Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Wright
Hi Sarah, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
When I was young I did a lot of volunteer work at the Toledo Zoo working with the education department. I’ve always had a love for animals and a passion for helping them. I started doing grooming and vet tech work before venturing into the world of mobile grooming. I worked for some private shops and some corporate shops and honed my grooming skills.
It wasn’t until I partnered with another mobile grooming owner that things started to take shape. At the time there was maybe one other mobile groomer in town. However, as with many partnerships, when it’s an unequal distribution of work and one person isn’t holding up their end of things, well, the only ship that doesn’t sail is a partnership. So with that I bought my first van in 2016 and began Wright Mobile Grooming. It was scary and risky, and I didn’t know if I would succeed. But I worked my tail off and did a ton of marketing, fliers and events. The amazing van graphics and word of mouth tends to be the best.
Within the first two years I had grown to the point where I could add my first employee and a second van. Things progressed from there as we grew more. I invest heavily in my groomers’ professional education and skill set. Today we have four vans and multiple employees. We do a lot of fundraising and community involvement. I’d like to think we are the best in town by offering the best, friendly, and most educated staff.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The road of a business owner is never smooth. It comes with so many struggles, especially when you are dealing with people, pets, and vehicles. Business is the first thing that comes to mind. Starting off it’s always uneasy. Will I get enough clients booked this month to pay all the bills? Then as you grow that changes to am I generating enough business to provide a decent wage and life for my employees? Am I doing my best at training and providing resources to give the clients a premium experience? These sorts of questions are always top of mind and one of the biggest struggles as a business owner.
The second biggest thing is finding and building the right team. Employees are hard. I love my team. They work so hard and are so engaged at making the clients happy and the dogs look their best. Grooming is a hard job. It’s a dirty job. Finding someone who has a strong passion for animals and also is able to learn and apply a very specific skill set is very challenging. I’ve trained people from the ground up but also found some experienced groomers. But I can say from my experience you have to take your time and be picky to find the right people and build your team.
The third struggle is just the unexpected. Mobile grooming is a special thing, but the thing about mobile is there’s so many unexpected things: flat tires, water pumps not working, getting stuck in the snow, getting brakes replaced, super expensive maintenance on generators, frozen pipes, frozen water tanks, the list goes on. When we first started, my husband and I were out thawing the water intake to fill the van one winter until 2am with a hair dryer.
I don’t say these things to try to deter people from following in my footsteps or wanting to start a business for themselves, but just to be aware that most of the time it’s not smooth sailing and very challenging. You have to have a strong sprit and determination to be successful in business.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Wright Mobile Grooming?
Wright Mobile Grooming is a luxury one-on-one dog grooming service. We take pride in giving dogs the least amount of stress during their mobile spa day. We use premium, top-quality products such as deep conditioning treatments made by Artero and even file all their nails.
The one-on-one grooming process really sets apart from other salons. We are not assembly line like the other typical grooming salon. We are able to solely focus on that dog one at at a time so that each dog can get the personal care and attention it needs. Also we come right to the client’s home which is all about convenience. The client doesn’t even have to be home with our latch-key option.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
As with starting anything from scratch there are so many important lessons to be learned along the way. The most important of them though, is that everything takes time. There’s such a desire for instant results, instant satisfaction, instant gratification, and instant success. Success though is slow, hard, and it takes work. Being an entrepreneur you often hear, “oh it must be nice to own your own business!” and sure there are endless perks, but those perks only come through the blood, sweat, tears, and time you invest in building something from the ground up. It takes patience and lots of self determination to be successful and it doesn’t happen overnight.
Pricing:
- 95 an hour
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.wrightmobilegrooming.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wrightmobilegrooming
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wrightmobilegrooming
