Consolidate That!

Dr. Ivan Zak and Ryan Leech welcome Rivers Morrell, the CEO of Vet Marketing Pro and COO of easyvet, to chat about franchising in the veterinary domain.

Topics discussed:

• The importance of having a consistent platform with all data points together;
• Growth opportunities in the veterinary consolidation market;
• Franchising as a turnkey model;
• Creating a work-life balance for franchisees and front-line staff;
• easyvet's plans for future growth by geography

This week on the Consolidate That! Ivan and Ryan are joined by Dr. Thom Jenkins, CEO & Co-founder of PetsApp, to discuss cultural assessment methods and cultural integration.

Topics discussed:
- Understanding your corporate culture;
- Core value misalignment and its effect on burnout;
- Business owners’ responsibility in culture creation;
- What to measure in your Cultural Assessment;
- Consolidator’s advice on how to communicate with your team during the sales process;
- Why to use an employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) across the existing business.

Our speakers, Dr. Ivan Zak and Ryan Leech discuss how methodologies from Traction, SAFe and Agile can be combined to help drive quarterly planning in veterinary consolidator businesses.

Topics discussed:

- Approach to strategic planning at VIS;

- Importance of quarterly planning meetings for interdepartmental collaboration;

- Identifying interdepartmental dependencies to align efforts towards goals and objectives;

- An online whiteboarding tool that helps organizing quarterly plans;

- Vertical cascading of goals down the four levels of the enterprise; 

- Definition of Objectives & Key Results (OKRs) and SAFe methodologies;

- Level-10 meetings to track progress;

- How to make all the departments aware of the initiatives kicked off in a particular quarter.

In this episode, Ivan Zak and Ryan Leech from Veterinary Integration Solutions talk about the strategic filter that accelerates and automates the M&A process. The strategic filter is what goes into the system, and there are two maturity levels to focus on. It’s important for the clinics that you buy, and initiatives that you take into consideration for consolidation. 

Topics Discussed:

• Consolidator Operating Framework©: How all elements connect and interact
• Knowledge Base: Proven, integrated principles, practices, and workflows 
• Buy or not Buy? Learn about different software, tools, and pieces
• Strategy vs. Strategic Filter: What’s the difference?
  • Strategy: New divisions/departments need new processes and initiatives   
  • Strategic Filter: Depends on maturity level (inception or development)
• Core Values, Goals, and Competencies: Are they permanent? Can they change?
• Change Management: Starts from top to introduce planning to prioritize together
• Checks and Balances: Visionary pushes things through filter, integrator shares it
• Cost of Delay: Calculated by adding business value, time criticality, opportunity
• 3-Pronged Approach: Strategic filter, prioritization, and work-in-progress limit 
• Quarterly Planning: Purpose is to share dependencies—not to plan

This week, Dr. Ivan Zak and Ryan Leech discuss strategies and methodologies to create a predictable practice acquisition funnel using a CRM system.

Topics discussed:

• Two parts of the Value Creation Stream;
• Pipeline management;
• Utilizing a CRM system to streamline the acquisition process;
• Book: Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely (recommendation by Sebastian from Digitail);
• Post-acquisition survey;
• Using the PFI Index to prevent employee burnout;

Experts Dr. Ivan Zak and Ryan Leech explain value stream mapping and how veterinary consolidators can improve their systems and value delivery process to the customer.

Topics Discussed:

• What is value stream mapping?
• Improving systems and processes for value delivery to the customer by optimizing the value stream;
• Lean Methodology described by Taiichi Ohno and the example of Toyota’s production system;
• Finding bottlenecks to optimize your system;
• Definition of Done/Definition of Ready;
• Explaining the exercise with the sticky notes and mapping the on the board according to the steps;
• A six months course to increase EBITDA;

Your veterinary consolidation business will encounter different sets of challenges as it matures and grows in complexity. Without a clear roadmap, many businesses lose their momentum and fail to attract capital. Today we break out our playbook and share the dos and don’ts of developing your company. These insights will help you go from a fragile start-up to a strategic organization that’s built to survive and thrive. We open our conversation by unpacking what happens in the early stages of founding a consolidation business. After highlighting the need for early rapid growth and creating systems that align your team with your business, we discuss how unproven consolidators can best appeal to practices. As we explore each level of organizational development, we touch on many key topics, including — the importance of creating processes to transfer knowledge; why the second level is so difficult to progress beyond; how you can improve your business and create value-creation tools; and how data can drive the value you create. Near the end of the episode, we reflect on the opportunities that unlock once you reach the last business development stages. Tune in to hear more about scaling your business and discovering new strategic horizons.

In this episode, Dr. Ivan Zak and Dr. William Griffin from Veterinary Integration Solutions talk about the critical components of a value creation plan.

Topics Discussed:

• Value Creation Plan: Basic business plan used to effectively guide decisions
• Consolidator: Creates value for shareholder and practice seller within timeframe
• Reasons to Invest: Vision, mission, and values to start a consolidation
• Value Creation Plan/Strategy – Fundamental Components:
  – Arbitrage (acquisition and merger of small, independent practices)
  – Operations (what you can, should, and not do after acquiring a practice)
• Margin Expansion: Europe’s data, systems, processes cleaner than U.S. market
• COVID vs. Client Behavior: Human-animal bond continues to get stronger
• Healthcare Capacity: Reduce stress and strain by implementing changes
• Diligence: Create value by partnering and aligning with people and culture

Dr. Ivan Zak and Ryan Leech are pleased to introduce the Consolidate That! Podcast. In this episode, we are talking about the reasons why we started this new initiative and what kinds of topics we’ll be discussing in the show. We want to share our domain knowledge and the meaningful insights we have gained from our experience working in the veterinary consolidation space.