Today we’d like to introduce you to Miriam Duenas.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I have always loved animals, when I was a little kid I used to come home with stray cats and my mom was very nice to let me keep them. When I finish high school I went to vet school for over a year but I didn’t finish it. (I got married and with a baby so was harder for me.)
I started grooming school when I already had my three children, my youngest gave me the name of the business “cute to the bone “ when she was 9 and I was just finishing grooming school 13 years ago. At that time I wasn’t thinking on opening my own grooming salon, in fact, I never thought of it until a friend asked me to do it together over 5 years ago, sadly she couldn’t follow through that plan and I saw myself opening a business by myself with God’s guide and the help of my family.
It’s been a great living experience, on many levels.
Working with animals is amazing for me and made me change my lifestyle. I become vegan for two years now vegetarian for more than 3 years.
I feel so blessed just by having the opportunity of working with so many fur babies and getting to know their stories of life.
At this moment we are 3 groomers, a receptionist and a bather working together helping our clients to have their dogs clean and cute!!
We are always thankful to all our customers for their trust in us and for letting us love their babies as if they were ours.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There are always challenges on life, for me, one of them was that when we open cute to the bone, I didn’t have any signs or publicity, people wouldn’t know what kind of business we were so took time to make clientele. At first, it was only me working at the business, then My mom started to help me in the mornings before she went to work. But after a few months, she suffered a heart attack while in the business helping me. Then my oldest daughter came to work with me on the days that she wasn’t at school, she would be a bather, receptionist and my assistant when I had a challenging dog on the table. The problem was that she is extremely allergic to animal’s hair, can you imagine? Poor baby having to take medicine for allergies all the time!! Even so, she managed to work with me for 2 years until she moved to an accounting job because that’s what she studied for.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
We are a dog grooming salon. We offer a professional and caring grooming service to your fur baby. Our services are:
- bath
- clean ears
- grinding nails
- tooth brushing
- hair cut
- De-shed treatments
- Flea shampoos
- Medicated shampoos
- Anal gland expression
We also have a small boutique with cute dresses and clothes for your pet.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
We have been blessed with amazing customers! Most of our new clients are being referred to us by a friend. Word of mouth marketing is what has worked for us!
Contact Info:
- Email: Cute2bone@gmail.com
- Website: www.cutetothebone.net
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cutetothebone/
