Veterinary Blueprints
The Veterinary Blueprint Podcast is all about taking the blueprint of industry experts and breaking it down in short, digestible episodes you can use to take your practice to the next level. Join host Bill Butler as he interviews experts on client and practice management, financial strategies, human resources, and more. Gain valuable insights and stay ahead in the veterinary field by tuning in to tips from successful experts inside and outside the veterinary industry.
Veterinary Blueprints
#18 Practice Success Blueprints with Michael Shirley
Ever wondered how a former school teacher became the Chief Empowerment Officer of a thriving veterinary practice? Join us in an engaging conversation with Michael Shirley of Family Pet Health, where he shares the inspiring story of his journey from the classroom to the world of pet care. Michael's early experiences in 4-H and his family's grocery store laid the foundation for his unique approach to veterinary practice. We also discuss his educational podcast, the Family Pet Podcast, and how it aims to elevate pet owners' understanding and care for their furry friends.
Explore the creation of a positive workplace culture and the factors that drive success in the veterinary industry. Hear about his wife who navigated through 25 different hospitals in just over a year before opening her own practice with the support of her entrepreneur husband. Discover their emphasis on teamwork and the strategic planning that transformed a small team into a flourishing practice. Learn how their focus on culture and visionary leadership has been crucial to their ongoing growth and success.
Unpack the intricacies of implementing the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) in veterinary practices with practical advice on setting clear visions, missions, and core values. From the challenges of starting a new practice to the design elements that create a welcoming environment, this episode is packed with insights on client-centered care, investing in oneself, and the irreplaceable value of leadership development. Whether you're a aspiring veterinarian entrepreneur or seasoned practice owner you'll gain valuable knowledge in the episode.
We hope you enjoy!
GUEST
Michael Shirley
Family Pet Health - Murfreesboro TN
Family Pet Podcast
michael@familypethealth.com
linkedin.com/in/michaelashirley
Books Discussed
Traction - Geno Wickman
The Energy Bus - Jon Gordon
The E-Myth Veterinarian - Michael
Host Information
Bill Buter – Contact Information
Direct – 952-208-7220
https://butlervetinsurance.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/billbutler-cic/
Schedule a Strategy Session with Bill – Strategy Session
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Welcome to the Veterinary Blueprint Podcast brought to you by Butler Vet Insurance. Hosted by Bill Butler, the Veterinary Blueprint Podcast is for veterinarians and practice managers who are looking to learn about working on their practice instead of in their practice. Each episode we will bring you successful, proven blueprints from others both inside and outside the veterinary industry. Welcome to today's episode and outside the veterinary industry.
Bill Butler:Welcome to today's episode, welcome to this episode of the Veterinary Blueprints Podcast. My name is Bill Butler, I am your host and, as always, we're coming to you bringing entrepreneurial and business mindset to veterinary practices across this great country of ours. And I say that because, very interestingly enough, on this episode of the podcast, I'm at somebody else's podcast studio recording this episode. I am down in Murfreesboro, tennessee, at Family Pet Health and we are recording a podcast in somebody else's podcast studio. I am here with Michael Shirley and he is the chief empowerment officer at Family Pet Health, which is a family business. We connected, his brother actually reached out which is an interesting story we'll get into and said hey, you should have my brother in your podcast. And a phone call was made and I was going to be in Nashville at this time and I bought donuts for the team. And here I am.
Michael Shirley:We appreciate it, we work cheap $34 for donuts.
Bill Butler:It was a pretty good deal. Well, thanks for having me in your studio. This is very cool that we're able to get this here. We're using my camera and your camera and your setup here, and it's great to be doing this with somebody else who's kind of on the same journey in a different industry and like-minded stuff. So thanks for being on the podcast.
Michael Shirley:Thank you so much for inviting me.
Bill Butler:Well, why don't we start with this? We were getting to know each other a little bit and I said how did you get into this? And you're telling a very. I said you taught school. You were a school teacher before you got into this whole animal health space.
Michael Shirley:That's right. So my journey, like many listeners that you have, probably, started with 4-H. I was in the fourth grade. I remember when 4-H came to my school and they brought all these different project books, projects that you could participate in, and I gravitated instantly towards all of the animal projects. I went home and told my mom all about the horses and the pigs and I can raise a cow and they have chickens. And she says, whoa, we can't do any of that because we live in the middle of town in the neighborhood.
Bill Butler:Yeah, so you said you live in town, right, you weren't on a farm. You didn't grow up on a farm, I did not grow up on a farm.
Michael Shirley:Our house was in a neighborhood that backed up to a horse farm. So a very long story short is that she did allow me to get a 4-H pony. I got a pony in the fourth grade and started taking riding lessons, but it came with a requirement that I went to work. So I was 11 years old and I started working in our family's grocery store. Okay, so 11 years old I had a literally stood on a milk crate so that I could bag groceries for people. Wow, and so I started working.
Michael Shirley:My social security, you know, they send you your statement right, and it goes back to 1990, 1990. Yeah, and that's when I first started paying social security tax, and so it's kind of it's kind of interesting. I grew up in a family business. Our current veterinary practice is seven miles from where my great grandfather had his first grocery store and I have a letter down in one of our exam rooms and that he wrote in 1930 to his clients explaining why he wasn't extending credit anymore, and it was because of dry weather and chain corporate grocery stores. And now, a hundred years later, his great grandson is dealing with the same corporate influence in his industry In his industry.
Bill Butler:Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned family and so part of what happened on this journey, your brother, who also works in the practice here, reached out to me on LinkedIn and said, basically, sent me a LinkedIn message at like eight o'clock on a Sunday night and said, hey, you should interview my brother in your podcast. That was basically what the message was and I said, okay, sounds great. And so you and I connected on a phone call because you have your own podcast and we'll put that in the show notes Describe your podcast.
Michael Shirley:So we have the Family Pet Podcast. It's a podcast for curious pet parents where we believe the more you know about pet health care, the better pet parent you can be.
Bill Butler:And you started that. I've said that a few times. Right, you've said that a few times, and so you started that as a way to create some content for your practice, as a way to create some content for your practice.
Michael Shirley:The main purpose of the Family Pet Podcast was for us to create evergreen content that we could put on our website and share with backlinks. So it's on everywhere where you listen to podcasts and they all link back to our website so it helps with SEO.
Michael Shirley:But the main reason was education is one of our core values, and it's really hard to have an in-depth conversation with someone about heartworm prevention in your regular appointment right, Because the doctor? It just takes a lot of education. Why does your heart, why does your cat need heartworm prevention? And so we just decided that we were going to make podcast episodes for every, for our most common asked questions and the 11 most common conversations in an exam room.
Bill Butler:So that was how it all started and that was 96 episodes ago, 96 episodes ago, and so your brother reached out and said, hey, you should have my brother Michael. Your brother Steven, reached out to me and we had a phone call and I just happened to be in the Nashville area and I used to be stationed close by at Fort Campbell, so I know the area a little bit. I said, well, I'm going to be very close, why don't we just come do it? You guys are doing podcasts, let's do it at your place. And so here we are. It's interesting to talk about the family dynamics. So your wife is the veterinarian Correct, and your brother came to a little backstory. Your brother came to join for six weeks as a marketing person because he's got a marketing background and going to school.
Michael Shirley:His whole reason that he came. As I mentioned, I am a school teacher by training, so I was finishing up my teaching contract and I needed help. I needed him to come. We had someone that was leaving our practice and we had an opening and I really wasn't looking to hire somebody. I was like I'll just, I will fill that role when school lets out. I needed somebody to answer the phones for six weeks. So I called Steven, cause he was in school like working on his master's, and I said hey, can you masters in marketing?
Speaker 1:and community. Yes, marketing, communication and Masters in marketing.
Bill Butler:Yes, marketing and communication.
Michael Shirley:And I said will you come and answer the phones at the vet office for six weeks? And he said I don't know anything about veterinary medicine. And I said that doesn't matter, you know people and that's what I need. And I said we'll teach you the rest. And that was six years ago, I don't know. I guess it was five and a half years ago. So no one is more shocked than our mother. Really, we could not growing up. We could not be in the same room together. We fought so much and it wasn't until he left the house and went to college that we finally. I think absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Bill Butler:Right so the anyway.
Michael Shirley:That's when he finally became a cool big brother because he was in college and he would take me up there to spend the night in the dorm room. I thought that was really cool, right, but but at any rate, it's worked out really well. I mean, he's he. He manages our operations and allowed me to not like on your podcast. It says to help veterinarians work on their business rather than in their business. Adding the right people on our team has allowed me to work on the business rather than in the business.
Bill Butler:And we'll get there in just a little bit, because I do have some questions on this but the family dynamics. So your family has had family business for a long time. You said back to the 30s yeah, even earlier than that, earlier than that, and we had a family business. So my parents are involved in the insurance agency and I was just at some mastermind meetings, which is very similar to a veterinary practice or veterinary management group and well-managed practice group. I participate in that in the insurance industry, trying to work on my business instead of in my business, and there's a lot of family dynamic. There's a husband and wife there and what's interesting about the family dynamic is, while it can be difficult at times I think it's probably a polite way to say some of the things that happen with family business is it can be difficult, but also you have an ally there that will probably do a little bit more for you than somebody else, not saying you don't have good team members when it works well it works well.
Michael Shirley:When it doesn't work well, it's a disaster. And so there were many people that in our interview processes would express reservations about working for a husband and wife team. And then you throw in the brother too, right? We're very cognizant of the appearance of nepotism, right? Or something like that. I didn't know that everybody didn't have a family business right, because, as I mentioned, I started in that everybody didn't have a family business right, because, as I mentioned, like, I started in the fourth grade working at the family business. And I remember when an interesting story is that I wanted to be a veterinarian and I started job shadowing in junior high school the day I turned 18, I went to work for Dr David Harris and I worked there for over a year and then my father slipped at the grocery store and ruptured a disc in his back. They called me up. You got to come back to the family business, so I quit at Dr Harris's office. They hired my wife to replace me.
Bill Butler:Oh, interesting.
Michael Shirley:Yeah, and so that experience like going back to the grocery store as a manager coming in. When I had been gone for a while, my dad sat down and talked to me and said hey, you're coming in as a manager. One of the lessons he taught me was don't ever ask the people that are working here to do things that they haven't seen you do. He goes the pressure is going to be higher on you because you are my son and people are going to think that you only got this job because you're my son, or that you don't have to do things. Like if you ask them to do something and they haven't seen you do it, they're going to think that you're just putting it off on them. So make sure that they know that you'll do the job that you're asking them to do.
Michael Shirley:Those types of lessons stuck with me forever. Yeah, stephen had those same lessons. We grew up in the same business. When he came in, I knew that he would understand how to handle customer complaints and deal with those things, because if people liked the way I did things, they would like the way he did things too, because we were taught by the same people and forged in the same fire.
Bill Butler:I guess, as you might say, it was interesting also because he gave me a quick tour of the practice and beautiful new practice that just got built last June and wanted to touch on that a little bit later in the podcast. But what's interesting is when he left us to get this podcast rolling he stepped into the call center because he's working on stuff in the call center here at the practice. Why don't you talk about the history? So your wife replaced you at the practice where you were working, dr Harris, what was kind of the journey for her to launch her practice and the history of the family practice you have now Amy graduated from University of Tennessee.
Michael Shirley:Two weeks later we got married and two weeks after we got back from our honeymoon, dr Harris lined up an interview for her at another practice in town, because back in 2005, it was hard to find a job. So she went and interviewed at another practice in town, because back in 2005, it was hard to find a job. So she went and interviewed at another practice here and came home and they and I was like how was it? She goes. That was amazing. It was like the most beautiful practice I've ever been in the way it was designed. The people do that like they have zones, and it's just amazing. And I'm like well, what's the problem? She goes, well, they're not hiring. And I said, well, what's the problem? She goes, well, they're not hiring. And I said, well, tell them you'll work for free. She goes what I said? Well, we don't have any bills really to speak of at the moment. I'm work. I had a job and I said, let's just like, just tell them you'll work for free while you continue to interview, and we'll figure this out. So she told them that and they did pay her. It was like an internship type of a deal.
Michael Shirley:But a long story short is that within six months or seven months from that time, she became an associate there and she stayed there for 10 years and, like we had two kids, we had, you know, all the life stuff. I mean, we were very far along in our marriage, right, and things are going great and things at the office there. She decided it was time to leave and she had a non-compete and so she honored that and during so she had to work outside of Murfreesboro for two years. Okay, so she started traveling all around to different vet hospitals and about a year and a half into that journey of relief vet med she had worked in almost 25 different hospitals. So she was at one hospital for 10 years and then in a year and a half, worked in almost 25 different hospitals. So she was at one hospital for 10 years and then in a year and a half worked in almost 25 other hospitals.
Bill Butler:And so she worked at a practice that she started working for essentially free intern money, but it was the right opportunity, correct, and it was the right environment to learn.
Bill Butler:Vet med out of school and then the complete opposite exposure of seeing 25 different ways on how to do things, good and bad, I'm sure, the spectrum right For sure, and so to me, seeing the practice that you've built here gives me insight into the story about how this building and how this practice came to be. It's painting a picture of an aggregate of all the best things at a lot of places and all the worst things. A lot of places and the worst things aren't here. Hopefully, we hope not.
Michael Shirley:Hope not, at least from the structure, the physical structure perspective, the only reason the physical structure exists is because we put the right people in the practice to begin with. And when she came home a year and a half into that relief time and said I think I want to open my own practice, bill, I couldn't have been more shocked, really. I was on the couch and at first I remember where I was, where I was sitting, where my feet were.
Bill Butler:It was a moment in time.
Michael Shirley:It has burned in my head where she was in the door leaning against the doorframe and I was shocked. And then I jumped up and I gave her a high five and I said you're going to do great. I know you're going to do amazing because you're an amazing doctor. This is awesome. What do you need from me? And she said I don't know. And we started to push on that a little bit and I said why do you want to start your own practice? You have never talked about ownership, ever before.
Bill Butler:Why now? So you come from a family of entrepreneurs, so grocery store owners, that's entrepreneurship. Small business owner entrepreneurship. So you know what that looks like. And now here's your veterinarian wife, who's been a traveling veterinarian for a year and a half.
Michael Shirley:I'm thinking dude, I'm excited, I'm like let's go, this is going to be so much fun.
Michael Shirley:Let's start a business, let's do this and I said why do you want to start your own business? And she said I want to create the type of work environment where I want to go to work every day and I want to surround myself with people with whom I want to work every day. And I said now that I can help with, because that's team building and that's marketing and dreaming and vision planning. That's what I do as a high school teacher.
Michael Shirley:Every year I get a new set of freshmen that come in and then I mold and help shape them and help them discover their own strengths and develop a life plan so that four years later they can graduate and have some sort of an idea of how to be a functioning member of our society. That's exciting to me. I enjoy that, and so when we put her type A planning personality and my dreaming and vision and people and lifetime of entrepreneurship, family influence and we put those two things together.
Michael Shirley:That's what has created this building. People think about the building and they're like, oh my gosh, I bet it is easy to recruit here. I'm like, yeah, it's because we have a really great team. It has nothing to do with the building. I mean, it does have something to do with the building. But the reason that we were able to do what we did we bought an existing practice, completely, 180'd it and grew it from one doctor and three team members to three doctors and now we have four doctors. My fifth doctor starts in June and we've done that in six years. I'm always afraid that something bad is going to happen and that God's going to humble me.
Michael Shirley:Right, so I tried to make sure that I don't want to get a big head. I am proud of what we've done, but it's because there are people out there that gravitate towards high functioning team members like being a part of a high functioning team. They want people, want to win and they want to know that they can contribute to the success. Like that, their work influences the success of the whatever they're a part of.
Bill Butler:You attract exactly who you are and what you've become. Yes, so if you've built a good business and a good vet practice, you're going to attract good team members. If you have poor culture, it's not just the physical building itself. And what's funny is you and your brother were talking, we were having a quick conversation and he was showing me on his phone how far away the old practice was, and he said you both commented because you've been in this new location for less than a year. And you said God, I don't know how we did any of this over there, right, it was not fun and so, but you had the right team. Yep, and so, regardless of the actual physical building, having the right team on board and the right culture I know this from my own experience and everything I just went through with insurance for the last two days this is all we talked about is culture.
Michael Shirley:So I brought a couple of books to share with you culture. So I brought a couple of books to share with you. So anybody that's out there listening I started a book club in 2020 called the Veterinary Leadership Book Club. It's a Facebook group. The first book we read was the Power of a Positive Team by John Gordon, and the reason that we started is because I require everyone to read this book, which is called the Energy Bus by John Gordon no energy vampires. No energy vampires allowed. That's posted throughout here. So it's 10 rules to fuel your life, work and team with positive energy.
Michael Shirley:Dr Catherine Foray, down at University Vet Hospital in Shreveport, louisiana, was the one that told me to read this book before we started our practice, and as soon as I read it, I knew that this type of concept was what we wanted to build our practice around. We require all applicants to read this book before they can come in for an in-person interview Wow, and we send them the book, like I invite them to come take a tour. I give them a book, I'll mail it to them. All of our vet students that come and rotate through here I'll mail them a book. You have to read this before your first day. So vet tech, vet tech students, vet tech, csr, kennel worker, high school intern job, shadow days, they come here for one day.
Bill Butler:They have to read this book.
Michael Shirley:It is 100% non-negotiable. You will not get hired here if you didn't read this book, and I pay for it. I even pay you for your time to read it, and so there's no strings attached, and it gives people an idea of what it's like to work here. If they read the energy bus and think it's the stupidest thing they've ever read, they're not going to like working here.
Bill Butler:You won't have a seat on our bus, correct. Just to expand on that for a second. And it's not you protecting the cultures they won't fit, correct. And it's not you protecting the culture, it's they won't fit. They'll come here and they'll be miserable, right? And the team that's here won't outwardly kick them off the bus. They just won't fit in, right.
Michael Shirley:It'll be apparent that they want to get off, yeah.
Bill Butler:The bus.
Michael Shirley:Yeah, and I posted this on an owner's group. Now I am blessed to be in Middle Tennessee. We're 30 miles south of Nashville. It's one of the fastest growing communities in our country, so my candidate pool is large. I still think that this works, wherever you are, Absolutely A hundred percent. I posted online on an owner's group.
Michael Shirley:Somebody said that they had kept getting ghosted about people showing up for interviews and I said your system's broken and I think it really kind of wrote people the wrong way, cause that's really all I said. It was too short, you can't you know the nuances or whatever. They thought I was a jerk. I'm not a. I don't think I'm a jerk, but my point was you're selecting for the wrong people. I have never in six and a half years, knock on wood have never had someone not show up for an in-person interview. It's because I know that by the time they've gotten to that point, I'm pretty sure I want to hire them and I'm pretty sure they want the job because they've read the book, they've gone through our interview processes and so you put those-.
Bill Butler:A good hire pays for themselves. A bad hire costs money.
Michael Shirley:Can you imagine like we talked about this in our quarterly meeting, all team meeting yesterday. We need to hire more support staff here, but I don't want to rush into it because a good hire is a blessing. A bad hire can wreck everything that we've worked so hard you know to do and not we, you, your brother and your wife.
Speaker 1:It's we as a team, our team, yeah, yeah, everybody For sure, yeah.
Bill Butler:Yeah. So question about where you know if you go on the way back machine to when your wife was standing there elbow on the doorframe and you're kicked back on the couch and she says I want to open a practice. And you thought, heck, yeah, finally, let's do some business. What do you think if you weren't here? What different journey your wife would have been on trying to start a veterinary practice without a support of somebody.
Michael Shirley:I don't think she would do it and I couldn't do it without her. I'm not smart enough to be a veterinarian without a support of somebody. I don't think she would do it and I couldn't do it without her. I'm not smart enough to be a veterinarian. I mean I think I'm maybe smart enough. I'm not driven enough to study that much. But we're a good team. We've always been. We're polar opposites. When we did premarital counseling, we did all those Myers-Briggs tests and all that stuff and the counselor goes.
Michael Shirley:Well. Usually couples are opposite in some areas and close in others. He goes, but you two are polar opposites in every area he goes so it'll either be one of those things about opposites attract or this is going to be a disaster.
Michael Shirley:That's not what you want to hear your counselor say, but it's a good match. And so, where I am weak, I'm a dreamer, I'm a starter, I'm not a finisher. My wife is a finisher. Finisher, and which makes sense, right? Most veterinarians are. They finished vet school. And so it doesn't hurt my feelings when she's like I need you to get this done and I need it tomorrow. Okay, like you said you were going to get this done this week. I need it done. I'm like okay, I told you I'd have it done by Friday it's not Friday yet, you know but but but it. I don't consider her nagging, I consider her making sure that I don't forget, because I'm quick to get distracted by other things. So, at any rate, I think that me pushing her and telling her things like quit, quit, if you're not happy, quit, you'll be okay what's the worst that can happen?
Bill Butler:You can go back to being an associate at another practice Right.
Michael Shirley:And now, even when we built this, we're like, oh, I don't know, this is really scary. We built this practice. It requires four doctors to be here to pay for it. We built it, we only had three doctors, so that's a little scary. It was one of those field of dreams If you build it, they will come. What if they don't? Yeah, and so I need her to tell me Michael, don't worry, we'll get a vet, cause I'm that's what I'm telling her Like it'll be fine.
Michael Shirley:I mean, who wouldn't want to work with us? Like we're awesome, this building is great, and she's like, but what if we don't? And I'm like, well, we'll go out of business? She's like that sounds pretty bad. I'm like, well, what's the worst that could happen? I mean we're not going to be homeless, but I'll go back to teaching. You go be an associate veterinarian. Probably corporate will buy the building, because who else is?
Speaker 1:going to buy it.
Michael Shirley:And you'll get to still work in your building that you wanted. So, like I said, we balance each other out.
Bill Butler:And the reason I pose the question in that manner is in my role and what I do work with veterinarians. I see a lot of veterinarian entrepreneurs who are like your wife, who don't have the entrepreneurial spirit but feel that they want to own a practice someday, and it's like-.
Michael Shirley:What they're really telling you is that they want they're not happy with their environment, correct, she could have continued the journey. What she said was I've worked in 25 hospitals. I haven't found the one that I want to retire from, so I think we can build it and I'm like, yeah, we can do that. What then she started doing was for the next year and a half, while she was doing relief work, she started taking small business development classes at the small business center here. She started going to webinars related to business. She worked on the business plan. I did not write the business plan, I just talked to her about different ideas and I did research market research, demographic studies. That was fun for me. The writing it down and with all the protocols and things was not that's what she did. So when you put those things together, it was a well thought out business plan and we could have been functional as a one doctor practice. At the time when she was working and I was teaching, we were doing all right.
Bill Butler:Yeah, there's a lot of successful one doc practices with three staff and they're knocking down a million bucks. Yeah, I mean, it's totally fine, 30% revenue.
Michael Shirley:Absolutely, absolutely. So their margins are what mine are right, like their profitability. Yeah, it's just a scale. So entrepreneur in me was like why do we want to stop with one doctor, let's go to two, because then we have more flexibility in vacations. And then when you get to two doctors, you start thinking, well, this is pretty easy. Yeah, we did two. Wow, that was Just rest and repeat Well, let's just do a third one, and then you add the third one You're like.
Speaker 1:Well, now what?
Michael Shirley:And then we started getting really crowded over there. And we had a team meeting. Everybody was a part of our decision as to whether we gave raises, raised prices, cut down demand and stayed where we were, or do some of those things and work on building, make a big jump.
Michael Shirley:So what do y'all want to do? That's what I told him. I said I don't care Like I'm having fun with this, or we can go big Grr yeah. And my wife said I can't imagine working in this building. She goes I love the people. We did that. We put that part of our puzzle together. But this ain't the building I'm going to retire in. So then we started looking at what options were out there in our area and we didn't find anything that would really fit, so we built from the ground up.
Bill Butler:So you built a ground up and just to kind of put a period on this thought is the reason I brought that up in that manner. I think a lot of veterinarians from my experience they wake up one day and they think they want to do it. It's not an evolutionary thing, it's like or the opportunity presents itself. They're working in a practice and the veterinarian owner comes to them as an associate one day and says all right, I'm done, do you want to buy it? And it's not a I'm. Sometimes there's a grooming process of, okay, I identify you as my successor and here's the thing.
Bill Butler:But you know, I've I've run into a couple instances for practices that I actually work with where the the owner just kind of walked in one day and said all right, I think I'm done, do you want to buy it? Now I have to instantly, overnight, become an entrepreneur where that decision happens. And they don't have a Michael waiting in the wings to say I have a genetic family history of entrepreneurship. Yeah, let's do this. And they're oftentimes on their own trying to develop a business plan and do all these things. And I've said this to a few people. I haven't ever said it on the podcast, so I'm going to drop this here, where I think veterinarians wind up being accidental entrepreneurs, sure.
Michael Shirley:Yeah.
Bill Butler:They go to school to be a veterinarian. They don't go to school for business, no, and they don't generally have that entrepreneurial spirit. They're a different Myers-Briggs personality but then they wind up managing a team and owning a practice and profit and loss statements A lot of them aren't very good at it.
Michael Shirley:A lot of people that's not specific to veterinarians, no a lot of people are bad people. A lot of people are not good people managers. I think again, my history as a school teacher uniquely prepared me for owning a veterinary hospital. My students are like my team, the parents are like the pet owners, right Kind of the admin and the government bureaucracy that I had to deal with as a teacher. Same thing with vet med. I've still got the same government, you know, giving me all these things to do. So the turnover I love to actually enjoy hiring process and when people but you have a hiring process, we have a process.
Bill Butler:There is definitely a process. You have to read a book, you have to apply. There's a process to it.
Michael Shirley:It's not and I'm not the only one doing it Like our whole team is involved in that. But the fact about like turnover doesn't bother me. Staffing is not what keeps me well some of it's what keeps me up at night, but what I'm really struggling is like which of these awesome people do I hire?
Bill Butler:And which one do I pass on? Hold on just a second, Michael. I'd like all the listeners out there to listen to what he just said. He's across the street from an Amazon fulfillment center to give you an idea of how up and coming this area is. But what he just said was which of these awesome people do I want to hire? But a lot of that's process and you have some big process on the back end. Part of that was your quarterly meeting yesterday Correct, which is EOS and traction and Geno Wickman and this whole back end thing. And so for our listeners who don't know what EOS is and what traction is, what is that? In kind of a minute and a?
Michael Shirley:half. So EOS, in a minute and a half, I would tell you there is a book called what the Heck is EOS. You should buy that on Amazon and listen to it right away. So, Traction, this is a result of the Veterinary Leadership Book Club. One of the other moderators in the group with me. She would always talk about EOS. I got it, my EOS retreat. We have an EOS meeting. I got this on the EOS and I've literally typed out. I have a Facebook message where I said what the heck is EOS? You are always talking about it and she goes well, you should check out this book. It's called what the heck is EOS. Eos is a book. It stands for the entrepreneurial operating system. It's how it's basically geared for companies that have between 10 and 250 or 500. I don't remember. We're not there yet. So let's say 250, 500 employees and it's a way to systemize your business so that you're working like you were talking about working on your business rather than just in it.
Michael Shirley:Here, everybody that works in this business is working on the business, so every single one of our 21 people have quarterly rocks that they're working on, and these are things that take them multiple weeks in order to accomplish, and when they're finished, we have a product that will help us, as a company, meet our yearly goals. Yearly goals.
Bill Butler:And so I have a vision traction organizer.
Michael Shirley:Okay, very good, very good.
Bill Butler:We were just talking about this yesterday in my insurance group, and so it's really a process of setting a vision, having a mission statement, having core values, and then building your vision long-term, of what you're wanting to do and then breaking it down into bite-sized pieces and chunks that the team is all on board with collectively. And it's not Bill or Michael's telling me I have to do this at our business. It's that, hey, we're in this together, we're a collective team, and these are the things that we each need to work on individually to accomplish a greater goal.
Michael Shirley:Yesterday everybody had to stand up in front of everybody. It was an all-team meeting and they had to say Mike, we pulled up their quarterly rocks and they had to report whether they were finished or not. Now they got a little bit of grace period because we have two weeks left, but we have spring break next week.
Bill Butler:You mentioned that to Stephen. He's got two weeks. He's got two weeks left. That's right.
Michael Shirley:And so they had to say whether they were on track to finish in two weeks or if they were finished and they're accountable to the team Part of what they had to report on that's another interesting component.
Bill Butler:They're not accountable to you as the owner. Oh, yeah. They're accountable to the team, which is way more powerful.
Michael Shirley:Yep, they're accountable to the meeting actually is what they're. So they know that they're going to have to stand up and report, like just like I told you, if something is due on Friday, I'm going to do it Thursday night. That's just how I work and that has so far not bit me on the butt. I'm 44 years old. I figured it out how to manage myself in that way. So you'll see a lot of fury of activity right before the meeting to get things done, but they're getting done. They're done. So that works.
Michael Shirley:And these quarterly rocks every single person knows, and what they had to report on was how their rock what it related to on our five goals that we had for this year, and our goals were to increase compliance, dental compliance and heartworm prevention by 10%. Both of those things we talked about patient safety, and so we're monitoring more patient safety things. We're just, it's just a focus on patient safety, fear-free education and you're a big fear patient safety things. We're just, it's just a focus on patient safety, fear-free education.
Michael Shirley:And you're a big fear-free practice. We're a fear-free, certified practice. Yeah, I mean, you're all in on it. Yep, all 100%. And the last thing was our fifth one that we're working on. Goal this year is our revenue goal, and everybody on my you could go down today and everybody on our team can tell you what our revenue goal is for the year. I share that with everybody. We talked about our average client transaction, our average patient transaction, our daily average, how many days we've worked this quarter, and if we continue that out for the rest of the year at the same average, will we make our goal?
Bill Butler:The answer was no, oh, we better pick up the pace, that's right.
Michael Shirley:So we got to add a doctor, we're adding a doctor this year. That doctor, we're adding a doctor this year. That was part of our plan, right so, but we were, we were only we were able to share. We were only thirty thousand dollars off of our yearly goal if and we were closed for two days for snow and also we onboarded new people, so our efficiencies were down.
Bill Butler:We talked all about in a new building, in a brand new building that you're trying to work all the bugs out and spending way too much money like buying stuff, though, you know just so setting a podcast.
Michael Shirley:That's right, that's right and and so we're like it's gonna stabilize. I'm not worried, like yeah, and that's what I told them. It was. It was awesome like they get a green check mark or red x's right and it was okay. I was like I feel so good about where we're at right now yeah because the numbers show that we are doing great things. Your reporting showed that we're at 95% completion on our rocks, with two weeks to go. We're doing great. Here's who's interviewing right now.
Bill Butler:Here's what we're playing is how many vet practices do you think out there don't have even 20% of what you just described.
Michael Shirley:I don't know, I don't worry too much about everybody else.
Bill Butler:I know you don't worry about everybody else but just from a mindset for Well, well a lot.
Michael Shirley:I mean a lot. A lot don't just based on what I read online. There's a lot. I'm like man that seems so second nature, but they're figuring it out for the first time. They, like you said they don't have a me, but here's what here's.
Bill Butler:Here's an important thing for for for the listeners, though, because I just again I just went through two days of this. We have a hot seat where I had to sit there for an hour and lay out my biggest hurdle, opportunity or challenge and it was 12 other insurance agency owners and you lay that out and then they tell you what they would do in that situation. That would help you.
Michael Shirley:I would love to be a part of it's hard to find a group of veterinary offices that are running like this, yeah, and so that is hard Now, and I know there's some groups out there that you mentioned some of them, some of them, we tried to join them and they wouldn't let me join because I wasn't a veterinarian and I said well, forget you. And so then they changed their mind.
Bill Butler:I'm like, nope, too late, so but what's interesting is and this is the encouragement is you don't have to start with everything in there. You didn't start with eos, you didn't start with the energy bus right.
Michael Shirley:Well, we started with the energy bus, but but, uh, the practice, like from day one we were around that, but traction uh didn't happen with us until uh 2021 and so, and this is uh, if anybody out there is a member of vgp, which is a group they provide you practice coaches that run they call pathway planning. Okay, um, and it's based on gino wickman's book and gino, with his blessing, um, they were going to rewrite the book together, like like the e-myth, you know revisited but gino was like e-myth insurance yeah, I've read that a
Bill Butler:couple times yeah, they have e-myth insurance apparently. Gino read that a few times, apparently.
Michael Shirley:Gino was like I'm not, you can just use the concepts, just give us credit, yeah, but there are practices out there, like I said, in the Minneapolis Veterinary Surgery Referral Center that's who told me about it and there are practices out there that I can bounce ideas off, that I know they're running and it's a shared language for sure.
Bill Butler:Running with a pack is so much easier than running by yourself.
Michael Shirley:And it's a lot more fun, it is more fun and you get to celebrate in each other's, you know victories, and it's just like I said, I don't have a scarcity mentality. Recently I sent out resumes. We had too many applicants and some of them were really, really good and I was like, hey, do you mind if I would you like for me to forward your resume to the other practices that are in my manager's group that meets here every other month, and they're like, yeah, thanks. And so I sent it out and I had two emails back Like why are you doing this? I'm like, well, we got to keep good people at great practices. And so, if you remember, on the email, my caveat was I am going to reach out to this person when I'm hiring. And you know what I did. I was hiring, I reached out to her. She goes, I'm really enjoying where I'm at, Thanks for putting me over here. And I'm like all right, awesome.
Bill Butler:Well, let me know if you ever change your mind and the law of reciprocity is always in effect. Yeah, whoever, if you give more than you thought you had in the beginning.
Michael Shirley:When, the day that we closed on buying our hospital on Wednesday, on Thursday we opened and we didn't have any inventory.
Speaker 1:That was hard. That was a hard day.
Michael Shirley:That was a hard day and I will never forget. Canards Creekside Animal Hospital said bring a box, come over here, we'll get you set up. And they just shared their inventory with us. We just wrote it on a piece of paper what I owed them and when our order showed up the next week, we took it back and.
Michael Shirley:I'll never forget, like that's what we need to do for each other. Like we can't be everybody's veterinarian. Your practice can't serve everybody in your community, so don't try to either. He's like not everybody in your community is your ideal client, and so work together and spread that stress out.
Bill Butler:I mean nothing against your building or what you have here, but somebody might come here and say this is just too big and fancy for me.
Michael Shirley:I need something smaller and more homey or whatever that you know we're not the cheapest place in town.
Bill Butler:Yeah, and, and so we could probably talk for about three hours here on this podcast, but I'd like to chat just a few minutes about the practice itself and the building, because I brought it up and a lot of thought and intention went and I can tell, getting the tour from Steven, a lot of thought and intention went into this building and how you put things together for the team to be able to better serve your clients, because, at the end of the day, that's what this is all about it's about serving your clients. So what went into the thought process moving from the practice, where you were with a really great team, to all right, if we're going to build this from the ground up, what does that look like? It started.
Michael Shirley:I'm so glad that our path took us the way that we did. I'm glad that we didn't just build from the ground up to begin with In 2018,. I'm glad we bought an existing practice, that we were able to get our feet under us there, because I would have put boarding and grooming in, I would have had a lobby with waiting rooms, just like every other vet practice does. Well, what went into this was that one thing that was really hard was that when we decided to build from the ground up, we were in a 1,700 square foot 1960 ranch style house. Then they started building these little warehouse units right down the road from us. They're 10 unit, 2,200 square foot in one big building. You can divide them up into 10 units.
Michael Shirley:I went and put a deposit down for two of those units, so we were going to move into 4,400 square feet. They wouldn't let us put any windows in the building. Well, that's not good. They wouldn't let us put any skylights in the roof, because the city of Murfreesboro had approved what they were building and you would have to go back through planning. And they were like we're not doing that. And so I said, well, that's not going to work, because we love that old house has natural lighting everywhere.
Bill Butler:And we love that.
Michael Shirley:And your new building has natural lighting everywhere that is a tip of the hat to the old building. The surgery suite was in the dining room with the big bay window, and Dr Nunnery told me if I don't have a window in surgery, I'm going to quit. And I said, well, dr Nunnery, how big do you want your window? Right? And then they wouldn't let me put a window in. I said, well, this isn't going to work because Dr Nunnery needs a window in surgery. So we scrapped that idea, went back to the drawing board. We started talking with the bank. We identified a bank, we identified a lender, we identified an architect, and none of them would go first. What I mean by that is, the bank wouldn't tell us how much money they were going to give us until we had plans.
Michael Shirley:Well, the builder can't give us an estimate of what they until they have plans the architect won't make the plans until they know what our budget is, and so what we ended up doing-.
Bill Butler:And then the insurance guy finds out at the very, very end. That's right, that's right. Ask me how I know. Okay, continue.
Michael Shirley:So luckily we did have a good insurance. So we decided Dr Shirley and I pulled our personal money out and agreed on a price with the architect to rough sketch out a floor plan that met our minimum standards. And I told her what our minimums were. We wanted 10 exam rooms because we knew we were going to grow. We want 10 exam rooms. We want a central pharmacy. We want a meeting space for 50 people. We want natural lighting. We want a double dental suite. We want a break room that's actually a break room for our team, not just like an afterthought with the laundry room not a converted exam room, correct.
Michael Shirley:And there was and we wanted outdoor seat, an outdoor exam space, because during COVID we we had more exams on our patio, covered patio, outside than we did in the building. People loved it, our team loved it. They got to go outside.
Bill Butler:I mean, I drove up today and you know I'd seen the practice on. You know I looked at it online and I drove up and I was like there are little tiny patios on the whole front of this thing and I actually stopped and I had to. It actually stopped me, michael. I stopped and looked at it. I thought I have never seen this before in a vet practice?
Michael Shirley:Yeah, there's. We have 10 exam rooms.
Bill Butler:Six of them have outdoor patio seating, so you can go straight from the parking lot to your patio and from the patio into your exam room and because you're fear-free, the exam, everything happens in the exam room. The animal doesn't get transferred. The owner's there, mike and Steven was explaining this. So if you're a fear-free, certified practice, you kind of understand what we're talking about. But everything happens in the room and I, as a pet owner, have never experienced that. I bring Louie in and they come get Louie and Louie leaves.
Bill Butler:And then Louie comes back and he's pissed off.
Michael Shirley:You want to know why we don't. You want to know one of the main reasons we don't do that. Why Is that? I want you to value my team and if they walk out and walk out of your site and come back, this would happen if they stayed in the exam room and made you leave. I want you to see them take that three inch needle and stick it in the neck of your cat and draw out blood. I want you to go. Oh my God, how did you do that? Oh my gosh, you're amazing. I want you to see what they're doing and I want you to recognize them.
Michael Shirley:For the veterinary professionals that they are, it cuts down on complaints. Very few people complain about our prices. They see the value. They believe in the value that they're getting. Part of that is doing things right there with them. Also, an added benefit is that not removing the pet from the room decreases their fear, anxiety and stress so much, and so if we do have to do something in the back, honestly the people can just open their exam room and they can see the back.
Bill Butler:Yeah, like I walked, I was, you know, getting the tour and I walked through and I was like, well, I can see in the pharmacy and I can see in the dental suite and you can see from the dental suite into the surgical suite and you can see it is a fishbowl, but it's an intentional fishbowl. And it's interesting that you talked about seeing the value of the team. You know, in the insurance world a lot happens on the backend. You know, I have to email the lender, I have to email the CPA. You know all these things. And I said, whenever I coach my team on this cause, you know you say, hey, bill, I got this email from my banker and then you expect me to take care of it. Well, every time I email your banker, I copy you on the email and it might be 15 emails back and forth between the banker but your original request was hey, just take care of the banker, Get the banker off my back.
Bill Butler:Bill, I got this email from the finance company on my piece of equipment I just bought Absolutely, and I coach my team. Every time we email or do something on our client's behalf, we need to copy them on the email so they see the value in what we're doing. It took 15 emails to get this one thing taken care of for them, but then not that any other insurance agent wouldn't have to make 15 emails or wouldn't have done it just as good as we would have. But they see the value in working with us because we're working on their behalf.
Michael Shirley:Yeah, I want our clients to feel like they're partners in the veterinary care of their pets and, just like every good, real partnership, you have support teams and auxiliary services that are a part of what makes everything happen and that's where I want our clients to see the vet assistant, the CSRs, the doctor, the veterinary technician the whole, experience, the whole experience Our, our clients.
Bill Butler:Not just waiting room, exam room, pet leaves, pet comes back, pay your bill. We'll see you in six months. Yeah, yeah.
Michael Shirley:It needs to be more relationship than transactional.
Bill Butler:So well, people buy based on emotion and back it up with logic.
Michael Shirley:I love that. Yeah, we talked about that at our team meetings.
Bill Butler:Did you?
Michael Shirley:Yeah, we do. Yeah, because I don't remember where I heard it, but maybe it was on your podcast, I don't remember but I was like, yes, yes, I love this. They support it with data. So it is imperative that we explain what we're doing and why we're doing it, so that pet parents understand it and then they're going to do it If we tell, I tell my team, I don't want you to feel like you're a salesperson, I want you to feel like you're an educator. If our, if our clients know what we know, they're going to do what we recommend Cause that's why we're recommending is because it works. Yeah, not because we're trying to make money, but what's good for the patient is good for the business.
Bill Butler:Correct At the end of the day, a hundred percent Right. So you went in with a very intentional mindset about what you wanted to build. So you had a team built and now you need a building to match the team.
Michael Shirley:Correct. So I said finally we have a building that matches the quality of care that our team has been providing since day one.
Bill Butler:So the team provided quality of care, and then their hard work facilitated the purchase.
Michael Shirley:There was one day we got a new client that found us on Google, got on our website, looked at it. We have a good website, familypethealthcom if you want to check it out there it is.
Michael Shirley:You can also see our building. We've heard us talk about the floor plan. Our floor plan is available on our website. You just copy it plan. Our floor plan is available on our website for you, just copy it. I don't care if you need the building plans. I will expect you to pay for that. But if you want to see what it is that's different about us, go to familypethealthcom, scroll all the way down to the bottom, click on building plan and you can see the floor plan.
Michael Shirley:And it's pretty cool. Yeah, and so there was one day that a client was there this was when we were still curbside and he goes, he goes, am I at the right place? And they're like what he goes? This does not look like it matches your pictures. And they're like oh, those are pictures, are all inside. The inside's really nice. So we, we spent a lot of time on the, you know, polishing up a turd, as they said, but it was. It was uh, you know, we did the best we could with what we had and uh, and people liked it. He and he's still a client of ours and he commented when he, when we moved over, he was like this is more like it.
Bill Butler:So you've built a culture, you've built a great practice. I think you know what's one thing if you could go back and change like what would you change either?
Michael Shirley:I would change our laundry room here. The laundry room, the vents go out the ceiling and I would have put them out the back, out the back. Yep, that's about it. I understand the premise of your question. It's hard for me to say that I would change anything, because all of those things are what's got us here. One thing that I would help everybody is read traction. If you're thinking about owning a business.
Bill Butler:So in your evolution 2018, you bought the other practice. When did you implement Traction? In 2021.
Michael Shirley:So four years after Right, basically in the middle of our story, and we committed to it for three years. So this is our third year. Third year I don't think that we would have been able to get the loan for this building had we not had.
Bill Butler:So you invested in yourself yeah, and so I have a business coach in my coaching group and I went part of our part of our coaching. So you know, uh, I am not the smartest guy in the room, I'm the first one to admit it but successfully is clues, and if you follow successful people and hey, what did you for the listeners out there, michael gave you a clue. Hey, you can come look at our practice. Show your architect the building plan now if you want to buy it, you got to talk to talk to the man and maybe get some donuts for the team yeah, I got, I got the
Bill Butler:recipe for that, but but successfully. The point is, success leaves clues, and the clues are out there, and so my business coach. I was sitting at his house two years ago at my one-to-one coaching session with him, and it was at the very beginning of the session. He said Bill, have you heard of Beyonce? Have you heard of Beyonce, michael?
Bill Butler:I have heard of her, and I'm not a fan either, or maybe I don't know if you're a fan, but I'm not a fan but I know who Beyonce is and there's a quote in Beyonce she goes I don't often gamble, but there's one thing I'll always bet on. I'll always bet on me. And so if you continue to invest in yourself and it's what your wife did, dr Shirley, when she decided, okay, I'm going to be an entrepreneur she started investing in business classes and coaching herself up and doing things. And it's an evolutionary process, not a revolutionary process.
Michael Shirley:It happens over time it's not all sunshines and rainbows either. No, and it is super stressful. It's been hard on our marriage like it not like like that we're going towards divorce, but it's like it's. It's an added stress, yep, when you work with your spouse and own a business. Yeah, turn that off at eight o'clock please yeah, it's like impossible and so we we find ourselves at the end of the day like, like, I don't have anything left. I love you. I love you too. Good night.
Michael Shirley:You know like and so that's hard. Like I'm a, you know the five love languages, I know you just learned about that book. We're all opposite on those things as well, and so you know it's it's just knowing those things is is it makes it easier, but it's hard. It, but it's hard. It's not all sunshines and rainbows. It's not for the weak, the faint of heart, but man is it. Is it fun? And the payoff is there eventually. Like as we think about adding our fifth doctor, my wife is going to. My wife and my daughter are going to be leaving to go on a vacation together, just a mommy daughter trip, right, and that's because we're finally to the point where the business can survive without her or me in the building. She's been the least paid doctor on our team for a long time because we're trying to grow and invest.
Bill Butler:You're invested in the business right.
Michael Shirley:Knowing that the payoff is there eventually, and and and also knowing that worst case scenario, we just go back to what we were doing eight years ago. So it's not that big, it's not, it's pretty good life. Then, too, were doing eight years ago. So it's not that big, it's not. It's pretty good life then too. Yeah, so I would say, if I could go back, I would love to go back with the knowledge that I have now. What changes would I make?
Bill Butler:I think that there's Would you invest in education in yourself and you're implementing some things earlier.
Michael Shirley:Yeah, it's so expensive it is, and it's really when you are that entrepreneur I'm always worried. I have the money that I could get one of these EOS implementers.
Bill Butler:So you're doing traction, but you don't-.
Michael Shirley:We're self-implementing.
Bill Butler:You're self-implementing. You don't have an implementer or integrator.
Michael Shirley:Because I'm too afraid to. I'm like so oh, I'm still nervous about spending money.
Bill Butler:So for those listeners out there to pay for the service where they come in and actually do this stuff for you. It is not-.
Michael Shirley:It's like $4,000 to $10,000 a day.
Bill Butler:Yeah, they come in for a day and they give you the full workout and sometimes.
Michael Shirley:I have been in some of these sessions where there have been consultants that are teaching and I'm like I could do a better job than that.
Bill Butler:Yep.
Michael Shirley:And so you got to know what you're paying for. Yeah, and that's where you call that. One thing I would tell everybody call the reference checks, call people that have done it. That's how I met.
Bill Butler:So our you know so, our coaching group that I'm in. There's an application process. You have to be vetted and then there's there's four mastermind groups and you get placed based on your agency makeup and how you're going to integrate with the culture of the group. And it's a five-figure investment Before you talk about. For those of you familiar with Nashville, been in Nashville was at the Embassy Suites, very nice, not inexpensive to come stay. You got to fly down, you got to buy your food, you have to do the things, but those investments in myself as the leader of the organization, the ROI, on that's almost immeasurable.
Bill Butler:And this is the other thing that my business coach, Mike Stromso, shout out for you, mike, that he said he started the session. It was a picture of a flight attendant on an airline and she had her life vest on and he started the session with. You have to take care of yourself first, put your life vest on first, put your oxygen mask on first, before you have to help others. And I think you know as entrepreneurs, as business owners and especially veterinarians, who are more definitely more empathetic than I am, is they want to help others before they help themselves. And some of that helping yourself as a business owner is investing in yourself. Whether it's doing traction without an implementer or whatever it might be, it's that investment in you to be a leader for your team.
Michael Shirley:Yeah, I think those are my people, because they've challenged me, the books that we've read have really helped me a lot, and then just the team that I have here is so awesome.
Bill Butler:Well, yeah, I mean your brother's like this guy. Did he even tell you I was going to call you? No?
Michael Shirley:Actually, I think I got your email first and I asked him. I'm like, what is this?
Bill Butler:And he goes oh yeah, it's true, what he sent me was he sent me a LinkedIn message with your email address here reach out to my brother, he's got a podcast. So I was like and in my coaching circle I'm known as Action Pack. So I emailed you that night, that Sunday night, to say hey, your brother told me to reach out to you, let's get on a call. And we did, and I'm glad I'm here. Well, like I said, we could probably talk for another hour. It and I'm glad I'm here. Well, like I said, we could probably talk for another hour it's probably going to be my longest podcast.
Speaker 1:Sorry, no, no.
Bill Butler:You know what? I think that there's a lot of information here that a lot of other veterinarians can use. Number one you're our first veterinary practice interview. It's all been other business people and bankers and attorneys and that sort of thing, real estate agents and you're our first success story and so you set a high bar for the Veterinary Blueprints podcast.
Michael Shirley:Well, I can give you some other people to call and talk to?
Bill Butler:I would love to. I'd love a list.
Michael Shirley:So there's some people out there that are doing it better than I am and I just I watch them and I Success leaves clues. Yeah, you know, like I said right Dr Ashley Andrews out in New Mexico, Arizona. I follow her. I creep on her stuff all the time. She's amazing. She's got tons of practices. She even had a daycare at her office for her team. That's somebody that's invested in their team. You just take care of your people and they'll take care of your business.
Bill Butler:Absolutely, we're going to close with this. I'm getting ready to come down. I thought, well, I'm coming to the practice, I should probably, you know, buy something for the team. And uh, you know, I'll buy donuts or bagels or something. And I reached out to to steven, or I reached out to you and you didn't pick up because you guys were in the middle of your eos planning and I got a hold of steven and he said oh, we have a standing donut order at the at Country down in Murfreesboro two locations.
Michael Shirley:That's right. Best donuts in the world.
Bill Butler:I had one on the way down in the car from there to here and it was great. But what he did was he emailed me a list of donuts and the important thing and the takeaway that I took from it was off of this order, everyone on our team gets a donut that they like, and just think about that for a second. How much time does that actually take to have your team tell you what their favorite donut is? Five seconds, 10 seconds. Write that down and save it because and I brought donuts I'm not going to meet the team that's here, but they knew donuts were showing up from donut country.
Bill Butler:They didn't care who was delivering them. It's some insurance guy from Minnesota funny Northern accent. But those are the kind of small big doors swing on little hinges and those small things, small touches for your team, whether it's finding out what their favorite color is. When the time is right, you get to use those things and it matters.
Michael Shirley:And you had a recent podcast about the languages of learning and five love languages. People should go back and listen to that podcast, because she talked about things that are free. They don't take a lot of money. Part of our onboarding process is that we have a Google form that we send them and it has that questionnaire how do you do? Please, rank how you like to receive recognition, and is it public, is it private, is it a letter, is it gifts, is it something else?
Bill Butler:And so is it time, or is it money.
Michael Shirley:PTO more money. So we ask those things and they they rank it how they like it. And we also ask them like what's your favorite work appropriate drink, what's your favorite snack? And we try to random. I will randomly do those things for people and that just makes them feel like, oh he really, he really took the time to make this the the way. Actually, I listened to your podcast and I was listening to it while I was working on some things and I actually took out a letter and wrote a thank you note to one of my team members. He comes in and cleans at night. His name is john. He does an amazing job I don't always so I just wrote him a letter. I mailed it to his house because of your podcast. I'm like he's going to get that.
Bill Butler:That's what I was going to say is handwritten thank you cards but not left here and not given to the team. It doesn't take. It does not take much, but you have to be intentional about it, it's intentionality yeah. Well, michael, like I said, we could talk forever. We'll have some information in the show notes about Michael's podcast for veterinarians, just to kind of see what's out there.
Michael Shirley:Yeah, it's a. It's for your. You can share it. We don't brand it toward our office. So if you want to share the episodes with your clients about everything from chronic kidney disease to heartworm protection, to pet insurance, they're really good episodes that are made for pet parents and you can know that it's from a trusted veterinary source, a fear-free certified trusted veterinary source, independently owned and operated here in Murfreesboro Tennessee.
Bill Butler:That's right.
Michael Shirley:We're not trying to steal your clients. They're not trying to steal your clients.
Bill Butler:Well, thank you so much for the time, michael, thanks for the use of your awesome podcast studio and it was awesome having you on this episode of the Veterinary Blueprints podcast.
Michael Shirley:I really appreciate you having me on. Thank you so much.
Bill Butler:Well, as always, remember to like, share and review the podcast. It helps with all the algorithms out there on the internet, and we just hope that you enjoyed this episode of the Veterinary Blueprints Podcast.
Michael Shirley:Take care everybody.
