The 7% Club
The 7% Club
Episode 46: From Perth to Hong Kong – starting, growing & selling a successful vet business with Trilby White
In this episode of The 7 % Club Podcast, I sit down with Trilby White, a seasoned consultant, business coach, and co-founder of two highly successful veterinary businesses in Hong Kong.
Trilby and her husband left Australia in their early 20s for what they thought would be an adventure in Hong Kong. What followed was the creation of a veterinary practice that grew from a pioneering house-call model to a full-service hospital and online store - ultimately becoming Hong Kong’s largest general practice and a highly attractive acquisition target.
Now the founder of Inicio Consulting, Trilby helps business owners and executives unlock their full potential, drawing on her 25+ years of leadership and entrepreneurship.
This is an inspiring and practical conversation about entrepreneurship, growth, leadership, and creating options for the future.
Listen now to learn how to build a business that not only thrives - but can one day stand on its own without you.
To contact Trilby:
linkedin.com/in/trilby-white-711168b
Websites
Connect
💡 Need help scaling your business from 7 to 8 figures? Get in touch jenny@jennystilwell.com.au
Remember: Better strategy, better business, better life! See you next time!
Hi there, this is Jenny Stilwell and welcome to the 7% Club podcast. For the 7% of business owners who break through 2 million in sales and for those on track to join this club, this podcast is to help you upscale.
UNKNOWN:Music
SPEAKER_01:In today's episode of the 7 Cent Club podcast, I'm talking with Trulby White. Trulby is a seasoned consultant and business coach with over 25 years of business development and leadership experience in Hong Kong. As a co-founder of two successful veterinary companies, she has a proven track record in entrepreneurship and strategic growth. Currently, as the founder of Inicio Consulting, Trilby empowers small business owners and executives to reach their full potential. And today I'm going to be talking to her about how she and her husband, both Australians, went to Hong Kong and built from scratch a very successful veterinary practice that that was acquired just recently. So it's going to be a very interesting story. Welcome, Trilby. How are you? Lovely to have you on the podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Hi, Jenny. Thank you so much for having me. I'm doing very well. Thank you. How are you?
SPEAKER_01:That's good. I'm very well on this beautiful day. You're in a beautiful day. We're in a beautiful day. So it's a good start. Now, you've got a really interesting background. And what I'm particularly interested in talking to you about today is the business that you had for, what, 20, 25 years and sold. And now you're consulting to help businesses grow. But what I'd really like to talk about is sort of the early days. And in particular... I'd love to kick off having a bit of a chat about your background and how a Perth girl ended up in Hong Kong via Sydney 25 years ago. How did that happen?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it seems a bit unlikely. Funnily enough, there are quite a few Perth people in Hong Kong. When I was growing up in Perth, Perth is a beautiful city and it's a lovely place to grow up. But you realise pretty quickly that if you have any ambition, you're going to need to spread your wings at some point. So growing up, I always thought, oh, one day I'll end up in Sydney or Melbourne. You know, maybe if I'm really ambitious and adventurous, maybe London. I met my now husband at university at Murdoch in Perth. So I was studying biotechnology and he was studying veterinary science. And he had always had a plan to go back to Sydney after he graduated. So after we graduated, there was my big opportunity. We moved to Sydney. He had a career and then I could develop my career. And Sydney was great. I got a good job.
UNKNOWN:I
SPEAKER_00:Car supplied, phone supplied. As a 21-year-old, that was sort of the bright lights of Sydney. It would be amazing. Yeah, it was a great opportunity. However, we then started looking at buying a place to live, so an apartment or a house. And to be perfectly honest, on the salary of a new vet and a new graduate, The things that we could buy for our money were some tiny little shoeboxes way out in the suburbs of Sydney. And the thought of a 20-year mortgage living hours away from the city and slogging at nine to five so that we could maybe one day afford to do that in a nicer suburb was really quite disheartening. And I think both of us thought, okay, before we settle into this life ladder, let's Let's go and have some experiences first. And my husband, his degree in veterinary science, we're very lucky that vets can, they're recognised in all of the Commonwealth countries. So a lot of vets go to either Singapore, Hong Kong or the UK. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, very interesting. So we thought, okay, well, look, Hong Kong sounds the most exotic for us. Let's give that a go. So we packed our bags and he had a job and off we went.
SPEAKER_01:Look, I think that is so remarkable to have that perspective on the future that you could have, you know, ended up with at that age and say, this isn't really exciting and it's something that could be. you know, a soul destroying if we embark on this and to be so young and say, we're choosing something else. We're not choosing the path that is kind of sitting ahead of us. We're choosing something else and to head for Hong Kong. I love that. I think it's brave and adventurous and it obviously turned out really, really well. What was it like when you first went there? So did you go over first and... check everything out and say, this is it, or you just got on a plane and off you went?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So Jenny, you used the word brave before, and I think there's a very fine line between bravery and full hardiness. And, you know, we had been living in Sydney, we'd only been graduated a year, so our salaries weren't very high. There was no way we could afford two plane tickets, one to come out here and do a recce and then another one to actually move here. Of course, I didn't think about that. Yeah. So we literally had one suitcase each. We had a service department supplied for us for a month by my husband's, my fiance's boss, at which time we could get our feet, find somewhere to live. And it was only after arriving here and really understanding how the city works, that I was erring towards the thought that it had been a foolhardy decision rather than a brave one. Hong Kong, as you probably are aware, is well known for its expat lifestyle. But those expats are normally lawyers, doctors, teachers, financiers. There are people who are quite specific fields and they're also very well accomplished and their companies will normally pay for their housing and kids schooling and things like that. I had a science degree and I didn't have any managerial experience. I had one year of practical work experience. I can't speak Cantonese and it became very quickly apparent that unless I wanted to teach English to local children, that there weren't really many job opportunities for me here. So we ended up getting married. We were actually already engaged, but we had to speed up the marriage so that I could get a dependent visa so I was allowed to stay in the country. But at the same time, I was extremely fortunate and the Australian consulate here was advertising for a personal assistant for the Australian Consul General. And it had to be an Australian national so that that person could get top secret security clearance. So even though I had absolutely no secretarial or administrative experience, I must have said something right in the interview because I just landed this amazing job as my first job. And yeah, then it all worked out. That's really
SPEAKER_01:amazing with top security clearance. Yeah. So how long have you been doing that for?
SPEAKER_00:I was there for just over two years. And while I was there, they were such a supportive workplace. They also sponsored me to do an MBA through Macquarie University because they encourage continuing education. So as well as having this fantastic job and environment to work in and get to know Hong Kong in like a safe way, I got to really hone my skills and develop my experience in my education.
SPEAKER_01:That's amazing. So that kickstarted your management experience that you didn't previously have. That would have been great. Correct. Yeah. Wow. How did you come to be working with your husband and building, well, first a vet practice and then a vet hospital and then an online business? How did that empire begin? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I guess it started with my husband who'd been working at his job for a couple of years and it got to the point where he realised it wasn't where he wanted to continue. And so then he had the decision to make of, well, do I go and find another job or do I start out on my own? And again, I think rather naively, we just assumed that if he went to find another vet clinic that they would probably offer him a partnership, kind of not understanding how it really works in the real world that you need to buy your way in and it costs quite a lot of money and need to build up that trust first. So he thought, well, okay, let's just, I can do that. Can't be that hard. I'll do it myself. He's always been the dreamer and I was kind of like, ah, I think you might need a little bit of help. So I made the decision to step aside from my role and help him develop this business and do it together and bring all of that knowledge that I'd learned from my MBA to help open the business. The house call practice, which was the first arm of the business that we opened, we could very clearly see a need in this market. There's a lot of really well-to-do people who will do anything for their pets. And it kind of seemed like a no-brainer. We just couldn't figure out why no one was doing a high-end house call practice here. We thought there must be something that we just weren't seeing because it seemed so obvious to us. And that's how it started. And did you
SPEAKER_01:ever find out why no one else was doing it? Or was it just a cultural thing? Or it was just the way it was? Or you just came in with a different perspective?
SPEAKER_00:Initially... You know, in any kind of business, you try and do a bit of a business plan. And so I put together a bit of a forecast as to how much money I thought that we could make from this model. And the problem that I could see, and I honestly couldn't see any way around it, was in a vet clinic, you've got people coming to see you. And so you can see two or three people an hour. So over the day, you know, you might see 20 or 30 clients. In a house call practice, because you've got to drive around, even though Hong Kong is a really small place, you're seeing a maximum of eight to 10 people and you just can't charge. You can't charge three times as much. And I really, I just couldn't figure out how we were going to get that to work, right? So maybe that was why no one had done it in the past. What I didn't realize was, okay, when you've got a house call, you can actually go and see four patients at a time. Right. Right. Right. Right. let's do food delivery, let's do medicine delivery, and kind of added on all of these extra services at the same time. So that was kind of what made it a bit of a different economic model than your traditional clinic. That was really
SPEAKER_01:clever. And did you notice anyone start doing it once you had started that model?
SPEAKER_00:We did, although most clinics went about it in a different way. And I guess because we had set up to be a dedicated house call practice, we had our cars set up. They have a proper dispensary in there and you could sort of map the day out so the transport made sense. You weren't just going out and back to do different calls. There were a lot of other clinics that attempted to emulate what we'd done, but But they weren't as successful. And I think because what they were trying to do was, okay, I've got a vet on Monday. Maybe he's not so busy in the afternoons. Let's try and fit in some house calls. But it was more of like a second thought add-on rather than a dedicated service. And for us, it was the whole package, the receptionist who knew your name. They knew your animal's name. They had a relationship with you. People are very sticky to the house calls because once you've had that service, you don't really want to go and try anything. a clinic again. It's just so convenient. So yeah, it was difficult for other people to copy. But yes, of course, once you try something new, there's always going to be some followers.
SPEAKER_01:That's really ingenious. I love the fact that, you know, you went from one pet to several pets once you're there and you're in the car. So what else can you be doing along the way? That's a really great way of looking at that. And as you said, then the service that goes with it, you don't necessarily get that in a clinic. I mean, you can, but it's different. I think when you're in someone's home and you're kind of part of the family and they're looking after the pets. And so that's fantastic. So how long did you continue with that model or did you transition that to a clinic model?
SPEAKER_00:So we've... continued that model and that's still running as it is today but after about a year we realized okay we really have to have a hospital as well because obviously as soon as any of the pets got really sick or needed surgery they did have to go to a hospital but by that point we'd already build up a reserve of cash. We had a revenue stream. We had clients. So when we did open the hospital, we didn't have to get investors or any outside funding and we could fund that all ourselves, which was a huge advantage in any business if you can retain complete control.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. And with the house call business and in the hospital, how did you scale up the house call model?
SPEAKER_00:So that was probably the most difficult to scale up. because it was such high touch. So it took us a very long time. And still to this day, we're extremely selective about the vets who come and help us with that service. I say us, it's not actually my business anymore. But just to that point that for it to be successful, you need to have people who are very empathetic, good with people, great communicators, can think on their feet because they don't have the backup of hospital and a lab right there. So yes, that was sort of slowly to make sure that we maintained the quality of the service.
SPEAKER_01:And then with the hospital, I'm assuming your husband was in there running that?
SPEAKER_00:Not so much because he was doing house calls. So I was on base in the hospital, running the hospital and the teams. And then as that grew, he would provide input. So obviously he was part of the management team, but the day-to-day running was always my responsibility.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. So how did you do that? Like, given that you're not a vet, but you would have learned a lot along the way and you've already created a business with the house call business, but then how Starting a hospital, is that something, did you acquire one or you started your own? How did you build a team? How did you go about that? Because that's quite a big deal.
SPEAKER_00:It was, and it's one of those things looking back, it was so much work at the time. I don't think we realised quite how much work it was going to be. I actually think not being a vet, even though it would seem on the outside to be a disadvantage, For me, I think it was one of the key reasons that our business was so successful. And there's a few reasons for that. The first one being that it taught me my leadership style, which was very much collaborative, asking people's feedback, getting their thoughts, because I'm not the expert in the field. So I really had to make sure I hired people very capable vets but then make sure that they were in you know absolutely involved if not taking charge of any decisions that were around the provision of medical services or anything like that the second reason that it was such an advantage is that the majority of vets who run their own businesses are forever torn between okay if i don't see those clients i'm not making any money versus I've got to go and develop a marketing plan or work on my human resources or my hiring or all of these other stuff that make the business successful. And I never had that problem or that dilemma to deal with because I wasn't allowed to consult. So definitely a blessing. And
SPEAKER_01:did you
SPEAKER_00:find
SPEAKER_01:it, I mean, obviously, when you're talking about the house call business, you had to recruit other vets very carefully to maintain the level of standard and empathy and so on. Did you find it relatively easy to attract people into, say, the hospital and then the house call business after a period of time? Were they attracted to what you'd built or were they part of the vision for the future or was it a relatively easy process to attract new vets?
SPEAKER_00:I think it's like any industry that you go through ups and downs. And definitely at the beginning, it was more difficult because we didn't have a reputation yet. So it definitely took some trial and error. I obviously wasn't particularly experienced at the beginning. But then after a few years, we really did develop a reputation. Again, because you have a lot of vet clinics who maybe don't have professional HR or really think about things in that professional way, It means that the employee experience isn't as great. And any industry, there've been times when it's just hard to hire staff full stop because there's a shortage in the market or what have you, and not much you can do can prevent market changes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, totally. And with the business in the early days, what marketing did you do? Oh
SPEAKER_00:my goodness. This was back in the days of weird magazines.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We had a website. We had our cars, so we had a fleet of cars which were all signaged. I don't know if you remember. There were these cute little Mercedes A-classes. They kind of looked like little boxy cars. Oh, yeah, the little tiny ones. Yeah. Yeah. So we had a fleet of purple ones with our logos on the side, so they really stood out.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But we do anything, contact the magazine or newspapers, see if they wanted veterinary advice or columns. My husband, in fact, still is doing like a weekly radio show with one of the radio stations. Trams, we tried. There are minibuses here. So just anything and everything that we thought we could try to get the word out and see what stuck.
SPEAKER_01:And did you measure that or did you just have a go and see what happened?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Any marketing is so difficult to measure the effectiveness. So, yeah, we just kind of had to go and see what happened and went with our gut. That's normally the biggest indicator.
SPEAKER_01:What about the other part of the business, the online part?
SPEAKER_00:We, from the beginning, part of this high-touch service for our clients was that we would deliver them their dog food and their medicine and whatever else they needed because we had the cars already and the drivers already. The drivers would go, for example, if an animal needed surgery, they would go and pick up the animal and bring it in. So we had the infrastructure there already. And like with all of our business expansion, so the hospital and then we went to 24 hours and then we opened the online store, we had... to look at it to see, okay, what value can we bring our clients? What would we appreciate if we were those clients? And it was really a no-brainer of it would just be so much easier for everyone if they could order their food online. We would be able to offer so many more products because they'd be able to see what was on offer. Again, like not having any idea how difficult it is to set up a website. We just, oh, yeah, we'll give that a go. It can't be that hard. And that's kind of how it started.
SPEAKER_01:You know, that's not a bad attitude because if we start to overthink things, that's when you come up with all the reasons why maybe you shouldn't do something. Exactly. And so how did that online business grow? Obviously, you had a strong client base to start with. Did it just grow as your clients grew or are there, I'm assuming there's other people on there who maybe aren't clients, but order product?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so it definitely helped to tap into a whole other market. So we were not only selling to our own clients, but also externally to other clients. And we had quite a different product offering than the other online stores because most online stores for pet things were basically pet shops and Whereas our online store was like the things that you would find when you went into a vet clinic. So higher end, you know, veterinary approved and the service that we could provide with having our own driver and sort of logistical team meant that that side of it was also improved. a really positive experience for the clients. So yeah, it just seemed to go gangbusters. It was very interesting to see what products sold versus what didn't. You know, you have an idea of what's going to be popular and offer and you're completely wrong. But yeah, it seemed to work.
SPEAKER_01:That's fantastic. I love this. And I'm just thinking while we're chatting, it's interesting what your business is now. But, you know, potentially... It's all this model and the full service strategy and how you built it up. It seems like there's potentially a market you could take all this out to and teach a lot of vet practices around the world how to do this. But that's for another day. Yes. Okay, so the other thing that you and I talked on when we spoke the other day was about The point at which you start thinking about selling your business. Now, I know, you know, so many people think about that, you know, at some point in the future, you know, I'd like to sell my business or alternatively they'll say, oh yeah, if someone made an offer, yeah, I'd be interested in selling it. But it's never really a very strategic approach. But you actually have started thinking about the end game a lot earlier than a lot of other entrepreneurs. Can we just have a chat about when that point was and what your thinking was around planning for that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, definitely. So I think this must have been about eight years ago where I was just feeling really burnt out. It was at the time that our second hospital had opened. And I really couldn't figure out how I could maintain like the levels of quality and staff support over these two locations, how I could attempt to be like a present mother for my children. And I thought, okay, I really have to figure out a way to either or and find have this business run so that it's not completely dependent on me. And then if I can do that, I can either step aside or sell it. And the thought being that if someone came to buy this business, I don't want to stay in it. So it would need to be self-sufficient in a way that it's very unlikely they'd have someone they could just pop into my role. And So either we'd sell it, which would be the ideal scenario, or if we couldn't find a buyer, then, okay, I would be able to step back and take a much more hands-off role, either of which I would have been happy with. So then it was, okay, how do you do that? And that was a time when I got a business coach myself and really set about professionalizing this business and making sure that it wasn't just reliant on one person.
SPEAKER_01:And that's a really interesting point you bring up because that doesn't happen by itself, does it? A lot of people think, founders of businesses think when they get a little bit overwhelmed or exhausted or burnt out, I'll just get a general manager in. And it's like, well, if you're going to bring a general manager into the business as it is now without making any changes or any shifts in how you do anything, that person's going to be burnt out and You know, it's not really a sustainable model to bring someone into unless you make some changes. And as you said, it had to be sort of self-managing and you wanted to professionalize it. So can we have a bit of a chat about what some of the main things were that you maybe overhauled or changed a bit in the business to just make it run a bit more smoothly for someone else to step in and take it over from you?
SPEAKER_00:Gosh, so many things. So mostly it revolves around the human resources. You know, the good thing with the veterinary clinics and hiring professionals is that they know how to do their jobs. So it wasn't like I had to come in and look at how we were running our operations, although we did need to sort of bring in some more checks and balances there. It wasn't particularly onerous. It was... having a really clear look at what our organization chart actually was versus what we thought it should be. It was coming up with really clear job descriptions. And I know that sounds very simple, but the number of small businesses that don't have clear job descriptions is, I'm finding in my new role, it's very common. Which then means that, you know, without that job description, it doesn't really give you the authority to delegate effectively because people's roles aren't really clearly defined. They're not being assessed on the things that are really going to drive their business forward. I was very fortunate in that I had this brainwave of, okay, I want to professionalize my business. I'd love to have a professional CFO and an HR director, but I've got this small company that really can't support the salaries of the people, the caliber of people that I want to employ. So I hired an HR director who worked for me three days a week. She had been ex-Cathay Pacific and a CFO who worked for me two days a week. And they helped me to develop all of my values and performance management systems and really take that to the next level. And then from a financial perspective, all of our KPIs and mapping and what are the core things that we need to be focusing on, as well as professionalizing the books so that when it did come time to sale for sale, that was something that an acquirer could actually understand rather than it being the books that I had put together myself.
SPEAKER_01:I love that approach though like you really were looking at professionalizing the organization and I love that that expression because that's really what it is and you know sometimes business owners go to that point of well I can't afford that person and yeah a CFO would be great but we can't afford it or you know an HR director or they employ someone who's really a bookkeeper and say, well, we have a CFO. It's like, well, you haven't got a CFO, you've got a bookkeeper. They're completely different. So you really took that very professional approach and put in place all the structure and the processes and systems and the right people and the made everyone's role very clear and the strategic direction. And, you know, that's everything I talk about in the 7% Club book. You know, it's so important. And to be able to do that, that enabled you to then step back. You put someone in or did you put someone in at that point?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so that was a really interesting kind of parallel that we had taken on a partner this week probably would have been about 10 years ago. We'd taken on a minority partner because he was one of the first vets that we'd employed who really gelled with the whole house call thing. He really got the culture and kind of that bond that you need to have with the client. So we wanted to lock him in and we got him to buy into the business. And luckily for us, his wife, after the birth of their first child, was looking for a part-time job. And I got along with her really well. And I said, well, look, why don't you come and help manage the house call side of things so that I can focus on the rest of the business? And during that time when she was working for me, it started off as part time. I could really see that she had what it took to be a lot more important within the business. And over the course of two or three years, just gradually kept developing and increasing her role. until she was the one who she's now kind of in my role within the company after I've left. She wasn't the only one who I had identified and was trying to develop. I had identified a few sort of candidates and then sort of assessed how they were within their roles and their scope for development and whether they had you know, the interpersonal skills, the analytical skills, the vision, just the ability to stay sane under pressure. And it is a very difficult thing to find one person who has all of those qualities. And I was super fortunate that this woman did.
SPEAKER_01:And so you had a really strict set of criteria for the person who would ultimately take over from you. Yeah. Yeah. I love that because most people don't have that at all. And I often say when you're dealing with people, the opportunity and the propensity can be to become very subjective because things can be emotional. You really like someone that you're going to have to let go. There's all sorts of emotion and subjectivity in managing people. But I always say that if you can put as much structure and process around that as possible, like you said, with PDs and accountability and KPIs and you know, criteria for what you're looking for in certain things, it really helps make the decisions in a very objective way. And there's still, you know, there's still the human side and emotional side and all of that, but I think bringing it back to have as much structure around it as possible makes managing and developing people more easy, easier than if you didn't have that. Absolutely. Yeah, I like the approach that you took. And so what happened after that? Like in terms of you've got your key people in place and I think it's amazing you said you had a few that you were grooming. It sounds such a luxury to have a few as opposed to just one. So you've got your next leader in place. How did you then make the shift from, okay, well, I can step back a bit now, going to that or going– to sale? What happened next?
SPEAKER_00:So again, this was more a matter of what was happening in the market at the time. And this was sort of around just as COVID was starting, really. And that was when the veterinary industry all around the world has went really through a big surge. So there's nothing better for a business than being in a hot industry when it comes to selling. So at that point, my husband and I got quite strategic and thought, okay, how do we go and just start finding out what our options are? And we just started talking to people. Hong Kong is a great place for that. So talking to private equity firms, talking to different people in different industries, and if anyone knew what was happening. So we ended up speaking with maybe five different organizations. And what they were all interested in was, oh, there's this great big shiny industry, the veterinary industry. Everyone loves their pets. How do we get in on it? What's the easiest way to do that? Okay, let's go and buy this already formed company. But what they then wanted us to do in terms of that arrangement varied significantly from organization to organization. So some of them were well, the majority of them involved us staying within the company and expanding rapidly before we could kind of get any sort of buyout or leave, which wasn't really what we were looking for. But then fortunately, we had a number of kind of opportunities. So then when, and we're quite attractive, I think we're the biggest general practice in Hong Kong and So it did give us quite a bit of leverage. And when we then identified kind of the two key players, we got a bit of a better understanding about what kind of deal that we could make and really make sure that it fit in with what we wanted to achieve in terms of our own personal goals.
SPEAKER_01:And who did you involve in the process to help you both make decisions, you know, in terms of on the financial side, getting the best advice for people finance and the tax implications and that kind of thing. And then on the legal side, what sort of advisors did you pull in around you to help you through this?
SPEAKER_00:So internally, we had our CFO, who was fantastic because she was so much more experienced than us in this kind of thing. Externally, we had there were one or two key friends who were involved in this as kind of their professional lives. So they could be a bit of a sense check in terms of, okay, that sounds sensible or that doesn't. But by far, the most important relationship was with our lawyer, who was just phenomenal. And he was so good at telling us what to worry about and what not to worry about, He just gave us so much peace of mind that that's the one thing that I would say, make sure you don't skimp on a good lawyer, but make sure it's someone who comes highly recommended. Yes. Look, it's
SPEAKER_01:so important. And I think, you know, when you've worked usually long and hard to build such a strong asset that other people want to buy. You have to bring in the right advice. You've got to get the right people around you. And as you said, that's not the time to skimp on a lawyer. It's an investment in your future.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And I think particularly maybe professionals, and I don't know why professionals are so sceptical of other professionals, but I think a lot of people really underestimate how important it is and the number of stories I've heard about people selling their businesses and then just not getting what they thought they were getting everything ending in tears or in court a few years down the track. That actually seems to be more common than the happy ending.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I would agree with you on that. And yeah, I think whether it's at the point where you're going to sell your business or at any point on the way through, you know, if you need specialist HR advice, you've got to get it. If you need specialist financial advice to set up dashboards or to put a better system in place. It's just another investment in your business. People do it for marketing, but they probably do it less so for those other things. And it's really critical. How long did that process take for you to start talking to people and then to have an offer on the table?
SPEAKER_00:So I think there's two different timelines here. I think from starting talking to an actual offer and in paper, sorry, on paper would have been about three months. But then the offer that we actually wanted and that we ended up taking was a lot longer. I'd say that would be more like nine months. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And why did that take a lot longer? Is it because it didn't come forward for longer or then you just went through the process?
SPEAKER_00:So we had narrowed it down to to potential buyers. And one was a real standout for me. I just felt the alignment was a lot better. I thought they would really continue to run the company in a similar vein to how we had set it up with a focus on the team and providing good medicine and good service. So we decided to go with them and we started the whole due diligence process. But as the process evolved and before we signed the final agreement, the terms kept changing. So at this point, I think it might have been around when there were the protests in Hong Kong and maybe when COVID was just kicking off. And their agreement was heavily reliant on us recognizing successfully opening a number of new practices and the payments kept shifting between being mostly cash to mostly shares. And so it kind of looked like the goalposts just kept moving further and further away. And at that point, I said to my husband, look, I just, I don't feel comfortable with this. I would be happier keeping the business and have our idea of just me stepping back rather than selling it to someone and us having to work ourselves to the bone to maybe get a payout. But then if it doesn't work out, we don't get anything. I think there's something that happens when you, they call it deal fever, when you've worked so hard to get somewhere that you're so keen to sign something. I think a lot of people sign something that just isn't right for them. So fortunately, we took a step back and we were very lucky that the kind of second choice was still interested. And so we could go back to them and start renegotiating with them. And it ended up being a much better fit for what we wanted. And I'm really glad that it worked out the way that it did. Everything works out for a reason.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it does. And It's great that you, again, you know, you didn't take the path that was maybe the easier path in front of you and just accept the terms and sign the deal. At some point you went, this doesn't feel right for us. It's not in alignment with what we want. Let's just calm down and step back. Because, you know, you had options, as you said. You could continue with the business without being involved day to day. You could step back. But then the second choice was still there. So I think there's a lot of advice in that for people to, number one, be strategic. But number two, to know what you really want and what you will and won't accept and to remember that. not to just go for whatever's there because you want to get the deal done. Just remember what's important. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And this is where those advisors came in super helpful because they also, they really help to keep you grounded and just keep you in check, make sure that they ask you the questions. Is this the right thing for you? What could go wrong? So having those people around you is super important.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. And so... How did that, like once the deal had been done, how did the next steps flow on from there? Like, did you stay in the business for a period of time?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. So again, we're quite fortunate here because my husband had, both of us wanted to step away from the business and he had stepped away from consulting the previous year to focus on the online store. Traditionally, when you sell a veterinary clinic, the owner is normally working in the So we set a clear path of, okay, I said at that point, I will stay for two years to make sure that there's a smooth handover and then I will step aside. And so then as soon as that two years started, I had a really clear kind of transition plan to make sure that the team was up, the team knew that I wasn't stepping away immediately. Everyone was kind of calm with that transition and it just, it seemed to flow really well.
SPEAKER_01:And so the acquisition, just so I'm clear, the acquisition was for the home call business and the hospital? Correct. Yeah. And then what happened to the online business?
SPEAKER_00:So that was acquired by another Hong Kong company called Jebson. So my husband effectively went to work for them and I went to work for Mars, who was our acquirer. And so
SPEAKER_01:after two years, you were free? Yes. And then what did you do? Reacquaint yourself with your kids?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's actually been really nice, just having that extra time and headspace. And it allowed me to just figure out the parts that I really enjoyed about my job and think about what I wanted to be doing in future. So that's what I'm doing at the moment is doing
SPEAKER_01:the things I love. And that's so important, isn't it? Because so many people sell their business and then don't know what to do with themselves. And, you know, a lot of people, depending upon their age too, you know, and life circumstances, but it can be quite a, I don't know, stressful is maybe not the right word, but a period of time where I think a It's like, I guess, having a lifetime corporate career and when you leave, you don't belong to that anymore. You're just yourself. It's changing your identity and losing your identity. And I think when a lot of people sell their business, they struggle with that loss of identity because they don't necessarily have the next thing that they want to go on to, whatever that might be. And I think it's it's certainly preferable if you can work that out before you set your business and have something joyful to look forward to and to move toward. Yeah, definitely. And so when did you start your current business?
SPEAKER_00:So the end of my two years was actually at the end of June 2024. And then I worked part-time for six months just to really make sure that transition went well for the team. And during that six months, that was when I started thinking about, okay, what am I going to do next? So the part of my job that I really love is helping people really understand their potential and helping them develop their potential. And then doing that within A small business is super exciting. So I've done a coaching qualification now and I'm working with other small business owners to help them grow their businesses and hopefully not make all of the mistakes that I made and help them to get there a little bit quicker than I did in my fumbling way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, I don't know about fumbling, but I think your clients will have very, they'll be in good hands with very strategic, sound, calm advice. So, you know, I think your new business will probably go as well as your business you've just sold. You know, we've covered a lot of things with this journey and it's been really interesting and so many lessons for people listening. But if someone is thinking about selling their business at some point, what one or two pieces of advice would you give them about, you know, just thinking ahead and planning for that?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Okay, so I think there's two key things to work on. And the first one is how do I make sure this business can run independent of me and making sure that you set that up really honestly. Okay. And then secondly is, well, who is going to buy my business and what will make it attractive? And talking to people to get as much advice as possible. I know within our industry, there's a minimum size business, so it might involve growing your business first. But unless you really know who would be the target market, you don't know how to make it attractive to someone. So those two things. Fantastic.
SPEAKER_01:Brilliant advice. I love it. Well, it's been fantastic, Trilby. Thank you so much for talking to us and for sharing all these amazing lessons from your very interesting journey. Thank you, Jenny. It's been a lovely chat. And that's all for today's episode of The 7% Club. Thank you so much for listening. And as always, wherever you are in the world, remember, better strategy, better business, better life.
SPEAKER_02:Music