Dog Groomer
She cannot remember a time when she didn’t love dogs. Early on, she thought about a career grooming dogs but first, she had to prioritize taking one or more jobs to support herself financially. Always with high energy and many ideas, she explored several options for self-employment before circumstances permitted her to focus on a single career.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
MC was the oldest of three children. Her father was a police officer within an urban, public transit system. Her mother was a homemaker and a professional artist, from whom MC inherited some artistic (paintings) ability.
Neither parent provided any specific career recommendation(s), just wanting ‘the best’ for each of their children.
CHILDHOOD THOUGHTS OF AN ADULT CAREER
Looking back, MC now recalls always wanting to own her own business, which would combine several goals (all equally important though they must be listed one after the other): (a) provide financial stability sufficient to support herself; and (b) opportunity to manage a business according to her own ideas for providing top quality service in a profitable way.
As this story progresses, the reader will note many jobs were taken to provide sufficient income to cover living expenses while the dream of self-employment was never abandoned.
HIGH SCHOOL, THEN COLLEGE
Always a serious student, MC’s high school grades and test scores would have qualified her for admission to a wide variety of colleges / universities but due to her financial limitations, she chose to work during the day and enroll in evening courses at a state system college. While MC had the opportunity to chose any of the state system college campuses, she chose the one most highly rated for academics, which coincidentally focused its curriculum on careers within law enforcement, though CM had no such specific career interest.
CAREER OPPORTUNITY BASED ON PROFICIENCY IN ONE COLLEGE CLASS
As a student within a college speech class, MC was comfortable speaking to others as part of her classroom assignments. Her talent was recognized by the professor, who coincidentally, was involved, while off-duty from teaching, with a theater group, whose lead female actress became unexpectedly unavailable to continue. So, the professor recruited MC to take over as the female lead, which MC enjoyed to the extent that she “got the acting bug’ and switched her college courses to a different school to study a career on stage. However, MC soon realized that an acting career would not – at least for her – provide a stable and sufficient income to be self-supporting and it certainly would not lead to being self-employed.
DECIDING BETWEEN WORK AND COLLEGE
While working full-time and attending college part-time, MC was dating a man who was successful in business despite never attending college. With this one example in mind plus her own self-confidence in being able to work to support herself, CM decided to prioritize working over continuing formal education.
EXPLORING DIFFERENT JOBS NEVER LIMITS A FINAL CAREER CHOICE
While MC pondered different paths for self-employment, she had to remain employed by someone else to earn enough money to pay for her personal living expenses. With her word processing skills and willingness to learn about legal documents, MC found employment opportunities as a legal secretary with different law firms. She preferred to work as a “floater” to fill-in on a short-term basis for legal secretaries who were temporarily absent. This arrangement permitted MC to earn a steady paycheck while giving her the time flexibility to work on various businesses she was starting when not employed at a law firm.
High energy MC started three businesses at the same time (!):
(1) Nanny placement – This business involved recruiting and placing family helpers in different home situations to help raise the children. The more a single or two parent household works outside the home, the greater the need for nannies but the risk of placing a nanny without deep investigation into the nanny’s background and the possibility of a nanny harming a child caused too much mental anguish for MC so despite registering the business name, MC decided that her concerns outweighed her desire to create a profitable business so she never proceeded with this business.
Editor’s note – Sometimes, second thoughts are the best, especially when you cannot overcome your realistic concerns.
(2) Magician for children’s parties – In a large city, there are many children celebrating birthdays every weekend. Some parents seek to add extra enjoyment to such parties by hiring a magician, whose “tricks” need not be too complex to entertain young children.
By luck, a friendly magician was retiring and offered several of his magic props to be divided between CM and a friend also in the magic business. The friend took the bunny; CM took the pigeon. (Editor’s note – What trick(s) CM was able to perform with the pigeon could be the subject of a different story.)
Eventually, working Monday through Friday at other jobs, then adding weekend gigs as a magician, became too exhausting a pace for CM so she abandoned this magical career path.
(3) Cleaning service – Every home needs to be periodically cleaned. In a large city, there are enough folks earning sufficient money, who can afford to hire someone else to clean their home.
MC worked very hard to earn the trust and respect of her law firm employers, to the extent that when she was expanding her cleaning business by hiring additional cleaners, she was permitted by one of the law firm’s senior partners, to interview prospective house cleaners in the lobby of the law firm, to the consternation of the law firm’s junior staffers, whose objections were overruled by the senior partner, directing the nay-sayers to “leave her alone – she works hard and is never on the phone with personal business, like so many others we employ!”
Starting slowly to grow the customer list and creating a catchy advertising phrase (“A maid is cheaper than a divorce”), CM’s cleaning business was ultimately the most successful of her self-employment ventures. After 10 years, she was able to “quit her day job” as a floating assignment legal secretary, to concentrate on supervising the employees of her cleaning business to be able to fully support herself financially.
INTERNSHIP
MC had thought about being a dog groomer while in her early twenties, living in a large city. A locally famous groomer had an opening for an assistant, so she worked with him for a few weeks while concurrently working as a “word processor” (akin to a secretary) on the night shift (10 pm to 6 am) at a large corporation. Assisting an experienced, well regarded dog groomer gave MC the idea that she could be successful in her own grooming business but first she would have to learn more and save enough dollars to fund the opening of a new business, with a lack of initial customers.
PERSONAL LIFE BRINGS DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES TO A CAREER
Editor’s note – An adult who chooses to enter a long-term, personal relationship with another adult (married or not) and then have a child (or children), must (or should) consider the effect of working part-time or full-time upon the other family members.
Now married, with children and moving with her family while her husband changed jobs from time to time, MC had to fully focus on being a full-time mom rather than pursuing a career for herself. She gladly accepted her homebound responsibilities, knowing that once the children were older and if the family could remain in one place for a while, she would likely have the flexibility to return to the working world to satisfy her interests and add some extra earnings to the household bank accounts.
When all the children were attending their schools for most of the day, MC had the opportunity to pursue a career, so she attended a school to learn more about dog grooming. However, husband and wife decided it was not yet the right time for MC to launch such a career, which might only turn out to create more expense than income so the dog grooming business idea had to remain on the “back burner” until the concept might be reconsidered. (Editor’s note – A successful marriage includes many elements of cooperation among the spouses; one of the most important is to reach a consensus on working outside the home by one or both committed partners.)
NEW CIRCUMSTANCES MAY LEAD TO AGREEMENT ON A CAREER PATH
By coincidence, MC’s husband’s employer was “bought out” by a large, impersonal business so he – and the entire workforce, including many long-term employees – lost their jobs to replacements from the new company. But instead of sulking about their unfortunate circumstances, husband and wife mutually agreed this was now the opportunity to pursue MC’s long dream of starting and owning a dog grooming business.
On a full-time basis for each of them, MC would contribute her experience launching other business ventures plus her experience and passion for working with dogs. Concurrently, MC’s husband would contribute his physical skills to transform part of their home for a grooming business and once the customer dogs started arriving, he would assist keeping the dog customers content and controlled for the several hours grooming process.
REQUIREMENTS TO SUCCEED AS A DOG GROOMER
As this story is being written, there is no licensing requirement for dog grooming, at least not in the state or local government area where the business of MC and her husband is located.
In MC’s experience, grooming dogs can be a successful career but only if you own your own business. Working for someone else makes sense when starting out so you learn the nuances of grooming plus how to balance business income and expense.
Completing a formal dog grooming course is highly recommended for several reasons: (a) learn basic and advanced grooming skills; (b) instill confidence in your ability to handle (hopefully) every (predictable and unpredictable) situation; and (c) enhance your reputation by being able to advertise your professional achievement, which is especially important while growing your business in the early days.
MC avoided trying to learn grooming through on-line courses. Instead, she chose a school that was part of a grooming salon where patrons could let the “student” groom their dogs for a discounted fee. This provided the opportunity to groom many different breeds. At the conclusion, MC felt qualified to call herself a professional groomer.
STARTING A SELF-EMPLOYMENT BUSINESS
* Realistically assess your level of required knowledge, experience, skills and energy to succeed in the specific business you are considering
* Identify the personnel needed daily, for the various skills required
* Determine the equipment needed to get started and its cost of acquisition and maintenance
* Find a business space already set-up or able to be renovated; will customer parking need to be accommodated?
* Advertise the opening of the business: website? “Word of mouth”? newspapers? stuff local mailboxes with flyers? (it’s actually illegal to put things into U.S. postal mailboxes other than what is delivered by the US postal service; so hang your flyer on the mailbox flag or the home’s door handle)
* Check government regulations for the worksite and for the individuals to be employed
* Consult with an attorney regarding options to open a new business: form a corporation or register as a fictitious name
* Consult with an insurance agent for types of potential claims to be insured, including the amounts of coverage and deductible you can afford
* Assess available financial assets to cover living expenses until the business develops sufficient income
TYPICAL DAILY ACTIVITIES OF A DOG GROOMER
* Check answering machine for grooming reservation requests and return call or text to fit request into available schedule
* Greet the owner bringing dog(s) for scheduled grooming and discuss (with the human!) any new or special grooming requests
* Bathe and dry the dog
* Move the dog onto the grooming table to commence the process
* Brush the dog to remove excess hair
* Communicate with the owner to advise the pick-up time
* Clean the area and the equipment to be ready for the next customer
* Evening paperwork, including preserving records for tax filings
CAREER CHALLENGES
* Moving dogs into position can require physical strength, even for cooperative animals
* Most dogs strongly dislike getting their nails clipped or dremmeled and many fight against it
* Many dogs passively resist any grooming by refusing to stand up
* A dog groomer’s work is essentially physical; depending on the number of customers scheduled each day, the groomer is on her or his own feet during the several hours grooming process
CAREER SATISFACTION
* Knowing that you have done an excellent job for each customer dog
* Noting the appreciation of your human customers for how their family member pets were treated and groomed while in your care
* Using your own skill set and not relying on others’ skills or being negatively affected by others’ lack of skills or team play
MC’S GENERAL CAREER PERSPECTIVES
Choosing a career can seem like a limiting experience because choosing a particular path requires excluding all other options. This thought pattern can lead to anxiety and paralysis of action. Each of us, after all, have many talents and are capable of multiple successes in whatever direction.
There are many individuals who go from one pursuit to the next as life unfolds. Do not be afraid to pursue one dream, fully committed, as you can put your other dreams on the “back burner” and attend to them at a later date.
