Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Are you a passionate veterinarian seeking to elevate your practice and make a lasting impact in the field?
Welcome to "The Vet'Ed Podcast". Join Steven Hermann, Kale Flaspohler and Lindo Zwane - industry experts and thought leaders, as they delve into tailored strategies and nurturing relationships to empower privately owned veterinary practices.
Tune in the first and third Wednesday of the month to gain invaluable insights, tips, and inspiration to thrive in your independent clinic. Together, let's build a community dedicated to advancing veterinary care. Subscribe now and embark on a journey towards lasting success in your practice.
Hey everybody, it's Steven Herman with the Vet'Ed Podcast.
Hope this finds you doing great.
And I can be more excited to bring on Kelly Cronin and Kelly, it's great to meet you.
say, we met recently.
And I think instantly it was like, wow, we've got a good connection here on passion for
the veterinary space.
And I think just all around passion for life and, passion for business.
So I was like, we've got to get together on the podcast because we're all about talking
about education, avocation, and most, most importantly, inspiration for the private
practice owner who are trying to reach and help.
And that, that connected right away.
So, Hey, you've been in the veterinary space for a long time.
And I don't want to, I'd like you to tell everybody about you.
tell, you, you tell us for better than I do.
So.
Awesome.
My name is Kelly Cronin and I have been in the veterinary space for 33 years.
I started as a volunteer and became a technician, became a multi-site manager, really
loved everything that I was doing, decided that I didn't know enough about management, so
ended up getting my MBA and my PHR and uh getting my VTS in emergency and critical care.
I've been able to do multi-site management for many years now, Director DeNovo Operations,
and then moving into multi-site manager as an OSM with Ethos, and then moving into
VP of operations.
And now I'm trying something a little bit different, supporting the veterinary space
through team virtual veterinary assistance, which I'm really excited for.
I have a fair bit of extracurriculars.
We do vacation rentals in crazy, crazy places, like Puerto Rico and Alaska.
And just love.
love the idea of giving a real hospitality experience.
We also do a veterinary CE cruise for veterinary technicians, which is super fun.
This year we're going to Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.
Awesome, that's gonna be wonderful
I think so.
It's always an amazing thing.
Everyone always gets to do firsts.
So a lot of times when these veterinary technicians come, it's the first time they've seen
the ocean or the first time they've left their state or the first time they've left their
city or the first time they've ever been to a CE conference.
And it's just an opportunity to really meet the people who are educating you and sit down
and have dinner with them and really get to the point of feeling the education and really
exploring the world while you're
doing it.
Well, you bring up something that could really sidetrack conversation is experience and
getting out right.
We take for granted.
think a lot of veterinarians might take for granted.
They probably see a lot more than their technicians and their staff and, and to be able to
take best care of your patients means knowing your clients and the way to know clients
have experiences.
So opening them up to experience a lot of people that come through that can't afford
you know certain levels of veterinary care to write me on a communicate now they would
across the spectrum as we know better a practice see all levels of uh...
people can afford from the basics to i'm a spent ten fifteen thousand dollars to have any
fixed or uh...
cancer fixer whatever that is right so i think about that that's that's awesome that that
to say how how they see the ocean for the first time
or a dolphin for the first time.
And honestly, it's so incredibly.
eye-opening and refreshing to go to veterinary CE.
I just came back from IVEX, International Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care
Conference, and it's one of those situations where it really refills your cup.
It really makes everything really new again for veterinary medicine, and being able to
talk to other veterinary professionals gives you such a good perspective.
And a lot of times, veterinary technicians either don't have the funds or don't have the
CE allowance, and so we see practices closed down.
entirely to allow their entire team to come.
We see practices, we had a practice last year that actually gave four trips to CEA, on the
CEA as a scholarship to their team.
Like there's just an incredible amount of goodwill that comes with it and it's really
amazing to be part of that impactful, that impactful type of continuing education.
You see people transform then on these trips.
100%.
100%.
Not even transformed, but we see people become lifers.
And I don't know about you, but every time that I felt really tired or really different in
veterinary medicine, I would redevelop myself or I would redesign who I was and what I was
going to do next.
And honestly, that's part of how I came to team.
Our founder, Corey, reached out to me and it was just such an incredibly different
conversation to really talk about how I was gonna be able to give back to the profession
after so many years of the profession giving to me, that it was just a really easy
decision to make to come up with a team.
I've loved it so far for sure.
Yeah, so don't let me get too far off track because I like to chase shiny things, you
know.
That's entrepreneur spirit in me and I think that you obviously have an entrepreneur
spirit in you too.
But before we get to team and those things, what we're going to talk about, because I'm
excited about what team has to offer.
let's talk a little personal stuff, family, hobbies.
You mentioned a lot of the workshops.
I think maybe those are your hobbies is, you know, all those things.
But yeah, what do you do if you're not vacation rental?
work or veterinary work or you know sailing seas with technicians what's going on
I spend an awful lot of time actually traveling.
I love traveling so much and honestly that dovetails really well into the veterinary
speaking and certainly into having vacation rentals.
I am an artist.
I actually my first my first degrees in college were arts so I really love doing arts.
Those are those are my biggest ones.
I loved running unfortunately COVID and POTS.
Postural orthostatic syndrome has stopped that but still love a good walk around the
neighborhood still love working out and of course love the family and the pets I have a 14
year old and a bonus 21 year olds and they are amazing sauce couldn't be more proud of
either of them one is in the French immersion program and and it you know making herself
as bilingual as possible and one is a nurse in a labor delivery ward just amazing
amazing kids.
So, really love that.
Yep.
And honestly, watching my husband, Steve, smoke every type of meat that ever existed, has
been an amazing side passion for me.
Lord knows I'm not allowed in the kitchen without adult supervision.
So, thank goodness he's in my life.
We haven't flip side here now.
I I'm the grill guy the smoking guy out like outside right but inside the kitchen It's
it's it's Lauren all the way.
She's uh, but she's got a big advantage on on me She actually she is art education is what
her her undergrad is and all the way to PhD with with Education so but yeah sure her
grandmother.
There's stores in st.
Louis called Dearberg's and It's a old family stores And they have a cooking school
Lauren's grandma taught the cooking school and Lauren went to Maryville University in St.
Louis for a year and lived with her grandma and her grandma, like she's got knife skills,
all those things, right?
I'm like, me to prep a dinner, like I'm an hour into the prep and she's like, what are you
doing?
I'm like, I'm trying to cut stuff.
Like, you know, I'm trying to like not cut my finger off, you know, the stuff she can do
in 15 minutes, right?
So I think I feel what you're talking about here, but it sounds like Steve's like all
around.
Like he is, uh he's all around.
That's awesome.
Yeah, I think you should.
Yeah.
Especially if you can do good smoked meats because that's the hardest thing to do.
Cause it goes from good to dry in like no time.
to Wisconsin so he can show off his cooking skills?
Everyone's invited.
Anyone who wants to come to Wisconsin, we'll cook you up something good.
I love it.
we, love food, which yeah, you love traveling.
part of traveling is food, right?
Experiencing the food of the area.
So are there any like, are there any places you're like that really stand out that you'd
like to go back to same places?
Do you like to experience new places?
What's that look?
So I will tell you that I really love trying new places, but sometimes you get that place
that just lives in your heart and soul.
Recently, a coworker and I went to Fetch Kansas City, there is a...
And it was a great conference.
It was so much fun.
Really, really enjoyed it.
And we had the best barbecue at a place called, think it's Q39.
that I've ever had in my lifetime.
It was incredible.
he, I feel like I might have converted him because Teller was all about a different grill
place, a different barbecue place.
And honestly, we had that place and I think we might've converted.
No, mean Kansas City is known for that, right?
There's no question about it.
Do you have Joe's?
Did you try Joe's?
Okay, yeah, Joe's is the one that the old gas station.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is a little bit away from Fetch.
But yeah, we were supposed to meet up in there, things changed.
next year, if you're in town, we'll to make sure to connect on that for sure.
Fetch is a great conference.
They're really doing a good job.
I really like what they do.
Kansas City is nice.
It feels regional.
You actually get to see people.
You see people you know, you have time for conversations and there's conferences for
everybody, right?
The small conferences or the big conferences.
They've just found a sweet spot in the middle that is really nice.
So yeah.
what I like to tell people, you know, is find the conference experience that's going to
give you the most, right?
Like ours, Vet Tech Life CE on the C is a very small conference, generally less than 140
attendees.
And it's so nice to be able to get that one-on-one experience, but also I've been to WVC
and it's...
You know, it's enormous and amazing.
I've to IVACS and honestly, IVACS is, it's one of my heart and soul conferences because it
feels like it's all my people.
Every conference has a little bit of a different feel.
And maybe if you didn't love that conference that you did last, like that's not your
conference.
There's another one out there, I swear.
Oh, there are, there are for sure.
And, and, and don't get discouraged.
think don't get discouraged.
If you go to one that doesn't ring true to you, that doesn't, that just doesn't, it
doesn't mean it's bad.
It just didn't fit you.
There's, there's a conference out there that will fit you, whether it's a state
organization up to, like you said, like you're doing or, or, uh, you know, the big guys,
the WBCs, the VMXs, that kind of stuff, just to be, there's, there's one for you.
That's, that's for sure.
I was thinking about that on my ride this morning.
Like, why are there so many conferences?
And it's interesting.
was thinking that you answered it.
because there's a lot of different experiences for different people.
When I remember back before we started CE on the Sea, know, there weren't conferences for
veterinary technicians.
We went to the veterinary conferences and that is not a bad thing.
I think it made us better techs for it.
But there is a different, there's a different knowledge subset that you learn at.
at a veterinary technician conference versus a veterinary conference.
And right now, there are so many active, really amazing veterinary technician specialist
speakers.
And that never used to be the case because there was only so many of us.
I mean, when I started in ECC, I was number 314 for the ECC.
And honestly, it's one of those situations where even choosing my speakers for Vet Tech
Life now is so difficult because I will get 70 plus applications and everyone is better
than the next.
I am spoiled for choice is the whole of it.
so honestly, it's one of those things where I really encourage folks to get out and hear a
bunch of different speakers.
If one is not for you, I guarantee you that there is someone out there that's going to
resonate with you.
Yeah, I think this thing is like, and at the end of the day, how much information can you
bring back and effectively do, right?
I mean, it's like two or three things.
So if you go to 10 or 12 talks, you can only expect two or three and it really hit.
I mean, it's just the way it's gonna be.
And again, it doesn't mean they're bad talks.
It just isn't resonating with you.
But that's why you gotta go out and see.
It's why you gotta travel and go, yeah, I don't wanna go back to all the places.
I enjoyed them.
There's some places that just ring true to me.
And...
I'm gonna go back so that's a spice of life for sure.
As someone with vacation rentals in the places that I love the most, do, I'm very much all
about going back to the places you love.
I do think that it's worth exploring.
And I think honestly, it's one of those situations where there are a lot of team members,
technicians and doctors alike who don't use their CE funds.
And if someone's going to get one thing out of the talk today, like go use your CE funds,
go do the things.
yeah, absolutely.
Well, let me ask you, does that dovetail in a team in a way that you're outsourcing,
right?
Yes.
Well, and not even so much that, but you're creating that work-life balance that everyone
needs and wants in order to have sustainability.
I mean, how many times have you talked to veterinarians who've gotten out of the field
because they can't handle the three to four hours of records at the end of the night?
Like, it's just...
It's eating us alive.
And honestly, how many veterinarians went to vet school in order to learn how to type?
It's just not a really sustainable practice.
And same thing with colors.
ah So I will tell you, I know an awful lot of old school vets that do the finger poke
finger poke.
And honestly, Lord love you.
Lord love you all.
But let us help.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's so many different places that it can be used.
So the way that Teamworks is we actually bespoke hire.
for whatever that veterinary clinic means the most.
And so generally, our first call with a clinic is saying, hey, where are you struggling?
How can I help you?
Just a little bit smarter, just a little bit better to make life.
And so when we're talking to the different clinics, we're hearing about multitudes of
different things.
Some clinics are struggling on the phones.
They don't necessarily keep having good CSC hires, or they don't stick around, or in my
case I ran into a fair number of CSCs that were just not the quality of customer care that
I would want, you know, to the point where I pretty bad altercations with our CSCs.
So I think that there's an opportunity for
getting some of those calls off the front desk, letting the front desk actually have
face-to-face interactions with clients.
There is an opportunity to take some of the load off of our veterinary technicians, right?
Every time that I come into a clinic and see a VTS calling around for a referral, you
know, setting an appointment for some other practice or something along those lines,
calling for records, I think to myself, this is a person who should be placing an IV.
This is a person who should be placing a central line.
Or this is a person who should be calculating a tree of life and setting up the CRIs for
this patient that's going to die otherwise.
I don't want this person to waste their time and their talent on something that I could
outsource so easily and so affordably, to be honest with you.
Yeah, no, I think that's amazing about team and it gets back to how many times and the
story's been told in the human medical field.
It's like the doctor's like, can type 300 words a minute.
My assistant can only type 60 words a minute.
I'm gonna type like, no, no, the person, you know, and this is probably not a good
comparison that way, but the same kind of thing, right?
Or it's like, why am I gonna spend it, you know, not much money.
You all at team and team is for everyone who doesn't know is T-E-E-M.
and let me ask you is there a reason it's T E E Is there an acronym?
that uh yeah
I can't tell you why Corey came up with it.
can't, but I can tell you why I love it.
And I love it.
I love to think about how team can help your team.
And honestly, it's one of those situations where like every time I get to use it in an
email or something along those lines, like I just, I revel in the pun.
That's why
golf?
I'm just giving trouble because like tee time, you know, like is it like tee time?
You know, I'm just kidding.
Like gain more time.
You go play golf.
No veterinarian wants to play golf in the medical field, the human medical field maybe,
but not the veterinary space.
Now we want to see more animals.
That's what team's about, right?
Is how can you see more animals?
And also then at end of the day, unwind, which I think is most important.
It's like you can't continue just to see animals.
You have to, do we talked about earlier, take vacations, get CE.
How do you get your bucket filled back up?
Because you're just all day long just pouring it out for people.
And how do you fill it back up?
Well, and we talk to clinics all the time that say, hey, we have this slowdown.
And I've seen it so many times in practice.
The doctors, especially emergency doctors, will slow down at the last hour or two of their
shift because they have to leave that time in order to do records.
Can you imagine the ROI?
of not having that slowdown and the life change of that next doctor into shift, especially
for ERs, right?
When you have that shift changed over, instead of being left for seven patients that are
now with clients that are just mad, right?
They've been waiting for an hour or two hours with a critical patient.
Instead of that, we have someone who helps that doctor get through all of their things.
They effectively take them into the exam room.
That that person has written that soap has started the discharge instructions has started
the treatment plan Has put in the invoice has maybe put in the estimate has called to the
other clinic that they need to send that that patient to you has potentially you know
taken a Disposit or has already communicated to the client with the next step
Like all of the things that are going to take you an extra hour with that last patient of
the day can come off your plate so that maybe you can see an additional patient and leave
your whole team in a better place as well.
Well, and when we're talking about that emergency experience, there's a ton of different
ways in which you're really challenged in terms of your life balance.
The first of which is...
When we have different shifts, how much of that do you pass on to the next teammate?
And how do you become the best teammate that you can not to leave the next shift?
Whether you're a technician, whether you're a CSR, whether you're a doctor.
When we're talking about GP, how do you maximize the amount of time that you're in
practice?
And how do you make sure that at the end of the day you can go home in a normal time?
When we're talking about mobile vets, how can we make sure that you're maximizing the
drive time?
Because let's face it, you're not
making money during a drive.
And so you have to have a situation where your stuff is done so that you can have enough
calls during the day and honestly so that you can rely on that team member to maybe set up
your calls in a GPS appropriate way.
Maybe set up your calls so that all of your calls get invoiced immediately thereafter so
you don't get that delay to pay.
Maybe set up all your calls so that your medical records are done in the car on the way
from one visit to the other.
It's a situation where I've been asked
a ton of times which practice this is best for and what do need?
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point.
I look at, you know, what you have going on.
We've talked about, talk about medical records.
We talked about the customer service answering the calls and, you know, what other tasks
too are we gonna work on?
We're talking team here, this team.
Like what else we gonna work on?
We all have that PIM system with that to-do list on the right-hand side.
Like, I don't care what PIM system you're using, there is a to-do list on the right-hand
side that goes to our technicians, our VAs, et cetera.
And there are ton of tasks in there.
So things like medication refills, if we're dealing with CHUI, if we're dealing with some
of those online medication providers, if we have a paradigm for how they actually approve
those medications and dealing with them,
A VA can do that, especially a virtual VA so that we're not taking time away from someone
who could be caring for pets.
You know, if we're talking about medical record management, a lot of us use AI like
VetScribe or ScribbleVet or any of these others.
If they're not attached to your PIMS system, someone needs to take that and put it into
the medical record and format and read it just to make sure that we don't have, you know,
AI craziness going on.
No extra thumbs in our medical records.
And so when we're thinking about those things,
a veterinary VA can do that, a virtual VA can do that.
When we're talking about hearing those phone calls from the client service side,
especially with our really good new AI phone systems, we'll see full call synopsis as a
virtual veterinary assistant can not only take that call or make that outgoing call, but
they can also take and drop that synopsis into the medical record or type the synopsis if
you don't have an AI driven phone system.
And honestly,
Because of the fact that we get 3,000 to 10,000 applicants every single month, and these
are all college graduates from US colleges, effectively BYU is what we're at.
Correct.
do this job.
Yes, super, super sought after because of the power of the dollar in South America where
we resource from.
And honestly, these 3000 to 10,000 applicants who apply every single month come with a
variety of different services.
So we have fair numbers of clinics that are looking for social media help or looking for
actual marketing help or looking for digital help in a variety of different ways.
And honestly, I haven't run into anything that our sources have said, oh, I don't
see that.
So, we have some who use them for bookkeeping type tasks.
have some who use them.
We have one who actually effectively set up her entire de novo clinic on the back of
having a team member help her.
And it was absolutely the perfect situation.
can't...
You know, I have conversations with her and her biggest fear in life is that at some point
in time, you know, she's not going to have a team member in the future, but we have four
to five years of retention with these folks.
So I honestly, I think she's set for awhile, but it's definitely.
uh
me ask that four to five years retention with the team virtual assistant with that
practice.
Once we get past 90 days, so effectively just making sure that they're a good fit for the
clinic, that they're a good fit for themselves, right, in that role, that they're able to
manage things really well virtually.
Once we get past that 90 days, our average retention is four to five years for team
members.
That's, is it one person per that practice then?
Or could it be, okay.
We'll say that there are some bigger practice groups now that are looking at doing call
centers where it's one person who has split between a couple different clinics.
But one of the biggest reasons that we can really do a good job, especially considering
some other call center type of services, is just the fact that it's really bespoke to what
the clinic needs.
So we really want that.
We want that marriage.
We don't want a date.
We want to make sure that they're married to the right practice.
I think it's poured a couple of things I wrote down, know, consistency and communication
matter and a continuity of help matters because training is expensive.
And if you don't know how to train, it's really expensive.
Where do you even start with?
I think the other thing is recruiting is expensive.
Recruiting is expensive too.
Yes hiring.
Yeah hire slow fire fast kind of mentality But if you have to hire slow to get the right
person, know the time to hire slow You're probably gonna hire fast and fire slow
And how often have you put out an ad?
And, know, I'm speaking to anyone who has hired anyone in veterinary medicine, but how
often have you put out an ad and got a fair number of resumes, none of which have any
experience that you need, any of the skills that you need?
And it's, it's definitely, hmm, it's, it's tough because when I've looked at some of the
hires that I've made that I've just been like, wow, this is just not great.
It's because of lack of options.
And what I'll say is that when
We look at 3,000 to 10,000 options and then we have a specialty recruiter who does nothing
but this.
They are incredible at matchmaking with these clinics, right?
They get to the crux of exactly what these places need.
And honestly, when we present the four to five to an interview, we are taking an hour of
your time, but we're presenting you with four to five people that from talking to these
clinics that have put them into place, they would have taken any of them or they would
have taken more
than one of them.
One of the big problems that we've run into with one of the practices is, hey, they're
ready for their second VA.
They would love to have hired the second person that they had in their interview lineup.
And, you know, are they still available?
Because we release them if they are not a fit during that interview.
That's how bespoke the hiring is.
And so, you know, I've got my fingers crossed for them.
They're going to go back to that candidate and see if they are still amenable to coming
on.
It's one of those situations where I think we're doing our job if we present you with a
few folks and more than one of them is a really good fit for you.
Yeah, it allows you to compare if you have nothing to compare against you're gonna also
gonna wonder you might have the exactly right person if you get one person that they land
now I but you're always gonna back your mind be like what else is there and So you have to
be able to compare.
It's kind of like yeah
And it's not great to go through 50 different resumes and 50 different interviews.
You really need someone who is very, very practiced at recruiting to bring it down to a
digestible number so that you're not paying for a service that's now going to make you do
the work of going through 50 resumes.
Well, I think their thing is too is that what makes hiring so tough is that someone can
have an excellent interview, really good interview, but they come in and don't do the job.
You all have have a good hiring process.
You understand what that looks like, but you're also vetting that person even more so you
know what they can do when you're presenting that to that practice.
So it's like you're getting someone that's that can do what the job is.
have, you most people can say I can do it.
I can give them a good
fill their words and make you feel good about me.
But really until the rubber meets the road, you don't know.
And that's the hard part about hiring because you just sometimes go, just got to hire and
see what happens.
Well, there's a little bit of safety on the backside for us as well.
We have a dashboard where we actually have real-time results as to, how many phone calls
is this person answering?
How many medical records is this person altering?
And I will say that...
You know, I've had dashboards for virtual assistants before.
I've used the one-offs, the upworks, that type of thing.
And honestly, you always kind of wonder, is it them jiggling the mouse?
That's why Teams Dashboard is really built off of the skills that they're doing instead of
the time online.
I don't want to know that they're online.
I want to know that they're doing something that's going to add to my ROI online.
I want to know that they're paying for themselves and then some.
I want to know that they're connecting to those phone calls and saving my front desk some
time so that, I don't know, they can go to the bathroom or something.
Yeah.
We have success managers as well, dedicated success managers that make sure that the
interactions between the team member and team and the clinic are absolutely on par with
what everyone's expectations are.
So really, they're to help get things set up, they're to help make sure that, you know,
technology-wise we can all work together really easily.
And honestly, we have an opportunity to work with so many different types of technologies.
Those success managers are really
really good at that.
A couple of things that percolate as we talk here.
One, you South America, right?
So you have someone answering the phone for that practice.
And you said they went to US colleges, so their English is probably pretty good.
But what about that though?
there any, obviously someone answered the phone, you can tell they're not.
Can you tell they're not a US citizen or what, how does that look and sound?
accent, I will tell you.
I will also put out there that their English is better than mine, let's be entirely
honest.
uh
in it and I just grew up in it
Well, I think that one of the things that you come out of some of the US college programs
with is better diction and better grammar than potentially what some of us who are maybe a
little lazy in our English are.
it's definitely a situation where when I look at my coworkers, many of whom are from
Argentina, Brazil, they are...
they are much better in terms of they're spoken in their written language than I might be.
And I think the other thing that I, for right or for wrong, came into wondering is are
they going to have the medical terminology?
And what I'll say is that, depending on what that clinic is looking for, if they're
looking for a lot of medical terminology, we'll look for someone with veterinary
experience or medical experience, and they will come out with the medical
terminology really that that practice needs.
So talking to, one of our VAs, Isabelle, or one of our other VAs, Sabrina, I talked to
them and their veterinary terminology is so good that Sabrina is helping us write study
plans with abbreviations for other VAs.
And it's just a situation where I do believe that they have
the nuts and the bolts to really make it work.
And I think that that's a big fear coming into that is, you know, how do you find someone
who has the nuts and bolts or is this starting from ground zero?
And what I'd say is when you're hiring from out on the street, you know, I get six or
seven resumes from folks who worked at Starbucks or McDonald's.
I don't think that you're going to find better than having that many candidates to choose
from.
If they know the terminology, mean, that's the biggest thing, That the veterinary
practice, because they're answering the phone and they ask, you know, how much is the
exam?
And they go $50 and they don't say, they go, Oh, let me tell you about the exam, right?
What do you get?
Like, you know, why are you calling about the price?
How about what you're, you know, like, what, do you, how do you shift that conversation?
Where someone that's been at Starbucks or McDonald's, whatever is going to say 50 bucks.
Have a good day.
And they don't have that being chased with hyenas type of feel to the phone calls.
Have you ever called a veterinary clinic and you get someone on the phone who's, I'm Pam.
Hey, can I put you on hold?
Yeah, plenty of times, right?
Especially depending on time of the day you call.
Like in the morning rush or, yeah.
Monday morning.
And honestly, like we're never going to take the place of someone who's sitting at your
front desk.
Well, I shouldn't say that there are some clinics that don't have a front desk that use
their VA's in that way and have the virtual VA to actually answer the phones.
And so they take that piece out, but they were never going to replace the comfort and the
feeling of having a real person in front of you.
Right.
And so there's, there's certain ways of utilizing our team members
to make sure that our team members are actually having that client connection.
And having someone up front who is greeting clients but has to pick up the phone every
five minutes, that's not it, you know?
Yeah.
a way to make whoever's in front of you just a little bit madder, right?
And I've been there.
I've been with a pet in need at an emergency clinic and watched that CSE or that CSR pick
up the phone several times while I'm trying to give them a little bit of history.
And I just think that there's a better way, right?
We're never gonna virtually be able to place any IV catheters.
Can't be done.
Can't be done from Brazil.
Yeah.
if we can take some of those administrative tests that would drive our team nuts anyways,
some of those callbacks, right?
Half the time when you're making callbacks, you're not even talking to a real person.
You're talking to an answering, well, do people have answering machines anymore?
Talking to a.
hate people hate leaving voice mails, right?
Like why did you leave your voice ma?
Text me.
What do want?
And think about all those really smart AI phone systems now where we have the capacity to
text back and forth.
If my team is doing nothing but managing text going back and forth from our clients, are
they actually taking care of the clients?
Probably not.
No, no, you cannot multi- people talk about multitasking.
No one multitask well.
You just don't.
have to multitask in the ability to compartmentalize multiple tasks and focus on one at a
time to able come back to the other one.
And so yeah, when you're at the front desk, there's nothing worse than that.
you're just, you're trying to check out and like, pardon me.
I need to get a phone call.
you're like, I just want to check out.
I just, I just want to pay my bill and leave.
Like, you know, that's-
that a lot of people, some people don't mind, but I think most people are in a hurry.
They're like, I want to get out of here.
Like I want to go.
So yeah, I think that if you can free that up, I believe in that so much to have that.
And you check out our grocery store, they're not answering the phone to check out, they?
I it's a grocery store.
they're looking at you, how are you doing?
everything all right?
Oh, look at these, these are yummy.
You know, I mean, like as they're scanning.
So you can learn something from a grocery store for sure on, know, cause customer service
matters.
on those kinds of things.
What separates one store from the other, Walmart from your local grocery store, makes a
different service.
how can, I think that's the end of the day people forget the veterinary is a service.
The veterinary space is a service, it's customer service.
And yes, you're taking care of animals, but most important person there, and I say person
because it's the owner of the animal.
You have to take great care of them.
And that should come through, taking great care of the animals, right?
Great, great healthcare.
But you have to take care of the owner.
They're the ones paying the bills.
And so if they don't have a great experience, they're going to look somewhere else.
They're going look, there's vets around.
They go other places and see and do.
So yeah, you aren't losing your clients over prices.
I worked with a really great human and her comment was we serve our clients and we help
our patients.
And we have to be really cognizant of the fact that that's the way of it, right?
And sometimes that takes just a minute or two more of listening and really doing the right
thing.
And honestly, if I can help with that in any way, you know, that's what I hope my legacy
in veterinary medicine is going to be, is being able to make things just a teeny tiny bit
easier for everyone involved, right?
A teeny tiny bit smoother and really help our practices actually, you know, turn a profit
and actually be able to pay our teams on the
more, right?
If we have more space because we're able to leverage someone who doesn't need as much to
be paid really, really well, we're doing the right thing, right?
If I can do better for our technical staff or if I can do better for our VA team or our
CSCs on the floor because of the fact that I'm leveraging someone who is getting paid
really, really well but elsewhere in the power of the dollar, that is a really incredibly
impactful thing
for me and I'm gonna feel really good about myself at the end of the day.
I love that.
So that's your...
Yeah, you got into veterinary medicine.
Let's take a step back.
What brought you to veterinary medicine?
I would like to say that I grew up in it.
So when I was very, very young, five, six years old, I started in horses, horse grill, you
know, the same way that everybody else does, bar ponies.
And honestly, you know, shout out to Bob Magnus, if he's listening to this, amazing,
amazing equine vet who just very much taught me the real James Harriet look of veterinary
medicine, right?
They're really taking care of clients, taking care of people, taking care of their pets as
an adjunct.
And em honestly, you know...
seeing what we could do in terms of animal suffering, terms of animal care, in terms of
just good husbandry really started that off for me.
And then unfortunately when I got up to college level, have dyslexia, positional dyslexia,
could not pass organic chemistry with the R and the asterotations of atoms.
Okay.
It opened the biggest door ever for me.
So I think when you think about being a veterinarian, you think about all of the things
that you can do, but you don't really recognize at that stage in your life that it is a
lot of records management, that it's a lot of non-hands-on type of things.
You you have surgery, but really that is probably the most hands-on thing that a
veterinarian gets to do.
And so I was very, very blessed very early on to see what veterinary technicians and
veterinarians
technician specialist really could do and I really, know, one of my very first managers as
a veterinary volunteer actually was a technician specialist in ECC and honestly I jumped
in both feet and never looked back and being a veterinary technician, especially a
specialist,
I've been able to be a really big fish in a little pond, whereas if I had become a
veterinarian, I think that I would have been a very little fish in a very big pond.
And I think that honestly, I look at my career and honestly also, I look at my career in
terms of providing free resources and trying to get those resources over to technicians in
terms of their own financial journey as well, personal financial journey as well.
I know that as a technician, I made sub $20, the vast majority of my career, and was able
to save and really do well.
That's one of the other big huge passions for me is the fact that I came from that side of
things and just being able to speak to it and to hopefully help, you know, veterinary
technicians, veterinary assistants, CSEs understand, hey, this is how going to school is
going to impact you.
This is how buying a house is going to impact you.
This is how to set yourself up well for retirement and for savings and to use the power of
time on money.
All of those things.
Wow, such a rabbit.
love it.
Yeah, well, yeah, it's easy.
It's easy for me to go down that those things and I appreciate you Let me let me do that
because that tied in with your your passion was like it comes from somewhere right and and
it gets back to that, know your legacy and those all those all tie in so well together
you've been in the veterinary space and Obviously you are passionate about it committed to
it and wanting to see it become better.
I think that So we're doing some tools here, right?
We've got
you know, your crews with the veterinary technicians to team with, we've been talking, it
seems a lot about maybe some of the upfront answering the phone, but there's, there's
scribing going on and, for the veterinarian, I don't know if we hit on that too much, but
if you could just hit on that for just a minute.
Absolutely, for the scribing?
Yeah, absolutely.
So generally when I'm thinking about scribing, I'm really thinking about using all the
tools in my tool belt.
And so someone might say, hey, there's AI scribes out there.
There is direct translation scribes like Talking Vet, things like that.
I love them all.
I am not opposed to any type of tool that's going to help you do a little bit better job
of maintaining your work-life balance.
I also think that there are a lot of different things that can happen for a scribe that
can be potentially beyond what you might get with AI or what you might get with direct
translation or transcription.
And so when we thinking about this, you know, I really am hoping that our veterinarians
are really utilizing these team members.
to kind of hit on all of the things.
I was talking to a veterinarian who does feline dentistry and she actually utilizes her
scribe to dental chart while she's in a procedure.
So she'll be doing her procedure, she'll be getting through her dental, and online her
scribe Isabella is going through and doing her dental charting.
And in the midst of that, hey, I might need to do a cardiac consult on someone.
Well, three patients out, I need that cardiac consult scheduled.
Can you call around to the cardiac specialist and get them set up with an appointment?
And honestly, as a solo practitioner, she can't rely on someone else.
She's got someone who's just there doing anesthesia.
I don't want to pull from someone doing anesthesia to go do x, y, little task.
But I think about all of the things that can get done while that mental space is really
brewing.
And same thing for you go into an exam room with a virtual assistant.
I would say you still need your veterinary assistants for things like holding a fractious
patient during that, right?
I don't want my veterinary assistant who's in the room from me.
not holding that patient in order to go scribe for me.
I really want to make sure that I'm leveraging both things and that scribe is able to
choose the real ROI driving things like putting in my charges, like checking charges, like
making sure that my estimate is correct, like getting my discharge and settled.
And honestly, if you can shave an hour off of someone's exam by having exam already
written, how much more client service are you going to have?
And you're going be focused too because you're going be able to get, if you're in a
surgery like that and you can't get an idea off your head that needs to be executed on,
that frees your mind up to stay focused on what's going on.
So I think that that's huge to stay focused.
How can you do that?
Otherwise you're like, I remember X, Y, Z, one, two, three, you know, all those things.
Like it's going to be going to be difficult.
So I love that part about it.
And I love what you said too, cause yeah, someone might go,
There's all these AI tools out there right you know nothing wrong with them I think it's
just like we get back to we talked beginning a lot of conventions out there
Yeah, you gotta find the one that works for you.
And sometimes it's more than one, right?
Like I love me some of that tech life, CE on the C.
I love it.
I love the 140 people.
I love the close connections.
And man, do I love going to WVC and seeing a huge concert and enjoying that with, you
know, 7,000 of my very, very best friends.
You know, it's, sometimes it's two.
had Megan Treanor this year, know, even AVMA's got some great big, you know, it's, let's
not forget about them, right?
They're pretty darn important, so.
really, really great things out there and honestly pairing them up is sometimes the
answer.
And the other thing with that is I've talked to so many people that are like, I tried
that, that didn't work for me.
Did you try every way of that?
Did you really look into how you're utilizing it?
Did you really think about
that way of work or did you give it one little try and then I had a just a little side
story.
had a veterinarian who loved no none of those no who loved their transcription service
talking bed and just used it like nobody's business and then stopped and
I had a conversation with her and I was like, hey, I noticed when I was here the other
week that you're not using your transcription service.
And she said, well, I can't get the microphone to connect.
I was like, my god.
So you're going to lose hours upon hours upon hours because you can't make this little
thing work.
But that's the way it is.
anyone who has just a little bit of executive dysfunction like myself, they know that I
could work so much smarter.
than working harder.
But one little thing gets in the way.
And one of the things that I love most about my experience with virtual veterinary
assistance or virtual assistance in general is that I sometimes need someone who doesn't
have the same level of dysfunction as I do to push the one tiny rock up the hill.
To do one little thing that I somehow can't get done because
I don't know, because I can't read a font on a, you know, just crazy little things, right?
Like I have to somehow do one step that is in the way of me working so much smarter.
And so.
just get started and the people are time just getting started and that's uh...
mel robbins you know book let them came out uh...
you know this year and i get on track to be like one of the number one books of all times
six million copies have been sold so as we talk about this i think like what are those
things will help people and it's reading a book and her experiences cuz she and i wait
when bankrupt her and her husband uh...
restaurant failed and she her husband drinking and fighting and can get a bed
And she finally, I mean, just that simple step, right?
Can't get out of bed.
So yeah, when you have new technology and those kinds of things, it's like, it's hard.
You know, it'll make you more efficient, but man, it's just sometimes that roadblock goes
up.
we've got to, you know, I think that people, have everything we need today to be
successful.
there are just a lot of barriers to, to that and our, our, and our mental capacity.
And so that's what I hope today, talking with you, uh, sharing your story, sharing.
you know, or the resource out there like team that can help the veterinary practice thrive
and succeed because again, just like your passion about the legacy of that to make it more
efficient.
That's my my passion legacy is to see private practices continue to thrive and grow.
I think they're very important again.
It's nothing against corporate or anything.
They've got they've got their place.
You know, they make it's part of it.
But I think you gotta have both.
I think you have to have both.
And so I see team as a you know, can help
I'm sure corporates and but really help private practice a lot.
And so I'm excited to have you on today.
I really, really enjoyed it so much.
Thank you so much for inviting me.
Absolutely.
It was a lot of fun.
And one thing I like to ask is like, you know, we're not sitting in the same room together
and you're probably at home like I am, but imagine you weren't and you had to drive home
and you're like 15 minutes down the road and you're like, ah crap, I wish that I would
have said.
that one's a tough one.
Hmm.
I mean, I think the only thing that I wish that I would have said is I really wish that
everyone just gave it a try.
Like, you don't have to say yes.
You don't have to sign up for anything.
give us a call and let's just talk through what you're, you know, what you're experiencing
in your practice and maybe we'll get to the end of that conversation and you'll say, hey,
everything's going fine, you can't really help me and that's totally fine.
I will buy you a coffee either way.
But if I...
If I can somehow make your practice just a little bit easier so you have time to drink
that coffee, I would love to help that.
And I really just, I know that there are a lot of practices out there where, hey, the team
members are just not on board because they're really nervous about, this going to take
away from what I can do?
And I really want everyone to think about, how many times could my life have been just a
tiny bit easier if this exists instead of being
so set in this is how we've always done it or
set in, hey, what is this going to do for me?
Think about what this is going to do for you.
How can this be truly helpful for you instead of being afraid of what it might look like
for you in a practice?
I think one of the things that early on I figured out is that it's way more impactful to
utilize every tool that you can as opposed to being afraid that a tool is going to get in
the way of you being able to do your job.
Yeah, that's that.
I think that's part of maybe the problem with getting started is all the tools are out
there, right?
That that they get generated.
And so pick a few.
Yeah, don't have to do all of them.
Like what do you what?
And I think you said earlier, there are practices.
This is how it came back to how do you how do you go see a convention?
Because some practice shut down for a week so everybody can go.
Don't be afraid to do that.
Sometimes there's nothing better than shut practice down for a few days.
So maybe you can take a day of rest, number one, clean some things around home, get a
little organizer at home, and then two, you work on your business because you are working
in your business every day.
And you have to ask yourself, when's the last time I worked on my business?
And I don't mean after hours, that's family time.
It's like you need good time, you're not exhausted to work on your business where you can
focus and not worry about, you know.
who's in the practice, who's coming in, just take that time.
Don't be afraid to do that.
Take the time to do that.
And then call Kelly, you know?
Give Kelly a shout at Team.
And we're gonna post on our website and we'll be sharing reels out there about the
podcast.
But I think that for our listeners, what's the best way to learn more about Team?
How are they gonna find you?
Absolutely best way is to hop on over to Hireteam.com and click on the book a demo and
it'll take you right to me and you'll get access to my calendar.
Now I will tell you if you are the typical veterinary owner, veterinary technician,
practice manager, maybe those times don't work for you.
Let me know.
Just reach out to me and email me and I'm happy to create other times for you.
So no problem.
Just feel free to.
do it, reach out to me.
Let's see, email is kelly.cronin at hireteam.com if you need to reach out to me because
maybe those times don't work.
I love that.
It's great service right there to go above and beyond what the expectations are and I look
forward to people connecting with you and hearing stories about their success as we
continue to grow our relationship.
So, Kelly, thanks for being on today.
This is a lot of fun.
I'm Steven Herman with the VEDA Podcast.
If you liked our show, please subscribe and if you have suggestions about what you want to
hear, don't hesitate to reach out to me.
Check me out on all the...
Social media channels, I'm on LinkedIn, Steven Hermans, my slash at the end.
It's pretty easy to find me on LinkedIn, one of the best places to message me.
I love to get in touch and continue to grow the listenership so we can educate, advocate,
and inspire for the private practice owner.
Thanks so much.