Good evening everybody and welcome to tonight's webinar. My name is Bruce Stevenson and I have the privilege of chairing tonight's webinar. A little bit of housekeeping just for those of you that are new to our sessions.
If you have any questions for our presenter tonight, simply hover your cursor over the screen. The control bar will come up and click on the Q&A. Type your question in, they'll all come through to me and we'll hold those over to the end and then we will deal with those as at the end of the session.
So tonight's webinar is brought to us by a number of sponsors which Steve will get into later on. But our presenter Steve has over 10 years' experience as a trainer. After a number of years as a relationship manager in the financial services sector, Steve started his training career at Barclays, before moving to simply Health, where he managed and the learning and development for the call centre and field sales staff.
In 2013, Steve became the training manager for Simply Health Professionals VET team. I mean he has spoken at corporate events and conferences including the London Vet Show, BVRA and the SPVS VMG. Steve has designed a number of bespoke courses focused on challenges faced within practises.
And he's also the proud owner of a six year old healthy bulldog called Fitzroy. Steve, welcome to the webinar and thanks for coming to talk to us instead of watching that funny game with a round ball. It's over to you.
OK, thank you, Bruce. So, good evening everybody. Thank you for joining me, today.
So this is a, webinar so 40 minutes or so on, handling confrontation. I'd like to thank, the sponsors, Saint Francis Group and 8 Legal Limited, for the opportunity. So the aims of this session, by the end of this session, you will be able to demonstrate an understanding of, communication.
I've introduced a piece around client demographics. It's quite topical at the moment, and it's something I've been looking at in the last week or so. So you might be wondering what this impact this may have on handling confrontation, but I think with the changing.
Demographics of pet ownership. What does that mean to the methods of complaining or confrontation that we may encounter going forward? And a couple of methods for understanding client behaviour and how perhaps we can look to influence situations, to help to maybe change client behaviour.
So that's the, the aims of the session. What we'll do, we'll look to get started now. .
I just wanted to start with a quick quote, really. Some people try to be tall by cutting off the heads of others. I guess the reason I've got this particular quote in there is because in my experience, when you're dealing with confrontation, people who are angry, who are upset, you have to accept that some people, no matter what you do or what you say, are just generally the types of people who Make themselves feel better by belittling others.
And I'm sure you've all got the image of one or two sort of pet owners in your practises who are perhaps like that. We can go through this, this webinar, we can go through some scenarios, but there are some people that you just really can't, can't change and Seeing as we all work in a public facing role, we will encounter these people. So, I guess that's what we're trying to say here is that regardless of how well you do things and how well you interact with your pet owners, some people just really do get a kick out of making others feel small, and we just have to accept that occasionally and move on.
So Just like to start, initially for those of you who may have, been training my training or, listened to, any of these webinars that I've done before, I do tend to, focus on this slide, quite significantly. This is a slide which likes to demonstrate, how people read us. So when we are communicating.
What this slide is, is offering this research is suggesting is that 55% of how people read us is actually through our body language. So it's through our stance, are we relaxed? Are we tense?
Are we standing? Are we sitting? The words and how we use our words are very important.
But if our words and the way that we are using them do not tie up with our body language, then this model is suggesting that people will tend to look at your body language over what it is that you're saying. So it's always important to make sure that. You know, whatever it is you're saying and how you're conversing with your pet owners, that your body language is reflecting what you're saying.
Because my perception is, is that if you're telling me one thing and your body language is saying something else, then I'm not really going to believe, that you mean what you're saying. If you're apologising, if you're trying to help me with an issue or a situation, if your body language is quite tense or, maybe slightly on the aggressive side, I'm not necessarily going to buy in. To what you're saying.
So the body language is very important. Doesn't mean that, the way that we speak and the words that we use are not. It's just that we really have to concentrate on our body language.
And for me personally, I find it very difficult to lie with my body language. I tend to naturally, Communicate, through my stance, when I've dealt with challenging people, before, I've tended to sometimes maybe sort of stand up or sit down to help regulate, the situation that I'm in. So body language is very important.
But that doesn't mean to say that you can say anything. You still have to concentrate on using the right words, the right tone, the right pitch, the right pace, but, body language is, is, is very important in getting messages across. And, this is something that I've go into a lot of detail, whether we're talking about complaints, whether we're dealing with people who are confrontational, or indeed sales.
So that's something I just wanted to start off with a little bit. Of course, we're now moving into an age where we are interacting with people, . Quite a lot without face to face communication.
So one of the things we have to respect when we are speaking and conversing with our pet owners is that, if we're doing anything over the phone, or if we're using anything digitally, we actually lose 55% of our communication. So, All of a sudden, the, the vocal and the verbal become a lot more important. So if we're over the telephone.
It is suggested that roughly 75% of our communication over the phone is not the actual words that you're using, it's how you are using those words. It is the pitch and the tone. It takes on a lot more importance.
There is no facial expression. There is no slumping of the shoulders, which we can utilise to understand what it is that somebody's saying. Email, quite a lot of people do a lot of email correspondence.
How many of you have, had an email or a text message, which has been misinterpreted? You sent a text message and someone sent you one back saying, is everything OK? You're absolutely fine.
It's just somebody will read into the words, something that's you're not intending. That's because there is no visual and also there's no vocal, you know, we're really just concentrating on the words that we're using. I guess the reason I'm sort of looking at this one is because I'm finding that more and more communication between, vet practise staff and pet owners is perhaps moving towards a more digital methods.
So, I guess one of the questions that I'd be interested to discuss at the end is, around, how you receive complaints and challenges. The bulk of this session today is how to deal with a client, perhaps face to face and handling confrontation. Going forward, How will we deal with potential confrontation that we receive on a digital platform?
You know, what about if you see complaints over the phone? What about if you receive an email or something via, social media? That could still be quite confrontational.
So, that's something that we'll probably have a little chat at. In a second, but it's just worth mentioning, whenever I personally, deal with, complaints or people who have got, some, some challenges and are being quite confrontational, my thoughts are always, face to face is the best option. Telephone is the second option, and the final option is email.
What I tend to find, certainly with our own staff is that it's perhaps it's easier to send an email and perhaps it's easier to do it over the phone rather than face to face. . But certainly my own thoughts are, in order to get a a quality conclusion, face to face usually gives you the better results.
Well, I just want to talk a little bit around, demographics. I've been looking for some research because I've been hearing lots of talk around the transition from baby boomers, Generation X, Millennials, Generation Z, on pet ownership. I've found a, excellent, paper.
Which is based on the United States. But what this paper is telling us is certainly in the United States, is that the millennials are now the primary pet owning demographic in the United States. So I find that quite interesting, and I'm very much Generation X.
My parents are baby boomers. I've got two nephews, and a niece who are very much. Millennials and the reason I'm putting this into this particular presentation is, is how will we be handling and receiving confrontational challenges going forward if we're finding that millennials and then moving on to Generation Z are our bulk customers?
How will they be using the best practise of the future? Of so I've got a quick question here, just to sort of set this up a little bit. So according to the portable, marketing top pet pet trends, what I would like to understand really is, what percentage of millennials shopped on their phone in the last 12 months?
Was it 4.8%? Was it 37%, or was it 68%?
Right folks, I've launched the poll. All you simply need to do is just click on the answer that you feel best represents your your feelings. Remember these are completely anonymous, so don't be shy.
Just give us a, a, a click and let us know where we're at. We'll give you another 10 seconds to answer that and then we'll end the poll and reveal results. Right, let's end that and then there you go, Steve, there's your results.
OK, thank you very much for, participating with that. So we've got the results there. Obviously the option is 4.8%, 37%, and 68%.
. So the actual answer is 36.8% or 37% of millennials, according to this poll taken from the US, are actually shopping regularly on their phones. 4.8% of baby boomers have shopped using their phone.
The 68% though is still very interesting. What this research has uncovered is that millennials will, will actually check, check product information in store. And then see if they can find it cheaper anywhere or see if they can get discounts.
And so although 37% are shopping online, 68% are actually going in physically stepping into stores, practises, looking at products and checking their availability and really looking to see what sort of bargains are out there. And I thought that was quite interesting because I think that really does demonstrate some significant changes in behaviours. It's got a sort of slide here around sort of baby boomers versus millennials and So this is quite new, so how do we communicate with our baby boomers in boomers, in relation to how do we communicate with our, millennials?
So, Baby boomers currently in the US again, I do apologise it's all based on the US, we seem to think that in the UK this switch hasn't just happened yet, but of course, it won't be long before millennials do become the majority pet owners in the UK as well. 32% of US pet owners are baby boomers. If I, my parents are very much baby boomers.
My mom worked for the same company for 30 years. My dad was a police officer for 25 years. They still shop in the same supermarket.
My dad still buys the same paper every day that he's, that he's ever done. So that is a really good indication of corporate loyalty, company loyalty. They tend to go in and physically shop.
They like to look at things, touch them, and talk about them. With millennials, their behaviours are slightly different. They very much tend to be people who, They are meant to feel that they need something.
They will then research it. They know where to go to find the least expensive option. They like to shop around a little bit.
They're not perhaps as loyal to a brand or a company as as perhaps my generation or my parents' generation. No, I know this isn't really about. Demographics, this is around confrontation.
But I guess one of the things I'm sort of interested in is what is the potential for confrontation from millennials and how would they actually look to express their disappointment? Would they go into a practise and have a conversation? How else could they communicate that?
You know, my understanding is that, you know, there's a very real chance that the, the confrontational situations of the future will come via, perhaps from social media or from websites. I often hear, when I'm on social media, the term shocked and outraged. You know, it doesn't take, somebody will say something on television or be quoted as saying something, and then all of a sudden there's shock and outrage in social media.
People are, you know, people sign petitions, people could lose their jobs as a result of it. And then, The next day, there's something else happening. You know, I don't know if any of you have ever had, what's called a Twitter spat, where you tweet something and somebody doesn't like it and you get engaged in a confrontational dialogue over social media.
Is this the sort of arena that we will be finding our confrontations going forward? So I guess if we're saying that to interact with our millennials, we need to go into a more digital age, find better ways of interacting with them. How will we be dealing with conflict via social media?
You know, do you engage, or do you let it go and hope that the next hashtag will mean, you know, for my generation, we always used to say, well, today's newspaper is tomorrow's fish and chip paper. Do you engage with people, or do you let it go? You know, do you, as a practise, have a social media strategy?
Do you have a way of, dealing with confrontation through social media? Do you have a way of, engaging with people who may post things on your Facebook page, for example? For me, At this moment, my preference would be to, to try to engage with these people and get them in for a face to face.
Certainly for myself, I would be a lot bolder behind the keyboard than I would if I was having a face to face conversation with somebody, . So for me, that would be the preference, but I think I just wanted to put this up there just to sort of start the, the conversation and the thought process that if our demographic, our dynamic of pet owners is changing, how will we be anticipating issues and challenges, from our pet owners going forward? So on to the main bulk of what I really wanted to go through, is, just looking at causes of confrontational behaviour.
I did mention that my father was a police officer for some time. He used to be involved in, arranging the policing of demos, football matches, as well as your sort of normal Saturday night drunkenness. And it was interesting when I sort of said to him, what are the causes of confrontational behaviour that he's encountered.
And as you can see on the list there, narcissistic rage, substance abuse, etc. Etc. And I'm sure that is absolutely fine.
My thoughts are that I think we're very unlikely to see those sorts of behaviours in a vet practise on a regular basis. In, in my thoughts and opinion, most of the confrontational behaviour that we see is actually derived from the fact that most of the time people are just having a bit of a bad day. And if people are sort of hyper aggressive and have Instincts of pathological bullying.
That's, that's something very different, . And I think from what I, my own thoughts around what drives confrontational behaviour in a vet practise, I think is really the changing in the way that people see their pets. When I was, when I was a child, my grandparents bought a dog for, for them, because me and my sister were born.
That was in the 70s. That dog lived outside in the garden all day, and it slept in the kitchen at night. It woe betide anyone who led it into the dining room, let alone the front room.
Fast forward to, 45, you know, here I am, I'm now 45, and my dog sleeps on the, on the end of my bed. And I think as pet owners, we are now seeing pets very much as family members. And that is actually driving very different types of behaviours.
My own dog, who's nearly 7 now, but when he was 9 months old, got meningitis. Now, I like to think I'm quite a nice chap, normal guy. I go into the vet practise, I have a chat, you know, I'm, I'm quite a nice guy.
When I take my sick dog to the vet practise and they tell me he's got meningitis, my behaviours really did change significantly because these feelings drive those types of behaviours. When I'm scared, I, I act very differently, . Using the word meningitis to and my first thought was, OK, my dog's going to get put to sleep.
I was very scared. They said they were going to send him to a small animal hospital 70 miles away. I was quite frustrated by that.
Why, why can't you treat him here? My lack of understanding around the vet world was, well, isn't there a vaccine or a drug that you can just give him to stop meningitis? You know, these are the types of non-clinical thoughts that go through our heads.
I felt completely helpless. There was nothing I could do. And one of the big things actually was I actually felt quite embarrassed.
That's actually drove, a type of behaviour for me which is extremely rare, was that I actually got quite emotional and actually at one point I actually cried in the vet practise, in the consult room. Now, there was nothing that the vet or the, or the nurse had done or said. But that actually made me not want to go back to that vet practise again, because I was embarrassed about the fact that I'd done that in front of some clinical professionals.
And it was 6 months before I was prepared to walk in there again. I actually thought about changing practises altogether. They hadn't done anything wrong.
It was my own embarrassment which, you know, would have prevented me from going back to that practise. So for me, these are what I would say are the key drivers of confrontational behaviour, and I think we're likely to see more and more of these as, as pet owners, we start to see our pets more and more as family members as opposed to just a family pet. But now we've demonstrated some of the reasons for confrontational behaviour.
One of the things we need to understand is actually angry people in the first place, . Angry, hostile behaviour. If it is a result of personality, then my thoughts are that you can't really hope to impact on it.
As practise staff, you may have limited interaction with somebody, and if they're rude and abusive all of the time, you know, this is their personality. How can you be expected to change a pet owner's personality in a short. Interaction But what I would say, for the majority of the people who are perhaps more challenging and perhaps more hostile, they tend to be more angry and hostile because of the situation that they find themselves in.
If you think about it, I'm sure you're all very lovely, very rational, very normal people. How do your behaviours change if somebody cuts you up at a roundabout? Now, what's your reaction?
Do you react in a way which is totally out of your norm? How do you react or how do you feel when you've, you've saved up all of your money for your two weeks' holiday, and you get to the airport and your flight is delayed, and all it says is wait for more information? How does that make you feel?
You're not necessarily a rude and abusive person, but your behaviours can change because of that particular situation. So my thoughts are if nasty behaviour is tied to a situation itself, then that's something that you can deal with. However, you can't change people's personalities.
If they're rude, then you're gonna have to just deal with that. So I guess the question now is, is how do you change the situation? For me, I used to deal with a lot of, complaints in the financial sector, visiting various people who owned businesses or, he sort of quite important positions.
One of the things that I find worked very well, particularly maybe in a, in a vet practise environment, particularly in a, reception type environment, is that some people like to complain so that they are the performer, they are the centre of attention. Hey everybody, look at me, look how important I am, I'm shouting, I'm getting angry, I'm making this person feel uncomfortable, how amazing am I. One of the great ways of dealing with that is to actually remove the crowd.
Now you can't physically. Pick the rest of the people in the reception up and move them out. But is it at all possible to move this person into a room, a side room, and then if they have nobody to perform to, then their behaviours are likely to, to amend accordingly.
They're less likely to be abusive if they're in a small room with somebody than if they're in a, a large reception with a lot of people. I do find as well, again, it can be difficult, particularly in a reception. To let people vent, obviously they're swearing significantly, etc.
There's measures you can take, but most of the time people just want to vent. They want to get it off their chest. And if you interrupt them while they're doing this, then this can often, accentuate that problem.
So let them vent. It does give them a chance to, to cool down. Hostility and anger is usually a sign of somebody's lost their self-control.
So let them vent, let them get it off the chest. And that can help them to cool down. The one thing that I used a lot, particularly when I was in the financial services and people coming to our offices, is, I used to make a real effort to make the, the more hostile person see that I was doing everything I could to help them.
In order to do that, I would buy myself some time to try to calm down the situation. So what I always used to say to us, say to them was, I really want to help you. I want to make sure I get all this information down so I don't forget it.
I'm going to write this down. I'm just going to go and grab a pen and paper. Now, I nearly always had a pen and paper within reach, but I would step away.
And go and grab a pen and paper and come back. And that would just give me 2030 seconds to compose myself and also it would give that individual the time to see that I'm actually doing something to help them. Once I've got the pen and paper, I will sort of move into a bit of a sales mode, ask some questions, say to them, right, I need to make notes.
I want to make sure that everything you're telling me I've got correct, so that when I'm looking for a solution for you, I've got all of the information I need. So in your own words, can you just tell me what the situation is? What that helps to do is it helps to demonstrate that I'm helping, that I actually feel some compassion towards them.
The real reason I'm doing it is it slows them down. People will find it very hard to shout, talk fast, be aggressive if you're writing down exactly what they're saying. It does slow them down, and that can bring their self-control back.
It can sort of bring them back down. It's very difficult for them to talk fast if you're writing down their words. So popping that into a little model, you've got this confrontation handling model here.
For me, what the most important thing is, ask the question. Say to them, I'm going to be asking you some questions because I really need to find out what the problem is, and also, I want to know how this problem is affecting you. So I'm going to ask you some questions.
Let me first of all, find out what the issue is. So tell me, what's the problem? What does that mean to you?
As a result of that, what does that mean you have to do? Asking these questions to get lots of information. Step 2 is to summarise.
So right, OK, you've told me this, I'm just gonna make sure I've got this down correctly. So you said this, this is the problem, and as a result of this, this is the issue that you've got. Have I got that correct?
If the answer to that question is no. Even though you've written down everything that they've said, that's when you need to show a bit of humility and say, OK, I'm very sorry, I obviously didn't take that down correctly, and then you just go back to step one. But what you're doing is you're, you're jotting everything down, you're summarising.
Step 3 is perhaps the more challenging of any of the options, is can you offer some solutions? And the answer to this question is I guess sometimes you can't offer solutions. But if you've got the information, you've summarised to make sure it's all correct, it's at this point where you can say, right, I'm just gonna go away and speak to someone and see what potentially we can do for you.
If you can ever offer solutions, it's great because it then puts the client back in control. Right, Mr. Cus, I've had a chat.
We've got a couple of options for you. We can do A, we can do B or we can do C. Which one would you?
Would you like to do? And it puts them back in control. Step 4 is to confirm.
Right, so let me just confirm, this is the problem, this is how it's affecting you. We had a few solutions. This is the one you're going with.
Have I got that correct? That's fantastic. Thank you very much.
Step 5 is a very important one, because this is the one where you actually have to act on what they've done. You actually have to listen to what they've said, look at the option, and then go away and actually act on it. This is something that I sort of tended to do, when I was dealing with, more challenging customers, and it certainly helped to alleviate the situation.
For me, step one and step two were the most important, making them feel that I had a genuine interest in what they were saying, showing some empathy, making them feel that I was doing everything I can to help them, and it would really calm down the situation. So I do have another model for you. This one is quite a well-known model, and this is all about analysing, individuals' behaviours.
. So this model is suggesting that all that, everybody has 3 what's called ego states, which is a parent ego state, an adult ego state and a child ego state. So I'll just Pop those up for you so you can have a read. When we're talking about, confrontation and challenging, when I sort of show this slide in practises, most of the people in the vet practise will tell me that the types of behaviours that are demonstrated by confrontational clients would be a childlike behaviour.
It's almost a bit like the metaphorical throwing the toys out of the pram. I'm not happy. This isn't fair.
Why can't I do that? Why are you making me do this? Why didn't you tell me?
It's that sort of. That sort of metaphorical stamping of the feet if you like, . This is what we mean by sort of childlike behaviour.
And even yesterday when I was talking through this slide, one of the girls on the set and said, yeah, somebody cut me up at the roundabout, and I demonstrated childlike behaviours by waving my fist, beeping my horn and chasing them up the road. Classic sort of childlike, behaviours. .
Sticking on to the parent, for me, the parent ego state is one of a talked down to. I mentioned that my dad was a policeman and I'm still of an age where if I walk past a policeman, I sort of feel guilty straight away. I don't know why.
But you know, police, headmasters at school, . People in the position of authority can often have a a quite a parent-like ego state, and if I'm putting that into a vet practise scenario, it'd be this type of person who will say, do you know who I am? I know more than you.
You're just somebody who works here. Let me speak to somebody more important than you. I'm great.
You don't know enough. I'm very successful. Look at me.
And I was telling the people yesterday about a great example of the parent ego state where I went to, to see a client who was, had a complaint. And the first thing he said to me was, sit down, young man. I earn more money in a week than you earn in a year.
And that is a really great example of the parent type ego state talking down to. When we encounter these sort of parent or childlike behaviours, we may mirror those. So if somebody is talking down to me, I may react by talking down to them, that's confrontational.
If somebody's being childlike, and I was to be childlike as well, again, that can be quite confrontational. That doesn't help the situation. We may actually go to the polar opposite.
So, you know, that example of the guy who said to me, I earn more money in a week than you earn in a year. My immediate default position was very childlike. I felt quite insecure, didn't really know how to deal with it.
He really had the power in the room. It was almost like I was like the wicked witch from The Wizard of Oz, and I almost just metaphorically shrunk into the floor. And likewise, when we have childlike behaviours, we may turn around and say, well, actually, this is the situation.
I work here, I'm the professional. This is what you need to do. The best way of, dealing with confrontational behaviour wherever possible is to take the, the adult position.
And, like I say, most of our default positions will be child or parent for a lot of us, certainly for myself. And so if I'm in a situation where somebody's being confrontational, aggressive, maybe using personal insults to me, I very consciously have to take. The adult position of being quite objective, logical, allow me to make decisions, .
You know, you don't take things personal in the adult position, because by adopting the adult position, you know that they are being rude because of the situation. They're not necessarily, necessarily being rude at you. They're being rude at the situation that they find themselves in.
So you've got a lot more chance for success if you can adopt an adult position. And it's not. Easy doing that if somebody is being aggressive, it's something that you really have to work at, and it's something that I've worked at, and I do see success because what I like to think is quite often behaviour breeds behaviour.
So if I'm adult-like or displaying adult-like behaviours. And I like to think that the person who's being quite parent will sort of drop to my level, if you like, and also the person with the more childlike behaviours will raise to an adult. And then we've got more chance of at least having some dialogue.
And I think that will often lead to a quicker outcome. So You might be asking yourself, well, actually that's all well and good, but how do you actually be the adult when you're in a situation where people are being a little bit challenging towards you? So it seems strange really saying how to be an adult.
For me, coming back to the confrontation handling model really, ask some questions, take a step back, ask if I can summarise the issue, find out what is really the problem and how it is affecting them. And this will make them feel that you have a genuine understanding. Validate.
So let me just get this right. This is how you feel about this. Is that correct?
Totally agree with you. That makes complete sense to me. I completely understand why you're unhappy.
Now let's have a look and think how we can deal with it. And . But this one, again, it does come down to some options really.
OK, so I've, I found out the information. I've had a quick look. I've got a couple of options for you.
I want to do the best thing for you. I want to get this sorted. Here's some options.
And I, what I've found is over the years, this is certainly, It's called transactional analysis, actually this, but I've been by adopting an adult position can really help to, calm down clients, whether they be financial clients or pet owner clients. It's not gonna work with everybody, but it will certainly help with some of the situations. Just a, some, a quick highlight really of different methods of resolving conflict.
The one that I've put at the top, I guess this might be something that was more personal to me, but, Seeing a, a conflict and a conflicting situation as a competition is not healthy. Nobody wins if you have a winner in an argument, no matter how fantastic it makes you feel when you win that argument. And you may not show any emotion to the client, but you walk out the back and you have yourself a little mini fist pump and say, I've got one over on them.
And that feels fantastic. But actually, there is no winner, . In that situation, you know, if I'm having an argument, if I've gone into a vet practise and I've been quite angry and I've demonstrated that anger, and I've had a bit of an argument and I've made to feel quite small, and I've lost, realistically, what do you think are the chances of me returning to that practise?
It's highly unlikely I'm going to go back, you know, there are no winners and there are no losers. If you see it as a competition, it's a bad thing. You need to work towards a solution together.
I remember speaking to a guy who used the analogy of a sausage. He says, if you're both chewing on one end of the sausage, eventually you'll have no sausage left. You know, it's all about finding that middle ground where you can work, work together, .
So that would be my sort of top tip, if you like, no matter how, tempting it is to get one over on them, you know, you must remain professional at all times. So just, a couple of little considerations, for you. One of the things around, sort of communication, but also dealing with, confrontation and, clients in general is just to consider around, appearances, .
We all judge people by how they look and how they are, and we may adapt our behaviours accordingly. It's quite a dangerous little . Little game to play.
I've got this particular slide here. This is where I'm talking of millennials, I've actually had to, leverage some of the millennials in my team to help me with this particular slide. This is actually a very famous actor.
I don't know if anyone, would, would recognise them from this particular picture. I'll click on the next slide. So, I've got some notes because I don't know who it is, but apparently that's Chris Hemsworth.
He was in Home and Away, and he's also in Thor. So that's him on the left, that's him on the right. Apparently the first picture is, him in a film called Lost at Sea.
So again, you know, always interesting that appearances can be, deceptive. Got one more for you. I don't know if any of you recognise this particular individual.
This is what they look like normally. So this is Cate Blanchett, and the picture on the left, she was playing, Bob Dylan. So, You know, when it, you know, it does come down to sort of never judging a book by its cover.
Always taking people at face value, you know, don't adapt your behaviours based on appearance. Treat everybody the same. Don't worry about what people may or may not say.
Deliver the information you need to, give them the information that is required, and then deal with the outcome. If you temper your behaviours based on appearance, then, you know, sometimes you're more than likely to, to become unstuck. Though conscious of, of the time, that was the, the main bulk of what I wanted to cover with you all today.
So thank you very much for your time. And if I can pass over to, to Bruce for, if anybody has any questions. Thanks, Steve.
That was great and it's always lovely to listen to these things but my mind keeps going back to situations where you kind of go. Oh yeah I remember that when I was a bit of a child when I handled that. It does create a lot of my, you know, memories, the childlike ones certainly.
We, we've all done it, we all do it still. Yeah, I think it it's just it takes practise and it's it's really about trying to develop a habit of not reacting like that and just, you know, going a bit slower before you you actually open your mouth. It it reminds me of that great saying that says you have two ears and one mouth, use them in that proportion.
Yes. Absolutely, and that is a phrase which is founded around so often because it's true. Yeah, it's absolutely true and and it will never get old, so.
No, that's it, that's it. Well, Steve, I think you've you've certainly answered or enlightened our audience and given them all the enough to think about that. None of them have got any questions for you.
So, it's just up to me to thank you for your time and for, sharing with us and, really great advice that we can certainly take into, to consult rooms and everything else. Oh, hang on, we've got a question that's just come through here. What about when you can't agree on any legitimate part of a confrontation?
Mm. Yeah, I mean, that's always going to be, the challenge. So when you can't agree on, on anything, sometimes.
You just have to accept, That you won't be able to agree. There's a great, example from a practise I was in, last year, where they could not agree on the outcome of an issue. And, the practise made offers, they made counteroffs, they're all rejected.
And quite bravely, actually, the practise manager said, Well, look, what is it you want? Just tell me what you want. And what the the actual client said in this particular was, you know what, I just wanted some recognition that you made a mistake.
I don't want your offers. I just want some recognition. And that's what they did.
Sometimes you just have to, you know, and I have done that before, you know, I'm, I'm listening to you. I've given you a rationale as to why we've had this situation. I've done as much as I can for you.
Yeah, what else can I do? And actually just push it back in there. In their court, .
Because there will be people that, like I say, there are some people you just can't, can't agree with, and sometimes you have to sort of really draw the line. I don't think that's really sort of answered the question. I don't think it's perhaps the answer that I don't have any sort of golden nugg nugget, if you like, that will, that will give them one that will work for everybody.
But, You know, that that's, that's been my, my experience, always be professional, make offers, counter offers. At some point you say, you know what, I've given you everything I can. There's nothing else we can do for you.
What else do you want? We can't do that. I'm very sorry.
You know, and back in their call. Yeah, yeah, and, and just I think as you said, acknowledging sometimes that you are listening to them, sometimes their demands are completely unreasonable. As you said, you know, I'm sorry we can't do that.
Is there anything else that we could do to try and relieve the situation? And, and I remember one case where I had a guy that was doing that sort of thing. He was demanding lifelong free treatment for all his pets.
And, yeah, you know, and it was just a question of, look, there's no way that that's gonna happen. Is there any other way that that we can try and resolve this, or do you feel that you would need to find yourself a new veterinary practise? And he backed down completely.
Yeah. Yeah, and that's certainly things that I've done, certainly my financial services are very different types of client, but that's exactly what I've done, you know, OK, this is our offer, this is the best offer we've got. If you want something over and above that, I'm afraid you, you may be better off going somewhere else.
And quite often, you know, in my experience, people have said, OK, well, actually. Appreciate your honesty. You know, and, and they will either back down or they will act on it, but it does put it back to them.
As long as you're honest, open, that's it, yeah, and you can't please all the people all the time. You've just got to try and do the best you can. Yeah, absolutely.
You were talking about the different age groups and the millennials and generation, Y and Z and that. Cameron makes an interesting point and comes up and says, as a new grad, I often find myself being questioned by an owner no matter how convincing I attempt to be to the point where the owner obviously just wants to see a senior vet. How do I handle this without taking it personally?
Yeah, that's an excellent question. I think again that comes down to our own sort of never judging a book by its cover really. I think I'm.
Quite good at, I, I do find it difficult. I think if I go back to that situation where I got a bit upset about my own dog, one of the key reasons I was embarrassed is because the vet was probably about 10 years younger than me. And not only was I upset about letting my emotions out, but I was doing it in front of somebody who I would consider to be quite a young person.
. I think, you build, your profile and presence through your actions. And, that's, that's one of the ways that I've always sort of overcome objections of, in that respect. I often quite sort of prepare myself as well, that people may look at me and go, well, well, you know, obviously in the past, people may look at me and go, blimey, you're a bit young to be here talking to me about my finances.
Where's your boss? . So I think it's the actions and the way that you deal with them, which will, which will counterbalance those, those challenges from people.
That's how I've always helped. I've always felt it. Explaining things through thoroughly, making sure you're communicating well, and, that will mean that people will see you.
Legitimately for, for the experience that you've got. I think that that that's always worked for myself. Cameron's happy with that.
I think also I've found when I've coached the younger vets and that sort of thing, I always feel that, you know, if a client is questioning you, it's not necessarily that they don't believe. They just want to know that you are sure of what you're saying. So don't change your mind if you go in and say ABC and they go, really, you know, you look younger than my my daughter who's still at school.
Are you sure? Don't don't turn around and go, OK, well then it could be DEF. Stick with what you think is right.
And without being arrogant about it, just, just, you know, stick to your guns. And also I think, for me what's quite useful is to be sort of quite concise, because I think that can help because that shows you, you, you've got, you, you, you're quite channelled, you know, actually this is what I'm suggesting, this is why, based on my experience, and this is what I'm recommending, boom, boom, boom. I think that can, that can sometimes be.
Quite helpful I think. Yeah. I think the other thing too for Cameron as well is don't, don't be scared of second opinions.
You know, if the client wants somebody else to have a look, or if you feel that they, they're judging you, offer it to them. Don't try and hide away from it. Just say, look, would you feel more comfortable if I asked one of my colleagues to come and give us a second opinion on this?
Yeah, absolutely. Right folks, I think we've reached the end of our webinar tonight. We've got some comments coming through saying thank you very much for this, interesting food for thought.
So that's always, great to hear. Steve, we look forward to having you on the webinar vet again. Thank you for your time tonight.
Thank you very much. Thank you everyone for for sharing. Folks, that's it for tonight.
To Catherine, my controller in the background, thanks for all your help and good night to everybody.
