We recently connected with Wayne Hartley Jr. and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Wayne, thanks for joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I believe that it takes grit. Success is not easily come by nor easy to maintain. It involves hard work, dedication, belief in yourself, willingness to fail. the ability to always learn, a strong mindset, and delegating efficiently. Success involves overcoming every obstacle that presents itself and pushing through. I’ve had this dream of working with animals for as long as I can remember. Within the journey, I’ve also done things that reflected how much I believe in myself and hard I am willing to go for it. For example, in 2021, I sold my house to help fund my business and it gave me the capital to open my grooming salon. I was doing mobile grooming for about 2 years prior, but it was time for a change. It was time to make myself uncomfortable and really step out on faith that there were only two options: It’s either going to work or it’s going to work. I didn’t give myself space for failure. That didn’t stop failure from happening, however when it did, I learned from it and pushed through.

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

I truly give my mom credit for instilling the entrepreneurial bone in my body. From a young age, I have watched her own and run successful businesses. Combining this with pet care, in 2016, I sought out to break away from corporate veterinary work and start my own business- Happy Hearts Pet Care. It started out as just a pet sitting business in Athens. GA, and then grew to offering dog walking, pet grooming, training, and more when I moved to the city of Atlanta. Having a veterinary background definitely helped my business progress as pet parents loved that I had the experience I have. I am a registered Veterinary Technologist with a B.S. in Veterinary Technology from Fort Valley State University. So, using this knowledge and the experience of working from Kennel tech to Hospital manager, I believe it sets me apart from other business owners and pet care providers. Not a lot of groomers, pet sitters, pet care professionals can say that they have a decade of experience in veterinary medicine. I use that knowledge to provide a better experience for the pups.

Happy Hearts Pet Care is built on trust first and foremost. Our pet parents have to first trust us with their fur babies and trust us to provide the best service we can give them. After trust, we pride ourselves on providing great customer service and a luxury grooming experience for the pets. Our slogan is, “Quality pet care by quality pet care people”. With this, top quality service is what we strive to provide each pet and pet parent with their experience. We work hard to provide a seamless booking experience, so we launched a new Happy Hearts Pet Care App. Our location in Castleberry Hill, puts us in the thick of downtown Atlanta action. We are in an area that is busy with pet life and around other black-owned businesses.

My goal is to be that representation to the next generation that you can go into other fields and be successful. Growing up, all I saw was veterinarians. That was my goal until I fell in love with being a Vet Tech more. Things change with life, but that’s ok. As long as you stay steadfast on your goals, everything falls into place.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I simply stayed consistent. I tell other groomers and business leaders to just stay consistent and research trends. Once you have a good method down, keep at it. It took work to get to over 125k on TikTok and 5k organically on IG but it took consistency to get there. Be authentic and respond to your audience. People want to see you. They want to know that you are true to you and your brand. Rather, practicing what you preach. Social media is a full-time job, but it’s fun to see what others are doing and saying. Also, never take it personally. People are going to hate no matter how much good you do and when they comment, just smile and nod. Never argue with the online trolls. Stay above the drama no matter how tempting.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Yes, Happy Hearts was first a side hustle. I was working at UGA and a local private practice at the time and I saw the demand that pet parents needed post op and pet sitting care. I offered my services as I was the technician assigned to the cases. It helped that I already knew the dogs and built a relationship with the pet parents. This sustained me for a few months until I decided to leave Athens for Stone Mountain and work at BluePearl in Sandy Springs. I was there for a little over a year before going to another private practice. I remember days where I had a full time job, part time job, and running my business on the side. Im saying months with no days off. It was brutal but an integral part of the journey. I had to make this work because I wasn’t getting what I needed from my full and part time jobs.

In 2019, I quit the part time job due to the work environment and took on more jobs with Happy Hearts to supplement the income. This gave me more time to handle my business, which made me happier. In 2020, I had enough of working for others that didn’t appreciate how hard I worked. I suffered, my team suffered, and there was no reason that having a degree, a license, and years of experience resulted in having to stretch my paycheck for the next two weeks. It was stressful to say the least. I told my job that they had 100 days and I am going to be 100% in my business. They had to find my replacement and I’d be willing to teach them how to be a hospital manager. This was a push to make my side hustle a full-time career. So, after attempts to gain capital for my business and being told no or ghosted by potential investors, I decided to give up the one thing that made no sense ’til it made sense- My house. That’s right, I took a leap of faith, quit my job, left relationships that wasn’t helping me, and sold my house in the same year. It was a scary world to be in, but I was determined to make it work. I lived in an AirBNB for about a month before finding somewhere to live. I was doing mobile grooming at the time, so I was able to drive around the city and learn what I liked and disliked about this new career path. This landed me living in Castleberry Hill, Downtown Atlanta. It definitely felt like a step up although I didnt have a backyard for my dogs anymore. The city became our backyard.

After about 2 years on the road, I was ready for change and in my neighborhood, there were vacant storefronts. I was walking my dogs one day and called my agent. He was able to get all the details and negotiate terms and now we have been at our storefront a little over a year now. I remember and smile when I tell this story. I remember praying to God that I didn’t want to be on the road after turning 30 years old. It was a lot on my body, I had clients all over the place, booked for weeks out, the maintenance of the grooming van was a lot to handle, i would be away from home for 12+ hours, and I felt held back from progress. The progress part was the complete opposite in hindsight. I learned so much being on the road, definitely an experience recommended to sharpen your skills as a groomer. I say all that to say, the night before I turned 30, my van broke down and there was no way for the electricity to power up the van, rendering it useless inside. Luckily i was finishing with my last appointment. Literally, lights off, using the flashlight on our phones to see what we were doing. I went home after that appointment and I laughed because there wasn’t a worry as I already had my storefront, it just wasn’t built out yet. I’ve have experienced so much being a brick-and-mortar owner. Team management, branding, marketing, customer service, and overall maintainence is on a different scale. But i wouldn’t change it.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.happyheartspcs.com
• Instagram: HappyheartspetcareATL
• Facebook: Happy Hearts Pet Care ATL