VODCAST – Getting Real with Garret Tadlock About Grooming Operations

Garret Tadlock:
Over a decade, Joe. Over a decade, brother.

Joe Zuccarello:
Oh, you counted?

Garret Tadlock:
Yeah.

Joe Zuccarello:
Well, I kind of figured it had to be at or near or maybe just over a decade. And we’ve talked about doing something like this and maybe even multiples of these, just talking to our mutual audiences out there about just the pet services in general. You being an expert in your field and me being an expert in mine, mine being in the grooming space. For so long, one of my passions is helping business owner-operators maximize their income potential, their revenue potential, profit potential, productivity potential in full services grooming. But I know that you mentioned that this is a conversation that you get every day.

Garret Tadlock:
Every day, brother. Every single day, I’m talking to clients, I’m educating customers. I’m a preacher of the perfect boarding appointment, which has enrichment every single day. It has that departure grooming services. And as I’m talking to business owners, I’d say seven out of 10, it breaks my heart when they say, “You know Garrett, I’d love to use the targeted two-way texting to drive baths, except for I don’t have the capacity. I can’t hit that metric of 90% of the perfect boarding appointment because I can’t serve it.” And it’s heartbreaking because that’s a metric that drives profitability. It drives tips for those staff members, which increases hourly wage, which helps with retention. And it’s an ecosystem and everything’s connected. And so I thought that you and I jumping on here, and I think that you guys provide a solid solution to the capacity problem.

And even potentially, you definitely have some insight on the productivity issues, and how you pay bathers and how you pay groomers. And I think a couple of years ago, you and I had a conversation. And I came in and I was in direct opposition of you and you educated me. And my position was, listen, I think it’s better to pay your bathers hourly to prep all dogs because then you can groom more dogs every single day. And you’re like, “No.”  – Hey, that’s fake news, fake news.” And you explained to me how it’s actually double paying, right? You’re paying that person hourly to do all of that prep work, which is a long time, and then you’re still giving a groomer the commission of 50%, “50%” depending upon where you’re at.

But on average, 50% of that grooming commission plus the tips. And so it’s good to always be educated and it’s good to be corrected, especially from somebody who’s an expert. And so while I may not do as an eloquent of a job of explaining that to my customers, I do talk about it. Pretty much anytime I talk to anyone that has grooming services, it’s like, “How are you paying? Okay, did you realize that you are technically double paying for that thing, which reduces the actual profitability?” And so yeah, I’m super excited to dig into a couple of topics today. And let’s see if we can’t change anyone else’s mind out there for how they believe the world is. And we’re going to Zuccarello them and…

Joe Zuccarello:
I like that. I love that. I’ve just trademarked that, by the way. You and I, we’re like…

Garret Tadlock:
My family, right? We’re like the Griswolds. And so we have, our slogan is, “We’re Tadlocking it”, which means coming under prepared and overly enthusiastic. And we’ll just always have a good time, but it’s kind of a **** show here and there. So I think to Zuccarello it is probably better than Tadlocking it on four kid family road trips and stuff like that.

Joe Zuccarello:
Well, mine is probably over prepared and then surprisingly surprised when things don’t go by plan. So, I might be… I think that’s what makes us a great yin and yang in this conversation.

Garret Tadlock:
We might need to do a good family vacation, Joe.

Joe Zuccarello:
That would be hilarious.

Garret Tadlock:
Like show each other what life could be like on the other side.

Joe Zuccarello:
That would be pretty hilarious. It’s interesting you say that you’re in 70% of the conversations you’re having with your clients are struggling with grooming, in one way or the other, right? Maybe it’s a capacity thing, maybe it’s a people thing. Grooming is one of those services that in full service pet care facilities, especially doggy daycares, lodging facilities, training and all that, the rub begins, the root of the rub begins most of the time because the owner-operator of the business doesn’t… They can’t go in and perform the grooming, right? Because you know they would if they could.

Joe Zuccarello:
Let’s say one of your lodging techs calls in sick, or wins the PowerBall, or whatever, and they can’t come in. The owner-operator could go back and actually perform that service, or bring somebody in with very minimal or hardly any training at all and put somebody on that process, on that task. Well, grooming because it needs a certain skill level, right? Groomers have a certain superpower, a certain skill that…

Garret Tadlock:
It’s also a brand, right? Listen, there’s so much visibility into the output that it’s all a brand. Listen, how many times are you going to go and potentially get an inconsistent haircut for your dog before you say, “You know what? Nevermind, I can go down the road if they have capacity and are accepting new clients.”

Joe Zuccarello:
Right. Well, and that’s the problem, right? If you can’t go back and do it yourself, or you can’t challenge what’s being done correctly, or you don’t even know what correct looks like, it’s a service where the tail’s wagging the dog. So now these owner-operators, they almost feel hijacked in their management and leadership capabilities. And then all of a sudden, what happens then next? And again, this is that compounding effect that sometimes makes grooming services not that appealing, right? Why pursue them?

Garret Tadlock:
I hear it all the time.

Joe Zuccarello:
There’s less profit. I can’t manage these people. I don’t know. But then all of a sudden, all of that builds up. But there’s certainly a better way because ultimately this service, like you said, this service is that ecosystem. This has to be… This is like an appendage to a healthy body. We need grooming. And I can help owner-operators figure out how to take that control back that feels similar to their other services. And it starts with accepting the reality that this skilled labor position does have a superpower that we don’t possess. But how do we create a culture where everybody gets along?

Garret Tadlock:
Oh my gosh, did you just make it do those fireworks behind you when you said superpower?

Joe Zuccarello:
No. No. Okay. Are you seeing those too?

Garret Tadlock:
Yeah, I just saw it.

Joe Zuccarello:
I don’t know if the viewers will see that.

Garret Tadlock:
That was so trippy. You said superpower and then fireworks just went off. Like, look at AI.

Joe Zuccarello:
Listen, my computer went through an update last night. And I don’t know, you’re the third person to tell me that something… I was on one earlier-

Garret Tadlock:
At least it happened at a very exciting moment in the conversation. That’s great.

Joe Zuccarello:
I don’t know if it’s some sort of AI that’s stuck-

Garret Tadlock:
The hard thing is to go-

Joe Zuccarello:
Into my system or what, but I don’t know.

Garret Tadlock:
Love it. Anyway, I love it. That’s like an action, an action movie here. The hard thing I think a lot of times is, also, if you lose that client as a bathing or grooming customer and they have to go somewhere else, there’s also the potential that they’re going to take all their business somewhere else. “Oh, I went to this other place. I only went the first time for grooming, and then I found out that that company also does boarding and daycare, and so I’m going to have a single person to do it. I’m going to”… And so I think that it’s more of a… It’s not only the risk of, hey, am I not going to win that grooming business, but it’s an overall threat to the overall success of growing your customer base and keeping and retaining those customers, right?

Joe Zuccarello:
Right, right.

Garret Tadlock:
Grooming gets people on the door.

Joe Zuccarello:
And they only have to go someplace else. Right. They only have to go someplace else one time to be happy and we possibly created a defector client. Not defective, but a defector client. But I’ll tell you, so how do we take that control back? So owner-operators are always asking me, “Okay. Well, I don’t understand grooming.” Got it. “I can’t appreciate grooming because I don’t understand it well enough.” Got it. “How do I fix it?” And one of the things that I say is, while you might think of grooming, the term grooming being all about haircuts, if you talk to anybody, you’re going to think grooming is haircuts. That’s our go-to, that’s what we think. But really, grooming is this overarching term that could be for full service grooms and full service baths. And you’re right, in my model, and the most profitable model is that everybody does their own dog start to finish.

So you’ve got these really special people though that are called groom techs. And if we think about how powerful these groom techs are, the groom techs are the entry level position. So they’re the position that, at Paragon, they’re our level one graduates. And these groom techs, they’re trained to do all over… They’re trained to do the full service bathroom, start to finish, even light trimming like sanitary area, trimming the feet, trimming the pads, the furnishings, that sort of thing. Well, how do we take control of our grooming staffing business and lower the migraine for the money, get rid of the migraine for the money? Is that we take the staffing situation, we take the staffing problem back under our control, and we start creating our own grooming team.

And when we start doing that, we start with groom techs. And then that groom techs… I’m sure everybody is familiar with baseball, and we’re all pretty much familiar with the term farm team, right? So we got the minor leagues. We’ve got the group of people that are three quarters baked. They’re ready to maybe be pulled up into a big league should the star first baseman gets injured or retired or traded, right?

Garret Tadlock:
Well, these are the eager younger generation that want a career. And I think that even if you go back to where we were at, the IBPSA, like people… There were seminars specifically on how to create career paths for your employees. And if somebody is looking for a career, and they love animals, and this is a desire, literally, you can build a complete career path that supports the entire organization. Because that person eventually will be a senior person and they can help train up the underlings. And it’s just a better support structure, right?

Joe Zuccarello:
So what happens is, let’s say you’ve got… Let’s play out a hypothetical. So it’s Garret’s Grooming Salon or Garret’s Pet Care Center, and Garret has grooming services. And you have a groomer or two, and maybe one of them is… Maybe one of those is what I call a toxic genius. So it’s somebody that is really good at what they do. But you have to sacrifice… You’re compromising your leadership and management style. Everybody’s walking on eggshells around them. All of these things, but they do such great work. So they’re a genius in their work, but they’re a toxic employee.

Garret Tadlock:
I’m an artist, don’t worry about everything else. Yeah, yeah.

Joe Zuccarello:
But then you’ve got another groomer. But then you’ve got another groomer who could potentially be catching some of that shade from that groomer and maybe even start maybe following that person down that path. So almost a copy of a copy, right?

Garret Tadlock:
Yeah. So spoiling… Yeah, spoiling the well.

Joe Zuccarello:
Yeah. Right. Exactly. So Garret’s left to be like, what am I going to do about my grooming? This is making it a headache for me. Well, I need to find more groomers. So then you go out and you try to search for groomers. The problem is, it’s like finding a unicorn, right? Not only are you trying to find somebody with a skill, but you’re also looking for somebody that’s a culture fit.

Garret Tadlock:
Right.

Joe Zuccarello:
So instead of trying to find a unicorn, if I gave every owner-operator a get out of jail free card, and that is, just stop. The reality is, if a groomer’s available, there’s usually a reason, right? Because there’s just not enough of them. And businesses everywhere, retailers and veterinary hospitals, and doggy daycares, and lodging facilities, and training… They all want these groomers. And the resource is getting thinner and thinner and thinner, especially as some of the veteran groomers are retiring. So what we do at Paragon is we believe-

Garret Tadlock:
Well, not only that, right? It’s not just the veterans that are retiring, but you are also seeing large brands. Listen, if you were worried about having decent grooming staff and having a pool of people to service that aspect of your business, and now we just hear that Walmart opened up their first grooming station in Georgia, listen, that’s going to… If they love it and they scale it, that’s going to be a problem for all of the mom and pops across… Like you think, yes. Yes, we’re… Right now, you’re competing with the Petcos, and the Pet Supplies Plus, and the Tractor Supply Companies. Walmart’s a beast. Like, yes, those are big, right? And they have their couple hundred locations here, 500 locations there. But it’s in your everyday small towns. And that’s…

Joe Zuccarello:
And that’s where it’s going to. So if-

Garret Tadlock:
That’s right.

Joe Zuccarello:
The pool of existing groomers is already thin and they have a certain influence on that, and they attract even 10, 20, 50%, so what do we do? Well, right now, we can embrace the idea of growing our own grooming staff.

Garret Tadlock:
Right.

Joe Zuccarello:
And there’s a model to do that. And I’d like to say that the team at Paragon has perfected what that model is. Really, at the end of the day, what other choice do you have? What other choice do you have? You can’t find groomers. That’s impossible.

Garret Tadlock:
The only other choice you have that I see that people… The choice that people are making, which it feels to them like a forced choice, is sacrificing revenue. Listen, it’s either you’re going to sacrifice revenue or you’re going to grow your team to be able to deliver those services.

Joe Zuccarello:
Right. That’s right.

Garret Tadlock:
100%.

Joe Zuccarello:
And I’ll tell you, back to my haircut, full service haircut, full service bath.

Garret Tadlock:
Right.

Joe Zuccarello:
Really, when you think of grooming and you think the overarching thought in your head is haircuts, listen, you can have a very successful “grooming business”. And yes, I’m going to use the air quotes. But a very successful grooming business without even having a haircut business.

Garret Tadlock:
Right. Yeah. Let somebody else take the Goldendoodles. Let somebody else cut that Goldendoodle for three hours, right? Yeah. 100%.

Joe Zuccarello:
But if you’re going to… But that’s the thing. If you’re going to trim a Goldendoodle and they take two or three times as long as a standard groom, you should be charging two or three times the rate of a standard groom.

Garret Tadlock:
I’m glad you said that because I was waiting. I’ve been waiting the whole time for you to ask that question. So Joe, industry standard wise, let’s just… And okay, great, there’s going to be higher prices on the West, higher prices on the East, a little bit less in some of the smaller towns in the Midwest. If you were to open up your own facility today, how… Like pricing, right? How do I price this? Right now, if you’re not a groomer and you have a grooming aspect of your business, who’s doing that? Who’s setting that pricing? A non-business owner person because they charge what the groomer tells them to charge. So when we’re talking about hands-on minute billing so that I can start to understand how I should be pricing versus how I am pricing, what would you price it at?

Joe Zuccarello:
Yeah. And this is really important that you have a software program that actually can support this, with Paw Loyalty and other programs out there that can support variable pricing. And so I’ve seen some places charge by the minute or charge by the hour, things like that, so. But ultimately, it’s really about the groomer, the grooming producer’s skill level. Their skill level and how long they need to take to complete the average dog, right?

Garret Tadlock:
Right.

Joe Zuccarello:
But one way that you establish where your pricing should be in your market is, first off, to know a couple of things. The very first one is, get really good at secret shopping. And maybe even send in people that you hire to go and take in the whole experience of another facility, not just because… We know, Garret, people buy-

Garret Tadlock:
100%.

Joe Zuccarello:
More than just the grooming. They buy the entire experience, right?

Garret Tadlock:
Yeah.

Joe Zuccarello:
So they’re buying convenience, they’re buying confidence, they’re buying peace of mind, they’re buying a lot of this stuff. It could be an average groom, just an everyday average groom-

Garret Tadlock:
But a phenomenal experience.

Joe Zuccarello:
And you can charge more for that, right?

Garret Tadlock:
Yeah.

Joe Zuccarello:
Or maybe you have an ability to manage your schedule such that maybe the dog is only groomed one-on-one with a groomer, and you can charge 20, 30% higher than the average grooming shop. So find out not only what is the service you offer, but find out what is the quality you offer. So what position do you have in your market? But ultimately it’s this, I don’t care really if your full service haircut on a Shih Tzu is $70 or $100. Wherever you feel you land in your market, if that dog takes the average groomer 1.25 hours to groom. And listen, all of you owner-operators out there, that’s the target. An hour 15 for each standard groom. Look at mobile groomers. Mobile groomers do this all day long. They pull up in your driveway, they groom your dog in an hour and they leave.

Garret Tadlock:
Yeah.

Joe Zuccarello:
So they can do it in a brick and mortar, so can your groomers. So about an hour, hour 15 is about the goal for an average groom.

Garret Tadlock:
I wish your fireworks would go off, except for it would have asterisks next to specific names like Goldendoodle, Chow. Like boom, boom, boom. Yes.

Joe Zuccarello:
I don’t know why those go off, man.

Garret Tadlock:
Make it work, Joe.

Joe Zuccarello:
I can’t do it. It’s so weird.

Garret Tadlock:
Make it work. But yes.

Joe Zuccarello:
It’s so weird.

Garret Tadlock:
So when you’re saying the average, your target is an hour, hour and a quarter. What should the range be of… Like yes, it’s going to be dependent upon the experience. But let’s say I have a “eh” experience versus a great experience, is an “eh” experience a $1.50 per hand-on minute? Is a great experience $3 per hand-on minute? How do you give a business owner who doesn’t do grooming, give him them a nugget here and say, here, here you go? What do you say?

Joe Zuccarello:
Yeah. So I’ll tell you this, that right now, at the time of us talking, I would say that the average, if you’re not out on the coast, the average price that I’ve seen, sort of middle America average price, is around 60 to $75 for that average size dog, average haircut. Now, I’m not talking the elaborate haircuts, and I’m certainly not talking about doodles and standard poodles and things, right? So let’s just say it’s $75 a ticket on average for a 12 pound Shih Tzu with an average haircut.

Garret Tadlock:
So a little over a dollar a minute.

Joe Zuccarello:
Right. So a little over a dollar a minute. So if that’s the case, then let’s say you have a doodle that takes… And I don’t care if you have a baby groomer or if you have an established groomer, that doodle most likely is going to take twice as long as that standard groom. So if it takes two slots, and this is where scheduling software is so important, especially the software that can also take into consideration the groomer’s abilities and the groomer’s experience to customize it by the groom.

Garret Tadlock:
And how long that person’s been in since a groom. And hey, are they a non brushing Goldendoodle owner?

Joe Zuccarello:
That’s right.

Garret Tadlock:
Like hey, Garret doesn’t brush his doodle very well. We have to spend 30 minutes before we even do anything else brushing that dog out. Like it’s… Yeah.

Joe Zuccarello:
So let’s take that doodle and say that that doodle takes twice as long as the Shih Tzu. For the average groomer, twice as long as Shih Tzu. What do you think we should be charging for that doodle? If we charge $75 for the Shih Tzu, that takes us an hour, and the doodle takes us two hours, we need to be charging twice as much. Because if not, why do the doodle?

Garret Tadlock:
Yeah. When I lived in California, I spent $240 on my Goldendoodle’s groom. And I do admit, and I’m not proud of it, but I’m not a great brusher. So I did pay for the extra brushing there, but I was pretty regular. And you’re right. You’re not wrong. And I think that… I talk to business owners all day long. And a lot of times, they don’t do things that are better for their business because they are fearful of what will happen. They’re less fearful of not making the profit and more fearful of offending someone. Or not implementing something because they don’t like it or whatever it might be. And so I think that this is… We’re small business owners, we do everything. We’re marketing, we’re sales, we’re trainers, we’re… We’re doing everything for the business. And I think that moving through that fear is super important for these people.

Joe Zuccarello:
Well, and Garret, I don’t even know. It might be fear. I’m sure the label of fear is appropriate, but what is the root cause? The root cause is because we’re in a service oriented business. We’re in the pet care business, so we got big hearts, right? So what ends up happening-

Garret Tadlock:
Oh, yes. The passion and love is also, yeah, for sure.

Joe Zuccarello:
That’s where it comes from. It comes from, I have a servant’s heart, so I don’t want to upset my customers, right? But at the end of the day, we’re self-defeating, we’re actually taking away. If we cannot be viable and have a lively profitable business, we may not be there to take care of the customer, so. But that’s where it sort of stems from. And I’ll tell you, somebody a long time ago taught me people value what they pay for, people value what they pay for.

Garret Tadlock:
100%. Yeah, it’s true.

Joe Zuccarello:
So you can’t gouge. And nobody’s going to do that, but-

Garret Tadlock:
I think that a lot of times, that servant’s heart… I think that sometimes they don’t see how it’s always connected to everything else. Because guess what? If you’re charging more, you’re probably paying your employees more. You’re also making more. Your employees are happier. They’re providing a better service and providing a better experience for the customer. To be honest, it really is a win-win.

Joe Zuccarello:
You have better equipment, you have have better facilities. You have upkept facilities, freshly painted facilities, facilities that smell good, facilities that spend the appropriate amount of money on cleaning and virus control. Where does that money come from? Well, it does come from the customer. So nobody’s going to go out there and gouge people. So we’re not recommending that. But we’re saying is, in order to maximize the income potential for everybody, the business and the service providers, the employees, our team-

Garret Tadlock:
Yeah.

Joe Zuccarello:
We are paid for our time. And I think our industry is starting to catch up to that, but we still have a long way to go. One thing I wanted to talk to you about earlier is, when you were talking about the profitability of grooming, and you hinted to that, at one point, you thought that Henry Ford model, right? We get preppers, and then the preppers prep the dogs for the groomers. And then the groomers, because their superpower is haircuts, all they’re doing is the finish work, right?

Garret Tadlock:
Right.

Joe Zuccarello:
And that’s very easy for us non-groomers. I’m not a dog groomer. But that’s easy for us non-groomers.

Garret Tadlock:
I wouldn’t have guessed. Yes, I… That right there, I didn’t even know. I thought you were going to… I always assumed that you were probably some famous dog groomer.

Joe Zuccarello:
No, no. No, no, no.

Garret Tadlock:
I’ve notated it out.

Joe Zuccarello:
No, no, no. No, I…

Garret Tadlock:
I’ve groomed my doodle once and I’ll never be a good dog groomer.

Joe Zuccarello:
Listen, these hands should not be your heart surgeon or your dog groomer. Just two things definitely you don’t want these hands for. But I’ve been able to lead really great companies and really great grooming businesses and full service pet care businesses. But one of the things that non-groomers, business owner-operators make the mistake is that we apply the Henry Ford model to grooming because we go into process, right? Operations process. Well, if I can have somebody doing part of the overall job, I’m going to be profitable. Well, here’s where the flaw in that thinking is. If you pay your groomer’s commission right now… I’ve seen every compensation program work. I’ve seen hourly, salary, commission, a hybrid of those. These are all W-2 employees, by the way. I don’t recommend 1099 because all you are at that point is four walls and a roof. You have no control over anybody in your business at that point.

Garret Tadlock:
Right.

Joe Zuccarello:
But that whole integrity and reputation is all on you even though they’re not an employee. So that assumed or perceived connection is there regardless, right?

Garret Tadlock:
Absolutely.

Joe Zuccarello:
So we want to have everybody go W-2. But I’ve seen all of these compensations models work. But in order to pay groomers, and this is the brilliant part, so follow me in this equation. In order to pay groomers what they need to be paid for you to be competitive and keep them, because again, they’ll chase a shiny nickel to go in another direction. We’ve got to pay them in most cases somewhere, whether it’s hourly, salary, or commission, or some hybrid in there, we’re probably, the net result is paying them somewhere between 40 and 50% of the dollar we take in from grooming services, right?

Garret Tadlock:
Yeah.

Joe Zuccarello:
So if that’s the case… Okay. So if that’s the case, let’s go worst case scenario, we pay a groomer 50%. Okay. It’s a $100 groom, we paid them $50. Okay. The prepper who makes 15, let’s go $16 an hour. There’s a reason why I’m saying that. $16 an hour, right?

Garret Tadlock:
Busy mathing.

Joe Zuccarello:
So let’s say we say $16 an hour for that person and that person spends half an hour prepping that dog. So we’ve just paid $58. Think about that.

Garret Tadlock:
Right.

Joe Zuccarello:
Half an hour of the $16 an hour…

Garret Tadlock:
You have 42 bucks.

Joe Zuccarello:
Before, you have to pay for supplies, and electric, and rent. At that point, really truly, if you throw all of that at it, you may, you may be in low single digit profitability. But most of the time, you’re barely breaking even. Okay. So in my model, the model that I teach business owners is that everybody does their own dog start to finish. Here’s some of the things that also happen, not is that more profitable, but the accountability factor, there’s only one set of hands on that dog.

Garret Tadlock:
That’s right.

Joe Zuccarello:
So if something goes right or something goes wrong, we know who serviced that dog. Otherwise, it’s always the blame game.

Garret Tadlock:
Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah. They didn’t… Yeah. The cut wasn’t right because they didn’t brush out enough, or the bath wasn’t perfect, or whatever it might be. Yeah.

Joe Zuccarello:
But here are some of the operational challenges, and maybe some of you out there, maybe this sounds familiar, groomers that have assistance are always… Inevitably, it comes up. The dogs were bathed out of order, the butt is still dirty, the face is still greasy, the nails aren’t short enough, the dog isn’t dry enough, they didn’t brush the dog out well enough before the bath. You see, all of those complaints that groomers have of preppers evaporates immediately when everybody does their own dog start to finish.

Garret Tadlock:
Right.

Joe Zuccarello:
Here’s the other benefit.

Garret Tadlock:
And it’s more profitable. So that’s less company drama, right?

Joe Zuccarello:
That’s right.

Garret Tadlock:
More accountability, higher profits.

Joe Zuccarello:
Lower operational challenges.

Garret Tadlock:
And also to note, the one thing we didn’t say out loud, or maybe I thought it, or maybe I did say it out loud, I can’t remember now, but it’s also the downtime. If you are working every dog versus you have somebody prep the dog, well, you might still be doing something else. So now this dog’s sitting and waiting and you have this idle time, or maybe I have my groomer waiting for that dog to be finished because they don’t want to start the next dog, or they don’t have another dog to start. So efficiency definitely factors in because labor is our largest expense.

Joe Zuccarello:
And that’s the myth, right? We think the Henry Ford model is actually going to give us the efficiency factor when actually it’s working against us in multiple different ways.

Garret Tadlock:
Right.

Joe Zuccarello:
But here’s another big factor that a lot of grooming business owner-operators do not… They’re not armed for. And this was my problem. For many, many years, I had 60 dog groomers that worked for me at one point. 60. We did a hundred thousand grooming appointments a year. And one of the only things that… The only times that I would talk to my grooming staff is when there was a quality issue, there was a safety violation, there was an injury. It was always negative, or their behavior, or their attitude, or their attendance. It was always negative, negative, negative. But now, I’m a lot smarter. So now I look at it and I think, if everybody does their own dog start to finish, and I have my grooming staff, even if they’re paid commission clocking in and out at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day, I can tell you down to the hundredth of an hour how long it takes that groomer to perform the average grooming service.

So now I could sit down with my groomer and say, here’s where you are. Here’s where we’d like to be. And if you go here, it equals X dollars more a year for you, right?

Garret Tadlock:
Right.

Joe Zuccarello:
It might not be doing more dogs, it might just be doing dogs in less time, right? Doing things smarter. So we’re going to put plan together to get you from here to there. This works really well with baby groomers…

Garret Tadlock:
Listen, I’m a man of data. And if you can show someone actual numbers, especially because we know grooming is in art, but if you can bring that data aspect into it, you’re not wrong. The numbers do not lie.

Joe Zuccarello:
Right.

Garret Tadlock:
That’s why we allow you to track time. And we’re looking at, like right now, we’re thinking that how do you use AI? And grooming is the first place to start for AI because there’s so many variables. And so as we dive into technology and enhancements and stuff like that, that is front of mind, okay, well, how can we use AI to spit out data that shows you how you should actually price a specific service based upon the duration that your average person takes? And hey, do we only have set groomers doing set dogs because the efficiency is there and that’s going to help everyone maximize their income and all of that kind of stuff.

Joe Zuccarello:
So our number one cost is labor. And if everybody’s doing their own dogs start to finish, and a grooming business has a robust team of groom techs doing full service baths and shed control, and a team of groomers who are doing haircuts, full service grooms, together this… Even if we have to pay this groomer 50%, which we should never pay more than 50% ever, ever, ever, ever. But let’s say we’re paying the top end at 50%, and you can go to paragonpetschool.com to the employer resources center. We’ve got blogs all about compensation models and all of that.

But let’s say we’re paying this person 50% and the hourly equivalent of a groom tech, both of these people should generate about the same amount of revenue per day. It’s about $400 plus per day on average. Of course, the coasts are going to be more expensive, but it’s about $400 each. This one’s costing me $200. I’m going to be paying this person, my goal is no more than 25%. So this person costs me half. So I’ve got 25% labor going on over here, 50% labor going on over here. Now, instead of being just a shop doing just haircuts, if I put in a robust team of groom techs, not only do they become tomorrow’s groomers, but they also equalize my wages to sales ratio at below 40%.

Garret Tadlock:
Right.

Joe Zuccarello:
Below 40%. So if we want to start being profitable on our grooming, here’s the thing, we make sure we have a robust-

Garret Tadlock:
Listen, I love it. Labor is a percentage of revenue. I’ve never… Of all my education and all of that, I always tell people, I always say, your target, your best case, try to get to 35%. And people say, it is not possible. And I say, “It’s hard. It’s very hard. And there’s levers you have to pull in order to get you there, but it is 100% possible.” It’s not very often that people actually do the hard work to get there. But that’s your goal, right? 35% labor is a percentage of revenue across every business unit line. Boarding, daycare, grooming. And when you look at the overall organization, it should also factor in owner compensation.

Joe Zuccarello:
Oh, absolutely. We have to pay ourselves.

Garret Tadlock:
Right. Right. And a lot of like, what? Pay yourself. Go on vacation. No. But if you you’re doing it right-

Joe Zuccarello:
So, so… Yeah. So to warp it up-

Garret Tadlock:
If it put things in place, you get it.

Joe Zuccarello:
So Garret, to wrap it up, what’s the secret sauce? What’s the main equation? The main equation is this. Everybody does their own dog start to finish. A robust team of those groom techs, right? Those people that can do those full service baths and shed control. And we also then we focus on not looking for dog groomers. So stop looking for groomers, grow your own. Do so by starting with a robust team of groom tech, and measure everybody’s output so that we can help them get more efficient and get better. And what you will have is, you’ll have a much more stable, predictable, profitable grooming business if you apply those three things. And of course, I’m always available for any of your audience members. I’d love to pour into any of your clients if they want some extra guidance a.d such, just reach out to me directly. Garret will make sure to share.

Garret Tadlock:
Always. Always. Yeah. My business coach, he always says, “If you build the people, the people will build the business.”

Joe Zuccarello:
Right?

Garret Tadlock:
And we have so many people start so young in this business, and the ones that are in it for 15 years in their experience, that’s who everyone wants to work with. Well, take control, build that person and treat them well, and have the right company culture. And you’ll see your business transform.

Joe Zuccarello:
Yeah. And it starts really by growing your own.

Garret Tadlock:
Right.

Joe Zuccarello:
Because if you pull somebody in, and if you… I’m going to leave everybody with this, if you have a toxic genius, if you’ve got that person that everybody’s walking around on eggshells around… And I made the mistake of keeping several toxic geniuses over my career, and what I found out later when I could take a step outside of that and look back, I lost several perfectly happy, manageable, productive people because that toxic genius chased them away.

Garret Tadlock:
Yeah.

Joe Zuccarello:
So just remember, all those people you’re losing will do more and produce more than the one person you’re keeping.

Garret Tadlock:
Right. And guess what? Your life will be happier too because you’re not dealing with somebody… Again, it’s just as hard for the owner as it is for the employees, because not only do they have to deal with that person, but they also have to deal with that feedback loop of dealing with that person. And it’s just, it’s… As an owner, when you have an employee that is just culturally not on the same side as you, it sits in your mind all night. It’s like what you go to bed thinking about. And so, yeah. Joe, always a pleasure, brother.

Garret Tadlock:
Love it.

Joe Zuccarello:
Thank you so much. I appreciate this. There’s plenty of topics still to cover. I’m sure we’ll have some more.

Garret Tadlock:
Yeah. We’ll do a couple more sessions. It’d be awesome.

Joe Zuccarello:
All right. Thanks, Garrett.

Garret Tadlock:
You got it buddy!