Angie (00:00)
Welcome back to Tails of Truth, where we tell the truth about veterinary medicine. I'm Dr. Angie, and this is my co-host and veterinary nurse, Extraordinaire Jojo. And today we are talking about the struggles of small business.

JoJo (00:13)
It's been a struggle bus the last what? Well, I mean, it's been a struggle forever, but there's fun, there's fun in the struggle. Usually

Angie (00:20)
Yeah.

JoJo (00:21)
there's a lot of pivoting and creation and excitement but when the struggle comes from outside of our control, that's where I'm like, oof. It's a big long

Angie (00:30)
Yeah. Yep.

JoJo (00:32)
bus.

Angie (00:33)
There's so much there's so much struggle in small business. And that's why most small businesses don't make it. And I love it. And I wouldn't change it. But I have to say, over the past couple months, I don't I have thought about and this is irrational when I do this, but I've had so many moments where like I've quit. I'm gonna close it all down, turn off the website. Like

JoJo (00:58)
It's so true. And and it's okay. Cause we had this conversation. Angie can get like that. And and I'm fine. It's okay. And then I

Angie (01:04)
Mm-hmm.

JoJo (01:07)
have moments where I'm like, Angie, I quit. I hate this. I can't do this anymore. And she's like, Okay, all's fine. But

Angie (01:14)
Yeah.

JoJo (01:14)
when we both get there at the same time, it's like, Red alert. We cannot be here at the same time. Mm-hmm.

Angie (01:21)
Nine one one, totally.

And we recently had okay, so we had some a confluence of I don't know, events happen where your dad is dying. You had a international trip,

JoJo (01:36)
Mm-hmm.

Angie (01:36)
and our distributor was on back order of our best selling product that that people's animals need, like have

JoJo (01:44)
Or

on subscription they use for things like seizures. I did say that.

Angie (01:48)
Yes. oh.

The FDA is gonna come for you. so those happened all at the same time. And I am full time at the clinic and my oldest daughter has just started high school and is a cheerleader. So I am getting it is like trial by fire. What does it mean to be a cheer mom? So So it was like she's not old enough

JoJo (02:10)
yeah. And she's not old enough to drive. Right. So

Angie (02:14)
to drive.

JoJo (02:14)
mm-hmm.

Angie (02:15)
Can I tell you what we're forgetting? My my kitchen remodel. My kitchen. I haven't had an

JoJo (02:15)
yeah, what w I thought of more we're forgetting too. Yeah, what? yeah, your kitchen remodel. Not

a remodel, that's not fair. That also came by way of catastrophe. Yeah.

Angie (02:27)
Of a of a flood. So

yeah, it was a forced remodel It wasn't elective, like, I have some extra space and money. I'll just remodel my kitchen. No, no, no. No, no, no.

and then anyways, it's been a whole thing. So

every day is so full and so Jojo's out of town and

JoJo (02:48)
And not

out of town, not like, Hey, I'm in New Mexico, ring me up. We're in the same time zone. It was a Angie, I'm setting every part of my job down for two weeks.

Angie (03:00)
Yeah. Every part. Yep.

JoJo (03:02)
kind of exit, which

does not happen very often.

Angie (03:05)
And we've never done this while I've worked full time at a clinic.

JoJo (03:10)
Do I forget. Yeah.

Angie (03:12)
So

that was a new fun variable where I was like, wait, why is this going so poorly? And then I figured it out. so we thought this shipment was gonna come while you were gone.

JoJo (03:23)
Oh,

like five weeks or six weeks, maybe seven weeks, maybe actually maybe eight weeks before it actually came. I'm like going through each email as I just did that. That's what you guys were watching. Like, no, I think yeah, it was expected

Angie (03:37)
Yeah.

JoJo (03:38)
w there were many contingent plans in place.

Angie (03:41)
Right. And so I thought the first day JoJo was gonna be gone. I'm gonna get this big shipment. I'm gonna be able to fulfill all these orders.

JoJo (03:47)
Mm-hmm.

Angie (03:48)
And that didn't happen. But I'm at work all day, like, practicing medicine. So a couple days in, I reach out and like, what's going on? And they're like, We're so sorry, but we don't know when we're gonna have this to you, and we don't know why we don't have it to you. And so some of these people have been waiting for weeks at this point. And

JoJo (04:08)
Ex

Angie (04:09)
The orders just keep coming in, and so

JoJo (04:11)
And I keep promising

them new timelines, which feels terrible. Like we reduced the price, which we'll get to pricing later. You keep

Angie (04:20)
Yeah.

JoJo (04:20)
going through your story.

Angie (04:21)
Yeah. So I am thinking, no, what do I do? And by this time, I mean we probably had maybe 30, 40 orders. And I don't have Jojo's skill and she just knows how to use Shopify. She has all of the products on a nice shelf.

I live in a tea tiny house that's under like a massive renovation because when you don't have a kitchen and like my kitchen countertop was in my living room and my refrigerator was in the dining room, like

JoJo (04:53)
And then I just send over like eight giant boxes of stuff.

Angie (04:57)
Yeah. And I was like, I'm not gonna put these in the basement because I'm gonna forget I have an e-commerce store at all. So I put everything in my living room. And I was like,

JoJo (05:02)
did they live in your living room? Oh my gosh. Okay.

Angie (05:07)
okay, girls, this is a family affair world. And I'm learning how to use Shopify because I've only shipped through Shopify one time because we've only had that platform for one year now. And so I'm like trying to figure out how to do it and like

trying to get my printer to work. You know, all those little snags that you have like so ironed out, like shipping for you is nothing. But not only do I have to do that, but now I have 40 orders. Let's just round it up to 40 of product I don't have. And they are telling me I don't know when it's coming. So

JoJo (05:45)
And it's more complex than that because some of those orders had the item that's missing plus items that we do have, which really complicates things. Yeah.

Angie (05:50)
Yeah. Yeah. Totally.

So I'm thinking, I I don't know what to do, but I need to be accountable to these people. And they have ordered this product from me. So what I did is I filled like I it literally took me a whole day. I filled all the orders with a a comparable product, but not the same.

It was a little bit more expensive. So like I lost a ton of money on it, but I felt like this is the right thing to do. And then I individually emailed everybody and said, This is what I'm doing. I'm so sorry. If it's not what you want, let me know like more or less, let me know. But I just I want you to have something while we wait. And then there were some people that don't give us their email address and they don't give us permission to text them.

either. So I'm just like, uh so I'm just kinda sending them a different product. some people got a really expensive product. 'cause I'm just

JoJo (06:54)
Like

Angie (06:54)
like

JoJo (06:55)
three times the amount? Almost three times the the retail value.

Angie (06:57)
Like three times the amount.

JoJo (07:00)
Yeah.

Angie (07:00)
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm like, oh. So financially, I'm just hemorrhaging, but I also want to be an integrity of, people have given me their money. I I want them to feel happy. I want them to feel taken care of. So I get that out and

also don't have time for any of this. I'm freaking out. I'm I mean, it's just like this mess. And so Jojo checks in. Cause the idea is like I'm not gonna call Jojo with this. Jo I didn't.

JoJo (07:26)
She didn't she

didn't call me or text me anything. And I, for the first time in my working boulder holistic career, really actually set it down. Was not checking.

Angie (07:39)
Yeah, you were not checking the and that was good. And I I was gonna give that to you because she asked me. She was like, I really want to set this down. And Jojo never asks that. So I'm like, I'm gonna give that to her. And I'm giving that to her. And she's in Europe with her kids. Like, this is so important. And so I'm like, I will deal with this. But I did want to quit. I did as I was packaging up and just watching all the money I was gonna lose because

Some people were really unhappy with that decision.

JoJo (08:10)
Well,

long term too, because we both are very business minded. And

Angie (08:14)
Mm-hmm.

JoJo (08:15)
I'm like, okay, well, when you send that that almost two hundred dollar product,

Angie (08:19)
Mm-hmm.

JoJo (08:20)
that's going to last that person fifteen to eighteen months. So there's no repeat purchase on that. so when she says she's hemorrhaging money, it's not just on the cost of that one item going out. It's on the implication of all the months ahead.

Angie (08:34)
All the months ahead.

JoJo (08:35)
Plus we've disappointed people 'cause they waited forever.

Angie (08:37)
And yeah, like you're already feeling bad. You're like, Oh

JoJo (08:40)
Mm-hmm.

Angie (08:40)
no, but I don't have any control over this and so

Yeah. So anyway, so JoJo does call me and on that Friday morning and I was like, This

JoJo (08:50)
I can't even remember why. I must have checked in.

Angie (08:52)
I don't know, you probably had some spidey sense that I was dying. So

JoJo (08:55)
Yeah.

Angie (08:56)
so we had you helped me and I just said, This is what I'm doing and you didn't seem to think it was a bad idea. So I

JoJo (09:03)
No,

no. I thought as long as it's communicated, we're fine. Like what

Angie (09:07)
Yes.

JoJo (09:08)
like what's happening.

Angie (09:09)
Yes. And so I do that. I get it all done and like I kind of get in the groove of shipping. And you know, some people are unhappy. And it's so funny. I got an email from someone who was like, I wish you would have checked with me first. And I'm like, I I will send you the product you ordered. I just literally gave you this free thing. This free thing in the meantime.

so it was really hard when people were upset by that. Most people weren't. And here's the thing. Most people

JoJo (09:37)
And some of that came

from misunderstanding. Like that one took a few back and forths to get to a place of understanding. Like that it's the same product.

Angie (09:44)
What is Yeah.

JoJo (09:46)
we're talking in code here a little bit 'cause, we don't want to throw our distributor under the bus. the amount of time too was also a money suck. 'Cause it 'cause it didn't end with Angie.

sending that out. That just created a new spiral of events and and product going to the wrong place. Not you sending product to the wrong place. I think the distributor sent some product there and then didn't update the address because by the time we were getting these, I was back,

Angie (10:12)
Yeah.

JoJo (10:12)
which was not supposed to happen. So I had given them a different address to ship it was it was a mess. A mess.

Angie (10:17)
And then I had

used all this other product and didn't take it out of inventory. And Josh was probably like, okay, Angie

JoJo (10:22)
Right, right. we're catching

up. I'm like, I'm like just we're getting there. We're getting we're getting right side up again. Because I'm like, okay, wait a minute. Like we only have like five of these and usually we have like thirty-five on hand, you know. So it's just been and subscriptions don't process if we don't have the product in stock.

Angie (10:43)
Mm.

JoJo (10:44)
And so I think that's part of why I got

Like I think I got like some kind of notification, like like three products were out of stock, which means people can't order them. And I'm like, I know I ordered that. It's it's a

Angie (10:53)
Right.

JoJo (10:54)
mess in my inbox of like I'm having to reconcile, like, okay, I did order this. I don't even know. Like I got another

Angie (11:02)
Yeah.

JoJo (11:02)
box this week of like, wait, I thought that's the stuff I just had you get from your clinic that your clinic accidentally unpacked. Yeah.

Angie (11:08)
Yeah, so uh it came to Boulders

Natural because we didn't want anyone stealing it off of my porch because I'm at work all day.

JoJo (11:14)
Yeah.

Angie (11:15)
And so she sent it to Boulders Natural and Boulders Natural, so it's it's g goes to Boulder Holistic Vet, which they're they're gonna be like, Oh, it's from this distributor. We get this distributor too. And so they just unpacked

JoJo (11:27)
Mm-hmm.

Angie (11:27)
our order. So I had to go in the evening and be like, Nope, this is ours. And like, yeah.

JoJo (11:32)
On a Saturday, I was like, hey, you have

to go back to your clinic and get these because we actually need to fill orders. I mean, poor Angie has been through it. But then I think it's hard to go through it and then also receive shade on the other end. And not only

Angie (11:47)
Yeah.

JoJo (11:47)
that, but I feel a bit gas-lit by the distributor if somebody is moving your product for a decade.

Angie (11:56)
Yes.

JoJo (11:58)
Keep them in the loop. Don't make them keep asking what is happening.

Angie (12:02)
Right. Right. Yeah.

JoJo (12:04)
That

that makes me so mad. I felt so disappointed. And not only that, but they also have changed two of our best selling products. And they don't have the new product out yet. And the product that we have was expiring. So we've had to contact every person on subscription for those products, discount the pricing, run out of product and not have a replacement product.

Angie (12:25)
Stress.

JoJo (12:26)
It's like so and we were just getting and it's like this happens to us. We get in this really good groove with this really good

Angie (12:32)
Mm.

JoJo (12:33)
trajectory. We're like, whoa, Angie is happening. I'm like, I'm so proud of the little graph and I'm so proud of all the greens and no reds and like it's like yay, everybody's happy, everybody's everything's smooth sailing, and then something totally out of our control.

Angie (12:53)
Yeah. I mean that had to have easily cost me, what do you think, like fifteen hundred bucks?

JoJo (12:58)
more.

Angie (12:59)
Two thousand.

JoJo (13:00)
I'm thinking how much I mean my whole week went to cleaning it up.

Angie (13:04)
That's true. Yeah. Yeah. It was just like, but and I think the hard part is like I feel so loyal. Like I I don't do shipping very often. But when I do, like I recognize a lot of the names. And I can be

JoJo (13:16)
Mm-hmm.

Angie (13:16)
like, yeah, this person has been ordering this product for the last seven years. You know, and so it's like I feel really dedicated to getting people their stuff. And

JoJo (13:29)
we are

so committed to making sure that you are pleased in in every way. Because it 'cause it matters. It it matters.

Angie (13:37)
It matters. Yeah.

JoJo (13:38)
Your pet matters, that they get their stuff on time matters, that you get what you paid for, that you have access to information. All of that matters. And sometimes

Angie (13:47)
Yeah. Um it matters a

lot to us and we we don't want to mess it up and we're always so sorry.

JoJo (13:56)
I think we're still gonna have some trickle down from that for sure. 'Cause

Angie (13:59)
Yeah.

JoJo (14:00)
the next one is up for expiration. It's just it's messy.

Angie (14:04)
So then

we're like, we need to start making our own stuff.

JoJo (14:09)
Yeah, we've talked about that for years.

Angie (14:11)
And now I think it's time, but why does this always happen when everything else is a mess? My everything's a mess. And your dad is dying.

JoJo (14:21)
Well, don't you think that life is probably just always a mess? I don't know, but this time, this time was the worst. I I felt

Angie (14:25)
But is it it's the worst?

JoJo (14:29)
so bad being away. I was like that.

Angie (14:32)
I know you did. I know you did.

JoJo (14:34)
It was like the worst thing that's ever happened in e-commerce history. And Angie's in the I mean, it's not. I think we had one time where like everything is shut down. Do you remember that? And it's always on a

Angie (14:44)
Yes, when we lost our processing.

JoJo (14:47)
yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was always on a Friday. Like everything

Angie (14:49)
Yeah.

JoJo (14:50)
was.

happen on a Friday. And when there's two of you, it's like, okay, you ha you have no choice but to to dive in and fix. Like this

Angie (14:56)
Right. Yeah.

JoJo (14:58)
is what we have to do. It's okay. But both of us were like, I quit. I quit.

Angie (15:02)
Yeah.

We're like, dang, tap out. Yeah.

JoJo (15:04)
Because I don't know how to fix it when it's somebody else's problem.

Angie (15:07)
You can't and and you don't know and like when there's not the communication, you don't really know what to tell people and and you wanna be honest with them and they keep telling yeah.

JoJo (15:17)
And have them

still have trust in us after all is said and done.

Angie (15:22)
Right.

JoJo (15:23)
because now we have the product and the wrong date is stamped on it. So

Angie (15:27)
Yeah.

JoJo (15:28)
I have taken it upon myself to go to FedEx and print out little things, but I also felt gaslit in that process. Cause it now it has a manufacturing date on the bottom. So if you look at the bottom, you probably think, Well, when does this expire? Because there's no expiration date on it. And

Angie (15:43)
They just didn't stamp one.

JoJo (15:44)
so, because I have integrity, I'm like, you have to know that.

So otherwise I'm gonna get not just integrity, I'm gonna get 180 emails of like, when does this expire? And it's gonna be two years from now and I'm not gonna know. So it's like,

Angie (15:57)
Right. I know.

JoJo (15:59)
so I've like printed all these like really nice little things off to go in each package. And so I felt good to say out loud all of that, because that was a lot. And that's not even all of it. That's just some of it.

Angie (16:11)
That's just some of it. So now we're on the move. And I've kind of always wanted to do this anyways because I have some thoughts about how I want my supplements to be. So I'm like, my gosh, we should just go make our own. Which

JoJo (16:26)
Yeah.

Angie (16:27)
feels like a very like fun and daunting. Daunting task.

JoJo (16:33)
Hmm. You know

what felt fun about it though is when we started talking about it, just recognizing the relationships we've created in the industry. So you're like, okay, yeah,

Angie (16:42)
Yeah. Yeah.

JoJo (16:43)
I can talk to these people. I'm like, okay, and I can talk to these people. Like maybe there's something there. And yeah, I don't know. I just want to say, go ahead. You're gonna say something. You say it.

Angie (16:54)
I'm

gonna say something. Well, I w because we're excited to maybe like make our own hemp product. But just as we get excited about that, we've got the legislation that's coming down that might alter that. And so

JoJo (17:12)
Mm.

Angie (17:12)
once again, once again, as a small business, this administration makes my life a million times harder.

JoJo (17:21)
Mm.

Angie (17:22)
Once again, I'm like, why? Why? Why do we need to make it harder for small business? I just I don't understand. I didn't understand the tariffs. Why would we do that? That made it harder for us. That made everything more expensive for us.

JoJo (17:33)
Expensive?

Angie (17:34)
Yeah. And then, you know, it's like then gas prices are like everything's higher. And now to legislate CBD.

It's

just like and they keep pushing it out. So right now they're like, okay, well, this is gonna take effect in December. And everyone's just hoping they're gonna come in and fix it. But in the meantime, I'm annoyed because then I'm like, well, I probably shouldn't get something going. Cause maybe we want full spectrum, but we won't be able to use full spectrum because it's got trace amounts of THC. But that's what I want for a cat. Like if I can design my own thing.

That's what I'm putting in there. And so I

JoJo (18:14)
Yeah, that's it and it's so frustrating because I don't even understand there I I should look at this. I wonder what the money backing those bills are or those processes, because also we're on the flip side pushing and advocating for psilocybin treatments. And I'm like, How are those getting moved forward? And C B D's going backwards. I don't even understand the rationale.

Angie (18:36)
I don't know, because I think like the MAGA movement. Well, I d I actually don't know what RFK Junior like I don't know what their their stance is on C B D. Like you would think that would

JoJo (18:50)
Yeah.

Angie (18:50)
be something that they would support. I'm not MAGA, so I don't know.

JoJo (18:52)
Well I

I thought our president stood on the podium and talked about taking C B D.

Angie (18:59)
No, did he really?

JoJo (19:00)
I thought it's something. Who knows? But

Angie (19:03)
Yeah.

JoJo (19:03)
and speaking of that, we, you know, again, we are really small business and we've tried to build it. It's your business. And when I say we, it's just the part I've been process of. when we switched over, we got really in integrity about the environment and stuff. And we've had business professionals be like, nobody cares about that. That's not going to move your business.

And so I started looking like, okay, well, maybe we should stop spending so much money on our eco-friendly packaging. And, we buy it locally. you order it and it's box to curb, all of it's recyclable, all the way down to the label that we put on your box and the tape we put on your box, like the glue on those things, all of it's environmentally friendly. And we've thought through all of that. And then like, well, maybe we go back to Uline, and I will just name Uline.

And then I looked up where their money goes and they contribute to the super PACs of this administration. And I don't want to be part of that. And it was just so easy to tell you that because you're like, yeah, we're not doing that. So we

Angie (19:58)
yeah.

JoJo (19:58)
so we keep eating into our profits in ways because out of integrity.

Angie (20:02)
Yes.

JoJo (20:03)
And we haven't raised the prices on people, even though we now pay shipping fees and processing fees and things have gone

Angie (20:10)
Mm.

JoJo (20:11)
up. We have not raised our prices.

Angie (20:13)
No, no, we haven't because we're really like trying to make things more affordable. Everything's

JoJo (20:19)
Mm-hmm.

Angie (20:19)
so expensive. And so yeah, man, small business. We need a hug. Someone needs to come hug us.

JoJo (20:24)
It's hard. It is hard. And I don't think Angie's

getting like we don't have like health insurance or like 401k. I mean, I just

Angie (20:35)
Yeah.

JoJo (20:37)
wonder what people think is happening over here. Like we're like, woo, it's raining money. And we're like, or are we just out here serving and making enough to to live on.

Angie (20:49)
Right. Exactly. Yeah. Not it's it's all really tight. And then something like this happens and you're like, well, there were profits for a while. And uh

JoJo (21:00)
And I love it.

Angie (21:03)
Yeah. Yeah. I know. I mean, I'm gonna keep going. I'm in it. I'm in it to win it. Except for that day I wanted to quit. Um, I wasn't in it to win it that day, but Oh

JoJo (21:12)
You're allowed to have days that you want to quit.

Angie (21:14)
God. And you know what? I haven't that was the worst. I've never

JoJo (21:18)
I

didn't even know. Yeah.

Angie (21:20)
No. Well, I wasn't gonna tell

you. I wasn't gonna be like, by the way, I'm about ready to shut this whole thing down. But I really felt I was like, how do I turn off the website?

JoJo (21:28)
Yeah.

Angie (21:29)
Can I go into Shopify and just click off? Um,

JoJo (21:33)
Totally. You could.

Angie (21:36)
I mean, no, I

JoJo (21:37)
Right, you didn't.

Angie (21:38)
I no, I don't really want to do that. I love what we do. But I think it's just pushing us to do the next thing.

But I don't know. I'm like, are we ready to do the next thing? And I don't know if you're ever ready to do the next thing.

JoJo (21:52)
The podcast was the next thing. And we're like

Angie (21:54)
Yeah, we did it.

JoJo (21:55)
eighty episodes in.

Angie (21:57)
My gosh, that's so amazing.

JoJo (22:00)
I don't know that it what it's bought us, but I love the face to face time. I love the conversations. I love the emails that come in.

Angie (22:07)
Yeah. I know. and people listen to it. I have clients in the practice that they're like we listen to all of it and we we really appreciate it. And so I think we are making some difference. But I actually really like it and we're not producing this because we're like, we're gonna, monetize this.

JoJo (22:24)
Be rich and famous. But we could have

tons of interesting conversations and it really make it for me, it really keeps me engaged in veterinary medicine and thinking like what's happening for people, what's up

Angie (22:35)
Yeah.

JoJo (22:36)
and coming.

Angie (22:36)
maybe everyone can tell me what they think about if I think we should make our own stuff, Jojo.

Let's just make our own stuff.

JoJo (22:47)
What a project that would be. We could video it along the way. That'd be so fun.

Angie (22:52)
Yeah, what do I need to know? I know the active ingredients I want. The I would need formulators to help.

JoJo (22:58)
Uh-huh.

Angie (22:59)
with some of the science piece. And then of course with cats, you're always like, how do I get my cat to eat this and like this? But with the with hemp, I that I feel much more confident. I feel really confident in creating hemp. and we we have a couple contacts of people that are are making it. but I'm kind of just waiting for this thing to happen in December.

Like I felt

JoJo (23:18)
Yeah.

Angie (23:18)
so stressed about it that I was like, I had to, between your dad dying and my girlfriend's dad dying, I was like, okay, we just have to like get through this year, we see what happens legally, and

JoJo (23:31)
Mm-hmm.

Angie (23:32)
then we can see when the snow globe s settles, like, what are we dealing with?

JoJo (23:37)
Well, that's true. I think we can do that. We can aim for Q one. So now you guys are just in our business planning meeting. This is

Angie (23:41)
Yeah, I know.

JoJo (23:42)
what this is what these look like. I think we can do that for Q one because we did what we set out to do this year, a lot of it. We didn't

Angie (23:49)
Yeah, we did.

JoJo (23:49)
we didn't do every course that we wanted.

Angie (23:52)
No, we didn't.

JoJo (23:53)
We got but we did three.

Angie (23:54)
I didn't know I was gonna be a cheer mom. I didn't know my

JoJo (23:57)
Yeah, that's true.

Angie (24:00)
my I didn't know she was gonna try out for a to be a cheerleader and then be one. Like I was just like, what is going on? She loves it, but it's a lot.

JoJo (24:06)
Yeah. Yeah.

Angie (24:08)
It takes up a lot of my time.

JoJo (24:11)
Yeah, but

I think we've done a lot of what we set out to do. And

Angie (24:14)
Yeah.

JoJo (24:14)
so I think we can we can celebrate that. And I

Angie (24:18)
Yeah.

JoJo (24:18)
like doing this podcast a lot.

Angie (24:20)
I love this podcast.

JoJo (24:22)
Yeah, it's super fun. I still love shipping. I think we need to look at our product line. Not just like

Angie (24:28)
Yeah.

JoJo (24:28)
making our own, but maybe there's some like what do people want to buy?

Angie (24:31)
Well, I mean,

after talking to Rob last week, I'm excited because he sent me the book. So I've got the book. And

JoJo (24:38)
Mm. The book is there's a mushroom for that.

Angie (24:41)
there's a mushroom for that. And it's like, I've done a lot of research into mushrooms, but what Rob Silver does so nicely is that he makes it super applicable to dogs and cats. And so I I think I'm gonna learn a lot. And

I actually started using them in practice a little bit more. Um

JoJo (25:00)
Yeah. Well,

we're now carrying the Daily Dawg I set up that product

Angie (25:02)
Yeah.

JoJo (25:03)
yesterday because he convinced me that that's something that I want on our shelves. Yeah. The daily

Angie (25:07)
feel like every dog should be on it now. Like, yeah. Um

JoJo (25:12)
dog, the functional feline. And when he talked about what made it so palatable, I like to refer to Dr. Rob Silver as a kind of a little bit of a mad scientist. Like I know that he's out there figuring out what's gonna work and why. Like,

Angie (25:24)
Yeah.

JoJo (25:25)
not just like

Doo-doo doo like a little witch's brew. But like this works with this

Angie (25:29)
Yeah.

JoJo (25:29)
because of this, and this is why we're combining it all. And so I'm excited about having those.

Angie (25:33)
Well, the other thing I wanna get back into a little bit more is I wanna do more herbs. I'm really missing herbs in practice and I'm actually missing herbs for myself. Like I recently just became like allergic to everything I put on my hair. And so my scalp suddenly really allergic, and then my eyes were like allergic to the dye that my optometrist used. Anyways, I'd really like to kind of settle things down.

And it made me want to go to Rebecca's apothecary. Have you ever been up there in Boulder?

JoJo (26:01)
Yeah,

I I went up there once. You sent me up there to like put a concoction together once for a skin ailment for a dog. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Angie (26:06)
Yeah, like I need to get back to that version of Dr.

Angie that's doing that stuff.

I kind of want to start making some like salves and I don't know. I need to start drinking more teas and doing more stuff like that. And it may I miss it for the animals too. I'm I'm missing that.

JoJo (26:23)
And I think I want to

like create a space too for for the end of life. Like that's really been a I

Angie (26:28)
Yeah.

JoJo (26:29)
like the senior dog space

Angie (26:33)
Yeah.

JoJo (26:33)
and the quality of life end of life space. And I think people get left behind there. So I think there's something we could do there.

Angie (26:40)
They do.

They do. Yeah. I think it's like, well, we can put your dog on carprofen and then gabapentin. And then it's kind of like, okay, well, that was it. And there's

JoJo (26:49)
Yeah.

Angie (26:50)
so much more that we're missing. So

JoJo (26:52)
Uh-huh.

Angie (26:53)
that could be a fun next year's project. Like, what do they need? And of course I wanna make them like some kind of salve that they don't need, but I'm I just wanna you remember Rachel? So you used to work We

JoJo (27:03)
I was gonna say, can we have Rachel on? 'Cause she would be interesting to talk about herbs with.

Angie (27:06)
She I asked her to be honest. She's like, I'm never gonna do that.

JoJo (27:09)
Really? She she sh

Angie (27:10)
I was like

JoJo (27:11)
why? She would be good in the space.

Angie (27:13)
I know. Well, she used to tell me earlier on in our career, she's like, I just want to grow herbs and prescribe them. And that's kind of what she did. She just moved out

JoJo (27:20)
I believe that. Mm-hmm.

Angie (27:22)
into the fairy forest. She's

JoJo (27:24)
Mm-hmm.

Angie (27:25)
a great herbalist. She's better than me. So I'm like, I want to get back on the herbs. Cause when I was pregnant with Maeve and I was so sick, we were taking this like herbal, this, I think we were gonna get like a master's in herbal, whatever. And I didn't finish it because was so sick.

She finished hers and part of me's like,

JoJo (27:41)
Hmm, what would it look like to finish it?

Angie (27:43)
I know. And I'm like, I just need the herbs. It needs to feel like more integrative. I think I've been in a different headspace. And so, anyways, I now we're just getting into our wish list of like, let's make things. Let's make some potions, Jojo.

JoJo (27:56)
Well,

I'm gonna say and Rachel always had staff go on an annual retreat. That they yeah. Yeah, I think we should retreat.

Angie (28:02)
Going on a retreat. We should

go on a retreat. We should take and this I was talking about this earlier. We need to get a girl gang of of dog and cat people. We're having Brooke Fagel on and Megan Painter. Brooke is a trainer and Megan Painter is a veterinary dermatologist. And I'm pretty sure I'm obsessed with both of them.

JoJo (28:23)
my gosh, what if we did like a retreat where it's like, okay, I want Dr. Fowler. If I if I'm picking my cool girl club, Dr. Dr. Fowler,

Angie (28:28)
Yes. Yes.

JoJo (28:32)
you, I'm gonna put myself in the cool girl club. Brooke Fagel, Dr.

Angie (28:34)
You are in the Cool Girl Club. Yeah.

JoJo (28:37)
Painter Rachel. we need another nurse.

Angie (28:39)
Yes. Yes. Let's find one.

JoJo (28:43)
a Go

Angie (28:44)
But I also have a

a a veterinary crush on who's the behavior lady. I always send you her reels and you never know why I'm sending them to you.

JoJo (28:51)
I don't know

anybody's name. I'm terrible at names. You know what? I learned this

Angie (28:54)
I think is she on Long Island? Is she the Long Island?

JoJo (28:57)
thing that I don't retain names because it's actually like a super gift because I actually just more care about you. So if if you give me your name, that means nothing to me. But I'll know things about you.

Angie (29:07)
I care about your essence.

Yeah. Yeah. Well

JoJo (29:13)
I don't know, but you also send me a lot of things and I'm like, don't see them for like two months and I'm like, what am I supposed to do with this? What does this mean? She just sends me something,

Angie (29:18)
I know. I'm like

JoJo (29:19)
I'm like, what what what does she want me to know about this? So I'm always messaging her back, I'm like, what did you want me to know about this? So

Angie (29:23)
I mostly want

I want them on the podcast most of the time. I'm

JoJo (29:29)
Yeah.

Angie (29:29)
like, we need to talk to her. Cause there's all these great women in oh, the internist. The that the guy that's the internist. my god, I love him.

JoJo (29:39)
Yeah, I l I like him a lot.

Angie (29:42)
He's so snarky and I love it so much. Yes. Yeah, I'm yes.

JoJo (29:44)
Yeah, I love some snark. Sn I really do. Even when it's aimed at us, which

a lot of the time it is.

Angie (29:55)
I know. Well, cause so yeah, sometimes they'll say stuff and I'm like, guilty. But one thing he said.

JoJo (30:01)
like

Rob Silver with metronidazole

Angie (30:03)
I know.

JoJo (30:04)
I was like, um it's only in my medicine cabinet. But I felt a whole lot of guilt and like maybe I should reevaluate that. Which is why I love these conversations

Angie (30:17)
Yes.

JoJo (30:18)
because I'm not opposed to changing.

Angie (30:22)
Well, I've been telling Dr. Brockman, I'm like, it I just am in this time where I need to learn a bunch of more stuff. And so

JoJo (30:27)
Yeah.

Angie (30:27)
everything that was not grammatically correct, but I I just elementary school grammar. I also need to learn

JoJo (30:32)
Like elementary school grammar. Yeah.

Angie (30:37)
that. But I I feel like I'm taking all of my medical decisions and I'm now putting them under scrutiny of like, it is this the most up to date thing I could do? Am I doing the right thing? Cause we get into our ruts.

JoJo (30:51)
Uh-huh.

Angie (30:51)
And so

while I'm doing that, I'm thinking, Could I be using an herb? And now, after talking with Rob, I'm like, Could I be using a mushroom too? Could we be using some more plant medicine? So

JoJo (31:02)
So next

year also, and mine's more techie I

Angie (31:05)
Yeah.

JoJo (31:05)
really want to understand how I can develop business better. Because I think there are so

Angie (31:09)
Mm.

JoJo (31:10)
many easier ways to do the things I'm doing, but I'm so stuck in the like, well, this is what it takes. And I

Angie (31:17)
Right.

JoJo (31:18)
think there's probably a whole bunch of better ways to do this.

Angie (31:21)
Like our Instagram, you're like, We need to hire a social media manager.

JoJo (31:24)
Yeah, guys.

Go well, that's because I post things that I think are fantastic content. And I heard you today, which I'm gonna ask you about later. About like, well, this is the first one I actually liked. I was

Angie (31:35)
Ha ha

JoJo (31:36)
like, she's like Angie goes, we should maybe start making our own clips. I'm like, I made all those clips, Angie. And this is what I love about us, is like we've always had this very um direct relationship.

Well, that didn't bother me. I'm like I'm not like gonna go into my shame hole of like, wow, she hasn't liked anything I put out. But whatever,

Angie (31:57)
No, that's

JoJo (31:58)
for whatever reasons today, it's just like, whoa, people like this. And I don't understand the difference.

Angie (32:04)
I think it was because you started with a statistic. The hook was good. It was a statistic.

JoJo (32:09)
Yeah. But I feel like I've had other good hooks of like

Angie (32:14)
Apparently not as good as that one. And I think that social media, I used to play the social media game and now I just don't. I just we just post things and I don't really care. And

JoJo (32:24)
Well, I post it

'cause I need it for the newsletter. So then I'm like, Well, I may as well post it everywhere.

Angie (32:28)
You might as well. And like if you really want to get into trends, then you can do really well on social. But I I do think our meta accounts have been I don't we have a lot of marks against us because we kept running ads with hemp. I

JoJo (32:42)
Yeah.

Angie (32:42)
mean, it was a long time ago and they kept shutting down our ads account, I have to imagine. And maybe that's just my excuse. And maybe our content's not good and no one wants to see it and whatever, it doesn't meet whatever.

JoJo (32:51)
I do wonder,

like, do we have to like go do all the cuts and edits and all the all the fun things? Like the one that performed the very best was when we did the trend around Ivermectin, when I'm like, hey, why don't you make a video about Ivermectin and how everybody's using it for COVID? And

Angie (33:07)
yeah.

JoJo (33:08)
that was when but that's meant being on trend.

Angie (33:11)
Right. And that's hard. It's a full time job to stay up with that and to but and you know.

JoJo (33:18)
I can't even make a tile for our podcast.

Angie (33:22)
Well you can, but do you choose to use your time for that? You

JoJo (33:26)
I don't have the time for that.

Angie (33:28)
produce an entire podcast every single week and you've never missed it.

JoJo (33:31)
Yeah. I know I have never missed it.

Angie (33:35)
Never missed it one time. So it's like you

JoJo (33:37)
Yeah, but

I feel like we need a new front image if we're talking about dreams. New front image. Like

Angie (33:42)
Okay, let's do it.

JoJo (33:43)
what's gonna make people click on us? Because I want you to click on us not because I want to be liked. I want you to click on us because I think there's good content in here.

Angie (33:51)
Yeah. Well, what do you think was different about our reel today?

JoJo (33:54)
That people are mad

at the veterinary industry and we said it out loud.

Angie (33:58)
Yeah, yeah. Maybe that's

JoJo (34:00)
I think the veterinary

industry might be mad at us for being like, yeah, there's a problem in the

Angie (34:02)
Mm.

JoJo (34:03)
veterin industry. Because people hate us right now. And I'm not exaggerating, people hate us right now. Not us, the industry.

Angie (34:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, people hate veterinarians right now. I agree with that. I yeah.

JoJo (34:15)
And in parts I blame us. And in other parts I'm like, come on, you guys, and maybe this is because everything is so public anymore. Like I saw that comment about well, don't kill a dog then when you were supposed to euthanize a cat. And I was like, what is this person talking about? And apparently there's a clinic that you euthanized the wrong animal. And I'm like, Well, how did they do that? That seems problematic.

Angie (34:31)
Yeah.

JoJo (34:35)
not only

The wrong animal, the wrong species. was nobody in the room when that was happening? Like what happened?

Angie (34:40)
Right. And I've never seen anything like that happen. that's

JoJo (34:43)
But it's just another place where we're inept

and charging too much and

Angie (34:49)
Right.

we do charge more, but everything costs more. It

JoJo (34:52)
Yeah, it

not like a game that everybody's playing to be more rich.

But here we are thirty eight minutes later again.

Angie (34:59)
I know well we needed to catch up and we've told everyone our story.

JoJo (35:01)
Yeah. And we're

sorry if something fell through the cracks and always reach out to us.

Angie (35:06)
I'm so sorry. Yeah.

JoJo (35:10)
You will always get a response, I promise.

Angie (35:12)
We're so eager. We're like golden retrievers. We want to fix it. Like I want you to be happy. I want you to have your information. I want you to Please don't do that.

JoJo (35:19)
And you don't need to give us a two star review to to get that from

us. if you just started with us, I promise you you'll get what you want.

Angie (35:26)
The way that bums me out when someone was like, I'm gonna give you a two-star review because something with the packaging, you're like, I would love to fix that problem for you. Like,

JoJo (35:33)
Which again same distributor.

Angie (35:35)
yeah, I know. I would love to fix that for you. And I wanna take responsibility for that. But instead of leaving me a two-star review, would you be willing to just reach out? Can I make it right?

JoJo (35:47)
Yeah.

Angie (35:47)
And maybe people are so used to there isn't someone on the other end of the email the text, the call.

But there is here. If

you email us, we're gonna email you back. If you text us, we're gonna text you back. reach out. Reach out. Email us.

JoJo (36:02)
Yeah, email us. Info

at Boulder HolisticVet dot com. Go to boulderholistic vet dot com, check out what we're doing. Tell us what

Angie (36:09)
Yeah.

JoJo (36:10)
you'd like to see more of.

Angie (36:11)
Speaking of that, other things we're doing I really like and that I want to do more of. is my consultations. I guess are my. I want to do more of those. I want to do more consultations I really enjoy meeting with people. And you can go to boulder holistic vet dot com and you can click

Book a consultation and Jojo's gonna get all your pets records. You and I are gonna meet on Zoom. I'll have reviewed everything ahead of time. We're gonna hang out for 45 minutes and put together a plan. If we don't use all of the time, we're gonna refund you. We just book 45 minutes because some people think that they can do it in less time. And oftentimes we can't. But if we can, because sometimes I'll get on these calls and I'll be like, this is a five-minute problem. Jojo will refund the rest. I've got this. And so

sometimes I can get things squared away pretty quickly. but book a consultation, those are really, really helpful for people.

JoJo (37:03)
Well that's where you're in your gold, in my opinion.

Angie (37:06)
Yeah.

JoJo (37:06)
I've seen it. I get the privilege of watching every single one. So

Angie (37:10)
Yeah.

JoJo (37:11)
don't say bad things about me in consultations.

Angie (37:13)
I know.

JoJo (37:17)
Never happened. I don't know why I said that. Just being silly.

Angie (37:17)
No one has You're like, I'm listening.

JoJo (37:22)
but Angie is in her gold in that space. And I think that people feel really, really grounded leaving those.

Angie (37:30)
I can get you organized. That's one thing I can do. I can like assess the situation and get you organized. Here are your next steps, here are your next ideas, and we can get really creative. And we often do get really creative on those.

JoJo (37:38)
Yeah. Yeah,

I like to say she helps you create a care plan that's really aligned for you and your pet. 'Cause

Angie (37:44)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

JoJo (37:45)
a lot of people are not getting that from their veterinarian.

Angie (37:48)
No, their vet doesn't have time.

JoJo (37:50)
Okay. Support small business.

Angie (37:51)
Okay. Well,

support small business. And uh

JoJo (37:55)
We need to be done.

Angie (37:56)
leave us leave us a review. Like make it five stars. We need a hug. Okay. Bye. Thanks. Bye bye.

JoJo (38:01)
Yeah. Buy products. Keep us in business.

Buy all.