One of the keys to surviving and thriving in the new economy is to be different from your competition. This very funny video sums it up perfectly…

http://vetpracticeprofits.com/be-different

Have a great weekend!

Dedicated to your success,

Steve Maughan & Dean Biggs

co-founders – Veterinary Practice Profits

If you own or manage a Veterinary Practice then one question you should be asking is:

How Can I Prevent My Clients From Moving To Another Veterinary Practice?

Many veterinary practice owners make the mistake of assuming that just because a client brought their pet in for an annual checkup once that they are automatically going to bring them in again twelve months later. This is a very dangerous assumption for any veterinary practice to make and one that could have serious financial consequences.

Why? Well first off, we’re Living In A New Economy…

Consumers are far more ‘value conscious’ – notice I used the word ‘value’ not ‘price’. Pet owners are still spending money on their pets they just want to make sure that they are getting good value for their hard earned dollars. Because of this power is shifting to the consumer, they know they have the power to choose the veterinary care provider for their pet and they are ready and willing to make that choice.

The worst third of everything is going! Because consumers are now wielding their power to choose, the businesses, including veterinary practices, who provide the worst service and value for money are seeing clients and customers leave in droves.

Another alarming trend is that the big national brand pet stores are trying to commoditize the veterinary medicine business with the introduction of in-store veterinary practices promoting themselves on price.

The second reason why it is dangerous to take it for granted that  your clients will come back next year is that a lot can a happen in twelve months!

 For example, new practices with newer facilities can open near your clients, perhaps even closer to their home than your practice, and  offer them incentives to try something new. Your competitors can improve, perhaps by updating their equipment, their facilities or bringing in new veterinarians with a good reputation.

Another thing happening during those twelve long months is that your competitors are actively targeting your clients! Remember, a veterinarian is who is better at marketing will have more success than one that is more clinically skilled. So just because you’re a great veterinarian does not automatically mean you will attract and keep more clients than the veterinarians in your area who haven’t got your talent. Your clients and prospects can only go off what they are told and what they experience for themselves.  Your clients can have short memories and if your competitors are constantly telling them that they have more to offer then eventually that message will get through.

Of course, the other thing that can happen is that your clients move home and find themselves closer to another veterinary practice who seem just as good.

So what can you do to keep you clients from straying to other veterinary practices?

You must create an environment where your clients want to belong and are afraid to leave. The wanting to belong bit comes through providing first class patient care and a world class client experience. Your clients will be afraid to leave your practice if your create in a pain in disconnect or they feel they will miss out on something by leaving.

Once you begin to create this environment (perhaps your practice has it already?) the critical key to keeping your clients is:

Frequent Quality Communication

With Your Clients!

Why? Because studies have shown that for every month you don’t contact a client. You lose 10% of the relationship with that client that you had built up in your initial contact.

By frequent I mean ideally every week,  not hard to do considering that some of these communications can be done via email and automated to go out automatically, but no less than monthly. A lot of our communication can be done on autopilot with today’s technology.

Here are some ways  you can have frequent quality communication with your clients:

1. Holidays & Celebrations

All clients should receive greetings or gifts or special offers to commemorate such events as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Pets Birthdays, Clients Birthdays, the anniversary of their first visit to the practice. Outside of this other holidays can also be used as an excuse to get in touch such as Halloween, St Patrick’s Day, New Years and Fourth of July.

2. Client Event Promotions

Every practice worth it’s salt should hold at least one client appreciation event every year as a way to say thank you to your clients for supporting you during the year.

3. Weekly Email

For a small monthly fee it is now possible to get access to online services that can automatically send emails to your clients at pre-scheduled times. By giving your clients valuable information on how to care for their pets or how to spot various ailments you can keep in touch, provide value and encourage more visits.

4. Websites & Social Media

We recommend that all veterinary practices have a blog on their website because it allows you  another way to connect with your clients. Let your clients know of interesting things going on in your practice, and personal life, and it will help them to develop a rapport with you. You will also, no doubt, have heard of social media websites such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. These also have a place in communicating with your clients which will become more and more prevalent over the coming months. 

5. Monthly Newsletters

The single biggest thing you can do to have frequent quality contact with your clients is to mail them mail a monthly newsletter from your practice.

Why? Because it is perceived as a tangible publication that they receive in their mailbox every month and, if done properly,  your clients will actually look forward to receiving it.

Another benefit is that it guarantees that you will keep in touch with your clients each month while building yet more rapport with them by providing useful and amusing content.

Make no mistake if you do not make a concerted effort to engage your clients on a regular basis, and keep your practice as the one they associate with the best care for their pets and the best service for them, there’s a real chance they will be tempted to go elsewhere. Make it your mission now to prevent that from happening!

If you own or manage a Veterinary Practice then one question you should be asking is:

Where Can I Find Good Quality Veterinary Clients Who Will Pay, Stay and Refer?

The criteria for attracting new clients for most veterinary practices is ‘any pet owner with the local area’. However, doesn’t it make more sense to focus your veterinary marketing efforts on clients that are likely to be able to afford the treatments you recommend for their pet, all less likely to move when you need  to raise your prices and more likely to refer other pet owners who are like them?

There are three specific groups within your community who fit this criteria:

1.       Affluent Pet Owners

Affluent Pet owners are those with a household income greater than $100,000. Affluent people, especially those with incomes in excess of $250,000 per year are generally the least and last affected by economic downturns because they have more disposable income than non affluent people. For example, if mortgage interest rates go up, food prices go up, gas prices go up or electricity prices go up those people with little or no disposable income are affected first and most. We have all heard of people who rely on credit cards to make up the shortfall in their income to expenditure.  When a less affluent person is faced with the straight choice of putting food on the table for the kids or paying for Fido’s annual check-up there is only going to be one winner! That’s not to say less affluent people do not care for their pets as much as affluent people it’s just a fact of economic life. 

It is possible to rent lists of affluent pet owners in your area from list brokers so that you can begin targeting this segment of your community.

2.       Baby Boomer Pet Owners

Baby boomers are people born between 1946 and 1964 during the ‘baby boom’ that followed the second world war. These people tend have more disposal income than their younger neighbors as, in many cases, they have paid off their mortgages, and have savings to spend. Also many are what are termed as ‘Empty Nesters’ i.e. their children have grown up and left home. Very often the pet in a baby boomer household as literally taken the place of the child the owners are willing to pay whatever it takes to keep the ‘baby’ safe and well.

It is possible to rent lists of baby boomer pet owners in your area from list brokers so that you can begin targeting this segment of your community.

3.       Dual Income/No Kids Pet Owners

Dual Income/No Kids couple or DINKs are generally professional young couples who have put off having kids, have no desire to have kids or can’t have kids. In many cases these couples have replaced the gap of having no kids with a dog or cat. They are usually fairly affluent as both parties are income earners. It should be possible to rent lists of ‘DINKS’ from a list broker although not as easy as getting lists of baby boomers or affluent pet owners.

By being smarter in your veterinary client marketing you can get the clients who can afford your services rather than those who can’t.

And by the way. If there are other demographic groups who would be good clients for your practice it should be possible to find those too. You just have to look!

If you own or manage a Veterinary Practice then one question you should be asking is:

How Can I Use Testimonials In My Veterinary Practice?

So why are testimonials so important?

Well think about this…

When you make a statement about the quality of service within your practice it is no more than a claim but when one of your clients, who has benefited from that service, makes the same statement it’s a fact!

There’s no getting away from it, we are living in a world of skeptics and with so many marketing messages being shoved in the faces of your clients they want proof! There is no better proof than another one of your clients confirming that claims you make about your practice are true.

For example, probably every veterinary practice in your area, including yours, claims to be the most caring and friendly, but only one can be telling the truth, so why should your prospective clients believe you?

What makes a good testimonial?

The best way to convey your message is by using what we call a Before & After Testimonial. The ‘Before’ is the problem or dissatisfaction the client was experiencing before they became your client and the ‘After’ is the solution and satisfaction they have received since becoming your client.  For example “We didn’t think we’d ever get Fluffy’s scratching problem sorted until we brought her to your XYZ Veterinary Practice and now she is back to here old self!”

Another strategy is to use a testimonial to either back up a claim you are making about a benefit of being a client of your practice or to allay a doubt or fear that a potential client may have about coming to your practice.  For example, “As a single mom with three kids I can afford to hang around in veterinary waiting rooms which is why I love XYZ Veterinary Practice as they’ve never been late yet!”

When to ask for testimonials?

There are two ideal opportunities to ask for testimonials:

1.       At the end of a new clients first appointment

If you’ve given your  new client a WOW experience and great first impression then at the end of your clients first experience of your practice the client should  be smiling. Ask them how they found there first experience with your practice, what they liked the most and ask them for a testimonial!

2.       At the end of the final appointment of a treatment.

At the final appointment in series of appointments where you have been treating a pet if the pet is now well again the client should be smiling. Again,  ask for a testimonial.

Notice the key phrase in both occasions – “the client should be smiling”.  As a general rule of thumb, any time your clients are smiling is a good time to ask for a testimonial!

Where to use testimonials?

There are typically four types of testimonial you can use:

1.       Live Testimonials

There is nothing more powerful than having one of your clients telling your prospects face-to-face how good your practice is and why they should join. The way to accomplish this is to hold a live event such as a fun day or open evening to which you invite local pet owners. The other way to do this is to hold a client appreciation event and ask your clients to bring their pet owning friends. Then get 4 or 5 of your best clients (you know who they are) to give a live testimonial in front of the attendees. Make sure you video record the testimonials.

2.       Video Testimonials

With the advances in technology and accessibility to really affordable video cameras such the Flip and the Kodak zi8 there is no excuse not the use video when asking for testimonials. Providing you’ve got plenty of happy clients (and they’re not too camera shy!) then you should be able to collect several video testimonials per week.  Another way to collect them is at a client appreciation event. You can then get lots of happy clients on camera in one afternoon or evening! You can use these video testimonials on your website, on the TV in your waiting area and on DVDs you send out to prospective clients.

3.       Photo Testimonials

Everyone has heard the phrase ‘a picture says a thousand words’ and there is no better picture than a photograph of you or your staff together with happy clients and their pet. You can use these ‘happy snaps’ in a number of places such as in a testimonial book with client stories, on a photo wall behind your reception counter, on your website if you were unable to get video and to enhance written testimonials.

4.       Written Testimonials

Written testimonials basically means using either the written testimony of your client or transcribing the verbal testimony they gave in person or on video. The best places to use written testimonials are in your direct mail pieces, in newspaper/magazine ads for your practice, in your practice brochure, in your newsletter and on your website in the absence of videos.

You should now be armed with enough information to use testimonials to grow your practice. Should try them all but if you want to focus on any, use video!

Get advice from the Veterinary Marketing experts.

If you own or manage a Veterinary Practice then one question you should be asking is:

How Can I Generate More Client Referrals For My Veterinary Practice?

It is generally accepted that the best type of new customer is one that has been referred from an existing happy customer, as they are far more receptive, more easily satisfied and less price conscious.

That being the case, do you know how many of your new clients come from referrals from existing clients?

If you don’t then make it a priority to start keeping track of who is referring, how many they refer and how frequently they refer. You also need to keep track of referral activity including which staff members are doing the most to encourage referrals.

According to Joe Girard, the author of How To Sell To Anybody, the average number of attendees at both weddings and funerals is fifty-two. His contention is that, in marketing to consumers, each customer has the potential of referring fifty-two other customers. Now you could argue that in the case of a veterinary practice this number would be less, as not all of the fifty-two will be pet owners. Well according to the U.S. Pet Ownership & Demographics Sourcebook (2007 Edition) 37.2% of U.S. Households own dogs while 32.4% own cats. More recent statistics suggest that 63% of U.S. holds own a pet of some description.

So, even if we err on the side of caution and cut that fifty-two number in quarter:

Is your practice averaging thirteen referrals per client?

The answer is probably not, in fact most will average less than one and some might not even get thirteen referrals per month in total! Putting measures in place to generate

referrals from your clients should be a key weapon in any veterinary practice’s marketing arsenal.

The 3 Golden Keys to Client Referral

So, how can you take your practice from averaging less than one referral per client to double-digit referrals per client?

Well, essentially, there are three golden keys you need to unlock the referral flood gates and, in doing so, condition your clients to be serial referrers:

Golden Key #1 – Give Them Something To Shout About!

First of all let us start by defining what we mean by ‘refer’.

What we really mean is ‘promote’ and clients will not actively and abundantly promote your business unless you give them something worth promoting. That ‘something’ we refer to is an experience so awe inspiring and different to what they expect from any typical veterinary practice that they just can’t help but tell everyone that will listen about it.

Clients do not enthusiastically refer the ordinary, the satisfactory or even the above average. However, they will contagiously refer the outstanding, the unexpectedly wonderful and the downright memorable.

You need to create that ‘wow factor’ for your clients that will make your practice the talk of the town.

If you can create the buzz then your clients will be happy to convey their experience, whether they are meeting with friends, talking to other parents at their kids school soccer game or talking to work colleagues.

Golden Key #2 – Ask Them!

As it says in a very old but very wise book, “Ask, and it will be given to you” and you MUST ask your clients for referrals.

Here are just four ways that you can do it:

1.       Let them know that other clients refer – use notice boards, your newsletter and your website to publicize to your clients that other clients refer and you expect them to as well.

2.       Run referral promotions – run a competition to see who can provide the most referrals. Give away top prizes, such as flat screen TVs  for the top three referrers. The value to the client is huge but, based on the fact that the average annual value of veterinary client in the USA is around $400, you wouldn’t need many referrals to afford it.

3.       Hold Referral Events – if you want to meet a lot of potential new clients at once then hold a special event for your clients and ask them to bring their pet owning friends.

4.       Ask Them Why They Don’t Refer – This last one takes a little bit of courage but if you have a pet owner who has been coming to your practice for years but never refers, you need to ask why.

Golden Key #3 – Reward Them!

We mentioned earlier about ‘conditioning’ your clients to refer, and rewarding them plays a key role in this conditioning process.

We are based just north of Orlando and, therefore, SeaWorld is a frequent destination to take our kids. If you go to see the Shamu Show, you will notice that each time the giant killer whales perform a trick they are rewarded with some tasty fish. Over time the whales have been conditioned that, if they do as their trainers ask, they will be rewarded and so, doing the tricks becomes second nature to them.

What you need to discover is, what is the ‘fish’ you can give your clients to reward them for referring, so that referring becomes second nature to them?

You must make referrals a big deal and at the very least call your clients to say thank you for the referral or send them a thank you note and/or gift.

Do you think that if one of your clients received a nice thank you card, with perhaps a gift certificate, for making a referral that they would be willing to refer someone else?

You bet they would!

Not only that, but how many people would get to know that they’d received a thank you from their vet?

If you need more new clients and you’re not getting a flood of referrals consistently then you need to create an experience that your clients are compelled to tell others about.

Start today and watch the patients flood in!

If you own or manage a Veterinary Practice then one question you should be asking is:

Why should a pet owner choose my practice as opposed to every other veterinary practice available to her?

What is it that makes clients want to bring their pets to your practice?

If the answer for the majority of your clients is either “you’re the nearest Vet to home” OR “you’re the cheapest Vet in town” then your practice could be living on borrowed time!

You see, if you want your practice to thrive and grow bigger than you ever dare dreamed then you must have a compelling story to tell, a Unique Selling Proposition (USP), that will make clients drive past the Veterinary Practice close to home and the cheapest practice in town to bring their pets to you! If you don’t then it is only a matter of time before either an existing competitor or a new practice does and you get left behind!

Your compelling story, becomes the focal point of your marketing efforts, the talking point that gets you more referrals, the source of pride that makes your employees proud to tell their friends they work at your practice and the reason why your clients will be happy to travel further to see you even after you have raised your prices.

You must position your practice for success and by positioning we mean controlling how your customers, and prospective customers, think and feel about your veterinary practice compared to the other practices that are competing for their attention.

You must constantly ask yourself:

“Why should a pet owner choose my practice as opposed to all of the other practices available to them.”

So, if you haven’t got a story to tell or USP then how can you get one? Well the easiest way is to address what your clients like and don’t like and to establish that, just ask them!

Ask every client that comes into your practice, over the next seven days, what are the top three things they appreciate when bringing their pet to your practice and what their top three dislikes are. For example, if most of your patients list the waiting time to be seen as a dislike then can you give an “On-time, Every time‟ guarantee that stands you out from the crowd?

The next time you make a buying decision, whether it’s deciding on which restaurant to have dinner at, which car to buy or even just where to get coffee, ask yourself what’s their story?

Why are you choosing them and not the least expensive or most convenient? For example, why do people choose Starbucks over other less expensive coffee shops?

Why would you travel 20 miles to see a dentist when they are several just around the corner?

If you want a good business role model then look no further than the Ritz-Carlton hotel group. The lengths to which the Ritz-Carlton staff will go to assure their guests have a memorable experience are legendary.  In fact, every day, employees of every department in every Ritz-Carlton hotel around the world gather for a 15-minute staff meeting where they share "wow stories." These are true stories of employee heroics that go above and beyond conventional customer service expectations. In one, a hotel chef in Bali found special eggs and milk for a guest with food allergies in a small grocery store in another country and had them flown to the hotel. In another, a hotel’s laundry service failed to remove a stain on a guest’s suit before the guest left. The hotel manager flew to the guest’s house and personally delivered a reimbursement check for the cost of the suit.

Now you may be thinking “the Ritz-Carlton can do these things because they make millions of dollars each year!” but the reason they make millions of dollars is by doing these things!

So what can you do in your practice to ‘go the extra mile’ and create a reputation for world class patient care and client service?

One thing is for sure, if you get your story right, you won’t just attract and keep customers, you will create raving fans who will be avid referrers and who will be bringing their pets to you for life!

Another frequently asked question on How To Grow Your Veterinary Practice Is:

How Can I Track If My Marketing Is Working Within My Veterinary Practice?

This is a very good question because the key to any successful marketing campaign is tracking.  This is also the difference between the sort of advertising that comes out of Madison Avenue and the sort that actually works for small businesses including veterinary practices.

So how do you go about tracking?

Here are four ways you can track if your marketing is working:

1.       Campaign Specific Telephone Numbers

Did you know that it is possible to rent tracking telephone numbers? These are telephone numbers that you can put on your adverts, letters and web pages that when dialed will ring in your office but will be also be logged. For example, say you were running an identical promotion in two different local newspapers at the same time at the ad generated 50 new clients for your practice. If you used the same telephone number on both then you wouldn’t know which newspaper had generated the most new clients. You might then be tempted to run the same ad again in both newspapers the following week when, in fact, one of the newspapers had generated 45 new clients and the other one had only generated 5! However, if each ad used a different tracking telephone number then you would know exactly how many had come from each.

2.       Campaign Specific Codes

An alternative to using telephone numbers is to use different codes for each campaign. For example, you could specify in your ads or letters: “Please mention offer code XYZ345 when making an appointment.” This is a cheaper than telephone numbers but also not as reliable as you are relying on the client remembering to give the code and your reception staff remembering to keep track of it.

3.       Campaign Specific Vouchers

Another well used tracking method is to include a voucher/coupon on your ad that the client has to bring with them to qualify for the promotion. Again not as good as telephone numbers but still a lot more than the majority of veterinary practice do.

4.       Campaign Specific Web Pages

If you want to track clients that have come as a result of visiting your website then you could use different ‘landing pages’ for different campaigns which could include any of the above tracking methods. You can also have Internet only offers so you know could only have been found on your website.

Use a simple spreadsheet which lists each campaign and the total cost of the campaign i.e. postage, paper, advertising costs etc. Then have columns for the number of responders (leads), the number of conversions (sales), the Cost Per Lead (total cost/leads), the Cost Per Sale (total cost/sales) and the value of the sales made. By doing this you can track if you are getting a return on your investment and determine if it is worth running the campaign again.

So don’t waste money on advertising and marketing that doesn’t work. Track your campaigns and focus on the ones that actually give you a positive return on investment.

Remember, when the going gets tough in your practice you can either moan about it or roll up your sleeves and do somthing about it!

Winston Churchill once noted that “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” Run your practice by these sentiments and instill them in your staff, your practice will be a better place for it!

Sent from my iPhone ]]> http://vetpracticeprofits.com/veterinary-marketing/your-attitude-determines-your-altitude.php/feed 0 http://vetpracticeprofits.com/veterinary-marketing/how-can-i-grow-my-veterinary-practice-if-im-treating-patients-all-day.php http://vetpracticeprofits.com/veterinary-marketing/how-can-i-grow-my-veterinary-practice-if-im-treating-patients-all-day.php#comments Wed, 15 Sep 2010 17:54:53 +0000 Dean http://vetpracticeprofits.com/veterinary-marketing/how-can-i-grow-my-veterinary-practice-if-im-treating-patients-all-day.php

Another frequently asked question we get on How To Grow Your Veterinary Practice is:

How can I grow my veterinary practice if I’m treating patients all day?

The simple answer to this is YOU CAN’T!

In order to grow your veterinary practice you MUST find time to work ON your veterinary business rather than just working IN your veterinary business. Notice we said veterinary BUSINESS rather than veterinary practice. The sooner you realize that, as practice owner, you are running a business not solely practicing veterinary medicine the sooner you will be to being able to grow a substantial business.

In Michael Gerber’s best-selling book “The E-Myth Revisited” he introduces a premise, which when applied to the veterinary profession, infers veterinarians make the fatal assumption that just because they understand how to do the technical work of their practice – i.e. practicing veterinary medicine – they also understand how to build a practice that does that work.

His reasoning behind this argument is that veterinarians, starting their own practices, build practices that are heavily dependent on their own skills, talents, interests and tendencies. That they end up devoting their time, energy and life to what amounts to “working for a living” even if it is self-employed and finally they sell their “job” for break-even or even a net loss on all of the investment they’ve made.

The Entrepreneurial Veterinarian, on the other hand, builds a practice that can run itself in the hands of professional management, giving her the time to invest in other businesses or whatever else she wants to do with her life. The practice provides an income that she does not have to “work” for and provides a valuable asset for her future. In effect the Entrepreneurial Veterinarian builds an enterprise that can be grown as big as she sees fit.

Isn’t that the sort of practice that you dreamt of building?

To quote Michael Gerber:

“…your practice must be designed, so that it can do what it does systematically, predictably, every single time.”

By introducing systems you can create a consistent excellent experience for your clients every single time.

Why is McDonalds the most successful franchise of all time and the most successful burger restaurant? Well it isn’t down to the quality of their food as there are many burger restaurants with better quality burgers. The answer to both questions is their systems. A McDonalds in Seattle uses the exact same operations manual as a McDonalds in Orlando or New York or London, England or Sydney, Australia.

So while aren’t equating the services a veterinary practice provides with serving hamburgers, we are saying that you can implement systems in your practice. McDonalds has a systems-dependent business not a people-dependent business and you must develop a systems-dependent practice rather a than people-dependent practice.

What are the benefits?

When you systematize your business you instantly create a number of benefits:

1.       Your clients will be happier because they know they will get a consistent experience every time they visit your practice.

2.       Your staff will be happier as they will have a consistent way of doing things.

3.       You will be happier because you know that every consultation will be done your way.

4.       You will be less reliant on any individuals as any new clerical or reception staff can be easily trained to follow the systems that have been created for their area. The days when staff members could effectively hold you to ransom over your perceived fear that your practice can’t run without them are over!

5.       You will be able to take time off from your practice, safe in the knowledge your practice will still be in one piece when you get back.

6.       If you want to open a new practice in a different area you will already have the blueprint and systems manuals in place to get it up and running  very quickly!

7.       If you already have more than one practice you can be sure that things will be consistent to the point where if a staff member from one of your practices needs to fill in for a staff member at another one there will be no training required.

8.       Your practice becomes much more attractive to potential buyers as they will be effectively buying a turnkey operation that runs itself.

What can you systematize in your practice?

In your Reception

Every client should receive a consistent first class experience and every member of staff working in the reception area must know exactly what they need to do to provide it. Here is a sample of some of the systems you should have in place to enable your reception staff to do their job properly:

·         Answering the telephone.

·         Greeting clients.

·         Pre-consultation.

·         Post-consultation. 

·         Dealing with complaints.

Consulting Rooms

Systems for your veterinarians and veterinary technicians to follow in the consulting room are even more important in ensuring first class patient care and a consistent experience for your clients. The idea is not to constrain their abilities as a veterinary practitioner but to ensure that mistakes are not made and that consultations and procedures are carried out in the way you want them to be. Examples include:

·         New patient appointments.

·         Your systems for diagnosis.

·         Your systems for treatment.

Back Office

Your back office should obviously have systems for patient recording keeping, accounting and dealing with staff issues but here we are going to focus on the systems that 99% of veterinary practices don’t even think about which are Marketing Systems. Marketing systems are generally created in the back office and then deployed throughout the practice.

For example at the very least you should have  systems in place for the following:

·         Client Referral System

·         Testimonial Collection System

·         Up-sell/Cross-sell/Down-sell Systems

One of the keys to implementing systems within your practice is delegating tasks to your staff and making them responsible for their completion.  For example, make it the job of one of your team to run your client referral system including the tracking of who was referred by who and the rewarding of referrers.

Most veterinarians prefer practicing veterinary medicine to running a veterinary business but by implementing systems and delegating tasks it is possible to enjoy both!