We recently connected with Sabrina Grinstead and have shared our conversation below.
All right, Sabrina thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?
Taking over Eno Animal Hospital certainly felt like a life-changing risk! Especially since I had a long-term plan to change it dramatically.
Eno was established in the community, which was great, so I never wanted to change its local ethos and spirit. Yet I wanted to step it up in a big way. The business, in terms of financial health, was a bit stagnant, so there was pressure to succeed. I felt pressure to succeed for myself, as a newly minted leader; for my team, for our pet parents, everyone we served in the community.
I had been an associate vet at Eno for five years when I purchased the hospital. Our building, where we’d been for 25+ years, was cute and cozy but also cramped and outdated. We had to grow the business: first, to help as many pets as possible, and second to make it in a competitive marketplace. Durham has so many great vets—we had to shine!
The three years we spent planning and designing a totally new hospital, starting in 2016, was so exciting but stressful, risk after risk. How could we find the right land? Once we found it, could we get it? That process was hard; we had to fight for it. Then there’s the designing, planning, preparing, building, outfitting, and moving! I was so proud of the team; they were so resilient and strong through all this change.
My proudest professional moment was opening our beautiful hospital in February 2019.
Then came the risk of…now that this awesome vision has become reality, will we grow enough to sustain it?? Twenty years of vet experience does not prepare you for being a business owner. Owning a business is a whole other set of challenges and requires a whole new set of skills and knowledge: in hiring, HR, management, insurance, taxes, safety and building codes, marketing, scalable growth.
I got into business management training fast and furious (and still work hard at it). We committed to marketing and branding in a big way. We committed more than ever to good morale, team-building, and a healthy, supportive, happy work environment. And the team committed to training and best care; now almost everyone is certified Fear Free.
The risk of opening a new hospital and committing to growth has really paid off. We have a true willingness to grow, even if change takes hard work. We’ve added acupuncture and ultrasound to our services: anything that helps us meet the needs of pets and helps pet parents take the best care of their fur family.
All this risk—real change—takes so much dedication and support, and there are setbacks and frustrations. It’s exhausting and scary sometimes. Yet it’s worth it to go for it. I took the risk because I wanted to be a leader and meet a big challenge. I wanted to empower the team to great things. And most of all, I simply wanted to help more pets.
I took the risk because I wanted Eno to stand out, to be truly special: a special place to work and to bring your pets. Today we’re a special family! Running a successful vet hospital means I’m living my calling.
Sabrina, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I grew up on a farm, the youngest of six siblings, in the small town of Nazareth, Texas. My family had chickens, guinea hens, cattle, hunting dogs, and barn cats. My very first dog was a mutt named Special.
In college I volunteered for a mixed animal veterinary practice and found my calling. In 2001 I graduated from Texas A&M’s College of Veterinary Medicine. My experience includes working as a large animal mobile vet, a relief vet, and for two years an emergency vet: one of the toughest jobs a veterinarian can ever do.
In 2006, I moved to Durham to focus on what I love most: small animal medicine and surgery. In 2011, I bought Eno Animal Hospital (big risk!) after being an associate vet there for a number of years, and set my sights on building a new hospital and growing the business dramatically.
We solve all sorts of problems for pet parents! We’re a one-stop shop for fur babies: wellness care, treatment, surgery and dentistry, acupuncture and laser therapy, radiology, ultrasound, grooming and boarding. We aren’t an emergency hospital; our team will always recommend the best care option.
Our mission is: to help as many pets as possible. Our mantra is: best care. We make no judgments about what pet parents may accept or decline; our job is to offer the best treatment plan and help people make the best decisions. We treat the pet, the whole pet, and focus our energy on what’s best for the pet. I’m proud of our commitment to Fear Free practices and how the team has embraced Fear Free. We take our cues from the pet in front of us and always prioritize emotional well-being. The most important thing is to get to know the patient.
Vet pros really are a voice for the voiceless; we’re advocates and healers. I’m most proud of my amazing team. I’ve never seen a group of people work so hard as the Eno team has these last few years. Times are tough. The COVID-19 pandemic meant many new protocols, and so many more pets. Demand is high, and our team is lean. Compassion fatigue is real. People are stressed.
We deal with so much, and we give our all and go through it with every single unique pet. In one recent two-week span, we helped 29 pets cross the Rainbow Bridge. This job is intense.
Happily, we also share so much joy: celebrating new pets, cracking a difficult case, getting a high-risk patient through surgery, managing an allergy or rehabbing an injury to get a pet back to rights.
I want everyone to know we have the best Eno family! We have the greatest pet parents, people who will do anything and everything for their fur babies. Plus they give us so much support and love: little notes and cards, cookies and treats, kind words, even social media comments. Each and every nice thing really keeps us going.
I also want to mention how much fun and happiness we have at Eno. We do all these cool things for our Eno team and family to let them know how much we love them: surprise prizes, shout-outs, gift bags, Facebook caption contests called Freebie Friday every week, special drawings, the Eno Advent Calendar every December. We really want to honor everyone who does so much for us by trusting us to be their vet.
Lastly, we value being part of our awesome community and want to make a positive difference. So we spend a lot of time and effort out and about at local events big and small: the APS Walk, Festival for the Eno, NC Pet Expo, Bahama Day, Barktoberfest, Durham Santa Paws. We even create events to support local animal groups; recently we held a fundraiser at Eno for Beyond Fences, and folks got to dunk me! We had raffles, games, a prize wheel. A local watercolor artist donated a pet portrait as a drawing, all for a small contribution to a great cause.
Being a Durham vet means a lot to us—we take time to celebrate that! We always meet the best people and pets, and have so much fun. Eno is all about happy team, happy pets, happy visits.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
This is an essential, and existential, issue. Your team is your everything. You have to give them what they need and value.
We make time for success stories and shout-outs in every weekly team meeting. We have a shout-out board in our Treatment Area for people to put up sticky notes: “Thank you Stephie for getting all the day admissions in the rain!” “Thank you Charles for calming down Muffin’s pet parent!” “Noelle is the greatest person for grooming Fluffy.” (Yes, we have difficult patients. We still help patients who want to kill us!)
Celebrate successes! I cannot stress this enough. Celebrate good visits and getting through tough visits. Celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, milestones. Set a goal for the week, then celebrate meeting it with pizza. For morale, we often turn to food! I always keep snacks and drinks in the break room. An executive will run out to get coffee and cookies on an especially hard day. Foster great relationships with your vendors and reps; they can give you fun things (travel mugs, tote bags) you can give to your team.
We hold regular lunch-and-learns on important vet care and wellness topics. We bring in experts on compassion fatigue and self-care.
We encourage suggestions (not complaints) at every team meeting; tell us how we could do this process better. What do you think about this process? What issues are you having with this process? We have a formal process in place to change a protocol or get a new product or piece of equipment; any team member can submit a form and offer ideas to make that change. Sometimes we have to say no to an idea, but we almost always try it. The important thing is team members feel heard and respected. We ask questions and truly listen to the answers.
It’s crucial to give both praise and feedback. A supportive word for a job well done goes a long way; it shows we see you. We’re also honest with constructive training; you have to set your team up to succeed. Offering no feedback sets people up to fail. Set high expectations, then provide the tools, resources, and support to meet them. Get out of the way; micromanaging kills team spirit and confidence. Your team needs to feel you trust them. You’ll notice when there’s a mistake; the key is to be direct and gentle about how to resolve it. Your team is allowed to make mistakes, then be empowered to fix them!
Be transparent and generous. We have a performance-based bonus structure; we set monthly financial goals and give a bonus to everyone when we meet it. (We’re quick to point out that making money represents the number of pets helped; pets are always the priority, and to keep helping pets we have to make money.)
Find out what your team wants and work hard to give it to them. Is it rain jackets? (Our assistants who run outside to fetch pets really value this on gloomy days.) Is it team lunches, a uniform allowance, or other perks? Is it holiday pay? People need to know their contributions matter; they need to feel fairly rewarded. Often they feel hard work should show up in their paychecks. So yes: Pay well! Or as well as you can, and then work toward more. It’s a boon to the team and to your business to attract and retain happier people.
We cannot always pay as much as we want to pay. We’re working hard to get to a higher starting wage because we know it’s important.
Root out what hurts team morale. An expressly negative person isn’t a good fit for Eno; it’s better to be down a team member than have a team member bring the team down. Show your support in real ways. Stand up for your people. Some folks are stronger than others, but everyone knows in the big picture they will be supported. For example, every so often a pet parent yells at or insults a team member. That client gets “fired.” We’re in this for pets, not money; we will not tolerate abuse of any kind to keep a client.
I’m really proud of our morale, especially as everyone’s resiliency has been tested through COVID. I’ll give you two beautiful examples of our team morale. We always throw a July 4th party: close early, cook out, play corn hole (or with water balloons). Every single team member shows up (even if it’s a day off), and often brings partners and kids. It’s a thrill to see your whole team show up because they enjoy being together!
Number two: My favorite part of any day is when I’m sitting in my office, off the Treatment Area, and hear laughter and merriment drift in. When you can have that, when your team finds joy together in all the hectic pressure, it’s a success to be celebrated. We take great care to make the team happy, and my heart sings every time I see the team happy.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
We built our audience on social media through dedicated social media marketing! It takes commitment, strategy, and planning to get a social media audience to trust your brand.
In 2019, we hired a full-time marketing director who keeps a social media calendar and posts regularly. Her advice is…
1. Pick a few key social media channels and maintain an active presence. You don’t need to—and can’t—be everywhere; you need to be dedicated where you are. We have Facebook and Instagram. Depending on the week, we post seven to 10 times. You can do fewer; just be consistent. (In the spring of 2019, we had 924 Facebook followers and 134 Instagram followers; today we have 1,463 and 505 followers, respectively.)
2. Social media marketing is for engagement. (It’s not so much for driving new business/client acquisition, although an awesome social media presence certainly helps build and showcase your brand.) We use social to celebrate Eno pets and pet parents, plus team milestones and accomplishments.
Mix it up: Tongue Out Tuesday, a weekly educational post. Have fun! We hold a weekly Facebook caption contest. Social media is mostly the place for people who already love you to see you. It’s a great platform to tell your story…
3. Tell your authentic story. Make your posts memorable and moving. Be professional and relevant. Use your brand voice. Our vibe is joyful and friendly; still we always post with purpose. Share your purpose. Create good content: high-quality photos and video, strong writing (shorter is better for social). Specific best practices: Ask questions. Use trending topics and hashtags. Respond!
Social media, as with all digital publishing, thrives on dynamic content. This means both posting frequently and timely, and making a real investment in original content curated for and targeted to your audience. Make your social media an audience experience. Engagement drives affinity and advocacy for your brand.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://enoanimalhospital.com/
- Instagram: @enoanimalhospital
- Facebook: @enoanimalhospital
- Yelp: Eno Animal Hospital