what I'm saying to us as dog groomers protect your life. What hours do you want? What money do you want? What season of life are you in? What responsibilities do you have? What kind of um lifestyle do you want now? Build your life, build your goals around it. Because believe me, within three to five years, flip, it'll all change again anyway. It will. It could be less than three to five years, it will all change. Something in your life will have changed within three to five years. So that's our three to five year goals and how we need to think about them. How how we can plan ahead and think what what year, what month, what when is best to do this, at what stage will this happen? Okay, let's peel that back and then let's go for what everyone always plans for is our our yearly goals, our annual goals. So if you're listening to this as it's released, um, I'm releasing this in September 2026, which means right now you should be starting to think about 2027 and what you want to accomplish from next year in your dog grooming business and also in your life. So, next year, think about the life that's going to be happening to you. Again, look at the season of life you're in. Is anything majorly changing next year or is predicted to change? Can you see something that's probably going to happen that you need to perhaps plan for? In your business, what do you want to change? What do you want to maintain? Because I'll be honest, even maintaining a Fully effective, successful business still involves goals because maintenance, riding with inflation, riding with trends in the industry, that still involves a lot of work. It's like that um like that metaphor about the swan gliding on the river, but underneath its little legs are going 10 to the dozen. Even maintenance involves work. So, what do you want to achieve in 2027? What kind of money do you want to achieve? Do you need to start looking at your pricing? If so, stop putting it off. Stop saying I'll sort it out next year. Because if you've been saying that for more than six months, will you? Or will you just keep saying it? Will you just go for the usual ad a fiver scenario because you really haven't got the time or headspace to look any deeper? In which case, get your pricing sorted and give yourself a deadline. So if your price increase is going to be due April 1st next year, you've got until February 1st to figure out what it is because as of February 1st, you're going to start telling your customers. This is what we do in the academy. So we encourage groomers to put the price up whenever they want to, but April 1st is a popular one because it's the end of the financial year. Well, not exactly, but you know what I mean. And so we reverse engineer the entire plan. So if April 1st is the day it all comes into effect, that means if they're going to inform their regular customers, i.e. those on a six to eight week schedule, as of February the 1st, because we reverse engineered where that's going to happen, which means they need to know what kind of money that involves, what kind of new prices it will be, earlier than that. So ideally by mid-January, they need their prices sorted in their head financially to project for the next year. Therefore, we encourage them to do their pricing calculations in November, December, hence why it's all there in the academy. And that's what I mean by reverse engineering your goals, making them a strategy so they don't become overwhelming. Because if you want to put your prices up April 1st and you start thinking about it on the 17th of March, it's going to be rushed, it's not going to be thought through. You're not going to have time to inform your customers. It's just not the way a business would do it. So as a dog growing business, we have we can do it. We can plan it so much easier. We have we can take so much stress out of the situation by just planning it and plucking it in the diary. So in the diary, remember the first look at all my numbers, my accounts, whatever it is, bearing in mind you're also doing your accounts every month, that kind of thing. But these are things you can plan in your diary as monthly, weekly, whatever tasks to break up over the course of the year. Hence why you can protect things like your um your August or your December. Again, because December, I also protect from anything other than getting by, because December we know is busy. We know it's busy in the salon, I know it's busy in the academy. We often have a launch to plan for the new year. We have we often have meetings for what's going to happen next year. Um, all you groomers that haven't done your accounts, you're probably scrambling around doing that. Learn. All of these things, it's it's it's a bit a busy month. So again, if we can protect December, that's a great month to protect. But having our goals, our strategies planned out is a really good way of doing it. Again, terms and conditions distribution. Are you one of these groomers that hands them out just once when customers come into your business and never again? I can't think why they don't know your no-show policy. Do you need an annual strategy to hand them out? In what case? When are you gonna hand them out? Therefore, when are you gonna um edit them, look at them, make sure that um they're up to date? How are you gonna hand them out? Are you gonna print them out? Are you gonna email them? Whatever it is. I'm not gonna go into that too deep because we go into it much deeper in the academy. That's members only, but what kind of strategy does that need to be in your annual diary? So in 2027, when are you doing that? How can you break it down? All of these different things, all of these goals we have, we need to reverse engineer and break up into manageable chunks. Dropping a Saturday, maybe you want to drop a Saturdays next year. So you're thinking, right, I want to drop Saturdays. So okay, rather than keeping saying it and thinking, I'll get around to it, oh, I will do it in 2027. Plan it. Plan when you're dropping Saturdays. If you're dropping Saturdays as of January 1st, 2027, guess what? As of now, pretty much, you need to block that Saturday out in your diary for 2027 as if it is an appointment with a neurosurgeon or a solicitor or something you cannot cancel. It is really important. Or I don't know, block it out as if you're off to visit your granny, whatever it is. So when a customer tries to book Saturdays still, and you're telling them you're not gonna do in Saturdays, you don't cave. You don't go, oh yeah, go on, I will, and think I'll just do it until the spring, or I'll just just this one dog, just this one dog, I'll be done by half ten, it'll be fine. Because we all know that's the slippery slope to fill your Saturdays up again. You have to protect it, and in your head, you have to block it out as if you have something really important on that day that is non-negotiable. And then as of now, as of three months before, you just start telling your Saturday clients, so sorry, as of January, Saturdays are shut and closed. They'll either move to a weekday, it's amazing how many can suddenly find availability in a weekday, or you say, Do you know what? Thanks very much for your custom. These are the local salons that are open Saturdays. You have plenty of time now because if you're telling them three months in advance, they have plenty of time to look elsewhere. And then you've done all you can with due diligence to inform your customers respectfully and also protect your Saturdays. But if you don't start doing these things, if you don't start putting um protection in place, you're never gonna do it. You're never gonna do it. You're gonna say, I'm gonna drop Saturdays in 2027. Okay, when? When? When are you gonna protect it? Because if you just start putting your dog in again, or I'll work every fourth Saturday, that was a good one that I've heard from people, but within a few months, it's not every fourth Saturday. You're in every Saturday because you couldn't fit everyone in on that Saturday. So you'll put them in that one too, and it it just snowballs until you're back working six days a week again. So if you want to do something like that, whatever day of the week it is, a Saturday was just an example. You have to start planning that now because you need to reverse engineer how you will um how you will do it, how you will tell people. So that's annual goals. We all have different annual goals. I am I I mentioned I did this at the PEPPRE expo last year, was it 2025? Um, I talked about goals a bit there. And the thing is with goals, we all have different ones. Just because we're all dog groomers, even just because you might have the same business model, you might work in your shed or your wet pet pod or your garage or whatever it is, doesn't mean we have the same goals. As I mentioned before, we're we are all in different seasons of our life, we all want different things in the business, we all enjoy different dogs to groom, we all have different goals. And the way I described it at the expo, and I've done it several times since with other people, is think of the Lego aisle in a toy shop. You walk down the Lego aisle in Smith's Toy Superstores, there are hundreds of different boxes of Lego, hundreds of different Lego houses, buildings, whatever it is. Every single person in that shop that goes to buy Lego will want a different one, they want to build something different. So, my son will want to go and build a Lego castle, probably, likes building that kind of thing, or the Avengers Tower would be his dream. And I I mean I'm not really into Lego much, but I'd be choosing like the Moana hut or something for my daughter. We all like different Lego, we want to build different things. That is success. Same thing. We all have a different version of what we want to build, we all have a different version of success. And guess what? We all need different bricks to build them. You give me the bricks for the Avengers Tower, I ain't building Moana's Hut. I give Sam the bricks for Moana's Hut. He's not gonna get the Avengers Tower out of it, he's not gonna find Tony Stark in there. It's all very different. So success is exactly the same thing. We all have different versions of what we want to build. So following someone else's version of success, following their path on social media, following what they did, it's never gonna work for you if you want different things from your business. I mean, they do say they do say success leaves clues, and it does, but the biggest clues it will leave you is how that person um follows their own path, has their own ideas, is original, and has their own um way of doing things. That's the biggest clue you're ever gonna get from someone that's successful. Don't follow their steps, follow their mindset, follow the way they go about things, don't just follow their what they did exactly, because it's gonna be different. You're gonna get different results from it. Because, as well, as much as even if you want the same things, say you want to, I don't know, uh be on groom team England. So you want to do the exact same things somebody on groom team England did. The thing is, you have a different area you're working from, you have different dogs to compete with, you have a different way of scissoring, you were trained by someone different, you're gonna have a different experience, you're gonna be judged by different judges, you're gonna want different money from your business, you're gonna want to work at different hours, your path will be different. The things life throws at you will be different. You are never gonna follow a carbon copy of someone else's success and someone else's journey because you have different bricks. You're building with different bricks, you're gonna build a different Lego house. So please get really, really clear on what you want your goals to be. Like I said before, get that pinnacle goal, that your your your ambition, your ambitious quiet dream that you keep to yourself because you're embarrassed to admit, get that recorded somewhere, please, so you can keep looking at it. See, is it right for you still? Have you changed? And don't let the social media will change it for you. Dream whatever you want from our industry. There are no limits. You can do whatever you want. Okay. Look at me. I mean, I'm not being funny, no one else had a business membership until I sort this out. I mean, there are business other programs out there, but a monthly membership with constant business advice, that wasn't happening. And it wasn't happening at the levels that I've now got it to. I would never have, I mean, I dreamed of this. I of course I dreamed of this, but it wasn't something I ever thought I would really get a few years ago. But that's what I mean. There is no limit to what you can get. You can get whatever you want from this industry. Do not stop trying if you really want it, but don't keep trying if you don't want it. Don't keep following it just because you think everyone else expects it from you. Do what you want from your season of life, your business, your circumstances, and don't apologize for that to anybody. You have permission to be anything you want in this industry. There are no, there is no limit, there is no ceiling. Okay. Um, so get your pinnacle goal recorded, keep it with you at all times and look at it. Your three to five year goals, accept the season of life you're in, protect the season of life you're in, protect your hours, your lifestyle, the joys you have at home, protect them. Don't let your business seep in at the seams. Don't be let your business be the thing that makes you say to your kids, just one minute all the time. I went through that stage. If you are someone that resonates with that phrase and you said it to your kids and you're going just one minute as they're on the swings and you're texting the client with three different appointment slots, I am talking to you right now. I see you. It's not the situation that you wanted to build. You didn't build your business to be doing that. You built it for freedom. And yet, if you built it for freedom and financial stability, and because you wanted to run your own business, and it is now making you so tired that the energy you give to your children, your family, your parents, your partner, your friends is depleted and you're resentful about your business. Now is the time. Now is the time to make 2027 the year that that changes, which means now the last few months of 2026 is when you plan for that, when you plan for that new Lego build you're gonna build. Okay. And then um, yeah, annual goals, year one goals. Year one goals, not annual, just annual. Um, yeah, what do you want from next year? What do you want from that? Plan it out. I'm not into this vision board business. I'll be perfectly honest. If that is you, crack on. I think vision board implies it's um it's negotiable, that it's just a vision, it's an airy, fairy dream. I talk about things called build boards. So, like I was I'm I know I've got a Lego again, haven't I? But you know how with a box of Lego, you have Lego plans and you have a little booklet and you turn it in step one, you have this brick, step two, you put two more bricks, step three, you put this brick here. That's what I mean by a build board. So rather than having a vision board and just hoping it all works out and just having a picture of that Lego house but no idea how to build it, make a build board. How are you gonna get there? How are you gonna protect those days, get that money, and have that lifestyle? That is what I mean by a buildboard. Um, and then I just want to give you one more tip before I leave you today, because that was a bit of a motivational speech, wasn't it? Right. Um, this is something I learned from it was from a TED talk years ago, and I wish to God I could tell you who it was, but I'll say outright, it wasn't mine. It wasn't my kind of idea, this wasn't my original idea, so I don't want to claim um any credit for it. But this woman, and she was on about how she keeps herself um like accountable for her goals, how she keeps herself in the mindset for someone that even in the in the months where you just think, oh my god, it's not working out, I want to give up, or even when you just think maybe I'm not cut out for this, how she keeps herself accountable. Once a week, she protects half an hour. So for me, that half an hour is um it's on a Sunday morning when my daughter's at um a tutor's house, and she protects this half an hour, and what she does is she thinks about the life when those goals are accomplished, when those goals are given, when she has reached that pinnacle, that that pinnacle that you you're you're in groom team England now, you've got that chain of three shops, you're earning good money, you you're happy, okay? That pinnacle you've got there. The kind of person she is when she's at that pinnacle. So, how does she act differently? How does she feel? How does she um um hold herself? How does she think in her head? What does that woman think feel like? How does she dress? And what she does is she gets there first, that takes about 10 minutes. And yes, it would be lovely to embody that person all you all the time, and that's what you get told to do, but it's not always easy. Embody that person, and then she thinks, what would she do this week? What would this version of me do this week to get towards my goals? So this woman is she's accomplished, she's got her goals, she got there, she got where she wanted to be. How does she act in this next week? So for me, it's always a Sunday I try and do this. So I sit there, normally in the car, and I think, how would I act this week if I had got the business I I dream of getting? So when I've reached my goal, how would I act this week? What would I do? What collaborations would I make? What um how would I reach out to people? What would I post in the academy? What kind of lessons would I be planning in the academy? How would I be supporting my members? How would I be um talking to my customers in my dogcoming salon? What would I be doing this week if I was her? Because she's got where she wants to be. She is successful, she is my success. How would I act this week if I was her? And then I make a plan and I make sure I do at least one of the things I've thought of in that next week. So if I think to myself, I would reach out and I would invite so and so to come and speak in the academy, I go and do it. The amount of emails, I'm I'm happy to admit, the amount of emails I have pitched across the bow to people to say, do you want to come and talk in the academy? Or can I come and talk at your show? Or can do you want to come and collaborate? Is insane. I'm not embarrassed to say it. I am not embarrassed to be ambitious. I am not embarrassed to say, I've given myself permission to go and ask the awkward questions. And if I get blanked, I get blanked. But unfortunately, you will find this out as you go through your career. Success does come at the cost of a little bit of embarrassment, a little bit of public embarrassment. Because yes, sometimes you're putting things out on social media, you're writing certain captions, you're doing certain things in your business, you're trying new things, and sometimes it tanks publicly. Sometimes it tanks publicly. Sometimes you get no likes on your post. Sometimes you try something new and no one buys it or no one takes it up. Like in dog grooming, maybe some maybe you try whatever it is, a new a new package, a new a new service, whatever it is, and it tanks and it happens. And people go, how's that going? And you have to say, not very well. That that is the price of real success because you have to be brave to get where you want to be sometimes. So once a week, if you can, even if in your head you do it while you're blasting a dog, it's a great time for thinking, isn't it? Get yourself a nice big doodle that takes a good half an hour to dry and blast. Put your defenders on. So it's just you and your thoughts. Do it then if you have to. That's that's a great time to have some thinking time sometimes. Put yourself in her shoes or his shoes. What would he or her be doing this week? What kind of things would they be doing in your business? What kind of things behind the scenes would they be looking at? Would would they be looking at their accounts this week? Would they be um reaching out to someone? Would they be finally getting that member of staff? Would they finally be having that awkward conversation with that customer that they want to sack? What would they be doing? Because they're the ones that in your head are the ones that got the success. Put yourself in their shoes, go and do it. Do one thing. Because you'll think of several things. Pick one, go and do it. Just do it. Because by doing it, you are becoming that person. You are becoming that person that gets it, that gets the success, that gets where you want to be. Constantly thinking about that person, but not doing their actions, you're just gonna keep dreaming of them. That's where the whole vision wishy-washy board comes in. Build the board, build the vision, build the goal. Okay, uh, that's about it, I think. If you want more on goals and strategy sessions, um, as I say, our strategy session in the academy is gonna be in November this year. Um, and that's gonna be for the pro members of the Academy. So if you want to come and join the pro membership, um, I shall see you inside. Uh, we do have old recordings of the of last year's, but you're gonna want the new stuff. So that is inside the academy, and that will be a live call we'll be doing in November. In January of this year, I think it took two and a half hours that call. It was a great live Zoom. We went through everything, and members plotted their entire 2026. So it was a really fun call. Um, so not I'm I know two and a half hours might not sound like fun, it was good, but yeah, if you want to come join us, we'll be doing that in November. Um, and then as of January, it's time to get going with those goals. So hopefully, I shall see you inside the membership soon. If not, it's been an absolute joy today. Um, I've really enjoyed talking to you, and I'm so pleased to be back recording the podcast. It's so good. I shall um I've got some more guest speakers lined up. I hope you enjoyed last week with Martina. Um, and so hopefully we shall be seeing you soon. We are over halfway through of season one, um, and I've really enjoyed it. Thank you so much. I wish I'd done a podcast years ago because it's been such a joy to record, and it seems like you guys like it too, because um lots of new members and things. Right, I'm gonna leave you, I'm gonna start waffling. Have a great day. Thanks so much. Bye-bye. Hey, just before you go and turn that blaster back on, one more thing. If your dog green business is going pretty well, but you'd still love fresh ideas, practical resources, and somewhere supportive to ask questions, our new core membership could be the perfect option for you. For only £19 a month, you'll join our private academy community away from the noise and judgment of Facebook groups and receive fresh business education and resources every single month. It's ongoing support to help you keep learning, improving, and strengthening your business at your own pace. You'll find all the details in the show notes, and maybe I'll see you inside soon.