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The Best “Friday Follow” Ever!

October 15, 2011 //
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For those who do not use Twitter, you might not know about Friday Follows. The idea is that on Fridays, Twitter users recommend other Twitter users to follow.

It has fallen out of favor of late a little, the Twitterverse can be fickle, and I’ve never been a big believer anyway – preferring to retweet (repost others messages) on a regular basis. But it has always been nice to get one.

Yesterday, however, I got the best Friday Follow ever from Jim Dougherty who goes by the name @leaderswest on Twitter.

Jim’s Friday Follow took the form of a short – talking to camera – video, explaining to users why they should follow me, and others, on Twitter. The genius of the idea is that each subject gets their own short video making it very easy to view and share by the subject.

This is great content marketing.

Easy to consume, relevant, and selfless – which of course reflects very well on the content creator like all great content marketing. It would be interesting to see if all recommendations will eventually be like this: personal, short, and on video. It has certainly got my wheels turning considering just how effective I find the video below. Interestingly, Jim used Keek for this project. Keek is hoping to be video Twitter.

Please follow @leaderswest on Twitter, after you follow me!

Video Friday Follow about @mike_falconer from @leaderswest

(Keek's embedding does not work very well in WordPress yet - just click on the image to take you to Jim's Keek page and his video post about me!)

Well, what did you think?

Let me know in the comments and take a look at Jim’s other Friday Follows in the same page.

Categories Content Marketing, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized

It’s not, but it is, Personal!

October 9, 2011 //
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Bad feedback, subtle (and not so subtle) digs on Twitter, your mistakes pointed out for all to see, and then you go make it way worse…

In your online life, just like your business life, it can be hard to take criticism. We are not married, after all, to our peers – business is personal. But just like in person, going ballistic certainly does not help the relationship, how you are perceived by other people, or even your own equilibrium.

I seemed to attract a deluge of criticism online and off recently. In addition, I had a management issue that felt like backhanded criticism. Although my first instinct was to react as if these were attacks, by standing back, taking a deep breath, and actually trying to see what the other person was saying, I realized that they all had merit – and in some cases, there were things that needed addressing.

What is so odd, for me, is that, I consider it a key function of my job to address client issues when they come up about my practice. I survey every client who visits us, so thanking clients for positive feedback, and trying to address negative feedback, is part and parcel of what I do.

Learning the lesson that bad, even unjustified, feedback about your business is not a personal attack was an easy lesson to learn. Understanding, that personal business criticism should be handled in a similar vein is harder to learn, but ultimately even more important.

Comments welcome (please be gentle…)

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Categories Business, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Social Media

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

September 19, 2011 //
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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

Making Staff Care – Internal Marketing

August 22, 2011 //
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So far in this series we’ve looked at how your brand and marketing strategy are perceived and reacted with by your clients – but what about your staff?

Without your staff on-board no marketing program will succeed. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that probably one of the most important elements of any marketing program is having staff buy-in. But how to get it?

Simplicity

This is not a dig at your staff, but rather those overblown and meaningless missions statements that seem the populate the corporate world. Your brand and your mission statement should be one. They need to work together and be given as much thought as each other. A mission statement should also be able to be understood by mere mortals and, in an ideal world, be able to be remembered.

A great example of this is talked about at length in Stick, a book by Chip and Dan Heath that I reviewed here. Southwest use the slogan “The Low Cost Airline.” This slogan, which is the central part of their mission statement, informs the decisions that both management and staff make everyday –

“Should we have sandwiches on this flight?”
“Does that make us the Low Fares Airline?”
No because the added cost of the sandwiches might increase the fare price.

“Should we joke about a flight attendant’s birthday over the intercom?”
“Does that affect us being the Low Cost Airline?”
No it doesn’t – so go ahead.

Having an overriding statement, that is the building block of your mission statement helps, give your staff a sense of mission and purpose. If you use it to define your decisions everyday, and tell them why it fits into that statement, they will soon see the benefits of this kind if thinking and hopefully adopt it as their own.

Keeping Staff Informed

It is a surprisingly common mistake, I’ve made it myself several times, but your staff should not be the last ones to find out about any kind of marketing program. Not only does it frustrate the staff, it upsets the client and creates the exact opposite impression in their mind that you were probably trying to create in the firs place. It is also a great idea to have staff involved in the planning stages of any marketing program. This stops it from being “your” marketing program and makes it “our” marketing program – a much better solution all round.

Explain What is Out There

It might come as a shock, but staff do not cruise their employers website, social media pages, and review sites at night, when they get home from work, as a method of relaxation. Take the time and effort to explain these resources to staff so that they, in turn, can be knowledgeable to clients when they ask.

Provide Reminders

If you are promoting particular products, ensure that staff have the tools, training, and reminders to be able to effectively do their jobs. What do I mean by reminders? Well it could be as simple as a poster or you asking about their progress on a daily basis and it could be as technical as power point presentations running where both clients ad staff can see them. As Seth Godwin says “Competence is the enemy of change.” In other words, when you give your staff new products, protocols, and ideas to work on, you are making them less efficient for the time it takes them to learn all the new things. Naturally, they might be a little resistant to that. All the help you can provide will make the transition to a new state of competency as straight forward as possible.

Be Emotional

If you care about an idea, concept, or product – show that you do. Tell stories about how this product, idea or concept will affect your clients, your staff, or whom ever. But if you cannot show that you care about something, how are your staff ever going to care? You don’t have to have them high fiving and lifting you on their shoulders, and there is an element of risk with putting yourself out there – they might not respond. But without that emotion and, for want of a better word, passion your pitch to your staff will become just as important as the text from an instruction manual.

How do you promote your ideas and strategies to staff? Have you found some other great ways to get people onboard? Leave a comment below to share with me (seriously, I don’t have all the answers) and other readers.

Next week: The Double-Edged Sword of Media Relations

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Categories Business, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Social Media

Book Review: Made to Stick – Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip & Dan Heath

August 10, 2011 //
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Another great book from the brothers Heath.

It is interesting to note that in retrospect the lessons of “Stick” have had such an impression on the authors that their follow up “Switch” (which I reviewed here) is all the better for it.

The concept of “stickiness” is lifted wholesale from Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, but its practical applications go further, from my understanding that Galdwell’s popular work.The basic premises is that stories, personal connections, are what make ideas stick not great raw facts. This has huge implications for marketers and managers. The book delves very deep into why this concept works and does give some great real world examples as you would expect from a book with such a central theory.

Where the book really succeeds, is in it’s ability to predict where ideas will work or not. There is a great example about a journalism class and being able distill ideas, or stories, down to their most basic essence. Another frequently used example is Southwest Airlines who’s most basic mission statement “The Low Cost Airline” informs everything they do. This mission statement becomes a simple idea, that can answer complex questions and can direct behavior.

An intriguing part of the book, and also an excellent framing device, is the use of urban legends and why they succeed where other news items, education, and presentations don’t. If we could make our ideas like urban legends our work as managers, marketers and educators is 90% done.

Switch is the better read, but stick is the more intellectual and deeper work and also have the potential to be significantly more important.

(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, Management, Marketing

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

July 20, 2011 //
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A brilliant book on change and how to apply it in the real world. Over 250 real world examples and ideas underline the authors basic concept – getting people to change is like someone riding an elephant. Appealing to the logic of change is like appealing to the rider of the elephant. The elephant itself is the emotional connection to change. Finally, the path is the environment which can either help or hinder change.

Through numerous examples, the authors show that by appealing to the rider of a situation (the logical argument), the elephant (emotion), or the path (the environment) change can be effected by addressing these disparate elements individually, or together.

An excellent example of this is provided with nurses making errors in the dispensing of medications to patients. The hospital used in the example had an error rate of 1 in 1,000 – pretty good, but still a lot of errors. The nurses understood the need to not have errors, so the rider / logical part of the problem was not at issue. Likewise, nurses directly saw the effect of errors in medication had on their patients and so had a direct emotional connection – the elephant was on board too. The issue was in the environment or path. Nurses are constantly interrupted by doctors, and other nurses, while they are working and found it difficult not to help when asked, thereby distracting them from their main task. The solution? Tweak the environment / change the path so that nurses did not get distracted.

A bright orange vest was employed whenever a nurse was dispensing medications so that everyone else on the floor knew that they were not to be disturbed. The program was universally hated – the rider element thought it was unnecessary, the vests got lost all the time and hated that they could not help their doctors and colleagues. The elephant part of the problem felt that they might as well wear a dunce cap – the nurses felt demeaned and that the vest drew attention to the fact that they made mistakes.

This might have spelt doom for the program until the data came back. Over six months every department that employed the program saw a decrease in errors of 47%. Needless to say the change in the path / environment won over the rider / logical objections and the elephant / emotional objections because it worked.

The book is also a great champion of checklists which have gotten bad name precisely because they work so well. They can be seen as dehumanizing and giving rise to the idea the checklists mean “a monkey could do it.” Like most objections the book deals with this argument deftly. “Well, if that is true, grab a pilot’s checklist and try your luck with a 747.”

There are a number of other elements that I can’t do justice too here: black and white goals, precise clear instructions, the power of action triggers, and the how to harness the herd to improve culture. But these elements are really tweaks to the fundamental concept of the logical, emotional and environmental components of enacting change.

At the back of the book is, essentially, a manual for enacting change complete with a web link to resources and PDF of a one page overview that the authors encourage you share! It is here by the way. This alone is worth the purchase price of the book and will ensure that the book stays on my desk rather than on a bookshelf.

Wonderfully researched, well thought out, and very smart. “Switch” is essential reading for anyone who want to understand why change can be difficult and what it takes to implement change against the odds. It should also be a template for other business books – ditch the theory unless you can prove it I the real world and show how it applies to the real world. Authors please take note.

Can’t recommend this book enough and owe a huge favor to the person who bought it for me.

(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, Leadership, Management

Book Review: “The Ten Commandments of Goal Setting” by Gary Ryan Blair

July 9, 2011 //
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More of a pamphlet than a book, looked at in the wrong light ” the Ten Commandments of Goal Setting” can be used as an example of the worst kind of business writing: full of jargon, vague concepts and an almost pseudo-spiritual believe in goal setting. It is not all bad, and it is obvious that many people get a lot out of Gary Ryan Blair’s work; however being distilled in to this short volume, it sometimes reads like a speech made by Tyler Durden (the protagonist in Fight club.)

Purely a rallying call for goal setting, and very short on actual practical advice, this book is readable for someone already sold on the concept of goal setting (something I am) and painful, incomprehensible nonsense to anyone who’s not.

(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, Leadership, Management

Vets, Groupon and cost of Discounting

June 9, 2011 //
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Thinking about harnessing the power of the social media darling, Groupon, to benefit your veterinary practice? What could possibly go wrong? Nothing according to this article , however I’m not buying it.

I’m not disputing that the two practices mentioned in the article have probably achieved their goals for their promotion, and I’m sure they have figured the actual costs to their brand and revenue, and considered it a good trade. I am, however, disputing that Groupon – and discounting in general – is a good business model.

Ignoring that the champion of discounting, despite spectacular revenues, makes no profits and is considered by some to be bordering on insolvent, let’s take a look at what is in it for the veterinarian or any other small service business.

Study after study (look here if you don’t believe me), have always come back with price being near the bottom of clients reason for visiting or staying with a veterinary practice.

But lets for a moment ignore that and assume that price is the single driving force that gets people in the door, how do you pay for all the new traffic? Lets say I offer $10 exams instead of my normal $50 exams and I can see 20 patients in a day. If I max out the schedule on $10 exams I make $200 – that’s four regular priced exams. I can set my staff to be calling over due appointments or even just send them home and have an easy quiet but at least profitable day.

But perhaps we can make it up in additional services that the patients will receive when they come in. Three times your normal exam fee is a pretty good average client transaction but you’ve discounted and attracted discount clients so lets be generous and say they spend half or what you would normally spend

My four regular priced exams bring in a total of $600

My twenty $10 exams bring in $1,200! Sounds great.

Except it is all at a loss.

Lets say I have a gross margin of 50% at regular prices (50% of $600 = $300)

But with my low cost exam I have to recoup the discount out of my additional earnings.

50% of $50 (regular exam fee) = $25

$25 x 20 (max visits a day) = $500

20 x $10 (exam income) = $200

Exam Discount Deficit = $300

50% of additional income from exams = $500

Gross margin = $200

I could have kept my costs low, or retasked my staff, instead I chose to make busy work and I made $100 less.

Groupon’s standard model is at least 50% off with 50% of the cost of the Groupon (25% of your normal priced service) that the client actually pays going to business and the rest going to Groupon itself. You have no control over when your Groupon is going to be posted and so it could come at your busiest time of year. Finally, if you can attract clients with a Groupon SO CAN ANYONE ELSE! Where is the loyalty building? What happens to your regular clients? What are they going to think about you giving massive discounts after their years of loyal custom?

Now, there are a lot of assumptions here, but the main point of all this is you follow the discount path it has to be with the numbers to back it up. Discounting DOES impact the perception of your business. Companies who spend millions on brand perception still have their businesses affected by their pricing and discount policies – Think Starbucks vs. McDonald’s coffee. Think Trader Joe’s vs. Wholefoods. Think Wal-Mart vs. Target. Think Kia vs. Audi.

Groupon is the ultimate discounter and there are horror stories galore about what happens when you deep discount without calculating the real cost, both to your brand and to your bottom line – and particularly with small businesses. Companies that base their business model on discounting know where every penny comes in and where every penny goes out – at all times.

Proper marketing, engage your clients, build your brand, and offer superior service for a fair price in the name of the game. Discounting is a really good way to give money away.

This post is based, in large part, on a post I made as a response to a Group Question on LinkedIn group. My thanks to Firstline Magazine for spiking my interest in this subject, yet again. 

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Categories Management, Marketing, Veterinary
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