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
Episode 20 - Secrets to Thriving Veterinary Practices with Megan Bingham
Meghan Bingham, a seasoned expert in veterinary practice management from Granite Peak Associates, uncovers the hidden dynamics behind successful veterinary operations in this engaging episode of the Veterinary Blueprint Podcast. From her humble beginnings as a kennel assistant to her pivotal role as a Senior Operations Manager, Meghan shares invaluable insights into the intricacies of practice management. Discover how her journey shaped her ability to optimize areas like marketing, staffing, and operational efficiency, especially in smaller practices where veterinarians often tackle both medical and business roles.
Listeners will gain practical advice on implementing performance improvement plans and the necessity of keeping job descriptions current to foster staff motivation and career advancement. Meghan explains why transparency in roles and salary ranges is essential for inspiring ambition and development within the veterinary team. She also delves into the strategic use of performance improvement plans as tools for accountability and supportive work cultures that enhance employee retention and satisfaction.
The conversation shifts to innovative growth strategies essential for scaling veterinary practices. Meghan shares her experiences on the critical role of communication in preventing workplace issues and emphasizes the need for clear policies, such as those regarding cell phone usage. She also explores how expanding services with options like acupuncture and telemedicine can drive practice growth. Finally, Meghan discusses the pivotal balance between digital and verbal communication, underscoring its significance for maintaining clarity with both clients and team members. Tune in for a wealth of knowledge and strategies designed to propel veterinary practices toward greater success.
Host Information
Bill Buter – Contact Information
Direct – 952-208-7220
https://butlervetinsurance.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/billbutler-cic/
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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.
Speaker 2:Welcome to today's episode, welcome to another episode of the Veterinary Blueprints podcast, where the worlds of animal health, entrepreneurship and business ideas converge. I am your host, bill Butler, and today we have a truly inspiring guest joining us Megan Bingham from Granite Peak Associates. Starting over two decades ago with a summer job at a neighborhood vet, megan Bingham from Granite Peak Associates. Starting over two decades ago with a summer job at a neighborhood vet, megan's passion for veterinary medicine has seen her journey from kennel assistant to the heights of veterinary practice management. She worked her way up from becoming a practice manager, transforming a small bustling practice into a 12-doctor entrepreneurship dream. Her career trajectory didn't stop there. Megan later took the role of Senior Operations Manager, overseeing operations at 25 different urgent, emergency and general practice facilities, pushing them towards their peak potential.
Speaker 2:Now, at Granite Peak Associates, megan finds herself in what she calls her dream job, where she enhances processes for those dedicating their lives to pets, setting up veterinary practices for success. Not only has she earned a BA in communications, but she also has recognized a leader in the field, currently holding a position of vice president for the Houston Veterinary Practice Managers Alliance and recently serving on the board of Directors for the Veterinary Hospital Managers Association. A voracious reader, she also as if you're watching along on this she has a Star Wars and Lego aficionado. Thanks to her husband, firefighter and 10-year-old son, she brings a unique blend of personal and professional insights to today's discussion. So stay tuned as we dive into processes and strategies to help drive successful veterinary practice with Megan, as we explore how to adapt any of these for your practice environment. Welcome, megan.
Speaker 3:Thank you, bill, I sound lovely.
Speaker 2:We all do. On introductions, on podcasts, that's kind of the deal. Well, welcome to today's podcast. Podcast, that's kind of the deal. Well, welcome to today's podcast. And why don't you tell our audience today I kind of gave the LinkedIn bio there but why don't you tell our listeners today kind of how we got connected at Granite Peak Associates and how you wound up there and kind of your trajectory in the vet world and animal health?
Speaker 3:I mean, you can go anywhere in vet med, right, there's a job for everyone. I hooked up with Granite Peak. Jared the CEO sent me a message on LinkedIn and said we are looking for a certified veterinary practice manager. And I thought, for sure it was a scam, right, like all the other messages that you get on LinkedIn. And I was in my yes phase and I was like let's just see where this goes, and so I love. So Granite Peak is a CPA firm that's focused on veterinarians and so I'm there for the non-tax related stuff. So as we're going through P&Ls and looking at budgets and that kind of thing, then you know say like, oh, your cogs are a little bit out of line with industry standards. And then the clients would say like, okay, how do I fix that? And they'd be like well, you can adjust your prices. So now I'm here to like get down to the nitty gritty.
Speaker 2:We're talking marketing, we're talking staffing, we're talking all of the things operationally that can help improve your business and make your P&L a little bit cleaner and a little bit better, and so you took all of your experience working in practices to help advise for a business that looks at the high level stuff from a tax and planning perspective, and now they brought you on board to assist internally with their clients, do what you were doing on the front line, but now in an advisory role instead of a frontline role.
Speaker 3:Right, and so now I can help 150 people instead of just my one practice. It's really like the dream job. Also, like no one's ever going to call out to me no one's ever. I don't ever have to run a payroll, I don't have to fix a toilet, like all of these things that you have to do as a practice manager. So I get to take all the sweat equity that I've put in and now hopefully share and make it a little bit easier for someone else.
Speaker 2:So when we were doing some prep for this, you know I sent you say hey, what? What should we chat about? You have a lot of expertise in the in the vet, vet world, veterinary, animal health world from a management perspective, and the number one question that you sent back was I love all things operational. That was actually the response, and so within that I think there's so many different things. So you've got a strong passion for all things related to operations and I think there's a couple of elemental components to that right. So, like foundational elements for handbooks, job descriptions, raises, that sort of thing. So why don't you talk about what you see in your experience in talking about operational aspects of a vet practice and things that veterinarians necessarily don't love dealing with? It falls to the practice manager hey, we got to get our employee handbook up to speed, so why don't you talk about some of those operational components?
Speaker 3:Sure, and that's great, right, if you do have a manager to pass it off to you, that's fantastic. But I think there's so many small practices out there that just have the DVM that's trying to do their best to practice medicine and run a business, and then man that gets the waters get muddy on that. So I've found talking to clients at Grand Peak. I'd say, well, what does your handbook say? And they'd say like oh, we don't have a handbook or a job description or any of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:So I just feel like that's the time right. Your handbook is your Bible. You got to list out your do's and your don'ts and you can make them. As long as they're within federal and state laws, you can kind of make it whatever you want. If you want to talk about appropriate nail length for your technicians that they can't come in with, you know, two and a half inch long nails or facial piercings or any of those kinds of things. When we talk about vacation, accrual or requesting time off, like those are the things that we can put in our handbook and have rules, and so we're fair, moving forward right.
Speaker 3:We're not picking and choosing who we're allowing these benefits for, and the same with job descriptions. Like we're setting up our team for success and we know what's expected of them and how we're going to judge them and what we're going to teach them. Like it's so important to form that foundation so that we're all moving forward on the same page.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think you know, I'm in Minnesota and practices all over the country are different. We have a lot of legislation happening on a state and national level. Ftc just rolled out can't have non-competes. There's a lot of conversation happening right now in the vet community about that. Overall, I mean, in my industry insurance we have the same thing a lot of non-competes. But so staying up to speed on those things and you know, having a resource, you know if they're a client at Granite Peak, obviously hey, no-transcript in this year, and so that's mandatory. And making sure that your employee had we just had ours rewritten this year to make sure we comply with the Minnesota stuff. So I was doing the same things you're talking about, but it's not a put it on the shelf and forget about it.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:It's a living document that needs to be updated, right.
Speaker 3:Definitely. It definitely needs to be a living document that we're. It's really like I kind of how I work on SOPs, like the thing that's giving you the most trouble, the hiccups that you run into time and time again. That's what we need to address. So if there's, you know, call outs every Monday morning, let's write it in our handbook. Let's have a policy on this and then let's dole out fairly the repercussions. I think that's so important.
Speaker 2:Now I heard you mention something there every Monday and I think a lot of practices don't meet every Monday or every Friday or every Wednesday. They have a monthly meeting or they have a meeting every six months. Why don't you talk about that for just a second in your? You know, as your bio state, 20 year plus experience in practice management, working your practice how important do you think that is, that weekly check in versus that monthly or more?
Speaker 3:The business is so busy and there's all these different aspects. Right, there's the DVMs, the technicians, the front desk. Sometimes you've got kennel and boarding and grooming and they all kind of run in their own ecosystem. But they all have to work together. So if we're not checking in and disseminating information like how is the person working in the kennels in the back supposed to know that we changed our policy on taking leashes from clients? So there needs to be some sort of form of communication. My staff like I had a staff of 50 and I rarely had all team meetings because anybody who's got I mean it can be a staff of four and you know that these large team meetings are going to turn into like just a disaster. So I really focused on I would start with my leads.
Speaker 3:I would have a monthly doctor's meeting and then I would have a monthly lead meeting and then I would have the different sections and so I would disseminate the information down through all of these different channels, and then I would have a memo, a weekly memo that broke out, like this is for everyone to know, and then this is what the different sections need to know, and so that really helped with, like you know, upcoming holiday schedules or changes in protocol or bringing in a new product. Like it was just easier to have this memo that went out every week than to try to like wrangle all these cats together and have them pay attention.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in the military and I've talked about some previous podcasts background in the military personally and the scope of control is four to six. You can't manage more than four to six people and so if you've got a staff of 12 and you're trying to have a 12 person staff meeting, it's going to be a problem. So you've got the DV. You know a person that is your DVM liaison or coordinator that manages the DVM team and then your tech team and you know so you have to break. You can't, as the practice manager or the DVM, like you can't manage a team of 15 and think that you're going to disseminate stuff down and individually manage that. You've got to have some levels of management in there, as you. You know kind of talking about a further question that I had for you about scaling a practice because you took a single vet practice to a 12 vet practice. Well, it's not just 12 vets, it's all the support staff that go with them to get to that 12, right?
Speaker 3:Yes, and that's huge right. And I will say, though, that my doctors were my difficult, my most difficult group to manage. They were the most demanding and the least compliant. So that's always like, the more doctors you have more problems, and, to be fair, I need everyone to know that, like I hired them back in the day, when it was easy to hire a veterinarian, so I don't want anyone to think that, like I'm a miracle worker these days, because times are definitely changed.
Speaker 2:But to scale. A further question about scale a little bit later is having those foundational pieces in place. Like you can't scale without foundation, right? Right, so you know. You talked about handbook. How important do you think job descriptions are in today's modern vet practice?
Speaker 3:I think if you have more than two people doing the same job, if you've got more than two technicians, more than two CSRs, you got to have a job description right.
Speaker 3:We've got to be able to go back and say this is what's expected of you, and this goes for all of the things. Like you can, you can account for this, if, if I've got a pregnant mommy, I need to be able to send them with a job description to their doctor and say what can you do? And so, like, having that can, can you lift 50 pounds? Can you be around loud noises? Like you're going to be exposed to bites, you're going to be exposed to blood? Like there's just some things that we need to put in to these job descriptions so that there's no surprises. I expect you to work 40 hours of your full time. I expect you to do eight hours of CE a year. Like all of these things that we expect of our employees should be in here so that we can refer back to them. Either you're doing well and you're getting a raise, or you're not doing so well and we're going to do a performance improvement plan. Like it all starts with the job description.
Speaker 2:You know these are your expectations from an insurance standpoint. You know you mentioned about, you know you're a pregnant mom. Here's what. What can you do from a job description perspective as you progress in the pregnancy, the other components of that from an insurance side, because you know, claim, workers' compensation claims do happen in the vet world Big surprise shock. You know people are going to get bit or things are going to happen at the practice and so you can use that same job description after the workers' compensation claim has been filed to say, hey, so-and-so got bit, they've got stitches in a bandage. What can they do in the practice to have them recover on the job? Which is an important component to insurance is recovery at work instead of recovery at home, because that drives up the worker's compensation claim. So again, having that outline detailed job description and again those don't need to be reviewed as heavily as an employee handbook potentially just because there isn't as much change. But again, that's something that needs to be looked at, probably more than just once every five years.
Speaker 3:Oh for sure. And I think if you get a new toy, like if you bring in a new piece of equipment, and that's included in their job description and I like to leave those best, like you know. So I grew up kennel technician, receptionist, I've done the things, but. I did the things 20 years ago, so now I would depend on my leads to really go through and look at the job functions and making sure that all of our bases were covered.
Speaker 1:And I also would have different expectations for different.
Speaker 3:you know, I had a lead technician job description for different you know, I had a lead technician job description and then like one and two levels, so that it's important.
Speaker 3:I think for you know the veterinary industry, it's kind of like a sink or swim. We throw somebody in, maybe they know it, maybe they don't, but the doctor's busy. They grab them and say, hey, do this. Well, if they don't know how to do that, like people pleasers just say like oh, okay, but like, then that's a liability right. So if we know that this person is a level one technician, maybe we're not going to have them intubate the kitten. Like there's just some rules and regs of like this is your lane, let's stay in it for now.
Speaker 2:Well, I think also and this came up on some prior podcasts about career progression inside the vet industry, Like it's not just technician or certified technician, depending on your state and the title based on the state. But I'm in licensure. But, you know, if you've got level one technician, level two, technician, lead technician, it shows that younger person who's hungry to be in animal health and the animal health business world, so to speak, hey, this is a career progression that I could have. I can go from technician one to technician two, to lead technician. I want to be the lead technician. Well, here's the job title and description. It gives them something to work for versus just saying, hey, do you want to come work at my vet practice as a veterinary technician? Right, sure.
Speaker 3:I love that. Yes, it gives them room to grow, because what do you do? Like you, always, I want to employ the people that want to continue growing and continue to contribute, and so I would recommend a having a salary range that's posted so that we kind of know where we are and what we want to achieve, and then I would post those job descriptions in your break room so that the kennel assistant can go and say what do I need to do? And then we can have that conversation. Like these don't need to be like hidden secret documents that we bring out on onboarding and never touch again. Like these should be shared and encouraged for growth and opportunity.
Speaker 2:Oh, and celebrate that within the practice. When you know, when Megan becomes technician too, that gets brought up in the weekly meeting or the memo that goes out. Hey, congratulate Megan when you see her. She just made technician too, or lead technician, whatever that might be. Or the kennel attendant got into technician one, and so you know again, it builds that culture of accountability and, hey, this is where you can go, especially, as you mentioned, things have changed a lot in the 20 years you've been in the animal health world, and so you know, trying to retain those key team members, anything you can do to get a leg up.
Speaker 2:I mean retention is so important, so right. It's so much easier to keep them than to rehire them, so effective. So, talking about this kind of progression and improvement, how important are professional performance improvement plans for enhancing staff performance? And just speak a little bit about that and things that you've done in your career managing, you know, a single practice all the way up to 25 locations in that key component, making sure you have success within the veterinary setting.
Speaker 3:So I love a performance improvement plan for so many reasons. I love them for a paper trail right. That's really important these days.
Speaker 3:I love it because yes, yeah, I never want anyone to be fired as a surprise, right? If? You should always know what's expected of you. If you stepped out of bounds, we're going to you. If you, if you stepped out of bounds, we're going to have that conversation, and if you step out of bounds again, that's on you. So I really love a performance improvement plan because it's it's subjective objective. It's not I'm not picking on you. We have a specific thing that we're working on. This is what you did, this is what we need to do, and this is we're going to give you two weeks to not screw up filling prescriptions and if, in those two weeks, it happens and we're either going to send you to some CE or we're going to take away the ability to do it, or we're going to let you go. I mean so you set it up and then, and then you put it back on the employee. I'll help you as much as I can.
Speaker 3:I'll provide you with the resources If you need additional training or some sort of skill set that we need to work on. I'm happy to do it, but I have laid the foundation between the job descriptions, what we expect of you, so there's really no surprises, and I love that, because everyone fears this being mean. I don't want to fire people. I would much rather have a staff that's productive and happy and compliant, but sometimes that's not always the case.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a question that gets thrown around and is not a favorite amongst the team at Butler Vet Insurance is well, if you were sitting in my chair, what would you do? You know, it's that old parent question. Well, you know, bill. You know, billy, what do you think your punishment should be? I was like I don't think you should punish me at all, is my answer when I was a kid, but it didn't fly really far because, you know, the response was well, there's going to be a punishment. What do you think it should be, and what do you think is fair?
Speaker 2:And you know, people generally try and do a good job. I mean, there's always the outliers, both good and bad, but generally people want to try and do a good job and they know when they haven't. And they're good team members. If you're hiring the right team member, they'll own up to that. And so it's that question of well, what would you do if you were me?
Speaker 2:And then kind of the follow-up is, as you said, is laying out the plan and say, well, this is what happened and this is what we're going to do to remedy the situation. And so it isn't surprised, because it's not fair to the team member to say well, you know this has been happening for six months, it's a problem, you're gone. It's like well, this is the first time I'm hearing about it. That's when the employment law attorney gets brought into it and you get that employment practice case brought against you where wrongful termination is like I wasn't counseled, I wasn't advised, so-and-so has been doing this for nine months and I've only been, I've only screwed it up for four and they've been screwing up for nine months and I got fired because they don't like me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's like the you know if, if everyone else is cranky about it, if we're all talking about Bill being on his cell phone but no one said like hey, get off your phone, like that's not fair. So just being like forward and direct and like open communication is it just makes it a smoother process for everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm always on my cell phone. It's a real problem around the practice I would probably call you out on it.
Speaker 3:If you had an animal in front of you and you were on your cell phone, that would be a no-no.
Speaker 2:How big a problem is that at practices these days?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, I would always feel guilty, right? Because my cell phones, my email, my, like the clients are texting me, the employees are texting me, so it's really hard. Plus, it's such a resource, it's a calculator, it's a, you know, a website that you need, I think. I think some hard and fast rules never under anesthesia right, never when walking an animal outside, never when you've got an animal that's your responsibility in front of you at the table. But if I need to research what a drug is, I should be able to just use my phone. So it's such a slippery slope.
Speaker 2:I think it also depends on classification of job, right, if you're a DVM and you're looking something up, that's one thing. If you're a kennel attendant, you probably don't need to have. Your cell phone should be in your locker in the team room phone should be in your locker in the team room.
Speaker 3:Also, I'd rather, if you're getting a like we had our x-ray computer, got foreign viruses all the time, right, because that's a door and I would much rather that happen on someone's personal cell phone than on a work computer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Plug for cyber liability insurance in the podcast to protect yourself from that stuff.
Speaker 2:Reliability insurance in the podcast to protect yourself from that stuff. So you know, talking about scaling and operation, you know you brought a one vet practice up to a 12 vet practice in your early career in management and then you transitioned from that to managing a 25 practice emergency and urgent care network. What are some of the things besides the foundational components that you see either are one or two things you have to do to scale. And then what are a couple of mistakes that you see veterinary practices making over and over again that they don't. You know I was like if you only did this, it'd be a lot easier to scale.
Speaker 3:I think I mean the easy answer for both of those right is like you have to be willing to try some new things and to take some risks. Like if I'm going to grow this, I can't just feel 12 doctors can't do vaccines all day long, like I need to have something else that we're doing I need to.
Speaker 3:I brought an acupuncture, we have a laser, we're doing more dentistry, like these kinds of things. Maybe you can bring on house calls, you can do telemed, Like there's so many growth opportunities now that that you can't. Just, I mean, unless you just want to be a vaccine clinic like you've, you've got to be open to trying new things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of our practices did a holistic center off. They actually rented space next to their brick and mortar press, so they have a freestanding building. They actually rented space in a strip mall next to their practice and that's where they do all the holistic chiropractic acupuncture isn't in the main practice, it's in their ancillary holistic medicine next door and so you know. And they couldn't expand that component inside of their existing footprint. They said didn't have any physical room to expand the practice so they had to lease space but it allowed their practice to expand. Also, a small benefit for them was they had a water issue that needed some address and so they actually had to run the practice out of the side practice. But to expand you also have to give up some control right, as the main DVM probably have a lot of control stuff. Like you just can't do everything anymore. You have to have your practice manager doing stuff. You have to have some of these divisions of control right.
Speaker 3:Right, and that's when you need strong leads. Right, because I can no longer. I can't be in front of everybody, the owner can't be in front of everybody, so I depend on a strong lead technician to do this and a strong lead CSR to do that. I'm not going to make a schedule for 50 people. I'm not going to remember everybody's birthday and do all this stuff so to make it still have those personal touches. You have to develop a strong team, for sure, and give up some of the control.
Speaker 2:In our world of the insurance world, and a lot of the agents that I network with you basically say if somebody can do it, 80% as good as I can do it, I'll take that as you know the name on the building or whatever you know. If somebody could do and look, I'm not a veterinarian. I have no certifications in the veterinarian world, so I don't know if a surgery at 80% of what I could do is good enough. But you know just the mindset of you, don't? It doesn't have to be me touching everything, it doesn't have to be as perfect as I would do it.
Speaker 3:I always said I wanted to be missed, but I still wanted to be able to leave. I want the building not to burn down and I want you to be like oh, we're so happy you're back, but the world doesn't end because I go on vacation. We still need to be, and I think that that's a sign. I think that's a sign of a good manager is somebody that, like, can leave the place running efficiently and sufficiently and then come back and then that affords the leads, the doctors, the owners, the managers to focus on, you know, revenue, growth and new hires and that kind of thing, so that you're not always in the nitty gritty.
Speaker 2:What's probably the biggest mistake you see, when, when you have a practice trying to expand and it's limiting their growth? You know touched on the control component, but what's another one that you that you think is a biggie out there?
Speaker 3:It's so hard because it's such a fine line of like employing people and keeping them happy and also serving our clients.
Speaker 3:I think that there's been a huge disconnect since COVID. It's like an us versus them now, of the practice versus the clients, and like we are here to serve the clients and serve the clients pets. So I'm not saying, but like being closed on Saturdays, I have a nine to five job and you open at nine and you close at five and you're not open on Saturdays, like where does my pet go? Then my pet no longer comes to you.
Speaker 3:So I and I think it's fine to close on Saturdays, but maybe then we need to open up. You know, some hours later in the day.
Speaker 2:I see a lot of practices. I've actually got a couple of practices that they're not full urgent care but they're running expanded hours and they're running multiple shifts. So from an expansion standpoint they're saying, well, we're going to stay open until nine o'clock and we're going to be open on Saturday from 11 till five or six and run Saturday hours and run evening hours and maybe not that you know, full, true urgent care, where somebody is bringing in a cat with a broken leg but saying, hey, you know, we'll take well, I mean, if my vet was open and my cat, louie, broke his leg, I'd probably go to my vet instead of the University of Minnesota, because the rate's going to be different for the client, right, the urgent care component. But not potentially not. But you know, generally overall it's not that urgent care pricing, and so you know I think that's an area for expansion is saying, well, if we want to expand, maybe we just run some extended hours in different shifts, right?
Speaker 3:I think we just have to meet our clients and what our clients need and every you know, every practice is different and every neighborhood demographic is different. So maybe you're in a retirement community and no one has a job and they can come to you at two o'clock on a Wednesday.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:But that's not always the case. So maybe we take drop offs. You want to drop off on your way to work and pick up on your way from home? Great, we got you. We have to be willing to meet our clients where they need us, or else, because you're not going to have any clients right, somebody is meeting their needs if it's not you.
Speaker 2:I have one practice who's explored and is going to implement pet taxi, where you pick up and delivery of the animals so they'll come to your house.
Speaker 3:What about the insurance on that? What does that look like?
Speaker 2:It's actually not too bad. As long as no humans are in the car. It's not as the delivery component, which is the insurance commercial term for driving somebody. Or if you're a taxi driver, it's livery, old school animal terms, right, uh, and so they? Um, as long as there's no humans in the vehicle, they're not doing it. The human's not riding with the animal. To the practice, it's not as much of a liability because if you get into a car accident and the animals hurt, it's just like the veterinary professional liability or animal Bailey component of your of your vet professional. It's just a property If a human's in the car. Now you have all these extra costs for the urgent care and the bodily injury and just like if you're involved in a car accident. You know and you're riding in an Uber. So yeah, it was interesting.
Speaker 3:That's very unique and I would think that your clients would love it.
Speaker 2:It actually came up because I was doing it in. It was a local practice here in Minnesota. I was doing an in-person visit and they had on the refrigerator and their bake room they had, you know, practice taxi and I was like, tell me about that. They said yeah, we're thinking about doing it. I said I'm glad I'm here, cause I don't know, let's talk about that for a second.
Speaker 3:I was talking to somebody who wants to put she's got a great big backyard and she wants to put, like a swing set, a jungle gym in the backyard for kids and I was like, hey, I think that's a very unique idea, but you need to call your insurance.
Speaker 2:I would call your insurance agent I, I'm the no fun guy. My wife's like oh, if I have to hear about trampolines and German shepherds and a house with no deck on the back anymore, or just you know, I wonder if their insurance agent knows they're doing that. It all boils down to communication, and you have a BA in communication, correct? So how, how important do you think communication? And you talked about this a little bit and touched on it, but as we start to wrap up here what you know from a communication perspective, how important is communication as it relates to your practice and your day-to-day operations, both with clients and your team members?
Speaker 3:I mean, I communicate every day. Right Like this is the base, this is the foundation of everything. And I often get accused of being mean because I am straightforward, but to me, like it's not kind to be passive, it's not kind to like not tell someone they have spinach in their teeth which my wife reminds me of when she does.
Speaker 2:She's like, how long have I had that there? I was like I just saw it.
Speaker 3:I just saw it, I just saw that that means right, you care for her and you care to be like uncomfortable and say like, oh honey, you've got this finish in your teeth. I think communication can be like people just like fret and freak out and get all nervous about it, but like I can walk by and say, hey, bill, can you get off your cell phone? And that's like, that's a non-issue. Right, I've told you what the issue, what the problem was. We addressed it. We're all moving on Like I don't have to say like, can we talk in my office? You know like, and so I think that that being honest and and communicating with our clients the same way, like just being open and saying like I did forget to trim your dog's nails, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3:You know, let me get them done now or I'll comp you later. Like owning up to our mistakes, we don't need to be defensive. We don't need to be angry. As a manager and a leader, I'm not going to argue with my staff. This isn't up for debate. You can't have your ear pods in when you're answering the phones. I mean, there's just some things, that you can just be straightforward and have that conversation and move on to the next thing, and it's so important. I mean, how else are people going to know anything?
Speaker 2:I'm in a very information heavy industry with insurance. We have to explain a lot of different stuff a lot of different ways and we say all the time email and text are for information, the phone is for communication. For information, the phone is for communication. I think we've just we've now as a society fallen back on you know and you know we're trying to get information from a veterinary practice about their insurance or whatever, and we're like, well, I've emailed them and texted them five times Like, have we picked up the phone and called them yet? Right, and so you know, it still boils down to having that conversation versus you know, well, I've sent five emails to the client, they haven't responded yet. It's like, well, if you call and leave a voicemail and you email them and you text them, you'll probably get a response, versus just sending the email. And also, it's the information that you need to impart in that phone conversation or that in-person conversation or phone conversation, versus trying to give the information over an email.
Speaker 3:It's transactional, it's conversational versus like informative right. I want to be able to refer back to an email. Let's give me some bullet points. You have a question about the nuance of my staff. That's a phone call.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Well, I really appreciate the time today, megan, I think if you could leave one nugget of information for our listeners 20 years of experience, everything you've done, or, let me rephrase this another way what has come up the most since you started consulting at Granite Peak Associates? What's the one thing you've probably said more than anything else to the clients as you've worked from there, transitioning to consulting. What's come up the most?
Speaker 3:Gosh, I like your first question better. Wait, my first question. Let me answer both. Yeah, answer both Because I think your first question leads into. I think that surrounding yourself with smart people is the way to go. Like I know vet med really well and I don't know insurance. I know vet med really well and I don't know tax laws. I don't know, you know legal things. So I think that having like a strong support team and outsourcing the things that are important enough, I need to be recognized, like the insurance and the taxes and the things like that.
Speaker 2:So I think that that is a big lesson to learn Like you should not be digging around in these things that you don't have to learn Like you should not be digging around in these things, that that you don't have Trying to figure out the new FTC non-compliant rules for the full-time wages and or the non-competes, and what constitutes a non-compete versus piracy. Non-solicitation.
Speaker 3:I mean honestly, we can't even fill out W-4s anymore. Those don't even make sense. So like what are we? Why on earth? And Google?
Speaker 2:only gives you the answer that Google thinks you need. So, like those days of trying to figure out that stuff is over. So I think, surround yourself with smart people. The things that are coming up the most is tax preparation and a lot of that numerical analysis. So you're probably digging into the numbers a lot more across a huge range of practices, and it's so much can I afford to hire somebody?
Speaker 3:Can I, you know? And so, like I've been going through and looking at a lot of pricing. Are we priced correctly? Well, why are you charging less than your cost? Or why is your 50 milligram half the price of your 25 milligram? Like? There's just some things that, like we put, we kind of like set and forget that. I think it would be good for us to go back and check on those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:Well, those are two awesome pieces of advice. Megan is is reviewing some of those number components and using an outside source to do it who has a lot more experience or is just seeing a lot more than you are potentially.
Speaker 3:Or time I've got time to do it, and lots of people don't you know.
Speaker 2:Correct. Well, where can people find you if they want to connect with you in a little bit deeper relationship? How do they connect with you or engage with you, either online or in the world of the internet?
Speaker 3:Oh, for sure I'm trying to grow my LinkedIn. I'm not very savvy on Facebook or Instagram or any of those things, but I do really enjoy LinkedIn for professional connections. So that's. Megan Bingham. I'm going to be at Hive. You're going to be at Hive.
Speaker 2:So what's funny is?
Speaker 2:I live in Minnesota and they hired me to be a Hive speaker out in Anaheim. Yeah, I think they were just booked out when they were doing their booking. I think they were just booked out when they were doing their booking. But you're going to be at Hive June. I'm not sure if this podcast will be out by then. So you're out on the speaking circuit, you're out and about. And then also Granite Peak Associates. They're based out on the East Coast but you're virtual, you're nationwide, so you work with all their clients because they're a nationwide firm.
Speaker 3:And we'll have some of that information. But what's the website for Granite Peak Associates? Yeah, it's granitepeakcpacom. So the beauty of that is is that they do your taxes and I'm included. So I'm just like an added bonus, so there's no like additional Megan time, Like I'm just included in all the other wonderful things that we do.
Speaker 2:So let me get this right. I'm a vet practice, I hate dealing with taxes and numbers and I want to work with a CPA firm that specializes in doing taxes and numbers specifically for animal health and vet med. So I engage Granite Peak Associates and then you just come along as free consulting to help because I'm a client of Granite Peak Associates.
Speaker 3:Correct. So I'm on the onboarding call, right. We're going to talk about your pain points then, and then we meet quarterly. So as we're going through your P&L, we can also say like hey, is this number correct or how can we work on this together? And so then I'm the additional resource for that. It's always like the what you can tell me, and then it's like well, great, but how do I do that? What next? I'm the what, then.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. So the CPAs say, hey, you need to improve this number. And you're the person that says, hey, if you do this and this, it helps improve that number. Right, perfect? Well, I know the team at Granite Peak. I got to meet them down at West Vet. Jared and Heather were down there and they've got a great team at Granite Peak and Megan is now part of that team assisting veterinarians with improving their numbers, as identified by the CPA team at Granite Peak. So well, thanks so much for the time, Megan, and really appreciate it having you on.
Speaker 3:This was great. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:As always, everyone remember to like, share and review the podcast. It helps with all of our algorithm and numbers. Share it with your friends and we're excited to have you listen in on our next episode of the Veterinary Blueprints Podcast.
