Most veterinary practices are a job for the owner who ends up being his own boss. The result is being always in a rush, without having the time to complete many of the tasks (i.e. billing clients, accounting, cleaning, warehousing, driving, answering to e-mails and phone calls, etc. …) he/she is supposed to carry out. It is therefore not uncommon that these colleagues end up with being frustrated, angry, stressed and unhappy for not having earned enough money out of the effort made. This is an equation that does not work and does not respect the law of reciprocity. How many of you can relate to this picture? How many of you are aware that if you want to achieve different results it is time to change something in the way your practice is managed?
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Albert Einstein
It’s a matter of attitude. It all depends on the way we look at the events, on the perspective from which we observe what is happening. “We complain about our leaders, about the economy, about our politicians, about other people, we call ourselves losers or we define our goals as impossible. Only one thing is wrong: our attitude and approach.” (From the book: The Obstacle Is the Way” by Ryan Holiday). How do we deal with our difficulties? Do we wait for somebody else to make the changes for us? If we don’t care about our desire and our mission, why should others? What are we willing to do to achieve our goals? How much self-discipline do we have? Do we add value to the people who ask for our services? What value do we give to ourselves? As our mentor, Mack Newton, for decades coach of many top baseballs and American football players, says, “our results will never exceed the concept that we have of ourselves”. A champion is not measured by his/her talent but by his/her attitude.
For those who look at us from the outside, our business is very interesting and Forbes Magazine ranks the veterinary industry as the seventeenth most profitable small business on a global scale. Who would have thought this?! Change of perspective. Are we using our full potential? The pet animal market has an extremely positive trend. Why not for the vet? Investment funds and multinational companies are buying veterinary practices in Northern Europe and are going south. They started in Scandinavia and today they are in the UK, Germany, Portugal, Austria, The Netherlands and are now growing in Italy Spain…
What is the value of your business? Does it just pay you the salary or does it pay you back for your investment? If these companies are investing in hundreds of clinics it is because they can obtain very interesting net revenues after deducting management costs and salaries. Do we want to leave them the opportunity to make their money work for themselves and as vets become employees or do we want to be entrepreneurs capable of having a passive income from our businesses?
- What are the key points we can start working on to transform the practice into a real business?
- Mission
- Vision, Direction
- Values
- Team
- Leadership
- Communication
- Systems
- Accountability to Numbers
- Personal Development
What is the ideal business model for a veterinary practice_, How do we create systems, develop procedures, achieve planned objectives, analyze the numbers that allow you to consistently evaluate business results, assess to optimize the direction and develop your potential and live accordingly to the quality of life you want to have? There have never been so many opportunities as there are today. Stay tuned we’ll bring up these concepts in the next blog articles.