Starting a dog grooming business is hard work! But it’s even harder when you haven’t had any prior business experience.
Unfortunately, knowing how to groom a dog professionally won’t bring you instant success. You’ll need to get a hold on the less exciting business-oriented tasks so you can book great, quality clients!
Thankfully, new software and apps are hitting the market that make all aspects of the grooming business a breeze. Without further ado, discover 3 business apps that’ll make your job much easier!
Online Dog Grooming Portfolio: Weebly
A good portfolio can do wonders for your dog grooming career. It’s a visual resume that can engage potential clients and land you that dog grooming job. As such, this is one area where you don’t want to skimp on. You only have a few minutes to grab the attention of your potential client—is your current portfolio doing that?
Every portfolio should features these three essential items:
- Your dog grooming certification or any other special training, such as First Aid Training
- Before and after photos of your grooms
- Recommendations and reviews from clients and other industry professionals
Now, these are all very different content types. You’ll need to present them all in a way that makes sense to dog owners. The simplest way is to invest in a polished, visual portfolio.
We suggest websites such as Weebly. There isn’t a steep learning curb when it comes to this website builder unlike other portfolio-centric sites. The user-friendly interface allows you to quickly create an effective portfolio without overwhelming you with too many features. Their templates are useful for website newbies and groomers-on-the-go. Just pop in new images to preset templates, and you’re good to go.
One last bonus? It’s mobile responsive! Your dog grooming portfolio will look sleek and functional even when your clients are switching between mobile and desktop devices. This means you won’t need to learn to code. Plus, you’ll want your portfolio to be easily accessible so that you can pull it out at the tradeshow or at the grocery store. You never know when you need to talk shop!
Digitizing Your Business: Cam Scanner
Go paperless! Not only is this eco-friendly, but it avoids accumulating easy-to-lose papers. The CamScanner app allows you to use your phone to photograph business cards, contracts, forms, and even QR codes.
After you photograph a page, it quickly translates all the text into flat, 2D black and white documents that actually look like you used a scanner. You’re also able to manipulate the new text and adjust the dimensions of your scan to crop it to your liking.
Other features include:
- Document storage through their online app
- Document sharing to multiple platforms and devices
- Exports multiple scans into a single document.
- Annotate documents as needed
- Add your company watermark
- Integrate with printing apps to print files
- Optical character recognition converts images to text files in 16 languages
- Email document as a password-protected PDFs
Grooming Business Hub: Easy Busy Pets
Besides a great work ethic and superior skills, you also need to make sure your client experience is top-notch. But don’t sacrifice the functionality of your website and booking systems for aesthetics. What you actually need is something in-between to hit that sweet spot.
Toronto-based Easy Busy Pets is a cloud business software that kills multiple birds with one stone. Powered by Google infrastructure, it connects groomers with their clients while also consolidating all your behind-the-scenes business tools into one hub. You can use this software to build your website, manage bookings, track dog health information, and invoice (and receive payments from) your clients.
You, the business owner, would subscribe to the manager account. You’ll be able to assign profiles to your individual clients. With their pet, client, and booking form templates, you can store all that information along with contracts, vaccination documents, and questionnaires of your canine clients. You can also track their grooming history and any other client notes, all in one place. Meanwhile, your clients can access booking history, book new services and see grooming reports for their pup on their end.
Pictured: Professional dog groomer scrolling through agenda, selecting actions without leaving Easy Busy Pets-hosted app.
Don’t worry though, you won’t be left in the dark if you’re not tech-savvy. They offer two hours of free one-on-one support, training, and setup to get you acquainted with their systems.
Once you’re ready to grow your team, add other staff members without a hitch. Did we mention you can handle payroll with the system? Your business won’t ever outgrow this software!
Any other innovative apps we missed? Let us know!
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