413 - Hired for Financial Impact, Denied Financial Access

0:00Ten years ago, I thought people came to conferences for information. I was wrong. You can Google almost any answer in 30 seconds while hiding in a supply closet. What you can't Google is skill. Skill is having hard conversation when you're exhausted, short-staffed, and the person across from you is upset. And that only comes from practicing with people who will tell you the truth when you miss. That's what Uncharted is. On Friday, January 15th in Orlando, the day before VMX opens, we're celebrating 10 years with a one-day conference built around leaders practicing hard things together. You'll get Dr.

0:37Peter Weinstein, the Uncharted team, and about a dozen mic drop talks from people in the community, people you know like Dr. Phil Richmond and Dr. Caitlin DeWild. I'm not going to tell you it'll be easy because it won't. But if you want to do the work alongside people who get it, come and join us. details are at unchartedvet.com register today don't miss your chance welcome back to another episode of the uncharted veterinary podcast i am your host maria pereida and i am here with dr andy rourke to talk about something that i get very fired up on and it is access to financials as a practice manager that's right we have a practice manager that's submitted in a mailbag to us talking about this new practice that they started at they are not being given access to P &Ls.

1:22They're not able to give raises. They're not able to pay invoices. And overall, they're kind of left in the dark for a lot of these things. And the worst part is that their performance reviews and their pay increases are directly tied to the profitability of the practice. So they're almost kind of wondering, am I really set up to fail here? And so Annie and I talk exactly about that. We talk about whether they are, whether the practice owners are just fearful about giving ownership of some of these things, what we can do as far as red flags for embezzlement, as far as behavioral red flags. We talk a lot about how to have this conversation around aligning success and expectations.

1:58We talk a lot about, in general, what kind of metrics do we have access to and how can we move the needle if we don't have access to these. And so if this sounds familiar to you, whether you're the practice manager who hasn't fully gotten access or maybe don't understand the full scope of the access you can have, or if you're a practice owner who has been kind of hesitant to give them access to these things, This is going to be a great episode for you, so go ahead and settle up and tune in, and let's get into this episode. And now, the Uncharted Podcast. I want to take a moment to talk here about something that hits close to home for all of us that are working in the vet clinic.

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3:41Take a look at the resources they're building for you and your team. That's careisyourcalling.com. All right, let's get back to the show. Welcome back, Andy. I'm so excited for this one. You have no idea because... Good, I'm glad. I will tell you, I looked at this and I was like, I'm going to have to hold Maria back. There's going to be a lot of me being like, go just chill, Maria. Just calm down. Like, this is okay. Listen, I think I'm going to have a really hot take on this. If you were not pretty fired up immediately, I would be surprised. Strong feelings. All right. All right. Let's not torture the audience as much.

4:17Let's just dive right in. Okay. No, we can go right for it. Okay. Let's just dive right in because this is a really good one, and I think it is going to take some time. The mailbag itself was absolutely wonderful. I'm going to read it because it's not too dark. They said, I'm curious your thoughts and perspective on the situation. I've taken a job as a practice manager at a privately owned hospital where the owner does not allow access to anything financial. I can't evaluate P &Ls, help pay bills, or even see what anyone gets paid. My perspective is that these are part of the practice manager's job description, but maybe this is normal for some clinics and I'm not used to it.

4:47What is particularly challenging is being told that my job performance and pay will be evaluated on my impact to profitability of the hospital. Is it possible to have major impacts on profitability without access to financial statements, or am I being set up to fail? Sincerely, Left in the Dark. I thought this was a great question. And it's not as there's some people who are hearing this who are like, that's bananas. Like that's not that's not even what it means to be a practice manager. But I've seen situations like this. Is it good or bad? Like, I don't know. It is kind of what it is. But I think there's a lot here to unpack.

5:20But this is not as unheard of as it might seem to people who have just never who have never tried to manage like this. Yeah, it's so funny, because being in veterinary medicine as long as I have. I've seen both of these. Like I've seen like in my practice and this is where I think my hot take is going to be. I do think this person is unintentionally being set up to fail because I think that if we really want to make an impact on these things, you do have to have financial access. That being said, I don't think it's intentional. I think that there's reasons for all of these, which we'll kind of get into.

5:50And I think that there is still some stuff that we can do. So I don't think they're going to fail. I think that's important. I think think that they're being set up to fail. I do think that they're being held back significantly. You know, like, I feel like that's a great way to feel like what they're being asked to do is way harder than it should be or it needs to be. But I mean, can you run this position the way that it's being presented? Yes, you can. Can you make the practice better financially and culturally and medically, yeah, I think you can. Are you going to be frustrated because you could do a lot more if you had a lot more, if you had pertinent information?

6:35I think that depends on the individual. I think a lot of this is going to be like, what can you be okay with? And then we're going to talk a lot about sort of setting expectations about what kind of impact you were going to be able to have. And so like Maria, if you were giving me this job and you were like, hey, I'm the practice owner, Andy, I want you to come and you're going to do this. And by the way, you're not going to have any access to any financial information and your compensation is going to be heavily dependent on what you're able to drive in our practice. There would be red flags everywhere.

7:08If you said, Andy, I'm going to hire you and it's going to be a good job and you're going to get a good salary. And I expect you to do things that don't require access to the finances. And in exchange for that, you're going to get a good salary. And if the practice does well, then you're going to get a bonus. I would say, okay, let's see how this goes. I love that you phrase it that way because I did kind of see this as like, is there a red flag here? And I want to get to red flags at some point because I think that part of the hesitation on the practice owner side sometimes does come from whether you're a practice owner or you've had a friend or you've known somebody, fraud is a very real thing.

7:42And so giving somebody full access to your financial pieces can be scary for a lot of practice owners and you're a business owner yourself. So I mean, maybe you can do that, but not that I'm defending the practice owner necessarily, because I do think that we need some access here and I'm going to talk about how we can get around this. But I do think that a lot of practice owners have been burned in the past, whether it's been through, you know, people stealing, whether it's been through people who weren't doing their job, perhaps, you know, maybe even judgment, like a lot of practice owners are afraid that you're going to see how much the profit is and think that they're millionaires.

8:13Meanwhile, you're not seeing the debt that they've incurred in the past. A lot of times people even are embarrassed by that. Maybe their profit isn't exactly where they want to be and they don't want to show that yet to their practice. There's a lot of reasons why a practice owner sometimes feels this way, I think, is what I'm getting at. So I don't think that there's like a bad intent here. I think there might be some fear on the practice owner, maybe. I don't think the practice owner is trying to screw you over. Exactly. By not doing this. And like, I don't know that there's any reason you should take it personally.

8:41like, is this, you know, is this just a me thing? It's probably not. So like some of that headspace for me at the very beginning is I want you to be effective in this job. I think empathizing and getting curious at the very beginning are absolutely mission critical. And so, I mean, I'll talk about it. I think generally there's kind of three things that I see with practice owners about talking about money. And the first one is this can be really personal. And if like, if you pour your heart and your soul into your little business and you identify yourself as like I am the practice owner you know or I'm the business owner like I can talk about sort of in my career if I run Dr.

9:21Andy Rourke and Dr. Andy Rourke.com and the podcast and stuff like that for me if I made a bajillion dollars and then I had employees and they could see that I would worry that they'd be like god that guy why does he deserve that or why doesn't he do more why does he give more away? Like all of these things you go, are they going to, are they going to judge me because of what they see? The flip side, as you said too, is what if it's not very good? What if the Dr. Andy Rourke, you know, brand was not doing well. And I'm like, oh man, the employees are going to be like, I thought this guy was much smarter than he is.

9:51Why are these numbers not where they should be? And so there's, there's definitely that sort of like my success of my company is my success as a person. That kind of tying your identity to the business. I think that's real. You also touched on like, I think comparison is a big deal. I mean, especially in the age of social media and things like that. I think it's like if the employees realize that, you know, clearly the hospital down the road is doing better than us or the other vets are doing better than us or blah, blah, blah. Are they going to look at how we're doing and not care as much about our practice or not see us in the positive light or not feel like our practice is the real practice or the practice that we aspire to?

10:32And so that is that comparison. And the last one I think you mentioned too is embezzlement in this industry, his bananas. It is so common. And I talk to doctors and owners all the time who have been burned. They've had people steal from them. And oftentimes when people are like, there is no visibility of the finances and I pay the bills and I do those things. I think the most often experience that I have come across is that people are like, oh no, I got stolen from. It was someone that I trusted and we got really taken. And people don't, again, they don't like to be real public about that stuff.

11:04It makes them feel like maybe, I don't know, like maybe they feel like they look dumb or that they, you know, were naive or something like that. We tell ourselves a bunch of stories and it's like, oh man, this stuff happens all the time. But I definitely see people locking down. I think for this person writing in, I think that healthiest, best thing you could do is be like, look, I got to know why. Tell me why. And you'd have to figure out kind of how to message that. But ultimately it would be hard for me to just accept. Like, no, no, you can't see the numbers. I'm like, I'm sorry. Like, we need to talk about this.

11:33The first question is, why can't I see the numbers? What are you worried about? What is the concern that would drive this decision? And sometimes it's something they really hold tight to. And they're just like, I just, I can't. And sometimes they're like, I don't know. I have a friend and he told me it was a really bad idea. And you can just kind of go, okay, well, let's talk about this. Yeah. Well, and that's such an important conversation to have because you're right. There's so many different reasons why. You mentioned comparison. One of the things that I've seen too is like sometimes the registered or credential technician makes more than the practice manager and the practice owner is going to feel a certain way about that or they're going to be afraid that the practice manager is going to get upset about it.

12:10There's so many different reasons why they could be protective of the financials. The important thing is having that conversation because I think and I'm going to get to it when I get to action steps. There are ways to have checks and balances between the practice owner and practice manager to reduce the possibility of that embezzlement. And then there are also red flags that we can look out for both from behavioral and then also operational for people that whenever it might be happening. So I think that every practice owner needs to be well versed in those pieces. And I'm going to get to them in action steps just because I think that the best ran practices, the ones that are the most successful, do have a practice manager who is able to control a lot of these numbers, who can access the data, who can actually.

12:48And you know me. I'm a big numbers person. And I think, Andy, you know, the moment that, like, I can have access to some of those numbers, I feel like it can actually manipulate them. I can, you know, you've seen me do that even at Uncharted. Well, yeah. I think part of the actions that you're going to be making the case for why you should see the numbers. I think we should definitely sort of lean into that. I think part of it, too, when they come to us and they say, I can't see the numbers. I want to be successful, right? And you're very much this way, too, Maria. It's like, I want to win this game.

13:18And so when you say you can't do blank, I don't accept that. And I don't think that's bad. If I have a pet owner and they come to me and I say, hey, look, your cat's got diabetes. And they're like, we can't treat it. I'm not going to just accept that as it is and go, okay, well, all right, I guess I'll see you later then. I'm going to say, why can't we treat it? Is it because of cost? Is it because you are afraid of needles? Is it because the cat will not be restrained? Is it because you heard a horror story of some other diabetic animal? What you say matters. If it's like, oh, yeah, I'm personally deathly afraid of needles.

13:57I'm like, we might very well have some workarounds for that. There might be ways to get this done, you know, or if it's my cat can't be restrained. It's like, OK, well, there are therapies for diabetes that we can now, you know, that we can now do. My cat, you know, can't take pills. Well, can they have can they have a liquid? You know, like there's just so many things in medicine where you often get a knee jerk response. If that can't happen, I can't do that. And if you can slow down and ask more questions like, OK, well, help me understand why this is the case. It's not about being nosy. It's about trying to come up with the best solution.

14:29So that's another part of Headspace for me. I said start with curiosity and that understanding why I think is really important. And the other sort of part of that is when we have this conversation with the practice owner, I really want to frame this around like, help me help you. Like I want to get the best outcome for you. I want you to build the kind of practice that you want to have. And so let's talk about these numbers only because I want for us to be successful together. I want this hospital to exist. And again, it kind of goes back to that why. It's sort of like, why do you want to know what the numbers are?

15:05because I want to be able to support and guide and make this hospital really good. But I think framing those things up are important. I think in order to get there, you need to try to understand what the vision is for the practice and what is the person excited about and what does success look like in their eyes. I think it's really hard to talk to them about how you would use the numbers and the finances to make the hospital successful if you don't know what success really is to them. So anyway, that's kind of how I start to think about this. And all of that goes back and sort of file it all underneath curiosity and trying to understand where is this coming from and what are we doing here?

15:44I love that you mentioned that. And I think that's actually where I would start the conversation is what does success really look like first? That's right. Because we're starting from that place of like agreement and being able to look into the future and making sure that I can make that thing happen for us in the practice. And I think that one of the questions that I had for you is literally what is the difference between advocating for yourself and being seen as difficult? Because if you don't have this conversation in a way that opens us up from success in the beginning, I think you could easily be seen as difficult.

16:12If you can't explain why you need to see those numbers and how it's going to help the practice and what your plan is to move those numbers, you could very easily be seen as just being difficult about the position that you're being. And so I think that we need to learn how to advocate for ourselves in a way that we walk the line, you know, with the owner in a way that we can talk about controlling some of the access still. So there's that safety piece, but also being able to talk about, OK, well, if I could have these numbers, this would be beneficial. If I can't have the exact numbers, can I at least have percentages?

16:43Can we talk about percentage instead? And then all of those things, that way you're compromising and it doesn't feel like this big my way or the highway type of feeling, right? Yeah. Well, I mean, I would challenge a little bit here and just to sort of say, I would ask the practice manager, really, like, why do you need to see these numbers? And I think a lot of people would say, because I want to be the practice manager and I want to be a real practice manager. And that's what a practice manager does. And, you know, I can be a little bit flexible here and sort of say, OK, just walk with me for a second.

17:15is there a case or a scenario where you have someone who works in the practice and you don't call them a practice manager, but they're in charge of HR? I said, well, yeah, of course, there's lots of people, you know what I mean, who are in charge of HR. Is it possible that this person wants someone to do HR and they're calling it the practice manager instead of calling it, you know, the head of HR? But those are the types of things you kind of figure out. It's funny, I don't know that I would walk away from a job that said, hey, well, you just don't do any of these things. And I'm like, well, I would much rather know that right up front than be told, oh yeah, you're going to be involved in all this stuff.

17:52And then I'm just not. And I keep wondering why we're not having meetings and why my questions aren't being answered. And Maria, I've seen that a lot. And that's a real problem is, you know, it's when, is when they give you a generic manager job description or medical director job description. And then when you try to actually do the job that they gave you, they cut your legs out from under you. That's really hard to stomach. And so anyway, I think for me, I think you're right. I think you run the risk of looking either difficult or just looking like you've got this list of ultimatums if you can't articulate what you're trying to do and why you need this stuff.

18:29And so I think probably the healthiest headspace from the person coming in is, I mean, the best thing would be is you went in there and you were like, I don't know if I'm going to do this job or not. I mean, it's usually like, let's talk about it. And then it's like, okay, well, you don't want me to do these things. What are the things you do want me to do? And we'll sort of talk about what that looks like in a minute. But if you're like, I want to be the one, I want to be the person who runs this hospital. And they're like, oh, you will be. But also you have no financial information. Those two things don't match up, right?

18:57You know what I mean? It's like, I don't think that that's possible. I think if you want that, you're going to be frustrated. If they're like, hey, we want you to be a manager here and a non-financial manager, I'd be like, okay, let's get real clear about what that looks like. and then what the compensation is. And I might do that job or I might not do that job. I think that that's the healthiest place you can be. Yeah, I think that's super smart, especially because they talked about this here, right? They said, my perspective is that these are part of the practice manager's job. And so there is this expectation here where they're coming in and maybe they have experience as a practice manager, maybe they don't, but they're coming in thinking like, this is part of my job.

19:31And then the practice owner might've had a previous manager who was maybe more of a HR, like you said, but on the floor half of the time. I've seen that as well. You know, practice managers that get hired as practice managers, but then they're expected to be, you know, veterinary assistants or technicians for like half of your job. And if so, I want to know that up front. Instead, like you said, instead of like when I'm already trying it, because that's not necessarily the job that I want to do. And so I think those are all super important. And I want to ask you something specifically, because this is difficult.

19:59Also, only in the sense that you said, you know, try not to take it personally that you don't have access to these. I think that is hard to not take it personally when your pay increases may be directly tied to these numbers. And so I guess let me ask you this. If she can't see a P &L, how does she know whether the goalposts are even real or just like a vague expectation with no defined target? I just want to say this would drive you up the wall. It would totally drive me up the wall. I was like, there's going to be a reward based on performance, but I can't see the scoreboard. You have no idea.

20:34I saw this. I was like, Maria will never handle this. I would not. I would not be able to handle this. It doesn't make a lot of sense. I would probably be persuasive enough. It doesn't. It's funny. So I was just doing an interview with our friend Dan Blumenthal from Blue River Pet Care, one of the Uncharted podcasts, and he was on. And we were talking about it. And he brought up that there's a lot of veterinarians who get paid like pro sale or paid on production. And they still don't get told what that production is. They'll be like, oh, you had a good month. Here you go. And so it happens. And so the other thing I'm going to tie back here is to say, it boggles my mind.

21:06It seems so unnecessarily difficult. And I know it happens. Also, I was going to say to you, like we've been doing this a long time. How many just gonzo job description or jobs have you seen that someone just slaps a label on? You know what I mean? It's like, they were like, it was a single vet practice and they had a technician and they hired a second technician and they're like, well, we'll make the first technician be the boss of the second technician. So they called him a lead technician with, you know what I mean? And at some point they're just like, well, you're, you're the manager now, but it was never really designed.

21:38It was always kind of this weird hodgepodge Frankenstein monster job that got built. And so I, I could, I could see, I could definitely see that of like, what is this strange thing that you're asking me to do? And you're calling a practice manager. I think that might be the interesting question here is to say to the person writing, if this was not, if it's sitting as a practice manager at the top of the page, if it said personnel manager, like, would this bother you at all? Or would you, would you want this job? And if the answer is, if it said personnel manager, I wouldn't have applied for the job.

22:08That's not the job I want. I would say, okay, that's important. But there is definitely some of that. I think a lot of it goes to like, what's your person, what's your tolerance for me? Like as a vet, if I was getting paid on production, I, you know, like I, I just, it would be hard for me to get my head around the idea that I can't ask what my numbers are that I'm getting paid on. Like that just doesn't make sense. I think that sort of starting getting into the conversation here when they say, well, you're going to be, you know, paid on performance. And I would say, okay, how are we going to measure performance?

22:37And like, how do we measure that? And they're going to say, oh, we look at gross revenue. It's going to be the top line number of gross profit coming in. I'd say, okay, are you going to share that number with me? Like, how am I going to see that number? You know, and just sort of start to get into those questions. But I see what these people are trying to do. as the owner is trying to do is like, for whatever reason, they really don't want to share money with the manager. But they also recognize how important the manager is to making a profitable business. And I don't think it's at odds to say, I'm very private.

23:10I'm really nervous about having anyone, you know, have access to finances. But I do want people to be rewarded for the work. And when our hospital does better, I want them to benefit from that. I don't think those things are diametrically opposed. I think there's a lot here in this conversation that like kind of makes sense in theory. But when you actually get into practice, I think that there's a lot of just sticking points. No, I agree. I think you touched on something that I think is really important is, am I going to be able to see those numbers? If not, what numbers am I going to be able to see?

23:35And those are the numbers then that I'm going, because when we talk about, you know, I think that they had said they want to see growth in the practice, right? So like they said, I'm told that my job performance and pay will be evaluated on my impact to profitability of the hospital. Yeah. And so that makes it kind of hard, but I would say that as a practice manager, think about if it truly is I cannot have numbers to these and I'm like, I took the job already. I can't go back. I moved. I'm going to keep this job. I would want access to some numbers that lead to profitability. Sure. So if, for example, can I be running engagement surveys?

24:10Can I be tracking the number of call outs? Can I be tracking client satisfaction? Can I be tracking client retention? because when that year is up, Andy, I'm going to bring you the numbers, that fact that I moved those numbers and I'm going to get my compensation because I know my skill. I love that you said that. I think you were right on. And again, let's put the money part just down now for a second because I don't think either one of us are really ready to give that up. But to your point, and I really like this, there are some hard numbers that we can look at that don't have anything to do with finances that you could put together a compensation bonus plan around.

24:43And I think you nailed a lot about like new clients average pet visits per day, you know, a net promoter score, your client engagement surveys, those sorts of things. You could do diagnostics. You could tie it to a number of senior wellness panels, number of dentals performed. Like there's a lot of things that we could say, this is the metric we're going to use for practice health. And we're going to build a compensation plan or a reward plan around these metrics. I think you could do a lot of that stuff. In the conversation with Dan, he's a big believer that people should be at every level of the practice, should have an idea of what's going on with the business.

25:23And I said, well, what does that look like? And he was like, you know, when you talk about your paraprofessionals and stuff, they should know like, hey, guys, here's our capacity score, right? Like say this is the number of clients or number of pets that we want to handle in a day. And say it's, I don't know, say it's 50. We're running at about 30. Say, okay, well, I think that's an important thing for the team to know. it's the number of new clients it's the client engagement score it's like those are real metrics that give you an idea of financial health but they're not financial and so maybe it's possible to put something together with those that would make sense and accomplish what people want I don't know somewhere to meet in the middle yeah I think so I think we're getting definitely into action steps do you want to take a break right here yeah yeah let's take a break and we'll come back you believe that Uncharted is turning 10 that's right Uncharted Ben-Herry Conference is celebrating 10 years and you're gonna want to be there It is happening on January 15th, 2027 and registration is open right now.

26:17Unchartedvet.com Hope to see you there. Alright, so we talked a little bit about this already. We know that this is a hard situation to be in and we know that there's a conversation that needs to happen here. I love where you originally started in the headspace perspective. You said, I truly want to know why. So it's going to start with curiosity and having this conversation. Beyond that, what kind of action steps do we take here? In the first case, maybe it's not that hard a situation. You know what I mean? It's like You're just getting started. You're like, do you really want to do this? So anyway, curiosity.

26:44Biggest thing for me is one, try to build a relationship or at least the understanding of the practice owner. This person that you're dealing with, set this whole financial thing aside. What does success look like for them? What are they most afraid of? My favorite ways to talk about this is say, hey, Maria, you're going to hire me. Let's just say, and five years from now, I am still your practice manager and it has been amazing for you. You think that hiring me was the best thing that ever happened to this practice. What does that look like? Like, what do I do? How often do we talk to each other?

27:13How do we communicate? Do we have face-to-face meetings? Or do we touch base by the phone? Do we talk every day? Do we just talk once a week? Do you, like, hear from me once a quarter? Like, what does that look like? How involved am I with the staff? How involved are you with the staff? And I just, I really like that framing of, imagine this is fan-freaking-tastic. Just really think about what that looks like. And just dream big. Tell me. And then I always flip it over and say, it's five years from now. I am the worst decision you ever made. It's been horrible. What does that look like? What is the, what is the nightmare practice manager situation to you?

27:48What behaviors am I doing? And it will tell you a lot. And honestly, a lot of times you can find out with those questions, why? The fear, yeah. You can find out with those two questions often why they're like, yeah, that's why we don't have people do this or that. But if you understand what are you really afraid of, then I can start to come back around and work on what are your real concerns and let's try to find a mutually beneficial solution, something that lets you feel safe and also lets me do the job and do the best job that I can do for you. Would you be up for working on that with me? And so it's really, it's kind of that sort of conversation.

28:27So I would start with that. And then I would say, okay, so based on what you're talking about with the financials, let's talk about what I imagine being able to do in this role. And let me talk about what I imagine I'm not going to be able to do in this role. And I just want to see if you agree and if this is what you really want. Do you like that? Do you like kind of where I'm going there? I love where you're going there because it's looking for agreement. And like, you know, I love that. Totally. But also because you're setting the standard and the boundary of like, hey, this is based on the information you've given me and the controls that you've given me.

29:00This is what I can achieve and this is not what I cannot achieve. But I think bringing that up front in the beginning sounds so much better than you taking on the job and being like, yeah, I'll try to move the numbers, but then you can't. And now you're the one that the practice manager is the one that looks like, you know, incompetent in a way, but really it was not, you didn't explain what you needed up front. And I think that's part of managing up as a practice manager. You know what I mean? It's being able to say, these are the things that I need. And this is how I believe I can move the needle based on the job description and being up front.

29:30And it's a lot of the ways of working conversation. Yeah. Well, it's like the other thing is from a communication standpoint, I want the practice owner to realize I don't want to tell them this is a bad idea. I really would like for them to realize on their own that this is a bad idea. So I'm trying to remember how my oldest daughter did it. But she for a long time, she did not have she all she had. She had a credit card, but it was her credit card. It was like linked to her little savings account. Right. So it's got like a green light card. And so she gets her license and she's out and she's driving around and she's got, so it's not like she's going to be stranded.

30:04She's got access to this thing, but she's got a tiny amount of little savings, you know, a hundred, 200 bucks, you know, total. Like, and there's no limit beyond that. And so she comes to me and she's like, hey, dad, you know, I need to, you know, I'd like to have a credit card that you would maybe pay for that I could have. And I was immediately just kind of teasing her and giving her a hard time. You can totally imagine how I did this. But I was like, yeah, I don't, yeah, I don't think so. Like, that's not going to happen. And she's like, all right. This is giving me flashbacks to when I was asking for a company credit card.

30:32That's exactly right. Yeah, you've seen this. Yeah, that's exactly right. I've had a number of these conversations with people. I'm like, that's not going to happen. And then she thought about it for a while and she's like, okay, well, so just so you know, I just want to make it so that, you know, I've only got, you know, access to what I have in my account. It's like a hundred bucks. And so if you ever wanted me to pick up flowers for mom, like on my way home or anything, you know, I'm not going to be able to do that. Right. Like, if you ever needed me to stop at the grocery store and grab some stuff, there's a distinct possibility that I'm not going to be able to cover that.

31:05All of a sudden you're picturing a paint paint. And then I'm like, oh, yeah, you know, that's probably, you know, like I don't know what the things would be that I would need. But it was a really nice way of me going, am I saying that? Is that what I want? And so anyway, there's kind of that. I think in this regard, I would say something like, let's just talk about the things that I can do in this role. And so, you know, without access to these numbers, I think I can handle most of our HR requirements. I can do hiring. I can do scheduling. You know, I can work with the staff, conflict management training, things like that.

31:35I'll work with client experience. I can do OSHA and DEA. I can do marketing. We can work on the community presence, you know, and trying to make the practice stand out in the community. And I can do some inventory work, but I can't, I won't, I will not be able to optimize it very well, but I could do some inventory. And so are those kind of the things that you have in mind and the things that I won't be able to do are anything that has to do with cost of goods sold or inventory optimization, right? Like I can't tell you if our inventory is running at 26 % gross profits and I see an opportunity to get down to 20%.

32:12You know, like I just, I won't have that insight. I won't be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to help at all with labor cost management. I'm not going to be able to look at the staffing costs and help to manage to those things or give insights there. I can't do anything around strategic pricing, fee schedules. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be really equipped to have money conversations with the staff. And so if they have questions about why we charge what we charge or anything about raises, that stuff is going to have to go right past me because I don't have that information.

32:41I can't do anything with budgeting. I can't track return on investment if we decide to do new programs, if we double down on our parasiticides, our diagnostics, our dentistry. I can't really track ROI on those types of pushes that we might make. I can't do any sort of KPI analysis. I can't use any performance management that involves financial KPIs. I can't talk to the doctors about their average client transactions, things like that, unless that stuff is made available. And so that's those are the things that I think that I could help with. And I those are but those are the things I don't see how I can do that.

33:17So what do you think about those things? And that's kind of I think that's how I would kind of make that pitch. You already started giving me a headache where I was like, Andy, just have the financials. I was already like, no, you see me dragging you down. This was Maria Parita wanting a company credit card. It was just like, look, just fine. You can just have it. It's just not it's just not worth it. Like the benefits to you doing this are fine. But I do. Honestly, how I said it and even the way I kind of stumble a little bit here and there, that's how I talk. And in this case, I would be reading their body language the whole time and trying to understand what are they thinking, where are they.

33:51They might be like, nope, you totally nailed it. Those things, that's my job. And then the can-do stuff, the HR, the training, the customer service, client experience stuff, that's the stuff I really want you to do. And I would say, okay, you know, I would take the job or I would say, that's not really a job I'm looking for. You know, it really depends on, you know, the details and who I was and how I felt and what I wanted to do. But anyway, I think that's how I would put it to them and just sort of see where we are. I think one of the things, too, here that's really important is beyond, because one of the things we didn't mention this during Headspace, But one of the things that sometimes I see is the practice owners aren't always fully aware of everything that a practice manager can do.

34:38I was laughing. Do you remember at practice owners limit? I forgot who it was. But somebody came up and they were like, oh, yeah, we're doing the pearls at the end of the at the end of the conference. They were like, oh, yeah. At first, when I saw Maria's session about how to get the most out of your practice manager, I was like, I get the most out of my practice manager. And then I attended the session. It turns out I am not using my practice manager. I'm not remotely getting the most out of my practice manager. I thought that was great. That was great feedback. I was laughing so hard. Yeah, I was laughing so hard because that's exactly how I feel sometimes is we don't know what we don't know.

35:10And so sometimes a practice owner really doesn't know how much a practice manager can truly help. You know, when I first took over at my practice, my practice owner was working like 60 to 80 hours a week easily. And that was one of our goals is let's reduce that down to a normal number. But in order to do that, you have to give me some ownership, right? You have to give me some access. I think this is really important from a, hey, this is what I can do. This is what I won't be able to do. And as you're laying those things out, it's not a bad idea to, if you don't have a job description, you know, you can download the VHMA framework job and responsibilities where it does literally lay it all out in the financial aspect, being one of them and being able to talk to your practice owner about how we can share some of these, you know, financial informations without creating this fear of embezzlement or fraud or, you know, theft.

35:57And so let me ask you that. How can a practice owner and practice manager team share that financial information without leaving the clinic exposed to embezzlement? I think that a lot of times when people say, you know, I'm worried about embezzlement, they just kind of attack it at this really high level. You know what I mean? It's cutting down a tree because you don't like one of the leaves, you know, in a lot of ways. And I try to make that point when you list all the things like, well, I'm not going to help you with these things. And a lot of it is in the details. When you start to press and say, I'm not going to be able to talk to the staff about any sort of pay concerns that they have.

36:31And oftentimes they'll be like, well, I mean, you can see what people make. Again, it's me knowing what the practice is doing or what Dr. Smith's average client transaction is. I don't see how embezzlement happens from that knowledge. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, like that's why we really have to get into like, what are you really worried about here? And if it is embezzlement, you know, there are ways that you could say, well, you're going to have access to all the information. You can have access to QuickBooks. You can see all the things. If it really bothers you, then what I would say the practice owner is you sit down with your bookkeeper and say, all right, this is a person who's going to be coming in.

37:08And I'm I want to give them access to the financials, maybe in a stepwise process. but I want to do that with you. And I want to make sure we have sort of tight oversight and let's go ahead and make sure that we have a good auditing process, you know, in place and that my ducks are in a row. And I think that that's really it. So, you know, when you start to say, I'm going to let this person pay the inventory, it's not like, okay, throwing the switch and then I'm stepping away. It's like, well, we're going to do this together for a little while. Yes. And then I'm going to start to lean back a little bit more and a little bit more.

37:43And so maybe I am all up in the inventory with you for the first six, nine months, you know, and then I'm going to keep checking back in with you. And I'm just I'm going to be more involved maybe than other practice owners are. And it may be, you know, over time that that gets less and less. But I'm still going to be looking at best practices. I'm still going to be working with with my bookkeeper or my CPA to try to make sure that everything makes sense and that, you know, and that and that we're reconciling our books and we're paying attention. And I'm going to try to figure out what a good audit process kind of looks like along and along.

38:13But those are the types of things I think that makes sense. I think a lot of people are like, I'm just going to close my eyes and hand over the keys. And they go, well, it doesn't have to be that way. I think the only reason that people will go along with this is they have to see the value at some point of being able to let this stuff go. You know, like, yes, slowly working with someone as they gain trust, as you pay attention, as you keep a close eye out for irregularities. It does take time and energy. But the ultimate goal would be some trust and independence and freedom from having to deal with this stuff.

38:48And I think that that's a worthy goal that I think a lot of them would like to have. It's just that all or none, give the thumbs up and the train is going to tear away from the station, you know, and off the rails. I don't think it's going to be that way. And you mentioned a couple of checks and balances already that I love. You said the bookkeeper and the CPA, right? Which sometimes are the same, sometimes they're not. But overall, I think that that's really crucial here. I love what you said about trading and phases. You're not going to hand it all over. It's not like you're going to hand off the keys to the kingdom right away.

39:16But I am a big fan of making sure you do have that audit process or in general, those checks and balances. So like the person who orders the inventory should probably not be the person who receives it. And usually we do have double signatures on that inventory for a reason, right? Multiple people checking in. The person preparing payroll shouldn't be the only one approving that payroll. The person making the deposits shouldn't be the only one reconciling the bank accounts. And that's usually where we start to see some of those people, right? Some of those pieces when it comes to embezzlement. At the same time, too, I think you called out something earlier where it was like regular financial meetings between the owner and manager.

39:50If you guys are reviewing these finances together regularly, it's going to be really hard for somebody to embezzle anything. And so whether that's monthly, whether that's weekly, definitely your CPA or your outside bookkeeper keeping these things regular. And then also, I think it's really important for practice owners to be trained in what kind of red flags we tend to see when we have somebody that might be embezzling. right and these and and you kind of called these out earlier actually you were like well i'm good i think it's kind of a red flag when somebody's like not telling me all of these information yet this is how oh yeah you know they want to run the practice like that is a red flag on its own technically that's gotta be the other way around that's gotta be on your mind right when the person is like look i'm not showing you the numbers and it's like why what are you doing you know like yes are you are you sell you know are you selling products out the back door you know what i mean You know, like, what exactly?

40:41Like, how are you making money that you don't want me to know about? I say that sort of jokingly. But also, if I went to work for someone and they were like, you cannot see the books. Part of me is like, why? Like, why? Maybe I'm not the problem here. Like, maybe I'm not the sketch factor in this equation. But you're pointing out some red flags even from a practice owner to a practice manager that might be embezzling. Because usually the red flags that we'll tend to see is like somebody who doesn't allow anyone else to learn their job. Somebody who's very protective of one process. Somebody who resists transparency.

41:16Somebody who doesn't want cross-training because they don't want somebody else to look at their stuff because they'll get caught up that way. And those are usually like those behavioral red flags that we tend to see. We also see operational red flags. So I know I went to the conference earlier this week. They said that one of the biggest red flags is when you start to see your cost of goods sold slowly creeping up a few percentages every year. Whereas like after a couple of years, you're going to start to see it continue to go up and that can be usually a red flag. But overall, things that I've seen are like missing receipts, frequent refunds or voids.

41:47Like if all of a sudden you were doing only a couple of months, but now we're doing a ton of them, that's going to be a red flag. Inventory discrepancies, duplicate vendors. If you're seeing multiple vendors, it's the same vendor, but it's in there twice. A payroll increase without explanation, like just because a practice manager has access to payroll increases doesn't mean that they're going to be doing them without talking to you, right? Like that's the checks and balances. We have to talk to each other about those pieces. I remember I was able to do raises just fine, but I would give my practice owner a report of like, hey, it's this quarter.

42:18We have so-and-so due for a raise, and this is how much we're giving her. Do you agree with that? Yes, great. Overall, it's any payroll increases that don't have an explanation tend to be a red flag. any excessive overtime because there's time theft as well so if you've got somebody who's like excessively you know clocking in early clocking out late you want to definitely take a look at that any unusual manual adjustments or bank reconciliations that are not completed like those tend to be all operational red flags yeah and not to say that people can't make mistakes because you are going to see people make mistakes it's not it's not about that i'm saying if you're seeing these patterns repeatedly you need to ask yourself do i need to look a little bit deeper is there potentially embezzlement happening in my practice?

42:58But I do think every practice owner who has a practice manager or an office manager needs to be aware of these red flags because it can happen to literally anyone. It doesn't mean that you're a bad practice owner. It doesn't mean that you... And as a practice manager, it can happen to you with a team member. I mean, I've been in that situation as somebody who was taking money from the register. And the only reason we caught it was because we were doing nightly end of day deposits, right? And so it It was a matter of catching the pattern and then figuring out, well, who's working those days and checking the cameras.

43:27And then obviously you can see somebody was trying to steal from the register. And so all of those things you should be on top of, I think, as a practice owner. And I just want to share them just because it's it can be scary, I guess, to give that much control away to somebody else. No, I think that's right. It's higher slowly is the old advice, you know, like be thoughtful about who you're going to bring in to manage your practice. That's a lot of responsibility. You know, it's especially I understand if you're the business owner and this is your baby, make sure that you're doing this right. You know, make sure that you're hiring the right person.

44:01Make sure that you're investing time and energy and you're mentoring them and developing them and getting to know them and working with them and communicating with them. And people say, but Andy, that takes a lot of time. It's like, you know, it also takes time doing everything that involves access to finances yourself. Yeah, absolutely. And there's people that might be better at it anyway. Sure. You know what I mean? Like I am really good with numbers. And my practice owner saw that from the beginning and he was like, I'm going to give you more because you're doing you're doing the marketing side really well and you're making those numbers move.

44:29Can you make these numbers move? And it's just like sometimes, you know, sometimes there are people who can who can take care of it. And it means that our practice gets to grow. But only if we do give them those reins. And also for this person, I just have one more thing. Andy, what happens if we're a year in? We did not move the numbers and we still don't have access to this. Well, I mean, I think that that's the conversation that we have to have, right, is let's take stock of where we are. And do you understand why that is? Like what are the theories? And if I say we did not move the numbers, I don't know what we could do differently.

45:01I think at that point I've got a couple options, right? It depends on how frustrated I am from the lack of movement. But I could say, hey, look, we've tried this for a year and I have not been able to make a move. I really need access to those. And I think it's a great time to reopen the conversation and say, let's try this for a year. Like, let's start to let me have more access and more control. And let me see if I can move that for you. If they're still not going to move, it might be time to read the writing on the wall and say, you know, I'm trying this. I do not have the tools that I need to actually drive this practice forward.

45:34And so this is, I'm not going to be successful here. I don't feel like this is something that's doable. And then you can sort of decide what that means for you if you want to continue to participate. or if this is going to be something where you say, yeah, I'm not going to be successful here. I'm going to be frustrated and read the writing on the wall and sort of go ahead and make a change. That's great. Any other pieces of wisdom? I think that that's it. I think the best thing would be, add a mentor that used to say, don't fall in love with the idea. And I think that where most people feel the most amount of pain is that they go for this job and they dream of being the practice manager.

46:08and they like that title and they kind of fall in love with that. And they want that so badly that they do not look at or are not honest about the actual constraints, you know, the strings that come tied to the job. And I would say be careful about falling in love with the idea and then taking a job that's got a bunch of red flags around it or where you don't think that you're going to be successful. That said, you know, I think if you can let go a little bit and you can be curious, you can say, well, what exactly am I going to be doing with my time? And how am I going to be evaluated? And maybe it's not what you've done in the past and maybe it's different, but that doesn't mean it's bad.

46:46But I want you to have the relaxed attitude that lets you be curious. And then also to really think honestly about what's good here and what's not good here and decided this is going to be the right call for you or not. Eyes wide open and don't go in and And tell yourself, oh, I'm sure that this will change. He'll give me the access later on. Like, I would not make a choice based on what he might do in the future. That's kind of how I think about that. I love that. Well, thank you so much for talking this through with me. I knew I would have fun with this one. I just knew it. I just knew it. It's good.

47:18It's really good. So thank you. Very fun. Well, cool. Thanks for having me. And Tim. And that's it. That's all we got. I hope you all enjoyed this episode. I know it is so hard being a practice manager or a practice owner in this situation. Because the truth is that a lot of us have been burned in the past. and veterinary clinics do run differently everywhere. There are some practices in which they don't get all this access and they run just fine. And there are a lot of practices that run a lot better when the practice manager does have access to these things. So I hope this gave a little bit of insight into that.

47:46I hope it gives you a little bit of hope if you are one of these practice managers that don't have access or if you're one of these practice owners who has been in general fearful to give this kind of access. I hope that this gives you a little bit of hope too. As always, y 'all, we love hearing from you. So leave us a review wherever you listen to your podcasts and we'll catch you next time. Are you a medical leader who has not invested in themselves recently? Guys, don't miss your chance. The 10-year anniversary of Uncharted Veterinary Conference is coming up in January. January 15th, the day before VMX.

48:19Come to Orlando, have an incredible time with us and then stay for the conference. Don't miss it. UnchartedVet.com.