This week on the Uncharted Podcast, practice management super nerd, Stephanie Goss invited special guest Bill Schroeder to come discuss something all of our practices should be getting ready for – the big slow down. We know that some clinics still have clients coming out their ears while others are experiencing a very rapid slowing of appointment volume. So many of us have been focusing on hiring and retaining team members to support our case loads that we've put things like marketing, updating reminder protocols and website updates on the back burner.
Bill Schroeder owns InTouch Practice Communications, a full-service digital marketing agency built specifically for the veterinary community. As an entrepreneur, international speaker, veterinary thought leader, and digital marketing enthusiast who has leveraged his love of people and pets to help veterinary practices grow and thrive – Stephanie thought Bill would be the perfect guest to talk strategy with. Bill's team and their more than 8,000 client success stories are the basis for his speaking sessions and his drive to help practices learn how to actually implement these things in your practice. Bill serves on the Board of Directors for VetPartners, teaches within the MBA program at Purdue University, and can be found teaching from many of the veterinary conference stages around the world.
Stephanie asked Bill to come discuss the three most important things every clinic should be doing right now to keep clients coming in the doors. Between outsourcing google ads and online reputation management, Stephanie and Bill give you realistic tips that you can put into practice today. Let's get into this episode…
You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to roleplay on the podcast – a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast.
Submit your questions here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag
Upcoming Events
UPCOMING INFO/EVENTS
Embark on the last journey to Greenville with us before we venture into uncharted waters!
In a world filled with noise—news, content, and promotions bombarding us from all directions—your business struggles to be heard above the clamor. Amid countless messages vying for attention, how can you ensure your message stands out? How can you craft a narrative that gives your brand a distinctive voice and resonates with your community without resorting to shouting?
It's time to anchor down and rise above the sea of noise. Join us this April at the Uncharted Veterinary Conference, where prominent voices in veterinary medicine and beyond will converge to explore how veterinary brands can break through the surface. Prepare to learn, share insights, and make waves in your veterinary practice. Register now to be part of this transformative experience in April 2024 at Uncharted.
If you can't join us in Greenville, consider checking out our new Leadership Essentials Certificate – you can access the program online OR in person. Our team may be coming soon to a city near you. Check out the program and all our upcoming dates on the website.
Our Uncharted Leadership Essentials Certificate consists of seven fundamental building blocks, empowers leaders at any level to achieve excellence. This on-demand program offers 8 hours of CE, fostering the skills necessary to lead high-performing and collaborative teams. Exclusive access is granted to Uncharted members as part of their membership benefits, making it the opportune time to join our community!
Upcoming events: unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/
Episode Transcript
Stephanie Goss:
Hey everyone, I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. This week on the podcast. I have the pleasure of being joined by my dear friend, Bill Schroeder. We recently were having some conversation in our uncharted community about how some of our members practice schedules seem to be slowing down.
And for some of them visits have really kind of slowed down and dropped off. And we know that we're seeing that across the veterinary space, there's been some studies recently by AVMA and looking at the economics of practice. We know things are slowing down and some people are starting to feel that squeeze and panic.
And so Bill and I had a conversation about what some are, what are some of those things. That practices should be doing at all times to keep clients coming in the door, whether we've got clients coming out our ears, or whether we are in a position where it is really slow. And we're really consciously thinking about our marketing efforts for the first time, probably since COVID hit.
So I asked bill to come join me to have that conversation here with all of you. And I asked him to bring his top three tips for you all. And he brought it. And then some, so let's get into this. .
Stephanie Goss: And we are back. I, Stephanie Goss, am here with my dear friend, not Dr. Andy Roark, but in fact, I am here with Bill Schroeder. And for those of you who don't have the pleasure of knowing Bill, he is funny. He is fun. He is kind. He throws an amazing party but none of that has to do with what he does for business.
Bill owns InTouch Practice Communications, which is a full service digital marketing agency that is built specific for the veterinary community. They love to focus on, you know, empowering and driving business for their clients, empowering their clients to take control of their own digital presence.
Bill has a genius brain, I think, when it comes to these things. He has spoken at Uncharted Veterinary Conference. You may have seen him or heard him present at conferences all over the world. And he is just brilliant. A ball of fun. And so I was really excited to have him here with me. We've had some conversation in the Uncharted community recently about a topic that I know is near and dear to Bill's heart.
And so I said, hey Bill, you want to come do a podcast with me? And he said, sure, I would love to!
Bill Schroeder: Yeah, and thank you Stephanie. I really appreciate the kind words. It's really fun to be here and I can't believe that I'm knocking on the door of 30 years and, you know, of doing this. I, want to thank the, like the whole community for making this my home and it's like one of, it's, really great and it's a pleasure to be here and I guess while I'm thanking you, I want to thank you for what happens when you get scheduled to do a podcast like this, right?
It's like the hygiene things that happen, like, yeah. Like look at this desk.
Stephanie Goss: Bill's desktop is, it's
Bill Schroeder: Um, that whiteboard back there does not look like you know a Madden like play
Stephanie Goss: Uh-huh, with scribbles written all over it.
Bill Schroeder: I was able to dust all my pictures. Although you can't see the pictures that I keep on my desk…
Stephanie Goss: of Andy? Of Andy’s face?
Bill Schroeder: I was able to get them all clean so in case you were able to see them…
Stephanie Goss: we're never going to fit his head through the door. Once he finds out that Bill has a picture of him on his desk.
Bill Schroeder: Well, we’re not going to. I’m just going to put it where it normally resides so that we can let him know that I’m always let him know that I'm thinking about him. So anyways, it's a pleasure to be here and yeah, I'm so glad that you've offered me this platform to kind of help because it's really a topic that is quite serious right now.
You know, we're coming out of this unknown time, which is that COVID bubble that we all scrambled around.
Stephanie Goss: Right.
Bill Schroeder: It was this period of time where we didn't know what to do. We had to incorporate all of these new things like curbside and, you know, running, you know, and isolating staff and all of those changes to our operations.
And a lot of people were so busy that they stopped focusing on what is important. And that's growing the business, whether it be through existing clients and making certain that they understand all the opportunities and we'll speak to that in a little bit here but also growing because I mean, we're all human, right?
It became one of those situations where, quite frankly, it was easy to make certain that your appointment book is full, right?
Stephanie Goss: Yeah. Yeah
Bill Schroeder: So yeah, and I wish I had the answer for exactly what's going to happen next or exactly what to do right now. From a data standpoint, and I'm, I love the data. I know what to do from, I know it's working for our existing clients, but anyone that says, here's the formula for a time exactly like right now, I would kind of run away from that person, just because of the fact that we've never been here before.
Stephanie Goss: Right, exactly. I was going to say there, I don't think there has been a time like right now and who knows whether there will ever be the exact same circumstances in the future for sure. It's kind of, it's kind of weird. It's that post feels like that in a way that, you know, kind of post apocalyptic. We did this whole thing, we created this whole new world and then just as quickly as we adapted when COVID hit, now things have changed and I think it's happened slower and, and I think that has given practices more time to adapt, but it has still changed dramatically.
Bill Schroeder: It has and, you know, there's some scary stuff that's going on out there. And, you know, one of the things that everyone needs to be aware of is that we've built these, well, internally at the agency, we've built these systems that allow us to monitor what's going on like real time out there within the market.
We're utilizing our client experience, the data that we are tracking and then listening posts that we have out there in, in the real world that are telling us. What's actually happening and the one thing before I get into like the tips and the things that you need to be doing, you need to realize that the intent- pet owners are that the intent is down to the point that we have seen things in markets where we're talking year over year comparison for search volume or searches for topics that are driving business within practices in a local market, we're seeing individual markets beat down as much as 40%.
Stephanie Goss: Wow.
Bill Schroeder: So, when I talk, and very specifically, to be very clear, it's like when we look at how many times very valuable search terms are being used within a market, sometimes we're seeing that year over year, like Or especially year over during COVID period of time, we're seeing 40 percent drops in the actual searches, people are busy, they're back at work, they're not, they no longer have the availability to take their pets out and they've take their pets to the practice, you know, like they could during COVID and to be very frank, in many instances, they've checked that box.
Stephanie Goss: Mmm-hmmm.
Bill Schroeder: the people that hadn't done it in years and aren't the incredibly compliant. They're like, Oh, I did that. You know, I did that. You know, I took them into the practice, right?
Stephanie Goss: I'm good for another three or four years.
Bill Schroeder: Unfortunately, we're seeing some of that. So the problem and I just had this conversation yesterday where I was called in with one of my teams where there we had a client who was looking at Google ads.
And they were looking at their performance right now, and then comparing it to two years ago and saying, wait, something's broken. And I'm talking about the fact that they're about seven points up on on, you know, the average practice out there. And they're not satisfied with that, right? Well, there are markets that are 40 percent down, so 7 percent up, you're like, you're killing me.
Stephanie Goss: Right. Yeah. Okay. So the heart of what I want to talk about today, we, you and I were talking about the fact that there has been, which I think is a good thing. There's started to be a lot of conversation in our Uncharted community. I've seen it in the other manager groups that I'm in, VHMA the management books groups on Facebook where people are starting to experience a drop off in appointments.
And a lot of people were scrambling for staff and for doctors during COVID and business was crazy. And we all know, I mean, how many podcasts did Andy and I do about the fact that everybody had clients coming out their ears and everybody was struggling to keep up with the client volume because there weren't enough hours in the day, there weren't enough team members.
And I think for some people that is still true. There are certain areas of veterinary medicine where it is still overwhelming and a lot of people are starting to experience significant drop offs. So clinics that had been booked six weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks out now are like we're only booked a week out and we've got same day openings again.
And I think the biggest thing. For a lot of managers that hit was we had to really shift our mindset when COVID happened. Where as a manager, there's a fine line that you want to teach the team to walk between having enough space as a GP practice to have clients be able to be seen quickly and not gatekeeping, too many appointments on the books, where then you have the team standing around if sick pets don't happen to come in that day.
Right. And so we, over the years, kind of learned to excel at walking that line. And then COVID hit. And it was like everybody who kept to that line was drowning because there was nowhere to put the clients that had sick pets that needed to come in. So we all shifted that workflow and everybody started holding more same day appointments, creating spaces to take emergencies, all of that kind of stuff.
So we shifted the whole workflow and now that the schedules have changed and appointments have dropped off and everybody's like, Oh, I have all these. And so I'm starting to hear conversation amongst my friends and colleagues who are saying, okay, I'm going to admit this. I stopped trying to get new clients.
I stopped focusing on marketing. I stopped running Google ads. I didn't care about updating the website except for when we got new team members. Because the whole point for a lot of us who just are doing the everyday job was all of the marketing tools, all of the communication tools, it either was either ways to get new clients or to make our lives easier dealing with the existing clients that we had. And it felt like for most of us, unless you were a startup or a new practice trying to get clients in the door, stopped thinking about new clients. And so now there's all these practices who are like, “How do I go back to getting clients coming in the door?”
And so I asked Bill to come and talk today about it. I said, Bill, you are so smart and you have all of these ideas. And I always love talking to you because I get so excited for the possibilities in practice when we talk. And I said, can you come and talk to to the top, like the top three things that you would suggest every practice should be doing to keep clients coming in the door.
Bill Schroeder: And we did not practice this. And I promise you that everyone should see just how in tune we are here, because you're going to see.
Stephanie Goss: Okay,
Bill Schroeder: I put together the top three things that we're going to do.
For those of you who are listening and not watching, I'm showing a hand of five because I just don't know three.
I cheated. I did. We're going to do the top three to five.
Stephanie Goss: the top three to five things. Let's do it.
Bill Schroeder: But my point and you're going to hear where I start very planned and I could show you my notes just to prove it, but I'll be less dramatic.
I've been here before, right? And when the market as a whole or the economy is in a bad place, it's pressured and we're talking about the cost of groceries, we're talking about the cost of gasoline, we're talking about, you know, the general economy not being good, we feel it in veterinary medicine.
And the AVMA came out with a study real recently, and I think that their number was 55 percent of our clients are saying that they are, they define themselves as being transient. And I'm not, I'm, categorizing what they did. That's not word for word how it came in, but it's like 55 percent of your clients in practice would move.
Okay. And when you combine that with how price sensitive the market is, I believe that there is an unfortunate opportunity for people to move from your practice to the next.
So, my very first is to capitalize on your same day availability and the trend that is in urgent care. Now, back, I mean, I've been in this game for, like I said, like 30 years, and we've gone through these trends, right?
And when we're really busy, you hear practices speak about “Well, let's charge a same day appointment fee, right?” Like, okay, like if you're in that position, you can always be in that position. You're probably not tuned in right now because you're busting at the seams and, you know, keeping the door swinging is not something that's a concern to you.
Congratulations. However, I am routinely speaking to practices that used to book up three weeks in advance and they don't know what they're gonna do at the end of the week. Okay, so, And when you've, we're seeing a massive trend in people finding practices that will be able to serve them, whether it be just because of their convenience or because of the urgent care system that they've got.
So, because they have an urgent need, right? So, I, and I, the balance is different, so I can't give you the formula here that is like, reserve like nine, three spots per, you know, FTE, I mean, I can't do that because it, really depends upon your market, but to make certain that you and your team are capitalizing on that and they realize everyone from the CSR to whoever is handling your marketing needs to realize that this is important because what's happening is people, those people that are coming to you are the people that are the opportunity leaving.
They're that 55 percent that we talked about that migrated from or are trying to migrate from another practice. So, it's a two edged sword. We've got to capitalize on that and realize that's an opportunity for you. In order for you to capitalize on that, you need to make certain that you're marketing to that.
And that your team understands that same day availability is not bad. Your practice is a business. And the, at the end of the day, we should be filling up as many of those appointments as possible and marketing to the opportunity that is an open time slot.
Stephanie Goss: That makes sense to me. And I think that clients too are becoming, at least I can speak to my own personal experience, like in human healthcare, right? Like I probably even five years ago, it would not have occurred to me that there were choices other than your regular GP, right? And specialists, obviously– and the emergency room. Like, those were your two options. You either were sick enough to go to the hospital or you waited and went and saw your, GP and on the human side, like the shift, and I will admit it, I have, we have a great urgent care here locally and I discovered it when I had a sick kid who I thought had strep.
I couldn't get her in during COVID to the regular doctor. And so I said, okay, I'm going to try this place. I can, they had an app I could book online. And I said, I'm going to go and I'm going to take her. And I don't really care about the experience because I just want to get seen. Right. And so I think experiencing that in our own lives on the human healthcare side has led clients to actively seek that as well, right, in the veterinary space. And so I love that idea about capitalizing on it. And I think that there are a lot of practices who have always had that, you know, we have same day spaces, but you're talking about not only doing it, but marketing to the clients who are looking for it and also clients who might not know that you have it, that are existing clients.
Bill Schroeder: Right, because urgent care really is having the availability to see someone right away, right? And it allows you then to kind of differentiate yourself. Like, there's this thing, and when we talk to pet owners, and we talk to clients about this, There's this thing that, and I'm sorry ER people that are out there, I mean, but I think you know this, right?
ER equals expensive. ER equals, it's gonna be a thousand dollars when I walk through the door, right? And that's rightfully so, right? You're, the ER practices are there to solve that problem. Right. It's a specialty place. But when you've got the GP and the ER and there's no, let's just, let's not talk about the finances between, let's talk about pet care.
And there's not a gap. I don't have another finger to point. I'm going to use my nose. there's, oh look at what I'm doing right now. I can move this without moving my nose. There's a gap here that exists, right? That can be filled by just creating a space within your schedule to see that.
And then label it as an urgent care. And that, that, that allows you to capitalize on that transient client. And see the pets. You know, regardless of the finance behind it, you know, because I think there's a huge amount and I'm going to be frank, I've kind of fallen victim. I think I'm a really good pet owner, but it's been like, you know, I have schnauzers.
So, you know, they have stomach issues, right. You know, and, you know, so you wind up going like, okay, this can wait till tomorrow. I've been down this road. Pancreatitis and I are very good friends.
Something that's never been said before. I think if that's not a t- shirt, if you don't take the t-shirt, I'm taking it.
Stephanie Goss: Pancreatitis and I are friends. I own schnauzers.
Bill Schroeder: Yes. So, but when that's the case, you know, you wait, but I would absolutely capitalize on that if I knew my vet had availability. Okay, so can I move into number two?
Stephanie Goss: Well, and you can, I just want to say too, I think the flip side of that, you know, is that we automatically go to that. Let's not. upset the ERs, right? Because we do, we really want to take business away from them? And I will say that our local ER, so we, my clinic here had been doing prompt care model before COVID, our sister hospital and ours, we had a doctor who was assigned every day to be able to just take those cases.
Our ERs loved it because they were like, please, Take the ear infections, take the, you know, mild absent, take the stuff that we're seeing that we don't really need to or want to see, they, want to see the cases that need their specialty training and skill set and, pace of an ER. And so I think that there is some really beautiful relationship that can happen between practices that are offering urgent care.
So when you're thinking about marketing, and I've had this conversation with colleagues, if you're doing urgent care or you have spaces that you're able to market as urgent care, market to the clients, your current clients, market to potential new clients. Like you said, market to your ERs as a client as well, because if they know that you can do that, you can build your own backward referral.
Like we think about ERs having us as clients, as referrals, it works both ways.
Bill Schroeder: Yeah, that's a really good point. If you remember during COVID, we had criticalists that were doing, you know, wellness.
Stephanie Goss: right?
Bill Schroeder: Right. I mean, you know, and that was because of it, you know, just, you know, workload at the GP level and all that jazz.
They're really aware that they don't want that type of work. So, yeah, but I really think that having your front, your CSRs And your current clients and the, ER practice that you refer to understand what you need and want are really good first steps. And celebrate that availability.
Don't penalize people for making that transition in and tack that, you know, extra same day fee on there. Don't do it.
Stephanie Goss: Right. Right.
Bill Schroeder: Okay. So number two.
Okay. Focus on Google Business Profile. We call it GBP. It's the old Google My Business, right? Make certain that it's optimized. And that's, for those who don't know, it used to be Google My Business, and in true Google fashion, they keep changing things so that there's something new to talk about, I guess.
But it's now the GBP. Same. Same ice cream, different, you know, label on it. It's the thing that is powered by your practice's location, the number and quality of Google reviews, and it is the Google Maps section. We see the greatest amount of organic traffic. Come through there. So make certain that you've got all your images correctly that your hours are correct, that you've linked your website And all the opportunities I could spend an entire hour go deep diving on this but make certain that you've optimized that and you Continuously, look for ways to make sure that it's up to date.
Furthermore, here's something that nobody's talking about. Did I cut you off stuff?
Stephanie Goss: no, I just was going to ask when you say make sure, like when you say make sure that your pictures and stuff are updated, you're talking about actual pictures of life in the practice, not pictures of your building. Right. Right. Cause I, like as a, as a. Consumer, when I pick up my iPhone and I go into my Apple Maps and I type in like what I'm kind of looking for and I click on a business, I want to see, I don't care what the building looks like.
I want to see what their food looks like, or I want to see what the environment right?
Bill Schroeder: You are so blowing my mind right now. You don’t even realize what you just did. I swear this was not practiced or anything. Okay so first off, you need those building pictures to some degree. I like building streets from the street because I understand. You know, I'm not fluent in the algorithm. Nobody should be, right? That Google in particular has matched up the Google Street View with the things and they can see what aligns based upon that.
So, that's necessary, but you shouldn't stop there. To your point, you should be able to reflect the culture, happy people, you know, not, surgeries, that cool tumor, that That you found that we all are like, wow, that's cool.
Stephanie Goss: That giant splenic mass.
Bill Schroeder: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Could you please like send me pics? You know and we like that, pet owners don't but the thing that you walked into and I promise you when I pause this is exactly what I was gonna say.
Nobody's talking about this. Everybody talks about Google a business profile, but nobody talks about Apple Maps. Now, I guess cat's out of the bag now, right? I mean, you know, if more than one person watches this, we optimize Google Maps, and we do really well because of it. Okay? And no one else is we're watching.
People don't do it. Well, they're going to do it now, so Okay, well, welcome to the party, everybody. But the thing that people don't realize is Apple Maps is driven, and so is Yahoo! is driven by Yelp reviews. So go ahead and go into, right,
Stephanie Goss: Yes. I actually noticed that because when I Google a business, when I say Google, but when I am an Apple user through and through. So I look at my maps and I click on the business and the first thing I notice is what are the Yelp reviews that are there. And as a consumer, like I, that's something that I look at.
Bill Schroeder: right, and so, so, and I do too, and a little bit of it is because my car has Apple CarPlay, and it plays really nicely with Apple Maps rather than Google Maps. So I wind up hanging out in that space, right? So for those of you who don't understand what we're talking about, go on your iPhone. And then click on the Maps, not Google Maps, but Apple Maps, it'll just be called Maps on there.
And then, like, insert your practice name, right, to find it, as if you're looking for directions. And then go into the profile there. And look at the photos that are there, and you will find some photos that are powered by Yelp. And if it's not your practice, look at other businesses. It'll literally say that in the corner of the photo.
Now, the reason that I bring this up is because we have this negative, I guess stigma or stereotype, whatever we're going to say
Stephanie Goss: We hate Yelp
Bill Schroeder: We hate Yelp.
Stephanie Goss: Yes.
Bill Schroeder: But you got to play there, right? So the, key is working and letting the Yelpers know that you are participating there and celebrate it so that you can rank really well there.
So that's my second one. GBP Google business profile and Apple maps need to be atop of their game. Because that's serving up and directly connecting with the local pet owners.
Stephanie Goss: Okay.
Bill Schroeder: Third, Google ads. You got to pay to play. the internet is, and I use this all the time. I've used this for a handful of years.
It's like a piece of electrical conduit.
Stephanie Goss: Okay.
Bill Schroeder: Organic in particular is a piece of conduit that we have beaten to death. And if, just like a piece of conduit, which is that pipe that holds electrical wire, the more wires you put through it, the more difficult it is to get that next wire from one end to the next.
It's clogged, right? So, you've got to build that very efficient side piece of conduit, so your wire can more directly make its way through. Now, you said quite accurately, and I really appreciate this at the beginning of our talk here, that I like to empower people to do the things that I teach on their own.
And I'm going to say that about 85 percent of the stuff that I talk about or I teach, and by the way, Uncharted, I'm going to be doing a workshop in Greenville, a hint, hint, shameless plug, on building your practice. So, I hope to see you there. But you can leave one of my talks or my workshops.
Empowered to do the things that I believe that you can do, which is a good percentage, 85 to 90%. I don't think you can do Google Ads. Not well, at least, unless you've been trained. Unless you're continuously going through the things that, like, I've got a team of people that do it. And the amount of time that we carve out to train independently, and the out, we literally have a consultant that, that we pay every Thursday to come into the agency and teach our Google Ads people that do this every day, all day, the new things that happened that week.
Stephanie Goss: Right,
Bill Schroeder: So Google ads is really important. The things that I get asked about are how much should I spend? I shrug my shoulders and I say, if you're spending less than 500 a month on the actual ad spend, you're probably not spending enough and you need to question the quality of the ad and, such because it should turn into something where you're wanting to spend more.
Stephanie Goss: Right. And here's the thing. I think as a manager, this is what is so hard because Google ads has always been kind of, at least I'm just going to speak for myself as a manager. It was always confusing to me. It was the thing that I knew that I needed to do. But I didn't, to your point, I didn't know what I was doing.
And even though I took some classes and I like, you know, took some webinars, I watched your stuff. I looked at, you know, what, you know, people like you, Eric Garcia, Caitlin DeWild, all these people are saying, Hey, these are things that you should do. And at the time I was working with our friend, Brandon Brashear.
Is it? And I was like, Brandon, what do I? And he's like, yes, you have to do it. Okay. So I threw money at it and tried the thing. But I think as a manager, like, I love that you say, this is a piece. It's okay that this is a piece that you outsource and that you throw money at, because I think a lot of us have this experience where we try it.
And we're like, I spent 300 on that. And I got nothing back. That's the frustrating experience because we don't know what we don't know. And so it feels like we're just throwing money up in the air and setting it on fire because we don't know what we're supposed to do with it. We think that there's supposed to be this return on it, but we don't have that knowledge.
And so I will say that was a great relief to me to be able to say, Oh, okay. This isn't something that I have to figure out how to do or have somebody in the practice who knows how to do. This is something that I can take to professionals and say, Please help. And also get that kind of advice that this is what a realistic price and spend for your market should look like based on your particular market.
And this is how you can make that money work for you. It's kind of like when you, I thought about it at the time, like working with a financial advisor. It was like, Oh, all of these things that were really mysterious to me now are suddenly making sense.
Bill Schroeder: My lack of self control is going to come through here because I can't help but take a little bit of a deeper dive and kind of, you know, give some tips here around what I would do. And I'm going to rattle these off a little bit just so that you can take notes on them.
And the first thing, if you're going to work with a firm, make sure that the firm is charging a flat fee and not a fee that is based upon your spend. If you charge a fee that is based upon your spend, there is no incentive for them to increase the number of conversions and decrease the cost per conversion.
So it, whatever the flat fee is, if it's a good flat fee, that's what you should do because of exactly what I stated. Secondly, you should have a deep understanding of what a conversion actually is, and a conversion is taking someone from one state to the next, meaning they haven't called the practice, you need them to call the practice, or you need them to book an appointment, and then they actually book the appointment.
Now here's where the details get a little bit fuzzy. People can call conversions whatever they want, and people, some firms, drive traffic. Based upon their definition of a conversion and it makes things look crazy. Like I literally just quoted a project against another firm in the veterinary industry and they were claiming that they can drive conversions at four dollars a conversion. Well, I told the doctor I said, well, I guess if they can drive conversions at 4 a conversion, please tell me who they are because I would like to then funnel all my work through them because this is brilliant.
And if you spend 500, that's what, 250 appointments that you should have, right? So if you can't tie those appointments back to a conversion, it's not really a conversion. And what people do is they put garbage ads out there. To because I can make your phone ring for garbage. I can make it ring, you know, for low cost things or for ambiguous things that will just tie up your front desk.
But I'd rather use these numbers. I can make your phone ring for between like 12 and 15 dollars. But responsibly, I think that we should be talking between 40 and 50 to actually get an appointment through the door.
Stephanie Goss: Sure.
Bill Schroeder: Okay, so there's that.
Stephanie Goss: Hey friends, you have heard Andy and I talk on the podcast about our Uncharted Leadership Essentials Certificate. And because you have, you know that we designed it with every member of the team in mind, because we believe that everybody on the team should have basic, professional, personal business development skills in their toolbox to be able to help make, maximally effective, efficient, and excellent team.
And so we are bringing you one more way to have access to our certificate. That's right, you can take it asynchronously. our wonderful partners at NAVC are bringing it to you through Vetfolio. So if you want to take the certificate online, you can do that today.
And if you are the kind of person who's like, I need my CE to be in person, or you have learners on your team who you think would do better going through it together in a group live. We've got you, because we are hitting the road. We are going to be live and in person in Atlanta, Georgia May 5th and 6th, and we are going to jam pack two days full of the entire certificate program, but it's going to be live and in person and we're going to do it Uncharted style, which means we're going to talk about your practices. And so, if you have been thinking about, man, I would love to do this certificate, but I would love to do it in person. Now's your chance head over to UnchartedVet.com/ONTHEROAD. O N T H E R O A D, and, you will find out all the information about this upcoming road show that is happening in Atlanta, in May, and future dates and locations. And now, back to the podcast.
Bill Schroeder: and I guess the last thing that I want to say is that when you're doing call when you're doing Ads, you should always be using call tracking so that you can listen to the calls. Which means that you can get a separate number that is specific for that ad and only available through the ad That allows you to then listen to the phone calls that come through. It's brilliant what happens.
You can listen to your CSR, how they're receiving the ads, how they're receiving the traffic that comes through, and validate that the things that are coming through are actually the right type of traffic. So, when you're doing that, you're operating responsibly, and that's what it takes to run a responsible campaign, and a whole bunch of other really good, creative, and smart people.
But I will hit on that when we get to Greenville, and if anyone wants Any more information. It's one of my favorite topics to talk about. So ring me up and I'll drop what I'm doing and I'll spout about Google Ads.
Stephanie Goss: Okay. So Google ads are, so we've got to have our Google business profile optimized. We need to look at Apple and maps. And what is, the, does the Android phones where I don't, I haven't had an Android phone in like a hundred years. Do they run on the Google, maps?
Bill Schroeder: Yeah, it would be Google.
Stephanie Goss: Okay. So you're using Google Maps or using Apple Maps and you need to optimize both of those.
You need to be looking at Google ads and you need to be realistic about how you're approaching that. And so I would say what I have started saying to my manager friends is, I think for a lot of us, we think about it not dissimilarly to Yelp, there's not the hatred for Google ads like there is for Yelp. But a lot of us have tried it and have had no success because we had no idea what we were doing. So we were like “I’m never doing that again” Because I just burned that money, right? But we’ve got to do Google ads, what’s the next step?
Bill Schroeder: Okay, so, let me just clarify. I don't want anyone advertising on Yelp. I haven't had success there, but you need to be active there. There are quotes out there my friend..
Stephanie Goss: Yes, Google reviews. Yes. Okay. I mean, Yelp reviews. Okay. Okay.
Bill Schroeder: I'd want to make it a product, I can't make it work, and if somebody can, well then, God bless them, but I can tell you in the end, it doesn't convert well.
Okay, I got two more things. First, with the importance of reviews, whether they be through Yelp, like I just said, or through GBP, and the transient nature of today's people, we need to focus on the client experience. Okay, and we need– I talk about the word remarkable and how every single team member needs to know what's out there and meaning the potential, the growth that happens through positive reviews and a positive experience.
It should be something that's talked about during your meetings in the practice. So that you have the ability to celebrate those things and realize that we all grow if the reputation is good. Now, it hits both on the pet owner side and on the employee side. Like, nobody wants to work at the one star practice.
Nobody wants to show up at their state VMA and go, Hey, Steph, I saw you left ABC Animal Hospital. Where'd you go? Oh, I went to XYZ.
Stephanie Goss: Right.
Bill Schroeder: I don't know anything about it, but people say it's dirty and people are dirty.
Stephanie Goss: Yeah. I got a bad reputation.
Bill Schroeder: So if you're gonna attract the brilliance that is folks like Steph, you've got to have a good reputation Okay, lastly, this is something I'm super proud of. Like I said over the years…
Stephanie Goss: Okay. Wait, before you go on. So you're moving on to your last tip. Cause I want to talk about, I want to talk about the reviews for a second.
Bill Schroeder: Sure.
Stephanie Goss: So question, cause I love how you just talked about Celebrating the reviews and using them within the practice. And I think that was one of the best things that I tried with my team.
Because one of the, one of the benefits I will say of my, my last practice was a corporate practice and they used a program that compiled all of our reviews from all the different places and we got it spit out in a report and it was great. And. I was like, what do I do with this?
And I was, the team is so used to hearing about the clients who came in the lobby and screamed at the CSRs or the client who was rude in the exam room who's now getting fired or whatever. And I really wanted to focus on the positive and so I started taking those reviews. And we started reading them out loud at our team meetings and recognizing the team members when somebody gets called out.
Because I think it takes a lot, we all know it takes a lot for a client to leave a review anyways. Just to start. When we get clients who make it personal and say, you know, “Caitlin was the best was the best. She was so great with, you know, fluffy and she was, she just loved on her like she was her own.”
That means something and the team doesn't often see that unless we help put it in front of their faces. And so as a manager, I would say I learned to love the reviews by. I'm not actually reading them. And instead of turning it into, even the negative reviews or the reviews that had feedback that we weren't so excited to hear became a learning opportunity to say, okay, what could be valid here?
And what could we learn from it? Not, Hey, Dr. A, this client called you out. Like you need to fix this situation because I've been in practices where that has been the way that it's handled. Right? It's like, here's a client complaint, deal with it. But how do we turn those into celebrations for the team and also learning opportunities?
And so I love that you called out, like making it a part of the practice some ways, somehow so that the whole team is aware of it.
Because then it makes it easier for them to say to the clients who are just at the front desk and say, I just love you guys so much. You're so, so fantastic. It becomes more natural and easy for them to say, Oh, thank you so much.
For saying that we really love hearing that if you have a second, we would really appreciate it. If you would share that on our Google business page, you know, leave us a review that becomes easier because I think that has been the hardest thing for my teams to get on board with is how do we ask clients to leave reviews?
You know, how do we, push that without seeming salesy or unnatural, you know, because nobody on a veterinary team wants to be salesy like that.
Bill Schroeder: You know, I think that there's an element, I think there's a couple of things here. So the first is accountability. It is when you're celebrating those things and you're talking about the positive and the negatives, people automatically become responsible for their actions because, Hey, I might hear about this.
You know, I can't be abrasive. You know, I've got to be on my game or I shouldn't be in the practice. Okay. And we all have bad days. I understand what it is and we're going to get those unreasonable clients that are going to give the inaccurate reviews. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the caustic person that needs to control themselves or be a professional.
So you've got that. And then you've got the benefit that comes off of celebrating the positive. So if we're talking about combat, combating, compassion, fatigue, Or all of the wellness type issues that we should be focusing on. Reviews can really help when that's a bright space as we start our day or we start our meeting and we've got somebody stand up and I mean, I could tell you tons of stories, as could everyone in practice, of the tear provoking moments that are brought on by the way that we can impact people's lives.
So there's there are those things and Yeah, so you mentioned how to get the reviews and you know what I like to do I like to listen to people speak and then I like to say something along the lines of wow I really like working with you and I'd like to work with more people just like you, you know, I mean, I really would I'd like to meet more Stephanie's in the world and Stephanie's families.
This is why I became a veterinarian and this is exactly why like you all in this room are my people. Would you mind leaving us a review because I think that and I don't care what you say, but I really use your words that will attract people like you. And I, so you've got that, and then there's something else that isn't done. And I'm just going to ask you a question.
Stephanie Goss: Okay.
Bill Schroeder: When's the last time that you've left a review? And everybody out there in the world, think about the last time you left a review.
Stephanie Goss: Uh – Huh.
Bill Schroeder: And then think about the last time that a business owner, that business owner called you and thanked you for the review. Think about it.
Stephanie Goss: Okay.
Bill Schroeder: It's never happened. It's never happened unless you've come to my lectures because like and I know don't roll your eyes Don't I know you some of you have probably jumped off the treadmill at this point Thinking that I have actually lost my mind and thinking that you've got enough time to be calling I haven't lost my mind What I'm talking about is exactly this for every five star review that you've got and every one star review if you care to do It for all your reviews you call and say hey This is, you know, Dr. Reynolds calling. I literally just read your review online, and I had to shut my door because you touched me. And I really appreciate what you did. I value your comments and I just wanted to say thank you very much. That's how you leave a voicemail. Now, if they pick up the phone, maybe you want to say, Hey, I'm surprised you picked up the phone.
And I was expecting your voicemail. I'm about to walk into an appointment. That's how you start the call, so you're not trapped for 15 minutes. And you say, Hey, but I just read your review and then you go through that. Before I step in, I wanted to stop everything and call you and say thank you. And the reason you're doing that is because that could be the only signal that you're putting out there that you've actually valued it.
Like, responding is fine, but unless you're going to get in depth and they're going to go back and read it, If you want more reviews, especially from that family, please let them know. And then I love that. the other side. You know, if you've got a bad review, I would call them. And in part of the resolution, if you are able to get to that point offline, you're stopping the conversation that people can read online,
Stephanie Goss: Right.
Bill Schroeder: And then you're taking it behind closed doors.
Hopefully you can come to some sort of resolution and, you know, you can get to the place where you could go. Can I ask you to take the review down? Did we satisfy that?
Stephanie Goss: Right.
Bill Schroeder: You know, so, and the last thing on reviews, unless you've got further questions or comments I need you to, need the market to know that 82 percent of all reviews, This is not veterinary related, okay, this is all small business reviews, 82 percent only come after an ask for such.
Stephanie Goss: So you got to be asking.
Bill Schroeder: So if you’re not asking.
Stephanie Goss: You're not getting. Okay. What's the last tip?
Bill Schroeder: The last tip is something I've built up to for decades. Literally, and it's just dawning on me actually, Steph, that this is intertwined. This was not intended to be a reputation management like talk. I promise you it wasn't. But it shows you how much it intertwines.
There is someone that's out there that is listening. If they're part of the community. That I've known for many years.
Stephanie Goss: Huh. And, she called me and this is about 15 years ago.
Bill Schroeder: She calls me and she goes. Hey, do you have time to talk, you know? Glass of win? You might as well get a bottle of wine because I need to talk and so we had a bottle of wine over the phone and in the course of the conversation She's like I think I'm done and it was all about a review and how she just got like slayed and she did she got slayed it was inappropriate, She's a wonderful veterinarian many of you know this person and this person was done, you know, truly done where they were like, I'm selling my practice and it was not during the high point of practice sales where people were, you know, going at 18 times.
This was like, I'm leaving veterinary medicine and I spoke with her and I was like, you, perform such wonderful, you know, medicine, you're a beautiful person that is helping all these other people, right? And I wish I had a way to show you whether or not your business is working well. Like, like, the negative review that you've got is like two, like you dropped like one little bit on the big scale.
We need to take a look at all the other factors that go into your business and give you credit for that and be able to look at it. So I always envisioned this as being like this health score and that's what we call it now and it's I have this vision of like a thermometer right and being able to show where you're at and say hey this sucks right and I know I'm you know we're crying together right now because I can hear how exhausted you are this too will pass and it should not overshadow the brilliance the genius that you have in practice so I This last tip deals with data.
It's understanding your market, knowing what data points are most important within the market,
okay, and then being able to look at a health score for the practice. And if you want, this is a proprietary tool that we have that I'm happy to share with everyone in the audience. So if you want to give me a call, we can share contact information at the end here.
Or reach out to me, come see me speak in in Greenville, but it's a way to look at your practice in the market and score it against other practices that are of the same sort. And then ultimately there is scoring that puts up that says you're doing a good job. And sometimes it's like golf, like, and let me use an exaggerated situation here.
If you weren't looking at all the other practices. in the space with the data points that were really important, right? And you weren't comparing yourself. It would be like going out and golfing by yourself and, you know, shooting 200 one year and consistently hitting 200. Next year, you drop, you know, I don't know, 50 strokes off of your game and you think that you're ready for the PGA because you're not paying attention to everybody else. The great golfers are, you know, in their 70s.
Stephanie Goss: Right.
Bill Schroeder: You know, so you're still like a horrible golf,
Stephanie Goss: Yeah. Right.
Bill Schroeder: right? So, I mean, it's the realization and the comparativeness that we can provide. But data is super duper important. And with the availability of data that we've compiled over the last 30 years through AI's impact in space.
And these listening posts that I talked about earlier in our chat we can literally show you how you compare to other people. And to the point that I made earlier about the decline in appointment inventory or decline in intent that's out there. If you're seven points up on where you on what the rest of the market of practices that look like yours is doing, you're winning the game.
Stephanie Goss: Yeah.
Bill Schroeder: So pay attention to your data make sure it's right and make decisions that are data driven just like the scientists that you are.
Stephanie Goss: And I love that because I, well, the people who know me, I'm a huge data nerd. I love spreadsheets. I love numbers. I love to geek out. And for years as a manager, the only way to have a pulse check was to talk to other managers and say, “Hey, how's it going? how are you doing this?” And try and figure out some sort of comparison, right?
Like we had. the AAHA numbers for financials, like what you're charging for things and staff salaries and stuff like that. There was industry data between AAHA and Well Managed Practice, like we got some data there, but that was really all that was out there for a really long time. And I remember that's a big part, honestly, that's a big part of why building a community for me of, manager colleagues was really important because I had the ability to pulse check some of those other things against my peers and I love the advancements that have happened over the last 10 years, but really have flown since COVID. So, you know, this is one of those areas where I think it's a very positive change for us, and in terms of integrating AI into veterinary medicine is the ability to be able to connect and network and pulse check in that way, and to your point, be able to pulse check against similar practices because it doesn't, it does you no good to be that golfer who's out there golfing alone and thinks that they're ready for the PGA. It also does you no good to be looking at practices that have or are completely different than yours. You know, our attend doctor practice compared to your two or our ER compared to your GP, like those things are different animals and we have to look at it.
It's the same thing we tell clients about, you know, trying to explain a dental estimate to them. You have to compare apples to apples. And so, you know, yes, somebody else down the street might have given a hundred dollar dental estimate and you gave them a, you know, a 700 dental estimate. Well, first that question that I asked the clients is what is included in that, you know, estimate, in that treatment plan? And I think it's the same here. And so I love the advancements that we've made. I love what you guys are working on in particular and getting super nerdy. There's options out there for all different aspects of comparing practice data. But what I love about this piece of it, Bill, and what, you are doing in terms of the marketing aspect, is I think for the average manager or practice owner, practice leader. I know every CE I went to, the conversation was, you need to pay attention to the reviews because, and this makes sense, you're getting real time feedback from your clients and it is a pulse check for you on how it's doing customer service, on your prices, on the experience in your practice, all of those things like your team, you're getting real time data.
From your clients and you're getting the feedback. And we as a society have been conditioned to leave reviews when things don't go so well. And so we know that clients tend to, on their own, leave reviews when things have been not so great as compared to when it has been great. And we have to change that behavior by asking them to leave positive reviews for us.
But I think that for the average manager, we were taught to look at the reviews from the perspective, not so much of the data, but like that was our pulse check. And I think to your point, if that's the only piece that you're looking at, it's really easy to get lost in the weeds focused on that one negative review.
Because here's someone who's giving you real time feedback and it's, it feels like the end of the world sometimes. I mean, I've talked to manager friends who are just unhinged over a review and I'm like, I'm done. I, same reaction as you. So what? Like look at the hundred other clients that you helped today who left you and who were happy with how the day went.
But that's not, that's not the volume of what we generally get unless we're actively trying to seek those kind of reviews online. And so I think it's really easy to slide down that rabbit hole of negativity. And so I love the pivot that you guys have made and the focus that you're leading the industry in terms of getting us to look at the bigger picture and not just focus on that negative, pulse point.
And so I hope we start to see more data and more nerdiness, not because I want you guys to have competition here, but because it's good for us. It's healthy for us as an industry to start to think about things like a business. Like, yes, we are a healthcare provider. Yes, we provide a service.That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be scientists.
That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be data driven. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't run our businesses like a business.
Bill Schroeder: You know, our account managers are so excited about these advancements and you know, there's two like two other examples like, you know. We know that like particularly like a new practice a de novo practice that comes out You know the race is to get as many reviews as you possibly can and you know before like AI and all this data and looking at this data and these this tool that I'm talking about It used to be, you know, Steph, you'd call talk to an account manager and it'd be like, okay Let's get as many five star reviews as we can and you go Well, I'm breaking into this market where the leader in the market has 300 reviews and you know a 4.85 rating how many reviews do you need and they'd be like, okay, don't worry about that Just get as many as you possibly can we can set up campaigns where we're literally saying it's going to take you, you know, 500 reviews to get to this space to win this market. So what are we going to do to get the 500 reviews and it becomes a campaign and a goal?
Furthermore, when we're talking about like Google ads to go back there, we've built this way, this line of, this frame of mind that is, and I'm happy to share this with you all, that it's like, we can look at markets and look at individual households, zip codes, not individual households, but individual zip codes in the households within and say, this is what the actual spend is on dogs within that market, right?
Within that zip code and then we can take that data and look at how much you're capturing by running data through your PIM. And then say, well, look, you've got based upon the market and what we know of the market, you've got about, I don't know, 60 percent of that market that's available out there.
Let's leave that alone and not spend any Google ad money over there and let that go. And let's go over here, a desirable market, not because everybody's driving a Mercedes, which we know can be so fast, flipping dangerous, you know, about just targeting based upon where we think the money is, but there's an opportunity and you're only capturing 5 percent of that market.
So let's go out there and focus on that. And making decisions like that is the difference between marketing and just spending money out there. And like I, real marketing that works is not easy. It takes work on both people's part. And some, experience and things like that, and those practices that do it, they succeed.
Stephanie Goss: I think that's the hard part for your average practice is that we experience the, we're just spending money because we know it's a thing that we should be doing and it's, and it is hard. And so I think I, for me, I'm excited to see. More and more of the, I mean, part of it has been my work with Uncharted because we're, we started as, you know, a marketing and social media conference and being exposed to it.
And part of it is just an awareness and a growth within the industry that, Hey, this is something that we should be paying attention to. And not only that, but like, here's how you pay attention to it. So, I love that. That's a great tip. That's a great place to end us on, Bill. I love it so much.
Bill Schroeder: Thank you.
Stephanie Goss: Thank you! This has been super fun. I hope that your top three?
Bill Schroeder: My top three (holds pu five fingers).
Stephanie Goss: I'm holding up my five fingers, Bill's top three tips for things that we have to be doing so that we keep clients in the door. I hope that is helpful for everyone. I certainly think that it was from a practice perspective and I was taking notes.
Bill Schroeder: Well, thank you so much for this opportunity. I love working with your group. You know, sometimes it just clicks, right? Where it's like You know, I've over, you know, done this for so long, we're very fortunate that we get to choose the people that we work with and we're fortunate to be able to choose to work with y'all and I love every moment of it. I can't wait for Greenville.
For those of you who haven't seen me speak before, we're gonna have some fun. I'm doing a workshop, teaching it twice, so there should be enough time for everybody to come through if they'd like to learn about all the current things that are going on. It's gonna be workshop style.
Stephanie Goss: And I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to fluff your pillows for a second here, Bill.
Andy always fluffs my pillows on the podcast. I'm going to fluff your pillows because you said in the beginning, you gave yourself a shameless plug and I love it so much. You, are going to be at the conference and you said something completely unrelated, which is absolutely true.
One of the things that I love about going to your workshops in particular, but your lectures is that, I have never left one without feeling like I had a tangible resource or an action oriented plan and the resources or materials to support it. That's one of the things I love about going to your sessions.
There are a few uh, speakers in our industry who wrote just consistently, not only talk about the big picture and the important things that you should know but also make it really practical and like, here's how to do the thing. And so if you are someone who is like that, I would really love to learn more about how to do those things that Bill was talking about on the podcast today.
I think it is completely okay to give a shameless plug that you should join us. You should join us in Greenville for our April conference. Because it is an opportunity to. dive into an extended workshop with you, not just like a 50 minute lecture at a conference and really walk away with some actionable tools.
And so that is something that I appreciate about you as a speaker, Bill. And I just, you know, high five, two thumbs up, five star review for you. Yeah.
Bill Schroeder: That’s so kind. I mean, that's my why. Like, you hit, like you hit exact, thank you that was such a great compliment because that's exactly why I do this. I started lecturing years and years ago, like over 20 years ago, because I walked out of a marketing lecture at a major veterinary conference and I went, but now what?
You just told me these things, like, but wait a second, why aren't we like telling these people how to do this stuff? And so thank you so much. I really appreciate that. That means a tremendous amount to me.
Stephanie Goss: Yeah, you're welcome. And that's, that's, I mean, that's, part of why we love having you at Uncharted and why I love how different our format is. Not that I, I love going to the big conferences and the small conferences in our industry. And that's something as a manager that I always struggled with.
And it's my why too, for, working with Uncharted and in our community, because. Then what? What do I do now? Like I get excited about these things, but then what do I do with it when I get back to my practice? How do I make it applicable? How do I dive in? And so I think that is like, like you said, that is the highest compliment that someone like you or I can get is I, actually can, I know what to do with these things in my practice, or even if I still am not sure exactly how to do it. I have the tangible things to get me started and I know where to come back when I need help, need more help. And that's what the community and the conferences are all about. So I can't wait to see your face. I'm going to get to see you so, so soon in Greenville. And thank you again for being here today.
Bill Schroeder: Thank you everyone. I hope you're all well out there. Thanks for spending some of your time with me today. And I appreciate each and every one of you.
Stephanie Goss: Take care, everybody. Have a great rest of your week.
Bill Schroeder: See ya.
Stephanie Goss: And that's a wrap on another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. Thanks for joining us and spending your week with us. If you enjoyed this week's episode, head over to wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review. It's the best way to let us know that you love listening. We'll see you next time.
Facebook Comments