Stress Heads and Dragons Scupper Sales

Shocking. The only word for the results of a recent mystery shopping survey I conducted.

Five practices in the best demographic Sydney, and quite possibly Australia, were surveyed. You’d expect them to be aiming high in terms of client service this, after all, is where all the professionals, CEOs, actors and actresses live.

The Test

The scenario, ‘A mystery shopper had a new puppy and wanted to know the price of vaccinations’.

The practices were scored on:

1. Timely answer of phone.
2. Product knowledge.
3. Rapport building.
4. Conversion into appointment.

Results

All answered the phone quickly, which was good. But only two of the five practices surveyed had sufficient depth of knowledge to be able to answer basic questions. Again only two of the five showed any interest in what kind of puppy the caller had gotten and made any effort to build rapport. And shockingly (in parallel with UK surveys of this kind) not one actually tried to convert the call into a beneficial action for the practice by offering an appointment.


Stress Heads and Dragons

There were two absolute bloopers. The first (in the most expensive practice) was the incredible lack of knowledge, shown by whoever answered the phone. She couldn’t even tell us the price and claimed not to be from “out the front”, was “too busy” to talk. But she did promise the vet would call us back later.  Evidently she was too stressed to even get the vet to do that, as we received no call.

The second was a tirade of near abuse dished out by a receptionist (I’d call her a dragon) who was very, very knowledgeable about every expense item puppy ownership would incur. She seemed to be implying that we were highly irresponsible in getting a new puppy at all. My mystery shopper was left feeling quite shocked, guilty and deflated about her new pet.

From this one can only conclude that the practices concerned have given their people insufficient training on the most fundamental of skills, client care.  Or they have the wrong people.

Dave’s Tuppence-worth

The new puppy/kitten call is (along with euthanasia) one of the most sensitive interactions a practice will ever handle. That it clearly is so badly serviced, even in today’s market, is a poor reflection on our industry.  Though the sample size in this survey was small, the parallel with other larger surveys is worrying.

Practices that aren’t trying will be in real trouble if times get tougher. Take time to listen to your team on the phone today. I’m sure you’ll learn something useful. Then (more importantly) take time out to direct, or coach them if they get it wrong.

Special Gift from the Dept of Thought - One Hour of New Time

Imagine I magically created one hour extra in your workday each day this week. What would you spend the time doing and why?

Why do I ask? Well a back injury has kind of laid me up (well slowed me down on the clinical front for a few days). It it never fails to surprise even me just how much more influence I have on the business when I'm not focused on clients but on colleagues.

So far I've been able to dedicate some additional time training our new nursing staff as they enter our business. And our marketing plan has been driven significantly further forward than before. 

The result? Everyone feels the benefit of a practice moving forward.

Better still, I'm not talking gibberish to clients through a co-codamol induced haze! 



As strong as my painkillers are, The Hamster Wheel is a more addictive drug to vets than any opiate.
Getting off can feel alien and leave you not knowing what to do. That's because we don't know how to think strategically. 

Lets talk about how to think strategically. Over to you. How will you strategically influence your business this week? Discuss.

Create Time to Work ON Your Vet Practice

Life in a vet practice is hectic. And it only seems to get worse the higher up the food chain you go. As managers we’re all too busy at work, right?

Forget veterinary medicine for a second, being too busy with actual daily work tasks to get any strategic tasks done is rife in the workplace. It’s the curse of business owners and managers everywhere.

Time management is the foundation skill upon which business or managerial success is built. And like any skill it can be learned and perfected with practice.

Strategic Work Vs Tactical Work

Michael Gerber, author of the brilliant book The e-Myth Revisited, calls these activities strategic and tactical work tasks.

Strategic tasks are those that involve the big picture for your business. Typical activities would include:

• Forecasting what your budget for the next year is
• Writing a marketing plan to achieve your budget targets
• Working on new strategic relationships to help your business grow
• Promoting your business
• Planning and resourcing a new service.

They all involve thought, writing and often not an immediately tangible outcome. As such they are viewed as not being of high value (especially as most vets I know are used to running around like lunatics managing three cases at once).

Tactical activities however, are like an addiction to vets and managers. They are the everyday things you do that result the end of year outcomes for your business. Deal with clients, perform procedures, fix the broken dental equipment.

Completing these tasks is gratifying in the short term, so the myopic manager can feel extremely busy because something immediate is achieved. But this task list is never ending and will swell to consume all the time you believe you have available. The result, busy days but nothing ever seems to change or improve.

Make no mistake, long term an addiction to tactical work is damaging to the health of your practice. If you haven’t done the strategic stuff, how do you know if the tactical stuff you’re doing is worthwhile?

Moving from a tactical approach to a strategic approach is what I call getting off The Hamster Wheel and the first step to getting out is managing your time better.

Getting Off Your Hamster Wheel

There are a myriad of techniques you can use to help manage your time more effectively. Here are three that I commonly use.

1. How are you currently spending time?

Before you can work out what to change, you need to know what it is you spend your day doing. This involves keeping a time diary for a week. Create a table in MS excel for each 30 minute section of your day. Then record everything (I mean everything) you do at work for a week. At the end of the week analyse the table. Get two highlighter pens and start colouring in. Green for strategic tasks, pink for tactical tasks. If it’s all pink then you have a problem.

2. Prioritise your tasks.

To do this I use a management task grid (image right). This grid allows you to allocate tasks based on their level of urgency and importance. When you are starting out for example, hiring staff and purchasing equipment would constitute important and urgent tasks. When you are the senior vet however, seeing drug reps would count as relatively unimportant and not urgent. Allocate all of your tasks to this grid.

As a small business owner you need to focus more (though not exclusively) on those tasks that are important, urgent and (don’t forget) strategic. These tend to be the big tasks though and so are often put off until the last minute or are not done at all (marketing plans, for example, are often put off due to time pressures).

3. Match the right action to each task.

Look again at the management grid. You’ll see that in each quadrant I’ve suggested how you handle the various tasks. Your options are:

Do it. Reserve this for only important and/or urgent tasks. Make sure that some are strategic. Paying the tax bill is important, but hardly counts as strategic (or indeed urgent if you manage you time well!) Don’t put off the big things. Get stuck in!

Delegate. The easiest way to get stuck in a rut is to assume that only you can do a task well enough or quickly enough. Coach and mentor your team to be able to do tactical tasks and you’ll be improving their job by helping them develop new skills plus you’ll have more time. Read more about mentoring here.

Defer. If it really isn’t that important or urgent then why are you thinking about doing it now? You might like writing a web article about hyperthyroidism, but when your staff annual reviews need doing then get them done in the right order.


Dump. All non-essential activities – excessive/unnecessary meetings are a good example.

Dave’s Tuppence-worth

As an owner/manager/ leader, it is your role to motivate others to achieve the organisational goals. Changing your daily work practices to focus on critical strategic activities might be one small step from the hamster wheel, but it’s one giant leap forward for your practice!

Try getting off your hamster wheel today and see what happens to your business.

The Hamster Wheel on Linkedin

If you are interested I’ve just formed a group on Linkedin to help address the problem. You can join this growing band of practice owners and management gurus for free. Or if you’re not a Linkedin member then why not? Where have you been? Get networked!

CVs Part 2: Writing Tips For a Great Vet or Vet Nurse CV

In part one of our series we focused on some tips for vet managers/employers to spot dodgy CVs. In part two we turn the spotlight onto the person writing the CV – the job seeker.

I can’t write your CV for you, but if you (or someone you know) is about to apply for a new job in vet medicine then please do everyone a favour and follow some of these tips.

CV Writing Tips

Tip 1 - Stand out by matching your experience to what an employer is looking for. Read the job ad carefully and do a little research by checking out the practice website before sending your application.  The write word or phrase can make a huge impact. If you send the same CV to everyone then chances are you won’t come across as perfect for any.

Tip 2 - Say what you need in as few words as possible. If I’ve got 40 CVs to review, I’ll appreciate the information up front.



Tip 3 - Don’t use your “hilariously funny” private email address. It isn’t cool. You will look like an idiot. My favorite so far is stupid_k***y@hotmail.com (name is a little hidden to protect the guilty)- I almost deposited this otherwise well written CV in the bin which would have been a tragedy as the person involved was one of the best young vets I ever hired. Things like fluffy_bunny@iamawetblanket.com are very, very bad PR. Stop it immediately.


Tip 4 - Spelling and grammar – rin yoor spell checkar u idoits & don’t type like it’s a txt.  


Tip 5 - Photos seem to be common CV addition in certain European countries – I really, really wouldn’t recommend it.


Tip 6 - Make sure your employment dates are listed with most recent first and there are no gaps. If there are then prepare to explain them.


Tip 7 - If you say something like “I pride myself on my attention to detail”, then for god sake don’t leave the name of the other practice manager you sent your CV to at the top of one you were supposed to address to me! 


Tip 8 - Get someone from outside of the profession (not your mum – unless she’s in HR) to read your resume and take the feedback points constructively.

Dave’s Tuppence-Worth

Your CV has one purpose – to get you an interview. Make sure it doesn’t lose you the job…

Bonus Reader Download – Free CV Template

Click to download this template as a starting point for a professional looking CV.

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Hats Off for the Hospice Storms Social Media

So, who doesn’t believe in the power of social media beyond lunchtime chatter between the nurses? If you don’t then ask yourself this; why did I just give a person living on the other side of the planet, who I am aware of with but don’t know well enough to call a friend, a sizeable donation for a cause that doesn’t affect me directly?

George Cooper has a tragic story to tell. Recently losing his wife to cancer, George wanted to repay a debt of gratitude to the hospice that cared for his wife during their final weeks together.  Before the advent of social media it is unlikely that support would have been raised from far outside the hospice locality or close group of friends and colleagues.  Today though we are all connected so much closer and in the past few days George’s campaign has smashed through an impressive fundraising target of almost £14,000 and, unbelievably, will soon reach £20,000. By any standards this is a really impressive feat. But how is it that it has been achieved?

The answer is that George and his group, The Hat Band, have got all the elements you need for viral marketing campaign to spread. And spread most wonderfully it has.

How The Hat Band Hit the Spot

1. They have a very compelling message – you can’t fail to be moved by his story.
2. The use of two online social media sites to reach people they would not otherwise have had a chance to promote the message to – Facebook (or facepuke as George himself calls it!)  and YouTube.
3. Remarkable content – the free video clips of old shows are great and George is regularly interacting with his fan base keeping the momentum moving forward. Plus there’s pictures from the recent gigs plus a very sweet and hooky little logo to change your profile picture to.
4. A call to action – the thing that converts clicks into cash – buy a ticket, click the video link, donate to the fund…it’s all there.

Put together it isn’t hard to see why The Hat Band’s campaign is a runaway success. 

I don’t know George especially well. I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting his wife Sally. I don’t live near, nor am I ever likely to, Herefordshire, the focus of the campaign. So why did I donate? 

Well firstly because George reached out across the social media-sphere and found me (and hundreds of others in a remarkably short space of time). Second, his story is a heartbreaker and my heart goes out to both band members who have had such painful experiences. Thirdly, his band is actually very funny (or at least I think so). But I’ve never seen them, I watched the clips of old performances posted on YouTube. 
Finally, having been through some experiences that can only be described as shit house, one of the things that gets you through is the knowledge that you are absolutely not alone. It matters to look after each other.

So George, I’ve changed my Facebook photo, joined the Facebook fan club and made my donation.  I tip my big red digital hat in the direction of you and your band. Congratulations on smashing your goals and good luck with your new quest to promote the work of all the hospices across the land.

And for everyone else, if you were in any doubt about just how useful social media can be just ask The Hat Band. Or better still buy a ticket for their gigs.