State of the Industry - National Cat Groomers Institute of America

ePurrfect Pointers
NCGIA
701 Pendleton Street | Greenville, SC 29601
www.nationalcatgroomers.com | 877.302.7430 | info@nationalcatgroomers.com
State of the
Industry
Letter From the President | Danelle German
I remember when there wasn’t actually
a cat grooming industry. Sure there were
dog groomers who groomed cats and
even a couple feline-exclusive groomers
that I knew about in the pre-2006 days
when I was busy showing Persians, building a local cat clientele, and had no idea
there were tradeshows and events just for
grooming professionals.
The first tradeshow I ever visited was the
Hershey Groom Expo in PA in September
2006. I remember making that 10-hour
drive with excitement and anticipation of
all the wonderful cat grooming seminars,
products, tools and more that I would
surely find at such a large industry event.
Only I didn’t find any of that at Hershey
Groom Expo that year. When I asked
vendors about where their cat grooming section or their display of special
cat grooming products was they often
looked at me as if I had three heads. Cat
grooming seminars? Nada. Okay, then......
obviously this is a dog’s world and, hence,
a dog groomer’s world. I do not belong
here. These were my thoughts as I drove
away, heading south and filled with great
disappointment.
Only I did belong there. The cats needed
someone. The “closet” cat groomers
needed someone. They needed that person to lead the charge and form a union,
of sorts. We, the cat groomers, needed a
path forged that would lead to recognition, knowledge, skill, sound business
principles, mentoring, encouragement
and the boldness to move forward as
proud and brave groomers of cats. Cats
were treated like second class citizens
in the grooming industry (and still are in
some circles!) and therefore, the groomers of the cats were not taken seriously.
If you were in search of a book or instruction manual on cat grooming at that time,
Sam Kohl’s The Cat Grooming Guide was
the one and only choice. If you were looking for a useful cat grooming DVD of any
kind, well, you were just plain out of luck.
That was 2006. Things are a bit different
now. Instead of being a side dish, feline
grooming has become somewhat of a
main course!
In May of 2007 the National Cat Groomers Institute of America was formed,
cat grooming standards were written, a
certification program was put into place,
and someone actively took charge of
bringing professional cat grooming front
and center. Training material was quickly
developed and added to and then marketing material and grooming business
management tools formed as the NCGIA
membership grew worldwide and cat
groomers everywhere communicated the
need for such items. Today, between my
own inventions and work and the work of
ePurrfect Pointers
the fabulous NCGIA team, there exists the
following:
•The Ultimate Cat Groomer Encyclopedia
•Cat Grooming Ain’t for Pussies, Profits
and Lessons From an 11-Cat Day
•Cat Handling Techniques for the Groomer
•Culture Book 2012
•Culture Book 2013
•Temperaments and Handling Skills Study
Packet
•Breeds, Colors and Coat Types Study
Packet
•Feline Health and Anatomy Study Packet
•Business Management Study Packet
•Breed Flash Cards
•Color Flash Cards
•Here Kitty Kitty DVD
•Kryptonite for Cats DVD
•Cat With a Mat DVD
•The Comb Cut DVD
•Get a Grip DVD
•On the Road with Jodi and Danelle Part 1
& 2 DVDs (developed in partnership with
Jodi Murphy)
•Breed Poster
•7 different salon marketing posters
•cat-specific client record cards
•Groom-stickies check-in/groom forms
•Groom Style Flip Chart
•Cat-astrophe Flip Chart
•What is Humane? customer brochures
•A Groomed Cat is a Happy Cat customer
brochure
•Got Hairballs? customer brochure
•Is Your Cat Clean? customer brochure
•5 different breed-specific customer care
brochures
•website content specific to a cat grooming business
•stock photo packages for cat grooming business websites and marketing
material
•Cat-a-tonic finishing spray
•the Catty Shack Vac™ drying system
•Chubbs Bars™ Shampoo (specially developed for cats but also great for dogs,
horses, etc)
•a 30+ hour webinar library (and growing!)
•quarterly Purrfect Pointers newsletters
•Salon design ideas and floorplans
•private consultation
•AND……well, we are not done yet!
NCGIA
701 Pendleton Street | Greenville, SC 29601
www.nationalcatgroomers.com | 877.302.7430 | info@nationalcatgroomers.com
My 2014 kicked off without delay with a
morning flight on New Years Day. Because
of the cat grooming industry. Less than
two weeks later, I awoke at 6:00 AM,
drove to the world’s first and only felineexclusive grooming school to teach four
hours of business-related material to two
Canadians and four Americans who will be
the first graduates of the school’s fourth
year in operation. Immediately after my
classes were done, I passed the baton to
Lynn Paolillo, an NCGIA instructor who
relocated almost two years prior from NJ
to SC solely because of a job offer in the
cat grooming industry. I left for the airport
where I flew to Phoenix for two different
meetings with major players in the pet
industry solely because of their interest
in the cat grooming industry. During my
stay in Phoenix, I traveled down to Tucson
to visit Gabi Tiefenbrunn, a CFMG with a
feline-exclusive mobile business that she
started less than two years prior, after attending the NCGIA. Gabi and her husband
had made a seemingly crazy decision for
her to leave behind her former vocation
of many years and start up a mobile cat
grooming business. Gabi had no prior pet
grooming experience before attending
the school. Upon graduating and earning
her Certified Feline Master Groomer title,
Gabi returned to Tucson, bought a brand
new Wag’n Tails® mobile unit upfitted
with a compact Catty Shack Vac™ and custom-made stainless steel table, designed
her own logo and marketing material, and
set about taking Tucson by storm. Just
recently Gabi added an employee to her
business and keeps asking me if I know
of anyone who would like to get a mobile
unit and take over half of Tucson for her.
She’s finding it hard to keep up with the
growth.
While driving the 90 miles through the
Arizona desert to meet Gabi this past
week, I had this article on my mind. What
is the current state of the cat grooming
industry? Hmmmm......well, maybe Gabi,
by chance. And all those like her. There
are many, many cat groomers I could tell
you about, most of them CFMGs, who are
doing marvelous things all over the world.
In the week or two preceding the writ[Above] Many CFMGs shared their
media success with us.
ePurrfect Pointers
ing of this article I posted some general
questions on Facebook and via email to
assist me in gathering data. At the time
of writing this article I had received 49
responses. Respondents were from the
US, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK. During
the years prior to 2007 when the NCGIA
was formed, only 7 of the 49 reported
grooming cats in their businesses. Only
1 of those 7 reported being feline-exclusive.
Of the remaining 42 respondents, nearly
half (18) were new business start-ups in
2013! I was surprised by this!
Of the 42 post-2007 (meaning after the
start of the NCGIA) respondents, 9 said
they have feline-exclusive grooming
salons. Four claimed to operate a felineexclusive mobile business and 8 reported
offering feline-exclusive housecall services. WOW! I can remember only two
feline-exclusive salons when I checked
around for them in May 2007 during the
time I was incorporating the National
Cat Groomers Institute. Twenty-one of
the 42 post-2007 businesses reporting
the requested data - HALF of them - are
feline-exclusive! And I can think of a few
off the top of my head that did not send
NCGIA
701 Pendleton Street | Greenville, SC 29601
www.nationalcatgroomers.com | 877.302.7430 | info@nationalcatgroomers.com
in their data and are, thus, not included
in these numbers. I am amazed by this!
In 2013 I logged 117,514 flight miles.
Because of the cat grooming industry. It
is alive and growing all over the world.
In June 2012 I flew to Zurich to teach at
a workshop hosted by the Maine Coon
Society of Switzerland. None of the
attendees or members of the Society
were professional pet groomers. They
were, however, serious cat exhibitors,
and wanted to perfect their cat grooming for show purposes. As a result of that
workshop, one of the attendees, Helena
Schmid, a Persian exhibitor from the
Zurich area, later travelled to SC to invest
two weeks and a chunk of money into
her soon-to-be new profession as a cat
groomer. Helena later opened Katzensalon, Switzerland’s first (and currently
only) feline-exclusive grooming business.
Similar such stories can be told about
people in Singapore, Australia, Hong
Kong, Canada, the US, and other places
around the globe. Little by little, cat by
cat, professional feline groomers are
changing the world one cat at a time.
This is the current state of the industry
and I rather like it!
Trips this year will also be including
visits to past graduates and CFMGs!.
A new web series called “Danelle
Drops In” will feature these visits. You
can watch them online here!
Veteran “instructors” Petunia and C2 achieved
their own success in the show ring.
A mobile van is also a mobile billboard! Gabi once had a customer
take a photo of her van at a stop light
just so that she could give her a call
later.