From Pet Grooming to Business Systems: How Liz Illg Discovered Her True Calling in Building Scalable Operations
Some entrepreneurs find their calling through years of searching. Others discover it by accident—while building something entirely different. Liz Illg falls into the latter category. What started as a pet grooming business became a masterclass in operational excellence, leading her to found Legendary Ideas Group, where she now helps other entrepreneurs systematize their businesses for growth and freedom.
Liz's journey from grooming pets to grooming business processes offers valuable insights for any entrepreneur struggling with the day-to-day operations that keep them trapped in their business rather than working on it. Her story is one of recognizing that sometimes your greatest expertise isn't in what you thought you were building, but in how you built it.
In this conversation, Liz shares how she scaled her pet grooming business to six locations before realizing her true value lay in the systems she'd created, her philosophy on reinvesting in business growth, and how she balances mission-driven work with the practical realities of running a profitable company. For women entrepreneurs especially, her insights on investing boldly in business infrastructure—rather than defaulting to conservative financial decisions—offer a refreshing perspective on what it takes to build a business that truly serves both its owner and its clients.
1. You went from scaling a pet grooming business to helping other entrepreneurs systematize their operations. What made you realize that your real expertise wasn't in grooming pets, but in building the systems that let businesses run without you?
When I built my pet grooming business, I thought my role would always revolve around the actual service—until I realized the business ran smoother without me in the day-to-day. That shift happened when I created clear systems, manuals, and workflows to train staff and standardize operations. Suddenly, I had time, freedom, and a profitable business that didn’t rely on me being everywhere at once. I realized: this was the real value I had created. The grooming industry just happened to be where I learned the skill—what I truly loved was building the infrastructure that let other people thrive in their zone of genius. That’s when I knew I could help other entrepreneurs do the same in their own industries.
2. You've talked about how much you reinvest in your businesses—amounts that would surprise people. Most entrepreneurs, especially women, tend to be really conservative with spending. What was the investment that scared you the most but ended up being a game-changer?
The scariest investment was hiring my first full-time team member to manage operations. It felt like a massive leap—committing to a salary, training, and letting go of control. But it was also the moment everything clicked. It freed up my bandwidth to actually lead the business, not just run it. That single hire allowed us to scale, take on more clients, and serve them at a higher level. Reinvesting has become a core value for me. I believe women entrepreneurs especially deserve to build businesses that aren’t dependent on personal burnout. Sometimes the boldest move is trusting yourself enough to go “all in” on the infrastructure.
3. You've said you're "motivated by others' success" and love being part of people's growth process. There's clearly a soul-driven mission behind what you do, but you're also running a business that needs to be profitable and strategic. How do you balance staying true to that purpose of genuinely helping people with the practical realities of building a sustainable company? Have you ever had to make tough decisions where those two things were at odds?
It’s definitely a balance—but one we’ve become intentional about. At Legendary Ideas Group, we’re guided by a mission to support people’s growth, and part of that means meeting people where they are in their business. Not every client is ready for a full-blown system overhaul, and that’s okay—we’ve built our services and offers to support entrepreneurs at different stages. That said, we also have to make strategic decisions that ensure our business is healthy and our team is supported. There have absolutely been moments where those two values were at odds—like saying no to underpriced work, or walking away from a client who wasn’t ready to implement. Those decisions are hard, but necessary. Helping people isn’t about overextending—it’s about creating sustainable solutions that truly serve them long-term. And that starts with us modeling sustainability in our own business.
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