Announcer (00:01):

Welcome to practice where doctors and practice owners share business, lifestyle and marketing stories.

Zack Greenfield (00:11):

Here's your host, Zach, welcome to practice nomadic. My name is Zach Greenfield and today we have Dr. Sarah Ladelle with us. She is a practicing that an owner she's been in practice for better than 21 years. And she's been in the ownership ownership position for 14 years of a large multiprovider practice in the Boise Idaho area. Welcome Sarah. I'm so glad you could join us.

Dr. Sara Liddell (00:41):

Thank you. Glad to be here. Yeah.

Zack Greenfield (00:44):

So w we always do a little bit of a call before the show, just to kind of warm up. So Sarah and I, um, have a few things we wanted to focus on today and, and I wanted to start out and just let you tell us a little bit about the, you know, where you started those first, you know, seven years before you got into ownership and what that looked like. And then what was the aha moment when you realized that you really wanted to take control of your own practice?

Dr. Sara Liddell (01:14):

Um, I'm definitely not the typical story. I was an emergency vet for seven years. Um, and once I had children realized I didn't want to work nights, weekends, and holidays anymore, but I am at heart, an emergency doctor. Um, part of that was always working at specialty hospitals where the standard of medicine was really high. Um, and I looked around and I couldn't find a place that provided the high quality medicine that I wanted to provide, as well as take good care of their clients and staff. They had some, some did a couple of those things. Well, and some did, you know, the other things well, but I couldn't find one that did it all well. And, you know, they always say there's that entrepreneurial seizure that people have. And they're like, yeah, I'll just start my own. And so that's what I did. Um, in 2007, I decided to open my own practice so I could create what I perceived as what I, you know, what I wanted.

Dr. Sara Liddell (02:11):

Um, and so I opened my own practice from scratch. So no clientele, I wasn't, uh, I wasn't already a general practitioner with a following. Um, I think that was a different experience than most people have. They either buy a practice that's already established, or they are an established general practitioner and they start their own practice and more than likely bring clients with them. Um, the other thing that was unique about my situation is that we started in December of 2007 and as were, most of us are aware by September of 2008 in our area, it was a complete shut down, uh,

Zack Greenfield (02:52):

The recession hit.

Dr. Sara Liddell (02:53):

Yeah. And we're really started affecting veterinary medicine. So the client I did have, uh, just stopped coming. And so, you know, that just shifted everything mentally for me, where I really had to start focusing on getting people in the door.

Zack Greenfield (03:10):

Ah, so that was the, that was the wake up call for the marketing and, and really starting to promote you couldn't just open the doors and be hopeful anymore.

Dr. Sara Liddell (03:19):

Well, you know, we, I would say that there was always a focus on the marketing because we had no clientele. And so we were a startup from scratch. We had to let people know we were there. So, but we went about it the very traditional ways that don't really work. Um, you know, someone said go to a pet expo, go to, uh, a dog walk, um, fundraiser for the humane society, you know, and you're letting a few people know that you're out there. We did, um, a, an announcement in the paper. We had the ribbon ceremony, uh, cutting ceremony. My husband actually with a couple of kids, went around the neighborhood and put door knockers out that actually was fairly effective. And then pretty shortly after we had a new homeowner person come around and, and we started working with the new, new home, new homeowner, um, welcome packages or something. And then we made the mistake of doing the, um, y'all or Groupon type deals. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

Zack Greenfield (04:24):

That's always a tough one because those people it's kind of, you know, it's, that's a, that's a, it's a good point that you brought that up as a fail. Cause we, you know, I get that here a lot. You know, we have clients that do that off to the side. I really don't want to participate in that. And for the reasons that you just said is you're going to attract cheap people to your business, not necessarily what you want and in the process of attracting the cheap people, you actually can't make any money because the services are taking 30% of whatever the deal is. Anyways,

Dr. Sara Liddell (04:53):

It was already a real, crazy deal. And then they want most of it. So you're making nothing, it's a loss leader. I mean, I consider it a loss leader. Um, the other thing we did that actually was a pretty good one was we did a free exam for any new adoption at the humane society. And, um, that was really good, um, that got people through the door that are new pet owners, excited to, you know, uh, find, uh, you know, get willing to give the vet, uh, try this vet, a new vet to try because it was a free exam and they just got this pet. So that was the other bad thing about the yellow people in the group on people is you also learned how to craft an ad because they will be on you about every little thing rule that you left out state. It doesn't say, you know, you can't use it on multiple pets. It doesn't say, um, new clients only, it doesn't say, you know, and they just kept,

Zack Greenfield (05:45):

So that, that was good though. So you learned a little bit about tightening up your terms and conditions on your direct offer stuff, but tell, tell me just to go, you know, to go back to your sort of story a little bit, I'd like to hear, what do you think the, the, I mean, obviously the struggles of starting from scratch were that you had nothing and you've already told us that, and it really, you just, you didn't have any clients who were coming out of the gates and you just went launched right into a tougher session. And in the area that you're in has since grown immensely. But during that time was one of the areas that was having a lot of shuffle with the real estate market. It was a really tough cause it's kind of those high growth areas like, uh, you know, Arizona and the Boise area and Florida, and some parts of Texas just kind of really volatile, you know, with that. So you launched into that. What do you think was your, what do you think would the big advantage of starting from scratch?

Dr. Sara Liddell (06:39):

Well, the advantage of starting from scratch is that I got, I mean, I completely set it up in my way. I didn't have to overcome it. Uh, someone else's way of doing something that the clients had been used to doing forever. Well, Dr. So, so he used to let me do that, you know, or that kind of thing, the old building, old equipment, you didn't have to overcome that. Um, the getting to S there's not a lot of advantages.

Zack Greenfield (07:13):

I'm glad I asked the questions kind of, kind of a stumper cause it wasn't easy clearly. I mean, the, the best one that I could think about just listening to you is that, that, you know, as a bit of a reflection of your previous seven years of experience, where you could see there was like fragmented levels of service in the market. And one of the things you wanted to do was have your practice fill certain qualities that you didn't see happen consistently across these different folks that you had maybe worked for. So you got to put it all together in the vision that you thought was going to be the biggest benefit for your clients and the animals, uh, that you take care of. And so that's probably the biggest advantage, but with it obviously came a ton of risk,

Dr. Sara Liddell (07:54):

Huge amount of risk and stress and anxiety, um, that we kill it in, uh, in literary medicine. There's a fear-free and it's, we want to reduce FAS fear, anxiety, and stress. And there's so many times you can use that phrase Spearings hate the stress. Um, the other thing was, is that I decided that I had all kinds of advice about it's such a pain to remodel and to add on. And so I also built a very large building. Um, and so not only did I have the stress of a recession, I also had the overhead very, very high overhead, which was really dumb on my part. But, uh, and then I added an, a pet resort, uh, to offset that because I was going to lease out a third of the building. Nobody was really interested because we were on the outskirts of the growth.

Dr. Sara Liddell (08:39):

We were on the margin of the growth. So when I moved out to where I was at, we were the second to business in the, in that area. Um, there was nothing else around us. Like you could barely get a fast food if you needed fast food. Um, and just to build to where it is now, people are always saying, wow, you're so smart at you put this place in that's. I did, except for the recession hit. And it, it really set us back five years. So the neighborhood that fed my business, half the people in that neighborhood lost their homes during the recession. So that's the perspective. I watched people come in in like a suit every day, you know, chatting and happy to literally looking like he was homeless. At one point, I was very concerned about his mental health, you know, and there was, cause it was about two years before he got a job again, because he was probably a really high earner and those jobs, they didn't bounce back as quickly.

Dr. Sara Liddell (09:35):

So it's a really tough time for all of us. Yeah. And so, you know, that was, if you want to talk about the, the fear and anxiety, all that, and then having a staff, you know, you needed to maintain, um, the pet resort was very beneficial to offset some of that because the people that could afford to travel still traveled. And so they still boarded their pets. Um, and then also that was a way for people to learn about the practice, get them through the door and it was easier to give away. I'm not one. I actually had that same hesitation to give, I still do to give away services. Um, because I think there does devalue the practice, the medicine. I don't want people to see us as a discount service. I don't want them to think that they can, that there's no value in the exam. So I tend to only give away a new exam to new clients as a way to give them an opportunity to meet us. But after that, I don't tend to do that, but you can give away a bath. You can give away a free, night's stay, a nail trim. And all of that is a way to get people through the door or say, thank you without making the value of veterinarian medicine, lessening the value of veterinarian medicine in my mind.

Zack Greenfield (10:44):

I think that I think that's worked out great. I mean, and just full disclosure here. Uh, we've worked with Sarah to help, uh, promote and grow her practice and, and the pet resort specifically over the last, almost two years now, and the pet resort has been, like, she says, probably one of the best sort of marketing, you know, footballs to throw around because there's so much flexibility there. And then, and like you say, we're not, you know, there's that old saying is true. You know, price is the, is the number one determinant of value. I mean, people really see, I mean, we're, we're programmed that way that, you know, an expensive car is a better car. You know, an expensive suit is a better suit and in facts, all of our decision-making and when, you know you start and medicine's one of the areas, even human or animal medicine, it's like, it's not really the time to bargain shop. And it's also not the time as a business owner or a doctor to get into a race to the bottom. Right. You know, I mean, who wants to be known as the cheap doctor? I can't think of anybody.

Dr. Sara Liddell (11:49):

You know, the person I struggled with the most with that was actually my husband. Um, and it was only because he, it stems from that fear. Uh, the scarcity mentality of we struggled for a long time. I didn't take a paycheck for a couple of years. Um, and he didn't want to exclude anybody. And he's like, well, if our prices are too high, then so-and-so, can't come home. That's right where we can't be all things to all people. Um, and really, it finally kicked in for him, you know, when like Walmart's coming in with veterinary hospitals and we have a Walmart down the street from us now. Um, and um, I said, you know, the person that's going to go to Walmart. We don't want as a point, if you're willing to walk through the door and take your dog to Walmart for veterinary care, you're not the client that we want in our practice, but that is a, it is a hard thing to kind of wrap your head around. At some point, if you're struggling, that's a hard thing to wrap your head around. You're like anybody come through the door, please.

Zack Greenfield (12:52):

Yeah. I mean, when you're in that position on, I've definitely in my business history been in that position and around the time that you're talking about, I also burned about a million dollars in my life, which was painful. So I remember all of what you're talking about and, um, it's tough, you know, there's that balancing point where, you know, it's, it's a slippery slope, you start cutting your prices and then you get, you get viewed and you get labeled us as a certain part of the market. And then the thing that's really tough is to work your way out of that. And what, you know, I always think the better thing to do is have your price. If you need to discount is have your prices display, you know, published, whatever it is and be the expensive version of that. The premium, if you will, you can always special down from that, but the minute you ratchet the whole lead price down, your whole reality becomes the cheap reality. And then, and then that's really, and then it takes, it can, you could almost never get out from underneath that.

Dr. Sara Liddell (13:52):

So, you know, we've, we've kind of set ourselves as just below the most expensive guy in town. Um, and so then I can say, when someone says, are you guys expensive? I can say, well, we're not cheap, but we're not the most expensive. I like that.

Zack Greenfield (14:11):

I mean, Hey, look, based on the reviews and everything you're getting down there. The main thing with price is you guys are doing a great job of actually delivering on, you know, an incredible amount of care and value to every owner and every pet. So I don't think anybody feels like they're paying and not getting something that would, that would be the worst.

Dr. Sara Liddell (14:28):

You can't do one without the other, right? You can't have high prices and not provide a high value. You can. It won't last very long. Um, we, we always say we're a high touch, you know, service, high commit, you know, a lot of high level communication we have, sometimes you could consider our clients a little demanding and they can be tiresome, but those are the ones that are willing to pay the money because they're the ones that want the best for their pet. So,

Zack Greenfield (14:56):

I mean,

Zack Greenfield (14:58):

Yeah, the whole, the whole conversation around volume pricing versus premium also affects your lifestyle and your staff's lifestyle. It's like, you know, and I, and I model that here in our business is that I would rather charge a premium price and do that high touch, high deliverable experience that you're describing and then work with less people perhaps, but do a phenomenal job for the few that are willing to pay and that you can do a great job with and like, you know, yeah. And your husband had to face the fact that you weren't going to be everything to everybody, but you can be amazing to the right people.

Dr. Sara Liddell (15:42):

That's right now, one thing that I've struggled with with the mentality for my veterinarians is we went from 30 minute appointments to 20 minute appointments. And if you talk to veterinarians, they're some people that say, well, then how can you deliver a high quality experience with a short veterinary visit? And the reality is, is there is no difference in the amount of time that the veterinarian spends with the client. It's just that there's when I had 30 minute appointments, there was time for the doctor to go back to their office, check the news, uh, chat with the other doctor in the office, and then the next appointment. Whereas we actually did a time study analysis and the vet spends between seven and 11 minutes with a veterinarian or with the client, Hey,

Zack Greenfield (16:26):

Everybody should be listening to that. I mean, that's like that, that right there, Sarah is a golden nugget for anybody. That's trying to figure out their booking schedule. That that 30 minutes is a lot. There's actually a lot of fluff in there. And we put that across

Dr. Sara Liddell (16:41):

And how you, how you work your staff. So my, my technicians check them in and they go through the entire history and they also do a client education on wellness, blood work, and heartworm prevention and that kind of thing. Then the veterinarian goes in, does their exam backs that up and re and you know, uh, you know, reiterate that. And then the technician wraps up the appointment with what the vet recommended. So you have to have that on both ends. You can't have the vet doing the check-in and, uh, she could check out and still be able to do that, but it is. But so our clients shouldn't feel any different if they have a 20 minute appointment or a 30 minute appointment, there should be no. And in fact, you'll see it in our reviews. They're saying, wow, my vet never seems rushed. They always take all the time. They need, um, you know,

Zack Greenfield (17:31):

Well, that's great. Yeah. But, but, but that makes you more profitable and you're getting more utilization out of each provider. So, I mean, that's, that's, I mean, if you think about how that scales, because how many folks do you have on staff right now that are provider level

Dr. Sara Liddell (17:45):

Of four and a half five doctor, but so five to six

Zack Greenfield (17:52):

One right now. So theoretically five to six. Yeah. So if you take, if you think about that there's five work and every day, each one's, you know, booking and the 90% per week capacity. And then that 10 minutes across that whole board ends up being a whole lot of extra money on the bottom line.

Dr. Sara Liddell (18:10):

It was it's about, um, four to six extra appointments a day for, or I think, I can't remember now off the top of my head, but which if you took that by 200 average visit two to 300, um, if you go average, it's two to 10 to 15. Um, and then, you know, you multiply that out times by doctors times, you know, more becomes a big deal. And, um, then, then you can have, your staff can be paid better. You can have more staff, you can have better equipment. Um, and you're still, we also only work eight to six and my doctors have actually worked four days a week and they have a three-day work a weekend and they only work one Saturday, every six weeks or something. Um, and so, you know, that also helps you find that if you want to increase the lady appointments, then you have to almost increase your time of your, how long you're open. Yeah.

Zack Greenfield (19:09):

Or, yeah. And, or your Bryce, if it, to find the same number to get the same result. But it sounds like you've figured out how to do it, to keep prices where you want it to be in the market and get the best utilization out of the whole crew. That's awesome.

Dr. Sara Liddell (19:21):

Well, I also tell you with veterinarians is that you'll hit a port price point that the owner is okay paying, but the veterinarian is uncomfortable charging. Uh, does that make sense? I mean, it's, doesn't make sense, but it it's reality of in veterinary world, they're like, I can't, I can't charge $200 for blood work. The client will never go for that. And they find it's like, okay, $200. Sure. It's in there. So that, that will offer $150 option it's hundred. Not because the owner had a problem with it because the veterinarian has an intrinsic problem with it. So you have to never have that. And as an owner, they need to be aware of that as a, an associate, they need to be aware of it, but it's this unspoken truth. We did not get into this profession to make money. We got into this profession to help animals. And with that comes a bit of guilt about the price of things. Yeah,

Zack Greenfield (20:11):

That's interesting. But I think if you can frame it up that, you know, there's a price that needs to be charged so that the whole relationship, the practice, their jobs, the staff's jobs, even the client and the animal are provided, like all of that works at the right numbers for everybody involved. And it starts to get out of balance when you know, the numbers aren't right. Somebody suffers, you know, and, uh, and you know, in the worst case scenario, it's, you know, like, like you say, it starts showing up in bad equipment, bad, clean up, you know, little areas that start invading the quality of the whole situation for the animal, which is terrible, you know? Cause you know, you got to start cutting. Yeah.

Dr. Sara Liddell (20:53):

You're going to start your, your biggest expenses are your, um, your supplies and your staff. And so what are you going to cut? You need your supplies. So you get to start with not paying your staff well or not having enough staff, which is like the like ongoing drama, veterinary medicine, we're understaffed, we're understaffed, we're understaffed compared all the time. Well, when you pay $15 an hour to someone who can induce anesthesia, monitor anesthesia, place a catheter, check blood pressure and do all these high-skilled things. I mean, eventually they, and you work them twice as hard as they need to be worked because you don't want to pay someone else. That sounds terrible, by the way,

Zack Greenfield (21:33):

I don't want that job. That's fun. And you don't have to have, I'm going to, I'm going to pass.

Zack Greenfield (21:41):

Well, I wanted that circle around one of the things that you and I talked about before, when we just were chatting a little bit was, you know, just kind of back to that marketing stuff. So you got out of the recession and, and life started to move on. Things got better. You obviously do get a paycheck now. Thank God. Uh, and the practices is very profitable, but one of the things I know that when we, when we got involved with you was there was, you know, this whole like, um, kind of cloud around the marketing where there wasn't, it wasn't like super clear what all the interconnects were and everything. And I think I wanted to hear more about, you know, I think just to back up for everybody that's listening, Sarah's practice was being marketed by more of like a kind of cookie cutter vet specific marketing company. Is that accurate?

Dr. Sara Liddell (22:29):

Yeah. And the, um, so the reason I went to them is that my progression through things as I first started with Eve that site's website, which is, um, it started by Ben, which veterinary people who know who that is, what that is. And so very generic and very boring website. And then I decided I wanted a better website. So I went to another marketing group, they created a better website and then big emphasis on pushing everybody back to your website. And if you have a good website, then people will come to you. And then, um, SEO working on SEO, that kind of thing. And then I, I, they weren't up. So here's this company who's their main push is that you have to have a 10 out of 10 website. They ended up updating my website in two years. And so I went to another company and said, I need a better website. And then they have this whole marketing platform, which is, it was also help with HR and some different things in marketing and, um, SEO and ad Google ad words and all of that. And so, yeah, it was kind of a push button and do it done for you kind of thing, which was beneficial. But again, I started pushing the edge on that and saying, Hey, I could do retargeting. I want to do some different things. And they're like, if what you're wanting things that are outside per,

Zack Greenfield (23:47):

But I mean the whole thing, just looking back, I mean, one of the things that for, you know, for folks who are listening and other, other doctors and owners out there, you just, you did a natural progression. I mean, for your business as your business, aren't you had a big vision about what you wanted and you kept stepping up the staircase. It really wasn't like a huge backstop. It was like you went from, you know, the boring little website service that was kind of just to get things going that, you know, whatever fit the budget then, and then you kind of ratchet it up to the next thing. And to the next thing you got to someone who was actually putting a few chips on the board to their credit, you know, they had some stuff going, you had, ad-words a better website. Um, you know, they're doing good marketing collateral for you that I've even seen. I'll attest to that, you know, like you had print print stuff that was doing it was okay. And, but, but then again, you wanted,

Dr. Sara Liddell (24:37):

Everything was the same and yeah. But, but you want

Zack Greenfield (24:40):

It, then you wanted to go a little further and get more sophisticated. Yeah. Yeah. But, and, and I think where we came in and I think it was so, you know, it was, was, you know, it was actually kind of an inflection point in my business when we, when we got involved because we had done years and years of, you know, sort of, you know, kind of proposal based work, which is kind of like probably what you got from the other folks, like sort of a scope of what we're going to do. And I've found that, you know, owners like yourself and other clients really struggled with that. And we had a lot of, um, just problems with clear communication on what was actually going to get done and dah, dah, dah. And we ended up, you know, and from my side, I like just kind of absorbed a lot and do as much as we can, but it was at that moment that I decided to do these, these graphical layouts of all the systems that work to grow a practice like yours. And I think that was, that's been a huge help cause it's roadmap to us for the last, almost two years together. So

Dr. Sara Liddell (25:45):

We started, I reached out to you when, uh, right when COVID hit and everything was shutting down. And, um, I think in veterinarian medicine, we have a tendency to not do marketing. Um, and I have had the opposite experience where when things start to get tough, I do more marketing. So if I started to see a dip in our new client numbers, I will increase our marketing. Well, I don't know if I reached out to you before.

Zack Greenfield (26:09):

I think it was before it was, it was before the COVID thing.

Dr. Sara Liddell (26:12):

No, no, it was because of COVID. I remember, uh that's exactly. Well, you might be right. It just the summer before

Zack Greenfield (26:22):

We were talking in August before COVID was a thing and COVID really got off, like was, was a small news headline in November and then really hit the U S in early January. We all got shut down and everything. So we had six months before we rolled right into that. Um, but you know, I wanted to just, you know, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about, you know, the clarity picture and I know that it was, you know, there was certain elements that you weren't getting from your previous service, but I still like that we're just focused on our roadmap, I guess it's made life so easy.

Dr. Sara Liddell (26:58):

Well, so I, I tried to do something like this myself, and it was really overwhelming. Um, I keep forgetting the name of the company that did it, but it's basically a funnel type system. And they're like, yeah, you just create all of these funnels. And the, if then this and a scenario is sending out all these automated emails. And I, it was so overwhelming and I, I just stopped doing, and it was way too hard. And so Zach does that beautifully and instead I just have to give him the content and then he makes the magic happen. But it's, um, it's the, the main thing that led me away from my other group was, um, we disagreed on how frequently to reach out to our clients on email. And then, and so we were kind of always in that a little bit of like struggle or friction I would, I would, yeah, there was some friction there and not in a bad way.

Dr. Sara Liddell (27:50):

I just, I would say we should do it more and they'd say, no, you really shouldn't. And they're basing it on non veterinary data. Um, and anyway, and then also they were, um, very generalized. So the, the Google ad words were, I was part of a big group of pool, not both. And then I didn't like that. My search engine optimization was also tied in with, with them. Um, and so the extract myself, so then, um, with this, when I found out what was act does and what we've created, and I really enjoy looking at that ad the ad map that we have, because it kind of reminds me back to that company. I wanted to work with that, but you said, do it yourself, which I don't recommend, um, where I can see if this, then I see, okay, so a new client signs on this happens and then it creates this chain of events.

Dr. Sara Liddell (28:40):

And then so, um, our new clients blow up. What happens with the other thing that you've done, that's been really, really helpful, has helped create little things. Like some people can sign up for wellness plans on our website. They can, uh, schedule appointments on our website. And these are the things you've really pushed for is to really automate a lot of things, to try to decrease the impact on our receptionist, the FAQ page, uh, so that we can direct people there so we can lessen, cause we were getting inundated with phone calls. I'm sure everybody, um, elicit this was as well. And those were ways to help offset some of that burden. Um, and those were things that I had. Didn't didn't anticipate number one, that you could do also that I needed or wanted until, you know, we'd asked the question and you're like, yeah, we can do that. Or more likely you would suggest we do it. And then, uh, it worked out really well, the technical magic in the background that, you know, I just don't know how it works, but

Zack Greenfield (29:42):

Yeah, I mean, I think like I think the big thing with all of this and you know, it's another thing you and I have talked about in the past is that I see so many people and I think we've all done this I've, I've personally done it and it, and it's been through my own struggles and also helping so many folks that trying to be one thing to grow your business is usually going to be a fail and frustrating. But what you're describing in this whole conversation is that you really got to see the big picture and understand how it's all working together. And you gotta be able to, to have at least three legs on the ground, or you're gonna tip over, you know, from a marketing standpoint, you know, you, so you, you might have Google ad words running, you got sophisticated and regular emails going. You might be running some print locally, perhaps. Um, you did some radio ads for awhile, but there's always at least three things, you know, retargeting and display some video stuff. Um, the content on YouTube channel, the blog, you know, all of these things. And it's hard to, you know, when you're starting out. I mean, you can think back to think, I mean, think back to when you first started promoting the business and it was like the door knocker,

Zack Greenfield (30:51):

Right, right.

Zack Greenfield (30:53):

To where we're at now, which is, there's actually 24 7 right now your business is being marketed on at least five different channels that I can think of in an automated way.

Dr. Sara Liddell (31:07):

Yeah. Well, and the other is like you say, and I will take credit for committing to something. If I say, I'm going to do it, I don't get two weeks and then say, well, that didn't work. So the radio ad was like two years and it's a difficult thing to track the success, but I can tell you how many people have told me that they had heard the radio ad and it, it builds that, um, what credibility in the market, um, when they call it the

Zack Greenfield (31:36):

Well it's awareness, it's radio ads are typically unless you to be like a straight up direct offer on the radio, like, you know, call now in the next 10 minutes or something. It's an awareness ad. Yeah.

Dr. Sara Liddell (31:45):

Reach that also authority they authority. So they hear their name and they're like, oh, I've heard about that before, when they see your ad, they don't even know where they've seen you before or heard about you before, but they've heard about you. And so therefore you must be the authority. So, um, but like with you it's, um, it would be easy to say, well, I'll let you do one thing, but not this other, but then the other company I'm working with while you can do my website, but no, I'm not going to do that. Google ad words thing, and then say, well, the website didn't help me at all. Well, if you're not directing it, but it's your website and they're not seeing your website, then it's not going to do any good. The other thing is, is, uh, giving enough time for the, something to work.

Dr. Sara Liddell (32:23):

So it seems like in anything you could say, uh, any skill you've ever tried to master or any goal you'd ever, it's so common for people to get like 90% of the way there and then quit and success, and then they quit. Um, and the discipline to just keep going. Um, you know, the biggest example I have of that is our wellness plans. That was a very painful startup process. And, um, it costs money up front and it was a lot of things that were difficult about that. And now it, uh, has a million dollars a year revenue. Yeah,

Zack Greenfield (33:01):

Totally. Just, just stop right there and just describe what it is specifically. So people that are listening can understand what the wellness plan is.

Dr. Sara Liddell (33:08):

Um, I think a lot of people in this profession understand what they are, but they are a prescription based, uh, service. So you sign up for one year and it provides in our case, all of the wellness care than it pet would need for the year and any, some included dental and some don't some include a spay and neuter or some don't, but, uh, vaccines, blood work, uh, heartworm, preventative, heartworm testing, and then plus, or minus a dental plus or minus spay and neuter. And they pay for that service over the course of a year instead of upfront. And so it auto renews. So then the next year they auto renew. And so they come back in and they get their care. And, um, and so, you know, Banfield does it and a lot of people do it and I figure, and I had a vet recommended to me. And, um, my, without I did some research, it's a very difficult thing to research, but I figured if Banfield's doing it, it's probably financially feasible and reasonable to do. And, um, but it was a slow, painful start. It was you're providing services and medications to people before they're paying for it.

Dr. Sara Liddell (34:19):

Right. And you have to overcome that hurdle. And we weren't financially well off at the time. It's not like I had a bunch of money sitting around to say yet, give away all this for free and then hope people pay. But we've had very few people not pay. There are a few, um, you know, they, they take everything and then they never pay, but that's very few. And now we're up to seven, 1800 probably wellness plan members. Um, 35% of our clients are on wellness plans and they typically, uh, spend three times the amount per year that our non wellness plan members spend. Now, that's very easy for people to say, that's so amazing. I want to do that while you have to be committed to stick with it and give it time to grow and

Zack Greenfield (35:00):

How your, since you started till today, like six, okay. So six and again, and you're, and then we, we got that number, I think up recently from, I think it was floating at like 27% enrollment that we got into the thirties, I think in the last like nine months

Zack Greenfield (35:15):

Pushing hard, hard too.

Dr. Sara Liddell (35:17):

Yeah. And you have to push hard. You have to, your, your staff has to believe in it. You have to, but then you realize, oh, these people are really easy to treat. They walk in the door and they don't say no. They're like, yep. Yep, yep. And it takes, it takes away all the education time. Talk time it reduces the visit. People are happier. They do more for their pet because they don't have the out-of-pocket expense, the moment of the vaccines and the blood work. So then they're like, yeah, go ahead and check that lump or treat that a different thing, take an x-ray whatever you need to do, because the perceived expense is different than what the rent, the real expenses cause they're putting for. But, and

Zack Greenfield (35:51):

Then what has that done for you? Just having just, I mean, from a business standpoint, there's nothing beats just having that regular pretty much guaranteed cashflow at the beginning of the month, every time those run. Huh.

Dr. Sara Liddell (36:03):

I think that, um, you'll see, when you really see it is that we grew, I knew a lot of people grew during, during COVID, but we grew like 35% and part of, and we, when we looked back, we didn't grow. Like we stayed pretty static. I also lost a doctor in there and things like that, but we stayed pretty static on our, our regular doctor or, you know, medical stuff with the wellness plans, created a lot of that, um, that difference in the revenue. So revenue growth. Yeah. And it, but imagine if that wasn't there and like say we had shut down for a couple of months. I still would have had, um, what is $80,000 a month coming in? Yeah.

Zack Greenfield (36:48):

Because you could have been able to maintain those subscriptions. Yep.

Dr. Sara Liddell (36:51):

Exactly. You have to pay for what services they used, uh, at full price. And so most people don't cancel those, keep

Zack Greenfield (37:00):

It. I gotta, I gotta say, I think the whole thing is genius and I've been a big fan and that, and it's been again, another great marketing angle and another wonderful value proposition to talk to, like through, we've done a lot of emailing on that because a lot of that has been remarketed to the existing clients that had come in and done a one exam or something to try to get them committed, to being a longterm, you know, subscriber, if you will, to the, to the plan. But also it, it, it's a long-term commitment that they're gonna, you know, be loyal to the practice. So there's a couple of different faces to it that create a lot of stability for you as the business owner. But, um, it's, I think it's just genius in the way that it's, you know, it's giving you a residual that, you know, if you look back 10 years ago to this type of business that wasn't even, uh, you know, that wasn't really being contemplated, you know, it was always like, it was always like, what, how many new clients can you get? What are we going to book? There was never anything that was, that was the revenue foundation that you could then stand on and, you know, keep pushing your business higher.

Dr. Sara Liddell (38:05):

Well, and you'll hear a lot of people say that they don't work and it's not that they don't necessarily, they don't work is that they didn't go, they didn't stay with it long enough. Right. Yeah. And there

Zack Greenfield (38:15):

You go. And, and this has been a six year story for you to get to where now it's an incredible piece of your business. Yeah. It didn't take six. It didn't take six months. I think that's, I think that's a great point. Is that people, again, this is like that lightning strike thing. It's like, oh, let's do wellness plans. And then you try six months, you know, and you only got 3% of your clients signed up and you're like, oh, it's crap. Nobody wants that. But that's, you know, you're living proof that the difference between success and failure is often just time and commitment.

Dr. Sara Liddell (38:42):

And they say, you know, an overnight success takes about 10 years. You know, there you go. Well,

Zack Greenfield (38:51):

Maybe we should wrap it up on that. And then we'll folks, I think this is great. I just, I just want to thank you so much. I want to tell you for one that, uh, your, you being committed, uh, extending trust and, and seeing the big picture, uh, has been an absolute pleasure for me over the years. It's, it's, you've been one of the most fun projects for both me and my entire staff. And I love working with your staff at the, at the office there you've found great people. Um, everybody, you know, from my side seems to enjoy working and working hard for you. And they believe in the vision that you've created. And I think you've done something really special for, you know, the animals in the community, but for the community at large and provided a lot of jobs and created a great lifestyle. I think I want to point out to you folks that Sarah doesn't necessarily go to work every day anymore. Do you?

Dr. Sara Liddell (39:41):

No. No. I haven't stepped in the building in a couple of weeks. That's, that's

Zack Greenfield (39:46):

The, that's the best thing ever. I love that.

Dr. Sara Liddell (39:49):

Can I leave with saying one thing is that I, you know, Stephen Covey is kind of, some people might think that the seven habits of highly effective people is a little cliche, but truly it beginning with the end in mind is, is really so important. So let's take it back to when I first opened the practice because I'm an emergency vet at heart. I literally, I started with the practice manager and I literally naively thought, great. I'll just put this practice manager here. We'll get this place going. I'll have a couple of vets and I will look, I'll be at emergency debt when I want to. Yeah.

Zack Greenfield (40:24):

Is that, is that is something you're thinking still thinking about?

Dr. Sara Liddell (40:27):

No, no, I'm good. I love medicine, but, um, but I, but my point is, is like, my intention was always to not be there. My intention is always to have it run itself as a business. It is not Sarah Lydell veterinary hospital, it's river city, veterinary hospital. And I've never promoted myself as the reason why people should come to river city. And I, you know, me, I don't want myself being the face.

Zack Greenfield (40:51):

I did. I tried to get her to do some videos, but she didn't even want to get too, too out in front of everybody. And so that's, you know, but that's, it, that's a strategical decision that you've made. That's a lifestyle decision because you want that freedom, whatever the reasons were from, you know, those have changed over the years, but you want your freedom now and you've got it. It's

Dr. Sara Liddell (41:10):

Amazing. And so I would tell you, I work about five hours a week, four to five hours a week. And that's, if I choose to, I also don't have to the, um, that's a whole different, like probably conversation, but, um, that requires being able to delegate and trust people and allow them to make mistakes. Um, right.

Zack Greenfield (41:28):

You've done that with us. So I know I'm on the receiving end of that. And I really appreciate it. And you know, and, and you've given, I think me and, and everybody that works for you enough room to find their own success and, and in the roles that you've asked them to perform.

Zack Greenfield (41:41):

Yeah,

Dr. Sara Liddell (41:42):

Yeah, yeah. To be okay. It's okay. If they mess up every once in a while and you can't then say, well, see, now I have to do everything myself. Um, but yeah, and I, I, I appreciate you saying that, but it is something that has to be very intentional. You don't just one day decide. Okay, well now I'm not going to be there anymore. There's this? Yeah. It

Zack Greenfield (42:00):

Took it. It took, it took you a few decades, but look at you now, look

Dr. Sara Liddell (42:03):

At me now a few decades, come on, man. That's mean,

Zack Greenfield (42:06):

Well, wait, well, it wasn't a century. No, but I mean, you started 21 years ago. Here you are. So I think that's like you get to 15 years. All right. Bird.

Dr. Sara Liddell (42:20):

Wow. You've been in practice for 20 years and, um, I was like, oh she, yeah. Yes, I have. Thank you for pointing, pointing that out. Um, she said positive thing, but you start to realize, it seems like five, 10 years, but yeah. Time, time, pat marches on

Zack Greenfield (42:35):

Yeah. Time marches on, but you're, you're at a great, uh, you're in a great new chapter and you've got an awesome business and, uh, and you've provided so much. So I just want to thank you again and, and, and being on here and doing the show with me and everything else has been awesome. So I hope you have a great day. Get back to whatever you're doing. Looks pretty recreational right now. So, and I hope you have a great week.

Dr. Sara Liddell (42:58):

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we're cropped the mountains. Also.

Speaker 1 (43:04):

Thank you for listening to this episode of practice. So Matt subscribe to the podcast. So you don't miss any future episodes for additional help and resources for your practice. Visit Zack greenfields.com to connect with Zach. Visit Zach greenfield.com/zg.