Handling It
In each episode, Gavyn and Sierra share their expertise and provide tips on how to have a clear and positive perception to succeed in this industry. They aim to change the perception of what this career could be by introducing ideas to be held up to a higher standard.
Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting out in the industry, the Handling It podcast is a must-listen. Tune in to gain valuable insights and knowledge from the experts.
Handling It
Handling It: Creating a Peaceful Space and a Positive Team (Ft. Rachel Colant)
Ever wondered how to create a perfect blend of positive vibes and high-quality service in a grooming salon? Meet Rachel Colant, second-generation groomer and shop manager at Jess Rona Grooming. With her assertive personality and impressive leadership skills, Rachel has carved a unique path to where she is today. From her start as a bather at PetSmart to being an influential educator in salon freestyle grooming, she's truly done it all. Join us as we chat with Rachel about her journey, the challenges she faced, and how she fostered an uplifting work environment.
Navigating the grooming industry is no easy feat. Rachel's story is a testament to overcoming obstacles, with valuable lessons on patience, grace, and resilience. She shares how her ADHD learning style proved an asset, turning frustrations into opportunities for growth and teaching. Discover how she used social media as a tool for growth, maintained professional relationships with boundaries, and transformed negativity into positivity in her salon.
Leadership in the grooming industry plays a vital role and Rachel's insights on this topic are nothing short of invaluable. We delve into mindful hiring practices, team dynamics, and the importance of shared goals. Rachel also discusses handling difficult conversations and managing "dark cloud" employees. It’s not just about the dogs, it's about the people too. Rachel warmly invites you to connect with her on social media and hints at her upcoming class at the Hershey Super Zoo. Prepare to be inspired, energized, and filled with actionable tips from this conversation. Your grooming salon will thank you.
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Hi, welcome back to another episode of Handling it. Today we have Rachel Colant here. Hello Rachel. Hi Thank you so much for being here. I think pretty much everyone that follows me on social media knows how obsessed I am with you, so I'm just very glad you could be here today. You were seriously one of my favorite groomers in the whole world.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, I'm going to cry. Thank you guys both for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Yeah, I also think all of my social media friends know that. You know that's big.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So cute but for a lot of the people who listen to us that might not know, like, how you started, do you want to tell us a little bit about, like your grooming journey and kind of when you started and how you got into the industry?
Speaker 2:Yes, totally so. I am a second generation groomer. My mom was a dog groomer and trainer when I was growing up, so I've kind of just always been around it. I grew up with boobies and like a lot of large breed dogs and I used to go with my mom on Saturdays to help her bathe.
Speaker 2:Actually, I used to help her bathe like these two old English sheepdogs. And I was like probably like 12 years old and I was like, wow, I have a job. And looking back, I'm like I would never do that. That would be like the worst day of my life now If I had two sheepdogs that I was supposed to be grooming by myself. Like what in the actual heck. So I used to go bathe with my mom and I would just watch her groom. And when I turn, I graduated high school a year early and was going to go to college. That didn't end up working out, but I needed to get a job. So I was like, what can I do that doesn't require a college degree, that I can make good money? And I was like, oh, I should just groom. And so I applied at PetSmart, started as a bather. I trained as a bather for a year before I started grooming. This was I don't want to, I don't want to show my age. This was, I think, 12 years ago.
Speaker 3:So I was you know, 30 years old now Just a baby.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, I started like fresh out of high school and started bathing Back in those days PetSmart didn't really like to send people to Academy who hadn't been bathing for like at least six months to a year. So I feel like I'm very lucky in that I got like a pretty solid basis of education from PetSmart, like before I was pushed into grooming school. I hear a lot of stories now about groomers who were bathing for two weeks before they went to Academy and I was like I was begging by the end of my year I was like, please send me to Academy.
Speaker 2:Like I feel, like I could groom a dog in my sleep at this point. And yeah, I bounced around a little bit. I'm from the suburb of Chicago. I lived in Chicago for a while. I also lived in Delaware for a little while, but I've been in Los Angeles for eight a little like eight and a half years and have worked at a ton of shops in Los Angeles, bunch of shops in Illinois and just you know kind of have seen it all. But I've been working at Jesserunner Grooming for four years now and I am the shop manager and I feel like I'm very privileged to be in the position that I am now. I kind of feel like everything that I was working towards in my grooming career has like led to this point in this job. So, yeah, that's, you know, that's where I'm at. I get to train and work with like really amazing groomers. We do like salon freestyle, quality grooms on every dog every day, which is my dream and passion and it's like what?
Speaker 2:I love to do is cute pet haircuts.
Speaker 1:So I feel.
Speaker 2:I feel like really privileged to be able to do that and you also.
Speaker 1:you do education stuff right, so I know you teach at Barkley shows. You make a lot of really great educational content on Instagram. When did you start educating more for, like the whole industry?
Speaker 2:So I've always. I think that it's just kind of in my nature to be a leader of people. I have like a really assertive personality, so like if I know the answer to something, I'm going to tell you like I'm and that's just kind of how I am.
Speaker 2:So in the salons that I've been at, especially after I became a groomer, I always had groomers in the shops that I worked at who I like looked up to and who I'm like, oh my God, I can't wait to groom like Raoul one day. Raoul was a groomer at my first pet smart and like I was like he is like he's goals, you know and so but I he he really helps me a lot when I was, when I was first learning, and I was like I want to be able to be that for someone. So it's just like having that person in your shop who you can count on to like help you out and like because it's scary to learn a new skill and to do a new thing and you're like every single day you're like putting yourself out there and being vulnerable because you don't know what you're doing, like that's hard. So I wanted to be like that secure person for someone in my shop.
Speaker 2:So I kind of like have gradually just grown into the educator and then, being in the salon that where I work now, I just had like a little bit more time in my day to like maybe make a video or a lot of what we do in our shop is like education focused.
Speaker 2:So we're always working with each other and trying to encourage each other to get better at grooming whether it's like you know me with Alyssa, or you know Alyssa with with our new assistants, or anything anybody everybody's always giving each other feedback and we're all learning from each other and growing. So because that was just part of my day to day when I had opportunities or when I would have like an aha moment where I was like, oh my God, that's how I explain this thing that I haven't been able to explain. I know how to do it, but I never knew how to explain it until I just clicked and I'm like, okay, I want to make a video about that. And yeah, I just got a lot more comfortable with teaching in since I've been working at my current salon, because it's such a huge part of our culture and I realized I was pretty good at it.
Speaker 2:I asked for a lot of feedback, like from the staff or because I I have ADHD, so I have a different learning style from a lot of people, you know, and some people can like watch someone do something and then immediately do it, and some people need some. I can't do that. I can't like I either have to be doing it, like watching your hand and doing it at the same time. I can't like my mind just like cannot comprehend, like watching something, remembering it and then like applying it, I need to do, I need to be like hands on.
Speaker 2:I'm like I want you to physically like move my hand or be like oh, just watch me and tell me like, absolutely stop doing that.
Speaker 2:You know that's like how I learned or else, like you know, if you could write something down for me, that's easier for me. So, because I wasn't able to learn in this in like the traditional ways that I feel like grooming is taught. But I'm really like you know, like I said, I have a pretty assertive personality, like I'm very good at advocating for myself. So I would tell people, hey, like I'm not able to understand what you're saying, or like that's not clicking for me. Is there another way that you can understand it? I was like, okay, getting feedback, as I'm teaching people, as I'm learning myself and figuring out, like how to make things click for me.
Speaker 2:I'm like I want to teach people the way that I'm able to learn, because I don't see it as often I need just like I just need like a lot of back and forth and like I want to make sure, while someone's learning, that they understand. So I think some of some of like my passion for teaching just came from me being a student and like struggling a little bit, like not feeling great at the end of the day when I when I maybe didn't speak up about something that I wasn't understanding, and I'm like why am I not? You know, why have I been working on jaw lines for like a week and I still don't get it, like you know, driving home at the end of the day and like wanting to cry because you messed up your third.
Speaker 2:You know, your third year of the day. And so, like you know, I just want to help other people not feel that way and I just feel like I have amassed a great deal of you know trial and error in how I'm able to learn things and can give that to other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's like wisdom, though, and I think that's what makes a great teacher is, like you were, you are still a student, like actively being a student and knowing, like what helps you and like what doesn't. And then knowing, like you said, you have ADHD like. Unless you have that and you understand what it's like to not be able to like watch a seminar and like, two weeks later finally have a dog that you can like apply that to, unless you've experienced that like, you don't get it like. But you're right, some people can like take notes at a class and just go and remember do it two weeks later and it's like not fair, because that's yeah, I'm the same way.
Speaker 2:My mom always says life's not fair. I'm like, okay, mom, but it's still not fair.
Speaker 3:But I like that, just saying that like because you are the most qualified to help the person that you used to be, so like I feel like that's where you see, you see a lot of like used to be Rachel's and like man, this is what helped me. This is what helped me. I like I don't know if you've ever had like the student where you feel more drawn to, or like the person in your salon you felt more drawn to and you could just like I don't know if it's an energy field that we both feel, but like, I feel like I used to be that person and I feel like in this moment, I am the most qualified to help that person because I was that person. I always feel like you know, when you're in church and like this pastor or someone will like, look at you and be like oh, my God how'd they know it was me?
Speaker 2:Like I'm being read right now for like don't.
Speaker 3:No, I think that's like, and I feel as an educator, that's just something you know, that's what an energy gift.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, it's like a gift and I don't think a lot of people have that and I think that's why you're such like a good educator and why you make such great content Like truly. I got to try really hard not to turn this into just me like standing Rachel for an hour, but there's no idea.
Speaker 2:We'll have that conversation after this.
Speaker 1:Okay, you can do that.
Speaker 2:Another thing, like with social media, I feel like with education on social media. So, like I like making the digestible, like I'm just going to show you how I do like this part of this type of dog, because I was sorry my dog is sitting right next to me, of course like rattling his collar as loud as he possibly can, I'm like RIP to your ears, listeners, I'm so sorry. When I went from the shop that I was at before my current salon, like the salon that I'm at right now, like I do not think that there's any other grooming salon in the country who is like operating to the standard that we are operating, and I'm not saying that, the quality of like. There are hundreds of groomers in the US who I know like you know, I follow them on Instagram or whatever who are doing equally beautiful work, but I don't like it's like every single dog that we do every single day. Like we're combing up, like, like as if they're being judged, like I'm combing up the legs and making sure that it's even like you know, we're just spending a lot of time on these haircuts because we do charge a lot of money.
Speaker 2:And but when I went from my old salon, where I felt you know I was. I was felt like I was a good groomer and I did cute haircuts, but it wasn't to the same standard that we're doing it now. So I was relearning a lot of this stuff and like I kind of came into it as if I was just a beginner and I was like relearning clipper work and relearning like how to do heads, like everything. And when I was first getting into that environment it was super overwhelming because I was like, oh my God, I don't know anything, like I've been grooming for 10 years and I have no idea, like, what I'm doing. So that's definitely, I feel, like the state of mind for a lot of like younger groomers or newer groomers or even groomers who are just getting out of doing like mostly shave downs and they want to start doing like you know, one on the body with scissor legs, and they're like they don't even know where to start.
Speaker 2:It's see, it can be super overwhelming, but when, and that's how I was feeling, so I just had to start in order to preserve my sanity and, like, not just go home crying every day.
Speaker 2:I had to just focus on, like literally just the foot, like I'm only just gonna do the foot and then, like tomorrow, if I can do the feet perfectly, then I can work on like the rest of the leg and then the next day I'll work on the angulation.
Speaker 2:And so it's like, if you can make these little short videos on social media and someone can watch it over and over and not just like watch a 30 minute video and then try to apply it next time, but it's like I can make a 60 second video just showing you one thing that you can master, like one, you're gonna feel really good about yourself. You're gonna be like wow, I f-ing did that, but two, then you can start connecting. You can now, next, you can watch a video that I did on a muzzle and now you're like, now I can do the eyebrows and the muzzle and pretty soon you're gonna have the whole head down, but you're not gonna get that like overwhelming, like oh my God, I have no idea what I'm doing, because you can do one little thing yeah.
Speaker 1:And everything connects to itself and everything is always like a continuation of what you learned before. Like it's always about like, building on the skills you have, like I think that's a really good like model to follow.
Speaker 1:But what I wanna talk about is how you were saying, like learning, those things could be overwhelming. Today, we're talking about like developing a really like a peaceful atmosphere in your salon and like building a team that is focused on like calm and it's focused on energy. How do you approach those things, like when you're learning, because it is frustrating, especially if you don't have a teacher there to like walk you through it. How do you approach those things without like getting frustrated? How do you like keep the energy in your salon good when you're the only person that is like, because I'm not sure if everyone's experienced this, but I've definitely been at salons where I was. It felt like I was the only one that wanted to be better and to like improve myself, and it felt like everybody was almost looking down on me because I'm spending an extra 30 minutes trying to get like a cute face and I'm like you guys don't understand like I wanna be a good groomer.
Speaker 2:So, I guess.
Speaker 1:My question is how do you develop those skills without getting frustrated and without it like affecting your environment?
Speaker 2:Therapy.
Speaker 2:And probably, yeah, like medication, I don't know Honestly.
Speaker 2:No, like sincerely, I feel like having like grace and patience with yourself is the number one best thing that you can do for your own sanity and like just being okay. This is something that I still like I'm still working on because, like, I get frustrated with myself when I don't you know, when I'm not getting something, or when I feel like I should be better than this and you know. But it's like sometimes you just have an off day, or sometimes there's just something that's gonna take you down, or sometimes there's just something that's gonna take you a little bit longer, and I just try to remind myself like that I will always be learning and I will never be like to you know, I will never be like, oh, I should be past this, like it's okay and you just have to take a deep breath and like try to reframe and also remember, like you know, at the end of the day, like we all wanna do like an amazing job and do this like perfect, like Instagram worthy haircut, but like they're just dogs and like it's okay, it's not.
Speaker 2:Like you know, in my mind I build it up to be like this huge, high stakes thing and I'm like so tense and I'm like, oh my God, this is like the last room that I'm ever gonna do in my life and if it's bad, then I'm bad forever and like everyone will laugh at me and like no one will remember me and whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wanna like go back because, like you said, they're just dogs and that is something I literally have to say to myself like several times a week. Or like if I'm grooming like a really senior dog or like a dog with a medical condition and I'm getting upset because it doesn't look how I want it to look, I have to stop and like literally tell myself like this is somebody's dog and he's gonna go home and he's gonna love his owner, like regardless of how he looks.
Speaker 2:I keep doing my best, I'm gonna mess up his haircut immediately also. Yeah, that's what. I'm glad I love that, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I with like just the energy of the song, I wanna talk a little bit about like just from like a management perspective and like kind of like hiring and that kind of stuff, because I never want to be in a position where I feel like I'm the only one in my salon who cares and I think that that's like really important from if you're in charge of hiring at your salon, if you're even if you have like any say and you can like try to help if you're not the manager owner, and you can like try to help the manager owner because the other people's vibe in your shop really does like affect the vibe of the whole team. Me and Alyssa were literally talking about this earlier today. Alyssa is just an amazing groomer I work with at my salon and we were talking about this today, but she was like someone's energy in the shop. It's like if someone came in with a cold, they're gonna give someone else the cold, and if you come in with a bad attitude or bad energy, like especially a younger person, maybe it's gonna affect your bather or maybe it's gonna affect your receptionist. Maybe you personally aren't gonna be affected by it, but if you have other employees like who are newer to this or who just some people just have are really sensitive to other people's energy or are really easily influenced by others, it's so like it can get so toxic and so infectious so fast.
Speaker 2:So I really try, like in hiring and just in general, like when we have to let people go or whatever a lot of it is just because of the way that they're affecting the rest of the team and, in turn, affecting the way that the dogs behave in the salon, and I want my whole shop to be like calm and peaceful.
Speaker 2:Obviously, there's gonna be days when every single dog pee is on the floor and poops as soon as they get in, and like there will be days like that. But like I don't want. I want everyone to like feel supported. I want the dogs to be comfortable, and you just can't do that when you have half of the shop not on the same page. I do think that if you're not in a position where you have any control over hiring or who you work with, there are things that you can do, like put headphones on and just like try to keep to yourself and just do everything that you can to give your best self to the dog, because they still will be able to pick up on your energy and it may not be the absolute best that, the most comfortable that they can be, but like if you have good vibes, the dogs are gonna get your good vibes, but it's just way more draining when you're having to like shield yourself from everyone else's bad vibes, so that you can give your good energy to the dogs.
Speaker 2:So it's so important to have when you're building your team, to make sure that everyone has the same goals and not saying people can't have a bad day, but just when people are in a bad mood every single day, when they're always starting drama, when it's like every client is the worst just like those people, the bad eggs. You can make the whole dozen rotten really quick just by with one bad egg.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So like what I'm curious, like when you're like hiring someone, what are some things that you can like look at not necessarily just at the interview, because, like I'm just like I want, I believe, the best out of everyone, so I can't get much out of somebody from an interview. But, like what are some things that you look for like early on that are going to signify like that this person's energy might not be like the right, they're not going to be like a good fit, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, first, like protect yourself by doing like a 3060 90 day trial with people who you hire because, like you're not going to get the full vibe of someone, you know you're not going to get a handle on who someone really is through an interview. Even a lot of the time in the first 30 days you know it's easy to like be who you're not for you know a couple weeks but like three months in you're going to know you're going to see like those flags come up.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And if you have like, if you're on a 90 day trial where you're, a lot of states are at will employment states, so like you can let people go for any reason, but obviously you don't want someone to be like leaving angry or whatever. But you know, just protect yourself and your business and your team and the dogs by having something like that in place. It also just gives you some peace of mind that like if it doesn't go right, it's okay, like either of us can walk away for any reason. Yeah, but things that like at my salon we train everyone we hire. We do not hire groomers like every Elizabeth Gibbs, just like goddess groomer like amazing, so talented, love her to death. She came to our shop and we were training her to work like the way that we work. So it's like even no matter who came into our shop, we would train them. So that is honestly a huge indicator of whether someone like would be a good fit.
Speaker 2:Because if you're not willing to be retrained, if you're not being educated or doing things in a different way than like right off the bat, you're probably not going to be the right fit.
Speaker 1:You're gonna figure that out. That's such a good idea.
Speaker 2:I think it's really smart, especially like you know, if you want to start having at my salon we don't have any like really request clients who can only be groomed by one groomer because we can all do the same level of work skills which makes it really easy because you know we can help each other and like nobody's picky and like whatever.
Speaker 2:But we also, like you know, I want people to have their own style but also be able to do like what we do at our shop and the same for bathing. Like I want every single person at my shop to be able to like prep a dog well, so, like I'm, even if I hire a groomer, they're going to train as a person for like a week or two just to make sure that, like, if they need to be the dog, it's going to still be to the same level. And there are groomers who have come to interview with us and they're like I would never be a bather and it's like okay, then you're not our person.
Speaker 1:Everything builds up itself.
Speaker 2:You know you guys are learn. You guys learned how to bathe differently with botanica. You know you weren't like I already know how to bathe. You know it's like okay, I want to learn like I'm. I'm a really, really talented, competitive groomer and I still have things to learn. So that's also it shows that learning as much of an ego.
Speaker 2:I feel like ego is like a really huge thing in the energy of the room. So if, if, like if I'm doing something in, my assistant thinks that like it doesn't look good, or what you know, if they're like, oh, this year is longer, like I want them to feel comfortable telling me that. And if someone has an ego and you tell them like hey, that year is longer than they're going to be in a bad mood and like they might not be as gentle with the dog or they might just, like you know, put out weird vibes.
Speaker 3:Just awkward yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So, like I genuinely feel like having a calm environment starts with the people and then trickles down to the dogs, so we hire more on vibe and then train, because I can train, you know, if you're open to it I can train whoever, but I can't train someone's energy. You know I can't make you happy to work every day, skills?
Speaker 1:yeah, exactly, exactly when you guys trained you?
Speaker 3:is there like a manual? Is there like a curriculum you guys follow? Is that or this? Is something that you know? As you said, everyone can pretty much groom the same clients. Everyone's at that same level.
Speaker 2:So we have like training benchmarks and we do, like Jess has her body blueprint course, so like we clipper pretty much every dog the same way, which is like we, you know, guard calm the body, set in the angulation, do a bib, do the underlying shorter, we have to leave a tuck up and then either guard calm the legs or scissor them. So like that's my first. Well, first we train on pads and right here on the in between the eyes for those of you who are not looking at me right now, which is everyone.
Speaker 3:So everyone.
Speaker 2:Everyone trains on pads, sani and trimming in between the eyes first, after bathing, after drying and fluffing which is also a huge thing, like every single one of my employees needs to be able to fluff out a dog and prep it for me with not a single tangle like, yeah, do not give me a dog with a tangle on it. You have, yeah. So Then they do pads, sani and eyes. After that we start the clipper work on the body and then we do scissor work on the legs and last we do scissor work on the heads. So it just depends.
Speaker 2:Most of the people who have come to us have come to us with, like you know, the ability to clipper. They'll do like you know a lot of them. It's like they started at pet smart, so they can do like that smart quality or maybe like a little bit better, and then we're just depend it, just like it really depends. We've trained some people and like a couple months, we've trained some people for over a year and they still didn't, like weren't able to get it. So it just depends on the person. But we kind of have like training benchmarks that we go by and we do train everyone like pretty much the same, the same way.
Speaker 3:Yeah it's cool. I really like that you guys train up to the standards of your salon. I think if everyone took that and like made it whatever their standards were, hopefully they could be as high as your guys is. But I think that could help really any energy in any business as a business side.
Speaker 1:So I think that I think I like an initial like. Problem with that, though, is I feel like so many salons don't even have standards, and so it's like no, we have to start there, you know, and you're right. Like energy, like the energy, or that the like vibe of your atmosphere is really like, at the end of the day, determined by the people who are like running the shop.
Speaker 1:So, whether that's the owner or the manager, like you are the one that's setting the tone for like, what's acceptable and what's not acceptable, and if you're too like, if you don't care like that's going to show through. Yes, and in the environment, and the way your dogs behave and the way your clients treat you like. It's all connected.
Speaker 2:Like I want.
Speaker 2:I want everyone to be able to groom the same way and then if someone says, do whatever you want, like you do your style, but that way, what helps about like everyone being able to groom the same way? You feel more supported when You're working on a difficult dog and you don't have to do the whole thing by yourself, like you can switch with someone halfway through and know that both halves of the dog are going to look the same. We also in California you can't pay commission. You can do hourly plus production bonus or just straight hourly, but you cannot pay commission.
Speaker 2:So, especially like if you're a California salon, this is something that you could implement right now because your employees are are, I mean hopefully not making commission only so you can work as a team and that drastically helps the energy. Like there's just nothing that drains me more or like makes me more crabby than working on like a 90 pound doodle who's like jerking my hand all around because they won't hold their head still, but I've already been working on their body for like an hour and 15 minutes, and then I'm like great, now I have to wrestle with them for their head.
Speaker 2:And if I'm working with it with as a team, and me and Alyssa are grooming this dog together. It's going to take half the time. I'm going to have half the frustration and be able to be twice as calm with the dog.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so not even just that, but also like you have someone there that understands what you're going through, like you're not alone. And I think alone makes a huge difference.
Speaker 2:And that's I also as the manager, and my son I'm a manager who also is still grooming. So it's different than like if you're a hands off manager because you you're never going to make your team feel 100% like you understand them, because you're not literally doing it with them.
Speaker 1:You can't really understand them. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so being just making sure that people feel like seen and even, if you like, there's just nothing that makes me feel better in the moment when I'm working on a difficult dog that when someone's like wow, that sucks, like what you're going through sucks and you're doing a great job.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And like that instantly is going to like turn my mood around. So having someone who's either going through it with you or just acknowledging is like a really easy way to like make someone feel better in the moment when doing something really difficult. Like just see them and like make them feel understood. That helps the energy a lot. And also like just offer to help. You know, you see sometimes, especially in like the rescue roundup competitions like how much someone's energy changes when someone goes up and helps them with a difficult dog, but like that could be every single day in your own shop. If you're like just willing to work as a team with your coworkers or with your employees or whatever that makes, it just makes such a huge difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's an amazing philosophy to have, and I wish more salons did that, because I've definitely been at salons where there is like a manager there and they don't. They don't really sometimes they've never been a groomer so they don't understand. But there's times when, like so hard they think that their job is to like be at the front of the salon, like dealing with only customers, and then like say, something happens like a dog is like really matted, or like the dog comes in with like a skin issue or something and the owner gets mad. And then that manager doesn't have like the full perspective because they're not like back in the salon with you, they're not experiencing like the things that you're experiencing or like the dog's behavior. So I love that like you get to be so hands on. I feel like that is another thing that like makes you, but like also your salon, different.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have a question, though, because I am the salon owner, salon manager, manager, manager manager.
Speaker 1:She wears many hats.
Speaker 3:I have many hats, I have the hardest time channeling my inner Rachel. I don't know how to be. I am the wishy washy boss. I'm well. However you want to do it. I'm really bad with like anything controversy or how. What advice would you give me to channel my inner Rachel?
Speaker 2:Man. Well, honestly, I've had to like, I see, like a leadership coach, like I mean I'm in therapy, I've had to like tone back my like, tell it like it is type of Okay, I'm just really like direct, and I think it's because I have such high standards and I'm and I know that I communicate them clearly. So if, if I have clear expectations of you, I'm sure that you understand them, which is something like I really do ask for a lot of feedback. I'm like are you clear? Is this something that you think that is possible?
Speaker 2:then it's a lot easier to hold someone accountable, like if you know, I've done a, b and C now I can hold you accountable in in order to like, get what we need to do accomplished, or it's like, maybe we just maybe this just isn't the right fit, or maybe, like this isn't something that can be done in those situations. Did you just hear that or was it just in my hair? You're good.
Speaker 1:That was my most recent, you're good.
Speaker 3:My most recent was I had a dark cloud employee come in and scare away my beather, and so now I don't have to.
Speaker 2:let me talk to them. Did you know that? Did you know that it was happening like as it, like before it happened, or is it like hindsight kind of thing?
Speaker 3:No, I very much witnessed the dark cloud energy. I just like didn't know how to fix it and I didn't know if I could get rid of such person at the time and my I mean.
Speaker 3:Such a good energy vibe, like we could go on trips together. We could, we can literally like do everything together and we were fine and I just kept that dark cloud energy around, even though I knew yeah, ruining her piece. I just it was a hard like I didn't know, I don't, I just wanted to keep the piece and obviously I didn't know. This is my session with Rachel.
Speaker 2:It's really difficult. I mean, I have so much advice for you. I'm gonna like tell you so much more later, but it is. It's scary because for my shop we're like very booked. We need more groomers like we're fully trained groomers, because I have so many more clients who want haircuts than baths and I need groomers.
Speaker 2:So we had to let go of like a grooming assistant who was almost trained, like and who had been with us for a long time and she ended up quitting. Before like it was like you're not, like I'm not fired, I quit, kind of thing. Like yeah, she knew that it was coming, but it was. It was really difficult because, like we needed her and I think when you're a smaller operation, you know, if it's just you obey there and one other person, you're like I can't get rid of this person because then I'm going to have to do it all by myself, or like then I'm gonna you know, it's like we just got into this group where we're finally able to do the amount of dogs that we want to do, or like you know, I'm finally able to step back more, as you know, and be more of the owner and not be in the thick of it every single day. So you're like, can I? But like, look at, look at where you are now, you know now you're down to people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like what I would do, especially if you want, if you like really want to try to retain the person, have a conversation with them and be like here's my experience. Like, and you can even be like this is a. This is really uncomfortable for me. Like, like I need to talk to you about this, but it's really uncomfortable for me. You don't. You don't have to be like, you can be super honest. You don't have to be like I'm your boss, like this is, you know, this is your.
Speaker 3:Yeah, review.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but be like hey, like this is super uncomfortable for me to bring up, but like I need to talk to you about this. Like here is what I'm experiencing. It seems like you're not happy. It feels like you don't want to be here. I know that you're talking to Bather about you know how, about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like is there anything that we can do? Or, and then at that point I probably would be like you know how are you feeling? And then they either you know they're going to be like you're right, like I'm not happy, or they're going to be like that's not true. You know they'll either own up to it or deny it, and either way, you can be like what, where do we go from here? And then you say like this is something that needs to change. I want to. I want to meet in you know X amount of time. I want to meet again in two weeks and see where we're at. I want to meet again in 30 days and see where we're at.
Speaker 2:But make them a part of it. It doesn't have to be like you know. You don't have to be like I'm scolding you, like this is, you know, don't just be yourself, you know and just like level with them. It doesn't, you know. And then if 30 days pass and absolutely nothing changes, then you can be like hey, I haven't noticed any changes since our talk, like, unfortunately, I'm going to have to let you go, and then it's not going to be a huge dramatic thing because they know, you know that they've had. Yeah, I think it's scarier when you let it go for a long time and you're letting this and then it turns into this huge thing that you haven't addressed, but that's like like fully affecting your whole salon every single day, and then you're going to have to like this person may not even be expecting like to be fired or to be like reprimanded or whatever.
Speaker 2:So I think like the most important thing is just to do a check on, check in early on and lay out your expectations, see if they can participate in it and ask them like is there anything that I can do to support you so that you don't feel this way? Or like you know, and a lot of the time I'll be like oh, I just, you know, my home life is really hard right now, or whatever. And then you can be like I totally understand that if you need, you know, if you want to take a day off next week to try to Whatever have a self care day, do that and then see if it fixes itself. And if it doesn't, then you know what to do and you've done everything in your power. You can. It's a lot easier for me to like wash my hands of something if I know that I've done absolutely everything that I can like. I will literally never let go of things like until I know that I, like have done everything that I can.
Speaker 2:And then, and then some like to an unhealthy degree. I'm like I can still make this work. But you know, it's like if I've tried and tried and tried, if my expectations are clear, if you gave me expectation, like if you told me what I could expect of you, and you're still not doing that, then I know.
Speaker 1:Yeah and like another thing because we can talk about this kind of from an employee perspective to because I own my salon, and probably 90% of the reason why I ended up selling my salon is like it just killed me to be that person like I couldn't do it.
Speaker 1:I'm just too soft, like I'm too emotional and I just came to like terms with the fact that I'm just a really good employee and I think, like, talking about it from the employee perspective, like to like, say, employee a is that employee that is like they're bringing down the like mood of the salon, they're always like Krabby, and then employee B is like they're trying to learn. You know, employee B has a good outlook but like, say, employee a never gets in trouble, like this literally happened to me at PetSmart. There was a groomer who she was always really like I don't want to say she was mean to the dogs, but she was just very heavy-handed and her energy was always really bad with clients, coworkers and management.
Speaker 1:Just let it go on. They never confronted her about it, but me in my head, I'm showing up to work, I'm doing my best, I'm trying to learn, and then it's like I get in trouble for having sheers on my table.
Speaker 1:But, employee A has never. They've never discussed anything with them. So employee B just feels like, okay, they can get away with anything, but I made a little slip up and now it's on me. So that's another thing that you have to think about is how your other employees are seeing that you're letting that just grow yeah.
Speaker 2:And they're respecting your business less.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it makes them respect your business less. It makes them respect you less. It makes them care less. So that is a huge thing. I want to protect my staff, so my good people. I need to protect them because I want them to stay. So that's something that I'm always keeping in mind. I also protect them from bad clients. I protect them from bad dogs. We will fire a client who don't respect us. We will fire a dog who can't behave or who just isn't a good fit for our son. But in the same way, I need to protect them. If I have five good people and one person who's constantly making other people uncomfortable or dragging them down or whatever, I need to protect them and in turn, that protects the business. But it's for everyone's peace. So if my groomers aren't feeling peaceful, the dogs aren't peaceful. I don't want to hear barking dogs all day. I don't want to hear a groomer going no, stop, stop stop, stop.
Speaker 2:I don't want to hear that. I want to hear people being like oh my god, they're so cute People happy and laughing, so that's like. I want all the dogs to have a good experience and I want the dogs to be falling asleep on the table. So a dog that is disruptive or a burn a noodle puppy who we've groomed six times and it's not getting any better and we've worked with it and they're not taking it to training and whatever. I can't groom your dog anymore because it's going to make my groomers quit If there's a dog that's barking its head off and you're leaving it at my shop for four hours.
Speaker 2:When we texted you four and a half hours ago to come to your dog you shouldn't come back because that's going to also make my employees quit or it's going to drive the other dogs crazy. So I feel like everything is just about like. Everything is like working together, all of the parts are working together. So, like the dogs can affect the energy of the groomers, like you know, the groomers can affect the energy of the dogs. I can affect the energy by either doing too much or too little of like correction or, like you know, letting or not correcting when someone does need it. I feel like for me, I'm like I don't care if you correct me if I'm doing something wrong, but like it would drive me nuts if someone wasn't getting in trouble for not doing, for like doing something wrong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, I will say every, every like grooming position in a salon. Where I've been unhappy at the salon, it has not been because like I was getting too much of you back. It's always been like I feel like I'm here grooming dogs and the owner like lives in a different country and they don't care what's going on, Like I don't know what my like you know. It's just like you feel alone and you feel isolated.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But another thing I want to ask you, like talking about the employee side of it, what are some things like because there are people out there who just want to be good employees like what do you think are some things that somebody who wants to be like a good employee, who wants to be able to like help cultivate kind of the environment that you guys have? What are some things that they can do at their salon to like kind of make it better or to like start that?
Speaker 2:I love this question and I also like I get my employees, like my good employees. I will get them on board because a lot of the time, sometimes it's like an employee who's affecting the other people, but they're not doing it when I'm around. They're doing it when I leave the room.
Speaker 2:So, like as the manager, they know that like, especially me, like they know that I'm going to like say something.
Speaker 2:You know, so I hear about it from someone else. Or another employee will be like hey, this person, it seems like they're really like being negative or like they're complaining about every single dog and I feel like the dogs are like you know I worked on this dog after this this assistant and the dogs just behaving really badly and he's a bi-weekly client and he's never like this. So I feel like this person's energy is just like off or they weren't like being patient with the dog or whatever. So if I have like a good employee who I can count on, I will enroll them in helping me like either try to coach this person up or, you know, so I'm like, okay, this person's being super negative. It's like everything. You're complaining about everything.
Speaker 2:Every dog's bad today. Or like you know everything, it's like, oh, this person, even if, like, if they're complaining, it's like, fine, complain about me. Like I know I'm a hard ass, like I know that I am, but you know, it's like if you're just trying to find fault with me or with some, with whoever, I will like ask my other employees to be like hey, if they're doing that, can you not commiserate with them? Or be like oh, but you know. Oh, but that dog's really cute though. Or like, oh, I love you know, I know that dog so hard, but their mom is always so nice. Like she cried the first time she picked up the dog because she was so happy. Like, just try to spin it so that it's more positive instead of because it's so it feels good to complain, like it really does, especially like when you're having a stressful day in the salon and you just want people to be like feel bad for me. You know, look at how hard it is and it's so easy to like just get in that with.
Speaker 2:I'm sure that you guys have experience, real less company, I'm sure like oh yeah, you know it's so easy for like the whole salon to talk about their least favorite dogs or like the worst customer experiences. So when I have a person who's like skews towards negative, I ask the other people in the shop to try to help them be more positive, subtly, but like don't let them dwell in the negative If they, if they're being negative all the time, like tell them, you know, try to get them to be more positive or just ignore it. Like if someone's complaining, you know if they're working and they're like this dog sucks, like just don't respond Because like a lot of the time they're just as soon as they get that validation they're going to continue doing it. So like if you can't get them on board with like the positive stuff, just ignore it. You know, don't obviously don't like ignore them completely, like not speak.
Speaker 2:But like you know, actually I did that to Alyssa. I was trying. Have you guys seen the video of like the little, the family pretending the little girl's invisible and she's like screaming? I was trying to do that to Alyssa to see if I could like, to see if I could make her crazy. It didn't work.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've definitely done that to people though, but you're right, no, that's a good thing to do.
Speaker 1:Sometimes if you just like like if a person is being negative, they don't, they can't hear themselves, so sometimes just to just they. If somebody's like just being constantly negative, just to be there in silence is like almost you're like forcing them to listen to yourself, because then they have to think, like what did I just say Like like yeah, you've been, you've been complaining for like half an hour and I haven't said anything like this is just you, like you know yeah, like are you good, Are you okay? Yeah, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, so, like, if you're another employee and you want to be a good employee and you're dealing with like, try to just help them by either, like by not just perpetuating the cycle of negativity, focus on the positive, um, and you know, just do your best to like leave your leave, like your baggage at home, or what I tell people is because, like everyone, I have bad days, sometimes I get bad sleep or whatever. I'm not feeling well and I just tell people when I come in I'm like, I really feel like crap today, like just so. Just so everyone knows, like you know, I had a stomach.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I might have my head phone on more like yeah.
Speaker 2:And just give them a heads up, because normally people are like so kind and like accommodating about that. But it's like when you come in and you like throw your stuff down and it's like, oh my God, you know, instead of just like me and my boyfriend got in a fight on the way to work today, it's like, oh my God, what happened, you know. And then like you'll probably feel better if you just communicate about it, instead of just like internalize it and like you know, assuming people will know what's going on in your person.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's not fair to come to work every day and expect to just like unload all of your stuff on someone that just is like coming to do their job, because that's. I've worked with those people too, and that is that's really difficult.
Speaker 2:Man, this is a Wendy's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, literally. You're like yeah well, I'm gonna groom my dog now.
Speaker 2:I'm like I think my mom's calling me, so like I gotta go. You know, like I think your clients in the front, so if you just want to go check in that dog, like yeah.
Speaker 1:That's so.
Speaker 2:I think it's totally possible and that kind of also goes like with what you were mentioning in the beginning, gavin like what if I'm the only groomer in my salon who I feel like cares? It's like see if you can get other people to be excited with you, if you know, like the other groomers and like you know some people, they're just no helping. And then just like you, just like you just protect your own energy and you, just like you know, are energetic, you're kind, but like your energetic.
Speaker 1:It's just a surface normal relationship. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but like if there's someone that like you feel like is just me be going through like a little bit of burnout, or like it just needs like that spark to get reignited. Like I don't know, we at my shop, like I especially my new groomers like I love sending them picture like reels or whatever from like Instagram accounts who I really like, of like grooming stuff that they can try the next day, or like I'm like what if we did this style one day and it's like a crazy style that like I probably couldn't even do at this point, and then like that makes them more excited about it.
Speaker 2:So, like just see if you can, if you're super passionate and like you feel like you care so much, like see if you can infect someone with that, instead of like letting other people influence you. Like negatively, see if you can influence them positively. Like invite them to a show, like invite you know so many groomers like work in salons and no one goes to expose. It's like that's like when I feel, you know, coming back from an expo is like when I'm the most excited to groom and just like you know you, just you never know like who you're going to meet or talk to or what you're going to learn, and that like I feel like can really spark a passion in someone, especially if they're like feeling a little, you know, burnt out or not as excited.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love that because energy definitely swings both ways. Like just as much as negativity can affect you, like you can be the positive, like impact. But it's nice to hear, like from a manager standpoint, like how you address these things, because you're like you're in the like 1% of, I think, of managers that are like actively taking these steps. So it's really good to like hear that and know that like hopefully, other people that are managers out there can like hear how you approach these things and try to apply them.
Speaker 3:You, you gave like super good nuggets, like I'm just trying to recap off everything you went through, like I think this honestly and I haven't said this yet, so I can say it this is my favorite podcast so far, this episode, and I don't know if it's because I needed it or if it was you know, this was my favorite one and I feel like maybe it's because I know people, from whatever position they are in that salon, it's going to help them there you know, that and the and this is stuff, nuggets that they could take to the salon and try just.
Speaker 3:you know, when you were saying small little videos, you know when you mentioned that this is like the same thing.
Speaker 1:When you mentioned, like hiring employees for, like a trial of like 3060 90 days.
Speaker 3:I've never.
Speaker 1:I've never heard anyone do that. And thinking back, nugget that could have solved so many so many problems?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that because you get stuck, you feel like you hire someone and now I'm stuck with them and like you don't want to fire them, but it's like also firing doesn't have to be. I've done like a lot of work on leadership. I really have, and it's nice to be a manager is really hard, like I'm.
Speaker 2:I will like anyone who is a salon manager out there or like who's even like doing salon manager things and maybe not even in that official position. Like my heart goes out to you, I will cry in bed for both of us later tonight because it's really really f-ing hard, especially like when you care so much and because so many groomers are so sensitive. You know it's people who work with animals in general are more sensitive human beings. Yeah, so it's like you know I'm having to navigate a lot of sensitive personalities and people's feelings. Get her and like it's really hard and especially because, like I'm, I'm not the salon owner, like I have orders from, you know, from the owner of the salon, and so I'm trying to like balance, you know, and a lot of people who are like owner operators, like you. It's like you have your bottom line that like if I don't, if we don't do this amount of dogs, like I cannot pay you, you know and it's like.
Speaker 2:So it's really hard to be a human being and also like also like do the numbers and like also be calm and like be keep everything peaceful. Like it's just difficult. So having to like balance all of those things, it's not easy, but I feel like once you break it down, you know, just focus on keeping the peace, like and teamwork and people supporting each other, because, like, once you build a good team, like they will start to be self sustaining. You know, and like maybe you might need to jump in here or there to like, but it's like if you have a team, if you have people who want to work together and care about each other and care about the dogs and the business, like it will start to be peaceful. But it's like you have to get rid of like the negative people or like the bad clients who are like being just as fuck full of your business, the dogs that are like making your groomers want to quit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know that's the stuff that you can do to make things more peaceful on like a day to day.
Speaker 3:One more question before we end this, before we wrap this up Do you find it easier to just have that professional manager position and not become like like the friendship, like be friends but like, do you have like a different friendship vibe with your people, you staff?
Speaker 2:Okay, so I actually won't cross there. This is actually I was thinking about this when I was driving home from work today, like trying to think about things that I wanted to talk about and part of what I feel like makes me an effective manager, and this is just my management style, and there are a million billion management styles out there.
Speaker 2:What works for me is having, especially in a small salon, like I don't think that it's realistic to be working in a small room with someone, with people, with your staff, without developing a relationship with them. Unless you're a psychopath like, unless you're, like you know, completely self absorbed and like have no feelings, I think it's nearly impossible not to have, like at least you know, a working friendship with your employees. And I feel like what makes me a strong manager is that my employees feel comfortable talking to me and like about you know if they have something going on in their personal life or if there's something that they're struggling with at work or if there's someone that they're struggling with at work. Like I want people to feel comfortable to talk to me. I want them to feel comfortable giving me feedback. I try to be as open as possible.
Speaker 2:When people you know I've had like hard meetings with, like with my employees who are telling me like you're, you know you weren't doing a good job last week or like last month you were, you made me feel really shitty and like that's hard to hear, but I want to be able to hear that like I want them to feel comfortable telling me that, and I think that it is because we have a friendship.
Speaker 2:But I also think that you do have to have some boundaries in order, for I mean some people like me, like I just, or like I feel like Gavin you could, he would still respect you as like his boss, even if you were close friends, like he would still listen to you Like I feel like I'm that way, but some people are not like. Some people are like, oh, you're my friend, so like if you're telling me what to do, I don't really like you're not really being serious. So like there are some people and and I feel like you know if it's like if you're a 30 and your employees 19, and your friends like I feel like the 19 year old would like have a hard time really respecting you if they felt just like this is only my friend. So I think it just like kind of depends on your employee and like their personality types. But you know, I don't want to. I don't want like I don't want my employee to call me like after work if their boyfriend broke up with them.
Speaker 2:Like tell me, tell me about it at work tomorrow, because like I care, but like don't you know, don't call me, like at 10pm crying you know, like that kind of stuff. Like I care about you, but like I'm not your best friend. Yeah, that's where the line is like yeah, yeah, I think it's like and next week is Super Zoo and we're gonna be.
Speaker 2:I'm sure that we'll go out together and go to a bar together, I think that's totally fine, but there's just some things that I think are appropriate and some things I think are not. I also, I mean my husband. I'm married, my husband's a perfect angel, so I don't have marriage problems, thank God. But I wouldn't be telling them about my marriage problems, probably If I was having them, or like you know. But I'm gonna tell them. Like I stepped in my dog's throat this morning when I got out of bed and like that was shitty, or like, oh my God, my sister called me and like annoyed me this morning or something. You know that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:So you spend so many hours with them, so it's not hard to not share your day to day. You can't not. You literally can't not.
Speaker 2:I just don't think it's possible. If you can do it like I don't know you're a superhuman or are narcissists, but like Especially so like groomers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we all have like the similar goals and like passions and interests and we're all like sensitive.
Speaker 2:And like chances are we all play with a million dogs. Your table is six feet away from their table. Like, what are you gonna do? Like.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, we do, actually we do. We do crossword clues to each other. So that's like not really personal, but during the day, like I'll be like okay, it's like it's three letters and the clue is canine, you know.
Speaker 2:And it'll be like dog. Obviously it's like the. So we do that, which is. But so I guess maybe if you're trying not to be friends like you could just do stuff. That's talking, but not like personal at all. But I just you know, I think I think you need your employees to feel that you care about them and that's part of making them feel understood, like if you know them, if you know what's going on in their life, I think that you can be a more effective leader, because if you know what's going on in their life and you're still asking something of them, you think that they're capable of it. If you don't know what's going on in their life, they feel like you don't care about them. And then you're asking a lot of them. They're like you don't even I can't even handle that right now and you have no idea because you don't know anything about me, you know. So, yeah, I think that it helps. I'm like I know that you just broke up with your boyfriend, but like I still think you can groom this dog today.
Speaker 3:You know, I know you absolutely still can't. Yes, yeah, Well this was good. Yeah, you are. Do you teach on this subject? I don't she does tell I'm actually we're talking with my lawyers from the Philippines, because now everyone is gonna ask Rachel all the questions and her DMs.
Speaker 2:If you have any questions about like I really am interested in being like a really good leader. I've done like a lot of I've read books about it. Like I've done like a three day like leadership retreat.
Speaker 3:Yeah, who's your leadership? Like Guru, your mentor, Like who's someone that you go? I know you're in LA so you probably have like Edmila and like all of those kind of people in your area.
Speaker 2:I follow a ton of. I follow like a ton of all we can link like some Instagram accounts and like the description or whatever.
Speaker 3:I feel like that's something our industry is missing. It is like such leadership events like that, or even just like self help events I want. My aunt just went hiking for two weeks with just a backpack and a tent and she said she had learned more things. I know she's learned more things in that two weeks. Like made the best relationships that she's you had to your climbing mountains.
Speaker 3:You know, like I feel like our industry is lacking that. So I was like who do you go to? And you do obviously a three day retreat, like that's my next goal, like I think we, I think we competition, it's something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I definitely think that we need, like I do, a ton of like self help books and like podcasts and stuff like that. But it's difficult because, like, if you're listening, if you're like, if you have like a business mentor, chances are a lot of this stuff isn't going to apply to dog grooming. So you kind of have to like distill it and take what's going to work for you and like throw out a lot of the rest, because it's like this this industry is just so different and, like all service based industries are different than like a lot of what the leadership coaches are teaching. You know, this is not like a fortune 500 company, that's like you know everyone.
Speaker 2:but I still think like there's principles that are going to yeah, that are going to apply to everyone, and I just yeah, I think that we need like more leadership stuff. So, you know, maybe we can figure something out.
Speaker 3:Maybe we should make like a conference, like that.
Speaker 2:That's my favorite. You definitely have to come back for another episode. You're here to hear first guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was a part of it. It was called a she is conference and I was like on the panel and it was a two day conference and like I don't know it was, I think the whole everyone was crying, we were laughing, it was probably like 500 people and I still have like really good friends from that. So maybe that's what we, maybe we need to bring this into the industry.
Speaker 2:Not that I'm an expert.
Speaker 3:I would I like to make things happen, but I'll make sure we hire their correct people and it won't be me because I'll be out there taking notes, crying and learning, but that's amazing. Where can everyone find you, Rachel?
Speaker 2:I'm on Instagram and Facebook Rachel Colant grooming. Feel free to send me a message, give me a follow. Oh, I'm on TikTok too. I'm actually never on TikTok, but I do have a TikTok account. It's Rachel Colant grooming and I have no idea when this is gonna come out, but I will be at Hershey Super Zoo.
Speaker 1:It'll be up there super soon. All American will have passed.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I will be at Super Zoo and Hershey. I'm doing a class at Hershey, so if you see me at any of the shows, feel free to say hi, come talk to me. I have a sassy face, but I'm actually really nice, so I would be happy to talk to anyone who wants to talk to me. Oh, I love you, Rachel.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks for coming on. I love you guys. Thank you guys for having me.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:You did amazing. I learned so much from you and, like I said, this is my absolute yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean both of us are like we loved you.
Speaker 1:But I'm always like that.
Speaker 3:I know Well, now I am now too, and I've never met you, but now. So here I am, like Rachel Well, thanks for so much for coming on, and I'm sharing everything you know, and I can't wait for other people to hear this. I know they're gonna love the nuggets you just dropped on us. I keep saying nuggets. I don't know why, but she's hungry.
Speaker 1:They're gold nuggets, gold people.
Speaker 3:All right, bye.
Speaker 1:Bye.
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