So you made the decision to grow your veterinary practice. While so many work for the big corporate practices and so many decide to play it small, you decided for the betterment of your family and your community it was time to grow. Unfortunately, this growth has been anything but smooth and now you spend your days worried about losing staff, customers, and getting bogged down in the minutia of admin duties. It’s not your fault, you are a passionate veterinarian, but vet school and your care for animals never prepared you to run a growing business, nor do you likely want to be your business’s operations manager and fire fighter instead of the pet care provider.
That’s why in this article I’m going to break down the three things you can do now to take back your practice while skyrocketing your growth.
1. Choosing the minutia over profit.
The most common problem I see in veterinary practices is that there are so many inefficiencies, which leads to a lot of stress and low profits. Don’t get me wrong, there are many low-lying fruits that will lead to higher profits, but most veterinarians feel pressured to spend time on the minutia in the office instead of inefficiencies. Specifically, client leakage is the biggest drag on profits that I see yet often nothing is done about it, which kills me as it’s so easy to fix.
To fix this I know you’re going to expect me to say you need to book the next appointment before the client leaves or to have someone call them, but it’s far simpler. The easiest way to skyrocket return visits and, in turn, profits, is to set up your existing client management system to stimulate return visits and eliminate patient leakage. The best thing is this is far easier than you think. With the system you have right now it’s likely just a few clicks and it means your system communicates for you and you also won’t forget to do it.
A great example of this simple implementation was Jeff, who was in private veterinary practice and needed to grow. He was passionate about being an entrepreneur, but his profit predictions had never come to fruition. He was hitting a friction point that left things tense at home, leading him to consider closing the practice if he didn’t find a way to increase his profits. He was worried about meeting payroll, and he hadn’t even hired everyone he truly needed, not to mention he wasn’t taking home the money he needed. With Jeff, his yearly profits were less than $100k and he was worried about going home to yet another serious financial discussion with his wife.
On our first call, Jeff realized that he’d been totally absorbed by the day-to-day minutia, and it blinded him from simple, easy implementations that take minutes but drive bottom-line profits. I remember quickly explaining that in a few clicks he could skyrocket follow-up visits and, as a result, the quality of patient care. Though these services were vital, his clients were not being contacted because he didn’t set up the system to stimulate return visits and skyrocket his profits. In the process, his business suffered, and he jeopardized patient care despite being a superb veterinarian. After explaining to him the simple few clicks he could implement on his internal system, I remember him saying to me “wow, it’s that easy, I didn’t know our system could do that. To think I’ve been sacrificing patients and profits all this time, just because I didn’t know to click a button”.
With this simple change, Jeff’s profits soared from less than $100k to over $150k in just three months. This certainly took the pressure off at home and allowed him to consider hiring staff to grow even further. That’s why I’m so passionate about helping veterinarians understand the importance of taking a few moments away from the day-to-day minutia and reap the rewards of some surprising and quickly profitable actions.
2. Defending your schedule.
Another common issue I see is that, as the practice grows, patient time plummets. While, if this sounds like you, I know you didn’t mean for this to happen, but you likely find yourself stuck in the back office dealing with admin duties or having to handle the fire of the day, leaving you working late and not seeing the volume of patients you used to see. I know this can be frustrating, so let’s discuss a simple fix to rectify this.
The solution is simple, but not one that doesn’t come with mental hardship: you must learn to let go. The truth is, while you will always be able to do everything just a little bit better and a little more efficiently, for the survival of the practice you must focus on what you love in addition to what brings in the money. While to many this should feel liberating, the number one thing I hear is that it “sounds easier than it is”.
Patricia is a great example of this. She struggled with progressively lower profits over several months and she became increasingly frustrated and anxious about what might happen to her once growing practice if the trend continues. She was continuing to work more hours, though not on patient care, and was not able to stop the falling profits. She began to consider opening a line of credit to pay the bills, which would only add to her existing debt load.
Together, we looked at the numbers, and it was easy to calculate this little bit of time really added up. In fact, for her it was a $15,000 increase in revenue each and every month – what a motivator to let go. Patricia quickly went to work creating a ‘no’ list and empowering her team to stop her if they even spotted her doing anything that was on that list. While, initially, she worried that her team would drop the ball here and there, which we all agreed was worth it given the loss in income each month, she quickly was surprised with her team rising to the challenge.
Within the space of just three months, her monthly revenue had jumped by more than the $15k she had been losing and was tracking to increased annual profits of over 30% by the end of the year, all with no additional costs. As you can imagine, this change also drastically decreased her stress and provided relief from considering a line of credit.
In short, if you think you need to do all the busy work as you grow your practice, you should be aware of the costs and, more importantly, you need to be willing to let go.
3. Turning a blind eye to disengagement.
The stealthiest issue I see in practices can sometimes be a hidden time bomb: mass resignations all at once. Over time, it becomes evident that the staff seem to notice that no matter how hard they work, they can’t seem to get much done. In fact, if you stop and look around, you might notice that perhaps everyone’s a little bit less interested in your organization. This often happens when, day by day, nothing slows down and your office gets more and more crazy. Sure, your team pulled for you in the beginning, but over time they begin to slow down. Sadly, when it happens, most people say something like “I had no idea they felt that way”. Now I’m not saying that will happen to you, however I’ve seen veterinarians walk around their office and start to wonder why people are taking more time off or not showing up as early as they used to.
To ensure this event never happens, dedicate a little of the time and profits you gain from the two solutions above to understanding how your staff is doing with the workload they have and whether they feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day. These routine “pulse checks” give you the opportunity to provide the support they desperately need to do their jobs.
When Jerry, a busy solo veterinarian, called me, he told me he felt blindsided. Several resignation letters were recently turned in, followed by a third not long afterwards. Until then, he thought everything was fine and his team were happy. As you can imagine, he was more than a little stressed out and worried for his business. Would he lose a lot of customers? Would the phones be answered?
While I was honored to help save his business, I so wished I hadn’t needed to, especially as this crisis could have been avoided. It became quickly evident that several staff had indeed been showing signs of disengagement and fatigue. It was also clear that Jerry had not conducted any sort of pulse check. He was happy hustling every day in the business he loved, and he assumed they were too. After speaking with his team, Jerry was shocked to see things through their eyes. There had been long-term frustrations over workload, especially as, to them, it felt like it was always increasing. It also became so obvious that they really had passion for the business, but it was hard to find passion when they felt overwhelmed every day. They also growingly felt poorly trained and underappreciated, as they had not received real, formal training and felt Jerry never really checked in on their wellbeing.
This mortified Jerry as he loved his team and was surprised they had never said anything to him. He went to work creating a solid training program for them as well as regular check-ins on their wellbeing. Soon the team felt like the situation had resolved, that previously frustrating and fatiguing tasks were now part of a scheduled and measured, less pressured workday. In fact, Jerry excitedly shared with me later that two of the staff who had previously resigned now offered to stay on, as they felt they could now enjoy their workdays as well as feel a sense of accomplishment.
These simple initiatives Jerry implemented had a hugely rewarding effect. Not only did he not lose clients as he had feared, but he increased his profits by 12% in 60 days due to the renewed staff engagement; and he reduced his stress exponentially. Over the next six months, his attrition rate was his lowest ever and the practice grew to become a destination for new employees wanting to be a part of his reputation for not letting people down.
VETERINARIANS SHOULDN’T HIT FRICTION POINTS!
Hopefully now, as you read this, you understand the outcomes you’re looking for are really achievable if you just do a few key things to get hyper focused. Of course, to do this, it does take change, and I know that can be a little daunting. So, if you’d like some customized advice, you’re welcome to schedule a free call directly with me. Just click the calendar link below:
Finally, as you were reading this you may have thought of a friend or network that would find it useful, please share it with them – I’d really appreciate it.
Melanie and James have been responsible for numerous success stories of their own, transformed practices into skyrocketed growth, and helped practice owners take back their personal and family time from the crushing weight of business fears. They are outspoken advocates of independent veterinary practice, Friction Pathfinder experts, and nationally published healthcare Fellows. They both have MBAs in health services and operations management from top graduate universities.
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