A lot of times, people who love animals have this notion that they should probably be in veterinary business or better still commit to helping animals all their life. While this isn’t entirely a bad idea, they usually fail to come to terms with the fact that a veterinary practice or business is first and foremost a business like every other. You know, sometimes it’s easy to gloss over that fact because all people see is a man or woman who is in love with animals and wants to help them. 

 

However, a veterinary business whether corporate or a one man show is still in every sense of the word business. It needs organizational skills as well as marketing ideas to help the business grow. It also needs accounting skills and the ability to be a people person as well as an animal person. It already sounds like a lot of work right? Well sadly people have underrated and undervalued the place of a veterinarian and veterinary care. It’s quite easy to take a poll you know. 

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Almost every family has a pet and like humans, these pets could get the flu or food poisoning or be exposed to other pets with diseases and you’d need the help of a veterinarian. It’s easy for people to believe that they have the most important job in the world because they work on Wall Street or probably send criminals to jail but what we fail to realize is that everyone does their part to make the “whole” work and as such, we should concentrate on making the little you do count but also acknowledging the role others play. There are a lot of pros and advantages associated with the Veterinary business as well as cons. These and more are what to look forward to.

Pros of being on a Veterinary business

Helping Animals

One of the perks of being in the Veterinary business is your ability to offer help to a wide range of animals. This obviously plays a lot on your love for animals as it could be very satisfying and fulfilling. Helping an animal that came into your space wounded or sick could make you love your job more. So this is definitely an advantage of being a veterinarian. Since you have the requisite knowledge to do so, the willingness to actually help is what keeps you looking forward to work every single day.

 

Diversity

This is one of the things that being a veterinarian offers. You get to work with diverse species. Whether cats or dogs or birds, you are exposed to the diseases or problems that plague each one and how to handle them correctly. You may get a bulldog today and a rare cat species tomorrow or even different species of the canine family. You also get to practice different aspects of medicine all at once. You could be an ENT doctor today and an ophthalmologist tomorrow and still get it right. Your work as a vet offers you that opportunity and it is indeed something worth loving. You get to say “I love my job”.

 

Income

Well, life as a veterinarian will leave you very comfortable and well earned. Studies have indeed shown that veterinarians can make up to 6 figures with consistency. Of course, everyone starts small and you will be paid little when you just begin your practice but just like growth in every living mechanism, you will get better and have more clients and eventually with a lot of exposure, you will be making as much as you’d want to. So it is safe to say that veterinarians lead good lives as a result of their work. Helping animals never looked so good right?

 

Progression

In the Veterinary industry, there is career progression and this is what makes it attractive. There is the possibility that you could one day own your practice and this is absolutely something to look forward to and something that would fuel your drive. 

Let’s proceed to look at some of the problems people face with being in the Veterinary business and also figure out how to increase value for your business.

Burnout

Like a matchstick or a candle left unattended, you will eventually burn out. If you were to take a poll of all the people and families that have pets in your neighborhood, you’d be sure to realize they definitely outnumber the Veterinary businesses there. So the sad thing is you would get fatigued and burnt out every single time. The thing about this is the fact that you may not be able to say no when faced with a sick dog or a pregnant cat with complications during childbirth. Your fatigue will be out of your inability to turn down appointments but you won’t exactly be able to avoid it. 

 

Compassion killings

In every Vet’s life or line of work, there will come a time where they would have to perform euthanasia and save animals the pain they may be going through. You could say it is the most painful and difficult aspect of becoming a Vet or owning a veterinary business. When you have an animal in severe pain who is not going to make it, you may have to put an end to their misery and help them die in the most painless way you could offer. This is the point where you don’t get to be jealous of veterinarians because it is a tough decision to make. A lot of them carry with them guilt that has caused some sort of numbness and compassion fatigue.

 

Balance

With the burnout and the long hours you would be spending at work, it may be difficult to strike a balance between work and home and this may pose a problem for veterinarians. There will be a constant struggle to understand what to do and how to go about it. Your days will be characterized by putting in long hours in the office and even getting on-call and emergency calls during weekends and late in the night. This only gets worse where there aren’t a lot of veterinarians in the area and all the neighborhood pets are left in the hands of a few Vets. Finding a balance may be a tad difficult.

 

Injuries

A lot of times, this comes as a surprise for new veterinarians or those who haven’t practiced before. When humans are sick and are taken to the hospitals, they have cognition of what is happening and understand that what the doctor does or says is for their benefit so they try to adhere. This is not the same with animals. They do not have an understanding of where they are or why they are there. If they’re in pain, the negative reaction has gotten maybe worse. So it is not uncommon to have animals scratch and bite the Vets whenever they are taken for an appointment. Of course, you’d take care of the bite or scratch but it is something worth knowing as you wouldn’t want to be caught off guard.

One of the cons of the industry would be that sometimes, veterinarians are quite underrated. Whilst this shouldn’t be so as they contribute largely to the scheme of things, it wouldn’t hurt to try a remedy that is business-related. A greater number of business owners are underrated or better still under-appreciated because of the quality of their work or the state of their shops or offices. It wouldn’t hurt to step up your game a bit and show them what exactly they are paying for when they walk into your office. Think of it as a marketing strategy aimed at getting your clients to spend more. Here are some ways to do this. 

 

Hire Right

This is probably not emphasized enough. A lot of times, the people you hire have the capacity to ruin your business before the client even gets to your door. It could be your secretary or receptionist or even your nurse. Something to inculcate is letting them tag along to pet and veterinary conferences. What this will do is to widen the scope of their minds and get them to appreciate where they work more. So, again, the people you hire have the power to promote or totally screw up your business. 

 

Experience 

It is important for you to create the perfect experience for every client that walks through the door and the pet they come in with. Make it a habit to greet them and check in on the ones who are still waiting for their turn. You need them to go home feeling like they successfully connected with you and they’d love to come back. Research on what to do to improve the state of your business and go with it. As much as possible encourage your staff to go the extra mile so they can make themselves difficult to forget. 

 

Value

A lot of times, you would need to help your client see the value in what he is getting. Sometimes the pricing gets the better of them. Its easy to say that a procedure is too expensive because they have no working knowledge of what exactly it entails. You would need to change that. Talk to them. Let them know why it is important to run diagnostics before you begin to treat their pet or why a test costs way more in your facility than others. Telling them that you have experts working for you and the level of their expertise could go a long way to change their mind about the price of consultation or even a procedure. Sometimes you need to help them see the value you’re offering. 

While trying to help them see value, you also need to be careful not to come off as a sales person. As much as possible try to educate your clients on the state of health of the patient. So rather than tell them they need to pay for a test, explain to them why the test is necessary for their pet and this would help them understand the whole process and why they are spending so much. 

 

Feedback

As much as you love listening to the sound of your voice, you would need to get feedback. This is the whole essence of communication. So you would need to ask your clients what they want. This may be difficult considering what they want may not be in tandem with what the patient needs but doing this would mean giving them a voice and showing them you care about their opinion and what they would want. You could also ask them how exactly they feel about your business and if you have been able to meet their needs and those of the patient. Feedback does a whole lot for a business and as much as possible, you need to embrace it whether it is good or bad. If it’s good, it means you’re doing something right, if the feedback is bad, then you have something to work on to make it better. 

 

Pricing

Most often than not, when clients complain about the price of a procedure, it may not necessarily be because they do not have the money but it may be more of the fact that they do not think they have received the kind of service to warrant the price you are suggesting. So if you have stellar customer service and offer them help that is apt and satisfying, they will be willing to part with the price. So it’s not so much about pricing or billing as it is about a state of the art customer service. 

Veterinary businesses which are first and foremost businesses also need everything it takes to make regular business work. It needs effort and hard work and all the love in the world channeled towards animals and their owners as this makes all the difference. 

Want to grow and scale your ‘Veterinary’ Business ?? Then you need to apply right targeted strategies which can bring a lot of Pet owners as your customers!! Click here to know more!