416 - Planning to Exit on Your Own Terms

0:00Hey everybody, I am Dr. Andy Roark and this is the Uncharted podcast. Guys, I got a great one today about winding down careers and succession planning. You're like, success planning? No, succession planning. That's when you are the owner of a practice and you decide what to do with it when you come to the end of your career. So hopefully, generally that's selling it, that's passing it on. It's keeping it alive and we talk a lot about legacy and what we want the end of that career to look like. And so I am here with Dan Blumenthal. He's the CEO of Blue River Pet Care. And we get into all that stuff.

0:35We talk about when do you start planning? How do you start planning? We look way in the future. So if you're just getting started as a practice owner, let's say you've just acquired this one vet practice. What do I need to be doing now so that ultimately I have great flexibility and freedom later on towards the end of my career? And that's really where I try to drive this thing is into how do you make it so that you have exactly what you want to have when you get later in your career? So Dan's fantastic. Guys, this episode is brought to you ad-free by Blue River Pet Care. Let's get into it. And now, the Uncharted Podcast.

1:14Welcome to the podcast, Dan Blumenthal. How are you, my friend? I am good. It's good to see you. It's always good to have you on here. I've had you on here a number of times. I enjoy talking to you. For those who don't know you, I'll interrupt myself here. You are the CEO and co-founder of Blue River Pet Getter. Tell me a little bit about Blue River. You guys are based out of Chicago, but every time I talk to you, your organization is growing and changing and evolving. Tell me a little bit about where Blue River is now. Yes. So we are based in Chicago. Started this about 17 years ago from scratch, and we've just been building it one by one.

1:45And we've got an incredible team now that really supports our teams in the field, and we're still having a blast. I always enjoy talking with you because one of the hallmarks of Blue River is you're really dedicated to kind of keeping cultures the way that they have been in practice. And you run these practices and they're very different practices. And so I think the operational side of that is really interesting. I think the logistical side is interesting. I think that a lot of practice owners who have sold their practices to you have done so because of that, because of that cultural component and a lot of thoughts about legacy and things like that.

2:17And that's actually kind of why I wanted to talk to you. And so I'm at this sort of personal side. I know it's a weird part in my life right now where my oldest daughter is about to leave for college. She's leaving in weeks, like four weeks. And then my youngest is about to get her driver's license. So we're moving towards that. And so I'm starting to look around at my own career and go, oh, my gosh, this is kind of weird. I'm going to be empty nester here in the blink of an eye. I'm looking, and I'm about to turn 50 this year, and I'm going, I've probably got 20 years left. I've got probably things that I want to do.

2:45But that kind of feels like a distinct entity to me, right? It was like, there's this, I've got this chapter and I'm kind of looking ahead and I'm just starting to think about what does a sunset look like? Not an immediate, like I got to get out of here. It was definitely not that. So I'm thinking about those things and I'm thinking about legacy. I just want to kind of open up with you and sort of say, you've seen these independent practices sort of transition over, become part of the Blue River family. And these veterinarians kind of start to wind up and talk about legacy a lot. And then to kind of move on and evolve.

3:10Dan, what are the best sunsets look like in your experience when you're seeing these? Sure. So, by the way, what you are starting to go through is what all of these vets who are thinking about selling their practice go through. And for many of them, a little bit like you probably, they kind of define themselves a bit by what they do. And so it is an emotional and intellectual and financial transaction as they think about transitioning their practice. Whether they're selling it to a group like ours or if they're just transferring it to their associates, it's one of those life events where they look at it and realize, hey, I'm on the back nine here.

3:50And I'm not exactly sure how much longer I personally will be active. And they're trying to find a home for their practice so they can continue to serve the community and take care of their team. And so that is usually where we come in. And often we come in to buy a practice, but we come in before they're ready to sell it to try to help coach them on how do you make this transition? Well, I think that's one of the things I'm really interested in. And that's why I sort of start to think about it now and sort of say, I've got some time. This is not a race. But now is also probably the time where you should start to think about kind of what does your ultimate exit look like?

4:25And I think that you're right in that. There's sort of three pieces in my mind, right? There's the emotional part, which is like, what is it going to be like for me? there's the financial part where you say, you know, is this set up in a way that it's going to, it's going to give me the freedom that I want, or, you know, let me have the chapter coming up that I want to have. And then there's the operational or logistical part, which is, I want this thing to fall apart. And let's like, a lot of vets really put themselves in the middle of the practice and the practices, and it's really an extension of the doctor when, you know, when a lot of them get started.

4:54And so a lot of these vets are really the glue that kind of holds these practices together. And so when you start thinking about legacy, and if you've got a practice where there's really not much of a practice, unless you are there like holding onto the walls and pulling them to stop the practice from crumbling, like there's no legacy there, but that's sort of the logistical piece. And so can you start to sort of talk to me about that? Like, what does it look like when I have a practice that maybe the owner has been really actively involved and engaged? And now they're like, well, you know, I'm not going to be here forever.

5:23And I want this to still be a place that I'm proud of. What are the parts of that? Like, how do you start to systematize that? Sure. So first of all, let me give you the two extremes because we've seen them all. Okay. At one end of the spectrum, I'm sitting with a vet in Texas. He's 74 years old. And I ask him what his succession plan and he opens the bottom drawer of his desk and he pulls it out and he goes, here's my plan. When I die, my wife knows everything's in here. She's going to open this drawer and take it over. And I'm like - To turn these two keys. Yeah. Yeah. So with all due respect to this nice gentleman, I said, I don't think you're doing a real good service to your clinic or your community or your wife.

6:03Or your wife who's going to be like, I'm doing what you do. You're going to go over the drawer and go, okay, what's the plan? So that's one end of the spectrum. At the other end of the spectrum, periodically we come upon owning vets who really solve the puzzle. They've already transitioned the medical director role to a younger vet. They have a practice manager who is young, who succeeded, the older practice manager who maybe they started the practice with. And they're still hanging around the practice doing what they do and sort of sprinkling the magic dust. But they've prepared themselves to fade away.

6:37So that's not that common, but periodically we come upon that. But more typically, the ones in the middle are sort of what you described, which is the owner vet is very critical to the practice, is front and center to the community, maybe is the main surgeon in the practice, and then has some associates who do a fair amount of work but aren't the big producers. And often they have a practice manager who was the tech when he or she started the practice. And now 20 years later, she's the practice manager. And we will come into that situation and we'll work with them to try to get them to begin to transition the duties of medical director to one of their associates and to try to create a succession path for their PM.

7:25But it's hard for them sometimes to do it on their own. And I'm reminded of the phrase going back to the 80s where Ronald Reagan in dealing with the Soviets was like, trust, but verify. But that's really what you, as you think about succession, you need to trust your people and give them some room to make mistakes and learn. And while you're still around, verify that they're doing the right stuff. But if you hold it all to yourself and you don't let them start to take the range while you're still there, it's very hard to kind of do it cold turkey, which is what a lot of these folks try to do. It seems to me like there's two kinds of vets, like later in their career.

8:04So walk with me here. You don't find this written down anywhere. This is 100%. But I've been thinking on this for a while. There's two kinds of vets, right? There's the vets that want to be active. They want to be involved. You know, like they're not done. They want to be busy. Then there's the vets that do want to be done. And they're like, I've kind of had enough of this. I want to get out. And it seems to me like they have different challenges to start to build a succession plan and to kind of get out. So if you're the vet who likes to be busy, I think they struggle a lot with letting somebody else be the medical director.

8:36You know what I mean? With like just not wading into it. And the vets that want to be done, I think they have a problem because I think that can make the associates squirrely. I think that they're kind of like, hey, wait a second now. Like I'm working for you, but you're not really. And like you seem to be trying to check out of here as fast as you can. And that's kind of demotivating in terms of keeping those things going. So do you buy that, Dan? Are there like, am I right on these sort of two types of vets and the different problems? I think there are two types of vets. I think you've been thinking about this for a while and thinking about it the right way.

9:07What's interesting about the first group is that vet doesn't just want to stay busy. That vet derives a huge amount of benefit from being wanted, needed, chosen. So it isn't just that they want to be working hard. They want the client to come in and ask for that. And secretly they do. If you ask them, they're like, no, I want the associate. They're like, no, you don't, dude. Do you want them? No, they don't. They thrive on the fact that they are sought after. Yes. And they need to fight. So that vet needs to fight that human reaction and step back and build up their other vets. And one of the things I recommend for people who are trying to do succession planning is take vacation.

9:48We bought a practice here in Chicago from a vet who had never spent more than three days away from the practice. had a great team. He certainly could have, but he just couldn't let go of it. And so I would say, take a vacation, go to Hawaii, like be multiple time zones away and let them see how they do for that week or 10 days. Like give them some trial runs where you're not sitting on top of them. So there is one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum, you're right, are the ones, and I have had this where I go approach a seller and I'm like, when do you want to leave? And they go yesterday.

10:24And I'm like, okay, well, that's not ideal. And it can create some internal challenges because if they've really stepped fully away in a good way, they've empowered the associates, but now those associates think they're the show. And when selling vet decides he's going to sell, they think, Hey, I should get all this because that guy hasn't been doing anything for a while. And we are why he's able to sell to you. So you have to be somewhere in the middle between those two things where you're still active, but you're also empowering and investing in your people. And it's a cost, right? It's saying, hey, if I produce a million dollars, I make X amount, but I'm going to by design produce less, let my other vets produce more, and I'm going to delegate to them management tasks, organizing doctor meetings, those kinds of things, making decisions on equipment.

11:18So they start to get a little bit of experience of making the kinds of decisions they're going to have to make when he or she, you know, heads off into the sunset. I like your idea around the vacation part. I think that's something you can also sort of explain to the team is like, I'm going to start taking more vacations. I'm going to start getting out of here a little bit more. I'm just in that part of my life. And that seems very understandable to me. I like how it shifts that focus. It also makes sense to me, you know, starting to crystallize what that medical director role looks like. Talk to me a little bit about that.

11:51So let's say that I'm the practice owner here and I'm not done, but I am. Let's transition this thing so it's less reliant on me. That seems healthy for where I am. What is that in your mind, Dan? Like what do I want to make sure that's in that job or in that job description? What am I really trying to grow? Okay. So first of all, I don't know where this fits in your two types of vets, the really active one and the one who wants to step away. But one of the things that characterizes many, many of the vets is a closure on sharing data. Okay. So whether they're active or they're not active, a lot of them have trouble trusting their team with the facts.

12:28The facts being how the practice is doing financially, what their growth rate is, what their margin is, their costs of goods are. And they really need to share those things with their team in a transparent way early on so they can start to see, okay, this is how the sausages get made. And there's an impact of our decisions if we don't stay open on Saturday or if we decide, hey, we really want to have 18 different kinds of this medication as opposed to two kinds. It has an impact on the margin. So starting to share that data with the team or at least the heir apparent medical director so they can then start to get the inputs that the owner vet is looking at as he or she is making decisions, it will help them understand it.

13:18It's not that different than as you raise your kids, if you want them to be smart about money, you need to share with them data. Like you can't just sort of say to them, I'm never going to talk to you about money and then I'm going to die and you're going to get a big pile of money and I'm going to think you're going to do the right thing with it. Like you need to begin to share data with them. And a lot of vets have trouble with that. Yeah. I completely agree. I literally just was sorting out this kind of mess with this manager who had been moved into the manager role with a veterinarian and the underbite that was unwilling to share any financial data.

13:52She's like, how am I the manager if I can't see any of the financial data? And I'm like, you're the lead CSR and you're the HR person. That's what you are. And you're being asked to drive the car in the rain with no windshield wipers. You can't see where the road is. Like, how am I supposed to drive this thing if I don't know where we're headed? Okay. And so I do think well before they're going to try to implement their succession plan and transition to the team, They need to begin to, in those monthly meetings they have with the doctors or with the whole team, begin to share some basic information about how the practice is doing, new clients, marketing plans we're doing, new initiatives that we're undertaking, and the impact of those kinds of things.

14:39Okay. Let me give you a couple categories, right? Okay. I don't imagine that you're saying there's complete financial transparency all the way down to the kennel stuff. No, no, no, no. But in my mind, there's different amounts of information that are actually really valuable for the running of the practice. And so we're going to go, we're going to talk about paraprofessionals. We're going to talk about associate vets. We'll talk about our medical director and our practice manager. And just kind of, so starting at the bottom, when you look at well-run practices, Dan, like practices that are set up for a great legacy, they are going to be successful as this person sets away.

15:14what kinds of sort of financial knowledge do your paraprofessionals have? The front desk, the support staff, like what have they been talked to? What are they comfortable with? Yeah. So if you start at the frontline, they need to understand our new client numbers. They need to understand top line growth. They need to understand, I mean, I think revenue numbers, but not necessarily profit numbers about how we're growing and procedures, services that we're providing and really understand capacity. So it's important for them to understand, hey, in a given day, we can see 25 clients or patients and we're only seeing 15.

15:52And so we're not operating at capacity because sometimes they think, oh, I'm so busy. I, you know, I'm overwhelmed and you want them to understand, well, no, this is what busy really looks like. And if we're busy and we're, then we're doing well, then we can pay raises. We can grow our practice. You know, we all progress. if we're not doing that, then it gets harder. And so I think sharing with them kind of what winning looks like from a provision of services to the community is really important. And that's really the only level they need to get. They can get how many dentals we did this month, how busy our surgery suite is, new clients, those kinds of things, but sort of macro kinds of things like that.

16:33And then as you move up the levels to the associates, then you really want them to understand sort of the impact of what they do on the overall practice. So we come upon practices where, and this is always stunning to me, associates are paid on production, but the owner never shares with them the math. What their production is or how it actually works out. So it's like pin the tail on the donkey. It's like, oh, you had a good month. Here's a check. Well, but show me the math. And some of them don't want to share the math with you. And that, I think is not, it doesn't, it doesn't instill confidence and it doesn't cause them to understand how they can adapt or change their behavior to make themselves in the practice more successful because it's just a black box.

17:22Are you, are you think, I mean, is your sort of aspiration 100 % sort of financial transparency with your medical director or is there sort of levels as well? Oh, I would, I would say medical director and practice manager, if you want them to really be successful managers, they need to see soup to nuts on how the practice is doing. And I do think that's one of the things that changes when we invest in a practice is we do share that data with the team. And I will tell you, it sometimes creates a little bit of tension with the selling owner vet who is still there, who has kept everything from Mary and Susie for 15 years.

18:02Yeah. How do you how do you frame that up if you when you start to sort of have these conversations and get the team go in this direction? I think you're spot on. I think if you want to lean back and you want to practice to run without you, clearly people have got to understand the metrics and what we're doing and how we're doing. And that's got to get normalized. And I have seen that as well, just this this white knuckle grip on the information. And in my experience, it's usually from two things, right? It's either there's a lot of identity tied up in this, like I don't want you guys to think that I'm a greedy vet or I don't want you to know that I make less than a lot of the associates that you know.

18:45So it's sort of that identity sort of thing. And the other part is they've been burned in the past. They're like, oh, man, I got, you know, I got taken or embezzled. And now I'm just I'm holding all of this just just really tightly. How do you how do you start to if you've been holding on tightly? How do you how do you start to disseminate that information and build that a healthy culture? Because you can't you can't just throw the doors open and everybody take this and go. I agree. So the way we sort of have the dialogue and the way I would have it with, you know, an owner vet, whether they were selling to us or not, is, you know, you're playing a game.

19:21and you're keeping score, and I'm not even going to tell you how to keep score, right? Some people keep score based on revenue growth. Some people keep score based on profit. Some people keep score based on pets seeing and services provided, and those are great. But whatever your scorekeeping mechanism is to determine whether your practice is successful or not, that you need to share with your team. And again, it doesn't have to be raw financial data. It can be very much, which everyone can get around, You know, services provided, pets seen, you know, spades and neuters done, whatever their dentals that we've done, whatever the metric is, how they judge themselves to share that with the team so they can start to understand what we're winning or not winning and how are we keeping score.

20:09because for a lot of these people, they keep all of that away from the team. And you're right. It's stunning to me when we come upon practices, how many veterinarians out there have had an embezzlement problem at their practices. Yeah. It's rampant. It's terrifyingly common, yes. Yes. And that's why the trust but verify, you got to do both. You got to trust people to give them stroke, but you also do have to verify. And I think the place that some vets fall down is they don't verify. They're not particularly money motivated. They trust their people and they're hoping for the best. And sometimes, you know, that's not how it works out.

20:47I think this is a good thing for the really busy vets because they want to have a project. They want to be doing things. And when you start to make transitions like this, it's a lift because you're basically still doing all the work while you're teaching somebody else to do it or they're doing it. And then you're verifying. It's not just a, well, that's one less thing I have to do. you're really doing a different, a different thing, right? You're, you're guiding, coaching, mentoring and verifying. And so I don't, I think a lot of people like to think I'm going to hand this away and then I'm done.

21:19And I don't think that that's true. I think that's probably a good thing for people who, who want to, they want to be involved, but also they want to feel like they're making progress on their way out. Do you, do you buy it? Yes, I agree. And it is more work to mentor somebody, even like if you're mentoring someone in surgery, right? It's not that different. OK, so you need to spend more time with them and every procedure is going to take longer as you mentor your team and managing the practice. You are not walking out the door. You're there with them. They're testing things with you and they're asking questions.

21:50But what I'll tell you about it, and I always tell the owning vets, it ultimately that time spent maximizes your optionality. OK, so if you successfully execute a succession plan, it's not making you less. It's actually making you more because you can live that life. You know, you don't have to sell like you can live that life, continue to make a lot of money from the practice and have a nice lifestyle. You can choose, hey, I want to go sell the practice. And you're not so key to the practice that you're going to get handcuffs put on you by the buyer. You can pick and choose. Whereas oftentimes the individual who hasn't executed a succession plan, who keeps it all really close and is the big producer and a knight balances the books and pays the bills and does everything, that's the person who calls me desperate saying, I need to sell my practice.

22:40It's killing me. That person has lost the freedom to choose do they want to continue to practice or not. Whereas the one who executes, we've bought practices where the seller basically is no longer on site. They've fully transitioned it, and now they choose, hey, do I want to keep this interest, or is it time for me to sell? And, oh, by the way, they're handing me or one of my colleagues a well-running practice that doesn't require their presence. Yeah. Yeah. That all makes sense to me. I want to step further back. I want to ask you about some practices that are farther away from sort of the finish line.

23:21But let's say they've got farther to go. Dan, there's a lot of younger doctors that are looking at practice ownership and they want to be a practice owner. And the practices that are open or available for sale in a lot of cases are one vet practices. And so let's just say that you've got a doctor and they know they want to own a practice. There's a nice practice they've had. They're going to take this thing over. But they're going to become a one vet practice. But let's say they've got a long runway. They're just coming into it. What advice would you give to someone in that position to help them kind of set their practice up so that later on, when they want to have some options, they're able to have them?

23:58Like, how would you coach them? What advice would you give to the 30-year-old medical director who has just become a single vet practice owner? Well, so it's interesting that you raise this because it does come up a fair amount. And the way it comes up for us often is we're going to buy a multi-doctor practice. It's say it's doing$6 million of revenue, and there's a young vet there who believes that he or she wants to be the owner of that practice. Okay. And so I'll meet with them because, again, we never want to steal an opportunity from an associate. If that associate wants to buy the practice, God bless them.

24:32I'll actually help them find the financing and wish them all the best. But it's a big thing to bite off to buy a multi-vet$6 million practice and borrow millions of dollars. And so I usually do encourage them if they want to be an owner and they want to create value for themselves and create a legacy to do what you're describing, which is go buy the little single vet practice where there's an older vet who's kind of heading off into the sunset. and you're really going to have to roll up your sleeves and be everything at that practice initially, but you're going to buy it for a relatively modest amount.

25:14And the value you create, you're going to build yourself. Like no one, no one's going to hand it to you. You're going to build it yourself. And the harder you're willing to work, the better you're going to do. But what I would say to that person is, and I often do, you know, stay with us as we buy a practice. We're broad shoulders to lean on. You know, we'll work with you. You maybe become a young medical director. You'll learn from us. We'll learn from you. And you'll get to have the kind of indicia of ownership and leadership, but with some shoulders to lean on before you run off to really, you know, bet everything on whether you can turn around, you know, or build this little practice from nothing.

25:55And the other thing I would say, and I would, I strongly encourage the selling vets to do this, but they aren't always eager to do it, send your young associate vets in PMs to the CE programs, not just on the medicine, but on the management of the practice. Like send them to those programs. So they're learning how you run a well-managed practice and then go off and buy the small practice and take your shot. So let's say that I've got this practice, Dan, and it's a nice practice, let's say. And so say I've got, you know, five vets or whatever. Maybe, yeah, I've got the five vets, you know, we're doing five mil, you know, something like that in total revenue.

26:36And it's a nice practice. And I have this young medical leader and you look at her and you just go, man, you've got someone with potential there, Andy. What does that look like, Dan? Like, what does she do? Like, what training does she have? What is she into? Like, what would make you envious and go, I wish she worked for us? What does that look like? Sure, sure. So we do run into a lot of those. And I'll tell you, interestingly, sometimes the owning vet doesn't even realize what he or she has in that person. You know, like, we'll meet with them and we'll say, you know, is there a successor here?

27:12And they'll be like, no, no, we don't have anybody like that. I'm like, okay, let me meet with them, right? and you meet with them and five minutes in, you're like, that one has it. She's got it. Okay, so what is it? Yeah, so your question is what does that person have? What do you see when you go in there and go, yeah, she's got it? Huge energy level, first of all. Great EQ. So they are good with people. They're engaging, not just with the community, but they're supportive of the team. They're very gregarious, outwardly focused. You know, they recognize the situation that's going on between people and they are a problem solver, not a problem creator.

27:49And they are driven, but they're driven by the team's success, not just their own success. Like they want to lift up the people around them. And it comes across. We do find a number of them and we put our arms around them. What's interesting is sometimes those people want to take that role. A lot of times it requires some convincing on our part for them to do that because they love everybody in the practice and they don't necessarily want to be the boss. They want to be like in the mix with everybody else who's going to the potluck dinner and not walking in the room. Everybody gets quiet because they're in charge.

28:31Different than most other industries I've invested in historically where people are crawling over each other to be the head guy. Not so much with vets. Well, sure. I think I've loved that you call that out. I think that's spot on. I think it's also why that talent hides in plain sight so well is because, you know, when I've worked in other like other industries, I'll come in and I'll interview, you know, executives and I'll say, where do you see yourself in five years? Oh, you know, and they'll always have this upward plan, you know, say, well, I'd like to be I'd like to be in this place or I'd like to be in the C-suite and like whatever.

29:05And you talk to vets and I'm like, where do you see yourself in five years? And they're like, I want to be better at extracting teeth. You know, it's like, again, I love it. It's not wrong. It's just it's just it's who they are and like what they're looking for when they come in. And it's just it's just it is interesting. It's a different mentality. I agree. I will also say, and not to be self-serving in this, but I do think our ability with our clinical development group and our corporate team can lift up those raw talent people, whether they're PMs or medical director, and put resources around them to help them step up in a way that perhaps the individual owner vet who kind of made it up on his or her own 20 years ago can't necessarily do as well.

29:49Yeah. Okay. Let me, I want to switch this around on you. So let's go back to a similar scenario to what I gave you at the beginning, but instead of being the 30 year old, you know, young, now I'm the 50 year old medical director and I just, Dan, I haven't been working on this. I, you know what I mean? I haven't been thinking about it, but I, but my, but my kids are leaving for college and suddenly I'm going, Oh man, I'd like to, I'd like to travel the world now that I don't have, you know, kids around and stuff. What kind of advice would you give me? I, how do I kickstart this? Is there a way to do that?

30:18I mean, should I be panicking here or not? No, and in this scenario, you're the medical director and the owner of the practice? Yes, exactly. Yes. Okay. So first of all, definitely don't panic. This is a very solvable problem. What I would say is it requires you to take it as a real job. Like you can't do this in your spare time. You can't go, hey, you know, I run this practice. I practice veterinary medicine. I'm producing 800 ,000 a year. you know, in my spare time, I'm going to mentor people and grow them. You have to sort of say every day I'm coming in and 30 % of my job is really investing in my people.

30:57So in two to three years, they're grown. Like it's just not going to happen if you're just doing it. And a lot of people aren't willing to make that commitment because it doesn't pay back right away, but it certainly pays back over time. If you dedicate the time to it, and this is a hard one, pick the right people. Sometimes they invest their time and that person isn't really the right one. And some of them have been burned because they take that advice, they go through it, and it doesn't work out, and now they never want to do it again. And the answer isn't, no, it's something you should never do it again.

31:36What you need to do is make sure you're exercising judgment and trying to find someone who ultimately wants to learn and wants to take those ranks. I think that makes a lot of sense. I really love that idea of this is your job now. Like this is, it's not happening in the background or if it organically happens, it's like, nope, this is, this has to fit into the workday. But here's the other thing, Andy, and I know you will appreciate this. There's the intellectual and the emotional. And the problem for many of these people is intellectually, they know that's what they need to do. Emotionally, they're kind of ambivalent about it.

32:11Like it doesn't feel so great. And that's why actually a lot of them, unfortunately, kind of wait until they're selling the practice and they're kind of handing this whole succession issue to us. They're like, hey, you guys figure out how this whole transition Yeah, it's going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. Here's my team. You figure out who it is and you guys have the resources to train them. And it's much better if they're maybe not 100 percent down the road, but they've started down that road to transition that stuff. And the other thing I would say, and this is, you know, in an ideal world and not always that easy to have a difference in timeline transition between the PM and the medical director.

32:54Say more about that. So, yeah. Say more. So say I'm a 60-year-old vet and I've got a PM who's been with me for 30 years and he or she is 58. I don't want to transition me and the PM to two 30-year-olds at the same time. What I'd ideally like to do is bring on a medical director who's, in this example, 30, 32, while he or she still has the benefit of the very seasoned PM. then get the medical director up the curve a bit and now bring in the young PM successor who's got a little bit more senior medical director to kind of be the partner as they move the practice forward, as opposed to both of them learning it from scratch together.

33:42I see emotionally how this happens, right? I see, you know, like the PM has been with you forever and you say, well, you know, I think it's time I'm going to start to sunset here. I'm going to, You know, I'm going to be stepping away. And they're like, you know what? I've really loved being your official or unofficial partner in this business. And, you know, I think it's probably time for me as well. I've kind of loved, you know, serving with you. And I'm going to let's let's let's ride out of here together. And like, I get it from an emotional standpoint, from a logistical standpoint, it's nightmare.

34:14It's better. Well, and so what often happens in our succession planning with our clinics is, and this works out very well, is there's two owners. They're our partners, and they're different generations. And so when they sell the practice, the younger vet sort of takes more of the reins, and the older vet continues to practice but begins to head for the door. And then you've got a very nice built-in succession plan. It's harder when there's only one owner. Yeah. Dan, you talk to vets all the time about this stuff. Every time I've had you on, you tell great stories of conversations you've had with people and all the different ways that you've done this and all the just the wide variety of practices and practice types that you kind of work with.

34:58If people want to talk to you directly, I mean, you're the CEO, you're a busy guy, but does that happen? Is there a way that they can reach out to talk to you? For sure. For sure. And I think people are surprised by it, but this is my baby. I mean, Roy and Ferdy and I started this together 17 years ago, and I love talking. I mean, the thing I like most about my job is talking to the veterinarians in our network and outside our network. So absolutely, I'm happy to talk to anybody, whether they're thinking about selling or not, whether they're just sort of exploring the idea or trying to figure it out.

35:30And a lot of times the people who sell us their practice, I've known for years before they get to the point that they're ready to sell. They've helped them kind of navigate some of these issues as they're grappling with it. But it is definitely a tricky thing for them to deal with. It's like how you started with your kids starting to go to college and drive. I mean, who's the next Andy Rourke? What's your succession plan, man? Oh, man. You know, I tell you, one of my favorite things about the job, and I think this is true for veterans, I think we're a profession full of people who like to mentor.

36:08You know what I mean? Who like to grow other people. But just out of the goodness of your heart, you say, I'd like to help you and be successful. And I just, I've found so many generous people in vet medicine who are willing to mentor you in the medicine. I think that's also true in sort of the business side and things. And I like to think that I have been really lucky and fortunate to meet really talented people. I think the truth is probably there's a lot of talented people around. And so, yeah, this is such a great profession. If you're looking for the next generation and want to lift people up, it can be, I don't want to say it's easy to find great people, but there are definitely a lot.

36:40A lot of people go into veterinary medicine for the right reasons, and they're good people, and they want to help pets and help the clients and succeed. I will tell you the other piece of it, which we have at Blue River as well as a corporate, is the vets think of themselves as players. And as they transition, they need to become player coach. And it's hard because they love the game. And by the way, when I say, hey, they can call me, I love the actual interaction. I should probably sit back and let my team do stuff, but I like it. That's exactly it. Yeah. And so the vets are the same way that they really enjoy being the player, but they need to kind of gradually say, okay, I need to be a player coach and then I need to just be the coach.

37:22And that's hard for all of us to accept when it's time to become the coach. Dan, where can people find you online? How can they reach out if they want to connect with you? So they can go to our website. They can email me. I respond to email. They can call me wherever they would like. People reach out to me all the time. I'm happy to connect with them wherever they are. Sometimes, since I've done your podcast, now people walk up to me at the shows. They're like, hey, I saw the podcast. Outstanding. You're helping promote us, which we appreciate. Well, that's fantastic. Well, Dan, thanks for being here so much.

37:53I'll link up everything in the show notes so people can find it. Thanks again. Guys, thanks for tuning in and listening, everybody. Take care of yourselves, gang. We'll talk to you later. Thank you. And that's what I got. Guys, thanks for being here. Thanks to Dan for being here. Thanks to Blue River Pet Care for making this episode possible ad-free. Take care of yourselves, everybody. I'll talk to you later on. Bye.