The GeniusVets Show with Thomas Seeko and CJ Burnett

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of The GeniusVets Show, for veterinary practice owners and industry pros. I'm your host, David Hall, co-founder of GeniusVets. Today we're going to be talking about a topic that is super important, your financial future. There's so many people in the veterinary industry that just go in day in, day out, working for their passion. This industry, what's so special about it is that all of you professionals have chosen a career path that is about your passion, about your love for the animals, about doing really great things in the world. You're compassionate, it's amazing, and not necessarily money motivated, but money still makes the world go around, right? You deserve to have a fantastic financial outcome as your career progresses. You deserve to be able to retire comfortably someday. What that requires is some sound financial management.

 

There's a lot of companies out there that do financial management, but there's not a ton of companies that specifically specialize in the veterinary industry, that specifically understand the professionals in this industry, and are willing to help them navigate their careers to make sure that they have this fantastic future.

Today, our guests do exactly that. Florida Veterinary Advisors started in 2014 and officially branded itself in 2017. The goal for the firm was and is to help at least 10% of the veterinary community become financially independent. As providers of RACE, they have a podcast, they're speakers at various veterinary conferences and events and financial advisors that help veterinary professionals with personal and business financial planning. Florida Veterinary Advisors helps make finances simple and easy to implement sound financial strategies into people's lives. Today, I'm very pleased to welcome the co-founders of Florida Veterinary Advisors, CJ Burnett and Thomas Seeko. Gentlemen, welcome to The GeniusVet Show.

Awesome to be here, David.

Let’s start with you telling us about the mission and philosophies of the company before we dive into the specific services you provide. What is your vision with Florida Veterinary Advisors?

I'll pick it up real fast and then CJ can add a little to it. Actually, we're always trying to make it simpler to understand what we're about and what it is exactly that we're trying to provide for the community. Recently, we've actually refined our mission statement to be that we provide a way of thinking to make financial decisions easy so you can spend time doing other things. You can fill in the blank. Finances, as a general, for the most part, is very confusing for a lot of people. It can be very frustrating, very taxing. We want to be those people that provide education and guidance along the way so that at the end of the day you can walk away, feel confident, and have clarity on the things that you're doing.

Part of that whole vision and everything that we've been working through is that back in 2020, we created the Smarter Vet Financial Podcast. We release episodes weekly on that now. In addition, we're RACE providers, national speakers, authors, you pretty much name it, we're doing everything vet med. We love veterinary medicine and CJ and I do a lot with business owners as well because we're certified exit planners. I'll let CJ speak a little bit on that behalf too.

I think on the business planning side, there are very few people out there that are connecting the business management side and the actual growth of business planning with people's personal plan because owners obviously can't own a business forever. At some point they do have to exit. It's either voluntarily or involuntarily, because you can't really work forever and you can't live forever. So at least keeping the end in mind and then backing their way into what can really make a difference in their lives and their family's lives, getting them focused on that because they really focus on the business. They're really good. They know the business numbers inside and out. They love their business. They love working. But at the end of the day, sometimes the shoemaker's kids go barefoot, so we want to make sure that veterinarians are taken care of, not just on the business side, but also on the personal side and so they don't get to the end of their career and realize that they forgot to actually make sure they were going to be okay.

It really is so important. Small business owners, a lot of times, get so busy putting out the fires and working in the business day in, day out, they forget to work on the business. Then the greater goal is overall stability in their lives and being able to do what they want. I love your approach. We've talked a lot of times, so excited for this conversation and giving you an opportunity to bring some of the ways that you do that out into the world. We're talking about financial planning. The truth is a lot of people think, "Oh, okay, I have a financial planner. I work with somebody who's helped me with financial things." But it's not just really one specialty. I mean, there's a lot of different types of financial planners. Can you walk us through that a little bit?

What type of financial professionals exist?

We actually have a whole podcast episode about that. I think we had nine different financial professionals that exist. It's actually almost nine different kinds. It can range anything from the licensing that people have to really what they're able to do out outside. There are investment-only advisors, there are insurance-only advisors, there are advisors that will charge an hourly fee to meet with them and then they basically help you and give you the things that you need and then you're on your own to implement whatever product or whatever kind of investment you want to do from there. So there are even financial professionals, we call them financial professionals, not advisors, because there are financial professionals that maybe don't have any licensing whatsoever.

They go on YouTube and they're on TikTok and they tell people to do things with their finances and those things may or may not be good for them. We're not the arbiters of all truth, so I think it's great. and I think more information oftentimes is necessary in those arenas because then people can filter through what actually makes sense to them and doesn't. Then there's even people that are financial entertainers where all they do is put information out there on the internet and people are having to figure out whether or not those things apply to them. So there's a lot of different avenues that people get information from financial professionals. There's a gamut.

In our world, there's this confusion as well about accountants and consultants and other different people out there being considered financial professionals. People will lean on these other people inside of the financial advisory world and interpret it from the fact that, hey, these people are helping me with my financial planning. We've had countless times where I think my accountant is helping me with this. However, at the end of the day, we all have a certain position on the bus, is what I would say. There's people in our business that are licensed in certain ways where they are very product specific or they could be planning from a broader picture.

What we're always trying to communicate to the public is that at the end of the day, not everyone has all the great ideas and that way, when you are working with different professionals along the way that are giving you advice to put money in retirement accounts or write off deductions or doing certain things, they might be stepping a little bit outside of their boundaries when it comes to their planning. So it's always good to make sure you're exploring more of those other relationships.

Yeah, absolutely. Your accountant or CPA is going to play a different role really than your tax advisor, different role than your insurance person, different role than investment advisors. So yeah, there are a lot of seats on that bus. So let's sit for a second and just talk about what made you guys get started in the veterinary profession. You've said a couple times you really love veterinarians.

What made you get started within the veterinary profession?

We've been equally in the business for about 11 years now, since 2011. Actually, what is that? Almost 12 years now, gosh. Where'd the time go? When I transitioned from one company to another, I was literally a product sales guy for a while, and I got tired of being that product sales guy. We do a lot within long-term disability, so it's something that a lot of veterinary professionals should have. Even practice owners should have certain disability coverage. I was sitting in a training one day where it's like, "Hey, these are a lot of occupations and professions that could really use this type of service that we have and it really benefits them very highly." So when I was looking at that list, there were a bunch of other people, human doctors, CPAs, attorneys, engineers, optometrists, veterinarians.

I literally sat there that day. I was like, which one of these markets could I really connect with? I tried connecting with a lot of them previously and I'm like, I just don't jive with their personalities. And then what really clicked to me, and I'm sure a lot of people who work in vet med, I love animals. I'm a big animal lover. My wife always pokes fun at me saying, "You're obsessed with our dog." And I'm like, "I am. I love our dog. I can't help it." I was like, well, that's a great conversation starter to talk with veterinary professionals, veterinarians and people in the industry. From there, we found that there was this big void. There's a huge hole in it where people are getting out of school and they're, "Hey, I got sold some disability insurance and I don't know what it is or why I just bought it. Told me to put money in Roth IRAs."

Or people who start businesses and they're just like, "I'm not really getting a lot of guidance the way that I needed to." From that standpoint, we picked up our first client. It was a local association president and she's been with us now for eight years. From there, we've just progressively been building. I will say since around 2018, 2019 is really when we started getting a big footing within the industry where it's just because of the education we're doing, we've ballooned to over 40 states that we work in now.

In previous conversations you’ve told me a bit about all that you’ve been doing to support the industry. I absolutely love companies that put their mission first. Why don’t you tell us about some of the stuff you’ve been doing to support the veterinary industry.

What's funny is education really started with what we do. As we had more and more vets become clients and we spent time with them to educate them on what they're doing, the more and more they said, "Hey, you guys need to get some of this stuff out on the internet. This stuff could really help others in just yes, in a financial way, but so much of our own stress, so much of our own lives are really originated from how our finances are doing." Because if you're living paycheck to paycheck, you're pretty stressed out. There are really successful business owners that we've met where they're not pulling any money out of their business and they're just disorganized, financially. They're just trying to figure out how to manage it all when there's so much stuff going on.

I think the education piece really started with our clients pushing us to get out there to start getting more information out there and at least get it in the hands of veterinarians. Because at the end of the day, Tom and I, as we got more exposed to vet med and even the suicide rate and the struggles that they deal with and a lot of this stuff even outside of their financial part, our hearts grew for that community. And then as our hearts grew for that community just became even more of, we needed to do something. Whatever we can do, whatever God gifted us to be able to put out there, we need to go ahead and do that.

I love that. That's a lot of purpose there and shows some great alignment with the community you're trying to serve. One of the things when it comes to financial planning and people making the decision to put some energy into planning their finances and planning their financial futures, one of the things, I'm sure you guys run into this, I've noticed this a lot throughout my life, a lot of people, there are people who do that and do a great job of it, but it seems like the overwhelming majority of people, unfortunately, they put it off. They put off their financial planning and they put it off because they look like, "Oh, I'm not really at a point where I have enough or I'm going to do that." So for instance, the practice owners that's like, "Well, for those big practice owners that are making this much money, that makes sense, but I'm not there yet."

Then you've got the associate vets that are like, "Well sure, for the practice owner that's raking it in, but I'm working at this level," and the practice managers, that's like, again, "Oh yeah, well someone who's at that level." Even the reception staff and kennel staff and vet techs and everybody who works in there thinking, "Oh, financial planning is something that I'm going to get to this point. I'm going to level up my career or whatever. When I get here, then that becomes important." They end up spending their whole lives not sitting down and doing the financial planning that absolutely could have got them there. I know that you guys really serve, when you look at positions, different people in the industry. You go pretty deep with who you serve.

Who are the clients that you’re really trying to serve? And, what is the specific value that you are looking to deliver?

I think it's really veterinarians as a whole. Veterinarian business owners, we find that if we can help them figure out what's going on with their own stuff, then the value rolls downhill. What I mean by that is when we go in there and set up a plan for a practice owner, oftentimes we're also trying to help that practice owner impact their community in a dramatic way and the veterinarians that work inside their business. That whole idea of you can either try to add clients or you can multiply yourself to then be able to multiply your impact, that seems to be where it's headed.

We work with practice owners because they have 10 veterinarians working with them. Then if we can help the practice owner at the top, oftentimes, that practice owner is then able to help those other 10 in a much better, more strategic way. Because if we're making the business run more efficiently, if we're making sure that the person at the top is taken care of, then that allows us to find extra cash and extra impact to be able to filter through the rest of the community. That's our focus.

What's interesting about that too, when we look at planning as a whole, most people think that they need to have money in order to have someone help them plan. I think that's pretty much what you're somewhat alluding to earlier. If I don't have the money, then I don't really need to be seeking advice or counsel, and ultimately at the end of the day, we all create certain habits and behaviors that could be good or bad for us. Our whole goal from a planning perspective is that there isn't literally necessarily a certain amount of assets people that need to have. We usually base it off of income under management, what we call it IUM, income under management. We usually look for criteria of two things really. Are people open-minded and are they willing to take action? We don't want to push someone away who is a receptionist or who's a technician that wants planning.

They really do want it. But sometimes even from the extent of people that are a little bit... They're very crucial positions in the practice. We can be able to provide educational stuff to them where they don't need to work with us directly and they can be able to get education the way they want to. But ultimately into the day, anyone who comes to us looking for guidance, we want to help them understand, based on the current path and the direction and the things that you're currently doing, what is that going to mean to you at the end of the day? If you are reinvesting money in your practice or really trying to pay off your loans as quickly as possible, or you're shoveling money in retirement accounts or you're buying a house that's too big for you, how does that whole equation come together and give you the most control and flexibility in your life?

Because ultimately, again, at the end of the day, what we really want to do is say, "Hey, we all work for a paycheck right now," and we want to be able to shift at some point to where we're paycheck independent, basically, saying, "Hey, we don't need a paycheck anymore to live and we can choose to work versus having to work." If we can help these people, even from a standpoint with our podcast of saying, "Hey, look, you're able to listen and learn on your own. We have a masterclass we're creating," or "Look, you can come to us and work with us, and if CJ and I aren't able to support you and help you in some sort of fashion, we have another member on our team that can help you." That way we can build out this whole system that's not pushing people away.

The whole ecosystem of looking at someone's finances and all their options and everything that they should be doing can be pretty complex and overwhelming for a lot of people.

How are you bringing clarity and making finances simple for practice owners and veterinarians?

There's always a main thing. If you can make the main thing and keep the main thing, oftentimes people get distracted because there's all these other options and narrowing down options can be easy when you pull yourself out of it. A lot of financial decisions people make tactically. They look at that individual decision in a silo. Oftentimes, we're pulling them out to think more strategically and that allows them to peel themselves off, go, okay, wait a minute. It's not how fast I pay off my mortgage, it's how fast I could pay off my mortgage and still be able to accomplish what I'm accomplishing? Because people say, "Well, I want my mortgage paid off. It's like, you want your mortgage paid off, but that's not because you want your mortgage paid off. It's because there's five or six different reasons underneath that, right?

I'll never forget somebody saying that they... I said, "What's one of your goals that you want to have?" They're like, "Oh, I want $50,000 in my checking account." And I'm like, "But why?" And you asked them, do you remember the five whys? I'm sure you've heard of that. You keep asking why. And the reason why was because that, in her mind, would be the day that she wouldn't have to worry about anything. It was really security. It was a feeling that she was trying to get from it. So when we get people like, okay, what are we after, but then get down to the levels why, why is that important to them? Because sometimes we ask them why, and then they go, "You know what? This actually isn't that important to me." Great, mark it off. It's one less thing that we have to worry about because people realize, "Okay, maybe there isn't a reason why I want that." That means we can take that energy that otherwise we would've put to that area and redirect it to another area.

Simplifying things all really starts too is when people can see the bigger picture and bigger picture, I mean getting them organized financially from how they protect themselves with insurance and documentation and the money they make and what they save, to the debts they have outstanding, to what assets they've accumulated from savings accounts, retirement accounts, homes, businesses. We help them be able to visually see things, which we like to call a financial MRI. Then we go through an educational planning process to where it's really designed to simplify the conversation. The things that seem scary and they're sitting there, the eyes are poking out in the dark and they're over here, I don't want to walk over there because oh, that's scary over there, we want to make sure we can put some light on it.

Then we can be able to model out and be able to communicate things a little bit more simply to say, "Okay, based on what you're doing, this is what's going to happen. Based on what we could be doing, this is what could happen." Ultimately allowing people to be able to decide and figure out those things more versus saying, "Hey, I need to go to Google and try to figure out what makes sense." Or they go to someone and they say, "Well, hey, you're not putting money in a retirement account. You need to put money in a retirement account right now." Again, what CJ was saying, why? That whole process is designed to educate them and then ultimately it'll allow for them to see, "Hey, these are the shortfalls that I have in my plan." It helps them be able to take those steps.

I think some of it did come with experience. There are certain things that we know. When someone says, "I'm going to do X, Y, and Z," we know what the result of that is going to be. So we can paint that picture for them and say, "Hey, look, here's the cause and effect." And then they go, "You know what? I don't think I want to do that anymore. Let's take another direction. Okay, great." At the end of the day, I don't know if you do this, but I was actually looking for a fridge last night for our garage, second fridge, and I have 12 tabs open from different places. Then you go to the A, B. You do the A, B. Okay, if I choose A versus B, which one would I choose?

I choose A. Okay, well now then the next one becomes A versus B. So you narrow down those things because at the end of the day, what we're looking for is we really just want to just look at two options and then narrow down from there, and then we can look at the next two options. So sometimes, that helps, but everything at its basic fundamental level is very simple. Even last weekend, we were in Orlando for an event and one of the veterinarians got up there and he made a lemonade stand, a veterinary practice. He was able to boil down how it works into a lemonade stand. He said, "Veterinarians think that this is beyond them to understand and it's not. It's actually very, very basic." So I think analogies are a lot like that and our meetings with clients helps as well.

Absolutely. When you're working with practice owners, being that they're a business owner, they've got their business side, they've got their personal side and different strategies that are very different things.

How do you help practice owners coordinate their personal and business financial planning?

A lot of it's done with technology. We have a platform that puts all of their personal financial stuff together and all of the business stuff together. Then I'm able to model out using that platform, the consequences of different decisions over time. We first get them organized, which we have somebody that literally that's all they do is help people get organized on our platform. Then as we go through the planning process and they meet with Tom or I or another advisor on our team, our meeting is just focused on one particular thing at a time to help make it easy for them. Then we go through a lot of that financial modeling, so that oftentimes is where we start.

We want to make sure with the practice owners, they understand realistically at the end of the day that you're not in business to just build business wealth. You should be using your business to build personal wealth. What we want to do is help them get more clarity around whether there's a certain amount of money you're paying yourself in wage or compensation or taking business distributions. But then at the same time, your business does generate a certain amount of profits. If it's not generating a certain amount of profits, then you should be working with the right people to figure out where your money is going. Because we need to make sure there's consultants and accountants and all that other working with them, but we want to make sure that there is a balanced approach to how money is being reinvested back into the business. It could be for talent, it could be for growing exam rooms, it could be trying to grow the top line and bottom line in the business, but then how are we systematically being able to take money from the business to build it outside?

I will say with a lot of practice owners we work with, if they do it within a certain amount of time period too, usually their practice sale, I would say when you think of a cake, their practice sale becomes more like the cherry on top versus being the whole cake. When you are able to create the separation between the two of them, so if you're someone who's in your fifties and you haven't accumulated much wealth outside of the business, then it's a time to really start looking at it now. But then the business, how do we really be able to maximize and make sure you get the most for it? One thing that does flabbergast me all the time, and it changes by each state, is that there's a thing called a pass-through entity where people, when they do file their taxes in a certain way, their taxes automatically get dumped on, their profits for the business, get dumped on their personal tax return, even if they don't take the money out of the business.

They could leave this lump sum of cash in their business and they don't take it and they're still taxed on it. They're concerned if they take it out of the business, they're going to be taxed again. Helping people just really understand this more visually of like, okay, what does this mean and am I just giving up money and just letting it sit there not really doing what I need it to do for me? Because a lot of people will shove it back in their business and they don't know the return that they're getting back on it. Most times, it's not generating them the return that they anticipated.

It's funny because you can go to Google and you can type in AAPL and immediately a share of Apple, the price per share of Apple will show up there. You can find the value of Apple in five seconds. You can't really do that with a vet practice. So when people reinvest money in their business, a lot of the time, they're not really exactly sure how that money is going to benefit the business in a way where it actually increases the value. I think even what Tom was saying, if we can help them understand if we're reinvesting money in the business, we have to have some sort of growth in the value of that or growth in the income, which then grows the value, or we need to take those cash flows and do other things with it for their personal.

Yeah, that's a really, really interesting part of the conversation that you can have with practice owners, if you can really help them identify, hey, if you're going to put in a capital investment into the company of this much, where's that maximized best to create value? There may be things that they want to do that aren't necessarily to create value of the business because maybe the value is derived by enjoyment in the lives of the people who are working there or something a little less tangible, but extremely important to at least go through the exercise of identifying all of the different opportunities that they would have to put that investment and what it would do for the overall value of the business and creating additional value before they finally pull the trigger and make that decision.

How do you actually structure your engagement with clients?

Absolutely, yeah. The biggest conversation we have with a lot of practice owners is we first want to take a look at how is their business doing from an overall revenue and profitability, but then talking to them more specifically around how they're taking money from the business and getting a lot more clarity over what they're being able to project out further and then be able to bring it back to today. Then we actually have a process and conversations that we go through to help them. There's some that are pretty on it and they're just not sure how to do it, and they're scared. Then there's a lot of others that we talk to and they're just like, "I make money. I don't know where it's at. My business account has X in it. I'm not really sure," so we'll spend a lot more time holding their hand trying to figure these things out so then we can really create a structure to start transferring wealth from their business.

Yeah, love that. So take one step back. It's funny, an analogy that popped in my head is a lot of people own their home, they live in the home, they own their home, they make improvements to their home because they're living there and they want to make some improvements. And that money is spent a little willy-nilly, right? Like, "Oh, well, I want the wall to be painted like this, and I like this carpet better," and whatever. They always wanted that sink or something. But if you talk to professional home flippers, oh, they're like, "Oh, I spend this and it's going to create this much extra value, this much extra value." They're entirely about maximizing the additional value created. And the way that they get good at that is because they've flipped the homes a bunch of times and they've seen the actual value and they know how that pencils out. A practice owner working with you guys who have been through this a bunch of times with businesses, with veterinary practices and seeing the value that's been generated and able to go through and advise them that way. I think that makes it a really valuable conversation to have with you guys.

I’d like to take the conversation in a little different direction now and talk about how you help practice owners who are looking to sell their practice, because you’ve got a lot of great expertise to share there. It seems that veterinary practice acquisitions have really cooled off compared to the surge in practice sales that we saw during the pandemic, but certainly there are still active acquisition groups and practice owners looking to sell. I know that you are a certified exit planner. Tell me about that. What is a Certified Exit Planner?

Absolutely. The certified exit planner, and something that's interesting about this, is you don't have to be a financial advisor to get the CExP. It's the abbreviation for a certified exit planner. We got it for the pure sake of... Because the idea is as we work with businesses, we want to make sure we understand the integral parts of planning with all the integration, of all the different professionals, and a process that can be followed to help with the conversations and see it through from A to Z. The biggest idea with a misconception from a certified exit planner is that I have to be ready to sell today. Realistically, a certified exit planner should be someone that's helping the idea of even when I want to start a business, how do I make sure that I have my mind right and that I'm planning it properly?

We have multiple clients that recently just transitioned the practice ownership, but then helping them understand what's the end result that I want to get from my planning? Then there's the people in the middle planning to make sure that they're enhancing the culture, they're being able to transfer wealth from their business. Then on the very tail end of it all, it's like, okay, as I'm trying to transition out, what ways do I want to sell my practice? Do I want to sell it internally to another employee? Do I want to sell it to a corporation? Do I want to keep it? What does that mean once I do sell it? How does that impact my livelihood, my income, when I do sell it? So we'll work through all of these conversations. I would say the biggest part of all of this too is corporate, it's been very enticing because you can get a lot of money from them.

Because if you try to sell it to an associate veterinarian, you're looking at three to five times EBITDA is what you could realistically be able to support from a sale price because the business has to be able to pay for it. These corporate buying groups are coming in, they have investors, so they're able to pay more with the idea that they're going to grow them more. But realistically, if you're not ready to exit your business and you like your business, you don't have to sell. You don't have to sell it. If you want to sell it to an associate and you have, let's say, a 10 year window that we're looking at, there's a lot of instances where we can make it to where that sale price that a corporate would pay, you could get a very comparable amount that you could selling it to an associate. The problem is, if you're a year out from wanting to retire, there realistically isn't a lot of options.

You're going to have to go to a corporation. It's just a matter of how do you get your practice positioned in the best way to sell it and get the most money for it? And then coordinating a retirement income plan on the backend of it. So I get all this money, and I have $5 million, $7 million thatI pay taxes on. What's next?

There's only three ways to exit. You either sell to an insider, sell to an outsider, or you die owning the business. That's really it. And so when we're working with people in that roughly five years left timeframe, a lot of the time it's, okay, If I had my perfect scenario, what would that be? Then we work our way down to say, okay, of the three scenarios, I have a first, but then I also have a plan for a second, and then I also have a plan for the third because a good plan has a plan when nothing goes according to plan.

As we're getting closer to that exit, that need to exit, again, we're just trying to help them recognize that their habits and their behaviors and the personal side of their finance, the more buttoned up they are there, the less they're going to rely on the exit, the less they're going to rely on the sale of that business. So it puts them in a position of power to really name whatever they can get from their business. It really doesn't matter, right? As Tom said, it becomes the cherry on the top as opposed to the actual substance of the cake.

Love it. I love it. Guys, this has been a really good conversation. I know you guys have a lot more that is going on and we're really under limited time now. We're going to have to wrap up, but I want to ask you one last parting topic here for you guys to explore a little bit.

What about financial planning do you believe that veterinarians and practice owners are not doing, that they should?

The first thought that comes to my mind is they're just not doing it. Many of them are putting 401Ks in their businesses or people are shoveling money into retirement accounts, or they're just buying things from people without seeing the bigger perspective at all. Sometimes what I would just encourage along the way, if it's an intimidation thing, I will say in vet med, I've just noticed this, that a lot of people will keep things very tightly to their chest until they find someone they can trust and then literally, it's just like they dump all of that weight off of their shoulder on that person to help them.

I would just say for those out there that aren't really doing a whole lie, it would probably make sense to really just take a moment to start educating yourself. That's why our podcast exists, 20 minute long episodes, about 140 of them are out there now. We've got courses and different things. But if you do have someone, or if you are working, maybe having a little bit more of an open mind to saying, "Hey, maybe the person that I am working with isn't really helping me get to the degree that I should be at," and just start having some conversations with others out there to be able to really take that next step in what they should be doing.

Awesome. Hey, the last thing is we're going to put a link here. Check the link in chat for how to reach out here to Florida Financial Advisors, how to touch base with them, how to let them know that you are interested in exploring what some financial advice would look like, how they could help you create a financial plan so that you are going to have a better shot of having the future that you would want for yourself. Guys, when they do that, what should they expect from the next steps?

More often than not, when someone reaches out to us, then someone from our team will book a meeting with an advisor with them for them to talk for 30 minutes, just to see what they're working through, what they're dealing with, so we can get to know them more. It's mostly them talking. Then as we recognize and understand what people are working through, then we'll be able to help them to know whether or not we're a good fit or whether or not there's some other kind of need there that maybe they should be looking at.

Awesome. Cool. So like I said, everybody, you can use either the link that you're seeing there in chat, or if you're listening to this on the podcast, look into the episode description. There'll be a link there. Guys, this has been a fantastic conversation. You are doing so much for people in the industry and are going to make sure that so many people who have poured themselves into this very noble profession, end up with the future that they deserve, the future they would've wanted for themselves. I really appreciate that. Thank you so much, Tom, CJ for spending some of your time with us today.

 

Thank you, David. We appreciate it.

It's been a blast.

 

Awesome. If you are a veterinary practice owner or manager, did you know that your practice right now has a full page profile that is live at geniusvets.com? It's true. Check it out. Go to GeniusVets. Look up by state and city, look up your practice. Those profiles, they rank really high. If you haven't seen it at the top of Google search results yet, I bet if you just type in your practice name, city, state into Google and hit search, you're going to see it. It might even be outranking your own website. They do that a whole bunch. The only reason we're doing this is to help more people, more pet owners, find independent veterinary practices like yours to give you an advantage over your corporate competitors. It is completely free, 100% free to claim your profiles. What you really want is to make sure that you know all of the different links in Google search result page point to your practice.

You want all roads leading to you. We're really in this to help make sure that more people are getting their pet care advice from high quality veterinarians such as yourself. Go check it out right now. Claim your profile, totally free. There's a bunch of other valuable resources that we'll suggest to you over time as well, like our job board, an HR toolkit, guides on how to attract doctors and staff, guides on social media. Just a ton of free stuff guys, so check it out. Our mission is to empower and uplift and support independent veterinary practices. Go to geniusvets.com, check that out. If you're interested in our professional services, check that out at GeniusVets. I'm David Hall and saying, thanks so much for spending some time with us. Check us out next week. We've just got a series of incredible guests that are going to be joining us each and every week here on The GeniusVet Show. Until next time, take care.