This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Stephanie Goss and Dr. Andy Roark dive into another intriguing submission from the mail bag. This time, they tackle a question from a practice owner who's embarking on the journey of opening a new clinic and is pondering what type of client experience to deliver. The practice owner is eager to establish a distinctive client experience for their new venture but is uncertain about the direction to take. Stephanie and Andy emphasize the importance of aligning the client experience with the practice's vision and values. They get a little spicy in debunking the notion of a one-size-fits-all approach, emphasizing that the client experience should be tailored to reflect the unique identity and goals of the practice. Stephanie and Andy provide actionable steps to help the practice owner extract their vision and values and translate them into tangible practices for their new startup team. From defining core values to training the team, they offer practical guidance to empower the practice owner in shaping a client experience that resonates authentically with their practice ethos. Let's get into this episode…
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Episode Transcript
Stephanie Goss: Hey everyone. The Uncharted Veterinary Conference is just around the corner. And I have to take a quick second to say thank you to our amazing industry partners, because without them, the Uncharted Veterinary Conference wouldn't be possible. So from the bottom of our uncharted hearts, I just want to say thank you to this year's partners Nationwide, Nutramax, Hill's Pet Nutrition, CareCredit and InTouch Practice Communications. This group is absolutely amazing. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. From the whole crew.
Stephanie Goss: Hey everybody. I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of The Uncharted Podcast. And this week on the podcast. I think my favorite part about this week's episode. Right up front is going to be the facts that Andy and I absolutely wildly disagreed with. How to start this episode? We always do had some shenanigans right upfront. We talked about how to kind of, maximize efficiency and provide high quality, low stress care.
And you might be asking yourself, how could you and Andy possibly disagree on that? We've got to listen to the actual mailbag question to know how we disagreed, but we both agree that providing high quality care and low stress handling is important to both of us. And, so is maximum efficiency within our teams. And so we really had a fun time getting into, talking through some options for this mailbag writer. So.
Let's get into this.
Dr. Andy Roark: And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and the one and only Stephanie Show Me The Way Goss. I want you to show me
Stephanie Goss: Show me the way.
Dr. Andy Roark: Every day. Every day. Like, not just sometimes. Every night. You don't even get the weekends off. I want you to show me. Every day.
Stephanie Goss: Oh, no.
Dr. Andy Roark: No. No.
Stephanie Goss: So we got, uh, an email from a practice owner who is opening up their, uh, own clinic, which is really exciting. He said, I'm starting a new clinic and I'm working on the foundation for my practice culture and the client experience. And I'm curious to know what you both have found to work in clinics in terms of the client and the pet experience.
And they were asking, could we walk through what happens when a client comes through the doors to when they check out at the end of their appointment? And really what they were asking was, how do you maximize efficiency for the team while still providing value and utilizing the client Low stress handling?
Dr. Andy Roark: yeah. The question was will you walk me through what happens from the time the client comes to the door until they check out? And my immediate reaction was no.
Stephanie Goss: Which is so funny because my immediate reaction was, oh my gosh, this will be so fun.
Dr. Andy Roark: I’m like, no, like, I actually wrote that in the notes. I was like, the first one, no, no.
Stephanie Goss: That's why I said, that's why I said this episode is going to be so fun.
Dr. Andy Roark: I did notice that you added like a fleshing out question after I was like, no, and you're like, okay, how about this?
Well, okay. So, so why no, Andy? Andy, why just a wide no?
Stephanie Goss: Why no?
Dr. Andy Roark: All right.
Stephanie Goss: Because I just told you no about working weekends and you're telling this absolutely not. No. So why? Why the no, Andy Roark?
Dr. Andy Roark: So here's, it's a great question. It's, well, it's, yeah, it's kind of a great question. But here's, the thing, and like this comes from a really hard experience place. Your culture, the team, the talents that they have, the individuals that you have, and your values, like what you care about, what you're trying to create, that should guide the experience that the client has from when they come in until they leave.
Not what some guy on a podcast says, right? And there is not a right way to do it. The power of the independent practice owners– this person is starting. Here's a beautiful thing. You are starting a new clinic, like do not run and copy what someone else is doing, you know, stop and think about what is important to you and what really matters and why you built this clinic.
And then figure out how to make the experience that makes this worthwhile for you. Because never again will you have the freedom to start the practice. The practice will always be started, and you will always be adjusting from what you previously had, except for right now, which is a blank slate. I know that's scary, and that's intimidating, because you can do anything with it, because it's a blank canvas. Anyway, that's why I'm like, mmmm your culture, your team, your values, that dictates what you do, right? Also, the way that you create the client experience when you're starting out and you have 5 employees is completely different than how you're going to create the client experience when you have 35 employees.
And so, if you look at a hospital that's got 10 doctors and 90 employees and you're like how do you guys do this? I don't know that you're going to get very valuable information, or at least not most of it. Because they've got, they have more people at their front desk than you have in your whole team.
Building and so it's just that and I have seen so many people tie themselves in knots because they're like, oh my god This is what I'm supposed to do. And I'm like you can't do that with six people. What are you talking about? And they're like, but this is what I read that the top practices are all doing this and I'm like The top practices according to who and based on what metrics like the top practices that have six employees, they're not doing the thing you're talking about that's got queues and apps and you know all sorts of stuff like that. They're not and then the last part and this is a classic is you know comparing your day one to my day 6,000 is a recipe for disaster and feeling bad about yourself
Stephanie Goss: Right.
Dr. Andy Roark: And so, anyway, I say no, and I do say it jokingly.
I don't take it too seriously. But I do want to, I just want to lay those things down. I, yeah, I just want to lay them down. I think it took me a long time. It took me a long time to get to a place where I could look at what I was doing with a loving eye. And know that I was in a certain place, and I was on a certain part of the path, and this is where I am, and it does not look like, you know, the person who owns the business and has owned it for 10 or 12 years, and is at the top of the game.
Like, it doesn't look remotely like that, and man, I have felt bad about myself many times, because I couldn't, you know, I was, anywhere close to where I thought I was quote unquote supposed to be.
Stephanie Goss: Supposed to be. Yeah. It's so fun it's so funny because when I read your when I read your notes and he did, he had no, like, hear this in big capital letters and exclamations, multiple exclamation points, and I was like, oh boy, Andy and I are going to be on different ends of the spectrum.
Dr. Andy Roark: You’re like, the first thing you do is you greet with a warm smile, and I'm like, oh, for Pete's sakes, goss.
Stephanie Goss: So now that you've laid that out, we're not as far apart as I thought because it's funny because this is, I get asked questions like this a lot. And I know you do too, like, what do you do? And one of the things that people say to me, and I always laugh and people always look at me funny when I do laugh, but people will ask me, well, you know, like, you, what you, your practice just seems like they have it together and I laugh and they're like, why are you laughing?
And I'm like, Oh, because if you could see how much it took for us to look like we had our shit together, like you would laugh too. Because it's a journey, right? And so my answer to people when they ask me things is almost always, it depends. Because should is a four letter word. Like it is dangerous.
And to your point, like I spent so much time as a young manager and learning. As a leader, I spent so much time comparing myself to other people and falling short and it was not a fun experience. It is never a fun experience when you do that. And so to your point, like comparing your day one to someone else's day, 6,000 or 10,000 or 1 million, like that is just a recipe for the thief of joy coming through and stealing all of your happiness because you're never going to make measure up. And so I think that's part of it for me is that the answer is it depends. Cause so many like, and that was going to be my answer here is like, I could tell you a way I could probably tell you five ways that you could try and maximize the efficiency, focusing on value and low stress handling, which they indicated were important to them.
And go speak to your point about the values and the people who make up the team. And my immediate reaction to this email was. There's so many questions I have, like, I need to ask you 10 million other questions because it depends. It really depends. How many doctors do you have? How long are you?
Like, there's so many variables here. And so your, broad strokes of the culture,
Dr. Andy Roark: Your broad stroke of no.
Stephanie Goss: Your broad stroke of no, your broad stroke of no, but the color then that you filled in afterwards about, it really depends on the culture. that you're trying to set, the people that make up your team, how many of them and your values, and also some of the logistics about your practice.
And I love that you, you said something that's really important, which is what I don't want anyone to take away from this is the idea that I am saying, don't look at what people. So I'm going to talk a little bit about what other people are doing and allow yourself to be inspired, because let me tell you, like, that is how I learned as a young leader was I looked at what other people were doing, and it asked tons of questions.
And every time I met somebody else from Vet Med, I would ask them questions about what, how do they do this in their practice? And how do they do this? Because it allowed me to be inspired, not because I wanted to look at it and say, Okay, they have 10 doctors and I have one, but I should be doing that thing that they're doing.
But because to your point, maybe I can take one nugget out of their process and incorporate it into ours because one piece might work, five pieces might work. I don't know. I have to see it and I have to hear it and imagine what that could look like for me, because to your point, like the culture, the people, the team, the processes that we're going to have are going to be radically different from practice to practice. So the answer really should be, it depends.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, it should, and I will stop here and start to open up a little bit and say, I am also not saying that you shouldn't ask other people and look what other people are doing. Not yet, though. Not yet. I, so I promise I'm not blowing off this episode, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna lay out the framework that I would use and then it will be appropriate to ask people how they do things and look at other people's, you know, ways of working. But I, I want to get, I want to get our writer set up for success because I've seen a lot of people just start asking, how do you do that? And just have the whole thing kind of fall apart. And so I, but I don't want that. So anyway, I love the headspace. I love that. I think I love this question as far as, Hey, I'm reaching out.
You just lay it down for me. How do you do this? Super smart question. Let me give you some framework and some context. And then you can ask this question and I think you'll ask it a bit differently and I think you'll get a lot more out of it. So that's where I want to go. All right, cool. That's man, that's a I know we're moving fast.
That's about all I got from headspaces is to lay down and sort of say, Okay, this is how I look at it. This is why I would sort of push back on the approach. I love your point of, you know, it depends. The answer to all these things is it depends. And so I'm like, okay, let's talk about some action steps.
Let's talk about if I was in this position and I wanted to build a client experience, how would I do it? And I would like to change it to that question.
Stephanie Goss: Okay.
Dr. Andy Roark: And then I would like to answer that question in our action steps section.
Stephanie Goss: Okay. Well, you know, we're just trucking along today. Do you want to just jump into some of the action stuff? Do you want to take a break? What, I mean,
Dr. Andy Roark: uh,
Stephanie Goss: We're way early. We're way ahead of schedule, which you and I never are. All
Dr. Andy Roark: our little break right here. And then we'll, and then we'll do action steps.
Stephanie Goss: sounds good,
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And the book is the key, which is so Uncharted. I absolutely loved it. So head on over to Amazon and grab your copy. Now there's a link in the show notes below. And now back to the podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark: Okay, so getting into this and saying, all right, we're starting a new practice. I want to get the client experience right. How do I deliver it on day one? Okay, so the way I would do it is like this. So I start number one is with setting values. It's about setting your values. If you were like, I don't know what you're talking about, Andy.
I don't understand setting your values. You keep saying that, whatever. We have our uncharted. Leadership essentials certificate that is out now. It is at that Vetfolio you, if you just want the strategic planning vision and values, it is, one hour is the course you can grab like that. You can get the whole certificate if you want.
The certificate is free if you're an uncharted member. And so anyway, but if you're like, I don't want to be an uncharted member. I don't want to hold certificate, you can go get our Strategic Planning Vision and Values at Vetfolio. It's in the Leadership Essentials Certificate from Uncharted. and we lay all this stuff down on how to do it.
But,
Stephanie Goss: Because we have a really specific, you and I both agree very firmly that there is a specific approach to creating the vision and values and a process that involves more than just you, like it involves the team. And so it's not a, it's not a, let's just podcast kind of thing.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. Oh yeah, exactly. So, So thevalues here are, and again, I'm taking the position of someone who's starting a vet practice, what do you, want the client experience to be? And if it helps you, what makes the client experience at your imaginary practice different from the other practices around you? Like, I think there's great power in saying this is how I want our practice to be different.
Stephanie Goss: I love that.
Dr. Andy Roark: I want us to, this is how I want our imaginary practice to be different. I was like, tell me about that. What do you imagine it being like, the, again, what is, the driving force? You know, we talk also in that workshop about your guarantee.
And the guarantee is a thought exercise I use a lot. Where it's like, if you are going to make a money back guarantee to your future clients, where you said, if you don't feel blank, if you don't hear blank, if you don't get blank, we will give you your money back. What is that guarantee that you would make?
Is it if your pet is more afraid leaving our practice than they were coming in, we'll give you your money back? And again, you don't have to follow through on it. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you should do this. But if I made you do it and said, I'm going to force you to make a money back guarantee that shows what you really care about and what makes your practice special, what guarantee would that be?
And I really like those types of thought exercises. That's why we spend a lot of time fleshing them out in the course. The reason I flesh them out is because that is the guiding light. That's the North Star. That's where you're trying to go. And so the first thing is to say, what are your values, right?
Stephanie Goss: And one thing I think that is really important too is recognizing, like, I've never met someone who opened their own practice who didn't have if not values, beliefs, and reasons behind why they were becoming– why they were opening their own practice, and some of it might be that they want the freedom to work for themselves and things that don't have to necessarily do with the client experience, and almost always it is because they have an idea in their brain about what they want the experience to be, or things that they have experienced that they want to be different in their practice.
And so to your point, like thinking about why, what matters to us? And so, you know, like I looked at this email and I thought, okay, I could pick out a thing, a few things that I think just from what they wrote, the little that we did get, that, that are valued and that matter to them. And so going through that thought exercise, like to your point and thinking about what is the thing that important is really important.
And recognizing that it's important for you as an owner to know why you want to do the thing that you want to do, because you have to then involve the team and have that conversation with them and be able to communicate that to them.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. And so that's sort of the, that's the second part for me. So the first one is, you know, set your, values. And the second one is, set the vision, right? This is your why. This is your North Star. This is your origin story. If you're a brand new practice owner, you have an origin story.
Like you were, and again, I don't mean to jack the stakes up, that's what it is. It's like, this is the origin of your baby practice. And so, what is the origin? Why did you believe that it needs to exist in the world? What are you going to do at your little practice that's not already being done again and again?
And, can you tell that story to your employees? Can you, and again, It's still a story being written. Don't feel like you have to say, this is the origin story before we've opened our doors. But you should be thinking about what that origin story looks like. And then when your people come in and they say, why should I work here instead of down the road?
You should have an answer for them. And that answer should tie into the client experience that you're creating. It should all be linked together because it's the meaning and the purpose of what we're doing. And so, you know, you start to say, okay, this is the vision, right? This is where we're trying to go.
There's nothing wrong with asking your team for help. And we talk about that when how to do core values exercises with the team. What do they care about? Think about asking people when they're interviewing people and say, what are your favorite interview questions? My favorite interview questions are experiential.
Tell me about a time you were really happy at work. Tell me about a time that you worked at a place that you really loved. Tell me about the best boss you ever had. Tell me about, you know, tell me about what a time that you got out of bed in the morning and you were excited. What were you excited about?
Stephanie Goss: Well, and as a new practice owner, like your team might not be able to tell, like, if you've already hired people and you haven't opened the practice yet, which for a lot of owners is the case, right? Like, you know, when you're going to open. And so you hire people before you have your first day. And so like, if it's truly a startup and you're not, you know, taking, over someone's practice that has that has employees already, which it's, it sounded like this was a brand new startup, then you probably have team members that you're hired and ask them, like, what made you want to take this job?
Like, why are they there? There's some reasoning there. And part of it probably has to do with how you already have shared some of your vision. Otherwise, you know, I'm just, most people don't go looking for a job in a brand new business that hasn't opened. Like there's, you know, there is something there as to why they are there.
And I think, you know, thinking about your own vision, but also bringing the team to it and asking them why this job? Why here? You know, because they might not be able to give you the answers to those questions about their experience with you yet. They can give you their prior experiences, but knowing that, hey, we're going to write this story in a year from now.
I would love it if, you know, you could give an example as to why you loved this job or why I was your favorite boss ever or whatever. And so what does that look like for you? What do you, why are you here? What do you want out of this?
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I agree. I think you already started hitting on some of the things I was going to say, but as far as interviewing stuff, I don't think it's wrong to say to somebody, hey, we're starting a brand new practice. If you came here, what would you like this practice to become? Like, what impact would you like this practice to have?
Like, if you could have a magic wand, what impact would we have here? And then imagine yourself a year from now, and you're working here, and you love it. What do you imagine your day is like?
And, and those are the, I like those types of questions,
and I've just, anyway, I enjoy thinking about those questions, and what they would be, because they're just fun.
There's a lot of people struggle with them. They're not easy questions. There's no wrong answer. But they, and again, a lot of people are not going to be able to articulate to you, don't expect people to sit down and give you their manifesto, they're like, I don't know, I mean, I, this is important to me, but I'm trying to dig at what they care about, I, there's a lot of different things to get out of it.
So anyway, setting the vision, explaining why. Why are we doing this? Who are we? what do we aspire to be? I think that's, I think that's really good. And notice, I strongly believe having insight into these questions before you ask people, what do you do? And how do you do it? I think that is absolutely critically important.
I think, I hope people listening is like, if you see, you already see how I'm framing this up. So that I'm going to have a different substrate on which to build when I ask people, how do you do this? And so I'm going to be able to set the specifics of my question a lot tighter to say, given that this is what I care about, given that this is what I'm trying to create, how do you approach people at your front desk?
And do you think that would be a good fit? Or if you were me, how would you approach this? Because now I'm asking the person who runs a 75 person practice. I'm not asking them what they do, but I would say, if you were me and you had six people and this is what you cared about.
Stephanie Goss: Yep.
Dr. Andy Roark: How would you set up this front desk?
Stephanie Goss: Because that's a practical question.
Dr. Andy Roark: People would answer that ,they would answer. They would be honored to answer people, especially if you said, I need some advice, people love advice. They love to give advice.
Stephanie Goss: Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: And so, And now you're framing this thing up tightly. The biggest problem with getting mentored is we often don't ask specific enough questions, and so that's why I said before you can ask me how I do things.
You need to frame up this question tighter and make your question more specific so that I can actually help you. And so anyway, that's the first thing. Set the vision, set the values, right?
Um, where does the vision– Where does the vision really come from? I want to say this too, because once you start getting into vision, people can sort of struggle.
The way I would put the vision together for me is, I think about what I call the client experience exercise, okay? So imagine your practice, imagine your imaginary practice. Put yourself in the role of the client. You are the client and you walk in the door. What do you want to have happen? What is– because here's the thing if you're the client and you have these values that are driving your practice. You should be the ideal client for your practice if you would pretend you're not a vet but you should– the things you care about this client should care about because it's you.
And so then walk in and say, how do I want to be greeted? What would make me feel happy? You know, and then go look at other practices and you will see some that do great things and you will see some that do not great things. And most everybody's going to do some stuff you like and some stuff you don't like because that's how the world works.
And their values are different than yours. And so then you can walk around and you can see things and you can ask people and you can say, I like this, don't like that, you know, but you know why. And so it's called a client exercise. Yes. I, and I will do it. I will sit down with a piece of paper. I get everything really silent, I imagine going in the door, and I write down who speaks to me, how, like, how they speak to me, what is, what do I, take away from the first interaction, do they greet me by name, do they come out and say, and do they greet my pet, and again, that's not right, it's just what I like, and there are wonderful practices where they are very formal, And they are like, we are, we are gold standard of care, this is how we do it, we don't go and, greet the pets, blah, blah, blah.
And other ones are like, oh no, we aspire to know every person and every pet's name when they walk in the door. And like, it ain't wrong or right, it's about. What you care about, what your values are. And so anyway, but this exercise can help tease those things out. So the first thing I do is to go, okay, if I'm the client, what do I want my visit to look like?
And then, and usually I have to take a break. I get a snack, maybe, the next day come back and I sit down with a different piece of paper and I say, what do I want the team experience to be? And so the client from yesterday is now up front and I'm in the back. How are we going to handle this? How are we going to go greet them?
Who walks them in? Who puts them into a room? Like, what makes sense for me with a limited number of people? And so start thinking about, look at your budget. How many employees are you going to have? Because, I mean, I went to the Netherlands and I got to speak in the Netherlands a number of times and I spent time in practices over there.
It is extremely expensive. To hire employees in the Netherlands, which means most vet practices are running two and three deep, like two and three employees. That's it. And they're answering phones, checking people out, placing catheters, doing all the things. And they do it, and they do it great. But the way you run that business is night and day different than how you run it when you've got eight people at the front desk.
Not, better or worse, just different. So anyway, what's the team experience in your mind? How do you want to work? Because this is about you. And again, somebody might tell you how I work, I got literally 20 people in the treatment room. We got 10 exam rooms. It's not going to help you.
Um, the last thing is the last part of this is the mentorship exercise, which is I tell the story of, and we got some time, I'll tell it real quick.
One of the best pieces of advice for getting mentored that I have, and this is a big one in my life, I met this guy. His name is Dr. Bob Brown. And he is a management legend. And he was driving down. through Gainesville, Florida. I was at the University of Florida's in the vet school and I was the president of the VBMA and I reached out to him and said, will you be at this conference?
And he said, no, but I'll be driving through. Do you want to have breakfast? And I said, yes, I do. And so I went out and met Bob Brown at the Bob Evans next to the highway and we had breakfast and we were walking in and I said to him, Hey, look, I can't believe you're taking this time with me. I really appreciate this so much.
I know we've only got a limited amount of time. And I'm trying to sort of figure out how to make the most of it. And he said, well, tell me what you're working on and ask me specific questions. And that sounds simple. That's the best piece of advice I think I ever got in my life for.
Honestly, you talk about a piece of advice that open doors for me. It's that, is that right there? And you're like, that's so dumb. It's not dumb. It's everything. It is. If you want help. Tell me what you're working on and then ask me specific questions, and I will answer specific questions for someone who is listening and who I think is going to actually, you don't have to do everything I say, but you have to at least listen it.
And if you believe it's a good idea, I believe you'll actually, you're going to actually implement it. But if I believe that you are willing to make changes based on what I say, and I believe you're listening to me, I will answer your questions. All day long, as long as they're specific, I don't want to, you know, tell me that you're working on it.
Ask me specific questions. I will give you as much of my time as you want because it's very rewarding. And then also I believe that I'm helping you because I'm digging into exactly what you want to talk about. And so now that you've done the client exercise and the team exercise, you are ready to go and start asking people, what do you think about this?
This is what I want the client experience to be like. What is the team experience like? What does this look like? Have you ever done anything like this?
Stephanie Goss: Yes, because not only can you ask them, how do you do it? Or have you done anything like this or any of that? But you can also say, okay, I know that I want our clients to be able to have access to our team before they even set in the door that is digital. I want them to be able to text us.
I want them to be able to contact us through the app. Whatever that has looked like in your client experience exercising, then you have the ability to go to someone else and say, This is what we're looking at. Do you have suggestions for what you have done here? Or tell me about your experience with an app.
And then you can get into the specifics and that is it, I think I, I tend to frustrate the hell out of people. I'm in a bunch of manager groups and I am sure that shocks you, Andy, that I annoy people, but people ask questions all day long and they're just like, you know, what's the best, what's the best practice management software in/out there right now?
Dr. Andy Roark: That would kill me. That would drive me nuts.
Stephanie Goss: And every single time– and you guys tease about my answers, like, what is your handbook say? It's the same for this, which is there are so many questions. I have so many questions and now I literally have a little template that I copy into when somebody asks that question. Cause I'm like, it depends.
Tell me about your workflow. Tell me about the number of doctors. Tell me about what your client service focus is, like all of those things matter. And so I'm like, I can't answer because there is no one size fits all approach, like to, to any of it, to technology, to hiring, to, to 99. 9 percent of what we do in leadership in veterinary medicine, there is no one size fits all approach.
Like it has to be about the specifics. And so I love that you said, ask me specific questions. Because that is the key. I get really frustrated and I don't want to engage in those conversations with people who are learning in veterinary medicine if I can't get them to give me specific information.
They're just like, well, you've been practicing for 20 years. Why can't you just tell me what the best one is? Because the best one for my practice may not work for you.
Dr. Andy Roark: It’s this just the reason I said no at the beginning. No. It's because I have spent so much time in my life answering questions where people say something like Hey! What's your favorite practice management or software? And I tell them and I explain why and they wait until I'm done.
They go, yeah, that wouldn't work for us. And I'm like, well, why didn't you tell me like that? You did like the thing that you just disqualified my entire answer with. You failed to share with me before you ask me the question. And, you know, and I'm like, I'm just, I, it, sucks my soul away um, which is why I'm like, tell me what you're working on, which means tell me how far you've gotten in the process.
Tell me what your constraints are. Tell me what you care about. And then. I will answer and then I'm going to take the flip side of this coin too and say this because there's people who were like, Oh my God, Stephanie Goss is right. There's no perfect one, which means we have to look at all of them to find the perfect one.
And let me say, just so you know, there is no perfect one either, which means at some point you're gonna be like, that one's good enough and you're just going to do it. But it's, you're going to get better advice. You're going to get closer to what you need. And that just there, oftentimes you are going to have to, you're going to decide what you care about and you're going to get as close as possible and then you're going to make it work and it work.
Stephanie Goss: It is infuriating to people because that is the flip side of my answer, which is there are always cons. Like there is like when people ask me specifically, I guess great example would be about practice management software. My answer is no. There's something that sucks really bad about all of them. So don't, like, don't think that there's gonna be a perfect one.
The answer for what is gonna be perfect for you is what is gonna suck the least for you. Meaning the specifics about you, your practice, your team, like, whatever is gonna give you the least amount of headaches, That's probably the right one for you for right now. And then so, and it just, people get so, so irritated, but it is so true.
Dr. Andy Roark: It's like a cell phone provider, you know, you're like you can't compare apples to apples. Anyway, we're getting off track– but it is that it is like there is no person. They all suck in different ways.
Stephanie Goss: Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark: and you know, it really depends on where you're going And how you and what
Stephanie Goss: So first we told them no, and now we're telling them it all sucks.
Dr. Andy Roark: It all sucks in the end anyway.
Stephanie Goss: Alright you're going to ask what the vision is. You're going to do the client experience exercise.
Dr. Andy Roark: And now we're getting mentored, right? And now we're at the place, now we're at the place where we're asking questions. So, insert question here, but not walk me through from the beginning to the end of what you do. But, given that this is what I care about and this is what I'm trying to create, can you give me advice or share with me how you do things that you think would help me achieve this outcome? How, if you were me, knowing what you know and knowing how your practice works, how would you approach this? Those are the questions that I would ask, but it requires laying down some of what we're working on. And then, now that we've got this vision and we're starting to talk to people, we're going to start to leverage the skills of the people we bring in as fully as possible. Which means, if you want a white glove, high touch you know, customer experience where we know everybody's name and we greet them warmly when they come in, you need to hire for that.
You need to hire, first of all, don't hire the quiet person who whispers and, you know, is deeply shy. If you want people greeted with a hug when they come in the door, you know what I mean?
that's just kind of the way it works. Or I'm not saying don't hire that person, but I'm saying maybe they don't work right up at the front desk. You know, maybe we schedule differently, but you get the point. When you. And this sounds so silly, but I will tell you, especially with a small team, this is the difference in a high performing small team and a struggling small team. A struggling small team is somebody who puts a team together and they're like, this is what we're going to do.
I'll take you, you and you get in here and do these jobs. The high performing small team says, I got you, and you, and I've watched you for a week and I've talked to you about what you care about. And I believe that you are very, you have these skills, you have these talents, you have these interests, and I'm going to be a little bit flexible and try to plug you in a way that maximizes your strengths.
So you are super easy to like. And you are gregarious, and you, my friend, are going to be right at the front desk. And you are a much more introverted, but you are a great critical thinker, and you are a strong process person, which means you're going to help me write the handbook and start to make our medical protocols, because we don't have any of that stuff.
And, it's day one, not day six thousand, so us not having that is not a problem, it's just where we are. And so I am going to use your conscientious nature to start creating our system protocols, and that's how I'm going to leverage you. And it's, that sounds so dumb, you're like, of course you would do that.
I, most, I don't understand why people do that. Don't recognize the individual strengths of people around them. One, they don't see them for some reason. And then number two, they don't realize that you are going to get so much farther ahead in this world if you take people and you put them into places where their skills get to get used.
And I promise you, you are surrounded by people. You might be a person who has these natural talents, these beautiful gifts. And you're not in a place to use those beautiful gifts. And that is a sad thing. And I, but I see it, all the time. So anyway, but I mean, do you agree with that?
Stephanie Goss: Yeah, I love that. And I think if you're starting up a practice, they're probably, I would hallucinate, probably doing it to at least a small degree in the sense of as a practice owner, if I know, if I step back and look at what my values are, my vision, if part of my motivation for starting my own practice is because I want there to be high quality client experiences because the practice that I worked at previously wasn't so great at client service, then I'm going to intentionally hire for that.
And so as a business owner, you're just shooting yourself in the foot to not maximize the talent that you have. Like that, why would you hire somebody who is exceptional at client service and not put them into that role? But to your point, I think as things grow and change, that's when it becomes harder.
And so upfront, they're probably already like intentionally trying to hire some of those people. those people for those specific roles. And at the same time, I know from experience and from friends' experience that when you're trying to get things going, it can be really easy to give in to the temptation of, I just want a person, right?
Like, it's kind of, it's kind of like when we're super short staffed and we're like, you feel like you have a deadline. It's probably a little bit that way too. If you're starting up a practice, it feels really different if you're starting up a practice that is set to open four weeks from now than if you're starting up a practice and it's set to open four months from now, right?
Like if you, so I think some of that again, Shades of gray. And my answer is it depends because it's going to depend on the specifics here. And so I think your point is a really good one about leveraging the team as fully as you possibly can. And if you have the luxury of intentionally searching those people out, do it. Be smart about that.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. Well, there's two ways, right? Like, one is, ideally, I would like to hire for the people who are going to fit right in my culture. And here's the other thing, too. Very quickly, if you, live your values, if you're like, this is who we are, we're loud and proud, and this is who we are, people who share those values will be more likely to take the job. They will, they will find you, and when they come in and interview, because remember, an interview, it goes both ways. It's not about
You know, them selling you or you selling them, like, it should be about do we want to start a relationship together, because that's what this is, and so you're gonna, you're gonna, what you manifest out into the world comes back to you, and, that happens in your employees, I have found again and again.
The other part is, the employees you have, They, have skills. Are you paying attention to know what those skills are? And a lot of times we can shift someone around on the bus or even just kind of, especially when you're just getting started, it is not a big deal to move tasks around and be like, Hey, I'm going to take this off of your plate and let you do this.
And let me tell you why. It's because I think you're going to be really good at this. And you can definitely do that. And then the next step is train, And you say, but how do you try it? And you say, you train the Uncharted way. So here is how I tell you, this is. This is what I do with our team.
So I haven't talked about this before. This is what I do with our team. This is how I would train. And so I am back in the imaginary vet hospital, right? And they're getting ready to get opened. And I would bring the team together. And remember when we did the client exercise, I would think about that.
And then I would come back and I would have the team come together. And we would, in a fun way, create an imaginary employee. And we could name her whatever the team wanted, and we always come up with a nickname that's just silly that we have for the person, and I ask about what kind of pets they have, and I ask about what their favorite things are, and I ask about if they're married or not, or how old they are, and I ask about what their hobbies are.
And I ask about what their, what the best part about them at work is, and I ask about what the worst part about them at work is. And we write all this down, and we make an imaginary employee. And then I say, great, this person is at the front desk, and we are going to help him or her be successful when Miss Johnson comes in.
And then I would make a client, and I would talk about what their pet is, and why they're here, and what they're upset about or I would, in this case, I would say, this is a brand new person. How did they find us? They were just driving past. Great. They're just driving past and they are sticking their head in to see what we're about.
Now our brand new imaginary employees at the front desk, the door opens, the person sticks their head in and they say are you guys open? What should our new employees say? And that's, and then I roll with it from there. I would say, great. I want you guys to, we're going to break up into teams of four.
You guys have 10 minutes. I want you to make a plan. What should this person at the front desk do? Like when someone walks in, what are the important things for us to say? What are the important things for us to do? How are we going to act? You have 10 minutes to make an action plan for our imaginary employee.
And how they're going to work on this. And then when we come back, everybody's going to share their action plan and bam. And that's it. And now my employees are knowing our values, knowing what we're excited about, knowing that no one's getting criticized because it's an imaginary client and an imaginary employee. Bam, there's no danger here, but they're going to tell me how we treat that client.
And then we're going to do each team is going to get to say, and again, there's not a lot of teams because it's a brand new practice that each team is going to tell me what their plan is. And I'm going to ask them questions like, why do you think that's important? Well, what does that sound like when you do it?
And then when it's all done, I'll say, can we come together and make one plan that we agree on? Or I'll just let it go. And I'll just say, great, we all heard this. Let's make a new client or great. That's enough for today. I can do this. Taking the client, making the client and making. Making the client doesn't take very long time because you're just asking about who's a client, what, you know, what's their pet, what's their problem, you know, I like to come up with something that helps you visualize that client.
So I asked him about who they are as a person, like, what do they look like? What is their work? Work, make, making an imaginary employee takes a little time. If you do it right and you really have fun. But once they're made, you keep them and you can roll them out every other day, every week.
And you could say, this person just did this thing. And you, this is a way I train on hard conversations. I train on angry clients. I train on customer service. I train on phone etiquette, any of those sorts of things we can do. By having them talk about what the imaginary employee should do and how they should do it.
And so anyway, those are the types of things that I would do to get people on the same page. And the beautiful part is we can talk about who we are and we can introduce our values and we can reinforce the things that are important and we do it all together.
Stephanie Goss: Well, and what I, there's several things that I love about that. And the first, the least of which is the fact that you are essentially role playing without calling it role playing, which everyone hates and everybody dreads and no one wants to participate in. And so, you know, people ask you and I that question.
Question all the time. How do we get the team to practice? This is how you do it. You make it fun and you make it not, it's like, how do I get my kid to eat the vegetables? I hide the vegetables. It's the same with the team, right? I hide the vegetables in, you know, in brownies that they can't, they, all they taste is the chocolate.
They don't taste the, you know, the vegetables, the spinach that I've put in there. It's the same kind of thing with the team. So they're getting practice time in, but they're doing it in a way that doesn't feel like they're, you know, so that I love that. The second thing I think that is really important is that when you were laying out your process, my process brain immediately went to, but to run through the 10 million scenarios that might happen with Mrs. Smith when she walks in the door, like that's going to take 10 years and we have to open this practice in four weeks. And I think the thing that's really key about what you said is. Can we break out into groups? can we come back, share how we might approach it? And then can we agree, and this is for me as a leader, especially as a startup, like one of the secret weapons that you need to put in your back pocket is, can we agree for right now?
Because what you do on day one, what you do on day 30 is probably not going to be the same as what you do on day 100 or day 130, right? Like you're. It is going to change and it is going to morph. And as someone who starting up a new business, things are going to change so rapidly. And so if you have the ability to get the team together, and I loved your point, Andy, of, okay, let's just hallucinate that this is the perfect client for us.
And they've stuck their head in the door. And then I would say, Let's imagine that this is the worst possible client for us. What does that look like? Prepare them for the best, prepare them for the worst. Know that the majority of the people that you're going to deal with are probably going to fall somewhere in the middle, right out the gate.
And then they're, and then they're prepared for both ends of the spectrum. And then you can repeat this exercise to your point, you know, six months from now. Hey guys, we've been doing this for six months and a lot has changed. So let's rerun this and let's say now we've been open six months and someone just driving by sticks their head in the door.
What do we do now? Because it's probably going to look dramatically different six months from now versus four months before you open your doors. Like there's no way to, to hallucinate. what it's going to look like until you live it sometimes. And so I think don't put that pressure and stress on yourself to think you have to do this and sort it all out.
Look at the things that are going to be mission critical and figure out can we look at both ends of the spectrum and agree as a team what the middle could look like for right now. And if you get everybody on board with the idea that things are going to change and we're going to learn a lot real fast, that's one of the things you always tell us.
Because you, Like Andy was right, he will do this with us and I think one of the things that you always follow up with, whether it's within the community or with us as a team, is to say, we're going to try this. And we're going to give it a certain amount of time, and we're going to see what happens.
And then we're going to talk about it. And we're going to learn from what happened. And we're, maybe we're going to keep it. Maybe we're going to tweak it. Maybe we're going to throw it away and try something different. But this is what we're going to agree to for right now. And I think that lesson served me so well in the clinic because things change so quickly in veterinary medicine.
And, as a leader, that is one of those super tools to put in the back of, in your back pocket and just say to the team, can we agree right now what we're going to do next?
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. That's one of my, that's my last point right there. And then that's something that I would really stress. It'd be the biggest, probably my biggest piece of advice for someone who's in a clinic that's growing rapidly. It is mission critical to gather the team and to say to them in some way, shape, or form, hey guys, we're growing, and so things are changing, and they're going to continue to change. We're going to try a lot of things, and some of them won't work, and that's okay. And if they don't work, we'll fix them, and we'll change them. But, everybody needs to know, we're going to, we're going to be doing things differently to accommodate our growth and more people, and we're not going to get them all right, but we're going to keep working on it, and we're going to keep making adjustments.
And so, I'm asking everybody just to be patient, and to know we're doing our best and assume good intention on the part of others. And just, you know, we'll, we will keep talking about this and we will keep working on it. And it is amazing how much of a difference that makes and how rarely people say that.
I think, I have felt, I'll just tell you, I don't know if other people this way, I have felt that as the leader, as the owner, whatever, there were times I felt like everyone was looking at me and expected me to tell them what the system, the program two years from now was going to look like. And I'm like, I don't know.
I have never done this before. I have no idea how this is going to go. All I can say is what we've done in the past doesn't work and what we're going to do in the future. I don't know. We have to figure it out. And one of the things that made me feel really great was I got that advice from a mentor of mine who's been wildly successful and done a million things.
And I was really struggling with rapid growth and how to communicate with, you know, twice as many, three times as many people as we'd had in the past. And I'm like, I don't know how to do this. And he said, there's not a, I said, tell me how I can make this. This is another thing that was really important to me.
I said, I feel like I've failed because I did not set up a system that would work. When it had twice as many people and he said that's ridiculous. He was like you can't you there's no like this–You cannot foresee the future and set up a system today. That's going to work in two or three years You just you can try but you just don't know and said you're gonna do something now And then you're gonna have to figure it out and rework it and then here's the worst thing when your company grows again You're going to have to fix it figure it out again.
And there's just no way around it. You're going to have to figure it out. You're going to try stuff. And again, these are like the things I didn't realize early on was like, Oh, it's a constant struggle of figuring out how to communicate with these people, how to keep people on the same page, how to keep them informed without blowing up their inbox, which they're not going to read emails anyway or having staff meetings that never end or, you know, like, how do I keep them informed without overwhelming them with a bunch of stuff and it's just it never ends, but when you know that Everything seems a lot more manageable.
When you think that's not how it's supposed to be, it feels really terrible. And so the best thing you can do is set the expectation with your team that things are going to change. Ask them to be patient. Ask them to give you grace. And then, if they get frustrated, you can say, Hey, we talked about this. We know that things are changing. I hear you. We're working on it. We're working on it. And that means a lot. So anyway, that's my last piece of advice.
Stephanie Goss: So I think looking back the thing, the way that I would answer this email actually is not with no, although we didn't, walk them through what happens when a client comes to the door until they check out. So we did say no, but I think if there was one thing for someone who was starting up a practice that I would say, they're asking good questions already.
And I think you gave some great advice on how to ask questions. great questions. But I think they are asking some good ones. Like I could tell from their email, they care about certain things. They have some values already there. They're asking good questions. So I would say the best piece of advice would be when you think about what our action steps are, like recognizing that stuff takes time.
Doing, doing the vision and values exercise, doing, talking about the client experience. So I would say the answer for someone, whether you're starting up a practice or buying a practice, like my answer would be make sure to make time and recognizing what you and I have said, which is that things are always going to change.
Don't just give, like everybody is this, I think this practice owner is probably one of those who's really smart and they're probably blocking out extra time because they know they're going to have to handle things about the business as they're setting up and growing the business. Recognize that's not going to stop.
You're not going to get to year one and be like, we're done. I've done all I need to do. Like we never need to have, you know, meetings. We never need to work on the business. I think setting aside that time to work on the business and not in it and figure those things out. Because like you and I said, You're going to figure out what works for right now, and then six months from now, or a year from now, it's going to need to get revamped.
And so if there's one thing that you could do to set yourself up for success, it's figure, I would say, it is figuring out how to carve out that time now and continue to carve out that time, so that You can do those kind of exercises, so you can ask those kind of questions, so you can have those kind of conversations with your team.
When I think about the most successful practices that I know, they're all practices that intentionally take that time, whether they have five employees or they have 105 employees. They're intentionally making space and time to work on the business.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. I agree. Well, thanks for talking through this with me. I hope it didn't come off as antagonistic in the end. I hope it's clear why I'm like, I don't want to answer this question. Like, I hope that makes sense.
Stephanie Goss: Because the answer is, it depends.
Dr. Andy Roark: It really depends. It very, much depends. But also, like,
Stephanie Goss: I’m sorry.
Dr. Andy Roark: uh, no, exactly right, but summing up, the big takeaway that I hope that, the writer got from me is, this is your chance to make this beautiful thing that is yours, that is your, it's your own ship, that it can do unique and special things.
It can create experiences for people that they can't get anywhere else. Don't throw that opportunity away by grabbing on and trying to just replicate somebody else's thing. Especially don't throw that opportunity away by grabbing on and trying to replicate a 35 employee practice. When you've got five or six, because it's not going to work.
You're not going to be happy. It's you're going to feel like you're failing. The experience is not going to be good. Lean into the fact that you've got a tiny team that you can huddle together and you can talk to all at once and look them in the eye and tell them who you are and tell them what you care about and find out who they are and then go make something beautiful and magical together, figure out what you're doing and then find some mentors.
Tell them what you're working on. Ask them specific questions. Keep trying to put people in positions where their talents shine. Remember to train, train, Just play games. Ask them questions. Ask them what they would do. I love using the Imaginary Employee. It's kind of my jam right now. I just, I, love that.
And then set the expectation that we're going to try things, that we're going to make adjustments, that we're going to keep learning, and we're going someplace good.
Stephanie Goss: I love it. I love it so much. Have a great rest of the week, everybody.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, everybody. Take care.
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.
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