The first steps to thinking like a business owner (part 2)

To learn more about practice ownership from the subjects of this interview, check out the article by Tom Seeko and CJ Burnett here:

• What to know before taking out a loan to purchase a practice

The realities of owning a veterinary practice don't always line up with the expectations. Florida Veterinary Advisors co-founders Tom Seeko, CExP, and CJ Burnett, CExP, explain key factors to keep in mind when deciding to take the plunge into practice ownership.

A partial transcript of the interview is below. View the video for more of the discussion.

CJ Burnett, CExP: [Owning a veterinary practice] is not being a veterinarian that owns a business, you're now a business owner that just so happens owns a veterinary practice...If you're going to buy into a practice, and then you're going to kind of make yourself a veterinarian first, you're always going to be owned by the business. But if you can reposition yourself as saying, "Okay, the priority in my mind is I am a business owner first; I need to become a good business owner." That, I think, is the biggest strategic problem the strategic downfall / strategic miss that I think a lot of people have. They don't think, "Okay, I ought to be a business owner now. They just think, "Okay, I want to be my own boss, I want to go do this thing, and it kind of seems like fun." And then they wonder 20 years later why they felt that the business has always owned them.