What does it feel like to sell the veterinary practice that you love and poured your heart into for so many years? What decisions and considerations get made along the way? Dr. Saye Clement joins Dr. Andy Roark on this episode to tell her story of selling the practice she called home for 18 years.
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LINKS
Retain Your Team – Speak the Languages of Appreciation in Your Workplace: unchartedvet.com/product/apprecia…n-languages-101/
What’s on my Scrubs?! Card Game: drandyroark.com/training-tools/
Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop
All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Dr. Saye Clement is a veterinarian with over 28 years of clinical experience. Aside from stints as an emergency veterinarian and self-employed locum, she has spent the majority of her career at Carling Animal Hospital (in Ottawa, Canada) as a Co-Owner, Medical Director and Clinician. In late 2021, she stepped down from her leadership role within the hospital and assumed a role as an associate veterinarian. Outside of practice, she was honored to serve as the Director for Learning for Vet Alliance (an organization which supports independent practices in Canada) and enjoys giving the occasional lecture or workshop. She is passionate about helping others to develop great clinic culture and operational processes, and strives to provide information that can be easily implemented by busy professionals.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome everybody to The Cone of Shame veterinary podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I’m talking to one of my good friends today, Dr. Saye Clement about the experience of selling a veterinary practice that she built and loves. This is an emotional episode. I thought it was really fascinating to talk to someone who has enjoyed practice and enjoyed what they do and what is the thought process in her mind when she comes to decide to sell a practice and what was that emotional experience like? I think it’s something that a lot of our colleagues are going through as they make decisions to transition out of practice ownership. And I’m just curious, what does that feel like, and what choices get made along the way, and what are the roadblocks and hiccups, and what lessons do you learn when you do it?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Anyway, if you’re interested in what that process is like or what that experience is like, this is the episode for you. I got to say, this was a really interesting conversation. I’m really, really deeply thankful that she was willing to share this experience that she had. I know it’s something that most people keep pretty personal because it’s something that they have to work their way through and putting out in the world is a scary thing. And so again, a lot of gratitude goes to Saye. She really is an amazing person, and I think that a lot of people get a lot out of this. So anyway, guys, let’s get into this episode.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
(Singing) This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to The Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Saye Clement. Thanks for being here.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Oh, my pleasure, Andy.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I really appreciate having you on. You and I have been friends for about five years now, I think. I think we met back in 20…
Dr. Saye Clement:
Probably a little longer than in that because it was before Uncharted, right?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, so yeah. We met a number of times at conferences, and then I started Uncharted in 2017 and you came to that and that’s when we really got to…
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Hang out quite a bit and become good friends. I wanted to have you on today because you’ve gone through an experience that is becoming pretty common in vet medicine. It’s something that I have of wondered about and what it really is like. You have sold your darling veterinary practice, the practice that you loved and nurtured and grew. And I want to talk to you today about what that experience was like. Is that okay?
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So just to set some background real quick, you were a ’93 graduate from Ontario Vet College, and in 2003, you became the co-owner of Carling Animal Hospital in Ottawa.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah, that’s correct.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And you were the owner up until last year, 2021, when you sold. Carling has a great reputation. Just a quick Google search, you guys have 387 Google reviews and 4.6 star rating, which is rock solid. You seem to be running a very good practice. How so…
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah, and the cool thing is being in Ontario, we’re actually not allowed to solicit those reviews, so they’re actually totally unsolicited.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
So we’ve got amazing clients, fantastic clients.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That’s awesome. So tell me how you came to be the owner at Carling. So let’s just begin the beginning. How did you go from not being to being a co-owner?
Dr. Saye Clement:
So I moved back to Ottawa, Ottawa’s my hometown. I was born here. And so I moved back after I’d been away practicing in other cities, and my husband got transferred back. So my mom and dad had actually told me when Carling Animal Hospital got built, “Hey, there’s this new clinic that’s literally 10 minutes from our house. Wouldn’t it be funny if you ever worked there?” And I joked and I laughed, and I said, “Yeah, sure, mom.” And as it turns out, that’s where I ended up working. And I actually had no interest in being an owner at that point. So I started there in 1998, and I was like, “Yeah, okay. I’m a great associate.” And I was being a vet, and I was having a grand old time doing that. And what happened was, there comes a point where you kind of say, “Okay, I’m going to be really good at what I’m doing,” but then you get to a point where you’re really good at it, and you say, “I kind of think I need to do something else or I’m going to get super bored and I’m just going to jump ship.”
Dr. Saye Clement:
So coincidentally, around that time, my business partner of many years had bought into the practice a year ahead of me, and we had made arrangements for me to buy in after that. So we both started as 20% practice owners and then eventually bought out our majority partner a few years after that.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Very nice. Okay, so you get in, and so tell me about your experience as an owner. So it’s 2003, you now have this hospital. We’re talking about you were the owner for 20 years. Walk me through that journey of growth.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Well, there was growth for a bit, and then we hit a recession, a big one, which was terrifying because it was literally a year after we had finished buying out our majority partner. And so the two of us were sitting there looking at each other going, “Oh my gosh, what did we do?” And I think part of it that was… We had a vision for the practice. We actually have always had a vision for the practice, which is that we wanted it to be a culture-centric practice. We had had a lot of difficulty, I think… This is a something that you know that I’m passionate about and know that I actually want to have a team that enjoys working there…
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And all of those things. And so we did very much start to institute things like a code of culture for the practice. And we started instituting, this is how we’re all going to be fair to each other in the practice. And it made it fun to eventually get to a point to say, we hire for culture as opposed to we hire for skill.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And so for us, that was a big thing. And that’s what the practice has actually been predicated on all the way through.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And so when you are doing that, I actually have a great passion for practice management and managing the actual hospital itself as opposed to, don’t get me wrong, I like being a veterinarian.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure.
Dr. Saye Clement:
I’m a good vet, but I think if you were to ask me, “If you could only do one of those things,” I would pick management every single time.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, one of the things that I’ve always loved about you, I think it is absolutely true, is you are that culture first practice owner, and you always have been in my eyes. And I think that’s why I really want to talk with you about this. You have never struck me as the person who decided, “Hey, I’m going to make a vet practice that I can then turn around and sell, and that’s what I’m going to do.” And I think the reason I want to talk to you about this, oftentimes with these interviews the ones I’m especially really excited about, which like this one, are ones where I have questions, and I don’t know how I would feel about these sorts of things.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so you and I very much seem to look at our work with a sense of passion and purpose. And I love having a team, and I love growing a business, not because I plan to turn around and sell it, but because I want to make a great place for people to work, and I want to make something that benefits my community. And in this case of the stuff that we do, community for me is that medicine, as opposed to you serving pet owners in your area. But you and I have things very much in common. And so, I think that’s the thing that really clicked for me and why I really want to talk to you was, this doesn’t seem like an easy decision versus someone who was like, “I’m going to get in there, and I’m going to buy this practice. I’m going to turn it around or I’m going to grow it up, and then I’m going to hit this number, and I’m going to sell it.” That was never the idea that you had.
Dr. Saye Clement:
No, and I think the interesting thing is that if you had spoken to me… Well, in fact, two years ago if you’d asked me, “Are you ever going to sell your practice?” It was a flat out no.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
I have had actually said I would buy out my partner before I sold my practice. And I think a couple of things happened. My dad passed away a few years ago, which it was one of those situations where it was actually a bit of a blessing because he had Parkinson’s, and it was a really cruel disease for him.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Sorry.
Dr. Saye Clement:
No, it’s okay. And I think he’s in a better place now, and I’m pretty sure he’s probably yelling at me for spilling family secrets right now. But anyway…
Dr. Andy Roark:
We won’t tell anybody. We won’t tell anybody.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah, no, just your entire listening audience.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Having said that, I think things will happen in your life that actually make you think about what it is that ultimately you want to do. So that was a pretty… That was a lightning bolt kind of moment for me. I think the other thing that was really important for us was we had an associate who actually desperately wanted to be a practice owner. I did ask her why and she said, “Well, because I want to be able to grow something and nurture something.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Saye Clement:
And so when I actually started thinking about that, it was like, okay this is someone that has the same vision for the practice that I’ve had. And so trying to think about how do you take this intangible thing that you’ve built, and I think we had jokingly before we started recording called it my baby. Well actually, it is.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
It’s probably my third…
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Probably my third kid. My two children will probably argue it’s the most important child for the number of times I miss dinner or school plays and stuff.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
But what I think the important thing is, and for me, it’s always been about what’s the legacy of the practice that you built. I’m not going to…
Dr. Andy Roark:
You say that, you say that. That’s so hard.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
You know what I mean? Oh, that is so painful and hard. I remember when I was the president of the business club at vet school and then it was a one year term, and then I had to let somebody else do it after me. That was heartbreaking. And that was the vet school business club for one year. That’s not 18 years of practice ownership hard, you know what I mean?
Dr. Saye Clement:
So legacy is a funny thing because ultimately I had three big key groups of people that I was concerned about. My concern’s primarily about my team, and I had concerns about leadership, especially within that team. And I had concerns about our clients because we’ve built this wonderful, phenomenal, friendly practice that we do our very best to aspire to always be the best that we can be. And the past two years, I’m not going to lie, have been incredibly for that.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
But I think in and amongst all of that, there’s a sense on my part of, I never wanted to grow something and then financially benefit from selling it at the expense of any of those key groups of people.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And I think when you go… So here’s the other thing. Don’t do what I did because if you had asked me what mistakes I made in orchestrating succession, which is that I didn’t plan it at all. And so what I actually think every single owner should do, regardless of whether you’re imminently thinking of selling your practice or not, I think you need to have a list of things that you are focused on or that are your lines in the sand. And I’ve had many discussions over the years about boundaries and making sure that we have lines in the sand where we don’t allow the breeder to drive up to our house with…
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
A pregnant dog and welp the puppies in your driveway.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
I was very, very adamant that I was not going to partner with somebody who could not see the vision of the practice and could not understand what an amazing place it was because if you don’t understand how amazing it is, you’re not going to uphold the legacy of what I wanted it to be.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And I’m incredibly fortunate. I’ve got two young and far more energetic associates who are now going to be the leaders in this practice and who are going to be owners in this practice. And it’s going to be amazing for them because they’re so excited and they’re just so focused on the fact they want to keep growing it, and they want it to be even better than what it is. And what I’ve said to them both is that my goal for both of them is that I want them to make something that they’re incredibly proud of and that they want to then turn around and pass on to someone and have them grow. It’s always been a growth mindset practice, even from the time that we were associates, it’s always been a very progressive hospital. And I have to say that it was, as you know, we had this conversation scheduled for a couple of weeks after the sale had closed, and I welched on it because I literally couldn’t talk about it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
No, take your time, yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And it’s hard because…
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
I was a mess on… So we closed on the 1st of September. I was a mess on the 31st of August, so the actual day before.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
So I woke up that morning and I went, “This is my last day as a practice owner.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And it hit me. I had been fine. The 30th of August, I was fine. 31st of August, I woke up, and I was absolute total mess, and so much so, my business partner, bless him, was standing in front of me in the hospital going, “Don’t talk to her, don’t talk to her today. She’s [crosstalk 00:13:51].”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Everyone leave her alone.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah, leave her alone. And I was literally on the verge of tears all day that day because it was the very last day.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And then on the 1st of September, I was actually fine.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
I was totally fine, and it was funny because I had forgotten all the running around we were going to have to do that day. So you have to go sign paperwork and go to the bank, and we were… I didn’t have time to think about anything other than getting all those details done.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Sometimes that’s good.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Sometimes it’s really good just to be busy and to throw yourself into it.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So what role, if any, do you think that the pandemic played in your decision to sell the practice? Is that a very minor thing? Do you think that that really pushed you in that direction? How did those things interact?
Dr. Saye Clement:
It didn’t push me very much actually, aside from one thing, which I’ll mention in a minute, but I am like you. Well, I’m like a chaos monkey. Just any time that there’s a problem that I can solve or do come up with a solution for… So we were recreating everything for 20 months, and it was fun for me because it was still this thing of, you’ve got this problem, now fix the problem, fix the problem. I’m a really good problem solver. I love doing that. So it also gave me a little bit their freedom to say, “Okay, we do not have time to try and figure out how to implement telemedicine. We just have to do it. We do not have time to figure out how to do curbside. We just have to do it.” And I can feel my hospital manager cringing if she’s listening to this because she’s the foil to me in the practice…
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Where she says, “Okay, but you got to think, how are we going to implement this thing? It has to be consistent. The clients have to be aware.” And she’s very good for making me take about seven steps back and say, “You can’t just drop this into the middle of the practice and expect it to work.” And yet that’s what we were doing.
Dr. Andy Roark:
You and I are like a Dark Helmet in Spaceballs where it’s just like, “Forget it. Just go.”
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And he just throws the gas pedal forward. That’s kind of, “Nope, we’re doing it now.”
Dr. Saye Clement:
We are doing it now. And all the process people around us are just literally trying to rope us back in, but…
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh yeah. It’s good to be…
Dr. Saye Clement:
I think that…
Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s good to be surrounded by those people.
Dr. Saye Clement:
The people who are sane? Yeah, I think the other interesting thing for me, though, is that I had… Part of what triggered this was, and I think this happens to a lot of owners, I’d had a fantastic, fantastic as COVID could be, but it had a fantastic run through COVID where I was feeling like I in pretty good control.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And then I hit a wall about 18 months in, maybe 20 months in. And I flippantly said to a friend of mine, “If I could get this amount of money for the practice, I would walk away right now,” cause I’d had a crap week. I was…
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, we all have that. [crosstalk 00:16:52] about my children. I’m like, “If someone offered me the much for my child, I’d hand her over.”
Dr. Saye Clement:
[crosstalk 00:16:57].
Dr. Andy Roark:
At some point, people catch you at a moment of weakness and you’re willing to, you’re willing to…
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah, so anyway…
Dr. Andy Roark:
Part with your spouse for the right dollar.
Dr. Saye Clement:
I’m not going to tell [Ella 00:17:07] that you said that.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, don’t tell my wife I said that.
Dr. Saye Clement:
So what I would say though happened was, it was a very flippant comment. It was an absolute total flippant comment. And my friend turned around and said to me, “You realize it’s worth more than that.” And I said, “No, no, no, there’s no way.” Because I had thrown out what I thought was a ridiculous number.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh yeah, you thought you were pie in the sky’ing it. And they were like, “Oh no, that seems very reasonable.”
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah, yeah. He said, “No, it’s worth my much more than that.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
At which point I thought, okay. And then the fiscally responsible part of me kicks in because I’m thinking, “Okay, if it truly is worth this, the very first thing I need to do is have it valued,” because I actually didn’t know.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure, when someone says it’s worth this, at some point you go, “I should at least look into this.”
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah, well, and that’s the other thing. I think you should always have a sense of what your practice is worth. I think you need to know that. And so whether it’s having it valued on a routine basis where you can actually know and be prepped for, this is what it’s worth right now, because if you are, you never want to be at the point where you are so desperate to sell that you then don’t have an option if it’s not worth what you think it is.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, yeah, that makes some sense.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah, and there are things you can actually do, while I never built this practice up be, “Hey, I’m going to turn around and sell it to make this much money afterwards, and it’s an investment,” I think if you are of that mindset, there are things that you can do if it’s not coming up to where you think the practice is and…
Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Should be valued. And your practice is only worth what someone’s willing to pay for it. So I truthfully don’t… I think practice valuation is this weird thing where you can say, this is what it’s theoretically worth based on all of the numbers, but right now you can also then turn around and say, “Yeah, but what is someone willing to give me for it?” And there’s quite often a big discrepancy there.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, yeah. But there’s also the thing of, if you don’t measure it, you won’t manage it.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so if there are key drivers of value and you don’t know what they are, then you might be putting your efforts in a place that doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yep.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Or you could easily make some different choices and end up down the road, 10, 20 years, whatever, in a very different place. We’ve all seen that. People who they buy a house to renovate, and they renovate the wrong things.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
They put a swimming pool in and wonder why the value of the house doesn’t go up versus replacing the windows. Kind of the same thing of what are we looking at here? What gives value? How are we doing, and are there anything that we could change? So I think you’ve sold me on the idea of a valuation as an ongoing management tool. I hadn’t really thought of it that way.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey guys, I just want to jump in here with a couple quick updates, actually just one real quick update, because we have a workshop coming up over at Uncharted Veterinary Conference. This is a virtual workshop. It is on May the 21st. It’s called Retain Your Team, Speak the Language of Appreciation in Your Workplace. Guys, this is all about making your staff actually feel engaged and appreciated and supported. I know a lot of us are dealing with an overwhelmed staff and a tired staff. And how do you make them know that they matter? And how do you make them feel like their job is important? And how do you make them really feel seen? I think a lot of us, we want to do a better job with that. And we know that keeping our people and keeping them engaged and making them feel like their work matters is a key piece in retaining them at a time where workers are hard to come by, especially good staff. They’re hard to get.
Dr. Andy Roark:
You do not want to miss this trick, guys. If you’re not familiar with the languages of appreciation, this workshop is for you. If you are familiar and you want to see how it’s really applied well in practice, this is also for you. My friend, Dr. Tracy Sands, is running this online workshop. It’s a two hour workshop on May the 21st. It is from 2:00 PM Eastern to 4:00 PM Eastern. That is 11:00 AM Pacific to 1:00 PM. Pacific. Guys, I’m going to put a link in the show notes to register, or you can just head over to unchartedvet.com and click Upcoming Events to see this and all the other events that we have coming your way. Gang, let’s get back into this episode.
Dr. Saye Clement:
I think the other, and like I say, the critical thing for us was once we had that valuation, then we said, okay. And we talk about is it a fiscally responsible thing to not consider this particularly given the situation that I am actually, much as I would like to wish otherwise, not getting any younger. And I think that there’s… The flip side of this is that when I graduated, I was 23, and I’d had a single-minded focus from the time I was probably like 10 or 12 to be a veterinarian. So I’ve never thought about anything else. I’ve never thought about being anything else, and so I never did any kind of really… I didn’t do a lot of that find yourself, didn’t do the travel around Europe, didn’t do all of… I never backpacked through Southern Asia or anything like that.
Dr. Saye Clement:
But there were things experientially that I said, “No, I’m focused. I’m going to be a doctor.” I knew how to rig all of those tests you took in high school where the career counselor comes in and says, “Here, it’s take the test.” And I could make it say veterinarian every single time from about the time I was 13. And I was good at taking tests, so I had that one figured out. But I think the nice thing is that I’m still actually working at the practice. I plan on working at the practice actually for as long as they’ll have me and also as long as it makes sense to do that. And I’m still involved in now mentoring people who are coming up behind me who are going to take over the visioning part because that’s hard to learn…
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Unless you’ve got somebody there. So now we’re talking about, this is a passion project for me. This is something where I get to do the parts of this where I love it, and it’s the parts that are fun. And I think that the fact is that sometimes we have to scale back a bit to say, hey, it’s okay to have fun doing what you actually love doing and still be able to be productive in all of those things. And I think succession for me wasn’t getting rid of the practice. It was focusing in on what I really wanted to do in the practice. And it was actually a fairly liberating thing to turn around and say, “Yeah, this is the part I love, so it’s okay for me to do the parts I love and to scale back a little on the stuff maybe I’m not as passionate about anymore.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, talk to me a little bit more about what you think it’s going to be like working in the practice. Are you going to be able to come in and say, “Oh my God, they’re not doing it the way that I would do it, but I’m going to be okay with this.” Is that in your repertoire?
Dr. Saye Clement:
Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. Thankfully right now they’re still asking my opinion on many things. I expect that’s going to not be the case in a second couple of quarter, probably in another three or four months, because the skillset’s just increasing by leaps and bounds right now.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
So do I miss not knowing everything? Yeah, a little tiny bit. I’ve always had really good insight into everything that’s going on, and so the fact that I don’t have that anymore is a little weird for me. Again, strangely a little liberating to not have to know all of that stuff, too, but I think it’s hard because you’re so used to being the driving force behind the practice. And I think that took about two months or so for me to just scale back on and for me to have a manager finally look at me and go, “You need to let me do this. I can’t learn it if you don’t let me do it.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
So I was like, “Okay.” And I think the good news was that I was starting to get a lot better at delegating things in the last year or two of practice because I didn’t have a chance to… I didn’t have the ability to not do that. You were obligated with COVID to delegate stuff. You can’t do everything yourself.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Right.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And I think I’m okay to let it go. Again, as I said, two years ago, I would’ve never said this. But I think I’m in a place now where I’m okay to let it go because I’m actually really confident in who’s going to be taking over the legacy of it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And that for me was important.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Let’s talk about that a little bit. How did you end up finding associates that would take over that you felt so great about? I think a lot of people are like, “That’s a great position. How do you make that happen?” So yeah, how did you come to a place where you have associates who, a, want to do the work, and then b, that you felt like, yes, this is the legacy that I want to leave behind. How do you know when you’re there?
Dr. Saye Clement:
So I’m incredibly fortunate, like amazingly fortunate, because I think I’ve only had to, and I don’t say this to brag but it’s just the reality of the practice, is it’s got a really good reputation. And we’ve advertised for veterinarians over the years, and we screen really carefully for the people that we know adhere to culture for us. We want to make sure that they’re the right people, and if they adhere to our culture, then quite often, we’ve already pre-selected them for being the ones that are going to want that responsibility because that’s part of what we’re looking for.
Dr. Saye Clement:
I got very lucky with these two phenomenal vets who are my associates and who are now going to be my boss eventually. And I think that both of them have drive and both of them have the background that I admire from the standpoint that you’ve heard me wax poetic on the fact that I think that people who have been trained either in the arts or in high-level sports, or both, have this great capacity for coaching and have this great capacity to accept feedback and who have this great capacity to learn.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And both of these veterinarians have a really strong artistic background, one singing in major high-level operatic choirs as kids, managing full course loads at high school, being in artistic programs in high school. And in fact, also one of them is a high-level equestrian athlete. There’s lots of things there that when I read those resumes and I go, “Yeah, this is a person I’m interviewing. I don’t actually have a spot for you right now, but I’m going to interview that person.” And I don’t ever turn down the right candidate if I don’t have a job. That’s the other key thing to remember is that you’ve got to be really super careful to not turn people like this away, who are the future of your practice.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And it’s the same for every kind of position in our hospital. We’re always looking for those people that have that little thing, and it’s not easy to work in my practice. I tell people that all the time. You got to understand that, yeah, it’s a great place to work if you’re a great fit, but if it’s not perfectly what you want, you’re going to find it really hard. So we try our best not to set people up for failure by accepting someone into that group that doesn’t have the capacity to be able to be happy there. And that’s really important for us.
Dr. Andy Roark:
There’s a perception that selling your practice to your associates is a guaranteed path to a lower financial return than selling to a consolidator, some big corporation or venture capital group or something like that that’s going to stroke checks, and they want to acquire a lot of practices. I know that is not news to you, and it had to cross your mind. And you’ve talked a lot about legacy being important. Did you have those thoughts at all? Did you look at what private equity groups or other groups like that would be willing to even offer, or did you just say, “I don’t even want to look at that stuff. This is what I want to do.”
Dr. Saye Clement:
We actually do have a corporate partner, as well. So it’s not just a direct sale to associates. So they’re partnering with a corporate group with us. So the nice thing for them is that all of this stuff that was hard for us that we had to learn to do…
Dr. Andy Roark:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Saye Clement:
So basically, the corporate group takes over and does some of the business part that most people who are veterinarians and veterinary medicine-focused don’t necessarily want to do. So they handle our payroll, they handle paying bills, they handle all of that. They handle HR.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
I think the good news for us is that those two associates who are buying into our practice actually want to do some of that stuff still, so that’s good, so they drive the culture. I think when you’re looking at corporate practices or corporate groups, there’s a huge variation of what kind of corporate groups are out there.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And you are going to find… And not forgetting that even if you sell to a corporate group, you are probably going to have to stay in that practice for two years, at least.
Dr. Andy Roark:
At least, yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
So you’re going to want to find a group of people that you can work with. And I would say that we’re incredibly fortunate with the group that we’re partnered with because they are very much interested in wanting to preserve the legacy of what made the hospital really amazing. And they get out of our way on that sort of thing. So they’re not telling us how to practice medicine. They’re not telling us how to run day-to-day operations, and they’re allowing Carling to still be Carling. And that’s so important, so much so that we actually haven’t truly done an announcement yet for our clientele that this has actually occurred because the expectation is, they should not notice a difference, and they haven’t. And so I think you can be exceedingly fortunate in finding corporate partners that actually will allow you to do that.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And there are others that are going to turn around, and I think I was listening to your podcast. I think it was Dr. Lester that you spoke to…
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, Bob Lester.
Dr. Saye Clement:
With regards to… Yeah, so you can have what’s called compliance culture, which is basically where they come in and they mandate here’s how you treat and here’s how you handle every single case. And that was definitely not what we wanted. And so if you’re talking to corporate groups, put as many of them at the table as you possibly can, mostly so you can hear the different ideas of how they plan to support your practice after a sale. And if you don’t have an associate who wants to buy in, there are great many corporate groups that will actually still support your vision of what you wanted your practice to be because they’re buying the successful practices, and they want to make sure that what caused that practice to be successful continues. There’s no…
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
There’s no advantage for them coming in and paying good money for a practice that they’re then going to turn around and change the model and change everything cause the clients won’t be happy. The team won’t be happy. And you also want a group that’s going to say, “Yeah, we’re not perfect.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
I actually asked every single one that we spoke to like, “Have you made mistakes? Tell me about what you did to fix them. Tell me…” Cause I’m still looking for growth mindset.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Saye Clement:
I’m still looking for those partners that have that growth mindset so I can turn around and say, “Yeah, this is who I want to be partnered with.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, so give me a little bit of a timeline on this because this is really interesting. So you had associates that you knew were interested in ownership. Did they bring up the idea of partnering with a corporate group? Did you introduce that idea? How do you start to put those pieces together so that everybody feels comfortable and comes together into a package that works? Cause I think this is a… I don’t know. It makes me very optimistic. I like this. I like this idea.
Dr. Saye Clement:
So what we did was, I was feeling like a broken record by the time we… Because we had spoken to five different corporate groups as a starting point. And part of the reason we did that was to get a sense of what the maximum value of the practice might be.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Because we knew exactly, as you say, it’s going to be higher than what a private, single person is probably going to be able to pay. And again, when we started talking to them, they would ask us, “What’s important to you?” Every single one we talked to asked us, “What is important to you?” And we said, “We do not want people to come in and we don’t want you to come in and rebrand the hospital. We don’t want you to stipulate medical treatment to us. We don’t want you to tell us that we have an obligation to use this specific drug, and we can’t use anything else. We don’t…” So there were a lot of things that we had, but the one thing that we actually went in and said right off the bat, was, “If you cannot promise us that you will look at after our team, and if you cannot promise us that there is a place for these two associate doctors who want to be part of leadership, we are walking away from the table right now.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, interesting.
Dr. Saye Clement:
By the way, most of the larger corporate groups are extremely good at creating customized plans for how associates can buy in or be a part of management. There’s medical director physicians in larger hospitals. There’s all kinds of different things that you can potentially throw out there as a workable solution. And they are, for the most part, willing to consider a lot of those things, especially if you have a practice that they really want. They’ll turn around and offer you things that you never thought would be possible, actually, for what people can do to be involved. We basically said to them, “Our key hospital manager has got to be taken care of. She is absolute linchpin in our practice. If you do not have this lady, you are going to be in some serious trouble.” So we safeguarded her position. We basically said, “This is a non-starter. If she’s not in this role, we’re also not interested.”
Dr. Saye Clement:
So we leveraged a lot of that and we had those discussions right up front. We never mentioned money, ever. We didn’t care once we got past a certain threshold what they were going to tell us the practice was worth. Our far bigger concern was what were they going to do for our team and what were they going to do for our clients?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And it’s okay to have those conversations because really and truly, it’s like you’ve always said and like I’ve always said, you look after your team, they look after your clients, and then it’s a profitable practice. And so there’s no reason to change that model just because you happen to have a corporate partner.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, yeah. I totally agree with that. How did you start to communicate this to the team? I imagine screaming and waving hands and the sky is falling, and just… I’d say that jokingly, but let’s be honest. People are afraid of the unknown, and this is a big unknown that appears… Especially, there’s this idea in Buddhism that I really like. It’s the idea that people really want to believe they have control.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so they spend their days piecing their world together around them in a way that feels like it’s stable and under their control. And then when that world gets torn apart, they have a panic attack, existential dread and fear. And then they go right back to piecing it back together. So did you tear that raft of perceived control apart for these people? Yeah, how did they take it, and how did you communicate it?
Dr. Saye Clement:
Actually, we told a few key people in the practice first because we needed their help. We needed their buy-in.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yep.
Dr. Saye Clement:
We wanted them to understand that it was not this big, bad, horrible situation that was coming in, and that it was going to be awful. You’ll get varying suggestions of when you should tell your team that this is happening.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Saye Clement:
And we had suggestions of, you could wait until a week before, and we know our team really well, and we know that they are a bunch of people that are literally going to need to fall apart for about four days, and then they’ll pull it back together. So we fought really hard actually to tell them early. And we knew there might be some risk of people deciding that this was not a comfortable thing for them and them not wanting to stay, which actually did happen. And I would also say we didn’t handle this a hundred percent perfectly either because there were probably some people that we should have brought into the loop sooner than we did, but then there was also this overarching desire to be fair to everybody and not to have too many people know ahead of everybody else. And how do you do that?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I don’t know that there’s a right way. I think that’s one of those things you can’t know, and you always get it wrong.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah, and you have regret on stuff like this. I always do.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
I don’t think that there are… I don’t think a major decision like this goes by where I don’t actually have regret on certain things that we did or decided on. And part of it is, I equate it to when you’re dealing with end of life for a pet.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And you say that ultimately, if I had a crystal ball and I knew when that pet’s life was no longer going to be okay, I would choose to let that pet go 10 minutes before that, and it would be fine. And how often do we miss that point?
Speaker 4:
Every time.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Yeah, and I can say this really honestly because I actually missed it on my own dog…
Speaker 4:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
About 15 years ago. And so it’s not about… So you do the very… And I tell clients this all the time, and I tell people this all the time, you do the very, very best with the information you have, and you do the very, very best with what you know to be accurate, and if you make a poor decision based on all of that, hindsight’s always going to be perfect. You’ll always have regret. And I choose to say that I did the very best I could. I would like to say I never go through stuff like this without really thinking and really thinking hard and really thinking a lot. And, and yeah, I’m a human being, and I’m going to get it wrong sometimes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh sure, it’s the human experience. What are you most looking forward to now that you’re not the practice owner anymore?
Dr. Saye Clement:
Do you know what? I actually haven’t had time to do a lot of reading in the last two to three years.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Going to read a book.
Dr. Saye Clement:
So I am reading a book and actually I’m reading this really cool book that I heard about on our public radio station, CDC, and it’s about why we forget stuff, which has become somewhat of a reality for me. But having a dad who had dementia and Parkinson’s, you always have this little nagging voice…
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
In the back of your head of, “Am I going down that same road because I can’t remember where I parked my car.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And so there’s some stuff like that normally I would’ve kept up on reading and things like that. But this book right now that explains why that happens, and it’s been earth shatteringly fantastic for me to be able to read that because now I feel okay. I’m okay, and I am not abnormal in the fact that the distraction level that I have causes me to forget where I leave my car in the parking lot, as opposed to fact my memory is no longer working.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Saye Clement:
And I’m rereading books that I’ve actually read in the past that I really loved and reading them with a new outlook. So I’m rereading Atomic Habits, and I’m rereading Good to Great and a couple of those other books that I just go back to periodically, and to read them with a new focus and a new light of, hey, this is now me getting to do stuff that I want to do. And it’s actually the slight little change in thought process there has been interesting for me. So I’ve been doing a lot more journaling. I have time to do things right now that I haven’t had for 15 years. And so that’s all good, too.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Where can people find you online if they want to keep up with your adventures?
Dr. Saye Clement:
You know what? This is funny because everybody asks me this, and I actually am very private online. So I have an Instagram account and I have a Facebook account, but I tend to not be on there a whole ton. And I know because there’s this black hole that occurs for me being on there that it’s time that is far, far too precious to me. I don’t know whether I might be a little more active in the future, but I think that I’ll always be kicking around, but you can find me there, and don’t be offended if I don’t necessarily accept a friend request from a person I don’t know because I am probably one of the most private people that you could possibly imagine. And I safeguard that actually a little bit.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Saye, thanks so much for being here today.
Dr. Saye Clement:
Oh, it’s been fun. It’s been great to talk to you and great to see your face again.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And that is it. That’s our episode. Guys, thanks again to Dr. Saye Clement for being open and vulnerable and sharing her experiences. I took a lot away from this. It gave me a lot to think about. This was a good episode that I really, really enjoyed making. So anyway, guys, if you enjoyed the episode, as always one of the kindest things that you can do is write an honest review wherever you get your podcast. It’s the way that people find the show, and it means a lot to me, so I really do appreciate it. Gang, take care of yourselves. Be well. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.
Editor: Dustin Bays
www.baysbrass.com
@Bays4Bays Twitter/Instagram
