Engaging the drive to succeed

All life forms appear to have a central inner drive — a soul, a balance of yin and yang or one of many other concepts that are more than this publication, I am sure, wants to address. This is not about religion.

Gerald Snyder VMD

All medical practitioners come to know this inner drive.

Sometimes our patients are so ill or wounded that there can be no doubt that they will die. Yet, against all odds, they live.

Others, suffering from a seemingly trivial illness or injury and expected to recover fully in a short time, go on to die despite all we do for them.

The same applies to veterinary practices themselves. Some can suffer the worst in natural or unnatural disasters and terrible management, yet still go on to prosper, while others, carefully nurtured by caring practitioners, close and go away.

The difference is not a difference at all.

Most outcomes derive from the central inner drive and desires of practice owners. Each of us is exactly where we want to be in life. If you really wanted to be more, or even less, you would — to quote the poets — achieve your goals in uncommon time.

Some would say that the unsuccessful are not equipped to prosper, but I could not disagree more.

When you have an electrical problem, you call an electrician. You don't just start rewiring on your own.

Does not the Bible say, "Ask and ye shall receive?"

Successful practices ask for help, using the services of management experts. Their bankers and accountants are part of their management. They use management consultants on a regular basis.

About a third of the practices I visit as a consultant have built on experience gained from prior consultants, each with his or her individual areas of expertise.

Some practice owners seek front-office refinement. Some seek team development.

Personally, I'm all about money and more of it. That should come as no surprise to readers. Anyone who says that money cannot buy happiness just does not know where to shop. Money allows you the possibility of changing your life, the lives of those who support you and those whom you hold dear.

I determine what's fair compensation and help my practice-owning clients get there. Some practices are more difficult than others, but I help them obtain fair compensation 99 percent of the time.

Profitable practices allow the owners to go home and enjoy a family life. I can think of only three or four practices in the last two decades where we just could not succeed. In each instance, the owner actually lacked the desire for success.

We know in advance the practice's market share in its neighborhood. The trick is to remove any guilt a veterinarian may feel in holding out his or her hand, metaphorically, and saying, "That will be $205, Mrs. Client."

Changing a veterinarian's attitude toward the value of his or her contribution to the community is not a simple trick, but it's not magic.

The secret is to give the veterinarian permission to charge a fair fee.

A practitioner once asked me whether it was OK for him to raise his fee for an injection from $44 to $50. I asked how long he had been charging $44. He said about five years. I then explained that, with inflation, his current fee should be $52.60.

Anyone who thinks those are reasonable fees today should realize that this happened more than 20 years ago when most were charging about $12 for an injection.

Surprised? Amazed? Don't be. You see, no one ever told him that he could not charge $52.60, especially the clients.

Another veterinarian of my acquaintance advertised no examination fees. However, every patient "needed" three injections costing at least $20 each. Unlike the practitioner in the former example, this man was dishonest.

There are so few dishonest veterinarians that we rank about third in public trust as a profession, only behind nurses and pharmacists — and far ahead of physicians.

Our problem is that we are so protective of our clients' pocketbooks that we cannot seem to meet our own economic needs.

For most veterinarians, death and retirement are intangibles for which we make no provision. We work day to day, one case at a time, giving little thought to the future.

We need to cut our output of new veterinary graduates by 50 percent — yesterday — or we will have DVMs and even VMDs driving school buses in the near future.

Most practices now are seeing 5 percent to 15 percent fewer clients each year. Except for scattered pockets, the growth is over.

Every week, I do feasibility studies to help banks and other interested parties project the earning ability of veterinarians in given locations five years into the future. Mature practices seeing a decline want to know whether they should sell now or wait. They need to know future earnings as well. The number of feasible locations to open a practice has dropped sharply.

And, every veterinarian either knows or soon will know a practice that just closed, mostly for lack of a buyer because of insufficient profit.

Avoid the problem.

I give you permission to earn a profit to support your staff and your families.

I give you permission to charge fees that will reach the goals you have set for yourself and which you seem to have trouble achieving.

Now, reach down deep within yourself and find that central drive, the conviction, the determination, either to get the job done or find someone who can.

Go for it. "If it is to be, it is up to thee."

Dr. Snyder, a well-known consultant, publishes Veterinary Productivity, a newsletter for practice productivity. He can be reached at P.O. Box 189, Hebron, KY 41048-0189; (800) 292-7995; vethelp@insightbb.com; Fax: (859) 534-5265.