Meet Tommy Stockstill

We were lucky to catch up with Tommy Stockstill recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tommy, thank you so much for opening up with us about some important, but sometimes personal topics. One that really matters to us is overcoming Imposter Syndrome because we’ve seen how so many people are held back in life because of this and so we’d really appreciate hearing about how you overcame Imposter Syndrome.

When I started this venture, I was terrified of failure, of losing the money we had saved over years, of wasting my family’s time, of looking like a fool. I was also afraid of being the person who had a good idea and blew it, and afraid it would just be another business that failed because of poor management or because I was foolish enough to think my ideas and inventions had any value at all.
All of these things lived rent-free in my head for six out of seven days a week, but on that one day, I would force myself to look at this venture with someone else’s eyes, eyes who loved me but weren’t just trying to say things to make me feel good.
I remembered what I had learned as a US Marine in combat, that even when we were scared to death we still had a job to do that didn’t care if we were scared or wounded or tired or anything. I believe that bravery is being terrified of a situation but doing the “thing” anyway.
I found that the more that I “did it anyway,” the more I accomplished and could hold out in front of my fears and say see, you weren’t right, I can do this, I do have value and my inventions aren’t worthless.
The imposter syndrome came to visit less frequently but still shows up of course, now 1 or 2 days a week instead of 6. And I just remind myself to do it anyway.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

In a nutshell All for Groomers is a perfect partnership, Kemlyn, my wife identifies the needs in the industry and I find a solution for it, I take it from there and turn it into a viable product.

I was lucky. I know that it wasn’t all luck, I learned good customer service from my mother who was a fanatic about treating the customers correctly, she was driven by this to get better tips as a waitress whereas I found that I felt good when I treated people well. I went to work in a very upscale restaurant in Mississippi when I was in college, we had to go through intensive customer service and proper waitstaff procedures, we even had to stand inspection before we could go onto the restaurant floor. This was wonderful to me, I loved the techniques and the science behind “customer service” that I learned there. After college I took at job at a car dealership selling cars, I remember another salesperson saying, why are you learning all this stuff about your customers, just sell them a car, it didn’t feel right to only do that. Unkown to me the dealer owner and his leadership team were concerned that the service department wasn’t doing very well with the customer interactions and asked me to transfer to that department. I did so and started my business education, I thought that merely making people feel good was the goal, I learned that without making a profit there wouldn’t be the opportunity to make people happy and serve them. i learned the dirty word “process” but this was only part of my new education. After a few years I took what I had learned and assumed the role of manager in the parts department. This whole dealership experience was unique, the owner allowed the managers and leadership team members to run the dealership, he said his job was to provide guidance and a checkbook. I learned to budget, forecast, hire and fire, plan expansions and remodels and every detail of the business side of the dealership’s operations. Accounting was especially difficult for me so I did what most of us do, I bought a couple of books on accounting and self taught myself what I needed to know to communicate with our CFO and the accounting team.
These lessons that I learned and found ways to teach myself made it possible a few years later when I started my own business.

Why is there an All for Groomers at all? My wife Kemlyn was a vet tech full time, taught dog behaviour classes and was even a part time animal control officer. We decided to have a baby and she wanted to have a job that she could be at home more to raise our daughter so she began grooming dogs in our basement. Needless to say we didn’t have much money back then and the tools she needed to groom pets were expensive so I built many of the things myself instead of buying them. As her pregnancy progressed the dogs were getting farther and farther away from her our daughter still inside her tummy. She pleaded with me to make something to keep the dogs closer to her so I created a “wall” to stand on her table. Kem found that not only were the dogs closer but calmer when the Wall was being used, as time went on she would have requests for it to be more durable, sanitary, foldable etc. 18 years later the Groomer’s Wall was perfected. She told me for years that other groomers would love to have the use of the Groomers Wall and of course I didn’t listen. It wasn’t until one of her groomers that she had trained moved away and found that she couldn’t groom without the Groomer’s Wall that I had made for her that it finally sank in that Kem was right, other groomers should have this tool. I knew from watching other small businesses in our town that it took all of your time and money to get a business going and I didn’t want to sacrifice my family time to start yet. I decided to incorporate right after Kashlyn our daughter graduated high school. It did take all of my time and money to get going, I learned that manufacturers weren’t willing to gamble on a small unproven company with a silly idea so I set up a production line in our own garage, As demand increased I started hiring college students from the local universities that needed a little extra money to build the Groomer’s Wall. Sales were slow but steady and we gained the reputation that we were building these things to make groomer’s lives better by keeping the pets closer and calmer. At that time there were hardly any tools on the market that focused on the well being of the groomer. They were all about the newest shiniest tool for groomers to buy but nothing for their physical well being. Pet grooming is a very physical job, with long hours on your feet, constantly bending and reaching to get the grooms done and when you add to that a squirmy unruly cat or dog it make for a very long day. The Groomer’s Wall allowed them to stand upright, shoulders above their hips and in a “body nuetral” position, and, the squirmy cats and dogs seemed to settle right down with the security of a “wall” for them to lean on and for cats to hide behind.
Sales were steady but slow, not enough income to rely only on for keeping the lights on at home.
Now enter a very senior miniature poodle named Topi. Topi had severe trachial issues that required medication and a seperate person to hold her while she was being groomed because any pressure on her neck or chest would cause her to lose her breath and cough uncontrollably. Kemlyn asked me to come up with a solution to make Topi’s life a little better, especially when being groomed. I toyed with different designs, shapes, even learned a little macrame and sailors knots to find a way to hold Topi safely. The “Trach Saver” is what I came up with, instead of going around the pets neck like all other grooming leads my invention slipped over the pets shoulders like a back pack. It cinched and locked down so that a dog or cat couldn’t wiggle out of it and get hurt. The Trach Saver took off like wildfire, groomers immediately saw what it did and how and wanted one now! I came out with it in early fall 2020 during covid and couldn’t keep them on the shelves, It was inexpensive, versatile and easy to use. Groomers then wanted a stronger version, something that they could disenfect between grooms and use in the tub and not pick up odors and contamination from one pet to the next, I designed a completely new one out of hospital grade TPU (thermopolyurethane) instead of fabric like the first version, The new version won best new product of 2021 through Barkleigh Productions, a national organization in the grooming world, hosting trade shows, competions and education. I hadn’t even released the new product, I only had 1 production sample for people to see and I was offered hundreds of dollars for that sample one. When I did release it to the public I was approached by distributors right away, sales went into the hundreds per month instead of dozens, I was finally able to quit my day job and focus solely on All for Groomers. Talk about frightening, that’s when the Imposter Syndrome really showed up at my door, I didn’t even have a desk and I was supposed to make a living selling things that I created in my mind, come on. But like I said earlier, I did it anyway, sales increased, groomers wanted different sizes and colors, distributors were sometimes calling me instead of me talking to them with my hat in my hand. I bought a used desk from a graduate student and started filling orders. Somewhere along the way Kemlyn and I decided that we were going to focus on products that made groomer’s lives a little better and the pets safer, if it didn’t fit that description then someone else could build it.
There were many things that Kemlyn pointed out that needed improving or fixing for groomers, among these were a thing to make the high force dryers less painful to use, something to make combs easier to use and several more that are in development that I can’t discuss. A wonderful friend and business owner that started at the same time as All for Groomers developed Reynaud’s Disease. It was catastrophic for her because she had to stop grooming altogether because of her hands, something that was even closer to home for her was she couldn’t comb her beloved golden retrievers and her poodle because her hands wouldn’t hold a comb any longer. She said, “Thomas, you need to get on the fix for combs now!” Because Amanda was such a dear friend and I was a little afraid of her (teasing) I came up with the Hand Saver. The spine of a comb is difficult to hold onto for more than a little while because of how hard you have to grip it to make it work, this was physically impossible for Amanda and painful for any groomer. Unfortunately, carpal tunnel surgery is very common for pet groomers because of the strain on the ligaments and muscles in the hand, wrist, and forearm. I came up with a working prototype and sent it to Amanda, she cried with joy because she could now use a comb again on her dogs. The Hand Saver has been as nearly successful as the Trach Saver and the distributors in the industry liked it so much that they said, “whatever you come up with, we want to sell it.”
Five years have gone by since I incorporated All for Groomers, I eat, sleep and dream about pet products now. We have earned the reputation as a good and honest business that truly does have the groomers and the pets in their cares best interest at heart. Our booth at trade shows has become a “safe zone” for neurodivergent groomers who are feeling overwhelmed with the throngs of people and need a spot to breathe and calm their minds. I told a new friend not long ago that I don’t care what color you are and I don’t even care if you identify as a squirrel, you are welcome at our booth and we are privileged to help you any way we can.
Over the years we have found a few like minded businesses in the industry that believe that we can be a positive force in our pet grooming world. I try very hard to stand for a way of doing business that helps each other out, even competitors. i don’t want drama, back stabbing or even much negativity around me and our business and I think it is either becoming easier for other businesses to be this way or maybe they feel they can be this way more openly.
This “drive” to make our grooming industry better is what makes me happy now, I love that our products are keeping pets safer and groomers lives a little better but being a force for positivity and good are even bigger to me. I am finding more and more vendors, distributors and manufacturers that also feel this way but have been afraid to talk about it openly.
I like to tell my friends that I am selfish and self centered, you see it’s all about me, I feel good when I help people, I feel good when I make positive changes and I feel good when I make it “okay” to be different. So you see, it’s all about me.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

What drove me in the beginning was the wish to make grooming easier and prove myself as worthy. I think those things were maybe fine in the beginning but they didn’t make me feel fulfilled.

I say that to do what we at All for Groomers are doing succesfully one needs to be doggedly determined because a person shouldn’t be doing this just to feel better about themselves or just to make money. Yes maybe that works but it isn’t fulfilling, at least not to me.

A serious drive to make a difference
A work ethic that keeps you going 7 days a week and 18 hours a day (yes it gets better in time)
Patience, I knew that everything took a long time in manufacturing and shipping but plan on it taking 3 days past forever to get anything done, it takes me 18 months to get from an idea to a working production sample in my hand and even more time to get to market.
You need some sort of support, mine is my wife and now my wife and friends, try to find a mentor or at least a good person that will listen and let you bounce ideas off of.
Your going to be scared, stressed and terrified. Those things are normal, do it anyway.
Learn everything you can from everyone and everything you can, I plowed snow for 5 years while getting this business started, I spent countless hours listening to podcasts, business books on tape, self help books and anything I could get my hands on.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?

I guess the number one obstacle for me has been cash, at the very beginning we invested just over $30K into the business and knowing what I do now I could cut that in half but everything takes money, every step has to be taken carefully. The old saying of it’s ok to bet the barn but never bet the whole farm is often in my head.
I have been adamant about self-funding each venture we take, I have never borrowed in the past except using a line of credit at my local bank to restock inventory a few times a year. I remember stories of my Grandparents and others losing their farms during the Depression and the in some ways tougher times in the 70’s and 80’s. I know fear of that slows me down and I am reaching a point that I need to reach out and utilize financial tools that I haven’t used before.
See fear still shows up to work every day but I am going to keep doing it anyway.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.all4groomers.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/all4groomers/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groomerswall
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommy-stockstill
• Youtube: @allforgroomers3554
• Other: tic tok https://www.tiktok.com/@all4groomers