Helping Your 
Clients Thrive

Sales

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Strategies you can use to create more engaged practices and help your clients thrive.

Over the years I’ve noticed that there are significant differences in the way animal hospitals approach their business. Struggling practices consistently point to the economy and competition from other veterinarians, OTC products, Walmart, PetMed Express, subscription services and manufacturers as the problem.

On the other hand, thriving hospitals continue to grow at double-digit rates, compete effectively for their pharmacy and OTC business and partner with manufacturers and distributors to best serve their clients and their owners.

So, their starting points are different and their attitudes, negative or positive, illuminate a sharp contrast in their approach.

My first advice to distributor reps is to start with the mindset that it is possible to influence the level of practice engagement in your territory. Then consider these strategies to create more engaged practices while increasing the number of hospitals that see you as a trusted advisor as opposed to just another distributor rep.

Identify the goals of the decision-makers

What are their aspirations? Objectives? Every practice owner is not necessarily interested in growing the business. They may be reaching retirement age and would like to maximize the valuation of their business. They may be looking for ways to increase their profitability. There are a wide variety of potential objectives, so don’t assume. If you do, at least verify your assumptions before acting.

When you ask your clinics about their aspirations and objectives, you may get a blank stare, primarily because no one ever asked. So ask, but give them time to think it over.

Once a goal has been established, an annual follow-up to ensure their goals haven’t changed is appropriate.

You cannot help your clinics reach their objectives until you know exactly what those objectives are.

Connect your presentations to their goals

Why would I (any practice owner) be interested in anything that isn’t helping me get to where I want to go?

This is where decision goals have the greatest impact:

“I’m convinced that adopting a competitive flea and tick strategy will protect your top-line revenue while enhancing the overall valuation of the clinic. Let me run some numbers for you, then you can decide if this approach is right for your situation.”

So, to accomplish this on your calls, remember these three criteria:

A. Start with a confident statement about your idea, product or service that contains a benefit important to the decision-maker. “I’m convinced that adopting a competitive flea and tick strategy will protect your top-line revenue while enhancing the overall valuation of the clinic.”

B. Transition to neutral. It’s safe for the listener to be invited initially to simply look and/or listen to ideas and suggestions. “Let me run some numbers for you…”

C. Acknowledge the listener as the decision-maker and that, as such, you are okay with a well-informed yes and a well-informed no. Again, it makes the conversation safe for the decision-maker. “…then you can decide if this approach is right for your situation.”

This type of opening also positions you differently than your competitors and moves you toward the trusted advisor status and away from just another distributor rep.

Reaching the decision-maker

The practice manager’s or buyer’s primary responsibility is to take many of the routine tasks from the DVMs and the practice owner, but he/she also has a secondary role of shielding the decision-maker from sales reps whose only interest is selling something.

Further compounding this situation is that the buyer’s goals may be different than the decision-maker’s. While the practice owner may want to maximize the clinic’s value so he/she can retire comfortably, the buyer’s goal may be to minimize his/her own workload.

So, a benefit to the owner may be a burden to the buyer. That is unless you are creative enough to reposition your idea, product or service to at best improve the buyer’s life or at least not further complicate it.

The same three criteria above come into play, repositioned to the buyer’s point of view, which then opens the door to the clinic owner. And you have become even more valuable because you have helped everyone get what they want while getting what you want.

All these strategies hinge on your confidence in your knowledge, skill, and ability to think outside the box and create solutions that are flexible enough to provide value to all involved in the decision-making process. It isn’t easy, but the value of a territory filled with thriving clinics will pay dividends for years to come for you and your organization. And you will have transitioned from just another distributor rep to a trusted advisor and an invaluable asset.

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