Today we’d like to introduce you to Coleena Heath.
Hi Coleena, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
Hi, my name is Coleena Heath, owner of Diggidy Dog Pet Salons.
My journey started over 25 years ago when I adopted an abused standard Australian shepherd “Stormy.” He was six months old and was being trained as a show dog by a very heavy-handed owner. When Stormy was taken away from them, I stepped in to adopt him with the agreement that I would continue to try to show him. I knew nothing about showing dogs, but it sounded fun, and I really loved Stormy. What I found out was that I enjoyed grooming Stormy and getting him ready for the show more than I like showing. I looked up grooming schools but found them to be too expensive for me to afford. So, I went looking for a mentor. The small town I lived in had one groomer, and she had been there for years. I worked up the courage and walked in and asked her if she would be willing to mentor/train me in exchange for working for free. She rejected the idea of me working for free but did bring me on and agreed to be my mentor. She was great to me; she took her time and never got upset. After a year being with her, she advised me that she no longer could keep me grooming in her store because her clientele was not large enough for both of us in that store. So, with her blessing I decided to open my shop in the basement of my house. Pampered Pooch. This was quite challenging because we were in a multi-level house. My groom equipment was in the basement but the only tub we had was on the third floor, so I was constantly going up and down those stairs from the tub to the groom room throughout the day. I did this for a little over a year and was able to get enough clientele to open my own small shop in town. It was just large enough for me and my daughter Lori Heath who would come in after school and help out when she could. Being in such a small town and no connecting towns for miles, it was limited on how much I could grow, but it was a great learning experience for opening my first store.
After two years, my husband received a job offer in Texas, too good to pass up. The pampered pooch was not large enough to really sell, so I paid it forward and handed it off to another up-and-coming groomer that I had known, respected, and knew would take care of my clientele like I would.
After landing in Texas, I took a job with a corporate grooming/ pet store salon. I started as a groomer and quickly moved up to manager, then to manager trainer. While I was working here, I was able to learn more about managing processes day-to-day managing people and hone My grooming skills to be a little bit faster while still maintaining the safety of the pets. I was doing quite well working in corporate. During my time with them, they had me manage a total of three different stores, one of them being brand new and open from the ground up. What I did not like was I did not feel like I was having the connection with the pets that I did when I was running my own shop. My husband and I talked about opening up a new shop, but the timing and money just never seemed to be right.
Then, one day in December 2010, we were driving past a small house that was on Main Street in Keller that had been broken into four separate businesses. There was a for rent sign out front and my husband suggested that I call the number just to find out how much this small space would be. The space was 650 square feet, $500 a month, all utilities paid, and the lease was month to month. This was perfect because if, for some reason, it did not work out with a month-to-month contract, I could walk away and not lose anything. So, we went home, and we prayed on it. We felt that God Had shown us this opportunity in a way that we could get back into owning my own shop. So, on January 2nd, 2010, I signed the paperwork, and I opened Coleena’s Diggidy Dog In February 2010. Now I was still working at corporate and had responsibilities that I had to make sure were being kept while working there my schedule for corporate ended at 3:00 PM so I would book pets for my store between 4:00 and 10:00 PM in the evening. It was slow at first when I wasn’t grooming my husband, and the kids would help me hand out flyers door to door. I would also visit the local dog parks, handing out Flyers, and did a lot of my first grooms for 50% off. This was an extremely hard time for me; working the day at corporate and then working whatever pets I could in the evening was really hard. My goal at that time was just to make $100 a day, but a lot of times, I was coming up short of that goal as word of mouth got out, business did pick up, and by June 2010, I realized I was making the same amount of money at my shop that I was working for corporate and I was enjoying my time with the pets a lot more in my shop. I could take more time with the clients and make sure they were getting exactly what they wanted I had more time to spend with the pets and get to know them and put them at ease during the groom process things that I just could not do in corporate because it was so fast paced. So, in June, I gave my two-week notice and became a full-time pet salon owner.
For the first year and a half I ran the store almost by myself. My daughter Lori would come in and help after school when she could. She was 10 years old at that time and could barely see over the tub, but she did everything she could to help me out.
Things were going well my clientele was building month after month, I was happy. Then, one day during Grapefest in Grapevine, my husband and I were walking through a strip mall when we came across an open space. My husband asked me if I ever thought about opening a second store. To be honest, I had not. Again, my husband suggested that I just call the number and get some info so that if we ever did decide to open a second store that we’d have some kind of idea what rent went for in that area. So, I called the number and I met with the agent at the location and did a walkthrough. It looked perfect like it was already set up to be made into a groom shop. When I asked about the rent, I was told at that time that A two-year lease would be the minimum that they would go for. That was huge for me because, at this point, I was still going with a month-to-month lease with very little risk. Signing a two-year deal scared me. What if I could not make it go of this one? I would be stuck with payments for two years, which could bring down my first store. On top of that, I would have to hire someone to run my first store. So again, we went home and prayed on it. My husband went online and found out who the owner of the property was and how long that spot had been vacant. It had been vacant for over three years. My husband was able to find a phone number for the owner, and I called him to talk to him one-on-one. I told him my situation and asked if he would be willing to do a six-month lease and leave the property as is, meaning that anything that needed to be done to get this place ready to open would be on us. To my surprise, he agreed. So now I own two stores responsible for twice as many pets and a couple of employees now. After six months, we were confident enough to sign a year lease; then after a year, we signed A five-year lease. This would not have been possible without the support of my family and some great groomers over the years that worked for me. One of them, Jessica Esparza, who worked with me in corporate, accepted a job with me at my shops and is still with me today.
Again, over time, I got comfortable with my two shops. Each year was getting better than the year before we were growing slowly but steadily. Then, once again, an opportunity was put in front of us. There was a groom shop in The Colony, and the owner wanted to move and sell her shop. This was another scary moment because my Keller and Grapevine stores were only ten miles apart. The Colony is thirty miles from my closest store. It was also a risk-taking on someone else’s store and their reputation. After a lot of back and forth and praying, we decided to take the leap. It was a rough first year and a half. The clientele was used to the way the former owner did things. Neither way was wrong; they were simply different. In that first year and a half, we saw almost no growth and struggled just to keep Numbers the same month after month. It is funny because it was in my opinion easier to open a store from the ground up and build from no clientele than it was to take over someone else’s clientele, incredibly stressful during that time and many times we thought we had made a mistake. Jessica and my daughter Lori, along with many other great employees, helped us work through that tough time until we were able to turn the corner and start growing.
We have now been open for over 14 years. We went from me being the only employee to now an average of 20. There was a lot of scary times and hard times to get to this point, but I would not change a thing. We have made it this far because of the trust that our customers and their owners have put in us and our dedication to making sure that our customers have the best experience possible.
Our goal is to gain the trust of our customers and their owners!
Now, my daughter Lori Heath is stepping up and running the stores more. Hopefully, by the next update, we do she will be running and growing it 100%
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
We have had a lot of struggles over the years. But the two biggest struggles were, of course, COVID and then losing the lease on our Keller location.
As we all know, all businesses went through the shutdown during COVID. Salons were deemed non-essential. This was basically because of human hair salons and the person-to-person contact that happens when you are in a salon. For us, our main contact is with pets. The line between human salons and pet salons was Gray. When we called the city in each one of the towns that we were located in and asked if we were allowed to be open, we got mixed signals. Some said yes, others said no, and we could not get a clear answer. So, we decided to put our own protocols in. We made no one work that did not want to work or did not feel safe for the ones that did want to work. We made sure that they were supplied with plenty of masks, cleaning supplies, and disinfectant foggers. We put up plexiglass between us and the pet parents. We only allowed one person in the salon at a time, and they were only allowed to pick up and drop off. If they did not feel comfortable coming into the building, we would go out to their vehicle and get the pet. We did this for three days when a city official came into our Grapevine store asking why we were open. Jessica told him the situation and why we felt we were essential. Not only did we have police dogs from time to time in each one of our stores, but we also have a large number of emotional and service dogs. Then, he was unclear himself and said he would go back and ask city officials what should be done. What we did not know is that he went out and sat in his car watching us for the next 30 minutes. He watched Jessica and Amanda, another great employee spray disinfectant wipe down the doors inside and out each time a customer left. He came back the next day and told us that the city agrees that we should remain open as long as we continue to do the same procedures that we were doing while he was watching us. We then contacted the other two cities and gave them the information that Grapevine gave us and was given permission in all three stores to remain open.
Our second biggest struggle came to my first store, the Keller store. We have been there now for 11 years. It was our smallest store, but we had a great manager in there named Shannon and even as small as that store was, she was able to continue to make it grow. But then, unexpectedly, a woman walks in and lets us know that she bought the building, and her plan was to move her own business in there and that we had 30 days to leave. The month-to-month lease that allowed us the opportunity to start this business was now hurting us because we only had 30 days to find a new home. It took us a week to find a location. Just 5 miles down the road, but now in Roanoke instead of Keller. It was a stand-alone building completely gutted, basically a blank canvas. We saw the potential but had no idea if we could pull this off. By the time we signed the lease, we had two weeks. If we were shut down any longer than that, the employees in that store would be out of work until we were up and running again. But because of a lot of help from our employee’s family and neighbors, we were able to pull it off, and even though we were not completely done, we were far enough along to where we could safely bring pets in and get them groomed. It was a huge stressful time. It was also hugely emotional leaving the Keller store for the last time that is what started it all, and now I was having to walk away from it even though it was for the better we went to a lot bigger building and now had a lot more room for growth where we were bursting at the seams in the Keller store.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
We are full-service dog grooming salons. We 100% believe that pets are our customers and our priority. We pride ourselves on doing everything we can to make the whole grooming process as pleasant and as enjoyable for the pet as we can. If we feel that the grooming process is too stressful for the pet, we will stop the groom at any point and call the pet’s parents to come to pick their pet up. This can sometimes make the pet parent upset, but again, our first priority is to the pet. We are also, a lot of times, the first ones to see any problems with the pet. During the bath and grooming process, a lot of times we are able to see things under the hair that pet parents may not have seen and can alert the parent of what we found so that they can take their pet to the vet if needed. What sets us apart from others? Well, there’s a lot of great pet salons out there a lot of great groomers out there. But what I can say is pet grooming is all we do. We don’t sell merchandise. We don’t do boarding. We just focus on pet grooming.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
Well, the best advice I would have for finding a mentor would be just to go out there and visit salons. Not just one but several of them. There’s a lot of great groomers out there working in salons. There is a lot of great and different techniques that groomers use. Don’t be afraid to go in and ask questions. Be willing to start at the ground level as a bather; this will give you a chance to work with the pets and to watch the grooming process. Some salons may be willing to train you over a period of time.
I would not be where I’m at today if I did not have the self-confidence to walk into the only grooming salon in town and ask her to be my mentor.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.diggidydogpetsalon.com
