We are going to be offering you all a series of really great web events!

Lets face it, we are all busy and it gets hard to travel every time you want to learn something new – but there is so much cool stuff out there to learn. We are now offering ALL of you the opportunity to attend our fun web events which we will hold every 2 weeks on Wednesday at lunch time.

Once a month the web event will be for everyone and will deal with a relevant business issue in the profession. For this we are lining up some interesting guest speakers.

Once a month also, we will be hosting mini-workshops online for Profitdiagnostix users which will tie in with the issues discussed in the previous event and will focus on the actual measurement in your businesses of these issues.

For those of you who missed the first event with 4times TEDX speaker Paul Dunn, here is a link for you to view it. Discussion on how much pet owners are actually spending in practice and how to measure it.
https://vimeo.com/201105001

For those of you on Profitdiagnostix, please feel free to register for this mini-web-workshop on Wednesday 8th Feb, 1pm Brisbane time:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/0dd3aa3623c636c734538d7d4481ef37

This workshop will show you how to look at ‘average client spend’ in Profitdiagnostix. Compare it to your average transaction fee. Help you decide if you need to take action to increase profits in this area.

Finally, a way to measure pet insurance accurately

Measuring the strategic impact of pet insurance in practice has been very hard for anyone who has been focusing on this.

Firstly, most practice management systems do not have a patient field where it can be recorded. And if they do, the system still does not produce a report.
Secondly there is the scenario where a pet is logged as being insured this year, however the insurance is not renewed and this is never updated in the system.
Finally, there is the problem of ‘the pet is insured, but they have not come back to the practice for 3 years’.

We finally have a solution and have applied it successfully in Profitdiagnostix.
Rather than measuring insured pets, we feel it is better and more reliable to measure ‘claims’.
So every time an insurance claim is completed, a zero-priced item called ‘insurance claim completed’ is logged on the patient record. We then measure the volume of insurance claims – and this is proving to be more accurate. We can measure this compared to ‘client facing opportunities’ or active clients to compare between clinics.

What’s more, it’s better for record keeping. If a claim is queried by a pet owner, you will have record in the patients notes of the exact time, date and person who completed the claim.

Bottom of the pack:
Why playing possum is not always the best action to take if you own a business

Zack is a dog who is a couch potato and has an unusual life experience. His owners who were once exciting vets have now become boring accountants. They used to bring him into the exciting vet practice every day, now they bring him into a boring accounting office every day. This gives him a unique dog’s eye view on both professions.

Did someone say POSSUM!!!! Where is it, show me! GRRRRRRR!

Ah ok, false alarm it was just a figure of speech in one of the previous articles, but it has got me thinking as to why on earth possums get under my skin so much.

I’m a pretty placid dog usually. When delivery men walk into APL offices it does not even bother me enough to open my eyes, I just let them get on with whatever they are doing.

When vets come into the office I usually join them in the  meeting room with the accountants and have my tummy tickled, because I know that vets are suckers for tickling my tummy when they visit. I don’t even mind whan they tell my mom that my tummy is too big!

So why on earth would a harmless possum get me so fired up!

Maybe its the very fact that they are harmless – they make a bit of noise, scurry up and down fences aimlessly, ALWAYS run away. And of course, worst case scenario, if you capture one, they play dead (how cool is that) – guaranteed entertainment!

As exciting as possums may be, it is quite clear to me that they are not cut out for business ownership. Yet so many business owners mimic them!

How many business owners out there make a lot of noise and complain a lot, but when it comes down to implementation of strategies over 70% of them will fail to implement?

How many business owners make a lot of noise, but run away in the face of adversity? Or worse still, DO NOTHING (classic possum behaviour). For example, having to deal with a difficult staff member vs burying your head in the sand and hoping the problem will go away. More than half would not face the problem head on.

The result is that the possum-like behaviour encourages others to bully you and push you around. So don’t act like a possum, because you are not one! In my species I would say that a business owner has to be a ‘pit bull’, because I would not mess with a pit bull in the way I mess with a possum. The difficulty with Pitt Bulls however is that they are sometimes hard to reason with (depending on their socialisation of course, because I do know of a few nice ones).

But then if we take away the canine connotations, you are a human being – the most feared species on the planet, (plus you have opposable thumbs which makes me very envious)! All this and still capable of rational thought and giving tummy tickles!

So rationalise it: Don’t back down in the face of adversity, don’t let people get away with treating you badly, still be kind and considerate to those who treat you well. Assess and calculate your business strategies and implement them. Don’t let others hold you back from your dreams. In short, don’t be a possum.

Quick fun exercise, who would you rather be:

Please Note: Many of the comments in this publication are general in nature and anyone intending to apply the information to practical circumstances should seek professional advice to independently verify their interpretation and the information’s applicability to their particular circumstances. In particular, please note that ‘Zack’ , ‘Daisy’ and ‘Strudel’ are dogs and do not have opposable thumbs so have to type with their noses.