Wag’n Tails Fleet Customer

In this case study, we review the impressive growth story of a current Wag’n Tails fleet customer that over a period of less than four years has built a very successful mobile pet grooming business with twelve Wag’n Tails vehicles and $2.5 million of projected annual revenue. Chris and his wife, Jade, started their mobile pet grooming business in November 2017. Interestingly, they are not pet groomers. Chris and Jade are business professionals with a lifelong passion for pets and pet care. Their company operates in the western United States and has plans for continued expansion in its target market. 

Chris has been an entrepreneur for most of his life. Previously, he founded and built a successful business in the education industry after graduating from the University of California. When Chris came across the idea of mobile pet grooming, he recognized an opportunity to start and build a very scalable mobile pet care business that focuses on convenience for pet parents as well as wellness and comfort for pets.

Chris and Jade began by building their company on a strong foundation, which meant hiring the best professional pet groomer that they could find. They also purchased an older used Wag’n Tails pet grooming vehicle to prove out the business model. Within three months, their company’s mobile pet grooming vehicle was fully booked with eager, affluent clients and generating a very strong profit margin because of premium-priced mobile services. It was then that Chris fully realized the potential of this high-demand and convenient, at-home mobile pet grooming business model, so he and Jade started their expansion plans. During the fourth month of operations, they decided to purchase a new Wag’n Tails Ultra Groom vehicle. 

In order to grow, Chris and Jade needed to recruit more skilled pet grooming professionals and partner with a trusted supplier capable of providing the highest quality and most reliable specialty pet grooming vehicles in the market. Chris and Jade chose to call Wag’n Tails Mobile Conversions because of their company’s positive experience with its used Wag’n Tails vehicle, Wag’n Tails’ long-standing reputation in the mobile pet grooming industry for design, engineering, and manufacturing excellence as well as customer service that exceeded their expectations. Wag’n Tails was also able to provide Chris and Jade with its Mobile Pet Grooming Business Success Guide and expert advice on vehicle financing and professional groomer recruiting best practices. Because Wag’n Tails started originally as a mobile pet grooming business and because it maintains strong relationships with its customers, Wag’n Tails employees have decades of practical experience and knowledge to help customers with any challenges they experience. 

Chris and Jade realized that recruiting and retaining the best pet grooming professionals to operate their company’s growing fleet of vehicles would be an important key to success. They then made a commitment to each other. According to Chris, “We focused on creating a positive culture and working environment. We spent a great deal of time and effort creating this culture so that our pet stylists had the opportunity to really excel and enjoy their jobs.” 

As Chris and Jade’s business continued to grow, new vehicle financing became increasingly challenging because of the company’s limited business and commercial credit history in the pet grooming industry. Typically, lenders want to see 2-3 years in business with a proven track record of profits before financing a growing fleet of pet grooming vehicles. Fortunately, after many conversations with lenders and sheer determination, Chris was able to use the guidance and lending resources provided to him by Wag’n Tails to secure vehicle financing and expand the company’s pet grooming vehicle fleet. This credit underwriting process required Chris and Jade to satisfy a variety of information requests for the lender’s evaluation. For example, a lender will typically look at the down payment amount, debt-to-income ratio, high credit history, credit scores, financial statements, tax returns, and several other underwriting variables. This process was successful for Chris and Jade because their company maintained disciplined and organized financial records to document growth in revenue and profitability. 

When the Wag’n Tails team asked Chris and Jade about their keys to success in managing so many professional pet groomers, they said, “We don’t micromanage our employees. Our lack of pet grooming experience is actually a positive so that we can give our employees the support they need without being overbearing.”  

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, Chris and Jade’s mobile pet grooming business is on track to gross over $2.5 million in just its fourth year of operations. When asked about their accelerated success in such a short time, Chris said, “We realized that satisfying a basic need to make the lives of pet parents easier by bringing premium mobile pet grooming services to their home created a winning formula for all parties involved. Pet parents love the convenience. Pets are calmer and do better because of the one-on-one attention, and our employees appreciate the freedom that we provide so they can do the job they love.”