I’ve seen veterinary hospital owners make a lot of mistakes over the past 17 years. Mind you, I’ve made plenty of them myself! And believe me, noticing the blunders of others was easier than acting on the warning signs before my ill-fated decisions. Here are a few of the biggest easily preventable errors I’ve witnessed.
1. Accepting Mediocrity from Advisers
Just like I can’t judge the quality of my pets’ medical care — I’m not a veterinarian — you might not know if your CPA found all the appropriate tax deductions. However, you do notice when your CPA dodges your phone calls, takes weeks to return messages or uses so much accounting jargon that you recognize only six words out of 10. Slang isn’t exclusive to accountants. You shouldn’t have to become an authority on tax terminology, legal terms or search engine optimization to work with your team of business experts.
You graduated from veterinary school, so you don’t lack brain power. While the business experts in your life might have a distinct professional vocabulary, they should be able to explain complicated terms and concepts using language you understand, just as you do with pet owners.
We all fall back on the vocabulary of our respective professions, so we rely on other professionals to help us make good decisions. We can’t accomplish that if we don’t understand the issues.
2. Leaving the Financials to Amateurs
Accurate financial statements are critical to sound decision making, but I often discover that team members logging bills and deposits into QuickBooks were assigned their roles by default. They might do better with inventory, schedules or another position at the hospital.
I’m all for giving people the opportunity to grow and providing them with the resources they need to excel. However, what happens too often is that someone familiar with using software for personal finances is drafted to keep track of the hospital’s books and is given little to no training. Financial software might look simple, but it isn’t. Mistakes are easy to make. If your bookkeeper rarely has uninterrupted time to focus on the tasks at hand, the result will be duplicate, missing or incorrect entries, leaving the financial statements neither current nor correct.
Of course, you didn’t become a veterinarian to examine financial statements. However, practice owners need a basic understanding of how cash flows through the business and when the numbers don’t pass the sniff test. You can’t make sound business decisions without accurate information.
3. Not Reviewing Credit Card Statements
Practice managers should verify every credit card charge before they submit the payment, but hospital owners must also keep watch. Make a habit of reviewing the monthly statements from every hospital credit card and verifying vendor names. If you don’t recognize one, or the charge is uncharacteristically high, ask your manager for details. Asking about a peculiar purchase doesn’t indicate a lack of trust. It means you’re paying attention.
For example, what about those Amazon charges? Amazon sells everything, and every business I work with makes multiple purchases a month. I’m asking you to sign into the account and check the orders. Also, examine the shipping addresses. Anything sent to a home address or a location you don’t recognize needs further review.
Over the past few months, my clients found charges for coffee tables, shower inserts and lingerie — none approved business expenses. If you don’t look, you won’t know a problem exists. Spend 10 minutes a month looking for unusual activity on your practice’s credit cards.
4. Ignoring Problem Employees or Clients
Many veterinarians would rather handle a medical emergency than a challenging situation involving employees or clients. And that makes sense because few of us are adequately trained in conflict management to address anger, frustration, fear and denial in the people we work with or serve.
Allowing problems to simmer can reduce workplace productivity and cause your best employees to quit. Plus, neglecting to act reflects poorly on you as a leader. If you let someone get away with bad behavior, your team sees that the rules don’t apply to everyone.
As the past few years showed, clients aren’t all well-behaved. You might never witness what your staff experienced because clients behave better when a doctor is present.
Losing a client, even a big-spending one, is better than forcing your staff to tolerate behavior you would never condone. Fire bad clients before your employees fire you by quitting.
5. Not Being a Leader
Although I write about financial topics, the biggest mistake I see practice owners make isn’t financial. It’s about not providing leadership. Unfortunately, becoming a business owner doesn’t automatically confer leadership skills.
Too many practice owners let someone else become the primary leader by default, not intention. In the absence of leadership, someone else will step into the void, and that person might not be who you want in the role. If you aren’t comfortable acting as a leader, immediately enroll in a course that teaches the skills.
As the owner, you must address problems as they arise and live the values you espouse. Core values are more than just words on a plaque in the breakroom.
The success of your practice is contingent on you being a strong, effective leader. A leader sets the hospital’s course, communicates it constantly through words and actions, and inspires the team to get to the next level. You have a vision for your veterinary practice, so share it clearly and consistently. Paint a picture for your team, show everyone where you want to go and why, and invite them to join you on the ride.
LESSON LEARNED
A former Miami University employee pleaded guilty to felony theft for using a department-issued credit card to make more than $91,000 in personal purchases, including a Florida vacation. According to a news report, the defendant used Adobe Acrobat Pro to alter PDF files when trying to cover up her misdeeds.