Chrissy Early-Engagement Strategy (working doc)
Exploratory. Nothing here is a commitment to Chrissy or a finalized plan - it’s a first pass at whether bringing her into the loop early is worth doing, and if so, how to do it without creating legal or trust problems. Revisit after talking to Kendra.
Background
Chrissy is a groomer Kendra already works with/knows well, and per Jeremy she’s “already interested in starting her own salon with Kendra” - this conversation won’t be a surprise to her. She’s currently employed at another salon and has her own client following (clients who consider themselves “her” clients, the same way Kendra’s clients follow Kendra - see kendra-brand-story).
The core question this doc explores: instead of treating her as a Month-4-ish hire who starts from zero (per the current model - see below), can we loop her into the plan early and have her doing some of the same list-building work Kendra is already doing solo, so that the actual hiring trigger gets pulled forward?
Why the Timing Might Actually Change, Not Just Feel Faster
The current model treats the 2nd groomer as a sequential event: Kendra fills her own book solo, builds a waitlist off her own volume, and only once that waitlist’s projected revenue clears the cost of a hire does groomer #2 join - starting with an empty book that ramps up over several months on Kendra’s overflow.
Concretely, per revenue-projections’s 24-month trajectory: 2nd groomer arrives Month 4, starts at ~1 dog/day, and takes until roughly Month 8 to approach full capacity. And per scheduling-procedures → “Using the Waitlist to Justify a Hire,” the trigger itself is just Kendra’s own waitlist total (expected price × expected frequency) clearing the new hire’s cost in ongoing-expenses.
If Chrissy is building her own separate pipeline of interested clients in parallel from early on, that’s a second revenue stream feeding the same trigger math - not something that only starts counting once she’s formally hired. Two people building demand in parallel gets to the threshold faster than one person building it and then handing overflow to a second person after the fact. This doesn’t just make the hire feel closer - it can genuinely change the month it happens.
This is the whole logic behind why Jeremy wants her “in the loop” now rather than waiting for the Month 4-ish trigger to arrive on its own: her early involvement is itself an input to hitting the trigger sooner, not just prep for when it happens.
Related open modeling question (not yet resolved): scratch-booking-vs-grooming-targets currently only models the 2nd/3rd/4th groomer’s book as filled by waitlist spillover. That model probably needs a variant where the 2nd groomer arrives with a partially pre-filled book - worth revisiting once this strategy firms up, since it likely front-loads some of the “New Needed” booking-admin curve into the pre-hire phase instead of the post-hire ramp.
What “Bring Her Into the Loop” Should Mean, Concretely
Not a job offer, not a start date - a shared understanding of the plan and a light, informal role during the ramp-up:
Phase 0 - Share the plan (now / as soon as Kendra’s on board with this approach)
Walk Chrissy through the vision, the executive chef model, the growth timeline, and - critically - where she fits in it. This is what the one-page document (see below) is for. She should leave that conversation understanding: this is real, this is planned, and her path into it is tied to something concrete (waitlist demand), not a vague “someday.”
Phase 1 - Informal interest-gauging (her own relationships only)
Chrissy quietly finds out which of her own clients - people who already think of themselves as her clients, not just “a client of the salon she currently works at” - would follow her to a new salon. This should happen through her personal relationships and on her own time, not through her current employer’s systems, client list, or paid hours. See Legal/Ethical Guardrails below - this is the part that needs the most care.
Phase 2 - Start counting it
Once there’s a real, non-trivial list of interested clients, start logging them using the same scheduling-procedures → Waitlist Record Fields structure already defined for Kendra’s waitlist (expected price, expected frequency, etc.) - so this pipeline counts toward the actual hiring-trigger math in waitlist-sizing-analysis, not just an informal “she seems popular” impression.
Phase 3 - Hire, same trigger as every other hire in the model
Once combined projected revenue (Kendra’s waitlist + Chrissy’s pipeline) comfortably covers her cost per ongoing-expenses, the hire happens - same mechanism already documented for every other groomer in business-goals-and-milestones, just reached sooner and with a head start on her book. Per the existing model, Kendra still hand-picks which waitlisted dogs seed the new groomer’s book first (easy, reliable clients) - Chrissy’s own pre-committed clients would presumably be the first pull for her own chair specifically, which is a nice bonus: her first clients would genuinely be her people, not reassigned strangers.
Legal / Ethical Guardrails - Take This Seriously
Chrissy is currently employed elsewhere. This is the part of the plan most likely to create a real problem if handled carelessly, not just an awkward one:
- Ask her directly whether she signed a non-compete or non-solicitation agreement with her current employer, before any client outreach happens. This determines what’s actually safe for her to do.
- Any outreach she does should be personal, not systematic. Reaching out to people who already consider themselves her clients, through her own personal contact info, on her own time, is meaningfully different from using her current employer’s client list, booking system, or paid hours to solicit business for a competing salon. The former is normal and expected when a groomer plans to move on; the latter can expose both her and this business to real legal claims (breach of duty of loyalty, tortious interference).
- Don’t put anything in writing yet that looks like a job offer or start date - this is a conversation about a shared plan, not an employment contract, until the trigger is actually hit.
- Worth a short conversation with an attorney before this moves past informal conversation - cheap insurance against a costly problem, especially since Jeremy is the one funding this business (see startup-costs funding notes).
This isn’t a reason not to do this - it’s a reason to do the outreach part (Phase 1) carefully and keep it low-key until she’s actually free to move.
What’s In It For Chrissy (feeds the one-pager)
- A chair that isn’t empty on day one. Instead of starting from zero and rebuilding a client base cold, her early involvement means some of her own clients are already lined up before her first day.
- The executive chef model works for her, not just Kendra. Standards, training references, and QC are already documented (see executive-chef-model) - she’s not on her own figuring out how to run a chair, and she’s not personally on the hook if something about the salon’s systems is unclear; Kendra’s standards carry the weight.
- Premium positioning, not volume-chasing. Per the salon’s pricing philosophy (business-goals-and-milestones → Decision Log), the model is scarcity-driven - a curated, full book at a higher average ticket, not high-volume/low-price like a chain groomer.
- Room to grow, not just a chair. Per the 1-Year and Year-2 goals, there’s a real path from staff groomer → certified lead (approval authority) → potentially assistant store manager as the salon expands hours (business-goals-and-milestones → “Breaking the Four-Groomer Ceiling”). This isn’t a static job.
- She’d be a founding part of the story, not hire #4. Being read into the plan early and helping shape when/how she joins is different from being brought on later to fill an already-defined slot.
- Working alongside Kendra, not competing with her. Same relationship-first philosophy, same standard, same support - not a corporate environment where groomers are interchangeable.
Open Questions
- Has Kendra actually discussed this specific approach with Chrissy yet, or is this still Jeremy/Kendra planning between themselves? (Affects whether Phase 0 conversation is a “here’s the plan” or a “here’s an idea, what do you think” conversation.)
- Does Chrissy have a non-compete/non-solicit with her current employer? (Blocks Phase 1 until answered - see Guardrails above.)
- How much lead time does Chrissy actually need to leave her current job once the trigger is hit - 2 weeks, a month, longer? This affects how far ahead of the actual hire the trigger needs to fire.
- Should Chrissy’s pipeline be tracked as a separate line from Kendra’s waitlist, or merged into one combined number for trigger purposes? Keeping them separate would make it possible to see how much of the accelerated timeline is actually attributable to her involvement - probably worth keeping separate, at least for the first few months.
- Does bringing her in this early change the Month 4 timing/cost assumptions in revenue-projections enough to warrant a re-run of that model with an “early second pipeline” scenario? Not done yet - flagged for later.
- What, if anything, does Chrissy get for the Phase 1/2 informal effort if the trigger takes longer to hit than expected, or doesn’t happen on the timeline she was hoping for? Worth thinking through before Phase 0 so expectations are set honestly.
Next Steps
- Kendra + Jeremy align on whether to pursue this approach before anything is said to Chrissy
- Draft the one-page document for Chrissy (see companion artifact - informal content draft below)
- Kendra has the Phase 0 conversation with Chrissy directly (her relationship, her call on tone/timing)
- Confirm non-compete/non-solicit status before Phase 1 begins
- If green-lit, start logging Chrissy’s pipeline using the standard waitlist fields once there’s something real to log
One-Pager Content Draft (for Chrissy)
This is the content basis for a standalone one-page document to hand/send to Chrissy. A polished version was also produced as a shareable artifact in this session - treat that as the “real” version to send, and this section as the editable source if the wording needs to change later.
Working title: Building Something Real - What Joining [Salon Name] Could Look Like for You
- The vision - what the salon is, built on Kendra’s reputation and standards (from vision-and-mission)
- How it runs - the executive chef model in plain terms: documented standards, real training, every groom approved, so quality doesn’t depend on any one person’s day
- The growth plan - where the business is today, and the honest, real trigger for bringing on a second chair (waitlist demand, not a guess)
- Where she fits - the idea of being looped in early, building toward her own chair rather than waiting for an opening to appear
- What’s in it for her - the bullet list above, in warmer language
- What this is / isn’t right now - an honest note that this is a plan and a conversation, not an offer letter yet - respecting that she’s still employed and this needs to be handled right
Business name is still an open decision (see business-goals-and-milestones → Key Open Decisions) - the one-pager uses a placeholder until that’s settled.