Practice Tip 5 –New Clients

NEW CLIENTS:
THE LIFE BLOOD OF YOUR PRACTICE...

I spoke with a DVM new practice owner that was simply following the “build it and they will come” business adage and painfully waiting for new clients to arrive, all while his practice expense meter ticked away in the background! A nail biter? You bet. A couple of things need correcting with this situation.

First is the viewpoint of the owner. It’s too passive.
Fact: simply hanging out your shingle or just physically being there in most cases is not sufficient enough to attract the right amount of attention to your practice. New Clients are the life blood of your practice. You need 30 -40 of them each month for each full time DVM. Don’t ever forget this. (Note: If you have lots of new clients and are the only game in town, then just wait until you get some new hot-shot DVM move in…). So don’t wait! You need to pro-actively market - I.e. do things to turn up the spotlight on your practice and drive new clients in. Your external marketing division is one of your key 7-divisions of practice management.

Secondly, your marketing needs to be effective in bringing new people in. Effectiveness is the key word here. I am not against Yellow Pages or any other form of advertising or promotion if they are effective. So how do you know if your promotion is effective? Count the number of New Clients separately from your regular transactions. Track where they come from. Ask them “where did you find our phone number to call us today?” You may be very surprised. Remember: A healthy practice should be bringing in 30 – 40 new clients a month for each 40-hour a week DVM.

And thirdly know this: an effective marketing program creates a strong emotional response in potential clients by “pushing their button”. A button is something you push that produces a response. The response you want is obviously for new clients to choose you as their veterinarian. What is not so obvious is if you fail to properly align even one aspect of your marketing and presentation – your pricing, positioning, quality, presentation, design, staff friendliness and so on - you won’t hit your clients’ button. And these buttons can vary with different communities. So there’s not just one that is standard. You have to do your own market research in your area.
If you are at all interested in learning more about this subject then consider signing up for our 2010 Online New Client Builder workshop. It’s a 3 part workshop that gives you an excellent overview of veterinary external marketing and a step-by-step program to follow.

A great tool to make things run smoothly...

“How to write effective company policy is a great tool to make things run smoothly in our organization and people are not waiting for the orders for every situation and jamming my lines.

Policies would be in place for all aspects of the business. The staff would know it that they exist and they need to be followed strictly. This prevents staff from setting their own policies and taking wrong decisions which are counter productive and causing chaos.

It prevents my lines from being jammed all the time. Staff does not have to run to me for approval of every decision out there.”

Manjit Jammu, DVM; Practice Owner
Clearwater Animal Hospital; Windsor, ON
Planning & Policy Course

You provide a perfect environment...

“Students are rarely taught “how to study”. Your system of learning helped me see that the process of learning can be broken down into overcoming three simple barriers.You provide a perfect environment and system for studying and learning new skills that anyone can master.”

Brad Gehrt
Animal Hospital of Oshkosh; Oshkosh, VT
Study Skills for Life Course

I am sure I’ll be using all of this material every day

“Communication is an essential tool in the creation, development and maintenance of most endeavors. These aspects of this communication course; what communication is made up of, what one can do to enhance communication and practicing use of tools to enhance communication, are as useful in handling clients and staff, as they are in communicating with family members. I am sure I’ll be using all of this material every day.”

Paul Hunter, DVM, Practice Owner
Columbia Summit Veterinary Hospital; Kamloops, BC
Improving Business Through Communication Course

"I really enjoyed this course..."

“I really enjoyed this course. It taught me a lot about how to communicate with people in certain situations that may be difficult. It was a lot of fun as well!”

Lynn Armstrong, Dir Admin
Didsbury Veterinary Services; Didsbury, AB
Improving Business Through Communication Course

"one can help our staff achieve great success"

“This course gives us concrete tools we can use to bring about change to ones statistics and also a means whereby one can help our staff achieve great success.”

Rob MacPherson, DVM; Practice Owner
Rutland Veterinary Clinic; Rutland, VT
Formulas for Business Success Course

Practice Tip 18 – 4th Quarter Slide

Warning!
The “4th-Quarter-Slide” is almost upon you!
Don’t get caught with your...

Fact: Whether you want to confront or just pretend it’s not going to happen again this year, 80% of practices will experience a drastic drop-off in business starting at the September long weekend. How long does this drop last? Left to it’s own devices, this slide typically lasts a good 3-4 months, finally picking up in early to mid-spring? The result: Untold lost thousands of dollars of income and a practice that may have to dig into reserves and credit lines to pay suppliers and make payroll. Stressful? You bet.

So what can be done about it? Lots!

1. Take a positive pro-active approach to promoting high standards of pet care to your community. You will need to take on a professional marketing approach to your practice and reach out to clients where you may not have in the past. Unprofessional? Sure, if done unprofessional, but don’t do that! Your marketing reflects who and what you are. So everything that goes out to your community must be as professional as you are. Hire a professional marketing firm if you need to.

2. Start promoting NOW. It typically can take up to 6-weeks to see a response to your marketing. Don’t expect instantaneous increase in clients coming in.

3. Make a marketing plan. The old business adage “If you fail to plan - you plan to fail” is never more true than in the next coming months. Make a marketing plan that includes promotions to both new and existing clients and something that focuses on your profitable back-end services such as dental exams and cleaning, geriatric pet wellness work ups, etc…

4. Activate your existing clients by scanning your data base for any client who has not been in within the last 12 months, create a script, and call them up!

Questions? Give me a call.

I will now carefully consider complete planning...

“The ‘How to Make Planning Become an Actuality’ course has created a feeling of control over cause that I have never achieved in twenty-eight years of clinic ownership. As I plan programs for our clinic, whether large or small, I will now carefully consider complete planning technology to ensure successful outcomes.”

Tom Wiles, DVM; Practice Owner
Pittsburgh Spay and Vaccination Clinic; Verona, PA
How To Make Planning Become an Actuality Course

It really opened my eyes...

“Formulas For Business Success was a great course. I feel like I have a substantial tool to take back to the practice. This tool will give me the basic fundamentals to truly have a successful business. Although I see that applied correctly I can have financial success personally too.

This course really made me want to take it back and apply it. I see so many areas that will improve with its application. It just really opened my eyes to so many possibilities becoming realities.

I think we are finally on our way for our practice to have a sound foundation to build upon.”

Colleen Davis, Dir Admin
Emery Animal Health; Castle Dale, UT
Formulas For Business Success Course

This course was exciting to me...

“The ‘How to Make Planning Become an Actuality’ was a really good course. It pointed out the fundamentals of Planning through the use of programs. This course reflected a bit on leadership and how good leadership allows a business to prosper and grow.

Overall this course provided the “know-how” to get programs into place, how to execute them and how to do it “right” with success. This course was exciting to me, and I feel will be useful at my practice.”

Jen Beaulieu, DVM, Practice Owner
Lakeside Animal Hospital; Tilton, NH
How To Make Planning Become an Actuality Course

Do what you believe is the right thing.

“I felt that this course was very interesting. It made me realize how important it is to go with your gut feeling. Not to let anyone persuade you in any other way. Do what you believe is the right thing.”

Lynn Armstrong, Dir Admin
Didsbury Veterinary Services; Didsbury, AB
Personal Integrity Course

Each step of this course gave more and more clarity...

“I now have the tools to create the programs and targets needed to really get going with my practice and my division responsibilities. Each step of this course gave more and more clarity in the steps and processes needed to carry out programs to completion and really move the practice forward.”

Ed Womack, DVM; Practice Owner
Cascade Veterinary Clinic Inc.; Wenatchee, WA
How To Make Planning Become an Actuality Course

Practice Tip 01 – Team Efficiency

TEAM EFFICIENCY IN THE VETERINARY PRACTICE
...and lost income.


Depending on how well your team works together you’ll have wide swings in efficiency. Efficiency is defined as: “the ratio of total input to effective or useful output in any system”. In your practice this would equate to, how many staff hours or wages does it take to deliver and collect your invoiced services? Think about it – you and your team are a system, much like an engine creates power. In many practices the output – I.e. the physical moving of staff around delivery of medical services correlates poorly with the input, i.e. the revenue collected. This is why you can have those oh-so busy weeks with poor revenue (you know the ones, right?).

An inefficient team will have poor understanding of its Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) - the agreements on how your practice runs - and will spend a good portion of its time handling mistakes and confusions (i.e. upset clients) and other non-invoicable activities and experience a good degree of frustration. The efficient team on the other hand follows its procedures closely, has minimal mistakes and good moral. These well thought out SOPs allow you to focus on the task at hand – the delivery of high quality veterinary medicine into the hands of your clients.

The biggest source of lost income in any practice is from poor efficiency.

Solution:
1) Get your Standard Operating Procedures defined
2) Get them agreed upon by all staff members
3) Compare you output (Staff hours / wages) to your Input (Money collected)
4) Work out and track your Practice Efficiency Index

If you would like some specific help in this area, then please give me a call.

"This was very practical"

“The Client Compliance Course was interesting, fun and useful! This was very practical. It allowed me to practice selling techniques that work. It allowed me to understand the theory behind selling, all while putting it into practice. This definitely will help me in the future! I was able to see the mistakes I was making previously, so I am now very excited to go back home and apply these new proven techniques. This was a good course!!”

Diane Grede, DVM; Practice Owner
Animal Hospital Of Oshkosh; Oshkosh, WI
Client Compliance Builder Course

This course is large and in depth...

“Super course!! This course is large and in depth and it expanded on what I had learned in previous courses. Thanks to a decent gradient I was able to grasp the concepts and understand them... This course gave me tools to work with. It has armed me to speak to do a better job.”

Nina Ferguson, Dir Admin
Kamloops Large Animal Veterinary Clinic; Kamloops, BC
Formulas For Business Success Course

Taught me so much about organizing...

“The Basics of Organization taught me so much about organizing. I look forward to going home and getting the org board in place and the posts in. All the parts of this course point up deficiencies in my practice but offers excellent solutions of repair.”

Evelyn Bock, DVM, Practice Owner
Southwick Veterinary Hospital; St. Louis, MO
Basics of Organization Course

It will succeed because I planned for the success...

“This course solidified the concepts of organization and the importance of clear planning for any enterprise to succeed. It helped me to see that I am the captain of the ship and that it will succeed because I planned for the success not because of the luck or chance.”

Ellen Colwell, DVM; Practice Owner
Sykesville Veterinary Clinic; Sykesville, MD
Financial Planning Course

I am sure I’ll be using all of this material every day...

“Communication is an essential tool in the creation, development and maintenance of most endeavors. These aspects of this communication course; what communication is made up of, what one can do to enhance communication and practicing use of tools to enhance communication, are as useful in handling clients and staff, as they are in communicating with family members. I am sure I’ll be using all of this material every day.”

Paul Hunter, DVM; Practice Owner
Columbia Summit Veterinary Hospital; Kamloops, BC
Improving Business Through Communication

The Client Compliance Builder course was excellent...

“The Client Compliance Builder course was excellent. It showed me that the barriers clients put up are natural and should be expected. I learned that I should engage the client with questions instead of listing out facts. I plan on working on this and making our Average Client transaction numbers go through the roof.”

Jolie Davis, Senior Tech
Pequot Lakes Animal Hospital; Pequot Lakes, MN
Client Compliance Builder Course

I am feeling myself grow as a person...

“The Ethics for Business Survival has been great. The time with Michele was extremely helpful. I have put some issues into perspective. I would greatly recommend the ceremonial shredding of the overts! I am feeling myself grow as a person and my energy level rise. Thanks!”

Jennifer Jackson, DVM;
Columbia Summit Veterinary Hospital; Kamloops, BC
Ethics for Business Survival Implementation Program

Here's to getting along...

“After completing this course I have a defined insight into the basic mechanics of personal relationships both successful and failed. ...I feel I’m able to evaluate a failed relationship with a valued long term past employee, and seek to establish a new reality... Here’s to getting along.”

Paul Hunter, DVM, Practice Owner
Columbia Summit Veterinary Hospital; Kamloops, BC
How To get Along With Others Course

It is so simple, it is brilliant...

“Management by Statistics was a good course that helped ingrain into me the conditions and formulas and statistical logistics by which to run a business. Statistics don’t lie. They can and should be used individually and to compare with other stats to see where you have been and what you need to do to get what you want. It is so simple, it is brilliant, yet so easy to overlook. This course drilled home the facts that managing by statistics is the easiest, yet most trustworthy way to run my business.”

Diane Grede, DVM; Practice Owner
Animal Hospital of Oshkosh.; Oshkosh, WI
Management By Statistics Course

It brings peace of mind...

“This course really started to gel with me the fact that the statistics and evaluating conditions are vital to running a business. No wonder I used to feel like I was spinning my wheels trying to accomplish things based on what I thought was going on. It brings peace of mind knowing that having factual statistics and applying conditions and their formulas will in the end simplify the process and truly create growth in the business.”

Ed Womack, DVM; Practice Owner
Cascade Veterinary Clinic; Wenatchee, WA
Formulas For Business Success Course

Practice Tip 22 – Shared Decision Model

The Share Decision Model and Veterinary Medicine

I ran across this buzz word, the “Shared Decision Model”, the other day while having a coffee and reading a USA Today article. I laughed! The article was in reference to the human medical profession that is now having to discuss and handle objections (whoa!) to expensive treatment options with their patients! It quoted a man who brought his Addisonian wife into the ER with stomach pain and his request for only a cortisone injection and not the $1000 (his co-pay) MRI to rule out other abdominal ailments. He was met with contempt by the attending physician, who huffed off yet finally “compromised” to the husbands request and gave the injection.

It’s not that the MRI is in any way shape or form a bad recommendation. On the contrary - it’s good medicine and we offer similar services as veterinarians on a daily basis. The “out-point” or incorrectness is the physician’s attitude on having to “stoop down” and discuss the case and share the decision. As veterinarians, I am proud to say, we do this every day in private practice, right? Now, how well we do this can make a big difference in the standard of our medicine, our euthanasia rate, and importantly, our Average Client Transaction (ACT) and profit of our practice. We call this shared decision model and the area that goes along with it Client Compliance.

Fact: Clients have the right to know what the costs of their pet’s care. We have the obligation to the pet to offer what is optimal care. Some times what we recommend can exceed their financial qualifications and we have to down-shift and create a new treatment plan. But many times, the client is qualified but just has some concerns or fears (objections) about our plan. This is where our client compliance communication skills come into play.

So before you start dropping your standards of care or giving away free medicine, empower your clients with these simple steps:

1. Present what you feel is the optimum treatment plan before you create the estimate…
2. Create the estimate that fits the clients understanding and wishes…
3. Walk through each line item on the estimate, handling concerns, comments, and objections as they come up.
TIP: Do NOT drop your interest level when the client voices their views!

Sounds simple? It is. Try it out and watch what happens.

Interested in more information?

Attend the “SECRET TO BUILDING CLIENT COMPLIANCE” Free Webinar