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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.
Alright. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Vetted podcast. We are on episode 22, and couldn't be happier to have a guest on a day that we were a guest on a part of with the webinar vet, doctor Anthony Chadwick coming out of Liverpool. How are you today?
Anthony Chadwick:Hey. I'm really good. It's, it's dark where we are. We're obviously 6 5 to 6 hours ahead of you, and we've got a storm coming in. So it's it's a case of, I think, you would say, hunkering down for the weekend.
Steven Hermann:Yeah. And and you're more north than us, so you have less daylight probably than us too, I would imagine. Hours of hours of the day.
Anthony Chadwick:Well, at this stage of the year, it's, it gets light about half 8 in the morning, and then it goes dark about half 3, 4 o'clock.
Steven Hermann:So we're
Anthony Chadwick:we're approaching that winter solstice very, very quickly, getting to the, the shortest day.
Steven Hermann:Yes. Yeah. We are in yeah. We're complaining about way about 7 to 5 right now.
Kale Flaspohler:Yeah. 7 to 7 to 5:30, probably.
Steven Hermann:Yeah. So it's not you know, we have a lot more, but for us, it's, yeah. We'd wine. So if we're we're in Liverpool, we might be, yeah. We're whining more.
Steven Hermann:We're we're a winers out here in Missouri, though. You know, we're we're in a state called the show me state, and so we just have everybody's gotta prove prove us something. So all kidding aside, we got Kale Flaspol is always on. My cohost here, got Linda working the text behind here and getting that going. And we've got Kelsey in here too, which Kelsey is observing and learn how to do all this fun stuff.
Steven Hermann:So make sure we have backup redundancy, and we got a great team. So thanks for the team. Thanks to listeners always, and, hey, we're gonna dive right in. I think that as we pregamed the talk today, you brought up, some pretty neat things. But before we get into that is is talk about your your history, your path to I think I said that 8 years old, you knew you wanna be a veterinarian.
Steven Hermann:Right? It was all the way back to then.
Anthony Chadwick:It was, Steve. It was, it was a little baby sparrow. I was playing on the yard in, All Saints School where I went to in Liverpool, and one of my friends stepped on a baby sparrow by accident.
Steven Hermann:Okay.
Anthony Chadwick:Unfortunately, killed it. And I thought, well, if I'd have been a vet, maybe I could have saved it. So, yeah, we've gotta be careful with language because, of course, a vet in America means something different than, it means here, but, you know, veterinarians. So
Steven Hermann:Veterinarian.
Anthony Chadwick:You said 1990. Didn't fall far from the tree. Spayed in Liverpool. Mhmm. And then traveled a little bit, went into Wales, did some large animal practice, but then gravitated back into Liverpool, working in small animal practice, a special interest in dermatology.
Anthony Chadwick:So I did some referrals in dermatology and then, also had a first opinion practice. In about, I think it was about 2008, 2009, I moved my practice up the road, spent a lot of money on buying 2 buildings, pushing them together, made a really nice practice. But then a year later, I was very interested in all the Internet and very interested in how can we be more a better digital business.
Steven Hermann:Mhmm.
Anthony Chadwick:I I've been doing things like, there was this new thing that had come out called Google pay per click. So I was very quickly on to that, and I was getting people visiting my website, vets in Liverpool, paying for that, you know, 4 or 5p a click. And then yellow pages. Do you remember yellow pages, or are you both too young to remember the the
Kale Flaspohler:Oh, no. I I remember the yellow pages. Oh, yeah.
Anthony Chadwick:We used to go in. Yeah. And they came to me because, of course, we all at that stage put our adverts in yellow pages. I think yellow pages I don't even know if they print it anymore, but it's gone very I think it's yell.com now. Right.
Anthony Chadwick:So they came in and they said, well, we can put you on the top of Google for £3,000 a year. And I said, well, it's costing me 5p a click at the moment, so I think I'll just continue to take the top spot. So I was always interested in, in the Internet and the the possibilities of it. And I went to an Internet conference in 2010 partly to see how I could, you know, develop the things we were already doing. But I met this great guy called Steven Esser who was an Australian, and he was talking about webinars.
Anthony Chadwick:And I thought, why are we not using this in the veterinary profession? Nobody, was using it as far as I was aware. And so I I teamed up with, with Steven, and he helped me set up a website. Within 5 weeks, I've done my first ever webinar. I offered it to my dermatology, clients, and I talked about itchy dogs for an hour.
Anthony Chadwick:And at the end of that, I had, 2 practices. I made an offer of saying, I'll go into your practice a month past, and I'll teach you dermatology. And I had 2 practices signed up. So I went to bed that night and thought, I think I probably made about £4,000 from the first ever webinar I've done. So I thought there's something in this.
Anthony Chadwick:Yeah. And then I went up to, BSABA, which is our big small animal conference in Birmingham then. And I walked around all the stands, the hills, the boaringers, the royal cannons, all of the stands, and I said to them, you should be doing webinars. And they all said, what's a webinar?
Steven Hermann:The big So
Anthony Chadwick:at that stage, it it's, you know and it's an important story to tell because in some ways, if Yvette's qualified 10 years now, they probably think webinars have always been there. But actually, we were kind of the first company, as far as I know, where please tell me if I'm wrong. Come on the the podcast or Well,
Steven Hermann:you could say the second company. You could say the second company because no one's gonna argue with you about that one. Yeah. You know?
Anthony Chadwick:But we were we were there in in March 2010, and, the business grew very quickly because, of course, my pain was it was really difficult to do your training. You know, we all have to do a certain number of hours to stay current as of that. You know, often in in many countries, it it's a requirement. I know in the states, it's different for each states, you know, what the requirements are. Yes.
Anthony Chadwick:But, the old fashioned way was you had finished an evening clinic. It was half 6, 7 o'clock at night. You jumped in your car. You drove 30 miles to a hotel. A company was often putting on an hour of CPD.
Anthony Chadwick:There was an inadequate buffet. You listened to the CPD for an hour. You had maybe a a shandy or or a Coke in the bar with, some friends, and then you went home. But it was midnight by the time you got home and, of course, the next day you were back on that hamster wheel. Or, you know, you spent a lot of money going to a conference in another state or, you know, in the UK, maybe down in London, you'd have to pay for hotels.
Anthony Chadwick:You'd have to pay for, the actual transport. Of course, you were away from your practice.
Steven Hermann:So
Anthony Chadwick:you maybe had to get a locum in to to cover for that. So I I, at the time, thought, you know, the training for me to stay current every year was costing me probably £5,000 in real terms. And here we were creating something which for a fraction of that cost allowed people to get all of their training and not only do the 35 hours that we have to do in the UK, but actually if it's really good quality and you do 70 hours or a 100 hours, you become a better bet or a better bet tech. Mhmm. You also fall back in love with the profession.
Anthony Chadwick:You're more enthusiastic. You're more confident when you go in. And, of course, the clients recognize that and you get more clients. So I think, prioritising education keeps us all fresh. If we get to a stage where we think we know it all, then that's when we're, you know, beginning to die inside professionally at least.
Anthony Chadwick:So being a lifelong learner is something I've always strived to do and hopefully, we've made it a bit easier, in the in, you know, since 2010 by taking that training online rather than people having to travel for it.
Steven Hermann:And so you're talking 2010. How was the adoption, pre COVID? You got a whole decade. Right? Coming out of a recession, global recession.
Steven Hermann:Right? Because the United States kicked off a a large global recession in in 8 and 9. And so your 2010 innovating there coming out. Yeah. Talked about the, you know, the adoption rate.
Steven Hermann:And, also, how'd you get all material out there? That's a lot, you know, a lot of hours to be able to kind of for Citi.
Anthony Chadwick:We've we've got about 3000 hours on the site now, so I see the site as like a better encyclopedia. We've put a lot of, money and time into improving the site. It's now available in 22 different languages. Wow. So people can watch the webinar in English and then take the, subtitles in the different languages.
Anthony Chadwick:We kinda done that a bit purposely because, actually, if you can hear the English but then see your own language in translation, it actually helps your English. And
Steven Hermann:Mhmm.
Anthony Chadwick:Of course, the scientific language is English, isn't it? You know, the we it's probably the the first language
Steven Hermann:Right.
Anthony Chadwick:The scientific language. So it it helps vets in other countries want to get better at their English, but also, you know, we're incredibly fortunate in the UK and US. We probably have the best veterinary schools in the world, you know,
Steven Hermann:Australia. Mhmm.
Anthony Chadwick:There there's obviously a lot of good universities, but in some countries, the standard isn't as high. So if we can export that into those countries, help the vets to become better in those countries and the nurses, the technicians, then obviously they'll be looking after the animals better. And that's kind of why I think most of us become vets in the first place because we care about the animals and, of course, the people, who who own the animals. From an adoption perspective, it took off very quickly because as I say, you know, it it was touching a pain point, and the pain point was this having to travel. It was expensive.
Anthony Chadwick:It a lot of the companies charged a lot of money for training. It took time away from family as well. So, we now have probably 75, 80,000 vets and nurses on the platform who are using, you know, on a on a regular basis, you know, interacting with our emails and our social media.
Steven Hermann:I assume that's around the world. Global.
Anthony Chadwick:Yeah. Very much. And, obviously, quite a lot about the 10th of the actual training is race accredited, and we're trying to increase that all the time. So that's an American system that Right. The, American veterinarians listening will will know about it.
Anthony Chadwick:It it does take a bit of time. We're fortunate in the UK, and we can perhaps talk about regulation later on in the podcast. But the Royal College is our regulator, and they say, look. You put some training out. If people go to it and they continue to go to it, then the quality is there because not many businesses survive 15 years.
Anthony Chadwick:So we're we're still here 15 years, later. We must be doing something right. Absolutely. So we've we've found that, speakers came to us. We chatted at first to some, vets, professors at universities, and they liked the sound of it because, of course, I remember, the dean of Cambridge Vet School, is a good mate of mine, and, he came on one of our first webinars that we did.
Anthony Chadwick:And he said to me at the end, gosh. You know, for me to come up to Liverpool from Cambridge, give a talk one evening, and then go home, it takes 2 days out of their lives as well.
Steven Hermann:Mhmm.
Anthony Chadwick:So it was working for the speakers and that they could walk upstairs to their study, give an hour of training, walk downstairs, and they're back with family or, you know, watching the television or reading or whatever they wanted to do. So it worked for the veterinarians and for the technician nurses. It was working for the speakers. And then, of course, early doors, we went to some of the big companies and we said, we can get you a 1,000 people in a room. And they said, well, you know, if we get 50 at a hotel, we're doing well.
Steven Hermann:Yeah.
Anthony Chadwick:So it it took off. And, of course, now, you know, many, many of the companies do their own webinars, but it's it's actually interesting in the surveys we do. People say, well, we trust you more because you're independent as opposed to, you know, a food company or a pharma company. People expect that somewhere down the line, they're gonna be asked to buy something.
Steven Hermann:Right.
Anthony Chadwick:So, and and obviously, a more limited choice of webinars as well. So we have 3,000 on the site. You know, a percentage of those are free. But what's really interesting, and I think it was one of your great founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, said he said the best thing you can do is to pour your purse into your head because an investment on yourself is never wasted.
Steven Hermann:Absolutely.
Anthony Chadwick:And we've actually found that when people spend money with us, the net promoter score goes from 40 to 60. So the net promoter is how likely are you to recommend us to your to your friends Yeah. And colleagues. So, actually, once people's come on and and spend a bit of money, see the quality of the content, if you like, behind the paywall
Steven Hermann:Mhmm.
Anthony Chadwick:And much more likely to recommend us than people who are just doing the, you know, the free webinars.
Steven Hermann:That's that's fabulous. I think that what you've done there is is as needed, and I love the, yeah, the independent part, not biased, not because a company, they're they're going to be well you know, some are well intentioned, but at the end of the day, they make money by selling their product. And so they gotta they gotta wind that in some way, and that can be, yeah, salesy and hard to hard to do. So that's wonderful. So you've you've got that.
Steven Hermann:How is it how much are your time are you does that take? You got a lot every week going into that? You got a good crew behind you?
Anthony Chadwick:Yeah. We do probably 3 or 4 webinars a week. So we will do webinars on, obviously, small animal medicine and surgery, do a lot on exotic, so guinea pigs, rabbits, that sort of thing, cattle, large animal sheep, equine. We also I think fairly early, you know, I'm a vet with over 25 years of clinical experience. So being a good clinician is important, but, actually, part of the job is you have to deal with people, you know, as well.
Anthony Chadwick:So I'm I think it's you know, I did 25 years in practice, and I think it's one of the best jobs in the world. There's very few jobs when you tell people what you do. Almost universally, they they then go, oh, that's so lovely. You're a vet or veterinarian. That's an amazing job, and people love then talking about their animals.
Anthony Chadwick:So almost invariably, the second question is, my dog's got a sore foot. Can you have a look at it for me? So so we're very fortunate and, you know, I I obviously know there's a retention problem amongst the profession in the UK, also in America. And there are obviously some issues there, but I think we also have to recognize what a fabulous job we've got. And if we, demonstrate that by showing gratitude, if you go into work thinking this is the one of the best places to work, it actually becomes a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy as well.
Anthony Chadwick:So I I I kinda sometimes worry that we talk ourselves into depression and into negativity. Whereas I think if you go with a positive mindset into your business every day, people will recognize that. They'll probably be more likely to want to come and visit and and bring their dogs to you. It's fascinating. You know, I I had a practice in Liverpool, and I remember somebody, you know, talking to me and saying, oh, you know, I've got loads of clients who are, you know, pains of the proverbial.
Steven Hermann:Yeah.
Anthony Chadwick:And I said, do you know what? I I've got really lovely clients.
Steven Hermann:You can say ass on here if you want. You can say it's okay.
Anthony Chadwick:You can
Steven Hermann:say ass on here.
Anthony Chadwick:As I as I reflected on it, I think for me, one of my maxims in life is if you treat people well, on the whole, they'll treat you back well.
Steven Hermann:Yes. Mhmm.
Anthony Chadwick:And so a lot of problems when we see problems with with clients and if there's lots of problems, we have to kinda look at ourselves rather than look at the idiot clients that we've got because maybe they're not idiots.
Steven Hermann:Yes. Well, so on your webinars, do you get into mindset and Yeah.
Anthony Chadwick:You know? So we did a lot on mindfulness. You know? How do you stay calm? You know, the job can be hectic, but, actually, you know, if if you can have a positive mindset, if you can look at, you know, how you can run your practice better.
Anthony Chadwick:So, obviously, we do a lot of practice management webinars as well. Obviously, we talk a lot about sustainability because how do we make our practices be seen as a force for good from an environmental perspective as well? Can we, you know, can we, encourage people in our area to have a wildflower meadow? Can we watch how we deal with our plastic waste? If there's a potential for having solar panels on the roof who do you practice, does that then encourage others?
Anthony Chadwick:I know there's there's differences in the UK and America. I've had Sure. Had panels on my roof for the last 18 years. I did it because it was something I'm passionate about. And, you know, I I spend half the money on electricity now than I did before I had them.
Anthony Chadwick:So I get a return on investment probably about 20% a year, and that makes business sense as well. So I think there's a lot of stuff now going on also environmentally. And as vets, we should be part of the solution to environmental crisis. I was looking at a recent report from the World Wild Fund For Nature and I was born in 'sixty 6 and this survey that they've done covers from 1970 to 2020 And they say that the number of wild animals has decreased by 73% in that time. So to put that into perspective, for every 100 animals that existed, you know, of different types, 50 years ago.
Anthony Chadwick:There's now only about 23 of those left.
Steven Hermann:So There's been extinction. Right? So what you're what you're saying is extinction. Not that you've gone from a 100 of these animals to 27 of them. You know, a 100 population to 27 population.
Steven Hermann:You've gone from a 100 species to 27 species. I
Kale Flaspohler:think he's say I think he's saying popular total population because I I
Anthony Chadwick:see the same thing in the
Kale Flaspohler:in the bird in the specifically migratory bird, you know, of all types.
Anthony Chadwick:Mhmm.
Kale Flaspohler:You know, know, in America, that's a major one. You know, if they do those counts the same way here, and it's it's substantial over the last 30 or 40 years. How many fewer of a of a particular species type there there are? I don't know how the exact statistics, but it's not far off of what what you said, Anthony.
Steven Hermann:But Yeah. You saw 22 points, though. Population has decreased, but also extinction. We've had Yeah. And
Anthony Chadwick:there definitely have
Steven Hermann:to be mass extinction in the in the animal kingdom.
Anthony Chadwick:Last 50 years. I I I have to tell the story about sparrows because I I did a talk in the eighties. I was I used to do, exams on public speaking. And at the time, I I was, very keen as I, you know, still am on on conservation issues. And there was a sparrow that lived in in Florida called the Dusky Seaside Sparrow.
Anthony Chadwick:And I was writing about it because it was in danger of extinction. It now doesn't exist anymore. So in that 40 years period, we've lost and, you know, it's a little brown bird. Is that important? Well, you know, from my perspective, I, you know, I get very sad when I hear that a species that was there doesn't exist anymore.
Steven Hermann:Yeah. Mhmm.
Anthony Chadwick:Yeah. So, you know, that happens. At the same time, you know, you
Steven Hermann:Take a wheel off your car and see if it'll run. It'll still drive down the road. I mean, I mean, take a spark plug out. Take a spark plug out.
Anthony Chadwick:Either way.
Steven Hermann:Yeah. It's a big
Anthony Chadwick:We've lost about 30,000,000 sparrows here in the UK over the last 50 years, but, you know, also I'm a man of hope, and I do a lot in my little pot of land, little garden that I have in the front. And for the last 2 or 3 years, I've seen the sparrows coming back into
Steven Hermann:Mhmm.
Anthony Chadwick:My garden that I've lived in this house 17 years, and I've not seen them really up until that point. So k. I think there's also a lot as vets that we can really do, and we can turn a lot of these problems around, but we need to put efforts and and thought into it.
Steven Hermann:Well, that I I
Anthony Chadwick:tell you about that on the on the webinar. And, of course, you know, as you mentioned, you've got a podcast. You were very kind to go on to my podcast as well to talk about a lot of, business issues as as we did on the podcast.
Steven Hermann:Yeah. No. I appreciate that. It was a lot of fun. And I think, like we said before, we need to we've got lots to talk about.
Steven Hermann:The y'all all 3 of us, and we need to find more time to do these, to share perspectives and viewpoints. And what's interesting is you talked about, differences between the UK and and United States. It's they're set up different government, how regulation is and all those things and how you mentioned the United States is, you know, more decentralized than than the United Kingdom. And but it's sheer sheer landmass. Right?
Steven Hermann:I mean, number 1 with the country was founded on was independence of of you do what you wanna do, basically. That's what it was founded on. It was it was founded straight on. I wanna run my business how I wanna run it, keep the government out of my house. That's where this country was founded on.
Anthony Chadwick:Yeah. And I think that's been probably seen in your latest election is that, you know, big versus small government, isn't it?
Steven Hermann:I mean, it's it's perception. Yeah. It's actually all all it is nowadays is perception. It's it's what can you even comprehend and understand. And what I wanna get back to those with commonality that we have with people.
Steven Hermann:Right? I mean, we both are are both are facing the same existential things we talked about. And and, you know, Kaylee mentioned that it's that we can see it in nature. Right? And veterinarians can have a a big impact and have I said, what a passion to have.
Steven Hermann:Not only a care for the animals, but they care for the environment, veterinarians.
Kale Flaspohler:Well, yeah. Well, healthy healthy animals mean healthy ecosystem, you know, clean water, all kinds of things that stem from from that. So, yeah. Yeah. Well, one of the things and and so if
Anthony Chadwick:a lot about One Health as well, and One Health is very much, you know, humans, animals, and planets.
Steven Hermann:Yeah.
Anthony Chadwick:And often if we affect 1, we're gonna affect the other one. So it it is having a more holistic approach, which is why I'm also not keen when everybody just talks about karma, carbon and and, you know, the climate crisis, slow warming, and is it or isn't it? Actually, we just wanna look at it holistically and, you know, seeing signs like the birds are reducing in number.
Steven Hermann:Well, like the 3 Gorges Dam.
Anthony Chadwick:Yeah.
Steven Hermann:It affected the tilt of the earth earth axis.
Anthony Chadwick:Right.
Steven Hermann:That that's insane.
Anthony Chadwick:Yeah.
Steven Hermann:Right? The things that that yeah. And that's affects the whole world, not just China's power
Anthony Chadwick:Yes.
Steven Hermann:You know, consumption. Right? But I'm sure the amount of impact had there's probably species over there that went extinct that we didn't even know about when they did that. So Yeah. Yeah.
Steven Hermann:A lot goes on. It's that's not a political issue. What comes down to it are, it's a global, coming together. And, wow, I think that's really neat that I think about that with the veterinarians. Yeah.
Steven Hermann:What a what a neat opportunity to everyone most people love animals. Right? I mean, it's hard not to love a cat and a dog or go to zoo and be be amazed by an animal, and it could be a joining joining force. So It could be.
Kale Flaspohler:Yeah. So One of one of the things that I was hoping to get you to talk a little bit about, Anthony, is because you do travel to so many places and you have such a perspective on the way different countries do things. It's like so so, you know, if I go to the vet here and I I do go to a private clinic or an independently owned clinic and I go to one, say, in in your town there there in the UK, am I is it gonna feel very similar to me, or am I gonna notice differences in those things? Or would you talk a little bit about maybe what the difference might be? I'm just curious.
Kale Flaspohler:I think it's an interesting thought.
Anthony Chadwick:Yeah. No. It's a great question. It's really interesting. I had a a a an old mentor called John Tandy, and he went in the sixties over to America just to look at what you were doing and all the the hospitals that you had and very much I think you've always led the way, you know.
Anthony Chadwick:We we obviously look to America, you know, we go to conferences. The American speakers are always fantastic speakers. So so the quality is is, I think, really high in in America. I I think there are differences, and I was kind of surprised by this, but, of course, we're much more corporatized now. We've got about 5 or 6 groups in the UK, which are spilling into Europe as well.
Anthony Chadwick:So, you know, corporate practices in Europe as well. And and there have been some positives to that. It brings in people from outside the profession, and I think sometimes, you know, both of you have come from outside the profession.
Steven Hermann:Right.
Anthony Chadwick:It's really important that we can learn from people with a different perspective because often what happens is a vet is good at his job. He he or she is is busy, and then he thinks, well, I'll open a practice or I'll get another vet in, and then I'll get 2 nurses and I'll get a receptionist. And suddenly he's become a business owner or she has. And, learning the skills of that can be quite different because, of course, we're not taught that in university. We're taught how to actually treat dogs and cats and and, you know, other animals.
Anthony Chadwick:So we have to we can either try and learn all of that ourselves and become accountants and create a spreadsheet, so we get clever people like you in and and that helps us to become more profitable, etcetera, etcetera. So I think corporatization can help in bringing, you know, people in from other professions who can make sure that we're having a wider perspective on life. But, obviously, at the moment in the UK, the corporates are also starting to struggle. Prices have gone up. We have some, veteran redundancy going on in the UK as well.
Anthony Chadwick:We've obviously also got people who are leaving the profession. I know you have that issue as well. So I was quite surprised coming over to America to really discover that whilst corporatization is happening, it's actually behind where the UK is where UK is probably at 70 odd percent, whereas I think America, I was hearing 20, 30 percent as as being corporatized. So Mhmm. The the I think it's good to have a mixture.
Anthony Chadwick:There's been a lot of vets in our in our country who've been made very wealthy by their corporate coming in and and buying them when they were getting close to retirement age. You know, there there was no succession plan. Potentially, that practice would close when the person got too old to to run it. So, I I think that's significant. The other, I think, interesting thing which, again, I always get a bit surprised about is the level of insurance in the UK, in Europe, and America.
Anthony Chadwick:Obviously, America, you know, you need to have private health insurance for your own self. So I always kind of presumed that you would have quite a lot of your pets insured, but I don't think that really happens. Whereas, obviously, in the UK and Europe, there's much higher levels of, of insurance.
Steven Hermann:Well, it's a different, our health insurance system, you know, until, ACA, Obamacare, was was all independent. A lot of people didn't have health insurance. It didn't make it a priority, and that's versus in Europe where, you know, the social network of support for health and those things, insurance is an acceptable deal. So that was more accepted in the, psyche, I think, of Europeans to think, yeah, what you're gonna get health insurance for your animal, but in United States, you're like, yeah. I can, it's $2 a year for that insurance.
Steven Hermann:I'm only gonna spend $1,000 on my animal. I'm gonna I'm gonna take the risk.
Anthony Chadwick:Yeah. I don't
Steven Hermann:get a $8,000 bill. And most people in that that's risk risk averse in the United States. Right? Or or risk risk tolerant, I should say. There's more risk tolerance to say.
Steven Hermann:I'll I'll I'll roll the dice on this thing. So
Anthony Chadwick:And and we don't see in fairness many poor insurance companies. So it is obviously they know their numbers, don't they? And they know what sort of claims they're gonna get, and they work their, you know, their subscription levels on that basis.
Steven Hermann:Yeah. And they you need a large pool and insurance to be successful at the end of the day, and they don't have that yet. You saw Nationwide down at 1 of AVMA in Austin. They 250,000 policies. They just quit insuring.
Steven Hermann:Got out of the business. So, yeah, it's it's it's interesting. That's a big difference for sure.
Kale Flaspohler:Yeah. Has to be. So one of the things that keeps coming up, you know, in our meetings, and and it's getting more and more prevalent every year is is the use of AI in appointments, in exam rooms, you know, scheduling, you know, predictive schedule, all kinds of things that are happening. And and I know you know you you you know a little bit about that. And so could you maybe speak on on that and how it relates to profit in a clinic too?
Anthony Chadwick:Yeah. I I probably go back a little step and say, we had a, Vet Futures thing that came from the Royal College, you know, what does the veterinary profession look like? And this was probably in about 2015. I remember the CEO at the time saying every business had to be a digital business, and it kinda struck me because, obviously, we were, you know, we were very much online. But he actually meant that, you know, a veterinary practice should be a digital business as well.
Anthony Chadwick:A kitchen, you know, a butcher baker and a candlestick maker, they should all be digital businesses. And I think, you know, I I carried that conversation on in podcasts and webinars that we were doing and, you know, in LinkedIn posts or blog posts. And to a large extent was probably, you know, very little attention was paid to it. And then this tiny little virus, the coronavirus came around and everybody suddenly realized, what happens if we can't meet physically? We have to be able to get around that.
Anthony Chadwick:And so digital businesses or or businesses became digitally enabled. So your your business that was maybe a restaurant suddenly decided it could take orders online and deliver food to people's houses and, you know, the deliverers and everything obviously massively increased in that time. And, similarly, you know, with us, suddenly, I I remember very early on in the pandemic, we had, the World Veterinary Association came to us and they said, we're holding our event in Auckland in April 2020. New Zealand has closed down. The airports are no longer open.
Anthony Chadwick:How what we're gonna lose 100 of 1,000 of pounds because we've ordered you know, we've booked this big, conference center, and, actually, all our sponsors are pulling out because they can't have booths and things. So over a kind of about a month, we we developed a 3 week festival of learning for vets, you know, all over the world. And and, actually, we tripled the number of attendees that were going to this event because suddenly it was online rather than you had to go to Auckland, which isn't very far away away for almost everybody.
Steven Hermann:Yes.
Anthony Chadwick:And we saved them a lot of money, and they probably made a small profit rather than a huge loss. And we ended up doing a lot of those events. And and what I felt at the time was we were ready, you know, if you wanna use a 100 meter, race, we were actually on the start line and we were in the crouched position ready to go. And there were some companies that hadn't even got into the changing room.
Steven Hermann:K.
Anthony Chadwick:So so I think, you know, I'd said at the time, if you're not a digital business, will you survive in 10 years? But actually, the pandemic massively shortened that, and many businesses went out of business because they suddenly couldn't see people. Mhmm. So and then things like, you know, your your appointment, apps came in where you could book automatically. These things were already there.
Anthony Chadwick:They just weren't being used by people.
Steven Hermann:Right.
Anthony Chadwick:And people were using Facebook more, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I think what's happened certainly over the last couple of years is I'm gonna change that and say you need to be an AI business to survive. And it's really interesting. A lot of, stuff being written about AI. Harvard Business Review, if you're not a Harvard Business Review reader
Steven Hermann:Yeah. No.
Anthony Chadwick:Is what we're looking at because they've done a lot of articles on this. Mhmm. And I think they talked about, that there's a worry that AI is gonna take all our jobs away. And I think if we don't look at retraining, you know, that could happen. But, actually, most AI works best when it augments somebody rather than when it automates and removes them.
Steven Hermann:Mhmm.
Anthony Chadwick:So for example, you know, in in human medicine, they know that they're not gonna use AI to do prescriptions because you get other thing called confabulation where the AI can get it wrong. Mhmm. And if you dose somebody 10 times the dose of a heart medication, you could kill them. So in that case, having something that says, right, we know what medication you're saying and here's the dose rate, but you need to check it. Having somebody alongside, I think, is important.
Steven Hermann:Yes.
Anthony Chadwick:So what we found in our business, and and it was really interesting. A couple of months ago, I went out to the whole team and I said, what are you are you using AI in the business? And it was amazing how many of them were. Now we haven't said they couldn't or they could, but I think it allowed people to have that experimental side where they were going out using chat GPT to help them with reports on things. And what we're trying to do now is is to bring that much more into a kind of framework so we know when we should use it and when we shouldn't.
Anthony Chadwick:And certainly, you know, AI's helped massively with our project to take the site into 22 languages now. So, I I think if if people can look at it, you know, as vets, as vet nurses, to have somebody alongside of them that's like a part time junior assistant, I I think that very easily this can increase productivity by 20%, if not more. So if if people aren't looking at things like chat GPT, then certainly, they should be. And now, of course, there are businesses that we see that are AI, powered. So we we did a webinar recently, which was, a webinar all about burnout and so on, but it was sponsored by a company called Covet, which are a Canadian company.
Anthony Chadwick:And they're actually using AI to record the the consultations that people have in their in their consulting room and then to automatically take that and actually stick that onto the practice management system. So instead of me having to type that, which takes 10 minutes after the appointment, or I have my back turned to the client or I'm not totally focused on the client and the animal, to take that out and, you know, remove maybe the bits where you're talking about the latest football scores, etcetera, but to put the clinical records in, to then be able to send that clinical record out to the client with the recommendations that you made because you I always used to write down recommendations because clients would walk out and then go to the receptionist and say, I'm not really sure what I should be doing.
Steven Hermann:Yeah.
Anthony Chadwick:Whereas if it's written down, if it's emailed over to them, that can save so much time. You can see that the kind of benefits of this time saving Mhmm. The vets who are time poor. You know, perhaps now, I I so often hear a 5 rep practice saying we've only got 3 vets. Now the simple answer is we'll find another 2, but good luck with that.
Steven Hermann:Mhmm.
Anthony Chadwick:Actually, we've gotta look at how do we use our our vet techs better, how do we use tools, digital tools
Kale Flaspohler:Yes.
Anthony Chadwick:To save time and, you know, make us more productive. So I I think if if veterinary practice can think of there are tools out there, how do we use them so that they can save us time? Mhmm. Some of those will be very much AI powered. Some of them will just be digital tools, but, actually, the the more that we can embrace also helping with with diagnosis.
Anthony Chadwick:You know, there's 10 different conditions here. How are you gonna rule these out? It there is so much information now that if we try and keep that all in our brain, it's, you know, it's Oh, no. Patient. It's impossible.
Steven Hermann:Yeah. That's what IBM Watson set out to do in the medical industry, human medical industry for sure. And, you know, I think with AI is what you said earlier about people, like, they say these these clients are always grumpy. Well, are the clients grumpy, or is the veterinarian grumpy? And AI is the same way.
Steven Hermann:How you wanna choose to you wanna choose to address it from a negative standpoint or a positive standpoint. And you have to do that with anything you approach. If you come at it negative, yeah, it's not gonna work for you. If you come at it positive, it it's gonna work for you. And the other thing you said too, it's like, that 5 doctor practice says they only have 3 doctors.
Steven Hermann:Well, no. You have the resources in house. You're just not being resourceful with your resources. So you need this is a great way to be resourceful with your resources. So I love getting on with, you know, I'm calling you a friend.
Steven Hermann:We're making good relationship here, and I enjoy talking to you. But talk people to embrace tech because that's one thing that, from a young age, I was able to get involved with and always you know, I used to be on a cutting edge, or ahead of it, which would get you in trouble to a degree because you're always adopting adopting new things. There's also a fine line with AI and tech is to understand and not you don't have to be the 1st adopter. You need to be an early adopter, but maybe not the not the pioneer of it all. So it it's a lot of fun.
Steven Hermann:It's a lot of fun. I'm glad you're embracing it.
Anthony Chadwick:And and, you know, I talk a lot about r and d in our company, and people think that I'm in research and development, and I don't I mean, rip off and duplicate. Like like, I didn't create webinars. Webinars were just in another profession, but we haven't looked out for that.
Steven Hermann:Right.
Anthony Chadwick:So building with AI, you know, there are companies do amazing things already. We should be able to go in and cherry pick what we like and what we don't like. But as I've said with you know, if you're not a digital business, you won't be around in 10 years. Mhmm. I do think if you're not an AI driven business, you are going to struggle to compete as your business use this as well.
Steven Hermann:Well, I think that's a as we, you know, approach, end of the end of our time today, that's a that's a yeah. What's the future? It's the re we have the resources. We have to be resourceful. That's at the end of the day.
Steven Hermann:We we gotta quit blaming other people. The resource we gotta be resourceful. The the things are out there. You gotta go after them and do them. And things like the webinar that allow people to see this, what's available, what's out there, get your CE, do those things, which is phenomenal.
Steven Hermann:So I I look forward to working with you more on the webinar, VET too, because I think there's some, you know, collaboration and things that can happen there that just make a lot of sense. So that's that's exciting. So we we've got a good message to get out, and you do too. And we'll continue to, get that viewpoint out there so people can can be successful and get things online in their house and be educated without having to be away from their family. So we're all on the same page.
Steven Hermann:So anything more you wanna add today before we we we close out?
Anthony Chadwick:No. It's just great to speak to you as, you know, it's it's always good to hear different perspectives from from different places as well, and, it's always good to talk, isn't it? So I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to come and speak on the podcast, and it's been a lot of fun.
Steven Hermann:We've had it's been a lot of fun, and, gosh, I'm looking I'm looking at so many things we're gonna talk about over the over the, you know, coming years together and and share and grow and learn. So thank you for the, you know, that belief in lifelong learning. We're we have the same beliefs, so I can tell that. There's just different ways countries go about it, but it's and we have the same goals, and I love to see that. So so doctor Anthony Chadwick with the webinar vet, thank you so much for being on today, and we'll put your link up to, the podcast that you have also and everything when we release this podcast.
Steven Hermann:So, hey, please like and subscribe to our podcast. If there's any questions you have, please let us know. We're always up for, hey, if you thought something we said wasn't right, hey, what about perspectives? Let us know. We should be able to have good candor with each other and have loving responses.
Steven Hermann:So thank you so much for your time.
Kale Flaspohler:Peace and blessings.