John Sheridan BVetMed CVPM DMS MRCVS What are you wearing today - clinical scrubs or business suit?

How to balance your role as investor, business director, leader, manager and clinician to achieve your personal, professional and commercial objectives

Which hat are you wearing today? Your business hat? Your clinical hat? Be aware of the difference but never confuse the two!

Are these some of your personal objectives? Happy working environment Career development opportunities Involvement, recognition and reward Better work- lifestyle balance A bigger personal income Healthy Patients

Are these some of your business objectives? High standards of clinical care Loyal clients who seek, accept and pay for your advice Healthy patients Enthusiastic and motivated staff Market share Growth, Profit and a healthy ROI

All good, sound aspirations which are in your grasp but every one of them (clinical and business) will depend on the ability of your veterinary practice to operate effectively, efficiently and economically as a business, deliver high quality professional veterinary services in a demanding marketplace and generate a healthy profit

Your career as a veterinarian: Do you own a veterinary practice now? –why did you choose to be your own boss? Are you planning to own a veterinary practice at some stage in your career? –why do you want to be your own boss?

Here are some possible reasons ‘why should I work as hard as I do – simply to create profits for my boss? If I owned my own practice, I could enjoy my salary and keep all the profits’ ‘I have been in practice for some years – I can see so much wrong in the practice(s) where I’ve worked and I have this vision of a better way for clients, patients and staff and what it will be like when I own my own practice’ ‘I’m a good clinician – I enjoy my career but I want to have more clinical independence, some choice over the cases I see and the direction my professional career will take’ ‘I’m an experienced clinician but I’m becoming more interested in the business of practice and see veterinary practice potentially as a great investment

All good reasons and all suggest that: you are an experienced veterinary clinician you are a mix of: clinician manager entrepreneur you do have the necessary skills and expertise and so you believe that you are eminently qualified to run a business that provides veterinary services

Here’s the first bit of bad news from the E Myth Revisited – Michael Gerber why most small businesses don’t work and what to do about it the fatal assumption that ‘if you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a business that delivers that technical work’

Throughout may career, I’ve always believed that success in veterinary practice depends absolutely on the people And yet, one of the lessons independent practice have learned from the development of the corporate groups is the importance of business systems and procedures. Take a look at this short clip from Michael Gerber, author of The E.Myth Revisited

But there’s plenty of good news too : pressure of leadership/ownership balanced by pleasure of self determination financial rewards – source of income from ‘salary’ as a clinician, ROI on property plus ROI on the value of the business (tangible and intangible assets) building the value of long term assets (linked with profitability) ability to choose own work/lifestyle balance ability to select own team members with the required skills pride in building a respected professional business which meets the needs of its clients, patients, staff and investors

However in the real world: Life is great as a boss when things go right but it can be very lonely when things go wrong. Not easy to separate business, professional and personal life some practices very successful financially but many others struggle with low profit margins (some negative and many significantly less than 10% after all costs)

And to be realistic: if profit levels are poor, practice value poor with impact on retirement plans practice owners traditionally seem to work harder and longer than employees with pressure of growing statutory and professional regulation – danger of ‘burn out’ Remember ‘the boss gets paid last’ management surveys indicate that HR problems are the single biggest headache for practice owners/managers

If you’re not sure about the way ahead for your career in practice - Ask yourself the Monday Morning Question Imagine yourself five years from now. It’s a Monday morning, you’ve just woken up and contemplating the working week ahead of you. You’re not on holiday, you’re not retired - but so excited and enthusiastic about the tasks that await you, that you can’t wait to get out of bed and get on with your day. The Monday morning question is ‘exactly how do you want to be spending your time in that working week?’

Is practice ownership the appropriate career option for you? Growth of ‘corporate’ investment in practice in the UK and Scandinavia offers wide choice of career options in addition to traditional sole trader, partnership, LLP, employer or employee roles Some of the career options Full or part-time clinician OOH trauma specialist or referral clinician Clinical director role in corporate group (part clinical, part management) – career development opportunities Practice or hospital director – full time management role - career development opportunities Partner in large ‘corporate partnership’ (part clinical, part management) Joint partnership ownership Potential for ‘corporate’ investment in livestock practices

If you own the practice – here are some strategic career options Own the practice, remain a FT lead clinician, develop business leadership skills as a director, employ one or more individuals to manage the business under your direction Delegate some/all clinical responsibilities, concentrate on business leadership and non-executive director role, appoint an executive general manager to run the business on your behalf – perhaps on a share of the equity basis, enjoy much more leisure Retain some involvement as a clinician, retain active involvement in the day-to-day business of the practice, strengthen role as leader and managing director, establish and implement operational policies, management accounts and data retrieval for decision making.

Still not sure – then look in the mirror The person you see may be the only obstacle getting in the way of the success you deserve But that’s the person who has the ability to do everything that needs doing to make sure that you achieve everything you want to achieve in your career in veterinary practice And that person is just waiting for you to say yes – to turn your vision for your veterinary career, into reality

John Sheridan BVetMed CVPM DMS MRCVS Thank you