23 Jul 2020
For most small animal practices across the UK, the story of coronavirus has been pretty bleak – certainly where practice revenues have been concerned. But at Bury St Edmunds Veterinary Centre the crisis has played out differently, as VBJ discovered when we hooked up with partner Jenny Reason...
James Westgate
Job Title
Staff: full-time vets 2 • registered veterinary nurses 4 • practice administrators 2
Fees: initial consult £36 • follow-up £26
When vets Jenny Reason and Carly Day were putting the final touches to their business plan prior to opening their own practice in May last year, it’s fair to say that how to deal with a pandemic was not high on their list of priorities.
Back then in the pre-COVID era, worrying about attracting clients and securing market share were issues of greater concern – especially with four practices already well established in the historic Suffolk market town.
As it turns out, though, they need not have worried. Business has boomed both before and during the coronavirus crisis, with the practice recording its highest-ever monthly turnover in May.
It is living proof that if you have a good idea, a good plan, some support and are prepared to work very hard, anything can still be possible.
Jenny said: “Carly and I had been planning to do something ourselves for a while and we wanted to do something in Bury. We knew it potentially didn’t look like Bury could take another vets’, but we also knew Bury was expanding quickly, and our market research and grapevine mutterings made us believe that the type of practice we wanted to open was needed.
We were very much going down the small, local, independent, community route, but with a quirkiness that you could only get from us; a certain daring to dream.”
That dream looked like it could be over before it had really gotten started when coronavirus first hit, however.
Jenny said: “To be honest we were terrified; March was going well and the last week took a massive dive. But at the start of lockdown we took our out-of-hours back, which went down really well with our clients. Our preventive health care normally makes up around 18% of our income – we always seem to have had a lot of sick pet work for a new practice, but we were worried about the impact on the sick pet work, as many things would have to be put off, and so on.
“We followed the BVA advice and stopped routine work, and did telemedicine where possible.
“Then, through April, things started getting busier and by the middle of May it became a bit of a panic to start bringing people back off furlough. May was crazy busy, and that’s still without offering full services.
“We now have all, apart from one person, back off furlough, and that is because they are in an at-risk group. Why May was such a good month I don’t actually know. But I know I am knackered, and it made us decide to hire another vet – I am currently in countdown mode until they start.”
For Jenny, the dream of owning her own practice began in vet school and really took shape when she met business partner Carly while working at a practice in nearby Stowmarket. In 2018 the pair attended an “opening your own practice” day hosted by Onswitch and from there plans began to gather.
The site of an old dog cafe and lifestyle shop became available on a main road into town, and with a suitable site sorted, a business plan was put together and the pair began the tricky task of finding the finance they needed.
Jenny added: “We got messed around by a broker who couldn’t seem to grasp the idea that a woman can run a business and have kids, so we just decided to ditch him and go to the banks ourselves.
“We ended up with offers from NatWest and Lloyds, but to get the approval we had to be a bit clever; we simply didn’t have the capital in the bank needed for the amount of money required for the conversion and kitting out, and knew the banks were not going to give us the full amount without us putting up some money.
“So, we found some partners (aka a few of our friends who happen to have more cash than us), who I suppose are basically silent partners. They invested between them £70,000 in return for a total of 15% between them, with no repayment terms – the only payment is via a share of profits via dividends.
“This then meant the bank was able to give us the funding – consisting of £165,000.”
And for less than £250,000 Jenny and Carly have done extraordinarily well for their money. Their bright and airy practice, which is full of individual touches, has four consult rooms, two theatres, separate dog and cat waiting areas, a dental room, a large prep area, an imaging room, separate dog and cat wards, and a large prep room located in the heart of the practice.
There is also a lab area and laundry, while upstairs is a large area for staff and their dogs.
Building work started in the middle of February and contractors were put on a strict 12-week deadline. Jenny explained: “The builders started middle of February and worked 12 hard weeks to get the work done. The place required a complete rewire, so many new walls, so much insulation, new windows, doors, so, so much paint, lots of flooring, a full ventilation system, air con, entirely new fire systems, security systems and CCTV.
“Thankfully, Carly has a quantity surveyor and he was clever enough to put the builders on a contract that basically stipulated they would start paying us if the work wasn’t completed within 12 weeks.”
The last month or so of work saw not only the professional builders working hard to meet the deadline; friends, family, ex-colleagues and future colleagues all got involved, too.
Sometimes this extra help did not go as planned, however. Jenny added: “My dad fell through the ceiling in theatre the day before we opened while running some cabling for the internet (I think) in the ceiling space with my brother.
“He was fine by the way, and we decided to turn the new hole in the ceiling into an access hatch for that part of the ceiling space – very clever and useful man.”
For some, the idea of striking out on their own is fraught with problems – especially for those with young children. But Jenny has managed to balance her commitments as a mother with getting a successful business off the ground and keeping it there, despite the coronavirus crisis.
Since Bury St Edmunds Veterinary Centre opened its doors for business on 20 May 2019, the practice has turned over almost £400,000 – with May 2020 hitting a record monthly turnover of £44,000 (ex-VAT). Not bad for a new business with “no money in the bank”, and just two full-time vets and four registered veterinary nurses.
Client numbers have been similarly impressive, with the practice attracting more than 1,000 clients by the end of May 2020 – a figure that has continued to grow in lockdown.
Jenny said: “I thought lockdown would mess it up, but we now have 1,117 clients and more than 1,800 registered (alive) pets. I think they like that they get time to talk things through with us.
“We have 20-minute consults for a start. Pre COVID we would always invite people to have a tour of the practice or a cuppa. We are very approachable. We sit on the floor with them and their pets, and listen to any concerns they have, as well as any stories they want to share.
“We are lucky we have an amazing team here – our nurses are superheroes and, given that all three of our admin team had no prior vet reception experience, they have had a steep learning curve, and have embraced it and excelled themselves.”
The success of the practice has clearly not been based on a mad rush into retail. Bury St Edmunds Veterinary Centre does not offer a health plan, nor are any retail products on offer in the reception area.
Jenny added: “We are a veterinary practice – not a pet shop or salespeople. If they need a new collar, I don’t mind if they buy this from Pets at Home. I want them to use us for our veterinary skill and services – not because I sell a certain brand of dog food or have some pretty dog toys in reception.”
It is an ethos their clients buy into, with the practice doing plenty of work to ensure their message is understood.
Jenny added: “We do a lot of things so clients and pet owners can engage with us; we ran a photo competition for photos of people’s pets to be made into canvases for our walls before we opened, which attracted a lot of entries – we repeated it again this year as the corridor and other places looked like they needed a few more and, again, it was very popular.
“We have no posters or advertising on any of the walls – we just have beautiful canvases of beautiful pets. We also tried to make our social media a little different from other practices so that it stood out; we made it a bit more personal, a bit quirky.
“We also did a free consult week for our opening week – meaning we were pretty much fully booked on consults the first week. We knew we needed to get people in the door and get them talking about us to others; we could give tours, show them around, make them a cuppa, and they’d leave and mention us to friends.
“Word of mouth is massive for us, so we do all we can to make sure the customer experience is a good one and not only good, but one they want to go and talk about to others.”
And how does Jenny think the future is going to shape up after such a tumultuous start to life as a business owner?
She said: “If we can survive a pandemic one year in without large amounts of cash in the bank to be able to weather the storm then we can do anything, right? I can’t wait to be able to allow clients in the building again, though, when it’s safe. It’s just so tiring being in and out all day, and things just seem to take longer. We just want to keep it going, keep the same mentality, keep loving our work, and keep up and build on the reputation we have made so far.
“You never know what the future may hold and I have never been a great believer in rigid plans. Whatever happens, I have no regrets. It was stressful, but worth it. And even more than a year on, every day I walk into the building I still think how beautiful it is.”
