Many, if not most veterinary practice owners and their staffs repeat the same financial policies, procedures, and decisions every month for years and even decades. In spite of this remarkable tradition of consistency, many of them are unhappy with the financial results their practices deliver. Einstein is credited as saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Perhaps we can use Albert's words to motivate us to manage our practice financials to achieve different results. If you want different financial results than your practice has been delivering, DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT!
In several Financial Friday's this month, I suggested using the resources you already have access to: your bookkeeper, ismypracticehealthy.com dashboard, and your financial statements to have an analytical look at the financial performance of your practice. That exercise always reveals issues that can be improved. My Financial Friday suggestion for you is to DO SOMETHING about the issues you identify. Each month, when you review your financial reports and talk with your bookkeeper, look for issues that could be managed better. It will be easy to become overwhelmed by the list, but remember that it took the lifetime of the practice to generate that list.
My suggestion is to attack a single issue each month, manage it better, and explain to your team what you are doing, and most importantly, why you are doing it. Keep in mind that your team will embrace and even be invigorated by change if they are creating it but not if it is happening to them. Engage them in the journey of improving the financial performance of the practice by sharing your vision of the potential and how all of you will be winners if the change is successful. That's right, all of you need to be winners for your vision to be embraced by your team. A vision that appears selfish or greedy is unlikely to be embraced by your team. Next month, use the same new strategy. Pick an issue and work on it. Financial results are not achieved like a switch turning on a light. They are not immediate. Patient leadership from you will keep your team engaged in this radical new idea of doing something different.
Maybe Albert was right.
