Dr Susan McKay BVM & S, MRCVS, MBA worked in veterinary practice before moving into industry, and is now the Director of PR and Marketing agency Companion Consultancy and the Founder of Veterinary Woman.
Please summarise your journey
I’m a vet who spent eight years in practice before joining a pet food company. While in the pet food industry I studied for an MBA and shortly after achieving the qualification I set up Companion Consultancy. That was over 20 years ago now. We started off doing copywriting and then very quickly added public relations to the mix. These days we have a full team of vets, marketers and designers and do everything including PR campaigns, social media, SEO, influencer outreach, video and podcasts. We only work with companies in vet and pet spaces and clients include organisations in the field of animal health, nutrition, veterinary practice, diagnostics, associations and professional services. I’m also the founder of Veterinary Woman – I talked about setting it up for around five years before I eventually lost patience with myself and just did it!
Describe your typical day from waking to sleeping
I’m a morning person so the alarm goes off at 6.40 am and I’m at my desk before 8 am. My youngest daughter recently learned to drive so I don’t have the school run any more, which means an even earlier start to work. Once the PC powers up, that’s me for the day. I’ll be responding to emails, attending meetings, coaching and mentoring the team, editing documents, preparing proposals and planning. The office is full of questions like ‘Is this the right hamster?’ and ‘Is it an NFA or POM-V?’ I rarely stop for lunch once I’m in the flow and most days I’ll work through to around six pm. Once home I’ll be feeding dogs and kids, clearing up afterwards and dipping back into my email to check everything is okay. I have been known to be on the phone to a client helping with crisis comms while dishing up pasta – when people need you, they need you. I’m happiest when I have a high degree of autonomy and I still have a passion for what I do. I always tell people I invented my own job so if I didn’t enjoy it, I’d only have myself to blame.
How would you describe yourself in a sentence?
Driven, determined and resilient: I sometimes think those are the only qualities you need to run a business. But I’m also very creative and always planning what I’ll do next to keep the agency moving forwards.
How would others describe you in a sentence?
I am imagining they would say short, Scottish and feisty.
I asked daughter 1 and she said: logical, analytical and kind of goofy. Probably sums it up.
What has been your top success and what have you learned from this?
Personally, bringing up my daughters from the ages of five and seven as a single parent. Somehow, we all made it out alive. Mainly it taught me the art of compromise and that sometimes things are ‘good enough’. And also that nothing actually ‘needs’ ironing…
Professionally, I’m my own worst taskmaster so in my opinion my top success hasn’t happened yet. That either makes me a hopeless optimist or a dyed in the wool pessimist – I’m not sure which. But I should maybe allow that celebrating 20 years as an agency in May was quite a landmark. So many lessons learned on that journey, including the importance of scanning the environment for future changes to the marketing landscape, being forward looking, changing before change is forced and always learning new skills.
What has been your biggest challenge, setback or failure and how have you overcome it? How did you grow or change as a result?
There have been so many times when I’ve completely had the rug pulled out from under my feet. People always think the entrepreneurs are devil-may-care but that’s often not the case. You can be absolutely terrified by or grieving over a turn of events but you have to keep going. What was yesterday’s disaster does pass and becomes a sad, upsetting, and hopefully increasingly fleeting, memory. The power to endure and come back from a setback is something you have to learn in life and business.
The other way I look at things is that there are three solutions to every problem – you can put up with it, you can change it, or you can walk away. I find that strangely comforting.
What compromises have you had to make and what, if anything, could have helped?
True confession time…I had a health scare recently which luckily turned out to be not so serious. It makes you reflect on how you are spending your time and I know too much of mine has been at work. But I’ve also started to accept that my work reflects who I am. I’m the sort of person who goes to a sale trail to say hello to a friend and who ends up sorting out the whole stand while she chats. I can’t help myself!
I recently decided I needed a hobby and started on candle making. Before you can say ‘nice wick’ I’d already bought industrial scale supplies and had an outline business plan in my head. I did manage to stop myself before actually committing but maybe one day…
Funnily enough my grandfather was like this – his hobbies rapidly became obsessions until the next one came along.
So long story short, I’ve compromised by giving up a lot of my life outside work for a life defined by work. I’ve sorted that by finding work I like. In the process I’ve probably completely lost the ‘off’ switch on my brain but I’m pretty happy that way and accept it.
“…have faith in yourself. Sometimes as women it is implied that our decisions are based on emotion rather than logic.”
What advice would you have given to your younger self, that you would now give to others wanting to follow your path?
I’d say: have faith in yourself. Sometimes as women it is implied that our decisions are based on emotion rather than logic. That simple thought can get you all tied up when you try to make a decision because you start to wonder if you are being objective enough. However, it’s also been shown that those niggly feelings you get when something just doesn’t seem right are usually based on tacit knowledge – that’s knowledge that’s so deeply embedded that you can’t even explain it to someone else – you just know. So I try to listen to that voice as often as I can and give it a little credit that it’s telling me something useful.
I couldn’t have got where I am today without…
My parents. My favourite story about them is that they were travelling back from a date on the bus and my dad turned to my mum and said, “If ever we have children and they are able to go to university, we’ll make sure they can go. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a girl or a boy.”
I’d like to think that these days the last bit wouldn’t need to be mentioned but this was the early 1960’s. My dad was the eldest of 11 children and worked in the mines at 16, while my mum was one of 5 children and worked in a shop. I love the fact that they saw education as the way to get ahead and aspired to that for their children. Despite the fact they were really proud to see me graduate as a vet, they were also hugely supportive when I moved into industry. It says a lot about their values.
What are your three top likes?
Animals (naturally) – you don’t build your whole career around something unless it is pretty important to you.
Fiction – there’s nothing better than a good book
Making things look nice (AKA interior design and gardening)
What are your three top dislikes?
Petty bureaucracy and bad customer service – I’m also very bad at filling in forms or following instructions so things can go horribly wrong very quickly if I have to deal with obstructive utility or telecommunication companies.
Turnips and cabbage – both are an affront to vegetable kind.
The colour yellow. Also, heights, crowds, virtue signalling, wasps, power plays and the most boring game known to man – cricket.
What is the most helpful book you’ve read and why?
I loved Gerald Durrell’s books as a child. Not only do they have a strong conservation message, but they are also hysterically funny, especially My Family and other animals. He could combine story-telling with science in way that really engaged people and that’s often what I try to achieve on a more modest scale with communication in the veterinary field.
On a more business level I was a little obsessed for a while with ‘Why we buy: the science of shopping’ by Paco Underhill. The focus on customer experience, the analysis and actionable insights applied to something that’s on the surface quite mundane, is really fascinating.
Affluenza by Oliver James is also a great one to keep you grounded and happy that you are not absurdly rich.
Many thanks to Susan for sharing her story to inspire veterinary women to aspire and grow into their full
career potential.
If you would like to share your story please get in touch at info@veterinarywoman.co.uk
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