Compliments of:  the International Academy of Pet Design

How to Price Your Services

#1 rule of success- Give the best value and be the most expensive

            My Dad was a very successful business man and I learned a lot from him.  He always said to be the best and be the most expensive.  In other words, if you give the best value for the money and are also the most expensive in your area, there are always people who are willing to pay more to get the best.  This lends itself to your working smarter, not harder.  You can groom less pets per day, week or month and make more money doing it as long as you are giving the best overall value for what you do.  Value is NOT determined by price!

Many people think that being the best means the best at clipping hair, like you would see at the grooming competitions.  That couldn’t be further from the truth!  Being the best and giving the best value encompasses many things, but we’re going to talk about that in another article soon.  For now, let’s talk about being the most expensive. 

I want to pause a minute here and tell you an amazing little story about something that happened to me over 20 years ago.  I learned a lesson I will never forget.  I worked as the only groomer for a veterinarian who traveled around the country giving seminars to other veterinarians on how to increase their income at their clinics.  The clinic he owned had about five or six veterinarians on staff that ran the place while he traveled around the country, so it was a big clinic.  In fact, he never actually worked there. 

Anyway, when the seminar came to Atlanta, he encouraged me to attend it so I did.  It was about three or four days long if I remember right.  On the morning of the last day he talked about pricing.  He said that if you increase your prices by 25% and you lose 25% of your customers because of it, you will make the same amount of money for 25% less work.  I sat and thought about that all day long on that last day.  It was a fact that you couldn’t deny.  I had been working for him about a year and had built up a pretty good clientele from nothing.  I actually had a few customers I wouldn’t mind losing… if you know what I mean. 

I decided to give it a try.  The vet let me set my own prices as many veterinarians do.  I sat down on Sunday night with my price list and calculator and I raised all my prices by 25%.  If it came out to an odd number, I rounded UP!  This was a huge increase in prices, not just a buck or two.  I then made a little sign announcing that prices had gone up and put it up on the wall on Monday morning.  I gave no warning, no date when prices were going up, nothing.  I just announced they had gone up.  I didn’t say by how much either.  Remember that I was assuming I was going to lose 25% of my customers, so I didn’t really care if they liked it or not.  I was committed to working less for the same amount of money. 

So when people started picking up their dogs, many complained about the price increase as expected.  I didn’t offer an excuse or a reason.  I just let them complain and stuck to my guns.  One thing I have found out though is that no matter what your prices are, people are still going to complain.  You can be the absolute cheapest in town and people will still complain about your prices.  You can be the most expensive and you will get about the same amount of complaints.  I think some people just like to complain no matter what. 

Don’t ever think that just because you have customers complaining about your prices that you are too high!!  Don’t let them shake your confidence.  They are going to complain no matter what!  I also have found out that whether you have a huge increase in your prices like I did, or a small one, you will again get the same number of complaints about the increase.  Just do the best job you can do and don’t worry about those people complaining.  It doesn’t have anything to do with you.   

So back to my story… I sent all those dogs and cats home the first day and had an instant 25% raise, but I was expecting to lose 25% of the customers so I knew the “raise” wasn’t going to last, but the work load would drop when some of the customers quit coming back.  Well, the funny thing is, I waited and waited… and waited some more.  After about six months I realized that it appeared that I hadn’t lost a single customer!  I had some that I was sure were not going to come back, but they did.  They ALL did!  I couldn’t believe it.  If someone had told me that would happen, I would not have believed them.  So I learned a very valuable lesson and I always pass it on to the students at our grooming schools. 

So let’s talk about how to figure out what your prices are going to be.  From what I just told you, I hope you will have the self confidence to be the most expensive.  In addition to more money, you will end up with customers who respect you more and are more loyal to you.  The people who desire the best and are willing to pay for it, are a better class of people.  That’s the kind of people you want for customers, not the kind who are price shoppers and won’t tip you.

For starters, you can call around town and find out what other people are charging.  If you remember from my article on choosing the best grooming position for you, I told you how to easily find out the average price that a groomer charges for a bath only and for the works.  You call and ask how much for a bath only on a Golden Retriever and a full hair cut and everything for a mini poodle.  This will give you a good idea about their average price.  Then I would price myself about 10% higher.  That will set you apart from the crowd.  If you’re just a little bit higher, like a dollar or two, it’s not enough to set you apart and get people to think that you are really something special.  Most of the time, in any situation, people will treat you according to the way you present yourself and the way you value yourself.   

O.K., regardless of whether you are brave enough to be the most expensive or not, you have to come up with prices.  I have seen this done many different ways.  To me, it does not make sense to price grooming according to the weight of the dog.  It should be based on how much time it takes and maybe the skill level required.  That is because you might later have people working for you who can do the basics, but you or an advanced groomer has to do the finishing.  Your time would be worth more. 

The time required to groom each pet is determined by a few different things.  One is the breed and the type of clip it is getting.  For that reason, our price list is broken down by the breed.  Some breeds are just much easier to clip than others.  A schnauzer for example is much easier and faster to clip than a cocker spaniel.  Therefore, a cocker spaniel should cost more.     

Another factor is the condition of the pet’s coat.  If it is in bad shape, it is going to take longer.  For this reason we add additional charges for de-matting onto the base price for the breed.  Another thing that could make the grooming take longer is the behavior of the pet.  For this reason, many groomers choose to add a special handling fee for difficult pets.

This brings up another issue related to behavior.  You will very often have an owner bring in a new poodle (or any breed) puppy for it’s first grooming and ask you the price.  When you tell them the regular price for poodles they then complain that since their dog isn’t full grown, it should not cost as much.  I got tired of this so I came up with a sign we have posted on our wall.  It uses kind of a reverse psychology and stops that complaining right in its tracks!  In fact, it even makes them grateful!  I’ll just send you the sign in a day or so and you can use it yourself.  It works wonders!       

Well that is the basics for pricing your services.  I’m just going to give you our price list and if you want to use it as a template for the breeds or whatever for coming up with your own prices, go ahead.  You can just copy and paste it into your computer and change the prices to whatever you see fit.  

Compliments of:  the International Academy of Pet Design

All Prices are for unmatted dogs.  Dematting is $50.00 per hour.