Connect Veterinary Consulting

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  • 10 Tips for a Better In-Clinic Conversation

    10 Tips for a Better In-Clinic Conversation

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    Sales representatives have all been taught various selling methodologies, from consultative to action selling, etc. But isn’t it time to get back to the basics of in-clinic conversation?

    Confident, coherent conversations at the clinic level are something every sales rep strives for, especially when detailing a product to the clinic owner or veterinarian.

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    Of course, the best conversations occur where all parties feel connected, feel engaged, and understood.

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    Some easy guidelines ensure that happens:
      1. Talk less, listen more – a conversation requires a balance between listening and talking.
      2. Don’t multi-task – Be present in the conversation and not thinking of your next point; let the conversation evolve organically.
      3. Assume every conversation provides both parties an opportunity to learn.
      4. Use open-ended questions, so the other party has an opportunity to describe the problem and an opportunity to think.
      5. Go with the flow. Don’t stop listening mid-story. Let questions come and go from the brain but stay with the speaker.
      6. If the answer doesn’t come easily in front of the veterinarian, be honest and follow-up. It will help you generate trust and respect.
      7. Don’t equate experience. All experiences are individual. And it’s not all about each of us. Although you may think, “it has happened to me too,” but that may not be best to say it.
      8. Try not to repeat yourself. It can be interpreted as condescending, especially if the repetitions happen in the same conversation.
      9.  Be brief.
      10. Listen. It’s the number one, most important skill of us have. The person speaking is not learning from the interaction. We need to listen with the intent to understand and not to respond.

    Be genuinely interested in the people you meet in the clinic daily. Not for the opportunity to make a sale but to partner with the fascinating veterinarians you meet every day with high-quality in-clinic conversation.

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  • 5 Ways to Improve Your Clinic Website

    5 Ways to Improve Your Clinic Website

    [vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Trust and communication are at the heart of every vet-client relationship, and the same goes for your clinic website.

    Pet owners detail the signs their pets are exhibiting, their worries, and their stories. Veterinarians and their staff respond with education, guidance, and support. Both sides are sharing information – content if you will. This content is carefully chosen and delivered at the right moment with a specific purpose. Today, such conversations are moving into the digital realm with the benefits of convenience and 24-7 connections.

    The desire for health-related information is ongoing for the average pet owner: What does this symptom mean? Where is the closest veterinarian? How can I stop my dog or my cat from doing X? In a recent survey, nearly 75% of veterinary clients report using the internet occasionally to search for pet health information. In this same survey, pet owners were also asked to identify where to search for information online about their pets. They indicated they used a search engine or typed in the URL of their favorite website. Unfortunately, while the worldwide web provides countless options for providing pet health information, the content on the internet is not always accurate.

    Instead of scoffing at “Dr. Google” clients, who use the internet for free information and a chance to diagnose the problem before bringing their pet into your office, let’s provide the accurate content they seek right on your site!

    Content is KING! You can improve your clinic website by taking these steps:

    1. Create a strategy
      The primary purpose of content is not to sell the clinic. Instead, it’s to share veterinary health news, tell interesting medical stories, and create relationships between the veterinarian and potential clients.
    2. Develop a content calendar
      Creating a calendar where highlighted topics are identified for each month of the year allows the clinics’ content to be topical and timely.
    3.  Identify a key stakeholder in the clinic to help
      The person identified as the stakeholder will post articles and blogs, send out emails, and monitor read rates. Don’t forget the quality control – every email and post should be reviewed and match the overall clinic content strategy. Analytical tools can help facilitate content that resonates with the ideal audience. For example, play with the titles used in the emails’ subject line and monitor read rates to see what messages resonate with the clientele.
    4. Regularly update the website and leverage content in multiple ways
      For example, one can write an article and post it to the clinic’s website and then use snippets from that article on the Facebook post of the day.
    5. End everything with a call to action
      Before distributing artfully crafted and thoughtful content, give the pet owners something to do at the end of each piece. For example, please provide them with the opportunity to opt into the clinic’s monthly newsletter, hit the share button, or have them call the clinic to schedule an appointment.

    Engaging your target audience with informative content and meeting them where they already are is a part of a well-rounded win-win strategy for everyone. Thus, reinforcing the veterinarian as the primary driver of client education and further solidifying the vet-client relationship.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

  • Branding Part 2: Building Your Veterinary Clinic Brand

    Branding Part 2: Building Your Veterinary Clinic Brand

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    How often have we reversed our perspective and sat in someone else’s shoes? How often do you see things from your clients’ point of view? How you answer these questions has a lot to do with your veterinary clinic brand.

    When a new pet owner comes into a clinic, we do a significant information drain on everything to do with their pet from birth to now. We review vaccine and preventative history as well as any major illnesses. But do we ever really ask our clients how they would like to receive information from us? Not really. When it comes to the clinic’s social media content, how do we know how our pet owners and clients would like to receive information from us if we don’t ask the question? Email is the old standby, and it works, but how do we measure that?

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    As the pet owner population becomes younger, our social media strategy also has to change. BUT, we must first start the dialogue in the clinic on the first visit!

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    Communication is critical when it comes to appointment reminders, overdue preventative care, and prescription refill reminders. How and when we share helpful information to pet owners is critical, too. For example, the holiday season is a busy and stressful time for many clients. Understandably, making sure pets get the regular veterinary care they need may not be top of mind. So consider suggesting a pre-holiday visit to the clinic for a check-up and a chance to make sure medications are refilled and ready for the trips to grandmother’s house.

    What’s the best way to do it? Clients should be reminded in their preferred communication medium-text, email, postcard, even a phone call. Engaging pet owners with the right messages at the right time and with the right medium is a part of a well-rounded veterinary clinic brand, one that supports pet health and reinforces the vet-client relationship.

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  • Branding Part 1: Building Your Veterinary Clinic Brand

    Branding Part 1: Building Your Veterinary Clinic Brand

    [vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1544543764228{padding-top: 20px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text]Stumped trying to market your clinic? Tired of staring at a blank webpage trying to decide what articles to post or what to say on your Facebook page? Wondering how to use your online presence to distinguish yourself from the competition and drive clients to your clinic? Branding will be your answer to all these questions.

    Chances are, vet school didn’t prepare you to answer questions like these. But it’s far from rocket science. You need to figure out how you want clients, colleagues, and staff to regard you and your practice. In other words, you need to build a brand.

    What attributes and associations first come to clients’ minds – current and potential- when they think of your clinic, your staff, and you? These are the essence of your brand. Left to chance, others will define your branding for you–positive, negative, or meh–on social media, e-commerce site reviews, and word of mouth. But brands can and should be carefully cultivated and consciously shaped.

    To do that, begin with your USP-your Unique Selling Proposition. The USP is simply what distinguishes you from your competition. What does your clinic offer that others can’t, don’t, or won’t? Do you want your clinic to be known for your staff’s special skills or the care and respect with which patients and clients are treated or fair fees or cutting-edge medicine? It takes time and thought to determine your USP.  But once you do, you will have a nucleus around which you can build a brand.

     

    How do you find your USP?

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    Start with your assets. What resources, human and physical, does your clinic offer? What services can you provide or potentially provide? Note that USPs can, in fact, incorporate aspirational elements.

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    For example, if your community lacks 24-hour emergency vet services or care by a dental specialist, then adding appropriate staff might support a USP of, say, the ‘Most Comprehensive Care For Your Pet.’

    Of course, the best USPs take into account not only what you can offer, but what your clients want. That means understanding whom you serve.  Who is your ideal client – your target market? Are any of their needs unserved or underserved?

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    Your competitive differentiator – your USP – need not be tangible. How you do what you do – the compassion you show to pets, your respect for clients’ time, your fees, and payment flexibility, even the cleanliness and decor of your waiting room can help position your clinic as the top choice for pets and their owners. That could be a high powered USP for a very low cost.

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    Once you have identified your USP, you need to get the word out online. Your clinic’s website is where you can build your branding by ensuring that all content supports your USP and the image you wish to project. But whatever that may be, there are some common features that you should consider including in your website.

    Since many clients rely on the internet to learn more about their pets’ condition and treatment options, show your expertise by including original articles, blogs, and links to other sources of information. Become a trusted authority on pet health in your community.

    And since increasingly pet products, Rx and OTC, are purchased online, consider adding an e-commerce pharmacy providing the convenience of home delivery to your site’s capabilities. These pharmacy and home delivery service options can be supported by client communications that improve medication compliance, grow practice revenues, and simplify inventory management – thus providing you one more way to distinguish yourself from the competition and continue driving business to your website and, ultimately, your front door.

    Once you have clients coming through your front door and visiting your website, we need to retain them. The second part of this series about branding, “Building Your Veterinary Clinic Brand.” shows you how.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

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  • Building Yourself as a Brand

    Building Yourself as a Brand

    [vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Building yourself as a brand and your veterinary clinic into a brand that stands for trust, knowledge, compassion—in fact, all the positive qualities you want to be associated with your practice—is a foreign concept to most veterinarians. Ideally, you should simply be able to do good work and let word of mouth build your reputation and revenue, right? Well, in today’s digital age, that’s no longer automatic.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”10px”][vc_column_text]

    Whether you get five-star reviews or consistent thumbs down depends to some extent on what you do to shape image and perception. So, it makes sense to devote thought to how you want to be regarded by clients, colleagues, and staff– in essence, what you want yourself as a brand to be.

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    How do you identify yourself as a brand? Start by focusing on what makes your clinic distinctive. Of course, you practice the best medicine and may have an attractive physical plant and plenty of free parking, but likely so do the other five clinics in town. A brand is more than a collection of features and benefits; it’s an identity. Perhaps you want your clinic to be known as the one that practices ‘cutting edge medicine with a hometown touch,’ or assures ‘your pets are our family, too,’ or perhaps you’re ‘guided by skill and kindness.’ Whatever it may be, your brand should reflect what you believe, what you can actually deliver, and what your clients want and need.

    Industry partners can often provide tools to help you build your practice and brand through scripted social media content, tools to create an online pharmacy, website templates, and performance data that shows your clinic’s performance compared to local competition.

    With some introspection that pinpoints your unique selling proposition and through resources that may be available at no cost from the companies that supply your pharmacy, you can create a brand that drives revenue and gets thumbs up reviews from everyone. Want to learn more about establishing a brand, keeping your clients happy, and increasing revenue year over year, connect with us!

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  • Client Purchases Back in the Hands of the Veterinary Clinic

    Client Purchases Back in the Hands of the Veterinary Clinic

    [vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Veterinarians should not hesitate to enlist the help of their pharmaceutical representatives in building a robust internet presence to encourage client purchases. Pharma companies and their representatives can provide resources to help practices in many ways, but let’s concentrate on website content.

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    While most pet owners follow their veterinarians’ recommendations about which animal health products to use, where they actually buy those products is another matter. The internet has changed everything, allowing clients to scour the World Wide Web for the best deals on flea/tick treatments, RX pharmaceuticals, treats, toys, and more. Online merchants even offer the convenience of home delivery and the automatic replenishment of medication.

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    Are there ways for animal health companies to help veterinarians compete and bring their clients back into the fold? Absolutely. And a strategic ally in this effort is likely a frequent visitor to the clinic: the pharma sales rep.

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    For example, prewritten communication modules on such topics as the need for wellness exams, routine blood work, and regular dental care can help boost pet owner compliance, client purchases, and the vet-client-pet relationship. Companies can even supply scripted social media content, such as Facebook posts on the importance of regular monthly heartworm pills or the need to complete the full course of otitis externa topical treatment even after Fido stops shaking his head.

    These posts will help get the message out about how the pet owner can get the most benefit from the right product and have the added benefit of educating the clients on their pets’ disease process, so they feel more involved in treatment decisions.

    Pet owners looking for quick, cost-effective solutions may decide to treat their pets with home remedies suggested by ‘Dr. Google’ or may purchase miracle therapies OTC from sketchy online retailers. While it is easy to be cynical, veterinarians can help by cutting through the noise and directing clients to products and medically accurate websites. When veterinarians recommend sites on the web, they demonstrate that they support their clients’ desire to learn more.  That’s something that most clients–especially millennials-appreciate.

    Establishing an online pharmacy that allows clients to make purchases as many prefer, while at the same time buying from their trusted veterinarian, may be a worthwhile investment, too. Pharma representatives and private third-party providers may be able to help clinics select appropriate resources to set up their e-commerce presence and punch it into high gear. Using this new level of client service allows the practice to regain revenues otherwise lost to online OTC retailers. These pharmacy and home delivery service options can be supported by client communications that improve medication compliance, grow practice revenues, and simplify inventory management.

    Engaging pet owners with the right messages and meeting them where they already are is a part of a well-rounded win-win strategy for everyone—one that puts the center of client purchases and further solidifies client loyalty. Ultimately, that’s good for everyone.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

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  • Adding Value: Over-Used Catch Phrase in Animal Health?

    Adding Value: Over-Used Catch Phrase in Animal Health?

    [vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1544543794999{padding-top: 20px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text]In the corporate world, it’s all about adding value and synergies. But how can we turn those buzzwords into practical value for our customers?

    Let’s face it, in the companion animal pharmaceutical industry; there have been very few novel therapeutics launched in recent years. While we can all debate the reasons for that previous statement, let’s look beyond industry product offerings. Animal health manufacturers face stiffer and stiffer competition from competitors, especially in parasitology, biologicals, and nutraceuticals. Instead of converting one clinic away from our competition, what if we enhanced our relationships with those veterinary clinic owners?

    Most veterinarians need to increase revenue and in their clinics. So why don’t we as an industry do a better job of helping them do just that? But, unfortunately, our product offerings only do that in part.

    How about sitting down with the veterinarian as the business owner and not a medical director to identify the gaps they find in their revenue streams and identify solutions? The best answers enhance vet-client relationships and keep the client returning to the clinic regularly.

    Finding a win-win solution for the veterinarian and the company deepens the relationship between sales representatives that call on the clinic and the clinic owner – adding value to both sides of the equation.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]