Will Power
Being a physical therapy entrepreneur can be unbelievably challenging at times. From patient care, to running the businesses, to balancing a family, it’s no wonder many entrepreneurs feel overwhelmed and burned out. Each Tuesday, join Will Humphreys, a retired private practice owner and medical entrepreneur, as he introduces game-changing leadership concepts and interviews other successful leaders in healthcare. If you want to start, scale, or sell your outpatient physical therapy business, this is for you. Together not only can we increase our income, impact and freedom, we can build the largest network of healthcare leaders in the world at the Will Power Podcast.
Will Power
How Connecting With Animals Transformed His Patient Experience - Jeff Letendre
Unleashing Empathy and Innovation in Leadership
Ever wondered how a deep connection with animals can translate into exceptional leadership and technological innovation? In this episode, we welcome Jeff Letendre, CEO and founder of Virtual Front Desk, who takes us on a remarkable journey from an animal advocate to a tech entrepreneur revolutionizing patient care. Jeff shares his unforgettable experience rescuing a fawn named Fairy, revealing the profound ties we can form with animals and how these relationships shape our empathy and understanding of the world. His insightful stories provide a unique perspective on leadership, connection, and human interaction.
Key Takeaways:
- The Power of Empathy in Leadership
- Evolution of Virtual Front Desks
- Blending Technology with Human Connection
- Managing Remote Teams for Success
- Inspiration from Industry Giants
- Community Building in Healthcare
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Hey rock stars. Today we are super excited to have our guest, jeff Latondra from Virtual Front Desk. He's the CEO and founder of this amazing software that allows us to virtually bring in human beings to check in individuals at our front desk. But that's not the main focus. You are going to learn all about his business, the pros, the cons, all that great stuff, but I really want you to focus on Jeff's story.
Speaker 1:Right out of the gate, he has an unusual talent of connection and this is partly where and you'll see in the podcast episode how he's gone from being this almost savant level connector with animals, with an Instagram following over a hundred thousands of people who watch him as he nurtures animals back to life and helps them live in his home in Canada. But he's also helping people connect virtually so that we can improve efficiency, save money but actually improve the patient care experience. As we transition to this technological age of virtual front desks. We're going to go through all sorts of leadership concepts. He has unbelievable recommendations at the end of the podcast for books and some other leadership concepts. I'm so excited for you to listen to Jeff. Enjoy the show.
Speaker 2:I have like a hundred thousand something followers, so it's fun yeah.
Speaker 1:That is so cool. Okay, so I got to follow your account. So is it just your name?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just my name. I don't really talk. It's my personal account. I talk about a lot of stuff like fitness veganism, but it's mainly animals because that's what really people are into, so it's fun.
Speaker 1:You've inspired me, since. We've obviously got such a spiritual connection that I've decided I want to get into much better shape after talking to you a lot more too, so I will definitely follow your Instagram for sure. Just how do I pronounce your last name, by the way?
Speaker 2:Le Tendre. Le Tendre, I mean you said like Le Tendre, probably in English. I have raccoons and a deer right now. So the deer is man. It's unbelievable. I don't know how lucky I got, but I'm on the phone right there on my terrace and I see this phone coming out of the woods alone. So I say, oh, the mother must be near somehow somewhere. But it's still cute. You know, it's still rare. So I hang up with my friend and I try to call this thing, I try to get closer, and she just ran away in the woods. I see her again the day after and she's still alone. And then this time I retake my time, my dogs are inside, I get to get a little closer to me. She looks at me and she seems a bit lost and there's no mom. So and I, we I live near a highway and we often kill deer, you know, like roadkill.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, by accident, sure. So I was like shit, she probably lost her mom and she's alone and she doesn't know what to do. I grabbed a bottle of milk with you know, this was with something to suck on it and I attached it to the deer feeder, like about like a meter high, and within no time that thing went to, it started sucking the milk and she started drinking. She was starving. She must have been starving. She must have smelled the milk and she started drinking. She was starving, she must've been starving. She must've smelled the milk and said, hey, but it's like. And the day after I did it again, and within no times, I took that bottle in my hand and she went straight for it, even though I was there, and she looked at me in the eye and she was like you're my daddy, that's it, that's all. And she never left me after that. And now she's a full grown adult.
Speaker 2:I see her every morning, every night. She sometimes walk into the house. I take walk with her in the woods. She's completely free, she's always been wild, but she's my best friend from the forest and it's unbelievable. Like this morning I was brushing her. Like every morning she comes for a brush, so she likes to be brushed.
Speaker 1:I brush her entire body, the neck, the face. I go under her belly, the legs she loves it.
Speaker 2:So that's how I start my day. Basically, you have a pet deer, I have a pet wild deer.
Speaker 1:That's the thing she's wild yeah, you don't have any guardrails keeping her in or anything like that. She can leave whenever she wants. She can go wherever she wants. Yeah, is she out like she wants? Does she disappear for periods of time or does she come back?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't see her the entire winter because she actually met a group of deer. She met a mother and two youngs last fall. That was my idea. I said I would try to have her meet other deer so they would bump together and form a family, and that's what happened last fall and they vanished for most of the winter, funny enough. And in the spring I even saw a carcass of a young deer next to my land here and it was devoured, so only like legs were left and bits of skin. So I thought I was sad that must have been Fairy.
Speaker 2:Her name is Fairy. Fairy is the name of the fawn, yeah, fairy. But then, late Aprilil, she shows up out of nowhere, super thin but alive and well, and I was like I cannot believe it and I started feeding her again, started brushing her and she was losing like her winter coat, and she turned into a beautiful adult. Now it's like she has this gold color on her coat. It's beautiful. You have no idea the intelligence, the emotion of these animals. No wonder Disney made them a star. They have those big eyes but they're so smart and calm and majestic and they're very, very special. Raccoons are special, they're amazing, but they're more like a breed within a cat and a dog. We're more used to it. But deer man.
Speaker 1:I had no idea that deer were like that. It's so interesting that, because I can hear that you actually have a relationship with this deer, like it goes both ways and it's nonverbal, obviously, but it's one of those where there's a parental connection between you and this fawn. Yeah and man, that is unbelievable. So how long have you been taking care of this?
Speaker 2:fairy. It's a full year, almost a half now, because I found her last spring. I mean, it was late spring when I found her and she's still here today, so it's over a year now.
Speaker 1:So this animal passion that you have, which has driven this huge following on social media, with 100,000 plus followers, like where did that begin? Where does that originate from? Jeff?
Speaker 2:To be honest with you. I started with raccoons. A friend of mine called me said hey, we found those raccoons. I know, jeff, you love animals because I've been vegan forever. So I was in love with animals since 98. So over 25 years now. And she said, jeff, you live in nature, you're good with animals, you have two dogs. Would you take care of these raccoons? I'm sure you could do it. They were tiny, three and a half week old. They're still blind. You have to give them milk and you have to become their parents. So I was like give me a day, let me think about it, because I know it's a big responsibility. But I couldn't say no. The day after I said, okay, bring them in. And uh, so that's how. That's how it started.
Speaker 2:On the first year I didn't know what I was doing, but I built them a big enclosure outside and I started filming what I was doing and people would call that this is so cool. And it's only about six, seven months down the line that all of a sudden the account went viral. So I wasn't expecting this at all. It went really viral because then I had the coons, but then I had the deer coming up into the picture. So now I was mixing videos of a young fawn and who doesn't like a young fawn drinking a bottle? I mean it's very weird, it's very unusual.
Speaker 2:And all these animals are wild now, like the raccoons. They don't stay with me very long. They stay with me like three, four months and I release them and then they're free on the land. I see them at night. Sometimes they visit, like it's all very wild, wild and free and I think that's what people like.
Speaker 2:And I always take the chance to talk about the food. You know, like, if you love animals, don't torture them or eat them or murder them. You know, if you love them, you love them all, because and the account shows that wild animal are behaving exactly like a dog or a cat. There's absolutely no difference. And fairy, even you would say, oh, they're just deer. You know they're this, they're that because we put tag on them. But at the end of the day, what I've learned, I mean I knew this, but now it's firsthand with my experience with them they are like us, they are like our dog, our cats. It's just us giving them a tag. You know, oh, this is a wild animal, we can shoot them. But if you were close to fairy. If you get a chance to brush her, to see, to speak to her, how could you ever shoot an animal like that, unless you really have to?
Speaker 1:You have a spiritual connection, though I think it's what most people don't have is that exposure. Recently I took my family to Africa and we had this opportunity to get exposed to a completely different culture. And we're big travelers We've been to 34 countries but this was a different experience because we were really focusing on poverty and it was so different I think just the reason I'm bringing this up because it parallels what you're saying when you and Fawn connected, you and Ferry the Fawn connected and you understood, really understood her and you could see her. Like you talk about the eyes, you see her, which is not just a human thing, it's a living thing to need to be seen and heard in our own way. Right, and when we were overseas, we were over there to be like you know, these saviors coming around and giving money and helping them out, but what we, what ended up happening, was this organization was really against that. They're like no, we want to empower them.
Speaker 1:You go over there to be a student kind of like how you were with with this fawn, where you were serving them. You were serving her in a very like you're. You know, very, here's the bottle, walk away, she takes it and then, over time. There's a connection there. That's what we did. We were over there, we did bring some money and some things, but we were learning how to sweep their dirt floors with leaves from a tree and they were teaching us how to make rice from scratch, and they were teaching us just all these things and it was empowering them because they were the teachers.
Speaker 1:We were the students and I'm not kidding you, man. It changed my heart completely and how I see poverty, because what I've realized in that lesson is that there's different degrees of poverty and in my world we think of them not having materialism as being completely poor, but they have levels of abundance that I'm poor in Emotionally, with social media and different levels. They don't have that. So, going back to Fawn, I think the reason I say all this is because when we connected to that world, it changed our lens completely. And what you're saying is, when you're connected to this deer, you see animals differently, you understand their existence, and it changes just how you operate, I mean it's beautiful, we're on the same page.
Speaker 2:It's allowing yourself to take off your filter when you look at an animal or when you look at a poor people, like you were just saying, and you just look at them from the being they are, without what society made you think they are. You know like you brush all of this aside, you take a moment, you take a few seconds, you just look at that being and then you realize, oh my God, they are a spiritual being just like us. They may not have a religion, but it's a being in a physical body, experimenting earth the exact way that I do in different circumstances. We're not smarter than them, we just have different physical tools and they're doing very well with what they have. Think that these beings they raise their kids, they mate, they find their food, they heal themselves.
Speaker 2:They have to understand now modern human behavior. How does that work? They have to weather, go through winter, they have to go through hunting, they have foes, they have friends, they have families and it works. And they don't have insurance, they don't have police to help them, they don't have hospital. If they go sick, they have to survive by their own. So they are extremely intelligent in their own ways. It's just that we sometimes think that we're more intelligent than them because we build planes.
Speaker 2:Okay. But if I was to ask you, will, can you build a plane? You can't. It's just that it's build up information from previous humans put together. But then I'm going to ask you, can you fly on your own? Then the bird will say, well, you're stupid, you can't fly, you need to build a machine. I can fly. A bear can smell something two miles away, a fish can swim on the water and breathe. So we all have our own sets of tools. And if you, if you go, if you put your ego aside and you look at them, it's you realize how wonderful these little earthy cousins are and they deserve our respect and, if anything, our protection.
Speaker 1:So I experienced you from that place of of being a guy who's just very aware of being present and connecting. Like you know, as I've gotten to know you, I see you as this individual who's. I'm not surprised by this. I mean it is a little bit cool and unique in the sense that, like you have this following based on this unique skill that you have, because I think it's also a skill to connect with animals. But I also know from having interacted with you that, like that is what you also bring to your company as well. You bring that ability to connect, which is kind of interesting because what you do professionally is about connection as well.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. Never seen it this way. Yeah, interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so just kind of like for the audience, tell people what you do and why that comment is so relative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, basically what I do I'm the CEO of uh, that's what I do now is the ceo of a virtual friend s, which is a video reception app. You could call it a visitor management app, but I I like video reception app sounds, sounds more, more like it because we are centered around the human experience, like the human interaction, the video call. Uh, basically, this app started off if you're curious actually to know how I started the app, absolutely Back at some point. My first business was a vacation rental business, hotel business, and I was running these Airbnbs in Montreal like a hotel and that was the name of the company, like a hotel actually. And at at some point we started having these bad guests, like street gang that would rent our apartment.
Speaker 2:When I got to 10, 15 apartments, I started getting trashed. People would rent the apartment through airbnb. They would come in there, do a party and they would destroy the apartment like destroy wheel. They would break, tear down the fridge door, rip open the sofas like break all the frames, steal, jump on the sound system. Don't steal anything, they just destroy the place. Oh man, happens like it happened twice back to back. So I was like I'm screwed. How am I ever going to go through it.
Speaker 2:I only have 15 apartments and I was always ambitious to have like 500 one day, because I want to scale this business. And I was looking at the Hiltons, the hotels, and I was like how come they have 500 rooms? They don't get that problem and I do with only 15. And it clicked that well, they have a reception, jeff, everybody who rents a room at the Hilton. They have to provide the ID, they have to provide a credit card that will match their name, so they cannot just vanish. You know, if they break something they'll be caught. So then I said, okay, how can I implement a reception in my Airbnb business? And that's where the virtual front desk ID came.
Speaker 2:And I believe and that was back in 2015, that I was the first in the world to use a video call to do check-ins. So I looked online. I didn't see anything like that and I thought about okay, now you have those touchscreen all-in-one computer a bit like our iPhone. What if I was putting this on the corridor of my buildings? You would click the check-in, it would call my receptionist that, working from home, I would ask for an ID. Look at their face, make sure the credit card matches what I have in the system. And if it didn't, and if they were telling me, oh, I'm just coming in to grab the key for my friend, I'll say no, no, no, no. When I will see your friend, with the same name as the reservation and the ID, I will let you in. I will give you the code to the apartment. Right now, no one's getting into the apartment and it stopped all my problem in one go.
Speaker 1:So you did it, you put those videos up.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, I hired a bunch of students and say, hey, this is the idea that I have. So it was internal, it was my little trade secret for, like a hotel, none of my competitors understood how I could grow so fast and then owners would throwing keys at me and at the end I was managing like 125 doors. So it was a good business. And after 25,000 chicken and unfortunately, I told myself I have to do an app with this and go public and, like a hotel, unfortunately the city here, montreal, they changed the law and even though I had a permit for all the doors that I was doing, they taxed me like crazy, like if I was a hotel anyway. They did everything they could to close us down and I had to shut down this company.
Speaker 2:But then I say, okay, no problem, it happens. You, you know everything happens for a reason, but you have to put virtual for desk on the market. Then, and then I went with uh, I found another investor to start this company with. Then we started catering for hotels and airbnbs, and here we are today, you know. And uh, we were hit by the pandemic, lost all of our revenue in one go, and then I sat down and I said okay, with whatever little money we have left, we have to turn this over. You know, we have to rebrand and we have to start offering our services to medical clinics, to lawyers offices, to government office, because everybody's afraid of touching anybody and everybody's afraid of someone coughing. So our video is virus, and you know.
Speaker 1:COVID. You're not going to get COVID for the TV screen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, our video is virus and you know you're not gonna get covered for the tv screen, yeah, so so I think that's our chance, actually, guys. So we managed to flip thing over and, uh, that's that's where we at really today. So hotels and airbnbs are only like five percent of our businesses now.
Speaker 1:It's it's a very small percentage now yeah, you know it's interesting because you've gone really big into the healthcare space and really helping entrepreneurs solve that problem. I think for a lot of you know, for me, pt practices in particular is where I was raised and where I speak to mostly, and I think the biggest concern people face in doing that goes back to our initial discussion about the deer Is that there's something magical when you see someone in the eyes and you can connect with them, and I think that's what a lot of us. For me, this concept back when I had my handful of locations in Arizona, would have been very scary because I would have been worried about losing that connection, because that is a huge part of the patient experience and, like, obviously, in the Airbnb space that still is valuable, as as other spaces. But why do you think it's growing in the healthcare space and speak maybe into that concern of, like you know, losing the potential of losing connection because they're not physically there?
Speaker 2:There's a bunch of reasons why I think it's becoming very popular, especially in health clinics, including, you know, physiotherapy and, let's face it, you know staffing. It seems that staffing those clinics with front office staff is not easy, so that's one concern for sure, it's costly. And also I think that you work with a good percentage of people that are a bit older, maybe an older generation, and they're not so friendly with technology and pressing button and choosing like options. So they like things to be simple and nothing like hey, hello, how are you With a smile? How can I help you today? What's your name? You know? Boom, it's done.
Speaker 2:I think that's why virtual friend desk is very I think it's an efficient tool because it kind of blends the two, where it allows you to find staff anywhere you want, because you don't have to staff locally. You still provide that human experience. And actually, if you have customers that are used to the system, you can use QR codes, you can use options, but you always have that option. That's always what I propose. My clients have an option call receptionist or call for help. A big button call for help, a big button calls for help. So if you go with the buttons, great, but if you want to speak to someone, call for help. Someone shows on the screen smiling. There you go. So I think it's the blend of the two that makes it very efficient.
Speaker 1:I am shocked at how well it works to have a virtual front desk because I thought, especially with older patients in rural settings, this would be a problem. But what I'm finding is that many people what they want is efficiency and they still need that connection, and it's all based on connection. Again, this is a theme that's in your life, jeff, from how you connect. I would say if there's a theme from the little that I've known you over the past few weeks, is that you are a connector in unpredictable ways.
Speaker 1:Like you wouldn't predict that you'd connect with animals or with people, creating a technology to create a connection between people over technology, the way that you do but that's what you're about and that's what happens here is that when you have the right person on the other side of the screen, it doesn't matter that it's a screen. What matters is that they can still see you in the eyes side of the screen. It doesn't matter that it's a screen. What matters is that they can still see you in the eyes and I would tell you that, like for me, I love the idea that we can leverage from a business model better people, lower costs, because you can spread them out differently. There's all different solutions that exist out there. So, yeah, man, I think that's fantastic that you have built that model out and seen that success. And another thought that I just had quickly is how you started. The need for it to begin with was more about protection, like the Airbnb concept that you built was more about like protecting, connecting to protect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also efficiency and customer service, because there was no reception in any Airbnbs back in the days and you know you go to rent an Airbnb. Have you rented Airbnbs before?
Speaker 1:I have, and I have a couple that I own.
Speaker 2:Okay, that you own. Okay, how often do you physically meet your guests? Never, there you go, and. But Airbnb is all about connecting to communities, you know, but at the end of the day, the reality is that you never meet with your host because your host is not there. You may do it the first time, like your first official booking. You may want to be there, hey, welcome. You're all excited, but after a while say, hey, you know what, here's the key, here's the code, here's the address, thank you, bye. But the virtual friend desk were allowing us to really meet those guests face to face, each one of them, and they all loved it. And our review online on Airbnb went up to the roof. And on Bookingcom and Expedia because we were the only one doing that, yeah, and they really felt like they knew us. And just going back to your point about connection, it's something that we brought to the table. Renting Airbnbs.
Speaker 1:So the rock stars that are listening. The thing that I want to point out here is that it is way more effective to have the right person virtually than an average or poor person in person, and that was my experience. Owning a practice, jeff, is that I had numerous practices. I eventually learned and developed this really difficult way of having find great people. I found great people, but it wasn't easy. But up until then, I was hiring people who oftentimes made me feel like they were doing me a favor by showing up.
Speaker 1:And so, look, everyone in the world can relate to the experience of going into an outpatient medical clinic, whether it's PT or a doctor or a surgeon of orthopedics or whatever. You walk in and you're going to this specialist who's going to charge you maybe tens of thousands of dollars for a surgery, but the person at the front desk acts like they're in a drive-through at a fast food chain, which and I'm not knocking people who work at drive-throughs, you know because ultimately, I've had some great experiences but the experience, the customer service, has to be elevated. What would you say to people who are like, yeah, but virtual front desk is going to diminish the customer service experience? What would you say to that?
Speaker 2:To the contrary, I would say first of all, if you have bad staff or poor staff, it's probably because you lack the resources around In the local area. Maybe you don't have enough people available, so you have to settle down for lesser quality people. Let's say but virtual friendless will allow you to source from anywhere in your country. Let's say that we stick to the States, so you will get more CVs, better quality CVs, and I would say that a lot of people want to work from home because it's like a bonus. You have maybe a single mom. One week out of two she works from home and then they will love what they do because it's very advantageous for them.
Speaker 2:You can take the best because your pool is much larger and if you give them a hand, like, hey listen, I want to work a long time with you, I want to provide you with a good computer. Well, I'm going to send you a very good quality camera, maybe a second monitor. So you have two monitors, one for the EMR, the other one just for virtual from there. So when someone shows up at the screen, it's like if they're standing at the front of it with you. They have a good set of headphones, even a chair, whatever, take care of your staff in the comfort of their home. They have a digital background. Maybe you can get in a little t-shirt representing your brand.
Speaker 2:These guys, they will love what they do because they're working from home and so it's great. No traffic, they can take a little pause. There's no call, there's notification. They can go in the kitchen, make themselves a coffee or a sandwich. Oh, the computer rings, they go back to the computer. So it's a good job to have, and I think this allows you guys to create super receptionists that will stick to you and provide an excellent service. So no to the contrary, I think this virtual friend desk can definitely improve your customer service.
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Speaker 1:Yeah, and statistics have actually backed this up. I was reading on LinkedIn. I'm not going to try to quote them because I'm going to misrepresent them, but the general message was very clear that going virtual has actually increased customer service across the board. For the very reason you said, it's flipping the script of how we typically hire as medical owners. It's very different compared to other businesses because a hotel owner doesn't identify as doing hotel. Like what do you do? Oh, I'm a hotel provider. It's like no, I own a hotel versus a physical therapist. I am a physical therapist, so they're so tied to the production of what they're doing. It immediately limits their ability to go out and hire candidates. And so this flips that script, because every owner I've ever come across, even if they do it well, struggles in hiring and retaining talent.
Speaker 1:So when we go virtual and we're able to create a situation where more people want it than there are openings, then we can go from being the seller to the buyer and we can buy what we want, which is like because everyone wants to be a part of that and we don't have to pay as much. Like, all these problems start to minimize as we start to improve and then, when the customer service improves, everything else improves. True statistic Every single one of my clients who have worked with a virtual solution and my virtual assistants, every single one of their percent of arrival has increased. Oh, yeah, and we measure that, yeah. So why do you think again maybe this is just beating a dead horse, but why do you think that is?
Speaker 2:Again, I think it's difficult to find the right staff to keep yourself, and I do a lot of demos every day with physicians and they always say, oh my God, it's so difficult to find people and she just delayed this one and we have to train them. You know, it's a long time and then they go and it's just. It seems to be one of the biggest pain and biggest challenges in their clinics. I don't know, because I'm not a physician, but that's what I hear from my clients. So yeah, and the video technology has changed the way we do business in so many ways. It has improved the way we do business. Like, look at what we're doing now. Normally I would have had to drive, you know, go to you and maybe film this and put this on another kind of media, but now we can use video call. It's amazing. I'm having so much fun doing this. Think about all the poor salesmen in the past that have to drive into their car to the next meeting with a little calendar and then meeting this guy waiting in the waiting room, meeting the client, going back to their car, the parking, go to the next address the cost and the inefficiency Right now, zoom call. You want to speak to your lawyer. Zoom call, video call it's awesome. So I think it's just a matter of time. But most reception area will start using these tools. It's just a matter of time, but most reception area will start using these tools. It's just a matter of time.
Speaker 2:A customer service hub you're at the airport, you need information about your flight. You may have someone standing there, but why don't you have these little hubs here and there? You click on the button, you have a super receptionist working for your airline oh hello, how can I help you? Today? It's gyms is working for your airline. Oh hello, how can I help you? Today it's gyms I mean, I'm not going to name, but everywhere you see a reception. Eventually we'll use some kind of video reception. I think it's the present and the future. It just makes so much sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it kind of reminds me of grocery stores when they started doing the self-checkout and people were like why would I check myself out and work harder for a service I don't have to pay for and everyone is in line? Because we understand that efficiency and time matter. So when we can improve customer service and then improve efficiency and time, we automatically win. So now that we've covered all that, jeff, I think for me what's really top of mind is that I know a lot of people who haven't ever done this, which is going to be the vast majority of people who are hearing this.
Speaker 1:Their next thought is like well, how do I manage people over a virtual environment? And your business is virtual? I know you have a wonderful team and great people that work with you, so maybe you could just speak into from a place of experience of like, what does that look like? Like you know, I guess, the other thing I and I had my front desk. I would just physically go up and be like how was your weekend? We connect All right, how's it going? What do you need help with? So, when it comes to oversight of a team that's virtual, could you have any experiences that you could share with that?
Speaker 2:As like virtual front desk specifically.
Speaker 1:No more for like your company, like Like people that you work with and like how you run meetings and like how do you oversee people in that regard?
Speaker 2:Same answer Video call a lot. I mean, we do all our videos, all our meetings, for videos. We've been users of Slack, the customers. Now we have a live chat in the app, virtual friends, and also on the website. And when people are talking to me or writing to me in the chat, the first thing I say, oh, you're available right now to jump on a call.
Speaker 2:I click the video button and I start a video call because they love it and I like it. I'm a people guy, you know. It's true, I live in the forest here in North of Montreal. I'm alone, but I connect with people all day and that's what we like.
Speaker 2:And they feel like, oh my God, he's taking the time to switch his camera on, to look at me and listen to my issue and I say, hey, you know what? Just share your screen, I'm going to help you. And then you share a screen with them. You see your station there. Just add the button there, click save it, just refresh, boom, fixed. Man, this is as good as it gets customer service-wise. Good as it gets customer service-wise.
Speaker 2:So yeah, my answer is that I use a lot of video calls in my day. It's just I like it personally, and when a client is not switching the camera on, I ask them oh, I don't see you? They say, oh, yes, because I'm not, that, don't worry. And then they switch it on and hey, jeff, and then you have that kind of friendly relationship and we released a new interface not long ago and I'm getting many emails. Hey, jeff, congratulations for the interface. I like it like we're a bunch of I wouldn't say friend, you know, but yeah, we, we, we take care of each other. It's fun, you know let's well.
Speaker 1:I love that because I think it's really when you, by the way, when you had that thought of like hey, I can't see you turn on your camera, I just wondered if you ever got that. Oh, you can turn it back off. No, but, like for me, I have. Currently, I have over 100 employees. I actually haven't met 90% of them. So for me, I will tell you the reason I asked that question is because you're in a tech space.
Speaker 1:You know from your origin Healthcare providers. It's a different. It's kind of going back to the deer. It feels like this whole podcast is about going back to the deer. Until you see it and experience it, you don't understand it. So it's, on paper, a huge out point for a lot of medical leaders Because, again, where is their world? It's right in front of their hands and they use their hands in all cases and they're dealing with what's physically in front of them. So the little success they've had in management correlates with that, in the sense that they've had to have face-to-face discussions.
Speaker 1:But I will say that it was scary for me as well, as I was building my new company, all virtual, and I was shocked how it's like. I always like equate it to a different muscle. It is a different muscle but it's not hard to develop. You, I always equate it to a different muscle. It is a different muscle but it's not hard to develop. This is something that just takes a little bit of commitment and practice to, and once we're in it, I have a hard time going back. I reserve physical, face-to-face conversations.
Speaker 1:Whenever there's something really big on the line, like a merger acquisition, I will fly out.
Speaker 1:I will fly out if there's anything that is like super high, but everything else, the amount of time that was honestly wasted in oh, they're five minutes late and they come in and then they need water and the restroom and then we sit down and then it's like, oh my gosh, you know you're sweating and it's all gone and what's left isn't a lack of communication or connection, it's actually a hyper focus of it and I think when people can see it and they can look it in the eye, this new way of being, they'll catch on very quick. That's what I really want to commend you for, jeff, is that you're a pioneer in that space, the first one to be out in this space, and what you've done is develop a product that works seamlessly. I've I've had clients work with your product. It just, it just flows, it's built.
Speaker 1:What I also love is that it's very customizable, like there's so many things you can do with it, that can customize it for the need of the clients, and I don't know if you can speak into that. But yeah, I'd love, I'd love for people to understand like what that could look like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even more so. As I mentioned, we just released a new update and you have more customization that you can do with your station. The visual Because I think that your visual is what you present on your station is very personal and I want those stations to look as good as the client's branding. So now it's almost limitless. You can have pictures, you can have that background, you can have your own logo, you can change the color, the font. So this is a new tool. I have even more customization coming down the pipe. But it's great what you can do right now with this new interface, you can do whatever you want, whatever you have in mind for your station. We used to only have a background and a button. You can even change the color of the button. It was very basic, with almost an MVP at first. So we've gone a long way now and I'm not going to say what we have in mind. But there's even more stuff coming up and we're always releasing new features and updates every quarter, so we keep ourselves very busy.
Speaker 1:Okay, very good. Well, you got it. Guys, jeff's a visionary. He was one of the pioneers of this technology. He's got more coming to help offload us as we continue to scale and grow. So, jeff, as we wrap things up, I'd love to hear a couple of things from you. Let's go with a book recommendation. What's a book that you like to recommend to people who are just in general? It could be entertaining, it could be business, whatever you want.
Speaker 2:I would say one that I would say that's pretty incredible, it's almost science fiction, that, as an entrepreneur, you have to read. It's Elon Musk's biography. Oh yeah, if I believe that anybody on earth is an alien, it would be this guy, because, like, he could unzip his face, you know and like, and I would believe it's off course you know we'd all like oh, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Finally, yeah, like we'd all be, like that's totally natural yeah, and it's the only guy that motivates me but also makes me feel like crap all at once, because I look at everything this guy is doing. So, oh my God, jeff, go, you can do it. But then you look at his capacity and everything he's done and you feel like you've not achieved anything in your life. But it's an unbelievable book to read, I would say, because his story is crazy how he started with writing down, like you know, a kind of online yellow pages, then sold it, made like 20 million something, then attacked the bank, you know, with paypal, which was called actually xcom.
Speaker 1:that's why twitter is turning to another.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and emerge into another company. And then, basically, the guy beat the bank at their own game. The banks something very difficult to do. Then he beats the car manufacturer at their own game, starting from nothing, no experience. And then he beats NASA at their own game, building better rockets than NASA ever built, all by himself, before he's 50. I'm telling you, you would see a movie like this guy and say, oh, that's pure science, himself before he's 50. I'm telling you, you would see a movie like this guy and say, oh, that's pure science fiction. It's impossible in a lifespan that a guy can achieve so much and open AI and Jesus Starlink will.
Speaker 1:I just ordered my Starlink last week.
Speaker 2:You have one, I have one too here. No, I don't. It's like oh, I'm going to put 12,000 satellites in the air 12,000. And you're going to have the first worldwide internet available. And oh, by the way, I'm going to use my own space shuttle to put them in space that I've built myself and I have time to waste, so I'm going to test sending one of my car into space, into orbits around bloody Mars or whatever. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1:So the guy's unreal. I love also like how he's in a $50,000 home called Boxable. That's right next to his, his place of business. The guy doesn't care about things that maybe most of us do and, admittedly, maybe myself but like you, just you see that focus and he's got a mission. So I love the Booker recommendation. Jeff, that was phenomenal.
Speaker 2:Second, one book, a Business Again. I mean, you know the guy, obviously Richard Branson. I think the one I have is Losing my Virginity or something and how I built my incredible billionaire. But he starts the book with a line that really stuck to me to this day and actually that I have to apply. Even better, he starts his book by saying I might not be the richest man in the world, he's a billionaire, but he's not the richest billionaire. But there's something that I'm number one at out of all these guys, I'm number one at. Out of all these guys, I'm the one that had the most fun building my billion dollar business.
Speaker 1:Gee, isn't that worth more than money?
Speaker 2:and then he starts. You know how he started his record company, how he did his first transatlantic flight, you know having these bottles of champagne with everybody and this and he's. You know like all the stunts that he's done, like, oh yeah, air balloon across the ocean, and how he launches his company by doing crazy things like ice bottom, exotic island and the guy the guy is is happiness on legs to me and uh, it's great because, at the end of the day, why are we doing what we're doing? We're doing it because we want to have fun. We think that business will make us happy. So it's like, don't forget to have fun along the way, because that's the entire game you're playing. You're not playing a money game, you're playing a happy game. Yeah, it's like. Yeah, it's like, yeah, well, we can get caught up sometimes, you know, focusing on the dollar only in the destination, but let's not forget that we must have fun getting there, because that's 99% of where we're going to spend. Our time is getting there, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it goes back to the very beginning of our conversation. You know I told you that I experienced you as someone who's really present and that's why I think you have the instincts to connect with. Maybe the unusual or untypical is probably better stated, like you know animals and like creating systems to connect virtually, because being in the present is ultimately where the joy is Right. And I love that, because wherever I've ever been sad is from two things it's scared, anxious, sad. It's because either I want things to be different now than they are or I'm too busy focusing on the future and what might be. So if I can just focus on what I have right now and today and be grateful, I can find more joy in the journey. And it always comes down to connection Because the more like I will tell you, my boy is going back to Africa.
Speaker 1:When I went with those, those four boys, I was anticipating they would love the safari and all those fun things and that they were going to look at that week of serving as like this work and they'd be glad they did it. But ultimately we're glad it was over. The first day, the first day, I asked my youngest son, who started crying I'm like we were leaving and he started crying. I'm like why are you crying, bud? And he started crying. I'm like why are you crying, bud? You sick? Do you have malaria? I mean, we're in Africa and he's like no, dad, I've just never been happier in my life. I think this is what heaven feels like. You know, I think we can find heaven in the eyes of a deer or in a village, but it doesn't matter physically as much as where we are mentally in that present.
Speaker 2:What a great experience and gift to your kids also to have them go through such an experience. It's amazing, awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for this amazing experience, Jeff, being with me now, in this present and as people are listening to us. Thank you for listening to being with us. You could be anywhere right now, but as you're working out or in your car or on a walk, thank you for being with us. We're so grateful for your presence, your time, your attention and being present. And, Jeff, where can people find you? Please tell us your Instagram as well as how to contact you professionally.
Speaker 2:If you're curious about my personal life and animals. I don't talk much about VFD online, but it's Jeff, it's my name, jeff Latam, pretty easy, and for virtual finesse, the website's the best place to go. So yeah, I'm not super busy with virtual finesse online. Maybe it will come, you know, but we've not put too much effort on there. Like we have a LinkedIn, we good online, you know, take care of Google's and the SEO online. But social media for a SaaS it will come Like a hotel, you know, like the Airbnb business we were much busier, but a SaaS company will wait. We are putting our efforts somewhere else right now.
Speaker 1:Right now and you're growing and doing a great job. Jeff, Thank you so much for being a part of our show, and I'll put all that information in the show notes that people can easily click and find you that way as well. Awesome.
Speaker 2:Thanks to you, will. Thanks for the interview. It's a pleasure and well, it's a pleasure doing the interview and it's a pleasure working with you partnering. It's awesome.
Speaker 1:Thank you, my man, thank you, guys, and thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. Guys, thank you for taking time to listen to today's episode. If you found today's information to be useful, could you take a minute and help me? I would love it if you could leave a podcast review in your app so that other people who are looking for this information can find it. Plus, my dream is to have the largest network of medical entrepreneurs and leaders in the world so that together, we can change healthcare to make it better for all. So, in addition, if you can think of anyone that you can send this to, not only would that mean a lot to me personally, but it would build this network so that we can make healthcare the way that we want it.
