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In this week’s episode:

• Messy Data, Messy Practice – Keeping your data clean and organised isn’t just a tech issue—it’s essential for running a smooth, efficient practice. From tracking client retention to making instant booking work seamlessly, accurate data makes all the difference.
• Small Changes, Big Impact – Change doesn’t have to be overwhelming! Taking it step by step and having a champion in your team to drive new initiatives can make adopting new ways of working much easier (and more successful).
• Support Matters More Than Software – The best tools in the world won’t help if your team isn’t supported. Good customer success and structured onboarding can make or break whether a new system actually helps or just adds frustration.
• Stay Open to Innovation – Future-proofing your practice isn’t about chasing every new trend—it’s about experimenting, learning, and finding what actually works for your team and your clients. The practices that thrive are the ones willing to try, fail, and try again!

This episode explores how veterinary practices can harness data, embrace change, and adopt new technology without overwhelm – ensuring smoother operations, better client experiences, and a future-ready approach to pet care.

Additional Guest Spotlights

• Nico Frisiani: Nico Frisiani recommends using an AI calendar assistant called Block It, which simplifies scheduling by coordinating meeting times, handling invitations, and adapting to changes, making it like having a personal assistant to manage your calendar with ease.
• Next episode sneak peak: Next episode we’re joined by Jonathan Moyle, founder of Snoots Vet, as he discusses how their innovative membership model is making pet care more accessible and affordable, tackling barriers in traditional veterinary care, and addressing issues like financial euthanasia and the industry’s resistance to change.

Show Notes

• Out every other week on your favourite podcast platform.
• Presented by Jack Peploe: Veterinary IT Expert, Certified Ethical Hacker, CEO of Veterinary IT Services and dog Dad to the adorable Puffin.
• Bruce is a pet technology business executive with expertise in emerging digital technologies, virtual care, and business development, advising both early-stage and channel expansion companies helping them to navigate the companion animal industry and align with the right partners.
• Bruce has a specific focus on key opinion leader/influencer management and vast business development network. Bruce’s volunteer work includes his role as a founding board member of the Veterinary Virtual Care Association (VVCA), along with ten other industry leaders.
• As a past president of VetPartners.org – the non-profit association of veterinary business experts, a member of the Association of Veterinary Informatics, a member of the APPA Industry Advisory Council and a member of the Fear Free advisory group, Bruce writes and speaks nationally on the topic of emerging pet technology and innovation. 
• There were many resources recommended by Bruce, but his top 3 are: Abundance Mentality by Sean Kouplen and Mick Schovanec, Confidence by Rosabeth Moss Kanter and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Leader by Patrick Lencioni.
  

Transcription

Jack Peploe:

Coming up on modern veterinary practice

Bruce Truman:

To future-proof your practice. Don’t be afraid of technology, don’t be afraid of early adoption. Pick a champion within your practice and failures. Okay,

Jack Peploe:

Welcome to the Modern Veterinary Practice Podcast. I’m your host and veterinary IT expert, Jack Pep. In this episode, I’ll be welcoming Bruce Truman, a leader in veterinary technology and innovation. With extensive experience in digital transformation, data utilisation and business development in the companion animal industry, Bruce has played a pivotal role in shaping the future of veterinary technology, working with emerging pet tech startups and established companies to drive innovation. Today we’ll be exploring how technology collaboration and the abundance mentality are reshaping the veterinary sector, the role of key opinion leaders and how practices can let better leverage data and automation for efficiency and improve patient care. Get ready for an insightful conversation about the future of veterinary innovation and what it means for the industry,

Bruce Truman:

The interview. My name is Bruce Truman. I’m the founder of BLT Technology and Innovation Group. I’ve been in the industry my entire career, which at this point, I don’t say the number of years anymore, but happy to share with you also a little bit about my background if you’d like Jack,

Jack Peploe:

That’d be awesome. It’s actually something I’m going to unpick apart, if that’s all right, Bruce. But obviously it’s absolutely amazing having you on the Non Veterinary Practice podcast. Now, as you’ve kind of highlighted, I’m really actually looking forward to unpicking your passion for technology and your role in transforming veterinary care, specifically looking at your work with a veterinary virtual care association, and then how the abundance of mentality can reshape collaboration in our industry. Now, if we can, could we sort of jump into obviously your extensive background in digital technologies and business development. Could you share with us what first inspired you to bring emerging technologies into the companion animal industry and how you see it evolving in the next decade?

Bruce Truman:

Sure. I think that was really probably 15 or 20 years ago, perhaps 20 years ago, when I was managing an animal health division for actually a pet retail company here in the US called Hearts. And I was just becoming aware of when I was trying to find innovation for that company. There’s external innovation, which I think many times larger companies struggle with external internal innovation. They struggle with that. And in my role, I quickly discovered that if there’s going to be innovation, it has to come externally. So then I went on this literally journey across the US trying to find these innovators, and at that time it was product innovators. And that kind of exposed me to startups and entrepreneurs and the journey that they were on. And as my career progressed, we then did a couple of startups. So we did a topical flea and tick product startup that was a company called Summit Vet Farm.

And the product was Vector, vector 3D sold to Siva. And then after that, a startup, which I really enjoyed and learned a lot, we did a technology startup. So I joined a group of colleagues as a founding member of a company called Vetri. And Vetri 15 years ago was the first company. There were some before that that were trying to do it, but the first company that really looked at the veterinary practice software and how do we utilise the data in that software to help that veterinary practice. So at that time, it was as simple as instead of manually uploading a file so that somebody could send a postcard to your client, we automated that entire process. So your postcards, reminder cards and your emails were all automatically done. And it’s amazing to me that 15, 20 years ago, that was an innovation that scaled that company up real quick.

Now it’s table stakes right now if a practice isn’t using some service for client engagement, client communication, I scratch my head and I’m like, well, how are you managing? Right? But back then it was innovation and I think that’s what got me, got the bug, right? Both of those companies were a lot of fun to be a part of, to race towards the wall, so to speak, as hard as you can to get to the goal. And after that company sold Avett Street, I think I did what a lot of folks do. I said, oh, let me take a break from corporate for a couple of years. I’ll do some consulting and then I’ll go back and I’ll get into corporate, which I love, I loved. But 14, 15 years later, we’ve now expanded the business. I have consultants that we work together on projects, and our focus is really on this emerging pet technology.

And we’re brought in not only by founders of these technology companies to help them scale, but over the years we’ve also building on that external innovation theme. We’ve also been brought in by very well established companies to help them find innovation or drive innovation. Because it’s a challenge, and I almost hate to say it, but there’s a saying out there, where does innovation go to die? Well, it’s in a big company, and I think we have seen that a lot over the years where the founder’s passion is lost. You’ve got a nice, stable, good product, whatever it may do, client communications, loyalty, you name it, right? It may be a good product, but sometimes the innovation dies after it’s sold.

Jack Peploe:

Absolutely. Now that’s really cool. And one thing I wanted to move on to if possible is I’ve noticed you speak passionately about the abundance mentality. So fostering, generosity, collaboration, the belief that success is plentiful. How has this mindset shaped your approach to the veterinary industry and influenced the way in which you advise companies?

Bruce Truman:

Well, I think that you learn a lot over the years. There’s a lot of great ideas out there, but it’s a combination of a great idea with a great founder or founding management team that really makes these companies scale. It’s almost like you could have a mediocre idea with a top-notch founder and CIO, and that idea will take off and get the traction it needs, but you have a great idea, but maybe your founder or your team’s not as solid. And that idea struggles. I think that’s one of the things I’ve learned over the years is to quickly identify where is that combination of great idea and great founding management team? Where does that come together to create that synergy? You really do have to have both of those to be successful.

Jack Peploe:

I mean, talking about key opinion leaders and the influence in pet tech, obviously you’ve built a vast network in business development and influencer management. How can key opinion leaders and influencers accelerate the adoption of innovative pet tech and what strategies have proven most effective in turning new technologies into industry standards?

Bruce Truman:

Well, I think part of that, and I’m glad you asked that question, I think part of this is that you have to understand the role of a key opinion leader in the space. And I do find, and I think this is a good forum to expose folks to this idea, I do find people that unfortunately don’t understand that role of the key opinion leader. And over the years you run into situations where companies want to engage with key opinion leaders, but they expect a flat out endorsement like, oh no, if I’m paying this key opinion leader to do this presentation at a conference, I expect an endorsement of this product. And I’m like, well, no, that’s not the way this works. You want their independence, you want them to be independent, you want them to be recommending a client communication platform. You want them to be recommending an inventory management platform, but you don’t want them to flat out recommend your platform only.

It can be one of a solutions that, but the key opinion leader’s role is really the value of the key opinion leader is enhanced by them maintaining their independence, talking about the topic, and the opportunity for the company is to sponsor that key opinion leader to sponsor that talk so that everyone is exposed to this message, this idea, this new diagnostic, whatever the case may be. So I think the key opinion leader’s role is critically important, but understanding how to leverage that key opinion leader and get the most out of them is ever as important. And that’s an important point. And the key opinion leaders get it right. They understand and they become uncomfortable when they’re forced out of that role of being independent and endorsing one particular product or another. Now, there’s different situations. If it’s an event that you’re doing and it’s your event and you’re bringing in these individuals that’s different than somebody out on the speaking series doing CE in conferences, right? That’s a different sort of role in place for them.

Jack Peploe:

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, it’s really refreshing to hear you talk about that because I think as a key influencer, if you do end up condoning one particular solution, you do lose that independence, that transparency, which is extremely damaging for the influencer in a way because obviously that’s why a lot of people will go to listen to this particular person speak is because actually they have got good ideas and they’re providing suggestions. And again, they’re not locking you to a particular idea and you don’t feel that you’re being sold to as such. Because I think that’s sometimes the mistake that some do. And I’ve noticed it, especially within the uk, it happens quite a bit where it’s just you are pitching a particular solution and that’s not what people want to hear. They want to be able to hear what is available to them. Would that be fair?

Bruce Truman:

That would be very fair. And I think it’s very interesting, and I can comment mostly right on the US market, but it’s very interesting, some of our younger emerging key opinion leaders and influencers, how they are trying to find their footing in the space and figure out with their audiences what is appropriate and what isn’t appropriate. When do I cross over a line if I’m recommending product X or service Y, when do I cross over that line where my audience doesn’t see me as credible? And I think there’s a fine line, especially with the way the market has been changing over the past 15, 20 years with your key opinion leaders being mainly publishing and papers in journals, in our weeklies, in our monthlies and lecturing at conferences to now where there’s that component, but there’s also the huge social media component to everything. So those two play in with one another.

And I think it’s different landscape now with social media for influencers and key opinion leaders and how they leverage that compared to 10 or 15 years ago. And it’s changing as we speak, right? Every single moment, every single day with how the market is. But there certainly are those folks that are emerging in the US market as what I would call the next generation of key opinion leaders in whatever respective discipline it is, whether it be oncology, senior care, the voice of the veterinary technician, different things like that. We see different leaders emerging, and I think a lot of us are trying to give those young leaders, those young influencers, we’re trying to give them the opportunities that they need and also appropriately when you can help them out, give them a little coaching if they’re open to coaching. And my experience has been that if they’ve gotten this far and they have this as a goal, they are open to coaching on how to approach a topic in a different way perhaps.

Jack Peploe:

No, that’s really cool. I’d like to shift if I can, just to sort of one of your many hats specifically looking at data. Now, obviously as a member of the Association of Veterinary Informatics, data clearly plays a big role in your world. How can practice make better use of data for improved patient outcomes? And are there any areas where they’re just kind of scratching the surface of what’s possible?

Bruce Truman:

I mean, that’s a big question. I think I’ve been involved with the A VI Association of Veterinary Informatics for a number of years. I’ve also been involved, and we can talk about this in a moment, the VVCA Veterinary Virtual Care Association, which has more of not just a US lens, but a lens on Europe too. I see the challenge and data that lies in the PIMS and the practice software, and we’ve kind of in a sense created our own monster with premise-based software that’s changing. But we’ve created our own monster open text fields where anybody can assign any code and any description. I remember back in the vet Streete days, I was working with our data scientist, and this is just as an example, it’s not an exact a popular product like Frontline, frontline plots. Well, if you think about that product and how someone could enter it into a veterinary practice software with the different sizes and different unit sales and number of doses, he kind of jokingly said to me one day there’s like 12,000 different ways you could write Frontline plus Frontline plus 44 Frontline Purple Frontline six dose.

I mean, think of the iteration. So we’ve kind of created our own monster, but that’s because we didn’t have government mandates and insurance forcing nomenclature. But now the industry has grown to the point where we need that standardisation and we need efforts in place to help standardise and what’s happened because we haven’t been able to do that. There’s what I’ll call the middleware providers that are out there and the middleware providers are helping software as a service company certainly translate that PIMS data into a common standard. And when we’re working with our startups, if they need that sort of integration, that’s one of the first things we make sure we address is what data do you need from the PIMS who are going to be your data partners to extract that data? What skill sets do those data partners have? Are they going to standardise your data for you and crosswalk it to your standard?

How are we going to approach that? So I think those are important questions for the startups, but I also see with our group veterinary practices in the US market that that’s all over the place, right? Meaning we’ve got well established entities that are moving on to common standard platforms. They’re acquiring software with the goal to be on one standard platform to smaller entities where maybe they’re rolling up 20, 30, 40 practices and you’ve got five to six to seven different software sometimes operating and your COO role and your revenue roles, they really struggle to figure out, well, how is practice A with avamark performing against practice B with ANED or practice C with a vet Spire or the standards there? And the challenges, and we hear that a lot with the meetings we have with the vet forum group where the groups get together and talk about some of their challenges.

And that’s a challenge because it’s real tough to find some of these standards. And once again, the third party providers have come in and said, well, I’ll map to your standard and I’ll tell you in all six different software the common standard and the common performance metrics, and we’re seeing more and more of that to help better manage the practices and that drills down all the way to the independent and interpreting their data and helping them look at metrics such as client retention, new client acquisition, average cost per transaction. There’s all those metrics that are out there that a practice needs to look at too.

Jack Peploe:

Yeah, I mean it still blows my mind how there is so much flexibility with the corporate groups that you’ve got in the us. It is a bit different for us over in the UK in the sense of standardisation is very much becoming a thing if not a thing, not having that level of choice with regards to the PIs. Because again, if you are going to extract the information, extract the data, it’s a challenge as is with a lot of these platforms, they do sort of lock in that data and that is kind of changing, especially with some new vendors coming on the block, which is really cool and really interesting in the sense of opening up those APIs, providing standardised data lake capability, which is quite cool to be able to access that data and then interrogate, which is super helpful for the larger independent groups and the larger corporate groups just becomes a bit cost EVA for some of the independences is what we’ve noticed. I agree.

Bruce Truman:

I agree totally. It’s tough for the independence, but also you’ve got a lot of messy data. And so the discipline of making sure if you’re a standalone independent veterinary practice, making sure that data is solid is just so important. And your day-to-day routines get in the way, right? I mean running the business and you’re in a hurry, and then you get all these odd codes in your system and everything that you’re like, oh, we’ve got to clean this up. And I know I remember talking to some of the online instant booking solutions, which that’s kind of a soapbox thing for me. I scratch my head why veterinary practices put up what I call the brick wall, the brick front door as opposed to the digital front door and booking solutions and instant booking solutions is a great way to drive fill the appointment, book up and acquire new clients and engage existing clients. But the hurdle there is that many times the calendars are so messed up, they’ve got to spend weeks and weeks and weeks cleaning up the calendar before they can get an integrated instant booking solution. But you got to do it. You just got to bite the bullet and do it because it’s the right thing

Jack Peploe:

To do. A hundred percent. I mean, the thing is, it’s the two challenges, isn’t it? It’s the challenges you’ve mentioned there. It’s also the challenge of loss of control, which again is down to lack of understanding of what these particular technologies can do, but hey, that’s what we’re here for. And hopefully enabling and empowering these people so that they understand what these solutions can do. The data thing is massive, and especially with the integration of ai, it gets even worse over how we need to have some form of standards. But I mean, that’s the thing for another day. I don’t think we’re going to have enough time for that. What I’m really intrigued to know is what sort of excites you most about the future of veterinary technology and how it will transform the daily operations of their practices. What advice would you give to vets looking to future proof their practice,

Bruce Truman:

To future proof your practice? Don’t be afraid of technology. Don’t be afraid of early adoption. Pick a champion within your practice and failure is okay, and those veterinarians, veterinary practices are out there and when we find them, those that are not afraid to try something and fail and try something and it works, those are the ones that I always look towards for opinions on a new technology, whatever it may be, I’m always talking to them, but I think it’s don’t be afraid to experiment and try things and find a champion within your practice to do that. You’ve always got to have that champion to drive it forward. If you don’t, then it’s going to fail. And sometimes when I’m in, not in such a good mood, I may say, well, if you want your idea or whatever your solution is, product or service, if you want it to fail, just rely on the veterinary practice to execute it.

And I’m well aware that that’s a very negative comment, but my point is we have to make this stuff easy. We have to make it seamless for the practice. And if they have to do 15 things to get to the same point, that’s going to be very difficult. So how do we work on change management as part of the process and some of our founders that are doing it best, bring in people that understand change management and how to take baby steps in week one. Just do one task, week two, do two tasks, week three, do three tasks and change that workflow over time. And I see a lot of success on those that are mindful of that. That changes tough, and you have to focus on it and help the veterinary practice accomplish that change. That’s also like with the role of customer success, and maybe this is another soapbox for me.

There’s folks that say, oh, it’s all sales. It’s just sales. That’s it. I’m like, well, no, there’s sales acquiring, right? You’re acquiring, you’re hunting, you’re getting the accounts, and then there’s what I would call the farming part of it, and that’s customer success. And that role is critically important, especially with a startup, because when you’re onboarding those first beta practices and those first 4, 5, 6 practices, when you start scaling up, need to be handheld and you need to listen to them. And I always say, alright, whatever your idea is, let’s start with one practice and let’s perfect it with one practice. Alright, you got to perfect it. Let’s go to the second one and then maybe the third one, but guess what? It’s going to be different to perfect it in two and three than it was in one. So now your platform may modify and change. Oh, we get to 4, 5, 6. We figured it out. We know what to expect. Now we can scale and turn it on. And I think entrepreneurs by their nature are impatient and we want to short circuit that process from one to two to five to 10. We want to short circuit that process and just go to a hundred. You can’t do it that way and you can’t get there. You got to be very methodical and patient and money’s always a factor. It’s time and money.

Jack Peploe:

Bruce, I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to chat to you. I generally feel like I’m speaking to myself a little bit, but unfortunately we’ve come to that time, which I hate, which is the end of the session. I don’t think I’ve even covered off 30% of what I’d love to cover off. I’ve obviously got so many more questions for you, but obviously I want to say a massive thanks for all your insights on the technology, the data, the importance of collaboration. All of those points are incredibly invaluable for our listeners, so thank you again for joining us and sharing your wisdom and passion with the venue community. Now, before we do sort of close off, if people want to get in touch with you, how can they go about doing so?

Bruce Truman:

They can get in touch with me by visiting the website www.bltconsulting.com, or can email me at Be truman@btconsulting.com.

Jack Peploe:

Bruce, that’s amazing. Thank you so

Bruce Truman:

Much. Absolutely, thank you.

Nico Frisiani:

Recommended

Jack Peploe:

Resources. Every week we ask professionals and experts to suggest a best business resource for our listeners. This week’s recommendation is from Nico Ani.

Nico Frisiani:

I use this AI assistant for my calendar called Block It. It’s amazing and I really highly recommend it. What you do is you CC them into an email and ask block it to find the calendars slot that works and then block it will coordinate emails back and forth with whoever you’re chatting to actually find this slot. We’ll share the invite, we’ll adapt the invite if there is request to make it longer, we move it around. You can say what the usual location is, what the office location is, if you want to have a call, where the call should be. It’s really kind of like a AI version of a personal assistant. Obviously, it doesn’t do as many things as a personal assistant does. As we talked, there’s a lot of broad spectrum in the human jobs that AI still can’t do, but I would say a much more convenient version of a calendar if you want, mostly on my side, because LY, you don’t have control, and so sometimes there is a meeting that I really do want to have, but I want to have it in two weeks because right now I don’t have time.

If I share ly, they will book it in the next available slot and then my calendar is full. Well, if I have this, I usually just add block it to my email and say, Hey, block it. Can you find it as lot in two weeks and block it only will propose lots in two weeks from now, and we’ll coordinate with them once Lot works, and so then I can forget about the email and they go try to block it and block it finds us lot tricon like a personal assistant. Really convenient, works really well.

Jack Peploe:

Coming up next week, we welcome Jonathan Moyle, founder of Snoots Vet, a veterinary startup focused on making pet care more accessible and affordable through a revolutionary membership model. In this episode, we explore how traditional veterinary care structures have created barriers for pet owners and why Jonathan believes a primary care focused, subscription based approach is the future of pet healthcare. We also discussed the concept of financial euthanasia, the industry’s resistance to change, and how technology plays a role in improving veterinary accessibility. Tune in for a thought provoking discussion on the future of veterinary care and how innovation could reshape the profession As we know it,

Jonanthan Moyal:

One of the hardest parts of working on an affordable insurance product is that when you deny a claim, nine times out of 10, the result is financial euthanasia. I had never heard the term until I got into that space, and it’s pretty horrific. There’s no actual data about how much of how many pets we put to sleep for financial reasons, but it’s not zero, and that’s a problem.

Jack Peploe:

That’s it for this episode. All links and recommendations we talked about are in the show notes. Don’t forget to subscribe and share the podcast if you found it useful. In the meantime, thanks for listening and see you next time.