I know you’re working on vet and medical leasing. I’d love to hear about your shift towards adding medical practice sales to your work mix.
Leasing is a new skill. I’ve been working in medical sales for my whole career. I started working with SportsCare USA in partnership with the Trinity Mother Francis Health System in East Texas.
Whoa, so you were working with large-scale systems out of the gate?
For sure. And it was a great place to start. My job was to be the ambassador for the hospital and through that role, I was able to spend years understanding what drove them, what drove their decision-making. I was working with the CSuite from my mid-twenties and I also got to know the doctors that came in and out and saw what they wanted and needed.
And I’ve been working with and between doctors and healthcare organizations ever since.
Are there any projects that stand out?
I worked on the development of the South Austin Surgery Center that was being acquired by HCA. The doctors needed a place to go for outpatient procedures and surgery centers that were close weren’t meeting their needs. So the company that I was with at the time – HCA – wanted to serve those docs and decided to set up a facility right next door. The doctors could stay at the hospital and then run across the street for their outpatient work.
So I started knocking on doors – meeting doctors, asking what they were looking for from a work perspective and financial perspective. I developed a whole new network of relationships.
What did that look like day to day?
I literally knocked on doors and asked: are you interested in being a part of an HCA-backed surgery center? I laid out the steps they needed to go through and explained how ownership works. I shared the investment returns so they could really see the difference between investing in 1/10th of a percent or 1%.
A lot of education.
Yeah, it was a lot of education but a lot of consensus-building, too. I was able to work with a group of people that have different views and find common ground among them.
And I’ve also seen physicians through these deals. For retiring physicians, I’ve helped them exit their surgery center investments and wind them down.
You mentioned earlier you began to learn what doctors needed in these investments and now you’re talking about experience helping them exit. How do you help them navigate these decisions?
These are emotional decisions – they’re big decisions. I try to stay even-keeled and help the doctors look at it in a methodical way. Maybe they’re ready to sell but have been skeptical about the market or anxious about the decision. I try to come up with as much information as possible and be a calming presence.
