Clean & Healthy Grooming Rooms with Jessica Romani of Clippervac

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Hey Joe, a podcast answering questions asked by our listeners, created by pet professionals for pet professionals. Now your host, Hey Joe’s very own Joe Zuccarello.

Joe Zuccarello: What’s up everyone? Joe Zuccarello here, and welcome to Hey Joe, a podcast brought to you by Paragon School of Pet Grooming. Check out our site at paragonpetschool.com for lots of really cool information on a variety of programs, products, and to connect to educational resources such as webinars, podcasts, current events, special news, certifications, and lots of other helpful information to help you grow yourself, your team, and of course your business. Let’s get started with this week’s episode.

Joe Zuccarello: Hi there everyone, this is Joe Zuccarello, your host of the Hey Joe podcast. Thank you for joining us. If you have not yet subscribed to this podcast, please take a moment to do so. You can do that by visiting our webpage at paragonpetschool.com. You can not only subscribe there, but you can also listen to any and all previous podcasts, so be sure to take some time out to do that. This is a podcast that allows you, our podcast listener audience, to eavesdrop in on a conversation between myself and subject matter experts that we have sought out to bring to you so that you can learn from their, in some cases, decades of experience so that you might be able to do your job safer and wiser and smarter.

Joe Zuccarello: Today’s episode is no different. Today’s episode is based on safety and trying to allow you to have some knowledge to protect yourself and keep your career going as long as you possibly can. You’re a dog groomer and you’re working hard every day, but have you ever stopped to ask just how safe your being or what you should be doing to maybe stay safer or even better yet? What about all that hair and dander and dust that’s flying around in the air? Can this affect you long term? Well, we have a guest that’s going to shed some light on this. See what I did there? Shed some light on this for you today.

Joe Zuccarello: She’s going to share decades full of safety advice with you and to bring maybe some additional awareness to what you can be doing differently now to make sure that your career doesn’t end with an unexpected injury that you could have prevented. Our guest today is Jessica Romani. Jessica is a third generation family member to run their business. If the last name of Romani doesn’t sound familiar, maybe the business name or product name Clipper Vac might ring a better bell to you. Yes, Jessica Romani is the leader of the pack over at Clipper Vac now.

Joe Zuccarello: She is the granddaughter of Marlene Romani. Jessica is going to tell us a little bit about Marlene in a little while. Jessica has been grooming for over 12 years. She does a lot of industry speaking in seminars all across the country at trade shows and such. She’s got a marketing degree, just a really smart, smart young, energetic talent in this industry. What I really like about Jessica is that she is bringing a modern and innovative batch of ideas to the grooming professionals, and it’s all geared to moving or pushing our industry forward. I’m really excited to spend some time with Jessica today.

Joe Zuccarello: Today, we are talking with Jessica Romani, a third generation family member in such a wonderful company, a company and group of people that I’ve known for many, many years. It seems like my entire career, so I’m really excited to have her on the podcast today. She’s going to share quite a bit of information on that safety topic that we had talked about, but one thing I want to make sure that you do is Hey Joe listener audiences, please stick around to the end of this podcast because Jessica has brought a really great offer to you. It’s exclusive to the Hey Joe listener audience. She’s going to talk to you about that.

Joe Zuccarello: Without further ado, Jessica, thanks for joining me today.

Jessica Romani: Thank you Joe. Thanks for having me.

Joe Zuccarello: We are really, really excited. You and I have talked over the years, and one thing that just impresses me about you and about your family is your intent not only to drive the industry forward, but also to pay specific attention to the health and wellbeing of pet groomers. Jessica, do me a favor and tell the Hey Joe listener audience a little bit more about you.

Jessica Romani: I have been grooming for about 12 years now. I learned just about everything I know mostly from my grandmother, Marlene Romani, which I’m sure a lot of you probably know. We focus on the Clipper Vac in providing a safe and efficient grooming environment for groomers. That’s our ultimate goal is to share everything that we’ve learned and that we know and to make sure that everybody is having the best grooming experience possible.

Joe Zuccarello: Your grandmother, Marlene, is just a special creature. I know that we’re going to have a little bit of time for you to tell us about her inspiration as it relates to the Clipper Vac and such. I know that right off the bat, one of the things you wanted to make sure that we did was talk directly to the pet groomers out there about a clean and healthy grooming environment. Jessica, I’ve been in a lot of grooming jobs, and clean and healthy are not necessarily always the adjectives I would use in some grooming shops.

Joe Zuccarello: I know you’ve been in a lot of grooming shops as well and talk to a lot of groomers, but when I asked you about the clean and healthy work environment, the grooming environment, you brought up three main areas that you felt that the groomers need to pay attention to. I gotta tell you, all of the groomers that I’ve been around, these are not things that come up on a regular basis in conversations, so I’m really anxious to get started. One of the very first ones that you had talked about was pulmonary issues.

Joe Zuccarello: I don’t have a medical degree, and I don’t know very many dog groomers that do. That is breathing right? That has to do with the lungs. Tell us why you think that that is an area we need to be paying attention to.

Jessica Romani: As a groomer, we all day, every day are exposed to things such as pet hair floating around, such as dander or a dandruff, nail dust. A lot of people don’t think of nail dust, but nail dust is something that is especially dangerous. All of the chemicals that we’re using, all of the shampoos, a lot of groomers, especially mobile groomers are in confined spaces, so this consistent exposure to all of these things can really cause some pretty serious pulmonary issues in this industry. It’s a little bit scary to talk about, and I think a lot of people are not up to date on all of the seriousness of pulmonary issues that are occurring in our industry.

Jessica Romani: One of the more familiar ones that a lot of people might have heard about would be the groomers lung. I’ve attended numerous trade shows in my career, and I’m always hearing these people that have been in this industry for 30, 40 years coming to me and talking about the chronic cough, the shortness of breath, the wheezing, the chest pain, all of these symptoms of groomers lung. I think that just trying to bring awareness to this and the continuous exposure that these groomers are dealing with every single day, I think it’s something that we definitely need to talk about.

Joe Zuccarello: Obviously, groomers are going to think about the hair in the air. Some might even think about the dander or the dirt in the air. You grab that high velocity blower. The moment that that high velocity, that, that rush of air hits that coat, sometimes it looks like it’s snowing in there. There’s a lot of groomers that are familiar with the hair and sometimes even the dirt in a dander. You said nail dust.

Jessica Romani: Nail dust.

Joe Zuccarello: Go there because I want to know more about nail dust.

Jessica Romani: A lot of groomers are actually dremeling nails, which is nice because it leaves a really good finish for the nails. It makes them not as jaggedy and sharp, but they’re not thinking about the fact that the pets are running around outside in all kinds of stool and urine and bacteria, and then they run right into our grooming salons. Then we go ahead and take that dremel to those nails, and it’s creating this fine dust, which you’re usually covered at your hands. You can see it on your face. You can smell it. It’s a horrible smell.

Jessica Romani: Just breathing that into your body, I mean, all of that bacteria, anything that could be found in the feces, all of that is going directly into your lungs, which is very, very serious. A lot of people don’t think about that. It’s good to wear a mask, which is perfect for while you’re dremeling, but what happens is this dust is still falling all over the floor or falling all over the table. We try to clean it up as much as possible, but we know the grooming salon is a very active place with people going back and forth and dogs running around, force dryers.

Jessica Romani: This dust is constantly being kicked up and put back into the air that we breathe. It’s just a really, really hazardous thing. A lot of people don’t even think about dremeling the nails.

Joe Zuccarello: I know that the industry now has went to more of the mechanic side of that using using a tool like the dremel tool to file those nails. You’re right. Again, I’m a huge fan of that, and I never thought about if you do that all day long, how much that dust can actually impact your capability or your ability to breathe and such. Again, it’s so much of a no brainer to think about the hair and the dander. We’ve probably grossed everybody out by now talking about nail dust and poo dust and things like that that come from the nails. I think we’ve all got a really good understanding about that.

Joe Zuccarello: When you talk about hair and you talk about dander, so many groomers just excuse it away. In fact, I’ve seen images or videos on the internet where groomers are standing in drying rooms, and you’ve got all of this hair floating around.

Jessica Romani: I think that people just don’t know about the seriousness of being exposed to these kinds of things.

Joe Zuccarello: When you say groomers lung, is groomers lung almost like… I guess, it’s collected hair in the lungs. Is that what’s happening?

Jessica Romani: Yeah, it’s collected hair and then it’s breathing in things such as chemicals in our disinfectants, in our shampoos and things like that to actually even break down the walls of our lungs, the tissues. It’s a combination of things. It’s been very common, especially with people my grandmother’s age. It’s built up over time, a gradual condition of continuous exposure over all these years. A lot of times, you don’t even realize that it’s happening to you because it’s such a gradual thing. By the time that you do realize you have it, I mean, the damage has been done.

Jessica Romani: It’s a pretty nasty thing. I hear at trade shows, just every show I go to, just one person after another the wheezing and the coughing. It’s a very sad thing to see.

Joe Zuccarello: Wow. Obviously, you’re going to shed some… See what I did there? I said that in my intro earlier about shedding some light on some safety things and using that as a pun. Actually, you’re going to be able to tell us a little bit about how the Clipper Vac, not a little bit, but a lot about how the Clipper Vac unit can actually remove or reduce some of that airborne danger that’s floating around. We’re going to get to that in a few minutes. Another area that you had brought up to me that you felt that the grooming industry needs to know a little bit more about is repetitive motion injury.

Joe Zuccarello: When I think about repetitive motion, I think of holding the sheers. I think of the hand and the wrist, but you’ve enlightened me to think about some other areas of the body when it comes to repetitive motion.

Jessica Romani: Naturally, people will immediately go to the way that they’re holding their clippers or their scissors, which is totally correct. We should always be aware of the way that we’re holding our equipment, but the two common repetitive motion injuries that I see are tendonitis, which for those of you that don’t know is the inflammation of your joints. For groomers, I mostly see this in wrists and elbows. Then the other one is carpal tunnel, which is pressure on the media nerve in your hand, wrist area that causes pain, tingling, numbness and swelling.

Jessica Romani: Things that can cause these repetitive motion injuries would be things like back brushing. When you’re back brushing, it’s a repetitive movement, so you’re constantly back brushing, taking the clippers going over and over again trying to get that coat to look even. That could cause a lot of the swelling, a lot of the pressure, the carpal tunnel, all that kind of stuff. The other thing that I’ve noticed a lot for the groomers is the scissoring. The scissoring, personally, I do not have my medical degree, but I personally believe that scissoring is probably the main cause of a lot of these groomers getting the carpal tunnel.

Jessica Romani: Just because if you put your hand in the scissoring position and you pinch right below your thumb, and you make yourself perform that scissoring movement, you can feel that muscle. You can feel the pressure under your thumb just moving, which would… Doing that over and over all day long, there’s no way that you would be able to do that without causing any kind of swelling and inflammation.

Joe Zuccarello: Not only all day long, maybe you’re doing six, eight, 10 dogs a day, but then five days a week, sometimes six days a week. Jessica, what about… We’ve talked about some airborne things. we’ve talked about repetitive. You used the word ergonomics with me. Obviously, you cannot use scissors, right? I mean, that’s our industry. You cannot use scissors. You cannot use clippers, but you talked about ergonomics. When you think of ergonomics, what do you think of?

Jessica Romani: When I think of ergonomics, I think of things like table heights. Your table should be almost set elbow height. You don’t want to be bending down. You don’t want to be leaning forward. You want to be straight, keeping everything aligned, holding scissors correctly so that your wrist isn’t bent, so that your thumb isn’t in there in a funky position. It’s just taking these steps to make yourself aware of how you’re performing your job.

Jessica Romani: That’s what I think of and reducing things such as scissoring, reducing things such as back brushing, making things efficient, cutting back on your grooming time so that you’re not standing there holding these scissors and these clippers for so long. That’s what I really think of whenever I hear ergonomics.

Joe Zuccarello: Those are all great points. I mean, it goes beyond just the arm movement and shoulder movement and elbow movement and such, but it also then… Those are going to be, I guess, exacerbated if the table’s at the wrong height or if the tables maybe too deep, if the table is too big, and maybe you’re not rotating the table around, but you find yourself reaching a lot. You’re putting yourself in a compromised position to begin with, let alone then add the repetitive motion into that, and you’re just asking for trouble.

Jessica Romani: Yes, absolutely.

Joe Zuccarello: The third area that you had mentioned that we need to pay attention to is skin problems or bacteria or skin infections. Do you mean for the pet, for the person or both?

Jessica Romani: Both. A lot of times, dogs come in with conditions on their skin, whether it be yeast conditions, whether it be bacteria conditions, so definitely for the pets, but a lot of times when I’m talking about the skin infections, I’m talking more about people. a lot of times, groomers, I don’t know about you knowing about hair splinters, Joe, but groomers get it’s like these little tiny strands of hair a lot of times, especially with courser breeds, but a little tiny strand of hair will actually pierce through the top layer of your skin. A lot of times, you don’t even really know it’s there.

Jessica Romani: Most commonly, I’ll get them in between my fingers, in the crease of my elbow. You can virtually get them anywhere on your body, but they can be very painful, and they can even cause infection if that hair contain any kind of bacteria or any kind of contaminant whenever it pierces into your skin. If you don’t know it’s there and it’s in there with this bacteria on it, it could definitely cause infection if you don’t get it removed.

Joe Zuccarello: Jessica, I’ve got a funny story for you. When I was a young teenager, and I was learning how to bathe dogs, I thought I was growing hair in the crease of my elbow. I thought, “Well, that’s a really weird spot to grow hair.” What you’re telling me is I probably had these hair splinters, because I pulled them out. I was a teenager. I was probably just yanking at them because I thought maybe I was just becoming hairy in a place I shouldn’t be, but it was probably hair splinters?

Jessica Romani: It could have been. A lot of times, I’ll get them if I do a shave down on a dog. I have a customer that has me shave down their labs, and I would always seem to get the hair splinters from that. It’s just hair that is floating around in the air or hair that’s falling into your body, especially if it were to fall into your elbow area while your arm is straight, and then you bend your arm. It folds the hair into your skin almost. It makes the hair pierce down into your skin.

Joe Zuccarello: Let’s add all of these things up. You’ve got these hair splinters with bacteria and nasty on them. Then to your point, let’s say you’re shaving a pet down, and these things now become airborne, well, you’re shaving the pet down through repetitive motion and then these things become airborne, and now they are in your lung. I guess those hair splinters can be in… They can stick in your lungs then as well as they stick in your, I guess, maybe in all areas of your body, your lungs, your throat, everywhere.

Joe Zuccarello: All right, Jessica, I don’t know how many people are having their lunches while we’re talking, but we’re probably at a point, maybe we need to give them a little bit of a break and come up for some air. I just want to remind you who we’re talking with. All of you Hey Joe listener podcast audience out there, we are talking to Jessica Romani with the Clipper Vac. She’s describing these different scenarios and different solutions. Feel free to jump on her website and take a peak there at clippervac.com. Again, stick around till the very end of the podcast because Jessica has got a really great exclusive offer just for you, the Hey Joe listener audience.

Joe Zuccarello: If you are driving and you can’t remember, I don’t want you to pull off the road and have to put yourself in danger. If you can’t remember what her website is, always go to paragonpetschool.com, and we’ll have all of the necessary information there as well. Jessica, you told me that you learn everything that you know about dog grooming from your grandmother, Marlene Romani. Again, I have known Marlene for several, several years. What a really neat special lady she is. Can you tell me a little bit more about what was her inspiration? What were her early days like before Clipper Vac?

Jessica Romani: Marlene actually started out as a groomer. She was a single mom of two kids, and she needed to make an income, so she started grooming. She was 18 years old. She started grooming in her basement. She taught herself. She was self taught. She did her neighbor’s dogs. That’s how she started, and she ended up being really, really good at it, but as she was going on and on, she had an uncle that was a barber. Her uncle had passed away from emphysema. Whenever they further investigated the cause of his emphysema, they realized that his exposure to the dandruff and the hair as a barber is eventually what caused his emphysema and caused his passing.

Jessica Romani: Just to give you an idea of what emphysema is, it’s one of those pulmonary issues that I was talking about earlier. It’s basically a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that involves gradual damage of the lung tissue. When she found that out, she went into a state of panic, like, “Oh my gosh, I’m a groomer. I’m also being exposed to not people hair, but dog hair and the dander and everything.” She went on a mission because she loved grooming. It was a great source of income for her, and she was not going to let that stop her.

Jessica Romani: She went out into her garage and with wooden box created the Clipper Vac. That is the story behind the Clipper Vac. A lot of people don’t know that, but as she got it pretty good for herself, she started realizing all these other groomers are exposed to the same thing. She panicked and was like, “I need to do something about this. We cannot have this industry with all these people getting sick and getting hurt.” That’s when she went on her mission, and that’s when it started all back in 1985.

Joe Zuccarello: Wow. That is an awesome, awesome story. That is pure innovation or invention at work right there. She saw a problem. Of course, she was trying to just solve it for herself, which is what we want our Hey Joe listener audience to do, which is think about their own safety first and to make sure that they are doing things early in their careers so that they can have a long enough career. I’ll tell you, this is one of those careers, Jessica. I know that you would agree to this. Unfortunately, groomers have to end their career in many cases well short of their talent and skill level because of injury or because of illness.

Joe Zuccarello: Melissa Verplank, she did a blog not too long ago on proper footwear because she believes that without your feet, you can’t use your hands and your arms and your shoulders and such in an effective manner. You’ve gotta be able to stand and how that affects your back and everything. What I really like Jessica about what you’re doing is you’re bringing additional awareness to the industry. How does the Clipper Vac start to address some of these areas? For instance, how about that pulmonary? We’ve got all of this debris, this gross stuff flying around in the air. How does the Clipper Vac… How does it help a groomer?

Jessica Romani: Obviously, you still want to wear your mask because we’re trying to prevent as much of this crap getting into your body as possible, but the Clipper Vac will actually remove the hair while you’re clipping. It’s taking a lot of that airborne stuff, like the hair, the dander, the nail dust, and it’s containing it. Instead of it floating all around and falling all over the floor for you to breathe in, it’s all being contained and sucked into the Clipper Vac so that you’re not exposed to it in the air.

Joe Zuccarello: Oh, I see. What a great name, right? Sometimes we get too freely with our names and more. We’re trying to create products. I personally have benefited. My businesses of past have benefited by the use of Clipper Vac. In fact, the chain of grooming salons that I managed and operated, every station had access to a Clipper Vac. I will tell you some of the most beautiful grooming, and now understanding the safety issue. Probably some of the safest groomers in those locations were the ones that fully utilized the Clipper Vac, so before any of that stuff gets airborne.

Joe Zuccarello: Now, you mentioned the hair and the dander and the dust, but you did mention the nail dust in there. How does a Clipper Vac help with that nail dust that you so nicely described for us earlier?

Jessica Romani: We actually have an attachment that you can mount onto your dremel. Your dremel now actually hooks right up to the Clipper Vac as well. As you’re dremeling the nails, it is sucking up all of that dust that normally would be airborne or falling onto your table or going into your body. That is all being contained and sucked into your Clipper Vac.

Joe Zuccarello: That’s brilliant. Now, I remember I wanna say it was Doug at Clipper Vac showing me some prototypes years ago of this device. It’s out there. It’s in the market. It’s ready to be purchased. I would assume it’s gotta be pretty popular.

Jessica Romani: Yes, it’s very popular. I mean, especially people that are all about the safety, it’s so dangerous to be breathing in that stuff. Yes, it is definitely out there on the market. It’s ready to go. People are loving it and taking advantage of it.

Joe Zuccarello: That is really cool. Now, I’ve got this Clipper Vac hooked to my clippers, and I’m thinking about how does that affect repetitive motion? Again, it’s clippers. You’ve got to do a certain amount of work with the clippers. I’m trying to put two and two together to try to figure out how does a Clipper Vac eliminate some of that or reduce some of that repetitive motion.

Jessica Romani: As you’re clipping, the suction from the Clipper Vac is lifting all of the layers of the hair up at one time, so you’re no longer doing one layer of back brushing and then going over it again, trying to get it to look even. You’re getting all of the layers at one time. You’re completely eliminating back brushing, and you’re reducing your amount of strokes that it takes to get the coat to all look even.

Joe Zuccarello: Would that also tracking from blades and such? Does it help with that as well then?

Jessica Romani: Yes, absolutely. You’ll see a significant decrease in the amount of track marks that you’re going to be seeing. Another thing that’s nice is since you’re not spending all of that time doing the back brushing and trying to get it even, you’re not holding those heavy clippers in your hands as long. When you’re getting it even, you’re not having to scissor as much either, which goes back to the carpal tunnel thing. The less scissoring, the better for your body.

Joe Zuccarello: It does cut down on scissoring. I didn’t know that it would. I mean I could see then when you’re describing the clipping part and back brushing, but it does cut down on the scissoring as well because you’re getting closer to a finished product then.

Jessica Romani: Exactly.

Joe Zuccarello: All right, so what about those crazy little skin splinters? I guess because of the suction from the vacuum, I have less chance of getting those little splinters now in my elbows or fingers or wherever else. You said that you got those.

Jessica Romani: Yes. Since all that hair’s being contained, you’re not really exposed to it as often, so you will really, really reduce your risk of getting the hair splinters if you’re sucking that all off of your clippers the second it’s cut. I mean, it’s not even going to have a chance to hit your skin. It’s immediately being sucked away by the Clipper Vac.

Joe Zuccarello: I would never claim to be a dog groomer. I learned the basics of dog grooming, and I truly appreciate the artistry that goes into dog grooming. That’s what’s kept me into this industry for so long, because it’s just that special and just has that many special people. I know that my staff, when they would utilize the Clipper Vac, they spent less money on sharpening their blades and even some of the maintenance on the clippers. Can you explain how they got to that point while other people that did not use a Clipper Vac didn’t necessarily have that luxury?

Jessica Romani: The reason behind that is the constant suction is pulling air past your blade, so it’s almost keeping your blade cool the entire time you’re grooming. I can use one 30 blade under all of my difference snap on combs or guards all day long, and that 30 blade is never going to get hot. What’s nice about that, it’s obviously you’re not going to be spending money on the cooling lubricants and everything like that, but when your blades aren’t getting hot, they’re not dulling down as quickly either. You’re definitely going to save on your sharpening expenses there.

Joe Zuccarello: Part of the Hey Joe listener or the Hey Joe podcast, one of the benefits of the Hey Joe listener audience is that we bring a tips and tricks to help save our groomer, listener audience time but also increase their skill levels and keeping them safe and such, but one really great part about what you’re pointing out is actually saving them money. At the end of the day, how do you give yourself a raise? Well, you either do more dogs. You either have better sales of maybe extra services or price increases, but another way to make more money is to save money, and a dollar saved drops straight to the bottom line.

Joe Zuccarello: Looking for a way to maybe reduce the amount of money that you spend on sharpening or maybe your clippers getting hot and having your replace blade drives and and and so on and all the other maintenance that goes in are just killing your clippers or your hands getting hot. Oh Jessica, I remember the old clippers with a plastic shell, the round barrel type clippers that would just get rocket hot, and then we would buy these leather boots that we would put on those. I would imagine that had those days involved Clipper Vac, we wouldn’t have had to do that as often.

Jessica Romani: Yes, I do remember. I mean, I still see people using those things that I’m just in disbelief, but they did get really, really hot.

Joe Zuccarello: I mean, at some point, the hot blade on a dog’s foot, it’s uncomfortable so the dog is fidgety. It’s just a battle all the way around. To the Hey Joe listener audience, just a real quick reminder of who we’re talking to. We’re talking to Jessica Romani at Clipper Vac. You can go to their website at clippervac.com, and see all of the fantastic innovations. Jessica is just a really great energy that she’s bringing to the industry through innovation and modern techniques and such.

Joe Zuccarello: You can also go to paragonpetschool.com to check out all of our podcasts, this one and anything current, but also to find out more information and links to clippervac.com. Now, Jessica, we’re at the tail end of our time together, and we’ve been holding off the audience. They’re probably wondering what it is that you’re able to provide to them as an exclusive offer as being Hey Joe listener podcast subscriber. Would you mind letting us know what it is that you’re making available?

Jessica Romani: Yes. We actually created an online coupon code that’s exclusively for Hey Joe listeners that will give customers free shipping on the tote and mini Clipper Vac systems.

Joe Zuccarello: Wow. It’d be free shipping. I know that these units are not light. For all of you Hey Joe listener audience members out there, free shipping is a big, big savings when it comes to buying a Clipper Vac because if… I think, Clipper Vac, you guys are in Pennsylvania, and that’s where all the products are made, right?

Jessica Romani: That’s right.

Joe Zuccarello: So in Pennsylvania, if I have a Hey Joe listener audience member who is in Washington state or California, Arizona, those areas, the delivery fees, the freight fee, shipping fees to get those units to you are pretty substantial, so what a great offer that Jessica is bringing to you for that. Jessica, tell us what is that online code? How do they redeem that? What’s the best way for them to take full advantage of that?

Jessica Romani: They can go to www.clippervac.com, and then go ahead and put either the tote or mini Clipper Vac into the shopping cart. Then once you get to checkout, there will be a place where you can enter this coupon code. The coupon code is going to be HEYJOE10. That’s H-E-Y-J-O-E-1-0. You can just enter that coupon code at checkout, and then that will go ahead and deduct the shipping amount off of your cost.

Joe Zuccarello: That is pretty incredible. Now, I know you’re not finished, right, because you told me you had two things.

Jessica Romani: I am not finished.

Joe Zuccarello: I don’t think I’ve heard the second thing yet. What is that second thing?

Jessica Romani: As a bonus offer, I know I talked a lot about the pulmonary issues and probably scared a lot of people in the process, but in your checkout, while you’re in checkout, you can also receive a free GrindAir dremel attachment. That’s the attachment that we had mentioned, collects all of that nail dust while you’re dremeling the nails. In order to receive the free GrindAir dremel attachment, if you just type “healthy groomer” into the note section of the checkout page, you can also receive a free GrindAir dremel attachment on top of the free shipping.

Joe Zuccarello: Wow. Jessica, do me a favor and just give me another description of that GrindAir dremel attachment so that folks can understand exactly what that is.

Jessica Romani: The GrindAir attachment would mount onto your dremel, and it would allow you then to hook your dremel up to your Clipper Vac hose. That’s going to allow you to collect all of that nail dust while you’re dremeling the nails so that you’re not breathing it into your body.

Joe Zuccarello: Jessica, I got to tell you that I am just… I continue to be impressed by you, by your family, by your company, by your products. I know that the Hey Joe listener audience, if you have not experienced an interaction with the fine folks at Clipper Vac, please do so as soon as possible. If you have an older unit, what a great way to maybe convince yourself that you need a newer unit and take advantage of the promo code that Jessica had talked about earlier, and that’s HEYJOE10. you enter that code at checkout. don’t forget about that bonus offer of that GrindAir dremel attachment as well.

Joe Zuccarello: Just a quick reminder to all of the Hey Joe listeners out there, this podcast definitely does benefit by receiving questions submitted from folks just like you, pet industry experts, who are anxious to get answers to and possibly even hear their own questions covered with subject matter experts on an upcoming episode of the Hey Joe podcast. Please submit those questions. It’s very simple. Use the email address heyjoequestions@paragonpetschool.com. Again, that email address is heyjoequestions@paragonpetschool.com. Jessica, thank you so much for spending time with us. I wish you, your family and your company the very best.

Jessica Romani: Oh, thank you, Joe, and thank you so much for the opportunity to share everything that we’ve learned over the years. We really appreciate it.