Greater Compliance is a win-win-win.

During the last fifteen years I have been amazed at the sincerity and dedication of virtually all veterinarians. You are truly committed to the health and well being of your patients. I think the same can be said of the vast majority of pet owners. Despite the concern of both veterinarians and pet owners, pets are nowhere near receiving the best possible care.

Research by AAHA revealed that only about 25% of recommended cats and dogs receive dental prophylaxis. Only 32% of aging dogs and 35% of aging cats receive senior screening. Less than 20% of cats and dogs are receiving recommended therapeutic diets!

Another national study showed that 71% of pet owners follow recommendations when they receive a thorough explanation of of the doctor's treatment plan vs 51% who felt they did not understand the treatment plan.

What's the bottom line? You need to do a better job of communicating with your clients! Direct communication with your clients is an essential part of your marketing and is essential to improving compliance rates. Take time to talk and everyone wins: the client learns how to be a better pet owner, the pet receives better care and you get to deliver better care and increase your bottom line. It's a win-win-win.

Lagniappe: A word worth traveling for.

In my previous post, I suggested that you give each client a little something extra. In Louisianna and other parts of the south, this extra something is called lagniappe. Mark Twain writes about the word in a chapter on New Orleans in Life on the Mississippi (1883). He called it "a word worth travelling to New Orleans to get":

We picked up one excellent word — a word worth travelling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word — "lagniappe." They pronounce it lanny-yap. It is Spanish — so they said. We discovered it at the head of a column of odds and ends in the Picayune, the first day; heard twenty people use it the second; inquired what it meant the third; adopted it and got facility in swinging it the fourth. It has a restricted meaning, but I think the people spread it out a little when they choose. It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a "baker's dozen." It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure. "

Lagniappe is foolproof way of making your clients feel good. My friend of many years, Vic Wolf, is the owner of a hair salon in Portland. Every once in a while he will give his clients a free bottle of shampoo or a hair brush or other grooming accessory. This giving is returned to him many times over in the form of incredibly loyal customers who are generous with their tips. Those who go to other salons may feel they got their money's worth but those who leave Vic's salon leave feeling they got more than their money's worth. How would you like your clients to feel?

Give great service. Then give a little something extra, a little lagniappe!

Give a little more during tough times

There is no doubt that almost all Americans are feeling the economic squeeze. Times are tough. Our clients are feeling the squeeze and cutting back on their treats and luxuries. She is down-scaling her expectations. As a marketer you have to ask yourself, how does this make her feel? Indulging in small and large treats is one of the ways she builds self esteem. 

As Faith Popcorn wrote during the last recession: "The good news for marketers: the worse it gets, the more we need them, these little life-enhancing, get-us-through-the-tough-time-lifts."

Right now our client needs those little extras to make her feel better about the tough times and to feel good about herself and more hopeful for the future.

What might these extra lifts look like? We have talked about them in earlier blogs: fresh brewed coffee and warm chocolate chip are enough to lift the spirits of any client. Some of my clients have added the TGIF wine and cheese on friday afternoons. Bring in a masseuse once a month and have her give clients a neck and shoulders massage while the are waiting. There are also advertising specialties that are inexpensive, yet do a nice job of branding: pen and notepads for her shopping lists, squeeze balls to relieve stress and increase fitness, cool drink holders, etc etc.

Even the extra effort to put out fresh flowers and upbeat music will help.

Those little extras can make all the difference in your client's outlook as she navigates her way around the difficulties we all face today.

It tastes like chicken

I have just returned from the Australian Veterinary Conference where my lectures on veterinary brand marketing were received with much enthusiasm. The Australians are open and warm and generous in praise. Their cuisine is heavy on protein but light on vegetables. I tried all the local delicacies I could lay my hands on:

Kangaroo––tastes almost like beef with the grainy muscle texture of venison. Crocodile––tastes like chicken (what else is new?) but with a rubbery texture like raw squid. Mud crab––tastes like crab. Not as delicate and sweet as local dungeness crab and with shells tough as nails. Darwin bugs are not bugs but tiny lobsters or big crawfish––tastes like small lobsters.The local fish, Barramundi, which is now farmed is a must and makes absolutely great fish and chips. 

The local meat pies are also a must experience. I had a braised lamb shank pie complete with bone and it was good, indeed, though they seem to have a fondness for small gristly bits swimming about in it that I could do without. In a Sydney Irish pub I had lamb shank that had been slowly and darkly braised in Guiness Stout that was to do for. Vegemite is a dark brown goo that is made from the spent brewer's yeast. I was given a bottle and will open it tomorrow. You are supposed to spread a little on a piece of warm, buttered toast. What the heck, I've put worse things in my mouth.

Did not have a Darwin Stubbie (1.25 liters of beer!). They used to measure the distance from Darwin to destinations in the Outback by the number of stubbies it took to get there. I find the Australian red wines fat and jammy with fruit which is not to my palate's preferences but the crisp, metallic Sauvignon Blanc chilled whites are great on a hot Darwin day!

They really do say "G'day, mate" but would prefer that you speak American or whatever. Instead of "You're welcome" they say "No worries, mate."

It looks like I will be returning for more lectures and to meet with new clients down under so I will be able to give an even fuller report in the future.

G'day, Mate!

Soon I leave for a week of teaching in Darwin, Australia. I am looking forward to the response of the hospital owners there. Judging from their websites (those who have a website), I can see that they struggle with message as much as veterinarians here. It seems to be almost impossible for veterinarians to avoid certain defaults: "quality", "friendly", "treat your pet as family". A popular word in Australia is "professional"––like, you have to tell us, Doctor, that you are a professional? And that you are friendly and do good work? Really?

The last generation of branding was product benefit based and very simple at its best: Volvo=safety,  Crest=cavities, Prego=thick, Obama=change. As branding shifted from product benefit to client lifestyle, so did the branding messages: Nike=just do it, Oprah=go for it, Martha Stewart=be true to your nature. While lifestyle marketing is still king, the tide seems to be shifting to experience marketing, where the marketing itself is part of the experience and directs the client to new experiences: iPhone=experience the difference. 

For my lectures in Australia, I spent considerable time learning about the language, slang and Aussie lifestyle so I could speak to them in a meaningful way. Information that has no meaning is mental garbage. Client communication that has no meaning to the client, is garbage. It may have meaning for you the doctor, but it must have meaning for the client.

In the spirit of Nike or Oprah, for instance, "Yes you can!" has meaning for the client. It is an encouragement and an affirmation. It makes her feel good. Now that is meaning at the deepest level! It touches on the experience of living itself.

As you reach out to communicate with clients and potential clients, reach out and touch her, her life, her emotions, her hopes and aspirations, her needs, her fears etc.

Harder to do that mouthing meaningless phrases about yourself like quality, friendly and family. Harder, yes, but not impossible: just do it! Go for it! Yes you can! Or, as they say down under, 'Av a go, mate!

Tweet, twitter, twuffer

Social, network marketing is part of the future and the future is here. Veterinary owners should consider trying to develop a twitter following. You don't have to twitter mindless nonsense all day long and stay glued to your computer or ipod. Major agencies are helping clients learn to twitter effectively. My friend and owner of Grady-Britton Advertising and his firm have developed a piece of open source software called Twuffer that will allow you to write a bunch of tweets at the same time and program them for sending out later in a prearranged time frame.

The internet offers unparalleled opportunity for communication with clients and potential clients and a lot of it is absolutely free. 

Don't underestimate the power of connectivity. It is a powerful way to help build brand.

By the Way: my kudos to blog follower Jeff Logas who actually seems to follow this blog and to share his hospital experiences with others. I hope more of you will jump in with your experiences and stories.

We all love a good story

Every veterinarian has wonderful stories to tell that are revealing of technical medical skill orare  just downright fun and funny. Think of James Herriot's books that spawned many a young person's commitment to veterinary school.

Rather than using newsletters and hospital notices to talk about your quality medical care and your friendliness, why not tell some of your stories? We humans are hard-wired to respond to stories: think of the wonderful stories in the Old Testament––Jonah and Whale, the walls of Jericho, and, of course, Noah and the great flood. 

Stories are particularly useful in reaching women because women shop with their imagination. They run scenarios of how products and services will fit into their lives and how they'll interact with them. Marketing expert Tom Peters writes: "Men want the headlines, the top line points," but women "require immersion in the whole experience of that product. She needs a real sense of context."

Client stories that come to mind are the x-ray of the parrot that swallowed a beaded light chain, the dog with blocked bowel that had swallowed the female owner's panties, dogs that escaped the kennel yard and was later found at home. Dig out the old stories and share them with your clients. It's a great way to tell the bigger stories of your hospital's philosophy and skills. 

If I market to women, what about the men?

Many of my clients have been concerned that when they market specifically to women, that men will somehow be turned off or uninterested. This is not the case. Focus group studies have shown that men share the same concerns as women. An interesting example showed up in women's and men's magazines. Cosmopolitan shows you how to get a flat stomach in 1o days, while Men's Health promises to reveal the secret of killer abs in 10 days!

All the research shows that while women are vocal about their desire for good service, men like it too but just don't like to talk about it.

The woman is a tough customer, demanding more information about a product or service and demanding higher quality and better service.

By appealing to women, you will not drive men away. Quite the opposite is true. Meet the needs of your most demanding customer and you will appeal to men also.

Rule of Thumb

To get through life without getting bogged down in decision making details, all of use have learned to use rules of thumb. Ancient rules of thumb actually used the thumb for calculations.

In Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift wrote of the Lilliputian tailors: " Then they measured my right thumb, and desired no more: for by a mathematical computation, that twice round the thumb is equal to once around the wrist, and so on to the neck and waist..."

In home etiquette: In a formal place setting, the silverware and the dinner plate should be set back from the edge of the table a length equal to the distal phalanx of the thumb.

In brewing: before reliable thermometers were readily available, the brewer tested the wort by placing his thumb in it. When he could place his thumb in the wort without having to remove it because of the heat, the wort was cool enough to pitch the yeast.

They may not measure results with their thumbs, but your clients use a rule of thumb in a lot of their decision making when it comes to their purchasing decisions. The British philosopher Alfred North White maintained that "civilization advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them." Your clients want a simple life where they don't have to spend a lot of time measuring and thinking. You can help.

Here are a few of the key rules of thumb used by your clients. Help your clients by helping use the rule of thumb.

"You get what you pay for." People believe that more expensive cars are better cars, that is, that the high priced product or service is the better product or service. If you preach quality medical care and then discount your fees, you are unwittingly telling the client that your service is inferior. The client, using a time-tested rule of thumb, is going to believe that the high-priced provider is offering superior medical care.

Reciprocity. People also believe that we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us. As a rule for gaining compliance, this is a powerful tool. Give a gift and clients will want to balance the scales by giving something back to you. This is why companies give away samples, pens and other gifts. In one store, just be letting customers slice off samples of their cheese, one salesman sold a thousand pounds of cheese in several hours. Giving small gifts to your clients, such as pet food samples, complimentary coffee and soft drinks, pens, tote bags etc, will help them return the favor with increased compliance to your recommendations.

Authority. People tend to believe and obey authority whether that authority is civil (police), religious (ministers) or medical (doctors). Part of practicing good medicine is giving good advice. Don't be afraid to use your authority to help pets receive the best medical care by making strong recommendations to your clients. Clients will believe you and will try to do what you recommend. By the way, part of a persons authority comes from his/her uniform (think policeman or Catholic priest in his Roman collar). The "uniform" of the doctor––lab coat and stethoscope will increase your perceived authority.

Liking. We prefer to buy things from people that we like. Why do we like some people more than others? We tend to like people who:

•  Listen to us

•  Smile

•  Look us in the eye

•  Pay us compliments

•  Are well groomed

•  Are good looking

It sounds harsh but it is not a good idea to hire a receptionist who is not good looking, is poorly groomed and frowns a lot while ignoring your clients.

Remember, the rules of thumb may or may not conform to your idea of the way the world ought to behave. The point is that these are locked-in human behaviors. If you want greater success, accept the way people are, not the way you think they should be. 

Here is a good rule of thumb: Don't fight human nature.

Connecting the dots

Women are wired for connection. Connecting your female clients with each other connects them to your hospital and creates huge brand loyalty. Bring them together for enjoyable, meaningful experiences:

• Classes in dog massage

• Presentations on alternative pet medical care

• Set up a dog walking club

• Meet to set up a strategy to help the city create off-leash dog friendly parks

• Hold pet behavior classes

• Help them connect with each other to trade dog sitting when traveling

I am sure you can think of other ways to help women connect. If it involves public service or volunteering, all the better. Giving back to the community ranks very high with your female clients. Women with their "we" attitude really do care whether or not companies behave like good citizens. Take up a good cause and women will beat a path to the practice door.

Time is more than money

Want to win the hearts of your female clients? Save them time. Women live a different lifestyle than men do. In addition to jobs and careers, working mothers spend twice as much time on childcare and household chores as men. Women are time-starved. Women don't have time to spare. She doesn't have time to wait another ten minutes in your hospital past her scheduled appointment. Hospitals must be aware of how frustrating this waste of her time can be.

If you want to be her friend:

•  Keep your scheduled appointments on time

•  Provide a chile space so she doesn't have to hire a baby sitter to keep the appointment

•  Provide evening and weekend hours so she can make appointments based on her schedule

To her time is more than money. Time spent with your practice means less time for her to spend with her family, at the gym or getting her other chores done. In fact, she will spend money to save time. You can help.

The importance of hospital design

During the last twenty years, the architecture and interior design of veterinary hospitals took a great leap forward. Just look at the featured design awards in Veterinary Economics. Unfortunately, the likes and dislikes of the owner(s) most often held sway with the architects. Architects and designers want to please their clients.

The emphasis should instead be placed on the client. What kind of space would the client like? That is the important question. It is she who holds the key to our success. Hospitals should be designed with women in mind. Women's brains perceive a finer level of detail than men's brains and women have a longer list of wants than men. One way to grab them is to excel at the nuance of design.

This can begin by admitting that you, as a doctor or technician, do not excel at the nuance of design. Let a good architect and interior designer show you the way.

In all senses except sight, women have greater sensitivity than men. Your hospital environment has a big impact on them. If it's a little dirty, if it's a little disorganized, it it doesn't smell quite right, women are going to be dismayed. A great way to attract women who are your prime marketing target is to appeal to their senses and satisfy their wants (a place to park the kids, a clean walkway where they can walk the dog in their high heels before entering the hospital, a hook to tie the leash while they write a check, a computer for checking their email while they wait, etc.)

Do you get it?

Financial services companies don't get it.

Health services companies don't get it.

Hospitality services companies don't get it.

Computer companies don't get it.

Automobile companies don't get it.

Veterinary hospitals don't get it.

None of them get it!

Women as purchasers are responsible for more than half of all spending in the U.S. economy.

Home furnishings: 94%

Vacations: 89%

Kitchen appliances: 88%

New Homes: 75% 

Healthcare: 80%

Veterinary Care: 85%

You don't have to be a brain surgeon to get the picture. If you want to be successful as a small business, learn to market to her and develop a client service attitude that is female-centric.

When Jiffy Lube started to get it, they hired Faith Popcorn, the leading consultant for female marketing. Popcorn's advice sounded a lot like what I have been preaching to my veterinary clients for the last fifteen years: "Escort her out of her car, put her in a clean waiting room, let her have access to email if she wants, let her read some magazines–current ones, please!–and give her a clean bathroom with the seat down and a changing table. Add some low-fat snacks, and you've got her for life."

This is not rocket science. It's not nuclear physics. It's common sense. Follow the facts. Follow the money. Remember that your client is a woman and treat her the way a woman wants to be treated.

The Meaning of Life is...

What are your clients interested in? According to Faith Popcorn in her best-selling book, The Popcorn Report, she is interested in the search "not only for a better life, but for a better, happier, longer life. That somehow, somewhere, somebody has the answer to disease prevention, age prevention, the prevention of death itself..." 

For her own body, your client has developed a keen interest in exercise (pilates, yoga, tai chi etc), nutrition (look at the growth in organic foods which used to be "fringe" and now can be found in every store), alternative medical modalities (reflexology, homeopathy, acupressure and acupuncture etc).

Faith writes: "More and more, we see the very meaning of life as improving the quality of life itself–and life, of course, begins with our own bodies" and, by extension, the bodies of her pets.

The lesson is clear. If you want to be meaningful to your client, consider offering the following types of programs at your practice:

•  Pet exercise programs

•  Alternative medical care like homeopathy and acupuncture

•  Class in pet massage and acupressure

•  Behavior classes

•  Kennels that massage the pet's senses

When you, the doctor, think quality, you think of continuing ed and better tools. When your client thinks quality, it is more about the above. Remember that you are marketing to her and she is the one you are serving. Making her happy is the key to a level of success that will support the best veterinary medicine and equipment. If your programs have meaning for her, she will rush to your door.

Reach out and touch someone

The whole purpose of marketing to reach out and touch someone and to have that person remember you when it's time to choose a veterinarian. The instinct of most veterinarians is to use their marketing to explain why they would be such a good choice: we believe in quality medicine, your pet is a member of our family, we are friendly etc.

Marketing research is clear. We remember emotionally charged events better than boring ones. It is the emotions aroused, not the significance of the event, that makes them easier to remember. You are less likely to remember information than the emotion.

If you want to create a long term memory in your prospective client's brain, you need to reach out and touch her emotions. Here are the key points to keep in mind:

• Emotionally charged events are better remembered.

• Pleasant emotions are remembered better than unpleasant ones.

• Positive memories contain more informational details (like your hospital name)

• It's the emotional arousal, not the importance of the information, that helps memory.

How do you reach out and touch her feelings? There are many ways. Here is one.

Women's brains are hard wired to respond in a motherly way to babies–human babies, puppies, kittens, koalas etc. The very sight of a baby can cause her brain to produce oxytocin, a neurotransmitter that creates a rush of good feeling. Using a photo of a baby human or pet is a good way to reach out and touch someone with your marketing.

Brain Velcro

VELCRO FOR THE BRAIN

The purpose of marketing is to be a home in a prospective client's mind. If the client cannot remember you, it is difficult to choose you.

When you enter the prospect's brain with a marketing message, it is not likely to stay there. Short term memory goes  first. When new information enters the brain, the brain wants to make sense out of it. The brain does a scan of preexisting data in the brain, looking for a match. If it finds a match, your marketing message stands a better chance of locking into long term memory and you will have succeeded in building the home in the brain or in buying some "mind share."

You can think of this as placing velcro hooks in your marketing message that can latch onto existing velcro loops in her long term memory. This is why advertisers use or make a pun out of existing familiar phrases: e.g. "An apple a day keeps the..." Your brain completes the phrase because virtually the aphorism lives in your long term memory.

As you build marketing messages, try to hook onto memories and experiences that you know exist in the prospect's brain.

Happy Valentine: Romancing Your Client

Nothing feels quite as good as falling in love. Nothing has been the subject of more novels and films and poems. Perhaps nothing is missed more, as we age, than the rush of romance. What does this have to do with marketing and operating a pet hospital?

In a word, clients that feel good are happy clients and happy clients make for happy and successful veterinary hospitals. How do we use the power of romance?

Thanks to Darwin, we can understand that the undeniable attraction between lovers is designed by nature to guarantee the preservation of the species. People will fall in love and make babies. There is no doubt about it, because nature has built in such a compelling reward system for preservation behavior. People don't fall in love for the consequences of becoming parents for the rest of their lives––that's a lot of work! We fall in love because it just feels so good?

Nature's reward is quite literally addictive opiates, the most powerful drugs in the world. No poppies required! The body makes its own opiates in the form of dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin and other neurotransmitters and floods the limbic system in the brain with them during courtship and sexual mating. Drug users become addicts because of that big rush of good feeling. People fall in love because of the same rush. It just feels darn good.

I am not suggesting that you turn your hospitals into a mating service. There are other things beside courtship that cause the brain to release these feel-good neurotransmitters in small doses: being treated really well, experiencing a wonderful smile or a compliment, eating chocolate or even smelling warm chocolate, petting an animal. There are lots of ways of becoming your client's valentine. They all boil down to making her feel good. Think of all the attention her lover pays to her during courtship: flowers, chocolates, phone calls, nice words. Shower her with the same kind of attention in the name of client service and nature will help you prevail in the survival of the fittest that reigns in the world of retail business.

A belated happy Valentine's Day to all of you.

Donald Erceg 

Happy Birthday Abe and Charlie

Today the world celebrates the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. Both were born 200 years ago–a banner year! Both are important to the world of marketing.

Communication lies at the heart of marketing and Lincoln is its benchmark. He could have invented the law of advertising called K.I.S.S.––Keep It Simple Stupid! Look at his introduction to the Gettysburg Address: "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." In only one brilliant sentence he framed his entire presidency and gave meaning to the civil war and the loss of lives at Gettysburg.

Can you write one sentence that frames your entire reason for being a veterinarian and gives meaning to the daily activities at your hospital? It should be a lot easier task than Lincoln's––right? Sure. Just try it.

Arguably, Charle's Darwin's "Origin of Species" equals or exceeds the bible as the most influential book ever written. As a marketer, I am keenly interested in human behavior and what motivates us, what makes us feel good and bad. How we came to be what we are teaches us a lot about why we act the way we do.

For example, thanks to Darwin, we can track the development of the human brain from the simple Crocodile brain, a lump at the end of the spinal column, to the mammalian Dingo brain that grew around the Crocodile brain, and finally the human brain with its deeply convoluted cerebral cortex. The crocodile brain is not a thinking machine, it is a simpler machine totally dedicated to survival, killing, eating and mating. The dingo brain adds the limbic system with its ability to store and act on memories and its ability to have feeling. The human brain with its 100 billion neurons and thousands of billions of synaptic connections adds a massive computer for logical thought and reflection as well as the crown jewels of music, mathematics, speech, literature.

As  magical the human brain is, it must be remembered that each of us still possesses the crocodile and dingo brain hiding underneath all that in-folded gray matter. And thanks to the corpus collosum and other parts of the brain, all three brains spend a lot of time talking to each other without our even knowing it. Why is this important to me as a marketer?

Even though we are very good at justifying our behaviors with highly rational explanations, the truth is that most of our decision making is driven by a crocodilian compulsion to survive and mate (to "win") as well as the dingo's compulsion to pursue that which makes it feel good. As a marketer, I am more interested in why humans actually make purchasing decisions than why they "think" they are making the decisions.

If you think that clients are going to choose you because of the highly rational reason that you are a great doctor, you are sadly mistaken. They are going to choose you or another because of the way they perceive you and how that perception "feels." In other words, the crocodile and the dingo hiding within each of us governs our purchasing decisions a lot more than all of those millions of logical thoughts busily zipping around our cerebral cortex. Imagine how long every simple decision would take if we had to first consider every logical choice available to our human brains!

Charles Darwin was the first to open the door to understanding the origin of this species we know as human.

When it  comes to your marketing, remember Lincoln and Darwin: feed the crocodile, pet the dingo and Keep It Simple Stupid!

Peanuts get a bad rap

Salmonella poisoning from a single factory has given peanuts and peanut butter a bad rap. In fact, it is incredibly good for you and makes a great special treat for dogs (virtually all dogs love bacon, cheese and peanut butter).

The Iowa Women's Health Study showed that death rates dropped 11 percent among those who ate peanuts or peanut butter once week and fell 19 percent among those who ate it more than once a week!

There is a good reason it is the favorite snack during the cocktail hour. The resveratrol found in peanuts (and in red wine) can prevent fatty liver disease associated with alcohol consumption! Resveratrol also protects against cancer and improves blood flow to the brain, reducing the risk of stroke.

Roasted peanuts are even better for you than fresh or raw peanuts. Roasting increases the level of anti-oxidants by up to 22 percent.

This humble legume can delay the widespread effects of aging on the brain and body and can boost the immune functions.

What to do with this information? Let your clients know! Let them know by email or create handouts for hospital distribution.

Your female clients indefatigable seekers when it comes to finding advice and practical tips on how to live healthier, how to make her life better or make her life easier (like wrapping dog pills in peanut butter).

Australian Veterinary Conference

In May, I will be presenting 8 lectures and one all day workshop at the Australian Veterinary Conference in Darwin. For Australian veterinarians and practice managers, I want to express my deep concern for the terrible fires and suffering now taking place in the Southwest. My prayers and thoughts are with all of you.

For those of you attending the conference, I hope I get the chance to meet many of you in person. I am adding a lot of new research material to my powerpoint lectures and I am very excited about the new material. The information on marketing, brand marketing, experience marketing etc is all more tightly focused and useful than ever. I think participants will find it very exciting and intellectually stimulating.

For those thinking about attending my lectures and workshop, I am happy to address any questions you may have in this blog site.

Ciao,

Donald Erceg

Managing the roosters and hens

In both marketing and practice management for your veterinary practice, it is essential to remember the differences between men and women. Our brains are physically different, they are wired differently, they are driven by different hormones (see "The Female Brain" Brizendine). According to Richard Dawkins in "The Selfish Gene" we are driven by biological impulse to propagate our genes. Women do this by protecting her eggs at all cost. The female's does this by staying alive and forging strong social ties. For a man, it means "may the best sperm win" and winning means ruling the roost.

In the chicken coop, it means that while the men are busy establishing a pecking order, the hens are busy protecting their eggs and offspring and creating social harmony. The men in your practice will want to "cut to the chase" and accomplish the goals. The women will want, as a social group, to examine the problem and get the big picture–the process, in other words, is equally as important as the goal.

In team building it is vitally important to understand and respond to the innate differences between male and female members of the team.

How does your hospital rank?

Looking at a veterinary hospital, there are four stages of growth or maturation.

1.  The veterinarian is simply filling a market need: the need for someone to provide medical care for pets. The focus is on providing medical services and on the desires of the doctor/owner.

2.  The wants and needs of the pet owner become more important: issues like location of the hospital, operating hours, waiting times become very important. The clients' needs become more important than the hospital staff needs. The practice becomes client-centered.

3.  The goal of the hospital is no longer to just meet the needs of the client but to surprise and delight her with great architecture and interior design, music, food and drink, great personal service. Many practices have caught on to the architecture part but still grade as mediocre to OK on the client service side.

4.  Top retail companies today have gone beyond great client service to providing through their companies  chance for connectivity between their clients, providing fun and meaningful experiences for their customers, opportunities for public service. Marketing that provides fun and enriching experiences and on-location experiences that have meaning for the client represent the cutting edge of modern retail businesses.

Where does your veterinary hospital rank on this 4-step path of development?

Options make us miserable.

Psychology Today, Feb 2009.

"We're constantly making decisions, ranging from what to eat for dinner each night to whom we should marry, not to mention all those flavors of ice cream. We base many of our decisions on whether we think a particular preference will increase our well-being. Intuitively, we seem convinced that the more choices we have, the better off we'll ultimately be. But our world of unlimited opportunity imprisons us more than it makes us happy."

If you want happy clients, don't present them with a smorgasbord of treatment options. Give them your best treatment recommendation. They will be happier and you will be blessed with greater compliance.

How to survive this economic crisis.

Virtually all small businesses are going to suffer during this economic crisis. What can you do about it?

First, mine your data base. Don't be content with postcard one-time reminders. If you don't have enough clients, your staff has time to make phone calls to get overdue clients booked for appointments.

Second, treat every new client lead like the valuable pearl that it is. Competitors are going to be working hard to bring that potential client in the door. You have to work harder.

Third, improve your service. If you now have fewer daily clients, that means you can spend even more time with them delivering over the top service. The extra effort to make your clients feel good will help drive away the staff and owner blues that can follow a serious recession like this.

Checklist:

Write a mission statement that makes client happiness job one.

Have staff create and commit to list of ways to make clients feel good.

What can you do to make the client the most important person in the room?

Is the bathroom easily available and pleasantly appointed?

Are the magazines chosen to fit client tastes?

Is your seating comfortable?

Is music available? Was it chosen for the client or the receptionist?

Is the hospital obsessively clean?

Is the hospital obsessively well-ordered?

Do you religiously honor appointment times?

Do the doctors explain their examinations in detail?

Do the doctors look the clients in the eye?

Are telephone on-holds less than one minute?

Are all clients addressed by name?

Are all clients called after every procedure?

Client centered checklist.

How good is your client service? Here is a checklist you can use to measure the quality of your service and to use as a staff training tool to improve that service.

most powerful client service tool

The single most powerful tool for great client service is the smile. We are hard-wired by history and evolution to feel good when someone smiles at us. This is literally and scientifically true. When someone smiles at us, our limbic system responds by jolting us with a small shot of feel-good neurotransmitters that activate neurons in the amygdala, our brain's home for positive and negative feelings. How do we know this is hard-wired and not just conditioning? Because even babies born blind know how to smile.

The easiest way to make sure that your practice is a success is to make sure that every client is greeted with a smile.

What are you really selling?

As a small business, what are you really selling? Whether your company makes products or services, what you are really selling is an experience. "A product is no more than an artifact around which customers have experiences" Scott Bedbury, A New Brand World. Most business men and women now understand that a recognized and trusted brand is invaluable but many still don't understand that your brand is not your logo or company colors but is the sum total of all of the experiences a customer has with your products and services. The goal is to build a strong emotional bond between the customer and your product or service. If most of the experiences are positive and make the customer feel good, the bond will develop naturally.