Intro (00:00):

Welcome to PracticeOmatic, where doctors and practice owners share business, lifestyle and marketing stories all while guiding you to more patients. Here's your host, Zack Greenfield,

Zack G (00:15):

Welcome back to PracticeOmatic. The podcast where we dive into business and the journey for vets and practice owners. And today with us, we have Dr. Tony Curtis. She is the owner at Palmetto animal center in Mount Dora Florida. She's been in practice for 20, and she's had the privilege to live in16 different locations over that time, both inside and outside the us, she's an ocean lover. And this one is unique, she started in veterinary, right outta high school as the receptionist front desk person. And later went on and, and was able to get her freshman education in St. Kit's and is now in Florida. Welcome Dr. Tony, so glad to have you on the show today.

Dr. Tonya (01:21):

Great. great to see you Zach. Thanks so much for having me.

Zack G (01:25):

All right. So, so tell us a little bit about well, I wanna hear a little bit about what, what got you bouncing around so much over the last two decades?

Dr. Tonya (01:38):

Well, I guess we all have a personal history or story, and whenever you meet somebody and they say, where are you from? You go, do you want the cliff notes? Or do you want, you know, that sort of thing. And so I usually start in, I like, I just start saying it like, you know, Arizona, you know, Texas, Florida, and I just go down all of them and they go like, oh, so you're military and I'm. Mm, no. So, so really just family big business moved a lot and got the, was afforded the privilege of being able to live in many different states and including going to school outside of the country. So it was really beneficial.

Zack G (02:21):

That's awesome. So of all of those places, what's the one you're missing the most right now.

Dr. Tonya (02:26):

Ooh, that's a dangerous question, Zach. We know that.

Zack G (02:32):

I dunno, cause you know, people are wondering where the good spots are. So you've obviously got, you've covered some miles, so let's hear it.

Dr. Tonya (02:38):

So mountain mountain, baby love was born, raised in Arizona. And then bounced throughout the Texas, all those. So the answer to your question would be, I think the one place that I chose to live was North Carolina Like that didn't, you know, wasn't just opportunity or wasn't just this, or wasn't just that wasn't just timing. It was chose. And so the one place I literally just chose to live was, was Greensboro, North Carolina. And it was, it was, I, I really that's one place I probably would go back to.

Zack G (03:14):

Yeah, well I know it's beautiful there, I've only visited briefly to, to North Carolina, but everything I hear about, it's pretty awesome and I'm here in Arizona. So we have a little bit of a bond on that one. Yes. Which is cool. And it sounds like you spent a lot of time in the Sunbelt. Tell us a little bit about, for folks out there thinking about veterinary school, what it was like to do that out of the country and the Caribbean.

Dr. Tonya (03:43):

I think one of the big things that when we, when I was going to school, which was a while ago, it doesn't seem like it, but it's a long time ago. Women were the, the minority in veterinary classes and veterinary school. So they had to hold spots for women because it was a male dominated profession and the schools were dominated with that. So there was less spots for women. There were less less opportunities again and extremely competitive as it is now. So I was afforded the opportunity to go in a different, in a different direction. And it was a privately owned school. Then it was closer to a third world country when we were there. And it was an opportunity of bliss and availability of, of people that wanted to teach and people that wanted to be there. So the synergistic environment that I was afforded was so different and so special, you know, everyone thinks they're everywhere at a special time, but I was there at a special time. And it was, it was difficult to say the least just to adjust to that kind of living. We're so lucky to be here. But it was, it was an amazing experience and it was, it was just like, you would think it was the island life. It was a different culture. It was vet school. It was being away from home and all those things coupled together, I think created a really well rounded experience for myself. That's how I see it for myself.

Zack G (05:22):

How do you, how do you, how did that shape your perspective on running your practice and working with your team now kinda starting in that environment?

Dr. Tonya (05:42):

I think I never lost the, I never lost the mindset of what we do in the United States is an absolute privilege.

Zack G (05:57):

Yeah. Some, some gratitude of all the abundance we have here.

Dr. Tonya (06:01):

Well, in, in many other countries, as you would know, that animals are not animals, pets, creatures that live in our homes are not treated that way in every country, especially in a third world country where, you know, feeding your family or your kids it's not is, is different. So one thing that we get on a high horse, we are really good at what we do. We love what we do. We're affording these wonderful medical services. But the ability to do that is, is really, is never been lost on me. It's, it's a true gift.

Zack G (06:41):

You feel to some degree, what we see here is a kinda a Western phenomena.

Dr. Tonya (06:52):

It it's becoming more worldwide. Of course, of course it's becoming more, you know, UK huge pet population can at the us and yeah, it's more Western, but the view of how they treat. So I did digress. I took a trip to Africa and the difference between the ability to care for a house, a house dog versus a, a, a village dog or a wild dog and all those things, very different. They're very different. We, we aren't, if you don't get a different perspective, you're just not aware of what our privilege is to do what I do. Yeah. What I do is gift every day.

Zack G (07:34):

Yeah. Get I get that. So do you think that if somebody had the opportunity you think is worthwhile in their career to find time to have that same experience,

Dr. Tonya (07:50):

I think that anytime that you can garnish a different experience, even a different it's different in every state is still the United States. But yes. I think if you have an opportunity to get a glimpse of what it's like elsewhere, I think that would always be a good opportunity to broaden your view of what we get to do here.

Zack G (08:14):

Yeah. I get that. I get that. So you get outta school in the Caribbean and it's time to get real with your career. What happens next?

Dr. Tonya (08:28):

There's some hurdles because the school that I went to was not a us school. So even though I was a us citizen, I still had to be privy to all the testing that a foreigner would do. So even though I graduated and went to school at Oklahoma at the end, I had to take five day proficiency tests and all kinds of things. So it was a higher, we, we were expected to be higher and best. So we, we had to go through a little bit more. That was also makes you stronger and a little more astute about the requirements to be able to, to do that. So I did that and took my first job cause I could only practice in two states, Ohio or, or New York until I took these boards. So I went to upstate New York and started just working in practicing and learning and doing so

Zack G (09:18):

What, and one part of upstate New York, again, just curiosity,

Dr. Tonya (09:23):

Rochester, Rochester, New York upstate.

Zack G (09:27):

Okay. And did you do any work for commercial animals up there?

Dr. Tonya (09:32):

I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said,

Zack G (09:34):

Did you do work on commercial work animals or farming or anything like that? Live stock or has it always been pets for you?

Dr. Tonya (09:45):

So it's always been pets for me. However I did. I did I did marry a large animal veterinarian, so I have a lot of excess experience in that. My primary has always been small animal. I got,

Zack G (10:07):

Yeah, I know I asked that because I've seen new York's big farming community, you

Dr. Tonya (10:11):

Know there's and so, yeah. I spent many a time at dairy farms and farm calls and doing things like that, which I, and so I still am en enjoy en enjoy being certified. And I just did FFA for one of my great technicians who, you know, so I just did certificates for just Sunday for pigs and cows that are going to fair and stuff. So I still have the ability to do stuff like that.

Zack G (10:42):

Yeah. That's cool. So what point in this process, did you start to feel like you wanted to do your own thing business wise?

Dr. Tonya (10:58):

I'm I don't think I ever are set out because I didn't set out. I come from a very entrepreneurial family family, so my individual experience has been very business oriented, but when asked if you asked me, I would've said, no, I don't wanna end my own practice. It was never on my agenda. It was never my vision. My vision was just to do what I do best, which is be on the floor and, and do all, all the things that I do, you know, I do emergency and all these things. So I enjoyed that. So it took a while. It took me about five or six years before I was coached into that. It was a possibility to go ahead, do this on my own. I was never been told that I couldn't do anything.

Dr. Tonya (11:48):

I I'm extremely blessed. I've never been everyone I've worked with helped me and, and, and been kind. I've just been, I'm the Pollyanna of veterinary medicine. I don't have any bad experiences. I, no one ever hurt me or abused me. They all helped me. I mean, I, I am, I am the soapbox Pollyanna. I nothing but love for this profession. So, so to answer that, that wasn't my primary goal, but I have never been told that I can't do anything. So a practice came along, I just called 15 banks until somebody would give me some money. And I finally, I built, you know, I, I kind of stumbled into it. And then, and then that, that was a leap frog to come and then build a practice from scratch. And that's the one I've been in for the last 16 years. So I, and it's hard because now they're teaching business, but in my day they didn't teach business. It wasn't part of our curriculum.

Zack G (12:48):

Yeah. But we've heard on the show here from folks that are recently outta school, recently, certain practices, they feel still that business education, marketing promotion, you know, trying to grow and survive is, is still not covered well in veterinary school. And so you're kind of throw to the dogs, no pun intended to try to figure it that on your own and grow your practice and that, and as much as you know, I think people believe that that part's gonna be easy. You'd probably agree that running the businesses can be just as challenging as taking care of the animals on certain days.

Dr. Tonya (13:32):

It's more challenging because it's not what I'm trying. Right. So it is much more challenging to, and it's more, it's more difficult because I don't enjoy a P and L or a spreadsheet that is not what I enjoy. I enjoy cutting on things and fixing things and saving lives and stopping out disease that is so far away from a spreadsheet or a, a daily, daily business or a EBIDA or a, all these things that I've had to learn. That's not that I don't and no, I don't enjoy it. It's a necessity for me to get to do the other things that I love to do.

Zack G (14:10):

Right, right. Do do now after 16 years running your own practice and, you know, in the beginning, it not being sort of a, a, like one of your goals, looking back now with the autonomy and your ability to make decisions and go the direction you want, how do you feel about it?

Dr. Tonya (14:35):

I feel very good about where I'm, where I've landed. I think if I had known now, would I do then, which we all say, right, would I have been more financially successful? Would I be maybe in a better, you know, position right now, I'm in a great position right now. However, if I see people around me and there's, there's a huge, different, there's, everything is changing drastically in our profession over the last seven years with, you know, acquisitions and mergers and corporate and all these things, the, everything in the, in the business world of veterinarian has accelerated a really fast model and very quickly. So I'm fortunate, I'm a member of a, of a, an more of an elite group that's for business. And it was a word of mouth. I got to be in that. So that's where I learned li literally about six years ago, you know, I knew stuff, but I didn't know the level of business that I needed to know to really run a tight chip and, and, and be able to do the things I need to. So I've been fortunate to learn from, from my surrounding group of like best practices and things like that. And they have lived, made this a lot easier to do. I think if you're on your own and you don't have a mentor, it is it's, it's harrowing. I think it would be very tough, very

Zack G (16:03):

Well. You know, how much of a difference, how many years do you think of struggle that would've saved your head? You've been able to figure that out earlier on

Dr. Tonya (16:18):

I don't know the answer to that because, you know, again, we, we speak in hindsight, I think now doing, and I will, I will, what you and I talked about doing this a year ago. And the thing is that we call it dumpster five life gets in the way family happens, illnesses happen, hurricanes happen, you know, I think it's hard to retrospectively determine what experience has taught you. Yeah. If I had had a little more formal training on the business, I feel like I would just feel more comfortable and I wouldn't have had to stress as much about that part of it. And it's a huge, it's a huge endeavor to, to supply other people's livelihoods, to employ 25 people to, you know, all those things and those things I think weighed really heavy on, on all that.

Zack G (17:18):

Yeah. Yeah. It is. It's another responsibility. I mean, one of the things we see younger practices struggling with is figuring out, you know, efficient process flow and profitable process flow, you know, and actually looking at things in terms of work, how and how they overlap and how things can be incredibly simple if they're organized. And there's always the friction between spending time to get organized or just marching forward in chaos, because you feel like you've gotta respond to everything that's coming at you immediately.

Dr. Tonya (17:57):

Correct.

Zack G (17:59):

Yeah. Right. And

Dr. Tonya (17:59):

I think organized chaos is not the best business model

Zack G (18:04):

Years can go by of doing that.

Dr. Tonya (18:06):

Yes.

Zack G (18:08):

And until, and I'm sure that your mentor group and anyone that would be, you know, challenging some of that type of thinking would say, take a few steps back probably to make all of your forwarded progress a lot less painful.

Dr. Tonya (18:26):

Correct. And you're, you're a hundred percent right. And what are doing, and some of the platform ideas that you've brought forth, I think are something that we're, we're, we're lagging in this, you know, in this profession until the corporates came along and brought the big dollars and, and all this kind of started to go. So I think you're right. It's, it's a challenge for all veterinarians efficiency, just like any business, you know, if you have a restaurant, your food needs to come out on time with us.

Zack G (19:02):

That's right.

Dr. Tonya (19:03):

You know, that's exactly

Zack G (19:04):

Right.

Dr. Tonya (19:05):

I mean, nobody taught me about outcome. Yeah. And my parents have to survive and do well, and look are on the way out than they did on the way in. And, and then we have to all do it in 30 minutes and, you know, eight hours or 15 hours in a day, depending on what you're doing, you know? And so it's, you're right. It's, it's an interesting phenomenon. And I think opening the dialogue, my fear is these younger veterinarians don't wanna own practices because they don't don't feel they have the support or the knowledge to do so. And it's sad

Zack G (19:35):

That sucks yeahs cause it used to be. And I think it's still, and I, you know, one of the things that we try to do, I try to do is identify and find individual practice owners are still standing on their two feet that aren't being either, you know, in corporate stuff, you know, there's good and bad to that. What is, it's a wake up call and everybody's had to sort of step up their game. So that part is good. Yes. The, the part that gets a little harrowing is if you're tan with that in your market and you're having to compete. And then the other dimension of that is that you become sort of a takeout target and they, you know, want to want your practice. And that can be great financially, but also, you know, all, it, it, it might not be the life that you wanted to suddenly then go back into that employee role or, you know, to change, to change realities if you will, by doing that. So I think it's, I, it's awesome that you have this mentor group and anything that, that smart business owners can do whatever the niche. I mean, we were talking about veterinary here, but to gang together to protect, I would say like main street, if you will,

Dr. Tonya (20:56):

What can I ask you a question?

Zack G (20:58):

Absolutely.

Dr. Tonya (21:01):

So what, what is, what is your take and what is your feedback on not just, I mean, we're talking about me and the veterinary business and, and all that, but what about the, we are seeing a quick exit on our support staff the lack of pain benefits for the veterinary nurses and technicians and, and CSRs and support staff and things. And we've in our group. We're, I'm lucky cuz we've, we've learned and I've worked very hard to, to, to pull that up. But what have, have you had feedback on that with, with some of the, you know, how do we maintain the, the profession itself, the people that, that make it run, you know, no veterinarians, you know, other, all the people that are dedicated to, to that, to that craft.

Zack G (21:55):

Yeah. I think, I mean, I think there's, there's probably two, you know, I, I see that as like sort of two, the answer to that I think has like two sort of products, you know, one, the industry in general owes itself and the is where maybe, you know, corporations are actually helping individual owners because that, on that front to attract qualified, ambitious, positive individuals that wanna be involved in the, in the veterinary world, that's where corporate groups and individual provider or, or actually in alignment, everybody has the same need there. And so they're, that's where every, you know, there's some cooperation, if you will. And I, and that's important that needs to happen. That's at the education level, the, the career path level that's, you know, like used to started in high school, that's talking to high school as kids that's recruit, you know, that, and that can, can be, can benefit from having corporate players in the, in the market where they, you know, are not just financially prepared, but also strategically prepared to sort of do those things, which is great.

Zack G (23:08):

The other piece in it, there is really yet their local level, right? For the individual practice owner to attract. And this is challenging right now because you know, and every person that I talk to on the show and every person that we work with here is struggling to find qualified folks to, and demand is up. Pet ownership is up, pet is up. And that's no secret either. And you know, we practices need staff, like you said. So as an individual practice owner, one of the things you got to do is create an incredibly attractive place to work because you're not just competing with other veterinary practices, necessarily. You're competing with a wide world of opportunities that younger folks now have to be both entrepreneurial to look at working online work. I mean, there's just so many, you know, I tell my children, Tony, that it stunts me that my 11 year old could probably figure out if he wanted to, to focus and sit down on his computer and probably generate five or $6,000 a month in income.

Zack G (24:23):

If he wanted to like, there's, you know, when me and I were kids, I mean, my job was I could mow the lawn or break the leaves. I had like two choices, you know, it was like, it was like five bucks a weekend, right. But there there's nothing stopping these kids now from, from you know, doing technical tasks, programming, making media content. There's like so many things out there that are pulling young folks in, you know, incredible directions in terms of opportunity. But at the end of the day, there's also some of those individuals that are caregivers that are passionate about animals and they need to be able to find a path that is attractive to them and is a individual practice owner like yourself and anyone that I would talk to this, we're building a shiny, bright, you know, sort of temple that can care for and cultivate those individuals.

Zack G (25:18):

And, you know, that's a bigger contemplation about your business, cuz we spend a lot of time, time, you focus on what we can do for the client, for the customer, for the animal. And probably not as much time thinking about how we can attract and retain great folks. That'll be part of our practices culture, you know, so, so it's, you know, and sometimes there's overlap and I actually did some, some did a video that week about even on the, the topic of just building reviews. Like if somebody's in the market and they're looking for a legendary job, doesn't it stand logically. They're actually gonna look for the best practice to try to see if they can get a job there first. And what's best these

Speaker 4 (26:05):

Right?

Zack G (26:09):

Your potential employees are actually looking at the public feedback that you think is for clients only, but is being snooped and, and evaluated by folks that might wanna work for you. Right. So there is some overlap with, to all these things, but that's, that's the way I see it. You know, it's sort of two bits and on the individual level, there's an incredible amount you can do inside your practice to support that. And then as an industry, there's, you know, there's some, like I say, synergy with what I think people look at, maybe our phones or whatever, but on that, on that issue, particularly, I think everybody's on the same boat, you know? And and you know, animal, care's not gonna get replaced by robots.

Dr. Tonya (26:59):

Right.

Zack G (27:01):

You know,

Dr. Tonya (27:02):

It is a, it is a people, people on hand business that is, that is 100% true. You, you can't, you can't do it any other way.

Zack G (27:11):

Yeah, exactly. So there's, so there's gonna have to be and right now, you know, incredible, maybe it's a wake up call to the, the universities and schools that are educating kids to route more and bring more folks in. I there's a lot of, you know, talk and pressure about that, how fast that, you know, evolves. I mean, still six, seven years before you can get it qualified that out in the field, like doing anything and a couple of years for technicians. So it's not like a, a light switch, can't flip it and solve the problem immediately. And it like, you know, we have demographically this gigantic population of millennials and so forth that have incredible purchasing power that are, you know delaying having children to some degree, but experiencing care giving in their home, through animal ownership. And all of that is landing on the laps of folks like you to, to try to figure out how to deal with this excess capacity, cuz there's no shortage of animals out there, you know that

Dr. Tonya (28:18):

No,

Zack G (28:19):

You know, and it just keeps getting more and more and more. Right.

Dr. Tonya (28:21):

I mean, yeah. And I think the, you know, the expectation is more and more and more as well. And, and, and we're like at our practice, we're happy to rise to that expectation. There is an just interesting things happening in our profession that I have to say, give me pause because I know many, many practices that aren't taking clients. I, I, I, I, I grapple with that on an ethical level

Dr. Tonya (28:55):

When somebody calls seven different hospitals and lands on us because they're an hour away and no one will see them. So there's, and to me it's like, if you're, I mean, I'm not talking about vaccines, I'm talking an injured or a sick. And I, I think of the oath that I keep on my wall and memorized and took and all those things. And it's, it's an interesting time and to grapple all that around and get so that the, the folk that are doing this work with me up for me, with me in the trenches every single day, that they're okay and that they can still stay in their profession and that we can somehow achieve what it is that we're supposed to be doing and helping all of those people that need that help. And it's a interesting, it's an, there are days I shake my head and go, I, I don't recognize what, you know, what this is right now. And it's not in a bad way. It's just, it's hard. It's a huge thing. And we're trying to wrap our heads around it, like trying to refer a patient or trying to get into a specialist or any of those things, trying to get into your regular doc. It it's, it's a, it's kind of a real fast bar or something. I

Zack G (30:17):

Let dig into that a little bit in your practice, you know, and this is just is a strategy, but also a care thing. So there's always, there's always a little target we going on between how much volume you can do and maintain the quality of care. Yes. I think every, everybody understands that. Right. What do you think practices can do to be able to take on more while continuing to make a high quality of care? Like what do, what do you see as the pressure relief out be besides, and, and let's assume in this scenario that there is an unlimited human beings available to jump in and help out. Like, what are the things that you think can be done?

Dr. Tonya (31:14):

I think the things that need to be done would be, if you, so we're assuming that we have enough people to take care of everybody. Is that what you're, I I'm

Zack G (31:24):

Saying, like I'm saying like in, in your practice, right. And you've had some, you've had some changes with, with doctors, myself, you what, three doctors, and then, and now you're down and you're doing it again yourself right now. So it's like up and down, and this is, you know not, not an unusual story by the way. Right. So you're not alone. Right. But what, and you seem to be maintaining your client work. And you're also, as you've just explained open to taking new folks, when it, when it's important to do that, what, what do you think everybody can be doing to be able to figure that out without completely getting out of balance and burning out and getting frustrated and then, you know, throwing their hands up.

Dr. Tonya (32:10):

So we have a, we have a team meeting every morning in rounds. And this, I posed this question to my team, not exactly this way, but I said, you know, we've talked about what does our practice look like? We've always been known as the people that don't turn people away. We've just, that's been my mantra since beginning of time. And now, you know, yes. And now we are having to be more specific and more conscientious of, you know, making sure that we give the good care to everybody, you know, just because, you know, so you're, you're right. So how, how do we do, how, how are we struggling with that right now? We are struggling it with it. And we are having clear and concise conversations about how we're doing, how we're doing throughout the day. We're triaging and making sure that the, the ill and the sick get seen immediately or the in, in priority so that we can not miss something and get the ball rolling. And then it's just communication. You are communication expert. You understand this, it is communication, communication, communication. Yeah. And why, you know, why, why does it take so long? Why is my have to stay for this? Why are you giving, you know, why have to be answered, but why to be answered for the team as well?

Zack G (33:43):

Yeah. This,

Dr. Tonya (33:44):

Why are, why are we working this hard? What's, what's the end game? Why are we doing this? Why, you know? And so we, we, we, every day we grapple with, and then we also do the same little, what do we need to do? What do we need to implement? What do we need to get rid of? What do we need to change? You know, stop, start and change those things. We go through those every day. And it's changes. Yeah.

Zack G (34:09):

I love, yeah. I love that. I love that. I think, you know, while I was circling you a little bit with that questioning is digging into, you know, one of the things that we have right now, you know, you can't, you can't do animal care. You know, humans need to do animal care, but there's a lot of tasks in a practice that can be offloaded to technology that we're taking up a lot of staff time and labor hours. Like a lot of, like you say, communications of one, cause that one, I zero in on all the time, getting the phone volume down freeing up some of that front desk staff to pinch it and help with other areas in the practice, if possible, you know, that might be cleaning and prepping exam rooms and other things that they can do that. If, if they have better support and on the front side with even things like you just brought up, like how much, how much velocity can we reduce by doing an awesome job with FAQs and aftercare, communication and videos, simple stuff like that, which seems so rudimentary when you say it out loud, but right.

Zack G (35:23):

It, but it's that same conundrum we talked about just 20 minutes ago that as a business, you either streamline and optimize and you take two steps back to spend some time to do that. So you, you do that, you, you do the FAQs, you do the aftercare emails, you set that stuff up because then it unlocks a huge amount of hidden potential that was being scutled on stuff that, you know, can be solved with some, you know, technical tools, which is, you know, one of the areas that I think most folks, most businesses, not just veterinary practice, but this isn't the key problem with a lot of practices, I think, especially well, it's getting better, but also the thing that's been really challenging is there really, hasn't been a lot of dedicated tools for Ary practices. You know, the been some adopted stuff from human medicine, not always perfected there's been other stuff that's sort of been, you know, hacked together. If you will glued together, that kind of worked that's, that's getting better. The market's being addressed more. The needs are being addressed more, but it's not perfect. But any of those things I think are you know, I think there's untapped re you know, space in areas like that in a practice where you can, you can pull, if you imagine, what if one change unlocked five hours a week in labor?

Zack G (36:53):

You know, so you start looking at things like, look, if we do this, we reduce two hours of labor. We do this, we reduce hours. Like suddenly you can unlock 15 more hours of labor by making some different shifts and changes. And then that's, that's 15 more hours that can be dedicated to animal care specifically. And not some of the other stuff. And those little things make to make a big difference. I think in the end

Dr. Tonya (37:17):

You're, you're so right on that. And if we could, that is a struggle that we do engage with on a regular basis. If you look at, as an example of dictation, doctors have been dictating records for what eons, sure. The year, what started with the dictation person and then recorders, and then transcript transcribers. You know, I have a, I, you know, there's some new ones on the market. I, you know, drag and we've used some different ones, but then you also will get, I, I, I had a record for a referral client the other day, and there must have 60 pages of handwritten notes. Wow. I mean, it was, it was I, number one, I C luckily it was good writing, but, you know, so, so what you're saying, it could be all the way from, I never touch a pen and everything is computerized and on video to we're still right. Handwriting record. We're not, I've been,

Zack G (38:29):

Is every from, you know, going we've changes. We're the same way. Yeah. The way to new practice, it's really with, you know, trying to engage technology as a, as a tool and everywhere in between.

Dr. Tonya (38:46):

Well, and you're, you're so right. And I think, and then the, the other elephant in the room that will always be the issue is how do we communicate the owners and our clients really just wanna know how much we care and how well we do our, what we do with their pets and how we communicate with them. And I have not yet found the answer to the explaining the why to the, it, of why, in order for us to do what we just talked about to get the latest and the greatest, and to get the digital x-ray and to spend more time with your pet, it requires a tremendous amount of monetary investment to streamline your practice. And then where that my money tree, what produced in years ago, I don't have a money tree in my backyard and people don't see that tangibly.

Zack G (39:50):

Yeah.

Dr. Tonya (39:52):

Expectation every, you know, the, the services, the, the laptops, the upgrading, you know, my, it, people are charging me and they're in my office, you know, three times a week and they don't see, or the, they, you know, we're a fixed cost business, but our fixed costs are huge in very invest. And so, you know, once you hit the ceiling, it's fine, that's where you can get greater. But the amount of investment to deliver what everybody's expectations are, so is dis is disproportionate. They want us to have instantaneous everything and the ultrasound and the, and the equipment. And, and trust me, I have every, every bell and whistle that I can afford I have in my practice. Sure. But you have to have someone that's qualified, number one, to run it. And then you have to have a staff and a team that are passionate about it. Cause if they don't buy into it, they're not gonna do it. They don't, if they don't, if they don't believe it, it's not gonna happen. Right. And then how do you explain that my hamburger costs $18 and you can get one for $2 at McDonald's. You know, my, my hamburger is wrapped in love and compassion and for other people to make the hamburger, but, you know, these

Zack G (41:12):

Are, are problems and practical problems. But yeah, I there's, you know, is a, is a interesting reality for the Western world Western culture, because we love our animals as much in many cases, as we love anything.

Dr. Tonya (41:32):

Yes. And sometimes

Zack G (41:34):

Hard and sometimes more in our lives. Right. Exactly. And, and we want the, the latest, greatest, you know, technology to care for them and extend their lives and give them comfort and all of the things and, and optimize their health and wellness. But they are also not covered or recognized in government healthcare programs or all the other stuff. Right. So, right. So, so as a cash paid business, the, the costs are very close to, if not the same as human healthcare, in most cases, I mean, an x-ray for an animal costs the same as an x-ray for a child. There's really, there's no difference, you know, a and so, yeah, that's one of the, that's one of the things that's, yeah, it's complicated because there's a practical Rob there, but it was also a marketing Rob and, and how the practice positioned and, and, and again, setting expectations with clients in advance.

Zack G (42:33):

So the, that there's no surprises it's about any of that stuff, you know? And so that they go into the relationship. This is one of the, I think actually one of my top five messages that every business should have running is the welcome type of message. That includes setting a expectations for clients, you know, talking to 'em about money, talking about what they can expect in care, what they can expecting, appointment availability, how they can book, do they book online? Is it hard to get us on the phone? Is it better to call better to email? Like, what are all of these things? What makes it great? What makes it easy for everybody needs to be set up front? You lot of, lot of, lot of business owners, not just for share, I mean, a lot of business owners, period, just fall down on that one, because they're thinking, okay, we got the, we got the client there, here, they're gonna come with the appointment. And then we'll guess what? We're gonna spend 10 minutes explaining all that crap.

Zack G (43:33):

And there's 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 minutes. And then that's that time we just talked that could have gone to something else because it could have all been preloaded yeah. Hours, hours per day, of explaining these small things that could have been done in a cool video that could have been done in a great email that could have been done in the email series. That could be part of the resource package that goes out automatically. Right. So there's just so many opportunities to dig into stuff like that, to clear up both what you've just alluded to, which is, you know, how to solve you know, the finances versus the cost versus the client expectations, cuz they're involved in that money triangle with the business clearly, cuz they're supporting the business financially. They need to know why they need to know what they're getting. And it just really needs to be, you know, the best it can be. And as an owner like yourself the, those subtleties unfortunately fall on you, you know,

Dr. Tonya (44:34):

You know, and, and again, you're right. And maybe I misspoke a little bit. That was kind of a little that wasn't a tangent. However, I do, I do a hundred percent agree and buy into your methodology. And also think that it it's a we need to partner with communication folk that know how to put this together and they're coming along. But I think it, the same thing is also when, since my expertise is not that it is not communication in the, this realm. Yeah. One on one. Yeah. I'm, I'm your gal. You know, I'm, I, I can explain everything and, and happy too. I do think that the expectations are, and that's one of the, the narratives that we are, that we are increasing our conversations about in our office is how do we, how do we get those across?

Dr. Tonya (45:36):

How do we manage them? How do we rise to them and how do we correct them if we don't meet them? So those things I do I, I do think though it's very difficult for someone like me to get on LinkedIn or to get somewhere. And I see all these things and you get bombarded with all kinds of offers and ideas and you know, and, and again, I create relationships with my patients literally and my clients. And so for me to buy into, you know, who do I trust? Who do I give? You know, that that's a huge, we, you know, who do I get that? So relationships to me are paramount. And I think, I think we do talk a lot about money, but I think money falls is not the number one concern of most, most people. I mean, you have to be aware, you have to be transparent.

Dr. Tonya (46:30):

You have to be, you know, but you have to be, that's, that's good business. That's just good business. You know, you take your something, you know, that's not good business. Yeah. Yeah. But as far as our profession being a caring, compassionate service oriented result, driven, you know, business and, and profession that finding the right platform that I can, you know, then freely say, okay, these are the expectations that we need to get over. I think those are, that's the kind of thing that I think that someone that is as busy as I am, and I'm not saying I'm busier than anybody else, but as someone who is as absolute busy as I am yeah. In my life and that's the thing, you know? Yeah.

Zack G (47:20):

Yeah, exactly. I think, I think the other thing is you know, and I find in working in that field, there's a little bit more of an understanding to, to be open, to bringing in specialists into the business and finding, you know, folks. And it all starts with this simple thing. Like nobody wants to do their own accounting. So that's an accepted one. Right. And don't talk to anybody really wants to do that. And the accountants are like, I don't know where they're, they're cut from some other stuff that we're not made from. Right. So, so everybody accepts that one. But then, then like an, a great example of this, like in my business, I see all the time is that we've all been sort of duped into the idea that we think we're experts on social, for instance, but is a qualified doctor or qualified technician or even a staff member that's time is extremely valuable in the practice is that is messing around on that actually their best use their best, their highest calling.

Zack G (48:26):

No, I would argue no, but I can't tell you how many practices I see their in that trap because those companies, those technology companies have made us all believe that we know something about that because one of the objectives is to create comfort with their product. Right. But as a business owner that doesn't always translate to good business and it also doesn't necessarily translate to good strategical outcomes in terms of a marketing objective using those tools. And so, so that's just one trap, but there's all sorts of little pothole on that, on, in that road with technology versus what you should be doing. Like you said, you know, your best role is cutting, fixing, prescribing, curing, you know, and, and the, and the stuff that you really showed up to do. Right. And the rest of it is done because it supports that. And that's it, but anything that you can offload in order to free up more time to do your highest calling is worth investigating how to find the right PO the right folks, you know, and to be, you know, and one of the practices we, we worked with Tony sold for you know, like multiple, multiple, multiple sub figures, like the hugest number.

Zack G (49:48):

You can imagine a veteran, I was stunned the owner of that practice, one of the things I think, and this is, you know, to re repeat this, but it was all about figuring out how to extend trust and bring people in. And so really thought about it from more of a business strategic standpoint and ended up having an incredible amount of free time to, to go back to the PA that her passion was emergency veterinary work. Right. So, yes. But wanted be able to focus on that or not, or focus on family or, you know, and that meant lots of people that were qualified, but it also means trust, which I think is where everybody gets a little scared.

Dr. Tonya (50:43):

Yeah. I think it, it, yeah, I so interesting cuz I'm pretty naive when it comes to that because I, it is, it takes a lot to, for someone to, to just trust what you do. And so I guess I have so much faith in my team that I think that we, they, they work really hard and they they're genuine about it. So I think that's thing, the anyone they genuinely they're genuinely in those trenches and building trust. But again, we still need to, we still need to expand on those, those points that you've talked about is to make sure we don't fall into these what we say higher and best and lesser and worse uses.

Zack G (51:31):

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Dr. Tonya (51:33):

The opposite of highs best, you know? Yeah. Those are, those traps can be a little easy to fall into. Sometimes

Zack G (51:42):

Yeah, I think we all do ask you another important question if you were, and this is for, for owners, if you're in the animal owner now and knowing the environment that, you know, cause you are owning this business and you understand the industry and, and the challenges that it's going through and so forth, if you're an animal owner, what would you say to animal owners right now trying to find a great vet? What, what, what questions they should be asking? What things can they be doing to figure that out since it's, it's not entirely as easy as it used to be.

Dr. Tonya (52:20):

So probably a three part answer, I'll try and keep it brief. So one would be I do believe that man, so in, and the, there are still certifications on certain hospitals such as aha and best practices and things like that. I think that are standards of care,

Zack G (52:48):

Fear, free fear free is another one.

Dr. Tonya (52:51):

Yeah. Yes. That, that, that established standards of care. And I do think that that's important. I am not aha certified just because of the millions of pieces of paper that it takes to get there, but I've worked at many of 'em. So I run my practice the same way as one, but I know I don't have that standard. So I think that's, that's, you know, a standard of care, some sort of standard of care should be in investigated. I can tell you word of mouth is the biggest thing. You know, if, if somebody had a positive experience and even when people come to me for a second opinion, I always tell them they should love their veterinarian. We used to be the most loved profession, I think, on the planet. I think it's, it's been a little bit chopped down and diversified a little bit to a point where, you know, maybe there was some, I don't know what happened, but somewhere along the way, like you said, there was some sort of erosion of trust or whatever happened along the way. I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. You probably have talked to more people that could give you a clear answer on what happened there. So I think that, and also how I, this is, this is gonna be very, this is a personal opinion, and I'm gonna tell you a personal opinion. If you, if you call somewhere or walk in somewhere and they don't acknowledge you,

Zack G (54:26):

I don't know you're in the wrong place.

Dr. Tonya (54:28):

I don't care how busy you are if somebody does not acknowledge you or, I mean, I, I feel like that's a, I've walked into other hospitals, no one knowing that I'm a vet and I could tell you, I would never take my pet there. And, and I, you know, it, it, I just, I think that is, it sounds so silly, but I think that how people, how your first encounter goes probably is a good idea of how things are gonna go in the future. Mm.

Zack G (55:03):

Yeah. That's good. That's that's good advice. And then let, let me, let's flip the, let's flip the question here a little bit. And for 16 years of being in practice, going through the pandemic, tackling personal issues, staff issues, I don't think there's anything you haven't seen at this point.

Dr. Tonya (55:27):

Don't say

Zack G (55:27):

That I'm not trying to curse. I'm not trying to curse.

Dr. Tonya (55:31):

Did you, you know, that, you know, that veterinarian by nature, super prestigious.

Zack G (55:37):

Well, yeah. So without, without cursing you what would you, what would you share with other folks that are thinking about owning your own practice or feel that they're currently struggling in ownership right now? What, what, what bit of wisdom would you share with them?

Dr. Tonya (56:00):

I would say that try to mitigate the, the sleeplessness because it doesn't do you any good? There's been a lot of sleepless nights on my, on my path. I'm I take everything very personally. I feel this is very personal business is a very personal profession to me. I, it it's very personal to me. So I think if you're, if you're thinking about ownership, I think just getting the right mentor and it will be, it, it can be an absolute, amazing experience. I've had everything in my life has been mentors, everyone that I, again, Pollyanna, I just suck the life. I, everyone, I know they help me beyond belief. And I think if you can just get in the right mentorship, that, that it helps also, if you can get into the aha membership, you don't have to be in aha practice. If you can get in best practices or other, some small business groups, there's, there's groups out there now PSI a bunch of different groups that are there for support for individual business owners that don't have that support that the corporates have and they're out there and they're, and they're good.

Dr. Tonya (57:14):

And I can reference quite a few of them probably. You know, if I give a minute to think about.