#18 Practice Success Blueprints with Michael Shirley

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Veterinary Blueprint Podcast
brought to you by Butler VetInsurance.
Hosted by Bill Butler, theVeterinary Blueprint Podcast is
for veterinarians and practicemanagers who are looking to
learn about working on theirpractice instead of in their
practice.
Each episode we will bring yousuccessful, proven blueprints
from others both inside andoutside the veterinary industry.

(00:21):
Welcome to today's episode andoutside the veterinary industry.

Bill Butler (00:27):
Welcome to today's episode, welcome to this episode
of the Veterinary BlueprintsPodcast.
My name is Bill Butler, I amyour host and, as always, we're
coming to you bringingentrepreneurial and business
mindset to veterinary practicesacross this great country of
ours.
And I say that because, veryinterestingly enough, on this
episode of the podcast, I'm atsomebody else's podcast studio

(00:49):
recording this episode.
I am down in Murfreesboro,tennessee, at Family Pet Health
and we are recording a podcastin somebody else's podcast
studio.
I am here with Michael Shirleyand he is the chief empowerment
officer at Family Pet Health,which is a family business.
We connected, his brotheractually reached out which is an
interesting story we'll getinto and said hey, you should

(01:10):
have my brother in your podcast.
And a phone call was made and Iwas going to be in Nashville at
this time and I bought donutsfor the team.
And here I am.

Michael Shirley (01:18):
We appreciate it, we work cheap $34 for donuts
.

It was a pretty good deal.
Well, thanks for having me inyour studio.
This is very cool that we'reable to get this here.
We're using my camera and yourcamera and your setup here, and
it's great to be doing this withsomebody else who's kind of on
the same journey in a differentindustry and like-minded stuff.
So thanks for being on thepodcast.

Thank you so much for inviting me.

Well, why don't we start with this?
We were getting to know eachother a little bit and I said
how did you get into this?
And you're telling a very.
I said you taught school.
You were a school teacherbefore you got into this whole
animal health space.

That's right.
So my journey, like manylisteners that you have,
probably, started with 4-H.
I was in the fourth grade.
I remember when 4-H came to myschool and they brought all
these different project books,projects that you could
participate in, and I gravitatedinstantly towards all of the
animal projects.
I went home and told my mom allabout the horses and the pigs

(02:16):
and I can raise a cow and theyhave chickens.
And she says, whoa, we can't doany of that because we live in
the middle of town in theneighborhood.

Yeah, so you said you live in town, right, you
weren't on a farm.
You didn't grow up on a farm, Idid not grow up on a farm.

Our house was in a neighborhood that backed up
to a horse farm.
So a very long story short isthat she did allow me to get a
4-H pony.
I got a pony in the fourthgrade and started taking riding
lessons, but it came with arequirement that I went to work.
So I was 11 years old and Istarted working in our family's
grocery store.
Okay, so 11 years old I had aliterally stood on a milk crate

(02:54):
so that I could bag groceriesfor people.
Wow, and so I started working.
My social security, you know,they send you your statement
right, and it goes back to 1990,1990.
Yeah, and that's when I firststarted paying social security
tax, and so it's kind of it'skind of interesting.
I grew up in a family business.
Our current veterinary practiceis seven miles from where my

(03:16):
great grandfather had his firstgrocery store and I have a
letter down in one of our examrooms and that he wrote in 1930
to his clients explaining why hewasn't extending credit anymore
, and it was because of dryweather and chain corporate
grocery stores.
And now, a hundred years later,his great grandson is dealing
with the same corporateinfluence in his industry In his

(03:38):
industry.

Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned
family and so part of whathappened on this journey, your
brother, who also works in thepractice here, reached out to me
on LinkedIn and said, basically, sent me a LinkedIn message at
like eight o'clock on a Sundaynight and said, hey, you should
interview my brother in yourpodcast.
That was basically what themessage was and I said, okay,

(03:59):
sounds great.
And so you and I connected on aphone call because you have
your own podcast and we'll putthat in the show notes Describe
your podcast.

So we have the Family Pet Podcast.
It's a podcast for curious petparents where we believe the
more you know about pet healthcare, the better pet parent you
can be.

And you started that.
I've said that a few times.
Right, you've said that a fewtimes, and so you started that
as a way to create some contentfor your practice, as a way to
create some content for yourpractice.

The main purpose of the Family Pet
Podcast was for us to createevergreen content that we could
put on our website and sharewith backlinks.
So it's on everywhere where youlisten to podcasts and they all
link back to our website so ithelps with SEO.
But the main reason waseducation is one of our core
values, and it's really hard tohave an in-depth conversation
with someone about heartwormprevention in your regular

(04:51):
appointment right, Because thedoctor?
It just takes a lot ofeducation.
Why does your heart, why doesyour cat need heartworm
prevention?
And so we just decided that wewere going to make podcast
episodes for every, for our mostcommon asked questions and the
11 most common conversations inan exam room.

So that was how it all started and that was 96
episodes ago, 96 episodes ago,and so your brother reached out
and said, hey, you should havemy brother Michael.
Your brother Steven, reachedout to me and we had a phone
call and I just happened to bein the Nashville area and I used
to be stationed close by atFort Campbell, so I know the

(05:30):
area a little bit.
I said, well, I'm going to bevery close, why don't we just
come do it?
You guys are doing podcasts,let's do it at your place.
And so here we are.
It's interesting to talk aboutthe family dynamics.
So your wife is theveterinarian Correct, and your
brother came to a littlebackstory.
Your brother came to join forsix weeks as a marketing person
because he's got a marketingbackground and going to school.

His whole reason that he came.
As I mentioned, I am a schoolteacher by training, so I was
finishing up my teachingcontract and I needed help.
I needed him to come.
We had someone that was leavingour practice and we had an
opening and I really wasn'tlooking to hire somebody.
I was like I'll just, I willfill that role when school lets

(06:12):
out.
I needed somebody to answer thephones for six weeks.
So I called Steven, cause hewas in school like working on
his master's, and I said hey,can you masters in marketing?

Speaker 1 (06:20):
and community.
Yes, marketing, communicationand Masters in marketing.

Yes, marketing and communication.

And I said will you come and answer the phones
at the vet office for six weeks?
And he said I don't knowanything about veterinary
medicine.
And I said that doesn't matter,you know people and that's what
I need.
And I said we'll teach you therest.
And that was six years ago, Idon't know.
I guess it was five and a halfyears ago.
So no one is more shocked thanour mother.

(06:43):
Really, we could not growing up.
We could not be in the sameroom together.
We fought so much and it wasn'tuntil he left the house and
went to college that we finally.
I think absence makes the heartgrow fonder.

Right so the anyway .

That's when he finally became a cool big
brother because he was incollege and he would take me up
there to spend the night in thedorm room.
I thought that was really cool,right, but but at any rate,
it's worked out really well.
I mean, he's he.
He manages our operations andallowed me to not like on your
podcast.
It says to help veterinarianswork on their business rather
than in their business.
Adding the right people on ourteam has allowed me to work on

(07:22):
the business rather than in thebusiness.

And we'll get there in just a little bit, because I
do have some questions on thisbut the family dynamics.
So your family has had familybusiness for a long time.
You said back to the 30s yeah,even earlier than that, earlier
than that, and we had a familybusiness.
So my parents are involved inthe insurance agency and I was
just at some mastermind meetings, which is very similar to a

(07:47):
veterinary practice orveterinary management group and
well-managed practice group.
I participate in that in theinsurance industry, trying to
work on my business instead ofin my business, and there's a
lot of family dynamic.
There's a husband and wifethere and what's interesting
about the family dynamic is,while it can be difficult at
times I think it's probably apolite way to say some of the

(08:08):
things that happen with familybusiness is it can be difficult,
but also you have an ally therethat will probably do a little
bit more for you than somebodyelse, not saying you don't have
good team members when it workswell it works well.

When it doesn't work well, it's a disaster.
And so there were many peoplethat in our interview processes
would express reservations aboutworking for a husband and wife
team.
And then you throw in thebrother too, right?
We're very cognizant of theappearance of nepotism, right?
Or something like that.
I didn't know that everybodydidn't have a family business

(08:42):
right, because, as I mentioned,I started in that everybody
didn't have a family businessright, because, as I mentioned,
like, I started in the fourthgrade working at the family
business.
And I remember when aninteresting story is that I
wanted to be a veterinarian andI started job shadowing in
junior high school the day Iturned 18, I went to work for Dr
David Harris and I worked therefor over a year and then my
father slipped at the grocerystore and ruptured a disc in his

(09:06):
back.
They called me up.
You got to come back to thefamily business, so I quit at Dr
Harris's office.
They hired my wife to replaceme.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, and so that experience like going back
to the grocery store as amanager coming in.
When I had been gone for awhile, my dad sat down and
talked to me and said hey,you're coming in as a manager.
One of the lessons he taught mewas don't ever ask the people

(09:34):
that are working here to dothings that they haven't seen
you do.
He goes the pressure is goingto be higher on you because you
are my son and people are goingto think that you only got this
job because you're my son, orthat you don't have to do things
.
Like if you ask them to dosomething and they haven't seen
you do it, they're going tothink that you're just putting
it off on them.
So make sure that they knowthat you'll do the job that
you're asking them to do.
Those types of lessons stuckwith me forever.

(09:56):
Yeah, stephen had those samelessons.
We grew up in the same business.
When he came in, I knew that hewould understand how to handle
customer complaints and dealwith those things, because if
people liked the way I didthings, they would like the way
he did things too, because wewere taught by the same people
and forged in the same fire.

I guess, as you might say, it was interesting
also because he gave me a quicktour of the practice and
beautiful new practice that justgot built last June and wanted
to touch on that a little bitlater in the podcast.
But what's interesting is whenhe left us to get this podcast
rolling he stepped into the callcenter because he's working on
stuff in the call center here atthe practice.

(10:37):
Why don't you talk about thehistory?
So your wife replaced you atthe practice where you were
working, dr Harris, what waskind of the journey for her to
launch her practice and thehistory of the family practice
you have now Amy graduated fromUniversity of Tennessee.

Two weeks later we got married and two weeks
after we got back from ourhoneymoon, dr Harris lined up an
interview for her at anotherpractice in town, because back
in 2005, it was hard to find ajob.
So she went and interviewed atanother practice in town,
because back in 2005, it washard to find a job.
So she went and interviewed atanother practice here and came
home and they and I was like howwas it?
She goes.
That was amazing.
It was like the most beautifulpractice I've ever been in the

(11:20):
way it was designed.
The people do that like theyhave zones, and it's just
amazing.
And I'm like well, what's theproblem?
She goes, well, they're nothiring.
And I said, well, what's theproblem?
She goes, well, they're nothiring.
And I said, well, tell themyou'll work for free.
She goes what I said?
Well, we don't have any billsreally to speak of at the moment
.
I'm work.
I had a job and I said, let'sjust like, just tell them you'll
work for free while youcontinue to interview, and we'll
figure this out.
So she told them that and theydid pay her.
It was like an internship typeof a deal.

(11:42):
But a long story short is thatwithin six months or seven
months from that time, shebecame an associate there and
she stayed there for 10 yearsand, like we had two kids, we
had, you know, all the lifestuff.
I mean, we were very far alongin our marriage, right, and
things are going great andthings at the office there.

(12:03):
She decided it was time toleave and she had a non-compete
and so she honored that andduring so she had to work
outside of Murfreesboro for twoyears.
Okay, so she started travelingall around to different vet
hospitals and about a year and ahalf into that journey of
relief vet med she had worked inalmost 25 different hospitals.
So she was at one hospital for10 years and then in a year and

(12:24):
a half, worked in almost 25different hospitals.
So she was at one hospital for10 years and then in a year and
a half worked in almost 25 otherhospitals.

And so she worked at a practice that she started
working for essentially freeintern money, but it was the
right opportunity, correct, andit was the right environment to
learn.
Vet med out of school and thenthe complete opposite exposure
of seeing 25 different ways onhow to do things, good and bad,
I'm sure, the spectrum right Forsure, and so to me, seeing the

(12:55):
practice that you've built heregives me insight into the story
about how this building and howthis practice came to be.
It's painting a picture of anaggregate of all the best things
at a lot of places and all theworst things.
A lot of places and the worstthings aren't here.
Hopefully, we hope not.

Hope not, at least from the structure, the
physical structure perspective,the only reason the physical
structure exists is because weput the right people in the
practice to begin with.
And when she came home a yearand a half into that relief time
and said I think I want to openmy own practice, bill, I
couldn't have been more shocked,really.

(13:32):
I was on the couch and at firstI remember where I was, where I
was sitting, where my feet were.

It was a moment in time.

It has burned in my head where she was in the
door leaning against thedoorframe and I was shocked.
And then I jumped up and I gaveher a high five and I said
you're going to do great.
I know you're going to doamazing because you're an
amazing doctor.
This is awesome.
What do you need from me?
And she said I don't know.
And we started to push on thata little bit and I said why do

(14:00):
you want to start your ownpractice?
You have never talked aboutownership, ever before.

Why now?
So you come from a family ofentrepreneurs, so grocery store
owners, that's entrepreneurship.
Small business ownerentrepreneurship.
So you know what that lookslike.
And now here's yourveterinarian wife, who's been a
traveling veterinarian for ayear and a half.

I'm thinking dude, I'm excited, I'm like
let's go, this is going to be somuch fun.
Let's start a business, let's dothis and I said why do you want
to start your own business?
And she said I want to createthe type of work environment
where I want to go to work everyday and I want to surround
myself with people with whom Iwant to work every day.
And I said now that I can helpwith, because that's team

(14:46):
building and that's marketingand dreaming and vision planning
.
That's what I do as a highschool teacher.
Every year I get a new set offreshmen that come in and then I
mold and help shape them andhelp them discover their own
strengths and develop a lifeplan so that four years later
they can graduate and have somesort of an idea of how to be a
functioning member of oursociety.

(15:07):
That's exciting to me.
I enjoy that, and so when weput her type A planning
personality and my dreaming andvision and people and lifetime
of entrepreneurship, familyinfluence and we put those two
things together.
That's what has created thisbuilding.
People think about the buildingand they're like, oh my gosh, I

(15:28):
bet it is easy to recruit here.
I'm like, yeah, it's because wehave a really great team.
It has nothing to do with thebuilding.
I mean, it does have somethingto do with the building.
But the reason that we wereable to do what we did we bought
an existing practice,completely, 180'd it and grew it
from one doctor and three teammembers to three doctors and now
we have four doctors.

(15:48):
My fifth doctor starts in Juneand we've done that in six years
.
I'm always afraid thatsomething bad is going to happen
and that God's going to humbleme.
Right, so I tried to make surethat I don't want to get a big
head.
I am proud of what we've done,but it's because there are
people out there that gravitatetowards high functioning team
members like being a part of ahigh functioning team.

(16:09):
They want people, want to winand they want to know that they
can contribute to the success.
Like that, their workinfluences the success of the
whatever they're a part of.

You attract exactly who you are and what you've
become.
Yes, so if you've built a goodbusiness and a good vet practice
, you're going to attract goodteam members.
If you have poor culture, it'snot just the physical building
itself.
And what's funny is you andyour brother were talking, we
were having a quick conversationand he was showing me on his
phone how far away the oldpractice was, and he said you

(16:41):
both commented because you'vebeen in this new location for
less than a year.
And you said God, I don't knowhow we did any of this over
there, right, it was not fun andso, but you had the right team.
Yep, and so, regardless of theactual physical building, having
the right team on board and theright culture I know this from
my own experience and everythingI just went through with

(17:02):
insurance for the last two daysthis is all we talked about is
culture.

So I brought a couple of books to share with
you culture.
So I brought a couple of booksto share with you.
So anybody that's out therelistening I started a book club
in 2020 called the VeterinaryLeadership Book Club.
It's a Facebook group.
The first book we read was thePower of a Positive Team by John
Gordon, and the reason that westarted is because I require
everyone to read this book,which is called the Energy Bus

(17:26):
by John Gordon no energyvampires.
No energy vampires allowed.
That's posted throughout here.
So it's 10 rules to fuel yourlife, work and team with
positive energy.
Dr Catherine Foray, down atUniversity Vet Hospital in
Shreveport, louisiana, was theone that told me to read this
book before we started ourpractice, and as soon as I read
it, I knew that this type ofconcept was what we wanted to

(17:50):
build our practice around.
We require all applicants toread this book before they can
come in for an in-personinterview Wow, and we send them
the book, like I invite them tocome take a tour.
I give them a book, I'll mailit to them.
All of our vet students thatcome and rotate through here
I'll mail them a book.
You have to read this beforeyour first day.
So vet tech, vet tech students,vet tech, csr, kennel worker,

(18:13):
high school intern job, shadowdays, they come here for one day
.

They have to read this book.

It is 100% non-negotiable.
You will not get hired here ifyou didn't read this book, and I
pay for it.
I even pay you for your time toread it, and so there's no
strings attached, and it givespeople an idea of what it's like
to work here.
If they read the energy bus andthink it's the stupidest thing
they've ever read, they're notgoing to like working here.

You won't have a seat on our bus, correct.
Just to expand on that for asecond.
And it's not you protecting thecultures they won't fit,
correct.
And it's not you protecting theculture, it's they won't fit.
They'll come here and they'llbe miserable, right?
And the team that's here won'toutwardly kick them off the bus.
They just won't fit in, right.

It'll be apparent that they want to get
off, yeah.

The bus.

Yeah, and I posted this on an owner's group.
Now I am blessed to be inMiddle Tennessee.
We're 30 miles south ofNashville.
It's one of the fastest growingcommunities in our country, so
my candidate pool is large.
I still think that this works,wherever you are, Absolutely A

(19:21):
hundred percent.
I posted online on an owner'sgroup.
Somebody said that they had keptgetting ghosted about people
showing up for interviews and Isaid your system's broken and I
think it really kind of wrotepeople the wrong way, cause
that's really all I said.
It was too short, you can't youknow the nuances or whatever.
They thought I was a jerk.
I'm not a.
I don't think I'm a jerk, butmy point was you're selecting
for the wrong people.
I have never in six and a halfyears, knock on wood have never

(19:44):
had someone not show up for anin-person interview.
It's because I know that by thetime they've gotten to that
point, I'm pretty sure I want tohire them and I'm pretty sure
they want the job becausethey've read the book, they've
gone through our interviewprocesses and so you put those-.

A good hire pays for themselves.
A bad hire costs money.

Can you imagine like we talked about this in
our quarterly meeting, all teammeeting yesterday.
We need to hire more supportstaff here, but I don't want to
rush into it because a good hireis a blessing.
A bad hire can wreck everythingthat we've worked so hard you
know to do and not we, you, yourbrother and your wife.

Speaker 1 (20:18):
It's we as a team, our team, yeah, yeah, everybody
For sure, yeah.

Yeah.
So question about where youknow if you go on the way back
machine to when your wife wasstanding there elbow on the
doorframe and you're kicked backon the couch and she says I
want to open a practice.
And you thought, heck, yeah,finally, let's do some business.
What do you think if youweren't here?
What different journey yourwife would have been on trying

(20:44):
to start a veterinary practicewithout a support of somebody.

I don't think she would do it and I couldn't
do it without her.
I'm not smart enough to be aveterinarian without a support
of somebody.
I don't think she would do itand I couldn't do it without her
.
I'm not smart enough to be aveterinarian.
I mean I think I'm maybe smartenough.
I'm not driven enough to studythat much.
But we're a good team.
We've always been.
We're polar opposites.
When we did premaritalcounseling, we did all those
Myers-Briggs tests and all thatstuff and the counselor goes.
Well.
Usually couples are opposite insome areas and close in others.

(21:11):
He goes, but you two are polaropposites in every area he goes
so it'll either be one of thosethings about opposites attract
or this is going to be adisaster.
That's not what you want to hearyour counselor say, but it's a
good match.
And so, where I am weak, I'm adreamer, I'm a starter, I'm not
a finisher.

(21:31):
My wife is a finisher.
Finisher, and which makes sense, right?
Most veterinarians are.
They finished vet school.
And so it doesn't hurt myfeelings when she's like I need
you to get this done and I needit tomorrow.
Okay, like you said you weregoing to get this done this week
.
I need it done.
I'm like okay, I told you I'dhave it done by Friday it's not
Friday yet, you know but but butit.

(21:53):
I don't consider her nagging, Iconsider her making sure that I
don't forget, because I'm quickto get distracted by other
things.
So, at any rate, I think thatme pushing her and telling her
things like quit, quit, ifyou're not happy, quit, you'll
be okay what's the worst thatcan happen?

You can go back to being an associate at another
practice Right.

And now, even when we built this, we're like,
oh, I don't know, this is reallyscary.
We built this practice.
It requires four doctors to behere to pay for it.
We built it, we only had threedoctors, so that's a little
scary.
It was one of those field ofdreams If you build it, they
will come.
What if they don't?
Yeah, and so I need her to tellme Michael, don't worry, we'll

(22:36):
get a vet, cause I'm that's whatI'm telling her Like it'll be
fine.
I mean, who wouldn't want towork with us?
Like we're awesome, thisbuilding is great, and she's
like, but what if we don't?
And I'm like, well, we'll goout of business?
She's like that sounds prettybad.
I'm like, well, what's theworst that could happen?
I mean we're not going to behomeless, but I'll go back to
teaching.
You go be an associateveterinarian.
Probably corporate will buy thebuilding, because who else is?

Speaker 1 (22:58):
going to buy it.

And you'll get to still work in your building
that you wanted.
So, like I said, we balanceeach other out.

And the reason I pose the question in that manner
is in my role and what I dowork with veterinarians.
I see a lot of veterinarianentrepreneurs who are like your
wife, who don't have theentrepreneurial spirit but feel
that they want to own a practicesomeday, and it's like-.

What they're really telling you is that they
want they're not happy withtheir environment, correct, she
could have continued the journey.
What she said was I've workedin 25 hospitals.
I haven't found the one that Iwant to retire from, so I think
we can build it and I'm like,yeah, we can do that.
What then she started doing wasfor the next year and a half,
while she was doing relief work,she started taking small

(23:43):
business development classes atthe small business center here.
She started going to webinarsrelated to business.
She worked on the business plan.
I did not write the businessplan, I just talked to her about
different ideas and I didresearch market research,
demographic studies.
That was fun for me.
The writing it down and withall the protocols and things was

(24:04):
not that's what she did.
So when you put those thingstogether, it was a well thought
out business plan and we couldhave been functional as a one
doctor practice.
At the time when she wasworking and I was teaching, we
were doing all right.

Yeah, there's a lot of successful one doc practices
with three staff and they'reknocking down a million bucks.
Yeah, I mean, it's totally fine, 30% revenue.

Absolutely, absolutely.
So their margins are what mineare right, like their
profitability.
Yeah, it's just a scale.
So entrepreneur in me was likewhy do we want to stop with one
doctor, let's go to two, becausethen we have more flexibility
in vacations.
And then when you get to twodoctors, you start thinking,
well, this is pretty easy.
Yeah, we did two.
Wow, that was Just rest andrepeat Well, let's just do a

(24:44):
third one, and then you add thethird one You're like.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
Well, now what?

And then we started getting really crowded
over there.
And we had a team meeting.
Everybody was a part of ourdecision as to whether we gave
raises, raised prices, cut downdemand and stayed where we were,
or do some of those things andwork on building, make a big
jump.
So what do y'all want to do?
That's what I told him.
I said I don't care Like I'mhaving fun with this, or we can

(25:11):
go big Grr yeah.
And my wife said I can'timagine working in this building
.
She goes I love the people.
We did that.
We put that part of our puzzletogether.
But this ain't the building I'mgoing to retire in.
So then we started looking atwhat options were out there in
our area and we didn't findanything that would really fit,
so we built from the ground up.

So you built a ground up and just to kind of
put a period on this thought isthe reason I brought that up in
that manner.
I think a lot of veterinariansfrom my experience they wake up
one day and they think they wantto do it.
It's not an evolutionary thing,it's like or the opportunity
presents itself.
They're working in a practiceand the veterinarian owner comes
to them as an associate one dayand says all right, I'm done,

(25:52):
do you want to buy it?
And it's not a I'm.
Sometimes there's a groomingprocess of, okay, I identify you
as my successor and here's thething.
But you know, I've I've run intoa couple instances for
practices that I actually workwith where the the owner just
kind of walked in one day andsaid all right, I think I'm done
, do you want to buy it?
Now I have to instantly,overnight, become an
entrepreneur where that decisionhappens.

(26:14):
And they don't have a Michaelwaiting in the wings to say I
have a genetic family history ofentrepreneurship.
Yeah, let's do this.
And they're oftentimes on theirown trying to develop a
business plan and do all thesethings.
And I've said this to a fewpeople.
I haven't ever said it on thepodcast, so I'm going to drop
this here, where I thinkveterinarians wind up being
accidental entrepreneurs, sure.

Yeah.

They go to school to be a veterinarian.
They don't go to school forbusiness, no, and they don't
generally have thatentrepreneurial spirit.
They're a differentMyers-Briggs personality but
then they wind up managing ateam and owning a practice and
profit and loss statements A lotof them aren't very good at it.

A lot of people that's not specific to
veterinarians, no a lot ofpeople are bad people.
A lot of people are not goodpeople managers.
I think again, my history as aschool teacher uniquely prepared
me for owning a veterinaryhospital.
My students are like my team,the parents are like the pet
owners, right Kind of the adminand the government bureaucracy

(27:16):
that I had to deal with as ateacher.
Same thing with vet med.
I've still got the samegovernment, you know, giving me
all these things to do.
So the turnover I love toactually enjoy hiring process
and when people but you have ahiring process, we have a
process.

There is definitely a process.
You have to read a book, youhave to apply.
There's a process to it.

It's not and I'm not the only one doing it
Like our whole team is involvedin that.
But the fact about liketurnover doesn't bother me.
Staffing is not what keeps mewell some of it's what keeps me
up at night, but what I'm reallystruggling is like which of
these awesome people do I hire?

And which one do I pass on?
Hold on just a second, Michael.
I'd like all the listeners outthere to listen to what he just
said.
He's across the street from anAmazon fulfillment center to
give you an idea of how up andcoming this area is.
But what he just said was whichof these awesome people do I
want to hire?
But a lot of that's process andyou have some big process on
the back end.
Part of that was your quarterlymeeting yesterday Correct,
which is EOS and traction andGeno Wickman and this whole back

(28:19):
end thing.
And so for our listeners whodon't know what EOS is and what
traction is, what is that?
In kind of a minute and a?

half.
So EOS, in a minute and a half,I would tell you there is a
book called what the Heck is EOS.
You should buy that on Amazonand listen to it right away.
So, Traction, this is a resultof the Veterinary Leadership
Book Club.
One of the other moderators inthe group with me.
She would always talk about EOS.
I got it, my EOS retreat.
We have an EOS meeting.
I got this on the EOS and I'veliterally typed out.

(28:55):
I have a Facebook message whereI said what the heck is EOS?
You are always talking about itand she goes well, you should
check out this book.
It's called what the heck isEOS.
Eos is a book.
It stands for theentrepreneurial operating system
.
It's how it's basically gearedfor companies that have between
10 and 250 or 500.
I don't remember.
We're not there yet.
So let's say 250, 500 employeesand it's a way to systemize
your business so that you'reworking like you were talking

(29:15):
about working on your businessrather than just in it.
Here, everybody that works inthis business is working on the
business, so every single one ofour 21 people have quarterly
rocks that they're working on,and these are things that take
them multiple weeks in order toaccomplish, and when they're
finished, we have a product thatwill help us, as a company,

(29:38):
meet our yearly goals.
Yearly goals.

And so I have a vision traction organizer.

Okay, very good , very good.

We were just talking about this yesterday in
my insurance group, and so it'sreally a process of setting a
vision, having a missionstatement, having core values,
and then building your visionlong-term, of what you're
wanting to do and then breakingit down into bite-sized pieces
and chunks that the team is allon board with collectively.

(30:05):
And it's not Bill or Michael'stelling me I have to do this at
our business.
It's that, hey, we're in thistogether, we're a collective
team, and these are the thingsthat we each need to work on
individually to accomplish agreater goal.

Yesterday everybody had to stand up in
front of everybody.
It was an all-team meeting andthey had to say Mike, we pulled
up their quarterly rocks andthey had to report whether they
were finished or not.
Now they got a little bit ofgrace period because we have two
weeks left, but we have springbreak next week.

You mentioned that to Stephen.
He's got two weeks.
He's got two weeks left.
That's right.

And so they had to say whether they were on
track to finish in two weeks orif they were finished and
they're accountable to the teamPart of what they had to report
on that's another interestingcomponent.

They're not accountable to you as the owner.
Oh, yeah.
They're accountable to the team, which is way more powerful.

Yep, they're accountable to the meeting
actually is what they're.
So they know that they're goingto have to stand up and report,
like just like I told you, ifsomething is due on Friday, I'm
going to do it Thursday night.
That's just how I work and thathas so far not bit me on the
butt.
I'm 44 years old.
I figured it out how to managemyself in that way.
So you'll see a lot of fury ofactivity right before the

(31:20):
meeting to get things done, butthey're getting done.
They're done.
So that works.
And these quarterly rocks everysingle person knows, and what
they had to report on was howtheir rock what it related to on
our five goals that we had forthis year, and our goals were to
increase compliance, dentalcompliance and heartworm
prevention by 10%.
Both of those things we talkedabout patient safety, and so

(31:44):
we're monitoring more patientsafety things.
We're just, it's just a focuson patient safety, fear-free
education and you're a big fearpatient safety things.
We're just, it's just a focuson patient safety, fear-free
education.
And you're a big fear-freepractice.
We're a fear-free, certifiedpractice.
Yeah, I mean, you're all in onit.
Yep, all 100%.
And the last thing was ourfifth one that we're working on.
Goal this year is our revenuegoal, and everybody on my you
could go down today andeverybody on our team can tell

(32:05):
you what our revenue goal is forthe year.
I share that with everybody.
We talked about our averageclient transaction, our average
patient transaction, our dailyaverage, how many days we've
worked this quarter, and if wecontinue that out for the rest
of the year at the same average,will we make our goal?

The answer was no, oh, we better pick up the pace,
that's right.

So we got to add a doctor, we're adding a
doctor this year.
That doctor, we're adding adoctor this year.
That was part of our plan,right so, but we were, we were
only we were able to share.
We were only thirty thousanddollars off of our yearly goal
if and we were closed for twodays for snow and also we
onboarded new people, so ourefficiencies were down.

We talked all about in a new building, in a brand
new building that you're tryingto work all the bugs out and
spending way too much money likebuying stuff, though, you know
just so setting a podcast.

That's right, that's right and and so we're
like it's gonna stabilize.
I'm not worried, like yeah, andthat's what I told them.
It was.
It was awesome like they get agreen check mark or red x's
right and it was okay.
I was like I feel so good aboutwhere we're at right now yeah
because the numbers show that weare doing great things.
Your reporting showed thatwe're at 95% completion on our

(33:09):
rocks, with two weeks to go.
We're doing great.
Here's who's interviewing rightnow.

Here's what we're playing is how many vet
practices do you think out theredon't have even 20% of what you
just described.

I don't know, I don't worry too much about
everybody else.

I know you don't worry about everybody else but
just from a mindset for Well,well a lot.

I mean a lot.
A lot don't just based on whatI read online.
There's a lot.
I'm like man that seems sosecond nature, but they're
figuring it out for the firsttime.
They, like you said they don'thave a me, but here's what
here's.

Here's an important thing for for for the listeners
, though, because I just again Ijust went through two days of
this.
We have a hot seat where I hadto sit there for an hour and lay
out my biggest hurdle,opportunity or challenge and it
was 12 other insurance agencyowners and you lay that out and
then they tell you what theywould do in that situation.
That would help you.

I would love to be a part of it's hard to find
a group of veterinary officesthat are running like this, yeah
, and so that is hard Now, and Iknow there's some groups out
there that you mentioned some ofthem, some of them, we tried to
join them and they wouldn't letme join because I wasn't a
veterinarian and I said well,forget you.
And so then they changed theirmind.

I'm like, nope, too late, so but what's interesting
is and this is theencouragement is you don't have
to start with everything inthere.
You didn't start with eos, youdidn't start with the energy bus
right.

Well, we started with the energy bus, but
but, uh, the practice, likefrom day one we were around that
, but traction uh didn't happenwith us until uh 2021 and so,
and this is uh, if anybody outthere is a member of vgp, which
is a group they provide youpractice coaches that run they
call pathway planning.
Okay, um, and it's based ongino wickman's book and gino,

(34:56):
with his blessing, um, they weregoing to rewrite the book
together, like like the e-myth,you know revisited but gino was
like e-myth insurance yeah, I'veread that a

couple times yeah, they have e-myth insurance
apparently.
Gino read that a few times,apparently.

Gino was like I'm not, you can just use the
concepts, just give us credit,yeah, but there are practices
out there, like I said, in theMinneapolis Veterinary Surgery
Referral Center that's who toldme about it and there are
practices out there that I canbounce ideas off, that I know
they're running and it's ashared language for sure.

Running with a pack is so much easier than running
by yourself.

And it's a lot more fun, it is more fun and you
get to celebrate in eachother's, you know victories, and
it's just like I said, I don'thave a scarcity mentality.
Recently I sent out resumes.
We had too many applicants andsome of them were really, really
good and I was like, hey, doyou mind if I would you like for
me to forward your resume tothe other practices that are in

(35:51):
my manager's group that meetshere every other month, and
they're like, yeah, thanks.
And so I sent it out and I hadtwo emails back Like why are you
doing this?
I'm like, well, we got to keepgood people at great practices.
And so, if you remember, on theemail, my caveat was I am going
to reach out to this personwhen I'm hiring.
And you know what I did.
I was hiring, I reached out toher.
She goes, I'm really enjoyingwhere I'm at, Thanks for putting

(36:13):
me over here.
And I'm like all right, awesome.

Well, let me know if you ever change your mind and
the law of reciprocity isalways in effect.
Yeah, whoever, if you give morethan you thought you had in the
beginning.

When, the day that we closed on buying our
hospital on Wednesday, onThursday we opened and we didn't
have any inventory.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
That was hard.
That was a hard day.

That was a hard day and I will never forget.
Canards Creekside AnimalHospital said bring a box, come
over here, we'll get you set up.
And they just shared theirinventory with us.
We just wrote it on a piece ofpaper what I owed them and when
our order showed up the nextweek, we took it back and.
I'll never forget, like that'swhat we need to do for each
other.
Like we can't be everybody'sveterinarian.

(36:56):
Your practice can't serveeverybody in your community, so
don't try to either.
He's like not everybody in yourcommunity is your ideal client,
and so work together and spreadthat stress out.

I mean nothing against your building or what
you have here, but somebodymight come here and say this is
just too big and fancy for me.

I need something smaller and more homey
or whatever that you know we'renot the cheapest place in town.

Yeah, and, and so we could probably talk for about
three hours here on thispodcast, but I'd like to chat
just a few minutes about thepractice itself and the building
, because I brought it up and alot of thought and intention
went and I can tell, getting thetour from Steven, a lot of
thought and intention went intothis building and how you put

(37:41):
things together for the team tobe able to better serve your
clients, because, at the end ofthe day, that's what this is all
about it's about serving yourclients.
So what went into the thoughtprocess moving from the practice
, where you were with a reallygreat team, to all right, if
we're going to build this fromthe ground up, what does that
look like?
It started.

I'm so glad that our path took us the way
that we did.
I'm glad that we didn't justbuild from the ground up to
begin with In 2018,.
I'm glad we bought an existingpractice, that we were able to
get our feet under us there,because I would have put
boarding and grooming in, Iwould have had a lobby with
waiting rooms, just like everyother vet practice does.

(38:26):
Well, what went into this wasthat one thing that was really
hard was that when we decided tobuild from the ground up, we
were in a 1,700 square foot 1960ranch style house.
Then they started buildingthese little warehouse units
right down the road from us.
They're 10 unit, 2,200 squarefoot in one big building.
You can divide them up into 10units.

(38:46):
I went and put a deposit downfor two of those units, so we
were going to move into 4,400square feet.
They wouldn't let us put anywindows in the building.
Well, that's not good.
They wouldn't let us put anyskylights in the roof, because
the city of Murfreesboro hadapproved what they were building
and you would have to go backthrough planning.
And they were like we're notdoing that.
And so I said, well, that's notgoing to work, because we love

(39:07):
that old house has naturallighting everywhere.

And we love that.

And your new building has natural lighting
everywhere that is a tip of thehat to the old building.
The surgery suite was in thedining room with the big bay
window, and Dr Nunnery told meif I don't have a window in
surgery, I'm going to quit.
And I said, well, dr Nunnery,how big do you want your window?
Right?
And then they wouldn't let meput a window in.
I said, well, this isn't goingto work because Dr Nunnery needs

(39:33):
a window in surgery.
So we scrapped that idea, wentback to the drawing board.
We started talking with thebank.
We identified a bank, weidentified a lender, we
identified an architect, andnone of them would go first.
What I mean by that is, thebank wouldn't tell us how much
money they were going to give usuntil we had plans.
Well, the builder can't give usan estimate of what they until

(39:53):
they have plans the architectwon't make the plans until they
know what our budget is, and sowhat we ended up doing-.

And then the insurance guy finds out at the
very, very end.
That's right, that's right.
Ask me how I know.
Okay, continue.

So luckily we did have a good insurance.
So we decided Dr Shirley and Ipulled our personal money out
and agreed on a price with thearchitect to rough sketch out a
floor plan that met our minimumstandards.
And I told her what ourminimums were.
We wanted 10 exam rooms becausewe knew we were going to grow.
We want 10 exam rooms.

(40:26):
We want a central pharmacy.
We want a meeting space for 50people.
We want natural lighting.
We want a double dental suite.
We want a break room that'sactually a break room for our
team, not just like anafterthought with the laundry
room not a converted exam room,correct.
And there was and we wantedoutdoor seat, an outdoor exam
space, because during COVID wewe had more exams on our patio,

(40:50):
covered patio, outside than wedid in the building.
People loved it, our team lovedit.
They got to go outside.

I mean, I drove up today and you know I'd seen the
practice on.
You know I looked at it onlineand I drove up and I was like
there are little tiny patios onthe whole front of this thing
and I actually stopped and I hadto.
It actually stopped me, michael.
I stopped and looked at it.
I thought I have never seenthis before in a vet practice?

Yeah, there's.
We have 10 exam rooms.

Six of them have outdoor patio seating, so you
can go straight from the parkinglot to your patio and from the
patio into your exam room andbecause you're fear-free, the
exam, everything happens in theexam room.
The animal doesn't gettransferred.
The owner's there, mike andSteven was explaining this.
So if you're a fear-free,certified practice, you kind of
understand what we're talkingabout.
But everything happens in theroom and I, as a pet owner, have

(41:38):
never experienced that.
I bring Louie in and they comeget Louie and Louie leaves.
And then Louie comes back andhe's pissed off.

You want to know why we don't.
You want to know one of themain reasons we don't do that.
Why Is that?
I want you to value my team andif they walk out and walk out
of your site and come back, thiswould happen if they stayed in
the exam room and made you leave.
I want you to see them takethat three inch needle and stick
it in the neck of your cat anddraw out blood.

(42:05):
I want you to go.
Oh my God, how did you do that?
Oh my gosh, you're amazing.
I want you to see what they'redoing and I want you to
recognize them.
For the veterinary professionalsthat they are, it cuts down on
complaints.
Very few people complain aboutour prices.
They see the value.
They believe in the value thatthey're getting.
Part of that is doing thingsright there with them.
Also, an added benefit is thatnot removing the pet from the

(42:27):
room decreases their fear,anxiety and stress so much, and
so if we do have to do somethingin the back, honestly the
people can just open their examroom and they can see the back.

Yeah, like I walked , I was, you know, getting the
tour and I walked through and Iwas like, well, I can see in the
pharmacy and I can see in thedental suite and you can see
from the dental suite into thesurgical suite and you can see
it is a fishbowl, but it's anintentional fishbowl.
And it's interesting that youtalked about seeing the value of
the team.
You know, in the insuranceworld a lot happens on the
backend.
You know, I have to email thelender, I have to email the CPA.

(42:59):
You know all these things.
And I said, whenever I coach myteam on this cause, you know
you say, hey, bill, I got thisemail from my banker and then
you expect me to take care of it.
Well, every time I email yourbanker, I copy you on the email
and it might be 15 emails backand forth between the banker but
your original request was hey,just take care of the banker,

(43:21):
Get the banker off my back.
Bill, I got this email from thefinance company on my piece of
equipment I just boughtAbsolutely, and I coach my team.
Every time we email or dosomething on our client's behalf
, we need to copy them on theemail so they see the value in
what we're doing.
It took 15 emails to get thisone thing taken care of for them
, but then not that any otherinsurance agent wouldn't have to

(43:42):
make 15 emails or wouldn't havedone it just as good as we
would have.
But they see the value inworking with us because we're
working on their behalf.

Yeah, I want our clients to feel like they're
partners in the veterinary careof their pets and, just like
every good, real partnership,you have support teams and
auxiliary services that are apart of what makes everything
happen and that's where I wantour clients to see the vet
assistant, the CSRs, the doctor,the veterinary technician the

(44:12):
whole, experience, the wholeexperience Our, our clients.

Not just waiting room, exam room, pet leaves, pet
comes back, pay your bill.
We'll see you in six months.
Yeah, yeah.

It needs to be more relationship than
transactional.

So well, people buy based on emotion and back it up
with logic.

I love that.
Yeah, we talked about that atour team meetings.

Did you?

Yeah, we do.
Yeah, because I don't rememberwhere I heard it, but maybe it
was on your podcast, I don'tremember but I was like, yes,
yes, I love this.
They support it with data.
So it is imperative that weexplain what we're doing and why
we're doing it, so that petparents understand it and then
they're going to do it If wetell, I tell my team, I don't

(44:54):
want you to feel like you're asalesperson, I want you to feel
like you're an educator.
If our, if our clients knowwhat we know, they're going to
do what we recommend Causethat's why we're recommending is
because it works.
Yeah, not because we're tryingto make money, but what's good
for the patient is good for thebusiness.

Correct At the end of the day, a hundred percent
Right.
So you went in with a veryintentional mindset about what
you wanted to build.
So you had a team built and nowyou need a building to match
the team.

Correct.
So I said finally we have abuilding that matches the
quality of care that our teamhas been providing since day one
.

So the team provided quality of care, and
then their hard work facilitatedthe purchase.

There was one day we got a new client that
found us on Google, got on ourwebsite, looked at it.
We have a good website,familypethealthcom if you want
to check it out there it is.
You can also see our building.
We've heard us talk about thefloor plan.
Our floor plan is available onour website.
You just copy it plan.
Our floor plan is available onour website for you, just copy
it.
I don't care if you need thebuilding plans.
I will expect you to pay forthat.
But if you want to see what itis that's different about us, go

(45:55):
to familypethealthcom, scrollall the way down to the bottom,
click on building plan and youcan see the floor plan.
And it's pretty cool.
Yeah, and so there was one daythat a client was there this was
when we were still curbside andhe goes, he goes, am I at the
right place?
And they're like what he goes?
This does not look like itmatches your pictures.
And they're like oh, those arepictures, are all inside.

(46:18):
The inside's really nice.
So we, we spent a lot of timeon the, you know, polishing up a
turd, as they said, but it was.
It was uh, you know, we did thebest we could with what we had
and uh, and people liked it.
He and he's still a client ofours and he commented when he,
when we moved over, he was likethis is more like it.

So you've built a culture, you've built a great
practice.
I think you know what's onething if you could go back and
change like what would youchange either?

I would change our laundry room here.
The laundry room, the vents goout the ceiling and I would have
put them out the back, out theback.
Yep, that's about it.
I understand the premise ofyour question.
It's hard for me to say that Iwould change anything, because
all of those things are what'sgot us here.
One thing that I would helpeverybody is read traction.
If you're thinking about owninga business.

So in your evolution 2018, you bought the
other practice.
When did you implement Traction?
In 2021.

So four years after Right, basically in the
middle of our story, and wecommitted to it for three years.
So this is our third year.
Third year I don't think thatwe would have been able to get
the loan for this building hadwe not had.

So you invested in yourself yeah, and so I have a
business coach in my coachinggroup and I went part of our
part of our coaching.
So you know, uh, I am not thesmartest guy in the room, I'm
the first one to admit it butsuccessfully is clues, and if
you follow successful people andhey, what did you for the
listeners out there, michaelgave you a clue.

(47:48):
Hey, you can come look at ourpractice.
Show your architect thebuilding plan now if you want to
buy it, you got to talk to talkto the man and maybe get some
donuts for the team yeah, I got,I got the
recipe for that, but butsuccessfully.
The point is, success leavesclues, and the clues are out
there, and so my business coach.
I was sitting at his house twoyears ago at my one-to-one

(48:09):
coaching session with him, andit was at the very beginning of
the session.
He said Bill, have you heard ofBeyonce?
Have you heard of Beyonce,michael?
I have heard of her, and I'm nota fan either, or maybe I don't
know if you're a fan, but I'mnot a fan but I know who Beyonce
is and there's a quote inBeyonce she goes I don't often
gamble, but there's one thingI'll always bet on.

(48:30):
I'll always bet on me.
And so if you continue toinvest in yourself and it's what
your wife did, dr Shirley, whenshe decided, okay, I'm going to
be an entrepreneur she startedinvesting in business classes
and coaching herself up anddoing things.
And it's an evolutionaryprocess, not a revolutionary
process.

It happens over time it's not all sunshines and
rainbows either.
No, and it is super stressful.
It's been hard on our marriagelike it not like like that we're
going towards divorce, but it'slike it's.
It's an added stress, yep, whenyou work with your spouse and
own a business.
Yeah, turn that off at eighto'clock please yeah, it's like
impossible and so we we findourselves at the end of the day

(49:07):
like, like, I don't haveanything left.
I love you.
I love you too.
Good night.
You know like and so that's hard.
Like I'm a, you know the fivelove languages, I know you just
learned about that book.
We're all opposite on thosethings as well, and so you know
it's it's just knowing thosethings is is it makes it easier,
but it's hard.
It, but it's hard.
It's not all sunshines andrainbows.
It's not for the weak, thefaint of heart, but man is it.

(49:29):
Is it fun?
And the payoff is thereeventually.
Like as we think about addingour fifth doctor, my wife is
going to.
My wife and my daughter aregoing to be leaving to go on a
vacation together, just a mommydaughter trip, right, and that's
because we're finally to thepoint where the business can
survive without her or me in thebuilding.

(49:50):
She's been the least paiddoctor on our team for a long
time because we're trying togrow and invest.

You're invested in the business right.

Knowing that the payoff is there eventually,
and and and also knowing thatworst case scenario, we just go
back to what we were doing eightyears ago.
So it's not that big, it's not,it's pretty good life.
Then, too, were doing eightyears ago.
So it's not that big, it's not.
It's pretty good life then too.
Yeah, so I would say, if Icould go back, I would love to
go back with the knowledge thatI have now.

(50:18):
What changes would I make?

I think that there's Would you invest in
education in yourself and you'reimplementing some things
earlier.

Yeah, it's so expensive it is, and it's really
when you are that entrepreneurI'm always worried.
I have the money that I couldget one of these EOS
implementers.

So you're doing traction, but you don't-.

We're self-implementing.

You're self-implementing.
You don't have an implementeror integrator.

Because I'm too afraid to.
I'm like so oh, I'm stillnervous about spending money.

So for those listeners out there to pay for
the service where they come inand actually do this stuff for
you.
It is not-.

It's like $4,000 to $10,000 a day.

Yeah, they come in for a day and they give you the
full workout and sometimes.

I have been in some of these sessions where
there have been consultants thatare teaching and I'm like I
could do a better job than that.

Yep.

And so you got to know what you're paying for.
Yeah, and that's where you callthat.
One thing I would telleverybody call the reference
checks, call people that havedone it.
That's how I met.

So our you know so, our coaching group that I'm in.
There's an application process.
You have to be vetted and thenthere's there's four mastermind
groups and you get placed basedon your agency makeup and how
you're going to integrate withthe culture of the group.
And it's a five-figureinvestment Before you talk about
.
For those of you familiar withNashville, been in Nashville was

(51:40):
at the Embassy Suites, verynice, not inexpensive to come
stay.
You got to fly down, you got tobuy your food, you have to do
the things, but thoseinvestments in myself as the
leader of the organization, theROI, on that's almost
immeasurable.
And this is the other thing thatmy business coach, Mike Stromso
, shout out for you, mike, thathe said he started the session.

(52:03):
It was a picture of a flightattendant on an airline and she
had her life vest on and hestarted the session with.
You have to take care ofyourself first, put your life
vest on first, put your oxygenmask on first, before you have
to help others.
And I think you know asentrepreneurs, as business
owners and especiallyveterinarians, who are more
definitely more empathetic thanI am, is they want to help
others before they helpthemselves.

(52:25):
And some of that helpingyourself as a business owner is
investing in yourself.
Whether it's doing tractionwithout an implementer or
whatever it might be, it's thatinvestment in you to be a leader
for your team.

Yeah, I think those are my people, because
they've challenged me, the booksthat we've read have really
helped me a lot, and then justthe team that I have here is so
awesome.

Well, yeah, I mean your brother's like this guy.
Did he even tell you I wasgoing to call you?
No?

Actually, I think I got your email first and
I asked him.
I'm like, what is this?

And he goes oh yeah , it's true, what he sent me was
he sent me a LinkedIn messagewith your email address here
reach out to my brother, he'sgot a podcast.
So I was like and in mycoaching circle I'm known as
Action Pack.
So I emailed you that night,that Sunday night, to say hey,
your brother told me to reachout to you, let's get on a call.
And we did, and I'm glad I'mhere.

(53:25):
Well, like I said, we couldprobably talk for another hour.
It and I'm glad I'm here.
Well, like I said, we couldprobably talk for another hour
it's probably going to be mylongest podcast.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
Sorry, no, no.

You know what?
I think that there's a lot ofinformation here that a lot of
other veterinarians can use.
Number one you're our firstveterinary practice interview.
It's all been other businesspeople and bankers and attorneys
and that sort of thing, realestate agents and you're our
first success story and so youset a high bar for the
Veterinary Blueprints podcast.

Well, I can give you some other people to
call and talk to?

I would love to.
I'd love a list.

So there's some people out there that are doing
it better than I am and I justI watch them and I Success
leaves clues.
Yeah, you know, like I saidright Dr Ashley Andrews out in
New Mexico, Arizona.
I follow her.
I creep on her stuff all thetime.
She's amazing.
She's got tons of practices.
She even had a daycare at heroffice for her team.

(54:16):
That's somebody that's investedin their team.
You just take care of yourpeople and they'll take care of
your business.

Absolutely, we're going to close with this.
I'm getting ready to come down.
I thought, well, I'm coming tothe practice, I should probably,
you know, buy something for theteam.
And uh, you know, I'll buydonuts or bagels or something.
And I reached out to to steven,or I reached out to you and you
didn't pick up because you guyswere in the middle of your eos
planning and I got a hold ofsteven and he said oh, we have a

(54:44):
standing donut order at the atCountry down in Murfreesboro two
locations.

That's right.
Best donuts in the world.

I had one on the way down in the car from there
to here and it was great.
But what he did was he emailedme a list of donuts and the
important thing and the takeawaythat I took from it was off of
this order, everyone on our teamgets a donut that they like,
and just think about that for asecond.
How much time does thatactually take to have your team

(55:12):
tell you what their favoritedonut is?
Five seconds, 10 seconds.
Write that down and save itbecause and I brought donuts I'm
not going to meet the teamthat's here, but they knew
donuts were showing up fromdonut country.
They didn't care who wasdelivering them.
It's some insurance guy fromMinnesota funny Northern accent.
But those are the kind of smallbig doors swing on little

(55:35):
hinges and those small things,small touches for your team,
whether it's finding out whattheir favorite color is.
When the time is right, you getto use those things and it
matters.

And you had a recent podcast about the
languages of learning and fivelove languages.
People should go back andlisten to that podcast, because
she talked about things that arefree.
They don't take a lot of money.
Part of our onboarding processis that we have a Google form
that we send them and it hasthat questionnaire how do you do

(56:06):
?
Please, rank how you like toreceive recognition, and is it
public, is it private, is it aletter, is it gifts, is it
something else?

And so is it time, or is it money.

PTO more money.
So we ask those things and theythey rank it how they like it.
And we also ask them likewhat's your favorite work
appropriate drink, what's yourfavorite snack?
And we try to random.
I will randomly do those thingsfor people and that just makes
them feel like, oh he really, hereally took the time to make
this the the way.
Actually, I listened to yourpodcast and I was listening to

(56:38):
it while I was working on somethings and I actually took out a
letter and wrote a thank younote to one of my team members.
He comes in and cleans at night.
His name is john.
He does an amazing job I don'talways so I just wrote him a
letter.
I mailed it to his housebecause of your podcast.
I'm like he's going to get that.

That's what I was going to say is handwritten
thank you cards but not lefthere and not given to the team.
It doesn't take.
It does not take much, but youhave to be intentional about it,

(57:15):
it's intentionality yeah.
Well, michael, like I said, wecould talk forever.
We'll have some information inthe show notes about Michael's
podcast for veterinarians, justto kind of see what's out there.

Yeah, it's a.
It's for your.
You can share it.
We don't brand it toward ouroffice.
So if you want to share theepisodes with your clients about
everything from chronic kidneydisease to heartworm protection,
to pet insurance, they'rereally good episodes that are
made for pet parents and you canknow that it's from a trusted
veterinary source, a fear-freecertified trusted veterinary

(57:46):
source, independently owned andoperated here in Murfreesboro
Tennessee.

That's right.

We're not trying to steal your clients.
They're not trying to stealyour clients.

Well, thank you so much for the time, michael,
thanks for the use of yourawesome podcast studio and it
was awesome having you on thisepisode of the Veterinary
Blueprints podcast.

I really appreciate you having me on.
Thank you so much.

Well, as always, remember to like, share and
review the podcast.
It helps with all thealgorithms out there on the
internet, and we just hope thatyou enjoyed this episode of the
Veterinary Blueprints Podcast.

Take care everybody.

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