This week on the podcast…
This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and practice manager Stephanie Goss are tackling a question Andy was asked about working together with our (local) competition. A manager in a rural/remote area is wanting to connect with other managers. It seems the veterinarians in the area don't all get along and see no reason to work together. These managers are looking at it from a different lens and wondering “Isn't there a point to us working together?” better yet, they are asking “how do we explain this to the vets who don't agree with us?” Let's get into this…
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Episode Transcript
This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey, Stephanie Goss. You got a second to talk about GuardianVets?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. What do you want to talk about?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Man, I hear from people all the time that are overwhelmed because the phones never stop ringing.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm sure you hear from these people as well, like our caseload is blowing up and the doctors are busy and the phones just don't stop.
Stephanie Goss:
They never stop. That is a true story.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm amazed by how few veterinarians know about GuardianVets. This is a service where you have registered technicians who can jump in virtually and help you on the phones. You can flip the switch and GuardianVets can jump in and take some of the load off the front desk and they can handle your clients and get them booked for your appointments and give them support and it really is a godsend.
Stephanie Goss:
Pre-pandemic, it was amazing to me how many people hadn't heard about it for after-hours call help. But at this point, I can't believe how many people don't realize that they are offering help during the daytime as well which I would think right now is a huge benefit to practices because everybody is shorthanded, everybody is drowning in phone calls. And so, we talk about it. We've talked about GuardianVets a lot on the podcast and every time we do, we always get somebody who says, “What is that?”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Guys, if you're not familiar with GuardianVets, if you think that you could use some help on the phones or up at the front desk, check them out. It's guardianvets.com and if you mention our podcast, me and Stephanie Goss, you get a month free. So check it out, guardianvets.com.
Stephanie Goss:
Hey, everybody. I am Stephanie Goss and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. This week on the podcast, Andy and I are answering a question that he got sent about playing nice with your competition. It is from a manager who lives in a small town, rural environment and is wondering what the benefits are of getting to know the other managers in the area. The doctors involved in their practice and the other practices don't seem to get along, don't seem to care, don't seem to want to get along, and they are looking at it from a different perspective and wondering, “Is there a point to playing nice with our competition? Are there benefits if I work together? because I like the manager at this other practice over here and I would like to get together and pick their brain about some things. How do I go about doing this?” I'm going to tell you, this is an episode where I get really excited because this is my jam and I can't wait to talk about this. So let's get into it.
Speaker 3:
And now, The Uncharted Podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Fight Like A Title Holder Goss. That's a song. It's punk. I've been listening to a lot of punk rock music recently. I have just been feeling like an anarchist recently and I listen to Rancid Radio on Amazon Music.
Stephanie Goss:
Stop it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
No, I'm serious. I missed a trick when I was young. I should have been into punk music. I love it. I love it.
Stephanie Goss:
The mental image I have in my head right now of Andy Roark as a punk is amazing. It is a job for Jen Galvin's photoshopping skills because it is an amazing mental picture. I need to just enjoy this for a second.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Blue mohawk and a thick nose ring, like a big ring.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, I was imagining a nose ring. I was imagining some eyeliner, black, ripped clothes, safety pins. Oh, it is a good mental picture.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I could have… I'm serious like-
Stephanie Goss:
Stop it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
There is a pathway in my life… It was a door never opened to me. My parents never showed me that door and I didn't have punk rock friends. I think I was 10 years too late for punk rock. I hit high school in 1991 and I think if I had hit high school in 1981, I would've been counterculture, I think.
Stephanie Goss:
I can't.
Dr. Andy Roark:
The band 311 was just blowing up and I saw a show they did in this little community center and there was a mosh pit and it was so great. I was like, “I've never done this before but I really enjoy it.”
Stephanie Goss:
Oh my gosh.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I can see through the multiverse. There is a… Not this-
Stephanie Goss:
There is a punk Andy Roark.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm still punk rock veterinarian because I don't see that changing. So I've got a chihuahua that also has a mohawk. I would get a Chinese Crested with a Mohawk-
Stephanie Goss:
Oh stop. Oh my god.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Stick it to the man.
Stephanie Goss:
That's amazing. Okay. Add that to the pile of facts that I did not know about Andy Roark.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Stephanie Goss:
This is a mental picture. I'm quite enjoying this. Thank you for starting off the afternoon like that.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I discovered the band NOFX. I'm not sing you anything that they sing-
Stephanie Goss:
I actually know NOFX. Okay.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. That was a new discovery for me. I was like, “This is music I was unaware of.”
Stephanie Goss:
Okay. I kind of like it. I kind of like-
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think it's what I'm going to do with my 50s. I've got a couple years before I get there. I think when I turn 50, it's going to be like, “I'm starting over. Leather and chains.”
Stephanie Goss:
That's so funny. No. Okay. So now, I have to know, what was the musical choices of Andy Roark, the teenager, the actual high school? If you weren't listening to NOFX back then, what were you listening to in the '90s?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh man. Probably my favorite band in high school was Red Hot Chili Peppers. The album Blood Sugar Sex Magik came out, the best album ever. I love it which is why I could also say, I can 100% say punk rock Andy Roark given how much I enjoyed Red Hot Chili Peppers like there's-
Stephanie Goss:
Were you allowed to actually have the CD or did you have to get it in secret because your parents wouldn't-
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh no. Well, I had an underground pipeline of music. I listened to a lot of gangster rap like I was N.W.A, Ice Cube. I had all of that stuff and… Exactly. I'm like, “Oh, punk rock.” Actually, punk rock might have been a better fit for me but we went with N.W.A and Ice Cube and I had a great time and enjoyed it.
Stephanie Goss:
Okay.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So anyway. Yeah, that was it.
Stephanie Goss:
I like it. I like it a lot.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Who knows? Maybe if I get to go around the world again, I'll go a different direction next time.
Stephanie Goss:
I like the multiverse punk Andy Roark. That is a mental picture that's not going to leave me anytime soon. I like it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh. That's good.
Stephanie Goss:
All right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
All right. What do we-
Stephanie Goss:
Well, speaking of high school, we got a great message from someone who is a manager and they're a manager in a rural or more remote area and they've had a lot of practices in their area who have had transition. It was kind of all of the vets who were getting older and been in practice a long time and now, all of a sudden there's a lot of young whipper snapper vets buying the practices and/or corporate practices that have come into the area.
And so, the doctors have some animosity between clinics. There's not really a friendly vibe in the area that the clinics get along and there are managers in these clinics who have not been a part of any of that drama and who are looking at how can we connect with each other. How can we work together and have relationships, good healthy relationships with our competitors?
Gosh. Gasp, right?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Stephanie Goss:
How do we have relationships? Particularly, in a small town environment that are good. How do we play nice? But also, it asks a bigger question of like, “What's the point?” Because that was one of the questions that their owner doctor asked, “What's the point of playing nice with our competition?” and I just thought this was such a great fun question and I have some ideas having been come up as baby manager in a rural environment like that. So I have some thoughts but I thought you would have some thoughts on this as well.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. No, no. Definitely. Yeah, definitely. I think the questions of… So this is an old-school problem, right? I've been hearing about this for a long time about our competitors. I don't get the feeling that this is much of a thing with the new school owners and managers, right? I think it was much more, when there used to be single vet practices and I think when there were smaller towns or when there was overlapping call areas, I feel like there was a lot more competition.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I feel like now… I mean, the truth is like, if you are the practice manager at Banfield, do you have animosity for the practice manager at NVA eight miles away? You shouldn't.
Stephanie Goss:
No.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That's ridiculous. The impact that person has on you is nothing but they have a lot of shared experiences with you and other people don't have those, right? Being a practice manager is a lonely job because there's no one else in the hospital, generally, that has the same experience you have.
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so, there's a lot of benefits to being able to say, “Hey, friend of mine who generally knows what I do for a living in my job, I really appreciate you to validate the scenery or possibly give some advice to me,” or, “We're out of an item that we need and it's going to be three days before we get it. Can you cover?”
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so, for me… Anyway. I think a lot of new school owners, especially people in corporate practices, I don't know that animosity exists but it definitely does in the old-school crowd. I've always thought it was ridiculous. I think it was ridiculous in the old-school crowd. I'll tell you, just from a headspace standpoint, the first thing is like, “Who's your competition?” and people would say, “Oh, the guy down the road,” and I would say, “No. It's inactivity on the part of the pet owners. That's your competition.”
Your competition is not… It's not, “I'm not going to get to see this pet because they're going to go to someone else.” It's like, “No. You're not going to see that pet because that person's not going to get off the couch and bring their cat to the vet. That's why you don't see pets.” And so, when you look at it like that you say, “What I lose to another veterinary clinic is just so tiny compared to the pet owners not bringing their pets in, us not booking recheck appointments, us not scheduling follow ups, us not working up cases.” There's so many other factors that are holding you back from practicing the medicine that you want to practice. The guy down the road is such a tiny, tiny piece of any sort of obstacle you have.
Stephanie Goss:
But it's so funny because I think about it and I think about almost, really, every practice that I ever worked in, even the ones that ultimately had great relationships with our peers in the area, there has always been this mentality since I started in veterinary medicine to a degree and I agree with you. I think it was much more strongly expressed by the old-school crowd because I remember starting in veterinary medicine where it was all about everybody else is our competition and you are spot on. Even back then, if we zoomed out for a hot second and looked at it, they were not actually our competition. They had a different culture, a different clientele. It was not competition but that outwardly was definitely expressed by leadership in veterinary medicine much more prevalently than I think that it is now.
I would argue with you. I think even now there is… I talk about it with managers all the time where there is this single-sided view of other practices as our direct competitors. When you start asking questions as I do, I'm like, “Tell me what their practice is like.” It's like, “They're not actually competition.” I think if we zoom out, most of us could probably count on one finger the number of true competition that we have in our little practice radius, right? But most of us have other practices and even if they're completely, radically, polar opposites of us as a practice, there is still this prevalent thought in veterinary medicine that everybody else who is a colleague is competition.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, so I get it. I understand. I still don't get it. I thought I'd get it. I just don't. I understand. I think there's two things that traditionally have led us to have practices that see each other as competitors and we don't talk to them or we don't talk about them and we don't work with them, whatever. So there is-
Stephanie Goss:
Or we talk about them and it's all negative.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly. There's scarcity mentality, right? So little behavioral psychology. It's the idea that winter is going to come and I'm not going to have stored up enough food and I'm going to die of famine. That is the caveman mindset. And so, it's scarcity mentality is you see someone else who's doing the thing that you are doing and you say, “Oh my gosh. What if I don't get enough to support myself and I starve to death?” and that's scarcity mentality which you can see from an evolutionary standpoint, having those thoughts is probably motivating for you to get out and work hard to harvest the fields. Do you know what I mean? So that you and your family can live on and make more babies and stay alive and do the evolutionary thing that you're trying to do. I get that. So that's scarcity mentality.
The other one is zero sum thinking and a lot of people look at the world as if you get something, that means that I lost something or the potential for something. If you get ahead, it means that I somehow got farther behind and that's even just all the way to keeping up with the Jones's. I knew some people who will be like, “Oh, you moved into a bigger house. Now, I feel offended because in order to keep up with you, I have to move into a bigger house,” and you go, “Golly. That's a weird construct that only exists in your mind but here we are.” And so, that's zero sum thinking. If the other veterinary practice down the road gets something, does something, succeeds in some way, then I'm falling behind and I'm saying, “You're falling behind in a game that only exists in your mind. It's not real.”
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. Yeah. In-
Dr. Andy Roark:
So-
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, go ahead.
Dr. Andy Roark:
No. So those are, I think, are the traditional drivers of why this division has existed.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I think for me in my own personal experiences in working with the practice owners that I have, both of those things, scarcity mentality and the abundance mentality, those two things put your finger right on why they were thinking the way that they were, right? It's like if this client doesn't come see us and they go see the team down the street, then we're not going to be able to make payroll, right?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Stephanie Goss:
The reality is that client better not be the only thing standing between us and not making payroll.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Exactly right. Yeah.
Stephanie Goss:
That should not be how we're running our businesses but that's how we let ourselves think and I think the reason that I loved this question and for me, the question was, “What is the point of playing nice with our competition?” I think that for me, I'm super pumped because to me the point is, there are so many more benefits to having relationships and having a community in veterinary medicine than there are real potential losses when it comes to our clients or to our standard of care or who we are as a clinic.
Like your point, really, the scarcity mentality, most of the time doesn't happen. That's not how life actually works. Most of us are not running… Our business is on that razor edge where that one client or even ten clients that go see our competition make or break us as a practice. But the things that come from having a community and having collaboration, all of those benefits, those actually can make or break us as a practice. And so, I'm super excited to talk about it from a headspace perspective because the benefits, to me, far outweigh the risks here. I think that's what I would lean into in terms of trying to explain or get my boss who might not be onboard, onboard with what those would be, is to lean into the benefits.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really it. It's a cost benefit analysis, right? So you say, “Well, what is the cost of collaborating?” and we said, “Do you believe in zero sum thinking? Do you believe in a scarcity mentality? Do you think that you're being hurt by this person doing this work?” It's even more eye rolling to me right now is because… I know this is regional. So many practices, I was going to say most, but so many practices are as busy as they can be or as busy as they want to be-
Stephanie Goss:
They have clients coming out of their ears.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly. I can 100% empathize with people who are wary of their “competitor” when there's not much work to do, when things are slim. As far as staying busy I would say, “Oh boy. Having a client or two every week go down the road, that does hurt when we are really trying to hang on and have enough to do.” I just don't see that as people's reality today.
Stephanie Goss:
Well, I think that goes back to the point you made earlier about the older school, the older generation and I think there is validity there. I think part of the reason of that is think back to when you and I started in veterinary medicine, the majority of our patients now are members of the family and they're getting care in ways that they never did when we started in veterinary… I mean, I remember starting in veterinary medicine, our family dogs, they didn't live in the house. We had a backyard, the dogs lived in the backyard. Now… I mean, my mom's dogs share the bed and sleep under the covers.
The shift in the last 20 years in veterinary medicine has been great. And so, I remember starting in veterinary medicine almost 20 years ago and there were plenty of days where the phone didn't ring and we didn't have clients coming in because we saw a lot of backyard pets and we saw a lot of farm animals. And so, we were seeing emergency cases and abscesses and we see all of that now but it was really, really different because the relationship that we had with our pets and with animals as a society was radically different even just 20 years ago.
And so, I think about why that might be prevalent in that older school generationally and I think that's part of it because we experienced those droughts from a business perspective and not having clients come in the door. And so, there were plenty of times where those clients leaving could have made the difference between being able to pay payroll or not. But I think, I said it and I didn't mean to say it in jest because I think the point is now for most, to your point, most practices are in a place where we're booked weeks out. We can't get the clients all in the door. And so, that environment doesn't exist now for most practices the way that it did back then.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I agree with that. I'll also say this and I can say it because I'm a vet and I love veterinarians and you guys know I love veterinarians. Veterinarians traditionally are some of the cheapest people that I've ever met in my life and I'm in it. Stephanie Goss is laughing because I also have a frugal streak and-
Stephanie Goss:
A mile wide.
Dr. Andy Roark:
A mile wide perhaps but I am a veterinarian to my bones and we are some cheap ass people and I get it, right? Because you come up and you're like, “We got to make it work.”
Stephanie Goss:
It's the only way you survive vet school, is being cheap.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. They're like, “Did you have an ultrasound machine?” “No, I just listened with my ear,” like, “I don't need an ultrasound machine.” I even have vets who are like, “You use a needle one time? Pansy,” like, “Back in my day, we shaved metal off the surgical table and used it for scalpel blades. We wore a barrel with straps, that was our surgical scrub that we wore.” It's like every veterinarian I know lived through the Great Depression in their mind but like, “Okay, I love it,” but that is our people. We are traditional people which means the idea of someone going somewhere else and us not getting that $32 for a physical exam from 1981, that's hard to bear.
Stephanie Goss:
Right. It matters. Yeah. No, I agree with that. Okay. So I want to move us a little bit from headspace to-
Dr. Andy Roark:
Do you want to talk more about… Let's talk about some other money-saving steps that we can take in the-
Stephanie Goss:
No. I don't but I want to talk about benefits. The benefits of collaboration is part of the headspace but it's also a part of the action here so how do we get to doing this? I want to talk about that because this is my heart, this is my jam. I love collaboration. It's part of what I love about Uncharted but I have loved it from the very beginning and I think…
So for me, the headspace piece of it and the advice for these managers is like, “Okay. You may not ever be able to get your practice owners onboard because they may be the veterinarians Andy was talking about who were like, “I wore a barrel for my surgical scrubs,” right? They may not get it but do they have to?” and the answer for me is a resounding no. I can still create a community and I can still drive those relationships independent of what they think and are doing and there is very much a benefit to doing that because I will tell you, my local community forging those relationships with the other practices in my area has saved my butt more times than I can count.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay. So let's take a break here and then when we come back, what I want to do is I want to talk about… Okay. Joking aside, how do we articulate the desire to work collaboratively with other practices to our higher-ups? And then, regardless of whether or not they go with it, what does that mean for us as individuals because we can do what we want with our lives when we're not clocked in and we can talk about that and what that looks like.
Stephanie Goss:
Okay. I love it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
What's inbounds and what's out of bounds? So let's take a break and we'll come back.
Stephanie Goss:
Okay.
Hey friends, it's Stephanie, and I'm jumping in here for one quick second because there's a workshop coming up and it is one of the last ones for this year of 2022 and I want to make sure that you don't miss it because it is coming to you from my dear friend Maggie Brown-Bury. Maggie is a former emergency veterinarian who lives in Newfoundland, Canada. A few years ago, Maggie made the decision to make a change and she moved out of ER medicine into being a relief veterinarian.
I remember Maggie telling us within weeks of opening up her schedule, her whole first year was booked. And so, we asked Maggie to come and do a workshop for how to get the most out of the relationships that you build as a practice with your relief veterinarians because more and more practices, as we face the veterinarian shortage, are struggling with needing to have relief doctors on their schedule maybe more regularly than we would have previously.
Maggie's got some great ideas after working with a ton of different practices on how you can leverage that relationship and set yourself up for success, set your relief veterinarian up for success, and set your clients up for success. So if this sounds like something you'd be interested in, head on over to unchartedvet.com/events and find all of the information about the workshop and how to sign up. I hope to see you there.
And now, back to the podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
All right. So let's talk about communicating this up the chain, right? So we're in a vet practice and we are interested in having a more collaborative relationship with the enemy, the competitor down the road. Basically, simple cost benefit analysis is generally a pretty solid way to go here. The question you're going to get is, “Why? Why would we collaborate with them?” and I think you should just honor that question for what it's worth and say, “Well, what are the benefits of us talking to these people?” I think the idea that there are drawbacks is pretty hard and I think that as we're so busy, I think there's even less room for people to be like, “Oh, but think about how we're going to get hurt.” I think you need to think about what is the benefits of having this open relationship?
I would tell you just as a general philosophy and then we'll get into some specifics. Guys, I look at the workload the vets have, I look at the labor shortage, and I don't see it going away. Now, pet owner spending habits might change and there's some interesting data about that and we can talk about that. But for the most part, there's no magical surplus of veterinarians that are going to get dumped out into the profession anytime soon or certified vet techs or honestly, there's no reason to think that hiring is going to get significantly easier in the short term.
And so, we've got our hands full and the work is not going to stop. And so, really, one way I look at it is us, as veterinary professionals all in this together, trying to meet the needs of our society for pet healthcare and that's how I look at the world. You know what, guys? I like that view. I like to believe that we're all in this together. I like to believe that everyone who listens to this podcast, we're on the same team and I care about you. I really do. I want you to be successful and I want us to be successful and I want us to come together and take care of the pets and the people that we see. I just tend to look at our profession as us doing good in the world and I like to minimize us sniping between each other and just say, “Hey, we're all in this together. Let's be in this together.” And so, philosophically, that's where I like to start.
Stephanie Goss:
I think I love that because the reality is we're not competitors. And so, if we let go of that scarcity mentality and we start from a place, “What are the benefits?” We start from that place. First thing, what happens when you do run out of rabies vaccine? Who do you call? There's just the pure benefit of being able to say, “Hey, help me out. I'm in this spot,” and that has saved me more times than I can count. Whatever it is from our… I have even gone to another practice and borrowed their digital dental x-ray probe because a patient bit down on ours and it was going to be six weeks before we get the new one, right? That is some serious mojo. Could you imagine not doing dentals for six weeks with our current caseload but that practice was like, “Well, we only do surgery two days a week, so the other three days a week, you guys are welcome to use it.”
Obviously, if anything happens, we would take care of it and pay for it but we kept being able to do dentals for six weeks while we waited for our new probe. So that, in and of itself, number one, is a huge, huge benefit. But the other piece from the competition perspective, which you brought up, Andy, I think is really important is that we're not going to be the right fit for all people. And so, let me tell you how awesome it is to be able to refer needs that clients have that I can't meet to other places and be able to give them a name and a number and say, “You should call over here and see what they can do for you.”
Whether they offer procedures that we don't, they have an ultrasound machine and we don't, or it's just a matter of, “I have a client who is particularly cash strapped and they're looking for a vaccine clinic environment.” If that's not something that I offer but it's something that another clinic in town offers, why would I not tell them that's the option for them and help them get care for their pet? If I can't provide it or if it doesn't meet our needs as a clinic and who we are, why are we thinking about it from a competition perspective and not thinking about it from the perspective of, “Let's help this client get what they need,” or, “Let's help this patient get what they need.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, the future of vet medicine is fragmentation. That's what I believe. I believe that the days of us all doing basically the same thing in each of our practices, those days are over, friends. That means we are going to have high end, white glove, expensive practices. We're going to have specialty practices. We're going to have emergency practices. We're going to have middle of the road practices. We are going to have middle of the road, high communication practices and we're going to have middle of the road convenience-based practices that get people in and out and turned around and are super flexible. We're going to have low cost spay and neuter clinics. We're going to have just low cost clinics that focus on accessibility, access to care, things like that. We're going to have mobile vets. We're going to have house call vets. We're going to have hospice vets. We're going to have ultrasound. We're going to have acupuncture, holistic veterinarians.
Everybody's doing different things and I think that's going to continue. I think it's really interesting. I'm excited about it. But if you think that this fragmentation is true and that practices really are segregating out into different areas and moving into different niches, then it just opens up the idea of, “Hey, we should communicate because we're doing different things.” It opens up that more and further reduces that feeling that we're competing. And so, I really like what you're saying.
Oh, we had a practice down the road from ours and it was a one vet practice and they were very much focused on accessibility and affordability of care. Their doctor went on vacation one time and the relief vet fell through somehow. I don't know how that happened. It was never made clear to me how it happened. But hey, there was no relief vet. And so, that person went on vacation and told the front desk to send them down the road and they started sending their clients to us and we got more one-star reviews that week than we had gotten in 20 years and it's because those were not our people. It was not our clients. They were not looking for what we were doing. I'm not bashing them, they were bashing us. I'm not bashing them. We just did not provide the service that they wanted at the price that they wanted but our clients who come to us were very, very happy with what we do and how we do it.
That is the thing in my life where I really crystallized in my head, these people were very happy with their vet and these are not our clients and we don't want these clients. It's not bashing them, it's just they don't want what we are selling and they don't want what we're doing.
Stephanie Goss:
I think the honesty about that is really great. So my practice, when I first moved to Washington, a really small town and there's our practice which is a large multi-site practice and there's another one doctor practice in town and it's an older school veterinarian, small practice, like you said, they're focused on convenience and cost for the clients. So two radically different models but that doctor didn't do surgery. And so, their process was to refer their surgical patients to us. But unlike you, the conversation that they then had with their clients was, “I don't do surgery because there is a time and cost associated with all of this. And so, when you go over there, you are not going to pay my prices. You're going to pay because they have surgeons on staff and this is what they do.”
And so, the clients were still, sometimes you have that, very different models, and there were still clients that were displeased but by and large, the majority of the clients who came over were prepared for that and they were willing to do it because there was a collaboration between the two clinics and that's the kind of example… Their clients weren't our kind of clients and if they were like, “Hey, we really had a great experience here,” we would have some questions for them about whether it was a good fit to continue the relationship or not but it was really, really nice to be able to know that we could provide that service and not have a veterinarian who had clearly defined boundaries and was like, “I don't want to do surgery,” not have to feel like they have to be all things to all people because we could work together.
For me, that is a perfect example of why this can be a huge bit of it because it allows you to do the things that you want to do and also lean into not having to do the things that you don't necessarily want to do because there usually are people out there who want to do those things.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. And so, if you buy into that, you start to see the benefits of having these connections, right? So the big things for me, there's too much work to do. I'm starting to push for referral to other GPs and people are like, “That's heresy,” and it is heresy. It is the sacred cow. We've talked about this before on this podcast a number of times but like, “Look, man. If you've got…” I've noticed I'm starting to say, “Look, man,” a lot. I'm like, “Look, man.” It's like-
Stephanie Goss:
Are you leaning into your '90s punk?
Dr. Andy Roark:
I guess so. Anyway, look, man, if you have more work than you can do and people are getting angry that they can't get in to see you, it makes sense to refer clients away. It does. Now, I would start by not taking new clients. If you haven't done that yet, that's the easy thing is try to retain and service your current clients but send new clients away. But referring to other practices, it's like, “We're not taking new clients. We're unable to get people in. If you need to get in sooner, here are two other practices that are nearby that we recommend,” and send them to practices that you would recommend. Again, it's that scarcity mentality of, “I can't send work away.” I was like, “You can't get all of your work done. You're going to burn yourself and your people out.”
At some point you say, “I've got all the business that I can do and I'm going to take good care of the people that I have coming in. And then, I'm going to send the other people away and I'm not going to lay awake at night. I'm not going to feel guilty or angry about it. I am going to take care of the people that I'm going to take care of.” People say, “But we're not as profitable as we need to be,” and I would say, “You cannot do any more work. If you're not as profitable as you need to be, you need to figure out how to cut your costs or increase your prices and those are the only two options or increase your efficiency,” but a lot of people who have pushed their efficiency as far as they can, at some point, just wanting to see more patients doesn't make it possible.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I think for the other piece of this and I'll be honest, I was really lucky to have exposure to this collaborative environment in private practice from the very beginning of my career in veterinary medicine but I will also say that my belief in collaboration got even stronger when I worked in corporate practice because now, I had the benefit of a built-in community that private practices don't have. I have the ability to call my sister clinic eight miles down the road and be like, “Hey, we're really shorthanded today. Can you guys spare anybody? Can you send them over?” and that was a game changer. And so, for me, it made me think a lot about the relationships that I forged early on in private practice and how as we grow and as veterinary medicine changes and as we continue to have more clients than we can handle and not enough staff, that is not something that's going away anytime soon.
The ability to band together as small groups of practices, whether we're independent private practices or corporate practices, is really, really powerful to be able to say, “Hey, I need help here.” Whether it's borrowing equipment or borrowing team members or, we've talked about this, I think, and I've told this story on the podcast, but I had somebody that I interviewed and I really, really liked them. They were not a fit for my clinic and my team but I thought they were a great candidate. And so, you want to talk about heresy, I called up another manager and I said, “Hey, I interviewed this person today. They are not a fit for our team but I think they might be a really good fit for your practice. Can I send them over to you?”
It was another independent practice. There was no connection. It just was a manager that I knew from my local manager's group which is why I think this topic is so important. I called them up and I said, “Hey, would you like to interview them?” and they hired that person and they stayed. They are still at that practice years later and it felt so good. It felt good to help out a colleague but also, it was such a game-changing experience for me because I got to help another practice but it was the first time I felt in private practice where it didn't feel like every man for himself.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. The last point that I want to make on this as far as collaboration between practices, collaboration on high level is one of the critical takeaways that people need to remember is you have got to build the bridge before you can walk on it which means you cannot wait until your dental radiograph probe breaks to make a friend. That's not going to-
Stephanie Goss:
Right. It's not going to work out well for you.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. You need to have that relationship in place. And so, when the practice owner says, “Why should we talk to these people?” and you say, “Because one time Stephanie Goss's… Their dental radiograph probe broke,” and he's like, “But our radiograph probe is not broken.” You could say, “But-
Stephanie Goss:
But the day will come-
Dr. Andy Roark:
“If we don't have that relationship when it happens, we are going to be out of luck. And so, you have to build…” That's a phrase I've used for a long time is, “You have to build a bridge before you can walk on it,” which means you have to make relationships with people when you don't want anything. Because if you make relationships with people only when you want things, that's not a good look and it doesn't feel good. And so, that's a big part of it for me.
Stephanie Goss:
The last thing… I'm so glad you used the bridge analogy because I think you have to build it before you can walk on it and you also should not burn it to the ground. I'm going to say it for the person who asked this question, they were saying that it feels like there's animosity between some of the practice owners and I will say, the point, part of why it matters to build collaboration and play nice with our competition is because veterinary medicine is smaller than the smallest community.
We are closer than six degrees of Kevin Bacon, you guys. The reality is everybody is connected to somebody else, especially in small towns and that is important. When you burn those bridges, man, it is spectacularly flaming and you don't want to do it. And so, even if you don't like the person on a personal level or you don't like their medicine or the way that they run their practice, there is still benefit in being professionals and looking at it as, these are our colleagues and we should be able to have relationships. We should be able to come together and share things whether it's the vets getting together in having radiology rounds and talking about cases or doing case rounds together. Those are things that you get the automatic benefit when you're in corporate practice.
We had lots of… I went through a period where I had a bunch of new grads and I didn't have enough experienced doctors to help train them but collaboratively in our local area, there was plenty of mentorship available. The ability to send one of my new grads to participate in case rounds or radiology rounds with another clinic was a huge benefit. That doesn't have to only exist in corporate medicine.
My very first practice that I participated in veterinary medicine at was a small town. There was three vets in town. We literally were all on the same road, one at each end of town and one in the middle. They're all private practices and those vets got together once a month and did radiology rounds so that they could help pick each other's brains and pick apart the experience that comes… We had one vet who was older and who was very experienced and those younger vets got to take advantage of picking his brain and the medicine that he had seen in his career.
It wasn't that they weren't looking at each other like competition, they were looking at how can we help each other and how can we grow and get that without having to go call up a boarded radiologist or go to a CE that's two hours away? We leaned into the local community and I think that's something that a lot of people often think about it solely as a benefit of corporate practice and something that we can't do.
This is where I would be happy if somebody said, “But Stephanie Goss told me I can.” You do not just have to be in corporate practice to make this happen. You can make it happen in private practice and I think though, the why it matters and why I love this question is because you can do it on your own. This is where you can lead the charge from within the team.
Now, obviously, if your practice owner is not onboard, you might not get to go on the clock and meet with other practice managers for lunch once a month. That might be off the table but there's nothing stopping you from saying, “Hey, we're going to get together once a month in the evening and talk about what's going on in our practices and pick each other's brains about some things.” There is nothing stopping you from furthering yourself from a professional development perspective and I will tell you that the fact that veterinary medicine is so small and it is such a close-knit community, I can't tell you how many times that kind of networking and remembering the fact that I don't want to burn those bridges has really been helpful and impactful in terms of my career and growing myself.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. No, I completely agree with that. I think I've just benefited throughout my career from my connections more than anything. It's people who show me what's possible. It's people who talk about what they're doing and I go, “I didn't realize you could do that.” I've just had so many beneficial conversations and it's also people opening doors for me and people saying, “Hey, there's an opportunity for… I know this person who is unhappy where they are and they're looking for another place to go and your practice is a happy practice and has good culture and I thought maybe they might be happy. Would you like to talk to them?” Those things don't happen if you live in a silo and people don't know you. There's so many of those little benefits. The one thing that I want to say is, you can be connected and you can benefit from connections and you can talk to a lot of people and still maintain some level of confidentiality for your practice.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think that's important because I can imagine business owners saying, “Andy and Stephanie are saying you can just go and tell them everything that's going on in your practice,” and I'm like, “That's not what we're saying.” There's some common sense to it about what you can share. But in general, you can avoid sharing details that would be damaging to other people's reputations or make them feel bad or would make your practice owners uncomfortable or things like that. That's not hard to do. Just speak in terms where you say, “I want to protect people's privacy and I still want to have these relationships.” Those things are totally manageable. You just have to think about it and then be intentional about the questions that you ask and how you engage.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I think the last question that got asked by the person who reached out was, “Where do I start?” I think you can want the end goal to be I would love to have a local area manager's group. I think that's a fantastic goal and I'm a huge advocate for that and I ran our local one for years. It didn't start out that way. It started as a group of people who were like, “Let's get together for lunch,” and it was a one-time thing. And then, it was like, “Guys, this was so fun. Let's do it again,” and it very quickly became a once-a-month thing.
And then, we started having some structure and then we started talking about could we tie some CE to this and could we get some speakers to come and talk to us and it grew from there but it didn't start there. If you want to start there, if that's your end goal, that's great too but it doesn't have to be giant. You don't have to overbuild it. It can start with, “Let's go have a cup of coffee. Let's go have lunch. Let's have dinner,” right? Let's just pick each other's brain. It doesn't have to be a big thing. It can start small.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I like it. All right. Cool. I think that's great. I think that's some good… Hopefully, that's good insight for people. Hopefully, it gets people some permission they need to make those connections and just start to grow their network.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I like it. It was clearly my jam.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, definitely. Cool, guys. All right then.
Stephanie Goss:
All right. Have a great week, everybody.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Take care, everybody.
Stephanie Goss:
Well, everyone, that's a wrap on another episode of the podcast. Thanks for tuning in again this week. As always, we love spending time with you. Before we go, I just wanted to say I am getting so excited to head to Greenville. We will be there for our Practice Owner Summit which is happening December 8th through 10th. This is a giant, giant thank you. Shoutout to our sponsors for helping make this event happen. This is one of my favorite events of the whole year. It is so much fun.
If you are going to be there, I can't wait to see your face. I have all the hugs for everybody, including our sponsor friends. And so, I just want to shout out and say thanks to Royal Canin, Hills, CareCredit, IT Guru, and Chronos for making this event happen. Take care, everyone. Have a fantastic week. Be kind and we'll talk to you again soon.
