I would like to thank webinar vet for inviting myself to come onto this particular webinar. And tonight, we're going to discuss understanding and how to negotiate salary part one. Part two will be recorded very shortly.
I believe it will be available on demand, potentially. Tomorrow onwards. So I look forward to spending time with you.
So first of all, thank you very much for joining us this evening on this very unspoken topic in vet medicine because we are vets and nobody likes to talk about money. But, as we know, we can't really pay our rent or our bills using our love for animals. They are still looking for the mula, the coaching.
So tonight we're gonna be talking about money, very atypical of vets, but nonetheless, it's an important topic. So course etiquette, just a bit of housekeeping. So please do keep your camera off and microphone off at this moment in time.
Please type all your questions into the Q&A or the chat box, either or. I will be reviewing all these questions during the course and definitely addressing it at the end of the session. And there's some bits inside here whereby I would be suggesting audience participations, which I'll highly, highly suggest for you to participate inside there and put in your little thoughts and things like that to make it a little bit more interactive and also more flavoursome.
And we may also bring up topics which I have not covered, that is quite important for everybody to know. So please do engage yourself with this. So a little bit about myself, I'm a vet back in qualified back in '04.
They allowed me to be a vet, God forbid, but that's me on my graduation day looking very pleased with myself. I'm also a practise owner at MIT Vets down in Devon. I also have got a sense of humour.
So this is between jobs where I decided to put the word vet on my head and see what my boss said about it. In the past, I was in the army as well in Singapore Army, I was an infantry officer. I've written a book which makes me an author.
I'll come back to that in a bit. In my free time, I enjoy dancing salsa and also Argentine tango. I'm a father of two beautiful boys.
And also, I play basketball, water polo, roller skate, capoeira. The reason why I mentioned all this is just to remind us that we are not just vets. It's very, very easy to be attached to our personal our job and say that, who are you?
I'm a vet. But just remember there was so much, so much more than that. So your introduction, I grew up in Singapore wanting to be a vet after reading James Harriet, not unlike many of my counterparts, and I suspect many of the people here as well.
I qualified and graduated from RVC in all 4 of the failing 3 times in my 1st, 3rd and final year. After that, I spent 12 years working in 4 different practises, volunteering in 5 countries with my job, which I feel it's amazing because it's one of those few jobs that you can actually be applied elsewhere. During this time, unfortunately, I've seen multiple senior vets and vet nurses take their lives.
I started empty vets in 2017. So we just celebrated our 8th year birthday. I was a bit frustrated with ongoing stats of High depression rates, suicide rate and things like that.
And that's where it's a deep dive into financial, personal development and success to contribute to this profession that I love. What about you? What's your story?
So my mission for Amity. For the team, OK, is to develop each person's greatest potential and to facilitate success via achievement and also fulfilment. So we do try to have fun when we can.
For pet guardians, we want to honour and celebrate their bond with their pet, be part of the pet's life both in health and disease. In the end, I feel that we should, we are helping them to become their pet's hero. For the profession itself, we want to improve retention in the profession, improve well-being, and also to eliminate suicide.
Improving financial knowledge, i profitability, which is also part of this particular talk. And fundamentally, I believe in embracing humanity through vet medicine. This is a very common belief, I think, or, or rather a common base that I sort of subscribe to whereby I believe every profession, we are wanting to embrace humanity.
Example, if you're a lawyer, you're Embracing humanity through law. If you're a cobbler, you're embracing humanity through making shoes. In the end, we are always dealing with people.
So for us, you know, we should be wanting to embrace humanity through the veterinary platform. This allows us to mix with other humans. So for tonight, the content.
So for tonight, the content, we have got. We'll discuss how is salary calculated. What happens to every 125 pounds collected?
Or introduce and suggest some money mindset for us over here. To explore your worth because people, they don't charge more because they do not know how much they're worth. We'll ask a very simple question.
Are you a salesperson? We discussed the big 4. We learn how to balance the client's outcome with the practise income.
And we also discussed the seemingly huge cost of treatment to pet guardians. As we know, CMA is investigating the vet profession right now. All this supposedly high cost.
Is it real? Is it true? Understanding and learning how to increase your value.
And we discussed briefly about pet insurance. I'll also give you some homework. OK, so this evening, do get prepared for some BFOs, blinding flashing, obvious, and aha moments.
So BFOs are obvious things that, oh my goodness, why I think of that sort of thing. It's so obvious. OK, blinding flashes are obvious, and aha moments.
OK. Please do share them in the chat box. Whenever you see a moment like this, grab them, type them in, it may help other people as well.
It's not just for you. So for tonight, I'd like to suggest that the only rule that we have, Einstein said we cannot solve our problems using the same thinking we used when we created them. So the only rule which is humbly humbly suggest is to empty your cup.
A cup is only useful if it's empty. OK, so let's free your mind and allow new ideas to form in your head. And with any other experience which I'll highly suggest, those that you resonate keep, those that you don't reject, and make the rest yours.
So, I'm going to start out with the two most important presumptions in salary negotiation, OK. They are presumptions, but they are very, very important. I'll explain.
The first presumption is that your boss is not an idiot. If your boss is someone who wants to exploit, OK, cheap labour. This negotiation will not work.
If your boss is someone who doesn't recognise value, this negotiation will not work. If your boss is out to be horrible and just be cheap and want to get away with most things, this will not work. So the first presumption is your boss is not an idiot.
The boss is someone who recognises talent, recognises value, recognises what is good, what is bad in terms of what you're producing. OK? So that's the first presumption, very, very important, because if not, it's not gonna work.
OK, you're just You know, singing to the wall. The second presumption You are not an idiot. You are not trying to be funny.
You're not trying to take advantage of the system. You're not trying to make use of all these techniques being taught to gain something that you do not rightfully deserve. You're not, you're not wanting to actually go and disturb and falsely increase the salary without providing the value.
OK, you are not an idiot. OK? So these are two important presumptions.
If these two presumptions are sorted, i.e., your boss is not an idiot and you are not an idiot.
This will work. OK. The first mind tattoo for this evening.
I would like you to type into the chat box right now. Please let me know what do you feel is the most important trait of an employee? What do you think is the most important thing that your boss is looking for in an employee?
What makes an employee very, very good? What's the most important trait? Please type in your text box right now.
Is it leadership? Is it accountability? Is it responsibility?
Is it hardworkingness? What is the most important trait of an employee? Pop it in the chat box right now.
I'll give you a few minutes. Come remember, we said you had to participate. So, Participate Popping in the chats.
OK, so we've got a few over here. Thank you very much for that. So we have got I see someone has written loyalty.
Responsibility, professionalism. A team player. Being reliable, great communication, engagement with work.
Take the company as its own, take personal responsibility, reliable, honest, dependable, OK? So, Great. Thanks very much for all these great traits over here.
And no doubt those are very, very important traits, OK. I'm talking about the most important, OK, and this is where I'm gonna suggest something a little bit different, OK? The most important trait of the employee.
Think about it, OK. It will be profitability. The reason why anybody hires anybody to be part of the company is that they must be profitable.
Think about it. You can be the most dependable, the most friendly, possessing the most leadership skills, and the most reliable, but if not profitable, how are they going to pay you? What are you going to pay you with?
You don't hire somebody just because they're very dependable, depending on to do what? So they must, there must be some sort of profit because if not, the company will never get any bigger if it can't pay you. Yeah.
So the most important trait, the mind tattoo for you to think about, OK, despite all those things in, in, in, including all those things that are discussed about being reliable, dependent, showing professionalism, engaging with the company, you must be profitable because you want your boss to pay you with money, not with Praises, not with all those sort of things. Those are all secondary. You must be profitable.
I hope this makes sense because you have to understand this. If you're not profitable, no matter how dependable you are, no matter how reliable you are, no matter how much you take your company as your own, if you're not profitable, They can't pay you. They, no matter how good a team player you are, no matter how good you communicate, if you're not profitable, they cannot pay you.
OK, so the most important trait of employee to make sure you are profitable, OK, not just being nice and friendly and all those sort of things. So, let's come back to how is salary calculated. OK.
So, usually, usually as vets, OK, as vets, we're talking about vets over here, 4 to 5 times the turnover. OK, excluding VAT. For example, a fresh grad is expected to turn over 150k a year, hence the salary will be between 300 and 37.5K.
Yeah, OK. And this you are a plus VAT. All right.
So this is a rough idea of how much it is, OK. So if you're wanting to say 50k a year, you should be turning over 200 to 250K a year. OK.
Remember all this without VAT, yeah? OK. So, This is a ballpark figure.
This is a market value at this moment in time. So in general, usually, usually when somebody is turning over between 4 and 54 and 5 times the turnover. The boss Including myself, we're like, fine, I'm not going to disturb you, well done.
Keep up the great work, you're doing a tremendous job. If it's turning over 5 times, personally, I will be approaching my bet to say that you're doing very well, or increase the salary based on your turnover. If you're turning over 5 times, you should be going to your boss to say that, look, can we have a salary with you because you're extremely profitable.
Remember the word profitable? Yeah. The most important trait of an employee, profitable.
If you, if you're turning less than 5 less than 4 times. The salary, that's where I'll be approaching the bat to say, OK, let's see what else we can do to help you become more profitable because I want to pay you, but I cannot pay you what I don't have. Yeah.
What you're not turning over, I can't pay you. Doesn't make sense. OK.
So we're aiming for 4 or 5 times turnover. Between 4 and 5, we leave each other alone, less than 4 times. Expect your boss to come to you to say that, excuse me.
Let's see what else we can do to improve your profitability because you want me to pay you more, yeah, in cash, yeah, not in praises, yeah. So to increase on that. And if you're doing over 5 times, definitely go to your boss and say look.
Mr. Boss, I have been, this is my turnover. I would like a salary review, so to speak.
OK. So, coming back to that, most practise, if not all, I would argue all practise management systems, regardless of what you're using, should be able to tell you how much you're turning over as yourself, because if you're logging in using your own password, Everything that every word that you log inside there, there should be an answer. OK, they can, they can calculate that very easily.
This is not something that is hard to obtain. Your own turnover in your own personal practise where you're working right now, you should be having access to the information. That's what my argument would be, because if not, it's very, very hard for you to negotiate anything.
OK? So, Think about that. Ask your boss, how do I access the practise management system to calculate your own turnover, your own personal turnover.
So the question is, where does the salary come from? OK, all this no money, where do you get the money from? OK, very, very simply, they come from two different places.
One, services, the consultations you do, the surgical procedures you do, the blood tests you run, the x-ray you do, the ultrasound you perform, all these are services, OK? And that is all part of your turnover. Secondly, any stock, any items you sell, including drugs, food, those are the usual things you sell in the bad practise, but any stock, things that you sell that is not a service.
Literally, it's only from these two, you accumulate to a turnover because there's nothing else you do that can affect the turnover, OK? So these two things. So the question is, what happens to every 125 pounds collected because sometimes we will say that, well, look, I charged £60 for a consult, 100 pounds for a consult, but I don't see the money.
OK, so what happens to every 125 pounds collected? First of all, this means 25 pounds goes straight to government as VAT. I put over that VAT is a vastly aggravating thing.
We are just very Over glorified tax collectors. For HMMRC in UK, OK, so there's this thing called VAT. We do not keep the money, as you know, OK?
And from the 100 pounds that's left, what happens? The staff cost, this is vets and non-vets, they usually cost around 30 to 40%. OK?
This is the national average. If you are not managing your staff well and you pay them a lot, OK, it may be more than 40%, but this is the national average, 30 to 40%, OK? The infrastructure, the rental, the building, the things that go into the insurance, for example, VDS, all these sort of things, 25% to 30%, OK?
The consumers, the drugs, the drapes, the blue roll, the cleaning materials, things that you use, OK, it's not 2025 to 30%, OK. And which makes, if you think about it, if you look at the numbers over there, if let's say you are on the lower end, OK, the staff cost, you're having 30%, not 40%. The infrastructure you're having 25%, not 30%.
Consumables, 25%, not 30%. You add all those up, you get 80%, which means 20% profit. If you're more at the other end, the 40%, 30%, 30%, it would be more that you have no profit at all.
Does this make sense? This is really important because the money that you make, not all of it goes into the pocket of someone. It is a goal to pay all these things, and after the question is, how much is left over and that's the profit.
So speeds back in September 2016, they reported that 54.5% of VET practises have a low average profit margins of 8 to 12%, OK, which means that the profit margin is only 8 to 12%. Yeah, I'll explain that a little bit in the next bit.
So this important tip that I'd like to share. Wherever you're gonna practise, whether it is where you are right now or next practise, you're going to join, OK, and you're thinking about wanting to. Join a practise and potentially negotiate a salary at the practise.
Check out the pricing structure. OK, what sort of pricing structure do they have? Is it?
Are they expensive or are they cheap? OK. Will it help you win or design to burn you out?
What do I mean by this? Because as we know, If it is cheap, you want to earn a lot of money, which means you do a lot. OK, if each consult is only 30 or 40 pounds, you have to do a lot of consults to hit that turnover.
If each cat's pay or each procedure is only a few 100 pounds, you have to hit a lot to hit your turnover. OK, so will it help you win or design to burn you out? If it's expensive, OK, you had to do less to get the same turnover, but are you comfortable with the prices?
Would you be able to say? How much? To put inside there, OK?
So, another mind tattoo for you right now. Understand that it is not how much money you make, it's how you make that money. I say this again, it's not how much money you make, it's how you make the money.
Your salary could be 500. OK. The question is, how are you making that 50K?
Are you burning yourself down because things are so cheap, you have to drive yourself crazy to go to your 250K. Turn over or is it more comfortable because things are more expensive? OK, and hence you can charge less but make more money.
OK, it's not how much money you make, it's how you make the money. So don't go and just chase the money. Chase exactly how you're gonna get is the instrument, is that this particular vehicle gonna to get you to where you want to get?
OK, so to make 1000 pounds a day, for example, yeah. You can do one transaction of 1000 pounds. Two transactions of 500 pounds.
4 transactions of 250 pounds. 5 transactions of 500 of 200 pounds. Or 10 transactions or 100 pounds.
So take a look at this number right now. Each of them add up to 1000 pounds. The question is how many transactions do you have to make or do you want to make, or do you feel comfortable making to make 1000 pounds?
OK. I'm going to share with you a story of the fish and chip van. It's actually belonging to one of my very, very close clients who owns a fish and chip van.
OK. And, when I was getting into business, I was asking her about all these sort of business sort of things, and, like, like, we, we love chatting about business, OK, and saying, OK. I am interested in business, so I want to find out about profit margins.
OK. So profit margins is what happens when you have, make amount of a huge amount of money or you make whatever amount of money you have, you minus the amount of money it takes to make that money, OK, and what is left behind. OK.
So she's telling me the profit margin for fish and chip van is 50%, that's 50%, not 15%, but 50%. I was like, what? 50%.
What does that mean? OK. To take home 400 because I was asking her, so how, just let me know how much money do you actually make last year?
How much was your revenue, how much you turned over last year? How much money do you actually make, from selling fish and chips? And she was saying that she made about 80K.
OK. So she sold 80K worth of fish and chips. And a profit margin of 50%, the profit margin, what she took home was 40K.
I'll let it sink in a little bit. She turned over 80K. Because the profit margin is 50%, she took home 400, OK?
So To take home 40K, a fish and chip then has to turn over 80k a year with a 50% profit margin. To take home 40K for vets. Remember, I said that if you do it very, very well, the profit margin is 20%.
OK. VET practises a turnover 2000. And let it sink down a little bit, sinking a little bit, OK?
To take on 40K, a fish and chip van has to turn over 80k a year with 50% profit margin. Sells 80K of products to take home 40K. A vet practise has to turn over 2000.
To take home 40K because you got 20% profit margin. Let's not forget in UK, once you hit above 80K83K a year, you include VAT. So which means that that practise has a turnover 2500.
OK, has to sell 250K worth of product to take home 40K. The same amount of money efficient has to turn over 80K take home 40K. So, my simple question to you is, OK.
As I mentioned that, yeah, for VAT. My simple question to you is, and feel free to type in the chat box, how you feel about this, is simply this. If your 10 year old child come up to you saying, puppy, papa, mama, I want to make 40K a year.
What would you tell him or her? You can either run a fish and chip van, you turn over 80k, you can take home 40K or you become a vet. OK, and you own a practise and you do it very, very well.
So you got 20% profit margin. You got to turn over 250K, you sell 250K worth of products a year to take on 40K. Think about it.
Let me sink in a little bit. Think about the ramifications, the implications of profit margins. This is the same goal of taking home 40K a year.
Not more, not less, 40K a year. What would you tell a child? Be a vet or own a fish and chip van.
Something for you to consider, OK? So, a mind tattoo. It is not how much money you make.
Is how much money you keep. The reason why I'm explaining all this to you, you may understand what this is going to do in salary negotiation. You really have to understand the business side of things before you can go to your boss to say, I want more money.
Your boss be like, I cannot give you more money. But we charge so much, we charge £500 for a keyhole surgery, we charge £1000 for whatever. Where is all the money?
If you don't understand this. It makes you very, very vulnerable and almost a little bit ignorant to talk about money if you're negotiate salary. That's why I'm sharing this with you.
It's not how much money you make, it's how much money you keep. Let's put this in real terms, OK. If your consult it says 60 pounds, let's pretend it's 60 pounds, OK?
20% goes VAT minus 10 pounds, so you like 50 pounds. The profit margin is Let's say you did it very well, 20%. 20% of 50 pounds is 10 pounds.
Literally, that is how much you're selling your knowledge for, 10 pounds. It's not 60 pounds, it's 10 pounds. Go figure, something for you to consider.
It's not how much money you make, it's how much money you keep. OK. So don't just look at turnover.
Don't look at how much money you're making. It's OK, but how much money do you have to make to, to, to, to spend to make that sort of money. So money mindset number one.
OK. Money is a byproduct of value creation. Let this sink in, OK.
Money is a byproduct of value creation. OK. The marketplace is a very, very fair place.
If you create the value. The money will come along. So don't chase the money, chase the value creation.
If you think about it, all those rich people that you know of, OK, how did they make their money? They didn't steal it. We gave it to them because of something that they produce.
A landlord is rich because the value created is by providing homes for all the people who rent from the tenants to rent from. OK. Steve Jobs, Apple is rich, rich because they produce the iPhone that we pay for willingly.
To get a piece of it. They didn't steal the money, so we made them rich, so to speak. OK.
So money is a byproduct of value creation. The marketplace is a very, very fair place. You don't create any value, OK?
You'll not get any money. And remember the nature of value, yeah. It's not what you think is of value, it's what a prospect thinks is of value.
I say this again, it's because it's very, very important. People actually keep mistaking that. OK.
It's not what we think is of value, it's what the public perceives is of value. For example, you see many vets when do advertising, they advertise, I've got a new CT scanner that costs eczema 100 pounds. OK, eczema 1000 pounds, OK.
I've got a new surgeon who has got a certificate in surgery or ophthalmology or dermatology. We perceive that is of value. We perceive that the CT scan is of value, perceive all the certificates of value, OK.
But to the pet guardian, that is not the value. As nice as our CT machine is, or CT scanner is, they do not want their pet to be undergoing a CT scan. As nice as I've got a certificate in, say, ophthalmology or dermatology or surgery, they do not want their pet to have an eye problem, skin problem, or go through surgery.
Yeah. So you have to see from their point of view, what is of value to you. When we create the value, you want to pay for it, that's where the money is a byproduct.
Does that make sense? It's very, very important to see that. OK?
So that's the first money mindset. Money is simply a byproduct of value creation. Don't chase the money, chase the.
Creation, which value is what they perceive as value, not what we perceive as value, including your boss. OK. You can work very, very hard and say that you stay back late all the time, this is providing value.
Your boss says, No, I want you to come on time. I don't want you to be too tired. That's of value.
So you get the wrong value creation, no money. OK? Mindset number 2, never ever, ever have a sense of entitlement.
OK? It's not how much you have studied, it's not how hard you work, or how long you or how long you think you have worked, or certainly it is not what you think you deserve. OK, if money is a byproduct of value creation, very simply, what value are you creating?
Being 20 years in the practise is not value unless you can actually show that value. With money, OK, being having a surgery certificate is not of value unless you can translate that to a value that is of value to the practise and the boss. Never a sense of entitlement.
It doesn't matter how long you work. It doesn't mean the longer you work, the more certificates you have, you will make more money. It simply does not mean that.
So be very, very specific about that. OK, it's not hard. I certainly don't go, I deserve this because I've been so loyal and all these sort of things.
Same again, you don't want, you don't want your boss to pay you back in loyalty, you want to pay you money, yeah. So it comes back to that again. OK, never a sense of entitlement.
Money mindset #3, understand abundance, not scarcity. OK. Understand that the money is out there.
It's not hidden. It's out there wide in the open, OK. Whether it's in your boss's bank account, whether it's in a client's wallets or whatever is out there just waiting for the ticket in exchange for the value you provide.
Because remember, mindset one, money is a byproduct value creation. The money is out there already, it's abundant, it's not scarcity. OK.
If you provide the value, the value that they want, the money is a byproduct. It comes automatically. You don't have to chase for it.
Yeah. OK. So, I'm going to tickle a question to you.
Why price is never an issue? OK. I'm gonna throw that question out.
I'd like you to take a couple of minutes and just type in a chat box. Why price is never an issue? Why is never, why, why, why it serious, like, like literally, why price is never an issue.
Pop in the chat box, let me know your thoughts, please. OK, actually, I'm gonna make it simpler. I am going to OK These two are cat treats, OK, tiny little cat treats.
Because it's already set, to a certain extent, yes. OK. So that's fine.
Price can be changed as we know that. So that's not exactly correct. But anyway, let's play this little game.
These two are cat treats. They are like nothing too special, little cat treats, OK. One, they're both almost exactly the same, OK?
They're both for cats and they're both about the same volume. OK. This Is 10% This is 500 pounds.
OK, I say this again. The one I'm holding pink colour with my ring, 500 pounds. This yellow one without my ring is 10%.
Which one would you buy? OK, pop it in the notes right now, yellow or pink? Yellow or pink.
Yellow 1, 10%. Pink 1, 500 pounds. Cat treats, which one do you go for?
OK, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow. Great. Thank you very much for all that.
OK, thank you very much for the feedback over that, yellow. OK. What if I tell you that with this pink one, it comes with a house.
OK, you buy this, you get a house. Which one do you go for? Pop it in the chat box again.
I say this again, this. It's time? This one comes with a house.
OK, great. And most people who picked this initially will go for this. OK, so what have we learned?
The two can be seemingly the same, but the value is different. You did not pick the pink one from the start because I failed to share the value with you of what this is. So if people are not buying what you're going to do, or what, what you're trying to sell them for the price that you're going to sell them for, what they are, what they're really saying is that they don't see the value.
So when somebody says something is quite expensive or too expensive, what they really, really mean is that I don't see the value. OK. So nothing is too expensive.
It is too expensive if they don't see the value. OK, if they don't even see the value, 5 pounds it is too much. If they see a value 500,000, it's not enough.
OK. So why price them an issue? For the most basic reason.
All prices in this world, OK, get this, are made up. They are all invented. There's no formula for it.
Why is the iPhone 1500 pounds? Somebody made that number up. OK, I'll, I'll discuss the implications for that in a bit.
Why is a Jaguar 83,000 pounds? Where did they get the number from? Somebody made the number up.
Why is a VAT consult 60 pounds? What formula came up with that? At some point in time, somebody made that number up.
Why is a cat spay 150 pounds? Why cats pay £75? Why is a big spay 200 pounds?
Somebody made that number up, so price is never an issue because all prices in this world are made up. OK, let it sink in for a little bit. This will change of perspective.
OK, every price in this world is made up. There's no special formula for it. You literally can charge anything you want.
50s for a treat. If you attach the value to it, and people see the value and they buy it. OK.
So something for you to consider, price is never an issue because all prices are made up. OK. So to understand this, OK, so coming back to what is your worth, so to speak, what exactly do we mean by that?
Most people, they do not know what they're worth, OK? And so just going back a little bit on this, OK. So when someone says that it is so expensive, what they're really saying is, I don't see the value.
OK. And it's not their fault if they don't see it. We fail to provide the value for them that they can see it.
If they see, ah, I understand that right now. OK, so that you understand that? So you're worth.
So what have you got to offer? OK, we sort of talk about, you know, money is a byproduct value creation. So what have you got to offer?
So Your superb or not so superb clinical skills. Your award-winning personality. Why would people pay you money?
OK. What else have you got to offer? Something for you to consider.
What are you bringing to the table that makes people willingly to give you the money? OK. And understand this, never ever compromise yourself.
Never compromise who you are personally to become who you wish to be professionally. Knowing yourself is very, very important, OK? So let's talk a little about sales.
So if I were to use the word sales, I would like you to put in a chat box, please. What are the thoughts that come to your head? Let's talk about sales.
When someone says that to you, what does that mean and what does, what's the ideas that come to your head, OK, salesman. Let's talk about sales. OK, let's discuss sales.
What comes to your head, please put it in a chat box. Money. Profit, OK, what else?
Sales, salesperson, how much are you making? OK, what else comes to your head? Let's, let's, let's teach you how to sell more.
Let's talk about sales itself, the simple word commission. If you hear, if you hear your friend or your family says there's a salesman at the door, OK, what does, what, what thoughts come to your head? Somebody is trying to sell you something.
What thoughts come to head? What sort of feeling, how do you feel about the word sales? A nuisance A good salesperson will help the clients see the value of your product and services.
Who has walked through a shopping mall before and people are trying to sell them something. How does that make you feel? Frustrating.
OK, great. OK, thanks for all of your trick, amazing. OK.
So in general, OK, and this is not totally cliche, OK, but in general, when we discuss sales, especially to the vet profession, OK. What do you associate sales with when I use the word sales, OK, you've mentioned that trick trickery, trick, you know, disgusting, slimy, all those sort of things, OK. In your head you think of a slimy sales car person, yeah, OK, snake oil, selling things that you don't need, yeah.
It's a trick, it's a scam. It's a trick, yeah, OK. So these are the general things and sometimes that is also one big reason why vets we are so not good at selling ourselves, not to the customers, not to our bosses.
Not to anybody else because in general, inherently, it is not unusual and it used to be one of those that we associate sales to be something horrible. So why would you excel in something that you feel is horrible? OK.
So I'm going to share with you something. Understand that you are a salesperson. Every day we are selling.
We're selling one of 4 things, if not all 4. OK, let me explain. We are selling daily.
I don't care whether you like it or not, we are selling daily. OK. Let me explain.
Every day we're selling services. As a vet, we're selling a vet service. We're wanting to buy our consoles.
We're wanting to buy our space, the procedures that we are selling. We have to sell it to them, OK? So services is one.
We are selling products. Everybody is selling a product of some sort, OK? And some people may say that, well, not everybody, my chemistry teacher, my history teacher is not trying to sell me anything.
OK, not true. They're trying to sell you ideas. Teachers, they're selling you ideas all the time.
If they're really, really good at selling an idea across to you, you will excel in that particular subject. If they're really good at selling chemistry to you, you will enjoy chemistry. If they're not very good at selling chemistry to you, you hate chemistry, so boring.
Yeah, OK. Last but not least, we are selling ourselves every day. You sell yourself.
OK. If you have got a partner, You are selling yourself to your partner every day why they should stay with you. Your partner is selling to you every day why you should stay with them.
OK? If you've got children, I'm selling my son every day why he should go to school and why you should be eating vegetables. He's trying to sell me every day why you eating chocolate, going on his PlayStation, and not going to school.
If he is a better salesman than me, we are all screwed. OK? So just get this idea in your head.
We are salespeople. You cannot get through life without sales. If you are a good salesperson, you'll do well in life.
If you're a bad salesperson, you'll do really, really badly in life, in your relationships, in your professional jobs, in your family, in your friendship. We're selling every day. Think about it.
Consider this, OK? So we're selling 4 things, services, products, ideas, ourselves. My team that I hire, they're selling me why I should give them the job.
And I'm telling them why they should stay in the job, why, what makes me a good boss, so to speak. OK, so we are selling them, so get used to the idea of loving sales rather than thinking sales is trickery and abhorring it, because that does not help your own personal skills to become a better salesperson. So, another concept to understand, OK, is that for a vet practise, how do you, how do you provide vet practise, how great value for vet practise?
We're looking at the big 4, OK, 4 things we want to look out for. First one, clinical resolution, animal must get better. Yeah, OK.
Second one, client satisfaction. Not only animal must get better, the client must be happy as well. OK, I'm sure you have seen those situations where you've done everything for the animal, the client is still pissed off and And starts morning Complaints, even when you get animal better.
So to have a provide value for vet practise, you need animal getting better, client being happy. OK. Not only that, we need to be You paid, your financial resolution.
There's no point making an animal better, client happy, and we are not paid. It's not sustainable as a business. OK.
So if you're sort of vet who only cares about making the animal better, maybe even include the animal, the client getting paid, but sorry, the client being happy, but you're not so concerned about the payment, that's a problem, OK? Your boss won't see the value in that. Last but not least, team happiness.
How do you do all these 3 without winding anybody up, including your team, OK? You provide these 4 things in a vet practise, that is where you're providing the most value. You miss out any of them, it's gonna be a problem, OK?
Imagine animals don't get better, that's not great value. Imagine your clients are always pissed off. That's also not good value.
We never ever get paid, also not good. Everybody is angry in the team, also not good. So these 4 things is how to provide value.
And lo and behold, think about it, what does vet college teach you? Clinical resolution. Clinical resolution.
They don't teach too much on client satisfaction. Definitely do not teach you about finances, not like how I'm teaching right now, and they don't say anything about Team harmony. OK.
So they only teach you one quarter of the big 4, which is why many, many vets are struggling at this moment in time. They've been through a bad college and very qualified, but not fully qualified to provide value to the practise with the big 4, OK? So learning how to balance the client's outcome with the practise income, how can I do the best for my client, OK, and not wanting to fleece them or sell them too much and balance that with the practise income.
How do you balance that? OK, without thinking that you're selling too much, OK. So how much should you sell is the first question people ask, OK.
I would suggest you think about it, and reframe the question to the question should be why are you holding back, OK? As vets, we have learned all there is, there is, so to speak, with the whole clinical outcome, what drugs to use, what services provide, what ops to go for, what blood tests to run and things like that, OK? We have our own individual values.
OK, my take on that is that stop imposing your values onto others. What you feel may or may not be of consequence or importance may not be the same as what the pet garden feels. So what do you think is good or bad, try to take it as objective as possible because as vets, we are there to provide them.
Where I'm trying to empower them with education so they can make inform information for their pets, it's not our pet. Yes, you do something for your dog, for your cat. But not everybody the same values as you.
So if you are imposing your own values to others, you're limiting the experience, OK? So, Trying to make it cheap for them, OK, we are ruining the experience. People love spending.
Money. Well, to a certain extent, why do we want to make money? Because we want to spend it, isn't it?
Nobody actually likes money itself. Nobody wants a dollar notes, nobody wants a big number in the bank, nobody wants a coins. We actually want to use the money to buy something.
When we buy something, mainly what we buy are emotions, OK, and people they want. To spend money. They love spending money on emotions.
OK? When you're buying a diamond ring, it's not really the ring that you want. It's the emotion that comes with it.
When you're buying an organic bread, it's not the whole point of it being organic. It's the whole idea that you are a sort of person that buys organic bread, buying emotion. I feel fulfilled.
I feel responsible. I feel healthy. It's an emotion to buy.
It's not goods and services. Whenever we try to reduce the cost of our prices, we are devaluing your own service, OK? So, My question is, why are you holding back?
OK. The only thing discounting your service with growing testimonials is how much you do not believe in what you do. Think about this.
OK. Some people, they may argue to say that, but then, you know, I'm a vet with integrity. I wouldn't sell things that is not needed.
My take on that is, don't. OK, but for those things that you think that may help the animal, it's not something that you may do personally. It's not up to you to decide.
Our job as best is to provide the clients with an informed decision. OK. It's a broken leg.
You can remove it, you can, you can amputate it, or you can fix it. OK. For obvious reasons, removing it, amputating it is much more cost-effective.
Fixing has got other things that come with it in terms of surgical outcomes, in terms of risk and things like that, but it is not our job to decide that. You can offer it. It's entirely up to them whether they want it or not after you've explained the pros and cons, OK?
So discussing seemingly huge cost of treatment to pet gardens. Internal. So these are the, these are the challenging things.
Some, some things we think about when discussing seemingly huge cost. OK, I use the word seemingly huge because if you really, really do it properly, it's not really huge, it's just cost, OK? But if you're the sort of person that goes, oh, it's going to be 5000 pounds.
So I think it's going to be very, very challenging for the pet garden to invest in it. OK, so internal, my question to you is, are you the right person to provide value? If you're not an orthopaedic surgeon, you cannot provide the value, you should not be offering the value in the first place, OK?
Second thing, you know the pricing structure well enough in your practise? To be able to be the person to discuss the cost of treatment to pet guardians. If you do, great, if you don't, don't start because it is very, very hard to discuss something already and change it when you say the wrong thing.
OK. So do you know the pricing structure well enough? My suggestion is if you don't, you should because how else are you going to discuss the huge cost of treatment.
OK. Externally, excellent. So these are internal thoughts, externally.
What's the pain of the guardian? OK. Do they actually want it if there is this fundamental rule of no pain, no sale.
For example, they come in with very, very bad teeth, OK, for the dog. And you ask pet garden, and pet garden is I don't really mind the dog having bad teeth. And you've explained, you know, how bad teeth is not good for the rest of the systems and things like that, and they're like, yeah, I still don't really mind.
If there's no pain, it's very hard to sell anything. OK, no pain, no sale. That's just the pain of the garden.
Some sales should not be made. OK. We always discuss it upfront, not later, but leave the number to the end.
What do we mean by this? OK, so example, you want to discuss a dental, OK. So we always want to discuss it upfront, OK, not later.
So you'll be saying that this cost, OK, will include the anaesthetic, include the sort of dental time will include the drugs involved, include the anaesthetic monitoring, the hospitalisation, the IV catalyst, all these sort of things, OK? So you tell them, tell them what the value is first, then you leave the number to them, it's gonna be 750 pounds, for example, OK. But that's how we discuss it.
We're always talking upfront, not later, OK, because if you don't discuss it at all, they say, yes, I'm gonna go for the dental, everything is booked in, then you go and talk about how much it is, and they go, I can't afford it. You're just wasted your time and wasted their time. OK?
So always discuss it upfront, not later, but leave the number to the end. Learn how to sell the result, not the effort. They don't really care how long it take for the dental.
The result is that if you've got a healthy dog with healthy gums, healthy teeth. You can spend 2 hours over there cleaning all the blood because there was, there was a bleeder that doesn't. They don't really care.
They don't really sell the, you can't really sell the effort because they don't really care how long you take. You just want to sell the result. Do you want your dog to have nice breath?
Do you want to be able to get close to your dog's mouth without feeling as though something is rotting inside there? You sell the result, not the effort. OK.
And never ever leave to others below the authority to discuss cost. What a huge bugbear have is vets who price up in the consult room, do not tell the guardians how much everything is and send them to the front desk and the receptionist takes on the brunt for telling you today's bill is going to be 300 pounds. Very, very unfair, very, very unfair, OK, because it's unfair because you were the one as a vet to price it up.
And the receptionist has got no clue, no idea what, what is happening. And the guardians are listening to you, they listen to you, not the receptionist. OK, so never leave to others below the authority to to discuss the cost, discuss it yourself.
As a vet, we are the main money makers, so to speak, the main money generators. We should be the one being responsible to discuss whatever we're going to impose onto the guardian in terms of cost, OK? Some vets Maybe you, maybe not.
The thing is, I will keep the cost as low as I can for you. Why is this not helping and why is this a huge no no for salary negotiation? Let me explain.
When you say something like this, when a vet says something like this, for the client. There is minimal commitment or skin in the game. It's cheap for them, so they're not going to be as committed to making sure that they get things right for the pet.
They have very low expectations. You're going to make it cheap anyway, so how on earth can they have high expectations? If, if someone says this to you, I'm going to make it cheap, you cannot expect too high.
Yeah, OK. There's a hard because the low expectation is so low and they think something is going to cock up anyway because keeping the cost as low as you can, there's a much higher chance of dissatisfaction. They're going to complain.
It's much higher chance of complaining, OK? For the animal, minimal care. You're investing minimal cost in terms of manpower, drugs, procedure, minimal care.
OK. And because if you have minimal care, you have minimal outcome. All right.
So it's also not good for the practise. Minimal income, and making things so cheap anyway. Very, very minimal income.
Minimal prestige or impact is cheap. Nobody remembers you. For yourself.
Minimal satisfaction, you're trying to do everything as cheap as possible. You can't do too much because you want to keep it cheap. You don't grow as much minimal growth.
You stunt your own growth by how low you are to charge. For the profession, OK. Always in deficit, OK, because we're always trying to keep this cost low and minimal impact.
OK, get this. If I told you that whatever all prices are invented, remember we said that that's why price is never an option. Any single prices set by a vet sets precedent for the rest of the profession.
I say this again. Every price set by a vet sets precedent for the rest of the profession. If you want the profession to thrive, you keep making it cheap, the profession will never ever, will never be able to rise up, OK?
So with that in mind, this is why I do not subscribe to the, I will keep the cost as low as I can for you, because of all these reasons that doesn't help anybody doesn't serve anybody whatsoever and certainly does not serve you or the profession. How do you increase your value, OK. Finding your calling.
What do I mean by that? You ask yourself three questions. What do you love to do?
What are you good at? What does your world need? OK.
Look for the pain in your practise or the marketplace. Does it tie in with your why? What do you love to do?
What dermatology, ophthalmology? What are you good at? Are you good at it?
Can you get better at it? What does your world need? If your practise has got two ophthalmologists, one dermatology already, I suggest you look elsewhere.
To be able to provide the value, OK. If your practise does not have any orthopaedic surgeons and you love orthopaedics, great. What do you love to do, get a course, get good at it, then you will thrive in the workplace, OK?
So how do you increase your value? Learn what you want, learn what the marketplace needs, then go get it. You can do so by attending CPDs, relevant CPDs.
Doing work experience, even though you are not attending a CPD, you like ophthalmology, go and hang out with the ophthalmologist and learn more along those ways, you get better by learning from experts. Same practise, OK, as we discussed. Learn how to solve problems.
That is how you increase your your, your value, and the problems are what needs to be solved, you need to find out as well. OK. Creating relationships, you can also increase the value because you know, relationships itself can be a value can be a commodity.
Who do you know is not important as what you know. OK, so who do you know is also good. Learning how to invest in yourself.
OK. Do not rely on your practise to provide the amount of CPDs you can apply yourself by the amount that they provide or by the time that they give off. It is in yourself you're investing in, learn how to invest in yourself, use your own time, use your own money, invest in yourself.
Your CPD, your learning shouldn't be limited by what the practise depicts what is fair or not fair for you in your contract. You can do so much more than that. OK, so the whole work for this week, for this time around, OK, is ask about your concept of money.
What sort of disempowering beliefs and myths you have about money? Please email me. I would love to know what your feedback is, and I will try to reply to you.
Second is identify what sort of vet you want to be. Think and write down what sort of vet you want to be. You want to negotiate salary?
How do you want to negotiate it? What sort of vet do you want to be? You want to be a GP, you want to be a specialist, a non-clinical vet, a practise owner, a joint venture partner.
An advanced practitioner or academia. What sort of vet do you want to be? Same again.
Email me. I give you a bit more tips for that. So in summary for this evening.
The first presumption for selling negotiation is both you and your boss are not idiots. OK. Learn that profitability is the most important trait of an employee.
You want to negotiate salary, yeah. You don't want to negotiate kindness, loyalty or things like that. OK.
Learn how to make the money because you're going to be paid in money, isn't it? OK. Your boss cannot pay you with something that they don't have.
Understand your salary is 4 to 5 times your turnover. Learn how to excel in scales, in sales, OK. Keeping costs low will not increase the salary.
Your client loyalty because you keep costs low, will not increase the salary. I say this again. You keep a huge proportion of your client happy.
By making them pay less, this will not increase salary. What's your boss going to pay you with? Your clients are not paying.
Why should they pay you? Learn how to increase your value. OK.
So this is what we've done this evening. I know we have not gone straight into how to negotiate salary, but it's quite key, you understand all these different points before we go into how to actually negotiate a salary, because it would change a complete frame of mind. Part two, OK, you learn about the paradox of charging more, so we have to understand that we don't want to charge cheap, but how do we charge more?
Powerful questions are asked in an interview or certain negotiation. I'll also share with you 7 tips on selling negotiation and much more. Part 2 will not be a live session.
I'm recording it tomorrow morning, so it will be made available to you pretty much tomorrow evening or maximum the next day. My suggestion is that go through part one again, go through the homework, do all that when you're ready, then attend part 2. At this moment in time, I'll take any questions and just to say, Vet for Life is a book I've written everything I've discussed tonight and tomorrow on how to negotiate salaries all in this particular book.
It's available on Amazon, via Kindle, Audible, and a paperback as well. OK. And this, and this is the sort of book I wrote for vets on how to thrive in the profession is all non-clinical on like how to negotiate salary, work-life balance, and things like that.
So there's a lot of useful information inside there. So at this moment in time, I'll take any questions. So please do type in the Q&A or the chat box for any questions.
Thank you for your time this evening. I hope it has been of value. And what I'll also really, really appreciate if it's OK with you, is to provide feedback for me.
OK. So, are there any particular areas that you like, just email me please at Dr. [email protected].
There's a question over here actually, I saw. OK. So, it is written over here.
The question is, how do you price if using a markup strategy? What's the minimum markup margin to get profitable after reducing all discussed cost? A very good question.
OK. So, Markup, OK, so if you're using the word markup, I presume you're talking about stock. OK.
So stock, you buy something for a certain price and you got to sell something for a certain price, yeah. I mean, how do you price it using a markup strategy? So there are, and for services, I will also presume you have understood what I mentioned before that all prices are made up.
OK. So literally, you can make up a service that you want to provide if the pet guardian, if the, if the, if the prospect sees. The value in it, they will pay it.
OK, they don't see the value, they won't pay it. All right. So back to the question of using a Markov strategy.
So I presume it's some form of stock. So are they're talking about drugs, they're talking about food, you're talking about any other things that you actually sell a physical item to the client. OK.
So you can do that in two different ways. One is that you can just put an arbitrary number to it, 50%, 100% markup, OK, for whatever reason you use, OK. Then after that, obviously you plus the VAT and that's to sell it.
OK. Whether it's going to be profitable or not remains to be seen. What do I mean by that?
If something costs you, say, 1 pound, OK, or let's call it 10 pounds. OK, do a 100% makeup a markup is 20 pounds plus VAT is 24 pounds. OK.
That Your self is still, in the end is still 24 pounds. OK. You got yourself quite a bit of that to actually make any sort of substantial money to pay for a cupboard, to pay for a licence to hold drugs and things like that.
If something is 50 pounds or if something is 300 pounds, a drug to you is 300 pounds. You do a 100% markup, so that's 600 pounds, and after that, you add on VAT to it. So that's about 720 pounds, OK.
And using that sort of, using that sort of strategy, it is very arbitrary. So the plus point is that it's easy, it's easy to calculate. The downside, the negative point is that it may not solve your problem, OK?
Because as you can see, a markup of a 300 pound drug is much hugely different to a 10 pound drug. OK. So some, some people, they may reduce the sort of markup for more expensive drugs or something less, or it depends on how you're going to get it as well.
Some people put in more, the price for the effort if you got to do a special form for it or something like that, they'll mark it up more. So these are things that you consider yourself, OK? And more importantly, we're talking about stock, OK.
You have to also consider that internet pharmacy will definitely not mark up as high as you, and some clients may be wanting to get it from there, more straightforwardly, and you can ask yourself a very simple question. Do you want to compete with internet pharmacies? If you want, then you're going on a very, very low markup.
OK. If you're not, then you're gonna ask yourself very simply, what are you giving, what are you providing that internet pharmacy cannot provide to make the clients want to pay you more. Rather than paying the cheaper option online.
OK, so that's the first question. The second thing to consider is that some people that markup is just in general arbitrary. OK.
So for example, something like maybe a ear cleaner, sorry, a ear product like Naptra, OK, that lasts for 3 to 4 weeks, it's just a simple, simple application and you apply yourself in the practise, some pet gardens will pay more, OK? Not. Or just a 100% markup even more for the convenience.
So some special techniques, some special drugs, you can actually charge more, more than 100% if you wanted to, OK, as long as the pet guardian sees the value for it. So for those sort of situation that isn't a minimum markup margin, because you also get a minimum markup margin, you are going to struggle a little bit because not all drugs are the same price, but yet you're keeping them in the same cupboard, they cost one price only. Doesn't make sense.
OK. The second thing to think about is that if you're using your drugs as a way of making money, a big way of making money, you will struggle a lot because of internet pharmacy as well. So ideally, you should be looking at 80/20, so 80% of your income should be from services, 20% from drugs, OK?
So with that in mind, does it really matter how much you mark up? So something for to consider. And personally, for me, I don't carry too many drugs at all.
I only carry what is emergency needed and things like that in small amounts, OK? Because I don't like a huge stockpile in my drugs cupboard. And anything that is going to be a continuous thing, like, things like thiro, OK, for thyroid, or other medication, there's an ongoing thing like diabetic medication, like insulin.
I don't stop that at all because they're probably going to get it cheaper online anyway. So I'm just happy to just write a prescription and get it online so I can focus on what I want to focus on on my services, production, sort of provision and things like that, compared to doing stock control, which is one of the things which most pet guardians do not like. Sorry, which most vets practises do not like to have a huge stock coup in stock and losing stocks and things like that.
So I hope that answers your question to the markup. With that in mind, any other questions, please do type in. The chat box or the Q&A, I can't see any obvious questions right now.
But if not, I do, thank you for your time this evening. And if you want it to be in more details and more tips, certainly do invest in. But for life on Amazon.
And this recording will be available tomorrow, as Dawn has mentioned, and part two will come shortly after. Please do give your feedback on what I can improve on to webinar vets or straight to myself so I can help further. I hope this has been as interesting to you as it has been for me.
Thank you very much.
