Ep 78 - ThisVetCan do anything she sets her mind to! featuring Dr. Alice Barker

Have you ever wondered how to broach the sensitive subject of salary negotiations in veterinary medicine? Our episode peels back the layers on this under-discussed topic, revealing practical strategies and pivotal preparations for securing a salary that reflects your true worth. We unravel the intricacies of recognizing your contributions to a practice's success and the subtle art of turning this awareness into a more gratifying compensation package. For anyone poised to step into a new role or poised for recognition in their current position, this segment is loaded with actionable advice.

The narrative shifts to championing women in the trenches of investing and negotiation, stressing the significance of early and consistent investment practices over attempting to time the market. We delve into the changing financial landscape that's opening doors for women, with tools and personal recommendations. Stay connected with the pulse of financial and mental wellbeing in veterinary careers by following Alice on Instagram at @thisvetcan_blog and exploring her insights at thisvetcan.co.uk.
(One example of her great blog posts is "How to Ace Salary Negotiation"!)
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Resources we mentioned...
-Her First 100K
-Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
-Your Juno Financial Education app
-@girlsthatinvest and their book!
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Transcript

Stacey Cordivano: 0:07

Do you feel like it's possible to find joy and positive change within veterinary medicine? Are you looking for a community that's striving for fulfillment rather than perfection? Hey there, I'm Dr Stacey Cordivano. I want veterinarians to learn to be happier, healthier, wealthier and more grateful for the lives that we've created. On this podcast, I will speak with outside-of-the-box thinkers to hear new ideas on ways to improve our day-to-day lives. Welcome to the whole veterinarian Today. I'm so excited to share with you my conversation with Dr Alice Barker.

Stacey Cordivano: 0:50

Alice is a diversified vet out of the UK. She used to be an equine practice and now is working in the tech sector. She is a self-proclaimed personal finance nerd and you can find her or you may know her from Instagram, as this vet can blog. She describes herself as a brainstorming, creative thinking, mental health prioritizing veterinarian. She wants to form a community with this vet can to help other veterinary professionals who don't necessarily want to stick to the vet status quo. Like her, she wants to be able to connect people who want better working environments, who want lunch breaks and want free time, and who care about themselves, their career and their finances as well as others. She's a delightful human being. I'm so glad to have gotten to know her and I hope you enjoy our chat today. I think there's lots of great nuggets to take away.

Platinum Performance: 1:44

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Stacey Cordivano: 2:01

Hey Alice, how are you? Hello, I'm great. Thank you. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for being here with me today. I'm so glad that we're finally doing this.

Alice Barker: 2:11

I know it's been we're just saying before way too long since we last spoke, so really excited yeah.

Stacey Cordivano: 2:16

No, I know we were chatting about how it's been like two years since we first had a Zoom together after becoming Instagram friends, so I'm glad that you're here with me today. So let's tell listeners a little bit more about you and your story and your kind of evolution.

Alice Barker: 2:35

My evolution? Yeah, sure, so, alice. I graduated vet school in 2018 and became an equine vet very soon after. So I worked in New Zealand and then came back to the UK. I worked in Scotland and then just in Angolaisu practice for a little while during lockdown and after, and I met Stacy in 2021, which is crazy and at that time I'd basically been isolated because I had COVID and I got really bored and started a blog because of that, and at the time, my real interests were just like workplace wellbeing and a lot of my sort of one of those funny, weird interests that you just happened to pick up in lockdown also happened to be personal finance.

Alice Barker: 3:24

I'd like lots of people saved up a bit of money because they weren't doing anything in lockdown and it started to try and work out what am I going to do with this money, like, how does it work now? I'd always wanted to invest, but it just seemed so impossible and complicated and scary. So I just read as much as I possibly could. I'd listened to loads of podcasts and just got totally hooked and therefore sort of started writing about that on my blog quite a lot and again started my Instagram and started talking about that on Instagram too. So, although it was like financial wellbeing was part of what I was talking about, I was talking about mental health, mental wellbeing in practice, taking breaks, taking lunch breaks, finishing on time. But then have just started going more and more down the personal finance route because I just find it super interesting and it's great to see veterinary community really engage with that kind of content too.

Stacey Cordivano: 4:19

Yeah, no, it's been great and what you've shared and sort of how you've niched down into that has been really interesting to watch. So I know that you are in a new role now and I'm curious how that transition from equine ambulatory vet went for you.

Alice Barker: 4:38

Sure. So I think it was the beginning of last year I really wasn't very happy in my role and it took a lot of sort of thinking through and a bit of shame that I wasn't very happy in clinical practice, worked with a coach for a little bit just to try and work out what I wanted, which was so helpful. Thank you very much. Trying to basically decide is it, is it this job that I'm in right now, or is it just me and actually do I want to mean completely different? And then it moved towards finding something, and the process of finding a job outside clinical practice was all so new to me and probably for lots of vets, very similar. It's just totally different outside of practice.

Alice Barker: 5:24

So talk to loads of people and I think the best part of that and the thing that made it the easiest was just talking to and reaching out to as many vets that had made that transition before. I just made a point of trying to basically book a call with people almost every day that I saw I had Tuesdays off from pretty much June last year and so every single Tuesday I'd try and book a call with someone and speak to them, find out what they were doing? How did they do it? Do they have to do any more qualifications to get there? And it really just opened up a world of roles that you just don't know existed because you've been in your vet tunnel since you were about 16. And eventually found this role after quite a long time of job searching and really excited with where I am working for, a really cool vet tech company called Digital Practice, and it's pretty exciting.

Stacey Cordivano: 6:16

That's awesome. So, okay, you kind of glossed over the fact that it was a really hard transition and there was like a little bit of shame.

Stacey Cordivano: 6:23

I imagine that took a little bit more effort than that because I've talked to enough people and even toying with it myself when I was feeling really burnt out, I mean that is a big deal because, like you said, we've been thinking we were going to do the same thing since we were little kids, and so was there something that you can point out in that like introspective journey that was the most helpful for you for changing your frame of mind of like it's not just this practice, it's it's me not fitting into the role of an ambulatory vet.

Alice Barker: 7:00

Yeah, I think I mean you're totally right.

Alice Barker: 7:03

It took a very long time and there was a lot of soul searching, talking and going just through the whole process.

Alice Barker: 7:10

I think what the coach I worked with pointed out was that when you decide to be a vet and you do all your work experience, you start applying to vet school. You're so young and then like what, 11 years later you're such a different person and it's very okay to have very different priorities, very different interests and it's fine to have a different idea of what you want to do the rest of your life. 11 years later you're totally different and even obviously from now, 11 years later, after I don't know 11 years time, I'm probably going to be very different still, but from a 16 year old to now is very different. So that whole idea of what I want to be on 16 and not working out is actually pretty normal and very few people manage to get that lucky. Like have the idea at 16 and then it actually working out is kind of crazy, like most people are asking for, like a policeman, and it's like it might not be exactly what you're going to do.

Stacey Cordivano: 8:12

Yeah, when you think of it that way, it is nuts or like if I'm thinking about asking my kids what they want to do and then having them actually do that, I mean that sounds insane. So, yeah, that is, that's a good way to think about it, great, great, okay. So, like you said, you've sort of dived into this personal finance idea and that's a lot of what you're sharing, and one aspect of that which I know that you've covered is contract and salary negotiation, and actually even I don't think we talked about this, but you had those Tuesdays off because that was an initial step that you did in changing your role, correct?

Alice Barker: 8:51

Yeah, yeah, totally. So I was like I need to give myself a bit of a breather. I was pretty burnt out and asked for that four day a week to give myself a bit of space and time to explore options and find out how I felt about things. Yeah, Got it.

Stacey Cordivano: 9:05

Okay, so obviously that's one thing to negotiate, but where do you start when talking about like tips or pointers or how someone should get organized to do any sort of contract negotiation, whether it's like renegotiation or a brand new contract? I certainly have a couple younger vets that I'm talking to now that I'm sure could use advice on their first job after internship.

Alice Barker: 9:29

Yeah, it's a really tough one, and people find it so difficult and scary, even though we end up doing it so much in our lives. Or like whoever has that one job their whole career, who doesn't do it like fine, you're the massive anomaly. We end up doing it multiple times in our lives. So actually getting a bit of advice or trying to work out a system for this is going to put you in much better stead, and for sure it like splits off into two. Right it has. You've got your like new job. You've just got a role, salary negotiation or job negotiation and then you've got your like you have your job, but you just want to pay rise. You want to renegotiate what you're doing at work in your current job.

Alice Barker: 10:08

I would say the biggest thing and like the coolest thing that we've been talking about on Instagram is just talk to other people about their own salaries, and it feels like a very touchy, like taboo kind of thing to approach someone about their salary. But whenever I've been asked about my salary, I'm more than happy to share it with people, and I've found the same reciprocated from other people when I've spoken to them too, like they just don't care. They're so happy that if they can help you get a better salary, great. So talk to your peers and talk to your colleagues, and we get people to share their salaries all the time on my Instagram. So it's pretty cool and open, easy, breezy, even if you're not happy talking to your own current colleagues, talking to people that you might have graduated with, they might be like halfway across the country, so you know there's no kind of like issues. It's also in the UK anyway, it's definitely illegal to stop colleagues talking about their salaries. Is that same in the US? I really hope so.

Stacey Cordivano: 11:05

It is. I think some people still have it in their contracts, but it is illegal.

Alice Barker: 11:09

Yes, yeah cool, so always worth keeping in mind. You are allowed to do that, so talking to people is definitely the first step. Gives you an idea of sort of current climate for salaries. We've found there's so many disparities between people salaries even in the same role, so when I've put out it, we do a salary share session on Instagram and I'll say so like all at one best in the UK. Tell me your salary and I'll share them all on my Instagram.

Alice Barker: 11:36

People are all over the place. They're really high, some of earning crazy good salaries, and some are getting really nothing and it's quite disappointing. But they don't know that. They don't know the difference is that person at the bottom end just thinks that's normal, but they don't know that someone at the other end of the scale is getting great money for exactly the same job. So trying to find that out and knowing what the difference is, knowing if those people actually way better salaries than you out there, is 100% the first step for that new role contract negotiation and also your own current pay rise to and you can even talk to recruiters. You know what are you putting out people at the moment to get. They will have a really good idea of what sort of salaries bets on. Even if you're not going to actively use their services, still ask them to and they'll have a really, really good idea. And after that it's just trying to prep yourself so that you can put yourself in his best position as possible to put forward yourself as a really good vet. And that's obviously your clinical general duties and I'm very sure that your current boss or new boss will know what sort of capabilities you have as a calling for vet.

Alice Barker: 12:47

But there's so much more to it, like what sort of cpd you're doing.

Alice Barker: 12:50

If you're organizing in-house cpd, if you're doing the client evenings, if you're managing the newsletter, if you're doing social media, all the other bits and bobs.

Alice Barker: 12:59

If you're mentoring new, new vets, if you're helping some of the student nurses lots of that goes completely undetected by your bosses a lot of the time and they're really busy. People is not their fault, but you need to remind them of that stuff and it's also hard to remember to go through that in your head. So literally write it all down and have everything there just to say like bam, bam, bam, bam. Remember I'm doing all this stuff as well as just the normal salary you're giving me and as well as all my just clinical duties that all the other vets are doing too. And and finally, ask for what you're turning over at the practice, and this is, I mean, I'm sure you're a practice owner. Practice is business, business is business, and it's totally fine to know what you're bringing in and turning over for the practice, and your clinical director or manager should be pretty open with telling you what you're earning for the practice, and that can totally help you negotiate a better role too.

Stacey Cordivano: 13:52

Yeah, if your practice manager or boss isn't willing to share those numbers, or if you don't actually get them handed to you often or have access to them, that's a red flag.

Stacey Cordivano: 14:02

Yeah let's see what do we want to dig into on that I should have written notes because there was a lot covered. First of all, the salary transparency I think is such a great idea that you're doing on Instagram. I do want to put a plug in for the AP compensation study that was just done last year. That was just for US vets, but it did create a lot more data for us to use as comparisons and you know, regionally it's very different, but at least you can get a sense. They broke it down by graduation years and by state and things like that. They didn't break it down, unfortunately, by the type of practice you know, like race track versus general backyard practice, which is a little unfortunate. But there is a lot more information for US base vets. As far as transparency on that now, because that was, I think, about 1800 AP members who responded with like their retrospective taxable earnings.

Stacey Cordivano: 15:04

So not like what their contract says or not what they think they might earn, but it was actually like what they brought in and were taxed on in the past year so that's helpful for people as well, because I know a lot of the stuff you're sharing is UK based correct correct, yeah, yeah, although we're getting a few more US followers now, oh great.

Alice Barker: 15:24

What's been interesting is they're quite surprised by the UK salaries in comparison. In what way?

Stacey Cordivano: 15:31

as in they don't think it's that much at all okay, and so then, as far as going into a negotiation, I just wanted to comment.

Stacey Cordivano: 15:41

I think that that additional duties that you're doing is such a good point. You know, in any practice that's well run, there should be this percentage. Over here it's generally about 5% of total gross revenue. That goes toward management fees and pretty much everything you listed on that falls under that. So if you are not getting paid for doing those duties, you really could negotiate a percentage of that on top of your salary, which could be such a great boost. Like my associate manages our inventory, which is certainly a management duty, and so she gets a percentage on top of her other salary and production based income because she does that role. So I think that's a great idea. And also I wanted to say that if you're not doing those, or if you're going into a new role and you have an interest in that, like that's just another thing to bring up and negotiate as part of a new package and something that a practice may absolutely love, like maybe their social media is defunct and you're interested in helping with that.

Alice Barker: 16:44

It would be such a great way to add a perk for sure, and you know social media is so powerful, that's the practices might just be all of their marketing and that's a huge thing for them. Having someone actually be good at that and bringing new clients because of that is, I think, kind of undervalued from practices a lot of time. That is really, really important.

Stacey Cordivano: 17:05

Yeah, totally agree. So what other things do you hear that people worry about when they're going into negotiations?

Alice Barker: 17:15

A lot of it is like what to say. Are they going to be really nervous? Do you go in with a range? Do you have a number? I mean, it is very personal, I think, depending on you know that if you're just trying to get a pay rise in a current job and you know your boss really well, it might be totally different kind of scenario to you trying to negotiate a whole new job. But I would say, having those things written down makes it a lot less scary and you can literally just bring out a list, bring out a piece of paper, if you've got it with you, and there's nothing wrong with that and I would say as well, is that? Well, from my perspective anyway, my experience, if you go in with a range, your potential new employer or your current employer is much more likely to go with a lower end of the range, because why wouldn't they To try and not go in with a range? I would always say go in with a number. A number that's probably a little bit scary for you. That's like, oh, that's on the edge, and if they negotiate down, they're probably going to come back down to a number that's actually you would want to aim for anyway.

Alice Barker: 18:15

But I would definitely say with going that with that top number, do not give them range, and a lot of people can talk themselves out of it then. So tell them what you're doing, give people warning that you want to talk about this and don't just spring it on you know, like you wouldn't want your employees to spring on you while you're having a coffee one day. You need to be prepared as well. And giving your employer a bit of warning that you're going to set up this meeting. Is that okay?

Alice Barker: 18:37

Great, set a time date, come in with all your preparation, tell them what you're after, give them all the reasons and all the evidence you spoke into peers, colleagues, recruiters this is sort of market value at the moment and then stop talking. Don't talk yourself out of it. Then just wait for them to come back for you. And the other thing is that people have to feel like they're going to have to, like, really make a decision or say yes or no. On the spot. You can always say do you know what? I just want to think about it. Can I go away for a couple of days and I'll get back to in 48 hours. That's totally fine as well.

Stacey Cordivano: 19:10

Yeah, and someone I think it might have been Amy Grice describes negotiation as like it's not a bad thing, right, you're working together. I mean, hopefully you want to be working together, right, if you're taking this job or you're considering taking a job or you have the job, and so think of it just as a discussion, and maybe it's a slightly difficult one because, like you said, money talking about money always gets a little funny, but ultimately it's your wellbeing on the line and you have to advocate for yourself. But it shouldn't be really negative. It's really kind of a back and forth to get everybody to a place where they feel comfortable.

Alice Barker: 19:50

And you've got to remind yourself as well and I have to tell myself this to make me feel more comfortable about negotiating People expect you to negotiate, so if you don't, it's a bit of a surprise. So why wouldn't you? You might as well. It's an expectation and it's business. And I think the other thing is, if you're comfortable talking about money and this money is about your money but in your job, you're going to be talking about money to your clients all day. Every day, pet owners have to pay for what you give them and a lot of that is just money discussion. So if you're comfortable talking about money with new employers, that gives them a great sign that actually, oh, they're totally fine with this kind of discussion. It's just business, they're really comfortable, a great candidate and gives you a much better setting.

Stacey Cordivano: 20:37

Oh, that's a great point. I love that and I've never really thought about it that way, but that is really true. We do it all day long. Okay, so then, kind of switching directions. I know you also like to talk about investing. So, considering that this salary is our money and we need it to work for us, and, granted, things are going to be different in the UK versus the US, I guess maybe just give people some pointers or some like why's behind the reason you feel like investing is so worthwhile, to kind of figure out.

Alice Barker: 21:09

Yeah, and it is, and I would say it's so important and way way less scaring, complicated than people think. So the other thing to remember is that you have to just start investing, knowing that you're not going to be perfect or a professional at investing, and that everybody does that Everyone who was a first time investor at some point. I think it is really, really important. We obviously all know how crazy inflation rates are at the moment probably the same for you as it is for us and in order to beat that inflation, your money is not going to do anything and just a normal cash bank account hopefully very much the same in America. It'll only grow and keep up with and hopefully exceed that inflation if you keep it invested, and I think a lot of that.

Alice Barker: 21:57

To talk around investing is probably scary because people think, oh, I'm going to lose my money, the market's going to drop. You have those sort of you've seen on the news, those sort of massive market crashes black Friday. It sounds very dramatic, but when you look at the US S&P 500, so like the index of all the biggest 500 biggest companies in the US, from the beginning of records up until 2023, it has only ever gone up and continue to go up. Despite those drops it's always gone back up again. So, from looking back at history, your money is pretty safe and obviously I'm not a financial advisor. I'm not saying we should do your money, but for me it's not surprising that several companies say that the top five things right.

Alice Barker: 22:41

Once I started learning about investing, learning about personal finance, knowing how much of a difference it can make to your future, the age you retire, how comfortably you can retire, you realize that actually you do need to start doing something as early as possible. Obviously, timing the market is better than timing the market. So just getting your money in from early 20s and really easy funds is way better than trying to work out when's the best time to buy, when's the best time to sell. I just invest every single month at the same time now and don't even think about it. But the cool thing is that there are so many resources now, lots of resources, especially for girls, because it feels like a very much like a boys club, and that's probably what put me off a bit more as well. For a very long time I didn't really feel welcome in that kind of industry, but there's so many cool podcasts, apps, books that are just all about girls investing and it's really, really cool.

Stacey Cordivano: 23:36

That's awesome. Yeah, I think you just have to think about it as a long term goal, right? You're not putting money in the stock market or some investing fund for a short term game, right? That doesn't work out. But, like you said, historically speaking, the S&P has only gone up and will continue to do so, according to literally every person who projects things. Great, so okay. Speaking of resources, any suggestions for negotiation resources?

Alice Barker: 24:04

The Financial Feminist is a really good podcast. They talk about everything personal finance, but I know they specifically do quite a lot of stuff about negotiation and I learned quite a lot of good negotiation tips from their podcast. So it's Financial Feminist slash her first 100k. Tori Dunlap who does that is very badass lady and she does do lots of salary negotiation stuff and I think they also even do like a whole. You can do a whole course or like a coaching session with full salary negotiation too with them. I'd probably say that's like my top tip.

Stacey Cordivano: 24:39

Okay, and you have some scripts on your Instagram for sure, so people could look that up as well. I would also throw in the book Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. It's an interesting read, but also really really informative. And then resources for investing that you love.

Alice Barker: 24:57

My favourites are there's a really cool app that I got at the beginning of the year that's called your Juno and it's now free for everyone, which is awesome. Basically, it's kind of like mini bite size lessons. Obviously is everyone the same as everyone else. I have the attention span of a nap, so having everything bite size is perfect. But they talk you through all aspects of investing on this app, but also loads of the different topics like property, also salary negotiation for them too relationships and money, money mindset. But they have a huge folder on investing and it's just like really cool little bite size nuggets. When you complete stuff, you win points and then, when you win points, you can like even get prizes, so it's like that's an incentive is great.

Stacey Cordivano: 25:44

Yeah, they've really like figuring out how to get it done.

Alice Barker: 25:48

But also I would say that Instagram account, girls that invest, is awesome. They basically openly talk about investing all the time. They just post about updates in the stock market. They're just this really cool like duo of two mid to late 20s Kiwi girls who started investing when they were like early 20s and have just grown this huge community of people that have started investing alongside them and they just talk about all the time. They totally like real down to earth normal people talk about the struggles of like, do I spend this money on my like skincare routine or do I invest it, which is just all kind of normal problems in conundrums.

Alice Barker: 26:28

They've also brought out a really cool book that's just called Girls that Invest as well. I just finished a couple of weeks ago and it was great. It was just like for me, who's been investing for a couple of years now, it was really cool to go through all the basics again, make sure I actually know everything, and then they dived into some more in depth stuff too. So it takes you from like complete beginner to you feel like you could have a really good shot and know exactly what you're doing with investing afterwards.

Stacey Cordivano: 26:55

Awesome, that's great. I don't know that account, so I will check it out. Okay, thank you so much for being here. Where can people connect with you, find more about you, things like that?

Alice Barker: 27:05

So I am on Instagram, as we said it's called at this vet can underscore blog. I also got my website and blog, which is just this vet can dot credit UK, so find me on there. More than happy to talk to anyone, please DM me, reach out if you want to, and I can chat anytime about money, anytime of any day, so don't hesitate to reach out Perfect, and I'll make sure those are all in the show notes so people can get to them easily.

Stacey Cordivano: 27:32

Thanks again for your time. This was fun. Thank you so much. Thanks again for listening to today's episode. I so very much appreciate you spending some of your time with me. I know how valuable it is. If you want to do me a favor, please share this episode or any of the episodes with a friend to spread the word, and you can also hit subscribe or follow wherever you listen to podcasts to make sure you never miss another episode. I hope you have a great week and I'll talk to you again soon.