Hello everyone, and welcome to the Future of Veterinary Medicine. I'm your host, David Hall, one of the co-founders of GeniusVets, and I'm so thrilled today to be bringing you just one of the finest doctors in veterinary medicine, Dr. Michele Drake, joining the webinar here today.

 

Dr. Michele Drake is a leading progressive voice in the veterinary industry and the owner of a top-performing veterinary practice in Encinitas, California. The Drake Center for Veterinary Care is a seven doctor, 40 employee practice that consistently outperforms competitors and industry averages because of Dr. Drake's passion for embracing change and implementing new technologies. From the latest digital marketing strategies and social media platforms to automated scheduling systems. She's served on committees and advisory boards for the University of California, AAHA, Novartis, and others. Dr. Drake got her DVM degree at the University of Missouri and founded the Drake Center for Veterinary Care in 1992.

 

 

 

Dr.Drake also serves as the chief veterinary officer here at GeniusVets. We're the highest performing digital marketing company in the veterinary industry, and Michele, as always, thanks so much for taking a little time out of your incredibly. I do know how busy you are, super busy. Thanks for taking some time to join us.

 

One of the things Michele that I'm asking every one of our guests to start off is, what are you looking forward to most once COVID is completely over? We can all just go back to business as usual. What are you missing?

 

So I got my first vaccine last week, and I'm super excited about that. So that is a huge step with preparing to launch out of COVID, and I'm very excited about that. There's a couple of things. I would say, for one, as a veterinarian, I am truly anxious to get people back in the building. I know we all joke about how that's been great to not have people in there, but come on, we really do need to bond with humans also so that we can build a relationship with them. We've really missed out on that. We've seen so many new clients with COVID, and I'm looking forward to actually meeting them in person. So that's for one, I'm looking forward to having some parties and going to some parties, and I'm also looking forward to traveling again for fun and for business too. I wouldn't say that, but I'm actually looking forward to traveling for business, even.

 

Did I just hear that you got the vaccination already?

So different states have put veterinarians, I think probably more than half have put veterinarians on that essential list. We were right below the human medical doctors, and some of my doctors have been talking about even volunteering to give vaccines, or there's like a commission to help out. So we're pretty certain we could vaccinate humans also, but just as a practice, we're just so excited to just relieve some of the tension of everybody worrying quite as much. We'll still be wearing masks for right now, but it does definitely increase your sense that you're not going to pick up COVID right now.

 

Before we can move on and talk about vet care, with all the craziness from COVID, all the political tensions and stresses, and all of that, what have you done to protect your mental health?

So probably about 10 years ago or so, I started working on how to live in the present, and when you live in the present, you really suffer so much less anxiety because you're not thinking about the past or, more importantly, thinking about the future because you don't really own those. You only own the minute that you're in. So that's a constant practice for me, and it truly does when you start to venture into this place; it sounds a little new agey. I live in California, so maybe that's part of it, but honestly, once you start learning to be a more present person, so much anxiety goes away.

 

I'm a big mountain biker—I mountain bike almost every day, even in the bad weather. I was still out in it this weekend. I'm lucky to live in California, but I'm on my bike pretty much every day, ripping up some cardio about 45 minutes to an hour every single day. Just that really helps to even out all the crazies, and that kind of thing usually keeps my energy level up. I have a lot of energy, and those things just really contribute to that.

 

Let's transition, let's talk a little bit about more of the meat of the interview here. We're going to jump into trends in the industry. One of the more concerning trends that we certainly watch here at GeniusVets and talk about a lot is the trend of consolidation, the trend for practice owners to be selling to larger corporate groups, kind of getting swallowed up into that and what that means for the future of independent veterinary medicine. What do you think is driving consolidation, and what do you think the future really looks like?

Well, I think what's driving is obviously there's money to be made in veterinary medicine. I've heard many people say, "We never make millions of dollars," but we never run out of business either, and we're obviously a very recession-proof profession. So these consolidators have realized that by capitalizing on buying a bunch of practices and rolling them up, that they are able to cash out and do very well. I think some of the things that are driving them is that the biggest practices in our profession are mostly people that are really like my age group, the late forties, and fifties.

So they're thinking about retiring somewhat. Maybe they're getting a little bit tired, and these consolidators are flashing vast numbers of dollars in front of us. You can see where it's tempting, especially; I've heard some people say, "After this COVID, I'm totally selling out," or they're even selling out during, and I respect that. I've had many good friends who have taken this route, and I'm respectful of their decision also, but I think there are many alternatives that people have not thought through. I think our professional leaders' groups have not done a great job preparing practices.

Individual practices, we're all a little island on our own, but together we're so much stronger. I do think it's imperative for AAHA and AVMA, which are the only two organizations I can truly think of. Then our state organizations too, but especially AVMA and AAHA to really think about what are the strategies we need to encourage these larger practices and powerful practices remaining independent to continually look for that because while consolidators offer a value to those that want to sell, I think in the big, long run, having all veterinary medicine owned by corporate groups is not good for veterinary medicine. I think to have all our, whatever, apples in one bucket is just not a good way to go.

It's going to decrease, I think ... Well, just in my area. So in my area, there are probably three or four large practices that have all been bought up by corporate. So I have four practices near me. During COVID, we saw so many of their clients begging to get into my practice because these guys are just like, "Eh, we're full. Sorry." There's just no motivation once they become corporate to push themselves to really help people out. So that's a broad generalization; I'm sure it's not across for everybody, but for the most part, I think there's not great leadership in all practices, to begin with, but once they sell out who's mining that store, making sure these people are well taken care of? I just think it's not there. So I think it's going to be not so helpful for our clients.

I just think our profession in general, then who are they buying from and all the consolidation that's going on in the pharmaceutical industry, who is watching out for the independent veterinarian? Really, no one is. Honestly, I feel as an independent veterinarian; there is no one watching out for me. I have to remain strong and independent on my own, and David, I've heard you say so many times the David versus Goliath scenario. I truly think that independent veterinarians are much stronger or much better capable of managing our practices and making them great places to work and also economically very sustainable places to own, better than anybody else can do that, but we do need backup. We need help. We need people that are watching out for us. So a long answer to your question there, but I think it's an important topic that our leadership in our industry needs to pay attention to.

I have known my employees for an extremely long time; I have so many long-term employees. So without a doubt, that would play a role in my decision to sell to corporate that I would be thinking about their long-term play also, and how that would affect them. So I would imagine that everybody in that situation is thinking that also, and I've just heard from so many groups that tell me that they say things are not going to change, and they do change. So I think we have to know that and also, I think it was something I got from John Tait, who is like one of my favorite people to lean into for good information-said that like 60 to 70% of the people after they sell, wish they hadn't. So that's something to pay attention to. When someone like that tells me something that like that, I would think it, and I hope others do as well. Realize that there are different ways to go about this. As John mentions, it's the accumulation of long-term wealth and not just this one check that someone's going to give you that can fuel a really nice gradual retirement for owners that have big practices. So I just think, talk to John or other people that can help you figure out ways of structuring it so you can slowly mentor your doctors that are younger doctors into leadership roles and maybe find different ways of selling your practice to them or whatever in ways that are just better for the practice.

 

What do you really think would cause more practice owners? What are the levers, the mechanisms that you think would cause more practice owners to want to maintain ownership?

So I think just knowing that there are ways that you could start to step back and mentor people to like, what are the specific roles, like understanding what are the things that need to happen in your practice and learning how to mentor different people in the practice to assume those roles so that you can still maintain ownership. Because as long as you own it, you're going to want to have tabs on what's going on, but allow you to start stepping back and maybe even grooming some of these people to actually own part of the practice too, or are all of it eventually.

So anyway, I think that's something that would help these people. Still, just having tools and having different ways, besides somebody just writing you a big check and leaving everybody out in the cold, including yourself, your team, and probably your long-term wealth, I think it would be affected by just taking the check and walking away.

 

There has to be a transition strategy somewhere, but understanding what the different options are instead of thinking, this is the only way out, right?

I'm not a cynic, but I've been in veterinary medicine a long time, in my own practice. I've owned three practices total, and I'm getting ready to build a little extra hospital right now, too. I got to say that I feel like that industry, they're there to make money, and I get it. Still, I feel like really paying attention to independent veterinarians and truly trying to help us is not present in any part of the industry. I don't think any of these big consolidating groups of pharmaceutical companies are looking out for veterinarians at all. I think they all know that they can make more money from us and take more from us. I think looking at some of these internet pharmacy groups; this is not to our benefit at all. I don't think there is a good alternative for us at this time.

So I just think just being aware, I know the world is going to go the way the world is going to go, but I think we should at least be aware. I think also pharmaceutical groups and industry need to be aware that a lot of us are watching you guys. We know we have so little power because we're just one individual person. Still, you know if AVMA and AAHA could help us be stronger as a group, I think that would allow us much more room, but I feel like everybody's a little bit too much into industry's pockets, honestly, in one way or another and they're not looking out for us at all.

The way I look at everything is I can only control what I can control. I can't control what everyone else does. So within my veterinary hospital, I can control how I do business. I control my culture in my hospital. I can control my profitability for the most part. There are certain things you can't control, your rent, but you can control pretty much every other aspect of your business and who you're going to do business with. You can control those things too. There are a few organizations out there that ... Look, I think like TVC is one that I feel like has really ... It's membership owned and they are truly looking out for their members. So that's one I can think of right off the head.

I think AAHA has a lot of ability to be a strong player, and I've just seen some question marks in my head the last few years. However, I still think there's lots of opportunities and I'm hopeful that they will continue to be a strong leader for us and obviously the AVMA too. I would like to look to them for more progressive thought in this area.

 

This would lead me to ask you, somebody who is probably the most qualified person in the country, I believe to be answering these types of questions is, how do you build and really maximize the value of your practice?

So when I first bought my very first practice, I was 27, and I had a mentor, Terry Roberts. He was a veterinarian who's retired and a really good man and still to this day, my good friend, and he told me to always run my practice as if I would have to sell it in three months. So that means your numbers have to be good all the time. So I have kept my payroll and my drugs and supplies at a number that I think is where they should be every month. Maybe they fluctuate 1% or two on occasion, but those two numbers are significant numbers to maintain profitability.

There are certain things like your rent, which can't be higher than whatever percent you want to pick, eight, nine, 10. You know, I've been fortunate in that I bought my building a long time ago in 1998, and I've built a practice tremendously since then. So, those are things that I've been fortunate to do, but I grew the business myself. Nobody grew it for me, and that's just been something I've really always focused on. Culture in my hospital is huge. In my very first three months of practice, I fired the only RVT I had because she was not nice to my other staff members.

I called her Eddie Haskell and the other employees, that's the first few months they had with me; the one came up to me and said, "Ding dong, the witch is dead," and they all knew there was a new sheriff in town and I wasn't going to tolerate people who are not nice and not working together as a team. That's the culture that I had. I started having staff meetings when I was 27 with my staff at my house, having pizza on a Friday night once a month and determining who is it we want to be and what are the things, what are our goals so that my staff always knew who we were and where we were headed all the time.

I still, all through COVID, I've been Zooming like crazy with all the different departments in my hospital. We've hired eight new employees, and we just hired a second new doctor. So during COVID, so we're up definitely total of nine if you include me and the doctor numbers. These are things that we do have control over. We have control over the culture in our hospital, and I'm online looking at some of these Facebook groups of veterinarians. I just see them just telling these horrible stories, and I think the answer is so clear.

If you just wrote four paragraphs on Facebook about a certain employee, what do you think the answer is? Fire them now. It's just, why would you let your other employees have to deal with this horrible person every day? It just totally drags down your culture, and it makes it just hypocrisy. So those are the things that I've always done. I make the rough choices; they're not really hard choices when you think about what they're doing to the rest of the team and what they're doing to your culture in your hospital. So I find those choices really easy.

 

Find out how to attend the GeniusVets Culture Workshop by Dr. Michele Drake

 

I have found in this industry; there is a lot of conflict avoidance. Oh, I don't want to do the hard thing, knowing what it is, you just gotta do it.

It's easy, really. When you just know what it is you're trying to be, and this doesn't fit in that, then you know what your answer is. Then if you just keep sticking with that, then the whole staff knows who you are, who we are as a team, and they'll help you decide who needs to go. Super important.

 

When I first met you, you had a very different perspective on what marketing was and what it means to a practice compared to many of the practice owners that I've had the opportunity to speak to over the past five and a half years that I've been in this industry. So can you shed a little bit of light? How do you see the role of marketing in your veterinary practice?

So I've always just thought of marketing as just letting people know who we are and what we do in our hospital. That's all. So first of all, you have to know who you are, and you have to be true to that and know what your mission statement is very clear and everyone on the staff should be able to almost spot it verbatim. Know who you are, what you're about, what you do in your hospital, and then simply telling that to people. So way back when, like when I was in infantile veterinary ownership, and there was no cell phone or internet, that's how old I am, we used brochures, and it was mostly word of mouth.

I had no visibility where I was my first little tiny practice, and it was just really good service and good care for my staff and little brochures and the Yellow Pages, and that's changed. So it's always paying attention to, who is your customer? What are the things that they need from you? How do they get their information, and how can you best be the one they come to for information and care? That has changed tremendously over the years, like so much. So, I mean, this thing changed everything so much, but even now, it changes all the time.

So I have to rely on really intelligent people like David to tell us, what are the things now that are the tools we need to use to get our information out to our clients and our prospective clients?

I think there are so many misconceptions about marketing that veterinarians have. When they think of marketing, all they think of is having a pretty website and putting some things on Facebook now. I think that's their understanding, and that's such a small part of it. Obviously, you have to have a very vigorous website, meaning it doesn't just look pretty. It's able to get you traffic.

Veterinarians just think it's just something, oh, I just got to pay somebody to put that up there for me, and really marketing again is knowing who you are constantly working on it, inside your building, and then constantly just putting information out that comes from you, yourself. So, of course you might use some other information, but it has to be organic of who we are, and only we know who we are and only we know our stories and how we recommend vaccinations occur or what kind of puppy packs do we use.

The thing is that it does take time and energy, but it's really important time and energy to be spending that also makes you a more disciplined business. So it's a whole visual of just marketing as something you just pay somebody to put up for you, versus a constant, just gradual adding to, changing, updating, what are clients using now? What tools do they go to? How do these things work? You obviously do need help from a company, but the real integrity of what the information is should come from the practice itself.

 

This isn't meant to just be a marketing talk. Talking about the business fundamentals, you mentioned payroll. That being really important, which leads me to remember some of the interesting conversations that I've had throughout this webinar series with various people in the industry. Some of it is related to this problem of there not being enough doctors, not being enough techs, and that shortage of people in the workforce. The more initial problem to tackle is ensuring that doctors are doing doctor level work. They're not doing like vet tech and reception level work, and vet techs are allowed to do the work they are qualified to do, and they're maximized in that way, and so is everybody else on the administrative staff and all of that. What's your feeling on that?

So it's constant, and of all things in running a small business, I would say that training is probably one of the most arduous tasks involved in running a small business. That's because it is constant, and if you find that it exhausts you mentally, you'll want to sell your business very quickly because it is a constant thing. So you have to find ways of continually updating that. I work on my practice from this office at home all the time. Four o'clock in the morning, if I wake up early, I'm working on my practice. So I'm excited all the time about dealing with the intricacies of things, changing all the time. So you do have to kind of embrace that, that that's just a reality of it, and I would say as far as doctors should be diagnoses, prescribing, and doing surgery. Those are the three things doctors should be doing.

Now, it doesn't mean that I don't have doctors have to draw blood in my practice on occasion or take ... Actually, they never take x-rays, but doctors do have to jump in and do some tech work on occasion because things just happen that way. For the most part, our doctors do doctor work, and that's about it. The charting itself and client communication that doctors need to do are very time-consuming in addition to doing surgery, prescribing and diagnosing physical exams and things and the treatment that they have to do. So we really can't have doctors doing anything else, or it would be hard to be profitable.

Leaning into, I think at this time, I have five RVTs in my practice, and we always have a great RVT group, but we also have some really highly on the job trained technicians who are vital to our place. It's just constantly training them and them training new people, and it's just part of a small business. Our reception team is highly trained also. I put a lot of focus into our reception team. So when it comes to hiring new people, like when I kept hearing people ... I saw so many people complaining about how they had too much business and were just shutting down, not seeing new clients, and I just never understand that.

I'm here to provide service and care, and if I have more clients, then I just have to hire and train more staff. There are plenty of people out there that need jobs. There are plenty of awesome people out there who need jobs. Hire for your culture and some smart people who will fit and move quickly and then get them in there and train them.

That's a constant in our profession, and if we can't be okay with that, we're going to get real tired real soon. So you just have to do that, and I've never had a problem finding the doctor, ever, and that's because we work hard in our culture, and my website is robustly prominent of who we are authentically and promote that. So when somebody is going to move to San Diego, and they're looking for a job and they look at your websites, and also in San Diego, we just are now known as a really great place to work. So we have people come and apply to us.

The last two doctors that I just had applying for jobs said that they've been stalking the Drake Center and waited until ... We've only advertised once, and that was during COVID because we didn't really have any other opportunities to get out of meetings or anything like that to meet people. They both said they had been waiting for an opening at the Drake Center. So that's a really nice place to be, and that's because I have an amazing team who all agree with me on a strong culture, but we work on it.

 

What should a practice manager be doing, and what should they not be doing?

Oh, that's a big question. So my practice manager has been with me the entire time I've owned my practice. She was a receptionist when I first bought the practice, and through that, she's gone to school for hospital administration, thought about human, and been with me the whole time. So she knows our culture really well. So she hires all the staff except the doctors, but she even participates in that and gives her opinion on it. So hiring and then farming off training and just helping with the hospital's operations is really important. Obviously, the logistics of, there's so much involved with HR anymore and keeping you up to speed on the correct laws. COVID has been truly exhausting for everyone to keep up with, we're supposed to do it this way.

Oh, now we're supposed to do it this way. Now you can't do that. When this person gets sick, how many days do they have to be out and how many people have to get tested? How do we pay them? All these things that we've had to stay up on, that's a practice manager's role, and it's been exhausting for her. She's done an amazing job with it, but we also have a girl that's our, we call her our marketing media specialist and she works almost full-time for us, but she takes off a lot of the things from our practice manager's ... Off her plate of like staff support. Birthdays, parties.

Then she interviews me all the time on topics that we need to get onto our website. So she manages all those things because there's no way a manager could do that also. That's not what a manager really wants to do, but she is under the tutelage of our manager. So those are some things that a manager should not be doing, obviously, and it depends on the size of your hospital, obviously. If you're a $1 million practice, you're doing one thing with your manager, and if you're two, three, four, five, and six, you may have different levels of management within there, but I don't know if that answers your question very well.

We have a leadership team, and we don't have a head tech or a head receptionist. We have a leadership team, and it kind of moves around sometimes, but we do ask different people in different departments to help our manager take certain tasks off her plate because she can't be fixing the printer every day. Just things like that, and she does wind up doing that sometimes, too, because I talked to her today. She's like, "We're so swamped because we're seeing Pathways' patients. I shouldn't have said what corporate groups patients we saw today, but we're seeing their patients today because they can't manage to fit them in. So she was just going around and putting out fires today.

That does happen for any manager, obviously, but we do need her to also be in the long play, like constantly looking at the big picture of what the staffing needs are. I do an updated staffing needs on a weekly basis. So we look at how many shifts do we need, have things changed? Because through COVID, our business grew 20 to 25% a month. So to manage that kind of an increase, you have to be constantly training and hiring and reassessing what needs the doctors have to make sure that they all have what they need and yet keeping that number under control, and that is a big job.

So I actually have what I call my who helps me with that. We work together on that, and then we bring the manager and in on it, but I can't have the manager just doing all of that because she would be overwhelmed. So she has enough other things to work on, but she's already always a part of all those conversations. So we'll jump on Zoom just frequently, "Hey, let's jump on and talk about this." Whatever.

 

So getting back to alternative exit strategies that could maybe be appealing to practice owners, if they can learn about them and you gave some good resources on that, but ultimately if there's an exit that an owner wants to consider. They're going to end up selling to a group that is a corporate group. One of the big differentiating factors seems to be these models wherein one model, the original owner maintains equity, and actually stays in and enters in more of a partnership with the practice, and that seems to be a very different proposition as opposed to the 100% buyouts and what that means. What are your feelings? What's your take on that?

Well, I think without a doubt, there needs to be a different model that would allow, if nothing else, the associates who are remaining to have some ownership potential. So I think a lot of the current model, from my understanding, and I'm not very knowledgeable of it, is that the corporate group may buy 80% of your practice. You're maintaining 20% of that, but that's going to roll up in three to five years, and just the hope would be that that would be even worth more at that time based on all the other practices they purchased during that time.

So I'm not really sure that it's truly a partnership. Still, it can be a partnership with three to five years that could turn out to be really great for everybody. Still, again, I feel like there has to be some opportunity for some of the employees who will want to remain, especially key doctors and maybe the manager too, who's a key manager to have an opportunity to have some of that ownership potential moving forward if the owner does decide to step out completely. So that might allow for a little different culture in the transition.

I don't think it would ever be the same, though as those that are in practice owning the practice. Again, I can only speak for John Tait so far has been someone who, to me has really laid out a really nice thoughtful way for owners to consider selling to their associates or make it a gradual change. Still, I'm sure others are speaking about it, and I just don't know, that actually know.

 

I'd like to change tracks just a little bit and talk about another force that is really a force to watch and change, and we've had a lot of discussion about, as it relates to the veterinary industry, and that's the issue of data. Data, the thing that every big corporation really wants and all of the veterinary practice owners, independent owners have, and not as many of them necessarily understand how it's being used and potentially abused and where it's safe and where it's interesting and all of those sorts of things. Let's talk about data tracking, aggregation of that data, and the sharing of that data. Starting with the really best-case scenario here, let's identify there's good in data. How does data help practice owners streamline their operations and maximize their profits?

I'm part of a veterinary management group, and we do anonymously submit our data. We use that, and there are best practices for the top 20% of the practices, and it's nice to see what their numbers are and to always strive for those numbers and understanding the trend change, even during COVID. I had access to data across the country, and that's through VMG, and it's been really helpful, and I appreciate that I have that opportunity to see that, and I'm sure many groups do the same. Probably TVC has something similar. I don't really know what they have, but I think that's great data for veterinarians to have as things change and the numbers can move around accordingly. My biggest problem with data is that veterinarians, we're small business people. We are not knowledgeable in every particular area.

I think we've been highly taken advantage of by a lot of, just corporations in general. I'm just going to use that term, and my biggest problem and I'll say this to anybody any time is when you use our data to then compete against us, which is happening right now. That, to me is incredibly unethical and it's occurring everywhere in veterinary medicine. They are using our data to compete against us, and I think veterinarians, I wish that our leadership would help us with that because we have no control over that as individual practices.

You can give me a 20-page document with fine print, and I probably would not understand it enough to know what I just read. So I have to rely on somebody else to help me with that, or we're not looking to hire an attorney every time we sign a contract on something. I think I see so many malicious groups saying things like, "We're going to take your data, and it's here to help you," and I know for certain that that data is being used to compete against us. I'm not going to use names on that, but you know who you are.

 

In some respects, common sense to see that like, yeah, well, this data is really valuable to them because it empowers them to grow their business, and if they're growing their share of the veterinary market, what does that mean to the others? It means that they have strength in some way, but beyond that feeling and that belief that it is, can you talk about any specifics that you have seen where you know that this data has been used and is at the detriment of practices?

I would say that anyone's involved in the online pharmacies right now, in any of these groups that say, "We just want to have your information so we can help you grow," I don't want to use names. I feel really awkward doing that- But they're using our data to compete against us. I understand that clients want online pharmacies. The problem I have with it is that these groups and I would say the big pharmaceutical companies are all happy to work with all of them easily. Yet, they all rely on veterinarians to educate clients and to sell their products first, and then they're happy to take the proceeds from that afterwards and I don't see where they contribute back to us in any form or fashion.

So that's my problem with it really is that they need us to sell their products and then they're going to sell them online. I don't know that there is truly a way back from that, but let's create awareness that that is going on, and gosh, again, please, large groups help us with that because we can't control that.

What I think that veterinary practice owners need to understand is that once that data is out and, yes, it's anonymized, but this is what large companies use to identify trends. They're looking for those weak spots in maybe how the pet owner population is being currently served. Then they can go after those and really get a firm grip on, a secure foothold in those areas that perhaps there's room for them to insert themselves, but then they use it as a wedge to drive out and to grab a larger share of the market. So it's not a direct player they're going after; it's doing it in a roundabout way that leads to that.

That's happening all the time, every day, and we're ignorant if we don't think that it is. So the problem is that it's taking a lot of the low-hanging fruit for veterinarians, which is a lot of our bread and butter, and it's tough enough for any small business. I'm in California. You cannot find a tougher state to be a business owner than this one. Everything is stacked against you in every form and fashion, like owning a building, having employees, taxes, regulations, trying to build anything. It's like just plan on spending 25 to 30% more just to live in this state, and that's because of the government that we have here. Now throw on the top of it that you're going to start having corporate groups use our data to compete against us and take more from us. It's really tough.

So here I was telling you, "Keep your business, you can do it better than anybody else," and I'm telling you, like, "It's getting scary and hard." I get like that sometimes too, but then I just have to remember, I can only control what I can control and those things I can do really well. Currently, I will crush any corporate group's numbers any day of the week. So as long as I can still keep doing that, and that's just by paying attention and being a positive person and running my business as best I can and taking as best care of my staff as I possibly can, then I'm still in.

 

So data isn't going to go away. You can't really opt out at this point. It's just not very feasible. So given the fact that the accumulation, the generation, accumulation, and aggregation of data is a trend that's going to continue, do you have any ideas around how to alleviate the concerns and how to actually put up some protections and do anything that will actually, not necessarily stop data from getting generated or in tracked, but that could actually put in some protections for independent veterinary practices?

Well, having software companies not being able to use our data is like number one. So, none of the software companies are that great, to begin with. We don't have good software for the veterinary industry to begin with, and I'm sure it's because we can only afford so much, but they all use our data. So that's the scariest place right there. So somebody, AVMA, AAHA, I don't know, whoever, somebody gets in there and make sure that stops. Then otherwise, we only share our data with groups that we know we can trust, and that's a scary thing sometimes because you might think you trust a group, and then they sell, and they might've said one thing, but they sold to somebody else, and now they have all your data.

So be mindful of that when you ... But again, I do get benefits from looking at anonymous numbers, from groups of practices that are similar to mine in my demographics, and that kind of thing. I do learn from that, and the trends are helpful for me to understand where my business is in line within the confines of those things, but anyone can tell you, "Oh, no, we don't use your data like that.” I don't have the energy or the time to combat that. So it really would come down to somebody bigger than me helping me figure that one out.

 

Let's get back to competing with corporate groups. So now they're out there, they're growing, you have an independent practice you want to protect. How can independent practices really compete? Now, you brought up the concept of being David and Goliath, and I love applying that all the time. I would always rather be David than Goliath because you can be nimble. You can move quickly, you can do things that they can't do. React in ways you care more, you can deliver more stuff. At the Drake Center, you're outperforming these corporate groups around you. If you have a real competitor and a corporate group consolidates it, it's great for you because you know you can outperform them. Can you give some advice, how do these independent practices compete and win against corporate groups entering their area?

Well, you nailed it. It's just we're nimble, and if we do, I look at KPIs, key performance indicators every week. I look at the average transaction, the number of transactions, the amount of my payroll, the amount of my income versus my amount of my income that week and I'm just looking at it on a weekly basis. There are about eight different indicators that I use just to look at, to see what's going on. I had my first somewhat quiet day, we've been booked every single day, constantly. We always leave some spaces open for urgent care because we've been booked every day, but it's just being nimble and paying attention and keeping energy positive and flowing all the time in the practice is huge. You have to pay attention to your people in your practice, know what's going on, pay attention to your numbers, and adjust accordingly.

If your payroll is too high, you have to reduce it, but use your whole team to come up with the best way to do that but in the end, you're going to have to decide how that's going to happen. Then this is what we're going to do and why are we going to do that? Because I want to give you guys health insurance too and I want to make sure you have time off, and I want to make sure you have these things. To do that, we have to make sure our number is here. So it's just like, I've always, and I train my doctors from the very beginning. We're much more interested in taking care of our staff than we are our client's pocketbooks. So we don't worry about our client's pocketbooks.

Come to us, don't come to us, do what you want. We have a high level of care. Boutique service in my practice costs more. I pay my staff more, I treat them well, I keep them long-term. You have to pay for that. Well, we don't have any problem getting people in the door. We fill it up all the time and that energy, people are attracted to it. They could feel the good, positive energy in the practice.

I've met numerous corporate groups now. I've sat down for lunch. They really don't know what is going on in a practice and how could they? That's not what they do for a living. They're a corporate accumulator, and I can't do their job. I wouldn't know the first thing about it, but they're very good at that. They're not good at running a veterinary hospital.

So if you're an independent guy and you know your practice well, you know your people, you know your clients. You just continue to pay attention to the date of what you need to do to get your numbers where you need to get them, and you can look at big groups of numbers of the trend among high performing practices is this, then make that your goal. Keep it as simple as that. Take two numbers, drugs and supplies, and payroll. Look at AAHA's numbers of the top-performing practices, what those numbers are and make it a goal to hit those numbers. You do that, and you start seeing more money fall to the bottom line. You could pay yourself better. You feel better yourself. You can take your family and you can take care of your staff also. So I would say, keep it simple.

 

Let me rapid-fire you a couple of bullet points here, and I want to hear you say specifically how you compete better than corporate groups in this area. Number one, quality of care.

Oh, well, hands down. We're very passionate about what we do and we own it. So we're very good.

 

You've talked about corporate groups, not to name specific names, although you've definitely shared names with me in other conversations. But with that, keeping those names out of it, you have talked a lot about your perspective into some of the other corporate groups that you've been able to get and how they are tying one arm behind the back of the DVMs, and they're not really getting to practice medicine...

I know doctors that stay long-term in a corporate group. They don't like them. I have VCA, Pathways, and Banfield right around me and I see all their clients. So I don't know what to say.

 

Culture.

Culture. So culture is so important. Veterinarians, if there's anything I can get you to work on, it is your culture. Either you define your culture or your staff, little weird pockets of people will define it for you. Make your culture about everything you do. It's such a huge thing. That's how I hire people. That's how I retain people, and it's how we enjoy being in our building and don't get burnt out.

 

Marketing, relationship building, and client support.

That's a lot of them, but in marketing, we're super authentic of who we are. We do all our marketing, all our Facebook, everything, all the information we give is our information. We have great systems that make it not too arduous for our doctors or to produce all this information. So we're definitely going to beat corporate groups because we do it in-house with the help of a great marketing team. What were the other ones you asked me about?

We're all real and my staff knows who we are and where we're always headed. So it does change and moves and COVID has been a tough time, but we've done amazing well through COVID of keeping our staff well cared for and not getting burnt out because we just take care of them. When they know where they're going and they know what their responsibility is to their other coworkers, it works out. I haven't had any problem with people getting the vaccine. My staff is all getting vaccinated because that's what we need to do to get out of this. So, I don't know.

 

Community involvement

Community involvement. Well, corporate groups are never going to get involved in the community. So just all of us, we have nine doctors and at least six of them are moms. So just that little bit. Sports teams, groups, I'm doing a Zoom tour and talk on Thursday with an underprivileged group out of LA that a friend of mine asked me to do. Just things like that, that I think, if you work for a corporate, you're not taking your time to do that.

 

Can you talk about, for a minute, dealing with changes and how to keep up with new processes and regain efficiencies?

It's always focusing on what does my team need to do the job that we want them to do? That's always the easiest thing to do. So, COVID hits, and obviously, we're all scared to death at first and got to get through that panic stage for the first few weeks, but then we realize that our phones are ringing off the hook because now we're doing things from the parking lot. You can have your volume of phone calls double or triple and think you're still going to have staff that can manage that. So we immediately found a tool called Zingle, which was a bot, a texting bot that would queue the people up as they came into the parking lot and tell us what cone they're at, dah, dah, dah. It's just a tool that we used and then we started using that tool to make appointments and do med refills, too.

So now that's texting instead of phone calls. Phone calls just take more time. So it was just things like that, that any [inaudible 00:59:11] you have a major challenge, you can use it. You can either fuss about it or you can go like, "Hey, this is the way it is. What's the best way we can respond and going forward, what did we learn from this that's going to make us stronger on the other side?" So it's always looking at that. I really get excited.

Like today, I just write things down like crazy and I get my people on the phone and I'm writing stuff down crazy and like, "Let's try this and think of this." I'm not always jumping around, but I'm always processing what we're doing, how we're doing things, how the staffing is going, do we need more staff? Do we need to hire another doctor? Do we need more space? Do we need to remodel this? That's just every day. We get puppies in all the time and I love puppies. I still love puppies and I like the humans attached to them. So I still really like doing what I do.

 

Five and a half years ago, almost six years ago now, you chose someone with ... An independent veterinary practice owner. You chose to jump in and start a business with myself and Harley with a couple of digital technology guys, to try and change the veterinary industry for the good. Try and introduce something to help. Would you talk for a minute, just about a couple of things? Why did you choose to join GeniusVets? What is it from your perspective that we're really doing here, and how can independent veterinary practice owners understand that what we're doing is different and how can they believe that we're actually doing things that are truly in their best interest?

So I remember the time that you and Harley and I had lunch in Encinitas, and you guys said, "Hey, did you want to be on our board? Did you want to help us with these things?" I would just sit here and listen to all you guys are talking about. I was like, "Oh, no, I want to be part of this company because I'm really passionate that veterinarians do not understand marketing, and I would like them to understand it, and I have two guys who are super talented and highly ethical," and that's not happening in veterinary marketing today, or at least it wasn't until you guys became part of it. It's like you said, veterinarians just want to go, "I just want to hire someone to do my marketing," and I'm like, they can't do that.

So I want to explain to veterinarians that marketing is just part of running a disciplined, healthy veterinary practice/small business, and it's so important now to do that to be relevant to your clients and to be relevant going forward for getting staff, maintaining staff, getting new clients and maintaining them. It's just the way the world runs right now, and if it's done well, it really adds to the culture of your hospital and your enjoyment of running your business.

It can be overwhelming when people first hear about all the things that I do in my practice, but baby steps, you'll get there in a year. So, it's not an overnight success, just getting a website and put it up there. It does require input, but you can just do it little bits at a time. It's like an elephant, eating an elephant one bite at a time.

 

Any last words to anybody? Anything you think that perhaps that anybody watching today, you would recommend that they start doing right now, that you think that they should be paying attention to, or thinking about?

I would say work on your culture first, and if you need help with that, GeniusVets would be happy to help you. I've made some tools that are super basic and easy for any practice to participate in, but if you don't have a good culture and it's not strong, you'll really have a hard time getting anything else accomplished. So I would say start there, and I would also recommend you hire GeniusVets because we have so many tools that are truly geared to help you. Even if you don't hire us, we have so many tools that we'll just share with you to help your practice be stronger.

…

What we have now is we have that GeniusVets Culture Workshop by Dr. Michele Drake available. We've made it free. Any veterinary practice in the country. Again, this is something that we were paid $5,000 per event to go into a single practice and deliver. It's now available for free. It's on our website. It's easy. It's like a 13 and a half minute video. There are a few downloads and PDFs. It's something you can put on TV at a staff meeting, have everyone watch, and I'll tell you what we have, not only from every time we ever did this; check out the chat right now.

You can click to and go to this culture workshop, but we had so much feedback from staff members saying that that was the best staff meeting they ever went to. Not only is it great information, but it's also presented in a fun way, and there's a great little exercise for everyone to do. I'm telling you, it's incredible what this can do for you. So please check that out. It's free, no-obligation. It's free. We do tons and tons and tons of stuff for free. That's aligned with our mission to help independent veterinarian practices thrive.

Well, everybody, thank you so much for joining us here today. I hope that you got a lot out of the conversation. Make sure you check out the podcast. We will be sending out an email tomorrow with a webinar replay, a link here to the replay. We have these webinars going on every week, so make sure you check out next week, as well as if you're an independent veterinary practice; actually, if you're a veterinary practice owner or a manager, did you know that you have a full-page profile for your veterinary practice already live on geniusvets.com? It's true. Go to geniusvets.com/start. There's a little video there. I'll tell you all about it. It's free to claim your profile. They're beautiful. They're nicer than most veterinarian's websites. They rank high in Google search results. It gives people more ways that they can find you. It's completely free. So take advantage of that. Go to genusvets.com/start, check it out, and other than that, watch your email. We're going to send you the webinar replay and hope to see you again on the series. Thanks for your time. Have a great day.