It’s just a fact of life; dogs are born with nails and fur. Unfortunately, they don’t also have the opposable thumbs needed to trim their own nails and brush and clean their fur. This leaves the task of grooming to their owners or to a costly professional pet groomer.
That’s where you can help!
Do you have a natural affinity for dogs and experience with grooming them? If so, then your knowledge is in demand! You can teach classes to show people how to, properly and safely, groom their dogs. You could charge about $10 or more per person and have a class limit of 10-20.
If you are a pet owner, you know how difficult it can be to trim a dog’s nails, let alone the struggle and fighting necessary to get them into a bathtub. Most people give up and resort to taking their precious canine to the vet and end up paying huge fees for each visit.
Depending on the breed and pedigree of the dog, professional groomers can charge between $25 and $100 for their services. Some owners just let their poor pets suffer bad hygiene because the trip to the vet and the prospect of doing it themselves are both options that are not going to work for them.
As part of your student’s education on grooming, they will need to know how to decide on the pair of shears appropriate for grooming the breed of dog, or dogs, that they own. Shears come in three shapes – straight, curved, and thinning. Straight shears are the most basic kind used by most groomers and they come in a variety of sizes, ranging from four and half inches to upwards of twelve inches.
The most commonly used size is eight and half inches. (The breed of dogs they will be grooming will determine the sizes needed by your students.) The smaller shears are usually best for trimming small dogs and getting inside the legs of larger breeds. Larger dogs such as English Sheepdogs and full size poodles would benefit from the larger size shears. In addition, as is true of most products, the more expensively crafted shears are generally the most durable and long lasting.
By purchasing dog-grooming tools ahead of time at wholesale prices, you can offer the basic tools needed to groom a dog in the form of a handy kit. Offer these kits to each of your students for an additional fee and thereby increase your profit margin.
You can also have someone record your class while being taught and create your own educational DVD. Do not forget to also sell copies of dog grooming books to give people an even more extensive education at the conclusion of the class.
You will likely want to advertise your services by; running a visible advertisement in a local phone directory, list your business with an online business directory, and by printing up flyers and posting them in places where people with pets are likely to visit. Among these places should be elementary schools and day care centers.
Be sure to include popular lunch places, coffee shops, and pet stores! Most post offices and grocery stores also have bulletin boards that they will allow you to place an advertisement on. Be sure to take advantage of any public bulletin boards in your immediate area to find the people who are looking for you and your services.
In no time at all, you will have built up a large clientele base as word of mouth spreads, because your students will tell others about the wonderful, informative classes you are teaching!