Dear Mark, Craig, and the readers of Grooming Business Magazine, First of all, thank you all for the cards, emails and calls regarding my mother, Kathy Salzberg, since her health issues began in August.  The outpouring of love she has received from the grooming community has been nothing short of astounding.  I have read every communication to her, and the experience has made me aware of how much she is loved by groomers all over the country. My mom had a sudden headache while out to dinner on August 18th, and within minutes collapsed.  She was rushed to Cape Cod Ho

This is the year my resolutions will focus on finding inexpensive, fun and innovative ways to market my salon. Each month, I will try something new to promote my business within my community. This is no small task, of course, but I am going to do my best, and it might actually be easier than trying that diet again.JanuaryLet’s start with January… brrr. Considering how cold it is in most places, finding things to do indoors that require a little bit of focus will be good.

He was cute.He had big brown eyes.And he was matted from head to toe.Standing in my grooming salon was the cutest Coton-De Tulear I’d ever seen. And yet, I hardly recognized the little guy, because he looked like a cross between a dread-locked Bob Marley and a mangy pound-pup. This meant I had one of two choices: I could either suggest the owner have the dog’s mats safely removed by a vet, or I could take a stab at removing the mats myself, knowing there’d likely be a host of skin problems underneath.I decided to help the dog.

As a veteran groomer, I have been hearing about the licensing issue since I plugged in my first clipper. Whenever a tragedy involving a pet happens in a grooming salon, it’s always followed by a great clamor for mandatory licensing.In 2006, when a greyhound died of heatstroke in a Massachusetts salon, her owners understandably demanded answers. How could this happen and what could they do to prevent another such occurrence? That same year, New York considered a bill to license groomers after two pets died at a grooming business.

As professional groomers, we’re in business to make money.  This is, after all, our livelihood–the way we support ourselves and our families. Like any other professionals, we look for ways to increase our profits so we can increase our standard of living, take a vacation, send our kids to college, expand our business or save for our retirement. And as we all know, there are only two ways to make more money in the grooming business: raise your prices or groom more pets.  The amount you charge to groom a dog should be in line with what other groomers in the area command.

In addition to all the supplies needed to make pets look their best, a salon must stock products for controlling of fleas and ticks. A salon should have products on hand to solve all of the various challenges in combating these common pests while remaining true to the business’s vision and identity.  The flea basics have been the same for many years–treat fleas on the pet and in the environment, and prevent re-infestation.

In many ways, owning or working in a pet grooming salon is no different than any other service industry in that a contract exists with our clients. Their part is to pay money for a service, ours is to provide a quality service. But our industry is really a little different, a little more personal in many ways. Not only are we working on living beings that interact and have individual personalities, they are an important part of the family dynamic.

Many years ago, when I purchased my first small salon, I asked a friend in the insurance business if I really had to have insurance. It wasn’t a tangible purchase; it felt as though I was just handing someone money for nothing, and with a newly purchased business, I had lots of other things to do with my limited funds. “Do you have employees?” she asked–she knew I did. “It’s illegal not to have workers’ compensation insurance. If they get injured at work, you will be fined for not having it. Then you’ll know what it feels like to pay out money for nothing.

Every vocation has its risks. Carpenters can hammer their thumbs, arborists can fall out of trees, and the risks involved in police work and firefighting are obvious. Anyone that works with another species, though, has taken on a whole new category of peril. Those of us who work with companion animals are not only prey to job-related dangers such as cuts from scissors, hearing loss, chemical exposure from aerosols, repetitive motion injuries and more–but the four-legged clients themselves can be dangerous.

In the 1970s, many, if not most, groomers used human beauty products on their clients. One of the first and still best known dog shampoos in the pet industry is Ring 5, developed by Shirlee Kalstone and her husband, Larry. The couple was on the way to a dog show discussing the lack of quality products designed specifically for dogs’ coat and skin. Kalstone, an expert groomer, judge and handler, had been using mostly equine products on her show dogs and canine clients, but many were still too harsh for dogs.