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Stress as stimulus with Dr. John Younker · My Veterinary Life

0:10
Speaker 1: Welcome to this week's episode of My Veterinary Life podcast.
0:12
Speaker 1: I'm your host, doctor Annie Schavant and my pronounce are
0:15
Speaker 1: she her? And our guest today is doctor John Yonker.
0:19
Speaker 1: Doctor Yonker is a veterinary practice consultant, speaker, mentor, and
0:23
Speaker 1: fellow podcaster who started his career in small animal emergency medicine.
0:27
Speaker 1: I am so excited to share doctor Yonker's story, but
0:30
Speaker 1: before we do, I want to give a thank you
0:32
Speaker 1: to our podcast partner, NVA General Practice. NBA helps great
0:36
Speaker 1: bets become even greater with multiple paths to build a
0:39
Speaker 1: career that's uniquely yours. Lead a team, explore a specialty,
0:43
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0:46
Speaker 1: over nine hundred neighborhood clinics. Wherever you want to go next,
0:50
Speaker 1: NBA has a path to help get you there. Visit
0:53
Speaker 1: careers dot MBA dot com to find your next role.
0:57
Speaker 1: And with that, Welcome to the show, doctor Yonker.
0:59
Speaker 2: Oh, thanks for having any I'm really excited for today's
1:02
Speaker 2: conversation and been a longtime listener, so excited to be
1:05
Speaker 2: on the show.
1:06
Speaker 1: Yes, I am so excited to dive in today and
1:10
Speaker 1: in fact, so excited that we are going to jump
1:13
Speaker 1: straight into your career story because we have a lot
1:15
Speaker 1: to cover, and so let's fast forward. You developed an
1:19
Speaker 1: interest in BATMD, went to that school, and they decided
1:22
Speaker 1: to jump right in to small animal emergency medicine right.
1:25
Speaker 3: Out of school. What did that teach you that you
1:27
Speaker 3: still carry with you today.
1:29
Speaker 2: So let's get back in the way back machine, our
1:31
Speaker 2: time machine travel back not too far.
1:33
Speaker 3: But it's twenty twelve.
1:34
Speaker 2: I graduated from UGA and it was May fifth, Senko
1:38
Speaker 2: de Mayo, twenty twelve, and I was getting married in
1:42
Speaker 2: June that year, and I started my first job. A
1:45
Speaker 2: lot of like stressors happening all at the same time,
1:48
Speaker 2: and I had some stuff I needed to pay for.
1:50
Speaker 2: My parents are like, hey, you know that cell phone
1:51
Speaker 2: plan we've been paying, and the insurance we've been paying.
1:55
Speaker 2: We're going to go ahead and get you off the plan.
1:56
Speaker 2: Now that you got a big boy job at your
1:58
Speaker 2: emergency practice. Starting salary was a whopping sixty five thousand dollars,
2:03
Speaker 2: and in fact, I was really grateful for the job
2:05
Speaker 2: because the quarter of my class didn't have a job.
2:07
Speaker 2: In fact, at that time, this was post two thousand
2:09
Speaker 2: and nine economic breakdown, and people felt so thankful just
2:12
Speaker 2: to have a job out of school, because there were
2:14
Speaker 2: articles put out that were like, are we graduating too manyvets?
2:18
Speaker 2: And so I was super thankful for a job and
2:21
Speaker 2: also in hindsight, so thankful to be an emergency clinician
2:23
Speaker 2: at the time, because it was like getting thrown into
2:27
Speaker 2: the deep end. I remember having a two month mentorship,
2:30
Speaker 2: which nowadays that seems like so crazy short, but I
2:34
Speaker 2: was able to see things like GDVS oxygen dependent patients,
2:37
Speaker 2: dka's heemo abdomen's like flail chess, like you name it.
2:42
Speaker 2: I had the fossoms the surgery textbook out on the
2:46
Speaker 2: like on the counter every shift, it seemed like, and
2:50
Speaker 2: for some people that sounds like an absolute nightmare. For me,
2:54
Speaker 2: it was a giant shortcut because everything was sick. I
2:58
Speaker 2: was able to really fast forward that experience thing. Because
3:02
Speaker 2: people think, by people, I mean new grads, think that
3:04
Speaker 2: you know, there are some people that are specially gifted
3:06
Speaker 2: at surgery or especially gifted at medicine. And actually most
3:10
Speaker 2: of the skills in veterinary medicine actually comes from just repetition.
3:14
Speaker 2: And so going to er just like cause that repetition
3:18
Speaker 2: to just go to absolute light speed, and so it
3:21
Speaker 2: was a kind of giant shortcut because I was able
3:23
Speaker 2: to kind of get really proficient at seeing patterns and
3:26
Speaker 2: things that may have not otherwise in a regular GP practice.
3:31
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. And I've heard the
3:33
Speaker 1: analogy and I love it now of it being an
3:36
Speaker 1: exercise to get better at the practice of veterinary medicine,
3:40
Speaker 1: like you have to get your reps in, just like
3:42
Speaker 1: when you're lifting weights, and sometimes it's just a sheer
3:46
Speaker 1: numbers game. And so I love that mindset shift of
3:50
Speaker 1: you know, potentially having some concerns about er being overwhelmed
3:53
Speaker 1: with the case load to what a great opportunity for
3:56
Speaker 1: me to get that volume that I need to get
3:58
Speaker 1: my confidence up. So kudos you for embracing the challenge
4:02
Speaker 1: and recognizing it as that opportunity and making the best
4:05
Speaker 1: of it.
4:06
Speaker 3: But you did not stop there.
4:09
Speaker 1: So you started as an associate, but you moved to
4:11
Speaker 1: a medical director position fairly early on. What was that
4:15
Speaker 1: experience like leading a team while you're still a recent grad.
4:19
Speaker 2: Yourself making a better kind of balance for work and life.
4:24
Speaker 2: I decided to become a small animal GP practitioner and
4:27
Speaker 2: became a medical director and when I came on, I
4:29
Speaker 2: was kind of given the air apparent title. This is
4:32
Speaker 2: the air apparent of the practice. And my boss was
4:35
Speaker 2: going to retire probably in the next five years. He said,
4:37
Speaker 2: give me five years learn the business, and then you'll
4:40
Speaker 2: have an opportunity to buy it. And so from the
4:43
Speaker 2: moment I stepped into the role, I acted like I
4:45
Speaker 2: was the owner.
4:46
Speaker 3: We redid the website.
4:48
Speaker 2: We also looked back at the two thousand and nine
4:51
Speaker 2: financial crisis and did a bit of post mortem. And
4:54
Speaker 2: so at the five year mark, Sinco de Mayo, five
4:57
Speaker 2: years later, I went out to you Ji, I mentor
5:00
Speaker 2: Jeff Sandford, who's a professor at UGA. We put together
5:03
Speaker 2: an offer to buy the practice, and I had a
5:06
Speaker 2: meeting with my boss, gave him the offer and he
5:09
Speaker 2: looked at me. He's like, hey, John, this is an
5:11
Speaker 2: amazing offer. You've done amazing work for us. But unfortunately
5:15
Speaker 2: we have another offer that's about twice as much from
5:18
Speaker 2: a corporate group and ended up being probably the biggest
5:23
Speaker 2: disappointment to me professionally. I had done all this work
5:26
Speaker 2: thinking that one day this would be mine, and I
5:28
Speaker 2: thought my entire life's trajectory was going that. But I
5:32
Speaker 2: will tell you, what was the worst thing that ever
5:34
Speaker 2: happened to me professionally ended up being the greatest thing
5:37
Speaker 2: that ever happened to me because it allowed me to
5:40
Speaker 2: kind of pursue the next chapter in my kind of
5:42
Speaker 2: career story, which is entrepreneurship.
5:45
Speaker 3: Wow.
5:45
Speaker 1: Yes, that is quite the start for your first five
5:49
Speaker 1: years after graduation to the day. Things don't always turn
5:53
Speaker 1: out the way we expect them to. So disappointing to
5:57
Speaker 1: hear about that, But excited that closed door ushered in
6:02
Speaker 1: the next chapter in your career journey.
6:05
Speaker 3: So let's go there next.
6:07
Speaker 1: So instead of inheriting a practice, you built a practice
6:12
Speaker 1: from scratch.
6:13
Speaker 2: Right, So I lived about thirty forty five minutes away
6:17
Speaker 2: from my practice, and I live in a different area
6:19
Speaker 2: in Atlanta, Georgia. And there's this old railroad track that
6:23
Speaker 2: was in the middle of the city. Atlanta is a
6:25
Speaker 2: railroad town. It used to be called Terminus because it
6:27
Speaker 2: was the end of the railroad. And so it ended
6:29
Speaker 2: up being this like empty railroad track which was all blighted,
6:32
Speaker 2: and someone at Georgia Tech said, what if we turn
6:35
Speaker 2: this into a park?
6:36
Speaker 3: And so it's just been this giant, multi.
6:38
Speaker 2: Year project to turn an old railroad track into a
6:41
Speaker 2: park and that connects all the major neighborhoods. And I
6:43
Speaker 2: was running on it because it's an incredible place to
6:46
Speaker 2: run because it's a relatively flat railroad track. In Atlanta
6:48
Speaker 2: is an extremely hot, hilly place, and so I was
6:51
Speaker 2: running and I saw there is a ton of dogs.
6:54
Speaker 2: I was like, everywhere I looked, there was a dog.
6:56
Speaker 2: And I remember googling veterinarian near me and I saw
7:00
Speaker 2: that the only one that I found was inside of
7:02
Speaker 2: a nearby PetSmart and I just thought to myself that moment,
7:06
Speaker 2: I think this is an incredible place for a vet clinic.
7:09
Speaker 2: And so I got with a healthcare specific real estate
7:12
Speaker 2: agent and we looked around and we found an old
7:15
Speaker 2: optometrist office that was right off the belt line, which
7:18
Speaker 2: is that old railroad track. It was literally seventy feet
7:22
Speaker 2: from the path and it was a natural cut through
7:24
Speaker 2: where people had to walk their dogs. They literally would
7:26
Speaker 2: have to walk by the space to see the practice.
7:29
Speaker 2: And it was sixteen hundred square feet, very small. It
7:32
Speaker 2: was enough for three exam rooms that we kind of
7:35
Speaker 2: sketched out. Went to the landlord and said, hey, this
7:38
Speaker 2: is perfect for a vet clinic, there's all these dogs.
7:41
Speaker 2: Did you know that veterinary practices, if you were to
7:43
Speaker 2: apply to a loan for a vetinary startup, it has
7:46
Speaker 2: a zero point one five percent chance of failure.
7:51
Speaker 3: I don't know if you knew.
7:51
Speaker 2: That is about a one and six hundred chance of failing.
7:55
Speaker 2: That is the average failure rate of veterinary startups. And
7:58
Speaker 2: we told that to the landlord, like, yeah, cool, but
8:01
Speaker 2: we're worried about barking dogs and poops.
8:02
Speaker 3: So that's a no from us.
8:04
Speaker 2: And months go by went back to them and they
8:06
Speaker 2: said now, and we end up forcing a meeting with
8:10
Speaker 2: the landlord.
8:10
Speaker 3: Just meet.
8:11
Speaker 2: If you could just meet with doctor Yonker, I promise
8:13
Speaker 2: you that you'll sit down and we'll have a discussion.
8:17
Speaker 2: You know, the back and forth can be very challenging.
8:19
Speaker 2: And before the meeting, I had my real estate agent
8:22
Speaker 2: and the the general contractor come and I'm so emotionally
8:26
Speaker 2: invested in this place, and I just like I got
8:29
Speaker 2: the warm and fuzzies. I just knew that this is
8:31
Speaker 2: like the spot for me, and I wasn't gonna take
8:34
Speaker 2: no for answer. And my real estate agent was like, John,
8:37
Speaker 2: before we walk in, He's like, this is it, there's
8:39
Speaker 2: no other We've exhausted all other options, and we're either
8:42
Speaker 2: gonna move in or we're gonna move on. And he
8:45
Speaker 2: unbuttoned his addresser and he opened it and he had
8:48
Speaker 2: wrote move in, move on on his undershirt and they
8:52
Speaker 2: buttoned it back up. We walked into the meeting and
8:54
Speaker 2: I gave them the most passionate delivery of like how
8:57
Speaker 2: passionate I am about this practice, and how I want
8:59
Speaker 2: it to be a refle election of my community. I want
9:01
Speaker 2: to bring local artists in to display what they can
9:04
Speaker 2: do inside of our lobby. I live here in the neighborhood,
9:07
Speaker 2: and I want this to be a reflection in the community.
9:09
Speaker 2: And this is so underserved. Here's the chance of success.
9:12
Speaker 2: And the landlord looks at me is like, why didn't
9:14
Speaker 2: we talk to you like months ago? And I was like,
9:17
Speaker 2: I don't know. We've been back forth, like emailing and
9:19
Speaker 2: doing all the things. But they said yes. And it
9:21
Speaker 2: was like one part amazing, in another part just absolutely
9:25
Speaker 2: terrifying because we started the process and I opened my
9:28
Speaker 2: first long story short opened my first practice January fourth,
9:31
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, and my original goal was don't go bankrupt.
9:35
Speaker 2: You know, you get like hundreds of thousand dollars in
9:38
Speaker 2: debt and you have to personally guarantee the loan. In fact,
9:41
Speaker 2: they get that back in the day they would get
9:43
Speaker 2: a life insurance policy on you. And to get a
9:46
Speaker 2: life insurance policy, they get a sample of blood from you.
9:48
Speaker 2: They send a nurse out who like gets your blood.
9:50
Speaker 2: They are literally extracting the blood out of your body.
9:53
Speaker 2: So like blood sweat and tears, Yes, absolutely, blood sweat
9:57
Speaker 2: and tears literally.
9:58
Speaker 3: And so I felt the weight of.
10:01
Speaker 2: The entrepreneurial, Like you know why, I have so much
10:04
Speaker 2: respect for people that are brave enough to go out.
10:06
Speaker 3: It's an active faith to be an entrepreneur.
10:09
Speaker 2: And I'm so in awe by people that believe in
10:12
Speaker 2: that dream because it is blood, sweat and tears. And
10:14
Speaker 2: so opening up January fourth, that weight caused me to
10:18
Speaker 2: be the greatest veterinarian that I ever could possibly be.
10:23
Speaker 3: It laser focus.
10:24
Speaker 2: I had one kid at the time, and just thinking
10:26
Speaker 2: about providing for my family, all the risk that I took,
10:29
Speaker 2: it just allowed me to be kind of the best
10:33
Speaker 2: version of myself. And so by doing that, and there
10:37
Speaker 2: would be like three or four hours in between appointments,
10:40
Speaker 2: so of course, it was the greatest experience.
10:42
Speaker 3: Can you imagine? You know, It's like we've been waiting.
10:45
Speaker 2: We don't want to let you know, but we've been
10:46
Speaker 2: waiting like four hours for you to show up. So
10:48
Speaker 2: this is going to be the absolutely greatest like level
10:51
Speaker 2: of care you've ever seen and customer service, and people
10:55
Speaker 2: would tell their friends, and slowly but surely we started to.
10:59
Speaker 3: Get busier and busy and busier and busier.
11:01
Speaker 2: And I remember about fourteen months into this, and I'm
11:05
Speaker 2: working sixty five hours a week. My wife is working.
11:08
Speaker 2: She's the set. My wife is a pediatric cardiology icy
11:11
Speaker 2: U nurse, she's not in vetment at all, and she'd
11:13
Speaker 2: be our Saturday morning like receptionist because I didn't want
11:17
Speaker 2: to hire another person to fill that one spot because
11:20
Speaker 2: they go into overtime. So my like two year old
11:23
Speaker 2: daughter or three year old daughter is there watching, you know, bluie,
11:27
Speaker 2: and my wife is there being the receptionist, and we're
11:29
Speaker 2: just trying to make things happen. Fourteen months I remember
11:32
Speaker 2: going and picking up my daughter from her preschool and
11:35
Speaker 2: they had a poster on the wall and it said
11:37
Speaker 2: what do daddies do?
11:39
Speaker 3: And it was like, my.
11:40
Speaker 2: Dad another a student was like, my dad takes me
11:42
Speaker 2: at the park. Another kid was like, my dad makes dinner.
11:45
Speaker 2: Another dad was like, my dad takes me to the movies.
11:48
Speaker 2: And then it lands on me. Josie's my daughter and said,
11:52
Speaker 2: my daddy works. And I think all of the parents
11:56
Speaker 2: can identify. They want their kids to know that they
11:59
Speaker 2: are a hard worker, but they don't want that to
12:01
Speaker 2: be the first word out of their mouth. And so
12:03
Speaker 2: working sixty five hours a week and taking that kind
12:06
Speaker 2: of sacrifice that I did for my family. I called
12:08
Speaker 2: my mentor, professor Jeff Sanford, said, hey, when do you
12:10
Speaker 2: hire another VET? And he said, well, how much like
12:13
Speaker 2: revenue are doing? And I told him and he was
12:15
Speaker 2: like like why did you call me months ago?
12:18
Speaker 3: Like why are you hoofing it? You should have hired
12:20
Speaker 3: someone months ago.
12:21
Speaker 2: And you know, as as an entrepreneur, you just don't know,
12:24
Speaker 2: like is a shoe gonna drop, you know, and something
12:27
Speaker 2: might change, and so you're so risk averse at that
12:29
Speaker 2: time period.
12:30
Speaker 3: Hired my first VET.
12:32
Speaker 2: She started pre immediately and then within four months of that,
12:34
Speaker 2: like kind of reckoning at my daughter's preschool, we ended
12:38
Speaker 2: up filling that first practice. We had no more room
12:41
Speaker 2: eighteen months into starting it. My original goal right, don't
12:43
Speaker 2: go bankrupt, and ended up filling in. So I had
12:46
Speaker 2: to make a decision do I open another practice, do
12:49
Speaker 2: I stop taking new patients? Well, stop taking new patients
12:52
Speaker 2: seemed like a kind of a missed opportunity for growth.
12:55
Speaker 2: The growth seemed really strong. This is pre COVID. It's
12:58
Speaker 2: like twenty nineteen. And then another one would be like,
13:01
Speaker 2: go move and build a mothership. Well, I signed a
13:03
Speaker 2: ten year lease. I just like spent all this time
13:05
Speaker 2: like a doc getting this lease, and I still had
13:08
Speaker 2: like seven and a half years like left on this lease,
13:11
Speaker 2: and so that wasn't going to happen. And so the
13:14
Speaker 2: option to continue to grow is to open a second location.
13:17
Speaker 2: So I found a location two miles away. Literally you
13:20
Speaker 2: could walk between my two practices because Atlanta's dense urban
13:24
Speaker 2: environment and landlord gave us this similar story barking dogs
13:28
Speaker 2: and poop. We don't want you vet clinic. We're like, okay,
13:30
Speaker 2: we already know this. Just meet with doctor Yonger. So
13:32
Speaker 2: we met and fixed the problem quickly. So I signed
13:35
Speaker 2: the lease in like November of twenty nineteen. Fast forward,
13:39
Speaker 2: we get all the permitting and all that, and we
13:42
Speaker 2: start construction in February twenty twenty. A month later, during construction,
13:47
Speaker 2: something significant happened in the pandemic and I thought, oh
13:50
Speaker 2: my gosh, I just got in another one hundreds of
13:52
Speaker 2: thousands of dollars debt. I personally guaranteed everything. This is
13:55
Speaker 2: the absolute, like worst thing that has ever happened to me.
13:59
Speaker 2: And construc uction halted. You know, we didn't know if
14:01
Speaker 2: we're ever going to see another patient again. This is
14:04
Speaker 2: early right, this this is like March April. They get
14:07
Speaker 2: back to work because you know, they were worried, the
14:10
Speaker 2: construction company was worried about going bankrupt during all this,
14:13
Speaker 2: and so they give me the They were able to
14:14
Speaker 2: deliver the practice to me by June twenty twenty.
14:17
Speaker 3: And if you.
14:18
Speaker 2: Remember during that time what happened at the summer of
14:22
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, it was the absolute rocket ship. And it's
14:26
Speaker 2: in hindsight it looked, oh my gosh, John had all
14:28
Speaker 2: this vision to go start this second practice, and it
14:31
Speaker 2: was like.
14:31
Speaker 3: No, I was just trying not to go bankrupt.
14:33
Speaker 2: Ended up being this incredible and I was able to,
14:35
Speaker 2: you know, launch a new practice during like the greatest
14:39
Speaker 2: demand wave the industry had ever seen in the history
14:42
Speaker 2: of vet meed and went from three veterinarians to eleven
14:47
Speaker 2: between twenty twenty and twenty twenty two, and went from
14:51
Speaker 2: zero dollars to six point seven million in revenue within
14:56
Speaker 2: a stretch of about four years. So that'll then transition
15:02
Speaker 2: to a crazy call that I got in twenty twenty
15:05
Speaker 2: two from my former farmer rep. Which leads us to
15:08
Speaker 2: my next chapter, which is the sale to practice.
15:12
Speaker 1: Yes, that is quite the whirlwind. As we said, your
15:15
Speaker 1: first five years were certainly marked with some rapid growth,
15:19
Speaker 1: and then the next phase also difficult, but different challenges.
15:23
Speaker 1: And I really appreciate you walking through the decision making
15:27
Speaker 1: challenges that you face as a practice owner, because you've
15:30
Speaker 1: got i'm going to call them numbers challenges, right, So
15:34
Speaker 1: the weight of the loan, that's a real thing, and
15:35
Speaker 1: I'm really glad that you mentioned that making sure the
15:38
Speaker 1: practice is cash flowing, when to add associates. But then
15:41
Speaker 1: on top of all of those numbers are maybe more
15:43
Speaker 1: black and white things. I love that you mentioned there
15:46
Speaker 1: are personal factors, and there will always be personal factors,
15:49
Speaker 1: and so that moment in the preschool had just as
15:53
Speaker 1: much impact on your trajectory as any profit and laws statement.
15:56
Speaker 3: And so it's so important to.
15:57
Speaker 1: Talk about both of those fears when we're thinking about
16:01
Speaker 1: our career and how we're making those decisions, because you
16:04
Speaker 1: really you can't separate them. And so I love that
16:07
Speaker 1: you're able to integrate those into your story and be
16:10
Speaker 1: able to navigate those decisions with clarity and care. So
16:18
Speaker 1: that obviously generated some numbers, as I mentioned, some numbers
16:21
Speaker 1: success for you, So congratulations to you for that, and
16:24
Speaker 1: so yes, let's jump into that next phase. Then, So
16:28
Speaker 1: you eventually decided to sell this practice, you would work
16:30
Speaker 1: so hard and fought so hard to get the land
16:32
Speaker 1: and build it up.
16:33
Speaker 2: So yeah, my original intention was to work here for
16:37
Speaker 2: thirty years. In fact, if you remember from my story,
16:39
Speaker 2: I experienced a sale process, so I understood the scorched
16:44
Speaker 2: earth that was the sale of my previous practice. And
16:47
Speaker 2: so I ended up getting a phone call from my
16:50
Speaker 2: pharmaceutical rep. And I thought he was going to talk
16:52
Speaker 2: to me about some sort of heartworm prevention and ended
16:55
Speaker 2: up saying, I actually don't work for them anymore. I
16:57
Speaker 2: work for this private corporate group. And he threw out
17:00
Speaker 2: a number on the phone that was kind of mind boggling.
17:03
Speaker 2: He said, I kind of know, based off, you know,
17:06
Speaker 2: some numbers that you know, we could probably offer this.
17:09
Speaker 2: And it was kind of flooring because I thought, again
17:11
Speaker 2: my life's trajectory was going this way and I get
17:14
Speaker 2: this kind of fork in the road, met with my
17:16
Speaker 2: financial advisor, and basically because of compounding interest, there was
17:21
Speaker 2: no way that if I waited to sell it would
17:24
Speaker 2: mathematically make a difference. And the numbers being thrown out
17:28
Speaker 2: at this time was kind of overwhelming. And if you remember,
17:31
Speaker 2: I took all this risk. I was in over a
17:33
Speaker 2: million dollars in debt and I certainly wasn't running away
17:36
Speaker 2: from a job. This was kind of something that kind
17:39
Speaker 2: of just like shook me and kind of fell out
17:42
Speaker 2: of thin air. And then I had to make a
17:44
Speaker 2: decision like what is the wise thing to do here
17:46
Speaker 2: for my family? And that met as a whole and
17:49
Speaker 2: I and I said, you know, I want to do
17:51
Speaker 2: things differently than what was what was done, and so
17:54
Speaker 2: part of the process was actually created kind of a
17:57
Speaker 2: secret auction process had fifteen offers on the practice and
18:01
Speaker 2: kind of narrowed them down over time. But one of
18:02
Speaker 2: the things that was very important to me was that
18:06
Speaker 2: the people that helped me grow the practice would be
18:08
Speaker 2: financially rewarded, and so end up being this kind of
18:11
Speaker 2: win win scenario because I understood what it was like
18:14
Speaker 2: to kind of be on the receiving end of not
18:18
Speaker 2: being able to share in the upside even though I
18:20
Speaker 2: helped kind of grow the practice. And so I stock
18:22
Speaker 2: around for a couple of years, helping the transition, and
18:25
Speaker 2: then I then transitioned into kind of the season that
18:29
Speaker 2: I find myself in today. And so having a kind
18:33
Speaker 2: of an employment gap caused me to think about, maybe
18:36
Speaker 2: do I go back to school, And so I went
18:39
Speaker 2: and got my NBA from Emery And so that's kind
18:42
Speaker 2: of the end of that chapter and onto the next.
18:45
Speaker 3: So fascinating.
18:46
Speaker 1: I want to go back a little bit into that
18:48
Speaker 1: chapter because you touched on towards the end there feeling
18:52
Speaker 1: your responsibility, wanting to take care of your employees, wanted
18:54
Speaker 1: to recognize the effort that they are contributing to the
18:58
Speaker 1: success of the practice. And sometimes I feel like we
19:01
Speaker 1: separate in our minds business and wellness, but both of
19:07
Speaker 1: these things are very important to you, to the point
19:09
Speaker 1: that I understand you've even won a wellness award. So
19:13
Speaker 1: what is your take on that intersection between wellness and business?
19:18
Speaker 2: In art profession, there is no reason why you have
19:22
Speaker 2: to make a decision that compromises the other. There are
19:25
Speaker 2: plenty of win win scenarios and VetMed If you do
19:28
Speaker 2: what's best for the patient, client and clinic and keep
19:31
Speaker 2: that as your primary focus, it will often yield in
19:34
Speaker 2: a way that people can practice medicine without compromising their conscience.
19:39
Speaker 2: A story I'll give you around wellnesses. I walked in
19:41
Speaker 2: to my practice one day and I had just worked
19:44
Speaker 2: the day before with my fellow associate, and I've said, hey,
19:48
Speaker 2: good morning, how are you doing today, and coffee in hand,
19:51
Speaker 2: just giving the obligatory hello, and she looked at me
19:55
Speaker 2: with tears filled in her eyes, and I said, oh wow, okay, yeah,
20:00
Speaker 2: come to my office real quick. So we sat down
20:01
Speaker 2: in my office and she said a story that I
20:04
Speaker 2: think one hundred percent of veterinarians could relate to, which is, hey, yesterday,
20:08
Speaker 2: I feel like every patient I saw was sick and
20:11
Speaker 2: I had to work everything up, and I got behind
20:13
Speaker 2: because I was working everything needed like bloodwork and X rays,
20:16
Speaker 2: and then I'd get the results back and everything was
20:19
Speaker 2: like inconclusive, and then I had to tell them I
20:21
Speaker 2: don't know after I spent hundreds of dollars of their money,
20:24
Speaker 2: and I got so behind, I like didn't I'd saved
20:28
Speaker 2: my notes till the end of the day, stayed late
20:30
Speaker 2: afterwards to write up my notes. My husband and I
20:33
Speaker 2: were supposed to have a date night and I was
20:37
Speaker 2: too exhausted to go, and so we just kind of
20:39
Speaker 2: heated up a frozen pizza instead of going out, And
20:42
Speaker 2: then I felt guilty about doing that to my husband,
20:45
Speaker 2: and then I had trouble sleeping because I was kind
20:48
Speaker 2: of stressed from the day, stressed from how that packeded
20:51
Speaker 2: my marriage. And she said these words, I came in
20:55
Speaker 2: today feeling exactly the way I left it yesterday, and
20:58
Speaker 2: I don't know if I can do this more.
21:01
Speaker 3: And that was a huge kind of fork in the
21:03
Speaker 3: road for me.
21:04
Speaker 2: And I had been working like literally right next to
21:07
Speaker 2: her the day before, and it just didn't dawn on
21:10
Speaker 2: me that she was even really struggling. And that's what
21:14
Speaker 2: really shook me, was like she was struggling that much,
21:16
Speaker 2: but I actually had no clue. How was I so
21:18
Speaker 2: oblivious to someone that I really care for struggling like that,
21:22
Speaker 2: and so I looked at her. I was like, hey,
21:23
Speaker 2: take the day, I'm going to take your patients, but
21:26
Speaker 2: I promise you I'll do whatever I can to make
21:28
Speaker 2: this a better place to work. And that launched me
21:31
Speaker 2: on a path as a manager and realized a lot
21:35
Speaker 2: of the issues in our practice was a because of
21:38
Speaker 2: the demand. It was the workload that we were put
21:40
Speaker 2: ourselves on her, this huge surgeon demand. But also it
21:43
Speaker 2: was I didn't create an environment where people could grow
21:46
Speaker 2: and thrive because I didn't set the healthy frameworks, the boundaries,
21:50
Speaker 2: the protocols that help people achieve the level of medicine
21:53
Speaker 2: that they inspired to be a veterinarian in the first place.
21:56
Speaker 2: We kind of put the needs of the patients at
22:01
Speaker 2: the detriment of our veterinarians and our staff. And it
22:04
Speaker 2: was this kind of very humbling moment as a leader
22:07
Speaker 2: of it. Actually I was the problem. And it wasn't
22:10
Speaker 2: that she was a fundamentally flawed person. No one made
22:13
Speaker 2: a mistake when they admitted her to VET school. The
22:16
Speaker 2: mistake was me believing kind of the illusion that you know,
22:19
Speaker 2: we can do all things to all people at all
22:21
Speaker 2: times and see everything all the time, and if we
22:24
Speaker 2: do that and have that mentality, we sometimes will do
22:28
Speaker 2: that at the expense of our people. And so it
22:29
Speaker 2: launched me on this process, this multi year investigation of
22:32
Speaker 2: what is that like? And so I really worked on
22:34
Speaker 2: myself and our systems was creating the basic hygiene of
22:37
Speaker 2: how to run a business. And that's really what caused
22:40
Speaker 2: the recognition and was able to share some of these tools,
22:43
Speaker 2: things like engagement surveys, staff meetings, and those type of
22:46
Speaker 2: things that were just the nuts and bolts and one
22:49
Speaker 2: on ones, just the nuts and bolts of how you
22:52
Speaker 2: take care of your people.
22:53
Speaker 1: Wow, that story definitely struck a chord with me, and
22:57
Speaker 1: I can't imagine with many of our listeners. It's such
22:59
Speaker 1: a relatable day in the life. It might not be
23:03
Speaker 1: every day for everyone, but I can remember those days
23:06
Speaker 1: from my time in practice, and it's so ingrained in
23:10
Speaker 1: each of us to power through be resilient. What can
23:14
Speaker 1: we change about ourselves individually? And so a big kudos
23:18
Speaker 1: to you for recognizing that there are individual and systemic
23:21
Speaker 1: components to our sustainability in this practice and taking some
23:25
Speaker 1: ownership of not just the numbers as we talked about,
23:28
Speaker 1: but what can we do to build a stronger foundation
23:32
Speaker 1: around those numbers and build a practice that keeps our
23:36
Speaker 1: staff our employees healthy and growing. I think your point
23:39
Speaker 1: about growth is really important as well. So I love
23:42
Speaker 1: that you hold both of those things in your hand
23:46
Speaker 1: as a practice owner, and it can show us some
23:49
Speaker 1: examples of things that we can do to promote greater sustainability.
23:53
Speaker 3: Absolutely, so sadly.
23:55
Speaker 1: We are coming to the end of our time today together, John,
23:59
Speaker 1: but I do want to bring us back a little
24:03
Speaker 1: bit to the numbers for our wrap up question, because
24:06
Speaker 1: this is something that I hear from recent grads fairly frequently,
24:10
Speaker 1: and so I can't not ask you with your experience.
24:13
Speaker 3: So what I hear is new grads.
24:17
Speaker 1: Wanting to understand a little bit more about the business
24:20
Speaker 1: side earlier on, but not knowing the questions to ask. So,
24:25
Speaker 1: if you are talking to somebody who is looking at
24:28
Speaker 1: a practice to join or buy, how can they tell
24:33
Speaker 1: if that practice is financially healthy and then by praxy
24:37
Speaker 1: like what we just talked about, sustainable for them.
24:40
Speaker 2: Right for a new grad, A lot of you can
24:43
Speaker 2: actually find out a lot of things around do I
24:45
Speaker 2: have time and space to grow and be mentored? A
24:47
Speaker 2: lot of times that means more than just like one
24:49
Speaker 2: veterinarian there and how many minutes as an exam. I'm
24:53
Speaker 2: not saying those are bad models, but if the exam
24:55
Speaker 2: time is really short and they're seeing twenty thirty patients
24:58
Speaker 2: a day, how much time is there going to be
25:01
Speaker 2: to mentor you and how much time is there to
25:03
Speaker 2: work up cases? And do you want to practice that
25:05
Speaker 2: kind of medicine? Not to say that that's bad, it's
25:07
Speaker 2: just is their time in space to do that. The
25:09
Speaker 2: next one would be do they actually measure things? The
25:12
Speaker 2: old adage, what gets measured gets managed. So if they
25:17
Speaker 2: do not know what their veterinarians, you know, typically produce
25:20
Speaker 2: in terms of revenue or their average transaction, they have
25:23
Speaker 2: no idea what that is. The odds of them understanding
25:27
Speaker 2: how that would even flow to a profit and law statement,
25:29
Speaker 2: which is a financial statement that tells you your revenues
25:32
Speaker 2: minus your expenses equals your profit, they probably have no
25:34
Speaker 2: idea what that means. So you go to the pharmacy
25:37
Speaker 2: and there are multiple things that do the same thing,
25:40
Speaker 2: so you have multiple different preventions and they're all like
25:42
Speaker 2: very competitors. That probably tells you you're in what I
25:45
Speaker 2: call a you do, you practice, So there's little VET
25:49
Speaker 2: clinics under one roof. Doctor A does it like this,
25:51
Speaker 2: doctor B does it like this? Everyone you do you
25:54
Speaker 2: There isn't a one voice that's being spoken in terms
25:57
Speaker 2: of a standard of care. Everyone's just running their own
26:00
Speaker 2: show by themselves, and you may want to practice like that.
26:03
Speaker 3: I don't want anyone to tell me what to do.
26:04
Speaker 2: However, I do think the team aspect of veterinary medicine
26:08
Speaker 2: is really important in terms of wellness, having a like
26:11
Speaker 2: we're in this together kind of mentality as opposed to
26:14
Speaker 2: those are your cases, you're on your own.
26:16
Speaker 3: You want to like, you know.
26:18
Speaker 2: If you have a question on a thoracic radiograph, I'll
26:22
Speaker 2: give you my two cents. That's not exactly kind of
26:24
Speaker 2: teamwork that we're talking about. Do we speak with one
26:26
Speaker 2: voice as a veterinary team. So those are some really
26:29
Speaker 2: practical nuggets. Obviously, no one's going to tell you how
26:31
Speaker 2: much ebitita they have or those financial concepts, but you
26:35
Speaker 2: actually glean a lot from what gets measured gets managed,
26:39
Speaker 2: and so if there's no measurement, there's probably very little management.
26:43
Speaker 1: Oh I love those tips, and I think the thing
26:45
Speaker 1: that I like the most about them is how practical
26:48
Speaker 1: they are, because I think, at least personally in my opinion,
26:51
Speaker 1: is the main stumbling block between veterinarians and business proficiency
26:55
Speaker 1: is a perceived barrier or just unfamiliarity. And so those
27:00
Speaker 1: little strategies that you just gave us makes it so
27:03
Speaker 1: much more familiar. And that's such an approachable question to
27:06
Speaker 1: ask of what is your average client transaction? Let me
27:09
Speaker 1: just use my eyes and take a look around the pharmacy,
27:11
Speaker 1: and even that can give me some information. So I
27:14
Speaker 1: think that will give our listeners a lot more confidence
27:16
Speaker 1: and feeling informed and prepared for going into practices and
27:19
Speaker 1: finding that fit that you talked about that magic.
27:22
Speaker 2: Absolutely we talked kind of prior to recording that the
27:25
Speaker 2: same brain that can understand how to read a blood
27:27
Speaker 2: chemistry can understand a financial statement. And so the business
27:31
Speaker 2: concepts I will tell you are quite simple. Both Annie
27:34
Speaker 2: and I went to business school and we realized there's
27:36
Speaker 2: no secret source of information that was there. In fact,
27:40
Speaker 2: the concepts in VET school are much harder than in
27:42
Speaker 2: business school. What is really hard and challenging is leading people,
27:45
Speaker 2: and so leading people people are messy, and that is
27:48
Speaker 2: the greatest challenge of not just someone who owns a practice,
27:51
Speaker 2: anyone who inspires to be a medical director vetnerians are
27:54
Speaker 2: naturally just leaders inside of the practice. So that's actually
27:58
Speaker 2: the hardest thing that is in all of that met
28:00
Speaker 2: is how do we lead people in a way that
28:02
Speaker 2: they can grow and thrive. And that's the greatest challenge
28:05
Speaker 2: that we face.
28:07
Speaker 1: I could not agree more and I love that our conversation,
28:11
Speaker 1: while starting to focus on business and your career story
28:15
Speaker 1: because that's the trajectory that you were on with your
28:17
Speaker 1: practice ownership, is really a conversation about leadership and decision making,
28:23
Speaker 1: incorporating well being, how to support our team and grow
28:27
Speaker 1: and thrive together. And so I have just thoroughly enjoyed
28:31
Speaker 1: our time today, doctor Yonker, and really appreciate you joining.
28:34
Speaker 3: Us on the show.
28:35
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Annie, and thank you to each
28:37
Speaker 1: of you for joining us on this episode of My
28:39
Speaker 1: Veterinary Life podcast. We love sharing this journey with you,
28:42
Speaker 1: and remember, we want to hear from you, so please
28:44
Speaker 1: be sure to leave me a rating and review on
28:46
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you listen to, and you
28:49
Speaker 1: can also email me at MVL podcast at ABMA dot org.
28:54
Speaker 1: Take care, and we'll see you next time.