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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.
Awesome. Let's do it.
Steven:Hey, Kale. I was riding bike this morning, and I rode down the outer road in front of Waffle House, close to your house. Yeah. Have you seen how beautiful it is? The setting?
Steven:Can you see, like, when you drive down Providence, so it's Oh, yeah. When you turn
Kale:you turn and the whole hillside's colorful. It's beautiful. Beautiful fall.
Steven:Have you driven on the outer road? Like, right when you go past get into Sunny Creek, the little No.
Kale:But occasionally, I'll take Rock Quarry, which is kinda the same. Yeah.
Steven:It was this morning at, like, 7 o'clock when I was on my bike and just turned and looked. And I was like it's one of those you're like, I'd love to be able to take a picture of that, like but it won't do it justice
Kale:Right.
Steven:Morning. So it it was beautiful. And, you know, as I think about that as our as our topic today, getting into taking time, finding time. Our topic today on the VETTED podcast, how's everybody doing? Doing well.
Steven:Doing good. Good. Good. Great to get on and great to be as a better podcast as a part of the ProPartners team. The ProPartners team that takes care of private practice owners that has business system solutions and things to help that veterinarian who was not trained to be a business owner be a very successful business owner.
Steven:Success is not just profit and growth. Success is culture. Success is happiness. Success goes beyond the walls of the clinic. Success is feeling fulfillment in your life, The Maslow hierarchy, if you will.
Steven:Being able to get to a point where you're helping people, pets, and you are at a point where you see the rewards of what you're doing beyond the profit. So I that's my love about the ProPartners team, our DVM Business Solutions, our DVM Financial Solutions, the DVM Office, up from, you know, bookkeeping to sitting down and having a white glove service, if you will. What's going on in the practice? How can we help make sure the services that go on behind the scenes are working really well? Kale, you put in a really a really good way about what ProPartners team does for veterinary practice.
Kale:Yeah. So we help people get in business, stay in or grow their business, and then one day transition out of business. And so, I think we have a really great suite of products to help anyone in any of those areas Yeah. Wherever that is.
Steven:Absolutely. Specifically for the private practice owner.
Kale:Yes. Only for the private.
Steven:Only for the private practice owner. I think with that, what if we dive into some articles, some news that's out there, and this one's not real new news. This is from the spring, but this is that why your vet bill is so high. This is that one day that I was commenting on an article I hadn't read because I couldn't find it. And the reason I couldn't find it is because whoever had written the veterinary article about this article said it was in the Wall Street Journal.
Steven:It's not in the Wall Street Journal. It's in the Atlantic. Get the quote right, damn it. So anyways, it's a we found it and I think what this shows is how important a private practice owner is. I want to break that down.
Steven:So the article says the title why your vet bill is so high and the subtext subtitle corporations and private equity funds have been rolling up smaller chains and previously independent practices. This is by Helaine Olin. I might have murdered your name. I it's how I how I read it. Sorry if I did so You know it's it's interesting as we've seen in the past you know 10 years working with veterinarians and the business strategy side of things is the corporate consolidation.
Steven:We've seen it slow down recently. Interest rates are up, and plus, they found out that, owning a practice, you still need a good culture, and a lot of the veterinarians are seeing not a great culture from the private equity people. And private equity people are understanding that private equity's main thing is stockholder return. They don't really wanna call it profit for the practice because that's not what that's about. It's about the stockholder return, the people that own the private equity.
Steven:Mhmm. Private equity is what they call dark money for a reason. They don't report to anybody. There's not an SEC oversight like Coca Cola. Right?
Steven:Are these very wealthy firms conglomeration of money that is there is about their money. It's not about they'll try to come in and say are about furthering you, your business, your community, but there's nothing further from the truth because there's no way you can be connected to community when you don't even live in that community. I think that's just that come on come on. How do you be connected to a community if you don't live there?
Kale:You don't even live in that country.
Steven:Yeah. I mean, I don't even live in the country. Mhmm. You you definitely aren't going to same restaurants and seeing the people in the community. You aren't seeing that person struggle coming in your door.
Steven:You're not feeling that. You have a complete emotional block from that, which is is is, you know Yeah. Private equity is what it is. There's no question about it. Not all consolidators are private equity.
Steven:There there's some good stuff happening out there.
Kale:There are some there are some good ones. There are some good ones that are not not out to roll up to the next highest bidder. That's right. There are some that are out there to build a long term business. Yeah.
Kale:Yeah. There are definitely some out there that are, like, we're building this to sell it. Yeah. Make money.
Steven:Yeah. What happens too is you'll have some veterinarians that went out and started a corporation, but they get to a certain point of complexity and probably burn out, and they're like and someone brings them a big check, and it's kinda hard to go. Why wouldn't you? It's hard. Yeah.
Kale:Like and to be honest, in some instances, the money's so high, you'd be silly not to.
Steven:Yeah. It's like, how how would we tell a client
Kale:Yeah.
Steven:Earn that down? Yeah.
Kale:Right?
Steven:Because we're we've been in that situation. Yeah.
Kale:And it this is no slight to anybody that has sold to a corporation or anything like that. It might have been it was probably the best option
Steven:you had. Yeah.
Kale:And so no slight to those people at all. Right. But when it comes back to why is the why is the bill higher? Why is the bill higher? It's because we have these economies of scale coming in and and driving prices up.
Steven:And it's that emotional disconnect. Right? If I can raise the price on you Because I don't know you. I don't see you. I don't have to deal with that.
Kale:Well, this this article does a good job of of showing that is is as the the private equity, you know, entered the space, the the industry basically a quote to quote the article. It says industry cheerleaders pointed a survey showing people would go into debt to keep their friends 4 legged friends healthy. And so from an investor's perspective, you know, low risk, high reward. Veterinary industry is known for returning higher than average profit.
Steven:Yeah. That's that OPM other people's money.
Kale:Mhmm.
Steven:You're making money off other people's money, and those people aren't even using their money. They're using debt to help you with your profit on that side. So, yeah, it's the the rising cost has come from the fact that in corporations, you have to have standards of care for that corporation, meaning here's how we do things. You do an x-ray every time. You do an ear cytology every time.
Steven:It takes that the thing the doctor has is an innate ability, a gut feeling to be like, we don't need to do an x-ray on this animal today. But the corporation says you do an x-ray and you didn't do one, you're gonna get in trouble. Mhmm. And when your pay is dependent on doing x number of x rays, you know, we don't go down the production talk. The production talk isn't about the production talk itself.
Steven:It's about how the production talk is done and the intent behind it. Mhmm. I think production pay can be a really good thing when the 10th's right. I won't go down that. I'm not knocking production pay where we don't, as we say, viewpoints.
Steven:There's good and bad. We're bringing out the bad viewpoints today. Yeah. Of of that private equity driving that price up. Everything is article talks about and I'll jump to it here.
Steven:It talks about a study found serious medical or medical errors occur more frequently. I'm gonna start that over. Mana getting through that one really good. A study found serious medical errors occur more frequently after private equity buys a hospital. That's that's a I think and then what a veterinarian I mean, the whole thing's about medical care
Kale:Mhmm.
Steven:And getting into that. So not to belabor the article, but if you continue to go through it, I would encourage our listeners to go out there and check this article out. We'll put the link up there Mhmm. On the website for this article. And, I mean, there's point after point in here, but we don't wanna, you know, dwell on on the article for sure.
Steven:If I get to I think one of the, last things was interesting, though, as we're talking about finding time, we're gonna talk about the the COVID stimulus of money from, you know, government and stimulus of animals and number of animals that increase. So it's kinda like how those things correlate. But this does point out that, you know, shelter animals count, and animal advocacy group reports that the number of pets surrendered to shelters rose in the past 2
Kale:years. Mhmm.
Steven:So there's a book out there called Rethinking Rescue. Haven't read it yet. But, anyways, there's we went and emptied out the the the shelters. Right? Because our price increases demand.
Steven:Demand. Supply and demand. We live in a we live in that economy in the United States. Mhmm. You demand something, I have a less supply, prices go up because who's going to pay the most for that service?
Steven:That's what drives that. Now we're sitting there, as as you know, going into the this cost thing, this increase. We just got done a week ago looking at the latest, you know, inflationary statistics and whatnot and in the United States and at 2.4 percent now annualized. The veterinary space was still like in the sixes, but that is because from October of 23 to April of 24, it was still running high, but in the past 3 4 months we've seen a 0.1, a negative 0.1, and a 0.1 in the pet care. That's including pet care, grooming, boarding, veterinary care.
Steven:That's 0.1 you annualize that that's 0.4 so you're seeing this you know things come down Which leads to our next article which is like how do you discuss this cost of care when you've got this this negative Mhmm. Talk out there. Right?
Kale:Yeah. Can I can I go into financial responsibility for a second?
Steven:Oh, yeah.
Kale:This has been burning me all the morning.
Steven:Yeah. I think that well, actually, that comes right in here. If you talk about how to discuss the cost of care
Kale:Yeah.
Steven:It's it's about what you're talking about.
Kale:Yeah. And so, like, as we're reviewing these articles, there's all article time and time again that that are are folks that
Steven:Did you, like, I stared you down when I took a drink?
Kale:Yeah. I did. Yeah. I'm glad you got me off topic. So I was on a roll there.
Kale:But in these articles, there's time and time again examples of people that that people that are writing articles of how the cost of health or pet health care is so high.
Steven:Right.
Kale:They're using examples of people that put themselves in horrid financial situations for their pet. Like, the dog is terminal. And so we know it's gonna die within 6 months, but we're gonna go ahead and do x y and z $1,000 put it on a credit card.
Steven:Quantity versus quality of
Kale:life. And so, you know, whether it's not the vet's fault. It's not it's not the veterinary. It's not the veterinarian's fault. And then that person, you know, complains that that care is so expensive.
Kale:It's like, no. You you put yourself in a you love your animal. I get it. You know, I love my animals, too. But I'm not gonna put myself in a bad financial position to prolong something that isn't gonna be long lasting anyway.
Kale:Right. You know, a 12 or 13 year old dog that has something going on, you probably shouldn't spend 5 or $10 on it if you can't afford to just write a check for it.
Steven:Right. You
Kale:know? And and so it's it's all these articles frustrate me a little bit because it's it's not the veterinarian's fault that this is so high. It's someone choosing to either have more pets than they can afford, not, you know or do do these services that are optional and, you know, then going out and complaining that the cost of vet care is so high. It's you chose to do those services, and you're also asking for services that are in a in a human field would be 30, 40, $50,000. Right.
Kale:And you're asking for them at a, you know, a hundredth of the price.
Steven:Yeah. 10th or a 100th of
Kale:the price. Yeah. 10th or a 100th of the price. Yeah. And it's like, how how is there that much of it?
Kale:You know, these should be expensive services that you're asking for. It's not my fault that they're it's not my fault that they're expensive.
Steven:Yes. We well, we we live in a problem discussion society. Right. We discuss our problems. We don't discuss the solutions because the solutions take work.
Steven:They do take work, and it it also takes the ability to say it was wrong. Right? Yeah. That's a huge thing to do. So and when that burden's put on somebody who you know, the veterinarian that at it's not their fault, but now it is a responsibility of the veterinarian to discuss the cost of care.
Steven:To be realistic with you bringing that new animal to educate them on what that could cost, and, you know, you start there. Yeah. But the other thing is too is that you, we've looked at, like, rooted problems. And the question is, I've I've always wondered, Lauren and I, our first two dogs are little miniature schnauzers. And I'm pretty sure we got them a place of a puppy mill.
Steven:And they weren't that expensive, like $250. It's like 20 over 20 years ago. But those 2 dogs had more medical costs than I've seen from epilepsy to congestive heart failure to kidney issues. You know the medicine spent all those things, and I wouldn't turn it. Unfortunately, I was in a position to be able to afford to do that for those 2 pups.
Steven:They had good quality of life. They didn't live a long life as you expect. But then we got, hey, let's take our time and investigate where the breeder. Right? Learn about them, the quality of the the dog, and and I think there's something to say with understanding that.
Steven:Mhmm. Understanding that is this the gene pool you're getting is part of the issue too. There's puppy mills out. There's things out there that that should come from a regulatory standpoint. People thought regulation mean bad.
Steven:Like, that's a pretty good regulation, like, not be inbreeding dogs. Mhmm. That's a bad thing. I hear I have doodles. Every time someone a veterinarian goes, oh, ear issues.
Steven:I'd my doodle don't have your issues. Mhmm. Lauren investigated the breeders, and the breeders aren't aren't puppy mills. They've got a process what they were doing. They cost more upfront.
Steven:The dogs do. They go on their exam annual exam to get their preventatives, get their vaccines, get their dentals. They're out. Mhmm. You know, they go on maybe because they've eaten something stupid.
Steven:Alright. You know, but all kidding aside, that's also education too. I think the veterinarian has to look at how do we how do we advocate for a gene pool of animals that are healthy because that's problem is the person that can't afford that $25100 dog is gonna go buy a $250 dog. It might turn into a 5, 6, $7,000 over a certain amount of time medical problem.
Kale:Yeah.
Steven:And so it's that cost of care has got to be communicated. So, this was how to discuss cost of care. This was in today's veterinary business news on October 1st by Amanda Donnelly. She's got a pretty good article in here about the problems, you know, and it gets into some CareCredit and insurance, things like that. But I I want to see more oracle about proactive.
Steven:Let's talk about what you said. You're exactly right. Responsible pet ownership.
Kale:Yeah. If you can't afford an animal, don't buy 1.
Steven:Or there's ways to afford it. You can you can go and get you talked about it. Heck, you go to a rescue shelter and a lot of those animals, those mutts are some of the healthier animals.
Kale:2 of my 3 dogs are , you know, shelter dogs.
Steven:Yeah.
Kale:And they're both, you know, mixed breed dogs. Yeah. And they're both healthy as can be, you know, dental. But, you know, all dogs have dental. Yeah.
Kale:That'll prolong
Steven:its life.
Kale:Prolong its life. You know? And and so, yeah, it's it's it's you don't have to
Steven:go buy a dog. No. An ounce of prevention is where the pound of cure, as they say. There's no question about that. It goes in education and all that.
Steven:So some pretty good articles there to take a look at. We'll put those out there. Yeah. We're gonna dive into what we're talking about here. Come on for our last yep.
Steven:So we had about marketing, and we've had about hiring. And now you need to find the time. You have to make the time. You gotta take the time to do those things, to make those things happen, especially as we're seeing you know, I think everyone's seen a little slowdown. Mhmm.
Steven:And that slowdown come from it. People have people do not remember COVID unless you sit back and really think about it. During COVID, in 2020, they had stimulus going out, amounted to about for a household of 4, somewhere around $3. 2021, it was $6, roughly. Rough numbers.
Steven:Not exact, but rough numbers. That came in extra. It was it was checks that you got. So people had the ability to do some things they haven't done before. And so people forgot about that and go, I'm not making as much in 2024 as I did in 2021 and 22.
Steven:Well, yeah, you got the government sent you some money, and so you had money to do things. Now we're trying to, you know, change that around and get back to some normalcy, but don't forget what what happened back there. When that happened, that's also a big part of what flooded the veterinary space. Mhmm. There's no question about it.
Steven:There's a huge correlation to the day to be like why things are slowing down, pets going back to shelters because people can't afford the animals because they're not getting that they're not getting that government stimulus. And that wasn't a that was a bipartisan I'm talking about bipartisan issues here that that got spent. So I'm not being a partisan here. You know me outside of here. I'll I'll be partisan, talk about things.
Steven:But this was a bipartisan. Both sides agreed upon this to put that injection in the economy, and that created those things.
Kale:Yeah.
Steven:And now we're on the flip side of it. So, Kale, talk about the things you've been seeing recently on on time inside the practice and how to best use that time to try business.
Kale:Yeah. So, I mean, anybody that's experiencing slow, slow times, it's a good time to invest in invest your time back into the practice, whatever that looks like. And the number one thing that I've been telling people and someone finally took my advice, which I don't know why they do, but, anyway, they did. And so I I was like, hey. If you're having slow slow times, get your whole staff to call these appointments.
Steven:Right.
Kale:Make sure they're coming in. If implement a process where every person coming in gets phone call.
Steven:Right.
Kale:And they were having people miss appointments, things like that. And they said overnight, they started doing that. Overnight, it it stopped. Mhmm. And so, you know, that's one thing that you can do to make sure you're not having gaps in the schedule.
Kale:But the other thing is to look at the schedule and say, who okay. I've got a I've got a slot coming open here that is not usually open. Mhmm. So how can I fill that? Let me go to my lapsed client list.
Kale:Let me call people until I fill it.
Steven:Right.
Kale:You know? And and so one of the other things that we talked about in that same meeting was incentivizing your staff financially somehow to have the schedule full.
Steven:Right.
Kale:So, like, if the as a as a reception staff, if the schedule's full today to, like, whatever our definition of full is, everybody gets x or something. Mhmm. Because, you know, a lot of times, I think the receptionist is one of the most important roles in the Oh, yeah. Hospital solely because they're the gatekeeper. Mhmm.
Kale:They're the ones that control the schedule. Yeah. And so, you know, we need to make sure that they're supported, and they have the tools and the resources that they need to do their job well.
Steven:Mhmm.
Kale:And so, you know, if you are experienced in a slow time right now, it's probably a good time to start being proactive. We haven't had to do that in a long time Right. Because so many people were getting pets, you know, whatever the economy was had going on. You know, and so I think it's it's one of those things. It's a new thing that we actually have to go out and make sure our schedule is full again.
Kale:Yeah. Whereas they were just coming to us us previously. So it's been 4 or 5 years probably since that's really been
Steven:Yeah. No. It's 2020. Straight. Kicked off in 2020.
Steven:We're in 2024 and 4 years later. And, yeah, you expect you would you expect to see this given the data and given what happened. And now it's that you gotta gotta get a mindset shift to go. This is where we're at today because we if you don't change up, continue to do what was happening in the past. Mhmm.
Kale:I mean,
Steven:you're living in the past then. Yeah. You gotta move forward and look at being real about what's happening tomorrow.
Kale:So If your schedule is slow, it's your responsibility to make sure it's not. Right. And and if you, a lot of times, just get on the phone, took sales training. That was the only thing that they said. It's like, if you're not picking up the phone, it's your fault.
Steven:Right.
Kale:Because that's the way you still sell things. Yes. You know? And so, it's a really good time to sit down with your staff and spend the time to say, here's how I want the people answering the phones. Here I here's how I want things scheduled
Steven:Mhmm.
Kale:And really think about that. Yeah. Because, you know, we need to take a little responsibility and say, if my schedule's slow, I can't just accept that it's slow. Right. I need to fill it.
Kale:Right. And I don't need to be the one to fill it. Like, I need my team to fill it. Yes. And how do I incentivize them to do that?
Steven:Absolutely. Well, I guess, when we're talking about take time or make time that you've got you've got time there then. Yeah. Right? So in your schedule, not only looking at filling it for that, but you might look at it as a business owner and say, instead of filling that with clients, maybe I should take 4 or 8 hours of this week and build in business time.
Steven:Mhmm. So I can I can think about, marketing the practice, thinking about, you know, who's what's the goals for the future? Think about those things, especially as we end of the at the end of the year, taking time to think about what's happened this year, what's changing, what's going on. So, yeah, I think people, we have excuses why we don't have enough time. Mhmm.
Kale:But if
Steven:you actually sit down and and look at it and think about it, you can find time. You can find clients inside your book of business that haven't they need to show up. It happens. Right? People get busy.
Steven:They had an annual exam. Maybe maybe you're forward booking. Mhmm. Maybe someone missed. Right?
Steven:Is your booking system going right? What are those things that are that are happening? So don't take for granted that, the person didn't show up. It's probably most likely not because they went somewhere else. It's because they got busy.
Steven:I missed my vaccine appointment Yeah. On Saturday. I just got busy. Yeah. And because I didn't get a reminder.
Steven:They didn't text me.
Kale:Yeah. Well, in my myself, personally, like, I'm not text mean nothing to me, really. Like, if I have already if I did a good job and put it on my calendar, I'm gonna remember it. Yeah. But if I don't have it on my calendar and you text me, I'm gonna
Steven:It was on the weekend too. Saturday, on the weekend, I'm not looking at my calendar.
Kale:Yeah. So, you know, a phone call is still
Steven:Huge. Text message phone call phone calls at the moment. You I mean, you got a call.
Kale:You got
Steven:a call. You got a call. Pick up and call. But then you gotta remind them about the appointment too.
Kale:Yeah. I'm not I'm not saying you shouldn't have all these appointment reminders. Right. And things like that. But everybody has an app now, and everybody has all these things, which are which are great.
Kale:I personally hate them. I'm not gonna use them. I know you do. I don't care. Yeah.
Kale:I want you to I'm a just a phone call. Yeah. That's what it and and it I got the first feedback. I've been saying that for several months now to most of my appointments. And my first feedback this week, and they said we started doing it, and it was an immediate response.
Steven:Yeah. Positive. Positive response. Absolutely. They're they're They'll take your call, especially they'll take the veterinary's call.
Steven:It's this doctor's office.
Kale:Yeah. Hey. I need to talk to you about your pet. Okay. Great.
Kale:They need to talk to me about my pet.
Steven:We talk about how much they care about, how much the owner cares about their pet, what they'll spend on it. You call, they're gonna answer. It was, it was it was funny watching that, Hasan Minhaj, Netflix especially. He talked about the pets. He was like, yeah.
Steven:In the United States, it's like you ignore all these phone calls, but if someone calls about your pet, that's what he literally is like. Yeah. Because I have human boundaries. My pet though? Come here.
Steven:Yeah. And that's what, you know, he and I what he's talking about though that that's an American thing. That definitely is United States of America thing compared to a lot of the world how the the pets are It's a big deal here. So, yeah, what we're bringing about is that this isn't it's taking the time and and what I want to correlate into it's it's Giannis Antetokounmpos, the bucks forward center, one of the, you know, the Greek freak as they call him. Why would it be talking about him?
Steven:Well, I I love the video about when in 2023 when they did not win the championship. Someone asked them about the failure. And and what this is about is he said the reporter goes, I'm curious for you. Do you view this season as a failure? And Giannis says Do you get do you get the promotion every year on the job?
Steven:No, right? So every year you work your work is a failure? Yes or no? No, every every year you work you work towards something you work towards something and that's what I want to with finding time right now I don't want the veterinarians they see a slow calendar all of a sudden they're like what am I doing wrong Mhmm. Right?
Steven:It starts internalizing. What am I doing wrong? You gotta have a growth mindset, and a growth mindset is we've said it before. When the business is rolling through the doors, your mindset is just to take care of business. What is coming through the doors?
Steven:You're not thinking backwards or forwards. Right? You're not reflecting, and you're not being forward thinking. Now's the time. Why we bring up time today is because you probably have the time to be forward thinking.
Steven:We're coming up on a new year. I know I know people give news resolutions a hard time. The reason they do is because they fail at them. Actually, they they they fail to implement them. Right?
Steven:It's not that not failure in the way Giannis is saying. They fail to even take action on those things. Now is the time to build in what is that gonna be to get your mindset right? Because at the end of the day, we can talk about this. You know this.
Steven:Our biggest challenge with our clients is mindset. Right? Our biggest challenge is when we talk about prices, we talk about calling, we talk about these things. They're just resistant. Mhmm.
Steven:Right? So how do you get someone excited and motivated into the right frame of mind? How did how did you get your your client there to make those calls? You know?
Kale:I think they're they're just proactive people.
Steven:They're proactive people. So in the right mindset already.
Kale:Yeah. I mean and, yeah, they're slightly slow. They're not they're not as slow as some. Right. But they're they're always they're the one that is always looking to make a positive change.
Kale:Right. And if they can make it, they're gonna do it. Yeah. And there and if it doesn't work, great. It didn't work.
Kale:We tried it. Right.
Steven:It didn't work. And we're dealing with scientists here. Right? Doctors, scientists are looking at empirical evidence To show me that works and so when we're able to say we have evidence that it works That helps that mindset shift to go okay I can believe in that and get behind that it works from price changes to finding time it's amazing when you when you take some time how much more you'll grow in the future. And so, I mean, I I I can't encourage enough for people to find time to do that, to find that growth mindset.
Steven:And the growth mindset's not just about you know, it shouldn't be just about business growth. That's not what that means. Literally, your mindset growing to be in a spot where you can and as we talk about the Maslow's hierarchy, you can get yourself in a spot to have vision, to be thinking, to be open to what's possible, to think about your business. On the empirical evidence side is is different than the empirical evidence on, you know, a medical condition potentially that, you have medical evidence behind the backup. Here's what we do for that.
Steven:Right? So when they're thinking that, that's what we have to that's why we do this podcast. I think that's one of the biggest things about inspiring is is part of it. We wanna inspire these private practice owners about doing these things that we know works because we have evidence from our clients
Kale:Mhmm.
Steven:To see that work. So, yeah. Pick up the phone. I like that, Gail. That's that's great.
Steven:Pick up the phone. You have time. And even if it's like it gets back to when we say make time, though. Say someone's going listening going, I don't have the time. Oh.
Kale:Lock it off. You do. You do. You have no choice.
Steven:Yes. Yeah. You might have to spend an extra few hours upfront. Right? Mhmm.
Steven:You might take your if you're 60 hours a week working, you might have to go. I gotta work 4 more hours this week. Mhmm. Because I'm not gonna get to where I need to go doing what I'm doing. What's that definition of insanity?
Kale:Trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Steven:That's right. That's right. We gotta change it up.
Kale:We do. And I I am an advocate for coming up with a financial incentive for the for the staff to fill you up. Yeah. Invest in that and math that out. Sit down.
Kale:Take take several hours. Yeah. The slow the slow time is a great time to do it, and make the slow time not slow. Mhmm. Everybody says this is a slow month.
Kale:Yeah. Why? Yep. Is it slow because you've accepted that that month is slow?
Steven:Just waiting people to walk through the door? We're waiting
Kale:for people to walk through the door, and that's not the way it's gonna be. That's not how it's gonna be anymore.
Steven:No. No. It's not. So it's back to back to basics. That COVID stimulus is is over.
Steven:It's over. So we're back to basics. We're back to, you know, new new, new ways to work on old things Mhmm. If you will. So I think that's a great message today.
Steven:Take time to find the time, and and build that in for the future. Don't stop doing that. You always need to have that. A time might shift to what you're doing during that time, but keep that time available. Any closing words today?
Steven:The words of wisdom, anybody? I think
Kale:I got my I got my point across.
Steven:You got your point across? Yeah. You got your
Kale:I feel better about yelling about people's financial responsibility. Yeah.
Steven:And it's a it's a fine line because of mental health and all kinds of things too. Right? So it's like It is. It is.
Kale:But You can't, as the veterinarian, internalize someone else's financial situation.
Steven:No. It's not your fault. Empathy versus compassion we talked about recently. That's a big deal to understand the difference between those 2. So, that'll help you with communicating to your your clients.
Steven:And, again, you're the experts. You know what's best for the dog for the future or cat, whatever animal you're working on. Right? You know what's best for their future. Promote that.
Steven:Promote responsible pet ownership, and we sure appreciate everyone listening today. Please like and subscribe to the Better podcast. We're continuing to grow, and we'll continue to educate, inspire, and advocate for the private practice on Earth. Thanks so much, everybody.
Kale:Peace and blessings.
Steven:Peace and blessings. Alright.