Entrepreneur, Speaker, Innovator
Dr. Byron Farquer has a portfolio of experience that includes hospital ownership, business and real-estate education, and academic honors. Dr. Farquer offers insightful advice to clients who are buying or selling practices. He has received training in accounting, business practices, appraisals, business assessment, and corporate management. Dr. Farquer holds veterinary licenses in California, Montana, Colorado, and Wyoming, as well as real-estate licensing. He obtained a Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA), credentialed by the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts for general valuation and later added a Certified Veterinary Appraiser (CVA) designation to his list of accomplishments.
“You’d think that was enough but I’ve been cursed with an affliction called Serial Entrepreneurialism. Basically I enjoy coming up with ideas, creating companies and helping those businesses flourish. Here’s some of the companies I’ve founded or assisted in their journey to become successful small business ventures. I’m hopeful they will inspire you to think outside the box and make your dreams a reality.”
Simmons & Associates Pacific, Inc. / Simmons & Associates Southwest, Inc.
In 1999 I purchased the Pacific region which services California and Hawaii. In 2003 I also acquired the Southwest region adding Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. Simmons & Associates is the nation’s oldest and largest veterinary practice brokerage and appraisal firm. The organization helps veterinarians transition into and out of practice ownership. During the past two decades I’ve completed hundreds of veterinary practice valuations and sales. Today this company remains the focus of my daily activities and is part of an organization operating 12 offices throughout the US and Canada.
Lesson Learned: Its possible to be paid for your knowledge and experience as a consultant.
Visit the website: www.simmonsinc.com
In 2006 myself and 3 others formed a company that solved the problem of entertaining and educating veterinary clients while they sat and waited for their pet’s appointment. At the time, we did the impossible, introduce the nearly unknown flat screen TV and broadcast veterinary medical content and advertising that was personalized to each practice, and we pushed HD (high definition) content over the internet, something at the time experts said “couldn’t be done”. We forged exclusive relationships with veterinary news providers and consumer services like The Weather Channel bringing pet-specific information to the public. A decade later this company remains one of the very few cashflow positive digital signage companies with installations all over the US.
Lesson Learned: With technology, anything is possible even when the experts say it can’t be done.
Visit the website: www.emebavet.com
Recognizing new veterinary practice owners as well as current owners yearned for simple but effective practice management advice, I founded a company that provided a mini-MBA in practice management. Based in Portland, OR this company provided a self-study and tutored business education course like no other. It was my first venture into the creation of a course designed to teach the most essential nuggets of knowledge regarding thriving, rather than surviving in practice ownership. We struck strategic relationships with commercial lenders that provided course graduates with a preferred interest rate on business loans, rewarding them for completing the course and saving them thousands of dollars in interest.
Lesson Learned: Education is a powerful tool. Combining strategic relationships adds value, and its possible to create a work product once, that can be recycled over and over again without redoing the work.
Visit the Website: Currently being revised.
Veterinarians need lenders, and lenders need veterinarians. The problem? Connecting the two. On an early Saturday morning a concept popped into my head. eHarmony.com believes there are two compatible people out there, they just need to find each other, and Lending Tree believes you can borrow money from a lender clear across the nation and never set foot in their bank. Combining the two ideas I launched the company. Nearly a decade later the website has handled over $500,000,000 of loan requests, and helped veterinarians pair with willing lenders. This internet-only based company embraced the web’s power to bring people together no matter where they are located.
Lesson Learned: Identify a problem and solve it. Internet companies can be a great low overhead small business that you can run from anywhere in the world. As a value added, make your kids majority shareholders. They can learn about business at a very early age, something that will serve them well throughout their entire lives.
Visit the website: www.veterinaryloans.com
When I was little, my cousin and I wrote up a lease agreement for a “farm plot” and gave it to my Grandfather. We would “farm” what amounted to be a garden in exchange for caring for some of his poultry. We were 9 and 6 years old. I guess real estate investments were in my DNA before I know what they were. Today, my partner (same cousin) and I own real estate investments in Arizona and Colorado. Additionally my family has real estate investments in Missouri, Montana, Colorado and Arizona.
Lesson Learned: After reading Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad / Poor Dad book I learned that passive income is a sure ticket out of the “rat race” and real estate has significant tax advantages. We’ve been active in real estate investing for more than 30 years.
Cowboys and beer go hand in hand so its no wonder this idea caught my attention. First introduced to the public in 1999, the promising company and its product was shelved when the founders become overly busy with Cowboy Up, a western genre clothing company. During the quite years I worked with the founders to develop multi-media marketing pieces, a business plan, and expanded it’s internet presence. Years later the original parties took it off the shelf and brought it to the market once more, and now its available in retail and restaurant locations throughout Arizona with sights on expansion throughout the southwest.
Lesson Learned: Sometimes the time isn’t right but the product is. Patience is a good thing.
Visit the website: www.rodeocoldbeer.com
Over the years I’ve learned a lot about business from ventures that I embarked upon. Many were not profitable or successful by society’s standards but I learned a lot about business along the way. Others would have continued to be very successful but I moved in other directions taking with me only the “lessons learned”. These ventures included network marketing (Amway, Natures Edge, and Nikken). I also developed a successful veterinary supplies catalog business (Discount Vet Supply) that was later merged with Animal Health Alliance, my first attempt at merging 4 successful small businesses, owned by separate individuals, into a singular catalog supply company. Publishing costs were high back then but we secured agreements with product manufacturers that ran ads in our catalog offsetting printing costs. Today they would be internet companies but three decades ago no one had heard of the internet and catalog purchasing was at the time – the wave of the future. I’ve probably forgotten the names of a few of my other ventures but not the lessons.
Lessons Learned: You’ll learn something from everything you do, every business you start. Take those lessons and build upon them, and if you’re up against a larger company competing for your customers find a way to beat them at their own game.