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Integrating pet grooming into a veterinary practice should be done to increase cash flow and revenues of course. It also provides a more esteemed professional image to pet owners that their veterinarian is a full-service practice, and that can be marketed well. You never hear this, but after being in the grooming profession for about 40 years, we can tell you that a professional pet groomer uniquely observes and feels every pet they groom from head to toe. Over the years we discovered by observation thousands of conditions on the pets we groomed, including swelling, lumps, bumps, cuts, scratches, oozing, infestations, and even rubber bands and other foreign matter in their teeth. We never made a diagnosis and instead informed the pet owner with a written observations describing our observations, and suggested they seek veterinary medical for a professional diagnosis. If the pet groomer resided within a veterinary medical practice, from a business viewpoint, the veterinarian stands to gain from providing the medical attention indicated by the groomer’s observations.

Leasing out space to pet groomers is only one pathway to adding ancillary pet grooming services, and most likely the least profitable for the veterinarian. However, the rent does indeed raise the gross revenue of the practice. What it rarely does is to offer the potential income of instead hiring groomers, paying the operating costs and retaining profit that could far exceed the leasing option. Here as pet grooming business management consultants we discover whether the veterinarian - business owner is more focused on their practice of veterinary care with some commitment to add ancillary services the "easy way" by leasing space to a groomer, or the veterinarian - business owner is more focused on building a very large practice with maximum profitability. Either is fine, it is a choice.

Many veterinarians will tell you that it is difficult to find a pet groomer, and more difficult to keep them after a year or two. That is true, but in our extensive field experience we share that there are stable pet groomers that could stay longer, and that there are unique methods of management to develop a 2-3 pet groomer operation where if one leaves, others come up through promotion and take the place of the departing pet groomer. The problem is that nationwide today veterinarians don’t have the knowledge of how to do this, but some have found the way with the well-respected The Madson Management System for Pet Grooming Businesses by Find A Groomer, Inc.

It's the only proven "system" of its kind today in the pet grooming industry and it creates a career path where grooming departments on an ongoing basis begin with pet bathers, who progress with on-the-job training to become assistant pet groomers, and finally full-charge pet groomers. Most employees that learn through on-the-job training are more loyal, and ironically, this system of grooming typically reduces the veterinarians payroll for the grooming department by up to 15% compared to the common practice of paying groomers up to 60% commissions. It all gets down to having the knowledge of proven management systems for pet grooming that can put to rest forever the common problems of hiring and keeping loyal pet groomers in a veterinary practice. It also requires that someone in the practice manage the grooming department. Of course, the hired pet groomer can manage it to a great deal, but someone like the office manager or administrator still needs to be there for the hired pet groomer to answer to, and to strategize customer relations, hours of operation, fees, appointment scheduling, bookkeeping and other management tasks best not left to pet groomers, and who are best left to doing what they do best, groom pets well.

Veterinarians should never just hire a willing pet groomer and install a department. There needs to be a departmental business plan written. Business plans are the mainstay of planning successful operations, even pet grooming. Where do they start? There are only a couple books in the entire industry suitable to veterinarians developing an effective business plan. We suggest The Art & Business of Grooming and From Problems to Profits - The Madson Management System for Pet Grooming Businesses. The latter is actually formatted as an award-winning professional business plan easily adaptable for veterinary-based grooming departments. The key is a plan, and that plan will let the veterinarian better hire the appropriate groomer who can reach the quality and financial goals of the business plan. The plan will also set milestones for hiring additional groomers as the department grows.

One of the most costly mistakes made by veterinarians with grooming departments, and even most growing pet grooming salon owners today is to have one basic job description, full-charge Pet Groomer. That means the same individual grooms a pet from start to finish, for every pet. As the business, grows they simply hire another full-charge Pet Groomer. As an efficiency expert in pet grooming we have eliminated this profit-draining practice for thousands of grooming businesses without lowering quality or humane care one bit. In a nutshell, today a full-charge pet groomer earns around $12 to $14 an hour, generally. Where that is the only position, it means the veterinarian paid the full-charge pet groomer up to $14 an hour to bathe the pet, something we have done by $7 an hour pet bathers. It also means they paid the full-charge pet groomer up to $14 an hour to do what is commonly called, "pre-trimming prep work," whereas we assign that work to assistant groomers at $8 to $9 an hour. Day-after-day our system cuts groomer payroll by up to 15% over grooming departments using only full-charge groomers, and that can amount to $10,000 to $20,000 in additional profit for large grooming businesses.

Further, we are less dependent on full-charge pet groomers often in chronic shortage, and this team operation actually provides a steady year round on-the-job training device with excellent quality too. If readers have an interest in this system they should start by reading the only book on the subject, the before mentioned From Problems to Profits. Today there is remarkable evolution happening at one school of pet grooming, Madeline’s Institute of Pet Grooming in Santa Clara, California. It is the only school offering a week long career management course as part of its regular curriculum based on this book. As a result of taking this course, many students are approaching veterinarians with an interest in expanding their practice.

What is happening is almost unheard of in the grooming industry, but so far nearly in 1998 every student seeking employment at a veterinarian was placed weeks before they graduated. It is a sign of the future. Also, wise veterinarians can instead hire new grooming career seekers and send them to this or a similar school paying their tuition on an agreed basis for eventual repayment.

The success of adding pet grooming services to a veterinary practice must begin with a departmental business plan with a 36 to 60 month projection for employment and service goals. Like any other business plan there must be stated and measurable goals for client relations, cost-efficiency, operations, marketing and management analysis. Just hiring a pet groomer and letting them run a department mostly independent of the practice is likely doomed to eventual failure in many possible ways. However, with a business plan managed by the office administrator veterinarians should be able to get up to 30% or more their clients to become loyal clients of their grooming department.

Based on our studies, 1,000 loyal pet owners can generate $180,000 to $240,000 gross revenue from pet grooming services a year quite easily, and in fact, many of our clients do better. Marketing is very important though, and the medical office staff and veterinarian must work with the grooming staff to conjointly suggest the other’s services, and most importantly, to strongly encourage regular grooming appointment scheduling programs to their clients. At least once a month, the performance of the veterinary practice and its ancillary departments should be reviewed at a staff meeting to see if goals are being met, and if not, why. Of course, that means written goals were first established, and so we return to the key advice, develop a complete departmental business plan for every ancillary service before adding it. Would you like to attend a management workshop on this subject with the people that created the classic From Problems to Profits book. If so, click here for workshops and consultations.

2002 Compensation Statistics for Groomers Working in Veterinary Environment

The Veterinary Hospital Managers Assn. released a Survey of Salary and Benefits. The average annual salary for a groomer working in a vet environment is $29,849 full-time and the hourly average is $10.09. On average, veterinarians provide 73% of the employee health insurance program. In comparison Vet Techs averaged $11.98 to $13.82 depending upon regional area. Figures released September 2002.