Podcast

What's This Episode About?

On this week’s episode of the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Practice Manager Stephanie Goss tackle a topic from the mailbag. We received an email from Dr. Great Medicine Desired:

“When listening to a recent podcast episode about clients coming back in the building, there was a bit where you guys talked about the language being used when discussing services – making clients turn down good care, rather than offering it as an option and hoping they pick that choice.”

The practice that Dr. Good Medicine Desired purchased wasn’t exactly known for the most modern and/or high standards of care and they asked us how to help change the conversation for their team when it comes to discussing medicine choices with clients.

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

Discussion Points We Cover:

There are 3 main pieces to this discussion:
-What to say and how to say it
-How to get buy in from the team on raising the medical standard of care
-How to Track It

Getting Buy-In:
-You need Core Values and a Purpose Story
-Also may need to work through head, heart, and/or hands problems
-Embrace the idea that not all clients are right for your practice
-THE TEAM HATES ROLE PLAYING! Make them do it anyway. It is about reframing the discussion so they feel like they are role playing without having to get up and perform in front of the group. Andy and Stephanie discuss some options for how to frame this part so that the stakes are lower and buy-in easier.

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

Upcoming Events

June 9: Motivating People Who Don't Want To Be Motivated

Last chance to sign up! This brand-new program was created from a decade of working with practice leaders to motivate veterinary professionals in the trenches. The vast majority of “unmotivated people” are simply not understood or engaged with the messaging that is coming from their practice leaders. We can fix that. This workshop will teach you how.

All Upcoming Events: unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events

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

Learn More About Membership.

What’s This Episode About?

In this week’s episode of the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Practice Manager Stephanie Goss tackle invasions of privacy – what do we do when veterinary clients ask the team “Are you vaccinated?” If you don’t want your team to have that deer in the headlights look, listen in to the discussion Andy and Stephanie have about not only what to say and how to say it but some cautionary thoughts for making sure you are protecting the privacy of your team.

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

Discussion Points We Cover

• Please do not be caught off guard by this question. If it hasn’t happened yet, it will! Clients want to protect themselves AND this is a source of small talk as we all begin to re-enter the world and start sharing airspace again.
• Andy suggests a great idea to consider with your team – what if clients ask if you are vaccinated and on the flip side, what if they ask why DID you get vaccinated? Having these conversations with your team early and often will help them start to wrap their brains around both sides.
• Just because this is likely to become more common, doesn’t mean the invasion into their personal lives is right or acceptable. Your team needs to have a common approach that everyone can use, regardless of their personal stake in the situation and their personal opinions. They aren’t representing themselves, they are representing the business.
• Your team has a right to privacy. Clients don’t actually need the answer they are seeking when it comes to private medical information. You can help your team feel confident by giving them some language that feels comfortable. Two of Stephanie’s favorite suggestions shared by friends are:
  • “We cannot disclose anyone’s individual vaccine status. We have team members who have just become eligible for vaccination and/or who aren’t medically cleared to be vaccinated yet. Even with 100% of the team vaccinated, we want you to know what we are doing in addition to vaccine access, to keep you and our team safe. Safety measures include…”
  • “We are trying our best to make it as easy as possible for our team members to access the vaccine. However, their medical information is private, so I can't disclose anyone's vaccination status, including my own. I appreciate your respect for our privacy.”

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

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Upcoming Events

Last chance to sign up for New Grad Mentorship 2.0 with Dr. Lindsay Gallagher! Lindsay is going to use her experiences as a new grad and help you harness energy, excitement and formulate a plan to set your new grad up for success. unchartedvet.com/product/new-grad-mentorship/

All upcoming events: unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/

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

Learn More About Membership

What's This Episode About?

This week on the podcast, Andy and Stephanie dive into a repeat mailbag question – what do we do when someone is in their first 90 days and their performance “review” is coming due and it is looking not so great? We have received a handful of emails from people asking about how to handle giving feedback that things aren’t going as well as the hospital expects and how to handle moving forward beyond 90 days when you just aren’t loving someone’s performance.

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

Discussion Points We Cover:

• The world is messy. Our job as leaders is to balance the needs of the business and the support of our team members. If we have gotten to 90 days and we are just now talking about performance issues or giving a bad review, we aren’t really doing our jobs. This is a classic case of where we can set someone else up for failure!
• Know the law. Consulting with an employment lawyer before you decide how to proceed with probationary employment is super important. Even if you aren’t considering termination for someone, knowing what should be in your handbook policies and what your probationary period should look like from a policy perspective is super important!
• In veterinary medicine, we are often rushing from one thing to the next and we do not take the time to slow down and actually be in the moment. This is where we fail ourselves and our teams. Giving feedback when it is actionable and someone can affect change in the immediate future is absolutely key. Focusing on something that someone already did and cannot change does nothing but make them feel guilty! Imagine if you were stacking a handful of things that happened in the past together and then sharing them with someone – that could feel super demoralizing and make someone immediately disengage.
• We talk through “the mention”, as Andy calls it, and how to effectively lean forward so that we are focusing on actionable change that someone can take to improve!

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

Upcoming Events

May 30: New Grad Mentorship 2.0
Dr. Lindsay Gallagher will guide you in creating a plan to help you support a recent grad veterinarian in your practice.
Set your new grad up for success, learn the common new grad struggles and how to spot them early, and supercharge your mentorship skills so your new grad will learn faster, work smarter, and love you for it!

All upcoming events: unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/

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

Learn More About Membership.

This week on the podcast, Andy and Stephanie dive into something that they have been hearing about from EVERYONE… an increasing number of late/no-show clients. There has been a lot of chatter in the Uncharted community about how to balance the team’s frustrations along with the impact that a late/no-show client has on the schedule with the business needs of keeping the schedule full and moving along.

Some of the things that Stephanie and Andy discuss:

• Our clients are the reason for our work, not an interruption to it. We are in a customer service industry and if we don’t serve our clients, we won’t have a business model. However…
• The customer isn’t always right. It is okay to have boundaries with your clients. Your team and your clients need to understand what the boundaries are and how they will be held accountable.
• Hearing your no-show “policy” for the first time when you are enforcing it (or a member of your front desk team is!) leaves a really bad taste in the mouth for a lot of clients. We need to communicate early and often with our clients to set expectations for the behaviors we want.
• Likewise, letting your team make it up on the fly when they are faced with the issue is equally a problem. You won’t get the same answer twice, your clients will be confused and so will the rest of the team when they all try to address the issue in slightly different ways. This is a fantastic discussion for a team meeting! Even better, they can discuss how they handle it when there are objections and learn best practices from each other.
• We can have empathy and still be clear about the abilities or needs of the practice. We need to focus with our teams on one of the fundamental rules of customer service – sharing what we CAN do for them!

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Links:

Upcoming events: unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/

Effective Onboarding Workshop! On May 19, 23 and 26, Stephanie Goss is going to be teaching some skills, best practices and options for leveraging technology to help onboard new team members and more importantly, introduce them to the practice culture from the start (hint: the start isn’t their first day) so that they are more likely to know who you and your team are and more likely to bond and be retained.

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

All Links: linktr.ee/UnchartedVet