This Week on the Uncharted Podcast…
Practice manager and owner Jenn Galvin joins Dr. Andy Roark to tackle a tough question from the mailbag. If you're a practice manager who wants to find a new veterinarian business partner, where do you even start? In this episode, Jenn and Andy talk about setting expectations, maintaining relationships throughout the current hospital, growing and using your personal network, and achieving cultural alignment with someone you just met. This episode has all the drama of a reality dating show (not really, but we talk a lot about how business partnership is a lot like life partnership)! Let's get into it!
You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
About Our Guest
Jenn Galvin is a spreadsheet-loving Veterinary Practice Manager with over 20 years of experience in the field. Growing her hospital and helping her team succeed through hard work, positive leadership, and humor is what gets Jenn up in the morning. She's an introverted “inventory nerd” that loves bratty beagles, dungeons and dragons, and the outdoors. She loves sharing the mistakes she's made, and the things she's learned, with other hospital owners and managers so they can grow their hospitals, teams, and themselves! Jenn will be talking about writing better job ads at the upcoming Get Sh*t Done Shorthanded virtual conference! You can save your spot here!
Got a question for the mailbag? Submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag
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Episode Transcript
This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome everybody to The Uncharted Veterinary Podcast. Guys, I got a great one for you today. I am here with my good friend, the one and only Jenn Galvin. I'm bringing Jenn Galvin in. She is practice manager and co-owner at Advanced Animal Care in Fort Mohave, Arizona. It is a great practice. She is amazing. They have a great culture and they are doing great things. I am bringing her in because she is equipped to answer this question I got in the mailbag more than anyone, definitely more than me, and I am thrilled to have her here. Guys, I have a practice manager who is going to be buying into the practice from a veterinarian who's retiring. The original plan was that this veterinarian who owned the practice is going to retire and the practice manager and the associate vet were going to buy together as partners.
Something has come up. The associate vet can no longer buy in. The practice manager still wants to go forward, but they need or feel that they need a business partner. How do you find that? What do you need to look for? How do you talk about this? Where can this go wrong? Guys, I hope you're going to enjoy this episode.
Meg:
And now, The Uncharted Podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark and not Stephanie Goss, but the one and only, Jenn Galvin is here with me today. Guys, for those of you who don't know Jenn Galvin, she is a dear, dear friend of mine. We talk pretty much every week about life. We play games together like board games and nerd games, D&D stuff, things like that. We do all the nerdly things together. She is a dear friend of mine. She is a teacher at Uncharted. She runs, with Stephanie, our inventory workshop. She does our financial dashboard workshops. She has a workshop coming up at our Get Shit Done Shorthanded conference, which is a virtual conference in October. Jen, you are doing your workshop. That's hiring based on culture, right?
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah. It's using your culture as an advantage in your job ads and turning them into something that's actually going to get people that you want in the seats that you need on your team.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, I love it. And also, when we were laying out the content for the conference and everything, it's how you can compete in a super crowded field where everybody is looking for talent. It's to say, “What's special about your practice? What is your culture? What are your values? What do you care about? What makes you unique?” and then how do you really use that to hire? I had Jason Szumski on the podcast a little while ago, who I love. He's on about two weeks ago. I love that guy. He's actually doing a presentation at GSD about what new grads want when they're being hired. He started laughing at one point. He said, “Your mentorship is what new grads are saying they want and you look at the job ads and every single job ad says it offers mentorship. And you go, look, when everybody says it, nobody's saying it.” So anyway, I'm really excited about what you guys do. You guys have a phenomenal culture at your practice. You are a co-owner with Dr. Erika Cartwright.
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah. Dr. Erika Cartwright.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I know. I completely had a brain fart there. I was like, “Dr. Erika. Oh, god, what's…” and then I was like, she does CrossFit and if I forget her name on the podcast, she's going to break me.
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah. She can bench you, Andy, so.
Dr. Andy Roark:
She totally can, so yeah. I'm like, don't mess this up, Roark and then I was like, Cartwright, yeah. So Erika Cartwright is amazing. You guys have such a fun practice. I will never, ever, ever forget. You really made an impression on me. The day that we became friends was when you and Erika showed up at the Uncharted conference in your dumb and dumber suits. One of you has a powder blue, three-piece suit and a top hat and the other has a neon orange three-piece suit in it, suit and tie [inaudible 00:03:57]. I was like, I think I just found my friends. I found my friends forever-
Jenn Galvin:
That was a lot of fun.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… and then some.
Jenn Galvin:
Now, we just have to try to up that every year, so that's going to get interesting as the years go by.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, we're going to need more insurance at Uncharted. Okay. Well, thanks for being here. You are here because I need your help, because I got a great question in the mailbag that I really, really like. Honestly, there's no one else in the entire world that I think is better suited to answer this question than you are. So let me break this thing out. I'm going to grab it. It is right here. Are you ready for it?
Jenn Galvin:
I am. Shoot. Shoot it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
All right, perfect. I am a practice manager and currently own with the managing veterinarian who's approaching retirement age. Our plan was for myself and our current associate to buy the practice together fully next year. Unfortunately, our associate's going through a tough divorce and no longer wants to purchase the practice with me. I am now looking to find what I call a business marriage, and this is when you came into my mind, to find a veterinarian that wants to become an owner with me. My question for you both is do you have any recommendations for veterinarians and managers owning together and how to navigate that? I have found that in my current partnership that having both a veterinarian and manager as owners really allows us to lean on each other and have support. All right. So that is when you popped into my head, business marriage. What makes it work? Actually, do you want to go ahead and start to talk about Advanced Animal Care and how you came to be an owner with it and what your partnership with Erika, the veterinarian, looks like?
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah. We had the fortunate circumstance of working previously together and so we got to know each other a lot. I think just like other relationships, you have to know who you're going to partner up with. Because we came from another hospital where we knew each other and knew that we would work well together, we were fortunate enough that when the opportunity came to buy a practice together, we knew this was going to work. Our personalities mesh really well. Here are the things that are important to me and this is what's important to you and do those things align? For instance, if staff appreciation is not high on my partner's list, that's not going to be a good match for me because that's very high on my list. So I think you have to have aligning goals and beliefs and culture though. If those things don't match up, that's going to be a bummer.
A lot of those boxes were checked for both of us and I feel like we were very lucky to find each other. So we purchased the hospital, worked 24/7 on getting it built up. We bought it on April Fools' Day, which that still makes sense for Erika and I. We opened July 25th in 2012, so we just celebrated our 10-year anniversary, which we're very excited about.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Congratulations.
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah. It's been really great. I can honestly say every year, it just gets better and we understand each other better and we work on it. It's just like any other relationship, you have to work on it. It was funny. She sent me a text this year on our anniversary and she said, “Happy 10-year anniversary. Yay, we still love each other,” and it's true because I've seen those go sour.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, totally. I think that's a whole other podcast. We'll see if we can touch on it today. You guys do love each other because you take very intentional steps to continue to be good friends. I'm going to try to touch on that in this episode because it's something that you guys do that I've thought a lot about. I think you've got so many things figured out there. Okay, here's how I want to do this. I want to turn this around to you and say, okay, Jenn, you've been through this. It's Jenn Galvin in the multiverse and in the other multiverse, there is no Dr. Erika Cartwright. You are going to have to find a doctor that you are going to partner with to own a vet practice. You have that realization. I want you to walk me through how you would go about doing this.
So start in a headspace place and let's always start with headspace. How do you get your thoughts aligned? What are realistic expectations? How are you going to get yourself into a place where you say, “Okay, I have to do this. What am I thinking?” Then I'm going to push you into make me some action steps of how you would go about finding this partner for you based on the experiences that you had.
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah. Obviously, I would panic first because this person has every-
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, of course you panic.
Jenn Galvin:
… right to panic.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yes.
Jenn Galvin:
Have that moment. Get that out of your system. Get that all out first, then actually think about what do you want this person to be like. What are you looking for? If you don't know what you're looking for and you're just out there like, “I need a vet. I need any vet. Any vet will do,” that's bad. Avoid that.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That's desperation.
Jenn Galvin:
Right. Let's not get desperate. Get all that out of your system and then really think about what boxes does this person need to check, and that has a lot to do with your own personality, because you don't want a clone of yourself. That's a terrible idea. If I had to work with me every day, it would be awful. I couldn't work with myself. I think in our partnership, we have a lot of aligning things where we believe the same things, but we do not have the same personality type.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think that's important, yeah.
Jenn Galvin:
It is very important. Erika is an extrovert. I am an introvert. I am softer with the team and she drives. She wants to go, go, go and I'm the one that steps back and says, “Maybe we should just pump the brakes.” So I think you really need to see, who am I? What kind of person am I and what do I expect out of the business and my team? What things do I see in the future? How do I want to grow and what do I want a partner to bring to that? What puzzle pieces need to fit in? Maybe this person can look at the current partner that they have and make that list of, what do I admire about this person? What good things do they bring to the partnership? What things do I wish I could change maybe about… Maybe don't show them that part of the list, but-
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, no, keep that to yourself.
Jenn Galvin:
What things do I maybe wish I could change and tweak? I would start there, honestly. That's where I would start is who is filling this role? What do they seem like? What's their personality like? What skills do they have? That sort of thing.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I like that a lot. I love the fact that this person used the term business marriage because I do take a lot of these things back to a relationship level and say, “This is going to be your partner. They are your business partner. That's what they are.” Just like a relationship partner, we should stop and be like, what are the deal-breakers for me? What am I looking for? It's not someone who's exactly like me. I think that I completely agree, that's not a good partnership. A good partnership is complementary people. I really believe that. I love how you said it. It's aligned beliefs with complementary skills.
I think my wife and I share very similar beliefs about what's important in life and what makes a good life and we are very different people, but we have that same north star. I think we've been successful in Uncharted because me and Stephanie and Jamie and Ron and the rest of the gang, we share a north star and we're all very different people, but we're all looking at the same thing as far as what we think is important and how we make a difference in the world. So I go back to this. I really like that idea of going, what's important to me?
What I'm taking from you as well is I think you have to know what your beliefs are and what do you care about. You said we have to have the same goals and beliefs and culture thought and staff appreciation and staff support. If that doesn't matter to you, we're probably not going to get along because that's a key driver for me. So I think those are really important. Would you make a deal-breaker list? Are there things before-
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… you even talk to someone, you'd be like… Yeah? What would be your deal-breakers? Because I need to get my head around what a deal-breaker would be that I would know going in. I'm sure I would see it immediately and be like, “No,” but I'm trying to think of what that would be like.
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah. If you have somebody that if the staff gets paid, that's enough. I shouldn't have to do extra things. Staff appreciation's way high for me. You have to laugh. If you were the super serious, for me, I can't work with somebody that is the hammer that we don't laugh. We don't have fun. This is serious thing because vet med is serious enough. So big sense of humor is really far up there for me, so that would be a deal-breaker. Somebody that definitely works hard when you are an owner. It's different than being just a DVM. It's different. I was support staff for a lot of years and you think you know what ownership is like. You don't know it until you do it and you know how it's different when you own it. It's your baby and I think that's going to be difficult.
It's different when you go into a partnership together and you build something from the ground up. I think something this practice owner and manager has to be wary of too is you're bringing somebody into that baby, so just keep that in mind. So I think having somebody that's flexible. It's that rigid personality that would be a deal-breaker for me in that situation.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think one of the big things for me that I think about these days is practice style. I think that there's a lot of different ways to run a practice, but I think you and your partner need to be aligned. Meaning, are you a white-glove, high-touch practice or are you a high-volume, lower cost practice? They're not better or worse, they're just different animals. If I'm trying to be white-glove, high-touch and you, Jenn, are trying to be, let's keep prices affordable and get them in and get them out, we're just going to have a fundamental difference about what we're trying to do. You can't run a business when the ultimate goal you're trying to achieve is polar opposite from each other, so I think that's really important. I really like your idea. I think one of the things that's weird here that makes this a little bit harder is our manager who's writing to us.
They've already got a practice. When you and Erika did it, you were starting a practice and I could see that if we're going to go in and we're going to figure each other out and we're going to attract people that fit with our vibe. There's an existing thing here and so we got to bring somebody who fits with that culture. A lot of it goes back to what your core values are. I think if you don't know what your core values are, one of the quick exercises I really love is, think about the employees that you have or the people that you work with or the people in your life who you would love to clone. If you could clone them and put them to work in your practice, you would take over the world. Once you've made that list, I want you to think about those people and then I would say to you, what specifically do they do? What are the characteristic or traits that you really love about them?
And that, my friends, are often your core values or at least you're starting to get into the realm of your core values, because the things that you admire in these people are enough to say, that's the person I would clone. That's something that you care about. So for me, work ethic is a big one and I think that you pointed that out too. I think my own personal hell would be a partner with someone who was not as invested as I am or did not want to work as hard on the thing as I do. It's that classic, imagine doing a group project when you're the one who does all the work and the other people hang on, except it's your life. That's how I feel about that. I'm like, that can't happen.
Jenn Galvin:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I would lose it.
Jenn Galvin:
And I was that person in high school chemistry who did the diorama myself or what because I just wanted it done right and everybody's like, “Just let her do it. Whatever.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
That's my wife 100%. She will carry the load and I'm like, I'm partnering up with her and I'll carry my share, but I want to be with somebody who would do that. Integrity is one of my core values. I don't want to work with somebody who's going to have shaky integrity. I think it's really hard to figure that out. I think you try to vet these people as best you can. It's a small profession. You're about to make a big commitment. I would try to ask around and see what you can learn about people in an ethical way, of course. We're not going through their trash. That's frowned upon apparently, I found out, and so we're not doing that, but things like that. What are your core values? All right. So that makes sense to me. Anything else in the headspace where you're like, okay, I get it. I'm looking for values alignment. Some people are going to ask, how do you know if they align with you on values? Let me ask you that. How do you determine that?
Jenn Galvin:
You're never going to 100% know, so let's just put that out there, because you don't know anybody truly until you are with them. We all have the honeymoon phase with new hires. We've all done the like, “This person's going to fit great,” and then three months later, you're like, “What was I thinking? They had me fooled.” This goes into next steps, but if you can network enough and find out, “Hey, who has this person previously worked with?” I'm going to talk to those people and see, how was it working with Dr. whosy-whatsy?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, yeah.
Jenn Galvin:
You know what? How did they make you feel, I think is an important question to ask, not just, yeah, they gave great vaccines and did a good spay. Great. Okay. How did they make the people around them feel is going to tell you a lot more about, how are they going to make my people feel? How are they going to make me feel? So I think you have to really dig and ask other people that have worked with this person because you're not going to know. You're never going to know until it's you in that seat with this other person that you're now sharing a big chunk of your life with. There are weeks where I spend more time with Erika than I do my husband. It's just the way that it goes sometimes. You're not going to know until you're in it, but I think there are ways that you can figure that out, at least get a good feel from others that have worked with that person.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I like that a lot too. I love that you're saying that. You're not going to really know. I think one of the scariest things in life is when you're like, I'm going to make this big commitment and hope that it works out. I always find that to be terrifying. The other thing I found though, is that I can generally avoid those situations if I really try to. I think anytime that you're like, “I hope this works out. Let's go,” that's very rarely really required. Go back to marriage, for example. Unless you're getting married on a reality TV show, you've got the potential to try this out for a while. I must be honest. I lived with my wife for two years before we got married. I think we were both, let's see how this goes. We got a dog together. My mom was like, “Are you sure about this?” and I was like, “Yeah.” That's pretty much when I knew we were going to get married. We got a dog together and I was like, “I really love this dog. I guess-
Jenn Galvin:
I'm not going anywhere now.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… I'm getting married to this woman. I'm not going anywhere now.” But I had a long time to warm up to that before we actually got married. So the takeaway is get a dog with this person. No.
Jenn Galvin:
No.
Dr. Andy Roark:
The nice thing about having an existing practice is, is there a pilot program?
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Is there somebody that we can talk to about why don't you come in and in 90 days, we're going to start to talk? We're going to revisit this and if you still think you want to do this partnership thing, then come on in and if you don't, then that's okay. I think using the time that we have now to get somebody in and now talk to them openly, because what you don't want to do is bring someone in. They're there for 90 days and they're like, “Oh, no, I never wanted to be an owner. I just want to punch out at 5:00 and go home,” and you're like, “Oh, I wish I'd known that 90 days ago. I would still hire you, but I would not be sitting around waiting to see how you felt.”
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So yeah, I think that's really insightful. That's a benefit that you have when you're not starting up because you've already got a practice, so can we pilot this thing?
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I also don't like to set these things up because you can imagine being the person coming in. You're the vet and you're brought in and like, “Maybe you can be the part owner here. We're going to watch you like a hawk and see how you do.” That's really weird too. I think I would frame it as you come along and then at 90 days, you're going to see how you feel and you're going to talk to me and I'm going to see how I feel and I'm going to talk to you and this has got to work for everybody. I don't like the idea that this is some interview where the current manager has the power and the new person is begging. That's not how I want to do a relationship. We're both coming together to be like, “Hey, how is this for you and how's this for me? This is how I feel and this is how you feel and let's continue on or let's not.” I like that.
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah. They have to date for a while, I think, is if you're going to do an analogy about it. I think if you have somebody that is willing to not know your practice, not know your people, not really know you, but they're going to come on and be your partner immediately, that tells you a lot about that person. That's scary.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think that's true. Yeah. It is funny when you put it that way. Yeah, that's a rather bold, possibly impulsive person that I would have questions about. Yeah, that's really insightful.
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah. If I got a phone call from a vet that said, “Hey, you want to come partner with me out in Florida or something?” I would not just say yes to that. If that was on the table, it would be like, “Oh, how about we do six months of just me being a practice manager, feel out your practice, see if it's a good fit and then…” I think that's a really smart way to do it, is just put them in a role of associate and date for a while and see how that goes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It sounds ridiculous when you say like, “Oh, this person would come out and just be our partner.” I see that stuff all the time. I'm not kidding. I see a lot of people who are like, “Hey, come and run this practice and be a co-owner with me.” I 100% see those offers all the time and they never feel good to me. I'm not going to say they don't work out because there's probably people out there who's like, that's exactly what I did and it was great. It has always skeeved me out a little bit for whatever reason. I've always felt like this doesn't feel good. I'm much more of a, let's take this slowly and figure out how to move in that direction and make sure everybody's okay before we lock ourselves in.
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah, for sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Cool.
Jenn Galvin:
Andy, do you want to take a break maybe?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Let's take a quick break and then we'll get right back and we'll talk about action steps. Where do we go from here?
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey guys, I just want to jump in here real fast and give a shout out to Banfield the Pet Hospital for making our transcripts available. That's right, we have transcripts for The Cone of Shame Vet Podcast and The Uncharted Veterinary Podcast. You can find them at drandyroark.com and at unchartedvet.com. This is part of their effort to increase inclusivity and accessibility in vet medicine. We couldn't do it without them. I got to say thanks. Thanks for making the content that we put out more available to our colleagues. Guys, that's all I got this time. Let's get back into this.
All right. Let's get back into this real quick. We've talked a bit about what we're looking for. Let's get in some action steps to help this guy out. So we've got our practice manager and he is looking to bring somebody else in. Let's talk about some action steps. We've thought about what's important to us, what our values are. We're bonding on the north star. We maybe like to take it slow and try this out and see if we can set up a system to date a little bit before we throw into a work marriage. I like all of those sorts of things. Where do you start to solidify this, Jenn? How does this turn from ideas about what would be good into action?
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah. I think once you know who you are and what you're looking for and you know what that other person looks like, I think you really have to put yourself out there. It's going to be hard. I don't know if this practice manager is an introvert like myself, but you have to get out there. I think networking is going to be a huge part of finding someone. We all know trying to hire a veterinarian right now is super difficult, and so that alone is going to be a barrier for this person. I know that from coming to Uncharted and going to different conferences, I've met a lot of people and I tended to put myself in a little bit of an introvert box because that's who I am, but I think in this situation, you have to get out there and you have to start rubbing elbows, getting to know some people and then start putting your feelers out and just have some honest conversations. I think it's time to be brave and say what you're looking for.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Jenn Galvin:
You can't just wait to see. If I sit in my practice and put an ad out, I'm sure somebody will answer, but that's not going to work in this situation.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I completely agree. I love that. I think you're totally right. I think a lot of people would sit back and maybe send some emails or put an ad out because that's how you find people. I agree with you. I'd push back strongly against that and say you have a unique opportunity for a veterinarian and what you can't do is sell yourself short. Hopefully, you have a good clinic, a good culture. It sounds like you do, but there's a lot of vets out there who would love to be an owner and they especially love to have a partner and there's a lot of us who don't. This is scary to be a practice owner alone, but I would totally be a practice owner with a partner, especially someone who has experience running the practice who's done it for a long time, who's not green like I am, as someone who's never owned a business, let's say.
I think you've got a really unique and interesting offer. I think mistakes that people make is they don't put themselves out there. They don't go to the local vet conferences. I say local. You can go national. Honestly, people would probably travel for a position like this, but at least the local stuff, and get out and start to talk to people about what you're doing and what your hopes are. It's a small profession, guys. People are networked. Ask people, especially people that you respect. When we were looking to hire an executive director of Uncharted, the way I started was I went to people that I admired the most in this industry and said, “Hey, I know this is probably not a position that you're looking for,” because they're generally farther along in their career.
I said, “This isn't a position that you are looking for, but I really need this person and this is what's really important to me. Is there anyone that you can think of who you think I should talk to or reach out to?” and I got such a great list of people who said, “Well, these are people that I would talk to.” Ultimately, we ended up with just rockstar candidates and got an amazing, amazing executive director. But that's how I started, because I don't know. It was in an area. Our executive director is an operations person. It's an area that I don't know all that well and so I had to ask other people, “Who do you know who could run an organization that's [inaudible 00:27:36]?” and we found it and that was great, but it was really that this is what's important to me. This is what they would be doing. Do you know anyone that you would recommend?
I just found that to be the most effective thing I've ever done as far as going in, not knowing people myself, hardly, and still coming back with really great recommendations of if you haven't looked at this person. And it turns out, I even knew some of the people, but I just didn't know that there would be something they'd be interested in. So anyway, I like that a lot, going out and rubbing elbows. I think that makes a ton of sense, but you can't be a shrinking violet. You can't be a wallflower about it. You really do need to put them out.
I also think that that's a whole lot easier to do when you settled on this onboarding pilot trial program, because then it's not like, “Oh, my God, what it is…” It's like, “Hey, is there anyone who wants to come along?” I'm going to talk to a number of people and then we're going to bring some people in and try them out and see if the partnership might work and take our time and go from there, but that would be a path to ownership, not in years, in months, potentially. I like that a lot.
Jenn Galvin:
I really love what you were saying about don't sell yourself short because this practice manager, if they know that end of it and they can say, “Hey, I have your back. You can practice medicine and you'll still own a clinic and you'll still have input and you'll still be able to do all these great things that you don't have to do yourself because you've got somebody that has your back,” that's huge and I think that's really appealing to the veterinarians that want to own and work. That's huge to me. Erika and I talk about that a lot. I don't know how people do this by themselves. It is really scary and it's stressful, and to have that other person that you can lean on, I think putting it out there and saying like, “Hi, I've got half the load. I'm going to do this part. You're not going to be stuck by yourself doing this. You can be an owner and I have your back,” that's a huge thing you can put on the table. So I love that you were touching on that.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, I think that you're totally right. How many veterinarians out there would love to own a practice? When they think about practice ownership, what they're really thinking about is the client experience and the patient care and things like that, but the whole business thing is a big, scary black box and that's a lot of veterinarians. That's why I say you can't sell yourself short. This is really a neat opportunity to come in to affect the culture, to make the practice what you want it to be, especially on the medical side and do the things that you're excited about without the scary part of business if it's a scary part to you, and I think that's true for a lot of vets. One of the things I want to put on the action list, and I think people assume this, but I just want to call it out really clear, there's some behind the scenes work that you've got to do as well.
I want to keep my relationship with the current owner good while we go through this process. So if I can keep the current owner around and engaged and on board with me working on this, bringing someone in, trying them out, being flexible, not feeling threatened. And you're like, “Why would they feel threatened? They're retiring.” People are weird. You know what I mean? And people get worried about when I leave, what are they going to do with my baby? There's still some real emotions and stuff, and so I would make sure that I'm keeping that relationship strong and trying to include that person while also controlling where we go and what we do, but making sure they feel heard. They don't feel discarded or cast out or cut off because they do have the potential to make things really hard on you before they go.
So keep them in. Keep them involved in the conversation. Ask them for advice that those are just basic things of… And there's all the benefits that come with it, but it prevents some of those hurdles of the person who's headed out the door, torching the place as they go. Again, I'm sure this person would never do that, but there are people out there who would. The other thing I would say is I would keep this current associate who's going through a divorce. I would keep him or her in my thoughts as well. I would also try to maintain that relationship because that would have to be hard, especially I would ideally probably like to keep this other associate. Maybe they wouldn't. I don't know. Maybe they want to be a two vet practice. That's all they want to be. I don't know, but if I want to keep this other associate again, I'm going to invest some time into this conversation. I want to be really supportive.
I think this would be emotionally hard for that person who is like, “I was going to be the owner and now I've had this crappy thing happen in my life and it really sucks.” I've not gone through a divorce, but I know people who have, and none of them recommend it as a fun hobby that you should pick up. So I think that that would suck. How bad would that suck is you had this-
Jenn Galvin:
Hell, yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… big plan and you go through divorce and then not only are you dealing with divorce, but you're also not doing this thing that had been your plan. That'd be freaking awful, and so be compassionate to that person, but also mostly because I want to retain that person and also when I get another owner in, I want our previous associate to be supportive and not to be jaded and angry. All those things are just keeping balls in the air and keeping relationships strong to make us ultimately a better, stronger practice in the future. Anyway, you can't control other people, but-
Jenn Galvin:
And that associate, they may change their mind maybe in a year-
Dr. Andy Roark:
Totally.
Jenn Galvin:
… or two. If you've burned that bridge or they felt segregated or that there's hard feelings there, maybe that will take that off their plate, but maybe in a year or two, I don't know how long this other doctor that's retiring is going to stay on in this situation, but maybe that associate will change their mind. The other thing that I thought of as you were talking is maybe these people are a good source of networking. Maybe the doctor that's retiring out, maybe they have a really great relationship with the local VHMA or maybe they know other people that they can introduce you to. Use those people. I know if I'm leaving here, if I left my partnership, I don't want to just walk away and be like, “Best of luck finding a practice manager. Good luck to you.”
I'm going to help find that replacement, at least in the channels and places that I can do that. Maybe that's somebody that this practice manager can turn to and say, “Hey, I know you're looking to retire. Do you have ideas? Do you know people? What thoughts do you have?” and maybe that's somewhere that they can turn.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I suspect I could say how I would feel if I was going out retiring. I would feel some type of a legacy there or I would want some sort of a legacy. I don't think that's too arrogant to say-
Jenn Galvin:
No.
Dr. Andy Roark:
… because you would like to feel like you have an impact that lasts beyond the time that you're gone.
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think everybody wants that and so I think keeping that person there is really important. One of the other things I think is understandable if you are the manager bringing someone in, and that's why I see this a lot, I think one of the biggest mistakes that people make is they float an offer like this to a veterinarian and they're like, “Come in. This other person is retiring at some undisclosed time in the near future and then you will have an opportunity to be the owner assuming everything goes well.” That sounds like a really fair offer and a truthful offer and everyone's intentions are good. I counsel veterinarians all the time to turn that deal down, all the time. The reason is because the veterinarian, this is where we have to put ourselves into the shoes of the person who would be the partner, if they come to your practice because of an ownership opportunity or potential ownership opportunity, that's what they're coming for. I have seen too many vets dragged along, strung along with this carrot that keeps getting pulled away.
It's like, “Yeah, I'm totally going to sell to you. I'm just not ready to retire yet, but soon I'm going to,” and I've seen people just feel very, very resentful that they imagine they'd be a practice owner in a year and a half and it's five years and it's still not materialized into a contract. I see that a lot. I think what's fair to the veterinarian is to be up front and say, “This is the timeline that we're working on. This is what we expect the retirement to be. This is what our grace period, our trial period's going to be. At this point, we are going to make a decision. I'm not going to string you along. I'm either going to say, yes, let's do this or I'm going to say, no, let's don't this.”
But if I was the vet coming in, I would very strongly push for that to say, “Is it a three-month trial? Is it a six-month trial? How long are we going to try this for before you say, ‘Yes, we're doing it' or ‘No, we're not'?” And we sign a contract saying that this is our intention and we're moving forward. Because I don't want to come in and get strung along under promises that some point, I will be let to know that I can now become an owner. So I would push hard for that clarity if I was coming in. I just think it's something that the manager should maybe expect as they make a plan.
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah, 100%. They can talk to their legal counsel and get that written up so that everybody understands this is the layout. This is what we're doing. Again, I think that setting expectations from the beginning is always better than trying to catch up later, so make sure everybody is on the same page. Even the employees, when you think of those guys, don't leave your support staff flapping in the breeze not knowing what's going on. They're going to see, okay, one of our doctors is retiring. What does that mean for us? Are they going to have to fire half of us? Employees can spiral way out, which I think it's important-
Dr. Andy Roark:
And they do.
Jenn Galvin:
They do.
Dr. Andy Roark:
They do.
Jenn Galvin:
They absolutely do, so I think it's important to think of who is affected by this and who needs to be kept in the loop and know what's going on.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Well, those clear expectations as well. I push this back to the other relationships in the practice. I think having that expectation of, hey, we told this person they were going to be the owner and they're coming in and we have this agreement about how this is going to go, I think that that can be valuable if our other associate who has backed away starts to feel resentful or starts to come back and go, “You know what? I think maybe I would like to do that.” I would like to say, “Hey, we brought this other doctor in and she's got this agreement and this is what we told her was going to happen. So the door right now is closed for that.”
You should know that before you fall in love with the idea or start to think, hey, now that I see how this is going, I think I would like to be involved. Maybe we could have three partners instead of two, it's good to say, “You know what, buddy? That's just like a great idea. I'm sure you'd be amazing at it, but we don't have that option because we set these expectations and this is what's in writing.” The same thing with the current owner and that actually may end up being the hardest part of this, is in order to really do this in the way that we're talking about with clear expectations where people feel good, I need to have a commitment from the current owner about when they are going to step away because what I can't do is have the current owner who's like, “I'm going to do it soon.” It's like, “I need to communicate what the timeline is for this other person to come in and move into an ownership position, which means I need to have a timeline from you for when you're trying to transition out.”
I think what I would probably say to the owner is, “This is what I need in order to keep the practice going. I would play to what is good for the practice owner who's leaving is you want a legacy. You want a smoothly running practice. We want to get the best person in here. I need to have this clarity so I can attract that person and build a good footing.” The other thing I think I'd probably say for the current owner is, “This doesn't mean you have to leave. You can be a part of what we're doing, but you do need to transition out of the owner position so that we can move on. We'd love to still have you here and have you around in the short term, at least, depending on how things go, but we'd love to have you around, but you do need to set an ownership transition plan and a timeline so that we can hire for that.”
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah. I think maybe you have new grads that want to step into the ownership role, but that's tough. You're right out of vet school and that's scary time, but you want to own your practice one day. Maybe the other owner can stay on and that can be part of that agreement, that they're there to do the mentorship thing and then they hand the whole thing over. There's so many ways to do it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Right. I love that idea and that also might affect your timeline. If you have a new grad who comes in who says, “I'm here. I want to get mentored. I would like to own the practice in a year and a half or in two years, I would like to take ownership.” I think that's a fair deal, and a lot of times, I think a lot of new grads would say, “I want to be an owner, but I really want to focus on getting this medicine down. If I had two years to really just see cases and work and integrate myself into the culture, then I think I could pick this owner thing up.” Honestly, I'd say that's probably pretty much your perspective to have.
Really, if you got another vet who's been out eight years and they're like, “I'm ready to go. Let's come in, figure out if this is going to work and I'll take over or I won't and I'll move on,” that's just a different timeline. It's not right or wrong, it's about what the person needs. So it's just good conversations. The current owner can really help you out by being supportive of how this transition looks and that transition is going to depend on the person who's taking it. Awesome. Do you got anything else to add to this, Jenn?
Jenn Galvin:
I could talk about vet med for hours and hours, but I think we've covered a lot of it. I think just really defining what you're looking for and being honest and open with all of the people, that's going to really be a huge thing. Get out there and network the heck out of yourself and your practice. Go to vet schools. Talk to grads that are coming out. Talk to your reps. Talk to your [inaudible 00:41:34] rep and your Patterson rep and whoever. Talk to those people. They know a lot of vets. They talk to a lot of people. You have to put yourself out there and now is not the time to be shy.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I'm glad you said reps. I should have mentioned that. I mentioned that a lot to students over to veterinarians looking for jobs. Your industry reps are in all the practices and, especially the ones who've been around a while, they tend to know the gossip in the practices. They know who's happy, who's not. They know who has been standing in line. They own a practice for a long time and is really frustrated because they're not getting the opportunity they were promised. They tend to know things like that. They tend to know who's really popular with the staff, but is not currently an owner or an upper management or medical director. They tend to know that stuff. I don't think that's dirty pool, I think that's just saying to these people, “Hey, you see a lot of practices. If you see anyone that you think would be a fit for this specific role, let me know.”
I think it's different if you use those people to try to hire support staff or things like that, but this is you're looking for someone to run your hospital and it's a narrow role. It's one job position. I don't see that as a negative as well. Anyway, that's the thoughts. I want to do a shameless plug for the Uncharted community here. Jenn Galvin, you've been with us a long time. You've received the Founder's Award, which is the one award that we give in Uncharted for people who are other members have said, “This person helped me more than anyone else. They made the biggest impact on me and they didn't have to.” So you have received that. It's the highest honor that we can bestow and you have gotten it. You were one of five people who have gotten it in the five years that we have been in existence. What is your favorite thing about the Uncharted community? Why are you part of it?
Jenn Galvin:
Oh, man. There are so many things I love about our community. I think that we are real with each other, is probably that is my favorite part, is that no one is going to make you feel like you're a crazy person or a bad person. You can just put your stuff out there and say, “Hey, I need help. Here's my thing.” Even if you yourself are embarrassed of that thing, I don't know all the things, nobody does, but you can go to our community and say, “Hey, I've got this issue or this is the crazy thought I'm thinking. What do you guys think?” and you will get all of these people that, “Hey, I've been there. Hey, I dealt with this. Hey, you're not crazy. You're not on an island.” That is my favorite thing is that we are real with each other and they are genuine, kind, wonderful people that will help you. You just got to ask for it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Oh, man. Thanks a lot for being here, Jenn. I really appreciate you.
Jenn Galvin:
Yeah. I love being here. Anytime.
Dr. Andy Roark:
All right, guys. Take care of yourselves. That's it, guys. That's what I got for you. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. Thanks again to Jenn Galvin for being here. Guys, if you want to check out Uncharted or the Uncharted community or the Get Shit Done Shorthanded conference, head over to unchartedvet.com and get registered to join the community. Check out our online conference if you want, if want to go that way first. It is October 6th through the 8th. Go ahead and march yourself off at the clinic so you'll be able to participate in what we're doing. Our conferences are super interactive. This is not sitting and watching webinars. This is hands-on working on your own business type stuff. Gang, that's what I got for you. If you got a lot out of this episode, please share with your friends. Feel free to write us an honest review wherever you get your podcast, all those things that people ask for. Gang, that's it. All right, I'm done. Take care of yourself. Have a great rest of your week.
