What I brought home from Pet Pro Expo 2026

A room for the business bits

The 2026 line-up included Bill Betts, Charlotte Perrott, Dom Hodgson, Sasha Smith, Rachel Bean and Romany Youell, with Jason Graystone as the headline speaker. That brought a broad mix of business experience into a room full of pet professionals.

There was support from other corners of the pet world too, including iPET Network, the Animal Focused Alliance and Tug-E-Nuff.

What interests me about bringing people together like this is the chance to give the business a bit of proper attention. It’s easy to spend the whole week doing the work, then try to squeeze every decision about the business into the last ten minutes of the day. By then, even deciding what to have for dinner can feel ambitious.

iPET Network’s 2026 speaker and sponsor preview

The event’s 2026 sponsors

Your prices need to work on a normal Tuesday

Bill Betts will be a familiar name if you’ve read our knowing-your-worth article. His work at Pet Passion to Profit keeps coming back to the business behind the grooming, which is a useful conversation to keep having.

A full diary can look lovely. It still needs to leave room for the actual job: the preparation, the handover, the clean-up and the dog who needs a little more time than the slot suggested. The towel laundry remains deeply unimpressed by how busy your calendar looks.

A practical place to start is one appointment that regularly runs over. Write down what the whole visit involves, then look at the time you allow and the price you agree. You’ll have something concrete to review, instead of that vague feeling that you’ve worked very hard and the numbers should probably look better.

A price that allows you to do the job properly gives you a better chance of keeping that standard on a busy day.

Knowing your worth as a dog groomer

Make marketing fit the week you actually have

A useful idea from a conference still has to fit around the business waiting at home. That matters with marketing, where a perfectly reasonable plan can quietly turn into a second job.

Start with something a customer actually needs to know. Explain what happens at a first appointment. Show the care that goes into a groom. Introduce the person they’ll be handing their dog to. One clear, useful post gives you somewhere sensible to start.

You don’t need a complete personality transplant for Instagram. If you’re warm and straightforward with customers in the salon, let some of that show up online too.

What other people took away

There are some useful follow-ups if you want to hear other perspectives on the day. In their 19 October Pet Groomer Community Podcast episode, Jo and Lexi reflect on the Expo, including pricing, outsourcing, Charlotte’s social media advice and paying attention to your own business. Their recap also brings in kindness and support between groomers, which feels worth carrying into the working week.

Vicky’s post-event Pet Accountant Podcast recap, published on 12 October, looks at the connections people made and the new Growth Room. One line in the episode notes puts the community side neatly:

That’s a useful reminder when you work in a small team. Having someone to compare notes with can make a business decision feel a little less like you’re taking an exam nobody gave you the revision guide for.

Jo and Lexi’s post-Expo podcast recap

Give the next idea somewhere to land

It’s very easy to come home with good intentions and immediately get swallowed by the normal week. You open the salon, someone needs to change an appointment and the list of things you were going to improve ends up under the list of things you have to do today.

Pick one change and make it small enough to try. Review the time allowed for one service. Rewrite one confusing bit of your booking information. Set aside a little time to look at cancellations and the spaces you couldn’t fill. Choose the thing that would make your own week less awkward.

Then give yourself a chance to see whether it helped. A short note will do. You’re trying to make the business easier to run, and that improvement is allowed to start quite small.

A practical look at unpaid cancellations

What we learned

For me, a day like Pet Pro Expo is a chance to step back and think about the working day you’re building. The useful bit is what you can carry into the salon afterwards.

1. Give the business side of the job some time while you still have the energy to think.
2. Review prices alongside the time and care each appointment actually needs.
3. Make your marketing useful to the customers you want to reach.
4. Keep in touch with people you can learn from, and try one manageable change.

One useful change is a perfectly respectable thing to bring home from a day out. Your diary doesn’t need a dramatic makeover before breakfast.