From Groomer to CEO with Molly Rowland

Dr. Molly Rowland (01:05):
Yeah. Hey, Joe, thanks for having me. Excited to be here today. I agree. I think we have so much in common of how we feel about the industry and the professionalism, so just glad to have a chance to share that with you today.

Joe Zuccarello (01:17):
Yeah, it was interesting for all of you out there. I’ll give you a little bit of a walk down memory lane with Molly and I. We met two ships passing in the night at a lot of conferences over the years, and we just really recently struck up some really great conversations. There’s some recent conferences, again, another reason why you should consider going to conferences, because just because it’s on the agenda doesn’t mean it’s the only thing you’re going to learn or the only person you’re going to meet at these conferences. And this is a perfect example. So I met Molly and members of her team at some recent conferences and we just started talking. What we started discovering is that we have a lot of things in common. We see this industry through the same lens, and really we sort of shoulder the burden of challenging this industry to elevate its professionalism. I’ve often said we need more professionalism in this profession. So Molly, before we hop into sort of the talking points of this, tell the Hey Joe Pet Pro podcast audience a little bit more about yourself.

Dr. Molly Rowland (02:25):
So I started as a groomer at a corporate box store. So PetSmart, my plan was not to go into grooming, not to go into the pet industry. I was working my way through college. So decided instead of waiting tables, I loved animals, love pets, let me work with them. So I applied at all kind of places, vet techs, washer, kennels, all kind. And PetSmart called me back first. So they were like, Hey, we have a dog bather position. So I interviewed for that seemed like something I’d be interested in. And after a month they said, Hey, we need a groomer. Do you want to go to our grooming academy? So I did. I went to that, and that was 13 years ago, and I never left the pet profession. So I stayed with PetSmart for about two years, and then I went on about a year long deployment with the Army.

(03:15):
I was in the reserves during that time. I the, I don’t want to be told what to do all the time, every day mentality. So when I came back, I started saved up a little bit of money, everything I could, and bought my first van and became Molly’s Pampered Paws. So that was 2014 in August. And then about three months later, I met Todd, which know is my husband and co-owner now. And so we’ve pretty much grown the business together from the ground up. And we now have, I think nine mobile vans. We have two full service facilities with boarding, grooming and daycare. We have around 40 to 42 employees depending on the seasonality that we’re in. And then we’ve started the podcast, the podcast, the business side of the pet industries. With that, we do speaking and coaching, really just trying to give back and inform, because when I got started, there was little, I’m not going to say there was no education for business owners, but there was very little.

(04:15):
You’d go to a conference and I may have one or two classes the entire weekend. So that’s obviously not the case now, but it’s not just having the information available, but it’s having quality education from educators that know what they’re talking about. So that when I started my business, I didn’t know anything about business. The same semester I opened Molly’s Pampered Paws, it was also the semester I started my master’s in business education. And then I went and got my doctorate in management and organizational leadership and actually did my dissertation on employee turnover in the pet grooming industry. So that was during COVID, it was a big thing. We’re still seeing that problem and that issue in the industry. Everyone wants to have a better place to work, have better options. We’re seeing employers too, wanting to be better, do better and retain. So all that kind of goes together. But it’s definitely a passion of mine and mine, where originally I was going to go to school, I wanted to be a high school English teacher. That’s my undergrad. I still feel like I’m in that education space. It’s just in a different avenue. So I love the pet industry, and I definitely am excited to see where we’re going and want to help contribute to that educational improvement side of things.

Joe Zuccarello (05:30):
Well, and just by agreeing to be a guest on this podcast is just a small amount of that contribution. So just being able to bring that forward. I love your story and in particular, what I like about you started off by saying I wasn’t planning on being in the pet industry. Hello. How many of us out there said the same thing at some

Dr. Molly Rowland (05:47):
Point? Exactly. Yeah.

Joe Zuccarello (05:48):
But there’s just something so magnetic, something so cool, something so safe, really, truly about this industry. Recession resistant, right? People take incredibly wonderful care of their pets. Just walk in any of these conferences, especially the large retail conferences or trade shows, and look at just acres and acres of trade show floor, all about animals, all about different types of pets. But specific to dog grooming, unlike I think there’s only one time that I would compare the importance of professional pet grooming services to the livelihood of the overall pet industry. And that was coming out of COVID, right? Coming out of COVID. Grooming was grooming, kept the lights on for a lot of pet services businesses, a lot of pet retailers. And I think we’re back at almost that critical phase of our industry where grooming is going to be leaned upon to continue to be sort of that most stable leg of the different legs that make up a full service pet care facility, business or retail business, because it goes beyond the haircut. It’s about hygiene, it’s about wellbeing. The groomers have their hands on these pets more often than even the pet’s veterinarian. So for all of those reasons, we have a responsibility

Dr. Molly Rowland (07:19):
A hundred

Joe Zuccarello (07:19):
Percent to elevate our professionalism, to adopt, to embrace the role of expert. Now, you continued your education. What I think is super impressive is you continue your education outside of the pet industry because you wanted to bring, I’m sure all of those elements, those transferable elements into the pet industry and therefore contribute at a higher or heightened level. So talk to me a little bit about, when I say the words professional, let’s talk specifically about grooming salons, right? Okay. When I say the words professional grooming salon, what pops into your head because of who you are? And then what pops into your head about a lot of the businesses that are in our industry already?

Dr. Molly Rowland (08:09):
So for me, it’s first impressions and communication. So those are the very first things I think of when a client walks in, they want to be impressed. They want to smell a clean facility. It shouldn’t smell like wet dog. It shouldn’t smell damp. I mean, we do work with pets, but there’s just a way to keep that contained and still professional. Our staff wears uniforms. Our groomers have on smocks or scrubs. Our front desk has on a polo like I’m wearing now. Our colors are on brand. They’re bright, everything is clean. We dust daily, all of that kind of stuff. Attributes, our lobby is separated from the rest of our grooming salon area or our check-in counters at our other facilities. So there’s not the constant dust noise. Our clients can have a communication with our front desk who’s checking in. Our groomers can come up.

(09:01):
And for us, it’s all about systems and processes too. So our client comes in and they know they’re going to get the same system, the same process every time they come in. And it’s from the groomer going over the dog. You talked about that full service checkover, like the groomers, we’re the ones that see these dogs, like you said, more than the vets. We see things that the pet parents don’t even see, and they’re supposed to be loving on these dogs every day. So right from that. Another thing for us is our team is pet CPR, first Aid certified. I’m a pet tech instructor, so I certify our class, I mean all of our team every two years or as their thing expires. So within, I’d say the first three to six months, typically we’ve got our groomers certified in that. And unfortunately we do.

(09:49):
We have had to use it. It’s not something we like to use, but it gives our groomers and our clients a peace of mind. Like it’s a professional certification. It comes from an outside governing agency, things like that, continuing education that is professionalism. We require that. Our team has so many hours of continuing education every year. We also open up for if any of our team wants to compete, we’ll sponsor them both through the business and the podcast, anything like that. We have team members that are now educators themselves, have their own podcasts, do classes, things like that. So for us, we’re open to education, but we brand ourselves on that as part of what makes us professional as opposed to other people as well. I could go on and on, but the standards of cleanliness, sanitation, knowing what to use, when to use it, and then the communication, how we talk to clients and what we will allow clients to talk to us too. We confirm we are transparent. If there is an accident or an issue, we communicate that we don’t just send them home. So all of these little things that you wouldn’t think is a big deal, when you bring all that together, it makes a really good impression on the client.

Joe Zuccarello (11:04):
Well, so let’s talk about that, right? Because obviously when you talk about professionalism, so you sort of identified what’s that image of professionalism? What’s that definition, that visual, what does it look like when it’s done correctly, as I like to say, what does that visual look like? But when you went from, okay, you kind of fell into the industry, you learned grooming and you went and got more education outside of the industry, tell me how seeing the professionalism, how did you make it your profession? What I mean by that is, so give us a little bit of a different history lesson, but more from a, you went from groomer to CEO. I mean, you’ve got nine mobile units at the time of this recording, and I don’t think you’re going to stop growing. So at the time of this recording, hope not. You have nine mobile grooming vans out on the roads every day, and you’ve got two brick and mortar pet care facilities. So obviously you went from groomer to CEO and not only CEO of one location, but you’ve got a footprint in your community. So what did that look like? What was the struggle for you there, or what drove you, no mobile pun intended,

Dr. Molly Rowland (12:25):
Right? Yeah, so there was a couple different things. So one was there was a need. So I identified a need, and I think that’s always important for groomers to, even if you are working for someone, identify your niche, what makes you special, what is your specialty? And for me, when I wanted to get started, there were two mobile groomers in our area. Like I said, we’ve been 10 and a half years now, so there wasn’t quite the boom that there is now. So I was the third mobile and now there’s probably 50 to 70 bands running around the Nashville area. So we have a lot of competition, but it’s not really competition because we have the brand recognition, but we wanted to do things differently.

(13:10):
I wanted to provide an all-inclusive service To me as a groomer, I feel all dogs need their nails ground, all dogs need their ears cleaned. All dogs need conditioner. I want to give the dog what shampoo is best for their skin, no matter if their parent is going to pay an extra price. So that’s how we built our brand was luxury, all inclusive service. And so we give the pet everything it needs and it’s one price, one package. And that’s how we got started with that. Now I will say I learned a lot along the way. So I was one of those, I took my PetSmart price, added $10, and that’s what my first mobile prices were. So we’re obviously not there. It’s a lot of trial and error, but I just wanted to bring something to the industry, like the customer service. You get someone that cares and listens.

(13:59):
But coming from a corporate store, I wanted to treat our groomers like people, and they mattered from there. Not to talk about, but it was all numbers, it was all sales, it was the customer is always right. It was if they complained and got a free groom, you didn’t get the commission on that dog. All of those things that I just didn’t want to do to our team. So as we grew, we made sure to keep the team at the heart of it. R my saying is the customer is not always right, but they’re not always wrong. So it’s like we want to listen to the customer, we want to acknowledge their complaint or what they have going on. Same with the groomer, and then we just want to address it in a fair manner. So I don’t know, reliability, that’s another one we’re always seeing on the local groups and just even nationally, who has a groomer? My canceled on me. My groomer didn’t this, my groomer didn’t that. And it’s like we’re consistent. We always have groomers. If we do have to reschedule, it’s always quickly we give notice. We never just don’t show up. Things like that that you would think of as small little things, but across the board, there’s a lot of groomers that just don’t take care of those tiny little details like that.

Joe Zuccarello (15:12):
Yeah. Well, and let’s talk about, a lot of times I think he gets a little bit confused. Well, maybe I am or I am not the best at running a business. Maybe I am or I’m not the best at professionalism yet. I’m trying really hard maybe or I’m trying to map that course out for myself. But professionalism doesn’t always supersede personality. One doesn’t take a backseat to the other. So we don’t have to sacrifice personality to be professional because we don’t have to be everybody else’s professional. So talk to me about, in your opinion, can you have both? Can you have personality and professionalism and how are they related and how are they separate?

Dr. Molly Rowland (16:02):
Yeah, I definitely think you can have both. And for us, our personality is giving the client what they want, giving the dog what they want. We focus on one of our sayings, and this is even in our contracts, we are humanity over vanity. So at the end of the day, that’s what we always go back to. That is our core value when it comes to pet care. So we are very transparent about that with the pet parent. And even though they might not like the outcome, they love that. That’s our motto. And they love that no matter what, we’re going to put their pet first. So that gives us that caring personality. And then we also, we do use high end products. We do give quality cuts. So we also have that part of the personality we have between the mobiles and the salons. We have the convenience factor of they have the option or the choice to do different things.

(16:54):
We fit a bunch of different budgets and price points and offerings too, which is something that a lot of other places don’t have. But again, we always go back to the professionalism of it. And we’re on time. We do what we say we’re going to do. We are never disrespectful. We never raise our voice. We always get back to people. Again, all those little things that people are like, oh, I don’t have to do that. I don’t have time for that. That isn’t professional. If you have a business number posted, someone is expecting you to answer, whether it’s a call, a text, a Facebook message, whatever it may be, and just taking the time to do that. And we can put our own personality, we’re all about the dog puns, it’s paw fit, or your cat looks perfect or everything, have a pulum day. And we just have built that into our personality with our clients.

(17:43):
But again, we are very respectful. Even when we’re being yelled at, we will fire a client very nicely if we have to. We don’t just say, screw you, it’s thank you for your past patronage. We wish you the best of luck with your future groomer. We’re not the right fit. So it’s just bringing that little bit into everything, but also setting firm in your boundaries and having good boundaries and a good overall vision of what you want your brand to be before you get started, I think is helpful. But of course that can change. We’ve grown and changed. And the big thing I would say is just being open to learning and feedback. When we end up having one of those disagreements or firing our client or getting fired from a client, those are all growing and learning opportunities. And I would just really say that is the biggest part of success is being open to that.

Joe Zuccarello (18:37):
When you talk about professionalism and personality, and I’ve done podcasts and I’ve done coaching before on culture, you try to define what culture is and it’s sort of that vibe that you feel when you walk into whatever the environment is, right? It could be a professional environment, it could be an institutional environment, it could be a variety of different heck, it could be the culture of a family. I mean, when you spend a Christmas with first Christmas with the in-laws, right? There’s a culture that’s happening there. So what I’m hearing in yours is, as a brand, as a brand, that’s how you’re seen by your customers. Maybe first, that’s how they get maybe a first impression of first exposure to you. So a business is probably best served then by identifying what personality does that brand want to have? What personality do we want our culture to be represented by? And really professionalism is do we answer the call of what our customers expect? Because really professionalism is to some degree already defined. Our customers already are defining what is professional. To your point, there are some violators to professionalism. You can have a big personality, but you can violate professionalism. Forms of self-expression sometimes are detractors. Right? Now, I love self-expression, but it’s got to fit inside whatever you want your personality of your brand to be, to your point.

Dr. Molly Rowland (20:09):
And

Joe Zuccarello (20:09):
Do your customers see that as professional? In fact, does the industry see that as professional? So obviously, and you’ve got to do this multiple times over. You’ve got 11 instances right now happening. You’ve got two brick and mortar and nine mobile. So you’ve got 11 happenings that can be going on several times per day. So as we look at that culture and building that very important to you, I can see your logo behind you, even to your point, getting on a podcast, getting on a podcast, wearing your shirt. What strikes me is that there’s a lot of individuals that are in this industry because of the passion. And I love that. I love the passion,

Dr. Molly Rowland (21:01):
But

Joe Zuccarello (21:02):
Passion without professionalism, most oftentimes we’ll miss the greatest opportunities, miss the highest potential, not only for revenue potential, but also profit potential. Now, there’s a couple of things as we talk about professionalism. There’s some things that sort of happen beyond what’s seen right behind the curtain, if you would.

Dr. Molly Rowland (21:28):
Right?

Joe Zuccarello (21:28):
And what did I say? The definition of character is sort of who you are when nobody’s watching how you behave when nobody sees you, right? And there’s a couple of elements that I know in show prep we were talking about that are very important that you wanted to elevate to saying, listen, being professional or this professionalism, this heightened importance on our industry cannot be without mentioning these things. And that is sanitation and safety. Sanitation and safety. You call them the new non-negotiables in the pet industry. That’s a statement. Let’s unpack that for a minute. Why are those the non-negotiables and why do you call them new non non-negotiables?

Dr. Molly Rowland (22:21):
Well, obviously cleanliness, safety, sanitation, those are not new concepts. They’ve been around. But the lack of standards around those I think is something that is still, people are trying to figure out what to do, what to use. Why is this important? I can’t tell you how many salons we’ve been in for tours or whatever, and they’ve got dogs out in a freshly sprayed bleach area, or they have moldy tubs or there’s hair buildup on the vacuums and they smell like they’re about to catch on fire. It’s just these pets, people aren’t entrusting us with their pets. They should be cared for better than, or at least the same as we would our own pets, which means safety, sanitation, is it a breed that can be? How can they be restrained safely? What would you do if you nicked a dog? What are you doing to eliminate those nips and risk?

(23:16):
Are you tracking your incidents? What kind of cleaning products are you using? There’s different products for cleaning versus sanitizing versus straight, just bacterial cleanup. There’s all kind of different products. And if you don’t understand them properly, then you just won’t know that you’re using the wrong thing. Case in point, our last facility that we took over, they were using a disinfectant as their cleaner, and they just wondered why it smelled like dog and nothing was fresh. Nothing ever smelled like it had been clean. And it was like there was grime, but it was like we took two weeks just to deep clean the whole facility because they weren’t actually using anything that was supposed to be a cleaner. Yes, it was disinfected, but it was just dirty everywhere. It smelled dirty, it looked dirty. So just knowing that plus knowing what products will kill, what to keep your pet safe.

(24:09):
And with that, what comes? What shots do you require? What is contagious? What’s airborne? Are you doing kennel free? What kind of cross-contamination is possible? Are you disinfecting your tools and your tables? And I mean, it’s very easy to dogs a lot of times or cats if we do have some cat groomers, but for them to come in and show no symptoms and have something highly contagious. And if you’re not doing all those things that one dog could easily spread to a whole salon full of pups there that day or something like that. So it should be more of a standard and it should be more widely recognized and it should be a top priority because I’ll be honest, you see these incidents of these dogs walking off the table because there’s no policy about putting a hand on a dog, or the dogs are left unattended with kennel dryers on for an hour at a time and something happens or just constant cutting or nicks or how you react to that or something like bortel is spreading because everyone at the kennel got it. And it’s just those are terrible things and they can crumble your business in an instant. Social media is like wildfire. So heaven forbid you get one of those incidents, and it doesn’t matter if you have one month or 20 years in the industry that could put you out of business tomorrow.

(25:34):
And that even gets multiplied if you have team members and employees because it’s not just you that’s reliable. Now you have the liability of everyone that works for you. So being sure and being safe and knowing what you’re doing, have everything clearly labeled, clearly written out, processes, checklists, our makes fun of me. And it’s like my checklists have checklists. You get a checklist and it has 10 things. And each of those 10 things has a checklist because we’ve just learned throughout the years how important it is to be safe, to be sanitized, to clean and take the right precautions to avoid injury and things like that.

Joe Zuccarello (26:15):
What’s amazing, what you’re talking, I am also a systems and processes guy. Procedures guy, and I think one way that we can help ourselves, we’ve always heard work more on your business and in your business. And I think that that’s what happens. A lot of times the owner operator gets caught in this vacuum of being one of the daily producers, and then you’re exhausted. And before what ends up happening is messy kid’s bedroom syndrome where you might know where everything’s located, but anybody looking from the outside in thinks like a tornado went through there. So what happens a lot of times is, especially in professional grooming, it’s physically, it’s a physical job. It can be physically exhausting. If you’re caught working in your business too long in any one particular period of time, whether it’s a day or a week or what have you, those are calories that you’re spending working in your, you’re going to become blind. The blinders get put on, and all of a sudden what you are is a producer and you’re not the professional where you’re not looking for the professionalism that you really need to have in your business. And one thing that I think saves us a lot of time by investing some time in the beginning is putting together standard operating procedures, standard protocols, these checklists and showing even if it’s simple videos to our staff, this is what it looks like, literally what it looks like when it’s done correctly.

(27:45):
So helping our teams understand those things so that we’re not reinventing the wheel every single time something happens. It is so liberating. Really, truly, Molly, and I’m sure you’ve experienced this, it’s so liberating when you’re like, oh, we have a solution for that. We have a process for that. We have a system for that. It’s sort of, remember back in when mobile phones were really coming online and there was, there’s an app for that. Remember that, that campaign, oh, there’s an app for that. Yeah, there’s an app for that. It’s the same thing inside your business, no matter how big or small your business is, because to your point, you have a service promise that you’re making to not only your external customers, but you’re also making a service promise to your internal customers. And those are your employees. If they’re not clear on what correct looks like, they’ll never be able to deliver that clear, obvious correctness, if you would, to our customers to uphold that service promise.

(28:51):
So I am a hundred percent on board with you, but we get caught up. A lot of you out there might be feeling this. We get caught up in the, I don’t have time that Groundhog Day I worked. I’m exhausted. I’m going to go home. I have to work two or three hours on my books. If I’m a small solopreneur even, I’ve got to go home and work a couple hours on my bills, on my books, whatever. And then just to get up tomorrow and do it all over again, this will not be wasted time. The more processes and procedures you put in place, because I really believe you staff members, the people that you work with not only deserve it, they want it. They may not admit it, they may not admit it, but they want to know what it looks like when it’s done correctly. Because I don’t think anybody gets up in the morning and puts their pants on one leg at a time saying, I’m going to go in and ruin my employer’s business today. I don’t believe a majority of people are wired that way. If you’ve got people like that working for you, right,

Dr. Molly Rowland (29:56):
It’s time to go,

Joe Zuccarello (29:57):
Which is a process and procedure in its own because by having the processes and procedures in place, when people color outside the lines, it’s go back to your second grade self. You had a coloring book. You either colored inside the lines or outside the lines, but you knew what that image, and you could color all kinds of different colors inside those lines. So we have these flexible kind of behave like this inside the policy or procedure, but color outside the lines. And it’s obvious to everybody, even the 2-year-old artists want to be. So in doing so, that’s sort of talking about the team management and even staff retention. I think we hold onto people longer. The more we are honest with them, the more we are timely with the recognition. But to your point, and what we’re talking about right now is accountability

Dr. Molly Rowland (30:47):
And not having, for us, we have a handbook. And so we always recommend we update it at least yearly, if not quarterly, or as we have a change, because that goes right along with education. The needs of your business or even your brand and how you operate will change over time. The longer you’re in business, the more that will change. Whether you are a solo groomer or you have a team, we always say you need a handbook and you need policies and procedures. It’s a real easy way to hold yourself accountable and to hold your clients and to hold your team members. Someone wants to cancel last minute, and it’s an, oh, I don’t know, should I charge ’em or should I not? Well, what is that? My policy is last minute cancellations get charged X. Or again, even if you are the solo groomer running your own business, that’s a clear definitive answer.

(31:36):
I’m sorry. My policy is, our policy is, and that’s the same when it comes to retaining team, building team, things like that. They know what’s expected. It’s black and white, it’s listed on the paper. They sign that we go through it at least once a year or as updates. We have a counseling policy, formal and informal and a termination policy. So all of that is laid out. And again, there’s no question. Everyone’s like, well, I don’t know what to accept. I don’t know if this is okay, or is that okay? Well, what does the handbook say? Is that a behavior allowed? What is the dress code? What is this? Is it okay if I have hoop earrings? Well, nope. It’s an easy point of reference that they can have and we can have. And like you said, it holds everyone accountable.

Joe Zuccarello (32:22):
And really the challenge for everybody listening and watching this is if you ever feel like you don’t have the answer to something that comes up in your day. Now, I have a lot of times when I don’t have the answer for something,

(32:39):
But it’s because I already have defined answers for the things that happen more often that I actually have time to go and research answers for things that happen for the first time. Think about that for a minute. It’s because I already have answers in writing, in a structure, in a process, a procedure, an operations manual, whatever that looks like, because those now are made objective, those are either right or it’s wrong. We can clearly point back to it because we have that type of answer or those answers for things that happen more regularly. It affords us time to go and find answers for the things that just happened for the first time. So if you ever feel like you don’t have an answer or you feel like, man, I’ve already answered this, what if you ever find yourself saying they should, should know, they should do. They should be. They should. Nobody likes to be should on.

Dr. Molly Rowland (33:40):
Yeah,

Joe Zuccarello (33:42):
Just remember, right? Yeah. So if you find yourself saying they should, whatever, that’s your responsibility to make sure that they do

Dr. Molly Rowland (33:51):
Know. I agree. We’ve taken on don’t assume anybody knows how to do anything because even if they know how to do it, they don’t know how to do it your way into your standard. Everybody is individualized. We’ve had to teach people like our laundry process. We have printed out papers with pictures of the washer and dryer with buttons circled on what to push. We’ve had to show people how to mop a floor, how to clean a window. I mean, it’s from the very basics how to open an email. I mean, it’s, there’s so many different things that you just don’t know until we have a how to get a snake out of the bathtub procedure, never would’ve thought we would’ve needed that. So it’s like you said, sometimes you just, I got to say, give me a minute. I honestly don’t know. I’ll get back to you. And then you got to figure out, but it’s, you’re not running around putting out the other 20 fires that you have the time. So that was a great point to bring up.

Joe Zuccarello (34:50):
Yeah, listen, if you find yourself having to just manufacture, nobody wants to do that. It’s a waste of time. It’s a waste of time. And the reason why I recognize that, Molly, is because I’ve been guilty of that.

(35:06):
I have failed for decades to some degree having to do that. And when that happens, that happens when you have an HR professional, me being operations brain, and then the HR professional, here’s a common interaction. The HR professional, the operations person says, this person needs to be written up. This person needs to be fired. This person needs to go into a performance improvement plan. And the HR professional says, are they clear on the expectations you have for them? Now, if that doesn’t get under the fingernails of a true operator, I don’t know what does, right?

(35:44):
So this is what you get, but in all reality, they’re right. They’re right. Do they understand? Is it clear? And if the answer is yes, it is clear, then you can march ’em down the path toward improvement or even to your point, separation. So we’re growing, right? We’ve got these, okay, we’ve committed to improved professionalism and our culture and our personality and all of these things, and you didn’t poof, 11 parts of your business, you started with one, and then it went to two and then three and so on. Let’s talk about you have diversified your income streams so that you’re not over leveraged or overdependent on one income stream because what happens if that one income stream softens, right?

Dr. Molly Rowland (36:40):
Right.

Joe Zuccarello (36:41):
So from your professional opinion, from your experience, what do you recommend to the audience out there that’s watching and listening to this? When you say, don’t get caught with too much leverage or too much expectations in only one revenue stream, how do you recommend they start maybe exploring different ways of earning income? I once heard a wealth management speaker talking about a coach talking about seven forms of income. Everybody should strive to have seven forms of income. Now I’m still searching for number five, six, and seven, right? But seven forms of income to some degree, just in case you had to rely on something to buy the peanut butter and jelly for your kids,

Dr. Molly Rowland (37:26):
Right? Well, for us, we obviously started mobile grooming, but I would say know your market. So at its simplest form, send a survey to your clients and find out what other pet services they’re interested in, which would they use, and how often. So our two facilities, even though they both are full service boarding, daycare and grooming, they both have different markets, basically. One of ours, we’re heavy in grooming. We have four full-time groomers and we have boarding and daycare, but at a smaller level of the boarding and daycare. Our other facility, we have two full-time groomers, but we have the capacity for probably a hundred dogs boarding in daycare, so it’s heavier in the boarding and daycare. And with that, there’s seasonality to the pet industry in general. Around the holidays, everybody wants their pet done. Summer, we got the summer shave downs that come once or twice.

(38:23):
And then you have your regulars, and then you have your people that don’t care what it costs or how often they want the best of the best. And so it really just depends what’s going on and everything like that. But really just ask your clients, find the need in your market. How many competitors do you have? What are they offering that you could offer? Do your clients ask for? That’s how we really got into the boarding and daycare space was we had so many of our salon clients we’re like, oh, we wish you boarded. We wish you boarded and Oh, we wish you had daycare. We have a lot of factories in our area and hospital people are gone 10, 12 hours a day. And so they really wanted somewhere to bring their dog. And that goes to maybe you don’t get the reaction that you would’ve thought, well, let’s find out why play with your drop-off pickup hours?

(39:11):
We’ve changed our drop-off pickup hours. I can’t tell you how many times to learn to accommodate those different industries. And the traffic. One of our facilities is outside Nashville. So we have people that drive an hour and a half, two hours to work, and eight to five isn’t going to work for them to drop off or pick up their pups. So we change those hours from six 30 to six 30, and we’ve seen a huge increase of our daycare dogs and our grooming dogs just because they don’t feel that pressure to have to get there between the hours of eight to five, which everyone around us, those are pretty typical hours for a grooming salon. So the fact that they can come and drop their dog, even though our groomers don’t get here till eight, they can leave them with us and they can go to work.

(39:52):
So also that just gives, we saw that not to, hopefully there’s not another pandemic, but everything was so different in what was allowed even state by state. So even for groomers boarding and daycare, Tennessee pet services were considered essential, and mobile services were essential. So for us, we even got busier because so many people closed either personal businesses because they didn’t feel safe, or corporate stores shut down, things like that. So we got an influx, and then you see people getting dogs, and then these people had to go back to work and had nowhere to bring their dogs. And it’s just playing on what services are out there. For us, our boarding is super busy in the summer and around holidays, anytime schools are out, we’re slammed with boarding. And then with daycare, that’s pretty consistent year round because we preach summer, you have people that are wanting to go take their kids to the waterpark and the park and things like that.

(40:56):
And then during the day, you have, during the school year, the kids are at school, the parents are working, let’s bring the pet in. And then grooming, we focus on happy, healthy pets, their wellbeing, and that’s year round. So we also encourage all of our clients to rebook. I’d say at our mobiles, we’re at about a 95% rebook rate, and then our salons we’re at about 50 to 60 to, by the time they walk out the door, they’ve got another appointment set. And then automatic reminders, things like that for all our services really help generate people. But that variation with us when one, the grooming might be a little slow back to school, that’s where people are knocking out those last minute summer vacations. Our boarding and daycare is busy, and depending on what service is needed when we really have that flexibility, our business right now is we’re probably about 60% grooming and about 40% boarding and daycare. So I mean, there’s a big fluctuation of when that money comes in though. And so our budget is just built on what’s going to be heavy when something else may be slow.

Joe Zuccarello (42:05):
And it’s just what we were talking about earlier, the importance of grooming. Right now, grooming is, and as we are looking at staffing and staff retention, and I mean, grooming is hard work. And really, I mean, again, it’s one of those areas, and I just cannot emphasize it enough that first off, the owner operator has to do themselves a favor and give themselves some breathing rooms that have taken work on their business more than in their business. So what is it going to take? The numbers, money in, money out, money left. This most simple business equation. What do you need to charge to pay your staff well and to afford to work on your business so that you can drive for more revenue, you can drive for more profitability, you can drive for more just expansion, whatever it is that you want to do. Sometimes, depending on the owner operator, sometimes it’s just, I want to be absent.

(42:58):
I mean, that’s a business decision too. Some people don’t want to be in it, or some people want to have a good, number one, somebody that they rely on to run their business. Well, okay, well run the numbers. What does the business have to generate in order to have that person as part of the payroll? Okay, how do we get there? How many services? How many, what should our rates be? A lot of times approaching this backwards, right? We’re coming at it from a, I have to be competitive in my market. To a degree, you do, but what can allow you to be superior

Dr. Molly Rowland (43:36):
To

Joe Zuccarello (43:36):
The market? What are those things? And you’ll never see those if you have the blinders of working in that vacuum in your business. And there’s no way you can have 11 facilities, 11 offerings out there, Molly, without working on your business, you and Todd, right? So as we start closing in on this episode, I want to recap a little bit. I mean, obviously you’ve built your business to lots of commas and zeros, right? Seven figure business, which is very impressive. Again, for all of you that are listening out there, Molly didn’t get there right away. It taken over a decade to get there. And so everybody has a different starting point. And here’s brilliant. Everybody has a different finish line.

Dr. Molly Rowland (44:24):
So

Joe Zuccarello (44:24):
Molly’s level of success might be, her finish line might be at 20 facilities, right? Molly’s like that might be Molly’s, but yours might be two, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean that your business is any less important than what Molly’s doing or what we’ve talked about as far as principles. So let’s just sort of recap what it really boils down to. A couple things. It boils down to the professionalism. What are you doing out in your business out there, all of you listeners out there to add, to elevate the professionalism of this profession that’s go and audit what you do? Are you adding or are you detracting? And here’s the thing, if you’re not adding, you’re detracting.

(45:16):
If you’re not adding to the professionalism in our industry, you’re detracting number one. And we said education, training, policies, procedures, systems, the way that we present ourselves, sanitization, cleanliness, that customers listen. Customers have an expectation just like we do of what we would say is on par or below par about where we might shop and spend our hard-earned dollars. And then that whole approach to education and driving more skills. So to sort of wrap this all up, Molly, if you were, I kind of summarized in those three things, what do you think are really those three things that you would challenge the listener audience to go and do that would make a profound impact no matter where they’re starting from and where they want to get to?

Dr. Molly Rowland (46:15):
Yeah. I would first off, keep in mind that as groomers, we all have an expiration date. So whether it’s because of an injury, whether it’s because of something that happens or we age out or we all have an expiration date. So think about when you want that to be and then how you’re going to get there. And we’ve talked about several other things. Work backwards, like what steps, like you said, knowing your finances, figure that out. But everyone kind of forgets. Not everybody wants to be completely removed from their business, but we need to remove ourselves to an extent. Whether you are one person or you want to grow or you have one facility or 20, I mean, that doesn’t change. There’s things that I enjoy doing that I’ve had to outsource because I just don’t have the time. You have to realize where your time is best spent.

(47:07):
And for me, that is working on the business. I have had to completely, Todd and I both remove ourselves from the day-to-day because we have a bigger problem than what color bow should we put in Fluffy’s hair today? We got to think about what supplies have been ordered, what are our sales? What’s our marketing? What’s our ROI on adding this service? Those are the kind of things we think about. But as a business owner, no matter where you’re at, you have to think about, keep in mind you have an end date and you have to get there. So whether that is diversifying and saving for retirement and building up one or two people to take over, or that’s building your business up big enough that you can sell it or you can become an owner slash operator, but maybe you’re grooming part-time. It’s just really figuring out what you can do if something happens and something we didn’t really touch on that kind of goes along the same way is we’re really big on having an emergency fund and having savings, because you never know when COVID, we saw so many businesses during that that went out of business because they were shut down, some of them as little as two or three weeks, and they couldn’t rebound financially.

(48:23):
So for us, we recommend six months, but at least three. But you have to have enough. You never know what’s going to happen. A lot of new groomers out there, if you’re buying a van or a lot of commercial leases, people don’t realize you’re responsible for all of the expenses. We moved into our second salon and it was a lease, and we built it out exactly how we wanted it. The day we were supposed to open our doors, there was about a $3,000 plumbing leak outside from the main that we were responsible for. If you’ve sink every penny you have into opening your business and you don’t have a savings you could go under before you even get started.

(49:02):
So keeping those things in mind, having backups and things like that, and really just focus on who you want to be as a groomer and as an employer, and really hone in on that because at the end of the day, that’s what you’re going to be known for. Whether we have team members that we’ve had five and six plus years, we don’t really advertise that we’re hiring 90% of our team members, no matter which section of the business are all employee referrals. And so it’s like you’ve got to brand yourself as not just a groomer but a business owner as someone that clients want to go to. And it’s just everything wraps itself in together, and you don’t realize how intertwined that all is until you really see it. I don’t know you’re in it, but you have to step back and see how everything moves together.

(49:50):
And if you don’t take the time, even just instead of taking that last dog on Fridays, block your three to five o’clock on Fridays off, go over your books, go over your marketing, things like that. You don’t have to completely remove yourself from the grooming, but you have to know what’s going on and you have to take the time or you are going to get burnout. Like you said, you’re going to work a 10 hour day and then you’re going to go home and work for two or three hours and six months down the road, you’re going to regret your life choices. I’ve been there, so I understand. I don’t know, but it’s a lot of stuff, but I don’t know. It’s worth it if you can figure it out.

Joe Zuccarello (50:27):
Well, here’s my parting words for everybody out there. Take Molly. First, thank you so much for being part of this podcast episode. Yeah,

Dr. Molly Rowland (50:36):
Thanks for having me.

Joe Zuccarello (50:36):
Your story is inspiring. The amount of information that you provided, you’re probably out there listening in like, oh my gosh, there’s so much. Go back and listen again and take some copious notes. Don’t do it while you’re driving, right? Please. But when you land somewhere, put your earbuds in and write some of these things down because these are nuggets of gold for Molly and from a successful business owner. And really all of this is to add value. All of this. This is speaking specifically to the owner operators out there. Now, the owners of these businesses, this is to add value to Molly’s point. Everybody has an exit ramp that we just might not know when it is. But I’ll share some really helpful advice. And this is something that I have adopted or I have embraced mentally in the way that I operate business in that operate your business today as if you were driving for its greatest value for a sale tomorrow.

Dr. Molly Rowland (51:38):
That’s good. Yeah,

Joe Zuccarello (51:39):
Right. Operate today as if you wanted the biggest price you can get tomorrow. Like you were going to sell your business tomorrow. And if you do that every day, maybe that’ll allow you to have more of that crisp, visionary plan in your brain as you operate any specific day. If at the end of the day you did not add value to your business one way or the other, did it help your price tag as if you were going to sell your business tomorrow? Molly, thank you so much for being part of the podcast, and we covered a lot of ground today, but there’s a lot of topics I’d like to unpack a little deeper with you. Let’s maybe focus on grabbing up some of these specifically to staff training, staff retention, those types of things too. So I imagine we’re going to have some future episodes together, so

Dr. Molly Rowland (52:32):
I hope so.

Joe Zuccarello (52:32):
Molly, thank you so much for all of the listener audience out there. Thank you for listening, and we’ll catch you in the next episode of the Hey Joe Petrow podcast.

Dr. Molly Rowland (52:40):
Thanks.