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Joe Zuccarello: You go through Learn2GroomDogs.com, you’ve obviously had lots of training experts as your influence and obviously to your point, people that are credible, people that raise the bar, people that are established and proven as top of their game. So after … well and maybe not after, you’re still a member of Learn2GroomDogs.com and still enjoying the membership benefits that way. But you shifted, and you were invited to become one of those experts. How did that feel?

Josh Morales: Out of all my accomplishments, for me it was the biggest one. I still to this day, I believe that cannot be surpassed. It’s something extremely honorable for me. Something extremely valuable for me and something no one can ever take away from I’m extremely, extremely proud to be the perfect example of what pet grooming can take you, where Learn2GroomDogs can take you, where the enterprise can take you as far as opportunity and future opportunities. It’s almost surreal. It’s that one validation that I kind of always sought out for. That one validation that means the very utmost to me is to be a part of Learn2GroomDogs. It’s incredible because I can still to this day put myself right back into that position to where I had no idea of really what I was talking about, and Learn2GroomDogs allowed me to not only know certain direction where I wanted to go, but know some information I didn’t know and I couldn’t get from anywhere else.

Josh Morales: And then you kind of use this information and piece it with other experiences or maybe lessons in life. Maybe you take a private lesson, maybe you go to a dog show and you see the way the dog is supposed to look. All these things kind of piece together very, very ironically, and it’s a very fulfilling feeling when you see and you understand something. You know exactly why. And it’s, yeah, get the experience, yes, I network, yes, this and that. But really the key to everything was Learn2GroomDogs.

Josh Morales: It’s mind-boggling to be a member and now not only a member, but an educated partner or expert. Someone who’s now … I’m able to give back to that one person. It might be one, even if it’s as few as one, that has that same mentality I did. Someone who is probably out of anyone, the hardest one to tap into. You have three different kinds of people, the ones that jump right in, the ones that are a little hesitant and then the ones that kind of refuse. And those are the hardest to tap into and those are kind of what I realized to blossom.

Josh Morales: Joining Learn2GroomDogs will allow you to grow, to step outside of your comfort zone. The only way you can grow is by stepping out of your comfort zone. Learn2GroomDogs is going to allow you to understand what it is that we truly do, how professional it really is. And like I stated earlier, how many ways is there to achieve that task or goal you’re trying to look for? And you might think that one already works for you, but when you see two or three other different ways to get there, you might figure out the third option for you is a lot easier than the option you were using to begin with. So even with the person who thinks they don’t need it, down to the person who absolutely needs it, they just don’t understand, it’s a critical, critical, I think foundation that you absolutely need.

Josh Morales: There’s no other option out there. And this industry is so small, it’s so close, but far away because we’re all in different parts of the world, in most cases the United States, and we can’t necessarily have everything we need at the fingertips. So Learn2GroomDogs for me in a nutshell is everything you need at the palm of your hands. Now with technology, with your cell phone, it’s very mobile friendly. Even before this new relaunch, it was very mobile friendly. I can pull it out of my phone, really get three different views on to where I’m trying to go. And then rather A, make up my own version of it. Or B, choose one that works best for me. So Learn2GroomDogs is absolutely vital to your success as a dog groomer, as a professional. From client relations down to painting the toenails, to handling, to safety procedures, to how to do a Kerry Blue and a show trim, to a pet clip. Learn2GroomDogs is the only place you can get all the information you need.

Joe Zuccarello: Josh, one of the things that Learn2GroomDogs.com with the new approach, one of the things that you’d mentioned earlier that when you looked in it, you know there are so many videos. And 1, it just opened your eyes to all the possibilities. But to some people that might be a little overwhelming. So one of the things with Learn2GroomDogs.com is that it’s separated by skill level track. So we’ve got the baby groomers, or what we say just getting started. To the beginner groomer. To the pet groomer. To the stylist, advanced stylist, and also now the business track that’s involved with it as well. So no matter where the learner, no matter where the member is in their career, they have the ability to jump into that track and complete that track before they move onto the next. How do you think that benefits a member of Learn2GroomDogs.com, the community?

Josh Morales: I think it’s going to help it tremendously. The fact that just by that setup, beginner, intermediate, expert, you’ll be able to actually choose or understand at what level you are on first of all. I think with that you can understand if I click in intermediate and I feel a little uncomfortable about it, that might just tell me I’m a beginner and I can start with beginner. And I can work my way up and understand and see my growth going through the program. I think it makes it a lot easier because you don’t have to feel that you need to be the super expert to use Learn2GroomDogs. But I can still utilize Learn2GroomDogs on a continuing education level without feeling overwhelmed or feeling like I don’t need it as far as basics go. So groomer-to-be to baby groomer, the basic portion of it allows you to pace yourself or just stay in that category because there’s nothing wrong with being a basic utmost professional.

Josh Morales: I can be as professional as I can be shaving dogs or maybe just bathing dogs, and I just have my self wash station. I want to make sure I’m the utmost professional and know everything I can learn about basics. That should go across the board in any industry. Fortunately, we’re not regulated across the board yet. So this allows us to regulate ourselves, know what level we’re on. And once we understand what level we’re on, if we are basic, there’s nothing wrong with Learn2GroomDogs down to expert to the best in the world can utilize, Learn2GroomDogs to make their grooms better or carry themselves a little bit more professionally.

Joe Zuccarello: How would you describe the Josh Morales transformation from new groomer to where you are now? And what role did Learn2GroomDogs.com play in that?

Josh Morales: So Learn2GroomDogs, I’ve always said, Learn2GroomDogs, it is a life changer for me. First of all, Learn2GroomDogs filled in a gap that wasn’t there. Learn2GroomDogs allowed me to have someone, even if it was virtual, to look up to and depend upon for correct information. Learn2GroomDogs allowed me to transform from a regular, every day groomer behind the grooming table to a public figure and nationally ranked competitor. I’ve been able to reach top six in the country in hand stripping and number 11 on the national ranking charts as a professional grooming competitor. It has allowed me to become a worldwide speaker and judge, as well as a sought out inspirational figure for the average every day groomer to the inspiring competitor. So Learn2GroomDogs has played not only the most major role, but is still allowing me to continue my path as being the best I can be.

Melissa V.: Hi, guys. Melissa here. I want to talk today about a concept that I have believed in my entire career. Maybe, early in my career, I didn’t necessarily have words to go to it, but today I do, and those words have ultimately become pretty much our company motto throughout all of my educational companies, and that is education is everything. I am such a firm believer of this. Why? Why am I such a firm believer of education is everything? Lot of different reasons.

The first one that I can think of is it’s a confidence builder. The more knowledgeable you are, the stronger your skillset, the better you’re going to be able to service your clients, the pets. You’re going to be able to do a better job, and you’re going to feel really good about it. It doesn’t matter whether it’s professional pet grooming or whether it’s cooking, or horseback riding, or fishing. Whatever skillset you aim for that you want to do, the more knowledge you have about it, the more confidence you’re going to have when you’re doing it, and you’re going to have a lot more success with it. Definitely, confidence building is a really big one.

Another thing is it allows you to expand your career to be more professional. In our profession, that’s important. In professional pet grooming, it’s not a regulated trade. There’s no licensing for it, and anybody can call themselves a professional pet groomer. Those of us that have had success with it, we know that that’s pretty far from the truth sometimes. Being able to educate yourself to be more knowledgeable allows you to not only expand your career but also be a lot more professional for your clients. Again, education is everything right there.

It’s going to prepare you to take advantage of opportunities that could crop up for you. I look back at my own career, and I think if I had not had such a driving force, such a passion to learn, to grow, to expand my skillsets, I would never have been able to take advantage of many of the opportunities that landed at my feet. I know you guys, too, it’s the same exact thing that, the more knowledgeable you are, the more opportunities will present themselves. You’ve got to be able to, number one, recognize when that opportunity is there and then know how to grasp it or how to go for it if you decide that’s something that you want to pursue. Again, education, knowledge is going to allow more of those opportunities to present themselves to you.

The other thing it will do is it will really help keep your career fresh and exciting. I get it. Sometimes when we get into the daily grind, once the passion kind of dissipates a little bit, it can become kind of a grind. The profession kind of loses its spark. One of the fastest ways to reignite that passion is to get out there and to learn something. Also, the learning generally is going to take place when you interact with like-minded people. Most learning, you can do a lot of self-learning, but a lot of the really good coaching, a lot of the really… ways that you can accelerate your career even faster is by networking with like-minded people.

In this day and age, you can network not only face to face, but you can also network internationally or from all over the US. We have the technology today to have friends, to have folks that we know that we interact with all over the world. That’s really exciting. I can’t tell you how many people that I talk to from Australia or anywhere in Europe or even South America. There’s lots and lots of people that have the same passion that you and I do, and that is the pets. To be able to communicate with them really helps keep the industry fresh, and it keeps all of us driving in the same direction, which is expanding our career base.

Finally, the last thing I want to talk about is that education is everything. It is because we can never know it all. There is always another layer that we can learn, that we can master. Once we master one skillset, there’s going to be another layer and another layer. It’s kind of like peeling back an onion. I have been in this industry for a long time. I don’t think I would’ve stayed in it for as long as I have if I wasn’t challenged, if I didn’t continue to grow my career and continue to learn. There is always something more that you can learn.

Even when I first started as a professional pet groomer in my late teens, I didn’t necessarily have the words to the concept, but I knew, in my heart, that I needed to grow my skillset. The only way to do that was by expanding my knowledge and getting better at what I did. For me here 40 some years later, I firmly am a believer in education is everything. If you want to grow your career and experience success, oh, get that word out there, this is probably one of the best ways to do it is just keep learning and know education is everything.

Melissa: Hi guys, Melissa here. And I want to ask you a question, kind of a serious question. And I want to know what keeps you up with your career at night? I mean, all of us have had the situation where something isn’t going quite the way that we want it and we lose sleep over it. I know I’ve had lots of nights that I haven’t been able to get a good night’s sleep because I’m worrying about work. I’m worrying about my career, I’m worrying about something that has to do with the team that I’m dealing with. Opportunities, all of those kinds of things.

What are the things that keep you up at night? Is it money? That can be so stressful if you haven’t budgeted or haven’t planned, or something gets tossed in the works that you weren’t planning on and you don’t have enough money to go around. Whether it’s money to pay your bills or money to come up with payroll or maybe money to pay your taxes or whatever it might be.

When there’s a shortage of cash revenue, it makes everything else so much harder. Is there something that you lose sleep over or maybe it’s that you’re a newer groomer and you don’t know how to do a certain type of a dog. All of a sudden you’ve got a client that calls and you’ve never done that particular breed before.

When you fret over it and you worry about it and you wonder if you’ve got the skills necessary to keep that customer happy and do the job that they’re expecting. That used to drive me crazy years ago and it would definitely, I would lose sleep over it.

Too many clients, I mean, such a problem to have, right? But come on, we all know what those of us that have been there and are booking three four weeks out or even, a month out or maybe we can’t even take any new customers and we’ve got customers still wanting to get in. That is as much of a problem as not having enough customers.

Again, man, I get it. When you can’t service the customers that want what you have and they start getting angry and frustrated, especially regular customers or customers that you have serviced and you just can’t fit them into your books. It’s heartbreaking.

We are in the service business, we’re people-pleasers and so we want to be able to accommodate everybody and it can be really difficult and such a challenge when you just can’t meet the expectations of your customers. Are you mentally or physically just exhausted?

I’ve been there, I’ve been there more than once. But one situation I really remember well, where I was driving up to my last client, and this is back in my mobile days and I was trying to do everything. I was grooming full time, I was managing a business. I was trying to keep my staff motivated and educated, and moving forward with their careers.

I was going to grooming competitions and competing in trade shows and I just had everything coming at me all at once. Plus dealing with a family and just personal life, just stuff. And I was going up to that last client, I still remember I was headed up to Rockford and I just lost it. I just started worrying and fretting about all these different things that I still had to get done and the day was running really late and I just lost it.

I just pulled that van over to the side of the road and just cried. And I mean, I was so thankful that I had a dispatcher that recognized I was mentally in pretty deep trouble. And she called and canceled that last dog for me and got it rescheduled. But I still remember that day and just absolutely hitting that wall.

And I’ll tell you, leading up to hitting that wall, I had lots and lots of sleepless nights. Or maybe it’s you, you’re trying to find good groomers to join your team because you’ve got more customers or more grooming than you can possibly do yourself. And you need to start building that team and you can’t find any good groomers, or you can’t find groomers that can work up to the caliber that your clients have come to expect.

So, so frustrating and I’ve been there too multiple times. I still, again, remember where I had a van that I left sat down. I could not fill it for almost a year because I just couldn’t find qualified groomers to operate it. So, so frustrating. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had throughout my career, lots and lots of sleepless nights.

We’re working on some new projects and what I really want to know from you right now is what drives you crazy? What keeps you up at night? What do you lose sleep over? Pop it into the comments below. I want to know what drives you absolutely nuts. And I want to see if maybe we can figure out a way to help you get through that bridge and get to the other side and have some success, and get a good night’s sleep. Leave your comments down below.