NEW CLIENTS: The Lifeblood of Your Practice

I spoke with a DVM new practice owner recently that was simply following the Òbuild it and they will comeÓ business adage and painfully waiting for new clients to arrive, all the while his practice expense meter ticked away in the background! A nail-biter? Absolutely. A couple of things needed correcting with this situation…
The viewpoint of the owner. It’s too passive.

01- Fact: Simply hanging out your shingle or just physically being there is not sufficient enough in most cases 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. (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.

02 - Your marketing needs to be effective in bringing in new clients. 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 to 40 new clients a month for each 40 hour per week DVM.

03 - 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’s not so obvious is if you fail to properly align even one aspect of your marketing & presentation—your pricing, positioning, quality, presentation, design, staff friendliness and so on—you won’t hit your client’s button. These buttons can vary within different communities. There’s not just one standard method. You have to do your own market research for 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.