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Learning from
Our Mistakes Two promotions that flopped
We offered a free bottle of shampoo with the purchase of a grooming procedure and promoted this on the radio. By the time we paid for the advertisement, groomer and shampoo, we barely broke even on the promotion.
We also tried a “biggest loser” weight-loss promo- tion. We provided discounts on weight-loss food products for pets who followed a weight-loss pro- gram recommended by the veterinarian. A lot of clients’ pets began the program but didn’t follow up by providing the clinic with their weigh-ins. It also became hard to track who received discounts on the products and who did not. In the end, this promotion caused more confusion and less com- pliance. If I did it again, I would spend more time making sure I had a full-circle start-to-end process for the staff and the clients to follow to decrease the amount of confusion.
Tiffany Killion, Practice Manager The Animals Hospital, Levittown, Pa.
‘If you’re bringing in Buddy, why don’t you just bring Suzi along too, because she’s going to be due in 30 days and, that way, you don’t have to make two trips.’” Janne keeps thorough records, and Cooper checks every month to see how many clients are following up with Janne’s recommendations. “Minimally, I probably make five times what I pay her,” says Cooper. “It’s a terrific investment.” Thus, it is no surprise that Cooper
wants to make a good thing even better. “Once she gets our current past-due
list done, Janne will be calling clients who have received one reminder or email. If she gets caught up with those, we’ll run other past-due lists from our system. “I can keep her as busy as she wants
to be.”
Engage and develop your staff.
“A few years ago, I used one of those
slow February slots to engage and develop my staff,” says Chris Collis, DVM, owner of Glenview Animal Hospital, Victoria, British Columbia. “I asked each of them to take on a
project voluntarily, where they had to lay out the framework for a new busi- ness or an adjunct to an existing busi- ness. I challenged them to design it from top to bottom as if they had to pitch it for financing,” he says. “The only instructions were that it had
to be realistic and feasible and it needed to be done with the level of education and access to resources that they could seriously consider.
“Then, our bank manager and I would listen to their presentations,” he went on. “I asked them to do this voluntarily, on their own time and outside of work. I never mentioned any compensation, other than saying, ‘If you don’t partici- pate, you’ll likely regret it.’ “Four of my five staff members took me up on the challenge and pitched their new businesses 60 days later. We heard
Upgrade staff skills. “I’ve also used this time for staff
training and allowing staff members to pursue their projects,” Collis says. “These are things like learning how
to take on our website management in- house, becoming the practice’s pet food guru by taking all the [pet food manufac- turers’] modules, creating the top 30 tem- plates for the most common procedure estimates, revising our staff training man- uals, reviewing the insurance company providers to understand the differences in packages so that we can better guide our clients, and investigating and evalu- ating electronic staff scheduling programs to see which one fits our practice best.” The low season is “time to train, train and conduct even more training,” says Robin Brogdon of Blueprints Veterinary Marketing Group. “Most veterinarians say they just can’t find time for this. Well, now is the time!” she says.
How have you and your staff responded to seasonal lulls? Share your tips and success stories at the new Trends Today (
www.trends.aahanet.org) > Share Your Stories.
Jack Sommars is an award-winning writer based in Denver, Colo. Trends magazine, November/December 2010
four fantastic presentations, and I gave each of them $1,000 for their efforts. “Why would I do this? “It gave my staff an acute sense of the importance of good bookkeeping, watch- ing how ‘giving away’ something really does hurt the bottom line, what margins and markup are, what source deductions (e.g., employer contribution to pension plans, employment insurance expense, workman’s compensation) cost, and what overhead really consists of (and why I don’t drive a BMW),” he explains. “They all became extremely grounded to the high and unexpected costs of run- ning a business. To this day, those staff members remember the importance and impact of a well-thought-out financial plan,” Collis concludes.
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