Dog Grooming Business

If you have a love for animals like I do, then starting a dog grooming business can be a great way to make good money doing something you love. This section will go over what you will need to start a dog grooming company and how to get new customers to grow a sustainable business.

If you do not already have experience with grooming dogs, then the first thing you will want to do is learn the art of dog grooming. In most states, a certification is not required to start a dog grooming business. However, it can really help to take a course when you are starting out so that you can have all the basics down already when you start servicing customers’ dogs. If you do not wish to pay the money for a course, you should at the very least look up some videos on YouTube to learn how to cut a dog’s hair properly. Make sure that when a customer brings their dog to you, you will be confident that you know exactly how to service that dog.

The next thing you will need to decide when starting a dog grooming company, is where you are going to conduct business. You can either do a mobile grooming service which will require a box van if you do not have one already. You can do business at your house if you have the space, or you can of course lease a commercial building to groom your customer’s dogs in. If you are looking for a box van, check out Facebook marketplace and you can also try getting a loan for it from a credit union in your area. If you want to look at leasing a building, try going on loopnet.com to check for business leases in your area and get an idea of what the monthly cost is. Just make sure that the option you choose here makes sense for you financially so that you can keep your overhead low, stay in business, and grow your customer base.

Now that you know where you will be conducting business it is time to get your LLC and business bank account set up for your company. You can learn all about how to do this in our how to start a business section. You will want to keep all your business income going through your business bank account as well as expenses so that you can keep track of everything for when Tax time comes. You can also set up a business credit card so that you can take advantage of points and cashback on your purchases. Make sure that this card is set to auto withdrawal the balance each month from your business bank account so that you still avoid interest if you can. You will also want to get liability insurance for yourself, as well as your place of business to protect yourself if something goes wrong with a client and they want to sue.

There are also a lot of items you will need to be able to professionally tend to your client’s dogs of course. You will need a dog bath ($1k-$3k), a grooming table that can raise and lower ($300-$2,000), industrial blow dryer ($70-$150), hand blow dryer ($30), a water supply for dogs that don’t like being in the bath like a Mud Buddy which works great, grip mats for foot support while cutting, dog shampoo and organic shampoo, clippers, and scissors. On the low end this will cost you around $2,000, so keep this in mind when deciding to get into this business.

Now that you have everything you need to service your customers, it is time to get some business to service. You will want to start by making a name and logo for your business and a landing page for your company. You can come up with an idea for a name by going to Chat GPT and asking it for 10 business name ideas for a dog grooming business. You can then ask Chat GPT to give you a prompt for an AI art generator to make a logo for the name that you chose. You can take the prompt it gives you and paste it into an AI art generator like Mid Journey in order to get a nice logo for your brand. If you prefer not to mess around with the AI generator you can also just go on Fiverr.com and pay to have it done by a designer for cheap. You will then use this logo to decorate and brand your landing page which you can make with a web site designer like Wix. Check out our section on how to create a professional site for more tips on how to do this. You should check what other successful dog grooming sites look like to get an idea and make sure you use a plugin like Wix bookings so that you can allow customers to book an appointment with you from your site.

Once you have your place of business and site set up, it is time to get in front of people that own dogs! The best way to get customers for a dog grooming business is to make business cards with your phone number and website on them and go to places like the dog park, PetSmart, dog shows and dog events. Start conversations with people and tell them about your business! Most dog owners get their dogs groomed so any person you can meet that has a dog is a potential customer. You should also join any dog related group in your area on Facebook and start commenting and adding value to posts to make yourself known and respected. Once you make a name for yourself in these groups you can make a post about your business and give them a special offer for first time service. Also, if you have personal accounts on platforms like Facebook and Instagram already, be sure to make a passionate video post to all of your followers and friends that simply lets them know about your new pet grooming business! You should also post frequently about your business to make sure they think of you whenever the time comes that they do have a dog that needs a haircut. You can also join some dog walking groups in your area and get to know more people with dogs that way as well. Just make sure to always be thinking about how to get in front of people that have dogs regularly and be sure to carry business cards everywhere you go.

Another important thing you will want to do is make sure to create a Google My Business account and a Bing Business account to have your business listed on maps. Start building up some good reviews quickly by even servicing your friends’ dogs for free if you must. Once you get a lot of consistent 5 star reviews your company will show up higher when people are searching for dog grooming businesses in your area. You should also post your dog grooming service on platforms like Facebook marketplace, Offerup, and Groupon and repost frequently on these platforms to keep your service high on the lists of recent posts. If you do this consistently you will be sure to get people calling you or booking online, which you can turn into repeat customers.

Dog grooming businesses also tend to do very well with paid ads targeted towards pet owners. The best place for this is typically Facebook where a lot of pet owners spend a lot of time. You can also post ads on yelp and on Instagram reels ads. Make sure to use a hook on your ads that describes a problem your business will solve and presents your company as the solution. An example for a great pet grooming ad would be, Is it time for your pup to get a cut but you just can’t find the time to get him in the car and go all the way to the groomer? PJ’s Mobile Pet Grooming service will come to you! If you are in the Atlanta area and your dog needs a trim, give us a call at _______ and we can meet you out there! Make sure you make use of ads in this industry and be sure to target people who own pets and are over 23 to be sure they are in charge of their household. If you post 3 different ads on these platforms with small ad spends to start, you can see which one converts the best and scale it from there. If you stay consistent with this, you will be sure to see some great results from your ads.

If you make use of the tips we have gone over already, you will be sure to get some new repeat customers for your business. Once you have people that come in consistently with their dogs you will want to start asking for referrals for friends and family they know who also own dogs. You can offer them 50% off on a grooming for every new customer that someone brings you. This will always be worth it if you do good work because this is an industry that is a recurring service sort of like a subscription. If you can gain just a few new customers each week you can start making great money in no time when they come back every other month. Don’t be afraid to ask for more business and be sure to make use of referral incentives.

At this point you should have a good book of business if you stay consistent with these steps. Once you have enough business to pay an employee on top of paying yourself, you can start hiring other groomers so that you can continue focusing on growing your customer base. Even though they may not legally need one where you live, I recommend only hiring groomers that have certifications so that you know they can do the work and are less likely to be a liability to your company.

As always, remember to scale at your own pace and keep your overhead as low as possible when you are starting out. You do not need some big fancy space for your business when you are just opening shop, and you don’t need all the state of the art equipment. Start small, make use of the things you have already, and you can always grow from there when you start to see profit. The best way to start any business is as if you have no money to lose until you have money from the business to spend. Stay consistent, enjoy working with the animals that you love and take things one day at a time.