Honoring our mission
Every day, my team here hunts for the information you need to achieve your goals in practice. That's our goal. Our mission.
Every day, my team here hunts for the information you need to achieve your goals in practice. That's our goal. Our mission. And I watch these dedicated editors find new ways to achieve it every month.
For me, that's what keeps the job exciting. And recently, we won great recognition for that effort: a national gold award in the healthcare/medical/ nursing category for editorial excellence from Folio: the magazine for magazine management.
It's always great to get a pat on the back, of course. Who doesn't like that? And this is a public pat on the back. Super nice. From an objective panel of our peers. Even better. But my favorite part is that they judged us against the ideal that we set up for ourselves—our own mission statement.
We print our mission in each issue, so you know what we're up to—and also as a reminder for ourselves. This mission guides our choices about what to include in Veterinary Economics. In case you can't recite it word for word, it goes like this:
To give practicing veterinarians the business tools, insights, ideas, and inspiration they need to fuel their passion for practice; run a well-managed, profitable business; enhance client loyalty and satisfaction; and maximize their patients' well-being.
Clear focus on the business of patient care is part of what differentiates us from other veterinary magazines that compete for your time and attention. And I'd rank careful team building on the "makes us different" list, too. Along with our sister publications, Veterinary Medicine, DVM Newsmagazine, and Firstline magazine, we invest in and develop knowledgeable editors and writers, so we deliver the most helpful information available to you, our readers. We also stick to strict ethical guidelines, so the information you get is always credible and reliable.
That last point sometimes leads to tough conversations and tough business decisions. For example, we don't run articles that are written by advertisers. We don't accept payment to run particular articles—to the detriment of our bottom line and despite the fact that many of our competitors do. We don't even put ads for related products in an article on the same topic—even when the advertiser didn't influence the choice of topic or author in any way—because we never want you to think that we sold out. And that puts our ad sales team in a difficult position competitively. They have to say no.
The time they spend explaining to their customers why we work the way we do puts us in a special leadership position in the market. And we hope you notice. Maybe not in the sense that you pick up our publications and say, "Wow, what a courageous group; they have our back." Although we do. But perhaps in the sense that you trust our advice—and the ad messages we include—because you know that over the span of your career, we've shown we're a company with strong leadership and values.
Marnette Denell Falley, Editor
