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Cool Business Ideas for Pet Lovers

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Looking for Cool Business Ideas Fueled by Your Love of Pets?

Keen minds have tuned into the booming pet industry that has been rapidly expanding in the last few years. The growth rate in the last five years has been over 30% with projections for the 2017 year ending in $69.36 billion. Why? There are tons of reasons for this expansion, but most importantly, there are a growing number of people out there just like you—they love their pets. The business ideas turned million dollar enterprises amplified onto the radar starting in 2015 with startup apps like Swifto, BarkBuddy, and Pooch.

For pet lovers looking to get in on the action and work alongside animals in a lucrative and fun-fueled career, the opportunities are nearly infinite.

What is one of the coolest businesses in the pet industry?

Owning a Pet Salon

Working with animals is an awarding experience. For a long time, there were only a few avenues to explore where a person could earn a substantial salary alongside animals. You could attend the four years of post-graduate schooling to become a veterinarian. Or, you could invest nearly a million dollars to open up a big box pet store. Now the playing field is even. Entrepreneurs can take their business ideas for the pet industry and thrive.

Owning a pet salon is great because it’s such a relaxed environment. Most dogs are content being washed and trimmed by professional groomers. Even the more timid dogs will warm up to kind hands. The best part about being an owner is you can be as hands-on as you choose. Usually, owners let the groomers do the grooming and the sales team takes care of building clientele. The goal is to eventually have your shop become self-sufficient, which leaves you time to chat with customers, play with their dogs, and work on the future.

With the right staff, and some hard work on your part, you can turn your business ideas into a profitable doggie penthouse.

Be Your Own Boss

Whether you’re a ‘Type A’ personality, or just fed up with bad management, capitalizing on your business idea could free up your time to dedicate to your ideas. This hindrance of corporate America is that unless you work for a really progressive company, chances are—you’re earning on their terms. Bad management strategies account for 70% of low employee engagement, according to a Gallup poll.

The same study shows only a mere 30% of employees are engaged at work. Gallup uses key metrics to survey employees on their emotional commitment to their companies organization and goals. When this engagement is low, productivity stifles. The reason this is so common—besides bad management—is because companies are failing to supply employees with the tools they need to maintain productivity.

Employees search for careers that can a provide job satisfaction. Work-life balance, location, schedule-flexibility, salary, and motivation are the factors that sustain job satisfaction. Owning a small business is a route that secures all these life arrangements on your own terms. Your success is contingent only on one person—yourself.

Passion fosters the work stemming from your business ideas that will gauge how successful you’ll become. Being your own boss empowers you to structure your own life.

Franchising Trends

As the pet industry continues to grow, the number of pet franchises is sharing the growth. Every franchise package is different. Some offer mobile pet grooming, live animal selling, retail, grooming, and everything in between. In large cities, upscale pet boutiques are proliferating. These boutiques feature unique products like designer pet strollers and rhinestone encrusted tiaras for pet owners looking to really spoil their pooches.

The mobile grooming franchise is also gaining traction. This model brings all the convenience of grooming right to pet owners’ house. The entire arsenal of tools pet groomers need is set up inside a commercial van. The only downside is that mobile grooming fails to take advantages of retail opportunities and other hidden costs of being mobile.

One of the strongest dynamics is combination package of having a hip pet salon combined with retail space that supplies progressive products for pet owners. Pet salons are popularizing. Many pet owners are tired of pet groomeries that reek of wet dog, have outdated modeling, and mediocre service.  On the contrast, Pet salons offer all the chicness that an extravagant human salon offers—space designed for relaxation.

As Eco-friendly products become more available, many pet salon franchises are supporting the green cause. A pet retailer can provide more high-quality products that last longer and are made with recycled materials. Cycle Dog, a pet collar made of old bike tires, is an example of one of these awesome products. Cycle Dog’s whole product line is made from recycled materials, crafted with the Earth in mind.

Owning a pet franchise that betters the world, conveniences their clients, and helps reduce the carbon footprint is an amazing way to forge cool business ideas.

To know more about some of the business ideas happening at Splash and Dash Groomerie & Boutique, click here.

 

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7 Franchise Advantages You Weren’t Aware Of

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Opening a Small Business Doesn’t Have to Be Intimidating; These Franchise Advantages are Backing You Up!

When you decide to  transform your dream of owning your own business into a reality you need to look at your options. The first is independent business—going solo. This is starting from scratch and building your business from an idea to a scaleable money-making endeavor. You find what you want to sell; goods or services, find a location; brick and mortar or online. A thousand other tasks come into play before establishing your financially adept business.

There is also franchising. Franchising is a method of expanding a business, distributing goods and services through a licensing partnership. The most prolific and widely-known brands are all franchises. Businesses like Panera Bread, Anytime Fitness, and Starbucks are examples of huge franchising models we all know. The person who began the business is the franchisor, who partners with those interested in investing, the franchisee. Essentially, franchising is the same route of business as going solo, only in this model someone has already went through the independent building and made it work.

Splash and Dash Groomerie & Boutique

Splash and Dash  began with an idea just like every business. The signature service provided members with unlimited monthly bath and brushing for a set price. No other pet grooming business did this. This membership service is at the core of the franchise. From this point, the brand—upscale ambiance, convenient retail products, pleasing aesthetic, emphasis on knowledge—was built around the service.  A few shops were really successful and the company grew from there.

The franchise advantage is that a franchise model’s strategies have a proven formula that has been shown to work in the marketplace. What are the franchise advantages and disadvantages out there?

Quicker Return on Investment (ROI)

Those interested in business have no doubt seen the gloomy SBA statistics showing how quickly businesses go belly up. It’s not a pretty picture. Investors pour their life savings into a business that fails in the first three years and are forced to declare bankruptcy. Entrepreneurs that work hard can expect to have their business become profitable around the third year, if the business hasn’t already failed.

One of the swiftest franchise advantages is the franchisor will work with you to ensure this does not happen to your location. A reputable franchise will measure company success on their franchisees’ success. Splash and Dash makes it a personal goal for their shop owners to break even within six months of opening doors. This is an amazing turn around rate for investors.

Lower Risk

Franchising is the best method for a business to grow to its full potential. The risk is a two-way street.

The risk is low for franchisees because the systems of business have already been perfected. Revenue streams, brand, and marketing are all pre-established and set in motion for the favor of the whole company—every franchisee benefits from this.

The risk is lower for a franchisor because the franchisee assumes the responsibility of financing and operations. A franchisor provides the tools to open and maintain the business, but there is no liability if this business fails. It will hurt the company holistically, but a franchisor will not lose capital. This is why it’s important to partner with the right fit who will give you the support you need.

Strong Profitability

Different franchise models have various methods of securing profits. Most franchises have entrenched revenue streams. A business capitalizes on a niche. This niche needs to be stable or even better growing.

Splash and Dash secures profits with a model of recurring revenue. This is based on the membership that customers purchase for a mutually beneficial agreement. A customer pays monthly for their membership and can use Splash and Dash services at their leisure. If a customer is coming in twice a week to have their dog groomed, they will naturally purchase their products at this one-stop-shop. Splash and Dash services also have add-ons for the benefit of clients’ pets. Each customer can choose to take advantage of an add-on or not, and members are discounted on all services.

This is just one example of the franchise advantages a particular company provides. Each model is different and has different methods of profiting.

Brand Recognition

Branding is loosely part of the umbrella of marketing, but instead of pushing outward on customers, a brand should be drawing them in. A company’s brand tells the story of the company. The values, products, and services the company provides.

This is a huge advantage franchise owners have over other small businesses. In the food service franchise sector, many customers are finicky. They know what foods they like and what foods they don’t like. They have their trusted brand and are loyal. Many franchise owners receive customer loyalty just because they are a representative of a certain brand.

If you choose to invest in a franchise, go with a brand that aligns with your own value and story you want to tell your customers.

Expansion & Penetration of Other Markets

That old expression, “When something ain’t broke don’t fix it” translates into the franchise world as, “My shop is seeing huge profits and everything is going really great so I guess it’s time to open a second shop and make more money.” Of course, this is the ideal situation, but rapid growth is a franchise advantage across the board.

Most franchise owners take their knowledge and capital and expand into the new market territories. They can open secondary, tertiary locations, and more. Some franchises like Panera, only allow franchisees to purchase packages only. Panera has a development plan where each franchise owner on average owns 15 of the bakery-cafes within six years of working with the company. No one can own a single Panera Bread.

A Helping Hand

Even seasoned business owners with tons of expertise can use the support of a franchisor when launching a business. Splash and Dash provides training and assistance for every step in the process from day one.

John Neugebauer, a franchise owner in San Diego told us this, “I worked in corporate America for about 20 years, had enough, and wanted to do something that made me happy. I went with a franchise over starting my own pet store because I have no idea what I’m doing. Having the support of the franchise behind me felt basically like they handed me their model and said ‘If you follow this, you should be successful.'”

Franchising should be a partnership and a good franchisor should invest in you as much as you have invested in them.

Fundamental Procedures Splash and Dash Assists With:

  • Hiring
  • Training
  • Site Selection
  • Lease Negotiation
  • Accounting
  • Marketing
  • Initial Stock Order
  • Point of Sales

Ease of Supervision and Staffing Leverage

Franchising allows for a consolidated organization. At the corporate level, a team of employees are expanding the franchise, assisting current franchise owners, and tending to the various demands of overarching business like marketing campaigns. The work corporate headquarters does offsets the work for each unit. A franchise owner doesn’t have to focus on these wider tasks and can leverage their efforts to their location. This also reduces a shop owner’s payroll because they won’t have to hire as many employees.

Disadvantages to Owning a Franchise

Owning a franchise is not the right choice for everyone. The biggest advantage a person can do for themselves is to invest in a franchise that works for them. There is a huge amount of differentiation when it comes to franchise opportunities and like everything, there are bad deals out there.

Some Disadvantages of Franchising:

  • Not Completely Autonomous
  • Contractual Agreement
  • Restrictions on products, services, pricing, and territory
  • Lack of Corporate Support
  • Conflicting Visions

No matter your business pursuit, we wish you luck!

 

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