This week on the podcast…
This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and practice management geek Stephanie Goss are in the mailbag to take on a question from a practice manager colleague who is wondering what they can do at their practice to support the next generation of pet owners. Andy and Stephanie face up to their age a bit as a genXers, acknowledge that we need to stop thinking/talking about millennials being the new “young” clients and start really looking at the next big leap forward. Stephanie immediately ran wide with ideas on technology and Andy had a little more reserved approach. They managed to find middle ground and talk options in the end. Let's get into this…
You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
This episode is made possibly by SimpleTexting. For more information about helping your clinic communicate effortlessly with your clients, check out the SimpleTexting website.
Submit your questions here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag
Upcoming Events
This is your LAST CHANCE to register for our upcoming workshop happening July 1, 2023, 4-6 PM ET/1-3 PM PT with Maria Pirita, CVPM – EFFECTIVE & EFFICIENT TEAM MEETINGS
Have you ever felt like your team would benefit from meeting more often, or maybe a little less often? Do you struggle to find techniques that truly make your team meetings effective? Finding the right balance between improving team communication and a meeting cadence that is respectful of people’s time can be a challenge. In this workshop, Maria Pirita, CVPM will review the 40-20-40 principle and help you learn to properly plan, execute, and follow up after meetings to ensure that you and your team are getting the most out of meetings at your veterinary practice.
When: July 1, 2023, 4-6 PM ET/1-3 PM PT
$99 to register, FREE for Uncharted Members
Upcoming events: unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/
Episode Transcript
Stephanie Goss:
Hey, everybody. I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. Today's episode is brought to us by our friends at Simple Texting. I love this because Simple Texting believes that better care starts with better communication. Today's episode is all about better communication. Andy and I got a letter in the mailbag from a practice manager colleague who was wondering what they can do at their practice to support the next generation of pet owners. Very sadly, Andy and I realized that we are old AF, because we are not talking about Gen Xers. We are also not talking about Millennials because they're old too.
We are talking about Gen Z and maybe even the generation that comes after Gen Z and what we can do to lean into communicating and meeting them where they are at. We want to take into account all the different styles of communication that our clients, regardless of generation, want to use. This was a fun episode because I definitely ran wide with the ideas on technology and Andy had a little bit more of a reserved approach, but as we usually do, we've managed to find some middle ground. So, let's get into this. Now, the Uncharted Podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and the one and only, Stephanie, do you speak-a my language, Goss.
Stephanie Goss:
How's it going, Andy?
Dr. Andy Roark:
She just giggled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich, Goss.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, I am not a Vegemite fan.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I think I've had it one time. I think it's an Australian thing.
Stephanie Goss:
It is.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I don't even know where you find it.
Stephanie Goss:
It is.
Dr. Andy Roark:
But every kid of the '80s knows exactly what a Vegemite sandwich is, at least in concept.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, true story. How's it going?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, man, it's good. I took Hannah… I'm hoping that she'll run cross country over the summer, so they've got cross country practice. Okay, so here's why. There's a backstory here. I remember when I was a young doctor, I was working in Washington, DC and I'll never forget this family. I don't know why they stuck in my head because they had a sick pet. I don't even remember the pet, what it was sick about, but it was an ongoing case when I saw this family multiple times over a two-week period. Every time I saw the family, it was the father, the mother, and the three daughters. Every time I saw any of them, they were decked out in full running gear. They were ready to take flight. You know what I mean?
Windbreakers, shorts, all of them in different levels of warmup suit, but I felt like their clothes were breakaway. I could just snatch them off and run. They always had running shoes on. They were 100% dressed to run away right now. I said to the father at one point, and Jacqueline was probably two years old at this point. I said something to him, “Yeah, it's great that your whole family's into running.” He was like, “Yeah.” I said, “I have a daughter.” He's like, “Let me tell you something, get them into running. They're too tired to be interested in boys.” I don't know that that's true, but in my head somewhere, some part of me was like, “Write this down, Andy.” So Hannah is my girl with attitude.
So, I'm like, “Well, I don't know about boys,” but she'll be less bad if she's exhausted is what I think. So, anyway, I've got it in my head just from a long time that this is a good thing that Hannah would do and that she could be good at. So, I've wanted to get her into cross country and she's just finished the sixth grade. So, she's going to the seventh grade next year. So, the middle school coach has reached out. So, she texted me and said, “Hey, this is Coach Connolly. Hannah is a great runner. We're doing cross country, and I really think she should check it out at the high school. It's the parents' information meeting, bring your kids.”
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So she says, “You should go and also tell Hannah, I'm going to be involved with the girls team, but just make sure she knows that.” I'm like, “Okay, I'll tell her.” Okay. So, anyway, we go to the information gathering and we get there. It's at the high school and Hannah's going into the seventh grade. So, this is real intimidating. We get there and there's three coaches that present themselves, not the female coach from middle school. It's the quintessential, if Saturday Night Live did a sketch with football coaches, it'd be these guys.
You know what I mean? Two of them in their 60s and one of them in his 20s, and they've all got thumbs and belt loops rocking back on their feet. The young one looked like he could run. The other two have not run in a long time, I'm confident. They start to have this informational meeting.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Stephanie, it was the strangest informational meeting I've ever seen. It wasn't like this meeting could have been an email. I don't think it could have been an email, but the most infuriating thing was this could have been a 10-minute meeting, but it was an hour.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, geez.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Because the head coach liked to tell stories, and so he was telling stories. So, at one point, we're sitting there in the bleachers. Hannah's seventh grade. There's like 12th grade boys around. This is a tense thing. I'm like, “Baby, everything's cool. This is going to be good. Just stay with me. Just check this out. It's going to be fine.” The guy is just going through the handout they gave the parents. He's like, “Yeah, we got to have a waiver because things happen. I mean, we're not going to let anything bad happen. The kids have to run beside the road, but at the end, they're not going to get hit by a car except one time there was a kid who got hit by a car.” He's telling us at the informational meeting, he's like, “There was a kid that got hit by a car.”
So all the parents get real quiet. Really it's a good story. He says, “There's this kid Jimmy and Jimmy is out.” This is why the meeting took an hour because he just kept going. He was like, “There's this kid Jimmy and Jimmy is out and he's running. He was a knucklehead. So, he's a knucklehead and he is running by the side of the road. He is not paying attention to where he is going. There's this woman and she pulled up at the stoplight. She's sitting in a stoplight and she's just minding her business and the car's at a full stop. Jimmy just runs into the side of her car, wasn't looking, just came right off the sidewalk, ran right into her car. That wouldn't have been bad except the windows were down because it was a nice day. Knucklehead Jimmy just bust right through the window.
He went bang into her car. His head goes into the window. She thinks she's being carjacked because he screamed when he ran into her car. So, she punches the gas and runs through the red light with Jimmy hanging out the window.” Everybody's sitting there just wide-eyed staring at this informational session about why you should send your seventh grade daughter to cross country. The whole meeting went that way. That was just one example of where the meaning went wildly off the rails. As soon as it was over, I got a text from Coach Connolly saying, “Don't leave. Don't leave. It's not that way. It's not going to be that way. I promise your child will not get hit by a car. I promise I will be the girls' coach. I will be there.” So anyway.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, my gosh.
Dr. Andy Roark:
The jury's still out on whether or not we're going to do cross country this year.
Stephanie Goss:
I was going to say, what was Hannah's reaction after sitting through the hour of that? She's a kid who will tell you how it is.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Yeah. She basically said, “Those guys are scary.” She was like, “Those guys are scary.” That's it. That was funny. It affects some of my thinking here too is it was right as school was ending. So, she saw Coach Connolly the next day and the coach came up to her and said, “Hey, I really think you should do this. I really think your friend should do it as well and do it with you.”
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I reached out to the parents of the best friend and we're like, “Hey, do you guys want to do this over the summer? Maybe they can just drop in and do some of these running practices and see what they think.” When the other kid got on board and Hannah wasn't alone, I think, she's come around to this might be a thing that we can do together. But it was just funny. It was obviously really important to both of the girls that this female coach who's young and energetic and positive be there. It's just really interesting to look at my daughter and see the effect that these guys who I'm sure are really nice guys. You know what I mean? I am sure they are really nice guys, but they don't present necessarily a welcoming facade to a 12-year-old girl.
So, just the importance of having this younger coach there was really big. I wish she'd been more involved in the program, even just from a representation standpoint of just being there and standing up with the guys. I might say that to her at some point because she was there, but then she just disappeared into the background and she sat with the parents. Anyway, I think you never understand the politics of what are going on. I think she wants to be involved. I suspect she's new and getting going, but anyway, it's really been just interesting in thinking about that of what makes people want to be a part of things and how we present what we're doing funny. So, I don't know.
Stephanie Goss:
It's funny.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It's been an interesting time. I don't think I care that much either way. I really don't because she's really young to be going and doing this. Boy, I'll never forget about knucklehead Jimmy running into that car and the woman thinking she's being carjacked and punching it through the red light. Oh man, parenting. Nobody tells you how to do this stuff.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, man. That's pretty fantastic.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Just another day in high school sports.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, man. Well, I'm excited for our topic today.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Speaking of high school.
Stephanie Goss:
Speaking of high school, not even high school at this point. So, we had a great question in the mailbag that I'm super excited about discussing with you. So, it was from someone who was asking about supporting younger client basis. So, they were talking about how COVID has really launched the majority of veterinary medicine, at least into the texting realm and how their clinic has been doing some online booking and they started doing some preventive care plans as a way to give a subscription model or payment options beyond the traditional ones, but they were saying that it feels like as an industry as a whole, we're almost always playing catch up. So, they were asking how do we speak their language? How do we focus on younger clients?
I think it's a great question for a whole bunch of reasons, least of which is that we know that younger pet owners. It's so funny because I think it says how behind the times we are in veterinary medicine that when we talk about younger clients, we're still using millennials as the example.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Millennials are 35.
Stephanie Goss:
Right? That's the thing is that I hate to break it to us all, but millennials are old. So, when we look at the makeup of pet owners and all of the market research that is out there that has nothing to do with veterinary medicine, but just pet ownership in general, Gen Z is the fastest growing segment of the market when it comes to pet owners. They have been for some time, and there are things that set millennials and Gen Z wildly apart from the generations that came before them. So, I thought it was a great question and I'm really looking forward to going through it with you.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, no, I always like this stuff. I think this is really interesting. Obviously, I like innovation, I like change. So, I have a lot of feelings of excitement around that. At the same time, I can be crotchety and I can be crotchety.
Stephanie Goss:
You can be a 60-year-old track coach.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I can loop my fingers through my belt and say, “One time…” I don't know about this whole Texan thing. At one point, one of the coaches said… I don't know if this is true or not. It was the assistant coach. They refer to each other as coach. So, if you all look in the handout there, you'll see Coach Daniels and you'll see a cell phone number. That's my cell phone number. You will not see a cell phone number for coach. Why? Because coach doesn't have a cell phone. I'm his cell phone. I was like, “Is that real? Does he really not have a cell phone or are you setting boundaries to prevent people from texting the head coach?”
But looking at him, he might not have had a cell phone. It's been a couple days. I'm like, “Does that man really not have a cell?” I mean, it's possible he just did. He just smirked and rocked back on his heels. If ever there was a man who didn't have a cell phone, it could've been that guy. I'm like, “That's ridiculous. Also, I'm into what you're doing there, buddy. I'm into this.”
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, okay. So, you can be crotchety.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay. So, you're not going to get a rah-rah technology lecture from me, I'll tell you that. You're going to get a weird mixture of enthusiasm and caution.
Stephanie Goss:
Okay, fair.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So yeah, that's what I will do.
Stephanie Goss:
I will pick up my pompoms for us on the technology side.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I know. I saw your notes and I'm like, “Well, gosh, let's pump the brakes here.” This seems to be one of those conversations where your friend is so positive that you feel obligated to take the other side. We have to keep this in proportion here. That's going to be me.
Stephanie Goss:
All right, fantastic.
Dr. Andy Roark:
All right.
Stephanie Goss:
Should we start with that? Should we start with headspace?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Let's start with some headspace. All right, let's start with some headspace. So, I appreciate this. I appreciate this letter a lot and it is undeniable that the world is changing and it is changing faster than it has ever changed before. I mean ever. The industrial revolution did not cause us to move as fast as how we are changing right now with artificial intelligence. I use artificial intelligence today. Today, I took handouts, right? I took a bullet pointed outline of a presentation I'm going to be giving. So, I've got all bullet pointed out. That's all I've got is the bullet pointed outline. I put a lot of thoughts in this outline. I took that thing and ran it through ChatGPT and said, “Make me slides.”
It was like, “I'm a text thing. I can't make slides, but if I made you slides, here's what would be on them.” It just said, “Bam.” So then I took that slide. I copy and pasted. I dropped it into PowerPoint, just straight up, dropped it in, and then I hit their automated graphic design button. Voila, I got a slide deck. It's beautiful. It's much better than what I used to make in old school. I had the old school PowerPoints that look like a middle schooler's project with just solid color backgrounds and what looks like five by seven pictures laying next to some text.
Stephanie Goss:
On top.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, on top. That's what I used to do. This thing is so far better than what I used to do. That's just today. It took me 12 minutes to do something that used to would've taken me an afternoon. The outcome is much better and I'll tinker with it, but for the most part, it's done. So, boy, that's just happened in the last year. So, anyway, things are changing like crazy. The idea that we don't have to keep up, that's ridiculous. The way we communicate is different. The way we use technology is different. Change is coming and we need to be thinking about it. I think our clients are absolutely going to expect us to be… I don't think they expect us to be bleeding edge. I don't think they expect us to be innovating. The truth is, I think about it as a consumer too.
I don't want people asking me to download apps or register for weird stuff. I want you to only ask me to do things that are going to make my life more convenient. Technology for the sake of technology I think is bad. However, our world is changing fast and I like the fact that this is a recognition of that. Given the world is changing, what do we do? So that's my first part of headspace is look around you. The world is not what it was 10 years ago and it is getting faster and how it changes. So, I think this is a worthwhile conversation. Do you agree?
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, totally. Totally. I also agree with their sentiment that we are behind the curve. So, I agree with you. I don't think any of our consumers, even the ones who wish that we would get more ahead than where we are, I don't think that they by and large want us to be cutting edge. I think to your point, they just want it to be more convenient.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, cutting edge means so many things to so many different people. I don't think people want us to be less human than we used to be. I think that that's really important to people. I don't believe that people are pushing to have less interaction with the healthcare team. It was funny.
Stephanie Goss:
I would agree.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, you and I were talking with people on our team and we were talking about paying for bills at restaurants and somebody was saying, “I think we should have a tablet at the table. You just do all of your transactions there and you don't talk to the waiter or the wait staff.” I was just like, “I could see that.” In another way, I was also like, “Ooh, I don't like moving away from the human aspect. I don't like us not talking to each other as much.”
At the same time, paying on the tablet that's built into the table is probably a much faster way to get things done. Also, it's cheaper for the restaurant and all those things. So, I get it. I don't know that when we say get cutting edge, I think it's important to remember that people don't want less human interaction with their veterinarian or vet team, I don't think.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes. Yeah, no, I would agree with that.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So yeah, I think that keeping up is a process and not a destination. I think that's important to remember too. I think a lot of people look at getting on board with technology. They used to look at having electronic medical records.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, boy, this is a huge lift, but once we do it, then we'll be done. I'm like, “Hmm, I don't think this is ever going to end.” I think that that's a good headspace to get into is this is a process.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, for sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I don't think you're going to make it if you don't start with why. I think the idea that we need to embrace technology full-stop, I don't think that's motivating enough to actually get it done for most practices and most people.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think the first part of this in a headspace is to say, “Why do we need to embrace technology? What are we accomplishing?” I think that that's a big thing in technology overall is a lot of times people are like, “Oh, we need to upgrade because upgrades exist.” This is the crotchety Andy is going, “Just because you could do something in a more fancy way, to me, that doesn't mean by itself that you should do it in a more fancy way.”
Stephanie Goss:
Yes. So, I would actually agree with that. I think anybody who has used some of our traditional practice management softwares for a long time would agree. I never had the most up-to-date Avimark version. You know why? Because there's always bugs. So, if you're upgrading just for the upgrade, there are cons to that. There are pros, right? You get new features, you get things ahead of the curve, but there are also significant cons and the learning curve that goes along with it. The reality is in your average veterinary practice, to your point, nobody's got time for that. So, yeah, I agree with you. I don't think that that is where most of us want to strive to be. I think it's about finding that balance.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Well, I mean, think about technology in general. There are definite downsides to racing to be a first adapter for technology. You think of the old Betamax and no one had that after any of my time. What were the DVDs that were really big? What were those things? They weren't Blu-Rays because that became a thing that stuck around.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, they had them at school. When you moved off tape, that's how you would watch your science videos and stuff. The hell were those things called.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It was like a record sized DVD is what it looked like. I remember that. Those things, I remember seeing them at the stores. Nobody that I knew had them except for my uncle. So, my uncle was one of those. He loves technology stuff. As soon as it came out, he had it. As a result, he had a lot of cool stuff. He also had a lot of weird stuff that was going to be big and then just never was. I'm like, “Why do you have this?” He was like, “There was a time that this was the next big thing.”
Stephanie Goss:
The laser discs.
Dr. Andy Roark:
The laser discs, yes.
Stephanie Goss:
I was like, “Google, what the hell are those things called?”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Imagine going hard on laser discs. There's definitely a problem with racing to get up first in technology. So, that's why I say I can be a little bit crochety here. I think it's wise. There's definite downsides to racing ahead and being super cutting edge. Unless that's your jam, unless you're like, “I love it. I want to do this. I've got the resources to do it. I'm all about it.” I think for most of us, it's okay to look at where people are. I guess this is part of my big takeaway with keeping up with the times is I want to meet people where they are. We talk about that a lot in a lot of different contexts. Same thing here. It's like you know where people are? They're on their phones getting texts, they're not in their voicemail, they're not talking on the phone, but that's where they are right now.
I think people are looking for more telehealth and more convenience. I think convenience is where people really are. What can we do to bring convenience about? At the same time, we have to balance those things and say, “Okay, I want to meet them where they are and I need to be able to balance the needs of our practice and not feel like I'm a slave to technology innovation necessarily.” Again, it goes back to what is the why? Why are we doing this? Why are we making these changes and where are our clients?
I mean this metaphorically, where are they? But I also mean it literally, which says you should consider the clients you actually serve, not the clients that you imagine in your mind. Because if you are in Downtown Manhattan, you are going to see a different clientele than if you're in Fort Jenkins, Texas, which is not a real place in Texas, but just you know if it does exist, if it did exist, it would be a small town in Texas. That's not at all like Manhattan.
Stephanie Goss:
Fair, but here's the thing. I think that that is true, and I think that there is a lot to be said for looking at the data and the research and who do we serve. Because I'll tell you, so when I moved here, this is largely still a retirement area. Everybody advertised in the phone books still when I moved here, and that was only eight years ago. Yet when I looked at our actual client base and I started asking questions of the actual client base, they were online. They're older people, but to your point about your track coach, maybe he didn't actually have a cell phone, but maybe he did and just didn't want everybody having the cell phone number.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Which is super progressive. That's why this blows my mind so much, because he could be a complete Luddite. He could also be living in 2030 where people are like, “Hey, the cool thing is to not tell people you don't have a cell phone.” I can't tell where that guy is, but I'm sorry, but go ahead.
Stephanie Goss:
For real, we know that the generations, I mean when you look at who is using a social media tool like Facebook, which is where a lot of veterinary practices still are, the fastest growing market segment for them is older people. So, I think part of it is to your point about meeting our clients where they are at, I do think that part of the headspace is about doing your homework. Really I think as a whole, we need to open up our minds and look at what the research is saying. It was really interesting to me. So, those of you who have been listening to this podcast now, I like spreadsheets, I like numbers, I'm super nerdy. My brother-in-law and my sister-in-law are both in marketing and my sister-in-law in particular is in human healthcare market research.
So, I really like super nerdy market research stuff. So, I was looking at some studies in preparation for this episode and I thought that it was super, super interesting, because in the human healthcare side, 40% of people were saying that they find barriers to online access to healthcare. I was like, “Well, that tracks with veterinary medicine, because by and large, the majority of us put up significant barriers for our clients to have access to us.” Now we do it for a good reason because we're trying to protect our team and we're trying to find balance. To your point, it has to fit with what we're doing.
So, there are reasons for it, but when we look at the reason that in the veterinary space that clients are switching practices is super interesting to me, because Weave did a study and 35% of the pet owners in the study listed a lack of digital access as a reason for switching vets or the access to digital care and/or digital access to the practice as being a reason why they were attracted to a practice. That 35% is huge. So, I think it is really important to look at our existing client bases and start asking the questions of what do they actually want. So, from a headspace perspective, I do think it's important to do some homework, look at the studies. There's numerous ones.
Banfield has done a lot of research with outside companies outside of veterinary medicine looking at market research from a pet owners' perspective. There's some great research out there about what pet owners are. People are asking the questions of what do they want and they are telling us. If we are not actively as practices looking at the answers that they are giving us, we are behind the curve.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I completely agree with that. I do agree with that. I think that we've both see 100% utility in being honest about who we're serving and what they want. I think that when you look at the world, as I said at the very beginning, there's clearly momentum in this direction. Everything is moving towards a more connected digital interface. I think we all have to own that. The other part I want to say as we start to think about technology and making technology changes in our practice from a headspace standpoint is remember to think outside the box. I think a lot of the real kickback resistance to technology we get is because people make assumptions or they lock their brain in linearly.
So, they decide what getting on board with technology or what keeping up with technology means. They say, “I'm not doing that.” They dig their heels in and they react to this imagined reality. So, I'll give you an example because I am guilty of this as well. I think everybody is. We make an archetype of an idea, meaning we get a picture in our head of what something means and that's all that we can see. So, keeping up with technology is a nebulous term as far as what the heck does that actually mean. So, I will tell you there is technology that I am radically opposed to and it's TikTok. I have railed against TikTok for years. I am not on TikTok. I don't want to be on TikTok.
I cannot tell you how many people who work for me and who don't work for me have been like, “Andy, you know what the future is?” I'm like, “Don't say it.” They're like, “TikTok.” I'm like, “Damn you.” Here's why. Because when I imagine TikTok, I imagine me dancing like a doofus. I'm 46 years old. Me dancing on TikTok is not good for anybody. It's not. I'm talking to Kelsey Carpenter. I'm like, “This is not a brand builder, Kelsey.” It's growing like crazy. So, I have this knee-jerk negative reaction to TikTok because I have the picture of people dancing and popping little information bubbles and I'm like, “I'm not doing it.” No shade on people who do do it. It's just not my thing. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen.
If you hear this language I'm using, that's exactly the language that people have when they're like, “We're not texting people, we're not texting,” or “We're not doing telemedicine.” I'm not doing it because they get a picture in their head of what it would be like and they're like, “We're not doing it.” I was talking to Caitlin DeWilde who does all sorts of marketing and social media stuff recently, and I was like, “I don't know. What do you think about social media? So how do we still use this as a tool?” She's familiar with all of our stuff and everything. I was like, “Do you have any advice?” She was like, “You should get on TikTok.” I was like, “Caitlin, I'm not doing it.”
But here's what she said. She said, “You are imagining you dancing on TikTok and it doesn't have to be that. You are already doing video content. You already talk constantly. You're telling stories, just put them on TikTok and it'll be fine. No one said you had to dance. That's not even a thing that anyone wants.”
Stephanie Goss:
Nobody wants you dancing, Andy.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm like, “Well, good.” Then of course, I was like, “Well, I could dance if I wanted to,” but as soon as I was told not to, I was like, “I could do it if I wanted to.” But all of that to come back around and say it just didn't occur to me that this could be a useful tool that manifests in a different way than the weird way that I latched onto. That's true in telemedicine. They just don't immediately imagine not being able to leave their house because people were just constantly blowing them up and they would lose their day off. I think for a lot of people, they're like, “The only respite I have from work is leaving the building. If we start doing telemedicine, it doesn't matter that I left the building because people can pop up on my cell phone and there is no off switch from me.”
That's exactly what I say is I get it. I deeply, deeply get it. You have to reject that thinking. You have to reject the I'm going to lose my free time if I do this. You have to say, “Okay, this is a tool and it could be used in a way that would be beneficial to us.” I'm open to discussing what those ways might be without just having a knee jerk, dig your heels in, stomp your feet, I'm not doing TikTok reaction. That's my headspace piece.
Stephanie Goss:
I love it so much. First of all, I love Caitlin so much.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I know. She's not afraid to tell me things I don't want to hear. That's been our relationship a long time.
Stephanie Goss:
You just made Tannetje Crocker's day. She's going to hear this episode. She's going to be like, “I told you so.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, Tannetje, I met her when she was at a bar and she saw me and I'd never met her in my life. She was like, “I heard you talking trash about TikTok, Roark.” That's how I made a friend.
Stephanie Goss:
I love her, but I'm going to take yours and I'm going to one up it because I love it. I think this is a great veterinary example. So, your example of TikTok is so great because you had that kneejerk reaction from a brand perspective with inside veterinary medicine. You said, “The dancing and the pointing at things, how is that going to resonate with the people that I serve? It doesn't make sense. It's not me. It's not who I am.” You attach to that linearly. The same is true in our practices. I've had this conversation with so many managers and veterinarians about online booking, right? Which when we get to action steps is one of my basics. If you're not doing it, I'm going to get on that soap box real hot. But here's why.
Because so many people, to your point about telemedicine, think that if I open up my schedule for clients to be able to book appointments online, it means that inmates are running the asylum and it'll be pandemonium and clients can be just putting crap on the schedule whenever they want. But people think about it so linearly that the only way that they can see it is wide open and clients are going to do whatever they want or not at all. There is no in between.
We have that very black and white thinking for an industry that lives in the shades of gray every day, all day when it comes to how we make decisions about clients and patients. We do so much of our thinking, particularly when it comes to technology, as one end of the spectrum or the other. It is black or white. There is no in between. We have to shift our mindset.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, no, I get it. I completely agree. So, that's my thought on technology. I think one last way it's been put to me in the past was… I love our practices at Uncharted. I love our get-togethers. I love our live events so much, and it's for reasons like this. I remember being in a room with some really smart practitioners and we were talking about wages going up in our profession. This was a lot of practice owners who were in the room and they were like, “I don't know how I'm going to pay for this.” That was the discussion until one of the practice owners stood up and said, “Hey, listen, the thing that has helped us the most is recognizing that we've got to raise our wages. We've got to. So, given that we have to raise our wages, how are we going to do this?”
That's the question we've been asking ourselves. That was transformative to that session and to that conversation, because suddenly, it went from a lot of I don't know and I don't want to do this and the client pain is going to be this and all this wrestling with this idea. But when it was reframed as, “This has to happen, how can we make it happen?”, suddenly, the conversation got so much more productive and it was so much more problem focused and just the whole thing unlocked. So, I say that, because to me, technology is a lot of that way as well where we can absolutely wrestle with I don't want to do this. This is going to be so much work. It's going to be such a headache and it's going to be expensive and there's going to be so much training, but we can have these thoughts.
At some point, it's helpful to step back and say, “This is going to happen. We are going to have to move into the new era. How are we going to do this?” Then start getting serious about what your options are and what you're going to do and what you're not going to do. But getting past that whole circling around wrestling with anxiety and the headaches and woe is me, I have to do this, and just going, “Nope, given that it's got to happen, how are we going to do it?” How is a wide open question. I really do think that that's a very productive mindset.
Stephanie Goss:
I love that and I think that's a good spot to take a quick break and then come back and talk about the actual how. How do we do the thing? Hey, friends, it's Stephanie. I wanted to pop in here for a second because I never thought at this point in 2023 we would still be having this conversation, but here we are. Every day, I see posts in the manager groups that I'm a part of from practice managers and practice owners who are still, despite where we are in 2023, not using texting to communicate with their clients. It boggles my mind, because we know that 90% of text messages are opened within the first five minutes after being sent, which makes it a great way for us to reach our clients.
Now, I know a lot of you who weren't already texting picked it up during the pandemic and you have been off to the races, which is wonderful. This episode is all about ways that we can take it one step further. So, our friends at Simple Texting wanted to bring today's episode to you because they believe in helping us help our clients because we know that our clients want to text. It gives them the freedom to reply when they can. How many times have we gotten a call from our doctor's office or our dentist's office and we're at work and we can't answer the phone? But if we get a text, we can probably reply much faster than finding time to step off the floor for five minutes and call them back.
So, if you are interested in looking at a texting option for your practice that is simple, that is easy to set up, that integrates with tools that you're already using, like Google, Facebook, and tons of others, head over to simpletexting.com/uncharted. They have put together a promo for you and you can get $100 worth of free credits when you sign up to try Simple Texting. Again, that is simpletexting.com/uncharted and you'll be able to get $100 worth of free credits if you sign up today. Now, back to the podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
You've got some action steps, Goss. I've got two action steps. I've got two action steps. That's all that I've got because this is a nebulous philosophic question and episode.
Stephanie Goss:
You went with the headspace. I went straight into dumping down my ideas for action steps.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Here's where you go. So, the reason I don't have a ton of action steps is because of what I said before about know thyself and know what your clients want and who you are trying to reach and what is going to benefit your culture and your values and the practice you want to have and the people that you serve. So, I think that there's a lot of personalization here. There's not many things that I'm like, “Yes, every practice should do this.” There's just practices are so different. So, I don't necessarily jump right into that. The big things I would put forward as far as action steps are consider what you might do.
Going back to what I said right before the break of if we're going to get on board with technology, if we recognize the world is going this way and we're going to have to go in this direction, how do we want to do that? Then start looking at what your options are. Then the two big things that I would say to get this done is first, remember your 80/20 rule. There are some things that you can get on board with that are going to make a significant impact, that you are going to be able to do them. People are going to use them. You are going to have a big impact on what you're doing. There's lots of other things that are bells and whistles that really are not going to do that much for you. They're not going to shake the earth.
The clients are probably going to largely not notice them. You're only going to use them with a certain small number of clients, things like that. This is change management 101. Think about the changes that you can make that you think are going to most significantly positively impact the experience of your clients, your clients, and which ones are going to be simple to implement. Which ones do you think you can get your team on board? Then you're going to find the balance of what is simple to implement, what can I get my team on board with, and what are the clients going to find the most value in? Then just do those. Beware of doing summer of technology where we're doing 10 different things. No, just pick one, implement it, and then in three months, you can move on to the next thing.
But my advice is slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. Go slow and implement stuff in a way that makes sense. So, remember your 80/20 rule. 80% of your success comes from 20% of your efforts. Pick the 20% that are going to give you 80% of the client experience you're trying to create. Then after you get that laid down, you can tinker, you can add some bells and whistles, but just be smart about what you pick up because you will always be able to find more things to add if you want to. The other part is this. It's just a little action step about getting inspired. You know and I work with a lot of consultants. We work with presenters, speakers, writers, people like that in our industry.
One of the things that people have said to me again and again is they'll say, “Well, I need to get inspired.” If I was inspired, this would be easy. I look at TikTok and I'm like, “If I was inspired, I could jump into this.” You know what I mean? And really have fun.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
But I'm not inspired and so I'm going to wait until I'm inspired to do this. So, I have young consultants and speakers who are at Uncharted that say that to me all the time. I'll say, “Look, I get it. It's wonderful to be inspired, but inspiration to some degree is for amateurs and professionals hit deadlines.” What that means is I can't sit on my hands until inspiration strikes me because sometimes it doesn't. So, in those cases, my advice is generally this is. If you're someone who's going, “Boy, if I was inspired, I could get to work on this. I could really figure some stuff out, but I just need to get fired up.”
This may sound silly, but I promise you, it works or it can work. Imagine for a second that you were inspired. What would you do if you were inspired? Then write that down and that's your to-do list and now go do it. You're like, “But I'm not inspired.” It doesn't matter. You have a to-do list. Go do your to-do list. Hopefully, you'll find inspiration on the way. But it's just silly. It's funny.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I'll have people that come to me and they're like, “Well, I want to renovate this practice, but God, I'm just not feeling it. I'm just not inspired.” I'll say, “Great, if you were inspired, tell me about what you would be doing. Just imagine that.” They'd be, “Oh, well, I would be pulling magazines of vet magazines and looking at photos. I would be messaging some of my friends and asking who had a hospital design that they really liked. What do they liked about it? I would be doing all of these things.” I'm like, “Great, why don't you just go ahead and start doing those things and then we'll see if we find inspiration along the way?” So anyway, that may sound silly, but guys, I promise for things like this, it can be a really helpful tool.
Stephanie Goss:
Okay, so I'm going to take your what if you were inspired, and I am going to flip it because I know that we have a lot of veterinarians and a lot of veterinary practice owners that listen to the podcast. We probably have a lot of people listening right now who are feeling a lot like you and TikTok and they're just like, “Technology does not inspire me.” This whole conversation that you all have just had makes me want to run screaming into the forest and live in a box in the woods. I have no desire to do it. It doesn't have to be you. This is another aspect of our linear thinking is that it doesn't have to be you. It doesn't have to be you as the manager. It doesn't have to be you as the practice owner.
If we want to know how to communicate in another language, generally, the best success is immersion and we find someone else who already speaks that language. So, as adult learners, that is the number one tenet for learning a new language. It's the same here. We're talking about learning how to communicate with the younger generation. Pick someone who's younger. It could be somebody who's on your team now. If you have a team that doesn't have somebody who's younger on your generation, younger generationally on your team, you can outsource this because there is a lot of the things. To your point, pick one thing and do it slowly. I would agree with that 100% when it comes to implementing things that impact the team and the workflow.
I think that there are a lot of things when it comes to technology and communicating with clients that happen on the backend that can have very little impact for the team. I think that's where we can start if you are worried about it. You can get a lot of traction and a lot of motion by having one person on your team or somebody that you outsource, whether it's using one of your third-party vendors and leveraging somebody on their team, whether it's hiring someone to just do this work for you. Because believe it or not, in this crazy world full of technology, there are websites that exist to solely hire people to help with projects like this. You can outsource this. This is something that you can ask for help getting done. There are things like putting online booking in place.
Now, yes, your team has to know how it integrates with your software and what the appointments look like when they come in, but that piece of it is so small and the vast majority of it is client facing. It has to do with getting it on your website. It has to do with getting it on your social media. It has to do with getting the things set up. That's an area where you can work in tandem with someone else to put a system in place that is immediately going to drop a barrier of access for your clients and give them more accessibility to you using technology that they are asking for to be able to get in and see you. That is going to drive revenue, which in turn is going to allow you to do the things that you care about in your practice.
Pay your team more, buy new equipment, all of those things come when we practice good quality medicine and we get more clients in the door. So, I think some of it is I see where you're coming from in terms of looking at the 80/20 rule and picking one thing to focus on at a time and doing things slowly. But when I sat down and I was brainstorming a list of things, there's probably 10 things on my list that are what I would consider basics. At least half of them are things that someone could help you implement in your practice that are on the backend, that are going to be client facing, that are going to have minimal implications for the team in terms of management. Because they are things that someone who speaks the language, who likes using the technology could run.
That person doesn't have to be someone on your team and they're things that you can do to be talking directly to your clients, which was the question at the very beginning. So, I think for me, I think the action steps have to start with looking at the basics. There are some barriers that we know we put up for clients. The phones is a big one. How many of us are still using the phones in our practice as our primary source of communication with clients? Yet we know that the studies show that clients are almost always put on hold. Think about the last time that someone called your practice and somebody on your team didn't have to put them on hold either at the start of that conversation or during the course of that conversation.
We know that after being on hold for 1 minute and 55 seconds, so it's less than two minutes, the majority of clients will hang up and a huge number, 34% won't call back. So, think about that. If we put clients on hold, 34% of those clients that we put on hold are walking out the door and not coming back. That's a huge number. So, when I think about that barrier, we have to think about basics. It's doing the things like texting, which our writer at the start talked about, which is awesome. But believe it or not, we still have clinics out there who haven't started texting. We have clinics out there who are not doing online booking.
I mean true booking, not having clients request, “Hey, I'd like to come in on a Tuesday and see Dr. Roark,” and sending an email and going back and forth, but actually when I book an appointment, I went this weekend, I took my kids. We went and got pedicures. I can go on the salon's website. I can look at their calendar. I can see what the options are. I can book the appointment. I don't have to talk to anybody. I can pick the thing that works for my calendar. We have to start to think about reaching those clients where they're at, and we know that that's something that they want. We've been talking about forward booking in veterinary medicine forever.
If you're not looking at how do we get clients in the door ahead of time, that for sure has to go on the basics list, because it helps us communicate better with them when we already know what the next touchpoint is. When they're already on the schedule, yes, they may have to reschedule the appointment because we're booking it 6 months or 12 months in advance, but it gives us that next point of contact versus making our team do the work for it. The clients are already there. They're already saying yes, right? So there are things like that we've been talking about. Since COVID hit, we've been talking about digitizing our forms. A lot of us did that in the beginning for the basics, but how many of us have continued that?
There are still so many practices that are paper forms for all of the things, new client forms, anesthetic, permission forms, boarding forms. We have got to think about how do we lower that barrier so that clients can come in, drop their pet off, and go out the door. So, I think for me, the basics really start with some of those things, but there's all kinds of cool things that practices are doing. This is where, to your point about inspiration, one of the things that I love the most about our Uncharted community is that we have some of those practices that are doing things that when I heard of what they were doing, I was like, “Holy cow, that seems so cutting edge, so progressive.” But it's about finding that inspiration.
So, it's about talking to your peers, seeing what other practices are doing, because to me, the basics, the things that I just talked about, those are things that we should have been doing 5 to 10 years ago. If you're not doing that, that's where you have to start, but for most of us, we're doing those things. So, what is that next step, which is what the writer was asking, right? How do we go beyond the basics? How do we start engaging with them? To me, it's about getting inspiration. I would look in veterinary medicine, but to be honest, this is where I as a manager always leaned outside of veterinary medicine. What is human healthcare doing? What are dentists doing? Dentists have a very similar model to veterinary medicine in a lot of ways.
I have been consistently inspired by what my colleagues in the dental field have been doing for years. Things like being able to offer preventative care plans, looking at making it personal, knowing our clients, knowing who they are, using a client relationship management tool, a CRM, to know who our clients are. When you go to the dentist, my dentist, anyways, always asks me, “Hey, how are Riley and Jackson?” They know the kids' names. They know what activities they're involved in. They know about my family. They know what I do for work. Hey, how are things at the clinic? They don't remember all of that. They write it all down. It's things like that that millennials, that Gen Z, when we look at the data, there are a few things that they really care about.
That personal touch, that small business feeling statistically in market research has been proven over and over again that it is something that Gen Z cares dramatically about. So, starting to look for that inspiration, both inside veterinary medicine in places like the Uncharted community, even some of the groups that you can find online and on Facebook, seeing what your peers are doing, talking to them when you go to a conference, having those conversations. That's why I love Uncharted so much because we have that community that feels like the conference that never ends. So, we don't just go one time and the conversation ends, but asking your peers what they're doing and looking outside the box of veterinary medicine.
I think to your point, when we were getting ready to start this section, I was like, “Dude, I have so many ideas.” I think this is one of those episodes where I'm going to be like, “I want to write a blog article about this.” Because I think that there's so many things that we can do. For me, to your point, it's about finding that inspiration and really doing our homework. So, for me as manager, it was about who is my client and making that archetype, looking at the research, finding out what is it they're actually asking for when it comes to pet ownership. For millennials and Gen Z, there's five real buckets that market research has demonstrated. So, I would approach it like, “What are the buckets? What are the things that they care about?”
Then to your point about how do I minimize the impact on the team, what are things that we're already doing that fall into one of those buckets? Then what are simple things that I can build on, that I can put in each of those buckets and slowly but surely work on strengthening those relationships and speaking their language in more intentional ways? You can't go from 0 to 100. We prove that over and over again in the practice, and we most often fail. We've got to figure out what are those baby steps to get there.
So, for me, it's about doing your homework, looking at the data, looking at the data that has been brought over into veterinary medicine for us, figuring out who our existing client base is, looking at what are the things that we are already doing, and then getting that inspiration and figuring out how do I put that system in place. We have to stop thinking linearly that we have to be the ones to do all of this and think about what are those things that we can do in the background that don't impact the team's day-to-day workflow that can allow us to speak to the younger generation of veterinary medicine in ways that they are going to immediately soak up and love.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, no, I like that a lot. I think it's super smart. It's always good to take a data-driven approach. I think that's a great balance of, like I said, the non-linear thinking. It's about looking at state of best practices. It's about remembering who you are trying to serve. Like I said, there are people who have very progressive tech forward client basis and there's people who have the opposite of that, who are definitely not tech forward progressive audiences or client bases. Again, I think it's knowing your people. So, I like all that. I think that makes a lot of sense and I think that's just a good approach. Again, if you're starting to feel overwhelmed, fall back into keeping up is a process. It's not a destination. This is not going to end.
Pick the things that are going to help the most, that are going to make the biggest difference. Get them in place and move forward and move forward. Just know that we're going to have to keep adjusting. I am confident the world is going to look very different five years from now than it does now. So, people go, “Well, I'll just wait five years before I do anything.” I was like, “I'm pretty sure it's going to be a building process.”
Stephanie Goss:
Start now.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Again, starting now and being intentional I think makes a lot of sense, but yeah, I really like your idea of delegating it too. I think this is absolutely something that can be delegated. You can mentor a young leader, find someone who it's their passion and support them. Yeah, I think that makes a ton of sense.
Stephanie Goss:
I want a soapbox, but we're out of time.
Dr. Andy Roark:
We'll stop recording and then you can just soapbox to me if you want.
Stephanie Goss:
My mind is running. Yeah, this is one of those ones.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Soapbox in the Uncharted community. Just go in there and start posting and talking to people.
Stephanie Goss:
Guys, Andy wouldn't let me talk on the podcast today. So, now I'm going to give it all to you.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Everybody, huddle up. I got something to tell you. But yeah, if you're like, “Well, boy, I would really love to hang out with some really smart, innovative practice leaders, managers, head techs, medical directors, practice owners,” and get some ideas about what they're doing so I could pick the best path for me, come on over, join the Unchartered community, jump in 24/7, 365. It is a vibrant, engaged community that's always happy to help. So, anyway, that's all I got, Stephanie Goss.
Stephanie Goss:
Me, too. This was so fun. Have a fantastic week, friends.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Thanks, everybody.
Stephanie Goss:
Well, gang, that's a wrap on another episode of the podcast. As always, this was so fun to dive into the mailbag and answer this question. I would really love to see more things like this come through the mailbag. If there is something that you would love to have us talk about on the podcast or a question that you are hoping that we might be able to help with, feel free to reach out and send us a message. You can always find the mailbag at the website. The address is unchartedvet.com/mailbag or you can email us at podcast@unchartedvet.com. Take care, everybody, and have a great week. We'll see you again next time.
