Slow Days

Owning your own business means being ready for slow days. I have been having slow weeks since I quit my part time job. I guess I've been doing the same number of dogs or more but it just doesn't seem like much since I don't have the other income anymore. I am expecting to grow the business at the same rate that it has been growing but maybe I need to try harder to find new clients. With some warm weather and sunny days there are more dogs out on the streets and in the parks. I guess I will have to approach people with business cards and a few words. It takes nerve and it's hard for me. I don't know how many people I'll have to talk to before I'll find someone who will actually make an appointment. Usually people will take the card, maybe they will be polite, but I never know if they'll call and make an appointment. I have a few clients whom I met on the street. I don't know how many people I've spoken to on the street. One hundred? more? less? I think I will go outside with 50 business cards and not let myself go home until I've given them all out. OK, maybe I'll try 25 first. I'll keep you posted.

Finding new clients

My marketing efforts are no cost or low cost. What I mention here includes what I've done over the last 2 years.

To start with, I posted craigslist ads (free), printed flyers (paper and ink costs something but I already owned both so I considered it free), designed, printed and distributed business cards to pet supply stores, vet offices, and dog owners on the streets and in dog runs (graphics design - free from a friend, Avery business card stock - $20 for 250 cards, printed at home). Subsequently I have bought business cards using Vistaprint. I had to redesign them to include website URL and new email addresss and I thought it would be easier to order them than print them at home all the time. Vistaprint also offers lots of things for free. I recommend it.

Mostly I get new clients in response to my craigslist ads which also refer to my home dog grooming website. I have posted ads on other websites that offer free or low cost ads (under $10) but none of them have resulted in any clients, as far as I know. But it's good to post ads anywhere you can and have a link to your website so that your website ranks higher in the search engine indexes.

In addition I get new clients from referrals by my existing clients - the old "word of mouth". People seem very willing to help grow my business by telling others about my services whenever prompted by another dog owner. "Word of Mouth" is great but doesn't grow my business as fast as is needed.

With the search engine optimization (SEO) I have done for my website, people find me using Google and most other search engines easily. I am still trying to figure out how to come up in the search results of Bing. For some reason the Bing search engine eludes me.

Most recently one of my clients posted a note about me on "Building Link" - a website for her condo building and this resulted in 2 new clients within a month's time. I am now asking other clients if their residences have similar websites and if they would post a recommendation of my services.

One client mentioned a newsletter for her building and said she will put a recommendation of my services in the newsletter.

Getting new clients in buildings that I already work in is something I've been thinking about for months. I was looking into bulk mailings but everything to do with mailings always end up being expensive. I was also thinking of just standing in front of the building at key walking times and talking to the dog owners about my services. The down side of this is that some dogs don't go outside and others are walked by dog-walkers. Also, standing in front of buildings in time consuming. (I have put up flyers on bulletin boards in the past and have gotten no clients in response to that effort.)

I have put many business cards in vet offices and pet supply stores and from all that effort I've gotten 2 clients. If I owned a dog I'm sure I could have a better relationship with a vet and a pet supply store. I think I need to borrow a dog for the pet supply store at least.

And of course, I have spoken to many, many people on the streets and at dog runs. This has resulted in clients but I can't say how many people I spoke to and I can only recall 2 clients that resulted from this effort. The nerve it takes for me to bother people on the street is more than I'd like but I will talk to people on the street again when the weather is nice because it gives me the best odds of finding clients in my neighborhood.

Merchant Circle is a website that a client told me about. She has her own hair extensions business called VIP Lifestyle Hair. I created a page on Merchant Circle for free and am now creating a network of neighboring businesses. I don't know how much this website is used by New Yorkers to find services in Manhattan but it can only help to have more presence on the internet. I will try to take more advantage of Merchant Circle in the near future.

Slow Days

Sometimes grooming can have it's slow days. This is a problem for any small business owner. January and February can be like that. One reason is that every single dog gets groomed for the holidays so by January 1st all the dogs are in the same great condition! Another reason is that Winter in NY is cold. Pet owners are thinking it's too cold for a hair cut, we'll wait for Spring. Then there's the snow and rain. Rain and snow can make pets dirty so this may cause a pet owner to get the dog groomed BUT the opposite happens too: a person decides to reschedule because of rain or snow. No one wants to pay for a clean dog just to end up with a dirty dog tomorrow! Rescheduling at the last minute is a another problem. Until you have such a great business that you have a waiting list, you can't really fill that appointment with another dog. To charge a cancellation fee is a tricky thing. When biz is slow I think I should just take a vacation.

Instead of taking a vacation I end up thinking of ways to improve my website, my search engine optimization, and my presence on the web. I'm thinking of new ways to get the word out to dog owners that I'm a house call dog groomer! Recently I found that one of my clients put a posting about my service on her apartment building's "Building Links" system. And I ended getting two new clients in just a month's time. So now I've started asking all my clients if their apartment building has such a system and if they can post a note about my service. One of my clients is going to put something in her building's newsletter.

The hardest thing for me is following up when someone offers to put up a flyer. I don't carry flyers and to print one and make a special trip to drop it off is not so easy. I should probably mail it but then I don't want to fold it and I'd have to mail it in a big envelope. It's probably worth it though. At least blogging about this has made me remember to bring one on Monday to a client who said they'd help me by posting it. In the past, flyers have not resulted in any clients. I posted flyers in many hi-rise buildings when I was just starting this business. It's a lot of work walking around, talking to the doorman, finding out if a flyer can be put on a bulletin board somewhere. I have a bulletin board in my own apartment building and I rarely call about anything on there although I read all the flyers and business cards that are posted.

Blogging is another thing to do when I'm not grooming but I don't know if it helps business. Only time will tell.