Stories, News & Updates...

Is It Worth Doing?

Thu, 1 Dec 2011 13:58:31 -0500

There are opportunities all around us. If you’re anything like me, sometimes the most difficult part of executing on an opportunity is actually determining whether you should take advantage of it to begin with. Fortunately, there are a few financial tools you can utilize to help point you in the right direction.
What is the cost of doing nothing?
Before you do anything, know what the cost of doing nothing is likely to be. Some opportunities present as a hedge against risk, some seek to provide additional market share or strategic advantage. If you did nothing today, what would the forgone value be? How does that compare to the cost of going after the opportunity?
What are the costs?
How much will this opportunity cost immediately? How much will it cost in future years? What about the opportunity costs? That is, will investing in this opportunity prevent you from being able to invest in another? If so, how do they compare? Resources aren’t unlimited so there is almost always going to be something you won’t be able to do because you’ve made an investment in something else. Is it worth it?
What are the benefits?
Identify the tangible benefits. Quantify whatever you can in terms of revenue or savings.
Are there savings?
Does this opportunity produce a savings? Are there things you can stop doing once your efforts reach fruition?
What is the timeline?
How long will you be incurring costs related to this investment? How long will the savings last, if any? How long can you count on the additional revenue? Does that revenue increase or decrease over time?
Are there intangible benefits?
Not all opportunities will produce immediate savings or revenue. Perhaps this is an opportunity to mitigate risks, gain competitive advantage, an investment in employee well being, etc. These are harder to quantify investments that still may be very much the investment. Consider how it fits into your overall strategy and the goals you have set for your practice.
Once you have gone through these basic steps, don’t forget that not making a decision is always an option. If you’re not comfortable with the numbers or something just doesn’t feel right, you can choose to do nothing. Just remember that doing nothing is also a choice.

5 Steps to Accomplishing What’s Important

Fri, 27 May 2011 11:56:57 -0400

You want to accomplish a lot. Don’t we all? You have deadlines looming, some self-imposed, some not. You have a list of projects, to-dos, etc., maybe written down, probably in your head. Then there are the e-mails, phone calls, and all those things that others want you to do. To accomplish as much as you can, you may hurry through your day, processing paperwork, responding to questions, being very, very efficient. Even if you took my previous post to heart, chances are you aren’t making great progress on the one or two really important things that you want or need to get done. Do you even know what they are?
1. Reclaim your time, which includes carving out time to step back and organize your thoughts and plans. This means making peace with the idea that it’s OK to not actually accomplish anything for a period of time every week so that you can accomplish more later. Priorities shift, as does the situation on the ground and our to-dos and schedule need to reflect and adapt to these changing priorities. The key is to make sure you are mindfully acknowledging these shifts and purposefully reacting to them.
2. Break your projects down into doable chunks and schedule time to work on them. Be realistic or overestimate the time you think it will take you to complete a task. In your schedule, note what resources, web sites, documents, reports, etc. you will need to have at the ready when working on your tasks and gather these together so that you can get working straight away when the scheduled time rolls around. Think of it as a chef getting her ingredients ready well before the process of cooking begins.
3. Know what you’re waiting for. If you’ve assigned things to others, make sure you have a Waiting For list or utilize electronic tools like Boomerang or Basecamp to keep track of outstanding items. If a deliverable you are waiting on is needed before you can take a next step yourself, set the deadline and your schedule accordingly.
4. Be transparent with your priorities, making sure your team, including your boss, know what your priorities are for the week. Ask for feedback on whether your list squares with what they are thinking. If your boss adds something else to your plate, make sure to ask them how it fits with the other projects, in terms of priority, and whether something else should be moved down the list in order to accomplish this new item.
5. Work the plan. Things come up and crisis happen. Be flexible, but again, always being mindful of what you are doing and where it fits into the plan and your priorities. When you deviate from the plan, do so consciously and with purpose. Be sure to note what items were not finished as planned so that they can be reincorporated into another day or the following week, depending on their importance.
Most importantly, don’t be afraid to say “no” or “not now”, even to opportunities. Add these things to the review for the following week or to a Someday/Maybe list. When you find that you are saying no more frequently than before, you will know you are making progress!

Protect Your Time!

Fri, 13 May 2011 11:57:37 -0400

Time is our most precious resource. That statement may be cliche but it is absolutely true. You are literally running out of it as you read this.* Advice and systems abound for dealing with it and, yes, I have my personal favorites which I will write about in a future post. Specifically, I want you to ask yourself, “What am I doing to protect the time that I have?”
We all have lots of demand for our time. We also all have a sense (or should) of what we want/need to accomplish today, tomorrow, next week, next month, and so on. Others (supervisors, peers, direct reports, spouses, children, neighbors, friends, etc.) certainly know what they want you to accomplish. Just ask them. Prioritizing things is helpful, as is scheduling time to actually engage in a certain activity, but it’s not enough. What happens when someone else’s idea of what you should be doing at a given point of time conflicts with your own? Chances are, you fold or are at least distracted long enough by the interruption (maybe even conflict) that you fall behind or move completely off task. It’s time to stop the interruptions and impositions on YOUR time!
How? Depends on the context and your authority/ability to control that context. If you’re the boss at work, you will have a lot more freedom to take control than you will at home with your spouse or children. But boundaries can be achieved in any environment.
Determine who the major problem people are -- those regularly interrupting your work or play. If they report to you, set clear boundaries for when they can access you, request meetings, etc. For example, you may decide that, except for emergencies, you are only to be interrupted at the top of the hour or between 11 AM and 1:00 PM, etc. Figure out when you are at your best, if left alone, and guard that time with all your might.
You may find that you need to negotiate terms with your peers, supervisors and, especially, your significant other. Once there is a meeting of the minds on an arrangement, ask them to respect the agreement and encourage them to do the same for their own time.
Be sure to treat e-mail, social networks, phone calls, and other distractions the same: only engage with them at preset times. Stop pushing e-mail to your phone, shut off the desktop notifications, and put your phone on do-not-disturb.
If you’re interested in seeing the language I’ve used for my own staff, send me an e-mail and I’ll forward it to you. Let me know how it works for you!
*For an inspirational reminder of why this stuff is so important, watch Steve Job’s 2005 Stanford University commencement address.

Stop the Wellness

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 15:08:20 -0400

No, I’m not suggesting that you stop caring about your patients’ well being or that clients should care less about their pets. Quite the contrary.
At a recent conference, there were numerous references to veterinarians providing “wellness care” or “wellness services” and discussions about encouraging “wellness visits.” Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t find “wellness” to be very motivational. I’m inclined to think that clients won’t translate a veterinarian’s recommendation for wellness examinations into a strong call to action.
We know that clients are motivated when they suspect something is wrong with their pet. This is especially true if they believe their pet is in some sort of pain or threatening medical situation. The veterinary industry’s motivation for “wellness visits” is to head these events off or, at the least, catch the problem at the earliest possible moment. So, the interests of the client and the veterinary industry are in alignment here: prevention and early detection. What’s not in alignment is the sense of urgency. I blame this on the language being used.
Wellness means being healthy and disease free. It’s a state of being. We’re not really interested in spending time or paying money for ourselves or our pets to be well -- we kind of expect that to be the normal state of things. What scares the bejesus out of us (and is subsequently motivating) is the thought that our pet may not be well, either currently or at some point in the future. If we can prevent this, we’ll spend good money to do so.
And there it is: prevention. My advice is for veterinary practices to stop using the term “wellness care” and replace it with “preventative care.” Preventive care can be marketed as what a responsible pet owner purchases. Preventative care can be focused on specific diseases or conditions, tailoring the message for different types of patients and clients and spread out across the year. If a client understands that visiting their veterinarian will help to prevent some specific ailment, they are much more likely to be motivated to action and the pet is more likely to get the screening he or she needs. Interests aligned.

Hormones and Marketing

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 11:44:01 -0400

What do hormones have to do with marketing? As it turns out, a lot!
Neuroeconomist Paul Zak has made some fascinating discoveries about how the powerful "love" hormone, oxytocin, plays a powerful role in potentially strengthening the relationship your practice has with its clients. Networking of any kind, including social networking, triggers the release of oxytocin in our brains which, in turn, encourages people to behave more generously and has a trust-building effect.
So, your interactions with your clients, both online and off, are likely helping to build loyalty with your practice. The full story is here.

The Power of the Invited Complaint

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 17:02:54 -0500

"Telephone is one of the best branding devices out there. You have the customer's undivided attention for five to ten minutes, and if you get the interaction right, what we've found is that the customer remembers the experience for a very long time and tells his or her friends about it."

This is from the #1 New York Times Bestseller, Delivering Happiness, by the CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh.

Tony views his customer call center as an investment, not an expense. And I imagine he has the spending categorized as marketing. This is closely related to my view that a client complaint is the best opportunity you have to turn that person into a loyal, if not evangelical, supporter. Most clients will have an OK experience....even acknowledging that an OK experience at your practice might be much better than most - it’s all relative to the client’s expectations. In fact, the higher the expectation, the more likely you are going to fall short if you’re systems aren’t firing on all cylinders.

So, your system (or people) fail you. Now what to do? You address it one-on-one with the client ASAP. You may not give the client what he or she wants. Maybe not even close. But the act of listening, making the client feel understood, and showing that you care and are invested in the client, will almost always create more of a bond than what you originally had or would have had.

But what about all of those unsung client experiences? The ones that are good, maybe even great, that you don’t hear about. How do you create a bond in those situations?

You proactively invite the complaint.

Tom Peters suggests that business owners should call a customer, out of the blue, every other day. He suggests asking an open ended question like, “How can I help?” or “Have we delivered on every promise?” Adapting the idea to our practice, I’ve recently asked my managers that they each call one random client every week and ask, “Did we meet your expectations?” Then, as instructed by Tom Peters, sit back, listen, and take copious notes.

My managers plussed the idea by suggesting that we get the entire staff involved. That means 40-50+ clients being called every week. Their argument is that getting all staff involved will:

• help staff focus on the importance of the client experience -- especially those who don’t think they’re role includes this element; 
• connect them to the human beings (often unseen by them) attached to the patients; 
• create a better opportunity for a bond to occur with the client since the call will be less staged / polished / rehearsed than a manager calling (although managers will still be making their calls).

Brilliant!

So that’s what we’re going to start doing in the upcoming weeks. Stay tuned to see how this experiment in old fashioned social networking turns out!

Which Customers Do You Want?

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 16:24:04 -0400

A post by Seth Godin about choosing your customers got me thinking about a question I received after delivering a talk on the business of canine rehabilitation. Referencing slides that depicted a state-of-the-art canine physical therapy center, which featured a very up-scale waiting area, a surgeon in the audience asked, "How do you react to the following? A client comes into your hospital and see's an opulent chandelier hanging in the reception area. They then think, either to themselves or out loud, 'I know who's paying for that -- me!' Don't you worry about clients having that type of perception?"
My initial response was, "If I'm that hospital, I don't want that client." I went on to clarify and explain that everything a practice does from interior design, to client services, to its logo and letterhead is done (read: should be) with purpose. Moreover, every sight, sound, smell, and tactile sensation should be planned and well understood from the client's point of view. From that standpoint, I can only assume that a practice hanging an opulent chandelier in it's waiting area is purposefully sending a message about who they are or how they want to be perceived. When a Nordstrom has a person playing a piano in the middle of its store, it does so with a goal in mind: it believes that the show will enhance customers’ experience positively. Is there any doubt that the cost of the entertainment is being passed along in their prices? Of course not! Nordstrom is sending a signal about themselves as well as what they think their ideal customers value. The chandelier does the same thing.
So, the question is, why is the chandelier there? If it's not sending the price/quality signal that the practice wants, then maybe it shouldn't be there. A piano player in the middle of Nordstrom seems to just fit right in and make sense. The same piano player in the middle of a Walmart would be a little more conspicuous!

Stop Doing Performance Reviews

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 10:27:27 -0400

You don’t like doing them. Your staff doesn’t like experiencing them. There are more and more experts suggesting that they don’t work and sometimes hurt. So why do we feel compelled to do them?
First, there is momentum. We’ve been doing them and everyone expects us to keep doing them -- especially since pay raises are usually tied to them (more on this later). Second, we feel like we have some obligation to tell employees how they’re doing, how they measure up to their peers, and what expectations we have for them moving forward. Third, we’d like to avoid conflict and think it would be better if we just saved it up for one conversation -- sort of like ripping off the bandaid.
While I am suggesting that you stop doing performance reviews, I am not suggesting that you stop providing feedback to your employees. Instead, I am advocating for managers to switch from doing formal performance reviews to engaging employees in a regular dialogue about how they are doing, what their needs are, how they can better meet the organization’s needs and how we can help them achieve their professional goals.
These conversations are too important to only be thought about once or twice per year. A weekly or bi-weekly check in could easily replace the need for formal performance reviews. Moreover, if something has gone wrong, you want to have that conversation as close to the event as possible. If an employee’s performance has fallen short, let them know immediately while it is still fresh.
Of course, your employees are going to want to know how raises are going to be determined once things change. Unless you want to alter the way you do that (which you might) the answer should be, “The way we always have.” The difference is that the conversations about performance will occur more frequently so there is less surprise about how things seem to be going, from the boss’s point of view.
On the money side of things, I also suggest you disconnect performance from pay -- at least base pay. If you have an employee who is partially or entirely paid based on production, this is a different situation. However, as UCLA Professor Samuel Culbert explains in his Wall Street Journal article, the idea that performance determines pay is bogus. As I explain to all of my employees, wage is based on two things: 1) market rate/replacement cost and, 2) value to the company. For any employee who has completed a training program and been around for some time, #2 should always be more than #1. If it’s not, well then you should be having a conversation about that! Anything in excess of that would come in the form of a bonus or profit sharing which should be tied to the practice’s financial success.
To help you make the transition, here are some sample questions for you to ask your direct reports when you begin having those regular conversations:
1. What are your goals? Do you have them written down with timelines associated?
2. What goals have you made progress on over the past week?
3. What do you need input on from me before you can recommend or do?
4. What information/news should I know about?
5. What recommendations do you have?
6. What are you waiting on from me?
7. How are you doing overall? (Doing ok, frustrated, overloaded, on top of things, etc)
8. What has been a highlight for you in the past week and what are you looking forward to?
9. What are your ‘A’ priorities? (Be sure to let them know if these are out of alignment based on your needs.
10. Have you innovated or experimented this week? If so, how did it go?
We owe it to our employees to have regular conversations about what they’re working on, how they’re doing, how it fits into the bigger picture, and how we can help them do better. Please do not hesitate to let me know if you have questions and send me feedback if you try this approach -- I’d love to hear how it’s going!

Is Strategic Planning Dead?

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 12:03:43 -0400

The more appropriate question for most practices is, “Was strategy ever alive?” Nevertheless, there is quite the buzz among some business gurus right now that strategic planning has lost its place -- and its right to live -- in businesses that are looking to thrive. Their argument is that strategic plans actually limit a business’s flexibility, slow its response to a changing environment, and are too quickly outdated to be useful. Don’t waste your time, they say.
They’re right, of course.
Strategic planning that results in a plan that locks a business into decisions, only incorporates a snapshot view of the world, and doesn’t get regularly revisited, is definitely a waste of time.
But that doesn’t need to be how it goes.
Strategic plans provide an important foundation for successful practices. Just like armies don’t go into war without a plan or you on a road trip without directions (or at least a good map), you can’t expect your practice to realize its goals without a plan in place. You may be able to survive and co-exist with your competition, but your practice won’t experience the kind of success you’re most likely after.
A strategic plan that works FOR a practice incorporates flexibility into the plan, ensures that external threats and opportunities are spotted and addressed quickly, defines contingencies, and is adjusted based on the desires and changing needs of the practice.
This is really the difference between a dynamic plan (one that is capable of change) and a static plan (one that remains fixed). Despite what most people are used to, the bulk of the strategic plan should be dynamic in nature. Only the core should be relatively fixed. This fixed part would be limited to mission, vision, brand promise, and core values.
The remaining and essential ingredient to an effective (read: useful) strategic plan is limited scope. A successful plan will focus the practice’s energy and resources on accomplishing one or two core goals with a well-defined actions plan (with role assignments and due dates) that moves the proverbial football down the field. It understands that you can’t accomplish everything at once. It makes choices. It is a plan that is strategic.
Flexibility, awareness, focus, and defined action points -- those are the signs of a strategic plan with a healthy pulse.

Getting Started with Twitter

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 11:34:46 -0500

I’m working on my lecture notes for a Social Networking (read: social media) talk I’m giving at the Pacific Veterinary Conference in July. I came across a short and very good presentation on Getting Started on Twitter by Bill Seaver. It’s not a technical guide or a step-by-step on how to setup your Twitter account. You can find lots of those here. Rather, it has tips on Twitter Etiquette (or Twittequette) as well as good pointers on what to say about yourself, etc.
Even if you have been using Twitter for some time, it’s a good idea to check this brief presentation out if only to make sure you’re not being one of those people folks avoid on Twitter!