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Revolutionary veterinary marketing & business conference for those forging their own paths and telling their own stories.

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TylerG

Aug 14 2023

The Practice Leaders Summit Experience

With the right partner, magical things can happen. As veterinary practice leaders, owners and managers form a powerful partnership that sets the tone for a clinic's success. Their ability to work as a team requires collaboration, communication, and each person's effectiveness in their role.

The 2023 Uncharted Practice Leaders Summit provides a unique format to help these dynamic duos find the space to work together as partners and to focus on the specific challenges of their unique roles alongside a group of peers.

Day 1 – Break The Ice & Choose Paths

Practice owner-manager duos meet up with fellow attendees at our kick-off dinner! Get ready to start building connections and getting into what matters in our practices.

Day 2 – Focus On Role-Specific Challenges

Practice owners and practice managers split to dive into workshops and Choose Your Own Adventure sessions designed specifically for their role. All attendees then come together for a social night to relax and unwind.

Day 3 – Come Together To Plan What's Next

Practice owner-manager duos come back together to collaboratively apply what they learned and set priorities for when they get back to the clinic! Build effective Ways of Working and set expectations for ongoing communication and accountability.

If you're a practice leader looking to strengthen your partnerships within the veterinary clinic, this event may be just what you need! Learn more here.

Written by TylerG · Categorized: Blog

Aug 10 2023

Uncharted Culture Conference 2023 Speaker Feature

Culture can turn a practice into the place everyone in town wants to work, or break it down into the place no one wants to apply. At the Uncharted Culture Conference on October 11, 2023, we have an amazing lineup of speakers who have proven methods to improve clinic cultures. Get to know more about the speakers, their sessions and some ways they've given back to Uncharted!

General Session Speaker: Phil Richmond, DVM, CAPP, CCFP, CHC-BCS, CRTDR

Me, We, & Us: The Shared Responsibility of Psychological Safety

photo of Phil Richmond

We are very excited to announce our General Session speaker for the 2023 Uncharted Culture Conference – Dr. Phil Richmond! If you have met Phil Richmond or have had the opportunity to hear him speak, you understand his passion for the subject of organizational wellbeing. That passion is a big part of why we are going to kick off the Culture Conference with his new session – Me, We, & Us: The Shared Responsibility of Psychological Safety. Read on to learn more! Phil is a long-time active participant in the veterinary industry. He has been a practicing veterinarian in Florida and also heavily involved in initiatives toward improving wellbeing throughout the industry. His contributions to our Community have been numerous and generous, and he was awarded our Founders Award at the 2023 Uncharted Veterinary Conference in April. 

Why is psychological safety important?

Psychological safety is tightly related to team retention and avoiding burnout in veterinary medicine. Being comfortable sharing ideas and having human needs of belonging met in the workplace can directly influence someone to stay in their workplace. Dr. Richmond has studied and spoken on the subject of psychological safety at many industry events. You can learn more about the subject and his work at his website.

Who is responsible for psychological safety in businesses and organizations? The answer is me, we, and us. In this session, Phil will share the “me, we, and us” framework from leading organizational wellbeing research in a way that any person in a veterinary practice or business can understand. The framework covers individual wellbeing (me), developing high-quality relationships (we), and the organization’s role as whole in preventing burnout (us). You will walk away with facts that will support getting buy-in and ideas on how exactly to implement the concepts!


Workshop Speakers

You will be able to attend one of these amazing workshops LIVE and will have access to the recordings of the others 1-2 weeks after the event is over!

Maria Pirita, CVPM

The Accountability Ecosystem: Cultivate a Culture for Success

photo of Maria Pirita, CVPM

Where is the balance between setting goals and clear expectations and micromanaging? Creating a system of accountability may sound intimidating, especially if you’re starting from scratch. Maria Pirita is a CVPM and one of the most understanding and kind people we know. If anyone can help you start a new and possibly daunting task like this, it is her! In her 2-hour session, she will walk you through a 3 part ecosystem of accountability and the tools to implement it at your practice that doesn’t leave the responsibility on one person alone! Walk away with an action plan to get started and working documents that you can adjust as you move through the process. Plus, you can bet that she will be ready to answer questions…and very excited to learn more about you! 


Senani Ratnayake, BSc, RVT

Owning Our Success – Five Steps to a Culture of Accountability

photo of Senani Ratnayake

When determining a plan for how your practice will set expectations around ownership, responsibility and accountability, tough conversations with your team are unavoidable. How do you work through those conversations with empathy and understanding? Senani Ratnayake has a way with words, and is just the person to help guide you through making tough conversations effective, clear, and compassionate. In her workshop, Senani will share how to define and reframe the concept of accountability with your team, how to discuss the significance of intention versus outcome and impact, and help determine how you will measure accountability with your team. Leading by example will be a big part of your success, so take this opportunity to ask Senani your questions and learn how to guide your team toward a stronger culture! 


Mark Nunez, DVM

LEAN Principles in Practice

photo of mark Nunez

Processes in practice sometimes don’t work as well as we believe they do, and the best people to share that with leaders are the people working within them! Dr. Mark Nunez has been an advocate for LEAN boards as a decision-making tool since we met him at his first Uncharted event! He has seen the effects of giving his teams a voice in making changes in veterinary practice, and it has led to ongoing support for this concept. This popular 2-hour workshop will provide you with a system that taps into your entire team’s perspective and builds on a culture that values team members that share their ideas to make the entire practice the best it can be!


Rebecca May

How a No Blame Culture Approach Can Safeguard Against Medical Errors

photo of Rebecca May

Making a medical error is any veterinary professional’s greatest fear. Addressing these moments with individual accountability alone can damage trust and lead engaged team players to disengage and even leave. For Rebecca May, her years of experience in veterinary medicine and role as a practice manager of an emergency clinic in North Carolina highlighted exactly that. A “No Blame” approach guides leaders to address individual and systemic contributions to medical incidents and mistakes that inevitably happen in veterinary medicine. Looking at the whole picture, monitoring for trends and changing the narrative of blaming could be a singularly effective tool to improve your practice culture. Rebecca May’s Incident Decision Tree will help your team stop avoiding discussing mistakes and invite them to be part of making systems that really work.


Written by TylerG · Categorized: Blog

Aug 03 2022

How Adobe Animal Hospital is Doing Work-From-Home and Virtual Medicine – Cone of Shame Crossover

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast Episode 189 - How Adobe Animal Hospital is doing work-from-home and virtual medicine

This Week on the Uncharted Podcast…

This week on the podcast, we have a cross-over episode! That's right, this is a Cone of Shame episode. Imagine a CSR working from home, checking a client out and booking appointments from his home, or a technician live-chatting with three different pet owners through the clinic webpage from her apartment, or a doctor doing telemedicine appointments from another state? This isn’t fantasy. There are practices actually making these things happen today. Christina Freeman and Summer Burke-Irmiter join Dr. Andy Roark to talk about how their clinic is breaking the mold to give employees (and clients) flexibility like never before. Let’s get into this.

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast · Uncharted Podcast Ep 189 – How Adobe Animal Hospital is Doing Work-From-Home and Virtual Medicine

You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

guardian vets logo

Thank you to our sponsors! To learn more about this week's sponsor, GuardianVets, check out their website HERE.

Got a question for the mailbag? Submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

Upcoming Events

October 6-8, 2022: Get Sh*t Done Shorthanded Conference Event

Want to hear more from Summer and Christina about their virtual CSR model? You can at the upcoming Get Sh*t Done Virtual Conference! They will be doing a workshop and there will be 3 days of content all about how you can get sh*t done when you're shorthanded (who isn't?)!

While Uncharted Membership is always encouraged, you DO NOT have to be a member to join us for GSD! Non-members, here’s your chance to see what all the buzz is about and get a taste of the Uncharted experience.

August 10, 2022: Believing WE Can – Leading A Solution-Oriented Team with Senani Ratnayake

In this 2-hour workshop, we will:

  • Discuss what leaders can do to set themselves, and consequently their teams, up for success in problem-solving
  • Focus on tactics with a twist – activities that are enjoyable, engaging and unexpected. 
  • Learn how to implement these activities to help the team explore being solution-oriented and action-oriented in fun ways.

All Uncharted Veterinary Community Workshops are LIVE! You will be able to ask the instructor questions that help you address your practice’s unique problems. This will not be 2 hours of silent screen time. Gear up for interactive, fun learning! 


Episode Transcript

Banfield Pet Hospital Logo

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.

Stephanie Goss: It's a crossover episode that's right this week we are sharing an episode from our sister podcast the Cone of Shame podcast. Andy did a discussion interview with two amazing women from Adobe Animal Hospital and I just thought it would be something that our audience would love to hear, because they talked about virtual team members, virtual csrs, using technology in amazing and absolutely nerdy ways that I completely love. So we are going to listen to Andy talk with Summer Burke Armature and Christina Freeman from Adobe Animal Hospital and nerd out about how Adobe Animal Hospital is doing work from home and virtual vet med.

Meg: And now the Uncharted Podcast!

Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome to the podcast, Christina Freeman and Summer Burke-Irmiter. How are you guys?

Christina Freeman:
Good. How are you?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Doing really good. I am super excited for this conversation. For those who don't know you… Let me just say why I'm excited for the conversation, and then I'll introduce you guys through that. You guys work at Adobe Animal Hospital, which is out in the San Francisco Bay Area. You guys are part of Uncharted, which is a community that I love and get to run. And you have been for a number of years and you are one of my fanboy hospitals that I crush over because you do these cool, cool things. You were the first hospital that I was aware of that was an open hospital, meaning that people could go basically wherever their pets go.

Dr. Andy Roark:
My head hurt for a week after I first talked to you and really came to understand what you were doing and what that meant. You guys just, you do these things that get me excited and just remind me about what's possible, and that medicine can be very different from what it has been in the past. And so I am a huge fan of you guys and the work that you do. Summer, you are the hospital administrator and the owner. Christina, you are the remote manager, which is how we come to be here today. Summer shared with me a couple of weeks ago, a new program that you guys were rolling out with what you called video client representatives.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So I'm not talking about CSRs that are answering phones from home. I'm talking about you guys have screens in your lobby that people can see traditionally, a CSR, a customer service rep. That they can see the customer and they can check out with this video screen. And you have people not just answering phone, but actually dealing with clients in the building while they, the employees are at home. And that's amazing to me. And so I was like, “I want to talk…” First of all, I want to go through the system with you. I just want to unpack it and understand what you guys are doing.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm so impressed with just… And let me just say this too. I know this is a new program, you're only doing it for a while. I love that you are doing this and putting it out, and I just think that so many people, as we're looking at the great resignation and people changing jobs and also battling burnout and people being able to work from home. That has been shown to decrease levels of burnout, when people get to spend some time and say, “Hey, I'm changing my environment. I'm going to work in a more relaxed place. Even just a limited amount of time.” I am really looking hard at burnout. I'm looking hard at efficiency. I'm looking hard at making the jobs better and more flexible.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I feel like you guys are actually out there in the wilderness doing the thing. I didn't say you were lost in the wilderness. I said you are out in the wilderness, more of a Lewis and Clark, like headed westward sort of feel. That's, how I feel about it.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
Definitely.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Definitely. Those are the things I'm geeking out about, and so let's go through. I just want to go ahead and start to walk through the journey that you've made so far with you. Go ahead, why don't you guys tell me just a little bit about Adobe. I mentioned a very high level. Give me a clear picture of what you're working with as far as the hospital, what makes it special? Just so people can have a mental picture of Adobe and what we're talking about.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
I'll jump in there. Adobe is a really amazing place. We have two hospitals here in the Bay Area, one, which is a 15-exam rooms, three surgical suites, full cat and dog ICU, full lab and pharmacy. And so we're big and I love it, 15 exam rooms. Overall between our two hospitals, we have 22 doctors and about 145 team members. Yeah, we're a big guy. We have a second location about 20 minutes away that's six exam rooms, ultrasound suite. They can still do major surgeries. They're open six days a week there.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
You mentioned the thing that I think makes Adobe special and amazing, which is the open hospital. So clients can go with their pet to ultrasound. They can help us set up an x-ray and then step out. We do vaccines and blood draws in front of owners. And because of that, our have a different level of trust with us. And our doctors all practice the medicine, they feel as best. So as a business, we actually don't have a lot of hard lines with our medicine and what we recommend. We want the doctors to talk with the patients and the clients decide what the [crosstalk 00:07:15]

Dr. Andy Roark:
Talk with the patients too. You never know what you're going to get.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
Where are they going, what their risks are. For vaccines, we don't say you give every puppy these set of vaccines. You talk with the owner and see what's going to be best for that puppy and for that owner. Those are the two big things that I think make Adobe in general. Christina, what would you add to that?

Christina Freeman:
Truly the open hospital, I think is one of the big things that makes Adobe different and drew me to Adobe. When I first read that applying, I was like, “Oh, that's awesome.” I had grown up in a little small town hospital where I got to go wherever I wanted to go, but yeah, I saw other people not be able to do that. So it important to me. It honestly gives a huge hospital that small town feel because you're part of your pet's care. I think that was definitely one of the things that drew me to Adobe.

Christina Freeman:
I'm not from the Bay Area, I'm from North Carolina, which is where I currently live. Why? I'm the remote manager, but I think what's kept me with Adobe is just the constant creativity and growth, and the fact that we're always changing things up to make things a little bit better for namely the pets. That's always the first and foremost. That's how we've gotten here, is keeping pets first.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Talk to me a little bit about the idea of remote work. When did Adobe start to really look at this as a concept? You guys were way pre pandemic when you started to kick this around. People are like, “Oh my God, look how far they've gotten in the last two years.” And I'm like, “No, you guys were way out ahead starting to work on this.” But help me really understand that, when did this idea of remote employees, when did that come together and why did that come together?

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
It's been some while so I always have to remind myself. I think it's eight to nine years ago we started.

Christina Freeman:
Yeah.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
What happened is, here in the Bay Area, the cost of living is very high. A starter home within an hour of Adobe, you're going to be at least 600,000 plus. And so a lot of our staff already live farther away, and then if you're going to buy a home and raise a family, oftentimes our staff would move out of the area. And that's what happened, is we had a staff member who was going to leave the area and we didn't want to lose them. We all know how hard it is to get really great staff. And when we were faced with one of our staff members moving, we were like, “No, we need to make this happen.” I was like, “I need to make this happen.”

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
We keep good team members. They're part of our Adobe family, and so how do we do this? And why are we limited by our building? Why can't we do more? And so there's so much work to do. There's always work to do at Adobe, and so we just started figuring it out, really just one step at a time, lots of trials and errors, but it was to keep our team members. And so that original person did start out, I think like many hospitals now have a remote person, which is helping answer phones, helping call back clients for us. So it did start small and it just kept growing.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You guys also started to do remote communications with pet owners. Tell me a little bit about that. That's different from having people work from home. That's having pet owners stay home. How does that come into this?

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
One of the areas that I was really excited to explore was getting into chat. I don't know about you guys, but pre pandemic, I loved chat. I actually had apparel companies that I would chat with all the time back and forth. I was on Zappos once and buying shoes. And I was chatting with this CSR on there with a question about the shoes and we ended up talking her cute pit bull that she just rescued. And so I saw that you could have a connection and get really great, fast help. And so really started looking at different platforms, what could we use? That's where we initially settled on live chat, and this is where Christina actually comes in and I'll let you take it from here because you can give all kinds of information.

Christina Freeman:
Yep. That was Summer's crazy idea. I came to her and needed to move back for my family to North Carolina and she said, “Well, if you'll stick with me, I've got a crazy idea. What do you think?” And I loved it, and so we really started small. It was truly just, we had a couple people trying some things out, but when we first started chat, it was just me for the first couple weeks. And then we grew to a couple people and added one of our doctors who was remote at the time or starting in the remote world. We were shocked at how fast our clients adopted it. Through the live chat platform, we just popped a widget up on our website.

Christina Freeman:
And so whenever someone would come on the website, the way we started originally was very organic. We would ask the client if we could help them with anything. And they would say yes or no, or some were thrilled. We really found… I think at first we were all like a little bit worried it would feel impersonal, so we really tried to give it a good conversational spin and not using forms and things like that. Just really us talking because I really wanted to create the atmosphere that this was real people, real Adobe people who knew what they were talking about and we were not a robot, and it worked. And our clients adopted it and really quickly and started coming repeat back questions day after day after day, short, little questions.

Christina Freeman:
Little questions about the hospital, little questions about their pet. We love it because we can send videos and pictures back and forth. That really helps us triage, especially like a surgical patient. We can look at that incision site without the client having to drive in and we can get really good images too. So we were thrilled at how interactive we could be with the clients. Another thing that I think surprised Dr. Lau and I, when we were first doing this, we would cover a lot of the evening hours. And we had a lot of our senior pets or our hospice pets that would come day after day after day.

Christina Freeman:
We got really invested in these people and their pets and their journey through what they were going through and just really created a nice, comfortable rapport and atmosphere with the clients that you don't always have time for in the clinic. And so we really found it not only helped clients, but it sometimes enhanced their experience with us. That was really rewarding and kept us pushing. And as time went on, word got out. And so we became pretty overwhelmed pretty quickly with the load. And so we've grown our team from one to 24 in the last two years or three years, I guess and we've been really pleased at how the clients and the staff members love it.

Christina Freeman:
We have some staff who still work in hospital that help us with chat, some on a part-time basis, so they're part-time remote, part-time in hospital. And now we have a lot of people who are fully remote. And it's helped with people whose life has changed or a medical condition has changed. And so we've really been able to keep our good people and keep their skills in this field through this.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I have to point out the elephant in the room here, at least what it is for me can. One, help me understand what chat looks like. I guess what I'm saying is, what are the most common things that people ask? And then two, the reason I'm asking this is, when you guys are talking about chat and you're very excited about it and you seem to really love it. I'm imagining complete pandemonium in chat of like your own social network and people talking about their grandkids and and like a Friendster network on my webpage. Conviince me of the return on an investment of chat.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You have 24 people doing chat. As a business owner, I'm like, that sounds like a nightmare. Convince me of the value of this. I'm trying to get my head around what this really means for the pet owner and what it means for you guys from an efficiency standpoint. It like more, not less and I want to get my head around that.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
And actually before-

Dr. Andy Roark:
You're both laughing real hard as I say that. I think I'm probably having all of the anxiety and the nerves and the worries that you had at the beginning. I'm having this now of… But first of all, my first thought would be, what if this fails? And my second fear would be what if this succeeds? And I can panic in both directions. Talk me down off this ledge.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
Well, actually I'm going to add to that ledge just a little bit.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Holy crap.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
It's not to brag and just really show how big this can get. Christina and her remote team, since we started the live chat in 2018 have helped 60,000 clients. They've taken 60,000 chats. And now that's not the back and forth that you can have. That's not counting each one of those. That's a single session with a client. I'm going to add that mind-blowing right there.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I feel like you're helping people in Brazil. That's what I feel. I feel like there's people who've just found you and they're like, “These people will talk to me. If you're lonely and have a pet, they'll talk to you.” That's what I feel like. Is that true?

Christina Freeman:
There was a handful. I think the farthest I've ever spoken to someone was Singapore when IAMS Pet Food stopped creating their vet diets. It became like this frenzy of finding people with these products. That's as far as it's gone. but for the, I would say 97% is our actual clients. We are careful, we don't, we do. Every time we start a conversation, we get the pet details. We look up their record.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Smart.

Christina Freeman:
If they're not our clients, we do recommend that they speak to their local hospital, just so that history is with them. We're not trying to push people off, but we do feel like, don't talk for me for 30 minutes about diarrhea and then go to your hospital and expect them to know what we talked about. That is one thing that we are pretty careful about. And the great thing about the chat is every single thing we say, every single thing we share, we upload into the medical record, so when that pet does come in a couple days later or later that day, it's all there, that history's there. So they don't have to go back through that again, our medical staff can read through that.

Christina Freeman:
Just a short thing on the ledge, and I know Summer can, can help remove people from the ledge quickly, but what we've done with our team is allow the in-hospital team to focus on the pets that are in the building, rather than you're sitting there helping a pet and you've got four people waiting on the phone that have a question for a doctor. We're able to take that load from them so they can focus. And we can seamlessly help the client. The client has no clue in cases that we're not actually in the building.

Christina Freeman:
We stay in constant contact with our doctors who are on the floor, they're feeding us advice. And so we're able to take that load off of the team in the building who need to focus 100% on the pets.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay. No, that makes a ton of sense.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
And you bring up a good point there, Christina is one of the reasons we started looking at this in 2018 is at that time, if we all can remember past then. I know it's been eons, seems like a decade, not just three years, we were already experiencing that short staffing with technicians in particular. With the high cost of living in the Bay Area was compounded, and Adobe had always offered medical advice to our clients. We're probably way more open than most hospitals about that client calls. We will talk to them through, make sure there's no contraindications. And then if it's that vomiting lab, we'll go ahead and give them a bland diet, what to look for and when to call back.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
And we were looking at losing that. That was something that I felt was really important to Adobe. And by figuring this remote piece out, we were able to keep something that I thought was part of Adobe and part of Adobe soul and just move it out of house. And that worked out really well. And yeah, to talk you off the ledge there, Andy, there are some tips and tricks behind the scenes with these chat systems that really make it helpful. One of which is, and this is good for everybody to know, they can see what you're typing before you hit enter. Remember that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Really?

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
So when you're about to be like [inaudible 00:21:10], and then you erase it, they saw it.

Christina Freeman:
They see all that.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
You see all that. So when you can already see somebody typing out about the diarrhea, and then what you're doing is there's scripts that Adobe did, ourselves, but you can have a diarrhea script. So as soon as that client is done, you press enter on the diarrhea script and it's got all the questions we always ask. How is their eating? How often? What's the color? All of that. So then that gives you a minute to either work on another chat. Our chatters who are super experienced can take multiple at a time. You can't take multiple phone calls at a time per person, but you can with chats.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
Or it gives you that moment to either take a breath or to do another task, which is a lot of what the remote operators they're doing. They're then working on something else while that person fills in their answers with the diarrhea. And you're already seeing again what they're doing. So if you're like, “Ooh, they just said blood.” You're going to be ready for that and you're going to get them in the hospital. Or, this is where Christina mentioned Dr. Lau. We have two remote doctors for video visits, which came in 2019. And those doctors also help the remote team with advice, questions of, “Hey, what should I recommend for this?”

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
Or if it's more specific, “This client is asking a medication question that their dog's currently on. Can you help us with this?” And so that's where behind the scenes, they'll also with that. There's a lot of tools behind the scenes to help out with those 60,000 chats that they've taken.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay. I have some questions. Let me start to dig into this. The idea of having some scripts makes total sense, and especially like follow up questions of when they talk about diarrhea, here are the follow-up questions. That makes my innovative efficiency smooth workflow heart so heavy. And so that totally makes sense. Okay. Talk to me a little bit about chats uploading into the medical records. That sounds like it could be a Herculean task. It also sounds like it could be turnkey smooth as silk. Which one is closer.

Christina Freeman:
You're in the middle. One of the things Summer and I have been talking about recently is there are some pain points in some of this because we're starting at the very beginning. But the great thing about it is the companies are really listening to us that we're working with. We are feeding them our problems and they're helping us solve them. So that has been great. It's been challenging to be in it, but it also, we are discovering the problems as we go that need fixing. And so the companies are super helpful to help us. We are transitioning with companies major that reason. Right now it is manual, we do copy and paste this into the record, and we're talking about six key strokes to get it in the record.

Christina Freeman:
But the company that we're talking with now is going to make that automatic. As soon as we finalize that chat, it's automatically fed into the record. This has been fun to be on the innovative front of like, “Okay, here's our problem. Help me solve it.” And so that's going to speed us up. Summer mentioned, part of the glory of chat is we can do multiple things at the same time and we can help clients at the same time. When you're speaking medically, and you're looking for medical records, and you're having to bring up the pet of, if you're a seasoned chatter, three is tops because you need to be focused and make sure, like three pets at a time.

Christina Freeman:
But as Summer said, you're stuck on the phone with one call, where with a chat. And also you don't get those visuals that we can get via chat. We can say, “Hey, could you go snap a picture of that?” The owner runs away and snaps a picture and comes back while we're helping another client, or we're picking up a phone call or we're answering an email. So there's a lot of other administrative things that we can do behind the scenes while all this is going on, while we're also helping pet owners via chat.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Cool. Who are the companies that you're working with on your chat?

Christina Freeman:
Well, we've been using live chat and we're transitioning to TeleVet. And TeleVet is a more veterinary-centered product that is helping us build the things we need and these automated things.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey, everybody, I just want to jump in here with a couple quick updates. If you're listening to this podcast and you're like, “Oh my gosh, vet clinics are doing stuff like this. This is amazing.” You should join Uncharted. The Uncharted Veterinary Conference and Community, that's where I met Summer and Christina, is where we learned about Adobe. This is the type of stuff that we talk about in there. Everything from open hospitals, where pat owners go wherever they want to virtual medicine, to work from home, to the classics about getting the staff to come together as a team.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Building culture, solving problems, growing people as leaders and communicators and visionaries. That's what we do in Uncharted. If you're like, “God, I want to live in this world. I want to practice medicine in this other way. I want to be the captain of my own ship.” Check out Uncharted. Guys, our April conference is coming up, April 21st through 23rd. If you've not been to an Uncharted conference, I promise you have not been to anything like this. We do choose your own adventure sessions where attendees make sessions on the first night that we then put on during the event, it is all networking focused.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You will make friends. You will talk to people who are doing incredible things. You will get re-inspired, you will get reinvigorated. You will learn techniques and tips and tricks and strategies for running a smoother, more efficient, more rewarding vet practice. That is what this conference is all about. The 21st to the 23rd, is in Greenville, South Carolina. I'll put a link in the show notes. You can become an Uncharted member. We have a vibrant online community. We talk constantly. It is not a thing where people get in there and it's a ghost town or where there's canned content.

Dr. Andy Roark:
We are constantly talking as a community about solving problems, about growing practices, about doing new and different things. About making our lives better and easier, about handling hard problems together as a group. That's what we do. So anyway, if you're not familiar, if you haven't tried out Uncharted and this episode is inspiring you, this is your call to action. This is what you need to do.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Gang, I also have to stop here real quick and just say, thanks again, to Banfield Pet Hospital. Through their help, we're able to have transcripts for episodes. And this is all about increasing accessibility, inclusivity in vet medicine, and making sure that everyone has access to the materials that we're putting out. We could not do this without them. They have supported The Cone of Shame and having transcripts and The Uncharted Veterinary Podcast, which is our other podcast. It's a business management podcast. But thanks to those guys for stepping up and leading the charge to make vet medicine more open and inclusive. They really are doing amazing things. Anyway, guys, that's all the announcements I got. Let's get back into this episode.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Talk to me a little bit about how the veterinarians support this. You've got veterinarians that do telehealth visits, and I want to put a pin in that and come back to that in a little bit. But let's just say that you have veterinarian behind the scene that is lending support. How do you back channel that? You've got someone and they're working remotely, I'm assuming, and then they're doing the chat, and then they're… How does that person feel supported and not feel like they're out by themselves? How are you handling that behind the scenes communication?

Christina Freeman:
It's been interesting. Being remote, we have built some closer relationships than we ever had in the hospital, which we… I've been working with Dr. Lau for three solid years all day, every day and I had never actually gotten to hug her until about six months ago. And we actually converged accidentally at the same time on a trip to California. She works and lives in Virginia and I work and live in North Carolina. We're close, but it just hadn't happened. But it is remarkable the trust that we've all built working together. We are in constant contact via… We use Google Hangouts a lot.

Christina Freeman:
We do a lot of remote training together with each other and with our new team members that we've grown so quickly where they are just on video all day with us, and they're just watching what we're doing or vice versa. We're watching what they're doing. So we are literally, virtually side-by-side all day, every day, which has been really good for team building and bonding and training. We've been really surprised at how the efficiency of our training through video. And it's also grown into like we're starting to train some in-hospital people through video because it is so efficient and we can be a little bit more open about times and hours and availability.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Let's let's follow that thread a little bit. So I said we were going to put a pin in the telemedicine doctor visit stuff. Let's follow the video path. So we've talked a lot about chat and then let's talk about how do you guys use video… I started off talking about the video client representative but let's go into the telemedicine part first, just walk me through your approach in video communication.

Christina Freeman:
A lot of our chats do generate into a video visit. So we're having a conversation with an owner and we're talking about new puppy owner. They've got a lot of puppy questions, but they also have got diarrhea going on at the same time. So pet stable, we've answered all the scary questions and everything's okay. So very natural progression to move into a video visit with one of our doctors. That lets the owner be at home, they don't have to come in, that lets the pet be at home, be comfortable. And we've seamlessly gone from the chat to now a video visit where they meet with the doctor. The doctor's able to see the pet and evaluate what's going on. Medication is needed or give a little bit deeper advice on how to get that pet back on track or what that puppy might be experiencing.

Christina Freeman:
Same thing on the senior side where owners contact us and they have a senior pet, got some concerns. We're able to move that into a video visit pretty seamlessly most of the time, same day. So it's very convenient for the pet owner, they don't have to leave the house. Sometimes we can go straight from a chat into a video visit if we have availability. Now that we have two doctors, that's quite often what we do. So a lot of our more, I don't want to say simple but more straightforward issues, that's how are born from chat into a video visit the natural progression.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Good. Talk to me about doctor scheduling for this. So again, I really appreciate you guys just letting me pick through this. So that's the other thing. People always say, “How do you have doctors…” I think that's a big hurdle for Telehealth is how do you make the doctor's schedules work? So do pet owners have the ability to make telehealth visits? And then also we flex chat appointments in to fill that schedule out. Is there a standby vet just support chat? Did that happen at the beginning? Or did you add in some Telehealth visits after you had built the chat up and you were having these conversations and you felt like, “Oh, now we've got enough of a caseload that would support this vet.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Share with me your thoughts on that because there's a lot of people who were like, “Oh man, we've been talking about Telehealth visits… I think for me, when I look at Telehealth, it makes sense if you can generate the volume. Because otherwise you've got that hanging out, not seeing appointments. And then if they go and start seeing appointments in the physical exam rooms and you say, “Well, how do we get them back out to be on time for these other things?” I think a lot of people are balancing these logistics and you've got this really neat outside around the way you have done this. And so yeah. Talk to me a little bit about doctor scheduling for these types of Telehealth appointments.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
Okay. So yeah, with Dr Lau, who I have to give credit for, for finding our video visit platform. She found TeleVet and we originally thought we would go with a human-based video visit company because they were established, they had worked through the kinks. But it turned out that the human systems were super complicated and really didn't fit the veterinary world. So with TeleVet, the reason why we originally got excited about them is they had chat on their platform and we're like, “Okay, if we have chat and they have chat, this might work out well.”

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
And they were super responsive. What we didn't realize at the time is the reason they were responsive is they were I think a two and a half person company at the time. And it was the big male who was chatting with us. Straight awkward, but. But we loved the response, we loved how engaged they were, the platform fit well, and then as we onboarded and started getting used to it, they would make all these tweaks and changes that really fit us. And again, that's what called to my heart is we were making this fit for Adobe and that was really fantastic. So I'll stop there though and let Christina talk a little more about the scheduling and how the juggling that they do over there is amazing.

Christina Freeman:
Well, in the beginning it was just Dr. Lau and I, so we had luxury and the flexibility of being at home and so we worked when the demand was high. And so we were able to monitor the website and know when people came on the website and so when they came on, we made ourselves available and we were there to chat with them and help with them and I'd ping Dr. Lau and be like, “Hey, can you do a video visit?” And she's like, “Sure.” And scrambling together from whatever else she was doing. So we were very organic in the beginning in the fact that we just saw when our clients were needing us, and so that's what we did.

Christina Freeman:
As we grew, we needed more structure, we needed a life. We were available 24/7 in the beginning just to get this work in it had figured out. But then we really did discover the peak times that clients wanted and needed us. And so we built a Dr. Lau's schedule around that. And then as we added Dr. Nakamura as well, he balanced the other parts. So we do have a doctor available to our chatters and for video visits seven days a week between the two. And I guess truly what we did is we looked at the peak request times and managed our time from that. So if you want to get started small, totally able to do that, look at your clientele, look at when they're asking for things, just very generalizing. It's going to be early evening hours and sat morning hours when clients first get home from work and they discover there's a problem.

Christina Freeman:
So you get home from work at 5:30 and you're like, “Oh, my puppy has diarrhea.” Or you get home from work and you discover your senior has had some changes during the day that you need some advice. And so running some hours in the evening, two or three hours to fit in those requests between getting home and people going to bed. And then those Saturday mornings where you wake up and you're like, “Oh, I should have called the vet on Friday.” Everyone knows what calling a vet on Fridays is like, so that's the way we started in the beginning. But now as we've grown, we have the luxury of having 24/7 or 7-day a week help during our peak hours.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Gotcha. Okay.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
And also, especially early on but they still do a ton now. There was a lot of duties that the in-hospital doctors were doing that remote is able to help with and Dr. Lau and Dr. Nakamura are able to help with. So they actually do a few things. They do a lot of the general refill requests, so that now goes on a live spreadsheet online that they can access so they can go through there, especially for doctors who are on vacation, who aren't going to be in for couple of days. So instead of the technician or the pharmacy tech having to go to that doctor at their desk and be like, “Hi, sorry, but you look at this heart garden prescription.” They actually do that first thing in the morning.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
And so pharmacy gets in, they've got meds to fill or clients to immediately call back and say, “I'm so sorry, the doctor's really suggesting that we need to do this blood work first. We'll get you a couple days worth.” So they do a lot of that. They've also taken on a lot of doctor flow things in regards to, “You know what? It's that last day of your work week and you just did blood work on a patient. They need to be called the next day. It's not one that should wait until next week when you're back, the remote doctors will help with that.” And they also can help with bridging even if you have two doctors on a case, that's outpatient, then they can actually help bridge with some of those callbacks as well.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
And so they've helped with a lot of in-hospital things. During COVID, we were doing our shelter in place here in the Bay Area. They also became what we call the COVID doctor would help with all kinds of things just because we did go curbside, which was a huge change for Adobe from open hospital. And so all that extra work, they really helped out a ton with that. So we did initially, they weren't booked with video visits all the time, they were helping with that. We've actually, over the last couple years had to reduce how much that they're doing of that admin work because they are getting busier and busier there.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
And actually he's okay with me being pretty open about this. When COVID hit, Dr. Nakamura's immune compromised. He had to leave. And if we didn't have this option, he wouldn't been in the hospital for a year and a half. So we didn't lose the doctor, added a doctor. He sees exotics as well, and a lot of the husbandry for exams is really nice to do because you can see the tank, you can see what they're using, what they're set up is by using that video camera.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. So that makes a ton of sense. So we've talked about chat, we've talked about video consultations. What are some other jobs that you guys are doing now remotely at Adobe?

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
Yeah. I've actually got the list in front of me. Christina, do you want me to read it-

Christina Freeman:
Go for it.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
… off real quick? Okay. So with our entire remote team, they do voicemails. So this is doctor voicemails transcribing them into an online live document. Doctors, go on and say, “I'll call this one, I'll just call this one back and do a recheck.” They'll then go ahead and call that client. They're doing our advice lines. So we do allow clients to still call in if they be to for medical advice and or triage. And so they're doing those advice lines, they're doing live chat, they're also looking and using TeleVet, especially for prepping clients for their video visits, things like that. They do pharmacy. We actually have a large pharmacy group now of pharmacy technicians who do all the admin work for on the floor pharmacy techs. Surgery, this is actually, I want to say something here. Surgery scheduling. Sorry.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay. Yeah. That's appears [crosstalk 00:41:50] like virtual surgery.

Christina Freeman:
Little robotic arm.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, exactly. We have a robot and they log in with a PlayStation controller.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
Well, actually that's our next, that's where we're going to.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That's where we're going next. Yeah.

Christina Freeman:
We're headed there.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
Is robot doctors. But until then. So surgery scheduling has been an issue in Adobe since I started 14 years ago. We've always had our surgery team on the floor who scheduled. And then we had one full-time scheduler in-house. Pre pandemic, it was sometimes embarrassing to admit this. It was up to 14 days before you might get a call back to schedule a surgery. And we were just so busy, the team was busy, our single scheduler was busy. And with all of our different doctors, it's not easy to schedule. And it's not because of the team. The team is just busy. And so we have now through a year long process, fully moved this over to remote.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
We have a surgery scheduling team. They schedule all of our surgeries. We are within actually a couple of days of them. 100% taking it over after training and a prolonged period there, they got to same day callbacks within less than a week. So they now do same day call back for all of our surgery scheduling, take care of the entire process. We do now still have our surgery scheduler in-house when she came back from COVID and maternity leave. So get this, during a time when we're all short staffed and crazy, we were actually able to add a service. So be because this full-time scheduler is not doing any of the emails or voice messages that we're getting for surgery, she's able to go directly into the room. If somebody wants a schedule right now, she's in the room and she's scheduling it. So we have an in-house in-room scheduler because we have this team taking care of everything else.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. That's amazing. Let's go ahead and unpack here at the end where we started. Talk to me about the video client representative and how that works and how you rolled it out and what the reaction has been to you having virtual CSRs, actually working with clients who were in the building.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
Yeah, I think it's probably the craziest idea my team has let me do.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I saw photos and I was like, “This is bonkers.”

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
Yeah. When I brought it up, I think they all thought it was crazy. You could have beat it, Christina.

Christina Freeman:
Nope, totally on, totally on. It was born out of true necessity. We just didn't have enough people in the hospital to cover the front desk. And so, someone and I were talking one day and we're like, “Why don't we just turn one of those screens at the front desk around and put me on it?” And that's what we did. And we tried it out. And so it grew into… It started out with we wanted to do in-room checkouts. So each room has a computer, the doctors use to access the medical records. And so we just hijacked that computer and added a camera on. And so that was where we wanted to start, but it grew into the whole process being a virtual. So each exam room, we just added a camera to the screen. So super easy and take a lot of extra tech to do.

Christina Freeman:
And so now when you're finished with your visit, one of us pop on the screen and we are able to talk about your private address and getting all of your personal information correct in the system, your phone number, your email address, things that people don't like shouting out in the lobby. So we're able to go over that. We're able to talk about the finances, which is not great to talk about in the lobby. You're able to stay in the room with your pet, you don't have to juggle the leash. You're able to pay. We have TeleVet that we work with got really excited when we wanted to do this and so they've helped us build this process but we have credit card terminals in the rooms. And so you're able to pay.

Christina Freeman:
So the checkout process has been a real value add to the client. Clients are thrilled, they enjoy it. They're like, “Oh, this is so nice.” And we've seen adoption. I have not run into someone yet and we've been doing it since November, that's been displeased with that. So that has been nice. Now the front desk video screen is a little bit harder to sell because people are used to having a person up there, but it works. And we are able to do everything via this screen that we would do in person, the only thing Summer and I teased about, but she solved that problem too. I was like, “Well, we can do everything except clean up the pee in the lobby.” And Summer's like, “Oh, there's robotic-

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
Roomba.

Christina Freeman:
… Roomba.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Like a Roomba. Yeah. With a wet-

Christina Freeman:
A mop.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
Right.

Dr. Andy Roark:
A wet mop Roomba.

Christina Freeman:
So if there's a problem, we keep figuring it out. But so when clients come into the hospital, there is a monitor there on the front desk with signage that says, “Check in here.” And it's cute. Clients smile and also they recognize us. So a lot of us used to work in the hospital, or all of us right now used to work in the hospital. So they're seeing familiar faces, they're hearing familiar voices and they're like, “Oh, I missed you. How are you?” And so we're able to keep connecting with our clients.

Christina Freeman:
And so it doesn't… I think Summer and I both had the worry that the monitor on the front desk would feel a bit impersonal. We've actually found this the opposite. We're chatting of, they're holding up their little pets, we're chatting with the dogs as well and so we've been pleased with the adoption. And also with COVID, it's been a safety measure as well, a surprising safety measure. We're able to speak to them without a mask, they're able to hear us because we're remote. And so that's helped with this process.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I imagine it's like self checkout at the grocery store. If there's a cashier standing there, I'm going to that person. But as soon as there's two people in line, totally self checking out.

Christina Freeman:
But imagine that self checkout with a human talking to, because that's the problem, you get your broccoli and you don't have your code number and you're like, “Ah.” But you've got a human there to help you with your broccoli. So we are-

Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, I know it. That's it, they can recommend ice cream flavors. All right guys, where can people learn more about Adobe and your amazing hospital?

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
Yeah. So few different areas. You're welcome to come our website, adobe-animal.com. And you'll probably see our chatters on there. If they are busy, they'll ask you to leave a message that they will respond to. And so that's the other thing with chat is you don't have to take them live by That moment if things are busy. And then also I think we sent over some picture.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yes.

Summer Burke-Irmiter:
You guys, and so you can check out some pictures. Because I know initially when we talk about VCR, it can seem like this big wild concept. Once you see how simple it is. I feel like it's the post-it note for veterinary hospitals right now. Everybody in a year or two is going to be like, “Oh yeah, VCR, whatever. We're all doing it.” Because it's so easy. But right now it can be hard to conceptualize and so check out those videos where you'll see Christina and her backdrop in her home. Yep. With our lovely vinyl background, that's the background of our reception areas, and fools a lot of clients. And then you'll also see though pictures of her on the monitor around the hospital, checking people in.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That's awesome. So I'll probably put a link to our blog post about the episode and then I'll put the photos in there for sure. Also guys, we are posting podcast episodes as YouTube videos. And so we're going to drop them in there as well if you guys like your podcast as YouTube videos, you got to see photos there. Last question, Christina. I have thought the whole time that you were in some remote location because there's an Adobe Animal Hospital, big logo on the wall behind you, and that's your house?

Christina Freeman:
Yes. This is my house [crosstalk 00:50:52] here in North-

Dr. Andy Roark:
What does your family think about the fact that you have a work logo? Your husband was like, “What the heck is this?”

Christina Freeman:
Honestly, they love it. It's been a very exciting crazy journey which is my life is, but one of the great things is I'm here. I have three children, they know exactly what I do. They see it, they hear it. Sometimes they're… Actually, my five-year-old got a pencil from the pencil box while we were talking. But so that's been a great thing for myself and my family. If your kid grow up and don't know what you do, but they know exactly what I do. And it's cute because in the background, they'll be like, “Shh, mommy's helping a pet with diarrhea.” And they've learned so much too. They're like, “Are you going to tell them about the bland diet?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I could totally see that. I would be getting advice from my kids in no time. And they would be like, “Dad don't forget.”

Christina Freeman:
Yeah. Oh yeah, they keep me on track too. So live chat has little auditory cues when you have an incoming chat. And so it says in a British accent, “Incoming chat.” Now guys. Nope, nope, Nope. [crosstalk 00:52:05]

Dr. Andy Roark:
Now they're making appear on camera. Okay. All right. The wheels are coming off here. Yeah. I know how that goes. That's-

Christina Freeman:
Hi, darlings, now you heard what I said, y'all have to go downstairs.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That's me. That's my life all day, every day. I love it. It's so true.

Christina Freeman:
They heard me. I'm sure they were downstairs like, “What's she saying?”

Dr. Andy Roark:
[crosstalk 00:52:24] She's talking about us let's go.

Christina Freeman:
Like, “It's her chance roll the ball.” But they made up Carol of the bell at Christmas, incoming chat, incoming chat. So they'll run behind me and sing that and freak me out. Because I'm like, “Where?” Because once you've been chatting forever, you know the words incoming chat, [crosstalk 00:52:47]

Dr. Andy Roark:
Where you're here and just-

Christina Freeman:
Exactly. Start to salivate, so.

Dr. Andy Roark:
All right.

Christina Freeman:
They love to sneak up behind me and go, “Incoming chat.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, so cruel. I love it. All right guys, thanks for being here. Guys, thanks for listening to the podcast. I'll talk to everybody next week.

Stephanie Goss: Thanks for listening to podcast I'll talk to everybody next week. Hey, if you loved this episode and you want to hang out more with Summer and Christina you can you can hang out with them at ‘Get Shit Done' that's right, ‘Get Shit Done' is happening in October. It is October 6th through the 8th come join Christina and Summer and I AND Andy AND everybody in the Uncharted community from the comfort of your couch or your bed or your front porch because ‘Get Shit Done' is virtual. That's right! You do you and come hang out with us and talk about how do we get stuff done, particularly how do we get stuff done shorthanded. I think talking about virtual csrs is exactly a step in that direction and I'm super pumped for that workshop and more you can head on over to the website at unchartedvet.com to find out registration information, can't wait to see you there.

Stephanie Goss: And, we have to just say thanks to a generous gift from our friends at Banfield Pet Hospital we are now able to provide transcripts for all of our podcast episodes. Our friends at Banfield stepped up in a big way and said, “hey we are striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the profession”. To check out the transcript and find out more about what Banfield is doing to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the vet profession head over to unchartedvet.com forward slash blog and you can find each one of the podcast episodes and a link to find out more about equity inclusion and diversity at Banfield take care everybody.

Written by TylerG · Categorized: Blog, Podcast

Apr 06 2022

I’m the Boss Now, Can We Still Be Friends?

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast Episode 172 Cover Image

This Week on the Uncharted Podcast…

When you become the boss, can you still be friends with your team? This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are talking through a mailbag letter signed “Another Lonely Manager”. This manager transitioned from being a tech to being the boss and they are struggling with two questions – Can you expect to continue to be friends with your co-workers when you are promoted and become their boss? And how do you deal with feeling like a lonely leader at work? Let’s get into this…

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast · UVP 172 I'm The Boss Now, Can We Still Be Friends?
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You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you to our sponsors! To learn more about this week's sponsor, GuardianVets, check out their website HERE.

Got a question for the mailbag? Submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

Upcoming Events

May 21: Retain Your Team: Speak the Languages of Appreciation in Your Workplace with Tracy Sands

You can be the leader of a happier, more satisfied team, and it starts with understanding how each person in your practice feels the most valued.

Practice owner Dr. Tracy Sands is going to teach you about the languages of appreciation and how they can help you motivate, train and retain your staff in this 2-hour, LIVE workshop.

June 8: Creating Content That Clients Crave with Bill Schroeder

Many practices have heard that “content is king”, but few have systems in place that actually generate impactful content.

This extremely interactive session will explore the types of content that are most valuable, the potential impact of such, and proven methods for great content development.

All Upcoming Events

A UVC MEMBERSHIP IS YOUR KEY TO FINALLY GETTING THINGS DONE AND GROWING YOUR VETERINARY PRACTICE.


Episode Transcript

Banfield Pet Hospital Logo

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.

Stephanie Goss:

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 into another letter from the mailbag. We got a letter from another lonely leader. This is a manager who came up from the floor and has transitioned into the boss role and they are feeling a little lonely at the top. They are wondering, can you continue to be friends with your coworkers after becoming promoted and becoming their boss? More than that, how do you deal with these lonely feelings?

Stephanie Goss:

Man, this resonates. This is something both Andy and I have experienced and struggled with at points in our career. We're going to share some personal stories with you along with rolling this out as we do from a headspace and plan of attack perspective. Let's get into this one, shall we? And now the Uncharted Podcast.

Andy Roark:

We are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and the one and only Stephanie. (singing)

Stephanie Goss:

Oh, fantastic. I always love it when you sing for us. How's it going, Andy Roark?

Andy Roark:

Some of them, I'm like, “If I just say it, I'm on the outside and I'm looking in, it doesn't convey the emotion.”

Stephanie Goss:

So much better when you sing.

Andy Roark:

(singing). My favorite one to sing, it's not Michael Bolton, but the guy that sounds like… He's like, (singing).

Stephanie Goss:

Can you please go to Uncharted Karaoke?

Andy Roark:

Oh yeah. I will sing comedically all day long. I will not sing anything that actually attempt to carry a tune. I can't carry a tune a bucket. Oh. But I will 100% do bad impersonations.

Stephanie Goss:

So fun.

Andy Roark:

Singing other songs. Michael McDonald, that's who it was.

Stephanie Goss:

So fun. So fun.

Andy Roark:

(singing) Okay. People are like, “Why do we get this podcast?

Stephanie Goss:

What is happening? We're back.

Andy Roark:

If you ever wonder what the Uncharted staff meetings are like, this is what they're like. All right. I'm just kidding. We're high-performing, high-functioning adults.

Stephanie Goss:

Until Jamie's like, “For the love of all that is holy, can we please get back on topic?”

Andy Roark:

No, that's the real truth of it, is we are surrounded by high-performing, high-functioning adults.

Stephanie Goss:

And we are not.

Andy Roark:

And we've empowered them. That's exactly what it's. All right. That's it. That's really the whole secret. All right. Let's-

Stephanie Goss:

So fun. So fun. This episode is going to be fun. The mailbag has been on fire. First of all, I want to say thank you to all of you guys, because our listeners have been just shooting off emails to the mailbag left and right, which is amazing. We have got some good stuff. We got an email from another lonely leader, which is so good and I am so excited to break this one down with you today.

Andy Roark:

I love a lonely leader email. I'm like, “Yes, let's do this.”

Stephanie Goss:

It is lonely at the top. This is from another lonely leader. They have been commiserating recently with a fellow manager about how they are feeling excluded from feeling a personal connection with the rest of the team. The manager started out as a technician and then still in the beginning of being a manager, worked on the floor regularly. So they were still seen as a technician by the rest of the team, even though they were the manager.

Stephanie Goss:

Over the last couple of years, they have moved into a true manager role and are not on the floor. At the same time that has been happening, they have had some team turnover. And so, now the manager's long-time friends have been replaced, to a degree, with a lot of new coworkers. And so, in the past, this manager was always included when people went out for drinks outside of work, or went out for dinner after a long day. Now that they are not working on the floor and they are in just a manager role, they're not invited when the team is getting together outside of work.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, the question was, can you expect to be friends with your coworkers when you get promoted and become their boss? And how do you deal with feeling lonely and a leader at work?

Andy Roark:

Yeah. Oh, man. I-

Stephanie Goss:

I thought this was such a great one.

Andy Roark:

This is a great question, and I've gotten this a number of times in a lot of different ways.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes.

Andy Roark:

I have strong feelings and thoughts on it. I'll just say up front, they are maybe a bit controversial and I understand that. The first thing I will say is, every clinic is different and we all make different decisions. But I will show you some scars and I will tell you some stories. I will tell you why I think what I think and why I recommend what I recommend.

Stephanie Goss:

Fair. I like it. I like it.

Andy Roark:

Yeah. I don't even know how to necessarily break this part into headspace and action steps. It's almost like a philosophy sort of thing.

Stephanie Goss:

Sure.

Andy Roark:

Let me start with some headspace.

Stephanie Goss:

Okay.

Andy Roark:

And then we'll do a plan of attack. But this is probably more headspace than actual action steps.

Stephanie Goss:

Okay.

Andy Roark:

Okay. Let's put cards on the table so that people can look at the reality of the situation. And so, the first card I'll put down is I'll say, hey, we spend a lot of time at the vet clinic with people. In fact, we spend probably more than 40 hours a week, especially as practice managers, practice owners. We're there a lot.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes.

Andy Roark:

And we want to have good relationships with our staff. We want them to trust us. We want them to see us as a friend. We want them to believe in us and to be comfortable around us. We want them to enjoy being at work and us treating them well and making them feel included. That's part of making them feel good at work. When we go to work, we want to work in a happy place. We want to work in a place where we feel included, you know what I mean, where we have some relationships and some connections to people.

Andy Roark:

And so, that's true and we need to put that on the table and look at it. The second thing we have to put on the table and look at is, there is a power differential between the managers and the employees. And as much as we like to pretend it's not there, it is there.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes.

Andy Roark:

The fact that you could give this person a raise or cut them from their job and put them on unemployment, that's real and they know it. You have a hat on your head that says, “I can fire you.” I know you don't want that hat, and if you do want that hat, you're probably a jerk and you should change. You should change your… Yeah, that's not a thing you should [crosstalk 00:07:32]-

Stephanie Goss:

If you want to wear that hat-

Andy Roark:

If you want to wear that hat, you should probably not have that hat. Someone should liberate you of that hat. Because most of us, we don't want that. It's not how we want to be seen. But there is some credibility to the idea that it is there.

Stephanie Goss:

Sure.

Andy Roark:

And whether you do like it or not, that is real. We have different jobs and I think that's just an important thing to put down. And so, when we start to say, “Hey, can I be friends with these people?” I think that's the first question, right? Can I be friends with these people? Do you agree with that?

Stephanie Goss:

Yes.

Andy Roark:

Okay. Part of it, and I said I've gotten into hot water with this before, so here we go, is I've learned to say, “How do you define friendship?” I tend to say we should be friendly with the staff and the people who work for us. We can care very deeply about these people. But it really does come down to, how do you define friendship?

Andy Roark:

If you're someone who says, “I define friendship as, when you're my friend, I have got your back and I would never let you down,” then what I would say to you is, “Well, that's a hard spot because what if you're their boss and they send you a text that says, “I drank too much last night. I'm not coming in today.” You go, “Oh.” Are you their friend now? Are you going to be like, “Hey, yeah, you and me are cool. I won't tell anybody.” Or are you going to be like, “This is not okay”? What if your friend-

Stephanie Goss:

I'm laughing because I 100%-

Andy Roark:

I know.

Stephanie Goss:

… had to go through that scenario early on in my young managing career.

Andy Roark:

Actually, that's what popped into my head, because you have a great story of being the young manager and people are like, “Woo, Steph, Todd went on last night.”

Stephanie Goss:

They were still drunk and needed to be picked up because they knew they shouldn't drive. They called me and said, “We know we have to be at work. Can you please come get us and drive us so we can change and then go to work”? It was a really crappy position because I was like, “Okay, I'm going to go.” So I drove and I picked him up, and I'm evaluating in my head and I'm thinking, “All right. They can't still be drunk, right? They made a good decision. They walked to where they were. They needed a ride. They didn't have a car. I'll go pick them up.”

Stephanie Goss:

They got in my car and I could smell the booze coming off of them. I was like, “You cannot come to work.” I would be a failure at my job if I let you come to work today and had to navigate those waters of having that conversation and saying, “Go home. I will take you home, take a shower, sleep it off. I will see you tomorrow and we'll have a conversation.” It is hard, hard, hard, hard thing to navigate having those conversations.

Andy Roark:

Yeah. Could you tell your friend that you're not going to give them the raise that they thought they were going to get? Could you sit your friend down and do a performance evaluation, with your friend? Again, a lot of it comes down to, how do you define your friends? I need to make that really clear. It's like, I care so deeply about my employees. I mean really deeply, but I have to have a personal boundary there too to say… Do I treat them like friends? Of course, I do.

Andy Roark:

Do I care deeply about them? Yeah, I care as much or more about them than I care about people I do define as friends. But for whatever reason, for me, in my mind, I have to define my relationship with them differently, because I have to balance their needs against each other. I don't want to pick favorites.

Stephanie Goss:

Sure.

Andy Roark:

I don't want to have one of my employees is my friend and the other employees not, because that puts me in a hard place and it opens me up for charges of favoritism. I go, “Well, I don't want people to have those thoughts.” Yeah. There's a lot of downsides to me being one of the buddies or one of the friends. And so, again, I don't like conflict. It is just a thing about me. I want to balance all the things and that's a personal line for me that I had to step back from and saying, “I have not been able to think of the people that I directly lead as my friends,” and make that work out in my mind where I felt okay about it, and it didn't get me into trouble.

Stephanie Goss:

I agree and I disagree with you.

Andy Roark:

Yeah, yeah. It's hard. Yeah, go ahead.

Stephanie Goss:

You and I are both in the same camp. My style as a manager is that I am for friendly with my team, but I generally do not have friends. I don't consider my work friends in the same way that I would consider friends outside of work, meaning that while I might do social things in a group setting at work, like I'm not going to go out to the movies or go to the bar with people that I work with other than an organized work function. That's just my personal preference.

Andy Roark:

Sure.

Stephanie Goss:

I have friends who are managers, who are the total polar opposites, who consider some of their team members their best friends. I will say this, I believe really and truly that the dynamic always changes-

Andy Roark:

Yes.

Stephanie Goss:

… when you shift from a peer role to a management role, always without exception. There is always a dynamic shift. I do think that you can stay friends. However, I think that that requires excellent communication skills and very strong boundaries. Generally, those are two very difficult things to possess, and they are skills that take a lot of practice. And so, for most people, they go through a period transitioning from peer to boss, of going through difficult experiences where they learn about the shortcomings of their own or their counterparts, communication skills boundaries or both.

Stephanie Goss:

And for a lot of us, it winds up in the place where we are hurt, or we have a dissolving of friendships. And so, that was me. I tried, and for quite a few years, remained good friends and I would even say best friends with some of my colleagues or my peers, even after I was their manager. Then I went through a period where I had to make decisions and lead things that were not popular and tell them things that they didn't want to hear and have those hard conversations.

Stephanie Goss:

“You're not performing the way that I need you to be,” and have the disciplinary conversations, or the salary conversations or the, “Hey, I am suspending you. I'm going to drop you at home. I'm glad you called me and I'm glad you didn't drive drunk, and I really do appreciate that. You're suspended. Stay home for the next three days and then we're going to have a conversation about this when you come back to work.”

Stephanie Goss:

Having those hard conversations led me to a place where, on a personal level, my choice is I am friendly with my team and I have firm boundaries for myself. I generally don't socialize as social friends with the team members that I work with. That works for me. I also have respect for friends and for people who choose to live that differently and continue to be friends with their team. I will tell you that it does require excellent communication skills and boundaries, because the dynamic always changes.

Andy Roark:

Yeah. There's not a right or wrong way, although there are definitely ways that expose you to a lot more risk. One of the things I heard recently that actually blew my mind is you and I have… I think they'll be fine with me sharing names and stuff, but you Jen Galvin and Erica Cartwright are partners that own a practice. From the outside, it seems to be a great practice. They are two of my favorite people, and they are in such lockstep. I've done it for five years through Uncharted, working with them in their practice.

Andy Roark:

Jen especially has done some and teaching and lecturing with us. She's so smart and so sharp. I can't say enough good things about both of them. They were so tight, and they wear… They've come to Uncharted dressed as the dumb and dumber, blue and orange tuxedos. If anybody remembers those. I love them so much. We had our first ever practice owner summit in December, which was just practice owners, and those guys were there.

Andy Roark:

We were sitting and talking and everything, and they mentioned that they don't hang out outside of work. I was like, “What? You guys don't hang?” They were like, “No, it's just, we've decided it's better for us if I… We love each other at work. We hang out with each other. We are a lockstep. We work hard. And then we've been able to be such good partners because we go home and don't interact. We put our stuff aside and give each other a break from each other.” I thought that there was a lot of wisdom in that.

Stephanie Goss:

They do stuff together as a team.

Andy Roark:

Yes.

Stephanie Goss:

Their team socially interacts and engages regularly. They take their team on trips. They do stuff together and they have that sacred space of, we're going to go home and we're going to… They do do things together and have some social aspects to their relationship. They have really great communication of like, “I'm going to go home and I'm not going to talk to you for the next three days, unless the world is truly on fire because I need a break from you.” I respect those healthy boundaries so, so much,

Andy Roark:

Well, even not getting to the point where it's like, “I need a break from you.” It's, “If I don't take these breaks, then I will get to a place where I need a break from you.

Stephanie Goss:

Right. Right.

Andy Roark:

And if I do take these breaks, I will show up excited to see you and work together.” It's funny. I think you put your finger on one, which is the guaranteed shift you're going to see when you go from working with peers to managing peers. I agree with that. I think that there's also a shift that happens for sure with practice size. I think that when you're running the one to three vet practice and you've got 20 employees or less, you can probably be friends with everybody, you know what I mean? And it seems a whole lot easier.

Andy Roark:

But once you cross that threshold of about probably 20 employees, there's going to be people that your personality doesn't match up with, or you're going to have enough people who are vying for opportunities and things that there start to be some politics involved and friendship in politics. Friendship across the power dynamic, and politics, those things together, I think that make it exponentially harder. I think you see this a lot less in the bigger practices.

Andy Roark:

I can't prove that. I don't have research to back that up, but that has been my experiences. When you have a small practice, everybody works together, communicates, huddles together. You tend to build and maintain those relationships. And then, as the practice grows, it gets a bit harder. Favoritism becomes something that people look for a little bit more and it makes a difference. Again, you and I, we talk so much about our management philosophies, and we talk a lot about picking your poison.

Andy Roark:

We talk a lot about management and leadership being the ability and the constitution, the fortitude to make hard decisions. There's often you're making choices that don't have a great answer. You're choosing between two-

Stephanie Goss:

Crappy choices.

Andy Roark:

… unfavorable options.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah.

Andy Roark:

Yeah. You just are, and that's I think probably why the Uncharted community comes together and why the listeners on the podcast come together. It feels good to know that you're not the only one who's making hard decisions and making these choices. It's hard for me in relationship management to make unpopular choices and have the people affected by those choices be… I don't know, to feel like I have the responsibility of friendship to those people.

Andy Roark:

I can care very much about them and still make the unpopular decision or the hard call and say, “I know you're not going to like this decision, but I'm going to make it.” I think in your mind, the way you think about your relationship with the people that you lead, I think it's very important. Again, I try to avoid military metaphors or things, but I have a friend who went to officer training school. He's in the Marine Corps and went to Afghanistan.

Andy Roark:

We talked about it. In officer training school, they don't hang out with the troops and they don't eat with the troops. They eat with the other officers. The reason is because, hey, at some point, things might go badly and I'm going to have to make hard choices. And I don't want to be connected as a friend. That doesn't mean that they don't care about their people. The opposite is true.

Andy Roark:

But I don't want to push it that far in vet medicine, but I do think, to me, knowing that I don't like making unpopular decisions, there is some level of that too of, I don't want to be so tightly intertwined with people that my choices affect their life. For example, your best friend's a technician and he makes $17 an hour, and you have the ability to give him $1.50 an hour raise. That's a significant thing in his life, and you have that power.

Andy Roark:

If you're his friend, then it seems obvious that you're going to say. But that's not how this works because that means someone else doesn't get that raise and we need to look at, what is our system for deciding these things? Anyway, there's all these strings. I hope that makes sense when I say that the fact that you have… If we never had to make unpopular decisions, if we never had to pick priorities over other priorities, I think it would be a whole lot easier.

Andy Roark:

But the truth is, ultimately, especially as you go down the road and you grow a business, you have to make those calls. I think you can have very healthy relationships with people that you care a lot about, but just the way that you categorize those in your mind, that's important.

Stephanie Goss:

There's two other things that I think are really important. I agree with you 100% because we're going to make decisions that are not popular. I honestly love that you brought up the military reference because it's true. When you're a leader, you have to evaluate people, situations, performance, sometimes really quickly or under pressure, and equality matters.

Stephanie Goss:

It does not go well for anybody when there is an environment where equality doesn't matter in the workplace and where favorites are played, and there is that internal, “They are biased. They like this person better than me. This person got $1.50 an hour raise and there's no transparency as to why.” That never works out well for anybody. And so, I think that there is a significant value in that reference that you gave and I love it.

Stephanie Goss:

The other thing that I want to say is, look, it's totally normal to feel rejected. It sucks. When you're used to being included, and you're used to being part of the party, and you're used to everybody saying, “Hey, we're not going to leave without Stephanie. Let's help you get your work done so we can all go have drinks at the bar,” the first time, the first 10 times that you're in your office and you come out and all the lights are off and you walk outside…

Stephanie Goss:

This was me. We literally had a Mexican food place right across the street from one of my practices. The whole front of the building was glass. I came outside and the clinic was totally dark. I walked outside and I could see everybody sitting together at a table having drinks and dinner. I felt so left out and so rejected. And so, I want to normalize that for you guys because it sucks.

Stephanie Goss:

It sucks the first time. It sucks the tenth time and everywhere in between. That is normal. It's going to feel crappy and it's okay to feel sad about that. Or any other emotions that you might feel, angry… They're all valid emotions. And so, again, this is where I'm going to be vulnerable and say, “One of the best things for helping me succeed at making that transition and continuing to grow in feeling good about the choices that I have made as a leader and as a boss is going to therapy.”

Stephanie Goss:

And so, I took my ass to the therapist and talked through those emotions and said… It really hurt. I did not want to go back to work the next day and face them because I felt so… I was sad, but I was also angry. I was like, “Really? You guys left me out? This really sucks.” And so, being able to work through that is really important. And so, I have to normalize that for a hot second.

Stephanie Goss:

The other thing I think that I see from a headspace perspective, that's really, really important to consider, and this can be a soapbox for us, and so I think we have to be careful here from a time perspective. But one of the things that has shifted dramatically now is that social media and smartphones have connected us in a way or unlike anything we have seen before. And when I started managing almost 20 years ago, that wasn't a thing like.

Stephanie Goss:

I was connected with my university friends on Facebook. I didn't know anybody else on Facebook. That was what we used it for. I didn't know what the rest of my team was doing outside of work, unless I called them on their phone at home. And if they weren't in their house, I didn't talk to them. I could page them and maybe they would call me back, and I'm totally dating myself here. But the reality was, unless we were actually physically in the same space, I didn't know what was happening.

Stephanie Goss:

One of the things that I see a lot of managers struggle with now, is we are so connected and a lot of us are connected by our phones, by social media, by text messages. It is really easy for two things to happen. One, it's really easy for you to feel more left out because you're seeing and hearing things that are happening, that you wouldn't have seen or necessarily heard about otherwise.

Stephanie Goss:

You also are knowing more about what is happening in your team's personal lives in a way that you didn't necessarily before. I mean, let's be real, the OR has always been a confessional room and there's always been dirty secrets shared in surgery, but the reality was it was like those were where you had the deep conversations. Then you didn't hear about all of that drama as much as, “Hey look, I just opened Facebook, and oh, hey, Sarah called out sick today. But look, here she is sitting on a beach with a drink in her hand. What the hell?”

Stephanie Goss:

We have access to that kind of information. That alone has dramatically shifted the dynamics of people being friends with their boss. That's a position I've been in where I've been friends with somebody or friendly with somebody and have been connected with them on social media, and I find out things that I didn't need to know. It's connecting us in ways that we never had before and in a timeframe that we never had before.

Stephanie Goss:

There's 24/7 access to each other and it never was that way when you had to be physically in the same building for those connections to happen. And so, I think it's important to it to have that conversation about what we are facing now as managers, going through that shift, is radically different than what it was like when I first started, and that's a hard place to be in. So I think it's really important to normalize that as well.

Stephanie Goss:

That's the devil in your pocket, comes from that connection on social media, because you will find out things that you didn't necessarily want to know. It can be a good thing and it also can really add to complicating factors in the relationship. So I think it's important to look at that.

Andy Roark:

Yeah. I know. I completely agree with that. Yeah. I completely agree. To be honest, the last couple of years, social media connections with people at the clinic, staff and things, I learned more about people's politics than I wanted to know. I learned more about their entertainment taste that I wanted to know. And lots of other things that I go, “I did not need to know this.”

Andy Roark:

There's also, you and I have talked before about hiring and things, and there is a right to privacy. It doesn't matter what I think. What I think and what is the law are not the same. I think if people put things out into the world for public display, then employers should be able to look at them because they were put out into the world of free volition for public display. But that is not what the law generally says.

Stephanie Goss:

Look at you getting your gold star today.

Andy Roark:

I know. Was like but-

Stephanie Goss:

Your HR gold star.

Andy Roark:

That's not the rule, and no one asked me what the rule was and my magic wand doesn't work. You go, “Surely there's no downside to me even looking at this,” and I go, “I have to tell you, there actually is.” Anyway, we'll talk about this when we talk about some action steps. But honestly, social media is something to consider, especially if you're having these feelings of loneliness, is is this connection helping you? We'll circle back to that.

Andy Roark:

But before we take a break, I just wanted to share a story similar to yours. The story that I remember, similar to yours, going out and everybody's across the street, the Mexican restaurant. I remember, I wasn't even the boss. I was an associate vet, but I was starting to travel and speak more and do more stuff. I had cut my hours down at the clinic to part-time. And so, I was working at the clinic like two days a week, maybe two and a half days a week. It was like two days and every other Saturday, something like that.

Andy Roark:

I'll never forget the first time that I'd come in to get something at the practice and there was a doctor's meeting going on. They were just getting started. I wasn't there for the doctor's meeting, I was there for something else. Then they looked at me and then they closed the door and I was on the outside of the door.

Stephanie Goss:

Ouch.

Andy Roark:

Yeah. It wasn't that it hurt. I don't know. It was poignant. It was deeply poignant.

Stephanie Goss:

Sure.

Andy Roark:

It was deeply poignant because I was now out of the inner circle because of my frequency being at the practice.

Stephanie Goss:

Sure.

Andy Roark:

But I just want to tie that back to what you were saying and say, impermanence is part of our life, is the only constant is impermanence. For when we come back and talk about action steps, the idea that you are now in a different place and your world is different than it was before can cause an existential crisis. I think a lot of us have that moment of the door closing, of seeing our friends across the street, and it dawns on us that we're not the person that we were before, even if we feel the same way.

Andy Roark:

But let's be honest about our lives. Most of us feel the same way we did when we were 14, or when we were in college. But people don't see us the same way and we're not the same way. But everyone kept waiting for some magical event where they're like, “Now I'm a grown up,” and they were shocked it never came. So you see these external things that give you clear signs, like, oh, the past is passed and the page has turned and you're in a new chapter. A lot of times you're like, “I don't know what this chapter is.” And it feels like history has been cut off or taken away from us.

Andy Roark:

And so, anyway, I just wanted to validate that and say, “Yeah, I think a lot of us have that moment where we realize that we're not in Kansas anymore.

Stephanie Goss:

Not the same, yeah.

Andy Roark:

Things are not the same as they used to be.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah. I love that. I think this is a good spot. Should we take a break and then come back and talk about some action steps?

Andy Roark:

Yeah. Let's do it.

Stephanie Goss:

All right.

Andy Roark:

Hey, Stephanie Goss, you've got a second to talk about GuardianVets?

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah. What do you want to talk about?

Andy Roark:

Man, I hear from people all the time that are overwhelmed because the phones never stop ringing.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes.

Andy Roark:

And I'm sure you hear from these people as well, like, “Our caseload is blowing up and the doctors are busy, and the phones just don't stop.”

Stephanie Goss:

They never stop. That is a true story.

Andy Roark:

I'm amazed by how few veterinarians know about GuardianVets. This is a service where you have registered technicians who can jump in virtually and help you on the phones. You can flip the switch and GuardianVets can jump in and take some of the load off the front desk, and they can handle your clients and get them booked for your appointments and give them support. And it really is a godsend.

Stephanie Goss:

Pre-pandemic. It was amazing to me how many people hadn't heard about it for after hours call help. But at this point, I can't believe how many people don't realize that they are offering help during the daytime as well, which I would think right now is a huge benefit to practices because everybody is shorthanded. Everybody is drowning in phone calls, and so, we talk about it. We've talked about GuardianVets a lot on the podcast. And every time we do, we always get somebody who says, “What is that?”

Andy Roark:

Guys, if you're not familiar with GuardianVets, if you think that you could use them help on the phones or up the front desk, check them out. It's guardianvets.com. If you mention our podcast, me and Stephanie Goss, you get a month free. So check it out, guardianvets.com.

Stephanie Goss:

Okay. Okay. Okay. It's time for read a break in here and make sure that you know about an upcoming event that you are not going to miss. Mark it on your calendar, Saturday, May 21st from two to 4:00 PM Eastern, which is 11:00 to 1:00 PM Pacific. We have got a workshop from Uncharted founding member and our friend, Dr. Tracy Sands. It is, Retaining Our Team, Speaking Languages of Appreciation in your Workplace. You know that feeling when you have done something that you thought was really nice for somebody on your team, giving them an extra weekend off, a holiday bonus, a pizza party, done a coffee run, and yet you're hearing rumors that people were not excited about it, and certainly not your level of excited about it?

Stephanie Goss:

Have you ever wondered how people could not feel appreciated by what you're doing for them? You're not alone, and that's where this workshop comes in. The truth is there's no single strategy to make your team feel appreciated and engaged as a whole. Every person has their own appreciation language. And a lot of them, especially in veterinary medicine, have nothing to do with gifts or food. Trace is going to teach about the languages of appreciation and help you unlock figuring out how to motivate, train, and retain your team.

Stephanie Goss:

It's a two-hour workshop. It is live and interactive. You're going to really enjoy this. You can get on board. It's $99 for members of the public. So if you're not an Uncharted member, you can still attend. If you are an Uncharted member, it's free, but you do have to register. So head on over to unchartedvet.com/events and you can find the registration information. Again, it's Saturday, May 21st from 2:00 to 4:00 PM Eastern, 11:00 to 1:00 PM Pacific. You're not going to don't want to miss this one.

Stephanie Goss:

Real quick, before we get back to the podcast, I just have to say a few thank yous. First of all, I have to give our friends at Banfield Pet Hospital a huge shout-out of appreciation. They stepped up to the plate this year for Andy and I, and really the veterinary community as a whole in a big way. They are helping us make our podcast more accessible to the entire veterinary community. They're helping us provide transcripts for every episode of both the Uncharted veterinary podcast and the Cone of Shame Podcast for the entire year.

Stephanie Goss:

It falls right in Banfield's wheelhouse of striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. If you know someone who would like to access the podcast and hasn't been able to because we previously didn't have transcripts, send them to unchartedvet.com/blog. And if you would love to check out more information about equity, inclusion, and diversity at Banfield, you can head on over to the blog too. You'll find every episode transcript along with more information about E, I, and D at Banfield.

Stephanie Goss:

Lastly, I want to say, this is certainly not a last but not least moment. I want to say thank you, a huge, huge thank you to our anchor gang sponsors. We are heading to Greenville, South Carolina in just a few short weeks and we're having our live April conference. We would not be able to do our live Uncharted events without the support of our sponsors. We have some amazing anchor gang sponsor this year and they deserve a special shout-out.

Stephanie Goss:

To our friends at CareCredit, at Hill's Pet Nutrition, and nationwide on behalf of the entire Uncharted community, I say, thank you. We couldn't do it without you. I am so looking forward to spending time with all of you in Greenville. Now let's get back to the podcast.

Andy Roark:

All right. Let's start to unpack some action steps. The original question we got was, how am I supposed to feel and what am I supposed to do when everyone goes out for a drink and I don't get invited, and I feel like I'm on the outside? Yeah. Do you want to go ahead and start what steps we're going to take?

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah, totally. This is very much coming from my own experience, obviously. It's colored by that, because I went through feeling like it's very lonely as the boss. And so, when I sat down and started to think about, how do I attach this? I think the attack, for me, starts with acknowledging the dynamic shift. Regardless of whether you are going to try and stay friends with your peers or not, acknowledging the shift that has occurred is really, really, really important.

Andy Roark:

Publicly acknowledging or just for you?

Stephanie Goss:

I think both because… The reason that I say both is because I think you have to acknowledge it for yourself, first and foremost, knowing how you feel about it and just saying, “I am the…” I remember going through this period of like… It was disbelief. “I don't feel like the boss. I still feel like the same person I was yesterday.” That took some mental work for me, to realize like, “Oh, wait, I am in charge. I am the responsible grown up in the room now.” That is a shift that really takes some mental energy to work through.

Andy Roark:

Yeah, no, I'm still shocked by that, when I'm like “Who's in charge here? Oh-

Stephanie Goss:

Wait, it's me.

Andy Roark:

Oh, it's me.”

Stephanie Goss:

Right. It's totally true. I think if you do want to stay friends with your peers, I think it is equally, if not more important, to acknowledge the dynamic shift out loud to each other and have a conversation about, “Hey, look, this is a thing that actually has happened, and here's the impact that I can see. How feel about this? What are you seeing? How can we work this out?” Because I said in the beginning, the only way that you can stay friends is if you have really strong communication skills and really strong boundaries.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, for me, it starts with acknowledging the dynamic shift for yourself, but also acknowledging it with the people that you are concerned about staying friends with, or worrying about losing those friendships.

Andy Roark:

Okay. You're going to have to walk me through the second part here. “Now that I have risen above you all, I would like to point out that I am the boss and have the ability to fire you at my leisure. Let's go around the circle and you can all say what you think of me.”

Stephanie Goss:

Oh, God.

Andy Roark:

Yeah. I 100% agree with the personal identity. Help-

Stephanie Goss:

Are you sure [crosstalk 00:40:23]?

Andy Roark:

I'm asking you honestly.

Stephanie Goss:

Okay.

Andy Roark:

Help me understand. What does that look like when you're like, “All right. Just so you all know, I'm the boss.”

Stephanie Goss:

No. For me, what that looked like was, “Hey, I'm feeling a lot of anxiety about this. I am recognizing that we are really good friends. And to this point, we have approached the bosses and management together as a united team. And now I'm in a position where I value your opinion and I respect it, and I still have to learn how to work to manage together with our practice owner,” or the leadership team or whatever that structure looks like in the practice.

Stephanie Goss:

“I am worried that there may be conflict of interest. I am worried that you might tell me things that I feel duty bound to share. I am worried about…” For me, there was a whole list of things that came top of mind of like, “This is what I'm feeling anxiety about.” And so, it was just saying it out loud. I'll just say, sitting down with Sarah and having a conversation, “Hey, Sarah, this is stressing me out. I just need to talk through this with you, because I respect you and I respect our relationship, and our friendship means so much to me. And I want to keep our friendship. I need to talk through this.”

Stephanie Goss:

And so, it wasn't a, “I'm going to sit on my throne and everybody appreciate me because I'm now the boss.” It was very much like, “Hey, we have a friendship.” This is a normal conversation. If I was worried or stressed about something, this is the person that I would talk to about that. So it didn't feel weird at all for me to say, “Hey, I'm really stressing about this. Can we talk about this for a second? Because I don't want to lose our friendship.”

Andy Roark:

Yeah, no, I like that a lot. That totally makes sense, just to have that candid conversation and just be like, “Hey, let's talk about what our relationship is now.” I think that's interesting. I have to sit with that because I-

Stephanie Goss:

Because there's going to be things that you can't tell them, that they're going to ask you about and you're going to have to say, “I can't talk about this.” That is a weird dynamic shift. And if you don't acknowledge that, let me tell you, that's a hard conversation when all of a sudden you know information and they're pumping you for it. And you're like, “I can't talk about it.”

Andy Roark:

Yeah. It's a whole lot easier to have that conversation when there's not a piece of information that they're looking for… Now that, okay, I think you sold me on that. I think that makes sense. I think the bigger thing, yes. I think you sold me on that. Generally having communications about awkward things is definitely the right way to go. So it's not a hard sell, but I have to get my head around what that looks like.

Andy Roark:

I'll tell you, the bigger part for me was self-identity part. That was really it. And so, I think that the logical progression for most of us is, you have the moment when you come into your office and the lights are all off and everyone has left. You have the moments when you leave the clinic and the team is across the street at the Mexican place and they didn't invite you. You have the moments when the door closes as the staff is having a-

Stephanie Goss:

Meeting.

Andy Roark:

… talk amongst themselves. You walk in and people stop talking and you realize it's because you're their… and you have those moments. I think that hits a lot of us hard. When we find our moment, we have that. I think the step after that is that we get thrown in this existential crisis because we're like, “Who am I? If I'm not one of the gang, who am I and what does this mean for me?” You and I have done a lot of work with corporate groups recently, which has been super awesome. I love building communities inside of groups of practices and getting people to work together.

Andy Roark:

And so, that's been super great. One of the things that I've seen in these groups is there'll be doctors and the doctors will move up to be leadership over a division or over multiple hospitals. They're not in practice as much and they will 100% have that existential crisis of, “Who am I if I'm not seeing appointments? If I'm not a doctor in the exam rooms, what does that mean for me? “

Andy Roark:

And so, this same identity crisis manifests a couple different ways. The thing I say to them, because the thing that I had to go through when I looked at my weird career and started to think, is am I a real vet? Am I still a vet if I'm seeing appointments one day a week or two days a week?

Stephanie Goss:

Sure.

Andy Roark:

Or if I don't see appointments for a month because traveling continuously and then come back, what does that mean? I think most of us have to stop and we have to accept that we are in a different place, that our life has changed. The only way that you can do that, I think where people really screw themselves up is they tie their identity to their previous role. They say, “I am a CBT. I am a technician. I am a real doctor. That's what I am.” And they define themselves that way.

Andy Roark:

So then when they look around and they are not seen as a CBT, they still have that degree. They still have that credentialing, but they're not on the floor and they're not drawing blood. And no one cares about their clinical skills because they're not using them. They're thrown for this loop. And so, what has to happen after that is you have to be able to step away, in my opinion, and you have to say to yourself, “I am who I am, and I am a credentialed technician. I didn't say that I do blood draws. I didn't say that I did these things. I am the manager of this practice. I am the owner of this practice. I am a business owner. And I also practice veterinary medicine.”

Andy Roark:

As opposed to, “I am a real veterinarian and I don't have time to practice because I'm too busy running this business.” I think that latter, that really tortures people. And so, anyway, I hope I'm being clear enough about this, but I think you have to accept that your position is different. Then you have to look at how you identify yourself, because if you identify as one of the gang, one of the cool kids, one of the people on the inside, and then this thing changes and your friends from before indicate to you that maybe you're not on the inside anymore, that's fine if you also agree that you're not on the inside because you're doing something else that you're excited about.

Andy Roark:

It's not fine if you don't identify as someone who's not on the inside, because now you're in conflict. It's called incongruence, is when we look in the mirror and we see ourself and we see who want to be. And then we look at our actual self, and when those two things don't match up in our minds, that causes us pain. The psychological term is called incongruence.

Andy Roark:

And so, I think a lot of us, the pain that we feel of realizing we're on the outside is actually incongruence because we so see ourselves as being connected to the people that we worked with on the inner circle. And now we look around and we are clearly, as I see them at the Mexican restaurant, I am clearly not in the inner circle. That's incongruence in what I see myself being and what the evidence is showing me that I am. And so, you have got to step back and reset your mental expectations and your identity.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah. The last piece of acceptance and mental gymnastics is I think that you have to make peace with what it means to be the boss, because you will be the bad guy and people will not like you at times.

Andy Roark:

At times.

Stephanie Goss:

That is really hard for… Especially like I am a people pleaser. I want people to like me. I want to be included. There's no one, I think, ever in the history of leadership who didn't piss somebody off or make somebody upset or make somebody mad like. The reality is at times you will not be liked. Everybody will not be happy with you. You will have had to be the bad guy. And so, it is really important ideally, before you step into that role, to make peace with that.

Stephanie Goss:

If you are already in that role, you have to make peace with that, or you have to get to a place where you're like, “Hey, I can't make peace with this. I'm maybe going to go back to just being a part of the team, because that matters more to me.” And that's an okay choice too. But if you are going to continue to be a leader, it is lonely at the top and you have to make peace with the fact that you are not going to be the popular kid 100% of the time and people will not like you. If you can't get okay with that, you are probably not going to be happy in the long term in a leadership role.

Andy Roark:

Yeah. I agree with that. You definitely have to accept that role. The last part I would leave on acceptance… This is my last [inaudible 00:49:11] on the acceptance part is, I think when you and I talk about it, we talk about you're in or you're out. And the truth is I haven't found that necessarily to be true. And so, if people are going, “Why would anyone ever want to lead when people aren't going to like you and you're going to get excluded?”

Andy Roark:

As the Buddhists say, the middle path is generally the right one. I have never been in a place where I go, “Oh, now I'm leading this team. I am now alone.” Like suddenly I'm Batman, I work alone. I am human resource vengeance. That's not how this works. I had to make peace with the idea that I'm not going to get invited to the social gatherings. But instead, when I go to the Mexican restaurant and I see my techs there, I'm going to buy them around of beers. You know what I mean? Or I'm going to send a couple desserts over to the table to show them that I appreciate them. You know what I mean? And just celebrate them.

Andy Roark:

I'll probably go and say hi. If I am invited to come and hang out, I generally go and I pick up the first round of drinks, and it's a nice thing that I do. Then I leave because I do not want to be there when people start getting sloppy. What they do is up to them. I don't want to be there to see it. And so, it's not like you're taking a vow of isolation. Yeah, you're not going into the monastery to not see people anymore. It's like, “No, you can still generally be a part of what's going on.”

Andy Roark:

Oftentimes, there's also this weird, awkward transition of, my role has changed and people aren't sure what to make of me. And so, they step back and go, “What's he going to be like in this role?” Ultimately, they're going to realize that, oh, he's still a nice guy. He's still trying to do his best. He's still going to try to look out for us, do everything he can to support us in our mission.” And things sort themselves out pretty well from there.

Andy Roark:

Anyway, I don't want people to be like, “Oh, they're acting like you just go lone wolf and leave.” No, you're still going to be involved in most things. You just have to realize that you're not going to be right in the middle of the drama and you don't want to be, but you're also not going to be cold and shunning and not involved in these people's lives. You still want to know them. You still want to earn their trust.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes. I feel very fulfilled from the relationships that I have with my team or I wouldn't do this job. The connection to them, knowing about when they get married or have babies, or somebody's spouse gets a promotion, or somebody's kid takes their first steps, I still celebrate in all of those things with my team and I'm perfectly okay having boundaries. Like I don't want to know what's happening in their sex life. I don't want to know about their boyfriend spending yesterday in jail because they got in a drunken fight at the bar.

Stephanie Goss:

I'm perfectly okay with there being some boundaries there and I can still feel very fulfilled and connected to them. That's the way that I choose to walk. And like I said, I have friends who were some of my peers when I was a technician. Now I'm a manager, some of my peers as technicians are still my best friends. I think that's fantastic. I think ultimately you have to decide and this is very much where you do you. There is no right or wrong answer, I don't think. I think it's very much individual.

Stephanie Goss:

I think that your point is so, so true, like you're not going to go lone wolf and be Batman, and nobody knows who you really are. There are people who choose that, and if that works for you, more power to you. I think on a personal level, you and I are not that.

Andy Roark:

Yeah. No.

Stephanie Goss:

We approach more of the middle ground and I am fulfilled by that. I really do enjoy that piece. But doesn't mean that I have to want to invite them over to my house for Thanksgiving dinner.

Andy Roark:

Oh yeah. I mean, I completely agree. So [inaudible 00:53:21] to that, I would say, and this is very controversial and some people will react strongly. But consider unfollowing your direct reports, like once you move into these roles. I say that for two reasons. Number one is, you probably don't want to necessarily know what's going on at home, and just that knowledge can cause problems.

Andy Roark:

The other part is, if it causes you pain because you see yourself not being included in the social things that are going on, you don't don't deserve that. And so, my advice to you is to say, “Hey, it's going to be what's going to be. It's not about you.” If it bothers you, don't expose yourself to that. Just unfollow those people. You can always turn them back on if you want to later on.

Andy Roark:

But my advice is just separate yourself. And if you're going to do that… Again, I am a very extroverted person. I get really lonely. I sometimes wonder, I was like, “If I wasn't married, how would I live?” I was like, “I'd have roommates.” I would be 45 year old with roommates for sure, because that's just how I am.

Stephanie Goss:

You're a people person.

Andy Roark:

Yeah, I'm a people person. And so, I am not saying, “Go be lonely.” I'm saying, “Take the bull by the horns and go make some friends.”

Stephanie Goss:

Yep. Find the third space.

Andy Roark:

Yep. We talk about third space here. First space is your home. Second space is your work. If your whole life is going from work to home and home to work and work to home and home to work, I worry about you, and I worry about your mental health, and I worry about burnout. You are going to be healthier and happier and more connected and more grounded if you have a place to go that is not the vet clinic and is not your home. It is a place where you go and interact with other people.

Andy Roark:

My advice, ideally, these people don't know that you're a vet. They don't know that you work with animals and or they don't care. Go and don't be Andy Roark, veterinarian. Go and be Andy Roark, blossoming potter. Go be blossoming painter. What if we want to do-

Stephanie Goss:

I was waiting for the garden reference.

Andy Roark:

Yeah. Yeah. No-

Stephanie Goss:

Sure.

Andy Roark:

Yeah. There's like-

Stephanie Goss:

The garden club.

Andy Roark:

Blossoming garden club secretary. Whatever it is, that's what I'd be. But no, I mean, I do… Yeah. I have ridiculous hobby. I do improv comedy and no one cares that I am a vet. I practice one night a week and we play in a bar/coffee shop one night a week. I love those guys and I have a rich social life through that outlet. My wife does curling where she slides the rocks and sweeps. I've done seasons of that in the past, and those guys are fun. It's just I find weird stuff like that to do and jump into and I make new friends.

Andy Roark:

I do that because I need to be a person outside of the vet clinic. Yeah, that's my advice, is it is not uncommon to have your whole social life and everything wrapped up with the people that you work in. At some point, you look around and you go, “That's not a viable strategy anymore and I need to find some things that are not tied…” Especially when you're leader, the best thing is to be around other leaders. Plug for Uncharted practice owner conference or, or Uncharted membership.

Stephanie Goss:

The practice managers group. Yeah. No, that would be me. It's not a third space. It very much goes to the second space. But I think the last big thing for me is there is a lot of danger in discussing the challenges of the job, because being a leader is very challenging and it can be very easy to want to vent to your peers. When the dynamic is different, venting is a recipe for disaster when you're doing it with people who now are subordinate and you are their boss.

Stephanie Goss:

So, for me, the hard and fast rule for myself was I had to put up some boundaries about talking about work things with my friends, because I was trying to preserve those friendships and stay friends with them. And so, the best thing that I ever did for myself was finding connections with other managers and or a coach, or a mentor. Especially if you're new to a leadership in a management role, finding someone disconnected from your practice is a game changer.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, for me, that started with a local managers group and connecting with other managers locally, who they weren't the practice right down the street but we had enough in common geographically. We could talk about things, bounce ideas off of each other. My love for networking connection very much grew from there. I joined VHMA, the veterinary hospital manager's association. Eventually led me to joining Uncharted.

Stephanie Goss:

Being able to connect in Uncharted does that, I feel like, so, so well. And it's not just a shameless plug because you have the ability to connect and really transition from that space of, “I am frustrated by this and I just need to vent,” into, “Here are peers who get it and I can say, ‘I'm really hurt right now. I did this nice thing for my team and nobody said thank you. I'm really upset about it. And how do I make this better in the future and be able to ask for help?'” Because people have been there.

Stephanie Goss:

That is the first thing that often happens, is everybody's like, “Dude, I've been there. It sucks. Be okay. Go get yourself a Starbucks, because today is a crappy day and let's figure out how to approach this better in the future.” So making those connections outside of work, I feel like, is so important. It is a game changer.

Andy Roark:

Yeah. I agree. Well, thanks for talking this through with me.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah. This was a good one. I hope that it helped our lonely leader listener and maybe some of the rest of you guys. If you enjoy this and you have enjoyed nerding out on this kind of thing, as Andy and I both mentioned, this is the kind of thing that we talk about all the time in Uncharted, and you can come join us and hang out-

Andy Roark:

You can.

Stephanie Goss:

… and be part of these conversations as a member of our community.

Andy Roark:

You could totally come join us if you feel like your team is circled up and, (singing). That's it. This needs to be over.

Stephanie Goss:

Oh, that's where we need somebody to yank us off the stage.

Andy Roark:

Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:

Have a great week. Everybody

Andy Roark:

Dustin, play us out. (singing)

Stephanie Goss:

That was fantastic. 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. 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.

Stephanie Goss:

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.

Written by TylerG · Categorized: Blog, Podcast

Mar 30 2022

The Entire World is on Backorder!

This week on the Uncharted Podcast…

Stephanie Goss is joined this week by Nicole Clausen of Veterinary Care Logistics. These days, it feels like the whole world is on backorder. Both Stephanie and Nicole are shocked and surprised regularly, at how many practices they talk to that have absolutely ZERO plan for what to do when things run out and aren’t available. In this episode, we are going to laugh, nerd out about inventory, practice management software, and home delivery/online pharmacies. We are going to discuss what we can do at the moment things run out (because even with the best systems in the world, humans happen). And best of all, we discuss what we can do to prepare for the future to minimize the impact of backorders on our patients, clients, and teams. Let’s get into this…

Uncharted Veterinary Podcast · UVP 171 The Entire World Is On Backorder

This episode is sponsored by:


Got a question for the mailbag? Submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

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Leaders, it’s time to flip the cycle upside down and do away with the mandatory and unproductive meetings. Learn how to run successful meetings driven by your core values. 

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Episode Transcript

Banfield Pet Hospital Logo

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.

Stephanie Goss:

Hey, everybody, I am Stephanie Goss. And this is another episode of The Uncharted Podcast. This week on the podcast, I am without my partner in crime, Dr. Andy Roark, but don't worry, he will be back better than ever for our next episode. And I have a fantastic special guest with me this week, and I'm excited to introduce her to you, we'll get into that in just one second.

Stephanie Goss:

But first, I have to say a big huge thank you to our friends at Vetsource. This episode is sponsored by Vetsource, which means it is coming to you ad-free. An online pharmacy can be a very important tool in your inventory toolbox. We know that it makes sense because we're going to be talking about inventory today.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, Vetsource has a very special offer for our Uncharted Podcast listeners. If you schedule a consultative call to learn more about how Vetsource can help you, you're going to head over to the link that they put together just for our listeners, which is vetsource.com/unchartedpodcast. The first 10 practices to schedule a call will receive an additional $50 GrubHub gift certificate, which is awesome.

Stephanie Goss:

So, thanks to the team at Vetsource for bringing this to us ad free today. And I also want to give a huge shout out to our friends at Banfield Pet Hospital. They stepped up to the plate in a big way and are making our podcast more accessible to the entire veterinary community by providing transcripts for every episode of both our Uncharted Podcast and the Cone of Shame Podcast for 2022. This falls right smack in the middle of their wheelhouse of striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession.

Stephanie Goss:

So, if you would like to learn more about equity, inclusion, and diversity at Banfield or to check out our transcripts, you can head over to the blog at unchartedvet.com/blog. You'll see the transcripts and there's some links that will get you over to find out more information about what Banfield is doing for E, I and D in the veterinary community.

Stephanie Goss:

And now, let's get into this episode. And now, The Uncharted Podcast.

Stephanie Goss:

Welcome back, everybody. I am Stephanie Goss. And once again, I am without my usual partner in crime, Dr. Andy Roark. However, I have a very fun and exciting guest here with me today. I have Nicole Clausen with me. And for those of you guys who don't know, Nicole, she is a super inventory nerd, which is what attracted me to her in the first place.

Stephanie Goss:

I love how much she is passionate about inventory, and about practice management systems. And really, about helping the profession figure out one of those things that seems to perplex people and practices over and over again. Welcome, Nicole.

Nicole Clausen:

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm excited about this episode.

Stephanie Goss:

I am so excited that you are here. So, I met Nicole, I don't even know how we actually met. But I knew of you for a really long time because I was manager who worked with AVImark, and did a lot of stuff in things. And I remember when I started working with other practices, there were not a lot of resources for getting the inventory beast. That is AVImark's inventory segment setup. And I remember you were doing some awesome stuff.

Stephanie Goss:

And it was so great to be able to look at what you were doing. And you've always been great about sharing resource information outwardly in our space, which I so admire. And so, tell us a little bit about why you started your company because you actually left practice to go all in on helping people with inventory. So, tell us a little bit about what that journey looked like for you.

Nicole Clausen:

Sure. So, and almost coming up on five years now, which is just crazy to think about. But so, when I very first started managing inventory, my inventory training was very, very limited. So, we're talking my training and look like, “Oh, when you shake a bottle and it feels low, you order it.” And that was basically the extension.

Stephanie Goss:

It's so funny. So, that's the training that we get.

Nicole Clausen:

When we started the whole, work for the best. So, to call me inventory manager in the beginning was being very generous. And I just remember feeling like, I like to be a person who knows what I'm doing. And I did not know what I was doing. And so, it made me very uncomfortable.

Nicole Clausen:

And I was brand new to practice, brand new to inventory. And so, basically, I was on the struggle bus. And this was before Facebook groups were a thing. And I was living in Montana fairly like isolated know from other people in Vet Med outside of my practice.

Nicole Clausen:

And so, basically, I just started learning everything that I could. And so, I started developing these systems in my inventory, and it was working pretty well. And I started, other local area practices would ask me for questions, et cetera. And then, I actually, had an NWA rep who asked me to speak to a practice managers group, about inventory.

Nicole Clausen:

And I just remember thinking to that, and I was like, “Oh, my word.” It just lit my soul on fire. I was like, “This is what I'm supposed to be doing is just helping people and educating them. And just seeing those light bulb moments go off, I just feel like I live for those light bulb moments. And I started doing just some speaking, and then it very quickly grew where people were asking me to come in and consult, and it's like, “Oh, yeah, I'll just do like a local area, Montana practices.” But I started going multiples very quickly.

Nicole Clausen:

And it's just evolved since then. But I think, my guiding light in my founding principle has always been, I want other inventory managers to feel like they have somebody in their corner because it can be such a lonely role because there's usually only one inventory manager in a practice. And then, on top of that, there's not a lot of training and resources out there.

Nicole Clausen:

And then, to compound it by, I think, Vet Med in general is fairly thankless, but especially as an inventory manager, because no one is ever like, “Oh, my gosh, thank you so much for having what we needed for this procedure today. You are the best.” So…

Stephanie Goss:

Isn't that the truth? Thank you so much for having those bottles of Rimadyl on the shelf? I appreciate you.” That is a thing that never happened.

Nicole Clausen:

No, I don't think I've ever heard that. So, I just wanted to be like, they are and feel even if like one person, if I could help one person feel like they had somebody in their corner. I feel like, I achieved my goal. So, that's how I got started.

Stephanie Goss:

You have definitely achieved your goal, because I know that you have helped a multitude of people beyond one person. Now, you have an open community on Facebook, which actually, I was just recently, did a podcast with Jen Galvin, and we're talking about inventory. And we were talking about the Facebook group, actually, and talking about how great it is that we have so many more Facebook groups in the veterinary community. I'm going to date myself here.

Stephanie Goss:

But I remember when I started in veterinary medicine, and the only online resource for people who were not doctors was the SPN, which has been support staff program.

Nicole Clausen:

Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:

And that was it. And it took me the longest time to find that because that was all that was out there. And online wasn't an option. And I feel like, one of the things that I appreciate as negative a black hole social media can be, one of the things that I do appreciate about Facebook is the ability to connect with people in our field.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, I'm an active member in your veterinary inventory group on there, and I love seeing people be able to reach out not only to you, who is someone who has gotten training and has a really solid foundation, obviously, on how to do inventory. But to each other, to ask those questions like, “Hey, are you having this problem? Hey, has anybody found anywhere to get this, because I asked my two regular distributors and this is on backorder and I really need this thing?”

Stephanie Goss:

It's like, those day-to-day questions where we used to be so isolated and used to maybe, call the practice down the street, or phone a friend and ask somebody you knew. But that was really, where it ended for a lot of us. And so, I love the space that you have made for people to be able to connect, and be able to talk to each other about that kind of stuff.

Nicole Clausen:

Thank you. I love the Facebook group, and I feel like there is just so many cool people in there. And I just love seeing that med has its problems, right? But there, I just love seeing just the amount of people that are so willing to help, and so giving, and so gracious, and so just willing to help people no matter what. I think, it's so great about so many people in Vet Med is just that spirit of giving and generosity. And so, I just love seeing the connections and all the growing and learning that's happening is so cool to witness.

Stephanie Goss:

Totally. Speaking of backorders, when you and I were talking about, we got nerdy together for a second over email, we're like, there's so many things that we would have fun talking about together. And one of those things that immediately stuck out to me was the idea of, what are some strategies for navigating backorder? And when you threw that out, I was like, “Yes,” because it feels like the whole world is on backorder right now.

Stephanie Goss:

I walk into the grocery store, and the shelves are half empty. You can't… I'm constantly getting, “This is out of stock,” alerts on all my auto-ship stuff with Amazon. It's not just us in veterinary medicine, and I know how frustrated I have been in the recent past with things being on backorder for the clinic. And I know that I'm not alone. I hear it regularly in the Uncharted community. I see it regularly in the inventory nerd group on Facebook. I see it in our manager groups that you and I are both in. Everybody's like, “This thing is on backorder.”

Stephanie Goss:

And the frustrating part, I think, for a lot of us is that, for a long time, something would go on backorder. But usually, there was an alternative, and you could find something else that you could replace it with. And the back orders were, even when they happened frequently, it was short lived, right? Maybe, something would go on backorder for a couple of months, but then it would come back in stock.

Stephanie Goss:

And I feel like the last two years, a lot of us have had to face things being on backorders for extended period of time. And multiple things, that would be a solution or a replacement for each other being on backorder at the same time. Because the whole world has latched on to this panic buying where toilet paper is out of stock on the grocery shelf. So, let's order nine tons of it from Amazon and hoard it in our house. And I feel like that has applied to the clinic as well.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, I want to talk a little bit today with you about what are some of those strategies? How do we approach the fact that things are going to go on backorder? How do we be better prepared for that when it happens in the moment? And then, also, what do we do to prepare for it again? Because eventually, something else is going to go on backorder. And better yet, what are some things that we can do with our inventory, so that we avoid issues in the first place, if at all possible?

Nicole Clausen:

Yeah. So, those are really great questions and such a timely thing because, absolutely, to your point, it seems like literally, anything and everything is on backorder right now. This is like so random, but my favorite drink in the whole world is a brown sugar, oatmeal shake, and espresso from Starbucks. And I live in a fairly rural area.

Nicole Clausen:

So, anytime I go to town, which is like a 20 or 30-minute adventure. Every time, I get to Starbucks, literally, every time, I tried to get my drink, and they're like, “Oh, we're out of oat milk, we're out of oat milk, we can't get it.” And I'm like, “Oh, no.” So, it's just one of those things right now. But I think, as we're thinking about backorders, there's so many pieces, right? It's like, how do we prepare for before they ever happen? What do we do when it actually happens? And then, what are some steps that maybe, we can take to kind of build in some resiliency there?

Nicole Clausen:

And I think the biggest one that comes down to is communication. So, that really is going to be the key to backorders because A, how do we communicate with our team that something's on backorder? How do we make sure that everyone knows, okay, this product is on backorder, and it's not necessarily just out of stock, or I forgot to order it?

Nicole Clausen:

So, I love the idea of creating a hospital Slack account, if you've never heard of Slack before, it is like an instant messenger platform essentially, where you can create different channels and all the other great stuff. And so, you can have a channel that's just for backorders. You could have a warrantless channel. You could have different channels for different departments. It's so flexible.

Nicole Clausen:

So, I really like that. But then, also adding an alert to your practice management system. So, somebody goes to dispense something, it says, “Product X, Y, Z is on backorder. Sorry, here's an alternative.” Some pins allow you to do that. Some not so much. But we'll talk about the completeness of pins… This is another big.

Stephanie Goss:

So, we're still in the stone age's, bless their hearts. Okay, so let's start at the beginning, which is like, and I think it goes out of order, right? So, you would think logically, how do we preemptively prepare, so that we don't struggle. And I think, you and I both know that most of our colleagues deal with backorder, when someone goes to get something off the shelf, and it's the last of something, and it's not been put on the order book.

Stephanie Goss:

And now, we're completely out of it. And you've got five posted notes on your desk from somebody saying, “Hey, I need this thing. And then, you go to order it. And oh, they're still or that it's on backorder. And now, you're telling people that not only has it not been ordered, and were completely out of it, but it's on backorder, and you're not going to get it. And it's that moment of panic, I feel like most of us deal with most often that triggers. I know, for me, always triggered massive anxiety around, how do I… To your point, how do I communicate this? Because I know I'm going to have to tell the team.

Stephanie Goss:

And then, if I tell everybody who's here today, it won't help me with the fact that people are off, and then you play the telephone game. And then, people are like, “I didn't get the memo.” And that doesn't that doesn't consider how do we communicate that to clients either as well, right?

Stephanie Goss:

So, I love your idea of Slack. I think that's so great. We use Slack in my practice. And we actually, had an inventory channel. And that's where all of our inventory communications went. And we, for those of you guys who do Slack, if you don't use it, I love that you brought it up, Nicole, because you should absolutely, check it out. It's a huge communication tool, and can do a lot for your team.

Stephanie Goss:

If you guys are on Microsoft Teams hospital, Teams has a similar Slackish kind of functionality within it. So, that's an alternative as well, and there's several others. But what I love about Slack is, we had an inventory channel. And so, within individual channels, you can create a post, and then you can pin it. And I think about pinning like a bulletin board.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, what I would do is I started a message called backorders, and the backorder post was pinned within our channel. And so, anybody could go into the inventory channel and click on the pinned post, and it would always be at the top, and they could see what was on inventory, when did it go on? Or, what was on backorder? Excuse me, when did it go on backorder? What was the expected ETA? What was the potential alternative, if there was one? And any other important notes like, this is on indefinite backorder. There are no other alternatives, the doctors are having a meeting to discuss what we're going to use instead, right? That kind of communication notes.

Stephanie Goss:

It serves two purposes. One, it helps keep it all in one place. And two, it helped me as the manager with that ongoing communication within our team, because to your point, the communication piece is often where a lot of practices struggle, I feel like.

Nicole Clausen:

Yeah, absolutely. And then, the communication can go beyond just how do we effectively communicate a backorder. But also, it's building those relationships with your sales reps with your especially the inside sales team, because they're going to be able to alert you to a lot of potential backorders that are coming down the pike. So, it's like building that relationship is so helpful.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes, I love that.

Nicole Clausen:

But then, also sometimes, okay, I'm not saying that we can predict backorders, because that's challenging. But sometimes, depending on what's going on in the world, we can think about, okay, is this going to have an impact on the supply chain?

Nicole Clausen:

So, if you remember back in 2017, I think it was, the big hurricane that hit Puerto Rico. And there's a ton of Baxter and manufacturing facilities in Puerto Rico. So, they had that huge hurricane. And subsequently, then we had huge backorders of fluids, fluid lines, all that other stuff, because we had all those facilities were damaged.

Nicole Clausen:

So, and then also, on that note, so if you remember maybe, it's like 2020, when India was really struggling with COVID really bad. India is actually, a huge exporter of generics. And so, because they have such a significant portion of generic exportation, we saw significant backorders in a lot of our generics.

Nicole Clausen:

So, sometimes, I mean, of course, not all, we can tell what might be coming down the pike as far as supply chain issues go, depending on what's going on with the world.

Stephanie Goss:

And I love your point about your inside sales reps because they are like, they're like the ones who should get cookies sent to them, right? Because they're amazing. And your point, the average inventory manager in a practice who's doing 95 other things during the course of their day, is not going to necessarily have the knowledge of what you were just talking about, right? They're not necessarily, going to know where different things are made in the world and where things come from.

Stephanie Goss:

But the inside sales reps, not only do they get notices on backorders, before they happen, but they also, that's what their training is for, right? They know that kind of stuff. And so, they should be your best friend.

Nicole Clausen:

Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:

And I, like you, leaned into those relationships and built really good ones. And in fact, it's funny because I have two inside sales reps at two different companies, distributor companies that I have worked with for the entire, I think, I'm going on my 18th year in practice, that whole time. And even though, I have moved states and moved territories multiple times, I have requested to keep that inside sales rep assigned to my account on more than one occasion, because they are amazing.

Stephanie Goss:

And it's worth building those relationships and taking the time to get to know them. Because lots of us lately, you and I both know living in rural areas, when you are in a rural area, you don't get the reps that walk into the practice on a regular basis. I feel like the first year I lived here, I could count on one hand, the number of reps I saw, and I probably, saw them twice in the first 12 months, if that, some of them I didn't see even at all, because the bigger their territories are, the more rural their territories are, the outside sales reps don't necessarily get to go around to everybody's practice.

Stephanie Goss:

So, but yet, everybody has an inside sales rep. And especially now that we've all leaned into remote communicating, having contact with them by email or phone, or I loved our distributors when they all started to add the chat functionality to their website.

Nicole Clausen:

Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:

The ability to be multitasking in their practice and chat with my inside sales rep. And ping them and be like, “Hey, can you tell me about this thing? It won't let me order it, but I really need it.”

Nicole Clausen:

Totally. Yeah, those relationships of our inside sales reps can be so beneficial, and just making sure, because a lot of times, they can make stuff happen.

Stephanie Goss:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). That is a true story. So, okay, so you think about communication being important, and when you think about communicating to the team, you mentioned needing to be able to communicate, what is happening with the backorder? Things like timeline. Do we have an alternative product? What do we know about the backorder situation? Is it now on allocation? Are we still going to be able to get it, but just in limited quantities? Is it completely unavailable? Are we in a pending queue, so that when they do get a stock in, we're going to get some like, all of that is important stuff to be able to communicate to the team?

Stephanie Goss:

And those are all the nitty-gritty details that people really, I feel like it's easy as the inventory manager to feel ignored a lot of the time, because the rest of the team is busy, right? And hundreds of times where I had shared that information with my team. They'd be like, “You never told me.” And I'm like, “Yes, I did.” But the reality is not that they're not listening, because that's the first place of mind goes this, right? Like, gosh, darn it, why doesn't anybody ever listen to me? But the reality is, they're doing a million things at once the same as I am.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, it goes in, and then it gets forgotten about. So, having a system where that can live, so that you can remind people and recall it and half the time, the doctors would ask me, “Hey, is this thing still on backorder?” And I couldn't tell you off the top of my head because things have moved and shifted and changed and the ability for myself to be able to go back and go, “Well, I don't know. Let me look, let me see what I put in Slack and see what the last update,” was huge.

Stephanie Goss:

So, that communication piece of it, are there other things that you can think of that we can do, particularly in the moment when we find out that something is on backorder to ease that pain? So, making friends with the inside sales reps. But, what else?

Nicole Clausen:

The next step would really be to see if there is an alternative, and come up with a little bit of a game plan. So, for example, in the case of, let's just say, Vetmedin and goes on backorder every other week, I feel like. Then, it's like, is there a compounded product of it.

Stephanie Goss:

True story.

Nicole Clausen:

Right. Yeah, it's like okay, it's just inevitable. It's not a matter if, it's a matter of when. So, it's like, isn't an alternative product? Can we get this compounded? Are the doctors comfortable with a compounded product? Is there an alternative product that's available? What does that kind of look like?

Nicole Clausen:

And so, I always recommend, especially in the moment because it is anxiety-inducing, it is a panic moment, just have like a cheat sheet, or just like, just some questions or something that you can either fill out or just think about, so have that readily available that says like, “Okay, I'm going to check compounding, I'm going to check with my inside sales reps.” And then, maybe, depending on the level of product importance, that might have like, a little bit of a change. Because we're going to treat tongue depressors differently, then we're going to treat like rabies vaccines or euthanasia solution.

Stephanie Goss:

Right, right.

Nicole Clausen:

So, it's like, depending on how critical this is, maybe I might do something differently. And then, trying to figure out, absolutely, to your point, if this is the long-term situation, because a couple years ago, if you remember, the opioid crisis, basically, we could not get anything for a long time. But we're down to basically, using like buprenorphine.

Nicole Clausen:

So, it's like, if that were to happen, what are our options going to be. And I guess, what is Plan A, maybe Plan C, maybe Plan F. And just thinking through, what fits best for your standard of care, what fits best for your veterinarians, for your care team, everything like that.

Stephanie Goss:

And this is where your point about communication, I think, is also really, really important because that is all communicating. And this is where it's hard for a lot of us who are inventory managers, because most of us are not doctors, although I know some of you who are listening to this, and I know your practice owners. And I know you're in charge of inventory at your practice, and you need to stop it because that should not be your job. Someone else on your team should be in charge of that. But I'm going to save that soapbox.

Stephanie Goss:

But most of our inventory managers are not doctors, right? So, we can't make those decisions in a silo. We have to be able to communicate with our practice owner, our medical director, our associate veterinarians, and have not only conversation and communication about what is going to happen, but they have to be involved in that decision-making process of you as the inventory manager supplying them with the information.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, you need to know things like, is this temporary or not? All of the questions that we've already talked about, and then be able to ask them, to your point, if we're talking about anesthesia, or something we use as part of our pre-med protocol, they need to know, are there any other alternatives? What can you get instead?

Stephanie Goss:

And so, I love your point about creating like a cheat sheet for yourself, or having some template, whether it's in your practice management software. They all have a glossary function, get yourself a glossary, and make yourself a glossary entry for when something is on backorder, so that you can fill in all of those note's fields. And then, kick a message to your practice owner or your medical director and say, “Hey, FYI, this thing is on backorder, here's all the info I have, please advise what you would like me to do,” right?

Stephanie Goss:

And then, that communication is really important because your doctor needs to be able to take under into account, is this something like, non-Earth shattering, maybe an eye ointment that's gone on backorder? And there's a generally, acceptable alternative that probably none of the other doctors are going to argue with them about? Or is this something like an anesthetic or pre-med where the other doctors might not feel comfortable using different things, and where they need to have a doctor's meeting to decide that kind of thing.

Nicole Clausen:

Totally.

Stephanie Goss:

And that's where I think that communication is so, so important.

Nicole Clausen:

Yeah, because I think as we kind of like go into, I think, well not really even go into, but just continue the season of supply chain disruptions. It's just important for our team to come together on this, and realize that, A, inventory is a team sport, and B, you can't make more product in your bathtub. So, we can't…

Stephanie Goss:

Right.

Nicole Clausen:

… conjure up these backorder products. So, it's like, how do we make sure that we are treating our patients to the best of our abilities because that's ultimately, what we're here for. So…

Stephanie Goss:

And let's talk about that for a second, because one of the things that I think can be a tool in the toolbox that a lot of times we forget is, there are often times where your main distributor might have something on backorder. But other distributors have it available, or where your online pharmacy partner has it available in stock, right? Because the distributors are buying things, obviously, in much larger quantities as our home delivery partners.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, that's a tool that you should absolutely have in your tool belt, and be able to reach for and know, who can I call? Who can I source? And it never pains me more than when I hear from somebody who's like, “We only have one distributor account, and I can't get this thing, what do I do?” And I'm like, “Ooh, freaking knife in the heart.”

Nicole Clausen:

Yeah, I know. It's like, “No, no, please.”

Stephanie Goss:

Right. So, I think knowing, and there's a couple of things for that, obviously, you as the inventory manager can't open up accounts, that's something that your practice owner or your medical director has to do, but having alternative distributors and being able to utilize something like VetCove, where you can just pop in what you're looking for and see, can you get it with another distributor in a one-stop view, right?

Stephanie Goss:

Or being able to lean in and say to a client, “Hey, we don't actually have this in stock, and it's on backorder. So, we're not actually, going to get a shipment for another couple of weeks. However, I can get you a bottle through our home delivery service or two bottles through them, because they still have it in stock, would you like me to send it to you, so that you have enough to get you through until we get our next shipment?” It's having those tools to lean into that I think are super important.

Nicole Clausen:

Totally. It's so important, I think especially right now with just our problems with availability is having the option for different distributors, manufacturers, just having that available to you. Because you can open an account, but you don't have to spend money with them. It's not like, you have to have like a monthly minimum.

Stephanie Goss:

Right.

Nicole Clausen:

So, I always recommend having different options, especially a mix of like smaller and larger distributors and vendors, so that if maybe your main one, it's on backorder through there, they can go a different route. And another thing that some people don't realize is when you're looking at your distributor's website, oftentimes, that's just the availability for your local warehouse.

Nicole Clausen:

So, it could be available in another warehouse. But that's where their relationship with your inside sales rep is key. Because you could just buzz them up and say, “Hey, I see this is on backorder for me, or it's out of stock, is it truly out of stock? Or is there some available in another warehouse?” So, I think that can be, just another really helpful tool for you.

Stephanie Goss:

So, getting out of the, in the moment, what are some of the things that we can do to prepare ourselves for when it's going to happen again? Because we know what's going to happen again. So, we were just talking about having multiple accounts with manufacturers and distributors, super, super key, right? Having an online and online pharmacy partner, I know you're a big advocate as well as I am. It doesn't matter who you're using. You just have to have one.

Nicole Clausen:

Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:

You have the ability to say to your clients, “Let me have this, basically, drop shipped and sent to your houses,” is so, so huge. Are there other things that practices can do to help plan for when it happens again?

Nicole Clausen:

I think one of the important things is twofold is, recognizing what your really important products are. Because I think, sometimes, we're in the day-to-day, and we're thinking, it's not really in our mind. The inventory is all created equal. But in terms of importance, that may not necessarily be the case, right?

Nicole Clausen:

So, our vaccines, our euthanasia solution, our pre-meds, all of those are way more important than cotton balls and tongue depressors, and what have you, slide covers. So, just keeping in the back of your mind, and just knowing, especially when we're just in survival mode of what those… I like to call them your VIP products, so that you always know what those key products are for your practice.

Nicole Clausen:

And you can kind of keep a pulse on them to see like, and then the other thing is if you use Vetcove, they have little different colored trucks. Sometimes, you can start to see like, oh, one goes on backorder, and then maybe a week later, another one goes on backorder. And you're like, “Something's not right here.”

Stephanie Goss:

Yup, yup.

Nicole Clausen:

So, you can start to see the progression of the backorders. So, that's helpful to monitor, if you have the time. But really, just acknowledging what those key products are, can be super helpful.

Stephanie Goss:

One of the things that I know you do a lot of educating on with the clinics that you work with, and then just in general, within the communities that you're a part of is, the concept of reorder points. And you and I know that that's born out of that place of fear for us where we started, where we're literally shaking the bottle and going, “There's three tablets left, maybe it's time that I order it.” Or, more often than not, we're looking at the shelf, and it's totally empty, and you don't know how long it's been empty for, but you know that it shouldn't be empty.

Nicole Clausen:

Or actually, it's got to be something here.

Stephanie Goss:

Exactly. And reorder points are something that I feel like people really, really struggle with a lot. It's hard to get a really good, well-functioning system in place. But to your point, that's something that's really important, knowing what those VIP products are, and learning how to lean into the… I think all of us who are inventory managers get trained in the have all the things on hand, don't run out of things, but also don't spend too much money, right?

Stephanie Goss:

And so, it feels like we're getting pressed from all sides. And I think that's one of those places where I learned to lean into knowing the inventory and feeling comfortable enough to say, “Hey, look, the multiple different trucks have started changing color, or my inside sales rep has given me that heads up, saying this is going to be a thing. And FYI, it's going to be a thing for the next few months. So, you might want to stock up on this.”

Stephanie Goss:

That's where I leaned into trusting that the give and take and saying to my practice owner, or my medical director, “Hey, I know we normally don't carry a lot of extra stock. And this is now gone on backorder with multiple manufacturers, I really like, this is one of our VIP things. I really feel like now is the time to order, three months' worth, so that we have enough on the shelf. Are you okay with that? Right?

Stephanie Goss:

And that conversation seems to be so hard for so many people to have. And it's one of those areas that I see people reorder points, just seem to be one of those areas that I see our colleagues struggle with a lot. And I know you talk to people a lot about it. So, tell me about how you think reorder points can help us with this, with the backorder piece.

Nicole Clausen:

Totally. So, what I like about reorder points, and I could probably go on forever and a day about reorder points, so I'm not trying to keep that so much for you. But my favorite thing about reorder points is, they give their data point, right? They give us data and information. They put numbers to it, right?

Nicole Clausen:

So, I bet you right now, if you're listening, if you asked every single person in your practice, what low means for like gabapentin, let's just say, you're going to get a different answer for every single person in your practice. And so, what reorder points do is, they allow you to quantify what low means, so that you can say, because I bet then if you survey 10 practices in your area, low is going to be different for every single practice.

Stephanie Goss:

Yup.

Nicole Clausen:

So, when you calculate and utilize reorder points, it can help you quantify what's low. And then, so going back to what you mentioned earlier about having that conversation with your practice owner, or your medical director about a three-month supply, you now have data behind that.

Nicole Clausen:

So, rather than just saying like, “Oh, I think we should just order 10 bottles,” right? You know, because you have calculated those reorder points and your reorder quantities, that each month you use a bottle and a quarter without fail. Just that's kind of, so then you know, okay, like going and looking at, okay, what am I going to purchase for three months? You know, because you have your 30-day supply, you know exactly what that's going to look like.

Nicole Clausen:

And then, it gives you confidence in that direction to have those conversations with data and information, rather than just kind of be like, “I'm pretty sure, we should do this.”

Stephanie Goss:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). And I will totally admit, like when there have been plenty of times, especially when I was getting started with inventory where I just went with my gut, and I was like, “I don't know, maybe I should buy five bottles.” That feels like it's enough. And then, inevitably, I would just pick and shoot in the dark, like throw dart, right? And then, the thing would come, and then we'd go through it in like a week.

Stephanie Goss:

And I'd be like, “Gosh, darn it.” And now, it's on total backorder. And you can't get it. And now, everybody's mad because they're like, “I thought you said you were ordering enough to get us through.” And I was like, “I thought I was.” Don't get mad, don't shoot the messenger. But I think, I love… You and I are both super spreadsheet nerdy, friends at heart. And I love that.

Stephanie Goss:

The data is so, so important. And to your point, the ability to communicate that effectively with the person who ultimately is in-charge of that with you, your partner, whether it's your press owner, or your medical director, whatever, the ability to say, “I've pulled the numbers from AVImark. And here's exactly, how much we've used in a three-month period. The inside sales rep is expecting this to be on backorder for at least eight weeks. I really think that we should get 12 weeks' worth to be sure, are you okay that I order it? Here's the dollar amount that that's going to cost us.”

Stephanie Goss:

And make a case for those instances, where you go above and beyond. Certainly, your mantra and mine, which is, if it doesn't turn over in 30 days, you probably don't need to have that much on your shelf, right? So, I love that.

Nicole Clausen:

And I just think about, when COVID first started happening, we were like first experiencing these backorders. Sometimes, it's really easy to like, give into the panic a little bit. And I've just heard from so many practices, that at that time, they bought a bunch like Dex SP. I think one practice bought like 12 bottles, which is like, I'm not kidding you.

Stephanie Goss:

Oh, gosh.

Nicole Clausen:

A 16-year supply for them. So, when we think like, okay, what is so reasonable? Because when we panic buy, that makes the backorder that much worse. It's like, yes, we want to be taken care of, and we want our practice to be taken care of. But we also don't need to buy a decade's worth.

Stephanie Goss:

Right.

Nicole Clausen:

So, I think having that data can help that.

Stephanie Goss:

And that's one of the things I love. Back to your point about our inside sales reps, it used to, in the moment, be frustrating, right? When I'm on the phone with my sales rep, and they'd be like, “Well, it's now an allocation. And I can only send you two bottles.” And I used to get frustrated with that because it's like, you feel that overwhelming sense of panic of like, “But what if I can't get any more? And why can't you just sell me the 12 bottles that I now want to buy?”

Stephanie Goss:

And you and I having done that kind of education that we haven't and worked with the manufacturers and distributors the way that we both have know that, for our practice, however big or small it is, there are other practices out there that have needs, that are greater than ours in volume. And so, to put it in perspective, we're feeling that panic.

Stephanie Goss:

But our friends down the street who have the ER specialty practice, who are using 10 times that volume in the month, are also having that panic and need more than we do. And so, that's one of the areas where I feel like, it took me a long time to understand that, especially our distributor partners are doing that math for us and trying to help us, provide us with that data.

Stephanie Goss:

So, they're looking at it, and they're saying they're pulling your 12-month, or sometimes 24-month history and saying, “Okay, look, Stephanie, let's be real for a second. Your practice has only used two bottles of Dex SP in the last 24 months, you don't need 12 bottles.”

Nicole Clausen:

We don't need to prepare for the daily infusion of a busload of Great Danes, it's just going to come in every single day. We, maybe, don't have to go there.

Stephanie Goss:

Right, exactly. But in that moment, it can feel frustrating because you're just like, I want to solve the problem. And it can be really easy to get irritated. But know that they're also working with data, which is super helpful. And if you haven't utilized them in that way, that is a great thing that you can do, pick up the phone and call them and say, “Hey, can you run my 12 or 24-month numbers and tell me, like if you're PIMS…

Stephanie Goss:

So, when I first started doing inventory, we were AVImark users. And our PIMS was a nightmare. And the inventory was not setup. It was whole hot dumpster fire. And so, I couldn't get any data out of it, even if I wanted to. And I can't tell you how many times I picked up the phone and called Mareeba and was like, “Hey, can you please just tell me how much we've ordered in the last 12 months, so that I could get that information?”

Stephanie Goss:

And so, if you're one of those people who's like, “We don't track it our PIMS, or if we, when we mentioned Vetcove, which is probably worth us telling those who are listening, going, “What is that? What it is?” Because I'm still astounded by how many people do not use Vetcove, it just blows my mind that there are still people out there that don't know it and aren't using it.

Stephanie Goss:

But if you're one of those people, pick up the phone and call your distributor, or send them, shoot your inside sales rep with email, because that's part of what they're there for. They're there to be your partner, and help you pull that data, even if you don't have it at your fingertips.

Nicole Clausen:

Yes, absolutely. Just trying to get that data, so we can get that information, because I don't know about you, but I feel so much more comfortable when I know, and then not having a guest. And I feel like, just having that data, just takes that question and the anxiety. I call it unintentional chaos, right?

Nicole Clausen:

Our practices are chaotic, as enough as it is. So, when we add in this layer of unintentional chaos, it's like, what can we do to mitigate that. And I think, adding data can really help that as long as you're comfortable with using it. So, that's another point is like prep for it. If you're listening, and you've never used reorder points before, you've never looked at how much you're actually purchasing or using a product. Just start with just a couple of products. And just get familiar with looking at that information in your practice management system or calling your distributor.

Nicole Clausen:

So, if you're ever faced or when you're faced with those decisions of like, “Oh, how this is going on backorder. And I want to comfortably, add in some extra stock, what does that look like?” You feel comfortable with that data. You feel comfortable finding out where to get that? Because I think it's a little bit easier when you're not in that panic state. And it's not a necessity that you find out right that minute, takes that pressure off.

Stephanie Goss:

Totally. Is there anything else that you would want to share with those who are listening with us today about the worlds on backorder? How do I prepare for this?

Nicole Clausen:

I also think, adding just, I'm not sure, I can't remember if I shared this already, but just like a sticker or something on the shelf of where it lives. And so, when somebody goes to try to find something, they're like, “Oh, this is on backorder.” It's not that they were out. Because I think sometimes, it's like, “Oh, we were in with Mrs. Jones and she agreed to all this stuff. And we bring the dog to the back, and we're out of a whole bunch of stuff.” It just takes the wind out of your sails. But just knowing that it's on backorder, I think is helpful.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes.

Nicole Clausen:

And then, of course, go ahead, sorry.

Stephanie Goss:

Oh, I was going to say, I love that. And I love your idea of having a sticker or something that you visually put on the shelves. One of the things we used to do is, we used a tag system for the inventory. And when things would go on backorder, those tags would sometimes sit in our to be ordered bucket for weeks and weeks and weeks. And I was always afraid that they would get lost.

Stephanie Goss:

And so, at some point along the line, we started putting backorder, we would cross out that someone had requested the item and right back order in Sharpies, so that everybody can see in the date. And then, we would stick a post it to it, if it had more info or whatever, put it in Slack. And then, we would put that tag, we would hang it off of the space on the shelf.

Stephanie Goss:

So, if someone was standing and looking at the shelf, it was really easy with the tags hanging off to visually see at a glance, what was missing. Not that just that it was, “Oh, there's an empty spot on the shelf. And maybe, we just happen to run out of it. But that, “Oh, hey, that's actually a backorder thing.”

Nicole Clausen:

Yes, I love the idea.

Stephanie Goss:

I love that. The idea of making a visual.

Nicole Clausen:

Yeah, I feel like it's like, as many visual cues as we can make, because we're busy every day just buzzing around, taking care of patients, and sometimes, it's like, “Ah, where is this? What is happening?” Sometimes, just those visual cues, can you just be like, “Oh, yeah, okay, that's what's happening.” You don't have to quite, I guess, think as much.

Nicole Clausen:

And the other thing that I always like to share about backorders and just like managing inventory right now is, if you're an inventory manager listening to this, you are amazing. You are literally managing inventory for a practice in, I hate saying this word, but unprecedented in time when there have never been more backorders and supply chain issues and just navigating this whole thing, like don't forget to just remind yourself, how amazing you are for navigating all this right now. So, just like, if you're feeling down on yourself, just remember, just be like, “Okay, Nicole said, you really are doing amazing.”

Stephanie Goss:

Hashtag true story. Let's take a second, we say in Uncharted like, “This is a hold the trophy moment.” Hold the trophy for yourselves, you guys because Nicole is a 100% right. This is one of the hardest things that maybe, any of us who have managed inventory have ever had to go through, and you are doing an amazing job.

Stephanie Goss:

And to that end, if we have people who are listening, Nicole, and they're like, “I would love to even just be able to commiserate with my fellow inventory nerds, because I didn't even know that there were groups out there.” Where can people find their fellow inventory nerds in your Facebook group?

Nicole Clausen:

Totally. So, you can look us up on Facebook. It's called, The Veterinary Inventory Management group. Feel free to join us, we would love, love, love to have you. If you're not on Facebook, we also have a platform outside of Facebook called The Veterinary Inventory Strategy Network. Both are free to join. There's just a lot of really great people. So, we would love to have you, for sure.

Stephanie Goss:

And if there are listeners who like one of the things that I love about you is that, now that you are a person who has made the leap out of practice, and are just nerding out on inventory and helping practices every day with your day job, I love when people ask me questions, I'm like, “You need to reach out to Nicole,” because she has got so many resources and so many tools.

Stephanie Goss:

And we do, I mean, we have multiple courses within Uncharted where we talk solely about inventory. And we do a lot of the surface stuff. And one of the things that I love that you do is get down in the weeds with practices and help them on a practical level with setting up their practice management software with figuring out how to do ABC analysis with learning about reorder points. And everything from the basic education to the in-depth consultation stuff, which I think is so, so important.

Stephanie Goss:

So, for those of our inventory managers who are listening, who are like, “That's me, I am in crisis mode, I desperately need help,” is there a place where they can find you? And we'll drop all of these in the show notes for you guys, so you have links to Nicole's platforms.

Nicole Clausen:

Yeah, absolutely. So, I have a lot of information on my website. I release free guides all the time. I also, offer remote consulting services, like if you need help with any kind of inventory, I probably have something for you. You can find my website at vetlogic.co. That really is .co and .com. I actually, also have a Pinterest account, where there's like a ton of VetMed and pharmacy inspiration and just all that kind of stuff.

Stephanie Goss:

Awesome.

Nicole Clausen:

Pinterest is also @veterinarycarelogistics, same with Facebook and Instagram. So, I'm pretty active on all the social media channels. And so, if you're listening, and just say, hi, and just send me a message on Instagram @veterinarycarelogistics. I'd love to just say hi, in chat with you. I also do have like a PDF guide on backorders that I can send you, so feel free to send me a DM, and I can send it over to you.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah, I actually, was checking it out through the website today. And it's super, super easy to access. And for those of you guys, who are listening, who are Uncharted members, if you're like, “Hey, Stephanie is talking to us about this class that we didn't even know existed.” You can search in the Knowledge Library. And if you search inventory, it'll pop right up to the top for you. There have been multiple sessions of that, or you can send me or Jen Galvin a message and we'll get you to the right place within the community.

Stephanie Goss:

Thank you, Nicole, so much for being here and talking with me today. This has been so fun. And honestly, I can totally see you and I having more conversations in the future because like you said, we could talk about this stuff all day long.

Nicole Clausen:

Totally. Thank you so much for having me. It was so much fun. And I always love getting to nerd out on inventory. So, it's always a good day when we talk inventory.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah, it is. Okay, take care, everybody. Have a great week.

Nicole Clausen:

Okay. Bye.

Stephanie Goss:

That's a wrap on another episode of the podcast. Thanks so much for joining me this week. I hope you enjoyed this different kind of conversation that I had today with Nicole. If you did have a feeling that you would enjoy joining us in Greenville, South Carolina for our upcoming April conference. We don't have too many spots left. I think there's maybe, five. But we would love to see you in Greenville.

Stephanie Goss:

It is happening April 21st through the 23rd, and I just want to take a quick second to say, thank you to our sponsors. Without them, we couldn't make our live events happen. I want to thank, Hill's Pet Nutrition, CareCredit, and Nationwide for all their support. We are looking forward to spending time with them and with you in Greenville in just a few weeks. Hope to see you guys there. If you head on over to the website at uncharteredevent.com, you can find out more information about registration. Take care, everybody. Have a great week.

Written by TylerG · Categorized: Blog, Podcast

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