Episode #57 – Elizabeth (Beth) Green

Do you work in the animal health industry or veterinary profession? Have you ever wondered how people began their careers and how they got to where they are today? Hi, everyone. I’m Stacy Pursell, the founder and CEO of the Vet Recruiter, the leading executive search and recruiting firm for the animal health industry and veterinary profession. I was the first recruiter to specialize in the animal health industry and veterinary profession in the United States and built the first search firm to serve this unique niche. For the past 25 plus years, I have built relationships with the industry’s top leaders and trailblazers. The People of Animal Health Podcast highlights the incredible individuals I have connected with throughout my career, you will be able to learn more about their lives, careers, and contributions. With our wide range of expert guest, you’ll be sure to learn something new in every episode. Thanks for tuning in and enjoy the episode.

Welcome to The People of Animal Health Podcast. On today’s show, we are talking with Beth Green. Beth Green is a visionary leader and trailblazer in veterinary media and information. Beth is the chief brand ambassador at Instinct Science and the founder of VetMedux, home to industry staples like Clinician’s Brief and Plumb’s Veterinary Drugs. With more than two decades of impact, she’s been recognized with numerous industry honors and is a passionate advocate for global health. Through her work with Mission Rabies, Beth brings a deep commitment to innovation, mentorship, and better outcomes for veterinarians and pets alike. We are thrilled to welcome Beth to the show today. Beth, thank you for being here.

Thank you, Stacy. I’m so excited to be a guest and honored to be talking with you today.

Well, Beth, let’s start off at the beginning. What was your life like growing up and where did you grow up?

Oh, that’s a great question. Well, I grew up in the Midwest. I grew up in a small town near Columbus, Indiana. Columbus is just south of Indianapolis, and it’s a small town that’s really renowned for its architecture there. Every school that I grew up going to was on an architectural tour, but I grew up out in the country on a small farm. My father was actually an engineer and ran a big automotive plant there in that town.

But on our small farm, we raised purebred cattle. So I was very involved in 4H growing up. I had two brothers, so growing up I was arguably a bit of a tomboy in my formative years, but because of that environment growing up, I think it really shaped who I am today in that I still have an amazing appreciation for art and design, but also nature, both outdoors and of course all the many animals that I had growing up. I also had an uncle who was a veterinarian and took me under his wing, and then later also a cousin who today is also an equine veterinarian. So I always had an appreciation for veterinary medicine as well.

So you grew up on a farm and had veterinarians that you were around. How did you first get into the animal health industry professionally?

Yeah. I think I was 24 when I first was recruited to come into the animal health industry. When I was younger, I really thought I wanted to be a bovine veterinarian. I raised cattle, I loved cows. But after working a couple of summers with bovine veterinarians, I decided that I couldn’t really see myself doing that for the rest of my life. So after college, I went to work first for Continental Grain in their feed industry, but then later was recruited to work in publishing, specifically advertising sales at Veterinary Learning Systems. And I really became enamored, not only with that organization, it was an organization that had an incredible culture, but also with the animal health industry. And it was during that time that I discovered what I think are some of my best skills, which are problem solving from a visionary standpoint, but also product marketing. So it gave me a chance to experiment during that time. So I’ve been in the industry since I was 24, which I’m now in the end of my fourth decade in the industry.

Well, you founded VetMedux more than two decades ago and saw it through an incredible journey, culminating it in its acquisition by Instinct Science. Can you take us back to the early days? What inspired you to start the company and what was your original vision?

Yeah, sure. It was 20-plus years ago. I had actually left VLS to take time off to be a mom. I had two young children at the time, very close together in age, and also to go back to school and complete my master’s. So really the inspiration for Clinician’s Brief was actually an MBA project that I completed in a marketing course when I was doing my MBA. And when my youngest got into first grade, a lot of things had happened in the industry and it seemed like a great time to dust off that paper and launch Clinician’s Brief. And the thesis, at that time, it was actually based on two changing trends that we saw. First of all, companion animal medicine was becoming much more sophisticated, so it was harder to keep up with all the new and changing information. And then also reading habits in general were becoming more and more… Short-form copy was being preferred.

And we saw this in journalism, if you can remember back that far a couple of decades ago, that was when USA Today was super popular at the time. And so we saw people preferring shorter and shorter form content. The evidence of this that we saw in veterinary medicine was you could go into almost any practicing veterinarian’s office and see a huge stack of journals on their desk, and it was hard for them to keep up. And so our goal was really to create a publication that was so valued and so essential to practice that not only would it keep veterinarians up to date, but it would also never be in the pile, if you will, on their desk, or even if it was in the pile, it was going to be on the very top of the pile. So that was really what our mission was two decades ago. And as you fast-forward to today, it’s still difficult to keep up. In fact, maybe more so I think the half life of information is getting shorter and shorter every year. So anyway, that was our goal and that’s where we started.

Well, VetMedux began as a media company and evolved into a true point-of-care partner for veterinarians. What were some of the pivotal decisions or innovations that helped shape that evolution?

Yeah, that’s a great question because where we started and where we ended up were different in many ways. I would say first and foremost, and this happened all along the last two decades, was hiring the right team. I have some incredible partners that have been with me over the years, and I am certain that I could have never done what I did with Clinician’s Brief without the help of that team. Dr. Indu Mani, who’s our chief veterinary officer, is really the heart and soul and in many ways with Clinician’s Brief. She joined our team a couple of years after we had started the publication. In fact, she was one of our very first subscribers that first year and loved the publication and then called me at a time that she was looking to make some changes and be involved in editorial in a bigger way, and joined our team at Clinician’s Brief and obviously has been leading that charge for many years.

And then also, we have a lot of team members that have been around for many years, decades. Jen Shorry, Michelle Munkres, Amy Moll, many of them that you know that have been around for a long time. So the team was very important. It was also Dr. Mani on our team that introduced me to Dr. Don Plumb. And so it was really about 2013 when we realized that having advertising revenue, as the number one resource and source of revenue for our company, was not as diverse as what we needed to be. So we began to look at what are the other problems out in the industry that we could help solve, and what was the information that veterinarians needed every single day? And what we learned is that 95% of small animal veterinarians were using Plumb’s Veterinary Drug Handbook. And so agreeing to partner with Don Plumb, convincing him that he should partner with us, was certainly a pivotal decision along the way.

And I think when Clinician’s restarted, we were actually the official publication of NABC, and there was a decision at some point that what NABC wanted and needed going forward and what we wanted and needed going forward were two different things. And so having the courage to say, “Let’s go in different directions,” and I think it turned out great for both of us. NACB has done a phenomenal job of growing during that time, and it was also a very important time for us to grow as an organization, but also to double down on developing great products.

And then probably the last one was to take Plumb’s and take it to the next level, and to build Plumb’s Pro and really taking it from just a resource for treatment and then one that really guides veterinarians through cases all the way from what we call diagnosis to discharge. So I think those have been some important pivotal decisions. And the last one that happened a little over a year ago was a decision to be acquired by Instinct Science. And we think that’s important as we look at the future and how important technology will be in delivering whatever content and information that veterinarians need at the moment they need it, and sometimes even more automatically than manually, if you will.

Well, Beth, you are instrumental in creating industry-leading brands like Clinician’s Brief, Plumb’s Veterinary Drugs, and Plumb’s Pro. What is the secret to building products that become essential tools for an entire profession?

Yeah, again, I think it’s super important to have the right team, people who really can help you intimately understand the problem that you’re solving. I find lots of times with problems, it’s not just what’s at face value, what’s obvious about the problem, but it’s usually the nuances. It’s a couple levels deeper in where you can really understand the problems so well that you can create a better solution, and particularly one that’s both essential and invaluable. So yeah, I think first and foremost is having the right team to help you understand the problem that you are solving.

I think for us, it was important to have veterinarians on our team. Veterinarians are our target audience, but also having people who use those products every day is really important. And then also later as we got into having to build technology products is having experts who understood technology intimately as well, and being able to advise us on the best ways to develop those products for our audience. And I don’t think anyone can build a great product unless they’re always listening to their customers, and finding out what’s working, what’s not working.

And it’s not a sprint. In product development, you don’t just build a product and throw it out there. And today it’s a continuous cycle of iterative improvements. Everything is evolving, technology is evolving, the industry is evolving. So I think those things, understanding your product, having the right experts on your team, listening to customers, and then always making it better.

Well, your collaboration with Dr. Don Plumb to bring his handbook into the digital age is legendary in the veterinary world. And you just talked about how that partnership came about. What were some of the challenges and triumphs of digitizing such a trusted resource?

Oh, yes, that was, well, first of all, I want to say that we even got the idea one year going to the Banfield Summit. It’s now the Mars Pet Care Summit, I think is the name. But the Banfield Summit that year, I think it was in 2013, brought in a futurist. His name was Daniel Burris. And Daniel Burris was talking to us about how to make the right technology products, SaaS type products going forward. And he said that it was really important to understand hard trends, hard technology trends. And so we knew at the time that smartphones obviously were around, the iPhone I think was launched in 2007, so this is six years later, it was becoming much more adopted. But we knew that the smartphones were going to continue to get smarter. They were going to continue to have more computing power and more memory and be able to be a resource across many facets of how we lived.

And so that was really what we were looking at. And so when we began to look at what content do veterinarians need every single day, and we found out it was treatment information, and it was contained in the Plumb’s Veterinary Drug Handbook, which think about that. If you’re in practice and you need to know a dose or you’re looking up some sort of drug interaction, you had to go find the book and then multiply that how many times a day you had to do that and multiply that times the number of veterinarians in the industry. And that was a lot of time being spent looking up drug information. And then the other interesting thing about the book is it only came out once every three years. So if a new drug had just been introduced actually within six months prior to publication, it would not be included until three to three and a half years later.

So the idea that we could keep drug information up to date all the time in a technology product was really important. So when we started this venture, I had never built a digital product. I mean, we had websites and stuff, but had never built a SaaS product, and Don Plumb had certainly never built one either. So yeah, that was probably the first challenge was getting brave enough to venture to do that. And so I used to tell people that I was so nervous about technology at that time that it made me sign up to go and attend a technology conference that really changed my outlook and my view of technology, and certainly ended my fearful phase of my relationship with technology, of building technology.

So we had to find the right partner to build that. And so we went through all of those things. It was when I was first acquainted with Dr. Caleb Frankel, I had met Caleb, he was an ER vet in practice, and he had a blog about technology. And so I sent him an email one day and I said, “I would love to have breakfast with you,” or lunch or something, coffee, and I’d love to meet you. And he came to NAVC that year, and it was shortly after that that I asked him to come and consult with our team on building this new product, which he did. And then about nine months into it, actually cut back some of his time in practice and then joined our team on a part-time basis going forward and helped build that product. So the product was out though, and I think the first huge hurdle after launch was changing habits.

It is really hard. We thought, oh, it’s a great product. It’ll be on your phone, in your pocket, it’ll be at your fingertips. All of the information will be up-to-date, but you had to change habits. And so it took a little bit longer, I think that first year, for us to begin to change habits. And then obviously after that, the product began to catch on and people really found it useful. And today we have over 40,000 subscribers to Plumb. So really a great, great story about success with that product.

I think the other thing too, that was hard to get used to is adapting to a 24/7 world. When we are in media and publication, you could pretty much work during the typical work hours eight to five, but then when you come out with a SaaS product and people are depending on it in their products in their practices for really important drug information, dosages, interactions, you can’t be down, your product can’t be down. So understanding that and understanding that when the product went down, you needed to get it back up as quickly as possible. Those that didn’t happen that often, but when it did, it was emergency, as you can imagine. So getting used to a 24/7 world I think was really important as well.

Yeah. Well, Beth, your partnership with Mission Rabies brought us veterinary volunteers to places like Africa, India, and Cambodia to vaccinate dogs and prevent human deaths from rabies. What inspired you to take on this global health mission and how did it impact you personally?

Well, first of all, I love this mission, and I have to give all of the initial credit to Steve Curtin from Circa Healthcare. I was meeting him at the BSAVA one year, I think it was maybe 2015, 2016, in Birmingham. And he was telling me about Mission Rabies. I’d never heard of it. And it was a UK-based nonprofit, and they were getting veterinary and non-veterinary, but veterinary volunteers to go into these villages in Africa and India at the time, because the human mortality rate was somewhere between 50 to 100,000 people a year, primarily children, that were dying from rabies. I had not heard about this, and I remember I was horrified. I think anybody who saw the movie Old Yeller growing up and thinking about just seeing an animal or a pet that you have with rabies was horrifying. But to understand that the immense number of people that were dying from this and that they were all, as you can imagine, dying in isolation.

So Steve had told me about that, and sure enough, as what happens in this crazy world of ours, I happened to see somebody two hours later walking in front of me with a Mission Rabies patch on his shirt. It was Fred Lorr. And I said to him, “I need to with you.” And so I said, “What can we do to help?” At that time, only a handful of their volunteers had come out of the US. And so we forged a partnership with them, and we began sending in our own teams to partner with them and build and go in and vaccinate dogs in different parts of Africa and India.

And if we could get a 70% vaccination rate in those villages, we could reduce human mortality by 95% within five years. And I had the opportunity right before Covid to go on a trip with my team, actually in India. And that country, within India, that we served today has no more incidences of human mortality. So you can never quite get rid of rabies in the wild with bats and some of the wildlife. So it’s still there, but it’s an incredible program. And then last year, some people on our team were able to go and open up now Cambodia. So it’s a great program. Mark is also a sponsor of that and donates the vaccines every year as well as a partner in getting the word out. So it’s an incredible program.

Yes. Well, you have been honored with multiple prestigious awards throughout your career and recently entered the, I think it’s the SIIA B2B Media Hall of Fame. Is that right?

Yes, yes. The Software Information Industry Association. Yes.

Well, congratulations on that prestigious award. And Beth, looking back, what accomplishments are you most proud of and what kind of legacy do you hope to leave?

Well, thank you, Stacy. First of all, I was honored to be the first woman inducted into that Hall of Fame. So I am super proud to be representing women in media, and there are amazing women in media. I think as I look back, I think there are probably two things that I am most proud of. I think one of them was the culture that we built at VetMedux. Growing up, I realized that all of my mentors were men, and none of them were really women. And the ones that really took me under their wing and challenged me and helped me grow were men. And I never wanted that to be true for the generation behind me. So I’ve been passionate about women leaders and empowering them. And by the way, we empower men too. It’s not that we look the other way when it comes to men, but it felt like it was super important to me to make sure that we were growing female and women-led teams within VetMedux.

And so we built a culture. I think one of the most important representatives who was a mentor to me was really my grandma. My grandmother was one of those unique individuals who she was barely five feet tall, but she was very strong, but also one of the kindest people that I had ever met. And so I got to see how my grandmother lived life, even in her 90s, she was being invited to go back to the president of her university and have lunch with him and do all kinds of really philanthropic type things. So she was a mentor to me as well as Neil Overman. He was the CEO at Veterinary Learning Systems, my first publishing job.

So both of those people, I think, influenced me wanting to have an amazing culture where all people could grow and develop, be treated equally, and be able to grow and develop. So I’m really proud of the culture that we were able to build at VetMedux. So in fact, yesterday, Jackie Ramage on our team celebrated 10 years with us. She was our head of people. And so I think it’s important to have people like that partnering with you to help make sure that that culture is lived out every day. And Jackie was certainly that kind of partner.

And then number two, I think to have products that are valued and used all over the world. I try to think back what was the one moment when I thought, “Okay, we finally made it, we finally arrived.” And I think it was several years ago, I’d gone to Bali actually on vacation, and there was a small little village near where we were staying, and it had a veterinary hospital. And while I was there, I thought, “I’m just going to tiptoe in there, introduce myself to them, tell them what I do back in the US and just engage and connect with them.”

And what I learned was they read Clinician’s Brief, they used Plumb’s. They were also passionate about a publication that we don’t have any longer, Veterinary Team Brief. They were using all of our products in Bali, obviously thousands of miles away from where we are here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So it made me realize that when you create really essential, and products that people value, they will find their way into every little niche and nook within the world. So I think that was when I first realized that we had created something really valuable.

What a great story. And I also want to congratulate Jackie on your 10-year anniversary. That’s incredible. Your team stays for a long time, and that truly is a tribute to your leadership, Beth. Now as chief brand ambassador at Instinct Science, how has your role shifted and what excites you most about this new chapter?

That’s a great question. Well, first of all, as chief brand ambassador, I now have a boss, which I haven’t had a boss in a really long time. And so Dr. Caleb Frankel is now my boss, and Caleb is an amazing boss, has amazing vision, and is really here to take all of our products to the next level. So exciting things to come, and I really value having him as my boss now, first of all.

And then as chief brand ambassador, my role, I’m out of more of the day-to-day stuff that happens. And so less involved in day-to-day part of the business and really being more of a cheerleader and an ambassador, if you will, for our products, figuring out where the connections are out in the industry and how we can help and support lots of different things that are going on in our industry as well as these super cool products that we’re building. So I’m super excited about that, and it gives me time to do some of the things that I still like to do, which is dream about a better future. So anyway, it’s a really wonderful position.

Well, you’re passionate about teaching and mentoring. What advice do you most often give to emerging leaders, especially women who want to make an impact in the veterinary or media space?

Oh, my gosh. Well, first of all, I’ve gotten into teaching in a way that I hadn’t even planned this year. I’ve been doing some guest lecturing for first-year business students in college. I’ve been actually volunteering and doing some teaching at a kindergarten. I am now doing some work teaching teens about finance. So first of all, I think maybe if I hadn’t been on entrepreneur, I probably would’ve been a teacher. Yes, I think there’s one thing that I didn’t learn until much later in life that I wish somebody would’ve taught me in my younger days, and that’s that in growth and development. The fear phase, if you will, is the phase that comes right before growth. Nobody ever taught me that. You have your comfort zone, then your fearful phase, then your growth, and then it’s a continuous cycle. And I think that would’ve helped me learn earlier in life, to lean in to fear and don’t let that voice in your head talk you out of stuff.

But that’s the time that there’s growth right around the corner. So I think that’s an important message that I would tell to anyone, male, female, young, old, that lean into fear when it comes because there’s some incredible growth right around the corner. But I think the other thing too is for all of us, I’m passionate about mentoring, and so I love to mentor, but it’s also important to have a mentor and to have that group of people in your life that you can trust and that know you, and that can hold you accountable in other ways. So if you’re going to be out there mentoring, it doesn’t mean that you’re immune from having a mentor or somebody to help you get to the next stage. So just make sure that you have that as well. So yeah, lean into fear when it comes. There’s growth right around the corner. And then make sure you have your group of mentors that you can rely upon.

So I have to ask, is it easier to teach kindergartners or adults?

Adults. Let me tell you, it’s exhausting. And of course, I was never really trained as a teacher, but I have to tell you, it is so exciting for me when I go back and they remember everything that I taught them from the time before. So I am still getting a high from it. I read that book, Robert Fulghum, everything I need to learn in life I learned in kindergarten. So I’m thinking about maybe writing the reverse of that, what I’m learning from kindergartners. Anyway, but yeah, it’s definitely more challenging for me. So God love all those kindergarten teachers out there. Make sure you get them a hug when you see them.

Well, I think you should write that book and I look forward to reading it if you do.

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Well, in such a complex and evolving industry, how do you approach product development in a way that keeps things both innovative and usable for busy veterinary professionals?

Yeah, it’s probably not a lot different than what we talked about earlier on developing great products, but really intimately understanding that problem that you’re solving. I think that’s so important. It’s very hard to do that if you’re not immersed in the product in every nuance of that problem. From the technology, from how different age groups are engaged with it. There are just so many different things. And I think one of the things in veterinary medicine, unlike human medicine, we have less standardization in general in this market, which makes it much more complex when you’re trying to build any kind of technology product out there. So again, I think it’s really important in this market to really understand who your target audience is, as well as that problem you’re solving, but every nuance of it. And also understanding that it’s not a finite process, it’s a continuous process, and you’re continuing to iterate and evolve and make your products the best that they can be. And knowing how your audience perceives that is really important. So I think if you can stay true to those principles that you can build really great and innovative products.

Well, Beth, outside of work you love travel, great books, and spending time with your Portuguese Water Dog, Moose. What book has most inspired your leadership journey, and where’s the next place you’re hoping to travel to?

Great question. Well, first of all, I always have a big stack of books that I want to read, and I know what you’re thinking. “Oh, does she still read actually hardback books?” I do. I do read, I have Audible and listen to books as well, but certain books I still like to have a hard copy of. I thought about this question. First of all, the one book that has changed my life, I think had the most impact on me personally was a book I read quite a few years ago was Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, the psychiatrist who actually was in one of the concentration camps in World War II. And I thought what was so profound about that book is this thought that you can never lose your freedom to choose how you respond to suffering. And certainly people in the concentration camps had unimaginable suffering, but that you always have the choice to choose your attitude and find meaning in life.

So I think that was one of the most profound books for me, just in my life, to know that nobody could ever take that freedom away from me to choose how to respond to anything that came my way in life. But from a business standpoint, and I read, oh my gosh, I still read so many business books. In fact, I’m always trying to squeeze in great novels because I’m always finding so many great books on business out there to read. But I think the one that really impacted my business the most, again, an older book, Good to Great by Jim Collins, and I think this idea that achieving greatness is a relentless pursuit of discipline and focus, and it’s still a challenge every single day to know that where you are investing your time, your resources, is really elevating you as a company and not an opportunity cost, if you will.

So understanding what Jim Collins called your hedgehog principle, what is that thing that you do the very best and how do you differentiate and do it better than anyone else, I think is still a powerful principle today because we’re in this ever evolving, rapidly changing world. So I think that was true for us. And in an example too of that was I talked earlier about Veterinary Team Brief, a publication that we used to produce, and it was an amazing publication, but we realized at some point, especially when we began to grow and develop the Plumb’s product, that we couldn’t do everything. And if we were going to do a really great job of building out Plumb’s as a SaaS product that we needed to give up something. And unfortunately at the time that ended up being Veterinary Team Brief, it still pains me a little bit, but I can tell you it was the absolute right decision, and it was one of the decisions that helped us be able to grow successfully in our marketplace.

And then, let’s see, your last question was, yeah, where am I traveling next? And my next trip is in June. We’re going back to Switzerland. I haven’t hiked Switzerland in several decades, and I’m super excited to go back, and if you haven’t hiked in Switzerland or along the Alps, one of the most amazing sounds that you will ever hear is hiking along the top of the Alps when they begin to move the herds of sheep and goat down below you, down in the valleys, and the sound of those bells echo all the way up the mountain and it sounds like there’s a bell choir above you. So anyway, that’s my next trip, and I’m so excited to go back and hear some bell choirs along the top of the Alps this year.

Well, that sounds amazing, and I will be watching for those photos on Facebook because I know we’re connected there.

Yes, you will see lots of them, I’m sure.

Well, I want to pivot now and talk more about your own career. I’m curious, what has been the most surprising thing to you during your career in the veterinary profession?

I was telling somebody this the other day. If you would’ve told me when I was graduating from college that I was going to be an entrepreneur, that I would be developing technology products, I would’ve thought you were absolutely crazy. But it was very interesting to find that that was a skill set for me and something not only that I thought I wanted to do, but had the opportunity to create some products that I think are still renowned today in the marketplace. So yeah, I think those two things.

Well, how have you seen the veterinary profession change over the years since you’ve been involved?

Gosh, what hasn’t changed? When we started 20-some years ago, first of all, the industry was predominantly male. And that seems like a really, really long time ago because we’ve been predominantly female in small animal medicines for so many years. So that has definitely changed. The level of specialization in veterinary medicine, it used to be that if you had a super tough case, the only place that you could go, likely, depending on where you were located, but was probably a university with a veterinary school to get that case seen. And that’s dramatically changed. Even in Tulsa, we have multiple specialty clinics here. So we’ve seen that level of specialization change over the years. And then certainly ownership. Predominantly when we started, the practices were independently owned, and we’ve seen that shift over the years to practices being more of them corporate-owned and in corporate groups.

And I think the last thing that has changed is just really technology. And we’ve seen a lot of those changes happening over the last couple of years. Certainly I think Covid pushed some of them and that development maybe a little quicker during that timeframe than what might’ve happened had we not seen Covid. But definitely a lot of changes that have happened over the years. And then the other thing that I think is amazing is that it used to be that when somebody graduated from veterinary school, they were probably going to go into practice, or they might continue and become boarded and teach. So that is dramatically changed from when I entered veterinary medicine, like I say, at age 24 to now four decades later. There are so many opportunities, so many careers for veterinary medicine that are outside of just practice. And then today we see even telemedicine taking off and veterinarians being able to be a part of providing guidance even when they’re not in the room with the pet or the animal. So a lot of changes.

Yeah, that’s so true. And talking about careers for veterinarians, there’s also opportunities outside of the veterinary profession and animal health, I once knew, he’s retired now, the head of regulatory affairs for Coca-Cola was a veterinarian. And in the past I met the head of Campbell’s Soup quality assurance, and she was a veterinarian. So there’s so many interesting careers out there for veterinarians. So I have to ask you, what does your crystal ball say about the future of the veterinary profession?

Oh, I wish I had a crystal ball. Stacy. Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t want to know what comes and just get to experience it live every day. But I think it’s certainly what I hope we will see for the future of this profession. There has been a lot of talk about the moral distress that we see in veterinary medicine, and I think veterinary medicine is a great career. I hear so many veterinarians talk about how much they love this career. Those of us who have worked in this career, or in animal health, for decades can tell you how incredible veterinarians are. They’re some of the most selfless people that I know. And there are many of us that from time to time, think we might leave this profession, but it just draws you back in because it’s such a wonderful place to live.

But having said that, practice, it can be difficult. There are a lot of things. And so certainly one of the things that we’re working on with our Plumb’s Pro and now our Standards product is really building that broader spectrum of care for people to practice within and feeling like no matter where you are, practicing within that realm that you’re practicing great medicine. And so I think there are a lot of things that we could do within, that’s only one thing, but a lot of things that need to happen within the profession to make it not only a wonderful career, but also one that is engaging and seeing more of our veterinarians thrive so that we don’t have to have a lot more discussions about moral distress. But we’re not there yet. And we definitely know that we need to make changes there.

And then I think the other thing, and certainly this is evidenced by the thesis of us joining forces with Instinct Science, is that caring for the caretaker is what our purpose is. And it’s interesting because each of us separately had that same purpose as organizations before we ever even joined. I thought maybe they had copied us, but no, it’s not true. They came up with that on their own. And so caring for the caretaker and making practice easier through things like technology. And we know that we can make things so much efficient by integrating all of the resources that veterinarians need into single platforms.

So figuring out what that looks like and how we can really utilize technology to make practice more efficient. Indu Mani on our staff loves to talk about when she first began using the scripting software and ScribbleVet to do her patient records that she was saving two hours every day, two hours every day, just on writing her patient records. And not only that, but the quality of what she was putting together, utilizing that product was making a better product. So I think those two things are what I would love to see going forward, and I think we’re well on our way.

Yes, I would agree. Well, Beth, all successful people have habits that help them to achieve success. What are a few of your daily habits that have allowed you to achieve success along the way?

Good question. First of all, I’m one of those people that if I do anything too long, I get bored with it and I have to have a little bit different routine. So I’m always exercising in some form or another. But what I’m doing for exercise may change along the way. But the one habit that I think has been really critical for me, and this comes naturally to me, I’m a lifelong learner. And so I think the habit of continuously learning, learning new tricks, new skills, new knowledge that you didn’t know before, and dedicating time to learn it every day.

Rishad Tobaccowala is somebody that I read his newsletter faithfully every week, but one of the things that he talks about is that if you’re going to grow and develop right now in this market, especially as rapidly as technology is changing everything, that if you’re not dedicating an hour a day to some sort of learning and continuing education that you’re going to fall behind. But it’s not just an hour, it’s like, what do you get out of that hour? And so for me, I think that one habit is one thing that I have been true to over the years. There may be some times it was less than an hour a day than it is now. But that’s certainly, I think, the habit that has kept me sharp and helped me continue to see success.

Yeah, that’s very good because if you’re staying stagnant, other people are growing and then you’re falling behind. Well, we know that careers have highs and lows. Not every day is perfect when it comes to one’s careers, everybody has challenges, adversities along the way. What’s been the biggest adversity or challenge that you’ve had to face during your career?

Yeah, I think I told you that my mentors were men. One of them, which is the reason that I made it to Oklahoma. If you would’ve asked me if I was going to live in Oklahoma early on in my life, I’m sure I would’ve thought you were crazy as well. But I met this amazing man, Eric Green, who I later married and he brought me to Oklahoma. And Eric was an entrepreneur and had started a software company in Oklahoma, and he was the one who convinced me that I should start my own company. And I always tell people about the time that I first sat down with NAVC and came home and had a handshake deal with them to start Clinician’s Brief with them. And my husband found me curled up on the bed in the fetal position. And his initial thought was, “Wow, she had a really bad meeting today.”

He said, “How did it go?” And I said, “Sell, it went really, really well. And I have an agreement with him that we’re going to proceed.” And he said, “And why are you laying here like that?” And I said, “What if I’m wrong? What if I can’t do it?” And I remember him not even batting an eye and said, “Well, you have two choices. You can either lay here and always wonder what could have been, or you can just try as hard as you can and know that even if you fail, that you gave it all you had.” And so that was really all I needed to get up and keep going strong. So he was my mentor. There was nobody that kept me in check or challenged me more than Eric did.

And the adversity though, came about a decade later. He was diagnosed with multiple myeloma about six years after I started Clinicians Brief, at the time was given a year to live, was his first prognosis. And he lived six years, but then died in 2013. And anyway, it was tough because not only do you grieve the loss of your spouse and your partner in life, but I was grieving the loss of my business partner, too. And he was my technology expert, which was one of the reasons that I had feared later on technology because I left it all to him.

I decided that that was his lane and I was not going to get in it. And anyway, so I think overcoming that loss in my business, and especially at a time where the world was changing, and I knew that the business model I’d put together at the start was not going to take us into the future, and not having his support of somebody that I really trusted at that point to tell me where I was getting it right and where I was getting it wrong. So anyway, I eventually obviously got through that, but it was definitely, I think, one of the hardest parts along the journey.

Well, it sounds like Eric was a great encourager.

Yeah, he was. He was amazing.

Well, Beth, what advice would you give the younger version of yourself?

Well, I think I talked about that earlier, about understanding that fear is part of growth process. Because there were a lot of times along the way, just like I told you, lying there rolled up in the fetal position, which should have been a great day. I should have been celebrating and coming home and saying, “Okay, what’s next?” But I let the fear creep in thinking it was a bad thing. And now I realize, well, yeah, because you were about to grow immensely on this journey. And so I wish I would’ve had somebody explain that to me. And I think it would’ve made the fear less emotional and more of a challenge about what’s next and to get going. So yeah, I think that part would’ve been super important to know younger on.

What message or principal do you wish you could teach everyone listening to our podcast today?

We talk a lot about failure in business, in life, and I always thought that failure was bad. And one of the things that I’ve learned in business is that failure, not epic failure, but failure is actually a learning tool. And when you’ve done something and it failed, you’d like to never do that again. And the only way to do that is to dissect it, analyze it, figure out, okay, what went wrong? What can we do differently, and then move forward. And so realizing that failure is a step in the road to success, I don’t think people talk about that enough. And so understanding how to stop failure early, get it early, and then attack it head on, learn from it, and never make that mistake again.

Well, that sounds like another book title. That sounds like another book that you could write.

Yes, yes. I’m going to do a lot of book writing.

Well, Beth, you’ve got the mic. What is one thing that you want to share with our listeners of The People of Animal Health Podcast before you drop the mic today?

Oh, gosh. Well, first of all, I think I would like to say thank you. I am not getting younger, and like I say, I’m now finishing up my fourth decade in this industry. And I have had some of the most incredible experiences along the way. I have met some of what I think they’re the most brilliant and kind and passionate people along the way. I mean, first and foremost, anybody who has been a part of the VetMedux team along the way has been incredible.

But all of the authors that have contributed to Clinician’s Brief, to Plumb’s, to Plumb’s Pro, and now Standards, along the way, anyone who spent time with us when we were doing the New York Vet Show with CloserStill Media. So there are just so many people, all of the fabulous people in our first decade from NAVC that we worked with. So people like you, Stacy, that we have met along the way. I have just an amazing list of people that I am so grateful that I’ve been able to share time and get to know them along this journey, and certainly have contributed to not only the success of our company, but me as well. So I just want to say thank you.

Well, you mentioned the New York Vet show. One of my favorite things early on was the pink carpet. Can you ask them to bring back the pink carpet?

Oh, my gosh. I love that pink carpet. So anyway, I have one funny story to share with you about the pink carpet. I bought a pair of high-heeled, pink hot pink suede shoes to match that hot pink carpet that first year. And about 90 minutes into the show that first day, I realized that those were not going to work any longer. And so I posted on Facebook that the first person to bring me a pair of hot pink flip-flops was going to get $100. And anyway, there was a lot of chatter on the channel back and forth. But anyway, the next day, someone from Tulsa showed up with not one, but two pairs of hot pink flip-flops for me, to which I had to give the $100. So anyway, but I do miss and love that hot pink and still have lots of hot pink in my wardrobe. So I will talk to Lottie and CloserStill and see if we can’t get a renaissance of hot pink carpet.

I’ll be watching for that pink carpet this November. I hope to see that again. Well, the gentleman that brought the hot pink flip-flops, it probably cost him more on the plane ticket to bring those.

Yes.

So what a kind gesture. I love that story. Well, Beth, I really enjoyed having you here today on The People of Animal Health Podcast. I loved hearing your stories. You’ve had an amazing life, an amazing career, and you’ve done tremendous things that have been highly impactful for the veterinary profession. And I think it’s so great that we both live here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, so sometimes we even have the opportunity to see each other around town. But I enjoyed our conversation, want to thank you for being here today.

Thank you so much for the invitation, Stacy, and I love this podcast that you’re doing, and certainly the work that you’ve been doing, providing great recruits. We’ve got some on our team right now that came from you and that you helped us secure and onboard. So thank you for all you do in the industry as well.

Thank you, Beth.