A Conversation with Shannon VanSlyke | Building Pet Grooming Business SOPs

Forty five years of grooming instinct, turned into Pet Grooming Business SOPs an entire industry can finally learn from.

Shannon VanSlyke picked up her first pair of clippers at fifteen years old, standing beside a master groomer who expected her to understand a dog before she ever touched it. Four and a half decades later, that same instinct for detail sits at the center of Streamline Pet Solutions. It is the company Shannon built around Pet Grooming Business SOPs after learning a hard lesson the slow way: talent does not scale until someone writes it down.

Alongside running Hound Therapy & Grooming Academy, she has spent years pulling decades of hands-on knowledge out of her own head and turning it into nearly 150 documented systems for groomers, salon owners, mobile operators, and franchise investors who have never groomed a single dog.

In this conversation, Shannon talks candidly about the chaos that pushed her toward systems in the first place, what corporate money still gets wrong about Pet grooming, and why she believes structure was never the enemy of a groomer’s artistry.

Thank you for joining PETBIZS, Shannon. Between running Hound Therapy & Grooming Academy and building Streamline Pet Solutions around pet grooming business SOPs and systems, you have spent years turning grooming know how into something owners can actually run a business on. Before we dive in, can you introduce yourself and tell our readers what first pulled you into professional dog grooming?

I started pet grooming when I was 15. I loved dogs, and I was fortunate to find someone who was willing to take a chance on me. At the time, she was what we called a master groomer and came from the show world. She specialized in Terriers and Shelties. It is an odd combination. However, I was fortunate enough to get a pretty broad spectrum of very detailed knowledge.

I interned with her for a full year without pay to learn the trade. She was extremely particular, and everything we did was based on AKC breed standards. It wasn’t just about getting a dog groomed. It was about to understand what that breed was supposed to look like and why. That was the standard for every breed that came through our shop — which, granted, was back in the 1980s. Things were a little different then.

I was very young and had some difficulties at home, so I needed to become independent sooner rather than later. Pet grooming allowed me to build a life for myself while doing something I genuinely loved.

It took off from there. By the time I was 18, I had purchased her pet grooming business. I certainly didn’t know at 15 that this would become a 45-plus-year career. But that very traditional, detail-oriented training became the foundation I carried with me throughout it.

You built your pet grooming career as a former ISCC champion and worked as a hair stylist before opening Hound Therapy in Plano. How did that competition and styling background shape the standards you hold your own pet groomers to today?

I do want to correct two things in the question because they’re important distinctions to me. I am not a former ISCC Champion. And I also don’t want to take credit for a championship or title that I didn’t earn. However, I participated in a number of ISCC grooming competitions in the late ’80s and early ’90s and won in different breed classes. Those competitions were an important part of my development as a pet groomer. However, that’s different from holding an ISCC championship title.

Competition gave me the opportunity to put my work beside the work of other talented pet groomers, learn from them and continually push myself to improve. At that time, we were working heavily from AKC breed standards, so there was a tremendous amount of attention paid to detail, balance, symmetry, coat, pattern and understanding why a particular breed was supposed to look a certain way. It added another layer to the very traditional grooming education I had already received.

The other distinction is that I am not a cosmetologist. I am a Master Barber, and I still maintain my Master Barber license today.

Though I became a barber much later in my career, I had already been grooming for decades when, in my 40s, I went back to school. At that time, I completed 1,500 hours of barber education. And then had to take and pass the state examination to become licensed. I eventually opened my own barbershop as well.

What really stood out to me about that education wasn’t simply learning another way to cut hair. It was the structure surrounding the profession including;

• Sanitation
• Disinfection
• Safety
• Disease prevention
• Education
• And the standards you were expected to follow as a licensed professional.

Coming from pet grooming, that was eye-opening because grooming had given me an incredible technical and artistic education. And our industry doesn’t have that same consistent formal structure.

So I think those two experiences together have shaped the standards I hold today. Competition taught me to keep looking at my work and asking how I could make it better. Becoming a Master Barber reinforced the importance of having professional standards behind the work — safety, sanitation, education, consistency and accountability.

That’s something I’ve carried back into grooming and into how I train people today. I don’t expect every pet groomer to have the same technique or artistic style. But I do expect us to continue learning, to understand

• Why we’re doing
• What we’re doing
• And to hold ourselves accountable for the quality and safety of the work we produce.

A beautiful groom matters to me. But after all these years, I believe being a true professional is about much more than producing a beautiful haircut. It’s the knowledge, safety, standards and continued willingness to learn behind that finished groom that give the work its value.

Read Sasha Riess Exclusive Interview on Integrative Dog Grooming: https://petbizs.com/a-candid-talk-with-sasha-riess-on-integrative-dog-grooming/

What was happening inside Hound Therapy, day to day, that first convinced you the grooming industry needed real pet grooming business SOPs and systems instead of relying on tribal knowledge passed between groomers?

When I opened Hound Therapy, I was actually coming back into the pet grooming industry after being away from it for a while. I had decades of grooming experience and had also gone through formal barber training, so I honestly thought hiring experienced professional groomers to work alongside me would be the easy part.

I was wrong.

We opened during COVID. It certainly didn’t make things easier, but the bigger surprise was what “experienced pet groomer” could actually mean. I hired people with 10-plus years of experience who couldn’t necessarily work to the pace, consistency, attention to detail or handling standards I expected. Some didn’t want to work with difficult dogs. We had inconsistencies between grooms and even issues with clients. This was because one person’s definition of a finished groom wasn’t necessarily another person’s.

That’s when I started looking differently at the people who came to me with very little experience but genuinely wanted to learn. I would teach someone to bathe and dry properly, then teach them another skill that helped me on the grooming floor. Bathers became grooming assistants, assistants learned more grooming skills, and eventually some became groomers themselves. Today, some of those same people are instructors.

My family became part of the pet grooming business along the way too, although I never set out to build a family business. My son and daughters-in-law learned the operation, helped run it and became part of maintaining and developing those standards.

Now I can’t imagine doing this without them. They’ve become a huge part of helping me take more than 45 years of experience and turn it into something organized, teachable and ultimately something we can offer to other pet grooming business owners through Streamline.

With this, they’ve also given me another perspective. When you’ve done something as long as I have, it’s very easy to assume something is common sense because you’ve been doing it automatically for years. Having my family involved has forced me to explain

• What I do
• Why I do it
• How someone else is supposed to reproduce it.

In many ways, that process helped show me exactly why these systems were needed in the first place.

That experience changed the way I looked at everything. I realized years on a résumé don’t create a standard. Training, expectations, documentation, accountability and a willingness to learn do.

And I couldn’t continue keeping all of that knowledge in my own head and reteaching it from scratch every time somebody new walked through the door. We needed a repeatable way to show people

• How we do the job
• Why we do it that way
• What the finished standard in a pet grooming business is supposed to be.

That’s really where the systems and SOPs that eventually became Streamline began taking shape.

Hound Therapy operates under the phrase we practice humanity over vanity. How does that philosophy show up in how you train your own team before it ever becomes something you teach other pet salon owners?

“Humanity over vanity” means we do what is safest and most appropriate for the animal first. Of course we want our clients to be happy. We want to send home a beautifully groomed dog. But we never want it at the expense of the dog — or the groomer.

Sometimes that means a severely matted dog needs a shorter haircut rather than putting it through painful dematting. A senior dog may not be able to stand long enough for the haircut the owner originally wanted. An anxious or aggressive dog may need a different approach, more breaks, additional help or simply less done that day. You have to groom the dog that’s actually standing in front of you.

A huge part of that is client education. Pet owners don’t necessarily know what happens on a grooming table or understand why we’re making certain decisions. Our responsibility is to explain what we’re seeing, what we’re recommending and why. We want the owner to trust us enough to understand that we’re not changing the plan because it’s easier. In fact, we’re doing it because it’s better and safer for their pet.

That’s what I teach my team. The goal is always to produce a visually pleasing groom, but we have to consider the dog’s age, health, coat condition and temperament along with what the client wants.

You can still make a dog look cute without pushing it beyond what is safe or humane. Humanity has to come before vanity.

You eventually built Streamline Pet Solutions specifically around pet grooming business SOPs and systems. What convinced you that owners needed a separate company for this, rather than folding it into Hound Therapy itself?

Hound Therapy and Streamline really have two different purposes.

Hound Therapy is centered around the pet, the pet parent and educating people to become well-rounded professional groomers. Our academy is a 1,500-hour program because I believe learning this profession properly takes time. Students aren’t just learning how to produce a good haircut. They’re learning handling, safety, client communication, booking, bathing, grooming and how to function successfully in a working salon.

But knowing how to groom and knowing how to run a pet grooming business are two very different things. That’s where Streamline became its own company.

Someone may want to own a pet grooming salon, build a brick-and-mortar location, operate several mobile vans or invest in a franchise without ever wanting to become a groomer themselves. A general business background can teach you how businesses work, but it doesn’t tell you how a pet grooming business works.

There are very specific questions in this industry. What equipment do you need? Where do you buy it? Who repairs it? What electrical requirements does that equipment have? How should the shop flow? How does a receptionist correctly book a grooming appointment if they’ve never groomed a dog? What should each employee be responsible for? What happens when equipment breaks or an employee doesn’t show up? Those details can make or break the operation.

A lot of Streamline actually comes from things I’ve learned the hard way. I’ve failed to write down what I thought was common sense and then wondered why an employee didn’t know what I expected. I’ve learned that if it’s only in the owner’s head, it isn’t a system.

After doing this for so many years, many things feel like common sense to me — but they aren’t common sense to someone who’s never worked inside a pet grooming business. They have to be taught, documented and made repeatable.

That’s why Streamline needed its own identity. Hound Therapy teaches people how to work successfully within this profession. Streamline is to help people understand how to build, operate and grow the business around it.

Dog grooming remains a largely non certified and unregulated industry in most states, a gap that pet grooming business SOPs and systems exist specifically to close. How does that lack of regulation actually shape the day to day problems you get called in to solve?

There isn’t one single way to run a successful pet grooming business, and I would never pretend there is. What I’m offering through Streamline is my perspective based on more than 45 years of actually working in this industry — building businesses, training people, making mistakes, changing things that didn’t work and repeating the things that did.

A lot of what we’ve developed started as a theory: If we do it this way, will it work better? Then we put it into practice. We trained people with it. We used it in the business. And, later, we adjusted it when something didn’t work, and we’ve been able to reproduce those results over and over again.

At some point I realized, why aren’t we writing this down? If we’ve already done the trial and error and found practical systems that consistently work, there’s value in putting those systems into a form another pet grooming business owner can use rather than making them start from scratch and learn every lesson the hard way.

And that’s really what Streamline is. It’s not me saying, “This is the only way.” It’s me saying, “This is a way we’ve actually done it, tested it and made it work. Here’s a place for you to start.”

Some of the biggest problems I see are very basic business questions: How do I hire and train? How do I pay people? What does a consistently good groom look like including safe handling? When should an employee ask for help? How do we educate the client if our own employees aren’t educated and working from the same standard?

Compensation is a good example. Pet grooming has traditionally relied heavily on commission, and you’ll hear someone say they’re a “50% groomer.” But that doesn’t mean the groomer and the business are 50/50 partners. The business still has rent, utilities, insurance, equipment, products, support staff, payroll expenses and all the other costs required to provide that client and operate the shop. If an owner doesn’t understand the numbers behind that percentage, they can build a very busy business that still doesn’t make money.

The same thing happens operationally. An owner hires someone with years of experience and assumes that person already knows how things should be done. But their definition of safe handling, a finished groom, client communication or even when to ask for help may be completely different from the owner’s.

That’s why I keep coming back to documentation and consistency. First you have to decide what you’re trying to build and how you want it operated. Then you have to get those standards out of your head and onto paper.

At the same time, I’d like to see more collaboration within the pet grooming industry. Competition should make us better, not be a threat. I want groomers, educators and business owners to push each other to do their best. We can have different ideas, different businesses and different ways of doing things and still learn from each other. That’s how I think the industry gets stronger.

A lot of your consulting work centers on franchise owners entering the pet grooming space for the first time. Why do you think pet grooming business SOPs and systems matter even more for someone coming from outside the industry than for a lifelong pet groomer opening their own shop?

Franchise owners are definitely an important focus for me because they’re often coming into pet grooming from a completely different direction. A pet groomer who opens a business usually builds around something they already know how to do. They may need help learning the business side, but they already understand the day-to-day realities of pet grooming.

A franchise owner or another business owner adding grooming may have exactly the opposite experience. They may understand marketing, branding, growth and business structure very well, but they don’t necessarily understand what it takes to actually operate a pet grooming department.

And pet grooming can look deceptively simple from the outside. You don’t need extensive state licensing to open one, so a daycare, veterinarian, pet store or franchise may look at an empty room and think, We can add grooming and create another revenue stream.

Then reality sets in. Is the electrical adequate for the dryers? Is the plumbing right? What equipment do you need? How do you find and evaluate pet groomers when you aren’t a groomer yourself? How many dogs should they realistically be doing? Who bathes and dries them? How does the receptionist know how to correctly book those dogs? What happens when one department is overwhelmed and another employee has downtime?

I’ve seen grooming rooms that were supposed to become revenue-producing departments eventually become storage rooms because the business wasn’t prepared for what operating that department actually required.

That’s why I don’t think grooming works well as simply an “add-on.” It can absolutely be part of another successful business, but it has to be integrated into that business. The staffing, cross-training, scheduling, equipment, client communication and operating procedures all have to work together.

Franchising adds another challenge: consistency. If you’re selling a brand, the customer should have a reasonable expectation of what that brand represents regardless of which location they visit. If I buy a pair of Levi’s at Walmart or at a Levi’s store, I don’t expect Levi’s to suddenly become a different product. It’s still Levi’s.

I look at pet grooming business the same way. The individual groomers will always bring their own talent and technique, but the safety standards, client experience, operating procedures and expectations of the brand should be recognizable from one location to the next. That’s where documented systems become especially important when you’re trying to duplicate a pet grooming business.

Your team includes licensed barbers and cosmetologists alongside experienced pet groomers. What does that mix of backgrounds bring to the training you build that a purely grooming trained team could not?

Actually, I should correct that slightly. I’m the only licensed barber on our team, and I’m not a licensed cosmetologist. That perspective comes from my own experience working in both industries.

What that background has given me is an interesting view from both sides. I’ve spent years talking to people about their own hair — what they want, what’s realistic and how to communicate that — and I’ve spent even more years having similar conversations with pet owners about their dogs. My barber education also exposed me to a much more structured system of schooling, sanitation, safety and state testing than exists in grooming.

Interestingly, I’ve had quite a few barbers and cosmetologists come to me thinking that because they understand hair, grooming a dog should be fairly easy. It isn’t. They’re extremely different professions.

A dog isn’t going to sit in a chair and tell you that you’re pulling its hair or that something hurts. You’re dealing with different coat types, breed standards, anatomy, behavior, handling, equipment and an animal that can become frightened, move suddenly or bite. Being talented with human hair can certainly give someone useful skills, but it doesn’t automatically make them a dog groomer.

That’s actually reinforced something I’ve believed for a long time: skills can transfer, but people still need to be properly trained for the job they’re being asked to do. My experience in both industries lets me take useful lessons from each without pretending they’re the same.

Walk us through what actually happens when a new client comes to Streamline Pet Solutions and says their shop is chaotic. Where do grooming business SOPs and systems typically start once you get inside the operation?

Streamline was created first and foremost to give business owners a library of ready-to-use answers and resources so they don’t have to reinvent everything themselves. But every business is different. If someone needs consulting or an SOP specifically customized to their business or business model, that’s something we can help with as well.

When somebody comes to us and says, “My shop is chaotic,” I don’t think the answer is to hand them 50 SOPs and tell them to start reading. We first need to figure out what chaos means to them. What are you struggling with? What are you trying to accomplish? And, most importantly, what are the three biggest things causing problems right now?

Then we can separate what needs immediate attention from what we can work on down the road. We set realistic expectations and goals and start putting procedures around those areas so the owner and employees are working toward the same thing.

It’s actually very similar to how we communicate with grooming clients. Sometimes a pet owner knows they’re unhappy with the current haircut but can’t explain exactly what they want. Our job is to ask the right questions, understand their vision and help get them there. I approach business owners much the same way.

I don’t want to take somebody else’s business and turn it into mine. Every owner has their own vision, clientele, employees and goals. The purpose of a good SOP isn’t to remove that individuality; it’s to give the business enough structure that the owner’s vision can actually be carried out consistently.

Remember, pet grooming itself is artistic. There’s individuality, vision and symmetry involved in producing a beautiful groom. Then you have to put a functioning business around that creativity. When those two sides start working together, that’s where things really begin to click.

Your one year, fifteen hundred hour program at Hound Therapy Academy combines hands on training with a professional business plan and career path. Why did you decide a grooming education had to include the business side from day one?

I took a year to learn pet grooming myself, and when I later went through barber school, Texas required 1,500 hours of structured education before I could take the state exam. That number stuck with me — not because I think grooming and barbering are the same, and not because I’m arguing that the state should regulate grooming, but because I believe professional grooming is a career and should be taught like one.

Learning to groom is so much more than learning how to shave down a dog or produce a pretty haircut. You have to know how to bathe and dry correctly, read body language, handle an animal safely, fix your mistakes, communicate with clients, answer phones, book appointments, manage your time and produce consistent work whether you’re surrounded by a team or working by yourself.

It’s also physically and emotionally demanding. We get bitten. We’re covered in hair. Our bodies hurt. We work with frightened animals, difficult dogs and worried owners. There’s nothing particularly glamorous about it. Most people who stay in this profession don’t do it just because they think they’re going to make a lot of money. They stay because they love animals, take pride in the work and genuinely want to be good at what they do.

That’s why our academy is a career path, not a quick grooming course. We teach students how to groom, but we also teach them how to correct mistakes, build speed safely, communicate, multitask, choose equipment that makes their work easier and even how to take care of themselves physically and cope with the stress of the job.

A lot of the learning is hands-on and very personal — learning by example, making mistakes, correcting them and working alongside someone who has already been where they are.

Speed comes after skill. Money comes after being able to consistently do the job well. If someone takes the time to learn this profession from the ground up, they have a much better chance of building a career that they can actually sustain.

You describe your mission as identifying true talent, defining value, building relevance, supporting excellence, and enhancing safety. How do you help a shop owner actually deliver on all five at once?

Ultimately, I created Streamline because I want pet grooming business owners to succeed. And I think all five of those things play a part in what success looks like.

When I talk about talent, I believe everybody has a true talent somewhere. The challenge is figuring out what someone is genuinely good at, while also recognizing where their weaknesses are. Good systems help you identify both. Then you can build on someone’s strengths while giving them the training and support they need to improve in other areas. Not every great employee is going to be great at exactly the same things.

Value is bigger than just what you charge for a groom. An employee should see value in themselves, their skills and the work they’re producing. A pet groomer should understand the value of the service they’re providing. And as an owner, you should understand the value of the business you’ve built, what it represents and the standards behind it. You want to offer something that has value, not simply compete to be the cheapest option.

Besides, relevance has become increasingly important because pet owners have choices. They don’t have to have their dog professionally groomed, and they certainly don’t have to choose your shop. You have to give them a reason to choose you. That comes through

• The quality of your work
• Your reputation
• Your branding
• Your client experience
• And finding your own niche within an already specialized industry.

Then excellence and safety have to support everything else. You can have beautiful branding and talented groomers, but if the work isn’t consistent or the animals and employees aren’t being handled safely, the rest doesn’t mean very much.

That’s where SOPs and systems tie all of it together. They help define what your business stands for, what you expect from your people and what your clients can consistently expect from you.

The systems aren’t what make every grooming business the same. They’re what help each business become consistently good at what it has chosen to be.

Cross training staff comes up throughout your services. What does effective cross training look like in a pet grooming salon, where every groomer brings a different technique and pace to the table?

Cross-training has always been really important in my businesses. Over the years, I’ve learned that things just run better when everybody understands how their job affects the person working beside them.

That’s especially true when grooming is only one part of a larger business. Maybe you’re a pet retail franchise, a veterinary practice, a daycare or another pet business that’s adding grooming. You can’t really just put pet grooming in a room and expect it to operate completely on its own. It has to work with the rest of the business.

For me, cross-training doesn’t mean everybody has to be equally skilled at every job. For example, my receptionist doesn’t need to be a professional groomer. However, it certainly helps if they

• Understand pet grooming well enough to book the right appointment
• Ask the right questions
• Know what information the groomer is going to need.

The same goes for bathers and grooming assistants. The more they understand about what happens before and after their part of the job, the better everything tends to flow.

Our busier days are probably the best example. Everybody comes in knowing what they’re responsible for, but we still work together. If somebody needs help, we help them. If something needs to be cleaned, we clean it. And, if somebody calls out or the schedule gets turned upside down, we figure it out and keep moving. That’s just how we’ve learned to work.

And I don’t want cross-training to take away anybody’s individuality. Groomers are artists. They’re going to have different techniques, different speeds and different ways of getting to that finished groom. I think that’s a good thing. We don’t all have to groom exactly alike, but we do need to work from the same basic standards when it comes to safety, sanitation, handling, communication and what our business expects.

For me, cross-training has really been about building a team that can support each other. The business shouldn’t fall apart because one person is out that day, and nobody should feel like helping somebody else is beneath their job title.

Everybody brings something different to the table. Cross-training just helps us use those different strengths together.

Beyond writing SOPs and systems for a single location, you also offer pet business valuation for owners preparing to sell or seek financing. How does understanding a shop’s true worth change the operational advice you give along the way?

I should clarify that Streamline doesn’t actually perform formal pet business valuations. What we do is help owners better understand the operational and financial pieces of a pet grooming business. It can ultimately help them build a more profitable and valuable business if they decide to have it professionally valued or sell it later.

A lot of my financial planning is really about helping someone understand what it actually takes to start and operate a pet grooming business successfully. There are costs in this industry that may not be obvious to somebody who’s never been a groomer, especially if they’re adding grooming to an existing veterinary practice, daycare, pet retail business or franchise.

A grooming operation has very specific requirements. Dryers and other equipment can require significant electrical capacity. You have plumbing and drainage to consider, along with ventilation, noise, odor, equipment, maintenance and the physical layout of the space. Those are expenses and operational considerations that may not show up when somebody initially looks at a basic business plan or P&L.

That’s really where I want Streamline to help. I want to give someone who doesn’t know this industry an easy-to-understand starting point: What am I actually going to need to open this business and operate it successfully? What are the expenses I may not know to ask about yet?

And if the business is already operating, then we can look at it differently. What could be changed, added or improved? Where are you losing efficiency? What expenses weren’t anticipated? What systems could make the operation work better and potentially become more profitable?

Ultimately, if an owner plans to sell their business someday, profitability and a well-run operation certainly matter to its value. We can help an owner build a stronger business, but when it’s time for the actual valuation, that needs to be done by the appropriate valuation professional.

That’s an important distinction for me. I’m not there to tell somebody what their business is worth. I’m trying to help them build a business that’s worth more.

You work across corporate, boutique, mobile, and salon operations, building SOPs and systems suited to each. What is the biggest misconception a corporate or franchise owner brings into the grooming industry that you find yourself correcting most often?

I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that pet grooming looks much simpler to add and operate from the outside than it actually is. A corporate or franchise owner may already know how to run a successful business, but grooming brings a completely different set of operational needs with it.

You have specialized equipment, electrical and plumbing requirements, drainage, noise, staffing, scheduling, client expectations and animal safety to think about. Then you have to find and evaluate pet groomers when you may not be a groomer yourself. Hiring somebody with ten years of experience doesn’t automatically mean they’re going to work the way your business needs them to work.

Franchising adds another layer because now you’re not just trying to make one grooming department successful. You’re trying to create something that can be reproduced successfully by different owners, employees and locations.

I always go back to something as familiar as McDonald’s. If I walk into a McDonald’s in Texas and then another one somewhere else, I may not have exactly the same experience. However, I have a pretty good idea of what that brand is supposed to deliver. I know what I’m ordering. I know what I expect. And the individual franchise owner isn’t reinventing McDonald’s every time I walk through the door.

I think a pet grooming franchise needs that same kind of foundation. You need enough standard operating procedures that your franchisees understand, “This is how we do things.” These are our policies. This is how we handle clients, no-shows, difficult situations, staffing issues and the everyday things that come up in a pet grooming business.

Pet grooming is different, though, because there is an artistic element to what we do. I don’t want every groomer to become identical. Different groomers are going to have different strengths, styles and specialties, and I think there should be room for that individuality. The business needs to be consistent without taking the artistry out of the groomer.

Market analysis is one of your core services. How does understanding local customer behavior and competition change SOPs and systems you end up recommending for two shops in very different markets?

The way I look at market analysis is really pretty simple. I want to understand

• Where I am
• What’s around me
• And what kind of business makes sense in that particular area.

I look at what other pet groomers are charging, but I also look at what it’s going to cost me to operate there. What does insurance cost? What does gas cost? And, what are wages, rent and utilities going to look like? If I’m mobile, how far am I going to have to drive between clients? Those things matter because ultimately they affect what I have to charge for the business to make sense.

Personally, I’ve never felt like I needed to be the most expensive person in town, but I don’t want to be the cheapest either. Especially when I’m getting started, I want people to feel like they’re getting the best bang for their buck. Then, as I build a reputation and figure out what I really do well, I can specialize more and charge accordingly.

I also look at what’s actually around me and what I enjoy doing. We talk a lot about pet grooming, but I’ve groomed all kinds of animals over the years — dogs, llamas, horses, cows and plenty of others — because I’ve lived and worked in rural areas. That’s taught me that this business can become a lot of different things depending on where you are.

Sometimes what you really want to do may not even be right outside your front door. You may decide you’re willing to drive a little farther or serve a different area because that’s where the clientele is for the kind of work you enjoy.

So from my perspective, it’s about finding the balance between where you are, what people need, what it costs you to provide it and what you actually want your business to become. Then you figure out how to market that.

And probably one of the biggest things I’ve learned is to stay flexible. I’ve been doing this long enough to see markets change, costs change and client expectations change. You have to be willing to pivot. To me, that’s just part of being in business — you pay attention to what’s happening around you, and you learn how to move with it.

Product development is a less obvious service for a pet grooming consultancy to offer. What led you to bring pet product development in house rather than referring clients elsewhere?

We actually don’t develop or sell pet products through Streamline. What we sell is a service.

The way I look at it, there are already people in this industry who have dedicated years of their time and experience to developing products that make grooming safer, easier and more comfortable. I don’t need to recreate what somebody else is already doing well. I’d much rather work with those people.

That’s part of why our Preferred Resource Network is important to me. I want Streamline to eventually be a cohesive place where somebody can come in and ask: How do I build this? Where should I build it? What do I need to operate it? Where do I buy what I need? And once it’s running, how do I help it grow?

When it comes to products and vendors, I don’t think every new business owner should have to sit down at Google and sort through 50 different answers trying to figure out which one is right. I’d rather connect them with resources that other professionals in this industry have actually used and had good experiences with.

I’ve made plenty of mistakes over the years buying equipment, trying products and figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Other pet groomers and business owners have done the same thing. Why shouldn’t we learn from each other’s experience instead of everybody having to make the same expensive mistakes for themselves?

That’s really how I see Streamline’s role. We’re not trying to manufacture everything or be everything. I’d rather bring good people, good products, good services and good information together so a business owner has a much easier place to start.

Pet shop setup and optimization covers everything from location selection to daily operational flow. How early in a client’s planning do SOPs and systems need to come into the conversation, before a single wall goes up?

Immediately. If you’re doing a buildout, I think the planning needs to start before the walls go up because some of the decisions you make at that point are going to affect you for years.

I’ve learned some of those lessons myself.

When I built my shop, I wanted an open, cohesive feeling. What I didn’t realize was how much difference it would have made to take one of our walls up another ten feet, past the drop ceiling, to create a better sound barrier between the grooming area and the front of the business. It probably would have cost me another $500 during construction.

Instead, I’ve spent years trying to answer phones in a lobby with barking dogs behind me.

It’s such a simple thing, but if somebody had explained it to me before that wall went up, it would have been a no-brainer. I still could have had the open concept I wanted. There was just a better way to build it.

In addition, electrical is another big one. Pet grooming dryers and other equipment require a lot of power. Starting with the right electrical panel — one that has room for your business to grow — can make a tremendous difference.

It’s relatively easy to plan for that when you’re already doing the buildout. Trying to make an inadequate existing system work and then upgrading or fixing it later can become much more expensive.

The same goes for drainage, ventilation and the surfaces you choose. If you’re asking later, “Why does my shop smell?” or “Why is this so difficult to clean?” you may be trying to correct something that would have been much easier and less expensive to address while the building was empty.

Even the lease needs to be looked at differently. Commercial property isn’t the same as renting a house. There can be responsibilities and expenses in that lease that a first-time business owner doesn’t realize they’re agreeing to. Those details can also vary depending on where you’re located.

Then, before I hire my first employee, I want to start putting my expectations and procedures in writing. They don’t have to be perfect, and they’re probably going to change. Mine certainly have. I actually think they should change as the business teaches you what works and what doesn’t.

For me, that’s another benefit of having things written down. When I periodically sit down and look at my employees, procedures and systems in black and white, I’m not only evaluating them. I’m evaluating myself and my business. What’s working and what isn’t? What have we outgrown and what needs to change?

So, from my perspective, SOPs and systems don’t begin after you’ve opened the doors. They begin while you’re deciding what those doors, walls, drains and electrical outlets should look like in the first place.

Sometimes spending a little more or making a better decision at the beginning can save you a lot of money — and aggravation — later.

You mention helping owners reclaim time and reduce chaos rather than just chase revenue. Why did you decide time and calm needed to be measured outcomes of your consulting, not just a side benefit?

I think the first thing is not to confuse busy with chaotic. You can be extremely busy and still have a calm, well-run business. To me, they’re two completely different things.

If I’m feeling chaotic and stressed all day, chances are everybody around me is feeling it too. That’s when you start constantly putting out fires, dealing with miscommunication and wondering why nobody seems to know what’s going on.

I’ve learned that keeping everything in my own head doesn’t work. And just because I told somebody something doesn’t necessarily mean they heard it the way I meant it or understood what I expected. When something is written down, we’ve gone over it together and they’ve signed it, now we both have something to go back to. It’s right there in black and white. That takes a tremendous amount of confusion out of the day-to-day operation.

Burnout can come from

• Overbooking
• Trying to control everything yourself
• Constantly correcting the same problems and feeling like the business can’t function unless you’re standing there.

I also believe you need enough work-life balance to actually enjoy the business you’re building. Most people either get into this industry because they’re looking for something better than what they were doing before. Or, they stay in it because they genuinely enjoy the work. Nobody wants to spend their life building something that eventually makes them miserable.

Of course we all want our businesses to make money. But making money by itself isn’t my definition of success. If I’ve created a profitable business that can’t function without me, I’m exhausted all the time and I can’t ever step away long enough to enjoy any of what I’ve worked for, then what’s the point?

For me, good systems should help create a business that can be busy without always feeling chaotic. I want to build something successful, but I also want to be able to enjoy the success I’ve worked so hard to create.

For a shop owner who has run their business on instinct for years, what does the first month of actually working inside real systems usually feel like?

I can relate to this personally because it’s really how Streamline started.

After more than 45 years in this industry, there was an enormous amount of information living in my head. Things I did automatically, things I’d learned from mistakes, and things I probably hadn’t stopped to explain in years.

Writing all of that down took a very long time. At times it was tedious, and I’m sure it will always be a work in progress.

That’s probably what the first month of putting systems into an established business can feel like. You’re stopping to think about things you’ve done instinctively for years. You’re writing down expectations, explaining why you do things a certain way and getting other people accustomed to working from those procedures. In some ways, it can feel like you’re starting over.

But once you’ve done that work, you start seeing why it matters. Employees don’t have to come to you with every little question because the answers are there. They understand the protocol, they know what’s expected and they have something to refer back to. As an owner, you also have to learn to let go of some control and allow those systems to do some of the work you’ve always carried yourself.

I don’t think SOPs should ever be something you write once and never look at again. I’m still finding things I forgot to write down. In the process, I learn something new, another groomer says something that gives me an aha moment, or I find a better way of doing something. I expect to continue reviewing and improving Streamline regularly, just like I think owners should continue improving the systems inside their own businesses.

Growing businesses and helping other people grow theirs is something I genuinely enjoy. I also understand that not everybody wants to spend the amount of time I’ve spent getting all of this information out of my head and onto paper. That’s part of why I created Streamline in the first place.

There are blank templates for owners who want to build something specifically their own. And there are also plenty of ready-to-use resources for someone who simply needs a good place to start.

I’ve already spent the time writing a lot of it down so somebody else doesn’t always have to start with a blank piece of paper.

You champion complete pet health, from nutrition to skin and coat care, through expert pet grooming. How do you train groomers to notice health issues that a pet parent or even a vet visit might miss?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at a client and said, “I am not a vet. I did not go to medical school, but…” And I mean that very seriously. A pet groomer should never diagnose an animal. But we absolutely should learn how to notice when something doesn’t look, smell, feel or act normal.

I was fortunate because I spent many years working in a veterinary hospital as a groomer, and when I finished grooming I would help in other areas and eventually became a vet tech. I’ve always loved learning, especially when it’s something that can help me become better at what I do.

Pet groomers also have a unique relationship with these dogs. A pet may see their veterinarian once a year, while we may see that same dog every four, six or eight weeks. We’re putting our hands over practically the entire animal every time it comes in, so sometimes we’re going to notice a change simply because we see that dog more frequently.

Maybe there’s a mole that wasn’t there before. Maybe the ears suddenly have a different odor. The skin may be unusually dry or oily. Maybe the dog reacts differently when you touch a particular area. You also start recognizing patterns — seasonal changes, certain coat and skin issues, or things that seem to occur more commonly in particular types of dogs.

Again, that doesn’t mean I tell the owner, “This is what’s wrong with your dog.” It means I can say, “This is something I noticed today that I haven’t noticed before. It may be worth having your veterinarian take a look at it.”

That’s something experienced pet groomers can teach newer groomers too.

• What does something unusual look like?
• What does it smell like?
• How does the dog react?
• And probably most importantly, when you’re not sure, who do you ask?

That’s where the systems come back into it for me. If something looks different, smells different, feels different or the dog is behaving differently than what we normally see, there should be a clear process.

• Who needs to be notified?
• Who speaks with the client?
• Where is it documented?
• What did we observe the last time that dog was here?

We’re not there to diagnose. We’re there to notice, document and communicate.

To me, that’s part of being a well-rounded professional pet groomer. You’re not just looking at the haircut. You’re paying attention to the whole animal that’s standing in front of you.

Q21. AI for pet businesses shows up on your services list alongside pet grooming business SOPs and systems. What role do you think artificial intelligence should realistically play inside a small grooming shop right now?

I actually just had this conversation yesterday with the company that provides my booking software. For me, AI is a tool. That’s really how I look at it and how I’ve learned to use it.

I have a lot of information in my head and usually a lot I want to say. Sometimes I know exactly what I mean, but I don’t necessarily have the right words to express it. I’ve found AI really helpful for organizing my thoughts and helping me put what I’m trying to say into a clearer form.

I’ve also found that it can ask me questions that make me ask myself questions. Sometimes it makes me look at an idea differently. Sometimes it makes me think a little deeper about what I’m actually trying to accomplish. It’s almost like having a slightly awkward sounding board.

But one of the things I’ve learned is that AI doesn’t just do it for you. It doesn’t know what’s in my head. I have to learn how to communicate with it and ask the right questions. If I’m vague about what I want, I may end up going down a completely different rabbit hole. If I want something specific, I’ve learned that I need to be specific about what I’m asking.

Oddly enough, I don’t think that’s terribly different from a lot of what I’ve learned in business. You learn how to communicate with your employees. You learn how to ask clients the right questions. As a pet groomer, you even learn how to read and communicate with a dog that can’t tell you what it’s thinking. Communication is something you learn. I’ve found AI is another version of that.

Where I get excited about AI in pet grooming business is in the little things that could make our jobs easier. Maybe I can take a picture of a vaccination record and have that information entered for me. Maybe something can answer the phone while I’m grooming, collect the information I actually need. And, based on that, leave me a detailed message so I can call that client back quickly. Those are the kinds of things I can see being genuinely useful in my own business.

But I don’t see it replacing what I do or what my pet groomers do. This is a very human, service-based business. I have to read the person standing in front of me, read the dog, understand body language, make judgment calls and use skills that took years to learn.

I feel the same way about managing my business. AI can help me organize information, look at facts, work through an idea or find better words for a policy, but ultimately my business still has to come from me — my experience, my judgment and my vision for what I want it to be.

For me, that’s where AI fits. It’s another tool I’ve had to learn how to communicate with. The better I learn to use it, the more helpful it can be. But I’m still the person who has to know what I’m trying to accomplish in the first place.

Hound Therapy takes in dogs that other shops have turned away, including anxious, aggressive, and senior dogs. How do you train a groomer to handle that extra care work safely without slowing the entire shop down?

I love this question because working with difficult, anxious and senior dogs wasn’t something I originally set out to specialize in. It developed over time because I found I was good at it. And then, later, I learned how to teach those skills to other people.

One of the biggest things I’ve learned is the value of teamwork. Sometimes the safest and most efficient way to groom a difficult dog isn’t to leave one pet groomer struggling with it for two hours. It may be having a second person step in for part of the process — to help hold, lift, reassure or simply give the groomer another set of hands.

That doesn’t necessarily have to make the service unprofitable. From my perspective, the business owner just needs to understand what that additional care actually costs. If I know how much employee time is involved, I can build that into the service appropriately. My staff understands why we’re doing it, I understand what it’s costing the business, and the client can understand why their particular dog may require additional care and expense.

That’s where having a procedure and process makes such a difference. Everybody knows what to do, when to ask for help and when something is becoming unsafe. You’re not waiting until the groomer is frustrated, the dog is overwhelmed or somebody gets hurt. An injury to an employee or an animal can become far more expensive than having a second person step in before there’s a problem.

I think sometimes these dogs simply get turned away because they’re difficult or because a business doesn’t see how it can make money servicing them. I look at it a little differently. These dogs still need to be groomed. There’s a need there, and therefore there’s an opportunity to find a safe and responsible way to provide that service.

For me, that’s part of business. You identify a need, understand what it takes to provide the service properly, put a process around it and make sure the numbers make sense.

When the client understands it, the employees understand it and the owner understands the cost behind it, everybody is working toward the same goal — and hopefully the dog gets a safer, calmer experience in the process.

Where do you see the next few years taking pet grooming business SOPs and systems across the industry, especially as more corporate and franchise money moves into pet grooming?

From my perspective, I hope the next few years will be more promissing. They’ll bring more structure and accountability to professional pet grooming while still allowing groomers to keep the individuality and creativity that make this profession what it is.

I’ve spent more than 45 years learning this trade. I’ve taken classes, worked with veterinarians and other groomers, competed, taught, worked in mobile and brick-and-mortar businesses and continued learning throughout my career. Yet grooming still operates in a very unregulated gray area where someone with that level of experience can technically be competing with someone who bought equipment yesterday and decided to start grooming dogs.

That’s not a criticism of somebody wanting to learn. Everybody has to start somewhere — I certainly did. What I would like clients to better understand is that there can be a tremendous difference between simply offering a grooming service and the education, experience and systems behind providing that service professionally.

I think corporate and franchise growth could actually create some good opportunities for this industry. Those companies are often exceptionally good at business, branding, marketing, legal structure and creating repeatable models. In many of those areas, they probably know far more than I do.

What I bring to the conversation is the grooming side. I’ve actually operated these businesses — mobile, brick-and-mortar, by myself, with employees, in teaching environments and in consulting situations. I’ve seen firsthand where pet grooming doesn’t always fit neatly into a traditional business model.

My concern is that pet grooming business can sometimes become another revenue stream instead of being understood as a skilled profession. But those two things don’t have to compete with each other. A well-run grooming department should produce revenue. The question, from my perspective, is how we’re getting there.

Are we simply trying to put more dogs on one groomer’s schedule, pushing people to work faster and charging as much as the market will bear? Or are we training that groomer, supporting them, keeping good employees, protecting the animals in their care and giving them the systems they need to consistently produce good work?

I’ve seen firsthand that you can do both. You can take good care of your employees and your animals, produce quality work and still build a profitable grooming business. In fact, I believe that’s how you create more sustainable revenue because you’re building something people want to come back to.

If I have a talented pet groomer but I burn that person out, eventually I lose them. If I’m constantly turning over employees, my clients lose the relationship they’ve built with their groomer. And, if I’m focused only on how many dogs I can get through the door, eventually quality or safety can suffer. None of those things help me build the kind of long-term business I want.

For me, the better question is: How do I train this person, support them, keep them, protect the animal, produce consistently good work — and still make the business profitable?

I know that’s possible because I’ve seen it work.

When I learned to groom, there were very clear breed standards. I learned where a Westie pattern started and stopped, which direction the coat grew, what equipment to use and why. Grooming has changed tremendously since then. Today we have pet trims, Asian fusion, doodles and clients asking us to create all kinds of looks that don’t necessarily follow a traditional breed standard. I actually love that creativity.

But even when the haircut changes, I still think the professional standards underneath it need a foundation. Safety, handling, sanitation, training, communication and animal care shouldn’t depend on which groomer or location a client happens to walk into.

I also think independent pet grooming businesses will continue to have an incredibly important place. There are clients who specifically want that relationship with their groomer — particularly people with senior dogs, difficult dogs, skin problems or very specific grooming expectations. They want someone who knows their dog, listens to them and understands what they’re asking for. That personal connection can be difficult for a larger operation to reproduce if it has constant employee turnover.

To me, it doesn’t have to be small business versus corporate business. There are things each can learn from the other. Larger companies understand systems and scalability extremely well. Independent groomers often bring tremendous hands-on experience, adaptability and personal relationships with their clients.

I’d like to see those strengths come together.

That’s really where I see SOPs becoming increasingly important. We’re creating a foundation underneath all of those different grooming styles and business models so people have somewhere to start, somewhere to learn and something they can consistently teach the next person.

I don’t think we need to make every groomer the same. I think we need to become better at defining what professional grooming looks like underneath all of our differences — and then keep pushing each other to make it better.

If a groomer who has never run a business before came to you tomorrow wanting to open their first shop, what is the very first system you would tell them to put in place?

If they truly had never run a business before, my joking answer would probably be, “All of them.” But realistically, I would start with the systems that help them understand what they’re about to build and what it’s actually going to cost them.

If they’re opening a brick-and-mortar shop, I want them looking at the

• Buildout
• Startup costs
• Profit-and-loss projections
• Lease considerations
• Equipment, electrical, plumbing
• And all of those expenses and decisions that can become very expensive to correct later.

If they’re opening a mobile business, the questions are different, but the principle is the same. Understand what you’re getting into financially and operationally before you spend the money.

That’s why we’ve broken Streamline into smaller, individual SOPs and resources rather than assuming everybody needs exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. There are currently around 150 different SOPs and growing, covering different parts of operating a pet grooming business, but they’re designed to break a very large undertaking into smaller, manageable steps.

I don’t think somebody necessarily needs to sit down and absorb everything before opening their doors. Start with where you are. If you’re looking for a location, use the resources that help with the lease and buildout. When you’re getting ready to hire your first employee, now you need job descriptions, expectations, training procedures and employee protocols. As the business grows, your needs change, and you can continue putting systems in place as you reach those stages.

And sometimes a written resource is only the beginning. If someone has a situation that isn’t covered or needs help applying something to their particular business, that’s where consulting can come in. The same is true of our Preferred Resource Network. Sometimes the answer isn’t another SOP — you need a contractor, electrician, equipment supplier or another professional who understands what you’re trying to accomplish.

For me, though, the first step is still understanding the business you’re about to build before you build it. Know what it’s going to cost, know what you’re committing to and have a realistic plan for how it’s going to make money.

Then you can build the rest of your systems around it as you grow.

As we wrap up, what do you want pet grooming professionals and shop owners to understand about the future of business SOPs and systems, and the kind of businesses you believe this industry deserves?

As I get older, I think it’s becoming more important to me to teach than it is to do.

I’ve spent more than 45 years in this industry, and I genuinely love what I do. I’ve made mistakes, built businesses, trained people, worked by myself, worked with teams, taught students and watched this industry change tremendously. Somewhere along the way I realized how much of what I’d learned was still living in my head.

When I started putting Streamline together, I honestly couldn’t believe I hadn’t done it sooner.

I kept thinking about how much easier my own life would have been if somebody had handed me something and said, “Here are the basics. This is what needs to be done, this is how it can be done, and this is who needs to be responsible for doing it.”

And I don’t think this is only a small-business problem. From what I’ve seen, larger organizations and franchises don’t necessarily have detailed operating procedures specifically built around the realities of professional pet grooming either. They may have excellent general business systems, policies and procedures, but grooming is its own very specialized service.

When those grooming-specific systems aren’t there, everybody ends up figuring things out as they go. Sometimes difficult services are simply eliminated. Sometimes procedures are changed because they’re difficult to train consistently. And, sometimes the focus becomes keeping production moving rather than asking whether there’s a better way to train and support the people doing the work.

I believe this industry deserves more than that.

At the bare minimum, whether you’re one groomer working by yourself, a small salon, a mobile operation or a large franchise, you should be able to define what you do, how you do it and who is responsible for doing it. That’s the foundation of an SOP, and I think having that foundation makes everybody better.

I don’t want systems to take the individuality out of grooming. Quite the opposite. Pet grooming is creative, artistic and incredibly personal. There are a million different ways to get from A to B and still produce beautiful work. What I want is a stronger foundation underneath that creativity — better training, clearer expectations, safer practices, better communication and businesses that can actually support the people working inside them.

Streamline was really built from everything Hound Therapy taught me. Hound Therapy gave me the opportunity to put decades of experience into practice in a new way — to build a team, train people, teach students, try things, make mistakes, change them and see what could actually be repeated successfully. Streamline became the place where I could take those lessons and put them into a form that other people could build from.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, something happened that I never expected: my family became part of it.

When I started pet grooming at 15 years old, it was a job. I needed to work, I loved dogs and somebody gave me an opportunity. I certainly wasn’t thinking about building businesses, teaching other groomers or someday having my own family involved in something that started with that first opportunity.

But pet grooming has given me a life and opportunities I never could have imagined at 15. It’s become much more than a job. It’s a way of life for me. And being able to pass some of that on to my own family has probably been one of the most unexpected and meaningful parts of it.

Now I’d like to pass it on a little farther.

That’s what I’ve tried to create with Streamline. We’ve built a grooming-specific library that currently has around 150 SOPs and is continuing to grow, because I’m still learning too. I’m still finding things I forgot to write down. I’m still listening to other groomers and having those moments where I think, “That’s a great idea. Why haven’t we been doing that?”

I don’t want us to be afraid of one another’s success. I want us to work together and push each other in a positive way. Competition should make us better, not be a threat.

If Hound Therapy and Streamline can give somebody else a stronger building block to start from — something that helps them avoid a few of the mistakes I’ve made, find opportunities I didn’t know existed when I started, and build a business and career that becomes more than they originally imagined — then that means a great deal to me.

I love what Hound Therapy has taught me. I love what we’ve built with Streamline. And I genuinely want to see the industry I’ve spent most of my life in become everything I know it can be — and give the next person the opportunity to build something they never imagined possible.

Let’s Wrap it Up for Our Readers!

Thank you, Shannon, for such a generous and honest look into everything behind Streamline Pet Solutions and Hound Therapy & Grooming Academy.

What comes through most in this conversation is that Shannon is not selling theory. Every one of her Pet Grooming Business SOPs came out of a real shop floor, tested on real employees, adjusted after real mistakes, and proven to work more than once before it ever made it onto paper. That practical honesty runs through everything she shared here: systems were never meant to strip the individuality out of grooming, they were meant to protect it. When expectations, safety, and training live in a document instead of one owner’s memory, talent gets a chance to show up the same way every single day.

As franchise and corporate money keeps pouring into pet grooming, that distinction matters more than ever. Shannon has spent forty five years learning what actually holds a pet grooming business together, and she is now generously handing that knowledge to the next groomer standing where she once stood.