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Book Review: Unselling. The New Customer Experience by Scott Stratten and Alison Kramer

October 5, 2014 //
2

(Clicking on the image above will take you to Amazon where a tiny percentage goes to help fund my book buying habit.)

“Scott, we have a problem with social media. People keep going on there and complaining about our products. We just don’t know what to do!”

“Well, for starters, how about you make a better product?”

Unselling is about sales and how the rules of selling have fundamentally changed.

After two fun books (that I reviewed here and here) on the good, the bad, and the ugly of social media and customer service, Scott Stratton and Alison Kramer have given us a great and insightful book on taking the pulse of our customers and where our businesses should be aiming. These concepts of pulse and aim (you’ll have to buy the book for the definitions) tie together a lot of what Scott has been talking about online and on the Unpodcast for the last couple of years.

What Unselling manages to achieve is to create a structure and understanding of why certain methods work and why others don’t. It is one of the frustrations, for example, to here about customer service failures and successes that can seem to contradict each other. Unselling provides keys to unlocking these mysteries. It also debunks a lot of nonsense that other marketers and marketing books talk about.

An extremely easy read, with short chapters, this is not Scott Stratten the borderline stand-up comic and keynote speaker, this is Scott Stratten the insightful and intelligent marketer who had risen to the top of his profession (the jokes almost get in the way). While the previous books concentrated on the how and the what, Unselling is very much about the why.

This is not a book for sales people, or a book for marketing people, it is a book for business people, and people in businesses, because we are all sales and marketing people now.

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Categories Books, Business, Content Marketing, Customer Service, Marketing, Social Media

Book Review: Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Engagement (Second Edition) by Mark Graban

September 15, 2014 //
6

By Mike Falconer

(Clicking on the image above will take you to Amazon where a tiny percentage goes to help fund my book buying habit.)

“Lean” is a way of thinking about business and business operations based on the Toyota Production Method. Often linked with Six Sigma much trumpeted by GE, Lean focuses more on employee engagement than the statistical analysis of Six Sigma.

A full description of the benefits of Lean, or even Lean Vs. Six Sigma, or Lean Six Sigma are out side the scope of this blog post (for that you can check out the author’s own excellent blog post on the subject of Lean Sigma and Lean plus Six Sigma here.) However, I should probably give some background on why I want to read this book and my interest in lean.

The simple answer is that I had become aware of the short comings of much of the veterinary specific continuing education when it comes to larger hospitals – particularly when it comes to employee engagement and communication. I’ll never forget sitting in on a not very good seminar on internal communication at a veterinary conference and then finding out that the speaker’s hospital had less than ten employees. There is nothing wrong with practices of that size, but the ideas were not scalable – I have supervisor meetings larger than ten people! Because of these issues I started to look to the human healthcare world for ideas and inspiration.

I did this with some trepidation.

Human healthcare has some serous issues and in many ways could learn a lot from the veterinary world – not lease in the use of resources and customer service which seems at times to be virtually non-existent. Having said that, lots of others have similar feelings about human healthcare and there are a number of people trying to make major changes hospital wide.

One of those people that I came across was Mark Graban, the author of Lean Hospitals.

I had been communicating back and forth with Mark over Twitter about healthcare and process issues that interested us both and so I decided to give “Lean” a serious look.

I should make clear, that Lean Hospitals is very much a human healthcare book. For those in the veterinary profession, a significant amount of translation and out right rejection will need to take place. However, for those with large facilities to run and with hopefully a mandate to improve, there is a lot to learn from Lean and the Lean Hospitals volume that I am imperfectly reviewing here.

Lean is about reducing waste. Not just physical waste, but the waste of your employees and your patients / clients time and resources. The general principle is that by harnessing the knowledge of your employees about what they do, and by actually looking at and standardizing how your employees work you can create internal systems that not only save time and money but that are safer for patients and employees. Coupled with this is the idea of a culture of continuous improvement and error proofing of the workplace.

A lot of these ideas will be familiar to anyone who has attended a management seminar in recent years. What seems to make lean and Lean Hospitals different is how it is all held together and that is has real processes and tools for implementation and analysis.

As a book, Lean hospitals takes the form of a workbook, with each chapter giving not only a formal conclusion and lesson points but also a list of questions for group discussion. Although, Mark primarily works in the human healthcare world now, Lean Hospitals is written almost from a lay persons perspective and so the use of human medical terminology or assumption of knowledge of those processes is kept to the bare minimum.

On the downside, Lean as a process, is replete with jargon which mostly takes the form of Japanese words or phrases originally inherited from the Toyota Production method. Although there seems to be no real reason to have to use these terms, other than that some of the ideas need a name of some type, they can be a little off putting and require a certain amount of referring to the glossary (which is excellent!)

Lean Hospitals is also a little expensive for a business book, although cheap by text book standards, but makes up for this by being an excellent read throughout.

The most insightful passage in the book relates that healthcare is full of brilliant dedicated people that daily have to battle with broken systems and goes on to quote Fujio Cho, the Chairman of Toyota Motors: “We get brilliant results from average people managing brilliant systems. Our competitors get average results from brilliant people working around broken systems.”

For those looking for an introduction to the world of Lean, or even just a set of interesting ideas from progressive human healthcare to cherry pick, Lean Hospitals is an excellent starting point.

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Categories Books, Customer Service, Leadership, Management, medical, Veterinary

So you want to be a Manager? Part One: Beginnings

March 16, 2014 //
2

This year’s Western Veterinary Conference, in my adopted home town of Las Vegas, is a great time to catch up with old friends, former colleagues, and new friends who I had only met online.

One of the conversations that I had over a very nice dinner, was with a former colleague wanting to know about my world – the world of practice management – and how to start down that path.

This was more difficult than I imagined – mostly because my own route into office management / practice management / hospital administration was so accidental. I therefore thought; “there is a good idea for a series of blog posts if ever I heard one,” and so here we are!

Because my world is the world of veterinary medicine and practice management this series will concentrate mostly there. However, it is my hope that this series, much like my blog in general, will also work for anyone in a relatively small business looking to move from the trenches into management.

A Brief Recap

Before entering the world of veterinary medicine I had a very successful career in the world of entertainment lighting (theater, television, events, etc.). Within that pretty specialized and small world I worked in London’s West End as an electrician, a Company Manager (someone who corals actors and worries about when the show is going to close), a touring production manager, a console programmer and operator, sales and technical support for lighting suppliers, marketing of lighting products, and ultimately an industry writer and commentator.

After being in the industry for almost 20 years I decided I wanted a compete change. I moved to Arizona and took a job in a tiny veterinary clinic to keep myself busy, feed my DVD habit, and allow me time to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I really enjoyed working in a veterinary hospital and it seemed I was well liked there too by both the doctor and the other staff. When the office manager announced that she was moving, on a few months after I had arrived, my name was suggested as a possible replacement. The rest, as the very overused saying goes, is history.

I knew a little about veterinary medicine, some things about people management, not near as much as I would have liked about financial matters, and almost nothing about human resources. I did know about marketing and customer service, and I knew what I hated about going to the vet with my dogs. Mine in not a path I would recommend for everyone, and I made a lot of mistakes. However, I feel I have been at this long enough that I have some insights about getting to where I am and how others can get there too. If they want to!

Terminology

One of the things that is very annoying about my job, is that I am routinely described by titles other than the one on my business card and employment agreement.

Officer Manager

The generally accepted definition of an office manger is of a reception supervisor who also may handle scheduling and other areas such as accounts receivable. More than a lead receptionist in other words, but less than a practice manager.

Practice Manager

A Practice Manager oversees all the areas of hospital in addition to reception, may also handle payroll and other human resource functions.

Hospital Administrator

The job of a hospital administrator is one of having overall finacial and management responsibility for all areas of the the whole hospital, with the direction and supervision of the owners.It may also include all the functions of an office manager and practice manager. They will be involved in the hiring process for doctors and may also have supervisory responsibilities over them. There will also be a significant strategic and planning element to their function.

In all likelihood, managers start as office managers and then progress to practice management and then hospital administration. There is not right or wrong way, however, as long as the needed skills and / or experience are there. It should also be noted that all hospitals are different. I have effectively been a hospital administrator at three different practices and my job and responsibilities has been different at each.

Education

I am a big believer in education. That might sound strange coming from someone who hates actually taking classes themselves and does not have a degree. The bottom line is that your life will be easier with a degree and more doors will open with an MBA. Trust me I know from experience. It is not impossible to be successful without those things it is just harder. If you are planning on learning a lot of new skills, whether as DVM interested in practice ownership, or a technician or receptionist looking to get into managment, you may as well get some letters after your name for the effort.

Becoming a Certified Veterinary Practice Manager (CVPM) is a qualification designed for the job at hand. Several times I have considered getting the qualification myself. If you are having problems as a new practice manager, or making the move from office management to practice management, this qualification is for you.

If formal education is not an option, or just not you, then CE, CE, CE. Continuing education wherever you can get it: online, locally or nationally. It all helps. Speaking of which…

Get Help

I would not be the Hospital Administrator I am now, and would not have the career that I have had, if it was not for my local hospital managers association whose meetings I attended every month while I was in Arizona. Being able to meet with other mangers, find common ground, and being able to talk issues out that you might be having was incredibly useful. If you don’t have a local managers group look for other business groups, including the chamber of commerce, that might be able to help support you. It is a cliche but still true – it really is lonely at the top.

Resources

Throughout this series I plan to give some reading suggestions. The two books below tackle the difficult issues of enthusing others about your ideas, and how to make things change. One of my current favorite sayings that keeps rattling around in my head is “As a manager it does not matter how good your ideas are; it is your ability to implement them that matters.”

I have reviewed both these books before and other than providing a very basic introduction I have just provided links to the reviews. As always, clicking on the pictures will take you to Amazon and where Amazon may give me a tiny percentage to help my book buying habit.

“Made to Stick – Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” by Chip & Dan Heath

The title pretty much says it all: not all ideas are created equal and how we present things can have a dramatic impact on whether ideas take hold or not. You can read more here.

“Switch – How to Change Things when Change is Hard” by Chip Heath & Dan Heath

You’ll note that both these books are written by the same pair of authors and therefore they work perfectly together as the two sides to the same coin. You can read more here. These books are, at their core, about the nature of communication. If you can’t communicate as a manager then you can’t manage.

For those who are looking to get into management I’d love to hear from you, and for those who are already there I’d love to hear how you got there. Comment away!

Next Time – Part 2: Time to Focus

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Categories Books, Business, Career Advice, Leadership, Management, Veterinary

Book Review: QR Codes Kill Kittens by Scott Stratten

November 23, 2013 //
3

For frequent and long suffering readers of my blog (there are some of you out there so my analytics tell me) may already know that I am a bit of a Scott Stratten fan boy. Last year I reviewed The Book of Business Awesome / Unawesome and wrote my own diatribe about kittens and QR codes which owes a lot to one of Scott’s talks. I am also a huge fan of the new “UnPodcast” and the “Vegas 30” podcast. The bottom line is  then, how could I not review Scott’s latest venture into the publishing world.

Subtitled “How to Alienate Customers, Dishearten Employees, and Drive Your Business into the Ground,” QR codes kill kittens is familiar territory for anyone who follows Scott on a Twitter or Facebook (and familiar content if we are being honest about it). Essentially a short picture book, if gives example after example of bad implementation, missteps, and general marketing / social media insanity which makes QR codes are an excellent meta fore.

It is not that QR codes themselves are bad, it is that on the whole the implementation sucks and we use them for the wrong reasons – it is not customers who want QR codes, but rather the companies that think using them says something about how “tech friendly” they are, when in truth it normally says the reverse due to bad implementation.

This is not a how-to guide by any stretch of the imagination (see his two previous books for that kind of experience), but rather an affirmation that you are doing things right (or wrong).

Funny, clever, and vintage Scott, QR Codes Kill Kittens is the perfect present for the marketing or business person in your life…

…Or just a great treat for yourself.

(Clicking on the cover above will take you to the book’s Amazon page and contribute to my book buying habit / problem.)

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Categories Books, Business, Customer Service, Marketing, Social Media

Book Review: Subliminal: How your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior by Leonard Mlodinow

November 10, 2013 //
0

At first glance this book does not have a lot to do with management or marketing, and even less with the practice of veterinary medicine (the three focus areas do my blog. However, Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow, deals with how the subconscious mind influences us in everything from our daily interactions, teamwork, and hiring, to our business and product choices.

Although the book starts off slow and in a manor that one might expect of a research based science book. The revelations start coming about half way through and don’t really stop.

Using, and citing research, as well as history and personal experience, Mlodinow draws a compelling picture that we rely on our unconscious mind more than we realize. The book does assure us that we can overcome the influences of the subconscious mind; however, it is difficult, and on the whole we are far better off with its input than without it. The real insight of the book, however, is the window it opens into the behavior of others – particularly for managers about their staff and their customers.

Possibly one of the most startling revelations of book is the scientific experiments that prove that our expectations of others are self fulling. In other words, if you believe that an employee is going to underperform, the chances are that they will because of your non-verbal cues and unconscious actions, that as a manager, you give to that employee. Researchers gave two teams of research students two sets of mice. One set they were told were normal, the other set had been genetically modified to increase their intelligence.

Both sets of mice were given the same intelligence tests and the results proved that the genetically modified mice were indeed significantly more intelligent. But in reality the mice were not the subject of the experiment but the research students themselves – both sets of mice were normal. The only difference between the two groups was that one had been labeled “more intelligent.”

As humans, we are very good at showing our emotions, but hiding them takes great effort. As the book points out, great method actors are successful because they actually try to experience the emotions they are trying to portray. The subliminal mind controls muscles that the conscious mind cannot. That is why some politicians, and car sales men, can come over as “sleazy.” Non verbal communication forms a language more complex and nuanced than our verbal communication. In schools, a child’s popularity has been found to directly correlate with that child’s ability to read the non verbal cues of their peers.

Non- verbal cues can also extend to surroundings, logos, and uniforms. Our subconscious mind takes these elements and if they resonate with our expectations of an business, for example, we will actually thinking better about that business than we would if these trappings are not there. It may not overcome a bad customer experience, but it could make the difference between a client returning not if the experience was neutral. The subconscious mind stets the stage for our interactions before they take place. Designers of lobbies and logos, as well as job seekers please take note! Presentation matters, even when we think it doesn’t or shouldn’t.

Another fascinating insight is the area of categorization and groups. As humans we automatically put ourselves into groups and categorize almost everything we see and interact with without being aware that we are doing it.

This explains why departments in a business that have a strong identity can actually harm wider team work. Examples of this abound where people spilt themselves into groups and then have issues with similar groups who should be working towards the same goal. With some fantastic examples from social research, that would now be considered unethical, as well as historical, and scientific examples, the author paints a picture of how we ignore the subconscious mind, and it’s influence at our detriment and peril.

That goes for mangers, employees, wives, husbands, children, parents and humans as a species.

(Clicking on the cover above will take you to the book’s Amazon page and contribute to my book buying habit / problem.)

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Categories Books, Management, Marketing

Book review: The Book of Business Awesome by Scott Stratten

August 18, 2012 //
4

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

– Charles Dickens, ‘A Tale of Two Cities.’

Scott Stratten’s excellent new book is actually two books, printed back-to-back under the same cover.  “The Book of Business Awesome,” as its name suggests, is a collection of examples, ideas and concepts on how businesses can deliver extraordinary customer service through actually communicating and connecting with their customers. The flip side, “The Book of Business Unawesome,” shows the price of not communicating, not thinking, and not caring  about your customers.

As you might expect, social media plays a large role in both the positive examples and the negative examples of this book, but it is not a book about social media per say. Those looking for a nuts and bolts how to I do X, Y, and Z on Twitter, Facebook or practically any another sphere of social media would be better served by Arnie Kuenn’s excellent: Accelerate! that I reviewed this time last year. “The Book of Business Awesome,” however, is more of a call to arms for brands and companies to be something other than normal – particularly because normal can be so crappy – and to go out of their way for their customer.

To be funny.

To be honest.

To be human.

And to apologize because they genuinely regret a mistake, or bad customer experience, not because they got caught or called on it.

Really, this book is about culture and people. The stories that are replayed in both their awesomeness and unawesomeness throughout give a window into the soul of the featured companies. It shows ordinary front line employees doing extraordinary things and those extraordinary things having an impact far beyond the normal, or even intended, business interaction.  As Scott states on numerous occasions: social media doesn’t fix anything – it just makes things louder. If you don’t give a damn about customers when you transact with them – this will be heard loud and clear online and will also come across in your social media interactions.

Filled with links to additional content and even the odd QR code (I’d actually would have liked to see more QR codes, the link typing thing got old after a while) the Book of Business Awesome also has an excellent couple of chapters on public speaking and panel discussions. As a side note, if you ever get a chance to see Scott speak at a conference, or on his book tour, do so – for the rest of us there is YouTube!

Not as funny as Scott’s in-person presentations, The Book of Business Awesome is, however, just as passionate and quite amusing. And this is actually a very minor quibble consider that many business books are about as entertaining as a tax audit. It also probably says more about Scott’s skills as a public speaker than any lack of skill as a writer.

The Book of Business Awesome is nothing short of a bible for customer service in the Social Media age.

(Clicking on the cover above will take you to the book’s Amazon page and contribute to my book buying habit / problem.)

Categories Books, Business, Customer Service, Marketing, Social Media

Book Review: The Carrot Principle by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton

June 10, 2012 //
0

“When I make a mistake I’m recognized 100 percent of the time; when I do something great, I’m not recognized 99 percent of the time.” – A complaint from a hotel industry employee identified  in The Carrot Principle.

At times it seems like books on leadership and management are a dime a dozen. Yet it is rare to find a book that deals with the traditionally warm and fuzzy areas of recognition and people management that actually tout the results of studies and delves into statistics. That is what makes The Carrot Principle different.

“I’ve come to realize success doesn’t come from being a powerful leader; it comes from leading powerful people.” – The Carrot Principle.

Based on a 10-year study of 200,000 managers and employees, The Carrot Principle’s central theme is that managers who provide frequent and effective recognition generated significantly higher levels of employee engagement, productivity, and retention. Of particular interest, however, is that recognition levels also have an impact on operating margins. This takes The Carrot Principle out of the fuzzy box and into the profit and loss one. What is quite startling about the results of the 10 year study is that the need for recognition by employees from their employers is a global requirement but that the nature of that recognition changes from country to country.

In a bid to seem like a serious business book, The Carrot Principle can at times be a bit on the dry side – we are talking statistics after all for the first couple of chapters, but the book more than makes up for it in the later chapters. Perhaps the most surprising thing about the carrot principle is that the book actually gives useful ideas and tools for implementing its suggestions.Charts, templates and lists and lists of suggestions are all here. My particular favorite section of the book deals with all the usual excuses that managers give for not recognizing their employees and knocks them down one by one – including budgeting and complaints from upper management.

If I have to pick a fault with the book it would be that it is very much written with the large corporation in mind. This, perhaps is not surprising given that O.C. Tanner, the appreciation consultants behind the  research for the book and its supporting documentation, are writing for their clients. However, this is a minor quibble in an otherwise excellent book and a superb set of tools.

(Clicking on the cover above will take you to the book’s Amazon page and contribute to my book buying habit / problem.)

Categories Books, Business, Leadership, Management

The Cost of Servant Leadership

March 10, 2012 //
1

“There is great joy in leading with authority, which is serving others by meeting their legitimate needs.”

– James C. Hunter, The Servant

For a large part of my management career I have been a strong believer, practitioner, and proponent of Servant Leadership. Servant Leadership is pretty much self explanatory. In a nutshell, a servant leader leads by serving those for whom he is responsible for – employees and customers. In last month’s post we talked about what I call “the Steve Jobs Effect.” Servant Leadership, depending on your point of view, could be called the opposite of “The Steve Jobs Effect.”

However, recently I’ve encountered a darker side to Servant Leadership…

As a servant leader, I believe it is my responsibility to ensure that fairness, standards, and openness are at the center of what I, as a manager, do. I believe it is my job to try and bring out the best in people. To remove the road blocks that staff members might encounter in performing their jobs or specific tasks, or empowering them with tools so that they can overcome those road blocks themselves. To me, Servant Leadership means that, fundamentally, I believe in people. It means that I have faith that people want to do a good job and respond better to encouragement, and a fair process, than threats, shouting, and summary dismissals.

But what happens when certain employees don’t, despite your best efforts, respond to this process? What happens when employees actually consider the process, and therefore you, fundamentally flawed? What happens when trust, fairness, and even faith, turn out to be misplaced?

The answer, of course, is simple – nothing.

While individual failures are disappointing, and extremely disheartening, they are part of the process and they are the cost of servant leadership. Nobody is perfect – including servant leaders – and not everyone will necessarily understand what you are trying to do, or why. However, if you have surrounded yourself with people who you have treated with respect, fairness, and who tried to make a success in both their lives and their jobs they themselves will be the ones to remind you – verbally or by their actions – of a simple fact:

Doing the right thing, whether it is ultimately right or wrong, is never a bad thing.

Certainly we should learn from our mistakes, but individual failures in a sea of success should not make you give up or consider the odd failure anything other than an unfortunate side-effect of the process. To all those disheartened, discouraged, and disappointed, servant leaders out there please don’t loose the faith. If servant leadership was easy, it wouldn’t be special, they wouldn’t call it leadership,  it wouldn’t cost anything, and it wouldn’t have value.


For those who wish to know more about Servant Leadership I strongly recommend James C. Hunter’s The Servant.

If you have any leadership crisis of faith stories or issues please feel free to comment below.

Categories Books, Business, Leadership, Management

Book Review: Violated Online – How Online Slander Can Destroy Your Life & What You Must Do to Protect Yourself, by Steven Wyer

December 17, 2011 //
0

 

Violated Online is a interesting book for a number of reasons. But by far the most interesting thing is the quandary at it’s heart.

Wyer runs a company that specializes in Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) and Violated Online is essentially a 200 page pitch for the SERM industry. In case there is any doubt, SERM is essentially the same as the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practiced by online marketers to ensure that search engine results reflect the results that they want.

The fundamental idea at the heart of Violated Online is that we live in a connected world and that information is easy to find or publish. That this world can be a scary place, and that things have changed, should really come as no surprise to anyone.

It is hard not to feel while reading this work that the author would rather go back to the “good-old-days.” By its own admission, Violated Online states that a lot of personal information was always available offline, but that now this information is a lot easier to access and somehow this makes the internet is a bad thing. It is interesting to reflect that only 10 years ago we gladly gave our social security numbers to department store clerks, or any other number of people, to bring up account information. Just like we have all learned to control our personal information, we also have to take responsibility for our online presence.

To be fair, Violated Online, makes this exact argument. However, most people reading it will only take away from the near hysterical tone is the idea that to protect themselves they need to stay off the internet or employ a SERM company. For example, some of the advise is practically useless for the average person – registering every single web address permutation of you and your families name. Great advise for a business, or someone in the public eye, but more than a little over the top for most people. It is easy to forget that in the days before the internet, if the major media misquoted or focused on an individual, there was very little recourse. The internet can magnify these problems but it also provides an avenue for correcting those mistakes. Violated Online makes no such comparisons or admissions.

However, the biggest issue with this book is that on the one hand it bemoans that individuals can be anonymous online, and then rails against social media’s use of proper names and identities. You can’t have it both ways! The online identity issue is significant, but it needs to be handled with education about when you can and can’t rely on online information and who posted it.

Violated Online is an important book and is well worth reading, despite its problems. Just don’t buy into the end of the world scenarios and take away its most important message – take control of your life online before someone else does.

(Clicking on the cover above will take you to the book’s Amazon page and contribute to my book buying habit / problem.)

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Categories Books, Marketing, Search, Social Media

Book Review: Be Safe! Manager’s Guide to Veterinary Safety by Philip J. Seibert, Jr. CVT

September 19, 2011 //
4
Be Safe! Manager's Guide to Veterinary Safety by Philip J. Seibert, Jr. CVT

Click on the image to take you to the AAHA Press page for this book.

 

When talking about books that cover regulations and safety, the best authors in the world are going to be challenged to make them “entertaining,” and anything other than a chore to wade through. Therefore, the thing that is probably most important when considering a book on OSHA is probably that it is brief, delivers the information that is required, and is easy to refer to in the future.

This publication from the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA ) fits all of the above criteria. At 48 pages (this includes the introduction and index), it is certainly brief. The author, Philip J. Seibert, who many will recognize from VIN and VSPN, and is probably the foremost expert on OSHA and how it relates to the veterinary practice. Having been a Fan of Philip’s for quite some time now there is not actually a lot here that can not be found in other places. However having it all in one volume, with the specific concerns of the practice manager directly addressed, is really very useful.

The book offer very practical advise about setting up and OSHA and safety program from scratch and also gets into some of the nitty-gritty of such issues as chemotherapy which can cause long sleepless nights without a resource of this type. Even if you do already have a safety and OSHA program in place , this volume can bring a lot of reassurance and the odd additional tip.

I do have an issue, however.

At $69.95, and that is the AAHA member price – for non members it is an additional $10.00, it is hard to look at this volume as anything other than a license to print money.

For those for whom math is not their strong suit, we are talking about almost $2.00 per page here. Now I truly do understand the economics of a low volume print run such as this. And that what we are purchasing here is not actually the text, but the research that goes into it behind the scenes. But this is an eye-watering price considering that is is coming from a veterinary association and that it is one in a series of books. I also understand that, unlike most text books, it is unlikely that this volume could have any market other than at best one copy per veterinary practice.

To put this in perspective, however, the excellent “Veterinary Fee Reference,” is 470 pages, has almost 700 tables covering 450 services, and is a monument to data collection in the veterinary industry. It is also very unlikely that the market for this volume is anything other than one copy per veterinary practice.

It is $139.95!

I don’t have any good answers as to why there is this discrepancy. If piece of mind is worth a few extra dollars then by all means get this volume. If you already have an OSHA program and you are pretty confident of your program – save up for the Veterinary Fee Reference!

Categories Books, Management, Veterinary
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