How to Keep a New Years Resolution

On the cover of a national newspaper this week was a statistic that only 25% of New Years Resolutions are kept.  I don't like to bet but I do know how to maximize my odds so I am preparing a list of resolutions. If I only keep 25% of them I will have a better practice in 2010 than I did in 2009. Everything our practice will resolve to do will involve small easily achievable results that can be measured. This way we can know if what we tried to do worked and that we reached our goals.

1. Reduce AR

• This area of our  practice is a constant struggle. The best remedy is to avoid offering credit so with that in mind I vow that all new clients are COD. We will review all typically good paying clients that are approaching 60 days and advise them that unless they pay immediately they will go on a COD basis. I am going to measure how successful we are by comparing our quarterly and year end AR percentages and compare them to the appropriate period from 2009. Even a little improvement will help our cash flow. This is always a good thing regardless of how well the economy is doing.

2. Reduce Staff Turnover

• It costs a business so much money to train new employees not to mention the discomfort clients feel when they have to deal with a new voice on the phone. We will review all situations of employees quitting in 2009 and put in place measures to reduce current employees from leaving. We will have a consistent employee evaluation process. We will also do a better job in hiring - the odds of someone leaving a practice are higher when they are not the right person for the job. We are a relatively new business. Like all new businesses we have been figuring out processes as we go along. Now is the time to solidify what we know works and put that into place. The minimal benefit to this is happier staff and customers. Nobody likes the stress of an unhappy employee.

3. Decrease Inventory

• Next to labor this is the biggest expense an equine practice will occur. Depending on the type of practice one can expect it to be anywhere from 20-30% of total expenses. We are going to prepare quarterly minimum and maximum quantities to have on hand for each item. We can get our supplies overnight so I would like to have 2 weeks supply of most things on hand. No more than 1 month supply on a product that we can sell a lot of at one time. Regumate is a good example of this. We will aim to lower total inventory expenses by 2%. The immediate benefit again will be an improvement in cash flow. Better to have money in the bank then sitting on the pharmacy shelves.

4. Work Less/Spend More Time With Family

• I am sure every veterinarian would love to make this one work. This is the perfect time of the year to plan for that. Go through the clinic calendar and book your days off now. Usually at this time of year we are less busy and feeling less pressure from our clients. We are basking in the warmth of good times spent with family. Capitalize on the moment and make your plans now. Share them with your family so you they can hold you accountable to your plans later on. Count how many vacation days you took in 2009 and increase them by 10% at least for 2010. This is not a huge amount but it is better than last year. If you can do this you will probably be a happier vet since you will be less burned out. A happy vet most likely will perform better medicine.

So I have 4 resolutions. If I can only  follow through on 25% of them that means I will accomplish 1 of the 4. Regardless of which 1 of the 4 the end result will be more profit for the practice and likely happier staff, vets, and home life.

Does anyone have any resolutions that I did not mention. Leave a comment and share with everyone.

Good Luck and may 2010 be healthy and prosperous.

Client Loyalty

A client was telling me about a vet he worked with in Europe recently. The vet claimed that he and his partner decided to be open every day of the year as a way to grow their practice. They would not charge emergency fees in the hope that people would use them because they were available and would not charge extra for emergency work. This included Christmas, Easter and all the other major holidays.
What was the result of this strategy? Not one new client because of this service over several years.
From the view of their colleagues this goes to prove that the relationships we have with our clients can be very strong. It seems it would take extreme measure for us to lose a client. As long as we treat them well and offer excellent veterinary care they should stick around. The only reason vets lose clients is if they don't perform these two services or if another vet offers a unique service.  With the recent recession some clients have begun to price shop but this is an extreme situation. I always tell our new associates that I respect a client that wants to stay with their vet over us because they demonstrate loyalty. If we are lucky to get them in the future it won't be because we are cheaper. It may be because we offer a higher standard of medicine or client care or a service the other veterinarian did not.
And the veterinarians at the beginning? They now charge a hefty fee for emergency work.
Price does not always dictate if a client uses a veterinarian or not.

Tech TIp

I discovered a great site that helps you pick a camera or hdtv or smart phone based on your needs. It eliminates the need to go through several review sites to find what you want. It is www.measy.com. It requires that you fill out a brief questionnaire to discover your preferences then it picks the most appropriate item. Check it out the next time you are in the market for a new tech toy. You may find it saves you a lot of time.

A Caution on Specialization

Many of our clients use several equine vets. There is the breeding vet, one who takes care of lameness issues, another who is a chiropractor and of course the vet that takes care of vaccines and emergencies. We can all think of other unique examples. I think there are three main reasons why this happens. The first is that the client is comfortable with the specific skill levels of a vet in a certain area. The second is the reputation of the vet in question. Finally, it may be that a vet wishes to specialize in an area.
Is this level of specialization a good thing? I used to think so but now as I see the effects of the economic downturn and the shifting landscape of the horse industry I am beginning to question it.
I was a believer in specialization because I thought that it is better to be a master of one or two things than be adequate in several. The rising value of horses required the best veterinary care. In our case we didn't do repro work because we thought it was too hard to be on time to check mares while taking care of lame horses preparing for the show season.
So why is specialization perhaps not the best idea? I am seeing practices that were reliant on breeding suffer because fewer people are breeding mares, urban sprawl is pushing brood mare farms towards cheaper land or because this type of work is so price driven there is little room to raise fees to reflect rising costs. On the other hand lameness practices that performed many pre-purchase exams have seen this work decrease over the past year. How difficult is it for a client to have more than one vet from a practice come to a farm to breed a mare, perform a lameness exam or float teeth. Would you rather go to a large department store and get all you need at one stop or drive around to several small specialized stores?
When times are good specialization works very well. It can also work well in a one vet celebrity practice.   Right now I wonder if it is better to have diversity in a practice and offer better customer service by having our veterinarians be very good in several facets of vet med.
Being very good can satisfy the strong majority of problems. Consequently, there is less need for your clients to seek someone who is excellent in one or two facets of practices when they have a problem.
What do you think? Can specialization harm a practice and can we raise the standards of our vets to be very good in several areas of practice?

Accounts Receivables

Protecting Your Practice


There is so much discussion and confusion about the best way to collect bills from clients. Vets can be their own worst enemies. Historically, we hate to charge a fee for what we do and when we do charge a fair rate we give it on credit. We are probably the business with the easiest credit policies.  For many of us we had clients that generally paid in a somewhat timely manner but now we are being faced with bankruptcies and slow to pay clients.
In a recent discussion at the AAEP annual convention we discussed the best ways to collect outstanding accounts. That is the backward view of AR. Better to prevent account balances from accumulating in the first place than chase after people later. We decided on a game plan going forward that all equine practices can use.

Step 1


Make a payment plan going forward that all doctors and staff are on board with. Their compliance is critical so exceptions are not made. Make your plan easy - Payment due at the time of service. Identify those excellent clients who have always paid in a timely manner and let them know that you have new credit terms but you are continuing with them in their typical manner. If they get past 30 days you will have to apply the new terms to their account.
You will be surprised at how few clients you will lose. Those that go are the ones that take up so much of your office's time chasing after them. They are not worth it.

Step 2


Communicate in writing with your clients what the new policies are. Don't surprise them. Many people will expect this considering the economic climate. January 1st in the perfect time to do so.

Step 3


Follow up and re-assess your new system in a systematic manner. Ensure all doctors and staff follow the new system. Every month or 2 review how you are doing. Have you lost clients? Are your current accounts lower than in previous months? Is your cash flow better? This will be the immediate effect of the new system.

These are some of the highlights from the AR discussion. Please post any other suggestions or systems.
For those overdue accounts you have now here are some excellent resources. Thank you to Wilson for these references.

www.accurint.com

• Excellent tool to search for clients

www.americancreditbureau.com

• Collection tools 

Join the conversation!

61 Minutes

On Monday morning at the 2009 AAEP Convention I was part of a panel that presented the year in review for 2009. The focus was on business, technology, lifestyle and student issues. Veterinarians are compulsive note takers so in case anyone missed some information I am presenting links to many of the subjects we covered.

Use the comment boxes to add any resources that we may have missed.

Online Tools

Please feel free to suggest other online tools we may have missed.

www.yelp.com

• review website

www.basecamphq.com

• project management tool

www.gotomeeting.com

• Tool to allow many people to share a computer to work on projects or presentations online.

www.skype.com

• Not only a way to instant message but you can send large files, make cheap phone calls and video conference.

www.mappoint.com

• Clients and patients can be imported to this program allowing you a visual tool to manage a client base.

Recommended Books of 2009

Please offer suggestions on any books we may have missed.

What Would Google Do?

Jeff Jarvis

Crushit

Gary Vaynerchuck

Outliers

Malcolm Gladwell

Recommended Journals

The Economist

World view of the economy

Business Week

Concise summaries of the US business week

Inc.

Monthly magazine that focuses on entrepeneurs

Fast Company

Small business magazine with a focus on technology and design.

Resources

NCVEI.org

www.veterinarystudygroups.com

VMG Organization

www.equinebusinessmanagement.com

Annual executive level business management courses aimed at the equine profession

www.voorjaarsdagen.org

2010 European veterinary conference that will have an equine education component