We were lucky to catch up with Coleena Heath recently and have shared our conversation below.

Coleena, appreciate you joining us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

I open my first store in Keller 2010. I was not looking to scale up, I just wanted to leave the big chain pet store I was working for as a grooming manager. I thought if I could make $100.00 a day I would be happy. I found a small house split in 4 store fronts on main St. 600 square ft, Just big enough for a couple of kennels a groom table and pet tub. After 6 months I was able to quit my job and do Diggidy Dog full time. I ran this location by myself for 3 years slowing growing my customer base by word of mouth and handing out lots and lots of flyers. I was doing $350.00 to $400.00 a day and was happy.

While my husband and I were out running errands, we found ourself at a strip mall in Grapevine. As we are looking around there was a store front that had a sign that said tanning salon. We looked in and it was closed up and had a rent sign inside. We found ourselves taking about scaling up and opening another store. We went home and talked a lot about it and if it was right for us. We decided to call the number and set up a time to look at the place. 1000 square ft. It had a lot of stuff that we needed already in the place. But the agent that came out to show us the place would only take a 5 year lease. This was big for us because the Keller store was month to month. If it did not work out we could just walk a way. We went home thought about it and it just did not feel right. Can not explain the feeling it just did not feel right.

A week passed and we kept thinking about the spot in Grapevine. My Husband (John) looked up the tanning salon on line and saw it had been closed for 5 years. A long time for no rent. So we tracked down the owner and he agreed to set down with us. We told him we would take it AS IS, no build out we will take care of it all except the air and heating systems. In turn we asked for a 1 year lease with a 5 year option at the end of the year. He agreed. We painted the place, put in a hot water heater and took out a couple of walls. Landlord saw the work we were putting in and said he had a pet tub in a different location that a groomer use to have and moved out and left. Said we can have it if we want. That was a big help. We opened 30 days later in 2013.

Now we had to hire someone to run the Keller store so I could work on building up the Grapevine store. This was very stressful time. instead of my little shop in Keller. I had supplies, payroll, added taxes and scheduling issues. The biggest help I got was from Chamber of Commerce, I highly recommend joining as soon as you can they where such a big help in getting up to speed. Over the next year our customer base grew. At the end of the year there was no bad feeling we signed the 5 year lease and last year we just signed our third 5 year lease.

Two years later we had another opportunity to scale up. Out of the blue we got a call from a agent that had a client that wanted to sell her grooming salon in The Colony. She had owned if for 10 years. We were not looking to bring on a third store but went out and looked at the place anyway. We went home and the next couple of days we talked about it. The feeling this time was good but not perfect, we did not want bank loans and did not have the cash to buy her out. We let agent we were going to pass and for what reason. The agent came back to us 4 days later and let us know the owner was willing to carry the note. This was good that we did not have a bank loan, but there was risk. If we default it would go back to the owner but we would not owe anything more. For us it felt right now. Over the next 60 day we slowly changed The Colon Pet Salon over to Diggidy Dog. We did things different from the past owner. What she did worked for her but did not work for us, This caused us to loose some customers but gain others. There was times we did not think it was going to work out but the 5 year deal with the owner we were able to pay off in 4 years and weather the storms and it was our highest grossing store in 2021 and 2022.

To scale up you have to make sure it feels right! If it don’t feel right you have to have the strength to walk a way or continue to negotiate till it does feel right. If you enter in not 100% feeling good about what you are doing your chances of success will be changeling.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Well I am 53 years old, married 31 years and the mother of 3 girls and the grandmother of 4. Three boys and one girl. I did not know I wanted to be a dog groomer. It started with us wanting to get the girls a dog for Christmas 1998. We wanted a Australian shepherd. We lived in Utah at that time. We found one that was 6 months old. He came from show parents. The breeders that had sold him took him back because they found out the puppy was being abused. They were willing to sale to us but only if we agreed to show him since he came from show parents. This was nothing I had thought about doing but it sounded fun so I agreed. We drove 75 miles in a huge snow storm to get him. We brought him home and he immediately become part of the family. We named him Stormy.

I started going to shows and leaning the ins and outs of showing. There is a lot of brushing and prepping a pet to get them ready for the ring. I found I was liking the prep more then the showing. Stormy was not liking the ring much either. We continues on and Won 1 show and got a point to fulfil the contract and walked away from showing.

I then decided I liked the prep so much that I wanted to learn to groom. I looked into grooming school but could not afford it. We lived in a small town called Tooele. There was one groom shop there. I went in and talked with the owner and offered to take her to lunch. I told her I wanted to learn and was willing to work for free if she would teach me. She hired me at min wage and over the next year she taught me grooming. What I love the most about the way she taught me was not just each cut for each breed but the detailed things that make a good groom a GREAT groom. I am so thankful for her training and to this day I use what she taught me and teach it to my employees.

I am also very thankful to the show dog community, even though it was not for me, It pointed me in the right direction. They also showed how to make my own dog shampoo that has been used in the ring for YEARS. I was able to tweak it and make it my own and everyone loves it. The dog that’s on our signs and is our logo is Stormy. He is no longer with us but will be the logo for Diggidy Dog Forever!

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Well we have never used bank loans. To open our first store, my husband worked full time. I worked full time. Before we opened we bought used stuff from eBay and put it in storage. buying little bits month after month. Friends were a huge help. One was a electrician, one was great with book work and my husband was great with mechanical.

We kept everything at the house to a minimal. Did not eat out, did not buy new cars. Made sure the kids were taken care of and kept the rest to a minimum. If you look up the cost to open a pet salon it will say 12 to 25 thousand. We have seen other places open and get loans and all the top stuff right from the get go and then go under in less then 5 years. A lot of the stuff we have we bought from going to out of business sales. Or did back then anyway. We made sure all bills were paid each month for the business before we looked buying more stuff for the store. Pictures and stuff for decorating were all bought from second hand stores. As we grew we would then up grade to the next best thing. So it was a slow go. We got all that we wanted but it was over a long period of time so we did not sink the boat.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

My husband takes care of payroll now and has prided himself for never coming up short or missing a payroll the 12 years we have been open. With that said we came close one time and at the very worst moment.

It was about 5 years ago, the Monday before Thanksgiving. Because of a keying error my husband did a payroll check for $12,000 instead of $1,200. He saw it the minute he hit send and canceled it right a way.

The next day our payroll account was very negative, meaning that payroll was going to bounce. The problem was the IRS pulled taxes out based on the $12,000 not the $1,200. We for the 1st time was looking at missing payroll and leaving everyone short for Thanksgiving and black Friday. We went to the bank and asked to put a stop payment on the IRS transfer. They did but could not guarantee it would work till the next day, Wednesday one day before Thanksgiving. If it did not work no one would have checks Friday.

We let all our people know what was going on. A couple of them said no big deal as long as they got it Monday. There was a couple others that are big black Friday shoppers. We let them know how much their check was going to be and was willing to give them our personal credit cards to shop with and they could repay it when we got their paychecks. WE have such great employees we never want to disappoint them.

Well luckily the stop did take place and payroll was saved and on time. The IRS was another issues. They were not happy they got a stop payment. Wanted to charge us all kinds of fees. It took us TWO years to get that straight with them. It was all worth to make sure our employees got paid on time.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.diggidydogpetsalon.com/welcome.html
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DiggidyDogRoanoke.Keller/ https://www.facebook.com/DiggidyDogGrapevine https://www.facebook.com/DiggidyDogColony