Mobile Groomer Training

Video Transcript: Ready To Grow Your Own Team
Joe Zuccarello:
Hey, everyone. This is Joe Zuccarello with the Paragon Pet Grooming School, and I am joined by our director of operations, Cara. Hey, Cara!

Cara Evans:
Hi!

Joe Zuccarello:
Cara, I am so excited about this particular series of videos because it’s all about serving the mobile grooming community, right?

Cara Evans:
Yes.

Joe Zuccarello:
This is a group of people, right? We’ve got franchises, we’ve got independents, we’ve got people pulling up in driveways, grooming dogs in people’s driveways. But one of the things that we get asked all the time is, I can’t find groomers, right? It’s the same thing for mobile as it is for brick and mortar. Do you hear that a lot?

Cara Evans:
A lot, a lot. I agree.

Joe Zuccarello:
Yeah. So we’re putting this series of videos together to help you, the mobile grooming operator, whether you are a single operation, a single van operation, or you are an enterprise. Some of you have multiple vans, a fleet on the road. Our job at Paragon is to help you grow your grooming business by growing your own groomers, right? Growing your own groomers. Because here’s the things that we know for sure. You’ve got customers begging to do business with you. Maybe you have the financial resources to buy more vans. You have the desire to grow, right? And you want to grow. But one thing holding you back is really one of the most important things, and that’s somebody to perform the grooming services.

So in this series of videos, this is the introduction video, but in these series of videos, Cara and I are going to walk you through really the plan. How is the best way to approach growing your grooming business by growing your own groomers? The very first thing, Cara, that we need to talk about is where do we find groomers, right? Sometimes we get lucky, so we have groomers that want to apply and work for us, and that’s helpful, right? You had mobile vans.

Cara Evans:
I did. Yes, I did. I had two mobile vans. Mobile grooming is very, it’s part of the industry that I’m very passionate about. There’s so much opportunity to be had in it, and finding the right person is just, once you find that right person to put in your van, it’s great for you, great for the client that they serve, and we can help you find that. We do have a future groomers resource guide on our site that has a lot of great information that I would point people to and point our mobile owners to and our mobile employers.

Joe Zuccarello:
Yeah, so exactly. So we might get lucky. We might get an existing groomer who sort of lands from the heavens and we want to employ them, but that’s not normal. That’s not, that’s not routine. That’s not something we should put all of our effort into. So to your point, this finding future groomer recruiting guide that’s on the site. So we’ll make sure that you have a link down below this video in our library for you to be able to go find that or be able to download that. So definitely take advantage of that. It’s got some, not only the traits that make up a really great groomer, a professional groomer in this industry, but where do you find them? Because your future groomers are walking around out there somewhere. You just need help to go find them. That’s what that guide’s going to help you with.

So, Cara, let’s real quickly, before we hop into all these other videos, let’s talk about the investment in people. Because again, if we’re recommending that somebody out there who owns and operates a mobile grooming business goes and finds inexperienced people, well, then of course, they’ve got to train them. And that’s the real bulk of all of these videos is how do you train them? But we got to get past the expense of at first, right? Because it does cost money to train somebody. So is this an expense or is this an investment? What’s your take on that question?

Cara Evans:
Oh, it’s definitely an investment. When you bring a new person in and you enroll them in the program, yes, there’s a cost upfront, but what they’re going to bring to you in business and in the value that they add to your business and the revenue that they’re able to produce, it quickly and easily becomes an investment. And it starts that way, really. It’s how you look at it, how you perceive it, and that’s what we’re here to help you do, is to help you see how this is an investment in your business and in the growth of your business and in the future of your business.

Joe Zuccarello:
We oftentimes say we’re very familiar with the term ROI, right? Return on investment. Anybody took Business 101 knows what return on investment is. Paragon likes to put the P at the end of that. Not P for Paragon, but P for people, return on investing in people. So we’ve got a return on investment calculator resource for you to use. So again, we’ll have that option for you to link to or download below these videos. But go to that plugin, it’s fillable. Go in and plug in your statistics. How many weeks it’s going to take somebody to graduate, how much you pay them, how many dogs per day they’re going to do after graduation. You’re going to be amazed at how fast you get that return on investment in people back.

So remember, maybe look at it as we highly encourage you, look at it as an investment in people and not simply an expense. So the very last thing is, we get asked this all the time, Cara, what if I pay for somebody’s training and they leave? What if I pay for somebody’s training and they leave? What’s your knee-jerk reaction to that?

Cara Evans:
Oh, my knee-jerk reaction to that is that it’s never going to be a loss. You’re always going to be able to recoup that money. Again, it’s an investment. And my team, especially here at Paragon, we’re here to help you and guide you if that is something that happens. We’re here to walk alongside you with that and make it something that we do make sure that it holds true, that you turn that into an investment and you turn that opportunity of a new student coming in into a true investment.

Joe Zuccarello:
To your point, you’re really truly not going to lose money. Does it cost money to put somebody in? Yes. Is it an investment? Yes. We’ve already demonstrated the return on investing in people. The reality is, you will lose people. People get people-y, right? People grow up and out. Some stay for a long time, and that’s awesome, but that’s some, not all, certainly not all.

Cara Evans:
Right.

Joe Zuccarello:
Sometimes most, right? Will leave.

Cara Evans:
Yes.

Joe Zuccarello:
But it’s how quickly you get your investment back, and then how quickly can you recover when somebody leaves? That’s what we want you to focus on, because if you’re always training somebody else’s replacement, you can absorb that loss when and if that happens. So there’s all kinds of really, really great tools on that. And we have another tool. We have a sample agreement that you can enter into with your student graduates that says, “Hey, listen, I’m investing in you. I would appreciate if you work for me for X period of time.”

So maybe take a look at that piece as an inspiration item as well. Cara, we have now introduced, we set up this series of videos now where we’re going to help these mobile grooming owner-operators start growing their business by growing their own staff. So I speak for Cara and the entire team at Paragon, we welcome you. We welcome your future students, and we’ll see you in the next episode.

Cara Evans:
Bye!

Video Transcript: Set the Stage for Student Success
Joe Zuccarello:
Hey, everyone. It’s Joe and Cara again from Paragon, and this is video number two in this mobile grooming, grooming student, grooming business development series. The very first episode was all about sort of the setup, right? The introduction to using Paragon to help you grow your business by growing your own grooming producers, your own groom techs, and your own groomers. This episode though is talking about creating that environment where the student is going to work.

So in the first couple weeks that a student, once you find that Rockstar, right? You’ve done the interviewing and all of that, but in that first couple weeks of finding somebody, right? They’re probably learning van operations and they’re learning the, cleaning the filters and turning on the inverter and how to be a good employee. But there’s obviously you need a student in order to grow a student, but there’s a very important role, Cara, that must be filled. Right?

Cara Evans:
Yeah.

Joe Zuccarello:
That this person that’s in the student’s bubble, this can be an employer or it can be an employee, but it has to be a groomer, somebody with grooming skills that we call a coach. Right?

Cara Evans:
Yep.

Joe Zuccarello:
Again, we said that they have to be a groomer, but what makes a good coach? What makes a good coach? What are some of the attributes that make a good coach?

Cara Evans:
Oh, a good coach is someone that you want 10 of them. And when we say you want 10 of them, we don’t just mean 10 of them in their grooming skills, right? Because there’s the hard skills and there’s the soft skills, and you might have a lot of Rockstar groomers. So you’re looking at this and you’re saying, “Okay, I have a lot of Rockstar groomers. How do I pick which one should be the coach?”

We’re going to recommend that yes, you want them to have great skills in grooming, but you also want them to have great skills in customer service and in how they show up to work, enthusiasm. Is it someone that is going to help you build the culture of your fleet because this person is going to be so influential on your student. And as you add students to your fleet and they continue to work with that coach, you want that coach to instill not just skills in grooming, but also skills in how to be a good employee and how to be a good team member. So looking for that one shining star that you want 10 of in those different ways.

Joe Zuccarello:
Yeah. And I think that’s really important, the one that you want 10 of, because if you put a student with the wrong coach, you’re going to get 10 of the wrong student.

Cara Evans:
Right.

Joe Zuccarello:
Right? I mean, and sometimes that your best coach, it may not be your best groomer.

Cara Evans:
Right.

Joe Zuccarello:
They have to be technically sound, right?

Cara Evans:
Right. Right.

Joe Zuccarello:
They got to hit the fundamentals, right? They got to hit that challenge head on with fundamentals. But they may just be… I mean, a good average pet groomer with above average customer service skills, customer experience skills might be the person you want to know. So this is for us non-groomers. I’m a non-groomer. Sometimes it’s not your best groomer that makes your best coach. So Cara, because coaches, they have to be a groomer.

They’ve probably learned from other programs, other people, maybe they’re self-taught. We don’t know how they were taught, we don’t know. But we know that they’re fundamentally sound and we want 10 of them. Right? So we know that their skills are not wrong necessarily. But how does Paragon help prepare this hand-picked coach to then be the best coach they can be over future students?

Cara Evans:
Yeah. That’s a really good question and one I’m excited to answer. So we have a program for coaches to go through, and it’s a program that they can walk through the level that the student will be enrolled in and they can experience it. They can learn how Paragon teaches the foundations. Because I think a lot of groomers, what they struggle with whenever they are trying to help coach someone like a student is where to start. They’ve gotten all of this knowledge over the years, and sometimes if they throw all of that at your student at once, your student’s going to kind of get nervous and it’s going to make it a lot.

So by them experiencing the program and then participating in the webinar that we hold for your coaches after they finish that level program, we can walk alongside them and say, “Okay, here’s the foundations that the student will learn. Here’s how we lay it out for them. Here’s how you can support them as they learn each foundational skill.” And then we help tie that together with how to support through other ways that aren’t just grooming, but in those important areas like customer service, finding dogs, growing that student’s client base, and we’re ready to partner alongside that coach and help them shine in those areas.

Joe Zuccarello:
I think that’s, think about it goes beyond the technical ability. Right?

Cara Evans:
Yes.

Joe Zuccarello:
It’s the people skills that we’re also helping to kind of hone that superpower, that coach, because the employer’s hand pick that coach. Oftentimes we say that coach is not necessarily the instructor or the trainer. They’re the ones there that, yes, they’re sort of the quality control safety net or the student, right? Because part of learning is failing.

So the students will fail at some techniques, but the coach is there to have their back. Right? To make sure that that quality doesn’t leave the van and go back into the house, that’s anything less than the business wants, the business’s promise or service promise and quality promise to their customers. But oftentimes, Cara, we’re also working with those coaches, right? To help create their ability to be a cheerleader, a counselor, a confidant, sometimes a shoulder to cry on.

Cara Evans:
An accountability partner, Joe. An accountability partner to the program as the student walks through the program. I think that’s really important because to your point, they will have a side, a Paragon mentor, that’s doing the instructing and or helping with the instructing through the program. So the coach needs to be that accountability partner to that.

Joe Zuccarello:
Yeah. So the coach plays role, a partnership role with the student, a partnership role with the employer, and a partnership role with that student’s assigned Paragon mentor in the program. So this role is a very crucial, important role. And the good news is the Paragon team has your back. Just like we’re asking you to have the coaches’ back and your students’ back and the coach to have the students’ back.

It’s all about creating this supportive learning environment for your student. Contact anybody at Paragon and we’ll help you get your coaches selected. We have free resources on where to find or what makes a good coach, and then how do you enroll your coaches and how do you begin their training and their preparation for their future students. Cara, great stuff. We’ll see everybody on episode three. We’re going to talk more about your student selection. We’ll talk to you then.

Cara Evans:
Bye, guys.

Video Transcript: Selecting Successful Students

Joe Zuccarello:
Hello everybody. It’s Joe and Cara again with Paragon, and we are on episode three of this grouping of videos we hope that you find helpful because you are a mobile business, you’re a mobile grooming business.

So whether you have one van or you have one fleet of vans or maybe several vans on the road and several operators, maybe you’re a franchise system that’s looking at this, our goal is to help you navigate this growing people resources challenge that you have in mobile grooming.

You’ve got the resources to buy mobile vans. You’ve got clients begging to do business with you. You have sometimes multiple vans, but what you are lacking is the people. One of the most important pieces to this is the grooming producers.

So let’s talk today. We first talked about an introduction, video two is all about selecting this river guide, this technical guide that we call a coach that helps that student’s development.

Let’s talk right now about that student, especially selecting candidates to join your team that have a predisposition or that we know what traits or what qualities make a really great future groomer, especially even in mobile. So Cara, that’s what we’re going to unpack in this episode.

So we have that Future Groomer Recruiting Guide that we have available for download and on the employer resources section on our site. So now we think we have this rock star. We think we are going to hire this awesome person.

Let’s start with maybe their soft skills. What skills, in our experience, in your experience have you seen, we seen make the best grooming professionals, especially in a mobile unit?

Cara Evans:
That’s a really important question, Joe. I’m excited about this one. We may have some audience members here who haven’t watched the first couple of videos in this series.

But if you haven’t watched them, I come from a mobile grooming background, and there are some soft skills that you really need your team to have coming into a mobile environment that’s very unique from a traditional brick and mortar salon. Some of those, in my opinion, would be someone with great situational awareness.

With mobile, there’s so much going on around the van, not just in the van, but around the van and whenever you’re driving, of course. Attention to detail, they need to be organized. Time management is huge. Someone who has great time management, and they’re comfortable communicating with clients in their home.

They’re going to people’s homes. Whenever you walk into someone’s home, that’s a different environment, and someone who’s comfortable and personable is able to connect with the clients on that level. And a positive attitude. You can’t beat a positive attitude whenever you’re looking for a team member.

Joe Zuccarello:
All of those, I agree, 1000%, but a lot of times the challenge we have is when we’re interviewing these people, we only have minutes. We don’t have hours or days or whatever to really get to know somebody. So a pro tip that I’ve picked up in my experience along the way is asking questions based on situations.

Tell me what sounds better, Cara. What sounds better? How are you at problem solving? That would be a question we’d ask. Or, are you a team player? Those types of things.

What if we spin those questions ever so slightly and we say something like, tell me about a situation when you had to learn something new. How did you feel about it? What did you do? And what was the outcome? That’s a whole lot better than, are you a good problem solver?

Cara Evans:
Oh, yeah.

Joe Zuccarello:
Or the whole team player type of thing. Here’s a question. Instead of saying, “Are you a team player?” They want the job, what are they going to say? No, I’m a pirate and I don’t want to be around people? They’re not going to answer that.

So if we really want to pull some of these characteristics out, we might ask a question like, describe for me the best workplace culture. What is your role in reinforcing that culture? And what does that look like? Or give me an experience when the culture was not so great. What was lacking and what did you do about it?

So these situational things. If it’s leadership, tell me about a time when you had to take on a task that involved other people and you were the person leading the charge or the organizer. How did you handle that and what was the outcome?

Listen, sometimes it’s not even about the business. Sometimes we’re interviewing a 17 or 18-year-old young person that says, “I’m the head cheerleader.” Or, “I lead the chess group.” Or whatever that looks like. It’s okay, you’re looking for life experiences, not necessarily always job experiences. So just something to keep in mind.

So those are some of the soft skills. What are some of the hard skills that if we really truly are qualifying a rockstar for mobile grooming, what would some of those hard skills look like?

Cara Evans:
This can be a tricky question because you’re going to have people coming in with different backgrounds. Some of them are going to say, “Yeah, I have animal experience. I walk my dogs and I walk my neighbors’ dogs.”

So I think that in a mobile environment especially, some of the hard skills that you might want to consider is truly how much animal experience do they have? What do they understand about the animal industry?

Again, Joe, to your point, I think that their leadership skills or how they’re involved and how they work within a team, whether that’s a work team or a team from school, but I do think some of that is important.

Joe Zuccarello:
I do too. And I think part of the hard skills might be, obviously we talk about driving skills. These are things that if you’re in mobile, that’s probably pretty important. But also, basic animal handling techniques.

Listen, we’re going to help teach that in the Paragon program. And it’s a bonus if they’ve had an animal type job before, an animal handling type job before, but that’s not necessarily a prerequisite.

What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to help these business owners, these mobile grooming business owners, appeal to the, and select people from the no experience, no problem type of angle. No experience? No problem.

So as we’re looking at this, culture fit is so important, so it’s such way before technical. Technical ability can be taught. Now, whether it’s adhered to and followed, and if they’re good at it or not good at it, we’ll judge those things as they come up. But that culture piece has to exist really before the technical piece.

See, this is a mistake I made in my career along the way, was that I hired for technical ability. And I put technical ability first and culture or people skills second. And what ended up happening is I had a lot of what I call toxic geniuses.

I had people that had great skills, but boy, they were really difficult and a challenge to manage and to lead in the business. And that equation in that order doesn’t end well. So I’ll leave you with this out there for the group.

When you’re looking for the right type of fit, take all of these things into consideration, check out the Future Groomers Recruiting Guide that we make available to you because it reinforces what some of these skills are that set that person up to have a predisposition to being successful in a grooming career, let alone especially mobile grooming.

But I’ll leave you with this, it’s another tip, and maybe take the AAA status approach when we’re talking about employees. The AAA status is attitude, attendance and appearance before technical ability. Because there’s a better chance we can train technical ability than we can these three elements, the AAA status; attitude, attendance, and appearance.

So recap. First episode was introduction. Now, you’re thinking about growing your business by growing your own groomers. Second, creating that supportive environment and the people that will support your student. And now we’ve just talked about student selection and what makes a future grooming rockstar.

So in episode four, we’re going to tease this. Episode four is going to start now looking at what do you need to do in your mobile business to get ready to have the Paragon training program now implemented into your mobile grooming business with your student and your coach? Thanks, Cara. I’ll catch you in the next episode.

Video Transcript: Scheduling Secrets Demystified

Joe Zuccarello:
Hey, it’s Joe and Cara from Paragon again. Hey, Cara.

Cara Evans:
Hey, Joe.

Joe Zuccarello:
All right. So this is a series of videos. This is Episode 4, right? We’ve went through just preparing our own brains for expanding our grooming business by training our own new groomers. That was Video Number 1, sort of an introduction. Number 2 was, how do we create an environment and surround the student with the most influential people to help the student progress through their learning journey? Episode Number 3 was… Well, it was a lot about the student, right?

So now, we were like, “Okay. Well, then who are we going to put in that environment to learn?” This episode now is all about the schedule, right? What volume, variety, and availability of dogs will your student need in order to keep them progressing forward through their learning engagement, through their learning process in the Paragon Program?

Cara, what you’ve created, I think, is going to be just brilliant for these business owners out there. Essentially, you created a scheduling crystal ball, right? To say, “All right. Week 2, they’re going to need this. Week 3, they’re going to need this.” So whether they’re a mature business or just a brand new mobile business startup, we’ve got some pro tips for them as well. So let’s just hop right into the material, right?

Again, now it’s about creating that… We talked about creating just the overall business model. Then, we talked about creating the environment. We talked about creating a student. And now, we’re to creating or supplying the right schedule. And I want to keep focusing on these three words, because I think it’s the most important three words: volume, variety, and availability of dogs.

So Cara, what’s the very first… How do they start? How do the mobile business owner coach, even sometimes with the student’s assistants, how do they start framing this in their head? Now, it’s time to start scheduling dogs, because maybe we already have a student enrolled or maybe we’re getting ready. We’re right on the cusp of enrolling our first student.

Cara Evans:
Mm-hmm. And Joe, I want to speak back to our Episode Number 2 and the coach going through that program and how important that is for this episode. And how that will set the coach up to help, because the coach will have seen. They will have felt what’s coming up in the program, which is going to allow them to schedule out dogs.

So your student, one of the really cool things about Paragon and how we teach is they have to have hands-on training. They have to be able to prove that they can take the skill that they learned and they can apply it. So they are going to start with hands-on within Week 1. They’re going to start nail trims Week 1. Hopefully, they’re going to start backs in Week 1 too. So they’re going to need access to dogs.

And the coach in this role is going to start scheduling. To your point, Joe, you said, whether it’s a business that has clients ready and ready to book and they’re there in their book of business or it might be a newer startup who’s looking, we’re going to help in the coach’s training. We’re going to help your coach know what to expect for that student in the first week, two weeks, and beyond, so that they can start planning.

Planning ahead in mobile is just key. You have to plan ahead in mobile. Really, not just for your student. That’s in general. That’s a pro tip. Always be prepared in advance in a mobile environment. But especially when you’re bringing a student into that mobile environment, this is the time that you want to start pre-planning so that they can hit the ground running.

Joe Zuccarello:
And you know, what’s really great about that is you mentioned… Let’s say it’s a mobile business that has a full book of business, right? It’s got a full book of business. As soon as that student lands in that environment, we can then look at what that full book of business looks like and say, “Okay. In Week 1, we have these types of dogs, this clientele. Here’s what the program is going to need.” So we either have a really good mix or if we’ve got an imbalanced mix. If, let’s say, the mix doesn’t satisfy the volume, variety, and availability of what we’re offering up as a guide, it’s okay if sometimes then the process has to leak into Week 2, right?

Cara Evans:
Yeah. For sure.

Joe Zuccarello:
But as businesses start getting comfortable growing their own people, this will become a lot more comfortable and a lot more fluid. But again, we’re giving them the answers to the test. You’re giving them this schedule crystal ball, if you would, to help them look ahead. If they’re an immature business, not immature personality. But immature like they’re not… Maybe their books aren’t full yet. The volume, variety, and availability of dogs tool, that resource, doesn’t change. That still has to happen. So what are some pro tips? That’s a term we’re throwing around. Pro tips to help maybe a business that’s not full.

Cara Evans:
Well, Joe, we do have a resource on this that we can share in a link below the video. It’s where to find dogs but for mobile. Because the mobile’s going to be very unique in where they can find dogs and where some opportunities are for them, especially for a student who’s learning. So some pro tips there, of course, utilizing social media. And then, utilizing some of the communities that are in your area: apartment complexes, retirement homes. Maybe you live in an area that’s heavy in something like 4-H or horse boarding facilities. But these areas that you know that people that either live in them or participate in them and they all have dogs. And working inside of those communities to try to just get visibility for your van, for your business. And also, dogs for your student to hit those volume, variety, and availability marks.

Joe Zuccarello:
Yeah. I think that’s really important. Because again, ideally, what happens is that the Paragon Program is designed to slide right into any level of business, right?

Cara Evans:
Yes. Yep.

Joe Zuccarello:
But it’s okay if you have a book of business already scheduled out. I mean, your student… Okay. So your student’s doing the ride along with their coach in that van. They’re trimming every set of nails. They’re doing every bath for that coach or for that groomer. They’re doing every cleaning of the ears. They’re going to start doing the brushing out and the bathing. Who’s to say then, all of a sudden, that van can’t pick up maybe an extra dog that day or an extra couple of dogs that week? So just these things to keep in mind of, really, how to benefit from having a student on board in a mobile environment, right?

Cara Evans:
Yeah. For sure.

Joe Zuccarello:
Again, the key three things. The VVA of success, right? Volume, variety, and availability of dogs. But Paragon is giving you the secret sauce. We’re giving you the crystal ball to scheduling to make sure that you are providing students or providing practice dogs. Dogs in the path of the student, where they’re at when they get there.

Cara Evans:
Yeah.

Joe Zuccarello:
All right. Great.

Cara Evans:
You know, Joe, I want to add one more thing. I know we’re wrapping up here on this episode-

Joe Zuccarello:
Okay. No, go ahead.

Cara Evans:
But I do want to add one thing to that. One thing that we really… We have our check marks and our time to practices throughout the program of what the skills are that we’re looking for in baths. But really, what’s important here too, along with this variety and availability, is we want students building stamina. As they go through the program, they need to build their stamina up. And so, taking this time to prepare and for your coach to work alongside them is going to help set them up to get as many dogs as they can in for practice. So that they build that ability to groom and have stamina to keep going.

Joe Zuccarello:
Yeah. I’m really glad that you added that to this particular video because that’s really important. We can grow really great groomers that can only groom one dog a day. But that’s not going to cut it, right? We’ve got to have them… And we also don’t want to overwork them. We don’t want to overstress them at a point where it is exceeding their ability. To your point, it builds stamina through condition, right? Through conditioning.

Cara Evans:
Yes. Mm-hmm.

Joe Zuccarello:
And this is the perfect way to do that. So great addition to the segment. All right. We’re going to catch you in the next video and we’re going to be talking about, “It’s time to enroll a student. What do you do?” We’ll catch you in the next episode.

Cara Evans:
Mm-hmm. Yep. Bye!

Video Transcript: Enrolling Your Student

Joe Zuccarello:
Hey, everyone. It’s Joe and Cara from Paragon back talking with you in yet another episode about how, especially with mobile grooming, how do you put yourself on a success path of growing your grooming business and mobile by growing your mobile grooming producers, your grooming professionals.

So again, just a real quick recap, a little breadcrumb trail, right? We talked about getting ready for this, right? We talked about creating an environment, a supportive learning environment, and surrounding the students with the people that are the most influential to their trajectory, to their success path, if you would.

We talked about the student. How do we select the student? What attributes make for a really great student? Now it’s time to enroll. Now it’s time. Let’s get started, right? We’ve done all of this planning, all of this preparation, and now the star of the show just walked out on stage and they’re the future student. What do you do?

So it’s time to enroll your employee. So you’re going to follow the different paths, the different links and things in order to get to the enrollment page. And you’re going to tell us all about you, the employer, and you’re going to tell us all about your employee, the student. And during that time though, during that checkout process, there’s a very important piece, not only enrolling them in what level you’re putting them into the Paragon program, but it’s also, you’re given the opportunity during that particular stage to also order their books and their tools.

Cara, speak to the importance of why the books are important and why the tools. Not just to sell, right? We’re not just here to sell products. We’re here to make sure that that student has, they’re fully equipped to be successful in their education. Give us a little bit of insight into the books and the tools.

Cara Evans:
So the books are a really important part. I mean, they’re coming into school, right? Joe, this is a school, and with school you have resources. Yes, we have our online curriculum, but in addition to that, we also have our books. And a couple of them, I actually have behind me here, The Theory of Five and Notes from the Grooming Table. These are the two that are in the book bundle in addition to some others. But these are really going to be important for your student, not just while they’re in the program, but beyond. These are always going to be reference guides for them to point back to. I know Notes from the Grooming Table after school. For me, that was kind of my grooming go-to. I had to have it. And then for the tools, of course, this is a skilled trade that your student is learning. You want quality tools. You want to make sure they have the right ones to be able to perform the skills that we’re teaching them and perform them well. And having good tools will equal good product in what they’re able to produce.

Joe Zuccarello:
The person, the employer, you who’s out there listening to this as you’re enrolling your student, that’s all right there in the enrollment section. So it’s made very easy. And also understand, we buy a lot of tools. We buy a lot of toolkits for students from our suppliers. So understand, we have already advocated for the best pricing. So you certainly are welcome to go out and shop on your own. Listen, just the whole thing here is just make sure they have the right resource. They have the right tools and the right books. What a shame it is when we hear that a student’s learning process has, their learning experience has been interrupted because they don’t have maybe the right tool or the right quality tool, or maybe they don’t have their own grooming guide and it’s being borrowed or maybe even lost by somebody else.

So the gold standard is to get them their own book bundle and their own toolkit, and those options are made. They’re already curated. They’re already made available, completely available on the Paragon site during the enrollment. So take advantage of that. The main thing is here, Cara, to your point, we just don’t want their learning experience to be interrupted, right?

Cara Evans:
Right, right.

Joe Zuccarello:
So once we get through the whole shopping cart, we’ve got the employer’s information, we’ve got the student’s information, they have a book bundle on their way, they have a toolkit on their way. What are the first moments of engagement look like for this student?

Cara Evans:
The first moments of engagement, they will get an email from our team. It will have all of the information that they’ll need to get logged in. It’ll have their mentor’s name, so it’ll come in a welcome email. It’ll also include a link to a welcome video. We call it our welcome call that your student should watch. And again, Joe, that coach being that accountability partner, making sure they need to make sure that the student is reading through the body of that email. There’s a lot of great information that we put in there for students so that they can start out successful, start out strong.

So again, how to log in, username, password, who their mentor is, how to send their mentor an intro message. They’re going to want to talk to their mentor a lot, utilize that messaging board. Their mentor has a lot of knowledge, a lot of wisdom, a lot of resources that they’re just waiting to share with their student. So if they follow the instructions and send an intro message over to the mentor, that’s a great start to that relationship.

And then watching that welcome call video, I recommend that they do it maybe with their coach even because their coach has an idea of what’s up and coming and can speak to some of the items that are in that video, but include that in part of their first day. And then we do give them extra resources in forms of attachment. Just make sure that they take a look at those resources. It’ll give them some added information to help set them up for success.

Joe Zuccarello:
And I want to focus because sometimes this gets confused. We are throwing around the term of coach and mentor. Remember the coach? The coach is the person that you, the business owner, have assigned to sort of be that cheerleader, that confidant, that counselor, that person that’s in the student’s bubble, like we like to say, they’re the ones that are physically present. Their mentor is a member of our staff at Paragon, right? They’re employees of Paragon, grooming professionals that are assigned to work with your students through the program to help them keep on pace as well.

So you’ve got the employer, you’ve got the employer’s coach, you’ve got then Paragon’s mentor, and then you’ve got the student, and then all of these other resources that are important to that student’s growth and development as well. But there’s one really cool resource that we have just added, and we’re very excited to be able to provide every student a 12-month free pass to the Groominar network by Learn2groomdogs.com. Cara, speak to some of just a high level awesomeness, if you would, of the Groominar network. How is this a game changer for students and for employers of students?

Cara Evans:
Well, Joe, it’s over a thousand videos on all different skill levels and just if they want to learn or want to expand on a skill and a foundational skill that they’re learning in the program, there’s probably a video for that. If they want to learn a little bit more about customer service, there’s probably a video for that. And it’s just a huge bank of extra resources. So not only do they have our foundational curriculum that they’re going to learn from, they have this added support and beyond. I mean, it’s a 12-month membership. So after they graduate, they can refer back because they’re going to be learning a lot of new stuff. They’re going to need some refreshers on some of it, and they’re going to have all of that in that Groominar network, which is so exciting. There’s a lot of really great information in there.

Joe Zuccarello:
Yeah, this is something that’s been a labor of love, if you would, by Melissa Verplank, the founder of Paragon. She started this way ahead of her time. We call it like Netflix for dog groomers, right? To your point, I mean, it’s unlimited streaming videos. And really picky, she was very picky on who she selected to be the instructional trainers who we call our training partners in this.

So while your student is enrolled in the Paragon program and learning step-by-step, we call it a crawl, walk, run approach to learning grooming. They have this incredible resource out here in orbit that they have now a 12-month access, unlimited access to go and supplement their learning. And even to your point, post-graduation, they can drill into a specific breed or a body part or their level of expertise. So this benefit comes with every enrollment, and it lasts beyond the enrollment. So it’s a benefit that will keep giving throughout the year.

So what we’ve done through all of the videos, now we’ve got you to the point of enrolling your students. So you selected your students, you’ve selected your coach, you’ve prepared the environment. You’ve got your volume and variety and availability of dogs, your scheduling down pat. We’ve laid all of the pavers for you, right? We’ve built this path together with you. Now it’s time to enroll your students. We welcome all of your students. We look forward to serving you. We look forward to serving your students, and we look forward actually, to sharing this in the successes that you’re going to have with your students.

In the last episode, the next video, which will be the last one in this series, we’re going to offer you some bonus material. This bonus material is what do you do after the student graduates? Does it stop there? What do you do? What do do with that? What do you do with now they’re not a student anymore, they’re a graduate, right? They’re a graduate of the Paragon program. What is next for you? And what is next for that graduate? So Cara, thanks again and we’ll catch you, the employers, on the other side of this break, and in the next session.

Video Transcript: Sustaining ROI

Joe Zuccarello:
Hey everyone. It’s Joe and Cara with Paragon Pet Grooming School again, and we are here with essentially a bonus episode for all of you mobile grooming, business owner operators out there. I hope that you’ve enjoyed, I hope that you’ve been able to enjoy the last four or five videos that we’ve walked you through how do you build your business by preparing your business to build your future grooming professionals. So just helping you sort of map this out and let you know what you and your student and your coach are all going to experience and how that’s going to lift your business up. But what happens after you’ve graduated? I guess they’d not be a student anymore, they’re a graduate. So what happens next? So that’s what Cara and I are going to talk to you about. In this particular episode, there’s really four stages to talk about, and the very first one is, Cara, they’ve just graduated. They’ve just graduated a level, whether they’ve graduated level one, or level two, or level three, what do you do with that graduate? Now as far as refining their skills in that stamina piece that you pointed out before.

Cara Evans:
Yeah. Yeah. Joe, you keep them grooming, keep them in the van, keep them with dogs and keep building up. Each business is going to know what an appropriate schedule looks like, how many dogs they’re scheduling per unit. But that student should be out there refining their skills and grooming. If that’s level one. They’re out there doing all of the bath dogs that they can and bath services. If that’s level two, they’re starting to build that book of business and that client base for full grooms in addition to, right? Because they learn baths in level one. So they want to combine that, and they want to build their stamina and refine their skills, and they wanted to keep learning. I mean, I groomed for 15 years and there’s still stuff for me to learn, and there will continue to be information and skill building and skill refinement to learn. It never stops, which is an exciting thing about grooming itself. But you want them to build that stamina. You want them to refine those skills, and you want them to start building up to what works for your business and the amount of dogs that they can do in a day.

Joe Zuccarello:
Yeah. What do you expect from your business, from your other groomers? Now, some of you, this might be your first groomer, right? But if they are, then you might not have a coach, which we’ve already established back in a previous episode. You really do need to have a coach. But maybe, maybe you’ve hired somebody that had some level of skill that by enrolling them in one of the paragon levels, either one or two or both, maybe take advantage of a discounted bundle for them that they knew enough to get started, but not enough to be your ideal, right? Your ideal person, your operator, but maybe now they are. So they’re refining the skills of the level that they just graduated in order to get to that stamina. The other piece to this is enroll them in the next level. It’s time. If they’re a level one graduate, and let’s say you even want them to sort of cement their skills for 30 days, but have a plan to keep them engaged through learning.

So because they want to keep learning, you want them to keep learning. I think a big mistake that we see sometimes employers will put too large of a gap in there between maybe let’s say level one graduation and level two enrollment, and they lose that person because the person wanted to continue their education. They want to be a dog groomer. So for all of you employers out there, it’s okay to have a little bit of a break, but I don’t know that I’d recommend anything longer than maybe 30, 60 days tops, right? That’s an eternity for somebody who has the motivation and desire to create this new career path for themselves. So just something to keep in mind.

So refining their skills in the graduated level or the level that they just graduated from, getting them enrolled in the next level. But let’s continue on that topic of building stamina, because if you remember in one of the previous episodes, we talked about this Groominar Network. They’ve got 12 months of unlimited streaming videos by all different skill levels identified by skill levels, body parts, techniques, breeds, whatever. That’s one really great way to build stamina and maybe even put your student, maybe even ask your student, maybe it’s once a month or your graduate now once a month to watch a video and give you a video book report on it, right? Why did you pick that video? What did you learn that you didn’t know before? And how are you going to put it to work for you? So maybe that’s a really great way to engage them.

Cara, any other pro-tips on using refining the learn skills and rolling them in the next level, or building that stamina through Groominar Network? Before we talk about even the next steps for the overall business?

Cara Evans:
Joe, I think it’s just what you said, and you have a student that came to you. They’re just graduated. They’re hungry to learn. They’re hungry to grow, and just keep that environment for them. And we have resources. We have the Groominar Network. We have some other resources on our website for speed and efficiency, and just making sure that your student is thriving after graduation. So keep pointing them to these resources and keep that hunger to learn and to grow going, and your coach can help do that. Again, that’s why you picked your coach, because you want to build and maintain that culture of your fleet and having your student just engage in these resources that we offer is really a great way to help them with that.

Joe Zuccarello:
Yep, I agree. And I think we’re going to wrap this up with really a big kind of spoonful of reality. A real dose of reality is that probably you’ve now successfully graduated a student. We don’t know how long that employee is going to stay with us. We are hopeful that that employee stays for several months, several years, but we don’t know. Nothing is guaranteed. So I’m going to continue to urge all of you business owners out there to sort of embrace the reality that it’s probably not likely that a year from now you’re looking at the same set of faces that you are right now.

So why are we always surprised when that happens to us? Well, let’s not be surprised, sort of predict that. We’ll be thankful if that doesn’t happen, but let’s sort of predict it and plan ahead. Maybe it’s time. Go find another rock star. Go find another student candidate that you start in level one, right? No experience, no problem. The triple A status employee, right? Attitude, attendance, and appearance, because sometimes our staff lets us down and they fail at some of these things or the technical things that are necessary for them to perform their jobs. But you have planned ahead and you’ve got somebody coming up through the ranks that is right behind when, where somebody else’s at, and maybe where that problem employee might be at to be able to sort of backfill for openings.

Let’s talk about the positive side of that. Let’s say you’re keeping all of your staff wonderful. You’re the awesomest boss ever, but now it’s time to grow. Maybe you want to buy another vehicle, another van. You’re already training that van’s occupant. That van’s groomer, right? So don’t stop. Keep the momentum in that sail. Keep the wind in the sail. It’s because when you lose momentum, you lose business, you lose clients, you lose opportunity, certainly lose sleep, right? But here’s the best part. Sometimes your newest graduates become your future coaches, even. So you’re creating this self-fulfilling growth mechanism inside your business versus losing momentum and stopping and starting, and stopping and starting over and over again. So Cara, thank you for your collaboration through this process of providing these videos. I can promise everybody out there that Cara and her team are not only willing, they’re ready, and they’re excited to support you and your students and your coaches. So we look forward to celebrating many, many successes with you in the future. Thanks for watching this video series. We hope you found it helpful.

Cara Evans:
Bye everyone.