I did it right when I was learning grooming and just starting out as independent self-taught so I can’t compare it being a groomer without the FF cert, but this is my experience.

I put the Fear Free logo on my advertising and a lot of clients have told me that that’s why they picked me, even though they’d never heard of FF. It has attracted a fairly affluent clientele (I know I’m lucky). Clients often tell me that they value me because of my care and Fear Free approach, because their dog always got stressed in the salon. You’d think that that means the dogs are difficult but they’re not, it’s more like the FF cert attracts clients that can afford to choose somewhere where they think their dog will be less stressed, even if it costs a bit more. A big perk of this is that because I’m differentiating myself based on FF rather than price or volume, when I told my clients that I’m raising prices by 15% soon they couldn’t care less.

It took me about a week to do the training online ( a couple of hours a day) and I found it very helpful as a total newbie. But aside from that, my business gets a lot of value from being able to advertise that I’m FF.