This week on the podcast…
This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and practice management geek Stephanie Goss dive into a mailbag question from a new practice owner who is thinking ahead! They want to take care of their team and set up great employee discounts. And they want to help take care of the pets belonging to their friends and family who helped get them to where their dream of practice ownership is finally a reality. How does that mix with their plans for their team? We'll find out – Let's get into this…
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Episode Transcript
Stephanie Goss:
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And I don't want you to miss out anymore, and neither does Andy. So our friends at Simple Texting have put together a deal for you, our Uncharted listeners. That's right. They have got texting plans that you can try for free for 14 days, but if you go to simpletexting.com/uncharted, they are going to give you up to $100 worth of free credits when you sign up for texting for your clinic. There is no reason, none whatsoever today to not be texting with your clients. So if this is you, head over to simpletexting.com/uncharted, get your deal, check out all of the amazing options.
Hey everybody, I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. This week on the podcast, Andy and I are diving back in the mailbag. We got a great letter from an ambitious startup owner who doesn't want to break the bank or employee relationships. They're asking some questions about discounting for their team while also taking care of the friends and family who help support them and get them to the place where their dream is becoming a reality as a new practice owner. This was a really fun episode for Andy and I to talk through. We hope you enjoy it. Let's get into this.
Audio recording:
And now, the Uncharted Podcast.
Andy Roark:
And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and the one and only Stephanie, I've got friends in low places, Goss.
Stephanie Goss:
Now sing it for me please.
Andy Roark:
I've got friends in low places.
Stephanie Goss:
You are no Garth, my friend.
Andy Roark:
No, I know. I have never claimed that I could sing. I can't carry a tune in a bucket.
Stephanie Goss:
But I appreciate that attempt.
Andy Roark:
It's bad.
Stephanie Goss:
I appreciate that attempt. How is it going, Andy Roark?
Andy Roark:
Oh, it's good. It's really good. Things are rolling along here. I'm hanging out here petting my doodle with a self-confidence problem. I was doing…
Stephanie Goss:
Stop it.
Andy Roark:
No. It's worse. It's worse. I was doing my other podcast, Cone of Shame, with the vet behaviorist, Lisa Radosta, who is amazing. She's amazing. And I should have just hit record. I think I'll probably go back. I think I'll probably get her back on. I did that thing where like, “Oh hey, while you're here, I got this dog.”
Stephanie Goss:
You were that client.
Andy Roark:
I got this dog. I was. I was like, “Hey, will you come do a podcast while you're here? Look, can you look at this?” I was like, “I got this dog and he piddles on the floor. If I come home and go to pet him or greet him, every now and then, he will pee on the floor and he's four years old.” And she started talking to me about urination like that and asking me about, “How does he look? What does he do with his ears? What does he do with his head,” all these sorts of things. And she was like, “Yeah, this is a conflict sort of response. And so he's got anxiety around meeting people or people reaching out and petting him and things like that,” and I was like, “Okay, well, what do we do about it?” And she's like, “Well, he has low confidence, Andy. You have to get his confidence up.” So now, I reported all of this dutifully and now I'll be like, “He's a bad dog.” And my wife is like, “You're going to hurt his confidence. Don't.”
Stephanie Goss:
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me get this straight. So not only do you have a doodle.
Andy Roark:
I have a doodle with confidence issues. That's what I have. That moment of silence was just Stephanie just shaking.
Stephanie Goss:
I'm dying. This is priceless.
Andy Roark:
Now I sit with him, we do affirmations. I'm like, “You're a good boy, you're a handsome boy, you're a smart boy.”
Stephanie Goss:
Boosting his confidence.
Andy Roark:
People like you.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh.
Andy Roark:
So yeah, I'm working on Skipper Roark's confidence.
Stephanie Goss:
Okay, Skipper, Skipper. I can't even say anything with a straight face. Skipper has got confidence issues. The only thing that Skipper is confident about is his ability to go pee in the neighbor's yard, right where the sign says, “Don't pee on my lawn.”
Andy Roark:
Yeah. He's confident that he wants to poop in the no pooping yard. He's very confident about that, but no, the whole time, I thought he was bad. It turns out he is just insecure. It's a lot like…
Stephanie Goss:
He's also bad because let's be clear.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. Well, it's like the high school boy where people are like, “Oh, that guy is a jerk.” It's like, “No, he's just got self-confidence issues.” And that's Skipper. He 100% went into my wife's purse and chewed up her migraine medicine.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, no.
Andy Roark:
And she was like, “Why would he do that?” I was like, “Leave him alone. He's got confidence problems.” All right. That's enough. That's enough. We should respect his privacy. Yeah. We should respect his privacy and move on.
Stephanie Goss:
Bad dog. Okay. Fair. Well, I'm excited. We've got a question from the mailbag today. And I was thinking back and I don't think we've actually tackled anything like this topic before, so I'm kind of excited about this. We've got a letter from a new practice owner and they are getting ready to open their practice here at any moment now, which is just big congratulations right off the bat because that's awesome. And they said, “Well, I have a question about discounting,” which I love that they're asking questions before they start doing things.
Andy Roark:
That's super smart. Because once you start, you're in it.
Stephanie Goss:
Exactly.
Andy Roark:
Once you start doing anything with your family, it's hard to be like, “Yeah, I'm not doing that for you anymore.” That is challenging. All right. So go ahead.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes. So they were like, “I want to set up a discount that takes care of my team because I care about them and I want to take care of them. And my friends and my family have really supported me through this whole endeavor. They supported me through school and being in practice. Now, I'm opening my own practice and my love language is gifts and acts of service. And so for me, the ultimate would be to pay back my friends and family and take care of them and take care of their pets as a thank you. My parents, my in-laws, I want to say thank you for supporting me on this journey and take care of their pets.” And so they're a kind and generous person. And so they're just like, “I want to do that.”
And they're thinking with a business head and they're like, “If I take a step back, I want to make sure that I'm maintaining fairness and avoiding creating disparities within the clinic because I don't want to give things away to my friends or my family for free that I'm not willing to give to my team and I need to make this a fair situation.”
And so they were like, “How can I approach the idea of friends and family discounts without compromising the fairness and integrity to my team and the discounts that they're going to get and the clinic policies that ultimately I'm going to set.” And was signed from an ambitious owner who does not want to break the bank or employee relations, which I absolutely love. And so I need us to start with giving this practice owner or this new practice owner big giant kudos for asking the questions because they are great.
Andy Roark:
It's always good to try to figure it out before you get into the moment, before you make it a pattern. Right? A lot of times with practice ownership, we have to figure out, we have to get there before we can start to make policies. I see a lot of people who spend a lot of time making policies for things that will never happen or they'll make big plans about what will happen if this thing, and then it never comes together. But anyway, in this case, knowing that we have friends and family who are around, I think it's good to think this through so you're not just making it up on the fly.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. Totally.
Andy Roark:
I have thoughts. The frustrating answer to this question, it's very, very simple. It depends. It wildly depends. Thanks for tuning in everybody. That's our episode. No, it wildly depends. It depends on how does your staff feel about their compensation package, right? Are they struggling to pay for services? Because if they're struggling to pay for services and you're no charging your friends, if they struggle to pay for services for their own pet, or if they're living hand to mouth and they feel like, “Oh man, this is hard to make ends meet,” and then you are giving stuff away to your buddies, they're not going to feel good about that. Or do they feel okay, or do they feel like, “Okay, I understand they're family. I would want to treat my family like that and gives the family the staff discount. I'm okay with that.” A lot of it depends. It depends on how many people are we talking here? Friends and family, what is that, one person a day? Is that one person a week? Is that one person a month? What is that?
I've seen practices. We've gotten letters. You and I have gotten letters from practices where there's an extended family and they're just rolling in all day long, going in and out and getting what they want. And so, how many people are we talking about here? Is this a revolving door of people getting discounts and breaks or is it your two best friends and your brother? Okay. Those are just different things. How do your friends and family act when they come in? How do they treat the staff? We've gotten letters about that where the family rolls in like they own the place. Basically, they don't have appointments. They walk in whenever they want. They don't listen to the texts. They dismiss them. They walk right back into the treatment room with their pet and just the staff feels wholly disrespected by these people who are coming in. And just, man, that's toxic. That's really toxic.
And I totally, I empathize with those letters when we got them. It's like, “Oh man, that's not okay.” And so all of those things really, really matter as far as, what are we talking about here? And again, I don't think anybody would think too much if you have a couple of people who come in every now and then and they're your family or close friends and you take care of those people. It's probably not a big deal, but I've 100% seen it become a big deal. It really depends on how you're doing it. And like I said, it depends a lot on how the staff feels, how they get treated, things like that. All that stuff matters. And the last part is, fair is where pigs win ribbons, there is no… What?
Stephanie Goss:
Oh my gosh. I'd never heard that. And that is the most southern thing that I've heard you say in so long.
Andy Roark:
You haven't heard that? Oh, fair is where pigs win ribbons. It is. So here's the thing, right? If I took a big group of people and I said to them, “Is the electoral college a fair way to do elections?” They would not agree.
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Andy Roark:
And you would never convince all of them yes or no, but they would never agree. I was just trying to pick a thing that in our country, some people are like, “Nope, not fair.” And some people are like, “It is the most fair way.” And there's not a right answer. I don't know. Is it fair or not? It depends on who you are. It depends on what you're trying to do. It's the point of debate, but that's the whole point.
And so some people would say, “Sure, it's fair that this person's family doesn't have to pay for services or gets a big discount.” And other people would say, “It's not fair when we don't get the salaries that we need because this person's giving things away.” And again, people just depending on their worldview, you can have the same team and they could be split down the middle about what's fair and what's not. There's not a, “This is fair. Everyone's going to see it. They're all going to agree that it's fair.” And that will be the decided upon state of being is yes, fairness.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, because fairness is subjective. Right? And so, I think there's two pieces. You're spot on. The fairness is subjective and what one person views as fair may not be viewed the same way as another person in the situation or outside of the situation. So we're totally looking at fairness through the lenses of our own lives and our own experience. So that's number one. And so if fairness is super, super subjective, then there's two other pieces from a head space perspective that are really important for me. Number one is clear is kind. And so fairness is going to be subjective. And so the only way out of this that is positive all around as a practice owner for the team, for friends and family, is to make sure that you are very clear because that is going to be the most kind to everybody. So everybody knows what's happening, everything gets communicated very clearly. Clarity is your friend here.
And the third piece of it that I think is really, really important is that recognizing that what you do today and how you are clear and equity that you put into place today is going to change, may change as you go. Because you are about to open your practice and what works today about to open your practice may be something completely different that works for you six months from now, six years from now. Your practice is going to grow and change and evolve. And so the other piece of head space is don't think about this. I'm going to set a policy for my hospital that is going to be the policy on discounting until the end of time. That's the wrong way to look at it, in my opinion. Think about it as what am I going to do right now and for the foreseeable future, and when am I going to reevaluate? Because that will help you with that clarity for yourself and for your team.
Andy Roark:
I like that. I would also say, it's much easier to loosen up later on than it is to tighten it back down. And so I think that if I would start with a conservative policy, especially as you open. You're like, “We just opened up.” You know what I mean? I'll say something that may come off as… I don't know, it may be contrary or whatever, but I'm not particularly excited about having my friends as clients. And there's a lot of people who just would disagree with me. And you hear that and go, “Oh my God.” But the truth is, I like to be a vet, and then I like my friends to be my friends. If somebody would not come to me as a veterinarian if they didn't get a discount, then I don't really want them to come to me as a veterinarian anyway.
And I don't really personally, I'll just say, I've been doing this for a good amount of time now, I don't really like the veterinarian relationship woven into my friendship relationship. I don't like when I'm suddenly the service provider to my friend who's unhappy with something. You know what I mean? There's an awkwardness there that I don't really like.
And I guess it's one thing if you need the money or you're trying to get something up and going and things like that, and your friends can be your best clients. They can be. They can also be your worst clients and they can also make friend gatherings awkward when you're like, “Yeah, and I heard that medial patella luxation surgery didn't go the way I wanted. And I know that every time you see me, you think about it.” That's odd. There's just a little bit of awkwardness there too.
I'm not saying that other people, you shouldn't do vet work for your friends. I'm not saying that. But I am saying, I don't race out and say to people, “You should come and see me.” In fact, I generally don't. I generally don't. I like to keep my friends and my business separate as much as I can, but that's just kind of always how I've sort of done it. I'm happy with my neighbors to come and see me, that's fine, but that's the level of relationship that we have. And so anyway, I'm not trying to set a rule here or anything at all. And maybe no one else feels that way, but I do.
Stephanie Goss:
No, I think that it's good that you bring it up because I think that it is regardless there's going to need to be some boundaries, right? And I think I'm glad that you brought it up because most of the time, you and I see the opposite end of the spectrum. What you were talking about where there isn't as many boundaries and where the rules are not the same for friends or family as they are for the team and other clients. And that's where it gets people into trouble. And so thinking about it on the spot here as we're talking about this, every single practice that I have ever worked in, there has been a friend or family member. There is someone who gets the discounts, but who is not our client. They don't follow the rules, they don't do any of the things that we make everybody else do. They are the exemption. And in every single situation, boy, did it piss people off, the team-
Andy Roark:
The staff gets really upset.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. And because whether it was they could just come in and take meds off the shelf like you were saying, or they didn't ever follow any of the rules. I remember vividly getting into it with the team because we had a rule in our clinic about, we wouldn't see patients and do procedures on patients that didn't have a current rabies vaccination, unless there was a valid medical reason. And yet, we had that one best friend of the practice owner who was just like, “I don't want my old dog to get vaccines.” And it was like, “Oh, they don't need to get it.” And the team was like, “Well, we would make any other client get a rabies vaccine if they were going to have a dental, but we're not going to make them.” And so I do think that it is important to recognize that as a whole. It tends to go in the negative direction a lot more than it does in the positive direction. And so I think-
Andy Roark:
I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to push back on you here. I don't know. I don't know if it really does because here's the thing, everybody remembers that client you were just talking about. You know what I mean?
Stephanie Goss:
Sure. Yeah, yeah.
Andy Roark:
But there may have been seven other clients that were friends and they just come in, they're respectful, they're nice. No one really pays that much attention. You know what I mean? They just get their little discount. They thank the front desk and they walk out and no one thinks twice about it. But it's that one and everybody remembers it. But that was sort of my point about, it really depends is because you could have a bunch of friends and family, and they're respectful, and they're blah, blah blah, and the staff is fine with this. Or you could have one and that person walks in the back and takes meds off the shelf and things like that, and they're like, “This is a nightmare.” Really, it's that big of variation.
And so it's really hard to set. It's really hard to set any sort of rule. I would never be like, “You can have five people.” It depends on the five people and how they behave and how the staff feels and all those things. But anyway, to your point, it's about, does it always go that bad? I don't know. Or do we just remember the ones that went bad and do they really stand out? I don't know. I don't know.
Stephanie Goss:
That's fair. That's fair. Because you're right in that for each one of those bads, I can think about goods in those same practice who were the regular clients who followed the rules, and they got their 5% off and it was totally fine. So I think that's a super fair point. And I think where I was trying to go with it was that there is the potential for that to be what the team remembers, is that one client because that does stick out really easily in our head. Right? And so I think from the practice owner's perspective, when you think about head space and getting into a head space to tackle what are you going to do and how are you going to do it, remembering that clear is kind and that fairness is going to be subjective.
And that your team, you are going to have to have the conversation and you might have the conversation today, you might have it six months from now, but what you decide today may not be the same. And I would agree with you, especially when it comes to friends and family, because friends and family is where just I feel like as humans, a lot of us struggle with boundaries more than anything, but it's pretty easy to have boundaries with a total stranger for the most part. This is our policy, take it or leave it. It's a lot harder to have those same boundaries with friends and family.
And so if you start wide and say, “I love you, thank you so much for making this happen. Come in. I'm not going to charge you for any of this care that your pet is going to need today,” if you start down that path, it is a lot harder to take that away and be like, “Oh, well, now the clinic's making money and so now I'm going to have to charge you.” That is a hard path to walk. So I think your point there is super important to think beyond just today and think about that long-term perspective and know that you can always give them an extra something down the road, but it's really hard to take it away once you've gotten something started.
Andy Roark:
This is not about friends and family. This is just my thoughts on discounting in general. And I talk about this all the time. I believe in intentional discounting, meaning not just willy-nilly giving stuff away. That is the path to ruin. I see it all the time. Just the person walks in, you're like, “I don't charge them for that” or “Let's just take that offer. I don't know. They already paid for a bunch of stuff, let's just not charge them for this.” That kind of willy-nilly, however, I feel discounting is that is bad, is bad for the business.
Here's the other thing too. The research shows that it doesn't make you happy when you just willy-nilly give things away. If you decide these are the people that I'm going to help or this is how I'm going to help, these are the mechanisms I'm going to help, this is a program we're going to place, the research says, you'll be more proud of that. You will know that you were doing it. You will be able to look back and you're like, “How did I help people?” And you will know, “I did this thing, I had this program, I gave this time,” whatever, but you intentionally decided, “I was going to help these people.”
And you know that your money, or your time, or your services or whatever are going through something that you decided was good to do. And so you can intentionally discount. You can budget that. Everything feels more in control. The staff understands why we're doing what we're doing. All of those things are important. So there's intentional discounting, but I would even step back further than that. And so my first thought here is, let's just do a quick, just a real quick truthfulness check. When we say, I want to do this because my love language is gifts, are we doing this because you have decided that these are people you want to give back to? Or are we doing this because you think that people will like you if you give them free stuff? Are you doing this because your value as a person is influenced by your generosity to your friends and family?
And again, I don't know this person at all, but I have seen a lot of people who were making choices about discounting because they want to be popular or because they didn't want to make anybody upset or they wanted to get along. And so my real thought is, again, I don't think that much about family, but friends and stuff. And so I go, okay, the first part of intentional discounting is, why do I want to support this person, and just decide. And again, I'm not saying right or wrong or anything, but it should not be this person smiles when I see them, and so I'm going to not charge them what I charge other people who I don't know. That doesn't make any sense. That's not fair. It's not fair and it doesn't really help anybody in a significant way or anything like that. And so I would start with, why are we doing this? And then I would move on into sort of more specific to what the program looks like.
Stephanie Goss:
And I think I'm glad that you said that because from the letter that we got, I don't get that that is the sense of where this person is at. They had clear examples of like, “My in-laws and my parents or the people who really supported me on this journey.” And so I can clearly see they do care and it is an act of service and a love language to gift them. You've supported me and now I want to pay you back and take care of your pets. So you can totally see that. And to your point, I can also see that same person struggling down the road with like, “Oh, well this is somebody that I care about now. Do I give them the same discount?” The same situation is not in play. I didn't just open my practice. Now I've been open for a year and a half, but this person, now I have a new sister-in-law, now I have new brother-in-law. Am I just going to extend them the same discount because they're my in-laws? And my other in-laws got this discount when we first started. And so now I'm going to…
I'm glad that you said that because I do think that from that big picture perspective, taking the step back and looking at, why are you doing it, who are you trying to serve, and why are you trying to serve them is really, is a good, clear head space to start because I think that there will be questions at some point down the road whether it comes from yourself, whether the questions come from your team, or whether it comes from friends and family who are maybe hitting you up for a discount. I've absolutely had people be… But I'm like, “Don't your friends get a discount?” No, I have to answer that question as a team member or as a practice owner. And so that may not be the situation today, but at some point in the future, that will be a question that you come up against. And so figuring out why you're doing what you're doing is a really important piece of the head space. So I'm glad you said that.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. That's important to me, is just to get my head around, “What are we doing here?” As opposed to just, “I'm giving money away because it feels good.”
Stephanie Goss:
Totally. Anything else for you from a head space perspective?
Andy Roark:
Well, one more thing. I was going to put in the action stuff, but I'll put it here as well. And this goes back to about my friends as clients and stuff like that. I just tell you, this is just personal head space from me. I'm not going to tell anybody else how to think about it or whatever, but I personally like to separate myself from my job. I go in and I do the vet stuff and I like it, but I want to be Andy when I'm not at the vet clinic and not Dr. Andy, just Andy. And so I do think a lot about that.
The last thing that I would say here is if you see what I'm saying and you're like, “You know what? I also have some concerns about kind of weaving my practice life into my personal life.” And again, this is different from your family because you want to help your family out and I get it. You can give and be generous in different ways. Just because you're a veterinarian and you own a practice, that does not mean that's how you have to give to your friends. It just doesn't. There's other things that you can give in other ways.
And so does it make you a lesser person if you charge someone full price at your vet clinic, and then come and help them move a couch up their stairs when they need it? I don't know that it does. You know what I mean? Is it if you host the neighborhood Christmas party, do you need to give everyone in the neighborhood a discount at your vet clinic? You know what I mean? It's not the same. And so when you start thinking about head space, I would say, just don't fall in the trap of, I am a veterinarian or I own a vet clinic and so gifts from me must necessitate professional services. You can give professional services away to no one and also be a very generous person.
Stephanie Goss:
Right. Yep. I love that so, so much. I'm glad that you said that.
Andy Roark:
Cool. Let's take a little break and we'll come back and try to get into some action steps here, how we set this up.
Stephanie Goss:
Okay.
Did you know that we offer workshops for our uncharted members and for our non-members? So if you're listening to today's podcast and you are not a member of Uncharted yet, you should be, but this is not a conversation about joining Uncharted. This is a conversation about all of the amazing content that we have coming at all of you, whether or not you're a member through our workshop series. You should head over to the website at unchartedvet.com/events and check out what is coming. We have got an amazing lineup on the regular. We've got something every month, sometimes two or three things in a month coming at you to expand your brain, to talk about leadership, to talk about practice management, and dive into the kind of topics that Andy and I talk about on the podcast every week.
So now's your chance, stop what you're doing, pick up your cell phone, I know it's not far from you, and type in unchartedvet.com/events. See what's coming and sign up. They are always free to our uncharted members and they have a small fee attached to them if you are not currently a member. You can get all of the details, pricing, dates, times, and register. Head over to the website now. I want to see you there.
Andy Roark:
All right. So I think for action steps, I think we should start with intentional action, figure out what you're going to do. Again, here's where I'm going to throw a wrench into the work for a lot of people and say, “I'm still, I'm going to beat this drum.” I'm not convinced that you have to have a program at your practice where people come in and they just get a discount. I think you should think about who you're trying to help and how you're trying to help them. I would be personally, again, it depends on how big your family is, what you're trying to do, things like that. I would be much more open to the idea of trying to figure out how to do, I don't know, a separate program to help out my friends and family.
Maybe I take one Saturday every couple of months and say, “Guys, I'm doing vaccines over at the house. If you guys want to come over on Saturday, I've got the cloud pin software pulled up, but I'll bring you guys in. I'll do this. I won't have any of my technicians there or I'll have one technician there and pay them or whatever, but I'll bring everybody over. I'll do this little program, blah, blah, blah.” But it's not people coming into the practice, going through our process, taking up tech time, things like that. I'm just saying, “No, this is a little thing that I can do that is separate and I can intentionally do it. And it does not distract from the work of others. It's not putting my friends onto my staff in a way that makes their jobs harder, their lives harder,” things like that.
I think honestly, I'll tell you this. I think you're being really generous if you have an open door policy where your friends can call you and ask you about their pets. I personally don't like that and that's why I don't want my friends as my clients. Again, I'm not trying to be a real curmudgeon about it, but I got kids and I like to go home and I like to be off, and I don't really like people calling me and shaking me down for vet advice or things like that. And of course, I'll help you if you call me, but I'd really prefer that I not get a bunch of calls. And as your friend network expands, you can get a lot of people doing that. And so I personally just like to have some boundaries about when I'm available, when I'm not.
But I mean, I would say the idea that you take someone's phone calls after hours, you invite them to bring their pet by your house so you can have a look, you set up a little gathering to do vaccines or wellness care or things like that for your family or your friends, you do things like that, but then you don't give them a discount whenever they walk into the vet clinic or let them come in with no appointments or things like that. And that makes you not a generous person. I go, “I don't buy that for a second.” And so anyway, it goes back to being intentional. I'm not trying to be stingy about it at all, but I really do think that you can be very generous with people and not have a discount at your vet clinic. I do believe that.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I think for me, from figuring out what to do, what I will say is I think after my feelings around discounting and what do we do for our teams and for friends and family have changed up, down, backwards, sideways over the years because I've done it a bunch of different ways and I've experienced it different ways in different practices. And the why being different in different places. And so I think for me then, this is purely personal, figuring it out meant deciding why I was doing it and what I was trying to get out of it.
And the most clear head space that I have ever been able to get into as a leader and as a practice owner would be to say, “I want the experience for my team.” And this for me, holds true for friends and family, to be the same experience that I would provide for any other client because the why for me is that I want our practice to be a place that any member of my team, any member of my friend group or family wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anybody that they meet to bring their pet into my practice.
And so for me, if that's my why, then it makes it a lot more clear on how I am going to deliver that. Because if I want my team to experience the same level of service that clients experience, that does not mean that their pets get stuck in a cage until the end of the day and dealt with after everybody else goes home. It does not mean that they get the short end of the stick. It doesn't mean a lot of things that we can see happen in practice when it comes to taking care of staff pets.
And the same goes for clients. Totally, I like your idea, Andy, and the outside the box thinking of, well, maybe you do a special thing for them and you figure out what that looks like. And I could totally see that. And at the same time, if my why… For me, my why was about, I want them to experience, I want them to come in. I want them to hear the same spiels from my team. I want them to build the relationships with the team. I want them to have that same kind of white glove experience that I personally cultivated in my practice. And this is totally me speaking from my personal experience here. So not going to be the right fit for everybody.
So for me, I would have a hard time with that because I wouldn't want to… It's funny talking about this. Patty's going to kill me. So when I started working in VetMed, it was a million years ago and we were just kind of transitioning. I grew up with pets that lived in the backyard. They didn't come in the house. And when I started working in VetMed, we had just transitioned and I remember vividly to having our first dog that kind of lived in the house. And God, we love Mercy. She was the best dog. But my parents were not my ideal client now, my parents were far from that ideal client.
It was the bare minimum. They didn't get dentals. We didn't do a lot of the things. And that was because the medicine has changed, but also, because of how we related to our pets has changed significantly. And when I think about about the care that I provided in the beginning for my own pets, it was not the same care that I was recommending in the practice. It was like, well, I know what the bare minimum is, and so I'm just going to do the bare minimum for your pets because that's how you have always treated them. And I think I deprived myself and my family the opportunity to learn and grow and believe in the things that I truly did believe in the practice. And so I think for a lot of us, there is the potential to have that discrepancy there.
And so I think for me, that's a big part of the figuring out what that why is and what you're going to do, because I think it will help you figure out how do you then action plan it. And so for me, I wanted my parents ultimately to experience it. And so I started forcing my mom. I'm like, “Nope, you have to call the clinic and you can talk to me as the CSR upfront, but you have to call the clinic and make an appointment. I'm not going to make an appointment for you. I want you to fill out the survey when you leave. I'm not going to tech your appointment. Somebody else is going to go in there because I want to get the feedback. I want to know how are we doing? How did we stand up to what… I want you to experience it like any other client.” That became a motivator for me as a leader with my own family, but also with my team.
And so figuring that out really, really helped me to have clarity and that ability to see clearly with figuring out, what is my protocol? What is my policy? How am I going to approach this? And really not have it just be willy-nilly. Or I don't know, this is what I decided at two o'clock in the morning and I wrote it down. So that's what we're going to do, which is when we're starting up a practice, that's where a lot of us start from. And so I think, for me, what is right for me is not necessarily what's going to be right for you, Andy, as Dr. Andy, or what's going to be right for our friends who owns the practice down the street. But whatever is the driver, figuring out the why behind that will help you figure out then the what are you going to do with it.
Andy Roark:
Yeah, I know. I agree with that. It's funny. We've talked about kind of blowing off staff pets before when they bring them in. Look, talk is cheap and people watch what you do. And so if you have your friend come in and you're just like, “Hey, come on in. Let me just do these vaccines for you real quick. All right. You're all set. All right, take care, buddy.” That sends one of two messages, right? It either sends a message that you don't really care about your friend's dog because you just popped him with vaccines and sent them out, or that all the hand waving you do about how important your exam is, is bullshit. Because when it's your friend, you just pop them with vaccines and send them out the door and whether they're like that-
Stephanie Goss:
But when it's the team… Yep.
Andy Roark:
Because that's what they need. You know what I mean? And so you can choose either of those two beliefs. You either don't care about your friend's dog or you don't care about all the other dogs because really, just doing what you need for your friend's dog and everybody else is getting a bunch of hand waving. You know what I mean? And so the staff is always watching. They're always watching. And again, I want to keep this in proportion where it's not like if you bring your friend Dave's dog in one time and do this, everything you've worked with your staff goes out the window. Of course, it doesn't. It's all a matter of proportionality and those sorts of things. So again, I don't want to over-generalize and say, if you do this one time or you behave this way once, your whole credibility is destroyed, but it does take a toll. And so it's just a lot of that.
So anyway, I think sort of to summarize the takeaways for me with the friends and family discount is be intentional on why you're doing this and that will help you sort of figure out who you're doing it for. Consider doing things that are not just inside your vet clinic, whether it's things that don't have anything to do with vet medicine or whether you set it up and say, “You know what? I do this with my neighbors.” If they'll text me or they'll see me and they'll say, “I'm really worried about my dog.” And I'll say, “Bring her over to the house and let's have a look.” And I do that, and I don't charge them for that, but I do. I just come, and I look, and I honestly try to help them.
And sometimes I'll say, “You need to go into the vet clinic.” And when they get to the vet clinic, they get an exam and they get those things. But a lot of times, just telling them, “Hey, let's give it until tomorrow. Let's see how it goes here. Here, I want you to just keep this clean. Let's see what we got. Bring her back in the morning and I'll take a look.” I mean, that's a very generous thing on my part that I don't charge for, but it's also, I don't consider it discounting.
And when they go to the vet clinic, they go in and they get checked in. Ideally, they see another vet besides me. I always just prefer that, but it's kind of what you want it to be. If you're going to decide that we're going to do friends and family discounting at least for friends, I would say be intentional about what that means and who gets that, and then I would make real sure that your friends' discount is not better than your staff discount. I mean, that may sound common sense, but I've seen friends get bigger discount than the staff who works there for you. And that doesn't generally go over very well.
Stephanie Goss:
Not at all. Not at all. And that was what I was going to say, is that, so the fairness is subjective, but the equity is very, very important. And your team is there day in, day out. And yes, it's not discounting the emotional value of your friends and family supporting you on your journey. That is very important. And I think that's why I am so glad that you brought up. You can have gifts and give acts of service outside of the vet clinic. The clinic is not the only currency that you have when it comes to your love language. And so I'm so glad that you said that because your team, that piece matters to them because that is the currency for you with them, how you treat them, how you take care of them. And to your point at the beginning of the episode, all of those other things, how they get paid, their benefits, all of those things mash up together and create that equality and that fairness piece.
And so I have absolutely seen it bite people in the butt where you tell the team, “I can only give you what the IRS allows,” but then you give your parents stuff for free and they have to put those charges in and zero it out. There's no faster path to having a pissed off team than that inequity, right?
Andy Roark:
Right.
Stephanie Goss:
And so, I'm so glad that you bring that up. And I think that that is a smart path to walk, which is whatever you're going to do for your team, make sure that your friends and family discount, particularly if you're extending it in a broad sense, does not go beyond what you're giving your team. That's just a common sense rule of thumb.
Andy Roark:
Well, And I'll tie onto that, because I think that's a really great point about giving what IRS allows, and then having your team put stuff in and zero it out. Just be mindful about perception and stuff and don't rub their face in it. And so if you're going to have your parents come in and everything, have your team put the charges in, and then just tell your parents, “Hey, I'll send you a bill if there's anything left.” And then have the managers zero it out, or you zero it out, or something later on. But just having the staff do it, and then see it and it just… And again, it depends on the individual. 90% of the staff, they don't care. They totally get it. They wish they could do it for their family, but a certain percentage of the staff is going to care. And the less that they kind of see it, the better.
When you have friends and family come in for things like this, and this is a big one for me, they have to go through the system, where I think what it really hacks the staff off is not so much the money. It's people who come in without an appointment. They walk right into the back, which is the realm of the staff, and act like they own the place and this is their place, not the staff's place.
And again, I don't know if any of your friends would do that, if any of your family members would do that, but I want to take care of my staff as they take care of my friends, which means you should have an appointment. You should come in, you should get seen. The technician should take the history. We should do the whole song and dance, and then I'll send you a bill if there's anything left to pay. And what that means is I'll have the manager zero it out, or I'll look at it and see what we can do, but I'm not going to make the staff do it, things like that. That's a distinct possibility.
Stephanie Goss:
And I have to really quick hop on my soapbox for just a hot second because this is a new practice owner. And I have to hop on what the IRS allows, soapbox for a hot second, because it comes up over and over, and over, and over again. And I have seen so many practice owners use this almost as a weapon in terms of arguing their policy for staff discounts, and nothing puts my back up faster. So the IRS, there are rules, but the phrase, what the IRS allows, is totally misnomer. Because the IRS will allow you. You can discount 100%. If you want to give your team 100% discount on everything, you can do that. What the IRS says is that they have to pay tax on it. It has to be claimed as income.
And so there is paperwork that has to be done, but you can absolutely have a staff discount policy that says, your team gets everything at cost or gets it at 100% discount for services or whatever your policy is. Where people get confused is because what the IRS says is, “We've set a threshold.” So you can do a percentage off on services and do cost plus 10%, so it's 20% off on services and cost plus 10 on goods, that's their threshold. And so realistically, that's where they say, “Look, we'll allow you to discount to this amount without us getting our nose out of joint. Anything beyond that, you have to do the paperwork on it because we want to claim our tax on it, and the government needs to get their piece.”
And so, so many people are like, “Well, I can't give a bigger discount. I can't do this because the IRS says, this is all I'm allowed to do.” You can do whatever it is that you want to do. And so as a new practice owner, knowing that and figuring out, again, to your point earlier, the why, why are you doing the thing? How are you giving back to them? For me, I wanted my team to experience the care that our clients got to experience.
And so you bet your butt, if our standard of care was that every patient who had dental disease was recommended to get a dental cleaning once a year, I wanted my team to be able to access that care. And so my employee discount program was set up to support that. And a dental at our practice was not an inexpensive thing. And so, I had team members who… We lived in a very expensive part of the country in California, in the Bay Area, and there was a lot of them who even though we paid them well, were still living paycheck to paycheck and doing our dental at our client prices, put that care out of reach for their patients, for their pets.
And so for me, it was about getting them to access that care. So we gave a bigger discount, and then we did the paperwork, and they knew that and we were clear about it. It was very clearly spelled out. I answered all of their questions. I kept answering questions. It wasn't just the conversation at hire. And so I bring all this up and get on my soapbox for a second because I think that I've seen so many practice owners use this as like, “Well, my hands are tied, and so this is what I can do.” And we use that. That gets used as a weapon with our team, but we look the other way when it comes to our friends and family. And that's bullshit, for me.
And so I can't resist, I had to jump on that soapbox for a second because that's where the equity comes into place. If you're going to use that as a weapon with your team and say, “Well, the IRS says I can only give you 20% off,” then you sure as hell better be prepared to answer their questions about why your friends and family get it at a 100% discount.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. Sure. And I'll get on my soapbox here at the end. My last point on this is, when I talk about the discounting and things like that, I believe that we should price our services fairly and intentionally. I think when you decide what you charge for your services, you should act with integrity.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Andy Roark:
You should be honest about what your clinic needs to make. You should not feel guilty about earning a decent living for yourself. You should not feel guilty about demanding to be able to pay your team a good salary. You should not feel bad about having a profitable business that has some value to it. And you should also be able to look people in the eye and sort of say, “This is what we need to charge for what we do.” Now granted, that doesn't mean we can't do some discounts for the staff or things like that, but I just found that when I looked at it holistically and said, “This is what we need to charge in order to do what we need to do,” I have a lot less trouble saying to people, “This is what it costs.”
And it made me feel better about deciding intentionally what I want to do to give back, and then just sort of saying, “I don't really play with the prices.” I think I have this sort of negative just aversion to changing prices because I think it's a bad habit. And I think that it's a slippery slope and you get way too comfortable not charging for things and just taking the price down on things. And I think that if you're in an independent practice, I think that's a bad habit to get into. They don't have that practice in a corporate, that problem in a corporate practice. You're not doing friends and family discount when you work for a multi-site practice. I just think it's something that independents need to look out for because it's a slippery slope. And so anyway, if you've gotten the impression, I'm not a huge fan of it today, you're right.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh man, this was fun.
Andy Roark:
Yeah, that's good. I'm going to go spend some time with Skipper, make sure he's doing okay.
Stephanie Goss:
Bolster his confidence?
Andy Roark:
Bolster his confidence, make sure he still knows he's a good boy, give him some affirmations.
Stephanie Goss:
I can't.
Andy Roark:
I know. His love language is gifts too, so he is going to get a treat. Yeah.
Stephanie Goss:
I love it. Take care, everybody.
Andy Roark:
See you later, everybody.
Stephanie Goss:
Well, gang, that's a wrap on another episode of the podcast. And as always, this was so fun to dive into the mailbag and answer this question. And I would really love to see more things like this come through the mailbag. If there is something that you would love to have us talk about on the podcast or a question that you are hoping that we might be able to help with, feel free to reach out and send us a message. You can always find the mailbag at the website. The address is unchartedvet.com/mailbag, or you can email us at podcast@unchartedvet.com. Take care everybody, and have a great week. We'll see you again next time.
