VetPartners Corner

Fill-in veterinarians are well worth the cost. They help maintain work flow and keep clients happy, pets cared for and the staff sane.

Does anyone remember the McDonald’s advertising slogan “You deserve a break today”? The jingle frequently dances through my head as I think about my career as a relief veterinarian. The veterinary relief, or locum, niche is becoming ever more important in our profession. The need for this business-to-business service is growing along with the exploding […]

Current and potential clients will learn a lot about your practice at a glance if you properly manage your free Google My Business entry.

Mobile devices have changed the landscape of how people find businesses. Because smartphones are with us wherever we travel, we have access to information 24/7. Hungry? Look at “Restaurants near me” to find out what is close by, see menus and check busy times. The snow is melting and mosquitoes are emerging? A search for […]

Use KPIs and financial smarts to drive your practice toward higher levels of profitability.

In case you missed my August/September article, “Uneasy Street,” I examined the difference between flying by the seat of our pants as practice owners versus leveraging financial statements and key performance indicators (KPIs) to make educated, intentional management decisions. For those readers ready for a structured, calculated management process and the benefits it brings, let’s […]

A seat-of-the-pants approach isn’t the way to run a practice. You need to construct a detailed strategic plan and then dedicate time to implementing it.

Daggers were shooting out of the eyes of the four veterinary hospital partners. You could have cut the tension with a butter knife. I was there as an impartial facilitator after the partners discovered through a professional valuation that the business representing their blood, sweat and tears was worth basically the ground it sat on […]

Veterinarians are receiving top-dollar job offers because of a practitioner shortage that is expected to last at least 10 more years.

Predicting the future can be a dicey proposition. However, when you have an overabundance of supporting data, it becomes less of a prediction and more a matter of deductive reasoning. That the case when it comes to the employment marketplace, and the labor market when it comes to the veterinary profession. I have more than […]

Preventive care and early detection can enhance the health of pets and the practice.

For veterinary medicine to provide real value to pet owners and real financial success for veterinarians, there is a need to focus on being proactive, appreciating risk factors, closing compliance gaps and managing through evidence-based guidelines. This is the essence of personalized medicine and an opportunity that veterinarians should embrace. I define personalized medicine as […]

Physicians offer payment plans to clients, and a veterinary practice can, too.

You need a non-emergency medical procedure that costs about $6,000. Since your health insurance plan includes a $6,500 annual deductible, your doctor asks you to prepay for the procedure. What do you do? It might sound crazy, but it’s not. Situations like this one are happening more often as consumers face higher deductibles in order […]

Use a four-step online strategy to capture new clients and re-engage pet owners who showed initial interest.

A sales funnel is the system you put in place that is tasked with turning local prospects into new clients. It is the foundation of any realistic and sustainable new-client acquisition strategy. This article will teach you how a successful sales funnel operates and will present tactics designed to increase your ability to attract new […]

If employees don’t remember much of what they were taught, your training methods may be at fault.

How much of this article will you recall once you return to work? Chances are, you will remember reading a training article, and perhaps you will recall an important point because it related directly to your situation. The reality is that you retain about 5 percent of what you heard in a lecture or podcast, […]

If yours doesn’t elicit an emotional feeling, try again.

Mission statements are dull, boring and useless, and so are annual performance reviews. Now that I have horrified my fellow VetPartners members, let me explain. The issue with most veterinary mission statements, which is the subject of this article, and annual performance reviews, which is not, is that they typically are done poorly. Over the […]